The Private Lives of Pippa Lee (2009, Rebecca Miller)

The Private Lives of Pippa Lee is a narrated character study. Protagonist Robin Wright is talking herself through her life while the film observes her, seeing where she’s gained the perspective of time and where she hasn’t. The film starts in the present, with Wright and husband Alan Arkin having just moved to a retirement community from New York City. Arkin is a successful publisher who’s had three heart attacks and needs to partially retire. Wright’s his dutiful, doting, much younger third wife; the perfect “artist’s wife,” their friend Mike Binder calls her in the opening scene, even though she married a publisher.

Arkin and Wright’s relationship is central to Pippa Lee, except it turns out the most important parts aren’t when Wright’s playing the role because Pippa Lee is Wright recounting her whole life for examination starting with her birth. Maria Bello plays her mother. Tim Guinee plays her father, a pastor of some cloth who’s never around. Bello’s got something like five sons and then Pippa, played by Madeline McNulty as a child. Bello’s phenomenal, with these early flashbacks laying foundation for later. She treats McNulty like an object, which will be a recurring theme.

In the present, both Arkin and Wright are having trouble adjusting to the new setting. They’ve got a couple grown kids; Ryan McDonald is the son in law school. He’s the rounded, quiet one, who loves mom and dad. Zoe Kazan plays the daughter; she’s the wild one—a photojournalist traipsing around the world’s war zones—and she hates Wright and adores Arkin. Kazan and Wright’s relationship will be significant in the third act, so it’s exceptionally impressive how well writer and director Miller slow cooks that subplot.

Wright makes a local friend in Shirley Knight, who’s awesome (lots of awesome performances in Pippa Lee but Knight’s special even among them). Knight’s got the common problems for community’s residents—her son’s a mid-thirties burnout, not a still succeeding twenty-something. Keanu Reeves plays the son. There’s a lot of impressive direction from Miller, and, obviously, the way she directs Wright and Wright’s narration and Blake Lively as young Wright is the film’s most masterly achievement.

But, damn, does Miller get a great performance from Reeves. He and Wright form a tender, tentative friendship; in reality, Reeves is a couple years older than Wright—cinematographer Declan Quinn’s going to shoot Arkin in flashbacks with soft, forgiving light; presumably, Reeves got some of it, too–but it works. Something about it just works.

They get to be friends because Reeves is a clerk at the convenience store Wright frequents. She needs help one night, and he’s there.

The film’s second act is mostly the flashbacks with Lively. She starts as teenage Wright and goes to early twenties Wright (the film teases the transition between the two actors in dialogue then later does a great job with it). Lively gets all the great scenes with Bello, running off to live with her aunt Robin Weigert and aunt’s late seventies, early eighties “roommate” Julianne Moore. Wright’s narration from the present packages these memories in three layers. There’s the original impulse for the memory, whether it’s reacting to something in the present or just the next scene in a subplot, Wright’s combination observation and explanation narration, then what the film sees about Wright, through present-day connection, framed narration, and Lively’s performance in the flashback.

Lively’s got it rough for a while—running away from home, complicated new living arrangements, early eighties New York art scene floundering—so she doesn’t smile. But her expressions so closely match Wright’s in the present; when Wright smiles, you know what Lively’s smiling will look like. As events progress, Wright’s got more sadness, contrasting a happier Lively in the past, but the expressions are all from the same pool. It’s a fantastic two-person performance.

The most drama in Lively’s flashbacks end up involving how she meets Arkin, who’s still married to second wife Monica Bellucci at the time. Bellucci’s a wealthy, glamorous eccentric who Arkin can’t stand anymore; he’s immediately taken with Lively. They “meet” about halfway through the film, and it’s got to inform Wright and Arkin’s relationship, which the film established in the first scene, but then Wright and Arkin need to forecast where Lively’s going. Such good work from Miller, just achingly good work.

If the film’s a series of echoes rhyming between the past and present, the second act ends with a drum solo, the sticks hitting so fast the beats overlap; no one has a chance to slow down.

Then Miller has to wrap it all up in the third act, putting it all on Wright to synthesize this performance she’d only been partially responsible for (plus and minus the narration, which keeps Wright very present in the Lively scenes), and it’s a resounding, gentle, careful success.

