Apple TV's Invasion review

This show is the definition of the slow burn. 

There’s a saying about the military: it’s 99% boredom and routine, and 1% sheer terror. 

Invasion gets the first part right. 

That statement is hyperbole (and framed the way a teacher I had would). Nevertheless, a maxim in modern Hollywood is that you have to get to the Promise of the Premise FAST. Streaming presents us with a bajillion shows to pick from, so if you don’t catch the audience quick, they’ll click. 

Admittedly I sometimes don’t bother with a show that doesn’t grab me until/unless someone (or several someones) recommends it. And if something doesn’t intrigue me, if I don’t feel trust in the show runners right away, I will click away. That’s far from fair, and all on my deteriorating attention span. 

In light of that, Invasion’s somnambulant pacing is defiantly radical. Movies today are faster paced and include more cuts than in the 1980s, partly because they had to splice physical film back then, and now it can be done digitally; Fury Road had ten times as many cuts as The Road Warrior, for example. It can be too much, yet here the more lackadaisical pacing just didn’t work for me.

It follows 4-5 different character journeys, switching between storylines that (mostly) intersect towards the end. Some are far more engaging than others. Sam Neil leads one stream (which got me to tune in), but it's a Sean Bean fake out.

There one minute, gone the next

It doesn’t help that the show is dark. It’s shot with naturalistic lighting, and the aliens (when they finally appear) are only seen at night or in dim interiors. This accentuates the menace of the unknown, but also frustrates. 

Maybe they did it because their FX budget couldn’t withstand daylight. Honestly, that’s fair, you have to work within the production limits you’ve got. The show looks very good, at least what you can see of it. 

With the exception of one character thread that follows a Japanese aerospace prodigy (all in Japanese with subtitles, which was frustrating because I wanted to also draw while watching), everything is viewed from a plebeian POV. We see people trying to manage their day to day lives in the midst of (somewhat vague) chaos. There is no rah-rah 'Ride of the F16’s'. This isn’t Tom Cruise or Will Smith type alien butt-kicking fare, it’s far more naturalistic, following ordinary people. It’s more brooding and moody than explosive and energetic, which can be wonderful when done right.

By far our most capable cast member

The leads are far from paragons of virtue; they’re warty and flawed. Great to have nuance. Unfortunately, they’re not likeable or compelling, and they make some painfully dumb decisions, all to amp up tension (admittedly very common in horror films). That came at the cost of empathy: I started rooting for the alien monsters. 

The climax smacks of both Independence Day and War of the Worlds, the grand daddy of all alien invasions. 

I suspect Invasion succeeds or fails based on whether or not you like the characters. It’s well produced and well acted. The dialogue is naturalistic and worked well enough for me that it wasn’t distracting. 

Unfortunately, while it has many of the elements I like, the slow pace and unlikeable characters made it a swing and a miss. 

Spiderman: Across the Spider-Verse review

Hands down the most radical, unrestrained, gobsmacking, visually creative animated film I’ve ever seen.

Well. 

Other than the first one.

Watching Across is like main-lining pure creativity. It’s a kinetic, visual cacophony of cinema marvels. 

On the downside, it’s exhausting. Innovative approaches are jam packed into every frame. It’s so radically different, it overwhelms.

All kinds of sweet gee-jaws, evoking printed comics, saturate the film: half-tone dots shade character faces, colours are shown with slight off-register, scenes morph from 3-D backgrounds to beautiful pastel paintings. Characters change colour based on mood. People from other dimensions may be made of paper, scratchy scribbles, or LEGO. Frames are dropped from character movement, creating a staccato jerkiness that gets across the idea of watching moving pictures. Trips between universes are accompanied by kaleidoscope FX rainbows. Visual representations of emotion, and sound effects, punctuate important moments. 

The direction is as kinetic and super-powered as the heroes, spiralling around and through them (in the case of the villain), then pulling back for serene scene setting long shots. 

Across relentlessly pushes the boundaries of animation, taking the medium to infinity and beyond.

Pixar films are beautiful, but they’re not radical. This? This is radical artiste experimentalism in pop-culture packaging. 

