My Favorite James Whale Film

It's nearly Halloween, so let's talk about a monster.  

There are only a few really iconic images from the early days of film that are still potent in the present day.  One of these is Boris Karloff's portrayal of Frankenstein's Monster from the 1931 version of "Frankenstein."  The Monster's incredible impact on the history of film and popular culture can't be overstated, serving as a common point of reference for so many outsiders, both in and out of the horror genre. You can find the film's influence everywhere, from the work of Andy Warhol and Tim Burton to "The Rocky Horror Picture Show," to Victor Erice's anti-Francoist fairy tale, "The Spirit of the Beehive."   The Monster may be one of the most parodied characters of all time, with humorous versions appearing in "The Munsters," "Young Frankenstein," Franken Berry cereal boxes, and the "Hotel Transylvania" franchise.

  

I debated for a while about writing this entry for "Bride of Frankenstein," where the Monster is more verbal and self-aware.  Many of the famous lines and images associated with "Frankenstein" actually come from this film, and it's just as highly regarded among critics.  However, the original "Frankenstein" is far more iconic and unsettling.  It has the famous "It's alive!" scene and the notorious drowning sequence that was widely censored until the 1980s.  Frankenstein is such a familiar figure now, it's hard to remember that the film is a straight horror picture, and audiences found its depiction of the Monster truly disturbing and frightening in the 1930s.  There were significant censorship challenges, and the film was banned in multiple countries over its subject matter.  A great deal of its effectiveness comes from Boris Karloff's portrayal of the Monster, who was initially conceived as a far more inhuman, mindless grotesque.  Karloff gives him a sense of pathos and tragedy.  You can feel his inarticulate frustration in all his attempts to interact with the people he encounters.       

The filmmaking is also excellent on every level.  Arthur Edeson's cinematography establishes so much of the film's atmosphere of dread and gloom.  Makeup artist Jack Pierce designed the immortal look of the Monster.  Charles D. Hall and Kenneth Strickfaden were responsible for putting together Frankenstein's laboratory, and filling it with sinister electrical machinery.  The electrical effects were a novelty in 1931, but so successful that they were soon popping up everywhere in the subsequent Universal Monster films.  "Frankenstein" was already very much part of a franchise, designed to follow up to the success of "Dracula" - in fact Bela Lugosi had been cast in an earlier version of the film before James Whale took over and brought in Karloff as his leading man.  Whale was best known for war films up to that point, and his approach to "Frankenstein" was to apply elements of German Expressionism to the visual style.  A fan of German directors like Paul Leni, Fritz Lang, and Robert Weine, he used heightened, exaggerated shots, dramatic chiaroscuro lighting, and distorted images to give the film an unconventional, ominous look.         

"Frankenstein" and "Bride of Frankenstein" were both directed by James Whale, who was also responsible for helming "The Invisible Man," and other Universal horror classics.  However, Whale wasn't keen on being known as a horror director, and went on to direct several other excellent films in multiple genres, including the 1936 adaptation of "Show Boat," an American adaptation of Marcel Pagnol's "Marseille Trilogy," and a murder mystery farce called "Remember Last Night?"  However, he was never able to escape the shadow of his early successes, and left Hollywood for a career directing theater by the 1940s.  In recent years, he's become more celebrated for his LGBT identity - he was one of the rare uncloseted gay directors in the 1930s.  You can definitely read LGBT themes into the "Frankenstein" films without much effort.  

However, I've always viewed Frankenstein's Monster as cinema's patron saint for every minority and everyone ever treated as an unfortunate.  There have been some pretty good modern adaptations of "Frankenstein," but not many of these have been on film.  The power of the 1931 version remains too potent and inescapable, even after nearly a century.  

What I've Seen - James Whale

Frankenstein (1931)

The Old Dark House (1932)

The Invisible Man (1933)

Bride of Frankenstein (1935)

Remember Last Night? (1935)

Show Boat (1936)

The Great Garrick (1937)

Port of Seven Seas (1938)

Sinners in Paradise (1938)

Wives Under Suspicion (1938)

---

Rank 'Em - 2024 Summer Thrillers and Chillers

I have a significant list of horror and thriller films that were released over the summer that I don't feel I need to write a whole review for, but I still would like to express some opinions on.  I'm going to try something new and do this in the form of a "Rank 'Em" post.  This list is in no way comprehensive - I'm skipping "The Watchers," "The Deliverance," "AfrAId," and the Russell Crowe exorcism movie  among other things, and I don't categorize movies like "The Crow" as a horror/thriller picture.  

Ranked from best to least, here we go.

Oddity - The more I think about this Irish horror film from Damian Mc Carthy, the more I like it.  True to its name, this is a fascinating, weird, and singular piece of work.  The supernatural ideas are familiar - a blind medium seeks answers about her sister's death - but it's the way the twists and turns play out that really sets this apart.  Carolyn Bracken is excellent in a double role as the two sisters, and I really have to admire the ending for not pulling any punches. 

Strange Darling - JT Mollner's unnerving indie serial killer movie snuck up on me.  Willa Fitzgerald and Kyle Gallner are fabulous, while the shuffled storytelling works great.  Some of the commentary is a little pointed, but I like the filmmaking - several long shots that let scenes play out in interesting ways, and a dreamy soundtrack and sound design that helps set the mood.  The killer fits into a trope that I'm a little uncomfortable with, but the execution is very strong (pun totally intended).  Moller and his actors ensure that the title character is more than just a trope.  

Blink Twice - Lots of rough edges here, but I like Zoe Kravitz's directing debut an awful lot.  I like that it has a sense of humor, that it's got a great role for Naomi Ackie, Channing Tatum gets to go ham, and that it's not afraid to get really dark when it needs to.  It's definitely influenced by Jordan Peele's work, but has its own very distinct voice and style.  The mechanics of the plotting are a mess, but the control of the tone is something special.  This would be higher on the list with a couple of fixes to the third act, and I can't wait to see what Kravitz does next.

Cuckoo - It took me about an hour to figure out what this movie was doing, but once I did, I really enjoyed the ride.  Cuckoo is a German co-production with an international cast, and like "Oddity" it really benefits from the more European sensibility.  The frights are genuinely unsettling, but there's a lovely undercurrent of sentiment that works better than I was expecting.  Also, if Dan Stevens does nothing else in his career but play kitschy character parts in genre films, I will be thrilled.     

Longlegs - Oz Perkins' film is very distinctive and not scared of being a little slow and a little off-kilter.  I admire its ability to create a real mood of apprehension and unease.  However, I really think that the refusal to spell out more of what was actually going on undercut the movie, especially in the final round of reveals.  The filmmaking is excellent, and the performances are very strong -  I like Maika Monroe's more than Nicholas Cage's - so "Longlegs" is well worth the watch.  I just can't get on its wavelength when it comes to the turn from serial killer movie to supernatural horror.  

A Quiet Place: Day One - I don't know that this quite qualifies for this list.  Sure, it's a "Quiet Place" prequel and has some excellent scenes of suspense and destruction when the aliens invade New York City.  On the other hand, this is such an intimate melodrama for so much of the running time, where the stakes are kept very low.  It often feels like a post-apocalyptic survival film, with Lupita Nyong'o and Joseph Quinn putting in unusually nuanced performances for a summer genre picture.  I had qualms about the abrupt ending, but otherwise this was a treat.

