Category Archives: Television

Movie Review: Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery

 

In 2019 writer/director Rian Johnson released his love letter to the classic mystery genre with his film Knives Out. A movie without a pre-existing fan base, no novel, no boomer television series, no classic film reboot, and the domestic box office still soared past 300 million dollars. Audiences fell in love with southern gentleman Detective Benoit Blanc. The success guaranteed a sequel and Netflix brought truckloads of money to Johnson for two more Benoit Blanc mysteries, the first of which, after a one-week theatrical run over Thanksgiving, drops onto the streaming service today.

Glass Onion, taking in May of 2020 as the world grapples with the Covid 19 pandemic, is set on a secluded Greek island as tech billionaire boy Miles Bron (Edward Norton) has invited his close group of friends, nicknamed the Disruptors and his estranged former partner, for a weekend of

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a murder mystery game. Blanc’s arrival is the first mystery as someone other than Bron dispatched to Blanc of the puzzle box invitations. Naturally the weekend does no go as planned and soon the participants find that the dangers are for more real than the party games that they had expected.

The next Benoit Blanc mystery is structured very much the pervious one.  The first act of the film establishes a collection of eccentric characters, this time drawn more broadly that the Thrombey clan, but when you are dealing with an internet billionaire and the surrounding sycophants broad is the order of the day.

The second act inverts everything you thought you understood had been established while playing fair with the information it had presented.

The third act swings into the actual mystery and revelations to land in an emotionally satisfying conclusion.

Glass Onion present more comedy and less mystery than the previous movie but retains all the essential elements that made Knives Out such a fun and entertaining experience. The cast is uniformly fantastic with golden cameos from a number of well know persons. Outstanding in this cast is Janelle Monae though it takes more than half to film to uncover what makes her performance so stellar.

It is a shame that Glass Onion has such a short theatrical run as this is the sort of movie that is best experienced with a crowd but even alone on the couch this is still a movie that should not be missed.

Glass Onion is currently streaming exclusively on Netflix.

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Norwegian Kaiju Fun: Troll (2022)

 

While the Japanese film industry reigns undisputed as the global champions in giant monster, AKA Kaiju, cinema other nations have gotten in the act and this year brought a treat from the Nordic North, Troll.

Construction of a new railway line through the mountains of Norway awakes an enormous troll Netflixthat wrecks destruction throughout the countryside as the meanders South towards the nation’s capital, Oslo.  Am assembled ragtag team must battle the troll and bureaucratic interference along with familial trauma to save Norway from the ancient pre-Christian curse.

Troll, directed with a firm talented hand by Roar Uthaug and with sharp, lovely cinematography by Jallo Faber, is a fun, fast, and thoroughly enjoyable film. Screenwriters Uthaug and Espen Aukan, perfectly balance the spectacle effects of a 40- or 50-meter-tall troll cutting through countryside and city environments with just enough human scale story to give the film dramatic weight without sliding into melodrama. The characters, while not blindingly unique, are drawn well-enough to present as believable people, engaging the audiences emotional connections. It is also pleasant that despite the mixed-gender cast there was no attempt at a love triangle or even a romantic subplot, just associates, friends, and family working in common purpose. The films ending is reminiscent in mood to the grandparents of Kaiju cinema, King Kong (1933) and Gojira (1954.)

I am going to talk about two elements Troll in a generally non-spoiler manner.

Frist something that amused me. During the movie’s second act the Troll moves through an Amusement Park, food, games, rides, including the obligatory fake rapids water ride. The day the troll arrived the sky was overcast, a cool day, and still the water ride was full of Norwegians wearing heavy long-sleeved shirts. Clearly the Norwegians have a different standard when the weather is appropriate for getting drenched.

The second damaged by suspension of disbelief but not so badly as to kick me fully out of enjoying the movie. It is strongly suggested, but never explicitly. stated, that the Norwegian military considers a nuclear strike against the troll, but Norway is not among the 9 nations known or suspected of possessing nuclear weapons. Nor does the movie suggest that they are borrowing one from NATO.

That said Troll was a fast, fun movie that played quickly and never failed to entertain. For fans of giant monsters on a rampage Troll should not be missed.

Troll is currently streaming on Netflix.

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Series Review: ANDOR

 

First off let me say that posting will be light here for the next few months. I work in the enrollment department of a Medicare Advantage Health Care company and there will be hours and hours and hours of overtime work during this Annual Enrollment Period. Now, onto the review.

Andor is the Disney + series fleshing out the backstory of the character Cassian Andor see in the feature film Rouge One: A Star Wars Story. When the series was announced I was less than enthused and frankly rather skeptical. Cassian was mildly interesting in the film, which I enjoyed, but I felt no burning desire to know him better. When the cast list was released and it was clear there would be no return of everyone’s favorite sassy droid, K2SO, my interest in the series fell even further. With the bland and disappointing The Book of Bobba Fett I very nearly skipped this show.

