"Accomplishments"
In theaters: Wes Anderson dedicated The Phoenician Scheme to his late father-in-law, a bigger-than-life Lebanese engineer who did the thing with the shoeboxes, so that's where part of Benicio del Toro's character came from, though also the brash industrialists of the early 20th Century. In the film, Korda is a man who is very difficult to kill, tracking his growth through near-death experiences out of Buñuel, and allowing, little by little, his estranged daughter - a Catholic Novice (Mia Threapleton) - to potentially save his soul. Michael Cera rounds out the main cast in an amusing role (he was always a Wes Anderson character in waiting). The "scheme", a complicated financial MacGuffin (it doesn't entirely matter), takes us through various wild set pieces and an entire cast of zanies (Anderson never fails to assemble his all-stars even for small roles), ultimately questioning the value of both God and the Golden Calves of the modern age. Faith and worship are pointless; morality is not. Dry and funny and, of course, impeccably designed, it gave me Grand Budapest and French Dispatch vibes without achieving the same heights (and yet, The Phoenician Scheme seems more mysterious to me and return trips may raise it further).
At home: I'm almost tempted to call Olivier Assayas' Summer Hours an inheritance procedural. A woman prepares her succession, dies, and her three children very amiably divide and take care of the estate. You might expect, or even want, more drama, but this is relatably what most often happens. Complications only really arise because she cared for a large collection of artwork, and even so. What Assayas is really exploring is the notion of value. The house, the art, the people - they're only important, remembered, or in full context because of personal connections. And even those fade away as houses go on sale, art goes to museums, and people are slowly placed at a distance and then forgotten by successive generations. The theme is there from the beginning: The mother has been obsessively keeping her artist uncle's memory alive for decades, but she knows it's likely to stop with her. Great acting, of course, and largely unsentimental. Juliette Binoche is never less than great, but it's really Charles Berling's story, as the eldest child who feels the greatest connection and therefore responsibility to the past.
I find it rather confounding that a lot of superhero television projects of the 1970s refused to be beholden to the comics. In the case of The Incredible Hulk, it somehow still worked. In the case of 1979's Captain America, it's simply self-sabotage. Reb Brown plays an already beefy Steve Rogers with no ties to World War II. Instead, he's the son of a scientist who came up with the "Flag" serum, and indeed, the "original" Captain America, though it's inconsistent as to whether he was just a super-strong covert crimefighter or a full-blown costumed hero. What the production really wanted here is The Six Million Dollar Man (they even have a spangly sound accompany the feats of strength), only with motorcycles. And boy is there a lot of tedious driving (cars, bikes and helicopters) before finally getting us into fairly tepid TV action. Brown is fine, but never more than fine. The music is terrible. The script is full of plot holes and strains under what feels like reshoots... Is there a good reason why they splurged on two different Cap costumes? The "real" one wasn't ready in time? Rough stuff.
If the first Reb Brown movie was like a pilot, then Captain America II: Death Too Soon is like that first official episode where they recast the female lead (I'm agnostic on this, but she has less chemistry with Steve, I think by design so Cap can have romances of the week) and can get down to the show's formula now that the origin story is out of the way. All in all, this is a much better chapter. The score is under control. The superheroic action is faster-paced and more clever. And Christopher Lee is in it! They do get amazingly close to turning him into the Red Skull, but just can't seem to connect the dots with the comics. It's like the iconic Captain America just out of reach. We have Steve lovingly looking into the eyes of an old lady and facing the threat of a gas that causes premature aging... all themes that seem to work with a "man out of time" story, but if the original script was written by comics fans, it was reworked until you couldn't tell anymore. TV-level action with a rather wholesome lead, but it's watchable.
I remember having some affection for 1990's Captain America, a movie made on the cheap, but not necessarily cheaply made. It has moments of atmosphere, lots of beautiful locations (Croatia as Italy, which may have been the entire impetus for oddly making the Red Skull Italian), and genuine care for small details (plot holes not withstanding, though those point to a butchering edit). Where it fails is in the hand-to-hand fighting, which is even under-par for TV fist fights. Good shield play, however, and Cap is shown as very acrobatic. Obviously, it's beholden to Batman '89 - it wants to be Gothic, creates a link between the hero and villain's origins, and has a somewhat similar ending - but it's also its own thing. Had this had a stronger main cast - supporting players are stronger, with Ronnie Cox as a fist-fighting POTUS who would really rather be Bucky, is the highlight - and a better ending (feels rushed), it might be looked at more fondly. Or if it had been made 10 years early, in the wake of Superman: The Movie. So I still have some affection for it, but I acknowledge it's nowhere near the MCU Captain America, nor even closer parallel The Phantom.
