Dragon Tattoos - a Lisbeth Salander ReWatch Post

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo 2009, Niels Arden Oplev (Flatliners) -- Amazon
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo 2011, David Fincher (The Killer) -- Amazon

From cozy to the bleak mysteries that the cold Scandinavian countries are known for...

I never wrote about either. The first was pre-blog and I haven't rewatched in recent memory, and the second... if Kent wrote about his cinema viewing in 2012, I would assumed I would have seen it at the same time, or not long after. Don't know why I didn't write about it.

Anywayz, rewatches as excuses to not entirely focus on a new movie. Most often rewatches are also excuses to not have to write, because not-writing requires an excuse instead of just making a choice, but when neither of the movies have been originally written about, then I any excuse would inexcusable.

Note, I just decided to do this as a double post, having only just finished watching the first. The second is yet to come.

...

All done.

Sometimes I sit down with a movie and almost immediately, I notice what I [want to get] get from movies, what I enjoy, what makes me wiggle into my seat, settling down for some good viewing. Its not something I can easily vocalize (it makes one wonder why you are writing about things, if you state you are not adept at "writing about things") but I know it when I see it.

The movies are based on Swedish novelist Stieg Larrson's books, which were published posthumously.

The movie opens with the end of the trial of journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nykvist, John Wick; Daniel Craig, Knives Out) for libel; he has lost. He had been pursuing a story of a corporate mogul with ties to arms sales when the juicy evidence he had unravelled, proven to have been false. He knows he was setup, provided easily fact-checked but too juicy to ignore details on the CEO, but he cannot prove it, and it has brought about his own downfall instead of the company head's. It is also damaging the reputation of the magazine he works for, the same magazine his girlfriend works at as editor. Their relationship is an affair. Blomkvist will be fined a sum of money that will empty his bank accounts, and he will spend six months in jail -- but he is given 3 months to get his affairs in order, and likely time to mount an appeal.

What I liked about this opening was about how much was packed into so very little time. There are so many details we are not led by the nose to see, we just get to collect them from what is presented. Blomkvist is more than a bit arrogant, having seen himself as an untouchable crusader, but he is also flawed -- sleeping with his married editor while still being friends with her husband is... odd. Mikael is not exactly a handsome man, an already divorced man, a bit aloof from even his family. Even at Xmas dinner, he steps away to take a phone call, much to their annoyance.

The call is from a handler of one of Sweden's most storied companies -- the Vanger corporation. Their family patriarch Henrik wants to hire Mikael to investigate a delicate matter, something he knows the journalist is good at. Its not quite a murder case, but it could be. In the 1960s, Henrik's favourite niece disappeared, and after a fruitless search, was assumed murdered & disposed of. But Henrik has been receiving a piece of art (pressed flowers) each birthday, something she did before she she disappeared. He believes her murderer is taunting him, and wants it sorted out before he becomes too old to do anything about it. He has vetted Blomkvist, using an investigation company the handler for Vanger has hired, one that makes use of a punk hacker named Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace, Prometheus; Rooney Mara, Her).

Lisbeth's story is very counter culture. She's all black leather, tattooed, dyed black hair, piercings, pissed-off-at-the-world attitude and socially unrepentant. She has good reasons to be. She's a ward of the state, basically a young adult who the country believes needs supervision, because of a horrible horrible past. She had a case worker, someone she cared for and who had a lenient hand in dealing with her, but the man had a stroke and now she has been assigned someone new, someone who immediately bulldozes past all boundaries. This man is a horrible human being who works such cases to manipulate & abuse vulnerable young women.

The movie begins with just a Venn diagram connecting the two main characters, but eventually Mikael brings Lisbeth actively into the investigation. She's not exactly the trusting kind, but is intrigued why this very vanilla, and also much older, man is keen on her assisting. Primarily its because she has computer skills he doesn't, but also because Vanger's handler said she is one of the best researchers he has seen, and Mikael needs someone to do the researching grunt work, especially when he finds details that lead to a series of murders, of young women, going back to the 50s. The movie ends with the two very tied together, emotionally & sexually, and invested in each other.

The general story stays the same between the two movies. I haven't read the novel so I cannot say where one or the other may diverge away from, or closer to, the original source material, but in general I like the way the original Swedish movie plays out these details. The original just seems .. less polished, and I like that here. Fincher's always seems so detached, so unemotional, except when it decides to do Lisbeth dirty, by having her fall for Mikael, become vulnerable, and get her feelings tread upon. The story always brought the two together, sexually, but Noomi Rapace's Lisbeth is where the detachment should lie -- when she sleeps with Mikael, it is for sex, for release, and ... well, just a bit of manipulation on her part. She knows what older men want, and uses it. Rooney Mara's version seeks a further connection beyond the story in the movie, and has her feelings hurt.

Then again, both movies really do her dirty, but definitely by cutting close to details from the book. Lisbeth's case worker rapes her; multiple times, the next more violent than the last. I am sure the novel, which was called "Men Who Hate Women", was unflinching about the rapes, as it is said, Laarson used the books to work through an incident in his own life, where he did not step up and stop of the rape of a woman named Lisbeth, but its been more than a decade since we decided, we don't need to rape women fictionally to find some catharsis in our male lives. These scenes are brutal and hard to watch. And to be honest, don't contribute much to the story beyond giving more weight to how horrible Lisbeth's life is, how easy it is for men to abuse women, and how she takes care of these things herself. She doesn't need no fucking white knight, and in many ways, is definitely Mikael's saviour. Just the scenes where she responds to the violence, compared to him being winged by a gun shot, show the strength in her.

I do like these stories, but its a bit exhausting how the "uncover the serial killer" genre so desperately relies upon the abuse of young women. And the even more tiring "displaying of the kill" aspect just leaves me, especially in this world today where misogyny is having a rise to power again, a little despondent. 

Maybe that's why I need my cozy who-dunnits. Or maybe I just need to find a genre where people dying isn't key?

Why did one of the Fincher posters have to be so fucking sexual, with Daniel Craig standing behind Mara's nude body, an arm wrapped about? Fucking edgelord poster designers....

KWIF: Splitsville (+4.5)

 KWIF=Kent's Week in Film. A good week...in film at least. Sigh.

This Week:
Splitsville (2025, d. Michael Angelo Covino - in theatre)
Intolerable Cruelty (2003, d. Joel [and Ethan] Coen - DVD)
Hennessy (1975, d. Don Sharp - amazon)
The Omen (1976, d. Richard Donner - hollywoodsuite)
Tank Girl (1995, d. Rachel Talalay - amazon)
Fixed (2025, d. Genndy Tartakovsky - netflix)

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Every time you go to the movie theatre to see a new film, it's a gamble. Even if you've seen the trailers, read some reviews, are familiar with the actors or filmmakers... you still don't really know what to expect. Will it be worth my time and money? Will I feel good afterward, or bad, or regretful, or bummed out? Little can truly prepare you for seeing a film you've never seen before. It's always a leap of faith.

Of course, attending a screening comes with baggage that can give you expectations. You may already be in a film's pocket if you're a fan of the screenwriter, or director, or composer, or star, or co-star. You may just be amped up to see how a moment you saw in a trailer plays out in the rest of the film, or you may have seen photos that have you curious about the set design or costuming. A film reviewer may have planted a seed of a shining moment that you're already curious about, or there may already be a meme bouncing around the internet you're eager to contextualize. The film excites you, but the unknown...it still holds you back. 

Do I even dare? 
I could stay home and rewatch my favourite show or movie, or scroll the socials and feed my brain its precious dopamine in empty, hollow bites.
Going to see a movie, it's a crap shoot, a roll of the dice, outcome unknown.

All this to say, in deciding to see Splitsville, a comedy from a writing team/director who I have had no prior experience with, and starring the same writing team/director, as well as an actress I dislike (Dakota Johnson) filled me with incredible trepidation. I've been to the theatre many times this year excited to go see the latest directorial effort from a favourite, or partake in whatever superhero fare is churned out like a good little nurd... but trying something so untested, even if it did come highly recommended, riddled me with angst. It happens to me frequently, and I've bailed on seeing many a film in the theatre because I didn't know what I could expect.

But I know my anxieties have me missing out (and not just on movies, but events and social engagements too). It's a whole thing.

Splitsville has reminded me why its good to take these gambles, to try out things that are unfamiliar or different or challenging (a second Dakota Johnson movie this year? Come onnnnn...) because, hot damn was it ever a delight.

(I could just end it there, since the purpose of these posts on this blog is not to sell the film to a non-existent audience, but as a future reference for myself to come back to, to refresh/trigger my stupid brain on what I thought or felt about a film)

From writers Michael Angelo Covino and Kyle Marvin, Splitsville is a screwball comedy about open marriages. I'm tempted to say satire, but I don't think either Covino, Marvin, or the characters in this film are ever truly interested in exploring the topic seriously.  We have Carey (played by Marvin, WeCrashed) who is married to Ashley (Adria Arjona, Andor), and she wants a divorce. Ashley declares her infidelity and her desire to be free of the marriage and Carey, well, he's having none of it. He, quite literally, runs away from the conversation. Oh boy does he run.

