Let's Talk About the New DC Slate

I debated over whether or not I should be posting anything about this list of projects so quickly, since we hardly know anything about the talent involved, most of the release dates, and of course half of these titles likely won't make it past the development stage.  James Gunn and Peter Safran are clearly ambitious, but we don't know how much they can deliver.

On the other hand, I count myself as more of a DC fan than a Marvel fan, and I've been waiting for an announcement like this for a while.  And it's big enough that I can definitely fill a whole post with just gut reactions.  Before I dive in, I want to point out how refreshing it is to have all this information delivered in such a straightforward manner, directly from James Gunn, and we didn't have to wade through all the excess of a convention or an investor call to get to the good stuff.   

Here we go:

"Creature Commandos" - An animated series written by James Gunn collecting some of the more offbeat DC characters (as if we'll ever run out) for a new team.  The Bride of Frankenstein and Weasel from "The Suicide Squad" are in the mix.  The plan is to introduce them as cartoons first, and then as live action.  This is already in production, so we'll probably see it relatively soon.  

"Waller" - A "Peacemaker" spinoff vehicle for Viola Davis, who will still be playing Amanda Waller for as long as she wants.  Obviously there have been no casting announcements yet for anyone else, but having a major black female character acting as a cornerstone of the new DCEU is a good move.  I hope we get some kind of origin story as part of this.  

"Lanterns" - DC struggled for ages to do something with "Green Lantern" in the wake of the disastrous 2011 film.  So, after years of trying to get a TV version off the ground, we're going to see Hal Jordan and John Stewart as space cops in a gritty crime drama.  If they do this right, it sounds like it could be a lot of fun.  But if they do this wrong, it's going to be ridiculous, and not in a good way.

"Paradise Lost" - First, I hope they change the title.  Second, this is the show that I'm the least convinced will actually become a show because the Amazons have never been terribly interesting or memorable characters.  "Game of Throne" style palace intrigue cannot be applied to everything, and we've had a solid decade of failed "Game of Thrones" wannabes already.  We need more details for this one.

"Booster Gold" -  I always liked Booster Gold in his few appearances in the "Justice League" cartoons.  He's a very everyman kind of character with a fantastic gimmick - he's a time traveler from the future who is using future tech to be a superhero.  Because he's otherwise a normal guy, the rest of the Justice League and many villains don't take him seriously.  But does he work without the Justice League?

"Swamp Thing" - We're trying this again?  We're trying this again.  

"Superman: The Legacy" - I'm not looking forward to another "Superman" movie - there have been too many bad ones in too short a span of time.  Gunn is keen to write and direct this one, and he seems to be signaling that he's going to take the opposite approach to the character from Zack Snyder, emphasizing kindness and humanity over any kind of dark power fantasies.  This is the most promising sign I've seen so far that Gunn hasn't forgotten that he has to aim some of these projects at a wider, PG-13 audience.    

"The Brave and the Bold" - I guess if you're going to do Robin, it kind of has to be Damian, doesn't it?  Jason and Tim were really just variations on Dick Grayson, but Damian is a completely different animal with an entirely different relationship to Batman.  Of all the announced film projects, this is the one I'm looking forward to the most, because it's going to make a big change to the cinematic Batman and we already know the new character works in other mediums.  Just don't screw up the casting, and we'll be fine.  

"The Authority" - I don't know much about "The Authority" except that it is a more adult-oriented title co-created by Warren Ellis and that it features one of the first major gay relationships of any prominence in DC's superhero books.  I suspect that this is the film most likely to stay in development for an extended period of time, but it's good to know that DC is giving these characters some attention.  

"Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow" - They're doing Tom King's Supergirl, who is very different from the versions of Supergirl we've seen so far - a tougher, more damaged heroine.  I suspect they'll soften her up a bit just so audiences won't be too taken aback, but this is a good pick.  It'll be "True Grit" in space, essentially, if they stick to the miniseries.  Fingers crossed that the fanboys will behave.

"The Batman" sequel and "Joker: Folie a Deux" - I can deal with them being treated as Elseworlds stories just as long as they're still getting made.

Overall, this slate is exactly what I would expect from James Gunn.  It's darker, edgier, and aimed at an older audience than the MCU.  It's a little strange seeing DC doing the riskier, more challenging, more subversive stories with their characters.  That's the role that Marvel used to have, pre MCU, when Batman and Superman were the old standbys.  It really is a new age, and I guess it's the right time.   

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All About "Andor"

Minor spoilers ahead.

"Andor" represents a major departure from the "Star Wars" content generated for Disney+ so far.  It's closest in spirit to the "Rogue One" film, which it serves as a prequel to, following the early career of resistance fighter Cassian Andor (Diego Luna).  This is a series aimed at an older audience, and is focused on the nuts and bolts of the Rebellion, just when it was getting started.  To that end, it's a much grimmer, talkier, murkier look at the "Star Wars" universe, full of echoes of real world conflicts.  It's also much larger in scope, with a first season that covers several different arcs - a getaway, a heist, and a prison break most prominently - while exploring the lives of major players on both sides of the conflict.

There are still plenty of action scenes and special effects in the series, but you won't see any lightsabers and Force users, and very few alien species.  Instead we have Rebel operative Luthen Rael (Stellan Skarsgård) who uses the front of a Coruscant antiques dealer while setting up dangerous missions secretly funded by Imperial Senator Mon Mothma (Genevieve O'Reilly).  We have Andor's home planet of Ferrix, where he lives with his adoptive mother Maarva (Fiona Shaw) and her droid B2EMO (Dave Chapman) under the increasingly hostile governance of the Empire.  Equally fascinating are the villains in the show, including a low level security guard, Syril Karn (Kyle Soller), who becomes obsessed with catching Andor, and Dedra Meero (Denise Gough), an ambitious Imperial security official who wants to move up in the Imperial bureaucracy.

While Andor is a charismatic figure, and Diego Luna is wonderful in the part, he's often not the most interesting character in the stories that play out over the course of the show.  Instead, he serves as an excellent everyman figure seeing all these different parts of the galaxy along with the audience.  One week, he and his friend Bix (Adria Arjona) are trying to figure out how to sell stolen equipment and leave the planet.  The next, he's on a heist with Rebel leader Vel Seltha (Faye Marsay) to steal an Imperial payroll.  And after that, he's quickly scooped up into a forced labor camp with Kino Loy (Andy Serkis) for multiple episodes.  Subplots follow Mon, Luthen, Syril, Dedra, and others.  We get a macroscopic view of how the Empire oppresses all these different people and planets, and a big part of Andor's character progression is how he eventually comes to the decision to join the Rebellion.