As a Film Noir pastiche, Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid wins a lot of technical awards. You might question the aspect ratio, but the cinematography, staging, music, dialog delivery, costumes and sets (some of which need to match actual films) are all perfect. As a Film Noir PARODY, it leaves a lot to be desired, as the dumb, crude humor just takes me out of the mood entirely. The witty and quirky banter actually can amuse, but then Steve Martin gropes the femme fatale and it all falls apart. As for the clips of classic Film Noir inserted into the action, it's the experiment that drew me to the picture in the first place. Though some of the movies show more wear and tear than others, and therefore look wrong, integration is pretty well done. And on a script-writing level, I'm always interested in how film makers are going to achieve it. I'm half and half on the results, with the middle section just a pointless picaresque through film clips to sneak pointless cameos into the narrative. So I respect the attempt at a homage, but it's too clunky and unfunny to work.
Even a bad Pam Grier movie has Pam Grier in it, so it's not all bad. And Sheba, Baby is one such Pam Grier movie. It follows the formula established by her better flicks - she needs to be traumatized until she's pushed over the edge and starts avenging - and the acting is pretty poor all around. Not too memorable, though I like that Sheba's particular set of skills as a private eye includes using her environment to threaten physical harm on middle men who don't want to rat out their gangster bosses. Also, nautical stuff. And regardless, it's got Pam Grier looking stylish and cool, traipsing into trouble sporting all sorts of looks, and - I cannot stress enough how this is key to my enjoying blaxploitation films - Sheba has a cool theme song. But will I remember much beyond Sheba riding a boat in a wetsuit and holding a harpoon gun? Probably not, but that's a pretty cool memory to have.
Director Fernando Di Leo (The Italian Connection, Caliber 9) seems to give up on his innate sadism in Rulers of the City - his happy-go-lucky protagonist Tony even says he doesn't swing with De Sade! - offering a fun little crime picture instead. Much of the fun is thanks to Harry Baer's Tony, a low-level thug who collects protection money in his dune buggy, not taking things very seriously and hoping he gets to do bigger and better things. He falls in with Rick (Al Cliver), a thug from a rival family who's on the outs and has big plans - bigger than you initially realize (I had forgotten the opening dream sequence) - and inadvertently(?) changes the crime hierarchy at play. That rival family is led by Jack Palance, which is undoubtedly why you bought your ticket - he effortlessly sells the menace - but you stay to see how the heroes are going to get out from under after crossing him.
From the World Cinema Project![Guinea] I have no interest in soccer/football, but I can feel sympathy for Bandian, the little kid with big talent in Le Ballon d'or (The Golden Ball), a hopeful village boy who wants to be Africa's next big footballer. Things fall apart beyond that. I was wary of the Doctor Without Borders who gives him a ball (his golden ticket, going by the title), but she things don't get too Messianic (indeed, the ball seems cursed what with everyone's treatment of Bandian). The fact that all the African actors have been dubbed by Parisian voices is more problematic for me, but done by an African director, I suppose it might be seen as his "knowing his potential audience". But the buck stops at the film's assurance that child trafficking is A-okay. Played a sort of childish aspirational fantasy, fine. But there are characters in the film who question this in those exact terms, so it's an opinion. Now, I understand this was inspired by an actual footballer's journey (just how much, I don't know), and those off-putting details are perhaps grounded in fact, but I don't think it justifies them. For all I know, the movie was heavily manipulated at some point, changing dialog and intent, but I can't see where the seams are. Sad postscript: The footballing club whose kids acted in the film later became embroiled in a child abuse scandal. Brrr.
[Sierra Leone] An amateurishly-made office melodrama, Tangled With the Boss is essentially about a woman who's sexually harassed by her boss and ex, with a subplot at a law office concerning a lawyer who isn't taken seriously by her own boss. For the most part, it has all the charisma of an HR sensitivity video, and the same plot points. The sound is terrible, with room noise interfering with voices (the automated subtitles are fairly useless because they don't understand the accents and aren't sure what's being said either), and the same cheesy soft piano cue is lathered over everything to the point of parody. The storytelling is disjointed, and continuity is at a minimum, with beauty shots of buildings leading into shabby interiors, and the actors changing their hair in between scenes (and certainly never sport the looks they have on the poster). The lawyer's story was the more interesting of the two, so I wish we'd had more with her, and the back-half, which had a sort of legal procedural quality, was, while still covering movie-of-the-week topics, more interesting than the front. Didn't hate it, but the production values are so irritating, can't recommend it.
Books: Terrence Dicks can always be counted on for a fast-paced Doctor Who adaptation, especially of stories from his era as script editor, and Inferno is a good example. You get all the incidents of a seven-part story, plus a little more, including speculation about the alternate world's history and moments where he gets into the characters' heads to better explain their motivations. If you can believe it, Professor Stahlmann is even more aggravating even if we understand his obstructionism better - because he gets more "screen time"! I thought Dicks would give fold in some reasoning for this being Liz's serial, but it's just not her story, unless we're thinking of alt-Liz who has more of an arc than our own ever did. Similarly, Dicks never calls the green werewolves "Primords" (only in the show's credits), missing a chance to use the term in the prose. Perhaps his instincts are right in both cases, but one really should look for additive opportunities when writing these things.