Taking solace at his best friend's cottage (ahem, "cottage"...more like a luxury waterfront estate), he learns that Paul (Covino) and Julie (Johnson) are in an open marriage and that it really, really works for them. Or so they say. While Paul is away Julie and Carey have a fling.

Carey returns home, where Ashley is engaged in another affair, but Carey declares his cuckolding terms, there are no rules, she can do what she wants. And she does with many, many guys... each of whom Carey winds up befriending and soon there's a commune of ex-lovers hanging around the abode.

But the emotional stakes start warping as Paul's marriage falls apart, mostly due to possible fraud and criminal charges Paul is facing as a result of some business deals. Carey and Julie find themselves more emotionally invested than they, or their partners, could have anticipated.

And it only gets sillier and messier from there.

"Screwball" comedies are about toying with the expectations of the romance genre. In the olden days, screwball comedies would upend the gender norms in relationships for comedic effect. Now days, it's the norms of relationships themselves that are shaken and stirred, and Splitsville is an incredible example of that.

What had largely taken hold of comedy for the first two decades of the new millennium, has been either gross-out humour or cringe comedy, and I keep forgetting that those times have largely passed. Gross-out and cringe have fallen out of favour but nothing has really taken its place.  It would be fantastic if there was a resurgence in screwball, but even then, it might be too much of a good thing.

Covino and Marvin have crafted a wild script, and both, as actors, are willing to forego any and all pride in their performances. They remind me of Jason Segel in that regard. Marvin, as our central protagonist (though props for giving Johnson and Arjona top billing), is a likeable sort-of schlub who's not a total pushover, just mostly one. But he's endearingly likeable in his very unfiltered emotional reactions to things. Paul is more caustic, the guy hiding everything under a veneer of importance and pretension, but his armour is finally penetrated in the third act.

Arjona's Ashley may not be the funniest written character in the film, but she's the main vehicle in which the comedy is built around. She's by no means a straight man, but she's got to be the un-self-aware gateway for everything in this film to happen, and she delivers. 

Johnson I've bristled against for years, but like a proper beard oil, Materialists kind of softened me up... and repeated half-ironic viewings of segments of Madame Web on cable have further just softened what I used to find immediately repellent. It's possible that she's found her groove and is taking the roles that best suit her somewhat detached demeanour, or maybe it's that the roles are being tailored more to play into her sensibility, or it could be that she's just evolving as an actress and showing that she can manoeuver more broadly in what used to be a very limited range. In any case, she's really fun here.

But it's all about the relationships. It's Carey and Ashley, and Carey and Julie, and Paul and Julie, and Carey and Paul, and, well, just a little of Paul and Ashley, and every pairing is uniquely comedic. It's so well crafted.

Splitsville is not for everyone, no comedy is. We saw two elderly women walk out after about 25 minutes, following what was, hands down, the funniest fight scene of the decade, and a top-ten all-timer. They took a gamble, just like I did. I won, they did not.

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This deep into Coen rewatch territory and we hit the charming Intolerable Cruelty, perhaps the most inconsequential film in the Coens' repertoire. It is a screwball comedy (there's that term again) starring George Clooney (Peacemaker) as Miles Massey, perhaps the uncontested best divorce attorney in the country. He has saved as many fortunes as he has taken in proceedings. Gold digger Marylin Rexroth (Catherine Zeta-Jones, The Phantom), who married her wealthy magnate husband solely because she though him an easy mark for an expedient and fruitful divorce, butts up against Miles in court and loses.

But Miles, hitting middle age and quite lonely, is intrigued by Marylin, and the two flirt vivaciously and floridly with one another, the patter quick and all too easy. Marylin trains her sights on Miles, and it's unknown whether it's romantic interest, his money, or revenge. (Why not all three?)

But confusing the picture, months later, Marylin comes to Miles for a pre-nup. She's met a wealthy, folksy oil-man (Billy Bob Thornton, The Man Who Wasn't There) and she confounds Miles with her actions. She's a gold-digger, so why would she want a pre-nup? All part of her devious plan.

Miles, despite being a shark, is chum in the water as far as Marylin is concerned, and she's famished. She's looking for full meals and wanting to eat him up for dessert.

Intolerable Cruelty is, intentionally, frivolous. It is the Coen Brothers in full pastiche mode. They're not genre blending like they so often do, and the weirdness/non-sequiturs are kept to a minimum (it's only Miles' wheezy, past-his-expiry-date boss that one cocks and eyebrow at). This, if anything, seems like a play at mainstream success, at doing something the average people might like. After all, Clooney was one of the biggest leading men at the time and this on-screen pairing of attractiveness seemed long overdue.

What I think sunk Intolerable Cruelty's mainstream success was the lack of mainstream instincts on the Coens' part. I mean, the "best friend/sidekick" characters here are play by Paul Adelstein (who?) and Julia Duffy (of Newhart fame?) rather than an rising star comedian or improviser, as you would normally see. Their instincts are to cast character actors in as many roles as possible (instinctual, yes, but budgetary constraints also yes) and when Miles calls a surprise witness and in walks... Jonathan Hadary (Private Parts) as Heinz, the Baron Krauss von Espy.  Now don't get me wrong, Hadary fucking delivers in spades, but the reveal that it's not, I dunno, Nathan Lane or someone kind of lessens the impact at first.

But whatever, a trivial delight is still a delight.

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Hennessy came to my attention by way of the Quentin Tarantino/Roger Avery podcast "Video Archives", where they explore Tarantino's VHS tape collection that he acquired from the now defunct video store where the two film-obsessed directors first met and became friends. A lot of the films Tarantino and Avery explore are, well, junk...or junky, at least. They're often lower budget or off-studio releases all from the 1980s or earlier, although they do sometimes cover actual studio release that may not have garnered the respect (or at least attention) at the time. 

I get intrigued by films by listening to conversations about them, and Tarantino and Avery have a particular way of being enthused by film. What they get out of films is not what the average reviewer or film snob does, which I think is part of their enduring appeal. They see merit in the outcasts. I've watched more than a few films that I never would have heard of because of the podcast (less so now that they've put it up behind a paywall), like the Russian monster/fairy tale The Amphibian Man, or the Italian gangsters of the Milieu trilogy.  

In most cases if I was intrigued by one of these oddball films and I couldn't watch it, I would simply forget about it, but not Hennessy. It was not available streaming anywhere, and it did not seem to have a DVD release of any consequence, but it remained something I was keeping an eye out for, even long after I had forgotten why. All the memory that remained was an effusive "Go, Hennessy, Go" from Roger Avery that was permastuck.

The film came up as available on Amazon Prime when I was cross-referencing roles played by the stunning Lee Remick while watching The Omen, and I was ready to drop The Omen mid-movie and jump into Hennessy I was so excited (but timing was not in my favour, so I finished The Omen).

Starting the film at the first available opportunity, I was reminded of what Hennessy was about, but only after the first 20 minutes. It opens in Northern Ireland, still deep in the Troubles at this time, and conflict and resistance is still very, very active, but some people, like Niall Hennessy (Rod Steiger, Duck,You Sucker) are wanting to move past it, raise their family, live their lives. But an accidental and tragic conflict winds up taking the lives of Hennessy's wife and daughter, leaving the man with nothing but hate left for both the IRA and the English.

He ventures to London (though after the very public funeral of his family and other victims of the incident, eyes are very much on him) where he finds residence with the wife of an old (deceased) acquaintance (Remick). She doesn't know what Hennessy is up to, and, at first doesn't ask.  

It's a tense film that is a dog and cat and mouse chase, where the IRA and British Intelligence are both aware that Hennessy's presence in London cannot be good news. For the IRA, whatever actions Hennessy might take would bring immense attention upon them that they do not want. Ultimately, it's discovered, Hennessy plans to bomb the Queen as she opens the next session of the Parliament.

The film uses archival footage of the Queen's opening of Parliament in 1970, and used with permission, though perhaps not as was originally understood. It's remarkable how seamlessly it fits in the film, such that one might think the scenes were legitimately part of the production.

It's a really, really decent thriller that is only more impactful by its obscurity. It's anonymity means that its events haven't been spoiled (well, except all I've said above) and it's full of surprises. Hennessy's quest is one of quiet, calculated rage, and, much like my recollection, you do kind of feel a "Go, Hennessy, Go" spirit, just as much as you know he should definitely not be allowed to succeed.  It's pretty sharp.

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The Omen opens in Rome with a priest being transported in the back of a car. In voiceover we hear his thoughts about a stillborn baby. He is rehearsing what he has to say to the father of the child. The father is US diplomat Robert Thorn (Gregory Peck, Pork Chop Hill). Robert is told by the chaplain that at the same time his child died, another woman died giving birth, but that baby survived. He implores Robert to take the baby and pass it off as his own, no one else besides them being the wiser. Robert, already wrestling with shock and grief, eventually concedes to the plan to gaslight his wife for eternity.

