I rather liked the character of Michael Burnham, although I feel that given the generally weak writing it is hard for me to judge (after all this time, because I am not doing a series re-watch) if her character's evolution was really earned or not. I suspect that it was earned, at least as much as any character from such a poorly written series could be.

I really liked that the character ended up as an "anti-Sisko" (no spoilers)... although how did it get there from an anti-emotional repressed human, to war criminal, to command officer, to courier/pirate, to whatever... is sort of symptomatic of what I generally don't like about characters in the Star Trek TV shows, but Discovery was especially bad at IMO...

Too often, I feel that the ST characters are represented by index cards with three bullet points describing them, in a sort of RPG pre-gen shorthand. We get hit with two of the three bullet points over-and-over and then the third bullet point is introduced... and then that is pretty much it for character development. Sometimes the third point is a "secret" or "hidden" characteristic, sometimes it feels more like "gosh we gave this character only one characteristic, time to introduce a couple more".

This may come across as cruel: I feel that with everything the Discovery crew was involved with, there should have been more fatalities among the "named" characters... especially given the relatively short TV seasons. The fact that there was (by my count) only TWO Starfleet characters who died (and didn't come back from the dead somehow)... and one of those got a later guest spot... is a dead giveaway (pardon the pun)... that the writer's room loved the idea of their characters more than they loved the stories they could tell with the characters.

The relatively short episode run times, plus the "Noir Detective" promise, convinced me to jump in. I binged the entire series, which is rare for me... but that speaks to the production as well as my love of the genre.

I went in completely spoiler free, and I will keep it that way for others. Of the story of the "case" and the "mystery": I thought the "case" was reasonably well constructed, echoing a couple of classic stories (one old, one more modern) and while it is rare to find any pulp mysteries that have a truly satisfying ending, a Fincher-inspired swerve (I don't know how else to describe it, except this explicitly isn't a spoiler) in the case didn't appeal to me. I will write this in defense of the swerve that didn't thrill me: as a choice, it side-stepped a couple of path-beaten tropes of the Noir genre, so I'll give it that.

As for the "mystery": I didn't need to have a mystery (and I didn't know it had one), but I like that it was actually revealed! That is not a choice a lot of creators make, and yeah... they hit it. I can't say I "guessed" the answer, but I had it as one of two options... I kinda liked my other option, but functionally it was the same.

I liked that there were clues to both the case and the mystery strewn about, both subtle and blunt. As a fan of narrative (and dogs) I picked up on the "mysteries" clues PDQ with the cinematic flashes, the conversation about the drinking habits sealed the deal. I was embarrassed at missing one of the "case" clues!

Project #55: The Cell

Tarsem Singh is a personal fav of mine, but his filmography is a messy one. Since we'd already watched The Fall this still stands as a visual ride and since my son is working on a story that might benefit from this particular inspiration, I figured it was something worth showing.

On the whole, does it hold up? Depends what you want from the simplistic plot structure. I think it actually does a lot of things smartly and maybe even smarter than the goals at the outset. The resolutions feel earned and justifiable and empathetic all around, which takes some doing. The visuals remain impactful.

Not really a hidden gem of a movie, but more a worthwhile stop on the journey. A reminder that the medium is visual more than narrative sometimes.

To speak to a private comment, I wanted to be public that I really enjoyed Sugar. I spent a little time looking at reviews, and it looks like there are two poles of opinion:

One is mostly by professional critics, who clearly did not know what was coming... they all seem to think it was diminished by the last two episodes. The other opinion is people who enjoyed it enough at the start, and then were fully engaged with it by the end.

I'm definitely in the latter camp. Furthermore, several of the reviews from the first camp got under my skin... because what the critics I'm referencing wrote that they didn't like was that this very tropey noir crime story that they had been enjoying had more to it than just a checklist of genre bits. One critic went so far to say that he thinks it would have been better if the "mystery" was known from the get-go!

