The Twilight Zone (1959) s02e15 – The Invaders

One of my major complaints about “The Twilight Zone” is the ending reveal somehow distracts from the rest of the episode. It’s a “gotcha” moment. And The Invaders does have a gotcha moment, and it does shuffle star Agnes Moorehead off-screen ingloriously, but at least it doesn’t do anything to undercut her performance.

The episode begins with host Rod Serling explaining we’re at a farmhouse, not unlike many other farmhouses, except this one doesn’t have electricity. And its sole occupant, Moorehead, has lived on her own for many years. That detail seems to be setting up Moorehead not to have any dialogue. Throughout the episode, as she becomes more and more agitated, she gets more and more vocal, but there’s a hard limit.

The “no electricity” detail allows for much of the episode’s terror. Moorehead goes from hearing sounds on the roof to battling the unexpected–tiny little alien men. The aliens have heat weapons, which cause welts–one of Moorehead’s best scenes (in twenty-some minutes of great scenes) is when she’s silently discovering her injuries and trying to dress the wounds. They may or may not jet pack technology. The episode’s definite about how many Invaders Moorehead has to fight, but it also likes having danger behind every door, around every corner. It’s dark, after all, and there are going to be noises from their spacesuits, so why not amp it up?

Heyes does a fantastic job directing the episode, embracing the limited lighting–Moorehead’s on a quest for survival through the unseen familiar, but with new danger. Most of the episode showcases Moorehead’s performance. There are a handful of action set pieces; otherwise, it’s all about Moorehead’s expressions of fear, determination, and anger. With the scant details Serling delivers at the opening, we’re able to contextualize Moorehead’s experience until the twist, which intentionally turns it over.

Outstanding teleplay from Richard Matheson. Did he write all the little moments for Moorehead or were they actor’s prerogative? There are certain story beats–finding the spaceship, losing this candle or that candle, planning scenes–but when it’s not an effects sequence, Invaders feels more like Moorehead’s doing a one-person show and showing off. She’s spellbinding.

The special effects are adorable. The aliens are just mechanized toys, which someone had a great time making ambulatory. They mostly stand still and shoot at Moorehead with their phasers or whatever, but every once in a while it’s like somehow tossed them across the shot and–whee–jet packs.

The ending twist changes the entire episode–Rod Serling’s got to be the least reliable narrator in television history–but Moorehead’s already done such fantastic work, there’s no lessening factor. Also–highly recommend watching with the lights out. Heyes and cinematographer George T. Clemens clearly meant it to be an uncanny tale for the dark.

Oh, and the Jerry Goldsmith score is excellent, too.

This post is part of the Third Agnes Moorehead Blogathon hosted by Crystal of In the Good Old Days of Classic Hollywood.

Wayward Pines (2015) s02e09 – Walcott Prep

Wayward Pines, the town, is in dire straits. The creatures outside the wall have destroyed their food supply, and they’re out of MREs. They’ll only survive another thirty days (or, more precisely, two episodes). So teen dictator Tom Stevens decides everyone’s going back in cryo-sleep for fifty-seven years or whatever. Only Djimon Hounsou then discovers no one kept the cryo-pods charged since season one ended and the teenage Nazis took over. As a result, they can only take half the populace.

Jason Patric’s still hoping he can come up with some kind of medical solution and won’t help Stevens evaluate the breeding stock. Patric says they should do a lottery; Stevens says it’s got to be based on white bloodline or whatever. Like most scenes for Stevens, there’s potentially a good character thread, but then they immediately drop it. In this case, it’s in favor of a personal quandary—Stevens doesn’t want defects, love of his life Kacey Rohl can’t have babies and is, therefore, defective. Joss Whedon ghostwrote “Wayward Pines?”

