Reviews

Dear me, look at all these proponents of the "Great Man of history" perspective wherein the putative prime mover of a historic incident or epoch helms the story, rather than the myriad lesser figures without whom the story would never occur. But hey, telling a story from the perspectives of all the minor players would make the heads' of studio moguls explode-"what's this 'Resan' crap?" they'd doubtless inquire-so for good or ill we're left with tales told from more abbreviated perspectives, to the chagrin, it appears, of many penning reviews here.

Somehow I suspect those scribes proudly count themselves as champions of the little people, except when it comes to posting effete and disdainful reviews of movies from the perspective of one. However, had those scribes stopped to ponder, there are, at root, three available narrative points of view-first, second, and third person-with sundry variations on these narrative themes such as found here-telling the story through the eyes of a bit and transitory player-so I'm surprised these haughty critics that might otherwise claim to stand with with the little people disdain a film that actually does so.

And does so while conveying messages worth heeding: speak truth to power, even if doing so does not serve one's interests; beware of the hangers on attracted to fame and fortune as they won't be there for you over the long haul; genius makes its own rules and needs to be nurtured; and indeed, to thine own self be true. Pretty pedestrian stuff for those who otherwise stand with the little people and indeed perhaps the true sin of this movie as they see it: not only eschewing the first person narrative perspective of the bohemian's bohemian Great Man, but also tossing in an insufferable dose of middle class mores that has no place in any post-modern piece of cinema.

To their eye perhaps no scene was more inappropriate than one where the Great Man's perhaps best known work was referred to, perched unseen in an easel, as his major muse states "no one who has seen this will ever forget it," perhaps the most straightforward metric by which great works of art can be judged. Alas, so succinct a definition does not require critics to tell you what to think about a piece of art, needs no deconstructive folly-swaddles whereby critics cast the piece in their frame, has no place for an unctuous gallery owner to pass a photocopy off for a lithograph, shoehorns no interpreter of airs and means between the artwork and its viewer and hence leaves no platform for a champion of the little people to pronounce therefrom.

Given the two-dimensional dreck shills regularly extoll around here, it's not much of a surprise when their peers faintly praise, if they praise at all, a minor yet quite watchable work that well tells the story of a bit player that finds himself buffeted amid the Great Man's vortex, watches as that Man acts as though he can direct that wind, and then fades as all winds, vortices, and humans eventually do. If hagiographic and inevitably sanitized stories about larger than life women and men is what you need to keep you seated in front of a film then perhaps this movie isn't for you. But if you don't need the focus to be on a George C. Scott strutting about the screen replete with ivory handled revolvers to hold your interest, then give this pic a look.

I'll confess my fuddy-duddydom from the outset: I first read "Dune" and its sequels in the early '70s. It quickly became one of my all-time favorites and remains among my top five sci-fi reads. This history perhaps gives me a vested interest in seeing the film adhere to established expectations. In my view, part 1 did just that. I watched Villeneuve's first installment at least ten times and found the choices he made in transforming the book to film generally understandable and among the better book-to-screen efforts I can recall, despite limited treatment of Yueh's motivations and perspective, for one.

That sense got chucked out the window in "Dune 2." Initially, almost every choice could be understood as a comprehensible compromise when adapting a sweeping novel for a screenplay ... until they weren't. I can't pinpoint the exact moment my threshold was exceeded, but I recall wondering why they cut pivotal scenes, such as the Sardaukar disguised as smugglers being defeated by the Fremen in the seitch. Similarly, the inclusion of scenes where fetal Alia converses with Paul through Jessica (in the book, Alia later takes up a blade on the battlefield, a significant moment that was lost in the film adaptation) left me seeking to riddle out the reasons for all the plot butchery.

I suspect these changes were influenced by contemporary sensibilities and the narrative needs of the planned sequel. The big Fremen divide in the book was between citified Fremen and their desert kin. Here, setting up a schism between Northern and Southern Fremen, likely as some sort of Shia/Sunni bit of embedded current-day relevance, seemed too pandering and abject of an introduction. Similarly, in the book, it was clear Chani-much as it was between Duke Leto and Jessica-was Paul's one true love, while any liaison with Princess Irulan was purely for political and imperial expediency.

