About "Us"

Minor spoilers ahead.

"Us" is one of those horror movies that made it difficult to sleep much afterwards. Part of it was because the adrenaline from the thrills and shocks kept me up. The film is not especially scary, but has some of the most unnerving cinema monsters I've seen onscreen in a long while. And part of it was that "Us" is one of those movies where the ending forces you to reexamine the entire story in a different context, and I spent half the night piecing things together and having little "a-ha!" moments. And once I finished doing that, there was a mountain of subtext to dig through.

Like "Get Out," Jordan Peele's latest film has a lot of coded social commentary. On the surface level, "Us" is a doppelganger story, one with a few novel conceits. The Wilson family, mother Addy (Lupita Nyong'o), father Gabe (Winston Duke), and children Zora (Shahadi Wright Joseph) and Jason (Evan Alex), go on vacation near the Santa Monica beach where Addy had a traumatic experience as a child. When their shadowy doubles, the "Tethered," arrive in the middle of the night, intent on killing them, Addy has to confront her old ghosts to dispatch and escape them. As a pure horror film, "Us" is executed beautifully. The doppelgangers are monstrous and frightful. The scares are visceral. The suspense is even better.

However, "Us" gets a lot of its power from suggesting connections and presenting ideas that go quite a bit deeper - or at least appear to. No definitive answers are ever given about the origin of the Tethered, but we get just enough details about how they live and operate that it's irresistible to want to pick them apart. They're essentially fairy-tale monsters, and thus obviously symbolic of other evils. Some have suggested that the Tethered are stand-ins for an exploited underclass, like the Morlocks. However, unlike the Morlocks, their lives and actions are explicitly tied to their doubles.' Not only are the Tethered the dark mirrors of the main characters, but their relationships to each other are too. We hear speculation that they're connected to protestors or human lab rats. When asked point blank who they are, the response is, "We're Americans."

They also make for such memorable visuals, all dressed in red, with dead-eyed expressions, and frequently holding hands in human chains. We've seen similar elements in other movie monsters, but nothing quite like this. Lupita Nyong'o delivers a fantastic performance as both Addy and her double, who the credits identify as "Red." She is the most aggressive and fearsome of the Tethered, who slings accusations at Addy with a raspy voice and grimacing smile. Nyong'o's performance is mesmerizing stuff, and I'm already pretty sure that she'll be snubbed at awards time to the ire of genre fans.

The rest of the cast is great too. Winston Duke as the social-climbing Gabe has the lion's share the film's funnier moments. And yes, "Us" does have its share of laughs, including morbid family squabbles and some skewering of the obsessions of the suburban set. Some have taken issue with Jordan Peele's worldbuilding being a little shaky here, but nobody can criticize him for the pitch perfect family dynamics and the shaking up of common genre conventions. I also found the various homages to '80s culture a lot of fun, especially the reminder that Michael Jackson was once briefly a horror icon. The soundtrack, of course, is a delight.

Again, Peele has created a magnificent piece of horror with a trim budget and an inventive script. I doubt that this will be able to match the success of "Get Out," because the social commentary isn't nearly as specific, and the story is less clearly laid out. However, I like that "Us" is more amorphous and uneasy, because it makes the scares all the more potent, and allows for more interpretations. I like the theory that the Tethered are a manifestation of capitalist guilt, but I also like them as a racial dissociation metaphor, or an environmental apocalypse metaphor, or even a political metaphor. Is Addy Donald Trump?

I know it's still before Labor Day, but this hasn't been a great year for movies that aren't massive blockbuster tentpoles. Thank goodness for Jordan Peele and company.
---

My Favorite Ken Russell Movie

There are "Great Directors" entries where I've felt it necessary to remind the reader that this series is all about my favorite movies made by certain directors, not the movies that I consider their greatest or most iconic works. And there's probably no case where there's a great gap between the two than with my pick for Ken Russell, the notorious British provocateur. His most celebrated film is without a doubt "Women in Love," his most daring "The Devils," and the movie most exemplary of his style probably the rock opera "Tommy." To a certain degree I admire all of these films. However, the one that I really adore is "The Boy Friend," his tribute to Busby Berkeley and the golden age of movie musicals.

