"Tron: Ares" and "Predator: Badlands"

There are certain things about my personal tastes in movies that means no one will ever take me seriously.  For instance, I enjoyed "Tron: Ares" way more than "Predator: Badlands," even though I know full well that the "Predator" movie is better than the "Tron" movie.  Aside from Jared Leto, everything about the aesthetics and sensibilities of "Tron: Ares" appeals to me, and I'm pretty good at compartmentalizing things I don't like.  "Predator: Badlands," despite some very creative and daring choices, fundamentally rubbed me the wrong way.  And I think it's worth spending a post looking into this in more detail.  

First, "Predator: Badlands" represents a big step forward in Dan Trachtenberg's further rehabilitation of the "Predator" franchise.  Now we have a movie where a Predator, or more accurately an alien Yautja, is the protagonist.  Dek (Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi), the runt of his clan, goes to the hostile planet Genna in order to hunt a legendary beast called the Kalisk.  He meets a damaged synthetic being named Thia (Elle Fanning) with a bubbly personality, who convinces him that working together will help him accomplish his goals more quickly.  They also pick up a native Genna creature, eventually named Bud (Rohinal Narayan), who helps them survive the difficult environment.  However, the biggest threat they'll face turns out to be from a completely unexpected source.      

Trachtenberg does a lot of important worldbuilding in "Badlands," and the most notable decision was taking advantage of the franchise's connections to the "Alien" universe to borrow a few concepts like synthetics and evil megacorporations.  The plotting, however, strikes me as out of character for "Predator."  This is the first PG-13 "Predator" film after all the previous ones were rated R, including "Prey."  The carnage is all alien on alien, or alien on synthetic, which ultimately means that it's all CGI beasties doing the fighting.  The action's not very intense in any case, with little blood or guts to speak of, and the found family storyline is downright cutesy at times.  This is all executed very well, with a lot of strong storytelling choices and nice character moments, but I had a tough time staying invested in what was going on.  Dek was a little too generic as a hero, and I never felt like he was in much danger.  Thia is already missing her legs from the outset, so no real stakes there either.  

I expect that mismatched expectations were a major reason for my disinterest.  I went into "Predator: Badlands" expecting a much grittier action film than what I got, which is essentially a family-friendly adventure movie more in line with the recent "Godzilla" and "Jurassic World" sequels.  This isn't a bad thing, and I think the franchise shows a ton of promise, especially since Trachtenberg has shaken up the status quo and introduced all these new variables to the old "Predator" formula.  However, for the first film where the formidable alien killer is supposed to be the one at a disadvantage in the deadly hunt, I can't help but feel disappointed at the violence and mayhem have been recalibrated a few notches lower than I was led to believe.   

Expectations are also probably why "Tron: Ares" managed to surprise me.  The buzz around this movie has been terrible, largely due to known creep Jared Leto having landed the lead role and reportedly being instrumental in why the movie exists in the first place.  Directed by Joachim Rønning, "Ares" skips ahead many years after "Tron: Legacy" to a future where Kevin Flynn's company ENCOM is now run by Eve Kim (Greta Lee), and its rival Dillinger Systems is headed by Julian Dillinger (Evan Peters), the grandson of Flynn's old rival.  Technology has been developed to materialize anything from the Grid into the real world, but only for twenty-nine minutes until disintegration.  A race is on to find the secret "permanence code" that will remove this time limit.  Dillinger has created several programs, including Ares (Leto) and Athena (Jodie Turner-Smith) to act as his agents against ENCOM, in both the real and digital worlds.

The trouble with "Tron" has always been that it's a fantasy of how computers might function if they worked by child logic, with anthropomorphized programs as major characters, and neon-lit cyberpunk environments representing the digital world.  The 80s gaming-influenced aesthetics and design are so cool to look at, but there's no rhyme or reason as to how the physics of the impossible characters and weaponry behave.  So, you seriously have to suspend disbelief to enjoy what it's doing.  "Tron: Ares" decides to create its setpieces around what would happen if you brought the old lightcycles, recognizers, and other game creations from the original "Tron" into the real world, and let them wreak havoc on a major city.  And to the filmmakers' credit these sequences look fantastic, making great use of the familiar imagery, and coming up with new variations on classic concepts.  There's also none of the dodgy digital de-aging that plagued "Tron: Legacy," and all the effects work looks gorgeous.  

