The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (2013)

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire

from Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hunger_Games:_Catching_Fire

Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark have settled into a life of material comfort and emotional unease back in District 12 following their joint victory in the 74th Hunger Games. President Snow visits Katniss and explains that her actions in the Games — specifically, her would-be suicide pact with Peeta — have inspired uprisings across Panem. He orders her to use the upcoming Victory Tour to convince him that her actions were out of love and not defiance against the Capitol, warning her that her friends, family, and everyone else in District 12 will otherwise face execution. Katniss' mentor, Haymitch, later warns her that Victors of the games must serve as mentors to future tributes and that their show of love will be forced to continue for the rest of their lives.

Unrest and protests are on display in many Districts over the course of the Victory Tour, as is brutality by local Peacekeepers. Peeta and Katniss subsequently announce their engagement in an attempt to quell the Districts. At an upper-class party concluding the tour, Snow publicly toasts them but subtly signals to Katniss that he remains unconvinced. During the festivities, Katniss meets enigmatic new head Gamemaker Plutarch Heavensbee. Peacekeepers led by the brutal Commander Romulus Thread begin to mercilessly raid homes and other places throughout District 12, placing the citizens under curfew. Katniss's friend Gale is publicly whipped after tackling Thread to stop him from killing civilians; he is saved by Katniss and the other victors. Heavensbee tells Snow that the rebellion cannot survive Katniss’ new celebrity status as a victor.

The upcoming 75th Hunger Games - the third "Quarter Quell" — is announced, with tributes set to be selected from previous victors. Katniss devotes herself to ensuring Peeta survives. On Reaping Day, Haymitch's name is drawn, but Peeta immediately volunteers to take his place. The adult tributes, accustomed to a safe and comfortable life as victors, are openly angry about being forced to return to the Games. For her pre-Games interview, Katniss wears a wedding dress, as ordered by Snow, but her stylist Cinna sets it to transform into a symbol of a mockingjay. Peeta then announces that he and Katniss have married in secret and are expecting a child. The citizens protest for the Games to be stopped, but to no avail. Just before Katniss enters the arena, Cinna is severely beaten by Peacekeepers in front of her as punishment for his tampering with her dress and then dragged away.

In the Games, Katniss and Peeta ally themselves with the District 4 tributes, playboy Finnick Odair and his elderly mentor Mags. When the arena's forcefield shocks Peeta, stopping his heart, Finnick resuscitates him. The group is later forced to flee from a poisonous fog; when Peeta cannot go on, Mags sacrifices herself so that Finnick can help him. The group discovers that water removes the gas-induced blisters. When mandrills attack, Peeta is saved by the unexpected sacrifice of a drug-addicted tribute from District 6. The group escapes to the beach, where they meet up with Beetee and Wiress, a pair of scientist tributes from District 3, and acerbic District 7 tribute Johanna Mason. Wiress, who has suffered a nervous breakdown, repeats the phrase "tick-tock", leading Katniss to realize that the arena is designed like a clock, with regular hazards each hour contained within their respective zones. Wiress's throat is slit by Gloss, one of the Careers from District 1. Gloss is then fatally shot by Katniss while Johanna kills his sister, Cashmere. Finnick is injured by another Career. Heavensbee has the Gamemakers spin the clock to disorient the tributes.

Beetee suggests luring the rest of the Careers to the wet beach and electrocuting them, taking advantage of the lightning that strikes every 12 hours. The group separates to prepare the trap, laying down wire. When District 2 tributes Brutus and Enobaria emerge, Johanna stuns Katniss, cuts the tracker out of her arm and flees. Katniss finds an unconscious Beetee. Unable to find Peeta, and hearing a cannon, Katniss almost kills Finnick, thinking he betrayed them, but he reminds her to "remember who the real enemy is". Katniss attaches wire to an arrow and shoots it into the arena roof just as lightning strikes. The lightning is conducted along the wire, causing the arena shields to fail and the roof to fall, and Katniss is knocked unconscious.

Katniss awakens in an aircraft with Haymitch, Finnick, a still-unconscious Beetee, and Heavensbee, who is revealed to be a rebel against Snow. Haymitch tells her they are bound for District 13, headquarters of the new rebellion. He reveals that half the tributes were in on a plan to rescue Katniss, a symbol of the growing rebellion, but that Peeta and Johanna have been captured. A distraught Katniss is sedated after attempting to attack Haymitch for violating his promise to save Peeta. She awakens to find Gale by her side, who reassures her that her family is safe but that District 12 has been destroyed by the Capitol.

from TV Line: https://tvline.com/2022/04/28/the-offer-recap-premiere-episode-1-the-godfather-paramount-plus/

The Offer S1 Ep 1: A Seat At The Table

By Dave Nemetz / April 28 2022, 3:30 PM PDT

Paramount+’s new limited series The Offer tells the behind-the-scenes tale of how the classic film The Godfather made it to the big screen — but not everyone was happy to see it get there.

