I appreciate the desire of director James Mangold et al. to send out one of cinema’s most iconic heroes in epic fashion. But Dial of Destiny is packed with so much stuff that it drags; adventurous globetrotting has never felt this sluggish. The Indiana Jones movies are famous for their rollicking action (think of Indy hanging onto that Nazi truck for dear life in Raiders of the Lost Ark or Temple of Doom’s mine cart chase), but Dial of Destiny’s major action sequences — a de-aged Indy (which actually looks pretty good) punching Nazis on a train, a tuk-tuk chase through Tangier — just go on and on and on. And on. And on some more. The film is not without delights (e.g., the always-great Mads Mikkelsen, Sallah, Antonio Banderas’ cameo) but it’s true saving grace is, not surprisingly, Harrison Ford. You can tell he wants to do right by Indy, and so he infuses the character with a sorrow that’s quite affecting, such as when Indy asks why he should stay in a world that’s passed him by or when he mourns a friend’s death. It’s just too bad the script also has him utter nonsense like “I’ve come to believe it’s not so much about what you believe, it’s how hard you believe it.” (The last few years of American politics should make it abundantly clear how utterly nonsensical that sentiment is.) Dial of Destiny is better than Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and maybe even Temple of Doom, but it could’ve — and should’ve — been so much better. Indiana Jones deserved as much for his final film.
My Cultural Diet
I haven’t been too impressed with Pixar’s recent output. Films like Incredibles 2, Onward, and Turning Red have their moments, but 2015’s Inside Out was their last true masterpiece. Elemental does nothing to break that streak. I went in with low expectations, so I was mildly surprised at times. (The sequence where Ember and Wade travel underwater to see the Vivisteria flowers is quite beautiful while Thomas Newman’s soundtrack has some cool non-Western elements.) However, Elemental suffers from the same issue as the Cars movies: it’s really hard to suspend disbelief with this sort of anthropomorphic storytelling. It just raises too many questions. Elemental does poke fun at that with the chain-link fence gag, but are we really supposed to believe that clouds, trees, and walking puddles built a glass city? Where did the technology come from, especially since fire is treated with suspicion, even outright hostility? And since clouds are water, can air and water elements reincarnate between each state, thus becoming functionally immortal? If I must watch an anthropomorphic tale, I’ll stick with Zootopia, which touches on similar themes but is far more entertaining and well-made, and has a better love story than Ember and Wade’s. (And since I’m already curmudgeonly, I’ll just say it: Wade is arguably the most annoying Pixar protagonist to date.)
Seven to Eternity is worth reading if only to feast your eyes on Jerome Opeña’s lush and intricately detailed art. Rick Remender has created a fantastical world that blurs the lines between sci-fi and fantasy with its super-powered warriors, floating cities, otherworldly realms, and bizarre creatures — and Opeña’s artistry, combined with Matt Hollingsworth’s colors, are more than a match for anything Remender conjures up. (The sketchbook in this deluxe edition only further exhibits Opeña’s impressive skill and attention to detail.) Story-wise, Seven to Eternity works on several levels. In its simplest form, it’s the quest of a dying man to avenge his father and defend his family from a god-like tyrant. But over the course of seventeen issues, Remender also lays bare mankind’s proclivity for self-delusion and justification, hatred, and blind adherence to ideology. And on another level still, it explores the legacies that fathers leave for their families, both good and bad. (If you’ve read Remender’s excellent Black Science, then you know he has a thing for difficult, dysfunctional father characters.) Seven to Eternity is grim and tragic throughout, with its protagonist pushed to various moral and spiritual extremes and compromises; there were a few times when I was tempted to put it down because of the direction I thought it was heading. But Remender manages to wrap things up in a suitable and satisfying manner — though it might ruin the rest of your day.
