"Accomplishments"At home: I thought I was more positive than most about Bob Odenkirk's John Wick spoof, Nobody, but I guess I wasn't alone for it to get a vacation sequel! That's actually Nobody 2's biggest weakness AND strength - the vacation. On the one hand, the family stuff is sitcom level and the characters rather thin on the ground as a result. On the other, having crazy action scenes in an amusement/water park is great, and the needle drops for each sequence is a lot of fun. That all said, while 2 is lesser than 1 (as mathematically incongruent as that sounds), Nobody 2 still has some juice. There's a switch of directors, so the style moves away from the now overdone Wick stuff, and it instead spoofs all those action flicks where the bad guys are a corrupt small town police force/mayor. Sharon Stone has a lot of fun as the terrifying villain the resort town answers to, and ultimately, this is about entertaining us with violent comedy action. It does its job.
Jumping off of Challengers in 2024, Josh O'Connor went on to star in four releases in 2025 - what a year for him - the last of which Kelly Reichardt's The Mastermind, a heist picture that probably stands as the director's liveliest film. Which is not to say there aren't some (painfully?) extended moments that work against - i.e. further deconstruct - the genre. The title is ironic. The crime starts to go awry in the planning stages, and the clever improvisations that would normally work in a movie, don't really. In the real world, criminals on this level are often dumb and eventually caught (which is why white collar and organized crime rather trade in influence, so as not to). We're in Nixon's shabby America, so we go from shabby heist to shabby escape, but there's nothing shabby about the acting or film making. I do wish we ended things on a more conclusive note, but what happens later isn't too hard to divine.
2025's entry in the "little girl sidekick in an action movie" subgenre, She Rides Shotgun is darker and bloodier than most, but its success hinges on the same thing as the others - the characters. Taron Egerton is indeed quite good as the ex-con who abducts his own 10-year-old daughter after getting out of jail, but it's not as simple as that - the entire family is being hunted down by Neo-Nazis after he pissed them off. He's someone you can both jeer and cheer, but it's Ana Sophia Heger as the little girl who steals the show (and is meant to, since it's her story more than it is her father's). She's absolutely terrific and shows a lot of range AND she's written well. That final scene by itself would make more seasoned actors jealous. She's swept along in a screw-up's crime story, which is fine despite a creaky climax that perhaps tries too hard. It's hard to be invested too much in the arch crime stuff when the scenes between this fugitive duo, are so strong.
Noah Baumbach's Jay Kelly stars George Clooney in the title role, an aging movie star who essentially had Clooney's own career even if the biographical details differ. He's now having a mid-life crisis, because the price for his ambition is regret, and the face it shows the world is selfishness. It's not just about him, but about his children and his entourage (including Adam Sandler who once again proves I can like him when in dramady mode), hurt by that selfishness, but still swept along the river of his fame. Is Clooney (or in his way, Baumbach) exorcising something in this picture? Maybe, but that would deny the poisonous irony of the film. After this bout of introspection - which Baumbach often presents as living hallucinations, cool conceit - can Jay Kelly actually CHANGE? Or will he discover that fame is an addiction he can't give up. In other words, is there growth, or is he just PLAYING at growth?
I've been aware (and enjoyed) Takeshi Kitano's crime films since Violent Cop (his first, in 1989), and it's pretty incredible that he's still making and starring in them. In Broken Rage (2024), he reprises his role as an aging hitman, but there's a twist. In the first half, his character may be old, but he's still slick and efficient, his work day filled with murder and, eventually, an undercover sting for the police. Then, the movie starts over, but it's a comedy. At first, I thought, oh cool. We were shown the idealized "movie" version of reality, and now we'll see how a broken down old man stumbles him way through in a "realistic" world. Alas, it wasn't meant to be, and Broken Rage instead takes a dive into Naked Gun territory. I'm sure some of those gags mean something in Japan, or perhaps they're non sequiturs just like they are to my Western eyes. Either way, KItano is trolling his audience, and laughing at himself, too. I appreciate the effort, but I was having more fun in the first, extremely efficient half.
For a movie that makes you feel like you're at one of your own large family Christmas parties, check out Christmas Eve at Miller's Point. It rings as true as jingling bells. It's more about moments than it is about a linear plot, with a large cast and various open-ended storylines, a kind of moving photo album that captures the multi-generational family members where they're at, briefly touching on their personal tragedies, or showcasing their very specific traditions. And while the adults let loose and the smaller kids are sent to bed, the teenagers go off the reservation into their own world in the meeting places of the suburbs. But beyond the relatability, there are some poignant moments of grace, building through character more so than with incident - the bit with the unfinished novel, the mothers-daughters "resolutions", the missing gift... I'm not yet sure what to think of Michael Cera and Gregg Turkington as Brechtian cops, quite counter to the naturalism of the other characters who might as well be improvising their lines (the kids especially). I laughed whenever they were around, though, so I'm not sure why I'd be complaining.
I don't think I've ever seen a sports movie that takes place during a single game like Eephus. Obviously, it had to be baseball (or, I suppose, cricket) to accommodate the conceit of a game that goes on all day. Look, recreational baseball is a serious thing for these guys and the few people who watch. And it means something extra special since their field is about to be bulldozed. In a more generic film, there would be a push to "save the field" through some comedy shenanigans. But no, this is just about the end of an era, and the stakes are only high because the next field sucks and is a 30-minute drive away. We learn everything we need to know from watching a single game, efficiently introducing characters from both teams AND hangers on, with some interesting transitions using baseball stat sheets and famous quotes. Could this be the ultimate baseball film? Sure, the players aren't exactly all athletes of the highest calibre, but it's about purity and sportsmanship (which the best baseball movies often are), and it's closer to the kind of sports most people are involved in. Like the "eephus" of the title, and indeed, like baseball itself, it's lackadaisical, but that's a nice merging of theme and story.