When it comes to the story and characters, however, it's all terribly flimsy stuff.  There's a lot of rushing around, chasing Macguffins, and typically terrible Hollywood depictions of hacking.  Leto's Ares is a boring self-insert, but inoffensive, and I found it easy to ignore him.  Since the rest of the cast includes Greta Lee, Jodie Turner-Smith, Even Peters as the villain, and Gillian Anderson as his Thatcher-esque mother, this wasn't difficult at all.  Okay, so Greta Lee having to do a lot of running around and screaming is obviously not a great use of her talents, but I actually buy her as a tech giant CEO.  I also like Peters and Anderson as the Dillingers with their toxic family dynamic.  When Jeff Bridges inevitably shows up for his cameo, it's handled very well.  The movie gets a lot of the little stuff right, and deploys some good fixes, despite getting so much big stuff wrong.

As is traditional, the best part of "Tron: Ares" is the score, provided by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross as Nine Inch Nails, their first official project in a long while.  As a formerly edgy child of the '90s, Nine Inch Nails remains pure sonic catnip for me, and I'll appreciate the movie forever just for being the reason that this soundtrack happened.  And I know that's terrible, and I really can't bring myself to care.      

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The Hate Watchers

I've been toying with writing a post like this for a while now, trying to put together some thoughts and observations on hate-watchers without getting caught up in the outrage loops that they operate in.  I'm going to have to tread carefully here, because this kind of material can get really volatile really quickly.

So, a couple of years ago I noticed that there were Youtube channels that featured the equivalent of right-wing outrage farmers, except dedicated to fandom content.  The tactics are exactly the same as the what happened with Gamergate all those years ago - find a piece of media that is controversial or unpopular, drum up outrage, hurl misogynist/racist abuse at it, hide behind being a "fan" and "legitimate criticism" when called out, and reap the rewards of generating clicks and attention.  A couple of small content creators are able to generate vast amounts of negative ragebait videos, memes, and social media noise that has an outsized effect on the media narrative.

It's disturbing how often this stuff goes viral, and how many pieces of media have been subjected to these hate campaigns.  I've watched this happen to the MCU, "Star Wars," "Star Trek," "Lord of the Rings," Disney movies and even "True Detective" over the past few years.  It's common enough that the patterns are pretty easy to spot now - the primary individual targets are usually women, people of color, or both.  Kathleen Kennedy and Rachel Zegler have been internet punching bags for years.  The bulk of the perpetrators are usually young reprobates who get caught up in bandwagoning the latest target of derision, usually blowing minor issues or risky creative decisions wildly out of proportion.  The behavior seems to be driven by a feeling of being wronged, or being excluded, often by franchise media that's trying to appeal to a wider audience.  Bad actors will exploit existing fans' nostalgia and disappointment to create an us v. them dynamic with creators, critics, and other fans.  Any sort of creative disagreement going on behind the scenes will be seized on as an excuse to behave badly.      

Let's use one of the latest targets, "Starfeet Academy," as an example.   "Starfleet Academy" is the latest "Star Trek" series, which is going after younger viewers, and features a diverse cast.  Some of the most virulent outrage channels  latched on to the show based on marketing materials before it aired, but the outrage really kicked into gear when the first episode got mixed reactions from existing "Star Trek" fans.  A couple of unflattering screenshots of female cast members were passed around that got negative reactions from Stephen Miller and Elon Musk, and suddenly the floodgates were open.  The show was accused of being part of the "woke agenda" of performative progressivism, despite "Star Trek" having a long history of promoting onscreen diversity.  The show was accused of not respecting its fans or understanding its franchise, despite geeky "Star Trek" references and easter eggs in every episode.  The show was accused of being poorly written and bad at appealing to a young audience, which is a perfectly legitimate position to take.  Unfortunately, this was repeatedly used as an excuse for the continued harassment and mockery of the show, its creators, and the fanbase that did develop around it.