Trap - The first half of the film is a lot of fun, with Josh Hartnett delivering an excellent performance, and a really novel, if logistically ridiculous scenario for a manhunt movie.  "Die Hard" at a teen idol concert, from the POV of the baddie.  And then M. Night Shyamalan makes the mistake of leaving the arena, handing over the reins to a different character, and the whole thing quickly deflates.  The first half is good enough that this isn't a total wash, but "Trap" could have been a lot better than it turned out.

MaXXXine - Of Ti West's trilogy, I thought "Pearl" was great and "X" just okay.  "MaXXXine" has the most stacked cast, with Kevin Bacon, Elizabeth Debicki, Halsey, and Lily Collins joining Mia Goth on her tour through the seedy underbelly of Hollywood, but the movie is oddly toothless compared to the prior movies that "MaXXXine" is supposed to be connected to.  I was waiting for the whole movie for Goth to really let loose and show us the monster we know she's capable of being, and the actual, heavily Manson-inspired storyline was such a letdown to see unfold.

In a Violent Nature - I like the premise here, where we see everything from the POV of a  Jason Voorhies-like killer as he sets off on a murderous rampage to recover stolen property.  The trouble is that this idea can't sustain a feature length film, especially one where the characters and story are so slight.  With no stakes to work with, it gets awfully boring watching our protagonist shamble around from kill to kill - I couldn't help but feel like I was watching someone else playing a video game, and not a very good one.  

---

Goddammit, Neil

I was very tempted to write a eulogy for Neil Gaiman in this post, in order to express my extreme displeasure at discovering that he's yet another in a long list of celebrities revealed to be a heinous abuser.  The sexual assault allegations against him are serious, and I have no reason not to believe them.  I'm incredibly frustrated that yet another artist whose work I love and support is somebody I'll need to shun and denounce going forward.  I used to count myself a fan of Johnny Depp, Woody Allen, Louis CK, Bill Cosby, and Joss Whedon.  Gaiman's the worst one yet, because he's been my favorite author for the past twenty years.  I have a whole shelf full of his books and comics, and upcoming adaptations of his work are among the few pieces of media I'm actually looking forward to.

Did I know or suspect that Gaiman deserved to be canceled?  No.  When I was a starry-eyed fan in my twenties I read his blog daily for years, but I stopped putting him on a pedestal after his first divorce, when he became more famous in the 2010s.  A couple of incidents made it clear to me that he was very fallible and probably behaved very differently when he was out of the public eye.  I figured he had a few skeletons in his closet, because nearly everyone does, but I didn't suspect they were anything like what's been alleged.  But that said, I've always enjoyed his public persona very much.  I was always glad to see him when he did promotion for his projects, or when he'd pop up on social media stumping for social causes or clapping back against the bigots.  Gaiman has always been very good at being a public figure, even thriving on social media in spite of its toxicity.  He was an LGBT ally so much earlier than most, and a big presence during the WGA strike.  There's a conspiracy theory going around that the allegations against Gaiman were manufactured by the outlet that reported them - The Tortoise - which has right-wing ties.  I want that to be true, but it isn't.

It's hard not to draw parallels to "Calliope," the issue of "The Sandman" comic Gaiman wrote thirty years ago.  It's about a young writer who enslaves and sexually abuses an ancient Greek muse to fuel his success.  The recent adaptation of that story for the "Sandman" television series added some eyebrow raising details, including that the writer styled himself as a feminist and championed progressive causes.  Gaiman didn't script that episode, but he had an awful lot of influence on the show.  Instead of coming off as perceptive and self-critical, "Calliope" reads as awfully confessional now.  "Writers are liars" is one of the memorable lines, spoken by the abusive writer's equally terrible mentor.  I've spent a long time wondering who that character might have been based on (Harlan?  Roger? Surely not Terry?), and if I may have to go through this whole mess again with another of my favorite authors.    

Speaking of the "Sandman" television series, a selfish part of me is the most upset about the various adaptations of Gaiman's work that could be in jeopardy.  The allegations against Gaiman haven't turned into a wholesale canceling of everything he's involved with.  However, this can't be ruled out, and the potential blowback will affect a lot of projects - the second season of "The Sandman," the third season of "Good Omens," which has been reduced to a final ninety minute wrap-up movie, the "Anansi Boys" miniseries, and multiple movies that are in development.  "Good Omens" has been affected most so far because Gaiman is the showrunner and primary writer.  The next season of "The Sandman" is far enough along that it'll be completed, but I don't know if we're getting further seasons to finish off the series.  I've been waiting a very long time to see some of this material adapted, and I'm going to have to do mental gymnastics to justify to myself that it's okay to enjoy them.

And at the end of the day it is okay to enjoy them.  I'm not going to throw out a whole shelf of books or my copies of the "Coraline" and  "Stardust" movies.  I'm going to keep watching "Sandman."  Maybe "Good Omens" too.  It's perfectly reasonable to not support Neil Gaiman's work as a writer going forward, but I draw the line at denying the twenty-year relationship I already have with his older output, and the adaptations that are the collaborative work of so many other people.  I'm going to treat Gaiman like he's dead, and grieve the person that I thought he was.  And I'm going to brace myself for the next cancellation, because now this is a normal part of my life and consuming media.

And it sucks, but it is necessary.  And it'll get done.

---

"House of the Dragon," Year Two

Second seasons are always tough, and "House of the Dragon" has just gone through a rough one.  "Game of Thrones" didn't have a particularly good second season, but it moved the plot along and didn't try anyone's patience.  Then again, it also didn't have the kind of behind-the-scenes meddling that "House of the Dragon" has had to deal with, which has resulted in a major battle being kicked ahead to the third season, and its episode count reduced from ten installments to eight.  This is a common issue in 2024, where we've seen several high profile series delivering compromised, often unsatisfying seasons due to production troubles.  "House of the Dragon" was one of the few shows that wasn't significantly delayed by the WGA and SAG strikes last year, but they had the fallout from the Warner/Discovery merger to contend with, and showrunner Miguel Sapochnik bowing out after the first season.

The show's co-creator Ryan Condal has stepped up to helm season two, which sees both Rhaenyra and Alicent preparing for war.  Alicent's son Aegon (Tom Glynn-Carney) is currently on the throne, married to Helena (Phia Saban), with his one-eyed brother Aemond (Ewan Matchell), the strongest dragon rider in the kingdom, constantly scheming for power behind his back.  Sir Criston Cole (Fabien Frankel), is elevated to Hand of the King this year, through events I will not spoil. Over at Dragonstone, Rhaenyra has the support of Lord Corlys and Rhaenys, her son Jace (Harry Collett), and cousins Baela (Bethany Antonia) and Rhaena (Phoebe Campbell), but far fewer resources for a coming war.  She sends Daemon to Harrenhal to raise an army, while finding an unexpected ally in his former lover, Mysaria (Sonoya Mizuno).