So good.

There aren’t any bad performances. Binder’s annoying as the annoying author friend with the mad crush on Wright; he’s married to poet Winona Ryder and doesn’t like her having interests other than homemaking. It never occurs to him Wright’s homemaking might not be her whole thing. Ryder’s got a relatively important role in the present-day story, and she’s excellent.

Kazan and McDonald are good as the kids. They never have the heaviest lifting in any scenes, though Kazan’s got a particularly lovely little arc.

Moore and Weigert are good in their cameos. Bellucci’s got a similarly sized role, but it’s more important, and she gets a killer scene while Moore and Weigert are just support.

Bello’s phenomenal. Arkin’s good, Reeves’s great.

Wright and Lively are mesmerizing. It’s more surprising when Lively’s so good because it seems like the flashback device will constrain her, but she’s got a movie of her own in Wright’s movie.

No surprise, the film’s technicals are strong. Miller’s composition’s good, beautifully shot by Quinn, perfectly timed by editor Sabine Hoffman against Michael Rohatyn’s score. It’s a great-looking film, great sounding film.

Miller, Wright, and Lively make a remarkable Pippa Lee.

This post is part of the Other Than A Bond Girl Blogathon hosted by Gabriela of Pale Writer and Gill of Realweegiemidget Reviews.

Halloween H20 (1998, Steve Miner)

Halloween H20 is an impressively short motion picture. It’s got an eighty-six-minute runtime, but the end credits run four minutes plus. The opening titles run three minutes, plus the cold open teaser runs ten. So the main action barely runs seventy minutes, thirty minutes of story, forty minutes of slasher suspense.

It’s been twenty years since the original Halloween. Jamie Lee Curtis has moved away, faked her death, gotten married, had a kid, gotten divorced, and become an education professional. She runs an isolated private school in Northern California, where she only has to go into town when she wants, and she can keep herself and her teenage son Josh Hartnett away from the world.

Except this Halloween, unlike the nineteen previous, is the one where her slasher movie villain brother comes back.

The movie eventually explains the timing. It’s one of those humdrum eureka moments; all Curtis needed to do was verbalize in a particular way, and everything becomes obvious. Well, minus bad guy Michael Myers (Chris Durand) being unkillable. Though the film works out how to address that situation. It never figures out what to do about Durand’s lousy mask. They apparently had four and were never happy with any of the results, which tracks; the main mask shows a lot of Durand’s cheeks and eyes, which actually ends up working for it. The goofy hair almost looks like a Muppet riff on a Halloween mask, leading to the violence being all the more affecting when they get to it.

There has to be some way to check all those boxes and not have the goofy mask.

Director Miner and cinematographer Daryn Okada compensate for the wanting villain with mood lighting, with H20 having a few distinct styles. The first is the prologue—set in Illinois, fellow Halloween 1 and 2 survivor Nancy Stephens finds herself the victim of a home invasion; she gets neighborhood teens Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Branden Williams to help, only they try to help too much, leading to the first scare sequence and a good showcase for Gordon-Levitt’s mugging. Miner and Okada give that sequence a Midwestern, outer suburb American feel. It’s fall, the leaves are falling, it’s almost Halloween.

Because the actual Halloween is in the Northern California location. During the day, Curtis goes into town for a lunch date with mildly inappropriate boyfriend Adam Arkin (they either work together or he’s her subordinate). While it’s clearly Halloween, it’s not one where Curtis has to participate. She can remain detached. And then Halloween just plain isn’t allowed at the private school, something son Hartnett rebels against. While most of the school is away on a camping trip, Hartnett and his friends plan a romantic Halloween weekend. There’s girlfriend Michelle Williams and their friend couple, Adam Hann-Byrd and Jodi Lyn O’Keefe. Hartnett and Williams are the chaste, romantic couple; Hann-Byrd and O’Keefe are the amusingly debauched couple. But H20 isn’t really about the teens.