The ragebait content itself is strangely fascinating to pick apart.  The criticisms are very shallow and petty, usually based on outdated stereotyping and conservative dog whistles.  The vitriol is childish and fueled by tribalism and mob mentality.  The targets are never anything truly popular, because the ridicule might boomerang back on the perpetrators  subjecting them to the same kind of scorn.  Neither are they ever anything too obscure or mature, where any nuance  might be required.  A big giveaway that the content is coming from opportunists is that the producers won't stop engaging with the media they insist is awful, sometimes watching whole seasons of shows or obsessively following the box office stats of movies just to gather more fuel for their outrage.  Any positive content that they produce, highlighting media they purport to enjoy, tends to focus on a narrow list of the most universally popular and inoffensive shows and movies.  A couple of the most notable outrage purveyors started out as wannabe critics and culture commentators - there but for the grace of God and the Criterion Collection go I, I suppose.  

Hatewatchers are nothing new, but like so many other negative social phenomena they've been made worse by social media and the new content ecosystems.  The "Star Wars" prequels provided much of  the template for the more organized hate campaigns - picking high profile targets, turning extended roast and rant sessions into content, and nitpicking minor flaws ad nauseum.  I remember "The People v. George Lucas," and confess that I watched the original RedLetterMedia reviews with friends.  However, this didn't stop those movies from gaining their own following, and quietly becoming nostalgic Late-Millennial/Gen Z favorites, twenty years later.

There have been enough of these hate campaigns now, that it's getting easier to brush them off, especially the ones that are transparently being waged in bad faith.  However, they are annoying, distracting, and make it difficult to actually have good discussions about the media in question.  This is, of course, a reflection of how all public discourse is being affected more broadly by malicious instigators, with negative outcomes affecting everything from politics to basic social interactions. Once you recognize the common tactics, however, you can better sidestep the outrage and get back to enjoying your fandom.   

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Oscar Aftermath 2026

This year's Oscar race was an interesting one, because all the nominated films were generally good, and many of the big races were unpredictable.  There was no clear winner for Best Picture or Best Actor going into Oscar night, for instance, with several of the precursors contradicting each other, so there was some genuine tension.  Every single awards ceremony brought on a fresh wave of speculation and drama, from the unfortunate outburst at the BAFTAs to Sean Penn being a no-show all season long.  This year's Oscar villain turned out to be Timothee Chalamet, who made a stupid remark during an interview, and is going to have to weather ballet and opera jokes for the rest of his career.  I wish I'd been able to have more fun with it, but I wasn't in the mood to participate much this year.  

On to the ceremony, which was a pretty good one.  Conan O'Brien returned to host, and came up with some amusing bits, including both the intro and outro skits.  I found his monologue pretty middling, but he landed a few zingers.  Politics and the concerning state of the entertainment industry were largely downplayed, though there was plenty of acknowledgement of  the sorry state of affairs all night.  There was also a current of existential dread about the fate of the Oscars themselves, which are moving to Youtube in 2029.  One of the better pre-recorded bits involved Jane Lynch in parody Youtube ads interrupting the broadcast.  There were also surprise cameos from Sterling K. Brown, Misty Copeland, and Josh Groban.  Other moments of welcome absurdity included O'Brien fantasizing about winning a statuette, and a "Marty Supreme" themed "bum drum."  However, O'Brien was at his best when he was  helping to smooth over the multiple technical snafus in the ceremony, like a microphone being mistimed.  I also really liked the "One Battle After Another" outro sketch capping off the evening.    

