The Video Essay Recs, 2022

Last year's post on Youtube video essays was a lot of fun to put together, so I'm doing it again.  Below, is a selection of my favorite video essays, analysis, and criticism from roughly the last year.   Most are related to media, though there is one that is really stretching the definition.  There are several creators from the previous list that are back with new videos, but I tried to include a good selection of newcomers.  

CJ the X: Subjectivity in Art - A breathless ramble about art - how to create art, how to consume art, and how to contextualize art.  It also contains a rant about "Encanto," a discussion of the photos of Vivian Meier, and the establishment of a content creation continuum with CJ and Mr.  Beast on opposite ends.  And if you've got a take on the dead flowers, I'd love to hear it.  

Accented Cinema: When Hollywood Speaks Chinese, I Cringe - Accented Cinema presents takes on Asian cinema from an explicitly Chinese POV, which is invaluable.  This essay tackles one of my long-held pet peeves, the sloppy, uninformed use of spoken Chinese in western media by people with no familiarity with the language.  After suffering through so many well-meaning actors murdering Chinese dialogue in everything from "Firefly" to "Daredevil," it was so gratifying to hear someone else validate what I'd known for years.

Super Eyepatch Wolf: What the Internet Did to Garfield - I toyed with writing a post about the r/imsorryjon subreddit, because I found it fascinating to see so many people sharing in this same impulse to render Garfield as an eldritch abomination.   So I'm glad to see that Super Eyepatch Wolf spends so much time talking about that community, while also exploring other Garfield fanart and media, and the enduring cultural impact of a popular and seemingly uncomplicated comic strip character.  Oh, and extra credit for the research that went into breaking down how a Garfield strip actually functions.

Brows Held High: Sins. Cinema. - I've seen other Youtubers take aim at Cinema Sins before, but few with the amount of editing skill and well-informed exactness as Kyle Kallgren.  I like that he gives the channel its due as a creator of reliably entertaining content, while also taking their format to task for being utterly useless for anything else.  Seeing the application of the familiar Cinema Sins critiques to beloved art films like "Holy Mountain" and "Koyaanisqatsi" is wonderfully absurd, and the final revelation of what the channel's biggest contribution to the discourse actually is warms my nerdy, cinephile heart.   

Broey Deschanel: Spring Breakers and the End of Indie Sleaze - It's surely a sign of getting old when a movie that you think of as being pretty recent is suddenly a nostalgic favorite.  Well, maybe that's not the best way to describe "Spring Breakers," which Maia posits started as a critique of the early 2010s youth culture of permissiveness and excess, and has now come to largely embody it.  It's always fascinating to see the process of how the past is remembered and quantified, and which cultural signifiers end up sticking to a particular era.  "Spring Breakers," against all odds, seems to be sticking.  

Patrick Willems: Sam Raimi's Best Scene (Is in a Movie He Didn't Direct) - I'm not going to take a position on the stance taken in that title, but it's always fun to see a straightforward breakdown of the way an interesting scene is directed.  It helps that Willems is so enthusiastic about Raimi's work, and the scene itself really is one of the only good things about a remarkably mediocre Coen brothers movie.  And if you haven't figured out which scene this video is about by now, you'd better go and watch it.  

Defunctland: Disney's FastPass: A Complicated History - Finally, I'm probably cheating a bit by including a video about queuing strategies at the Disney parks, but this is genuinely one of the most impressive videos I've seen this year on any topic.  We get what is essentially a feature length documentary on the rise and fall of the FastPass system, a look into the workings of the Disney parks, and way more information than I ever needed about crowd management analytics.  And it's engrossing stuff.

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"The Patient" Needs Some Patience

FX's "The Patient" is an odd, but ambitious piece of serialized fiction.  It's a serial killer story told in ten half hours, which probably works if you're spacing out the installments, but feels repetitive and overlong if you're binge watching.  The premise is strong, and the actors are good enough to keep your attention, but I couldn't help thinking that the whole thing probably would have been a lot more compelling if it were a nice, compact, two hour movie.

Steve Carrell plays Dr. Alan Strauss, a therapist who has been kidnapped by one of his patients, Sam (Domhnall Gleeson), who is secretly a serial killer.  Sam has decided that he needs help, and the best way to get it is to make Alan live in his basement and be available for psychiatric consultations 24/7.  While Alan does his best to placate Sam and figure out a way to escape, he also uses the time to grieve his recently departed wife Beth (Laura Niemi), and work out his issues with adult son Ezra (Andrew Leeds).  

I appreciate that the series isn't too sensationalistic. The writers, Joel Fields and Joe Weisberg, are the creators of "The Americans," and keep the character drama at the forefront.  A lot of the time is spent with Sam and Alan in their therapy sessions, but we also follow them separately - Sam struggling to keep his impulses in check, and Alan trying to stay ahead of him.  Alan eventually starts having his own imaginary therapy sessions with his own therapist, Charlie (David Alan Grier), and flashing back to episodes from his past.

The performances are very good, and there's always a wonderful uncertainty to the characters.  Sam is clearly dangerous and unpredictable, but he's struggling to do the right thing, and often shows signs that he has the capacity to become a more mentally stable human being.  His logic may be warped, and he makes bad decisions, but there's a salvageable person there.  Domhnall Gleeson does a good job of making him simultaneously sympathetic and off-putting, someone who passes for an average oddball on the surface, but is hiding some serious problems underneath.  Alan has reason to hope that he might be able to speed along the therapy successfully, but rightly fears for his life at every turn.

Steve Carrell is the main event here, giving one of the better performances I've seen from him.  Viewers might be surprised at how much of the series is about Alan grappling with his own emotions and relationships.  Some of Carell's earlier work could come across as unintentionally comedic, but that's never a problem here as Alan battles Sam's dark side.  A significant subplot involves him looking back on his estrangement with his son, his mistakes as a parent, and his relationship with his Jewish faith.  This is a man who was in the middle of a personal crisis before he was kidnapped, and that doesn't stop just because a serial killer decided to insert himself into Alan's life. 

Despite what I think about the show's structure, it's well paced and the various twists and turns are deployed with skill.  As you'd expect with a serial killer as a main character, there's some violence and upsetting situations.  However, this is not a horror series, and the camera doesn't linger.  The worst is usually kept offscreen.  The ending is also pretty atypical for a thriller, and I appreciated that the show's creators were willing to take a significant creative risk. 

If you have the patience and the inclination, there's plenty to like about "The Patient."  I don't think that it achieved everything that it wanted to, but I hope that these more interesting, unusual character dramas keep getting made.  