Thursday’s premiere begins years earlier: As New York gangster Joe Colombo (Giovanni Ribisi) looks to move up in the Mafia hierarchy, Hollywood studio executive Robert Evans (Matthew Goode) faces a financial crisis at Paramount Pictures and Albert S. Ruddy (Miles Teller) is a bored computer programmer at the Rand Corporation. Al meets a TV writer friend for a drink at L.A.’s Chateau Marmont, and when he sees Evans holding court (and a girl eagerly sits in his own lap), he decides: “I’m in the wrong f–king business.”

Book author Mario Puzo (Patrick Gallo) is thinking the same thing after his latest novel flops. When his agent suggests he write a book about the Mafia, he scoffs: “So they can put a bullet in my head?” But he’s racked up serious debts all over town, and his wife encourages him: “F–k art, Mario. Start typing.” He comes up with an idea about a powerful mob family where the youngest son wants nothing to do with the family business but gets pulled in anyway. (Sounds promising!) Meanwhile, as Al catches the eye of the Chateau Marmont’s sultry owner Francoise (Nora Arnezeder), he reveals he’s a TV fan well-versed in sitcom formulas, and he and a TV actor land a pitch meeting at CBS. Their first idea is met with silence, but their second one — a comedy about World War II POWs that would become Hogan’s Heroes — gets bought on the spot.

Al isn’t satisfied with the small screen, though. After seeing Planet of the Apes with Francoise, he decides he wants to produce movies, and he ambushes Evans on the Paramount lot, quickly earning himself a gig as a producer. (Ted Lasso‘s Juno Temple plays his smart-cookie assistant Bettye.) Al even talks Robert Redford into starring in a motorcycle racing movie, flying down to the Butch Cassidy set to woo him. Mario’s book The Godfather becomes a smash hit, with fans lining up down the block to buy it and an option to make a movie. But Colombo, who just earned a seat in the New York mob’s inner circle, doesn’t like the sound of it.

Evans entertains a pair of executives from Paramount’s parent company Gulf + Western, and though Warner Bros. is offering them a million dollars for the rights to The Godfather, he convinces them to say no, pitching the movie as a potential gold mine. Al’s movie with Robert Redford flops hard, but Evans puts him on a plane to New York to sell his vision of The Godfather to the Gulf + Western brass. Al speed-reads the book on the plane and tells the execs: “I’m going to make an ice-blue, terrifying film about people you love.” Somehow, that works! He gets the green light, and he wants Mario to write the screenplay, over Evans’ objections.

Mario says he’s the only one who can write this movie — and even promises to finish the script in three days. He gets into a scuffle with Frank Sinatra, though (Ol’ Blue Eyes was not a fan of the book’s Sinatra-like character Johnny Fontaine), and weeks go by without him writing a single page. Someone suggests Francis Ford Coppola, who’s hot after writing Patton, and Al meets with him, but Coppola hesitates: “I don’t want to glorify Mafia violence.” He’ll only do it if he can direct, and he and Al surprise Evans at a restaurant, with Coppola pitching his grand vision for The Godfather as a retelling of the American Dream and a story about family. “You need an Italian to tell this tale,” he declares — and Evans agrees, giving him the gig.

But Joe Colombo and his fellow mobsters are still fuming about the book, and when news of the movie comes out, Sinatra sends them a funeral wreath of flowers with a message: “Hopefully, we can make this thing go away.” Sure enough, after a dinner with Mario and Coppola, Al and Bettye get into their car to drive home… and a man walks up with a shotgun and blasts out their rear windshield.

Amazing Spider-Man #61-66: King's Ransom

Amazing Spider-Man #61-66:

King's Ransom

The return of one of the most dangerous artifacts in the Marvel Universe! The Lifeline Tablet has plagued Spider-Man's life more than once. Mayor Wilson Fisk wants its secrets, and he'll happily kill Boomerang to get his hands on the stone! But doesn't he know Spidey is Boomerang's roommate? The wall-crawler must pull out all the stops to prevent the Kingpin from wielding nigh-ultimate power, including assembling his street-level allies and donning an all-new costume! Plus: What fate awaits star-crossed lovers Randy Robertson and the Beetle? Find out as the years-old enmity between their fathers - Robbie Robertson and Tombstone - boils over once more! And all-out war erupts as the super-crime lords of the Marvel Universe compete at the whims of the Kingpin!

The Amazing Spider-Man (2018) #61

Published:
March 10, 2021Writer:
Nick Spencer
Penciler:
Patrick Gleason
Cover Artist:
Patrick Gleason


Peter Parker gets a new job! Spidey gets a new look! And Kingpin's plans start coming together!