It's actually a pretty eventful season, with several deaths, destruction, dragon combat, lots of secretive plotting, and a lot of new characters introduced.  Lord Corlys's illegitimate sons, Addam (Clinton Liberty) and Alyn (Abubakar Salim) come into play, along with seeming nobodies like Ulf White (Tom Bennett) and Hugh Hammer (Kieran Bew) from King's Landing.  You might recognize Simon Russell Beale playing the current overseer of Harrenhal, or Freddie Fox as Alicent's little-seen older brother Gwayne.  However, it's difficult to keep track of everyone from episode to episode.  We're running into one of the major challenges from the original "Game of Thrones," which is too many characters and storylines all vying for attention.  I completely lost track of some characters like Baela and Gwayne.  Fortunately, there are no major time skips this year, and we don't have to juggle younger and older versions of the characters

However, the biggest problem this season isn't a new one - pacing.  While the buildup to the bigger clashes is diverting enough, the action frequently slows to a crawl, and it's exasperating that season two only covers a few months, after season one covered multiple years.  We're going to have to wait until 2026 or later for battles we've already been waiting since 2022 to see.    Some of the major characters don't have enough to do, and are stuck stagnating in their own doubts for multiple episodes.  Daemon suffers this the worst, holed up in Harrenhal where he contemplates betraying Rhaenyra, with a witchy healer woman named Alys (Gayle Rankin) facilitating a lot of troubled dreams.  It's nice to get a few cameos from familiar faces, but Daemon's crisis of faith feels far too drawn out and unnecessary.  Alicent is another one who spends multiple episodes wavering in her resolve, her screen time wildly out of proportion to her importance in the story this year.  

So while there are some really fantastic high points in this batch of episodes, including a three-way dragon fight, a terrifying test for potential dragon riders, and an assassination attempt going wrong in the worst way, it's often a slog to get to them.  Characters being set up to be pivotal figures in the future often feel shortchanged in favor of others who feel like they're treading water.  Most episodes amount to a series of conversations capped off by an action scene at the end.  It wouldn't be so bad if these conversations weren't so repetitive and the participants were more varied.  Alas, there aren't many humorous wildcards, and far too many angsty young nobles going on endlessly about their birthrights.         

I continue to enjoy "House of the Dragon," and have a brighter outlook on its future seasons than I had with "Game of Thrones," because the source material is already finished.  However, this season is plagued by too many of the same issues that I've been seeing in prestige television across the board lately.  The quality level remains high in the acting, production design, music, and cinematography, but they can't compensate for the fundamental deficiencies with how this season of television was put together.  I'm not saying that having a big climax would have solved all of the show's problems, but it certainly would have engendered much more goodwill from the fans going into the next long hiatus.    

---

"The Bikeriders" is a Blast From the Past

Jeff Nichols based "The Bikeriders," his new film about a motorcycle club in the 1960s, on a photo book of the same name by Danny Lyon.  The book may not have provided much in the way of a story, but the visual inspiration couldn't be clearer, and it's striking.  There's an instant sense of fidelity in the images, which occasionally recreate the portraits of motorcyclists, their wives and girlfriends, and other everyday people in their orbit.  "The Bikeriders" differs from other films' evocations of the era because it's so much more raw and unvarnished, less interested in capturing the look of films of the time, and more interested in capturing the people as they were.

The Vandals Motorcycle Club is initially a group of Chicago bikers, led by Johnny (Tom Hardy) and Benny (Austin Butler).  We follow them through eight years of ups and downs, until younger, more violent newcomers take over the club, and a series of deaths spell the end of their era.  Despite all the significant members of the club being male, the story is framed from the POV of Benny's wife Kathy (Jodie Comer), who relays the club's history to Lyon (Mike Faist) through a series of interviews.  Other members of the extremely talented cast include Boyd Holbrook, Emory Cohen, Beau Knapp, Damon Herriman, and Nichols regular Michael Shannon.  Toby Wallace plays "The Kid," a wannabe Vandal who only brings trouble whenever he appears.   

"The Bikeriders" romanticizes the experience of being in the Vandals to a degree.  There's a night ride sequence toward the beginning of the story that's pure vehicular delight and sonic bliss.  However, I appreciate that Nichols puts Kathy front and center, because it creates an outsider's vantage point from which to observe the club's dynamics, and serves as a reminder that the lifestyle comes with a cost.  The Vandals are an outlet for its members to blow off their day to day frustrations and to find a community, but they're a tremendously damaged and unstable bunch.  Putting aside the risk of motorcycle accidents and being constantly ostracized by the wider community, the club attracts all kinds of the wrong attention.  

Even though the talk of being a gang is mostly bluster, maintaining the Vandals' image and keeping everyone in line involves a lot of fighting and ongoing tensions.  Johnny only started the group after watching Marlon Brando in "The Wild One," and knows he's not equipped to handle much more than drunken disagreements between friends.  From the moment The Kid shows up, taking the Vandals' big talk a little too seriously, Johnny seems to understand that the original club's days are numbered.  I haven't seen Tom Hardy in a role this well suited to him in a while, and of course he's fantastic.  Of course Johnny builds up this image of being this crazy violent maniac for the sake of the club, while really being a pretty ordinary guy in private.  His friendship with Benny is the other major relationship the film explores.

I think Jodie Comer is the film's secret weapon, however.  She's working with a very particular accent and a pretty limited character- we learn almost nothing about Kathy except what can be read between the lines about her relationship - but to very good effect.  She might grumble, but her love and compassion for the bikers come across loud and clear.  She may want Benny out of the Vandals, and gets frustrated about their intrusion into their lives, but she knows each and every member.  She understands the value of the club and what it represents.  Butler is the film's James Dean type and I wish he had more to do here.  However, his screen charisma continues to be impressive in every role I see him in.  Toby Wallace, is also definitely one to watch going forward.          

I might have skipped "The Bikeriders" if it were made by another director, not having much interest in the subject matter, but I haven't missed a Jeff Nichols film yet, and I don't plan to.  With his films, I know that I'll see good performances and great cinematography, and I'll get some solid character drama.  I don't think "The Bikeriders" is his best, but it's exactly what I was hoping to see.    

---

Rank 'Em: The Original "Planet of the Apes"

I finally saw all of the "Planet of the Apes" movies recently and really enjoyed them, though some more than others.  The reboot era has been fun, but I prefer the original five films for their thoughtfulness, their daring, and their willingness to occasionally get very silly.  I may do a ranking of the reboot series some time in the future, but I expect it would be difficult to do a ranking of all the films together, because there's such a difference between the ones made in the '60s-'70s and the ones made after 2010.  And I try not to think about the Tim Burton movie.    

From best to least, here are my rankings of the original "Planet of the Apes" film series.  

Planet of the Apes (1968) - The undisputed classic.  The twist ending, created by Rod Serling, gets all the press, but there are so many great visuals and interesting ideas in play here.  Even the early scenes of the three astronauts exploring the planet are engrossing, and the shock of the sight of a gorilla on horseback is just the prelude to the disturbing revelations we'll learn about the ape civilization.  The makeup and prosthetics work is still impressive to this day, and ironically I feel it's Charlton Heston's performance which has aged the most poorly.  Taylor comes across as so arrogant and unlikeable, it's hard to sympathize with him at times.  

