The Nightingale (2018, Jennifer Kent)

While The Nightingale never gets more brutal than in its first hour—it runs two and a quarter—it’s almost more hopeless with less viciousness. The film’s about how the British slaughtered the Aboriginal Australians. It’s about quite a bit more, but the historical context is Australia in the early nineteenth century when people could still buy prisoners for themselves. The film opens with protagonist Aisling Franciosi starting her day on an army base in Tasmania. She’s got a husband (Michael Sheasby) and a baby. She and Sheasby were both convicts; he’s gotten his freedom, but she’s still waiting for hers. Her fate is in the hands of army lieutenant Sam Claflin. Claflin’s an outpost officer with big ambitions, despite his unspectacular command and his gang of misfit soldiers, sergeanted by Damon Herriman.

Claflin has to protect comely Franciosi from his men, who he keeps as drunk as possible. Sheasby works as a blacksmith at the outpost; they live in their own hut away from the camp. Claflin regularly rapes Franciosi, something Sheasby doesn’t know about.

Writer and director Kent hammers in the reality, scene by scene. It’s a violent, merciless approach, but it makes Nightingale a singular character study. The film starts when Claflin’s getting inspected by higher-up Ewen Leslie for a promotion. He’s already on edge when Sheasby’s had just about enough waiting about Franciosi’s release. Most of Nightingale is split between Franciosi’s perspective and Claflin’s. It changes in the third act, as Kent slightly changes the narrative distance. Nightingale is always about how Kent’s presenting the information; a lot of it is about what information the characters have and at what time.

The horrific showdown between Claflin and Sheasby establishes the film’s first hour. Claflin’s half of the film is about him and Herriman trying to teach new soldier Harry Greenwood how to be a proper British officer and kill and rape whoever you can. They’re traveling north inland, by foot, so Claflin can assume a new command and run away from Franciosi. Claflin tries to convince Greenwood there’s never any reason to worry about accountability, but it’s never quite clear how much he thinks his golden boy status will carry him. He’s a charming narcissist, and he keeps everyone around him drunk enough to be forever pliable.

Claflin’s great. Like, Franciosi’s great, but she gets to weather being battered on screen for the point of battering. Nightingale isn’t about how a bad thing happened to Franciosi, and she did these things in reaction to the events. It’s about how the only things for Franciosi were bad things. And Claflin has to embody the whole thing against her. It’s a monumental villain part–and Claflin’s great.

Franciosi’s going to follow Claflin and company and kill them. She’s a poor kid from Ireland who ended up in the Australian prison colony; she’s not going to mess around. But she’s going to need a guide. Except Franciosi’s a big-time racist because you really can’t have your exploited groups comparing notes as you’re exploiting them. Baykali Ganambarr plays her guide. He lost his family when he was a kid. Franciosi doesn’t want to share the pain with him because she doesn’t want to acknowledge his humanity. But he’s the only one who can get her to Claflin in time to kill him, so she’s going to make it work.

Nightingale is a revenge picture. The story Franciosi’s telling herself is one of righteous vengeance; it’s keeping her going. Ganambarr is just doing a job. Claflin’s just doing a job. How the characters perceive themselves plays into how all of them will react to one another along this physically arduous journey. Franciosi is a racist shit who doesn’t want to be traveling with Ganambarr. Still, she doesn’t understand everybody else is a racist shit who doesn’t want Ganambarr traveling along with her either. More than not wanting him traveling, they don’t want him existing. Nightingale takes place during a particularly intense period of genocide, which Ganambarr doesn’t know about until he’s already mixed up in Franciosi’s vengeance quest.

Their relationship—an acquaintanceship of mutually assured destruction—is the most complicated thing Kent does in Nightingale. Ganambarr shows up relatively late in the first act, and it’s even longer before he’s able to piece together Franciosi’s purpose. Everyone in Nightingale acts with their own agenda. The film implies partnerships are possible but rare. Kent spends most of the time in the wilderness. The time spent with the “settlers” is limited and precisely crafted. The audience is foreign to everything in Nightingale, but the characters are also foreign to many things. Ganambarr and Franciosi have very different experiences than the settlers; the British army ensures that separation by force. Kent’s very delicate about setting up all those scenes. How Kent angles the narrative distance is just as important as her composition. Nightingale mainlines its horrors.

