Someday, I’ll have to do a full commentary on Basic, because . . . wow, does this movie just defy all description. But here are a few notes that I made a couple of days after re-watching the film.

1.) I like Basic. A lot. My affection for the film is inexplicable. Some movies you stand up and fight for; some movies you recite detailed lists, 87 bullet points on why such and such is the best example of post-modern ninja-noir that you’ve ever seen. And then there are movies like Basic.

Honestly, I can’t put together a cohesive argument for Basic. I don’t even know why I like this movie so much; I just enjoy the hell out of it, even though it’s ridiculously overcomplicated, and even though it has a rapid and gigantic change in tone in the last five minutes that kind of makes no sense? But I like it anyway? I swear, I think this is what the writers did when they were coming up with the script.

Writer Joe: Okay, so we did this little twist here and this little turn there.

Writer Susan: Yeah, and then we did our awesome twist there, so we could just add a denouement and finish this thing before Survivor comes on.

Writer Joe: Yeah, we could do that. Or . . . we could add more twists.

Writer Susan: Gosh, Writer Joe, I do like my twists.

Writer Joe: I know what you mean, Writer Susan. I do too. So I was thinking, we could psych out the audience with a super lame twist that everybody would hate, and then, just when everyone’s thinking, damn, that movie sucked monkey balls, we hit them with a final, EPIC twist.

Writer Susan: Gee, that sounds good. But what could we do as our epic twist? I just don’t know.

Writer Joe: Me either . . .

Writer Susan: Well, we could always {spoiler content deleted}. Hee hee hee!

Writer Joe: Ha ha ha! That’s so funny, Writer Susan. Why, that would change our whole movie!

Writer Susan: You’re right as usual, Writer Joe, but let’s try it anyway, just for a joke.

Writer Joe: That sounds like fun, Writer Susan.

{They finish the script with new joke ending.}

Writer Joe: Gosh, that’s so crazy. I almost wish we could really use this ending, just to fuck with people.

Writer Susan: That WOULD be pretty funny. Hee hee . . . huh.

Writer Joe: . . . huh . . .

Writer Susan: Oh, fuck it. Let’s just do it.

No, I didn’t bother to look up who wrote the film. I’m also not quite sure why Writer Joe and Writer Susan became Joe and Frank Hardy from Christopher Durang’s, “The Hardy Boys and The Mystery of Where Babies Come From,” but there you go. The writing process in a nutshell.

2.) Of course, the ending isn’t the only odd part of the story that doesn’t quite match everything else that happens in the film. Basic is kind of a random patchwork quilt of guilty pleasure, intrigue, gunfire, and John Travolta. The opening scene itself is a voiceover by Connie Nielsen, and while there’s nothing wrong with the wording of the narration, it doesn’t really have anything to do with the movie. I mean, here’s the voice over:

“The French tried to build a canal here before the Americans. At the height of their effort, 500 workers were dying every week from malaria and yellow fever. They couldn’t come up with cemetery space fast enough, not to mention the morale problem all those crosses would have made. So they bought shiploads of vinegar in Cuba, and in each barrel, they sealed one corpse. And then they sold them as medical cadavers all over Europe. And for a while, that was their principal source of profit. You see, this place has always had a special way of dealing with both profit and death.”

And sure, this movie has some death in it, and profit is certainly important to the plot, but the wording of that monologue makes it sound like the location of the place is exceptionally important, you know, like it’s the tenth character in the story or something, the way a haunted house is almost its own character in a scary movie? That’s not really the case here at all, and Writer Joe and Writer Susan never really go back to the theme of “profit and death” in any kind of meaningful way. So it’s sort of tacked on to serve a dual purpose: one, make the opening scene more dramatic, and two, introduce the lamentable aspects of your film from the get-go, namely that your Danish female lead is quite incapable of pulling out an authentic or even remotely believable Southern accent. Seriously, Connie Nielsen. You have some nice moments in this movie, but your Southern is really just preposterous.

3.) Although, the bad Southern accent is almost requisite in a guilty pleasure, isn’t it? You people should check out Mindhunters sometime. Now, that is an amazing example of so-bad-it’s-good movie, and I think Jonny Lee Miller’s Texan accent is at the top of my list for oh-my-god-you’re-trying-to-twang-aren’t-you-oh-you-poor-poor-thing. British actors, for some reason, always seem to be at the top of this list.

Still . . . Basic is kind of fun to watch just to listen to the actors talk. I mean, clearly, Connie Nielsen’s Southern is horrific. John Travolta, on the other hand, often talks through teeth that appear to be clenched together with some kind of bonding glue. (He does this in Broken Arrow, as well, leading to one of my favorite lines of all time: “Would you mind not shooting at the therm-o-nuc-u-lear weapons?”) Then Giovanni Ribisi, for whatever reason, decides to do a pitch-perfect imitation of director John McTiernan’s voice for the role of Kendall, and it’s freaky, man; it doesn’t even sound like Ribisi at all. Finally, there is Samuel L. Jackson and his blessed over-enunciation of every single word he says. (“RAAAAAAAAngers do not wait on good weather. RAAAAAAAAngers do not wait for bright sunshiny days.”)

Like I said. Patchwork quilt of weirdness, people.

4.) It is, I believe, legally impossible for Samuel L. Jackson to not look like a badass.

Seriously, I want this cape. (Mekaela insists it’s probably a pancho. To hell with that. Super Cape of Doom, with matching Beret of Doom! I could rock that look.)

5.) Other stuff that doesn’t quite fit in with the film: the title. According to Hardy (John Travolta), “Murder is basic.” It’s an interesting sentiment. I’m sure that, in another film, one could make a very dark, intriguing mystery based on the idea that everyone is capable of murder, and that there need be no vast conspiracies or shadowy villains for people to kill other people. However, that film is so far away from this one that it’s kind of absurd. There is NOTHING basic about this film, nothing. Everything IS twists and turns and vast conspiracies. Besides, Writers Joe and Susan, once again, utterly fail to ever bring the concept back into the story. What the hell’s it even doing here?

A better title for this movie? Who Killed West? Right to the point, that is. Or, if that’s not to your liking, maybe Section 8 or Rangers! or even The One Where Harry Connick Jr. Gets Hit Right In The Kisser.

I think that one would sell a lot of tickets.

6.) All in all, I think Tim Daly might showcase the worst acting in this movie. He’s not horrible. He’s definitely got some decent moments in there (I like his total dismissal of other people’s opinions, particularly Julia Osborne’s) and he doesn’t have the worst line in the movie. (That would be Julia Osborne with her, “Mister, I’ve had it with you.” Ugh. UGH. I’m just cringing thinking about it.) But even with “the line” and Connie Nielsen’s atrocious Southern accent, she does pretty well as Osborne, and, ultimately, I just can’t buy Tim Daly as military. At all. Even in a ridiculous movie like this, full of all kinds of crazy military inaccuracies. Just don’t see it.

7.) Best inarticulate noise of utter frustration:

“Arrrrrrrgh, what don’t you know?”

Pike (Taye Diggs)

Best motivational speech:

“If you lose enough times in your life, what you are is a loser.”

Styles (Tim Daly)

Best not-so-subtle threat:

“Those of you I find lacking will quit. And those of you who refuse to quit will have a training accident. This base suffers three training accidents a year. Unfortunate accidents that I will not hesitate to repeat if you cross me.”

West (Samuel L. Jackson)

Best bitchy smile/response:

“Now, how does that make you feel, Jules?”

“Hostile and uncooperative, sir.”

-Osborne (Connie Nielsen)

Best psycho:

Nunez (Roselyn Sanchez).

I have no real quotes to back this up. Sanchez just delivers all of her lines like she’s about to take your still-beating heart out of your chest and eat it in front of you.

8.) In movies, it’s very common for the interrogator to get close up to the suspect and whisper in his or her ear, as a means to be a) intimidating, b) creepy, c) sexy, or d) some strange combination of all three. It’s particularly common for men to be the interrogators, and it’s something I call the Mortal Kombat Interrogation Technique, as both Raiden and Shang Tsung do this to Sonya Blade. (You expect it from Shang Tsung; he IS the bad guy, after all, although why he decided to make Sonya look like a streetwalker with bad hair {pictured below} is beyond me. The whole scene with Raiden is just creepy and weird. Raiden, God of Thunder and Lightening, is kind of a perv. Just saying.

In Basic, the Mortal Kombat Interrogation Technique is done twice. Both interrogators, surprisingly, are female. Nunez, naturally, makes the scene work, because Roselyn Sanchez is gorgeous, and because Nunez is batshit crazy, and I would be terrified to turn my back on her. Osborne (Connie Nielsen,) on the other hand, just seems kind of pathetic.

If Nunez had been the one interrogating Dunbar (Brian Van Holt) the movie would have ended five minutes in.

9.) I haven’t mentioned them much (it’s hard to talk about their best moments and scenes without going into spoilers) but I like all the work done by Brian Van Holt, Giovanni Ribisi, and Taye Diggs in this film. Actually, most of the supporting cast is pretty good, and all of the actors play off each other very well. I feel a little bad for Cristian de la Fuente, though. He’s not bad or anything; I think he just has the least to work with.

10.) Finally, about that end . . . well, I can’t say much without spoilers, so here’s what I will say. The characters that are in the final scene have a great chemistry with one another, and though the tonal change to the film seems radically out of place, like, it belongs in an entirely different movie . . . I just really like the scene. I want to see a sequel to this film based solely on that scene. Fuck the rest of the movie—which is fun; I mean, it’s a little ridiculous, yeah, but, mostly, it’s a pretty decent action-thriller—but I just want to see another film that is entirely based on the last five minutes of Basic. That is a movie I would go see in theatres.

In conclusion, and solely because he’s pretty:

Best Eye Candy of The Film: Taye Diggs. Love you, Taye.

Today’s film choice . . . the British psychological thriller, Exam.

It’s a movie so mysterious I can barely tell you anything about it at all.

Here’s the basic premise of Exam: eight strangers are competing for a coveted spot in a powerful and extremely mysterious organization. They enter a room and are each given a piece of paper and a pencil. They are told these rules:

You will be asked one question. One answer will be required. You will have eighty minutes.

If you try to communicate with the Invigilator or the guard, you will be disqualified.

If you spoil your paper, either intentionally or accidentally, you will be disqualified.

If you choose to leave the room for any reason, you will be disqualified.

The only laws in this room are the Rules above.

And . . . go!

Unfortunately for the candidates, there is no question on the paper for them to answer, so they’re a little bit on the lost side. And when one candidate gets ejected from the competition literally less than a minute after it’s begun, the remaining candidates are forced to work together, not to figure out what the answer is but to figure out what question they’re supposed to answer.

I enjoyed Exam quite a bit. Mekaela and I had a lot of fun pausing the movie at any given moment to discuss what would happen next, who would get ejected, who was tricking who, etc. etc. I felt very involved with the story, very invested in the outcome . . . not emotionally but mentally . . . I liked watching events unfold and trying to guess what would happen next. You wouldn’t think this would be a very unusual reaction to a thriller, but lately I haven’t been particularly invested in many of the suspense films that I’ve watched, possibly because so many of them try so hard to be epic, you know. They want to rock your mind with this huge, global conspiracy, and each twist has to be a bigger twist than the twist you got five minutes ago . . . Exam does have twists, of course, but they seem smaller in comparison, more simplistic, and for some reason I liked this a lot more. I like playing with basic concepts and seeing how much you can get out of them; I tend to find that more exciting to watch. And, really, what could be simpler than sticking eight strangers in an enclosed space and seeing what they’re willing to do to one another in order to win . . . or to survive?

Unfortunately, despite enjoying this movie a great deal, there’s not a lot else I can tell you about Exam because I wouldn’t want to give anything away. Here, however, is what I can say:

1.) I had to look up the definition of the word ‘invigilator’ after the film was over because I laughed out loud when I first heard it. I mean, maybe it’s a totally common British word, but as an American . . . it does sound a little silly, doesn’t it? Like, someone who’s trying too hard to have an impressive sounding title? Anyway, ‘invigilator’ is a real word–no surprise there; this is a British film, after all–and it literally means ‘a person who watches over test-takers to ensure that there is no cheating’.

I maintain that it is still a stupid sounding word and takes something away from the awesome presence that is Colin Salmon (best known, by me anyway, from Resident Evil).

2.) The characters in this movie are all given nicknames, not for any real reason, just because everyone likes a movie where strangers who are forced to work together use nicknames instead of their actual names. Unfortunately, since Asshole (also known as White . . . we give our own nicknames in the St. George household) is a shit-starting and possibly racist bastard, the names are designated primarily by skin or hair color. One character is given the nickname Deaf. I, of course, misheard it as Death, which, frankly, was a much cooler nickname. We’ll stick with calling him Crazy Guy in this review, though. It’s more fitting.

3.) I promised Mek that I would spend at least a little time discussing her least favorite character in this movie, Dark. Dark is the “psychologist” type character of the group. Cleverly, we will be referring to her as Shrink in this review, and Mek really, really hated her. In fairness to Mek, Shrink really is quite the stereotype: almost everything she says sounds like something that a screenwriter would think that a psychologist would say. I found her vaguely annoying . . . but not, like, life-insurance commercial annoying. (You know those commercials. “Hi, Susan. How are you? Well, thank you for asking. Yes, I’ve made my peace with Mom passing, but all her post-life expenses are so costly. Thankfully, I’ve discovered THIS COMPANY that’s helped me out so much. Say, Susan . . . you know, you’re old. You should really think about getting life insurance yourself, so that when you kick the bucket, your children can be totally at peace with your death, too. Isn’t life wonderful? Ha ha ha.” UGH.)

Ahem. Anyway. If Exam were ever to be remade (which would be kind of silly, although I’m now trying to dreamcast it with some of my favorite actors . . . there is no movie that can’t be improved by the addition of Cillian Murphy, hmmm . . . ) the best change that they could make would be to either strengthen Shrink’s dialogue or just give the character to a superior actress. I don’t think Adar Beck was as bad as Mek thought she was, but I do agree that she is kind of the weakest link here, acting-wise. Still, Shrink didn’t detract too much from the movie for me.

4) While we’re on acting . . . overall, it’s pretty fair. Nothing that’s going to wow your pants off . . . I’d imagine you’d need very special talent for that . . . but, mostly, it’s pretty decent. Luke Mably (Asshole) carries a good brunt of the dialogue, and he does, I think, the best work in the film.

5.) There are a lot of movies that try to shoot the whole enchilada in one enclosed space, but usually someone finds the need to show a flashback or a dream or something that takes us into a new location. Exam never does that. The closest it gets to leaving the room is seeing the hallway outside of the room, and that’s about it. I admired that.

6.) While the characters are trying to decide if there’s a hidden question on the paper, they do an awful lot of stuff that I wouldn’t try if one of my primary rules was ‘Do not spoil your paper.’ Also: I wouldn’t leave that paper anywhere. I’d be carrying that with me the whole time, and I wouldn’t give it up to anyone. Hell, if I ever got out of there, I’d probably fucking laminate that paper.

7.) Finally, when in doubt, don’t overcomplicate. The answer is usually simpler than you think.

If you haven’t seen the film, I urge you to skip the Spoiler Section of this review and go and rent it instead. I really do think Exam is worth a watch, and it wouldn’t be nearly as fun for you if you read about the end beforehand. If you have seen the film and want to hear what I thought about, well, pretty much everything, continue onwards.

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

I’m a little annoyed at myself for not getting the answer. It’s so damn simple, and I’m SURE I’ve heard a riddle just like this before, although I can’t remember where for the life of me. Still. *Sighs.*

Okay, so the Invigilator does his whole speech in the beginning of the film, you’ll be asked one question, there’s one answer, don’t spoil your paper, don’t leave the room, blah blah blah. He asks if there are any questions and when there aren’t, he leaves the room and the games begin.

The first person knocked out is Asian Girl, who does what I probably would have done: starts to write an essay on why she is the best qualified candidate. This is too bad, because I have an inexplicable attraction to Asian characters in movies and television shows . . . I can give you absolutely no reason as to why this is, just that I tend to find myself drawn to Asian people when it comes to the big and the small screen. I was already voting for her when she got disqualified thirty seconds or so in. Too bad.

The group gets to work on figuring things out together, once Asshole sort of gets things rolling. Asshole is dubbed Asshole because he likes to trick people into disqualifying themselves . . . for instance, he tricks Possibly Transsexual into burning her own paper. (I know that nickname’s probably not very nice, but Pollyanna McIntosh has a very deep voice for a woman, and so we did wonder briefly. The name stuck. Anyway, it’s more telling than her character’s actual nickname, Brunette, considering McIntosh’s not the only brunette in the room.) You feel a little bad for Possibly Transsexual (she’s trying to get this job to get health benefits for her partner) but the fact that she didn’t check what paper she was burning . . . sorry, sweetheart, but that’s just unacceptable. Asshole also gets Crazy Guy to tear up and even eat his own paper. Crazy Guy has been babbling in French about being able to see clearly, and when he gets disqualified, his glasses get knocked to the ground and left in the room. Gee. Wonder if THAT’s important.

Anyway, it turns out that in this world there’s been a pandemic. The virus can be controlled with medicine taken once every hour on the hour, but if the medicine is not taken, the person will go into convulsions, then into a coma, then die. Asshole happens to be sick himself, and Gambler (aka Brown) steals his pill. After getting tied up for being, well, an asshole, Asshole starts going into convulsions. And pretty much as soon as he’s unconscious, Gambler vies for the position of New Asshole, which he does admirably at, until Shrink finds the magic pill. She tries to give it to Asshole, but Gambler/New Asshole takes it from her and throws it into a floor grate. While Blondie (who’s nickname was already Blonde . . . sometimes, even I run out of creativity) tries to retrieve the pill, Shrink tries to appeal to the people in charge that a man is about to die and thus disqualifies herself.

Blondie gets the magic pill and heals Asshole. She then unties him for God knows what reason, and Asshole decides to take his crown back from Gambler by becoming Alpha Asshole. How does he do this? Well, you see, the guard that’s been standing in the room the whole time? He happens to have a gun. Alpha Asshole takes the gun and tries to shoot it, but alas! It is fingerprint activated. So Alpha Asshole puts the gun back into the guard’s hand and drags him around, since the guard is the only one who can shoot the gun. Alpha Asshole says he’ll kill anyone (via the guard) who stays in the room.

(And if I wasn’t already gone by now, here’s where Carlie would be saying, “Buh-bye, folks! It’s been real!”)

Gambler clearly agrees with me and, out of moves, gives up and leaves the room. Christian (AKA Black) doesn’t think Alpha Asshole will actually shoot him . . . because he’s a Christian and an optimist, I guess? I don’t know. Christian, already idealistic, has suddenly become alarmingly naive. Blondie has no such illusions about Alpha Asshole’s Capacity for Homicidal Dickishness, and says that she’ll leave the room next. Sneakily, she warns Christian to get ready, and just as she’s starting to walk out of the room, Blondie activates the lights out. Alpha Asshole shoots blindly. When the lights come back up, Christian is shot in the chest and apparently dead. (Guess he wasn’t ready enough.) Blondie is in the hallway but has part of one foot still in the room, which apparently still counts. Sheesh. Talk about a fucking gamble, Blondie.

Before Alpha Asshole can try to kill Blondie, the clock in the room runs out. Nothing appears to happen, so Alpha Asshole starts yelling at the two-way mirror in the room that he’s the best candidate for the job; he’s the one they want. (Which is an interesting argument, actually, and I think may have come up in this one season finale of Survivor I saw. Who is the more deserving player? The one who did all the work, who put himself on the line, or the one who stayed behind the scenes, waiting for others to destroy themselves and biding her time?)

Unfortunately for Alpha Asshole, Crazy Guy fucked around with the clock before leaving the room, which means that the eighty minutes were not actually over yet, and so Alpha Asshole has just disqualified himself. Blondie FINALLY notices Crazy Guy’s glasses on the floor and remembers his French babbling. She goes to look at the paper and sees that there is hidden question on it, sort of. All it actually says is Question One. This triggers Blondie to remember the very first question and, in fact, the only question ever asked of the candidates at the beginning of the film: “Any questions?” The Invigilator and the mysterious CEO (who turns out to be none other than Crazy Guy himself) come in the room, and Blondie tells them the answer, “No.” She has no questions. She understands.

When Blondie admits that she almost missed it, the Invigilator says that he’s just happy to be hiring somebody today, making the audience wonder how many times they’ve been through this scenario. Blondie, however, is rightly concerned that she may not want to work for a company that’s willing to let people be murdered as part of an HR decision. It then turns out that Christian isn’t actually dead: the bullet is not a real bullet but actually something which has transmitted a new cure/cell regeneration thingermijig that the company has discovered, making Christian no longer a carrier of the disease. (This sounds remarkably stupid when I type it out, but it didn’t bother me too much while watching the film . . . and it helps that the screenwriters are aware of the issue enough to call it a “magic bullet”. Anyway, it’s better than that shit they try to pull in X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Adamantium bullet, indeed.)

And so . . . Blondie accepts the job and all is good! The end!

Now, a few more notes with all of that in mind:

1.) The Invigilator states the right candidate for the job will not only have an acute eye for detail but also compassion for her fellow man. So, I assume that if Alpha Asshole had figured out the question, he still would not have been hired because if anyone is lacking in compassion, it is clearly Alpha Asshole. (Although I did kind of feel a tiny bit bad for the guy. He did try very, very hard, after all.) Also, during the course of the movie, both Alpha Asshole and Gambler said that they were selected to be interviewed; they didn’t actually apply. If they were serious about that whole compassion deal, then the company could not have seriously wanted to hire either of them, so were the guys just there to move things along and keep it all interesting? Or were Gambler and Asshole simply lying?

2.) My only serious critique of the movie is Crazy Guy’s glasses. They are exceptionally unsubtle, and, frankly, aren’t really necessary. They only function as a trigger for Blondie to remember the question . . . and I’m convinced that with the montage of flashbacks you get in the last ten minutes, you don’t really need it. Out with the glasses!

3.) I must admit, I’m very curious if, “No,” is the only correct answer. What if one of the candidates DID have a question at the beginning of the movie? Suppose Shrink had asked, “Can I be disqualified if someone else spoils my paper?” (Which was the question I would have asked and did ask at the beginning of the film.) Would that have been an acceptable response? Or would Shrink have been disqualified for answering incorrectly?

4.) Similarly, was Asian Girl disqualified for spoiling her paper by writing on it? Or was she disqualified for writing the wrong answer? If she had written, “No,” would she have won? I didn’t think so at first, but at one point during the exam, half of the group gets their papers wet, like, SUPER wet, and that apparently doesn’t count as spoiling the paper. It seems silly that you can soak your paper through but can’t write five measly words on it.

5.) I am not without ambition, but the second someone starts shooting people or even threatening to paper cut other people’s eyeballs . . . I’d be out, man. I’m just not that hardcore.

Verdict: All in all, I really liked Exam. It was a clever, engaging, and enjoyable little thriller that really kept me intrigued the entire time I watched it. I think I might like to own it eventually. Heh. Add it to the ever-growing list.

Tentative Grade: B+/A-

Moral: Don’t count your chickens before their hatched, ASSHOLE.

Also: Pay more attention to stuff.

Also: Protect your godamned paper.

Well. It’s the beginning of September, and I feel pretty confident when I say that this is the weirdest fucking movie I have seen and will see all year.

Actually, I enjoyed the hell out of it. I just don’t know if I can articulate why.

SUMMARY:

You know what, let me just rip off Netflix’s summary:

“In this genre-bending slasher flick, a high schooler gets slapped with detention on the same night as senior prom. But plenty of other kids will also be missing the big event when a past-her-prime prom queen shows up to slay them.”

. . . well. That’s sort of what happens, I guess.

NOTES:

1. Seriously, I’m at a bit of a loss on where to begin. I saw a trailer and a short clip for this movie months ago, and I was desperate to see it — unfortunately, there’s really only one theater in this whole county that plays independent movies, and they prefer to showcase the Serious Ones, not . . . well . . . this. But when Detention popped up on Netflix, I knew I had to ignore all the horror movies I’m supposed to be watching in order to try it out. And . . . well . . .

It’s . . . it’s like if you put Scream and The Breakfast Club and Donnie Darko into a blender and then also added acid and cocaine and maybe some absinthe to the mix as well? A dash of Scott Pilgrim vs The World too? And seriously, did I mention the acid? That’s kind of what this movie is like. It’s bringing meta to a whole new level, a level with serial killers called Cinderhella. And grizzly bears.

2. Possibly the weirdest thing about this movie is that it’s not actually dumb. I mean, it’s balls to the wall insane, but even as the script is bouncing all over the place, it’s pretty sharp. There are so many good quotes in here, I’m not even sure if I can remember them all. Of course, a lot of them don’t make much sense out of context.

Principal Verge: “I make 40 G’s a year plus dental. You may not have a Skittle.”

Billy: “If your face hurts my fist, I will punch you again harder.”

Clapton: “Mullet beats ponytails.”

Gord: “Vegetarians who eat fish are hypocrites! She thinks that because fish feel no pain they don’t value their lives! Absurd!”

Mr. Kendall: “Well, Clapton. I’m wet.”

Sander: “The girl’s a moron. Wait, you don’t have a thing for her, do you?”
Clapton: “Sander, Ione’s an old soul trapped in a very painfully hot cheerleader’s body.”

Taylor: “Let me montage this to speed things up.”

Ione: “Clapton, the small guy always beats the invincible killing machine. You’re my Pat Morita.”
Clapton: “Isn’t he dead?”

Gord: “I do feel sympathy for animals, and that’s why I choose to only eat baby animals. They have not lived as long, and they aren’t leaving as much behind. Baby clams, chicken wings, baby seals. No big loss.”

Clapton: “I’d hide in a sporting goods store if zombies attacked.”
Sander: “Costco. Zombies don’t have membership.”

Ione: “How hard is it to be cool in 1992?”

Principal Verge: “What does the future hold for Clapton Davis?”
Clapton: “Well, I’m starting my own music site. It’s going to list new releases and review albums from bands no one’s ever heard of except me, and if they have I’ll just dismiss them with scathing comparisons to avant-garde folk rockers. Everything’s great on an ultra precise 100 point scale, and there’s no place for feedback. If readers want to bitch about it, they’ll have to go on their Twitters. Good taste is not a democracy.”
Principal Verge: “And this pays what? 13.5 a year?”
Clapton: “. . . free Costello tickets.”

Riley: “I’m only going to say this once: do not become the bad guy in the health class pregnancy scare video.”

3. Detention was kind of billed as a horror parody, but Netflix had it right about the genre-bending aspect. It’s one of the reasons this movie is so odd. I used to think that you absolutely couldn’t mix certain genres, but it’s not that it’s impossible — it’s just that people usually do it all wrong. Nobody likes it when aliens are introduced in the third act.  And it’s just not good enough to slap, say, a western and a science fiction story together without any thought and say, “Sure! People will love this!”

But Detention handles all the genre-bending surprisingly well, I think. All of these things seem out of left field, but by the time you’ve finished the movie, you can see how most things were actually foreshadowed early on in one way or another. This seems like it’s the kind of movie that you laugh at (or stare at in dumbfounded shock) the first time around but can actually appreciate better on a second viewing.

4. The only element I’m not sure that fits in entirely is The Lonely Ballad of Billy Nolan. (The movie is separated into all kinds of flashbacks and side vignettes with titles like The Lonely Ballad of Billy Nolan or The Worthless Yearning of Principal Verge.) I feel like I need to see the movie again because I might be missing something, but Billy’s secret story doesn’t seem like it ties in as well as everything else, and I’m not really sure of its purpose.

5. As far as acting goes, I like everyone pretty well in Detention. It’s not a big name cast. The two people you’re most likely to recognize are Josh Hutcherson . . .

Otherwise known as Peeta

And Dane Cook . . .

Otherwise known as Dane Cook

I actually find some of Dane Cook’s shtick funny, but I also get why a lot of people find the guy grating, and the idea of watching him as the main lead in any film does not fill me with joy. (I expect that when I get to Hell, Good Luck Chuck will be playing on constant repeat.) Thankfully, Cook’s a side role here — he’s definitely visible, but he’s also not eating up all the camera time, either, which is nice. I hate it when one comedian takes over a whole movie. (Robin Williams, I like you buddy, but I’m totally looking at you here.)

As far as Josh Hutcherson goes, you know, I enjoyed him a lot. This movie is all about super quick dialogue (we’re talking Gilmore Girls plus West Wing speed here, people) and he does a really good job with the delivery. He has to be a kinda dumb but likable hipster, and I don’t think that’s entirely easy. (Especially since even hipsters apparently hate hipsters. Has anyone ever called himself a hipster with pride?)

All of the kids are pretty enjoyable, actually.

Spencer Locke plays pretty girl Ione with a ridiculous amount of energy, and Shanley Caswell, our sarcastic, vegetarian, feminist of a heroine, is pretty funny too. The movie works pretty well, I think, because the characters are all clearly parodies, but they’re also likable parodies. You don’t really hate anyone . . . which is actually pretty unusual for any kind of horror film, come to think of it.

6. If I do have a minor flaw, other than the Billy thing . . . there is way too much vomit in this movie. I’m not positive, but I think there’s somebody puking on screen . . . I don’t know . . . six times? Eight? I’m all for gross out humor, but that’s kind of ridiculous for a 93 minute film.

7. Finally, I mentioned the pace of the dialogue before, but even quicker than that is the pace of the filming itself. The easiest way to demonstrate is probably to just show you a clip. Don’t worry — there aren’t really any spoilers.

The whole movie is like this. The visual style of the film is actually a part of the story itself. I can’t even imagine another director having shot this movie. If this is what happens when music video directors take on horror parodies . . . well, I like it.

Possibly my favorite part in the whole film? Riley (Shanley Caswell) misses her bus and asks her dad for a ride. Her dad, who is lying on the couch with beer bottles all around, starts to sit up, all, “Sure, honey!” Then he hesitates and is like, “Nope, still drunk,” and lies back down. The movie freeze frames and we get this message:

“The movie Detention is against drunk driving, even if you’re suicidal.”

I laughed so damn hard at this.

I’m creating a very, very tiny spoiler section, but if any of what I’ve talked about sounds funny to you, check out this movie and see what you think. I cannot guarantee that you’ll like it because I’m still a little surprised by how much I did, but I’d be awfully curious to see what other people have to say.

SPOILERS

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I have absolutely no intention of recapping this movie because I am not a crazy person. However, if you really want the whole story, Wikipedia has you covered. Because whoever wrote that article is clearly eighteen billion times more dedicated than I am.

I only made a spoiler section to note a couple of things. If you’ve just skipped ahead without having actually seen the movie, a) shame and b) you will probably not understand whatever I’m talking about.

1. The line about Ione being an old soul trapped in a hot cheerleader’s body was funny, but the second I realized that it’s also true? That’s awesome. I am so in love with this.

2. The best intertitle of the bunch: The Disturbing Abduction of the Time Traveling Bear.

3. I had never really given the matter much thought, but my sister pointed out to me that I’m not usually a huge fan of time travel stories. (It’s not that I hate them on principle, or that I care about the science. Ha. It’s just that I don’t have the nostalgia for movies like Back to the Future or The Terminator that most people do, and I almost always bitch whenever any Trek has a time travel ep because of a) missed angst opportunities or b) extremely lame and excessively annoying Mark Twains.) 

However, I think I can say that Detention might be one of my favorite time travel stories ever because seriously, how often do you see a bear turned into a time travel device?

4. And really, I never thought I’d like a movie about high school kids who use a time traveling bear to save the world, or a movie that ends with a Canadian (who is actually is a vegetable-based alien) leading an attack against humanity, but that’s how my life rolls, I guess.

5. In a fight between Patrick Swayze versus Steven Seagal? Yeah, I’d probably go Swayze too. Ponytail really should beat out mullet, but there’s just something about Steven Seagal and his whispery little girl voice that I will never be able to take seriously.

Also, how have I never seen Road House all the way through? Clearly, I need to work on this.

CONCLUSIONS:

Totally psychotic but . . . I kind of loved it, I think. I don’t know. I may need time to fully wrap my head around this hyperkinetic oddball of a film. But I’m thinking about buying it at some point.

MVP:

Josh Hutcherson

SUCH A TENTATIVE GRADE I HESTITATE TO EVEN WRITE IT DOWN:

B+

MORAL:

Um, don’t turn down a guy if he asks you to prom because he’ll probably try to kill you, kill all your friends, and then maybe decide to blow up the whole world for good measure.

Sheesh. When I got turned down by the guy I asked to prom, I just, you know, went anyway. Men and their fragile little egos. Everything has to be so dramatic.

When I was writing my review for Clue some months back, I came across the name of another murder mystery comedy: Murder by Death. It actually predates Clue by almost a decade and has an absolutely fantastic cast including Maggie Smith, Alec Guiness, Peter Falk, Elsa Lanchester, Peter Sellers, James Cromwell, Eileen Brennan, and Truman Capote, of all people.

Well, obviously, I had to watch this.

SUMMARY:

Eccentric millionaire Lionel Twain (Truman Capote) invites the world’s five most famous literary detectives — and their various sons/spouses/chauffeurs — for a dinner party that, quite rightly, turns into a murder investigation.

NOTES:

1. Murder by Death and Clue have a few things in common, other than the fact that they’re both murder mystery comedies. For example, they both have Eileen Brennan. They also both share the same house. Okay, not really; it’s not the exact same house, but there are definite similarities.

But the movies are different too because while both films have been characterized as spoofs or parodies, I don’t really think of Clue in those terms — or at least “parody” is not the first term that comes to mind. Whereas Murder by Death is DEFINITELY a parody.

2. Now, this is a very silly movie. Sometimes, it’s too ridiculous for my tastes — we’ll get to that in a minute — but a lot of it is laugh-out-loud funny, especially the ending, which was even more overtly meta than everything else that had come before. Of course, all parodies are pretty much self-referential by definition, but the ending kind of moved past silly jabs and went straight on to full-out commentary. That can be a tough balance — no one wants to be a preachy asshole — but it works here. I feel like any mystery fan who has ever been frustrated by some of the failings of the genre will appreciate this end.

3. Still, I think this film has its fair share of problems. For instance, almost every gag with the blind butler and the deaf maid.

It took me way too long to realize that the blind butler is one in the same with Obi-Wan Kenobi, despite the fact that Guinness’s voice is extremely distinctive — part of it, I suppose, is the lack of beard; also, the lack of lightsaber, and the fact that Guiness has his eyes rolled up into his head the whole movie. Anyway, Guinness — or rather, Bensonmum — spends way too much time slapping stamps down on tables instead of envelopes and starting fires on mattresses instead of in fireplaces. Similarly, the new maid, Yetta, is deaf, mute, and illiterate — or at least doesn’t read English. (I can’t remember which.)

There are one or two jokes that land here, but mostly, it just gets really old really fast. This isn’t a terribly long movie, but at least fifteen minutes could have been shaved off just by trimming this shit down. It’s kind of pointless filler that could have been spent on almost anything else — like, for instance, more Maggie Smith awesomeness.

4. Also . . . we have to talk about Peter Sellers. Sellers, you might know, is famous for playing this guy:

Inspector Clouseau — from The Pink Panther movies.

However, in Murder by Death, he’s playing this guy.

Now. What’s important to mention here is that all of the detectives in this movie are based off of actual literary detectives — for instance, we have Dick and Dora Charleston instead of Nick and Nora Charles, Perrier instead of Poirot, Miss Marbles instead of Miss Marple, etc. Inspector Wang is based on Charlie Chan, and if you’ve never seen a Charlie Chan movie, well, they were made in the 1930′s and 40′s, which means the title role always went to a white guy. (Seriously, one of the guys who repeatedly played Charlie Chan was from Sweden. You don’t fucking get more white than Sweden, do you?)

Peter Sellers is actually pretty funny in the role, especially after watching a clip of one of the earlier Charlie Chan movies and seeing how closely he’s imitating them. But that being said . . . if the movie was going to do yellowface, even to make fun of it, I think I needed it to be addressed more directly in the film by other characters because it was definitely making me uncomfortable. And, honestly, I think I’d rather have seen a Chinese man making fun of Chinese stereotypes anyway.

5. Still, this is a very talented cast. After all, we have the Bride of Frankenstein, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Inspector Clouseau, Mrs. Peacock, the Dowager Countess of Grantham, and The Grandfather from The Princess Bride. (Okay, Columbo is probably the more relevant credit here, but like most people in my generation, I primarily know Peter Falk from The Princess Bride.)

It’s particularly fun for me to see Maggie Smith so young.

I adore Maggie Smith, have for years, but I think the very first thing I ever saw her in was either Sister Act or The Secret Garden, both of which were made in the 90′s when she was already pushing sixty — which, admittedly, is not as old to me now as it was when I was seven. Still, it’s always neat to see Maggie Smith in something from the 1970′s, and she’s a lot of fun here. Her constant back-and-forths with Dick Charleston (David Nevin) are awesome.

It’s also a little funny to see James Cromwell so young.

Cromwell plays Perrier’s French chauffeur, and he’s funny enough, but I wish that he played some variant of Captain Hastings instead. If you don’t read a lot of Agatha Christie, Captain Hastings was one of Poirot’s recurring sidekicks, and while I don’t much like him, it would have been a nice touch. Plus, then I would finally get to see someone drop something heavy on Hastings’s head. (Oh, shush, the chauffeur lives. It’s a very minor spoiler.)

And it’s definitely weird for me to see Eileen Brennan as anyone other than Mrs. Peacock.

Here, Eileen Brennan plays Tess Skeffington, Sam Diamond’s faithful, lovestruck secretary. She doesn’t get quite as many good lines as Maggie Smith, but she’s funny too, probably actually funnier than her counterpart, Peter Falk, whose Sam Spade shtick occasionally wears me out a little.

6. I love mysteries, but sometimes it’s hard not to laugh at how ridiculous some of the deductive reasoning is in these books. These characters are rarely mere detectives — instead, they are Super Detectives who know everything there is to know about everything and thus can never be fooled, at least not for very long. Which don’t get me wrong, I’m still a giant Poirot fan, but it does make for good material to mock, especially here, when you have five of the greatest detectives in the world trying to out-detect one another. It’s good stuff, and it’s still relevant today. I was watching The Mentalist the other day — that fucking show; I just can’t fucking quit it — and couldn’t stop giggling to myself as Patrick Jane stares at a dead body for about six seconds and lists four things about the victim that none of the other cops could deduce in thirty minutes. I mean, that’s pretty much the whole point of the show — that and countless other stories like it — but it made me laugh after just having seen this film.)

7. Finally, some quotes. Like, a lot of quotes:

Sidney Wang: “And you, Mr. Charleston, did not approve of Mrs. Charleston dying her hair blonde?”
Mr. Charleston: “What do you mean?”
Sidney Wang: “Mrs. Charleston’s hair red. You have blonde hairs on shoulder. This means she has dyed red hair blonde, then back again to red, or else you have been . . . so sorry. Wang is wrong.”

