Bride of the Incredible Hulk (1978, Kenneth Johnson)

Bride of the Incredible Hulk is just the season two two-part opener, “Married,” as a theatrical release (for overseas). But it’s also a remarkably self-contained outing for Bill Bixby (and even more so for series costar Jack Colvin, who gets a single scene). The movie opens with Bixby arriving in Hawaii to consult with preeminent psychologist Mariette Hartley. Hartley’s developed new applications for hypnosis to combat physical ailments, and Bixby thinks he can use it to keep Lou Ferrigno at bay.

Unfortunately, just as Bixby gets to Hartley’s office (some lovely California location shooting filling in for Hawaii), she’s headed onto permanent sabbatical. She’s got a fatal illness, which the audience knows about because the episode opens with the teaser, and it gives away Hartley’s condition, messing up the first act. It’s a shame the Bride version doesn’t have a release, so at least there aren’t spoilers from the “Next On.”

Bixby eventually convinces Hartley to help him, revealing his secret identity—he’s using “Benton” as his last name in this episode, but once Hartley finds out he’s David Banner, she can’t stop saying his name loudly in public. Even though Colvin’s around looking for the Hulk after he shows up, though—wisely—Colvin’s story goes entirely untold. Because Bride’s staying very busy with Hartley. The movie’s mostly her ruminating on her condition, which is similar to ALS, but director Johnson didn’t want to come up with a whole fake name for the disease. Not when Hartley is mooning over Bixby using big medical words to describe stubbed toes and so on.

If she agrees to help him with the big green guy, he’ll try to help her cure her own mitochondrial-based disease in the six to eight weeks she has left to live. She starts mooning over him after a couple of days. He reciprocates after she proves she can handle herself with his Ferrigno outbursts, including Ferrigno breaking up a luau. An incredibly problematic luau on at least two fronts. First, the cultural one—though Bride’s entirely unaware; it’s frequently racist, with one of Bixby and Hartley’s couple bits being mocking Japanese people. Then there’s third lead Meeno Peluce. He’s the little boy who lives nearby and shares a beach with Hartley. When Ferrigno breaks up the luau, everyone abandons Peluce to watch in awe. He’ll go on to emulate Ferrigno’s outbursts, which Bixby thinks is adorable and seemingly doesn’t connect the behaviors.

Given how strange it is to watch Bixby in therapy sessions with Hartley and realize he’s just got garden variety anger management issues. He tells Hartley so many flashbacks, Lara Parker should’ve gotten credit for her pilot movie footage (regardless of her not having any lines). Poor Susan Sullivan (the actual love interest from the pilot movie) is forgotten or maybe even retconned. Bixby leaves her contributions to his work out entirely when recapping the show premise for Hartley.

It’s a pretty good episode for Bixby. The racist stuff hurts his demeanor, and his pressuring Hartley to put a ring on it is very strange (and entirely unexplored). But they do have great chemistry. His stuff with trying to control Ferrigno goes completely unresolved, even in terms of episode arcs, and Johnson’s too worried about getting the thing done on budget to tie the final action sequence to Bixby mediating his way into the desert of his mind, population two: him and Ferrigno. Those “dream” sequences are visually striking. They’re somewhat inert, narratively, but they’re cool looking. Bixby gets it really bad at the end when he’s got to have a heart-to-heart with Peluce about the morale of the story, and Peluce is godawful, and Bixby just can’t make it work.

But Hartley—and her processing of her impending death—is the star. She’s fantastic. And she’s the star of Bride (and “Married,” which is a weird way to do a season opener, but it was the seventies). Even when she’s got weaker material—not just her being a racist shit but also when she daydreams Peluce is she and Bixby’s kid, instead of them both giving their lives to science and denying the only fulfilling human experience, raising a child actor.

Johnson does well with a lot of the direction. John McPherson’s photography is nice. Doesn’t match all the stock footage, but it’s nice.

Bride has problems, but it’s a damn good TV melodrama with superhero action accouterment.

