Exploring "A House of Dynamite"

Katheryn Bigelow's latest thriller, "A House of Dynamite," is one of the most frustrating films I've ever watched, and I strongly suspect that this is the point.  The subject matter is the stuff of typical thrillers and action films, where a nuclear missile is discovered inbound for the continental United States, and those in charge only have minutes to deal with it.  However, this is not one of those universes where everything works like clockwork, and all the systems created to handle this situation function as intended.  Instead, the message here seems to be that if a nuke ever really was launched at the US, the response would be chaotic and insufficient, and the decisionmakers would be woefully unprepared.  The movie is good, but deeply unnerving and purposefully doesn't follow the rules of a typically Hollywood thriller.  The ending in particular is going to make a lot of people very upset.

Past this point, I'm going to spoil the whole movie, because the structure of the piece is important to any analysis of what it's doing.  Also, knowing what's going to happen may better help set expectations.  The actual missile crisis in "A House of Dynamite" only lasts for roughly fifteen minutes, and it's replayed three times from different points of view.  First, we see it unfold from the White House Situation Room, being run by Captain Olivia Walker (Rebecca Ferguson).  Then, we follow the Deputy National Security Advisor, Jake Bearington (Gabriel Basso), who is trying to provide advice to the decisionmakers.  Finally, we follow the President of the United States (Idris Elba), as he gathers information to decide what the US response should be.  There are additional POVs from the Secretary of Defence (Jared Harris), the First Lady (Renée  Elise Goldberry), the commander of a US military base (Anthony Ramos), the commander of STRATCOM (Tracy Letts), an NSA expert on North Korea (Greta Lee), the military aide in change of the nuclear football (Jonah Hauer-King), and others.

Because the situation unfolds so fast, there's no time to cover all of these different characters' experiences in a single narrative, which I believe is the main reason for the repetition.  Also, having that structure in place, where we already understand what the outcome is going to be after the first run-through, makes the audience more aware of the futility of some of the characters' actions, and how small delays and technological snafus can have a massive impact.  Every single character is caught off guard by the crisis, and everyone reacts in very human ways to what they consider an unthinkable scenario.  A significant amount of time is wasted dealing with simple communications issues.  Bearington is on his way to work, and we watch him clumsily try to hold a video call while walking through city streets and navigating a security checkpoint.  The President is in the middle of a youth basketball meet-and-greet when he learns about the situation.  Greta Lee's character, amusingly, is watching a Battle of Gettysburg reenactment with her young son.  Everyone seems to be in a state of shock as they watch the events unfold, often asking if something is really happening, or if anyone knows what's going on.  

Written by Noah Oppenheim, a former broadcast news producer, "A House of Dynamite," offers a degree of realism that I appreciate seeing onscreen.   The security provided by our armed forces and military hardware is largely an illusion when it comes to a nuclear doomsday scenario like this one, and I like that Bigelow isn't afraid to show us the ugly truth of mutually assured destruction strategies up close and personal.  Some of the people in charge stay calm and collected.  Others disintegrate.  This film fits right into the genre of anti-nuclear proliferation films that were common in the 1980s, and since the nukes might be making a comeback, it's fitting that the films warning us about nuclear war should be back too.    

The performances are great, a few questionable accents notwithstanding, though only a handful of characters are onscreen long enough to give us more nuanced portraits of the people involved.  Idris Elba stands out as a President having a bad day that turns into a much worse one, admitting that he's unprepared when the time comes to make the big decisions.  I like that Bigelow includes several brief moments with characters like a Secret Service agent played by Brian Tee, and a FEMA official based in Chicago played by Moses Ingram, to give us more reactions from those on the periphery.

Because the treatment of the material is so unorthodox, I expect that "A House of Dynamite" is not going to get much traction with audiences.  However, its unusual candidness will keep it in the conversation whenever anyone tries to make a similar film in the future.  I certainly won't ever look at a typical "launch the missiles" scene the same way again.

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The Simplicity of "Multiplicity"

I saw the poster for the Harold Ramis comedy "Multiplicity" so many times in 1996, but it was one of those movies that I just never crossed paths with.  It was a box office bomb, and never entered the rotation of syndicated movies that would play constantly on our local television channels on the weekends.  We all knew who Michael Keaton was, but he wasn't enough of a draw in the mid-90s to sway my family to rent one of his movies instead of the latest Robin Williams or Jim Carrey vehicle.  Still, "Multiplicity" seemed to be a movie that I would enjoy.  It had a goofy sci-fi premise.  It had Andie MacDowell, who I generally like, as the female lead.  So, this was definitely on that endless running list of movies that I meant to check out eventually, someday.

Well, someday turned out to be yesterday.  "Multiplicity" is currently available on Tubi, so I went ahead and took the plunge.  The movie is not very good, but it's fascinating to look at as an artifact of the '90s, so I gotta write about it.  Spoilers ahead.

There is very little that surprised me about "Multiplicity."  It fits very well in that vein of 90s comedy based on material taken from "National Lampoon," mining the base instincts and preoccupations of the Boomer male for comedy.  Doug Kinney is a sympathetic protagonist, at least at first.  He's an overworked construction foreman who never has enough hours in the day for his job, his family, and himself.  Through the magic of Harris Yulin in a lab coat, Doug gets his very own clone to help out - meaning a Xerox copy of himself with the same memories up to the point of cloning.  Then another clone.  Then another clone.  These clones are initially referred to by number - Two, Three, and Four - before getting their own names.  Two spends all his time working construction and comes across as very masculine and assertive.  Three does most of the domestic wrangling, has a lot of feminine behaviors, and is very gay coded.  Four, who was cloned from one of the other clones, and thus not as "sharp," is a walking dumbbell who is there for comic relief.  It's obvious why Michael Keaton signed on, because he gets to play four funny versions of the same guy.  Keaton does a decent job, but the writing really doesn't do him any favors.

Though one of the four credited writers is a woman, "Multiplicity" is a product of the male id.  Doug has let his life get so overbooked that he needs two other versions of himself working full time to get a break.  His wife Laura is a flimsily constructed creature who creates a lot of Doug's problems by going back to work, but this isn't a "Mr. Mom" scenario where the couple really feel like partners sharing their struggles.  All the extra work falls on Doug's shoulders and Laura is so preoccupied that she doesn't ever realize that there are three additional Dougs living out of the family shed to help pick up the slack.  Doug insists that the clones should never be intimate with her, as his unbreakable "Rule One," but she ends up sleeping with all three of them inadvertently.  To sidestep any difficult moral questions and emotional fallout, Laura just never finds out the truth.  She takes what she thinks are Doug's wild personality shifts and forgetfulness to be symptoms of a failing relationship, and temporarily leaves with the kids.  Doug, who by this time has been fired from his demanding job, and has learned that too much free time is bad, is able to win her back by finally fulfilling his promise to remodel the house.  He proves his devotion through manual labor and the promise of a job change.  Then, even though there's no sign that Doug's life will get any less busy, he sends the clones off to Florida together to start lives of their own.    

