I have to feel bad about not seeing Sorry To Bother You in the theatres. It wasn't for lack of desire. I could tell from the trailers it was "my kind of film", but I truly had no idea how much of a "my kind of film" it truly was. It just kind of passed me by and I never made the time for it. Even when it was on one of the cable channels I kept putting it off, and it's been on "my list" on Netflix for months, unloved. By the time I actually put it on, I had kind of forgotten what the film was actually about, only to dial into its swirling surrealism instantly.
Cribbing directly from Wikipedia -- Boots Riley describes the film as "an absurdist dark comedy with aspects of magical realism and science fiction inspired by the world of telemarketing" - which sums it up quite nicely, but not totally.
We first meet Cassius "Cash" Green (Lakeith Stanfield) trying way too hard to get a telemarketing job. To his interview he's brought with him a trophy and a placard supposedly representing triumphs from previous employment, only for the hiring manager to call out his bullshit references and accomplishments, but then confide that they will literally hire anyone. Dashing expectations that this would be a cringe comedy about awkward telemarketing conversations, Riley's imaginative storytelling style imbues the film with a lively comedic energy, as Cash and his work desk slide in-person into his he caller's household interrupting everything from dinner to sex, only to be hung up on in short order.
If you have ever thought about telemarketing work, I'm sure it just sends a shiver down your spine. You know there's a level of desperation when entering that field of employment, one that's about as high status as working at McDonalds. There's a relatively easy and dispiriting movie to be had in the grind and misadventures of telemarketing, but that's not what this film or Riley is at all interested in doing.
Instead there's a whole race and class context, where, in order to succeed, Cash starts employing his "white voice" (provided by an extra nasally David Cross). The "white voice" isn't necessarily directly about code switching so much as employing an attitude that the listener is not only receptive to but envious of. Cash starts succeeding very far, the newest golden boy in the organization.
In the background there's a thread of the employees unionizing, as well as a few cues about an organization providing housing and food for life, in exchange for a lifetime supply of cheap labor, promising to take all the complications out of life for those feeling run down and downtrodden. These two threads start to collide into Cash's reality and he wants nothing more than to look past it, like his most successful colleagues but invariably he has a conscience.
Still he has to learn about a pretty gnarly conspiracy (you will NEVER see that twist coming) and mingle with the worst of the worst (it would appear that Armie Hammer's character in this film is pretty much Armie Hammer in real life) before his morals supplant his greed.
I love an absurd satire of capitalism, especially one that goes to such extremes as this does and yet isn't actively working to alienate its audience with its weirdness. I think of How To Get Ahead In Advertising as a similar model, only with more of a Terry Gilliam-at-his-peak playfulness. It's as savvy as the best Black Mirror episodes, but plays in a much more heightened reality. It has such a clean logic that it's a film very easy to follow along with, and the parallels to reality are easily equatable despite all the crazy twists. It's extremely funny, constantly surprising, and visually delightful. Riley's debut has instantly entered him into my "must watch" directors list, and the only disappointment is in finding that Riley has no other films to catch up on or look out for.
Stanfield, was on the cusp of stardom when this came out, and it launched him over the wall, which we've seen bear fruit over the past few years with his many various roles, but I can't help but feel this is still his brightest performance so far. It will be interesting to see him return to Atlanta whenever Donald Glover decides to pick it up again. The film is also stacked with stellar performances from Tessa Thompson (her art gallery scene is a mindbender), Jermaine Fowler (still just waiting for him to explode), Steven Yeun (an Oscar nod this year!), Terry Crews, Danny Glover and Omari Hardwick with voice work from Patton Oswalt, Forrest Whitaker and Rosario Dawson.
A Toast to HallmarKent: An Unexpected Christmas - 2021, d. Michael Robison - Hallmark
And we're back for another 24-day streak of Christmas/Holiday themed movie and/or TV show reviews to bring some festive cheer into our lives (and, I guess, your lives, our dozen readers). To start us off, yet another Hallmarkie.
The Draw: I noted yesterday in my review of Five-Star Christmas that Bethany Joy Lenz immediately became the best-of-the-best of Hallmark's regular stable of female leads. Last year, I reviewed Tyler Hines in On The 12th Date of Christmas which I really enjoyed him in, also noting enjoying his performance as Long Dick Dierk in Letterkenny, which I thought worth mentioning again...that a genuine Hallmark star played a role called Long Dick Dierk.
These two leads together were something I didn't want to miss, in as much as I don't really care if I miss any Hallmarkie. But relatively speaking, if I'm going to watch a Hallmarkie, and there's not some bigger name who doesn't usually do these things, I think these are two of the very few names in the Hallmark stable that would be a draw for me.
HIS&HERstory: Jamie (Hines) is a struggling speech writer who has just landed a new gig writing speeches for Illinois state senator Hayward for her re-election campaign. It's December. Elections are held in November, generally. That's some advanced planning but then again US election cycles are fucking ridiculous so who knows, maybe this is on the level. He has a deadline for the senator's Christmas address, because well...that's something Senator's do, right? And because Christmas deadlines are always a thing in Hallmarks. On his way home to Fulton County, it's clear that Jamie has a case of writer's block.
Emily (Lenz) is an creative director in advertising. She has a clumsy moment while putting on stalkings but thankfully that just a one-off pratfall and not a portent of the "clumsy girl" cliche. Her deliciously sardonic boss Daryl gives her a last minute assignment because he deems her the best, which is probably why he puts up with her perpetual lateness - a character trait which does not have any later relevance.
The exchange: Daryl - "I need a miracle here. You're my wunderkind, my Don Draper." Emily - "Don Draper is one of the most tragic fictional characters in television history." Daryl - "Yeah, but he had a thing. You had a thing. I need you to do that thing. The exchange continues, and it's easily one of the best scripted exchanges, certainly one of the funniest, ever in a Hallmark. Daryl is played by character actor Tom Pickett and he brings such a unique energy, it's sad we really only get him in these early scenes and not a constant throughout.
Daryl dangles a big cushy office and international travel in front of Emily she hesitantly agrees to the assignment to help the planning committee for Fulton City -the Christmas Capital of Illinois- with their new marketing initiative for attracting new residents, which launches on Christmas. Because Christmas deadlines are always a thing in Hallmarks.
Jamie and Emily, it turns out, broke up in October, but Jamie hasn't told his family yet and he dodges their questions about whether she will be joining them for Christmas, in Fulton (you see where this is going??). We find out later that his reason for breaking up was because he was feeling insecure: Emily's job was taking off and he had just lost his job. As we learn, he's kind of a bit of a demure fellow who has trouble disappointing his family. (I'm also not sure how he affords his awesome Chicago apartment when he's been unemployed and he kicked the only income earner out of his place...)
Anyway, cut to the train station, Jamie and Emily just happened to take the same train to Fulton and before word one can be said, the family has swept the two of them and their luggage up into the car. In a moment of respite (after the family assault on Emily), they have a quietly heated exchange about the situation, the fact that he didn't tell his family they broke up (his excuse: his grandfather had just passed and he didn't want to give them any more bad news, but really, it's evident, it's cowardice), and she agrees to give him a little bit of time for his ruse, but then she sneaks out with Jamie to get to her hotel, only to find it overbooked and having to go back.
The next day, Emily learns that Jackie Joyner Kersee, her celebrity spokesperson for the new campaign has pulled out due to inclement weather, as is her camera crew, and so she's stuck, her project about to fail, when Jamie offers up the Governor as a potential replacement (a promise he can't actually fulfil) in exchange for Emily continuing the ruse through until Christmas. Blackmail is always a great way to start/rekindle a romance. They both agree it's a terrible idea, but they also both agree to proceed. Why the family doesn't question that they're staying in separate beds, though, I really, really don't know
So over the next few days, the two have to negotiate the ruse, wade through the lies that Jamie's told over the past two months, and dodge Jamie's overbearing family and their many, many traditions. Jamie's sister, Becca, catches onto the two of them and pulls Jamie out for a heart-to-heart in her She-Shed (I want a She-Shed). In fact they have a few great scenes together. I love a good sibling dynamic.
