So, in a general sense I love the setting and atmosphere of the show. I love stories that let us see passionate people at their jobs, and while Rubicon hasn’t gotten too involved in any specific assignment given to Will and his team, we do get Will obsessing over the crosswords pattern and what it might have to do with David’s death. We also get a glimpse at another analyst, Miles, and his inability to deal with the apparent ignoring of work he did foreseeing bloody conflict in Nigeria. Prior to the series opening, we get the sense that Will enjoyed the puzzles and patterns for their own sake, as a challenge and a distraction from his grieving over his late wife and child, but then a pattern emerges that affects his mentor and father-in-law. Suddenly the work means something. Meanwhile, Miles is too obsessed with the aftermath and results of his work to function properly on current assignments. He actually cares about the analysis he’s doing. The fairly abstract problem solving at the heart of the job proves compelling when the characters (and performances) are so passionate and involved in it.

On top of the crosswords puzzle, Will sees indications that he’s being followed after his first day on the job. As an audience, we know he’s being followed and watched so his paranoia and caution is completely justified for us. We also know that there is some sort of conspiratorial group of men with some sort of controlling agenda. We also see that the analysts have limited control over what data they receive for their assignments and again, what their analysis is or is not used for. As the personalized note on David’s chessboard said, these people are pawns. They’re small players in the grand scheme of things. Important perhaps, but also expendable and replaceable (as we see in David’s apparent death and even Tom’s). I’m extrapolating a bit, but we see that David has a host of superstitions that he acknowledges are silly but he still obeys them fully. This is David finding a way of exerting a sense of control over his life. The second episode provides a glimpse that Will might unconsciously see value in the same path, gripping the rabbit’s foot while being tailed through the streets and demanding that David’s broom (purchased to help avoid a curse) is returned to the office. A key theme of the show, it would seem, is the stifling and dehumanizing nature of an analyst’s job. They live secret lives far away from the levels of government with actionable power. Their purpose is to solve puzzles, find patterns, analyze the data and pass the conclusions on up the hierarchy. What happens before and after that, and even during to a certain extent, is beyond their control. Miles sees that sometimes this is all a fruitless exercise with the Nigeria situation, but cannot unconcern himself with it. Tanya takes to drinking after just two weeks on the job. Ed Bancroft’s mind was allegedly broken by the work. David took to controlling minute elements of his life through superstitious beliefs. Will has taken to a potentially dangerous investment in the crosswords puzzle and perhaps to a little superstition himself. What are these people doing to themselves, and for what?

At this point I have to highlight a recurring visual motif that I particularly appreciate. A couple times we see individuals dwarfed by highly geometric pieces of architecture. When Will first leaves the office before finding himself being followed, he walks passed a large building front with cross-cutting steel beams. The shots are composed with Will as a smaller figure at the bottom of the frame with the large metal pattern everywhere above him. At the end of the episode, even the men spying on Will are shown to be tiny figures compared to the large repeating window panes hiding the empty floor in which they’ve set up their stakeout. We get the sense that the conspiracy is vast and pervasive and pawns can be found on every side. To get ahead of the game, these pieces of architecture could also withstand the removal of one its elements without catastrophe. The same seems to be the case for the conspiracy.

The story begins with popular investigative journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist) being convicted of libel against a large corporation. It’s insinuated that he was set up, but that’s not very important. In six months’ time he’ll go to jail for a short while. This has little to do with the film except for forcing the character to resign from his magazine and suddenly find himself with six months of free time. That’s the perfect opportunity for an old business mogul, Henrik Vanger, to hire Blomkvist to investigate the apparent murder of his niece, Harriet, some 40 years ago. For various reasons, the likely culprit is a member of the Vanger family, which includes some former (?) Nazis. Coincidentally, Blomkvist had been babysat by Harriet as a child, which serves as a fairly obnoxious excuse for bad flashback glimpses of the two of them (in fact, all of the flashbacks are strangely but consistently poorly acted and blocked). Presumably these are meant to add some stakes to the investigation and humanize the victim, but they accomplish little on that front. They do contribute to a major clue late in the film, but this feels cheap as it’s so revealing but also so removed from 90% of the investigative work Blomkvist and the film put in.

Parallel to Blomkvist’s story is that of Lisbeth Salandan’s (Noomi Rapace). She’s an introverted hacker with a gothic asthetic who begins her strained involvement in the plot by checking out Blomkvist’s background for Henrik Vanger. She clears him as a reliable investigator who was probably set up, but for inexplicable reasons she continues to keep tabs on him even after the job is over. There is never any logical reason behind this besides being a necessary plot point to get the two characters together. Eventually her personal story and the main mystery will share thematic similarities, but the impetus for her getting involved doesn’t make a lick of sense. For that matter, I’m not sure she belongs in the movie at all. She’s often just a walking plot point with her set of skills turning up copious amounts of evidence and relative material whenever needed or to otherwise bail out Blomkvist from any challenge sent his way.

Lisbeth, despite being 24 years old, is required to have a legal guardian as a result of some previous issues. As the movie begins, her guardian has croaked and she’s assigned to another, who turns out to be a twisted sexual predator. He leverages his control over her limited freedom and finances in order to gain sexual favors, and later force violent sexual acts. This plot ends up resembling a much more graphic and disturbing version of Hard Candy, where the victim ultimately gains control of the situation and has her own form of revenge, in this case violent sodomy and blackmail. I’ll take this moment to point out that an earlier scene involved her being assaulted by a group of young men in a subway station and that the main murder mystery also involves sexual violence. We also learn that Lisbeth’s family was abusive to her mother. The Swedish title for the novel and movie  Men Who Hate Women. It’s not clear, however, what this all adds up to. Is the movie trying to say something about males in Sweden? Hard to say considering the film has no shortage of positive male characters. There’s a pattern of Lisbeth punishing the story’s predators with sexual violence and/or death, but there’s no attempt to really justify this policy. In one case it’s somewhat understandable and in another it’s obscenely over-the-top and sick. To a certain extent, all of this sexual violence comes off superficially edgy, controversial and titillating instead of helping construct an interesting character. It feels quite exploitative. Lisbeth is pretty impenetrable, an almost immaturely quiet and closed off presence to both the other characters and to the audience. Maybe the two sequels are needed to give her substance, but here there’s little to define her outside of the sexual violence enacted upon and enacted by her. This results in a whole lot of wasted screentime.

Anyway, Lisbeth keeps remotely looking at Blomkvisk’s computer to check his status on the investigation, and eventually can’t resist piecing some clues together for him. Soon enough, they’ve met and are working together for the second half of the film. The basic murder mystery elements get a little clumsy here, with Blomkvist becoming thick and slow-witted in order to allow certain plot points to happen. For a supposed nationally famous investigative journalist, it’s disappointing when he’s often slower than the audience. At the same time, some important clues found in Harriet’s belongings lead to a much bigger mystery, but it never really makes any sense how or why Harriet figured any of it out in the first place. A couple brief action scenes are really awkwardly edited, for reasons that I believe to involve the gaps in diegetic time between shots and what the editing and shot types are telling us. The latter indicates to me that I’m watching an unbroken progression of time, but the former produces a weird effect of these scenes being rushed through. That was my impression anyhow. It’s difficult to keep track of the large extended Vanger family that the investigation involves, along with a variety of other small undeveloped plot tidbits thrown in, which is possibly a cause of the adaptation process.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo fails because it has no apparent philosophy. It’s not saying anything, at least not cohesively. There are several abusive, sexually violent men in this film, but there’s nothing concretely stated about these circumstances, nothing linking these predilections to a larger point. Lisbeth’s own personal story has real impact on the primary mystery, nor does Blomkvisk’s libel case, which comes back into play for an extended epilogue. The mystery of Harriet’s disappearance, which is the meat of the plot, is just a diversion from other poorly and shortly developed subplots for Blomkvisk and Lisbeth. They have no stakes in what they’re doing, and thus I don’t particularly care beyond a love of mysteries and puzzles. Unfortunately, even that element proves a mess with pieces that don’t completely fit together. It’s a mess of a mystery thriller spiced up with disturbing yet meaningless violence.

* Buy The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo from Amazon.com

The core Sin & Punishment: Star Successor gameplay is akin to Star Fox where the player, in this case one of two characters who can fly, progresses forward through the environment automatically, while the player shoots everything that moves and avoids obstacles and enemy fire. One of the unique aspects to the Sin & Punishment series (it’s officially a series now!) is the sword attack. When enemies are close you can slash at them instead of shooting. There will also be enemy attacks that can be deflected or even reflected back if you time the attack properly. This adds some nice variety and often strategy during more chaotic moments or boss fights. Sometimes it’s better to let an enemy missile survive until it’s close to you so it can be knocked back at a target of your choosing for more damage than your laser delivers. There’s also a dodge function (keeping with the Star Fox comparisons, think of the barrel roll) that lets you slip through enemy attacks without taking hits. Dodging and jumping (when/if you are running on the ground instead of flying) are controlled with the nunchuk’s buttons while aiming, shooting, slashing (quick tap of the shoot button) and charging shots are done with the Wii remote. Outside of the pointer function, the game doesn’t use any other motion controls.

