#does make more sense pacing/narrative wise to end the first movie with his death

[kazz-brekker]

coming to the lord of the rings books after having already seen the movies it was quite strange to finish reading fellowship of the ring and have it end with boromir still alive. i was like “huh that’s weird i KNOW that death isn’t something the movies invented.” and then i started the two towers and he died on page 2.

[ultrahpfan5blog]

Death on the Nile - a fun, old fashioned, mystery thriller

So, just came back from watching Death on the Nile after having watched Murder on the Orient Express last night. I was a little mixed on Murder on the Orient Express but I still leaned positive, but I think Death on the Nile improves on the formula at several points and certainly makes things more emotionally involving. While Murder on the Orient Express arguably had the better cast, I think Death on the Nile spreads out the wealth to its cast more than Murder on the Orient Express did.

This film automatically had a leg up over Murder on the Orient Express for me because I had less memory of the particulars of the story. I remembered the culprits but not all the thing going on with the supporting characters. Death on the Nile wisely reduced the amount of characters by compositing some characters and removing others. There are a couple of new subplots added as well to boost the narrative a bit. So there was more a sense of discovery with this film which always helps in a murder mystery thriller. The film actually takes about an hour until its gets to the actual death. It is a little bit on the slow side but it allows for the various characters to breathe a bit. The murder in MOTOE happened fairly early so we only got to really know the characters through the various interrogations, but here we see the characters in isolation before the murder takes place. But the film really goes into high gear in the second half. The second hour of the movie is really quite good and very tightly paced and all the actors come out to play at various points. The film's inclusion of Bouc, who is not in the source material, ended up a masterstroke in my opinion because that connection leads to some emotionally affecting moments in the last act. The film is visually wonderful and bright. It is CGI heavy, like the previous film but the sets and the costuming is wonderful and really gives the film an old fashioned feel to it. The film also feels less obvious. Even me, who knew the eventual culprits, wondered how it happened and if they were going to change it from the source material. There are some developments added which help enhance that feeling.

As to flaws, like I mentioned, the first hour is a bit slow and does get a bit repetitive. While good for the characters, it does feel a little bit like treading water. The CGI is sometimes very noticeable which takes you out of the moment at times. There are some dramatics added to make the film more action packed, like a shoot out, but its toned down comparatively with the previous film. There are a few cast members who don't get a lot of scope, but I would say everyone at least gets a highlight moment. Poirot also gets a backstory which purists will probably not like because its one of those things which is done to romanticize his character while the original character is very much not so. I didn't personally mind despite loving the character from the books, but I can see that annoying others. Linet is also a character whose rough edges were sanded off. She's a lot less likable in the book. The more unpleasant aspects of her characters are told rather than shown. The film is also relatively downbeat in its tone. It feels like a tragedy for all the characters involved.

The acting is strong across the board. Branaugh is again in full control, both in front of the camera and behind it. He definitely is a bit more vulnerable here but he delivers all the various notes, such as his lighthearted playfulness, his anger, his frustration, and his sadness, all quite magnificently. I am very much hopeful we continue to get more from him in this role. Tom Bateman as Bouc is a standout. His story is surprisingly hearbreaking. Emma Mackey is a scene stealer and my eyes were always drawn to her when she was there. Russell Brand is excellently cast against type as Dr. Windlesham. Annette Bening is wonderful as always. Sophie Okonedo and Letitia Wright have substantial roles and are both very good. Jennifer Saunders, Dawn French, Rose Leslie, and Ali Fazal all have some good moments. For all the controversy around him, Armie Hammer acquits himself well in a fairly straight man role. Gal Gadot is also solid and sympathetic as Linet.

Ironically, this film feels very appropriate coming out on the eve of Valentine's day, or inappropriate in a way because the film's central theme is about the crazy things people do for love. And there are all sorts, there is tragic love, one sided love, familial love, parental love, love across races, hidden love etc.... I think its a strong film which I feel like watching again. I think it deserves a 7.5-8/10 on first viewing.

[movie-magic]

How Superman & Lois Is Avoiding Falcon & Winter Soldier's Fatal Mistake

Superman & Lois is avoiding the storytelling and pacing issues that hurt The Falcon and the Winter Soldier by focusing on the characters.

Despite Superman & Lois featuring the Man of Steel as a lead, the Arrowverse show is keeping its story grounded, thus avoiding the biggest mistake the MCU made with The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. The CW's series focuses on Clark Kent and Lois Lane as a married couple raising two sons. Despite Clark being Superman — arguably the most powerful being on the planet, and likely Earth's most important hero — Superman & Lois uses conflict within the Kent household as its primary narrative conflict. In the Arrowverse, Clark already knows how to be a hero — but he's still learning how to be a dad.

So far, Superman & Lois has successfully distinguished itself from the rest of the DC titles — particularly other Superman-focused series like Smallville — by focusing on a different period in the hero's life. Superman & Lois season 1 centers on Jordan Kent developing powers, and the family moving from Metropolis back to the Kent farm in Smallville, giving the troubled teen a chance at a new start in a quieter environment. This comes at great personal cost to twin-brother Jonathan, who loses both his star quarterback status and his girlfriend. Still, the predominant theme of the series is family bonds, and although there is tension between the Kents, every person is incredibly supportive of their loved ones.

Superman & Lois is leaning into the CW's strengths: relationships. Rather than having each episode feature a "villain of the week," the Arrowverse show wisely reserves its action for small scenes — saving on the effects budget while still satisfying Superman fans — and lets the conflict between characters be the main narrative thrust. The Marvel show The Falcon and the Winter Soldier did the opposite: instead of focusing the short 6-episode series on the relationship of its two leads, the Disney+ show overcomplicated its story with the Flag-Smashers plot. That fatal mistake prevented Falcon and Winter Soldier from living up to its potential.

Falcon and Winter Soldier had a strong premise: Sam Wilson and Bucky Barnes coming together, coping with the unexpected loss of Steve Rogers and grappling with Captain America's future. The show's initial marketing presented the series as something like Marvel's version of a buddy-cop story. However, just like so many of the MCU movies, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier introduced a global crisis for its heroes to solve: the increasingly violent terrorist group, the Flag-Smashers, and the resurgence of the Super Soldier serum. The stakes became much higher than the reluctant partnership of Sam and Bucky — and as a result, their interpersonal drama took a backseat in the story.

There were many aspects of the Falcon and the Winter Soldier that worked really well, and largely, these are tied to strong characterization. Bucky's at his best when he's being introspective and flawed: the show hints that he is still drawn to violence, but is deeply ashamed of the Winter Soldier's violent actions. With Steve Rogers' Captain America gone, Bucky is more alone now than ever, being a relic of the past. All of the people he grew up with are dead or much older than he appears to be — and while he's grown accustomed to this new world, he acts perpetually uncomfortable. It's a theme the show sets up in the premiere but doesn't adequately address.

Falcon and Winter Soldier was poised to give Sam and Bucky a relatable, complicated, and resonant relationship — but this never came to fruition. Instead of genuine conflict between the two, the show relied on forced quips and odd-couple banter. Sam Wilson's past as a PTSD counselor made him the perfect figure to help Bucky cope with Steve Rogers going back to the past: something Bucky no doubt wished for himself, and — given his history with Steve in the MCU and how close they were — may have felt resentful of. At the same time, Bucky could have helped Sam on his journey to becoming the new Captain America. Bucky, as a white man, is ill-equipped to help Sam grapple with issues like systemic racism in America — but as a friend, he could have offered quiet support.

There are hints at the show that could have been in Falcon and Winter Soldier: in the ending, for example, when Bucky helps Sam fix up the boat and joins in on the family celebration, or the scenes of Sam and Bucky training with the shield together. The action in the series is often exciting and is executed well — but any antagonist would have worked for those scenes. Sam feeling such an affinity with Karli Morgenthau never made sense — he literally held her in his arms after she shot Sharon Carter, his friend. In general, the character motivations in the show were underdeveloped, all because not enough screentime was spent on exploring the relationships that mattered. This was the fatal mistake Marvel made with The Falcon and the Winter Soldier: not using the characters' relationships as the focus of the narrative.

How Superman & Lois Avoids Making The MCU's Biggest Mistake:

The CW was wise to make Superman & Lois largely about the Kent family adjusting to major changes: the death of Martha Kent, the children learning the truth about their father, the family moving from Metropolis to Smallville, and the realization that boys could have inherited their father's Kryptonian powers. While there is a larger conspiracy at the heart of Superman & Lois season 1, the Morgan Edge plot is secondary to the story of Jordan discovering his powers and Clark trying to balance being a hero with being a father. The show isn't about super-powered beings donning costumes to beat up bad guys. While other Arrowverse shows have dealt with similar themes, Superman & Lois is the first to do so without focusing on being a superhero. For example, Black Lightning dealt with similar family themes, but is still primarily about Jefferson Pierce fighting The 100, and his daughter begins crimefighting almost immediately after discovering her powers.

