My Top Ten Episodes of "Steven Universe"

You know what?  I'm just going to treat the recently aired "Steven Universe: the Movie" as the series finale.  If more episodes come along at some point, that's fine, but Cartoon Network has been terrible about providing updates and I'm ready to move on.  So as is tradition whenever I finish a longer series, here are my top ten episodes of "Steven Universe," ordered by airdate.

Moderate spoilers ahead.

"Cat Fingers" - What drew me into the show initially was how weird it was willing to get.  Along with "Together Breakfast" and "Frybo," "Cat Fingers" demonstrated how the misuse of Gem magic could create these nightmare monsters and body horror scenarios.  And having tiny cats for hands definitely qualifies. It's a shame that the later seasons would rarely get this delightfully strange again.   

"Giant Woman" - Opal is my favorite fusion, because she's such a beautifully designed character, voiced by Aimee Mann, and she's introduced so perfectly in this episode.  Steven's song to persuade Amethyst and Pearl to fuse is a great earworm, and it's fun to see the two Odd Couple gems bicker and make up. The backgrounds and new creature designs for this episode are also especially eye-catching   

"Maximum Capacity" - This might be an odd choice for favorite Amethyst episode, but I like the way that it sets out such a relatable problem.  Amethyst and Greg's relationship is fraught with unresolved issues, and spending time together inadvertently brings them out. I like the way that the first season gradually reveals bits and pieces of the Gems' past, even in the middle of seemingly mundane situations like this.

"Rose's Scabbard" - A big mythology episode that answers some questions and raises others.  More importantly, this is the episode where we first get some of Pearl's history with Rose and the massive impact that the relationship and loss still has on her.  Pearl is one of the show's most interesting and troubling characters, and this was only the beginning of her deep, dark secrets being uncovered.   

"Jail Break" - Our first introduction to Ruby and Sapphire, Garnet's best fight and song number, and the conclusion to the show's first big story arc.  This was also the episode that made it clear that we weren't always going to get clean victories, as the clearly redeemable Lapis ended up in limbo along with the big villain, Jasper.  Frankly, with all the big reveals and meaningful developments, I'm not sure the show ever got better than this.  

"Sworn to the Sword" - Pearl's unhealthy obsession with Rose rears its head again in this episode, where she trains Connie.  I love all the visual references to "Revolutionary Girl Utena" in the sword fighting scenes, which was a big influence on some of the show's imagery.  And I like Pearl here, who clearly has a long way to go in healing, but is at least starting to process and share some of her emotions.

"Steven Floats" - It's literally a whole episode of Steven stuck in one of his bubbles, learning how to control his powers.  I like the slow, contemplative pace, and the lovely visuals. Mostly I just like having a more minimalist, thoughtful episode where we get to have some time with Steven on his own.  Even though he's grown up a lot, he's still a kid who wants to be on time for the first donut of the day.  

"Gem Heist" - This is part of the run of episodes where Steven goes to space and meets more of the Homeworld Gems.  Here, the Crystal Gems have to pretend to be in their original roles to infiltrate the Zoo, so we get more of a sense of the Homeworld hierarchy, represented by Holly Blue Agate.  There's a palpable sense of danger and mystery here, but also of new possibilities opening up in the story.

"Sadie Killer" - The episodes featuring Steven's human friends often feel like filler, but I found Sadie's whole storyline with the band a great watch.  I'd fully support a spinoff that just follows her and the Suspects touring Delmarva and writing their macabre songs. This is the episode where Sadie takes her big leap, saying goodbye to the Big Donut and embracing something that she clearly loves.     

"A Single Pale Rose" - The big, freaking secret is finally out, and the nice part is that Pearl has grown up enough that she doesn't make it about her.  I love seeing the strange architecture of her mind and all the pieces finally falling into place about Rose Quartz and Pink Diamond. The fallout for Steven doesn't really kick in until subsequent episodes, but this was a nice bookend for Pearl's arc.    

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Feel the Power of "The Dark Crystal"

I admit that I had strong doubts about Netflix's plans to return to the world of Jim Henson's "The Dark Crystal," the 1982 cult fantasy film.  While I enjoyed the movie when I was younger, I thought there were major limitations on the puppet technology that would make a full ten-hour series a difficult watch for all but the most dedicated Jim Henson fans.  Also, frankly, I didn't think that Netflix would be prepared to foot the bill to really, properly revive the ambitious "Dark Crystal" fantasy world in all its hand-crafted detail and fantastical physical tactility. I'm so glad I was wrong.

"The Dark Crystal: The Age of Resistance" is a prequel series to the film, one that requires little knowledge of the original to enjoy.  We're introduced to the world of Thra, populated entirely by various races of puppet creatures: the evil, duplicitous, ruling Skeksis, the seven tribes of elfin Gelfling, the muppety Podlings, and the very old, witchy Mother Aughra (Donna Kimball and Kevin Clash).  Our heroes are a trio of young Gelfling - castle guard Rian (Taron Egerton and Neil Sterenberg), bookworm princess Brea (Anya Taylor-Joy and Alice Dinnean), and cave-dwelling child of nature Deet (Nathalie Emmanuel and Beccy Henderson). Each of them individually set out on a quest to stop the Skeksis from abusing the power of the Crystal of Truth, which they use to steal life essence from Thra and its creatures in a bid for immortality.  The Skeksis are lead by The Emperor (Jason Isaacs and Dave Chapman), and his wily Chamberlain (Simon Pegg and Warrick Brownlow-Pike).

I was absolutely bowled over by how gorgeous "The Age of Resistance" looks.  Thra doesn't quite feel the same as it did in the "Dark Crystal" movie. There's much more color and brightness, with a lot of CGI enhancements and bluescreen backgrounds.  However, the characters are all real, physical puppets or full size body costumes, and it makes such a difference. The Skeksis are especially impressive, giant vulture-like monsters who are all vile in very distinct ways.  Creatures look properly fuzzy or mossy or leathery where appropriate, and you can sense their physical heft in their movements, in a way that CGI has never really been able to duplicate. Designed by Brian and Wendy Froud, there are dozens and dozens of different species to help enliven all these carefully crafted environments of alien swamps, woods, caves, deserts, and mountains.  Even if the story and characters don't interest you, the show is a pleasure to look at for the astonishing amount of care and craft that went into every aspect of Thra's unique worldbuilding.      

The story of "Age of Resistance" is more talky and complex, and the characters are noticeably more anthropomorphized to keep up.  The Skeksis are far more articulate and given more personality and nuance, with some of them initially reluctant to embrace large-scale villainy.  It helps that there's a murderer's row of celebrity talent who lend their voices to the Skeksis, including Keegan Michael-Key, Awkwafina, Mark Hamill, and Benedict Wong.  At the beginning of the series, the Skeksis are treated as benevolent overlords by the Gelflings, to be obeyed and revered. The Skeksis interact with Gelflings regularly, taking pains to hide their worst behavior and actively manipulate and deceive them to maintain their power.  A big theme of the series is getting the Gelflings to overcome their prejudices and complacency, fight against the misinformation, and band together against their oppressors.   