Becca: "I love you, and I support you, but you're wrong here. So if you don't marry her, I'll have to marry her myself, because one way or another we're keeping that girl in this family."
For exes they spend a whole bunch of time together, and Mom and Dad are completely misreading the vibe, thinking that a proposal is probably in the offing. Mom and Dad are very annoying but in a fun movie kind of way. Jamie's boss/friend Gina comes to get set up for the Governor's speech, and there are instant sparks between her and Becca, and I'm there for it.
Then the nephew's play and complications when Jamie finds out about Emily's new job, and his parents find out, and Jamie's all wishy washy about expressing himself, and tells bossfriend Gina that he doesn't have a speech but then he gets drinky drinky in the She-Shed and a peptalk from Becca and finds inspiration and mails off a first draft, and then a bummer of a Christmas morning without Emily, but they race to the Governer's presentation but the Governor can't make it, but they loved the speech which she's delivering from home so hooray ("Oh,and Gina, I'm so sorry for...me...being me."), and then a big family race in the mini-van to the train station for a laying of cards on the table and some kissy kissing. The movie ends with kissing at the bar, which is new.
The Formulae: This whole "pretend to be together for Christmas but then really fall in love" is such a cliche. It's no less a cliche here.
Both our leads have Christmas deadlines. I'm so tired of the Christmas deadline trope. I've never had a Christmas deadline beyond, well, you know, Christmas shopping. If the Hallmarkies wanted to make it more believable they would have the deadline be like Dec 22, and have the characters dealing with the aftermath of their success or failure as Christmas approaches. Too complex?
There's a Christmas tree lighting ceremony and a Christmas festival (complete with Christmas karaoke?) Christmas pageant that Jamie's nephew is in. And of course both of the leads get conscripted into performing in the pageant. The difference here is instead of making sure it goes off smoothly it's kind of an epic fail. It should be funnier than it is.
Christmas charades. Hallmark seems to think Christmas charades are a thing that anyone does. Do they have a game box of Hallmark's Christmas Charades for sale in their stores or something?
That dumb cliche of one of the leads overhearing a partial conversation, overreacting and creating a complication. In this case it's that Emily got the promotion that's sending her to the Caymans for three months and therefore...Jamie thinks they can't be together, that he would be getting in her way, I guess? I dunno man, if the relationship is strong enough you can survive three months apart.
And, of course the mad dash to the (mode of transporation center) to profess love is just a romcom trope for the ages.
Unformulae:
The comedy. The great repartee, not just between the leads, but between almost all the characters. As opposed to other Hallmarkies which write for the manufactured relationship and Christmas drama, this one is written more towards humour, and it lands more often than not. All the actors (well, almost all the actors) are really into the lighthearted, more broadly caricatured vibe of the piece.
Everyone keeps hitting Jamie. I mean, he is a dumbass and deserves it, but that's unusual.
Drinks. 2021 Hallmark. So much drinking! It ends with drinking. Yay drinking. It's what we do when we watch these things.
True Calling? No, this title is stupid. It's "unexpected' because...Emily wasn't supposed to be there for Christmas? Whatever. It's so generic. But they're always so terribly generic. How about
The Rewind: Oh, those photos Becca takes...they're so bad. She went to film school, not photography class, and it shows. Like, a quick montage of really, really bad pictures.
That moment where Emily takes one of Dad's cookies excitedly then immediately conceals her spitting out the bite in disgust.
The moment where Emily slaps the cookie out of Jamie's hand.
Did they really say that the whole campaign - the campaign to get new residents to move to Fulton - is "If you can't beat her, Joyner"? Everyone, and I mean everyone should be fired from that ad agency.
A blink and you'll miss it cameo from Andrew Walker as he bumps into Jamie in the bar. Walker repaying the cameo that Hines put in his this year's My Christmas Family Tree as a barista.
The Regulars:
As noted we get Bethany Joy Lenz and Tyler Hines. I gave some credits at the top so I won't repeat them.
Tom Pickett who plays Bossman Daryl has been in a few Hallmarks as late, including Five Star Christmas with Lenz last year, and The Santa Stakeout this year. He's great and I wish there was more of him in this.
Mom/Diane is played by Lynda Boyd (she could be Julianne Moore's sister), and she's been in a couple Hallmarks including Christmas In Evergreen. Dad/Tom played by Paul McGillion is co-starring with Boyd again in Christmas in Tahoe this year. He's been in a few other scattershot Hallmarks over the years, but not a regular.
Andrew Walker, who cameos as patron in the bar, has been in dozens of Hallmarks. I'm not going to bother starting to list them.
The screenplay is from Paul Campbell (story by Gregory McGoon) who is known more as a Hallmark leading man, last seen in The Santa Stakeout .
Special mention: Alison Wandruza plays Becca, and is maybe my favourite part of this. She's just a great centering presence with a lot of charm and really captivating. I liken her position here to Carrie Coon's breakout performance in Gone Girl. I'm not saying she's as good as Carrie Coon, but she should at the very least lead her own Hallmark sometime. This is her first Hallmark. She was the Sherriff in the TV series Critters: The New Binge...
How does it Hallmark? This is really, really good for Hallmark, a legit Hallmark romcom (of which there are precious few) that is genuinely funny...at least for the first 45 minutes. The romance is just okay, as are the Christmas feels , but Hines and Lenz bring it completely, really selling the comedy, doing little things that pay big dividends for establishing their characters and dynamic. It's a fun watch, but the latter half gets pretty mushy and loses sight of the comedy as they go through the Hallmark cliches and it's just relationship talk and anecdotes about their childhood. It gets dragged down as it forgets about the funny. But I like these people, so it's pretty okay.
How does it movie? Well, it's still very much a Hallmark in production values and there's still a sense of pigeonholing the story into a Christmas scenario where it didn't really need to be, and it just doesn't escape the ghetto of Hallmark storytelling. It's definitely many steps above the rest but it's no Holidate. It's not even a Love Hard.
KWIF=Kent's Week in Film. Ol' Kent here celebrated the end of his 50th year with some epic boardgaming, epic toy and collectibles hunting, epic medical diagnostic imaging, and not so much epic movie watching (or reviewing)...just a little.
This Week: I Love Boosters (2026, d. Boots Riley - in theatre) Tuner (2025, d. Daniel Roher - in theatre) Exit 8 (2025, d. Genki Kawamura - rental) Made of Honor (2008, d. Paul Welland - hollywoodsuite)
---
I think this will wind up being my favourite movie poster of the year. I want this as a puzzle.
As the credits were rolling on our sparsely attended early Saturday matinee of I Love Boosters, one white male millennial audience member stood up and stretched, turned around and engaged the other millenial couple behind him. The part my wife overheard him say was "I mean, I liked it, but can you tell me why you thought it was funny?"
Humour is subjective. I get that. But I Love Boosters is undoubtedly a comedy. It's part farce, part Looney Tunes (by way of Stephen Chow), part social satire, part absurdism, and so many other little parts of things that congeal to make a wildly appealing, chaotic, inventive whole.
Kiki Palmer (Nope) - one of the most charismatic performers of her generation - leads this film as Corvette, a wanna-be fashion designer who just can't seem to find her way into the industry. She lives in an abandoned fried chicken restaurant and steals clothes for a living to resell at steep discounts on the black market to the less rich. She's aided in the "Velvet Gang" by her best friend Sade (Naomi Ackie, Mickey 17) who is obsessed with a multi-level marketing scheme, and Mariah (Taylour Paige, Zola) who thinks her boosting is a revolutionary act.