Sam Diamond: “First they steal the body and leave the clothes. Then they take the clothes and bring the body back. Who would do a thing like that?”
Mr. Charleston: “Possibly some deranged dry cleaner.”

Sidney Wang: “What meaning of this, Mr. Twain?”
Lionel Twain: “I will tell you, Mr. Wang, if you can tell me why a man who possesses one of the most brilliant minds of this century can’t say prepositions or articles. What IS THE, Mr. Wang? What IS THE meaning of this?”

Milo Perrier: “What do you make of all this, Wang?”
Sidney Wang: “Is confusing.”
Lionel Twain (from behind moose head, where he’s watching them): “IT! IT is confusing! Say your godamn pronouns!”

Willie Wang: “Who do you think the murderer is?”
Sidney Wang: “Must sleep on it. Will know in morning when wake up.”
Willie Wang: “But what if you don’t wake up?”
Sidney Wang: “Then you did it.”

Dora Charleston: “What a godforsaken spot to get lost.”
Dick Charleston: “I’m sure I saw a much better spot a few miles back.”

Sidney Wang: “Very interesting theory, Mr. Charleston. However, leave out one important point.”
Dick Charleston: “What’s that?”
Sidney Wang: “Is stupid. Is stupidest theory I ever heard.”

Dick Charleston: “Just as I thought: another test that could have cost us our lives, saved only by the fact that I am enormously well-bred.”

Sam Diamond: “Look all over him.”
Dick Charleston: “All over his body?”
Sam Diamond: “Well, somebody’s gotta do it. I’m busy standing guard.”
Dick Charleston: “Why don’t I stand guard? You look all over the body.”
Sam Diamond: “All right, we’ll take turns. You look over the first dead, naked body we see, and I’ll look over the second.”

Dora Charleston: “I want you to know, Dickie, that if you’re the murderer, I’d still love you. I don’t think it would be right for us to make love, but I’d still love you.”

Dick Charleston: “They can kill instantly. I suggest we don’t move.”
Dora Charleston: “For how long?”
Dick Charleston: “Quite possibly for the rest of our lives.”

Dora Charleston: “I don’t understand. Why would anybody want to steal a dead, naked body?”
Dick Charleston: “Well, dear, there are people who, um . . . (whispers in her ear)
Dora Charleston: “Oh, that’s tacky. That’s really tacky.”

That’s all but the spoilers. For those of you who’ve seen this before, carry on.

SPOILERS

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First, a few more quotes that are somewhat spoiler-y.

Sam Diamond: “You say you know who’s going to get it?”
Lionel Twain: “Intimately.”
Milo Perrier: “And you know how the crime is to be committed?”
Lionel Twain: “Definitely.”
Sidney Twain: “And exactly what time murder is to take place?”
Lionel Twain: “The murder. Precisely.”
Dora Charleston: “Well, I know it’s none of my business, but doesn’t that mean you’re the murderer, Mr. Twain?”

Bensonmum: “Tell me, as the only survivor, how did you deduce it was me?”
Sidney Wang: “Went back to theory seldom used today: butler did it.”

So, Lionel Twain invites everyone there to solve a murder, only he ends up being the one murdered. It is quickly revealed that everyone has a secret motive for killing him, but they cannot (as of yet) deduce who actually did. So everyone goes to bed, only to be locked in their room with various death traps. (Poisonous scorpion, deadly gas, collapsing ceiling, etc.)

At first, it appears that only Sidney Wang and his adopted son, Willie, have survived. Wang confronts Bensonmum, who it turns out is neither dead nor blind. But wait! It turns out the others are alive too, each trickling in one by one (well, with their respective companions, so technically two by two) to explain how they each managed to escape from their various death traps. (My favorite? Dora Charleston actually didn’t escape without getting stung and wants to leave for the hospital now instead of bothering with the Big Reveal. Dick’s all like, hush now, darling; we have fifteen minutes, plenty of time. Hee.)

Each detective also explains why Bensonmum killed Twain, with each explanation progressively getting more and more ridiculous. Bensonmum is secretly Twain’s lawyer. No, he’s Twain’s accountant. No, he’s Twain’s daughter. Bensonmum plays along with all of these reveals as if each hypothesis is accurate — Alec Guinness channeling Irene Twain is terribly amusing.

But then Bensonmum/Ms. Twain/Whoever Else has a Big Reveal of his own. All of the detectives are wrong. In a precursor to Mission Impossible, Guinness rips off his face to reveal . . .

Truman Capote, that is, Lionel Twain!

Yes, Lionel Twain faked his own death. (How? Well, that’s not really discussed, but presumably he used a mannequin in place of his supposed dead body. That doesn’t really matter at this point, though, because nothing makes any kind of logical sense by the end of the movie. I only bring it up because the whole mannequin thing kind of bugged me while watching the film, but I may be warming up to it as an exaggerated example of how ludicrous some twists can be.)

But why did he do it? Well . . .

Lionel Twain: “You’ve tricked and fooled your readers for years. You’ve tortured us all with surprise endings that made no sense. You’ve introduced characters in the last five pages that were never in the book before. You’ve withheld clues and information that made it impossible for us to guess who did it. But now, the tables are turned. Millions of angry mystery readers are now getting their revenge. When the world learns I’ve outsmarted you, they’ll be selling your $1.95 books for twelve cents.”

And that? That just cracks me up.

The movie ends with everyone leaving the house and going back home. (In a deleted scene, Sherlock Holmes and John Watson apparently show up, late for their dinner invitation, and Wang decides not to warn them. I wish this had been in the actual movie, since Holmes and Watson are actually more famous than a lot of the other characters, and their exclusion from this story strikes me as odd.)

And then, back at the mansion, Twain takes off another face-mask to reveal . .  . Yetta, the deaf cook. (Who was, supposedly, just a mannequin herself.)

And that’s about the end.

CONCLUSIONS:

Funny and often clever, but some of the incessant gags seem to dumb down the humor and grow tedious long before they should.

MVP:

Maggie Smith, although Peter Sellers deserves a lot of credit for making the role as funny as he did, even though it still kind of bugs me he was cast at all.

TENTATIVE GRADE:

B

MORAL:

Write better mysteries, or someone will mock the hell out of you for it.

So, one day I’m playing around on IMDb — as I am wont to do — and I come across this movie called Unknown. Not the 2011 movie with Liam Neeson and January Jones, (I’d rather scrub toilets with someone’s dirty gym socks in my mouth than watch that), but a little movie in 2006 about these five guys who wake up in a locked warehouse with no memory of who they are or what the hell they’re doing there.

It’s definitely my kind of movie — especially with the attached cast — so I look it up on Netflix and suggest to Mek that we rent it.

Mek: “Wait . . . didn’t we already watch that, a long time ago?”

And I’m like, “. . . shit, I think maybe we did.”

I present Unknown . . . the movie about amnesia that I completely forgot.

SUMMARY:

Five guys wake up in a locked warehouse without their memories. Some are tied up, some are injured, and it’s up to all of them to solve the mystery of who they are and what happened to them. And they only have so long to figure it out and/or escape before some very ominous men are due to return.

NOTES:

1. Well, there’s a reason that I forgot this movie: it’s not particularly good. It’s not terrible — actually, it starts really well — but it loses steam about halfway through and never fully recovers. Which is sad because there’s all kinds of potential in this story. Honestly, I kind of want to rewrite it now to make it so much better. You really shouldn’t remake movies less than ten years after the original was filmed, I know, but hey, Spiderman did it. And, dammit, this could have been awesome!

Seriously, this kind of movie is kinda where I live. I like bottle episode stories, successful ones, anyway, and I especially like these stories if they’re also mysteries of some kind. (I want to call them Locked Room Mysteries, but technically, that’s something else. I can’t find an actual term for this, people trapped together in one location with some kind of mystery on their hands. Bottle Episode Mystery Movie? BEMMs? That’s what I’m calling it for now, until I can think of something better.)

And while Solitary Amnesia stories aren’t usually my thing, Group Amnesia stories are much more interesting . . . not that I can think of too many of them, outside of specific TV episodes. Anyway, I like group dynamics. I like people being thrown into a strange situation and having to work together to get out of it, especially if the strange situation comes hand in hand with violent consequences if they can’t do it properly. I’m sure I’ve written something like this before . . . it might have been in my review for Battle Royale.

Unfortunately, however, this Group Amnesia BEMM has some problems. For example . . .

2. . . . we reveal too much info about the main characters far too early in the film.

Is he a good guy, you say? What’s wrong with you? He’s JESUS! (Also Reese from Person of Interest. I never did actually watch The Passion of the Christ.)

The central mystery in the movie is this: who’s a good guy and who’s a bad guy? Unfortunately, we pretty much figure that out about halfway through the story, and once we do, the film almost immediately starts losing momentum. Admittedly, there are more twists and turns after this revelation, but most of those twists and turns are unnecessary and overcomplicated and take away from the beautiful simplicity of this plot. Why do people constantly overcomplicate their mysteries? Why? It makes me so sad.

3. Also — and somewhat related — I kind of want to cut anything from the story that doesn’t directly take place inside the warehouse. See, Unknown isn’t a true bottle episode movie, like Exam or Buried, where everything you see takes place in one location. It’s more like Devil, where half of the movie focuses on the characters inside the elevator and the other half focuses on the cops and security people watching the feed. In Devil, that mostly makes sense — yeah, I just managed to pay Devil a minor compliment. I’m shocked, too. But in Unknown, it doesn’t work quite as well.

The problem isn’t that the outside characters are terrible — I actually like a couple of the cops — but that they are almost completely incidental to the actual story. If I were to keep them for my imaginary remake, they’d need to do something that’s actually significant because, as is, they’re barely even effective for dramatic irony. I’d rather cut them entirely, though, and focus on the guys in the warehouse because that’s where the intrigue really is, anyway. If the movie had more time to actually flesh out these characters and their relationships and secrets, well, it’d probably be a much more suspenseful and tighter mystery.

4. And the characters in the warehouse do need to be fleshed out a bit because there are only five of them, and yet two are kind of left high and dry. I won’t say which ones until the Spoiler Section, but they don’t get nearly enough to do, and while that’s okay with a ten character mystery, with five . . . it’s kind of unacceptable.

5. On the other hand, this is a pretty good cast, and they do the best job they can with the material. Especially Barry Pepper, who probably has the shittiest dialogue overall to overcome. I mean, it’s actually not all shitty — some of it’s pretty good — but some of it is decidedly not subtle. You know, there are definitely a few Shut Up, Writers! moments here. Regardless, Pepper tries his damndest to work it, I think.

Congrats, Mr. Pepper. You have somewhat redeemed yourself for Battlefield Earth. SOMEWHAT.

6. As might be expected with a temporary amnesia story, there are flashbacks. Flashbacks are often overused in movies, but their presence in this story totally makes sense. However, in my imaginary remake, we’re going to seriously cut down on the amount of times someone has a flashback while desperately searching his reflection in the bathroom mirror.

Because, come on, guys. We only need one of these. Not like, you know, eight.

7. My imaginary remake will also have a different title because Unknown is far too generic and opens itself up way too easily for jokes. It’s a little like naming your kid Hashtag or Kal-El. Look, if you’re kid’s unpopular, they’re unpopular — giving them a semi-normal name won’t save them. Kids can be vicious little bastards, and they will find a way to hurt one another. But for God’s sake, you don’t have to make it that easy for them, do you? And think about it — do you really want to name them after a superhero? Aren’t you basically just setting them up for disappointment? Instead of “Why can’t you be more like your brother?” it will be, “Why can’t you be like the real Batman?”

Welcome to therapy, kids.

That’s about all I can give you without spoilers. For those who care not about spoilers, continue below . . .

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The movie begins with Jean Jacket (Jim Caviezel) waking up on the floor in the warehouse, trying to figure out what the hell’s happened to him. Broken Nose (Greg Kinnear) is lying on the ground, face first in a small pool of his own blood. Bound Man (Joe Pantoliano) is tied to a chair, while Handcuffed Man (Jeremy Sisto) has been shot and is dangling from a railing. Rancher Shirt (Barry Pepper) is unconscious and, for the moment, out of sight on one of the walkways above.

(And if you’re thinking I’m giving them arbitrary descriptive names because I can’t be bothered to look up their actual character names — well, you’re right, that’s the sort of thing I would totally do. However, these are their actual names on IMDb, which I love.)

There’s a phone in the warehouse, and Jean Jacket answers it, trying to figure out what’s going on without giving away any information because he’s picked up, fairly quickly, to the idea that he’s not in a good spot here, and either he’s trapped with some very bad people or he is a very bad person, and either way, telling the guy on the phone about the amnesia is probably a bad call. The guy on the other end doesn’t recognize his voice offhand but also doesn’t seem freaked out by talking to him, so Jean Jacket can’t tell if they know each other or not. (Not entirely unreasonably, Jean Jacket doesn’t tell the other guys about the phone call when they wake up, but Handcuffed Man overhears him and rats him out. Have to watch out for those tricksy handcuffed guys.)

Meanwhile, in Stupidly Obvious Plot Twist Land, Eliza Coles (Bridget Moynahan) is dropping off ransom money in a locker.

I do like, in these scenes, that they don’t have her wearing a ton of makeup or anything. You know, her husband’s been kidnapped. Maybe mascara isn’t the priority.

We soon figure out that her husband and his accountant are two of the guys in the warehouse, and the other three are their kidnappers. Which is all well and good as a setup, but we keep going back to Eliza throughout the movie, who’s not really doing anything but weeping in a corner or nervously talking to a cop. Which, of course, immediately tells me that she’s a bad guy because, seriously, why waste time on her if she’s just the Faithful Wife? It’s not like she has an actual personality. She adds nothing to the story. Really, her whole character is a bad idea, either way you slice it: if she wasn’t a bad guy, I’d be annoyed the film wasted all this time on her, but as a twist, she’s completely and utterly predictable.

(As a side note: once again, I figure out a plot twist because I think like a writer, while Mekaela figures out the same twist just by using simple logic. Eliza Coles puts the ransom money in a bottom locker, where it falls through a hole that’s been cut into it, all the way to the basement . . . and yet, somehow, she didn’t notice. Yeah, the locker had a false bottom, but it doesn’t seem like someone anyone came up for it . . . it just fell through. Wouldn’t you notice if you set a bag of money down on a seemingly solid surface and it just suddenly disappeared? What, did she squeeze her eyes shut and drop it in or something?)

The film would probably be stronger if Eliza was written out entirely. It would change things about the end, but the end is screwed anyway. (Don’t worry: we’ll get there.) And while that would make this a No-Women-At-All film . . . sometimes, that’s preferable to the All-Men-Plus-One-Female film. Mind you, I wouldn’t object to women being inside the warehouse, but that has to be handled carefully. The guys find out about the kidnapping through a Handy Dandy Newspaper Article, and most newspaper articles do use pronouns . . . which would unfortunately eliminate suspects. It’s probably best to make this an all-male or all-female cast.

But back to the warehouse: all the guys wake up, although Handcuffed Man dips in and out of consciousness, since he’s still bleeding out from his shoulder wound. The guys try to figure out who they can trust, why they’re here, etc, etc, and it’s all a lot of fun to watch. Rancher Shirt persuades the others to keep Bound Man tied up because he figures the guys who are free and the guys who are tied up are enemies, which is an incorrect but completely valid hypothesis. He’s also the one who destroys the phone because he’s not sure he wants the police there, which is great because he ends up being one of the good guys. (In fact, he’s Eliza’s husband.)

Unfortunately, once we know he’s a good guy, Rancher Shirt turns into kind of a moron. I mean, not entirely, and Pepper does the best he can to sell it, but . . . like, there’s this idea in the movie about instinctual trust, right, which is kind of interesting, except that it’s not developed very well and ultimately has Rancher Shirt coming to stupid ass, horribly naive conclusions. Like Rancher Shirt feels this sort of trust for Jean Jacket and figures that maybe it’s because part of his brain remembers that Jean Jacket’s a good guy. That’s not horrible, as far as hunches go, but it’s a little different when you have a) extremely good reasons to doubt Jean Jacket’s intentions toward you and b) fucking amnesia. Barry Pepper is kind of the mouthpiece for all the writer’s ideas, and that can be hard to work with.

It can also be hard to play the likable asshole — the one you’re kind of rooting for, even though he’s a manipulative, uncooperative sonofabitch. Thankfully, Greg Kinnear — as Broken Nose — does an awesome job with it.

Admittedly, in this picture, his nose doesn’t look all that broken.

Broken Nose is an ill-tempered little thing, prone to angry outbursts about naughty activities one might do with one’s mother, which is actually kind of awesome because he’s also one of the good guys: he’s Rancher Shirt’s accountant. He’s especially kind of awesome because — even when he’s totally making shit up — he gets everything right. He blames Jean Jacket for breaking his nose before he fully remembers it, and as a matter of fact, Jean Jacket did break Broken Nose’s nose. Then — when he remembers that he was one of the men kidnapped — Broken Nose immediately goes to Rancher Shirt and tells him that they were kidnapped together, throwing out all kinds of bullshit about Rancher Shirt’s supposed children, just so they can overpower the others. But even though he was making it up, Rancher Shirt is that guy. I think it’s hilarious.

I can’t say exactly what I love so much about Kinnear here, but I really do. It’s not a super complex role or anything, but he throws himself into it entirely. I like Greg Kinnear a lot. I wish he was in more things that I actually had interest in.

Really, all of the actors are better than the material they have to work with. Jeremy Sisto and Joe Pantoliano are kind of criminally underused. Admittedly, Sisto’s handcuffed to a railing the whole movie, and Pantoliano is tied up for most of the story too, but there are still ways to work that — they can play mind games, try to negotiate, whatever. Power plays can be a lot of fun to watch, but for some reason in this movie, they seem to be almost entirely reserved for the people who can actually walk around. Sisto and Pantoliano have the least to do throughout the film, and by the end, they aren’t very relevant to the actual plot themselves. Mr. Orange in Reservoir Dogs doesn’t do a whole lot for most of the movie, but he ends up being hugely important to the story. Sisto and Pantoliano, not so much.

Okay, so where were we . . . Sisto (or Handcuffed Man) eventually goes into this long monologue about how he and Jean Jacket were childhood friends, and Jean Jacket saved them from drowning in this storm and whatnot back in the day. As monologues go, it’s delivered well, but it goes on for a little too long. Broken Nose, awesomely, has this great sarcastic reaction to it: “Hey, that’s really touching and all. Completely useless, though.” But Saint Rancher Shirt is all like, listen to what he’s saying! It’s a speech about working together!

Really, though, it’s just a last bid sympathy speech because Handcuffed Man dies a few seconds later.

A few things about this:

A. Handcuffed Man dies because he bleeds out from his shoulder wound. This is the rare shoulder wound that isn’t just shrugged off, which is kind of nice. Although it wouldn’t have hurt to have shown somebody trying to apply some pressure to that wound. And a bigger pool of blood on the ground below him wouldn’t have been amiss. Also, where the hell are the keys to this guy’s handcuffs? Handcuffed Man is never freed because they can’t find the keys to the cuffs, but they’re his own cuffs. Shouldn’t the key be somewhere in this warehouse? Like, maybe in his jeans pocket?

B. Ultimately, this monologue is kind of a wasted moment. The speech is a We Need to Come Together moment, but it should also be a Big Reveal moment, and finding out that Jean Jacket and Handcuffed Man were childhood friends shouldn’t be the Big Reveal. That doesn’t tell us anything about who’s a good guy and who’s a bad guy because we already know that Rancher Shirt and Broken Nose are the good guys here. However, if we only knew that Broken Nose was a good guy . . . well, then finding out that Jean Jacket and Handcuffed Man already knew each other from childhood could lead us to realize that it’s unlikely that they had a accountant/client relationship, like the two victims. It’s certainly unlikely that only one of them was a kidnapper, which means that they both are. And so the search for good Mr. Coles comes that much closer to an end, between Rancher Shirt and Bound Man.

After Handcuffed Man dies, the others decide to work together and escape when the Bad Men come. Of course, when this happens, Bound Man remembers for sure that he’s a kidnapper, and he turns on the others. Unfortunately for him, he’s quickly killed for it.

Jean Jacket also considers turning on the group because maybe being a bad guy is just who he is, blah blah blah, but Saint Rancher Shirt — who has had that inexplicable bond with him — eventually talks him out of it. (The movie’s actually asking some interesting questions about identity here, the kind that really ought to be asked in an amnesia movie, but the writing just isn’t subtle enough to do them any justice.)

Jean Jacket supposedly shoots them, although we cut away so everyone knows that he’s really just shot into the air — seriously, why do we even do this anymore? It’s dumb. Then the bad guys come out to kill Jean Jacket because they’ve figured something out — Jean Jacket is, secretly, an undercover cop!

For fuck’s sake.

You know how I called this twist? Because it’s stupid. I was like, “Wow, wouldn’t it be lame if Jean Jacket — after angsting away about his previous identity as a criminal and true nature and all that jazz — wouldn’t it be so immensely lame if he were an undercover cop? I bet he is.” And sure enough, they did it: they made the most idiotic plot twist and . . . look, this shit is just unnecessary. Jean Jacket didn’t need to be secretly good all along. Why couldn’t it just be, hey, when I’m stripped of my baggage and memories and circumstances that led to me this place, I actually want to do the right thing — why can’t it just be that? That’s kind of a neat idea. You don’t see it a lot in movies. But oh no, he had to be an undercover cop — which really comes out of nowhere. The writers don’t bother to lay in any clues or foundations for it at all.

If he absolutely had to be an undercover cop, Jean Jacket should have realized it after he did something awful like, say, murder Broken Nose. You know, he should decide that he’s a bad guy and might as well own up to it, only to find out that he wasn’t a bad guy at all . . . but he is now. That’s better but still tricky . . . you have to write it just right to avoid being too muahahaha, Twilight Zone sucker punch . . . so it’s probably best if we just get rid of this BS undercover cop business altogether. Because seriously: you can’t introduce an undercover cop out of left field without being cheap. This is ridiculous . . . and it’s only going to get worse.

How does it get worse? Well, first, Broken Nose dies. Okay, that’s not seriously worse, but I like Kinnear, and they kill him by making him do the Move That Is Almost Guaranteed To Get You Dead. You know the one: it’s where you raise your weapon high over your head, so that whoever you’re fighting gets a good, clean shot at your exposed torso, and congratulations, now you’re toast. You see this all the time in movies, so much so that I ought to make it an actual list: it happens in The Patriot, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, countless others.

I wished better for you, Broken Nose. I wished better for you.

Anyway, the cops come rolling in and the bad guys are either killed or arrested, and it’s just our new BFF’s, Rancher Shirt and Jean Jacket, left standing. This is when Eliza Coles, comes into the picture, however. She and Jean Jacket stare at one another, and we flash back to . . .

Jean Jacket and Eliza meeting in a bar and starting an affair. Turns out, Jean Jacket isn’t so good after all — despite being an undercover cop, he orchestrated the whole thing, the plan, the robbery, etc. And . . . oh, aiya. This is just ridiculous. I hated that Jean Jacket was an undercover cop because it was such an unfounded twist that took away any semblance of character ambiguity, but this . . . this is just too much. It’s all, maybe Jean Jacket’s bad, but no wait, he seems good, no no, he’s definitely bad, but WAIT! He’s an undercover cop! Oh my god, he was good all along — no, no, he set the whole thing up! He’s evil! EEEEEVIL!

People, there is such a thing as too many twists in a mystery. Not enough twists and your story is boring, but too many and your story is ludicrous. Besides, Eliza Coles? She’s still a terrible character. God, I want to take apart this story so much. I want to strip it of all its extra fat and make it lean and yummy again.

The movie ends with Rancher Shirt cluelessly introducing his wife to Jean Jacket. Jean Jacket doesn’t turn her — or himself — in, but he does tell the cops where the money is, presumably because he feels guilty? Whatever. I’m done.

Best thing about this movie: Fusco and John from Person of Interest are together again! (Although, unfortunately, they share absolutely no scenes together. Boo, hiss.)

CONCLUSIONS:

Awesome set-up, interesting ideas, good acting . . . but the story ultimately falls on its face with too-early revelations and last-minute, shitty twists.

MVP:

Greg Kinnear

TENTATIVE GRADE: 

B-

MORAL:

Don’t conduct your nefarious criminal activities in warehouses that store poisonous, memory-wiping gas. I mean, does that really need to be said?

So, my parents? Not real strict about what kind of movies I could watch as a kid. And by “not real strict,” I mean I don’t think there actually were any rules, not of any kind. To be fair to them, though, there probably didn’t need to be. I didn’t like scary things as a child, so if I was frightened by whatever they were watching, I excused myself to go play with my dolls. And honestly, I’m still a tiny bit baffled by parents who absolutely forbid their children from watching any rated R film, no matter what the story is actually about.

Still. This is not the kind of movie most kids probably watch at eight or nine years old.

Because I’m not willing to post a picture of what they do while swimming in that pool.

Besides being wholly inappropriate, Color of Night is just a terrible, terrible movie. Like it won a Razzie for ‘Worst Picture of 1994′ terrible. But the film’s long been a joke between my sister and me because, really, who else has childhood nostalgia for a movie that shows Bruce Willis in all his, uh, resplendent glory? So we decided to rent it from Netflix.

Yeah. You’re welcome.

DISCLAIMER:

There will be SPOILERS here because please. You don’t actually want to watch this movie yourself, right?

SUMMARY:

Psychologist Bill (Bruce Willis) is left emotionally scarred — and colorblind — after a patient commits suicide in front of him. He takes some time to get his head together and visits his fellow shrink buddy, Bob (Scott Bakula). But when Bob is murdered, Bill takes over Bob’s Monday Night Therapy Group, suspecting that someone in the group is the murderer.

NOTES:

1. Man, there’s just so much to talk about in this movie. Let’s begin at the beginning with our soon-to-be-suicide, Michelle (Kathleen Wilhoite).

Michelle is not just crazy; she is cuh-razy. We know this because we see her crying, smearing lipstick all over her teeth, and giving oral pleasure to the barrel of a gun. Because yes. That’s necessary. That is certainly the best way to depict mental illness as quickly as possible.

She then goes to her appointment with Bruce Willis, where she promptly throws herself out the window. Since Bruce’s office is in New York and a bazillion stories high, well. She doesn’t make it. Bruce looks down and sees her body all smeared on the ground with blood everywhere. The trauma of this leaves him incapable of seeing the color red. Like, instantly.

1A. Okay, so the whole traumatic onset colorblindness? Yes, it’s totally silly, but to be honest, I kind of enjoy it, at least conceptually. I’m all about the weird and terrifying things your brain can do under stress, and if worked properly into the plot, I could totally have been into this colorblindness, and ridiculousness be damned. But you know, the plot . . . the plot is not this film’s strong suit because this film has absolutely no strong suits of any kind. Some neat ideas, maybe. Execution, nooooooo.

1B. Still, perhaps Bruce Willis shouldn’t immediately lose the ability to see red. Cause, yeah. That shot is pretty bad. Maybe in a remake — that would never happen in a million years — he should go to bed, wake up, and eventually realize that, huh, something’s not quite right here.

1C. Also, Michelle should probably shoot herself instead of jumping out the window. For one thing, Bruce Willis repeatedly says throughout the film that he doesn’t like guns, as if there’s some specific trauma associated with them. (Even though there’s not.) For another, I’m pretty sure my various creative writing classes taught me this rule . . . I can’t remember exactly how it goes, but it’s something like this:

If a woman gives a blow job to the barrel of a gun in the first act, it should go off sometime in the second or third. Pun intended.

Not to mention, Bruce’s office is stupidly high up in this building. Mind you, it always makes me a little sad whenever Bruce Willis enters a tall building, but more importantly, this is his initial view of the body from the eightieth story, or whatever:

Of course, the camera then zooms in so you can see this:

But the problem is, our eyes? They don’t come with a fucking zoom function. So Bruce’s whole, “It was the reddest blood I ever saw,” and associating trauma? It makes no godamned sense!

2. After Michelle jumps to her death, Bruce goes to talk to some psychologist friend of his. This guy’s only around for exposition, though, and it’s not even exposition we really need, so we’ll skip him to talk about Bruce’s more plot relevant and other psychologist friend, Bob.

I watched Quantum Leap a lot as a kid, so frankly, I’m surprised Little Carlie made it through the whole movie and didn’t beat a hasty Barbie Retreat after Bob’s death scene. But that’s for later. (Oh, we’ll get back to that death scene. Boy, will we.)

Bob and Bruce — I just can’t make myself call him Bill — are vaguely dickish to one another because competition is the basis of their friendship, or something. Bob probably wins the dick-off because he basically forces Bruce into participating in a therapy session with his Monday Night Group.

3. We should probably talk about the various members of the Monday Night Group.

Clark (Brad Douriff)

Clark has OCD and also rage issues. There isn’t really a lot to say about him, but he’s kind of enjoyable, not because he’s a particularly great guy (he’s not), but because he’s played by Brad Douriff, who I very much like and has made a career out of playing strange, quirky, crazy, and/or villainous side characters. I would happily keep Brad Douriff around for my imaginary remake.

Casey (Kevin J. O’Connor)

Actually, I kind of like Kevin J. O’Connor too — I like most of these actors, considering how bad this film is. Casey is the tortured artist who burned down his father’s house and has a sadomasochistic lifestyle . . . cause you know. That S&M be crazy. (Considering this movie was made in 1994, it’s no big surprise that there are a few highly unfortunate choices about what’s considered crazy. Like Richie’s supposed gender identity disorder, for instance . . . but oh, let’s hold off on the myriad of problems that is Richie.)

Anyway, Casey has one or two emotional outbursts that are kind of laughable, but I sort of enjoy his snark. It wouldn’t be much of a therapy group without at least one snarky patient, right? (I’m keeping that in mind  in case I ever end up attending some kind of group therapy, although I suspect I would be exceedingly bad at such a thing, considering my likeliest cause for entering said therapy would be social anxiety.)

Buck (Lance Henriksen)

It’s funny just how different Lance Henriksen looks to me in this movie, even though his physical appearance isn’t really all that changed. Anyway, Buck is a cop whose wife and child were killed in an unsolved shooting. That’s important — well, not really — but we’ll get back to that later.

Honestly, Lance Henriksen doesn’t have a whole lot to do — most of the supporting cast is left out in the cold — but I like his whole gruff, angry persona anyway. I should watch more movies with Mr. Henriksen. I mean, how have I not seen Pumpkinhead yet? That sounds like the kind of movie I need to see.

Sondra (Lesley Ann Warren)

Of course, the one woman in the entire group is a nymphomaniac. (She’s also, apparently, a kleptomaniac. It’s brought up, like, once.) Sondra is, well, not good. Lesley Ann Warren plays her in this bizarre, giggly, almost silly sort of way — I guess to remind us that she’s on the verge of orgasm, like, all the time? It seems like the performance that the director probably wanted, but . . . yeah. It’s not great.

Richie (Jane March)

Oh, Richie.

Richie has some rage issues and drug issues and, most importantly, wants to be a woman. The thing is, though, that Richie already is a woman, not just because he perceives himself as female, and I should be referring him to as ‘she’ and ‘her’ — but because Richie isn’t actually Ritchie. You see, it turns out that Richie is already dead, and the person we think is Richie is actually Rose. Rose is a girl who gets into a fender bender with Bruce and pretty promptly starts screwing him. Rose is also Richie’s sister.

Why, you might ask, is Rose pretending to be Richie? Well. Richie killed himself because he was being molested by his old therapist (not Bob), the same therapist, in fact, who molested Richie and Rose’s older brother, Dale. Dale snapped after Richie died and forced Rose to start wearing her dead brother’s clothes. He started calling her Richie until she snapped and started believing she was Richie. But Richie isn’t her only personality because, oh yes, she has three. She is Richie and Rose and also Bonnie — which doesn’t at all fit with the ‘R’ names but fuck it, right? Anyway, Bonnie is the secret girlfriend to everyone in the Monday Night Group. Seriously, she is having sex with all of them. Well, except Buck because Buck favors an old-fashioned kind of girl who wants to wait until she’s married to have sex . . . so Buck and Bonnie are just courting, or whatever. Oh, and technically Bonnie isn’t banging Bruce Willis, I suppose. See, he gets Rose’s true personality because their never ending sex scene love is more pure, or something.

Honestly, there’s so much wrong with everything I just wrote . . . I don’t even know where to begin. Well, that’s not true. Let’s begin with the fact that it’s stupidly obvious that Jane March is playing Richie, Rose, and Bonnie.

Honestly, maybe I wouldn’t have picked up Richie right away — it’s hard to say. I mean, I knew going in that Richie was also Rose — even after twenty years, I still remembered that particular convoluted nightmare twist. But I don’t remember getting a super good look at Richie’s face when we first meet him, and I might have chalked up the weird voice to bad acting or something.

But this is the thing — Jane March? She has a very distinct mouth. Her teeth are rather large, and she has a pretty big overbite, which, hey. I get it. I’ve got an overbite, too, and I’m not all eager to go out and pay a bazillion dollars to fix it. Your acting career shouldn’t be judged on the size or straightness of your teeth — but it also means that adding a wig, an accent, and some terrible pancake makeup just isn’t going to cut it if you want me to believe Rose and Bonnie are different women. (On the positive side, Bonnie’s British accent is real, and I’ll give Jane March this much: it took me a bit to catch that her American was wrong. Though maybe I was just distracted by all the crazy.)

Honestly, I knew Bonnie was Rose almost the second I saw her, and once I saw that, it was easy to see the same actress was playing Richie too. And for Christ’s sake, I’m not even that good with faces. If we’re going to keep this twist around, we’d probably need to cast an unknown with no terribly distinct facial features as R/R/B. Richie would have to wear a much better disguise. And it’s probably for the best if we just don’t see Bonnie at all.

On the other hand, maybe it’s better if we just scrap the whole Richie/Rose/Bonnie thing entirely and come up with a whole new reason for Bob’s murder. Cause Mek and I have been talking about how you would go about fixing it, and . . . honestly, I don’t know if I can. If I was going to try?

Well, first, I’d probably get rid of the MPD/DID diagnosis entirely. Dale would still force Rose to dress up as her dead brother, but she wouldn’t believe she actually was Richie. See, there’s this line in the movie about how Rose can supposedly become anyone her partner needs her to be — which is a kind of interesting idea that’s, unfortunately, never fully explored. I think I need Rose to have some reason to make all these personal connections with the group. She would try to be the person that each of them needs, but their relationships shouldn’t all (or even mostly) be sexual in nature. For instance, she could be a daughter surrogate for Buck, as he’s lost his child, etc.

Still, the whole thing is so convoluted and ridiculous, it might be better to just get rid of it entirely.

4. But I’ve jumped far, far ahead of the plot. Okay. Shortly after Bruce meets the Monday Night Group, Bob is murdered in his office. His death scene is . . . horrible. Really, I’m not sure I can convey just how bad this scene is. Scott Bakula, who I generally enjoy well enough, overacts like whoa, and that’s not helped by the fact that he’s stabbed a bazillion times in slow motion until he finally busts through a glass pane window and is impaled on the shards. (Actually, we only see him get stabbed maybe six or eight times, I think, but Bruce Willis later tells us that he was stabbed, like, thirty-something times. Because restraint is clearly not this film’s strong suit.) Anyway, it’s one of the most laughable scenes in the whole film, which is really saying something. I don’t know if I’ve giggled quite this hard since Kurt Russell’s, “NOOOOOOOOOOO!” in Tombstone. 

5. We then meet the most holy shit unsympathetic cop on the face of the planet.

This is Martinez, and seriously, there is no way this man would have a job working in law enforcement or possibly of any kind. He continually insults Bruce Willis and completely makes fun of his dead friend, but then . . . strikes up a partnership with Bruce? It’s just . . . it’s mind-boggling.

See, Bob was getting these death threats, and he suspected someone in the Monday Night Group was sending them. He, of course, doesn’t tell Bruce Willis this before he drags his friend to meet everyone because . . . he’s an asshole? I don’t know. Bruce supposedly has some super special radar for diagnosing people and picking up on secret shit, but Michelle’s swan dive out of the window broke that radar, so Bruce can’t help Bob. He does tell Martinez about the threats, though, and Martinez decides that Bruce should break the news to the group, then take over the group, and see if he can figure out who killed his friend.

Martinez’s motivations never seem entirely clear to me. His general hostility would seem to indicate that he suspects Bruce of the murder, but his actions don’t really line up with that idea. If he truly wants Bruce to be his inside man, well, he goes about it in a spectacularly terrible fashion. I mean, really. If you want someone on your side, it’s probably best if you don’t crack wise about their recently murdered friend, even if said friend was a bit of an asshole. I just can’t imagine Bruce would actually team up with this guy, like, ever.

What might make sense in a remake: Martinez can’t investigate the case because he has a conflict-of-interest. (Which he, in fact, does. He and Buck used to be partners in Vice. Also, he slept with Buck’s wife shortly before she was killed.) So Martinez enlists Bruce’s help in investigating the group on the DL. And he doesn’t act like a total jackass while doing it because honestly. There’s a guy who’s got a job to do and has little time for feelings, and then there’s a guy who acts more like a coked-up asshole than a cop.

6. Of course, it should also be said that Bruce doesn’t seem to really care very much about Bob’s death. I mean, I’d say for a scene he’s pretty broken up about it. After that, well, you know. He has Rose’s constantly naked body to comfort him. Honestly, Bruce seems way more upset about Michelle’s death than about the brutal murder of a friend he’s had for at least ten years. Again, I know Bob was an asshole, but come on. Living in his house, having sex in his bed, driving his car, and taking over his Monday Night Group without a single tear shed does seem a little callous. Sure, Bill’s from out of town and all, but would you really make yourself cozy in the empty home of your murdered friend? That seems . . . decidedly weird to me.

7. You know what else seems weird? Continuing to have your therapy sessions in the same place where your last therapist was brutally murdered. I don’t understand why no one raises their hand and says, “Wait, Bob was killed, like, right HERE? Dude. Can we just move this down to the park or something? Or a church or a food court or pretty much anywhere else?”

8. My personal experience with therapy is, admittedly, pretty limited, but it seems to me that a group of people with such varied illnesses and disorders wouldn’t necessarily benefit from a joint session like this. Like I could see if they were all committed to an institution of some kind, but since that’s not the case . . . wouldn’t you try to find a group that would address your specific problems? I’ve seen meetings for addicts, classes for anger management, support groups for people who suffer from OCD, but rarely have I seen a flier or advertisement with the header “Casserole of Crazy.”

That being said, this isn’t actually a serious problem I have with the film. Like, I can address that it seems silly and then just move on because, hey. It’s important to the plot, and maybe there are more generic mental illness support groups than I’m aware of.

I refuse to believe, however, that any therapist, even amateur detective therapists, would go alone to each of his clients’ houses to investigate . . . and that the clients themselves would be okay with this.

Uh, what exactly are you doing here, buddy?

