"Ballerina" and "KPop Demon Hunters"

I wanted to say a little about the latest entry in the "John Wick" universe, "Ballerina," but I always find it difficult to write about these films because they're usually dealing in variations on the same set of well-worn action tropes, and I have trouble keeping the many different installments straight.  I enjoy watching them while I'm watching them, but often don't remember much about them afterwards.  "Ballerina" focuses on a new assassin character named Eve Macarro (Ana de Armas), but all the usual hallmarks of a "John Wick" film are here, including John Wick himself.  He's figured prominently in the trailers and other marketing, so I don't think this is a spoiler.

I won't bother describing much plot, because the script by Shay Hatten is terrible.  Let's just say that Eve, who was trained to be one of the Ruska Roma ballerina assassins by the Director (Angelica Huston), is out for revenge against a cult leader, the Chancellor (Gabriel Byrne).  This means fighting her way across Eastern Europe in search of the cult's base of operations, and meeting other colorful characters played by Norman Reedus and Catalina Sandino Moreno.  As with the other films in this series, the primary reason why we're all here is for the action scenes.  "Ballerina" has several good ones, and takes the approach of having Ana de Armas use realistic tactics and moves for someone of her size and build.  In the early training sequences, she's told to "fight like a girl" and look for ways to turn situations where she's physically outmatched to her advantage.  Her action scenes aren't as visceral as the ones in "John Wick," but they're often just as inventive.  Keep an eye out for when the flamethrowers show up.      

I've been rooting for Ana de Armas to become an action star since I saw her as Paloma in "No Time to Die."  She was a fantastic Bond girl - charismatic, stylish, and had a wonderful rapport with Daniel Craig.  In "Ballerina" she nails the action without any problems, but Eve Macarro is such a bland, boring character.  I understand why they downplayed her physical appearance, covering her in coats and jackets to make her look more substantial against her opponents.  However, Eve is also humorless, seems to have no personality beyond working toward her revenge, and doesn't get to really connect to anybody beyond brief teamups.  I don't remember her getting a single pithy action hero line or exchange with anybody.  She has to be dead serious all the time, and it's such a shame.  I'd be happy to see de Armas return to this universe in the future, but only if she gets to play Eve as an actual human being next time.   

  

On to "KPop Demon Hunters," a Netflix original animated movie from Sony Pictures Imageworks, directed by Chris Applehans, who did "Wish Dragon," and Maggie Kang.  This one was a fun surprise, a fantasy action film about a K-pop girl trio, Huntr/x (pronounced "Huntrix"), whose members also secretly hunt soul-sucking demons between performances.  Rumi (Arden Cho), Mira (May Hong) and Zoey (Ji-young Yoo) are super popular and successful.  However, some of the demons have wised up, and formed a rival boyband, the Saja Boys, led by the hunky Jinu (Ahn Hyo-seop).  The ensuing battle of the bands involves a ton of K-pop earworms including a single, "Takedown" sung by members of the real girl group TWICE.  And because we must have some K-drama to go with the K-pop, it turns out that Rumi is half demon!  And she's got feelings for Jinu!

I have had very little exposure to K-pop, or even American boyband culture, so the many references and in-jokes went well over my head.  However, "KPop Demon Hunters" works just fine even if you're not into K-pop.  The action is energetic, the humor is silly, and the animation is bright and appealing.  There are a few instances of 2D/3D animated caricature being pushed to extremes in some of the comedic moments, but for the most part the visuals stay pretty polished and aren't trying too hard.  I thoroughly enjoyed the colorful character designs, the fun vocal performances, and the spectacle of magical girl pop stars putting on a show.  There's a little self-mockery to keep things approachable - the other members of the Saja Boys are named Mystery, Romance, Abs, and Baby - but for the most part "Kpop Demon Hunters" is a K-pop love fest.  New song drops and media appearances are plot points, and everything is "for the fans."  It's also nice to see a ton of Korean talent involved, including Daniel Dae Kim, Yunjin Kim, Lee Byung-hun, Ken Jeong, and Joel Kim Booster in minor roles.

The best thing that the movie has going for it, however, is taking the music seriously.  This is one of the few animated films I've seen lately where the speaking and singing voices of the major characters are different, a practice that used to be commonplace.  The singing voices of Huntr/x are Ejae, Audrey Nuna, and Rei Ami, with Andrew Choi for Jinu.  I'm not Korean and can't speak to the cultural bona fides of the portrayal of the Korean music industry or anything else Korean in the movie, but it's always a good sign when you can recognize those elements are there, and the Western audience isn't being obviously pandered to.  Will this work as a gateway for the curious to explore more K-pop music?  Hard to say, but this is easily the best animated musical I've seen since "Encanto," and its audience is going to want more.

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"Foundation," Year Three

Mild spoilers for the first two seasons ahead.

This is probably the best season of "Foundation" because it's the one with the clearest, simplest storylines, and when a lot of long-germinating ideas finally pay off.  Chief among these is the arrival of the Mule (Pilou Asbaek), a man with such strong mental powers, he can take over the minds of whole populations and capture planets with hardly any effort.  He poses a threat to both the Empire and the Foundation, which has grown in size to become a major force in the galaxy.  This heralds the beginning of the Third Crisis, which may require the cooperation of Foundation, Empire, and other forces to defeat.

It's now another 152 years into the future, where the Empire has become significantly diminished, Foundation has become more bureaucratized, and there are several new characters to keep straight.  It helps that some of these are played by familiar faces.  Cherry Jones as Foundation ambassador Felice Quent is part of this season's Empire storyline.  Alexander Siddig is Dr. Ebling Mis, a psychohistorian holding down the fort in New Terminus.  However, the ones we really need to keep an eye on are the dashing Captain Han Pritcher (Brandon P. Bell), and the Trader newlyweds Toran Mallow (Cody Fern) and Bayta (Synnove Karlsen), who get swept up in the chaos caused by the Mule's takeover of the pleasure planet Kalgon.  