They don't steal from just anywhere, or just anyone, but instead focus on the chain of Metro Designers stores which are owned by fashion mogul and certified genius Christie Smith (Demi Moore, The Substance). Corvette is obsessed with Smith, idolizes her, and in her own way sees her boosting of Smith's clothes as a form of flattery, but Smith, who calls the Velvet Gang "low class, urban bitches" is increasingly perturbed by them. Corvette learns of a delivery of $100,000 suits and sets her sights on that being the ultimate target (especially after discovering that Smith has stolen a design Corvette submitted to a fashion contest earlier in the year, it becomes about revenge). To make a boost this big, they need to work on the inside.
So they get a job working at Metro Designers under Grayson (Will Poulter, Warfare), who has totally drunk the Christie Smith corporate kool-aid, and meet Violeta (Eiza Gonzalez, Bloodshot) who is trying to organize a union within Metro Designers. And then they are robbed..the entire store gone in seconds.
I could go on for paragraphs breaking down the larger strokes of this film. It is very busy, but earns its busyness. Boots Riley cut his teeth with the incredible satire Sorry To Bother You, and takes the social satire and ambition of that film to a whole other level here. The picture is vibrant, with bold monochromes at each of the Metro Designers sets, while the wardrobe is off the charts with all the leads looking ridiculous or stylish or ridiculously stylish. It'd be the most fashionable movie of the year, if not for The Devil Wears Prada 2. There are extended sequences involving stop motion animation (that recall John Carpenter's They Live) an extended chase sequence done in minature (some shades of Wes Anderson there), a building on a canted angle leaving a set sloped at 20 degrees which all but Christie Smith seem to have difficulty navigating, and a gigantic ball of stress made up of bills and all the other things haunting Corvette, stalking her at random times.
I Love Boosters is unfettered creativity from a director who doesn't see limits on what can be done in storytelling. It's the first mass-released film since Everything Everywhere All At Once that feels like there are no restrictions in how a story can be told. Even if I Love Boosters is only nominally less successful at coherently conveying its central message than that Oscar-winner, it's still an exceptionally entertaining and provocative ride. [I haven't even mentioned the soul-eating demon/love interest played by Lakieth Stanfield (Atlanta), but he's an intriguing distraction for both the picture and Corvette that pops up at both the most opportune and inopportune times. He's a total aside, but a deliciously amusing one.]
While its employment of magical realism and surrealist fantasy is wickedly enjoyable and compliments its anti-capitalism message in unusual but agreeable ways, I Love Boosters' use of a science fiction technology alongside abstract concepts of "situational acceleration and deconstructionism", as well as teleportation is a tad less concrete. There is a device introduced in the second act which then becomes the inciting agent for the rest of the film, and the employment of these speculative conceits become the hardest part of the film to wrap one's head around, particularly at the accelerated pace the film moves at. It leads to a lot of fun and clever sequences in the film, and effectively incites the film's ultimate, pro-union, power-in-numbers message, but it does so with an asterisk.
What I Love Boosters ultimate goal is to promote a character who realizes that sometimes there's a greater goal, a greater purpose to one's actions than fulfilling their own desires. That perhaps too many of us are concerned more with individual achievement than collective growth is the realization Corvette needs to have on her journey, even if it isn't the most personally satisfying, it does seem the most rewarding.
[As an aside, as a person who is basically deaf in one ear, I had a very difficult time with the sound mix on this film. As a musician himself, Riley loves music, and there's always music playing in the background of any scene, whether it's diegetic or the fantastic score from TuneYards, along with layers of ambient noise or sometimes background dialogue and/or TV footage. In person, I have a hard time in cacophonous situations picking out what people are saying, and turns out it's the same with on screen situations. I can't wait for Blu-Ray, which I will absolutely be getting, so I can watch this with the closed captioning on and pick up on so much of what I missed].
---
Speaking of my hearing disorder, it was fascinating for me to watch a film about someone on the other end of the aural spectrum than I am. In Tuner, Niki (Leo Woodall, Cherry) has hyperacusis, an affliction in which he is exceptionally hypersensitive to sound to a debilitating degree. For the majority of the picture he is wearing custom ear plugs, and often with noise cancelling headset over that. Even then particularly sharp or loud noises can send him into disarray, even proving so painful as to render him unconscious.
Niki also has perfect pitch and starts the film working as protege piano tuner to family friend Harry Horowicz (Dustin Hoffman, Tootsie), a beloved figure in the music community. Harry is losing his hearing and starting to be a bit forgetful, but he's a delight to be around (I'm normally not a big Hoffman fan, but he is very likeable in the role). Niki is sweetly devoted to Harry and his wife Marla, like family. When Harry falls ill, Niki agrees to help out with the medical bills by buying Harry's truck and taking over his business. While on a job he meets Ruthie (Havana Rose Liu, AfrAId), and over a few encounters their attraction becomes undeniable, but while on a different job, Niki meets Uri (Lior Raz, Gladiator II) and his boys as they attempt to drill into the safe of the house they are both working at. Niki learned his hearing disorder actually was a boon for safecracking and gets into the safe for the boys. Uri, who works in private security for elite individuals, offers Niki a job if he wants to make "real money". To pay Harry's bills, Niki has no choice, and he helps them steal from Uri's client's safes "things they wouldn't notice are missing". Of course, getting involved with criminals is never going to end well for Niki and it threatens to destroy what comfort he has in life and maybe take everyone else he loves down with him.
Woodall is very unassuming as Niki, at first, with Hoffman dominating each scene they're in together early on. But eventually Woodall is handed control and Niki becomes quite captivating in his quiet temperament, and the reality of his affliction (handled with superb sound design) is clearly conveyed to the audience at all times. Canadian director Daniel Roher, who won an Oscar for his documentary on Alexei Navalni in 2022, proves he has an incredibly steady hand for directing a modestly budgeted dramatic thriller like this. In his debut narrative feature, Roher utilizes montages to perfect effect (time will tell if this is a signature move or just something stylistic for this feature, metering up with the film's soft jazzy piano score, and symphonic bits).
Tuner works very well as a character study but its crime element is unfortunately quite predictable, lacking a lot of real surprises. Thankfully Roher is more interested in the character than he is in the jobs Niki is assisting on, and so the segments of safecracking, for the most part, are pretty brisk and don't employ the tension of the risk of getting caught too heavily. There is one particular Chechov-ian item that presents itself early on, and the manner in which it goes off is such a deus ex machina that it borders on unforgivable...but just sits on that border.
Otherwise, this is an agreeable throwback to the kind of thriller we saw plenty of through the 70's, 80's and 90's, but have largely disappeared in the past two decades. We could do with more.
---
I knew nothing about Exit 8 except the concept: a man gets lost in a maze of subway hallways searching for Exit 8, finding horrors along the way. I was in. I love subway tiles, and hallways and escape rooms, so this movie was beckoning me like a siren of the sea.
In the film, our "lost man" is played by Kazunari Ninomiya, a seemingly hapless and perhaps depressed young man who doesn't seem ready for the world. We first meet him on a subway train during rush hour as he witnesses a man in a suit berate a young mother for bringing her crying baby on the train. Everyone's looking at their phones, and, after he puts his earbuds back in, so does he. When he gets off the train he receives a phone call from his ex. She's at the hospital and tells him she's pregnant. She doesn't know whether she wants to keep it or terminate the pregnancy, and is asking for his input. He doesn't know either. Not paying attention, he finds himself in an Z-shaped hallway that seems to repeat without end...the same man walking past him, the same adverts on the wall, the same lockers and photobooth....
And then he spies a sign, telling him that he needs to leave through Exit 8. If he spies an anomaly, turn back, and if there are no anomalies, keep going.
I didn't know Exit 8 was based off an indie video game sensation, but really it didn't take me long to discern such a thing, especially when the "rules" were introduced. What could have just been cheap horror, though, is so much more from director/writer Genki Kawamura (co-written with Kentaro Hirase). It's not just an endless maze of repeating tunnels, but a metaphor for repetitive cycles in life, of fearing change and indecision., alerting us to look for the differences, and that we need to embrace those differences to make it out the other end.