I’ve been fascinated by Dean Motter’s Mister X ever since I saw an ad for its CD-ROM in the pages of MacWorld back in the mid ’90s. Considered groundbreaking at the time, Mister X became (in)famous for its oft-delayed publication, behind-the-scenes drama, and revolving door of writers and artists that included the Hernandez brothers (Love and Rockets), Seth, and D’Israeli. Published in 2008 by Dark Horse Comics, The Archives collects the original Mister X run from the ’80s along with some other odds and ends, and it’s a very uneven work, artistically, narratively, and tonally (as you might expect given the aforementioned factors). Motter’s original premise is intriguing: Designed according to the theory of “psychetecture,” Radiant City was supposed to be a utopia. But its very architecture is now driving the citizenry insane, and the enigmatic Mister X — who claims to be Radiant City’s original architect — is desperately trying to save it without going mad himself. The original Mister X run is definitely a case where you can’t judge a book by its cover; the original series’ stunning covers, created by the likes of Dave McKean (The Sandman), Paul Rivoche, and Motter himself, suggest a far stranger and more interesting world and storyline than even the Hernandez brothers (with all of their delightfully detailed work) were able to create.
I went into this knowing nothing about it other than it starred actor/stuntman Alban Lenoir, who previously starred in the Lost Bullet films (which I really enjoyed). Lenoir plays a special agent tasked with infiltrating a vicious gang and flushing out a terrorist leader. Naturally, things get messy when he starts earning the respect of his new comrades and befriends the gangster’s lonely son, which complicates his loyalties and risks compromising his mission. The opening scene made me think that AKA was going to be something along the lines of Extraction — and then a final, shocking twist made it clear that it would be a much darker film. AKA has more on its mind than mindless action sequences — e.g., political corruption, France’s legacy of colonialism — and I appreciate action films that dig a little deeper to explore the tragic, traumatic nature of violence. But AKA is so dour and glum that it’s hard to stay engaged or care about what’s happening even with the heavier themes.
While I was reading Strange Skies Over East Berlin, I realized that I’d actually read it before. Which might suggest that this series is ultimately forgettable. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that. But I will say that I wanted to like this more than I did. An American spy living undercover in East Berlin is given a new mission: track down a mysterious alien vessel that crashed behind the Iron Curtain. But what he ultimately discovers could spell doom for the entire human race. I really dug the series’ premise of a world-weary spy forced to reflect on his morally dubious career after encountering bizarre alien phenomena; imagine John le Carré (The Spy Who Came In From the Cold) writing an episode of The X-Files. Sadly, the series barely scratches the surface of its potential. Some that’s undoubtedly due to its short length, at just four issues. Brevity and efficiency are good things, but in this case, the resulting storyline and characters are just a little too thin, and left me wanting more.
Ten friends, all dealing with the various trials and tribulations of adulthood, are invited to a getaway at a remote lake house by their mutual friend Walter. Everything seems perfect: the house is beyond luxurious, the lake is gorgeous, and Walter has planned a fun-filled week for everyone. But then they discover the awful truth. The rest of the world has come to a violent end, they’re the only surviving members of humanity, and their friend Walter is, in fact, a horrific alien “flesh tornado” who’s been secretly manipulating their lives and memories for years. I love the series’ premise — Tynion describes it as “The Big Chill as a sci-fi horror story” — and Álvaro Martínez Bueno’s moody artwork is consistently gorgeous. I was thoroughly engrossed, but unfortunately, the ending’s a bit underwhelming. That’s mainly because The Nice House on the Lake’s premise is so interesting and Tynion builds it up so well (with several twists and revelations thrown in for good measure) that any resolution would probably be on the unsatisfying side.
I didn’t enjoy this as much as the trilogy’s first book — 2021’s Shards of Earth — mainly because it suffered from being the middle book. A good deal of Eyes of the Void felt like Tchaikovsky was just biding his time and shuffling things around in preparation for the third book, Lords of Uncreation. As such, it lacked some of the urgency and momentum that I enjoyed so much in Shards of Earth. That said, the book’s fourth and final section — “Criccieth’s Hell” — ended it on a strong note, with Tchaikovsky once again unleashing his creative prose to describe the horrors of the galaxy’s most inhospitable planet as well as the unsettling discoveries that Idris Telemmier makes while plumbing the depths of “unspace” (the bizarre layer of (un)reality lurking just beneath real space) for clues on how to stop the world-destroying Architects.
A favorite of our family’s, and one of those movies that we can watch practically anytime, it’s that smooth and stylish. Watching it this time, however, I was a bit more bothered by how Julia Roberts’ character is essentially window dressing, a pawn in the game between two men. But the film’s focus is obviously on the heist, and there it shines, as a star-studded cast — including George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Don Cheadle, Carl Reiner, and Elliott Gould — develop an increasingly complex plan to knock over three casinos in one night. As with all heist films, it doesn’t all become clear until the very last minute. In the hands of a lesser director, the film’s “how they did it” sequence might be cheesy, even insulting to our intelligence. In the hands of Steven Soderbergh, however, they feel like a delightful surprise regardless of how many times you’ve see them.
