iS lOvE bLiNd?

It’s a relatively new week, and it’s a week in which we’re pioneering new screen-based lands here at Tuesdays with Cory: in particular, reality television.  A number of you have probably heard about the farcical Netflix phenomenon that is Love is Blind, be it from Netflix’s own in-app marketing or friends telling you that you just have to watch it.  In my case, it was a little bit of Column A and a little bit of Column B, and so my girlfriend and I were able to knock it out in what I believe was two solid binge sessions.  Weighing in at 11 episodes (including the reunion), Love is Blind is a lightweight but thus far commercially successful show centered around a social experiment of sorts that asks the simple question that is also the title of this post; it’s also a question that hosts Nick and Vanessa Lachey ask a maddening number of times in spite of their presence in the proceedings being fairly low by reality television standards (seriously, Vanessa, you don’t need to continue asking the question so pointedly in Episode 8, we’ve come this far and we know what the show is about).

Here they are: the pods, complete with chenille blankets and a seemingly limitless supply of dating booze.

As many reality competition shows are, Love is Blind is packed with a cast of hot caricatures of people – there are 10 women and 10 men to start with, all of them with one-word career descriptions ranging from engineer to scientist to “business owner” (a lot of these monikers are extremely vague), but what apparently unites them all is that in spite of what’s largely scalding hotness, they’ve been so unable to find love that they’re willing to turn to a reality show that offers marriage as the prize instead of the usual financial recompense.  The foundation of these lifelong bonds is purportedly supposed to be free of both outside influence (in particular the show seems to make frequent and pointed mention of “social media” as the boogeyman of the modern relationship) and actual visual contact, with the contestants initially going through a series of dates with one another in pods that allow a shared wall for conversation but no looky-loos.  This initial 10 days is supposed to end with a number of men proposing to women who they feel confident could be their soulmates, and so a number of them do, leaving almost half of the original contingent as a seemingly failed portion of the experiment while they the chosen ones are whisked away on the show’s dime to a pre-marriage honeymoon in Mexico.  From here, and leading up to the weddings themselves (which take place a month in), you can imagine that a lot of juicy stuff manages to happen.

Shoutout to Taylor, who is the show’s only virgin, but whose storyline is quickly abandoned in favor of…not that.

Make no mistake, Love is Blind at times goes out of its way to fly in the face of its own premise, and this isn’t just limited to the fact that seemingly everyone involved is a stone-cold fox (kind of defeats the purpose of the experiment in a way, does it not?).  This takes a lot of the wind out of the sails of what should probably be a major tentpole of the constant circus that is this show: the eventual face-to-face reveals, which would probably be a lot more interesting if everyone didn’t look picture-perfect or close to it.  The dramatic promise of couples agreeing to marry one another without laying eyes on each other – and in an absurdly small amount of time – is also undermined by seeming checkpoints that allow them to basically back out at the first sign of trouble.  Most notable of these is the cold-footed option of backing out on the altar in the moment directly after the couple says their vows, and while I won’t get specific, suffice it to say a few of the show’s participants avail themselves of that escape hatch.  I don’t know if this lack of airtight rules for the experiment particularly bother me, even as an aspiring “scientist,” but I’m also certain that piercing the paper-thin veil obscuring what’s surely an ocean of production intervention and clever editing is a mere Google search away.  As they say, ignorance is bliss, and in this case I imagine that’s as true as it’s ever been.

Carlton: not nearly as fun as the Fresh Prince Carlton, and one of the show’s major sources of drama.

Because if you’re willing to accept the loss of a few IQ points in favor of absurdity-drenched hot people drama – and I mean drama in the middle-school way – Love is Blind is absolutely delightful.  It packs a lot of the punches you’d hope for and expect if you’re willing to switch it on – drinks are thrown in faces, and blowout arguments stemming from what are largely minute issues are in no short order – but where it excels as entertainment is in providing the bananas moments that you aren’t anticipating.  To be more specific on that front, a woman’s exiting her relationship while walking away quoting Beyonce comes to mind, as does one contestant shamelessly giving her Golden Retriever a healthy sip of her red wine (which is poisonous to dogs).  To be more broad, it’s fun to slowly learn that the editing hand of Love is Blind’s production team (and especially the soundtrack team, because wow) is extremely heavy, and better yet, it’s undeniably enjoyable to realize maybe an episode or two in that every contestant is I guess a high-functioning alcoholic.  Seriously – the wine budget for this show (not to mention the equally important bucket-of-rose-petals budget) had to have reached astronomical heights when all was said and done.

Barnett: basically a frat guy who decides to play the field in spite of the fact that “the field” is a 10×10 pod.

Perhaps the most surprising thing to me regarding my experience with this show was how little pop the reunion show – which takes place many months after the conclusion of the experiment, and checks in with couples married and separated alike – ultimately had.  While there were a handful of firecracker moments, the 51ish minutes (which, by the way, all the episodes are this long, and it’s just too long) was for the most part dull, with very few surprises.  As for the future of the show, a subsequent season in which they switch cities seems imminent, given what seems like a fairly simple production cycle and the show’s high traffic, and in fact it wouldn’t surprise me if we saw this show establishing a fairly long run.  When it comes to reality shows, my darling Jeff Probst and his creation will forever be king, but Love is Blind may well have opened the door, and opened my eyes, to a future of absolutely ridiculous television, be it from more iterations of its formula or other existing shows of the same ilk.

The Irishman – Review

Well folks, it’s Oscar season here at Tuesdays with Cory (and everywhere in the cinematic world, really), and so I’ve begun what’s typically a January tradition of trying to catch up on Best Picture nominees that I haven’t yet seen.  Right now, I’m a mere 3 for 9, having seen Parasite, Once Upon a Time…In Hollywood, and Joker – all of which I’ve reviewed on this blog – and The Irishman, perhaps the most grueling watch on the list owing to its over-200-minute runtime, now brings me closer to at least the halfway point.  Perhaps the magnum opus – at least lengthwise – of Hollywood darling Martin Scorsese (whose recent much-maligned comments on the Marvel machine I also discussed here), The Irishman is in fact up for 10 statuettes, Best Picture among them, so given that it’s bound to come up at least once at the awards based on probability alone, and also given that it’s one of two options that are currently free on Netflix, I figured I’d bite the bullet and spend the better part of this past Sunday evening watching it.

Two nobodies and Ray Romano.  After all, Everybody Loves Raymond.

In almost every respect, The Irishman is exactly what you think it’s going to be, especially if you’ve seen any of the more notable Scorsese movies (the similarly-themed Goodfellas and the similarly-long The Wolf of Wall Street chief among them), so if that’s your kind of thing, then you’re going to love all three and a half hours of this.  There’s a lot of familiar camera work (cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto, who worked with Scorsese on Wolf, is nominated for Best Cinematography), a whole lot of fuck words, and a whole lot of mafia stuff.  If you’re not really familiar with that, it’s basically a lot of smoking cigars, eating Italian food, drinking wine or some kind of dark liquor, hanging around with Joe Pesci, and dealing in frustrating vagaries, with the occasional whacking of a guy who’s more often than not introduced mere minutes before being whacked thrown in.  I personally found long stretches of it to be about as interesting as watching paint dry, but I think that’s a me problem more than anything else, and to be fair, there’s very little of the three and a half hours that actually feels wasted, which is a real accomplishment given the sheer presence of that much film.

