Investigating cold cases should help prevent future crimes, in a “broken windows” kind
of way, because if someone got away with murder once, they will presumably be
more likely to kill again. Nevertheless, Det. Renee Ballard’s assignment to the
Cold Case division was unambiguously intended as a punishment. Yet, several of
her cold cases turn out to be very hot in creators Michael Connelly &
Michael Alaimo’s 10-episode first season of Ballard, which premiers
tomorrow on Prime Video.
Ballard
had a conflict with her ex-partner Det. Robert Olivas that he won. Banished to
the Cold Case squad, she and fellow squad member, formerly retired Reserve Officer
Thomas Laffont, close their first case during the prologue, but the messiness
leaves them even more in the doghouse. Frankly, Captain Bercham only wants them
investigating one case, the unsolved murder of the younger sister of the city
councilman Jake Pearlman, who allocated the funds for their department. He
clearly thinks Ballard works for him and wants results yesterday. However, Pearlman
learns to respect her dedication and instincts when Ballard discovers his
sister was murdered by an unknown serial killer.
Naturally,
Bercham wants to transfer the case back to Homicide, but Ballard’s team has
Pearlman’s confidence and has been running conspicuous circles around her old
colleagues. As a further complication, Ballard has another season-long case
that she must keep close to her vest: a cold case murder that leads to a cabal
of crooked gun-running cops in league with a nasty drug cartel. Besides her
team, Ballard only trusts retired Det. Harry Bosch, a sporadic guest-star, who
anchors the series to the Bosch-verse.
Titus
Welliver’s infrequent but significant appearances are a fun bonus, but Maggie Q
more than carries the series as the title character. Frankly, her intensity
level might even eclipse Welliver’s and she is almost aa cool. She also comes
into the series with massive action cred, which serves her well. Connelly,
Alaimo, and the rest of their writers’ room really put Ballard through wringer,
but she handles all the angst quite convincingly.
Maggie
Q also develops nice chemistry with her team, notably including the
recognizable John Carroll Lynch playing it largely straight as Laffont, and
Michael Mosley, as reserve officer Ted Rawls, whose stock rises considerably as
he earns Ballard’s confidence. Similarly, Noah Bean delivers another memorable supporting
turn, navigating the councilman’s surprisingly dramatic arc. Amy Hill probably comes
the closest to comic relief as “Tutu,” but the grandmother-granddaughter relationship
is appealingly affectionate.
SQUID GAME season 3 devises even bigger and wilder sets and even more macabre and imposing games. It devises what fans expect, but the character deaths are especially soul-crushing. CINEMA DAILY US review up here.
Michelangelo is often called a “Renaissance Man,” but he lived well into the Reformation.
Fittingly, some of the talking heads dub his The Last Judgement a great
work of Reformation art, because it is all about sinners burning you know where.
Maybe even Savonarola would have approved—but probably not. Of course,
Savonarola was very much a part of the Renaissance Era, if not its spirit.
Indeed, the violence he unleashed fits right in with dual themes of
director-producer Emma Frank’s three-part Renaissance: The Blood and the
Beauty, which premieres tomorrow on PBS.
Poor
Botticelli and Donatello might feel left out, because Frank largely focuses on Michelangelo’s
professional rivalries with Da Vinci and Raphael. Clearly, Frank favors Team
Michelangelo, since she incorporates dramatic monologues performed by Charles
Dance, in the persona and costume of Michelangelo, adapted from the artist’s
own writings. Indeed, Michelangelo had to compete against Da Vinci’s lofty
reputation and Raphael’s political acumen, but he outlasted them both.
Frank
and company frequently remind viewers of the dangers that came with living in
the late 1400s, but that should not come as a great revelation to anyone who
watched CW’s Leonardo. After all, both Da Vinci and Michelangelo secured
good paying patronage work designing arms and fortifications.
Although
wider in scope, The Blood and the Beauty feels a lot like Ken Burns’ Leonardo da Vinci, but with less impressive experts. Weirdly, Frank assembles a
number of filmmakers and a “sex historian” (spare us, please) to compliment usual
suspects like Walter Isaacson. (Burns’ film also features more distinctive
music and narration, thanks to the contributions of Keth David and Caroline
Shaw.)
It might be the “Summer of Superman,” but Krypto has been the biggest winner from the
trailer release. If you think he is cute there, check out Krypto All In #1.
Every panel fully capitalizes on his adorableness, while still telling a
dramatic story. Hopefully, Ryan North and Mike Norton can sustain that high
quality. At this point, most viewers probably still know Krypto best from this
animated film. He is a bigger Krypto, but he probably had to be, since he is
voiced by The Rock in Jared Stern & Sam J. Levine’s DC League of Super-Pets, which has a special family screening this Tuesday at Look Cinemas.
Originally
in the comics, Krypto landed on Earth after Superman. In League of Super
Pets, he jumped into the escape-craft with Kal-El (in far and away the
cutest scene of the film). Of course, they grow up to be Superman and Krypto,
inseparable superhero buddies, protecting Metropolis from villains like Lex
Luthor. However, Krypto feels like Lois Lane is on the verge of breaking up the
band, like an animated Yoko Ono.
Ironically,
it is not Luthor who renders Superman and Krypto powerless. It will be his
literal guinea pig, Lulu, whom Krypto rescued from Luthor’s lab. However, Lulu
did not want to be rescued, because she absorbed Luthor’s villainous persona.
Consequently, she works on her evil scheme to refine Orange Kryptonite from the
animal shelter, where she is imprisoned with Ace the Boxer, Merton the turtle, PB
the potbellied pig, and Chip, the squirrel, who really shouldn’t be in a domestic
adoption shelter, but whatever. Together, they all gain superpowers as a result
of Lulu’s Kryptonite super-charge.