Evil (2019) s02e13 – C Is for Cannibal

I desperately want to read the market research on “Evil.” While the show cops out on the Catholic Church being an international rape cabal, its relationship with Catholicism is complicated. Intentionally complicated, like there’s one team in the writers’ room who goes anti-Catholic and then the other team who goes pro. I wonder if they’re the same teams who do the Bible’s true and Bible’s not. This episode seemingly acknowledges a whole bunch of supernatural only for it may be to not. But the most significant swings aren’t even about the demons. They’re all very human concerns.

Hence the subject, as revealed in the title: C Is for Cannibalism. The episode answers many outstanding questions, including a brilliant twist reminiscent of the “Shield” finale. It raises more issues for next season, including the old “children in danger” trope, which “Evil” has been avoiding lately. It actually wasn’t; it turns out they just weren’t telling us about all the danger children were in offscreen.

As a season finale, it sets “Evil” up, once again, for a big season with a lot of twists and fallout. Some shocking reveals and shocking turns. But all of them could’ve been introduced and established earlier in the season and hurried some of the arcs, whereas the season actually lost its arc the further it went. Maybe Rona? Certainly not in “Evil” itself; their Earth escaped the pandemic. But maybe it affected availability and so on. Next season “Evil” will finally really get going. How can it not….

Which is a familiar sentiment about the show–it’s got to get going now, right?

It’s an extremely well-directed episode—by Alethea Jones—about med student Taylor Trensch, who gives a hard-to-resist craving to eat human flesh. Hence the title. It takes place on campus during Hell Week, so there are all sorts of scary red herrings. Jones directs the hell out of it, no pun. Hope she’s back next season.

The episode also resolves Mike Colter’s ordination subplot, with some surprises and an awkward cast party where shitty Church boss Boris McGiver hangs out with Christine Lahti, Aasif Mandvi gets to be adorable, and Kurt Fuller and Andrea Martin have a fantastic scene.

The cliffhanger changes the show a lot, but nothing the cast can’t handle. I’m looking forward to Season Three more than I looked forward to Season Two (not sure I looked forward to it at all), but I still don’t think they’re going to pull it off. Not unless they tighten up their plotting next season.

Ondine (2009, Neil Jordan)

Ondine is very committed to the bit. The film opens with Irish owner-operator fisherman Colin Farrell bringing a woman up in his nets. A beautiful woman. She seems very confused to be breathing air and doesn’t tell him very much about herself. Alicja Bachleda plays the woman. She refuses to go to a hospital, and instead, Farrell puts her up at his dead mother’s waterfront cottage. I kept wondering if there was electricity, but the film deftly ignores that issue time and again. Lots of Ondine is writer and director Jordan deftly ignoring things or even distracting from them. Usually, he’s distracting from the very flat expository dialogue. If it weren’t for Farrell being lovable, Bachleda being charming, and Alison Barry (as Farrell’s tragically ill but precocious daughter) being adorable, Ondine would be in real trouble. Jordan can get away with a lot thanks to Kjartan Sveinsson’s music and Christopher Doyle’s photography, but only the actors make that script happen.

Well, the actors and editor Tony Lawson’s cutting. Ondine is always on the move. Jordan and Doyle are shooting with digital video, and they’re able to leverage the inherent truthiness of the format with Doyle’s succulent lighting. The little seafront town is gray, and the muted green is vibrant, teeming with life. It’s the perfect setting for a modern fable about a fisherman (Farrell), a selkie (Bachleda), and his kid, Barry, who immediately loves the idea of a land-sea romance. Farrell’s a dry alcoholic who used to be the town drunk. His ex-wife, Dervla Kirwan, is still a drunk (she dumped him for sobering up) but has custody of Barry because kids say with their moms in Ireland. Kirwan’s got a new boyfriend, Tony Curran, who’s a potentially dangerous prick. We know he’s a prick because he’s mainly from Barry’s perspective, and she’s uneasy around him.

But he’s also a jerk to her dad. Ditto Kirwan. Jordan doesn’t have much in the way of dialogue going for Ondine, but he’s got it absolutely layered with angst. Barry spends most of her time in a wheelchair because of failing kidneys. The other kids don’t exactly bully her, but they also don’t really leave her alone, creating these parallels to Farrell, who everyone treats dismissively. Even the town priest, Stephen Rea. Rea’s an adorable cameo. Farrell’s not religious but uses the confessional for his AA since there are no meetings nearby. Except Rea’s never run an AA, Farrell’s never been, so they both wing it.

