My Cultural Diet

All that the rogue security unit android calling itself Murderbot (Alexander Skarsgård) wants is to be left alone so it can watch its favorite soap opera, The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon. But that’s going to be difficult when it also has to protect a group of future hippies exploring an unknown planet. Based on Martha Wells’ acclaimed Murderbot Diaries novels, Murderbot is an entertaining enough dark comedy that’s highlighted by Murderbot’s overriding contempt of humanity, as evidenced by Skarsgård’s wry commentary. However, it never feels quite as dark or comedic as it so obviously wants to be, be it the jabs at Murderbot’s hopelessly naïve clients or the series’ depiction of a bleak hyper-capitalist future. That said, I totally see why the series was renewed for a second season, and I had a good enough time that I’ll tune into Murderbot’s future escapades.

I haven’t exactly made a secret of my ambivalence with regards to the current crop of superhero movies. I had some higher hopes for Thunderbolts*, due in large part to its unconventional cast featuring the MCU’s miscreants and ne’er-do-wells led by Florence Pugh’s Yelena Belova. In the end, though, Thunderbolts* is perfectly OK. I enjoyed it marginally more than Captain America: Brave New World, and that was mainly because of David Harbour’s turn as the lovably boorish Red Guardian. I think I’m mainly frustrated because the film had lots of potential but the our protagonists’ chemistry was often forced, Sebastian Stan rarely looked like he wanted to be there, the characters’ personal and psychological turmoil felt shallow, and the film’s big bad was rather underwhelming as far as MCU villains go.

Luke Indiana may have millions of followers on social media, but he’s still a washed up actor whose career and marriage are both on the rocks. While going through the motions at a fan convention, he encounters Lily, his number one fan (i.e., stalker). Before he knows what’s happening, Luke finds himself imprisoned in Lily’s home and forced to use his good looks and acting skills to survive — but will that be enough to outsmart his biggest fan? I enjoyed Alex de Campi and Erica Henderson’s Dracula, Motherf**ker last year, so checking out Parasocial when I saw it on the library shelf was a no-brainer. Unfortunately, Parasocial wasn’t nearly as enjoyable. To de Campi and Henderson’s credit, they inject some nuance into their characters; Luke’s not a complete tool and Lily’s desperate fantasy makes some sense in light of her living situation. Still, Parasocial plays out pretty much how you’d expect from a story about a star and their stalker. The book’s critiques of celebrity, extreme fandom, social media, and the illusive and inherently deceptive nature of entertainment are certainly valid, but also obvious and on-the-nose.

After hearing several friends rave about Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files, I finally checked out the first installment — and I see why now. Harry Dresden is Chicago’s only advertising wizard, a sort of magical private investigator who folks turn to when they need help with the supernatural (or at least think they do). However, Dresden is reluctant to rely on spellcraft to solve cases due to the dangerous nature of magic as well as certain aspects of his own past. Instead, he relies on intuition and quick-thinking, but those will only get him so far when people begin dying in spectacularly gruesome fashion, a new drug hits the streets, and a woman seeks Dresden’s help in finding her missing husband. It’s basically a blend of hard-boiled detective fiction (e.g., Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett) and wizard councils, vampires, and fairies — and it works pretty well. I read Storm Front in just two days, such is Butcher’s way with words. That said, I’m not sure how much further I’ll delve into the series. Though I enjoyed Dresden’s debut, I can see subsequent installments becoming increasingly formulaic.

J.D. Dawes (Chuck Norris) is a California trucker who also happens to be a martial arts master. (Why? Because it’s the ’70s, of course.) The latter comes in handy when his brother goes missing in the small town of Texas City, which is run by a crooked judge and filled to the brim with criminal activity. Soon enough, Dawes is roundhouse-kicking his way through the town’s populace while also catching the eye of a pretty young widow (Terry O’Connor). Breaker! Breaker! was Norris’ first lead role, five years after his famous appearance in The Way of the Dragon opposite Bruce Lee, and he acquits himself well enough, establishing the template that would be followed by pretty much every other Chuck Norris film in the ’70s and ’80s. Breaker! Breaker! is definitely fun in places; I might’ve cheered when Dawes revealed his ride, a souped up 4x4 Ford Econoline van with giant golden eagles painted on its sides and I do enjoy seeing corrupt backwoods judges and cops getting their butts handed to them. (On a side note, I wouldn’t be surprised if Jeremy Saulnier watched this in preparation for making Rebel Ridge.) But the film meanders in its final act and feels a lot longer than its 85-minute runtime, right up until its rather abrupt ending.

