Intrigue! Espionage! A killer crop duster! BQB here with a review of this classic Hitchcock film.
I’ll admit I’m no expert when it comes to classic cinema. However, from what I have seen, I have to assume that this film must have been a stunner when it came out. It seems way ahead of its time and likely inspired a whole generation of baby boomer action film directors. Without it, you would have never had flicks like Die Hard, Lethal Weapon, etc.
The plot? A case of mistaken identity leads to the cross-country trip from hell for Madison Avenue publicist (Mad Man) Roger Thornhill (Cary Grant.) When poor Roger, twice divorced from wives who found his lifestyle rather dull, raises hand to flag down a bellhop while lunching at a ritzy hotel with work associates, henchmen in the employ of dastardly Cold War info broker Phillip Vandamme (James Mason) mistakenly believe Roger answered to a page for the elusive “Mr. Kaplan,” a CIA spy they believe is hot on Vandamme’s trail, ready to undo his villainy at any moment.
From there on, it’s a whirlwind ride that takes Roger to Long Island, the United Nations and aboard a train bound for Chicago, all culminating in an epic battle on the face of Mount Rushmore with Thornhill fighting evildoers atop the stoney faces of the ex-presidents themselves.
Along the way, he befriends Eve Kendall (Eva Marie Saint, who I believe may very well be the last star of this film to still be alive), a fellow traveler with some intrigue of her own.
All the while, goons lead by head goon Leonard (Martin Landau in one of his creepier roles) are always in hot pursuit.
For a 1950s film, there are scenes that are broad, epic and sweeping. Well-choreographed extras moving to and fro in the background make you really believe you are in Manhattan, or a train station, or at the UN and so on. The fight scene on Mount Rushmore must have made a few 1950s film techs think that Hitchock was out of his mind.
Don’t even get me started on the iconic crop-duster scene. Look away if you don’t want a SPOILER, but in one scene, Roger is lured to an open field, wide swathes of farmland everywhere. As he waits for promised help that never arrives, a seemingly harmless biplane sprays crops off in the distance. Slowly it gets closer and closer until it opens fire on our heroic adman, making several passes until it crashes into a conveniently located fuel truck in a magnificent fiery explosion. Was this one of the first of its kind on film? Better film historians than I can tell you but it has to rank high on the list of early spectacular film wrecks.
STATUS: Shelf-worthy. Psycho and The Birds are often thought of as Hitchcock’s most memorable works, but an argument might be made that this is his best picture. There are some bits that don’t quite stand the test of time, namely that a 26-year-old hottie swoons for a 50-something man though I suppose we have to remember that in that time, young women were taught that marrying a rich old dude was the path to success. To my surprise, there is a lot of out and open sexual talk in this film, which likely scandalized moviegoers of the day. I suppose later films that actually showed sex wouldn’t have happened without films like this talking about it.
SIDENOTE: Yes, I suppose there is plenty of room for debate as to whether films laden with sex and violence are a good thing. This one is tame by modern standards, though films like it arguably began to wedge the door open. Whether or not Hitchcock would approve of modern flicks is anyone’s guess.
DOUBLE SIDENOTE: There is a classic goof in the Mount Rushmore visitor center scene. A little kid at a table, apparently aware that a blank gunshot fired by Saint’s character, was about to go off, plugs his ears way ahead of time. Apparently, no one who cutting the final film noticed or cared or they didn’t want to go to the trouble of reshooting the scene.
I fear we might be in the Jump the Shark phase of the most expensive television show ever created, that being the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Iron Man is dead. Captain America is old and Hulk? Well, he could never sustain a movie on his own.
Like Paul McCartney, Chris Hemsworth’s Thor is left to perform solo without the trio of mates who made up the fab four. However, if you’d like a brief Guardians of the Galaxy flyby followed by a team-up with a Lady Thor, Valkyrie and a rock man, then this movie might be up your alley.
Christian Bale stars as Gorr the God Butcher, and to Bale’s credit he really is one of few actors who can completely transform himself into a virtually unrecognizable new person. Gorr and his daughter, Love, the last of an ancient race, seek help from their God Rapu, only to be mocked. Angered when Rapu refuses to help his dying child, Gorr claims the necrosword, slays Rapu then goes on a killing spree across the otherworldly realms, slashing his way through many a god from ancient mythical folklore.
Meanwhile, Thor is hot off a streak of saving various worlds from villainy with the help of his new BFFs, the G of the G when Gorr attacks New Asgard a little refugee town on Earth, home to the children of many a god who perished in Old Asgard during Thor: Ragnarok.
When Gorr kidnaps the Asgardian kiddies in the hopes of drawing Thor into a trap, Thor teams up with other friends Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson), Korg (Taika Waititi) and Jane Foster, now Lady Thor, having sought out the power of the hammer of Thor in the hopes of curing a fatal illness only to become a Thor herself.
I’m not sure how the Thor movies turned into a joke every 5 seconds laugh fest but I suppose they were always semi-intended to be a parody of ancient religion. Screaming goats, a bloated Zeus played by Russell Crowe, Thor’s clothes getting blasted off only for women to feint at the sight of his studly bod are just some of the many goofy happenings.
