American Auto- Season 2

8.5/10

In season 2 of this NBC comedy about a bunch of dysfunctional higher ups at Payne Motors, CEO Katherine Hastings (played by SNL alumni Ana Gasteyer) and her team must get the stock up to a certain number within the year or they'll all lose their jobs. 

If you're familiar with the show, this is from Superstore creator Justin Spitzer, and American Auto is sort of its opposite. Whereas Superstore was a positive ode to the people working at the bottom, this is a cynical, but silly critique of those at the top, looking at how people don't intend to be unethical or uncaring and such but how it just happens. And man does the show do it so well. This is one of the two funniest series I'm watching right now (the other being Rick and Morty). It's such a delightfully pointed jab at the corporate world, and the jokes work so well. I highly recommend the episode The Letter, funniest and best written one of the season, a savage take on outrage culture. 

Though most of the cast is self-serving, this season does makes more of an effort have the characters be three-dimensional. You may not sympathize with their choices, but you get where they're coming from and see them as actual people. I especially appreciate that the show cut down a bit on Katherine messing up public interviews and announcements. Given that she was a CEO of a pharmaceutical company for a while, it's a little hard to swallow that she has absolutely no experience handling these things.

Cast remains great. Wesley Payne (Superstore's Jon Barinholtz), the last remaining member of the Payne family working at the company, is definitely the MVP. He's kinda the most likeable because he's kinda the most honest in his goals in that he truly wants his family legacy to survive. He's like a big child that wants approval. Gasteyer, Michael Benjamin Washington as snarky and completely pragmatic and self-serving Chief Product Designer Cyrus Knight, and Harriet Dyer as CCO Katherine Hastings, one of the saner voices that has to deal with everyone else, all give excellent performances. (Gasteyer, I apologize for thinking back in the day that Cheri Oteri would be the one that would go on to other stuff and that you'd be the one who'd vanish. I've shamed myself.)

Highly recommended. The show is hilarious. Unfortunately this may be the last season as its viewership numbers are even less than last season's which wasn't great. Too bad, I really felt this was one of the best comedies out right now.

Sisu

10/10

Sisu, a new Finnish movie mostly in English (I'm not sure if it was recorded in both English and Finnish or just English, research was inconclusive; definitely not dubbed, I'll tell you that, the lips matched perfectly), Aatami, a gold miner during the Lapland War (which was part of World War II but also kinda its own separate campaign, look it up), strikes the motherload and determinedly takes his haul across the war torn landscape. He come across a bunch of Nazis who become determined to take the gold for themselves, but Aatami's not going let go of it without a fight.

This is basically Mad Max: Fury Road meets John Wick combined with a war movie and a smidge of Tarantino. There is nothing groundbreaking about the story, really it's all been done before, but it's done so spectacularly.

This is one of those movies where action takes precedence over everything else. This is an action fan's Valhalla. Yeah, a lot of it can be downright cartoonish but man is it entertaining. The movie can get creative including one of the most insanely unique survival techniques I've ever seen in film. In case you haven't guessed, this gets really gory; great if you love that and definitely a red flag if you don't. (There is also reference to sexual violence if you're squeamish about that. Nothing onscreen though.) There's one scene that's rather impressive in its intensity. 

Probably, the best part of this is its cinematography (worthy of an Oscar nomination but probably won't due to it not being a prestige film), the whole thing looks great and was clearly planned down to the details. The Lapland landscape looks gorgeous (including one of the most beautifully shot scenes of its type (I'm deliberately keeping it vague as to avoid spoiling it) I've seen). It gives the film a natural feel but the lack of any plants that aren't small growth also gives off a desolate nature. (The setting can also work against Aatami as he has to deal with limited hiding places.)   

This is that rare film that's light on dialogue. It's not like no one ever talks, but there are stretches that are completely reliant on the action, visuals, and physical acting. I rather like the less-is-more approach. 