Of course, Bachleda sees Farrell differently than everyone else. And he’s got to balance that different and welcome kind of attention with his responsibilities for Barry, who basically gets to school on her own, but then Kirwan lets Farrell do the rest so she and Curran can get drunk.

Besides the character relationships, which manage to shine even with the clipped banter dialogue—Farrell and Barry are like a comedy duo back and forth at each other, Farrell and Bachleda are a guarded flirtation where it’s unclear how much they understand each other, then everyone else is just hurling abusive one-liners at Farrell. But thanks to the acting and Lawson’s cutting, it’s okay. And when there are big character moments, they’re always a success, and they never let up on the bit. Is Kirwan a mermaid or not? Farrell’s not even sure she’s real, and she won’t let him get anyone else for outside verification; she only wants him to see her, which turns out to be part of the legend. Because Farrell tells Barry all about it, framing it as a fairytale he’s made up. Barry’s engaged–apparently Farrell’s never told anywhere near an exciting story before—and starts doing research into the legends, which then informs the audience (and Farrell). Jordan only worries about being effective; obvious never matters. Especially not with the digital video realism.

Great performances from Farrell, Bachleda, Barry, and Rea. Kirwan and Curran are both good, but they’re not the good guys in the fairy tale. The only other significant supporting part is Emil Hostina. He’s real good.

Jordan’s direction is strong. Occasionally uneven, like he can’t figure out what to do with a shot once he’s been able to do it with video. Doyle’s lighting keeps it smooth, ditto Lawson’s cuts, and then Sveinsson’s music. Ondine looks and sounds great.

It’s a particular kind of delightful.

Evil (2019) s02e09 – U Is for U.F.O.

Remember last season when the “Evil” team discovered a fertility clinic in Manhattan infusing babies with concentrated evil—no doubt imported from the Prince of Darkness church—including one of star Katja Herbers’s daughters? It was a big deal plot then. This season it’s been barely acknowledged, then this whole episode is about getting the show back towards that big deal. See, Mike Colter’s only got four more weeks until he becomes a Catholic priest and will have to obey the Church no matter what—sure, like covering up babies infused with Satan’s DNA is the worst thing the Catholic Church will order him to do—and, if they’re not going to take on this hipster Rosemary’s Baby clinic, he, Herbers, and Aasif Mandvi will just have to do it themselves.

Of course, the episode isn’t about that decision at all. The episode’s about Air Force pilot April Matthis seeing a UFO and no one believing her except the Catholic Church. They’re just clamoring to get some aliens to convert. The episode makes a dig at the Church’s treatment of indigenous people, but I’m guessing they weren’t explicitly referring to the indigenous children the Church murdered and dumped. Actually, Herbers backs down from that argument with new hottie guest star priest Anthony DeSando, who’s a lot more charming than the other priests in addition to being a hottie.

The episode—ninth of thirteen—seems like it could be picking up right at the beginning of the season. Except it’s better than last season ended. It hits some familiar strong points, like scenes with Colter and Herbers talking about spirituality and being mutedly hot for one another. Then the team being entertaining together when getting plastered. Not to mention the subplot with Michael Emerson’s meetings with his demonic supervisor and his attempts at bringing Christine Lahti back into his life. A bloody return.

But not in a bad way.

It’s positively creepy; as in, it’s creepy in a positive way. “Evil”’s bringing back some of its old plots and tropes, only it’s got a far firmer footing now.

Initially, Herbers and Mandvi get more to do. Herbers has martial counseling with wet noodle of a husband, Patrick Brammall—they now own a trucking company in Colorado, not a mountain-climbing expedition company in the Himalayas, or maybe I was just zoning while Brammall was talking—and Mandvi’s interviewing another UFO witness (Malika Samuel). It seems like they’ll be doing the heavy plot lifting while Colter meditates until Colter has a vision of sexy time with an evil Herbers and then Jesus imagery. And maggots. It’s intense. Then he and Mandvi have a nice minor tech subplot.