Unfortunately, you can have too much goodness. The movie is over two hours long; shorter, discrete episodes might be more enjoyable for my limited attention span. I wanted to freeze frame and have captions (the dialogue can be hard to catch at time, it’s so rapid fire). 

Story wise, Across doesn’t hold back; it pummels the audience with The Multiverse’s kitchen sink. 

Thankfully, Verse movies are grounded in authentic character moments. Without them, it might just be a gorgeous way to induce an epileptic seizure. Miles is an endearing lead, and the Morales’ family dynamic equally so. Even the villain has his charms. And Spider-Gwen is well matched with Miles. The other bajillion Spider-men (including an Indian one) are icing on the Spider-cake. 

The film relentlessly barrels towards its no-holds-barred… To Be Continued. 

Which is fine by me, I don’t think I could have taken any more in one sitting. 

The story isn’t tight, but the characters and the visual spectacle are so incredibly enthralling it doesn’t matter.

In the theatre, it's an overwhelming visual feast; I look forward to watching it again at home, in smaller (both screen scale and time) doses. 

There’s nothing else like it. 

Radical, energetic, barely controlled creative chaos the likes of which I've rarely seen, it's audacity and innovative ferocity is breathtaking to behold.

It's genius in motion.

Highly, highly recommended… albeit not for everyone. 

High versus low art in film: Lynch vs Spielberg smackdown!

Yin vs Yang

David Lynch is an exemplary film maker, but his work is not for everyone. Lynch's foray into blockbuster territory (Dune) was a bomb (I still love it's weirdness). He has difficulty raising large amounts of cash for his (personal) projects. 

Steven Spielberg is the opposite: the Main Man has his finger on the pulse of the people. His films are colossal blockbusters that have redefined cinema and summer movie going. Studios salivate to fund his films, and spend more, much more, knowing Spielberg is at the helm. 

A Spielberg flick is one of the surest bets you can make in Hollywood. And obviosuly he, too, is an exemplary filmmaker.

So... which is better? 

That depends on your point of view, and what you value. 

From a certain point of view, this article is true.

I’ve been lectured by professional writers that the best films are the ones that make the biggest box office. Studio execs no doubt largely agree: the Hollywood machine is a business, it has a bottom line, and they need to make oodles of greenbacks to fund their lavish lifestyles… and fund bigger and more spectacular films. 

And yet, it isn’t that simple. 

Award season exists, prestige films still get funded, despite studios knowing full well that, unlike Barbie, Women Talking isn’t going to be a global summer blockbuster. But so what?

Populist and elitist streams exist in cinema and they rarely meet. One leans  thoughtful and introspective, the other towards thrill rides and escapist fun. One is in danger of being pretentious, the other of pandering.

But every now and then, the streams cross and you get an instant all-audience classic.

Do what you shouldn't do?

Sometimes this is immediately obvious, as the film generates both box office and critical conversation over pie. Populist films are sometimes re-evaluated in the years, and decades, after release. The initial critical disdain for tropes, archetypes and action gives way to a realization that the film was superbly executed and speaks to the human experience on a level that wasn’t obvious on first viewing. 

Filmmakers like Lynch struggle to find broader recognition. While vetted at prestige film festivals, their sensibility doesn’t resonate with the mass audience. Sometimes, they find their place in genre cinema and successfully dwell on the edges of the industry. Others are ‘artsy’ or intellectual enough to be hailed by critics for eschewing the typical and titillating the elitist palate. 

And I get it. Professional critics prefer the different, because they’re drowning in mass produced typical. They become bug eyed, gollum-like creatures, gaunt and pallid from watching movies all day, every day. Like I did during COVID lockdown.

On top of that, I’m old enough to have seen multiple reboots of blockbusters past, I’m tired of it. Honestly, if you’ve seen ten superhero movies, you’ve seen them all. Same for some long running TV shows that are caught in an infinite franchise premise loop, endlessly recycling a mushy scene and premise puree.  

These are film flavours for the masses, visual equivalents to chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry. And they’re great. But after awhile, people crave something… different. Rocky Road or Heavenly Hash.

You’re less likely to be truly surprised by a typical blockbuster than the most artfully crafted of art cinema (but there are notable exceptions that become event cinema, such as we've recently seen). Going off the beaten path will interest those tired of treading the same old same old, but that will annoy the majority who are looking for the well trodden path. We don't always want the unexpected.

