Category: 2020
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Beans is an almost outstanding, always pretty good coming-of-age story with a historical event weaving its way through the narrative. The film tracks Indigenous Canadian tweenager Kiawentiio over summer 1990. The film starts with her interviewing to go into a prestigious (and very white) high school, setting up a contrast between her actual name (Tekehentahkhwa)…
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I was expecting Spiritwalker’s MacGuffin to disappoint, but I wasn’t expecting it to completely derail the film. Spiritwalker is a high-concept action thriller about an amnesiac, Yoon Kye-sang, who discovers he is quantum leaping from person-to-person every twelve hours. He also has a very particular set of skills. Those skills come in handy because everyone…
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“All Creatures” goes into its Christmas special with it being, well, a special Christmas even before the events of the episode. It’s going to be the (presumably) first time lead Nicholas Ralph goes home to Scotland to see his folks since he left in the first episode. Veterinary practice favorite patient’s owner Rachel Shenton is…
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“All Creatures” has a very nice close for season one proper, which isn’t really a surprise; the show’s always nice. What’s so impressive about that quality is the show never gets saccharine about it. It’s full of British derring-do, just in a setting where that derring-do doesn’t, you know, go a-colonizing. Also, Samuel West. This…
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This episode takes place over a single day—it’s town fair day—and has a whole bunch of plots. I’m not sure if it’s the best episode of the show so far, but All’s Fair is certainly the most logistically ambitious and successful. The day starts with Nicholas Ralph on his way to play “Attending Vet” at…
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No causes for concern or alarm this episode, and not just because Diana Rigg’s back. Even with the village still talking about how Nicholas Ralph handled the sick horse last episode, he seems cemented in the community. Though there is one significant eyebrow raise with Callum Woodhouse. Turns out he might not be a regular…
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This episode very nicely alleviates most of my (limited) concerns about “All Creatures,” even without bringing back Diana Ring for another guest spot. As with the previous two episodes (so, all the previous episodes), new veterinary assistant Nicholas Ralph again has an arc where he needs to be worried about losing his position. However, it’s…
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This episode’s got a couple concerning elements. Slightly concerning. It’s also got Diana Rigg in a fantastic guest spot as the BBC period piece equivalent of a “Best in Show” dog mom, which could probably let the show get away with anything. The first concerning bit is the episode using the same dramatic beat as…
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“All Creatures Great and Small” is pastoral to the point of pastures. The show—based on a show, based on a movie, based on a series of memoirs—tells the story of young veterinarian Nicholas Ralph. He moves from urban Glasgow to rural Darrowby, Yorkshire, for an assistant job to country vet Samuel West. Except Ralph thinks…
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I fully expected One Night in Miami to end with a real-life picture of the film’s historical subjects. The film recounts—with fictional flourish—the night of February 25, 1964, when Muhammad Ali (then still Cassius Clay) defeated Sonny Liston to become the world heavyweight champion. He celebrated his win with Malcolm X, Jim Brown, and Sam…
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The evil in Deliver Us from Evil is specifically Lee Jung-jae’s sadistic villain but generally the entire world of the film, which features drug kingpins, child kidnapping, government assassins turned hitmen, human traffickers, real estate swindlers, organ thieves, and crooked cops. At one point the film gets super-judgy about Park Jeong-min’s cabaret singer complaining about…
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Nomadland becomes even more of an achievement when you find out the supporting cast is entirely amateur. The film’s a character study of lead Frances McDormand as she adjusts to her life as a modern nomad, traveling the country in her van (where she also lives), working seasonal jobs, and coming across a variety of…
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The Midnight Sky goes wrong for a number of reasons. It’s too thin, even with phenomenal special effects—half the film is an Arctic adventure tale, half the film is a hard sci-fi but done as a 2001 homage. They’re destined to collide, but the Arctic adventure ceases to be an Arctic adventure by that time…
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No question, Garth Ennis has still got that old Punisher magic. Soviet is a change from most of Ennis’s post—Punisher MAX limited series, which have been military historical fiction with the Punisher inserted, filling out the character, peeling the onion of his tragedy. Soviet’s not about Frank. Soviet is about Frank’s Russian alter ego, one…
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Post Americana takes place in a post-apocalyptic world, in what used to be the United States, some generations after the bombs went off. The comic opens with the terrifying sight of a buff Reagan-type President giving a speech as two rebels try to escape in a stolen jet amid explosions. It’s a lot of action,…
