"Accomplishments"
In theaters: I've always been of the opinion that tech-related horror films can't really sustain themselves. So M3GAN 2.0 could only go two ways - either repeat itself by having another robot go on a slashing rampage, or extrapolate the technology to create another dangerous situation, at which point it becomes sci-fi rather than horror. I have no problem with the franchise going the latter route and turning everyone's favorite babysitting killer doll into a techo-thriller superspy. M3GAN has to be resurrected to stop a rogue government murderbot, and it's all played for laughs and plenty ridiculous. Cool action, Jemaine Clement as a douchey tech bro, the Knight Rider theme played over a car chase, a comedy editing, several costume changes (why isn't there a toy line?) and a song - a lot to like. It IS overlong, however, as we reintroduce the characters from the first film, the new stakes, and ultimately have to get M3GAN back in shape, and to me, Gemma (Jenna Davis) is always going to be a stick in the mud, and she gets a LOT of screen time with her angsty parental bull. Just let these girls live and love, Gemma! Sheesh! Don't take this one too seriously, that's sure not how it takes itself.
At home: The second season of Poker Face keeps things fresh by allowing Charlie to end her fugitive story arc, find a new status quo (or two), and, most importantly, straying from the murder of the week formula to investigate other crimes. Easily a favorite for me this season was the episode taking place in a primary school - no murder, well, not of a human - which, the two-part finale's killer or not, has the best claim for greatest villain yet on the show. And as usual, Natasha Lyonne plays opposite some great guest stars (including Cynthia Erivo in a quintuple role, Giancarlo Esposito, John Cho, Awkwafina, and John Mulaney, to name a few favorites. Steve Buscemi acts as secret guest star - Charlie's CB buddy - who I was surprised never put in a physical appearance. I suppose that's as good a reason as any to keep the show going. Need to pay that off. Obviously, full marks on directorial style, soundtrack, humor, yadda yadda yadda.
What if Air Force One was a buddy head of state action-comedy? Heads of State imagines Idris Alba as the UK's Prime Minister and John Cena as a celebrity U.S. President, forced to work together after the plane is crashed by a super-terrorist in enemy territory, with the future of NATO on the line. And you know what? It's pretty fun. Alba's character at least has an S.A.S. background, while Cena is a "Gubinator" type who only faked it in movies, but we do get some real agents doing some really cool action, chief among them Priyanka Chopra Jonas, but let's not discount Jack Quaid's small role (he's having a great year). Director Ilya Naishuller has some experience with extreme comedy-action - Nobody, Hardcore Henry - so Heads has some clever gags going on. The politics are a remix of the real world's, but their heart is in the right place. Fun if eclectic soundtrack. Largely shines on its use of faces we want to watch, I suppose, but a much better ride than all those "Has Fallen" movies.
In my opinion, The Rock is Michael Bay's best film. It's got a great cast giving performances that manages to give credibility to the undercooked dialog - Nicolas Cage is being weird as a chemical expert, Sean Connery's escape artist is intimated to be James Bond in another life, and people like Ed Harris, John Spencer, David Morse and Philip Baker Hall are all too good for this kind of movie. Through in Tony Todd and Michael Biehn for good measure, thanks, but most of the marines-turned-terrorists are recognizable performers. It's got great energy and some of Bay's most iconic shots (Cage signalling the planes or the way the green balls of toxin roll around), as well as pretty cool destruction (that car chase is perhaps surplus to requirements, but its gags are plenty original). Bay's Alcatraz is bonkers, but no more than Cage's office - "how things work" is strictly pulled from Action Movie Reality, and I don't mind it one bit here. The big flaw is the female lead because, as usual, Michael Bay flicks don't know what to do with their female characters. But on the whole - and this is coming from a licensed Bay critic - The Rock is a lot of fun.
While I don't normally trust Oliver Stone on historical details, Platoon is the exception. "Chris" (Charlie Sheen) is essentially a self-insert - Stone enlisted and requested combat duty just like this green kid - which gives the story a certain credibility. I would not have picked Sheen to give voice to my thoughts, however, as his delivery is quite dry and his acting is rather strident when he's called upon to hit the big notes. Overall, the acting is variable at best from this cast, with Dafoe on the high end, and Francesco Quinn on the other (oof). Though Stone had been trying to make this since the early 70s, the 80s were the peak of American interest in the Vietnam War, and Platoon's greatly contributed to it, inspiring such beloved television shows as Tour of Duty and China Beach. But as for the film itself, I respect its gritty look at the war - a mix of American G.I.s committing war crimes and being butchered - Platoon didn't get there first, and certainly wasn't the only movie running in the race. The final confrontation is definitely a highlight, about as dirty and dangerous a battle as we've seen in cinema, but I found it difficult to stay interested in the slice of life stuff given some of the flat and cartoony performances.