It’s always Curtis’s movie. At least once the story proper starts, thirteen minutes in. The prologue suspense sequence actually doesn’t have anything to do with the main plot, with the pertinent information coming in the opening titles. They’re a montage of news clippings about Halloween 1 and 2 and what’s happened since to Curtis. A Donald Pleasance impersonator reads Halloween 1 lines as it goes; they use a clip later, so it’s unclear why they didn’t use the Pleasance audio.

Then the next half hour establishes Curtis’s character as deserving a movie, including Curtis having to develop the character from scratch, albeit with some Sarah Connor nods, starting with the nightmares and the suffering son.

Every character relationship, every character development arc start point, everything character-related—it gets one scene setup. Robert Zappia and Matt Greenberg’s script is all about the logistics. Get character A to point X, character B to point Y, and so on. They get away with it because even though all the action at the school takes place in a single day—Halloween—Miner, and composer John Ottman create this summary style for most of the second act. It’s Halloween, but Halloween’s not important; getting to know the characters is important, and they’ve still got a regular school or work day to get through.

We also meet security guard LL Cool J, the lone Black person in the main cast. He’s the diversity. He’s working as a posh school security guard, so he has time to write his romance novels, which he reads over the phone to wife LisaGay Hamilton. It’s charming in its lack of success. They try really hard to make it charming, and it never quite makes it, but the effort’s there.

Oh, and there’s also the Janet Leigh cameo. Leigh’s only in a couple scenes, including one where she has an aware but not too aware talk with Curtis about being slasher movie victims. It’s not great dialogue, but Leigh’s so earnest about it and so good at being oblivious to the bit it works out. Especially since it sets the mood for the following suspense sequence.

H20’s efficiencies are never more brutal than with the dialogue. It’s short conversations; once the actors hit their marks, it’s over, on to the next scene. No one gets to ramble; there’s no scenery-chewing except maybe Gordon-Levitt at the beginning. The short runtime is almost a necessity; H20 knows what its concept can support and never tries to go further.

As a director, Miner’s strangely better with the actors than with the suspense. H20’s suspense sequences have some personality—and the film likes its pop scare gags—but the character stuff feels more considered. Though some might just be the plotting, the film keeps checking in with Curtis and about how, either way, the twentieth anniversary of Halloween 1 was going to be special.

If her slasher movie brother hadn’t come back, Curtis would still be making a lot of personal progress thanks to Hartnett’s teenage rebellion and Arkin’s sweet and horny attentions.

Then, much like the character gets a eureka moment, the film makes a comparison between Curtis and Victor Frankenstein (in the novel) and their respective Frankensteins, and something just clicks for H20. The movie can get away with a whole bunch, just thanks to that one detail.

Curtis is great. No one else comes close, but then no one else should be able to come close. Hartnett and Arkin are the obvious standouts, Hartnett more. Arkin’s doing a riff, Hartnett puts in some character work. LL Cool J’s really sympathetic; troubled part but very likable. Leigh’s fun. It’s a scene and a half; she doesn’t have to do much. Hann-Byrd and O’Keefe are fine. They’re perfunctory. Williams is just a little bit less perfunctory and also fine. H20 never tries to be more than it needs to be, including with characters.

The technicals are all solid without ever being extraordinary. Okada’s photography ranges from very good to perfectly fine. Patrick Lussier’s editing’s good. Ottman’s music is… an anti-Halloween Halloween score? The music does a lot of work setting the mood for the film and the performances; it’s usually successful. But it’s also a little ostentatious in how much it avoids the traditional theme.

Halloween H20 is a good “extended period” later sequel. It couldn’t possibly exist without the sequels it ignores, but it also gets to do something entirely different thanks to that feign ignorance. Miner and Curtis, with help, make H20 much more special than it needs or ought to be.

A Fantastic Fear of Everything (2012, Crispian Mills and Chris Hopewell)

It’s so easy to pick on A Fantastic Fear of Everything there’s basically no fun in it. The only thing worse than co-director Crispian Mills’s script is his and Chris Hopewell’s direction. For the first half of the movie, when Simon Pegg’s basically all by himself making a mocking impression of someone with paranoia, the direction is shockingly inept. It gets a little better in the second half once Pegg leaves his flat and ventures into the world.