The Amazing Spider-Man (2018) #62

Published:
March 24, 2021Writer:
Nick Spencer
Penciler:
Patrick Gleason
Cover Artist:
Patrick Gleason


NEW COSTUME DEBUTS! Kingpin makes it personal with Peter Parker and New York City itself will pay the price! And another fuse lit more than thirty issues ago reaches its explosive destination.

The Amazing Spider-Man (2018) #63

Published:
April 07, 2021Writer:
Nick Spencer
Penciler:
Federico Vicentini
Cover Artist:
Mark Bagley


We all the know the romantic story of R&J! Star-crossed lovers, deep-seeded family enmity, tragic ending…Wait, who are Romeo and Juliet? We're talking about Randy and Janice! Yep, Peter Parker's roomate and The Beetle have been dating and that information finally gets out to their fathers…The Tombstone/Robbie Robertson beef has been brewing since 1988 and is back, big time!

The Amazing Spider-Man (2018) #64

Published:
April 21, 2021Writer:
Nick Spencer
Penciler:
Federico Vicentini, Mark Bagley
Cover Artist:
Mark Bagley


Tombstone and Robbie are at each other's throats and much of Spider-Man's life is collateral damage. Does this have anything to do with Mayor Kingpin's moves of late? Short answer - yes.

The Amazing Spider-Man (2018) #65

Published:
May 05, 2021Writer:
Nick Spencer
Penciler:
Federico Sabbatini, Federico Vicentini
Cover Artist:
Mark Bagley


It is ALL OUT WAR! All the super crime lords of the Marvel U are competing at the whims of Mayor Wilson Fisk! Their task? Get the Tablets of Life & Destiny and Death & Entropy. Also, KILL BOOMERANG! Spider-Man, Randy and Robbie Robertson are caught in the cross-fire!

The Amazing Spider-Man (2018) #66

Published:
May 19, 2021Writer:
Nick Spencer
Penciler:
Mark Bagley
Cover Artist:
Mark Bagley


On the other side of King's Ransom, Spider-Man is left to pick up the pieces. If he can manage to put them together he is going to be horrified with what he finds!

from the Expanse wiki: https://expanse.fandom.com/wiki/Abaddon%27s_Gate_(episode)

The Expanse S3 Ep 13: Abaddon's Gate

What did you miss? For a review of the last episode, click HERE

Abaddon's Gate starts from Clarissa's point of view; she is observing Holden trying to talk to Miller. At first, Holden's attempts are without luck. Eventually though, from the camera view watching the prisoners, Holden's conversation appears to be with no one. After a bit of back and forth seemingly with himself, Holden goes to the camera and claims he know how to fix the situation. Holden explains that the Ring Station is considering any ship to be a threat after the skiff was blown up with a nuclear device. Holden believes, if they turn off all the fusion reactors in the system, they will be able to lower the security on the ring station, releasing anyone who has been caught over the speed limit. Holden asks Amos and Alex to get Monica Stuart to do a public announcement relaying Holden's plan to save everyone stuck in the Ring System.

With the pleas of Anna, Alex and Amos are able convince Monica to join them. With the help of Naomi, the group sets up, connecting directly into the communications network via a substation, so they cannot be stopped remotely once they start the broadcast. Anna sits down with Amos, and they discuss that after the conflict everyone needs to find a way to understand each other and explain why the choices they made matter. Anna ends saying hate is a burden one doesn't have to carry along with oneself.

With the help of some loyal Drummer security crew members, Drummer, Holden, and Naomi head to the power control of the Behemoth. They will need to be able to shut down the fusion core with the other ships.

On the bridge, in reaction to Holden's plan, Ashford sends Diogo to stop Holden, Naomi and Drummer. When the bridge crew hears Drummer and Holden explain why they should shut down the reactors, Ashford disagrees and continues with his plan of firing the communication laser. When Grigori, hero of the belt, comes forward and asks Ashford to at least try shutting down the reactor, Ashford shoots Grigori, killing him. The MCRN Captain, Chandra Lucas, responds by instructing Bobbie's team to stop Monica's group from broadcasting at the substation. Clarissa, who is on the command deck after being released from captivity because she is an electrician, gets Ashford to remove the chemical restraint around her bicep.

When Bobbie's team arrives at the substation, she finds Alex and Amos. Alex and Bobbie establish a ceasefire, putting down their weapons. While Bobbie and Alex are talking, one of the MCRN Marines, Pvt. Trepp, jumps on Alex. In response, Bobbie takes out the other MCRN Marine, Pvt. Oshi. When the remaining MCRN Marine levels his rifle preparing to shoot Alex, Amos promptly fires a single shot through the center of the private's forehead. When Bobbie declares the room clear and places her weapon on the ground, Alex finds that she was shot in the skirmish.