I am so glad I did not.

Andor is the gritty, morally ambiguous story of the birth of the rebellion and Cassian’s recruitment into it. This is not a redressed fairy tale with knight, wizards, mysticism, and farm boys. Instead, we are dropped into a space opera world that is all too familiar to us. Cassian is a petty criminal, surviving on the edges of the Galactic Empire by selling stollen equipment. The

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oppressive fascistic empire is everywhere and callus in its disinterest towards it subjugated population. The resistance is fracture between zealots, politicians, and thieves. The Intelligence Bureau is a pit of backstabbing careerists, but some are intelligent and talented, presenting a far more real and recognizable threat than cartoonish villainy. The prison labor, its injustice and cruelty, is familiar to anyone with passing knowledge of reality’s greatest incarcerator.

Despite the startling white set, the clean rich apartments of its elite characters, Andor has a very noirish feeling to its story. Again and again characters are forced to compromise their personal morals on the altar of the ‘greater good.’

I adore this series with its rich characterization, its willingness to abandon ‘heroic’ tropes, and get its hands dirtywith the nasty, ugly, violent, and degrading business of revolution.

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The Shared Fantasy Element of Star Wars & The Moon is a Harsh Mistress

 

On a surface examination it would seem that the pop space fantasy Star Wars and the ground hard sf novel The Moon is a Harsh Mistress would have very little in common. One is a fairy tale quest reimagined in a galaxy far away taking place long ago while the other is retelling of the American Revolution set on a lunar penal colony.

Both are concerned with the overthrow of a cruel dictatorial government, one a cartoonishly evil emperor the other a multinational penal system condemning the guilty and the innocent.

But both works have a fantasy element in common, an unbelievably restrained set of revolutionaries.

Revolutions eat their young is a common sentiment. In reality, all too often after a successful revolution and the old guard is turned out, usually fatally, the next most common occurrence is the revolutionaries turn on each other. Divisions that had been set aside as they fought a common enemy resurface and what starts as disagreement turns quickly into violence and assassination.

It often takes a stiff spine and stomach to throw a revolution and it’s very easy to drift across the line from moral action into ‘the ends justify the means.’ After that the will to perform ‘questionable’ acts to win is easily turned against former allies.

In both Star Wars and The Moon is a Harsh Mistress the revolutionaries are upstanding characters that never got their hands truly dirty. The Empire is toppled and it is all just flowers and puppies and a new Republic is born.  In Moon Manny and his conspirators tried to rig the government so that they remained in power but lacking the blood methods usually employed to neutralize former allies they found themselves outmaneuvered and despite their intent an independent government formed.

I got thinking about this because the newest Star Wars television series Andor is gritty, grey, and morally dark.

I love it.

Andor feels real. It feels like the hard choices and nasty work of throwing a revolution. It flies directly opposed to the fantasy revolt of Star Wars and luckily for continuity it will never reach the post revolution period, but until it ends, I plan to be along for the ride.

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Spooky Movie #6: Werewolf by Night

 

Marvel comics has a history stretching back the 60s. In those decades of world building and market chasing as part of their unified universe of heroes and villains the have explored every genre of storytelling including horror. With the Disney + release of Werewolf by Night they bring horror into the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Werewolf by Night is helmed by first time director Michael Giacchino, though he is best known as a film score composer whose works include the fanfare that plays with the Marvel Studios logo. Written by Heather Quinn and Peter Cameron the Disney + special follows a group of ‘monster hunters’ gathered to compete to claim a powerful artifact, the Bloodstone. A monster ‘unlike any that they have face before’ has been released onto the grounds of a grand estate with the bloodstone imbedded into it. To win a hunter must not only best the beast and claim the stone but also survive the other hunters.

Presented in black-and-white to invoke the sensation of classic Universal horror, and to mitigate the blood splattered violence, the just under an hour special does a fine job of capturing a mood and atmosphere that plays well for fans of cinematic horror. The filmmakers carried their ‘old school’ presentation to entertaining ends with the inclusion of ‘cue marks.’ These are dark or white ovals that flash in the upper righthand corner of the frame to alert projectionist that a reel change was nearing and to prep the second projector. Even in the mid 1980s when I worked in a local movie theater the cue marks had passed out of relevance as the film projectors massive platters that contained the entire film on a single reel.

Aside from a title card with silhouettes of the Avengers there is no direct reference to other characters of the MCU though the production is officially a part of the franchise and introduces comic characters to this aspect of the Marvel universe.

Werewolf by Night is a fun, slightly scary, entry into the MCU and well worth the less than an hour it takes to view. An excellent episode to watch during this season.