The “story” is simple. Pegg is a successful children’s book author who wants to be a legit historical true crime playwright because the world needs garbage. Filled with Victorian-era classist ideas about what does and does not make a murderer, which will fit with the film’s general xenophobia and obsessive punching down, Pegg becomes terrified the world is full of murderers. Including some who live in his flat with him.

The paranoia thing is all a bit to fill runtime. Fear is an excruciating hundred minutes, and once Pegg’s out in the world, the paranoia thing pretty much doesn’t matter. Then he’s just a guy with crushing social anxieties the film mocks. But it’s all going to be okay because Pegg is a white guy who loves gangsta rap, so he’s obviously going to fail upwards. If he can survive the killers after him. And the Vietnamese gangs. Lots of Fear is about being afraid of Vietnamese people, which makes it okay to be low-key racist since they bring down property values after all.

The third act’s a little better than the rest of the film; Pegg’s not acting off himself or his terrible narration, and there are finally other actors. Unfortunately, in the first act, it’s just agent Clare Higgins, who’s xenophobic and maybe homophobic—I actually blocked it out—and she ignores him, so he’s basically just riffing on the entitled white guy author bit with a disinterested successful female agent. Fear’s only got tropes. Tropes, an embarrassing performance from Pegg, lousy writing and direction, and bad editing. Not a great combination.

But the third act’s got Amara Karan, who’s more professional than anyone else in the film, and she brings it up (as much as possible). There’s only so much anyone could do.

Silly, bad cameo from Paul Freeman as Pegg’s obnoxious therapist.

There are no redeeming qualities to the film, though there are more competent moments than others. There’s an impromptu stop motion sequence, and it’s effective enough. It’s not great, but it’s not incompetently produced. So much of Fear is just blisteringly inept; whether Pegg’s acting or Mills and Hopewell’s direction, competence goes a long way. Even middling competence.

There are a few laughs in the movie; there ought to be more given most of its slapstick. You feel bad about all the laughs, of course, because they’re funny but bad. As opposed to desperately unfunny and bad, which is ninety-eight percent of Fear. Mills, Hopewell, and Pegg only impress in what a crappy movie they make together.

It Follows (2014, David Robert Mitchell)

It Follows is a monster movie. Somewhere in the second half of the film, the monster starts acting with more malice towards its targets, like it’s frustrated it hasn’t been able to kill them yet. Given it’s an invisible sex monster—or, I guess, possibly an invisible sex demon—there’s a particular energy to it. There’s always specific energy to the sex in Follows. It’s always transactional; it’s always wrong. Abstinence is the only way to keep the sex demons away.

But if writer and director Mitchell is doing the whole thing to tell young folks to wait until they’re married—though it wouldn’t save you either, in fact, it’s just making your doom all the more convenient. So hang on, there are rules.

The monster doesn’t “follow” so much as walk directly towards its target. It has one target at a time, but previous targets can also see it because once the current target is resolved, the one previous becomes the target. The only way to pass the target along is through sex. It’s sexually transmitted but apparently not through bodily fluids, and it’s unclear if Clinton definitions apply. Even after the Scooby Gang gets together to save the final girl-to-be(?), Maika Monroe, and they come up with plans to deal with the monster… there’s never a big exposition dump about their ideas. Given how many decisions are made offscreen or when the music gloriously blares over any conversation, anything’s possible. Because while Mitchell doing it all as a VD analogy is probably too much, he’s got the class angle in there.

While the gang isn’t Richie Rich, they’re doing a lot better than many residents of their neighboring city, Detroit, MI. At the beginning of the second act, there’s a scene where they drive through the city and stare out at the urban blight, only to talk about it later on. And it’s going to figure into the resolution. So it’s very much there. Of the two symbolisms, he went with the white American bourgeoisie being devils over VD being their undoing. It works out. Like, it’s solid symbolism. If Mitchell had any third act tricks up his sleeve whatsoever, who knows where it would’ve led.

But the third act is a mess. It’s an initially ambitious mess, where the ideas just stop being good at a certain point, and there’s nothing left to do but wait for a sequel. Or not.

