This was definitely more for Godzilla fans than it was for critics. It was way better than the 2014 film that got Certified Fresh. The film is just badass. Not perfect but....bad ass.
They do over-do the family drama again though. Especially when the family drama makes no sense. Mark Russel (Kyle Chandler) blames Godzilla for the death of his son. He wants all monsters dead.
Mark’s wife Emma (Vera Farmiga) says screw mankind. The monsters will cure the planet of Climate Change. So yeah in another words who cares if anyone else loses family members. Due to her plan to unleash all monsters.
Her daughter Madison (Millie Bobbie Brown) sticks with her. Despite her mom teaming with some bad men with guns. Who kill some nice scientists right in front of her. So yeah, Mark is the sanest one in that family.
Even if there’s too much of the humans and a silly plot. This is the best of the Hollywood Godzilla movies. Critics are just wrong. One even said the Roland Emmerich version is better. What drugs is that critic on ?
The battles are some of the best done of any monster vs monster battle. Unlike the first film this one has a ton of Godzilla history to it. It shows him way more and shows the character great respect.
Well, this is a rarity. Hollywood shuns originality these days. It settles for established brands. The goal is low-risk high-reward. That makes for smart business but generic moviemaking. I suppose odds are with the occasional oddity, and that's what "Rise of the Planet of the Apes" is.
I just finished watching all of the original "Planet of the Apes" series of movies. They are generally considered hit and miss in quality with the original "Planet..." being considered a classic, and it is. But...and I know this is sacrilegious, "Rise..." is a better movie than all of the original series' movies.
It's so well paced and the story, while definitely science fiction, seems plausible. James Franco is really good in this role. I didn't think he could pull off a scientist, but he does it well. He also pairs up nicely with John Lithgow, who plays his sick father.
The CGI apes are at times a wonder, primarily when interacting with humans. When they are together in packs or communicating without human interaction, the effects seem a little cartoony. Then again, the final showdown between the San Francisco Police and the rampaging apes is pretty amazing and is super entertaining. I especially liked watching the powerful gorilla, I think his name is "Buck". He steals the action sequences.
The ending is very satisfying and the cut scene in the final credits incorporates an actual continuation of the story and brings some clarity to how the apes managed to take over the Earth. This vaguely dovetails "Rise..." into the 1968 "Planet of the Apes" film, of which this is a prequel to.
You don't need to see any of the other "Planet of the Apes" films to understand "Rise of the Planet of the Apes". It stands entirely on its own and really surpasses the original series in story and quality.
"The Boy" is a beautiful movie featuring a creepy doll as the center point of its story. Personally, I've never found dolls particularly scary. Now if this was about a ventriloquist dummy, that would probably terrify me. Short of the Twilight Zone's "Talky Tina", I just don't find them frightening. But Brahms, who is the creepy doll of this story, he's pretty unnerving.
The goal of my review is not to give away anything. I can recommend "The Boy" as a thriller, but not as a Horror movie. It's rated PG-13 which means it comes pre-loaded with minimal gore and about a half dozen jump scares for teenagers who pay their money to jump out of their seats and then giggle with relief and embarrassment. But for those of us with the ability to recognize and appreciate a movie that can sustain a mood and generate fear, it's nice to find that "The Boy" has some of those moments as well.
The first two-thirds of "The Boy" are its highlight. The development of Greta the Nanny (Lauren Cohen) and the backstory of Brahms, the deceased boy that the doll represents, is interesting. Once the elderly parents of Brahms leave on vacation, Brahms slowly torments Greta. We never see Brahms move and neither does Greta, and honestly it gets frustrating, but in a good way. It really ramps up the suspense and anticipation of the moment when we might get to see Brahms in motion.
During the last third of the run time, things fell apart for me. I didn't care for the direction, or should I say the twist, that the movie took. It's not spoiling anything by saying there's a twist, especially for a twist junkie like myself. It just didn't go in the direction that I would have hoped it would. It's also not giving anything away by mentioning that direction is not something especially unique. Others may like the finale more than I did.
Overall, this is a moody, good-looking movie with solid acting and a decent amount of suspense.
Finally get to see a bit more of Eddie and all the potential of the character seen in first episode that was just hidden till then. "Mordor it is".
I really don't buy that the basketball guy would be able to play the eloquent speaker that not only seizes the control of the meeting, but also manages to convince the whole town, while quoting the bible. And, even if he was, that speech was far far far from good enough to turn the whole town into a mob and literally convince them to hunt children. While the whole police department just stands and watches.
In the end there's no real Eleven training, just flashbacks, but it's good, better than what the beginning showed. Did she really kill these kids because she was bullied ? Since it hasn't really be shown yet and the first episode showed it more like an outside attack I'm more betting on a kind of upside down outbreak. Or from the other branch of government that is against these experiments ? But that would be much less interesting.
Hopper's story is getting great (while Joyce's stays meh). There's a gate in the prison, and another one in Hawkins. I guess that makes up for the evasion plan that includes no way to escape. Assuming the distance inside is different and they don't have to do the whole Russia to Hawkins trip in there, not sure Joyce and Murray would be up for it. And if Hopper ended up in Russia, there should be existing or ways to create shortcuts.
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The out of Hawkins team is still useless though the Susie bit was funny (wow does that computer boot fast, and it still works after repeated power cuts).
Main action is in Hawkins and it rocks. Everybody's getting a little trip in the upside down. I guess it's boring to show on TV but why every time someone goes underwater they got to stay there as long as possible ? They should come up, often, not only to breathe but to inform the other of what they found. He could have been captured before even informing them. Instead of coming up at least to say "hey, there's a red light over there, I'm going to check it out"
Though the plan to "kill Vecna to save Max and Eddie" is weird. First, it seems there hasn't been any new attack on Max, she just got rid of what made her a target. Second, then what ? They tell the cops "it wasn't Eddie, it was a demon and we already killed it", and the cops go "lol, ok, wow, we almost made a mistake, thanks a bunch scooby gang" and let Eddie go ?
The government's agents situation is a bit weird. Different factions (or different agencies ?) that both know about Brenner's experiment and Eleven's existence, and believe in her powers, yet somehow some do not know or believe in the existence of the upside down ?
Only explanation is that they are not qualified, do not have the clearance level, to know of such things. And yet, they are bold enough to launch military operations attacking, killing, and torturing other agents ? They are not the rogue ones, this is clearly on orders. Are there no superior agency to control and stop them ?
Even if they were not convinced that Eleven is the solution, they would know about the existence of the upside down. Or maybe the agency knows, but the field agents are kept in the dark ? While still telling them about Eleven's power and asking them to do what they do ? Still weird.
I'm not sure what I just wasted almost 2 hours of my life watching...but I think I liked it. Definitely not for everyone because this is FILLED with gratuitous bloodletting and violence but funny as heck. I actually laughed during some of the scenes. My problem with this was that somewhere in there...I still don't know what happened: the movie was great, very entertaining, humorous (yes, in spite of the unceasing violence), and engaging but for whatever reason, someone decided to try to make this thing serious right at the end (I think there were maybe 30-40 minutes left?) and I still don't know why. They had a good thing going: the storyline was decent, the acting was good, the voiceover thing wasn't a bother (especially after you figure it out), and it really was funny...So I'm not sure why they decided to change it in the final few minutes? And I still don't understand the ending or what that was all about. Confusing, yes...but still funny, and still fun to watch. Over-the-top and beyond-belief violence (seriously, this movie was so roll-your-eyes unbelievable in some scenes that it almost detracted from the film, but still...) but overall a fun - and funny - movie that almost makes you forget how violent and stupid it really is. I liked it; your mileage may vary.
PS: DO NOT go into this thinking you're going to be watching some kind of John Wick-type movie. I'm not sure what they were going for (the producers) but this turned out to be far more comedy than drama. It really was ridiculously funny...and I liked it.
The subject matter at hand here will lead many to recoil, dismiss and mislabel this as "just an incel movie". I think that would be doing this movie a disservice. While it wears its message very blatantly on its sleeve, Manodrome tackles the much discussed "toxic masculinity" with sincerity and complexity, even if its scope is much smaller than the magnitude of the topic at hand. I really enjoyed my time with this one, even pausing to grab a notepad and pen at around the halfway mark as the little details and nuances I picked up began to stack on top of each other, becoming too much for me to remember. Please don't pigeon hole this movie and reduce it down because of a few tag words; give its characters a chance to challenge you and unfold. It's most certainly not an enjoyable watch, but really good message-piece stuff; I look forward to more from Trengrove in the future. It's been interesting to see differing ends of the debate from both this and The Royal Hotel this weekend; two films with similar gender-political plots from either viewpoint.