Most of my favorite moments came from the presenters.  Former Oscar host Jimmy Kimmel being recruited to present the Documentary categories was an inspired choice, setting the tone for the most politically charged part of the evening.  Javier Bardem opened with "No to War and Free Palestine," and wasn't bleeped.  Take that, BAFTA.  I really enjoy the trend of cast reunions at awards shows, and this year we got the ladies from "Bridesmaids" doing a comedy bit with some good audience interaction, and Nicole Kidman and Ewan McGregor presenting Best Picture.  The "In Memoriam" segment had special tributes for Rob Reiner and Robert Redford, with Barbara Streisand even singing a few bars of "The Way We Were" for her departed co-star.  On that note, it obviously wasn't fair that all the song nominees weren't performed at the ceremony, but I'm glad that all the effort was put into two big production numbers for "Golden" and "I Lied to You," and they skipped the rest.  It makes a significant difference to the Oscars' running time, which was well over three hours this year.  

Still, there's not much I would've wanted cut.  Okay, the new Casting category came with tributes that ran too long, and the Academy president's remarks are always boring.  The winners' speeches are always better than I think they'll be, and this year it was hard to find a winner who wasn't deserving.  EJAE getting cut off was rough.  Cinematography probably should have gone to "Train Dreams," but  I can chalk that up to a matter of taste.  Frontrunners "One Battle After Another" and "Sinners" both came away with major wins, and it felt like the Academy spread the wealth pretty well.  Jessie Buckley had the best speech, but Michael B. Jordan definitely had the best reaction to winning.

I gripe about the excessive awards season drama, but Oscar viewership held steady this year thanks to another batch of popular nominees and competitive races.  The show still feels like a big deal in a steadily declining television landscape, and it helps the film industry when the film industry needs all the help it can get.   Hollywood's not on literally fire anymore, but between the mergers and the likelihood of more strikes ahead, it may as well be.  

But for now, let's celebrate a catastrophe-free Oscars and a new batch of winners.  See you next year.    

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Rank 'Em The Best Picture Oscar Nominees of 2026

1. Hamnet - One of the things I prize most highly about the cinematic experience is its cathartic effect, and I had an emotional response to "Hamnet" like nothing else from last year.   Yes, the movie is manipulative.  However, it's very difficult to make an effective tearjerker, and playing on people's emotions is absolutely part of the assignment.  The movie gives us a very human take on Shakespeare, and multiple opportunities for Jessie Buckley to bring down the house.  

2. One Battle After Another - I have been struggling with how to rank "One Battle Another" against "Sinners" for the whole awards season.  I have to give it to "One Battle," because the filmmaking is more ambitious and accomplished, the script is much denser with a lot of different themes packed in, and the characters are funnier in a way that not many films manage anymore.  This is not my favorite of Paul Thomas Anderson's movies, but it might be his best one. 

3. Sinners - On the other hand, you have to give "Sinners" its kudos for originality, for daring, and for the best soundtrack of the year, by far.  The combination of so many different genres, tones, and cultural influences is irresistible, showing us the American South in the Prohibition era from not just one new perspective, but several.  I want more stories from this universe, but I also want Ryan Coogler and Michael B. Jordan to continue to push in new directions.

4. Train Dreams - I wish I liked this better, because a film like "Train Dreams" doesn't get made very often.  It's a period piece that does so much to evoke a past way of living that no longer exists, while still acknowledging the darker parts of that era.  It's a film about the big questions in life, about a quiet man who is a bystander to history, and sees the world change in monumental ways.  I appreciate its placidity - and yet I think it may have been too subtle for me at times.

5. Marty Supreme - Because this was such a tough watch for me, it never had a chance of placing higher.  However, I strongly admire what Timothee Chalamet and Josh Safdie set out to do with the tale of Marty Mauser, ping-pong player and grifter supreme.  The performances are fantastic, the scummy cinematography is absolutely gorgeous, the themes and writing are as good as anything I've ever seen out of the Safdies, and the laughs are well-earned.  

6. Frankenstein - This is Guillermo Del Toro's "Frankenstein," not Mary Shelly's.  And though Del Toro is prone to excesses, this is not a bad thing.  Once you accept that this telling of the story is as much melancholic tragedy as cautionary horror story, it plays beautifully.  Whatever you want to say about Jacob Elordi's Creature or Oscar Isaac's Victor, you're never going to mistake them for any of the other versions of the characters.  And that's remarkable.