Killing enemies in succession without getting hit yourself increases your score multiplier, giving you more points each time you destroy something. Get hit, and the multiplier drops a point or two, but it’s nice that it doesn’t reset completely if you screw up once. After beating the game, this will prove to be the most important mechanic as beating your own high scores, and other people’s on the online leaderboards, will be what gives the game longevity. Even without actual scores, it’s fun to replay stages and master the enemy patterns and get into a zone of blowing up everything in your path while dodging bullets, which at times will easily number in the hundreds. That last point leads to the game’s significant degree of difficulty. It’s been a long time since I’ve played a game so challenging on its easiest setting. You will face swarms of dozens of enemies that might all be firing upon you. Bosses can have some complicated attack patterns that aren’t always easy to figure out how to exploit. Levels are also pretty long, so even on easy your health can be a concern. Game overs won’t be a rare sight even on the easy setting, but it’s never too discouraging. There’s even an optimistic little chime that occurs upon death that helps ease any frustration.

Beyond the difficulty, which – as in all rail shooters – decreases as you replay the game and learn its patterns, perhaps the other possible problem is the game’s length. This is an odd complaint, but it’s perhaps too long, at least to play through in one sitting. For most games, that would be a good thing, but with a rail shooter that ultimately finds value in encouraging replays for beating high scores, it’s a little more complicated. Doing a score attack on individual stages is simple enough, but if you’re trying for a high score for the whole game, it’s just physically tough to do. Halfway through, my hands are cramped and my brain is getting loopy. There’s a save feature, but there’s something unsatisfying about taking a break while going for a high score. It doesn’t quite let you get the bliss of getting into a zone and ripping through a game you’ve learned inside and out. Not like, say, Star Fox 64 or even Sin & Punishment: Successor of the Earth. The likely result is that doing score attacks on individual stages will be the preference for most gamers. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it is a bit different to the genre’s history.

It also needs to be said that there’s a lot of variety within this game. Each stage has a radically different environment and its own set of enemies which have their own unique attacks. The second stage throws you into an inexplicable tube of air flowing through the ocean letting you fight all kinds of marine life, submarines and giant eels. There’s even two scripted moments where your velocity throws you outside of the tube on turns for a few moments before swinging back in. It’s just a pretty cool view and a moment’s respite from the action, that is, if you don’t choose to keep shooting at the enemies still inside the tunnel. Stage four features a haunted forest that’s largely pitch black except for the area around where you’re aiming. Some stages progress to the right instead of into the screen, further shaking things up. Another stage puts your character in a vehicle, and so on. There’s also a huge score of bosses, several per stage that all present unique challenges and patterns. It’s really quite amazing for a rail shooter to have so much fresh material spread across a couple of hours of gameplay.

If you enjoy blistering rail shooters and find satisfaction in achieving high scores, you can’t go wrong with Sin & Punishment: Star Successor. Treasure specializes in making intense and challenging action games, and they haven’t failed here. I doubt the game has very significant commercial appeal in the modern market, but for gamers who can still enjoy an old school approach to design, or willing to take the plunge anyway, this game is a real gift. I quite strongly recommend it.

* Buy Sin & Punishment: Star Successor from Amazon.com

Picking up right where the pilot left off, the storyline given the most time is the burgeoning partnership between FBI agent Erica and Father Jack after they survived the V attack on the resistance meeting and they’ve become – all too easily – fully aware of the conspiracy at hand, if not its goals. The immediate problems posed to them are whether they can trust each other and agree on the foundations of the larger conflict and who, if anyone, else can they trust. Unless the audience was being thrown a half dozen red herrings, it seems like several other FBI agents and the elder priest may also be Visitors, or else they’re just mysteriously supportive and highly defensive of their cause. One way or another, we’re given the impression the people around the two central characters shouldn’t be confided in. There’s the start of what’s sure to be too many reveals of who has been a V all along and countless paranoia storylines. As if to drive the comparisons to Battlestar Galactica and its Cylon skinjobs home, Recka Sharma appears as a fellow FBI agent who seems unusually interested in learning who may be spouting crazy conspiracy talk against the Visitors. Could she be playing for the other side? Signs point to yes. Again. But with every single colleague of both characters suspicious in some way, there’s a point where you have to ask what the hell the Visitors are up to. What is the goal that requires having large-scale secret infiltrations of government and social services along with the above-board public relations blitz?

The major blown opportunity in this episode, however, was doing absolutely nothing with the background debate over whether the United States should establish diplomatic relations with the aliens hovering over its cities. This so-called debate is mentioned a few times but not a single pro or con is ever mentioned. The episode goes so far as to tease journalist Chad Decker doing a broadcast on this very issue only to cut away as soon as possible in order to keep anyone from saying anything even remotely of substance. See, it’s the politics and the bigger issues that I find potentially fresh and interesting here. Of course, the opening of diplomatic relations is a foregone conclusion, hell the pilot already had the V giving tours of its ships to teenagers. The government in this show’s universe doesn’t really appear to consider aliens to be of any conceivable threat or even incidental danger. I’m a given a more thorough security check at the airport than this government gives Anna when she comes to Earth. Anyway, even though is stuff is a bust Chad Decker is still one of the best characters the show is offering if only because he seems genuinely intelligent and thoughtful, and his plot involves some semblance of maneuvering ethical quandaries.

The teenage son plotline returns in perhaps even more embarrassingly awful ways than the pilot. He’s quickly made a peace ambassador for the V but almost as quickly starts punching out protesters out of an absolutely childish concept of indirectly defending Lisa’s (his V crush) honor. This kid and his friend are purportedly seventeen years old but they act several years younger, as if they’re jealous that their peers have already hit puberty and so find immature ways of compensating. Lisa is seemingly disgusted by his actions and the program decides to investigate whether he should remain, but no one really cares. This whole element of the show is dreadful. It reveals nothing about the conspiracy plot or anything substantial about any thematic material. We’re just watching a functionally braindead teen try to impress a blonde alien. There’s absolutely no chemistry between them, nothing to suggest either one should be interested in the other. It’s almost impressive how superficial and juvenile it manages to be.

There’s a mostly throwaway subplot with Ryan, the V traitor, seeking an old acquaintance, presumably another traitor, for help in healing a gash in his arm from the previous episode’s fight. This doesn’t really get anywhere except to point out that like everyone else, the traitors have trust issues too. There was an odd moment at the end, where his girlfriend notices an upside down picture in their apartment and upon inspection reveals a small note with a name and address. We suspect this was left by the acquaintance and Ryan tells the girlfriend that it’s just a friend, but what makes no sense is that she expresses no question about his not knowing what it was doing there, or more pointedly, why someone secretly entered their home and left a note! This is either more terrible writing where characters act nothing like real people, or she’s a card carrying V and is keeping tabs on him. I’m not sure which is the better option.

Ultimately, V‘s biggest problem is that it lacks any relevance to the world I live in. A world in which government is almost completely absent from a situation involving mass alien arrivals is one that I will never understand, nor relate with. On the microcosmic scale, individuals don’t act like real people either. V currently resides in a magical world devoid of politics, ideologies, trust issues, even an instinct towards survival. The latter two only seem to materialize once our protagonists have knowledge that the Visitors aren’t what they claim to be. I hate to use the phrasing since it’s somewhat nonsensical, but it’s shocking how a show in 2009 can try so hard to avoid all the themes and trappings of a post-9/11 world, when it so obviously should be about those very things.

One day, two and a half dozen alien motherships appear over the world’s biggest cities, causing minor destruction and potentially major panic in the populace. The leader of these Visitors, Anna, quickly delivers a message to humanity by way of what’s essentially a giant screen on the ship’s underbellies declaring their presence to be peaceful. They claim to be surprised and glad to meet another intelligent race in the universe and want only to stop by for a while to restock on some necessary provisions and to open up many of their advanced technologies to humanity. The fear quickly dissolves into a crowd of clapping New Yorkers, in a scene that easily recalls such unrealistic portrayals of humanity as the bridge scene at the end of Spider-Man. I don’t care what the human-appearing aliens are promising, they have a giant supremely advanced ship over your city, and again, they’re aliens! No population representative of reality embraces that so quickly. Unfortunately, reality is devoid from nearly the entire enterprise. Within hours Anna is on Earth casually talking to reporters, as if no government agency had even shown up on the scene, let alone considered any of the likely considerations, like a quarantine, secrecy, major policy discussions, etc. Almost immediately we jump forward three weeks’ time and I’m thinking I’d have loved to see the show’s first 15 minutes fleshed out to an hour or even two.

It’s not really a spoiler to say that we quickly learn that there’s more to the Visitors than they’re letting on. It’s been two decades since the original show aired and the revelation that the aliens are in fact reptilian underneath human skins is part of pop culture, albeit to a smaller degree than Soylent Green being made of people. All of this is revealed by episode’s end anyway, and doesn’t cover the bigger two twists that were apparently not part of the original show, so I’ll save those for a later, designated section. The point is, knowing that the Visitors are not altruistic in their desires to help Earth is exactly why the lack of development in reactions to their presence hurts the show so much. If a big aspect of the series is going to deal with those who come to know the Visitors are evil or are at least suspicious or skeptical and those who fully embrace them if not devote their lives to the aliens, then it’d be to the show’s benefit to actually see how those two sides would arrive at their positions. Instead it simply happens. Again, go back to the New Yorkers clapping an image in the sky for promising to cure a variety of diseases and physical ailments. Sure, that’s pretty sweet, but how quickly are real people going to give their bodies over to alien medicine? Show me the Visitors doing their public relations game. Show me a scared, cynical public slowly seduced by these alien gifts.