Patric is also actively plotting against Stevens this episode, though we don’t get to see any of his plans other than when he checks in with Josh Helman to ensure Helman won’t support Stevens in a coup. It’s a pointless scene, only there for Helman to taunt Patric about how Nimrat Kaur’s preggers with Helman’s baby. Kaur’s around for useless scene with Stevens—encouraging more, different character development–because it turns out this episode’s all about a huge secret.

Toby Jones stars in a flashback story about how he got baby Tom Stevens for the town. First, he tried buying a pregnant blue blood’s unwanted baby, but then he had to resort to more traditional means (bribing a public hospital).

The secret is the identity of Stevens’s mother. Sadly, not an Emperor Palpatine clone. Instead, it’s someone whose identity is going to knock every character arc for Stevens out from under him. There’s also some retconning involved with Hope Davis and Melissa Leo’s characters in particular, though they’re long gone and out of the guest star budget, so who cares. As PG-13 exploitative as “Wayward Pines” got with this season, I really did not expect them to embrace it to this episode’s degree. Worse, it doesn’t do anything to inform characters’ behaviors in previous episodes. Mom’s secret identity doesn’t explain why Stevens is king little shit.

It all comes to a fateful conclusion, including the not ineffective shot of blood running through the streets of the Wayward Pines model in Jones’s office. They probably should’ve used that visual last season with Jones’s death and not here when they’re trying to make a contrived plotline have more of an oomph.

On the other hand, faced with an inevitably disappointing conclusion—season two switched over to building to the finish just as there was character development—a large-scale cop-out and shrug do kind of make sense. Why bother doing anything else?

Loki (2021) s01e06 – For All Time. Always.

“Loki” will return for season two. You find out at the end (of the credits). Or online. I tried to avoid “Loki” spoilers just because I wanted to be (relatively) surprised; would it be Wizard of Oz, would it be the purple one, would it just be Tom Hiddleston in makeup. I probably should’ve just spoiled it since it’s a nothing-burger. “Loki”'s been uneven—kind of like a Thor movie—but there have been highs. This episode doesn’t really have any highs. It doesn’t have any real lows either. Because it’s a nothing-burger. Tune in next season, and maybe there will be something important happening, though at this pace—and based on who they’ve got in play, cast-wise, for next season—it’ll be season four or five before anything really happens. And even then, they’ll presumably move it over to the movies.

The episode revolves around guest star Jonathan Majors, who monologues most of the episode. No reveals, just monologuing around reveals. He does a great job of it (you can tell he’s stage-trained). Unfortunately, he’s giving his monologue on what appears to be a refresh of the digital model for Doctor Strange’s house. Real boring. Though director Kate Herron is better at directing monologues than action, there’s another lousy fight scene this episode, this time with swords. Luckily it’s just filler to prepare for Hiddleston’s turn to monologue.

But “Loki” all of a sudden feels just like what it’s never supposed to feel like—a Marvel Netflix show, or “Agents of Shield,” something where the world can crash down, and no one notices because they’re not contractually obligated to appear. Especially given this episode opens with dialogue from the Marvel movies cut over the timelines expanding and contracting. But by the end, it seems far less like Marvel’s Doctor Who or Quantum Leap and a lot more like Sliders. A nothing-burger of a show.

There is no substantial material for Sophia Di Martino (though she hasn’t had good material for a couple of episodes now). Gugu Mbatha-Raw (dealing with when she betrayed Owen Wilson and Wunmi Mosaku) has a scene to remind she too will return next season, but as a scene, it’s dramatically inert. I kept waiting for show creator Michael Waldron to get another scripting credit after the first episode, and he’s back finally (co-credit with Eric Martin), and he really doesn’t do a good job.

What’s most amusing is the cliffhanger sets up a potentially fun second season ground situation only to immediately make it less fun and more narratively padded. “Loki”’s got a long way to go to prove it’s not utterly pointless. Because near as I can tell, everything from this season could be a five-minute recap at the beginning of next, and you wouldn’t miss anything.

Except remembering when Hiddleston was supposed to be a big movie star and isn’t. He’s just Loki.

