Gen V

From Roger Ebert: https://www.rogerebert.com/streaming/gen-v-the-boys-prime-video-tv-review-2023

Gen V

Superhero fatigue has finally hit mainstream audiences in the last couple of years. Abysmal box office numbers and critical work about the failings of many franchises have begun to strike. But, one IP remains in the good graces of of fans and critics alike. Since its inception in 2019, Prime Video’s “The Boys” has achieved something other superhero films or TV shows have not: engaging criticism about the genre it's bound to.

When it was announced that there would be a spinoff of "The Boys," fans and critics alike were wary. Not only is a spinoff something that other superhero IPs have often failed at, but this one would also focus on young adults at a university. The coming-of-age genre is not necessarily something superhero IPs have done well (remember Hulu’s “Runaways” adaptation?). Would the creators lose sight of what they’re attempting to critique? The answer, thankfully, is no.

“Gen V” begins with a young girl—later revealed to be the child version of the show's main character, Marie Moreau (Jaz Sinclair)—getting her period for the first time. She’s confused by the event and is even more so when her blood begins to float as if the substance has a mind of its own. Things get weirder (and more violent) from there, culminating in a brutal and shocking introduction to Marie and “Gen V” as a show.

Thankfully, the surprises don't stop there. We follow an older, traumatized Marie in a mundane life that she desperately longs to escape. A way out comes in the form of an acceptance to Godolkin University School of Crimefighting, a school that specifically houses students with super-powered abilities.

"Gen V" reveals the messiness of young adulthood, basking in displays of drunken mistakes and glimpses of bodily fluids. At its core, though, “Gen V” draws viewers in with a mystery at the center of its story. Late one night, Marie sees security personnel employed by the university take an erratic young man - later revealed to be named Sam (Asa Germann), who ends up becoming an essential character in the story - into their custody. Thinking nothing of it, she lets it go until other events cause her and her new friends to believe this isn't an isolated incident and perhaps these students aren’t the ones causing harm.

Later, after a public student death and a subsequent cover-up, Marie quickly becomes a hero in the public eye. She rises in the ranks at school and outside of it, becoming the first freshman on the school’s power ranking roster. Shining through the cameras and makeup, though, Marie must question her integrity as she knows that she's not the hero the school is making her out to be. Guided by the hand of Superintendent Indira Shetty (Shelley Conn), Marie must attempt to free herself from the clutches of those who wish to control her.

“Gen V” masterfully juggles its laugh-out-loud comedy and biting critiques with its more serious moments, becoming a show about young people rectifying or trying to recover from the mistakes of the adults in their lives. Each character is haunted by the shadow their parents have left them in, whether intentionally or not, and ultimately, the show attempts to allow them to escape it. Slowly but surely, each character wrenches themselves from the clutches of their past until they can become freer versions of themselves and build the new family they have longed for.

The chemistry between the group is fantastic, and as the season goes on, disdain for each other unravels into a bond that each of them desperately needs. Two standouts are Emma (Lizzie Broadway), Marie’s roommate, and Andre (Chance Perdomo), the wingman for Golden Boy (Patrick Schwarzenegger), the top-ranked student at Godolkin University. In the first episode, both Emma and Andre appear as if they will strictly remain sidekicks, but quickly, the two become essential to not only the story “Gen V” is trying to tell but the new family these characters find themselves in. With the power to get as small as a pinkie finger and the power of magnetism manipulation, respectively, these two don’t initially stand out amongst the other powers "Gen V" is showing off. However, the actors provide some of the series' best and most emotional work.

Whether it's the handful of charismatic characters or an abrupt cut-to-black followed by a Hole needle-drop, it's clear from the first episode that fans of "The Boys" are in good hands. What could have been a catastrophic spin-off instead establishes that this may be the sole superhero franchise that still understands what its viewers want. Nor is “Gen V” completely bound to its predecessor; it can exist separate from “The Boys” and its characters. Sure, there may be a glimpse of Homelander and a slightly jarring cameo from another hero later in the season, but what makes this show great is that anyone can enjoy it. “Gen V” is a fun and biting coming-of-age drama—it just happens to be full of superheroes.

The Imitation Game (2014)

from the New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/28/movies/the-imitation-game-stars-benedict-cumberbatch.html

The Imitation Game

By A.O. Scott

“The Imitation Game” is a highly conventional movie about a profoundly unusual man. This is not entirely a bad thing. Alan Turing’s tragically shortened life — he was 41 when he died in 1954 — is a complex and fascinating story, bristling with ideas and present-day implications, and it benefits from the streamlined structure and accessible presentation of modern prestige cinema. The science is not too difficult, the emotions are clear and emphatic, and the truth of history is respected just enough to make room for tidy and engrossing drama.

An Alan Turing biopic is, all in all, a very welcome thing. Chances are that you are reading this, as I am writing it, on a device that came into being partly as a result of papers Turing published in the 1930s exploring the possibility of what he called a “universal machine.” His decisive contribution to the breaking of the Nazi Enigma code gave the Allied forces an intelligence advantage that helped defeat Germany, though the extent of his wartime role was kept secret for many years. The secret of his homosexuality was revealed when he was arrested on indecency charges in 1952, caught up in a Cold War climate of homophobia and political paranoia and subjected to the pseudoscientific cruelty of the British judicial system.

“The battle of the British geniuses” is one of the themes that has emerged from this years Oscar race, for this year there are two biopics about two ingenious English men. One is the “Imitation Game” starring Benedict Cumberbatch, which tells the story about Alan Turing, a brilliant mathematician who cracked a seemingly impenetrable Nazi code, known as enigma, only to be persecuted for being gay. The other is “Theory of Everything,” starring Eddie Redmayne as the astrophysicist Stephen Hawking, in a film that focuses largely on his 30-year marriage to his indomitable wife Jane, played by Felicity Jones. Both films are in the running for best picture nods, and both leads - Mr. Redmayne and Mr. Cumberbatch - are projected to be nominated for best actor. This has raised the specter that, for Academy voters, the films might in effect cancel each other out, by dint of their roughly similar themes. Adding a further twist, Mr. Cumberbatch played Stephen Hawking, in a BBC television production in 2004. Both of their characters also find indefatigable support in exceptionally bright women - in the “Imitation Game,” it is the character played by Keira Knightley, and in Theory of Everything, Ms. Jones. OF course there are differences between the two. “Imitation Game” is more of an ensemble piece, and “Theory of Everything” a story of a couple whose relationship ultimately runs its course. Mr. Cumberbatch’s Turing is cut off from others by both his homosexuality - which was illegal at the time - and his inability to read social cues. As Hawking, Mr. Redmayne undergoes an astonishing physical transformation as he bodies is increasingly paralyzed by ALS. And, for both actors, the challenge was to reach beyond these impediments to reveal the inner emotional life of each man.

All of this is a lot for a single movie to take in, and “The Imitation Game,” directed by Morten Tyldum from a script by Graham Moore, prunes and compresses a narrative laid out most comprehensively in Andrew Hodges’s scrupulous and enthralling 1983 biography. The film interweaves three decisive periods in Turing’s life, using his interrogation by a Manchester detective (Rory Kinnear) as a framing device. Turing tells the investigator — who thinks he is after a Soviet spy rather than a gay man — about what he did during the war. Later, there are flashbacks to Turing’s school days, where he discovered the joys of cryptography and fell in love with a slightly older boy named Christopher Morcom.

The adult Turing is played by Benedict Cumberbatch (his younger self is Alex Lawther), expanding his repertoire of socially awkward intellectual prodigies, real and fictional. What has made Mr. Cumberbatch so effective as Sherlock Holmes and Julian Assange — and what makes his Alan Turing one of the year’s finest pieces of screen acting — is his curious ability to suggest cold detachment and acute sensitivity at the same time. If he did not exist, 21st-century popular culture would have to invent him: a sentient robot, an empathetic space alien, a warm-blooded salamander with crazy sex appeal.

His Turing, whom the film seems to place somewhere on the autism spectrum, is as socially awkward as he is intellectually agile. He can perceive patterns invisible to others but also finds himself stranded in the desert of the literal. Jokes fly over his head, sarcasm does not register, and when one of his colleagues says, “We’re going to get some lunch,” Turing hears a trivial statement of fact rather than a friendly invitation.

