"Accomplishments"
In theaters: It's pretty clear from the poster and first 20 minutes that Companion is about a robot girl, so I won't hide it here any better than the film does. I still like the clever foreshadowing of a revelation we fully expect, because in any case, the story then takes a LOT of crazy turns. Its inspirations - Blade Runner, The Stepford Wives, Ex Machina - are quite obvious, but it also doesn't take itself too seriously (hard to when Jack Quaid is your male lead) and has fun with the ideas. Sophie Thatcher, I am extremely taken with, so I am always with her no matter what happens. While a fun sci-fi horror thriller, Companion uses the sci-fi part of its DNA (or, uhm, circuit board) to expose a dark vein in our society. The boyfriend is an incel who treats women badly. Relationship 'bots is just a metaphor for treating people like objects, and once you do that, you can justify any manner of mistreatment. This happens in real life, it's just easier when the person comes prepackaged as an "object". You might want to say you'd never mistreat your "companion", but I bet you would, under the heading of "not real". And that's hard to face.
At home: Axelle Ropert's La Famille Wolberg (The Wolberg Family) strikes an unusual tone - on the surfac0,e an oddball comedy, but a tragedy runs under it, essentially driven by the secrets the family members keep from one another. François Damiens is great as the patriarch filled with desperate energy, trying to keep his family and his town together (as he's the patriarchal mayor too). A father or son to everyone, his particular obsession with family can be both toxic and touching. Which is not to say it's a one-man show. He's surrounded by family and community, and the film culminates in his daughter's 18th birthday party, and so a sense of both endings and beginnings. The over-protective father must learn to let go, but if he could have frozen this period in time for just one more year... Well... A low-key film that starts out as fairly amusing, but becomes progressively more poignant.
Tirez la langue, mademoiselle (Miss and the Doctors, what a horrible transtlation) has two Parisian doctors fall for the same woman (Louise "Adèle Blanc-Sec" Bourgoin, I mean, who wouldn't once she throws a warm look at you), which of course tests their relationship. Director Axelle Ropert manages to create a small-town feeling in the big city, a neighborhood where everyone can cross paths and be nice to each other, and where everyone talks about the odd doctorly pair - no really, are there other doctors who consult patients together, make house calls together, etc.? Indeed, when the two aren't on screen, other characters are probably talking about them. It makes sense. Some people touch more lives as a matter of course, so why not wonder if your local physician is happy, or debate which of the two is one's favorite (I especially love the conversation between the two minors at the ice cream shop). Sweet, but not sappy.
Axelle Ropert's version of a 90s American romcom (you know the ones), The Apple of My Eye (La Prunelle de mes yeux) stars an effervescent, Elise, a blind woman who develops a love-hate relationship with one of two brothers (shades of Tirez la langue), Théo, a Greek musician with little success after these move into her building. Something blossoms after he starts acting like he was struck blind, but his motivations are difficult to ascertain, or may be shifting through the movie. To mock Elise? To empathize with her? To share her existence? In a regular movie, there's a speech that makes this clear. A Ropert film is more like real life in that it never is. But we still stand at a certain distance because of it, as it's hard to like Théo, and even when it's clear he actually loves Elise, we still feel like she's been duped to some extent, and fear her bubbly positivism could be smothered by his gloomy personality. I still prefer Ropert's quirky characters and situations to most 90s romcoms'.
I've seen comparisons between Axelle Ropert and Wes Anderson, and they're legitimate, but perhaps overstated. Quirky characters, but more realistic portrayals. Stylistically, she doesn't frame thing in as precious a way, but it has to be said that the set dressing is always very specific and intriguing. That's all as true of Petite Solange (Little Solange) as any of her films, but the eccentricities are tamped down to create an extremely strong portrait of a young teen in crisis as her parents begin to break up. Half overheard conversations, glimpses of things that seem meaningful, information delivered accidentally... It's a web that seems more tragic than it is for the adults. Indeed, Ropert plays similar tricks on us, leading us to believe the worst through inference. I'd almost call it unfair to the audience except that it's in keeping with Solange's point of view. At the same time, Solange is also benefiting (suffering?) from an expanded latchkey autonomy that is interesting to explore. And naturally, it's all sensitively told, with a great performance from young Jade Springer (plus Léa Drucker as the mom, look, I'm not made of stone). Don't worry Not-So-Little Solange, you'll grow up and learn to repress all these big feelings (/irony).