The obvious joke here is that Doug can't handle a situation that many working parents have been handling forever, even with all the extra hands.  However, that's not really fair, as Doug is never shown to be anything but a loving and well-meaning father, who tries to do the right thing with the wrong methods.  The bigger issue is that Doug being overworked is really just scaffolding for all the clone humor, and the movie never really takes his troubles all that seriously.  The scripting also shows a lack of imagination, barely exploring the consequences of having the clones around.  Nobody notices the grocery bill going up or the other extra expenses.  Laura never catches on about the clones, but neither do the kids or anybody else.  The cloning lab is so inconsequential that the clones may as well have been made by magic.  Even the sexual hijinks are pretty tame.  The moral implications are the only interesting part, which are skipped over entirely.   

Instead, a lot of "Multiplicity" hinges on the audience being impressed by the gimmick of multiple Michael Keatons onscreen at the same time.  The effects are very good - good enough that I forgot about them a lot of the time - except that the camera kept drawing attention to the double/triple/quadruple act in distracting ways.  The characterization of the clones also gets overly cartoonish in a hurry.  Two was initially interesting in that he lets Doug see what his life would have looked like if he'd stayed single and unattached, but this doesn't really go anywhere.  When all three clones are interacting, they come off as three completely different personalities - which is great for the comedy, but it all feels arbitrary and convenient, with no attempt to explain why each clone has such different traits.  Three in particular just comes across as bizarre, especially since the implication is that doing housework makes you more feminine.  

Am I overthinking a silly comedy?  Sure, but "Multiplicity" came out a few years after "Mrs. Doubtfire" and "The Nutty Professor" already covered much of the same material much more thoughtfully and successfully.  I can't think of anything that "Multiplicity" did that a dozen other movies of the same era did better.  Keaton's performances just end up reminding me of when he played similar characters in prior films.  Apparently there was quite a bit of improv in the "Multiplicity," and Keaton only had himself for a scene partner a lot of the time, which didn't help.  

I'm glad that I finally watched this, but I don't think I missed much by not having "Multiplicity" in my regular movie rotation growing up.  Keaton's made plenty of movies I like better.     

    

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"Nobody Wants This," Year Two

Joanne and Noah are back, for another season of "will they, won't they," as Joanne considers converting to Judaism for Noah, and Noah considers new career opportunities to be with Joanne.  They spend the season exploring more aspects of the Jewish faith, including episodes about naming ceremonies and Purim.  However, that's not enough to fill a whole ten episodes, so there's a lot of time spent with two other couples this year - Esther and Sasha, and Morgan and her new boyfriend, Dr. Andy (Arian Moayed).

"Nobody Wants This" feels more like a traditional sitcom than most of the comedies I've been watching, even though it's not a multi-camera show, and even though I've never seen another series be this candid about Jewish characters' struggles with their faith.  This season feels like many second seasons of shows that are hoping to be long-running series, especially in the way that it has narrowed down its conflicts to very simple, relationship-centric issues that can be repeated ad nauseum.  The Valentine's Day episode is all about Noah trying to create the most impressive Valentine's experience, while Joanne just wants something more personal.  Awkward culture clashes are repeatedly assuaged with cute affirmations of devotion.  The cast of regulars is also much more clearly defined - Joanne, Noah, Esther, Sasha, and Morgan are the main characters.  We still see plenty of Bina, but other formerly recurring characters like Miriam and the Head Rabbi are very scarce.

However, the leads are all strong, and each one of them can carry the show if necessary.  Now that Esther doesn't have to be the hostile future in-law, she's much more compelling as she considers having another child what it means for her happiness.  Morgan has the most dramatic arc, as is fitting for her dramatic personality, when she pairs up with a new man who seems to be perfect for her, but she might be rushing into things.  Then there's  Joanne and Noah, who discover that they don't know each other or themselves as well as they thought they did, as they keep hitting relationship snags.  The big one, of course, is that Joanne isn't sure about converting, and Noah doesn't want to rush her, but this does impact Noah's life negatively in various ways.  On the Jewish faith front, easily the most interesting subplot involves Noah becoming involved with the much more liberal Temple Ahava, run by Rabbi Neil (Seth Rogen), and discovering that he's more traditional than he realized.       

There are some good guest stars this year.  I want to point out Leighton Meester as Abby, an old friend of Joanne's, who is at the center of the season's funniest episode, where everyone is at a party trying to be on their best behavior.   Arian Moayed as Dr. Andy does a great job of riding the line between eccentric and concerning.  And  then there are Morgan and Joanne's parents, Lynn (Stephanie Faracy) and Henry (Micahel Hitchcock), who prove to be just as much of an aggravation to Joanne this year as the openly disapproving Bina.  They were both around last season, but this year lays the groundwork for the two of them to become much more involved, if "Nobody Wants This" decides to go in that direction.  

My only complaint with the show right now is that it's noticeably shifting gears to prepare for a longer run than I think it originally intended.  Ten episodes isn't a short season by modern standards, and it still feels like it went by too fast and didn't get enough done.  An awful lot of time is spent setting things up that aren't going to pay off for a long time, and very little gets resolved.  Issues that were pretty central in season one, like the fate of Joanne and Morgan's podcast, seem to have been completely backburnered in the second.  I expect that future seasons will address some of these things, but it's frustrating when Noah's employment worries are just ignored after a few episodes, and it feels like we've somehow skipped some important moments with Esther before her big decision in the finale.

Fortunately, a comedy like "Nobody Wants This" has a perfectly reasonable production timeline, and I don't expect it'll be too long before I get a few more answers in season three - assuming the show doesn't get cancelled first.

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Podcasts Ahoy! 2025 Edition

It's been a minute hasn't it?  I did a post for Youtube channels instead of podcasts last year, as several of my favorite media podcasts have been quietly morphing into Youtube channels recently, but there's still a clear distinction between the two mediums.  And I've definitely latched on to enough new podcasts over the past two years to write a new post about.   Below are a couple of new and new-to-me offerings that I've started following since my last podcast post.

Going Rogue - Australian writer Tansy Gardam is my new favorite podcaster.  She is the main writer, researcher and host of "Going Rogue," which has gone through a couple of permutations, but can be broadly described as a show about the endless drama of getting movies made.  Initially, in 2022, it was a six part miniseries on the making of "Rogue One: A Star Wars Story."  This was followed by seasons covering "Solo: A Star Wars Story," the 2007 WGA strike and its fallout, and "The Pirates of the Caribbean" movies.  Lately, there have been a lot of one-off episodes devoted to a diverse selection of titles including "Megalopolis," "Gladiator II," and Kenneth Branagh's "Cinderella."  Every episode is extremely well researched, often following the development of a film for decades on its way to the silver screen.  I love the "Megalopolis" episode in particular for explaining the reasoning behind some of Francis Ford Coppola's artistic choices, including his fascination with "live cinema."    

The Big Picture - I've brought up the Ringer podcasts before, but I want to give special recognition to "The Big Picture," hosted by Sean Fennessey, Amanda Dobbins, and a revolving group of other co-hosts.  The show premiered roughly around 2017, and follows the familiar format of reviews and interviews revolving around new releases.  However, "The Big Picture" is also run by some of the most insanely knowledgeable film geeks I've ever encountered, and they dig into awards races, top five/ten/twenty-five lists, and rankings with a gusto that I find super impressive.  What they're best known for is probably their movie drafts, where they'll invite a few friends and run a draft of movies by year or actor or director.  They did one for Tom Cruise movies recently that ensured I will never forget which "Mission: Impossible" movie is which, ever again.  However, the nerdiest movie podcast discussion I think I've ever heard in my life was probably their Sidney Lumet episode last year, when it became apparent that Sean had seen all or nearly all of the forty-three movies that Lumet had directed over the course of his storied career.  Now that's dedication.

