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Silo (2023) s01e04 – Truth
I spent a while this episode worrying last week’s superior episode was a fluke, but, no, “Silo”’s found some great footing, even with the still wonky future accents—which make even less sense because we flashback to Harriet Walter when Rebecca Ferguson gets down to the engineering department as a kid, and Walter doesn’t have the weird accent. Even with the very real possibility the show is going to kill off a supporting character every episode, which I don’t remember from the Wool comic book adaptation, and means they’re going to need to start introducing more characters real soon….
Even with those potential problems, “Silo”’s great. Well, it’s another great episode. It’s going to take a while for these peaks to prove stable.
But this episode’s got a lot of good gristle for the future. In addition to Ferguson becoming sheriff and working up a mutually reluctant partnership with her deputy, Will Patton (who’s so good, especially as “Silo” becomes a Western this episode), we also find out Patton’s in some weird up-top-copper conspiracy with secret police agent Common. Tim Robbins also gets a bunch more to do, which turns out very well. Until this point, Robbins has been a peculiar stunt cameo. In this episode he gets to do stuff, including have stand-offs with Ferguson; they’re great. As long as neither of them dies too, there should be plenty more good stand-offs.
It takes Ferguson and Patton most of the episode to decide to work together, partially because Patton’s on a self-destruction arc, and Ferguson’s got to prove herself reliable not just for being his boss but for cleaning him up when he’s a mess.
The flashbacks—starring Amelie Child Villiers as young Ferguson—set up Walter and Ferguson’s “down deep” future but also establish Villiers’s relationship with dad Iain Glen. Things in the present are too busy for Ferguson to go say hi to Glen (even though we’ve already met him). The episode opens with a flashback in the flashback, to when Sienna Guillory—as Villiers’s mom and Mrs. Glen—is still alive. Also, there’s a little brother. They die between the first and second flashbacks, which then establish Glen’s not suited for single parenting and Villiers would be much happier anywhere but with him. Luckily, she’s simpatico with Walter, who somehow knew Guillory.
We don’t find out how Guillory or the brother died, we don’t find out if Glen’s thirty-six pounds of de-aging makeup (or is that bad CGI) was a personal appearance fad in the silo or if they didn’t have enough budget (not to mention the possibility of different casting), and we don’t meet the judge yet. So we’ve got one major cast reveal left. I don’t think it will be Susan Sarandon, but it should be Susan Sarandon. Or Susan Dey.
This episode’s also got a different director, David Semel, who is a very experienced television director and not that cinematographer who ended up directing Steven Seagal movies (Dean Semler). Semel does a perfectly reasonable job directing. He knows how to direct the actors, he gets how the show’s straddling multiple genres—they’re not sexist against Ferguson, they’re classist—and it’s precisely what the show needs after Morten Tyldum’s wanting work from the chair. Semel’s sturdy.
“Silo” may stumble and fumble going forward; it may even get stronger, but as long as they can deliver on half their promises… the show’s going to be okay.
Even with those accents. And the often too iffy special effects (no more “young” Glen, pretty please).
Also, it’ll be a problem if they solve the mystery by killing off all the suspects until it’s just Ferguson versus the bad guy. I mean, obviously, that one. Really hope they don’t do that one.
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The Zero Theorem (2013, Terry Gilliam)
I had been planning on opening this post about The MacGuffin—sorry, I mean The Zero Theorem—with a quip about how it’s faster to just Google “Terry Gilliam Brexit” than to watch the movie but Gilliam’s actually not one of the bad Pythons on Brexit. So I had to fall back to The MacGuffin quip.
Zero Theorem’s an interminable 107 minutes ruminating on the human condition through the eyes of Christoph Waltz’s dystopian future worker-bee. Waltz “crunches entities,” which are like little AI equations or something. It doesn’t make sense and doesn’t have to make sense. Pat Rushin’s script is terrible, but also, there’s a left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing. We watch Waltz do his work, which is done with a juiced-up video game controller, and the interface is very “this is a Unix system, I know this,” until it’s clear it’s just a CGI block animation with some equations written on the blocks. So he’s a gamer, only Waltz clearly wasn’t seeing these video animations because he might’ve done something to move along with the video.