[Cook Islands] Despite the title, The Legend of Johnny Lingo is really about a foundling called Tama, who has a knack for screwing up and getting thrown out of his adoptive households. The title will make sense in time, though the "surfing poster" won't. A cute family film, I resent its white narrator conceit, which seems to exist either because the film makers thought this is what family films set in an "exotic" culture should be like, or to paper over some of the "storybook" deliveries of fairly unpractised actors. I just don't think it's necessary. At the heart of Tama's story is a sweet love story about two rejected children who make a promise to each other, one that's hard to keep under the circumstances, but for the fairy tale elements kicking in. Though not necessarily made for a man my age, I found myself drawn in nonetheless.
[Nauru] In Paradise Ruined, the island nation of Nauru is portrayed as a place that was strip-mined by colonial interests, then mismanaged its own wealth after independence, and now, everyone's diabetic. That's the depressing gist of it. I wish it made its point about the holistic impact of capitalism.
[Lesotho, again... can you stop fiddling with the movie data until I finish the project? I'm almost done, I swear!] The premise behind Behemoth: or the Game of God - a preacher walking into the capital dragging God's coffin behind him - is intriguing, but the treating it like a strident music video doesn't work for me. Worth waiting for the end for the punchline, even if it's pretty heavy-handed.
Books: Coming off W. Maxwell Prince and MartÃn Morazzo's Kryptonite Spectrum, I have to admit the team's Ice Cream Man Vol.1: Rainbow Sprinkles is not what I was expecting, at least not until the third of the four collected stories where the same kind of "anything goes" approach from the more recent Superman story is present (the one with the "music world"). Though one could make the claim that anything really DOES go, just spread out over more chapters. But Ice Cream Man has the most in common with the old EC horror comics. The Ice Cream Man has come to town, interacts with the locals, but it's their (horror) stories playing out until the lead(?) shows up for the punchline at the end. He's a horror host, but gets involved, kind of like a dessert-selling Phantom Stranger. The last story actually ends on a cliffhanger, not to the tale of the month, but to the arc you didn't know what going on, pointing to what might actually be happening. Obviously, I'm intrigued enough to keep reading...
I loved the first Great British Bump-Off series, and the follow-up, Kill or Be Quilt, doesn't have a mystery quite on par with the original (slow to come and easy to figure out), but Max Sarin's art more than makes up for it, Shauna and her world rendered in a cute Euro-style that takes Manga-like liberties as usual, but perhaps even more inventively this time. Not to say John Allison's script isn't perfectly funny and charming, because it is. And never apologizes for being so British. I think that's part of the brand. In this one, Shauna scraps a river barge and has to work in shops for the summer, falling right into a turf war between quilting stores. But there's also love in the air, coming from (or at) a rather ambivalent beat poet whose mom runs out of the shops. As usual, a large cast of distinctive characters, and a niche world rendered with sincerity and humor. Allison and Sarin could be doing this monthly and I'd be there for it.
RPGs: After some delay, our Torg Eternity game finally finished the side-story act where the players took on the roles of Mystery Men (the Nile Empire's premiere super-team) on a mission to recover the plans to Mobius's Weapon of Mass Destruction. Only, they have to team up with the Grim Cobra, a recurring foe who is sure to betray them. Only, they're not the main PCs, so it's considered a suicide mission. Only, I put a lot of traps in there to potentially prevent some of them from returning intact - the Darkness Device trying to corrupt one of them, things that could trigger Mobius's immediate return, a whole Battlegroup in the wings if they're cover was blown, the Rocketeer teased with the possibility of returning to his home dimension and family, etc. I even had a spare Mystery Man character sheet or two just in case someone needed post-death relief. Alas(?), it wasn't meant to be. Despite the odds, the players were smart, gave the right answers, and heck, even splitting up was a good idea when they did it! Yes, there was one sacrificial lamb, it's true...
Best bits: On that last score, the players actually FOUGHT over who wouldn't get a ride on one of the flyers' backs when the V2 rocket they escaped on was about to blow (giving priority to the civilians the managed to save). Part of the dilemma was that the two non-flying heroes had Cosm cards that would TECHNICALLY allow them to survive, one captured along with all allies, and one in a cliffhanger left up in the air (or as it turned out, down in the Nile). I'm still aghast they picked the 16-year-old sidekick, but her shield might have protected her from the impact. We may never know since these aren't our regular PCs. Or it could become a thing. Otherwise, the gang was playing it for laughs, with lots of dumb "I just gave myself away" humor (the Rocketeer unable to play the role of a prisoner convincingly, what with his smart mouth and all) and others coming in an fixing it with their better skills. The Clawed Vigilante pulled an Angst card and flashed back to when she almost joined Mobius's shocktroops, then used that to give herself enough military knowledge to pass through checkpoints. A few returning faces from Day One. A secret door opened by serendipitous accident (it sent the forces of evil astray). The complicated plan to hijack the V2 rocket ending with everything blowing up. It's the Nile Empire, you have to put your trust in the action.
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