Superman does appear in Superman & Lois and is presumably still averting Nuclear disaster and catching criminals, but much of this happens either offscreen or in brief subplots. The best moments in the show are scenes with Clark trying to coach Jordan, like the moment when he quietly tells his son to let out the built-up eye energy on the football field. These moments work because they're so earnest. While the circumstance is fantastic, the parent-child dynamic and the coming-of-age allegory are incredibly relatable. Clark doesn't know what to do, but he's trying his best. Jordan, as a typical teenager, lacks the maturity to make smart choices. He struggles to understand and control his powers, and he reacts to situations impulsively. He has the concerns of a typical teenage boy: his interest in a potential romance with Sarah, his newfound popularity thanks to football, and his emerging sense of self as he navigates puberty. Instead of scenes with Clark and Jordan stopping bank robbers or flying, audiences get glimpses of their family life; it's a story where the character motivations always feel genuine.

The relationships in Superman & Lois are realistically complicated and nuanced. Jordan and Jonathan Kent break the CW's warring brothers trope by being supporting and caring about each other, even when they disagree. Clark and Lois clearly love each other while having their own separate lives, and the show wisely avoids using Lois as a damsel in distress figure for Superman to save. None of the characters are perfect, with Clark in particular struggling with parental choices and the twin boys making the kind of dumb decisions teenagers make. Unlike The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, which overcomplicated its first season with unnecessary global stakes, Superman & Lois keeps the story grounded on its family dynamic, which is a refreshing new standard for superhero stories.

- Screen Rant

[neoduskcomics]

Ranking All 10 Star Wars Movies

The final installment in the Skywalker Saga (as it is now retroactively being christened) is upon us, and so I’ve decided to do a bit of a retrospective on all the films leading us here.

The purpose of this personal ranking is not to put down any particular films or to invalidate anyone else’s opinions. In fact, I will be focusing largely on what I like about each movie, rather than what I think was wrong with it. I’ll still touch on criticisms of each film, but know that even if I don’t think they’re all objectively amazing films, I still like every single one of them, and have watched each one numerous times.

The fandom, as it always has been, is so weighed down with hatred and lashing out and segregation, that it overshadows the unabashed joy and love that many still hold for that galaxy far, far away. And so, I’d like to put that anger away for a second, and just talk about why each of these movies holds a special place in the Star Wars saga.

10. The Phantom Menace

Chronologically the first film in the series, and also the first on this list. I saw this movie when I was pretty little, and I have to say, it’s the first Star Wars film I ever saw that I actually enjoyed. When I was a kid, I never cared for the original trilogy. Those movies bored and, to be honest, kind of frightened me. But Phantom Menace was replete with colorful visuals, whacky humor and loads of CGI action. That appealed to me quite a lot.

Yes, in retrospect, the plot is contrived, the characters are incredibly bland and pacing is all over the place, but it was my gateway drug into the magic that the rest of the franchise had to offer. And I’m gonna say it -- Jar Jar Binks was probably half the reason the movie kept my attention for as long as it did. All the other characters were so stuffy and stoic, and all they talked about was an overly complicated plot of political intrigue; Jar Jar added some much needed humor and levity for my childhood self to stay interested. It’s heavily flawed for sure, but I can’t rag on this movie too much when I have it to thank for the love that I have for the series now. Besides, Darth Maul kicks ass, right?

9. Attack of the Clones

Is it controversial to rank this above The Phantom Menace? My reasoning is twofold: 1) The movie has an actual emotional throughline to follow, that of Anakin being frustrated with his feelings of fear, resentment and love; and 2) There’s a lot more action. The Phantom Menace was my first step into the shallow side of the Star Wars pool, but this movie is what got me to dive in headfirst.

Is the dialogue embarrassingly terrible? Yes. Is it 75% CGI fluff? Yes. And as a kid, I ate all that stuff up. Plus, honestly, the movie’s not all bad. People started liking Ewan McGregor as Obi-Wan with this movie, as the charming, dry-humored, slightly exasperated mentor. We got a load of lightsaber fights, and chases through cityscapes and asteroid fields. There was a ton to think was cool about this movie. Sure, it’s still messy and awkward, and it’s loaded to the brim with outbursts of teenage angst, but this is the film that really got me to think lightsabers, starships and bounty hunters were just the most awesome things ever. You can bet I had a few specific items on my Christmas list that year.

8. Solo

I saw Solo a second time this year, and on a re-watch, I actually enjoyed it quite a lot more. It’s fun and frantically paced, there’s loads of Star Wars fanservice, and the lead actor actually does a pretty good impersonation of a young Han Solo. The supporting cast is pretty likable, too, and the dialogue is always snappy. The action sequences were exciting, and while the movie does go out of its way to try to answer every single question about Han-related trivia, I still think it’s fun to see how things unfolded.

Sure, the movie is pretty hollow when it comes to its themes. Han doesn’t get a very solid character arc in the movie, and we definitely don’t see a very cohesive transformation from relatively altruistic kid to completely self-centered nerf-herder -- and that’s a real shame. But honestly, as a Star Wars side story and blockbuster action film, I think it’s a pretty solid couple hours of entertainment. If you shrugged this movie off when it came out or weren’t impressed and haven’t seen it since, I say maybe give it another chance. You might still not like it, which is totally fair, but maybe tempered expectations and a slightly more lenient attitude will allow you to enjoy it a bit more this time around.

7. Rogue One

Now, as much as I enjoyed Solo as a relatively shallow but fun Star Wars action movie, it is not my favorite Star Wars movie of that brand. That honor goes solely to Rogue One. This movie is pure Star Wars fan service. You got X-wings, TIE fighters, stormtroopers, AT-STs, AT-ATs, star destroyers, new ships and infantry armor, and let’s not forget Darth Vader. That scene with him at the end of the film is one of my all-time favorite scenes in any Star Wars movie. I got chills watching that sequence. It was everything I’d ever wanted from a Darth Vader cameo.

Now, Rogue One might be almost nothing but action and fanservice -- most of the main cast of characters is not terribly interesting or memorable -- but that’s okay. This is a lot of people’s new favorite Star Wars movie, and I don’t think it’s hard to see why. It’s basically everything fans loved most about the prequels -- the spectacle, the new worlds, the new weapons, the new soldiers, while still trying to keep true to the spirit of the franchise, and making nods to its roots. The characters can be bland, and some of the fights drag on a bit, but it’s still a thrilling ride. Also, K-2SO is probably the funniest character in any Star Wars film.

6. The Last Jedi

This movie has some of the greatest, most powerful moments in the entire franchise. Rey’s relationship with Kylo Ren and their confrontations with Luke were an incredible emotional foundation to the story. Many of the visuals were dazzling, and not all but many of the jokes landed pretty well. Luke was provided with a realistic and interesting character arc that gave room for actual growth and depth and struggle -- not simply making him another wise old Jedi Master with a padawan who turned to the dark.

This movie took a lot of risks, and not all of them panned out for sure. I disagree with a lot of the narrative choices in this film, especially when it comes to how Kylo Ren and Rey’s relationship ends up by the end of the movie, and what they did with Poe and Finn. However, I cannot understate how great I think other elements of the story were. This is the movie that made me actually start to feel like Rey was a more fleshed-out character, and it made Kylo Ren my new favorite character in the sequel trilogy (also I really like the fight with the praetorian guards, which I guess is a controversial opinion?). While the movie is deeply flawed, it also has a lot in it that is deeply good, and that is definitely worth something.

5. Return of the Jedi

It was very close for me between this movie and The Last Jedi, but I settled on placing episode 6 higher because, to me, it just presents a more elegant narrative with a more cathartic resolution. Return of the Jedi gives us a strong and satisfying conclusion to Luke’s story, and is probably full of more heart and love than any other installment in the series, showcasing bonds between Han and Leia, Leia and Luke, and a reforged bond between Luke and his father. The team is reunited, and it feels so good.

That being said, the movie does have its share of flaws, many of which are in common with The Last Jedi. A lot of the movie feels like needless padding and sort of wasted screentime for the main characters, aside from Luke, who didn’t get much of a meaningful role in the story. However, I feel that it’s counterbalanced by the fact that this film also has some of the most powerful drama in the series. Luke’s confrontation of Vader and the Emperor is wonderfully tense and exciting, and it comes to a stirring conclusion. Plus, Han, Leia, Chewie, C-3PO and R2-D2 are all still their lovable selves, bantering away and getting in way over their heads. It’s kind of hard to not find the film charming. All in all, a great way to wrap up an iconic trilogy.