If your detective in a story is a therapist, and all his suspects are clients, then the majority of the investigation should probably take place in the actual therapy sessions. The tension of the film should come from these group discussions — suspicions should arise, secrets should be revealed, words should be coded with double or triple meanings. Always, always the audience should be aware that Bruce Willis is sitting right next to a homicidal maniac. (Even if he’s actually not.)

I’m not saying that kind of thing is easy — your writing and acting have to be sharp as hell — but that would have made for an interesting story. I know I sound crazy, but I swear there’s potential in this movie . . .

9. . . . if only it wasn’t so interested in Jane March’s tits.

Color of Night is a so-called “erotic thriller” — less emphasis on the thrilling, obviously, and more focus on the supposedly steamy sex scenes. And admittedly, I’m usually pretty bored by sex scenes myself — that’s been well documented on this blog. But these sex scenes really are pretty awful. For starters, I see far more of Bruce Willis than I ever wanted to. (Not to mention, poor Jane March probably spends half of that movie without clothes on.) But also the sex scenes just . . . keep . . . going. One in particular ran so long that Mek and I actually started fast-forwarding until we got back to plot advancement.

Jesus. It’s like reading Laurell K. Hamilton’s books all over again.

10. And here’s the thing about this film — it doesn’t know what the hell kind of movie it wants to be. Well, erotic. Yes. It wants to be that, although it really lands somewhere just shy of bad porn. But for a while there’s kind of a whole neo-noir thing that I find sort of intriguing, or would, if there was even a small measure of consistency to it. But Rose, see, she rear-ends Bruce Willis, right? (Not a euphemism.) And he gives her Dead Bob’s home address for insurance reasons, which is — well, stupid. Anyway, she comes over, and out of nowhere he starts talking like a private eye in a really terrible hardboiled detective novel. (“There she is like an angel dancing on the head of a pin.” Ugh.)

Anyway, it could be kind of neat, given better dialogue, but we’re nearly fifty minutes into the movie at this point, and this is the first time Bruce has made a reference to noir of any kind. He also only does this whenever he sees Rose, and it doesn’t really go anywhere, so it just doesn’t quite fit. (Imaginary remake: Bruce is watching a detective movie or reading a detective book right before his appointment with Michelle, and for the rest of the movie it’s a consistent character quirk of his. Martinez can even catch him doing it once and appropriately rib him for it.)

Okay, so then Rose and Bruce go on this date, right?

This is the moment I mentioned earlier, where Bruce makes a special point to say that Rose can become anybody she wants to be. It’s awkward dialogue that comes out of nowhere (and is clearly only around to exist as terrible foreshadow), but it also works to help paint Rose as this kind of femme fatale, which interests me a lot more than this MPD sufferer who’s — knowingly or unknowingly — sleeping with everyone in the group. (She knows what she’s done at the end of the film, but it’s still unclear to me if she’s supposed to be aware of what and who her personalities are doing during the film.)

And it certainly doesn’t help that for a woman who supposedly has three distinct personalities, Rose doesn’t really have personality. It’s hard to say why everyone falls in love with her, other than her willingness to cook in an apron and nothing else.

For Christ’s sake, woman. There’s a murderer on the loose. I don’t care if it’s your brother. Put on some godamned pants.

11. It occurs to me that I haven’t directly said this before, but yes, Dale is the real killer here. And he doesn’t just kill Bob. He also kills our tortured artist, Casey.

See, Casey reveals in group that he has paintings of his muse-girlfriend’s face. (This is before we know about the whole Rose/Bonnie thing.) Rose apparently tells her older brother this because Dale kills Casey in his studio. (What’s weird is that Casey seems to recognize his killer, so I’m not sure if the two somehow knew each other, or if Dale brought Rose along with him.)

Shortly before Casey dies, though, he calls Bruce because of . . . reasons. Anyway, Bruce shows up, looking for Casey, and walks through some paint. It’s not until he finds Casey’s body does he realize that it’s not paint he’s walking through. And you know what? I think this could have been a cool scene. I honestly do. I think it’s creative, and I think if it had been shot well, it could have been uber creepy.

Unfortunately, the blood in this movie looks like . . . well, paint.

And all my giggling that followed kind of took something from the creepy factor.

12. Other than this scene, the colorblindness rarely factors into the actual plot of the movie, which is clearly a mistake. The only other time it really ever comes into play is this highway chase scene where Dale calls Bruce and sing-songs that Bruce can’t see him because he’s in the red car! The voice disguiser Dale uses also sounds like a demented child, which only makes the line funnier. Also, this line: “Suck my tinker toy!”

Wow. Just wow.

13. Bruce finds out that Rose is Bonnie long before he figures out that Rose is also Richie. At this point, his brain is telling him that Rose is the bad guy, but his heart is telling him that Rose isn’t a killer. (Magic radar, my foot. It’s totally his heart. Heart knowledge!) With this in mind, Bruce goes to nicer cop Anderson (Eriq LaSalle) and gives him Rose’s license plate number, implying that he wants her address so he can ask her out or something. Anderson agrees, which utterly horrified me at first. I was like, Seriously? SERIOUSLY? You’re just going to abuse your police resources and give this near stranger a girl’s HOME ADDRESS?

But it turns out that Anderson is the smartest person in the whole movie, despite having less than five minutes of screen time. He figures that Bruce is tracking down a lead on the case and gives the info to Martinez. Admittedly, this is partially to appease Martinez, since he’s pissed at Anderson, but whatever. It still makes him good at his job, which is frankly more than I can say about anyone else in this movie.

14. Like Martinez, who takes his eyes off the crazy homicidal maniac with the nail gun pointed at him. Martinez clearly deserves to die for this. Luckily for him, he just gets nailed to a wall or something, so that he can be no help of any kind during the big finale.

15. The big finale, by the way, sucks monkeyballs.

Bruce “reveals” that Ritchie is actually Rose. Dale reveals himself as the bad guy. Martinez is an idiot. A very short fight scene occurs. Dale is about to kill Bruce, but Rose kills him first. This, actually, is okay . . . until Rose runs to the top of the building and prepares to throw herself off. Bruce talks her out of it, but before she can step away, a fucking breeze knocks Rose backwards and Bruce has to swing onto something and save her because he’s the hero and he has to do something useful. And because he saved Rose the way he couldn’t save Michelle, his sense of color is immediately returned to him.

Good Lord.

16. Finally, allow me to blow your mind for a minute. Color of Night was actually nominated for a Golden Globe.

Oh yeah. It happened. For “The Color of Night” — best original song.

Oh my god, you guys. I understand if you don’t want to subject yourself to this whole movie, and in fact I support that decision, but you have to watch this video. You just have to. At least to the part where Scott Bakula bites it because, wow. I just started giggling until tears were in my eyes all over again.

This is just . . . this is a terrible song. Brandon, should you read this — I know you and I have come to the realization that we have wildly different tastes in music, at least when it comes to film scores, but please tell me you don’t approve of this song. Please, or I’m afraid we may have to come to fisticuffs at the next Dragon Con.

CONCLUSIONS:

So bad. So, so bad.

MVP:

Brad Douriff

TENTATIVE GRADE:

D

MORAL:

Um. Completely taking over your dead friend’s life is totally the way to get over his death?

I finally got around to seeing Seven Psychopaths the other day.

It’s . . . well, it’s certainly interesting.

SUMMARY:

Marty (Colin Farrell), a screenwriter struggling with writer’s block (and alcoholism), gets mixed up with serial killers, the mafia, and any number of other psychopaths when his buddy, Billy (Sam Rockwell), kidnaps a gangster’s beloved Shih Tzu.

NOTES:

1. It’s kind of hard to talk about Seven Psychopaths without spoilers, so I’m figuring this section of the review isn’t going to be very long. But even with spoilers, my review might be a little . . . muddled . . . because I haven’t entirely decided how I feel about this movie yet. It kind of rambles (not unlike myself), sometimes on course, other times shapeless. In a lot of ways, Seven Psychopaths feels like director/writer Martin McDonagh is engaging in a dialogue with himself. And while some of that makes for surprisingly interesting material — assuming you’re cool with a shitload of meta humor — it definitely leaves the story a bit on the messy side.

2. It’s interesting, too: maybe halfway through the film, I was thinking to myself, Okay, this is kind of fun, but man, I wish there were better female characters in this story. And then, not TWO MINUTES LATER, Christopher Walken is calling out Colin Farrell for writing crappy, poorly considered women – which, if this isn’t clear, isn’t McDonagh being obtuse. He’s obviously aware of the problem in his own script, and he’s actually talking about it. This scene — coupled with a related one later on where Billy is acting out how he thinks Marty’s movie should end — made me laugh my ass off.

Still. I kind of wish a strong female character had actually emerged by the end of the movie. It would have been nice to see. Not to mention, I think Marty’s girlfriend, Kaya (Abbie Cornish), feel a little out of balance with the rest of the story. I was kind of hoping something else would happen with her by the end.

3. Acting-wise, this movie is pretty solid. Colin Farrell is playing the straight man here, so he doesn’t have as much opportunity to shine despite being the protagonist. Still, he has a few line deliveries and reactions I really like. Christopher Walken is his usual, enjoyable self; see, also, Woody Harrelson. And though she’s not a huge part, I do enjoy Linda Bright Clay as Myra, Christopher Walken’s wife. There’s one scene with her and Woody Harrelson that she’s particularly good in.

Sam Rockwell, though, is probably the standout here.

I don’t know if this role is so far out of his wheelhouse — Rockwell plays a lot of weird characters — but he gives the performance his all. He has massive amounts of energy in each scene, and if he’s on camera, you’re pretty much always drawn to him.

4. There are also a ton of pretty awesome actors in small-parts and cameos. I kept going like, Wait, I know this guy. Hey, I know this guy too. Some people you might recognize: Michael Pitt, Tom Waits, Zeljko Ivanek, Harry Dean Stanton, Kevin Corrigan, Gabourey Sidibe, and — apparently — Crispin Glover. (He’s such a tiny cameo that I didn’t actually notice him. But I guess he’s in there.)

5. The script may be all over the place, but the dialogue is hilarious. The Quotes Section might actually be longer than the review itself. (Well, okay, probably not. But there are some pretty funny conversations in here.)

And . . . well, I guess that’s all I can say without spoilers. So . . . let’s just get to those, shall we?

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

I can’t recap this whole movie. I just can’t. There’s way too much weird meta shit that I don’t have the slightest interest in trying to explain for the people who haven’t seen the movie but are reading the Spoiler Section anyway. (You HEATHENS.) This is a more or less accurate plot synopsis, if you’re interested, although it leaves out certain things, like, for example, the ‘Avenging Vietnamese Priest/Sacrificial Buddhist Monk’ Psychopath.

So, back to my thoughts about how this movie feels (to me, anyway) like Martin McDonagh struggling with both what he wants to write about and how he looks at stories now versus how he might have looked at them when he was younger.

First, we have Marty talking a lot about how he doesn’t just want to write violent stories anymore. Even though he’s writing a screenplay called Seven Psychopaths, he wants there to be some kind of message about peace or transcendence or something by the end. Billy, who is a psychopath, is having none of this — he wants both Marty’s movie and his own life to end in the most overtop, balls-to-the-wall violence. Basically, he wants every action movie cliche ever to come to pass.

Billy’s vision of how the movie should end includes:

A. A flamethrower

B. A surprise crossbow

C. Marty’s (now ex) girlfriend (who’s wearing a white T-shirt with no bra in the middle of a rainstorm) running out cluelessly into the middle of the gunfight, only to get shot all to hell before Marty can get to her. (But the rabbit escapes because, as we all know, killing women in movies is inconsequential, but killing an animal? UNACCEPTABLE. In related news, I think I started crying, I was laughing so hard.)

D. Almost every good psychopath dying, with the only woman psychopath (and also only black psychopath) dying first.

E. Billy/Jack of Spades briefly and miraculously coming back from the dead to shoot Charlie (Woody Harrelson) before he can kill Marty and Hans (Christopher Walken).

Billy and Marty also have this discussion (slightly earlier) while talking about Marty’s film:

Billy: “That’s a great fucking psychopath, Marty.”
Marty: “Yeah, but it’s not what I wanna really be writing about anymore.”
Billy: “Hey, new idea. How about we change the title from Seven Psychopaths to The Seven Lesbians Who Are All Disabled and Have Overcome All Their Spazzy Shit and Are Really Nice to Everybody and Two of Them Are Black. How about that?”

There’s a lot of talking in the SF/F community right now (well, it’s probably been going on for a really long time, but it feels like right now) about how we need more minority characters, more disabled characters, more gay characters, etc., which is something I happen to agree with. Of course, then the argument usually gets ugly with people complaining that fiction is getting too PC, and this is all a liberal agenda, and so on and so forth. The outright crazy racists are easy for me to ignore, but I do understand where some people are coming from when they feel uncomfortable about writing from the POV of non-white, non-hetero characters. They might, for example, feel like it’s awkward and/or manipulative to make a character black when they initially pictured everyone as default white, or maybe they’re just worried about getting shit wrong and being called out as a racist asshole.

I totally get that because I’ve felt that way myself (still do sometimes, actually, let’s not pretend I’m some kind of enlightened being who isn’t still working through her own shit all of the time), but I also know that just cowering to those fears and only writing about straight, white, cisgender, middle-class monotheists is kind of bullshit because there are so many different kinds of people in the world, and they all deserve to be represented as actual characters, not just, like, the third extra henchmen in a warehouse or something. I mean, I’m still looking for better female representation in fiction, and women only compromise something around, what, 50% of the world’s population? (I didn’t look up an actual stat. If the actual percentage is less than 3% off in either direction, I don’t even want to hear about it.)

Which is all a very long way of saying that the dialogue above reminds me of a writer arguing with himself over the pressure he feels about writing for different kinds of characters. And I’m not sure he ever comes to any answers, exactly, but it’s interesting to see someone in movies talking about it. And if McDonagh always did land on the “Wah, I’m only going to write about straight white male psychopaths, and you can’t stop me!”side, well, I’d probably be annoyed.

But we also get this scene, which I alluded to before in the Non-Spoiler Section:

Hans: “Marty, I’ve been reading your movie. Your women characters are awful! None of them have anything to say for themselves. And most of them get either shot or stabbed to death within five minutes. And the ones that don’t probably will later on.”
Marty: “Well . . . it’s a hard world for women. I guess that’s what I’m trying to say.”
Hans: “Yeah, it’s a hard world for women, but most of the ones I know can string a sentence together.”

I about died. I could have hugged Hans right then.

Of course, I don’t really know what McDonagh was thinking when he wrote this. I haven’t met the guy. Maybe this movie was about something else entirely to him — but to me, it feels like an exploration of these issues. The film definitely starts one place and ends somewhere else entirely, which, I don’t know. I think there’s something kind of cool about that. But I also tend to favor stories that are more neatly structured, and at times, I do feel like this movie is a lot more chaotic and sloppy than it needs to be. It could be the kind of movie that grows on me with repeat viewings, though. I’ll guess I’ll figure that out if/when I eventually watch it again.

The movie ends with basically everyone dead except Marty and Charlie. Charlie goes to jail. Marty lives, takes ownership of Bonnie the Shih Tzu, and gets past his writing block. Then, in an in-credits scene that totally works for me, Tom Waits and his pet bunny threaten to kill Marty (on Tuesday), since Marty totally forgot to write-in an important message he promised on his life to write. (Maybe Moral of the Story? Don’t promise on your life to do anything.)

Marty’s like, “That’s fair,” cause you know. He’s not really doing anything on Tuesday. And Tom Waits is like, “Man, you’ve changed, and maybe Tuesday doesn’t work for me so well after all.”

And then the movie’s really over.

QUOTES:

Paulo: “Put your hands up.”
Hans: “No.”
Paulo: “What?”
Hans: “I said no.”
Paulo: “Why not?”
Hans: “Because I don’t want to.”
Paulo: “But I’ve got a gun.”
Hans: “I don’t care.
Paulo: “That doesn’t make any sense!”
Hans: “Too bad.”

Zachariah: “You think I’m not serious just because I carry a rabbit?”

Hans: “An eye for an eye leaves the whole blind. I believe that whole-heartedly.”
Billy: “No, it doesn’t! There’ll be one guy left with one eye. How’s the last blind guy gonna take out the eye of the last guy left, who’s got one eye? All that guy has to do is run away and hide behind a bush. Gandhi was wrong; it’s just that nobody’s got the balls to come right out and say it.”

Billy: “Okay, you seem normal.”

Marty: “That’s just fucking great! Oh, great! Do you know what that is? Do you know what that is?”
Hans: “Great.”
Marty: “That’s just fucking GREAT!”

Billy: “Five . . . four . . . three . . . two . . .”
Charlie: “Wait. Please go back to five, please.”
Billy: “I’m not going back to five, man! I’m not going back to five! (beat) Five . . .”

Tommy: “You ever shoot a guy in the eyeball?”
Larry: “I stabbed a guy in the ear once. Ice pick, right in his fucking ear.”
Tommy: “You see, that’d be a different subject. That’d be ears.”

Charlie: “You should’ve brought that gun along.”
Marty: “I don’t believe in them.”
Charlie: “In guns? You don’t believe in guns? They ain’t fucking leprechauns.”

Hans: “Yeah, you might wanna stop drinking, Martin, if this is how you’re gonna behave.”
Marty: “If this is the way I’m gonna . . . this guy just telephoned a psycho killer to come down and psycho kill us. And this guy’s doubting a lifelong belief in the afterlife because of a psychedelic cactus he just ate. And you motherfuckers are telling me how to behave?”

Marty: “Yeah, I’m sick of all these stereotypical Hollywood murder scumbag type psychopath movies. I don’t want it to be one more film about guys with guns in their hands. I want it . . . overall . . . to be about love . . . and peace. But it still has to be about these seven psychopaths, so this Buddhist psychopath, he . . . he doesn’t believe in violence. I don’t know what the fuck he’s going to do in the movie.”

Marty: “Friends don’t make their friends die, Hans.”
Hans: “Psychopathic friends do. You’re the one who thought psychopaths were so interesting, but they’re kinda tiresome after awhile, don’t you think?”

Zachariah: “I’m going to be over to kill you on Tuesday.”
Marty: “That’s good. I’m not doing anything Tuesday.”

CONCLUSIONS:

Funny, interesting, a little sloppy. It seems like the kind of movie that appeals to writers. I don’t know how non-writers would feel about it. (Though I’m sure someone will tell me.)

MVP:

Sam Rockwell

SUPER TENTATIVE GRADE:

B+

MORAL:

Um. Kidnapping dogs and bringing them back to their grateful owners for reward money is a really terrible way to make money and will probably get you and your family killed, you fucking assholes? (Also, seriously. Don’t promise anything on your life.)

So, I’ve wanted to see Snowpiercer for, shit, two or three years now? I can’t remember exactly when I first heard about it, but it’s been a long time coming, I can tell you that. So over the weekend, Mekaela and I finally watched it.

Parts of it are great, really great. But, unfortunately, I wanted to like this one a lot more than I actually did.

SUMMARY:

An attempt to cure global warning goes spectacularly wrong, and the Earth suffers another Ice Age. What’s left of humanity now lives on a train perpetually traveling around the world, with the atrociously poor people in the back and the ludicrously rich people at the front. Curtis (Chris Evans) leads the atrociously poor people in revolt.

NOTES:

1. I want this to be stated upfront: I can take a ridiculous premise. Ridiculous premises, by and large, don’t particularly bother me. I’m sure there are exceptions to that rule, that there are movies where I glance at the setup, and I’m like, Nope. Even I can’t buy that utter bullshit. What’s the point of even watching this movie because that whole premise right there? Fucking lunacy. On the whole, however, I feel like I can deal with any basic plot that’s given to me upfront. I might struggle with believability as the plot continues unfolding into utter madness, but the setup? No issue.

I’m mentioning this because some of the negative reviews I’ve seen about this film — the most scathing of which came from a friend of mine, who’s a very sweet guy and also basically my Cinema Nemesis — have complained about the absurdity of Snowpiercer’s premise. I’d like to make it clear that my problems with this film have absolutely nothing to do with that. The last of humanity is struggling with class warfare on a train ride through Ice Age #2? Sure, whatever. Give me some Milkduds, and let’s go.

MY problems with Snowpiercer almost all emerge in the third act, which means I can’t tell you shit about them until the Spoiler Section. Dammit.

2. It’s not all bad, though. There’s actually quite a bit to like in Snowpiercer. The acting, for instance, is all around top notch.

We have quite the cast here: Chris Evans, Tilda Swinton, Kang-ho Song, Jamie Bell, John Hurt, Octavia Spencer, Ewen Bremner, Alison Pill, and Ed Harris. They’re all tremendously talented actors, but special props have to be given to Evans, Swinton, Bell, and the only main cast member I wasn’t previously familiar with, Ah-sung Ko, who is kind of delightful in this film. Chris Evans is a wonderfully grim protagonist, Tilda Swinton is an almost comically bizarre antagonist — she’s very different from how I expected her to be —  and Jamie Bell is funny as hell while still managing to sell one particularly poignant moment.

3. I also really like how a lot of this movie is shot. The cinematography is often quite spectacular, and some of the fight scenes, man, are fucking AWESOME. This is actually a considerably more brutal and violent film than I would’ve thought going into it, and I wholeheartedly approve of that. This is actually the first Joon-ho Bong film I’ve seen (I swear, I swear, I’m getting to The Host), and based on this work, I could definitely see more of his films.

4. But other than a highly disappointing third act, my other problem with this film has to do with conveniences. Again, I obviously can’t discuss much without Spoilers, but a few things happen during the story that I just can’t quite buy into. None of which would have been deal breakers without that ending, but with the ending . . . the minuses quickly start adding up.

5. Still, I mostly had a pretty good time watching this until that troublesome third act. (And even in the last twenty minutes, there are still some really nice moments to be had, particularly with acting. Evans, man. I like that guy.) The pace, for instance, is great. The movie is just over two hours and never feels slow. I really enjoyed seeing what new, crazy thing would be in the next train car, and there were a few great, cringeworthy moments — even one that has a decent shot at winning my coveted ‘Most Cringeworthy Oh-My-God OW Scene’ superlative at the end of the year. (Hey, it could be coveted by somebody. You don’t know.)

I’m also really glad that the Weinstein Company didn’t end up cutting out twenty minutes of footage or adding a freaking voiceover. Snowpiercer is a good, solid length and really isn’t all that difficult to understand — in no way does it require additional narration. I’m American, and I still totally got it. I have plenty of confidence that my fellow Americans would also get it, cause, you know. Snowpiercer ain’t exactly subtle.

But if the last twenty-five minutes or so had gone a different way, this could have been an A or A- movie for me. Now . . . yeah, it’s definitely lower than that.

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

(Additional Disclaimer: You may also find spoilers in here for 1984. Just so you know.)

Here’s my problem: I suspected Gilliam (John Hurt) was a bad guy in the first ten minutes of this movie.

Not just because he’s John Hurt, actually, but because of foreshadowy dialogue — can’t trust your heroes, etc. (To be fair, that applies to both Chris Evans trusting John Hurt and Jamie Bell trusting Chris Evans, but I immediately applied it to the former relationship.) Couple that suspicion with the following facts:

A. Someone at the front of the train is passing back helpful notes to the revolution.
B. The head of the train is some mysterious Wilfred, who we’ve never seen.
C. A number of attempted revolutions have occurred in the past, all of which have failed.
D. Gilliam is clearly the one pushing Curtis into leading the revolution.

And it seemed pretty clear to me that Gilliam either was somehow Wilfred or else in league with Wilfred (it’s the latter), which meant that Gilliam and Wilfred wanted the revolution to happen, which meant they probably wanted all the revolutions to happen. Which means the whole plot of the movie is pretty much the result of the Big Bad’s fiendish mustache-twirling, and I simply cannot stress enough how much that particular plot twist bores me. Not just because I found it utterly predictable in this film, although I did, but because it’s a twist that always bores me. Guys. I’ve read 1984. I’m over the whole ‘your quest was futile because it was always my evil plan, muahahaha’ reveal. I spent the whole movie hoping Snowpiercer wouldn’t turn out this way, and when it did . . . the whole thing just fell flat for me.

So, that was my main problem with the film. I also wasn’t ultimately crazy about Yona’s possible clairvoyant abilities.

To be fair, I suppose they don’t always help her very much.

I actually didn’t mind them in the moment, but by the end of the film, they felt a little out of place. Like, I don’t know if I needed them explained, exactly — I generally like surreal, not well-defined magic — but since it’s the only element of supernatural ability in a distinctly not magical setting, it seemed a little thrown in and convenient to me.

Also seemingly convenient: Yona passing out at a critical juncture, and that One Evil Second Banana Dude who comes back to life near the end of the movie. I seriously thought they were going to reveal him as an android or something, but nope. I guess he’s still not as bad as the ballerina who miraculously revives at the end of Die Hard for one last scare, but it all seemed pretty silly and unnecessary to me. Again, though, none of this would’ve bothered me that much if I hadn’t hated that predictable reveal.

I think I’m especially frustrated by this because there’s so much in the movie that I did like. The big fight scene in the Ninja Car when the train went through the tunnel and only the bad guys had night-vision goggles? So good. Also so sad — this is when Jamie Bell, predictably, bought it, although his death scene was great. See, Curtis has a choice — he can go back and save Edgar (Bell) from That One Evil Second Banana Dude, or he can keep Mason (Tilda Swinton) from escaping. You actually see the moment Edgar realizes that Curtis is going to let him die, and it’s so mean and so perfect. Poor Jamie Bell.

Another awesome scene: the Classroom Car.

Alison Pill is the best little pregnant psycho teacher ever. It’s like she’s channeling Kristen Bell’s uber-innocent glee from Reefer Madness — she even LOOKS a little like Kristen Bell, come to think of it. Everything about her is hilarious and perfect, including the moment when she pulls a machine gun out of a basket and kills one of our heroes. (That would be our one-armed and nearly unrecognizable hero, Ewen Bremner.) Let me repeat: Snowpiercer features a pregnant schoolteacher who both kills rebels AND gets killed by our lead protagonist. Kind of love it. Also, the moment where Curtis murders Mason is pretty great. ALSO, these kids are evil. Seriously, they’re evil.

Here’s an interesting thing about this movie: basically everyone dies. Including most of the kids.

John Hurt is killed by Wilfred’s people. (This didn’t shake my confidence at all, that Gilliam was a bad guy, although I was wrong to think he was still alive. When we saw him die on the video feed, I just assumed the footage was faked.) That One Evil Second Banana Bad Guy takes out Octavia Spencer, too, although she didn’t help herself out much with the war cry she made before she attacked him. Octavia! This is why you don’t yell before you come at somebody from behind. Honestly.

Curtis and Nam (Kang-ho Song) also die — but before I get to that, I should briefly talk about Chris Evan’s pretty awesome monologue where he explains what really happened to his arm.

See, remember when I mentioned one-armed Ewen Bremner, like, two paragraphs ago? We actually see him lose the other arm early in the film when — as punishment for throwing a shoe at Mason — the bad guys stick his arm through this nifty compartment in the train wall, exposing his skin to insanely cold temperatures.

After two minutes of exposure, a dude takes a giant ass mallet to the frozen arm and breaks it off Ewan Bremner’s body. (This, by the way, is my contender for ‘Most Cringeworthy Oh-My-God OW’ scene. It’s not particularly graphic or anything, but it made my arm hurt just watching it.)

We figure this particularly brutal method of punishment is the explanation for John Hurt’s missing limbs. We also figure this is why Curtis has a big ass scar around his arm. Or at least I did — I figured he’d tried some kind of rebellious act before, and — for whatever reason — the arm didn’t come off properly. I thought maybe they didn’t leave Curtis’s arm out there long enough in the cold, or Gilliam somehow intervened, or Curtis was secretly an android, or something. (Seriously, I was totally stuck on androids the whole movie. Alas, no bots for Carlie.)

In actuality, though, the poor people turned to cannibalism after the first month on the train when they had absolutely nothing else to eat. Curtis, who earlier asked Edgar if he remembered his mother at all, turns out to have killed Edgar’s mom in hopes of eating Baby Edgar. (Cause babies apparently taste best, which is something I’ll keep in mind next time I’m at work in Labor & Delivery and have forgotten my Pop Tarts.) Before Young Curtis or any of the other fine young cannibals could eat Baby Edgar, though, Gilliam cut off his own arm and told them to eat that instead, which led to the miraculous revolution of people cutting off their own limbs for the greater good. Young Curtis is inspired by this and tries to follow suit, but just can’t make himself fully go through with it — I can’t blame him — hence the scar.

Now. I’m a little torn on the backstory here, mostly because part of me is like, Okay, and HOW did all these people survive their self-amputations? Are they all descendants of Sofie Fatale from Kill Bill or something? Cause I’m relatively sure that none of them received medical attention, considering they didn’t even have bread at this point, much less stores of O negative and a shitload of Band-Aids. And if you tell me tourniquets . . . look, I’m not exactly a fount of medical knowledge, despite working in a hospital, but I’m pretty sure you’re severely overestimating the medicinal wonder of tourniquets, if that’s the case.

On the other hand, though, there’s just something so beautifully, grotesquely fantastic about people cutting off their own limbs to feed other people that I kind of love. It would totally work for me in a super surrealist story, or a story with old school, grim fairy tale magic, or basically any kind of anime. (I would give good money to see this scene as an anime, maybe set to something by Clint Mansell.) But I’m not sure it fully works for me in Snowpiercer, maybe for the same reason the brief instances of clairvoyance don’t work — it just feels out of place with the tone and setting.

Chris Evans does sell the hell out of that monologue, though, and Ewen’s arm is a surprisingly effective misdirect, like, as a writer, I find myself super impressed with that misdirect. So I guess I do overall like the backstory, even if I can’t entirely take the chopped off limbs as seriously as I’d like to.

A quick sidebar, before I get to the Dreaded Final Car Scene: Edgar says earlier in the film that he knows he’s eaten steak before, he just doesn’t remember what it tastes like. If he was a baby when he came onboard the train . . . when has he ever eaten steak? Hasn’t his whole life basically been cockroach gelatin bars? (Mmm, cockroaches.) Am I missing something obvious here because I’m confused by this.

Okay, sidebar over. Nam reveals to Curtis that he and Yona are planning to use the super combustible drug they’ve been collecting this whole time and blow open an exit door, since he believes that humans can now live outside the train. Which, ha. Mek and I totally called that. Well, okay, I thought they were going to save some of the explosives and use it to create fire outside the train, not waste the whole fucking thing on the door — but that’s for later.

Curtis wants none of this plan, though, determined to find out the disappointing revelation that is awaiting him in the last car.

It’s okay, Curtis. We’re right there with you, buddy.

Ed Harris provides that disappointment by telling us all that basically everything we’ve seen in the last two hours was HIS PLAN ALL ALONG, bwahaha. (In fairness to Harris, I’m fine with his delivery, and I was pleasantly surprised to see him in the final car, since I’d forgotten he was in the movie at all.)

We also find out that two of the kids who were kidnapped earlier are being used to keep the train running. Curtis ends up sacrificing one of his arms after all to save Octavia Spencer’s kid. (And I do like that arc.) Then he and Nam both end up sacrificing themselves to save Yona’s life (and the kid’s, too) after the bomb takes out the entire fucking train. Holy shit. There might be a few survivors we don’t see outside of Yona and the Kid, but there can’t be very many. 99% of what’s left of humanity is now dead, so good going, Nam.

I just wanted to play in the snow.

Seriously. I can understand how Nam might not care too much about the people who shoved him in what looks like a morgue refrigerator, but it’s only because of the script a miracle that his daughter survived the derailment at all. Which means, dude, your plan officially sucked.

Yona and the Kid climb out of the horrific wreckage and don’t immediately freeze to death, which is good. They also see a polar bear, proving that life can exist in the outside world after all. Also good. Unfortunately, they don’t have much in the way of food or shelter, so we’ll see how long these two crazy kids last on their own.

But hey, that’s for the sequel to figure out, right?

CONCLUSIONS:

I actually kind of enjoy that Snowpiercer kills off most of humanity by the end of this film, even if I’m still shaking my head at Nam’s planning skills. And I did love a lot about the movie . . . but the predictability of that insufferably annoying twist ending severely undercuts my enjoyment of this film as a whole.

MVP:

Chris Evans

TENTATIVE GRADE:

B-

MORAL:

I don’t know, Nam. Considering halving the recipe?

Also, classism sucks, and the poor are never in control of their own lives, even when they think they are  . . . until somebody blows the shit out of a door, I suppose. Fiery death, the great equalizer.

Also, babies taste delicious, but eating them is probably morally objectionable.

A few months ago, I went to San Francisco. I don’t make it out to SF all that much, primarily because I don’t have a car and it’s a long damn bus ride. But when I do go, I usually try to get in a trip to Rasputin’s because, man, I just love that place. On my last visit, I bought a movie for three dollars purely because I knew it’d be fun to review. That movie?

Oh, Identity. I’m not even quite sure where to begin with you.

DISCLAIMER:

Okay, I tried really hard to create a Spoiler Free section of this review, but that pretty much eliminated everything I wanted to talk about. So if you haven’t seen this movie, I’d advise against reading this, for SPOILERS will abound. Boy, will they.

SUMMARY:

Ten strangers find themselves trapped at a roadside motel in the middle of a terrible storm. None of them seem to be having a very good night . . . and that’s before they start getting killed off one by one.

NOTES:

1. Okay, I take it back. I know exactly where I want to begin:

As I was going up the stair,
I met a man who wasn’t there.
He wasn’t there again today.
I wish, I wish he’d go away.

I actually first saw this movie in theater, and guys, let me tell you, it took some serious effort not to throw my Milk Duds at the screen straight away. The movie begins with Malcolm (Pruitt Taylor Vance) reciting the poem above, and while the recitation itself doesn’t bother me, I take issue with the fact that Malcolm claims he came up with it himself because, uh, no he didn’t. The poem is called “Antigonish” and was written by Hughes Mearns, like, a century ago. All Malcolm Rivers did was screw up the wording a little. Fuck you, Malcolm Rivers. You’re a godamned liar.

(There, Mekaela. I hope you’re happy. See, Mekaela’s favorite part of this movie is when I grind my teeth, trying not to rant about this for the umpteenth time. Specifically, her favorite part is when I fail.)

2. So, here’s the thing: I kind of like this movie. It’s not really all that good — one of the Big Twists is boring, while the other is just patently ridiculous — but I have fun watching it despite the fact that some parts of it (okay, most parts of it) are just so dumb. Of course, I’m a sucker for this type of story — it’s yet another mystery where strangers have to figure out how they’re all secretly connected before they can escape.

Let me go ahead and tell you how they’re all secretly connected:

This is the aforementioned Malcolm Rivers, notorious serial killer and poetry plagiarizer. Malcolm is sentenced to be executed the very next day, but a last minute hearing in the middle of the night changes all that. Dr. Alfred Molina wants to prove that his patient has dissociative identity disorder, otherwise known as multiple personality disorder, and that he shouldn’t be executed because only one of his personalities is responsible for all these terrible crimes. Also, his personalities are all fighting for their lives, so to speak, because Rivers is under some kind of experimental treatment where all his personalities are meeting one another, and by meeting, I mean being hunted by the One Killer Personality.

So, yes. These people?

They’re all Malcolm Rivers’s split personalities, and 9/10th of this movie takes place in his head.

There are so many things wrong with this.

The first and most obvious problem is that this is not how DID works. And admittedly, I’m not an expert — I took one Abnormal Psychology class like a decade ago. I will not be pretending I have firsthand knowledge of the subject, certainly not when the whole diagnosis seems to be controversial anyway. But from the mighty ten minutes of research I actually did — yeah, I’m pretty sure the creators of the film didn’t even do that much. This is not one of my bigger problems with the movie, honestly; while we need to have more movies depicting accurate representations of mental illness . . . I don’t know. I just can’t get worked up over it in this particular instance.

Still, this first Big Twist leads to a lot of internal logic flaws and inconsistencies. Like, there is very little discussion of how Dr. Alfred Molina’s bullshit experimental drug therapy actually works (like, come on, guys, give me a couple of lines of exposition at least), nor am I clear when Malcolm started taking the drug, as his multiple personalities start to meet one another well before Malcolm himself arrives at the hearing. (Especially the ones who are already married to each other, like how does that work exactly?) Malcolm also doesn’t seem to have his own personality (like, one named Malcolm Rivers), which seems . . . odd.

And what’s worse is this: for Malcolm to avoid lethal injection, his various Good Personalities must kill his Evil Serial Killer Personality. Usually, stories like this are trying to prove that the defendant or convicted can’t be held accountable for his actions based on the fact that he’s — technical term here — nuts; here, however, everyone seems to be on board with the idea that Malcolm is seriously mentally ill (or they quickly get on board, once they actually see him), but they’re still totes cool with executing him anyway. It’s only when the Evil Serial Killer Personality is eliminated (supposedly) that his execution is cancelled, and Malcolm’s allowed to live at a mental hospital where he clearly belongs.

My other problem with this whole Everyone Is A Split Personality thing? It’s kind of boring. Not because it’s been done to death, but because . . . well, who cares, right? I’m sure there are exceptions to this rule, but generally I find that stories which take place near-entirely in someone else’s head are not really my thing. It’s kind of like the whole unreliable narrators deal. I don’t hate them on principle, but 97% of the time I think they’re a cheat.

What actually could have been interesting is this: don’t make the multiple personalities a Big Twist. Reveal it from the beginning. Make Identity an actual story about identity — like what qualifies a person as a person? Is it personality? Memory? These characters possess those things, even if they’re imagined. Is it really ethical to pit these personalities against each other without their understanding? Don’t they want to live? Do they deserve to? And do we, as audience members, want to see the original personality restored, or are we just voting for our favorite personality to survive?

In this case, the only Big Twist would be the identity of the Evil Serial Killer. It could be pretty much anyone. Except, of course, who it turns out to be in Identity.

3. Let’s make a pact, you and I. Let’s agree right now that we will have no more Evil Kid Stories.

I actually don’t hate Creepy Kid stories. I get the appeal of the Creepy Kid, and there are plenty that I really like (Carol Anne from Poltergeist, the Red Queen from Resident Evil, Claudia from Interview with the Vampire, Cole in The Sixth Sense, etc.) but straight up Evil Kid is kind of dull and practically expected at this point anyway. It doesn’t make for a great twist, especially not when he’s so damn obvious about it. I mean, his name is Timmy, for Christ’s sake. Why didn’t they just name him Look-How-Innocent-I-Am McGee, or something?

Timmy’s MO also makes his identity pretty clear to anyone who’s paying attention. He is, after all, the indirect cause of both his mother and stepfather getting run over by cars. Two different cars, even: he tricks his mother, Alice (Leila Kenzle), into stepping out into the middle of the road, where Ex-Cop and Worst-Limo-Driver-Ever Ed (John Cusack) immediately slams into her, and he tricks his stepfather, George (John C. McGinley), into pushing him out of the way before Larry (John Hawkes) can accidentally run over him with his truck. I’d like to point out that Evil Timmy is putting a lot of faith in George’s reflexes, not to mention appears to have supernatural knowledge that Ed won’t be looking at the road at this precise moment, despite the fact that it’s raining and looking at the road is a huge part of his entire fucking job.

