My Favorite Pedro Almodovar Film

Nobody makes a melodrama like Almodovar.  His films are full of big emotions, grand gestures, passion, violence, madness and death.   His characters are ordinary people, but with wild personalities and behavior full of extremes. Nonetheless, they are always portrayed with sympathy.  He came to prominence in the '80s for his knowingly kitschy, campy films about LGBT characters, sex workers, criminals, and so many troubled, fascinating women.  Themes of gender identity, sexual dysfunction, difficult relationships, and family strife come up again and again.  His early work is bursting with daring and inventiveness, never afraid of explicit sex scenes, shocking humor, or the occasional jaunt into the absurd.

So, I feel a little bad that my favorite Almodovar film is one of his most gentle and even-keeled, "Volver," or "The Return."  It still features murder, incest, abuse, a bad marriage, some magical realism, and a ghost, but the characters are more grounded in the real world.  Famously the plot gestated for a decade before Almodovar made it into a film.  "Volver" features three generations of women from La Mancha, Almodovar's birthplace, who have to confront their messy, troubled family history when a series of deaths take place.  At the center of the action is Raimunda, played by Penelope Cruz, a fiery woman who murders her husband in order to protect her teenage daughter, and quickly blossoms as a businesswoman in his absence.  She's able to reconnect to other members of her estranged family, including her sister and deceased mother, played by Almodovar regulars Lola Duenas and Carmen Maura.  Together, they support each other through the ongoing crisis and make their peace with the dead.

"Volver" was my first Almodovar film, and though I certainly appreciate many of the others, I've never found another that offered such a warmly inviting set of characters.  These are women with very dramatic lives, living in a close-knit community full of sinister superstitions and terrible secrets.  We get the sense that these are not aggressive, confrontational people, and tend to sweep unpleasantness under the rug.  However, what drives them to act is their love for each other - mothers protecting daughters, daughters reconciling with their mothers, and everyone doing their part to take care of a senile auntie.  Almodovar claims that he took inspiration from the Italian neorealist films, especially the strong female leads played by actresses like Anna Magnani and Sophia Loren.  You can definitely see the influence on Raimunda, both in terms of her strong temperament and striking visual presence.  

Almodovar's films all take place in these emotionally heightened worlds where the real and the unreal frequently mix.  His frames are full of bright colors, bold patterns, and eye-catching designs.  Even in a funeral scene where all the characters are wearing black, the floor beneath them is a red and white checkerboard.  The color red is very prominent here, often appearing when passions are running high.  Raimunda wears the color frequently, helping her to stand out from everyone else, and to remind us of the force of her personality.  The characters are all working class, but they always look fabulous, even in their most fraught moments.  Many of Almodovar's films are about obsessions with the female form - most explicitly in projects like "The Skin I Live In," "Talk to Her," and "Bad Education."  With "Volver," however, it's truly a celebration of women in their totality - their strength, their resilience, and their industriousness.

I prefer Almodovar's earlier, more transgressive films to his later, more serious-minded ones.  His treatment of LGBT characters in particular was so refreshing to see, I nearly chose to write about "All About My Mother," which he specifically dedicated to women of all biologies.  Like "Volver," it's all about life going on after an unspeakable tragedy, and women coming together to face adversity.  However, Raimunda and her family face much darker and thornier issues, and there's so much history between them all to be rediscovered.  I found them far more compelling and relatable, which I suppose says more about me than about Almodovar.  I also enjoyed the film's treatment of spirituality very much, especially its handling of the dead mother.  As ghost stories go, this is certainly one of the most joyous and unique.

What I've Seen - Pedro Almodovar

What Have I Done to Deserve This? (1984)

Law of Desire (1987)

Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988)

Tie Me Up!  Tie Me Down (1990)

All About My Mother (1999)

Talk to Her (2002)

Bad Education (2004)

Volver (2006)

The Skin I Live In (2011)

I'm So Excited! (2013)

Julieta (2016)

Pain and Glory (2019)

Parallel Mothers (2021)

      

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"Ms. Marvel" is Worth a Watch

As my interest in the Disney+ MCU shows has been steadily dwindling, the shows are quietly shifting to spotlight new characters from the comics, including Moon Knight, She-Hulk, and Ms. Marvel.  I don't think the shows are getting any better, but it's a nice change of pace.  The six episode "Ms. Marvel" is their riskiest project so far, because it's a YA story, starring a teenage superhero - a Pakistani-American superhero who lives in New Jersey and is a Captain Marvel fangirl.

Kamala Khan (Iman Vellani) is the beloved daughter of Muneeba (Zenobia Shroff) and Yusuf (Mohan Kapur), sister of Aamir (Saagar Shaikh), and close friend of fellow high schoolers Nakia (Yasmeen Fletcher) and Bruno (Matt Lintz).  She's a normal girl who juggles school and mosque and her protective parents' expectations with her own interests.  In the first episode, she sneaks out to a superhero convention so she can cosplay as Captain Marvel.  In the process, she also unlocks her own unexpected superpowers.  Unlike "Moon Knight," "Ms. Marvel" leans heavily into Kamala's background, and creator Bisha K. Ali packs tons of details about Pakistani culture into the show - family dynamics, wedding preparations, the various cliques at the mosque, and advice from the kindly imam (Laith Nakli).  At the same time, the Khans are typical Americans.  Kamala frets over her driving test, and her parents are Bon Jovi fans.

And this is all presented in a very light, very appealing style with a lot of energy.  You can tell the creators wanted to take advantage of this rare opportunity to showcase a Pakistani character, and made sure to get as much authentic culture onscreen as possible, while still making a fun superhero show.  The production design is very colorful and vibrant, emphasizing Kamala's rich heritage and the importance of her family to her.  There are pointed references to the difficulties faced by Muslims living in the U.S., but these are handled very tactfully, never taking away from the fun atmosphere.  The creators have also taken pains to show that Kamala is a contemporary character, who uses social media and doodles all over her school work.  Most of these actors are new to me, but everyone is perfectly cast and gives committed performances.  Iman Vellani is the best young MCU performer since Tom Holland, and carries the show without breaking a sweat.  

The size of "Ms. Marvel" feels right for being on Disney+, with many episodes coming across more like parts of a solid teen comedy than a genre show.  The charm of Kamala Khan is her adolescent point of view, and the specificity of her struggles.  Whenever the plot tries to get more epic, it tends to lose its footing.  Two episodes are spent in Pakistan, where Kamala learns about her heritage and picks up a few more allies and enemies.  And these are pretty tedious compared to the rest of the show, because they quickly get bogged down in standard superhero schtick and the stakes are never all that convincing.  It's a relief when she heads back to New Jersey for her final showdown.  

"Ms. Marvel" does have many of the bad habits of the other MCU shows, which  come down to trying to do way too much in the span of six episodes, and prioritizing the spectacle of the action sequences.  The timing of when Kamala gets her costume, and when she gets a change of scenery, and when she has to fight a baddie with a poorly defined backstory are all very familiar.  The Damage Control organization shows up at one point, with no explanation as to who they are.  However, with "Ms. Marvel," the creators also clearly had other important priorities, and they're successful enough at making Kamala loveable and relatable that I found the show ultimately worth watching.  

