My son’s Christopher Nolan phase continues with this sci-fi/action/thriller from 2010 that gave us a famous Hans Zimmer sound effect, a couple of Leonardo DiCaprio memes, and the most famous spinning top in movie history. (OK, maybe that’s a little snarky.) My son loved Inception and found it pretty mind-blowing but I’m sad to say I found it a bit… underwhelming after all these years. There’s no denying its technical brilliance — it totally deserved that “Best Visual Effects” Oscar — but the storyline’s sense of ambition robs it of a lot of humanity. I appreciate and admire Inception for its technical brilliance — the hallway sequence with Joseph Gordon-Levitt is never not awesome — but as a narrative, it’s far more concerned with mind-bending ideas at the expense of everything else. Tenet does a much better job, I think, of managing ambitious high-concept storytelling with human emotion, due in large part to the relationship between John David Washington and Robert Pattinson.
My Cultural Diet
From my full review on Christ and Pop Culture: [W]hat is the goal of The Ballot and the Bible? I believe it can be summed up in a single word: humility. Schiess’s book is filled with examples of people — from all points along the political spectrum — who were absolutely convinced that they were applying Scripture to their politics in an objective manner, that their exegesis and interpretation weren’t merely correct but obviously so. And conversely, their political opponents were obviously wrong. Schiess… does explore how some interpretations were, in fact, incorrect (e.g., the South’s “biblical” defense of chattel slavery) or overly simplistic (e.g., certain conservatives’ use of Jesus’s “render unto Caesar” speech). But she also considers how there’s plenty of room for nuance, and how nuance is absolutely necessary due in part to our own limited and sinful nature, which will always “warp our moral intuition and biblical interpretation.”
Puss in Boots: The Last Wish is worth watching for Antonio Banderas’ voice acting alone. The man deserves a “Lifetime Achievement” award or two just for how he says the titular character’s name every. Single. Time. So why not a higher rating? Well, to be honest, I didn’t find the film all that funny. I chuckled here and there, and as you can guess, I thoroughly enjoyed Banderas’ voice acting. (Actually, all of the voice actors, including Salma Hayek, Florence Pugh, and John Mulaney, did well.) But I think I went into this film expecting more belly laughs. As for the film’s deeper themes (e.g., the importance of family, the temptations of fame, confronting one’s mortality), I thought they were all handled decently; there was nothing I disagreed with. But it also felt so… obvious and anodyne. You might think I’m asking too much from a film set in the Shrek Cinematic Universe, but Puss in Boots: The Last Wish held little-to-no surprise. It’s a fine family film elevated solely by Banderas’ velvety tones.
John Boyega, Teyonah Parris, and Jamie Foxx play a drug dealer, a prostitute, and a pimp who stumble across a secret government conspiracy to keep Black people in a state of compliance. On its surface, They Cloned Tyrone might seem a little too on-the-nose. But then you read about educators whitewashing American history and claiming that slavery was actually beneficial to Black people and suddenly, They Cloned Tyrone seems nigh-prophetic. Directed by Juel Taylor in his directorial debut, They Cloned Tyrone doesn’t always juggle its tonal shifts between sci-fi, absurdist comedy, and drama, but you have to respect the commitment of Taylor and his cast. Foxx is particularly fantastic as the larger-than-life Slick Charles who slowly realizes that his life is a lot smaller than he thought; it makes you thankful that Foxx survived his health scare earlier this year. Meanwhile, Parris’ love of Nancy Drew and home remodeling is delightful, and Boyega makes it clear just how under-utilized he was in the Star Wars franchise.