7. Sentimental Value - Honestly, this wasn't the kind of film that I was expecting from Joachim Trier and Renata Reinsve after their previous collaboration.  Maybe it's because I much prefer "The Worst Person in the World" that I found "Sentimental Value" a little unsatisfying, despite it being a perfectly good film about the nature of art and artists and families.  I enjoyed it while I was watching it, but I also retained very little, and haven't thought about it much since.  

8. Secret Agent - I'm still grappling with this one.  I really like some of Kleber Mendonca Filho's other films, but I'm running into the same problem that I did with "I'm Still Here," which is that I don't have the adequate frame of reference to absorb everything that's going on in this movie socially, culturally, and politically.  And I think I need to.  I just see a collection of fascinating pieces that I can't quite get to fit in a satisfactory way.  I'm still not sure if it's me or the film.  

9. Bugonia - So many parts of this Yorgos Lanthimos movie are great - the performances of Emma Stone and Jesse Plemmons, the Jerskin Fendrix score, and Robbie Ryan's breathtaking VistaVision cinematography, just to name a few.  Unfortunately, for reasons I am still unpacking, the movie as a whole didn't work for me.  I knew exactly where it was going far too quickly, and the nihilistic finale rubbed me the wrong way, despite being beautifully executed.

10. F1 - Well, this one's just lucky to be here.  And there's absolutely no shame in being a well-made, perfectly entertaining blockbuster about fast cars that go zoom.  

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"Bugonia" Bugs Out

I was a little disappointed with "Bugonia," despite liking it very much, and I feel that I brought this on myself.  I won't spoil anything except to say that the plot is pretty much in line with the Korean film it's adapting, Jang Joon-hwan's black comedy, "Save the Green Planet!"  However, watching "Save the Green Planet!" right before watching "Bugonia" impacted my initial viewing experience of "Bugonia" negatively.  

"Bugonia," directed by Yorgos Lanthimos and written by Tracy Letts, is easily the better film, with a much more coherent storyline and excellent performances from Emma Stone and Jesse Plemmons.  Alas,  knowing how some of the key conflicts would be resolved in advance removed a lot of the tension from the experience.  I think it would have been better to go into a viewing knowing as little as possible.  

That said, I'll lay out the basics of the plot.  A conspiracy theorist named Teddy (Jesse Plemmons) and his autistic cousin Don (Aidan Delbis) kidnap Michelle Fuller (Emma Stone), the CEO of a pharmaceutical company.  Teddy believes that Michelle is an Andromedan, an alien agent sent down to infiltrate Earth, and is keen to get her to admit it and arrange a meeting with her superiors on the Andromedan mothership in Earth's orbit.  As Teddy and Don match wits against Michelle, we learn about the circumstances that led Teddy to take such drastic actions, and how far he's willing to go in order to prove he's right.  Because "Bugonia" is a Lanthimos film, this involves a great deal of chaos, violence, and pitch black humor.  

Emma Stone and Jesse Plemmons were paired up previously in "Kinds of Kindness," Lanthimos's anthology film of surreal featurettes.  "Bugonia" often feels like an extension of "Kinds of Kindness" due to its approach to similar themes and the nature of the storytelling.  However, the characters are much better fleshed out, and the performances are more entertaining as a result.  Stone's Michelle is a slimy corporate executive who is a very convincing liar, but also a vulnerable woman in a dangerous situation.  Teddy is very affable, polite, and has clearly been through a lot, but his fanaticism emboldens him to do terrible things.  Both characters are in a tug-o-war for the audience's sympathies as the kidnapping plays out, and they battle for control of the situation.  Watching Stone and Plemmons going at each other for two hours is such a joy.  

I appreciate that Yorgos Lanthimos has never lost his edge.  Even after so much time and so many projects, his movies still feel dangerous, and he's willing to go to places that other directors wouldn't.  The violence in "Bugonia" is jarring and upsetting, including an extended torture sequence.  No matter how vile Michelle is, her subjugation is awful, and no matter how funny some of the fights and chases are, the fallout is ugly and sobering.  Some of the most viscerally disturbing moments involve no onscreen violence at all.  Lanthimos's style has definitely been refined over time, though it's no less blunt and oppressive.  "Bugonia" has the highest budget that he's ever worked with, but this just means that his nervous long shots and panicky whip pans are accompanied by a full orchestra blasting Jerskin Fendrix's score, and the inevitable carnage is shot by Robbie Ryan in breathtaking VistaVision.  