The film instead sets things up for a third installment where a betrayed Chani and her secular (and nascent feminist?) perspectives will doubtless come into critical play. And where was the subplot driven by the Navigator's Guild and the threat to the spice production, leaving humankind isolated in their feudal enclaves across the universe evermore? Much of the sequel's effort, in short, alters the book's plot to serve the narrative needs of the movie to come, with little regard for the nuance and interconnections of which the book is chock full.

Perhaps that payoff will come in the next release, and maybe it will surmount all the bound sequels, none of which lived up to the sweeping, cohesive vision of the first book in my estimation. While I remain hopeful for the next installment and will certainly give it a fair chance, I can't ignore the compromises made to current trends and potential future profits. Faithful and nuanced storytelling should not be sacrificed to serve more mercenary concerns.

For those well acquainted with the books, be forewarned: while newcomers might enjoy the film's spectacle, true fans may find it lacking. The intricate details and rich storytelling of Herbert's original work are sacrificed in this sequel for the sake of cinematic appeal and future box office success. And for those hacks, shills, and bots that can't tell a masterpiece from a money-grubbing muddle, don't bother with the book as in this old guy's eyes you'd then have to ask the Navigator's Guild to invent some sort of time and space-bending math that allows a 20 to be assigned on a 10-point scale to a movie that ought to earn no more than a 4 from whippersnappers in possession of a full set of unsullied faculties.

Oh look, a pornographic snuff film starring Willem Dafoe. How can it not be worth watching?

Turns out, maybe it shouldn't be. Indeed, I'm not sure if I should give it a 2 for being a gratuitous mess of a self-indulgent movie, or an 8 for taking transcendental risks in the hope of achieving Great Art.

Currently I'm leaning more toward a 2 as so much of the freaking flick is so indecipherable. If it me? Is there some religious treatise or school of philosophy of which I'm unaware that would make all the discordant elements fall into place? Perhaps, though there is so much that is so obtuse it's difficult to conclude anything other than the writer/director is seeking to taunt the viewer's ignorance, an ersatz ignorance as I think you'd have to live in that twisted head to be equipped with the perspective to make sense of this ever so artsy mess.

So yeah, if you've some time to be intriguingly repulsed or repulsively intrigued on your hands give this a view, but have the remote at hand as those embracing singular perspectives from zealous feminism to ardent Christianity to perhaps even include modern psychotherapy will likely find numerous deeply abhorrent moments in the flick.

In the end Antichrist transcends even Dafoe's talents and reputation for risk taking roles. Is eclipsing Dafoe, and Gainsbourgh for that matter,a good thing or bad? Ultimately each viewer will have to decide if von Trier's extracts great art from the actors, or inspires them to excrete onanistic self-indulgence. At the moment I lean toward the latter, but rate this flick a 5 as nagging doubt remains.

Heard of sitcoms? How 'bout a sitdram: new mom and former bass player and lyricist for a grrl power punk band Kelly encounters recently minted paraplegic high schooler Cal and these two fish out of water find an interpersonal pond in which to swim.

A contrived and predictable pond, alas, consisting of schmaltz, cliches, holes in the plot like the former bohemian art major hubby now an ad exec pouring all into work, snooty suburban mom's with an online application to join their park play group, and textbook saccharine WASP in-laws (though it's nice to see Cybil Shepard is still in the game) that would trade their lives for the one Kelly is living.

Props to the flick for kicking a some common wheelchair occurrences in the gonads like the the tendency of many to speak to the person accompanying another in a wheelchair as though that's person was deaf as well as chair bound. Used to happen when we were out with my mom and I never figured that one out. Same for those who won't make eye contact with those in a wheelchair, it ain't catching if your eyes meet.

However, the sympathy we are supposed to feel for the recently crippled teenager doesn't mean we abandon critical faculties. How, for instance, does a kid in a wheelchair get a five foot plus full-size statue of a human into his Volvo to take to a kiln (lotta kilns about able to fire something that size?) and then somehow mount it in such a way it stands, presumably unassisted? And hey, my first impulse after having a fight with the kid down the street isn't likely to stand nude in a street-facing bedroom window for him, but that's just me.