Unfortunately, this is also one of the show's stumbling blocks.  There is so much narrative emphasis placed on the Gelfling characters, and despite some improvements in technology that allow their faces to be more expressive, they often come across as very wooden and stiff.  Their hands never look right, there are some unfortunate stumbles into Uncanny Valley. Anything involving them in combat doesn't work at all. Director Louis Leterrier does his best to orchestrate scenes around these limitations, but is only successful up to a point.  I like the performances, and the characters are all very appealing - Deet especially - but it was always with the Gelflings where the illusion was broken, and I was all too aware that I was watching puppets. I suspect that this will bother some viewers more than others, especially as the show has otherwise done a good job of setting up the Gelflings as characters.  I love their society, with its matriarchal clan system, internal prejudices, and sprawling histories.  

        

I think "The Age of Resistance" is a degree or two more kid-friendly than the movie.  There's a lot of thematically dark material, moments of violence, a few deaths, and some heady politicking, but it's rarely as scary or bleak as the original.  "Age of Resistance" is more similar to stories like "Avatar: the Last Airbender" and "Redwall," full of all the usual tropes and earmarks of high fantasy for young adults.  There are many, many more characters, more humor, more relatable issues (like not getting along with family members), and more concessions made in general to a less patient audience.  

Unfortunately, these concessions mean a certain amount of  the film's epic scale wonder and weirdness is lost. As beautiful and faithful as the new version of Thra is, there are some things from the original that I miss.  I noticed that several of the larger scale, more complicated creatures like the Mystics and the Landstriders are scarce, maybe for budgetary reasons. I prefer the film's slower, more contemplative pace, and Trevor Jones' more full-throated score.  However, these are pretty small complaints compared to what I thought I'd be taking the show to task for.          

So, yes, the world of "Dark Crystal" is back, a little different but not necessarily in a bad way.  And while it won't be for everyone, I wouldn't be surprised if the audience attracted by this new series will end up loving Thra just as fiercely as the original "Dark Crystal" fans from the '80s ever did.

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My Top Ten Films of 1973

This is part of my continuing series looking back on films from the years before I began this blog. The ten films below are unranked and listed in no particular order. Enjoy.  

Badlands - This was the filmmaking debut of Terrence Malick and the first starring role of Sissy Spacek.  They're the reason why the film still stands out among all the other similar crime pictures that have come since.  Malick's lyricism and sublime use of the environment, give "Badlands" a feel and tone that is entirely unique. It's also vital that the story is told from the point of view of Spacek's character Holly, a naive, dreamy young woman who sees the violent events that unfold as part of her own personal fairy tale.  The result is a film that is haunting, strange, and very, very beautiful.  

The Exorcist - The effects may have become dated, the shocks lessened, and the scares harder to come by over time, but "The Exorcist" still has no small amount of cinematic power.  I give a great amount of credit to the performances from Ellen Burstyn, Jason Miller, and Max von Sydow, but more to director William Friedkin. The lengths that he went to in order to achieve what he wanted are the stuff of Hollywood legend, and it comes across onscreen.  He broke so many rules and so many barriers, if the film hadn't been a sensation, I wonder if he would have ever worked again.  

The Holy Mountain - Alejandro Jodorowsky's magnum opus, an opulent, surreal, wildly ambitious vision of the world as presented through the journeys of a Fool.  It's a movie full of fantastical places and characters, full of symbols and mysticism plucked from all over the world. It is certainly a spiritual film, but perhaps better described as a psychedelic one, focused on the search for self and the nature of reality.  I love the playfulness of Jodorowsky's work here, full of little absurdities and satirical moments. And, of course, it features one of the greatest meta endings of all time.   

The Sting - Paul Newman and Robert Redford made a great onscreen pair, and my favorite of their appearances together was in George Roy Hill's beloved grifter classic.  There's a lovely deliberateness and patience to the way the scheme plays out, taking time to enjoy the period setting, the affectionately drawn characters, and every step of the con - helpfully accompanied by lovely illustrated chapter cards.  The actual con job is pretty simple and doesn't present many surprises, but it's so beautifully executed that you can't help but marvel at the level of the craft and storytelling.

High Plains Drifter - Clint Eastwood directed this unusually brutal western, a revenge story about a stranger and a corrupt town under siege by outlaws.  It's a dark and morally dubious story, often relayed more like an existential horror film than a western, which is one of its major strengths. Eastwood's stranger is irredeemable, but the film doesn't need him to be redeemed, only appeased.  I love the harsh look of the film, the lurid iconography and the bleak night visions. I love the roughness and the crudeness of it, the handling of themes we'd later see refined in "Unforgiven."            

O Lucky Man! - A curious sequel to Lindsay Anderson's "if...," curious because it's not remotely in the same style or tone.  "O Lucky Man!" is a warmer, funnier picture, a broad satire and coming of age story. The anti-establishment sentiments are still there, but approached very differently.  This is a film much larger in scope, following the adventures of our hero as he jumps from one job and situation to another. It features a lively soundtrack with a rock band that acts as a greek chorus, a young Helen Mirren, and an abundance of style - mixed media, meta elements, and over-the-top characters.  

Paper Moon - A depression era fable about parenthood, presented by Peter Bogdanovich and real life father and daughter, Ryan and Tatum O'Neal.  Tough, bawdy, cynical, and terribly heartwarming, this is such a perfect encapsulation of all the tensions and compromises that dealing with small children demands.  The production is gorgeous to look at, the script is a treasure, and the adult actors are all strong, but I'm convinced that the success of "Paper Moon" is due in large part to Tatum O'Neal.  She's an utterly magnetic presence, delivering a pitch perfect child performance for the ages.    

Scenes From a Marriage - I haven't seen the six episode miniseries that the theatrical film is a distillation of, but I don't know if it could match up.  Much of the power of Ingmar Bergman's examination of a couple's failing relationship is the way it compresses so much time and incidence into the space of three hours.  Ad yet, Liv Ullmann and Erland Josephson have plenty of narrative space to build that fantastic onscreen relationship and then tear it to pieces. The premise is so simple, but yields so much searing drama.  Subsequent films and television shows are still following its example to this day.  

Scarecrow - I will always adore "Scarecrow" for giving Al Pacino and Gene Hackman the opportunity to give two of the greatest performances of their careers.  They play a pair of drifters who become friends, and get in and out of trouble together. Partly a road movie and partly an Odd Couple buddy movie, it presents a striking look at two men suffering from very modern social ills.  Hackman's Max is a great blusterer who reveals a surprising humanity and pathos. Pacino's Lion, however, is an absolute heartbreaker, a man who holds on to his illusions so hard that they speed along his downfall.    