Moreso than Season 7, Terror of the Autons relaunched Doctor Who into what we remember and love about the UNIT era. It introduces Jo Grant, Mike Yates, AND the Master. The uniforms are more military, the formula more on point (including the possibility of missions handed out by the Time Lords), and the serial rather quite violent and creepy. Somehow, Terrence Dicks' novelisation delivers even more of those two qualities. The plastic instruments of death have more life in them and aren't limited by budget or effects, making for an even more exciting story. At this point, the show REALLY grows crazy with CSO, but that's not in the book ;-). Plus, of course, strong additions to the lore, as the Time Lords explain themselves better, background characters get more backstory, and so on. This one was considered special enough to score half a dozen illustrations, including the giant Nestene that was never more than a ghostly glow on television.
There's a lot going on in The Mind of Evil, but whether on TV or in book form (by the ever-dependable Terrence Dicks), they can't hide the fact that the Doctor and/or Jo keep getting captured as soon as they've escaped. Maybe it's even worse in the novelisation because it moves much more quickly than the original 6-parter. But it's still a fun bit of business where everyone gets to be an action star - the Doctor, Jo, the Brigadier, Benton (not very well, but still) AND Mike Yates. With such an "internal" villain - a mind parasite that kills through your own greatest fears - Dicks is able to go into characters' heads to explain WHY such and such a fear was shown on the telly, giving those scenes a more unlimited budget that really makes them shine. This is probably one of the Master's best plots - at least it doesn't hinge on him allying with aliens that betray him. It's kind of that anyway, but it didn't start out that way, so I'll give him bonus points for it.
I was very interested in seeing what Terrence Dicks would do with The Claws of Axos' rather insane (confusing?) effects. He pretty much ignores then, actually, or at least, they don't seem as psychedelic in prose. Evidently working from the original script, as the book deviates from production decisions, Dicks has reworked much of the action, reinserted deleted scenes (Bill Filer is the most obvious winner, but even on screen, I'd have liked to see more of him in the series), and generally tried to "fix" the serial. Pigbin Josh isn't the caricatured yokel he was on TV, Chinn has better motivations (but is not less stupid), we don't see our heroes run to hide from a nuclear explosion behind a window with sticky tape on it, and mystifying failed effects become well-explained situations. The result is a much more generic affair. Better told, perhaps, but it's lost a lot of it character.
RPGs: Torg Eternity time... The PC group's first mission ended with the liberation of Los Angeles, and saw many lizard-like Edeinos invaders "transformed" to Core Earth reality. As more Edeinos were transformed during the course of the Possibility Wars, they found their way to L.A., specifically its nascent "LizardTown". Now, 49 episodes later, the city has decided to elect an Edeinos alderman to represent this population at City Hall, and the PCs are asked to protect her until she takes the oath in the wake of death threats. She'll suffer an assassination attempt, and in an attempt at a Whodunit, there's a big cast of possible suspects. I also decided to try something interesting in terms of mystery-solving (which can be difficult in RPGs, as it's a kind of puzzle). Basically: No DEFINITE answer. I had motives and clues for every possible culprit, and waited on which the players "liked" for the crime, and let them pull an Agatha Christie and explain their accusation. If it cut the mustard, it would just become "true". In the end, they accused the conservative U.S. senator largely because if there was an upper-echelon conspiracy to keep Edeinos out of American politics, it was more interesting in the long run than simply personal revenge or a plot from another Cosm. My players, everybody! And we lost a PC, see below!
Best bits: First, lots of interesting political discussions between PCs and NPCs, and a very good debate about the suspects at the Whodunit stage. The fly pizza the Core Earth Edeinos probably eat had me in stitches. Our Monster Hunter is now "from" Aysle, and though he didn't get to showcase all his abilities, I had fun playing the voice of his jealous sentient crossbow (The Exorcist) who just LOATHES the Frankenstein's very ordinary crossbow (it also fried a couple of assassins with its lightning bolts). The Frankenstein threw himself over Liz to stop a spear (not his fault she was shot by a sniper later). The Realm Runner put a weird Romance card on her knowing he would remove it with a "It's Just Physical" Melodrama card, but then spent the rest of the session kind of regretting putting an end to the attraction as more interesting Melodrama cards came up. The Realm Runner saves Liz's life after she's sent into cardiac arrest at the hospital. When the Senator bolts, it becomes the hardest (i.e. unluckiest) Dramatic Skill Resolution in our campaign's history, but the players pulled it off in the end. Then the Freedom Magician executes him in front of everyone and escapes in a puff of darkness when the cops try to apprehend him. He fails his final corruption roll and thus becomes a fugitive and a villain (touching the mind of a Darkness Device two sessions ago really sent him spiralling). So I guess we get a new character next session...
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