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Eisenberg plays the troubled Ralphie, an abandonment-issue addled 20/30 something who is currently on the pipeline that all fatherless, support-structureless, directionless men find themselves on, repressing their true selves and following what the world tells them is the embodiment of masculinity. Get muscles, get strong, say few words, don't express yourself, stay emotionless. Ralphie struggles to eat in front of others as he fears it's a sign of weakness. He refuses to eat anything but protein and "healthy" foods. He struggles to communicate with his girlfriend over his feelings and inner struggles. He bottles up his past and refuses to process the trauma of his childhood Christmas when his father left. He clearly is struggling with his sexuality and has no way of exploring this without fear of judgement or discrimination. He's disgusted and angered by seeing gay couples, conflicted by his world view and his own sexual feelings. As we all know, this is certainly a recipe for disaster; with no support structure and bottling up these bubbling emotions, it's inevitable how all this will come to a head.
While mainly online forums are the outlets for these types of shunned men in the real world, Manodrome personifies the online MGTOW/Incel style movement as an in-person cult, a fraternity of men who've dispensed with women and masturbation and are "taking back their masculinity" by doubling down on all the stereotypical aspects of being a man. Suffering through pain via the scarification of a club symbol, self affirmation chants, peer pressure to remove one's spouse or loved ones. As we've seen with many of these groups in reality, while they offer an environment for men to express their inner thoughts, they are fraught with ill intentions, misogyny and only amplify the negative aspects of the male experience. We see glimpses of how this world view is spread around by those caught within its folds, from Ralphie lecturing the child in the back of his Uber, and members of the frat bringing in members who are younger and younger. We see how this differs from the female experience when Ralphie sees the young girl getting her hair washed by, presumably, her mother and grandmother. Women have strong role models and support figures in their life from a very early age, while men very much lack this from their own, emotionally stunted ilk.
I feel like I'm just rambling at this point but yeah, there's a lot of nuance to this movie's portrayal of the problem, and I think a lot of it is restrictedly viewed in the vacuum of domestic troubles and lack of role models during upbringing for the sake of the movie's scope. I'm excited to read other people's takes about this movie, but I am worried that many will be reductive with their opinions after the words "toxic masculinity" and "incel" are mentioned in the plot synopsis and blurb.
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I really enjoyed this film's use of colour to encapsulate certain feelings or stances. Throughout, Ralphie has red/ginger hair, possibly to paint him as an outcast; the odd one out. He's also constantly wearing his red beanie. Ralphie's girlfriend, Sal, has blue hair, a stark contrast but also paints them as representations of their respective, opposing teams. Red vs Blue, Men vs Women, Red Pill vs Blue Pill. . The Christmas tree from Ralphie's past and the lights in the fraternity are a bright green, a symbol of safety, refuge, a safe place. Ralphie buys an expensive yellow Ralph Lauren shirt, an outward reflection of his cowardice and uncertainty of his new clique and their respective views. Ralph and Son Brad are drinking red drinks at the mall, while the two younger members of the frat are drinking yellow drinks.
A car is usually used in films and life as an outward reflection of a man's wealth, status and ego. Big, powerful men are shown driving large, black 4x4s and fast sports cars, while humble, less powerful men are shown driving humble, old, broken cars. After being inducted into the fraternity fully, Ralphie gets cold feet, punching Dad Dan and running from the house. He scrapes the outside of the car during his escape, where we're then shown the vehicle's profile and respective damage in broad daylight. This reflects Ralphie's damaged ego as he battles with his newfound brother's worldview and his true self. When he returns to the frat during the finale, he's somehow procured a large Toyota 4x4 (in reddy orange no less), his masculine persona fully back on display.
During the finale of the movie, we see Ralphie scoffing down bread and drinking Mountain Dew, his fake manly persona melting away, regressing back to his childhood. He is approached by a caring man at the retirement home, the personification of what every man really needs. A softly spoken, kind, caring mentor figure to reach out and ask if they can offer a helping hand. He too has lost his father, and instead of growing resentful and full of hate, he's instead reaching out to those in a similar place and offering them kindness. Ralphie curls up next to the man, his towel a shade of pink, his shirt baggy and loose like that of a child. He can finally be vulnerable around someone, but as the cops circle outside, it's all too late.
Denzel Washington is sensational in this, the plot might not quite match his performance but 'Training Day' is still a great watch. It's a riveting 122 minutes, I'm just not in love with how the premise is played out.
Washington's character, Alonzo, never really changes throughout, despite a supposed problem of his. I kept waiting for a reason to change the opinion that the first act puts to you regarding him but it never came, there's never a point I cared for him and I assume I was supposed to... at least to some degree? Also, his issue is thrown at you in one scene and isn't really mentioned again until the end. I get the character, just not his arc.
Ethan Hawke is very good, too, in this, even if I kept hearing Tom Cruise when he spoke... You also have a load of now familiar faces involved, including Eva Mendes, Raymond Cruz, Cliff Curtis, Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg and Terry Crews. Quite an interesting cast list, that.
Loved all of this, except the (still good) plot execution. Maybe that's just me though. From what I've seen, Washington's best performance so far. He's the main takeaway from this whatever way you look at it.
One of my favourite films. A true masterclass in filmmaking.
This is at all times a suspense thriller, police drama, version of true story, and a character exploration of 3 men.
We see the descent into obsession of the lead detective, the reporter, and a curious bystander who falls deepest of all - the man whose book this is based on, Robert Graysmith.
I went the cinema two evenings in a row to see this on release. I found it a captivating story but also was blown away by the sheer quality of the film itself from all aspects - direction, cinematography, the actors and the acting itself. Everyone is top class.
I've since watched it a few more times - usually in its Director's Cut longer version. The extra scenes and exploration are well worth the added runtime.
Treading a fine line without spoiling the film, I will concede that many find the film doesn't live up to its first 40 minutes. But they're missing a key point here in my opinion. The larger impact of a serial killer isn't the deaths of the people killed, it's that society as a whole is sent into panic and fear during the reign of terror. The aftermath long outweighs the initial acts.
This film does an incredible job at giving the viewer its best evidences and a viable culprit. No certainty has ever surrounded the case but there is a brilliant conclusion to a gripping story.
Films like this don't get made often. When quality of this level appears, savour it.
10/10
Kung Fu Panda 3 is about what you would expect. A roller coaster ride of gags, goof ups and outrageous martial art outbursts.
Po is himself, clumsy, naïve, martial arts master and funny. As usual he is accompanied by his friends from the previous movies including the somewhat reluctant Shifu. The wise turtle Oogway from the first Kung Fu Panda is back as well, kind of.
Naturally there is a big bad villain, General Kai, who it turns out have some past relations to Oogway. General Kai is pretty good as a villain with a suitable maniacal expression on his face. Then of course, a bull in itself is already projecting bad temper and violence so it is a good start.
The main story is of course about defeating General Kai but Po’s reunification with his (real) father and the rest of the, funny and very clumsy, inhabitants in the Panda village is taking up a large part of the movie.
In general the story is quite nice with some nice twists.
It should come as no surprise that Po, as usual, saves the day in a cataclysmic showdown with General Kai. There are some great animation effects in the final battle.
At the end of the day this is a quite recommendable family movie.
[7.7/10] “The Hook” has to accomplish much more than the average episode of Poker Face so far. Most have been able to tell largely single-serving stories, with fresh characters who only need to serve the purposes of the immediate narrative.
This season finale is different. It has to deliver a mystery. But it also has to pick up on all the arc tidbits that have been piling up until now. It has to give a face to the menacing voice on the phone making threats to Charlie in the first episode, and tease Charlie’s familial backstory and set up the arc for the next season.
With all that going on, it occasionally feels disjointed, or at a minimum, a little quilted together. But the constituent parts are good! Which helps the medicine go down.
My favorite scene in this one has nothing (or little) to do with the mystery of the week or the myth arc. It comes when Charlie turns to her sister, Em, for help, despite neither of the siblings relishing the reunion. On the one hand, their conversation is tantalizing, because it hints at a terrible childhood both survived, some bad blood between them that involves their (potentially abusive) dad and Charlie’s gift, and a lingering affection tinged with hurt that is the stuff good character dynamics are made of.
On the other though, I like it as a strange deconstruction of Charlie and, by extension, the show. Look, it’s a little early in the series for deconstructions. But I’ve taken the show’s “new murder every week” premise for granted. Every show requires some willing suspension of disbelief. Poker Face just asks you to go along for the ride that humble Charlie stumbles into some bit of slaying and cover-up each episode. More than fair.
But Em suggests it’s more than coincidence. She admits that Charlie has a good heart, that people rightly gravitate toward and like her. But she uses a word that sticks and stings -- “ruinous.” Every situation that Charlie visits ends up going to all hell. That's not always Charlie’s fault. Or at least, she never starts these things. But there’s a really interesting concept in Em’s bitter recriminations -- that as much we love Charlie, maybe her gift and her knack for getting involved cause as many problems as they solve. I’m not sure I buy it based on what we’ve seen so far, but it’s a fascinating take on Charlie’s nomadic life, and a source of enmity between her and her sister.