I want to highlight Will Tracy's script, which successfully transplants "Save the Green Planet!" into a very different tone and milieu.  Genders have been swapped, backstories reworked, and American corporate culture efficiently skewered.  I'm a big fan of the absurd deadpan dialogue, especially lines like "I'm crucial - in all humility, I can say that," and "Your hair has been destroyed."  However, taking the story away from its scrappy Korean indie roots does lessen some of the charm. Where "Save the Green Planet!" was a high concept mix of different genres, "Bugonia" is 90% paranoid conspiracy thriller and relies on a lot more brute menace than eclectic oddity.   

Finally, despite knowing what was coming, I quite enjoyed the divisive ending, though I suspect it would have gone down easier if Lanthimos had taken more time to set it up.  But then again, it's an ending that is very fitting for a Lanthimos movie, and very effective at getting its points across.  And while "Bugonia" isn't Lanthimos's best, ultimately I found it very accessible, very watchable, and well worth my time.  

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"A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms" Year One

It was inevitable that "Tales of Dunk and Egg" would be adapted after the success of "Game of Thrones."  However, despite taking place in Westeros, "Dunk and Egg," is a very different piece of work, and the adaptation, "A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms," follows suit.  These are much lower stakes stories that follow one POV throughout - that of low-born "hedge knight" Ser Duncan the Tall (Peter Claffey), who goes on adventures with his squire Egg (Dexter Sol Asell).  The first season is six half-hour episodes, which can easily be polished off in a single sitting.  

Duncan is the former squire of Ser Arlan (Danny Webb), an obscure, impoverished wanderer, recently deceased.  Duncan wants to be a knight, and travels to an inn where he meets a strangely knowledgeable boy named Egg, who wants to be his squire.  The two of them decide to enter a tournament at a nearby town, but there are challenging requirements they'll need to fulfill to be able to compete.  They come across many characters, both high-born and low, including friendly Ser Steffon (Edward Ashley) and his squire Raymun (Shaun Thomas), the dissolute Ser Manfred (Daniel Monks), who employs prostitutes Beony (Carla Harrison-Hodge) and Rowan (Rowan Robinson), boisterous Ser Lyonel (Daniel Ings), a Dornish puppeteer, Tanselle (Tanzyn Crawford), and the current heir to the Iron Throne, Prince Baelor (Bertie Carvel), his brother Prince Maekar (Sam Spruell), and Maekar's sons Daeron (Henry Ashton) and Aerion (Finn Bennett). 

Unlike most "Game of Thrones" characters, Ser Duncan is a fairly straightforward hero with a very traditional hero's arc and a sad, simple backstory.  Westeros is as corrupt and brutal as it's always been, and the showrunners delight in showing us the more disgusting side of life before modern plumbing and medicine.  However, "A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms" is a series where people believe in honor and valor more seriously, and Ser Duncan has the opportunity to prove himself, even if it's not in the way he intended.  The first season is short, but manages to set up a few thrilling events, and nicely establish our main characters for further seasons.  I like that there's a sense of more epic and consequential stories happening in the background, but these don't really affect Dunk and Egg.  The whole season happens in the space of only a few days.    

Peter Claffey, a very tall former professional rugby player, and Dexter Sol Ansell, a very small child actor, are a pair I have zero awareness of seeing in anything else, which makes their performances here all the more delightful.  Claffley plays Duncan as good-hearted and simpleminded, without being slow-witted, and capable of being intense and formidable when he needs to be.  There are some great moments where you can feel him lock in on a goal in a way that's really effective.  Ansell is playing the Westerosi version of a smart-aleck kid who is simultaneously young and vulnerable enough to tug on the heartstrings.  The two work very well together onscreen, though there's room for improvement.  The supporting cast is excellent all around, featuring some solid character actors like Sam Spruell and Daniel Monks making the most of limited screen time.        