Loki (2021) s01e05 – Journey Into Mystery

Journey Into Mystery is simultaneously the cheapest “Loki”—though not the special effects, the CGI composites are solid (for most of it; oh, and the fight scene is profoundly bad), but narratively speaking (it entirely cops out on last episode’s big moves)—and the best, because it guest stars Richard E. Grant as a Loki variant.

There are a bunch of Loki variants in the episode, which takes place at the end of time (sadly no cameos from John Simm or David Tenant). The end of time is apparently the planet Earth with a bunch of slightly aged trash on it. Working cars—even though the gas wouldn’t work but whatever—and then moss-encrusted buses. Basically Tom Cruise’s Oblivion movie or WALL-E to keep it in house. There are rival gangs of Lokis (Tom Hiddleston plays a couple of them but the majority are either named guest stars or dialogue-less extras) trying to survive a giant cloud demon. The end of time is where you go after the TVA prunes you from existence and then the giant cloud demon eats you. Giant cloud demon does not eat, for example, cars, buses, bunkers, or battleships. Just the little people populating them.

Sadly I think next episode is going to explain it all and I’m curious if my prediction’s going to hold.

Anyway. So while Grant, the couple Hiddlestons, kid Loki Jack Veal, and warrior Loki Deobia Oparei try to survive everyone betraying everyone else because they’re Lokis, Sophia Di Martino is busy maybe teaming up with Gugu Mbatha-Raw to figure out the big secret after last episode’s reveals. They’re delaying the explanation—Mbatha-Raw might be a villain (and, even with Tom Kauffman’s profoundly insipid writing, a good one) but she wants to know how it all works too. Can’t she and Di Martino be friends long enough to figure it out?

Di Martino doesn’t really get anything to do in the episode, playing sidekick to various Lokis and surprise returning cast members; though given Kauffman’s dialogue it’s probably for the best. There’s a decent farewell scene for a bunch of people, but it too will probably get invalidated in the finale. Wunmi Mosaku is back for a single scene and gets the absolute worst writing. The show wasted her worse than anyone else.

Even with the bad writing, the complete flop of a silly fight scene (Joel Schumacher did them better), and the narrative cop outs, Journey is probably the most entertaining episode. Because Richard E. Grant’s in it in what appears to be a Loki costume rental from 1987 and he’s wonderful.

There’s also an alligator Loki, which is apparently comics canon accurate but not worth the Google. Cute as hell though.

Also—no spoilers—but Kauffman’s even worse at character motivations than dialogue and his dialogue is tripe. The first act of the episode is everyone acting in absurd ways just to gin up a plot.

But that alligator’s cute as hell. And funny.

And Richard E. Grant.

Loki (2021) s01e04 – The Nexus Event

Lots happens this episode. It’s “the episode where fill in the blank happens” then happens again. Then happens again. Then maybe happens again. But probably not another time because they don’t actually show Tom Hiddleston and Sophia Di Martino making out—they’re time line variants of the same entity (you know, “Loki”) but Di Martino’s from a time line where the entity is born female. For some reason the mysterious Time Lords want Loki to be a boy.

Plus Di Martino has told Hiddleston secrets he can use to improve his situation with Owen Wilson, should that need ever arise. And we also find out guard Wunmi Mosaku (I didn’t think she’d be back but thank goodness because she’s so good) wants to question Di Martino privately about some of those secrets. And we find out there’s some history between Gugu Mbatha-Raw and Di Martino. Plus conspiracies. And robots. And exploding planets.

There’s lots.

It’s really good Owen Wilson. Like, good enough I got wistful thinking about him actually doing a part instead of a stunt cast, actually having direction, actually having a script. They could even do it with Hiddleston; it’s that old time Owen Wilson magic. Or at least more of it than “Loki” has ever shown before.

Mbatha-Raw turns out to be very, very good after seeming like another stunt cast.