Like "Rogue One," "Andor" was created and largely written by Tony Gilroy, who is best known for the Jason Bourne movies and "Michael Clayton."  As a result, "Andor" feels less like the action adventure space fantasy that most "Star Wars" media has been and more like a dystopian allegory.  The characters are so much more nuanced and the choices they're faced with are often so much more complex that I can't see anyone under the age of twelve having much patience for this show.  Genevieve O'Reilly is one of the standouts as Mon Mothma, who has to delicately manage her political career and loveless marriage, while hiding the flow of money going to the Rebellion.  The Empire's atrocities are also much more chilling in a mundane and realistic way.   Early on, we learn that Andor was rescued as a child from his original home planet by Maarva, shortly before everyone on it was wiped out by an Imperial mining accident.

"Andor" is easily one of the best pieces of "Star Wars" media produced since the original film trilogy, and I'd like more in this vein.  It's nice to see all the resources that this franchise has at its disposal put in service of a story with more substance to it.  And frankly, it's a relief to find out that "Star Wars" works just fine without the Jedi and all their drama.  However, it would be a mistake for all of "Star Wars" to move in this direction, because the audience for it is necessarily more limited than something like "The Mandalorian."  "Andor" is already planned to stop after its next season, which will end right where "Rogue One" begins. 

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All Hail "The Woman King"

The irony of "The Woman King" is that it pushes messages of African self-determination and the rejection of the evil influences of the West through the typical template of a Hollywood action spectacle.  It's a historical epic in the vein of movies like "Braveheart," "300," and "Gladiator," with the usual flouting of historical accuracy and gobs of engineered melodrama.  The difference is, of course, that "The Woman King" enters uncharted territory by applying the familiar formula to the female warriors, the Agojie, of the African Dahomey nation in the 1800s.

This means we get to see Viola Davis be an action star, and frankly I'm thrilled with the movie just for that.  She plays the Dahomey general, Nanisca, who leads the Agojie in a war against a larger kingdom, the Oyo, and their general, Oba Ade (Jimmy Odukoya).  She is also trying to convince Dahomey's new king, Ghezo (John Boyega), to end their kingdom's lucrative slave trade with the Portuguese.  We follow the action through the POV of a new recruit, Nawi (Thuso Mbedu), who joins the Agojie as hostilities with the Oyo are heating up.  Nawi trains under the Agojie warrior Izogie (Lashanna Lynch), and finds herself falling for a newly arrived mixed-race trader, Malik (Jordan Bolger) whose mother was from Dahomey.

The script has rightly weathered some criticism for seriously misrepresenting Dahomey's position with regard to the African slave trade.  In making the Agojie more palatable as heroes, their complicity has been almost totally erased.  I'm sure that the filmmakers could have made a much more historically accurate film that celebrated the existence of the Agojie in a  more nuanced fashion.  However, at some point the decision was made that the movie should be a crowd-pleasing adventure film, and director Gina Prince Bythewood spent the bulk of her efforts on making the action look good.  Whether or not you agree with this approach, the action scenes in "The Woman King" are absolutely beyond reproach.      

  

When it comes down to it, "The Woman King" is a genre film.  The story is pretty bare bones, using a few historical figures and a lot of well-worn tropes to put together a female empowerment and African empowerment narrative with a lot of exciting battle and fight sequences.  However, clearly great pains were put into the execution.  The costuming, the art direction, the cinematography, and the actors involved are all top notch.  I can't think of another Hollywood film that put this much effort into the onscreen presentation of any African kingdom, except, of course, Wakanda from "The Black Panther."  The influence of that film is all over this one, and I'm sure that its success is a major reason why "The Woman King" was greenlit.

Dahomey is not a place that many viewers in the West will be familiar with, so the filmmakers have to shorthand a lot of the customs and the culture.  I appreciate that not many things are outright explained, but you can mostly figure them out through the visuals.  The palace rituals and intrigues often reminded me of Japanese and Chinese costume dramas, while the training scenes clearly incorporate more modern military tactics.  It's unfortunate that the visual language caters so heavily to what Western viewers will be familiar with, but at the same time I was constantly seeing things onscreen that I'd never seen in a studio film before, and events depicted from African perspectives without compromise.  It shouldn't feel so novel, but it does.     

The cast delivers committed performances, especially the actresses playing the Agojie.   The scenes of warfare are breathtakingly visceral and violent, and surely required months of training to pull off.  However, they also do a great job of making their characters relatable human beings, despite often not having much to work with.  Davis and Lynch are the standouts, easily coming across as hardened, dangerous  warriors.  I'm so happy to see Thuso Mbedu here, who last appeared in "The Underground Railroad," with a very different role that allows her to be so much more active and lively as the hotheaded Niwa.  She holds her own in multiple scenes with Davis.   

I'm sure some viewers will be disappointed with "The Woman King" for not being the kind of representation that they were hoping for.  However, its biggest flaws are the ones that are endemic to all Hollywood historical epics.  The film is worth seeing as a piece of spectacle and presents a rare chance for many of these actresses to be the kind of action figure badasses that black women almost never get to be.  Along with movies like "Prey," 2022 has been a great year for shaking up the action movie status quo a bit.  I hope we get more movies like them.  

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Your 2023 Oscar Nominees!

I don't know what I was expecting from this year's nominations, but this is quite a collection of movies.  The ten Best Picture nominations include the movies everyone has been acclaiming all year - "Everything Everywhere All At Once," "The Banshees of Inisherin," "The Fablemans," and "Tár," blockbuster hits "Avatar: The Way of Water," "Elvis," and "Top Gun: Maverick," and indies "Triangle of Sadness" and "Women Talking."  I didn't see "All Quiet on the Western Front" coming, edging out movies like "The Whale," "Babylon," "The Woman King," "Glass Onion," "RRR," and "Till" 

This was an unpredictable year for the Oscars, with no clear consensus on some of the major categories going into the announcements.  The wildest nomination is definitely Andrea Riseborough getting into Best Actress for "To Leslie," which I'd only heard about because the campaign for the little seen film  went viral.  She and Ana De Armas getting nominations meant Danielle Deadwyler and Viola Davis were left on the outs.  Bill Nighy and Paul Mescal getting nominations for Best Actor meant no Jeremy Pope.  Stephanie Hsu and Jamie Lee Curtis seem to have bumped Dolly DeLeon and Janelle Monet.

Frankly, it's not a good year for black cinema at the Oscars.  Brian Tyree Henry and Angela Bassett picked up acting nods in the Supporting Actor and Actress categories, but "The Woman King" and "Till" were totally shut out, while movies like "The Inspection," "Devotion," "Nope," "I Want to Dance With Somebody" and "Emancipation" never worked up much buzz.  Instead, Asian actors are all over the Acting categories, with Hong Chau finally getting a nod for "The Whale" along with four actors from "Everything Everywhere All At Once." 