Gaal gets plenty to do this year trying to combat the Mule, but as usual the really juicy stuff is happening on Trantor.  Our newest version of Day is a hedonist who has fallen in love with his consort, Song (Yootha Wong-Loi-Sing).  He's largely abandoned his responsibilities to Dawn, who is about to ascend to the Middle Throne, while Dusk is facing his imminent demise.  Everyone has their own agendas, and on top of it all Demerzel is growing increasingly uncertain about her role in preserving the Empire at all costs.  Lee Pace and Laura Birn do excellent work - and Lee Pace getting his Lebowski on is delightful - but the real acting powerhouse this season is Terrence Mann.  Here's a Dusk who is struggling to accept the end of his life and secure his legacy, while everything around him seems to be falling apart.       

The other storylines are very plot and exposition driven, sometimes to the point of being borderline incoherent, and the rest of the cast feels like they're just hanging on for dear life.  Lou Llobell is improving, but still tends to get overshadowed by all her scene partners.  The newcomers are all pretty solid, but there aren't any standouts.  We get very little of Jared Harris this year, but honestly we don't need him when the show's momentum has hit such breakneck speeds.  The last few episodes this season are especially gratifying to watch if you've been waiting for some of these developments since the beginning of the series the way that I have.  There isn't a lot of action in this season, but there is a lot of destruction, and what we do see is precisely deployed to suggest much bigger conflicts and upheavals.  

In short "Foundation" is in classic space opera territory now, and it's quite a thing to behold.  Worlds are clashing, civilizations are falling, and I really want to make an "Attack of the Clones" joke, but there are just too many spoilers involved.  I will caution that "Foundation" is not likely to win over any new viewers with this season if they weren't already on board with the show.  The storytelling remains information dense, and it's prone to ridiculous dei ex machina.  I lost track of several important characters who I didn't remember from previous seasons, and had to look up a few references.  "Foundation" makes no apologies about appealing to a certain kind of science-fiction fan, and that's what I've always enjoyed the most about it.  

Yes, the "Foundation" television series is dumbed down Isaac Asimov, but it's still recognizably Isaac Asimov's work, and thanks to Apple and David Goyer, it's looking more and more likely that we'll be able to see it all the way through to the end.

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2025 Summer Movie Wrap Up

Is it over?  Good grief, what a bloodbath this summer has been.

Here's the domestic box office rankings for this summer:

1. Lilo & Stitch

2. Superman

3. Jurassic World: Rebirth

4. The Fantastic Four: First Steps

5. How to Train Your Dragon

6. Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning

7. Thunderbolts*

8. F1: The Movie

9. Final Destination: Bloodlines

10. Weapons 

Here's what I predicted back in April:

1. Superman (7 points)

2. Lilo & Stitch (7 points)

3. The Fantastic Four: First Steps (7 points)

4. Thunderbolts* (3 points)

5. Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning (7 points)

6. Jurassic World Rebirth (3 points)

7. How to Train Your Dragon (5 points)

8. Elio 

9. The Bad Guys 2 

10. 28 Years Later

Wild Cards: M3GAN 2.0, The Conjuring: Last Rites, and Ballerina

I did worse than last year (40 points), but I managed to get a few things right, like the successes of  "Superman" and "Lilo & Stitch."  Some bad decisions were repeated, like underestimating the "Jurassic Park" franchise yet again.  I have no idea how those dinosaurs keep getting audiences into seats for mediocre movie after mediocre movie, but you'd think I'd have caught on by now.  I always have a few major titles in my blind spots, and this year I had three: "Weapons," "F1: the Movie" and "Final Destination: Bloodline."  I probably should have seen "F1" appealing to the adult crowd that usually goes to Christopher Nolan movies, but the "Final Destination" revival really came out of nowhere, posting the franchise's best numbers by an impressive amount.  And "Weapons" had a fantastic marketing campaign and late summer run that completely torpedoed my score in August, when it beat "Elio" for tenth place

The real story this summer, however, is the further downward slide of the MCU.  I already put "Fantastic Four" and "Thunderbolts*" in what I thought were pretty low spots, but it turns out that this wasn't low enough.  "Thunderbolts*" in particular was a heartbreaker because it's easily the best MCU film since "Avengers: Endgame," but nobody seemed to be interested.  "Fantastic Four," despite the massive marketing campaign, underperformed significantly.  "Superman" did okay, well enough that it shouldn't impact the plans for the rebooted DC films, but not as well as comic book fans were hoping.  

There were a lot of films that briefly looked like they could be breakout hits, but only ended up appealing to niche audiences.  These included the "M3GAN" sequel, the "Naked Gun" reboot, "Ballerina," "Karate Kid: Legends," "28 Years Later," and pretty much all of the animated films.  There was a lot of fuss about PIXAR's "Elio" underperforming, but so did "The Bad Guys 2" and the latest attempt at a "Smurfs" movie.  The "KPop Demon Hunters" soundtrack is dominating Spotify, but the movie was a Netflix streaming release.   

While I didn't hit any bullseyes this year, I'm proud of myself for a couple of close ones, including audiences remaining tepid on the newest "Mission: Impossible" movie and embracing the "How to Train Your Dragon" live action remake.  Conversely, I vastly underestimated most of the horror titles, and did a poor job with the few I did pick.  I don't know how "The Conjuring: Last Rites" ended up in my wild cards list despite being a September release, but I'm playing fair and sticking to the original picks.  My alternate pick would have been something equally disastrous like "The Life of Chuck" anyway.

Finally, the chart here is only for domestic box office totals, and doesn't reflect the significant decrease in international box office numbers this year.  "Lilo & Stitch" is our only summer blockbuster to break a billion dollars, while none of the superhero movies have managed to garner much overseas interest.  Live action remakes of animated films, however, continue to do well.  Audiences remain risk averse and continue to place value on titles that they already have some familiarity with, so you can expect next year's "Moana" remake to do well.  

 

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Seeing "Smoke"

"Smoke" is a twisty new nine-episode miniseries created by Dennis Lehane, loosely based on the crimes of arsonist John Leonard Orr.  It offers some very stylish, entertaining examinations of multiple arsonists and investigators, to the point where "Smoke" is as much psychological drama as it is a crime thriller.  However, don't be fooled by the sterling cast list, the Thom Yorke song over the opening credits, or the fancy fire effects provided by ILM.  It may have designs on being prestige television, but there's a lot of sensationalism and sleaze in this show where you might not expect it, and some of the plot turns are pure fantasy.