Di Martino barely has anything to do this episode. She’s good. Same for Hiddleston, though he does have some stuff to do and it’s not great, but then the rest of the time he’s pretty good. It evens out. Pointless cameo from Jaimie Alexander but it’s at least funny.

Kate Herron’s direction is wanting. There’s only so much to do with the script—Eric Martin gets the credit and it’s one big melodramatic beat after another, with no time for reflection or supporting cast in between. The secrets behind Marvel Disney+ show budgets would reveal a lot about the potential for the shows.

But the special effects—the composites—are terrible in this episode. Interstellar CGI should be better than the opening titles for “Third Rock from the Sun.” And then the big fight scene. It’s confusing, plodding, and bad.

The cliffhanger’s a big twist after a bunch of interesting enough reveals. I feel like if you’re this many episodes into “Loki”… you’re stuck finishing it but… it’ll either be entertaining and dumb or just dumb. With the cast, seems like the former.

Loki (2021) s01e03 – Lamentis

On this episode of “Doctor Who”—wait, no, wait, it’s actually “Loki,” sorry, sorry. And I guess “Doctor Who” has yet to do a buddy sci-fi action flick where the Doctor is paired with a gender reversed version of himself. Or herself. Or themself. Though let’s not give the BBC too much credit. (Wow, “Loki” must play differently if you haven’t seen “Doctor Who;” maybe not better but less derivative).

But this episode has Tom Hiddleston teaming up with his enchanting “Variant” (variants are something like time traveling duplicates but it’s not clear yet), played by Sophia Di Martino. They fight and bite and fight and bite, bite, bite and fight, fight, fight. Until the episode decides it’s more fun to have them bicker and moon over their dead moms. They have different dead moms because of how the variant thing works. Will it be explained? Will Rene Russo do a cameo? So far unclear.

But if Russo does show up and meet Di Martino, I’m sure she’ll find Di Martino enchanting. Emphasis on the enchanting. Lots of enchanting going on. (Are people familiar with Thor comics getting the enchanting thing, I don’t want to be too spoiler or assume they’re going to do something big since they played their big cop out already on “WandaVision”).

Anyway.

It’s fine? Like, definitely the best episode. Because of Di Martino. And the strange planet of humans she and Hiddleston find themselves on. It’s the year 2077 and humans are interstellar miners. One assumes they’re not humans from Earth… it’s more of that lazy Marvel movie space stuff. So it helps when Hiddleston and Di Martino aren’t around any of the nameless supporting players. Plus there’s a good cliffhanger.

Though it’s only a good cliffhanger because the episode’s too short and paced so as to distract from being too short.

No sign of Owen Wilson in this episode except the recap; Gugu Mbatha-Raw pops in for very Judge Dredd-y scene but it’s literal seconds before Hiddleston and Di Martino are on the run through time again. Their gadget breaks and they don’t have a Waverider, a Tardis, or a Ziggy so they’re in trouble on this doomed planet.

There’s some decent fight scenes—definitely director Kate Herron’s best action directing in the series so far—but only for Di Martino. Hiddleston’s fight scenes are still bad. So when they’re fighting, it’s uneven. But Di Martino’s butt-kicking scenes are great. There are some truly terrible CGI composites again (seriously, do they not buy Autumn Durald the right plug-ins for Adobe Premiere or whatever) and the production design suggests Kasra Farahani really liked Joel Schumacher’s Batman movies… but… it’s better than ever before.

Thanks to Di Martino. Having her be so much more charming, so much more enchanting than Hiddleston’s ever been… kind of weird.

Also, kudos for enthusiastic bi pride (academic at this point, but still very enthusiastic).

Loki (2021) s01e02 – The Variant

I have a list of the things I don’t like about “Loki” after the second episode. The show isn’t a “Doctor Who” riff, but it wants to use whole “Who” devices to get certain jobs done. Certain jobs the MCU might want done if actors are going to keep aging and maybe get sick of playing parts. It feels pretty craven, which would be impressive if they were having more fun with it.