It’s funny and fun. On the other hand, it feels stitched together at times. Gorr is the most interesting character and arguably, has a justifiable grievance, having lived a pious life only to be mocked by a God he worshipped in his time of need. We see very little of him until the end. The Guardians are fun but it feels like they as well as other MCU characters have cameos limited to whatever the actors could do in a very quick time frame to scoop up a quick payday.
STATUS: Shelf-worthy but like the recent Dr. Strange, I’m at the point where I don’t rush out to the theater anymore to watch these flicks. Rather, I just wait until they are on Disney Plus now.
OK I’ll give my rant. I’m not a huge fan of the trend where every male hero gets vaginized. I turn on a Hawkeye series only to see it’s mostly about Hawkeye training a lady apprentice to become a lady arrow shooter. Lame in theory but fun in practice.
Meanwhile, She-Hulk is more interesting than any stand alone male Hulk movie.
And though I balked at the previews, when I saw the movie I felt like, yeah, I can see how Jane would try to use her scientific mind to locate and harness the power of her ex’s hammer to gain newfound strength in a dark time.
So, to give props to Disney, it’s all done in interesting, watchable ways. And Marvel as well as DC always had a habit of just creating female versions of their superheroes when they ran out of ideas for their male heroes.
But I guess my complaint is that there seems to be a trend toward pushing women to become manly, as if being a woman is somehow a bad thing and women will never be whole unless they turn into dudes.
In other words, there’s a part where Jane corrects Gorr, telling him she’s not Lady Thor. She’s either Mighty Thor or Dr. Jane Foster and I just wonder, couldn’t she have just grabbed Mjolnir and become her own new hero? But then I guess anything but Natalie Portman in a Thor suit wouldn’t have sold tickets.
Something’s rotten in the state of Denmark, 3.5 readers.
BQB here with a review of Netflix’s Danish dubbed in English hit.
These are not great Danes. Ha! See what I did there?
Christian and Leonara seem to have an idyllic life. Sure, they have had their share of problems in life. They have spent the past several years as well as boatloads of money helping their son beat an illness. However, now that battle has been won and with the lad off to college soon, it’s time for these middle-aged folk to have some quality time.
But not so fast. Christian has fallen in love with the much younger Xenia, gratuitously schtupping her behind his wife’s back and apparently Danish cinema still allows boobies on screen because America sure as hell doesn’t. Violence, bloodshed and mayhem? Sure, but boobies? Never!
Anyway, hurt feelings lead to accusations which lead to threats which lead to murder, murder and more murder. One thing this movie does well is leaving you with a sense that there really is no one to root for here. At first, I found myself siding with Leonora, the faithful wife ousted after years of devotion for a younger model. But then her retaliations go above and beyond the punishment deserved by a pervy cheating husband. Mr. and Mrs. go back and forth, first at war, then as accomplices stuck with one another. A truly disastrous marriage that dredges up past sins and presents a terrible future.
All framed around a police commissioner narrator who tells his daughter about this case, what he describes as the most horrifying case he ever investigated in his time on the force. This isn’t really a story a daughter wants to hear on her wedding day, but alas the investigation led the old timer with such a blatant fear of love that he feels he must warn everyone of the dangers of falling for someone. Love, the good inspector advises us, can drive people mad and cause them to do terrible things.
STATUS: Shelf-worthy. You’ll have to get used to the English dubbing and there are some words and phrases that I assume sound better in Danish that don’t translate to English. Otherwise, a scary story that will make you think twice about tying the knot. You don’t just have to worry about your partner’s sanity today, but for years and years to come.
I had a fun time but I had absolutely no idea what was going on. That sums up a) this movie or b) my life, except that you’d have to take out the part where I said I had a fun time.
I’d explain the plot in full detail but I’m still figuring it out in my head and failing. The condensed version is that pretty much every passenger on board a high-speed train to Tokyo is an assassin who either wants to kill, is a target of or somehow otherwise connected to The White Death, a Russian who took control of a Japanese Yakuza syndicate.
Amidst the chaos, passive assassin Brad Pitt must snatch a suitcase full of money while escaping the clutches of a brother duo Lemon and Tangerine, a Mexican gangster, a professional poisoner, a schoolgirl with a penchant for explosives and you know honestly I eventually lost count.
The fight scenes are prolific, the plotting, conspiring, double-crosses, and jokes abound. It all has a very Tarantino-esque feel, though the heavy dependance on flashbacks can be annoying.
My main reason for applause is that in most films, Brad Pitt just seems like Brad Pitt, a super handsome man who just shows up and is super handsome. Here, he really convinces us he’s a nebbish type, a nerd riddled with anxiety armed not with guns but with calming techniques and self-help quotes. Yes, he does kill, but only when necessary, and he legit feels bad about it and tries his best to avoid it. In other words, Brad Pitt becomes someone else in this film.
STATUS: Shelf-worthy. You’ll have to check your brain at the door and you may have to watch it twice to fully understand what happened, since it all moves very fast yet there are so many moving parts.
I’d been avoiding this one for a while too, largely because I assume most Netflix flicks are trash, but everyone’s favorite streaming service has been surprising lately. This one is a special effects laden, hardcore action, ridiculous amounts of destruction action scene and had it been released in a theater I would have been satisfied on the return on investment on my ticket price.