But hey, this sitdram has a demographic in mind: women who were high-schoolers themselves in the '80s rocking out with Cyndi Lauper and now embroiled in the ennui of their late '30s and needing a film to emote with. If that's a category you fall into, feel free to leave another rating of 6 below. For those of us that don't fill that bill, that haven't any vestigial guilt about how they deal with the disabled, or that can't well regard movies with plot holes you could toss a life-sized post-partum blue nude through, give this one a pass.

Let's catch some serial intrigue and action, I figured, but this series wasted little time before pat archetypes gave way to trite stereotypes as hamnfisted misdirection left me wondering why a "THIS IS NOT A RED HERRING" subtitle wasn't employed to underline how little regard this series has for its viewers and their lack of critical faculties.

Indeed "The Night Agent" wastes little time before thumbing its nose at viewers with silly little gaffes like a supposed ace evil assassin who holds her pistol "teacup" style ala Sabrina in "Charlies Angel's," to name just one. Who needs armorer training, or for that matter script editors or acting coaches when you assume your audience consists of numbskulls perfectly happy to lap up the pap Sony Pictures tries to feed them here?

I gave up in episode 5, just after our heart of gold FBI agent protagonist's gun went "click" instead of "boom" in the middle of a fight, leading to an inane hand to hand battle because the writers need to fill a full hour, don'tcha know, so plot devices like a federal agent carrying a gun that doesn't work at critical junctures and who neglect their training by failing to perform a tap/rack failure drill make perfect sense as that hour has to be filled by something, anything regardless of whether it makes sense.

Many here clearly suspended disbelief willingly and embraced all the contradictions and technical lapses; if doing so floats your boat have at this mess. If instead you seek some sort of return on time invested gazing at a screen and prefer casts and crews that don't assume the audience consists of candidates for protective restraint, pass this one by.

One can always hope digging deep into a streaming service's catalog will deliver a gem like "Umbre" or "Gomorrah." That's not the case here. Graced with an absurdly large, utterly unusable prosthetic lower arm that might have found a user in the '50s ... the 1850s, our German anti-protagonist presents a viewer the difficult task of suspending disbelief as said appendage repeatedly fills the scene if not screen. Add in an utterly unlikable wife that urged the insurance fraud effort that lead the lost limb, albeit under the gaze of a security camera it's likely an insurance fraud best practice to factor in and disbelief suspension is as unlikely as the prop shop mitt.

But wait, there's more! Dispatched to an unemployment office by his conniving wife to land a job able to underwrite her penchant for ordering useless electronic consumer goods like a robo window cleaner that gets confused and latches onto the ceiling (hey lady, I don't know maybe unplugging it might cause it to come down?) our friend with the plastic paw sits in an office and listens to its pregnant civil servant gush on in detailed metaphors about some sort of off-brand Kegel exercise seminar as I guess that's what female factotums in Germany do as taxpayers await their attention. When that call blissfully ends he wastes no time mentioning expanding insulating foam use that connotes his home is a of a size that the state will no longer help him with his rent, because what's a situation comedy without situations?

Like this one: nonplussed that his trip to the unemployment office has left him in worse rather than better financial shape due to expanding foam extrapolation, Arthurs espies a drinking establishment across the way where he proceeds for a beer, at which time he's befriended by a sweet lass that wants to be famous singer despite a jukebox singalong effort that demonstrates full well that is a Very Unlikely Thing (if someone can explain the English subtitles during the "la la la" portion of the song by all means fill in that blank, or lack thereof). His rapt reception of that wretched rendition leads to an uninspired bedroom romp, because sitcoms indeed need situations still, I guess.

It seems our lass with the gold heart is in fact the establishment's hooker and her, ah, business manager, after finding no cash left on the bed stand, proceeds to chase Arthurs down for the fee, catching him at home with his wife, where the situation devolves as that's what sitcoms do. Things come to blows, the pimp produces a pistol, a situation Arthurs resolves by thrusting a can of the offending insulating foam into the pimp's mouth and filling orifices from the oral one in with expanding goo, leaving Arthurs and wife a body to dispose of because sitcoms apparently need situations more than comedy.