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"The Bear" and "Only Murders," Year Two

I knew from the outset that "The Bear" wasn't a series I was going to be much inclined to like, but the glowing reviews won me over.  While I don't regret watching the show, and acknowledge that it's extremely well made, I think I was right that "The Bear" is not to my tastes at all.  The show follows Carmen Berzatto (Jeremy Allen White), who has inherited a struggling Chicago sandwich shop after his brother's suicide, and has given up a career as a rising gourmet chef to try and keep the place afloat.  He clashes with the restaurant's colorful staff, including his cousin Richie (Ebon Moss-Bachrach), new sous chef Sydney (Ayo Edibiri), and long-timers Tina (Liza Colon-Zayas), Marcus (Lionel Boyce), and Ebrahim (Edwin Lee Gibson).  He owes money to his uncle Jimmy (Oliver Platt), is avoiding his sister Sugar (Abby Elliott), and is still processing the death of his brother.

I don't know what it is exactly that puts me off of "The Bear."  It's one of a steadily growing number of good half-hour dramas, very authentic in its portrayal of the restaurant business, very diverse, and features a nice mix of strong performances.  Jeremy Allen White and Ayo Edibiri are the standouts, easily carrying the bulk of the show, and never making me question for a second whether they knew what they were doing in the kitchen.  However, this is a series with a lot of yelling and a lot of intensity, where the main character is constantly miserable, and everything seems to be going wrong all the time.  The much lauded "Review" episode, shot all in one take, following the staff during a terrible day, is close to brilliant, but I found the material difficult to get through.  Richie is a stereotypical aggressive asshole, cursing and provoking people constantly.  Maybe I shouldn't have binged so much of "The Bear" at once, because the Safdie-esque level of anxiety it created really wore me down.  I understand why people like the show, but personally I'll be approaching the next season with caution.  

Meanwhile, "Only Murders in the Building" has returned for a new season.  If you liked the first year, the second is about on par.  This time Charles, Oliver, and Mabel are trying to solve the murder of Arconia board president Bunny Fogler (Jane Houdyshell), and Mabel is a prime suspect.  Many of the famous guest stars from last season drop by again, and they're joined by plenty of new ones, including Amy Schumer, Shirley MacLaine, Michael Rapaport, and Cara Delevigne.  The show's success has also emboldened the writers to push their characters in some new directions.  Charles gets a new daughter-figure in teenage Lucy (Zoe Coletti), and a chunk of the mystery revolves around his shady father.  Oliver is in crisis when his son Will's (Ryan Broussard) parentage is called into question.  Meanwhile, Mabel confronts more painful events from her past, and gets a new love interest in an artsy newcomer played by Delavigne.    

While being a hit show has its perks - like a snazzy, fully animated opening sequence, and the clout to attract bigger names - I worry that "Only Murders" might be getting a little too big too fast.  The charm of its first season was in its oddball nature, having a pair of senior citizens team up with a sarcastic youngster, and make a go at being amateur detectives and podcasters.  Everything in the second season feels much more calculated and polished.  The cameos are more self-aware, and the plotting frequently overcomplicates itself, and big reveals are spaced out to try and deliver bigger moments.  A lot of this comes at the expense of the main characters just getting to hang out and be silly or bored together.  Instead, they're constantly being hustled along from one big calamity to the next, so the more casual character moments tend to get lost.  Mabel goes through a lot this season, and it all feels rushed, despite ten episodes feeling like a few too many.  The performers are good enough week to week that I didn't much mind, but "Only Murders" is frequently in danger of biting off more than it can chew.

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"Resurrection" and "Prey"

I could write a pretty lengthy paper about the shared images of body horror found in both "Resurrection" and Alex Garland's "Men" from earlier this year.  Both movies are psychological thrillers that gradually edge into horror territory.  Both are about women who are terrified of men.  Both contain hallucinatory imagery and depict impossible events, possibly the products of the disordered minds of their protagonists.  "Resurrection" is more grounded than "Men," taking place in a fairly normal, recognizable world.  Our main character, Margaret (Rebecca Hall) is only afraid of one man, her abusive ex David (Tim Roth), who reappears in her life after decades.

At least, she thinks it's David.  There's every reason to believe that the menacing figure might be a phantom, a wholly imagined creature she's using to justify her increasingly erratic behavior and emotional instability.  Her apprehensions about the safety of her nearly-adult daughter Abbie (Grace Kaufman) and her lover Peter (Michael Esper) begin to spiral into paranoia.  Roth's David is a subtly chilling madman who makes unreasonable demands of her, and Margaret is the only one who can placate him.  If that means walking to work barefoot, performing obeisances in the dead of night, frightening her loved ones, and letting her life unravel, that's just how it has to be.  Written and directed by Andrew Semans, the movie smartly never gives clear answers.  Does David exist?  Did he ever exist?  Does it matter either way?

In the wrong hands, a premise like this could have been a mess, but instead it's a great showcase for Rebecca Hall.  She doesn't convince us that any of the strange events in her life are real, but she makes it clear that Margaret believes that they are real, and is tormented by them to the point of desperation.  She gets us to treat absurd notions as deadly serious, because she's utterly committed to their reality and never flinches.  Hall has played several similar roles, such as Christine Chubbuck in "Christine" and the heroine of "The Night House."  This is the first time one of her performances has really gotten to me, maybe because the manifestations of her pain are so clearly tied to past trauma and guilt and motherhood.  It's absolutely riveting to watch, and "Resurrection" largely works because of her efforts.

Another great performance, of an entirely different kind, is delivered by Amber Midthunder in "Prey."  I have no particular attachment to the "Predator" franchise, but I have to admire Dan Trachtenberg and Patrick Alson for coming up with such a fun concept for a new entry.  Set in 1719, "Prey" depicts a tribe of Comanche encountering an alien Predator (Dane DiLiegro).  Our heroine is an aspiring hunter named Naru (Amber Midthunder), who has to use her wits to find a way to defeat the Predator, because she and her brother Taabe (Dakota Beavers) can't hope to match it in strength or technology.  There are some Easter eggs here and there for the established Predator fans, but "Prey" is more interested in being a pure cat-and-mouse action film, and is very good at it.     

The film is getting a lot of attention for its rare indigenous heroine and portrayal of Comanche culture.  The filmmakers even went to the trouble of preparing a Comanche language version of the film for those who want a more immersive and historically accurate viewing experience.  However, at the end of the day the movie still needs to deliver on the action and the thrills, and "Prey" has no trouble doing this.  Amber Midthunder makes for a solid underdog, and gets a cute dog for a sidekick too.  I've seen her in a couple of projects now, and I'm so happy to see her getting more of the spotlight.  Dakota Beavers is apparently a complete unknown, but his screen presence is excellent.  And then there's the Predator itself, who is clearly less experienced and less deadly than some of the ones who have featured in other films, but still a significant threat.  We get to see a few of its early bouts with CGI animals, including a bear, to set up its deadly capabilities.  

When the Predator finally sets its sights on humans, I think the resulting clashes should satisfy anybody who likes the other films in the franchise.  And for those new to this universe, I couldn't think of a better introduction.          

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"Thor: Love and Thunder" and "Top Gun: Maverick"

Minor spoilers ahead.