It's also not a great year for women filmmakers.  "She Said" was snubbed, and "Women Talking" made it into the Best Picture race, but only had two nominations.  Sarah Polley didn't make it into the directing category as some had hoped.    As previously mentioned, women-led projects like "The Woman King" and "Till" got no attention.  My personal long shot for awards attention was "Good Luck to You Leo Grande," which did manage some acting nominations at the BAFTAs, but no such luck at the Oscars.    

I think that this is a very strong batch of movies overall, with no obvious duds like "Vice" in the mix.  Still, I'd written off a lot of these movies months ago, not having much enjoyed Ruben Ostlund's "Triangle of Sadness" or "All Quiet on the Western Front."  I feel I should write up reviews for these two, but frankly I don't have much to say about either of them.  I'm also not looking forward to sitting through "Avatar: The Way of Water," having cooled significantly on the original movie over the years.  It's the only major nominated film I haven't seen yet.  

There's something that feels off this year.  I don't understand how Ruben Ostlund is in the Best Director race.  What is "Top Gun: Maverick" doing in Best Adapted Screenplay?  And not Cinematography?! Where is "Decision to Leave"?  Or "Descendant?"  It's also odd to see Judd Hirsch in Best Supporting instead of Paul Dano.  Great performance, but if we want one-scene wonders from "The Fabelmans," why not David Lynch?  On the other hand, this is how I know that these awards aren't fixed.  These nominations are messy and weird, and reflect a movie industry that is much the same. 

If you'd told me that "Turning Red" would be the lone Disney/PIXAR nominee in the Best Animated Feature category at the beginning of the year, I would not have believed you.  If you'd told me that Tom Cruise not getting a Best Actor nod for "Top Gun: Maverick," would be considered a snub, I would have been doubtful.  Ehren Kruger being Oscar nominated is frankly depressing, but on the upside Ke Huy Quan is the frontrunner for Best Supporting Actor, with a comeback story for the ages.  I'm not really looking forward to Brendan Fraser turning on the waterworks again, but your mileage may vary.  

I still need some time to process this, and track down a few films.  With "Avatar" and "Top Gun: Maverick" in the mix, and Michael J. Fox getting the Hersholt, at least we're likely to see a bump in Oscar viewing figures.  At least we don't need to worry about that issue this year.

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"His Dark Materials," Year Three

Spoilers for the first two series ahead.

It's a relief to come to the end of "His Dark Materials," which was always designed for a run of three series, and has suffered a rash of production troubles in trying to reach its conclusion.  I have never read the Philip Pullman books, and was looking forward to watching how the adaptation would play out without knowing anything about the story in advance.  I have no idea how closely the final season follows the "Amber Spyglass" novel, but it certainly feels like it's following a novel, with its sudden and seemingly arbitrary introduction of information, its embrace of big, conceptually difficult ideals, and its extended, fanciful denouement.

This is the season where we get into the material that made the religious folks so upset with the Pullman books - namely all the characters going to war against a rough stand-in for God.  It's made clear that the evil Metatron (Alex Hassell) is not actually the "Authority," but a usurper who has stolen his power and oppresses everyone who exists across all universes.  However, there's still the fear-and-damnation tactics of the Magisterium and its agents representing religion in general.  A big part of the season revolves around Will and Lyra journeying to the land of the dead to help the souls trapped there, including Roger and Will's father.  Meanwhile, several Angels have gotten involved in the conflict.  Xaphania (Chipo Chung) has allied forces with Asriel, while Balthamos (Kobna Holdbrook-Smith) and Baruch (Simon Harrison) help the children.  Mary Malone is off on a side quest in a world populated by sentient elephant-like creatures called mulefas, learning their language and their connection to Dust.  Finally, Mrs.  Coulter, still the most interesting player on the board, does her best to protect Lyra while remaining very dubious in her loyalties.

For a final culmination of all the storylines, with lots of returning characters and familiar faces (Hi Iorek!) this season is often remarkably slow and somber.  We get the big battles and the final confrontations, but these are rarely as exciting as you'd think.  There is a ton of interesting material to work through, and it sometimes feels like the writers are condensing huge amounts of information into very brief throwaway lines, without properly explaining concepts like The Authority and the Metatron and how the realm of the dead functions.  Solutions to problems, and the way things conclude often feel very arbitrary, especially the ending, which suddenly dumps a ton of new rules on us for how the universes are supposed to work.  And that's not unusual with children's books and fairy tales, but at the same time you'd think that the writers would try to spend a little more time setting things up and giving us context.  There always seems to be plenty of time for Asriel and Coulter to talk about Lyra, or for Lyra to talk about Roger, or for Will to talk about his father.  Good job making Mary Malone and the mulefas feel important, though I'm still not entirely clear on why.

While I still think that a serial is the best way of adapting this material, "His Dark Materials" probably should have been streamlined a bit to help keep the momentum up.  It's hard to argue that a story about challenging religious dogmas and remaking the afterlife should be more fun and accessible, but I really can't see many kids having the patience for this.  You can also tell that the show's budget isn't what it was.  The final battles barely involve any real action sequences, and the orchestral score is doing way too much of the heavy lifting.   For those who have been watching since the beginning, we do get several very satisfying payoffs to various storylines.  It's good to have James McAvoy a regular this year, if only to provide Ruth Wilson a consistently strong scene partner, and Asriel and Coulter get the best ending of anyone in the show.

I wish I could be as happy about Will and Lyra.  The two get a finale that frankly feels like it belongs to a different kind of story.  And I confess I looked up the relevant plot points from the book just to make sure it wasn't something that the show's writers had come up with on their own.  Maybe the final turn of events was something that was beyond the young actors, or maybe I was just caught off guard.  However, I'm still very grateful that we made it to the ending at all.  

  

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"White Lotus," Year Two

Minor spoilers ahead.

The second "White Lotus" miniseries takes place in Sicily, where another set of American tourists are forced to confront some uncomfortable truths about themselves while on vacation.  This year the focus isn't on the class divide, letting both the locals and the visitors get involved in stories revolving around love and sex, with varying outcomes.  

Our major characters include three groups of tourists, a very uptight White Lotus manager, Valentina (Sabrina Impacciatore), and a pair of ambitious prostitutes, Lucia (Simona Tabasco) and Mia (Beatrice Granno).  Tanya (Jennifer Coolidge) from the first series is back, with a new husband Greg (Jon Gries), and a new assistant, Portia (Haley Lu Richardson), in tow.  We also have two rich couples, Harper (Aubrey Plaza) and Ethan (Will Sharpe), and Cameron (Theo James) and Daphne (Meghann Fahy), with very different outlooks on matrimony.  Finally, there are the three generations of the Di Grasso family, who are in Italy to search for their roots - grandfather Bert (F. Murray Abraham), father Dominic (Michael Imperioli), and son Albie (Adam DiMarco).  The prostitutes are our main linking characters, appearing in each story.