Jesus Hucking Christ.

For a few years Robert and Katherine (Lee Remick, Hennessy) and their child who they named Damien (well, there's your problem right there... was "Damien" already a name with evil connotations or does the name Damien only have such connotations because of this film?) appear to be a happy family, although Damien does seem a little...off from other children. Robert is appointed as ambassador to the UK. 

On Damien's fifth birthday, the Thorns throw a big upperclass party, but the party is sullied by Damien's nanny hanging herself dramatically ("Look at me, Damien, it's all for you!"). Photojournalist Keith Jennings (David Warner, Tron) is on the scene, and when he examines his photos later, it appears that photos of Damien's nanny have some kind of line extending from the back of her neck.

More weird events happen. A seemingly disturbed priest starts harassing Robert, trying to convince him something is amiss with his child, and Damien freaks out wildly whenever he approaches a place of worship. A new, very creepy nanny turns up out of nowhere, and the Thorns question it, though not deeply, and suddenly there's a large rottweiler hanging around the house all the time.

Characters in the film present a series of prognostications that eventually come true that tip Robert off to the fact that his adopted son may be the Antichrist himself, but Robert, along with photographer Jennings investigate the myth of the Antichrist and the sign that he may be here. Certainly there's a large network of worshippers who have infiltrated the church and other elements of society.

The Omen is told very old school, where Katherine is but a wife and mother with no agency or capacity for decision making. Before her accident she's already gone a little nuts because of Damien's behaviour, and has detached from the child. Remick does what she can with the role, but I really dislike that Robert, for all his love and infatuation with his wife, does not see her as an equal.

What I do like about The Omen is the wrestling with the idea of having complicated feelings around one's children...I just wish it explored it more. I don't think this script was really wrestling with parenting. It seems to be built out of the desire to tell an Antichrist story through the eyes of a parent, and not tell a parenting story that happens to involve the Antichrist.

It's a solidly acted, decently engrossing film that, while pretty tame by today's standards of horror, creates a pretty ominous (omenous?) atmosphere that persists straight through to the end of the film.  The hanging sequence was a big shock and still pretty visceral an experience to watch. The other deaths in the film have aged in a way (whether it's the special effects or editing) that they're amusing now, but also very likeable the way that outdated effects can often be. You get what they were going for and the effect is probably the best it could be given the tools at the time.  

I know there's a bunch of sequels out there, and this hasn't really inspired me to pursue them, though the third Omen film stars Sam Neill as an adult Damien which is a bit intriguing.

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A pre-production teaser poster for Tank 

Girl from when before Lori Petty was 

 cast in the role?

Tank Girl was both critically lambasted and a box office bomb at the time of its release. A stab-in-the-dark comics adaptation (back when Hollywood was regularly flirting with comics adaptations, as opposed to a decade later when they were the dominant concern from the studios), it was always a gamble. The Tank Girl comic had very little name recognition outside of the alt/indie kids crowd of the early-mid 90's, which for director Rachel Talalay and script writer Tedi Sarafian meant there was a bit of a blank slate as far as what they could do with the character when transporting to a product for a mass audience.

And the result is a weird, weird film that's taking inspiration from the comics of Alan Martin and Jamie Hewlett, but bringing its own sensibilities that aren't just the writer and director, but also the influences of Courtney Love, who assembled the film's pretty rad soundtrack, and production designer Catherine Hardwicke (who would become a notable film director herself), among the other hands in this eccentrically flavoured pie. The film feels very scrappy, a labour of...well, maybe not love, but certainly deep affection and a desire for everyone involved to prove themselves. The film has energy, vitality, even if it's absolutely bizarre (for many, prohibitively so).

I liked the film when it came out. Quite a bit. I bought a VHS (or maybe a Laserdisc?) of the film, I enjoyed it that much. I had the soundtrack, which I listened to frequently. It's a timestamp of the mid-90's for me and returning to it was like an acid trip flashback, a portal to a very different time.

Astonishingly, much of the film still inspires within me the same zeal for it I had back then, even though I have not seen it in at least 25 years. The film's opening with Devo's updated rendition of "Girl U Want" playing over Hewlett's drawings of Tank Girl in vibrant four-colour pop art fashion. It's still delightful and captivating.

The film is set in a post-apocalyptic future. Everything is desert, and it's totally governed by Water & Power, a corporation monopolizing both water and power. At its head is Kesslee, played with utter conviction by Malcolm McDowell. There's no reason for McDowell to be so locked into this character, but as I said, it's a pretty scrappy production and he's delivering an exceptionally delightful shouty, evil villain that completely fits the playful tone of the film. Kesslee seems to have taken Darth Vader's leadership seminar, and has a penchant for murdering his lieutenants with one of my favourite po-ap/sci-fi devices ever: a portable device with two dozen needles on one end and an accordion water bottle on the other end that sucks all the water out a person, desiccating them in seconds. In the first on-screen use of the device in this film, Kesslee grabs the bottle from the back of the just-killed underling and drinks the freshly extracted water. It's a truly phenomenal sequence.

The titular Tank Girl is actually Rebecca (Lori Petty, Point Break) a rebellious, horny, ADHD-addled survivalist who finds herself captured after her whole commune is killed by a Water & Power raid.  She defies her captors at every turn, and Kesslee, certain she has information she needs about a band of resistance fighters called the Reavers, tortures her, except Rebecca seems to kind of get off on it. This egg's already cracked, boys.

In prison she meets Jet (pre-stardom Naomi Watts at her mousiest), and, well, Rebecca kind of forces her to be her friend, but the alternatives for Jet are non-existant.

The fist two acts of the film are so full of life, vibrant neons decorate scavenged costumes and ramshackle or industrial sets, and the process of world building and discovery are and absolute blast. The film is hyperactive, cutting in inserts of comic book effects or animated sequences in a very Liquid Television fashion. It's all so early 90's MTV, it hurts so good.

Eventually Tank Girl and Jet Girl find their respective namesake vehicles and venture out into the wastes where Rebecca learns a young girl from her commune is still alive, so she makes it her mission to save her. In the process they meet the Reavers, a squad of genetically modified ultimate commandos that were the result of an experiment blending human and kangaroo DNA. The prosthetics were designed by Stan Winstson and on the budget for the film, the effect is pretty remarkable, buuut also a bit unappealing. Also, Ice-T is one of the kangaroo men which was a very weird statement for 1995 and even more weird today.

The third act sags and drags as it tries to tighten all its narrative threads together. In hindsight the right answer was probably to have sort of Mad Max-style roving adventure in the wastelands, as the necessity of dealing with kangaroo men mythology and the heroic narrative of saving a precocious child and destroying the villain take focus away from the most appealing aspects of the character of Tank Girl. But Petty's inspired performance that's part Pee Wee Herman, part Lucille Ball. 

I don't really see a world where Tank Girl is a commercial success, but the impact is clearly there. The evolution of Harley Quinn as a character seems to point directly to this film, both Kaley Cuoco's animated rendition and Margot Robbie's big-screen rendition seem to mirror most of Petty's attitude and playful, manic spirit, and the 2020 Birds of Prey feature feels like a superhero pivot of Tank Girl's aesthetics. 

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...and finally...

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There aren't many films that I've not finished watching. I could probably count the films on one hand that I've started but not completed (the last one I can recall is the 2019 rendition of Hellboy). I never thought an hand-animated feature from Genndy Tartakovsky would be one of them.

I really liked Tartakovsky's work on Dexter's Lab and The Powerpuff Girls, but I've flat out loved Primal, Clone Wars, and Samurai Jack, shows where the animation does most (or all) of the talking. (I'm utterly indifferent to the Hotel Transylvania series, mainly because it's Tartakovsky working in CGI animation as opposed to cel animation). His latest film, Fixed, is a passion project he's been pursuing for some time, and in a traditional animation style, it should be something worth getting excited about.

*Should.*

But the conceit of Fixed is a ribald comedy about a dog having a "one crazy night" adventure as he tries to flee having his beloved testicles neutered. 

I'm not prude. I watched and delighted in eight season of Netflix's Big Mouth, which is as in-your-face about all the taboos of sex and sexuality that you could think of and so many more that you couldn't (and sometimes wish you hadn't). Fixed's approach to canine sex and sexuality is so...basic... in comparison. It's a film that feels like it was made in the shadow of American Pie not Sausage Party.  When you think of it, Tartakovsky's better known for his action set pieces than his comedy, and almost all his comedy is meant for a younger audience. So is it any wonder that when he tries to venture into "adult" humour it comes off as tepid and juvenile?

I watched just a pinch over 30 minutes of Fixed and I had a couple little chuckles from Fred Armisen's "influencer" weener dog Fetch, Beck Bennet's pompous Borzoi Sterling, and Idris Elba's Boxer Rocco. But the film hangs on the central performance of Adam Devine as Bull, a pudgy blue pit bull mutt, and the performance lacks inspiration, but then so does every comedic setup.