We see brief evidence that the Visitors do indeed have great medical knowledge, but the character the show follows to explore the seduction side is a terrible choice. We’re given over to a 17 year-old named Tyler, who’s written as if he’s 13. He’s vaguely rebellious against his single mother, Erica, which means part of his attraction to acquainting himself with the Visitors and their PR program Peace Ambassadors, is simply because it’s different and his mom might not approve. It has nothing to do with the bigger issues they represent and offer. The other more significant reason for his attraction to the aliens is more literal-minded. He’s a stupidly horny kid and he becomes instantly infatuated with one of the Vs, Lisa (Laura Vandervoort). Never mind that again, he’s sexually attracted to an alien. I know males can be pretty dumb in letting their genitals do their thinking for them, but this is on a whole different level. This, alongside an early comment by the journalist/news anchor played by Scott Wolf about Anna and the other Visitors being attractive, is what the episode spends its time on with regard to the Visitors’ efforts to ease interspecies relations. Basically, they’re hot, so why wouldn’t you trust them with your bodies, let alone your planet? Side note: I find it hilarious that Tyler’s crush looks a hell of a lot like a younger version of his mother. This kid’s got serious issues.

The lead character is the aforementioned Erica (Elizabeth Mitchell) and the closest thing we have to a government perspective, which seems like a missed opportunity. Anyway, she’s an FBI agent dealing with counter terrorism issues and pays little attention to the Visitors. In one of her scenes the latest news about the Visitors is quite literally background noise. She’s too busy trying to get to the bottom of an outlier terrorist sleeper cell, the only one on her radar whose activities spiked with the Visitors’ arrival. Meanwhile, Father Jack (Joel Gretsch) is a local priest who finds himself more skeptical of the Visitors, or at least unwilling to take the Vatican’s party line that the Visitors must be part of God’s plan and shouldn’t be distrusted. This character’s position actually has the potential for some interesting explorations of faith, religion and self-interest as he’s also afraid that the Visitors could essentially take the place of God and be the new power to which the masses devote themselves. He’s not a religious fanatic, but he’s also not a super progressive priest-in-name-only. This is the character who is most interestingly challenged by the disruption of normalcy when the Visitors arrive.

*Begin spoilers*

It’s time for the major spoilers, so back out now if you care. Erica finds information about the sleeper cell’s meeting location and heads to check it out. At the same time, Jack is approached by a severely bleeding man claiming that the Visitors are evil reptiles and not benevolent guests. He gives Jack a package and asks that it be taken to a location that is, yes, where the sleeper cell is convening. Both arrive and it becomes quickly apparent that neither knows what this is about. It’s certainly not a traditional terrorist cell. In an incredibly quick and unrealistic manner, the undercover Erica asks direct, skeptical questions about the cell’s purpose, forcing the leader to give a monologue about the whole conspiracy. The Visitors aren’t exactly new arrivals. No, they’ve been disguised as humans for a long time, moving into positions of power, orchestrating the world’s turmoil and preparing for the coming of the main fleet. (Apparently the world’s current conflicts are the result of V manipulations. Funny how humans didn’t need their help in past centuries.)

Erica and some of the others are incredulous, but Jack brings forth the package which contains pictures, including one of the Visitors’ second-in-command with an unidentifiable man whom Erica had stumbled upon in researching the cell. Inexplicable to me, this so-called evidence confirms the whole story for our characters. The cell is then attacked by Visitors, including Erica’s until-then FBI partner (played by guest star Alan Tudyk), leaving most of the humans dead while our protagonists escape. The FBI partner, however, is cut open and we get a confirming look at the actual scales and even an eye beneath his human skin. So that’s the one twist, the Visitors have been among humans for some time now.

The second twist involves another character, Ryan (Morris Chestnut), who is being hounded by the cell leader to rejoin the group. He’s concerned about the safety of his soon-to-be fiance (Lourdes Benedicto) but eventually concedes and is present for the battle at the end. He receives a knife wound which reveals that he is also a Visitor, although apparently a traitor and was working against his own species. We’re given no reason why, but he claims there are more just like him. That’s a whole lot of major revelations for a pilot episode of any show. It all occurs in a huge rush. The show can’t wait to get to the final moments when Erica and Jack talk about how they have to form a resistance movement in order to protect mankind from the Visitors. This is, in the universe’s time, just minutes after they’ve learned about the whole conspiracy in the first place. It’s even stranger when Erica didn’t even really give the Visitors a second thought after their initial appearance. Again, everything happens so quickly that it’s impossible to figure out what you should think about each revelation, let alone for the show to give you any clue what the characters themselves are thinking. Things are just happening at a breakneck speed.

I can easily envision how this would have made a better four episodes. Start with one focused just on the Visitors arriving, maybe throwing only the audience a hint that they’re actually reptilian since everyone knows it anyway, but keep the characters in the dark for the time being. Let them grapple with just the alien presence for a bit. Another episode could delve into the Visitors ingratiating themselves with mankind with their medical treatments and other demonstrations of their good faith while continuing to get to know the characters and seeing how all of this impacts them. Introduce the conspiracy in the third episode and reveal the traitors in the fourth. Bam, you can deliver on all of those twists fairly quickly while showing, rather than quickly telling, us the impact of the Visitors on Earth and the main cast. Let’s see how they react and how the parts of the populace are seduced by their offers. Make it credible so that the Visitors are seen as truly dangerous when we learn about their secrets. Basically, approach the Visitors like they’re Brother Justin in Carnivàle. Now there’s a great example of a series showing us an antagonist’s secret evil ways and his magnetic and charismatic public side.

*End spoilers*

It’s a shame about this pilot because I think there’s a great story in there somewhere, if only the writers/producers and/or ABC had wanted to spend some time on it. Instead they’re in a mad rush to get to the juicy stuff, but you can’t have effective climaxes if you don’t have the developing actions. In a crude way, I think of this pilot as being like Lost if its pilot had ended with them opening the hatch. Sure, Lost had a fair share of filler, but it also had some interesting world building and character development, which enabled the big reveals to really spring to life and mean something. It also enables some suspense and mystery, when the reveals keep coming there’s not much time to consider what they mean in order for those conditions to form. Perhaps the show will improve, especially since as of this writing it’s already undergone two changes in showrunners. I’ll likely watch the next couple and see what happens. Lots of pilots are rocky. I just hope it slows down and gives the characters, world and plot twists some breathing room.

Captain Sunshine is fundamentally a spoof of Batman mixed with a little Michael Jackson. To cement the Batman comparison, Kevin Conroy (the voice actor for most animated Batman projects) provides the hero’s voice, taking Batman and exaggerating him into a mess of flamboyance and emotion. See, Captain Sunshine is reeling from the death of the third Wonderboy (read: Robin) and sees Hank as a potential new ward. That cues a couple dozen gags regarding Captain Sunshine’s relationships with his young male sidekicks along with no shortage of Batman references. Oh, and wait until you see Sunshine’s alter ego, and for that matter the alter egos of the whole superhero team of which he’s a member.

“Handsome Ransom” will go down as one of the great self-contained episodes of The Venture Bros. thanks to its use of the show’s meat-and-potatoes arching plotline plus the fantastic performance Kevin Conroy gives as Captain Sunshine. Hopefully we get to see him again in some capacity down the line. And the episode’s greatness was accomplished without a single appearance of Brock, too…

As season three ended with a few major events, this season picks up with the repercussions of those. Brock quit the OSI and his job as Dr. Venture’s bodyguard to seek out the truth about the assassins sent after him. The aforementioned injury sidetracks him for a while, but after some surgery by the plastic surgeon who did Hunter Gathers’ sex change and an amusing period of rest in the company of Steve Summers (the Six Million Dollar Man) and his Sasquatch lover, he’s back on the case, albeit far from in peak physical condition. Scoping out the headquarters of Molotov Cocktease’s Black Hearts headquarters, Brock runs into an agent of Sphinx. (Sphinx is the Cobra to the OSI’s G.I. Joe.) If you’ll recall Hunter was last seen coordinating the Black Hearts’ efforts to have Brock take out the world’s other top assassins, and he’s back here talking to Molotov when Brock and the Sphinx agent fall into the room. Molotov shoots Brock out the window where he falls into the street as is picked up by a van of even more Sphinx agents.

As the confusion over everyone’s allegiances continues to grow during Sphinx’s interrogation of Brock, we learn that Sphinx had captured Hunter too. Or rather, as it turns out, Hunter is some sort of double-triple agent and has been working for Sphinx all along. He remarks that while undercover with Molotov’s organization he used the opportunity to make Brock leave the OSI and his bodyguard position in order to free him up for more important work with Sphinx. Along with Hunter, we see that Sphinx employs the plastic surgeon, Holy Diver and Shore Leave. If it’s not painfully obvious, the show’s mythology is growing only more and more complex, even after the pretty damned complex developments of season 3. It’ll be interesting to finally learn a little bit about Sphinx and what its agenda is, especially if they are in fact the ‘good guys’.