Writing about "The Boy Friend" feels a little like taking the easy way out. Russell is famous for pushing content standards as far as they could possibly go, often pairing really dark and twisted subject matter with over-the-top, campy depictions of sex, violence, torture, and depravity. "The Boy Friend," which was released in the same year as his most controversial films, "The Devils" and "The Music Lovers," has almost no objectionable material whatsoever. Instead, it's a lighthearted spoof of musical theater, starring the winsome '60s it-girl Twiggy in her first big acting role. However, it does have many of Russell's visual hallmarks, including opulent art direction, grandiose fantasy sequences, and aggressive, intense editing.

Based on a '50s musical that was a comic pastiche of the musicals of the '20s, "The Boy Friend" is a show within a show that involves a struggling theater troupe powering through a kitschy musical in the hopes of impressing a Hollywood director in the audience. There's all kinds of madcap business going on behind the scenes, and our leading lady is an assistant stage manager who has to take over for the show's star after an unfortunate accident. Look a little closer, and you'll also notice the deconstructions and lampooning of various character types, and the moments of raunch and sexual subtext sprinkled generously throughout. The showgirls appear garish as they fight for the spotlight onstage, while the men are often ineffectual and weak. Most of this is played for laughs, where it might have been played for grotesquerie or shock in a different Russell picture, but the subversive mockery still carries some sting.

I admit that it's the pageantry that I really enjoy, though. Roger Ebert famously panned "The Boy Friend" for being too cold and sterile, calling attention to the stifling cinematography of the onstage antics, and the unflattering stage makeup caked on the actors. However, he didn't say much about the film's flights of unfettered fancy whenever a character starts daydreaming. This is when all the big, full scale set pieces come into play, when the cinematography opens up, the orchestral fills out, and all the tension evaporates. The dance sequences are whimsical, full of cartoonish visuals and bright colors, but executed beautifully. Several Busby Berkeley shots are recreated, as well as tributes to other musicals and iconography of that era. It often looks ridiculous, but there's such a joy and weird creative giddiness to it. Let's do a Grecian pastoral! Frolicking elves! Invalids and sexy nurses!

Like many other Russell films, it gets to be a bit much. Number after number piles on the glitz to an excessive degree. I understand why the American distributors trimmed multiple song numbers and over twenty minutes of the run time. However, excess is a hallmark of a Ken Russell film. Nearly all of them manage to work in some kind of madcap fantasy sequence, even when it's totally inappropriate or in bad taste. "The Boy Friend" feels like the one project where Russell was able to let loose and put in as many as he liked, as wild and fantastical as he could make them. At the same time, some of my favorite moments of are the quietest ones, where Twiggy sings her lovelorn backstage solos to herself, or where the showgirls are shown washing up after the show. They're lovely, in a way I feel moviegoers tend to forget that Russell's films can be.


I'll always love "Lisztomania" and "Tommy" for their chaos and outrageousness, but nothing can beat "The Boy Friend's" gorgeous Pierette sequence with the Erte-inspired silhouettes. And no matter how much subversion and cynicism Russell may add to the conversation, in the end his fondness for his subjects always comes through.


What I've Seen - Ken Russell

Billion Dollar Brain (1967)
Women in Love (1969)
The Music Lovers (1971)
The Devils (1971)
The Boy Friend (1971)
Tommy (1975)
Lisztomania (1975)
Altered States (1980)
Gothic (1986)
The Lair of the White Worm (1988)

---

Entertainment Weekly, No More

When I was a kid in the '90s, who loved movies but didn't know anything about them, the publication that I would read cover to cover whenever I had the chance was "Entertainment Weekly." Issues were only available to me through the dentist's waiting room, mostly, and sometimes the hairdresser's. They weren't as informative as "Variety" or "Hollywood Reporter," obviously but I had to make do with what I could get. Unlike the other glossy pop culture magazines, it had bits of actual hard data that I couldn't get anywhere else, including weekly box office tallies and the ratings charts for prime time network television programs. There were home media, theater, and book sections. Until my parents started buying the Los Angeles Times regularly, "Entertainment Weekly" was often the only way I could stay remotely current on anything going on in the entertainment industry. The seasonal movie preview features were my favorites.

And now, a few decades later, "Entertainment Weekly" is becoming a monthly publication with a shift in focus towards its online content. The July 5th issue was the final issue of the weekly version. No, the name isn't changing. I can't help feeling a little sad, even though I haven't cracked open an issue in at least a year. It was always nice to see the magazine on the publication stands, even after their biggest selling point seemed to be endless variant covers for the "Twilight" movies. And it wasn't a good sign when their exclusive photos would be all over social media within hours of being published. With the way that the internet has decimated the print industry, I guess it's impressive that "Entertainment Weekly" held out against the inevitable for as long as it did. As of 2017, it still had a circulation of around 1.5 million.