“Loki” is not fun. It’s dreary, particularly with its Stallone Judge Dredd meets green-lighted Brazil production design (last time I thought it might have some Kirby influences—and it still might—but it just ends up looking like CGI Stallone Judge Dredd). Tom Hiddleston and Owen Wilson are both competent enough actors they can feign rapport, but they don’t actually have any. Hiddleston going from renegade thousands of years old Asgardian trickster god to new guy at the boring, albeit fantastic day job could be a narrative hook, except it’s all clearly filler to get Hiddleston to the next set piece.

Only “Loki”’s idea of set pieces is Hiddleston monologuing in boring locations (an empty supervillain warehouse—sorry, sorry, tent—in a Renaissance Faire) while Wilson makes confused faces at him. Except about halfway through the episode, Hiddleston figures out something about the case they’re on and the good guys are finally able to get a jump on the bad guy.

Of course, calling “Loki”’s TVA (Time Variance Authority, Timecop but worse attitude than Van Damme and no leg splits) agents the good guys is a stretch. They’re even more apathetic than Hiddleston plays it.

Now, “Loki” is a very desperate mix of a lot of things—“Legends of Tomorrow,” “Doctor Who,” “Westworld,” whatever show where the female boss has a thing with her troublesome male subordinate who’s fifteen years older than her (only Gugu Mbatha-Raw looks younger than thirty-eight and Wilson looks closer to mid-to-late fifties trying hard not early fifties)—and I’m trying to give it a chance. But it’s hard to get enthusiastic about Kate Herron’s direction because she’s boring. And the CGI composites are terrible so every time they go somewhere (except the Renaissance Faire) it’s Wilson and Hiddleston acting in front of obvious green screens.

The show desperately needs some slack and doesn’t do anything to get any.

Maybe if Hiddleston were giving some phenomenal performance, but it’s not even a good part. It’s Hiddleston in a bureaucracy—an all human, all English speaking guardians of the universe bureaucracy. It’s way too functional.

I mean, maybe it’ll be how Kang gets introduced and, yay, for long-form baton-passing but… “Loki”’s a slog with low middling special effects and really annoying music from Natalie Holt.

Loki (2021) s01e01 – Glorious Purpose

So when Tom Hiddleston signed up for Thor, I can’t remember if former costar and movie director Kenneth Branagh convinced him to do it or didn’t think he should do it. Hiddleston was a star on the rise and the idea was you’d do your Marvel movie for scale plus and then the resulting roles would make you the mega-stars. Hiddleston could even do Oscar bait.

Fast forward ten years and neither Thor nor Hiddleston’s non-Thor career ended up shattering the cosmos. Plus Hiddleston died. Though he came back in the next movie. And “Loki” is the sequel to that movie, Avengers: Endgame, while also kind of a sequel to The Avengers, because Hiddleston’s playing the 2012 version of the character. It’s barely confusing because they have Hiddleston find out the truth by the end of the episode. So it’s also kind of Thor 2 for a second, like a better one, with the same big death because they recycle it here to give Hiddleston the exact same character development as he had before.

It’s a low okay episode. Like… no heavy lifting for anyone involved, including the writer (Michael Waldron) because he gets to do time travel stuff but nothing original. If “Loki” is based on a Marvel Comics thing—he’s working for the Time Variance Alliance or something—TVA—it’s a newer comic thing. Or old and obscure. But it seems like it’d be newer, because it uses so much time travel stuff from other media

And it’s fine. Recycled time travel tropes are part of the genre.

Though it does end up feeling like there’s only one more layer until the Fantastic Four is meeting a CGI Jack Kirby. Deep cut, just means they’re going really meta here. Because it lets Hiddleston be an amusing weasel. They even rush the rest of Hiddleston’s character development, more or less getting him to Infinity War mindset. All the flashbacks and flash forwards come during Hiddleston’s job interview at the TVA. Time traveling detective Owen Wilson, who flirts with lady judge Gugu Mbatha-Raw and bickers with tough lady guard Wunmi Mosaku, thinks Hiddleston’ll make a great agent.