I've been sufficiently convinced to look forward to Kamala's next appearance, when she jumps to the big screen as part of "The Marvels" roster sometime next year.  She's way more endearing than Carol Danvers, and has more to fight for.  

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The Limitations of "Moon Knight"

All the spoilers ahead

There is way too much good TV right now for me to be spending much time thinking about "Moon Knight," but I feel like I need to get a few things off my chest about the MCU series on Disney+.  This is the first of their shows to not be explicitly tied to the rest of the cinematic universe.  It stars two of the best working actors on the planet right now - Oscar Isaac and Ethan Hawke.  It has all the resources of Marvel Studios at its disposal.  The series was hyped up as a major event, and I was anticipating this more than probably any other MCU series.  And good grief, "Moon Knight" is underwhelming.

This was promoted as a darker, creepier show that tackled themes of mental health.  Instead, it's a pretty kid-friendly action program that doesn't contain anything more disturbing than you'd find in the "Mummy" movies.  The story does involve the Egyptian gods, who the Moon Knight gets his powers from, so there are potentially gnarly elements like a trip to the underworld, people getting possessed to act as "avatars," and slightly bloodier violence than the MCU norm.  I stress the "slightly," because the most egregious acts of violence are always kept offscreen.  There's actually a story reason for this, which isn't handled as well as it should be, resulting in a lot of the show's action sequences feeling like an awful tease for cool scenes we don't actually get to see.  This even extends to the finale, one of the most anticlimactic things I've ever seen.

The mental health warnings slapped on various episodes are in reference to our hero suffering from Dissociative Identity Disorder.  Londoner Steven Grant (Isaac) is a soft-spoken employee of the British Museum who keeps losing chunks of time, soon revealed to be the parts of his life that are being lived out by the part of him that is an American mercenary, Marc Spector.  Marc is the avatar of the Egyptian moon god Khonshu (F. Murray Abraham), who can turn into a superpowered fighter, but is also bound to help Khonshu in his war against evil forces.  The primary one is Arthur Harrow (Hawke), a cult leader who is trying to resurrect the troublesome goddess Ammit (Saba Mubarak).  As Steven learns more about Marc's life, he gets caught up in treasure hunts, spirit quests, and a lot of globetrotting alongside Marc's wife Layla (May Calamawy).  

Initially, "Moon Knight" is a little spooky and a little paranoid as Steven tries to account for a life full of unexplained blackouts and strange, looming visions of the skull-headed Khonshu and other monsters.  Two episodes later we're in the middle of a rolicking Egyptian action-adventure and Khonshu turns out to be a grumpy good guy with not as much power as we thought.  It's hard to really get invested in the conflicts here, because the show's mythology slips into comic book silliness very quickly.  The pace is so fast we're just supposed to take things like Khonshu messing with the positions of the stars, or Harrow convincing the surviving pantheon of Egyptian gods he's trustworthy, at face value.  I was constantly losing track of Harrow's schemes, and the exposition is really crammed around the edges of all the cacophonous fight sequences.  It feels like this was originally meant to be longer than six episodes.  At the same time, it also feels like two different versions of the same premise with two very different approaches, that the creators decided to cram together at the last minute.

Fundamentally, the show just isn't for me.  I think the best example of what I find so unsatisfying about "Moon Knight" is that we know that Marc and Steven have a third personality as early as the third episode, but this isn't explicitly confirmed until the mid-credits sequence of the last episode.  The show is written for ten year-olds, and as someone who has been watching "Peacemaker" and  "Invincible," I'm just not the target audience here.  However, Oscar Isaac is so good as Marc and Steven, and it's so much fun to watch him toggle between one personality and another, juggling different accents, and getting into the physical comedy and mayhem.  The fifth episode with Steven digging into Marc's past is excellent, and I wish that the creators had the guts to just keep the show smaller in scope and more character-focused in nature.  The big show-downs just keep getting increasingly tedious.

But this is an MCU series, and it's been shown time and time again that there's a formula here that Marvel's only willing to mess with so much.  And now I know not to expect more.

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"Lightyear" Has a Bumpy Ride

PIXAR's latest film hasn't done well in theaters, and there's been some negative chatter around it.  Some of this doesn't have anything to do with the actual film.  "Lightyear" is a "Toy Story" spinoff, and the premise is that we're going to watch an adventure movie about the intrepid hero that the familiar Buzz Lightyear toy was based on.  The trouble is that "Lightyear" doesn't resemble the kind of adventure movie you'd normally see toys made for.  It's also clearly not designed to look like a piece of 80s or 90s media.  This doesn't affect the movie itself, but the too-clever marketing does set unfortunate expectations, and I suspect the movie got off on the wrong foot with a lot of viewers.

If you treat "Lightyear" like a space adventure movie that doesn't have anything to do with the "Toy Story" universe, it goes down a lot easier.  Buzz Lightyear (Chris Evans) is a Space Ranger of Star Command, exploring an alien planet with his partner Alisha Hawthorne (Uzo Aduba), and the team becomes stranded.  Getting their vessels spaceworthy again proves to be difficult, and Buzz insists on being the primary test pilot, committed to finishing his mission.  Eventually things go sideways, the evil Zurg (Josh Brolin) gets involved, and Buzz finds himself leading a team of Space Ranger wannabes, Izzy (Keke Palmer), Mo (Taika Waititi), and Darby (Dale Soules).  Buzz also acquires a droll robot cat, Sox (Peter Sohn), who they're obviously going to make toys of, but he's one of the better parts of the movie.

The tone and the scope of "Lightyear" is closer to something like "WALL-E" than any of the "Toy Story" films, or the old "Buzz Lightyear of Star Command" cartoon that Disney is trying to pretend never existed.  There are themes and ideas here that are almost jarringly adult, especially the use of time-dilation, that causes Buzz to experience time differently from Alisha and the rest of their crew.  The design of the film also leans toward realism and takes its cues from space films like "Apollo 13" and "The Right Stuff" rather than most kid-oriented science fiction.  It all looks great onscreen, but it's a much more serious and somber vibe than"Toy Story."  And you really have to take this version of Buzz Lightyear as an entirely new character - a less silly, more grown-up Buzz carrying a lot of guilt.    

This doesn't mean the movie is glum - once the rookies show up in the second half, "Lightyear" slides into the groove of a more typical family adventure film, with plenty of one-liners, action scenes, Taika Waititi schtick, and heartfelt life lessons.  However, it takes a while to get there and the tonal shifts feel like the filmmakers had some trouble deciding whether they wanted to make a more serious film or a more typical, kid-friendly one.  I like the more thoughtful science fiction that "Lightyear" presents in its first half, and was a little frustrated that so much of it gets undercut when the movie feels obliged to keep the younger kids engaged with more slapstick and screaming.  I also really dislike what they did with Zurg, even though it makes total sense for this version of Buzz's origins.  Still, there's plenty of heart and charm throughout, and not an ounce of cynicism.      

I feel like we take PIXAR for granted a bit, because they've made so many films now.  "Lightyear" isn't one of their better ones, but there's still an unmistakable level of care and consideration apparent in every frame.  Most of the missteps here aren't major ones, and I expect that "Lightyear" will eventually attract its own group of staunch defenders, as all ambitious animation inevitably does.  I feel like older "Toy Story" fans will probably appreciate the film more than smaller kids, though viewers who are new to the series will have the advantage in not having so many preconceptions of Buzz and Zurg.       