If it were just our "lost man" encountering terrifying anomalies, it would have been a fine movie, but it's not just that. There is a delicious surprise (SPOILER) in act 2, where the film completely pivots away from our "lost man" and instead follows the man he's passed dozens of times at this point, and we learn the "walking man's" story. Both men, however, encounter a young boy who they each think is a facet of this purgatory they're in, but come to learn (if not embrace) that the child is as trapped as they are and, maybe, has better instincts for getting out.
Though slight on story, and maybe light on horrors, I absolutely loved this movie. It was completely my thing. The repetition encourages audience engagement, looking at the same hallway walls and wondering what's different...if anything, and knowing it could come down to something so easily overlooked as the fine text on one of the posters, or a tile placed askew (although, mercifully it's never that).
The sound design is as crucial as the visual design, and as integral to the repetition. It's obviously largely borrowed from the video game, but it's brought into "reality" so effectively. Ninomiya has such a soulful face that your empathy is immediately with him, and he conveys his emotions so blatantly and effectively. The "walking man" played by Yamato Kochi is intensely terrifying in his early scenes where the lost man turns around the find the walking man immediately in his face with a grin that'll make your skin crawl, but then it only takes Kochi seconds with the second act pivot to bring you over to sympathizing with his plight in the corridors.
The film creates a text that the video game never had, a reason for why our protagonist(s) are in this purgatory, and letting the audience know that they need to have a reason to get out. I feel like we can apply this to life somehow....
---
I've made no secret out of enjoying cheesy romance movies and romantic comedies, but that's not universal approval of all of them. In fact, there are scant few romcoms I would consider good or worth watching again, and even fewer I actually want to watch in the first place. To some extent most romcoms I just tend to avoid because, in execution (if not conceptually), they're so cloying as to be repulsive.
In concept, Made of Honor should not be such a film. The story of a tomcat of a man who is best friends with a woman whom he learns after years and years that he's actually in love with her, only for her to turn up engaged before he can say anything...well, that sounds like a serviceable, if predictable romcom format, and not egregiously offensive. But show me that trailer, or even just the poster, and I'm steering clear like it's plague-bearing.
I never needed to see Made of Honor, there was nothing compelling me to watch it, but it was a lazy Sunday afternoon, and after I finished watching a film on dvd, it turned up on cable when the player shut off. I spied Patrick Dempsey and his basketball-playing bro-pals (including Kadeem Hardison and Chris Messina) attempting to help the man navigate his emotions over his best friend Hannah (Michelle Monaghan) being away on a work trip and missing her so much he couldn't enjoy his many many dates with hot women in her absence. It's a particular turning point in pop culture when men were allowed to support other men emotionally but only if it was in a really really butch situation, with like sports and/or alcohol, but points for letting them get there. But it treats these scenes as if they were comedy, not as if there's real emotional stakes at play which gets to what's so wrong with this film....
Made of Honor makes the biggest cardinal sin of the romantic comedy genre: it's not funny. It tries to be funny and fails pretty much every time. There's two possible reasons, and it's an and/or situation: casting and/or the director.
Dempsey is cute, handsome and charming, but he's not innately funny. Ditto for Monaghan. Hardison and Messina both have comedic acting experience, and Monaghan's coterie of bridesmaids includes Busy Philipps and Whitney Cummings, but none of them squeeze out any real guffaws despite trying.
Monaghan returns from her trip engaged to rugged Scotsman Kevin McKidd, who threatens Dempsey's masculinity in every way. Any attempt to one-up him ends in failure. Just as any attempt for either to be funny falls entirely flat.
There is a scene where Dempsey is going to meet Monaghan for the first time since her return home, only to be surprised by her new beau, and he smashes into a waiter and they topple to the floor, his bouquet of flowers everywhere (which he lies were never his). It's close to being a good pratfall. Later in the scene, after an awkward dinner, Dempsey gets up from his chair at an awkward moment and tumbles into the same waiter again. The whole sequence should be full of humour around the discomfort, complete with the pratfall starter and capper, but it doesn't take, like, at all. And that's direction. Director Welland seems to be too lost in finding an emotional center to really let the humour of the scene play, and its stars aren't gifted enough comedically to innately play up the humour and the emotion.
But boy do they look good not being funny. Dempsey is real fit, and kinda dashing, while Monaghan is just so effortlessly pretty (with a team of make-up and wardrobe people putting great effort into that effortlessness).
Without the humour, this movie feels tedious, rehashing the same points over and over again. I don't know that Dempsey and Monaghan ever found the "friendship" dynamic this film needed to sell that part of it. They're just too good looking together and they play into the attraction even when it's not fully supposed to be there yet. This needed two decent-to-good looking comedic performers to pull this off. (Like Jason Segel and Mila Kunis in Forgetting Sarah Marshall...a far superior film, and one which I would definitely not sacrifice to put those leads into Made of Honor. What's a pairing that didn't happen... maybe like, Paul Rudd and Isla Fisher?)
There's both a good romance and good comedy waiting to happen in this script. It's been 20 years, maybe a remake is in order with a director and starring pair that can get it right.
[Series Minded is an irregular feature here at G&DSD, wherein we tackle the entire run of a film, TV, or videogame series in one fell swoop]
Mad Max: Fury Road (2015, d. George Miller) - in theatre, twice
Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome (1985, d. George Miller & George Ogilvie) - dvd
The Road Warrior (aka Mad Max 2) (1981, d. George Miller) - dvd
Mad Max (1979, d. George Miller) - on demand
Mad Max as a franchise was never my thing. I was a child of the 80's but that whole trilogy never registered with me. I remember watching (or trying to watch) Beyond Thunderdome on more than one occasion at a friend's house and finding it weird and lacking in suitable wonder and adventure. It seemed to me (at the time it was out on video, age 10) to be a cross between The Goonies and Steel Dawn (fully acknowledging that the Patrick Swayze-starring vehicle was an obvious riff off The Road Warrior, and that Goonies came out around the same time as Thunderdome) but I wasn't terribly into either of those films either. Even three or four years after Return of the Jedi I was still pretty much all about Star Wars, and anything that wasn't on that level (and really, what was?) was kind of garbage, or disappointing at least. I knew the theme song, Tina Turner's title track replete with its blaring 80's sax solo, intimately from repeated radio play (I may have even had the soundtrack, or a dub thereof), and I legitimately have fond memories of it and the music video. But that's more Tina Turner nostalgia than film nostalgia.
Even as I grew older, I never visited/revisited the Mad Max series (I'm still hazy as to whether I've even watched Thunderdome in full), the series held no sway. I've never been much of a Mel Gibson fan either... his status as a sex symbol for moms throughout most of my formative years certainly didn't help, and his more recent nut-job antics even less so.
So when a new Mad Max movie was first announced more than a few years ago, with Tom Hardy taking over the lead, I was with the rest of society-at-large in uttering a dismissive groan of "meh". It was an announcement that really meant nothing. Yet another reboot announcement amidst a myriad of other reboot announcements. It wasn't until the first Fury Road trailer hit that I, as did so many others, sat up and took notice. George Miller, the creator of the original series -- the guy who went on to make the Babe talking pig movies and spawn that barely tolerable Happy Feet series of animated features -- was back at the helm and, apparently, given unfettered control to do whatever bat-shit insane thing he wanted to do. It's easily top ten of all time for trailers effectively selling a movie. It made a legion of cinephiles, action movie aficionados, and even the common movie goer rub the sand out of their eyes and believe that something really special was coming to a cinema near them.