Escape From the Planet of the Apes (1971) - This is my favorite of the "Apes" sequels because it promotes Cornelius (Roddy McDowall) and Zira (Kim Hunter) to leads, and they're easily my favorite characters of the series.  Inverting the original premise, the intelligent apes are brought back in time to Earth in 1973, where the truth about them is gradually revealed.  There's a lot of humor and a lot of wit on display as the writing pokes fun at American society and the pompous men in charge.  However, the ending is harrowing stuff, a pointed piece of social commentary that perfectly leads into the next installment of the series.

Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (1972) - McDowall returns to play Caesar, the chimpanzee revolutionary in a then-future 1983 where chimps are a subjugated underclass and the human government is a Fascist police state.  The fourth film in the series, the budget was pretty meager by this point, but the filmmakers were still able to put together a pretty impressive dystopia, and a climactic ending where the apes organize, militarize, and finally overthrow their masters.  "Conquest" originally had a more violent ending, which was toned down, and has the most direct parallels to the ongoing racial unrest of the era.

Battle for the Planet of the Apes (1973) - The last of the original "Planet of the Apes" movies is often counted as the worst, but the premise is decent and at it least moves the franchise into a different time period and status quo.  Caesar putting down a challenge to his leadership, while facing a new human threat, could have been handled better, but the themes and conflicts are a natural extension of what we saw in the previous films - and greatly informed the reboot series.  I think the film's biggest blunder is having Paul Williams and John Huston in what are essentially celebrity cameos, which breaks some of the immersion.   

Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970) - I like the cinematography and some of the action sequences, but subbing in James Franciscus for Charlton Heston and retreading so much of the original's story makes this sequel feel derivative in the extreme.  I respect the downer ending, even though it meant writing the franchise into a narrative dead end, but the goofy mutant cult was a bad idea, and the execution has aged particularly badly.  It's nice to have a few scenes with Cornelius and Zira, but otherwise this is the least interesting installment of the "Apes" franchise.    

---

"True Detective" Goes Alaskan

So, "True Detective" is back for another round.  This time Mexican filmmaker Issa Lopez takes over as showrunner, for a murder mystery set in the frozen north.  During the two weeks of darkness in the Arctic circle, eight scientists at a research center mysteriously disappear.  The local sheriff, Liz Danvers, (Jodie Foster) and Trooper Evangeline Navarro (Kali Reis), discover that the case might be connected to the unsolved murder of an Inupiat woman that happened six years ago.  As the two of them untangle the mystery, they also have to confront their own messy personal lives and pasts.  Other characters include father and son lawmen Hank and Peter Prior (John Hawkes, Finn Bennett), Danvers' hostile step-daughter Leah (Isabella Star LeBanc), and the odd woman who discovers the bodies of the scientists, Rose Agineau (Fiona Shaw).

From everything I've read, "True Detective: Night Country" is designed to be a dark mirror to the first season of "True Detective."  Instead of two male officers in the humid American south, this time it's two female officers in the icy Alaskan winter.  The supernatural and magical realism elements are back, with a possible cause of the deaths being angry spirits out of Inupiat mythology, or perhaps the vengeful ghost of the murdered woman.  There are signs and symbols that keep recurring, some linked to Carcosa and the Yellow King from the first season of "True Detective."  These connections don't really come to much, and the show probably would have been better off leaving them out. "Night County" functions pretty well as a standalone mystery, and a character study of its two very imperfect leads.  

The show's setting is doing a lot of the heavy lifting.  The tiny, fictional town of Ennis is a place where everyone knows everyone, and there are all sorts of terrible traumas and festering resentments in everybody's pasts.  The biggest employer, a nearby mine, is almost certainly illegally polluting and poisoning the community.  The Inupiat population is struggling, including Navarro's schizophrenic sister Julia (Aka Niviana), the only family that she has left.  We're warned from the outset that the weeks of darkness with no sun has a tendency to drive people a little crazy, and soon everyone is hearing voices, hallucinating dead loved ones, and drinking too much.  The constant darkness and cold are incredibly oppressive, and the atmosphere of rising dread is terrifically captured onscreen.  We haven't even gotten to the more traditional horror imagery yet, including wildlife acting strangely, cracking sea ice and subterranean caves, and some frozen corpses that had me flashing back to certain episodes of "Hannibal."  There's also a killer title sequence, set to a creepy Billie Eilish song.

My biggest criticism of the show is that it felt rushed.  "Night Country" is six episodes compared to the eight that the previous seasons got, and I think it needed more time.  The mysteries in all of the "True Detective" installments have been pretty poor when you get down to the mechanics, while the character studies and performances are  the main event.  That's definitely true of this year as well, though I think it ties together pretty well on a thematic level in the end.  Jodie Foster is great, because she's always great, but Kali Reis was the one who really impressed me.  This is the first time I've seen her in anything, and I found her screen presence instantly engaging.  Both of them are playing difficult, often unlikeable characters, who end up doing some terrible things over the course of the season.  I really wish there was the space to dig further into their psyches, and spotlight some of the interesting secondary characters.  I definitely didn't get enough Fiona Shaw.

Fortunately, "Night Country" has done well enough that HBO will surely be making more "True Detective" in the future.  And we also know it works fine with different showrunners, so hopefully we'll continue to see more interesting talent get a chance to introduce their own takes to the series.  Maybe let Foster direct next time?    

  

---

"Apes" Soldiers On

"The Planet of the Apes" films are one of our oldest continuous film franchises, aside from one ill-fated Tim Burton reboot.  I didn't expect another "Apes" movie after the Caesar trilogy wrapped up in 2017, but here we are seven years later, at the beginning of what I assume is a new trilogy, with a new cast of characters.

"Several generations" after the death of Caesar, apes are now the dominant life form on Earth, and humans are both scarce and increasingly unintelligent.  Our new hero is a young chimpanzee named Noa (Owen Teague), who is part of a peaceful clan with a culture based around falconry.  One day a group of violent apes, claiming allegiance to Caesar, attack and capture Noa's clan, including his friends Soona (Lydia Peckham) and Anaya (Travis Jeffrey), and his mother Dar (Sara Wiseman).  Noa sets out on a journey to find them, soon joined by an orangutan named Rakka (Peter Macon) and a human, Nova (Freya Allen).  They discover that their true enemy is a bonobo named Proximus Caesar (Kevin Durand), who is setting himself up as an emperor of the conquered apes.  

Wes Ball of the "Maze Runner" movies takes the director's chair for a pretty simple, straightforward adventure movie.  Humans have more of a presence here than I expected, but the main character is Noa.  He's very bland, but he's got plenty of time to improve if he's going to be our hero over multiple movies.  The worldbuilding is more interesting, doing a great job of introducing this new time period where the apes are beginning to put together early versions of their own civilizations, and there are still lingering signs of human society.  This installment is all about bringing our main characters up to speed about the state of ape-human relations and showing how Caesar's teachings have spread.  It's a strong starting point for more complex conflicts in future movies, but not very exciting as a stand-alone adventure. 