The setting of a pivotal scene in The Irishman, and also the setting of probably every mafia movie that’s ever been made.

Another comparison I’ll draw, albeit a non-Scorsese comparison, is to Forrest Gump, Robert Zemeckis‘ classic, simply in that it’s a historical drama (fiction or not? Apparently given the contentiousness of Frank Sheeran’s account, it’s kind of hard to tell) peppered with instances of its characters dealing with actual watershed moments in American history.  Naturally, in the case of Jimmy Hoffa and the Italian mafia in general, it’s a lot easier to bake things like the Bay of Pigs and the JFK assassination into the screenplay than it is to bend over backwards to get Gump to like, meet LBJ or something, so it flows fairly well.  There’s also digital manipulation somewhat similar to Gump‘s in here, albeit far more advanced (The Irishman and ILM have a legitimate shot at Best Visual Effects here for a movie that’s mostly about a bunch of overweight old men sitting around chatting in easy chairs).  With that said, while the digital de-aging, as gratuitously used as it is, is almost as convincing as the acting, there’s simply no getting around the age of 76-year-old Robert De Niro when it comes to his movement (I think the ridiculousness of the grocery store slugfest, and perhaps the fact that his role requires the most combat in general, is why De Niro didn’t get a nomination for Best Lead Actor while Pesci and Al Pacino got noms for Best Supporting).

Frank Sheeran’s pretty compelling but also dangerously close to uncanny valley WW2 flashback.

On the subject of the cast, everyone pops on screen at least once – I particularly loved Ray Romano mostly for the what-is-he-doing-here factor – but I think Al Pacino is probably the best of the main three characters as Jimmy Hoffa.  He’s sleazy teamster union prez incarnate, with a likable side and a real love for ice cream to boot, but perhaps to me he was simply the most engaging just because I didn’t personally know a whole lot about Jimmy Hoffa other than that he disappeared (and was presumably murdered).  Pesci and De Niro are of course in their usual mobster form, with plenty of De Niro’s squinty smile to go around, but the more interesting roles to me are the ones that I don’t think wound up getting enough play.  There’s the aforementioned Romano as a teamster attorney and relative of Pesci’s mafia don, but there’s also Academy Award winner Anna Paquin playing Frank Sheeran’s discerning and eventually distant daughter Peggy, a role that frustratingly has like two lines.  I’d also be remiss if I didn’t mention one of my favorite actors Jesse Plemons (I wax poetic about him here, and also probably here), in this case playing Jimmy Hoffa’s stepson Chuckie O’Brien.  He’s mainly only in one scene near the end, where he gets into an awfully bizarre exchange with Pacino and others about how you’re not supposed to drive fish around in your car.

One of The Irishman’s better moments is Jimmy Hoffa being publicly glad that Kennedy died.

The Irishman is a marathon of a movie that has the mammoth task of keeping you wired in for three and a half hours from its ensemble’s semi-humble beginnings to its Brooks-Hatlenesque end, and in my case it was hard to not wonder while the credits were rolling if I had wasted a quarter of a day on it.  It’s convincingly executed without a doubt, but it’s simply a movie that I feel that I’ve seen at least 5 times before, and I think that’s best described by the fact that I’d be more likely to give it the award for Most Screenplay than for Best Screenplay.  Amongst its competitors for the Academy’s top prize, what I can say for sure is that Parasite was leaps and bounds better, Once Upon a Time…In Hollywood at least slightly edged it out based purely on its entertainment factor, and Joker is probably on par with it overall, at least in terms of joylessness.  Then again, it’s free, so how wrong could you go?

One of my big remaining questions about this movie involves why Harvey Keitel would take such a tiny role.  I mean come on, he was in National Treasure!  And National Treasure: Book of Secrets!

Stay tuned, friends and readers: our push to Oscar night continues next week with either Marriage Story (more likely, since it’s also on Netflix) or 1917.

Fractured Review

This week (a seemingly short week, given that I didn’t actually publish my “Tuesday” Parasite review until last Saturday) I’m going to be talking about Fractured, a Netflix original movie starring Sam Worthington that my girlfriend and I decided to watch last week on a weeknight essentially on a whim, though also given a sterling recommendation from her sister.  The brief setup for Fractured is enticing enough: a man takes his daughter to the hospital after an accident on a road trip, but during her treatment at said hospital, she goes missing, with no one but the husband seeming to be aware of both her existence and seeming disappearance.  While Fractured‘s trailer (which I had previously seen) promises a reasonable amount of brain-warping suspense, and while my girlfriend’s sister reported high praise, and I’m here to tell you that she was essentially dead wrong about Fractured being any kind of worthwhile experience.  It’s about to get very Lewis Black-y up in here, so if you aren’t in the mood for a very cynical and disparaging rant, now’s the time to click away.

Probably the single best shot of the movie – and it happens just about 5 minutes in, so what does that tell you?

From the word go, Fractured plays out more like a shoddily made Hallmark movie than anything else, and while writing that I also had the conscious thought that saying so may be a disservice to Hallmark.  Production values are middling-to-low, any sort of theme is finger-painted on a dirty canvas, and the acting – in spite of a Rotten Tomatoes claim that Sam Worthington’s performance is “arresting,” which I think is dead wrong – is extremely not great.  Worthington (Avatar, Terminator: Salvation) in particular, who has the lion’s share of the screentime essentially to himself, makes the entire experience feel even more campy with proliferous use of over-the-top ugly crying, but in his defense the writing does him no favors at any point, with clumsy execution of a well-worn plot and dialogue that screams “no one would ever say that” essentially throughout.  Tonally, too, Fractured never really figures out what it wants to be, oscillating between psycho-thriller Memento-esque territory and misplaced John McClane territory quite rapidly.  One particularly grave writing offense that I can think of: around ten or so minutes into the movie, I paused after a seemingly minute detail was mentioned and turned to my girlfriend to predict that that would be the big twist that the film seemed to be telegraphing was coming from the start.  While I turned out to be wrong – not for the first time, nor the last – my twist (that Sam Worthington’s character, noted to be a recovering alcoholic, had in actuality already killed his wife and daughter, along with a few others, in a head-on collision on the way to the hospital, and was in a coma) would have been far better than what Fractured ultimately served up.

Sam Worthington trying to figure out how and why he got himself into this mess of a movie.  Time for a new agent, buddy.

Because its single biggest crime as a movie is its ending, which amounts to maybe the most unsatisfying “gotcha” moment ever.  The climactic twist relies heavily on revealing visual falsehoods that no audience member could ever logically discern to be untrue, and as a result all Fractured is really saying with its denouement is “we were lying to you the whole time, and got you to believe it for an hour and forty minutes that will ultimately feel wasted.”  It feels like quite the disservice to well-written mind-benders – I’ve already mentioned Memento, but Shutter Island, along with any number of Hitchcock‘s or M. Night Shyamalan‘s works, also comes to mind – but maybe it’s unreasonable to think that a Netflix original could deliver anything of that caliber. Either way, dropping so few findable bread crumbs throughout the film gives its ultimate revelation very little pop, and while I’m well aware that some people are probably reading this and thinking that I’m just salty for not seeing said bread crumbs, my response to you is that you should go watch the movie yourself and perform your own analysis.  After all, me getting my naysayers to blow an evening or an afternoon watching such an unfulfilling movie would to me be the most impactful rebuttal I could offer.