4. Revenge of the Sith

I remember when this film came out, some critics even went so far as to say it was “better than the original trilogy.” While that’s certainly up for the fans to debate, I do think this movie demonstrated a sense of clarity that was lacking in either of the other prequels. It’s a story all about one thing -- Anakin wants to stop his wife from dying a certain death, and will do whatever it takes to make that happen. The resulting story is filled with incredibly potent pain, fear, anxiety, suffering and darkness, as Anakin fights and eventually gives into temptation.

Okay, yeah, the dialogue is still mostly terrible, and the acting can still feel forced and awkward, but I think if you’re able to look past that, you’ll see what it easily the strongest narrative in the prequel trilogy. It also has a lot of things that the other two prequels were missing: humor (the entire beginning sequence is a fun and largely comical ride not found in the other prequels), memorably dramatic scenes (“Did you ever hear of the tragedy of Darth Plagueis the Wise?”) and the wickedly over-the-top Emperor finally taking the spotlight with his cackling and pontificating. It may not be the most gracefully crafted movie in the series, but it does have one of the most powerful stories to tell, and I think that’s what ultimately shines through.

3. The Force Awakens

I love this movie. The action, the effects, the characters, the humor -- it is a cavalcade of blockbuster science-fantasy wonder. Abrams did an outstanding job retooling the original trilogy to suit a modern audience, with new, creative takes on the faceless, nameless stormtrooper, a Darth Vader stand-in who knows he’s a stand-in and hates it, and a burgeoning hero doesn’t run toward adventure but away from it. There is an energy, a sort of vitality, to this film that I don’t think you can find in any other installment in the series. It’s dazzling, powerful and full of spirit.

And yes, it has its own fair share of flaws. The political situation is weirdly under-explained, the movie heavily relies on the original films as a template for the plot’s structure, and Rey could’ve used more coherent development as the protagonist of the film. However, I wholly and heartily believe that the movie more than makes up for all of that with its unique and charming cast of original characters. I loved Poe Dameron, Kylo Ren, Finn, and the returning Han and Chewie in this story. They all did wonderful performances with snappy dialogue, great performances and thrilling fights. It would’ve been great if the studio had tried to stray from the norm more, sure, but The Force Awakens, in my eyes, is still an exhilarating, warm and entrancing entryway into the territory of a new era for the franchise.

2. A New Hope

This one was tough to place. If I’m being completely honest, I think I probably actually like The Force Awakens more as a film, but it just doesn’t sit right with me to not give priority to the original. And I think credit should be given where credit is due: this movie, for better or worse, revolutionized cinema. It’s the movie that started it all, defying all odds and expectations. It’s the ideal archetype of the hero’s journey; a boy from humble beginnings meets with an old mentor who shows him a much bigger, brighter, and scarier world that he must face for the good of the world he lives in. Along the way, we meet some of the most iconic and memorable characters in the history of film -- Han Solo, Princess Leia, C-3PO, R2-D2 and the ever-lovable Darth Vader.

Now, has this movie been overly mythologized? Yes. Has it in many respects aged poorly? Sure. It totally has. The dialogue can be goofy, the action can look hokey and the pacing can feel terribly slow. But a lot of people will throw statements around like “It’s only famous because it was the first” when looking at movies like the original Star Wars, or the characters contained within. But I think that line of reasoning is misguided. Cheesy sci-fi features, space operas, action movies, roguish characters, princesses and humble heroes were not invented by Star Wars or George Lucas, just as people with superhuman abilities were not pioneered by the creators of Superman. And yet, this movie stood out in all of moviemaking history, proving that it had accomplished what no film like it had before. It is not a beloved film simply because it was the first. It’s the first because it was beloved.

Honorable Mention: The Clone Wars

Not the movie, the series (because the movie was basically just the pilot to the series that honestly shouldn’t have been shown in theaters). It doesn’t technically qualify for this list, but I just have to mention it (honorably). This series took a look at the prequels, for all their flaws, and said “I can make people like this era of Star Wars.” And you know what? They succeeded. The versions of Obi-Wan, Anakin and the many clone troopers featured in this series are now often the versions people think of when remembering the Clone Wars era of the saga. It was a rollercoaster of a series, with surprisingly dark and dramatic stories, as well as shockingly good action and visuals.

Sure, there were a lot of subpar episodes, but those aren’t what people remember. People remember a version of Anakin that made him a likeable hero, a new Jedi padawan for the audience to identify with, new stories that deepened and expanded upon the lore of the universe, and some really cool warfare that honestly blows a lot of what we saw in the actual prequel films out of the water. If you haven’t seen it yet, get a free trial of Disney + and start binging.

1. The Empire Strikes Back

Okay, okay, yeah, we all saw this coming. Not exactly an original opinion, is it? Still, I can’t deny that I solidly believe The Empire Strikes Back to be the best-made Star Wars film. It may not have the razzle-dazzle of the prequels or the sequels, and it may not have the satisfactory finality of Revenge of the Sith or Return of the Jedi. But what this film does have is care. It’s a movie that feels like it was carefully crafted from top to bottom, with every scene, every narrative throughline, every theme and every line of dialogue.

This is where we got “Do, or do not. There is no try.” This is where we got “I am your father.” This is where we got “I love you/I know.” This is where Vader really cemented himself as the end-all-be-all big bad of the Star Wars galaxy. This is where Han and Leia became the cinematic couple of a lifetime. This is where we really learned about the Force, the Jedi and what sorts of trials Luke would have to face were he to take on that legacy. It’s a magical film, full of wonder, hope, darkness, tragedy and love.

I won’t say it’s a perfect Star Wars movie, because it’s not. No Star Wars movie is. But that’s the beauty of the franchise. Everyone values something different about Star Wars. Everyone has their own favorite movie or series or book or comic or even theme park ride. It’s a phenomenon that spans generations, each one looking back fondly on the era that came before. There were people who grew up on the original trilogy, and now we have people who grew up on the prequels. And in just a few short decades, we’ll have people who grew up with BB-8, Kylo Ren and Rey, and that, to me, is just fantastic.

I know many of you have already written off Star Wars, or at least the new movies, but I am both nervous and excited to see where this all goes in seven days. And I know that there are many of you out there still celebrating Star Wars, holding it dear to your hearts, and not forgetting the feeling it gave you whenever you first fell in love with the franchise. I hope that feeling stays with us, and that it cuts through all the hatred and shouting and derision.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to watch today’s episode of The Mandalorian.

[sweetsmellosuccess]

TIFF 2020: Day 4

Films: 3 Best Film of the Day(s): MLK/FBI

76 Days: Hao Wu, realizing very early on that the early medical reaction to the Coronavirus in Wuhan was something worth capturing, begins his of-the-moment doc, where else but the emergency ward of a Wuhan hospital. Staff members, dressed head-to-toe in protective gear, including hazmat suits, masks, screens, and goggles, frantically try to keep order as sick patients literally bang on the door from the cold, packed waiting room. Once inside the ward, they are quickly dispatched to the only available beds and immediately intubated, the flow of patients either leaving under their own power or being sent to the morgue. Alarms go off, people’s phones bleat and go unanswered. Wu, also using footage from Shanghai, with similarly dire imagery, switches out from the frantic hospital wards long enough to show the Wuhan in total shutdown, the streets and bridges devoid of cars, pedestrians or any sense of life at all. If you squint your eyes a bit, it could seem like a found-footage zombie horror flick. Standing with a population of 7.9 million  —  only half a million people smaller than New York  —  to see Wuhan brought to a complete standstill is to grasp the enormity of this calamity, and the idiocy of countries who were unprepared for such a disaster. The footage tends towards the splintered  —  beyond a couple of key figures whom we see more than once, the closest we come to a narrative arc is watching one sickened “grandpa” (as all elderly men are called) with dementia, in the beginning wandering around the ward helplessly, sobbing in his bed at his suffering, only to recover and be let out some weeks later  —  but what it lacks in cohesiveness, it makes up for in immediacy. What does come out from the footage is how caring the staff is with their patients, even against impossible numbers, and working beyond exhaustion, they take the time to care properly for the citizens under their supervision, giving them pep talks, holding phones so family members can communicate with them, brightening their days as much as feasibly possible. Fittingly, the film ends with a scene as one of the nurses draws the miserable job of calling family members to inform them of the death of their loved ones. “My condolences” she says, over and over, suffering from the limitations of language to express such exhausted grief.