“The Imitation Game” derives some easy amusement from the friction between this “odd duck” and the prevailing culture of his native pond. The film’s notion of Britain — not inaccurate, but also not hugely insightful — is as a land of understatement, indirection and steadfast obedience to norms of behavior that seem, to a fiercely logical mind like Turing’s, arbitrary and incomprehensible. At Bletchley Park, the country estate where teams of linguists and mathematicians are working under military supervision to break Enigma, he is seen as stubborn and arrogant. The head of Bletchley, Commander Denniston (Charles Dance), finds him insufferable, as does Hugh Alexander (Matthew Goode), the suave, clever playboy who runs the Enigma project until Turing, with an off-screen assist from Winston Churchill, displaces him.

The Bletchley section, enlivened by the indispensably charming Keira Knightley as Joan Clarke, the only woman on the Enigma team, is the heart of the film, though it is also the most familiar and in some ways the least challenging part. (Earlier dramatizations include Hugh Whitemore’s play “Breaking the Code” and Michael Apted’s silly, Turing-free 2002 movie “Enigma.”) Mr. Tyldum, a Norwegian filmmaker perhaps best known for the slick thriller “Headhunters” (2012), orchestrates a swift and suspenseful race against the clock with a few touches of intrigue and ethical uncertainty. Mark Strong pops out of the shadows now and then as a silky, cynical MI6 spymaster, perhaps the only person in the British political establishment who fully appreciates Turing’s oddity and his genius.

“The Imitation Game,” meanwhile, settles for a partial appreciation. Turing’s sexuality is mystified and marginalized, treated as an abstraction and a plot point. There is no sense that, between his chaste, intense and brief passion for Christopher and the anonymous encounter that led indirectly to his arrest, love, sex or romance played any significant part in Turing’s life at all. Mr. Hodges’s biography, threaded with quotations from Walt Whitman, gives eloquent and sensitive testimony to the contrary. For their part, the filmmakers, though willing to treat Turing as a victim of bigotry and repression, also nudge him back toward the closet, imposing a discretion that is at once self-protective and self-congratulatory. It’s not that we need to see him having sex — the PG-13 rating must be protected, I guess — but that a vital aspect of his identity and experience deserves more than a whisper and a wink.

The film’s sexual politics may be musty and retrograde, but in other respects, it is very much a document of the present. There are lines of dialogue that sound either anachronistic or — it may amount to the same thing — prophetic. It is thrilling and strange to hear the words “digital computer” uttered a half-century before any such thing existed, and when Turing says “think differently,” it is impossible not to hear a grammatically fastidious premonition of the once-ubiquitous Apple advertising slogan. Another sentence — a slightly clumsy invocation of the power of imagination — is repeated three times and sounds each time as if it had been plagiarized from a TED talk.

More fundamentally, “The Imitation Game” is a parable of disruption. It not only provides an origin myth for the digital age, but it also projects the ideology of the present back into the past. Turing, an eccentric visionary stuck in an organization that is bureaucratic, hierarchical and wedded to tradition, is an apostle of innovation. Commander Denniston lectures him about the importance of “order, discipline and chain of command” for the war effort, but the solving of Enigma decisively rebuts this old-fashioned notion. The strategic acumen of generals and the tactical valor of soldiers is incidental. What won the war was data, and the heroes were the tech guys (and the one woman) who worked late, snacked freely, fiddled with crossword puzzles and geeked out over a piece of hardware that looked like a giant toy. Hut 8 at Bletchley Park serves as a prototype for the corporate campuses of Apple, Google and Facebook.

Just a few years ago, this film might have felt radical and counterintuitive, like a daring, inspired leap from one era to another, or an excavation of the hidden history of the present. Instead, it has the shiny, hollow ring of conventional wisdom. It’s kind of perfect, and also kind of stale.

from Roger Ebert: https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/pain-hustlers-movie-review-2023

Pain Hustlers (2023)

by Robert Daniels October 20, 2023






It would be significantly easier to write about “Pain Hustlers” if it bordered some extreme of either great or terrible, good or disappointing. Instead, director David Yates’ star-powered opioid exposé is simply a boring chronicling of Liza Drake (Emily Blunt), a determined single mother whose marketing tactics sparked an epidemic. By playing with formalism, using faux documentary, and cranking out hedonistic scenes of excessive drug taking and partying, Yates aims to blend “Erin Brockovich” and “The Wolf of Wall Street.” But the director’s filmic language never offers quite enough sex, quite enough excess, quite enough of capitalism’s depravity. “Pain Hustlers” just doesn’t know how to commit.

Yates teases: He opens his film on a staged black and white documentary as a brash Pete Brenner (Chris Evans) explains his shock and disappointment that Liza would betray him. She begins as a mystery woman, an unlikely mother with a GED education who brought down an empire. When Yates switches away from the in-film documentary to the semi-fictional (“Pain Hustlers” is an inspired adaptation of Evan Hughes' non-fiction work The Hard Sell), world of the picture, Liza is living in her sister’s basement with her mother (Catherine O’Hara). During the day, she takes her rebellious daughter Phoebe (Chloe Coleman) to school; at night, she works as an exotic dancer at a strip club.

Wells Tower’s congested screenplay, a work of saucy punchlines left to sour, concerns the desperation Liza feels: Not only have Liza and Phoebe been evicted from her sister’s garage, but Phoebe is battling seizures stemming from a lethal medical condition. The pair move to a motel whose noisy environment and loud environment also carries the potential of future episodes. Liza needs a break, quick. It arrives when Pete appears at her strip club. They begin to talk. He likes her tenacity; she sees an easy customer. An impressed Pete offers her a job, promising her six figures in her bank account before the end of the year. If that sounds too good to be true, it is. Pete works for a floundering pharmaceutical startup founded by Jack Neel (Andy Garcia). They sell fentanyl, a drug they promise isn’t addictive and works better and quicker than the usual pain relief provided to cancer patients. A competitive market of other pharmaceutical companies, who keep doctors from prescribing the company’s medication, is the only reason they haven’t gotten off the ground. Still, for Liza, working on commission is better than nothing.

Blunt is really the only reason to watch “Pain Hustlers.” She gives a game performance, but poor creative decisions undermine her, like ill-considered freeze frames and unnecessary uses of voiceover. As a character, Liza is also too simplistic. Through her grit, she gets a doctor to sign a prescription for fentanyl (the doctor gets a kickback; the startup gets the upfront money; she receives a percentage). Once she gets one doctor hooked, Liza and Peter go about paying other doctors to switch over to prescribing their drug. The company quickly grows, and Liza rises from the motel to a swank condo within six months, with Phoebe attending an expensive prep school. Business is so good that not only does Liza buy her mom a new car, but she gives her a job at the startup, too. Liza succeeds because of her dedication: She truly believes she’s helping people in pain, and in some way, she connects their suffering with her daughter’s seizures. Blunt understands that throughline, pulling it out but never explicitly showing that undercurrent.

Outside of Blunt, no one else exceeds the daft material. When Evans first turned skeevy in “Knives Out,” the subversion of his Captain America image worked. But after “The Gray Man,” dipping back in the well here is overkill—especially because Pete is the weakest iteration of that character type. Evans is wasted in “Pain Hustlers,” with few memorable emotions and even fewer admirable quips. Garcia is mostly an afterthought; O’Hara appears stuck in quicksand. Snap, chemistry, verve, whatever you want to call it, is lacking with this ensemble.

Likewise, the visual and sonic language flops. Yates tries to pull off several dizzying montages of unrestrained partying, greed, and opulence without the panache to make them stick. We’ve seen Martin Scorsese do this so much better, with greater precision, with an alluring flair for the intoxicating elements of a frenzied and craven environment. In Yates’ hands, the same techniques and scenes of zealot capitalists cheering for cash at any cost feel desperately composed rather than uniquely edgy.

“Pain Hustlers” is better at understanding sincerity. Scenes where Liza sees former friends become addicts off her drug when the living speak about the loved ones they’ve lost to overdose, allow the film to find sure, empathetic footing. Unfortunately, there aren’t enough of those scenes. Yates is caught between critiquing the inhumanity of this startup and luxuriating in its gaudiness.