It's a trailer's job to lie, to misrepresent, to sell you on a film that's not truly there. They tease you with information and hint at big action set pieces or really funny moments or grand costumes but so often they're only showing the briefest, best parts and the remainder (or the reality) of the film turns out to be something else altogether. We get it at this point, we've come to expect deceit. So when a film not only delivers exactly what the trailer promises, but delivers it in excess, that's a modern cinema miracle.
Mad Max: Fury Road is a modern cinema miracle.
As all that preamble establishes, Fury Road had such a difficult path set before it. From general apathy to utmost excitement in the shortest span of time because of that trailer, it started with lowered expectations and then pushed them to the highest. I have to wonder if the studio was at all nervous that the film wouldn't meet such grand expectations that the trailer set? (Of course they weren't nervous, they must have seen the film and known just how great it was.)
I've seen Fury Road twice now, neither in optimal theatrical settings (for the first I was seated way too close to the screen, it literally consumed my entire peripheral vision, the second was marred by digital projector quirks -- pixellation, red bars on the screen, distortion) but the film was more than powerful enough to overcome those obstacles with relative ease. A second viewing allowed me to settle into Mad Max's post-apocalyptic future much more than the first viewing did. Much of the nuances and details of Immortan Joe's cult-like society were missed the first time around as I tried to take in all the visual stimulation. The meaning behind the War Boy's flavourful dialogue ("Shiny and chrome", "witness me", "I live, I die, I live again") was lost on me, as was much of their actions that first time around, as the high-octane, highly insane car crashes, explosions, and stuntwork, largely practical, kicked in before the first 20 mintues were through. Getting over the fact that the titular Max himself was practically a background participant until well into the film was part of the challenge, as that first viewing I was completely unaware about how ridiculously great Nicholas Hoult's Nux or Charlize Theron's Furiosa (or even Immortan Joe) were or how important a part of the story they would be (Furiosa is truly the film's focus, while Nux's personal journey is perhaps the greatest in the film).
It's a fairly relentless movie from the onset, but it's particularly once Furiosa hits the road in her War Rig -- a customized tanker truck with all sorts of additional body parts, spikes and accoutrements welded to it -- with her band of War Boy escorts, that it really kicks in. She silently deviates from her path, her status as Imperitor has the War Boys following suit, but when Immortan Joe discovers her treachery, and his missing wives/breeders (a quintet of unfettered by nuclear fallout, model-caliber women whom he's held captive) he calls upon not just his own legion of Citadel warriors but also those from Bullet Town and Gas Town as well. It's one rig (a War Rig, mind you) against hundreds, but Furiosa's mission, to get these imprisoned, dehumanized woman to freedom, seems like the most important thing going on in this world, a last grasp at civility and humanity which has been long forgotton under Immortan Joe's rule.
That there's a heavy excaping domestic abuse allegory at play here, and that it's in no way eploitative but also compliments the events of the film, really providing it with a genuine narrative drive, is just one of its many miracles. While Max, and eventually Nux, help with the escape and survival, that Furiosa and the breeders are all capable on their own level (and in very short swatches of screen time are given distinctive personality attributes, rather than just being a cowering whole as some other films might portray them) is one of the most rewarding aspects of the movie. Likewise, their discovery of the denizens of The Green Place, a small legion of motorcycle-riding, aging survivalists, all women who are no less kick-ass than Joe's War Boys is such a wonderful touch.
I know that bait-and-switch -- the supplanting of the masculine hero/protector the film's named after with a no-less-tough and yet tangibly feminine/feminist warrior -- has some peoples' undies in a bunch, but fuck 'em. They're sexist prigs and they don't deserve to have a voice. I shouldn't even bother to bring them up, except to point out that they're so inherently, utterly wrong, and yet another element that makes the film work so well is the audacity of George Miller to push his franchise hero down to being the third or fourth most important character in the film. It's unexpected and it works.
Beyond that, Hardy's performance is as challenging, perhaps moreso, than his role as Bane in The Dark Knight Rises, speaking largely in grunts, scowly nods, and hand gestures. He's like a man who's been alone too long, too inside his own head to socialize properly. One element of the film I'm still trying to understand is who is the psychic girl who keeps jarringly appearing before him, helping him survive (was she one of the children from Thunderdome?). In a film that largely stands alone, and gloriously so, there are petite nods to the previous films and Max's history, stating decidedly that this is a continuation, not a reboot.
Aggressive, vulnerable, clumsy some ways and yet competent others, Hoult's Nux becomes the unexpected soul of the film. Thanks to Capable (one of the escaped wives played by Riley Keough) who shows him compassion, mercy and tenderness, qualities it seems he's never known. He was to be witnessed by Immortan Joe himself, escorted to the gates of Valhalla, but came up wanting, his entire belief system crashing down. It wasn't hard for Capable to show him a new, more fulfilling path.
Meanwhile, Furiosa's quest merges well with Max's. They both seek redemption. At the same time, Furiosa also seeks out her past, searching to bring her childhood memories back to life. But memories fade and time passes. You can never go back, and yet, as Max advises, sometimes going back is your only way forward. Furiosa, with her stark buzz cut, her grease mask, and her steampunk-like robotic arm, is one of the most amazingly visual characters in a film full of them, but her unmatched toughness and equally unmatched capability shoot her right near the top of the greatest all-time action heroes (she's easily top of the female action heroes list and very close there for all genders and species of action hero).
The visuals of the film are never not stunning. Gorgeous desert scapes with a grand sense of scale and scope along with a few varieties of environments that make the journey that much more adventurous (a sand storme, a muddy wasteland of trees and crows hued in blue). Miller didn't just bring his A-game, he reinvented the game. There are more than a handful of downright masterful shots, all unique to this picture because, where else are you going to have characters swooping on a pole from one edge of the frame across to the other? Most movies don't ever track your eyes clear across the screen, but Miller does it on more than one occasion.
This film is thoroughly genius. I love it madly, and I yearn for the blu-ray so it can be mine for always and ever, shiny and chrome (the kid-who-never-grew-up in me yearns for action figures, vehicles and playsets).
Now, I do actually own a copy of Beyond Thunderdome, which I purchased alongside a copy of The Road Warrior in preparation for seeing Fury Road for the first time. Bits of Thunderdome remained familiar, but others, if I ever truly did watch the film in full, my brain had long abandoned.
Beyond Thunderdome is not a great film. It's almost like two decent, distinct stories smushed together to form a muddled whole. The first half finds Max, after having his camel-drawn wagon bombed out from a small, single-person plane, entering Bartertown looking for a vehicle and supplies. After checking his many, many, many, many guns and weapons at the door, he proves his toughness to the city's ruler, Auntie Entity (Tina Turner). She offers him everything he desires if he can help usurp the Master who controls the power generation beneath the city. Power is power in Bartertown, and Auntie is quickly losing hers.
A convoluted plan is hatched and Max is forced to square off against the dumb but brutal Blaster in the no-holds-barred Thunderdome (a dome-shaped fighting arena that sounds more awe inspiring in name than it actually turns out to be... I was probably thinking something more massive and awe-inspiring akin to the Cobra Terrordrome maybe). I don't know if the Thunderdome fight sequence is supposed to be so funny, however I presume Miller is a skilled enough storyteller that he could showcase it as either a brutal or comedic sequence. Given that two grown men are bouncing around the arena fairly helplessly on bungee cords, I believe he knew that embracing it's silliness while still drawing some excitement out of it was the best possible outcome. It's a preposterous fight, and yet, it is enjoyable. Following the fight, Max is unceremoniously exiled in the desert, and the conflict between Auntie and the Master below appears to be left as a dangling plot thread.
Max, on the brink of death, is found by a teenage girl, Savannah who believes him to be the Captain. She brings him back to a cave society existing solely of children and teens, survivors of a passenger plane crash years and years before. They have built up a faith around the story of the Captain's failed attempt to bring them to Never Never Land...sorry I mean Tomorrow-morrow Land, and the promise of his return to finish the job. Max, being an adult and the ultimate realist, tries to shatter their bubble at every turn, encouraging them to remain put, in what is as close to an idyllic setting as one can get in this post-apocalyptic future.