First, the bad. I can’t remember the last time I saw a movie this over-edited. Editing is essential in action cinema, but some fight scenes were rendered nigh-illegible (e.g., the alleyway fight with Pom Klementieff’s assassin and another goon). The dialog-heavy scenes were worse, though. One scene in particular, an info dump about the movie’s BBEG (an AI known simple as “The Entity”), was reduced to a barrage of exposition by the editing that kept cutting on every single sentence. And I hate to say this, because the Mission: Impossible movies are some of our finest modern action movies, but the action was surprisingly tedious at times, much like the recent Indiana Jones movie. I’m thinking specifically of the car chase in Rome, though to its credit, it had some humorous beats that were sorely lacking in Indy’s film. And finally, the movie did my favorite character dirty (though this being a Mission: Impossible film, I hope they’ll be back). All that said, I still enjoyed Dead Reckoning Part One thanks to Tom Cruise’s total commitment to one-upping himself. (Sidenote: The dude’s 61 years old!) The film’s centerpiece, in which Cruise drives a motorcycle off a cliff, gave me some vertigo (a good thing) and the AI-centric plot felt very apropos given current headlines. But I liked the preceding films, 2015’s Rogue Nation and 2018’s Fallout, a lot more.
I was pretty excited when Marvel announced the first Guardians of the Galaxy movie. Not only was the MCU now embracing some lesser known characters alongside Captain America, Thor, and the Hulk, but it would be exploring Marvel’s cosmic side (i.e., my favorite side). Now, nearly ten years later, we’ve got the final Guardians movie, and it’s very much a farewell to the MCU’s scrappiest characters. Much of it’s focused on Rocket’s traumatic past — and I do mean traumatic, with some of the MCU’s darkest material to date. It is affecting at times, as the various Guardians arrive at the conclusions of their arcs — and not everyone arrives at the same place, giving the movie a gentle bittersweetness that I appreciated. Considering that the post-Endgame MCU has yet to develop any real narrative momentum (a fact that isn’t helped by the multiple assault allegations now facing its new BBEG), Volume 3 really feels like the end of an era. But even with James Gunn’s anarchic energy on full display, Volume 3 still feels like it’s checking off boxes, even — and especially — during its most emotional moments. Which is probably an indictment of the last decade’s superhero glut as much as anything.
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.
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.
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.
I confess: I expected Let Me Have My Son to be in the same vein as some inspirational “Lifetime Original” movie. There are moments when the film — which was inspired by writer/director Cristóbal Krusen’s experiences with his son’s schizophrenia — does venture into that territory, replete with swelling music, light-suffused cinematography, and Krusen (who also stars) even reading Scripture directly to the audience. But when Krusen’s character begins to navigate the Kafka-esque hospital halls and bureaucracy to retrieve his son, the film develops a nightmarish weirdness that feels more akin to David Lynch. The key to understanding and appreciating the film at its most bizarre, I think, lies in Krusen’s opening narration: “A good bit of what you’re about to see is true as it happened. More is true, though, as to how it felt.” I’ve never experienced an immediate family member struggling with mental illness, but I can only imagine the stress, fear, and anxiety that it would hold for someone who does — and I think that subjective experience is what Krusen is ultimately trying to convey. Let Me Have My Son is by no means subtle, but it is earnest and honest, and its willingness to get weird combined with the obviously personal storyline keeps it from sinking into treacle.
This is a surprisingly difficult review to write. Like anyone who grew up in the ’80s and ’90s, I was aware of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, but not through Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird’s comic book; my only real exposure was the Fred Wolf cartoon series and the arcade game. (Unlike so many of my classmates, I never did see the movies.) Thus, I started reading The Last Ronin with a weird mix of nostalgic familiarity and total ignorance. The Last Ronin, however, is clearly geared towards long-time fans; it’s filled with references and callouts to previous characters and adventures, and finds the last surviving Turtle seeking to avenge his brothers and sensei after Shredder’s grandson betrays them all. There’s an appropriately elegiac tone to the story and the new Shredder character has some interesting mommy issues. Overall though, I was left feeling a bit underwhelmed. I suspect I would’ve felt differently had I been a longtime fan, though.