Franchises have risen to dominate film and television during my lifetime. What’s a franchise? Take it as a simple outline of what happens… every time. A plucky gang of kids investigates paranormal mysteries and exposes them as frauds, for example. Familiarity is the appeal, so characters tend not to change. We’re not going to see Sherlock Holmes pivot to politics or become a tax auditor. People want him to be a detective, and so a detective he remains. Forever caught in amber, repeating the same loops. Westworld was as much a commentary on robots as it was on franchises and entertainment itself.

There’s a saying: people watch TV for character, and film for plot. I don’t remember a lot of plots from Star Trek, Fringe, Seinfeld (okay it was a kind of anti-plot show), or WKRP in Cincinnati. But the characters? Loved them. 

But.. what if you have a film franchise? 

How much did Indiana Jones change? Dominic Toretto? 

Is Ethan Hunt really any different now? 

They’re essentially huge budget TV episodes on gigantic screens. 

Elitist disdain for populist films compelled Spielberg to stretch into more niche, high brow works, in an effort to get that sweet, sweet elitist recognition. To be recognized by the chi-chi cognoscenti. 

On the one hand, I don’t think he should have felt such a pivot was necessary. Populist art ties into our common humanity, and to do that well requires every bit as much artistry and talent as the so-called high art. On the other, I’m glad he did, because he’s an interesting filmmaker, whatever he does.

The niche and the populist have their place and purpose, and entertainment would be lesser without both.

In this argument, there is no spoon. 

It's CGI, man!

Girls gone wild: Yellowjackets review

What goes up...

WARNING: SPOILERS

Season one of Yellowjackets was different and fun. The show's basically Lord of the Flies with girls, and it switches from their ordeal in the wilderness to the characters some 30 years later. 

The young ladies in question are members of a ruthlessly competitive girls soccer team, who are heading off to the world championships, when their chartered plane goes down in the Canadian wilderness. God knows we have enough wilderness to go around, enough for a thousand such shows. 

You'd think there'd be moose. Or beavers. Or at least horse flies. Nope.

Things get nasty quick. One nerdy little girl, the outcast of the bunch, takes immediate charge and cuts off the injured coaches mangled leg, which is caught under a piece of the aircraft. She's taken all the first aid courses there were on offer, and knows her stuff. 

Unfortunately, she quickly becomes addicted to her new valued status. 

Things get worse from there. Much, much worse.

Exactly what is left to our imaginations, at first. But it is heavily implied that as little as four or five people survive.

The very opening scenes show the girls hunting one of their own members, wearing masks, and performing what look like cannibalistic rituals. 

But we don't get to that state again in season one. It's a teaser to hook viewers in with the promise of the premise which they seem to mostly forget about.

Instead we cut to the girls later in life, when they've settled down into dull, domestic not-so-bliss. At first, there are only three. It seems the wilderness was a bloodbath that few returned from... until they introduce another survivor. 

And another. 

And another. 

And so on. 

It's like a shampoo ad, and the longer it goes on, the lower the dramatic stakes become. 

The show dives deep into the characters to the point of disinterest. The navel gazing is extensive and probing, and not recommended for carbon fibre hulls. But the actors are fabulous, and they do well with what they are given. It's an abundance of riches, which will suit some tastes more than others.

The scenes with the kids in the wilderness were even more compelling, with higher stakes. Whenever a 'now' scene rolls by, the urge to fast forward soon strikes, especially later in the season. 

Yet the wilderness family cannibal adventure is well worth watching, and I recommended the show to friends. I liked the heavy hints of the supernatural, that there were otherworldly forces dwelling in that forest, and had confidence the showrunners wouldn't drop the ball.

Then season two landed. 

The ball wasn't just dropped, it was lost entirely.

The scenes in the present became meandering and self-indulgent. 

Back in the wilderness, the vague supernatural forces hinted at earlier are... hinted at again and again. There's enough vague hinting to constitute trolling.

One character sits with her best dead frozen friend for three months, doing her hair and makeup before casually eating her ear. Because of course she did. Her friends find out about her freezer zombie ear parties, and decide enough is enough, they'll burn the corpse. 