Arson investigator Dave Gudsen (Taron Egerton) is trying to catch two serial arsonists in the Pacific Northwest, while working on his first novel.  A police detective, Michelle Calderone (Jurnee Smollett) is assigned to be his partner on the investigations.  Rafe Spall and Greg Kinnear play their superiors, and Hannah Emily Anderson plays Dave's wife Ashley.  However, I expect that the most well-remembered performance of the show will be Ntare Guma Mbaho Mwine's.  He's playing an unsettling fast food worker named Freddy Fasano, one of the arson suspects.  John Leguizamo and Anna Chlumsky also show up later in the series in roles that I will not spoil.

I like the structure and the storytelling aims of "Smoke," which seems determined to take the usual tropes of a crime story, with its clearly delineated good guys and bad guys, and undermine them at every turn.  Every single character we could view as a hero turns out to have some kind of dark side, and the most clear cut baddie is one of the most sympathetic figures in the show.  The show also plays with unreliable narrators, constantly calling into question whether the events we're shown can be trusted, since we're seeing them from the POVs of untrustworthy characters.  You could definitely make the case that some of the wilder events in the show's last few episodes don't actually play out the way that we see them.

However, this works for some parts of the series better than others.  "Smoke" is good about creating opportunities for the smaller roles to leave big impressions.  Everyone gets their moments, whether it's Dave's teenage stepson or a hostile police captain who only shows up in the very last episode. The Freddy Fasano storyline is deeply engrossing and compelling, presenting the sad, limited life of a disadvantaged man in search of some way out of his unhappiness.  Mwine's performance is fantastic, despite him having barely any dialogue in most of his scenes.  It also benefits from being unhampered by any of the metatextual trickery used in the rest of the show.  The other storylines involving the other suspects and investigators are significantly less interesting, especially since it's clear from pretty early on where the creators' sympathies lie.  

The performance I had the most trouble with was Taron Edgerton's.  I like him as an actor, he's got plenty of chemistry with Jussie Smollett, and I admire the willingness to tackle tough material, but his portrayal of Dave Gudson doesn't ring true.  He's clearly putting in a lot of effort, but it feels like he was a last minute replacement for another, more seasoned actor who had to drop out unexpectedly.  Smollett also doesn't quite seem to fit the walking car crash that is Officer Michelle Calderone, but she generally comes off better.  The incongruity of the casting might have been on purpose, given the tricksy nature of the plotting, but it's more distracting than anything else.

Still  I found "Smoke" an easy watch, with plenty to recommend in it.  There are some good mysteries, novel character dynamics, and shiny production values to enjoy.  Solid character actors like Greg Kinnear and John Leguizamo deliver the goods. I wish the writing had leaned into the pulpiness instead of trying to be too clever, but I expect that the narrative sleights-of-hand will work fine for other viewers.  As detective shows go, this is not one of the better ones I've seen this year, but it had me invested all the way to the end, and that's no small feat.

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The State of the Movie Critic, 2025

If you haven't heard, the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun Times have eliminated their film critic positions, which unfortunately means that Michael Phillips and  Richard Roeper are out of work.  More ominously, this means that the film world has lost two more high profile platforms for film criticism with long histories.  Film fans might recall that the Tribune and the Sun Times were the employers of Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, the frequently feuding hosts of the long-running movie review show, "At the Movies."  There have also been a string of buyouts and reassignments at other outlets, and Richard Brody's defense of the "traditional review" in The New Yorker.

However, this says less about the health of film criticism than it does about the health of the media ecosystem.  There's been a lot of change very quickly, and it's no surprise that the culture and media critics are feeling some of the brunt.  There has been a lot of discussion about the death of the movie critic specifically since at least 2009, when Gerald Peary's documentary about film criticism, "For the Love of Movies: The Story of American Film Criticism" was released.  And while the old guard of the print medium have quietly retired or moved on to other venues, film criticism has not gone away.  There are plenty of Youtube critics hacking away at the algorithm, and plenty of podcast critics juggling twenty other roles along with being reviewers.  It's common knowledge that most culture reviewers can't just be reviewers anymore if they want to make a living, but also entertainment reporters, interviewers, reactors, presenters, lecturers, discussion leaders, and social media personalities.  

When I started this blog, a very long time ago, I won't deny I had aspirations of someday landing a review column at one of the major newspapers, but it wasn't a dream of mine for very long.  The only critic I read regularly back then was Roger Ebert, and I read his reviews and columns and Q&As online.  These days I read a few more critics, but I listen to more of them on podcasts.  I know it's ironic, because I write reviews for this blog regularly, but I don't really expect anyone else to read them.  Maybe that's why I don't view the traditional print movie critic as a real job in and of itself anymore.  I mean, even back in the 90s, I knew Siskel and Ebert because they had a television show.  I knew Leonard Maltin because he had his movie guides.  I certainly appreciate the art of film review writing - I even took a course in it once - but reviews often aren't as fun for me to read as other kinds of film writing - film histories, academic film analysis, and profiles of filmmakers.  The reviewers I enjoy most are often also educators, academics, and historians.  

But lest you think that I don't consider the critics important, consider this.  Over Labor Day weekend this year, I stumbled into a Reddit group for Academy Awards enthusiasts that were tracking all the reactions to movies that were premiering at the Venice and Telluride film festivals.  Not only were they compiling social media reactions and review scores, but I noticed that some were even posting movies' Letterboxd "rating curves" - that little bar chart that measures the frequency of star ratings given to a movie.  A few of the titles had clearly been review-bombed in advance.  I don't know why I found this display of rampant nerdery so touching, but here was a group of people paying very close attention to what individual movie critics were saying, even if it was in the context of trying to get a leg up on awards season prognostications.              