Franciosi and Ganambarr are awesome. They don’t have the same weights as Claflin, but they also have much more to do. Their character arcs are sublime. Nightingale has exquisite cuts courtesy Simon Njoo. The way the performances carry between shots, through cuts is breathtaking. Kent does an amazing job directing Nightingale. She shoots it standard Academy ratio, so it’s a closer to square image, and she focuses on composing for the vertical. There are lots of great long shots, with beautiful lighting by Radek Ladczuk, and the composition is all about the horizon. The film doesn’t have many technical patterns, but during the first and second acts, Njoo will cut between parallel shots, creating something like a “widescreen” effect. Later in the film, when the narrative’s more aligned to Franciosi and Ganambarr, the shots still emphasize the vertical, and there are still establishing montages, but the focus is narrowed. Franciosi and Ganambarr can only see so much.

Great supporting turns from Herriman, Greenwood, Magnolia Maymuru, and Charlie Jampijinpa Brown.

The Nightingale is an extremely tough, rough piece of work. It’s exceptional.

Infinity 8: Volume Seven: All for Nothing (2018)

I8 v7 All for Nothing is an almost entirely different kind of Infinity 8. Creator Boulet is writing and illustrating (Lewis Trondheim shares the story credit), which gives the volume its own distinct feel. There are some obvious differences—it’s not about a fetching female agent (something the Lieutenant complains about on the bridge), but rather a tough guy alien sergeant. The assignment isn’t investigating; it’s capturing and interrogating. We also get the backstory on the space graveyard. It’s not what anyone thought.

The volume begins with some children playing on an unspectacular planet in an insignificant solar system. The aliens look vaguely amphibious, but there’s no sign they’re good in water. I mean, they do swim—which figures in beautifully later—but they’re not merpeople. A little boy gets upset at how his footie match turned out, and an alien (different species) stranger gives him a necklace, telling him it’s important. Then the stranger disappears because the boy can ask any questions; the planet has recently made first contact, and things are on the precipice of changing as the species enters the galaxy.

There are a couple more points in the boy’s life where the same alien reappears to give him back the necklace. The boy, Douglas, keeps losing it. The last time is when Douglas is saying goodbye to his female friend, who’s excited to explore the galaxy, while Douglas assumed they’d stay and get married.

Then the action cuts to the Infinity 8 standard—ship stopping for space graveyard, agent brought to the bridge, briefed on the time-warping, sent out to investigate. Only, as mentioned, there are some differences, including the Lieutenant not taking the time to brief the sergeant (who appears to be Douglas grown up and toughened by a life in the stars). When the sergeant organizes his crew to disembark, they discover their target—the unknown alien Douglas met before—is already waiting for them in the shuttle bay. He heard they wanted to interrogate him. Why not make it easy?

Except it then turns out the alien—let’s call him Hal—isn’t there so much for the interrogation but to show Douglas how the necklace will be so important. Both to Douglas and to Infinity 8. After a lot of time-based action beats (Hal’s got a time grenade, for instance), Douglas and Hal end up out in the space graveyard, with Hal giving Douglas the whole story.

Complicating matters is Douglas’s commanding officer, who’s become convinced Douglas is somehow in league with Hal from before. Douglas tries—and fails—to explain the peculiar situation with the necklace.

There’s a lot of action, with the rest of Douglas’s crew coming after him as he and Hal journey to the center of the graveyard to meet up with the mysterious ship from the previous volume. Once they’re on board, Hal fills Douglas in on more of the series backstory, including the motivations, but also revealing there’s a temporal disturbance. It’s unrelated to the graveyard, but being so close to the graveyard, it might be causing time-space ripples.

Including ones Douglas soon comes to care about.

Can the unlikely duo team up to save life, the universe, and everything? Obviously, it’s the penultimate volume, so there’s a cliffhanger, but they make a cute team.