You'd think that'd be the end of that. But wait! Vague maybe-sort-of-kinda supernatural forces drop a pile of snow on the funeral pyre, and voila, the corpse comes out like a braised butterball turkey. The girls then crowd around and chow down.

That got a guffaw. Not the response the show runners were hoping for, I suspect. Maybe they were going for horror or revulsion or something. All I could see was mouth watering Butterball.

The famine angle is mentioned, but not consistently, and the girls didn't behave or look starved. Obviously, they can't starve aspiring actresses. I mean, this isn't a Stanley Kubrick show. 

A few skipped episodes later was the finale, because that's all I could stand to watch. It was silly and pat. The central mom continued her death spiral into awfulness, hoping to one day to join the esteemed ranks of Dexter, Walter White and Tony Soprano. Or maybe not.  

Few shows so intriguing became so awful so quickly. Yellowjackets, like Icarus, soared high and then plummeted straight down and pancaked into pavement. Well. Icarus went into the sea, but you get the idea. 

Of course, I am not the target audience, so your mileage may be much better. For your sake, I sure hope so.

Yellowjackets would be an interesting subject for a screen writing class.

War of the Roses and Medieval Genealogy ChatGPTrees

They begat and begat and begat until one day God said, "Stop fucking around!"

So I was looking into how Henry VI of Lancaster was related to the York leader Richard Plantagenet, for reasons that will soon become clear. I decided to pose the question to ChatGPT, because I’m lazy and genealogy gives me a headache:

Edward III was the grandfather of Henry VI. The lineage connecting them is as follows:

Edward III (1312-1377): Edward III was the King of England from 1327 until his death in 1377. He was married to Philippa of Hainault, with whom he had several children.

John of Gaunt (1340-1399): John of Gaunt was the third surviving son of Edward III. He married three times and had numerous children, including an illegitimate line of Beaufort descendants.

John Beaufort, 1st Earl of Somerset (1373-1410): John Beaufort was the eldest son of John of Gaunt from his relationship with Katherine Swynford. He was later legitimized by King Richard II. John Beaufort's descendants were known as the House of Beaufort.

John Beaufort, 1st Duke of Somerset (1404-1444): John Beaufort, the great-grandson of John of Gaunt, was elevated to the title of Duke of Somerset. He married Margaret Beauchamp, and their son was Henry Beaufort, 2nd Duke of Somerset.

Edmund Beaufort, 2nd Duke of Somerset (1406-1455): Edmund Beaufort was the brother of John Beaufort, 1st Duke of Somerset. He succeeded his brother as the 2nd Duke of Somerset. Edmund Beaufort's son was Henry Beaufort, 3rd Duke of Somerset.

Henry Beaufort, 3rd Duke of Somerset (1436-1464): Henry Beaufort, the son of Edmund Beaufort, was the 3rd Duke of Somerset. He was a prominent Lancastrian during the Wars of the Roses and a key figure in the reign of Henry VI.

Henry VI (1421-1471): Henry VI was the son of Henry V and Catherine of Valois. He became the King of England in 1422 as an infant and his reign was marked by political instability and the Wars of the Roses. He was a Lancastrian monarch.

Thus, Edward III was the grandfather of Henry VI through his son John of Gaunt and subsequent generations of the Beaufort family.

And this is why I hate the Middle Ages.

Extraction 1.0 and 2.0 review

Was it live or AI?

What a great video game walkthrough! 

Or was it a movie? 

The lead sure looked like Chris Hemsworth, but he wasn't jokey/goofy. So hard to tell. Could have been AI. Like Salma Hayek in Black Mirror.

Extraction is eerily like watching someone play a video game: long action sequences that morph into car chases, then foot chases, train chases and then more action scenes. 

Every now and then there is a cut scene where the actors emote and cry. 

Then it's right back into astonishingly long single shot action scenes. 

The action here is incredibly intense and visceral. You can almost feel the pain of the blows; it's not clean or antiseptic. That was quite well done, although most people (all people?) would be dead long before the characters in the film after taking that much punishment.