George dies instantly, whereas Alice survives long enough for Evil Timmy to smother her with a pillow. And this is where Timmy’s true nature becomes hideously apparent, even though it’s about another thirty minutes before the movie actually reveals it. See, at this point in the movie, all the survivors are holed up in one hotel room with the hope that if they all stay in line of sight of each other until morning, no one else will die. The only person who isn’t in the same room is Alice; she’s in the adjoining room, trying not to die from her injuries. The only person allowed to leave the main room to go into the adjoining room is Timmy. When Alice ends up murdered (which we know because of the motel key countdown), you’d think it’d be pretty clear who killed her. Well, apparently, it’s not. Because everyone in this movie is an idiot.

4. This movie has a pretty huge cast. Let’s talk about them.

I enjoy John Cusack, but I’ve found that outside of a specific niche, I can’t always take him very seriously. Like Grosse Point Blank is one of my favorite movies ever and I think he’s terrific in it, but I don’t always buy him in roles like this, specifically any kind of law enforcement roles. (Although this is clearly six steps above playing Edgar Allan Poe. Man, was that a bad call.) Cusack isn’t terrible and I do enjoy a few of his reactions, like when he’s listening to Larry and clearly wondering, “How is this my life?” Still, I feel like this movie might be (minimally) improved if it was anchored by a stronger lead.

I haven’t seen much from Amanda Peet in a while, but she’s probably one of the stronger actors in this cast, despite a silly and unfortunate “What Are You Waiting For” moment. (Well, only partially unfortunate. I did, after all, enjoy the line about oranges.) Peet has decent reactions — I certainly buy her freak outs — and I generally like her character well enough. My only problem with Paris is how obvious it is that she’s going to be the Final Girl.

If you’ll pardon the digression — one of my problems with the movie (and so many other movies like it) is that there are ten players in this story, and we all know who’s going to make it out alive. There are really only a few ways it could play out:

A. Paris, Ed, and Timmy survive. (Assuming Timmy wasn’t evil.)
B. Paris and Timmy survive. (Assuming Timmy wasn’t evil.)
C. Paris survives alone. (Assuming Timmy IS evil.)
D. Paris survives alone . . . until she doesn’t. (Also assuming that Timmy is evil.)

And that’s about it. Admittedly, Paris isn’t your momma’s Final Girl because Paris is a hooker, but she still clearly is a Final Girl. (And anyway, she’s getting out of hooking now, which means she’s worthwhile by Movie Standards. If her goal was to continue being a prostitute, well, that would almost certainly be a different story.) Her survival was never really in question — the only concern was whether she’d die in One Last Big Twist or not. (Spoilers: she does.) The same cannot be said for, say, Ginny (Clea DuVall), Larry (John Hawkes), or any of the others who were clearly never going to make it. For once, it’d be nice to be surprised not just by the identity of a killer but by who survives the onslaught.

I think this is the first thing I ever saw John Hawkes in, and he’s kind of great. Not because his role is particularly well-developed or because he’s a hugely likable character (his funny moments are somewhat offset by his super hostile reaction to prostitutes), but because Hawkes is just that good. He has a ton of energy and brings such life to his character that I was actually rooting for him, despite the fact that’s he’s sort of a hateable dick. Definitely a scene stealer.

I can only assume that at the time of filming, John C. McGinley desperately wanted to play someone who was the opposite of his character on Scrubs. George certainly fits the bill: he’s an extremely timid guy who’s not particularly great in a crisis and spends a good chunk of the movie panicking or repeating step-by-step instructions to himself, whether those instructions are about what to do when you get a flat or what to do when a speeding car careens straight into your wife. Frankly, I’m a little surprised he’s not asthmatic to boot. I do actually kind of like George (I sort of adore the bewildered delivery of “What is going on here?”), but he doesn’t really have a whole lot to do before he gets killed himself.

Of course that’s still more than Leila Kenzle gets. Alice smiles at her kid, stupidly steps into a road, gets hit by a car, and spends most of her screen time unconscious until she’s rather abruptly dead.

Rebecca De Mornay isn’t in this movie for all that long — she’s the first to go, since Alice doesn’t technically die for another hour — but I like her here. De Mornay plays a stereotypical, self-obsessed actress who appears to be fading into obscurity, and I actually wished she lived a little longer. She’s a terrible person, no doubt, but she brings a bit of humor to the story, or does, until she gets her head chopped off by a seven year old.

Okay, there are too many people here and too much left to talk about. I’m just going to start doubling up. Ray Liotta seems like pretty solid casting to me because he mostly seems to play asshole cops and criminals anyway, and while we don’t trust Rhodes (certainly not after seeing the hidden blood on the back of his shirt), we might not make the immediately leap to escaped killer. Maybe he’s just a corrupt cop — not exactly out of Liotta’s wheelhouse. Anyway, I like the actor in this; he conveys frustration and incredulity quite nicely. His plan to keep everyone in the same room is very solid.

Jake Busey, meanwhile, is mostly there to be a creepy red herring, which he excels at because he’s Jake Busey. It’s not just because he looks a lot like his dad, either — I doubt I’ll ever see Busey in anything and not immediately think of  Johnny Bartlett.

Finally, William Lee Scott and Clea DuVall play young, annoying newlyweds, and it’s hard to decide which one is more infuriating. Scott’s character, Lou, is certainly a winner — past history of cheating, general lack of sensitivity, temper problems that suggest he has been or is likely to become abusive, etc. None of this is helped by Scott’s overacting, which is reminiscent of his performance in Nine Dead.

Ginny, meanwhile, appears to exist solely to make stupid decisions, like that time she argues that they need to leave the motel, despite the fact that there is absolutely nowhere to go. Or how she storms off to her own motel room to pack because she’ll definitely be safer by herself while there’s a serial killer on the loose.

Her terrible decisions are not limited to the current situation either; apparently, she lied about her pregnancy in order to get Lou to marry her. This horrible life choice was made after she heard that he cheated on her with some other girl and mostly proves that Ginny is no more skilled at the long game than she is at making short term plans for survival. Cause, Gin, you do realize that while Lou might marry you for the baby (and that’s a pretty big ‘might’ in today’s culture), he’s certainly not going to stop cheating on you just because you’re hitched. Still, I’m sure this is a decision you won’t regret for the rest of your life. (However short that may happen to be.)

5. Now that I think about it, though, Ginny isn’t just hanging around to make poor life choices. She’s also there to Feel Things. There always has to be a character with Heart Knowledge, and in Identity, that character is Ginny. Case in point: Ginny, apropos of absolutely nothing that’s going on, suddenly says, “Remember that movie where the ten strangers went to an island and they all died one by one, and then it turned out they weren’t strangers, that they all had a connection?”

Larry, currently tied up and suspected of multiple homicide, does remember that movie, so he helpfully adds, “They all messed with the same guy, and he was getting revenge.” Rhodes doesn’t want to hear anything Larry has to say, but Ginny insists, “I’m just saying maybe there’s some connection between all of us.”

There are a few problems here. First and obviously most important is that I think Ginny and Larry are mixing up movie trivia. Presumably, they’re referring to And Then There Were None, unless there’s some other movie where ten strangers go to an island and get killed off one by one. (And if there is, someone please tell me so I can go watch it immediately.) And admittedly, I haven’t seen the entire film, but unless the filmmakers changed a great deal more than I’d assumed, the ten strangers aren’t actually connected. The bad guy certainly isn’t out for revenge. Instead, he’s punishing them for their individual instances of getting away with murder. He’s like a vigilante, but more sadistic and with less colorful outfits.

The other problem, of course, is that there’s really no reason for the characters to suspect they’re all connected at this point, even though they are. The writers want to introduce that idea, but apparently they couldn’t think of any better way to do that than having Ginny break the silence by bringing up incorrect movie trivia. Fail, writers. This is a fail.

6. Ooh, and let’s not forget the time when Ginny randomly tries to blame everything that’s happening on the fact that the motel is supposedly built on an old Indian burial ground, which is such a bullshit red herring, I can’t even deal with it.

We also have the problem of the disappearing bodies.

See, Ginny and Timmy die (well, Ginny dies, anyway) when their car blows up. (Little Timmy has been very industrious about the murders so far, up to and including shoving a baseball bat down Jake Busey’s throat. I’m not even sure he’s tall enough to do that, so I’ll assume he found a chair or something to stand on.) But when the others look for survivors, there are no remains. In fact, suddenly all of the other dead bodies have disappeared too. This is a little something I like to call ‘bullshit.’

Of course, none of the bodies are strictly speaking real, so they can technically go poof whenever the hell they want, but I object to the inconsistency. When Rhodes later shoots Larry, his body doesn’t vanish, and the same is true when Rhodes and Ed shoot each other. There is no valid story reason why the bodies would magically disappear at this point in the story; the only actual reason they do so is to divert suspicion from the fact that the car does not, in fact, contain the ashy/melty pieces of Timmy’s body, because Timmy, of course, isn’t actually dead. That’s lazy damn writing, IMO.

7. And about Ed and Rhodes shooting each other —

— well, first let me back up a second. Okay, so in the past, Ed quit the force after a traumatic incident with a jumper left him struggling with depression and mysterious blackouts. He has one of those blackouts at the motel and ends up in Malcolm’s hearing, where he gets the unfortunate existential blow that he’s not a real person and this whole horror scenario he’s been living is actually just a diabolical scheme to root out a serial killer by handing him victims on a platter and saying, “Chow down, buddy.” Ed has about two minutes to freak out, digest, and ultimately make peace with that before he’s back at the motel.

Meanwhile, Paris has discovered that Rhodes is a fugitive and that he killed the cop he’s currently pretending to be. Rhodes kills Larry and nearly kills Paris too; luckily, she escapes, and Ed strolls in with one plan: kill the killer. Guy doesn’t even try to defend himself, either, presumably deciding that his existence doesn’t matter since he’s imaginary anyway. (I forgot to mention earlier that Ed owns a copy of Sartre’s Being and Nothingness. Writers, you’re a bunch of assholes.) Ed and Rhodes fatally shoot each other, Paris fucks off to grow oranges, and everything is hunky dory until it’s revealed that Evil Timmy never died in the first place.

But according to IMDb trivia, the filmmakers removed a crucial bit of sound from that shoot-out scene. Supposedly, as he’s dying, Rhodes whispers, “I didn’t do this,” and Ed responds, “I know.” I’ve since gone back and watched, and though it’s hard to tell with the lighting, it does look like that’s what they’re saying to each other. What’s particularly interesting about this is that, apparently, the dialogue was muted because the director thought it would ruin the twist that Evil Timmy was alive. (I still maintain that twist was ruined a good half hour earlier, but whatever.) Whereas I would assume they muted the sound on that scene because that dialogue makes no fucking sense. It’s one thing for Ed to stroll up and shoot Rhodes because killing him will save Paris and leave her alone and safe in Malcolm’s body, but if Ed knows that Rhodes isn’t the killer . . . well, The Killer, anyway . . . why the hell would he do it?

8. For a movie that I kinda like, I’m well aware that I haven’t said anything terribly positive in the past few thousand words. And honestly, I don’t have a lot of arguments in its favor, either, other than the fact that it has potential and I take a certain amount of so-bad-its-good satisfaction from its cheesiness. But there are some genuinely good scenes in this movie. I generally enjoy the pause-flashback structure (until they mostly abandon it), and the scene where we see that nearly everyone has some kind of secret is pretty well-done.

In particular, I think the twist about Rhodes is fairly well-handled. There’s support for it throughout the movie (like Rhodes about to touch evidence with his bare hands before Ed stops him), but I don’t think it’s immediately obvious from the outset. Or that Larry found the last motel owner dead and took over his business without telling anybody. I like that most of the players have secrets (although I kind of wish Paris’s money played into the mystery somehow).

9. I don’t think Malcolm deserved to be executed, but it is true that he has a lot of pretty shitty personalities. Little Timmy is The Killer, but Rhodes and Jake Busey (I’ve come too far to look up his character’s name now) are killers too, if not quite so enthusiastic and prolific about it. Ginny, Lou, and Washed Up Actress Caroline aren’t killers, but they’re unlikely to win any Awesome Human Being awards. And Larry totally kills George — sure, it was an accident that Timmy helped instigate, but Larry is still absolutely at fault for his shitty driving, just like Ed’s at fault for running down Alice. Timmy influencing her to step back into the road wouldn’t have meant shit if Ed was actually looking where he was going. I think we should all acknowledge that.

That leaves Alice, George, and Paris as Malcolm’s best personalities — and even Paris is a bit of a stretch, since I’m pretty sure she steals all the money from her john in the beginning. (The fact that he seemed obnoxious is probably not a morally sound enough reason to rob him, sadly.)

And if you’re wondering why Malcolm Rivers is so fucked up, well, it’s because of one reason: his mommy was a ho.

Honestly. One of these days, we’re going to have a story where Prostitute Mommy isn’t the root of all that’s evil. I feel like that you don’t get a lot of happy Prostitute Mommy stories. Some happy Stripper Mommy stories, maybe, but once you have a kid, you better not be screwing people for cash, or else you’re gonna be raising a serial killer. For that matter, Mek brought up another idea: why don’t we have more Prostitute Daddy stories? Let’s equal opportunity this shit.

10. Finally, I’m just lumping in some random notes together to keep this at even 10.

10A. While I’m on the subject of prostitutes, how exactly does Larry take one look at Paris and know she’s a hooker, anyway? I mean, it’s really one glance and it’s all over. Her clothes aren’t conservative, sure, but I don’t know if they’re that trashy, and even if they were, does Larry automatically assume that every girl in a short skirt charges people for sex? Cause if that’s the case, I assume Larry gets his nose broken a lot.

10B. Evil Timmy may be a creative killer, but Malcolm Rivers is apparently not a terribly imaginative man. All his personalities have the same birthday and geography-related names? Please. And don’t even get me started on Lou Isiana. That is the dumbest name in all of existence. Writers, I continue to be ashamed of you.

10C. Amusingly, IMDb trivia tells us that in the first script, the killer was originally an expat female teacher from Australia. This was changed because there was concern that a lady teacher serial killer would outrage parent groups — because I can really see how those same groups would be a-okay with a child serial killer instead.

10D. We all make certain decisions we’re not proud of in real life, the kind of thing we’d yell at people for doing in horror movies. Hell, I walk around by myself in a hospital basement in the middle of the night for my job; at some point, I need to face the fact that a masked serial killer is probably going to rise from the dead and murder me. Still, there are things that I’m pretty sure I’d never do and never would have done, even when I was a dumb teenager and prone to worse horror movie mistakes.

For instance: NEVER investigate laundry rooms in the middle of the night by yourself. This is asking for death. But even if I (stupidly) did do that, I honestly don’t think it would occur to me to open all the dryers, even if I thought something unusual — like, say, a human head — was rattling around in there. (Cusack’s lack of reaction here is just wrong. I don’t care if he used to be a cop. You find a decapitated head where you’re supposed to find socks, and the only possible proper response is to scream or, at the very least, yelp and back away.)

Also, if you’re going to open those dryers, you should at least restart the ones without human heads in them. Come on, man. That’s just common decency.

10E. Finally, you know what else I wouldn’t do? Play prison guard to a serial killer. Nope, not even if a cop or ex-cop asked me to. Not. Happening.

Ed’s response to Larry’s deeply legitimate concerns about such a task is this: “He’s unconscious, Larry. He’s tied to a post.” Presumably we’re supposed to think this is a valid argument, which, it’s totally not. If I was Larry, I’d be like, “Fuck you, buddy. You could have this guy blindfolded and hog-tied for all I care; I run a fucking one-star motel and will not be doing any guard duty on my own. Not to mention, the guy isn’t likely to be unconscious forever, and he got away the last time someone tied him to something, didn’t he? No, you go ahead and play police officer, buddy. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll be drinking tequila and watching Wheel of Fortune, thanks.”

If only characters would speak sensibly. If only.

QUOTES:

Rhodes: “All right. You want a plan? Everybody want a plan? Here’s the plan, okay? No one’s gonna move. We’re gonna stay here, like this, in this room until dawn. No one leaves, no one moves. And if he tries anything, I’m gonna shoot him! And if there’s something out there and it comes in here, I’m gonna shoot it! And if anyone of us tries anything, I’m gonna shoot ’em!”

Rhodes: “You got a name?
Paris: “Paris.”
Rhodes: “Paris, huh? Never been.”
Rhodes: “Well, you ain’t going tonight.”

Caroline: “Listen, I understand the bleeding person has a medical condition, okay? But so do I! My lung walls have . . . depleted cilia. If I stay here, I could asphyxiate!”

Larry: “I was scared — ”
Ed: “Why were you scared?”
Larry: “I thought you wouldn’t understand — ”
Ed: “No, no, no, I’m capable of understanding.”

Larry: “I’m not a murderer, godammit!”
Rhodes: “There’s a dead body in your freezer, Larry!”

CONCLUSIONS:

Yeah, this one has a lot of problems. I enjoy because I just do, but I couldn’t really in good conscience recommend it to anyone.

MVP:

John Hawkes

TENTATIVE GRADE:

C

MORAL:

Hm. You don’t have to be legally sane to be executed anymore? Or how about the one I’ve learned from virtually every time I’ve played Betrayal at House on the Hill: the killer is always, always the little kid.

So, the 2016-2017 Fall TV Season has begun. Lots of new and returning shows have already started, and I haven’t watched even half of them, because it’s been a bit busy for me lately, and also because I didn’t want to. Still, I’ve checked out about five shows so far. Here are my general impressions:

DISCLAIMERS: MILD TO SERIOUS SPOILERS INVOLVED. DO NOT READ IF YOU HAVEN’T YET WATCHED. THIS MEANS YOU, MEKAELA ST. GEORGE.

Atlanta

I have to catch up on this show (we’re like six episodes in or something?) but I just watched the first two, and so far I’m liking it. I find that I have to crank up my volume like I’m listening to Comedy Central, or British people, but other than that, it’s interesting.

There are far, far better people than a white girl from small town California to talk about why this show is important, and have, so I’m not going to try. What I will say is that I generally find the characters likable or interesting, which is especially helpful in Earn’s case, since male protagonists who are always asking their parents for money and not helping ladies out much on the rent . . . not typically my favorite. But nobody does anything so horrible I can’t stand them; actually, I like all three main characters quite a bit. Paper Boi has some nice scenes, and of course Keith Stanfield is pretty hilarious. There are a lot of moments of quiet humor and a fair amount of WTF humor, too. I do find myself hoping that Earn’s girlfriend will get to do something other than, you know, be a girlfriend. Like, it’d be nice for her to have a storyline that didn’t entirely revolve around wanting Earn to make money or get out, especially because the show’s feeling a bit dude heavy for my tastes at the moment.

Atlanta is, as everyone and their mothers have said, a tonally strange show, bouncing seamlessly between scenes of, say, stoner humor and very abrupt, difficult-to-watch scenes of police brutality. It doesn’t quite feel like anything else on TV, and that, along with a soft spot for Donald Glover, makes me think I’ll probably watch it at least a full season, if not more.

GRADE: 

B+

The Good Place

So, that was fun. I went back and forth on if I wanted to check this show out or not, but a good review on io9, my love for Kristen Bell, and a need for a little bit of levity in my life tipped me towards the Check It Out side, and I’m glad I did. I’m not sure I’m going to keep up with it forever–I worry that it will become a bit repetitive–but I’d like to try for now. I laughed out loud a lot, even at some of the moments I knew were coming, and that’s always a big plus. I’m trying to remember which jokes made me laugh the hardest: the dog, certainly, was up there. Also, Kristen Bell’s offhand line about the purse, the reminder that Africa is a continent, not a country, and Michael’s clear inability to understand the mass appeal of froyo.

William Jackson Harper is an awesome straight man, and he and Kristen Bell have great chemistry, like, that’s half the show right there. Ted Danson is also a lot of fun, and I pretty much adore D’Arcy Carden as Janet. Also, I didn’t expect the cracktastic karmic consequences for whenever Eleanor screws up, and I’m excited that there’s a bit of a mystery involved, too. Who knows that Eleanor doesn’t belong there? Will we meet God (or whoever) at some point? And what exactly is God’s criteria system, like, I’m pretty interested in what’s going on behind the scenes when Florence Nightingale didn’t merit a spot in the Good Place, but someone like Tahani–who is all charitable action with somewhat questionable intent–did.

There’s possible room to grow here. If the show does, and continues highlighting the Eleanor/Chidi dynamic duo, I could definitely enjoy it.

GRADE:

B+

Agents of SHIELD

So, I’m partially invested in this. Theoretically, I like the idea of breaking up the team: it adds a layer of complication, giving our players secrets and hidden alliances that could be kind of interesting. It also shifts around the power dynamic, like, I’m into Jemma having a bigger position of power than either May or even Coulson in some respects. At the same time, though, I already miss the team, you know, as a team, and the idea of a whole season getting the band back together sounds vaguely exhausting. I’m also a little less interested in Daisy being the vigilante, even though her scenes aren’t bad, and I’m not a Daisy hater by any means. I just would have been more interested if virtually any other character had been playing it solo. I kind of think a Daisy-lite season might do the show some good, although in fairness to AoS, it’s looking like everyone’s going to have stuff to do.

On a more positive note: Ghost Rider is potentially interesting (although the scene with the brother and the surge of inspirational music that followed didn’t quite work for me), I’m totally into the Life Model Decoy (and hey, it’s Madalena from Galavant! YAY!), I’m excited to see that Yo-Yo’s back (YO-YO!), and OOOOH, May has apparently contracted the weird ghost sickness. See, now that I’m fully invested in.

GRADE:

B

How To Get Away With Murder

After an occasionally awesome but somewhat shaky second season, I’d say “We’re Good People Now” is relatively solid ‘B’ fun, with some drama that I don’t care about and one damn sweet hook. The worst part, easily, was that beginning; please tell me that there are other people out there besides me and my sister who watched that whole Scream Our Fury Into The Night Sky scene and laughed their asses off. I mean, I get the idea, and those kind of moments can totally work, but boy, did I not buy it here, like, at all.

Also, any Wes/Laurel drama is automatically a snoozefest on every level. I am very definitively not a shipper because Laurel is far too interesting for him, and besides, Wes’s whole “I can’t talk to you because when I look at you, all I see is your shitty ex-boyfriend” thing, I mean, that’s such total bullshit. (Don’t get me wrong; Laurel will probably still end up being involved with Frank somehow because TWISTS, but at this point, for all Wes knows? Yeah, this is a shitty way to treat her.) Oh, and new douchebag student guy? Can he die, like, super quickly? I am deeply not interested in spending any time with this guy.

Let’s see, what else . . . oh, right, my favorite goddamn ship has broken up. This is not my happy face, show. Actually, I find that I’m not quite as upset as I thought I’d be, mostly because I don’t think this is the end of Oliver/Connor at all. Also, I’ve gotta say . . . look, Oliver’s totally right that Connor’s reaction (or lack thereof) is just completely wrong and may not say necessarily great things about their relationship–but then, that’s why you go to counseling or something. What you don’t do is make Connor’s saintlike reaction to your pretty atrocious treachery somehow all about you and not understanding who you are as a person anymore and so you have to break up so you can rediscover yourself on your own because, seriously, WHAT?

Away from that total nonsense. I genuinely like that after a year of murder and hacking up bodies and shootings and framings and everything else you could possibly imagine, the Keating Five aren’t actually doing so hot in school, like, that makes complete sense. I enjoyed seeing Annalise visiting everyone over the summer, and also the show getting back to its initial procedural format. I think it actually needs that along with the twisty soapy murdery goodness. It was also pretty hilarious to see Nate giving Annalise a foot rub because–shamelessly, utterly shamelessly–he’s shirtless as he’s doing so; thus we witness a few of Billy Brown’s 680 ridiculously sculpted muscles actually moving as he rubs her feet.

But of course this episode’s really all about those last few minutes and our new mystery: WHO IS DEAD? Like I said before, it’s a pretty great hook, especially since every episode we’ll be eliminating at least one person who isn’t dead. (If Connor or Oliver die, I walk, people.) If you take the scene at face value, then the most likely people are Bonnie, Wes, or Nate, based on Annalise’s grief-stricken reaction. But since anyone who’s still watching this show in the third season knows not to take shit at face value . . . it really could be anyone because, for all we know, Annalise killed them herself and is just putting on a big show for the cops. (Currently, I’m putting early money on Frank dying after somehow managing to impossibly redeem himself to Annalise over the course of the season, but early money isn’t much, like, I’m wagering maybe four pennies here.)

Finally, two more important things to note: a) Meggy is adorable, so either she’s secretly evil or she’s gonna die, and b) Frank shaved his beard and head. NOOOOOOOOOO.

GRADE:

B

Lethal Weapon

Here’s another show I was on the fence about checking out. But I finally did, and it’s . . . okay? Should we pro/con/whatever it?

PRO:

Clayne Crawford is actually pretty good as Riggs. I especially like some of his quieter, matter-of-fact moments later on in the episode. Right now, at least, I think his performance is carrying the show. (He and Damon Wayans also have decent enough chemistry, though, which helps.)

CON:

Still, when my spellcheck tried to make ‘Clayne’ ‘Claire’ and I thought to myself, man, how awesome would it have been to have seen Marti Riggs instead? Yeah, I’m still bummed we didn’t get it. Cause the thing is Lethal Weapon isn’t anything new or fresh, and while the women thus far are at least likable–I enjoy Murtaugh’s wife, and Jordana Brewster’s counselor appears so far to be playing a more effective and less overtly antagonistic version of Mary Ellen Trainor’s original character–they also don’t have much to do. (Besides, Brewster will probably just end up Riggs’s love interest, anyway.) A gender-flipped version of this show could at least have been interesting.

CON:

Especially since they only double down on the Refrigerated Wife backstory by adding a dead unborn baby, too. Sigh.

WHATEVER:

While it’s nice to see someone who isn’t freaking out at the first hint of a contraction, woman, call yourself a cab, Jesus. Seriously, ladies, this is your public service announcement from someone who totally isn’t a medical professional but works around a lot of them: if you think you are going into active labor, PLEASE don’t drive yourself to the hospital because this is not safe, and also because if you can drive more than three minutes to the hospital without having debilitating contractions, you very possibly aren’t far enough along yet to be coming to the hospital anyway. (Well, okay, women whose water has broken still need to come in regardless of whether they’re having contractions or not–but never mind, you get the point. In general, call a friend, an ambulance, or Uber, okay?)

CON:

I am tired of seeing the same accident over and over and over, TV. Anytime I see a driver’s profile, I just sit back and start counting seconds until a truck comes through and T-bones them.

WHATEVER:

Bad guys are killed like crazy in this show. Like, no one cares even a little bit about offing criminals, so long as car races aren’t interrupted and the city doesn’t suffer too much financial damage. (Seriously, the Grand Prix scene is more than a little silly, and I could easily have done without it.)

PRO:

Hey, I forgot Kevin Rahm is in this! And he has a pocket square! Man, I haven’t seen that guy in forever.

WHATEVER:

Murtaugh is like the most oblivious person ever and probably shouldn’t be a detective. How is he the only person at the dinner table to miss out on the obvious clues that Riggs’s wife is dead? Good Lord, Murtaugh.

WHATEVER:

Instead of just being old, Murtaugh is going back to work after suffering a heart attack and open heart surgery. I feel like they’re just going to use that as an easy joke, as it’s mostly treated comedically here, but this actually has real potential to be a serious ongoing storyline, like, Murtaugh being afraid to die is a perfectly valid thing. Since most of the pathos goes to Riggs, this could be an interesting thing for his partner to explore. Instead, I suspect Murtaugh will mostly have serious drama whenever one of his family members inevitably ends up in danger.

PRO:

The clear MVP of this story is not Murtaugh or even Riggs but Murtaugh’s ridiculously cute baby girl. She is the most adorable thing ever and needs to be featured in every single episode. Make it happen, Fox.

GRADE:

B

Years ago, Mek and I saw a trailer for Vantage Point and were intrigued by the initial premise. A conspiracy thriller about a presidential assassination from the POV of multiple people at the scene? I’m a huge sucker for Rashomon-esque stories, and this movie sounded like it could be a lot of fun . . right up until the point where the trailer revealed a Really Big Twist–and like, not some subtle turn of events that only obsessive pop culture nerds like me could figure out by overanalyzing the trailer frame by frame and spotting some dude wearing a significant costume in the background. No, I’m talking about a preview that outright told you a huge plot reveal. It was just . . . baffling. And after the film failed to garner almost any positive reviews, I kind forgot about the whole movie.

My sister, however, did not. So guess what we finally watched a few weeks ago?

The verdict? Well. It doesn’t start out so bad, anyway.

DISCLAIMER:

Folks, there will definitely be all kind of SPOILERS today. In fact, think of this post as less of a normal review and more of a how-to guide, like, The Seven Ways to Fix Vantage Point. Cause it needs some fixing.

SUMMARY:

. . . I kind of already gave one, didn’t I? Well, okay. President Ashton (William Hurt) is supposedly assassinated, an event we see from the POV of some reporters, a cop, a secret service agent, the bad guys, a tourist, and, well, the President himself. Each POV tells a little bit more of the story. Twists and revelations ensue.

NOTES:

1. For reals, you guys. Fire the marketing team.

This is the trailer for Vantage Point, and in the spirit of fairness, I will say that it doesn’t tell you all the Big Reveals. I’ll even go a step further and say that knowing the President’s fate ahead of time isn’t what ruins the movie . . . but it sure doesn’t help, either.

It turns out the US government uses stand-ins for the President whenever they’re worried about his safety. These stand-ins are called “doubles,” and it’s never really made clear to me whether these doubles are supposed to be naturally occurring doppelgängers who get recruited, dudes wearing Mission Impossible masks, or, you know, clones. Some clarification on that subject would be nice (especially if they’re clones cause, like, Jesus, that’s an SF twist that should get more than four seconds worth of attention). Mostly, though, I’m just frustrated that the twist was revealed at all–and if I’m frustrated, I can’t imagine what the writers of the actual movie thought. Actually, I can: I’m picturing a lot of creative cursing, a few stunned looks of disbelief, and people weeping to the uncaring sky, “Jesus, why, oh why, would you do that to MY STORY?!”

I know some people genuinely enjoy spoilers before they see a movie. There are (limited) times that I prefer to know some myself, but how much you know about a movie ahead of time influences how you watch the film in question, and I seriously doubt that knowing this particular twist in this particular movie made anyone’s film-viewing experience more enjoyable–maybe especially because this is one of the only plot twists that isn’t wholly predictable from the get-go.

2. Make your inside man’s identity a little less obvious.

Agent Jack (Matthew Fox) is actually named Kent Taylor, but I’m absolutely not going to call him that. Agent Jack is a Secret Service agent secretly working with the bad guys. The less traitorous Secret Service agents are Agent Dennis Quaid, Agent Richard T. Jones, and Agent Holt McCallany, and if you only recognize one of those names, no worries, because chances are the name you recognize is also the name of the only good agent that this movie cares about. Richard T. Jones’s primary role in this movie is to chase after some dude, and Holt McCallany’s role, sadly, is just to die. (I will always be sad when Holt McCallany dies in a movie, for I will forever be a little in love with him as Wade from The Losers.) I’m always in favor of strong supporting characters, but the reason these paper thin characters are particularly disappointing is because it’s not a massive leap to guess that one of the supposed good guys in a conspiracy thriller is secretly evil. And since Agent Richard T. Jones and Agent Holt McCallany are such obvious glorified extras, you really only have two possible suspects for an inside man . . . and Agent Dennis Quaid pretty clearly isn’t a great one.

Mind you, that’s not the only reason Agent Jack’s reveal is pretty patently obvious. I figured him for the bad guy pretty early on, like, I’m talking maybe twenty minutes into the movie. For one thing, when Agent Dennis Quaid tries to go along with Agent Jack to the suspected shooter’s location, Agent Jack quickly stops him so he can go alone, cause sure, that’s not shifty. Then Agent Dennis Quaid can’t get ahold of anyone at Control to report or receive info, but somehow Agent Jack can–and we only have Agent Jack’s word that he saw the shooter and/or is chasing him?

Come on, movie. Work harder.

3. Edit the car chases.

Cause seriously. They’re just too long. Don’t get me wrong: I like me a good car chase now and then, but at a certain point here, it really all just starts feeling like filler. If your chase scenes have stretched out to the point that they’ve become dull, you’ve entirely lost the point of a chase scene.

4. Bring back the news crew.

When I said that Vantage Point started out well, I meant it. We begin with our news crew: Angie (Zoe Saldana) is the reporter at the scene of the presidential address, while Rex Brooks (Sigourney Weaver) works behind the scenes from a studio on wheels. (Also with Rex: Leonardo Nam from Westworld.) Angie’s report is cut short and then cut short again, first by the not-President’s assassination and then by the explosion that kills her.

This is a compelling opening segment. It starts the mystery off with a very literal bang and sets up a few things nicely, like foreshadowing that one of the cameramen is a bad guy (totally called it), not to mention providing some basic exposition (it essentially boils down to “not everybody’s happy with America”). Angie’s death immediately puts a human face on the tragedy, which is fairly effective, although I’ll admit I was rooting for her to have secretly survived and maybe even be involved somehow. The fact that she doesn’t make it past the first ten minutes is a bit disappointing but not too shocking: Vantage Point came out a year before Saldana’s big break in Star Trek. So, I’m bummed, but I get it. This part works okay.

What works considerably less well is this: after opening the film, the news crew briefly comes back during Agent Dennis Quaid’s POV section so he might see A Clue . . . and then they’re pretty much entirely dropped from the story. It makes no sense to me. For one thing, it’s a criminal waste of Sigourney Weaver’s talent, like, why is she even in this movie, if they’re going to give her so little to do? But also, like, come on. These guys are the news. All kinds of pretty newsworthy things are happening around them. Surely we might see at least one of them running around, reporting on stuff and otherwise uncovering things. This is especially problematic when you consider Forest Whitaker’s story.

5. Seriously trim the hell out of Forest Whitaker’s story.

Howard Lewis (Whitaker) makes sense for a while. He’s a tourist filming the president’s speech. He also has a pointless backstory with a kid and an estranged wife that no one really gives a damn about. Anyway, Lewis captures the moment where the Not-President gets shot; he also unwittingly captures one of the bad guys planting a bomb. After it goes off, Lewis rescues a little girl he met before and gets her to safety when they can’t find her mother. That part all works fine.

Here’s where my credulity snaps straight in half: Lewis leaves the little girl with a cop because he sees the dude he thinks is a terrorist and decides to chase after him, filming the whole time.

No. Just no.

From the depths of my soul, I do not believe that this ordinary, mild-mannered motherfucker–who, so far as I can tell, isn’t in law enforcement, doesn’t work as a journalist, didn’t lose anybody in the attack, doesn’t have a death wish and/or a Youtube channel that he obsessively updates with his daredevil stunts–chases after a terrorist by himself so he can capture the whole thing on camera. I just do not believe it, not this guy. You know who would have sold it? That’s right, one of the news crew. Maybe Leonardo Nam chooses to step up and take Zoe Saldana’s place after she’s killed, with Producer Sigourney Weaver talking him through it the whole time. Or maybe Producer Sigourney Weaver is the one who decides to leave the relative safety of the mobile studio and fill her reporter’s shoes. Maybe Zoe Saldana proves to have survived after all, and goes after the story while dealing with life-threatening injuries. Any of that would have worked for me; instead, the news team vanishes like they were swallowed up by a black hole, leaving Normal Joe Tourist Guy in an action role I just cannot buy. It’s vexing.

6. For the love of all that is holy, keep the small child out of the road.

None of this happened before I dropped my ice cream, that’s all I’m saying.

Okay. Here’s the thing: I totally get that people do not actually break down into good guys and bad guys, that people who do terrible things are still human, with compassion and morals and lines they will not cross. Even a dude comfortable blowing up a child from a distance might struggle with having to personally mow down a kid with an ambulance. I get that, I do.

But people. Resolving the climax of your movie, you know, when the bad guy is caught, the happy ending is achieved, and good finally defeats evil? Yeah, that probably shouldn’t depend solely on the happenstance of a small child running into a road.

Here’s how it goes: Forest Whitaker leaves Little Girl with the cop so he can run after a supposed terrorist like an idiot. Little Girl is naturally pretty upset about, well, everything, and eventually ends up running into the middle of a busy road looking for her mom. Big Bad Suarez (Saïd Taghmaoui) is fleeing with the real President Ashton in the back of his stolen ambulance, and would have escaped and ultimately succeeded in his dastardly plan if he didn’t swerve at the last minute, avoiding the child and flipping the rig.

Nope. That sucks. That’s a bullshit resolution for this film.

If you’re going to do something like that, my God, you have to back it up . . . and I’m not just talking situationally, like foreshadowing the kid being out on the road. I mean thematically. Humanizing your villains is one thing, sure, but your good guys cannot win because of some random jaywalking kid, not unless your whole movie is about the extent to which heroes and villains are willing to go to achieve their end goals. And, like, you can’t just bring that idea up once and be done with it; that shit needs to be seeded early and throughout the story, something this movie pretty much entirely fails to do.

7. Finally, structure: learn a proper balance.

If you watched the trailer, you know Vantage Point is particularly proud of its eight-people-POV gimmick; they must mention it like half a dozen different times. Where I struggle is that for about 2/3 of the film, we get specific individual POVs: Producer Sigourney Weaver, Agent Dennis Quaid, Tourist Forest Whitaker, etc. And then in the last 1/3, we basically just get the POV of The Bad Guys, not one from Suarez and one from Agent Jack and one from Femme Fatale Ayelet Zurer, but all of them lumped together, despite the fact that sometimes they’re miles apart from one another. It’s pretty sloppy structure, and it definitely doesn’t help out a story that desperately needs to sell its chief villain as evil, but not like EVIL evil.

CONCLUSIONS:

Strong premise. Strong opener. Ultimately falls apart halfway through. And since I forgot to mention it before, I have to ask: Agent Jack is a double agent, but he’s not supposed to actually be Spanish, right? Please, please tell me he’s not supposed to be a native speaker. Because I’ve got to tell you, I’m not a native speaker (or really any speaker of any kind) and I’d still like to vote Matthew Fox’s Stilted Spanish as Least Valuable Player in this movie.

MVP:

Shit, that’s hard. You know what? I’m giving it to Zoe Saldana. She has like four minutes to sell us on her character before she tragically bites it. That takes work.

TENTATIVE GRADE:

C+

MORAL:

. . . you know, I don’t know. Maybe we should let more kids run into the middle of a busy road? I mean, sure, that sounds bad, but if the little girl hadn’t done so, the President of the United States would be dead right now.

In this movie, children are ultimately more helpful than the Secret Service.