The film’s a stunning mix of monster, horror, slasher, and teen angst. But good indie teen angst, handheld teen angst. Bringing all those moods together is the sensational music by Disasterpeace. It’s electronic, occasionally very video game sounds (intentionally), keeping the atmosphere in check. Without the music, It Follows wouldn’t be anywhere near as potentially terrifying in its mundane. The music’s particularly vital in the first act before the Scooby Gang sets off, and it’s all about Monroe’s recovery from trauma. It Follows is never more actually violent or intense than the first act, but only because the film ends if Monroe dies and it’s a hundred-minute movie; in other words, there are many actual breathers, even as the film keeps the tension up. If only Mitchell had another fifteen minutes of ratcheting up the tension, it’d be incredible.

As is, it’s still damn good. Monroe’s a good lead, and the Scooby Gang’s all effective. There are multiple love triangles, always involving Keir Gilchrist—more like he inserts himself in them—including dreamboat neighbor with a past Daniel Zovatto, who Monroe’s little sister, Lili Sepe, likes. Olivia Luccardi’s the other friend, who reads Dostoevsky on a pocket clamshell (literally) e-reader. They all get personalities but always in the background. Mitchell’s script and direction are wonderfully efficient in the setups.

Excellent photography from Mike Gioulakis for most of the film; third act, it goes slightly to pot (for the big finale, so it’s essential) and never really has a chance to come back. Great editing from Julio C. Perez IV. The editing’s the most important thing. Perez and Mitchell have a great sense of timing (ditto Disasterpeace for the music).

It Follows is outstanding, but Mitchell bunts the third act, which is disappointing.

The Famous Sword Bijomaru (1945, Mizoguchi Kenji)

The Famous Sword Bijomaru is a tragedy. Well, at its best, it’s a tragedy.

The film—which runs sixty-five minutes and has zero subplots, very few close-ups, and no establishing shots or sequences—opens with apprentice swordsmith Hanayagi Shôtarô presenting his benefactor, Oya Ichijirô, with a new sword. Hanayagi is an orphan, Oya took him in at twelve, Hanayagi’s trying to show his gratitude.

Unfortunately, it turns out Hanayagi isn’t quite ready for prime time on the sword-making front, though it turns out maybe his teacher (Yanagi Eijirô) isn’t great either—the film never explains how these guys are so inept at making swords when they’re literally professional sword makers—anyway, Oya ends up shamed and then worse and Hanayagi blames himself and spirals.

Luckily, Oya’s got a daughter—Yamada Isuzu—who doesn’t thinking running off and cutting open your belly to get out of responsibilities is the way to do it and she tries to get Hanayagi to make a new sword. With this new sword, they can all reclaim their honor, not to mention getting some vengeance. Only it’s also just before—like, just before—the Meiji Restoration kicks off and there’s a lot of overarching political stuff going on. Basically Yanagi is distracted with the politics and the potential return of the Emperor, which I guess is a subplot. Sort of.

After lots of foreshadowing and lots of angst—Hanayagi isn’t just feeling incapable, it’s also his fellow apprentice sword maker Ishii Kan and, obviously, boss Yanagi—the third act entirely hinges on the battles between the Shogun and the Imperial forces. It goes from being background to foreground between two scenes; director Mizoguchi has this exceptional way of splitting the action between foreground and background and he literally shoves his protagonists into the background to bring the battle forward. At the time, it doesn’t seem too concerning because the drama is just colliding and so on, but by the end… it’s clear that point is where Sword starts stumbling.

The conclusion is fine. Mizoguchi whiffs on the resolve to the sword-making, seemingly so he can showcase the accompanying battle, but it also flushes all the character development he’s been doing to this point. Given the entire film, save Yanagi’s “subplot,” is character development… well, it’d have been nice if the sequence had been like a good sword fight at least. It’s like Mizoguchi forgets what the central tension of the film has been to this point.

And the ending is really pat.

It’s always well-directed—with the single caveat being a strange ghost apprentice sequence, but the idea isn’t bad, Mizoguchi just can’t figure out how to visualize it. Also it’s 1945 and composite photography was only so good. Really good photography from Miki Minoru and Takeno Haruo; the way they shoot the exterior scenes—often on sets—is incredible.