As for the "Toy Story" franchise, I hope PIXAR finally puts the toys away on the shelf for a while.  At least the middling reception of "Lightyear" means there's much less of a chance of me having to review a "Sheriff Woody" western a few years from now.  

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The 2021-2022 Television I Didn't Watch

In advance of my 2021-2022 television top ten list (I go by Emmy eligibility rules, because it's easier), I want to talk about some of the shows I didn't watch this year, for various reasons.  It's not that I didn't have the inclination, but mostly because I didn't have the time and don't expect I'll have the time to watch them moving forward.  The streaming content flood means that there are far, far more shows out there than anyone can possibly keep up with.  The ones listed below are only the most high profile that I regret not seeing the most. 

I reserve the right to revisit these choices in the future, but I still haven't seen anything from last year's list.  

"The Dropout," "WeCrashed," and "Super Pumped" - There was a wave of miniseries based on the troubles of famous Silicon Valley startup flops, all with a lot of star power behind them.  I know that Amanda Seyfried has gotten a lot of praise in particular for playing Elizabeth Holmes of Theranos.  However, I've followed the ups and downs of all of these companies over the past few years, watched news reports and documentaries about them, and frankly I think I'm way too knowledgeable about all of the material to really get much benefit out of dramatizations.  Instead, I've been watching miniseries based on true events that happened several decades ago like "The Offer" and "Gaslit."

"Outer Range" - There was a lot of buzz about this early on, but I resolved to wait until the show was finished before taking a look, and I'm glad I did.  This is a science-fiction western about a small Wyoming town that appears to develop a wormhole, or a timehole, or whatever, and a bunch of other supernatural shenanigans start going on.  As much as I like Josh Brolin and Imogen Poots, I don't have it in me to commit to another mystery box show right now.  If this wraps up nicely in a couple of seasons, maybe I'll give it another look, but I've been burned too many times before by similar genre programs.  I probably would have found time for it if it were a miniseries, but an open ended show is out.  

"The Gilded Age" - I noped out of "Downton Abbey" so early, I really wanted to give this Julian Fellowes series a chance.  The cast is absolutely spectacular, with Carrie Coon, Christine Baranski, and Cynthia Nixon in prominent roles, and some truly gorgeous production values.  And it got completely lost in the shuffle as I kept putting it off, and putting it off, and the next thing I know I have a dozen other things I'm watching on HBO Max.  Frankly, "The Gilded Age" is intimidating, with twenty five main characters in the first season alone.  I know the show is in no danger of being canceled early, already renewed for a second season at the time of writing, so I'm keeping this on the backburner.  And it might just stay there.  

"Why Didn't They Ask Evans"? - I enjoy Agatha Christie mysteries, and I've watched all the adaptations I've come across in recent years.  When I heard that Hugh Laurie was adapting one, with an all star cast led by Will Poulter, I was looking forward to it.  And it turns out that the series is exclusive to a streaming service called BritBox, which handles mostly BBC titles.  And I'm already juggling too many streaming services to wrangle another one.  If this series ever becomes available to rent through a different platform, I'll give it a watch, but the show hasn't gotten nearly the amount of praise or buzz for me to prioritize it.  Unless Britbox racks up enough other originals for me to give it a trial run.

"Bel-Air" - Of all the reboots, remakes, and reimaginings of old favorites that have come along recently, at least "Bel-Air" was trying something truly different.  I thought that the show's attempt to present a serious take on the "Fresh Prince" sitcom premise and its origins as a fan film shouldn't count against it.  Of course, then the reviews started rolling in, and it was clear that the creators had probably bitten off more than they could chew.  I'd still like to take a look at the show and decide for myself, but "Bel-Air" is exclusive to Peacock, another one of the smaller streamers that couldn't retain my interest after the free trial ran out.  They don't have much programming coming up that looks too promising either.

"The Last Days of Ptolemy Gray" - It's a highly lauded crime drama about a dementia sufferer trying to recall memories that could help him solve the mystery of his nephew's death.  It stars Samuel L. Jackson in what's been lauded as a very strong performance.  It's got Dominique Fishback and Walton Goggins.  Ramin Bahrani's name is on this as a producer and director of the premiere.  It's only six episodes long, and an actual self-contained miniseries.  But good grief, I really dislike the memory loss plot device, even when it's done well, like in the Mahershalla Ali season of "True Detective."  I feel bad about putting this one aside, because it seems to have fallen through the cracks, but there's just too much on my plate.  

"Halo" - It exists!  It actually exists!  And it's made a lot of people really mad!  Honestly, I'd love to hate-watch this thing, since I have Paramount+ in the rotation anyway, but I can't work up enough interest in this show to even do that.  Aside from the animated titles, have any of these game-based shows turned out well?    

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And Now, "Everything, Everywhere, All At Once"

Minor spoilers ahead.

I've seen enough of Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert's prior work that I understood what they were capable of.  However, it feels like "Everything, Everywhere, All At Once" is the first time they've really had the opportunity to really show the full extent of their filmmaking powers.  The joke going around is that this is the film that deserved the title "Multiverse of Madness," because it makes much better use of the multiverse concept than any of the Marvel projects that have popularized universe-hopping and genre-mixing in the last few years.  However, the film's real strength is that it knows to center its wild, weird, chaotic story on a very emotionally engaging set of characters.

Evelyn Quan (Michelle Yeoh) is a Chinese-American immigrant who runs a struggling laundromat with her scatterbrained husband Waymond (Ke Huy Quan).  She's trying to juggle an awful lot at once - the business is being audited by IRS agent Deirdre (Jamie Lee Curtis), and her disapproving father (James Hong)  is coming to visit from China.  She brushes off Waymond, who is working up the courage to serve her with divorce papers, and she brushes off her daughter Joy (Stephanie Hsu), who wants Evelyn's help to introduce Joy's grandfather to her girlfriend, Becky (Tallie Medel).  And then Waymond suddenly becomes inhabited by a different, much more assertive Waymond from the "Alphaverse," who tells Evelyn that she has to learn to hop universes and fight a nihilistic evil being called Jobu Tupaki.

On the surface level, "Everything, Everywhere" is a comedic action film that delivers plenty of silliness and fun fight scenes with a dazzling amount of creativity.  Its premise is wacky, but the filmmakers commit so hard to everything, from a universe where everyone has hot dog fingers, to a universe where everyone is rocks. However, dig into the film at all, and the complexity of the themes and the absolute sincerity of the story are just breathtaking.  The Daniels use the film to tackle the Asian-American immigrant experience, the overwhelming nature of the information age, and Millennial nihilism.  It explores Evelyn's dissatisfaction with her life, stemming from her regret over the choices she made.  The adventure she's thrust into gives her a chance to see what her life would have looked like in different circumstances - if she'd learned martial arts, if she'd become an actress, or if she'd never left China with Waymond.