So fabulously well done action flick from a technical point of view. Very bare bones, plot and character wise. If you're good with that, you'll love Extraction. It's incredibly well done for what it is. 

If you want a more involved story, and aren't keen on 90 minutes of stabbing, shooting, pummelling, kicking, eviscerating, hacking, exploding and decapitating(?), then maybe this movie isn't for you. 

I have just one question: can Salma Hayek star in the next one?

Commute Density Graph for Toronto

Basically, the best time to drive is 5 AM Mon-Friday:

Somehow I don't see myself rearranging my schedule. 

On the flip side, there's a black hole Thursday afternoon around 2:30 PM that sucks cars into a super density black hole from which they'll never reappear, and which will ultimately destroy the entire planet.

Savage review of Mandalorian Season 3

The Pitch Meeting series I've really enjoyed watching over COVID lockdowns. It's one guy who plays both the screenwriter and the studio exec in an imagined pitch meeting for the film. He's usually got some sharp, or at least funny, insights.

This one? Savage. Absolutely savage:

Battle of Kursk: deja vu in Ukraine?

The Kursk Pimple

During the early months of 1943, the Nazis were rolled back hundreds of miles from Stalingrad, until they finally stabilized their defensive lines in Ukraine. The line was relatively straight, except for a large bulge into the German side, centred around the city of Kursk. 

The Germans decided to squeeze this obvious like a ginormous pimple.

But the Soviets could read a map, too, so they new exactly where the Nazis were going to attack (also thanks to intel from the British Ultra program and the Red Orchestra).

Hitler hemmed and hawed, waiting until more of his Wonder Weapons were ready before attacking. The Soviets used that extra time to pack the pimple with troops, tanks and artillery, wrapped them in pillboxes, trenches, and mines, and tied a great big kill zone bow on top.

One of Porche's Not-So-Wonder-Weapons: The Ferdinand Dud

When the Nazis finally did attack, they made slow and costly progress against fierce and entrenched Soviet resistance. The new Nazi tanks proved unreliable: they hadn't been tested long enough to work out all the mechanical problems, and many broke down and were abandoned before they even encountered the enemy.

Once the Nazis had spent their offensive power, the Soviets launched a massive counter attack, overwhelming the exhausted Germans and paving the way to Berlin. 

A painting of the carnage at Kursk

Sound disturbingly familiar?

The Ukrainian offensive is trying to cut off Russian supply lines to Crimea. The Russians know exactly what the Ukrainians want to do, and where they are likely to attack. 

And while the Ukrainians have been waiting for Western tanks and equipment (and better weather), the Russians have been creating multiple defensive bands, with pillboxes, trenches, mines, kill zones, etcetera. 

A zoomed out view of multiple Russian defensive lines in Ukraine

The Russians are really good at this, and they don't need especially skilled soldiers to pull it off.

Speaking of which, the Russkies just moved some 300,000 more men into the area.  

Heck, take a look at the Reuters page on the Russian defenses, they describe it better than I ever could.

Pundits set unrealistic expectations for the Ukrainian counter offensive during the spring (and no thanks to the spectacular Ukrainian success last year around Kharkov), and as such people are now looking in askance at seemingly lacklustre Ukrainian progress. Ukraine is reportedly going slow to preserve the lives of their troops and inflict Russian casualties. Fair enough!

Yet the longer the war goes on, the more damage to Ukraine, its people, and its economy. 

US General Ben Hodges was suggesting that Russia might be thrown out this summer, leading to an armistice. While that might still happen (Ukraine is cutting of Russian supply bridges to Crimea using missiles), it seems increasingly unlikely. 

But hope doth spring eternal!

The superficial view shows Ukraine bogged down in attritional fighting. Which is bad. Very bad.

What happens if Ukraine falls? Some pundits say that's as far as Putin and Co. will go. Which would be bad, especially for Ukraine, but not catastrophic. 

Others claim he's going to keep going, and will hit Moldova next, then the Baltic states. Which are in NATO. Which means potentially catastrophic escalation.

Which is bad for everybody.

It's in Russia's interests to sow fear and division in the West, to amp up escalation worries, and in so doing deprive Ukraine of needed assistance, so maybe that's all these fears are.

I think I'll go watch some TV.