Throughout, this movie definitely has some kind of fascination with mirrors.  Also the color yellow.  Neither of these visual markers are particularly meaningful.

Another pervasive issue that I’d like to add to my laundry list of issues in closing is Fractured‘s constant struggle with plausibility, which while I previously mentioned to have completely infected its dialogue goes well beyond that.  The film’s plot at various points involves a pair of cops who immediately believe a clearly delusional man’s story, a hospital that seems to have completely unreasonable protocols involving patient documentation, restraint, and payment, and a psychologist with the worst bedside manner of all time.  Additional goofiness involves a security system that conveniently features thirty-second recording gaps as a “feature,” an operating room explosion, and a downright irresponsible depiction of both how adrenaline is packaged and how it can be used.  That all of these cutout characters and hackneyed plot devices can fit within a story that builds to one of the shortest Wikipedia plot summaries I’ve ever seen is – I suppose – an achievement of sorts, but certainly not one I’m planning to write home about.  Cumulatively, it all amounts to a viewing experience in which you wait for what you’re watching to improve – but it never does.

The Google Images selection for this movie was so sparse that I had to resort to putting in a shot from another movie, so shoutout to Stephen Tobolowsky, the great character actor from Memento (which I’ve mentioned) and also Groundhog Day, who sadly had to stoop to being in this movie for reasons unknown.

And so here we are, knee-deep in a rare occurrence of me not only disagreeing with the general critics community’s assessment of a film, but also finding essentially nothing good to say about it.  Savor this moment of discord, readers – we all know it doesn’t come too often around here.  I have high hopes that next week’s post – in which I’ll be reviewing my early screening experience (!) with Rian Johnson‘s much-hyped whodunit Knives Out – will be far less negative.

El Camino Review

El Camino is of course one that anyone who reads this blog will have heard of, so I can go a little light on exposition this week, I think.  From its secret filming schedule to its packed-with-promise trailer down to its title – a reference to the car in which one of Breaking Bad‘s many antiheroes Jesse Pinkman finally escaped his captivity at the end of the show’s run – it’s a film that has been somewhat surrounded by buzz, especially amongst fans of creator Vince Gilligan‘s, and while it has been something of a critical darling as well as an apparent ratings juggernaut, you may be here because there are further questions about it that you want answered.  Now that Jesse has attained (potentially temporary freedom) from both the law and a life of crime, what will he do next?  Is there anyone left for him to seek revenge upon?  And of course, is his mentor, Walter White, in actuality still alive in spite of Felina‘s close?  I’m going to try to go light on the spoilers here, so you’ll need to see about a lot of those things yourself – but with that said, if you haven’t yet seen El Camino and are planning to, I’d avoid reading on.

I don’t have a witty caption for this, it’s just good acting.  Also, whoops, there’s a bit of an N in the bottom right corner there.

To address one thing that many people are probably headed here wondering about, yes, there are quite a few returning players of Gilligan’s design stashed within El Camino‘s narrative nooks and crannies.  Leading the bunch, of course, is Jesse Pinkman, whose already Marianas-Trench-deep character is somehow given further gravitas by the stellar work of Aaron Paul.  Paul is as game as he’s ever been in his triumphant revisit of the character that initially propelled him to stardom, giving what may be a career-best performance both in flashbacks and present-tense scenes that’s as multilayered as ever, and providing profoundly emotional moments pretty much whenever he’s on screen – though I’m sad to report that there are no further “yeah bitch” catchphrases to be had.  We also see – largely in brief but occasionally pivotal cameo appearances – the reemergence of Skinny Pete (Charles Baker), Badger (Matt Jones), Mike Ehrmantraut (Jonathan Banks), Jane Margolis (Krysten Ritter), Ed Galbraith (played by the recently deceased Robert Forster), and – that’s right – Walter White (Bryan Cranston).  These reprisals are far from meaningless Easter Eggs, too, with each returning character – Margolis and Ehrmantraut in particular – driving the plot or the enveloping character study of Pinkman and the crossroads at which he sits in some nontrivial way.

How Vince Gilligan managed to grant these characters a sense of poignance is beyond me, but it’s fairly remarkable.

And then there’s also the return of Todd, played by one of my favorite character actors of late: Jesse Plemons (Game Night, Friday Night Lights).  Todd’s part in El Camino – one that if you’ve seen the ending of Breaking Bad you’ll know is comprised entirely of flashbacks – is significantly larger than a cameo, and outside of Paul’s Pinkman is the chief reminder of what made Breaking Bad such a fantastic show: the characters.  Todd’s entire shtick –  a Neo-Nazi-slash-kidnapper who’s also disarmingly friendly for the most part – provides a great and surprisingly lighthearted foil for the obviously morose turmoil that Jesse portrays, and the burial scene in the New Mexico desert – just one of a few particularly suspenseful setpieces, with the apartment search and the Old West shootout sequence at the welders’ hideout also coming to mind – is exemplary of the near-boundless chemistry of the actors.  Indeed, the American Southwestern setting, in all of its visual pastel (which is actually called out explicitly at one point) and Albuquerque-metropolitan sensibility immediately juxtaposed with desolate desert, is as compelling a backdrop as ever for the continued misadventures of Gilligan’s gallery of goons, who more often than not are slowly-sipped tasty cocktails of moral bankruptcy and soft-centeredness, with Jesse and Todd serving as the prime examples.  Their various quests for redemption, while typically no less criminal than their upbringings, inspire you to root for them, at least for a while, and that fact remains brilliant.

Todd and his good friend Jesse during their weekend romp, probably talking about their favorite pizza toppings.

Because as you might expect, that’s what El Camino is all about: redemption.  The story itself is simple and small-scale, and (perhaps partially for that reason, and partially owing to its venue on Netflix) the film feels more like an extra-long episode of Breaking Bad than an actual movie, though the plot itself certainly stands alone for the most part (never fear, you won’t need to re-learn all of Breaking Bad before watching – El Camino is light on details, and also includes a catcher-upper at the beginning to be safe).  It no doubt leaves little room for future sequels, at least sequels focused on Pinkman or White, and this result may owe itself largely to the film’s message, if indeed it has one: the cost of freedom from past transgressions, especially those of the caliber of Heisenberg and his trusty sous chef, is high, if not infinite.  Watching Pinkman grapple with his demons, both inwardly and outwardly, and try to scrabble up the lofty wall and return to a normal life is certainly enticing enough as a dramatic question without the various pitfalls that El Camino finds him stumbling across, and while the eventual return of Heisenberg himself (still seemingly a more mild-mannered version of himself in this flashback) feels at least slightly clunky relative to the other flashbacks, it’s delightful and reasonable fan service.

If there’s such thing as a triumphant return to a bald cap, this is probably it, grainy image and all.

El Camino is vintage Vince Gilligan in that it’s smartly written, and driven by powerhouse work from Aaron Paul – who has arguably been Breaking Bad’s best principle actor throughout – and it’s both further proof and a subtle reminder of the success of the AMC show’s original run, which remains both singular in its style and execution and extraordinary in its method of telling a grounded high-crimes story.  Overall, I was skeptical going in that this experience would add anything meaningful to the Breaking Bad canon (I got off the Better Call Saul train for essentially that reason), but it manages to be an epilogue that – while we might not necessarily need it – is at bare minimum an entertaining diversion, and it’s hard to watch it and not miss the show, and also wonder how in the world it almost wrote off Jesse Pinkman.  Check it out by streaming it on Netflix – it’s available to watch now.