I'm generally a fan of Taika Waititi's films, but I confess that I didn't understand why "Thor: Ragnarok" had the overwhelmingly positive reception that it got.  Sure, it helped transition Thor into a more comedic character, and introduced Tessa Thompson's Valkyrie, among others.  However, what I've always liked about Waititi is his ability to pair the irreverence with more heartfelt stories, and "Thor: Ragnarok" was pretty much all irreverence.  I think that's why I was so pleasantly surprised by "Thor: Love and Thunder," which is much more of a movie about emotions and personal growth than any of the marketing let on.  It's also very much a kids' film, in a summer that has suffered from a dearth of good kids' films.  

Thor, who we last saw with the Guardians of the Galaxy, is still adventuring through the cosmos.  We see him check in with Valkyrie, find an injured Sif (Jamie Alexander), and learn about a new threat - Gorr the God Butcher (Christian Bale), who is on a quest to rid the universe of all the deities he can get his hands on.  Meanwhile, Thor's ex-girlfriend Jane Foster has been diagnosed with terminal cancer, and winds up gaining his powers through some mystical shenanigans with his hammer.  Jane and Thor cross paths again, sparks fly, and you can guess what happens next.  Parts of the story are incredibly dark and bleak with Gorr's young daughter (played by Hemsworth's daughter India) dying in the opening pre-title sequence.  Parts of the story are incredibly silly, like Thor being rewarded for his exploits with the gift of two giant goats who scream a lot.  

And how does Taika Waititi get these two parts of the film to mesh?  Well, that's the film's biggest problem.  He doesn't.  "Love and Thunder" swings wildly between the funny, lighthearted parts of the film where Thor trades jokes with Korg, and the more serious, heartrending material where Jane is dying of cancer, and a grief-stricken Gorr is not coping well with the loss of his daughter.  The former works better, because we get plenty of the usual Marvel spectacle, and a lot of the humor is specifically aimed at the very young and immature.  The plottier stuff feels more rushed, with muddled stakes, and clearly there was a lot left on the cutting room floor, considering the amount of people announced for this film who are nowhere to be found.  Still, it mostly works, and Waititi is able to keep all the balls in the air.  There's a gorgeous black and white battle sequence.  Russell Crowe shows up as Zeus.  Though some of the execution is clumsy and odd, I appreciate having a Marvel film that is willing to go this hard on genuinely risky material.

On to "Top Gun: Maverick," which I've put off writing a review for because I can't imagine I can say anything about it that far more eloquent reviewers haven't already said about it.  Yes, this long-gestating sequel to 1986's "Top Gun" military action adventure film is a rare legasequel that works, and is actually better than the original film.  Yes, Tom Cruise at sixty is still as much of a movie star as he's ever been, and watching him woo Jennifer Connelly, and corral youngsters Miles Teller, Glen Powell, Lewis Pullman, and Monica Barbaro makes it clear he hasn't lost an ounce of charm with age.  Yes, the glorification of the American military industrial complex is blatantly obvious, but the film is such a piece of fantasy that the enemy is not only unnamed, but totally anonymous throughout - barely glimpsed enemy pilots are always fully covered in black face masks.   

Joseph Kosinski and his collaborators treat "Maverick" as a throwback, replicating the opening aircraft carrier sequence with a new version of the "Top Gun" anthem blaring through the speakers.  The whole story is a lead-up to a big final mission, leaving aside all the complications of the politics and ethics of war, in favor of the video game simplicity of achieving new benchmarks and powering through tricky flight parameters.  What really sells it is the past three decades of filmmaking advancements, that allow the cameras to now be in the air with the fighter planes, or right alongside the speeding motorcycles, ridden by a Tom Cruise who is doing all his own stunts.  It's a vast improvement from the first "Top Gun," where all the aerial combat footage was obviously acquired separately, and had to be written and edited around.  There are several shots in "Maverick" that echo shots from "Top Gun," except executed the way we all wished they could have been the first time around. 

So, I understand why filmgoers have flocked to the film.  It's an uncomplicated, scintillating action spectacle that just wants to deliver an adrenaline high and have the audience leave feeling like a million bucks.  The characters and performances aren't great, but they're good enough.  The mission isn't really plausible, but it feels just plausible enough that you can set disbelief aside for a while and enjoy the ride.  And it's nice to see Val Kilmer again, though I have to wonder how Kelly McGillis is doing these days.  And the cult of Cruise is still weirding me out something fierce, but it's also nice to know that his clout means that I don't have to worry about a "Top Gun 3" for the foreseeable future.  

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Can't Nope Out on "Nope"

Minor spoilers ahead, limited to what was in the last trailer.

Usually, I try to avoid reading any of the critical analyses of a film until I can get some of my own thoughts down.  With "Nope," however, I've been doing the opposite. I want to hear everyone's takes.  I want to be clued in on all the little details I missed after watching the movie twice, still feeling like I wasn't grasping everything there.  As a piece of summer spectacle, I found "Nope" kind of messy and disjointed, with the action and thrills not really kicking in until the last third of the movie.  However, this is one of Jordan Peele's films, and there's all kinds of interesting thematic stuff going on, making it way more interesting as a giant allegory for a bunch of different topics that I've been having fun unpacking.

OJ (Daniel Kaluuya) and Emerald (Keke Palmer) work as horse trainers, trying to keep their recently deceased father's ranch and business going.  Times are tough, and OJ has sold several horses to a nearby western-themed amusement park, Jupiter's Claim, run by a former child star named Jupe (Steven Yeun). One night, OJ spots what appears to be a flying saucer near the ranch, and he and Em decide to try and capture the thing - dubbed "Jean Jacket" - on film.  A visit to Fry's Electronics for a camera surveillance system gets IT guy Angel (Brandon Perea) in on the scheme.  Eventually they also manage to enlist a filmmaker, Antlers Holst (Michael Wincott), who is obsessed with capturing the impossible.  Other parties, however, have also taken notice of the phenomena, and have their own plans in motion.  Jupe, for instance, is up to no good.  

"Nope" has a lot of very fun ideas, and Peele has recruited many good actors and cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema to help bring them to the screen in the best form possible.  However, there are ellipses all over the story, and the narrative has to be actively pieced together by the viewer in order for it to make any kind of coherent sense.    And I'm not sure that this is the kind of story that can get away with that.  For many, less discerning members of the audience, I expect that "Nope" will feel like a confusing bore until OJ and Em  put together their big plan to bait and film Jean Jacket in the last act.  It's truly a great action set piece, featuring Kaluuya on horseback,  Palmer on an electric motorcycle, dozens of inflatable skydancers littering the landscape, anime references, and one of the most memorable screen monsters that we've seen in years.  

On the other hand, how do we account for the disturbing flashbacks to young Jupe's time on a '90s sitcom, where a chimp actor went on a rampage and grievously harmed a cast member?  What about the TMZ reporter who shows up out of the blue, or the insane behavior of Antlers Holst? A big theme of the movie is the unacknowledged contributions made to cinema by black creators, represented by the unknown black jockey who appeared in the very first assemblage of stills that made the first motion picture - Muybridge's "Animal Locomotion."  Peele gives him a name and makes OJ and Em his descendants, and custodians of his legacy, as they try to make their own mark on film history.  Black cowboys, too, are often missing from American cinema, from the westerns that are a uniquely American genre.