I’ll admit to being less enamored with the mystery element here. Ron Perlman plays Sterling Sr., and he is fantastic as always. The twist that he doesn’t want to kill Charlie; he just wants her help in smoothing things over with the mob bosses his son got involved with over his objections, is a good one. The show leads you to believe that him paying for Charlie’s recuperation and getting her cleaned up is all a prelude to an execution. Revealing that, in the fullness of time, he’s changed his mind and wants Charlie on his team puts the past year into stark relief.
Hell, I even like the twist that Cliff is surreptitiously working for those same mob bosses and conspires to both kill Sterling Sr. and frame Charlie for the murder. It pays off the main arc of the season with a suitable left turn in the narrative, and puts Charlie on the run once more.
Here’s the problem -- I don’t really care about Cliff, and the episode puts a lot on him. Benjamin Bratt is fine. The notion of a longstanding lieutenant having had his fill of the boss and taking him down for a good payday has legs. But Cliff’s just not a very deep character, so watching Charlie piece things together, ally with, and go against him, which takes up a lot of the episode, doesn’t really land with me. There’s some real cleverness to his scheme, between getting Charlie’s prints on the murder weapon and using a blacklight poker chip to mark his target in the dark. But there isn’t the same depth of character to make him or his scheme as compelling as they ought to be.
That said, I do like how it leads to the return of Luca, Charlie’s FBI agent friend. He’s an interesting ally, because he speaks plainly to Charlie in a way that recognizes her talents. He fully admits that he’s only been able to move up in the bureau thanks to her. He offers her a job once again. And most interestingly to me, he’s frank with her that she shouldn’t turn herself in, and that the truth doesn’t matter because the evidence points her way. He’s a good dude, one who’s realistic about this stuff, but also on Charlie’s side.
Regardless of his intervention, I’m a little tired of the “secret recording” trope in this show. It’s nice that Charlie gets some justice for her murdered friend from the first episode. But her getting the tape where Sterling Jr. gives Cliff the order to kill to the feds seems a little too cute to me, especially since Poker Face has gone to that well multiple times.
Still, I enjoy the wry humor in all of this. Charlie escaping the hotel by mingling with a bachelorette party is a lot of fun. The ongoing saga of the penis-shaped ring that won’t get unstuck is a dose of absurd hilarity. And honestly, the simple fact of Charlie talking to her six-year-old niece is a hoot. As much serious and dramatic stuff happens in this series, it never stops injecting some welcome levity in the right places.
In the end, though, Charlie kinda sorta wins. She avenges her friend. She pins Sterling Sr.’s murder on Cliff. Luca even gets Charlie her car back. Big victory right? Only now, she’s earned the ire of an even bigger threat -- Beatrix Hasp, the head of a mob family. (Between this and Star Wars: The Bad Batch, Rhea Perlman is facing some late career typecasting as a crime boss.)
In a threatening phone call that mirrors the one Charlie received from Sterling Sr. in the series premiere, the hunt is on again. Beatrix uses the same term Em did -- ruinous. Charlie solving the case disrupted a lot of things for a lot of people. But whatever the consequences, Charlie accepts that she’s good at this, and she can keep it up, no matter who’s after her. There’s something affirming about that, the self-assurance in the face of mortal threats and challenging odds.
I hope she does though! The first season of Poker Face was a breath of fresh air. The commitment to strong storytelling, rich characters, and sharp visuals made the series at once feel like a throwback to the classics of episodic T.V., with a casting and a style that situate it perfectly within the confines of modern television. “The Hook” throws in plenty of hints and teases for Charlie’s adventures to continue with personal and thematic meat still on the bone. And if season 1 is any indication, she and the show’s creative team have every reason to feel confident about continuing down this path for years to come.
[8.5/10] I’m tempted to call Poker Face a show for actors. So much of glossy television today is plot-driven, prompting fans to think through twists and speculate about what game-changing development will shock them yet. Poker Face, by contrast, mostly gives away the game at the top. There’s still twists, but you generally get a sense for who dies, how they bit it, and who killed them in the first act.
And yet, you could defensibly call this a writer’s show. Despite Poker Face being a bit of a procedural, it is, true to creator Rian Johnson’s ethos, one with clever clockwork spins on the formula, with ways to surprise and delight the audience through narrative alone. There’s poetry in these scripts, and it jumps off the screen.
But at the same time, you could also fairly call this a cinematographer’s show. The camera moves aren’t always showy, but there’s a classical elegance to the framings, and smart use of lighting to help heighten the mood and show off these worn corners of the world that Charlie inhabits. And sometimes, you even get flashier, bravura sequences like Laura’s descent into madness here. It’s an impressionistic set piece, where Arthur’s creations come to life to haunt her into madness, and demonstrate that, despite her proclamations, the past can hurt you. The stop motion phantasmagoria, red tint, fisheye lens, and other showier moves are the kind of thing a less stylistically sharp series couldn't pull off so well.
But at the end of the day, I still think this is an actor's show, because ultimately Poker Face is about the characters. That benefits the writers, and in a way even the cinematographers. But it thrives on creating these single serving protagonists and antagonists, and making these stories matter with so little time to get them off the ground and into our hearts requires performers who can bring them to life with layers and authenticity.
On that measure, “The Orpheus Syndrome” may be Poker Face’s greatest outing yet, because it’s just virtuoso performance after virtuoso performance.
I’m not sure I’ve ever seen Cherry Jones in anything before, but holy hell is she good here! One of the trickiest things to pull off as an actor is someone who’s presenting one emotion but feeling another, and even blending the truth and the lie together in real time. Her rendition of Laura, the head of a famous film company who’s offed her two collaborators, is incredible in the way she’s able to to present someone who’s genuinely regretful about this and wants her former partners to understand, but who is also gleeful in being able to get away with it.
What’s interesting is that you can believe both parts of it. You can buy that she’s genuinely sad it’s come to this, that she has to kill to preserve her life, that she has to hurt people she oves in the process. But you can also see the scheming side of her, the one that's ready to put on the performance of the grieving widow, of the person glad to give an old friend some peace, when in reality she was the cause of their demise with mercenary uses for their leftovers. There’s so many layers to it. Particularly when she has her breakdown, and all the emotions she’s been suppressing in the act come back to haunt her, she is downright remarkable. If she doesn’t get a guest actress Emmy, then something is seriously wrong.
But Nick Nolte is fantastic too. He’s developed a cottage industry of playing this softly broken men in everything from this to The Mandalorian to the American remake of Broadchurch. His take on Arthur, a special effects visionary and a man haunted by the sense that he killed a young actress by pushing her too hard on a challenging scene, is vivid and affecting. He has that wry old m an energy, bolstered by the gravel in Nolte’s voice, of someone who’s tired to make peace with what happened, but finds it still eating away at him despite the facade.
Of course, Charlie can see past the facade. By this point, I take Natasha Lyonne’s superb acting for granted, but the way Charlie’s able to ingratiate herself into the life of someone like Arthur, or the basement-dwelling employee at the film company, without it ever feeling contrived or forced, is a tribute to Lyonne’s talents. Her easy rapport with Arthur, and commiserating over having lost someone and wondering if you could have done something different, makes for a winning dynamic between the two.
Along the way you have Luis Guzman playing a good-natured but kind of bumbling member of the old crew, who’s another one of those below-the-line good people that Charlie finds herself gravitating toward. Guzman is charming, unassuming, and funny. And none other than Tim Russ (Voyager’s Tuvok) has a small but significant role as Laura’s husband Max, whose final look damns her with disgust over what she did, with his lived-in performance making a lot out of a little.
What she did was turn off the red light that allowed the young starlet to signal that something was wrong on the shoot. This whole ploy turns out to be a means to cover that up, burn the footage that Max and eventually Arthur discovered implicating her in the death that Arhtur had blamed himself for all these years. It is an appropriately cinematic reveal, with an appropriate bit of comeuppance as the incriminating footage is projected onto the screen showing off the forty years of work the trio did together at an anniversary celebration.
The weight of it all slowly unravels Laura. I love her crumbling on the stage of what’s supposed to be her triumph, something that Jones sells like gangbusters. Every villain has their reasons, and there’s something comprehensible and compelling, if not forgivable, of the sense that she was left to do the dirty work to make these men able to live their dreams as boy geniuses. It steeps her motivations in something recognizable and relatable, even as her actions are extreme, grounding an operatic story in real emotion and resentments.
That’s what makes her literal and figurative fall so nightmarish yet invigorating. Laura is the queen of rationalization and compartmentalization, the one who did what needed to be done while her collaborators captured their dreams on celluloid. Only now, with them gone, those dreams have come back to life, curdled into phantasms from her past that can no longer be contained, and eventually drive her to madness and death.
That final, cinematic end wouldn’t have so much power without the performers who sell that dynamic, the remorse, the facade, the cracks in the foundation that amass until emotion and terror come spilling out together as Arthur’s symbolic penitence works its magic on Laura. Poker Face belongs to the entire creative team, who like the episode’s characters, work together to bring this all to life. But in an episode like “The Orpheus Syndrome” the tremendous acting that sells the layers upon layers of guilt and self-justification and recrimination that swirl among these individuals, is what brings the series to a high water mark.
