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darrenkaminsky
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Josie and the Pussycats (2001)
Looks like bubble gum, smells like teen spirit...
Critics got this movie wrong. Audiences didn't bother. Those who might have cared, didn't even know.
Maybe they all thought the movie was sincere, over the top, sugar laden bubble gum for tweens? Maybe that's what this movie looked like when you saw the poster and the trailer. Probably so.
What it looks like now is a fork-sharp satirical prophecy of a social media future, complete with witty commentary, and deep honest confusion from Gen X filmmakers who--like many of us--didn't understand the regression from L7 & Sleater Kinney to Britney Spears in only a single decade.
And, it proposes the only possible explanation for this regression: subliminal messaging. It has to be, right?
Meanwhile, it skewers Britney, N'sync, packaged pop, and capitalism in general and makes a low key and rocking assertion for Gen X values: tell the truth, live for your friends, pass the Bechdel Test, swear on your bus pass, don't sell out.
It's not difficult, people.
Observations:
* Kay Hanley brings it.
* Rachel, Rosario, and Tara vibe
* This movie stands proudly as part of the Parker Posey Library Collection, a series of films, that encourage involuntary urination among those gifted with a sense of humor.
* I know there are those out there, probably millennials, who would love to reinterpret Britney Spears as some sort of hero. At the time when this movie was written she looked like nothing but product. Still does to a lot of us.
A Haunting in Venice (2023)
A Haunting...in sometimes
A Haunting in Venice starts with a problem: the source material.
The source material for Murder on the Orient Express is set on the Orient Express. The source material for Death on the Nile is set in Egypt on the Nile. The source material for "A Haunting in Venice" is set in East Sussex (or thereabouts).
Now, this didn't have to be an issue, but something feels off throughout the movie. All of the fine touches and period detail that makes Agatha Christie such a joy just aren't there b/c Agatha Christie wasn't writing about Venice...and it shows. The location just doesn't feel necessary to the story.
Now there's plenty of V. E. N. I. C. E. in this adaptation, but it's all in hit you over the head drone shots and endless repetitive shots of gondoliers in scary VENETIAN (!!) masks but it all feels off.
The film is full of "scary" horror gotcha moments that feel very very out of place in Agatha Christie and quite a bit of "exorcist" spinning camera (not sure if this is a spoiler...but it is a warning for those who'd like to bring Dramamine.)
Branagh makes a passable Poirot, but I really do think that he's not playing Poirot so much as he's playing David Suchet playing Poirot. But, who can blame him? David Suchet is so completely Poirot that sometimes it's easy to forget that Suchet isn't Poirot.
And that's not a problem. Branagh wouldn't be the first actor to base his character on another actor's performance. Being kind, it feels like a tribute, but it's hard not to feel the inauthenticity in the performance. Was Suchet not available?
The mystery itself is spruced up from the original material, and not in a good way. It's full of clues that don't matter, intense visual imagery that's misleading, and events that are both implausible and distracting.
Overall, a boring, middling, and poorly constructed attempt at a story about the world's most precise detective.
Desperately Seeking Susan (1985)
"And you can dance...for inspiration"
"...Music can be such a revelation
Dancing around, you feel the sweet sensation
We might be lovers if the rhythm's right
I hope this feeling never ends tonight..."
Watching at 14, I first felt it; and again last night at 52. The feeling of being pressed against the glass looking off at the shining blinking thing you think you most want in the world; the longing for mystery and fulfillment, the feeling of not being the person you want to be, but instead just a stranger, maybe even to yourself.
Desperately Seeking Susan is a sugary, licorice bubble gum flavored, update on a French New Wave movie-- smoldering looks, anomie, effortless style. Turn it on; be swept away.
The costumes are Miami Vice in a blender with 1980s Downtown cool and Vaudeville. Skinny lapels, wide lapels, polyester, faux leopard skin. Leather. Hair spray.
The production design is the post apocalyptic world of Escape from New York, but with more satin.
For filmies, who want to dig in, there's plenty there, but you don't need to--it's a great movie without it. For those who can't resist, there's the faux gangster style of Godard, the casually unimportant mcguffins of Hitchock, and Alex Cox, the comical surrealism of Bunuel. At one point a character recites the premise of Belle De Jour as a theory on Roberta.
But, the theory is wrong of course, it's just a wink to the crowd. This is an American film. And Roberta is an American housewife. No need for French moral and sexual complication.
But, she is a hero on a journey, and she's been condemned to the land of the dead, and all she has to do is find a spirit guide, and maybe, just maybe, she'll make it to the neon night version of heaven. I'm rooting for her, and while I'm rooting, I'm dancing.