We aren't even to the end of the first episode yet, though describing how pitching a pimp's corpse through a warehouse skylight and on to a pallet of insulating foam cans furthers things would likely leave me huffing the stuff myself just to be spared explicating yet another ersatz situation. Who knows, perhaps this is a sublime post-modern masterpiece where the ham-fisted excesses are in fact metaphors missed by those of us who expect things like, wit, subtlety, and lack of artifice in what we view. If contrived comedy floats your boat perhaps this show is for you. If that is something you'd rather avoid, allow me to give you a hand.

Don't have enough 49 minute music videos in your life? Have I got a series of moving pictures for you! Titled "Janelle Monáe: Dirty Computer" for tenuous reasons soon to be explained, the film is a series of richly wardrobed, tightly choreographed, Autotuned music videos constructed using high production values, so long as you don't number a plot among the values required to produce a movie.

Said plot, such as it is, revolves around the notion that humans that fail to adhere to racist, sexist, homophobic norms are cast as a "dirty computer" in some future totalitarian society, one that needs to be floated in on a levitating gurney to some sort of reprogramming clean room where prop brain wave helmets and inhaled special effects fog elbow those nasty notions aside, causing the human to reboot with the ethos of a country club Republican, albeit one garbed in white spandex with Egyptian affectations as this is an almost music video, after all.

Those music videos, though not my genre, are pretty darn good. As noted production values like staging, lighting, costumes, choreography, et al were top notch. Cleary a lot of time and attention were paid to them. I indeed, I wish the vids had been presented as some sort of montage rather than a full up flick as the vapid plot detracted from the excellent music videos.

I give the vids an 8, the plot a 2, which averages out to a 5. If you want to see a series of well executed pop music videos this is your moving picture. If coherent story lines and actual plots are required for you to enjoy a film you likely ought to pass this one by,

My goodness, what a mess of a movie this is. Suicide bombers are entering the US via the southern border hence DC types decide to let slip the dogs of war, who pretend to be members of one cartel kidnapping the daughter of another cartel to some unclear end because reasons. Said daughter is taken to Texas where a fake rescue puts her into the hands of the dogs of war who made it all happen in the first place who now, because reasons, embark to return her to Mexico.

Alas, the Mexican police escort, because of more reasons, turn on the convoy they are escorting as our kidnapee escapes the ensuing melee, inspiring one of our dogs of war to strike off after her in an attempt to . . . return her to the US because yet more reasons.

All these really quite violent keystone twists, as near as I can tell, are little more than very improbable excuses to set up the sequel's sequel, which will likely involve our erstwhile dog of war now abandoned by the US and shot in a bloody manner to seek vengeance against those who hung him out to dry because political reasons.

The whole tale seems reversed engineered to leave the Del Toro character motivation to visit pain upon those who betrayed him in the same manner as he visited pain upon those cartel members who killed his family because plot twists can't just materialize all by themselves now; the need reasons because reasons, or so this flick suggests.

My initial thought as the film opened was "oh great, they are trying to ride the coattails of the John Wick franchise." I mean there was even a dog owned by the protagonist, albeit one who finds the Golden Bridge quickly and via a twist.

As the movie unfolded, however, I did find myself growing more intrigued. Though I'm not sure how the director and/or editor accomplished it, the highly unlikely and stylized characters never quite pushed past my willingness to suspend disbelief until I found myself sucked into the story. Effective use of flashbacks helped this, as well as Mikkelsen's stoic and understated performance and effective fight choreography that somehow walked the fine line between gritty realism and B movie violence.

There is a protracted torture scene that went on far too long for my tastes and to an extent I felt was gratuitous where advancing the plot was concerned, and too be sure our over the top primary bad bad guys, as opposed to the good bad guy Mikkelsen plays, are costumed and act in an over the top manner that is almost Batman-esque, or perhaps Dick Tracy-esque, evoking a casual sadism that also came close to exceeding my threshold for it, though I suppose the cartoon quality of much of that over the top mayhem allowed it to grate less, particularly when opposed by Mikkelsen's intensely introspective character.

Bottom line I dropped a star due to the very unpleasant torture scene, but otherwise find myself surprised I enjoyed the movie so much, feeling it deserves a place alongside other brutal, comedic, action films like Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels and indeed can coexist with the Wick franchise without treading too terribly on its toes.