Yeah Mr. White!  Yeah science!

Next week, we embrace the approach of Halloween with a review of Midsommar, the now-rentable summer horror hit from Ari Aster of Hereditary fame.  Stay tuned, and as always, thanks for reading!

Stranger Things Season 3 Review

I’m sorry to report that once again I haven’t been able to get to a theater to see the many movies on my time-sensitive backlog this week – Crawl, Midsommar, Yesterday, The Art of Self-Defense, and of course Spider-Man: Far From Home among them – but what I can talk to my beloved readers about today is the third season of Netflix’s instant 1980s sensation Stranger Things, which dropped on the Fourth of July, and which I’ve recently completed.  Some of my more dedicated and maybe creepily invested fans will recall that I reviewed Season 2 of the very same show on this very site way back in 2017 when it first dropped (read that here), so this post will probably read pretty similarly to that one, but before I dive in, I have to of course give an obligatory SPOILER warning, although I don’t plan on going into depth on critical plot details if I can help it.

When the squad parties too hard and you have to go to the ER.

For the most part, Stranger Things Season 3 is really great, and it hits on a lot of the elements that made the show the success that it became in the first place.  The Starcourt Mall, an overwhelmingly 1980s set that happens to be hiding a dark secret far beneath its foundations, is the perfect venue for stimulation of the audience’s nostalgia pressure points, showcasing the kooky fashion trends of the day in its many boutique stores and playing such memorable hits as Day of the Dead and Back to the Future in its cinema.  With the colorful backdrop in place, and an Independence Day milieu that heightens the summer viewing vibe, the show is able to squeeze yet another paranormal series of events from the Hawkins area, engaging a sizable slew of protagonists against vividly terrifying inner and outer demons alike, and it’s all of course tracked by a soundtrack featuring either synth-heavy ominous scoring or classic rock A-sides.  As I wrote in my previous review of Season 2, one of the things that the writers of Stranger Things continue to do so well is pair its vibrant cast of characters in the right way – I was overjoyed to see the hero team of Dustin and Steve reunited after a largely successful outing in the previous season (with the addition of newcomer Robin, who’s subjected to a real crash course in the oddities hiding in Hawkins), while the Hopper-Joyce-Murray team is a fairly natural banter factory.  Splitting the crew up at the season’s beginning also organically builds hype in a very effective way for the eventual reunion, which in this case (like in Season 2) happens in the phenomenal final episode – an episode that manages to provide both heart-pounding action and quiet introspection within its hour-twenty runtime (not to mention that spellbinding duet that people are talking about).

Anyone else spend the entire season terrified that they were going to kill Steve?

Among the cast, the standout who deserves the most attention is probably Dacre Montgomery returning as Billy Hargrove – the human villain introduced in Season 2, and purportedly everything the show’s writers wanted Steve Harrington to be before casting the ultra-charming Joe Keery.  With the possible exception of Millie Bobby Brown (Eleven), who also turns in a stellar performance once again, Montgomery probably has the hardest acting job within the events of the third season, playing a role that demands convincing internal conflict essentially throughout.  David Harbour – I’m going to try not to get emotional as I write this – is also excellent once again, though his role really attains no further depth here, and the aforementioned Keery is also solidly likable for a third straight season.  As for the younger members of the cast, there are certainly some shaky moments, especially from Noah Schnapp and (surprisingly) Finn Wolfhard, and the inevitability of puberty removes some of the charm that makes Stranger Things so special from their characters, but they nonetheless continue to make an effective ensemble that’s due at least one more return to Hawkins.  I was also thrilled to see more of Brett Gelman after his brief appearance as certified wacko Murray “Bald Eagle” Bauman in Season 2, and am looking forward to him potentially carrying on as a recurring character.

Imagine if Steve was a creepy muscly lifeguard who predatorily seduces housewives at the local pool and then unrelatedly becomes the co-pilot of a monstrous being set on killing Eleven and essentially destroying Hawkins/Earth.  Glad the Duffer Brothers went a different way on this one.

My real sole issue with Season 3 amounts to a problem with the romantic subplots weaving in and out of what we really show up to see: monsters, spooky setpieces, and Hopper punching people.  I’m all for at least one will-they won’t-they instance (I’d say the Hopper-Joyce flirtation is the most compelling), but it seemed like essentially every character was enduring some kind of romantic tension at some point, and it was simply a bit too much, and not at all what I think of the show as being about.  My frustration with this was (perhaps intentionally) personified by Noah Schnapp’s Will, who takes overly dramatic issue with the gang’s testosterone-driven obsession with the gentler sex and apparently in doing so births a fan theory that he is in actuality gay.  Perhaps all of the hormonal hubbub is simply a product of – and a reminder that – the gang has hit puberty, where subplots like that tend to take hold.  After all, we saw essentially the same thing happen in the weirdly quirky but also dark rom-com that was Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, certainly a far cry from the more innocently inclined Sorceror’s Stone.  Either way, while Hopper’s “keep the door open three inches” rule laid the foundation well for his profoundly emotional posthumous heart-to-heart monologue, I’d much prefer a “keep the door closed and locked” approach when it comes to watching teenagers awkwardly make out if I were him.

I mean, talk about shirt goals.  This style absolutely needs to be brought back, and this is Exhibit A.

Stranger Things’ third season definitely trumps the highs of the second season, and also contains fewer lows – and no, I’m not just talking about that bizarre and widely panned episode from the second season where Eleven goes punk – and while the show’s attempt to be more John Hughes-y is more than a bit unwelcome on my part, this penchant for sappy teenage romance is balanced by a stronger dose of spookiness than the sophomore outing boasted.  Given that the Duffer brothers have reportedly aspired to end the show’s run after four or five seasons (not much of a neverending story after all, Dustin), I’m beyond curious to see where things go in what could be the cultural phenomenon’s swan song, and how they plan on bringing a number of characters who have seemingly been removed from play by the events of this season’s finale back into the fold.  For now, it’s unclear how long we’ll have to wait to find out whether Eleven will get her powers back, and also what the hell happened to our beloved Hopper, but until that time comes I have no doubt that the internet will be teeming with speculation.

RIP Alexei – gone but not forgotten.

Have you watched Stranger Things Season 3 yet (hopefully you have, otherwise you’ve been spoiled by reading this far)?  What’d you think?  Drop me a comment!

Some Thoughts on Disney+

If you haven’t heard, this past week Disney announced further plans for its new streaming service, Disney+, to begin operations later in the year – at which point Disney’s stock price jumped nearly 12 points to a record high, and Netflix’s saw a commensurate dip.  At the mere price tag of $6.99 a month or $70 annually (compared to Netflix’s recently-raised $12.99 a month for its mid-range plan), access to every Star Wars installment, MCU film, and Disney animated (or live-action) classic awaits.

What a trailer – a breakdown of this is probably due its own post.