Violation: A film that shoots for disturbingly provocative, but hits blurry stridency, Madeleine Sims-Fewer and Dusty Mancinelli’s fractured rape-revenge story has a lot to say, but can’t quite find the right mechanics to pull it off. Mood and atmosphere, it is not lacking in at least: From the opening credits, blurry font laid over blurred background, to the continued use of the natural world  —  albeit mostly repped by wolves/rabbits and spiders/flies that, shall we say, doesn’t leave much to the imagination, analogy-wise  —  and the time-fractured nature of the narrative, the film has a sense of complexity that its characters can’t sustain. We are at a sweet vacation house somewhere in the pine woods of upstate New York, where British sisters, Miriam (Sims-Fewer) and Greta (Anna Maguire) are reunited after a sizable absence from one another. Miriam has arrived with her unhappy husband, Caleb (Obi Abili), from London, to meet with Greta and her more affable husband, Dylan (Jesse LaVercombe), a friend of Miriam’s since their days in high school together (it was through her that he and Greta first met). Into that happy sort of setting, the two couples trying to enjoy a weekend together, there are scenes from one time in the future or other (at first, unclear), with a much more haunted seeming Miriam conspiring some kind of psycho-sexual caper involving Dylan back at the house, and from there, a scene further out still, in which a sad and bedraggled Greta, upset with Miriam over something, is expecting a large group of people at the same vacation house. Eventually, we piece together that Dylan raped Miriam that first weekend, and her revenge is what comes at us from the near future. Only the rape itself is weirdly muted, and comes out of seeming nowhere, given their long-standing (and unbroken) friendship from earlier. The early scenes of relative happiness between the principals are actually good enough that the characters’ respective turns towards dark and twisted don’t feel like the same people, or the same relationships at all, which divides the movie further into sections that don’t seem terribly connected. Along the way, we get a graphic amount of (male) nudity, lots of painstakingly blood-letting violence, and many, many scenes of now-crazed Miriam sobbing, and heaving, and breaking down over and over, at a creeping pace. We get the point: the politics of sisterhood, rape, and revenge, and the manner in which our deepest convictions can be challenged by the wrong set of circumstances, but despite the filmmakers’ earnestness and care, the film doesn’t hang together the way it needs to for the impact it wants to have.

MLK/FBI: That J. Edgar Hoover’s largely unregulated FBI turned its considerable sights on Martin Luther King Jr. and the rise of the civil rights movement can’t be surprising to anyone familiar with the director’s abhorrence of people he deemed rebel rousers, or chaos-agents, but the actual stated reason for his paranoia on the subject, featured in this doc from Sam Pollard, tells a more interesting story. The success of King’s movement, highlighted by the wildly successful march on Washington in 1963 (an event after which MLK was deemed “the most dangerous negro” in the country by the FBI, whom they would have to “destroy”) spurred further investigation by the bureau, and what they found was even more troubling to Hoover. Amongst King’s immediate group of advisors was an outspoken Jewish civil-rights lawyer named Stanley Levison, who had been and almost certainly remained a member of the American Communist Party, the single greatest threat Hoover perceived against the “American way of life” (ie. “white”). Inflamed by the fear that the Communists were influencing King to lead his peaceful revolution towards social equality for the Reds, Hoover went all in on wiretapping and live-recording King, such that they amassed an enormous amount of material, including the knowledge that the married Baptist minister and father of four was also a serial-cheater, having affairs with more than 40 women Hoover’s G-men documented (nevermind that the sitting president, JFK, was known as an equally philandering playboy, and was protected at every turn). As King’s agency and influence became more widespread, the only thing holding Hoover back from releasing this information to discredit the Black leader was King’s strong relationship with President Lyndon B. Johnson, the signer of the Civil Rights Act in 1964, after JFK’s assassination. When, some years later, King finally followed his conscience, and spoke out against the Vietnam War, an act of bravery even many of his fellow civil rights crusaders refused to go with, severing his relationship with LBJ in the process, Hoover finally had the opening he needed to put his long-held plan to work. Working primarily with historian David Garrow, along with interview commentary from members of King’s inner circle, including Andrew Young and Clarence B. Jones, and featuring many recently declassified materials from the FBI’s own files, Pollard paints a vivid portrait of the political machinations of men with tremendous power, navigating difficult waters, and the cost of speaking out your conscience. Perhaps, best summed up by notorious former FBI head James Comey, who calls this period of time, “the darkest era in the bureau’s history.”

In a year of bizarre happenings, and altered realities, TIFF has shifted its gears to a significantly paired down virtual festival. Thus, U.S. film critics are regulated to watching the international offerings from our own living room couches.

[thefarrons]

FFXV is just so disappointing to me

Ok before I go any further I just want to say that YES this is a rant about XV however this is not in any way me forcing anyone to share my opinion on the game nor is it to shame those who do love the game.

Everything I say about the game comes purely from a place of excitement as a fan of this franchise and a fan of Jrpg's in general.

That being said let's get into this.

FFXV out of all the games in the franchise is the one game is the one game I REALLY struggle to see myself ever returning to in the future and again please don't think I'm saying this just to be edgy but I genuinely mean it. The game is in no way a complete train wreck however I just struggle to find anything that I really like about the game. I really don't think XV does anything particularly well.

Story/characters

Not gonna dwell on the story for too long because at this point everyone and their grandmother knows about the problems with this narrative but just to reiterate cutting the story up into a movie/ anime and paid dlc was a GIGANTIC detriment to this game. What square should have done was make XV as best as they could then made supplementary content (such as the movie, anime ect) to compliment XV's narrative. But since they didn't nothing in XV's story makes all that much sense. It's all payoff but no execution.

Luna's death and ardyns reveal should have been much more impactful then they were but because everything in this narrative is so poorly fleshed out you just don't really care and what's supposed to be a "OOOHH!!" moment quickly becomes a "oh ok." That's bad. I've said it once and I'll say it again but Luna's death I's easily one of the most beautiful and cinematic scene in the franchise however the entire scene falls flat emotionally because you the player just either don't feel for these characters, this off screen romance, or barely can even comprehend what's going on.

XV just has this HUGE pacing issue as well and it's just mind boggling how fast and abrupt certain scenarios and events happen and end. Again the transition from free roam in the open world to the Leviathan is such a WTF moment. It begins so fast and ends so quickly and abrupt you can barely even comprehend what just happened so you just forget about it and move on (not to mention the battle itself is shit but more on that later)

Or take the train scene for example. One second everyone's all fake mad at each other (particularly noctis and gladious) and then all of a sudden they get attacked by ardin and then gentiana shows up and is revealed to be Sheva and prompto gets kidnapped and this all happens within the spawn of 10mins (slight exaggeration)

The game just also has a complete tone and gameplay dissidence problem. Take for example when the party learns insomnia has been taken over and that the king is dead. It's a emotional scene (I guess) as noctis has just learned that his father is dead and his kingdom in imperial hands. Now what is noctis and the party gonna do about it?

Dick around in this open for a bit until coir gets in contact with them I guess.

Oh.

You also just don't even feel the weight of what's just happen as you just barely have a clue as to who the enemy is and what their motivation is. The whole game I knew NOTHING about them empire, their king or whatever plans they had. They were completely off screen the whole game. Which leads me into my next complaint.

The characters.

This is easily my second biggest problem with this game. A lot of people find that the cast in this game is the best thing about it. People find the Bros funny and witty with a lot of banter. I can somewhat agree with this. The cast is likeable and lighthearted which is a good contrast from XIII's moody cast.

Unfortunately a lot of this is ruined by just how one dimensional, corny, underdeveloped, stero typical and generally unimportant this ENTIRE cast is.

Look I'm gonna compare this cast to XIII and before I do so let me point out that I'm not trying to convince you that XIII'S cast is high art or that they are best written characters ever because tldr they're not and their actually pretty simple HOWEVER. Every character in XIII (save fang maybe) had an arc of sorts (and fang at least had a motivation) all the characters in that game have a problem (typically one that involves another party member) and they interact with each other to solve that problem and move on with the main one. You can argue just how "good" all the characters arcs were but none the less they were THERE and the characters did change. XIII had a lot of drama in the cast. Yes some of it was melodramatic and over the top but it was there and the characters eventually got over their differences and worked together so when they start throwing banter around in the second half it actually works considering all they went through previously.

Now back to XV's cast.

I'm not saying the cast needs to have drama between them or that they need to be fighting all the time or anything like that BUT you can't just have me go off the "oh we're just Bros to the end" without any real development or explanation. Why exactly are these guys friends? And what do they go through exactly? One of which is answered in the anime so it doesn't count to me and the other is just kinda non existent to me. During the main story I really struggle to remember scenes in which the party truly bond and have a moment with each other. The game is apparently portraying the plot through noctis perspective but he really don't get any good moments or arcs with any of the characters.