Their faith shaken, some of the kids take off in search of Tomorrow-morrow Land and Max is guilted into assisting in getting them back. The journey takes him back to Bartertown, once again into the middle of the Master and Auntie's power struggle. Following a daring, wall-smashing escape-by-locomotive, Max befriends the pilot who messed up his wagon at the start and he agrees to help the children, taking them all to a bombed out Sydney in the end, leaving Max in Auntie's clutches where they inexplicably share a good laugh.
It's a very clean movie, I have to say, with a lot of rich details that set up two very distinct cultures. Its well-shot and precisely executed sequences hold up somewhat, seeming quite more advanced than it's 1985 release date would imply (I figured originally 1988 at least). As Miller (and co-director George Ogilvie whom Miller brought on to help with directorial duties while dealing with the passing of his production partner) had no need to embrace the computer assisted fads that were happening at that time, the practical effects and smartly constructed sets give it longevity. Where it falters is wholly in the story its telling. Things come together far too neatly at the end to not feel forced, while the films two distinct realms are really too distinct so when they do collide it doesn't seem right.
It's not unwatchable, even Turner's overacting is kind of endearing, but at the same time, it's a flawed movie, hints of ideas so much better realized in Fury Road.
Having watched The Road Warrior first, however, I found Beyond Thunderdome just a tad confusing from the onset, as Bruce Spence's Jebediah the Pilot is a different character from the Gyro Captain he played in the first sequel. So to go from Mad Max 2 to Mad Max 3 and have the same actor play a different character (and yet they act virtually the same and both fly planes) is kind of maddening to resolve. I get the sense that Miller likes to have fun with his audience (sometimes at their expense
Up until acquiring, cheaply, the DVD, I hadn't previously seen The Road Warrior, though I thought I must have at some point, right? Nothing about it was familiar, except that fact that countless other films had completely ripped it off in the years following its release, and many of those I had seen.
I see The Road Warrior as a first draft for Fury Road (and Thunderdome, a second draft), introducing the scavenged, spiked-out, souped-up vehicles as just a glimpse of what Miller had in mind and could accomplish with limited budget and time. The devolving society that remains in the wake of some form of cataclysm and the desert wastes in which all survivors live both seem like fruitful conditions to tell an action-adventure story on the cheap. Tattered scraps and patched-together leathers for clothing, beat up old cars, barren terrain all somewhat available on the cheap, but putting together those bits in such a way that it becomes a distinctive, punk-infused aesthetic helped to make it a forerunner, not an also-ran.
There's a definite craft to what Miller was doing here, a vision to both the story and the world. There's a comment on oil as a source of conflict (still so very resonant today) and how it was what literally fuelled the end of the world, and even in this new beginning it still does. We learned nothing. Watching the original Mad Max a while later, it's easy to see the first three films as stepping stones as Miller figured out how to make a movie. With this sequel he's basically taking on the origin of Max from the first and keeping the name (if for no other reason it remains tangentially connected because first one made a ridiculous amount of money worldwide off virtually no budget). The first lesson of filmmaking Miller learned was start with what's going to make money, it seems, then working on the message and/or entertainment factor can come after.
The plot finds Max reluctantly helping a small group defend their independent oil refinery from marauders, led by the iconic Lord Humungus. Max is a lone wolf, a sole survivor, a road warrior, and he's becomed accustomed to looking out only for himself. He's an anti-hero, someone who performs good deeds for the wrong reason. Of course, as this small group is whittled down in size under continuous siege from the marauders, Max recognizes they don't stand a chance in this prolonged conflict and his conscience finds him helping them selflessly.
The Road Warrior is not without its flaws, and its age shows plenty of signs of wear, but it remains a quite entertaining action movie, it's influence radiates (as do the films that influenced it, like Kurisawa's samurai films and Peter Weir's The Car That Ate Paris). Gibson turns in a remarkable performance that has you cheering for him at the onset, booing his selfish behavior very quickly after that, and then winning you back over as the hero. The star power was overwhelmingly there even in 1981.
1979 Mel Gibson, however wasn't quite so winning in the acting ability. He was, however, undeniably handsome in his younger years, with a winning smile that didn't turn up so much again in his later Max roles. His starring turn in the exceptionally profitable international hit Mad Max (which grossed over $100 million off a miniscule budget) isn't exactly the greatest. As the title character it's shocking that he's barely in the movie for the first half hour. Miller's story instead focuses on establishing the ramshackle remains of the police force and the band of road pirates that vex them in a "near future" scenario.
Eventually, as cops are wounded, Max enters the picture, with a big chip on his shoulder. He takes down the bad guy but then his gang come out for revenge. After Goose, Max's partner and best friend, is taken out, Max quits the force, but is convinced to take a vacation instead with his wife and son. Venturing along the coast Max and family are unaware at first that they are being hunted. Max witnesses his family run down and sets out for revenge of his own. Dressed in his iconic police leathers and driving his equally iconic supercharged Pursuit Special, he takes the gang down.
Mad Max is, frankly, a weird movie. It's subject to wickedly uneven pacing and a decided lack of focus. The film is named after one character but throughout the bulk of the film Max seems ancillary. While that may work, excitingly so for the fourth entry in a series, as his first and thus de facto origin story it's surprisingly Max-light. It feels from the get-go like a grindhouse-style ("Aussiesploitation" they call it) revenge fantasy mixed with the 60's and 70's cinema fascination with ramped-up motorcycles and cars, but the actual revenge angle doesn't set in until Max's family is killed, which is roughly 10 minutes before the end of the film.
In biding its time up until the maddening of Max, the film tries to explore its in the not so distant future scenario. Having never watched it before, I was unaware that it was not a post-apocolyptic movie like the rest in the series, though it certainly seems to be a just-shy of an apocolypse setting. Societal structures are breaking down, the police are a shambles, hampered by the law which criminals have learned to exploit. The lawless don't rule quite yet, but it's certainly looking for an opportunity to take over.
There are some well constructed chase sequences here, certain facets of which I've not seen before, so there remains unique elements to this movie. Unfortunately the most unique element to the film is its disjointed meandering which proves alternately tedious or baffling. I spent much of the film wondering exactly where it's story was going and why was it taking so long to get there.
Having seen all four films in the series in short span of time, I've come to appreciate them for their differences and their similarities, even if I don't necessarily like them all. I found it fascinating how the rudimentary elements of each film wound up seeding the latest in the series, a real "you wouldn't have gotten here without them" scenario. But Fury Road is more than just a culmination of the experiences of these previous endeavours, it's more considerate, better realized, less exploitative. That Miller developed it with British comic book weirdo (said with affection) Brendan McCarthy likely led to some of it's more outre elements, and his consultations with Vagina Monologues creator/playwright Eve Ensler, ensuring that the wives weren't just portrayed as silent, wide-eyed victims in the back seat, but instead seen as individually strong survivors with a strong gravitation towards community.
It's not exactly a contrast point, but there's certainly issue that can be had with Miller's portrayal of homosexuals in Mad Max and The Road Warrior. While I don't think Miller is anti-gay at all by the fact that his motorcycle gang in Mad Max and the raiders in The Road Warrior so seamlessly and thoughtlessly integrate gay males amidst the thieves, rapists and murderers, they're still the only representation of gay characters in his films, portrayed as part of the cackling crew of deviants. It's far from the harshest depiction of homosexuality on film but it's also clearly not the friendliest (although Wez, the mowhawked warrior in Humungus' crew has a rather touching, clearly visceral reaction when his lover is killed by the boomerang of the ridiculously '80's Feral Kid.)
