Ho Goddamned Ho

Ah, the holiday season: where manners go south because every motherfucker's full of the fuckin' festive spirit.

It's not all mistletoe and armour-piercing ammunition, but: thanks to those open source elves in Hollywood, we can hide out in our entertainment dens with screeners like Quentin Tarantino's The Hateful Eight…


"The Hateful Eight" by Source (WP:NFCC#4). Licensed under Fair use via Wikipedia.

… Ryan Coogler's Creed…


"Creed poster" by Source. Licensed under Fair use via Wikipedia.

… and for the little woman in your life, Todd Haynes' Carol.


"Carol (film) POSTER" by Source. Licensed under Fair use via Wikipedia.

Happy holidays.

Marvel's Agents of SHIELD S03E01 (ABC, 2013–)

"Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. title 2" by Source. Licensed under Fair use via Wikipedia.

I've been enjoying The Flash and Arrow so much that I've totes forgot that this rival comic-book show is being broadcast at the same time.

Per this post's title, I did start watching this season opener and… I dunno. Meh. Meh enhanced humans meh super meh conspiracy meh Nick Fury meh meh meh. According to my viewing diary, I've watched the first fifteen minutes of this ep twice and I couldn't tell you the first goddamned thing about those lost thirty minutes of my life.

I think I can safely and responsibly say the cause of my apathy is that this show has been, despite the involvement of Joss “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” Whedon, consistently underwhelming. Remove Clark Gregg's quippy Agent Coulson and this ensemble piece implodes without trace.

I'm almost tempted to wonder why I sat through the first two seasons of this show.

Almost tempted.

The Walking Dead S06E01–04 (AMC, 2015)

I'm a big fan of the comic: each month's issue is devoured with equal parts zombie blind-hunger and the gut-churning fear of a lone survivor. Creator Robert Kirkman's desire to explore a post-zombie-apocalypse world is producing a work that's as soulful, ruthless and savage as Cormac McCarthy's The Road. It's awesome serial story telling that I dread but look forward to each month.

Then there's the television show it inspired. The intelligent promise of Frank Darabont's first season was not delivered in the following two seasons. That was mostly because broadcast AMC dumped Darabont after S01, and S02–03 were other people trying to pick up the mantle and resorting to things I hate about zombie film and television (for example, the characters' terrible habit of not paying due attention to their continuously hostile environment). The seasons following Darabont's departure were also boring as, man. So I gave up after S03.

In the years since, I tried the odd ep, watching as much of a random ep or season opener as I could stand (because it was usually boring, stupid, or both). The comic is so good — I know they're very different beasts, the comic and the television show — but somehow I guess I thought that surely the show might reach some kind of parity in its quality of story telling.
Which brings me to S06. I've devoured the first four eps in short order, and it hasn't been boring. The main characters — those that've survived from S01 — have changed and grown so much and in such different ways as to be rivetting to watch. The show has captured the essence of What are you prepared to do to survive? and the cost that that entails.

I'll keep watching this season. Even if it deteriorates into standard zombie tropes and cliches and I don't finish the season, it'll be interesting to drop in on the show next year or the year after, to see who's still alive, and what they've become.

Wayward Pines S01E01–07 (Fox, 2015)

"Wayward Pines Intertitle" by Source. Licensed under Fair use via Wikipedia.

A Secret Service agent awakens in a Twin Peaks-vibe rural town where All Is Not What It Seems: people won't give him a straight answer, there's all sorts of strange and suspicious behaviour — you get the deal.

By the fifth ep, All Is Revealed, and our protagonist — for Very Good Reason — becomes that which he loathed and struggled mightily against at the beginning of the show. So far, so so, with intriguing themes of surveillance state, conformism, and the greater good underlying the action.

And then ham-fisted execution, sub-sub-sub-Hitchcockian left-hand-not-knowing-what-the-right-hand's-doing bullshit, stupid stupid stupid character u-turns, and — ah, fuck it.

Confidence was never high for this show.