Hal’s got a really bland, really pleasant face, and he’s initially a lot of fun. Unfortunately, Douglas doesn’t react well to a childhood tchotchke getting him in trouble in the future, so he tries to stop Hal. Hal can’t be stopped, but he does hold the attempt against Douglas. Until the second half of the volume, basically when Hal figures out he needs Douglas to save the day—another flip of the norm, as he’s saving his day, not the Infinity 8’s—it’s the bickering stage in the buddy flick. However, Boulet finds the heart sooner than later, making Hal more of the protagonist. The resolution (and cliffhanger) feels almost like an epilogue; Douglas returns to the regular story, already in progress.

Boulet’s art is fun, light, and spry. Lots of great movement, lots of excellent design work. He barely spends any time aboard the Infinity 8, and most of the scenes take place in previously unexplored areas. The script’s really smart too. Much of the comic’s an exposition dump, which Boulet integrates into Hal’s personality; he’s naturally expository.

Douglas is initially annoying for a handful of reasons—changing as he ages, but still annoying—only to become one of the series’s most genuinely sympathetic characters.

It’s an outstanding Infinity 8. It’s different enough it’s a stand-alone, at least in terms of Boulet’s ambitions and accomplishments, while still being integral to the overall story. Boulet mixes Douglas’s species’ relatively recent star-faring in with the ancient graveyard and Hal’s atemporal experience of existence. All for Nothing is exquisite work, much heavier than usual, but also much lighter and joyous when it wants to be.

I can’t wait to see how 8 wraps up.

Infinity 8: Volume Six: Ultimate Knowledge (2018)

Infinity8 Much of Ultimate Knowledge is the best-written Infinity 8 has been so far, and Infinity 8 has been exceptionally well-written so far. But this volume pairs an odder couple than usual, so there’s constant banter. The partner is also a know-it-all, verbose historian, and he’s always got something to say about whatever they’re experiencing (or running from).

The volume opens introducing the historian—Bert—and the agent, Leila Sharad. Also, more than any of the other volumes, Bert is the lead here; Leila’s the comic relief and occasional blunt object. Leila confronts him about a possibly stolen antiquity (she’s in customs) and ends up causing an incident involving the dead flesh-eating aliens from the first Infinity 8 volume. It’s a slightly familiar scene because the series used it as a non sequitur reference to the first volume back in the second volume–a long-cooking Easter egg.

Except when Leila gets the assignment from the captain—go to the center of the solar system-sized space graveyard and wait for the ship they found out about last time—she’s going into the mission with a lot more information. And a clear purpose. So she demands Bert come along. Their first meeting was tense, with quite a few deaths, and she wants to make it up to him.

Of course, she’s a hard-ass, and she doesn’t want to show any empathy, so he can’t figure out why she’s making him go along.

The other big change is the creeper lieutenant, who hits on Leila as usual (the only one he left alone was the nun) but goes on to explain he knows it’s all getting reset, so it doesn’t matter how he behaves anyway. So, he’s worse; though presumably, time will reset, and no one will know it.

Except for the captain.

Bert and Leila fly to the center of the graveyard, waiting for the spaceship’s arrival, and go sightseeing. After some good banter and comedy of errors, they discover a metal orb, which seemingly brings the dead being’s consciousness to (holographic) life. Immediately following this discovery, plant roots reach up and grab the sarcophagus they were looking at, and our heroes give chase.

The roots are part of a plant-based life-form, who’s had plenty of time to talk to the dead beings, but no actual experience with other life forms. Ultimate Knowledge then detours into hard sci-fi with Bert trying to piece together how this life-form works (and thinks) while Leila’s distracted by the beautiful scenery and her own good jokes.

The finale has some action—both explosions and chase scenes—as they get back to rendezvous with the spaceship from last time, but they also learn more about the nature of the graveyard on their own. Turns out having Bert along—someone who thinks to use his tricorder instead of just zapping everything to oblivion—leads to, well, maybe not ultimate knowledge, but definitely more knowledge.