Fair Play (2023)

from Roger Ebert: https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/fair-play-movie-review-2023

Fair Play

by Marya E. Gates


After its splashy debut at Sundance in January led to a pricey acquisition by Netflix, Chloe Domont’s high finance romantic thriller “Fair Play” finally made its international debut at TIFF. The (mostly) two-hander, about the implosion of a secret relationship between two hedge fund analysts, has lost none of its urgency in the interim, largely because of a barn burner of a performance from Phoebe Dynevor and writer/director Domont’s impregnable vision.

We first meet Dynevor’s Emily, an analyst at a cutthroat New York financial firm, with her back turned to the jubilant attendees of a party. She’s out on a cold ledge alone, smoking a cigarette. Quickly, she’s joined by Luke (the always alluring Alden Ehrenreich), her co-worker and covert live-in lover. He whisks her into the party—his brother’s wedding—where his uncle calls her the “prettiest girl in the room,” then dashes off before Luke can say she’s much more than that. Emily is clearly not comfortable in this world, but her chemistry with Luke is off the charts. Before long, they’re in the bathroom having sex, her menstrual blood staining their wedding clothes. A ring tumbles out of his pocket, a hasty engagement is made, and their passion ignites.

The next day, the two awaken on their apartment floor, where they landed after more lovemaking. It’s 4:30 a.m., and the two are in lockstep as they prepare for the day, making coffee, getting dressed in their perfectly fitting power suits (and Em’s six-inch heels), only parting ways as they head to the train, a tactic to hide their relationship—which is against company policy—from the rest of the office. They’re equals at the firm, ambitious analysts, hungry for a promotion. When one of the portfolio managers quits in a theatrical and physical rage that results in a call to security, they’re both eager to take his place. Em hears a rumor it will be Luke, but when the opposite comes true, their carefully calculated careers—and romance—slowly go off the rails.

With subtle changes in dialogue and striking visual cues, Domont’s tightly structured script and deft direction show this relationship’s eventual total destruction. When Em is first called up at 2 a.m. to learn the news of her promotion, Luke stays up until she returns, worried she may have been assaulted. Later, he turns this on its head, accusing her of sleeping to the top. That first morning, the lovers were entwined as they slept together; in the next, they sleep rigidly in their beds, then Em alone on the couch, until one morning, Luke is nowhere to be found. Their rift becomes a literal chasm.

Scattered throughout "Fair Play" are breadcrumbs about Em and Luke's economically divergent backgrounds. They’re both Ivy Leaguers, but she’s from Long Island and got there through a scholarship. Once she entered the job market, she had to field sexism in ways Luke would never understand. Until he starts to weaponize this very sexism to undermine her. When Luke takes a course by a motivational speaker who barely hides his misogynistic techniques, he uses his newfound tools to take her down a peg. At one point, Luke says she dresses “like a cupcake,” a neg that needles her to start second-guessing not only her wardrobe but her business instincts as well.

Although they can both technically do this job and are equally committed to doing the work, it’s clear early on that her instincts, coupled with her work ethic, make her a better employee. And yet Luke clings to a sense of entitlement as if he’s owed this job and this life because he’s wanted it so badly for so long. This kind of entitlement is a luxury for Em, who has worked her ass off for as long as she can remember.

Along with her insightful examination of office politics and sexism, Domont also explores the dynamics at play in their relationship sexually. At first, their passion and carnal lust are equal; they’re partners in each other’s pleasure, with Luke going down on Em. But as her star rises at work, his resentment manifests in impotence, later in the power of withholding sex, and finally in force. Though the metaphor is occasionally heavy-handed, it's effectively employed to show how male violence is weakness, not strength.

Ehrenreich tackles Luke’s arc from supportive partner to maniacal foe with aplomb, but this is Dynevor’s film from start to finish. Her strength comes mostly from her reserve in public, only letting Luke see the looser her. But as the stress at work and home mounts, she must find ways to charm all the men in her life—without ever letting them know it.

Throughout most of the film, Dynevor holds her body rigid, towering in her sleek yet uncomfortable heels, only allowing her emotions to show in brief flashes of anger, joy, or stress across her face. This control over her expressions becomes harder as Luke’s behavior becomes increasingly erratic. Yet, even as she projects one version of herself, Dynevor's breakout performance shows the strain that this double identity takes on her through just a deep breath here, a hidden look of sorrow there, or a slight tremble in her response to a co-worker.

Em eventually lets loose in a fiery speech and scene that borrows heavily from the George Cukor classic “Gaslight,” starring Ingrid Bergman. Fans of that film that has launched a million misinterpretations will enjoy Domont’s steady grasp on how the phrase is not just rooted in a generic manipulation of someone’s reality but also the power dynamics of a couple and their private and public perceptions. Domont’s homage, in dialogue and blocking, is far more earned than most modern evocations of the term (which is, interestingly, never uttered in "Fair Play").

Domont’s perfectly calibrated script occasionally veers into the overly theatrical, its grand monologues and rigid back-and-forth dialogue not helped by the film’s limited and repetitive settings. However, her thrilling mastery of slow-burn tension, insightful examination of power dynamics in business and personal relationships, and creation of exceptional performances prove Domont to be a director with a singular voice.

Young Frankenstein

from Roger Ebert: https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/young-frankenstein-1974


The moment, when it comes, has the inevitability of comic genius. Young Frederick Frankenstein, grandson of the count who started it all, returns by rail to his ancestral home. As the train pulls into the station, he spots a kid on the platform, lowers the window and asks, "Pardon me, boy; is this the Transylvania Station"?

It is, and Mel Brooks is home with "Young Frankenstein," his most disciplined and visually inventive film (it also happens to be very funny). Frederick is a professor in a New York medical school, trying to live down the family name and giving hilarious demonstrations of the difference between voluntary and involuntary reflexes. He stabs himself in the process, dismisses the class and is visited by an ancient family retainer with his grandfather's will.

Frankenstein quickly returns to Transylvania and the old ancestral castle, where he is awaited by the faithful houseboy Igor, the voluptuous lab assistant Inga, and the mysterious housekeeper Frau Blucher, whose very name causes horses to rear in fright. The young man had always rejected his grandfather’s medical experiments as impossible, but he changes his mind after he discovers a book entitled How I Did It by Frederick Frankenstein. Now all that’s involved is a little grave-robbing and a trip to the handy local Brain Depository, and the Frankenstein family is back in business.

In his two best comedies, before this, “The Producers” and “Blazing Saddles,” Brooks revealed a rare comic anarchy. His movies weren’t just funny, they were aggressive and subversive, making us laugh even when we really should have been offended. (Explaining this process, Brooks once loftily declared, “My movies rise below vulgarity.”) “Young Frankenstein” is as funny as we expect a Mel Brooks comedy to be, but it’s more than that: It shows artistic growth and a more sure-handed control of the material by a director who once seemed willing to do literally anything for a laugh. It’s more confident and less breathless.

That’s partly because the very genre he’s satirizing gives him a strong narrative he can play against. Brooks’s targets are James Whale’s “Frankenstein” (1931) and “Bride of Frankenstein” (1935), the first the most influential and the second probably the best of the 1930s Hollywood horror movies. Brooks uses carefully controlled black-and-white photography that catches the feel of the earlier films. He uses old-fashioned visual devices and obvious special effects (the train ride is a study in manufactured studio scenes). He adjusts the music to the right degree of squeakiness. And he even rented the original “Frankenstein” laboratory, with its zaps of electricity, high-voltage special effects, and elevator platform to intercept lightning bolts.

So the movie is a send-up of a style and not just of the material (as Paul Morrissey’s dreadful “Andy Warhol’s Frankenstein”). It looks right, which makes it funnier. And then, paradoxically, it works on a couple of levels: first as comedy, and then as a weirdly touching story in its own right. A lot of the credit for that goes to the performances of Gene Wilder, as young Frankenstein, and Peter Boyle as the monster. They act broadly when it’s required, but they also contribute tremendous subtlety and control. Boyle somehow manages to be hilarious and pathetic at the same time.

There are set pieces in the movie that deserve comparison with the most famous scenes in “The Producers.” Demonstrating that he has civilized his monster, for example, Frankenstein and the creature do a soft-shoe number in black tie and tails. Wandering in the woods, the monster comes across a poor, blind monk (Gene Hackman, very good) who offers hospitality and winds up scalding, burning, and frightening the poor creature half to death.