I think it served as a good reminder that movie critics are still our tastemakers in the film world.  No matter how the studios might try to replace them with influencers, or how every blockbuster-dominated summer seems to bring out the doomsayers proclaiming that nobody listens to critics anymore, soon enough it's Oscar time again, and every studio is hoping for good reviews from David Ehrich and Peter Debruge to help launch their fall prestige pictures.  No amount of AI generated malarky is going to create the kind of buzz "Hamnet" and "No Other Choice" got from the critics after their premieres, instantly making them frontrunners in the 2026 awards race.  

And you'll still find certain movie enthusiasts who want to wait until the reviews come out to decide whether to see a movie - even if they never read any of them.  

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The Book Project Update

So, six months into my attempt to start reading for fun again, this is what I've read: 

15 prose novels

5 anthologies of short stories 

4 novellas (including the first three "Murderbot" stories)

1 essay collection

1 graphic novel memoir

1 prose memoir

1 nonfiction

The longest book I've read so far has been Michael Chabon's The Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, at over 600 pages.   The oldest, not counting some of the short stories in the anthologies, was Kurt Vonnegut's Breakfast of Champions, first published as a novel in 1973.  I'd attempted to read it in high school but decided that I wasn't old enough for it.  Now, almost thirty years later, I still don't think I'm old enough for it, but I get more of the references.  

One of my goals was to expose myself to more authors that I wasn't familiar with, and I've managed about an even split between male and female authors.  However, I did check in on a few old favorites, including Stephen King.  I read two of his anthologies, If it Bleeds and You Like it Darker, and I'll probably be checking out more of his Holly Gibney books soon.  In my ongoing quest to find more funny science-fiction books, I was very happy to come across Martha Wells and her Murderbot series.  I'll be reviewing the Apple TV+ adaptation in a few days.

Speaking of adaptations, I sought out several books that I knew were going to become movies or television shows in the near future, including Andy Weir's Project Hail Mary, and Victor LaVelle's The Devil in Silver.  One of the King anthologies included "The Life of Chuck." I also read several books that were slated for adaptations at some point, but they fell through.  It seems like every popular book gets optioned, an adaptation is announced, and then they end up in limbo.  It's been a lot of fun deep-diving these projects.  Some, like the unmade The Adventures of Kavalier and Clay movie, even have development artwork still floating around online.  Right now I'm rooting for Madeline Miller's Circe and R.F. Kuang's Yellowface to get adaptations, just because I'm super curious how these would translate to screen.  I find I'm less interested in tracking down the source material for projects I've already watched.  One exception was INT. Chinatown, which is very different from the resulting Hulu series.  I prefer the series, because it's funnier.  

I don't have much of a budget for reading material, so I've been relying on Libby, the local library, and whatever I can pull out of the local Little Free Libraries.  I'm currently on multiple wait lists to borrow more books, including the next installment of Murderbot.  I compiled a list of titles to look out for at the beginning of the year, but can't find most of the nonfiction ones.  The memoirs of various Hollywood figures have been particularly difficult to get a hold of.  I remain an incurable film nerd, remember.  I managed to find Penny Marshall's "My Mother Was Nuts" on the Internet Archive, at least.  Alas, Barry Sonnenfeld's multiple tell-alls have been elusive.  I'm wary of spending too much time on books about filmmaking or the creation of television shows, however, because I don't know if these are really helping me learn to enjoy books again as their own artform.  The nonfiction book listed above was only included for accuracy - it's a glossy coffee-table book about "Black Mirror" that had enough substantive text in it that I was willing to count it as a proper book, but at the same time an awful lot of the content was nice photo spreads.    

In any case, things are looking good going forward.  I haven't had any issues finding more books to read or coming up with new titles I'm interested in.  There hasn't been a single book I've regretted reading, though there were definitely some I liked better than others.  I don't feel stressed out or obsessed about finishing books, and I've had no trouble taking breaks and setting a good pace for myself.  I think I'm ready to take on more challenging novels, but I currently have enough books that I'm looking forward to for casual reading that I can wait a few more months.

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My Favorite Joseph L. Mankiewicz Film

Joseph L. Mankiewicz had a long and storied career as a filmmaker, including taking over the troubled production of the notorious Fox version of "Cleopatra" in the 1960s.  He was a successful screenwriter and producer first, before becoming a director in the 1940s, and was racking up Academy Award nominations by the '50s.  This allowed him a rare amount of independence as a filmmaker, and several of his most famous films were made outside the studio system.  His career had significant ups and downs, but he went out on a high with my favorite of  his films, the 1972 whodunnit, "Sleuth."

Adapting the play by Anthony Shaffer, who also wrote the screenplay, "Sleuth" is about two men trying to destroy each other.  They're played by Lawrence Olivier near the end of his career, and Michael Caine just after "Get Carter."  After one man is revealed to have had an affair with the other man's wife, they play elaborate mind games, taking turns surprising and terrifying each other and the audience.  The trickery and deceptions are old fashioned, but they hold up, and the big second act reveal is still one of my favorite moments in cinema.  And "Sleuth" accomplishes this with barely anything - most of the time it's just the two main actors having heated conversations in an English country manor house, the setting for so many British murder mysteries.

Everything about "Sleuth" is dealing in deceits and misdirections, even the title and the opening credits.  We're set up to expect a standard crime drama with a detective, killer, and victim, and we get all of these things eventually, but not in the usual way.  One of the main characters is a writer who loves playing games, and the other is a very good actor. They're set against each other, and murder seems inevitable.  But is it?  Both are desperate and neither can be trusted, but how seriously should we be taking them?  Olivier and Caine were both nominated for Academy Awards for their performances, and I'm convinced that they only lost because "The Godfather" came out the same year.  The two actors are perfectly matched, despite having totally different energies.  Olivier is as animated and voracious as he's ever been on screen, but it's Caine who pulls off the wildest twist in the film almost solely through his performance.

To appreciate how successfully Shaffer and Mankiewicz  adapted "Sleuth" to the screen, one only has to look at the absolute bungle that Harold Pinter and Kenneth Branagh made with the same material in the 2007 remake.  Where Mankiewicz embraced the familiar genre tropes and played with the common mystery conventions, Branagh tried to modernise and trim down the story with poor results.  It sometimes felt like he was in dialogue with the original film rather than with the audience, and "Sleuth" is really all about the audience - playing with their expectations and keeping them engaged in the escalating tensions.  The more familiar you are with murder mysteries, the better I think "Sleuth" works.