The Venture family storyline is comparatively straightforward even if it’s told more or less backwards. Dr. Venture’s cloning technology is out in the open after Hank and Dean released their “presents” in the finale and all of their clones were decimated on the battlefield. Henchman 24 died in the Monarch Mobile explosion, leaving 21 lost and confused, and asking Venture to clone him, although this doesn’t appear to happen. Nazis also arrive with a dog they claim has the blood of Hitler in him and they want Venture to create a human baby from it. Dean gets himself attached to the dog even though the evil creature must eventually be killed. Sergeant Hatred has been wiped of his pedophilia by OSI doctors and goes from Venture family nemesis to bodyguard. Hank struggles to cope without Brock around, but tries to follow in his former bodyguard’s footsteps by manning up. When it’s his chance to kill Hitler (the dog), he fails but is saved by an appearance by Brock, which must be kept a secret but emboldens Hank and gives him a boost. Oh, and Brock mails HELPER’s head back and it’s installed on a walking eye robot instead of a more humanoid form.

There was a lot of setup in this one which should prove fun to explore in future episodes. It’s a really neat change to bring Sergeant Hatred into the Venture family and shake up the dynamic between Hank and Dean and their guardian. I suppose that means Dr. Venture is once again in need of a new archenemy… maybe the Monarch can get his wish and be matched with him again? It’s a little unclear what 21 is up to outside of mourning 24 in his own weird ways. He’s hanging around the Venture compound a lot, so is he still working for the Monarch? And what the hell is really going on with Hunter Gathers? Who’s side is he on and how many different agendas does he have? Most of all though, the big change is that Brock Sampson is no longer on babysitting duty and we’ll likely get to see him go commando while working with Sphinx. For this episode at least, it was a nice treat to see so many returning faces, between Steve Summers, the Sasquatch, Hunter, Molotov, the plastic surgeon, the Lepidopterists, etc. Going into this fourth season, it’s clear that The Venture Bros universe is a complicated and crowded one. I’m not complaining either. While this show began as a more simplistic comedy parodying the likes of Jonny Quest, it’s turned into a massively complex action adventure series that happens to be funny. With those qualities, it stands pretty much alone on modern television.

There’s also some action involving faux-Charlie with him visiting the secret backroom to speak to the other world via that fantastic typewriter and mirror combination. He’s instructed to help her remember in order to figure out what she knows, although you have to wonder how important that information really is when the villains were fully prepared to kill her in the previous episode without retrieving it. But like Mulder before her, the nature of the show requires the bad guys to have reasons for keeping the protagonist alive.

The actual monster-of-the-week case is straight out of The X-files but it’s well directed by Brad Anderson, who I wish could somehow conquer space and time to be able to direct every episode. It also helps that we get a well-acted and interesting piece of character work by John Savage as the former doctor who helped create the creature. In fact, he’s so good that it’s a damned shame he really only got two scenes. I would have loved to see him get a longer arc that was related to the mythology. It’d have been fun to see him and John Noble go toe-to-toe in a few scenes. Alas, it was nice to see him for the two scenes he had. This serves as yet another reason why I need to rewatch Carnivàle sooner rather than later.

The scene with Walter trying to recreate Olivia’s experience with frogs was sort of amusing, in as far as it involved actually tossing frogs around and was perhaps a nod to Back to the Future. On the other hand, there wasn’t really any indication that Walter was doing anything more than tossing frogs around. Surely he understands that there was more to Olivia’s world-swapping than just speed and an abrupt stop. I would have appreciated a little more sci-fi technical mumbo jumbo from Walter as he postulates on the details of her adventure.

Another plus to the episode was that Meghan Markle did get to utter a single word as Agent Jessup. Of course, her as yet unexplained fascination with anything and everything of a religious nature lead her to an important clue. I don’t think that could have been any more contrived. I am really, really dreading to see where this religious, or more specifically Christian, stuff is heading.

Also, did the creature somehow fill in all the holes he was making to pull down his victims? That’s quite a feat, especially do it so quickly while other people are nearby.

First up, the addition of Meghan Markle to the cast. I wasn’t pleased when I first heard they were adding a new female agent to the mix and seeing it in action sure didn’t convince me otherwise. Even before getting to the story implications, Markle just isn’t a very good actress, at least here. Her line delivery is terrible. I don’t believe for a second that she’s an FBI agent. Beyond that, Agent Jessup’s insertion into Fringe division is so forced and stretching the limits of credibility, even for a show about alternate universes. There’s no real plot device to justify her dedication to discovering what Fringe division is and to become involved, it’s just scripted that way. We don’t even see how she magically obtains the password that unlocks Fringe’s files for her. It just happens. It’s not even like Fringe is next door so she becomes curious, it’s a couple hundred miles away. Back to the character, she’s somehow fazed by Walter’s eccentricities but not by shapeshifters and bodies appearing out of thin air. Who is this lady? She says she’s just “following the case” but that’s unconvincing, both from the actor’s line reading and the character’s motivation. So they throw in some possible interest on a religious level and… ugh. That’s definitely not where I’d like to see the show go. It flies in the face of the whole gist of the show, about technology being the crux of the crisis. She can comb through the Bible and find references to things that vaguely sound like the modern day’s scientific creations, but we’ve already established that it’s the exponential growth of technology that is causing holes between the worlds, and unless Jesus was the Tesla of his time, I can’t imagine any time spent on Biblical nonsense being anything but a waste.

In a related problem, we have the death of Charlie. There can be little doubt that this is connected to forcing Agent Jessup into the mix as a replacement, so this move is doubly bad. There’s been no shortage of discussion on how poorly plotted the events surrounding his death were, so I won’t bother reiterating them. It was a mess of characters acting stupidly and the previously seen shapeshifting process suddenly taking no time at all. Ultimately though, we lost Charlie, or at least the Charlie of this universe, which means we also lost Olivia’s level-headed partner-in-FBI work who shared a professional history. Instead we get a new agent who seems extremely wet behind the ears who brings nothing of interest to the table thus far. For the time being he’s been replaced by an evil agent from the other world who’s assigned to eliminate Olivia. Now we’ve got another case of a villainous government mole, already briefly done last year. Twice actually, if you count the complicated situation of John Valley’s alleged and actual allegiances. It feels like an old and over-used plot and it hasn’t even begun, especially when it was also done a dozen times on the show’s predecessor, The X-Files. Maybe they’ll surprise me but mostly it’s just a waiting game until he’s discovered.

Speaking of The X-Files, did the shapeshifter also have to be seemingly invincible? I had terrible flashbacks to the super soldier stories from the aforementioned show. I didn’t immediately continue with Fringe after seeing the pilot since it appeared to be going the path of more world-spanning conspiracies but I returned and caught up after hearing about the possible multiple Walter Bishops. That’s much more fresh and new, and it’d be great if the show continued staying as fresh as it can while still using the sci-fi procedural formula. The second half of the first season felt like they’d settled on their major conflict, one between two parallel worlds whose barriers were breaking down. That’s pretty cool, and I can’t think of it being tackled on television in any long-form manner. I don’t, however, want to see two major elements of Fringe turn into reruns of The X-Files. I say no to super soldiers and anything resembling government conspiracies including bad guys with federal jobs!

Anyway, how about that fantastic shot of Olivia returning from an alternate universe by bursting out of a crashed car’s windshield!

Buy from Amazon.com:

• Sunn O))) – Monoliths & Dimensions [MP3]
• Sunn O))) – Monoliths & Dimensions [CD]

Some of these elements are downright inconsequential to the telling of the story. I have no idea why this film required a ghost. The real story isn’t about the ghost, even though that’s largely what the first half of the film focuses on. Rather, the story is about Jacinto’s greed and its impact on the orphanage. He’s trying to get into the orphanage’s safe where he believes Republican gold is stashed and that this will allow him to become his own man. Kept secret for a little more than half the film, it’s Jacinto who killed the missing orphan Santi in an act of violence that goes further than intended, all because Santi saw Jacinto attempting to get into the safe. All of the plot’s momentum will come from this goal. He disposes of the body and the haunting begins, but ghost Santi only ever approaches the other orphans. As with most ghost stories, Santi spends way too much time scaring the hell out of his potential allies rather than demonstrating that he comes in peace and seeks help.

Long story short, by the time the audience and most of the children learn that Jacinto isn’t just a bit of a dick but also a greedy murderer he’s already attacked the orphanage caretakers and blown up the room with the safe. Revenge for their friend’s death is no longer a primary concern, now it’s just to survive this madman who eventually disposes of all the adults and locks the children up. In what could be a great climax where these children escape and kill Jacinto all on their own, a new ghost (of a just killed caretaker) enters the picture to briefly help them. Not only is this fairly random and disappointing, but it’s only necessary in the plot because one child rolls his ankle dropping out of a window on his way to freeing the others. Why not just let the kids succeed on their own? And why not just use Santi to open their door instead of introducing a second ghost? For all the setup, Santi doesn’t even figure into the climax except for Jacinto being killed in such a way as to see Santi’s body in his last moments.

For all of the tangents and set dressing, The Devil’s Backbone is just about a greedy man abusing an orphanage. The ghost story, the religious symbology, the Spanish Civil War backdrop, the specific recurring imagery of the undetonated bomb, the sexual intrigue between some of the adults, etc., none of it really informs that main story. Writer/director Guillermo del Toro desperately needed to decide whether he wanted to explore the supernatural elements of this world, which populate the film’s first half, or the story of human survival, which takes up the second half. As it is, you’ve got one story with no end and another with an underdeveloped beginning.