In an attempt to escape Diogo and two other Behemoth security agents in Goliath powered armor, Holden, Naomi and Drummer get into vacuum suits and head up the long elevator shaft running the length of the Behemoth. Holden, with some cover fire from Drummer, throws a couple grenades down the shaft disabling two of the power armored pursuers. When they find Diogo is still on their tail, Drummer stops, takes Holden's grenades and says she will take care of Diogo. Right when Drummer is expected to sacrifice herself, an elevator along the shaft hits Diogo. The elevator compartment, like a car hitting a fly, continues to race down the shaft like nothing happened, crushing Diogo. Holden and Naomi attempt to enter the command deck but when Holden sees the entrance is well-guarded, he releases his weapon and declares he is unarmed.

When the laser finally charges up, Ashford fires, but misses the ring. He immediately demands to line up for a second shot. During this time, the other ships in the system begin to shut down their fusion cores. Before Ashford fires, Clarissa throws a guard across the room, and dives quickly toward Ashford to tackle him. After momentarily knocking out Ashford, Clarissa leaps toward the power relay box containing the power modules she learned about earlier in the season. Applying the tip Ren taught her, Clarissa reverses the power buffer, causing a cascading effect, leading the power to shut down throughout the ship.

When power comes back, gates around the Slow Zone which had previously been unseen or dormant begin to open up. Any of the conflicts that were in progress aboard the ship cease. Later, the Rocinante begins to leave the Gate System with Clarissa in a med bay with Anna by her side. A recovered Bobbie straps into the gunner seat of the Rocinante beside Alex. In a monologue during Holden's vision, he has a chat with Miller on a strange beach, one of the planets now accessible through the ring network. Holden thinks that Miller wasn't always honest with his intentions. He suspects all along it was just Miller's ploy to open up the gates. Without denying the accusations, Miller asks if Holden can give him a ride. As the Rocinante is transiting through the gate, some sort of energy appears to enter Holden.

from Vulture: https://www.vulture.com/2018/07/yellowstone-recap-season-1-episode-3-no-good-horses.html

Yellowstone S1 Ep 3: No Good Horses

What did you miss? For a review of the last episode, click HERE

Yellowstone Recap: Mama Tried
By Noel Murray



Two weeks ago — before Yellowstone took a break to celebrate our American Independence — I wrote that I was going to keep relegating the life and times of Beth Dutton to the bottom of every review, until she was allowed to do more in this story than just be a colorfully abrasive femme fatale. Given that Beth looms so large in this week’s “No Good Horses,” though, it’d be pretty much impossible to confine her to “The Last Roundup.” If I did that, this entire recap would run about three paragraphs … all trying to make sense of whatever the heck was going on in Kayce’s story line.

Don’t fret, I’ll get back to Kayce. First we have to deal with the highs and lows of the Beth scenes in “No Good Horses,” which run the gamut from an overly pat flashback to the moment when Beth turned evil to a hyperbolic fight with her brother Jamie that points toward potentially fruitful new directions for both characters.

The flashback serves as this week’s cold open. Once upon a time, Beth was a skittish adolescent, who irritated her mother Evelyn (played by Gretchen Mol) with her lack of confidence. Then one day, a moment’s hesitation during a horseback ride led to Evelyn landing hard on the ground and getting crushed by one of the animals. The accident killed her, and ever since then Beth has channeled her guilt into becoming the ornery pain in the ass her mom always wanted her to be.

As explanations for jerkiness go, this one’s both richly tragic and awfully pat. It feels like “Beth is a hellion” came first when writer-director-producer Taylor Sheridan was developing Yellowstone, and then “Beth is emotionally damaged because she inadvertently killed her mother” got filled in later, hastily. I’m not sure how much Sheridan has invested in that backstory.

Kelly Reilly, though, is definitely giving the character her all — including in a present-day scene, set on the anniversary of Evelyn’s death, where she grabs some booze, doffs her clothes, and takes a bath right in front of the Dutton mansion. If Sheridan wants an unpredictable Tennessee Williams heroine in his show, Reilly’s clearly game.

The problem is that Beth’s scenes continue to seesaw wildly between electrifying and embarrassing. When a naked Beth belittles Jamie and snarls that she’s not in the mood “to explain why we don’t have the same pee-pee,” that’s … not a great line. Similarly, the long, tortured, and overwritten conversation she and Jamie have late in the episode — where he compares her to a cancer that kills its host and then dies itself, and then she goads him into punching her — is at once riveting and icky.

Still, as with the previous episode, the ungainliness of “No Good Horses” makes it fascinating to watch even at its most ill-advised. And as I mentioned up top, the episode leaves Jamie and Beth in a place that could generate good stories going forward. Jamie convinces their dad John that the Dutton family legacy and fortune isn’t automatically translating into power anymore in modern Montana, and that they need some actual political leverage. So Jamie’s planning to run for attorney general, whether or not his father approves. As for John, he’s persuaded Beth to run for a seat in the legislature. She hates Montana, hates the ranch, and has no interest in politics. But she feels obliged to her father, and he to her, because of what happened to Evelyn.