Of course, "Entertainment Weekly" wasn't really a weekly magazine. Last year it cut its frequency from 38 issues a year to 34. Even at its height, the subscription was for 40 issues, advertised as 55 because of several "double length" special issues. Their behind-the-scenes troubles have been well documented, as the magazine bounced from publisher to publisher for years. It never really recovered from previous attempts at retooling that chipped away at its editorial distance and critical integrity. There was always an uneasy balance between catering to populist tastes and maintaining the quality of the entertainment journalism, and in recent years the magazine has gotten noticeably dumber and duller. I stopped collecting issues around the time when there was a drastic revamp in 2008, increasing font size and shortening articles noticeably.

Thirteen staff members were let go as part of the latest transition, including veteran critic Chris Nashawaty, who took over after the long-reigning Lisa Schwarzbaum and Owen Gleiberman were ousted in 2013 and 2014. I poked around on the "Entertainment Weekly" website to try and figure out which critics (if any) were still there, but the site is one of those dreadful things designed for mobile devices that has gigantic graphics plastered everywhere and navigation is a pain. Seriously, this recent trend of breaking up articles every paragraph with slow-loading ads and pictures is the worst. If online content is going be the main focus of the publication from here on out, you'd think that they'd spend a little time and effort to actually make it readable.

Oh well. Unlike other publications, I don't find I have much trouble saying goodbye to "Entertainment Weekly." It had its time and place, but the world has changed and there are so many, many sources of news and criticism available to me now. Occasionally they'll put out a really eye-catching cover, but otherwise it's off my radar completely these days. No doubt it'll stick around or a while yet in physical form, if only because the splashy cover stories and exclusives can be a good marketing platform. I haven't thought of it as real entertainment news for a long time, though. And I haven't read their reviews since Glieberman and Schwarzbaum left. I'll still page through "Entertainment Weekly" issues at the dentist's office - but maybe not if I have the option of reading TIME or Newsweek instead.
---

"American Gods," Year Two

Minor spoilers ahead.

I had to check multiple times to make sure that this season of "American Gods" only had eight episodes, because I couldn't quite wrap my head around how it ended.  Quite a lot happened this season, but it feels like we barely made any progress from week to week, and the finale landed with a mighty thud. That's not to say that this season was all bad - there are at least two excellent episodes - but as a whole it stumbles pretty badly.

Much of the dive in quality is due to the show's behind-the-scenes chaos.  Creators Bryan Fuller and Michael Green departed, taking a few important members of the cast with them, and leaving everyone else with a mess.  Media has been replaced by a far more awkward New Media (Kahyun Kim). Easter and Jesus are nowhere in sight. Instead, we have more of Anansi and Bliquis hanging around, without actually doing much except sniping at each other.  Ditto the Jinn and Salim (Omid Abtahi), who are now traveling as a pair. Shadow and Wednesday spend much of the season trying to reforge Wednesday's spear, and Laura and Mad Sweeney are still trying to bring Laura back to life. There's constant talk of carnage, but little action.

The premiere episode with the meeting of the Old Gods at the House on the Rock is something that the first season had been building to, and it was great to finally see it.  However, the meeting and aftermath were some of the only parts of the season where it felt like anything consequential happened. The war between the gods remains an amorphous, mostly theoretical thing.  Characters die, but it's been made clear that nearly everyone can come back to life in one form or another. There's a lot of waiting around, and Shadow's battles are mostly internal. Of course, that isn't all that different from the first season, where the show was mostly just a road trip adventure punctuated by all these smaller stories about the various gods in the past and present.  

The trouble is that these smaller stories aren't executed with nearly the same deftness or boldness as we saw under Fuller's directions.  As Matt Zoller Seitz lamented in his review, the sexuality has been cut to practically nothing but insinuations. The hallucinatory dream sequences are fewer and briefer, and the violence just doesn't have the same oomph that it used to.  I thought that Fuller overdid the surrealism sometimes, but his excesses at least gave "American Gods" a certain verve and vibrancy that helped it to stand out from the crowd. Now, there are so many of the show's little conceits that feel underdeveloped.  The Indian goddess Mama-ji (Sakina Jaffrey) pops up a few times as a waitress. Argus (Christian Lloyd) appears as the god of surveillance. There's also new Native American character for about five minutes. Nobody really has anything to do except kvetch and deliver half-baked advice.  