And then, just in case Knowledge hasn’t been heady enough for the reader, there’s a last page spin everything about the graveyard (and the series) around again. Since it’s on the last page, the characters don’t have time for their minds to be blown; there are hard cliffhangers and soft cliffhangers, but this one’s a conundrum cliffhanger. Bert spends the third act explaining to Leila (and the reader) how to think about the things they encounter, and it sums up something special.

Excellent writing from Emmanuel Guibert and Lewis Trondheim; Trondheim gets second-billing in the script credit for the first time (I’m pretty sure). Bert’s a fabulous lecturer, and Leila’s the perfect bratty foil for him. I hope they return, especially since their character arc is left unresolved.

Franck Biancarelli’s art is often gorgeous; the plant life-form, Bert’s gentle expressions, Leila’s harsh ones; Biancarelli brings a slightly different energy to everything, which gives Leila and Bert’s personalities additional layers. Knowledge is dense, exposition, and detail-filled, but their experiences of the unknown—including one another–are where the creators focus.

Again, it’s fantastic.

And that final reveal ratchets expectations for the next volume unlike anything the book’s done before.

Hereditary (2018, Ari Aster)

For better or worse, once the film proper starts, Hereditary doesn’t have a single wasted moment. Every little thing is important in the end, whether it’s how dead grandma wanted favorite grandchild Milly Shapiro to be a boy or Toni Collette’s justified fears of hereditary schizophrenia. I mean, the title’s Hereditary and she’s got a first act monologue about her brother suffering when he was in high school. And, wait, isn’t Collette’s son, played by Alex Wolff, about the right age for a similar ailment?

Maybe it’s Hereditary.

There are three big plot “twists” in the film, but writer and director Aster wants everyone on the lookout for more. Colin Stetson’s music sets them up, scene after scene. When the film’s building through the first and second acts, it seems like it’s heading somewhere unexpected. By the third act, it’s clear the film’s heading exactly where it said it was heading and why would anyone get distracted by the red herrings, especially since they usually involve dad Gabriel Byrne being suspicious and Byrne’s a red herring himself.

But the red herrings aren’t wasted moments. They’re in the film to confuse both the characters and the audience. It seems to work on the characters, though they have help from Aster intentionally casting doubt on them, but once Hereditary is on the horror movie rails it gets on, it never deviates. The third act’s rote, duplicating story beats from other films in the same sub-genre. It also upends the regular cast, meaning Hereditary doesn’t give Collette a great role. She gives a great performance, but it’s not a great role.

The film opens with its only superfluous moment—an obituary for dead grandma, introducing the characters by name and some general ground situation stuff. Collette’s eulogy covers the same material, so it’s just for mood, only then not. It’s just there to be ominous, not figure into a late-second-act character thread, like everything else in the film. It also stands out because it’s not visual, and director Aster is all about the visuals. Collette’s an acclaimed miniaturist who makes scenes from her tragic, terrifying life as dioramas for wealthy New Yorkers. The film shot in Utah, but there’s no specific location mentioned (if there’s a Mormon subtext besides them being secret Satanists, it’s too subtle).

Anyway.

Aster does a great job transitioning between the doll house rooms and the actual rooms of the house, maintaining the same narrative distance and style throughout. Hereditary’s a great-looking film, with cinematographer Pawel Pogorzelski and Aster always gently implying the uncanny. While Stetson’s music hammers in the uncanny. Besides the music (and maybe Jennifer Lame and Lucian Johnstown’s cuts), the film’s pieces are all subtle. Brought together, they’re anvils.

So while Collette’s trying to reconnect with daughter Shapiro, she’s also got this weird relationship with Wolff, which gets explained somewhere in the second act, but by then, it’s a little too late. The film obscures the ground situation for later impact; it ought to be able to cover for it, thanks to the quality of the filmmaking and then Collette and Wolff being terrific, but then they’re stuck with Byrne.

Byrne’s fine. It’s the part. He’s got no chemistry with any of the family members. Aster writes him as detached and obtuse, but he’s actually doting. It’s a weird fail. Fixing Byrne’s part might fix the movie. It also might not.