Again, the psychological underpinnings of these relationships and motivations aren’t that compelling. But in these early episodes, some of Yellowstone’s best material has been about all the political maneuvering in Montana. (This week, for example, John calls in pretty much every favor he’s owed in order to get Thomas Rainwater thrown in jail for stealing his cattle.) Putting the far-sighted Jamie, the old-school John, and the wild card Beth into the mix at the same time — each potentially working at cross-purposes — could help elucidate this show’s vision of how things get done in the 21st-century American West.

We saw in Beth’s first-ever scene on this show that her brazen amorality can overwhelm any room filled with businessmen and politicians. The big question is whether she’s ultimately going to use her wiles to promote the Dutton family’s interests, or if she’s just going to be a troll, for kicks.

We’re left to ponder this at the end of the hour, when we see Beth having a drink with John’s nemesis Dan Jenkins — who knows she’s going to be trouble, but can’t help but be drawn to her dangerous sexuality. “There better be beams of light between your legs,” he grumbles. “It’s like touching the sunrise,” she boasts. (“Ewww,” replies all of us watching at home.)

The Last Roundup

• So … what was up with that Kayce subplot? What’s been the deal with any of them, really? In episode one, he defended his home on the Broken Rock reservation from his own family, but ended up killing his brother-in-law. In episode two, he dug up a dinosaur, contemplated reenlisting in the military, and mercy-killed a man whose trailer exploded. This week, he drove past a van out in the desert, found what looked like two meth cooks and a kidnapped girl, then he hunted and killed the perpetrators (all while his son fought off a rattlesnake, for some reason). Kayce’s a likable character, well-played by Luke Grimes, but so far every time he appears in this show he’s stuck with the scraps of story ideas that Sheridan can’t seem to fit anywhere else. His scenes have also become the repository for Yellowstone’s Native American mysticism — represented in “No Good Horses” by the kidnapped girl’s father Danny Trudeau, who helps Kayce bury his victims’ bodies but demands that he burn their corpses to “trap their souls.” Okay.

• Josh Lucas makes his first Yellowstone appearance in this episode, playing the young John Dutton. He’s only in a few short scenes at the beginning, but he’s slated to return periodically, in what looks to be an ongoing series of flashbacks to the Dutton family’s origin stories. (If this TV show were a comic book, these sequences could be the filler pages at the back of the magazine: “Tales of Yellowstone!”) Lucas is a charismatic actor who’s always welcome on any screen, and he does an unexpectedly on-point imitation of the late-’80s Kevin Costner.

• Another guest star this week: Geno Segers as Danny. During his first ten years in the business, the burly, deep-voiced Segers has compiled a solid résumé as a character actor in shows like Banshee and Pair of Kings. But he’s still probably best known as the guy in the Navy Federal Credit Union commercial, who sarcastically deadpans about how much he adores his wife’s yappy little dog.

• During Yellowstone’s week off, Sicario: Day of the Soldado opened in theaters to decent box office but mixed reviews, tarnishing its screenwriter Sheridan’s brand a bit. Sheridan made his reputation with 2015’s Sicario, but amid the wave of negative reactions to the sequel, some critics have noted that they never much liked the original, either. I haven’t seen Soldado, and I still think Sheridan’s a major talent, even given how shaky Yellowstone’s been. But I do think he’s generated enough work by now as a writer and director to spot recurring themes and to assess his ability (or lack thereof) to explore them with assuredness and nuance. In the weeks ahead I’ll be doing just that, taking into account some of the harder critiques that have been leveled at him lately.

Don't Look Up (2022)

from Roger Ebert: https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/dont-look-up-movie-review-2021

Don't Look Up

by Nick Allen 

December 24, 2021

It takes a certain kind of touch, a populist brilliance, to know that “Milk was a bad choice” could help launch a comedy empire. Adam McKay had that when he scoured through the many improvised lines of “Anchorman,” and co-created what will probably be known as the last movement of American blockbuster comedy. And he continued that touch with the unmitigated triumph “The Big Short,” venturing to educate moviegoers about the housing crisis using movie stars and furious monologues. But McKay is mightily thwarted by the larger scope of “Don’t Look Up,” a hybrid of his comedic and dramatic instincts that only dreams of being insightful about social media, technology, global warming, celebrity, and in general, human existence. A disastrous movie, “Don’t Look Up” shows McKay as the most out of touch he’s ever been with what is clever, or how to get his audience to care.