The only arc of sorts that I can imagine is the exchanges between noctis and gladious which in my opinion was some of the cringeworthy and forced scenes in the game. Noctis is trying his hardest to save everyone and deal with the hardships he's facing but gladious for no fucking reason is being a complete DICK to him. Everytime gladiolus opened his mouth I wanted to punch him or at least have noctis do it. Some have said that the reason for this is because gladiolus wants noctis to become a good king or whatever but unfortunately gladiolus doesn't say this until the very end so the entire game the player just thinks of him as an asshole.

And that's just one of many problems. Let's not even get onto promptos little "I was born in a lab" subplot that goes absolutely nowhere (at least in the main game)

And then the side characters.

I mean what's to even say about them? Their bland, unimportant, one note and show up only once. Aranea is the only good side character but unfortunately she shows up only twice and overall has no real relevance to the main story.

But yeah that's just XV's main plot.

A whole lotta nothing.

A lot of people even fans agree that the plot is the worst thing about the game but they say that it makes up for it with it's gameplay.

To that I also heavily disagree.

XV is a horrible story with mediocre gameplay.

First off I'm not gonna compare XV's gameplay to games previous in the franchise or even most Jrpg's in general as gameplay wise XV really shares nothing in common with them. XV is most comparable to an action game so I'm gonna compare it to games like dmc or bayonetta.

What's the end result?

It's shit.

Ok no let me backtrack some. I really wasn't expecting dmc or bayonetta levels of complexity or fluidity however at the same time I was also just expecting something competent. XV's battle system "works" and I mean that just as plainly as I write it. On first impression it looks cool and feels nice but as hrs start to pass you realize just how shallow, repetitive and poorly designed it is and can be.

Most if not all battles can be summed up to this.

*Warp strike and hold circle until you see an attack coming or have a button prompt*

*When hurt pull up the item list and use elixers*

Rinse and repeat.

The game never actually gets "harder" it just throws enemies with larger health sizes at you who can take you down in one hit if they're slightly higher a level than you.

And when the battle system isn't being boring it's bugging out. The camera is god awful half the time especially when in tight places, enemies rarely ever have proper attack patterns and just seem to attack at random making you just fucking give up on timing and just hold square infinitely.

Boss battles are no better if in fact just worse. Leviathan was just an absolute nightmare for me and ifrit was a well. The camera always got lost, the warp strike prompts were inconsistent ect. And if the battle wasn't infuriatingly broken then it was just boring case in point the final battle with ardyn.

Then we have the open world.

If this was what the sacrifice for the main story was then I'm sorry to say but it was most certainly NOT worth it.

The open world is visually appealing and on first impression pretty nice. However once you start really start "exploring" you realize just how boring and uninspired the whole thing really is. First of all the whole map in reality is just a giant circle with a highway connecting it all. Every area is just some boring fantasy locale you've seen in any Jrpg.

Grassy plain area, desert area, volcano area, beach area.

Wow this was really worth the wait I see.

It's wouldn't even be so boring if the games areas at least had some personality attached to them but nope. Not even a memorable tune is herd in this areas just plain ambiance which really doesn't work for this game.

The car was also a disapointment with it's on rails driving and what not only to look tacky and tacked on.

And...yeah.

That's just ffxv to me as a whole.

Just nothing.

[kitschcats]

Film Review

The Killing of a Sacred Deer

“If a movie was its music, this one would be an 18th-century piece for the ages.”

The thing that sucks about watching a movie so late at night is that you're usually far too tired to review it afterward--but what if afterward is the time when all your thoughts and ideas and feelings and opinions are freshest in your mind, most recent in your memory; when you're able to write the best review you possibly can?

Unfortunately I do not have the answer to that question, because I have decided I am ultimately going to sleep now. I can't fight it, and I can’t fight the weight of my eyelids. Into the drafts this goes. It'll see the light of day again tomorrow.

11:47AM update--it is now tomorrow, meaning today. I’ll try to write with as much as I can recall. Spoilers ahead.

What a brilliant and hilariously grim nightmare (in a good way) of a movie.

Lots of nods to Kubrick in this one. I mean, look at all the symmetrical slow-pan shots down hospital hallways and try thinking of anything but The Overlook Hotel. You can see where Yorgos draws his inspiration from. I’d definitely love to see more. (With The Lobster next on my list, for sure.) (Regarding all the Yorgos-Kubrick comparisons--it’s not just cinematography-wise,

This movie fucks with your head as much as it does its own characters, and it’s a delightful (and agonising) experience. It doesn’t manage to flesh out all the characters completely, a few holes in the character arcs here and there, but personally I think that the surrealism only adds to the genre nicely--they aren’t real people, but characters, just that. Enigmas deconstructed and used to tell a story. Enigmas picked at and broken down and toyed with and dug out hollow, past their bones and down to their cores, for the sake of the story. Those are the characters, torn apart and stripped bare by the end of it. All the more fitting for a psychological horror, no?

Within the first half movie the audience has already been flat-out told its entire narrative when you’d expect the opposite, served to them on a platter, nice and warm, and surprisingly: it still works, it bloody works. Kudos to the writers, by whatever means they managed to somehow make it work even despite so. You’re kept on edge all throughout the first few acts, knowing already what’s to come next, but they do a wonderful job at pacing it well enough and keeping it gripping enough that the reveals still hit you brick-hard. (The fucking bird’s-eye of the boy collapsing at the foot of the escalator, man. Poignant.) The movie is aware of what you want to see and what you think you'll see, and it knows you're waiting to be proven wrong when you're actually right. And it does it so well. (Pfft--reverse psychology, right?)

The precision, the attention to and amount of detail in this one is bloody commendable too--you can’t not have your ears pricked and eyes unblinking watching this, or you’d miss the little hints the movie gives you as if it were a living, breathing thing, toying with you just as it did the poor family, from the shots of bruises on Colin Farrell’s knuckles to the even earlier hints of his drinking problem. And that’s not even getting into the production side of it yet. The low, droning sounds, the shrill, construction noise, the melancholic schoolgirl singing in all its hideous, off-key falsetto and the ominous music that plays forebodingly in the background during the most mundane of the moments--if a movie was its music, this one would be a 18th-century piece for the ages.

The second thing I took especial note of during the movie, besides the whole false-narrative reverse-psychology trick (absolutely brilliant on Yorgos’ part), were the hand motifs, from all the subtle shots and the less-subtle scenes. This one wasn’t even mentioned at the drinks-and-discussion after the movie until I brought it up, which is strange because I didn’t think the film exactly tried to make it subtle (I mean come on, it’s like Tarantino but with hands), and also a shame because it struck me as one of the story’s most interesting themes, even if not pivotal to it. But really. Surgeons--hands. Clever. Part of why I enjoyed the movie so much was also its writing--a brilliant blend of deadpan absurdity and morbid humour, my favourite kind. My only gripe about "The Killing of a Sacred Deer” is the pacing in the final few acts. It started to drag on for quite a bit when the story finally caught up with the movie, when both ends met. Maybe it was intentional, maybe it was to build the suspense? It just didn’t seem to work for me.

Another curious thing to note--and the topic of interest during the post-movie discussion--was how exactly Martin was able to set about afflicting the ‘curse’ onto Steven’s wife and children. My take on it is that there’s a ‘placebo effect’-sort of phenomenon going on. There must have still been some deep-rooted underlying guilt buried within Steven that grieved over the death of his patient, and Martin’s father, that, ultimately, he knew was his fault--and Martin telling him what would happen, by will of suggestion, set those same regrets within Steven off, caused his inner conscience to go haywire, and made it happen. That’s just my theory, but it’s psychological in every sense of the word and genre--it’s all in your head, and that’s what makes it so horrifying.

In short--122 delightful minutes of pure, unadulterated, bone-chilling mindfuckery. 

[him-e]

so i saw Rogue One this weekend, and i wanted to like it but i kinda just found myself a bit underwhelmed by the end of it. i felt like the character development was lacking overall and as a result i guess i wasn't really connecting with any of the characters. what are your thoughts about the movie?

I loved it, but yes, I get what you mean and I recognize this line of criticism has some merits. Rogue One is a very fast-paced movie that tries to juggle action (LOTS of it), backstory, a multicharacter hero journey, worldbuilding, callbacks to the original trilogy, ethical questions, a bit of (VERY well placed) fanservice, romance, and an ensemble cast of people going from complete strangers to kamikaze team with all the complications of the case. It doesn’t entirely succeed at ALL those things at the same time.