The WETA effects work remains excellent, though not much personality comes through with the ape performances this time, aside from Proximus and Rakka.  The character animation isn't quite as strong as what we saw in the earlier trilogy, but it's good enough to handle some diverting action sequences and occasional interactions with human actors.  I like the way the story has developed, but I'm a little disappointed that "Kingdom" looks so much like the last two films of the Caesar trilogy.   I was reminded very much of the "Avatar" movies, simply because of the visual language of non-human characters spending a lot of time in woodsy environments, and living in small tribes.   Fortunately there's not too much by way of obvious callbacks and references - the aesthetics are familiar, but you won't see the Statue of Liberty poking out of the beach at any point.  

The last few "Planet of the Apes" have been consistently well made and watchable, but haven't really stood out from the crowd.  I suspect it's because the Caesar trilogy fit the mold of blockbuster spectacle a little too well, where I always liked the older "Apes" movies better for their wildly out-of-the-box ideas.  The satire and cautionary messages have increasingly been backgrounded in favor of more action and spectacle.  It's an unfortunate coincidence that "Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes" has so many story beats in common with "Furiosa," and doesn't do them nearly as well.  Proximus, for example, is a promising, ambitious character.  There was the opportunity to explore his co-option of Caesar's teachings and interest in human history in more depth, but in the end he's just another smarmy villain.  A much more interesting conflict is set up by another character in "Kingdom," but I don't know if the writers intended it, and if they plan to take advantage of it.           

   

I rewatched a couple of the older "Apes" movies recently, and marveled at how much they were able to tackle in those movies despite constantly declining budgets.  The new movies all look great, but feel much more generic.  The franchise continues to be popular so the filmmakers will have more opportunities to improve in the future.  I appreciate that this series has lasted over a half century, adapted beautifully to improved effects technology, and still has plenty of stories to tell.  They could be doing many things better though, and I hope they will as "Apes" goes forward.

---

"Tuesday," and "The Young Woman and the Sea"

A couple more smaller titles today.

"Tuesday" is one of the odder fantasy films I've seen recently.  It's a sort of existential fable on the nature of life and death, where death is a supernatural talking parrot.  Written and directed by Daina O Pusic, the film is about a terminally ill young woman named Tuesday (Lola Petticrew), whose mother Zora (Julia Louis-Dreyfuss) has been hiding the extent of her own troubles to take care of her.  One day Death (Arinze Kene) arrives for Tuesday in the form of a parrot, who can say a few words and change size, depending on the needs of the situation.  Tuesday is ready to accept her death, but her mother absolutely is not.

I like the portrayal of Death in this movie, as this wild animal that doesn't have a great relationship with humanity after eons of being hated and despised for doing its job, but can be befriended and understood by those who take the trouble.  It doesn't sound like a human being when it talks, but like this elemental force of nature trying to mimic human speech.  The character animation is sometimes beautiful and sometimes menacing and borderline horrific.  I don't think that the allegory entirely works, but it's an interesting way for the filmmakers to engage with the thorny parts of their material, in more cinematic terms.  

I wish that the underlying mother-daughter story between Zora and Tuesday had been more fleshed out.  The actresses are both very committed, and Louis-Dreyfuss in particular is watchable in just about anything.  However, the plotting seemed rushed, and in the end I felt as though I hadn't gotten enough time with them and their relationship - especially at the end.  I wonder if it was a matter of the movie trying to do too much - there's a whole section of the film where Zora learns the value of Death, and Tuesday gets a little lost in the shuffle.  There are a lot of unanswered questions, like why Tuesday and Zora have completely different accents, and how Zora let her life fall apart, which I would have liked to see addressed, or at least placed in a better context.  "Tuesday" deserves a lot of credit for its ambitions, but the follow-through isn't quite there.         

On to "The Young Woman and the Sea," which is a very Disney sports movie.  I don't mean that in a bad way - Disney has built up a solid reputation for inspirational family films, and "The Young Woman and the Sea" feels like a throwback to nostalgic sports dramas like "Seabiscuit" and "The Natural" that don't come along very often anymore.  This is the movie it feels like "The Boys in the Boat" was trying to be last year, but it didn't have a story nearly as good.  Daisy Ridley stars as Trudy Ederle, the first woman to swim the English Channel in 1925.  Directed by Joachim Ronning, who made the Norwegian "Kon Tiki" movie, and produced by Jerry Bruckheimer and his outfit, "Young Woman" is expertly engineered to be a crowd pleaser, and I'm honestly a little surprised that its release has been so under the radar.  

This is the best performance I've seen from Daisy Ridley, playing Trudy as an underdog among underdogs.  She's sickly as a child due to measles, and is initially prevented from swimming at all by her protective father (Kim Bodnia) and mother (Jeanette Hain).  Eventually Trudy's stubbornness gets her in the water, and she and her sister Meg (Tilda Cogham-Hervey) are allowed to train with the Women's Swimming Association under Charlotte Epstein (Sian Cliffords), Trudy's first coach.  Other coaches Trudy will have on her path to victory include the combative Jabez Wolffe (Christopher Eccleston) and the unorthodox Bill Burgess (Stephen Graham).   

The script by Jeff Nathanson lays on Trudy's constant battle against expectations pretty thick.  Female swimmers were a rarity in the era, and not taken seriously, but the callousness of the sporting establishment often strains credulity.  However, once Trudy identifies the Channel as her goal, the movie finds its groove.  The dramatization of the historic swim couldn't be better, and all the little subplots with her family and coaches pay off in a satisfying way.  There's absolutely nothing new or innovative going on here, and if you're at all familiar with these kinds of films, you'll be able to predict every twist and turn and dramatic pause in the dialogue.  However, sometimes all you want is an old-fashioned sports hero story, and I haven't seen one this good in a long time.      

---

Confessions of a Fujoshi

A fujoshi, literally a "rotten woman," is a term for a female fan of Japanese media that features gay relationships.  Initially this term was a pejorative, but has been reappropriated over time.  Still, there's been a prevailing attitude that being a fujoshi is inherently problematic because the consumption of gay media in Japan is seen as fetishizing gay men and gay relationships.  It's pretty clear why.  The vast majority of the "boys love "manga that I came across as an otaku in the early 2000s were created by women, and intended for consumption by women.  I soon realized that they contained nothing remotely representative of actual queer experiences.  Instead, these stories were projections and fantasies that usually involved a lot of  bad stereotypes and wildly regressive, inaccurate ideas about homosexuality.  Manga created by and for gay audiences do exist, but have always been much less visible.  The Japanese LGBT community has only made real legal and social gains in the last decade, and this is just starting to impact the culture.   

I'm not going to get into the myriad reasons for why the fujoshi audience exists, which is its own separate post, but this is definitely not just a Japanese phenomenon.  Women's preferences affect the kind of gay-themed media that gets produced just about everywhere, because they make up a big segment of its audience - especially when it comes to gay romances.  When "Brokeback Mountain" was released in 2005, the audience initially skewed male the first week, but skewed female for the rest of its run.  More than one publication at the time called the movie out for being a melodramatic weepie that was aimed at women.  And it should be pointed out that "Brokeback Mountain" was based on a piece of fiction written by a woman, which isn't a remotely rare occurrence.  "Love, Simon," "Heartstopper," and "Red, White, and Royal Blue" were all written by female or nonbinary authors.  In the U.S. there's also been plenty of gay media created by gay men in the last twenty years, including "Call Me By Your Name," "Moonlight," "Glee," "Pose," and "Schitt's Creek."  Queer representation has only made the progress it has in American media because of these titles and others breaking into the mainstream and setting expectations.  