The Spiel - From the folks that brought you "The Kingcast" comes another podcast about a famous Steve.  "The Spiel" is all about the films and shows that Steven Spielberg was involved with in some way.  Hosted by Eric Vespe, the guests have been fantastic, including some of Spielberg's major collaborators like producer Frank Marshall and screenwriter David Koepp.  Rian Johnson stopped by  a few months ago to talk about the early episodes of "Columbo" that Spielberg directed at the beginning of his career.  I especially appreciate that the show counts any Spielberg involvement as fair game, so they'll talk about movies that Spielberg or Amblin only produced, like "Casper" or "The Goonies" or "Joe vs The Volcano."  There's an "Animaniacs" epsiode.  There's an episode on John Williams scores for Spielberg movies.  I hope that Vespe will manage to wrangle an appearance by Spielberg himself one of these days - "The Kingcast" got their Steve, so it's not impossible.

Little Gold Men - Finally, I want to send a little love to Vanity Fair's long-running "Little Gold Men" awards season podcast, especially since we're losing another host to editorial changes.  It's always a great resource for interviews and putting titles on my radar that I might otherwise have missed.  They also talk about festivals, controversies, business deals, campaigns, and pretty much anything else going on in the industry that could affect the awards races, so I like checking in regularly to keep myself informed.  

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Del Toro Finally Made His "Frankenstein"

Guillermo Del Toro has not hidden the fact that "Frankenstein" is one of his dream projects, embodying all the themes of monsters and the monstrosity of men that have appeared in all of his best work.  So, it's no surprise that his "Frankenstein" film is one of his most lavishly beautiful, and the story it tells feels very personal to Del Toro.  I'm pretty familiar with all the major film versions of "Frankenstein," and Del Toro's version is a welcome new addition.  I've never seen one quite like it.

We begin in the frozen Arctic, where a dying Victor Frankenstein (Oscar Isaac) is rescued by a Danish ship on an expedition to the North Pole, led by Captain Anderson (Lars Mikkelson).  After a thwarted attack by the Creature (Jacob Elordi), Frankenstein relays his history to the captain, starting with his tragic childhood and ending with the creation of The Creature.  This takes up the first half of the film.  The Creature has his say in the second half, covering events until the present day.  In this version of the story, Victor's love interest Elizabeth (Mia Goth), is the daughter of the arms dealer Harlander (Christoph Waltz), who funds Victor's experiments.  She's also not Victor's intended, but the fiancee of Victor's younger brother William (Felix Kammerer), and bonds with Victor over her love of the natural world.

There's an over-the-top theatricality to Victor Frankenstein's half of the film, where Oscar Isaac gives us an arrogant, feckless Frankenstein, who is single-minded in his pursuit of reanimating the dead.  Del Toro makes him more complicit in the tragedies that befall him, especially his unwillingness to recognize the Creature as a person.  Frankenstein has never been a very sympathetic character in any telling of this story, but here Del Toro seeks to humanize him more by framing his behavior as part of a legacy of generational trauma.  Isaac makes him funny, charming, and a showman when he wants to be, and a petulant, cowardly, selfish wretch in his moments of weakness.  Yet, this Frankenstein also displays the ability to learn from his mistakes, and the redemptive ending feels earned.  

However, the best performance in the film is far and away Jacob Elordi as the Creature.  He's totally unrecognizable under the elaborate makeup and prosthetics, and using a voice that has been deepened and modified to sound more inhuman.  Initially the mostly mute, nearly naked newborn Creature seems almost human, and it's the actions of Frankenstein and the Creature's subsequent exposure to the world that create the destructive, rampaging  monster who causes so much harm.  Likewise, Elordi's performance becomes more and more compelling as the Creature gains awareness of and experience with the dark side of humanity.  He comes into focus fairly late in the film, in the subdued, melancholic scenes with an old blind man played by David Bradley, as he draws parallels between Bible stories and his own sad history.   

It's easy to lose sight of how deeply sad and macabre the story is, with Guillermo Del Toro indulging in sumptuous art direction and gloriously colorful cinematography every chance he gets.  And there's never a moment that this doesn't feel like Del Toro's work.  There's almost nothing that recalls James Whale and Boris Karloff - even a few campy moments in the laboratory are of an entirely different tenor.  I don't begrudge him any of the excess and pageantry, as the amount of effort that went into every frame of this film is incredibly impressive.  It often feels like Del Toro is throwing everything he has into "Frankenstein," as if he may never get a chance to make another movie.  However, "Frankenstein" is at its most moving when it's at its simplest, and the visuals are at their bleakest.      

And I found it very affecting that eventually we do get to the heart of the story, where Frankenstein has to confront the Creature and himself.  And despite all the beautiful gore and dazzling costumes and magnificent set design, the best parts of the film come down to good, old fashioned storytelling through the carefully played conversations and a great monologue or two.  Guillermo Del Toro's "Frankenstein" is a horror film and a creature feature, but it's also a tremendously touching piece about fatherhood and creation and taking responsibility for your actions.  It's my favorite film of Del Toro's in over a decade, and it was worth the wait.

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"The Diplomat," Year Three

Because I don't know what you're doing watching the third season of "The Diplomat" without having watched the first two, spoilers for those first two seasons lie ahead.  Please step carefully.

Recent events in world politics mean that "The Diplomat" now operates in an alternate universe where there are still some standards as to how major US politicians and officials conduct themselves.  No matter what the outrageous twists and turns the writers come up with this season, it all feels perfectly plausible in light of what's actually going on with the current administration.  And boy did they fit a lot of twists and turns into the eight episodes that make up this season.

Initially, there are several major changes in the status quo, with Grace Penn becoming the U.S. President, which means the Vice Presidency is up for grabs, and Bradley Whitford gets to join the cast as Todd Penn, the delightful First Gentleman.  Kate also gets a new love interest in Callum Ellis (Aidan Turner), a British spy, and we spend a lot more time with Billie Appiah (Nana Mensah), the no-nonsense White House Chief of Staff, and Nora Koriem (Rosaline Elbay), the VP's Chief of Staff.  Kate and Hal's marriage is tested as it has never been tested before.  And while the whole messy affair with the aircraft carrier attack is no longer the most pressing problem in the show, of course the potential for scandal remains high and everyone's trying to figure out who takes the blame.      

I really enjoy the way that "The Diplomat" has become such an ensemble show, and it's now less about solving a particular crisis, and more about seeing what happens when you have Allison Janney and Rory Kinnear facing off against each other in a scene, or how Bradley Whitford has somehow ended up in the position of the show's best comic relief.  We get a lot of Rufus Sewell as Hal this year, which means that the storylines with Hal and Kate feel fully front and center and supercharged in a way they haven't always been previously.  "The Diplomat" is at its best when the Wylers are at each other's throats.  And at the same time, I can't help rooting for them as a couple.  