Trying to make all of these different pieces fit together is where Peele seems to run into the most trouble.  Much of the film's horror is derived from the folly of human beings trying to exploit wild animals for spectacle, or reckless artists letting their egos run amok, with awful consequences.  I don't think that Peele does enough to make it clear what distinguishes OJ and Em from the others.  I don't think Peele does enough to distinguish OJ and Em as characters, period.  Kaluuya and Palmer are excellent onscreen, but I never found myself rooting for them.  Steven Yeun's traumatized, deeply misguided Jupe was more interesting as a tragic figure.    

"Nope" is definitely worth seeing, and I got plenty out of it, but it suffers from a lot of the same problems as "Us," and doesn't quite cohere the same way that film does.  I think this would have been a much better film with a few tweaks to the writing, but it's hard to be too negative on a film that is so wholly original and weird and ambitious.  And the more I think about the film, the more I like it, which speaks well as to its longevity.   

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"Crimes of the Future" and "Flux Gourmet"

I feel a certain obligation to write about the latest films from David Cronenberg and Peter Strickland, who have made such wonderful, singular auteurist genre films in the past.  However, I didn't really get much out of either "Crimes of the Future" or "Flux Gourmet."  Maybe this is because both films center around performance artists, who are perhaps the most insufferable creatures on Earth.

"Crimes of the Future" almost feels like a throwback, one of the first Cronenberg films in some time to fully embrace the body horror and high concept phantasmagoria of his early work.  It takes place in the indeterminate future, in a world where human beings no longer feel pain, and no longer get sick.  Their bodies have been modified and evolved to such an extent that it's questionable that they're still human.  We spend most of the film observing a pair of performance artists, Tenser (Viggo Mortensen) and Caprice (Lea Seydoux), who perform surgery as part of their act, ridding Tenser of the organs he grows because of his "Accelerated Evolution Syndrome."  Don McKellar and Kristen Stewart play government researchers, and Scott Speedman plays an evolutionary radical, part of a group that has modified themselves to digest plastic. 

Cronenberg made a film in 1970 called "Crimes of the Future," with a few themes in common, but the 2022 film appears to be almost totally unrelated.  However, Cronenberg fans will recognize that we're in familiar territory nonetheless.  I like that this it feels very much like "Videodrome" or "Existenz," full of acts and images that suggest sexuality without ever being explicitly sexual.  There's a mood of unease and conspiracy, with multiple factions clashing over shadowy agendas.   Also, Cronenberg's monstrous, organic props are back, including a maw-like operating table and a writhing  chair, covered in bony protrusions, meant to aid with digestive issues.  Some of these visuals are wildly disconcerting and alien, none moreso than the opening sequence where a small boy casually eats pieces of a plastic garbage can.     

Where the film stumbles is with the characters.  The cast is great, but the roles are caricatures and grotesques, so divorced from normal humanity by construction that they're not especially compelling.  The most human character is Scott Speedman's radical, Lang, a conundrum because his humanity is derived from embracing the inhumanity of others.  Mortensen's Tenser is positioned as our lead, caught between the competing desires of multiple parties, and struggling to emotionally connect with any of them.  He and Seydoux are constantly trading technobabble about surgeries and biological mutations in the most muted, unaffected tones.  I get that the intention here is to show that the absence of pain and suffering has rendered humans less able to access positive experiences, but it does make it more difficult to be invested in any of the characters' fates.  "Crimes of the Future" is fascinating for its ideas and aesthetics, but rarely moving.

Now on to "Flux Gourmet," which is about a collective of performance artists who have won a prestigious residence with The Sonic Catering Institute.  This involves Billy (Asa Butterfield), Lamina (Ariane Labed), and Elle (Fatma Mohamed) creating performances through cooking, processing, and manipulating food.  They blend, they chop, they create skits about the agony of going to shopping markets, all with a special focus on the sounds being produced by their efforts.  Their experience is being recorded by a man named Stones (Makis Papadimitriou), an outsider who is experiencing gastric issues, resulting in embarrassing bodily functions.  Overseeing all of them is the Institute's leader, Jan Stevens (Gwendoline Christie), who is always fabulously dressed and not shy about voicing her opinions on the artists' work.

Most of Strickland's films up to this point have been horror and suspense pieces.  Here, while there are still anxious tinges of dread, "Flux Gourmet" leans more toward satire and comedy.  Once you get past the lovingly orchestrated performance art ASMR, the absurdity really comes through.   The collective is a mess of constant drama.  Jan and Elle have clashing visions.  Elle is abusive toward Lamia and Billy.  Billy and Jan end up in bed together, though Billy is suspicious of Jan's motives.  Tensions rise, the performances become more extreme, and poor Stones just wants his poor stomach to leave him alone.   Everything is played straight, especially when it comes to the dizzying heights of sonic catering arts.  Jan and Elle nearly come to blows over a flanger being used in the performance.  A major sequence involves the threat of coprophagia.

The trouble is, if this is supposed to be taken as satire, it's not especially insightful or interesting satire.  The culinary collective is a pretty dire group of wannabes and pretentious auteurs who backstab each other at every opportunity and let their pretentiousness run amok in predictable ways.  Stones is supposed to become enamored with and eventually join their ranks, but I don't think Strickland makes a good case as to why.  "Flux Gourmet" offers the occasional good visual gag and deadpan line reading from some committed actors, but otherwise spends too much time wallowing in its own indulgence.  

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My Terrible Sense of Humor

I've mentioned multiple times in previous posts that I have a terrible sense of humor.  I think I should clarify a bit.  When I say I have a terrible sense of humor, what I mean is that my sense of humor has been completely incompatible with mainstream comedy for as long as I've been aware of it.  I've totally failed to respond to most major comedians and comedic trends from 1994 (the dawn of Jim Carrey and the Farrelly brothers) to roughly 2014 (the tail end of the Adam Sandler era).  It's only recently that I've found a few alternatives that are more in line with my sensibilities.

As a kid, I remember watching a magician special on television, and one of the segments involved Penn & Teller out on a pier, with a volunteer from the audience.  They were there to do a comedic bit.  They put the guy in handcuffs and asked if he could get out of them.  He could not.  Then they locked him in a crate and asked if he could get out.  He could not.  They proceeded to nail him in the box, while the man inside started to protest and shout, before they dropped the crate in the ocean and it sank.  Now, at the time I was old enough to understand that it was probably a trick of some kind, because people didn't just kill random people on television, especially on cheesy magician shows.  However, I was also very creeped out by the sequence of events, and not totally sure that I hadn't just seen Penn & Teller murder somebody for real.   