The term “deconstruction” has become something of a four-letter word in some Christian circles, tantamount to heresy and apostasy as people reject or reinterpret the beliefs of their youth. But after watching Amazon’s Shiny Happy People, a four-part documentary on the Duggar family (of 19 Kids and Counting fame), I don’t really blame anyone who wants to deconstruct that sort of background. The series begins with the Duggars’ rise as unlikely reality TV stars as well as the bombshell that the oldest Duggar child, Josh, had sexually molested his sisters years before his family became a TV sensation. (Also discussed is father Jim Bob’s efforts to cover up Josh’s abuse.) From there, the series delves into the Institute in Basic Life Principles (IBLP), a Christian organization for which the Duggars, because of their fame, soon became chief ambassadors. Founded by Bill Gothard in the ’60s and accused of being a cult, the IBLP teaches extremely patriarchal views concerning the family and parenting — and has become embroiled in its own sex scandals. Shiny Happy People covers a lot (e.g., the Duggars’ family life, Josh Duggar’s case, the pitfalls of reality TV, IBLP’s teachings, Gothard’s own abusive behavior) and doesn’t always juggle its various themes successfully. But the extensive interviews with Duggar family members and friends, as well as former IBLP members, combined with archival IBLP footage, makes for a very compelling, and at times, horrifying watch — especially if, like my wife and I, you grew up in a conservative Christian environment. (Neither of us grew up with IBLP teachings. Nevertheless, we heard a lot of familiar language and ideas in the series’ four episodes.)
The Saturday morning before the Fourth of July seemed like the perfect time to watch the G.I. Joe movie, and in my pajamas natch. (All I was missing was a bowl or two of Lucky Charms.) As with any nostalgia-inspired viewing, the mileage definitely varies. A lot of the movie’s pretty awful, even beyond the spotty animation (e.g., the various “ethnic” accents and racial stereotypes, the emphasis on completely forgettable new characters). And the revelation that an ancient reptilian civilization called Cobra-La was — surprise! — the force behind Cobra all along is absolutely ridiculous. But also kind of awesome, albeit in a “I still remember what ’80s Saturday morning cartoons were like” sort of way, and I wonder how kids back then reacted to the movie’s Lovecraftian biological monstrosities. (My son was a bit incredulous that my parents would’ve let me watch this when I was his age.) I’m under no illusions, however: if I didn’t have any ongoing interested in the G.I. Joe franchise (thanks, in large part, to the various comics), I never would’ve watched this. That said, it’s still way more entertaining than all of the live-action G.I. Joe movies combined.
Given its premise — an interracial couple tries to repair the malfunctioning robotic child that they bought to help their adopted daughter connect with her Chinese heritage — After Yang could have easily been a maudlin, overly-dramatic “issues” film. It does touch on big issues: the challenges of transracial adoption, the fleeting nature of memory, the responsibility humans have to their technology. (Believe it or not, that last one brought to mind Ghost in the Shell.) But “subdued” and “muted” are the operative words for After Yang; there are no big cathartic “Hollywood” moments when a character (and by extension, the audience) has a big moral epiphany. At times, the film is almost too subdued, from the performances and sparse dialog to the languid pacing. (It is, however, uniformly gorgeous to watch, thanks to Benjamin Loeb’s cinematography and some luminous visual effects.) But that allows After Yang to develop a deeper emotional resonance that took me by surprise at times, and forces the viewer to really consider what happened. Back in the day, I used to run a film discussion group at my church; After Yang would be a perfect film for such a group to watch, discuss, and reflect upon.
You’d think watching Nazis get dispatched in gory, ignominious ways would be its own cinematic reward. But Sisu is very much a case of diminishing returns. It starts out strong, with our grizzled protagonist mining for gold in the wilds of Lapland amidst the chaos of World War II’s final days. The cinematography in these early scenes is striking, with a dark beauty that adds to the movie’s apocalyptic tone. Soon enough, however, Nazis are getting stabbed, shot, blown up by landmines, and crushed by tanks because — surprise! — our boy’s an infamous ex-commando. But that’s when it gets… dare I say… boring. Sisu clearly wants to be fun in a B-movie sort of way as Nazis get picked off one by one in increasingly bloody ways. But it could’ve been a more interesting movie had it stayed gritty and grounded (literally). By the time its final act begins, though, Sisu has devolved into the kind of soulless, CGI-enhanced antics typically associated with the MCU.