However, there are some things that the show gets very right.  Ricky Whittle is getting a bit better as Shadow, and I liked the flashback episode that explores his early days as a new immigrant in America.  Ian McShane's Wednesday continues to impress, and we see some different sides of him. However, far and away the best hour of "American Gods" this year is all about Mad Sweeney, and his tangled history.  Pablo Schrieber gives the best performance of his career playing multiple versions of the character through the ages. I really hope he still has time for "American Gods" going forward, as he's set to play Master Chief for the upcoming "Halo" series.

I'm honestly a little stunned that "American Gods" has been renewed for another season at least, which will be a much more structured thing as it moves into a mystery storyline from the book that will require a bit of a format change.  However, I'll still be watching because this show's highs are still high enough that it's been worth waiting through the rougher stuff. However, I hope the production manages to pull itself together. Even if the plot isn't all that important, and we're meant to just be sightseeing in this universe, the attractions should at least be in good working order.  

---

Missmediajunkie vs. "How it Should Have Ended" and "Honest Trailers"

This is a post I've been meaning to write for a while.  I've been watching the "How it Should Have Ended" shorts and ScreenJunkies' "Honest Trailers" for years now.  I've watched them morph from rudimentary viral videos into some of the most widely watched and referenced pieces of movie-related media on the internet.  I mean, it's gotten to the point where the United States Army is sponsoring "Honest Trailers." And like everything that becomes mainstream and popular, these series have been weathering a fair amount of criticism.  So I thought I'd dig into this a bit today.

First off, it's no mystery why these videos are popular.  There's something very satisfying about seeing recent blockbusters being called out for their sillier notions by small time, independent content creators.  "How it Should Have Ended" is largely still designed and animated by two people, Daniel Baxter and Tina Alexander, though Starz handles the distribution. The videos have gotten more polished over the years, but are still appealingly rough around the edges.  "Honest Trailers" only has a slightly larger crew, and leans heavily on recut clips and the efforts of a faux-serious deep-voiced narrator. The humor is broad and playfully cynical.

The primary complaint I've heard levied at both series is that the commentary offered by these videos is too nitpicky and shallow.  And of course it is, because the primary aim of these videos isn't to provide real criticism, but to get a laugh and entertain. "How it Should Have Ended" and "Honest Trailers" also tend to get lumped in with the "Everything Wrong With…" series created by CinemaSins, a similar comedy show which often does put itself out there as legitimate criticism, and is notoriously bad at it.  "How it Should Have Ended" and "Honest Trailers" rely more on parody elements, which involve a great deal more creativity and originality. Not all the jokes and observations work, but I like that they come off more as earnestly questioning the logic and choices of the filmmakers, rather than simply slamming dubious minutiae as "sins."

Another criticism is that both series are extremely formulaic.  "How it Should Have Ended" recreates a handful of scenes from each film with goofy animation and then has them play out differently.  Most installments also end with a quick sketch involving Batman and Superman to offer more meta commentary. "Honest Trailers" creates a fake trailer for each movie, where a narrator delivers a snarky rundown of the major characters and plot before reading out a pun-filled credits roll.  And yes, that is where the "Deadpool" credits gag came from. These formats are both flexible enough to accommodate pretty much any movie you could name. "Honest Trailers" has also taken aim at television and other specials - there's a yearly Oscar edition - while "How it Should Have Ended" regularly produces bonus material and spin-off shorts.

Frankly, at this point the formula is part of the charm.  Both series are designed for quick and easy consumption, and their repetitive nature helps the effectiveness of the jokes and humor.  One of the reasons I think that both series have survived for so long is that they're very short, simple, and to-the-point. They're also very accessible for newcomers.  Frequently, the only thing being referenced is the specific movie that is being made fun of, and the humor is fairly gentle and good-natured. As a counter-example, consider the "I'm a Marvel... and I'm a DC" parody shorts.  I used to love these when they first started out, but over time they became much more self-referential and sort of wandered off into complicated ongoing storylines. The series is still going, but I've completely lost track of it.     