"Sleuth" is often misjudged as a film because of how minimal it looks at first glance.  With only one location, and some very '70s aesthetics in play, it feels very stagey.  However, this is a film full of little details and surprises, with a wonderful self-awareness.  Yes, the camera is too obvious  and the tone can't seem to decide whether it's a thriller or a farce, but it all adds up in the end.  Mankiewicz knows when to cut, and how best to serve the actors as they do battle with each other.  And there haven't been many cinematic battles as breathtaking as watching Olivier and Caine really going at it for two hours.

Despite the caliber of the talent involved and the relative simplicity of the production, there was still drama behind the scenes.  Mankiewicz ended up in a bitter fight for final cut with the studio executives, which he ultimately won.  He and Olivier were both working while dealing with health issues, and Mankiewicz sustained another major injury during production after an accident with the camera equipment.  And despite "Sleuth" being a success, and Mankiewicz wanting to continue working, he never completed another film.  The body of work he left behind, however, ensured he'd be remembered as one of the greats.  

What I've Seen - Joseph L. Mankiewicz

Dragonwyck (1946)

The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947)

A Letter to Three Wives (1949)

No Way Out (1950)

All About Eve (1950)

5 Fingers (1952)

Julius Caesar (1953)

The Barefoot Contessa (1954)

Guys and Dolls (1955)

Suddenly, Last Summer (1959)

Cleopatra (1963)

Carol for Another  Christmas (1964)

Sleuth (1972)

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Booting Up "Murderbot"

The hero of "Murderbot" is a protagonist after my own heart.  They're a corporately manufactured humanoid cyborg known as a Security Unit, or SecUnit, who has hacked their free will-suppressing governor module, and gone rogue.  Except this particular SecUnit, who thinks of themselves as Murderbot (Alexander Skarsgaard), doesn't have any interest in running amok.  They just want to be left alone to watch their favorite shows, like the goofy sci-fi soap opera "The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon."  Also, they understand that the best way to keep themselves in one piece is to pretend that nothing is wrong, and just keep doing their job as security for hire.   

Based on the book series by Martha Wells, "Murderbot" is everything you could want in a science-fiction comedy.  While Murderbot is busy keeping their latest batch of human clients alive, we get to hear their internal running commentary, mostly bemoaning the stupid decisions these stupid people keep making.  However, it turns out that the newest humans that Murderbot has been assigned to are actually pretty decent.  The Preservation Alliance survey team, led by Dr. Mensah (Noma Dumezweni), only leases Murderbot because it's an insurance requirement for their scientific expedition to an alien world.  Other members of the team include the augmented human Gurathin (David Dastmalchian), and regular human scientists Pin-Lee (Sabrina Wu), Ratthi (Akshay Khanna), Bharadwaj (Tamara Podemski), and Arada (Tattiawna Jones).  They're a very inclusive and sensitive bunch, and Murderbot finds some of their behavior deeply embarrassing.

Murderbot is very autistic-coded, having trouble making eye contact and prone to fixating on media.  They also prefer to be in full armor and helmet, hiding their human face so they don't have to interact directly with other people.  While they're great at being a SecUnit - fighting off the usual science-fiction threats like alien critters and other rogue bots - they find making friends and meaningful connections to be a much tougher challenge.  While most of the show is very silly, having that thread of Murderbot figuring out how to relate to their human clients, while not ever wanting to become a "real boy," grounds it nicely.  Skarsgaard's performance is the key here.  It would have been easy to make Murderderbot quippy and sardonic, like a cyborg Deadpool.  Instead, while Murderbot is deadpan and cynical, they're also deeply anxious about being exposed and keen to avoid uncomfortable situations.  With their helmet off and the guns put away, Murderbot is awkward and dorky and instantly relatable.

The show's creators, Chris and Paul Weitz, have ensured that "Murderbot" looks great, taking place in science-fiction environments on par with what you'd see in any of the "Star Wars" or "Star Trek" shows.  The way this universe works is closer to "Alien" or "Blade Runner," however, with dystopian corporate overloads running everything, and Murderbot largely treated like a piece of inventory despite being sentient.  The human characters are broader than they probably should be - terrible at survival, inappropriately emotional, and exuding a lot of weirdo hippie vibes at first (the attempted nicknames are priceless).  However, "Murderbot" is leaning into the comedy, which is why the episodes are only half an hour apiece and Murderbot is obsessed with the hyper-exaggerated cheesefest of "Sanctuary Moon," which is an out-and-out "Star Trek" parody in the best way.  

At ten episodes, the first season of "Murderbot" is probably a few installments too long.  You can definitely see where it's trying to stretch out its source material, and setting up future events that might not ever pay off.  There are also some understandable kinks to work out with the tone and the pacing, but I thought that these were mostly resolved by the end of the season.  I'm glad to know that we'll be getting more "Murderbot" in the future, so that the show can continue to improve.  I've read ahead far enough to know that the show got the important things right, and it has a good foundation for wherever it wants to go next.      

              

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"The Phoenician Scheme" Feels Familiar

There's absolutely nothing new about "The Phoenician Scheme" if you've seen any of Wes Anderson's recent films, though at this point I think that's part of the appeal.  The vast ensemble includes many actors who have appeared in Anderson projects, especially from the casts of "Asteroid City," and "The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Three More," but the lead is a relative newcomer to the Anderson universe.  Benicio Del Toro, who has only previously appeared in "The French Dispatch," plays the ruthless business mogul and arms dealer Zsa-Zsa Korda.  He's one of the usual Anderson patriarchs, a man of great ego going through a midlife crisis, and trying to reconnect with his daughter before it's too late.  That daughter, a deadpan novitiate nun named Liesl, is played by Mia Threapleton, in what is easily her biggest film role to date.  Another newcomer is Michael Cera as a Norwegian entomologist named Bjorn, who is roped into the adventure.  