There are also the obligatory town meetings, lynch mobs, police investigations, laboratory experiments, love scenes, and a cheerfully ribald preoccupation with a key area of the monster’s stitched-together anatomy. From its opening title (which manages to satirize “Frankenstein” and “Citizen Kane” at the same time) to its closing, uh, refrain, “Young Frankenstein” is not only a Mel Brooks movie but also a loving commentary on our love-hate affairs with monsters. This time, the monster even gets to have a little love-hate affair of his own.

George Harrison: Living in the Material World

from Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Harrison:_Living_in_the_Material_World

George Harrison: Living in the Material World is a 2011 documentary film co-produced and directed by Martin Scorsese, based on the life of musician George Harrison, former member of the Beatles. The film's release was coordinated with both a companion book and an album of Harrison's demo recordings. The film earned Emmy Awards for Outstanding Directing for Nonfiction Programming and Outstanding Nonfiction Special.
Premise

The film offers a biographical perspective on the life of musician George Harrison, from his early life in Liverpool, the Beatlemania phenomenon, his travels to India, the influence of Krishna Consciousness movement in his music, and his relevance and importance as a member of the Beatles. It consists of previously unseen footage alongside a wide range of interviews, including Olivia and Dhani Harrison.

After Harrison's death in 2001, various production companies approached his widow Olivia about producing a film about her late husband's life. She declined because he had wanted to tell his own life story through his video archive. Upon meeting Scorsese, she gave her blessings and signed on to the film project as a producer.

According to Scorsese, he was attracted to the project because "That subject matter has never left me...The more you're in the material world, the more there is a tendency for a search for serenity and a need to not be distracted by physical elements that are around you. His music is very important to me, so I was interested in the journey that he took as an artist. The film is an exploration. We don't know. We're just feeling our way through."

Throughout 2008 and 2009, Scorsese alternated working between Shutter Island and the documentary. Scorsese, his editor David Tedeschi, and a small army of researchers spent five years assembling interviews, music, film clips, photos, and memorabilia.

The documentary premièred at the Foundation for Art and Creative Technology in Liverpool on 2 October 2011. It was shown on HBO in two parts on 5 and 6 October 2011 in the United States and Canada and as a two-part Arena special on BBC Two on 12 and 13 November 2011 in the United Kingdom. It was first theatrically released in Australia on 20 October 2011

Paddington (2014)

from the Paddington wiki: https://paddingtonbear.fandom.com/wiki/Paddington_(film)

Plot

A grainy film shows a British explorer, Montgomery Clyde, who travels to Darkest Peru and discovers a new species of bear. Clyde befriends the two bears he finds and learns that they are able to grasp the English language. He leaves the country and goes back to his family in England, gifting his explorer's hat to the bear he has named Pastuzo.

Years later, a young bear in Darkest Peru announces that it is Marmalade Day. Him and his guardians, Lucy and Pastuzo, spend the day making marmalade. During the night, the three bears feel tremors and head towards an emergency bunker on the forest floor. Pastuzo doesn't make it, and the two other bears find his body in the morning, when the tremors have stopped. The younger bear is sent away on a cargo ship to London.

Finding himself lost and alone at Paddington Station, he begins to realize that city life is not all he had imagined - until he meets the kind Brown family, who read the label around his neck (which reads 'Please look after this bear. Thank you.') and offer him a temporary haven. It looks as though his luck has changed until this rarest of bears catches the eye of a museum taxidermist named Millicent Clyde.

Paddington, with the aid of Mrs. Mary Brown, searches for the explorer who came to Darkest Peru. He accidentally floods and sets fire to the Browns' house, and is criticised by Mr. Henry Brown, who thinks Paddington is a bad influence on Judy and Jonathan.

Paddington leaves in shame and looks for M. Clyde at every address that Mrs. Mary Brown could find. He finally finds Millicent Clyde, who says that the explorer was her father. She takes Paddington to the Natural History Museum, where she works as a taxidermist. She reveals to Paddington that she resents her father for not obtaining a specimen of Paddington's species when he went to Peru. Her family lost status and was relegated to a lower class in society. Millicent tells Paddington that she plans to correct her father's mistake and stuff Paddington so her father's discovery can be immortalised in the museum.

Mr. Curry warns the Browns of Millicent's plan, and they rush to the museum to save Paddington. They cause a power outage and help Paddington escape from Millicent's office. They meet on the roof where Millicent intercepts them. Paddington surrenders and asks for one last request - to eat a marmalade sandwich. Millicent grants his request and he throws the sandwich at Millicent, causing a flock of pigeons to fly at her and cause her to almost trip over the edge of the roof. Millicent regains her balance and prepares to tranquilize Paddington when Mrs. Bird, drunk on rum, bursts through a trapdoor which pushes Millicent off the roof. Hanging onto a flagpole far above the ground, Millicent is weaponless and defeated.

Paddington is welcomed into the Brown household as a new member of the family. Millicent is sentenced to community service at a petting zoo, her worst nightmare. Paddington writes to his Aunt Lucy, elated that he has finally found a home where he belongs.

Iron Man #11-19 Vol 3.
Books of Korvac III: Cosmic Iron Man

Iron Man is marooned in a small colony on a remote planet! A message from home warns him that Korvac is still a threat, but recovering from his injuries means pain medication - which might mean a relapse. Will Tony succumb to the temptation that has plagued him for years? Either way, Iron Man will soon face a cosmic showdown on the deck of Galactus' worldship. And to survive, he must battle Korvac's zealous and powerful disciples: Controller, Unicorn, Blizzard and a robotically enslaved Original Human Torch! Tony could use some friends, but does Doctor Doom count?! When the dust settles, Iron Man will emerge majorly upgraded and forever changed! But with great power comes great ego, and now his friends on Earth must decide: Has Tony Stark become an Iron God, or a dangerous threat?

from the New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/17/movies/the-wonder-review.html

The Wonder (2022)

By Manohla Dargis
Published Nov. 17, 2022
Updated Dec. 27, 2022


From the moment that Florence Pugh appears in the period drama “The Wonder” — seated at a table on a dimly lit ship and methodically eating from a plate while she gazes into some private horizon — you are with her. Her character, Lib Wright, looks so self-contained and so manifestly uninterested in the other passengers that you can’t help but be intrigued by her. She’ll keep you watching and interested as you follow her through this perverse, provocative story about women, their appetites and a world that barbarically tries to control them both.

A story of faith and sacrifice, “The Wonder” is a mystery wrapped in a welter of complications. Set in Ireland in 1862 — roughly a decade after the end of the Great Famine that ravaged the country, leaving an estimated one million dead — the story takes off when Lib, a nurse from London, arrives for her new and uncommon duties in a remote village. For two weeks, she is to closely observe a pious 11-year-old girl who’s said not to have eaten for four months. How the child remains alive is the puzzle that Lib briskly sets about solving, fortified by her seemingly unshakable confidence in science and an attitude of clinical detachment.

Lib’s journey to Ireland is arduous — she travels by boat, train and horse-drawn cart, her head like a prow, her face a mask of stoicism — and soon proves more existentially difficult than physically challenging. At the village, she meets her employers, a dour committee of patriarchs that includes a doctor (Toby Jones) and a priest (Ciarán Hinds). Anna O’Donnell (Kíla Lord Cassidy) does not eat, will not eat, or so it appears, they tell the incredulous Lib. Whether the fast is a miracle or a hoax, Anna has become an attraction and, as far as the men are concerned, has drawn unwanted attention from gawkers and the press.

Although some on the committee seem ready to canonize the fasting girl, others are more skeptical. Whatever the truth, Anna belongs to the ranks of women and girls who are problems in need of remedying, which is why Lib and a nun (Josie Walker) are to watch her in alternating eight-hour shifts. (Why the committee hires a British nurse remains a mystery.) Lib’s no-nonsense demeanor and grim history — she was a nurse in the Crimean War, presumably alongside Florence Nightingale — make her seem perfect for the position. That Lib is another problem becomes evident later that evening when she ingests some opium.