Like the first season, we have gorgeous locales, an incredibly talented cast, and a lot of pointed skewering of the little hypocrisies that everyone employs.  Mike White has a lot of fun taking aim at different aspects of his subject matter through the various characters.  The couples are his way to talk about fidelity and jealousy.  The Di Grassos embody generational differences in attitudes toward sex - and how none of that ultimately matters. Valentina is our example of what happens when sexuality is denied.  Tanya and Portia are both blinded by love, ultimately taking them to very unexpected places.  Lucia and Mia treat sex as purely transactional and are the least troubled characters of the lot.  They're the ones who understand best that anybody can be seduced, and perhaps on some level everyone wants to be.  The dark comedy is less biting this year, and there are several happy - or at least less downbeat endings.

This makes the season more watchable, but also significantly tamer than the first.  There are no truly hateable characters, no deeply uncomfortable topics being broached, and it's only in the last episode that anything truly intense and shocking happens.  The performances are good all around, with a notably higher caliber cast, but I didn't find anything on the level of Murray Barlett's work in the Hawaii season.  Jennifer Coolidge comes close, though.  Still, the writing remains very strong, and often very funny.  I think it was a good choice to have several potentially calamitous situations foreshadowed that never actually happen, and a lot of things are left open ended and ambiguous.  This is one of those shows that's probably best to watch live, because speculating how events will play out is half the fun.  

My biggest disappointment with the season is that some of the actors, like F. Murray Abraham, stayed on the sidelines and didn't have much to do.  Michael Imperioli has a promising storyline set up that doesn't really go anywhere.  There's also the fact that the White Lotus hotel staff are a smaller part of this season, with Valentina's story being fairly limited, and never affecting any of the guests.  On the other hand, I can see why Mike White would want to avoid setting the expectation that every season would have to involve the hotel staff.  Not all the White Lotuses should be as dysfunctional as the one in the first series.  

I'm looking forward to the next round, which White has already hinted will be about death.  Well, it will be about death more directly than the show has been so far.  There are also a couple of loose ends left here that it would be such a shame to not see the fallout from next season.  Until next time.

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My Top Ten Episodes of "Westworld"

In the end, HBO's "Westworld" ran for 36 episodes over six years.  There are ongoing arguments over the relative quality of the four seasons, but I enjoyed it the whole way through.  And though the creators might have planned a fifth season, I don't find one necessary.  The cold, ambiguous finale is a perfectly suitable way to close out a very difficult, often impenetrable show.  I know I didn't understand what was going on half of the time, but I admire Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy's ambitions, and a lot of good work by talented cast and crew members.

The episodes below are unranked and ordered by airdate.  Spoilers ahead.

"The Original" - The series premiere was an event, showing off this new universe full of sinister robot "hosts" and the even more sinister human beings behind them.  Characters are introduced, the rules of the game are announced, and then we get to watch the fantasy grow darker and darker.  The line between the hosts and the guests is already blurry, and the show is already playing with time and memory to good effect.  And has the swatting of a fly ever been more portentous?     

"Tromp L'Oeil" - A big turning point episode for the first season that reveals Bernard is a host, with one of the great lines of the series - "It doesn't look like anything to me."  This is also the episode where Maeve finagles her way into Operations and menaces Sylvester and Felix, Dr. Ford reveals himself as a Bigger Bad than he'd let on, and Theresa ends up dead.  The first season was great at building up tension and juggling tones, and this is a great example for both.  What did happen to Sylvester and Felix?  

"The Bicameral Mind" - The finale of season one had a big reveal that many fans managed to work out weeks ahead of time, but I thought that it still had plenty of impact.  Several characters reach big, decisive moments as the massacre we've been waiting for all season finally takes place. The death of Dr. Ford is a highlight, and I still find it hard to believe that we had Anthony Hopkins as a regular on this show, even if it was only for one season.  He certainly proved impossible to replace.  

"The Riddle of the Sphinx" - I haven't talked about Ed Harris and the Man in Black yet, who is the show's most memorable human character.  Here, we delve into his history and his family ties, especially his relationship with his father-in-law, James Delos.  The fidelity trials are some of the most fascinating and horrific bits of science fiction we see in the show.   Ed Harris and Peter Mullan both deliver unnerving performances, especially when it's revealed what happened to the rest of the Delos clan.

"Akane no Mai" - It's too bad that we didn't spend more time in the Eastern version of the Westworld park.  The show got Rinko Kikuchi and Hiroyuki Sanada, and clearly spent considerable resources to create their Japanese village and outfit all the samurai.  The repeated musical cues, echoing the series premiere, are especially fun.  However, the MVP here is Thandiwe Newton.  She's always been one of the standouts in the cast, and here she's juggling Japanese dialogue and a lot of action scenes beautifully.  

"Kiksuya" - The best episode of the series gives us a look at this universe from the point of a background character, Akecheta, played by Zahn McClarnon.  Their tribe may be fictional, but there's still a strong sense of authenticity to the experience of the Native American characters in this episode, who try to make sense of Westworld from a very different cultural context.  McClarnon's performance, a Nirvana cover, and stellar direction contribute to some of the show's most arresting moments.   

"The Passenger" - Though highly convoluted, the second season ends in a satisfying way, with many of the hosts escaping into the Sublime, and a few others making their way into the outside world.  The extended ninety minute running time, the convergence of so many stories, and the another round of big reveals and new mysteries make this too much of a good thing at times.  However, it's a great farewell to the park, and the post-credits sequence is one of the show's greatest cliffhangers.

"The Absence of Field" - Tessa Thompson took on a more central role in the later seasons, when Dolores decided to use a Charlotte Hale host body and killed the original.  Here, we see the Hale host struggling to reconcile her AI existence with the life of the human being she has replaced - both ultimately influencing her path forward.  Meanwhile, the Rehoboam story with Dolores and Caleb is rolling along, which I seem to like better than most viewers, especially the way it treats the idea of predestination.  

"Generation Loss" - Just when you thought that the fourth season was going to be relatively straightforward, it's revealed that we've been watching asynchronous timelines yet again.  I thought the fourth season was actually better than the previous two in many ways, especially the AI-run dystopia that it presents, inverting the original premise.  Hale makes for an excellent villain, and Caleb is a far more sympathetic protagonist than anyone else in the series, and worth rooting for.

"Fidelity" - Finally, this episode doesn't quite share the same premise as the 2009 horror movie "Triangle," but it shares a lot of the nightmare imagery, as Hale creates multiple copies of Caleb to interrogate, who quickly become a pile of corpses littering the latest version's escape route.  It's a terrifically dark scenario that builds on the existential horror of "Riddle of the Sphinx," and gives Aaron Paul a chance to give a really memorable performance.  