Though the quality level remains high, It feels like the writing has taken a step down this year, not only because the premise of "The Diplomat" has shifted from its original form into something else, but also because it's clear that the show has become beholden to certain expectations.  We have to end on a big cliffhanger, for instance.  It's also noticeable that the show does a few tricky things to keep every member of our main cast involved in the big storylines and in close proximity with each other, most notably Stuart Hayford and Eidra Park.  "The Diplomat" has proven very capable of juggling all of its characters and ensuring that everyone gets something interesting to do, but there's also a lot less of a sense of narrative momentum with the big mystery of the first season mostly resolved.  The character drama mostly makes up for it, but sometimes they could have used a little more oomph.  

The reliance on big twists also makes it harder to trust when the writers are being sincere about certain storytelling choices.  Aidan Turner is a nice addition to the cast this year, but I was waiting for something terrible to happen to his character  from the moment he was introduced.  I don't think the show is ever going to top the season two finale in any case.  Also, I don't think that the binge model is doing them any favors.  I very deliberately didn't watch more than one episode in a sitting, and it still didn't feel like I had enough time to fully absorb most of the events.  

However, these are pretty minor complaints for one of the best series currently running on any platform.  The production has never looked better, taking advantage of some gorgeous UK locations.  All the actors remain fully at the top of their game, even if they aren't around for long - Rory Kinnear makes his few appearances really count.  And Keri Russell as Kate Wyler remains the kind of heroine who I'll happily watch until the end, even without Hal if it comes to that.  On a show like "The Diplomat," I'm not ruling anything out.  

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PIXAR in the Wilderness

This was a rough summer at the box office, with several notable bombs and unexpected underperformers.  Once sure bets are now no longer guaranteed to even make their budgets back, as evidenced by the shrugs that greeted "Thunderbolts" and "Fantastic Four."  However, today I want to talk about "Elio," the latest PIXAR film.  New PIXAR films used to be a license to print money, and their sequels to past hits like "Inside Out 2" can still be blockbusters.  "Elio," however, despite being well reviewed, and despite being made for the underserved family audience, had the lowest opening for any PIXAR film, not counting the pandemic era releases.

We can parse this in many ways.  First, all films that aren't part of a franchise or based on existing IP have been a much tougher sell in recent years.  However, animated family films tend to have much stronger legs, and aren't so dependent on their opening weekends.  After "Elemental" started soft, with an opening weekend total not much higher than Elio's, it managed a respectable tenth place at the 2023 domestic summer box office, right between "Transformers: Rise of the Beasts" and  "Fast X."  I fully expect that "Elio" is going to perform in a similar way, especially since the reviews have been good.

However, there's no getting away from the fact that the cultural cachet of PIXAR films has been significantly eroded.  Many blame the pandemic, where Disney decided to skip theatrical releases for three original PIXAR films - "Soul," "Turning Red," and "Luca," -  and premiere them on the Disney+ streaming service instead.  However, things may have already been on a downswing.  "Onward," which hit theaters in March of 2020, only had a partial release because of lockdowns, but its opening weekend was one of the lowest for a PIXAR film at that time.  Some blame the flood of sequels that outnumbered the original PIXAR films in the 2010s or the departure of John Lasseter in 2018.  Some blame changing audience tastes and expectations.   

Because I'm an animation nerd, I can't help drawing parallels to Disney animation.  PIXAR has been in the business of making movies for a little over thirty years.  Its first feature, "Toy Story," was released in 1995.  When the Disney animation studios were at the same point in their history, thirty years after "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs," it was 1967.  "The Jungle Book" was enjoying massive box office success, but Walt Disney had just died, and the studio was about to enter a twenty year period of decline and obscurity before its Renaissance.  They nearly closed down for good in the 1980s.  During this era, the original artists who were the backbone of the studio were retiring, and there was a sense of cheapness and  artistic stagnation around the projects that were being produced.

There are many differences between the two studios, of course, but the one thing I keep coming back to is that PIXAR, like Disney, was a storied pioneer of a particular form of  animation, and set the standard for what animated films could be for a very long time.  Though PIXAR always had competitors from the beginning, their movies just looked and sounded and played better than what came out of Dreamworks or Illumination or Blue Sky.  The level of quality was dependably higher, the films more polished, and the talent involved more impressive.  That's changed over time, and now PIXAR often feels like it's a few steps behind, relying on its old characters and too much nostalgia.  

Probably no bigger indicator of the trouble PIXAR is in is the changed attitude toward its familiar house style.  "The PIXAR style" used to be the default for CGI, what everyone else was trying to look like.  After "Spider-man: Into the Spiderverse," now the 2D/3D hybrid styles are becoming more popular, and a film like "Elio" starts looking safe and old hat.  The big animated hit of the summer was Sony and Netflix's "KPop Demon Hunters," a streaming release that nobody saw coming.  We're far from PIXAR reaching any kind of artistic or economic nadir, but after thirty years, it also feels like the studio is overdue for a change - culturally, artistically, and maybe in other ways too.  "Luca" director Enrico Casarosa has an upcoming feature that could be the beginning of this.  "Gatto," due in summer of 2027, will be PIXAR's first "hand-painted" animated film.  

Change is not easy, however.  Again, it took Disney twenty years to get out of the wilderness, and their transition from traditional to CGI animation a decade later was also a rough one.  Everyone loves "Tangled" and "Frozen," but forgets that "Dinosaur," "Bolt," "Chicken Little," and "Meet the Robinsons" preceded them.  What's really interesting this time around is that there's a high likelihood that we're going to see both PIXAR and Disney Animation go through their next transitional phases simultaneously.  After the recent flops of "Strange World" and "Wish," Disney's in just as bad a position as PIXAR right now with its originals.

But if history tells us anything, they'll be back on top again soon enough.

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Earth to "Elio"

It took me a while to figure out why PIXAR's "Elio" felt so familiar, even though we haven't really had much children's media about aliens or space exploration in a while.  And then it hit me - the plot was taking a lot of beats from the kids' science-fiction films that were popular in the 1980s after "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial" was a hit - "The Last Starfighter," "Flight of the Navigator," and "Explorers."  "Elio" often feels like a jazzed up version of one of these stories that might have been made in the '80s, if the filmmakers at that time had had the resources and technology available.  

Eleven year-old Elio Solís (Yonas Kibreab) is a lonely kid who is obsessed with getting himself abducted by aliens.  He lives with his Aunt Olga (Zoe Saldaña), who loves him, but is at her wit's end trying to stay on top of his alien-attracting schemes and oddball behavior.  She wants him to make some friends instead of spending so much time by himself.  Eventually Elio does attract the attention of cosmic beings, and he ends up in the middle of a conflict between the Communiverse, populated by a collection of friendly alien ambassadors, and an aggressive invader named Lord Grigon (Brad Garrett).  He also does make his first friend, a tardigrade-like alien kid named Glordon (Remy Edgerly).   

  

Even though "Elio" is about space travel and aliens, it feels very small scale and very personal.  Elio went through some early childhood trauma and never really figured out how to connect to anybody on Earth, so he's looking for somewhere else to call home.  The adventure he goes on is full of beautifully designed, but completely kid-friendly aliens.  Even the villain turns out to be a concerned father whose better nature can be appealed to with the right tactics.  All the messaging is very sweet and positive, about learning to accept help and find common ground.  Though the opening sequence happens in the wake of parental loss, this doesn't play a big part in the story.  What peril there is, is pretty mild.  And I expect that all of this is the reason why "Elio" comes off as more of a film specifically made for children, and pretty young children at that, instead of a general audiences film.  The only real adult in the whole story is Olga, an Air Force major who can be called on to navigate a spaceship in a pinch, but acts like a stressed out Mom most of the time.  