The Chilean director Sebastián Lelio — his credits include “Gloria,” its English-language remake “Gloria Bell” and “A Fantastic Woman” — gracefully introduces the pieces of this peculiar tale with economy, beauty, his characteristic intimacy and usual complement of memorable faces. His only real misstep is a framing device: two quasi-Brechtian scenes on a soundstage that bookend the story and announce its artifice. “The people you are about to meet, the characters, believe in their stories with complete devotion,” an offscreen woman says, as the camera glides past film equipment and splashes of color before stopping on Lib.

The voice belongs to Kitty (Niamh Algar), who’s close to the O’Donnell family and will sometime later, when in character, look at the camera and say, “Hello again. I told you we are nothing without stories.” No kidding. It’s unclear why Lelio bothered with these forced alienation effects, which are meant to compel you to think about what you’re watching (as if you ever stop thinking) rather than identify psychologically with the characters (as if that’s all viewers do). It’s a dubious move — and the assertive modern score is already doing some of that work — and generally is as stale as one of old Hollywood’s phony happy endings.

Certainly there’s already much to consider as “The Wonder” circles around questions of control — via church, state and men — and vulnerable bodies in peril. The movie is based on the novel of the same title by Emma Donoghue, who shares credit for the script with Lelio and Alice Birch. Donoghue also wrote the screen adaptation of her novel “Room,” about a mother and her young son held prisoner in a tiny shed. Although “The Wonder” is a different kind of captivity narrative, it too turns on trauma and nurturance — the care and feeding of children — and presents maternity as both an act of independence and of salvation.

Lib assumes the mantle of motherhood gradually and with enough complexity that the story never falls into predictability. It also doesn’t confuse empathy with essentialism. Although she warms toward Anna (how could she not?) and also takes up with a journalist (Tom Burke), creating an allegorical family unit, the character remains convincingly sovereign throughout. Anchored by Lelio’s intelligent filmmaking — and by Pugh’s beautifully calibrated mix of physical vigor and temperamental astringency — Lib embodies the story’s arguments, themes and power with vivid clarity. There’s no denying her or her ravenous hunger for life.

The Wonder
Rated R for extreme bodily peril and forced feeding. Running time: 1 hour 48 minutes. Watch on Netflix.

A correction was made on
Dec. 27, 2022:

An earlier version of this article misstated the title of the novel Emma Donoghue wrote and adapted for screen. It is “Room,” not “The Room.”

from Roger Ebert: https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/a-man-called-otto-movie-review-2022

A Man Called Otto (2022)

In Marc Forster’s genial, earnest yet unremarkable dramedy “A Man Called Otto,” the titular character Otto can’t pick his daily battles even if his life depended on it. Living in an unfussy suburban neighborhood of identical row houses somewhere in the Midwest, the aging man gets easily annoyed by every little misstep of a stranger. And his protests are so pronounced that they even rival Larry David’s in an average episode of “Curb Your Enthusiasm.”

Portrayed by the beloved Tom Hanks in an indistinct performance that splits the difference between quirky and grounded, Otto is often right about his grievances, to his credit. Why should he pay for six feet of rope and waste a few extra cents, for instance, when he bought just a little over five? Why shouldn’t he warn inconsiderate drivers who often block garage doors or entitled neighbors who can’t as much as remember to close a gate and respect basic rules about trash disposal? Or pick up a fuss when the soulless real estate guys from the fictional and hilariously named “Dye & Merica” show up to sabotage the community’s peace?

Then again, not everything is as awful as Otto makes them out to be. And he could perhaps afford to have some manners himself, especially when a new, very pregnant neighbor drops by with a bowl of home-cooked meal as a courtesy.

If you’ve already seen 2015’s Oscar-nominated Swedish hit “A Man Called Ove” by Hannes Holm, a film that is not any better or worse than this middle-of-the-road American remake (yes, not all originals are automatically superior), you’ll know that Otto hasn’t always been this insufferable. In small doses of syrupy and visually overworked flashbacks, Forster and agile screenwriter David Magee show us that he was socially awkward even from his young days, but at least nice and approachable. With a squarely unstylish side-part haircut that aptly gives out a “nice but unworldly guy” vibe, young Otto (played by the star’s own son, Truman Hanks) had an interest in engineering, in figuring out how things work. His life apparently changed when he accidentally met the dreamy Sonya (Rachel Keller), who later on became his wife and passed away recently.

As was the case in “Ove,” Otto can’t wait to join his wife on the other side, but his frequent suicide attempts get interrupted in episodes that are sometimes awkwardly funny, and other times, just plain awkward. The chief interrupters of our get-off-my-lawn guy are the abovementioned new neighbors: the happily married-with-kids couple Marisol (a bubbly and scene-stealing Mariana Treviño, the absolute best thing about the film) and Tommy (Manuel Garcia-Ruflo), who often ask little favors from the grumpy Otto. There are also others in the neighborhood, like a kindly transgender teenager Malcolm (Mack Bayda) thrown out of his house by his dad, the fitness-obsessed Jimmy (Cameron Britton), Otto’s old friend Rueben (Peter Lawson Jones), and his wife Anita (Juanita Jennings), who are no longer on cordial terms with Otto. And let’s not forget a stray cat that no one seems to know what to do with for a while.

The mystery is that none of the supporting personalities in this story can take a hint about Otto, at least not well into the film’s second act. Instead, all the characters collectively treat Otto with patience and acceptance, as if he isn’t being willfully rude to them every chance he gets. For example, it’s anyone’s guess why Otto’s work colleagues bother to throw him a retirement party when it will surely go unappreciated or why Marisol continuously insists on trying to bring out the good side of him when Otto offensively shuts down every one of her genuine attempts.

Still, the story manages to land some charms when Otto finally lets his guard down and starts making all the expected amends, while suffering a rare heart condition on the side. First, he becomes a local hero when he unwittingly saves someone’s life in front of a group of unhelpful people too preoccupied with their phones. Later on, he racks up additional goodwill when he takes Malcolm in and builds a slow yet steady friendship with Marisol, a rewarding storyline in an otherwise predictable tale.

But the biggest win of Forster’s adaptation is its worthwhile message about the small wins of everyday people who operate as a functioning and harmonious community against the evils of faceless corporations. “A Man Called Otto” isn’t exactly as philosophical as “About Schmidt” or as socially conscious as “I, Daniel Blake,” two films that occasionally hit similar notes. But it’s nevertheless a wholesome crowd-pleaser for your next family gathering.

from Collider: https://collider.com/the-bear-season-1-recap/

The Bear S1

BY TOPHER BIGELOW PUBLISHED JUN 21, 2023

The Bear was an unexpected smash of Summer 2022. Some of the initial fervor was fueled by the Chicago return of Jeremy Allen White after the ten-year run of Shameless. However, unlike Shameless, which was mostly filmed in LA, The Bear is all about Chicago.

The show follows White’s Carmy Berzatto, an award-winning chef. Carmy’s love of food extends beyond an Italian heritage to a greasy spoon Italian beef joint that has been in his family for years. Despite his overwhelming desire to work there, Carmy’s brother Michael (John Bernthal) refuses to let him. This core rejection drives Carmy’s ambition in the kitchen. He trains under an abusive executive chef (Joel McHale), adding to his conflation of love and pain as it relates to cooking.

His life falls apart after his brother commits suicide and inexplicably leaves him the business. Carmy quits his fine dining job in New York to return to Chicago to keep The Original Beef of Chicagoland (known simply as "The Beef") alive. To call the restaurant a functional business is generous. The whole thing seems to be maintained through duct tape and sheer force of will. The ragtag team of employees is chaotic in both personality and process, and none of them make Carny's transition into a new work environment easy.

For its brief season and even shorter episodes, The Bear packed a lot of action and emotional resonance into its first season. Fresh off of his James Beard award win, Carmy Berzatto returns to Chicago to take over The Beef after his brother’s unexpected suicide. He finds the restaurant in a sorry state: dirty, poorly stocked, inefficient. Michael’s best friend Richie (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) has taken over day-to-day operations, but he is woefully unfit for the task. The kitchen’s haphazard organization fills Carmy with equal parts anxiety and frustration. His early attempts to corral his new troops are unsuccessful, as are early attempts at changing the menu. Desperate for some link between this rickety restaurant and the fine dining world he’d just left, Carmy hires Sydney (Ayo Edebiri), a Culinary Institute of America graduate and Chicago native as his sous chef. Neither Carmy nor Sydney is fully accepted by the other staff. An uncomfortable truce settles over The Beef as they learn to work together in whatever way they can.