As if this all wasn’t tempting enough, Disney has also announced plans for a number of potentially high-powered (and high-dollar) exclusive series, drawing on juicy and recently-acquired intellectual properties like Star Wars (The Mandalorian, which is being produced by Jon Favreau with the highest budget for TV ever and looks truly awesome so far, is probably the biggest single upcoming small-screen foray into the galaxy far, far away) and Marvel (standalone shows featuring Loki, Scarlet Witch, Falcon and the Winter Soldier have already been teased).  Adding to this enticing slate are promises for remakes and/or follow-ons of a number of Disney’s classic live-action and animated films of old, including (but certainly not limited to) Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, The Parent Trap, Lady and the Tramp, Father of the Bride, The Sword in the Stone, and Three Men and a Baby.  Of course, on top of all of this, there are also a number of original/new-to-the-screen exclusives to be considered as well (Magic Camp, Noelle, Timmy Failure, Flora & Ulysses, The Paper Magician, Togo), many of them based on successful novels.  This is making no mention whatsoever of the potential for additional behind-the-scenes content on some of Disney’s bigger upcoming feature films (Frozen 2, for example) as well, nor it is noting Disney+’s deal with National Geographic, if that’s your sort of thing.

Pretty great idea for a series, and probably the single most enticing part of the Disney+ bid for me – though I wish it was about my man Boba Fett, or even Jango.

With all of this said, I remain skeptical that Disney+ will be able to carve out its own significant share in the crowded streaming market, and I myself don’t have immediate plans to subscribe.  While there’s certainly no bigger media company in the world in Disney, both in terms of clout and in terms of sheer size, it’s hard for me to imagine it having as big of a cultural impact as Netflix, even when considering its tantalizingly low price tag.  Sure, the dropping of titles like Black Panther and Avengers: Infinity War from Netflix’s often lackluster yet expansive reservoir of films as Disney terminates its licensing deal with the streaming giant may be tangible, but the red N’s most important commodities (yes, I mostly mean The Office and Friends, but also originals like Stranger Things and Black Mirror) will remain.  Hulu (which, by the way, Disney also holds a 60% stake in), while less emboldened by possession of exclusive rights to popular 90s and 2000s shows (not counting Seinfeld, which is probably a boon for the older demographic), seems to have the lead in the live and near-live component, which Disney+ really has no shot at cutting into, at least currently.  Disney+’s key demographics are going to be families with children (as it will reportedly feature no R-rated content), lovers of The Simpsons, and of course, Disney fanatics, and it’s admittedly unclear to me how large of a market share those user groups encompass.

The man, the myth, the legend.

The other key factor here, though – at least in my opinion – is a growing sense of what many call superhero fatigue.  This is something I’ve discussed in recent posts, and before many of you roll your eyes, I’ll broaden the description further to what I’ll actually call Disney fatigue, as a quick Google will tell you that Star Wars fatigue is also a thing.  Suffice it to say I have my doubts that Disney can continue mining the same IP and pumping out content under its umbrella (all of which is essentially the same) without even its most ardent fans simply getting tired of it.  What Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime have going for them is not just original content more geared towards adults, but original content that’s truly original, and has turnover, and while I’ve mentioned that Disney+ has plans for a few exclusives that lie beyond the massive Star Wars-MCU penumbra, it’s hard to believe that those titles are the company’s chief focus in the face of dollar signs.  Where I expect (and hope) for other streaming services to win out is in this original content sphere, with Netflix and Hulu (who isn’t much talked about but sports recent hits like Killing Eve, PEN15, and the underrated Castle Rock) likely taking the lead on original shows and Amazon Studios continuing to produce its stellar films (in recent years they’ve given us a number of Academy Award nominated-and-winning films such as Manchester By The Sea, The Big Sick, Cold War, and I Am Not Your Negro).

One of the many Manchester By The Sea shots in which Casey Affleck looks generically downtrodden.

I won’t deny, though, that there’s a nontrivial amount of comfort in knowing at bare minimum the mountain of superb familiar content you’re getting with Disney+, and while most of it is likely to be stuff you’ve already seen, I can’t say how many times I’ve put Infinity War on on Netflix in the past year, simply because it’s a comfortable headspace for me to be in – in fact, it’s on in the background even as I write this.  I’m sure there are many readers (well, there aren’t many readers of this blog period, but you know what I mean) who are beyond excited to reclaim their respective youths and watch the things that they had previously only had access to via a dusty VHS, or better yet, show it to their kids, anywhere, anytime, and anyplace so long as they have a smartphone and an internet connection.  To take things in a stupidly deep direction, what I guess I started writing this post with the intent to say was that I’m not sure how many streaming services our society should be designed to support, and the announcement of a new one, as high-powered as it may be, begs the question.  In fact, my initial title for this post was going to be “Will Disney+ Be A Success?”, but of course the answer to that question is yes – it’s just a matter of whether Disney+ is trying to be a Netflix killer (not likely) or a Netflix joiner.  I suppose, though, that if any single company is up to the challenge of breaking into – and potentially breaking open – the market, it’s Mickey Mouse’s.  He’s the one that owns it all, right?

RIP in advance, Tony.

Do you plan on getting Disney+ when it drops (reported to be November 12th)?  Will you be cancelling a subscription to another streaming service to fit it into your budget?  Which exclusive are you most excited for?  Drop me a comment!

And yes – I promise I’ll be actually reviewing a movie next week!

Bandersnatch Review

Bandersnatch.  It’s not just a word that Lewis Carroll invented anymore, nor is it a failed ZX Spectrum project that went down with Imagine, only to be revived later as Brataccas.  It’s now one of the latest buzzy titles to hit Netflix since the meme-creating Bird Box (no, I haven’t watched this yet).  Directed by David Slade (Hard Candy, 30 Days of Night) and written by Charlie Brooker within the Black Mirror universe, Bandersnatch is the first of its kind: an interactive film that plays out like a low-impact video game.  While the film contains its fair share of Black Mirror Easter Eggs (including a fully playable game, given via audio that translates to a QR code) and tidbits of philosophy that I could spend thousands of words expounding upon, the format in which it’s presented is what I feel deserves proverbial column inches here, so let’s stick with discussing that for now.

Tucker = TCKR?  The White Bear symbol?  All of this makes for a publicity stunt rife with Black Mirror references.

Bandersnatch‘s single biggest draw (outside of its bearing the Black Mirror name, of course) is for sure its interactive format, which allows the viewer to make various choices for the main character throughout the narrative, producing a number of different endings depending upon the decisions made.  While I won’t dive too far into the potential depth of this mechanic, I will say that I was surprised by both the amount of decisions to be made (I was expecting maybe 3-4 decision points over the 90-minute nominal runtime billed, but in reality it was probably somewhere in the double digits when all was said and done) and the fluidity of the decision-making mechanic – that is, Bandersnatch‘s creators have done a great job working with Netflix to create a system of decisionmaking wherein the user has a limited amount of time to make a choice (probably something on the order of 5-10 seconds), while all the while the story is still unfolding in front of them onscreen, albeit at a more leisurely pace, until the next directive is received.  On top of that, the choose-your-own-adventure mechanic is well-embraced by Bandersnatch‘s premise, in which a young computer programmer is trying to adapt a similarly-driven novel into a game of the same name in the mid-1980s, keeping track of the exponentially branching paths a player can take while clinging helplessly to his own sanity amidst mounting mental and emotional pressures.  At times, Netflix itself even shows up thematically in Bandersnatch, revealing itself as the entity controlling the protagonist’s actions once (if) he becomes self-aware of his seeming lack of free will.