Spirit of the Beehive - An examination of a dangerous world through the eyes of a curious six year-old girl in 1940s Spain.  She seeks out invisible spirits and monsters, not comprehending the threat of impending warfare, but also not wholly unaware of it.  The film was constructed to be a metaphor for life during the Spanish civil war, full of enigmatic images and hints of deeper and more disturbing events.  I love that "Frankenstein" plays such a big part of the story, and the way that director Victor Erice incorporates that film's mystique. And I love the portrayal of childhood, full of mystery and magic.

Honorable Mention:

Don't Look Now

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"Manhunter" Year Two

Manson!  Son of Sam!  BTK! There are plenty of big serial killer names in this season of "Manhunter," which helps to add some energy to the traditionally slower middle episodes of the season.  However, "Manhunter" has a pretty unorthodox structure that already largely avoids this. It's only nine episodes this time around, and constantly juggling a lot of different balls.  The big case this year is the Atlanta Child Murders of 1979-1981, which Holden stumbles across by accident. Other ongoing storylines include Bill's home life being thrown into crisis, Wendy getting a new love interest, and a regime change at the Behavioral Science Unit.  

I appreciate that Holden is no longer the central focus of the show, ceding more of the narrative to Bill.  The Behavioral Science Unit (hereafter the "BSU") is now overseen by Ted Gunn (Michael Cerveris), who wants to expand and accelerate their work.  He charges Bill with keeping a closer eye on Holden, who is being treated as a loose cannon after his last encounter with Ed Kemper. A trauma at home complicates things, putting Bill's relationships with his wife Nancy (Stacey Roca) and son Brian (Zachary Scott Ross) in jeopardy.  Wendy also starts taking the lead on interviews alongside new hire Gregg Smith (Joe Tuttle), and begins a relationship with a bartender, Kay (Lauren Glazier).

As in the previous season, the BSU tends to come on to cases that are ongoing, and there are frequent detours with interviews, FBI internal politics, and other subplots.  This season, there is more of a willingness to let storylines overlap, with Wendy becoming more prominent and the Atlanta case having a lot of lead-up before it seizes the national spotlight.  However, its approach to the serial killer procedural formula hasn't changed. It still keeps the focus off of the grisly murders, only showing glimpses in photographs, and puts the attention on the psychology of the murderers and the members of the BSU.  The individual interviews are still a highlight, but I wasn't as impressed with the appearances of Stan Berkowitz (Oliver Cooper) and Charles Manson (Damon Herriman) as I was with the lesser known Elmer Wayne Henley Jr. (Robert Aramayo) and Manson acolyte Tex Watson (Christopher Backus), or the show's first interview with one of the victims - Kevin Bright (Andrew Yackel), who escaped BTK (Sonny Valicenti).  

The Bright interview happens in the second episode, one of three directed by David Fincher.  It takes place entirely in a parked car where the camera never shows us Bright directly, because Bright has asked his interviewers not to look at him.  Fincher manages to get some real, queasy intensity out of the very limited visuals, a stark reminder that his work has been unfortunately missing from movie screens since 2014.  "Mindhunter" isn't a great substitute, but there are enough scenes like the Bright interview that I'm glad that Fincher is involved in the show, ensuring unusually artful handling of the sensitive subject matter.  The Atlanta case is especially thorny, involving the deaths of multiple children, racial and social politics, and too much media attention. Holden and Bill team up with Atlanta FBI agent Jim Barney (Albert Jones), and try to enlist the help of locals like Camille Bell (June Carryl), the mother of one of the victims, who has become an outspoken activist.  

At times it feels like the show isn't giving enough attention to all these different cases and characters.  Even Holden feels like he's been downgraded to a supporting player at times. He develops an anxiety condition that's never explored past the first episode, and no time is spent on his personal life, which is odd since so much of the first season was about his relationship with Debbie.  On the other hand, this season is clearly designed to part of a longer narrative, it makes sense that Bill and Wendy are getting more of the spotlight now. The BSU is still a work in progress, and so are many of the cases it will be part of. BTK, for instance, finally shows up on the BSU's radar, and continues appearing in little teaser scenes, but there's almost no movement on his actual investigation.     

The cast remains very strong, with special kudos to whoever is casting the various serial killers.  I appreciate the more cerebral approach to the cases, and attempts to show different perspectives and considerations in handling the investigations.  Inevitably the stories get sensationalized, but I like that the show tempers the more lurid aspects in various ways. In the interview with Henly, for instance, the focus is on Gregg and Wendy's interview strategies.  It also thematically ties into Wendy's struggles with her sexuality and the progression of Bill's storyline with his son. The interview with Manson is spent mostly debunking the popular narrative around him, though it also ends up adding a bit to his mystique.     

All in all, this is a solid second season that's set up plenty more to look forward to.  Little is resolved, but all the right questions have been asked. I do wish David Fincher would get another major project off the ground, but "Mindhunter" has benefitted so much from his involvement, I wouldn't mind him sticking it through to the end.  

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Nuts, I Liked "Dark Phoenix"

There is a very long list of reasons why I shouldn't like "Dark Phoenix," which is going to be the last of the Fox produced "X-men" films.  It is writer and director Simon Kinberg's second attempt to adapt the "Phoenix" storyline from the "X-men" comics, after the disastrous "X-men: Last Stand," and he didn't really solve the major problems with it.  Jean Grey was always a difficult character to get right, and though Sophie Turner does her best, she's not very compelling here. I don't appreciate the way Kinberg mucks with the characterization of Xavier (James McAvoy) and Beast (Nicholas Hoult) to generate more conflict.  There are still way too many characters with too little to do. Surely Cyclops (Tye Sheridan) should have gotten more attention here, but then there's really no attempt at significant subplots. Or humor, for that matter. There's also a new villain, Vuk (Jessica Chastain), that is really just walking exposition in a cool outfit.  The whole second act is remarkably poorly put together, dropping plot points like lead weights while emotional arcs are barely sketched in.

And yet, to my immense annoyance with myself, I still liked the movie.  I have invested so much in this run of "X-men" films, I couldn't help feeling happy seeing these characters again.  I got such a kick out of watching the fully formed X-men team in action in the first act, rescuing a group of astronauts, and I liked the big showdown in the third act, which was well paced and showed off everyone's powers in a fun way.  And the sight of Michael Fassbender out-acting everyone around him, even if it's doing something as goofy as tug-of-war with a helicopter, still makes me so happy. "Dark Phoenix" is the only movie he and Jennifer Lawrence are appearing in this year, so that probably influenced me subconsciously too.  Compared to "Apocalypse" and a string of other, much more disheartening franchise films this year, "Dark Phoenix" came off as massively flawed but actually pretty watchable as an action spectacular.

Sure, I could nitpick about the nonsensical timelines or how ridiculous the latest costumes look, but when it comes down to it, I watch these films to see good actors taking on these larger-than-life characters and conflicts, engaging in CGI enhanced fisticuffs, and maybe a little social commentary around the margins too, if we're lucky.  "Dark Phoenix" gave me plenty of the first two, as "X-men" boasts the best casting out of any of the current superhero franchises, and the actors deliver plenty on even the worst outings. It also has a couple of interesting ideas regarding human-mutant relations that don't get nearly enough screen time or development, but at least the filmmakers actually tried to engage with that side of the premise this time.  We're probably never going to see any of the Genosha storylines on film, but it was nice getting just a hint of what it might have looked like. And I'm clearly not above being pandered to as a fan, so the little callbacks to past relationships and events went a long way with me. The final scene with Xavier and Magneto may have felt forced, but it was the right note to end the Fox "X-men" series on.    