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Spooky Movie 4: Hellraiser (2022)

 

Full disclosure I saw the original Hellraiser when it was released in theaters, and I left the screening disappointed. So much so that I never watched any of the numerous sequels. This is no shade thrown at the fan base who have embraced this franchise, but it simply did not work for me.

Hellraiser 2022 centers of Riley McKendry a woman battling drug and alcohol addiction as she lives with her brother Matt, his boyfriend Collin, and roommate Nora. While on a burglary with his hook-up friend Trevor, Riley discovers a mystical puzzle box which can summon twisted and Spyglass Media Groupmutilated demons, the Cenobites, that offer twisted rewards and gifts often in the form of extreme physical torment. When her brother vanishes and with her own recollections fouled by her drugged mind Riley embarks on the quest to discover the truth of the puzzle box and find her brother.

I very much enjoyed Hellraiser 2022, much more than I did the original. The cast performs well, the atmosphere and mood of this version is quite well captured by director David Bruckner and cinematographer Eli Born. While the extensive Hellraiser franchise robs the cenobites of mystery and surprise this story, entirely distinct from the original film and novella, has enough mystery and twists within itself to satisfy. This set of characters are also more appealing and easier to enjoy with then the original ’87 movie. The production also benefits from a much higher budget, more than 30 years of advancement in special effect, and a more experienced director helming the feature, yielding a far superior product. No shade to Clive Barker and his production. Given the budget it must be viewed as a success since it inspired such a long-lasting fandom, but talent in one art, writing, does not necessarily translate to another.

From certain segments of fandom, a great deal of noise has been generated over the casting of a transactor, Jamie Clayton, as the iconic leader of the Cenobites, Pinhead. As with other sound and fury signifying nothing concerning the race of actors plays elves, dwarves, and Norse gods, in the end all that really matters is the performance and Clayton’s was perfectly adequate. That is not damning with faint praise. The script calls on Pinhead do to little more than appear and intone theatrically and this requirement Clayton fulfills quite well. To see more from the performance required more on the page than is present.

All in all, Hellraiser 2022 is an acceptable horror film for a late night’s viewing. It shan’t become one of my favorites but nor does it rank among those that wasted my time.

Hellraiser 2022 is currently streaming on HULU.

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Not Quiet “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead”

In Stoppard’s play and film adaptation Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead the central conceit is that we follow these two minor characters from Hamlet, occasionally witnessing their scenes from that tragic play but mostly seeing them ‘off stage’ and using that device to explore the meaning of life and art.

Stoppard produced in the play and in the film a piece that uses comedy to interrogate serious question of life and coming next month to Hulu a comedic film uses the same trick for what appears to be purely comic effect.

Rosaline like Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead uses a minor character from one of Shakespeare’s plays to create a new point of view from which to watch the tragedy unfold. This time the play is Romeo and Juliet. This time the minor character is one who was mentioned but never actually seen in the text, Rosaline, the girl Romeo professed to love and adore before his ill-fated meeting with Juliet. Now spurned by her Romeo, Rosaline conspires to win her love back.

I don’t hold out hope for high art, but I’ll watch it on streaming for amusements sake.

 

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Quick Thoughts: House of the Dragon and Rings of Power

Two new shows arrived recently, House of the Dragon a prequel series for Game of Thrones on HBO and Rings of Power a prequel series for Lord of the Rings streaming on Amazon Prime.

Both shows are following in the footsteps of massively popular that also made mistakes and missteps of their own. Lord of the Rings had it’s disappointing if financially successful Hobbit trilogy and Game of Thrones fell off the narrative cliff with its final two seasons.

House of the Dragon, set just over a hundred years before the events in Game of Thrones is concerned with a civil war among the ruling houses of the seven kingdoms and so far, has failed to emotionally engage me or cause me to care about any of the characters. Unlike Game of HBOThrones there are no characters to root for or identify with and the characters as presented are far too bland to be engaging as interesting characters. The series feels more plot than story with events pushing the characters about rather than being driven by their choices. I don’t dislike the show but neither do I like it.

Rings of Power is much more engaging. While it is set thousands of years prior to The Lord of the Rings, due to the immortality of the elves we actually have character continuity between the properties. Character have much clearer and well-defined motivations and personalities that Amazon Studiosmake the series easy to emotionally care about. I know just enough of Tolkien’s lore to see some of what is happened but not so much as to be offended by any liberties taken with the text. And as to the ‘controversy’ over the casting of some of the characters? Piffle. Elves and Dwarves are not real and therefore it is immaterial the race of any actor in the part.

I like and I am enjoying Rings of Power and look forward to where the show may take us.