It’s a busy but not too busy episode. It’s full. Even if the UFO story turns into this confounding conspiracy nonsense with the sole purpose of getting them interested in the fertility clinic again.

Strong direction from Clark Johnson and a thorough script, credited to Nialla LeBouef.

Who knows if they’ll pull it off, but “Evil”’s sophomore season turnaround is going strong.

Reminiscence (2021, Lisa Joy)

I did give Reminiscence a fair shake. I really did.

It’s not my fault it opens with an all-CGI “helicopter” shot introducing the setting—a future, flooded Miami—and a terrible voice-over from star Hugh Jackman. It’s writer and director Joy’s fault. And her producers. And whoever thought doing low-to-middling CGI on a fake helicopter shot was a good idea. And whoever told them no one would remember Dark City, which is the first obvious… um… “homage.” Unless the helicopter shot is a Birdcage nod.

Reminiscence is what happens when you put Unforgettable, Blade Runner 1, Blade Runner 2, Waterworld (Joy didn’t have the courage for the urine filtration, sad to say), the aforementioned Dark City, and Dredd into a mixer and then bake them in a Big Sleep-shaped pan. I’m only including Unforgettable on the list because it’s got the same MacGuffin, but I’m not sure Joy’s familiar with it—though the movie ends up lifting a scene from The Departed trailer, so nothing’s too obvious. A Bugs Bunny cameo would’ve improved Reminiscence a lot. Especially since femme fatale Rebecca Ferguson is based more on Jessica Rabbit than anyone else.

That Departed lift jumps out because all the other prominent references outside Blade Runner 2049 are at least twenty years old. Wait, no… Dredd. But I feel like if you made Reminiscence you assumed no one saw Dredd, because if they had, why would they be watching your movie (outside the eventual and then frequent Jackman beefcake, which at fifty-two is still very impressive, as is his ability to emote in underwater close-ups). From the first few seconds of the film, Reminiscence is a fail. It’s just going to be two annoyingly tedious hours to figure out exactly how it’ll fail. Who it’ll fail. Spoiler: Thandiwe Newton. It completely and utterly fails Thandiwe Newton, particularly when it turns out the Occam’s razor on why Jackman falls for Ferguson instead of long-time best friend Newton (he’s Bogart, she’s Dooley Wilson, wish I was kidding) is because… you guessed it… she’s a Black woman.

There’s a lot of backstory to Reminiscence’s dystopian future, and we get every single bit of it from terrible voice-over narration. Even before the end of the first act, you’ve got to wonder how Jackman—who’s sort of been trying to do everything as a neo-noir (superhero neo-noir, sci-fi neo-noir)—didn’t get someone to try to fix the film. Somewhere in the third act, he does such a good impression of Clint Eastwood saying yes to a movie he really shouldn’t have, and you all of a sudden remember Jackman’s the movie star, and Reminiscence completely fails him.

Anyway.

In the ruins of the old world (Miami and the Gulf of Mexico flooded, Americans banded together to force Mexicans, brown people, and poor people of all colors drown), Jackman is a former interrogator (for the Americans) who uses the technology they developed to go into people’s memories to sell people “reminiscences.” You pay to relive your good memories from before the world went to shit while Jackman and Newton watch it all. Jackman’s a good guy though, he turns his head when there’s nudity. Even when femme fatale Ferguson wants him to look.

After sweeping Jackman off his feet because she can sing and apparently no one’s left who can sing, Ferguson leaves him, and he becomes a memory junkie. But when he and Newton have to go consult on a case for the cops—they need Jackman to talk calmly to the suspect while Newton watches the computer in case it tells her to tell Jackman to stop (the district attorneys and cops in Reminiscence are abject morons because Joy can’t figure out another way to do the Big Sleep nod)—he sees Ferguson in a memory and has a new lead.