Krypto
got off on the wrong paw with Ace and his pals, because he is not good with
other pets. However, they all start to grow on each other. Krypto also promises
to hook them up with nice farm homes in Smallville. Unfortunately, Lulu
acclimates to super-villainy much quicker than the Super Pets adjust to
super-heroism.
League
of Super-Pets is
undeniably kid-friendly and amusing, but sometimes maybe in ways that are a
little too silly for fans of the DC Animated Universe, which this film is not a
part of. Arguably, the talking animal business drives the film rather than their
roles within the DC Universe. Obviously, Krypto has an honored place in the
Universe and Ace is also an established member of the Bat-Family. Chip and
Merton have precedent but they are very loosely based on their namesakes, while
PB and Lulu are entirely original.
The
best moments capture the human-animal bond shared by Superman and Krypto, who are
nicely voiced by John Krasinski and The Rock. Conversely, Kevin Hart is a lot
as Ace—sometimes too much. Natasha Lyonne and Vanessa Bayer are almost as much
as Merton and PB. However, there are some standout guest voices, notably
including Keanu Reeves as Batman (that one makes a lot of sense, right?),
Alfred Molina as Jor-El, and Keith David as Dog-El, Krypto’s father, whose
hologram provides some of the best jokes for hardcore DC fans.
For decades, the giant squid attack in Richard Fleischer’s 20,000 Leagues Under
the Sea was fondly remembered as the peak of American kaiju-making. The new
“reconceived” series held back the massive cephalopod for two full episodes. At
least they do not make viewers wait much longer in “What Lies Beneath,” this week’s
episode of creator James Dormer’s Nautilus, which airs tomorrow on AMC/AMC+.
There
is an unwelcome East India Company “stowaway” aboard the Nautilus, but the only
crewmember smart enough to expose him is young Blaster’s dog, Archie. However, Nemo
has more pressing issues than a barking dog, like the depth charges from the
Company’s Dreadnaught battleship at the end of the previous episode, and the giant
squid they stirred up at the start of “What Lies Beneath.”
The undersea
action is nicely rendered and their deliverance is rather clever, even if it
stretches credulity. Unfortunately, the rest of “Beneath” reverts to the same stilted
mistakes of the first two episodes. A new bad guy will be introduced, the “White
Rajah.” He looks promising, because the great Richard E. Grant portrays him,
but this time, he hardly seems to enjoy his villainy. Instead, Grant’s scenery-chewing
appears to give him indigestion.
Superman is often presumed an invicible, well, "superman," but the DC Animated films have done a great job humanizing him. A a result, they represent some of the best superhero movie of the last 20 years. For those eqagerly awaitnng the new movie, my survey of DC Animated Superman fiolms concludes at CINEMA DAILY US here.
Perhaps the unlikeliest action sequence in this film is based on a real-life event,
in which Private Channing Moss survived the impact and injuries from an unexploded
Taliban RPM that struck his abdomen with full force. It hardly needs to be
said, but don’t try that at home. It also depicts the potentially catastrophic
consequences when Islamist terrorists try to exploit the porous southern
border, but surely we have fixed all those problems in the time since this film
first released in 2012, right? Regardless, the courage and dedication of the
U.S. Navy SEALs and Special Combat Crewmen remain a source of national pride.
Many of the dedicated real-life Navy SEALs and Crewmen played fictionalized
versions of themselves in Mouse McCoy & Scott Waugh’s Act of Valor,
which makes fitting viewing for the Fourth of July weekend, when it airs on El
Rey Rebel.
It starts
in the Philippines, with the assassination of the American ambassador, who was
instrumental in coordinating anti-terror alliances. It was perpetrated by the pro-terror
alliance of Chechen Islamist terrorist Mohammad “Yuri” Abu Shabal and his old pal,
“Christo” Troykovich, an international smuggler-money launderer. Operating out
of failed states like Somalia, they are training suicide bombers to infiltrate
the United States from Mexico, with specially designed vests would not set off
metal detectors.
SEAL
Team 7’s Bandito Platoon only learns of the evil plan from intel gathered after
they rescue CIA Officer Lisa Morales from Christo’s thugs. Suddenly, their
mission extends and expands. That is rather inconvenient for Chief Dave Nolan
and his close friend, Lt. Rorke James Engel, who is due for leave in anticipation
of his son’s birth. Yes, that kind of happy news never bodes well in movies, does
it.
Since
real deal SEAL were involved in Act of Valor right from its inception,
the action sequences are highly realistic and consequently very intense. Rorke
Denver and Dave Hansen develop some nice comradery as Engel and Nolan. Beyond
them, the rest of the SEALs have little character development or even identifiable
personality types. However, pro-thesps Roselyn Sanchez and Nestor Serrano look
and sound smart and snappy together as Morales and her colleague, CIA Officer
Walter Ross. Indeed, it is refreshing to watch a film that considers the CIA part
of the good guys.
Netflix's ATTACK ON LONDON: HUNTING THE 7/7 BOMBERS adddresses important subjects, like the extremist-Islamist roots of terrorism and the questionable official agency oversight (pre- and post-bombings), but it is undermined by the inappropriate tabloid true crime-like presentation. EPOCH TIMES review up here.