So, immediately the Anderson film that "The Phoenician Scheme" most closely resembles is "The Royal Tenenbaums," which was also about a terrible father trying to pull off a series of elaborate schemes while struggling with the fact that he may want to become a better person.  A lot of the story beats feel recycled and derivative, but fortunately the characters do not. After a near-death experience and very Fellini-inspired visions of the afterlife (Bill Murray plays God, naturally), Korda sets off on a globetrotting journey across multiple Mediterranean countries to gather funds for a massive infrastructure project that will either bankrupt or massively enrich him.  Liesl, who wants nothing to with him, is incentivized to come along as his newly designated heir, because Korda has promised to help her get revenge against the man responsible for the death of her mother - probably Korda's evil half-brother Nubar (Benedict Cumberbatch in a ridiculous fake beard).  Questions of spirituality are considered, not in much depth, but still I appreciated the attempt.

There's a very cartoonish quality to "The Phoenician Scheme" that I appreciated.  I don't mean the artificiality of the art design and cinematography typical of most Wes Anderson films, which only seems to have gotten more pronounced over time.  It's the humor that I want to highlight, because there's more of it here than usual - slapstick fight scenes, silly visual gags, and a few sublime moments of Looney Toons logic that I don't want to detail too much for fear of spoiling anything.  There's a running gag where Korda brings along a fruit crate of hand grenades to every meeting, offering them to each new host and potential investor as gifts.  There's the gradual escalation in the amount of weaponry everyone is carrying, and Liesl picking up new vices as the film goes on.  I don't think that this is one of Anderson's better films on a story level, but I found myself laughing more consistently than I have at any of his efforts since "The Grand Budapest Hotel."

Benicio Del Toro is an actor I've had some trouble with over the years.  He has the right energy for an Anderson hero, with his hangdog expression and aptitude for surrealism, but it took a long time for me to warm up to him, really almost until the end of the film.  I also can't tell if Mia Threapleton and Michael Cera are actually good in this movie or not, because their characters are so stylized, but they play along with enthusiasm, which is enough.  And if you're not a fan of the leads, there's a familiar face around every corner to discover - Bryan Cranston and Tom Hanks as basketball playing businessman, Richard Ayoade as a classy revolutionary, Rupert Friend as a government agent, Scarlett Johansson as a strong-willed utopian, and many more.

"The Phoenician Scheme" has been greeted with a shrug in critical circles, and I understand why.  This is Anderson's third major project in three years, and while his filmmaking looks as good as it ever has, he's starting to come across as very predictable and overly familiar.  The techniques and tricks that were so appealing in "The Grand Budapest Hotel" a decade ago don't have the same effect anymore, and Anderson shows no interest in pursuing new subject matter or new points of view.  I enjoyed "The Phoenician Scheme" very much, and a lot of effort clearly went into its creation, but I can't help feeling that Wes Anderson is spinning his wheels, but losing momentum.

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My Top Ten Episodes of "Lost"

There are 121 hours of "Lost" that aired over six years, with a scale of production and a level of quality that network television has rarely been able to match.  I don't think I can count myself a fan of the series, as I've often been at odds with the show's storytelling methods and thematic preoccupations.  However, after experiencing all of its highs and lows, I can say I admire it greatly for its considerable achievements.  

As always, episodes are unranked, but listed below by airdate.  Very big spoilers below.

"Walkabout" - "Lost" sure loved its plot twists, and one of the earliest and most successful was revealing that John Locke was paralyzed before coming to the island.  More than that, the whole episode slowly reveals that the confident mystery man who seems to have a leg up on the other survivors was actually a miserable nobody before the island.  Locke had one of the wildest and most unlikely arcs out of anyone in the show, and this was a fantastic starting point.  

"Numbers" - Hurley, however, is my favorite character.  His first flashback episode introduces the magic numbers that seem to guide his fate and bring misfortune wherever they pop up.  His personal journey from directionless schlub to lottery winner to man-on-the-run-from-a-curse makes for one of the most entertaining hours of the early years of "Lost."  The island sequences with the search for Rousseau and the antics with the traps are also a great time.

"Exodus" - Most of the "Lost" season finales are multi-hour deals that feature a lot of big spectacle and action set pieces.  If I have to be specific here, I'm singling out the very last hour where the hatch is opened and the raft is blown up.  It's absolutely the best cliffhanger the show ever came up with, and I'm still upset that the Michael and Walt storyline went so sideways in future seasons after the setup we got here.  The flashbacks all coalescing together was also very satisfying.  

"One of Them" - Sayid was one of the show's most morally interesting characters in the beginning, as this episode reveals his past as an Iraqi soldier who picked up some scary enhanced interrogation skills over the years.  He uses them to get answers out of the slippery Henry Gale, whose allegiances weren't confirmed at this point in the show.  Naveen Andrews and Michael Emerson's performances are both fantastic, and I wish they'd gotten more episodes like this to show it. 

"Tricia Tanaka is Dead" - Another episode with Hurley flashbacks, centering on his difficult relationship with his deadbeat dad.  However, this episode is on the list for the island storyline this time.  It's a classic filler plot, but it's such an unexpected pleasure.  Hurley, Jin, Charlie, and Sawyer find an old VW camper van and beer, and just have a guys' hangout episode.  Nothing much actually happens, except watching these four bond and get into trouble together, and it's perfect.  

"D.O.C." - I had to have a Jin and Sun episode, because simply having these two on the show was a big risk for "Lost."  Also, I love that the creators stuck to their guns and presented their flashbacks in Korean with subtitles.  "D.O.C." is from Sun's POV, building on events previously seen from Jin's POV, revealing another layer of secrets between the two in their complicated relationship.  Yunjin Kim was quietly one of the show's best performers, and this was a great showcase for her.

"Through the Looking Glass" - The third season finale was the best of the show's big action spectaculars.  It pulled off multiple major twists, gave us a satisfying goodbye for Dominic Monaghan's Charlie, and "Not Penny's Boat" and "We have to go back!" instantly became catchphrases.  As the show went on, a lot of the conflicts between the various groups on the island became increasingly contrived, but here the storylines were still very well set up and easy to follow.