Shapiro’s good. It’s a slightly less thankless part than Byrne’s, but only slightly. Ditto Ann Dowd as Collette’s new friend from grief anonymous.

Hereditary looks and sounds great, with seventy percent of a phenomenal Collette showcase, but it is very much what it is and not an iota more.

Infinity 8: Volume Five: Apocalypse Day (2018)

Apo

Apocalypse Day’s agent, Ann Ninurta, is the most reliably badass agent since the first volume. There are other comparisons between Ninurta and the first volume’s lead, like being blonde, midriff-revealing, and obsessed with babies. The first volume’s lead wanted to have a baby, Ninurta’s got a baby. Well, a toddler. Ninurta’s taking her to daycare when the Protocol 8 order comes in, and she’s off to the bridge, where even the captain is sick of doing the setup spiel and leaves it to the icky dude lieutenant.

Who, as per usual, does inappropriately come on to Ninurta (who’s already scored one hot boy’s phone number, a smuggler, and his crew riding the Infinity 8), but she shuts him down without a thought. The comic winks through Ninurta getting the assignment; while she’s never heard it before, the captain, the lieutenant, and the reader are on their fifth go-around.

Ninurta’s also the first agent to have a good grasp on Protocol 8, which will be important later on. While the time reset has always been a factor of Infinity 8, it’s a lot more integral to Ninurta’s character arc. Not really a character development arc because it’s the fifth volume, so she doesn’t get to finish things up, but arc. She’s got a killer arc.

Ninurta’s initial investigation of the space graveyard is no different than anyone else’s. Less exciting, in fact, they apparently gave all the good missions to the first four people. Ninurta’s just flying around, looking to see if she can stumble into anything before time’s up.

Complicating things is an inventor on the Infinity 8 who’s just perfected a resurrection beam. Unfortunately, it makes the resurrected mindless zombies—down to bite transmissions; Infinity 8 is excellent for introducing other genres’ tropes into its sci-fi setting.

Oh, and then something else goes wrong, and the beam gets amplified all over the ship, creating at least a few zombies, but more importantly, it travels across the solar system-sized space graveyard of dead things. So Ninurta doesn’t just have the zombie outbreak on the ship to worry about (her kid and ex-husband are still there, and she doesn’t trust the ex in a zombie outbreak), but also everything in space trying to kill her too.

She’ll go back and forth from the ship and graveyard various times, eventually teaming up with her love interest and his band of misfits for some comedy relief and zombie fodder. Ninurta’s also got to make sure her kid’s okay, which isn’t easy on a ship overrun with zombies.

The story’s always very sci-fi, but writers Lewis Trondheim and Davy Mourier heavily leverage the zombie story tropes. This person’s got it and is hiding it, and so on. The emotional weight of Ninurta’s story is heavier than any of the lead agents to date, though Patty Stardust was in a lot of danger last time.

Patty returns this issue, making it her third appearance in Infinity 8 (so more than fifty percent). Ninurta and her sidekicks need a speedy starship, and damned if Patty isn’t part of the entourage, along with her dipshit guru boss, who doesn’t have a chance to be as much of a dipshit because Patty didn’t get the mission this volume.

How the individual agents affect the outcomes of their missions will be an interesting thing to reflect on. While their mission is exploration and reacting to what they find, everyone’s got a lot of baggage complicating matters. Well, maybe not the agent in the first series, whose interest in having a baby was comedic, not character development.

There are some other callbacks, whether it’s a one-panel cameo from a familiar robot or an alien species readers ought to remember who like to eat dead things. It’s a very full second half. There’s some breathing space in the first, but things go from bad to worse at the halfway point, and it’s pandemonium afterward.

Surprisingly, Trondheim and Mourier have a significant reveal in the last act, so Infinity 8 isn’t going to wait until the final volume to spill. Another significant reveal from the previous volume (or was it the volume before) also comes back in a big way, so maybe they’ll pace out the reveals. Can’t wait.