In Batman Ninja, the time-traveling Dark Knight had to channel Toshiro Mifune
in a Chanbara adventure. This time, he must find his inner Takeshi Kitano or
Ken Takakura. Batman and the extended “Bat family” are back in their proper Bat-time,
but history has changed. Japan is now a land of Yakuza clans, much like the planet
of Chicago gangsters in Star Trek’s “A Piece of the Action” episode. Unfortunately,
the alternate Justice League has also gone full Yakuza in Junpei Mizusaki &
Shinji Takagi ‘s animated Batman Ninja vs. Yakuza League, which premieres
today on HBO or Max, or whatever.
Batman
and Robin (his son, Damien) returned to the right world, but Japan no longer
exists. Instead, an alternate Japan was created in a sort of liminal zone that
only the Bat family (also including the former Robins, Nightwing, Red Hood, and
Red Robin) can see, because they traveled through the previous time vortex, or
something like that. This Japan is entirely governed by Yakuza, with the Hagane
Clan on top, thanks to their super-powered enforcers.
Sarcastically
dubbed the “Yakuza League” by Robin, they consist of Bari, Ahsa, Zeshika, and
Karaku, the evil Flash, Aquaman, Green Lantern, and Superman, as you might
surmise from their Katakana-rendered names. However, Daiana Amazone is still
good and just, thanks to the power of this Japan’s analog to Paradise Island.
Even
allied with Daiana, Batman might look outmatched, considering the League’s powers
remain the same. However, he believes he holds certain advantages. For one
thing, this League has never fought anyone with remotely equivalent powers, so
they aren’t used to slugging it out in a real fight. Batman has also had
long-standing contingencies to take down his fellow JLA teammates, “just in
case” the need arose. That revelation does not completely shock his son. Not at
all, really.
The
first act plays out somewhat hectically and rushed, but Mizusaki, Takagi, and
screenwriter Kazuki Nakashima really settle down and deliver a darned good
Batman story thereafter. Arguably, they show the value of guile and “family,” which
turn out to be superior to superior to brute force. For genre fans, there are
also a lot of knowingly hip Yakuza details.
This movie predicts that in the post-apocalyptic near-future, the most valuable commodity
will be fertile agricultural land—exactly the sort of American farmland China
has been buying at an alarming rate. The Freemans’ farm happens to be in
Canada, but there is no way they would have ever sold, even in better days,
because the family went through so much to get it. Unfortunately, outlaw gangs
keep trying to steal it. The latest prospective claim-jumpers will be the most
savage in R.T. Thorne’s 40 Acres, which opens today in theaters.
Viewers
can see from the prologue Hailey Freeman and her family know how to protect
what is theirs. That is why her ideologically-charged home-schooling curriculum
makes absolutely no sense. They are preppers, through and through. A vague
semblance of community persists, maintained by shortwave radio, but each week
another farm goes dark. Freeman is not inclined to stick her neck out for anyone,
but her son Emanuel has teenaged hormones and not a girl his age in sight. Not surprisingly,
when he secretly spies Dawn enjoying a swimming hole during a scavenging trip,
she makes quite an impression.
Unfortunately,
the latest batch of marauders attacking family farms are particularly nasty, in
ways similar to The Road. They aren’t just stealing food. They’re
hunting it too. Is Dawn one of the cannibals or is she a post-apocalyptic
normie? Emanuel probably wouldn’t be the best to judge.
At its
core, 40 Acres is largely a prepper survival thriller in the tradition
of Homestead and One Second After, but with casting and cosmetic
stylistic changes made to appeal to diversity-conscious film fest audiences.
Yet, it hits the same notes and offers the same takeaways as every previous
prepper shoot-out. Basically, it boils down to: expect the worse and prepare
yourself, first and foremost, by heavily arming your family.
Yet, by
the standards of the genre, 40 Acres (an obvious reference to Union Gen.
Tecumseh Sherman’s promise of reparations, which actually never mentioned the
mule) is quite well made and surprisingly grabby.
The
cast is consistently strong, especially Danielle Deadwyler, who maybe delivers
a career best performance as the exhaustingly intense Freeman matriarch.
Michael Greyeyes nicely compliments her as Freeman’s second husband, who projects
a reassuring calm, but is really just as fiercely protective. Arguably, Elizabeth
Saunders makes it all watchable with her scene-stealing comic relief (until stuff
gets even more dire), as Freeman’s ex-marine crony, Augusta Taylor.
Did Superman immediately display superpowers as a child or did he grow into them? It
depends on which Earth, which multiverse, or which narrative continuity you
might be reading. DC Comics can be downright Schrodinger-esque. Two
contradictory events can be true at the same time. It just depends on where you
look. In this graphic novel for young readers, Superman had powers at age eight,
but don’t call him Superboy in Rob Justus’s Superman’s Good Guy Gang,
which just released.
Superman
has all his grown-up powers, but he doesn’t believe it is cool to hang out with
six-year-olds like little Lex Luthor. Instead, he forms a “Good Guy Club” with
Guy Gardener and Hawkgirl, even though she’s not a guy. In fact, negotiating
their name is a highly fraught business. Some also might question Gardener’s “good
guy” credibility. However, his atrocious bowl-cut makes more sense at that age.
Regardless,
the trio must band together to fight the renegade milk-shake-making robot
Luthor innocently created to get Superman’s attention. As it happens, Justus
somewhat follows the trend of some of the recent Superman comics, by inviting
sympathy for Luthor. Arguably, he might just be the most likable character.
It is the only rock & roll subgenre that has largely been instrumental. Yet,
ironically, its most popular artists are considered phonies by the real fans, because
of their vocal harmonies. They would be the Beach Boys. Surf musicians might
have played for beach bums, but virtuoso guitar work was always part of
package. The original Surf music pioneers look back on Surf culture’s early
1960s heyday in director-cinematographer Thomas Duncan’s documentary, Sound
of the Surf, which releases today on VOD and DVD.