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"Don't Worry Darling" and "Barbarian"

There's not much about the plot of "Don't Worry Darling" that a genre savvy viewer won't be able to figure out by sitting through five minutes of this movie or simply watching the trailer.  It's a familiar story addressing very familiar themes about female paranoia, the patriarchy, and the traps of domestic life.  However, the execution is good enough that I thoroughly enjoyed it anyway.

Alice (Florence Pugh) is a young 1950s housewife who lives with her husband Jack (Harry Styles) in a luxurious planned community called Victory, reserved exclusively for the employees of the Victory Project, led by a charismatic man named Frank (Chris Pine).  Alice spends her day keeping house and socializing with the other wives, including her best friend Bunny (Wilde), and a woman named Margaret (Kiki Layne), who is behaving in increasingly erratic ways.  Margaret keeps seeing things that aren't there, and soon Alice is drawn into the same pursuit of conspiracy theories and possible delusions.  

I suspect that the behind-the-scenes drama around "Don't Worry Darling" is more entertaining than the finished product.  The well-worn "Mad Men" milieu and thin plotting  don't do the film any favors.  On the other hand, Florence Pugh does a great job as the lead, and frankly the visuals are breathtaking.  Writer/director Olivia Wilde successfully puts together a tempting vision of what the American Dream is supposed to be from a certain point of view, and lets us enjoy it for a while, before taking it apart.  The use of the desert landscapes, the lavish parties, the dance sequences, and the music are all very obvious, but very effective.  And that's how I feel about the whole film.  It's shallow and familiar, but far more entertaining than similar films like "Under the Silver Lake."  Oh, and I thought Harry Styles was fine.  Not on the same level as Pugh at all, but for the purposes of this film, just fine.     

Zach Cregger's "Barbarian" is a far more interesting and inventive genre film.  It's likewise a very socially relevant film about women stuck with the consequences of men behaving badly.  "Barbarian" is a horror movie though, with some ghastly surprises that I expect no viewer will see coming.  As with most good horror movies, the less you know going in the better.  However, it starts with a young woman named Tess (Georgina Campbell) who comes to Detroit for a job interview and finds that her AirBNB rental has been double booked.  Without any good options, she agrees to share the space with the other renter, Keith (Bill Skarsgaard).  Eventually the plot also involves the owner of the house, AJ (Justin Long), a previous owner named Frank (Richard Brake), and an old woman (Matthew Patrick Davis) who is not what she seems.

A lot of this movie is about subverting expectations, and the ability of Justin Long to play an absolute scumbag while somehow still being endearing enough to keep you guessing about his intentions.  There are a lot of pretty rote horror scenarios to work through, like people going where they shouldn't, getting convinced to do stupid things, and not leaving a bad situation when they should know better.  However, these are handled well, by someone clearly familiar with all the genre conventions, and who is good at engineering fun twists.  The tone keeps shifting too, from tense to funny to creepy.  And when you think you've figured out what the movie is doing, it throws you for another loop.  

I'm really impressed with "Barbarian" because the filmmakers clearly know how to do a lot with very little.   The budget here was under $5 million, but the director's command of visual language and all the performances never feel compromised at all.  Also, kudos for tying together a lot of different thematic threads and commentary on social issues without beating the audience over the head with it.  Justin Long getting out the tape measurer was the best laugh I've had at the movies this year.  And while nobody ever explains why the title of the movie is "Barbarian," I think we all know exactly who it's referring to by the end.

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My Favorite Chantal Akerman Film

Before we start, I swear to you that I wrote and scheduled this post before the 2022 Sight and Sound list dropped.

Chantal Akerman is an avant garde filmmaker more than she is a documentarian, a feminist filmmaker, a Belgian filmmaker, or a Jewish filmmaker, though of course she's all of these things and more.  For a while, I was under the mistaken impression that she was a French New Wave filmmaker, since many of her films are in French, and sometimes use similar aesthetics.  The New Wave is certainly an influence on her work, but not nearly as much as experimental filmmakers like Jonas Mekas and Michael Snow, and the structuralist movement of the 1960s.  These were filmmakers intent on stripping cinema down to its absolute basics.

I'm a little hesitant to choose "Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles" to write about for this feature, because it's Akerman's most famous film and has been analyzed by everyone who has ever taken an interest in her work.  It's not representative of everything she is as a filmmaker.  Akerman directed both experimental and narrative films, documentaries and fictional works.  In the '80s, she even made a full-blown musical, with an accompanying making-of film documenting the process.  Her most touching features were very personal, including film diaries about her own life and her relationship with her mother.

"Jeanne Dielman," by contrast, feels like a feminist manifesto in cinematic form.  It follows three days in the life of a widowed mother in Brussels.  And in those three days, almost nothing interesting happens.  With a running time of roughly 200 minutes, the audience is forced to experience the tedium of daily domesticity along with the protagonist, played by Delphine Seyrig.  Long sequences take place in the kitchen, where Jeanne meticulously cooks and cleans for herself and a barely seen teenage son.  The structuralist influence is the most apparent here, as the long, long static shots and a lack of any usual cinematic artifice help to emphasize the unrelenting dullness of the situation.  We're taken through Jeanne's entire, strictly regimented daily routine, and then the whole thing starts over.  

The film does have a plot, but the visual storytelling is so unlike what we see in most narrative films, it doesn't register what's going on until the second half of the film.  Akerman is more interested in getting the audience on to the same wavelength and rhythms as the main character, to make them identify with Jeanne, and learn how her tightly controlled universe functions.  Initially there's nothing out of the ordinary about the Dielman home or anything that Jeanne is doing.  Even when it's revealed that she's a sex worker, with regular appointments in the afternoons, there's a matter-of-factness about the whole business.  It's only when the viewer has internalized Jeanne's particular way of existing in the confines of her home that the disruptions to the routine begin to occur, and things are allowed to escalate from there.  The abrupt ending doesn't come out of nowhere if you've been paying attention.

Seyrig's performance as Jeanne is hypnotic and absorbing.  She bears the weight of the audience's attention in practically every frame.  At the same time, there's a distance maintained between Jeanne and the viewer, an opaqueness to her motives and mindset, despite the intimacy of the camera.  The film often feels voyeuristic as a result.  Jeanne stubbornly remains a mystery, despite our opportunity to observe her in such excruciating detail.  In the opening scenes, where everything is going right, there's a sureness and an exactness to her motions that create an illusion of perfection.  However, the illusion is fragile, and perhaps Jeanne depends on it too much.  When her world starts to fall apart, you can pinpoint the exact moment that it happens, but not why it happens.

Along with the unusual use of time in the film, there's also a very effective use of space.  Jeanne's home is lovely and well-kept, but unexceptional.  And after spending an extended amount of time there, and seeing so much of Jeanne's labor expended on its care, it starts to feel oppressive and vaguely sinister.  Objects take on significance through Jeanne's interactions with them - her kitchen implements, her soup tureen, and a pair of scissors.  The camera stays mostly static, there are few cuts, no music, little dialogue, and nothing fancy going on with the art direction.  And yet, through those long, unbroken shots, and Seyrig's precise performance, we come to understand that Jeanne's home is a prison.           