Maybe I'm just feeling generous because the "X-men" series is being put out to pasture so abruptly, in less than ideal circumstances.  I thought it had hit its expiration date a few years ago, but I'm not happy that Disney is taking over this franchise, because as bumpy as the output has been, Fox has done some great things with it.  I can't help wondering what "Dark Phoenix" would have looked like, if they'd done it ten years in the future with a more seasoned director, or what some of the proposed spinoffs with this group of actors could have achieved.  Jon Hamm as Mr. Sinister will remain a pipe dream, alas. I almost wish that "Dark Phoenix" had been a real dud, because I could have written off the whole universe with no regrets. Now, I'm seeing it off with more reluctance. 

In the end, I want exactly what I wanted after "Apocalypse," which was to see all of these characters take a long break and regroup.  The reasons are a little different, but my sentiments are more or less the same now. Rushing into things and overreaching, as we're seen demonstrated over and over again, just makes a mess.      

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Mad About China

I want to preface this post with a few caveats. First, I've been keeping an eye on China's attempts to build their "soft power" by beefing up their entertainment industry, and Hollywood's attempts to court Chinese audiences and Chinese investments for roughly a decade now. I've also been familiar with Chinese censorship efforts for a long while before that. So what's been happening over the past few months doesn't surprise me in the least. I don't want to downplay how concerning these new developments are, but I've also been thinking of them as inevitable for years. I don't mean to sound flippant, but I'm far past the point of being surprised or outraged with anyone involved. Secondly, I'm definitely pro Hong-Kong, just as I've always been pro Taiwan, but geopolitics are complicated, and anything involving China is doubly so. Therefore, I'm going to avoid commenting directly on the politics of the current Hong Kong crisis. This will be a post focusing on the relationship between American entertainment and technology companies and the Communist Chinese government.

So, if you haven't heard, the Chinese government controlled by the Chinese Communist Party (the CCP) has been cracking down on media content due to a combination of factors. One is the current series of protests in Hong Kong over newly proposed extradition laws. Another is this year's celebration of the 70th anniversary of Communist rule. Still another is a new round of human rights abuses being uncovered, which are predictably heinous. Oh, and the creators of "South Park" decided to join the fray with a series of episodes directly calling out the Chinese government for its wrongdoing, and Hollywood for catering to them in order to access Chinese audiences. This earned them a total ban of "South Park" content in China. And suddenly the NBA is involved, because the general manager of the Houston Rockets tweeted his support for Hong Kong. Chinese broadcasts of NBA games have been put in jeopardy. LeBron James is now in hot water because of his tweet backing the CCP, and Hong Kong protest supporters are showing up to NBA games. And Apple pulling an app that the Hong Kong protesters were using has drawn criticism. And Blizzard Entertainment punished a pro gamer for voicing support, only to back down after fan outrage.

What does all this mean? Well, it means that a fight that's been going on mostly out of the public eye for years now is finally being dragged into the spotlight. China has been in empire-building mode for that past decade or so, but instead of conquering physical territories they've been using investments in business and technology to garner greater and greater influence. They figured out that companies are often as powerful as countries these days, and have thoroughly entrenched themselves in many different industries, including the entertainment world. And they may have embraced capitalism, but not democracy, and certainly not free speech. Now they're demonstrating that by actively leaning on major corporations to back them in their efforts to put down the Hong Kong protests and related criticism Some brave souls are resisting, but it's disheartening to see how many are giving in to the CCP's demands in order to protect their Chinese business interests. Fortunately, they're seeing a lot of push back for it this time.

Keep in mind that companies appeasing the Chinese and other problematic actors has been going on for a long time now. However, it hasn't been nearly this visible or this dramatic. The Hong Kong protests have worldwide attention and it's impossible to ignore how awful the behavior of the CCP-backed police has been, and often how outrageously out of proportion. And the crucial mistake that they'e made is that these strongarm tactics are spilling over into their online response to criticism as well, hitting much closer to home for some international observers. A disengaged American schlub might not care about kids in Hong Kong being beaten up and disappeared, but they might care about a Hearthstone gamer getting banned from competition for shouting a fairly innocuous protest slogan in an interview. Or that LeBron James is looking awfully hypocritical, promoting civil rights, but throwing his support behind the CCP.

I expect that we're going to see more flashpoints as the situation develops. The release of Disney's "Mulan" next year is sure to be one. However, I suspect that the little, petty power moves that the CCP has regularly made in the past, like refusing Chinese releases to Brad Pitt and Richard Gere movies, are going to be scrutinized more carefully. The map in "Abominable" highlighting Chinese claims to disputed territories got a lot more press than I think it would have if it weren't for everything else going on.

No one's cancelling China in a hurry, but the heat is on.

Stay tuned.

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"Legion," Year Three

I went into the third season of "Legion" very worried.  While I still enjoyed the show, I felt that the second season had become increasingly obtuse and inaccessible.  Certain changes to the characters and their relationships felt too extreme, potentially painting the writers into a corner.  And while I appreciated that the characters were morally greying, it was also becoming difficult to root for any of them.  

The third season doesn't change course, but it makes a difference that it really commits to its own special brand of madness.  David has now set himself up as the guru leader of his own personal cult, with Lenny as chief minion. The Summerland/Division 3 folks, assisted by the Shadow King, are trying to hunt him down and stop him from destroying the world.  As the premiere makes clear, Syd is now very willing and able to kill David dead to ensure he doesn't become the monster tyrant we've glimpsed from the future. There's just one little hitch - David has become friends with a time-traveler, Switch (Lauren Tsai), who is willing to help him muck with the timeline to an alarming degree.  

It's been observed that genre properties tend to introduce time travel whenever they find themselves narratively stuck somewhere they don't want to be.  The MCU and "X-men" movies, for instance, have taken advantage of this. With "Legion," it feels like less of a course correction than something that was planned from the beginning.  The third season is entirely built around the concepts of time travel, cause and effect, and David's obsession with trying to fix things. We meet the younger versions of his parents, Charles (Harry Lloyd) and Gabrielle (Stephanie Corneliussen), and a younger version of the Shadow King too.  

"Legion" continues to be visually inventive and wonderfully innovative with its storytelling.  Traveling through time is visualized as traversing a murky corridor that Switch accesses by drawing neon-lit doors in the air.  There are monsters that inhabit the corridor, the time demons, who look like a nightmarish cross between Cheshire Cats and Blue Meanies.  Their arrival is announced by the sound of a ticking clock, and with each tick their seemingly frozen images keep advancing closer, and closer.  The episode where they're introduced was directed by Daniel Kwan of the DANIELS directing team, who does all kinds of fascinating, experimental things in portraying how time can be warped.  Once sequence is entirely done in still photographs. In another, Lenny watches an entire human lifetime play out in a few seconds.  