Terminator: Genisys (2015; Alan Taylor / Laeta Kalogridis and Patrick Lussier)

The trailer didn't really set me aflame.

Game of Thrones helmer Taylor and the original Terminator hisself, Arnold Schwarzenegger, were big enough drawcards to not overly worry about the casting of Jai Courtenay (from the execrable A Good Day to Die Hard), Emilia Clarke (replacing the irreplaceable Linda Hamilton), and Jason Clarke (who does great work in straight drama like Zero Dark Thirty but somehow manages to be awkward and unconvincing in genre pieces like Dawn of the Planet of the Apes).

So. Genisys didn't suck as much ass as the slavishly PG-13 Rise of the Machines or the clusterfuck of Salvation, but Jesus H Fucking Christ did it feel like it was written by committee. The dialogue was flat with exposition. The plotting was tepid. The logic — oi vey — was non-existent. I actually began to feel sorry for all involved when I was watching this.

I'm glad the rights revert to Mr Cameron after this instalment. 

The Americans (FX, 2013–)

The Americans is a period drama that takes its time to build characters and relationships, benefits from production design that silently and completely builds worlds, and is founded on writing that is just awesome in its understatement.

For a show that is set in the 1980s and begins with the almost risible situation of an FBI agent innocently moving his family into the same street where deep-cover Soviet agents are already well established, this is — according to an entry in my viewing diary — gut-churningly awesome.


Like any reasonably successful television show, it uses the ideas of family, relationships, and character to tell good stories. Where it differs from most others is — aside from its engine and setting — in how it uses those same ideas for its own ends: family —the Soviet agents' teen children are unaware they are part of their parents' cover; relationships —when the FBI agent turns a Russian embassy employee by having an affair with them, is he working an asset or is he being unfaithful to his wife? and character —how does each Soviet agent hold onto his or her core values after years of living in a democratic and capitalist environment?

Heavy stuff, I know — there's guns, sex, and spy stuff if you really only want that kind of stuff — but there's so much more to savour and enjoy.

The best drama really is on the box these days.

Essential viewing.

Powers S01E05

It's the Game of Thrones season finale tonight but the Better Half is out and since my box-watching plate is a little light, I thought, “Was Powers really as shit as I thought?”

I could've tolerated its anaemic 37-minute running time, forgiven how it reused footage from the previous and current ep several times over in some kind of present-day-flashback-suspenseful-character-dynamic-building narrative device, and waited out a pace as slow as a well-meaning am-dram parlour piece. (I've been here before: I watched all 800 fucking hours of The Cult so I'm a goddamned TV watching badass.)

So when two female superheroines arrive to rescue our mere mortal protagonist, and the first one — having been expressly warned to never turn her back on the superpowered antagonist —turns her back not once but twice and is swept aside, and the second one has a glass jaw, I'm like, “Yeah, this is shit, alright.”

Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015; Matthew Vaughan / Jane Goldman and Vaughan)

After watching Samuel L Motherfucking Jackson's villain defeated by Colin Firth, Mark Strong and Michael Caine as the eponymous Kingsmen I couldn't help thinking: If you're a gazillionaire with the resources and willingness to save the planet, and you happen to be a person of colour, a bunch of honkies with delusions of knights and chivalry will stop you and protect the status quo.

Chappie (2015; Neill Blomkamp / Blomkamp and Terri Tatchell)

District 9 just fuckin' rocked, didn't it? Social commentary as sci-fi action film, it had awesome, eye-popping tech, smart, adaptable and resourceful villains, and a protagonist that was classic Joe Campbell.

The long-awaited Elysium had a jaw-dropping trailer and premise but the final product was really just District 9 on a bigger scale. I hoped it was just a sophomoric misstep.

Watching Chappie is like watching a very expensive assembly of the dumbest parts of Star Wars Episodes I–III, Return of the Jedi, and Robocop 2 and 3: a tedious asssult of infantile characterisation and insulting story-telling that no amount of action can save.

Meh.