Me at work every day.

What results from this exercise is a surprisingly dizzying array of choices ranging from inconsequential (early choices such as which cereal to eat and which music to listen to have no real bearing on the continued narrative, but allow users to familiarize seamlessly with the mechanic) to critical, the majority of which will ultimately lead to a different ending.  While the lion’s share of endings are dark in the trademark Black Mirror way, some of the bolder decision-makers will discover paths that lead them to resolutions that are indescribably zany, shifting the genre of Bandersnatch from suspense to action in an instant.  The degree of critical acclaim for the computer game that results from your carefully developed protagonist’s exploits serves as a useful metric for the quality of the endings you reach, with only one ending producing a game described by one popular television tech pundit as “perfect,” and though I was eventually able to reach this conclusion (after a somewhat lengthy trial-and-error process in which my character managed to destroy multiple computers, commit suicide, and do a number of other unspeakable things), it was for sure challenging.  A word of advice: block out some time for yourself to go back and attempt to find a few different endings after you reach your first.  Given the surprising thematic shifts liable to occur, and given the ease with which Bandersnatch allows you to explore alternate timelines without seeing things you’ve already watched, it’s worthwhile.

Don’t follow Pax!  He’s the Thief of Destiny!

Indeed, the choose-your-own adventure mechanic is probably Bandersnatch‘s single greatest strength, but outside of that, it isn’t entirely remarkable.  I can name at least a handful of other Black Mirror episodes that are simultaneously darker, creepier, and more thought-provokingly concluded than Bandersnatch, though the latter does have its moments.  While I feel that this is a worthwhile price to pay for the interactive format – after all, a narrative driven by a user surely less story-inclined than Charlie Brooker and Co. is certain to result in a less-twisted and mildly hamstrung story – others have disagreed, resulting in aggregated reviews which, while still positive, are middling when compared to Black Mirror’s existing repertoire.  In other words, Bandersnatch‘s novel method for ensuring that its audience remains engaged seems to inherently imply that without that new method, it wouldn’t be able to.  As the acting goes, Will Poulter (who apparently has been forced off of social media as of late) is the only actor you’ll know, and really the only one who’s showing off anything special here in his portrayal of the creepy and pivotal character of whiz game programmer Colin Ritman.  If it’s great acting you want from Black Mirror, look to White Christmas, or Be Right Back, or even USS Callister).

The famed creator of Metl Hedd and Nohzdyve.

What’s more exciting to talk about, though, is what Bandersnatch may do (or currently be doing) for the future of streaming as we know it.  It’s hard to say at this point whether others will pick up this interactive format and run with it (assumedly, it largely depends on how successful Bandersnatch winds up being), but what’s clear is that it represents a world of possibility in terms of blurring the lines between video games and film, allowing individual users to grab hold of a central narrative and find a way to turn it into a unique experience.  And sure – one could easily make the claim that an interactive film like Bandersnatch is really only mimicking a sense of complete free will for the user, while still managing to lead the user to an oppressively small set of endings through various brands of trickery – and they would be right (Bandersnatch‘s main character refers to this practice in a tongue-in-cheek way himself at one point when describing how he managed to finish his game).  After all, while the flowchart of possible paths is still quite large, it’s obviously finite, and while Bandersnatch‘s nominal runtime is 90 minutes, the amount of footage in the final compilation of scenes required to work through every path is reportedly just over 5 hours.  Imagining what could be possible if that number were increased to, say, 8 hours (roughly the mark of a trilogy of films, I’d say), makes me excited for the future viewer, but nauseous for whoever gets the sorry task of winding his or her way through the myriad of alternate realities that would result.  Either way, given the marketing potential of such a film, I’d say that Netflix’s creation of such a lengthier interactive film is not altogether out of the question.

Frosties 4 lyfe.

One thing is for sure: if you fancy yourself an explorer, or a generally adventurous type, then Bandersnatch is probably for you.  Check it out today on Netflix!

The Game – Review

Oh, to be a cable-cutting millennial, swimming helplessly in a myriad of par-to-subpar Netflix/Hulu/Amazon Prime streaming options whilst looking for a movie to watch on a lazy Sunday night.  Do you take a gamble on something that doesn’t look all that good, but is at least new and somewhat current?  Do you return to an old favorite that you’ve seen a million times, looking for a safe space rather than excitement in the midst of an increasingly cacophonous modern and fast-paced society?  Do you just give up and turn on The Office for the millionth time?  Lo and behold, before you know it, it’s time for bed.  As I think I’ve said before, this struggle to me embodies the human condition – it’s an exercise in risk and reward, the safe versus the unknown, the familiar old flame pitted against the potential new passionate lover.

Me watching Season 4 of The Office for the 275,475th time.

With all of this overly romanticized language in mind, and while it was tempting to take a friend’s suggestion, go completely off script this week, and instead scathingly review the 47-3 trouncing of my favorite NFL team, I want to talk to you this week about The Game.  Directed by David Fincher, who’s known for such pitch-black spellbinders as Se7en, Fight Club, The Social Network, Gone Girl, and Zodiac (which I’ve already talked about here), The Game stars Michael Douglas, and chronicles a rich man’s birthday journey into a perplexing world of a real-life game designed to force him to question the distinction between what’s real and what’s manufactured (I’m not going to spend much more time detailing what the movie is about, so if you want to know more, maybe watch this trailer, which is only marginally more informative, and much more visually disturbing).  Often cerebral, thrilling, and at times playing out like an escape room set to the silver screen, The Game was an overall enjoyable ride, and a free one at that, provided you have a Netflix subscription.  When it was originally released way back in 1997, critics and audiences largely felt the same, calling into question the film’s arguably dubious ending, but also lauding Fincher’s typical but nonetheless continually entrancing dark atmosphere (certainly darker than Game Night, in case you’re wondering).  All told, you can do far worse if you’re scrolling Netflix and trying to navigate the doldrums of cinematic ennui that so often seem to marry themselves to on-demand content viewing.

Warning for those with clown phobias – there are a few scenes with clowns which are inanimate but still creepy as all hell.

The Game‘s greatest strengths are its premise and its director, which go as hand-in-hand as the premise and director do for any great movie.  The overwhelmingly mysterious nature of the plot, which all the while encourages the audience to look for clues as to how Michael Douglas can overcome the various adversities thrown at him by the shrouded corporation serving as his gamemaker and win his game, is perfectly suited for David Fincher’s talents.  As the plot itself goes, don’t expect many stunning twists – if anything, it’s more predictable than not, but my theory is that that feeds into the enjoyment, and at the very least it did in my case.  The Game never really treads fully into horror territory – in fact, it doesn’t even really come close if you ask me – but I also feel that it operates on a governing principle very similar to many great films of that genre, at times fully embracing the M.O. of getting the main character to go through a door in a dark corner when every conscious audience member is screaming that a killer lurks behind it.  Another comparison that can be easily drawn: maybe one of the reasons that I enjoyed The Game is because I also enjoy watching a magician perform.  Especially in terms of its setpieces, which are few but significant, The Game plays out like one long magic trick – a magic trick whose secrets the audience will eventually have revealed to them. The beauty of The Game and its writing is that the audience wants to find out for itself what those secrets are before the moment where it’s all laid bare for them comes.