Many stars and Netflix doesn’t do the thing they often do where they just pack a movie full of stars and they have them do a passable job on a lackluster script.
Ryan Gosling plays Sierra 6, one of a numbered agent assassin program devised by Fitzroy (Billy Bob Thornton.) The sierras are ex-cons, released from prison in exchange for a lifetime of service taking out bad guys at the CIA’s command.
Alas, when Six is ordered to take out a fellow Sierra, said target provides our protagonist with evidence that his bosses are up to no good and now the hunter becomes the hunted. Yes, I know this literally the plot of most spy movies, but it is done in great globetrotting style here.
Chris Evans plays against type, here as uber douche Lloyd Hansen who is an ends justify the means type of guy, completely uncaring as to how many innocents have to die in the name of acquiring his target. He even brags about his villainy, so that’s different for the guy we’re used to seeing as squeaky clean Captain America.
Meanwhile, the ever lovely Ana de Armas, who I intend to propose to when my self-publishing millions come through, rounds out the cast as Miranda, a spy who sometimes is out to help Six, or catch Six, or help him again, depending on where we are in the movie.
It’s up to Six and Miranda to save the day, and Fitzroy’s niece Claire (Julia Butters), kidnapped by the vile Lloyd in the hopes of drawing Six out.
Amidst all of this mess, lots of people get shot like cannon fodder and there are lots of explosions and car chases and plane explosions and train explosions and at one point I was like, “Oh come on, I don’t think the CIA would kill that many people just to get one guy” but hey, it’s a movie, it’s fun, so stream it today.
STATUS: Shelf-worthy. Between this and Day Shift, Netflix is really winning me over lately.
Wow, 3.5 readers. Every once in a while, Netflix gets it right and when they do, boy do they ever get it right.
Grab your fangs (preferably in a bottle) and come along for BQB’s review of this fun horror action comedy.
This film imagines a John Wickian world where vampires live and conspire in the shadows, while vampire hunters operate as independent contractors, ganking the undead then turning in their fangs for cold hard cash. One such hunter is Bud Jablonski (Jamie Foxx) who operates an LA-based pool cleaning business as a front for his vamp blasting game.
Alas, Bud has a long history of not playing by the rules. This has led to his expulsion from the vampire hunting union, a sprawling underground bureaucracy operated by a bench riding brass who require its members to comply with a whole laundry list of conflicting regulations but bench riders that they are, don’t realize as Bud does that sometimes when you’re out in the field, you just have to shoot a bloodsucker first and ask questions later.
Thus, the Budster eeks out a meager living by selling dispatched vamp fangs to black market dealers, but when his estranged wife announces a plan to move to Florida to live with her mother who will help share living expenses (said plan to include taking their daughter which will crush Bud as she is the light of his life), he has one weekend to rejoin the union and extract a mother-humping shit load of vamp teeth which can be redeemed at much higher union prices, thus proving to his wife that he is a good provider and there is no reason to leave. Oh, did I mention the reason for the separation is that she has no idea her husband is a contract killer of things that go bump in the night and just assumes that all his running around at late hours means he is a devious lying so and so?
Alas, getting back in the union’s good graces is no easy feat. To do so, Bud turns to his mentor, legendary vamp hunter Big John Elliott played by the one and only Snoop Dogg and if you think this is just a cameo, think again because Snoop Double D-Oh-G, You See gets plenty of screen time devoted to racking up the vamp kills in his own right. Big John goes to bat for Bud, smoothing things over with union bureaucrat Seegar (Eric Lange).
Seegar agrees to reinstate Lange just to remain on Big John’s good side but secretly yearns to bust the Budster on literally any minor rule infraction, no matter how insignificant. To do so, he enlists green newbie vampire Seth (Dave Franco) to shadow Bud for the weekend with orders to spy on Bud and report any violations he sees. Seth is comically unqualified, as often is the case for newcomers to any profession, but in the fang banging game, inexperience can get a man killed, and to add to Bud’s woes, he must drag around a clueless youngster who literally pees his pants and vomits uncontrollably upon each vampire encounter. Realism in an unrealistic world, I suppose. Who wouldn’t pee and puke the first few times they meet the undead?
Long story short, Bud’s exuberance to pull in big fang cash causes him to run afoul of big vamp boss Karla, who makes it her mission in life to send her minions to serve Bud’s ass up on a platter. Meanwhile, Seth must choose if he wants to be just another paper pushing union bureaucrat or if he wants to learn how to dispatch the damned from a man who has been out in the field for years. BTW, most of this is done on the Day Shift, as the union won’t approve Bud for the Night Shift, a time when vamps are out and about more and thus easier to blast in greater numbers, thus higher profits.
Will Bud save the day and his marriage? Start streaming to find out.
STATUS: So very much shelf-worthy. So many Netflix films are silly, slapped together foolishness, yet if I’d seen this in a theater, I would have been pleased. It’s violent and gory, so if that isn’t your thing, look away. It brings you in fast and doesn’t waste a lot of time on origin story. Even so, it is strong on world building and character development. I could see future sequels, all centering around an underground world where vampires perpetrate evil deeds in the shadows, while vamp hunters pull off their Van Helsing style moves for pay, while also hiding in plain sight. As the film indicates, most hunters have a front, i.e. a home improvement contracting business they run their fang extraction game through, so you never know, the next time you see a pool cleaning truck drive by, it might just be a vamp hunter on his way to battle the undead.