Jyn is certainly the best developed of the main characters, both in her backstory and in her relationship with Cassian. The other dynamics in the main team are admittedly just hinted at. What we see of Chirrut & Baze is powerful enough to suggest that there’s a long, intimate history between the two, mostly thanks to a few great lines and to the actors’ intense, definitely romantic portrayal. You’re shown that there’s an actual partnership-bordering-on-friendship between K2SO and Cassian, and consequently (if you’re perceptive enough) you realize how lonely and closed off Cassian is if his best friend is a droid (no offense, K2, you’re great). 

On the other hand, little narrative capital is spent for example on Bodhi and on developing his bond with the others, although he is in many ways the driving force of the plot and could have been the main pov (except he isn’t—Jyn is, and I really disagree with the claims that she could be removed from the story without affecting it. The emotional core of the film is how Jyn’s family is eventually reconciled, made whole again, through both father and daughter choosing the ultimate sacrifice for the greater good and turning against the great evil that separated them in the first place, so yeah… Jyn is the protagonist for a reason tyvm). There’s a torture plot for him that has essentially no payoff, aside from characterizing Saw’s crew as a deranged/morally compromised team of rogue rebels (heh). We see almost nothing of Saw and Jyn’s relationship, which is why Saw’s death falls a bit short emotional impact-wise, considering that he’s been Jyn’s mentor and surrogate father in her formative years post losing her parents.

On the other OTHER hand, I think what RO does nicely is, in fact, offering cues and asking your imagination to RUN WITH IT: when Bodhi says (paraphrasing) “this is for you, Galen”, well, those words are LOADED with the implication that there is a close relationship between him and Galen Erso, that Bodhi likely… worships him?has a crush on him?sees him as the father figure he’s never had?and is desperate to seek his approval? And this means SO MUCH in terms of his characterization & motivations. I’ve already talked about Baze and Chirrut and how with SO LITTLE you’re getting the distinct impression that they’re each other’s soulmate (and they know it). When K2SO “dies”, it’s a punch in the guts because it goes against one of the staples of classic star wars—that the droids ~don’t die~ (virtually, that’s where you realize they’re never getting out of it alive, none of them). I’m not going to talk in detail of Jyn/Cassian, but—even though I do feel like we missed some key bonding scene—I think it’s one of the best written romantic dynamics in these movies, and the ending scene alone gave me the shivers.

In the end, I will say that there ARE some problems in the rendition of the team dynamics, which aren’t ENTIRELY convincing, as they mostly work in dyads: Jyn/Cassian, Cassian/K2, Baze/Chirrut, and Bodhi who remains kind of an outsider, barely connecting emotionally with any of the other main members. At the same time though it’s fitting, in a sense, that these disparate characters are catapulted in the same epic tragedy together without having the chance of really getting to know each other, you know? They share the same enemy, and that’s all. But it’s also all they need to share to be in this together, because the enemy is a galaxy-sized weapon of mass destruction. There’s no time for interpersonal drama. (of course, if you look close enough, they do share something else—they all walk a thin line between hardened idealism and cynicism, they’ve all grown up without a real sense of “home”, they all had to see the fall of their heroes—the decline of the jedi for baze and chirrut, the dark side of the rebellion for cassian, unreliable parental figures (and ideologies) for jyn, the truth behind the myth of the empire for bodhi, etc.). 

so… I don’t know. I do get the feeling of “not connecting” with the characters (because we’re given so little insight in their lives, who they are as people before we’re catapulted along with them into action) and yeah, some parts could’ve been more focused/less cursory/better paced etc, and there’s the HUGE problem of the reshoots that probably affected the overall pacing and continuity of the movie. there are definitely “gaps” (not like, plot holes, but sort of… jumps in the flow of the narration? it feels a bit jittery at times?). But there are ways to fill those gaps, because it’s clear that the sw franchise is something to be experienced at multiple levels—not only movies, but novels/novelizations, comics, sw rebels, the clone wars, etc. It’s an intricate tapestry, and each media is a piece that sheds a little light on a specific piece of the puzzle. Jyn & co. are heroes among dozens of thousands of other unnamed heroes who died for the rebellion. They’re drops in the ocean. What they did was CRUCIAL, and yet, no one’s gonna remember them, and sadly that’s how things often go in war. 

So it makes sense that even their individual stories are fleeting, not designed to STAY, and to be immortalized by a true epic like Luke & co., you know? We get two hours with them, and that’s all. Because they didn’t get much more themselves. They didn’t get to create their years-spanning saga like the original trio, they only had like TWELVE SECONDS before going kaboom. Their lives were never meant to become history; only the way they were going to die.

[snailkitfilmreviews]

Star Wars: The Last Jedi, 2017 - ★★★★★ (contains spoilers)

This review may contain spoilers.

A common criticism of The Force Awakens is that it lifted its structure and emotional resonance from A New Hope. This failing was used to critique the method by which intertextuality has been increasingly used in blockbuster filmmaking as a replacement for basic story functions like "creating emotional stakes", but many Star Wars fans used it as a meme to point to in lieu of their own argument.

Intertextuality is just a tool, though. Its misuse elsewhere does not inherently make it "bad", just misused. Rian Johnson's application of it is an intentional doubling down on the concept of a film in a series echoing its predecessors. (An idea which, I'll point out, was not new to Star Wars when J. J. Abrams used it, either.) And, to put it in hyperbolic local newspaper critic terms: Abrams took inspiration from A New Hope and made a great Star Wars. Rian Johnson took inspiration from Empire Strikes Back and made a great film.

That's what this series needs. That's what Empire was, back in the day. It didn't start from nothing, sure, and there were certain marks its ending had to hit in order for its sequel to work. It was not a transition, though. It was a story. A story about failure. About hubris. About human connection.

The Last Jedi's a story about failure, too. And about hubris. And about human connection. What's stunning about this film is how it uses the language of film and the language of Star Wars in order to weave that story together.

Think about the first time the technique of cross-cutting was described to you. I'd bet money that, for a lot of you, the example was Empire. That sequence—Luke on Dagobah, the rest on the Millennium Falcon—informs The Last Jedi. Johnson's film keeps a frankly astonishing pace for a 150-odd minute film by filling it with dozens of meanwhiles back on dozens of ranches. More to the point, though, it uses those juxtapositions to create meaning.

Most notably, the conceit of the Force-enabled contact between Rey and Kylo Ren is formally cross-cutting but narratively an emotional connection, a conversation. Notice how judiciously this is shown. Only two shots actually involve the two of them "bridging" that gap in space. Do you think this is an accident? In 2017 it'd be very easy to use any number of effects in order to create a "middle ground", as it were, where the two could interact in each other's spaces. Johnson, however, elects to shoot the two from inside their interaction, facing outward. In their own singles. They couldn't be more separated visually, but because of the Kuleshov effect, because of juxtaposition, because of our familiarity with shot/reverse-shot, we believe this connection. We don't need to see Kylo's perspective of Rey, divorced from her surroundings. We just need a cut.

And now, the more controversial element: the script. The humor.

Something that's unfortunately missed, in a race to "legitimize" that which has been seen as childish, is the true nature of Star Wars as a work of art. There's a desperation with which it's held up as a "serious movie". Accolade upon accolade is thrust upon A New Hope by its fanbase, in a feverish worry that someone will commit the grievous sin of telling them their hobby is dumb. And yeah, y'know. I get it. We want the things we like to have legitimacy. But you wanna hear a secret?

STAR WARS CAN HAVE LEGITIMACY WITHOUT BEING A "SERIOUS" MOVIE.

Star Wars is fucking camp, dude. That's George Lucas' wheelhouse. (Spielberg too, you see it in their collaborations. Indiana Jones is camp as hell.) The villain of Star Wars is a magic black-clad bemasked space fascist. Vader is a symbol. He is the faustian bargain incarnate. As the stepchild of an opera singer I resent misunderstandings of what "opera" is formally, but Star Wars is, perhaps more than any other space fantasy film, a Space Opera. Characters representing ideas and emotions. Human stories. Han Solo doesn't make asides to the audience—oh man, could you imagine if he did—but the function of the dialogue is the same: the conveyance of those ideas, those emotions. How does a person who's built up walls to avoid bettering theirself react where they're in real danger? They sputter. "We're all fine up here...how are you?" It's why Obi-Wan Kenobi's wisdom sounds so wise within its context and so absurd without it. It doesn't matter if it's splitting hairs in "real life"—in a world of melodrama, "a certain point of view" really does make a difference. Anakin Skywalker really was dead. Darth Vader really did kill him.