I’ve been super excited to see Atomic Blonde, ever since I first saw the trailer back in April. However, I couldn’t help but notice that there was like almost zero buzz about the movie after it initially came out, at least not on my social media. I figured that probably wasn’t a great sign, but I still wanted to check it out for myself, so Mek, Lindsey, and I all went to the movies last week to give it a shot.

Well. It’s got problems, all right. On the upside, Charlize Theron kicks some serious ass.

SUMMARY:

Lorraine Broughton (Theron) is an MI6 agent who goes to Berlin after a fellow agent is murdered and a master list of every Cold War spy is taken off his body. Her assignment: make contact with station chief David Percival (James McAvoy), recover the list, and uncover the identity of the mysterious double agent Satchel.

NOTES:

1. Let’s begin with something positive: it’s really, really nice to see a badass woman headline her own action film.

I’m not saying it never happens, obviously. But it doesn’t happen all that often. Even some of the best lady badasses in recent years (Rebecca Ferguson in Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation, Scarlett Johansson in any of the Marvel movies, Charlize Theron herself in Mad Max: Fury Road) are, at very best, co-leads, not the main attraction. And of course, we had Wonder Woman this year, and she’s great and all, but let’s not forget that Wonder Woman was the first lady superhero movie since 2005, not to mention that Atomic Blonde probably makes, what, the third and probably last female-led action movie we’ll get all year? (I’m including this, WW, and Ghost in the Shell, not that I’ve heard a single positive thing about Ghost in the Shell.) Meanwhile, compare that to the number of dude-centric movies coming out in 2017, like Spider-Man: Homecoming, Logan, Baby Driver, Thor: Ragnarok, The Hitman’s Bodyguard, The Fate of the Furious, The Mummy, John Wick: Chapter 2, Kingsman: The Secret Circle, etc.

I’m saying it’s not exactly a 50/50 split, so yeah, it’s super refreshing to see a bonafide lady action star. Now I just want to see them consistently, and not limit those roles to white actresses only.

2. Also positive: the fight sequences are all pretty awesome. I do have some trouble with the music matched with those sequences–more on that in a bit–but the actual choreography is stunning. There are three particularly good scenes: one includes heels, one includes a rope, and the standout scene primarily takes place on a staircase. I like this particular one a lot, as it’s fun and violent and strongly reminds me of the hallway scene from the first season of Daredevil.

It’s also really nice–and I know how this is going to sound before I even type it out–to see a female action hero who gets punched hard in the face. Men take beatings in plenty of gritty action films, but they dish out as much as they take; there’s an equality to their fight scenes, a give and take, no matter if the actual opponents are equal in size or not.

Women are different. They might get some badass fight scenes, sure, but they’re usually the bloodless kind where almost every blow is perfectly countered and everyone walks away with nary a limp or hair out of place–which is sometimes cool, absolutely, but not always what I’m looking for. (Other typical female fight scene tropes: the One Good Woman fights the One Evil Woman, the One Good Woman shows far more pain/vulnerability when she’s injured than her Dude Partners, the One Good Woman fights one henchman, while her Dude Partners each take on several bad guys at a time.) Or if there is raw violence, it’s probably not a fight scene. It’s a torture scene where the Girlfriend or Mother or whoever gets beat up so that the Dude Hero can get all angsty and shit about it. Those women get brutalized, but don’t get the opportunity to hit back.

Atomic Blonde has the kind of raw, violent, creative fight choreography and stunt work that I’ve longed to see for women. That, alone, was probably worth the price of admission.

3. The only problem is the music.

Let’s be clear here: I love the Atomic Blonde soundtrack. Bowie and The Clash and Nena and A Flock of Seagulls? It’s like an 80’s paradise in here, and you better believe I’m listening to the playlist as I write this review. I think the only song I didn’t particularly care for was “Father Figure,” partially because it’s just not my favorite George Michael song, but also because I fucking LOVED the Personal Jesus/Black Skinhead remix they used for the same part in the trailer. (On the upside, it’s definitely the most unlikely song on the soundtrack to be matched with a fight scene, and I do generally like fight scenes paired with unlikely song choices.)

No, my actual problem is that the music is so loud that it nearly muffles all other sound, and sound is a crucial component in fight scenes. All that celery breaking or whatever Hollywood uses these days adds a lot to what you’re watching. And it’s not only the fight scenes, either; a huge chunk of this movie comes across as one long hyped up music video, which is a stylistic choice that’s super fun when used sparingly, like, maybe for one particular stand-out scene; take, for example, Quicksilver and “Time in a Bottle” in X-Men: Days of Future Past. But this is not just once or twice. This is repetitive. The soundtrack is fun to listen to, but–at least on first viewing–it really overwhelms the story.

4. Which perhaps was intentional. Because the story has problems.

Atomic Blonde starts out simply enough, but gets convoluted fast. Of course, not every story is meant to be easy. Some stories are hard to follow because their plots are complex and intricate and they don’t waste time with a lot of hand holding. And maybe I’ll feel that way about this movie with repeat viewings, but my instincts tell me that this story is mostly hard to follow because it’s sloppy. The potential is all there, but it’s not executed particularly well.

5. On the upside, I generally enjoy all the acting. Charlize Theron, as previously stated, is awesome: Lorraine Broughton is a cold, furious protagonist who I enjoy quite a bit. And while I will never, ever judge an actor for not doing their own stunts (God knows I can barely make corners without clipping my shoulder against a wall), it’s pretty damn neat, knowing that Theron did most of her own stunt work.

Then there’s James McAvoy.

McAvoy’s okay here, too, although I probably spent about half the movie wondering if I’d like someone better in the part. On further reflection, though, I don’t think that this is an acting thing so much as a script thing. Many of the story problems seem to revolve around his character, something I’ll discuss further in the Spoiler Section.

I did, however, quite like Sofia Boutella as Delphine, the rookie French operative. Her screen time is rather limited by comparison, but I thought she brought a lot of energy to each and every scene, not to mention had fantastic chemistry with Charlize Theron. I’d watch these two play awesome lady spies together in a hot second.

6. Finally, before we get to Spoilers, I just need to tell you that our heroine Lorraine bathes like a fucking weirdo.

I could get over her first ice bath. At this point in the movie, she’s battered and bruised to all hell, and I’m assuming that all this ice will help with the swelling or something. Later in the film, however, she is considerably less injured, and not only does she draw herself another ice bath, she just casually turns over and submerges her whole face in the ice cube infested water, like she’s a fucking Arctic mermaid. And, no. Just no. I get that Lorraine’s a badass who lives in a very bleak, nihilistic, snake-eat-snake kind of world and all, but come on, lady. This is just ridiculous. You’re gonna get frostbite on your face, and I’m gonna laugh.

Now that I’m done ranting about Lorraine’s eccentric bathing habits, let’s get back to the actual plot, shall we?

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

Actually, I don’t really feel like giving a full plot synopsis today. If you’re reading this without having seen the movie (or just need a quick refresher), you can look here for the basic rundown. Meanwhile, I’m just gonna jump straight into the problems.

After watching the film, my sister suggested that maybe as audience members we were supposed to think that Lorraine and Percival were investigating one another, and we weren’t supposed to be sure which one of them was the traitorous Satchel. Then we’d be tricked into thinking it was Percival when he shot Spyglass (Eddie Marsan), but actually it was Lorraine all along. (Until it kind of wasn’t, but we’ll get to that total bullshit later.)

That could have been kind of neat, if that’s what the filmmakers were indeed going for. But it’s really not the experience I had watching this film at all.

A big part of my problem with Atomic Blonde is that, from the very beginning, Percival acted like such a shady fucker that I wasn’t remotely surprised when he turned on Lorraine and left her for dead, like, this wasn’t even the first time he screwed her over for reasons I still largely don’t understand. Regardless, I couldn’t and still can’t shake the impression that I was supposed to be surprised. The whole scene had the feel of a twist without the build for a twist, and it’s one thing for a movie to include an obvious DUN DUN DUN moment you saw coming a mile away; it’s quite something else to watch a plot twist and be genuinely confused if you were supposed to find it shocking or not.

I don’t quite know how to fix this, either, except to give some actual time and consideration to Percival’s motivations for the various shit he gets up to in this movie; the script, unfortunately, seems content to merely wave a hand and mention that he’s gone feral. He’s definitely not a nice dude: after betraying Lorraine, he kills Delphine after she calls him up and threatens to expose him, or something. (He killed her because she knew too much, right? Would he have killed her if she hadn’t called?) Lorraine then kills Percival, reveals herself to be Satchel, and frames him for her crimes.

Four things here:

A. Satchel is a dumb name for a double agent. We can all agree on that, can’t we?

B. Delphine’s death doesn’t work for me at all.

The dead lesbian trope–dead queer trope, really–has been analyzed and pulled apart many times, mostly by people who are more insightful and knowledgeable on the subject than me. (I’m gonna try to do it anyway, but let’s not pretend I’m inventing the wheel here or anything. If you’re familiar with the trope, these are likely all arguments you’ve heard before.) It’s also worth mentioning that this trope is one that usually affects me on more of an intellectual than emotional level: I don’t necessarily feel the gut punch that other audience members might, and if I found out a book or movie I was really interested in killed off a queer character before I got the chance to check the story out, I probably wouldn’t skip that story based on this specific knowledge alone. (Or else I probably wouldn’t have gone to see Atomic Blonde in the first place, considering that–based off the movie trailer–I figured Sophia Boutella’s character had maybe a 4% chance of survival. Possibly less.)

That all being said, due to the pervasiveness of this trope and the huge inequality of straight to queer characters in mainstream film and literature, I do think it’s a harmful storytelling convention. I believe that it can be done well and that creators have every right to use it, but I also think those creators–particularly straight creators–need to consider a few things in mind before trying to do so: one, some people are going to actively avoid your story no matter how respectful you think you were, and it’s totally okay for them to do that; two, your story is going to be judged in a larger context whether you like it or not, and three, if your story requires the trope, then do your best to do it well. If it doesn’t require the trope, like, seriously. Maybe not?

Delphine’s death doesn’t work for me in Atomic Blonde because the story doesn’t require it at all. It shows us that Percival is a really shitty person, sure, but Percival has already proved that he’s a murderous skeezebucket, hasn’t he? It reinforces the idea that everyone around Lorraine dies, but that’s such a tired oh-so-tragic hero trope I yawned before I even finished writing this sentence. And it gets Lorraine into Vengeance Mode, I guess, except that we kind of have James Gasciogne for that, don’t we? Even if Lorraine needed a second death to get her really, really angry, we didn’t need Delphine for that because we already have Spyglass. Lorraine promises to get Spyglass to safety, saying she’s never lost anyone she’s transported before, but despite going to epic fucking lengths and nearly getting killed in the process, Lorraine does lose him. Spyglass’s death is an interesting motivator. Vengeance doesn’t always have to be about sex, after all. Which means Delphine’s death is just pointless and redundant and frustrating as all hell.

C. The scene where Lorraine confronts Percival is easily one of the most interesting moments in the whole movie, though I suppose that depends on how you read it. That Wikipedia summary I linked to before? It suggests that the audience should believe Percival is Satchel at this point, that we’re not meant to realize Lorraine is Satchel until she meets with the Russians. But I actually thought this was the reveal scene, where we realize that Lorraine has been a double agent all along, and Percival has been working against her because he is, possibly, at least somewhat loyal to his country, just not to his agency’s methods. For instance, he murders Delphine for self-preservation, but he murders Spyglass because he thinks the guy is too dangerous to let live.

And that, that I found interesting. I still thought the movie had been unnecessarily muddled, but–for once–the unreliable narrator trope didn’t bother me, and I loved the focus on moral ambiguity. That line “who won, and what was the fucking game anyway” worked for me in the context of how I initially understood this scene: spies, it seemed, inevitably lost themselves in their spy games, and there weren’t heroes or villains, just people doing progressively shittier and shitter things, sometimes for good reasons and sometimes for bad ones. I really liked the idea that Lorraine was the Bad Guy but still genuinely cared about Spyglass and Delphine. I also liked the idea that Percival was technically the Good Guy but also a fucking backstabber and murderer. This was interesting, and while I struggled with the execution of it, I was ready to think at least the film had ambition . . .

D. . . . until Lorraine revealed that she’d been feeding bad intel to the Russians all along, and she was really a triple agent working for the Americans. And then, people, I was forced to admit that while I had an idea who won (USA), I didn’t know what the fucking game was and I wasn’t terribly convinced that the writers did, either. Because seriously, any sense of interesting moral ambiguity just went straight out the window, in favor of a deeply unnecessary plot twist that’s both unoriginal and poorly supported.

For fuck’s sake, people. No one wants a triple agent. No one wants a twist for twist’s sake. Learn where to end your story cause this one is bullshit.

CONCLUSIONS:

I mean, it’s not the worst thing ever. If you just want cool action scenes and 80’s music, you might totally like it. But that’s mostly want I thought I wanted to and can’t help but feel disappointed anyway. Personally, I’d say skip the movie, buy the soundtrack, and just watch the fight scenes on Youtube, but you do you.

MVP:

Charlize Theron, no question

TENTATIVE GRADE:

B-

MORAL:

The spy business is brutal and demands violence, versatility, and ice baths. Consider your life choices carefully.

I read my first Agatha Christie novel when I was eleven. By now I’ve read dozens, and while I always enjoy them, most have long since blended in my head, like half-forgotten Friends episodes or various bad Christmases. Murder on the Orient Express, however, is one of those mysteries that you never forget the solution to.

That being said, my interest in Kenneth Branagh’s take on the classic novel was mild. Perhaps Imagine Dragons wasn’t quite filling me with confidence, I don’t know. Still, Mekaela and I are suckers for murder mysteries (she’s an even bigger Christie fan than I am), so it’s probably no surprise that we decided to check out the adaptation last week, despite some reservations.

And it’s . . . okay? It’s serviceable. But it could totally be better.

DISCLAIMER:

Despite the fact that the novel is over 80 years old, I try not to spoil classic mysteries if I can help it. So, you’ll find no spoilers here for book or movie until the aptly named Spoiler Section.

Also, I’m going to spend a lot of time comparing this movie to the original novel, and also to the BBC/PBS adaptation with David Suchet. If that’s going to annoy you, please just go read a different review.

NOTES:

1. Here’s the most important thing you need to know about this movie: Imagine Dragons did not actually feature anywhere in it. I don’t know if I’m relieved or disappointed by this. Probably both.

2. The best thing Murder on the Orient Express has going for it, by far, is the cast.

I mean, hell, I’d cast Michelle Pfeiffer in just about anything.

Of course, even that has a caveat because Johnny Depp. Goddamn it, Depp. How I used to adore you. It’s hard finding out that people you admire are actually abusive scumbags, although after 2017–Our Year of Horror and Perpetual Despair–you’d think we be used to it. Anyway, so Depp’s in this, which is unfortunate. I mean, as an actor he’s fine. Depp makes the occasional eye twitch that threatens to bloom into his signature brand of quirky overacting, but unlike Tim Burton, Branagh appears mostly able to reign that shit in. I even chuckled at one of Depp’s lines, despite myself. But performance isn’t everything. It can’t be.

Still, the rest of the cast is wonderful. I mean, look at these people: Kenneth Branagh, Michelle Pfeiffer, Judi Dench, Daisy Ridley, Leslie Odom Jr., Willem Dafoe, Penelope Cruz, Josh Gad, Derek Jacobi, etc. This cast is packed with talent, and while that’s never a bad thing, it’s an especially great thing for a murder mystery. It’s pretty easy to solve a mystery when you’ve got, like, four B-list actors and rising phenomenon Daisy Ridley as suspects. Like, gee, I wonder who could’ve done it. But a cast like this, I mean, is Dame Judi Dench really getting out of bed just to be a red herring? What about Michelle Pfeiffer? And Willem Dafoe, we all know you can’t trust that shifty fucker, right? It’s always nice when you can’t just solve a mystery by pointing at the most likely actor.

3. I also have to highlight Tom Bateman as Bouc, who ended up being a goddamn delight. It’s been some time since I’ve read Murder on the Orient Express, but from what I remember, Buoc is such a nothing character in the novel. He primarily exists to sit in on Poirot’s investigations and continuously suspect “the Italian.” Here, though, Bouc is mostly just a charming little scamp. I didn’t expect to give a damn about this guy; instead, he probably ended up being my favorite character in the whole movie.

4. And while I had my doubts, Kenneth Branagh makes for a surprisingly good Hercule Poirot.

My Poirot will always be David Suchet. The guy played Poirot for literally, like, 30 years, and I love basically all of his performances, if not every single adaptation. Case in point: the BBC/PBS’s Murder on the Orient Express, in which they gave Poirot an angry, religious bent that he doesn’t really have in the novels and doesn’t work for me as a whole. (I understand why they do it, but I’d prefer to wait until the Spoiler Section to discuss it, as Branagh addresses the same “problem” with the source material in a different manner–with, I might add, equally unsatisfying results.) Meanwhile, the few snippets I’ve seen of Albert Finney as Poirot pretty much horrified me, so I’ve never actually watched the 1974 version of this film. (Although I should probably give it a go at some point, if only for Lauren Bacall.)

I definitely have problems with this adaptation, but on an acting level, I thought Kenneth Branagh made for a pretty worthy successor to Suchet, despite the fact he looks absolutely nothing like Poirot and his interpretation of the signature mustache was, ah, unique. (Happily, The Mustache didn’t bother me too much while watching the film. Like Harry and Ron’s hair in The Goblet of Fire and UNLIKE Peeta’s hair and eyebrows in The Hunger Games, I eventually managed to look past it.) The quirks feel right, the mannerisms. I enjoyed his general performance . . .

5. . . . except when he’s chasing after a suspect like a goddamn action star.

So, here’s the thing about Murder on the Orient Express, and indeed most Agatha Christie novels: they’re not exactly fast paced thrill rides. This story is an English murder mystery from the 1930’s. It’s basically just a long string of clues and conversations, so sure, I understand a director wanting to spice things up a bit. Generally, however, I don’t care for how Branagh chooses to do so here. Certain scenes are simply amped up: for instance, early in the novel, the train is forced to literally stop in its tracks because of the snow. In the book, this happens so casually that Poirot doesn’t even realize it; someone literally has to point out that the train has stopped. (In Poirot’s defense, I think he was asleep when it happened.) In the film, it’s . . . considerably more dramatic. Overdramatic, in my opinion, but only in a silly way. Nothing damning.

Other scenes, however, are considerably more frustrating. Branagh includes a small handful of action scenes that have no origin in the novel; in fact, these scenes want very little to do with Agatha Christie at all. The one that annoyed me the most? Poirot–fussy, meticulous, “my eggs must perfectly line up with one another” Poirot–chases a suspect down through a snowstorm, like, WTF, no. Not only is that wildly out of character with the detective we’ve been presented thus far, it also doesn’t fit the tone of this movie.

Like, okay. Everyone remember Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes from 2009? So, lots of people were deeply not thrilled when that movie trailer came out. I mean, I didn’t care because I’ve never been a big Sherlock Holmes fan; I’ve always been more interested in the revisions and remakes, rather than the source material itself. (Not unlike how I feel about Lovecraft. Fucking Lovecraft, man. I just want tentacle monsters and the occasional cult; keep your gross racism and your hideously overwrought prose to yourself.) But plenty of people did care, and I get that: Guy’s Ritchie’s version of Sherlock Holmes–you know, where he was, like, a martial arts/boxing master living in a world where something had to blow up every fifteen minutes–did not match up with the Sherlock Holmes they had fallen in love with. As a book lover, I can sympathize.

But whether you liked or hated that movie (and for the record, I enjoyed it), I think you have to admit that it, at the very least, was tonally consistent; it was both exactly what it wanted and what it presented itself to be. Kenneth Branagh’s Murder on the Orient Express, on the other hand, doesn’t quite seem like it knows what it wants to be. The majority of the movie seems to be going for a pretty straight adaptation with a few modern updates (specific historical references, a bit more diversity, an interracial romance, etc.), but then you get these little action scenes out of nowhere that just don’t belong.

6. They also do very little to help the film’s pacing problems.

On the upside, I’m happy to report that Murder on the Orient Express is under two hours! Seriously, that’s such a relief lately. And the movie starts pretty well, I think. Unfortunately, at some point–and I suspect it’s around that time Poirot goes chasing after this one character in the snow–everything starts feeling pretty rushed. Worse, the movie strands much of the excellent cast with very little to do, and while I appreciate that it’s very difficult to give equal screen time to a huge cast like this, there are Story Reasons why these characters require more time than they’re given.

Since I can’t go into any significant detail about that yet, here’s what I’ll say instead: Murder on the Orient Express allows time to recite revelation after revelation, twist after twist, but rarely does it afford any time to attach real emotional significance to those revelations and twists.

This is the rare film, I suspect, where more flashbacks would’ve actually done the film some good.

7. Finally, a few more, mostly irate notes before we get into Spoilers:

A. Branagh’s directed a handful of films I’ve enjoyed (Thor, Dead Again, Much Ado About Nothing), but sometimes I seriously question his directorial choices, like, who the fuck wants to watch an entire four-minute scene from overhead? Like, are we watching this from God’s POV? Cause I get it if it’s from God’s POV. Otherwise, what the hell is the point of this? It seemed to go on forever, and then he did it again. (The second time didn’t last as long as the first, but still. These scenes literally gave me a headache. I didn’t even know you could do that with a POV change.)

B. I also must question the person who wrote the threatening note. I’d have to look again, as we only get a quick second to read it, but on first blush it appears as though every word in the note is spelled correctly except for “better,” which instead is spelled “bettr.” Like, why? Why that word only? What sick bastard is doing this just to annoy me?

C. I find the Count to be a deeply strange character. He’s supposed to be over-protective of his wife, which I guess comes across, but mostly he just seems to have severe anger management problems that don’t really feel connected to the story at large. I flat out cackled when he attacked this one guy. Like, it was so sudden and so over the top. Mek and I even invented a new term for his fighting style: rage ballet.

D. Finally, for some reason unknown even to God, Hercule Poirot has a dead girlfriend in this movie. I have much, much more to say about this, but for now I’ll just sum up: it’s bullshit.

If you wanna read that rant–and, I mean, who doesn’t want to read rants on the internet, there are so few of them–continue below.

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

First, let’s go back to the beginning.

I do rather like this scene between Daisy Ridley and Kenneth Branagh.

Hercule Poirot solves some case in Jerusalem. The case itself is unimportant; we’re mostly here to set up a handful of things.

A. Poirot likes balance and order. More than that, he believes there’s a firm line between guilt and innocence, victim and perpetrator, good and evil. Criminals must always be brought to justice and so forth. This, by the way, is what we in the professional writing and amateur movie critique business like to call FORESHADOW.

B. Poirot wants a damn vacation, and nobody is going to let him have one.

C. Two of our suspects, Mary Debenham (Daisy Ridley) and Doctor Arbuthnot (Leslie Odom Jr.) are secretly a couple. Also, Mary speaks cryptically about waiting until something is all over and behind them. (That something is an elaborate murder plot, obviously, but of course we don’t know that yet.)

Meanwhile, a small point about Arbuthnot:

Doctor Arbuthnot is a strange combination of two different characters from the novel: General Arbuthnot, who is a suspect, and Doctor Constantine, who is not. I’m honestly not sure why they did this, unless they just felt there were too many players involved and wanted to consolidate. Interestingly, the BBC/PBS adaptation also turns the doctor into one of the killers, although he is still Doctor Constantine, just American instead of Greek. To make room for him, they cut out a different character, Cyrus Hardman, entirely. Meanwhile, in this version, Hardman (Willem Dafoe) has, like, three different identities. But we’ll come back to that in a while.

So, Poirot ends up getting on the train, where our soon-to-be victim, Ratchett (Johnny Depp) approaches him. Ratchett’s been getting those annoyingly misspelled threatening letters, and he’s anxious. He tries to hire Poirot to be his bodyguard, but since Ratchett is pretty obviously a scumbag and Poirot has books he wants to read/giggle at, he declines. (An aside: personally, I adored the giggling. I thought it was hilarious. But also, what the hell Charles Dickens book is he reading that’s causing these giggle fits? Is Great Expectations or Oliver Twist considerably funnier than anyone’s led me to believe? Oh, wait, a trailer re-watch has just informed me it’s the one Dickens book I actually did read: A Tale of Two Cities. Er. Is he just laughing at how obvious the conclusion is?)

Of course, Ratchett is then murdered on the train. And before we go any further, I have to say thank God, because I read an interview months ago where someone–I can’t remember who–was talking about making big changes for this adaptation, and they were being awfully cagey about the identity of the victim. And while Johnny Depp is rather noticeably absent from the line-up of suspects in the trailer I linked to before, other trailers definitely made an effort to make Ratchett seem like he might be sticking around. I was prepared to have serious, SERIOUS problems if this ended up being the case, but thankfully, it all turned out okay.

The murder itself–or rather, the scenes where Poirot sees the woman in the kimono running away and such–felt a bit hurried to me. I wish, as the investigation continued, the movie would come back and reference those scenes more. But otherwise, the mystery starts off pretty well. I enjoy some of the first interrogations: Hector MacQueen (Josh Gad), for instance, isn’t really how I remember him from the book–where MacQueen comes across as very stable, polite, not an alcoholic, etc.–but his scenes here are emotional and intriguing. Likewise, I’m relatively sure that Masterman (Derek Jacobi) isn’t dying from anything in the novel, but this is one change I actually kind of like. Branagh goes out of his way to show that these characters are damaged, that their lives have been effectively ruined since one heinous act years ago broke them . . .

. . . but he only does that for a few of the characters. Everyone else is basically left stranded. And that’s a problem because this is the rare mystery where everybody did it. We find out that Ratchett’s real name is Cassetti, and years ago he kidnapped a baby girl named Daisy Armstrong, ruining several lives in the process: Mrs. Hubbard (Michelle Pfeiffer), for instance, is actually Linda Arden, a famous actress who lost both her granddaughter, Daisy, and her daughter, Sonia. (Sonia died in premature labor shortly after finding out the tragic news.) Or Pilar Estravados (Penelope Cruz), the nurse who fell asleep when Daisy was taken and has been racked with guilt ever since. Everyone on board (excluding Bouc and Poirot) were connected to the Armstrong family, and they came together to kill Ratchett, each person stabbing him exactly one time. (Except, I think, the Countess? Traditionally, the Countess doesn’t do any stabbing, but I can’t remember if the movie makes that clear, or if they just change that.)

My problem with this adaptation is that, as an audience member, I felt very disconnected from all of this. Like, okay, we find out that Hildegarde (Olivia Coleman) was the family’s cook, right?

Okay, and? Hildegard has come halfway across the world to help murder someone in an elaborate revenge plot. You have to love people for that. I’m not saying Hildegard needs an entire soliloquy about how much the Armstrong family meant to her, but come on, people. You’ve gotta give me something: a couple of well-written lines, a flashback to a nice moment between her and Sonia Armstrong, something. (And a good flashback, too, not some silent glimpse of a bunch people you don’t know that lasts all of three seconds.) Mary, too, like I get she was the governess and all, but I want to feel the connection she had with Daisy. Don’t just read me a grocery list of secret identities; that’s boring.

Biniamino Marquez (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo), honestly, might get the worst treatment here. Initially, he’s a seemingly cheerful salesman, who I rather enjoyed in the few minutes we had with him, like he and Bouc are definitely the bright spots of the movie. When it comes time for Big Reveals, though, we’re told his connection in a ridiculously offhand manner. Poirot is pretty much all, “Oh, yeah, Marquez was indebted to General Armstrong because the guy gave him money for his business. Next!” Garcia-Rulfo barely has time for a reaction face, much less to show how grief-stricken he was at Armstrong’s death. The cast does their very best, but so many of them are given so little to work with.

Cause here’s the thing: sure, the characters all care deeply about the Armstrongs, but the audience? We don’t know this family. They’re pretty much just names to us, and because revelations are spilled out so rapidly and with such little fanfare, it’s easy to mix up or even forget some of those names. Like, I could totally see someone thinking, Okay, so Pierre Michel helped kill Ratchett because Suzanne was his sister, but . . . who was Suzanne again? And even if you did keep the names straight, again, did you care about Suzanne? Did you even care about Pierre Michel (Marwan Kenzari)? Cause my guess is that you didn’t. There just isn’t enough time.

One reason we’re so short on time, I think, is because Branagh inserts a few new scenes that we absolutely don’t need. I’m mostly okay with the one where Mrs. Hubbard gets stabbed in the back, presumably to distract Poirot before he could crack MacQueen. (Mek and I had literally the exact same reaction in theater: “Bitch is hardcore.”) I don’t know if we need it, exactly, but I’m okay with it. However, the scene where Arbuthnot gives a false confession and shoots Poirot in the arm? Nope. The scene where Poirot chases MacQueen through the snow? Nope, and seriously, where the hell was MacQueen running to, anyway?

Even some of the non-action scenes aren’t really necessary.

Like, okay, for most of the movie, Hardman is pretending to be a racist, German professor named Gerhard, but then Poirot reveals he’s not German. We quickly learn that Hardman is an American P.I. who’s supposedly undercover to protect Ratchett. But then approximately four seconds after that revelation, Poirot offhandedly reveals that Hardman also secretly used to be a cop, and that just seems like a lot of identity twists in such a short time. Like, maybe we didn’t need the whole racist German professor thing in the first place? It doesn’t seem to serve much purpose.

And seriously, fuck any and all scenes with Poirot’s Dead Girlfriend.

Now, I’ve read my share of Hercule Poirot novels, but I haven’t read all 30 of them; I certainly haven’t read the 50+ short stories that also feature the detective. To my knowledge, however, Poirot has never had a dead ladylove before. Regardless, he has one here. We know this, not because she’s plot-relevant, not because she’s necessary in any way, shape, or form, but because occasionally Poirot takes out her picture and speaks to it lovingly. Oh, Dead Katherine, how I miss you, and so on.

So, why does Dead Katherine exist in this movie? Honestly, I don’t know. Here are the only answers I could come up with:

A. You can’t have a detective without a tragic dead woman in his past. That’s just science.

B. You can’t have a protagonist without some mention of romance, either past or present. What kind of unfeeling monster doesn’t have a love story?

C. Poirot has to make a choice in this movie between his head (which tells him that all criminals must be punished, people can’t take the law into their own hands, etc.) and his heart (which tells him these people are broken enough and that Ratchett deserved to die). Dead Katherine exists to symbolize that heart. She exists to prove he has one. After all, if Poirot had never loved her, would he make the call he ultimately makes? Or would he abide by his little gray cells alone and turn these people in for the crime they committed?

Whatever the reason, I want to be clear: it’s bullshit. This movie in no way benefits from Dead Katherine. She is exceedingly unnecessary; we know because she promptly drops out of the story at some point, never to be mentioned again. Also, according to IMDb Trivia, Dead Katherine is actually a Young Emma Thompson, who of course used to be married to director Kenneth Branagh. I’ve been trying to verify that with a more reputable source, as I just can’t remember D.K.’s face well enough, but if it is true . . . I don’t know, that feels . . . creepy? (Presumably, though, Emma Thompson would’ve had to give approval, right? Please?)

But back to that big choice: Poirot must decide whether to turn everyone over to the authorities, or lie and say some random murderer hopped on the train, did a little stabbing, and hopped off. I understand why modern adaptations always give Poirot this whole crisis of conscience (the BBC/PBS version did so too, hence that whole religious bent), but it’s funny because in the novel? He has absolutely nothing of the sort.

Instead, Poirot presents two theories. When Bouc objects to the random murderer theory, Poirot offers up a second solution, but warns they may like his first better. Then he lays out the crime as it really happened, and after Mrs. Hubbard confesses and asks that she bear responsibility alone, Poirot turns to Bouc and Dr. Constantine and asks what solution they believe now. Constantine and Bouc both agree that the first theory was correct after all, and the book ends like so:

“Then,” said Poirot, “having placed my solution before you, I have the honor to retire from the case . . .”

So, yeah. I really do get why no one thinks modern audiences would accept the World’s Greatest Detective just letting a bunch of murderers go free with nary a thought to consequences or morality, but personally, I think they’re wrong. Vengeance is hot, man. There’s a certain cathartic quality to a good righteous revenge story, and I think people would be all over that ending, as long as you set it up properly. (For example, it would probably help to establish early on that Poirot doesn’t think all criminals are created equal.) That all being said, I don’t object to his crisis of conscience here, or even to the idea of Poirot testing our murderers’ character, as happens in this adaptation. I just don’t love the execution.

Shortly after being shot by Arbuthnot, Poirot has a dramatic showdown with our killers in a handy nearby tunnel. He reveals some patently obvious facts (like that Arbuthnot, the trained marksman, had never actually been trying to kill him) and gets to all those hurried Big Reveals. He then sets a gun down on the table and says they’ll have to kill him if they want to escape justice. Mrs. Hubbard does pick up the gun, much to the horror of everyone else, but only pleads that the blame fall squarely on her shoulders. She immediately tries to kill herself, but of course, this is all a big test and the gun was never loaded.

The reasons I’m not wild about this scene:

A) The test itself feels a bit obvious, like, I knew that gun wasn’t loaded the second Poirot set it down.

B) Mrs. Hubbard attempting to commit suicide feels weirdly melodramatic, like, I should buy it but I really don’t. I don’t think it’s an acting thing, either. I think it’s a Big Moment that’s not really treated like a Big Moment, like, it’s given no room to breathe. (The BBC/PBS version–which has Colonel Arbuthnot draw his own gun and plan to kill Bouc and Poirot, only for Mary and the gang to talk him down–does a much better job with such a moment, even if I do dislike Poirot’s righteous indignation.)

C) Even though our killers passed the test, Poirot apparently still isn’t convinced because he has to mull things over with Pilar for some reason before he makes up his mind. I don’t mind their scene, exactly (at the very least, it gives Penelope Cruz a little more to do), but I do object to its placement after the Dramatic Morality Test. Like, that’s obviously the big turning point. You don’t create such a big turning point and then follow it up with a little more pondering. That’s just poor storytelling.

Finally, Poirot decides to let everyone go. He also decides to give us a voiceover for, I think, the first time in the movie. In this VO, Poirot address the dead Colonel Armstrong, for–as we found out earlier–Armstrong wrote him years ago, asking for his help catch Ratchett. Unfortunately, the colonel committed suicide before our little Belgian detective got the letter. Poirot tells the dead guy that he was finally able to get him justice after all, and gets off the train, where an officer is waiting to direct him to an homage a potential sequel the Nile.

Now, I’m reasonably certain that, in the novel, Armstrong did absolutely no such thing. However, this is one of the additions I actually quite like–or would, anyway, if it had been handled differently. Mek and I were discussing it, and we thought it would’ve been neat if–instead of having a picture of a Dead Girlfriend to whisper sweet nothings to–Poirot had a box of mementos representing regrets or unsolved cases. Armstrong’s letter would be one such memento, and when he looked at it in the beginning, we’d get a glimpse of a few words to set up the mystery. Words like Casetti, maybe. Daisy. Desperate.

If Armstrong’s letter was used as a framing device instead of a throwaway line of exposition, I think the audience would connect much more to the Armstrong family. (Especially if we added a few more flashbacks, as previously suggested, and reworked some of the Big Reveals.) It would also shift Poirot’s crisis of conscience a little, making it a battle between wanting to do right by the man he felt he’d let down and wanting to do right by his own principles of balance and justice.

But, alas. Such is not to be.

QUOTES:

Mrs. Hubbard: “Eyes linger any longer, I’ll have to charge for rent.”
Ratchett: “I’ll pay.”
Mrs. Hubbard: “Have another drink.”
Ratchett: “Are you insulted?”
Mrs. Hubbard: “Disappointed. Some men have a good look. All they have to do is keep their mouth shut and they can take home any prize they want. Still, the mouth opens.”

Mrs. Hubbard: “A man was rummaging around my cabin in the middle of the night.”
Hercule Poirot: “You are certain it was a man.”
Mrs. Hubbard: “I know what it feels like to have a man in my bedroom.”

Ratchett (to Poirot): “You’re fun.”

Daisy: “I’m sleeping here where everyone can see me, and I can see everyone.”

Daisy: “Hercules Poirot?”
Hercule Poirot: “Hercule Poirot. I do not slay the lions.”

CONCLUSIONS:

It’s not a bad film. The performances are all quite good, and some of the scenery is lovely. A few of the additions are even clever, if not all of them. But the execution of the twists and turns and emotional reveals are all over the place, leaving for a pretty unbalanced mystery. Absolutely watchable, but it has the much potential to be so much better.

MVP:

I’ll give it to Kenneth Branagh for acting, if not directing. But I’m not gonna lie: I was heavily tempted to give it to Tom Bateman instead.

TENTATIVE GRADE:

B

MORAL:

Sometimes, revenge isn’t really so bad.

So. The Last Jedi, huh?

I saw this movie basically the second it opened, but I haven’t had the opportunity to write about it until now–although, of course, I’ve read everyone else on the internet analyze it to death. Per usual, my commentary is belated and possibly unnecessary at this point, but that’s we at My Geek Blasphemy strive for: somewhat thoughtful, somewhat snarky, and late AF.

Also, for the most part? I really enjoyed the film.

DISCLAIMER:

There will be no blatant spoilers for this film until the SPOILER SECTION. All bets are off, though, for any other movie in the franchise.

SUMMARY:

After the events of The Force Awakens, Rey tries to get cranky old Luke Skywalker to come back and help the Resistance. Meanwhile, said Resistance is basically just trying to survive the First Order’s onslaught, which leads to long-shot secret missions and friction between allies.

NOTES:

1. As an ongoing series of science fiction stories that have spanned literal decades, I find Star Wars fascinating and can easily talk about it until I’m blue in the face. Still, my enjoyment of these movies has never been anywhere near reverence, and I’m definitely not going to win any Ultimate Star Wars Nerd contests out there. So, when The Last Jedi shakes up the status quo by flipping a lot of typical Star Wars tropes on their heads, that worked for me; in fact, it’s what I like most about the film. That’s obviously not true for everyone out there, something we’ll talk about in much more detail in the Spoiler Section.

It’s also true that, despite not being Queen Nerd, I apparently still get really excited (and maybe a wee bit emotional) when the opening scroll starts up. So, I’m not saying I don’t have any skin in the game.

2. The last couple of years, I’ve spent a fair bit of time bemoaning Hollywood’s trend towards action movies that run over two hours. That being said, I must say that The Last Jedi is 2 hours and 35 minutes long, and never once felt slow to me. The movie has a lot to accomplish, and for the most part, I feel it used its minutes well. Which is not to say I won’t be critiquing some subplots because, dudes, me. But generally speaking, I feel the movie was pretty decently paced, with a good bit of time spent on each character.

Well, okay. Chewy didn’t get much to do. Or Phasma. Damn it, people. Stop casting the excellent Gwendoline Christie in your movie and then giving her nothing to do! This is madness.

3. I’ve been trying to figure out how to formulate this review–there’s so much to talk about, and so much I can’t say without spoilers. Maybe if I try to break up the cast into pairs and address them as such?