He wasn’t actually investigating her before just reliving the memories (there’s even a massive clue to where she might be hiding the movie doesn’t notice because Joy’s a bad writer). But now he’s on the case, and he’s going to meet drug dealer Daniel Wu–Reminiscence forgets for the first act the majority of the population is addicted to some drug you can never, ever kick, and it’s ruining the ruined society—and crooked cop Cliff Curtis. Wu’s terrible, but Curtis is good with horrible writing. Like he’s trying. No one else in Reminiscence tries. Hopefully.

It’d be much, much worse if Jackman and Ferguson are trying. Jackman’s on autopilot. Ferguson’s got what Joy thinks is a great part, kind of an empowered femme fatale, but it’s actually this very weird slut-shaming, aggressively misogynistic, classist take. Also, Ferguson and Jackman have zero chemistry. Probably because of the bad script and bad direction, but neither actor should’ve believed Joy telling them they were Bogart and Bacalling it.

For some of Reminiscence, it seems like Jackman will at least escape unscathed. Joy must have something to say about these genres she’s blending together. When it turns out she doesn’t, and then there’s still another forty minutes in the movie, it’s just a descent into mainstream mediocrity. Jackman doesn’t have to be embarrassed by his performance, just agreeing to be in the project. Though maybe the voice-overs.

Newton’s not great. She’s fine. But not really anything more because her writing is terrible and her part is worse. She’s believable in this lousy production, which makes her definitionally infinitely better than anyone else. Must be Newton’s experience working with Joy on the similarly insipid “Westworld” show.

Technically, Reminiscence is without highlights. Paul Cameron’s photography is bad or worse. Worse on the green screen composite shots. Ramin Djawadi’s music is terrible. Waterworld Miami isn’t great, but not as good as it should be—so either Howard Cummings’s production design just misses it or Joy’s direction screws it up. The fail on the flooded city, which has tropical noir overtones, seems mostly to be Joy’s impatient direction–Reminiscence is such a chore to watch; Joy’s predictable, contrived, impatient, and tedious. So the movie’s rushing to do things slowly. The relatively short and hilariously bad epilogue goes on forever. Even the last fade-out is too long.

So maybe it’s all editor Mark Yoshikawa’s fault. Perhaps he could’ve saved us. Or at least made Reminiscence’s seemingly endlessly bland, unimaginative mediocrity move at a better pace instead. The film’s a bad memory and hopefully one easily forgotten.

Evil (2019) s02e04 – E Is for Elevator

This episode has plot holes you can drive a truck through, but it also fully embraces Michael Emerson’s villain as comic relief. He’s no longer dangerous, no longer trying to get the heroes killed or kill little kids; he’s just a troll who inserts himself in the heroes’ lives and pesters them. It’s kind of delightful. Especially since the pestering has real teeth to it. For instance, this episode has him meeting with Mike Colter for spiritual consultation (as part of Emerson’s exorcism, which is just to pester Colter) and bringing up the Catholic Church having a big racism problem.

“Evil” has been unfailingly dismissive of the Catholic Church being an organization for the kidnapping, raping, and murdering of children until this point—though they started deviating with digs Katja Herbers has been making (and her subplot about returning to Catholicism has vanished so far this season)—so I was very surprised to see them do a race episode. Especially since Black man Colter’s priest trainer is Dylan Baker, who it turns out isn’t just a villain because he’s a Catholic priest, he’s also a racist one (I really hope Baker gets at least one sustained against-type—i.e. good guy—role before the end of his career; he’s really good at everything not just this bit). The script credit goes to series creators Robert King and Michelle King, who rarely ever get a script credit. I can’t remember the last time. The pilot?

Anyway.

They don’t end up doing great with it. As in Colter’s new bestie, fellow Black priest in training Hampton Fluker (who’s quite good), talking about how some guy at a party says Black Lives Matter is a poser group or something. It’s a very not serious moment about serious issues. Kind of terrifies me for “Good Fight.” And then it ends up to just be for Colter’s arc into alternate religion. So it gives him stuff to do, but it’s all treading water and leveraging guest stars Baker and Fluker. “Evil” season two continues to give Colter the shaft.

Speaking of shafts, the main story is about the Elevator Game, which is a Japanese Internet sensation about the way to take elevators to Hell. Herbers watches the video with her daughters (Japanese website but English language video because auto-translate or something) and then they tag along for the case. Kind of comic relief but also narrative efficiency. It’s just Herbers and Aasif Mandvi investigating because Colter’s busy dealing with working for, you know, the Catholic Church.