[7.5/10] I enjoyed this one because, like the episode at the nursing home, it expertly plays with your sympathies.
In the first act, Kyle Owens is the good guy. He’s an old man who wants to make his legendary father proud before he retires. But what’s preventing him from doing that is some cocky young hotshot who employs dirty tricks on the track and tears out his mailbox to add insult to injury, Kyle doesn’t seem perfect, but he’s easy to sympathize with as someone trying to have his last run while being thwarted by someone who seems disrespectful and underhanded.
But then, at the end of the act, Kyle Owens sneaks into Davis’ garage to sabotage his car, and then seems to smile when the kid crashes, which, as with the nursing home cool kids, makes you question what kind of person he is.
The second act cements that, as we get to see events from Davis’ perspective. And yeah, he is a bit overconfident, but he also has legitimate grievances with the Owenses. From his perspective, he’s the little guy, who has to scrape by to get a car on the track, in contrast to Kyle and his daughter, who have a family name to trade on and the resources that big sponsors provide. You also get the sense that he genuinely loves this, trying to live up to the standard of his own grandfather and share his minor success and celebrity with the kids.
It doesn’t hurt that Charlie’s friends with his mom either! It’s a good way to give her an in to the murder mystery, and making Davis the offspring of someone who seems genuinely kind and decent helps put the audience on his side, especially when it looks like he’s got a tragic end coming. The way he tries to show Charlie the magic of racing, and even seems to be a little sweet on her, makes him a more likable guy than the cocky upstart we thought we knew from the first act.
But then, Poker Face switches our sympathies again. You can see Kyle’s daughter, Katy, showing up Davis on the go-kart track, which chaps his hide and spurs the mailbox-ripping revenge. But the true dark side comes out when he catches Kyle sabotaging his racecar.
The reveal that Davis sabotaged it further, and then put Katy in the driver seat, is both poetic and diabolical. It makes Davis seem like an active murderer, or at least muddies the blame for the incident with Katy, especially when Davis too seems pretty cold about the whole thing. And it makes Kyle somewhat sympathetic again, both when he’s clearly devastated by the ironic twist of his actions leading to his own daughter’s accident, and eventually because he stands up to face the music when confronted about it by Charlie and his no-nonsense but loving wife.
The chase from Charlie only reinforces that. I like the fact that she outs herself as a “cancer dog” for lies with Davis pretty quickly, so he’s smart enough to evade any statements that would give her a clue that he’s not on the up-and-up. It’s nice to see the villains here being clever enough to slip through Charlie’s detection methods. And the simple fact that what cracks open the case for Charlie is him trying to reassure a kid that seatbelts are safe has a poetry to it too.
He’s also damn menacing! Both the way he threatens Charlie with a tire iron and tries to run her down on the road is some of the most scary stuff Poker Face has pulled off. This being a Rian Johnson-penned episode, I appreciate the trademark setup, payoff, and ironic echo, where the fishtail move and “trust the car” mantra Davis taught her in the video game turns out to be the technique she needs to use to evade him.
The other odds and ends of the episode are good too. Charlie’s clues are all fair play, from the seatbelt lie, to Davis knowing what type of wire Kyle used for the sabotage, to the picture of Davis’ grandfather that was missing from the dash, to his mom’s forgetfulness about her keys that allow Charlie to slip into their garage. The humor was also particularly on point here, with Natasha Lyonne being especially amusing in her line deliveries about the glory of Deliverance and her regrets at accepting the “cancer dog” metaphor.
But what I like best here is Davis’ comeuppance. Rather than turning him into the cops or otherwise getting him to incriminate himself, Charlie deliberately gives him the yips! I like that as an alternative to the usual ways she brings people down. Davis getting what he’s always wanted (something clunkily announced in dialogue), only to find that with the pressure, the likely disapproval of his dead grandfather, and Katy awake and soon to take his crown, is some nice karmic retribution. And again, as is the hallmark of a Rian Johnson script, has the bookends of Davis’ shaking hand as a parallel to Kyle’s in the beginning.
Overall, another good mystery of the week with some well-played games of sympathy switching, along with a cool and unique way for Charlie to bring down the baddie.
[7.9/10] Another good episode. The opening segment does a good job of setting up questions of who the victim will be. Will it be Kathleen, the grand dame, with her trap door? Will it be Michael, her network T.V. counterpart, who has a heart condition? Will it be Rebecca, their millennial co-star with a conspicuous peanut allergy? Or will it be Ava, Michael’s wife and presumable sugar mama, whose death would lead to a payday?
The show plays nicely coy as to how things will go down. It isn’t obvious when or how the murder will happen. And I love the twist here, where it seems like Kathleen and Michael have had enough of one another and are trying to take each other out after a career’s worth of believable grievances with one another, but in reality, they’re in cahoots and trying to eliminate Ava so they can share in her “she-trade” fortune.
It’s good mystery craftsmanship, keeping the audience guessing and coming up with surprises so that savvy mystery watchers still have to stay on their toes after half a season’s worth of stories.
Granted, some convenience does come into play. In addition for everything else to go write with their dry ice/trap door/falling light plan, they had to know Ava would try to reach Michael via that particular route and that the fall would kill her, neither of which are guarantees. Still, it’s the kind of gimme I’ll grant the show given how well this little vignette of faded stars who seemingly hate each other but are actually willing to kill to be together works.
That may actually be my favorite little wrinkle to this one. Normally what gets Charlie on the case is recognizing that someone’s spewing “bullshit.” What I like is that, for once, it’s her recognizing that someone is telling an odd truth, namely that Kathleen and Michael love one another. It’s a small thing, but enough to mix up Poker Face’s formula in a nice way.
Plus, god help me, as a recovering theater kid, it’s just fun to see Poker Face skewering the stage. The show pokes gentle fun at regional theater. (And its Hamilton spoof is a delight.) The little bits from tech rehearsals to backstage drama to equally admiring and skeptical members of the crew is well-observed. I love the set piece where Charlie strives hard to convey the danger that everyone’s in without veering into the play’s sightlines. And I died laughing when she gives up the ghost, physically intrudes on the screen, and decides to become the titular “Ghost of Pensacola” within the play as a fig leaf.
I also really enjoy the way this episode continues the trend of Charlie getting involved in these things not because she’s just determined to solve a murder, but because she ends up gravitating toward good people and wants to exonerate or absolve them of the crime. Chris McKinney, the actor who plays Phil the stage manager, does a stellar job of seeming like the approachable member of the crew who helps Charlie out, and the poor man who tortures himself over allowing something terrible to happen on his stage, when in fact it was skullduggery by the play’s stars. You get the sense of the show building up a cadre of allies for Charlie, and my hope (if not expectation) is that they will come out of the woodwork to return the favor in her hour of need.
That said, you can only go to the “secret recording” method of incrimination so many times before it starts to feel a tad cheap, even though Charlie’s attempt to turn one of Kathleen’s spare wigs into a cheap facsimile of her dog to hide the device was a solid chuckle. But I guess I can give Poker Face a little leeway to repeat the trope since Michael and Kathleen used the same mics to “accidentally” broadcast their “feud” to the hearing impaired earlier in the episode.
The best part of this one though, comes at the end. I love the idea that despite the whole play being a setup for the crime, Kathleen at least really does want to step back into the spotlight, and is willing to risk giving up their “hard-earned” fortune for another chance at it. You get the sense that once upon a time, she and Michael actually cared, and in the years since their goofy network procedural, they’ve ossified.
But when they realize they’ve been made and there’s nothing left to do...they give the performances of a lifetime. I’m impressed at how well Ellen Barkin and Tim Meadows do at giving self-consciously bad performances in-character at Kathleen and Michael’s rehearsals and overblown acting in the one-night-only staging. But when they’re about to go down for murder, they tap into something real, a truth that Charlie can recognize within the performance (a neat use of her talents), that inadvertently sees them delivering the tour de force Kathleen was faux-aspiring too. There’s poetry in that, and it sends a twisty, deadly, funny episode on a well-earned note of beauty and melancholy.
Slight variation on the usual Poker Face story arc, in this case, with Charlie befriending the villainesses before their villainess acts, and then still not quite believing it, even when she can tell they're lying, and, that, they are in reality, cliched "former counter-revolutionaries" who see nothing wrong with helping those who disagree with them in shedding their mortal coils. Yes, their former (to quote Kim K, "big D energy") paramour Ben may have betrayed them to the Po Po, causing (nearly unrecognizable former OLTL alum) Judith Light's Irene to take a shotty load to the spinal column and the both of them long term stays in the Graybar Hotel, but, damn son, they felt it was fine to blow up a room full of high school kids to teach them a lesson about working for "the MAN", that is, again, anyone who disagreed with their politics. Ben noped the "F" out, pulled a Sammy the Bull, and exited stage left via a blacked out FBI van straight into into WITSEC.