I mention this incident as an example of how sheltered I was, and how out of touch I was with mainstream culture for a big chunk of my life.  As a child and teenager, I was more liable to be frightened by media than most of the kids my age.  I almost never watched horror films.  At the age of fourteen, I was disturbed for weeks by a trailer for a film about Nostradamus, because it had apocalyptic imagery of buildings collapsing.  I often took things more literally and more seriously than they were intended, and assumed sarcasm was meant as hostility.  I watched a lot of sitcoms with my parents, things like "Cheers" and "Golden Girls," and occasionally the more family friendly output of comedian-turned-actors like Robin Williams, Eddie Murphy, and Steve Martin.  However, I had little exposure to the more aggressive, subversive humor of shows like "Saturday Night Live" and "In Living Color," and this was the humor that became much more popular in the '90s.  Adam Sandler and Jim Carrey broke out when I was in high school, but I only saw the very tamest of their output.  It wasn't really until college, and a lot of exposure to Comedy Central, that I approached anything close to an understanding of what mainstream humor for adults actually looked like. 

And it quickly became apparent that it wasn't for me.  I couldn't stand toilet humor.  I couldn't stand "idiot manchild" behavior.  Cringe humor was an ordeal to withstand, not something I would willingly subject myself to.  Embarrassment humor, especially when ramped up to the level of public spectacle, was excruciating.  Grown men who acted immature and selfish and mean were immediately off putting.  I couldn't relate to them at all, and had no sympathy for them.  And if you've been paying attention to the last three decades, that rules out most of Judd Apatow, the Farrelly Brothers, the Frat Pack, the Wayans, "American Pie," "South Park," "Jackass," and 90% of the rest of theatrical comedies produced by Hollywood.  These movies were very masculine, very sophomoric, and very testosterone-driven.  Even the ones starring women all seemed to involve drunken hijinks and humiliation.  There were some that I liked, here and there, but for a very long time I just gave up on the R-rated comedy.  I accepted that I was not the target audience, and watched something else.

It's only been in the past few years that I've quietly been edging back into the theatrical comedy space.  The number of R-rated comedies I've actually liked has crept up - "Barb and Star," "Blockers," "Game Night," "The Big Sick," "Brittany Runs a Marathon," "The Death of Stalin," and the latest Borat movie.  I suspect a big reason for this is the decline of the mid-range film, pushing more theatrical releases to either be shoestring productions or massive ones that have to appeal to global audiences.  Comedies are more niche, more oddball, and more personal.  Television and web series are where the real innovation is now.  And as all this new talent has been coming in, and we're finally getting different POVs and different voices in the mix, it turns out that some comedy is for me.  I like stand-up.  I like funny movies when they're smart and well-written.  I can relate to comedians.          

Has mainstream comedy gotten out of a rut, or have I finally matured enough to appreciate it?  Hard to say, but it's been a relief.

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My Favorite Cecil B. DeMille Film

When I think of the image of a Golden Age Hollywood director, I think of Cecil B. DeMille in "Sunset Boulevard," orchestrating one of his Bible epics, and acting as a gatekeeper of moviemaking dreams.  DeMille was one of the most popular directors of the silent era, and a good chunk of the early sound era, specializing in epics.  Adjusting for inflation, he's still the most commercially successful director of all time.  I suspect that he's a big reason why epic films are considered their own genre in some circles.  It didn't especially matter, for some of his productions, whether the plot or the acting was any good, because the sheer spectacle was so well realized.  

However, when he got the right actor in the right role, playing a larger than life figure out of history or myth, DeMille could give them the spotlight like no one else.  My favorite screen Cleopatra has always been Claudette Colbert in DeMille's 1934 "Cleopatra" film. I've suffered through several underwhelming films about the life of Cleopatra, and was initially nervous about seeing one from the man who had made the 220 minute "Ten Commandments."  DeMille's "Cleopatra," however, only runs 100 minutes.  And it's absolutely crammed full of gorgeous production design, ornate costuming, and sumptuous decadence of every kind - with the best cinematography to show it all off.  Colbert had previously appeared in DeMille's "The Sign of the Cross," playing a femme fatale who was shown bathing in milk in a memorable scene.  She made an impression, not just because she was beautiful, but because she had such a strength of personality.     

"Cleopatra" was made right when the Production Code was starting to take effect, and Hollywood started cracking down on more licentious content.  DeMille, however, had enough clout that he could largely ignore these restrictions.  He could put mostly naked women onscreen, right in the title sequence.  He could imply that Cleopatra was getting up to all kinds of antics with Caesar and Marc Antony.  Colbert's Cleopatra is as sexy as any screen siren who ever appeared in a movie.  I don't remember any other performance in "Cleopatra," because Colbert so dominates every moment that she's onscreen, and DeMille ensures that you can't take your eyes off her.  Unlike some of the other screen Cleopatras, Colbert rarely plays her as a tragic, Shakespearian figure.  This Cleopatra is bright and vivacious and enjoys being a seductress.  Sure, she pulls off looking regal when the occasion demands it, but she doesn't ever become dwarfed by the scenery the way some of DeMille's lesser actors have.  

As a product of the 1930s, there is no attempt to be historically accurate whatsoever.  The movie is more of an Egyptian themed Art Deco phantasmagoria, with scene after scene of Colbert putting on amazing outfits, Hans Dreier's giant sets, and a cast of thousands.  It makes so much sense now, that the 1963 "Cleopatra" bankrupted 20th Century Fox trying to outdo Cecil B. DeMille.  There's one particular shot that I think is a good encapsulation of the movie's scale.  Cleopatra's seduction of Mark Antony takes place on her luxurious barge.  As Antony gives in to her advances, servants pull curtains into place to give them their privacy, and the camera pulls back.  And it keeps pulling back, past all the attendants holding fans and flowers, past the rowing galley slaves, until we see the full length of the ship and the opulence of its interior.

By the time DeMille directed "Cleopatra," he had made some of the biggest hits of the 1920s, mostly westerns and Biblical and historical epics.  His list of accomplishments is considerable, including being one of the first celebrity directors - almost certainly the prototype of the tyrannical perfectionist shouting at crowds of extras through a megaphone -  and contributing to the formation of the motion picture industry in Hollywood.  The critics never liked him much, but audiences loved him, from his earliest silent films, through his transition to the sound era, all the way to his final film - the one with Charlton Heston that still airs on network television every year for Easter.  And since I could never be accused of not loving populist films, I'm happy to make a place for him on this list.     

What I've Seen - Cecil B. DeMille

Don't Change Your Husband (1919)

Male and Female (1919)

The Ten Commandments (1923)

The King of Kings (1927)

The Sign of the Cross (1932)

Cleopatra (1934)

Union Pacific (1939)

Unconquered (1947)

Samson and Delilah (1949)

The Greatest Show on Earth (1952)

The Ten Commandments (1956)

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Reconsidering "Elvis"

Baz Luhrmann's "Elvis" biopic isn't really about Elvis Presley (Austin Butler) as a musician or as an entertainer.  It's about Elvis as a more mythic figure, as seen through the eyes of his longtime manager, Col. Tom Parker (Tom Hanks).  This Elvis is an embodiment of the American dream as it existed in the 1950s, a poor white singer who rose to superstardom by singing African-American music, and breaking the rules of the entertainment industry, before spiraling in his later years to a tragic early death.  Parker is positioned as the villain of the piece, the evil, greedy Svengali behind the scenes who ended up killing his golden goose.  Baz, as reliable a showman as ever, relays the story through 159 minutes packed with music, melodrama, and the best spectacle money can buy.  Some of it's laughable.  Some of it's brilliant, and the whole thing is a lot of fun to watch.