The only thing wrong with Apocalypse is just okay artist Lorenzo de Felici. From his aliens, he’d do a great Muppet comic. From his people, he’d do something where everyone has too big eyes. It’d be fine if he made up with it on the rest, but the visual pacing’s hurried and unsure. With the right artist, this volume would be the easy best. With de Felici, it’s a contender.

But.

Anyway. Can’t wait to see where Trondheim steers Infinity next.

The Favourite (2018, Yorgos Lanthimos)

Essentially, The Favourite gives each of its three stars an act to shine. Rachel Weisz gets the first act, Emma Stone the second, Olivia Colman the third. They all appear throughout, but the script’s surprisingly segmented with its narrative perspective. Surprisingly because it means the first-act protagonists (Weisz and Stone) are accessories in the third act. However, since the film is about the Queen of England (Queen Anne, reigned 1702-1714), Queen Colman taking over for the finish works.

Though, not really.

Colman is the miserable queen, and Weisz is her best friend and (obviously secret) lover. The act breaks come when Stone, Weisz’s fallen cousin, comes to the palace for a job and discovers their romantic relationship. Weisz doesn’t like Stone because Weisz is a rather mean person. It initially seems like a classist thing, but it runs deeper, especially after Colman realizes she can make Weisz jealous by hanging out with Stone. Stone at least likes Colman’s rabbits; Colman has one for each baby she lost as the royal broodmare (seventeen).

Throughout the second act, as she feels threatened, Stone starts devising a plan to usurp her cousin and regain her good standing. Luckily, opposite politician leader Nicholas Hoult (shockingly good) wants Stone to spy on Weisz, and Stone likes Hoult’s bro, Joe Alwyn, so they can work something out.

Of course, once Weisz feels threatened, she’s got to react. Weisz’s interests are far more vested than Stone’s; Weisz’s husband (Mark Gatiss) is a general off fighting the French, and Hoult doesn’t want any more money to fight the French. But Stone’s fighting for survival, something even after her life’s endangered, Weisz doesn’t seem to realize. And the film’s not very sympathetic about. The second act’s all for Stone, and it’s entirely a villain arc.

Director Lanthimos shoots the first two acts with fish-eye lenses, forcing the audience to engage in the filmmaking artifice, making the period piece feel much more real. He also does long takes of his leads—mostly Stone and Colman, as both have realization arcs. In contrast, Weisz is never wrong about the personal relationship stuff, something the film also doesn’t acknowledge. There’s still fish-eye in the third act, but much less, and for visual effect rather than something to help the character development along. Favourite’s finely directed, but it’s clear in the second act, Lanthimos doesn’t have any more tricks up his sleeve. His style doesn’t build throughout.

Excellent natural light photography from Robbie Ryan. The whole film looks great, but the outdoor scenes and the candle-lighted ones are particularly spectacular. Also excellent editing from Yorgos Mavropsaridis, who occasionally breaks into intricate montage sequences during scenes. Not many, but a few. Lovely work.

The music’s booming classical (while Weisz described Favourite as an All About Eve-type picture, Lanthimos is very much doing Barry Lyndon avec femmes), and the sound design’s superb. The costumes and production design (Sandy Powell and Fiona Crombie, respectively) are fantastic. Favourite looks and sounds great.

Best performance is Colman, then Stone, then Weisz, which is a surprise since Weisz is so good in the first act. She just loses the movie to Stone, who’s increasingly fantastic until the script infantilizes her. Then only Colman’s left without serious constraints, and she has a marvelous showcase. Still not as good as it ought to be (the third act pretends The Favourite has been a character study of Colman from the start, which it very much has not been).

The script, by Deborah Davis and Tony McNamara, is clever with good dialogue, which is enough given the cast and crew, but lacking.

Still, The Favourite’s one heck of a good picture, with some phenomenal acting and filmmaking.