Then again, it might just also be a dude who cleans pools. Bud actually does a fair amount of that too. Have to make ends meet somehow. Did I mention I really enjoyed this?
It’s hard not to root for Jordan Peele. Very few comedians make the transition to serious movie director. His first two films, Get Out and Us used the horror genre to discuss society’s racial problems that all too often leave black people feeling like they’re living in a real life horror film. Us was especially scary to me, so much so that I never wanted to watch it again, not because it was bad because it was that scary and I didn’t want to get scared again.
But while the first two flicks had clear messages (white people controlling and/or replacing the identity of black people in Get Out or how an underground world of our violent, angry doppelgangers who are just like us suffer while people above thrive serves as a lesson about class privilege in Us) the message here is not very clear, unless I am oblivious, which is possible and if so, feel free to explain it to me in the comments.
The plot? Daniel Kaluuya and Emerald Haywood are OJ and Emerald Haywood, the brother/sister team who, after the untimely death of their father Otis Sr (Keith David) are struggling to keep their family business afloat. The Haywards are the descendants of Alistair Haywood, the jockey who appeared in the very first movie ever, a short film showing a jockey ride a horse. Thus, a Haywood was Hollywood’s first actor, stunt man, and animal trainer. The Haywoods have run a ranch in Agua Dulce, California ever since, providing horses to Hollywood productions. Alas, as often happens in family businesses, the loss of their father leaves a big hole to fill, the kids feel like they don’t measure up to the old man’s years of experience. OJ knows how to handle horses but is painfully shy. Emerald has no interest in helping out at the range but is boisterously outgoing, thus the person who communicates to all the Hollywood folk. Ultimately, they need each other.
Their competition is Jupiter’s Claim, a ranch run next door by former child actor Ricky Park (Steve Yeun). OJ and Ricky know that animals are unpredictable, and have seen devastating results that suggest animals really were never intended by nature to be sources of entertainment for man. As a child, Ricky was the only member of a sitcom (about a family that adopted a chimp) cast to avoid being either killed or horribly maimed by a chimpanzee’s on set freakout. OJ’s lack of communication skills (well, maybe rather a lack of ability to communicate authoritatively) lead to a crew member getting kicked in the face by a horse. Sadly, despite seeing what can go wrong when animals are controlled, OJ and Ray stay in the animal training business anyway.
Anyway, when strange doings in the sky transpire above Agua Dulce, OJ and Emerald see dollar signs. The family business has been losing customers and therefore money ever since their father passed. They hope if they can catch photographic evidence of UFO activity, they’ll get a payday, fame and maybe even an interview on Oprah. (When was this movie supposed to take place? Oprah has been off the air a long time.)
Meanwhile, Ray hopes to wow audiences by baiting the flying object into appearing for the viewing pleasure of his ranch guests.
Ultimately, I’m not exactly sure what the film’s message is. There’s an obvious ribbing of man’s desire for fame and fortune, as well as the stupid lengths we go to grab it. Ray clearly lives in the past with an entire room dedicated to his child sitcom star days, even though one would think the horror he experienced on set would have gotten him out of the acting alongside animals game for good. Emerald wants to be an actress herself, going to great lengths to promote herself during set visits while ignoring very real aspects of her family’s established business.
It all culminates in a final half where everyone’s running around trying to film whatever the heck this flying thing is rather than embracing the survival instinct and getting the heck out of there. It’s all about grabbing the footage to get the cash, no one ever thinking maybe they ought to call the government, get the area closed off to save lives, then protect themselves. People doing stupid things in the name of good footage to post online seems like a problem in the social media age.
I’ll share in other online criticism in that the previews made us think we were getting a pretty awesome UFO flick while the movie itself is very long and the first half is mostly dedicated to how shitty the Hollywood animal training business is and how perhaps it shouldn’t even exist because humans are stupid, treat living things like props and attempts to control living things inevitably explode in dangerous ways. All valid points and feel free to make an entire movie about that, but as a viewer, you just sit around, look at your watch, and wonder when the UFO is going to appear.
The last half featuring a showdown between the flying object, the Haywoods and their buddies Angel, an IT tech and documentarian Antlers Holst (Brandon Perea and Michael Wincott) who serve as the cameramen tasked with documenting the phenomenon while the Haywoods draw it out.
Perhaps Holst provides the movie’s message. “This dream you’re chasing, where you end up on the top of the mountain and everyone is cheering for you. It’s the one you never wake up from.”
In other words, we’re all fools and the lengths we go to in order to get noticed, to get rich, are all silly and ill-advised. Maybe the work-a-day stiffs have it right. Earn a living, keep your head down, stand by your family. Everyone else trying to be famous will never find what they’re looking for.