The animation is, not unexpectedly, fabulous. The character designs are stunning to look at and I probably could have continued watching the film in its entirety only for the animation had I not had more pressing concerns pulling me away after the first act, and I just don't feel the need to go back and finish it.

I never did get to see that wild and crazy night, but nothing I saw up to that point would lead me to believe that there was anything particularly wild or crazy forthcoming.

The humour is attempting to be outrageous, to surprise or stun the audience into a laughing reaction, but its sense of what is outrageous is so lacking, and the comedic structures feel at best dated, at worst unrefined. A predictable will-they/wont-they (they will) romantic entanglement with Kathryn Hahn's prize-winning Afghan Honey has no juice, we know the beat its going to follow (and Honey's attraction to Bull makes no damn sense, as much as Hahn's vocal performances tries to sell it). 

Fixed is broken, and it's disappointing.

3 Cozy Paragraphs (Or Not): The Thursday Murder Club

2025, Chris Columbus (Mrs. Doubtfire) -- Netflix

Believe it or not, but the term "cozy mystery" was something I only heard recently, despite it being a (sub)genre we watch a LOT of, in fact, something we seek out. But to be honest, its much more a Marmy thing, one of those things where I wander in and out of. At their core, cozy mysteries usually present the murder off-camera, and are generally set in small, picturesque locales. Violence is at a minimum and often the "investigators" are just local busy-bodies. You probably can name a few from PBS or BBC. I like to think of them as the polar opposite of the cold, scary, emotionally bleak Scandinavian murder mysteries. 

And yet, while being "light", you have to wonder what it would be like to live in a pretty little town where someone gets killed pretty much every week.

The Thursday Murder Club, based on a book by British TV presenter & humourist Richard Osman, wishes to exemplify the purity of the genre, by having a group of seniors in a rather upscale retirement home meet once a week to discuss cold cases, but who are immediately drawn into an actual murder investigation. This is A-class casting with all the standard trappings of a British cozy mystery, but... cough... a little dumbed down for American sensibilities? Thought saying that out loud, its a bit disingenuous -- plenty of these are designed to be entirely palatable, not deep at all.

Funny enough, as this post sat in drafts, the next season of "Marlow Mystery Club" became available. This is another "cozy mystery" show, written by and based on books by Robert Thorogood, the man responsible for preeminent cozy mystery show, "Death in Paradise".

The first book of Thorogood's series came out in 2021, while Osman's came out in 2020. And apparently, there is something called the "Dinner Lady Detectives" by Hannah Hendy. I guess we have ourselves a sub-sub-genre?

Full disclosure, I have not read any of these books but some are on our shelves.

Our cast: Elizabeth (Helen Mirren, Red 2), Ron (Pierce Brosnan, The World is Not Enough), Ibrahim (Ben Kingsley, Iron Man 3), and newcomer Joyce (Celia Imrie, Malevolent), who just moved into the home. This is not just any retirement villa -- each of the cast have quarters that are at least three times the size of my apartment, and probably twice the size of most London flats. Everyone here came from money. Into their privilege comes developer Ian Ventham (David Tenant, Doctor Who), who wants to dig up the local graveyard and turn all the land into an upscale housing development. Of course, its he who is murdered... well, eventually; initially its his business partner and friend of the villa, someone who would have stood up to Ventham. But still, the quaint group of investigators have a real life situation to deal with, and real life cops to annoy.

I admit, I was expecting a wee bit more polish considering the cast and the critical acclaim around Osman's book. But I forget, its Netflix and they just do as much as they want to do. That said, it is still rather delightful as the quirky character jaunt about investigating the murder, poking their noses where the police don't want them to, baking absolutely wonderful looking cakes, and just generally being impressive seniors. I mean it doesn't hurt that Elizabeth has a shady past very well suited to be rooting out murderers. 

These types of shows/movies/books are not meant to be critically acclaimed, deep thought murder mysteries. They are meant to be ... cozy. Kent is not far off when he compares the movie to those on Hallmark Channels -- they do very much follow the format, but where I argue is that Hallmarkies were always pale imitators of other genres, the cheap & shoddy, quickly built form. They were usually about replicating the rom-com flick in a mass produced manner, but its not like rom-com's were ever high art to begin with, usually just passable stories and roles that made you smile, laugh and fall in love. Sure, you can raise a "who dunnit" up to a greater form (the recent remakes of Agatha Christie come to mind) but its not always required. To me, this was exactly as I wanted, maybe a wee bit underdone, but still... cozy.

Have you said "cozy" enough?

3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): KPop Demon Hunters

2025, Chris Appelhans, Maggie Kang (animation dept type folks) -- Netflix

Yeah yeah, I watched it. It was getting so many surprised "it's actually good!" reactions out there, that I just had to see for myself.

Aaaand so did Kent, and wrote about it before I did, because he is focused and works hard on his posts,  while I procrastinate and question my purpose and .... oooo shiny new thing !

I have nothing against KPop, but like Kent I am most definitely not its demographic, and even if I was a Gen Z'er, I would not be interested in a key example of manufactured genre music. KPop, and its predecessor JPop (which never took off like KPop did in North America, where I live), as well as many of the other imitators (not just Asia, there are such in the US as well) is at the other end of the spectrum of music I admire, enjoy or even tolerate. And really, the only time I have ever been truly exposed to it was on the screens in the KFC restos (Korean Fried Chicken) where coworkers and I have gone after work. 

Don't forget to mention that you surprised a bunch of Gen Z coworkers by actually recognizing BlackPink (sorry, BLACKPINK) in their little "can the old people identify Gen Z phenomena?" game. What can I say, I absorb pop culture even when I am not trying. P.S. Rosé over Lalisa.

At first glance, first frames, KPop Demon Hunters is more Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse than anime (or Aeni in Korea; but really, Manhwa/Webtoon [vs Manga] dominates over animation in Korea; at least, from a Western perception....) but also, in style and the tone of the story telling, it was reminiscent of Trollhunters, the Netflix animation based on children's books from Guillermo del Toro.

This is where I admit, I barely remember the story.

The background is that in the olden days, demons hunted human souls to feed their master Gwi-ma, but then three women warriors rose up to fight the demons and banish them back to their demon dimension behind the Honmoon barrier.... via... song. Think the Buffy musical episode but that's their strength, not their curse.

Into each generation a new trio is born, until now, we get the Kpop group Huntr/X, a typical mega-popular phenomena who are close to conquering their world with a Golden Honmoon, masked behind a live performance of their mega-hit "Golden". 

The girls are Rumi their leader, with a dark secret -- she is part (gasp!) demon, Mira the intense, gothy one, and Zoey, the nerdy, booky one. To foil their plans, Gwi-ma creates a demon boy band called Saja Boys, which are typical effeminate dreamboats and who start to pull fans away from Huntr/x. Saja Boys is led by the emotionally sympathetic once-human Jinu. The two leaders are immediately attracted to each other, and to further complicate matters, Rumi is losing her voice as her demon heritage emerges. The battle for supremacy, the establishment of the Golden Honmoon, or it falling entirely, will all be via the Ultimate Battle --- a sing off at the Idol Awards ceremony !!!

Its a fun movie, mercifully minimally "musical" stylized -- one spontaneous song is Jinu and Rumi pining for each other, but the rest are the actual pop numbers with flashy dance moves. The animation is top notch as are the characters, but despite the lauded opinions of the Internet, it was just OK. I was honestly hoping for more, something more, something properly epic, something that would wow me like Spider-Verse did but what I got was just passable. If anything, the music was leaps & bounds above anything Disney has produced of late.

3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning

2025, Christopher McQuarrie (Jack Reacher) -- download

Wait. WTF. This guy has directed SIX movies, four of them were MI movies and all but one of them were Tom Cruise vehicles?!? 

Muse or captor?

I am sort of assuming this will be the last of the "M:I" movies given its been 30 years of movies, and despite McQuarrie's comments saying otherwise, its about time, no?

I was determined to watch this movie as I have watched all of them before -- with a sort of detached enjoyment for the sheer spectacle of it all. But given I have only previously written about three of the eight (Ghost Protocol, Rogue Nation, and Dead Reckoning), I have not had the chance to ramble on about my initial dislike for the whole thing, until I aged and replaced heated opinions with "meh" and maybe even tempered ironic joy.

I wish the Search in Blogger was better; entering in "Mission:Impossible" just led to too much, and I ended up settling on "Cruise" to find the three.

You will note, your "tempered ironic joy" is more than a little peppered by annoyance. So, maybe that initial dislike lives through age.