It gets worse later on when Waltz gets a teen sidekick, played by Lucas Hedges. Hedges will wrest control of the game—sorry, entity cruncher—from Waltz; only the CGI won’t change at all. In fact, they just more boldly reuse the same animations from before when Hedges is doing it. So Waltz’s work doesn’t matter because the visual representation is nonsense but also because it doesn’t make any sense but also because it relates to the Zero Theorem, which is just a MacGuffin.
The movie’s layers of pointless stacked.
About the only good thing in Theorem is David Thewlis, who occasionally stops by as Waltz’s boss. Everyone in Theorem is a thin caricature, usually with some exaggerated costume design to imply depth, but Thewlis is the only one with enough costume oddities to get anything out of it. He’s got a terrible toupee, but he also enjoys the potential for dress up. It’s nearly a character.
It’s not, but nearly.
And better than anyone else.
Hedges has a lousy part but is also bad. Waltz is fine. He trusts director Gilliam and gives it his all. Gilliam doesn’t deliver and will occasionally embarrass Waltz to no end, but Waltz’s loyalty doesn’t waver. I guess he gets a gold star.
The main characters are Waltz, Hedges, and Mélanie Thierry. Thierry is the virtual sex worker—virtual sex; she’s real, the sex isn’t—with a heart of gold who falls for Waltz, even though there’s a pronounced age difference. The age difference comes up when Waltz’s computer psychiatrist (Tilda Swinton in another Tilda Swinton cameo—this time, she raps… yawn) points it out, so they turn off the computer. Thierry’s at least not a teenager.
She’s also awful.
It’s not her fault; it’s just her performance is she isn’t a native English speaker, and so has an awkward accent. Plus, she gets scantily clad and then naked (Waltz also gets naked, though the camera doesn’t linger in the same ways). What more do you want from a part?
Besides the script, Zero’s problem is the budget. Gilliam can’t make hash out of a low budget, instead utilizing cheap (and bad) CGI. He’s also desperate enough to reference some of his previous movies directly (did he forget he didn’t make Blade Runner though?). But it’s not just the CGI. Gilliam doesn’t get any help from his crew.
David Warren’s production design is the most obvious detriment. It’s all very early 2010s—Warren’s convinced the future is young people filming themselves on iPads. Aren’t they terrible? The young people, not the iPads. Waltz just can’t understand them but will eventually work his redemption arc by changing himself (not really, but the script says they have to say the lines, so they do) to fit Hedges’s requests.
Most of the movie takes place in Waltz’s home, an old church. So lots of unlikely future tech and religious imagery. Sure, let’s try that one again.
Also working against the film are cinematographer Nicola Pecorini and composer George Fenton. Fenton’s just bland and repetitive, while Pecorini’s bland, repetitive, and downright bad at a lot of the lighting. The composite shots are particularly dreadful.
The film doesn’t exactly have any moments, but there are times when Waltz gets some traction out of nothing.
Oh, I forgot. Matt Damon’s the big boss. At times even he seems to know he’s in a lousy movie.
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Luba’s Comics and Stories (2000) #1
Creator Beto Hernandez released Luba's Comics and Stories simultaneous to the regular Luba series, which I knew when I was reading Luba, but didn’t attempt to read both in publication order. I’ve been a little worried about it, and, based on the first issue, it certainly seems possible there are going to be connections I’ll miss. However, I’m confident Beto will deliver, regardless of whether I forget some minutiae.On the last page of this issue—which has a feature with Fritz, Petra, and Luba (though Luba’s just an observer) and then a backup with Venus—there’s a scene about Fritz’s belly-dancing, which I remember was a brief subplot in the regular series. Now I’m wondering if there’s a great panel of Venus looking at the reader only without the commentary until now.
And the first story opens with a gallery show, and I wonder if there’s a crossover with the main book.
Comics and Stories is going to focus on supporting characters from the Luba cast, though Fritz and Petra have both been protagonists in their own right over the years. This adventure has Petra hijacking a sisters’ night out; Fritz wanted to take everyone to her boyfriend’s S&M photography showcase (the boyfriend’s a model, not the photographer), but then Petra got drunk and decided it was time to roam around.