If “Don’t Look Up” deserves any award, it’s for the work of its casting director, Francine Maisler. This Netflix movie is packed with so many big, expensive names, and it often puts them all in the same room. One scene has Leonardo DiCaprio, Ariana Grande, Cate Blanchett, Tyler Perry, and Jennifer Lawrence sitting next to each other, with Scott Mescudi (Kid Cudi) on a video feed for good measure. The amount of star power on-screen is set up for a once-in-a-lifetime comedy free-for-all, but “Don’t Look Up” uses this to make one of many anti-provocative jokes about how celebrity messiness compels us more than the death of our planet. Get used to that rise of anticipation and crash of execution if you want to be unsurprised by "Don't Look Up."

The movie's first bungled joke concerns its biggest name, Leonardo DiCaprio, who plays a low-level astronomer from Michigan. McKay takes the nuclear energy within golden boy DiCaprio, the kind that gets him Oscar nominations year after year, and makes him swallow it so that he turns into a mildly amusing Will Ferrell character. The ulcers for DiCaprio’s Dr. Mindy are especially bad after his assistant Kate Dibiasky (Jennifer Lawrence) casually makes a horrific discovery: a comet is coming for planet Earth in six months and 14 days. They quickly want to let the world know, and realize in the coming days that people don’t care about bad news about the future.

Their initial audience for their news is the President of the United States, played by Meryl Streep. When she does finally take a meeting with them, she’s more concerned about her polling numbers, how things will look; an apocalypse won’t help the upcoming primaries. McKay begins to needle the viewer with the joke that no one cares about the end of the world as much the latest distracting scandal. There’s no respite offered from Jonah Hill, who plays a mildly funny character—her chief of staff, and sociopathic son—but is reduced to easy bro jokes. Like many characters, you can see the reflection of what it means, but the joke often ends at recognition. And because the movie’s editing is complicit in the short attention spans that McKay nonetheless rages against, it tends to intercut different framed pictures of Streep’s President Orlean with various celebrities, or hop from one scene to another while characters are talking mid-sentence.

Mindy and Dibiasky then take their message to the media, but the platform is a banter-heavy morning show (hosted by vacuous characters played by Perry and Blanchett) where the producers try to smooth their story into a cutesy scientific discovery in between the aforementioned Grande incident. Only one of the astronomers makes it out of the studio appearance without turning into a national meme—and no one takes their screed seriously—but it sets them on contrasting paths of popularity, becoming the media distraction themselves. Credit to moments when the chaos of "Don't Look Up" feels inspired, watching Leonardo DiCaprio use his Oscar-approved volume to scream “We’re all going to die” on a “Sesame Street”-like show is funny.

But of the many exciting names who are then wasted on this movie’s limited sense of humor, Blanchett is at the top of the list. She’s one of the best in the game, and McKay makes her plastic and cheap, and one of many characters who are not stretched out nearly enough in this high-art spoof. The same more or less happens to a forgotten Lawrence, or Streep, or Perry, or Melanie Lynskey, or Timothée Chalamet, as yet another grungy, lackadaisical, superficial pre-adult. And then there’s Rob Morgan, who plays a nothing sidekick to Lawrence and DiCaprio despite being just as good as them.

The plotting of “Don’t Look Up” isn't just anti-urgent, it also makes one constantly aware of what this movie is not doing. Aside from how it continuously makes you scrape the walls of its hollow comic sequences for a laugh, it does not say anything new about how misinformation became a political cause, or about how scandals are the true opiate for the masses, whether it involves a pop star or the president. It certainly has little to offer about the role technology plays in this, with Mark Rylance playing a half-Elon Musk, quarter-Joe Biden tech guru who calls the shots even more than POTUS. “Don’t Look Up” thinks it’s pushing many savvy political buttons, when it’s only pointing out the obvious and the easy, over and over.

McKay uses frustrating shorthand to create scope out of his scenario that concerns the whole world, but only when it cares to acknowledge it—the constant stock footage is so broad that it turns human existence into a generic nothingness (someone, lock him out of the stock!), and there’s little wit from its social media montages, which introduce a new hashtag after each public development, including the denier phrase that gives the movie its title. It’s an entertainer’s tired shtick dressed up as authorship—McKay has also made yet another talented cinematographer (in this case, Oscar winner Linus Sandgren), bobble the camera for the sake of feigning energy (one shot in particular looks like the camera is dropped right before it cuts away).

It’s almost irrelevant that this is McKay’s worst film yet, because there’s something far more maddening about the promise of, the potential, and the importance that “Don’t Look Up” foists upon itself. This is, of course, about global warming, and how we’re not doing enough about it—a funny premise for a star-studded comedy with disturbing stakes. But McKay has filled this parable with hot air, wanting us to marvel at and then choke on its mediocre jokes.