Its
closest cousins were garage rock and punk rock, but the founding Surf music
musicians had two major influences. Not surprisingly, 1950s instrumental rock guitarists
like Duane Eddy and Link Wray were significant musical role models. However, most
of the Surf music veterans have more to say about jazz artists, especially big
band drummer Gene Krupa.
In fact, jazz musician Tom Morey, who also invented the Morey bogie board, expressly
compares jazz and surfing, because both require improvisation. Alas, nobody
discusses Bud Shank by name, but his soundtracks for Bruce Brown’s surfing
documentaries are duly acknowledged. Regardless, jazz collectively gets its
full due.
Dick
Dale claims the title as the original Surf music guitarist for himself and
pretty much everyone Duncan interviewed agrees with him. Indeed, Dale had some
of the biggest Surf hits, including his reverb heavy arrangement of “Misirlou,”
which became popular again thanks to Pulp Fiction. Eddie Bertrand,
co-founder of the Belairs and Eddie & the Showmen represents a
not-so-distant second.
Yet,
one of the more prominent voices turns out to be Kathy Marshall, who gets her
overdue credit for her contributions to the Surf music scene. Technically, she
never recorded commercially, but she performed regularly with Eddie & the
Showmen and the Blazers, even though she was still a teenager. Plus, viewers
also hear from Kathy Kohner-Zuckerman, a.k.a. the real “Gidget,” whose father
wrote the novel the film and TV series were based on, building on her accounts
of her new surfer friends.
In this film, the two heroic protagonists of Masamune Shirow’s Appleseed franchise
sort of get the DC treatment. They are the same characters fans know and love,
but they now have a new narrative continuity—familiar, but slightly different.
It is also sort of a prequel, but Briareos is already a cyborg—and partly on
the fritz. Unfortunately, the world is also still mostly destroyed, especially
the post-apocalyptic New York City, or perhaps it is just post-Mamdani. Regardless,
hope is in short supply, until Briareos and his comrade-life partner Deunan decide
to go out and find some in Shinji Aramaki’s anime feature, Appleseed Alpha,
which starts streaming today on Tubi.
WWIII bombed
out Times Square, yet the jumbotron remains, broadcasting old, pointless propaganda.
Some people still call the City home, including the cyborg gangster, Two Horns (because
of his Viking-like headpiece). Unfortunately, Deunan owes Two Horns money, so she
and Briareos must complete dangerous assignments, like that of the opening prologue,
to pay off the debt.
Rather
ominously, the two former soldiers suspect Two Horns has been setting them up
for failure. Yet, they have little choice, because Two Horns’s maintenance guy is
pretty much the only game in the post-apocalyptic town. Without power, Briareos
cannot do much, so they accept the next crummy gig: neutralizing and scavenging
a pack of rogue soldier-bots outside of town.
This
would be easier work if Briareos were in better shape. Regardless, things get
interesting when a group of mech-mercs drive into the drone zone with their
abductees, Olson, an enhanced but not full cybernetic former soldier, and Iris,
the young girl he was protecting. It turns out they are from the rumored sanctuary
of Olympus, which will mean a lot more to longstanding franchise fans. They are
also on a mission that Briareos and Deunan will join and ultimately embrace. Meanwhile,
the shadowy cabal trying to capture Iris follows their trail back to Two Horns,
bringing him into the fray as an unstable wild card.
Essentially,
Alpha arranges things differently on the timeline, but it closely hews
to the heart and spirit of the previous anime films. Briareos and Deunan are a
compelling beauty-and-the-beast couple, who have terrific battlefield chemistry
together. That last part is important, because Aramaki unleashes wall-to-wall
action. This kind of light-mecha combat really plays to his animation
strengths.
The computer-generated
motion-capture (but not full rotoscope) animation looks better here than it did
in Aramaki’s later film, Starship Trooper: Traitor of Mars. Perhaps the
distinctive, practically robotic look of Briareos (who reportedly influenced
the design of Blomkamp’s Chappie—you can see it in the ears) and Two
Horns helped focus the efforts at humanization on Deunan, Olson, and Iris.
Fans are hoping for greatness from the new Superman movie, but there have already been over a dozen thoroughly entertaining Superman movies you might have missed. They happen to be animated. The first part of my animated Superman survey is now up at CINEMA DAILY US here.
In the early 1930s, the Soviet Union was a “land of plenty,” but famine was everywhere—and
deliberately so in Ukraine. Likewise, medical care finally available for all,
yet the only care available for frail teenager with amputated legs is that of
her servant, who is blind in one eye and suffers from a rare blood disease that
renders him weaker than her. Since they are known as Bielka (meaning “Squirrel”)
Zaytsvena (derived from “hare”) Sneguroya (evoking Snergourchko, or “snow-maiden))
and Shchenok (meaning “puppy”) they are clearly hiding their identity. Presumably,
they have a darned good reason for doing so during the Stalinist era of Hiroaki
Samura’s award-winning manga, Snegurochka of the Spring Breeze, which just
released in a translated edition from Kodansha.
Shchenok
is Sneguroya’s servant, but he often refers to her as “older sister,” even
though he is obviously her senior. Similarly counter-intuitive, the wheelchair-bound
Sneguroya clearly prioritizes Shchenok’s safety above her own, even though he
is supposedly her caretaker. For some reason, they have a keen interest in a confiscated
dacha in northern Karelia, even though it is not much of a dacha by the majestic
standards of the Czarist royal family.