Good casting in this. Though the Nazis are there to be mowed down, I give credit to director/writer Jalmari Helander (the same guy behind the dark Christmas film Rare Exports and the Samuel Jackson flick The Big Game) for giving actual personality to the villains. I mean they're all awful, but you clearly get each of them, some bit parts, merely by minor actions and expressions. They also play the villains smart. Yeah, they're all overconfident, but they are realistic of the danger of the man they're pursuing and react appropriately to the their adversary.

Highly recommended, unless you're not a gore fan. This is one of those films that are pure cinema and nail the execution.

The Mandalorian- Season 3

 

9/10

In the third season of The Mandalorian, Din Djarin/The Mandalorian/Mando (voiced by Pedro Pascal) and his ward Grogu go on a quest to the abandoned world of Mandalore.

I like this as much as the last two seasons. though the show is still fairly episodic, there's more of a connecting plotline this time around. After spreading tidbits of the fall of Mandalore and how the Mandalorian people are scattered, this season puts them at the center. Though maybe more time could've been put into adding a little more detail of the Mandalorian history and culture, it's rather interesting to watch a bunch of space warriors with a code, but they have different factions with differing ways of interpreting those codes.

We get to see a lot more of Bo-Katan Kryze (played by Battlestar Galactica's Katee Sackhoff), former leader of Mandalore. The character has excellent chemistry with Din as two fellow warriors who respect each other. Sackhoff gives a great performance, there's just something about her delivery. Bo-Katan is a character originally from the computer animated shows Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Star Wars: Rebels. It'd probably help to know about her if you watched this shows, but The Mandalorian provides easy access for the unfamiliar, throwing Bo-Katan in there and making her feel natural without going too heavy on her backstory.

You don't see a lot of Carl Weathers' Greef Karga, now the governor of a planet, but it's always great to see Weathers in anything.

The show feels like it's doing a lot more world building for the general universe of Star Wars this time around. I admit, I was getting tired of a lot of Star Wars taking place in deserts and other desolate areas. Finally, the show remembers that SW has populated cities. We finally visit places that look fancy, and they all look impressive (a lot of money obviously went into this.) 

We also see building blocks of how the first order from the current film trilogy rose from the ashes of the original Empire. I felt the show did a valid job of showing how the New Republic dropped the ball in wiping out the Empire's influence.

Again, the action, effects, and design are all exquisite. The finale may the best and most action packed of them all. 

One episode does have a plot point that may frustrate many as it's far too cartoonish and implausible for its own good. You know the parts of The Book of Boba Fett that felt goofy? it's like that. It especially doesn't compare well to the plotting of the recent and far more serious and grounded Andor, making the two shows kinda feel like they're taking place in different realities.

A lot of fans didn't like Chapter 22: Guns for Hire. I'm not seeing it. I thought it was a fun little diversion and again a decent world builder.

Highly recommended, The Mandalorian continues to be a pretty impressive space adventure.

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Once & Always

7/10

In this Power Rangers 30th anniversary special on Netflix, members of the original Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, recovering from a tragic event, try to stop the evil plans of Robo Rita (voiced by original voice actress Barbara Goodson), the evil energy of original PR Rita Repulsa reconstituted within a robot body (makes more sense when you see the special, still goofy but it makes more sense). 

Man, this was surprisingly dark for the original franchise. I mean it's still Power Rangers, it doesn't veer too far off-course from the campy nature of the show, but it's the first entry in a while to show a human die, and I don't think it, though the series has dabbled with more serious plot points from time to time, especially during the ABC Family years, has had the characters handled as maturely as this. (Also, the continuity is unexpectedly on-point for a show that's been going almost non-stop since the 90's.) The whole thing is a lot more compelling than it has any right to be, even serving as a tribute to late Yellow Ranger actress Thuy Trang who perished in a car accident. 

Unfortunately, the special wasn't able to include the entire original cast due to them either declining to appear or being on probation or deceased. (To make it clear, original Green Ranger Jason David Frank, who sadly committed suicide, was still alive at the time this was made. He just declined because he was working on something else.) But, the special manages to snag actors who played replacement Rangers in later episodes in order to fill any absentees' boots.