Invasion (2021)
A lot better than its IMDB score would indicate
This show is actually interesting, well-plotted, and well-acted. The characters are engaging and charming.
The show's premise is a bit basic, but I think it's on the right track with putting its roots into the Contagion, 28 Days Later, Walking Dead vein of storytelling, rather than the Independence Day, Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica vein, which is a direction it could have taken.
The Walking Dead is very apparent in the storytelling approach to the alien invasion, that is, to tell as ground level story from the perspective of mostly normal-ish people.
Where it differs from The Walking Dead is--I think--the source of its lower-than-deserved scores. That difference is that--even though TWD is about normal people, those normal people quickly become fighters, i.e. Kickers of zombie behind.
However, in this show, that's not what happens. The characters do try and kick some alien behind, but they're mostly parents, scientists, or school kids and continue to be. They don't transform into a cadre of elite fighters and the story stays centered on characters and emotions.
At least so far. My suspicion is that the characters are starting to transform a bit. Not a bad thing as the show has earned the transformation.
All in all, a well constructed intriguing show with good acting and great effects.
The Flash (2023)
The Flash: Entertaining enough...
Back in the old days, before connected universes, ultimate IP exploitation, and the pursuit of monetization before all other considerations, a movie's job wasn't to advertise future movies, it was to be entertaining on its own terms.
If you could take it by itself, this movie would be entertaining enough film on its own terms...but a confusing one. And you'd run into an immediate problem: In order to achieve maximum testable enjoyment, you might have to see Batman '89, Man of Steel 2013, Superman II 1980, Wonder Woman 2017, and either Supergirl movies, comics, or the recent TV show--and that's just to know who the characters are and why their significant.
If you don't, then you might not understand why certain events play out the way they do or why certain characters take certain actions even though they're not the logical ones at that moment.
At the same time, the movie is kind of hoping that you won't have watched the recent Flash Arrowverse show, as the overarching plot, the parts taken from 60ish years of Barry Allen Flash mythology, was also fully covered in the TV show, and done just as well or better.
The TV show also fully spoils the eventual outcome of the film (wow, that Iris West sure if a cute acquaintance! Do you think we have to wait until Flash II or Flash III to find out if these two crazy kids can hit it off?).
I won't spoil the ending, but I did find it very confusing, and I'm a DC comics fan and understand what happened.
And that brings us the biggest problem with all of the DC properties, the one thing I'd say to the Warner Brothers execs if I could, the movies and TV shows have become constant retellings of origin stories, and constant reboots. Marvel has made some wrong moves too, but you get the feeling that they've actually thought about their properties, e.g. Spiderman: Homecoming didn't attempt to retell Spiderman's film origin for the 3rd time in less than 20 years.
Ultimately, I was hoping that DC would get its act together, but I just don't know if it's possible at this point. Their movies, even the good ones, are messy, inconsistent, and aren't very fun. But they should be.
Gotham Knights (2023)
Better than expected, but with two significant flaws
So, let's start with what this show is i.e. A fairly low budget CW teen superhero drama in the general mold of Buffy, Smallville, Arroverse. It's soapy, can be a bit corny, and its location and production budgets are super small.
With that, it's also a well-cast, engaging, and fun show with a few standout characters/performances, including Duella, Harvey, Cameron, and Carrie (a nice understated performance for a tough role).
The actors who play Harper and Stephanie also get honorable mentions playing the two most CW characters on the show, i.e. They would fit comfortably if slotted into any random CW show.
The overall story is interesting enough, but it's really the relationship between the main characters that give the show value.
It's also a show that's heavily weighed down by two unfortunate circumstances: #1) It shares the name of a video game that it doesn't seem to have a relationship to; and #2) It's a Batman show
Point #1 just seems like an own goal. Gotham Knights is a good enough name, but not worth the type of confusion caused by using the same name as an unconnected video game.
Point # 2: This shouldn't have been a Batman story. It weighs the show down and creates unreasonable expectations on the part of the audience for the characters and plot points they're going to see. When things develop in a whole different direction altogether, a lot of the audience, who showed up for Batman or the typical Bat family, will be disappointed -- and they are likely to hold this against the show.
The show would have been better off not directly trying to connect itself to Batman. It could still have been set in Gotham, but even that wasn't completely necessary. Sure this would have been even more of a dice role and required a lot more world building, but I think that audiences would have accepted that better than it being an outlier variation on the Batman story.
Un village français (2009)
One of the best series of all time...