Of
course, interest in the nobles’ former real estate is a good way to draw the
attention of the OGPU (the forerunner to the KGB). Indeed, sickly Shchenok barely
survives the light torture that serves as his interrogator’s typical how-do-you-do.
At least their fragility seems to preclude them from serious espionage, so they
are remanded into the custody of Victor Stepanovich Mikhalkov, an OGPU agent temporarily
taking possession of the same dacha, to execute or employ as servants. He
choses the latter, for distinctly unedifying reasons with respects to Sneguroya.
Spring
Breeze is a
fascinating tale of Stalinist era tragedy and intrigue, featuring compelling real-life
characters, like Sneguroya’s future ally, Maria Spiridonova. A former Socialist
revolutionary, Spiridonova turned against
her former Communist comrades, becoming a prominent dissident and prisoner-of-conscience
from 1918 until her execution in 1941.
Before The Hunt for Red October, he was the best-selling literary submarine
captain. In the first two episodes, calling him “Captain” Nemo rather
overstates matters. Nevertheless, he has full command of the East India Mercantile
Company’s experimental submersible. It starts with Jules Verne, but leans
heavily into the kind of anti-colonialist ideology you would hear from a PhD
candidate with zero real world experience. The Verne material is the stuff that
works in the first two episodes of creator James Dormer’s Nautilus,
which premieres tomorrow on AMC+.
Humility
Lucas was educated as an engineer, but she won’t be able to live the life of
science and industry she aspires to after her impending arranged marriage to a
wastrel blueblood. She will not quite admit it yet, but when Nemo takes her as
a hostage/survivor on the Nautilus, it represents a golden opportunity. Suddenly,
she is turning cranks down in the engineering room with Gustave Benoit, the
French inventor who created the sub.
As we
see in flashbacks, Nemo was one of the prisoners-turned slave-laborers who
constructed the Nautilus under Benoit’s direction. Originally, the East India
Company promised him it would be a scientific vessel like the Calypso, but they
predictably weaponized his creation, so they conspired together to hijack it.
Obviously,
Nemo knows far more than a typical prisoner of the Raj. That is why Benoit
relied so heavily on his expertise. However, the steadfastness of his current crew
is rather suspect, because they had to leave in a hurry. Similarly, Lucas and governess-minder
Loti were “rescued” after Nemo sunk the Company vessel delivering them to her fiancée,
so they still harbor notions of escape.
The
steampunky Verne-ish designs of the Nautilus interiors and exteriors are very
cool. The underwater action scenes are also decently competent. Consider it one
or two steps above the Hallmark literary classic adaptations of a few years
back. Unfortunately, Dormer (sole credited writer for the first two episodes) shows
more interest in exploring Victorian social mores and prejudices than pursuing
adventure—at least thus far.
Shazad
Latif broods charismatically as Nemo, but there is zero chemistry between him
and Georgia Flood, as the nauseatingly entitled Lucas. We know they will get
together, because that is the obvious cliché, but they have yet to build the
heat to make it believable.
Prime's COUNTDOWN is a grabby counter-terror thriller that works on a procedural level becaus of the team comradey and the unusually higgh stakes. It is also quite topical, given the way porous borders and Mexican drug cartels aid and abet the nuclear terrorism afoot. EPOCH TIMES review here.
Whenever someone tells you they are doing something for your own good, they are really
mostly likely doing it to benefit themselves. A cynical grandma like Ann Hunter
basically already knew that. Unfortunately, she relearns it the hard way when
an exploitative embezzler assumes legal guardianship over her and her ailing
husband in Karl R. Hearne’s The G, which opens today in theaters.
Hunter
is one of those tough grannies who cuss and drink and prefer to go by “The G,”
rather than Grandma. In fact, she is the original tough granny. There is also
talk she has money squirreled away somewhere, which is why scummy Rivera
petitioned the court to become her guardian. That is all part of his business model,
bleeding seniors dry and then disposing of them. There was no reason for it
because the G remains sharp as a tack and she received regular visits from her
adoring granddaughter Emma.
Maybe
the G has money hidden somewhere, but Rivera cannot find it. If she does, some
of it probably came from her early life, which he did not do his proper due diligence
on. Originally, the G hailed from a crime-family of cowboy gangsters in Texas,
who send an enforcer to her unspecified depressed industrial town to help set
things right. Emma is not taking matters lying down either, but she maybe stirs
the pot a little too much.
The G
is gritty as heck and lethally effective. It is also an alarming cautionary tale
that anyone over fifty-five years of ages should pay close attention to. Such viewers
who ignore Rivera’s abuse of the legal system, do so at their own peril. Nor should
they simply dismiss him as a “white collar” criminal. State agencies could commit
similar injustices, but with even less legal resistance.
Sure, climbing Everest is a struggle, but the twisty mountain roads getting there are no picnic
either. Of course, that part is Mike McCann’s specialty. He made a cool $200K delivering
rescue supplies for trapped miners in his first movie appearance, but his
brother Gurty was murdered in the process. He now has a persistent case of
survivor’s guilt, but when he comes to Nepal for closure, he finds action
instead in director-screenwriter Jonathan Hensleigh’s Ice Road: Vengeance,
which opens today in theaters.
Before
the events of the first film, Gurty survived his Iraq deployment and so did his
“in-the-event-of-my-death” letter, but McCann only just uncovered it amid their
old papers. Evidently, he wanted his ashes dispersed on Everest, so off McCann goes.
Fortunately,
he hired a dependable sherpa, Dhani Yangchen, who also happens to be a veteran
(and a Buddhist, but the film never specifies which kind). That means both
spring into action when two assassins try to hijack their bus. They intend to
kill Vijay Rai, the son and grandson of activists resisting a sketchy dam
project, but, obviously, everyone else on-board will be collateral damage.