When the first came out, I was deep in my That Guy stage of film watching. I recall not being all that interested in them, but I likely was also in my "see every single released movie" stage, so I did... see them. I was likely OK with them, dealt with my dislike for Cruise and spectacle (i.e. Bay-splosions) movies. Now in my "old age", they have become a sort of nostalgic action-espionage-lone-tough-guy series, akin to be the James Bond of the last thirty years, like classic Bond-movies were when I was younger.

Not sure I want to expand further. Maybe later, if I choose to do another rewatch and a "series minded" post like Kent's. Probably not.

When we last left our intrepid hero (and as Kent has pointed out, these movies have become entirely about one person -- Ethan), in this intentionally split movie, he had recovered the Cuneiform Key and.... and what, I am not sure. Even re-reading my post on the movie, I was not sure. We know the Key had something to do with a Russian sub that, despite its really advanced AI-powered defense system, had been tricked into launching a torpedo against itself, and sunk below the icey waters. But the key, in two pieces on chains on people's necks, floated up to be discovered by someone, so it could become a MacGuffin for the first half of the movie. What we do know is that the Key offers assistance in controlling an Evil AI that Ethan will not trust into any government's hands, not even his own. So, that means, you guessed it, he is disavowed again.

Uh dude, its "cruciform" not "cuneiform". The latter is writing system used in Mesopotamia while the former just means "the form of a cross". I honestly would prefer they wedge some weird pseudo-historical reason into the naming of the key instead of just saying "its cross shaped" but ... sure, cruciform does sound neat.

But in this new movie, the AI has been making vast strides to taking over the world. In an entirely unexpected superhero-movie level plot, shit has escalated so quickly and so dire-ly that it won't be long before all nuclear super-powers are controlled by the Evil AI which has been named The Entity, and will launch The Missiles, ending humanity.

Cue head-canon where The Entity is actually Skynet and Ethan Hunt will eventually spawn John Connor by going back in time to the 80s.

Ethan (Tom Cruise, Risky Business) really wants to find Gabriel (Esai Morales, La Bamba), his arch-nemesis (for reasons) who once worked directly for The Entity, but is now on the run, having been disavowed by The Entity. But he needs a few more people to pretend it isn't just him doing everything, so he breaks Paris (Gabriel's once hench-person; Pom Klementieff, Une pure affaire) out of jail, and simultaneously convinces one of her handlers, Degas (Greg Tarzan Davis, Woke), to come along for the fun -- I do not know why he is in the movie (because they wanted to have someone named Tarzan in the credits?). They do find Gabriel but in turn, Ethan and Grace (Hayley Atwell, The Prisoner) are captured, so we can get some very intense staring between the two, a natural progression of the googley eyes from the previous movie.

They escape, but they also learn about Gabriel's method for communicating with The Entity, a tech-coffin that was apparently developed from the same, but different, MacGuffin as The Entity itself -- the Rabbit's Foot, the thing they were chasing after in Mission: Impossible III which we all thought was supposed to be a bio-weapon because a) it had a biohazard sticker, and b) they called it the anti-God (i.e. anti creator). Whatever, CALL BACK !! Ethan goes into the tech-coffin and gets a glorious depiction on exactly how and why The Entity will end the world. i.e. a re-working of Terminator 2: Judgement Day. The Entity also points out to him that Luther (Ving Rhames, Lilo & Stitch), who is apparently hacking together an anti-Entity virus will likely die, if not from the cancer he suddenly has, then from the (in)actions of Ethan, BUT if Ethan lets him to the digital equivalent of the Global Seed Vault in Svalbard, things might be different. Ethan's all nuh-uhhhhh.

Cue Ethan running away saying "shit shit shit shit shit shit". Also, cue the constant paradox of the movies stating Only Ethan Can Prevent Forest Fires while constantly accusing him of being willing to sacrifice the entire world to protect his team.

Ethan decides he has to find the Russian Sub from the last movie, because from it, he can find The Entity's source code which will help... defeat it? Things get a bit convoluted here. The anti-Entity virus, or Poison Pill that Luther made, needs to be combined with The Entity's source code, which can only be found in the sunken sub. I can only assume that because The Entity is already out there, in the Internet, that blowing up the sub would accomplish nothing. Either way, the prediction comes true, as Gabriel steals the Poison Pill, blows Luther up and runs away.

Cue Ethan screaming with a Kirk "Khaaaaaaan" face.

Ethan and crew are taken into custody and brought before the POTUS, who is Erika Sloane (Angela Bassett, Strange Days) from previous movies. The US and a few other countries have a choice. They can preemptive strike before The Entity takes over all other countries and nukes them, or they can trust Ethan. Only Ethan. There is a bit of fun recollecting of all the other times he has saved the world, but with a good amount of collateral damage (e.g. The Kremlin go boom, fall down) doing the usual thing of ignoring the question of what would have happened if he hadn't been there at all. This again brings this movie back into superhero realms -- if The Avengers hadn't been around, things would have been much much worse, but they still get blamed for being the catalyst, not the protector.

Hmmmm, Ethan is the new Captain America?

They give Ethan an aircraft carrier with Rebecca Welton (Hannah Waddingham, Coupling) as Admiral Neely, to help him find the sunken sub that nobody knows the location of, while the world is on the verge of nuclear Armageddon. Also, just so we don't forget that Ethan does have a team, they send the rest to a remote Canadian island with some sort of listening post that probably knows the actual location of the sub; maybe. To keep The Entity from knowing they are close to its source code, they will transmit the coordinates via analog morse code. Fun!

Also, they do a double-fun callback to the guy who lost his job because Ethan broke into his unbreak-in-able data vault all the way back in the FIRST MOVIE !! CALL BACK !!!

So, Ethan gets dumped by Rebecca into the frigid waters where he is picked by a US submarine run by a very nice man with a very nice voice, and provided with some equipment to go down to the Russian submarine, because they got the requested coordinates at the very very last second. This is the best sequence in the whole movie, as Ethan climbs into the mostly still sealed sub, to pry the source code of The Entity from its protected container shell, before the dislodging submarine slides off the continental shelf into oblivion. And just because the stakes aren't high enough, Ethan has to strip off his protective deep dive suit in order to escape the sub, but that means... the bends + freezing to death + running out of oxygen. No matter, Grace has appeared above to heal him with the power of her googley eyes, and the portable decompression chamber she brought along. He has what he came for, a funky MacGuffin doodad that...

To be honest, I am not sure how this whole Rube Goldberg Linkin' Logs idea actually works, or how it got formulated. The idea is that Luther's Poison Pill plugs into the Podkova (the doodad Ethan just recovered) as if Luther knew the interface, and they will do it in the Digital Seed Vault, which will attract The Entity (because it wants to hang out in the Seed Vault while it destroys the world) while they use a fabulous crystal storage drive to CAPTURE The Entity. 

Its all rather wonderful Star-Trekian technobabble which makes no sense, but leads to another daring chase scene after Gabriel steals the Poison Pill and flies off in a colourful plane, and Ethan follows in another colourful plane. Also, Benji's (Simon Pegg, Spaced) been shot so Paris has to operate on him (the whole pen as a breathing hole trick) while Grace performs some crash course networking. Ethan catches Gabriel, punches it out in a crashing plane, plugs Tab A into Slot B (these devices have some fantastic wireless connectivity distance) and Grace captures The Entity in its glittery crystal cage.

I think the Internet was supposed to have been destroyed by this action? Either way the world has not been nuked, and everyone is happy. Ethan is un-disavowed for the umpteenth time. Until the next movie.

Yah, I went into the movie more than a little gleeful and optimistic despite my annoyance with... well, all the last ones. I guess my rose-coloured glasses for silly spectacle were firmly on despite Kent's dire warning. I didn't hate it because it is silly fun, but.... c'mon folks, after thirty years, you think they could do some more tight instead of extreme loosey-goosey to the n-th degree.

Congratulations for not harping on Tom Cruise's desire to be shirtless (he's looking kind of Wolverine squat and square in his old age) and only a wafer-thin reference to Tom Cruise Running, though it was once again very very prevalent in the movie.

3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): 28 Years Later

2025, Danny Boyle (Slumdog Millionaire) -- download

And even before I get my first paragraph into the stub post, the trailer for the follow-up movie, a sort of Pt 2 to this one, has arrived. I did not know they were going to do that. At least it lifts us from expectations of '28 Decades Later'.

My rewatch at the beginning of the year, and Kent's post about this movie.

I'm feeling a recappy coming on...

When last we left our spreading red map of an infographic, the Rage Virus, having jumped the Chunnel to the mainland, was taking over the world and.... record scritch... nope, the rest of the world beat it back. Like the Americans in the last movie, the rest of the world has survived, and unlike the Americans in the last movie, nobody came to the assistance of the UK, after the failed attempt at resettlement. They just quarantined the whole goddamn nation and let them die, infected and survivors alike.

A whole generation has past.