My point is, what makes a film good is not its "realism", whatever that means. (You shouldn't have to convince someone Darth Vader is scary because of some verisimilitudinal justification. He's plenty scary symbolically.) It's in its Truth. Does a film have something to say? Does it succeed in saying it? Do you believe it? Star Wars at its best functions as a representational work, a melodrama that plays in extremes to tell human stories. A man struggles to embrace healthy coping mechanisms. A woman deals with the death of her family and the context in which she lived her life. A son uses compassion to reach his absent father. A fascist government destroys lives for empty political gain.

The dialogue in The Last Jedi is absolutely more functional than poetic. The film is deeply funny, often in ways that can seem to undercut the "seriousness" of the affair. But if I've managed to communicate my point at all, I hope you can recognize that dialogue and tone do not exist in a vacuum. They exist in context. And here, the context is camp.

So, I'll amend my earlier jokey statement: Rian Johnson took inspiration from Empire Strikes Back and made what is not only a great film, but a great Star Wars film.

In a transparently A.V. Club move, here's some stray thoughts:

If you're still salty about this film having a lot of comedy in it, go rewatch A New Hope. It's not a dour film. Along similar lines, it's helpful to remember that Han shooting first is not just a character moment, but also a joke. Star Wars is no stranger to undercutting itself.

There is nothing like the collective catharsis of an audience watching a scene like Snoke's death. Nothing.

One of my favorite ways in which this film plays with the intertextuality/"echoing" of earlier films is the way that it positions Canto Bight as another "wretched hive of scum and villainy". Sure, Mos Eisley is exploitative, but this place is on another level.

In the Opera paragraph I very nearly tried to draw a link between Darth Vader and the Commendatore in Don Giovanni, but 1. it's way too tenuous and contradictory a link to hold up to scrutiny, even if the statue is a vengeful and wrathful thing and 2. I would've been drawing a link between Darth Vader and the Commendatore in Don Giovanni, which I have enough self-awareness to understand is a bit overblown.

After making my joke about how I wish Han made asides, I realized that his running commentary—his private jokes to nobody except him (and the audience)—does essentially function as a type of aside. Regardless, the point I was making was that neither he nor the other characters make asides in the theatrical sense. He's not talking to the audience directly. That, I'd love to see.

from Letterboxd - Chloe Spears http://ift.tt/2kGQlyR

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[peanutdracolich]

Peanut Dracolich Watches Horror: Child’s Play

So besides knowing that this was the movie that introduced Chucky and vague knowledge that Chucky was a murderous doll, and one of the big horror franchises (though not one of the best regarded) I went into this blind.

I’m going to give the final overview first, since it’s not got as many spoilers (though a spoiler for the final overview I didn’t like the film that much), and then the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of it before my play by play reactions.

Overall: I was not impressed. The film was almost so bad it's good; like it might be fun to watch and laugh at with a group of people. But as a horror film nah. 0 feet raised with fright (like with Alien 3). Honestly I think Alien 3 if you stopped near the hour and a half mark (the length of Child's Play) is a better horror film, and it was strictly a mediocre film even with Charles Dance. This one... well I enjoyed it more than Halloween, but I personally hated Halloween, and I'd put this well below Ft13... and I don't like Ft13; though on the 13th I will be watching Ft13 part 2 if all goes according to plan.

Still the film relies upon Adult Fear, but is not enough of a psychological film to truly capitalize on it. You've just got a killer doll that, as far as killer dolls go is relatively non-creepy. As a concept the story is good, but the idea is far better than the implementation.

My final verdict is... I wasn't scared. It plays on adult fears, but it also has enough bad moments. I'd say watch Fright Night (by the same director) over Child's Play, while also not scary it was a much more fun movie; or watch Child's Play with a group to enjoy the bad. It was in fact bad enough but in good enough ways to maybe be so bad it's good. Still if I was rating it out of ten it'd not do too well.

The Good:

Adult fears are scary. It is a natural thing to be concerned about child endangerment. Kudos on using it.

Chucky’s penultimate fight. This is actually a pretty good fight, that puts me in mind of the Terminator and when Chucky is by and far at his most bad ass. It’s a good and enjoyable scene.

The Bad:

Adult fears are mitigated by the heavy supernatural. Child is left alone with dangerous thing, scary. Child is wandering downtown alone, horrifying. Child has a killer doll chasing him to steal his soul... actually less scary than if he was chasing an adult because the movie has managed to convince you it will stick to the standard ‘no child will be harmed’ rule.

Chucky’s final fight. His threat has been narratively void for a while now. This is just padding the film an extra 10 minutes. Die already doll.

The Ugly:

Adult fears make me feel worried in an unclean and unfun way. The final fridge horror of ‘they’ve got no proof it was the doll, everyone will still think it was the boy’ leaves a bad after taste.

Chucky’s other fights. The special effects are admittedly good. The basic filming choices and choreography of people’s interactions with the doll when they are not in full use is bad, and even with good special effects half of Chucky’s fights look comical, and only one of them doesn’t leave me taken out of the atmosphere of horror (a bad thing). I think the director would have been better off making a more openly comedic film that more directly poked fun at the horror genre... like Fright Night... which was made by the same director 3 years earlier.

The Play by Play:

I know nothing about Chucky. Dolls are creepy, but as a child Chucky always seemed to be trying to be creepy too much and didn't look normal enough to be creepy in that way. Dolls were admittedly less creepy as a child, but the commercials (admittedly for later films in the franchise) came off as rather humorous and not scary.

So while I'm gong on about how the later films looked, from commercials, to be child friendly entertainment about a doll murdering people (I can't remember how old I was when I first watched evil dead, but given things I watched as a child... I found films with death to be child friendly), the film has been playing. Eddie has ran off on his partner, and the partner has been shot, and the criminal is now... praying to Satan? I think he's praying to Satan to becme a doll. This is simultaneously better than expected, and silly and something I'd have totally enjoyed as a child (though I'd have taken it as just a magical chant). A quick google tells me he's praying to a god from voodoo which actually makes it a little less fun (in the same way if he was praying to Zeus it'd be less fun for the demonization factor).

So already this film is much scarier for me now than it would have been as a small child. The Good Guy is the kid's TV show hero, he has Good Guy cereal, he dresses like the character from the show, so that makes it extra scary... as an adult. As a kid I'd have noticed less. And oh the kid is not making his own breakfast, he's making his mom breakfast in bed at 6:30 AM. This makes it less terrifying that he's being made to feed himself given he obviously cannot.

Lot's of adult fears, not managing to get your child what he wants for his birthday, having to work through it to make ends meat, having... That doll is such an ugly doll. It's not a creepy doll that feels like it's watching you, ready to eat your soul, it's just a bad looking doll. It does look better than my memories of commercials as a kid, less beat up and repaired.

The doll is trying to make the small child help him. And the babysitting friend of his mom is really careless of his new toy, hitting its head into everything while walking. No wonder the doll turns murderous. I mean that's just not how you take care of a new toy.

And Chucky is now watching the news as he wanted... Maggie (babysitter) assumes that this is Andy (small child) doing stuff. Still we're almost 20 minutes in and something scary needs to begin.

And as I type that, there is the pitter patter of Chucky feet after the child has been put to bed and the babysitter is alone in the other room. We start getting music to put nerves on end, a scene made for it at last. Pacing wise I feel less primed than usual, the opening didn't prime for horror, but still the scene is doing well and a priming isn't actually necessary.

Still this is so putting me in mind of Scream and the films it was mocking the sort of 'something has fallen' 'phone rings' scares without the general build of terror of something like Alien or Evil Dead. I am startled, I am physiologically affected (the music and Maggie's panic does that and I'm trying to let it affect me). And then Maggie is hit by the hammer and for a moment I feel fear... when she stumbles into a wall and then redirects herself towards the window to fly out of it I just sort of laugh because it makes no sense for that to have knocked her out of the window given the scene from the front. I am not scared because special effect fail that while not actually as bad as the xenomorph rotoscoping, is just something that pulls you out of the film with its ridiculousness and makes things... Farcical.

I will try to get back into the horror mood. I mean it's not late enough I'm getting sleepy, but I am alone, in a dark room, with a cat occasionally moving about in the darkness to make sounds of something creeping towards me... I am doing my best to be in a horror mood, but it's more adult fear that the detective thinks that the small child might have done it than horror fear. In fact the cool down scene has not made getting into horror mood after that fail easier.

Still the adult fear becomes a horror fear when the music changes and Andy looks at chucky's feet and sees the flour. Andy must die now. The film relies on adult fear, which is not a bad thing, but does mean it would not have scared me as much as a child.