Sometimes, you just want to see bad guys get their butts kicked. That was the main appeal of Amazon’s Reacher, and I experienced a similar impulse watching this Korean drama on Netflix. Set during the height of the pandemic, Bloodhounds follows a pair of amateur boxers named Gun-woo and Woo-jin who must punch their way through Seoul’s underbelly after a notorious loan shark threatens Gun-woo’s mom and destroys her business. The series’ action sequences are crisp and well-choreographed, and all the more satisfying in light of the bad guys’ overall sliminess. But given that Bloodhounds is a Korean drama, there’s a lot of, well, drama. Which means some really odd tonal shifts. One minute, the duo’s grimly fighting for their lives against an army of bat-wielding thugs, and the next, the series tosses out some quasi-absurdist humor (often due to the boxers’ differing personalities) or dives headlong into super-earnest bromance or teary-eyed family drama. It doesn’t help that Bloodhounds’ female lead, Kim Sae-ron, was dropped from the series after being charged with drunk driving, which abruptly ended one of the series’ primary character dynamics. While it’s a lot of fun watching Gun-woo and Woo-jin punch thugs, gangsters, and greedy millionaires in the face over and over again, I wish Bloodhounds would’ve made up its mind: be a gritty crime thriller or a light-hearted buddy dramedy, but not both.
I watched this on VHS almost 25 years ago, and something about it stuck with me over the years. So I was disappointed when it didn’t quite live up to my memories. Visually, Haruki Kadokawa’s Heaven and Earth is often stunning and even feels like the platonic ideal of a samurai movie, be it the quieter scenes when characters are framed against falling cherry blossoms or wandering through a snowy forest, or during massive battle scenes employing thousands of extras and hundreds of horses. (The film was released in 1990, so no CGI here. The battles were filmed in Canada, though, so it’s a little weird knowing those are the Rockies looming behind all those samurai.) Story-wise, however, this retelling of the historic conflict between two Japanese warlords (Nagao Kagetora and Takeda Shingen) falls flat. There’s potential for interesting arcs — Kagetora renounces all earthly pleasures, including love, to achieve his goals, only to later abandon his throne in fear of what the war is doing to him, spiritually — but the movie never really develops them. As a result, it’s hard to get too emotionally involved in the movie’s storyline; it’s very remote and detached. That, combined with the running narration and captions, makes Heaven and Earth feel more like a made-for-TV documentary than an epic samurai film à la Akira Kurosawa or Masaki Kobayashi.
Describing Something Is Killing the Children as a series about a highly trained young woman with special abilities who hunts down monsters will undoubtedly bring to mind Buffy the Vampire Slayer comparisons. But whereas much of Buffy’s charm lay in its willingness to embrace camp and humor, there is no such willingness here. Something Is Killing the Children is unremittingly bleak and extremely gory as the aptly (and awesomely) named Erica Slaughter travels to the small town of Archer’s Peak to confront the monster feeding on the town’s children — only to encounter paranoia, bigotry, and her own personal demons. The first three volumes contain the Archer’s Peak arc, volume four delves into Erica’s childhood and training, and volume five begins a new arc where Erica faces a powerful new monster as well as the wrath of her former allies. Between this, The Department of Truth, Justice League Dark, and his work on Batman, Tynion has become one of my favorite writers. Netflix purchased the adaptation rights to Something In Killing the Children in 2021, with Mike Flanagan first attached and then Dark’s Baran bo Odar and Jantje Friese; it’ll be interesting to see how they handle the series’ extremely graphic nature, especially where the monsters’ young victims are concerned.