Luke & Leia

Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher

One of the best surprises for me about this movie is just how much I like Luke. Like, yeah, Luke Skywalker was always okay, but he was never exactly a favorite. I certainly never found him to be a particularly compelling hero. And come on, that whine. Look, I get the whine was intentional and all, but when I mock annoying people in my head, I’m usually picturing them saying, “But I was going over to Tosche Station to pick up some power convertors!”

In The Last Jedi, though, Luke gets to be something that I never thought I’d actually see him be: a motherfucking badass. Honestly, it was kind of neat. And Mark Hamill gives an incredible performance in this movie; I know there’s been a lot of press about how he and Rian Johnson didn’t initially see eye to eye on Luke’s character development, but one way or another, Hamill put the work in here.

Meanwhile, Carrie Fisher’s last performance as Leia is both lovely and, not unexpectedly, a little depressing to watch. Everything I want to say about Leia includes spoilers, but what I will throw out is that The One Scene which is pissing off a bunch of fanboys? They’re wrong. I swear, when it comes to The Last Jedi and the Great Fandom Schism that’s occurred, I honestly hope to provide a much more thoughtful and balanced analysis of the various viewpoints, but in this one scene I cannot even pretend vague objectivity. It is the best, and I will defend it to my dying day.

Kylo & Rey

Adam Driver and Daisy Ridley

Another pleasant surprise: the dynamic between these two characters works really well for me. One of my biggest disappointments with the Star Wars universe has always been the lack of screen time given to telepathy and Force bonds and the like, and I really, really enjoyed how all that is handled here. Rey continues to be awesome; meanwhile, I actually do garner a small amount of . . . oh, I don’t know if sympathy is quite the right word, but . . . I find Kylo to be a vastly more interesting character in this movie than he was in The Force Awakens. (I mean, I didn’t mind him in The Force Awakens, but only because I saw him as an intentionally whiny and entitled little shit. If I was supposed to see him as a more fully developed, sympathetic baddie, then the movie utterly failed for me in that regard.)

Prior to seeing The Last Jedi, I definitely wasn’t looking forward to Rey and Kylo’s interactions. (Which I assumed would go like this: Kylo: “Come to the Dark Side!” Rey: “No, but wait, I’m so strangely tempted for no apparent reason, but no, no!” Kylo: “But THE POWER!” Rinse, repeat.) Strangely enough, however, their interactions actually turned out to be one of the film’s highlights for me.

That all being said, a lot of people apparently came out of this movie shipping Rey and Kylo, and . . . like, I try not to be the person who’s shitty about other people’s ships, but God, this one makes me cringe. Like, fanfic writers, you do you, but if these two become a canon ship in the third movie, just, you know, prepare yourselves, people. Because I will be screaming, and not in the good way.

Poe & Holdo

Unfortunately, here’s where I start running into some problems. Not, like, movie-breaking problems, but definitely stuff that I would’ve changed, if I was in the fabulous position to do so.

Here’s my thing: this whole subplot is so, so close to working for me. Holdo is a potentially interesting new character in a command position. I adore Poe, and the emotional journey he goes on in this movie (like what makes a hero a hero, when is a sacrifice necessary, etc.) really works for me. These two characters don’t see eye to eye, and that works pretty well for me, too . . . except for when it doesn’t.

Obviously, I’ll discuss specifics later. For now, here’s what I’ll say: one of these characters makes a choice in this movie that I simply do not buy, and because so much of the plot is predicated on that choice, I have Writer Problems.

Rose and Finn

Kelly Marie Tran and John Boyega

I really like both Finn and Rose, but I also have some problems with their storyline. Unfortunately, I’ve had more difficulty trying to identify exactly what isn’t working for me and how I would like to fix it. I feel like the Poe and Holdo subplot could be fixed to my satisfaction with basically, like, one line. Finn and Rose are harder.

On the plus side, Rose is pretty neat. Part of that is simply because Kelly Marie Tran is the most adorable person alive, but it’s also because I find Rose really interesting, at least initially. She’s a different character than we’ve seen in the Rebellion/Resistance thus far; like, she’s not a princess, an admiral, a Jedi, or a fighter pilot. She’s a mechanic, and her work is a day-to-day grind, all behind the scenes. Rose also suffers a great personal loss early in the film–it’s actually how we’re introduced to her–and it’s this grief that really informs her first interactions with Finn. It’s excellent stuff, and sold me on Rose pretty much immediately.

I do feel that as the film goes on, however, Rose’s own emotional journey kind of just stops in lieu of Finn’s emotional journey. Which, hey: I like Finn’s emotional arc, especially when taking the events of The Force Awakens into consideration. But it does seem to me that Rose loses out a bit here, and while I’m mostly okay with it, I’d really like to see Rose have a great fucking arc in Star Wars X.

4. This all leads us to one of the film’s universally least liked segments: Canto Bright.

See, this is the part of the movie I don’t quite know how to fix. You can’t just cut it. It’s vitally important, not just plot wise but also thematically. And I like the moral lessons that are learned here, although I will admit they can be a touch heavy handed. (Then again, it’s not like subtlety has ever been this franchise’s strong suit, right?) You absolutely need Canto Bright. And some of it I actively enjoy!

And yet.

I really feel part of the problem here is DJ (Benicio Del Toro), a hacker who comes to Rose and Finn’s aid. He just . . . never quite works for me. I also suspect that Canto Bright might just go on a bit too long, like, maybe we cut or at least seriously minimize this one chase scene? It’s not the pod racing scene from The Phantom Menace or anything, but you know. It feels a bit drawn out and unnecessary.

5. Of course, I know what you all really want to know: Carlie, where do you fall on porgs?

They’re adorable. I’m not a monster.

Seriously, I do like the porgs. They’re cute. I have no problem with cute alien creatures in Star Wars; what doesn’t work for me are cute alien creatures that take up too much of the plot, or otherwise cause significant plot problems. The Ewoks, for instance: as a kid, I loved them, but as an adult, I want to paint FILLER on their adorable little faces. They just take up too much time, time I really needed to be spent on other things, like, oh, I don’t know, the bullshit redemption arc of Darth Vader. (No, people, I’m never getting over this.)

The porgs, meanwhile, are deeply not plot relevant, and no one pretends they are. They’re just around for a few cute, comic relief scenes. That totally works for me. (Though I suspect I wouldn’t want to actually own one, for the same reasons I don’t want to keep any birds as pets: they’re probably loud as shit. I’d totally take one of those crystal foxes, though.)

6. Finally, a few awesome things about the movie before we get into Spoilers:

6A. Oh my God, the women. Before we had Leia and Rey (and briefly, Maz); now, we still have Leia and Rey, PLUS Rose and Holdo. (Maz, too, technically, but her role is so small I’m not counting it for the purposes of this note.) That’s four significant female characters with, like, names and dialogue and honest-to-God agency. They’re not even all white! (I mean, okay. They’re still mostly white. Still, Rose is progress–if insanely overdue progress–so I’m going to take it as a win.)

I’m kind of annoyed that I’m so fired up about a movie having four whole roles for women, but in this franchise? People. That’s a goddamn jackpot.

6B. The humor, generally. I know there were a few jokes that didn’t land for me. (Finn saying, “Let’s go, chrome dome,” for instance.) But for the most part, I really liked all the comedy, partially because I like to laugh, but mostly because I really think you need it as a counterbalance for some of the dark shit in this movie. Cause, honestly. There’s some dark shit in this movie.

6C. Seriously, the trope-flipping. The movie would start going in one direction, and I’d be like, Oh no, please don’t do this . . . and then they didn’t do it! That actually happened more than once, and while I know a lot of fans feel betrayed by these choices, to me, they’re not merely interesting; they’re also necessary. In fact, I personally feel that Rian Johnson makes some decisions here that, while unusual in a Star Wars story, actually fit the Moral of the Franchise so much better than anything we’ve seen in the past.

But that’s about the best I can do without spoilers. So, let’s just get down to it, shall we?

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

Okay, so let’s basically repeat everything I just said, but with a lot more specific detail:

An Incomplete List of Big Twists, Subverted Tropes, and/or Flipped Expectations in The Last Jedi

Kylo abruptly murders Snoke (our supposed Big Bad), like, halfway through the movie.
Kylo doesn’t get redeemed.
Rey’s parents were garbage people of absolutely no importance.
Finn and Rose’s long shot mission to save the day totally fails and arguably makes everything much worse.
Leia survives getting spaced by awesome Force powers and basically floats her ass back to safety.
Luke Skywalker never actually leaves his secret hideout and astral projects his ass to fight Kylo. (Also, expelling this much energy ultimately kills Luke.)

Okay, that’s a lot. Let’s take each of those one by one.

Kylo abruptly murders Snoke (our supposed Big Bad), like, halfway through the movie

Initially, I both loved and despised this moment. Despised because I was very frustrated with Kylo’s redemption arc (we’ll get to that in a minute). Loved for . . . well, multiple reasons, actually. Absolutely despising Snoke, though, was definitely one of them.

So, look: I can see how some fans were upset about this. I can absolutely think of movies and TV shows that killed off characters prematurely, at least IMO. One of the most recent examples is Star Trek: Discovery, and no, it’s probably not the character you’re thinking of. (Though that definitely pissed me off, too, just for different reasons.) No, this person was a minor character who, I assumed, was a major player. I didn’t like them, exactly, but I assumed they were a vital part of upcoming Big Plot Shenanigans and, at the very least, I thought they had significant potential to become interesting. Instead, their death was sudden and senseless and just ridiculously dumb, and I was very frustrated by it.

So, sure, theoretically, I could see how Snoke’s death might have felt the same to other people.

For me, though, Snoke’s death was pretty much perfect. For one, I never could take that guy seriously; I was laughing my ass off at him during The Force Awakens. Like, THIS guy? THIS guy I’m supposed to be scared of? But it’s not all design. The thing about Snoke is that, to me, he comes off as a really poor retread of Emperor Palpatine. There’s nothing new or interesting about this guy. He’s, like, Evil, capital E and that’s it. And the thing is, that’s boring. I guess it’s possible that discovering his secret origin story might have made him more interesting, but nothing in either The Force Awakens or The Last Jedi really supports that idea. So, killing him off quickly and making Second Banana Kylo Ren the Big Bad instead? I found that much more fascinating.

Kylo doesn’t get redeemed

This was a big one for me.

I’m not 100% against the idea of redemption arcs; I do, however, feel that the bigger the crime(s), the stronger that redemptive arc really needs to be, and Kylo’s arc wasn’t nearly good enough for me. Yes, we saw that Luke Skywalker was (seemingly) about to kill him*, and yeah, that’s some traumatic shit, but that’s also when you leave Jedi Camp and say, “Fuck off, Jedi Assholes and all family reunions ever! I’m out!” It’s NOT why you murder a bunch of Jedi kids and join up with a galactic force that engages in slavery, mass genocide, general tyranny, etc. (Or, for that matter, murder your father/one-of-the-most-popular-characters-in-this-entire-franchise.) Like, I get it, Snoke already had his hooks in Kylo, blah blah. I don’t care. Accountability is still a thing, folks.

Kylo’s connection to Rey is super interesting–like, I have LONG since wanted more Force communication/mind-meldy shit–and allows him to showcase a bit more vulnerability.(Which is a bit stronger than just random people saying shit like, “I still sense Light in you.”) I really like how these scenes are shot, and I find Rey and Kylo’s dynamic fascinating. Still, I just don’t see anything here that would instigate such a gigantic turning point; there’s nothing big enough to make Kylo realize he’s been on the wrong side all along, kill his Dark Master for the greater good, and go join the Light.

But Kylo killing Snoke so that he can say, “Fuck the Light Side, the Dark Side, my parents, tradition, my current master who treats me like shit, and my old master/uncle who once tried to kill me? I’m going to burn it all down and rule motherfucking EVERYTHING.” That I believe. That completely fits everything we’ve seen from Kylo, and what’s more, it’s interesting; it is a new, more complex motivation than we’ve seen from any Star Wars villain thus far. So, yeah, I was all for it.

*This generally works for me cause, like, people aren’t perfect and I don’t expect Luke Skywalker to be, either. But I do think just one or two short flashbacks to Young Kylo, steadily growing darker and darker, wouldn’t have gone amiss. Cause, like, Luke was the guy who thought Darth Vader still had a Light Side to bring to the table. Watching him plan to murder his nephew, even for just a second . . . I feel like we missed a step.

Rey’s parents were garbage people of absolutely no importance

YES. THIS. SO MUCH THIS.

I could have taken a certain amount of backstory. Like, if Rey had been one of the Jedi kids who actually survived Kylo Ren’s slaughter fest or something, sure. But I never wanted Rey to have Super Important Parents, and I absolutely didn’t want her to be one of the Skywalker line. So, obviously, this was just all my dreams come true.

Here’s my thing: I’ve discussed again and again how family and/or genetics have always been desperately weird in the Star Wars universe, but when you think about it, does it really make sense for our heroes to all descend from some ultra-powerful bloodline? One of the primary complaints about The Last Jedi is that it betrays core components of the franchise, and theoretically, I totally understand that; I like a lot of Quentin Tarantino movies, but I still can’t help but feel that everything he brings to the table isn’t what I come to Star Trek for. And while I’m perfectly happy with multiple flavors of Batman, the kind who flat out murders people or prepares to assassinate dudes based on the 1% chance that they might be evil? Fuck that bullshit flavor. That’s not my Batman and never will be.

The important distinction here, though, is that while a powerful bloodline has been historically significant to the Star Wars franchise, I don’t think excising it from the movies takes anything away from the fundamental message of these stories. For starters, we haven’t even done that: we’re just back to the villain coming from the all-powerful Force bloodline, not the primary hero.

But more importantly . . . what Star Wars has always fundamentally been about, to me, is the common goal of rebellion, of resistance, of little guys all over the galaxy stepping up to fight back against seemingly unstoppable tyranny. It’s fighter pilots in their tiny ass planes taking on Death Stars. It’s smugglers realizing that there’s a cause so much bigger than their own self interest. It’s about people coming together to beat unspeakable odds, and in that case . . . doesn’t it actually make more sense to have a heroine who doesn’t come from some magical bloodline, who isn’t some secret space princess or Famous Jedi’s Daughter, but instead comes from nothing, who was thrown away and made herself into a hero? Should the Force really be some kind of weird royal birthright, or should it be something that even a girl from nowhere can tap into to affect change for the better?

Personally, I think that’s a far more compelling story. More than that, I think it’s the Star Wars story that deserves to be told.

Finn and Rose’s long shot mission to save the day totally fails and arguably makes everything much worse.

So, here’s my thing about this: I actually think it’s great that the mission utterly fails. My problem here is two-fold. Let’s deal with the Poe and Holdo aspect first.

See, after Leia is temporarily knocked out of commission (more on that in a while), Holdo becomes the new commander. Unfortunately, the fleet is being tracked by the First Order through lightspeed, and it’s all the Resistance can do just to keep out of range of the big guns. Holdo doesn’t appear to have much of a plan, other than just ‘go forward and hope for the best.’ Poe (quite rightly) thinks this is a bullshit plan, but he’s also (quite rightly) in the doghouse because he disobeyed orders and made a pretty huge tactical error, destroying a big target but losing way too many people to do it. So, he disobeys orders again and sends Finn and Rose off on a secret mission that ultimately fails. Meanwhile, Holdo had a secret self-sacrificing plan all along to try and secure the fleet, but the secret mission ends up seriously putting that plan in jeopardy.

My problem is this: a lot, a LOT, of the plot rests on Holdo’s decision to keep her plan a secret from Poe, and ultimately, I just don’t buy it. There are multiple reasons for this, but probably the biggest one? I honestly don’t understand why her plan was a secret at all. Like, from anyone. Yes, Poe just got demoted, I get it. Poe done fucked up. And sure, this is a militarized resistance, and the military leaders don’t have to explain shit to their soldiers, but . . . come on. Why not reassure your troops that you have a plan? Why not tell it to them ahead of time so everyone could, I don’t know, prepare for it? Evacuate to the life pods faster, that kind of thing? And if your plan on first glance looks like it’s going to meet certain, inevitable doom, why not briefly explain what’s really going on instead of waiting for a perfectly timed dramatic reveal? It all just feels too cheap to me.

Presumably, Holdo doesn’t trust Poe because she knows very little about him, maybe just that he’s pilot and was demoted for insubordination. But if you don’t trust a guy enough to tell him the plan, seriously, what are you just letting him walk around for? Again, this is a stupid secret to keep, especially from the dude who is obviously likely to take matters into his own hands. Either keep him clued in to keep him in line, or don’t tell him anything and confine his ass to quarters.

Also, this: Holdo mistrusts this dude so much that she won’t tell Poe even the most basic information . . . but then later says she likes the little shitstarter and fondly ruffles his hair after he basically starts a mutiny against her? (Okay, I can’t remember if the hair-ruffling actually happened or not, but you know what I mean.) No. No, people, you can’t have this both ways. Holdo can’t mistrust Poe so much that she won’t tell him the plan, demand that he follow her orders without question, and then think of him as a mischievous little scamp. That shit don’t fly.

The thing is, there’s a pretty easy way to fix all of this: introduce a traitor on board, someone who made it possible for the First Order to track the Resistance through lightspeed. I don’t care who the traitor is; hell, I don’t care if there actually is one, or if Holdo and Poe are both just wrong. But if Holdo thinks there’s a traitor in the fleet, of course she won’t tell anyone her secret plan, certainly not Poe, who could very well be the traitor. (After all, he did just make a decision that wiped out half their pilots.) And if Poe–and presumably the audience–suspects it’s Holdo (who, after all, doesn’t even look like she’s trying to save her people), that works too. Everybody wins!

Well. Not Holdo, really, because she dies. Everyone else, though.

Meanwhile, back to Finn and Rose’s actual mission: I think the biggest problem for me here is DJ, the hacker they end up with after they totally fail to retrieve the actual hacker they came for.

On one hand, having to settle for Hacker #2 is totally in line with the Failure Mode that runs rampant in this film. On the other hand, DJ just hanging out in their prison cell feels way too convenient, and there’s something about Del Toro’s whole performance that just doesn’t do much for me. It feels, IDK, contrived? The weird, not terribly consistent stutter thing probably doesn’t help.

And while I really like that DJ completely screws them over (like, that’s huge, both for the plot and for Finn’s whole emotional arc), I can’t help but feel this might have been stronger if I actually liked DJ, or at least gave a damn about him. Theoretically, he’s a compelling character. Like, he’s basically Han Solo if Han never came back to help the Rebellion take out the Death Star . . . and yet . . . he just doesn’t feel right to me. He doesn’t quite feel like an actual character yet, somehow.

Leia survives getting spaced by awesome Force powers and basically floats her ass back to safety.

You already know how I feel about this. This is the best.

When Leia was first blown out to space, I was pretty upset. I knew there was a possibility that she would die, of course, but I wasn’t expecting it anywhere near this early, and I was Not Happy. So when Leia started to, like, open her eyes and spacewalk or whatever, I was like YAAAAASSSS.

I’ve seen some people upset over this new power, but I gotta be honest: I just don’t have much time for that. Seriously, it’s about time Leia actually got to do something interesting with the Force. And it was so badass and unexpected. I adored it.

I’m also pretty happy they didn’t kill Leia off in this movie. I’d be okay, I guess, if Part X picked up with her funeral or something, but I’d personally be much happier if we just got a line about her heading up the Resistance from some planet base, maybe a CGI shot of her reflection in a window or something, and that’s it. Focus on the new kids and let Leia live on, as we wish Carrie Fisher could have.

Luke Skywalker never actually leaves his secret hideout and astral projects his ass to fight Kylo. (Also, expelling this much energy ultimately kills Luke.)

Again, some people have been unhappy about this new ability. (Although from what I’ve seen, FAR more people are angry about Leia’s power, something that surprises me not at all.) And look, if it breaks your suspension of disbelief, I guess I get that; I know I’ve had that problem with other stories too, like, just because this kind of magic has been established doesn’t mean I’ll accept that kind of magic without previous foundation.

Here, though . . . yeah, it just doesn’t bother me. I don’t think it’s weird that either Skywalker sibling might have learned a new ability after, like, 30 years.I certainly don’t think it’s weird that their abilities are Super Fucking Strong, considering their grandaddy is The Force itself, or whatever. And come on, the astral projection shit was awesome, like, that was another badass reveal that I totally wasn’t expecting. I loved pretty much all of it: when Kylo basically has his FIRE EVERYTHING moment, when Hux snidely mocks him for that overreaction, when Luke tells Kylo he isn’t there to save him, the reversal of the “every word you just said is wrong” line, and the spectacular “see you around, kid” exit. It all works really, really well for me.

Luke’s death is sad, but it doesn’t feel cheap to me like Obi-Wan’s always has. It also doesn’t depress me nearly as much as Han’s, partially because the first death is often the hardest, partially because I always liked Han more, and partially because this movie gave Luke Skywalker the chance to be so badass and compelling in a way he has never been before, at least not for me. (Whereas Han basically remained the same smuggler he’d always been, never really changed or grew, and eventually had an evil child who murdered him. Seriously, that is so DARK.) Sure, it sucks to think that Luke’s been a depressed, cranky old hermit for the past however many years, but . . . that’s pretty much what The Force Awakens set up, right? Like, tossing the lightsaber was funny, sure, but it also seemed to perfectly line up with my expectations; Luke clearly didn’t fly out to Jedi Rock, waiting for the Chosen One to come find him. He went there to hide until he died. If you’re not happy with how Luke’s life turned out, I absolutely get it, but I’m not sure The Last Jedi is the right movie to blame for that.

Also: I did cry after Luke died, but I’ll be honest: it was a little less about Luke than it was about Carrie Fisher. When Leia is saying her goodbye to Luke, and we’re saying goodbye to Carrie . . . ugh. Heart. Break.

Good God, I’m already at 5,000 words. Let’s ABC the rest of this shit, shall we?

A. Despite the brand new Jedi abilities that were introduced in this film, I feel like The Last Jedi’s general understanding of the Force is much more in line with the original trilogy, rather than, say, The Phantom Menace and the bullshit midi-chlorians ever were.

B. So, there are a lot of people saying things like The Last Jedi killed their childhood. Some of these people I think are being pretty silly. OTOH, I totally get fans of the original trilogy who are just completely bummed about how these new movies have literally killed off their childhood heroes. Again, The Last Jedi personally bothers me a lot less than The Force Awakens in this regard, but either way, that’s a totally valid viewpoint and is, in fact, why I was initially hoping that this new trilogy wouldn’t include the original heroes at all.

Killing off Luke Skywalker does not make The Last Jedi a bad movie, but if that means you personally don’t like the movie because, damn it, you wanted to be Luke Skywalker when you were a kid, and couldn’t they have just let him have his happily ever after? I mean, yeah. That seems totally fair to me.

C. As far as my Star Wars shipping goes:

C1. You can pry my Poe/Finn ship away from my cold, dead hands.

C2. People hating on Rose purely because they’re Poe/Finn shippers need to get their heads on straight.

C3. If Rose/Finn is endgame, that’s okay (I at least like it more than I like Finn/Rey, who I just see as total bros), but if I’m supposed to feel it by the end of this movie . . . like, eh? I could maybe see it on her end, but I didn’t really get any romance vibes from him at all. And as far as the kiss goes, honestly . . . I need to watch it again to make up my mind. I’ve seen some people argue it’s not really meant to be a romantic kiss, but if that’s the case, I’ve gotta say, having it right after Rose says “saving the people we love” was probably not the best call.

C4. If the next movie makes any kind of serious love triangle between Finn, Rose, and Rey, I will hurt people.

C5. So . . . Leia and Holdo had a thing once, right? Tell me I’m not the only one who sees it.

D. The movie never really goes into it, but I’d find it fascinating to see what Rose thinks of Poe. NOT as a potential rival of Finn’s affections, but as the commanding officer whose order ultimately got her sister killed. Honestly, I’m perfectly content for there not to be a bunch of rage/angst: after all, Paige Tico does make a choice, and Rose seems to totally understand it, even as she keeps Finn from making a similar choice at the end of the film. Still, I’m potentially interested in an on-screen acknowledgement of these choices.

E. Although . . . okay, I’m just going to say it. Much as I love the sentiment of Rose’s line at the end of the movie about how they’re going to win the war by saving the people they love, not destroying the things they hate . . . like . . . if Luke hadn’t shown up (sorta), the entire Resistance would indeed by toast right now, like, that’s it. Game’s over. We lost, kiddos. Everyone’s dead.

I mean, I’m okay with it. I actually like that Rose gets to make a choice here, and she chooses to save Finn. I’m just saying, this isn’t quite the same thing as, say, Paige sacrificing herself to destroy a valuable but ultimately unnecessary target. This is the fucking ballgame, folks. If ever there was a time for a “self-sacrifice for the greater good” mission, like, here it is.

F. I continue to like Finn’s character growth. In The Force Awakens, Finn’s journey includes a) choosing to leave the evil military force he was conscripted into, and b) sticking around to help Rey, rather than running away as far as he could. In The Last Jedi, Finn’s journey is about finding a purpose bigger than just Rey, like, he’s a good guy, but Finn doesn’t really become a member of the Resistance until the end of The Last Jedi, and I like that.

G. I don’t care about Kylo’s shirtless scene. At all. Get me a shirtless Poe scene, though, and I might wake up a little.

H. I really wish The Last Jedi could have made more use of Phasma.

She really is this trilogy’s Boba Fett . . . although her death, at least, is not quite so inglorious as his. (Instead, she gets a “fall into the flames of hell” death, such as this one in Sorority Row, or this one in Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle. SPOILERS for both of those films at the links.)

Oh, Gwendoline Christie. You deserve so much more.

I. You know whose death totally bummed me out? The female fighter pilot who blew up in the hangar bay. She was in it for like four seconds, and I have absolutely no idea what her name was. But I latched on to her immediately, perhaps simply because I’m still used to desperately searching for female faces in Star Wars movies.

J. Dude, they totally killed off Admiral Ackbar! Like, really nonchalantly. I didn’t even notice, at first.

Okay, this kind of bums me out, too.

K. The scene where Yoda comes along to blow up all the old Jedi stuff? I liked it. I guess I could see how some might feel like this is a betrayal, but honestly, Yoda was always a kooky ass little shit. It really doesn’t feel OOC to me. And I love seeing him and Luke share a scene together.

L. Also, I have to say that Hux is growing on me. Admittedly, he’s used primarily as an ineffectual villain/comic relief in this movie, but still. Domhnall Gleeson may be channeling Peter Cushing for the role, but he’s channeling him at, like, 112%. I appreciate the effort.

I also can’t help but wish Hux would be the one to kill Kylo in Star Wars X by just stabbing him in the back or something. I know it would never happen. But it appeals to me regardless.

M. The scene where Luke, like, really aggressively drinks green milk is so utterly bizarre, I honestly can’t tell if I like it yet or not. But it’s a Moment, all right.

N. Finally, it’s probably worth being said that everything I most loved about this movie–not redeeming Kylo Ren, not giving Rey significant Jedi parents, etc–could easily be overturned by JJ Abrams in the next movie. It totally shouldn’t be. But it’s possible, in which case it’ll be my turn to be utterly, bitterly disappointed.

Cause, okay. Rian Johnson absolutely makes some unexpected choices here, but, like, he didn’t reinvent the fucking wheel, either. Tropes were subverted, sure, but it’s not like this movie didn’t have tons of Star Wars callbacks and tie-ins. Nor, for that matter, was it some 2 1/2 hour David Lynch mindfuck. This is an unusual Star Wars movie, but it IS a Star Wars movie.

And yeah, I really liked it. I can see why some people didn’t. And I don’t want to sit here and tell those people that they’re wrong. Obviously, I enjoy discussing my opinions, but I don’t actually write these reviews to convince people that they’re obviously being idiots and, clearly, they should listen to me. I don’t really write these reviews to try and convince anyone of anything, except to describe where my head’s at when and after I watch something.

I do feel, though, that if JJ Abrams spends the entire next movie retconning everything that happened in this one, well. That would be pretty shitty. Obviously, he could. Rian Johnson clearly went in a different direction than Abrams would’ve taken this story. But to me, nothing Johnson did seemed to shit on The Force Awakens. Nothing made me think Johnson was secretly saying, “Fuck you and your Star Wars idolatry, Abrams. I’m going to tell a story that both makes your film obsolete and betrays the whole franchise.”

But if Abrams just completely erases all the shit that happens here, if he redeems Kylo or brings Snoke back to life or says that Luke was secretly Rey’s father all along? I’m really struggling to see how that won’t come off as a giant middle finger to The Last Jedi. And I really hope that isn’t the case because this movie moves the franchise forward to tell new kinds of stories without simultaneously destroying it.

And if Disney is going to keep releasing 1-2 Star Wars films for the foreseeable future? Then I think forward is the direction we need to go.

QUOTES:

Yoda: “We are what they grow beyond.”

Kylo: “The Empire, your parents, the Resistance, the Sith, the Jedi . . . let the past die. Kill it, if you have to. That’s the only way to become what you are meant to be.”

Luke: “Where are you from?”
Rey: “Nowhere.”
Luke: “No one is from nowhere.”
Rey: “Jakku.”
Luke: “Yeah, that’s pretty much nowhere.”

Luke: “See you around, kid.”

Kylo: “Did you come back to forgive me? To save my soul?”
Luke: “No.”

Luke: “Amazing. Every word of what you just said is wrong.”

Poe: “This is Commander Poe Dameron of the Republic fleet, I have an urgent communique for General Hux.”
Hux: “This is General Hux of the First Order. The Republic is no more. Your fleet are Rebel scum and war criminals. Tell your precious princess there will be no terms, there will be no surrender.”
Poe: “Hi, I’m holding for General Hux.”
Hux: “This is Hux. You and your friends are doomed. We will wipe your filth from the galaxy.”
Poe: “Okay. I’ll hold.”
Hux: “Hello?”
Poe: “Hello? Yup, I’m still here.”
Hux: “Can he hear me?
Poe: “Hux?
Comm Officer: “He can.”
Poe: “With an ‘H’? Skinny guy. Kinda pasty.”
Hux: “I can hear you. Can you hear me?”
Poe: “Look, I can’t hold forever. If you reach him, tell him Leia has an urgent message for him . . .”
Comm Officer: “I believe he’s tooling with you, sir.”
Poe: “. . . about his mother.”

Poe: “Permission to hop in an X-wing and blow something up?”
Leia: “Permission granted.”

Rose: “We’re not going to win this war by destroying what we hate, but by saving what we love.”

Rey: “I’m Rey.”
Poe: “I know.”

(Kylo has fired basically every weapon ever to blow up Luke Skywalker.)
Hux: “Do you think you got him?”

(R2-D2 plays Leia’s old message to Obi-Wan.)
Luke: “That was a cheap shot.”

Poe: “You must have a thousand questions.”
Finn: “Where’s Rey?”

Snoke (about Kylo’s mask): “Take that ridiculous thing off.”

CONCLUSIONS:

Some disappointments, but overall I really enjoyed this addition to the franchise. It’s funny, moving, genuinely surprising, and steers the story in a new and mostly gratifying direction. I haven’t figured out where The Last Jedi fits in my Overall Star Wars Rating System yet, but it is my favorite movie of Rian Johnson’s since Brick.

MVP:

As much as I’d love to give it to Carrie Fisher, who was fabulous as always, I think I’ve gotta go with Mark Hamill for this one. He’s pretty terrific.

TENTATIVE GRADE:

A-

MORALS:

Fight for what you love, not against what you hate.

You don’t have to come from somewhere to be somebody.

Boy, be quiet and listen to the women, okay? They got this.

The latest film in the Mission: Impossible series (Mission Impossible – Fallout) premiered in July, and it got rave reviews from just about everyone. Best film in the franchise, multiple critics agreed.

Mek and I were not quite so enamored.

While discussing exactly why we weren’t enamored and how we’d rank the movies ourselves, an idea occurred: The Great Franchise Re-Watch. I don’t know how quickly we’ll watch each installment–I have my TOS recaps to return to, my ongoing Triple Scoop reviews to do, and, oh yes, my goddamn novel revisions to finish. (Maybe I’ll eventually discuss some actual holiday movies too?) But periodically, we’ll be discussing each of the M:I movies and, ultimately, ranking them from favorite to least.

First up, of course, the movie that began them all – Mission: Impossible.

Year: 1996
Director: Brian de Palma
First Watch or Re-Watch: Re-Watch
Amazon, Netflix, Hulu, or Other: Other: Personal Collection DVD
Spoilers: YES

I probably saw this movie for the first time when I was ten or eleven, and I liked it . . . although I will freely admit that the opening act scared me a little because a) I was weak, b) elevator-related deaths freaked me out, and c) they killed Emilio Estevez, those bastards.

Still, Mission: Impossible was pretty goddamn cool at the time, and for the most part, I think it holds up pretty well. Like, as an adult, I’m pretty sure I would’ve called the whole “Jon Voight is evil” twist, but its predictability actually doesn’t bother me here because I think the Big Reveal scene (where Ethan works out exactly how everyone on his team died) is handled pretty deftly, particularly as it happens so quickly after Voight’s reemergence. (I’ll admit, though, that I might’ve been pissed if I’d been a fan of the original TV series; like, how would I have felt if they’d made, IDK, an X-Files movie for the next generation where Old Mulder was secretly evil? I have to think I’d be irritated . . . though I also have to wonder if such a movie could possibly be any worse than Season 10.)

Anyway. Mission: Impossible is well-plotted and paced. I absolutely love the opening credits. The Langley heist, of course, is iconic AF, and Max (Vanessa Redgrave) remains a goddamn treasure.

A few things that bother me a bit, now that I’m a cranky adult who spends too much time analyzing movies for fun:

A) Some of the absurd low angle and Dutch angle shots are super distracting and just need to go.

B.) Claire (Emmanuelle Béart) is immensely boring, which is disappointing considering she’s the primary female character. She’s basically just there to be breathy and duplicitous.

C) Old People Makeup basically never works, ever, but it’s especially laughable when you set up IMF’s Incredible Mask Disguises by applying terrible makeup/prosthetics to Tom Cruise for the first two jobs, and then have him “wear” his Phelps disguise in the final act, i.e, have Jon Voight just sit there instead. Like, look, I’m all about this particular ridiculous trademark; I’m just saying the makeup portion has to go. (So, thank God, it did.)

The Current Ranking

1. Mission: Impossible

Solo: A Star Wars Story

First Watch or Rewatch: First Watch
Amazon, Netflix, Hulu, or Other: Netflix
Spoilers: Yep. Heavily implied spoilers for Rogue One, too.
Grade: Vanilla

So, I finally watched Solo. It was okay, I guess.

On the plus side: Alden Ehreneich is perfectly respectable as Han. I adore Donald Glover as Lando. I am equally obsessed with Lando’s fabulous wardrobe. And I love, just LOVE, Phoebe Waller-Bridge as L3-37. Enfys Nest is super intriguing, and Qi’ra turning out to be Darth Maul’s disciple is . . . . interesting? (Especially since that motherfucker should be dead. Don’t come at me with Clone Wars. Darth Maul got sliced in half and he is DEAD.) Like, I’m into it, but also this twist doesn’t really go anywhere? If we’re setting up for a new Qi’ra-centered prequel–or for Old Qi’ra to return as an important villain in Star Wars IX–I guess that’s one thing, but as is, my reaction was more like, “Okay, cool, and . . .?”

Which, honestly, is a fair representation of how I feel about Solo as a whole. Like, why did we make this? To tell us how Han got his last name? Please. That was some unnecessary bullshit right there. To show us how Cynical Han used to be more trusting and idealistic?

Who really needed that story? Especially since it’s such an obvious story: I felt like I spent most the movie waiting for both Woody Harrelson and Emilia Clarke to double-cross Han. It wasn’t a question of if; mostly, it was just a question of who first. That’s not what I would call awesome narrative tension, which is one of my largest complaints about prequels in general. L3-37’s death is pretty obvious from the get-go, too, because she–like every character in Rogue One–isn’t around for the later films. Also, am I the only person who’s upset that Han took the Millennium Falcon? Like, I know Lando cheated the card game and all, and, sure, later left them to die (I cheered, BTW), but still, whether it was romantic love or otherwise, Lando obviously cared a lot about L3-37. The last of her knowledge–her essence, so to speak–was put into that ship . . . and then he doesn’t even end up with it? WHAT MONSTER IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THIS?

Also, I can’t help but note that Lando grieved more for L3-37 than anyone did for Thandie Newton, and for Christ’s sake, how the fuck do you cast Thandie Newton in your movie and do that little with her? I don’t care how busy she was with Westworld; this is a HUGE waste of her talent, and I am feeling deeply salty about it. In fact, if this film were to be remade to my satisfaction? You kill off Woody, not Thandie: he’s a bigger name, so his cameo death is actually more of a shock; more importantly, Val’s antagonistic chemistry with Han would be a much more interesting dynamic to watch, especially as they reluctantly grow to depend upon and like one another. After that, you can go one of two ways: Val, like Beckett, could betray Han (which I suspect would be more surprising), or she could step up to join the Rebellion with Enfys Nest, while Han, burned by Qi’ra, turns away from all that. I actually think the latter could have a lot of emotional punch, and the only thing I’d regret losing is the scene where Han shoots Beckett. I did genuinely enjoy that moment.

And if you do go with the latter, there’s  clearly only one course of action: an immediate sequel to this prequel, in which Val and Enfys go up against Qi’ra in an epic showdown. (Hopefully using this song because it’s also pretty goddamn epic, if not a little . . . odd . . . when paired with the train heist scene.)

Stripes

First Watch or Rewatch: First Watch
Amazon, Netflix, Hulu, or Other: Netflix
Spoilers: I mean, yeah, technically? It’s a comedy from 1981, though, so . . .
Grade: Strawberry

Yes, this really is the first time I’ve ever watched Stripes. It’s . . . also okay?

Look, here’s my confession: Bill Murray’s shtick doesn’t always work for me. I mean, sometimes it does! But other times, not so much, and while I understand I should’ve spontaneously burst into flames just for daring to commit such blasphemy to the written word, like, dude’s built a career out of playing snarky little assholes. And while I’m generally down for the “snark” part of that equation, the asshole part? Don’t always love it. Which is a long-winded way of explaining that for every Murray line that makes me laugh in Stripes, there are two more that make me wanna punch him in the face. Freaking out the rich lady who was a snotty jerk to him, for example? Sure, no problem. Causing a huge backup on the bridge (plus at least one accident) just to get back at the rich lady, and, I don’t know, The Man? Dude, fuck you. I was glad when John’s GF left him, just like I was glad when Hulka punched him in the stomach.

Worse, John never actually grows or develops or learns anything. There’s a part where he steps up, I guess, but it doesn’t seem like he’s changed in any meaningful way. In fact, we know he hasn’t, because immediately after said step-up moment, he fucks off to Germany in a stolen Army SUV to have some weekend sex with his GF, inadvertently getting the rest of his unit captured when they go after him. John’s character arc is less of an arc than a flat line, and the movie–while occasionally funny–seems pretty directionless as a whole.