"Jeanne Dielman" is one of Chantal Akerman's darkest films, with a heroine who is revealed to be so alienated that she feels more like an automaton than a human being.  I'm a little sad that Akerman rarely made anything this bleak again - most of her subsequent narrative films are about messy romantic relationships - but on the other hand, I can't blame her for choosing to move on to happier subjects.

What I've Seen - Chantal Akerman

Hotel Monterey (1973) 

Je Tu Il Elle (1974) 

Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975) 

News from Home (1977) 

Les Rendez-vous d'Anna (1978) 

Toute une nuit (1982) 

Golden Eighties (1986)

Night and Day (1991) 

D’Est (1993) 

La Captive (2000) 

Down There (2006) 

No Home Movie (2015)

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Rank 'Em: The Best Picture Winners of the 2010s

This is the last post of this series, and boy do I have some opinions about the 2010s at the Oscars.  Some of these winners do not look good in retrospect.  From greatest to least great, here we go.    

Parasite (2019) - Our first foreign language Best Picture winner, and the undisputed best picture of that year.  Bong Joon-Ho's satirical thriller about two families of different social classes is so unexpected and so obviously not your average Oscar prestige pic that it's stunning that it pulled off the win.  However, after so many lackluster winners in recent years, I think the Oscars needed "Parasite" more than "Parasite" needed the Oscars.  It was a fun season, though with director Bong and his translator both becoming media darlings.

Spotlight (2015) - I have a bias towards Tom McCarthy films, because they exist on a wavelength that just works for me, no matter what the subject matter.  Mostly, however, I just appreciate that "Spotlight" is a solid, well-made procedural about a serious topic.  The investigation unfolds in a realistic way, and there's fairly little over-the-top melodrama, with the exception of one Mark Ruffalo speech, which almost feels like a concession to its marketing team.  2015 had several good contenders, and I was also rooting for "Brooklyn" and "Mad Max: Fury Road."

Moonlight (2016) - Ah, the flub.  There was so much fuss about the mistake with "La La Land" that it overshadowed a wonderful win by a small film over a large one, a deeply personal, intimate film about identity over the kind of nostalgic spectacle that the Academy usually rewards.  I would have picked "Manchester by the Sea," but "Moonlight" is very deserving.  I love that it also helped launch Barry Jenkins into the spotlight, who has been making a ton of great content for both the big and small screens, much like the director of the next film on this list.

12 Years a Slave (2013) - This is a very hard film to watch, but it has my absolute respect.  Everything I've ever seen from Steve McQueen has been fantastic, and his direction here is impeccable.  The only downside is that "12 Years a Slave" inspired so many lesser imitators who didn't understand the difference between brutality and violence.  This was the obvious Best Picture choice and there wasn't much competition that year,  except for maybe "The Wolf of Wall Street." 

Birdman (Or the Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance ) (2014) - I'm baffled at how this won over "The Grand Budapest Hotel," or even solid contenders like "Whiplash" and "Selma."  Then again, I'm also still a little boggled that this is an Iñárritu film, a wild departure from form after four down-to-earth social dramas.  "Birdman" is an interesting film with a slew of good performances, but gimmicky and kind of a mess.  I do love one moment, however - the drummer reveal is priceless.

The King's Speech (2010) - I was rooting for "The Social Network" and "Inception."  I have no particular grudge against "The King's Speech," except that it empowered Tom Hooper to make some truly terrible movies later on.  Colin Firth and Geoffrey Rush are great fun, and Helena Bonham Carter habitually steals scenes from both of them.  It's just such an unadventurous pick in a year that had a lot of good choices. 2010 was a rare year where any nominee could have won. 

The Artist (2011) - Perhaps no Best Picture winner disappeared from sight faster than "The Artist."  I like the film, but I don't think it works outside of a theatrical setting, and is pretty inaccessible to the average moviegoer.  Still, I understand why it won - it's a French love letter to the early days of Hollywood, and pulls off a really risky proposition - making a silent film!  A sincere, no-joke silent film in 2011!  "The Tree of Life" was my pick to win, but it never would have happened.  

The Shape of Water (2017) - I consider myself a Guillermo Del Toro fan, but "The Shape of Water" is not one of his better efforts.  The central idea of a deaf woman falling in love with The Creature From the Black Lagoon's sexy cousin is lovely.  The clumsy potshots at Cold War America and toxic masculinity don't work half as well, no matter how much scenery Michael Shannon chews.  And there were so many better nominees, like "Get Out," "Lady Bird," and "Phantom Thread."

Green Book (2018) - I think I actually like this movie better than most, particularly the performance of Mahershala Ali as Don Shirley.  However, it's embarrassing that a pretty tone deaf film about American race relations like "Green Book" won Best Picture in 2018, especially against the much more timely "BlacKkKlansman."  And we all know that "Roma" should have won, and probably would have won if the Academy and Netflix weren't on such bad terms.

Argo (2012) - Finally, I will concede that "Argo" is an entertaining film.  However, it embodies so many of the worst attitudes and impulses of Hollywood in adapting real world events into films.  The script is riddled with inaccuracies and obvious invented complications to make the story more interesting.  And there is no way in hell that director  Ben Affleck would get away with playing a character of Mexican descent today.    I'd have given the statuette to "Life of Pi."

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"Harley Quinn," Year Three, and "Battle of the Super Sons"

Spoilers for the first two seasons of "Harley Quinn" ahead.

I've liked the animated "Harley Quinn" series pretty well up until this point, but I feel like the series has turned a corner that wasn't in its best interests.  We've moved past Harley wanting to prove herself as a supervillain and trying to get past her ex, the Joker.  Now she's officially hooked up with Poison Ivy and is facing a new set of problems - being in a new relationship, Poison Ivy's burgeoning megalomania, and some confusing encounters with Batgirl (Briana Cuoco) and other members of the Batfamily.

Maintaining an anarchic, subversive comedy program that also has a lot of continuity and sincere character progression can be a tricky balance, especially in later seasons.  The fun of the more mean-spirited humor starts to wear off, and B-villains making sarcastic, self-aware quips feels old hat.  "Harley Quinn" has never had the dramatic underpinnings of something like "Rick & Morty," so when it tries to have its main characters do some real soul searching, it can feel out of character.  Ivy developing a taste for world domination after two seasons of being relatively chill is probably the season's biggest blunder.  I think the larger problem is that the show's initial premise has run its course and some of the characters really don't have anything to do.  There's a whole subplot involving Clayface impersonating Billy Bob Thornton for a James Gunn movie that doesn't really work.  Frank spends most of the season as a kidnapping victim and MacGuffin.  Joker's continuing adventures as an upright citizen are starting to come across as a little bizarre.  