I admit I know very little about Elvis, except for the omnipresent pop culture figure he became in the '80s and '90s: a pompadoured, jump-suited, overweight crooner who was the frequent subject of supermarket tabloid conspiracy stories.  There were so many depictions of him secretly alive, it never really sunk in that he'd died young, at forty-two, and his career only spanned about twenty years, from 1956 to 1977.  Of course, those were turbulent and memorable years, and the film benefits from gleefully plowing through a ton of history at a breakneck pace.  Luhrmann's depiction of Elvis is very idealized, and very informed by present day mores.  Elvis's popularity is attributed squarely to his willingness to ignore the color line, and play black music and dance provocatively in an era when both were taboo.  He's shown taking influences from black Beale Street musicians, including Big Mama Thornton, and palling around with  B.B. King.  When Martin Luther King Jr. is assassinated, it affects Elvis deeply.   

Because the film focuses so much on the crimes of Colonel Parker, Elvis is put in the role of unwitting victim, especially in the final third of the movie.  Not only does he suffer years of financial abuse and manipulation, but all of Elvis's considerable personal and professional problems now stem mainly from his inability to get out from under the Colonel's thumb.  It certainly makes Elvis more sympathetic, but the filmmakers are clearly playing fast and loose with history.  Priscilla (Olivia DeJonge) and the rest of the Presley clan often feel like bystanders.  I can't bring myself to care much, however, because Baz and company are clearly not interested in presenting a standard Elvis biopic.  Everything here is streamlined, heightened, and exaggerated all out of proportion, from the very subjective, very unreliable POV of the Colonel.   They are printing the legend with no apologies, while at the same time trying to convey more cautionary messages about America and the entertainment industry and the illusory nature of fame.   

And if you can accept these constructs, it's easier to swallow the version of Elvis that we're presented with.  Austin Butler's Elvis is a starry eyed young rebel, willing to take a stand against the establishment, and loves his family and his fans best of all.  His faults are bluntly acknowledged, but quickly elided over.  Instead we get scene after scene of pulse-pounding musical performances.  Butler is given every opportunity to blow our socks off, and he doesn't waste them.  I'm sure we'll be seeing plenty more of him after this.  Tom Hanks as Colonel Parker, on the other hand, is cartoonishly bizarre, with a terrible accent and an alarming amount of facial prosthetics.  I kept thinking I'd get used to them at some point, but two and a half hours later, no such luck.  It's the worst performance I've ever seen Hanks give, and miraculously it makes absolutely no difference to how well the rest of the movie works.

As with all Luhrmann films, the art direction is absolutely divine, and nothing feels kitschy in the least - not even Las Vegas in the 1970s.  Contemporary artists are brought in to provide covers for some Elvis hits, with mixed results, but Austin Butler reportedly did all of his own singing, and is frequently mesmerizing onscreen.  I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if the film's popularity turns out to be from Elvis Presley's old fanbase coming out of the woodwork to see a little of the old magic resurrected.

As for me, I think I have a better sense of Elvis's appeal, and got a glimpse of the way people saw him in the '50s and '60s, at the height of his career.  And it convinced me to join his crowd of admirers, just for a little while.  I honestly don't care much for his music, but it's impossible to deny he was one of the greats. 

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"Paper Girls" Rule

I'm not familiar with the Brian K. Vaughan comics that "Paper Girls" was based on.  However, I suspect that Amazon decided to produce a show about a quartet of preteen girls from 1988 having harrowing time travel adventures, in order to catch the attention of the "Stranger Things" crowd.  There's a lot of thematic and aesthetic crossover, even though these are fundamentally different stories.  "Paper Girls" isn't the crowd pleaser that "Stranger Things" is, but I found it much more satisfying to watch.

The action takes place the morning after Halloween in Stony Stream, a fictional suburb of Cleveland.  It's the first day on a paper route for Erin (Riley Lai Nelet), a sheltered Chinese-American twelve year-old who worries over her mother and younger sister.  She meets fellow paper girls  Tiff (Camryn Jones), KJ (Fina Strazza), and Mac (Sofia Rosinsky), who decide to band together to escape bullies and finish their routes.  Unfortunately, they become caught up in a conflict between rival groups of time travelers - the authoritarian Old Watch and the rebel STF Underground - and end up being transported to the year 2019.  While trying to find a way home, they meet an adult version of Erin (Ali Wong) and are hunted by an Old Watch officer called the Prioress (Adina Porter).

What I immediately appreciate about "Paper Girls" is that it isn't nostalgic and it doesn't have much interest in the idea that time heals all wounds either.  While all the business with the warring factions of time travelers is diverting enough, the heart of the show is about the adult and child versions of the girls all coming to terms with each other, and being honest about their faults.  Eventually we meet the adult versions of some of the other girls and their siblings, and some are better off, and some are worse.  The grown up Erin is estranged from her family.  Adult Tiff (Sekai Abeni) seems cool at first, but has her own set of problems.  Mac works through a bundle of personal issues and spoilers with her a drastically changed version of her older brother Dylan (Cliff Chamberlain).    

The four girls take the lead every step of the way, and the four young actresses do a fantastic job with some often difficult, emotionally fraught material.  Initially, I was a little worried that the girls seemed to fit into very common types - Tiff is African-American and smart beyond her years, and Mac is a foul-mouthed tomboy from the wrong side of the tracks.  However, all of them turn out to be very nuanced, interesting personalities, and it's great to watch them become friends, fall out with each other, make up, and generally act like real preteen girls onscreen.  My favorite scene in the show involves the four of them trying to figure out how tampons work.  Later, when KJ realizes that her adult self (Delia Cunningham) has made some different life choices than she assumed, it takes her time to process.  And the show lets her and the others have that time.     

Genre fans looking for easy action and spectacle might come away disappointed, because the series doesn't have a very high budget, and is much more concerned with its character drama than making its time travelers and their toys look cool.  However, there's something tremendously appealing about the imperfect, outdated effects and the occasionally too-literal comic book imagery.  It makes the adventure feel more kid-relatable, even if the content often touches on more adult subjects.  I should clarify that there's very little sex in the show, and only moderate violence, but a good chunk of time is spent frankly discussing sexuality, puberty, and adult relationships.  The handling of the more sensitive material is excellent the whole way through, especially when it's contrasting the adult versus the kid POV on various topics. 

"Paper Girls" was released with so little fanfare that I'd be stumping for it a lot harder if I didn't know that a second season is already in the works.   I thoroughly enjoyed it, and am happy to proclaim that this is one of the best comic-to-screen adaptations that we've had so far.  The four leads are bound to get more attention after this show, particularly Sofia Rosinsky and Camryn Jones.  And I didn't know I needed the image of Ali Wong piloting a giant mecha in my life, but I did, and "Paper Girls" gave it to me.       