What I think these critics have missed is this: to this (points to self) fan of the pulp detective genre, if Sugar had only been a show about that case... it would have been a strictly write-by-the-numbers show. Not only did it turn out to be more than that, it actually explained why, to someone (like me) who was cataloguing genre tropes and wondering why, the production was leaning so hard into them. It is as if the critics were expecting a lazier show, and got upset that they didn't even realize there was a mystery, and that the mystery was actually going to be revealed and resolved!

Sugar isn't constructed like other "puzzle box" TV shows, and I love it for that. I certainly hope there is a second season, but not because I crave any resolution... I think there is a chance to co-opt/subvert a different crime fiction "genre", and it is one I am not as familiar with so I'd like to see what the team can do. That genre? "Sh!" My guess:

We've watched the first three eps of Star Wars: The Acolyte.


First things first, I hate the "fans" of this show that only seek to tear things down. There's a pile of grifters online who only exist to try to become the next fandom menace/RLM, and they've fully embraced all the bigotry and idiocy you'd expect.

For something different though, some pros and cons.

Pros:

1. Great cast
2. Love the martial arts/Wuxia focus they're taking.
3. Very diverse setting, including zero traces of the Skywalker bloodline so far.
4. Nailing the stagnant, falling empire vibes that the prequels barely hinted at.
5. Murder mystery/revenge story where you've (at least so far) got no real heroes or villains. IE, Star Wars Noir.

Cons:
1. Typical Star Wars weirdness of "single biome planet with exactly one settlement in the middle of nowhere." Maybe that's your vibe, but I'd love to see a more realistic planet at some point.
2. Some very clunky police procedural issues.
3. The Jedi feel more like Vulcans than Jedi.
(Note: 2 and 3 are Cons, but they also kind of feed into the Pro #4 above. "Are these people that dumb, or are they so used to being obeyed that they don't think anyone could doubt them?)
4. Some painful portmanteaus. So the main character is a "meknik." She's a talented space mechanic. But they're obviously reaching to make up a new term. It just sounds...off...every time they say it.
5. The Main character's name. It's Osha. Sometimes they pronounce it O-shee, but mostly it's pronounced O-Shaw. Which takes me right out of the show because it sounds like the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. We could have made a very small change and it would have been better.

So overall, those cons are pretty lightweight. Check it out if you're into Star Wars.

The Acolyte is in the queue. I think I'm going to binge Interview with a Vampire S2 first.

Kind of related, but I love that Disney isn’t dropping whole seasons at once. Amazon and Netflix still are. I’m sure there’s business reasons, but Fallout hit, was praised, and now it’s done. They could have had weeks worth of pop culture market share.

X-Men ‘97 and Acolyte are weeklies. People talk. They have time to think and discuss. It’s so much smarter.

I prefer the "all at once" model. Some of this goes back to the times when "critics" would get (almost) all episodes of a weekly program, and it always rubbed me the wrong way... there was some jealousy of course, but mostly I felt that I wasn't getting an honest review of what was being delivered to the hoi polloi. I got a sense from some TV critics that they soured on some shows because they didn't get "early access". There is at least one pulp culture podcast where I am certain that the hosts haven't stuck with a (recommended!) TV show after watching their 4-episode screeners... because they've admitted it! It's not like The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt is a hard watch, nor would it be if it got rave reviews.

For many years, I simply haven't been in the mood to try to stay engaged with a weekly show. Sometimes I'll let them accumulate and watch before the show completes, often I just wait until the show is done. Recently: I'm watching Doctor Who in two-episode batches, I binged Sugar, I split Star Trek: Discovery and X-Men '97 into essentially two parts. I will almost certainly watch House of the Dragon weekly, but that's because a favored podcast of mine will be covering it.

Inside Out 2:

Quick review: It's good.

For me, it's better than the first.

As someone who takes lexapro to deal with a generalized anxiety disorder? It’s amazing. I felt seen throughout. Wild that we’re getting movies that tackle this stuff in an approachable way.