Wilson’s laidback thing still works and grates nicely against Hiddleston’s petulant god thing. I’d say for at least a third of the episode, you can watch it for Wilson alone. The curiosity wears thin (along with Waldron’s plotting), but he’s really fun for a while.

Mbatha-Raw’s in a scene. She’ll be back later. Mosaku’s good, but it’s so far not a good part. She’s Hiddleston’s foil, someone he can torture for kicks and it not affect his appeal, which is… a weird flex and might become a problematic one.

There’s a big Jurassic Park 1 nod, makes you wonder who’s the fan.

“Loki”’s giving itself a really low bar. It’s the safest thing Marvel and Disney+ have done so far, but by a whole lot.

They also have the chance to legitimize “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” and then don’t do it, which is sort of likably petty.

The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992, Brian Henson), the extended version

There’s a lot great about Muppet Christmas Carol: obviously the Muppet performers (their first outing after Jim Henson died—Rowlf is silent in memorial), Brian Henson’s fine direction, Jerry Juhl’s inventive script, strong special effects, Val Strazovec’s production design, Michael Jablow’s editing, the Paul Williams songs (the repetition even helps); but what makes it so special is Michael Caine as Scrooge.

By the end of the movie it ought to be Michael Caine and the Muppets’ Christmas Carol because he’s been so spotlighted for the previous seventy-five minutes or so. Caine breaks pretty early on in the night, Scrooge-wise. The film opens with him being mean to nephew Steven Mackintosh, Bunsen and Beaker (collecting for charity), the odd cute Muppet, then Kermit (as Bob Cratchit) and the office staff.

But he’s never too mean. He’s intimidating, he’s callous, but he’s ignorant of his cruelty in some ways; he’s kind of a libertarian a bit. Like he’s a blowhard, which his peers figure out, and then Christmas Carol is just all about him realizing he needs to alleviate suffering with his fortune. Incidentally, A Christmas Carol—the source material—is really depressing in 2020 when the story is 175 years old and there’s basically never been a redeemed Scrooge in reality. The genetics of Kermit and Miss Piggy’s kids in the movie are more realistic than the core tale.

Caine’s Scrooge cracks the first time during the Christmas past sequence (though maybe not in the theatrical version) and then the rest of the film and Christmas ghosts aren’t about him realizing Christmas is good, actually, but he’s bad, actually, and his bah humbug attitude about Christmas is just a symptom.

The Tiny Tim scene where Caine just stares at the puppets and tears up is fantastic. Henson drags it out, he and Jablow changing the intervals on the reaction shots to Caine, and it’s just this great expression work from Caine. His reactions to his emotions have their own arcs, with this amazing verklempt period for the end of Christmas Present and all of Christmas Future. Henson, Juhl, and Caine turn it into a character study, with the familiar Muppets doing a lot more in the supporting cast department.

Gonzo and Rizzo narrate the film, which is hilarious and one of the film’s best “Muppet” instincts. They have the right personality clash to make their antics particularly funny. Because there aren’t many laughs in the rest of it. It’s a tragedy and all. Even the songs—which have some really funny lines—are always sincere and often solemn. Outside Gonzo and Rizzo, the playfulness is quite muted. It’s a very nimble film; Henson’s able to control the mood just right.

So the special effects should get a callout because they have so much to do with the mood. The Ghosts of Christmas aren’t traditional Muppets—well, maybe Ghost of Christmas Present but even then not exactly; the Ghosts are their own specific characters outside the Muppet movie aspect of Christmas Carol, which is all the more ambitious and all the more successful. Henson and company found the right formula here.