Fortunately, we spend a lot more time with the Batfamily this year, and they're revealed to be as dysfunctional as the villains.  This is relatively uncharted territory, so most of the jokes still land.  Bruce Wayne (Diedrich Bader) is especially screwed up, in an unhealthy relationship with Catwoman (Sanaa Lathan), and still obsessed with his dead parents.  Easily the best episode this season is when Harley gets to go spelunking in Batman's psyche, and remind everybody that she used to be a psychiatrist.  I think Harley growing up a little more and sorting out her priorities this year worked fine, but the show is juggling so many other characters now that she's gotten a little lost in her own show.  There's still plenty to love here, especially for the DC nerds, but "Harley Quinn" is running out of steam.       

Over in another corner of the DC animated universe, Warner Animation's direct-to-video animated features about DC universe superheroes have been quietly proliferating since 2007, and now there are nearly fifty titles.  I've seen a handful of these over the years of varying quality.  They're much closer to the DC comics continuity than most of the other film and television adaptations, and they've done direct adaptations of famous stories like "The Death of Superman," "The Long Halloween," and even the notorious "The Killing Joke."  Many of these are aimed at more mature fans, but one of the latest is very kid friendly and surprisingly entertaining: "Batman and Superman: Battle of the Super Sons."

In case you weren't aware, Batman and Superman are both fathers in the DC comics.  Superman (Travis Willingham) and Lois Lane (Laura Bailey) are the parents of Jonathan Kent (Jack Dylan Grazer), a rambunctious kid who learns that he has superpowers and a superhero father on one very special birthday.  Unfortunately, this also happens to be at the same time a mysterious alien force is threatening Earth.  So, Superman and son end up in the Batcave consulting with Batman (Troy Baker).  The latest Robin is Bruce Wayne's son Damian (Jack Griffo), an edgy little ex-child assassin who is still adjusting to being one of the good guys.  Naturally, Jonathan and Damien have to team up, when their fathers are put out of commission.  

"Battle of the Super Sons" is a nice entry point to get to know this set of characters.  It's an origin story for Jonathan, and offers an introduction to Damian without getting into his complicated history.  The cel-shaded CGI animation looks pretty close to feature film quality, the actors are all solid, and the fight scenes are especially cool.  I could easily see "Super Sons" as a jumping off point for a series or many further direct-to-video outings.  Frankly, the premise is so good that I'm surprised Damian and Jonathan haven't found their way into any of the live action adaptations yet.  On the other hand, the second that they do, they probably won't be allowed to be half as much fun as the versions we see here.  

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"House of the Dragon," Year One

Spoilers for the first two episodes ahead.

"House of the Dragon" may not be the best show on television right now, but it's definitely one of the biggest as far as ratings, acclaim, and cultural impact.  After the disappointing ending of the original "Game of Thrones" series, the stakes and expectations were high for the spinoff, a prequel series set in Westeros, hundreds of years earlier.  Fortunately, showrunners Ryan Condal and Miguel Sapochnik were able to put together a compelling set of characters and conflicts, drawn from George R. R. Martin's work.  In some ways it's more accessible than "Game of Thrones," and certainly more straightforward - following the royal Targaryen family during a succession crisis.

King Viserys (Paddy Considine) decides to name his daughter Rhaenyra (Milly Alcock as a teenager, Emma D'Arcy as an adult) his heir after the tragic death of his wife.  He remarries to Rhaenyra's best friend Alicent Hightower (Emily Carey as a teenager, Olivia Cooke as an adult), the daughter of Hand of the King, Otto Hightower (Rhys Ifans), creating a rift between the girls.  Viserys and Alicent have several more children, complicating the succession.  Another potential heir is Viserys's brother Prince Daemon (Matt Smith), a highly unpredictable, war-loving troublemaker.  Then there's ambitious Lord Corlys Velaryon (Steve Toussaint), from a different branch of the Targaryen family tree, married to Princess Rhaenys (Eve Best), Viserys's cousin, who was arguably cheated out of the Iron Throne.

What I like about "House of the Dragon" over the original "Game of Thrones" is that it's more of a grounded court intrigue story than a typical fantasy narrative.  Many of the characters are dragon riders, and there are plenty of gory battles and deaths, but almost all of the main conflicts are the same as what you'd find in a historical melodrama like "I, Claudius" or "Wolf Hall."  Characters are constantly worried about allegiances and family legacies.  The legitimacy of a child can have huge implications.  This introductory season is full of time jumps in order to set up all the players and their histories, sometimes skipping years at a time, so characters you see as teenagers in one episode, can be grown and married, with their own children in the next.  There's a lot to keep track of, and multiple POV characters, but the bigger picture is much easier to see unfold from week to week.  

I also appreciate that "House of the Dragon" is set up to revolve around two women - Rhaenyra and Alicent.  Rhaenyra is who everyone is rooting for from from the outset, because she's fighting against deeply ingrained sexism to be the first woman on the Iron Throne, because her private life is subject to a deeply unfair level of scrutiny, and because she's willing to push against convention in ways that unsettle everyone around her.  However, you have to feel for Alicent, a deeply loyal and dutiful woman, who is constantly being told by her father and his allies that the moment Rhaenyra becomes queen, Alicent's life and her children's lives are over.  Their world is a brutal place, and the recurrence of excruciating birthing scenes (I count at least four) hammer home the danger and the uncertainty these women face, simply existing in it.  

 

The focus on relationships and alliances also creates more opportunities for richer, deeper characters.  There are a lot of good performances in this season, but the real showstopper is what Paddy Considine does with Viserys, who gets progressively more decrepit and compelling as the season goes on.  It's also a joy to watch Daemon evolve over the years as his priorities change, and to watch all the kids mature and develop their personalities.  You can track the progress of the hostilities as time passes and the families grow.  All four of the actresses playing Rhaenyra and Alicent are great, but Milly Alcock is my favorite, for her remarkable poise.  

For those who prefer the more spectacle-driven elements of "Game of Thrones," "House of the Dragon" features lots of good warfare and combat, and many dangerous dragons onscreen.  However, in keeping with the more character-driven nature of the show, the most dramatic fight turns out to be one between resentful children.  There are still a few mysterious prophecies floating around, but far less time is spent on the mystical and supernatural business that "Game of Thrones" got so bogged down in.  And it's to "House of the Dragon's" benefit.

My biggest complaint about the show is that too many of the characters have similar names, or simply the same name (I count at least four Aegons).  Otherwise, this has been a fantastic season of television that far exceeded my expectations.  I'm looking forward to more soon.  

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"Westworld," Year Four

Spoilers for the first three seasons ahead.