It's hard not to draw comparisons to "The Mandalorian," not just because of the "Lone Wolf and Cub" character dynamics, but because I worry that HBO will try and make the show bigger than it's designed to be.  They've already made that mistake once with "Game of Thrones."  "A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms" is already in production on its second season, and my hope is that the showrunners will continue to keep it limited in scope.  I like that it's a more modest production, without much distracting spectacle, and content to stick to only a few locations.  The quality is still very high, with a couple of anachronistic soundtrack choices to distinguish it from the rest of the franchise, but everything is simple enough that seasons can be made more quickly, and present a more immediate and immersive view of Weteros.  So far the writing is also sticking very close to George R. R. Martin's source material, which is a plus 

I'm keeping my fingers crossed, and looking forward to next season.  

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"Heated Rivalry," Year One

A six-episode Canadian television program about gay hockey players doesn't sound like the sort of thing that would take America by storm, but when we're talking about underserved audiences, romance fans have to be near the top of the list.  "Heated Rivalry," about a pair of rival professional hockey players who start hooking up in secret, has an increasingly familiar genesis.  The source material is part of an anthology series of gay hockey romance novels, written by a straight female author for a largely female readership, and has roots in the fanfiction world.  The adaptation was written and directed by a gay man, Jacob Tierney, who is best known for "Letterkenny."    

I don't know much about hockey, and can't say anything as to the accuracy of either the sport or the culture around it as depicted in the show.  I did count myself as a Ducks and Sharks fan in the past, but it's been years since I properly watched a whole game.  However, "Heated Rivalry" is blatant wish fulfillment, so anyone trying to watch this for the hockey parts is probably barking up the wrong tree.  The appeal of the show is watching Asian-Canadian player Shane Hollander (Hudson Williams) and Russian player Ilya Rozanov (Connor Storrie), playing for fictional Montreal and Boston teams respectively, carry out a decade-long clandestine relationship, which includes some pretty steamy sex scenes.  In fact, after the first two episodes, I wouldn't have been surprised if many viewers assumed that the show was a throwback to HBO's adult entertainment programming roots.   

However, Hollander and Rozanov's infrequent hookups take a turn for the romantic, and we get to spend some time with a second couple, veteran hockey player Scott Hunter (Francois Arnaud) and his barista love interest Kip (Robbie G.K.), whose relationship has very different dynamics.  Slowly but surely, "Heated Rivalry" turns into a much more compelling, more emotionally charged romance where Hollander and Rozanov slowly realize their feelings and start navigating the steps toward having a real life together.  The last episode is one of the most touching hours of television I've seen all year.   It's still wish fulfillment, but a far more personal and well grounded kind of fantasy that's going to hit every LGBT viewer right smack in the feels.  And it even manages a few laughs in the right places.

 

I've written before that while I enjoy gay romances, I'm always a little wary of the ones that seem to be pandering to the preferences of straight female audience members.  The fact that Jacob Tierney was working behind the scenes was a big factor in me deciding to give the show a chance, and I'm glad I did.  The series is lower budget, but it never feels compromised or insincere.  The production is pretty solid, with an especially good soundtrack.  The young actors are a little green, but the performances are committed and there's plenty of onscreen chemistry.  I'm glad the first season was only six episodes, because it means the show has to keep up the narrative momentum and never has a chance to outstay its welcome.  And while the multi-year story isn't lacking in incident, it's a relief that there aren't many of the usual manufactured, time-wasting obstacles that tend to frustrate me in similar romance series.  A closeted queer Russian hockey player is clearly already dealing with plenty.          

I look forward to future seasons of "Heated Rivalry" with great anticipation.  However, I'm pretty wary of the imitators that are bound to follow in its wake.  Romances are harder than they look, and there has already been too much media in recent years that has botched gay characters and stories.  However, I'm  heartened by the amount of positive attention that the series and everyone involved have received, signalling that the culture war is far from over, and that the audience for this kind of content is not only there, but it's voracious.  

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