Where it goes from here is uncertain, save to say that given Fury Road's incredible critical success, and more importantly for some, a massive financial win, there will be more. Fury Road and a second script, Mad Max: Furiosa, were written concurrently (and while the plan was to film them back-to-back, it seems it didn't happen that way), while Miller has stated that Mad Max: The Wasteland is next up. Tom Hardy signed on four a four-feature stint, so if we're very lucky, and if Miller's inventiveness holds up, as well as his desire to make a not just a wonderful action movie, but a meaningful one as well, we're in for a delicious series of treats in the coming years.
2019, Sean McNamara (That's So Raven) -- Amazon/StackTV
Full disclosure. I just tweaked the writing order of this post bumping it up, because its so fresh in my mind (to a degree) and because I just really want to write about this almost meta entry into the Hallmark Cinematic Universe that is Evergreen.
The Draw: Because Evergreen; that lovely town in upstate Vermont, so close to the North Pole that it forgets Canada exists. And because Evergreen is shot in Abbotsford, BC where sooooo many other Hallmarkies are shot. I am thinking that maybe my writing-it-in-my-head Hallmarkie will have to be shot/set there instead of the SSM I was originally envisioning, only because I visited SSM in June while they were shooting a yet to be released Hallmarkie.
HERstory:
Yay! The Xmas train is back! And boy is it cute in all its CGI-y goodness. Seriously, you are in BC, just find a real quaint looking train and drone shot the fucker. Anywayz, we kick things off with a meet cute between Katie (Maggie Lawson, Two and a Half Men) and Ben (Paul Greene, Bitten) who are both heading into Evergreen for the season, after the shaky train tosses her into his lap. Katie is a writer, coasting on magazine articles while struggling on he second novel. She's coming to Evergreen to see if the place is real, as it really cannot be a town that lives only for Xmas, can it? Meanwhile, Ben is from Evergreen. I don't remember where he was or why, but most likely a job interview or something Big City influenced.
The conversation between the two is quite amusing, and at some points, almost meta. She actually refers to the train they are on as being a conjunction of the Polar Express and the Hogworts Express. And she talks about the background of Evergreen being like Brigadoon, in that it appears and disappears, but as Ben points out, every year instead of every hundred years. And thus began the forming of my idea about the ECU in that there might actually be mystical ties to the PST.
Anywayz, they arrive and walk into town like proper tourists, amidst the fake snow and bright BRIGHT green grass underneath. Of course she is staying at the Inn, of course she has to pass by the Chris Kringle Kitchen and inevitably end up at Daisy's General Store, or whatever Lisa is calling it now that she owns the place. And there we go, there is Lisa and Allie and Michelle and Hannah, and laughing women standing outside the store must work in it. But wait, where are the men? Where are the guys that paired up with these women of Evergreen? Wait, is the weirdness that is Evergreen perhaps dependent on the sacrifice of men folk, to retain the Xmas-y nature that the PST has all year round. Is, perhaps, the Midwintaar ritual that hides behind the fake snow and PST exteriors?
But then Katie gets a call from Mom, who owns a news magazine and needs someone to write a puff piece because someone else backed out. So much for vacation time, onto work work work !!
Now, this entry of Evergreen lore is not as much about how the Big City Girl hooks up with the PST Library guy, as it is about all the other things going on in town. We get flashbacks to Evergreen that was, and the year they were snowed in for a month (that single road is their downfall again). And that ties to a secret time capsule that hunter-seeker kid from the last movie is chasing down now. And the snowglobe from the first movie is broken, so Hannah has to make goo goo eyes at the guy who can fix it, establishing her as the side-love-story for this entry.
Katie is showing some genuine affection for Ben, the guy who just works at the local library (he... does story time?) who used to be a journalist, but doesn't trust that Katie will write genuinely about Evergreen. We montage through the bulk of the movie, until David the Hunter-Seeker finds a key and finds the time capsule, which turns out to be a giant Advent Calendar behind a weird magical accordioning wooden wall. Nick, who someone finally commented on him looking like Santa on vacation, and not-Nora-but-Nan have been hiding the secret until the day came when it looked like it SHOULD be revealed, whatever that meant... maybe after they have hit the point where they need one more male inhabitant to be sacrificed to the Great Joulupukki that powers this Xmas town?
But whatever, we have the calendar revealed and also... what the fuh... it's before December 1st? They are only now ready to open the first spot in the calendar? Since when do these movies take place more than the week before Xmas? Was Katie expecting to be in Evergreen for the entire month of December? That's a weird vacation even if we forget her mom pressuring her to write a story and that she has a crush on Ben. Not only am I distracted by all these weird side plots and otherworldly elements, but I think the plot is, as Ben and Katie falling for each other is pretty sidelined.
December long montage. Seriously.
But as we get closer to Xmas Eve, Katie actually returns to Big City to spend time as she usually does -- avoiding her mom's Xmas Party and hanging out alone in her apartment. Somehow I missed Katie is just not that into Xmas. There is a brief but of miscommunication where Ben finds a badly worded except of the notes for Katie's story, but then she doesn't bother explaining and just doesn't write anything at all. Instead Ben writes his own story in the local paper about the women of Evergreen -- you know them: Allie, Lisa, Hannah, Nan, Barbara, etc. All the women who sacrifice some male figure in their life to.... OK, maybe not that but its a lovely story that Katie's mom loves so much she wants to publish and give Ben a chance at real writing for Big City Magazine. Katie and Ben hook up again, in the city AFTER Xmas and ... plan to do things together? Again, love story sidetracked by other things going on, not really paying attention to their own plot.
The Formulae: Even with all the weird shit going on in town, we still get some traditional Xmay tropes. Xmas Trees are captured, cookies are baked, frozen ponds are skated upon. Big City Girls come to PSTs where they meet PST Boys who like the simple life. There are brief misunderstandings and feelings bruised. Evergreen replaces red dresses with that vintage red truck. We do have Xmas parties, but they play little parts, overshadowed by other Xmas Events around the Advent Calendar from Oz.
Unformulae: That the bulk of the movie happens in the days before December 1st was entirely out character for one of these movies. And that the final connecting of the two love interests happens in the Big City after Xmas was ... weird TBH.
True Calling? I honestly don't know how that Xmas-y title has anything to do with the movie at all. But it was the title of the third book, from which this series arises.
The Rewind:
The Xmas Tree hunt always takes place at the local red barnyard, which uses the same stock image from above and just this side of the barn entrance. But when they zoom in, to have our characters arrive, the continuity is all wrong. Things are missing, structures are differently sized, and there is a WALL OF 40' TREES in the background.
Secondly, when a sheet of Katie's story-notes is left on the printer, we get a brief look at the less than flattering words. But its not them that begs a rewind and pause but the bad attempt at lorem ipsuming the rest, "You won't have to go far to find it Victorian a architecture and even a gushing waterfall." That is word for word what was written there, all the brain break bits of it.
Remember that church structure from the last movie where there was a bell tower activated by the key that David found, that was actually just being used for Xmas supplies storage? It is now suddenly an actual chapel that is bigger on the inside than the outside. Yup, a lovely TARDIS Church. But with all the other things going in this town, this is actually mystically plausible!
The Regulars: All the cast of the first two movies plus.... Maggie Lawson has done a few, while Paul Greene has done quite the boatload of them. Its funny, but despite these movies, and all their non-actual-Hallmark lot all use the same actors over and over, I am amazed at how few of the actors I actually do recognize from movie to movie. Maybe I need to just watch more of the Canadian made ones where I will recognize half the cast from all my Canadian made specfic shows.
How does it Hallmark? Surprisingly, not so much? Its because they trope laden main story keeps on getting interrupted by the mystical side stories of lost time capsules, month long winter storms, snow globes with deep secrets, ancient rituals to dark gods, mythical Santa figures that live off the lives of sacrificed men... Sorry, went away there for a bit. I think I have a Hallmarkie Meets Asylum Horror movie to write.
How does it movie? The one we were writing in our heads while watching it was .... slightly better?