Another solid use of White Rabbit in the name of filmmaking.

Where I primarily take issue with The Game is in the caliber of its acting, starting first and foremost with its female lead Deborah Kara Unger – an actress who has little to no notable entries in her filmography aside from this one, and who is given the formidable task of acting against seasoned vet Michael Douglas.  At times, Unger’s performance is comically bad, but what’s so interesting about The Game and its premise is that it’s hard not to wonder if this is simply another part of the ruse at the film’s core.  To put it another way – Unger is playing a participant in Douglas’ character’s “game,” and to this end, she’s really a pawn in said game – she’s for lack of a better term performing within a performance.  This is all to say that perhaps Unger decided to play her role – essentially an actress – as someone who isn’t very good at what they do, but as someone who’s able to often fool Douglas’ Nicholas Van Orton at countless turns all the same.  My money is still on the idea that Unger simply doesn’t turn in a good performance, but it’s worth thinking about nonetheless.

James Rebhorn and Michael Douglas maybe about to kiss?

Which brings us to Michael Douglas himself.  As I’ve already said, Douglas is a seasoned veteran, having acted in such memorable hits as Wall Street and Basic Instinct, but even when his performance is juxtaposed with the oftentimes downright cringe-inducing Unger’s, it’s hard to make any argument that it’s all that good.  Don’t get me wrong, it’s certainly not bad – it’s exactly fine, which is probably why you don’t hear about this movie much when Douglas’ name comes up.  But as the film’s central figure, Douglas’ occasionally flat performance keeps The Game from elevating itself to what I feel that it could have been – a finished product greater than the sum of its parts.  This could probably be said of most of the acting throughout, though the strikingly young Sean Penn (acting in a small role as Nick’s playboy brother and gift-giver Conrad) and James Rebhorn (one of Hollywood’s many living breathing examples of “that guy you know from that thing”) are pretty entertaining when all is said and done.

Classic David Fincher blue filter on display here.

A final drawback to note: I’ll agree with the critics that the ending of The Game left a little something to be desired – without getting into spoiler territory, I’ll say that it pulled a double-move when a single move would have done just fine, swapping out an ending that I think would have been far better and far more befitting of its plot and (at that point well-developed) characters for a denouement with much less emotional impact.  With that said, the film’s main character undeniably finishes his game, win or lose, as a changed man, and while the finish line is in a sense a bit of a head-scratcher, the race to it is unquestionably ominous fun.

 

The Staircase – Review

Over the past few weeks, my girlfriend and I have been on a bit of a docuseries kick, specifically of the true-crime variety.  Netflix has a lot to offer in this department of late, and while our journey started with The Staircase – which I’ll discuss here – we’ve also watched Evil Genius recently, and may soon watch Wormwood, which appears to be an interesting blend of fact with fictionalized retelling.  As morbid as the subject matter usually is, series like these are at times more compelling than a fictional show could ever be, simply because they’re reporting events that actually happened, albeit with some sort of spin or flair.  The Staircase, while at times pretty slow-moving, certainly had such compelling moments.

Michael Peterson (center) with his then-alive wife Kathleen (third from left).

For those that don’t know, The Staircase follows the lengthy murder trial of (*don’t click this link unless you want major spoilers*) Michael Peterson, an author from North Carolina accused of killing his executive wife in a death that he claims resulted from a tragic late-night fall down a staircase.  Starting from the initial fallout from the incident itself, and from there weaving through the unraveling of Michael’s oft-sordid past in the face of the prosecution, The Staircase focuses primarily on the defendant: his views and convictions, his family, his past, and his future.  It also focuses on a trial that contains a lot of really shady evidence – I’ll refrain from getting into that for the time being.

David Rudolf: kind of like The Lincoln Lawyer, but with less Matthew McConaughey.

But a number of you may have come here to see if I’d let slip anything spoilerific with regards to whether or not Michael Peterson actually killed his wife, and here’s the rub – even if I wanted to spill the beans, I don’t think I’d be able to.  Maybe that’s a spoiler in and of itself, but I’m sticking to it.  Yes, the series has its own bias and its own potentially prejudicial way of laying out all of the evidence and the proceedings in order to get you to believe that he may in fact be an innocent man assumed guilty, and yes, there is eventually a legal verdict passed down – but there are also a number of less legally rigid conclusions drawn in a court of law throughout the ~20 years of time The Staircase spans that suggest that Michael is guilty as sin.  Indeed, for the vast majority of The Staircase, the actual truth remains ambiguous, and it remains as such to the bitter end.  What allows The Staircase to be occasionally transfixing is not the revelation of the truth of what happened – in fact, there’s only so far that its director (Jean-Xavier de Lestrade) can go, and attempt to go, cinematically in that regard, and he’s on record as claiming that the truth wasn’t his primary concern.

One of the major focuses of The Staircase: the effect the extremely long trial process can have on not just the defendant, but also the defendant’s family.

What his primary concern was, and what is most often starkly portrayed within The Staircase, was a depiction of the trials (pun intended) and tribulations of the American criminal justice system – its faults, its successes, its loopholes and its sinkholes.  To give people the ability to watch Michael – a man who clearly believes himself to be innocent, or at least says as much – navigate this scenery is what the show primarily sets out to do, and it does that, at times quite well.  As for my opinion on the verdict – an opinion, I might add, that’s still probably super uneducated even after having watched all 13 episodes of this thing, and therefore should be taken with a grain of salt – I think the owl theory, which is unbelievably mentioned only once in passing in spite of its seeming credibility, is worth another serious look.

Another important lesson The Staircase has to teach: a blowpoke may sound like a sex toy, but it’s not.  It’s what David Rudolf, Michael’s defense attorney, is holding here.

Another thing some of you streaming veterans may be wondering: is it as captivating as Netflix’s previous true-crime darling Making a Murderer?  It’s hard to say, but if I had to speculate, I’d say I don’t think so, but I’m frankly not sure why this is.  Both series have a similar cast of characters – there’s the set of defense attorneys who, in their fight for a defendant vehemently and consistently maintaining his innocence, often appear heroic, if only pyrrhically so.  There’s the prosecuting state – a state often portrayed as either bumbling or straight-up deceitful, a portryal that’s possibly inflated for the purposes of entertainment but nonetheless jarring.  And then there’s the defendant himself – in both cases a man who certainly seems to mean well, but a man who is more often than not misunderstood, and in certain cases and due to certain secrets, for good reason.  Furthermore, both The Staircase and Making a Murderer track the evidence, the trial, and the various brands of fallout associated with it in very similar ways, so as I said, it’s not clear why Making a Murderer seemed at least at the time simply more engrossing.  Maybe it’s that The Staircase is simply less grabby with its conclusions.  It’s not looking to explicitly level any opinions in the way that I recall Making a Murderer doing – it’s simply observing and reporting.  In that sense, it’s probably fair to say that The Staircase is truer to the documentary style that Making a Murderer may falsely claim to adhere to, but that doesn’t always make it more watchable, or even as watchable, as some of its more sensational predecessors.

One of The Staircase’s less-intense courtroom scenes, in which Kathleen’s sister essentially roasts Michael Peterson to try to get the judge to send him to prison.