Ted Lasso’s final season was frustrating, to put it mildly. On the one hand, it had some truly delightful moments, the sort of big-hearted storytelling that made the first season so perfect. Rebecca’s memorable evening in Amsterdam. Jamie maturing into a fully-functioning adult. Richmond learning how to play Total Football. It’s a shame, then, that the season wasted so much time on storylines that were ultimately pointless, like the mercurial Zava or, worst of all, Jack and Keeley’s relationship. As a result, other, more deserving storylines — like Nate’s redemption or Rebecca finally moving past Rupert (played to slimy perfection by Anthony Head in the series’ most unflattering performance) — were left shallow and underdeveloped. I’m inclined to give season three an even lower score, but I’ll pull a Ted Lasso here because all misguided storytelling aside, I do believe Jason Sudeikis et al. had their hearts in the right place. Plus, they gave us Jamie’s pronunciation of “poopy,” which is worth at least half a star on its own. Overall, though, the season squandered too much of the series’ tremendous potential and good will.
When is a time travel novel not a time travel novel? (Not in the usual sci-fi sense, anyway.) When it’s Jinwoo Chong’s Flux. Weaving three distinct narratives together with the framing device of a controversial ’80s detective show titled Raider, Flux explores Asian identity, queer relationships, corporate malfeasance (Flux was initially inspired by the fall of Theranos), family trauma, the ways in which pop culture shapes us, cancel culture, and yes, time travel. Suffice to say, Chong’s debut novel has a lot on its mind. And to be honest, I’m not sure how well it all fits together. Nevertheless, I couldn’t stop reading, thanks to Chong’s striking prose and literate spin on sci-fi tropes. That, and his descriptions of Raider are so vivid, I found myself Googling it to see if it was actually a real series that I’d somehow missed out on as a child of the ’80s. (It’s not, but I kind of wish it was now. I’d love to watch an episode or two.)
Sure, Nobody is filled with over-the-top action sequences, including a long, violent standoff in a machine shop, and a dark sense of humor. But we’ve seen all that before. Nobody really only succeeds because of one thing: Bob Odenkirk’s performance. Odenkirk is perfect as a sadsack middle-aged suburbanite named Hutch who clearly has some repressed issues. But Nobody wisely takes its time, settling us into the doldrums and dreary rhythms of Hutch’s life, be it forgetting to take out the garbage every week or his family’s constant looks of disappointment. Thus, when the truth is inevitably revealed — that Hutch used to be an elite government assassin who gave it all up for the domestic life, and now must “reawaken” those deadly skills to defend his family from Russian gangsters — it’s as much a catharsis for the audience as it is for Hutch. I certainly didn’t have Bob Odenkirk on my “action star” bingo card, but that incongruity only makes the film more fun and interesting, especially in the first big fight scene where Hutch takes on a bunch of punks on a bus. A sequel’s been announced, but I’m not sure how enjoyable it will be given that we now know Hutch’s big secret.
I loved Versus when I first saw it back in the early ’00s — its zombie/martial arts/gangster storyline had “cult hit” written all over it — but it’d been at least 15 years since my last viewing. Watching it now, the film’s flaws are more apparent. Specifically, Ryûhei Kitamura’s debut feature is about 30 minutes too long, what with all of the whip pans, dolly zooms, slow-motion, and shaky cam. And parts that I once found hilarious are not quite so much anymore. Still, its blend of Sam Raimi-influenced camerawork, Matrix-esque action, zombie gore, and yakuza flair is entertaining and even inspiring at times. Versus was reportedly shot for $10,000, which makes what you actually see all the more impressive. Kitamura and his cast and crew fully embraced their limitations, which forced them to get clever with, well, everything you see, from the practical effects and martial arts choreography to the film’s depiction of the supernatural through clever cinematography. In other words, Versus is proof that when it comes to making memorable films, imagination and creativity can trump a big budget.