I respect where "Elio" is coming from, and every intention behind it was clearly good.  However, it comes off as very bland and very derivative of other PIXAR features.  We've had a few too many earnest PIXAR kid heroes learning important life lessons lately, and a few too many premises that seem overly familiar and safe.  I kept wondering if "Elio" might have recycled some of the assets from "Lightyear," which has similar space travel aesthetics, or maybe some of the bioluminescent critters from Disney's "Strange World" to help fill out the ranks of the aliens.  I like that "Elio" incorporates a few recordings of Carl Sagan, and real world references to the achievements of the U.S. space program, but at the same time its all feels a little too nostalgic - too preoccupied with looking backwards.  The Space Race is now decades in the past, and it's been proven time and again that the current generation of kids isn't interested in what might have fascinated their parents and grandparents when they were the same age.  "Lightyear," "Tomorrowland," "The Electric State," and plenty of other bombs have made the same mistake.

Am I overthinking this?  Probably, but "Elio" often feels so much like somebody trying to recapture the feeling of their favorite films from when they were a kid, except with all the rough edges sanded off and all the scary or dangerous or inappropriate bits scrubbed out.  "Elio" feels so toothless next to similar films that have tackled similar subject matter.  I may not be happy about "Lilo and Stitch" being remade, for instance, but that one still felt more gutsy than this.  Maybe they should have gone ahead and just set "Elio" in the '80s, back when an eleven year-old boy was expected to get in much more serious trouble.  

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My Top Ten Episodes of 2012-2013

Below, find my top ten episodes for the 2012-2013 television season below, in no particular order.  And a few spoilers ahead, including that one episode of "Game of Thrones."  Yes, that one. 

House of Cards, "Chapter 1" - Arguably this is the most culturally pivotal episode on this list, because "House of Cards" was the first real streaming hit when Netflix decided to move into original programming.  I'm picking the premiere episode, because I admire the skill with which we are introduced to Kevin Spacey's ruthless congressman, Frank Underwood, and everyone in his circle.  This also marked the start of director David Fincher's long relationship with Netflix.

Orphan Black, "Variations Under Domestication" - The marvel of "Orphan Black" was always Tatiana Maslany's multiple performances as the various clones, and uptight suburban mom Alison is my favorite.  So, of course I love the episode where Alison has to juggle hosting a neighborhood party and trying to get answers out of a suspicious Donnie at the same time.  This is also my favorite Vic episode, because he's at his best when the universe is out to get him.  

Utopia, "Episode 1" - "Utopia" immediately gained attention for its disturbing use of graphic violence, including a torture scene in the first episode.  What struck me the most was the art direction, which uses a lot of whimsical imagery and exaggerated artifice, adding to the uneasy feeling that something is very wrong.  Couple that with Cristobal Tapia De Veer's psychedelic score, and "Utopia" quickly stood out from the crowd as a totally singular piece of media.  

The Americans, "The Clock" - This is only the second episode of the show, but it's already established that characters on both sides will be difficult to root for.  On the one hand you have the Jennings, who demonstrate that they're willing to do some pretty despicable things to fulfill their missions, and on the other there's Stan Beeman, who spends this episode digging up information to use as leverage to get Nina to spy for him.  Should we root for both?  Or neither?  

Rick & Morty, "Rick Potion No. 9" -  About halfway through the show's excellent first season, this is the episode that fully won me over, thanks to an ending where Rick essentially just gives up on the terrible situation he's caused, finds a new dimension for himself and Morty, and nothing is actually resolved.   The animation is fabulous at rendering its monsters, the writing is incredibly dark and twisted, and I'd never heard "Cronenberg" used as a verb before this episode. 

Breaking Bad, "Dead Freight" - It's a train heist episode!  This'll be fun, right?  The caper episodes of "Breaking Bad" were always some of my favorites, but this time around Todd is involved, and Todd demonstrates that he does not have any scruples whatsoever.  As Walt and Jesse  compromise themselves further and further, they cross lines they would never have crossed in prior seasons, and get too comfortable with the worst people, until inevitable tragedy strikes. 

Hannibal, "Coquilles" - I absolutely had to have an episode from the first season of "Hannibal."  After all this time, it still seems crazy that this aired in prime time on network television.  "Coquilles" had one of the most grisly of the show's famous murder tableaux, where the partial nudity is what got the creators into trouble, not the mutilated corpses.  I also love the first appearance of Gina Torres as Phyllis "Bella" Crawford, alongside her real life husband, Lawrence Fishburne.  

Person of Interest, "God Mode" - Here's a fun one.  "Person of Interest" was a nice balance of action show and crime procedural, but occasionally they would do a pure action episode, and this was one of the best.  Reese and Shaw are both given direct access to the Machine in the second season finale, allowing them to use "God Mode" - exploiting the Machine's omniscience to become unstoppable.  Amy Acker's Root also continues to be a very entertaining villain.

Game of Thrones, "The Rains of Castamere" - I wish I hadn't known this episode was coming, because it didn't live up to the hype.  How could it?  "Game of Thrones" was already known for its shocking and bloody twists, and this was one of the most shocking and the most bloody.  It absolutely impacted what television storytelling could do moving forward, though not all for the better.  At least Michelly Fairley got to show that Catelyn was capable of some real violence on her way out.

Mad Men, "In Care Of" - In many ways "Mad Men" is bookended by two of Don Draper's pitches.  The brilliant Carousel pitch in the first season shows him weaponizing the power of nostalgia.  Here, we have its inverse, the Hershey pitch, where Don's unnerving and unvarnished revelation about the truth of his past becomes the final straw that prompts the firm to cut ties.  However, it's a truth that Don is finally ready to face, as we turn toward the show's final chapters.

Honorable Mention

Parks and Rec, "Leslie and Ben" - Because who doesn't love it when the right people get married to each other?

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Rank 'Em: "Love Death+Robots" Volume IV

It's been six years since the first "Love, Death+Robots," and the series is back with ten new shorts.  Many of them are directed by familiar names from the previous volumes.  Unfortunately, most of the shorts feel like brief teases or animation tests instead of anything substantive.  However, there are a few highlights that deserve their due.  

Here we go:

1. "Smart Appliances, Stupid Owners" - It's Aardman's "Creature Comforts" with gadgets and appliances!  It's all CGI, but they're definitely aping Aardman's clay character designs.  This being "Love Death+Robots," most of the humor is sexual and/or sophomoric, but the execution is great.  Multiple comedians were recruited for the gadgets, including Kevin Hart as an ionizer, Ronnie Chieng as a toothbrush, Brett Goldman as a toilet, Josh Brener as a showerhead, Nat Faxon as an abandoned waffle iron, Amy Sedaris as a paranoid security camera, and Niecy Nash Betts as a vibrator.

2. "How Zeke Got Religion" - Easily the best animated short of the bunch on a technical level, with  character designs that look vaguely reminiscent of "Archer" at a few points.  This isn't one of the stronger shorts simply based on story or concept.  However, if you like your gore, your monsters, and your WII aircraft, this is not one to miss.  This is a properly horrific piece of animation on a level we don't see very often, with kudos to the effects animators and the sound designers in particular.      