The acting’s fine. Since Mizoguchi stays out of close-ups, it’s mostly about blocking and moving; Ishii and Yamada give the best performances. Hanayagi is a little inert–intentionally as a character, but the performance overdoes it.

Sword is a very well-made hour of film. Mizoguchi’s direction certainly makes it seem like it’s going to be better than it finishes, but it’s still pretty good.

Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip (2006) s01e03 – The Focus Group

There’s a moment in The Focus Group where now in name only pseudo-“SNL” executive producer Ricky (Evan Handler) makes a crack about Matt (Matthew Perry) not being able to write ninety minutes of television a week by himself. Infamously, “Studio 60” creator and mostly sole scripter Aaron Sorkin wrote forty-five minutes of television a week with “The West Wing,” depending on if you believe Sorkin, the WGA, or the writers’ room. But it’s a knowing comment.

Unfortunately, it turns out Sorkin doesn’t get the point he’s just made in the show—he hasn’t written enough this week. Focus Group has an interesting first act and then a pat third act and they skip through the second act. The first act introduces the stakes—focus group data is out, causing consternation for Perry, Bradley Whitford, and Ayda Field (Perry because the data says he’s not patriotic enough because 9/11, Whitford because he doesn’t want Perry obsessing, and Field because her single sketch the week before didn’t do well). Meanwhile, Sarah Paulson, D.L Hughley, and Nate Corddry team up to work on the “Weekend Update” or whatever it’s called on “Studio 60.”

Handler gives Hughley shit for being the first Black anchor too, which is a flex for the script. It goes out of its way to make Handler the prick and his sidekick, Carlos Jacott, a swell-ish guy. Jacott’s quiet and getting out these zingers. It’s a great bit of character work in the script and does a lot to establish the characters, who ought to be the show’s villains but are instead peculiar regular guest stars.

The stuff with Paulson, Hughley, and Corddry quickly gets political—she doesn’t want to make fun of small-town Missouri because they’re poor—Sorkin’s trying to create his ideal Christian with Paulson’s character and it’s amazing Paulson can pull it off. She’s got her maybe best moment so far in the series in the episode too.

Far less successfully executed is Whitford being mad at Amanda Peet for making a cocaine joke at him. And then the way too maudlin for episode three finish. Whitford’s really not a strong enough lead for the show. Co-lead. Whatever. He’s way too uncomfortable interacting with everyone besides Perry, Peet, and maybe Steven Weber. The stuff with the show cast just isn’t working.

Speaking of Weber—some great moments for Peet and Steven Weber, whose relationship is the least forced, most singular thing in the show so far.

Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries (2012) s02e11 – Dead Air

It’s a pure delight episode of “Miss Fisher’s,” outside the murders and murderer, obviously, with Essie Davis and company going to hang out at a radio station in the pre-Golden Age of Radio. The format has caught on—especially with Ashleigh Cummings, who is the one who gets Davis involved in the investigation because the victim was an old school chum—but the format isn’t stable. But because the newspapers are waging a war on the radio stations, including sabotage, arson, and maybe murder.

The show never gets into the conflict enough but if it’s based in reality… there’s definitely the potential for a good book or TV show or something. Sounds very interesting.

The newspaper-related intrigue in the episode involves newsstand vendor Travis Cotton and whatever racket he’s got going with obnoxious, suspicious, and quite funny in a terrible sort of way radio presenter, Rhys Muldoon. Muldoon’s one of the two prime suspects, along with mysteriously ill presenter Pip Edwards, who’s apparently been stealing victim Amy Arnott’s work. Marco Chiappi is Edwards’s husband and seems to be the guy who runs the radio station. At least he’s the one who panics the most when a show gets delayed because another body drops.

Besides the setting, which gives everyone something a little different to do—like Hugo Johnstone-Burt running the investigation on his own, with Nathan Page on special assignment but helping Davis out when he can. Page even tells Davis to keep an eye on Johnstone-Burt, who might not be up to the task of solving the crime on his own.

There’s also some trouble in paradise for Johnstone-Burt and Cummings’s (so far unannounced) engagement, as Johnstone-Burt makes it clear Cummings will become a homemaker upon the announcement. Not even the actual wedding, which Cummings doesn’t like and Davis doesn’t like and Page doesn’t even seem to like.