The Morning Show S2 Ep 2:
It's Like The Flu

What did you miss? For a review of the last episode, click HERE

from NPR: https://www.npr.org/2021/09/24/1039235977/the-morning-show-recap-season-2-episode-2-its-like-the-flu


by LINDA HOLMES
September 24, 20216:00 AM ET



Plot basics: Alex comes back to TMS, but not everyone is glad to see her. Bradley tells her they're going to be equals this time around. Cory tries to hold his team together. Mitch licks his wounds but loses a gelato.

The opening image of this week's episode is meant to represent the hard truth that New Year's Eve revelers in Times Square are gross. Well, they were gross, back when there were any, back when people crowded together without fear. So perhaps trash nostalgia is the appropriate emotion as the maintenance crews clean up after last week's big New Year's bash. Let's get right to these warm memories of early 2020, a time we all are eager to relive.
Alex and Bradley are mad

After the New Year's extravaganza, Cory breaks it to Bradley that Alex is going to come back. Bradley is very irritated and announces that she thinks she's going to be sick tomorrow (cough cough), so he shouldn't expect to see her at work.

What seems to be a couple of weeks later, Alex arrives at TMS accompanied by her team, including her agent Doug, played by Will Arnett. (He's not playing his character from 30 Rock, but if you imagine he is, it's a lot of fun.) Up on the executive floor where her new office will be, Alex is literally given a squeeing standing ovation by some of the young staffers like she's all the members of BTS, which ... I mean, okay. Settle down, youngs.

She's not really supposed to be there, because Cory and Stella haven't announced her return yet, even internally, because the deal isn't done and because they're still trying to sort out Bradley, who's still pretending to be sick in protest (cough cough). But she wanders around anyway and winds up being seen kind of a lot.

There's a bunch of maneuvering about contract negotiations, with both Bradley and Alex still figuring out their deals, and suffice it to say: I refuse to care about contracts unless something interesting happens.

There's going to be a dinner!

Cory suggests that he and Stella and Alex have dinner at his place to discuss the future. The guest list starts to grow, since Stella points out that they should invite Mia, and Mia thinks they should invite Bradley. Bradley will only go if they invite all the on-air talent, like Daniel and Alison (remember Daniel and Alison?), because "they have to be inclusive."

I honestly cannot tell how the show means for it to be received that Bradley throws her weight around to make sure that the rest of the group isn't marginalized. It would make a lot more sense were it not the case that much of the cast of the non-fictional Apple TV+ drama The Morning Show is marginalized! To whatever degree this act makes Bradley, the fictional character, look good, it makes The Morning Show, and perhaps even its marquee stars, look bad. Have said marquee stars similarly thrown their weight around to make sure that actors like Nestor Carbonell and Desean Terry and Karen Pittman (who play Yanko, Daniel and Mia) aren't marginalized? Because this is a show that's emphatically guilty of centering a small knot of white characters played by stars over everyone else, so is this an acknowledgment? Is it oblivious? No idea.

Bradley also calls Chip to ask for advice about Alex (which seems like a very weird move, given how Alex and Chip fell out last season), and Chip warns that Alex is out for herself, as he learned last season when she helped get him fired. (Again: Weird move.)

There is a dinner

The dinner at Cory's has expanded to include all the talent: Bradley and Alex, plus Daniel and Alison, plus Yanko, plus Ty, who seems to be the Weird Online Stuff correspondent in Daniel and Alison's bonus hour. There's also Cory and Stella and Mia, of course. Cory starts off the dinner by stepping outside to take a call from Sybil (the most major of the Major Suits), who orders him to fire Bradley. Instead of firing her, he goes to fetch her for the party (they live in the same hotel), telling her that her little "cough cough" act is going to get her in big trouble, and that Alex coming back is going to be great for her. He leaves without her, though, to return to his place.

Alex finds, once she arrives, that her reception is chilly: Daniel hasn't forgotten that she treated him badly last season, Alison makes a face over her shoulder when they hug, and only Yanko seems happy to see her. When Bradley shows up, she and Alex share a ULH (Uncomfortably Long Hug). The best part of this sequence comes when Daniel refuses to accept Alex's muttered private apology, telling her that she didn't need to make him "collateral damage" in finally doing the right thing. Or — and here's the best line — "you could have not needed a really exemplary woman to die to wake you up." Now that, in terms of responsibility and not letting characters off the hook, is the stuff. "Apology not accepted," he says. I like that scene, because it feels honest, and it makes Alex look terrible, and this show badly needs that moment of moral clarity.

The dinner party becomes a debate about covering the coronavirus and the news in general: Daniel thinks they should cover the virus, Stella thinks it won't be good TV, Yanko throws in his opinion that the impeachment trial then ongoing is a sham, etc. etc. Cory breaks it up with a toast about how great everything is about to be. I don't know whether this guy is the most optimistic executive in existence or whether he's fully delusional, but he's into the coming era.