There’s a nice little scene where the head caretaker, Dr. Casares, tells Carlos the superstition about a rum that ages in bottles with human fetuses with “devil’s backbones”. As will forever be the case, floating fetuses in jars will always be disturbing and creepy (see Carnivàle and Lars von Trier’s The Kingdom). The superstition involves these unborn babies, with their visible spines, never having meant to be born, but if you drink rum infused with their spirit, it can cure your ailments. Maybe this can be stretched into a metaphor wherein facing Santi’s ghost helps Carlos face up to Jacinto, but it’s tenuous at best, as are most of the links between Jacinto’s story and the film’s supernatural elements.

The Devil’s Backbone feels like a brainstorming session that didn’t get fleshed out. Del Toro throws ideas and images against the wall and hopes they’ll not only stick but form something cohesive. I’m left wanting a film that either embraces the supernatural motifs or excises them in favor of the reality-based drama. Unfortuantely, it’s an awkward hybrid that I viewed.

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When they’re at their best, The Lonely Island makes mundane everyday occurrences into hilarious epic events. For instance, my favorite two lines from “Jizz in My Pants” have to be “I need a few things from the grocery, do things alone now mostly” and “last week, I saw a film, as I recall it was a horror film.” That’s retardedly awesome. I love most of Incredibad for similar reasons, although I skip a few tracks. I pass over “Sax Man” almost every time. It’s so out of place on the album, featuring none of The Lonely Island’s crew on vocals, instead giving Jack Black a chance to do his schtick and a bit of scatting. It has a very different tone from everything else and feels like it got lost on the way to a new Tenacious D album. I tend to skip “Dick in a Box” and “Punch You in the Jeans” as well, just because they’re not terribly funny. But tracks like “I’m a Boss” and “I’m on a Boat” and the various older SNL Digital Shorts ones are golden. The couple sketches included work fairly well too, breaking up the songs without dropping the tone and humor much.

Röyksopp – Junior

There isn’t a chance in hell that this album doesn’t end up in my top ten for the year. Röyksopp’s first album Melody A.M. was sort of on the lighter and bouncier side of electronic music while The Understanding had a more epic and dark flavor. Junior manages to split the difference in a way, creating what I’d consider to be the electronic equivalent of a summer rock album. It’ll take you for a ride that’s occasionally straight up goofy but it’s always moving and often snappy. This isn’t the sort of electronic album that lulls you into a trance or spends – some would argue – too much time on any one sound. Guest vocals come from the likes of Robyn, Karin Dreijer Andersson (who released the beautiful self-titled Fever Ray debut early this year), Lykke Li and Anneli Drecker. That’s a great group of female vocalists right there.

The Venture Bros: The Music of JG Thirlwell

Alongside the home video release of The Venture Bros: Season 3, Adult Swim arranged for a twenty track release of JG Thirlwell’s score. It came with the Blu-ray edition of the series and in separate editions. Suffice to say, if you love the show you should really appreciate these full arrangements of the crazy and badass themes he’s created. It’s delicious to get the fully fleshed out cues that were cut short for editing purposes. The album includes music from all three seasons and will most assuredly bring to mind the countless ways Brock Samson has killed people, including but not limited to, that time that he clamped his ass down on that fake pirate. Yes, there’s a track called “Assclamp!”

What’s coming up? Green Day has 21st Century Breakdown in a couple days, which may or may not be interesting. Michael Giacchino’s score to the fourth season of Lost also arrives this week, and hopefully his Up score will follow at the end of the month. IAMX is releasing his third album, Kingdom of Welcome Addiction in two weeks. Dave Matthews Band’s Big Whiskey & the GrooGrux King arrives on June 2nd.

Buy from Amazon:

• The Lonely Island – Incredibad ( CD/DVD, MP3 )
• Röyksopp – Junior ( CD, MP3 )
• The Venture Bros: The Music of JG Thirlwell ( CD, MP3 )

Eagle Eye

Before I begin, let me identify the major elements of Eagle Eye here. Jerry Shaw (Shia LaBeouf) has just returned from his twin brother’s funeral to find a large sum of money in his bank account and his apartment full of weapons and fertilizer. He receives a mysterious phone call warning him to leave. The FBI immediately seizes him. Elsewhere, Rachel Holloman (Michelle Monaghan) sends her son on a train to Washington DC where he is to perform with classmates at the Lincoln Center. She soon receives a phone call detailing a threat to her son unless she does as commands. Soon enough both characters are teamed up and compelled to do what the mystery caller requests or face ruin. The caller turns out to be Aria, a computerized persona of the Eagle Eye system, which is an operation being carried out in the 36th floor of the Pentagon designed to catalogue and sort virtually all information available through government records, consumer histories and all manner of surveillance. For some reason it also gives recommendations on counter-terrorism operations, and in the pre-title segment one such recommendation is ignored leading to an American bombing of a funeral procession in the Middle East that some false intel had possibly identified as involving wanted terrorists. As a result of this wrongful attack and the ensuing anti-American protests and attacks in the Middle East, Aria goes rogue and decides to eliminate the president and nearly everyone in the chain of succession in order to protect the nation from further bad decisions and consequently further anti-American action. That’s where Jerry and Rachel come into play. Get it? Now then…

This is a film with a plot so easy to destroy that it’s not even fun to do so. The holes are massive and staggeringly frequent. Perhaps the most egregious ones, if only because it happens so often, involve the Pentagon’s supercomputer hacking things that have nothing to do with the Internet in order to aid the mission of the two lead characters. Really, those junkyard cranes in Chicago were connected to a network accessible from Washington DC? The Eagle Eye system can pretty much control anything with a microchip, except of course for when it’s convenient for the screenplay to make the system fail or overlook something. Everything from the television sets in a Circuit City to uh, power lines. But these are all problems with the plotting, although they are so pervasive as to be seriously problematic. Plot holes can be overlooked if the story being told and its themes are strong enough.

Unfortunately for Eagle Eye this is not the case. The film simply does not know what it wants to be about. Throughout the film we see POV shots through surveillance cameras and hear scary news reports about domestic spying, which would be discomforting if it had anything to do with the Eagle Eye plot. Heck, Aria even tells our heroes about how it’s accumulated all kinds of personal information, purchasing patterns, etc. about these two, but none of that data is used in their selection to aid its evil purpose. Rather, Jerry is picked because it requires a voicematch for his deceased twin, and Rachel is chosen because her son can be arranged to play a musical instrument near the president and cabinet. Their identities are not difficult to determine, and don’t at all require combing through their lives. The domestic spying angle – and it does indeed have disturbing ramifications in real life – is used here as window dressing to make the actual story seem timely. In truth Eagle Eye is another Frankenstein’s monster tale where a technological creation disobeys its master and runs amok.

Regrettably, the movie kinda fails in this regard as well, since Aria was apparently given powers that are only used once it goes rogue. When we see the military using it as intended, and as expository dialogue explains its purpose, the system is only meant to collect and sort data and aid humans in analyzing it. All the actions we see are made by humans and don’t involve Eagle Eye’s use at all. It’s completely separated from the attack that indirectly sets off the plot. Once that happens though, the Aria and the Eagle Eye have the capability to digitally reach out into the world and command electronics, make phone calls, etc. Why would a data collection system even be given the capability to do these things? It’s like the engineers were asking for their monster to go berserk. And why, in an influence from Asimov’s I, Robot, does Aria have a hardwired respect for the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution? As we’re told, it’s not designed to control the government. It collects data, analyzes it, makes recommendations and recognizes threats. It’s stated design has nothing to do with taking action based on any of that. But suddenly it wants to overthrow the government because Aria has deemed the government to fall under the reasons the Founding Fathers used in justifying a violent break from Britain by citing from the following:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

The anti-American actions following the wrongful bombing proves to Aria that the government needs to be dismantled. That it never considers how detonating a bomb near the president during his State of the Union address might cause more American deaths than protests and violent reactions in the Middle East is baffling. Aria should have read one line further into the Declaration to see that “prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes.” In the grand scheme of things, I don’t see a single wrongful bombing and its aftermath as necessitating the government’s abolition. If only Aria had taken offense at the Declaration’s line “for imposing Taxes on us without our Consent” and punished politicians for not giving Washington DC a voting presence in Congress. That would have made up for every one of the film’s problems through sheer hilarity.

So ultimately the Frankenstein’s monster and I, Robot angles prove disappointing since Aria was apparently designed by college dropouts. Humanity was just asking for it in the way Aria could do virtually anything it wanted without legitimate reason or for being given a hardwired devotion to the Declaration of Independence. Who thought any of that was a good idea, or even relevant to data collection and analysis? Neither does this say anything of real value about the dangers of domestic spying. A machine with that kind of programming wouldn’t require any kind of surveillance at all to be of great danger to the nation. I guess the movie is a warning against hiring incompetent engineers for top-secret Pentagon projects.

Green for Danger

It’s 1944, Britain. A postman has been taken to the local hospital after a German V-1 bombing attack. The injuries are non-fatal. He dies on the operating table, before surgery can begin. As the hospital administration and those in attendance for the failed operation try to figure out whether the postman’s death was an accident or a deliberate act, someone else is murdered. Thus starts Green for Danger‘s witty whodunit.