The Flight of the Navigator was my favorite movie as a kid — I must’ve watched it well over a dozen times on VHS — and it still holds up pretty well even today. Much of that’s due to Joey Cramer’s affecting and earnest performance as David Freeman, a 12-year-old boy who awakens eight years in the future with no memory of what’s happened to him and a mysterious connection to an alien spaceship. Cramer seemed on the verge of stardom in the late ’80s, but his post-Navigator life was dominated by drug abuse and various stints in jail and rehab. Life After the Navigator contains plenty of behind-the-scenes information about the film’s production thanks to numerous interviews with the cast and crew, all of whom obviously enjoyed their time making it. (I particularly enjoyed the interviews with the film’s conceptual artist and the two puppeteers who brought all of its aliens to life.) The documentary’s primary purpose, however, is chronicling Cramer’s life, and the former child actor opens up about his youth, experiences making the film, descent into addiction, and efforts to rebuild his life and career. If you don’t have any connection to Flight of the Navigator, then your mileage might vary here, but as a longtime fan, I found it alternately fascinating and moving, and I wish nothing but the best for Cramer’s ongoing recovery.

Thanks to the mystical Golden Ninja Warrior idol, the evil Ninja Empire is nigh invincible. Needless to say, when three of its members steal the idol’s pieces, the Empire is determined to retrieve the Golden Ninja Warrior and punish the traitors. Unfortunately, the bulk of Ninja Terminator has precious little to do with ninjas, mystical idols, and such. That’s because much of it’s actually footage from Kim Si-hyun’s The Uninvited Guest of the Star Ferry, a 1984 Korean film that has absolutely nothing to do with ninjas. As is his wont, director Godfrey Ho simply cut up Kim’s film, added in some random ninja scenes starring Richard Harrison, and smoothed over the rough edges with dubbing and editing. (Apparently, he did this to make Kim’s film more palatable to non-Asian audiences.) The mashup seems relatively cohesive at first, but no amount of dubbing or editing can hide the seams between the two films. Nor can the appearance of Tim Blake, Jean-Michel Jarre, and Logic System on the soundtrack. Eventually, Ninja Terminator becomes ridiculous and nonsensical in classic Godfrey Ho fashion, and I wish he’d just stuck with the Richard Harrison footage and its toy robots, cartwheeling and teleporting ninjas, oodles of eyeliner, and Garfield phones.

Shortly after they discover a small moon that contains what might be galaxy’s most hostile environment, two survivors of a horrific accident find themselves stranded on its surface. With little hope of survival, they embark on a perilous journey across its surface — a journey that brings them into contact with a bizarre alien species. Never let it be said that Adrian Tchaikovsky lacks imagination. Shroud is packed with fantastical descriptions of its titular world, one that’s awash in darkness and a cacophony of electromagnetic signals. But the novel gets so bogged down in the endless descriptions of Shroud and its alien life that the actual storytelling suffers, and the novel becomes as arduous as our protagonists’ grueling trek. Basically, Tchaikovsky wrote two novels — one from the survivors’ perspective and the other from the aliens’ perspective — but they never quite gel. Shroud does pick up a bit near the end, but I suspect that many readers will have checked out by then.

First things first: Ninja Knight Thunder Fox is an awesome title for a movie, and nothing you say can change my mind. Sadly, it has precious little ninja action compared to other Godfrey Ho movies. (That said, I do love the fact that the ninjas wear headbands emblazoned with the word “Ninja,” just to clear up any possible confusion.) Also known as Ninja Empire, Ninja Knight Thunder Fox is a prime example of Ho’s infamous cut-and-paste filmmaking. Cribbing scenes from a completely different film (Wen-Hsing Lai’s Fierce Lady) and mixing in his own footage, Ho uses slapdash editing and hilariously awful dubbing to create a new film about a modeling school terrorized by gangsters. Not surprisingly, the seams are painfully obvious. Case in point, our protagonists are two detectives named Brad (Marko Ritchie) and Bonnie (Hsu Ying-Chu) who own their own detective agency, and yet they never share a single scene together. Instead, they only ever talk on the phone, with the camera zooming in on Bonnie’s photo to sell the effect. Ho’s chutzpah is actually kind of endearing, if not entirely legal, and Hsu’s Bonnie puts some spirit into the film’s fight scenes even more so than the ninjas. And speaking of not entirely legal, the film blatantly uses sounds and music from Tangerine Dream, Re-Flex, Cocteau Twins, and Nightmare on Elm Street, though somehow I doubt Ho bothered to properly license any of it.