A French Village is a slow burn. The first two seasons have a lot of set-up and world building before they add the layers of the later seasons.
Like other masterpiece level shows, e.g. The Wire, it shows every aspect of it's story. You see every situation through the eyes of rich, poor, teacher, postal worker, and shopkeeper, police officer, criminal, collaborator, resister, communist, anti-communist, Gaullist, and enthusiastic Vichy-ists.
You see both deep heroism and deep hypocrisy. And no character is fully good or fully evil as the show adds layer after layer.
One truly outstanding storytelling feature is the way that main characters will become side characters, side characters will become main characters, someone with a cameo in one season might play a main role in a later season, like life.
Also like The Wire, some seasons will have have season long sub-plots to illuminate some aspect of life under Vichy. So as not to spoil the story, I won't name any of these, but they're all presented with care and feel organic to the story.
And don't judge anyone too quickly, they'll surprise you, often while staying perfectly within character.
Word of warning, you won't understand the show by watching one episode or even two, or even the first season. It's only once you reach later seasons that you understand what they did in earlier seasons.
It's an investment to watch, but so so worth it.
Andor (2022)
The first Star Wars masterpiece since Empire Strikes Back
First off, visually, the production and costume design on this show are not just the best I've seen in a tv show in terms of beauty or vividness, but in terms of character, concept, and world building. And the cinematography is equally astounding, handheld when emotional, wide angle to cage the audience in, close-in to evoke paranoia and to amp anxiety.
It's a wow, most great movies can't do this. It takes its cues from Blade Runner, Children of Men, THX1138, Brazil, and Star Wars: A New Hope, and Empire Strikes Back.
It does all the things that a lot of us only hoped that the Star Wars Universe was capable of. It's not a cartoon, it's not fan service, it's not Boba Fett riding into town on a rancor, or Obi Wan fighting Darth Vader...again...
And the writing is so good that I sometimes have to back up sections to make sure that my ears hadn't misheard--every bit of dialogue punching tight, and hard, all of it serving a purpose. And, unlike every other SW tv show, never a false moment, never a word misplaced, or misused, or anything shoehorned in, in order to tie it to some product or toy.
I can't wait for each episode. Please watch. Wow.
The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power: Udûn (2022)
Best ep so far
Up until this episode, Rings of Power felt stilted and underwritten, mostly a dramatized timeline ticking boxes rather than an actual dramatic narrative.
This ep felt much different. To start, it kept us focused on one geographic area and set of characters and because it kept turning the tables in unexpected ways.
Finally, because it gave some actual characterization to Adar and some depth to the Orcs. And, more meaningfully, someone in Lord of the Rings finally calls out the fact that making and keeping the Orcs evil and expendable actually flattens the stakes in Lord of the Rings. That Lord of the Rings is a flat story if the evil characters have so little development.
I do think that, going fwd, Rings of Power needs to restrain it's prequel-ish instinct to put check boxes next to items it's setting up for Lord of the Rings.
That said, put a check box next to Mount Doom and Mordor, and expect check boxes soon for The Shire and the Riders of Rohan. Mount Doom and Mordor are spoilers, The Shire and Riders of Rohan are guesses.
The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power (2022)
A real mix
I'm a Tolkien reader/fan, so my viewing experience is likely to be different than a non-reader.
Overall, I appreciate the effort. The effects look wonderful and the casting is good.
The biggest change to Tolkien appears to be in the timeline. The events depicted take place over thousands of years and the show seems to want things both ways, to talk about the events like they're taking place over a great deal of time while actually compressing the timeline into a manageable story. Doing both seems impossible and--at this point--they'd do well to throw out Tolkien's original timeline.
Otherwise, the show is very uneven, demonstrating in a scene about Harfoots being "left behind" a deep and, dare I say surefooted, understanding of the melancholy, regret and sense of loss that permeates Tolkien.
However, in another scene in the same episode Galadriel makes a deeply silly speech about the evil back up plan made by the evil followers of evil Morgoth should their attempt at evil fail. Their "plan?" To create a homeland of evil where evil "doesn't just survive, but thrives." Wow, what an ingenious plan! If I were evil, it would never occur to me to do more than survive. Guess I'm not cut out for evil myself. Not everyone is.
The Sandman: The Sound of Her Wings (2022)
Perfectly translated from the graphic novel
So far, it's the episode that best captures the soul of the graphic novel and it gave me the same chills. It melds two separate issues, but ones that are joined thematically as the first part of the episode shows the way that Death's power is a gift, and the 2nd part of the shows where Death's gift meets Dream's, as a source of inspiration.
Both are beautifully rendered.