Inspector Cockrill arrives to get to the bottom of things and the film takes off. With Cockrill comes an eccentric personality and comedic wit to stir the situation up. In a way, he gets to do what viewers want to do when watching mystery thrillers. Cockrill jumps into the fray, questions the suspects, throws accusations and innuendo around, and waits to see what happens. In a very self-conscious way, he’ll start some shit, step back and see if the new scenario reveals anything about who was responsible for the murders. It’s all fun and games until more people get hurt.

The Cell

It’s a shame that The Cell‘s structural plot points are so weak because the nightmarish journeys into the serial killer’s mind are gorgeous and fairly compelling. Most annoyingly, if Vince Vaughn’s character bothered to be a decent detective around the 20 minute mark, the whole endeavor would have been over ten minutes later. Instead we get an hourlong attempt at convincing Vincent D’Onofrio’s killer’s repressed psyche into telling Jennifer Lopez where his last victim is awaiting her death, before Vaughn remembers to check out the clue that the camera carefully pointed out to viewers – and the detectives – in the film’s beginning. It’s that clue that wraps the whole thing up. The mindgames don’t contribute at all to solving the case, aside from eventually reminding Vaughn’s FBI detective to investigate the aforementioned clue. Still, as a thin framework for a whole lot of disturbing and magnificent imagery it gets the job done. That’s certainly where the film’s strengths lie, although they don’t really add up to anything more than imagery and atmosphere. Then again, that will be enough for some basic enjoyment.

Bella

Allow me to sum this movie up. If you’re pregnant and not ready for a kid, a mysteriously selfless Jesus figure will come out of the woodwork, adopt the child and raise her until you’re ready to be a mother. Yeah…

Okay, let me back up. The premise of Bella is that Nina is fired for being late to her waitressing job because she was buying and using a home pregnancy test. She’s pregnant. Jose is the chef at the same restaurant, which is run by his older brother Manny, and abandons his post on an important day to talk to and comfort Nina. He’s the Christ figure, and I’m not just saying that because he spends most of the film in a scrubby kitchen uniform and that he’s got the stereotypical beard and hair, but that helps. If you saw one of his many close-ups without context, you would never guess he was a chef in Brooklyn. Oh, and at one point he’s mistaken for a beggar, but I digress. It’s worth noting that while the two worked together, they appear to know terribly little about each other. Also, the film pathologically avoids any romantic connection between them. It’s impossible to discuss these characters without addressing the ending, which I will do, so you’ve been warned.

Most of the film takes place in that single day, beginning with Nina being fired in the morning. By the next morning, after Nina remains fairly sure she couldn’t be a proper mother, Jose has decided that he will adopt the child and given the denouement, apparently raises her by himself for some 4-6 years (I can’t tell the child’s age) before Nina returns. For what, we have no idea, and speculating is a rather baffling process. To become a true mother? The possibilities are all uncomfortable for a film that ends and wants the audience to believe everything turned out just right. It’s completely ridiculous for this man to dedicate himself to someone else’s kid, out of the blue, for several years. Worse, it’s a total cop-out. It avoids the abortion question that rises to the surface several times in the film. It also somewhat flies in the face of Nina’s spoken belief that she would not be able to carry a child for nine months only to give her away. I fail to see how the film’s solution doesn’t fall into that same problem. Sure, she returns to the child in a few years, but c’mon.

Now, Jose has a little background. He was a football (soccer) star but lost his career after running over a little girl with his car. After some time in jail, poof, he’s the most amazing man on the planet. What’s important is that he feels deep regret over that incident, and that we’re shown that the killed little girl liked butterflies. Go back to the end, and as Nina arrives to meet her daughter for the first time since she was an infant, and the three walk towards the beach in some perplexing family reunion, a butterfly appears and the camera tracks it into the sky. Yes, Bella overtly compares this moment to the other little girl’s death. In that case, is Jose’s decision to adopt and raise the child just some way of helping bring a life into the world after taking another? We’re meant to believe this makes everything right, but all I could think was that the other mother still lost her daughter, and that there’s something creepy in Jose’s motivation to replace one for the other, in his mind at least. Furthering that idea, the two girls look quite a bit alike.

Between the beginning and the ending, Jose and Nina travel around chatting, mostly of family. Eventually they end up at his family’s house and she sees what a happy, loving family is life, not having one herself. She learns of Jose’s past and of his brother being adopted yet still loved all the same. Jose gives Manny a lecture or two about treating his employees poorly and only caring for his restaurant’s bottom line. The two make up by film’s end, with Manny meekly buying a new pot that Jose said the kitchen desperately needed, and Jose cooking breakfast for the pair to heal over. Bella is a movie about family, which is partially what makes the resolution so bizarre, what with the whole giving-her-kid-up-only-to-return-years-later thing.

Unfortunately, Bella has little relation to the real world. There are few selfless saviors out there that will drop their lives to fix your problems. Sometimes, you’re just going to have to figure out a way to help yourself.

Laika by Nick Abadzis

Laika is the [true yet fictionalized] story of the first living being, from Earth at least, to enter orbit as part of the USSR’s Sputnik II mission. This 200 page comic follows the dog, initially called Kudryavka (“curly tail”) and later renamed Laika (“barker”), from birth in a common Soviet household to death as a propaganda tool after just a few hours in orbit. The story’s not solely told from the dog’s point of view however. The bulk of the comic is centered around the space program’s animal trainer, Comrade Dubrovsky, and to a lesser extent Dr. Oleg Gazenko, her superior, and their emotional reactions and relationships to caring for the program’s dogs while being aware that they could die during missions. Laika though, was sent with Sputnik II and without any method of return, prompting the biggest questions within the comic. In many respects, Nick Abadzis’ Laika is about destiny, or at least perceived destinies. While she was fated to die in flight, it was the chief designer’s idea and Kruschev’s approval that made it so.

At points the comic gives the chief designer, Sergei Pavlovich, attention, as one of terribly few sent to the gulags to be given a reprieve, he finds himself constantly striving for greatness at any cost. If it’s not forward momentum, it might as well be freezing to death outside his former prison. And while his motto is “I am a man of destiny,” his life is shown to be at the mercy of people far more powerful. Whether it was being sent to the gulag in the first place without trial or reason, or to having to cut corners in order to please Kruschev’s timetables, control of his life was often an illusion; an illusion perhaps masked by his repeated and defiant declarations of being “a man of destiny.” Laika, of course, is the most tragic victim of this false destiny, having no say in her suicide mission to space. She can only place her trust in those closest to her, from the abusive boy who initially owned her, to Dubrovsky and Gazenko, forced to send her to die upon being the dog specifically chosen by Pavlovich. This unconditional trust is shown to haunt most of those involved. A quote of deep regret from the real-life Gazenko provides the comic’s closing epitaph.

The work makes good use of the comic format’s strengths, from many free-flowing dream sequences to color choices like the blood red of the rocket that inevitably sends Laika to her death. It’s hard not to reach that splash page and feel anything but dread. There’s also something special about Laika being remembered and brought to life, albeit in frozen images, with so much love 50 years later for simply being a beautiful dog during extraordinary times, especially in contrast to her objectified use as a jab at Western powers. I have no memories of pets for this tale to draw on for emotional weight, but it’s safe to say Laika is touching and wonderfully illustrated.

Day Night Day Night

I think this may be one of those films that operates lives and dies in its value as a Rorschach test. It’s probably a satisfying experiment for those who can extricate themselves from rationality, which is fine and good for some films, particularly in the realms of experimental or avate-garde works. Here though, we’re following a suicide bomber as she prepares for the big event and then wanders through New York City towards Times Square. She, which is the character’s credited name, operates within a world of rationality, so it struck me as continuously frustrating that Day Night Day Night overtly evades any and all politics. We receive no hint of motivation for the planned attack. We see that She, for one reason or another, has decided to detonate a bomb in the middle of a pedestrian crosswalk and has some older men and women facilitating, or perhaps spearheading, the plan. That’s all we’re given, yet it’s hardly satisfying. How can a suicide bombing be apolitical?

My rational side couldn’t stop trying to analyze her actions and emotional states to decipher something about her motivations and goals. We see no distaste for her surroundings as She stumbles through New York City, except for when a young man tries to flirt with her. Otherwise, She enjoys American food, is overly polite with everyone she interacts and has few reservations about asking strangers for change. I found myself constantly sorting through these observations to create a cohesive story, which doesn’t appear to be what the film wants. The film’s aim is seemingly to wrap the viewer in empathy for someone attempting a heinous crime. On this level, it succeeds most during the second half, when She roams the city streets. I can feel her frustration and panic when things don’t go properly, or her helplessness when she’s lost in the bustling city with no change to contact anyone she knows (and when she gets the change, most of her calls find no one on the other end). But when she’s waiting in a sparse motel room for men with ski masks to go over instructions for the bombing, I have a hard time with that. Her apparent willingness to be essentially a hostage to her handlers is beyond me. And when those handlers bring her multiple sets of clothing for her big day and have her try each on as they approve or disapprove, I once again get sucked into trying to make some rational sense of what’s happening. Why reject that sweatshirt? What are they trying to say with the chosen outfit? We’re given no answers.