On the island of Lindisfarne, in northern England, near the Scottish border, on the east coast, a settlement of survivors ekes out a meagre life. The island is connected to the mainland by a tidal causeway providing protection against the mindless infected. Jamie (Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Bullet Train) is taking Spike (Alfie Williams, A New Breed of Criminal), his 12 year old son to the mainland for his manhood ritual. Spike is younger than normal for this event, but Jamie is a bit of a overinflated ego on the whole matter. The idea is that if you go to the mainland, and don't come back in the alloted time, nobody is allowed to go find you. You died or got infected; that's it, end of story. Isla (Jodie Comer, The End We Start From), Spike's mother, spends her day in bed, suffering an unknown malady, likely neurological in nature, as she has lucid moments followed by ranting outbursts. Spike loves his mum; Jamie seems... burdened.

This is a hunting trip, but not for food. Spike is learning how to kill infected, and learn a bit about the past. They pass through the deforested land where the island cuts its wood, they see massively repopulated herds of deer, and they see the evolution of the infected. Unlike the second movie, where all died off, a new ecosystem seems to have formed, likely built on a slow depopulation cycle of survivors, infected and non-infected alike. They run into the obesely fat "slow-lows" who belly-crawl across the forest floor eating every living thing they come across: bugs, worms, etc. Their constant eating has made them... something else. Elsewhere in some sort of pack mentality, an "alpha" has risen, a massively muscled, bigger & less vulnerable to damage example. But Jamie and Spike are not there to investigate, but to ... run. Once they get an Alpha on their tail, the only thing to do is hide or flee. And flee back to the island they do, finally killing the Alpha on the causeway. Spike has survived his first trip, barely, and with the guilt of being utterly terrified almost every moment of it.

But Spike did learn one thing from his father while over there -- that there is a doctor, a man who survived all these years, a man with mainland medical knowledge. Spike, whose awareness of doctors and medicine is entirely mythical, thinks the man can help his mother, and so formulates a plan. He escapes with her and some meagre supplies, back to the mainland, to find this doctor and save his mother from whatever ails her. Jamie is not allowed to chase after.

What Spike finds first is the lone survivor of a capsized Swedish patrol boat. They were beset by an Alpha and despite superior weaponry & training all but one died horribly. This Alpha likes to pull people's heads off, along with a bit of spinal column -- his trophies. From this cocky mainlander Spike hears, but learns little, of a world of cell phones, and jobs, and videos, and parties and take-out food. The rest of the world has continued after the rage plague, carrying naught for the plight of the UK. 

They do find Dr. Kelson (Ralph Fiennes, The Menu), but not before losing the Swede, and gaining... a baby, from an infected mother, but one who bore an apparently uninfected child. Dr. Kelson has lived on solitude, on his own little island, one decorated with effigies to the dead -- massive towers of boiled, beach skulls & bones. In his own more than a little mad way he remembers the old world and all those who lost their lives. His quick examination of Isla tells him she has cancer, and doesn't likely have long left to live. To him, memories of the lost are as important as the living themselves, but really, that's all he has. 

Kelson leads Isla to an early and painless death. A new life has replaced her soon to end one. Spike climbs one of Kelson's towers to lovingly place his mother's skull upon the altar of memory. Instead of peace, they are attacked by the Alpha who has been dogging their trail. Spike does fight him off, saving Kelson, and leaves with the new baby. He leaves her, now named Isla for his mother, at the gate, with a note to his father, before returning to the mainland. Spike's journey is not over; he has yet to find meaning in his fruitless quest to save his mother, in continued existence, despite bringing new life to his island.

The movie comes to a close with Spike fleeing a pack of infected, only to be saved by a very very odd bunch of survivors. Dressed in track suits, bouncing about and cackling like baboons, these are the Jimmy's, surviving youth who follow a now grown young boy from the movie's preamble (no, I did not recap that). They invite Spike to join.

What the what? This almost-coda, doesn't give us any closure to this movie without much resolution. Like Spike, we are left wondering what was the point of it all, why introduce all this post-apocalypse world, why give us hints of memories of the past, but... leave it all hanging. The first two movies, more the first, successfully had endings, survivors getting away. Spike did get away, but the movie not being all about survival hinted that there should be more.

Oh, there was. In another movie.

This is an odd little/big movie. Its the most po-ap of the trilogy, the most packed with (new) world building, which always catches my eye. It is about survival, but its not. It has hints of beauty, but is mostly horror. The design of the movie, shot all with unsophisticated cameras, like iPhones and GoPro's and drones, is fascinating, but not sure it lent a whole lot to the experience. I liked what I got, but until I got that surprising exposure to the next movie I was not sure of the why of it all. Now, I am more than a little intrigued.

KWIF: The Thursday Murder Club (+2)

KWIF=Kent's Week in Film.

This Week:
The Thursday Murder Club (2025, d. Chris Columbus - netflix)
The Man Who Wasn't There (2001, d. Joel [and Ethan] Coen - dvd)
The Thin Man (1934, d. W.S. Van Dyke - dvd)

---

Adapted from the novel of the same name written by British media personality Richard Osman, The Thursday Murder Club is a star-studded story of sleuthing senior citizens.

All alliteration aside [ahh, apologies] the movie is set in England at Coopers Chase, a retirement community set on the grounds of a converted palatial estate. It's very, very bougie. There, new resident, Joyce (Celia Imrie), finds herself a new set of friends who run a club solving cold cases in the puzzle room on Thursdays.

The club is headed by Elizabeth (Dame Helen Mirren) who used to work for MI6, and also features psychiatrist Ibrahim (Sir Ben Kingsley), and ex-rights activist Ron (Pierce Brosnan), and each member has a particular set of skills to bring to the table the others do not. Joyce, as an ex-nurse, brings with her medical training and knowledge.

No sooner is Joyce revealing in her new friends and the latest cold case then rumblings of discord between the partners who own Coopers Chase start to spread. Ian Ventham (David Tennant) wants to raze the building (which surely has some have some historical protections, no?) and uproot the adjacent graveyard and develop the land. Tony Curran, Ventham's partner, opposes the project as he has a personal stake in keeping Coopers Chase as is. Soon Tony is dead and it's up to the Thursday Murder Club to figure it out, and, hopefully, at the same time, save their home.

Of course, there are real police on the case, DCI Hudson (Daniel Mays) is frequently irritated by the TMC's involvement in his investigation, but they have a plant, having seeded their young friend Donna (Naomi Ackie) as DCI Hudson's partner on the case. 

The film is generally pleasant, with a few amusing polite British chuckles along the way, but in spite of it star power (bright enough to give you a tan) it's about as sharp a mystery as you would find on the Hallmark Channel.  The material is so beneath the performers involved, that every time another recognizable face turned up, like Jonathan Pryce or Richard E Grant or Tom Ellis, I could only exclaim "HOW!?!" 

The sets, particularly the individual apartments, are beautiful, and the costuming is above average (the actors all, largely, look really good...Brosnan still so damn handsome), but it's so brightly lit and devoid of any real ambience that it looks more like a TV pilot than a feature film.

The music is by Thomas Newman, who can be capable of incredible scores, but here seems like he's on autopilot, not challenging himself in the slightest. At times the sounds would recall Finding Nemo, A Serious of Unfortunate Events or Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (also directed by Columbus), but mostly would just feel like the defacto plunking one hears in your average Hallmark holiday romance.

I've seen griping online of an American working on a British production bringing American sensibilities to it, which doesn't serve the story, setting or characters well. And, well, their not wrong. I think part of the Hallmarkiness of this outing is that Americans in trying to evoke "British" production style wind up being too earnest, cutesy and puerile. 

I was mildly entertained, but it's not good.

---

Ten weeks into rewatching the Coen Brothers' filmography and I'm still learning that I'll never be literate enough (in neither film nor books) to understand where the Coens are drawing all their inspirations from. A lifetime of obsessing over comic books, toys and indie music hasn't left a lot of time to gorge on classic cinema or read a lot of Greek epics or hardboiled detective fiction. So you'll forgive me for not being able to even hazard a guess as to what the Coens are riffing on with The Man Who Wasn't There beyond it's film noir stylings.

Filmed in gorgeous black and white contrast by Roger Deakins and set in post-war anywhere America 1949, The Man Who Wasn't There stars Billy Bob Thornton as Ed Crane, a meek-mannered barber. His wife Doris (Francis McDormand) is cheating on him with her boss, Big Dave (James Gandolfini), who she does bookkeeping for at the department store. Ed doesn't seem to mind so much. Doris keeps it pretty descreet.

But when Ed hears from a customer about the future of dry cleaning, and the customer (Jon Polito) needing an investor, Ed, who has kind of fallen into everything in life without really much effort, is ready to take a reach chance, be real proactive. So he blackmails Big Dave with an anonymous letter, threatening to tell his wife (the heiress to the department store business) of the affair, and he will lose everything.

Ed gets the money, but it didn't take much thinking for Big Dave to figure out who was behind it and in the midst of a kerfuffle, Ed kills Big Dave. Unfortunately Doris gets pinched for it. Ed then has to either sit with his guilt or try to exonerate Doris, and he's kind of hapless and ineffective at doing either.