That all being said, certain scenes did make me laugh. The whole dance/drill sequence at graduation was pretty great. I was giggling during the creaking bones and push-ups scene (I’m 33; it’s relatable content), as well as when Russell (Harold Ramis) attacked Bill Murray for trying to desert. And I had a great time playing spot-the-actor. I mean, my God, this cast. I was particularly delighted to see a young John Larroquette playing against type, not to mention a cameo by Baby Danny Concannon. (I was excited about PJ Soles for a hot second, too, until she pretty much just transformed back into Lynda from Halloween, all giggly in love with John for God knows what reason.)

So, it’s okay. It’s just that, all in all, I would’ve been completely fine if John Winger had blown up during basic training and the movie had switched to focus on Sean Young, instead.

Love, Simon

First Watch or Rewatch: First Watch
Amazon, Netflix, Hulu, or Other: Other (HBO)
Spoilers: Yup, for both book and movie
Grade: Chocolate

I actually read this book (or, rather, Simon vs. The Homo Sapiens Agenda) last year and had, per usual, every intention of seeing the movie in theaters as well. For once, I’m so grateful I failed to do that. Not because I didn’t enjoy the movie; I absolutely did, but I was also not counting on the cringe factor being this high, like, JFC. I just spent two hours hiding behind my hands, taking off my headphones, muting the volume on my computer, lowering the screen of my laptop, and otherwise literally squirming in my seat. The sheer awkwardness, people. I’m fucking twitching over here.

Moving past that. Overall, I thought Love, Simon was a pretty great teen comedy: hilarious, cute, very often moving. I do have some disappointments: while I understood (and even liked) many of the adaptational changes, I’m not totally crazy that Leah secretly loves Simon now, rather than Nick. It feels a little . . . cliche? Unnecessary? I just didn’t love it, although I will admit that Movie Leah, who is considerably less passive aggressive and jealous than Book Leah, was a welcome change. I’m also pretty bummed that Bram didn’t get a bigger moment at the end of the movie, like, him joining Simon on the Ferris wheel is great and all, but their actual scene together feels pretty rushed. The story spends all this time on the mystery of Who is Blue, but once we find out it’s Keiynan Lonsdale, we only get, like, fifteen seconds with him, and then the movie’s over. I find it disappointing. (Especially because I like Lonsdale, damn it.)

Still, this movie is laugh out loud funny and has a spectacular cast. Nick Robinson is not at all who I pictured for Simon–honestly, I was thinking of Miles Heizer, who plays a smaller part in the film–but he does a pretty decent job with the role. Despite my frustrations with Leah’s storyline, I like Katherine Langford quite a bit. I also really enjoyed the hell out of Alexandra Shipp: she has a lot of energy, a lot of presence, and I’m looking forward to seeing more from her outside the painfully dull X-Men movies. And as far as the adults go, well, Tony Hale is absolute perfect as the awkward vice principal, I would legit watch a whole spinoff about Natasha Rothwell as Ms. Albright, and Jennifer Garner and Josh Duhamel are great as Simon’s parents. Garner, in particular, stands out here. Not gonna lie: I definitely cried at her “exhale” speech, like, Jesus, that shit got me.

Of course, this movie both is and isn’t your typical high school romcom; proving once again that Hollywood moves at the pace of a dead turtle, Love, Simon is our first mainstream gay teen romance. It’s a lot of hope and expectation to hang on a single film, and I suspect not everyone’s gonna get what they wanted out of it. For my part, though, I really liked this one. And hopefully, we actually follow this up with more LGBTQIA films soon, especially if they focus on some of those letters that get a little less attention.

Summer is almost over–not that you’d know it in sunny ass California–so it’s about that time for my Occasional TV Superlatives. If you weren’t around for the last time I did this, it’s pretty straight-forward: I just gush and/or rant about whatever TV shows I’ve recently been watching (whether they’re currently airing or not) with awards like Favorite Ship, Favorite Fight Scene, Most Disgusting Moment, and Most Comically Tragic Character. As always, any awards with spoilers will be very clearly marked.

As a reference point, here are the shows I’ve been watching for the past few months:

Agents of SHIELD, Season 6
Into the Badlands, Seasons 2 and 3 (currently still watching)
Good Omens
Dark, Season 2
Stranger Things, Season 3
Kingdom, Season 1
Yuri on Ice
Infinity Train, Season 1
13 Reasons Why, Season 3
Los Espookys, Season 1
Hotel del Luna (currently still watching)
Young Justice, Season 3B

With that in mind, let’s get started, shall we?

MOST ADORABLE

Aziraphale – Good Omens

I’ve liked Michael Sheen since Underworld, but this summer I basically fell in love with him, partially due to this refreshing stance on fanfiction, but also because he is a goddamn delight in Good Omens. Aziraphale is precious. He must be protected at all costs.  He is a fussy, clueless, benevolent, enthusiastic foodie of an angel, and I adore him desperately. He also wins for BEST PROFANITY, and if you’ve seen the miniseries, you know the moment I’m talking about.

Honorable Mentions: Enoch (Agents of SHIELD); Henry (Into the Badlands); Renaldo (Los Espookys); Atticus (Infinity Train); Alexei (Stranger Things); Lian (Young Justice)

FAVORITE NEW CHARACTER

Robyn – Stranger Things

Like the rest of the planet, I adored Robyn (Maya Hawke) on this latest season of Stranger Things. She’s smart, sarcastic, funny, and instantly charmed me; pairing her with Steve Harrington is easily one of the best decisions this show has ever made. In fact, these two also win BEST DYNAMIC DUO because I absolutely adore their friendship, particularly in this scene, which is obviously the best scene. (It does come with SPOILERS, however, for all ye who are not yet caught up to Season 3.)

I didn’t realize how much this show needed Robyn, but now it’s hard to imagine it without her. I can’t wait to see what she does next in Season 4, hopefully with Steve at her side.

Honorable Mention for Favorite New Character: Bajie (Into the Badlands); Snowflake (Agents of SHIELD)

Honorable Mentions for Best Dynamic Duo: Fitz & Simmons (Agents of SHIELD); Bajie & Sunny (Into the Badlands); Steve & Dustin (Stranger Things)

FAVORITE SCENE STEALER

TIE!

Gabriel – Good Omens
Juan Carlos – Los Espookys

Jon Hamm is the best, and I say that as someone who’s never seen an entire episode of Mad Men in her life. He does comedy so well, and he’s especially great here as the angel Gabriel. I mean, every line out of his mouth and reaction face is pure gold. We have all these new GIFs now, thanks to his art. (“Shut your stupid mouth and die already” is my absolute favorite, of course.)

But Andrés’s trophy boyfriend, Juan Carlos, is pretty much the best, too, like when he insists that he can’t deal with spooky or ugly things (“when we watch Beauty and the Beast, I skip the scenes with the Beast”) or when he tries to keep Andrés on track instead of brooding about his mysterious past. (“No, no, no, don’t contemplate.”) He’s terrible and hilarious, the one semi-normal character in an ensemble of lovable weirdos, and I really enjoy him.

Honorable Mentions: The Cat (Infinity Train); Sad-One (Infinity Train); Alexei (Stranger Things); Ani’s Mom (13 Reasons Why)

BEST LADYMANCE

Max and Eleven – Stranger Things

Sure, this friendship was an obvious attempt to appease audiences who were pissed off about how El treated Max in Season 2, but I’m totally okay with that. I actually like when a shows listens to its fanbase and–when appropriate–manages to course correct. Besides, Max and Eleven’s friendship is great: it’s awesome to see these two girls shopping and having fun and constantly supporting one another. Friendships between women, young or old, are often overlooked in movies and television, especially in genre work, so I was really grateful to see this. Plus, it led to my FAVORITE BADASS MOMENT, which I will link to HERE so I don’t have to move this whole award to the Spoiler Section. But if you’ve seen the season, you probably know the scene I mean because damn. It’s hilarious.

Honorable Mention: Daisy & Jemma (Agents of SHIELD)

FAVORITE SHIP (CANONICAL, MOSTLY)

Aziraphale/Crowley – Good Omens

I’ve been trying to decide whether to put our Ineffable Husbands in Favorite Canonical Ship or Favorite Non-Canon Ship; they are, after all, never technically confirmed to be in a romantic relationship, and yet–I don’t know. The ambiguity feels deliberate to me, and not necessarily in a shitty, queer-baiting sort of way, although I can easily understand why others might feel differently. Honestly, it’s all the other romantic relationships on this show that really bother me, each of which are heterosexual and manage to fail on multiple levels. It’s only when comparing Ineffable Husbands to these ships that I get frustrated cause, like, you had the most brilliant slow burn of all time right here and instead of making them an explicit couple, you went with these bullshit pairings instead? Still, the truth is that I love my Ineffable Husbands as either, well, husbands or as a queer platonic pairing, and the open-ended nature of their relationship does, in some sense, feel right to me. Thus after much hand-wringing, I’ve made this a Mostly Canonical Award because these two, my God. I heart them SO MUCH.

The truth is, I was kinda so-so on Good Omens as a whole. In fact, I’d probably go so far as to say as that I was disappointed, as I had multiple problems with the story’s execution. That being said, I absolutely fucking loved every scene with Crowley and Aziraphale in it. I mean, the 30-or-so-minute cold open to Episode 3 alone, just . . . gah! There are so many great moments between them, some of them adorably domestic (the bit with the coat), some of them super angsty (you go too fast for me, Crowley), etc. My cold, dead heart swelled three sizes upon watching the last scene at the Ritz, and despite my meh feelings on the actual miniseries, I almost immediately watched the whole thing again–only this time, I literally just watched every goddamn Crowley and Aziraphale scene.

I have a Top 10 Favorite TV Ships list somewhere around here, and while I know some ships come and go, Ineffable Husbands have definitely earned themselves a permanent spot.

Honorable Mentions: Brion/Halo (Young Justice); M’Gan/Connor (Young Justice); Yuri/Viktor (Yuri on Ice); Tony/Caleb (13 Reasons Why)

FAVORITE NON-CANONICAL SHIP

Alex/Zach – 13 Reasons Why

Rest assured, you will hear me rant at length about this show and its multitude of fuck-ups later on, but for now, let me just say that although these two have a considerable decrease in screen time together than in Season 2, I still absolutely ship the hell out of them. Because the few moments they do have together (or where they’re defending/sticking up for one another) are still so good, damn it. 13 Reasons Why would be be about a 1000% improved if, instead of giving unnecessary redemption stories to rapists or crafting hideously irresponsible messages about school shooters, it focused on a) even more moments with these two protecting each other at all costs, and b) another dance scene like this one from Season 2. Come on, people. It’s right there.

LEAST FAVORITE SHIP

Joyce/Hopper – Stranger Things

So, I’ve shipped Joyce and Hopper since the beginning. It’s always been a mild ship, mind you–there was very little squee–but regardless, I liked these two and I hoped they’d get together. And then they did, sorta, and it was the absolute worst.

Why? Because somewhere between Seasons 2 and 3, Hopper turned into a massive jackass. (Guess who wins WORST CHARACTER ASSASSINATION this year?)

Look, I get it: Hopper’s always been rough around the edges. But I never would’ve called him an emotionally abusive dick; moreover, he’s had consistent character growth over the last two seasons, leaving me entirely unprepared for just how much of an asshole he’d be this year. And while I don’t love how he interacts with Eleven or Mike, my biggest problem is how he treats Joyce. He refuses to respect her boundaries, verbally accepting their relationship as “just friends” before immediately throwing a shit-fit when that’s exactly how she treats him. All their supposed cute bickering is mostly just him being an asshole. And Joyce deserves better than this, damn it. It sucks when the canon romance actually kills the whole ship for you.

Honorable Mention For Least Favorite Ship: Clay/Ani (13 Reasons Why)

Honorable Mention for Worst Character Assassination: Deke (Agents of SHIELD)

BEST MULTI-EPISODE GUEST SPOT

Cary Elwes – Stranger Things

I mean, yeah, I do kinda wish that Mayor Kline was more plot-relevant in the long run, but still, Cary Elwes as a smarmy politician? Oh, it’s so much fun. I adored every minute Elwes was on screen, and I hope he enjoyed himself, too; he certainly seemed like he was having a ball. Stranger Things may love its stunt-casting, but by God, they do a good job with it.

MOST FABULOUS FASHION

TIE!

Eleven’s romper – Stranger Things
Steve and Robyn’s Scoops Ahoy uniforms – Stranger Things
Man-Wol’s purple dress, black hat, and rifle – Hotel Del Luna

I mean, the Scoops Ahoy uniforms were pretty instantly iconic, and–from what I’ve seen from my friends’ pictures–they were fucking everywhere at DragonCon this year. But Eleven’s romper, super colorful and totes adorable, was pretty iconic, too. If only more 80’s fashion had looked like this and not like, well, this.

Meanwhile, I’ve really only just begun watching Hotel Del Luna, but it’s already become clear that everything Man-Wol wears is the most fashionable thing ever; she appears to have at least four different glamorous outfits per episode, and I want ALL of them. Picking her entire wardrobe feels like cheating, however, so today we’ll go with her shiny purple dress from the first episode because it definitely stood out in the best of ways.

Honorable Mentions: Tilda’s “Iron Rabbit” look (Into the Badlands); Tati’s J-Lo dress (Los Espookys); Andrés’s black wedding suit with train (Los Espookys); Yuri’s “Eros” Outfit (Yuri on Ice)

FAVORITE FIGHT SCENE

The Widow vs. Tilda – Into the Badlands

(Disclaimer: mild spoilers during the clip)

Look, picking only one fight scene from this show is ridiculously hard; I mean, Jesus, every damn nominee in this category is from Into the Badlands. Still, I did really enjoy this particular battle between Tilda and The Widow; I love watching good fight scenes featuring badass ladies, and there’s real feeling between these two, adding more emotional stakes to the scene. Plus, you know. It’s just stylish and cool as hell.

Honorable Mentions: The Widow vs. Moon (Into the Badlands); The Widow vs. Baron Chau (Into the Badlands); Handcuffed Sunny and Bajie vs. The Champion (Into the Badlands); Sunny, MK, and Ava vs. Abbotts in Christmasland Motel (Into the Badlands); Sunny, MK, Tilda, and The Widow vs Baron Chau’s People (Into the Badlands); Pilgrim vs. The Unfaithful (Into the Badlands)

BEST BATTLE SCENE

Night in Dongnae – Kingdom

Battle may not be the best way to describe this, actually, as there’s very little true battle involved. Massacre might be a more fitting description, as a zombie horde rises up and decimates an entire village. There are those who fight back, though, while others run, and still others who refuse to lower the gates, leaving probably hundreds to their grisly doom. It’s about 30-minutes straight of action and horror, and IMO, it’s creative, brutal, and extremely well-executed.

WORST VOICEOVER

Ani’s Interrogation – 13 Reasons Why

First, I want to be very clear: while this is a truly terrible voiceover, actress Grace Saif is absolutely not to blame. Yes, Ani’s a very frustrating character who was ill-conceived on almost every level, but none of that is Saif’s fault; she did a spectacular job with what she had to work with, and I’d genuinely like to see her in a role more worthy of her talent. Unfortunately, Saif–like so many other actresses–has left social media after vicious and widespread online bullying, and while I’m not surprised by this, it’s still very disheartening.

At any rate, the terrible narration here is not a problem of performance, but of writing; the dialogue here is so, so bad, just vague and annoying and intensely repetitive. Admittedly, the VO in this show has never been great: Hannah’s tapes in Season 1 definitely also had their problems. But I don’t think it’s ever been quite this awful, like, here’s a sample of some of the narration from an episode where Zach is the primary murder suspect:

Everyone’s a liar.
Zach Dempsey lied about what happened at Homecoming.
Zach lied, and Zach had a clear reason to hurt Bryce, especially after the Homecoming Game.
But Zach’s anger at Bryce was about more than football. You see, Zach had a secret.
We all knew Bryce and Zach were at odds. But Zach had another secret he was keeping.

All of that? It’s within about ten minutes of each other. The first ten minutes, actually, which means there’s an additional, what, forty or so minutes of that shit? It’s fucking maddening. Let me write for you, Netflix, please; I can do better than this.

FAVORITE SONG

TIE!

“May the Angels” – Alev Lenz (Dark)

Your average episode of Dark comes with a few standard elements: time-travel fuckery, cryptically ominous people, massively depressing twists, and, of course, musical montages; every single episode has that whole “Mad World” scene from Donnie Darko, where everyone sits around gloomily while moody music plays.

I kid because I care; I’m actually very invested in this show, and besides, I enjoy a lot of these montages, especially the one in 2×05, set to this song. It’s a pretty great one that I downloaded almost immediately; I also love that the show makes use of the entire thing. If you feel the need for some empowering “I’m not taking your shit anymore” music, this could be the song for you.

“Ellos Quieren Sangre” – Varsovia (Los Espookys)

I wish I could write intelligently about how and why this song is so awesome, but honestly, it’s just a fantastic theme song choice for a wonderfully quirky show. “Ellos Quieren Sangre” is absolutely my current jam; I’ve listened to it a LOT in the past few days.

Honorable Mentions: “Survive” – Chelsea Wolfe (13 Reasons Why); “Dancing and Blood” – Low (13 Reasons Why); “Human” – Rag’n’Bone Man (Agents of SHIELD); “Suspicious Minds” – Elvis Presley (Dark); “Material Girl” – Madonna (Stranger Things); “Bicycle Race” – Queen (Good Omens); “Word Up” – Tulip (Infinity Train)

FAVORITE SUPERHERO SHOW

Young Justice

(Disclaimer: mild, non-plot related spoilers here)

I’m still so happy this show has returned. Before this year, I never thought it would actually happen. God bless you, DC Universe; I may be skeptical about what you’ve done with Titans, but I will always be grateful to you for bringing back Young Justice.

There’s a lot to like in the back half of Season 3. I’ll admit I was a little less into some of the Outsider missions, probably because I just don’t care quite as much about Beast Boy’s team, but that’s a pretty minor complaint when compared to what did work for me. The twists and turns. The humor. The emotional continuity: I love that Nightwing and Artemis are still allowed to grieve after the events of Season 2. There’s some great moments of queer rep, too: Kaldur has a boyfriend, and Halo comes out as non-binary. And sure, you can say these are small moments because they are, but IMO, they’re important ones and they’re pretty well-handled. It’s very exciting to see how much this superhero cartoon has really evolved over the years.

Honorable Mentions: Agents of SHIELD

FAVORITE NEW SHOW

TIE!

Los Espookys
Infinity Train

Well, these are two very different shows, but I loved them both so much. I don’t even know how to properly describe Los Espookys; it’s this brilliant blend of magical realism and absurdist comedy with a healthy appreciation for the horror genre. I adore all the characters, like, okay, Tati is probably my least favorite–which I’m pretty sure is an unpopular opinion–but Andrés is hilarious and dramatic AF, Ursula is a super competent badass, and Renaldo is so sweet, like, he’s just the softest goth ever. I can’t wait for this oddball show to come back for a second season. More spooky weirdness please!

Meanwhile, Infinity Train is a cartoon that began life as this short on Cartoon Network, and it’s hilarious, nerdy, and adorably sweet; I’m so glad my sister introduced me to it. Tulip is a great protagonist, and I love the whole concept of this mystery train with its impossible cars and endless puzzles. It’s mildly reminiscent of the Portal video games, only with a little less math and a lot more corgis. Plus, look at this voice cast: Ashley Johnson, Ernie Hudson, Kate Mulgrew, and Lena Headey! If you haven’t already, this show is well worth checking out.

MOST WELCOME RETURN

Dark

JESUS CHRIST, FINALLY, I HAVE BEEN WAITING.

Honorable Mentions: Young Justice

I’m afraid that’s it for the non-spoiler section. If you’d like to continue onwards, please do so with caution.

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

Last chance, everyone! Deaths will be discussed! Specific plot twists will be revealed! Ranting will commence almost immediately!

CHARACTER WHO MOST DESERVES A BETTER SHOW

TIE!

Tony Padilla – 13 Reasons Why
Zach Dempsey – 13 Reasons Why
Jessica Davis – 13 Reasons Why

Honestly, almost every character in 13 Reasons Why deserves a better show. The cast certainly does; it makes me so angry, seeing how good some of these kids are and imagining how much better they could be if the writers didn’t fail them, like, at least half the time. Again, you will hear more about my love-hate relationship with this controversial nightmare of a show later on (it’s more hate-hate, these days), but for now, let’s focus on Tony, Zach, and Jessica.

Tony’s primary storyline this season centers on his family, who get deported to Mexico because of Bryce’s terribly family. The storyline itself is very Ripped From the Headlines, and it’s a bit too rushed for my liking, but damn if Christian Navarro doesn’t act the hell out of it. I’ve always liked Tony, man of a thousand secrets, but I especially like him this time around, where Navarro gives the most heart-wrenching performance of the season. If only the show itself was more worthy of him.

Zach, meanwhile, just remains so goddamn earnest and likable; Ross Butler really brings this kid to life, and I just yearn to see this character in a show that doesn’t act like he’s the asshole for being against the whole “let’s keep this almost-school-shooting a secret” plan. (This fucking show, I swear to God.) Butler, too, really needs a lead role in something; I think he’d be perfect for a rom-com, myself. Netflix, get on that.

And Jessica (Alisha Boe) definitely deserves better than 13 Reasons Why, too. Admittedly, Season 2 actually did a pretty great job with her storyline as a rape survivor last season, really putting in the work; this year, however, like . . . you can see what they’re going for, but the nuance just isn’t there. The empathy is in all the wrong places, and Jessica deserves better. So does Alisha Boe, who–like everyone else in this cast–gives a really strong performance despite the disappointing script.

BIGGEST “JIMMY, NOOOOOOO” MOMENT

Little Girl – Kingdom

This adorable little girl survives a lot. She doesn’t get eaten by her Zombie Mom, although her equally adorable sister does. In fact, she makes it through the entire massacre of Dongnae, unlike hundreds of other villagers–only to die the very next episode, I think, shot by a fucking arrow. You monsters. YOU HEARTLESS MONSTERS.

CHARACTER WHO REALLY NEEDS TO JUST DIE ALREADY

Hannah – Dark

Ugh. She is the worst. SHE IS THE WORST. Why won’t anyone shoot her with an arrow?

This isn’t anything new, of course. In Season 1, Young Hannah, obsessed with Young Ulrich, lies to the police and accuses him of raping Young Katharina. As an adult, Hannah won’t leave Ulrich alone, insisting they continue their affair, even after his youngest child goes missing. When Ulrich refuses, Hannah tells his grieving wife that a) Ulrich was planning to leave her for Hannah, and b) that she left Ulrich, not the other way around. Hannah also blackmails her rich boss into destroying Ulrich, in case the extent of her obsession is not clear enough.

In Season 2, the whole “destroy Ulrich” plan isn’t going so hot because he accidentally time-traveled back into the 1950’s and got arrested for murder. (If you’re curious, he didn’t actually kill anybody, although he did try to murder the kid he thought was responsible for all this time travel abduction madness.) Hannah figures this out, steals a time travel machine, and visits Ulrich in the mental institute he’s imprisoned in, only to taunt him and leave him there. 30 years later, Ulrich is still trapped in the institution. I mean, I don’t even like Ulrich, and JFC.

I can’t wait for Hannah to die. I seem to remember the kids talking about this lake where some woman supposedly drowned; I heartily hope it was Hannah in the 1950’s. If she somehow survives through the end of this show, like . . . no. This show is bleak, but good Lord, that’s just too fucking bleak.

Honorable Mentions: Cho (Kingdom)

MOST COMICALLY TRAGIC CHARACTER

Jonas – Dark

Speaking of bleak.

This wasn’t an easy call, as basically everybody on Dark leads a miserable life due to poor decision making and time travel. Still, Jonas’s story hits new levels of ridiculously tragic. Last season, he found out that his father, who killed himself, is actually his girlfriend’s little brother who got trapped back in the 1980’s, which makes Jonas’s GF his aunt; he also got trapped in an apocalyptic future where almost everyone he knows is dead. I mean, that’s a lot, right?

Well, here’s how Season 2 says “hold my beer” to that:

Jonas is hanged in the apocalyptic future and nearly dies.

Jonas goes back in time to stop his father from taking his own life, only to realize that by doing so, he actually causes Mikkel/Michael to kill himself.

Jonas discovers that he (or, at least, a future version of himself) is responsible for leading Mikkel to the 1980’s time portal in the first place.

Jonas discovers that he is destined to become Adam, the secret Big Bad who’s been orchestrating nearly every terrible thing that’s happened in Winden, including the murder of several children.

Jonas watches Adam kill Martha, his aunt/forbidden love.

I mean, good God. Let this poor boy rest.

Honorable Mentions: Ulrich (Dark); Mikkel (Dark)

BEST KISS

The Doctor & Zombie Jemma – Agents of SHIELD

The truth is, Fitz and Simmons have never worked all that well for me as a ship, like, I don’t hate it or anything, but their chemistry has always come across as pretty strictly platonic, and anyway, I love the idea of their Epic Friendship Saga, like, we need more of those, damn it. So I was pretty surprised by “Inescapable” because for maybe the first time in six seasons, Fitz and Simmons finally worked for me as a romantic couple. I can’t exactly tell you why, either; it just clicked for once. (“Inescapable” is also winning for FAVORITE INDIVIDUAL EPISODE because while I had so-so feelings about the season a whole, I just had so much fun watching this shared mindscape episode. It was pretty delightful.)

That all being said, this award for Best Kiss does not actually go to Fitz and Simmons; instead, it goes to their evil counterparts, who stopped hunting down our heroes in order to hilariously make out instead. People, I just about died. Jemma and Fitz’s reaction to this madness still has me cracking up.

BEST TWIST

It’s Brion, not Terra, who ultimately betrays the team – Young Justice

When Tara Markov came into the picture, I was like, Oh, cool, they’re doing a quasi Judas Contract storyline. As we went into the finale, though, I found myself hoping the team would already know, and that Terra, herself, would choose not to betray her friends–not just because it’s happier, but because it’s a nice switch-up on the mythology. And hey, that’s exactly what happened, so I was feeling pretty good about myself–until Brion fucking murders Baron Bedlam and takes his own brother’s throne for himself, effectively completing the coup that he sought to end.

Dude. Just. I did not see it coming. But I still buy it, which is what matters: there’s a certain amount of psychic influence to consider, plus Brion’s obsession with the throne and the fact that Baron Bedlam is responsible for his parents’ murder. It was shocking and violent but not unearned, which makes for a great twist; moreover, it actually feels like a betrayal because I like Brion, damn it; he’s a little bit sweet and incredibly impatient and I was all in on the Brion/Halo ship. Now, I’m shook.

How long do I have to wait till Season 4, exactly?

Honorable Mentions: The Queen isn’t pregnant (Kingdom); Bajie used to have the Gift (Into the Badlands); Henry has the Gift (Into the Badlands); Robyn is a lesbian (Stranger Things); Alex kills Bryce, and neither he nor Jessica tried to save him (13 Reasons Why)

WORST TWIST

Monty is gay – 13 Reasons Why

(Disclaimer: TW for both rape and shitty handling of queer issues. Consider this disclaimer applicable to each time I bring up 13 Reasons Why from here on out.)

If Monty was just another jerk football player with a totally shitty dad, this would simply be a cliche. Like, I’d say we should stop making a character’s sexuality into a twist at all, but to be fair, Stranger Things sorta does this, too, and it’s actually a pretty lovely reveal, so, IDK. But anyway, I could potentially roll my eyes through this cliche of the closeted jerk football player, except that Monty is also the guy who used a broom to rape Tyler last season, and for fuck’s sake, maybe we don’t pick the rapist as our closeted gay character, like, what the actual fuck? The only thing, the only thing, I can say in this storyline’s defense is that Monty, at least, is not this show’s only gay character; Tony, openly gay since Season 1, is in a loving relationship with his BF, Caleb, and they have some very sweet scenes this season. Still, this is some gross bullshit, and I am not here for it.

Monty’s sexuality is also weirdly used as a quasi-redemption device, like, yes, he’s a rapist, but see, he’s also human, which like, can we not? But 13 Reasons Why’s major theme this season is “rapists are humans, too,” and we know that because Monty isn’t even the only character this applies to. Before we get to that, though, let’s discuss Monty a little more, shall we? Because there is definitely more to discuss here.

Honorable Mentions: Monty is dead, murdered in jail, offscreen, possibly for being gay (13 Reasons Why); Sunny may have killed MK’s mother (Into the Badlands); Jonas is Adam (Dark)

WORST DEATH

Monty – 13 Reasons Why

So, they try to humanize Monty by revealing that he’s gay, giving him a secret, not-quite boyfriend, and having his abusive father spit in his face, saying that gay guys like Monty get killed in jail . . . and then Monty immediately gets killed in jail, off screen, as this Big Twist that leads to the Group framing him for Bryce’s murder?

Thanks, I hate it.

Frustratingly, I actually could’ve been a huge fan of the whole “framing someone terrible for murder” twist, like that’s actually some pretty dark shit from your teenage protagonists, and I would’ve been all about the inevitable emotional fallout from this decision in Season 4. But the way it was executed here, with an off-screen death, a quasi-redemption nobody wanted, and a Bury Your Gays trope, all mixed into one? Yeah, no. None of this works for me.

(I should probably mention, too, that because his death is off screen, there’s a fan theory going around that Monty isn’t actually dead. Honestly, I don’t even know how I feel about that. Tired, I guess. 13 Reasons Why mostly just made me tired this season, and I’m not even done bitching about it yet.)

BEST DEATH

TIE!

Ryder – Into the Badlands
Quinn – Into the Badlands

Because, seriously, good fucking riddance.

In hindsight, I think the show might have benefitted from Ryder dying a little later than he actually did, but I was so surprised/overjoyed when it happened that I still can’t bring myself to regret it too much. Meanwhile, I’ve been waiting for Quinn to die since Season 1, and I’m extremely relieved the showrunners didn’t try and stretch him out into a Season 3 Big Bad. Because one, that would’ve been ridiculous, and two, this allows the Widow to become the Big Bad herself. (At least, that’s how it feels now, anyway, although to be fair, I’m only a few episodes into Season 3 at this point. Still, I like that she has even more time to shine. Minerva is a lot of fun.)

MOST DISGUSTING MOMENT

Exploding Rats – Stranger Things

Good lord. That was a LOT of rat juice. Perfectly, wonderfully gross.

FAVORITE POIGNANT HALLUCINATION

Nightwing’s Fever Dream Takes Over – Young Justice

See, this is why superheroes aren’t supposed to go out while they’re still feverish.

In the midst of battle, Nightwing’s lucidity takes something of a nosedive when he starts hallucinating that Kid Flash is still alive. (In fairness, this doesn’t stop Nightwing from hacking the ship and stopping the bad guys.) He also imagines that everyone on the team is a kid again, which leads to some absolute wackiness, like seeing our heroes square off against the bad guys, video game style. It also gives us some great callbacks (old costumes! Souvenirs! Wordplay! Hello, Megan!), and it’s a welcome bit of nostalgia for those of us who miss seeing more of the original team. More importantly, it’s a zany scene that actually leads to a really nice moment between Artemis and Nightwing, and I just adore that kind of shit. Emotional continuity FTW!

FAVORITE WTF MOMENT

The water demon living inside Andrés will only reveal the mystery of his parentage if he watches The King’s Speech so that she, too, can see it – Los Espookys

I mean . . . what could’ve won against that?

Truthfully, at least half of what happens on Los Espookys could get nominated for this award, but something about this bit made me laugh particularly hard. Especially since the water demon decided that The King’s Speech was ultimately forgettable and not worth all the fuss. Poor The King’s Speech.

Honorable Mentions: Alternate Martha is introduced (Dark); Andrés threatens to put the dentist out of business by creating sugar-free chocolate (Los Espookys); Juan Carlos gets married to Tati (Los Espookys); Dustin and Suzie sing The NeverEnding Story theme song (Stranger Things)

BEST MUSICAL NUMBER

Dustin and Suzie sing The NeverEnding Story theme song – Stranger Things

I know a lot of fans didn’t like this scene because it completely broke all the climactic tension and stopped the action in its tracks, and I can respect that. But also, to hell with it, because this scene was hilarious, and I giggled for days afterwards, thinking of every other character’s WTF reaction faces. This one worked for me, and I have definitely watched it more than once.

LEAST IMPROVED SHOW

13 Reasons Why

In my April and May TV Superlatives, I ranted about Game of Thrones, like, a lot. 13 Reasons Why, clearly, has become my new GoT.

Look, plot-wise, Season 2 is definitely inferior to Season 1. Like, a lot of the courtroom drama just doesn’t make sense, and the whole mystery about who’s threatening the Group comes to a disappointing end. Still, there’s a lot in Season 2 I did really enjoy: how the show deals with Alex’s brain injury, for instance, and the sweet relationship he forms with Zach. Jessica’s storyline is brilliant, too, really delving into her emotional trauma and how she begins to slowly, imperfectly move forward. It seemed, for a time, that 13 Reasons Why had actually listened to some of the criticisms about Season 1’s rape storylines, and I was extremely happy about that . . . until the last episode, when Monty rapes Tyler, and Tyler responds to that trauma by going to the Spring Fling with the intention to shoot up the place. Then Clay, spotting Tyler before he goes inside, manages to talk him down and sneak him away before the cops come.

People. I was fucking livid. There are so many, SO MANY, things wrong with all that bullshit, but the sheer irresponsibility of Clay talking down a school shooter and treating this like it’s the morally right thing to do, like it’s some heroic measure to which teenagers should aspire . . . just . . . in a time in America where there have been more mass shootings than fucking days in the year . . . look, I don’t often say this about my media, but this is the kind of shit that could get kids killed.

Still, I made the choice to watch Season 3, anyway. I’d become invested, damn it. Plus, I knew Bex Taylor Klaus was in this season, and I really hoped they might do something to mitigate all the terrible decisions they made in their season finale. After all, Clay’s choice doesn’t actually feel OOC, so I could’ve been eventually okay with it if literally every other character was like, “What the actual fuck, Clay?”

Instead, 13 Reasons Why doubled-down, making almost everyone in the Group responsible for Tyler’s mental health and treating this like it’s the best, most compassionate thing to do. (Yes, they suggest Tyler goes to the high school guidance counselor, and he does. That is absolutely not fucking enough.) Zach, the only character who, reasonably, is like “fuck this, I’m out, and we should go to the cops” ends up apologizing to Tyler by the end for essentially not having his back. This is after he finds out that Tyler was raped, and look, it’s great that 13 Reasons Why wants to talk about the invisibility problem of male rape survivors, but tying this to a school shooter storyline was about the worst decision they could’ve possibly made. The lesson here becomes that kids can prevent school shootings with a little bit of compassion, and that is a massively fucked up thing to be teaching.

Another thing that’s fucked up: the redemption of Bryce Walker. If you’re completely unfamiliar with the show, then know that in Seasons 1 and 2, Bryce is a remorseless serial rapist. He starts feeling regret in Season 3, however, because a) no one likes him at his new school, and b) he meets a pretty girl. This, of course, is Ani, who mostly never works as a character because she rarely feels like an actual person, despite Saif’s best efforts; instead, Ani is a mixture of a framing device, a love interest for Clay, and an outsider POV to let us see Bryce in a new light, or some shit.

13 Reasons Why clearly wants to be seen as a show about empathy, anti-bullying, real issues, and forgiveness. It wants to be the kind of show that tackles how good people make bad decisions, and how people who’ve done terrible things are still capable of good. And yeah, some of that’s commendable. But Jesus, you can’t just write whatever bullshit you want, scream GOOD INTENTIONS, and call it a day. If you want to write a redemption arc, you really need to think about what that arc is saying. You need to fucking think about what stories are actually worth telling.

In Season 2, Bryce Walker is likened to Brock Turner; his defense attorney suggests that Bryce’s loss of scholarship offers and championship football season is punishment enough; not only that, Bryce only gets sentenced to a three-month probation for raping Jessica Davis. (The judge actually says, “I expect you to walk the straight and narrow, young man.” It’s so rage-inducing.) The parallels are not subtle, nor are they meant to be, and while some fans were upset about this verdict, I actually liked it a lot at the time. I thought the trial’s downer ending worked for the story being told.

But now . . . now it’s all different because while the creators may have intended Season 3 to be a story about kindness and growth and redemption, the story they actually told was Brock Turner Learns to Be a Better Man. And really, for fuck’s sake. Who, exactly, does that story benefit?

Okay, I think that’s enough ranting for today, my friends. Let’s meet back in a couple of months to see who’s seriously pissed me off next!

Valentine’s Day has come and gone, so you know what that means: HORROR MOVIES.

Dead Body

First Watch or Rewatch: First Watch
Amazon, Netflix, Hulu, or Other: Other: Shudder
Spoilers: Yes, but only in the last two paragraphs.
Grade: Chocolate

To my surprise and delight, this low-budget indie is a pretty decent little slasher film. (And directed by a woman! Yay, more women in horror!) The premise, of course, is absolutely my jam: a bunch of high school graduates (and one older boyfriend) play Dead Body, where one person is secretly assigned the role of the murderer and “kills” someone, and everyone else has to figure out who did it–only then people actually start dying. This is a Golden Age of Detective fiction staple and absolutely the kind of morbid shit I would definitely play, so of course, Mek and I had to try this movie out. Where it shines best is dialogue, characterization, and surprisingly intentional humor: Dominic’s mostly relatable bitchiness about his uninvited guests (“I need to go set up the loft I wasn’t planning on using”) or Dwayne immediately going for hacksaws, hooks, and nail guns after finding the dead bodies. I also genuinely like how protective Marcus is of his weird brother. (Or friend? I was never actually clear on this.) And there are one or two big surprises here: one didn’t do much for me, but the other I LOVED.

The thing that wasn’t a surprise, unfortunately, is the identity of the killer. Which, hey, correctly solving a whodunnit can provide a glorious sense of satisfaction, or even vindication. Here, however, Mek and I were pretty sure about the killer maybe 25 minutes into the film and were all but proven right about 25 minutes later–which is still a solid 15 before the Big Reveal. Some of the setup is actually pretty clever, but there are a few missteps, which I’ll discuss in the next two paragraphs. Other disappointments: the opening scene doesn’t do much for me–we should probably cut the last 30 seconds at least–and the two foreign exchange students are barely even in this movie, which is especially annoying because they’re the only POC in the whole cast.