Natalie (Abby Elliott), Carmy’s younger sister, appears during a tense moment and the two struggle to connect. It’s clear that the siblings have never been close, and both were blindsided by Michael’s death. She is hurt that Carmy has dedicated all of his time to the restaurant and has spent so little time with the family grieving. She has also inherited a stake in the restaurant and tries to convince Carmy to sell it, as she has received threatening letters from the IRS about unpaid taxes. Carmy’s immediate instinct is to refuse. He wants to keep the restaurant open as an homage to his brother. She asks for a specific payroll tax form the IRS letters had asked for, and they step into the restaurant’s small office to find it. What they found could most easily be compared to the bottom of a middle schooler’s locker at the end of the school year, an absolute disaster area. Neither of them can find the missing document.

Conditions at The Beef worsen, quickly. A health inspector shows up and notes several health department violations. Carmy discovers his brother had borrowed $300,000 from their loan shark uncle, Jimmy Cicero (Oliver Platt). Cicero offers to buy the restaurant from Carmy and sell it, get it off of their hands so that Carmy can return to New York and his prestige, but he refuses. For all that he tries to suppress his feelings and pour all of his attention into The Beef, Carmy’s emotional health is spiraling. He secretly begins attending Al-Anon meetings to process his feelings and better understand his brother’s issues with addiction and suicide.

With Carmy preoccupied, Sydney is left to endure the staff’s rejection and hazing. She is also responsible for dealing with a lot of the day-to-day issues, even as Richie gets all the credit. Carmy has the bright idea of transforming The Beef’s workflow to something resembling his fine dining style. He leaves Sydney, ill-prepared and disrespected, to enforce it. Sydney feels abandoned and exploited. She eventually gets her feet under her, slowly gaining the respect of her coworkers. Many of them struggle to adjust to their new roles, but Marcus (Lionel Boyce) shines as a baker of chocolate cakes.

The Beef can’t catch a break: just before open, the restaurant’s toilet backs up, flooding the bathroom. Carmy sends for Fak (Matty Matheson), a childhood friend, to fix it. While there, Fak attempts to interview for a job at the Beef with Richie. Richie doesn’t want him working there and the two come to blows. Carmy rushes to break it up. Desperate to stay in Carmy’s good graces, Fak reveals Richie has been selling cocaine in the alley behind the restaurant. Carmy is furious. Richie explains that the money from selling drugs is the only thing that kept the restaurant open through COVID. Meanwhile, Marcus struggles to prepare enough batter to bake cakes for the lunch rush. He attempts to speed things along by turning up the mixer. It is too much for the poor restaurant to bear and the power goes out. Fak determines the restaurant needs a new condenser, but that the part would cost over $5,000 to replace. Uncertain about what else to do, Carmy asks Richie to do one more deal to cover the costs.

Carmy and Sydney mend their relationship when Carmy solicits her help with devising a new dinner menu to drive up profits. Amid all the frenzy, Sydney tries her best to rise to the challenge. She constantly seeks Carmy’s approval, but he is too distracted and stressed to provide it. Even when he tastes her food, he is short, telling her it’s “not ready,” but providing no additional details. Sydney crafts a risotto meal that she is very proud of. When Carmy refuses to even taste the dish, she feels betrayed. Not wanting her food to go to waste, she offers it to a customer free of charge. The next day, Ebraheim (Edwin Lee Gibson), one of The Beef’s line cooks, reads the newspaper as the staff begins prep. The food critic reviewed The Beef, making particular note of the spectacular risotto dish he was given. Carmy is both annoyed and proud of Sydney’s unexpected accomplishment.

This is also the day they’d implemented an online ordering system. During prep, Marcus gets distracted in his attempt to perfect a new pastry and is late getting bread and cakes ready for the day. Carmy powers on the ordering machine and learns that Sydney had accidentally left the pre-order option on when she set it up. Hundreds of tickets pour out, and the restaurant explodes in a frenzy of activity. Carmy screams at Sydney for the mistake and Marcus for being unprepared. In the chaos, Sydney accidentally stabs Richie. He refuses to believe at first that it was an accident. She quits on the spot. Marcus follows her.

The Beef hosts a bachelor party that quickly gets way out of hand. Richie gets into a fight with a patron, nearly killing him. Marcus returns to the restaurant after hearing about the commotion. Carmy, losing his grip on reality, accidentally starts a kitchen fire while trying to light a cigarette on the burner. He doesn’t react, even as the flames spread, staring blankly even as his staff rushes in to put out the fire.

Unexpectedly, Richie gives Carmy a letter he’d found in the break room. The envelope was addressed to Carmy from Michael. Carmy opens it, but is disappointed to find nothing but a recipe for spaghetti. He is angry, frustrated, and feels played by his brother from the afterlife. Not knowing what else to do, Carmy sets out to make the recipe. He notices an odd note in the ingredients section, a suggestion to use the smaller cans of tomatoes because they taste better. Incredulous, Carmy returns the larger can he’d originally retrieved and grabbed a small can. When he opens the can, he finds a wad of $100 bills covered in a sheen of tomato sauce.

He gathers the rest of the staff together and orders them to open all the small cans of tomatoes. All stuffed with cash. He texts Sydney, apologizing for his behavior and offering her a few pointers on her risotto. She shows up at the restaurant and is welcomed like a hero–just before she’s put to work opening cans, too. The season ends with Carmy putting a sign on the door announcing that The Beef is closed and a new restaurant, The Bear, is coming soon.


Part of what makes The Bear so incredible is its nuanced and moving depictions of grief. Michael’s absence is felt in every episode, with each character expressing the loss in their own way. The show exemplifies the resilience required to both weather deep personal loss and a career in the restaurant industry. It will be interesting to see the characters go through a deeper level of processing and healing, growing and starting something new.

The show is a love letter to Chicago, the City of Broad Shoulders, and we’ll hopefully get to see more of Carmy’s Chicago in Season 2. The show has taken on a new level of relevance to Chicagoans in recent weeks. Joseph Zucchero, the owner of Mr. Beef, the real Italian beef joint in River North that inspired The Beef, recently passed away after a long battle with cancer.

Yellowstone S2

Yellowstone S2

from At Home Daily: https://www.athomedaily.com/movies-entertainment/yellowstone-season-2-recap/

New Enemies

Beck Brothers

We are quickly learning that the Dutton family spends their whole lives fighting against enemies of all sorts. We are introduced to a new enemy in Season 2 via the Beck brothers.

With their fitting cowboy hats and bolo ties, they have a lot of fingers in a lot of pies in, not only Bozeman but all of Montana. And they are not happy to hear about a casino being put in their backyard. Namely, a casino that is not theirs. At first, they seem like respectable men, or should I say cowboys? But as the season progresses, they are more dangerous than originally thought.

The Dutton Legacy
Kayce versus Rip

John Dutton continues to search for the perfect “son” to pick up the reins when he’s gone, a burden he felt the pressure of heavily with a recent cancer diagnosis. Only, we learn that he doesn’t actually have cancer. Congratulations! But he does have a nasty stomach ulcer that bursts.

The choice comes down to Kayce and Rip, who do seem to bear a little bit of ill will towards each other. Or maybe it’s just a healthy brotherly competitive spirit. Kayce is pretty badass, let’s admit it. He has elite military training, a get-anything-done kind of attitude, as well as the ability to perform under pressure.

Rip, on the other hand, is the epitome of a henchman. He’s the muscle of the ranch, and he does the dirty work without asking any questions. He also doesn’t have anything to gain when John dies, so we know his loyalty is to John and John alone.

However, Kayce, as the biological son, gets given the automatic ranch foreman position and becomes responsible for giving direction to the rest of the ranch hands. Much to Rip’s chagrin. But he doesn’t complain. Meanwhile, a rift forms between Kayce and his Native American wife, Monica, who is just simply not a fan of John and his ways of running a business, or a family.

Business As Usual

Beth, ever trying to fill the shoes of the son her father so desperately wants, does anything she can to help protect the ranch. This includes buying up as much of the surrounding land as possible.

Her plan is to zone the land for agricultural use, where the government will actually pay her to not farm it (in order to keep the big food corporations at a status quo). She uses the money from her boss at Schwartz & Meyer.