Many a noir finds a hapless bystander getting involved in an intricate plot of murder and/or intrigue, while many other a noir finds a character charging recklessly forward driving the plot through their actions. Ed here is both the instigator and the bystander. In trying just once to do anything proactive in his life, he's set a whole chain of events in motion that he is incapable of stepping in front of to stop it. 

And so, as the story plays out, Ed's sad life just gets sadder. He finds a little joy in the piano playing of his lawyer's daughter (Scarlett Johannson) but once again his efforts to try something proactive backfire spectacularly. (I'll diffuse the tension right now, Ed has no sexual desire for teenage ScarJo, and in fact seems like an asexual character overall, not something much represented on screen and probably a might unintentional on the Coens part).

The Man Who Wasn't There is one of the Coens' longer films, brushing up near 2 hours, and in different lighting and pacing it would be another one of their screwball crime films. As it is, it winds up being one of their most visually striking movies (in a repertoire of visually striking movies), but also probably their most laconic by intention.  It's devotion to exploring a sensationalistic story but through a humdrum character means the film itself emits a bit of a humdrumminess, and yet, that's really its charm.  

I find its exploration of Ed, and his inability to escape his sub-mediocrity (both in life and self), fascinating. He's not a bad person at all, but he's also not a good person. He is the titular man who wasn't there. He floats through life, largely unnoticed, and it's not even that he has desire to be noticed, in fact he seems to prefer not having any attention put on him (like, look how uncomfortable he is with Big Dave trying to be friends with him). This is a film that's so deeply rooted to the ground, that it introduces flying saucer that seems to go to great pains to try to acquire Ed and whisk him away from his drab life into something more exciting, only to decide against it at the last minute a fly off.

The final 20 minutes really is when The Man Who Wasn't There comes to life, with the perfect sour ending that just revels in karma..For some it may be too late, but for me it's the meat of the film, where it goes from being a Coens also-ran to being an also-ran of-note.

---

As I just noted, I've not spent much time with "the classics" of cinema. My interests don't usually take me there too often. In my lifetime I doubt if I've ever seen 100 films from before 1950.  I also don't know that I'll rectify that any time soon. I find diving into old films akin to diving into foreign films...there's so much of it out there it's hard to know what is not just good, but worth the effort to sit through filming or scripting styles that may not resonate with me or retain my interest. There's only so much time in a day, in a life, that I can't wade through everything to find the gems.

I also realize that in my reluctance to wade through the unfamiliar that I'm liable to miss out on those gems, and it think my life would be much the poorer for never having gone slack-jawed over Myrna Loy as Nora in The Thin Man. Va-va-va-voom.

I had heard about the "Nick and Nora" series long ago, mostly legendary for it's rapid-fire repartee, but my interests never truly aligned. I underestimate old Hollywood productions, thinking that their entertainment factor is significantly reduced based on the naivete of the times in which they were produced. It's true that people were a lot simpler in the olden times, and my modern, refined, erudite, sophisticant palette is just so above it all. I can fall prey to snobbery at times, and think myself better than others, past or present. I'm not proud.

The Thin Man is based on the Dashiell Hammett novel of the same name. Hammett is cited as one of the godfathers of hardboiled detective fiction, but this "comedy of manners" was a real pivot for the writer (in what would ultimately be his last novel).  It's central plot revolves around a missing scientist whose secretary has been murdered, and sussing out whether the scientist was the kill or someone else, especially as additional deaths occur and the cast of suspects piles on.

But it's really not the murder mystery that is the draw here. That would be Nick (William Powell) and Nora (Myrna Loy). Nick is a renowned detective who has retired from the profession since marrying socialite Nora and taking up running her father's businesses. They enjoy drinking immeasurably and the fluidity of their alcohol consumption is only outpaced by their snappy banter. They always have the perfect retort for each other, and, well anyone else. They seem perpetually soused and are the liveliest, most high-functioning alcoholics in the world.

Despite his protestations that he's out of the business of sleuthing, Nora implores him to get involved in the case, because she's never seen him do his legendary work. How could any man resist anything Nora implores of him?

The Thin Man is the very definition of rollicking. The wit and charm assault is relentless, but never exhausting, though it can be hard to keep up with. I'm not sure if there's a modern comparison...it's not a comedy assault machine like, say, 30 Rock, it's much more dialogue-centric. I just can't think of any other film scripted with this density of dialogue so persistently.

The murder mystery is engaging enough, if only because of the characters involved. But there are a few little twists I didn't see coming. If I have any disappointments it's that Nora was sidelined when Nick finally capitulated to actually getting involved... the old chauvanistic (deemed chivalrous at the time) man's work, sparring Nora any unpleasantness. I think here naive exuberance would have made it even more fun and adventurous. Plus I just wanted more Nora.

There's five sequels to dive into, so along with more Coens, expect more Thin Man.

3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): The Amateur

2025, James Hawes (Slow Horses) -- Disney

Because of his association with Slow Horses, I was expecting a more gritty, dialed down feel to the movie, but Hawes was a director, not the show runner, so his thumb-print on the series is more about the handling of the details, than the tone. In this rote espionage thriller, the details are handled more than competently, giving us an almost early-2000s  "based on the novels by _____" movie, which... well, is based on the novel by Robert Littell. Littell's books were cold war era CIA spy stories, and I am kind of surprised they hadn't been milked for the aforementioned era of movies.

Anywayz. It was fine, but I shouldn't have let it sit and stew for so long.

Charlie Heller (Rami Malek, Bohemian Rhapsody) is one of the smart guys behind the keyboard at the CIA -- a cryptographer. He's seen as unequalled in his job. He also seems to have a side project where he makes contact with an asset named "Inquiline" and they turn over highly encrypted documents to him that implicate his own boss. He hides that shit.

Soon after, his wife Sarah (Rachel Brosnahan, Superman) who has gone to London on a business trip, is killed by terrorists. My first thought, based on seeing a ton of these movies and TV shows, is that he didn't hide the shit well enough and his bosses had his wife killed as a preemptive warning. But no, it was just some international terrorists who got cornered and she was an innocent bystander. Well, not just any random terrorists, but it was not a 2 + 2 = 4 situation.

She was Charlie's world. He is entirely lost without her. In his grief, he formulates a plan. He will blackmail his own superiors into training & outfitting him, so he can go to Europe and find the terrorists that killed his wife. Find them and kill them. They reluctantly comply, with their own plan to find Charlie's evidence and then have him eliminated. They honestly don't expect him to get very far.

Of course, nothing goes exactly to plan, but... the movie does roll out exactly to form.

Normally when I say a movie just (just?) follows a formula, I am being derisive. But in the viewing of this movie, it did more than that. Whereas formulaic action or adventure flicks provide me as much nutritional value as popcorn, followed by a burp and they're gone, these middle of the road thrillers usually leave me quite satisfied. I always like the structured details, the settings, the characters. I think back to the 90s movies like The Firm or The Pelican Brief. They were never critically acclaimed, but they always more than satisfied. I like the way the main character is played, I like how he adjusts to the change in scope on his Hero's Journey. I like how he retains who he needs to be, despite the corruption around him.

But do I have a whole lot to say about the story? No, not really. Charlie does uncover the Who and the Why, and is able to attain some modicum of justice. Its not the rote story that attracts me, but the competent, satisfactory play through.

One final thing that came to mind while watching. Charlie and his wife were doing quite well for themselves. A key point to the plot was that his wife bought him a run down Cessna plane, to let this puzzle and component piece obsessed man learn everything he needs to know about it, take it all apart, and put it all back together, repaired. How much does even a junker plane cost? Much more than my life time and economic bracket will ever provide. Why are so many of these movies about people in the upper end of the economic demographics? And if they don't go that way, they go the other direction, making the "hero" a rundown broken man without any money, a redneck or street thug. What about us squarely in the ever-widening middle class people who have to think about paychecks and bills and not, "Ooooo I have a plane that needs fixing!"

ReFried Disney: Snow White

2025, Marc Webb (The Amazing Spider-Man) -- Disney+ 

Stupid Boy Project? Oh, stupid stupid boy.

This is one of the rare movies in this project that is not a remake of a recent Disney animated movie, and by recent I mean that "new era" of original Disney animated musicals that started all the way back in 1989 with The Little Mermaid. Its kind of odd to say "new era", because only ten years prior had been Disney's last animated musical, Pete's Dragon. Ten years is not all that long in cinematic eras, at least it isn't these days. But what I am getting at is that this movie is a "live-action remake" of the Classic Era of Disney Animated Musicals (deemed worthy enough to get capital letters) that stretch from the 60s to beyond. The original Snow White was in ... 1937. Nineteen Freaking Thirty-Seven!! And I probably haven't seen it since my days sitting in front of grannie's TV during The Wonderful World of Disney every Sunday afternoon.