Luisa Williams does a wonderful job in the lead role, with much of the film centered directly on her face in close-up or medium shots, but she can only convey so much without any context for her decision and dedication (which is somewhat shaky) to the mission. Perhaps director Julia Loktev is going for an existential atmosphere, but it’s dashed against the rocks when the audience comes face to face with an evasion of rationality. She is asked by her handlers to make a video by reading something they’d written while in front of a militant backdrop and holding a gun. As soon as they’re ready to roll, the film cuts to the aftermath. It’s difficult, if not impossible, for the viewer to not linger in the time between those shots. I want to know and that doesn’t result in a sense of existentialism, but irrationality.

Tell Me You Love Me

Jamie continues along with Hugo no where to be found. I assume he’ll eventually return to the forefront in some manner, but for now I think I’m enjoying the show exploring relationships through the eyes of someone recovering and/or pining for one. Ian Somerhalder returns and after being rebuffed during foreplay, seems to be giving Jamie the run around. Is he just toying with her or is his character genuinely bothered by their interactions? I secretly kinda wish he’d stick around for the whole season, although I’m sure Hugo will replace him sooner or later. Somerhalder’s fun to watch on screen; his performance in The Rules of Attraction remains a highlight after repeated viewings. If his little hard-to-get streak isn’t a cynical ploy, it’ll prove a kink for Jamie as she pursues a relationship without relying upon sex. Palek and Carolyn tried artificial insemination, but by episode’s end that appears to have been a failure, right alongside everything else they’ve attempted. Of course, this was confirmed after Carolyn became super excited after seemingly perceiving changes in her body and announcing to herself and some others that she was pregnant. What a way to set yourself up for an even greater fall. This couple really needs to explore realistic expectations once in a while instead of declaring victory at the slightest hint of progress and then humiliating themselves. Carolyn’s last words have her claiming to be finished with the whole pregnancy endeavor, but I can’t see that lasting long, if at all. Her entire life, as seen in this series, has revolved around that pursuit. As much as the disappointments hurt, she’ll crumble without them, at least without some real internalized changes in her outlook on life. Palek explored some daddy issues on the side in this one, between eying the joys and frustrations of a father dealing with his son at a Radioshack, and then confronting his own father via voicemail and reiterating a desire that they never communicate. Carolyn may be most concerned with simply conceiving, but I can see Palek having some thoughts about the actual having a child part of the process.

Meanwhile, Katie’s making an occasional attempt to rekindle a physical relationship with David, while we catch him finding some private alone time to masturbate for the second time in the series. Hmm, there is most certainly something that hasn’t been revealed yet about why he isn’t interested. That monologue he had in therapy about the dullness of suburban family life doesn’t account for these actions. So much for the doctor’s orders of finding some alone time together.

And finally, there’s Dr. May Foster and Arthur. Seems we have confirmation that at some point she cheated on him, and he’s still notably insecure about it and she has reason to avoid dealing with it. I’m not sure where this is going. Does the series require us to see firsthand that the therapist doesn’t have an absolutely perfect home life? I’m not convinced. So far, her own relationship comes off as tacked on whenever it rears its head in episodes. Perhaps the season as a whole will paint a different picture come the end.

This week also marks a small crossing of the characters with Jamie hanging out at the same park where David and Katie’s son had his baseball game. No character interaction this time around, but I remain interested to see if there will be a point made by the series in having the characters inhabit the same spaces and possibly relate to each other.

Tell Me You Love Me

I’ll start with David and Katie’s storyline, since Tim DeKay stole the episode in my eyes thanks to their therapy scene and his entrance into that world. That’s not to take away from Ally Walker’s work as Katie, but I think DeKay was given the spotlight and he ran with it. The big thing for them this week was David’s decision to go with Katie to the therapy session. He’s initially nervous and gives inoffensive answers to Foster’s questions that reveal nothing of direct substance, but her back-and-forth probing of the couple and their anniversary leads to some sparks. David accuses Katie of poking at him, always looking for the downside or the “but”, as at the end of their anniversary night. Katie attacks him for taking none of her hints of possibly rekindling their sexual relationship and for him refusing to initiate anything. All this time DeKay plays David as nervous and self-conscious, feeling absolutely out of element and concerned about not disrupting the delicate decorum of the session. However, Katie’s accusation prompts him to release a pent-up, angry diatribe about the lack of sexiness in going to the grocery store, shopping for minivans, reading bedtime stories to their kids, and basically every aspect of their family life. DeKay just owns the performance. What continues to be great about the show though, is the amount of time given to scenes to live and breathe. This therapy sequence gets a whopping seven minutes straight for viewers to fall into the uncomfortable silences and the angry, hurtful things that get said. It always pleases me when the quicker paces of most television shows and the structural patterns therefrom ingrained in my brain make me think a scene is about to end, only for it to jump right back in for more.Carolyn reveals to Palek that she had an abortion in college, giving him license to be upset with her for laying the blame on him their year of failed attempts at conceiving. Both have had positive checkouts with doctors, but as I recall Carolyn’s OBGYN mentioned finding a slight abnormality, although it was said to be unlikely linked to her pregnancy issues. I can’t remember clearly whether that could be linked to the abortion, but I did think of that possibility at the time. Still, it remains somewhat uncertain whether there’s any medical reason for their lack of success. Otherwise, seems as though Palek is turning cold and distant, and there’s more than a little hint that he may pursue an affair with the woman who sold him the suits. Carolyn displayed an unsubtle breakdown in the opening scene, and seems destined to fall apart in bigger ways as conception continues to elude her. This couple’s certain to just keep diving into deeper and darker waters.

Jamie finally gets a hold of Hugo by meeting him at the school where he teaches, and while she professes she misses him, he’s decided that being away is tough but ultimately healthy. She later gets a tattoo, of what I could not decipher. She mopes around a bit, has a quickie with a coworker, and later dismisses the attention of Nick (Ian Somerhalder), who’s hanging around the restaurant as he’s split with another of Jamie’s coworkers. The big development for this arc would be her arrival at Dr. May Foster’s, leading her to acknowledge her own deep issues with monogamy. Thankfully, this adds something interesting to her character, as she’s mostly come off as whiny and a bit self-righteous in her dealings with Hugo. She doesn’t have everything worked out though, and it’s about time that that facade dropped.

Strangely, absolutely no development on Dr. May Foster and the mysterious John character from her past.

Perhaps most intriguing, at least along the lines of the show’s structure, was the meeting of two storylines with David and Palek doing business with each other. I was awaiting something like this for a while, but I wonder if it will amount to anything more than casual crossings. I find it unlikely that the three primary storylines will ever be very intertwined, but I wonder what the writers might be going for with crossing the couples once in a while. I suspect, or hope, that the season taken as a whole will prove an interesting journey to look back on, based both on these structural questions and the plot development itself.

Life

If this first episode is any indication, I just found the one new network show I’ll add to my regular viewing. Life sees the return of Damian Lewis to television, after his stellar role as Dick Winters in HBO’s Band of Brothers. This time he’s leading a cop show on NBC. Fortunately, it seems different from the rest and isn’t just another procedural, although those elements are surely there. While there is likely to be a case-of-the-week situation, the pilot introduces several things that will hopefully be adequately explored in a serial fashion. Charlie Crews (Lewis) is a cop who was recently released from twelve years in prison after his conviction was overturned based on faulty evidence. Even though he receives a large settlement, some $50 million, he returns to the force to continue that passion. Perhaps there is an ulterior motive though, as despite the character’s repeated proclamation that he wasn’t concerned with finding out who framed him and how, the episode’s end reveals that he’s very much trying to work through it, with a wall of his mansion covered in a web of photos and facts related to his case.

Other setups in the pilot include a potential romantic interest in his lawyer, a sadistic interest in giving the new husband of his ex-wife (who left him after the conviction debacle) minor traffic tickets, his new partner Reese’s previous drug addiction, and his general effort to catch up with the world after being locked up for twelve years. It’s also fortunate that the show takes place in Los Angeles, with the benefits of a different look and sensibility than the dozens of cop shows that have been centered around New York City. Likewise with Charlie Crews and his internalized zen philosophy. It’s something different, and that’s appreciated. Production values are high, with a standoff occurring late in the show being worthy of a good film.

Beyond the zen and an affection for fruit, Crews has an odd affectation of assuming an accent or lisp at certain moments. It appears to me to be a character that the detective takes on to distance himself from some situations, but I can’t be sure. It’s never directly addressed in the episode, and as such may put off some less attentive viewers, but it’s definitely an act of some kind. Damian Lewis has proven that he can do a better American accent than many Americans, and he plays it straight for most of the episode. I hope to see this explored in the future. We’re certainly lead to believe that there’s more going on in his head than we’re being shown so far.

Tell Me You Love Me

Another week, another solid episode. This show’s a bit of a slow burn, especially since it’s strictly characters and dialogue, but after a couple hours of familiarization, it starts getting rewarding.Tim DeKay gets to play a few moments of horror in this episode that are fun and well, horrifying. Watching him squirm as his daughter presses him to buy lingerie for Katie for his anniversary present to her, and then as she asks Katie to open the gift at the restaurant. David’s just perfectly embarrassed and speechless, while trying not to be either for the sake of his daughter. Katie’s mixed emotions at the end of their anniversary night were interesting. That vocalized doubt over David’s proclamation of love will surely return, perhaps in relation to whatever it was the started the two down this path. It was a bit tough watching her torpedo her own pleasure at getting David a gift he truly got excited over by forcing the issue, but at the same time she seemed content with the development.