Years later, feeling that he needed to make things right, and at least tell them what had REALLY happened, he shows up at their care home, unfortunately forgetting that "hell hath no fury...."and quickly finds himself starring in a real life episode of "Murder They Wrote". I wont go fully into the plot, as @Andrew Bloom has given his usual play by play synopsis below, but, suffice it to say the main antagonists deserved and eventually received a return engagement at the local Shawshank dormitory, as well as a pre registration azz whoopin' via Ms.Charlie Cale.
Kudos to Simon Helberg's turn as "Luca" (who, unlike his Brasi namesake, does NOT sleep with the fishes) but, does seem like kind of Agent one would hope to run into if ones life started to go pear shaped. Hopefully (seeing how impressed he was with Charlie) we will see him again, and if not, when this show runs it's course, perhaps Charlie can take him up on his offer, and if not outright joining, (owing to how she feels about cops) then perhaps a consulting gig, on occasion, as she feels the need...., for justice.
All in all a really good episode.
MODERATION EDIT: You shouldn't use those terms to talk about disabled people. You can't say what you want if that is offensive.
[8.4/10] Rian Johnson and company were already playing with house money. But if you want me to like your show, casting Mountain Goats frontman John Darnielle in a prominent role is a good way to put a thumb on the scales!
But Johnson and writer Christine Boylan didn’t need to include the frontman for one of my (and Johnson’s) favorite bands to make “Rest in Metal” sing, because it may be the best episode of Poker Face yet, purely on its own merits.
Given that the structure of the show means Poker Face is less a murder mystery series and more of a “Charlie pieces the clues together” series, what matters most is the culprits and victims of the week. Why did they do it? What motivated them to take such drastic action.
What I like about this one is that the motive this week is an outsized version of something understandable. (To be clear, not for murder, but to be upset.) Ruby Riot and her band have one hit, a hit that's haunted them for ages with their inability to replicate it. On a practical level, they need the money. Their drummer wrote the song and gets all the royalties. Ruby’s working at an ersatz home depot. Al is going through a divorce. And Eskie is moving back with his mom and trying to get a legal certification. So when some dope of Craigslist wanders in to drum on their tour and unveils a surefire hit, there’s a pragmatic need for all of them to use it to get paid, which adds up as a motive.
What I like even better, though, is their emotional need. The three of them can feel histry repeating, with a drummer penning their hit and walking away with all of the profits. Ruby wants to avoid that with every fiber of her being. More to the point, as highlighted by director Tiffany Johnson’s creative production choices, Ruby wants to replicate that “seeing the face of God” feeling she got when they did “Staplehead”, they’re one hit. As much as they want the fortune and fame of another ride at the top, they’re also just chasing the high.
In a strange way, “Rest in Metal” plays a bit like Milos Forman’s Amadeus, with Ruby representing the “Queen of Mediocrities” who sees this guileless metalhead idiot creating by accident the salvation that she’s been chasing for decades. The episode takes time before the murder happens to show how sullen and desperate Doxxxocology has become, which makes their choice to murder this poor dope sad and terrible, but also comprehensible, which is what good stories about bad actions are made of.
But this is also a great Charlie episode. I wasn’t sure how they were going to fit her into this one, but I’m continually impressed about how Poker Face is able to do the first act without the show’s protagonist, only to reveal in the second act that she was there all along. I don’t know if it’s sustainable, or if over time it’s going to start to feel contrived or tedious. But for now, it’s a delight each time.
The setup that Charlie was one of the day laborers at the hardware store where Ruby works, wrangled into becoming her roadie, is a nice choice to lay down some plausibility. The fact that Charlie is the titular “Merch Girl” who the band writes a song about in the first act is cute, as is the fact that the staple thrown at them during their hit comes off her very own merch table.
More to the point though, I like her friendship with Gavin, the brain fried drummer-for-hire along for the ride. As my wife pointed out, this isn’t all that different from Charlie taking in the dog in the last episode. Gavin’s a dummy, but he’s completely without malice. Just a good-natured, somewhat messy kid who’s simply happy to be here. These stories wouldn’t work if you didn’t buy Charlie finding a quick bond with the ultimate victims, and the nature of Gavin’s silly but earnest dopery, and Charlie’s empathy toward other lost souls, makes this one click. Hell, we even get a brief moment of depth for him, about how music makes “the bad stuff go away,” that gives the kid a bit of pathos, and makes it extra sad when he becomes Doxxxology’s sacrificial lamb.
Beyond the strong character work, the little touches put this one over the top. There’s poetry to the face that the band uses Gavin’s peculiar amp setup to electrocute him. And again, the show plays fair with the mystery, setting up Gavin’s polaroid camera and footwork videos, not to mention Al’s posture-based gripes, ahead of time to give Charlie the evidence to piece together what really happened. It’s also nice that they setup a camaraderie between Charlie and Deuteronomy, the band’s other (ultimately fired) roadie, so he can explain the peculiarity of the amp situation. This is a sound mystery, which helps a lot.
But there’s a lot of other lovely little touches here that are just clever or fun. For one thing, I got a big kick out of John Hodgman as the pleated khaki drug-seeker who everyone assumes is a narc, but who turns out to be just an unusually white bread metal fan. For another, I appreciate the foreshadowing that the band Doxxxicology is opening for likes to do viral “pranks”, which Charlie gets inadvertently wrapped up in, exposing her to Cliff. (And their ensuing chase scene through the concert is nice.) The little things really enhance this one.
What I love most, though, is the throughline of Gavin being a “magpie”, as Charlie puts it. (Another Mountain Goats reference?) He doesn’t come up with anything wholly original. He simply sews together bits and pieces of what he’s heard and seen. (Which, in fairness, isn’t drastically different than how all artists create.) Charlie identifies that ahead of time. So after his death, it gives her a fantastic Keyser Soze moment when she’s able to use the detritus he left in her cars to trace the lyrics of Ruby’s new hit, and realize he wrote it. It’s such a clockwork little event.
The capper, though, is that it’s ultimately what dooms the band. I should have known better in a Rian Johnson production, but I’d assumed that Gavin annoying the rest of the band by laughing along to Benson in the back of the tour bus was just an amusing bit of texture. The fact that it telegraphs the fact that he stole the riff for “Sucker Punch” from the show’s theme, which scuttles Doxxxicology’s big comeback, is a beautiful bit of poetic comeuppance. And there’s grand irony in the fact that Ruby and company worked so hard to steal something that was already stolen, and it being their downfall.
I also like the variety here that for once, Charlie’s bullshit detection skills aren't really the cinch. When she confronts Ruby, Ruby admits it straight out, but brushes it off as simply doing what was necessary and preventing Charlie from being able to go anywhere with it. This isn’t some baroque conspiracy. Ruby’s upfront and open-eyed about this, which makes her scarier but weirdly more admirable than some of our other murderers this season (relatively speaking, of course). She doesn’t try to deflect or lie. (Which, uh, doesn’t excuse the murder.) It makes her a more interesting, or at least varied culprit, than some we’ve seen so far.
And for a second, I thought they were going to get away with it! Honestly, I hope that at some point, for all Charlie’s guile and intelligence, the practicality of her circumstances mean she’s not able to bring the bad guys to justice. I thought that's what this was, which would be a nicely bittersweet way to end a story like this one. But once more though, the script delivers a nice doozy, with the “Murder Muffin”-style podcaster Charlie ran into at the co-working space becoming the source of public exposure for Ruby and company’s misdeeds. Again, I thought Charlie riffing with a murder-solving podcaster was just a fun, wry bit, but the way it circles back to being plot-relevant is masterful.
Overall, this was an outstanding episode, that showed off one of the show’s more creative and poetic mystery-solving routines, embedded in one of its most interesting character setups so far. And the fact that it includes one of the best singer-songwriters of all time in the mix makes for a wonderful bonus.
[7.5/10] “The Stall” is an interesting installment, because my reaction to it was opposite to the first two episodes of Poker Face. For those, my reaction was, “Yes, yes, the mystery is certainly cool, but I’m having more fun just spending time with these characters.” And yet, for “The Stall” the characters are perfectly fine, but I was more captivated by how Charlie solved the mystery.
That's not to say the characters are bad by any stretch of the imagination. Getting Lil Rel Howery of Get Out fame is a boon, and he’s perfectly cast as Taffy, the showboating entrepreneurial half of a brother-run barbecue company. His more sensitive and meticulous sibling, George, has a strong but sensitive presence all his own. And George’s wife, Mandy, does the “steel behind the southern smile” bit well. The setting of an outdoor picnic bench restaurant and mobile home works to mix up the show’s rotating set of backdrops.
The catch is that the details here -- wife conspires and cheats with her husband’s brother when he threatens to bring down their golden goose -- is a bit stock as crime drama plots go. The real flash comes in how Taffy and Mandy pull it off, with a nice alibi in the form of Taffy doing his radio show via recording during the murder, with a live call-in before and after to give plausible deniability, and some creative (and poetic) logistics in the form of Taffy locking his brother’s door from the outside using his trademark dental floss and poisoning George with the exhaust from his own smoker.