If your memories to the very original MMPR are shady or nonexistent, most of the cast are not great actors. David Yost as original Blue Ranger Billy is definitely the weakest and has trouble seeming natural. Original Black Ranger Walter Jones does the best with the material and comes the closest to believably selling their character. Charlie Kersh, who plays the daughter of original Yellow Ranger Trini, is also one of the better elements in this.

Nice to see they got Goodson back instead of a replacement actor, which they've done before. She hasn't done the voice for decades, but she's still got it and brings Rita's trademark cackley voice. The Rita here is so much more evil and convincing as an evil threat.

It's PR, so naturally the budget isn't much, but I give the creators kudos for effort. Unlike most PR shows, which are built off of the Japanese Super Sentai shows, this has completely original footage and costumes. I'm rather impressed by the design of Robo Rita, which is a smidge off-putting. (Also, kudos to the designer's hutzpah for retaining Rita's infamous cone brassiere.) The costumes for the Putty Patrollers, Rita's foot soldiers from the original show (which are still comical but can come off as a bit menacing this time around), are accurate-looking but the fabric in the head areas noticeably bunch up some times.  

Kinda recommended. I mean it's Power Rangers, this probably appeals more to younger kids or nostalgic adults (i.e., me). By the show's standards, though, it's as high quality as it can get.

Ghosted

7.5/10

In this new Apple+ movie, Cole Turner (played by Chris Evans) falls in love with one Sadie Rhodes (Ana de Armas) after going on one wonderful date with her. He leaves her his number but doesn't get a reply. Finding out she's in London, he decides to surprise her with an ill-advised visit. He quickly finds out she's a spy and gets embroiled in one of her missions.

This is a lighthearted and fun enough work. (The movie has one scene in it that's super amusing.) The spy plot is predictable, but Evans and de Armas both are likable performers and work well off of each other. It's their love-hate chemistry that makes this work.

Admittedly, this movie is based on a guy making unhealthy decisions. To the movie's credit, more than one person calls him out on it, and he's punished for his bad decisions. However, this is still a movie making light of and showing positive benefits from what would be considered creepy behavior in real life.

Also, Burn Gorman from Torchwood among other stuff has a small role as a stereotypically lower-class British cabby, and I felt his talents were squandered. Anyone could've played that role.

For a movie that's a comedy, it takes the action seriously. There were a couple shots that seemed off (I think the greenscreen work might be the movie's weakest point), but as a whole the stunts and choreography are well-executed. The action has a couple moments of sheer creativity, including the memorable last fight, that you wouldn't expect.

The movie does have a bit of an odd grey tint to it. (Though, this may be an Apple+ issue. I noticed that Central Park's look a bit muted as well.)

Recommended, the movie works as a good time to sit back and relax.

The Owl House- Season 3 (Final)

8/10

This final season is only three hour-long episodes. (From what I've read, they were lucky to get that. Viwership was alright, but certain Disney suits felt the show didn't fit well within the brand. I'm worried that this may be the end at least for now of serialized fantasy/sci-fi shows on the Disney Channel. All it's current animated programming is episodic and leaning more on the comedy side.) In it, Luz Noceda (voiced by Sarah-Nicole Robles) and her friends try to find a way to return to the Boiling Isles, which has been taken over by the Collector (Fryda Wolff), a god-like child who doesn't really get right and wrong.

You can definitely feel the time constraints in this. The amount of time for this world that had gotten pretty character heavy was limited and not every person you may like will have a spotlight on them (Amity's sibling get pretty much zilch in this). Sadly, witch Eda (Just Shoot Me/Hot in Cleveland's Wendy Malick), one of the biggest characters in the show doesn't get to do much.  It's clear the writers weren't able to address everything they probably had in mind (in particular, the mystery of the Bat Queen's past is never addressed, and if you thought there might be more to the story about Eda's curse, you get butkiss.) The show is able to give you enough explanation of the Collector and the show's main villain Belos (The Americans' Matthew Rhys) that's it's satisfactory but basic. I get the feeling we would've gotten flashbacks and lot more filling in of the details if this had been a full season.