This is in addition to the usual "Legion" graphic extravagance.  There are song numbers, a rap battle with Jason Mantzoukas, pastoral fantasy interludes, and much kung-fu fighting.  David has spruced himself up with brightly colored clothing and a color-coded new compound for his hippie-like followers.  Switch's eye-catching wardrobe immediately sets her apart, and she communicates with a distant father (Ben Wang) only through screens and recordings, which she listens to over ever-present headphones.  The show still looks and feels like a comic-book in the best way. The soundtrack is similarly impressive, and deployed with expert precision.          

   

But while all the style is impeccable, the substance left me a little wanting.  I could follow what was going on better than in the previous season, and I'm glad that the creators addressed some longstanding issues with characters like Syd, but parts of the story felt neglected.  There's no resolution for some of my favorites, and others have little more than cameos. I'm okay with how David's story ultimately concludes, but I think it could have been set up better. Navid Negahban distinguishes himself this year, but it felt like major chunks of the Shadow King's story were simply abandoned to play out offscreen.  

"Legion" remains the most daring and unlikely corner of the vast Marvel media universe.  I don't think we're going to see anything like it again in a hurry, especially now that Fox and all its various holdings are part of Disney.  And I don't know that Noah Hawley will ever have so much free reign over a television series in the future. This is a show so niche and so off-the-wall, and yet requires so much patience and indulgence, I'm delighted that it exists, but at the same time I have no idea who I could safely recommend it to.  David Lynch fans? Really dedicated Marvel comics lovers?      

Maybe I could just recommend the pilot and the Daniel Kwan episode.  And then, I'd let people find their way down the rabbit hole themselves.

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Uneasy Climate

Up until about two years ago, climate change was acknowledged, but not really spoken about directly in the media.  The mood has changed, however, and climate change has become a regular talking point. Maybe the sheer volume of the bad news about our deteriorating environment hit some kind of critical mass. Maybe it's because movies like "Downsizing" and "First Reformed" started addressing people's anxieties about the environment directly.  Whatever the reason, it's clear that Trump-era media is going to be marked by fears of environmental catastrophe the way that '80s films were marked by fears of nuclear annihilation.

So far this year, there have been direct mentions of climate change in shows like "Euphoria" and "Big Little Lies," and it's been explored through a more allegorical lens in genre films like "Fast Color," "Godzilla: King of the Monsters," and "The Dead Don't Die."  Disaffected television teenagers now regularly cite ecological apocalypse as a reason for their angst. In "Big Little Lies," a second grader had an anxiety attack brought on by a global warming lesson. Direct effects of climate change are rarely discussed - this is left for the many documentaries being produced about the subject - but they're treated with a grim sort of respect and certainty these days.  Environmentalists are no longer written off as kooks or conspiracy theorists. Even "South Park" apologized last year for its 2006 episode mocking Al Gore's efforts to raise the alarm about climate change, represented by the notorious "ManBearPig."  

Probably the genre that has been the most affected by the climate change issue has been science-fiction.  Over the past few years, nearly all depictions of the future have been dystopian. You don't see the kind of blissful, edenic views of the future that used to be common in the '50s and '60s.  Instead, there have been a lot of overcrowded ghetto cities full of corrupted technology, as seen in "Ready Player One," "Elysium," and "Blade Runner 2040." Or else it's environmentally devastated future Earths like "Interstellar" and "Avatar."  Brad Bird's "Tomorrowland" pointed out this difference explicitly, contrasting the space-age optimism of the past with the pessimistic views of the present, warning that this was becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Even in this context, climate change is rarely discussed directly.  I think there's still a certain reluctance because everyone is still having trouble parsing how to talk about the subject.  Clearly there's a major crisis looming, the outlook is bleak, and each new headline about the state of the environment has been more awful than the last.  However, there's also an important need to avoid being alarmist and defeatist about the subject. Every serious discussion of climate change tends to put the emphasis on what people can do to avoid or mitigate the worst outcomes.  Dwelling on the darkest timeline isn't helping anything.      

So evoking climate change in a fictional context is difficult because there's often not the narrative space to address concerns like this directly, and mining the crisis for entertainment value feels increasingly distasteful.  There's the whole political context that complicates matters. Many people, sadly, are still in denial that climate change is real. For others, however, it's too real, a topic that inspires such existential distress that it overwhelms whatever else the story is trying to achieve.  Cancer and Alzheimer's used to be verboten topics on soap operas for this very reason, recognized as too upsetting for many members of the audience.     

The doom-and-gloom treatment of climate change is no doubt also exacerbated by the current social and political climate in the U.S. and U.K., and I expect it's going to get worse over the next year with the 2020 election season coming up fast.  Watching the rise of the hard-right and alt-right, the spread of disinformation over social media, and the crackdowns on civil liberties, free speech, and privacy since 2016 have been exhausting. It's clear that there's plenty to be anxious about even without climate change issues.  

As all this anxiety comes to a head, I take some comfort in observing that attitudes toward climate change are changing, at least among fictional characters.  The creators still have to walk a fine line, and most mentions are brief, but climate change is getting more time in the spotlight. More importantly, it's being treated more seriously and more carefully.  We're a long ways away from Roland Emmerich's "The Day After Tomorrow," and that's a good thing.  

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My Favorite John Cassavetes Film

I've struggled to write this post for a long time now, because while I love the work of John Cassavetes and Gena Rowlands, I've found it difficult to get across why I find it so affecting.  On the surface level, it's easy to describe a John Cassavetes film. He was one of the most influential independent American filmmakers of the 1960s and 1970s, shooting his films cinema verite style, with an emphasis on unpolished performances and bare aesthetics.  Most of his films were self-financed, funded by his acting career, and his major collaborators were a small circle of friends and relatives. My favorite of his films, "A Woman Under the Influence," used a crew of mostly students, and was self-distributed. This allowed Cassavetes total creative freedom, and the ability to tinker with his films in ways that few others could.  Many of his pictures have multiple versions and cuts.    

The result is a rawness and intensity to Cassavetes' work that was unlike what anyone else was making at the time.  Many assumed his films were improvisational, but they were almost always fully scripted, presenting a startlingly candid look at intimate relationships and situations.  "A Woman Under the Influence" is about Mabel, a housewife and mother of three, who suffers a mental breakdown and navigates a difficult recovery. She's played by Gena Rowlands, Cassavetes' wife and most frequent collaborator.  Like most Cassavetes protagonists, Mabel is desperate and on edge, unhappy with her life and unable to cope. What distinguishes Mabel, however, is that she's such an ordinary, believable woman. Her stresses - family, lack of privacy, stifling home life - are mundane and familiar.  As depicted by Cassavetes, however, they quickly become alienating and unbearable.  