In an
extremely ironic twist, McCann and Dhani must lead their fellow passengers
across the Chinese border, where they will be safe for the corrupt Nepalese cops
collaborating with the assassins. To get there, they must traverse some
extremely steep mountain roads and maneuver several ridiculously twisty hair-pin
turns, but that sort of thing happens to be McCann’s specialty.
The
original Ice Road was a Netflix hit, but obviously Chinese sources took
over funding the franchise. At least there was an effort to be subtle, but
there are still several positive references to China’s Belt-and-Road
initiative, which is really a predatory lending scheme designed to enmesh
developing nations in CCP debt. There is also a dubious association between the
Chinse side of the border and law & order. For the reality, ask India about
Chinese cross-border violence.
If Rober De Niro in Backdraft was the last fire department arson investigator
you can remember seeing in movies or TV, you might want to keep it that way. You
will definitely remember Taron Egerton in this series, no matter how hard you
try to forget him playing arson investigator Dave Gudsen, who never stops
talking. During his rare quiet moments, he either grinds out his thinly
fictionalized, wish-fulfillment “novel,” or engages in dangerous criminal
behavior. Those arson investigations won’t solve themselves—or at least that is
what Gudsen hopes in creator Dennis Lehane’s 9-episode Smoke, which
premieres tomorrow on Apple TV+.
Gudsen has
been investigating not one, but two serial arsonists. One is a nasty serial
killer, who uses fire to kill his victims. The other is the D&C, or “Divide
& Conquer” arsonist, who takes advantage his competitors’ three-alarm fires
to set his own impulsive blazes. So far, Gudsen hasn’t caught either, partly
because he happens to be the latter.
Lehane
and the battery of co-writers make little secret of Gudsen’s guilt. His new
partner, Det. Michell Caderone on loan from the real police, also figures out
pretty quickly. Gudsen’s current wife #3, Ashley, does no suspect him of
outright criminality, at least not yet, but she is getting pretty tired of his attitude
and anger management issues. However, Gudsen’s boss Harvey Englehart remains
shockingly cluesless.
As both
arsonists grow increasingly reckless, Calderone assembles a task force to catch
Gudsen, which includes his former partner Ezra Esposito, whose disgrace Gudsen engineered
and her boss, Captain Steven Burk, whom she dumped as her lover as soon as he
decided to leave his wife for her. They obviously have a lot of collective
baggage, but the two arsonists each have more individually.
Frankly,
Smoke probably sounds much more twisty and thrilling than it really is. Unfortunately,
it is hamstrung by tonal issues that start with Egerton, who seems to think he is
playing the Joker in the latest Batman movie. Seriously, Egerton is so
ridiculously over the top, it is impossible to believe anything that comes
after the first episode. Yet, it is based on the very real story of John
Leonard Orr (an arsonist-arson investigator with literary ambitions), who was
the subject of the Firebug podcast Lehane used as source material, as
well a true crime book by Joseph Wambaugh.
Egerton
was terrific in Lehane’s Black Bird, but he is embarrassingly unintentionally
funny as Gudsen. In fact, casting was generally disastrous for Smoke, because
Jurnee Smollett is also miscast as Calderone, but not to such a spectacular
extent. To give credit where it is due, she even has some poignant moments when
processing Calderone’s family trauma and betrayal.
During the mid-1990s, tons of filmmakers “stole” from Quentin Tarantino. Presumably the
mediocre ones were only borrowing. Regardless, he must be used to getting
ripped-off by now, but he understandably draws the line at physical theft. Of
course, a couple of knuckleheaded movie buffs prefer to consider it a sincere
form of flattery when they get the bright idea to rob Tarantino’s personal
print of Pulp Fiction from his own movie theater in director-screenwriter
Danny Turkiewicz’s Stealing Pulp Fiction, which opens this Friday in
theaters.
If Jonathan
and Steve saw this film, they would probably slam it for being a pale carbon
copy. After watching a special screening of Tarantino’s print at a theater not specifically
identified as the New Beverly (presumably for legal reasons) they hatch the
brilliant to steal it. The “and do what” part is always a little vague. For
such an undertaking, they will need some back-up, so they recruit Jonathan’s
caustic frenemy, Elizabeth, whom Steve carries a torch for.
Ill-advisedly,
the criminal masterminds also enlist their mutual shrink, Dr. Mendelbaum, who
recently moved his practice into the back room of a martial arts dojo. It is
there that another patient, Rachel, catches Jonathan’s eye. Their plan is not
particularly well-thought-out, but they roll with it, at least until Tarantino’s
presence at the second screening gives them cause to pause and reconsider.
There
is no question Seager Tennis’s portrayal of Tarantino, or “Quentin F’ing
Tarantino,” as the film calls him, is by far the funniest thing going for it.
In fact, Tarantino would probably laugh at Tennis’s tough guy persona, which
would not be out of place in his films. Unfortunately, Jason Alexander gets a
lot more screen time as the ultra shticky Mandelbaum. Basically, his
performance is on par with his cheesy mayonnaise commercials.
Frankly,
it must be hard for Cazzie David, Larry David’s daughter, to see Alexander sink
to such levels. However, she maintains her dignity as the ruthlessly snarky
Elizabeth, whose withering commentary often echoes the audience’ sentiments.
A strong ensemble cast and intriguing alternate history world-building make Angel Studio's TESTAMENT, a modern dystopian retelling of THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES highly watchable, even for viewers who do not identify as Evangelical or Catholic. EPOCH TIMES review up here.