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Series Review: The Sandman

 

Sorry for the lack weekday updates this week. Tuesday evening, I got to experience something new to me, a gout flare. Wednesday was spent in quite a bit of pain and many hours at the kaiser Urgent Care, and by Thursday night it had nearly all passed. So now when I watch the musical 1776 and Franklin is wishing that King George felt like his big toe, but all over, I fully understand the kevel vitriol he is throwing in the crown’s direction.
Last night my sweetie-wife and I completed the Netflix series adaptation of Gaiman’s The

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Sandman. The 10-episode series follows Dream/Morpheus (Tom Sturridge) one of the Endless, personifications of enduring concepts interregnal to humanity. Morpheus is the Lord of Dreams and some of the other Endless are Death, Desire, and so on. Following a century long imprisonment when human sorcerers were attempting to capture Death, Morpheus embarks upon a quest to reclaim stolen items of power, rebuild his decayed kingdom of The Dreaming, and recapture escaped nightmares of major Arcana who has in his absence troubled the waking world.
I have never read the original Comic run from which the series is adapted and as such I cannot speak to the quality of transformation but merely react as it is currently presented.
I like the show. It’s fantastic elements meld with the reality of the ‘waking’ world quite nicely and rarely does the show lose itself in deep lore and heavy bouts of exposition. (Always a tricky balancing act with genre fiction.) The cast Are quite engaging and well placed in their parts. (There has been controversy over the gender-flipping nature of some of the parts but I found no issues with any of the cast.) Sturridge had a particularly difficult task; he is the show’s lead and central character, and he must carry the show while playing a withdrawn and more silent than not personification. The part required that subtle tics and posture inform the audience to the character’s inner turmoil and crisis a challenge that Sturridge proved equal to.
The story slides easy between sweet fantasy and disturbing horror, particularly in episode 5 which centers on the horrific events over a single day and night in a diner where a troubled man lifts the veil of lies that often makes life bearable to terrible consequences.
Over all the series is well worth a watch and here’s hoping that it is successful enough for Netflix to engage another season.

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Movie Review: PREY

1987 saw the release of Predator itself inspired by the 1980 wholly lackluster low-budget movie Without Warning, both films used the premise of an alien hunter come to Earth for the sport of hunting humans. Unlike the 1980 movie Predator exploded at the box office quickly becoming a massive success spawning 4 direct follow-on film and melding it with the studio’s other Sf/horror franchise Alien.

Prey, the latest franchise entry, is set in North America during the early 18th century as a band of Comanche deal with a predator-hunter come to Earth. The film’s central character, Naru, (Amber Midthunder) a young woman skilled in healing arts but with a burning desire to a tribal hunter, finds herself struggling to survive the alien’s stalking while navigating the difficult waters of both her tribal politics and the further encroaching of the Europeans into the continent.

There are many who are praising Prey as not only a great sequel but superior to the original 1987 film. This is overly enthusiastic. Granted compared to the lackluster Predator 2, The Predator (2018), or any of the Alien v Predator entries Prey stands out as solid, enjoyable filmmaking. Only it and 20103s Predators took the central premise and did anything more than simply copy the form with cut-and-paste caricatures. That said I think none of the subsequent movies surprise the surprise, tension, and thematic depths of the original film. Predator’s commentary of the emptiness of bravado, and as Lucifer in Sandman might say, the traps of tools, is something that rings true today 35 years later. Prey like all the other films in the Predator franchise has its moments that shatter disbelief. However, it does not layer these issues repeatedly and thus audiences can recover their acceptance of the story as it unfolds. The incongruity that has stayed with me is that any herbal concoction that lowers your body’s temperature to background is simply lethal. No mammal gets to survive that experience.

That is not to say that Prey is a bad film, it is not. Prey boasts interesting characters, who act and react with authenticity. Something that is far too often lacking in popular genre media. (Yes, I am looking at you X.) The tribal characters are engaging, realized human beings with the writers avoid both the cliche of the ‘noble savage’ wise in all things, and the ‘brutal savage’ untamed and untamable. Little can be said for the French fur trappers that who make a brief appearance in the film as all of their dialog is un-subtitled and your humble reviewer speaks no French. Jeff Cutter’s cinematography capture the scale, scope, and beauty of Canada doubling as the American wilderness reminiscent of the fantastic vista often found in John Ford’s best westerns. Director Dan Trachtenberg, previously best known for 10 Cloverfield Lane a tight, confined thriller with a fantastic performance by John Goodman, delivers on the action and tension inherent in a Predatormovie. Naru’s escape and refuge in a beaver lodge is a particularly powerful if short sequence that displays both the character’s quick intelligence and Trachtenberg’s confident directorial skills.

The visual effects are competent and largely invisible. (That pun fully intended.) With CGI creatures and beast flawlessly integrated into the picture. The grizzly is particularly well executed. Prey unfortunately has no theatrical release, and it is possible the VFX would not survive on massive screens but on my 55″ 4K television is worked perfectly.

Prey is well worth watching and is currently streaming on Hulu.

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