I have trouble articulating what it is about Rowlands in this movie that is so electrifying.  The film runs for two and a half nerve-wracking hours as we watch Mabel and her husband Nick, played by Peter Falk, fight and rage and love each other.  The two spend most of the film playing the couple in crisis, but you can also see flashes of how they used to function, who they were and urgently want to be again.  There is so much in the performances, especially from Rowlands, that conveys the magnitude of what we're watching transpire. It might be two and a half hours of screen time, but you can feel the weight of years of escalating stress and denial and uneasy compromises.  The relationship has a sense of history to it, of past battles and too much swept under the rug. Falk has never gotten as much press as Rowlands for his work here, but he's fantastic, clinging to any semblance of normalcy he can for dear life.

I've seen complaints that the film is too long, and too bogged down by incidental small talk.  However, this is what makes "A Woman Under the Influence" so unnerving. The audience knows that despite the casual appearances, there's something wrong with Mabel, but not when or how she's going to explode.  And when she does explode, the scale and the severity of it is breathtaking, terrifying. Her world, her sphere, is not equipped to contain it. And what I love about Cassavetes is that he stays with Mabel, with her discomfort and her exhaustion and her devastating moments of clarity.  The entire film is really two long sequences, each building up to dizzying emotional crescendos, but also full of little moments of quiet and contemplation, tension and release. Without that context, the film's effectiveness would be a fraction of what it achieves.    

 I've seen most of Rowland's other film with Cassavetes and enjoyed them, especially "Gloria," where she gets to play a flinty gun moll who discovers her maternal side.  However, many of her other performances feel like variations on Mabel - the disintegrating actress in "Opening Night," and the codependent sister in "Love Streams." The hooker in "Faces" was perhaps a prelude.  They're very good in their own right, but I can't help seeing the echoes of "A Woman Under the Influence" in them. And those echoes keep showing up in so many other films and performances, from "Raging Bull" to "Her Smell."  American independent film wouldn't be what it is now without Cassavetes' efforts paving the way. 

What I've Seen - John Cassavetes

Shadows (1959)

Husbands (1970)

A Woman Under the Influence (1974)

The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (1976)

Opening Night (1977)

Gloria (1980)

Love Streams (1984)

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A Rom-Com Round-Up

I've been very tentatively and gingerly easing back into romantic comedies over the past few months, after many years of avoiding the genre.  There are landmines everywhere, from "Hallmark Channel" schmaltz to brainless raunch fests. I detest some of the tropes that plagued mainstream rom-coms in the 2000s - manufactured problems, horrible cartoonish characters, and outdated expectations about love and romance.  In other words, everything that "Isn't it Romantic" tried to lampoon earlier this year.

However, romantic comedies have changed, putting some of the old notions behind them while doggedly clinging to others.  I watched Netflix's "Set it Up" and the indies "Destination Wedding" and "Plus One" recently, and wanted to dissect them a bit.  Note that two feature Asian-American female protagonists, which is germane to my interests, being an Asian-American blogger. Two feature couples who despise weddings being forced to endure them as singletons, which is germane to my interests as someone who likes watching people being miserable at weddings.

I feel that "Destination Wedding," starring Winona Ryder and Keanu Reeves, is the outlier here, as it's about two middle-aged wedding guests (and self-described narcissist monsters) who spend the entire film having extended conversations with each other, eventually resulting in a hookup and presumably a relationship.   There are barely any other cast members who appear onscreen and only the barest skeleton of a plot. It's really just the two of them cynically bickering at the sidelines of the joyous affair for an hour, before eventually softening and getting lovey dovey with each other.

This initially appears similar to the premise of "Plus One," where Maya Erskine and Jack Quaid play Annie and Ben, two old college friends who agree to attend a marathon of weddings together as each other's dates, despite not being romantically linked.  Of course, they quickly become romantically linked, unlinked, and relinked before the film ends. However, the characters are much better defined than the "Destination Wedding" duo and at a different point in their lives. Annie and Ben are endlessly sarcastic young millennials, still a little idealistic about love, and willing to be raunchier and sillier with each other.  

In that way they're similar to Harper and Charlie, played by Zoey Deutch and Glen Powell, from "Set it Up."  These two initially join forces to set up their demanding bosses, played by Taye Diggs and Lucy Liu, and end up falling for each other in the process.  Harper and Charlie are both horribly overworked assistants, juggling other demands, and are only taking part in the mutual scheme to try and get their bosses off their backs.  I like that both "Plus One" and "Set it Up" could work pretty well as comedies where the protagonists are simply friends. It's the "When Harry Met Sally" approach, and it still works.       

However, these are also both clearly movies about characters in 2019.  Though there's a lot of fantasy in play, the situations are more grounded.  Casual sex is fine. Comedic besties are off the table. Harper and Charlie both have to wrestle with the spectre of economic insecurity, and "Set it Up" opens with a great montage of frazzled corporate underlings struggling to run endless errands in New York City.  Annie and Ben are more well off financially - enough to afford attending roughly a dozen weddings in a single season - but are also more realistically situated in a web of relatives, friends, and acquaintances who take turns weighing in on the state of their relationship.  

All the movies I watched also made a point of commenting a bit on older rom-coms.  "Set it Up" pointedly shows that the relationship orchestrated by Harper and Charlie, featuring all the usual hallmarks of onscreen romances, doesn't work if it's based on false pretenses and bad motives.  "Plus One" and "Destination Wedding" spend a lot of their screentime having the characters gripe about and make fun of weddings - all of them very traditional affairs with formalwear, speeches, and dancing.    

And yet, some of the old tropes persist.  The women are prone to being a little manic and overly talkative.  The men are idealists, if a bit misguided, and always secret romantics at heart.  Many characters are cynical about marriage and throw shade at excessive consumerism, but in the end "Plus One" makes a nice case for long term commitment and "Destination Wedding" posits that mutual adversity is a great way to meet people.     

Of the three films, "Set it Up" is the clear winner for its good performances and juggling of a lot of different ideas, but the other two are also pretty decent.  And that's a relief.

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The Winning "Wild Rose"

I hate country music.  I can't stand it. Country music films, however, are a different matter.  And I wasn't about to pass up a film featuring Jessie Buckley in a starring role after seeing her deliver some fantastic performances over the past year, in projects like "Beast" and "Chernobyl."  In "Wild Rose" she plays Rose-Lynn, a Glasgow ex-con who dreams of going to Nashville and chasing her dream of being a country singer. However, she has to struggle just to get by, working as a housecleaner for the well-to-do Susannah (Sophie Okonedo), and leaning heavily on her mother Marion (Julie Walters), who looked after Rose-Lynn's young children, Wynonna (Daisy Littlefield) and Lyle (Adam Mitchell), while she was in prison.

There are several impressive performance scenes where Buckley does all of her own singing, but I found that "Wild Rose" was worth seeing for the domestic drama and the character study of Rose-Lynn more than anything.  Seeing her struggle to balance her responsibilities as a mother with her attempts to take advantage of new career opportunities is very compelling. The film does this in a fairly novel and interesting way too, focusing on Rose-Lynn's relationships with Susannah, Marion, and her kids, while avoiding any of the romantic storylines that usually feature in ascending music star movies.  Having a musical career requires sacrifice, but rarely have we seen a film show this in such stark and painful terms.  