Life Itself starts off promisingly with an over the top Samuel Jackson dropping f-bombs while narrating a tale that promises to be quite twisted. Alas, as the flick winds on it slowly starts taking itself more and more seriously until, by its end, we have a full up saccharine melodrama tugging at heartstrings and cloying like a spritz delivered at the Walmart cosmetics counter.

In a story which its adherents would likely describe as interwoven, but which the realists among us would describe as highly unlikely, a fictional English Lit thesis is used as a metaphor which is then beaten to death while it describes the ebbs, whorls, heart wrenching treacle, and eventual uplifting dreck as all the ersatz intersecting existences unfold. I mean ye gods all you people singing the praises of this sappy train wreck of a movie, you do realize the world consists of more than edgy New York tales randomly juxtaposed against Spanish olive groves where a protagonist cum cad picks said fruit by hand so the poor little olives don't get bruised as our sensibilities do bearing witness to this contrived mess of a movie, right?

I could go on, but reliving this sugary mess would risk flirting with a diabetic coma which, come to think of it, may be a better choice that sticking with the flick once it became clear its initial promise was not going to be met. Though I held out hope Samuel L. was going to reemerge and grace with more choice obscenity, it alas was not to be. Instead ever more sickly sweet tales were woven together into a confection or no nutritional value whatsoever seemingly whipped up for those who prefer their soap operas slathered with schmaltz. Cut to the chase and just mainline some corn syrup instead.

Back in elementary school parents of the day got quite wound up over Mad Magazine, feeling it rotted the minds of budding youth. Kids, of course, were bright enough to realize they should do the opposite of what was advocated in the pages of Mad, clearly having a better handle on satire than their parents. The same dynamic occurs where Insatiable is concerned, with Social Justice Warriors playing mom and dad and those of us capable of recognizing a good lampooning when we see one wondering why the fuddy-duddies are getting so worked up.

As satire Insatiable skewers many a worthy target. Beauty pageants? Meet the Miss Magic Jesus Pageant, which also hits religion with its unfriendly fire while eviscerating every ugly element associated with that parade of the putatively pretty. High school? Rife with targets humorously pilloried without pity as jocks, cheerleaders, cool kids, computer geeks, drug dealers, et all are wrung through the wringer with wry wit. Homophobia? Unpossible with the local LGBQT chapter riding to the rescue of the Bikini Dog Wash while the show's most likable character wrestles with her nascent lesbian desires. And these parodied people only scratch the surface of the plastic suburban blight and trailer park sensibilities (a bun and run restaurant chain called "Weiner Taco" where you can order one soft or hard?) that serve as the poles this unhinged universe is hung between. Oh, and it embraces alliteration, lots of layered and labored alliteration.

Are there elements to the show that don't serve the satiric end? The camera's fondness for lingering on spandex spangled fannies, absurdly exercised abs, provocative positions, packages, and copious cleavage risk racing past the bounds of physical humor and character development and into titillation's territory, though said encounters are so pervasive they begin to feel absurd, which may be the point. And though it doesn't impact its ability to satirize, Insatiable's universe is so dense and fully formed one wonders how many storylines it has in it. Much like Pushing Daisies and Glee found it difficult to grow beyond their self-imposed bounds after a couple of seasons, it's difficult to imagine a direction in which the show can continue to develop within its neatly disordered Georgia small town.

Still, the show currently offers an embarrassment of riches only underlined by the tut-tutting of our moral superiors who can't see it for the antithesis of "fat shaming" that it is and, as such, is worth the risk that it may be a one trick horse. Indeed one of its most endearing elements is every actor has a hurt and vulnerable backstory child they hide behind their various uncouth and calculating adult habits, too much of a risk for an entire cast to take to be an accident. As a result we hate to love them, or love to hate them, enjoying their pain, being repelled by their triumphs, while belly laughing all the while. So ignore the SJWs who, at the end of the day, are the same sort of tone deaf as many in Insatiable seem to be and instead bask in the subversive humor it traffics in. Just don't tell the SJWs in your life lest they try to confiscate your metaphorical magazine.