I keep finding more things to like about the film the more I dig into it.  You realize that Evelyn is already navigating different universes from the beginning, as she converse with her father, husband, and daughter in three different languages.  You realize the ridiculous hot dog fingers universe actually has a plot function that enables Evelyn to win a fight, and at the same time it's putting her in Joy's shoes as a lesbian woman and getting her to empathize with her daughter.  Michelle Yeoh, as a former Hong Kong action film star, is absolutely perfect for this role.  She gets to put all her talents - dramatic, comedic, and action - to very good use, and I love that she's unquestionably the star of the picture.  It's also so gratifying to see Ke Huy Quan onscreen again after decades away, and of course James Hong is here, because how could James Hong be anywhere else?

I feel like a grinch pointing out that I think the second half of the movie drags out a bit too long, as the running time is 140 minutes, and it's an exhausting 140 minutes.  However, I also immediately wanted to rewatch the film once it was over, because I knew there was so much that I had missed, and so much I needed to unpack.  The filmmaking alone - stretching a very modest budget to achieve sky high ambitions - is thoroughly impressive.  As a film nerd, I caught homages to Hong Kong action films, Wong-Kar Wai romances, and "Ratatouille" the first time through, and I know there are plenty more.     

A few years ago I wrote about how strange and wonderful it was to find myself the target audience of several pieces of American-made media after years of being ignored.  "Everything, Everywhere" is another one that really feels tailor made for me with its Asian immigrant characters and focus on awkward parent/child relationships.  The fact that it's found so much success is very heartening, and I can't wait to see whatever the Daniels want to make next. 

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"Russian Doll" and "Undone" Year Two

Spoilers ahead.

It's an interesting coincidence that the recently released second seasons of "Russian Doll" and "Undone," which both premiered in 2019, have essentially the same central conceit.  Nadia of "Russian Doll" and Alma of "Undone" both figure out how to time travel to the past by inhabiting other versions of themselves, other people, and their memories.  They use this power to try and fix their dysfunctional families, which is a lot harder than it seems initially.  Both of these shows are half-hour genre programs centering around interesting, damaged female leads.  The second season of "Russian Doll" has seven episodes, and "Undone" has eight.

Nadia spent the first season of "Russian Doll" stuck in time loops of her 36th birthday, but this time she discovers that taking a certain subway train allows her to slip into the existence of her mother in 1982 - when she was pregnant with Nadia.  This is a pretty significant departure from the show's original premise, and the execution is very messy.  The major characters this time around are really limited to Nadia, her mother, grandmother, and surrogate mother Ruth, who is dying in the present day.  All the other friends, exes, and acquaintances from Season One make appearances, but are mostly kept on the sidelines.  Alan, who had a parallel story with Nadia's in the first season, is given a new subplot, but it's very underdeveloped.  

The season is still very watchable, thanks to the efforts of Natasha Lyonne, Chloe Sevigny, and the rest of the cast.  However, the writing feels half hearted.  Initially Nadia is obsessed with finding her grandmother's treasured hoard of gold Krugerrands, which were stolen before Nadia was born, and could have made a big difference in the course of her life.  The lesson she's meant to learn is obvious almost from the beginning - Nadia has to make peace with her past, and forgive her mother and grandmother for all the hardship that they put her through.  Getting to that point involves literally putting herself in their shoes, as Nadia spends some time living out the lives of her mother in 1982, and later her grandmother during WWII.  

Part of the issue here is that the rules of the time travel are never clear - Nadia is a victim of existential shenanigans rather than someone with powers she has control over - and the stakes of her quest are muddled.  Her goal keeps shifting from one thing to another, but it's never made explicit what's so wrong with Nadia's life that she thinks needs fixing.  Someone who hadn't seen the first season, or who hadn't seen it in a while would be left in the dark.  The scope of the series remains fairly small, and the production looks good, but it also loses a lot of the nocturnal New York "After Hours" atmosphere that made the first season such a fun, heady watch.  This is another case of a great miniseries that should have stayed a miniseries instead of  expanding into another season that nobody really seemed that excited about.

However, I can't say that the creators of "Russian Doll" shouldn't have tried to replicate the success of their first season, because "Undone" did the same thing and got it right.  In fact, the second season of "Undone" is significantly more entertaining and more fun than the first.  Previously, Alma tried to use her reality-bending abilities to jump to different points in her life to prevent the accidental death of her father.  This season, she finds herself in a new reality where her father survived, and the timeline adjusted itself to give Alma a much happier present day life.  This success spurs Alma to try and help her mother, Camila, and her grandmother, Geraldine (Holley Fain), the same way that she helped her father.  This involves a trip to Mexico, and revealing a lot of family secrets.  

The biggest difference between "Russian Doll" and "Undone" is that Alma isn't alone in her quest.  Her sister, Becca, and her father, Jacob, both have powers that she is constantly pushing them to make more use of.  It turns out that Becca can visit people's memories, and is able to bring Alma with her to explore hidden parts of their family history.   The consequences impact everyone's relationships, and this is thoroughly explored over the course of the season.  It never feels like this is just Alma's story, and the show works much better as an ensemble.  In the first season, the narrative was constantly getting stuck in Alma's head and stymied by her personal struggles.  This year, all of that has been chucked out so we can focus on untangling the complicated mess of Alma's family tree in a more straightforward fashion.  It's a departure from the original premise, but the new material is just as compelling.   

I also appreciate that the writing is much more invested in the other characters.  I don't think the creators of "Russian Doll" particularly like Nadia's mother Leonora, or want the audience to relate to her much.  In "Undone," there's more empathy shown to Camila and Geraldine.  Their stories are told more comprehensively, and the characters allowed to be more well-rounded and complete.  Becca and Jacob arcs that are satisfying to see unfold and make them more compelling.  It's the same with the newly introduced Alejandro (Carlos Santos), a figure from Camila's past.  Initially I wasn't going to watch the second season of "Undone," because the first left me pretty ambivalent, but the second was so well done that I'm more inclined to recommend this series as a whole.

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The Return of "The Kids in the Hall"

The beloved Canadian sketch comedy show, "The Kids in the Hall," has returned to us via Amazon Prime, picking up right where it left off twenty-seven years ago.  Dave Foley, Kevin McDonald, Bruce McCulloch, Mark McKinney, and Scott Thompson are back, resurrecting many old characters, the original sketch format and title sequence, and the same sense of absurdity and irreverence that made the original one of my favorite comedy series ever.  To underline that this is a continuation of the old show, they start off by unearthing the five stars, who you might remember were buried in a shallow grave in the last episode of "The Kids in the Hall" back in 1995.

Being on Amazon comes with some advantages.  There are next to no content restrictions, so we see full frontal male nudity within the first ten minutes of the premiere episode, pretty much just to show off that they can.  Vulgarity is abundant, profanity is in full swing, and there's one particularly gory sketch involving a bust of Shakespeare that provides all the blood and guts you could ask for.   And yet, the Kids don't abuse this newfound freedom.  Their comedy was always about embracing the surreal and the weird, and the new series delivers plenty in that vein.  We get alcoholic superheroes, a doctor who boasts of dropping newborns in less than half of his deliveries, and a Zoom meeting that devolves into an orgy in record time. 