The one character-focused element of this one I really liked was Charlie’s interactions with the “fascist dog” who proves to be the break in the case. Her being annoyed by, but also protective of, the yappy little mutt turns out to be a lot of fun. It adds texture to the story, beyond the pup’s relevance to the mystery plot, since seeing Charlie rail against but also look after the pup is alternatingly hilarious and adorable.
But what I really like here is how Charlie ends up investigating and solving the case. Her fast friendship with George is a little too quickfire (as is inevitable for any of these single-serving stories), but you buy their bond enough for George’s “listen to the symphony” message about tastes and smells to sink in. The composer for this one deserves an award, because the way the score sells Charlie’s internal ability to tell where the wood lodged in the dog’s skull came from, not to mention recognize Taffy’s involvement in the door-locking, through little stings and melodies that expertly convey what she’s thinking and detecting.
Likewise, I love the involvement of Austin, the bored theater major at the radio station who puts on different voices to populate an entire programming block’s worth of different personalities. The entire time Charlie was figuring out what happened here, I wondered to myself how she would turn this all into proof enough to convict the evildoers, since it’s largely circumstantial and tough to meet evidentiary standards with.
But Austin is the perfect cinch. Setting up his voice-changing abilities, and then using him to imitate Taffy to (1.) get Mandy to turn on him and then (2.) use Mandy’s own recorded phone conversation with “Taffy” to incriminate her is beautiful. It’s a little too neat and easy, but Charlie taking George’s lesson on “the stall” in a different metaphorical direction, holding Taffy in place with rhetorical cul de sacs long enough for Mandy to show up and sic the cops on him, is a fun enough tribute to the deceased to help the medicine go down.
Throw in some other nice details like George having his vegan change of heart thanks to a bevy of “friendly pig” movies, and the fascist pup ending up cuddled at Austin’s feet, and you have a Poker Face episode that diverts from the previous two, by setting up a mystery and ploy that's more fun than the people and place it occupies. Like someone at a barbecue buffet, I appreciate the variety!
[7.7/10] My favorite part of this episode is the first twenty minutes or so, which have more in the way of intimate and spine-chilling vignettes than they are a murder mystery. That's all good! It’s okay for the show to have different featuresdifferent weeks. But the upshot is that i was more invested in the characters and their little world than in Charlie unraveling the mystery this week.
I especially like the opening bit, where young mechanic Jed, is creeping on adjacent minimart clerk Sara, before an intervention from sandwich artist and ex-marine Damian. It’s a tidy little morality play. Damian is friendly with Sara and generous with her. The two are cute in a way that's instantly resonant. Jed is, by contrast, an unwelcome presence, clearly making Sara uncomfortable.
The ensuing confrontation on the roof of a mechanic shop which is Jed’s vantage point to spy on his crush is riveting. You see the dpeeth of Jed’s unsettling attitude, one that is self-aggrandizing in his hown “like a god” self-estimation, and which shows the tribute to Damian’s positive attitude and willingness to put in work to make the most of his circumsmtances rather than blame it all on bad luck. The contrast between Damaian’s empathy for someone who isn’t necessarily worthy of it, and Jed’s sense of entitlement collides when Damian wins the lottery, and Jjed murders him because it’s a bridge too far after he sees someone who seems to have all the luck, in his misugided view of how the world work, get head of him yet again.
Likewise, I love the interactions between our protagonist Cahrlie and Marge, and off-the-grid trucker who ends up getting framed for the murder. Marge seems to be Charlie’s equal, showing her kindness with a savvy that arguably saves Charlie’s life. The tips about superglue to close up wounds and how to get along without leaving a trail are key to Charlie’s future survival. As with Sara and Damian, Charlie and Marge have an instant rapport and chemistry that makes you buy why Charlie would stick her neck out for this woman she just meant, which helps preserve economy when all of this needs to be established quickly.
From there, the ymstery elements are fine, but not quite as compelling. Again, the show plays fair with the clues, with Charlie noting Jed’s lies, and tying it to details ike the camera footage of the tarpover her car being difference from moment to moment, and an elbaorte song-based scheme to get dashcam footage that might exonerate Marge. Watching Charlie piece the clues together and have tense of charming itneractions with the residents of this pitstop are all solid. I especially like the conceit of Charlie having only four hours to solve the mystery, lest Cliff use the fact of an ATM ping to locate and kill her.
It just doesn’t have the same oomph as those first two acts of the episode, which are more founded on character.
That said, I like the theme here. Jed blames his problems and failure to reach his potential on outside factors, when really it seems to be his own fault. The show has empathy for him, with Damian talking about the monotony and how it can lead to obsession. (There’s shades of Chris Moltisanti’s “regularness of everyday life ”speech in The Sopranos there.) But it also shows him trying to drag down Damian’s achievements to make himself look better, usurp someone else’s life to get out of town, and try to live the blueprint of the man he just killed to raise himself up. It’s perverse and sad, with Jed as both a figure of revulsion and pity, a tough balance to strike that Poker Face hits perfectly. There’s an idea of luck being a scapegoat In all this, when really it’s choices -- to see the positives and strive for more or give into stupor and blame everyone else -- that make the difference.
The performances are still very good though. Natasha Lyonne continues to shine as Charlie, giving her a rough-and-tumble eccentric edge that makes you enjoy spending time with her whether she’s solving mysteries or pestering truckers. And Colton Ryan does particularly good work as Jed, making him seem creepy and menacing in the right ways, while also showing that melancholy side of someone who feels life owes them something they’ve been denied.
There’s other nice grace notes here, from Sara throwing Cliff off of Charlie’s trail as a way to show those choices and acts of compassion paying off, to Jed’s uncle (John Ratzenberger!) recognizing his nephew’s skullduggery and disowning the kid who violates his innate decency. I even like Jed burning up the winning lottery ticket, which you can read either as him accepting the theme that luck is not an excuse by destroying the symbol of it, or as him refusing to learn the lesson and simply destroying some key evidence. It works either way.
Overall, Poker Face is two-for-two, with an episode that does better at character work and vignettes than at the mystery side, but which is still well worth enjoying for that alone.
[8.3/10] Great start to the season, and one that's helping to fill the Better Call Saul-shaped hole in my heart with all its desert imagery and crime drama. I love the vibes here. You can tell Rian Johnson and company are going for a seventies throwback vibe, which works with the mystery material. The non-linear storytelling and small time thugs angle plays like a self-conscious Tarantino homage (which aligns with the Pulp Fiction shout out and the fact that we never get to find out what exactly was on Mr. Cane’s computer.) And there’s the talky, wry, clockwork mystery vibe to the whole thing that Johnson himself regularly brings to the table.
Natasha Lyonne is great as Charlie, the down-on-her-luck cocktail waitress with a gift for detecting someone’s lies. It’s the sort of humane, hardscrabble, but eccentric individual with an extraordinary gift that Johnson’s shown a talent for writing before. (See: the protagonist of Knives Out). Lyonne completely lives the character, making this lovable weirdo seem real and endearing despite what an outsized character she is. There’s an improvisational, loyal, decency to Charlie that makes her fun to spend time with.
The plot is strong too. This is a mystery episode with no mystery, since the audience sees what happens from the jump. But the fun is in watching Charlie use her gift to steadily unravel what happened to her good friend who was brutally murdered by her bosses, at the same time she gets caught up in Sterling the Casino manager’s byzantine scheme to cheat one of the casino’s “whales.”
The whale plot is a distraction, just a reason for Charlie to get involved in the proceedings. But the way she starts piecing together things amiss, from her best friend’s supposed killer holding the murder weapon with his non-dominant hand, to news footage that confirms he didn’t have the gun when he was “escorted” out of the casino and so couldn't have used it to kill his wife. The clues are there, and when Charlie dredges up the evidence, it feels earned.
There’s also some good thematic and character work. Adrien Brody breathes great life into Sterling, the Casino manager who’s given the job as a make-right from a father who considers him a fuck-up and whom he wants to prove wrong. There’s some thematic resonance with Charlie trying to get justice for Nataie, after Charlie slated herself for seeing problems in the world but never doing anything to fix them, whereas Natalie took a stand upon witnessing an injustice and lost her life for it. Even the “hit him where it hurts” reversal has some good resonance given the setup and payoff of it.
I’m less enamored with the storytelling engine of Charlie going on the run while her old boss sends his goon to chase her after his son commits suicide in the aftermath of her play. But this is going for an old school vibe, so I suppose I can live with the conceit.
Overall though, this is another win for Rian Johnson, full of style and character that don’t detract from the sharp writing and organic fun and wry sensibility he manages to inject into almost all of his projects.
"Sisu" is a captivating war film that takes viewers on a thrilling journey through the Finnish landscape during World War II. The film's protagonist, Aatami Korpi, portrayed by Jorma Tommila, is a prospector whose unyielding determination is encapsulated in the Finnish word "sisu". His struggle against a group of Nazis who steal his gold forms the crux of the narrative.