3. "The Screaming of the Tyrannosaur" - Of course Tim Miller would be directing the one with all the naked chicks fighting in a gladiatorial arena with a horde of dinosaurs, and an emcee voiced by (and clearly intended to look like) Jimmy "MrBeast" Donaldson.  However, points for having all of the Bai Ling character's dialogue in Mandarin, and for committing to an absolutely ridiculous premise as hard as they possibly could.  I was thoroughly entertained for fifteen minutes, which is all I can ask for.  

4. "The Other Large Thing" - A cat voiced by Chris Parnell and a robot voiced by John Oliver plot to take over the world.  This is supposed to be a prequel to the "Three Robots" shorts though that's not made apparent enough here.  Anyway, we finally get  to see what the humans looked like in this world before the apocalypse, and it's not a pretty sight.  The story boils down to a few silly gags, but Chris Parnell and John Oliver do a lot to help sell it.  I only wish this were a little longer and more fleshed out.  

5. "400 Boys" - Robert Valley has been one of the more dependable "Love, Death+Robots" directors, with "Zima Blue" and "Ice."  This time around, we've got street gangs warring with each other in a post-Apocalyptic world, who find themselves up against a new nightmare enemy that manifests as giant babies.  None of it made much sense to me, but it all looks fantastic.  I'm putting it in the top half of the list just based on the effortlessly cool visuals.    

6.  "Close Encounters of the Mini Kind" - This is essentially "Night of the Mini Dead" from Volume III again, except with an alien invasion instead of a zombie apocalypse.  The style, many of the gags, and the plot beats are exactly the same, right down to the ending.  However, the short delivers its share of laughs and the premise still works fine.  It also functions very well as a cohesive story, which is more than I can say for some of the titles in this batch of "Love, Death+Robots."   

7. "Spider Rose" - This is the Jennifer Yuh Nelson directed short this year, and it lost me almost immediately because of the title character, one of those super-angsty warrior babes that are all over this genre.  And "Spider Rose" isn't one of the better ones.  Anyway, the story centers on what's essentially a "Lilo & Stitch" situation with a mean little twist ending.  The critter is cute and the animation is solid enough, so I can see this short working fine for someone else.

8. "For He Can Creep" - Now here's a curiosity.  This is one of the more ambitious shorts, depicting a battle between Satan and a cat for the soul of a poet.  However, it's too much story crammed into too little runtime, and there are too many distracting visuals that are difficult to parse.  Satan can bend reality to his whims.  The cat and its friends seem to have powers that aren't explained.  It's all CGI, but with woodcut textures everywhere?  The result is visual chaos.

9. "Golgotha" - Luma Pictures is better known as an effects house, which explains why they decided to go with a photorealistic style, including a main character who is a distracting digital recreation of actor Rhys Darby.  So much effort was spent on making sure everything looked good, and the storytelling feels like an afterthought.  The big reveal absolutely did not come off the way the short's creators intended.    

10. "Can't Stop" - This is just a Red Hot Chili Peppers music video.  David Fincher just took the band's performance at Slane Castle and redid it with everyone as marionette versions of themselves.  That's it.  Why is this part of "Love, Death+Robots"?  Do marionettes count as robots?  I don't think so.   

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"The Sandman," Year Two (With Spoilers)

All the spoilers ahead, including for the comics.  And if you're looking for the Neil Gaiman caveat, it's in the previous post.  

I think I've heard just about every criticism of the second season of "Sandman" now, from Wanda being fridged to having the Corinthian reformed via a straight romance.  Both of these issues seem to have been the totally inadvertent result of a rushed and budget-conscious production, where creative compromises (replacing Ruby with Wanda, and pairing up the new Corinthian and Joanna to save on Matthew CGI) had unintended results.  A lot of the second season is like this, where the production seemed to be juggling way too much, and managed to get something wrong for everything that they got right.  

Let's focus on the positives first.  I love all the new additions to the cast.  Esme Creed-Miles as Delirium, Freddie Fox as Loki, Jack Gleeson as Puck, Barry Sloane as Destruction, Jacob Anderson as Daniel, Douglas Booth as Cluracan, Ruairi O'Connor as Orpheus, Umulisa Gahiga as Nada, and Ann Skelly as Nuala made me so glad that the second season of "The Sandman" finally made it to our screens.  I love this version of Nuala in particular, who is so much smarter and more assertive than the version in the comics, and who is not a doormat in her relationship with Cluracan.  I like the kinder, more human Daniel.  I actually liked both the Loki/Puck and the Corinthian II/Johanna pairings, which made "The Kindly Ones" storyline much more tolerable this time.  I didn't mind that Thessaly got booted and Nada got a bigger role.  And whoever decided to bring in Rufus Sewell and Tanya Moodie as Time and Night, the Endless's terrible parents, wins all the marbles.

Some of my biggest disappointments really boil down to the show's visuals not being able to get anywhere close to the work of Mike Dringenberg, Kelley Jones, Matt Wagner, Jill Thompson, Michael Zulli, and the other artists who contributed so much to the comic.  Dream's castle was rebuilt with darker interiors, possibly to help with all the CGI needed for the "Season of the Mists" sequences, and it ends up making everything look dim and difficult to see properly.  Delirium has her mismatched eyes and a few locks of rainbow hair, but she's far too sane and coherent compared to the source material.  There are some visuals in this season that are absolutely arresting, like the starlit appearance of Night, and the seaside meetings of Dream and Orpheus.  Then you have the final appearance of Lucifer, which only seems to take place on a beach because it did in the comics.  Except, there wasn't the budget for a properly balmy Australian beach, so they had to settle for one in the UK where everyone looks like they're freezing.  There were more creative workarounds, like the meeting with Time taking place in an almost monochromatic, Brutalist environment, instead a psychedelic one, to reflect his terrible relationship with Dream, but this kind of departure didn't happen often enough.      

The more difficult changes involve the storytelling.  Due to the nature of the accelerated plots, there are some episodes that feel like a "Greatest Hits" version of the original stories.  A large amount of "Brief Lives" is squashed into a single installment, where Dream spends too much time talking about characters who never show up onscreen.  Poor Wanda is shoehorned into a role she was never supposed to occupy.  However, it was the right decision to give over the lion's share of the time to the Orpheus story, which is the high point of the season.  For better or for worse, this "Sandman" adaptation is all about Dream, and getting him to the point where the choice between change and death feels inevitable.  Western media is not in the habit of making shows with tragic endings, especially not on this scale, and not in the context of a genre program, so I applaud the show's creators for fully committing to the idea.  But that said, I wish that more capable hands had been involved.  The back half of the season really needed to be more intense and violent, and the episode adapting "The Wake" is so leadenly paced that I was relieved when it was over.  It was all very cathartic, but enough was enough.        

I've had a very long relationship with "The Sandman," and tracked all of the various attempts at an adaptation for years.  I really never thought that we would get to this point, where the better part of the series has been more or less faithfully translated to screen.  It's not anything close to perfect, but I'm satisfied.  And thank goodness, because I don't expect anybody else will take another stab at it for a long, long time.  