Little Woods (2018, Nia DaCosta)

It’s impossible to say how Little Woods would play if Lily James weren’t terrible. As is, the film’s a waiting game to see if James will ever have a good scene. Spoiler alert: she doesn’t. She’s so bad I was expecting the production company to be “Lily James Productions.” She lets down writer and director DaCosta and lead Tessa Thompson’s ambitious, searching work every moment, but she also never seems to be trying. It’s a bewilderingly bad performance in a non-vanity project.

Woods is one third character study of Thompson, one-third examination of her and James’s relationship, one-third rural America drug thriller. That second third, the one involving James, ought to be a character study too, but James is so flat it can’t happen. Sometimes it seems like she’s just terrible opposite Thompson, who tries to hold scenes up and sometimes succeeds. Sometimes not, of course.

But James is also bad opposite baby daddy James Badge Dale (who’s fantastic as a mediocre white guy) and baby Charlie Ray Reid. James and Dale have weird scenes together where it’s like James doesn’t know she’s supposed to know Dale even though they’ve got one kid, Reid, and another on the way. Then her scenes with Reid come off as bored babysitter, not a struggling, loving mama bear.

There are a bunch of unresolved plot threads, and they could either be just unresolved plot threads or more James scenes removed because they bring the movie down even more. She can’t handle anything. Not even pouring coffee (she’s a diner waitress).

Meanwhile, Thompson can handle all of it. Even when Woods’s plot details get a little absurd, which James’s acting make worse, Thompson can handle it. She’s fantastic.

The movie opens with Thompson finishing her probation for drug smuggling from Canada. She was bringing over cheap meds for those in need and oxy to sell to the local working addicts. Since probation started, her adopted mom (presumably James’s birth mom, but dead mom doesn’t mean anything in the movie) died, and the bank is foreclosing on the house. All the timeline stuff is unclear; all the ground situation stuff is unclear. DaCosta sometimes goes for moody, but not in the first act, so it’s uneven.

Lance Reddick plays Thompson’s probation officer. He’s very supportive and encouraging; if there’s a story to him and Thompson being the only Black people in the movie, it too got cut. He’s there primarily for tension and exposition dumps. It’s a fine stunt cast.

Just as Thompson’s about to get out of the life for good, rival dealer Luke Kirby asks her to team up—she’s just so much better at dealing than anyone else. But she’s out. Unless James does something silly like get pregnant again because James can’t handle anything by herself.

Things go from bad to worse for Thompson, and everyone has to make some drastic, life-changing decisions. Except Dale, because he disappears sometime during the second act like they cut him dying, but—again—it was probably just another atrocious scene with James.

Really strong direction from DaCosta, who can’t do anything with James’s performance but works great with everyone else. If James’s performance were good, who knows? If it were great—on par with Thompson—it’d be exceptional just to get those two performances together. Except not with James.

Solid, but sometimes too DV photography from Matt Mitchell. Nice editing from Catrin Hedström and music from Brian McOmber and Malcolm Parson.

Little Woods has a fantastic Thompson lead performance and some fine directing, but James lets all the air out of the tires.

Kill or Be Killed (2016) #20

Kbk20

Oh, my.

So, Kill or Be Killed does not have a bad ending.

Nope, not bad.

You see where I’m going?

What’s a thousand times worse than bad? Horrendous? Is horrendous enough? Kill or Be Killed has a horrendous ending. Writer Ed Brubaker does a greatest hits of lousy writing choices, including protagonist Dylan telling the reader all about narration. Oh, wait. I forgot. How did I forget.

It opens with a 9/11 missive.

How does something open with a 9/11 missive and get worse? I mean, you could read this comic and find out, but I wouldn’t recommend it. I also won’t spoil it. There are numerous spoil points in the issue, with Brubaker doing multiple 180s to keep the issue going because he doesn’t—and never did have—a story. It’s been too long since I’ve read it, and I’m not going back, but there’s a not zero chance it’s a riff on a Mark Millar-type story, specifically Wanted. Again, not worth going back.

Artist Sean Phillips sadly never reveals why he does the oddly missized heads. There are lots in the issue, but then the story goes into summary mode, and most of the art is just Phillips doing a New York City travelogue or a mob movie montage, and he’s got enthusiasm for those sequences. It’s the rest he’s checked out on.