Daredevil S01 (Netflix, 2015–)

The casting is what got me interested: the always — always — awesome Vincent D'Onofrio as the villain, and the ever underrated Scott Glenn as a crotchety ol' cuss of a mentor. A wonderful surprise is Rosario Dawson who has the best lines and chemistry with lead Charlie Cox who inhabits the character well enough but is surprisingly the least interesting thing in Daredevil.

Overall, the show hits the right notes, taking cues from each of the Frank Miller and Brian Michael Bendis runs that respectively humanised and grounded the character in the comics, and efficiently builds a world — nay, an arena — for hours of future fun.

Recommended.

Arrow S03E10

There’s a first time for everything: the moment I recognised Vinnie Jones voice, followed by the reveal of his mug, I thought, Yeeesssss.

Justified — Series End

After six seasons, Justified called time on its run, and it's a damn' cryin' shame, too.

Better to quit while you're ahead, but. Seasons one and two remain the standouts, with this final season a not-all-that-close-but-still-decent third. A bit like its sidewindin' dialogue, the other seasons meandered a little, even repeated itself some, but Harlan County was always a welcome place to spend thirteen hours each year.

The show captured Elmore Leonard's ear for dialogue and eye for character, the guest and supporting characters often stealing scenes and hearts with their tiny and often tragic arcs. I'll miss Damon Herriman's little-boy-lost Dewey Crowe, Duke Davis Roberts' Forrest Gump-gazzumping Choo Choo, and Ron Eldard's foggy-stoner-killer Colt just as much as Marshall Raylan Givens and his nemesis, Boyd Crowder.

Good enough to buy and add to the collection.

Better Call Saul S01E10

… Is that it? A season ender that is more well-uh…-okay than gosh-gee-I-can't-wait-for-season-two? What just happened? Do I care?

Powers S01E03

What makes the comic so much fun (and damned good) is the chain-linking of fully realised characters cracking wise as their actions propel the plot.

What makes the small-box adaptation such a disappointment is the absence of believable characterisation (thanks in large part to shit dialogue) and plotting that makes each forty-minute-plus ep feel like eight fucking hours.

Sheeeit.

Dirty? Never.

On the local rag was this sissy pants apologising for exercising choice.

When the choice is between Telecom Spark's Lightbox (hey, you remember when you fucked your customers over when you had a monopoly?), or Sky's Neon (why would I give my hard-earned money to this fuckin' cable monopoly?) or Netflix (bringing you Netflix content… except that which has already been licensed by Sky or Spark or whoever the fuck), I'll make my own way, thank you very much.

Because I has internet.

Powers Pilot (Playstation Network, 2015)

Ten minutes in and they've repeated the backstory for our lead character Detective Christian Walker (Sharlto Copley) what feels like four fucking times.

The dialogue is — there's no other way of putting it — shitty boring-arse exposition, the pacing is slow and meandering, the actors are game, the casting is interesting — besides Copley there's Noah Taylor and Eddie Izzard — and blah blah blah snoooore.

I've read that things don't improve until ep three but ten minutes in, my love for the comic may not be enough to wade through this rubbish.

… I've watched worse, but.

Bosch S01E01–03 (Amazon Studios, 2014)

The guy who played the antagonistic D.A. from The Good Wife. The guy who played the up-and-coming kingpin from The Wire. The kid from Iron Eagle. A truckload of faintly recognisable character actors. Even behind the camera there's heavyweights from Wire, Homicide: Life on the Street, and Law & Order.

So why is this procedural so goddamned boring? Lead Welliver is stoic in his portrayal; sidekick Hector has fun being a clothes-horse detective partner; Gedrick shines with an understated performance as a serial killer. The supporting characters provide welcome moments of levity and wit that are sorely lacking from the eponymous lead's interactions with everyone.

Could it be I'm so used to Welliver playing dicks that I'm just having trouble buying him as a hero? Or could it be his channelling of Gary Cooper's High Noon performance is just one-note and tiresome?

Guh.