STATUS: Borderline shelf-worthy. I almost ranked it non-shelf worthy but it has fun moments. The movie’s running joke, where OJ sees danger, says “Nope” matter of factly, then hides from it, is funny and perhaps is the best strategy for life. When you sense something is wrong, usually it is, so don’t run toward it in hopes that you’ll achieve fame. OJ is the reluctant hero as he doesn’t really long for fame and fortune and is only participating in the alien photography project to save the business his father and family created and built. Ultimately, I think the film’s extra long run time makes it suffer and Peele needed to decide if he wanted to make a movie about UFOs or about how the Hollywood animal training industry sucks. You might not believe he eventually does tie the two together, but you do have to wait for it.
The stars are good. Kuulaya plays a quiet man so doesn’t get a lot of material, but uses what he gets well. Keke is funny as an attention grabber. Steve Yeun gets a chance to shine and this might be his most interesting role since playing The Walking Dead’s Glenn. Everyone does their part, I just think the movie wasn’t sure what it wanted to be.
BQB here with a review of the super silly She-Hulk: Attorney at Law.
I have to admit I waited a week or two before diving into this, largely because of the social media tomfoolery over it. Various memes and posts suggested the primary focus was going to be an assertion that every woman secretly has an angry green rage monster brewing inside them that they keep at bay at all times because society treats them so harshly, the flip side being that all men live on easy street and la dee da through life with nary a problem.
Though I know women have it rough in many respects, I always thought social media is a place where nuanced arguments go to die. It is very much an either/or place. Post that you love cookies and everyone will accuse you of despising muffins. No, you just happened to really love cookies at a particular moment in time and wanted to share your love of it, but that doesn’t mean you hate muffins or gasp, even cupcakes. Mmm cupcakes.
At any rate, the world is a harsh place like Sisyphus of Ancient Greek legend fame, we all have our own comically massive boulder to push up our own neverending hill forever and ever. Me complaining about my boulder was never meant to imply you don’t have your own boulder or that my boulder is bigger than your boulder or what have you. Sometimes we just need to complain about our boulders and have people listen. Other times if we complain about our boulders, people might, just might either get out of the way or even help give our boulders a little push in the right direction.
Ultimately, we have to stop talking past each other and too each other and social media is a place where that rarely if ever happens.
Bottomline: She-Hulk is a lot of fun in my book. It’s a comedy. It’s light yet mixes in the action and it recognizes and arguably even fixes one of Marvel’s longest running problems, namely that The Incredible Hulk (and other variants by proxy) is an awesome, fan favorite character when part of an ensemble, but when heading up a stand-alone film, he’s box office poison.
Much of the problem, at least with the first two attempts at a Hulk flick in 2003 and 2008 is that said films usually focus heavily on the science (gasp I know, right?) and Banner running around avoiding the law and government agents who want to catch him and study him and avoiding getting angry for fear of losing control and going into Hulk smash mode and then when Hulk is the Hulk he is a big dummy so it’s hard to direct him toward productive activities.
Long story short, She-Hulk embraces the “women have it way tougher than men” narrative to, well, make the long story short. We know how Batman became Batman, we know how Spidey became Spidey and we know how hulks become hulks, so thankfully the show didn’t spend an entire season on an origin story, or rather, at least one in which She-Hulk comes to grips with being a lady hulk.
Instead, the show is a parody, lampooning the superhero genre.
The plot? SPOILER ALERT. Overworked attorney Jessica Walters (Tatiana Maslany) goes on vacation with her cousin, the one and only Dr. Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo). When a frigging spaceship cuts them off in traffic because that’s life in a world where superheroes exist, Bruce cuts his arm, his hulk infected blood accidentally squirts onto Jessica, and now she’s infected with hulkism and has to live her life as a goddamn frigging hulk.
Sounds like a pain in the ass, right? Bruce whisks his cousin away to a secret island facility, advising her that her life as she knew it is over. Apologetic and solemn, he councils her that as he once did, she too will go on a multi-year journey where she learns to control her rage and learn to use her hulkism for good. Daily training and exercises and…yeah, blah, blah, blah, not so much. Turns out like all women, Jessica was always great at controlling her rage and only male hulks have to sit around and do yoga to learn how to keep from going into unbridled hulk smash mode.
I mean, yeah, it openly embraces the women rule and men drool motif but come on, it’s funny. It’s done in a humorous way and I don’t know about you, but I really didn’t want to watch five seasons where Jessica lives in a cave, outcast from society until she finally learns to control her anger and channel her hulk and neither did you.
Turns out, she doesn’t want to be a superhero either. Yeah, she has a special power now. She can turn into a super strong and enormous lady hulk at will, but she has no interest in running around with the Avengers. They don’t even get paid, she opines, and she has a career as a lawyer to get back to as well as law school loans to pay off.
And so, she returns to her practice, content to hide her hulkism until she learns that old adage “with great power comes great responsibility.” When a supervillain breaks into court one day, hellbent on murdering the entire jury box, Jessica realizes she can’t in good conscience not hulk out and save the day and so She-Hulk she comes to be.
Given the shaft by the legal industry (the bastards don’t want the liability of a She-Hulk on the payroll), she is hired by a major law firm to head up their new superhero law division, because you know, people with super powers tend to destroy a lot of shit so someone needs to handle the legal fallout of that. Her first case? Handle the parole hearing of Abomination (Tim Roth reprising his role as the villain from the 2008 film), a real conflict of interest as the dude tried to kill her cousin, but he swears he’s better now.