      

Still, we're in this uncomfortable reality where media about gay men often needs the straight female audience to be financially viable.  The biggest problem with being a woman who enjoys gay romance really has nothing to do with liking gay romance, but rather being the current default target audience for gay romance.  As a result, we get a lot more cute romances like "Heartstopper," and not so many of the more well-informed and nuanced portrayals of the gay experience like "Bros" or "Uncoupled."  And over the past few years as I've happily enjoyed "Interview With the Vampire," "Dead Boy Detectives," and the new revamp of "Doctor Who," I can't shake the feeling that I'm being pandered to when I shouldn't be.  As more and more media featuring gay relationships are being created, I can definitely tell the difference between the movies and shows that are trying to portray gay people respectfully, and the ones that feel like they only exist so we can watch two hot guys make out.  And I admit that I do enjoy watching two hot guys make out.  However, these days it's not without a growing sense of guilt and wondering if the collateral damage of the female gaze to the LGBT+ community is worth it. 

I know what it's like to be fetishized, and it's not a good feeling.  So, I do my best to search out the smaller, more personal stories like "God's Own Country" and "Love is Strange."  I pay attention to who is working behind the camera.  And I try to be mindful of boosting the gay representation that is actually good, genuine, respectful representation versus somebody's fantasy of what representation is.  I don't think I technically count as a fujoshi anymore because it's been a long time since I've been around Japanese media fandom.  However, I still feel like one from time to time, especially when I'm watching a show with gay characters who are following the tropes of heterosexual romance a little too closely.       

---

"Furiosa" Arrives

The best thing that I can say about "Furiosa," which the marketing people insist on calling "Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga," is that it doesn't feel so much like a prequel to "Mad Max: Fury Road" as much as the missing first two acts to a larger story that encompasses them both.  This is the first "Mad Max" film that breaks from the "Man With No Name" template to tell the origin story of Furiosa (Alyla Browne as a child, Anya Taylor-Joy as an adult), the fierce Imperator who became Max's ally in "Fury Road."  Her history is relayed in five chapters, from her initial capture as a child from her hidden oasis home, to her imprisonment under the Biker Horde leader Dementus (Chris Hemsworth), to her first encounters with the warlord Immortan Joe (Lachy Hulme) and his best driver, Praetorian Jack (Tom Burke).

We're thrust back into the motor-oil drenched, post-apocalyptic Wasteland, where an endless variety of mutated freaks, motorized menaces, and beefy dudes on epic power trips hold sway.  Fans of "Fury Road" will be happy to find many familiar faces, and several action scenes that rival anything that George Miller has ever dreamed up.  The "Stowaway" chapter has what may be the best road chase in the entire franchise, and there's a later sniper sequence that escalates to glorious proportions.  However, the experience is fundamentally different from "Fury Road," because "Furiosa" is a very different kind of story than any of the other "Mad Max" films.  This is a tale of revenge and self-discovery that spans many years.  The action scenes are much more intermittent, and the story of Furiosa is harrowing stuff, with a lot of upsetting material.  The first hour of the film revolves around the child Furiosa being thrown into more and more dangerous situations, and witnessing very R-rated atrocities.  This is not exactly a crowd-pleaser, and I'm not surprised that it wasn't the Memorial Day box office winner the studio was hoping for.  

However, for those viewers who enjoy their post-apocalyptic media, like "The Last of Us" or "Fallout," George Miller's "Mad Max" is one of the original pillars of the genre, and delivers here like nothing else.  We learn more about the Wasteland and the workings of various gangs continually fighting for dominance.  The stylized language and allusions to antiquity help to give the story an epic quality, with the sweeping cinematography and larger-than-life performances to match.  The film charts the rise of Furiosa at the same time it charts the downfall of Dementus, a cheerfully insane fellow who decides to go up against Immortan Joe in several clashes over many years.  He's the most prominent new addition to this universe, and Chris Hemsworth keeps him oddly likable in spite of all the terrible things that he does.  Hemsworth is trying a little too hard to be memorable, but which works for his character anyway.  Tom Burke is more effortlessly charismatic as Praetorian Jack - a sort of proto-Mad Max figure who has an instantly memorable screen presence.  

There are several actors of a similar quality in "Furiosa," playing characters who have ridiculous names or no names at all, but command your attention nonetheless.  I want to point out Carlee Fraser as Furiosa's mother, Josh Helman and Nathan Jones as Immortan Joe's sons, and John Howard (not the former Prime Minister of Australia) as the People Eater.  And of course, there's Furiosa herself.  Anya Taylor-Joy and Alyla Browne don't have many lines between them, but they're so compelling to watch as they try to navigate and survive this insane desert nightmare world.  Taylor-Joy has several scenes where all you can really see of her is her huge eyes, and she does so much with them, it's fantastic.  And Furiosa does get a full, rich character arc here, where she has to consider her path forward, which of her many male role models she wants to take after, and setting up her appearance in "Fury Road," which it's almost impossible not to want to watch immediately after "Furiosa."     

  

I'm sad that we're probably not going to get the next planned "Mad Max" film "The Wasteland," but getting "Furiosa" as such an uncompromised vision was so unlikely that I'm not inclined to be too sore about it. 

---

"Halt and Catch Fire," Year Two and Three

Spoilers ahead

I'm writing about the second and third seasons of "Halt and Catch Fire" together because they cover the whole arc of Donna and Cameron's partnership, and their time together at Mutiny.  This pair become the most prominent characters in the show as they see their company through thick and thin, from building their initial subscriber base with a ragtag group of programmers, to their growth and expansion in Silicon Valley.  I initially thought that each season of "Halt and Catch Fire" was going to focus on a different product or technological advancement.  Instead, we see characters tackle multiple ideas and businesses, covering a wide gamut of the tech sector.

The Mutiny storylines drive these seasons, but that doesn't mean that Gordon and Joe don't get their share of screentime.  Joe spends season two with a new romantic partner, Sara Wheeler (Aleksa Palladino), who just happens to have an industrialist father (James Cromwell) that Joe inevitably ends up in business with.  He also can't seem to stay out of Cameron and Gordon's lives, occasionally dropping into their storylines like a Mephistophelean devil figure to make their lives more complicated.  Season three seems to see Joe turn a corner and find enlightenment, but it's hard to say for sure.  Gordon's story is more personal and less structured, seeing him adrift in his career and his marriage in season two as he confronts a major health scare, and mired in a mess of shifting loyalties in season three.  

However, what I've come to love the show for is Donna and Cameron.  They've both come a long way from season one.  Cameron's road to maturity is a very rocky one, and she's never good at playing with others, but seeing her fight for Mutiny - even when she's in the wrong -  is compelling.  Getting another love interest, Tom (Mark O'Brien) is good for her growth, even though Tom isn't much of a character.  I found Donna generally more sympathetic, but she's the one who crosses the line for the sake of her ambitions, and ends up regretting it.  I love how the partnership evolves as Donna becomes more invested in Mutiny, befriends a financier played by Annabeth Gish, and helps push the company in new directions.  The last few episodes of season three are the high point of the show so far, and the big dramatic, heartbreaking confrontation feels fully earned after two seasons of being set up.   