Working with an assortment of artists and illustrators, and blending narrative and journalistic writing, Nicolas Finet and Thierry Lamy attempt to create a visual chronicle of the late ’70s punk rock movement in all of its shapes and forms. Plenty of ink is devoted to punk rock’s most well-known exemplars: The Clash, The Ramones, and The Sex Pistols. But Finet and Lamy also highlight lesser known artists including The Saints, Sham 69, and Stiff Little Fingers and explore punk’s influences (e.g., MC5, The Stooges, British pub rock). The duo also cover female punk artists like Siouxsie Sioux and The Slits, the intersection of punk and rasta culture, punk’s confluence with hard rock, and its legacy in the form of post-punk and new wave. Although I’m not a huge punk rock fan, I have a pretty good understanding of the genre — or so I thought until I read Finet and Lamy’s graphic novel. Obviously a passion project, Punk Rock in Comics was eye-opening and educational, and best of all, gave me a slew of new bands and records to check out.

After a CIA analyst’s wife is killed in a terrorist attack, he demands that the agency track down her killers. But when his bosses ignore his request, he decides to take matters into his own hands — no matter the cost. The only thing is, he’s a nerdy analyst who possesses no field training whatsoever. I enjoyed watching Rami Malek’s analyst use his intellect and IT skills to track down and take out terrorists while also staying one step ahead of the CIA; this cat-and-mouse game was The Amateur’s best part. And the film’s subdued tone was a nice change of pace from 007-esque pyrotechnics. Unfortunately, there are times when he’s almost too good at his job, which strains credulity and undermines whatever tension the film so obviously wants to generate. Also, the attempts to depict the analyst’s grief and emotional turmoil feel heavy-handed at times, leading to an ending that’s too neat and tidy considering everything that transpires beforehand. On a side note, I’d totally watch a film about Caitríona Balfe’s character Inquiline.

Kat is a down-on-her-luck comedian stuck teaching improv classes. Marlon is a struggling actor who desperately wants to be taken seriously. And Hugh’s a meek office worker whose “soft skills” are sorely lacking. They’re failures on their own, but their improv talents prove surprisingly useful when a cop needs help with a simple sting operation. Unfortunately, our trio’s a little too good at improv, and they soon find themselves in way over their heads in London’s criminal underground. It’s a fun premise and Deep Cover is certainly entertaining, but I found myself wondering why I wasn’t laughing harder on more than one occasion. (Maybe I should just rewatch Key and Peele’s Keanu.) That said, I’m very tempted to give Deep Cover an extra half star just for Orlando Bloom’s performance as Marlon, the wannabe Brando who constantly turns the method acting up to eleven and gets far more intense than any given situation merits.

One does not look to Looney Tunes for subtlety. Even so, the never-ending barrage of over-the-top and outrageous jokes, pratfalls, and dialog in The Day the Earth Blew Up is exhausting and tedious. It doesn’t help that the vast majority of the film’s jokes feel dated right out of the gate. (A joke about stupid coffeeshop orders in the Year of Our Lord 2024? Really?) And the clueless henchman gag leaves one pining for the sublimity of Kronk Pepikrankenitz. Any moments of subversive glee — like Daffy trying to become an influencer by twerking on social media — are few and far between. On the one hand, I’m glad to see a modern Looney Tunes cartoon that clearly pays tribute to the classics with its artwork and music. On the other hand, The Day the Earth Blew Up has precious little of the sass and charm of those classics. (The fact that it had eleven writers and four story consultants probably didn’t help matters.)

The Quatermass Xperiment is considered the first proper horror film from the legendary Hammer Studios, which would ultimately become synonymous with the genre thanks in part to a string of Dracula films starring Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing. According to the Guinness Book of Records, it also holds the dubious distinction of being the only horror film to scare someone to death (a nine-year-old boy, tragically). Of course, watching it now, seventy years after its release, its story of a scientist racing to protect London from a possible alien virus that came back on a crashed rocket is more quaint than anything. (Interestingly, the titular hero is actually something of a jerk and egomaniac, and the film’s final shot suggests that he’s learned nothing from the preceding events.) At the same time, The Quatermass Xperiment is still a pretty enjoyable “classic” sci-fi/horror film, and the creature effects can still make your skin crawl, even after you see the strings.

With novels like The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and Sputnik Sweetheart, Haruki Murakami has written some of the most affecting prose I’ve ever read. His latest novel, The City and Its Uncertain Walls, starts off on a similar tack. When teen lovers are separated after the girl returns to the mysterious, walled in town from whence she came, the boy becomes obsessed with following her there — but does it really exist? The novel’s first third or so is intriguing, and characterized by Murakami’s trademark writing style (which is equal parts surreal, ambiguous, and poignant) and his usual themes of alienation, regret, and unrequited feelings. At some point, however, the novel began to feel haphazard and ramshackle, as if Murakami was just making things up as he went along, and I didn’t want to wade through all 670+ pages. The City and Its Uncertain Walls was first published as a short story in 1980. I haven’t read the original story, but I suspect that it does work better in a shorter form. Did not finish.