The film's narrative is lean yet impactful, and its gory action sequences are sure to satisfy fans of the genre. "Sisu" cleverly combines elements of exploitation cinema, spaghetti Westerns, and 1980s action films, creating an inspired pastiche that sets it apart from other war films.
Despite its violent nature, "Sisu" also subtly challenges historical stereotypes associated with prospectors. This nuanced portrayal adds depth to the narrative and keeps viewers engaged throughout the film.
One of the film's standout features is its effective use of limited military hardware and the stark Lapland landscape. These elements contribute to the film's gritty realism and enhance its visual appeal.
While some critics have pointed out weak dramatics alongside its wild action, these aspects do not detract from the overall experience. Instead, they add a layer of unpredictability that keeps viewers on their toes.
In conclusion, "Sisu" is a riveting war film that offers a unique blend of action and drama. Its compelling narrative, memorable characters, and stunning visuals make it a must-watch for any cinema enthusiast. Despite its minor flaws, "Sisu" stands as a testament to innovative filmmaking and is sure to leave viewers eagerly anticipating more from its creators.
Wow, what a finale. I'm...immensely satisfied. It was so good. So now, we have confirmation that the supernatural is real, right? At least to a certain extent. David had an actual vision that could've very well been from God, and not a drug-induced vision. Depending on how you look at it, I guess his drug-induced visions could've been from God as well, and the drug-induced part just acted as a plot device to make you uncertain, for there to be a possibility of it going either way. Then there's Kristen, who was implied to have killed Orson, implied. We never saw it happen, but it probably was her. Only if it was, it wasn't, as the ending gave more credibility to the supernatural being real on top of David's real vision, among other things throughout the show, with a crucifix burning an imprint on her hand, suggesting that she's possessed. I don't see how that can be explained and played off as not being supernatural. Even more so, I don't see how people can still be uncertain whether or not the supernatural is real, after watching this episode. At the very least, the writers could still go the ambiguous route, in the second season, instead of going the supernatural route completely and embracing it, in the sense that there will still be occurrences that won't be downright supernatural, or in a better-worded sense, occurrences with open-ended conclusions.
The Troubles were a truly fucked up conflict.
The British education on The Troubles is weak, and people are generally unaware of the events that lead to the escalating violence that defined Belfast's recent history. With this context, the film does a good job of humanising and villianising all sides with a level of fairness that is not often seen in British made media about The Troubles.
Soldiers are shown as both young men (often from a tough situation) with very little in the way of stakes in the fight and as the armed support for a ruthless and dehumanising state. Senior officers range from those who want to minimise the use of riot gear (because they're not their to start a riot) to those who are happy to kill their own to escalate the situation. Catholics range from the innocent, the angry, the rage-filled, the tired, and the violent. And it has a shown a decent understanding of what was happening with the IRA at this time in history, and how someone can end up involved in the IRA due to the circumstances of their lives.
All of this is weaved around what is effectively a cat and mouse chase across Belfast after dark when being in the wrong part of town is a death sentence for a British soldier.
In a cinematic landscape craving adrenaline-pumping excitement, the fourth installment of this series boldly emerges as a breathtaking testament to the power of action cinema. With a unique blend of pulse-pounding stunts and a mesmerizing palette of colors, this film delivers a cinematic experience that is both visually striking and physically awe-inspiring.
One of the most captivating aspects of this action extravaganza is the commitment of the main actors to perform their own stunts. Their dedication and fearlessness shine through in every heart-stopping sequence, immersing the audience in a world of authenticity and intensity. Each punch, kick, and breathtaking leap feels raw and real, leaving spectators on the edge of their seats, mesmerized by the sheer audacity and skill on display.
Beyond the jaw-dropping action, the film's visual composition stands out as a true work of art. From the vibrant cityscapes to the lush exotic locales, the palette of colors chosen by the cinematographer is nothing short of mesmerizing. Every frame bursts with life, creating a sensory feast for the eyes. The juxtaposition of vivid hues against the gritty backdrops heightens the film's intensity, enhancing the overall experience and immersing viewers in a rich tapestry of visuals.
While the previous installments set a high bar, this fourth chapter rises above expectations, striking gold with its exhilarating action and stunning cinematography. It seamlessly blends heart-pounding thrills with a feast for the eyes, creating a symphony of entertainment that will leave audiences craving for more.
In conclusion, this action-packed journey, driven by the fearlessness of its performers and the artistic vision of its creators, cements itself as a standout addition to the series. Brace yourself for an electrifying experience as this film takes you on a wild ride, leaving you breathless, enthralled, and eager for the next installment.
What a great movie to start the new year. I've finally watched this movie that has been on my watchlist for a while now, due to a number of praises by people I trust, and I can totally understand where they are coming from!
Dan Gilroy has been writing movies since 1992, throughout all genres and all of them great Hollywood movies. With Nightcrawler he gives us his first directorial debut, and this really is a great movie, that is well directed, extremely well shot, extremely captive and thrilling even though it does not even have that many action sequences, it has a great accompanying soundtrack and of course, most important of all: An enormously great performance by Jake Gyllenhall, which too me, after having seen current movies such as Nocturnal Animals, Demolition, Enemy, Prisoners, End of Watch, Source Code, is of course no surprise. Still, in this movie his performance is superb.
However, I did not quite like the ending, and I somehow feel that the movie looses a great opportunity for some social criticism that could have directly addressed the viewer: Because in the end it is us all who enable people like Lou Bloom in his career, because we create the demand for such videos. There is of course a subtle hint, but I would have liked a more "in your face" ending (take for instance the South Park approach with "Super Sexy Action News" in the Episode "A quest for Ratings"). Other than that a really great movie.
I've watched it from the Korean BD release, there was just one 5 Minutes extra but that was really interesting as well: For the movie they had two "experts" as consultants who themselves are active Nightcrawlers, and a paraphrased quote: "In the movie Jake Gyllenhall moves a corpse for the better angle before the cops and parametics arrive - we've never done that, but other than that: yeah, this movie pretty much shows everything we do."
9/10
Superb to be honest
and with only
8 spoken words in
the entire movie
to which the first official
dialogue isn't spoken
till 1:09.05 I wasn't
expecting much.
I must admit I was
pleasantly surprised
and very entertained
especially now I understand
that cryptic ending.
Now I do fully understand that
ending it makes the entire movie
make more sense especially
that third act.
This movie is rather clever
with only 8 lines spoken
and I found it more art
than anything else,
(more art than
"Not Of Planet Earth"
'NOPE').
This movie had a beautiful use of
colours and style and ideas.
I hear many say it was
just a gimmick of a movie
and I understand why
some would say,
It had many many ideas
all thrown in some
you've seen before
that other movies have
done better and some
you haven't seen before
that this movie did perfectly.
Yes their is way better
out there in this genre
(I have them), but for
something fresh
something new that's
not afraid to take risks,
that doesn't play safe
this movie is definitely
more of a hit than a miss.
Also I'm a sucker for
a good Alien Invasion
movie and this is a
Good Alien Invasion
movie, it felt unique
and new
and it was different
and that would be a
Good Different.
(you'd have to go back more
than 60yrs to a
Twilight Zone episode
called "The Invaders"
to see anything remotely
in the ball park of this movie).
(definitely looking
forward to a rewatch).
What a treat! No One Will Save You is a dialogue devoid, tension soaked thriller with an understated backstory and a great presentation. Employing my favourite style of storytelling by showing rather than overtly telling, this deeper-meaning alien thriller is decidedly something special comparative to the other streaming movies that get dumped onto their respective services each week. Surprised this one didn't get a run out at the cinema, I think it would have benefitted from the theatre experience. That's to say you should give this one the setting it deserves. Turn off the lights, crank up your sound device of choice and let this one thump and thrill you for 90 minutes. If you're willing to give it your full attention, I think you'll be greatly rewarded.
Much like all of these post/elevated-horrors, many of the elements are metaphor-laden and hold deeper meaning past the usual surface layer. The aliens in this scenario embody the feeling of anxiety, dread and guilt that is currently holding Brynn hostage in her own home. Unlike everyone else in the rest of the world, who let this anxiety and dread wash and takeover them, Brynn has decided after years of solitude and self-hate that's she's going to stand up and fight back. My read on the ending is that Brynn, who we now know killed her best friend in an accidental retaliation during a childhood fight, has now processed that guilt and stopped it from "consuming" her. We see that everyone else has allowed the alien parasite into them and are now living life with the motions, while Brynn actively fights off the possession and kills many of the aliens trying to force it upon her. Now she has faced the guilt head on, she can live her life free and unburdened, as we see her going about her daily tasks and being accepted by the possessed town that once shunned her.
It's amazing to read other reviews where people are completely slamming this movie for "not making sense". I think this movie is a good litmus test for people who actually pay attention and those that have made doomscrolling on socials part of their movie watching experience. Without things being overtly spoken through dialogue, many are missing this movies well conveyed story, and it's pretty depressing. Hope the industry keeps giving movies like this the time of day, they're the kind of movies that really remind me why I love this medium and the places it can take you.