Ever since finishing the Expanse series last year, I’ve been looking for something to fill up that space opera-sized hole in my life — and Shards of Earth did just that. I’ve seen Tchaikovsky’s novels at the library for awhile now, but finally decided to check this one out after seeing that his Final Architecture series had concluded earlier this year. (I didn’t want to start an unfinished series.) Shards of Earth has everything I wanted: a richly detailed universe filled with multiple alien races and offshoots of humanity; a motley crew of ne’er-do-wells eking out an existence on the edge of civilization; and a mysterious planet-destroying threat that, of course, only our motley crew seems capable of defeating. That is, if they can survive cults, corrupt politicians, alien gangsters, and their own prejudices. I particularly enjoyed Tchaikovsky’s vivid prose describing the bizarre realities of space travel, the otherworldly entities potentially lurking in the depths of space, and the effects they have on mortal minds — all of which make his universe more compelling and intriguing, and reminded me of my favorite aspects of David Zindell’s storytelling.
More than 20 years have passed since my last viewing of Dark City, but I was obsessed with it when it came out in theaters back in 1998 and it was one of the first DVDs that I ever bought — after The Matrix, of course. (Fun bit of trivia: The Matrix, which came out in 1999, actually reused some of Dark City’s sets.) Dark City is all about atmosphere in a way that I wish more genre movies were. (See also: Blade Runner.) Director Alex Proyas dials up the atmosphere to ridiculous levels, from the persistently nocturnal setting to the vintage 1950s aesthetic to the ominous, expressionistic production design — and I love it. (I’m currently reading a collection of Mister X comics, and I have to think that it was an influence alongside Terry Gilliam, Fritz Lang, and Katsuhiro Otomo.) This was my first time watching Proyas’ director’s cut, which thankfully removed the spoiler-ridden opening narration and includes some new scenes that further elaborate on our protagonist’s strange new abilities. Proyas is apparently in the process of developing a Dark City series, which I’m unsure about. This movie existing as a strange, singular gem from the late ’90s is part of what makes it so special. To delve more deeply into its fantastical world might break the spell.
Most people probably know Chris Hemsworth as cinema’s most beloved “himbo” courtesy of the Thor movies, but I much prefer his Tyler Rake, the seemingly un-killable mercenary who can rescue anyone from even the worst situations. (In this case, it’s a gangster’s family from a brutal prison in the country of Georgia.) There’s a sorrow behind his deadly actions, and Extraction 2 is best when it presses into that; it gives the film a certain haunted quality in the midst of the mayhem. Of course, you don’t watch this sort of movie for a deep character study; you watch it for the mayhem, to see how much punishment Rake can dish out and take in return. One scene, where he rips a guy’s hand apart, had me cringing in a way I don’t often experience. Then later, I practically cheered at the ridiculous awesomeness when he started punching guys with his fist on fire. Like the first Extraction movie, the sequel’s got an epic single-take sequence that stretches for over 20 minutes and ends with our hero shooting down helicopters from a moving train. Like all single takes, it does get a little tedious and artificial, but you have to admire the chutzpah and chops it takes to pull it off. One quibble about the film’s execution: As with Netflix’s FUBAR, the CGI explosions look surprisingly chintzy at times. Hopefully, they’ll get that sorted out for the recently announced Extraction 3, which is set up by a quasi-cliffhanger involving an enigmatic Idris Elba.
This was actually my second viewing; my first was plagued by poor sound issues that made it difficult to engage with the film. Everyone lauds the Spider-Verse movies for their visuals, and rightfully so, but these movies are also a feast for the ears, and not being able to fully enjoy that aspect was a real killjoy. I think the sound issues were fixed this time around; I could finally hear Gwen Stacy’s opening monologue, anyway. Across the Spider-Verse is her film as much as it is Miles Morales’ film, exploring her own tragic arc as a Spider-Person. Visually, this film pushes way beyond its predecessor (e.g., the gorgeous abstraction of Gwen’s scenes with her father, Hobie Brown’s anarchic style, the beautiful fluttering of the plastic sheets over the Alchemax ruins, Miles and Gwen’s upside-down heart-to-heart high above New York), and it’s a testament to the animators that everything remains so fluid and coherent. Across the Spider-Verse doesn’t pack quite the same emotional heft as Into the Spider-Verse (how could it?), though I definitely teared up during Rio Morales’ speech to Miles. Nevertheless, it’s a wonderful middle film and I’m beyond anxious to see Beyond the Spider-Verse next March. (Sidenote: The most enjoyable thing about this particular viewing was hearing all of the protests at the cliffhanger ending from audience members who obviously didn’t know that a third film’s coming. My own kids were pretty gobsmacked, as was the lady sitting behind us. It was glorious.)