STATUS: Shelf-worthy. This is an example of a show trusting the fans to already know what they need to do and delving right into the nitty gritty, rather than boring us with hours upon hours of origin. It dives right in and comes out swinging. It’s funny. It’s got a lot of action. At a half hour per episode, it’s even short and sweet. It’s your own personal Rorschach test. If you think the “women have it tougher than men” narrative is right, then it’s reinforced. If you think it’s wrong, then it’s poked fun at. Ultimately, it is all handled with good humor.
Bonus sidenote: I really enjoyed the scenes with Jessica’s family. Who hasn’t gone to a family dinner only to be peppered with nonsensical questions, to be heavily criticized and talked over and yeah if you had hulk powers, your family would be constantly demanding that you lift their heavy stuff and fix things for them all the time.
Ah, Game of Thrones. What a wonderful show it was, full of Tolkien-esque fantasy, as well as murder, betrayal, deception and titties. So many titties. Honestly, 90 percent of the reason I watched was the titties.
When GOT came on the scene in 2011, it was like nothing we viewers had seen before and we were instantly hooked. For most of the past decade, I know every spring Sunday night I’d be glued to my TV at 9:00 PM sharp, woe unto whoever disturbed me and those who did really needed a good excuse, like a fully severed limb. If it was hanging by a thread, then they’d have to wait till after the show for me to drive them to the hospital. I kid, I kid. Or do I? All I know is this was the nerd superbowl.
HBO pulled off this trick in the 2000s with The Sopranos, launching what TV aficionados might call a golden age of TV where cable companies suddenly realized they could get away with airing a lot of depraved violence, sex, murder, crime, people cutting tags off mattresses, you name it, as long as it was on cable and people actually had to choose to put channels with such debauchery on their TV. Good old staples like network TV could hardly compete.
Alas, while HBO gave us one era defining show per decade, they also gave us one shitty ending to said shows per decade. Once HBO sucked as much money out of Sopranos viewers as possible, they rushed it to an absurdly fast and unsatisfying conclusion. Same with Game of Thrones.
And we dopes took it. There we were, collectively the long-suffering wife, standing at the front door in our bathrobe and curlers, begging our cheating hubby to stay, for surely we had more good years left together. Nope, off that hubby went, driving away in his mid-life crisis sports car with a bimbo on his arm.
Long story short, HBO is back, not unlike the old hubby who realizes his days of carousing are over, and he’d like to remarry us so we can cook his dinner and rub his feet and take care of him in his old age.
Sigh. And we dopes are going to do it.
At least, we’ll try. The Many Saints of Newark, the prequel movie to the Sopranos was red-hot garbage, largely fan fiction nonsense.
However, my initial assessment of the new GOT prequel, based on watching the first episode:
#1 – It’s worth watching episode 2 and likely, more.
#2 – I didn’t really see anything so far that made me say, “OMG I must binge immediately!” Rather, it’ll be an I’ll get to it when I get to it thing.
#3 – Fans are familiar with the world, the customs, the culture, and are able to dive-in. I know there was some criticism of a cast of relative unknowns but don’t forget, many of GOT’s original cast were unknown until the show made them stars (though Sean Bean did lead the first season.)
All in all, it’s good so far. I don’t know anything could meet GOT’s initial WOW factor. Sometimes, you just have to be that new, original thing that people didn’t know they wanted until you gave it to them. HBO is trying to give us more albeit with a cheaper cast. The good news is they have time to possibly WOW us again while the players aren’t household names. The bad news is given HBO’s track record, they’ll likely pull the rug out from under house and rush yet another series to a silly, unsatisfying halt when it gets too expensive as per their usual modus operandi.
The plot? What this series does best. A bunch of spoiled royals who have a lot fighting over who gets to have more, namely, ye olde Iron Throne.
Nearly 200 years before GOT, the Targaryen family, everyone’s favorite bleach blonde ultra-perfectionist dragon riders from across the sea, rule over a peaceful and prosperous Westeros. War hasn’t occurred for 70 years because all opponents to the Targaryens have a strange habit of being burned up into extra crispy dragon chow.
King Viserys (Paddy Constantine) reigns but largely serves as a rubber stamp to his council of treacherous lackeys. When Queen Aemma (Sian Brooke) tragically dies giving birth to King’s long awaited male heir (who SPOILER ALERT) also dies in birth, it becomes clear that all-out war amongst these platinum blonde goofballs is on the way.
While the King appears to be in otherwise good in health, kings in this world rarely last long without getting ye olde hot sword injection, typically in the back, and yes I am talking about an actual sword, pervert. Hurt feelings abound when Viserys names his daughter Rhaenyra (Milly Alcock) as his heir, forcing all lords to bend the knee and swear their allegiance to her in the event of his passing.
Alas, as foretold in the show, the Targaryens were so strong that theirs was a house that could only crumble from within. Potential heir A unhappy at his lack of being named heir is the king’s younger brother, Prince Daemon, Commander of the Kingsguard who loves whores but hates crime, thus providing the most lurid scenes of the episode when he patronizes ladies of the evening and beheads hapless reprobates with equal parts gusto.