   

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"The Sandman," Year Two (Without Spoilers)

Here's the Neil Gaiman caveat up front.  Neil Gaiman has been accused of terrible things and cancelled and in all likelihood deserves it.  I am one of those people who doesn't have much trouble separating out a piece of art from the artist, so I'll be writing and reviewing "Sandman," treating Gaiman like he's dead.  Unfortunately, I've had a lot of practice at this over the years.  I respect anyone who decides not to watch this show on moral grounds.  However, film and television are inherently collaborative mediums, and I don't see the logic in discarding the work of hundreds of artists because one turned out to be a horrible person.  And here we go.

The first season of "The Sandman" covered roughly twenty issues of the comic in eleven episodes.    The second had to cover the remaining fifty-five issues in eleven episodes.  Even after removing whole story arcs and nearly all the side-stories, that still means that each episode is juggling at least twice as much material.  That's why this season feels so rushed and certain storytelling choices don't seem to add up.  I also found that the writing hewed way too close to the comic, with attempts to translate some concepts from page to screen that just didn't work.  And there were things that already didn't work in the comics, like the overlong, twisty "Kindly Ones" arc, that didn't get fixed in the adaptation.   

This season also had a lot of production troubles, and it's very noticeable at some points.  I found multiple instances of something from the comic being recreated because it looked cool, but without enough of a budget to actually do it right, and without the context to help it hit the way it should emotionally and thematically.  Several locations appear to be reused, and not well.  The cinematography is much darker and murkier.  There are inexplicable slow-motion shots, and generally the pacing is either too fast or too slow.  The writing is messier, and episodes are plagued with constant exposition overload and repetitive dialogue.  And while most of the performances are pretty strong, one returning actress does so poorly that she almost single-handedly derails a major plotline.  Fortunately, most of her storyline is greatly reduced.  

And yet, I'm so happy that showrunner Allan Heinberg and his collaborators tried anyway.  With the second season of "The Sandman," they've made something big and heartfelt and unapologetically fantastical.  We get to meet the entire Endless family, including the previously unseen Destiny (Adrian Lester), Delirium (Esme Creed-Miles), and eventually the Prodigal (Barry Sloan).  Dream has to confront Lucifer again, but more importantly he also has to confront the mistakes of his past.  Storylines involve his wrongly imprisoned former lover Nada (Umulisa Gahiga), and his tragic son Orpheus (Ruairi O'Connor), and Dream facing up to his own complicated relationship with being responsible for the Dreaming.  This year we spend a lot of time with characters from Faerie, including the lovely Nuala (Ann Skelly), and her dissolute brother Cluracan (Douglas Booth), who are subjects of the capricious Queen Titania (Ruta Gedmintas).  We also meet members of the Norse Pantheon, including Odin (Clive Russell) and Loki (Freddie Fox).  There are many returning characters and some new guest stars who I will not spoil.      

Newcomers to "The Sandman" might be taken aback at how the tone of the story has shifted from action adventure to much more self-serious melodrama.  After the first three episodes, dealing with Lucifer and Nada, Dream doesn't get to act much like a typical comic book superhero.   There are plenty of fantasy elements still in play, and "The Sandman" is constantly showing off fancy VFX left and right. However, most of the season is spent with Dream trying to mend bad relationships and deal with the fallout of some bad decisions.  This involves a lot of brooding and glowering, and at least two instances of angsting in inclement weather.  The comic always had a thing for monologues and anticlimaxes, and the show follows suit.    

And I expect existing "Sandman" fans who have read the comics will not be happy with how much was streamlined, excised, reordered, and toned down for television.  The entire last arc has been rejiggered to heavily telegraph the ending, and new romantic relationships have been added for some of the characters.  People have rightly pointed out that Wanda (Indya Moore), a beloved trans character who was moved into a different role in the show, absolutely needed more time and more attention.  The adaptation didn't do her justice.  And yet, I still loved what little we had of her.  

So, I expect that the second season of "Sandman" is going to make a lot of people very unhappy for a variety of reasons.  However, it didn't make me unhappy.  I enjoyed every minute, even the boring, mordant bits with the bad lighting.  The good parts, like Tom Sturridge's performance and the fabulous production design, and getting more of Gilbert and Merv and Joanna Constantine turned out to be worth all the trouble.  And I'll get into more of the details in my spoiler post next time.    

  

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A Matter of Life and "Chuck"

"The Life of Chuck" is one of those rare films that is trying very earnestly to say something profound about human existence.  It's a Mike Flanagan adaptation of a Stephen King novella of the same name, which has some supernatural elements but isn't particularly scary.  I read the novella in anticipation of the film, and it left me puzzled.  However, I think knowing how the story was going to play out helped with my processing of the film version, which is an extremely faithful adaptation.  I'll try to steer clear of too many spoilers, as a big part of the experience of watching the film is working out who Chuck is and how the three acts of the film relate to each other, so I'd recommend going in with as little information as possible.  I will say that I thought the film was pretty successful at what it was trying to do.  I understand why some viewers came away feeling misled or manipulated, but it worked for me. 

I think it might also be helpful to think of "The Life of Chuck" as an anthology film of three separate stories that happen to share a character in common.  The first is a story about a group of ordinary people including school teacher Marty (Chiwetel Ejiofor) and nurse Felicia (Karen Gillan) facing an impending apocalypse.  The second story is about a busker (Taylor Gordon) and a pair of dancers (Tom Hiddleston, Annalise Basso), who share a moment of spontaneous joy together.  The last story is about a boy (Benjamin Pajak), who moves in with his grandparents (Mark Hamill and Mia Sara) after the deaths of his parents.  The three stories happen in reverse order chronologically, with the apocalypse up first, labeled "Act Three."  All are narrated by Nick Offerman, and all are told in a sort of hyperreal, heightened style reminiscent of other Stephen King films like "The Green Mile."

It's very easy to fall into the trap of trying to analyze everything in the film for hidden symbolism, or to take things too literally and focus on the mechanisms for how the universe in "Chuck" works.  That sort of thing is fun, but completely beside the point.  This is first and foremost a film about feelings and yearnings, and the ineffable, unexplainable parts of being human.   There's not much traditional horror in the film, but a lot of it is concerned with fear and mortality and how to live with these parts of existence.  The second story is the shortest of the three, but also arguably the most important, because it gives us a beautiful example of human beings living in the moment and seizing the opportunity for joy where they can.    

Mike Flanagan breaks a lot of rules with "The Life of Chuck."  He's got a narrator going for a lot of the time, often reading directly from the Stephen King source material.  The film's tone changes completely from story to story, and so much of the film's effectiveness is dependent on that tone.  There are monologues everywhere, because it's Mike Flanagan, and every theme and idea and message is underlined multiple times in the cinematic equivalent of red ink.  Fortunately the cast is wonderful, with many of the players from Flanagan's regular troupe filling out the smaller roles.  I want to highlight the work of Mark Hamill in particular, playing the loving, complicated grandfather, who can still be intimidating when necessary.  

              

"The Life of Chuck" is a box office bomb, and it's a miracle that it exists at all.  It's a weird outlier of a film that feels like it should have been made twenty years ago, and plenty of viewers didn't like it, didn't get it, or found it too flawed and underbaked and sentimental and cheese-infused to fulfill its huge ambitions.  However, it also shows every sign of being one of those movies that's going to hit some people exactly the right way, that they'll watch at exactly the right time in their lives, and remember forever.  I don't know if "The Life of Chuck" is going to be an all-timer, but I haven't been able to stop thinking about it, and I know I need to watch it again soon.         