There’s a lovely postscript to it all, playing up the fun Davis and Page get to have throughout, and the showdown with the murderer is awesome.

Really good supporting performances all around this time; Edwards takes a while to get going but then she’s probably the best of the very good bunch.

Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries (2012) s02e10 – Death on the Vine

The show’s hit a nice stride lately; this episode’s rather good, with little in common with the previous two other than Ashleigh Cummings’s detective skills continuing to develop. Otherwise, the setting is all different—Essie Davis has drug Cummings out to a vineyard (after telling her they were going to a farm but didn’t want to tell her about the wine) to meet a new client. Only the client’s dead when they get there and everyone in town is giving them the cold shoulder and worse.

Even more concerning is the local law enforcement (David Field) seems to be covering up evidence and whenever Davis tries to call him on it, he threatens her. Though the whole town is threatening them, complete with snakes hidden in their room and guns getting stolen.

It’s very tensely executed, Davis and Cummings far from home and their regular supporting cast. Davis calls and gets Nathan Page to head out—it’s a rural town—before they’re able to get the investigation going properly.

Almost complicating the investigation is the victim’s brother, James Saunders, being unhelpful to the point he’s suspicious. Everyone in the town—save maybe kindly doctor Geoff Morrell and his daughter, Ramona Von Pusch—is hostile. Hotelier Geneviève Picot is terrifying.

So lots of rural empty night tension and scares—excellent direction from Catherine Millar. Even when Page arrives, it doesn’t seem like Field is going to let the big city copper make any difference. Very interesting to see Page’s authority ignored.

Meanwhile, Hugo Johnstone-Burt has decided it’s time to propose to Cummings and is trying his best to make it romantic—with Page’s help—only Cummings sees it as Johnstone-Burt doing a slapdash job of investigating. It’s real cute, real funny. This episode’s the second time I’ve noticed Chris Corbett’s credit as writer; he’s doing a rather good job.

The acting—from Field, Picot, Morrell, Von Pusch, Saunders, Davis, Page—is particularly excellent.

Also there may be another Phryne Fellow but it’s unclear how far things went when Davis was stomping grapes….

Terminator: Dark Fate (2019, Tim Miller)

Terminator: Dark Fate is the fourth irrelevant Terminator 2 sequel. It’s not the worst of them, it’s not the best of them. But the poor rights owners just can’t seem to figure out how to franchise and Arnold Schwarzenegger just can’t say no. If there’s a Terminator 7 in a couple years… Arnold will be in it if they ask him. It’s not so much he’s shameless, though he’s obviously shameless, it’s about perspective. From Arnold’s perspective, Dark Fate might work. He’s funny in it. Not sure if he’s good. Not sure if Dark Fate would know what to do with actual acting, though there are hints at it occasionally. Well, in the first act. Other than Gabriel Luna doing a really good evil Terminator, none of the performances are really impressive in anyway. Many could be worse.

Even Linda Hamilton’s, even if I can’t imagine how. Not as a dig, just her obvious discomfort acting in the film and the clearly zero direction from Miller—who’s just does a really bad job; full stop, Dark Fate is stupid, but if Miller’s direction were better, it wouldn’t be anywhere near as bad.

Hamilton gets all these terribly written speeches—David S. Goyer, Justin Rhodes, and Billy Ray do some putrid work (outside the opening in Mexico with Natalia Reyes, brother Diego Boneta, and their sick father, Enrique Arce, which is forced but at least there’s some effort involved)—and she can’t deliver them, partially because Miller can’t figure out how to compose the shot or pace the scene, much less block her. Watching Dark Fate—when it’s not over-homaging previous entries; the sequel slash relaunch slash reboot is positively bored as it rehashes something previously rehashed in three of the previous Terminator 3s. Dark Fate, technically, is rather disappointing. Miller’s bad, sure, but Ken Seng’s photography clashes on all the CG composite shots, making Dark Fate feel even more obviously over-produced. Hero Terminator (or Hero Terminator stand-in) Mackenzie Davis fights at high speed, so does Luna. Dark Fate leans in all the way with the CGI-assisted fight scenes, even though they’ve got no resonance, narrative or emotional. The script spreads out the reveals about the new doomed future—while it feels almost like they’re begging for a Matrix tie-in, it looks exactly like Edge of Tomorrow; Dark Fate’s nothing if not original. But the future stuff’s dumb and obvious. The way they get Hamilton back is stupid and sensational and then never pays off because she’s not good. Like, she’s bad. They needed to do something about the performance. It makes the movie seem desperate in additional to obvious in additional to silly. Dark Fate feels more thrown together than rushed.