Project #56: Midnight Run

It happens to coincide with the Blank Check podcast, but this was also a blind spot of mine, so it served as a good entry as its reputation was always considerable.

He enjoyed it without reservation and considered it an airtight story. Hard to argue. Never gets too heavy, but still feels grounded.

If you're like me and you just haven't gotten around to it, it's on Prime (thankfully without commercials) and generally available out in the world, and it's a good time.

Went to a double header of X and Pearl last night to get ready for the release of MaXXXine.

Well... that turned into a double header of X and MaXXXine: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/mo...ng-1235928614/

My buddy and I were shook haha. If you are a fan of the X/Pearl series then you'll love Maxxxine. It's a love letter to the sleazy 80s VHS horror movies as much as X was one to 70s horror. Mia Goth continues to shine as Ti West's muse. Looking forward to what's next for both of them.

I finished up Monsieur Spade, a 6-episode TV series that epilogues the life of Dashiell Hammett's Sam Spade character. The Maltese Falcon is the only work of Hammett's I've read (so no "Continental Op" either) but I'm familiar with The Thin Man movie franchise. Hammett was a victim of Communist hunts, so I suspect this may be partially why I didn't have as much exposure to his works as I have had to Raymond Chandler's.

I enjoyed this series, a lot. It's set in the French countryside of 1955/1963, where the titular detective has retired. The series is constructed as an interesting mystery, with a large cast of mysterious characters. Individual episodes are well-constructed, although there are about 15 minutes in the finale that feel like they were included to serve as the footnotes to completely explain what happened. If I'm being honest, that was the sort of thing *I* don't need to enjoy a noir-ish mystery, but I suppose if it hadn't been included there would be a lot of grumpy viewers demanding "answers". I'd like to see a director's cut that doesn't include any of that. The 15 minutes prior to those 15 minutes escalate things in such a manic way that I can forgive them.

Be aware that this is not entirely in English. I speak a little French, and even less Arabic, so I relied on subtitles for most of the conversations not in English. There is quite a bit of post-WWII/mid-century French politics, but this subtext is made text when required by the story.

Ultimately I felt that this production was very true to the noir mystery genre. The retired Sam Spade felt a little bit more like the retired Philip Marlowe (to me), because Spade was 100% likeable in this production... something he isn't in The Maltese Falcon. Only (the ghost of) one other character from that novel appears in the form of Brigid O'Shaughnessy's daughter. The actress playing the daughter does a great job channeling her fictional mother, she definitely earned her second-to-top billing.

This was well-produced and clever enough of a story that ends in a way such that I'd be happy to see the creative team produce another series, but I'm left completely satisfied.

Finally got around to watching Jim Henson: Idea Man. It’s absolutely fantastic, chock full of the kinds of directorial tricks that Henson himself was so fond of and Ron Howard clearly understands, and a great combination of onscreen and behind the scenes footage so you get a fairly comprehensive view of Jim’s life and career. I only wish it had been made a decade and change earlier, as so many people who could have had so many more things to say about Jim were gone before this movie got made. Many of them are present via archival footage, but it would have been nice if this could have been made before Jane Henson, Jerry Nelson, and Carroll Spinney to name a few had also passed away.

I watched Colossal, a film that was word-of-mouthed as a Kaiju movie about alcoholism and self-destructive behavior but turns out to be a film about (different types) of toxic masculinity. I was pleasantly surprised.

I'm still slowly working through the latest season of Doctor Who, I haven't been disappointed yet... despite not liking the "Ruby Sunday" as the too-common-in-the-reboot-era combination of seasonal plot device and magic-pixie-dream-girl. The episode 73 Yards did a good job slightly dulling that criticism as the character in question did a take on "The Lone Centurion" and did something I like: use the (IMO, somewhat dumb) "scary monster mystery" to resolve one of the episodes' problems... without really explaining anything. Often the DW team has left me feeling colds with these, but in this episode I rather liked it. Ruby as a clear-thinking adult definitely felt different than many of the other (contemporary) companions.