Cloning started with Dolly the Sheep. Apparently, Jack and Layla’s cattle farm brought it
full circle. However, the resulting cattle are not resting easy. Strang happenings
are afoot in Will Howarth & Tom McKeith’s In Vitro, which releases
this Friday in theaters and on-demand.
In
Vitro is set in
the near-future Australia, but the couple’s ranch looks like the hardscrabble
U.S.A., anytime over the last twenty years. Jack made the visionary decision to
embrace biotech. Unfortunately, a lot of the resulting cows have been dying
lately. Layla suspects a stranger has been stalking the farm. She is also
getting weird vibes from Jack.
Maybe
you can guess what is going on quicker than Layla, but the reveal is suitably dramatic.
This is probably the angstiest speculative fiction you might have seen in quite
some time. Yet, it is the dysfunctional central relationship that really drives
the action.
Co-screenwriter
Talia Zucker shows amazing range and flexibility as Layla, in ways that would
be spoilery to explain. Yet, she is also always very grounded and reserved. Ashley
Zukerman never overplays his hand either, hitting the right vaguely creepy
notes, but not to an overbearingly menacing degree as Jack. They successfully convey
the dysfunctional nature of their chemistry, born out of years of difficult shared
history, as well as a nagging sense that something is profoundly wrong between
them.
It is
hard to write about In Vitro without being too revealing. Compounding
the trickiness, it also happens to be an unusually quiet film. Both the eerie
sound design and lonely setting contribute to a distinctively austere vibe.
Yet, it suits Howarth, McKeith, and Zucker’s themes and motifs.
It is another environmental fairy tale for kids, but this time, it is like Gru and the
Minions are trying to burn down Fern Gully. Obviously, the evil alien
calling himself “Ultra” is a lot meaner than Gru—and he originally sounded much
more French. He has been razing the forest in search of the fabled springs of
immortality. Litle lost Angelo could use some of those waters too, for his
beloved ailing grandmother in Vincent Paronnaud & Alexis Ducord’s Into
the Wonderwoods, adapted from Paronnaud’s graphic novel (written under his Winshluss
pen-name), which releases tomorrow on VOD.
Angelo
is also a lot like the Home Alone kid, because his family never notices
when they leave him behind at a rest stop. In their defense, they are concerned
about Grandma—and his father is also busy quarreling with the GPS AI. (It
should be further stipulated, his jazz-listening dad deserves credit for his
better taste in music). Angelo always imagines himself a brave explorer, in
heroic 2D animated interludes, so this is his chance to prove his
resourcefulness. He will simply cut straight through the forest to reach
grandmother’s house.
Frankly,
he barely survives the ants. Nevertheless, he starts to meet various forest
dwellers who are willing to stand up to Ultra’s terror and destruction. Angelo
might be the catalyst the “Resistance” needs. That is why Ultra takes an
unwelcome interest in him.
Arguably,
Into the Wonderwoods represents a cornucopia of borrowed genre elements,
even including the character of Goouh, a hulking embodiment of vegetation, who
is sort of like “The Green” in Swamp Thing comics, but more
anthropomorphic. (In fact, the “Goo” character design work is rather cool). Regardless,
the overall fusion is sufficiently weird to keep animation fans tuned in.
Great
artists steal, right? And Paronnaud has made several great films, especially Persepolis,
in collaboration with Marjane Satrapi. Along with Ducord (who co-helmed Zombillenium),
Paronnaud creates an offbeat fantastical world, beneath the forest’s natural
surface level. Indeed, zigging in a science fiction direction instead of
zagging towards fantasy represents a shrewd strategy.
In this alternate history, the Soviets beat the United States to the Moon, yet
somehow, we won the Cold War sooner. That sounds like a heck of a story, but it
is only the stuff of footnotes and appendices in this hardboiled lunar noir. A
cynical detective’s search for a missing girl takes him into the underground
community of Soviet descendants in Cory Crater’s graphic novel, Missing on
the Moon, illustrated by Damian Couceiro, which is now on-sale.
Rendered
obsolete by robot cops, Daniel Schwinn ekes out a living by “mopping up”
junkies. However, his old boss Oz has a real case worthy of his old skills. A
senior senator’s daughter Penny has been abducted. So far, the only clue is a
shoe found abandoned on the moon’s surface, without any footprints or
body-parts leading away it.
Schwinn’s
investigation soon focuses on the post-Soviet “Darksider” revolutionaries, who
presumably kidnapped Penny for leverage. However, the Darksiders have the drop
on Schwinn and might even have messed with his head, in ways that might turn
him outlaw against his wishes.
The
idea of a noir mystery set within a retro world of Chesley Bonestell-esque lunar
colonies sounds endlessly intriguing. Unfortunately, Crater neglects the
promising alternate history premise, in favor of an overly familiar and highly ideologically-charged
sf setting. Disappointingly, the world of Missing on the Moon is nearly
indistinguishable from that of Outland, the Alien franchise, Murderbot,
and dozens of other polemical near futures built around companies that act the
way that governments actually behave in real life. Frankly, the results are
boring.
Both the music and the animated martial arts sequences are cleverly executed in Netflix's KPOP DEMON HUNTERS, which clearly reflects a thorough grounding in K-Pop idol culture. CINEMA DAILY US review up here.
When Batman criticizes you for being a violently unstable masked vigilante, maybe you should
reconsider some of your life choices. Instead, the Phantasm keeps killing
gangsters. Ordinarily, that would not break the Dark Knight’s dark heart, but
he gets the blame thanks to their vague resemblance in Eric Radomski &
Bruce Timm’s Batman: Mask of the Phantasm, which screens tonight at the
Mahoning Drive-In.