What else… oh, Arnold. He’s fun. He’s funny. For about fifteen seconds as they homage Hamilton not being about to play well with others in Terminator 2, you can appreciate how well Arnold works with other actors, contrasting his megastar days. He’s comfortable sitting and playing out a scene with emotion. It’s a nice thing to see. Even if it took decades and the movie isn’t any good.

One funny thing about Dark Fate is how bad it tries to feign woke and gin up some controversy. There’s a whole thing about the Border Patrol, getting snuck in from Mexico, how “Thank You For Your Service” is a dangerous platitude, not to mention the movie having a nice working class Mexican family as protagonists and the first act mostly in Spanish with subtitles. Dark Fate, in all the wrong ways, tries to… I don’t know, strut. It tries to distinguish itself. Actually, thinking about the screenwriters… did they bring in Billy Ray to politicize it a little lefty. Though nothing about Dark Fate suggests anyone involved with the film at any stage of production actually focus tested the film. Dark Fate is very sure of itself, it’s very committed to itself, to its twists and its turns and its terrible third act.

It’s a bummer. Definite bummer. Definite, desperate bummer.

Worse served are Davis and Reyes, who could’ve had—if not a franchise—a good buddy flick. Then maybe Luna, who’s actually good but it makes absolutely no different. Then Arnold, who showed up ready to work and no one put him to work. And, finally, Hamilton, who didn’t need her career-defining role, no question about it, tarnished in such a blah effort.

Poorly plotted script and so on. It’s clearly an ill-advised production, but it could’ve been a far more entertaining and competent one with a different script but mostly a different director. Miller hasn’t got a single good instinct. The way he fades the expository talking head scenes is bewildering. He doesn’t want the movie to show the actors acting. Though

I mean, after all, there’s no Dark Fate but what we make for ourselves.

And the Junkie XL score is godawful.

Alien: Alone (2019, Noah Miller)

Alien: Alone is one in a series of six “fan-made” but presumably Fox-funded Alien short films for the fortieth anniversary. Based on Alone, it doesn’t seem like Fox had a very high bar when it came to project proposals. Or at least they didn’t care how the shorts turned out, so long as the hook was good enough.

Alone feels very Alien. Joel Santos’s music uses (and almost uses) the old Jerry Goldsmith themes, Tom Wyman’s production design is very close to the original spaceship, Colin Jacobs’s cinematography makes it look like Alien. And writer-director Miller knows how to hit some of the franchise expectations.

The sole inhabitant of a derelict vessel is female, played by Taylor Lyons. She’s got some character reveals in the twelve minute runtime, with Miller doing a bunch of foreshadowing. He handles the reveal fine—and the few minutes after the reveal and before the pseudo-twist are easily the best of the short; Lyons goes from mediocre to okay to quite bad by the end. In those two minutes of post-reveal salad days, Lyons all of a sudden seems like she’s going to be able to pull off the part. She can’t, but mostly because the writing gets so bad at the end. It’s never great, but Miller’s got an interesting idea and can’t make it into twelve minutes. He can’t logic the story, he can’t make it fit with Alien “rules” either. So he just goes for the nonsense finish.

There’s some good CG space stuff with the ships. It’s amazing how easy it is, forty years after the original, to mimic its visuals with PCs.

I suppose Miller’s composition is good. Or at least fine. His direction, based on how he directs Lyons and James Paxton, is bad. At some point you just feel bad for Lyons, because there’s no reason her part should end up so stupidly thin. It’s a disappointment. Right after Alone seems like it might be worth it, it fails and then keeps failing; Miller forcibly dragging it down.

Makes you wonder what Fox gave the thumbs down.