It’s pretty fun to watch Beth at work. Not only is she vicious, but she’ll have fun with you while she does it.

The Black Sheep

Jamie, the black sheep of the family, continues to further his political career in his campaign for Attorney General. Neither John nor Beth take kindly to getting ignored by him when their family is in dire need. In a rage, John cuts him out of the family. Furious and vengeful, Jamie retaliates by spilling family secrets to a local reporter.

When he goes back on his word, she informs him it doesn’t work that way. That’s true. So he decides to kill her. Maybe he shouldn’t run for Attorney General after all.

Because Jamie lacks the real world “knack” all the other men seem to possess on the show, he goes to Rip for help with the body. Like I said, ultimate henchman.

Old Enemies Make New Friends

The battle with the Beck brothers intensifies when hundreds of Dutton cattle are killed by way of eating alfalfa that was purposely placed in their fields.

Dan Jenkins, our favorite land developer from last season, discovers he was served with a liquor license ban because, of course, the Beck brothers are head of the liquor license committee. His luxury country club will lose hundreds of customers.

Chief Rainwater discovers that he was served with a cease and desist order on his new casino, also by way of the Beck brothers.

What the Beck brothers did not expect from all of this, was Dutton, Rainwater, and Jenkins forming an alliance in order to take these nuisances down. But the Beck brothers aren’t done.

A Love Story
Beth and Rip

The Beck brothers send someone to assault Beth in her office. They shoot her assistant in the head and attempt to sexually assault her, while beating her up pretty bad. But smart Beth got a text message out to Rip before they could see.

Just in time, Rip throws a chair through the glass window and kills the assailants, getting shot in the process. Rip and Beth realize they love each other. A true western romance.

The End

Still not done, the Beck brothers kill Dan Jenkins and kidnap Tate, Kayce’s son. The Duttons find out he’s being held at a white supremacist militia compound and stage an offensive attack to retrieve him, and the Beck brothers are satisfyingly and finally killed in the process.

The Duttons have managed to stave off another threat to their family, until the next season.

from IndieWire: https://www.indiewire.com/criticism/shows/morning-show-season-2-review-apple-tv-plus-1234664446/

BY BEN TRAVERS
SEPTEMBER 17, 2021 2:00 PM

The Morning Show S2

Stella Bak is the quiet type. As the distressed anchors and flustered producers scurry about The Morning Show’s Manhattan newsroom, Stella (played by Greta Lee with a poise that barely reveals her umbrage) watches and listens more than she runs or shouts. When she speaks, she does so with a purpose befitting her mandate as the network’s new president of news, sent in to help UBA President Cory Ellison (Billy Crudup) change their toxic workplace. Despite prolific anchor Alex Levy (Jennifer Aniston) and newcomer Bradley Jackson (Reese Witherspoon) oh-so-publicly outing the company’s noxious culture following a slew of #MeToo-related allegations, UBA is still operating under institutional systems of discrimination, and that cannot stand.

Young and hungry, Stella isn’t here for your bullshit, but she still faces a never-ending stream of it: Her boss won’t listen to her ideas, her coworkers don’t trust her and, oh yeah, the anchor whose co-host and best friend turned out to be a sexual predator is being brought back to the very office she abandoned nine months prior. Alex’s return isn’t Stella’s idea — she doesn’t see the logic in courting a former star who represents the old regime rather than embracing new voices on the company’s biggest news platform. But her white, middle-aged boss still has a soft spot for Alex, and more importantly, he has a vision. So that’s that. Sounds kinda hard to start fresh, huh?

Stella struggles to have any sort of impact on her show, but what’s far more frustrating is that her character has just as little impact on “The Morning Show,” the Apple TV+ drama that remains creatively and dramatically inept throughout its 10-episode second season.

Despite an unfounded narrative that Season 1 “got better” as it went along, “The Morning Show” has been as consistent in its eye-rolling melodrama as it has in its hesitancy to wrestle with the questions of power and responsibility at its core — even Alex and Bradley’s long-awaited “Network” moment in the first season’s finale is cut into a montage, blurring specific language and key revelations in favor of implying that they said “something important.” In Season 2 (all of which was screened for critics), the series remains murky in its high-minded purpose and erratic in building meaningful drama, but most disturbing is an about-face in its dominant point of view: If Season 1 examined how a patriarchal system all-too-permissive of bad male behavior could be forced to change by external and internal efforts (aka Bradley and Alex), then Season 2 asks if those efforts went too far. Alex, Bradley, and Cory have ceased being so angry they aren’t going to take it anymore; instead, they’re so scared of being publicly shamed they’re willing to do whatever it takes to avoid it.


Yes, “The Morning Show” Season 2 revolves around “cancel culture,” and yes, its ultimate point seems to be that personal and professional accountability are bad, actually. Picking up in December 2019, Bradley is still co-anchoring UBA’s The Morning Show, only now she’s singing and dancing (for real) with new newscaster Eric Nomani (Hasan Minhaj). Alex, in leaving the show, has become a feminist icon — landing her own black-and-white Time magazine cover with the headline “The Woman Who Told the Truth” — and now lives alone in Maine, typing away at her tell-all memoir. But when it comes to Mitch Kessler (Steve Carell), she doesn’t tell nearly enough, and her publisher pushes Alex to take a longer look at her shared history with the exiled predator before going to print.

One of the most exciting aspects of “The Morning Show’s” first season was director Mimi Leder (who’s back helming four episodes of Season 2, along with Lesli Linka Glatter, Rachel Morrison, and an all-around incredible team of directors) and one of the finale’s few encouraging moments was her final shot’s slow retreat from Mitch; after being promised an interview on live TV that doubled as his shot at public redemption, Alex and Bradley’s on-air confession cut him out of the show, and Leder’s closing adieu, which pulled away from Mitch as he sat stewing in his big empty mansion, felt like a much-needed “fuck you” to a bad man we already knew all too well. But alas, Mitch is back, carrying his own episode arcs through most of Season 2 after fleeing persecution in America to live alone in an Italian villa and mope through a self-imposed sex-ile.

Why “The Morning Show” feels so committed to giving Mitch’s bland, predictable, “old guard” point of view equal weight to those of supposed gamechangers like Alex and Bradley is part of a larger problem surrounding the show’s relationship to power — but it’s also just dull. Veteran TV fans should see where things are going early on, even if getting there is somehow tedious and ludicrous, and while the rest of the crew’s arcs aren’t exactly satisfying, they’re at least active. Many are half-assed and nonsensical, like producer Chip Black, whose inexplicable return is held together solely by Mark Duplass’ naturalistic performance; others are enigmatic until they’re painfully obvious, like Emmy winner Billy Crudup’s Cory “#NotAllMen” Ellison, whose virtuous crusade on behalf of women can’t make up for a doomed late-season twist. Speaking of surprises, I dare not say one word about Bradley’s main storyline, although it’s ultimately just another reminder that the show doesn’t know how to build toward anything.
And then there’s Alex. In between all the accolades and book-writing, she has a breakdown that leaves her paralyzed by fear. It’s why she’s living in a remote cabin in Maine, why she left the show, and why she probably shouldn’t go back, at least until she deals with the root of her panic. But this is TV, and Alex/Jennifer Aniston has to come back, so you know she’s going to try, just like you know it won’t be easy: There’s another behind-the-scenes book on UBA looming, this one written by New York Magazine reporter Maggie Brenner (Marcia Gay Harden), and it’s got Alex spooked. What will it say? How much will it say? Does Maggie know Alex slept with Mitch (twice, as revealed in Season 1)? Will that revelation get her comeback prematurely canceled? Should she jet-set around the globe trying to cover it up, while talk of a little thing called COVID makes its way into the news?

The glare of the spotlight and the anxiety over being “canceled” don’t mix, so Alex spends most of the season in various states of desperation. It’s not only a clear regression from where her character ended up last year, but a choice that fails to stretch Aniston’s range in similar fashion to Season 1. (Remember the board room scene? Hell yeah you do! Welp, that kind of thing’s gone now.)