Sometimes you need to watch a movie simply because of its title alone, even if you know it’s going to be terrible. Case in point: Godfrey Ho’s Empire of the Spiritual Ninja (which is attributed to Ho’s Bruce Lambert pseudonym). Now, we can all agree that that’s a great title. But that’s really all the film has going for it. (Well, that and Sherman Chow’s proto-vaporwave soundtrack.) Employing Ho’s famous cut-and-paste filmmaking approach, Empire of the Spiritual Ninja is a truncated, barely coherent mess about police efforts to bring down the “Spiritual Ninjas,” a violent gang of ninja drug dealers led by the cruel — checks notes — Gordon. Fortunately, the CIA are also involved, and they’ve got a secret weapon: Captain Scott, who just so happens to be a ninja himself. Unfortunately, the silly ninja action is sadly lacking, making this less bearable than some of Ho’s other films. Also, the awesome cover artwork bears no resemblance, at all, to the film’s actual events. On a side note, the version currently streaming on Tubi was clearly ripped from a German VHS tape; it has burned in German subtitles and poor VHS tracking lines that gave me a near-physical reaction when they suddenly appeared. (If you ever had to adjust the tracking on an old, worn out VHS tape, then you’ll know exactly what I mean.)

By all rights, I should’ve hated this series. For starters, there’s its shameless appropriation of nerd and geek culture, which traffics in the simplest and most obvious clichés concerning comic books, Dungeons & Dragons, video games, etc. And then there are the characters, which are frequently insufferable and whose constant treatment of each other makes you wonder why they’re even friends in the first place. And yet, its short, bite-sized episodes made The Big Bang Theory perfect lunchtime viewing for my wife and I, and we thoroughly enjoyed it — and now that it’s over, we’re a little sad. We both agree that Mayim Bialik’s Dr. Amy Farrah Fowler was our favorite character, though we also enjoyed Howard and Raj’s “ersatz homosexual marriage,” Howard and Amy’s mutual love of Neil Diamond, and the various celebrity cameos (e.g., Wil Wheaton, Mark Hamill, Bob Newhart).

When a powerful noble is brutally murdered, the city of Orane is suddenly thrown into chaos. Landing somewhere in the middle of this chaos is Thierry Villar, a tavern poet of some renown whose primary claim to fame is insulting the wrong people with his verse. But his skills and charm as a poet may be precisely what saves his city and his nation. That’s certainly an interesting premise and protagonist for a fantasy novel. I appreciated how Kay sought to avoid the usual genre clichés while, at the same time, drew inspiration from European history to help ground his fictional world. But about halfway through the novel, I realized that I didn’t care one whit for the story or its characters. Furthermore, Kay’s prose lacked the depth and richness that I appreciated so much in earlier novels like Tigana and A Song for Arbonne. Did not finish.

The first Decline of Western Civilization film focused on L.A.‘s burgeoning punk scene circa 1979 – 1980 and specifically, bands like Black Flag, the Circle Jerks, Germs, and X. Nearly two decades later, Penelope Spheeris returned to L.A.‘s punk scene for the third Decline film. Although she interviews several bands (e.g., Final Conflict, Litmus Green, Naked Aggression), her primary focus is the city’s gutter punks: homeless kids who’ve fallen through the cracks and found a sense of identity and community in punk rock. The third Decline film is considerably more sobering than its predecessors, as punks with names like Why-Me?, Eyeball, Squid, and Spoon list their complaints and grievances with mid-to-late ’90s American society. Their criticisms aren’t necessarily wrong, but they can also come across as naïve and juvenile, particularly when the punks in question gleefully indulge in drugs, alcohol, and other nihilistic and self-destructive behavior. But even then, the film remains heartbreaking as the punks reveal the abuse, neglect, and rejection that drove them to the streets and express precious little hope for their future.

Tangentially connected to Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips’ Criminal series of noir comics (which, full disclosure, I have yet to read), My Heroes Have Always Been Junkies feels like a minor work by the duo. That said, even a “minor” work by Brubaker and Phillips is still pretty darn good and worth checking out. Teen addict Ellie chafes against the rules of the rehab clinic where she’s currently staying. But as she falls for a fellow addict, we learn more of her difficult past and her bizarre, even self-destructive idolization of addicts like Gram Parsons and Billie Holiday. I was actually a little underwhelmed by the story, which seems to follow a fairly clichéd path. But in classic Brubaker fashion, the graphic novel ends with a real gut punch that forces you to reassess everything you just read.