I like the way that the film plays with the familiar structure of these music films.  Our heroine has to travel a very unorthodox, winding road to get to the happy ending and the big showstopper performance that we know she's going to reach.  Rose-Lynn starts out at a major disadvantage being a country singer in Glasgow where there's not much of a music scene, just out of prison and sporting an electronic ankle monitor for the first chunk of the film.  Then she keeps making choices that run counter to what we've come to expect from similar narratives. Big opportunities keep not panning out, and there's some not-so-subtle material about class and socioeconomic differences.  Writer Nicole Taylor leaves some odd ellipses and convenient plotting in the script, but these are minor and forgivable. I don't even mind that there's a very unlikely third act twist used to get Rose-Lynn to Nashville.    

It helps that Rose-Lynn is always portrayed as a believable human being, immature and flawed.  Buckley is wonderfully engaging and sympathetic, even when Rose-Lynn is breaking promises to her kids, or cluelessly asking Susannah to fund her career.  Part of it is that she's so charming, it's easy to buy into the idea that Susannah becomes her fan and champion. Part of it is that Rose-Lynn is so young, and so clearly a work in progress.  Part of it is that she's clearly a rare talent, and there's every reason to believe that her dream of stardom isn't out of her reach. I think the movie may also have my favorite Julie Walters performance.  She's playing another non-nonsense working class woman, disher of tough love and reminder of harsh realities. At the same time, she's warm and maternal, and it's crushing to see her disappointment every time Rose-Lynn stumbles.

Director Tom Harper is mostly known for his thrillers, including the upcoming "The Aeronauts."  His work here is intimate, mostly keeping us in Rose-Lynn's headspace and emotional sphere. It does a fine job of situating her in relation to the various and disparate environments she encounters, particularly the performance spaces.  This is vital because of the amount of emphasis that is placed on Rose-Lynn's singing as an extension of her personality and her emotional state. As I've said, I have no appreciation for country music whatsoever, but Buckley's vocal performances and the staging of them throughout the film are very appealing and effective stuff.   

"Wild Rose" is probably destined to be a cult film, one that would have probably done better if it was a biopic of a real country singer.  However, it is quietly one of the most satisfying music films I've seen in a long while, and further proof that Jessie Buckley's star is one the rise.

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"Men in Black International" and "Godzilla: King of the Monsters"

Where did it all go wrong?

This has been a pretty poor year for summer blockbusters.  Disney generated billions from four movies (five if you count "Spider-man"), and everyone else was left scrambling.  However, it's hard to feel sorry for them when many of the offerings were so lackluster. Let's take "Men in Black: International" and "Godzilla: King of Monsters" as prime examples.  These were franchise films that looked promising at the outset. They had good casts and interesting talent behind the cameras. However, both movies turned out to be painfully mediocre for various reasons, some of them shared.

"Men in Black: International" is a sort-of spinoff, sort-of reboot where Tessa Thompson's rookie Agent M joins Chris Hemsworth's hotshot Agent H on a globetrotting adventure, trying to fend off an alien invasion by a conqueror species known as The Hive.  Our newbies get some support from Liam Neeson and Emma Thompson as more senior Agents, T and O, and new alien comic-relief from the pint-sized Pawny, voiced by Kumail Nanjiani. All the usual pieces of the franchise's formula are present and accounted for.  And it doesn't work. It's actually kind of fascinating how much it doesn't work.

Thompson and Hemsworth are good performers, but their characters are bland and unexciting.  Hardly anything I enjoyed about the original "Men in Black" movies remains. The fish-out-of-water comedy is gone.  The odd couple dynamics are barely there. The CGI aliens are pretty old hat by this time, and there's none of the wild visual inventiveness that distinguished the original movie.  A couple of fun sight gags and action sequences remain, leaning heavily on the audience's nostalgia and goodwill for the previous movies. There seems to be a reluctance to try anything new, despite all the different settings and parts of the story trying to riff on James Bond.  Considering the talent involved, this is a disappointment on every level.

"Godzilla: King of the Monsters" fares a little better.  Its monster brawls are pretty decently set up and executed.  Unfortunately, those brawls take up maybe thirty minutes of screen time, and the movie runs over two hours.  A direct sequel to the 2014 "Godzilla," it brings back a handful of characters, including Ken Watanabe's Dr. Serizawa, Godzilla's biggest cheerleader.  However, most of the drama is centered on scientists Mark Russell (Kyle Chandler) and Emma Russell (Vera Farmiga), and their daughter Madison (Millie Bobby Brown).  The Russells have split since the death of their son during the events of the first film, and get swept up in the latest crisis, where eco-terrorists led by Alan Jonah (Charles Dance) set loose many of the monstrous "Titans" to wreak havoc on the world.    

The spectacle of the monsters, this time including old Toho favorites Mothra, Rodan, and King Ghidora, is perfectly fine.  They've all been lovingly redesigned into new CGI forms, and each get their time in the spotlight. Rodan makes mincemeat of fighter planes.  King Ghidora summons electrical storms. Benevolent Mothra isn't much of a fighter, but she sure brings some wow factor. This installment is much more successful at getting across the idea that some of the Titans are positive balancing forces and should be aided by humanity, even if they are destructive.  Others are pure baddies who we are encouraged to root against.    

The humans, alas, are mostly left to flounder in crisis mode, saddled with awful dialogue and nonsensical plot developments.  New members of the ensemble include Bradley Whitford, Thomas Middleditch, Aisha Hinds, O'Shea Jackson Jr., and Ziyi Zhang as twins, who I didn't realize were two different people.  Ken Watanabe's Serizawa is the only one who comes off well, being as much of an over-the-top caricature as his beloved monsters, and given a nice hero moment in the second act.    

And where does that leave these franchises?  "Godzilla" will be rolling along to fight King Kong next year, despite "King of the Monsters" being a box office bust.  "Men in Black International" has broken even, and I wouldn't be surprised if it got a sequel. I'm not opposed to either continuation, since these series exist in universes that still have plenty of material left to explore, and offer cinematic joys that are easy and uncomplicated.  However, creative shakeups and course corrections are desperately needed.     

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The Fabulous "Fosse/Verdon"

I'm usually wary of showbiz biopics because of their tendency to put their subjects on a pedestal and to follow very familiar, compressed narrative arcs.  The "Fosse/Verdon" miniseries, however, has a couple of factors on its side. First, and most importantly, it's eight episodes long and not afraid to really dig into the tumultuous personal lives of Bob Fosse (Sam Rockwell) and Gwen Verdon (Michelle Williams).  Second, it's centered on their troubled relationship, a spectacular creative partnership that produced some of the greatest American musicals of all time, and continued past their rocky marriage.