Potential heir B is the King’s sister, Princess Rhaenys Velaryon (Eve Best.) We haven’t seen much of her yet other than an introduction where the king (and her) father, Old King Aerys, declines to name her heir to the throne due to her lack of a penis, opting to name Viserys instead, due to his lack of a vagina. She is given the nickname “The Queen Who Never Was” as a result, having come so close yet so far.
Both parties have their strengths. Daemon commands a loyal army of brutes who love him because he purchases them whores on the regular (talk about a great boss, wait, what’s that itch?). Rhaenys’ husband Corlys (Steve Toussaint) is a member of the council who has the king’s ear.
Meanwhile, Daemon is likely displeased with King’s hand Otto Hightower (Rhys Ifans, he of Spiderman Lizard fame), who lives to talk trash about the prince into the king’s ear thus leading to the king’s rare move of appointing his non-penis having daughter rather than his penis having brother so some type of battle between those two is likely a-brewing.
Complications? Rhaenys is young, possibly a lesbian getting jiggy with Hightower’s daughter who I suspect Hightower wants to see married to the king for his own duplicitous power grabbing ends despite quite an age difference between the two and if this happens, Rhaenys would be getting lezzy with her stepmother. (This is a theory at this point but it looks like where the show is going to me.)
Daemon is a wildcard, a villainous reprobate who loves whores, possibly more than Tyrion ever did, who really loved whores. He’s an all-around D-bag, though formidable. Having lived in his older brother’s shadow as younger brothers tend to do, especially in royal families or families with big money, he has gone out of his weigh to prove himself in battle whereas Viserys just seems to go along with whatever the council wants. Ironically, there are signs that despite Daemon’s d-baggery, he likely would have been a lifelong loyal defender of his older brother had he not been declined as heir.
STATUS: Shelf-worthy. You know, if you are one of my original fans from back when I started his blog a whole 8 years ago, you’ll know GOT was pretty much all I blogged about non-stop in the beginning so it will be nice to get back to blogging about it again, though likely not with as much gusto as the original.
So, obligatory SPOILER WARNING. If you don’t want to know how BCS ends, look away now. No one else reads this blog anyway so feel free to join the club.
OK.
If you saw it, here’s my list of reasons why the ending stinks:
#1 – While the last few Gene-centric episodes were fun, they aren’t really fitting with the character. Saul was always a contradiction. Very loud, flamboyant and obnoxious but also very devious in his planning and careful in carrying out his plans. TBH, it’s hard to believe a guy on the run with a bag of diamonds and a recognizable face/highly wanted man wouldn’t just lay low in a hole in the wall apartment for a few years before going out into the world as a Cinnabon manager, but they wanted to turn that line from BB about him managing a Cinnabon into something real so, OK.
Fun as the last few episodes were, it’s hard to believe that Saul, when being harassed by a dude from ABQ who recognizes him wouldn’t just call the vacuum cleaner repairman and relocate again.
But OK, I’ll buy that “Gene” was bored, restless, got a taste for scamming, went back to his old ways, got greedy, and got caught.
#2 – One of the central themes of the show is that the legal profession is a very rich and very pedigreed club. If you want a job at a prestigious big city law firm, you might be one of the lucky few who gets there on their own, but more likely you a) need a rich family who can bankroll you through a prestigious undergrad and a prestigious law school as well as the connections to get you in and all the coaching on how to get in i.e. entrance exams, applications, interviews and so on, not to mention all the internships and experiences you’ll need to get to the big time. Ultimately, if you’re a slug like Jimmy McGill, you need not apply and thus, that was the heart of the show. The slug runs circles around the fancy lawyers all the time.
Jimmy’s brother Chuck is the rare top firm lawyer/self-made man so it is tragic when Jimmy bests him. The rest of the fancy lawyers are all country club dimwits who would be working at a drive-thru burger joint without family connections and money. Admittedly though, smarmy pantload that he was, it was still horrible what Jim and Kim did to Howard Hamlin.
Ultimately though, when Saul talks the big time fancy hot shot US attorneys from like, a bazillion years in prison all the way down to 7 in Club Fed, this is like Saul’s masterwork. His entire joy in life was bamboozling top shelf lawyers who view him as pond scum because of his American Samoa degree.
So, I have a very hard time believing that Saul, as in the character who has been built up over the past 14 years, would ever crap on his greatest legal wrangling achievement by copping to the whole enchilada thereby opening the door for him to get slammed with 86 years. I just don’t buy it.
I sort of get what the show was going for. There’s an argument that Saul was such a slippery weasel that the only lawyer who could successfully prosecute Saul was Saul. He wasn’t going to give it to the prosecution. He needed to make them know that he had the power to get up, do a song and dance about how Walt made him afraid and yeah, Walt’s reputation for murdering those who disobeyed him was so well known it is believable that one juror would have bought it and he only needed one.
So he let the fancy lawyers know he could have beat them, and essentially he did, then copped to it. Essentially, he prosecuted himself and put himself away for far longer than a whole slew of fancy US attorneys could have.
This is something that would have only happened on TV. Frankly, the 7 year deal was a stretch. I debate that. He did still make a boatload of money and surely there are money crimes but I suppose he could always argue Walt made him do it.
It’s just very unbelievable that the world’s most slippery weasel would have bailed on such a fabulous deal.