I don't have much recollection of the original animation, but a lot of imitators came to mind as I watched this movie. Less imitation of the animation and more of the motif that became part of the collective conscious. Think Amy Adams in Enchanted. Less imitator and more homage? I mean, the story of Snow White is built into our fairy tale brain, but was that ever from a non-Disney source? I am old enough that I had an actual collection of classic Grimm / Perrault fairy tales, so it must have been in there, but admitedly the core of the story must have come from 50+ years of exposure to Disney's adaptation. From the colour scheme, to "heigh-ho", to an evil queen with her hair tucked inside a skin tight dark wimple, all are indicative of the fairy tale but visuals from Disney.

Anywayz, this movie. Cough.

I was tempted to write three paragraphs consisting only of "Fair fair fair. Fair fair FAIR fair. FAIR ! Fair fair." This movie was really really REALLY trying hard to rebrand "fair" as not referring to Snow White's skin colour, but to fairness of judgement. As in, her father was a Good and Fair Ruler. But not even Mjolnir herself could have hammered that definition into the Magic Mirror's proclamation that the Evil Queen was ever fair. Snow White was the fairest, always and forever, as was her father. That mirror was a fucking liar.

Not bothering to comment on the "her skin isn't snow white" utter whiner troll shite on the Internet. If I roll my eyes any harder at that, I will hurt myself. There are plenty of other things to dislike about the movie without that weaksauce.

The tale begins with a fair (cough) kingdom ruled by a fair King and Queen who are equal with their people. Oh, they live in a castle and wear finery and probably don't actually do anything but they also spend one day a year picking apples and preparing pies for their people. I mean, I highly doubt they bake the pies, as they probably have people to do that but they carry the prepared pies to the tables, for the villagers & castle folk. The fair princess Snow White helps, so named because she was born on a cold winter night, and sure all the people seem to love her, but one does wonder what would happen if they didn't defer to her.

Fuck you King; howsa 'bout instead of serving us over-sized pieces of apple pies (from our orchards by the way) you release us from our vassal-state and pay us a living wage? Sure, you might own the land but....

Then the queen dies and the king gets a new wife, and almost immediately after sets off to fight in a foreign war, where he dies. New Wifey (Gal Gadot, Wonder Woman) takes the throne, and immediately makes changes. Once prosperous villagers (OK maybe they were making more than a livable wage) are conscripted into her royal guard, and Snow White is relegated to scullery maid. Nobody argues, because Evil Queen.

Waitasecond here; she doesn't actually have a NAME ?!?! She's really just called "Evil Queen". I would love to see her business card.

Snow White (Rachel Zegler, Y2K) grows up in her now impoverished kingdom, locked behind castle gates. One day she bumps into a thief stealing potatoes. Snow White's royalty shows through, as she does not like him being a thief. He is caught and tied to the gates, I guess the Evil Queen's version of a crow cage, but Snow White frees him anyway; I mean, it was just potatoes. That pisses off the Evil Queen, who has been getting "yer the fairest" from the Magic Mirror, until that act by Snow White. I am still convinced the Mirror was lying all along, but not sure why he suddenly got some courage. No matter, pissed off Evil Queen orders her Huntsman to take Snow White into the forest and cut out her heart. Not sure why she just doesn't have Snow White murdered right there in her throne room; its not like she has a reputation to uphold.

Part of me wonders whether the source fairy takes tell us why.

Of course, the Huntsman feels guilty and sends Snow White off into the forest to hide. In this version, he doesn't even kill a deer, from which to cut out a heart, but puts an.... apple into the box? He knows his fate; he's just delaying. The forest is initially dark and scary and definitely UnSeelie. I know that this is supposed to be representative of Snow White being a city girl and dark rural forests are scary, but I have always like to think of it as an actually fae infested wood with its periphery tainted by proximity to the Evil Queen. Luckily though, some Uplifted Animals find Snow White and guide her to the quaintest of quaintest cottages deep in the wood.

The Dwarves Miners own the house and are away for part of the day slaving away in the mines, using their magic powers (yes, the exhibit magic) to light up the location of gemstones, which they cut out of the stone and load into mine carts for... well, I am not sure we are ever given a reason the "miners" mine the gemstones. I kind of thought they were hinting that the Evil Queen has tasked them with this duty for her throne room is going to be littered with an endless supply of perfectly cut gemstones. But I am not sure if it was edited out, or underplayed, because I don't recall any reason for all this labour. 

But complaining about minor miner duties is burying the lede. The real complaint here, and admittedly, I thought it was all the blame of Disney's terrible sub-titling, but why aren't they called DWARVES ?!?!? Seriously, if anyone is going to give fuel to the "woke agenda" bonfires its choosing to ... to what?? Choosing to not offend little people? I mean, they went with entirely CG representations of these not-dwarves!! If they wanted to separate themselves from whole "dwarf" label (and we will completely ignore the fact these are not and never were "little people" but fairy tale dwarves, i.e. the folk tale fae creatures used as inspiration for Tolkien's story species) then just make them weird human miners with odd personalities and funny names.

Umm, isn't "dwarfs" more correct in this context? 

Shaddup you.

When the miners return home, they find the lady who broke in and slept in their beds. Most of them are suspicious but a few are at least understanding of her plight, being a Princess who was almost murdered by her step-mother (cough, E. Queen). Despite being a bunch of bachelors (no implication of familial connection) living together, they don't really get along. Even if you ignore their distinct personalities and/or named-traits, they all seem to pick on Bashful. But with a song and some gentle chastising, she shows them how to work together and clean up their house, in a way only a young woman can. And by whistling. Not at young woman, but.... oh nevermind.

Snow White is convinced her father is actually not dead, just that he never came back from the war in the south. She hopes to find the rebels in the forest, or bandits or whomever is rumoured to be still loyal to her father, and not beholden to E. Queen. What she finds instead is that the rebel/bandits are actually just unemployed minstrels, and more than a little buffoonish, led by the potato thief Jonathan (Andrew Burnap, The Front Room). The two make googley eyes at each other when the Evil Queen's henchmen show up and attack. Jonathan is injured and she takes him back to the "miners" where she begs Doc to help the cute boy. "I'm not that kind of Doc," he says, implying he's probably a doctor of philosophy or something to that eye-rolling effect. Whatever he does helps either way. The two decide they are in love, and that Jonathan and his Minstrels should head off to look for their King. They instantly get caught, cuz, you know they aren't bandits nor rebels, just fucking useless musicians and actors.

From them the Evil Queen learns where Snow White is hiding and concocts her poisoned apple bit. Apparently the Fair King had a rather diabolical Evil Queen Ready dungeon/lair in his basement all along. Putting on the Kindly Old Woman disguise, which has never ever been kindly looking but Halloween Witch scary, she gets Snow White to bite the apple, and thus, sleep of death. Jonathan and the now imprisoned Huntsman escape and find Snow White and all the weeping miners (folk core prog rock band). He steals a kiss and she wakes up. 

Snow White's pissed, and decides that even though she doesn't have an army, not even any rebels, she will head back to the castle and ... guilt them into surrendering? Which is exactly what she does. Once the Evil Queen realizes that five guys wearing her armour would rather do what Snow White says, instead of her, she runs back inside and gets all pissy in front of the mirror, sealing her fate. Seems her power, and maybe long life, was tied directly to the mirror - smashing it out of frustration is not the best choice. The End, but for one long song and dance number which must have used up the urine of every man, woman and barn yard animal to get all the clothes that bleached white.

I did not like this movie, in case my mockery was too subtle for you. I knew going in that I am not a fan of musicals, but usually I can tolerate, and some, I even like. Give me one banger of a tune and I am OK. There were none, not even the ones they stole from the original. To me this felt like a boardroom full of Purple Suits (I guess that is the collective noun?) paving the way for a off-Broadway stage musical production, and didn't really care if the movie did well or not -- they just needed the framework, set visualizations, musical numbers and visually appealing costumes. 

It does not adapt the original nor any fairy tale source material well. It seems to shoe-horn in some standard, run of the mill musical components, wedged in between all the "I remember that!" scenes from the original. The (lack of) story is forgivable in a 1937 animation, but here it is just brain-numbingly empty. Nothing feels like world building, nothing feels lived-in, nothing feels enchanting. Not a single song is memorable nor are any of the visuals above passable. Characters are more often labels, not people -- see E. Queen reference above. This movie does not have much going for it, so I hope it at least appeals to seven year old dim witted children.

As for the dwarf controversy, the CG one, as we already covered the dwarf vs miner one, I was not horrified nor annoyed. I get what they were trying to do -- recreate the original animated visuals but with some resemblance to ... real people? For Average People they must seem very Uncanny Valley (maybe that's where dwarves er miners come from?) but for someone raised on video game cinematics and The Lord of the Rings they are just passingly acceptable fairy creature depictions. Nothing offensive, nothing too terrible. But to tie in the original complaint, if they were not mythical creatures, why the fuck not just cast real little people?

Hmmm, too late to back out of the Stupid Boy Project, Mr Stupid Boy?