SPOILER territory: I initially assumed Marcus was the killer because he’s the Nice Guy Love Interest and I figured he’d brought Rumor along as an obvious patsy. However, suspicions were quickly transferred to Dominic, partially because finding him so suddenly dead was shocking enough to be suspicious, partially because of the Harvard motive (which I thought was nicely handled), and partially because I’ve seen enough movies/read enough Agatha Christie to know you can’t trust dead bodies. Even if I hadn’t, Kenji playing dead is pretty obvious foreshadow. I think that bit could probably be cut, along with the whole it was YOU line from the opening scene, and that moment when the camera lingers a beat too long on the hammer. (Because that’s how Mek and I went from, like, 90% sure that Dominic was the killer to 190%: he kills Rumor with the hammer obviously left behind.) If we really want Dominic to be a shock, we probably need another viable suspect and/or a costume change; alternatively, it might work to do the Big Reveal with Rumor’s death, so the audience finds out well before our surviving heroes. That way, we’d get to watch Dominic’s surprise/delight when his intended victims start killing each other out of paranoia. I’m kinda warming up to that idea, actually.

Finally, the two big surprises are the last-minute resurrections of Sarah and Marcus. Sarah is really interesting: for one, her survival is pretty shocking because she seems like such a Dead Meat character. (Shocking survival, as it turns out, became quite the theme of the evening.) For another, Sarah pulls a nail out of her own face to kill the bad guy. I thought the scene where Ilsa pulls nails out of Sarah’s face was pretty great, but this is just badass. Unfortunately, Marcus’s miraculous resurrection kinda feels like it’s just taking away from Sarah’s. I felt bad for the dude when he died, but once dead? Yeah, stay dead, my dude.

Overlord

First Watch or Rewatch: First Watch
Amazon, Netflix, Hulu, or Other: Amazon
Spoilers: Yeah, sorry
Grade: Vanilla

I’m always excited by the idea of genre-blending, especially when mystery or horror come into the mix, but Overlord feels uneven to me. It’s strongest, I think, in the first act, when the movie is pure action/war drama. (Did anyone watch this movie without seeing the trailer full of spoilers? Cause damn, no one’s getting Nazi Zombie Shit from the first 20 minutes of this movie.) The plane scene is dramatic AF and the ominous clues in the woods that “something is amiss” are decent. I like most of the cast. Jovan Adepo gives an especially strong performance as our kind-hearted protagonist Boyce. I know Adepo primarily from a two-episode stint in Watchmen, and I definitely want to see more of him.

But we start hitting problems in Act II when our heroes make it to the French village. Part of that’s pacing: it takes way too long to for anyone to find all the horrific experiments. This movie is only 1 hour and 48 minutes, but boy, I’d have bet money it was a lot longer. And then, part of it’s content: I’m not sure Wafner (Pilou Asbæk, AKA, Euron Greyjoy) is doing much for me as a Big Bad, and I definitely found the coerced sexual assault shit completely unnecessary. (Boyce interrupts Wafner before he rapes Chloe, but this is still a yuck subplot and incredibly lazy writing.) The aunt, too, is much more foreshadow than actual character: she barely has screen time, much less dialogue.

Still, the worst problems, I think, begin after Boyce discovers all the Nazi Zombie Shit. The discovery scene itself is great: it’s weird, creepy, maybe a bit silly (I’m specifically thinking of the decapitated head pleading in French), but overall, just a lot of fun. And Boyce has spectacular reactions to the body horror/general impossibility; his freakout is super relatable, TBH. This is the moment the whole film has been building toward–which is why I’m just baffled by the decision to completely cut the tension by stopping for a 15-minute time-out, like, Overlord goes right back to straight-up war movie again, all unethical interrogations and “is it right to beat up a Nazi” and “do we even recognize ourselves anymore?” These are all perfectly fine themes that should not be dwelled on here, five minutes after this shit. And while we do kinda get back on track with the death/zombie resurrection of Chase (Iain De Caestecker), the film never fully recovers; instead, the whole third act loses its creepy body horror vibe and just becomes a really bad Resident Evil movie. It’s so bland and cartoonishly over-the-top that there’s just no tension at all. I was honestly bored, and that’s about the last reaction you want from your audience here.

Finally, some additional notes:

A. Secret histories, admittedly, are not always my bag, but I’m not sure that tying this story  to D-Day really does much for me.

B. I can’t decide if De Caestecker’s American accent is bad or if I’m just very aware it’s not his natural, lovely Scottish. I am fond of the actor, though. When Chase gets shot (inevitably, I mean, maybe don’t send the kid with the camera to secure the Big Bad Nazi Dude, FFS), I was all, “A-ha! This is why you cast De Caestecker, for the emotional death scene!”

C. Overlord’s “Holy Shit, This Guy Actually Lived!” is Jacob (Dominic Applewhite) and, to a lesser extent, Tibet (John Magaro). Tibet is the semi-redemptive asshole, whereas Jacob is Boyce’s buddy from the plane, the one who Boyce repeatedly promises, “I’ll be right behind you!” Obviously, I marked Jacob as First to Die. It is lovely to be wrong sometimes.

D. Alas, Private Dawson (Jacob Anderson) does not fare so well. Mekaela and I had just enough time to say, “Wait, is that Grey Worm?” before he blew the hell up. Sorry, buddy.

The Void

First Watch or Rewatch: First Watch
Amazon, Netflix, Hulu, or Other: Other: Shudder
Spoilers: Yeah, sorry again
Grade: Strawberry

This one starts out so strong, but kind of spirals into an incoherent mess. Mileage is definitely gonna vary on that, depending on your A) tolerance for how much a story refuses to explain, and B) nostalgia for 80’s cosmic horror. I tend to be skeptical of the former and like the latter more in theory than execution. For example, The Void reminded Mekaela of Hellraiser, a movie I enjoyed for its aesthetics and not much else. (I’m tagging this whole review a blasphemy just for that sentence.) Meanwhile, The Void reminded me of Prince of Darkness, which I reviewed in great detail last year and, ultimately, didn’t love. Which is all to say I may not have been the target audience here.

Except . . . damn it, I still feel like I really could’ve enjoyed this movie. For starters, there’s an awful lot I do like about The Void. The initial setup and “WTF is going on here” mystery is a lot of fun. The look of the film is pretty great. I enjoy the whole cast. The reveal that our kindly old doctor isn’t just Dead Meat Walking but the actual Big Bad is awesome, especially since it comes after he does predictably “die.” Likewise, the reversal that our blatantly evil murderers from the beginning are actually good guys (well . . . good-sh) is pretty cool, too, although I do feel like their backstory gets a little lost in the chaos. The ending with the Sheriff and Allison is interesting, if sorta huh, and I’m fucked shocked that our ultimate survivors are the unnamed mute guy and Ellen Wong–people. I have finally found a Western horror film where an Asian woman lives. Holy shit.

Unfortunately, one of the main reasons Prince of Darkness came to mind wasn’t the portal sacrifice similarities or the supernatural pregnancy BS–more on that in a bit–it was the ominous cultists converging on the hospital. We know absolutely nothing about this cult, like, who the hell these dudes are, why they don’t bother coming inside, where they peaced out to at the end, etc. (Seriously, did the ascend or something? The fuck?) Apparently, this is one of the many things intentionally left open for the viewer to decide, but this viewer has decided: we learn nothing about these guys because the creators don’t care about these guys; they just needed something to trap the heroes in the hospital, and that’s it. In Prince of Darkness, the cultists are actually possessed homeless people, but they serve the exact same plot function, and IMO, that’s lazy as shit writing.

And therein lies my main problem with The Void; rarely does the script feel purposefully ambiguous and thought-provoking; mostly, it feels lazy, chaotic, and confused. The hallucinations in the not-exactly-there basement feel muddled. Most of what happens in the whole third act feels pretty muddled. And I’m especially disappointed by Allison, who starts out as a potentially interesting character and ends up just becoming a vessel, a body, a plot device rather than an actual person. Allison exists to A) draw our heroes into the Basement of Doom, B) add to our MC’s ongoing man pain, and C) give us some old-fashioned pregnancy horror, I guess? (She lost a baby prior to the story, so Big Bad impregnates her with monster juice, and she gets to die of symbolism. And getting chopped up by her tearful hubby, of course. Cool.) This is all especially tedious because we already have Maggie for the pregnancy horror, but I guess one eldritch nightmare birth where the mom/vessel violently dies wasn’t enough? Basically, this whole bit sucks.

Finally, additional notes:

A. I did actually enjoy the twist that Maggie was also a bad guy. I probably should’ve caught that, but I just assumed she’d have a gross demon baby, which, hey, that part was dead on. Poor Sarah got mighty ugly in her second life, didn’t she?

B. Much like with Grey Worm in Overlord, I had just enough time to be excited about Iris Rouse (Stephanie Belding) from Shadowhunters popping up before she got killed off. (Then transformed into an eldritch horror and then killed off again.) Sorry, buddy.

C. As always, doing clerical/errand work in a hospital hardly makes me a medical expert. And this story is admittedly set in some rural town in the . . . 80’s? 90’s? Still, I had a ball laughing at the medical inaccuracies in this movie. The aborted C-section wasn’t actually as bad as I thought (when you’re primarily familiar with a low transverse incision, a classical cut looks weird AF, like, Jesus, why are you all the way up there), although I highly suspect that whatever pain relief Kim used wouldn’t cut it for fucking surgery. But I straight up cackled when Allison walked to the med room, which appears to just be a basic supply closet where they keep narcotics unlocked on the shelf. Also, seriously, there’s only one patient here. Why the fuck are we keeping the supplies this far away? For that matter, why hasn’t the one and only patient in this hospital been transferred literally anywhere else? Like, I get the idea that this place is still supposed to be open for emergency services or something, but uh, dude’s clearly just an inpatient now. Ship that motherfucker out. And how in Christ’s name is anyone still working out of this hospital? Again, I get the idea–emergency services for locals while everyone else has moved off to hospitals that weren’t recently half burned down–but also, bullshit. The nearest hospital is only 20 minutes away, which of course is shitty, but shocking? In a rural county? HA. Hell, that’s the distance between the high school I went to and its closest hospital. Besides, the state of this place? No one should be working here. This especially kills me dead because the hospital I work at now has been temporarily shut down twice in the past few years just for smoke damage, much less a fire that actually destroyed part of the fucking building. These people have not heard of JCAHO, that’s all I’m saying.

D. Finally, more fun casting: our Big Bad is played by Kenneth Welsh, who I know from one episode of The Expanse but also from Twin Peaks, where he played Windom Earle. I had no idea that was the same guy! Meanwhile, Art Hindle, who was in both the original Black Christmas and the 70’s remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, has a small role here, too. Horror cameo casting is just the best.

It’s that time again: our winter TV Superlatives!

A quick reminder for how these work: I will bestow whatever TV shows I’ve recently been watching (whether they’re currently airing or not) with awards like Favorite Bromance, Favorite WTF Moment, Best Profanity, etc. As always, any awards with spoilers will be very clearly marked.

As a reference point, here are the shows I’ve been watching for the past few months:

Busted! (Season 2)
His Dark Materials
Nancy Drew
The Mandalorian
DC Universe’s Harley Quinn
Watchmen
The Expanse (Season 4)
A Black Lady Sketch Show
The Witcher
Barry (Season 2)
The Good Place (Season 4)
Star Trek: Picard
Legends of Tomorrow (Season 5)
Brooklyn Nine-Nine (Season 7)

Let’s get to it, shall we?

BEST PROFANITY

“Holden. Do not put your dick in it. It’s fucked enough already.” – Avasarala – The Expanse

Truer words.

FAVORITE TITLE CARD/OPENING CREDITS

Legends of Tomorrow

I love these new credits. I don’t know if they properly prepare you for the madness you’re walking into with this show, but what could, right? Anyway, these are great.

MOST ADORABLE

Number One – Star Trek: Picard

Look at this good boy. I can’t decide which delights me more: that Picard has a pitbull or that he named it Number One. Obviously, I need to see Riker and Number One sharing a scene ASAP.

Honorable Mention: Baby Geralt (The Witcher)

MOST FABULOUS FASHION

Sister Night’s Uniform – Watchmen

This is very hard because I want every single thing that Chrisjen Avasarala owns, obviously, and also I’m obsessed with this whole video from behind the scenes of Legends of Tomorrow . . . but I mean, damn, Sister Night’s uniform? Instantly iconic. I can only assume there will be many Sister Nights at Comic Con this year, and I am already eager for the inevitably cosplay pictures.

Honorable Mentions: Avasarala’s Entire Wardrobe (The Expanse); Lady Trieu’s Hat (Watchmen); Poison Ivy’s “I’m Not Dating This Dude” Outfit (Harley Quinn); French Revolution Ladies (Legends of Tomorrow)

MOST OH-MY-GOD PAINFUL MOMENT

Barry rips the awful stitches in his back wide open – Barry

But it’s okay because Fuches has superglue to, you know, kinda push his skin back together. It’s all right. It’s fine. Everything’s fine here.

FAVORITE SONG

“The Brick” – Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross – Watchmen

Look, I know everybody loved “Toss A Coin to Your Witcher,” but honestly, I barely even noticed that song when it played in scene. I did come to appreciate it later, of course (particularly the metal version), but unlike the rest of the planet, I actively had to work to get it stuck in my head.

Meanwhile, Watchmen easily had one of the best soundtracks I’ve heard in a long time. And I was especially fond of “The Brick,” which was used to absolute perfection in “She Was Killed By Space Junk.” Though, admittedly, I’m kind of a sucker for Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, as you may well notice in the Honorable Mentions below.

Honorable Mentions: “Nun With a Motherf*&*ng Gun” – Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross (Watchmen); “Objects in a Mirror (Are Closer Than They Appear)” – Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross (Watchmen); “You’re My Thrill” – Billie Holiday (Watchmen); “Smoke Gets In Your Eyes” – Eartha Kitt (Watchmen); “Clair de Lune” – Claude Debussy (Watchmen); “Toss a Coin to Your Witcher” – Joey Batey (The Witcher); “Poison” – Jes Macallan (Legends of Tomorrow)

FAVORITE BROMANCE

Amos & Holden – The Expanse

Again, the obvious choice here is probably Geralt and Jaskier. Assuming they’re not your OTP, of course, which, like, I wouldn’t object to that? But also I don’t need it, either? Man, this is Sterek all over again.

Still, much as I enjoy those two, I ultimately had to go with Amos and Holden here because they’re kinda like rare pair friends, characters who don’t normally share many emotional arcs together on screen, and yet have still managed to develop and grow a relationship over the past few seasons. Season 4 feels like a culmination of that relationship, like, we really see how far they’ve come. Remember back in S1 when Holden holds a gun to Amos’s head? (And when Amos is hilariously nonchalant about it?) Now we get to watch Holden telling Amos he can’t lose him, and it’s just such a lovely scene, unexpected but also earned. I was really happy with these two this season.

Honorable Mentions: Geralt & Jaskier (The Witcher); Chidi & Jason (The Good Place); Jake & Boyle (Brooklyn Nine-Nine)

FAVORITE LADYMANCE

Harley Quinn & Poison Ivy – DC’s Poison Ivy

So, here’s the thing: I definitely went into this show thinking of Harley and Poison Ivy as platonic best buds, and I was actually completely okay with that. Like, there was one episode where I remember thinking, Wait, wait . . . are they actually going to commit to the ship?! But then afterwards I was getting mostly platonic vibes again, and I didn’t mind because I’m passionately excited about platonic relationships and positive lady friendships in SF/F/H. Besides, I really enjoyed the dynamic between these two: Poison Ivy is clearly the BFF we all need in our lives, and Harley owns up to her mistakes by the end of the season and apologizes to Ivy, which I thought was nicely handled.

All that being said, the creators have gone on record saying that Harley/Ivy will be canon in Season 2. And while we’ve all been burned before with crap like this, Season 2 is literally gonna air in about a month. That doesn’t feel like the typical “we’ll keep the door open maybe, sorta, someday in the distant future” BS to me. So expect Harley and Ivy to switch categories in our next round of superlatives, if the creators honor their word.

Honorable Mentions: Naomi & Drummer (The Expanse); Bobbie & Avasarala (The Expanse); Bess & George & Nancy (Nancy Drew); Eleanor & Tahani (The Good Place); Robin, Ashley, Quinta, and Gabrielle (A Black Lady Sketch Show, specifically the ongoing apocalyptic sketch series)

FAVORITE SHIP

Sara/Ava – Legends of Tomorrow

It honestly took me a while to fully warm up to Ava in Season 3. But she’s grown on me, and her relationship with Sara has been particularly delightful this year. Sara fondly watching Ava get drunk and have fun singing terribly on stage, for instance, or Ava anxiously trying to help Sara feel better after the death of a friend. (She kind of fails, but she fails in such a perfectly Ava way.) Also, they’re an amazing battle couple, and it turns out I am a huge sucker for battle couples. This is absolutely the best clone/resurrected assassin ship on TV right now.

Honorable Mentions: Angela/Calvin (Watchmen); Jake/Amy (Brooklyn Nine-Nine); Chidi/Eleanor (The Good Place); Jason/Janet (The Good Place); Ray/Nora (Legends of Tomorrow)

FAVORITE BATTLE SCENE

Magic Battle – The Witcher

This is possibly a cheat because when I say “battle scene,” what I really mean is “battle episode,” but . . . I care not. This whole thing is spectacular: so much magic! So many badass women! I want more episodes like this immediately.

FAVORITE NEW SHOW

Watchmen

TV has been good to me the last few months. I’ve been absolutely delighted by all sorts of new shows, but Watchmen was pretty special; Watchmen was like nothing I’d ever seen before, which is why it’s also winning FAVORITE SUPERHERO OR SUPERHERO ADJACENT SHOW, despite the stiff competition in that field right now.

If you haven’t tried Watchmen yet, like, prepare yourselves: it is regularly bonkers, just completely and utterly bizarre, while simultaneously doing a better job at teaching US History than most US History classes. This show is a complex, entertaining story full of twists, turns, superheroes, and squid storms; it also does a fantastic job of really delving into character, trauma, PTSD, police brutality, racial injustice, and so much more. I can’t say enough good things about the cast, either. I will riot if Regina King doesn’t get a Best Actress nod, and I’d really love to see Jean Smart, Hong Chau, Jeremy Irons, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, and Tim Blake Nelson get some Emmy love, too.

When I first heard about this show, I didn’t expect it to be anywhere near this good. On this, I’m very happy to have been proven wrong.

Honorable Mentions for Favorite New Show: DC’s Harley Quinn; A Black Lady Sketch Show; The Witcher

Honorable Mentions For Favorite Superhero or Superhero Show: DC’s Harley Quinn; Legends of Tomorrow

MOST DISAPPOINTING NEW SHOW

His Dark Materials

Sadly, there’s always going to be some new show that doesn’t land for you personally, and for me, that is His Dark Materials, which Mekaela and I watched for about three or four episodes before giving up. I haven’t read the books or seen the original adaptation, so it’s possible that people more familiar with the story are likewise getting more out of the show? But despite a potentially interesting universe, a pretty great cast, and the sheer magnificence of Ruth Wilson, who I absolutely adore in this, I just can’t seem to get invested. The story feels convoluted, the pacing feels off, and ultimately there are just too many other things on right now that I’m more interested in watching. Maybe I’ll try again at a later date, but for now, His Dark Materials just doesn’t seem to be my thing.

MOST WELCOME RETURN

The Expanse

Finally, finally you’ve come back to me! Never stay away so long again!

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

The spoilers start off light, but we’ll get to the real ones in a hurry. This is your last warning, my friends. SAVE YOURSELVES.

BEST KISS

Yennefer/Geralt – The Witcher

I told you, I like a battle couple. Also, kisses that are not just fun but practical!

Honorable Mention: Ava/Sara after Rasputin blows up (Legends of Tomorrow)

WORST SUBPLOT

Soji and Narek’s sorta-romance – Star Trek: Picard

The Artifact itself is fascinating. I’m excited by the Reclamation project. I straight up adore Hugh and will be most displeased if he gets killed off later this week. (It’s becoming something of a habit for this show, killing off minor canon characters.) But Conflicted Narek romancing subconscious secrets out of Soji? Yeah, this has been dull as hell because I don’t care about either of these people separately, much less together. Six episodes in, and Soji still feels more like a MacGuffin than an actual character. I’ve sat here for ten minutes trying to come up with a single personality trait for her, and all I’ve got is “empathetic” which is . . . okay, I guess, but I’m mostly basing that on one scene.

Meanwhile, Narek has apparently fallen in love with Soji, you know, For Reasons but, like, what reasons? There’s nothing of any substance here. Seriously, who is shipping this? And all of his other scenes are with his sister, Narissa, who excited me for half a second before the show decided to go the whole boring, evil, vaguely incestuous twin route. Just because I wanted Jaime to kill Cersei and go live happily with Brienne in Game of Thrones does not mean I want this, show. Which is why Narek and Narissa are also winning for WORST VILLAINS.

Thankfully, Soji has now escaped the Borg Cube, so hopefully plot advancement? Please?

FAVORITE WTF MOMENT

TIE!

Veidt sails through a portal to the moon and makes an SOS out of the corpses of Mr. Phillips and Ms. Crookshanks – Watchmen
Jim Gordon befriends Clayface’s detached hand – DC’s Harley Quinn
Decapitated Marie Antionette with a flamethrower – Legends of Tomorrow
Spoken messages from the real world drop all around Nancy as actual letters in the Dream World – Nancy Drew
Lily– Barry

Look. I’m not gonna lie: I just gave up and decided to choose one moment (or in Barry’s case, an entire character) from multiple shows here. And you know what? It was still really hard. Do you know how much gloriously fucked up shit I’ve been watching? A LOT.

Honorable Mentions: A giant magnet drops down, attaches to Angela’s car, and whisks it–and Will inside–away into the sky (Watchmen); Lube Man (Watchmen); The Trial of Adrian Veidt (Watchmen); Sy is a Transchanger (DC’s Harley Quinn); The Atom kills Rasputin by regrowing to normal size while inside of him (Legends of Tomorrow); Backseat Creepy Priest (Nancy Drew); I mean, honestly, pretty much ALL the ghost shit (Nancy Drew)

FAVORITE TWIST

TIE!

Will killed Jud – Watchmen
Young Will is Hooded Justice, the first superhero – Watchmen
Ryan was supposed to die, not Tiffany – Nancy Drew

I really like all of these twists for different reasons. The fact that Will was Hooded Justice is probably the best twist in terms of how pivotal it is, how much depth it adds to the story and the understanding of Will’s character. It’s a fantastic development, one of the best moments in the whole season. But when you see Will (or rather, when you see the old black man in the wheelchair whose name we don’t know yet) sitting calmly by Jud’s body, like, that’s such a good shock moment. From right then, I was hooked.

Still, I have to give some love to Nancy Drew as well because they just pulled off a twist I didn’t see coming at all. It never once occurred to me that Ryan was the intended target instead of Tiffany, even though he’s definitely the kind of guy people would wanna murder. This was an incredibly solid plot twist that 100% feels supported, and I was pretty excited by it. I’m really hoping Nancy Drew can stick the landing because for the most part, I’m really enjoying the hell out of this fun, silly show.

Honorable Mentions: Calvin is secretly Dr. Manhattan (Watchmen); Lee Seung-gi is the Flower Killer (Busted!); Loach wants to hire Barry, not get revenge for Moss (Barry)

BEST DEATH

TIE!

Ashford – The Expanse
Eleanor – The Good Place

I never thought I’d care so much about Klaes Ashford when he first appeared on The Expanse; in fact, I was absolutely dreading the inevitable drama between him and Drummer (who is, of course, the Absolute Best.) But by the end of Season 3, I was really impressed with how the dynamic between those two characters had changed, and I only loved them that much more in Season 4, when they shifted again from reluctant allies to actual friends. (Hence Ashford and Drummer winning BEST PLATONIC FRIENDSHIP.)

So, when Ashford says he’s going after Marco, I was like, “Oh no,” and when Drummer decided not to go with him, I was like, “OH NO. Don’t do it, Ashford, don’t go!” But of course, he does go, and of course, he dies. And I really wanna be mad at it, but it’s all just done so well. For one thing, Ashford’s death is an obvious reversal of the scene where Drummer could’ve spaced Marco and chose not to. But also, dude just goes out like a badass: refusing to beg, literally singing a tune, and getting out a secret message just before he dies. That scene haunted me for, like, at least a week.

But Eleanor’s death–that is, her choice to walk through the Door–also emotionally fucked me up for a while. And I’ve gotta say, until its penultimate episode, it never occurred to me that I’d spend so much time sobbing through the series finale of The Good Place, but goddamn. Overall, I think the whole thing was handled really beautifully, but watching Eleanor walk through the door and become this positive energy that led to a good decision and a small moment of happiness for Michael . . . that was both lovely and melancholy AF. Appropriately, both Ashford and Eleanor also tie for JIMMY, NOOOOOO!

Honorable Mentions For Best Death: Senator Joe Keene (Watchmen); Dr. Manhattan (Watchmen); Judd Crawford (Watchmen); Chidi (The Good Place); Jason (The Good Place); Rasputin (Legends of Tomorrow); Barry’s Chechen Padawan (Barry); Chandra Wei (The Expanse); Kuill (The Mandalorian);  The Mercenary Mouse (Harley Quinn)

Honorable Mentions for JIMMY, NOOOO: Renfri (The Witcher); Queen Calanthe (The Witcher); Dr. Manhattan (Watchmen); Chidi (The Good Place); Jason (The Good Place)

Honorable Mentions for Favorite Platonic Friendship: Picard & Laris & Zhaban (Picard); Eleanor & Janet (The Good Place); Michael & Janet (The Good Place); Holt & Diaz (Brooklyn Nine-Nine); Sara & Constantine (Legends of Tomorrow)

CHARACTER WHO REALLY NEEDS TO JUST DIE ALREADY

Marco Inaros – The Expanse

I knew Marco couldn’t actually die in Season 4, of course, not before we had at least one scene between him and Naomi, but also, can he just get hit by a space truck already? Like, can he and Filip just . . . go? Yes, I know these guys have already been cast as regulars for the upcoming season*, and I’m sure they have big time plot stuff to do–clearly, I haven’t read the James S.A. Corey books yet–but man. The thought of having to spend another whole other season with Naomi’s Smarmy Evil Ex (and his secretly evil son, who I suspect will be very whiny) sounds exhausting. Cause Marco is so smarmy, like, I’ve seen all these thirst tweets for this asshole, and I genuinely do not understand them. Especially after Ashford. Like, I need someone to kick Marco straight into the goddamn sun. (Obviously, Marco is also winning today for CHIEF ASSHAT.)

*Along with Clarissa Mao, of all goddamn people. Of all the characters to get promoted to series regular, why can’t it be Anna or Prax or Dr. Okoye? Maybe Lucia or Nancy Gao? Hell, even Murtry I would’ve taken. Why does it have my absolute least favorite character of Season 3? (I know. The answer is Plot Reasons. I’m still depressed about it.)

Honorable Mentions for Character Who Really Needs to Just Die Already: Cahir (The Witcher); Stregobor (The Witcher)

Honorable Mentions for Chief Asshat: Starfleet (Star Trek: Picard); Senator Joe Keene (Watchmen); Toro Calican (The Mandalorian); Mando’s Obnoxious Jail Heist Prison Team (The Mandalorian); Stregobor (The Witcher)

FAVORITE VILLAIN

Lady Trieu – Watchmen

MY QUEEN.

Honorable Mentions: Jane Crawford (Watchmen); Murtry (The Expanse); Fringella (The Witcher); Joker (Harley Quinn)

FAVORITE SCENE STEALER

TIE!

Renfri – The Witcher
Bane – DC’s Harley Quinn

I almost didn’t continue watching The Witcher after the first episode, mostly because both ladies who interested me died in the goddamn pilot. I’m glad I did, ultimately, because I enjoyed the show a whole lot, but Renfri’s death hurt. I fell in love with her immediately and would still accept basically any cheap plot device if it meant she was resurrected in Season 2. (Yes, it won’t happen, but a girl can dream.) Renfri was a badass, and her sword fight vs. Geralt was my absolute FAVORITE FIGHT SCENE–even though *sob* it ended up killing her.

But I can’t help but give another shoutout to Bane from DC’s Harley Quinn because, damn it, this walking Tom Hardy parody just makes me smile. (If you watch the clip, Bane himself comes in around 1.25.) Honestly, this whole show makes me smile, but there’s something about Bane’s specific brand of slightly absurdity that really just works for me. And honestly, the fact that he always wants to blow up something is pretty relatable these days.

Honorable Mentions for Favorite Scene Stealer: Lily (Barry); Laris & Zhaban (Star Trek: Picard); The Rios Holograms (Star Trek: Picard); Seven of Nine (Star Trek: Picard); Ray (Legends of Tomorrow); Marie Antoinette (Legends of Tomorrow); Téa and Véa (The Witcher); Queen Calanthe (The Witcher)

Honorable Mentions for Favorite Fight Scene: Geralt vs. Soldiers at Ball (The Witcher); Barry vs Lily (Barry); Barry vs. Ronny (Barry); Hooded Justice vs. Cyclone (Watchmen); Armorer vs. Storm Troopers (The Mandalorian); Sara + Ava vs. Telekinetic Serial Killer (Legends of Tomorrow); The Legends and Badass Lady Cops vs. Genghis Khan and Criminals (Legends of Tomorrow)

FAVORITE CAMEO

Timothy Olyphant – The Good Place

Because holy shit, Justified was one of my favorite shows of all the time, and this was AMAZING. There are no words to express just how goddamn delighted I was by this scene.

FAVORITE INDIVIDUAL EPISODE (PER SHOW)

“She Was Killed by Space Junk” – Watchmen
“The One-Eyed Man” – The Expanse
“Chapter Seven” – The Mandalorian
“Hell of the Gods: Tartarus” – Busted!
“Your Boss Knows You Don’t Have Eyebrows” – A Black Lady Sketch Show
“Being Harley Quinn” – DC’s Harley Quinn
“Much More” – The Witcher
“Ronny/Lilly” – Barry
“Whenever You’re Ready” – The Good Place
“The Sign of the Uninvited Guest” – Nancy Drew
“Pimemento” – Brooklyn Nine-Nine
“Slay Anything” – Legends of Tomorrow
“Remembrance” – Star Trek: Picard

Yeah. This is definitely better than just picking one favorite episode every three months.

Honorable Mentions: “This Extraordinary Being” – Watchmen; “A God Walks Into Abar” – Watchmen; “See How They Fly” – Watchmen; “Saeculum” – The Expanse; “Cibola Burn” – The Expanse; “The Jimmy Jab Games II” – Brooklyn Nine-Nine; “Chapter Eight: Redemption” – The Mandalorian; “A High Bar” – DC’s Harley Quinn; “Devil’s Snare” – DC’s Harley Quinn; “What?!” – Barry; “The Truth Has a Ring to It” – Barry; “The Whisper Box” – Nancy Drew

That’s all for today. Check back in three months for more TV nonsense and shenanigans!

A Tale of Two Sisters

Year: 2003
Director: Kim Ji Woon
First Watch or Rewatch: First Watch
Amazon, Netflix, Hulu, or Other: Other – Shudder
Spoilers: Very much so
Grade: Vanilla

I know. I’m probably the last horror fan alive who hasn’t seen A Tale of Two Sisters–but no longer! I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect here (I’m only vaguely familiar with the folktale that inspired it), but I enjoyed this one–though do I suspect I might like it better on a second viewing, to better appreciate all the clues carefully being laid out. Still, I caught enough this time around to figure out the major plot twists. How Soo-yeon isn’t real, considering that her father never looks at her. How Eun-joo also isn’t real, considering she can see Soo-yeon. Not to mention, Moo-hyeon is weirdly cold and awkward with his supposed wife; also, it’s just incredibly rare for two characters to simultaneously suffer from “am I going mad” unreliable narrator syndrome, so the whole split personality angle was really the only explanation that made sense.

I definitely didn’t guess the truth about that wardrobe, though. Obviously, something terrible had happened, but I had no clue on the actual details. Poor Soo-yeon! Poor Soo-mi! The real Eun-joo is obviously The Worst, but also Moo-hyeon? Holy shit, what an asshole. For one, like, he kept the wardrobe; he even tells Soo-mi not to talk about it, all, “Yes, I decided to keep this giant piece of furniture which housed your mother’s dead body and also crushed your sister to death, but stop bringing it up, like, don’t be weird about it.” Also, once it’s clear that your daughter is still very unwell and needs inpatient psychiatric care, you absolutely cannot keep leaving her alone like this, WTF. And just this dude’s whole attitude, too, like, I’m sure he’s exhausted and grieving and all that, but Moo-hyeon talks to Soo-mi like she’s just having tantrums; he might as well say, “Stop being crazy; I’m tired of your dissociative identity disorder.” Like–

I do think that while A Tale of Two Sisters is well constructed, I might’ve found it more mind-blowing if I’d watched the film back when it premiered in 2003. That was almost 20 years ago (she says, sobbing), and I’ve seen variations on this twist a lot now. Still, nothing really comes off as cheat to me. The only thing that does feel off is the dinner scene where Eun-joo’s sister-in-law has a coughing fit that abruptly becomes a very violent seizure. I know why it happens, like, for Writer Reasons, but I wasn’t totally clear about the in-story reasons. Does she have a medical condition? Is this some kind of emotional trauma response? Did the ghosts poison her soup? It doesn’t seem like she sees the ghost until she’s already seizing, but I will fully admit to ignorance here.

After watching A Tale of Two Sisters, our next film was John Carpenter’s The Thing, which I’m not going to review because I’ve already done so twice now. (Most recently here.) I’m mostly mentioning it because with The Thing, we have a winner for Horror Bingo, and it’s not Mekaela or me, but my good buddy, Marisa! Congrats, Marisa!!!

Mekaela and I have a gentlewomen’s agreement to keep playing until one of us gets a Bingo, though. And thus, we continue with . . .

Black Christmas

Year: 2019
Director: Sophia Takal
First Watch or Rewatch: First Watch
Amazon, Netflix, Hulu, or Other: Other – HBO
Spoilers: Yes, but mostly just in the third paragraph
Grade: Strawberry

This is . . . okay. It’s certainly better than the 2006 remake, anyway, although the bar on that is so low it’s near sunk into the ground. The thing about this Black Christmas is that it very much wants to be a Feminist Movie, and while I think it does have successful moments, the overall story is kinda sloppy and relies so heavily on a superficial idea of Girl Power that it often comes across as pandering rather than empowering.

Things I do enjoy: most of the characters, especially some of the minor roles. I was particularly fond of Fran, Jesse, and Kris. (Though awesome as Kris is, she does have a few moments where I’m like, ah, no–and the film doesn’t address it as fully as I’d like.) Some of the humor is great. I bust up at this line: “If you make me late for the train, I swear I’m never feeding you again. Ask my childhood hamster. He’s super dead.” Also, I really enjoyed the whole sexy Christmas number; it’s a hilarious “fuck you” song, yes, but also A) a great moment for Riley’s character arc, and B) just an awesome scene where the girls stick up for each other. There are some nice nods and reversals to the original film, too. And hey, there’s a DivaCup in this movie! Always nice when menstruation is something that’s actually acknowledged in Hollywood.

Still, a lot of the dialogue feels obvious and cheesy. It’s a problem throughout the film, but gets especially painful in the third act. I just . . . I don’t buy it, is the thing. (And the part where the white girl has to explain to her Black friend why the police aren’t trustworthy, like, yikes? Maybe not?) The script reads like someone had a long list of feminist catchphrases to get through in a very short amount of time. The plot, too, doesn’t quite work for me, partially because Riley jumps to “we’re obviously dealing with evil frat boy magic” way too fast for my liking, but also because for a story that heavily criticizes misogyny, it kinda lets men off the hook. Brainwashing pledges into mindless killers is a lot less horrific than young men actively choosing to kill outspoken women. Landon, too, mostly feels like he’s here to prove Not All Men, though I like Caleb Eberhardt’s performance; the character himself just feels distracting. Credit where credit’s due, though: I very much enjoyed Cary Elwes, as he always seems to be having so much fun, whether he’s playing a Ridiculously Smarmy Jackass (this, Stranger Things, etc.) or a Ridiculously Suave Motherfucker (The Princess Bride, Psych, etc.)

This Black Christmas works best, I think, as something meant to  introduce young girls to horror, like, part of a 101 starter pack: something that’s modern and broadly relatable and none  too gory or frightening; the PG-13 rating helps with that, though IMO, the downside to obscured shots and fade-to-black kills is that it doesn’t allow the Girls Who Won’t Survive any time to fight back, which I think is unfortunate. Still, if the target demographic is, IDK, 11-15-year-olds interested in giving slashers a go? I honestly think that would raise my estimation of the movie as a whole. (Though I’d still do at least one more editing pass. Probably two. This could’ve been better, damn it.)

Black Christmas

Year: 1974
Director: Bob Clark
First Watch or Rewatch: Rewatch
Amazon, Netflix, Hulu, or Other: Other – Personal Collection DVD
Spoilers: Yep
Grade: Chocolate

So, yeah. This is one of my absolute favorite horror movies, one I’ve already analyzed in considerable detail in this Genderbent Wednesday essay. I don’t know that I have many new thoughts on it now: I still think Jess is a very important and relevant Final Girl, though I’ll admit I don’t always buy Olivia Hussey’s line deliveries. Still, I love that she’s a goal-oriented protagonist who’s made a decision to have an abortion, never seems particularly upset about it, and refuses to change her plans to appease her worthless ass of a boyfriend. It’s also worth noting that the women are largely supportive of each other in this film, too, and there’s nary an exploitative tit shot in sight. Barb has a few lines I’d definitely like to cut, but overall? I’ll go to my grave arguing that Black Christmas is a feminist horror film, especially for 1970-fucking-4.

It’s also easily creepier than either of its remakes, like, Black Christmas has atmosphere, damn it. Those phone calls are deeply concerning, and Dead Claire in her rocking chair is iconic as hell. There are things I’d like to change, of course: at one point, the girls mention they haven’t locked the doors or windows, and I’m like WHAT? No, nope, that is absolutely ridiculous this late into the movie. Also, while I love so much about the film’s ending (Jess killing Peter, never learning the real killer’s identity, the last phone call ringing us into the credits, etc.), it remains completely unacceptable to me that the cops leave an unconscious Jess alone in a House of Dead Bodies with only one officer to guard her, like, I get it, she’s sedated and they think the threat is over. I do not care; this is nonsense. I need much better justifications than the ones the script provides.

Still, this is always gonna be a favorite. Peter is the absolute worst, and I enjoy rooting for his impending demise. Phyl is cool, and I mourn her offscreen death. Barb is interesting, and I could probably write a whole essay on her character alone. (Did you know that Barb is A) not a nerd, and B) asthmatic? Did you even realize that was something that could happen in Hollywood?) I enjoy John Saxon as Lt. Ken Fuller and Marian Waldman as Mrs. Mac. Laughing Detective is one of my favorite bit parts of all time. I love that there’s such a strong case against Peter, that it 100% makes sense for both Fuller and Jess to assume he’s the murderer. Black Christmas is just an incredibly well-constructed horror film that is disturbing, entertaining, and still surprisingly relevant almost 50 years after its release. Bob Clark might be best known for his other holiday movie, A Christmas Story, but Black Christmas remains my favorite of his work.