Beating Rambo: First Blood Part II to theater by a year and based on a treatment for that very movie, Missing in Action has Chuck Norris as a Vietnam veteran still obsessed with bringing home American POWs still secretly held by the Vietnamese government 10 years after the war ended. Norris is supported by M. Emmet Walsh, James Hung and an army of stuntmen (among them JCVD, apparently), but it's hard to defeat his own personal charisma drain. There are some cool water vehicles, but the action is pretty basic for my tastes. Entirely too much of it is predicated on people doing dumb things, chief among them Vietnam spending so many resources on keeping (checks) three American soldiers prisoner.
Quick story about Missing in Action II: The Beginning: My ninth-grade English teacher sometimes showed movies in class and I think we had to write essays about them - or at least, I hope so - and his picks were always action movies. His taste, I imagine. MIA 2 was the first one he showed, and it's inappropriately violent, as anything with a gun shot to the head, exit wound to camera, would be. 1985 is another country...
Robert E. Howard's second-greatest creation, Solomon Kane, got a better-than-expect film treatment in 2009, in large part thanks to cinematographer Dan Laustsen (The Shape of Water, John Wick 2-4, Nightmare Alley), I should think. The gray and brown world of witch-trial era England is striking, and there are some real attempts at image-making from director M.J. Bassett and her DP. Some pretty cool monster designs, too. The story is a simple one - Solomon Kane (James Purefoy) was an evil man, now trying to atone lest he be literally dragged into hell in an interpretation of the 16th Century that takes all the Christo-Satanic mythology to be deadly real. He wants to be a man of peace, but the suffering imposed on the land by the Devil's playthings draws him out of retirement to set things right, his soul be damned. I'm not Howard expert, so I can't say how close this sticks to the source material, but it certainly did have a Conan flavor, with its reluctant super-warrior, maidens in jeopardy, and magic-wielding villain. Though it's perhaps mostly a question of aesthetics, it still transcends what seem to be schlocky origins.
Ben Foster and Dennis Quaid wake up from cryosleep with expected amnesia in Pandorum, wondering why the colony ship they're on has gone dark and where the previous shift might be. It's a good hook, and given the Geiger-esque production design, it's really no surprise when the ship is proven to be infested with nasty creatures, although I would describe them as Space Orcs (derogatory) in this case. Foster's descent through the bowels of the ship, fighting monsters with other survivors so he can do [techy] things to [tech] interests me much less than Quaid's more paranoid story thread, as space madness (AKA Pandorum) looms (but for whom?). I did like an ending or two, by which I mean that if you were to play Movie Twist Bingo, you could get a straight line with just this movie. I did guess SOME of the twists, but how could I know there'd be more in the pipeline? Kind of throwing everything at it. Like the horror notes it's trying to hit, the plot is rather baroque. But not too bad.
The camera, in Act of Vengeance, is that of the exploitation film, intent on capturing all its female subjects nude, generally in violent situations, but its script is all about consent and punishing those who would break that sacred trust. So it's a bit of a roller-coaster. After being assaulted by a hockey-masked supervillain serial rapist, Jo Ann Harris corrals all the other women he's done this to to create a "rape squad" to counter how ineffective the police are. It pretty quickly goes from "victim hotline" to full on vigilante action, which is where we find our joy (not sure they're enough to counter the actual rape scenes, of which there are too many - we get it, okay?!). The villain is keeping tabs on them, and lays a trap for them, propelling us towards a climax I found a little anticlimactic. Where the movie loses me is in the unmasking of the villain. The actor looks like another rapist from earlier to the point where I found it confusing, and we never get a proper explanation for his specific psychosis. Still gets more correct than you'd think for an American International flick.
If it took me a while to properly get into Four Samosas despite its obvious charms, it's because it has such a strange pace, and I felt like it was wasting time even though it had a cartoony patter about it. But as it eventually DID charm me, I have to acknowledge that this feeling was part of the point. In American Strip Mall Little India, would-be rapper Vinny is wasting his pining for his ex and hasn't yet stepped on stage to show what he's made of. The rest of his crew in an ill-advised grocery store heist (for love) are similarly stunted, preferring to have big dreams, but no disappointments, or somehow stuck in circumstances. A lot of the humor comes from bursting their balloons (very Guardians of the Galaxy, but more) and so the stakes get smaller and smaller, or perhaps purer and purer. The comedy is odd - and perhaps I'm missing some cultural touchstones - but it made me smile. The soundtrack is fun and the film has heart. I think this may be one that gets better on repeat viewings.