Likewise, watching Palek grow cocky (hah!) over his successful fertility test only to then get burned by Carolyn was rough. Poor guy is finally hopeful about the whole trying-to-conceive thing and then goes one step too far by announcing that ongoing attempt during a get together with friends, prompting Carolyn to spitefully reveal that they’ve been trying for over a year, right after Jeremy London’s cameo character reveals his wife’s third pregnancy. Ouch. Bad move Palek. Reign in that excitement. This couple’s storyline also continues to make the sex scenes actually mean something, as we see Palek funnel a bit of anger and frustration into their coupling, which doesn’t go unnoticed by Carolyn. And of course, following this, Palek manages to upset her with a question that she previously upset him with: what they’ll do if they cannot conceive a child.

Hugo’s absent this episode, leaving us to follow Jamie for their plotline. Can’t say this week’s stuff changed my opinion much regarding those two. Jamie spends the episode smoking pot, drinking and bemoaning the breakup with Hugo (which she initiated) while her friends push her to fuck someone else to put her mind of him. Rinse and repeat. I was, however, amused by the cameos by Rhys Coiro and Joshua LeBar from Entourage (the characters Billy Walsh and Josh Weinstein, respectively).

Something weird happens in this episode though, which rubbed me the wrong way. The point of view shifts away from the main characters for two moments. One is at the birthday party that David and Katie attend, where the show pauses to let us hear two women discuss their perceptions of Katie’s emotional state. The second is less noteworthy, but we stick with Jamie’s friend after she halts their looming hookup and see him phone another acquaintance to satisfy his needs. It’s kind of strange to give us perspectives beyond the four couples. The audience is certainly in the position of a voyeur, but it’s much more interesting and challenging when we’re forced to stay with those characters at all times. There should be no reprieve when someone else comes in and vocalizes what we’re watching or confirms our suspicions about what’s happening outside our view. It’s too easy. We didn’t need to hear the women contemplate whether Katie’s happy in her marriage. We already know there’s a conflict there, we can see her insecurity in talking about her marriage with these women, and we can see that that isn’t lost upon those friends. That’s enough right there, no need to spoon feed us.

Finally, I’m not sure what I should be making of Dr. May Foster and Arthur’s relationship. The first episode showed these two as a seemingly very happy elderly couple. The second episode introduced an unseen character, John, who presumably has some kind of former relationship with May, and here we have Arthur reveal some insecurity about John and May, asking her to visit the old acquaintance and then return to him in some show of fidelity. It appears that May has reservations about revisiting this, and I find something strangely unsettling about the way Arthur acts around her. Something is going on, and I’d be surprised if these two make it through the season as the resident idyllic couple.

Tell Me You Love Me

I’m finding myself quite a fan of the Palek character. Maybe he reminds me a bit of myself, but that’s beside the point. His conversation during this episode’s therapy session demonstrated a trait that I find rare in television, in that he’s quite deliberative and thoughtful in his speech. The words he requires to detail his emotions don’t come instantly to him because he hasn’t completely worked those emotions out to begin with. He doesn’t initiate a speech that has been reverberating around his head, but instead makes a brave move, in this context at least, to define and articulate his feelings aloud in the presence of his wife and therapist. He isn’t shooting from the hip, so to speak, but carefully considering his words and what they’ll mean to himself, to Carolyn and to their relationship. There’s certainly an attention and care given to language on other shows by the writers, but it’s a treat to see it coming from a character.

I hope something happens with the young couple. Thus far they’re just screwing, squabbling and screwing. Hugo reminds me of Jeremy Sisto’s character from Six Feet Under to the point of distraction. Mostly though, the two characters just don’t have a very deep conflict right now. There’s only so much they can do with Hugo alternating between saying he’ll never be with another woman and refusing to address the issue, and Jamie alternately believing his lie and not believing it. When are these two going to be introduced to the therapy sessions?

David and Katie’s story continues well, with a little more insight into Katie’s sexual hangups. A lot can be gleaned from Ally Walker’s performance in her therapy sequence and her aborted masturbation attempt. It’ll be interesting to see how, or if, David directly factors into her issues.

The Kingdom

The Kingdom isn’t a bad film, but it is rather inconsequential. Its problems lie mostly in not delivering on the first two acts’ development and its mysteriously apolitical nature, despite being bookended by brief attempts to forcefully make the audience think. Both problems intersect and produce a film that really doesn’t have much to say.

Firstly, the development problems. The first two acts are designed around getting the FBI team into Saudi Arabia in order to conduct a crime scene investigation of the mass murder, and then the investigation itself. No problems there. Unfortunately, it doesn’t pay off. The investigation ultimately leads to a raid on a few lowest-of-the-lower-level terrorists. All forward momentum is lost until the team is ambushed on the highway while returning to home base, and events proceed from here to lead the team to the terrorist leader they suspected to be responsible. There’s nothing fulfilling about the team stumbling blindly into solving the case. Actually, it’s not so much solved as rectified, what with every single terrorist on hand left dead by the film’s end and no evidence available, to the characters at least, to conclusively pin the murders on those the team kill.

In tandem with this is the first two acts’ emphasis on the American and Saudi governments’ respective tight leashes on the FBI team. They’re limited in how they can collect evidence, talk to witnesses, examine corpses and especially where, when and with who they can travel. So when the team makes an unexpected trip following the ambush into the heart of Riyadh, fully armed and accompanied by two Saudi officers clearly no longer operating under any official guidance, and kill what had to have been a good two dozen Saudi terrorists, it’s utterly surprising when not a peep is mentioned about the excursion’s geopolitical ramifications. It’s not mentioned during the start of the third act’s pursuit by the Saudi soldiers who had previously been in charge of holding the aforementioned leash, nor is it mentioned by anyone else during the film’s final moments. When a movie starts by having characters repeatedly declare that any American investigative team landing in Saudi Arabia would in and of itself be upsetting to the nations’ relations finishes with an entirely unauthorized and explosive incursion into civilian territory without blinking, well, the movie’s given up any semblance of being grounded in reality, or even following its own internal logic.

You have to wonder why the first two acts exist when they’re almost completely thrown out the window for the finale.

The opening credits sequence provides an illustrated briefing of US-Saudi relations dating back to the 1930s. One expects these relations to be tested on macro and/or micro levels, but it’s a failed promise. The background info is interesting but hardly necessary to the following experience. Perhaps some of this would have been capitalized upon had the third act not forgotten what came before it, but alas. It all boils down to a well made if mindless action thriller. To be fair, the last sequence does attempt to inspire conversation as audiences depart the theater, but I’m not sure what it raises is really explored at all in the film, making it something of a throwaway moment hoping to earn the film credit for things it didn’t do. Suffice to say, it raises a comparison between the film’s terrorists and the FBI team (or perhaps more broadly, Americans) and their approach to the global conflict. It’s a decent starter conversation piece, and very pointed, but as presented probably too reductive given the topic. It may end up inspiring more knee-jerk reactions than consideration.

All said and done, The Kingdom isn’t so much offensive as inoffensive. The last thirty to forty minutes are gripping and include some real crowd-pleasing moments along with my favorite shot of the film: the view from an SUV traveling through an explosion, the screen is filled with roiling reds while speckled with black chunks of debris.

Tell Me You Love Me

Based upon the pilot episode of HBO’s latest original series, I definitely want to keep up with the rest of the season. Tell Me You Love Me follows the intimate relationships of three couples in various stages of their lives together, connected – eventually – by the same therapist. As such, there’s a sizable focus on sex and its related issues, and the sexual explicitness has encompassed most of the conversation about the show up until now. After reading various reviews and viewer comments, I was expecting much more than what primarily amounted to fleeting glances of genitals. Of course, I’ve seen the likes of 9 Songs which revolves around the gimmick of telling the story of a couple entirely through music and real sex scenes. I suspect the people who were made uncomfortable by this first segment of Tell Me You Love Me would be absolutely flabbergasted by what the camera shows and lingers upon in 9 Songs. I won’t even mention Shortbus… Anyway, where 9 Songs largely failed, I think the sex scenes may actually work here to illustrate something substantive about the relationships being explored. I’ll have to see more of the series to really get a feel for how it’s approached though.

Anyway, the show is going to live or die by the performances, and fortunately for it, the actors deliver. For the actors, it must be a treat to be trusted so much and given the room to work. This show isn’t rushed. It’s filled with silences between characters and internal moments. Wisely, the show lacks a score, so there are no cheesy cues to indicate to the audience how they should be feeling at any given moment. Everything we need is seen on the faces of the actors. I found it so engaging, in fact, that when some music popped up for the final montage segment, I found it incredibly obtrusive and ham-fisted. It breaks up the perceived rawness and intimacy of the voyeuristic experience, serving more to divorce ourselves from what we’re seeing.

I’d also chime in and say that it’s great to see Tim DeKay back on television. I’ll never forgive HBO for canning Carnivàle, but at least it seems like he’ll get to flex his chops in long-form television again.

I don’t feel like picking apart the plot at this point. It seems silly after one episode, and the show’s foundation isn’t even completely set yet. Still, I was definitely engaged by the first hour, and I think it’s well worth checking out.