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There are some things only comics can do. There are some things only comics memoirs can do. This issue of Ginseng Roots mixes the two into something even more singular and rare; it’s a truly exceptional reading experience, far and away the best issue of the series so far; it’s going to be very hard…
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It’s such a dark issue. How is it such a dark issue. I mean, it’s clear why it’s a dark issue—creator Craig Thompson juxtaposes the seed process of ginseng with he and his siblings going into high school, getting baptized, and suffering serious abuse, so there’s simultaneous this literal expansive life thing for the seed…
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Maybe half the issue is the fascinating world history of the ginseng trade—it was actually an American export to China hundreds of years ago too—while the other half is a more colloquial info dump on how pesticides affect ginseng crops. At one point I remembered something I’d learned about ginseng growing from the previous issues…
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It’s been almost a year since I last read a Ginseng Root and I’ve been lallygagging on getting back into reading because I was worried I’d be lost without a reread. But this issue’s a nice concise look at creator Craig Thompson and his brother’s experience picking rocks for comic book money. So, while ginseng…
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Many years ago, Val Kilmer talked about how the original Tombstone director got replaced and one of that guy’s crimes was making the actors wear accurate textiles, which doesn’t matter on film. You can have a lightweight poncho and it’ll look the same on screen. Welp. I don’t know if it’s the benefits of shooting…
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“Staged” brings out its biggest gun this episode—bigger than Sam Jackson—but I can’t spoil because it’s way too perfect. There are some great jokes going back to the first episode as we find out how David Tennant and Michael Sheen are going to be able to get over themselves and work on this play together.…
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Two observations after this episode. “Staged” does really well with guest stars—Adrian Lester shows up, more on him in a bit—and it’s relying a little too much on the too easy “David Tennant is the earnestly obtuse one” bit. This episode has Tennant surprised no one else dreams about him, which is really funny but…
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Staged never lets us in enough on the joke to know if David Tennant or Michael Sheen is doing the bigger stretch. This episode has Sheen not just making fun of Tennant’s “heightened” read of the play—they finally get around to rehearsing—but even opens on Sheen making fun of how Tennant poses for pictures. He’s…
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Last episode they talked about the big name movie star who wanted to be in the adaptation of Six Characters in Search of an Author with David Tennant before dropping out to do a movie but they never identified him. This episode has him guest starring. And it’s Sam Jackson. As Samuel L. Jackson. Who…
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So this episode doesn’t resolve the previous episode’s sort of cliffhanger, which had play director Simon Evans—played by show creator, writer, and director Simon Evans—apparently hanging up on his call with Michael Sheen and David Tennant when Sheen pressed him too hard on something. Apparently Sheen got over it because they went from it not…
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“Staged” isn’t so much a great concept as it’s a great concept for the constraints it’s under. “Staged” is a Covid lockdown project, with most of the “action” two people talking on video conferencing (they say Zoom but it doesn’t matter) and then some static shots where everyone’s locked down. Also very important is who’s…
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So “Doom Patrol” didn’t just have to cut an episode off season two because of the Covid-19 and wrap it up here, they also don’t have their season three renewal in yet… so essentially Wax Patrol is playing chicken with the network. Going to be a bummer if they don’t get renewed. The episode, which…
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It’s another packed, season-relevant big plots (though even the season’s B plots have big moments too) episode, with unlikely pairings—Matt Bomer and Diane Guerrero go on a mission together for maybe the first time ever solo while Robotman (Brendan Fraser voicing a truly magnificent physical performance from Riley Shanahan) shows daughter Bethany Anne Lind around…
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And now here’s where “Doom Patrol” asks for permission to be silly. It’s kind of been goofy before, but this episode—where the heroes find themselves trying to give in to their worst ideas at all times—gets silly. Even stranger is how effectively the “new” Diane Guerrero works as straight woman to the crew. Last episode…
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I thought last episode was good, this episode’s even better. In fact, it might fully realize translating comics to film, with Dorothy (Abi Monterey) running as far away from dad Timothy Dalton as she can. Keep in mind dad Dalton has various space ships sitting around the property, which surprises the other characters a little…
The Stop Button 