Everyone's older and grayer now, but nobody has slowed down much, or lost any of their willingness to cross-dress at the drop of a hat.  While I wish that some of my favorite recurring characters could have come back, like Maudre and Jocelyn (and Rudy), this season is only eight episodes, and there was only room for so many of them.  Buddy Cole and the Headcrusher return, of course, along with Francesca Fiore and Bruno Puntz Jones terrorizing a nervous couples counselor.  Fans should be happy that these appearances are all perfectly up to par with the previous ones.  I appreciate that there have been a few necessary cultural updates of various points of reference, but Gavin, Danny Husk, and the Cathies are pretty much the same as ever.  Well, except Don the Lorne Michaels stand-in, who has improved with age.

And the Kids don't need to lean on their old successes, because the new material is great.  Sketches like "Ambumblance" and "Shakespeare's Bust" are as funny as anything they've ever done.  A morbid "Doomsday DJ" sketch shows off their continuing penchant for the dark and avante-garde.   I'm not surprised at all that "The Kids in the Hall" humor has aged so well.  The group never relied much on pop culture commentary, preferring to to target a wider spectrum of human foibles and idiosyncrasies.  They were also very progressive for their time, especially in regards to gender, age, and sexuality.  The show is a little slower paced now, but it still has the ability to shock and surprise and drop the mike with regularity.  

One new bit is that each episode features a brief appearance by a "Kids in the Hall" fan - really celebrity cameos from the likes of Mark Hamill and Will Forte playing a variety of fannish weirdos. There are also a few other familiar faces who pop up in these episodes, mostly very blink-and-you-miss-em.  One exception is Eddie Izzard as a confused repairman who ends up enjoying a "hot-hot" bath with Kevin McDonald.  I don't think the celebrity participation really adds much to "Kids in the Hall," but they don't hurt anything either, and it's nice to see the wider comedy community loves these guys as much as I do.     

My only real complaint is that once I finished all the new episodes, I immediately wanted more.  Amazon was nice enough to offer a new "Kids in the Hall" documentary along with the revived show, which is definitely worth checking out too.  I ended up down a rabbit hole of their older content as a result, one of the most worthwhile nostalgia trips I've been on in a long time.  I sincerely hope this revival sticks, because the Kids clearly have a lot more laughs to share.      

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The Oddity of "Obi-Wan Kenobi"

Let me start out by saying that I mostly enjoyed "Obi Wan Kenobi." I wasn't a fan of the "Star Wars" prequels, but I always liked Ewan McGregor as Obi-Wan Kenobi, and it was good to see him back in the beard and robes.  I wasn't expecting much from the show, but it's a perfectly decent little adventure serial, following the template of so many other "legasequels" of the past few years.  Its biggest weakness is that its ambitions are often too big for its budget and scope.  "Kenobi" is a television series acting as a sequel to a film trilogy, and can't hope to match up to the same level of spectacle.

Roughly ten years after "Revenge of the Sith," Obi-Wan is living in hiding on Tatooine while the Empire grows more powerful.  He spends his days keeping an eye on Luke Skywalker (Grant Feely), being raised by his uncle, Owen Lars (Joel Edgerton).  He narrowly avoids discovery by the Empire's squad of Jedi hunters, including the ambitious Inquisitor Reva (Moses Ingram).  However, Obi-Wan has to come out of hiding when Bail Organa (Jimmy Smits) shows up to ask his help - Princess Leia (Vivien Lyra Blair) has been kidnapped.  Kumail Nanjiani, O'Shea Jackson Jr., Indira Varma, Benny Safdie, Rupert Friend, and Sung Kang show up in supporting roles, but the most press has been around Hayden Christensen returning to play Anakin Skywalker and Darth Vader.  I was far more delighted that we also got James Earl Jones back to voice Vader.

From what I've read, the original premise for the "Obi-Wan Kenobi" film that was in the works a few years ago would have been "Lone Wolf and Cub" on Tatooine with Kenobi and a child Luke Skywalker.  However, after the success of "The Mandalorian," this idea was deemed much too similar to what they were doing on that show.  So, instead Kenobi travels off-world and has adventures with a pint-sized Leia instead, while being chased around by the evil agents of the Empire.  Everything builds up to a big rematch between Kenobi and Vader.  I don't have any complaints with any of these concepts, the actors, or even some of the siller plot twists.  However, the execution of the show consistently fails to impress.  Everything feels rushed.  Everything feels haphazardly put together.   The writing is especially uneven, with so much focus on tiny Leia in some installments that it feels like "Kenobi" might have been combined at some point with the half-developed remnants of a Princess Leia series aimed at small children.      

And it's a shame, because there is a lot in the show that I do enjoy.  New characters played by Kumail Nanjiani and Indira Varma are great.  It's always satisfying to see Darth Vader being supremely evil.  McGregor is clearly enjoying himself, playing an older, worn down version of Kenobi who is very rusty with the Force.  However, there are far too many characters in the mix to give everyone their due.  Inquisitor Reva is one of the major ones, a terribly promising figure who feels like the writers needed a little more time and effort to nail her down as a character.  It's very frustrating, because the cast is so  stuffed with good actors, and many of the creatives involved have done much better work before.  It's not as bad as the "Boba Fett" series, but "Obi-Wan Kenobi" could have been something special.  I don't think that keeping it a film would have necessarily helped, since "Kenobi" has a lot of the same issues as the troubled "Solo" - particularly that it's trying to cram far, far too much into one adventure.   

I found myself comparing "Kenobi" to the Disney+ Marvel shows as much as the other "Star Wars" shows.  All of them seem to have the same sort of pattern of references and callbacks,  guest stars and cameos, showdowns and confrontations, and everything wrapping up just a little too quickly in the end.  "Kenobi" is drawing its references from both the original and prequel "Star Wars" trilogies, and often gets into trouble with the clashing continuities - exactly how many people know who Kenobi is on sight?  And yet, I can't imagine longtime fans won't find it gratifying to hear Kenobi tell Leia about her parents, or to see him square off against Darth Vader one more time.  Go in with lowered expectations, and "Obi-Wan Kenobi" is perfectly okay.

Getting caught up in the hype, however, is the path to the Dark Side.

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"Boba Fett" is a Tricky One

 Many spoilers ahead

This is not a traditional review of "The Book of Boba Fett," because I have very little to say about its quality.  It's all the meta stuff going on behind the scenes that's more interesting.  "The Book of Boba Fett" is the latest "Star Wars" universe miniseries about the adventures of Boba Fett, as played by Temuera Morrison, with Ming Na's Fennec Shand as his adjutant.  Both characters were previously seen in episodes of "The Mandalorian," so this can be considered a spinoff show.  And for four episodes, that's exactly what it is.  Fett decides to take over Jabba the Hutt's vacated seat as a "daimyo" of Tatooine's underworld, and we watch his efforts to gather allies and consolidate power, interspersed with flashbacks that get us up to speed on how Boba Fett got to this point after his encounter with the Sarlacc pit in "Return of the Jedi."

And frankly, this is boring.  Morrison is great as Fett, but the show is not about the mysterious bounty hunter from the original trilogy of "Star Wars" films, but instead a much older version of the character who has decided to settle down in the most familiar corner of the "Star Wars" universe and become a benevolent gangster overlord.  Suddenly he's a nice badass who wants to take care of his community instead of the guy known for his disintegrations.  Setting the show on Tatooine also means that we get plenty of cameos from alien species we already know from "Star Wars" and "Return of the Jedi."  Tusken Raiders, Rancors, Gamorreans, and Twi'leks show up.  Nostalgic references are everywhere, and frankly tiresome at this point.  However, whenever the show does introduce new elements like a cyberpunk biker gang, it's not great.  Jon Favreau is credited with writing every episode, and Robert Rodriguez directed more episodes than anyone else, so I'm holding these two responsible.