There’s an effective resolution to the case (though it involves a lot of the plot holes). Mandvi gets a big scene and subplot (including ex Nicole Shalhoub, who’s been missed); it’s a lot better than Herbers, who has a horror movie subplot and then Christine Lahti manipulating her. Far less entertaining and far less ambitious than anyone else’s plot; including Colter’s. But good performance from Herbers.

Fine direction from Alethea Jones.

It’s not the best episode of the season—this episode Ciara Renée gets the probably added f-bomb—but this season continues to be far more engaging than the first.

Space Sweepers (2021, Jo Sung-hee)

Space Sweepers is a special effects spectacular. Director Jo keeps up the pace during the CGI space battles, but always takes the time to be excited at how the scene plays. The film’s set in a post-climate change future where all the rich people live on a giant satellite (with Richard Armitage as the “casting we could afford” evil CEO with multiple evil secrets and a very bad James Earl Jones voice impression at one point) and all the poor people live on a rotting Earth while working for the rich people somehow.

The heroes of the film are a group of… you guessed it… Space Sweepers. Interplanetary contract garbage services. All the satellites and space docks and assorted garbage the human race pollutes space with, these scrappy independents clean it all up and get paid barely enough to eat on. Sweepers is very matter-of-fact with its class politics; never cynical (heck, they think it’ll be 2092 before climate change calamities hit, which means South Koreans lie to themselves about climate change too).

The protagonist is Song Joong-ki, a former child soldier (for Armitage’s company), who gets a heart when he discovers humans are little and cute at some point and adopts a baby he’s just orphaned. Tragedy strikes—it takes a while to find out the specifics because Jo’s script loves only somewhat effective expository flashbacks—and he’s trying to earn enough money to find her little dead body in orbit before she crashes into Earth’s upper atmosphere. The technology exists to do it immediately but only if you’re rich.

It’s a weird character motivation subplot and mostly just serves as an excuse for Song to do churlish, inhumane plot stimulators throughout the film. It’s kind of amazing how likable Song’s able to remain.

Especially since the other members of his crew are completely likable without obsession, pointless subplots.

The captain is Kim Tae-ri. It’s unclear why she’s the captain as she doesn’t pilot the ship or handle the money. It’s possible she arranges the jobs, but the work is just grabbing space debris before other junk collectors can find it. She also doesn’t do much leading. Regardless, Kim’s very sturdy and when she finally gets to kick ass—she too was a soldier for Armitage, though not a child one—it’s a great effects sequence.

The most fun crew member is either Jin Seon-kyu as the crime lord turned junker or Joo Hae-jin as a robot. It’s a motion capture and voice performance from Joo and while the voice acting is good, the special effects are what make the robot so impressive. Space Sweepers has outstanding special effects, both macro and micro, out in space with Jo’s homage to Star Wars space dogfights—but without lasers, since they’re grabbing space garbage—and inside with character moments for Joo. Actually, besides Song, Joo's got the biggest character arc.

But Jin, the former crime boss who turns out to be a big teddy bear when the crew happens upon renegade child android Park Ye-rin? Absolutely adorable.

The story has the crew having to protect Park from Armitage’s malicious plans, which will take them through various well-executed CGI set pieces as the dangers increase from all directions. Including Jong’s single-mindedness.

The cast’s incredibly appealing, with Jo getting excellent moments between each of them and Park, so it’s a breezy two hours and fifteen minutes. The English language (white people) cast, including Armitage, is fairly bad. The multi-ethnic future makes perfect sense and looks great, just Jo doesn’t know how to direct them. Or they don’t know how to act. The last hurdle to South Korean cinema—though, I don’t think any of Asian cinema’s ever really done it—is getting a decent performance from a white actor.

Armitage manages never to be campy enough to be amusing or good enough to be… good, which is a bummer and hurts the third act. But a lot hurts the third act and the epilogue is too short given the enthusiasm the film’s ginned up in the characters.