Kill or Be Killed would be a terrible comic from any creator, but for Phillips and Brubaker? It’s the pits, and, somehow, it keeps on digging.

Kill or Be Killed (2016) #19

Kbk19

Based on the end reveal and what it means for the series-long narration… well, Kill or Be Killed, specifically writer Ed Brubaker’s work on it, goes from disappointing, tedious, and grating to pitiable. He’s even commented on the narration device to the reader before—when this arc started—so promising it’s not something lousy and then it being something worse than lousy….

If this were a script Brubaker had written at twenty and drawered for a couple decades, it’d make so much more sense.

Anyway.

Besides the sad ending, it’s a temporarily exciting issue–Die Hard in a Mental Hospital—but mostly an annoyingly tepid one. Brubaker and artist Sean Phillips, who’ve been doing talking heads scenes for years, entirely fumble this issue’s. Intrepid police detective Lily Sharpe is visiting vigilante Dylan in his mental hospital, and they’re going to talk about right and wrong. It’s a Punisher scene, probably a Punisher scene Brubaker’s written (or at least watched on “Daredevil”), and it’s terrible. Worse, Brubaker tries to soften the reader to Dylan’s perspective with a pointless two-page rambling about climate change and how it’s not liberals versus conservatives; it’s not rich versus rich. Sorry about your colorist, Ed, but we can quickly start with liberals versus conservatives. Especially since it’s less “rich” than capitalism, but he (or Dylan) doesn’t make that observation either.

Such a waste of pages. Though the opening sequence feels like Phillips only wanted to do so much art and no more, including the issue being set during a snow storm, so Phillips doesn’t have to draw the whiteout.

Kill or Be Killed is on me; I made this decision. But, wow, I did not need to know how lost Brubaker got on this book. I also didn’t need to see Phillips’s art continue its descent on it; just bring someone else in, like, wow.

One last disappointment then done forever. Unless they actually get a movie this time.

Kill or Be Killed (2016) #18

Kbk18

Writer Ed Brubaker, apparently unknowingly, cracks the Kill or Be Killed conundrum this issue. How could he tell the series and have it work? Individual issues about characters. Without Dylan’s terrible narration, obviously. Got to get rid of the narration.

But this issue’s a return to detective Lily Sharpe. Unfortunately, it’s nowhere near as good as the first Lily Sharpe issue, which was a very traditional police procedural but with more personality than the series had been exhibiting. This is a very traditional police procedural with a twist with the tepid personality the book’s been showing for ages now.

Lily is investigating the death of the vigilante, who Dylan and the reader know isn’t the real killer. Unless we think Dylan somehow astral projected and created a double, which is the opening narration topic. It’s eye-widening bad. Brubaker actually gets away with the twist at the end, he actually manages to do some effective narrative dodging, but he’s starting from one of his pits on the book. Brubaker does seem to understand Dylan’s a dipshit, but he doesn’t seem to understand reading a dipshit’s narration, issue after issue, is exasperating. It never improves.

Then again, nothing ever improved on Kill or Be Killed. It stopped hemorrhaging a while ago, but it’s been a dull, steady bleed since. And artist Sean Phillips is done trying. The art this issue is… not good. The more time spent reading the comic, the worse the art will be. Phillips barely quarter-asses it. What’s less than quarter-assing? Eighth-assing? There’s some eighth-assing. Lily’s partner, who we’ve never met, looks like Robert De Niro half the time, then Sam Elliot the other half of the time. Dylan’s mom looks like a Hitchcock villain. So there’s less than eighth-assing. There’s teenie-assing. It’s so sad to see Phillips churn this out.

This issue tells the story of the imposter vigilante, then how Lily will bring it back to Dylan.

I imagine the next two issues will go wild, desperate, and disappointing places.

However, to go out on a high point… excellent pacing this issue. Brubaker knows how to write this issue, which brings it around to how to do the series better—issues focusing on the people involved with the story. There’s a more extensive cast than it seems, with varied connections, and it would’ve avoided the awful mishandling of the protagonist.