The franchise keeps getting better
With Chad Stahelski back in the director's chair for the third time, as with the previous films, Parabellum is built on the foundation of Sir Keanu of Reeves's zen-like stoicism, a quality he can deploy to make a violent sword fight look about as stressful as sleeping on silk linen with "Fur Elise" playing in the background and a cat gently purring on the pillow beside you. And although this third entry in the franchise does flirt with a few themes amidst the mayhem (honour, fealty, destiny), it's not trying to be something it isn't, well aware of its own identity as a completely over-the-top orgy of violence. This is a world wherein even the most innocuous of items can be rendered lethal, and where the endless deaths by gun, knife, fist, dog, horse, motorbike, sword, pencil, and book of 18th century Russian folklore, are so excessive as to transcend any possible accusations of irresponsibility or glorification of violence. In short, the film leans into its status as basically a live-action episode of Itchy and Scratchy. Sure, it can become a little repetitive at times, and there's next to no plot or character development, so if you want to be reductionist, you could argue that it essentially gives us more of the same, except bigger, louder, and more elaborate. But that's to ignore how aesthetically accomplished it is, how funny it is, how compelling it is, and how unapologetically entertaining it is.
For my complete review, please visit: https://boxd.it/IBWgV
Synopsis: It's the happiest day of Skylar's (Alexa PenaVega, Spy Kids) life! She and her fiancee are getting married, and they and all their friends and family are beyond happy for them! Unfortunately, the joy soon turns to sadness when, during the reception, wedding guests--including Skylar's parents--and people all over the world inexplicably drop dead. What could be causing this? Skylar, her new husband, and their friends are about to learn a hard lesson about their faith...or lack thereof.
My Review: I haven't done a longer review like this in a while, but, this film is so epic, it deserves it. Before I watched it, I thought: A Christian horror movie? Are you serious? Surprisingly, though, it's done very well, and brings home a chilling message: You never know when the end will come...so, be ready! While I don't agree with the Rapture theology--though it's presented much differently here than in the Left Behind series or any of the Pure Flix films--I have to say that, after watching this, nobody is going to want to be stuck on this Earth after Jesus returns. A gripping story, excellent performances...all in all, outstanding.
Content Concerns: Like with many Christian films of this rating, you should take the "PG-13" seriously; this is definitely not for kids. I also wouldn't suggest watching it before bed, unless you like having nightmares. Seriously, it's that creepy.
I rarely assign the highest possible rating here, but "Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse" simply blew me away. The first movie was almost perfect, with an incredibly varied animation style, good characters, and an exciting and humorous story. The sequel is now a flawless expansion of these elements. This time, for example, even more different animation styles are blended, and the result is simply stunning.
The voice actors are also strong again. I was especially pleased to see Spider-Gwen's (Hailee Steinfeld) role expanded significantly, as her story perfectly complements Miles' (Shameik Moore). And the return of Peter B. Parker (Jake Johnson) provides a good laugh or two. Oscar Isaac as Spider-Man 2099, the Indian Spider-Man (Karan Soni), and the villain The Spot (Jason Schwartzman) are also clear highlights. There are also numerous Easter eggs that can't all be discovered during a single viewing. For fans of the comics, "Across the Spider-Verse" is one hell of a treat.
This is not least due to the fact that the story is once again very strong. While the first part was perhaps held back a bit by the fact that it was also an origin story, there's no holding back this time. The focus is on the multiverse, and it has never been done so well and creatively in any Marvel movie. Amidst all the spectacle, there is also time for smaller moments and character development. Scenes with Miles and his family, as well as Gwen and her father, stand out in particular.
Overall, "Across the Spider-Verse" is a perfect Spider-Man film. Looking ahead to the sequel, which will fortunately already be released in March 2024, my expectations couldn't be higher.
8.5/10 - Yeah, that prison break was absolutely epic! :) It's not over yet though.... :o I hope most of them will make it off the planet alive. Could be extremely difficult though - especially if the Empire sends reinforcements and if there is little to no population on that planet.
It's a good thing that the Imperials still don't get their stuff pentested (to save costs?). That access hatch should've been better secured, the electric floors should be on separate circuits (plus that concept probably doesn't really work - especially if you're standing on one foot), they lack proper security doors / access controls (especially on the case of the control room - you should only be able to open those doors from the inside!), and it looks like they have much more weapons around that required and those weapon arsenals are unprotected! Together with the lack of guards, monitoring/surveillance, etc. a pentest would've probably resulted in a F- security rating xD
But I'm glad that they made all of these mistakes and that the prisoners could escape the prison (and hopefully soon from the planet as well)! :)
"Too late."
"You shouldn't be here."
"I'll turn it off."
I'm just irritated that they left those two guards in the control room (at least briefly unsupervised!). The next guys likely shot them but they should've knocked them out just in case they could cause trouble with their system access (even on backup power - this probably means that they cannot turn on the floors but there are still doors, etc.).
It sucks that that guy can't swim. I really hope he'll make it out with some help or another way!
[7.6/10] The prison story here is my favorite for a simple reason -- it’s ultimately a character story, and about someone you might not expect. Yes, it’s Andor instigating the doubts and trying to find a way to break out of this shithole of a factory. But it’s ultimately a story about convincing Kino, who’s become so institutionalized that he buys the company line entirely, that the people promising him his freedom if he flies on the straight and narrow are not only full of crap, they don’t even care about him or any of the prisoners to begin with.
I appreciate that about the progression here. Kino is banking on playing the game. He is a prisoner, but he’s a tool of the guards. He has a little bit of power, and maybe some extra treatment and privileges because of it, so he does their bidding. Andor is an agitator. He’s cutting lines in the bathroom, conspiring with other prisoners to figure out where the floor isn’t electrified, and asking about how many guards are stationed on the floor.
Kino won’t actively punish him, maybe just because the foreman still needs a good worker like Cassian to help keep his shift’s stats up. But he won’t help either. He won’t give up that information. Because he believes in the central idea of this place. If you just stay on the right side of the line and do your job, eventually you’ll get out of here. He tells that to Ulaf, noting that he’s the “short timer” on the floor, with only a handful more shifts until he’s out of there.
And then the lie starts breaking down. Rumors start flying about everyone being deliberately fried on the second level. It’s whispered about at first, but eventually it’s confirmed. One hundred lives, snuffed out in a wave of electricity and burnt flesh. And for what? Because some of them were maybe acting up a bit, some guards thought. That’s it. That’s all it took. All of them gone.
So the lie goes up in smoke. So it turns out the trouble starts when someone who “got out” of level 4 showed up in level 2, and was a walking example of what a canard the idea that you can make it out of here. So Ulaf, who is so close to being free, is worked together and gets euthanized instead of helped when he starts to run into his own limitations. As another inmate says, they’re not men to their captor. They are a part of the machine, cheaper than droids and easier to replace. Kino finally realizes that, in the grim terms of seeing his comrades killed over nothing and his chances to get out evaporate. So his moment of aiding Andor, giving him the details he needs to start planning an escape, are strangely triumphant from someone who was an unquestioning part of that machine to this point.
The whole thing is a searing indictment of the prison industrial complex, taken through the lens of abstraction that speculative fiction provides, but no less piercing in its criticisms of how those who are vulnerable and stripped of their rights are treated in captivity. It’s one of the strongest stories Andor has told this season, which is saying something.
The other material in “Nobody’s Listening” is good, but can’t quite compare. I appreciate the reveal that Cinta’s “rich girl running away from her family” jab at Vel meant more than we thought. It turns out she’s Mon Mothma’s sister, and the two speak in hushed tones about their mutual activities. I like the idea that they’re both working for the Rebellion in different ways, a familial example of how it takes many hands to make this sort of thing happen.
The scene of Meero torturing Bix is suitbly tough to watch. Adria Arjona does a superb job at selling the slowly escalating horror of what she’s being subjected to until its bursts out in a crescendo of pain. The story of the Empire exterminating a planet’s worth of people to install a shipping port, only to weaponize the dying screams of their children, is wholly chilling. But it all does a good job of reinforcing why the Empire is so awful, why Bix would give up this information, and why Meero is not good, even if she’s good at her job.
Again, that’s the cognitive dissonance of this show. Meero is 100% the bad guy, but she’s so good at how she achieves all this, even boosting her assistant in a key moment as she rightly identifies the scheme of the Rebellion and the best way to smoke it out, that you can’t help but be impressed. Karn’s stalker with a crush routine is creepy as hell, especially when he’s yet again mixing up what he attributes to high minded ideals with his personal interests. But you can also get why someone who wants to be Meero, with what she accomplishes for the Empire and how expertly she does it, would mix up those feelings of aspiration with affection. It’s not so easy for the audience, who sees her torturing someone with the debilitating sounds of a people who’ve suffered a genocide.
Overall though, a quality episode that moves a number of interesting pieces in place for the convergence of these different characters and storylines, while also telling a strong individual story of what would provoke someone who’s been indoctrinated to the institutional point of view to have a change of heart.