How Does It Snow?
I only really paid attention to one example of the fake fake fake snow and that was the cotton batting laid over the very manicured bright green lawn in the background when Ben and Katie first arrive in town. The rest was ... the usual no real snow to be found.
I Saw This (double exclamation point) is our feature wherein Kent(!) or Toasty attempt to write about a bunch of stuff they watched some time ago and meant to write about but just never got around to doing so. But we can't not write cuz that would be bad, very bad. Ottawa Freedom Convoy bad.
What I Have Been (or Am) Watching is the admitted state of me spending too much time in front of the TV. But what else was the last few years about? Sure, we got a few breaks from being confined at home, and might have actually gone outside (gasp!) and socialized with (double-gasp!) human beings (faint-dead-away) but we always ended up back on the sofa, flicker in hand, trying to find something to watch amidst the 35 shows we downloaded, and the 5 or so streaming services we are subscribed to.
Star Trek: Picard, 2020, CBS Paramount+ -- download
The new season starts the first week of March (edit: just watched!), so I though I would rewatch. I didn't actually recall much beyond the basic details and that I rather loathed the last episode. I also recall absolutely loving the first episode and being disappointed it wasn't as emotionally weighty throughout. Surprisingly, without all the expectations holding me down, I rather enjoyed the rewatch, including the final episode. Oh, I still think it sucks on so many levels, but I didn't hate it anymore, much like I don't hate all the myriad of terrible episodes in TNG. And honestly, I can be incredibly "meh" about a lot of Star Trek but I will never hate it.
Recap. The Future. Picard has left Star Fleet and retired to his vineyard in Southern California France. Can I just state, that while I understand its predicated on locality, and on a rather nostalgic amusement at where and how the series were shot, it still annoys me that every planet in the Federation looks like southern California. Anywayz, Picard left angrily because the Federation cancelled its plans to assist the Romulans in evacuating their star system before the impending super nova. Remember, it is this super nova that sends Spock and his little whirly gig spaceship into the star, only to fail, and be sent back in time to create the Kelvin Timeline / Alternate Universe. The reason the Federation cancels its plans is because a handful of advanced Synths from the Institute *ahem* Daystrom Institute (sorry, Fallout 4 joke) bring down the shields on the Mars shipyards, causing destruction and the death of a lot of people. In reaction, the Federation bans all synthetic life. A bit of an overreaction, but they are being skillfully manipulated by some Romulans in secret places of power. The Federation never seems capable of not being infiltrated.
Picard gets dragged back into everything when a young woman, who happens to be an android built on reconstituted positronic neurons from Data, is murdered in front of him. Picard is desperate to find her twin, to save her from also being murdered by a mysterious cabal of Romulans. But the Federation says no to his plan (actually they literally tell him to fuck off) and he has to cobble together one from lost connections, and fly out to save the day.
What I noticed keenly during this rewatch was how the failure to rescue so many Romulans, Romulans that were being sacrificed by their own people BTW, was even more on Picard than on the Federation. When his plan was cancelled, he didn't marshal personal resources, break rules and head out anyway. He just had a tantrum, dumped the Federation and went to pout in his estate. He abandoned Romulans, he abandoned friends, and his tantrum tanked the reputation and career of his best friend (at the time) Raffi. And he hides away from this shame for almost 15 years.
Despite all the nostalgia and throwbacks to this series, once I am unfettered from my expectations, much of it felt like a melding of the movies and TNG. It was not as grand a departure from norm as Discoveryis was. But it does have fun with the newness. I am no longer annoyed with Picard becoming a Synth in his own right, despite the weirdness of them just giving him his fucking old body, and the remaining lifespan before the brain abnormality and the stress of the impending end of the galaxy killed him, but fuck all that "normal span of a human lifetime". How about just put him back into a body that represents what all people have in their mind's eye. Hell knows, I don't see this pudgy 50ish body full of aches and pains, so why not put Picard in a 40ish body full of vim & vigour and allow him to repair what he could have been doing during those 15 wasted years growing grapes.
Dirk Gently's Hollistic Detective Agency, 2016, BBC America -- Netflix
There are just so many aspects of this show that make me smile, that as we crawled through yet ANOTHER year of a Pandemic, and then fucking not-truck drivers began making fusses over things that a) were not really a right/big inconvenience/impact to "freedom" and b) were not entirely being controlled by the Canadian Federal Govt. But no matter, logic or intelligence did not play into this action, but boy did it bother the fuck out of me. And I needed a mood cleanser, so we sat down and began to slowly re-watch this lovely show.
And yep, smiling ensued.
I never did go deep into the plot the first time I wrote about this, mainly because the plot is so purposely convoluted, which is entirely where all the fun comes from. So, here's a stab.
Todd is an ex-indie band member in Seattle doing his best to earn money for his sister Amanda, who suffers from a debilitating disease, and she cannot often afford meds, and their parents have already been bankrupted by Todd having the same disease. Todd got better and then Amanda got sick. He works at a hotel as a bellhop where he is abused by his dick boss. Dick Boss sends Todd to see what is going on in the penthouse, and has a brief weird experience on the wrong floor, where he sees himself in all sorts of wacky clothing. But then he goes to the penthouse -- death and mayhem abound -- bodies chomped in two, blood everywhere, burn marks that look like bites taken out of the sofa, and the body of one of Seattle's wealthy elite. Todd gets in trouble for just walking through the door.
Back at home he comes across Dirk breaking into his shitty apartment. Disk is weird and that is saying it mildly. Overtly friendly and outgoing, he talks in riddles about how everything is connected and is convinced that whatever case he is working on (he claims to be a detective, a holistic detective) involves Todd. He decides Todd is his assistant. At first Todd resists, but then the weird things start compounding and Todd starts.... believing.
Meanwhile another holistic practitioner is wandering the roads killing whomever she comes across, because if the Universe put her in front of them, they should die. And she cannot be hurt, because the Universe won't let her be. And her goal in life is to find Dirk Gently and kill him. But she bumps into Ken, who she somehow doesn't immediately kill, so that must mean something. Because everything means something.
Meanwhile there is a weird cult of bald guys and a growly talking chubby ex-zoo worker who claims to be a famous dead rock star, who have a girl who has the soul of a corgi in her, while said corgi is wandering the streets. She is the daughter of the dead wealthy elite guy, and Dirk was hired to find her. And there are two Seattle detectives, working the missing persons case for her, and bumping into all the mayhem.
There is also a van full of hooligans, led by our fav actor Michael Eklund, and yes their van growls. For some reason Amanda is attracted to their weirdness, especially after she has an attack of her disease and they suck the pain off, like so many psychic vampires. Meanwhile, there are a weird pair (lots of pairs in the show) of black ops type soldiers trying to hunt down these hooligans, and Dirk.
And there is Farah, the bodyguard of the wealthy elite dead guy, who has been kidnapped by the cult, and is in turn, through a series of coincidences and circumstances, released by Dirk and Todd, and joins the "detective agency" to figure out what is going on, find the dog, save the girl (not cheerleader) and stop the cult.
Didn't I say there were a lot of moving pieces?
But its how it all comes together as well as watching the gears in this huge crazy machine move, which makes this show so much fun to watch. Performances are over the top, often sometimes insane (I am talking about you, Ty Olsson as tweaker landlord Dorian) and sometimes hard to comprehend. And being shot in the Vancouver environs, the cast is full of the usual Canadian familiar faces. There are just so many lines, and so many manners of delivery that just make me smile, it is a welcome respite in all this chaos we currently live in.
P.S. That was just Season One above, and season two, while still as enjoyable, is not as precisely perfect as the first season, being more all heroic journey into a fantasy fairy tale world grown from the mind of a child, and is somewhat marred by a less than confident Dirk, a surprisingly sociopathic Ken, but raised up by performances from Tyler Labine and Alan Tudyk.