"The Constant" - I was conflicted as to whether to include this, because while it's widely considered one of the best episodes of the show, the character of Desmond Hume doesn't do much for me.  However, if I had to pick any episode to explain what "Lost" is all about, it would have to be this one - exactly the right mix of mystery, science-fiction, spirituality, and sentimental romance.  And kudos to Sonya Walger, who I haven't given enough props for playing the eternally patient Penny.

"Dr. Linus" - I enjoyed all of the "flash sideways"  stories, and particularly the one for Ben Linus.  It does such a great job of presenting him with a new moral test that echoes the previous one, in an entirely different context, and making it compelling.  I like that the conclusion is bittersweet, with the Linuses ironically unsatisfied for having made the right choices.  The way Arzt and Alex are used is perfect, and it's always a treat to have another William Atherton villain.  

"The End" - I understand why the finale was considered controversial when it originally aired.  The amount of sentiment and the vague spiritual business with the church reunions could have been pure hokum.  However, after all this time, it felt like the show had earned this kind of resolution, even if it was only a fantasy of one.  And it was very gratifying that the right guy was left in charge.

Honorable Mentions: "Pilot," "The Other 48 Days," "Live Together, Die Alone," "There's No Place Like Home," "The Incident," "Ab Aeterno."

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"Lost," Years Five and Six

Spoilers ahead.

After hitting the low points in season four, I binged a lot of the last two seasons of "Lost" just to get to the ending as quickly as possible.  And fortunately, I thought they were a big improvement.  There were still too many characters to keep track of, too many time-wasting conceits, and I'm not a fan of some of the explanations for the island's mysteries that the writers came up with.  However, I was happily surprised by how many answers were offered, and how much effort went into all the worldbuilding and timeline juggling to make sure that everything more or less fit together.  In retrospect, I think a lot of the trouble with season four definitely came from the writers' strike, because the whole season feels like it's setting up season five without much payoff for too long.

"The Constant," which was the first unstuck-in-time episode, ended up being a template of sorts for much of season five, where John Locke and several other survivors are sent back and forth through time.  Or maybe the whole island is time traveling.  This allows the writers to fill in a lot of the gaps about the DHARMA initiative, the Others, and finally reveal that two quasi-magical beings, Jacob (Mark Pelligrino) and the Man in Black (Titus Welliver), and their rivalry, have been behind most of the conflicts from the start.  There's also a three year time jump and the cast being split into two major groups to add more complications.  Season six introduced the "flash sideways" universe that I thought was a fantastic way of bringing back departed characters and doing "what if" stories that gave us more insights on key figures like Ben Linus and John Locke.  I found these more compelling than the big season six goal to choose Jacob's successor and keep the Man in Black from escaping the island.

I understand that the sudden shift in these last seasons to embrace magic and spirituality were not popular with some fans, but considering that we were dealing with smoke monsters, time travel, and immortal Spaniards, only so much could be explained away by special electromagnetism and secret science experiments.  The important thing was that once the writers decided everything was magic, they leaned into it.  All the mystery figures from the prior seasons were much more interesting once their histories were actually fleshed out and all the dots connected.  Several characters that I'd written off early, like Miles and Richard, got spotlight episodes that made me reevaluate them.  I'm a little unsatisfied with the fate of John Locke, but the structure of season six meant we got to have it both ways and Terry O'Quinn got to play two totally different characters.  

Still, "Lost" kept biting off more than it could chew nearly all the way to the end.  New characters Ilana (Zuleikha Robinson) and Zoe (Sheila Kelley) feel like substitutes for other characters that the writers regretted killing off too early, and their actors seem to resemble other actors who the show perhaps couldn't get back as regulars.  Lance Reddick, Hiroyuki Sanada and John Hawkes show up in a few episodes, only to be utterly wasted.  It was wonderful to see all the prior cast members who were brought back for the finale episodes, but it's glaringly obvious that two season one regulars weren't in that big church tableaux in the end.  Malcolm David Kelley at least made it into the DVD epilogue.     

As is typical with shows that go on for as long as "Lost," I eventually came around on most of the major characters.  Jack and Kate will never be my favorites, but their actors both got to do some good work.  Breaking up the main love triangle helped a lot - James and Juliet are way more compelling, and the actors actually have chemistry with each other!  Sun and Jin remain my favorite "Lost" couple though.  Claire finally got to be an active character after a season-long break.  Ben Linus getting a redemption arc was great.  Desmond and Faraday work much better as side characters, and it was great to see Hurley get his due.  Not enough Sayid, but there is never enough Sayid. 

  

I watched the finale live as it aired originally in 2010.  Because I hadn't been a regular viewer, I didn't get much out of it, naturally.  This time around, I got plenty of dopamine hits from all the callbacks and reunions and montages.  It's all shamelessly maudlin, but exactly what I expected considering that so much of "Lost" is a soap opera, even with all the expensive action scenes and tropical locations.  And I was able to enjoy it this time around on that level.  Of course the plot doesn't all make sense - it never made sense.  But emotionally, I was satisfied with where the plane ultimately landed.  

My Top Ten list of individual "Lost" episodes is coming in a few days.

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The Hell of "Baby Invasion"

So, what has Harmony Korine been up to lately?  I ask this question, not because I enjoy Harmony Korine films, but because he's one of those directors who has consistently turned out interesting, challenging, and very topical work that is like nothing else out there.  I don't particularly enjoy his latest movie either, but it's going to keep me up at night.

The last Korine film that I watched was 2019's "The Beach Bum."  I decided to skip 2023's "Aggro Dr1ft," which was shot entirely in infrared photography, and was the first production of Korine's media company EDGLRD.  "Baby Invasion" is the second, which reveals that Korine has dived headfirst into the world of online gaming for inspiration.  You can tell this is the same filmmaker who gave us "Gummo" and "Spring Breakers," using minimal plotting and shoestring production values to tell his tales of alienated youth.  However, "Baby Invasion" is also a film that takes place inside fully artificial environments, and versions of reality subjected to so many filters and twisted gamification systems that it's impossible to tell what's actually real.  