RPGs: Eternity Street is a little fan-made sourcebook for Torg Eternity that imagines a street that jumps around from city to city, where people of different cosms can interact, live together, and peacefully, too (bar brawls excepted). I reconfigured it to integrate characters from many past campaigns, tying all my games into some kind of multiversal unity field, including characters that my current players have played. So the BarD&D band play at the local watering hole run by a character from Savage Worlds Evernight. The comic book store is run by a hero from my Justice Legion DC Adventures campaign, and several clones of the same Doctor Who RPG character are running the coffee shop together (this is consistent with how we left that campaign). There's a prominent DC Heroes/Stupor Heroes character on the street as well, a doctor out of Dream Park, a memorable NPC from GURPS Autoduel at the gun shop, and the mysterious Warehouse 23 from my GURPS Black Ops game. Movies from our Hong Kong Action Theatre game probably play on TV. And yes, of course, there are new characters from the Torg Cosms themselves. Here's the "tent" for E-Street's micro-cosm:
My intent was to give the players a possible new status quo - if they wanted it - not just as a glorified vehicle to move them around the world, but as a place where subplots could unfold. Because I do have players who love subplots and seeing NPCs evolve over time, but Torg Eternity is a world-spanning mission-based game, so they rarely stay in the same spot long enough for relationships to grow. I don't think I've done too bad a job with recurring characters under the circumstances, but E-Street should make things easier on that score. So this was going to be a session of exploration and social interaction, but I also threw in a few adventure seeds, like giving the Frankenstein a mini-quest to get rid of his cursed jacket and introducing the new Deadlands Preacher's nemesis, a Spider-God worshipper intent on taking revenge on him for the death of the woman whose spirit already haunts him plenty. And using those elements to explain how things work on E-Street. I was flying by the seat of my pants throughout (even how the street might be "controlled" by the players was an improv.
Best bits: The hipster café had microbrew beers with Torg-ish names I let the players imagine - they came up with the Kikimora (a past monster/villain) and Pan-Pacificale. The fight with the spider-man managed to showcase the street's Law of Peace, as low rolls actually did make characters disconnect for trying to cause harm. The Monster Slayer kept leaving the group to go to the rowdy bar or to flirt with the librarian (he'd unfortunately made an early card play that prevented him from having a Romance card in hand, however). He had to admit he was kind of drunk by the end of the day (as was our new Deadlands Preacher, who is proving to have a problem with alcohol). The Realm Runner developed a man-crush (or maybe just a crush, the evidence is piling up that the character might be gay or bi) on another Realm Runner. The Monster Slayer asking the old Chinese man at the magic ingredients shop for a Mogwai (well, the character token WAS pulled from Gremlins) had me answer in the negative since we are a couple days after Christmas, so he lost his last one. But the main enjoyment for me was turning the Post Office into the bureaucratic madhouse from The Twelve Tasks of Asterix (very famous cultural touchstone for French speakers) on the basis that 1) the Frankenstein had to communicate with Warehouse 13, sell them something in exchange for Eternity Coins (think World of John Wick) to buy the cure for his curse. Because my tokens for the clerks was a pic of Kafka, I just stated spinning these obstructionist, impossible requirements, from a stamp book that guided the letters to questionnaires that, because of a computer error, required you to write in code, to belligerent employees acting like you're an idiot for not understanding the constantly changing rules. Most clever was the Realm Runner who sent the first letter by putting his hand through the Warehouse's concrete wall (the structure has no doors or windows) with the Ring of Earth Melding they recently acquired, the very ring that would end up being sold to a Man in Black for an E-coin. At the end, the characters broke into the seemingly abandoned "detective agency", picked rooms, and made it their temporary(?) home.
Gaming: After sitting on a malfunctioning controller for months (you see how little video gaming I do), I finally finished Agents of MAYHEM, or at least, all the scripted stuff. This sequel to Saints Row reimagines the Saints (not mentioned, but the iconography remains) as an international G.I. Joe called MAYHEM, based in a future Seoul, fighting the forces of LEGION. The G.I. Joe vibe is strong - there's even an "And knowing if half the battle" element popping up when you 'port back to base, and a lot of the cut scenes are in flat 2-D animation. Now, there is definitely an "unfinished" aspect to this game, reminding me of Halo in how many of the combat environments are essentially built from the same building blocks and feel rather repetitive. The mix of 3D and 2D cut scenes is probably also indicative of a game rushed to market or abandoned and released before its time. It naturally failed at the video game store. But I think it gets a bum wrap because it's still a lot of fun. The combat is furious, the humor amusing, and the mechanics varied. There are 14 Agents to level up, each with their own personalities, weapons, special abilities, and sets of costumes (you can even build a squad of comic book characters with the faux-Robin, Joker, Hulk, Captain America, etc. fashions). Some focus on heavy weapons, some on stealth, some on long-range, short-range, hacking, drone companions, etc., and with the tech you can build from pick-ups, you can customize each one's many abilities. In addition to the main storyline, each character also has their own mini-arc. The game also has plenty of replay value because all LEGION operations respawn around the city, as do the global bases outside Seoul accessible from your HQ (plus various difficulty levels, much more granular than in most games). Of course, that replay value is necessarily repetitive. Still, if you liked the high-octane humor of the Saints Row games and would be into a G.I. Joe with the numbers filed off experience, you can get Agents of Mayhem on the cheap and send your favorite three-man squad out to cause some, well, mayhem.
Comments