HBO's "Westworld" came back, somewhat inexplicably, for what turned out to be its final year.  I liked the much-maligned third season better than most, but I figured that the story had gone about as far as it was going to, with the defeat of the sinister systems keeping humanity trapped in host-like loops.  Not so, it turns out.  Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy reordered their strange vision of the future once again for year four, and have a couple of new tricks up their sleeves.  They also pull out some of the old ones, to mostly good effect.  

I find it astounding that there are so many top drawer actors who remained regulars in this series.  Tessa Thompson, Evan Rachel Wood, Thandiwe Newton, Jeffrey Wright, Aaron Paul, Ed Harris, and James Marsden, among others, are still here.  Newcomers include Ariana DeBose and Daniel Wu.  Thompson and Wood are playing two different versions of Dolores/Wyatt, one villainous and tyrannical, and one completely innocent and unaware of the bloody conflicts driving nearly everyone else in the show.  However it's Aaron Paul as Caleb, the everyman introduced in the previous season, who most of the season revolves around.  He's one of the only truly sympathetic characters left, and given the most straightforward, uncomplicated story to follow.  Most of the other major players like Maeve and Bernard are more enigmatic, having shed their original roles and drives as the show has become more complex.

And boy, does "Westworld" continue to double down on its convoluted plotting and heady sci-fi concepts.  It's not that any of the material is particularly difficult to grasp, but the tricky narrative and storytelling choices are purposefully disorienting, and the show assumes that the viewer has a good recall of events that happened in previous seasons - now several years in the past.  Thankfully, "Westworld" has left behind the more vague and infuriating mysteries like The Maze, and is more transparent this year about what is actually going on.  The timeline is messy, and a few characters aren't quite living in the same reality, but the central conflict is the same as ever.  The hosts are still fighting with the humans over who controls the planet, and this time the hosts have finally gained the upper hand.  Old faces keep popping up because nobody stays dead in this universe for long.  The season is well-paced and never feels like it's stalling for time at any point.  There are two standout episodes, both leaning very hard on science-fiction concepts, and both so wonderfully executed that I think they're worth seeking out on their own, independent of the rest of the season.

Because honestly, by the time the final episode rolled around, I was ready for "Westworld" to be over.  I'd stopped caring about any of the characters after they'd all been killed and resurrected multiple times.  The show's bleak outlook on the fate of intelligent life is unusual, and I respect that mutual destruction was the chosen endgame.  However, it felt very compromised in execution, with all the bloodshed and fighting coming across as perfunctory and toothless.  The show clearly wanted to get more cerebral and more philosophical, but was held back by having to keep delivering more stupid violence and melodrama to appease the more restless viewers.  "Westworld" looks as prestigious and expensive as ever, with an effects budget that other genre shows could only dream of.  However, it's also incredibly frustrating to see so much effort and talent put in service of a series that only sporadically lives up to its promise.        

I'm glad that "Westworld" got a more definite conclusion, and a chance to redeem itself somewhat after the poorly received third season.  We got a lot of answers to a lot of mysteries, and some of them were satisfying.  Others weren't.  Luke Hemsworth's Stubbs apparently only survived this long to give Bernard someone to talk to.  Still, science-fiction media of this scope and this much ambition remain too rare, and I was satisfied with "Westworld," imperfect as it is.  The trip is not for everyone, but I found it worthwhile.

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"Bullet Train" Satisfies

The latest David Leitch punch-em-up is not a particularly good film.  It's a cartoonish action pastiche where a bunch of colorful, lethal characters are all stuck together on a Japanese bullet train, and not by accident.  It's not original.  Despite the star-studded cast, it's not especially well written or well executed.  There's too much gravity-defying CGI, and the action is aggressively okay.  In some respects, the movie is downright sloppy.  However, "Bullet Train" does one important thing that many similar films don't manage to do - it sets things up and pays things off.  And it does this so well, over and over again, that "Bullet Train" is one of the most oddly satisfying action films I've seen in a while.

"Bullet Train" exists in a hyper stylized version of Japan that is so clearly an exaggerated mishmash of common tropes, you can't really take offense.  There are only two Japanese characters of note - Kimura (Andrew Koji) and his father The Elder (Hiroyuki Sanada), who are after the unknown assailant who threw Kimura's young son off a roof, and are the only ones who are given real stakes in the story.  Everyone else on the train is some variation of hit man or ne'er-do-well.  There's Ladybug (Brad Pitt), an ex-assassin taking  what he thinks is a simple theft job after a stint in therapy.  There are Tangerine (Aaron Taylor Johnson) and Lemon (Brian Tyree Henry), a pair of quippy assassin brothers who are supposed to retrieve the son (Logan Lerman) of a crime boss.  There's a young woman who calls herself The Prince (Joey King), out for revenge.  There's a venomous snake.  Several other players are also involved, but they involve a lot of cameos and surprises that I don't want to spoil. 

There's a lot of Quentin Tarantino in this movie, not just because Lemon and Tangerine are obviously doing the "Pulp Fiction" thing, but because the whole movie feels like an homage to various Asian media.  Mostly this is in the aesthetics, which play around with a lot of colorful imagery, including a mascot character named Momomon, who appears in toys, advertisements, and a giant character suit.  The tone is very light and characters are constantly shaking off grievous wounds and nonchalantly getting into insane scenarios.  And either you can suspend disbelief long enough to enjoy the spectacle, or you can't.  I generally enjoy ridiculous action films, so I didn't have much trouble, especially since "Bullet Train" was so doggedly committed to some of its sillier ideas.  There are a lot of whimsical conceits in the film that could come across as annoying, like Lemon being obsessed with "Thomas the Tank Engine," The Prince waving around a very obvious Chekhov's gun, and a bottle of water briefly becoming a POV character.  However, everything pays off.  "Thomas the Tank Engine," the gun, the bottle of water, the snake, Momomon, all of it.    

That probably says more about me and the kind of film fan I am than it does about "Bullet Train."  I'm able to overlook the clashing accents, the obvious Orientalism and whitewashing, the plot holes everywhere (how long are they on that train?) and the endless amounts of exposition, because the script ticks the right boxes for me when it comes down to it.  Brad Pitt and Brian Tyree Henry are allowed to be charming and fun.  The worst of the baddies all get it in the end.  There are enough twists and surprises that work, even if they're clumsy and half-baked.  Heck, I know a whole subplot involving a barely glimpsed train conductor was cut out of the film, leaving some messy loose ends, and I don't really mind.  This is a genre and subgenre I'm very familiar with, and seem to have a higher tolerance for than most.  The most obvious points of comparison are much less successful exploitation B-movies like "Terminal" and "Gunpowder MIlkshake," all built around hyper-violent, hyper-stylized action showdowns dripping with comic book dialogue and cutesy character names.   

"Bullet Train" is the bigger budget, better crafted version - which doesn't mean its up there with the "John Wick" movies, or even "Atomic Blonde," but it's decent fun for a weekend matinee. 

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