Finally, I've heard the claim that the degree of success enjoyed by "How it Should Have Ended" and "Honest Trailers" is somehow undeserved because they're derivative of the media that they're lampooning.  There's nothing wrong with derivative media, though. You see plenty of bad examples, because it's notoriously hard to do well. And it really takes some effort to do it well with any consistency. Frankly, I also like having these series around to point to as examples of how to do parody/satire/commentary of existing media right.  You can't just have a good gimmick, but also need the knowhow to execute it properly over and over again.

"How it Should Have Ended" and "Honest Trailers" are far from great in any sense, but they fill a niche and they do it well.  I don't watch either of them with much regularity, but I've enjoyed many of their installments over the years and I root for their continued survival.  

---

"Good Omens" is Apocalyptic Fun

Amazon has turned Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman's comic fantasy novel, "Good Omens," into a six episode miniseries.  It has a fabulous cast, great production values, and an engaging story. It's also kind of a mess, but in a fun way. Neil Gaiman was made showrunner, and he keeps a lot of bits that probably should have been left out, uses way too much narration, and runs into some major pacing problems.  In other words, exactly what you'd expect when giving over creative control to a celebrated novelist who hasn't really done this sort of thing before. However, the material is good enough and the talent is strong enough that it doesn't much matter.

"Good Omens" is about the end of the world as foretold by the Bible, and the major players are a bunch of supernatural beings and assorted humans either trying to prepare for or thwart the Apocalypse.  Our chief protagonists are an angel, Aziraphale (Michael Sheen) and a demon, Crowley (David Tennant) who have been on Earth in various forms since the Beginning. The two have secretly become friends over the eons, and when they learn that Doomsday is approaching, decide to save the world they've grown very attached to.  Mostly, this involves trying to wrangle the fate of the Antichrist, a boy named Adam (Sam Taylor Buck), who was accidentally placed in the care of very normal human parents.

  

Aziraphale and Crowley are easily the best things about "Good Omens," and their friendship is the backbone of the miniseries.  They're both cosmic beings of great power, and complete opposites, but they come to realize that they enjoy each other's company, even if they have to keep pretending to be mortal enemies.  Sheen is especially great as the fussy, tweedy Aziraphale, who runs an old bookshop and is a shameless foodie. Tennant, however, gets more of the fun lines as the snarky Crowley, gets to drive too fast, and gets to dress like a rock star - or Neil Gaiman in the '90s.  Just the visual of the two of them next to each other is delightful, and the show goes back to it as often as it can.      

Unfortunately, the show isn't all about Aziraphale and Crowley.  It's also about a witch named Anathema (Adria Arjona), who is using a book of prophecy to try and avert the Apocalypse.  And it's about the last remnants of the Witchfinder Army, Lieutenant Shadwell (Michael McKean) and the newly recruited Newton Pulsifer (Jack Whitehall).  And it's about the forces of Hell and Heaven making preparations for the end. A hellhound is loosed. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are summoned. Jon Hamm plays the Archangel Gabriel, Miranda Richardson plays a medium named Madame Tracy, and Frances McDormand narrates the whole shebang as God. 

It's not that these storylines are poor.  It's just that they're not nearly as interesting or well executed.  For instance, I like the idea of Adam with his gang of friends, being eleven-year-olds on bikes on an adventure.  However, Adam's not as fleshed out as he should be, and what he wants from one moment to the next feels completely arbitrary.  I think the actor is quite good, but not good enough that he can make up for the weaker bits of writing and directing the way some of the more experienced members of the cast can.  Frankly, there are some sequences that are just plain awkward. The baby swapping scene is a particularly bad one, where the show keeps cutting away to a game of Three-card Monte to emphasize a belabored metaphor.  

And yet, clearly "Good Omens" was a labor of love and no expense was spared.  They must have spent a good chunk of the budget just licensing all the Queen songs on the soundtrack.  The production is absolutely gorgeous, creating this goofy, heightened reality where supernatural forces are constantly messing around with the universe.  I love the outlandish costuming of the demons and the Four Horsemen. I love the cheerfully literal way that metaphysical concepts are realized, like auras and miracles.  CGI special effects are used heavily, but some of the best visuals are all practical. There are fun little details everywhere in the set design. Nutty concepts like Satanic nuns and a rediscovered Atlantis are delivered with aplomb.

And in the end, I like that the show is very imperfect, and shaggy, and weird, and takes its time to enjoy itself.  By the time the last episode rolled around, I'd had a so-so time following the story and seeing all the reveals play out, and a much better time just enjoying the worldbuilding and the performances.  