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What Happened to "Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning"?

So, "Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning" is set up like a finale to the "Mission: Impossible" franchise, and is supposed to be paying off the storyline set up by "Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One" from 2023.  I disliked "Dead Reckoning" whenever there wasn't an action scene going on, finding the AI-instigated doomsday scenario ridiculous, and the Esai Morales villain dull.  "The Final Reckoning" manages to be a significantly worse experience.  In fact, it's so much worse that I have to wonder how this movie made it to theaters in this sorry state.  It is easily the worst "Mission: Impossible" movie by a considerable amount, even worse than John Woo's "Mission: Impossible 2," which may have been silly, but at least it was still entertaining.

Let's start from the top.  "The Final Reckoning" does have two big, impressive action sequences.  In one, Ethan Hunt (Cruise) infiltrates a sunken submarine and has to escape it.  In the finale, he and the villain fight over the world-saving MacGuffin in biplanes, performing a variety of aerial stunts in the process.  These are everything you want "Mission: Impossible" to be, and I understand why viewers would watch the movie for them.  However, getting to the first major set piece requires sitting through almost a solid hour of incredibly tedious exposition and montages, setting up the plot and characters, reminding us of everything that happened in previous movies, and fawning over Ethan Hunt as the only one who can save the world from the evil AI, the Entity.  There are some brief fisticuffs here, and a quick sprint away from an explosion there to break things up, but nothing that lasts more than a minute or two.  This is a 170 minute movie, and you easily could have chopped the first forty.  

Trying to make a play for nostalgia, there are also a lot of callbacks to the first "Mission: Impossible" film from 1996, and more attempts are made to involve the rest of Hunt's team in the actual world-saving.  Old favorites Luther (Ving Rhames) and Benji (Simon Pegg), are joined by newbies Grace (Hayley Attwell), Paris (Pom Klementieff), and Theo (Greg Tarzan Davis).  We also get a cavalcade of celebrities in bit parts including Tramell Tillman, Hannah Waddingham, Katy O'Brien, and Angela Bassett as the US President.  These are diverting enough if you actually recognize the actors, or remember enough about the prior "Mission: Impossible" movies to catch the references (remember the Rabbit's Foot from Mission: Impossible III"?), but I found most of it pretty tedious.  The only callback I liked involves a minor character played by Rolf Saxon getting the spotlight for a bit, which was nice.

However, the whole tone of the film is eye-rollingly self-serious, the script is drowning in technobabble, and everyone is trying much too hard to get us to get emotionally invested in characters who have always been cardboard thin.  It was a relief when we finally got to the submarine infiltration, and the extended underwater sequence, because that happens mostly in silence and I didn't have to hear any more of the tin-ear dialogue for a while.  While the stunt sequences were a lot of fun, I actually much preferred the parts of the film that focused on the other characters, who got to banter and act like actual members of a team when Ethan Hunt wasn't around.  If Tom Cruise quits the series, can we just keep going with Simon Pegg?  Frankly, I haven't liked the "Mission: Impossible" movies very much for a long time now, and "Final Reckoning" just cements for me that it's about time for a change.          

However, I expect that this is going to be the end of the road for the franchise for a while, at least on the big screen.  The box office returns have been shaky, and Tom Cruise has been pushing his luck for a little too long.  You can expect my personal ranking of the "Mission: Impossible" films shortly.  Because if Charlie Cale has a ranking, I should too.    

 

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Was I Too Hard on "Happy Gilmore"?

I wrote up a post long ago about my feelings towards Adam Sandler, who made a lot of hit movies I didn't like and a lot of smaller, weirder films that I did.  I had long resolved to stop watching his mainstream comedies and just focus on his more critically acclaimed projects like "Uncut Gems" and the upcoming "Jay Kelly."  However, upon hearing that "Happy Gilmore 2" was getting pretty decent critical notices, I decided to revisit the original "Happy Gilmore," and to my surprise I liked what I saw.

I don't have a clear recollection of when or in what circumstances I first watched "Happy Gilmore" and "Billy Madison," Sandler's first two major films.  I just remember that Sandler's screen persona was a lot cruder and more physically aggressive than the leads of most comedies at the time.  He seemed to fly into destructive rages a lot, and Roger Ebert famously wrote that he didn't have a "pleasing personality" when remarking on Sandler's performance in "Happy Madison."  When I was a kid, onscreen aggression of any kind came across to me as threatening and sinister, so I'm not surprised that I didn't find him funny.     

I still don't like Happy Gilmore much as a character, but I understand more of his appeal.  Specifically, Gilmore represents a now instantly recognizable type of underachieving blue collar young male living with a lot of frustration and not many opportunities.  Unlike some of the other, later Sandler leads, he's not especially mean-spirited or crass.  He just has a lot of impulse control issues, which he's eventually able to improve.  He works great as the hero of "Happy Gilmore," where an unpolished wannabe hockey player shows up snooty golf pros and disrupts the golfing establishment. Sandler is pretty sympathetic and easy to root for here, instead of puerile and overbearing the way he comes across his less successful comedies.

What really struck me with this watch was that the supporting cast does a lot of the heavy lifting. Christopher McDonald as Gilmore's rival Shooter McGavin, and Carl Weathers as Gilmore's intensely committed coach, provide big personalities for Gilmore to play off of.  I loved seeing Richard Kiel get to menace people again, and appreciated the pure absurdity of the Bob Barker fistfight.  The cameos from Kevin Nealon and Ben Stiller are brief, but just enough to be memorable.  This is also easily the best movie I've seen from director Dennis Dugan.  The comedy always comes first, but the sports competition tropes are executed well, so the golfing is actually fun to watch.  

However, I don't like the attempts at romance at all.  The moments of Gilmore's jackassery I can't forgive are the ones aimed at Virginia, played by Julie Bowen.  Adam Sandler also co-wrote the movie with Tim Herlihy, and It was very disappointing to realize that their idea of the right girl for Happy Madison is a pretty, bland woman whose most prominent characteristic is not showing any sign of being upset when men are being abhorrent to her.  There are a few scenes where it's like she suddenly stops being able to understand English when Gilmore says something particularly crass.

This is acknowledged and corrected in "Happy Gilmore 2," which picks up twenty-five years later.  I found it mildly enjoyable, though Sandler's persona has totally changed from anarchic outsider to aging dad, and Happy Gilmore follows suit.  In a total reversal, he's now trying to save "traditional golf" from being destroyed by an obnoxious Xtreme sports style "Maxi Golf" league backed by an evil energy drink CEO (Benny Safdie).  Pretty much every surviving cast member from the original film returns, and a lot of time is taken up with tributes to the departed ones.        

But more than anything, "Happy Gilmore 2" emphasized that I did have some affection for the original movie, even if my feelings remain mixed on Adam Sandler's performance in it.  And my relationship with Sandler as a performer remains very complicated.  If we get any more late sequels to the likes of "Billy Madison" or "The Waterboy," however, I might be convinced to give those titles a rewatch too, for old times' sake.

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