What little tenacity “The Morning Show” had is gone with it. Dark, ominous meetings give way to sunny offices built to evoke envy. Season 2 soon feels like a very expensive, very bland network drama. Yet even as broad, star-driven soap, it isn’t that fun. When Alex and Bradley fight, it has to end with one of them saying, “the gloves are coming off.” Why? Because it’s not clear enough from the fight itself that a line in their relationship has been crossed. Showrunner Kerry Ehrin and her writing team have to repeatedly spell things out for the audience, explaining how they should feel rather than evoking actual feelings, which doesn’t make for the kind of juicy, indelible moments these actors have delivered in the past. It just makes for a spectacle that’s hard to ignore.

Soon enough, the series devolves alongside its star, succumbing to the same panic Alex feels. And really, that’s to be expected. “The Morning Show” and The Morning Show parallel each other again and again, and everyone involved in both is privileged and powerful, from the wealthy central characters to the A-list stars and mega-tech company backing them — why wouldn’t they be afraid of losing their status, and how could that fear not take top priority in the lives they lead and the story they’re telling?

But “The Morning Show” doesn’t know how to interrogate these questions. Any drama that takes its central subject seriously — whether that’s fostering a safe workplace, fighting the patriarchy, or finding the line between objectionable and inexcusable behavior — should acknowledge the challenges of creating real, lasting change. (And a good drama would know how to craft engaging stories out of those challenges.) Altering systems that have been in place for hundreds of years isn’t easy, but Alex & Co. seem to have reversed course. This isn’t an insightful look at how sexual misconduct persists in American culture, a dissection of modern news consumption, or a hard look at who’s framing the world’s biggest stories; it’s a shouting match between powerful people terrified of losing their power. No one’s trying to tear down the system because no one understands why anyone would want to.

Stella Bak is the quiet type, but that doesn’t mean she lacks things to say. She’s the only one consistently fighting for what everyone around her purportedly wants, and watching them fumble around with personal distractions is exhausting. After 10 hours doing the same, I can empathize. “The Morning Show” Season 2 may be so glossy it’s hard not to stare into the sun, but in the end, all you’re left with is a headache. If Stella had the power that should come with her title, I think she would’ve canceled both shows a long time ago.

from the New York Times:https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/03/movies/guardians-of-the-galaxy-vol-3-review.html

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3

By Maya Phillips
Published May 3, 2023

Animal lovers, comic book fans and unofficial adjudicators of narrative continuity, action and style in the Marvel Cinematic Universe: Lend me your ears. “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3” is not the movie for you.

Perhaps this dour, visually off-putting two-and-a-half-hour A.S.P.C.A. nightmare of a film is only for completionist fans like myself, arriving at the theater armed with overpriced popcorn and the hope that the director James Gunn’s latest could replicate the romp and anti-gravity gambol of the first.

For those who need help getting their multiversal timeline untangled, “Guardians” is the second film of the so far ecstatically bad Phase Five of the M.C.U., after the, to quote my colleague, “thoroughly uninspired” “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.” We last caught our whole team of lovable riffraff together in “Avengers: Infinity War,” when Thanos (Josh Brolin) threw his adopted daughter and galaxy guardian, Gamora (Zoe Saldaña), into an abyss to get one of the Infinity Stones, which he used to snap away half of the universe. (There were some dancing Groots and a cute holiday special about abducting Kevin Bacon, but — sorry, Kev — they were irrelevant.)

Now the Guardians are settling in at Knowhere, a community in the severed head of a celestial that serves as their home base. With Gamora gone, Peter (Chris Pratt), a.k.a. Star-Lord, is still grieving, unaware of the fact that somehow Gamora — or, rather, a variant — is alive, sans her memories of him and the Guardians. When, a few minutes into the film, Rocket (voiced by Bradley Cooper) becomes victim to a deadly attack, the team is reunited with a hostile, partially amnesiac Gamora, who is reluctantly dragged into their plot to save him.

While Rocket is in critical condition, Peter and company do some risky snooping through Rocket’s traumatic back story to figure out how to save his life and stop the man pursuing him, the High Evolutionary (Chukwudi Iwuji). A powerful god-figure, the High Evolutionary has genetically altered Rocket, other animals and even children to create a perfect race to inhabit his imagined utopia. (Yes, that’s another Nazi-coded villain for your Bingo card.)
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So much of “Guardians 3” seems to erupt from left field, most prominently the main story, which is driven by Rocket, even though the Guardians have mostly played second-string to Star-Lord, the plot-driving hero. The shift makes sense given the role this film plays as the end of the trilogy, resulting in a Guardians team with a different starting lineup and an unclear position in the context of the rest of the M.C.U. But the shift also feels belabored and emotionally manipulative; scenes upon scenes of shot, blown up, tortured and incinerated C.G.I. animals with big, emotive eyes are as merciless as clips of injured animals set to a Sarah McLachlan song.

It seems “Guardians” needs this much gratuitous trauma bait to establish its stakes and prove that the bad guy is, in fact, bad. Which is unfortunate because Iwuji, who offered a much more nuanced performance in Gunn’s edgy-fun DC Extended Universe series, “Peacemaker,” is left with just a thin silhouette of an antagonist to work with here. (Will Poulter and Elizabeth Debicki also appear as idiotic secondary antagonists, for no real reason.)

Something like Thanos Lite or a knockoff Dr. Frankenstein, the High Evolutionary represents one of the central problems the franchise is facing in a post-“Endgame” M.C.U.: characters and circumstances that pale in comparison to Thanos and his cataclysmic, conclusive multi-arc-spanning plotline. Because at least the extent of Thanos’s power and the roots of his villain philosophy were clear. “There is no god — that’s why I stepped in,” the High Evolutionary says at one point. This tiny germ of a motivation does nothing but indicate all the questions that the film could have answered about this character to make him more interesting. Surely an atheist with a narcissistic personality and obsessive-compulsive disorder has some deeper psychology to unpack. Ah well.

Though this “Guardians” is certainly less fun than the others, there are still glints of joy in the more mundane and ancillary quibbles among the found family of misfits. Dave Bautista gives another priceless performance as Drax, and Bautista’s signature chemistry works with Pom Klementieff as Mantis. Groot (Vin Diesel) has leveled up in the bang-bang-shoot-em-up category, as has Nebula (Karen Gillan). Though the film makes no attempt to explain the logic behind Gamora’s magical reappearance (“I’m not some infinity stone scientist!” Peter exclaims after trying to puzzle things out), it does at least give Saldaña the opportunity to reinvent her character, which she manages beautifully. The same for Rocket, who gives an Oscar-worthy performance — via Cooper’s great voice acting, of course, but also via the animation, which makes his faces, postures and movements look so unbelievably believable.

Gunn makes the curious, bold choice to chase an unpleasant aesthetic that’s part Cronenberg, part “Osmosis Jones.” A series of scenes take place in a ship fashioned like viscera and innards, with fleshy globules and architectural dendrites, often in nude tones. Squishy sound effects add an unwelcome layer of grossness.

Even when the movie switches back to the more lambent palette of nebulae and the luminous shine of the stars, Gunn’s direction doesn’t serve the full tableau. His camera is too voyeuristic, spinning enthusiastically on every axis during group fight scenes rather than giving us a steady look at the choreography.

At least this “Guardians,” like the previous ones, stays on beat with a fantastic soundtrack of Spacehog, Beastie Boys and Earth Wind & Fire. But pumping soundtrack aside, after a breakout hit and the sequel, “Everything Would Have Been Fine if Your Dad the Space God Played Catch With You: The Movie,” this final piece of the trilogy makes one thing apparent: “Guardians” was just a one-hit wonder.

 Miles Morales: Spider-Man (2018) #29-32

   Ever since this character was created, there's been something I've found mightily enjoyable about it. Sometimes though, it comes off as a little pandering. Nothing really says 'diversification' more than a black/Puerto Rican Spider-Man created by a bunch of white people to really drive the point. The good news though is that it's easy to get past that when you're simply seeing what this character is on it's base - a new, young Spider-Man. What could be better when you get down to brass tacks?

   Miles was recently cloned, and now has to find a way to help one of his new, malformed brothers. HE has to make it quick though, because Starling is in trouble thanks to one of our favorite old school baddies, Taskmaster. Only problem: He couldn't kidnap and deliver his victim fast enough. Soon as time runs out on the contract, Tasky bails. Who was his employer? We'll have to wait to find out.