The only interesting thing about "The Book of Boba Fett" is that it's seven episodes long instead of four, and those last three episodes are essentially an extra half-season of "The Mandalorian."  Boba Fett is barely even in two of them, which are focused on the adventures of Mando and little Grogu figuring out how to move forward after the finale of the last season of "The Mandalorian."  Luke Skywalker shows up again, still sounding weird and stilted, but looking better than his last appearance.  Amy Sedaris, Timothy Olyphant, and Rosario Dawson are all back, and there are obvious tech upgrades everywhere.  And it's clear that even though Boba Fett's name is on the show, these "Star Wars" series are all part of one big narrative now.  There's no way you can watch this miniseries without being caught up on "The Mandalorian," and fans of "The Mandalorian" are going to need to watch "Book of Boba Fett" before moving on to the third season.  Mando and Grogu don't just have cameos here, but actually resolve some big character arcs and change their status quo.

So, going forward, we can't trust that any of these "Star Wars" shows to play by the rules.  To follow the further adventures of Mando and Grogu, we might have to tune into the upcoming Ahsoka Tano series or the Cassian Andor series.  I wouldn't even rule out tie-ins to "Obi Wan Kenobi" at this rate.  This also means that we can expect the same sort of reliance on nostalgia and familiarity for the foreseeable future, no matter which character's name is on a series.  We're about to see a shift from most of the references involving the original "Star Wars" movies to references to the prequel series and the various animated shows.

I'm curious as to whether the decision to add the "Mandalorian" characters was made from the beginning, or after "Boba Fett" was in production and people behind the scenes realized that it wasn't going to be very good.  This has clearly been one of the weakest "Star Wars" outings so far, and one of the most calculated in its dispersal of bits of familiar IP.  Every episode is built around a familiar guest star or piece of classic "Star Wars" iconography.  And it's clearly not a coincidence that the marketing push for "Obi Wan Kenobi" started up right after the last episode was released.      

I hate getting more cynical about these shows, but the shameless, formulaic pandering is starting to wear me down.

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What is This "Rescue Rangers" Reboot?

Way back in 1990, when I was still in grade school and "Duck Tales the Movie: Treasure of the Lost Lamp" was theatrically released, I assumed that all the Disney Afternoon cartoon series would get the feature treatment eventually.  Alas, aside from the rare "A Goofy Movie" or "Doug's 1st Movie," this was not the case.  So color me surprised that thirty years later, "Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers" finally got their feature film, recently released on Disney+.  I was not prepared.

First, if there are any earnest "Rescue Rangers" fans still out there, this may not be the film for you.  The new movie is a meta story that imagines that animated chipmunks Chip (John Mulaney) and Dale (Adam Samberg) are actors in a "Roger Rabbit" style Hollywood, where cartoons and live action people coexist.  "Rescue Rangers," the show we watched as kids, was the big TV hit that brought them to stardom before egoes and miscommunications broke the pair up.  Now, thirty years later, Dale is still chasing fame and Chip works in insurance when a series of cartoon disappearances prompt a reunion and teamup.  A human LAPD officer (Kiki Layne) thinks the duo can help solve the mystery.  Directed by Akiva Schaffer of Lonely Island and "Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping" fame, this is a Hollywood satire on stardom that often feels like it's shoehorning the Disney chipmunks into a familiar "True Hollywood Story" tell-all template.  

While there's nothing in "Rescue Rangers" that isn't kid appropriate, the tone here is so cynical and un-Disney.   The movie is aimed at the current generation of kids as much as the older Millennials and young Gen-Xers who remember watching "Rescue Rangers" as small children, and then lived through the early, awkward years of the CGI animation Renaissance, including the experiments in mo-cap and photorealistic animation that have aged super badly.   As a result, the updated Toontown is now populated by both 2D and 3D characters, including toons from non-Disney properties like "Shrek," "Beowulf," Netflix's "Big Mouth," "South Park," and even a couple of leftover "Cats" extras.  We also finally get to visit the actual Uncanny Valley, home of those unfortunate mo-cap animated creatures with dead "Polar Express" eyes.  Easily the best cameo is "Ugly Sonic," the original "Sonic the Hedgehog" character design so soundly rejected by the internet, now voiced by Tim Robinson. 

What's even more jarring is Chip and Dale themselves, who are now essentially John Mulaney and Adam Sandler in animated form - Chip in 2D and Dale in 3D because he got a procedure done.  The two banter and bicker like typical Dreamworks characters rather than Disney characters, trying a little too hard to sound cool and smart and pop-culture savvy.  They're totally different from any other incarnation of Chip 'n Dale that has ever existed before, and it took me nearly half of film's running time  to sort-of get used to it.  The humor, likewise, is far more Lonely Island than Mickey Mouse.  There's a constant stream of self-referential jokes, and digs at current blockbuster trends, from Dale constantly angling for a "Rescue Rangers" reboot to glimpses of a "Batman v. E.T." project.  The crime story part of "Rescue Rangers" is also a few degrees skeevier than I was expecting.  The kidnappings turn out to be part of a toon trafficking plot, where the victims get their mouths erased and their bodies hastily redrawn, before they're shipped off and forced to star in cheap mockbusters in the tradition of "The Little Panda Fighter" and "Ratatoing." 

As for the execution, the results are mixed.  This is a very ugly looking film, and while I like that it leans into the oddity of certain characters like Ugly Sonic and the villain Sweet Pete (Will Arnett), there's a dreadful lack of visual consistency necessary to make us believe that all of these characters exist in the same universe.  The animation is cheap and it shows, not remotely in the same league as "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" That said, some of the gags and jokes are clever, and I'm impressed that the creators took aim at certain trends in animation that nobody else really talks about, and weren't afraid to skew more adult.  And who but Disney would have the licensing clout and the resources to even attempt something like this?   

"Rescue Rangers" fans do get a few concessions to nostalgia.  It's good to hear Tress MacNeill as Gadget again (though I don't know why they got Eric Bana to voice Monteray Jack when they had Jim Cummings voicing half a dozen other characters).  We get our updated version of the theme song, sung by Post Malone.  There's shameless hinting about a "Darkwing Duck" reboot coming next.  However, I have to point out that Lonely Island could have made this film with the characters from any other '80s cartoon, like "He-man" or "Alvin and the Chipmunks" - both of them already rebooted.  "Rescue Rangers" just happened to be available, and nobody else was doing anything with the property.  Because who the heck, aside from a content hungry Disney+, wants a "Rescue Rangers" reboot anyway?    

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"The Offer" I Can't Refuse

Paramount has decided to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of "The Godfather" by  making a ten part miniseries dramatizing the creation of the film.  As a film nerd, I love media like this.  Non-film nerds may not have the patience for watching how the sausage is made, but I love seeing all the ups and downs of the creative process, especially when such colorful artists and personalities are involved.  As someone who is already pretty familiar with a lot of this story, "The Offer" isn't telling me much I don't know, but its obvious love of "The Godfather" and the enthusiastic performances kept me happily watching all the way through.