I like that these seasons slow down from the breakneck intensity of the first season, and are willing to dig deeper into the characters.  Some of my favorites are the hangout episodes, like the one where Gordon and Cameron spend a whole day playing "Super Mario Bros." and bonding.  And of course there's a laser tag episode, because the show's production team seems determined to recreate every nerdy nostalgic part of the '80s they can get away with.  Having the  Mutiny programmers around for easy comic relief also never gets old.  There are still some wild twists and turns afoot, and a lot of creative tinkering with the history of computing, but the characters are much more well-rounded and I've become fully invested in their fates.    

The only part of these seasons I'm not onboard with is nearly everything to do with Ryan Ray (Manish Dayal), a talented Mutiny programmer who falls under the sway of Joe in the third season.  Ryan is essentially a plot device, despite a good faith effort from the writers to show how his relationship with Joe progresses over multiple episodes.  A lot of the supporting roles like Tom and Sara feel similarly underwritten, but Ryan is so pivotal to the show and especially to Joe's development that his flatness feels particularly egregious.  Ryan's prophetic predictions about the internet are the lowest point of "Halt and Catch Fire" in more ways than one.

I admit that I've been binging the show, but I'm making myself take a break before the final stretch of the fourth season.  There are time skips ahead and I'm not ready to revisit the '90s in this universe quite yet.

    

---

Getting Anxious With "Inside Out 2"

I watched "Inside Out 2" as a parent with young children in tow.  This helped me to appreciate the parts of the movie geared toward kids - the jokes about video game characters, the slapstick humor, and the dad-joke punnery.  However, I strongly suspect that the "Inside Out" movies are really made for parents and other grown ups who want to help navigate their charges through the minefield of growing up.  They introduce a way to talk about thorny emotional concepts through this lovely metaphor about our anthropomorphized feelings being in charge of our well-being.

It's been a year since the events of "Inside Out," and Riley Anderson (Kensington Tallman) is about to enter high school.  A promising hockey player, she's attending a summer hockey camp with members of the team she wants to join, including her idol Val (Lilimar).  However, this is also Riley's last chance to spend time with her junior high friends, who are going to a different school.  In Riley's head, her five primary emotions, Joy (Amy Poehler), Sadness (Phyllis Smith), Anger (Lewis Black), Disgust (Liza Lapira), and Fear (Tony Hale), are getting some new co-workers.  These include Envy (Ayo Edebiri), Embarrassment (Paul Walter Hauser), Ennui (Adele Exarchopoulos), and the emotion who quickly takes over everything, Anxiety (Maya Hawke).  

PIXAR sequels have had a mixed track record when it comes to finding new places for their stories to go.  "Inside Out 2" has the great idea of introducing Anxiety and seeing her wreak havoc during a stressful event in Riley's life.  I also like the new concept of the "Sense of Self," which gives Riley more of a voice and presence in her own mind.  However, most of the new emotions feel like they're just padding out the cast, and only useful for comic relief.  You couldn't easily cut Envy, who doesn't feel fully developed, and doesn't actually seem to correspond to any envious behavior.  Ennui and Embarrassment are funnier caricatures of teenage behavior, but still pretty one-note.  The structure of the film also is very close to the one in the first film, with Joy and the original emotions being ejected from the control room, and sent on a quest through the hinterlands of Riley's mind.  Joy has to learn essentially the same lesson about not repressing negative experiences, and not denying the more uncomfortable parts of yourself.

There are some sequences in "Inside Out 2" that are among the best things that PIXAR has ever done.  There's a depiction of a panic attack that is viscerally upsetting to watch, but handled with great care and framed in such a way that suggests that the filmmakers expected it to be used as a teaching or therapeutic tool in the future.  This isn't the kind of thing I see any of PIXAR's competitors doing, and it's a reminder that despite their recent box office troubles, the studio's standards remain very high.  If I were watching "Inside Out 2" without having seen the original, and I didn't know about the cast substitutions, the repetitive story beats, and the little continuity mismatches with the first film, it would have worked better for me.  However, this film worked better for my kids than the original, which gives me a lot to think about.

Despite Riley being a teenager, "Inside Out 2" is family viewing, and safe for much younger kids.  The  filmmakers largely steer clear of anything to do with hormones or romance, in stark contrast to more challenging movies about girls the same age like "Eighth Grade."  Even "Turning Red" was a much more well-rounded look at girls in the throes of puberty.  I think actual thirteen year-olds would still enjoy "Inside Out 2," and relate to Riley's experiences, but the references to "Mickey Mouse Clubhouse" and the "1984" Apple Superbowl ad aren't really for them.  

However, if "Inside Out" turns into a longer series the way that "Toy Story" has," the filmmakers won't be able to ignore the more R-rated parts of growing up forever.  Since "Inside Out" is by far the biggest PIXAR hit of the 2020s, an "Inside Out 3" at this point is inevitable.

---

At "The Last Stop in Yuma County"

What kind of film can you make with a budget of one million dollars? In the case of first time feature director Francis Galluppi, a very impressive one.  The biggest influence on this tiny indie neo-noir/exploitation movie is definitely the Coen brothers' early work like "Blood Simple," where most of the tension is wrung from ordinary people doing ordinary things, like handing someone a cup of coffee or unlocking the trunk of a car.  Despite a totally no-frills production, this crime thriller absolutely delivers where it counts.    

The story is a simple case of the characters all being in the wrong place at the wrong time.  A traveling salesman (Jim Cummings) stops at a filling station in remote Yuma County, Arizona, and is told by the cheerful attendant, Vernon (Faizon Love) that they're out of gas.  A fuel truck is due to arrive any moment, so the salesman reluctantly waits in the diner next door, with the nice waitress, Charlotte (Jocelin Donahue).  Unfortunately, two bank robbers, Travis (Nicholas Logan) and Beau (Richard Brake) arrive soon after.  With no gas, they're also forced to wait, so they take over the diner and prevent Charlotte from alerting her husband Charlie (Michael Abbott Jr.), the local sheriff, and his deputy Gavin (Connor Paolo).  More and more customers show up to the diner, including an elderly couple, a pair of young troublemakers, and a local rancher.  And inevitably, the situation explodes.

"Yuma County" takes place in the 1970s, and the film has fun recreating the look of old '70s crime movies like "Duel" and "Badlands," with some classic oldies on the soundtrack.  Everyone is dusty and haggard and wonderfully unpolished.  I love that it's impossible to predict each twist and turn, because the characters are larger than life, but don't act like characters.  They act like real people, who make impulsive decisions and stupid mistakes.  Being smart or being vicious aren't all that helpful, and everyone seems to have the most awful bad luck.  It's also a great cast - I only recognized Jim Cummings at first, but there are several veteran character actors here who make the most of limited screen time and almost nonexistent characterization.  I wanted more time with everyone, from the salesman to the two latecomers in the last act, who are onscreen for maybe three minutes.  This is a very rare movie this year that I could have watched for another hour or two, but it wisely doesn't outstay its welcome.