1985's attempt to turn the Destroyer novels into a viable film franchise, as Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins (is that really a better title?), didn't produce the needed results, and it's easy to see why. On the one hand, it gets stuck in the recruitment and training phase of the story for a FULL HOUR. There are still stunts and action gags, as Remo learns wuxia tricks, but no sense of the stakes in the meanwhile. The other big problem, especially now, is that one of the main characters is a white actor in yellow face. You're telling that, in 1985, there were no Asian actors able to take this role? Kate Mulgrew appears as an army major who could be a strong ally if she doesn't turn into a bemused damsel in distress. Some good action bits, but Guy Hamilton is definitely operating on the same basis as his late-era Roger Moore Bonds - silliness abounds. It probably doesn't get any better than the vertiginous Statue of Liberty sequence, but the movie gets more exciting in the third act as Remo actually goes after the... corrupt government contractor? Maybe they should try to resurrect the franchise... seems timely. I think we have our "origin" movie anyway, so no need to retread all of this, right?
[Guatemala] If you committed genocide, how many ghosts would come to haunt you? La Llorona (referring to the folk tale of the "Weeping Woman") answers that question. A former military dictator is on trial for his crimes against the Native Guatemalans both here and in the afterworld, and with three generations living under the same roof, there's every sense that the sins of the father are visited on future generations, and they may all have to pay a price. There's hope, however, because each successive generation seems more empathetic than the last, though perhaps also more oblivious to the underlying history. How the spirits of the dead get their revenge is definitely interesting. La Llorona is beautifully shot, but for horror fans, the slow burn might disappoint. This isn't scary or gory, it's atmospheric. The true horror lies in the past - it's the humans, not the supernatural agents who are monsters. I was taken in by it, and I love the last reel where it all comes together. The end credit song too.
[Belize] Jessica Kaye (co-)directs herself in Inheritance, a drama set in gorgeous Belize, in which she plays a woman whose father just died, and drags her newish boyfriend to the funeral et al. Daniel Ahearn's character there is imminently relatable if you've ever decided to support a new partner through a tragedy early in a relationship (heck, even a too-early Christmas at the in-laws). You want to be there for them, act as an interface with other people so they can have alone time, but also witness disturbing moments of revertigo and feel like you just walked into a decades-old argument you weren't even aware of. It also has something to say about trauma acting as a trigger for addiction, with the couple having a different dynamic with it. I wanted to be a big booster for this short feature, but ultimately, it goes too far in its final revelations about this family. The relationship with the caustic brother (Mark Webber) works fine when it's ambiguously fraught, but where it goes in the third act is too much egg in my pudding. I like eggs, but there's a limit.
Books: While John Peel did good work with his Hartnell-era Dalek adaptations, The Power of the Daleks is a much better book. Expanded to the size of a full novel - in part thanks to the original scripts which were curtailed to allow for Troughton's introduction and character moments - Power includes a lot of expansion, in particular some post-regenerative moments where we're in the Doctor's head. Indeed, Peel makes us spend time in MOST characters' heads at one point or other, sometimes making sense of odd character beats and giving fuller, more consistent motivations to the guest cast and the world they inhabit. I'm not a big Terry Nation fan - old-fashioned SF concepts, padded matinee serial plotting - so I like The Power of the Daleks because David Whitaker wrote it as a grand political story. As per Peel's usual talents, he makes some nice connections between this serial and others, as well. The television version is lost, and animated replacement or not, this still stands as a more complete and rich way to experience the story.
RPGs: This week was the Call of Cthulhu session in which we planned to burn down this town of cannibal cultists! it wasn't reasonable, but it was warranted. My character is a WWI veteran, but looking at my skills, more of a behind the lines guy. Certainly no commando. We were basically going to use the moonshine distillery as an armory and lay waste AT THE VERY LEAST to the cursed chapel, the cursed glade, and anyone there. Not sure our Keeper wanted us to do this - not because it would ruin his plans, he keeps things fluid, but because it would surely spell the end of all our lives. So we were asked about our motivations for turning into action heroes - we had them. He threw clues and monsters at us that might change our minds - I thought I was going to be killed, but I survived. We were delayed by an NPC rescue (the poor guy had been basted, so foo on my team mates for not believing me when I said it was cannibals) - we were jumped by cultists. Turns out, they're rather inhuman... so maybe the Keeper DOES want us to throw a keg of 100 proof into their bonfire and kill them all. This, from the player who kept his PC hiding in the cellar through the final fight of the evening... We'll see how brave Phelps is when it comes to doing the deed next time, but if we don't, looks like a bridge to the netherdimensions will open up and let some nasty creatures out.
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