Buys
Got a couple of books by Julian Barnes (I'm a completist and let his output get away from me): The Man in the Red Coat and Nothing to be Frightened Of.
"Accomplishments"
In theaters: Based on The Suicide Squad, James Gunn might have felt restrained by the MCU's house style. He has much more fun VISUALLY in this one, which takes its cues more from Birds of Prey than any other DCEU movie. Fun POVs, chapter titles hidden in the action, a sense that this is a comic book - a hyper-violent one - without smothering it with slow-motion "art shots" that make the whole thing meaningless (we know of whom I speak). Gunn manages to juggle a large cast and give everyone their due, fully playing up the absurdity of a superhero world and yet wringing exciting action and touching moments along the way. Like, I KNOW what the character is tearing up about is absolutely silly, but I tear up with them. Wha--?! And unlike some of the humor in other superhero movies, I don't feel like any of them go on too long. Harley is as usual a highlight, but the movie makes me care about characters for whom I never spared a thought before, which is pure Suicide Squad brand (at least the Ostrander era, which is the gold standard). And that's very much required if any of the deaths (and threats of death) are going to have meaning. Huge R-rated fun and, without giving anything away, the most important role Javelin has ever played in any medium.
At home:
50 Years of Action/1987: Within its first 5 minutes, Miami Connection has given us a cocaine deal in balmy Florida, motorcycles, ninjas, UZIs, and gore effects - everything you love about 80s excessploitation. Then, it kind of forgets all about it until basically the end in favor of a story about Dragon Sound, black belt rockers trying to survive in the streets of Orlando, continuously attacked by 'roid-raging good ol' boys who lost their spot on stage because of them, even though we don't ever see them with a musical instrument. The film is padded with martial arts demonstrations and music video-style performances by Dragon Sound, and eventually, the ninjas do return, though every competence they had fighting trained drug enforcers is gone when facing a couple of synth rockers. There's some raw energy to the film making and the action scenes are quite decent, but it's not a good movie. The acting is hilariously bad, especially when it comes to star, co-director and producer Y.K. Kim who doesn't come close to mastering the English language and seems to be playing a character half his age. He's got the martial arts ability, but he's no movie star. But the ineptitude in Miami Connection is what makes it worth watching over hundreds of similar B-movies from the 80s, and it's easy to see how this local indie project became a cult film in the last 20 years. It's kind of The Room of 80s action flicks.
Actual best from that year: Robocop, The Running Man, City on Fire
1988: Though undoubtedly highly fictionalized, I'm actually surprised, upon doing a bit of research, at how much of the Lincoln County War was incorporated into Young Guns, by any other account Brat Pack vehicle that only really shines for me when Jack Palance or Terence Stamp are on screen. Our nominal hero is Emilio Estevez's Billy the Kid, a psychotic portrayal that doesn't engender much sympathy, and even if he puts some energy into the role, there's generally a dullness in both the direction and the acting that makes me lose interest in most of the melodrama and gunplay. Ultimately, it's just a big shoot-out with dramatic interludes, and on both sides of that equation, the motivation for scenes can be lacking - a sudden wedding or the mowing down of an unarmed man become equivalent in that sense. At first, it seemed to be a rocking western for the MTV generation, but director Christopher Cain could have done with more of the off-roading madness of his effort on The Next Karate Kid. His result here is just okay.
Actual best from that year: Die Hard, Bloodsport, Police Story 2
1989: I have no particular love for Dolph Lundgren but his version of The Punisher at least doesn't suffer from some of vanity other action stars' movies do in this era (Sly an Arnold must be oiled up, Van Damme must do the split, and so on). Frank Castle looks like he hasn't slept in 5 years in this and I approve. Though played as a fairly straight actioner (no skull shirt, for one thing), the comic book flair comes from the Yakuza villains who elevate the material beyond the expected shoot-em-up. The leader is deliciously evil, they ninjas have cool gimmicks, and the climax in a Mondrian-inspired Japanese castle somewhere in New York creates cool monochrome backgrounds for the action. And I think there's something to be said for the use of children in this, the mob bosses seeing their heirs kidnapped, comparing that to what happened to Frank's family, and saying something about the sins of the father and the cycle of violence. But make no mistake, there isn't a lot of strong acting in this (Lou Gossett Jr. excepted) and the action isn't very well edited. Better than expected, but recommended only with provisions.
Actual best from that year: Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, The Killer, Road House
Books: This early in the Eighth Doctor Adventures, there seemed to be a push to include continuity implants as if to say THIS COUNTS AS MUCH AS THE NEW ADVENTURE DID! So in Paul Leonard's Genocide, we get Jo Grant, just as the previous book had Professor Litefoot and the Zygons. Unfortunately, Jo isn't used ENOUGH. To be fair, if her acreage is low, the novel itself is possibly the shortest in the line. Hard to get into at first - the aliens are extra weird, the structure of the book takes a minute to get, the prehistoric background creates yet another strange POV, and the plot is timey-wimey - Leonard makes good use of time travel as a plot device, and his imagination is going full blast. Had the book been a little longer, I think he could have gotten a better ending out of it, however, but he's determined to create a no-win scenario for the characters. Speaking of which, these early books all have to contend with Sam and how to put meat on her bones. Leonard's style allows for a lot of interiority - he's very POV-driven - but somehow, Sam gets all the stupidest thoughts. I'm not sure how much this is helping. So a good effort, but a little under-cooked in my opinion.
Jerry Pournelle's Janissaries is much shorter than it seems, at least 40% of its real estate devoted to Luis Bermejo's gorgeous (if not always necessary, and in placement, sometimes spoilery) illustrations, but there are times when it might have needed more prose, in particular where characterization is concerned. Some of the turns aren't justified properly, and Pournelle goes out of his way to create competent female characters only to emotionally subjugate them to male ones. Still, he makes good use of his knowledge of military history to answer questions as to how more advanced tactics would work against various historical ones, essentially creating a time travel story without resorting to that trope (nor changing history). Human soldiers are brought to a planet to grow weed for aliens every 600 years, a planet that's thus become a mish-mash of ancient cultures. How would you break the Prime Directive "for the good", so to speak? Once it gets going, it's good, even if the climax is a little cursory. I do have the other two books in the line, and I'm game - if not exactly enthused - to follow up.
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