The episode climaxes in a fight between Alex and Bradley in the hall, in which Bradley confronts Alex about quitting the show (apparently, Alex quit only a few days after their big moment) and leaving Bradley on her own. She says that if Alex is going to come back, they have to be more like equals. They proceed to argue about which of them sounds more privileged and ridiculous, and I am here to tell you, it is pretty much a tie. Bradley also throws in a jab at Alex about how she abandoned Chip, which leads to the episode's final scene, in which Alex goes to Chip's house and asks him to return as her producer. And even though she treated him like garbage, Chip goes right back to her, because of course he does. Chip, you are a doormat.

Mitch is still here, for some reason

Over in another story entirely, we hear the strains of an old recording, and we are in Italy, where Mitch (still part of the show! not sure why!) is staying in a huge villa on Lake Como in the lap of luxury. The ironic use of "Brother, Can You Spare A Dime?" as we spin around his obscene wealth is funny, and this is the one moment when a coherent tone about Mitch — in which he is a stupendously rich, spoiled dude who is awash in self-pity — emerges.

Or so it seems. Because soon after that, we move into a Poor Mitch segment, in which a young American woman sees Mitch eating a gelato in an outdoor cafe and walks up to berate him about how he's a predator and she doesn't want to see him hanging around. She is a cynical caricature of a self-absorbed millennial, and before long, an Italian woman (played by the charming Valeria Golino) leaps to Mitch's defense and exposes Self-Absorbed Millennial for having this confrontation with him filmed on a phone by a friend so she can put it on social media later and be famous.

It is hard to overstate how much I hate this scene. It casts Mitch as a victim and any lingering distaste for him as not only misguided but insincere. This is in spite of the fact that the last time we saw Mitch, he was still smug and self-righteous! His last big move was scheming to deflect blame and gaslighting and bullying Hannah! At this point in the story, Mitch has never expressed any public regret or taken any responsibility for anything. Leaping directly from "Mitch doesn't think he did anything wrong and is trying to fling the consequences of his behavior at other people" to "Poor Mitch, the outcast who can't eat gelato in peace" without Mitch having to do anything except retreat to an enormous mansion in Italy feels narratively deranged. Maybe he felt bad when Hannah died, but it is not in the feeling that you make things as right as you can; it is in the doing.

What's more, Valeria Golino follows Mitch to reassure him that no amount of apologizing or trying to do good will make any difference to these unfair people (reminder: he hasn't tried either of those things). "I guess there's no place that's a safe space from safe spaces," she says, sounding like various op-eds you may have read. Steve Carell plays the whole thing with his hands stuffed in his pockets, emphasizing Mitch's efforts to just shrink into the earth. Poor, poor Mitch.

Anyway, it turns out the woman is a documentary filmmaker who wants to "pick [his] brain," so she gives Mitch her number. You can expect plenty more where this came from.

It's fascinating to see that this show, which so recently seemed to be trying to catch the zeitgeist of the #MeToo movement, has apparently pivoted to try to catch the zeitgeist of the "cancel culture" panic, as if the two are mirror images, the harassed and the harasser both destroyed by These Broken Times We Live In. And they've done it without a stopover at the obviously complicated question of what apology or what amends might be appropriate, because Mitch simply hasn't made any, and he's jumped straight to this anyway. His misery is not making amends, after all; exiling himself does nothing for anyone else.

This "on the one hand, on the other hand" storytelling might be a canny strategy to maximize the number of viewers who feel like you care about their cultural anxieties. But of course, as between Hannah, who suffered the consequences of harassment and the covering up of same, and Mitch, who suffered the consequences of being revealed as a serial harasser, one of them is dead and one of them gets yelled at and lives in a castle. I'm not sure it's possible to keep one foot in each of those cultural moments and go for the attitude of "look, the thing is, this has all been painful for everyone," but it sure seems like they're going to try.

Also afoot

Network shenanigans: The Minor Suits are arguing about what to do about Hannah's parents and their lawsuit. Cory has had enough: Just pay them, he says. The matter of an NDA comes up, and one of the minor suits (the one who played Crystal Bernard's cheesy boyfriend Davis on Wings) points out that they don't really need an NDA, since Hannah is dead and everything. Cory fires him on the spot and dismisses the rest of the Minor Suits, singing to himself the "did he ever return, no he never returned" refrain from "MTA," which suggests that Cory was raised at a summer camp or by Bostonians, so that's interesting. The Major Suits are headed up by Sybil, who is played by Holland Taylor, so Chip would probably do well not to mess with her.

Maggie's book: The other thing going on is that Alex is stressed out — and everybody is stressed out — because Maggie (you remember Maggie, the reporter played by Marcia Gay Harden) has a book coming out about the show and Mitch and everything, and everyone wants to know what's in it.