They have a handful of adventures in the present, one sister telling Luba about the other, and then the comic goes into flashback, giving some insight into Fritz and Petra’s pasts. Petra gets the first story, Fritz the second. Both are bittersweet tales, which Venus’s backup later makes even more so. There’s a lot more humor to the Venus backup because she’s such a great narrator, but Beto also incorporates it into the feature. The Fritz and Petra story ends on a narrative gag, only to find an immediate wistful follow-up, which gives it a lovely conclusion.
It’ll be interesting to see what Beto will do with an interconnected companion anthology spin-off for his interconnected anthology series. It will continue being great, but these stories are both relatively familiar (i.e., Fritz and Petra have already played protagonist, Beto’s already done Venus backups). A whole series of character development for great characters doesn’t sound bad, and Beto’s way of echoing between the two stories is phenomenal.
After one issue, Comics and Stories is almost exactly what I figured it’d be, though potentially with more Easter eggs (reverse Easter eggs? Inverted Easter eggs?). Hopefully, they don’t become too relevant to the plots, and I can’t keep up.
But the comic? It’s awesome. More, please.
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Room Service (1938, William A. Seiter)
Room Service appears—well, sounds like—it sounds like it ends with Groucho Marx singing along to a spiritual in a stage play and breaking into occasional mimicry of a Black woman singing. For no reason. Like there was a subplot about a racist parrot they cut from the movie (it runs seventy-eight minutes, so it’s not impossible). But, no. It’s just this weird, shitty moment, which kicks Service square in the nuts.
Without that moment, I’d describe Room Service as middling, but—wait for it—inoffensive Marx Brothers. We’re in the era where Zeppo’s retired, Groucho’s checked out, Chico’s fifty-fifty, and Harpo’s seventy-thirty, but the direction’s bringing him down. Visibly.
The Brothers will get into a bit throughout the film, and director Seiter won’t showcase it. It’s like he’s resentful at his stars… all of them. I’m not sure Lucille Ball gets more than one close-up. She just sort of walks in and out of scenes, providing cleric support and reminding everyone Groucho’s dating a hottie. It’s too bad because she and Groucho have enough chemistry; it’d have been fun to see her around more. Room Service did not start its life as a Marx Brothers play, so the archetypes are a little off. Screenwriter Morrie Ryskind is more successful with some adaptations than others. Groucho’s the least successful.
Anyway.
The bad guy in the movie is Donald MacBride. He’s the company man from corporate (hotel corporate) who’s in town to throw the Marx Brothers out for being deadbeats. MacBride originated the role on Broadway, which is kind of a surprise since MacBride’s the one who knows where the camera’s supposed to be, and Seiter doesn’t. MacBride does whole scenes acting in a non-existent covering shot. Or maybe all that footage got lost. Maybe it had the racist parrot on the same reel, and someone smart burned it before it got to the editing room.
It’s not in the IMDb trivia.
The direction’s never good; about a fourth of the jokes land, though there are eventually excellent jokes (thanks to Harpo). Chico gets less and less enthusiastic throughout; he’s playing Groucho’s sidekick, only Lucy really ought to be Groucho’s sidekick, but then there’s Cliff Dunstan as Groucho’s suffering brother-in-law. Dunstan’s great. He also originated on Broadway. And Room Service is actually about putting on a Broadway play. Groucho’s the broke producer. Obviously.
Just as Dunstan has to throw Groucho out, playwright Frank Albertson comes to town to see how things are going. See, he’s broke too. He’s also the most obvious Zeppo part. It’s just so frustratingly a Zeppo part.
Albertson’s okay. He’s fine. He doesn’t have to sing or dance, he just has to moon over Ann Miller, which is weird because of a significant age difference. It also complicates Miller being good. Like, she’s good, but it’s just… no. IMDb trivia page has the details.
The opening credits are cute, which shouldn’t be as memorable as one of the film’s standouts. There are some good sequences, but they’re obvious set pieces and never as good as they should be. Some of it’s the production. The sets are just a little small, especially since Seiter’s composition is so bad. That composition—and the lack of coverage—hurts the editing. George Crone’s a little slow with the cuts, even when it’s not to compensate for Seiter, but if Crone paced it better, the movie would probably only be too short to be played as the feature. Room Service’s plot is skin and bones, and they still pad reaction shots.