According
to the novelization, Robin was away at college during the events of Phantasm.
Regardless, Batman is always comfortable operating as a lone wolf. That is the
Phantasm’s style as well. After it kills two mob bosses in the first act (technically
the Phantasm merely “drove” one of them to his death), the emphysemic Salvatore
“The Wheezer” Valestra reluctantly to turns to an old colleague for protection.
Of course, involving the Joker only further destabilizes the chaotic situation.
Unfortunately,
sleazy city councilman Arthur Reeves capitalizes on the spurious accusations to
turn the Gotham PD (except Commissioner Gordon) against Batman. It turns out
Reeves is also his rival for the affections of Andrea Beaumont, Bruce Wayne’s
college girlfriend, who recently returned from abroad.
Originally
conceived as a special within the world of Batman: The Animated Series, Phantasm
was scaled up for theatrical release. Despite sharing similar character designs
with the series, it proved DC comics could draw an audience for feature-length
animation, paving the way for the DC Animated Movie Universe (DCAMU), which is
definitely a thing.
In
fact, Phantasm is quite visually striking in a film noir kind of way.
There are some incredibly cinematic backdrops like the Joker’s lair amid the
abandoned installations of the Gotham World’s Fair, which were clearly modeled
on the 1939 New York Exposition.
For
many fans, Phantasm is the film that firmly established Kevin Conroy as
their favorite Batman voice. Similarly, it also represents Mark Hamill’s peak
Joker voice-over performance, arguably surpassing his work on the animated
series. Regardless, the Joker arguably represents Hamill’s greatest legacy
outside Star Wars.
The stories of service recorded throughout Angel Studios' THE MERCY SHIPS uplift and edify, but the crew and staff tend to come on rather forcefully when discussing their faith. Nevertheless, the intentions are noble on both sides of the camera. EPOCH TIMES review up here.
Chase Bradner wants to be an indie auteur, but his first movie will be a rip-off of The
Blair Witch Project and the “Patterson-Gimlin” footage you might remember
seeing on old In Search of… episodes. That is assuming he manages to
finish it. The outlook is questionable, because all the usual production issues
that plague indies will be compounded by strange demonic forces in Max Tzannes’
Found Footage: The Making of the Patterson Project, which opens today in
theaters.
French
documentarian Rochelle Dupont had vastly more experience than Bradner.
Neverthelss, she filmed behind-the-scenes on his production of The Patterson
Project, for a series on DIY filmmaking. That is how viewers get to see the
chaos that unfolds.
Frankly,
the whole production is rather iffy from the start. Frank Eikleberry agreed to
produce the film, after hiring Bradner to shoot his furniture store commercials.
However, it seems Eikleberry intends to generously skim from the investment he
solicits from the elderly and addled Betsy Hannigan, whose only condition is the
mandatory casting of her favorite actor, Alan Rickman. Sadly, Rickman is obviously
dead, so Bradner must get creative.
Somehow,
Bradner starts shooting in their primary location, a time-share cabin that his
girlfriend (and assistant director) Natalie Sayers’ parents are not currently
scheduled to use. Rather ill-advisedly, the crew stows their gear in the satanic
shrine in the cellar, which apparently frees a demon to unleash havoc during the
shoot. Sayers and the production assistant, Peter Wallsnacky largely accept the
supernatural source of their headaches, but Bradner and Eikleberry remain
seriously in denial.
It
takes a while for this horror-comedy to get to the horror, but when it does, it
really starts to click. The backstage demonic shenanigans captured by Dupont’s
crew are pleasantly creepy and the film-making chaos grows funnier as the progresses.
Radovan Jakovic was sort of the Swedish Whitey Bulger. Det. Gunn Thorngren rather ill-advisedly
facilitated his criminal ascension by arresting the rivals he informed on. At
least she realized the extent of her mishandled informant-handling earlier than
the FBI. Arguably, Jakovic was also a Serbian government employee, because they
supplied the contraband he smuggled into Sweden. Balkan wars complicate Swedish
organized crime in lead writer Axel Stjarne’s six-episode Mafia, which
premiers today on Viaplay.
Before
the fall of Communism, the Yugoslav government offered its criminals a choice, domestic
prison or immigration to Sweden (where many Iron Curtain defectors re-settled),
to work for the Yugoslav mob. In exchange for carry out assassinations at the
request of the UDBA secret police, the state supplied contraband cigarettes,
which were very profitable on the Swedish black and gray markets.
Jakovic
correctly identified an opportunity to move into this lucrative business. However,
Valter Sokol, an ardent Croation nationalist, controls the distribution. “Boris,”
the local UDBA station chief, would like to cut him out of the business, but he
needs someone with sufficient standing, like Jakovic’s reckless boss Drago. However,
if Drago gets caught red-handed, Jakovic’s childhood friend Goran would
naturally succeed him.
Unfolding
over the course of the 1990s, Mafia compounds the organized crime
intrigue with the unfolding power struggle and tragedy in the Balkans.
Ironically, it also exposes the folly of the sin taxes passed by Sweden’s
failing socialist government, which raised the price of cigarettes
exponentially (and passed with behind-the-scenes lobbying support from Jakovic’s
organization).
The
Yugoslavian UDBA angle definitely differentiates Mafia from other mob dramas.
However, the portrayal of Jakovic searching and failing to find family through
his mafia ties evokes familiar Godfather-esque themes, but Stjarne and
lead actor Peshang Rad execute them with intelligence and conviction.