Producer Albert Ruddy (Miles Teller) is positioned as the main character, a successful television creator trying to move into film projects.   Turning "The Godfather" into a film is fight from the start, and it takes considerable effort to win over Paramount's head of production, Robert Evans (Matthew Goode), executive Barry Lapidus (Colin Hanks), and Paramount's owner Charles Bludhorn (Burn Gorman), and then to hire writer Mario Puzo (Patrick Gallo), director Francis Ford Coppola (Dan Fogler), and Al Pacino (Anthony Ippolito).  There are fights over everything from budget to casting to locations, and Ruddy and his intrepid secretary Bettye (Juno Temple) have to juggle one crisis after another.  If that weren't enough, Ruddy also faces opposition from the mob, lead by Joe Colombo (Giovanni Ribisi), who thinks the film will portray Italians negatively.     

Hollywood in the '70s was a different planet, and the chief joys of "The Offer" are really just basking in the glamor and the excitement of New Hollywood.  All the boozing, the smoking, the foul-mouthed diatribes, and the macho posturing have been lovingly recreated.  The show is exceptionally well cast, with the standouts being Dan Fogler as the uncompromising auteur, Coppola, and Matthew Goode in high powered schmoozer mode as the legendary Robert Evans.  The accent's not quite right, and neither is the look, but Goode oozes charisma, and is clearly having such a good time that he's a lot of fun to watch.  Juno Temple has carved out a nice niche for herself playing Girl Friday types, and it's always good to see her in anything.  Also, after this and his recent films, Miles Teller is making a good case for himself as a solid leading man.  

There's no getting away from the fact that "The Offer" is pretty indulgent and overlong.  If you've never heard of "The Godfather," I can't imagine that the series' gleeful namedropping and shameless fascination with movie ephemera would be very interesting.  It's been a long time since general audiences cared about Frank Sinatra (Frank John Hughes) or Marlon Brando (Justin Chambers), who make brief appearances.  Still, the behind-the-scenes chaos of "The Godfather" does provide plenty of material for drama and excitement.  There seem to be endless issues with securing talent, getting permits, staying ahead of bad press, and just when everything seems to be going right, Bludhorn wants to sell the studio.  There's quite a lot of pandering to the fans and lionizing the surviving participants like Ruddy and Coppola.  On the other hand, the execution is swell.  It's lovely to see so many of the old locations recreated, and smaller players like Bettye get their due. 

The less successful parts of the show are easy to ignore, mostly involving storylines and characters who don't really work.  Ruddy's wife Francoise (Nora Arnzeder) shows up for a few episodes before divorcing him and evaporating into thin air.  Ribisi's Joe Colombo never seems like much of a threat, and really everything involving the real mobsters feels pretty perfunctory.  However, despite what the marketing might suggest, Colombo's not in the story much.  The series takes plenty of creative license when it comes to the mob encounters, but ironically the writers aren't ever able to make Colombo and his crew ever feel like more than the cliches they were so worried about being portrayed as.  I get the sense that the creators simply weren't as interested in this part of the story as the power plays going on at Paramount.

In the end I came away from "The Offer" decently entertained and a little wistful.  The show delivers nostalgia more than anything, not just for "The Godfather," but for that brief time in Hollywood where pictures like "Love Story" and "The Longest Yard" could top the box office, and a ragtag bunch of guys with enough gumption could put art ahead of business, and make a movie classic.  And as time goes on that time feels ever briefer, and farther away than ever.   

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"Strange New Worlds," Year One

Some of the praise for the latest "Star Trek" series, "Strange New Worlds" has rubbed me the wrong way because it often doubles as thinly veiled criticism of the other currently running "Star Trek" shows, "Discovery" and "Picard."  "Strange New Worlds" is actually a "Discovery" spinoff, and its main characters, the current versions of Captain Pike (Anson Mount) and Mr. Spock (Ethan Peck), originated there.  "Strange New Worlds" is far less ambitious than "Discovery," establishing itself as a fun throwback to older "Star Trek" shows.  

Alongside Pike and Spock, other crew members include first officer Una Chin-Riley (Rebecca Romijn), ship's doctor Joseph M'Benga (Babs Olusanmokun), nurse Christine Chapel (Jess Bush), chief of security La'an Noonien-Singh (Christina Chong), Andorian chief engineer Hemmer (Bruce Horak), helmsman Erica Ortegas (Melissa Navia), and promising cadet Nyota Uhura (Celia Rose Gooding).  A young James Kirk is also scheduled to show up in the second season.  "Strange New Worlds" occupies a place on the timeline a little earlier than the original 1960s "Star Trek," where the Klingons are still enemies.  The biggest foes are currently the Gorn, a reptilian species that only showed up in the original series as rubber suited monsters.  In "Strange New Worlds" they've gotten an upgrade to be more menacing.  

Everything about this show is familiar - the Starfleet hierarchy, the very episodic, self-contained adventures, and the dynamics of the crew.  Compared to some of the other recent "Star Trek" shows, It's very formulaic and very safe, but the execution is excellent.  All the characters are well defined and easy to become attached to.  There are no outsized stakes or pressures to make the plotting epic and impressive, so there's plenty of room for character building, and a lot of smaller, more procedural stories.  My favorite installment is an honest-to-god campy shipwide delusion episode, which haven't been a thing in non-animated "Star Trek" in years, and I can't imagine ever happening on "Discovery."    

There are still serialized elements to add some drama.  Pike is facing down a terrible foreordained fate that will leave him disfigured and crippled in a few years time, Dr. M'Benga and Lt. Cmmdr. Chin-Riley are harboring big secrets, and half-Vulcan Spock's relationship with his full Vulcan betrothed, T'Pring (Gia Sandhu) is a regular source of friction.  However, there's little urgency to any of these ongoing storylines, and developments are allowed to be more gradual and organic.  When they do pay off or resolve, it's often a pleasant surprise.  Dr. M'Benga's ongoing dilemma, for instance, wraps up much quicker than it would have on "Next Generation" or "Deep Space Nine" back in the '90s.

I appreciate that "Strange New Worlds" never feels too obviously retro and doesn't lean too hard on the pre-existing "Star Trek" stories with these characters.  The production quality is very modern, though its design choices are closer to the 2009 theatrical "Star Trek" film than "Discovery."  I think it's the uniforms, mostly.  You could easily watch "Strange New Worlds" without any knowledge of the previous "Star Trek" shows, though it helps to know things like what Andorians are, and what the deal is with Vulcan emotions.  The more casual atmosphere and ability to pace itself also portends well for its longevity.  I could easily see this one running for five or six seasons.

On the other hand, "Strange New Worlds" also comes with a very clear endpoint.  This part of the timeline is well-tread ground for the "Star Trek" universe, and I expect that the show is going to continue to take advantage of the franchise's existing mythology and introduce more familiar characters like Scotty and McCoy and all the rest.  Khan is probably inevitable.  Time travel, mirror universes, and multiple timelines are always a possibility - and the show has already proved willing to go there with the season finale.  Hopefully "Strange New Worlds" will learn from other prequels/reboots and avoid the common landmines.

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The Second "Doctor Strange" and the Third "Fantastic Beasts"

Minor spoilers ahead.