What this season is able to accomplish, it does very well and should please those who like this show. We get some great character work, especially in the first episode. Luz really goes through a heroes' journey as she struggles with her choices in the show. We finally get to spend some time with Luz's mom (Elizabeth Gullion), and they do a great job with developing her as a strong, supportive mother. If you're one of those viewers who felt there was a clear divide between her actions at the beginning of season one, and her portrayal in the second season, the show explains the reasoning behind why she sent Luz to camp, and you get a surprisingly emotional backstory behind the mother's actions.

The third episode is the big action-packed finale, and man does it nail it. (Second episode is decent. I would've cut the the A-plot and have the third episode split into the second and third, giving the third more room to breathe.) This finale is peak epic imaginative fantasy. The animators and design team were clearly giving it their all in the look to this. Be sure to watch the streaming version on Disney+ or Youtube (it's there legally on the Disney Channel channel) and not on broadcast. They cut the epilogue short for time. I saw it on the Disney Channel and originally felt a little disappointed. Imagine my surprise to later find out there was 7 MORE MINUTES. You really need to see the full epilogue which is such a wonderful send off to the world of the Boiling Isles.

Highly recommended. Though this clearly wasn't the ideal story creator Dana Terrace wanted to tell, the show still bowed out an entertaining and pretty emotional note.

Marvel's Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur- Season 1

8.5/10  

In this Disney Channel/Disney+ show based on the Marvel comic (and surprisingly spearheaded by Lawrence Fishburne who's the executive producer), young super-genius Lunella Lafayette (voiced by the Madea Halloween movies' Diamond White)  fights crime under the alias of Moon Girl with Devil Dinosaur (animal noises by voice actor Fred Tatasciore), her pet T. rex who came from a portal she opened.

While it takes some shows many episodes to lock into place what they want to be (and sometimes over a season, looking at you Parks and Recreation and Legends of Tomorrow), Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur had everything locked down since the beginning in what was an extremely confident and engaging first episode. 

I'd kinda like to call this the Kim Possible of this decade, since it's a fun affair starring a girl hero with colorful characters (in fact, KP and MGaDD share a showrunner). Lunella is a plucky, determined  and three-dimensional character. Due to Devil Dinosaur being huge and a lot of scenes taking place at Lunella's home or school (most people don't know her secret identity), he doesn't get quite as much screen time as you'd expect for him being in the lead (don't get me wrong, it's not like he doesn't have episodes focusing on him), but he's delightful when he's on. The guy's kinda like a big puppy dog and the animators do a great job with his facial expressions. There's a third member of the team, Lunella's friend the social media-savvy Casey Calderon (Sneaky Pete's Liby Barer). She's just as enjoyable as the leads. Both her voice and animation have this gutsy liveliness to her.

Moon Girl lives in the Lower East Side of New York and her neighborhood is a really vibrant melting pot. The show also hosts a series of villains, more often original creations than not, that are fun bunch of distinct classic cartoony-types (also like what you'd find on Kim Possible).

The animation is so stylish. If you're one person who gets tired of cartoons these days looking too similar or not taking any risks, you'll be pleasantly surprised with this. MGaDD has a very distinct type of character animation, especially the line work, that kinda has a comic/graffiti pop art feel to it. There's also an impressive selection of songs in this (Moon Girl likes to fight with music playing).

Most of these episodes revolve around Lunella, who means well, but her over-confident reliance in science to solve all her problems can be her downfall resulting in her having to learn a lesson. Don't get me wrong, the morales are good for kids, but Lunella causing a large portions of the threats in the show can get a bit old. Next season, you could at least have more episodes featuring other characters having to learn lessons. Also, it bugs me that Lunella's father looks and acts so young. I thought he was her older brother at first.

Highly recommended and great viewing for your kids. My wording really isn't doing justice to the heart put into the show. This is definitely a worthy successor to the ranks of the best humorous kids superhero cartoons, such as Darkwing Duck and Kim Possible.

The Pope's Exorcist

7.5/10

In The Pope's Exorcist based (I'm guessing EXTREMELY loosely) on Father Gabriele Amorth's memoirs An Exorcist Tells his Stories and An Exorcist: More Stories, the father (played by Russell Crowe) investigates the possession of an American boy in Spain.  