I also love the low budget feel of the production, which gives "Yuma County" a scroungy authenticity that is sorely missing in recent studio action films.  There's such an exactness to the narrative that makes it easy to become immersed in this little universe, composed of a few buildings in the middle of nowhere.  It's not quite a one-location movie, as I've seen described in other places, but it's close.  And it's such a joy to discover that "Yuma County" has better thrills and chills than most of the blockbusters released in theaters over the summer.  The last scene in particular is glorious - it evokes such great memories of similar ridiculous stunts from the pre-CGI age - and if it wasn't done practically, don't tell me.  I never want to find out otherwise.

"Yuma County" hasn't been widely seen, understandably, but Francis Galluppi is quickly moving on to bigger things.  He has been hired to direct an "Evil Dead" movie by old Coens collaborator Sam Raimi, and I couldn't be happier for him or more enthusiastic about seeing the results.

---

"Doctor Who, Year One" (Again)

It doesn't feel like nineteen years since the 2005 revival of "Doctor Who," and then again "Doctor Who" hasn't really felt so much like "Doctor Who" in a long while.  I've somehow kept up with all fourteen series so far, and found myself right back where I started this season, with Russel T. Davies as showrunner, and a brand new Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa) unlike any that we've seen before.  

I don't think I've ever latched on to any Doctor so fast as the Fifteenth.  Gatwa is so full of energy and emotion and unbridled enthusiasm for the part.  In the face of his charisma, you instantly forget that he's the first non-Caucasian doctor (not counting Jo Martin), the first explicitly non-heterosexual doctor (not counting all the flirting with Captain Jack), and the first without a signature outfit - though that could change.   Millie Gibson as his companion Ruby Sunday is very charming, and I'm sad that we're going to lose her after only one series - though I'm sure we haven't seen the last of her.  Not many companions get a story arc as well-considered and neatly wrapped up as this one, and I have no complaints.

Thanks to the involvement of Disney+, which now has the international broadcast rights to new "Doctor Who" episodes, the program has never looked better.  However, the real difference is having Davies back, writing most of the scripts this season.  Former showrunner Steven Moffat, responsible for some of the best "Doctor Who" installments ever, also pitches in an episode, while Kate Herron and Briony Redman handle a "Bridgeron" parody/meta romance.  The quality has its ups and downs, which was always the case with the Davies-helmed episodes, but there are some very strong  hours once everyone's settled in.  Highlights include "Dot and Bubble," which is dark science-fiction in the vein of "Black Mirror," "73 Yards," which sends Ruby on an alternate timeline solo adventure, and "Rogue," which sees the Doctor romance another time traveler played by Jonathan Groff.  The big series-long arc didn't pay off very well, which is typical.

I found myself not quite able to embrace the show fully because I was never able to shake the feeling that so much of this season felt recycled from earlier ones, especially the David Tennat era.  I found myself comparing "Rogue" to "The Girl in the Fireplace," thriller "Boom" to "Silence in the Library," and "73 Yards" to "Turn Left."  The new episodes were all executed beautifully and the new characters never felt like they were shoehorned into the plots, but I was a little disappointed that the better episodes were often variations on concepts I'd seen before.  Having a deep bench of good guest stars like Jinx Monsoon, Aneurin Barnard, and Callie Cook helped a lot, and I'm very relieved that the series' sillier first two episodes didn't signal that "Doctor Who" was going for a younger audience now that Disney was involved.  Several of the new episodes are as intense and upsetting as anything that "Doctor Who" has ever dreamed up.  

As a longtime "Who" fan, I'm eager to see the new versions of The Master and the Daleks and all the usual "Doctor Who" standbys.  I understand why they weren't in the first season, and the big callback to Classic "Who" turned out to be something else.  I'll definitely stick around for next season, when Verada Sethu is set to become the next companion, maybe as soon as the Christmas special.     

---

Independent Web Animation

So, I think my latest rabbit hole is going to be the independent animated series and pilots that have been popping up with increasing frequency on Youtube.  After Vivienne Medrano's pilot for "Hazbin Hotel" made waves in 2019, spawning two different series, other animated projects have started getting more traction.  Many of these are truly independent crowdfunded projects, but some are coming up through smaller animation outfits like Glitch Studios and (the possibly defunct?) Rooster Teeth that have been doing web animation for a while now.  

In general I'm delighted that this is happening.  While animation for adults has gained a foothold in mainstream American culture, the audience for it has definitely been underserved.  All of these new projects are aimed at young adult sensibilities, often with a lot of explicit violence and adult language.  I'm sure this isn't true of all the creators involved, but it often feels like I'm watching the collective backlash to decades of animation being gatekept by fussy network executives who either want super-safe pablum or shows to sell toys and other merchandise.  Sure, we have "South Park" and "Rick and Morty," but this new batch skews younger, more anarchic, and definitely more Internet savvy.   

I'm going to put down a few quick thoughts on the shows I've watched recently.  "Hazbin Hotel" and "Helluva Boss" have already been covered in prior posts.  

"Long Gone Gulch," by Zach Bellissimo and Tara Billinger - Most of the people involved with this pilot previously worked in the animation industry for shows on Disney or Cartoon Network.  You can definitely tell by the animation quality and the actors involved.  There's a lot of cartoon violence, but this is fairly family friendly, and I'm not surprised that this was almost picked up by a studio until COVID ruined everyone's plans.  As a short, it's a fun watch, and the creators do a good job of establishing the main characters and the nutty frontier town that they inhabit.            

"Murder Drones," created by Liam Vickers and Glitch Studios - There's two seasons of this, but I stopped after the pilot.  I don't find this visually appealing at all, and the dialogue is very shrieky and sarcastic.  I like the premise of a world where the humans all died out and a bunch of angry chibi robots remained to form their own society, but the overreliance on edgy humor and very thin characters is not doing it for me.  The CGI animation is also pretty rudimentary and just not interesting to look at.  I can barely even tell the robot characters apart.      

"The Amazing Digital Circus," created by Gooseworx and Glitch Studios.  I saw some of the press describe this as an adaptation of Harlan Ellison's "I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream," which they wouldn't have gotten away with if Ellison were still alive.  The existential nightmare with circus graphics is more interesting than "Murder Drones," but again, this is a show that's focused on being edgy and dark instead of doing anything interesting with its characters or storytelling.  Will Ponmi ever escape the circus?  So far I don't know enough about Ponmi to care.    

"Lackadaisy," created by Tracy Butler and Fable Siegel - I remember stumbling across Butler's characters regularly on Deviant Art many years ago, and it's wonderful to see them in animated form.  This is the best looking pilot out of the ones I've seen, when it comes to the character designs and animation.  Anthropomorphized cats are nothing new, but the "Lackadaisy" gang are bursting with personality.  I don't know if the story's quite there yet, but the major characters and Prohibition-era setting are definitely making a good case for additional episodes.

"Ramshackle," created by Zeddyzi - Language is the most adult element here.  Otherwise, the characters and story are pretty mainstream friendly.  The short seems self-contained, but I could definitely go for more adventures with the street rat trio and the deeply troubled, socially bifurcated town that they inhabit.  The humor is absurd and silly, the socially conscious themes are compelling, and I really like the designs and animation.  There's an old-timey, "Little Rascals" vibe combined with a more modern sense of anarchy that really works.  

---