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Meeting "Mrs. Harris"

I suspect that I feel mostly positive about "Mrs. Harris Goes To Paris," the first proper film version of the Paul Gallico novel, because I've already seen a pretty terrible adaptation of it.  Back in the '90s, there was a TV movie version of this story starring Angela Landsbury and Omar Sharif, which started out fine, but managed to royally bungle the ending.  Also, a TV movie budget couldn't really do certain elements justice.  The film version, starring Lesley Manville, also changes the ending, but perhaps for the better.

A gentle class-conscious comedy, "Mrs. Harris" takes place in the 1950s, when London cleaning woman, Ada Harris, becomes fixated on the idea of purchasing a haute couture gown.  When she receives a lucky windfall, it's off to Paris and the fashion house of Christian Dior, where Mrs. Harris has to navigate the complicated steps to actually acquire her heart's desire.  And she doesn't even speak French!  Dior's director Claudine (Isabelle Huppert) is hostile to Mrs. Harris's presence, but the much nicer accounts man Fauvel (Lucas Bravo), sweet model Natasha (Alba Baptista), and the intriguing Marquis deChassagne (Lambert Wilson) all come to her aid.  And she, in turn, comes to theirs.

The appeal of Mrs. Harris is her humble demeanor and her very English, very down-to-earth sense of humor.  Lesley Manville is immediately lovable in the role, and has no trouble convincing us that everyone Mrs. Harris meets just can't help being charmed by her.  It's fun watching her get excited about setting off on a real adventure to a faraway land, and getting everyone invested in her impossible quest.  However, there's always a sense of world-weary melancholy about her, and in several scenes Manville conveys a wealth of heartache while hardly uttering a word.  I like that the movie is all about the fantasies of romance and glamor and beauty, but is smart enough to examine and question the underpinnings of these fantasies.   

I've heard comparisons of "Mrs. Harris" to the "Paddington" movies, another feel-good British franchise that takes a stand for being kind and polite and believing in the best in people.  There has been, however, some welcome updating of "Mrs. Harris" as a character.  After all, her chief drive in this story is her pursuit of a piece of luxury clothing, something reserved for the rich and privileged.  So it makes sense that she should help her new friends rattle some class boundaries, stand up for the working stiff, and eventually learn to stand up for herself.  Of course, she helps to engineer a romance between two young people, and maybe saves Dior too, because this is that kind of movie.

Fans of fashion will appreciate the care that went into depicting the House of Dior as it existed in the '50s, along with a specific 1957 Dior collection.  The costumes were handled by Jenny Beavan, who worked on "Cruella," and clearly knows how to make clothes look amazing onscreen.  I would have suspected some sort of branding deal in place, except that Mrs. Harris's dress was specifically a Dior gown in the original book.  I can hardly be miffed about the company taking a perfect opportunity to put their name all over this movie.

"Mrs. Harris" is a Cinderella story at heart, about never being too old to go and chase your dreams.  Making those dreams a little more progressive and a little more modern minded doesn't do the movie any harm at all.  As I mentioned earlier, the ending has been changed to be a more typically happy one, but the film feels like it's earned it.  

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Rank 'Em: The Best Picture Winners of the '90s

Decade by decade, I'm ranking the winners of the Academy Award for Best Picture.  From greatest to least great, here's the '90s.

Schindler's List (1993) - Considered Steven Spielberg's masterpiece, for better or for worse.  After years of snubs and speculation about his status as a serious director, Spielberg made a film so overwhelming in its scope and subject matter that it was impossible for the Academy to deny its importance and quality.  I haven't seen this film in twenty years, but many scenes remain sharp in my memory.  Other strong nominees from this year include "Remains of the Day" and "The Piano."

The Silence of the Lambs (1991) - Achieved a rare, but well-deserved sweep of the major categories, and is still one of the few real genre films to win Best Picture.  The impact of "Lambs" on all crime and horror fiction has been significant, and Hannibal Lecter has become his own franchise in the years since this film.  The win was deserve, but note that this was the closest any animated film ever got to Best Picture.  "Beauty and the Beast" definitely would have had my vote.    

Unforgiven (1992) - Clint Eastwood was an Oscars mainstay for decades, and this is easily the year he most deserved his kudos.  I like the interpretation that this is Eastwood's final, elegiac goodbye to the movie western, and his last word on the subject of their mythic heroes.  Eastwood's performance is great, of course, but this also has one of my favorite Gene Hackman appearances, playing the villain.  Of the other nominees, "The Crying Game" and "Howard's End" are standouts.

Shakespeare in Love (1998) - Boy, those "Saving Private Ryan" fans know how to hold a grudge.  I've been defending the "Shakespeare in Love" win for decades now, no matter what you want to say about Harvey Weinstein's awards campaigning tactics.  It's a Stoppard script!  It's a perfect cast!  It's the first comedic winner since "Annie Hall"!  It was the right movie at the right time, and it's still a fabulous watch.  I refuse to apologize for being a fan or preferring this to Spielberg's gloomy WWII throwback.

Titanic (1997) - There's nothing wrong with a little quality spectacle, and James Cameron ensured that this was as spectacular as a disaster film could get.  Even if you find the Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio love story a little lacking, the massive scale staging of the sinking of the Titanic more than makes up for it.  Still, I prefer "A Night to Remember," and on rewatches I tend to skip the first half.  This was also a year of very strong contenders, and I would've picked "The Full Monty."

Forrest Gump (1994) - Like "Titanic," this is one of the cultural touchstones of the 1990s.  I saw it multiple times, simply because it was a popular success and firmly part of the mainstream consciousness.  There's been a lot of reconsideration of the film's nostalgic depictions of American history, and the Forrest Gump character, which is indicative of how quickly this is aging.  Other nominees, like "The Shawshank Redemption" and "Pulp Fiction" are holding up better.

American Beauty (1999) - I used to love this film, and I still have warm feelings toward it.  However, it paints a melancholy view of adulthood and adolescence that looks much less insightful now that I'm actually grown.  I appreciate the satirical elements more, though, and I've stopped feeling bad about enjoying Kevin Spacey's performance.  Also, "American Beauty" is significantly better than all the other nominees - a weird mix of titles from a year with no shortage of great films.

Braveheart (1995) - I have no interest in ever watching this again, but I can't deny that it's a very effective piece of action filmmaking.  Mel Gibson putting William Wallace's adventures onscreen certainly has more entertainment value than many of the other winners from this time period.  I just happened to like all the other nominees from this year better - "Apollo 13," "Babe," "Il Postino," and "Sense and Sensibility."  I'd pick "Babe" to win, edging out Jane Austen.

The English Patient (1996) - I can't take this film seriously anymore after that "Seinfeld" episode where Elaine suffers through multiple viewings, bored out of her mind.  There's an old fashioned romanticism here that I really have to be in the right headspace to enjoy.  This was also a very good year for Best Picture contenders with much better options - "Fargo," "Secret & Lies," and "Shine" among them.  Even "Jerry Maguire" would have been a more memorable pick.