The third act’s a boon. Basically, once a turkey flies, it’s on an uptick until the end.
Then wham goes the WWTF of Groucho’s singing voice.
What and why.
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Penelope (2006, Mark Palansky), the family-friendly version
Between film festival premiere and eventual U.S. release, Penelope went from 104 minutes to just under ninety, apparently to get a family-friendly PG release, which makes sense since it’s based on a kids’ book. Except it’s not. Leslie Caveny’s screenplay is an original, meaning some of the film’s problems no longer have reasonable excuses.
Penelope is about twenty-five-year-old Christina Ricci. She’s a blue blood who lives in a fairy tale land. And she has the nose of a pig. Her ancestor threw over his pregnant maid girlfriend hundreds of years ago and married rich. The girlfriend killed herself and her mom, the town witch, cursed Ricci’s family. It just took hundreds of years for the curse to go active—the first female born will have “the face of a pig” until “one of her own kind” loves her.
Ricci’s parents are Catherine O’Hara and Richard E. Grant. Grant’s playing an American. Most of the Brits play Americans. Penelope’s urban fairytale land takes place in a British Manhattan. Maybe it’s in the universe where the U.S. lost the revolution and the American elite suck up to the British–much better movie.
Sadly, O’Hara’s not playing a Brit. It’d be hilarious. She’s the overbearing mom who wants Ricci to get married so she no longer has a pig’s face. Except Ricci doesn’t have a pig’s face, she has a pig’s nose–and pig-ish ears. We never see the ears. Will Ricci break the curse with true love from pauper James McAvoy or moneyed love with loathsome Simon Wood? Will it even matter?
Part of the gag is anytime a prospective bachelor meets Ricci, upon seeing her face, he runs away. The only one not to run is McAvoy, first because he doesn’t see her, then because he’s… transfixed. I assumed Penelope was based on a kids’ book because the only way the story makes sense is if, in the book, Ricci’s actually got a pig face. Then the story’s about some dude loving her for the real her, which has the added texture of Ricci and O’Hara’s most frequent repeat conversation being about how Ricci isn’t really herself until she loses the nose.
Except. It’s just a big, pushed-up nose. It’s a prosthetic. It’s not like it moves around. It’s not like it’s not well-kept. The movie also misses a really obvious opportunity about Ricci’s first kiss, though maybe in the original cut, there’s another one.
Ricci tries her best to act without being able to use half her face, thanks to the prosthetic. Her eyebrow work is phenomenal. Though there’s nothing she can do with the part, not with the writing, her costars, or the directing.
Besides Ricci, the best performances are Reese Witherspoon (who produced Penelope and, given selling her production company for a billion dollars, clearly got better at it after this movie) and Peter Dinklage. Witherspoon’s not bad, but she’s not successful either. I’m not even sure—in the ninety-minute cut—Penelope even passes Bechdel. It definitely doesn’t because even if Witherspoon has a name when she meets Ricci… Ricci doesn’t have a name because she’s incognito. Witherspoon’s in it for a couple scenes.
Dinklage is bad.
He’s just not as bad as everyone else. O’Hara’s in a similar position to Ricci, except with an unlikable character. She’s just the overbearing mom. Grant and McAvoy are atrocious. They’re both doing American accents, and they’re both terrible at them. Sometimes when he’s quiet, Grant seems like he’ll be good when he speaks (he isn’t, but seems like it). McAvoy’s consistently atrocious.
And then there’s Simon Woods as the British blue-blood who runs away from Ricci and then teams up with paparazzi Dinklage to out the freak in the newspapers.
Penelope has a minor newspaper subplot and doesn’t even know how to do newspaper printing montages. Director Palansky is full-stop incompetent. With the actors, with the composition, with the tone, with okaying the montages. Even a slightly better director would’ve helped immensely. Palansky’s only good moments are because his crew isn’t wholly inept.
Someone could’ve gotten some hash out of Penelope—no pun (though there are endless pork-related puns in the film, and none of them are funny, and we never even see how they affect Ricci because it’s so poorly done). But not Palansky. Not without a profound rewrite. You could even keep the cast (maybe not Woods).
Or just give Ricci something where she gets to use the brows.
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