Sooooo... This is a very by-the-numbers exorcism movie. Everything's that happened in previous movies probably happens here and there isn't anything that's unpredictable. HOWEVER, this is a very competently made exorcism movie.

The movie flows naturally without much feeling drawn out. The introduction scene with Amorth is pretty memorable. 

This has a solid look to it. (The production team was clearly having fun.) I loved the foreboding, kinda stylized look of the ancient manor the family's staying at. There are a couple weird visuals that grab the eye.

The best part is definitely Crowe. His Amorth is really likable and he breathes life into the role. He seems to be on an accent streak here (the last being his role in Thor: Love and Thunder), and I can't speak to his Italian inflection's accuracy, but it works pretty well. Penny Dreadful: City of Angels' Daniel Zovatto plays the practically requisite younger member of the church who's a rookie to exorcism Father Esquibel, and does an admirable job working off of Crowe.

The one straight-up weak point to this (besides the plot predictability) is that there's a subplot with Amorth's enemy within the Vatican Cardinal Sullivan (Ryan O'Grady) that feels half-baked and unnecessary. I wonder if some of his scenes got cut? 

Kinda recommended. Doesn't break the mold, but it makes for a fun time-waster.

Malum

6.5/10

In this remake of director/co-writer Anthony DiBlasi's 2014 film Last Shift, rookie police officer Jessica Loren (played by Split's Jessica Sula) gets herself assigned to watch over the night the old, practically abandoned police station that's being closed down. She's intentionally there as she's trying to investigate the death of her father. Soon, strange things start happening...

What this movie is good at is is providing unsettling, creepy stuff. There's some things that'll definitely stick in your memory. I believe one reason DiBlasi decided to pull a Hitchcock and made the rare choice of remaking his own movie is that he was able to play with a bigger budget. (When I heard this was a remake, I watched the original first because I was kinda fascinated with what the differences would be between the two.) The original while having decent special effects was clearly made on the cheap and took place entirely within one filming location. Here, DiBlasi is able to pull off more. There's a couple visual scares I miss from Last Shift, but there are also a few originals here that really leave an impression.

Going back to the shooting location, Last Shift's police station was a really well lit affair (again probably a budget thing), here it's the opposite, and DiBlasi makes strong use of the unknown that lurks in the darkness. Also, I really liked the front door area to the place they shot at. Has a distinct look. 

This movie is effectively scary, but the plot is... debatable (much like the original). The script does do a better job of explaining why some things were happening in the first film (for instance, in the original it's a coincidence that Jessica is assigned to the station her father worked at.) However, changes to the story bring up a bunch of brand new plot holes, stuff that'll make you say "Wait, what? But...?"  

Casting is predominantly stronger than the first, there's a few performances I preferred from the original but on the whole we've got a higher class of actors. Though I feel Loren's superior Officer Grip Cohen to still be more of a plot device than a realistic character (sadly, his dialogue was largely untouched from Last Shift), Britt George's performance as him is a lot more tolerable. There is one actor replacing their role from the first: Natalie Victoria (the director's wife). I'm so glad they had her ditch her lousy southern accent this time around.

This was one of those movies that's hard to rate. If you love scary stuff, you'll probably like this. But if you hate it when horror movie plots get super vague, this probably won't be for you.

Tetris

8/10

This Apple+ movie chronicles video game entrepreneur Henk Rogers' attempts to get burgeoning hit puzzle game Tetris ported to and packaged with the Game Boy. However, he ends up tangling with an unexpected sheer mess of who owns the rights to distribute the game, and has to go to Russia near the fall of the Soviet Union in order to negotiate a deal in a country where trade is handled rather differently.

Like most movies based on a true story you got some made up stuff to make the story more cinematic (you've got a fictitious KGB agent in this who serves as an obstacle for Rogers; don't get me wrong, I'm sure the real Henks was watched like any outsider trying to do busy in Russia, but I doubt he was ever directly confronted), but what I like about this is that all the broadstrokes are surprisingly accurate to what happened. The various issues involved in acquiring the rights for Tetris are true. The whole thing is rather fascinating, especially in regards to how Russia handled property rights and distribution differently from capitalist countries. 