Dances With Wolves (1990) - This hasn't aged especially badly compared to some of the other winners, but the three hour running time, the white savior narrative, and Kevin Costner's screen presence sure don't do it any favors.  The depiction of Native Americans is more tone-deaf than anything else.  It also doesn't help that this was the same year that saw Best Picture nominations for "Awakenings" and "Goodfellas," which are far better films in retrospect.    

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Why are We "Fishing With John"?

The Criterion Collection contains some fun content in addition to movies.  There are the occasional shorts, miniseries, and of course spine #100, the Beastie Boys music video anthology.  And then there's one of the few, rare television series, "Fishing With John."  It's one of those weird little media curiosities that could have easily fallen through the cracks, and I only watched it because it happens to be Criterion Collection spine #42.

Originally aired on Bravo and IFC in 1991, I think "Fishing With John" is best described as an absurdist fishing show.  There are six episodes, and runs roughly two and a half hours altogether.  I could see an unsuspecting viewer coming across this at random during those initial broadcasts, thinking it was a normal travel show that happened to feature some celebrity guests, and slowly becoming aware of the bone dry humor and steadily encroaching madness.  The host, John Lurie, is one of those talents who I've seen in a lot of things over the years - Jim Jarmusch movies mostly - but never could identify by name before now.  He's primarily a musician and artist, who has a lot of famous friends and colleagues, and managed to rope several of them into his fish-seeking adventures.

Each episode depicts a fishing trip, usually in an exotic locale. In one episode, Lurie and Matt Dillon go to Costa Rica and encounter the supernatural.  In the next, Lurie and Willem Dafoe go ice fishing in Maine and have a brush with death.  Little fishing is actually depicted, and successfully caught fish are rare.  The cinematography here is great, but also designed to look like it could have been shot by amateurs.   The aesthetic is very similar to the low budget, improvised mockumentary style shows that have gained popularity over the last few years, like "How to With John Wilson."  Initially I thought that "Fishing With John" might have actually been Lurie's genuine vacation videos with the narrator, Robb Webb, having been added later.  Thanks to Lurie's commentary tracks, I learned that everything was staged or improvised.  Also, John Lurie doesn't actually know anything about fishing.  

Most of the show's humor comes from Webb's off kilter description of events, which start with minor oddities, like "These are horses" and "These are real men doing real things," and then increasingly wander off into the wacky and bizarre.  Then there's the music, which was composed by Lurie.  In addition to a theme song that consists of Lurie droning the words "Fishing with John" in David Lynchian fashion, the soundtrack sometimes follows the narrator's lead and gets a little self-reflexive and meta.  One episode, where spooky things are supposed to be happening, brings in a choir that ominously chants about fishing, "The Omen" style.  And if you're only half-listening, lulled into complacency by the placid mood and natural beauty of the scenery, you might not catch the hysterical lyrics.     

Because I am a nostalgic soul, I love getting to see familiar faces like Willem Dafoe and Tom Waits existing onscreen in fairly casual circumstances thirty years ago, just messing around and complaining about the usual travel woes.  The last two episodes are spent with the late and much missed Dennis Hopper - chasing giant squid if the narrator is to be believed - and it's ridiculous and wonderful.  You can tell that Lurie is actually friends with most of his guests, and they're comfortable around him.  If Lurie had actually wanted to make a straight travel show like this, I'm sure he would have found some success.   

I've learned that there is a HBO sequel series, "Painting With John," that features more of Lurie's land-based hijinks in the present day.  A second season wrapped up earlier this year, so I'll have to go and take a look.  

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"The Boys," Year Three

Spoilers ahead.

Well, at this point you're either a fan of "The Boys" or you're not.  I've committed to watching the show for at least another season, but I think I've definitely reached the point of diminishing returns.  The show feels like it has set an end goal, which is to destroy Homelander, and now it's doing its best to delay doing that for as long as possible.  And this sort of thing drives me nuts.

This season follows essentially the same beats as the last one.  A new character is introduced, Soldier Boy (Jensen Ackles), a legendary superhero who has been MIA for decades, but may hold the key to Homelander's defeat.  Multiple episodes are spent building him up, and his inevitable confrontation with Homelander, only to end with an anticlimactic clash and Soldier Boy being put back on ice.  A couple of minor characters are killed, the various romantic relationships are threatened and mended, and way too much is kicked down the road, to be dealt with in a future season.  The Deep and A-Train get a little character growth, but not so much as to affect anything.  Hughie becomes an asshole, but straightens out pretty quickly.  Starlight finally quits the Seven, but probably not for good.  

Two new wrinkles that are actually consequential this year are that the Boys team temporarily get to use superpowers - no secret because it's a big plot point in the original comics - and Homelander becomes Donald Trump.  The second point is the more interesting development, because it acknowledges the reality that outright fascists with the right messaging and the right amount of hype can enjoy immense popularity and get away with just about anything.  There are MAGA spoofs and references all over the place this season, and the ending even literalizes one of Trump's most famous claims, that he could murder someone in broad daylight and people would still clap.  Most of Homelander's screen time is spent doing away with all the little safeguards that supposedly keep him in check, and consolidating his power.  He's still fun to watch and root against, but his endless escalations are getting tedious.  

You can tell where most of the show's attention is by what the marketing has been crowing loudest about - Herogasm.  The notorious superhero orgy referenced in previous seasons has been brought to the screen in truly NC-17 fashion this year, and it's…  okay.  There is a lot of nudity and kinky business onscreen uncensored, and some of it is funny, and some of it is outrageous, and I'm glad everyone seemed to have a good time with it.  There is more sexuality in general this season, including an earlier fight using sex toys as weaponry.  However, there's also still a notable prurience around sex in the show, where our main couples - Frenchy and Kimiko, and Hughie and Starlight - are never shown doing much more than cuddling.  That dichotomy worries me a bit.  

 

We're still living in a superhero obsessed culture, so there's still plenty for "The Boys" to skewer.  This year there's a full Vought-themed Disneyland full of rides and merch.  One of the better subplots involves A-Train trying to stop a racist superhero from harassing his old community without running afoul of Vought's PR demands.  However, this isn't "Watchmen," and there's not much depth to any of the commentary.  "The Boys" is first and foremost about getting good action scenes, black humor, and shock value out of the material, and any real grappling with heavier issues feels like an afterthought.  I liked where Hughie and the Boys were at the beginning of the season, trying to address superhero accountability from different, more structured roles as part of the government bureaucracy, but this quickly falls apart because the person in charge is another secret villain.     

I'm running out of patience with "The Boys" because it seems to have found a groove it is comfortable with, and I can see the show idling here for several more seasons, if it doesn't just go full "Walking Dead" and decide to never pay off anything that it's set up.  I like several of the actors and performances enough to stick around for a while, but the show's novelty has pretty much worn off, and even hardcore nudity doesn't seem all that much fun anymore.  

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