I’m honestly bummed I didn’t like this more than I actually did. I loved the trailers, which felt like they got the tone of D&D just right, i.e., that it’s at its best when it’s crazy, chaotic, and just plain madcap fun. As such, I think I was hoping for more hijinks. The film works best when it’s at its goofiest, whether it’s our heroes attempting a harebrained magic-enhanced heist, screwing up the “Speak with Dead” spell, or stupidly setting off a trap. (And unfortunately, many of those moments are in the film’s trailers). The movie’s not so good when it aims for an epic fantasy adventure vibe à la the Lord of the Rings movies replete with sweeping landscape shots and the requisite soaring soundtrack. For what it’s worth, my 13-year-old absolutely loved it, and said it’s one of his top ten favorite movies of all time, so I suspect we’ll be watching it again — and the film is so earnestly good-natured that I’m willing to give it another shot.
Supercop has long been one of my favorite Jackie Chan movies. This time around, I watched the original 1992 Hong Kong cut, which is darker and grimmer than the Dimension Films version that was released in American theaters in 1996. Chan’s trademark brand of action-comedy is present but less pronounced than, say, Rumble in the Bronx, Mr. Nice Guy, or Who Am I?. At times, it almost feels like Chan and director Stanley Tong were trying to make a hard-boiled crime film. I know this will seem blasphemous to some, but I think I might prefer Dimension Films’ more streamlined cut (though I can do without Tom Jones singing “Kung Fu Fighting”). The stunts are outstanding, of course, be it Chan dangling from a helicopter high above Kuala Lumpur or Michelle Yeoh — who more than holds her own with Chan — jumping onto a moving train whilst riding a motorcycle. (Which is even more impressive given that she’d never ridden a motorcycle before filming the movie.) On a side note, 88 Films’ 4K release is absolutely packed with special features that are must-have for any Jackie Chan devotee.
I read this back in the early ’00s when it was called Rain Fall, my curiosity piqued because I’d read a rumor that Jet Li had optioned it for a potential movie. The Jet Li movie never came to pass, but it was turned into a live-action film in 2009 starring Kippei Shîna and Gary Oldman (which I haven’t seen). This is a satisfying enough thriller about a half-Japanese assassin who specializes in deaths that look natural (e.g., heart attacks). After his latest assignment, he gets mixed up with the daughter of his target, a Japanese shadow government, and his former colleagues at the CIA — as you do. Like most books in this genre, it’s nothing terribly deep or thought-provoking, but makes for some nice late night/weekend reading. Barry Eisler lived and worked in Japan for several years, which gives his writing a nice verisimilitude, though the samurai/ronin metaphors and references get a bit heavy-handed after awhile.
I enjoyed Abbott Elementary’s first season well enough, but the show really started coming into its own during this latest season. Parks and Recreation remains the most obvious touchstone, and while Abbott Elementary doesn’t quite reach that series’ level of joy and delight, it’s well on its way. It’s optimistic without being saccharine, topical without being too preachy. More importantly, I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of Gregory’s flustered reactions, Jacob’s awkward wokeness, Barbara being a good Christian woman, Mr. Johnson’s eccentricities, or Janine’s pluck and determination. (Any and all jokes about her height and lack of fashion sense are just an added bonus.)
The second John Wick movie built upon the first one by bringing our titular hero into conflict with the High Table, a global group of crime lords. The third John Wick dives more deeply into this, with Wick calling in favors and traveling around the world in search of the mysterious man who rules over the High Table. But the lore gets a bit too convoluted to be believable. (Believable, at least, for a movie in which nobody bats an eye at immaculately dressed people killing other immaculately dressed people out in the open.) The same is true of the movie’s numerous and intricately choreographed fight scenes. As fun as it is to see Keanu Reeves square off against the likes of Mark Dacascos, Cecep Arif Rahman, Yayan Ruhian, and Roger Yuan, the fight scenes are a great example of “too much of a good thing.”