"Doctor Strange in The Multiverse of Madness" is a cheerful mess of a movie.  I've come to the realization, after being severely disappointed with the first "Doctor Strange" movie, that the title character works best as a supporting player.  As a lead, he's arrogant, bullheaded, overpowered, and still stubbornly resistant to personal growth.  "Multiverse" doesn't solve any of the fundamental issues I have with the character, but at least it gives him a diverting new problem to deal with.

A teenage girl named America Chavez (Xochitl Gomez), from a different universe, needs Strange's help and protection to keep a dark power from threatening everyone's existence.  Our old friends Wong (Benedict Wong) and the Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen) are on hand to lend some fireworks, as Strange travels through the multiverses and learns that his greatest enemy is himself.  Lots of twists and cameos abound.  The most important player here, however, is director Sam Raimi, who gleefully delivers the MCU's first real full-throated horror movie.  In fact, it's an old fashioned Sam Raimi horror movie in the vein of the "Evil Dead," full of zombies, cartoonish gore, campy thrills, and schlocky funhouse shocks.  He pushes the content well past what I expected to see in a Marvel film, leaning heavily on the fact that multiple dimensions means multiple expendable versions of beloved characters. 

Sadly, this is all very surface level.  "Multiverse" has been built up and led into by several other pieces of MCU media over the past few years, including "WandaVision," "Loki," and the latest "Spider-man" movie.  And it's not as good as any of those previous outings, especially in regards to Wanda.  We get a very one-dimensional version of her here, which is a disappointment.  The multiverse concept also doesn't get nearly as creative or weird as I expected it to, mostly rehashing things we've already seen in projects like "What If…?"  I still enjoyed it as a typical superhero thrill ride, but it doesn't offer much substance and doesn't bother to advance any of the plot and character threads from the first "Doctor Strange."  The most notable thing that happens is really Christine Palmer (Rachel McAdams) marrying somebody else, putting an end to her wishy washy romance with Strange for good.      

On to the beleaguered "Fantastic Beasts" franchise.  We're on the third film, "The Secrets of Dumbledore," which I consider an improvement on the last one, but still significantly flawed.  It's much easier to follow the action this time and keep all the characters and their motivations straight, but this means everyone spends significant amounts of screen time explaining where we are and how we got here.  Still, I enjoy the "Fantastic Beasts" movies  more than the original "Harry Potter" these days simply because they're unapologetically aimed at more adult audiences.  Newt Scamander and friends are busy fighting the evil Grindelwald (Mads Mikkelsen) again, this time trying to keep him from stealing a wizard election.  It's a lighter, more straightforward adventure with room for some humor, and darker bits limited to brief suplots.  New characters include a witch ally of Newt's, Lally Hicks (Jessica Williams), and Dumbledore's brother Aberforth (Richard Coyle).    

I know that this series was originally planned for five films, but it feels like the filmmakers are busy tying up a lot of the loose ends this time out for a quick exit.  Several characters reach very definite endpoints, and it's probably the last time we'll see several of them.  Katherine Waterston's Tina is already halfway out the door, her role greatly reduced for this installment, reportedly because of scheduling conflicts.  However, I can't imagine she'd have had much to do in this film even if it weren't the case.  Newt and his human pal Jacob Kowalski are in the thick of the action this time, and there is a very prominent fantastic beast at the center of the story - the mystical qilin.  However, Dumbledore and Grindelwald's rivalry is clearly the only thing that Rowling is really interested in, and if we get more "Fantastic Beasts," I expect there will be little room for anyone else.     

As always, the production values are top class the whole way through, and existing fans of the Wizarding World should enjoy all the little bits of magic worldbuilding and glimpses of familiar characters.  If "Fantastic Beasts" is put out to pasture, I expect more spinoffs will be forthcoming regardless.  "The Secrets of Dumbledore" isn't the best the franchise has to offer, but I was satisfied with it, and enjoyed most of the performances.  Despite all the chaos behind the scenes, I think these prequels have been worthwhile, and sticking with them through the rough spots have yielded some rewards. 

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"Picard" Year Two

Moderate spoilers ahead.

"Star Trek" as a franchise lately has been very up and down, very messy, and trying different storytelling tactics.  I thought the first season of "Star Trek: Picard" had a lot of good ideas.  It also had a lot of execution problems and way too many characters and little subplots to adequately do justice to all of them.  The new season course corrects in some respects, but it also falls prey to some of the same issues - the most obvious one being that it tells a serialized story over ten episodes, which is probably about five too many.

Everything starts out very well, with all of the new crew from Admiral Jean-Luc Picard's previous adventure having gotten their lives back on track, some with Starfleet, and some elsewhere.  Picard is considering cozying up with his Romulan housekeeper Laris (Orla Brady) when he's called in to assist with an emergency situation involving the Borg.  And then in steps Q (John de Lancie), who has decided that Picard needs a new test of character.  He whisks Picard and his crew into a different reality, setting them on a mission to travel to the past in order to save the future. A Borg Queen (Annie Wersching), another Soong ancestor (Brent Spiner), his daughter Kore (Isa Briones), and Picard's old friend Guinan (Whoopi Goldberg and Ito Aghayere), along with several members of the Picard family are involved in the adventure.

This season of "Picard" offers plenty of the usual action adventure nonsense, but in terms of exploration its primary interest is in digging into the psyche of Picard himself.  A major goal is untangling the traumas in his childhood, mostly related to his mother Yvette (Madeline Wise), who met with a tragic end.  This is also primarily where the writing runs into trouble, because the show piles on lots of other twists and turns and digressions, so it takes forever to get around to what the season is actually supposed to be about.  There are so many big obstacles set up, like the Borg Queen and Soong, which all resolve in fairly anticlimactic ways because they're really only distractions.  Even Q, who comes roaring out of the gate in the first two episodes as the primary baddie, seems to turn on a dime when the plot needs him to.  Several episodes either feel too long or two short, possibly because of chaotic production demands, and the finale is especially rushed. 

The characters are handled better this time around though, so they're easier to root for.  I especially like Rios, who isn't spending all his time talking to holograms of himself now, and gets to interact with other people and show off how charming he can be.  It initially feels like a cheat to have yet more Soongs around, in order to keep Brent Spiner and Isa Briones in the cast, but they're much more interesting and well-defined characters in this universe, with clear motives.  Thus, they're able to withstand the various iffy plot devices that get thrown at them.  Michelle Hurd still comes off as too untethered, but she's usually got Jeri Ryan as Seven to play off of, which helps a lot.  Allison Pill gets to stretch some acting muscles we haven't seen in a while.  And when they can't find anything for certain characters to do, I don't mind at all that they get benched.

Unfortunately, one of the weaker parts of the season is Patrick Stewart, who has noticeably slowed down since we saw him last as Picard, and seems to be struggling in certain scenes.  Though his appearance hasn't changed much, his age is catching up with him at last.  The upcoming third season of "Picard" will be the final one, and I doubt we'll be seeing more of the character onscreen after this.   And maybe that's why I'm feeling more forgiving toward "Picard," and had no trouble watching the season all the way through to the end.  It's very imperfect, but it is recognizably about the "Star Trek" characters I grew up with and still care about.  

And, frankly, as a "Next Generation" fan there's been a lot worse in the franchise's history.

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