Rogers (played by The King's Man's Taron Egerton) also makes for a good underdog. Some of these films may hide less savory aspects of their subjects or make them more important than they actually were, (and yeah, movie Henk takes risks the original didn't), but the actual Henk seems fairly faithful to this one. He doesn't seem to have any skeletons in his closet and he really did befriend Tetris creator Alexey Pajitnov (played in this by Nikita Efremov) and helped him get compensated for his creation later on. Film Henk makes for a great protagonist as a man who unwittingly bit off more than he could chew and still manages to come out successful.

The father son team running rival company Mirrorsoft Robert and Kevin Maxwell (Roger Allam, the villain from the Speed Racer movie and Anthony Boyle) also works well as rivals. Yeah, they're probably more cartoon villainy in this, but I don't mind the liberties too much 'cuz they were crooked in real life (and it didn't help the they were/are the father of Ghislaine Maxwell).

Pretty good cast here. Egerton gives a solid performance, but to be honest this is a role many actors could do. He's outshined by some of the supporting cast. Efremov is convincing as a man who created a fun diversion at work who had no greater plans and finds himself unexpectedly put in a spotlight. Allam does a great job delivering the type of commanding presence who rarely needs to raise their voice, and Boyle is also swell as the more emotional one with a chip on their shoulder. However, I was most impressed by Oleg Stefan as Nikolai Belikov, the head of ELORG, the Soviet organization that handles electronics exports and imports. He plays a straight man bureaucrat, but the actor has this subtlety in his emotions that really pay off.

There are a couple of scenes in this that are a little weak but don't sink the movie. You got one line of dialogue evoking the spirit of video games that feels really ham-fisted, insultingly simplistic, and nothing any person would say aloud. Then there's one scene demonstrating the struggles of living in the Soviet Union that feels a little too on-the-nose.

If you love the Tetris theme, you get a variation or two of it, but sadly we never get to hear the very original unadulterated version.

Recommended. Some may think that you couldn't make a movie about distribution rights interesting, but they pulled it off.

Air

 

8/10

Air tells the story of the creation of the Air Jordan shoe line and how Nike, which was trailing behind Concourse and Adidas back in the 80's, took a massive risk when practically betting it all on having their product endorsed by then rookie NBA player Michael Jordan.

This is one of those scripts where almost everything just snaps. Writer Alex Convery seems to understand the risks of having a movie that's mostly people talking about doing things. He gives it his all in making sure the exposition doesn't get boring. He keeps your interest by throwing a lot at you. A great example is the beginning where an opening conversation happens while the characters are walking through the offices, a fantastic combination of visuals and solid and often funny dialogue. Really, the conversations are all well written and humorous. 

Excellent pacing here as well. Again, the filmmakers knew there was the risk of the movie being slow, so they make sure it moves at a brisk pace from plot point to point. There's no scenes of the lead hanging out with his family bloating the duration; the movie is going to tell you about the Air Jordan deal and they're not going to waste time. (The epilogue does run a little long, but the movie's about to end anyway, so it's not that much of an annoyance.) Even the dialogue moves quickly (it is possible to miss some lines.) Appropriately, they've got Chris Tucker, the king of fast talking, here as Howard White, the man who'd become the vice-president of Nike's Air Jordan brand, and he shows you how it's done.

Speaking of Tucker, it's nice to see him do a role that's more grounded and not trying to be funny every moment. He really pulled it off. Heck, this whole movie's a who's who of great performances from a top pedigree of actors, including Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Viola Davis, Jason Bateman, and Chris Messina.

Understand that this movie is all about the deal done around Michael. You never actually see the guy's face (except for actual footage of the real MJ) or really hear him speak. If you were expecting him, prepare to be disappointed. 

The one weak spot of the movie, besides the epilogue, is that the big motivating speech that often happens in these types of films feels a little too calculated for its own good.

Highly recommended. This is one of those movies where almost everything works and it keeps your interest. Wouldn't be surprised if this gets at least an Oscar nomination for best screenplay.