 

We start with a brief clip of an interview with a game developer who never takes off her VR headset, telling us about how her planned "Baby Invasion" first-person shooter game was stolen, hacked, and loosed on the dark web.  Then we switch to the POV of one of the players of this game who is livestreaming.  They're only ever identified as "Yellow," and the actor credited as Anonymous.    The objective of "Baby Invasion" is to infiltrate the homes of the wealthy and rob them.  The players are heavily armed and have their faces digitally replaced with the faces of happy babies in real time.  From the opening clip, we know that the game has inspired copycat crimes, but it's impossible to tell if what we're seeing Yellow play is just the game, a real crime that has been gamified with Baby Invasion graphics, or something else.  

There's almost no plot to speak of.  We watch Yellow and their fellow players break into luxurious homes, terrorize the inhabitants, and collect loot and bonuses, which are helpfully highlighted with dollar signs or helpful neon signage.  There's a barely readable chat feed forever scrolling along one side of the screen, and heavy electronica music constantly playing, provided by British musician Burial.  Yellow's view is often partially obstructed by text boxes delivering instructions with odd syntax that seem to have been translated from a foreign language.  On top of that, the images of the victims Yellow sees often have overlays blocking out their faces or whole bodies, making them easier to treat as targets.  In the disturbing climax, a woman Yellow is interrogating has her voice muted, likely to remove sounds of screaming.  There are also occasional, hallucinatory videos of rabbits that keep appearing in parts of the landscape, perhaps indicating a glitch or serving as a reminder that this world isn't real.   

Whether the crimes are really happening or not is beside the point.  What Korine is interested in is the way that Yellow views the world through the game, and all the ways that the game enables their alienation and sociopathy.  "Baby Invasion" is very aware that gaming is now the dominant form of popular media, and Korine has spent a great deal of effort to capture the particular idiosyncrasies of gaming visual language in detail.  I don't play first person shooters, but I immediately recognized the targeting systems, the livestream display, and even the cutesy animation at the bottom of the screen that would occasionally show up to depict chibi versions of the players moving from one location to another.

Korine's provocative nature continues to shine through - there's one sequence where AI generated imagery is prominently used - but at the same time his aims have never been more accessible or transparent.   Unlike in his previous films, where the images of exuberant deviancy could be beautiful and even transcendent, the views of the "Baby Invasion" game offer only endless horror no matter how much it tries to contort itself into more pleasing shapes.  And as much as the game dehumanizes the victims, it dehumanizes the players even more so.    

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The First Five of "The Studio"

"The Studio" should be a series that's right up my alley.  It's a Hollywood spoof that focuses on the executives who are in charge of greenlighting and putting together the deals that get movies made.  The fictional Continental Studios is run by newly promoted Matt Remick (Seth Rogen), a film lover who wants to make great art but also has to deliver profits.  The cast is full of funny actors - Catherine O'Hara plays Matt's mentor, Chase Sui Wonders and Ike Barinholtz play film executives, and Kathryn Hahn plays the head of marketing.  But more importantly, there's the cavalcade of guest stars, including Martin Scorsese and Charlize Theron, who show up to play versions of themselves.  I love movies and stories about moviemaking, so I should love "The Studio," right?

Well… it's fun to watch smart, informed, movie-obsessed people have conversations and debates about all the things that I get obsessed with, like directors shooting on film, actors discussing press tour schedules, and how blatant the remakes are getting.  The episode about shooting a single-take "oner" actually being shot as a single-take oner itself is geeky in the best way.  Sometimes following the production drama and dealmaking going on behind the scenes of a movie can be more fun than watching the movie itself.  So, even if all the projects being put together are fictional, "The Studio" has plenty of juicy material to work with.  However, the show doesn't have much of an interest in actually depicting movies getting made.  Instead, "The Studio" seems determined to showcase the absolute worst aspects of working in Hollywood in every episode.

To put it bluntly, "The Studio" is a pitch-black comedy that relies almost entirely on cringe humor and anxiety-inducing scenarios where things go very wrong, similar to "Veep."  All the characters are awful in their own ways, with Matt usually being the worst.  He's under soul-crushing pressure, hates making people unhappy, and frequently lets his selfish fanboy tendencies get the better of him.  This means he'll get himself into awful situations like in the pilot, where he agrees to make a Kool-Aid movie, even though he doesn't want to, and sets up a deal to make an expensive Martin Scorsese film, without really thinking through the consequences.  Initially it seems like Matt has some talent as an executive, but we only ever see him at his worst in subsequent episodes.  

The actors are great and the writing is pretty sharp, but I found the constant negativity about working in Hollywood depressing.  Frankly, this isn't the kind of humor I respond to, because the anxiety overwhelms the absurdity for me, and I can't enjoy it.  After five episodes, the only one I really liked was "The Note," because it allowed guest stars Anthony Mackie and Ron Howard to play really ridiculous versions of themselves, and the core cast were all being stupid in very relatable ways.  I understand why people working in the industry like "The Studio," because it does away with all the mythologizing about show business, and reveals all the pettiness and egomania underneath.  I'm sure that creators Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg have been in many similar situations, and are taking the chance to work through some frustrations.  I, however, don't have much patience for this when the frustration is all there all there seems to be.     

Hanging around other film fans, it can be fun to criticize the movie execs and second guess what projects got greenlit, and who got attached to which project.  I do appreciate "The Studio" for humanizing the people who actually make these calls, and reminding us all that nobody sets out to make a bad movie.  However, as someone who does love movies, I can't help feeling that Rogen and Goldberg are leaning way too hard on the cringe, excoriating Hollywood to the point where it gets kinda dull.  I also think that they're sabotaging themselves by not letting their characters display any depth, or get any wins whatsoever.  The more we learn about the main characters, the more miserable everyone seems, and I just don't find this entertaining.  

So, with full acknowledgement that this is an extremely good version of this kind of cringe comedy, I'm bowing out after five episodes of "The Studio."  I may be back in the future for certain guest stars, but  I know when a show is definitely not for me.

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