#3 – I do get it is the BB-verse and here, this is a place where crime never pays. Everyone who so much as bites a slice of the forbidden fruit that is the rotten apple of crime pays and pays dearly. So it would not have fit that theme if Saul had won. I think we all wanted to see Saul end with a big legal showdown where he walks scot free and maybe even goes back to practicing but ok. In the end, Jimmy felt bad about how he lived his life, wanted to atone, and saw the only path to pay for his evil deeds was to go to jail forever. In real life, I don’t buy it. Jail is a horrible place. If you can get off in 7 in a quasi resort style jail with golf and ice cream, literally no one will say no please send me to the supermax. Yes, the show was clear to point out that all the inmates love Saul for his defense of crooks everywhere but yeah, not all are going to love and protect him forever. Again, jail is a horrible place.
All in all, if they wanted a Jimmy redeems himself or pays for his crimes ending, another route might have been plausible.
#4 – A lot is left on the table and unanswered or at least I don’t understand it. Is Kim still on the hook for Howard? I feel like Jimmy copping to it only makes her situation worse, not better. Think about it. Kim admitted to a lot of bad stuff in her affidavit. They won’t prosecute because there is no body and neither Jim or Kim know where it is? OK. Not sure but I believe that is true. If there is no body then they could never 100 percent know for sure that a murder took place.
Even so, she did admit to fraudulently painting a prominent attorney as a drug addict, going so far as to even drug him so it looked like he was on drugs, for the purpose of damaging a law firm’s reputation so as to convince its clients to take a settlement offer early rather than continue with the case just so she and Jim could get their pay days early…come on. That’s a prosecutable crime, isn’t it? Doesn’t Jimmy’s confirmation hurt her?
Again, all crooks pay in this universe, so Kim will face a big time civil lawsuit. Still, eh…even without a body I’m pretty sure there’s some stuff that as long as she said she did it, she can be prosecuted for it. Jimmy could be prosecuted too.
Oh, that and they kinda sloughed off the whole forgetting to prosecute Jimmy for drugging and robbing a bunch of rich guys then threatening to strangle an old lady with a telephone cord to keep her from calling the police.
#5- There is a lot of good writing here. The time travel thing comes up again. The first time, Mike says if he could time travel, he’d go back to the first time he took a bribe and not take it, presumably to ensure that he lives a decent, law-abiding life. He regrets the path he took and understands the money isn’t worth all the evil he has done and a life as a regular, middle-class Joe would have been better. He also says he’d go to the future to check on his family. A laudable goal.
Saul says he’d go back in time to when Warren Buffet took over Berkshire Hathaway and invest 1 million so that it would be worth multi-billions today. Jerk. All about the money.
Time travel comes up again with Walt. Walt is his usual dickish self and as usual, blames Gretchen and Elliot rather than conceding he might have been a dick about that whole friendship breakup. Still, he brings himself to admit he should have stuck with the duo for he’d have big legal and legit bucks today. He at least sort of admits that he is a prideful dick.
Saul would go back to a time when he broke his knee in a slip and fall and not slip and fall so hard. Nothing about, oh I don’t know, not slipping and falling altogether.
The third time, Chuck tells Jimmy it’s not too late for Jimmy to change careers. Jimmy scoffs, telling Chuck that Chuck never changes so why should he? Jimmy leaves and Chuck picks up a copy of HG Wells’ Time Machine. Presumably, this is a sign that both brothers dream about time travel and the ability to go back and right their wrongs and fix their mistakes. If only their relationship was better, they could talk to rather than past one another and figure out how to help each other be happier.
So in the end, Jimmy does finally learn that it was wrong for him to be a scumbag and he sets forth in a very unlikely way to pay for his scumbaggery.
There is also great symmetry when Jimmy and Kimmy share a smoke in the end, as they did in the first episode where they first became co-conspirators/love interests. I think here, if they ended it with Kim saying with a smirk, “OK how do we get you out of here?” that would have landed the dismount. In other words, Saul copped to his wrongdoing, went to jail, now can these two tricksters figure out a way to get him out? But I suppose that wouldn’t be Jimmy paying for his crimes.
SIDENOTE: I have a hard time believing that Kim would still have a New Mexico bar card after that affidavit she signed.
IN CLOSING: Thanks Vince Gilligan and co. and cast and crew for the 14 years you spent on creating a very riveting TV show universe. BB had a great ending. This one, I really expected it would but was disappointed. I’m not sure how it could have been better. I suppose we all wanted to see Saul outwit everyone and I suppose an argument can be made that he did, but I just didn’t buy it.
I will give it credit. This is one of those shows that was hard to quantify. It was a legal procedural, but also a comedy about a scumbag who took pride in his scum-baggery and his absurdly humorous scummy methods, a saga about cartel gangsters at war (where many of such episodes rarely even involved Saul), and a show that was part prequel and part sequel, going back and forth to points in time before and after Breaking Bad yet somehow it did it well.
I just don’t buy Saul giving up a 7 year deal. Crime doesn’t pay and that’s one of the things this show gets right, but if they wanted Jimmy to take responsibility for his crimes, they might have found a more believable way. What that way would have been, I’ll admit, I don’t know.
Bookshelf Battle 