Hopefully they’ll do a sequel.

Knives Out (2019, Rian Johnson)

Knives Out is very successful, very neat riff on the Agatha Christie-esque genre of mystery stories, specifically the limited cast, the intricate death, the “gentleman detective.” Out’s gentleman detective is Daniel Craig, who plays his French-named character as a Southern Gentleman with aplomb. He’s always delightful, even though he’s—intentionally—not particularly good at the investigating, rather trying to figure out where the truth will reveal itself and meet it there. Nice Gravity’s Rainbow reference, though writer and director Johnson’s joke about people not actually reading it… well, there’s an insight ceiling. Out does a pretty good job not bumping it while covering a range of precarious topics throughout, with the Pynchon cop out probably being the closest call.

The lead in the film is instead Ana de Armas, nurse and confidant to recently deceased (apparently by suicide) Christopher Plummer. Plummer’s a millionaire mystery novel writer who supports his greedy family members, reigning from an intentionally gothic house with the occasional physical gimmicks related to his mystery novels. The house set is a lot of fun. When the film finally leaves for a sustained period (instead of just quick asides to remind de Armas has a real life away), it loses a bit of its personality. Especially when it will just turn around and head back, reining in its expanse at the end of the second act just to use the house again in the third. Only once it returns, it’s already shown what’s behind the curtain–Johnson does a fine job establishing the actual suspects from the potential ones and gives the audience enough information to at least guess the perpetrator if not the motive.

It’s a good script. Even during the finale, which goes on a little too long, all of Johnson’s instincts and twists are good, there’s just too much material in between them. Some of it’s Craig mugging but Johnson’s also really careful never to let him go too far. The film’s got a very specific tone, very specific narrative distance—it’s got to encompass a lot around de Armas—Johnson and his crew do an excellent job with it. Steve Yedlin’s photography, Bob Ducsay’s editing, Nathan Johnson’s music. All works out.

No small thanks to de Armas, obviously, who’s able to do a lot in this spotlight, including entirely, exquisitely humanize Plummer. It isn’t until their big scene together Plummer really gets to act; until then, opposite the family, it’s all for motive setup. With de Armas, Plummer gets real personality, which resonates throughout the film.

The first act’s a series of flashbacks and flash arounds, establishing the last night of Plummer’s life, with the various family members and suspects—Jamie Lee Curtis, Michael Shannon, Don Johnson, Toni Collette—incriminating themselves and others and getting annoyed with cop LaKeith Stanfield’s repeated interrogations. Stanfield’s the straight man, Noah Segan’s his numbskull sidekick, Craig’s the gentleman detective. Johnson has a great handle on the genre norms and nimbly adapts some of them.

Good performances all around, though Out is really de Armas, Plummer, and Craig’s movie. Of the supporting cast–well, the family (Stanfield’s great but he’s de facto third tier)—Collette and Shannon are the best. Curtis and Johnson are both fine, they just don’t have the same opportunities. As the black sheep and prime suspect (of sorts), Chris Evans is good (his amazing sweater, hiding Avengers guns, is amazing) and maybe even better than I was expecting given the part, but he doesn’t have the spark the big three exhibit.

Though he also doesn’t have Johnson showcasing him the way de Armas, Plummer, and Craig get the spotlight. They all transfix, the film riding on them—which just makes de Armas more and more impressive as the film moves along.

Knives Out is good. Just about ten minutes too long.

Doctor Who (2005) s13e00 – Revolution of the Daleks

Twelve seasons into this “Doctor Who” relaunch… the special effects are finally impressive. Like the full CG shots in space. Back when it started, they didn’t even try, then they got lousy CG, then it got a little better over the years but never looks, you know, better than a CW show.

But here, there’s finally a great CG space shot. The special effects are fine the rest of it, but not actually great. Not wow, but fine.

It’s like a fifteen second scene.

Anyway.

This New Year’s Day special opens with a destroyed Dalek getting nicked—so epilogue to the previous New Year’s Day special, in 2019. As the action jumps ahead to returning guest star Chris Noth (who’s playing this charmless, weasely Trump-ish American businessman caricature and it’s frankly tiring) and new guest star Harriet Walter (a corrupt British MP) cooking up a scheme to unleash a Dalek army on Antifa.