Though it all hinges on Caine’s performance. Including him singing. Somehow Muppet Christmas Carol makes singing Michael Caine an absolute delight.

Other highlights include Statler and Waldorf’s cameos—including young age make-up on them—Jerry Nelson as the Ghost of Christmas Present, and Meredith Braun as young Scrooge’s love interest. Braun’s only it for a scene and a half but makes a singular contribution.

Well, if you’re watching the extended version, anyway.

Muppet Christmas Carol is most assuredly sensational, inspirational, celebrational, and, indeed, Muppetational.

Clueless (1995, Amy Heckerling)

I really didn’t want to bag on Clueless when I watched it this time, the first time since the theater, almost twenty-four years ago. It got good reviews on release, which I fully disagreed with—I’d forgotten how much audiences in the eighties and nineties liked farcical sitcom-level characterizations. Particularly in the nineties with the lusterless, generically appealing male leads–Clueless has no standout male performances, not even Dan Hedaya playing Dan Hedaya playing a movie dad. Paul Rudd is a twenty-one year-old who ogles his fifteen year-old ex-step-sister, Alicia Silverstone, and presumably is her first lover, waiting until she’s sixteen. Rudd’s not playing it self aware.

Yes, Clueless would be a very different film if he were, but it might be at least somewhat honest. Jeremy Sisto is the creep who tries to force himself on Silverstone, then leaves her in a bad neighborhood to be mugged at gunpoint after she rebuffs him.

Breckin Meyer’s the stoner who Silverstone’s friend, Brittany Murphy, secretly likes but can’t tell Silverstone because Silverstone doesn’t approve of stoners. Meyer’s charmless but somehow too mediocre to be bad. Ditto Donald Faison as Silverstone’s best friend Stacey Dash’s boyfriend. There’s a lot to unpack with Dash and Faison as the only two Black people in the movie. I guess Sean Holland, as Faison’s friend, but… Holland’s not in it much.

Oh, and then there’s Justin Walker as Silverstone’s crush. There’s a lot to unpack with Walker too.

But I don’t have the vocabulary or experience to unpack Clueless. There’s even something about the phrase Clueless and who taught Silverstone—who frequently calls people clueless in her narration, which isn’t good either—to call people clueless and who to call clueless. Give me a Roman Polanski movie about demonizing a woman’s sexuality to talk about; I don’t feel comfortable talking about what writer and director Heckerling is doing with this one. Other the writing and directing an immediately dated, desperate for MTV credit (it is Paramount), dumbing down of Jane Austen’s Emma for audiences who would be embracing the original setting just a few years later.

Oh, wow. You know who gave it ★★★½. Oh, of course he did. Immediately disqualified. Holy cow, he doesn’t even talk about Rudd perving on a sixteen year-old. Hello, 1995.

I feel like I’m back in high school again describing how narrative arcs work. What’s really funny is… they work the same way I said they worked back then as they do now; now, after I’ve read a couple hundred actually great novels, done a bunch of undergrad (shudder) workshopping, and gotten an MFA in writing.

Anyway.

What’s so funny about Clueless is how much I wanted it to succeed. I mean… I knew it wasn’t going to happen from the opening credits, but I really did want it to be a win. I really wanted to be remembering it wrong. I really wanted Heckerling to have some good reason for the Paul Rudd thing—which, given the movie avoids ever letting Hedaya know about the “like, it’s not actually incest, Flowers in the Attic much” romance after building up his legendary anger the whole movie—but she doesn’t. It’s a combination of “well, see, it’s like Emma, see” and so Heckerling doesn’t actually have to write anything like actual character development. Why bother when you have a montage sequence.

Clueless is… oh, crap, I can’t say it’s clueless, can I? I can’t go so cheap. Clueless is tedious, best pinned to the wall of historical item to be examined. Though, sadly, not for anything Heckerling intentionally does in the film. She can’t even direct the actually funny parts well, which makes everything even more distressing.

Clueless is badly done.