Outside of discussion of the corruption/ineptitude of law enforcement, one of the other major themes that The Staircase seems to occasionally approach is the idea of the fragility of life, both in the obvious case of Kathleen Peterson, the victim, and in the case of the entire Peterson family, up to and including Michael, the supposedly innocent suspect.  This family, who prior to the death of Kathleen appeared to live a happy and normal, if not affluent, life, was completely turned upside down and inside out in what probably amount to a short set of moments of loss and terror.  The suddenness of this sea change is especially discussed in the last few episodes – the most recently filmed of all of them (Lestrade’s third rendition/revisit, for Netflix), in which Michael, now somewhat removed from the harrying legal battle that has more or less consumed his entire waking life for years upon years, finally allows himself time to quietly reflect on the shock of his wife’s death, albeit in front of a camera.

I have to be honest and say I spent a lot of the final act wondering why Michael Peterson would wear sunglasses that were so clearly too large for his face.

The questions that The Staircase implicitly asks, both from a legality standpoint and a humanity standpoint, are numerous, and frustratingly few of them wind up answered, but as someone who writes those little musings at the bottom of motivational posters might say, it often seems to be more about the journey than about the destination, and while the last act is particularly slow, The Staircase contains its share of intrigue and hits a good stride in the middle in spite of an ambling start.  To many, and in an age of media so often driven by unadulterated bloodlust, watching a family’s life get turned topsy-turvy over a death may well be entertainment enough.

To those who have made it to the end of my post, thanks a lot for reading all the way through!  The good news I have to report here is that I think you’re great, because you’re reading this blog of mine.  The bad news is that you won’t be able to read anything new next week, as I’ll be taking a brief hiatus.  I’ll be back with more on July 17th, but until then, good luck finding your mediocre cold-to-lukewarm takes elsewhere on this World Wide Web of ours.

Quick Hitter Cleanup Post

Hello, friends.  In the midst of the beginning of the hectic summer movie season here at Tuesdays with Cory, I’ve decided to go with something a bit different this week, a bit more of a deep cut with a number of blue-chip titles in the near future of this site.  I suppose this post can be thought of in a way that’s similar to how people think about cleaning out their inboxes – I say people meaning “people other than me” because of course I never clean out my inbox.  Instead, I’m taking the approach of just letting the countless correspondences from adoring fans and Kohl’s clog up my Gmail until I’m inevitably crushed under a cyber-avalanche.

But not here!

I know what you’re all thinking – why not just unsubscribe from the Kohl’s email list?  I’ll answer that question with another question: how would I know about the Gold Star Clearance event if I didn’t get a hundred emails a day from them?

Basically I’m going for more of a Buzzfeed-ish thing here where I’ll be running down a short list of some quick-hitting paragraph-long reviews of movies I’ve watched recently that I had at least partially planned on doing full posts about but won’t have the time to write – after all, I feel that they deserve at least some small corner of TWC carved out for them.  These are comparatively old or under-the-radar jams, so if that’s not your cup of tea and you’re only here to know about the latest and greatest, you’d best skip out now.

Dealt – I don’t watch documentaries as often as I like, but I had heard about this one while reading YouTube comments of all things.  I can’t stress enough that this is something that I don’t recommend.  Do as I say, not as I do – but actually don’t do what I say, either.  I’m not the boss of you, and I definitely shouldn’t be trusted to give any kind of life advice.  Heck, you might not even trust me enough to believe my reviews.

Before anyone asks: yes, Kenny Rogers’ “The Gambler” is featured in the movie.

Anyways, Dealt is a great documentary on Hulu about Richard Turner, a self-described “card mechanic” who’s essentially a cross between a hustler and a magician.  His incredible talent alone is noteworthy, as seen in this video (and many others, I’m sure), but what really makes what he does special – and due a documentary, I imagine – is that he’s also blind.  I came into Dealt expecting a semi-lighthearted story about a really really good card magician, but what I got in actuality was an incredibly sobering but simultaneously uplifting story about living, and excelling, with severe visual impairment, and I’d recommend it to magic fans and non-magic fans alike, especially since it’s short and easily digestible.

Coco – Yeah, yeah, I know I’m pretty late to the party on this one, and to be honest, my knee-jerk reaction with it was that it just wasn’t as good as a number of people I had spoken to about it hyped it up to be.  In the grand scheme of animated films, it’s of course a great movie – Pixar’s standards seem to remain as high as they’ve always been – but when compared to some of the studio’s other entries, it doesn’t hold up as strongly for me.  The music is fantastic – well deserving of the Oscar it received – and the animation is gorgeous as always, but the emotional payload just isn’t on par with the likes of Up, Inside Out, or Toy Story 3 (these are my personal favorites, but frankly a ranking of Pixar’s films probably deserves its own full post at this point).   In any case, some of its worthwhile themes are similar to those of Pixar’s other movies (namely, don’t trust famous/important people), and it has a decent amount of good things to say/lessons to teach about death and Mexican culture, so if you can handle an abundance of skeleton-centric gags, it’s worth watching.

Predictable?  Yes.  Still emotional?  Yes.

Wind River – This is a great movie, but it was also a bit more gratuitously violent than I signed up for.  Featuring Jeremy Renner and Elizabeth Olsen in lead roles, it’s one of those indie titles that generated quite a bit of buzz when it premiered at Sundance, but failed to be recognized commercially due to a lack of widespread marketing/box-office release.  Following a young FBI agent and a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service tracker (named Cory, even) who investigate a murder on an Indian reservation, Wind River is part crime thriller, part Western, and all grit.  The strong cast and script do enough to elevate it above other films of the same ilk, and especially considering the typical fare on Netflix – where this can be streamed – you can do a lot worse.  But again, definitely put the kids to bed for this one – there are a number of scenes that I had a hard time watching myself.

Why, yes, Jeremy Renner’s character does wear the chest version of a fanny pack pretty much throughout the movie.

Zodiac – This is a movie that in all honesty I had seen once before, but after watching it again on a whim this past weekend I felt I had to give it some kind of credit here.  Granted the distinct visual stylings of director David Fincher (The Social Network, Se7en, Fight Club) and featuring a star-studded cast led by Jake Gyllenhaal (soon to be Mysterio, I hear), Mark Ruffalo, and Robert Downey Jr., Zodiac tells the real-life spellbinding story of Ted Cruz‘s – ahem – the Zodiac killer‘s reign of terror during the late 1960’s and early 1970’s in Southern California.  Based primarily on the book of the same name by Robert Graysmith – who also serves as the film’s main protagonist – Zodiac tries to unwind and artistically present the abundance of facts surrounding the killer of the same name, all the while asking the question of how the case could possibly have gone unsolved. With legitimate edge-of-the-seat thrills, gripping subtext, unsettling setpieces, and a surprisingly satisfying ending for an overall jarring film about a still-unsolved murder mystery, it’s awfully surprising to me that Zodiac wasn’t even nominated for a single award by the Academy, an institution that often seems obsessed with based-on-true-events stories of this nature.  Too dark, I suppose.  If it doesn’t seem too dark for you, check it out on Amazon Prime.

Apparently pre-Iron Man RDJ voted for Tricky Dick.

Now that my proverbial cinematic inbox is clean, I can stride confidently into the Summer 2018 movie season.  Coming next week: either Deadpool 2 or Solo – haven’t quite decided yet, but stay tuned either way!