Writer Chris Chibnall certainly seems to have seen some Robocop movies.

Finally we catch up to the previous season’s cliffhanger, which has Doctor Jodie Whittaker locked up in a space prison. There she counts the days, says hello to the security cameras, and tries to banter with her fellow inmates. It’s a bunch of the usual suspects from previous seasons, which is relatively fun, especially since the other plot seems to be the British government unleashing ED-209s on, you know, protestors.

Once Whittaker’s situation is established, the special brings back the rest of the regular cast—Mandip Gill, Tosin Cole, Bradley Walsh. Whittaker sent them back to Earth ten months ago and disappeared. Cole and Walsh are getting on with their lives, Gill is obsessively trying to find Whittaker.

Apparently Covid does not happen in the “Doctor Who” timeline, but then again I actually wondered if the show will ever acknowledge the special’s eventual Dalek invasion of Earth or if everyone will magically forget it by next episode.

Team Doctor—minus Whittaker—find out about Noth’s new Dalek project and go to confront him, only to realize they aren’t time traveling nearly immortal adventurers with working time machines so they can’t really do much to stop Noth. Or to save Whittaker (or find her, they don’t know she’s in space jail).

Luckily, Whittaker knows someone who is a time traveling nearly immortal adventurer with a working time machine–returning co-star John Barrowman, who popped up last season to let everyone know he’d be back for a more substantive appearance.

There are a lot of team-ups, a lot of Daleks, a lot of Terminator and Matrix “nods” (rips, nods, potato, potatoe), a lot of character development for the regulars—including Whittaker, so it’ll be interesting to see how long it lasts—some great Barrowman moments, and the setup for the next season.

It’s a pretty successful special overall, notwithstanding Noth’s bizarre decision not to be charming for the first time in his career, some rushed moments, and not enough Walsh. Good work from the regulars, especially Gill (who’s great with Barrowman) and Cole. Walsh has got his moments, he’s just not in it enough. Also—not enough Barrowman and Whittaker together. It seems like there’s going to be more, then it’s already time for the epilogues.

But, again, a successful outing. Especially for the regular cast, who get to do some actual character development.

Dead to Me (2019) s02e02 – Where Have You Been

How’s “Dead to Me” going to keep James Marsden in the cast when his character, Steve, has apparently absconded to Mexico following Linda Cardellini turning him in for money laundering? Well, luckily the creators of “Dead to Me” have seen “The Book Group” too, and James Marsden has a twin brother—Ben—and he gives Christina Applegate quite the surprise before we find out he’s old buds with Cardellini.

In fact, new Marsden thinks old Marsden was never good enough for Cardellini. New Marsden is a bit of a goof, but also adorable and sweet. And Marsden’s performance is fantastic. I can see why they’re compartmentalizing his presence this season—he’s just too good to have around “Dead to Me” for too long, nothing else ever comes close.

The main plots of the episode involves Cardellini being somewhat honest with new Marsden about old Marsden—like how she turned him in for the money laundering (but new Marsden understands because he’s wonderful)—while Applegate is freaking out about going to prison. She’s trying to set up a legal guardian for the boys, which brings Valerie Mahaffey back for a scene, and generally freaking out.

She also gets to see old partner, current pal Max Jenkins (who’s annoying, especially at the church, but at least has a cute dog now). The show does not miss Jenkins.

Also back are Diana Maria Riva and Brandon Scott. Riva is trying to investigate the case everyone told her to investigate last season while Scott’s turned into a drunk. It’s funny how Scott gets less entertaining the more sympathetic he gets.

The show also integrates some more of its season two notes—Applegate keeps calling Sam McCarthy “Char” instead of “Charlie,” which started last episode out of the blue. Also out of the blue is the show’s new gimmick of Applegate and Cardellini talking over each other when answering questions and giving diametrically opposed answers.

I mean, whatever, it’s cheap but effective.

I credit new co-executive producer and episode writer Elizabeth Benjamin, who seems to have figured out how to make the show work a little more consistently this season. So far anyway.