---

"Stranger Things" Year Three

Minor spoilers ahead.

It's the summer of 1985 in Hawkins, Indiana, and everyone is back for a new adventure.  All the kids have grown up a little, but not too much. There are some new faces, who mesh with our regulars nicely.  There are more creepy monsters to fight and conspiracies to uncover, but with some novel twists. There are also more nostalgic '80s references than ever, with a story that takes its cues from "Dawn of the Dead," "The Terminator," "Red Dawn," and "The Blob."  It's all very pandering, but also so much fun. I binged the whole thing in two days.

As usual, the show is split into multiple POVs following different groups of characters. You have the kids mostly grouped together, with El and Mike going through teenage love spats, and Lucas and Max giving them terrible advice.  They spend most of the season trying to find a missing lifeguard, Heather (Francesca Reale), who they suspect was attacked by Max's brother Billy. Nancy and Jonathan are now interns at the local paper, investigating strange behavior in the rodent population.  Joyce and Hopper circle the possibility of dating while looking into a conspiracy involving the mayor, Larry Kline (Cary Elwes), and a suspicious Russian (Andrey Ivchenko). Finally, there's the Scoops Troop. Steve, who has gotten a job scooping ice cream, and his sarcastic co-worker Robin (Maya Hawke), are recruited by Dustin to help decode a secret message.  This eventually leads to bribing Lucas's sister Erica (Priah Ferguson) to help them foil a secret Russian plot.  

Season three of "Stranger Things" makes it clear that a lot of season two was best viewed as setting up this year's story, and there have been some significant course corrections.  Characters like Billy and Max are fleshed out and made much more sympathetic. Max works way better as El's gal-pal than her rival, and her relationship with Lucas is adorkable. Billy becomes a different kind of villain, and his background is explored in a novel way.  We also see the return of conspiracy nut Murray Bauman (Brett Gelman), though he's largely stuck with Hopper and Joyce. I also support the further nerfing of Steve Harrington, now fully in the role of reformed asshole who still has a lot to make up for. It's such a joy to watch him try to play badass while spending the entire season in the ridiculous Scoops Ahoy sailor suit uniform.   

Unfortunately, not all of the changes work.  The weakest storyline is Hopper and Joyce's. Both adults behave more immaturely than their children, and are frequently over the top and shouting their dialogue at each other.  For all that Winona Ryder has improved since the first season, she still strikes me as one of the weaker members of the cast, especially when she's playing it broad. I wonder if Hopper was tweaked to try and match the level of her melodramatics, because he's an awful lot more hotheaded and reckless this year.  Though David Harbor is clearly trying, this is not a good change for the character. Another sore spot I had was with Erica, who has simply aged too much to get away with the amount of sass she's slinging.    

The rest, however, are still going strong.  The boys and El are all realistically growing up and finding their dynamics changing.  Though some of the kids get more to do than others, nobody's forgotten or mysteriously sidelined like Mike was last time.  Nancy and Jonathan remain very solid and get the most complete, self-contained storyline this year. Steve and Dustin are perfect losers together, and Robin is a stellar addition.  The monsters are still terrifying and disgusting. When the show wants to do horror, it's properly horrifying. However, there's more action and humor this year, which it's also pretty good at.  "Stranger Things" really takes advantage of the old Cold War trope of nefarious Russian baddies, who replace the scary government goons.    

One big difference is a notable upgrade in the show's production values, much of it put toward resurrecting '80s culture.  A lot of the action takes place in a painstaking recreated '80s era mall, Starcourt, where Steve and Robin work. '80s fashions are on full display, with El finally adding some color into her wardrobe.  The soundtrack is full of period appropriate earworms, including the greatest use of "The Neverending Story" theme ever. There's even a sequence where characters are hiding out in a movie theater playing "Back to the Future."  The monster effects are especially impressive, and the action scenes are easily feature quality. I love the final showdown at the mall where all the kids get in on the action.  

I liked this season a little more than last year's, and about on par with the first season of "Stranger Things."  There are still some tonal problems to work out, and I'd be happier if the adults were sidelined, but the show has remained wonderfully entertaining and watchable.  They do so much right, and get away with so much that shouldn't work. Even the copious amounts of product placement felt oddly quaint. Here's to hoping next season arrives sooner rather than later.

---