"Fosse/Verdon" covers its subjects' entire lives, but is focused mostly on the period between 1968 and 1979, when Bob was at his creative height as a director and choreographer, and Gwen's career was in decline.  We witness their marriage dissolve, their struggles with work and co-parenting, and their inability to stay out of each other's lives. Each episode is built around their personal crises, often connected to the projects they're working on, like "Chicago" or "Cabaret."  We also see some of the point of view of their daughter Nicole (Blake Baumgartner and Juliet Brett) who doesn't emerge from her childhood unscathed.  

The driving creative forces behind "Fosse/Verdon" are Broadway vets Steven Levenson and Thomas Kail, who are clearly at home in the theater world.  They bring a wonderful sense of authenticity to Fosse's notoriously intense rehearsals, the backstage drama, and the whole process of putting these big, complicated projects together.  There's a welcome sense of community too - Bob and Gwen have a circle of showbiz friends that include Neil Simon (Nate Corddry) and Paddy Chayefsky (Norbert Leo Butz), who appear in multiple episodes, and we're constantly seeing agents, producers, and various romantic partners played by familiar actors.  Executive producer Lin Manuel Miranda pops up in the last episode briefly to play Roy Scheider.   

Rockwell and Williams, however, are the main event.  Both sing and dance well enough to look like they know what they're doing in the recreations of famous musical numbers, but their primary talents are clearly as actors, to the show's benefit.  These are physically demanding performances, covering decades of Bob and Gwen's lives, from their initial meeting on "Damn Yankees," to Bob's death in the 1980s. 

Bob was an addict and workaholic whose health was increasingly in peril, and Gwen famously lost her voice during the initial run of "Chicago."  I love the way that they're both able to get across the underlying insecurities and traumas that drive them, and the way they react to disappointments and setbacks.  They're both very flawed characters, but made so sympathetic.        

The unsung heroes of the series are the editors, Tim Streeto and Kate Sanford, who take their cues from Bob's autobiopic "All That Jazz" in putting together these episodes that intertwine current events with moments from Bob and Gwen's pasts, and occasionally their futures.  Sometimes it's quick cuts to clips that last only a second or two, creating associations between different situations - Bob's womanizing and his childhood trauma, Gwen's early successes with her later struggles. I like the use of the fourth wall breaking chapter titles that help to frame certain events and keep the audience aware of passing time.  Mostly, they count down to events like Bob's death or heart attack. In one episode they keep a running tally of the awards Bob has racked during an eventful year. 

A notable departure from "All That Jazz," however, is that there are very few fantasy sequences.  "Fosse/Verdon" largely stays grounded in the real world, aside from one or two notable occasions. And though there's plenty of familiar music,  I wouldn't call this a musical either. Instead, it's a mature drama that examines its subjects with all due care and seriousness. There are some laughs here and there - I will never think of Paddy Chayefsky the same way again - but I think the series will best be enjoyed by viewers who like a good melodrama.  

I have some nagging quibbles - Gwen Verdon never feels like she really gets her due, even though pains were clearly taken to show she was an equal partner in her creative relationship with Bob Fosse.  The show isn't able to really capture her at her height. Also, those who aren't familiar with Fosse's work might have trouble following along. Clearly, however, everyone involved in "Fosse/Verdon" was a fan of these two, and wanted to do right by them and their work.  There's so much love on the screen, it's hard not to be won over.   

        

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"Young Justice," Year Three

It's got to say something about the state of the US media that a third season of "Young Justice" happened.  This is a series so doggedly aimed at existing DC fans, with such high barriers to entry, that I often had trouble working out exactly what was going on - and I watched the first two seasons!  "Young Justice" was resurrected for Warners' new DC Universe streaming service, so they're surely aiming at the right audience, but how much of an audience is there for the show after such a long hiatus?

Still, there's something to be said for being plunged back into a universe that isn't going to wait around for the audience to get reacquainted.  The new season, dubbed "Outsiders," takes place two years after the previous episodes, and follows four of the original core cast: Dick/Nightwing (Jesse McCartney), Megan/Miss Martian (Danica McKellar), Conner/Superboy (Nolan North), and Artemis/Tigress (Stephanie Lemelin).  After an eventful mission, they spend much of the season helping along several younger heroes with newly emerging powers, including Brion/Geo-Force (Troy Baker), Violet/Halo (Zehra Fazal), Victor/Cyborg (Zeno Robinson), and Fred/Forager (Jason Spisak). Dozens and dozens of other DC characters are also in the mix.

I like how "Young Justice" now operates a lot like the later seasons of the animated "Justice League" did.  While there are ongoing storylines that focus on the main characters, each episode will also spotlight several other DC characters.  So in one episode, we might get a subplot about a covert mission headed up by Batman, and in another we get the backstory of the villain Vandal Savage and his followers.  The larger plot is often a challenge to track because there are a lot of moving parts to keep an eye on, and if you don't recognize certain characters from the DC comics, nobody is going to explain who they are.  There's a big exposition dump every few episodes just to keep everyone abreast of the bad guys' nefarious scheme as it's being uncovered. 

Raising the difficulty even further is that little stays static in the "Young Justice" universe, as made clear in an episode where several of the League members who are parents have a playdate with all their kids together.  Also, the "Young Justice" versions of certain characters are a lot closer to the comics continuity, and can be very different from what we've seen in other DC media. For instance, we're at a point in time where Terra and Cyborg are just being introduced, we're on our second iterations of Robin and Kid Flash, and Roy Harper is on friendly terms with both of his clones.  The big guns like Superman and Wonder Woman are around, but they only pop up now and then in a very limited fashion. Iit also helps if you are familiar with some of the current DC media - there's a parody segment in one episode that makes no sense unless you've seen "Teen Titans Go!" and know some of the history of the Doom Patrol.

I'm happy to report that none of the "Young Justice" gang has lost a step during the extended hiatus.  Everyone is back, with their original voice actors, the original show's creators Greg Weisman and Brandon Vietti as showrunners, and the occasionally wonky, but mostly pretty solid animation from South Korea.  Dick, Megan, Conner, and Artemis have been allowed to grow up a bit more and relax, leaving the bulk of the personal dramatics to the new crop of teenage heroes. And boy, are there dramatics. All the best superhero soap opera tropes are here, from amnesia and tragic backstories to being mind-controlled by the bad guy.  The content's more adult though, with more graphic violence and darker themes. Human trafficking is big part of the story this year. 

I found the new characters pretty trite - Brion's the typical angry young hothead, and Violet's just the newest spin on the sheltered foreign girl, but they're allowed to grow and change quickly.  And it's a good sign that several of the characters I wasn't keen on in the early days of "Young Justice" are among my favorites now. While I may have missed a few references here and there, it wasn't hard to catch up on where everyone was, and the usual formula of superheroes going on missions and stopping the bad guys meant that individual episodes all remained very watchable, even if I wasn't familiar with the specific characters involved.  

I'd love to see "Young Justice" continue, as this universe is clearly not running out of stories to tell any time soon.  And I'd really like more time to work out a few of the remaining mysteries. Seriously, who is Snapper Carr again?        

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