Andy's mom does not believe that Chucky is alive. Poor kid, and silly woman. Not only is he alive but he has massively superhuman strength, and the ability to strike someone so that they fall backwards into a wall and thus fly out the window beside their shoulder. The choreography was bad.

Now it's time for a day of school... except that Chucky has Andy sneaking out. Yay adult fear! The child is now on a street full of drug dealers, and the homeless, and... I'm just sort of worried for the child.

Andy goes to go pee, and Chucky goes to kill his former partner. The Chucky PoV is sort of nice. The rats are cute, the murder method (stove gas + fire) is one that doesn't have the issue of Maggie's death and thus works better for horror as it doesn't pull you out, and with an armed escapee and a kid in close proximity the adult fear is strong. Kid don't run towards the sound of gunfire! Kid stop! No! The armed, drugged out dude does NOT fire on the kid while trying to figure out who is in his run down hideout, and the kid walks away before he does fire causing an explosion. Is this the most realistic explosion? I can't say off the top of my head, but it doesn't pull me out like Maggie's death (or most of the death scenes in Halloween) so kudos. The fact that I'm still thinking about Maggie's death does however pull me out.

And now Andy is being questioned by the police at the precinct. He says that Chucky scared Maggie out of the window. His mom is terrified that they're going to take her son away. The adult fear is palpable. Kid tells about Chucky and the psychiatrist asks to take him for a few days. Of course kid did say that Chucky would kill him if he told so... ADULT FEAR.

We go home and the mom realizes something. The batteries aren't in. Maybe he son is telling the truth and it really is a demon doll. And we get a legitimately good moment when she goes to confirm. For the first time in the movie I truly feel tense and my attention engages. And... So there's a traditional issue of horror movies about showing the monster. The murderer in Friday the 13th is sinister until we learn he's an aging lady. Michael Myers is scary until he picks up a dude and gets ninny slapped. Alien is very sparing in showing the xenomorph. Frankenstein holds back on overusing Boris despite his pure menace. Chucky is almost scary until his physics defiant struggles look more comical (as they don't look like they're supposed to be physics defiant) than scary. How the monster is shown can make or break a movie, and Chucky has, when shown, not helped the movie much.

As we shift to the mother's battle, and attempts to get the detective to believe her, the adult fear is actually fading and wiht that fading... there's just not much fear. The music and general scene dressing is supposed to be scary, the fact that she's in a horrible part of town, but... There's just not a lot of fear. Well to be fair it's supposed to be prepping, but it doesn't prep well. And attempted rape time, only to be saved by the detective man.

So this brings up a comparison to Alien 3 and its attempted rape scene with someone saving the heroine. I liked that one better. It was a moment that established character for both the convicts and her rescuer, character that we had been hinted at but which still established things. Here it lacks some of its strength. You know it's not going to be gone through with (it's not that sort of film) and it doesn't really further anything except a brief attempt at using rape to do a quick and easy scare because rape is scary and traumatic. Over all it feels cheap here, cheaper than in Alien 3.

Still we get a good scene soon to make up. Again the more they show of chucky the less scary he is, but when he's almost entirely shadowed and rising up in the car to murder someone he's scary. When he is poorly stabbing at someone with no success... I think it's actually supposed to be funny. I don't know but I'm laughing. I have laughed more at this movie than been scared of it. But hey the detective is now a believer, it only took a doll trying to murder him a lot from inside of his car while he was driving it.

We see Chucky's old home which fits the serial killer he was supposed to be and has what I assume is (at least the movie's version of) Voodoo imagery, especially once it becomes blatant voodoo imagery. And someone is coming up behind the mom. It's obviously the detective but he's still scarier than Chucky. They must look for the Voodoo Priest.

The Voodoo Priest considers Chucky an abomination, and the Voodoo Priest prepares to... um... call the cops? He picks up a phone to stop Chucky, not you know using magic of some sort, but... phone. Still Chucky has prepared he has Voodoo Priest's Voodoo Doll of Voodoo Priest. Why he has a voodoo doll of himself I'm unsure, maybe there's a reason? It seems silly from most depictions of voodoo and I have always heard that voodoo dolls aren't really from voodoo so it just seems reeeeaaaaly stupid. Still Voodoo Priest sics him on Andy telling him that he can only get out of the doll's body (which is becoming human and vulnerable) by transfering his soul into Andy's... Chucky then finishes him off because of course he does.

Adult fear is supposed to have returned. Especially when Chucky starts breaking into the mental asylum (I think, I mean it's a place for mentally unwell... small children? with doors that only open from the outside and bars on the window and... surgery rooms for... dissecting them?) the kid is in. He gets into Andy's room and... Andy tricks him with pillows under the bed. This place creeps me out with the amount of scalpals just laying about the place, and low security for... wait if you're in the hall you can just go into the OR where they have an electroshock machine that uses lethal voltages? I... I... I don't know whether to laugh at this film for being so what the bad place, or try and take it seriously. I'm not sure I can, but I think it expects me to. I can't speak for the rest of the series, but I think this one expects me to take it seriously.

The film's reliance upon 'oh excrement he's after the child' is undermining it a bit here in that... I don't honestly believe anything bad will happen to the kid. And then just as I'm trying to get back into the horror it shows Chucky's knife that looks rather colorful (red and white pattern on the blade, a pattern that looks almost plastic) and I start to laugh a bit. Of course Chucky does manage to hit the boy on the head with a bat and knock him out which ought to be putting the child, whose body he hopes to inhabit, in some serious danger. But it's hollywood head wounds and that's an 'acceptable break from reality'. The artificial thunderstorm looks silly but that too is acceptable, and the ritual actually has some tension and horror to it... except that you can't believe he'll succeed on a child; the rule is children don't die. There are films that make exceptions to this. That gets terrifying. This film doesn't seem to be one.

Now that it's the nice detective hunting Chucky in the house after the ritual you feel a bit of fear for the detective. Though there's enough of a romance subplot you expect the mom to save him when he gets in trouble and that's exactly what happens. Chucky continues to be more comical than scary the more they show him, and the mom looks more inept than struggling which again undermines the horror. Andy gets a good pre-killing one-liner and the doll burns.

But because they don't check the body well, this isn't the end. Horribly burnt the doll comes for one last attempt, and looking like Freddy Krueger's midget cousin Chucky is finally almost scary. All the doll horror is gone. He's just a burnt undead midget. Who stops stabbing halfway through a door, because... um... stabbing the part the screams are coming from is a bad idea? He's an incompetent one. Still Chucky's undead body being shot piece by piece is almost a good scene. I say almost because it lacks the build up to make it so. While in theory the events have happened, they've made me laugh too much.

And when the film doesn't end and the detective man's partner comes you know the doll has one more one last return from death. Yes I know Jason and Freddy do this, and they were told they had to get the heart, but... eh it just feels like they're stretching it to make it an hour and a half at this point. Like the killer doll, the movie has outlived it welcome but just won't stop.

The kid leaves the room, waiting and watching for the sign that the doll is still in fact alive, just like the viewer is, and it ends with the child's face.

[doctorwhonews]

Twelfth Doctor Vol #4 - The School Of Death - (Titan Comics)

Latest Review: STORY 1 - The School Of Death STORY 2 - The Fourth Wall STORY 3 - Robot Rampage Originally Published in Twelfth Doctor Year 2 Issues 1-5 (+ A Free Comicbook Day Issue) *************************************************************** WRITER: ROBBIE MORRISON ARTISTS: RACHAEL STOTT, SIMON FRASER COLORISTS: IVAN NUNES, MARCIO MENYS LETTERS: RICHARD STARKINGS + COMICRAFT’S JIMMY BETANCOURT  SENIOR EDITOR: ANDREW JAMES  ASSISTANT EDITOR: JESSICA BURTON  DESIGNER: ROB FARMER *************************************************************** PUBLISHED: 13TH SEPTEMBER 2016 TITAN COMICS "There’s something fishy going on at the remote Scottish school of Ravenscaur... Something that has bedevilled students and teachers alike... Something that has lurked in the caverns beneath the school for millennia! Only the Doctor and Clara can unravel a deadly conspiracy that reaches as high as the Prime Minister of England!" (Official Teaser To The Title Story) --- The feature story had originally four issues in theYear Two run with which to build up suspense, and feature a number of engaging subplots, as well as a loosely connected solo adventure for the Twelfth Doctor taking on Captain Volk, and his lethal pirates/mercenaries. With this prologue of sorts, the reader only witnesses the climactic moments, but it still resonates enough to feel like a proper story in its own right. An exciting first impression is made in the 'pre-credit' sequence counterpart, as teacher Christel is hounded by mysterious forces. This 'sacrificial lamb' is given enough likability, and connection to Clara, for us to care about her grim fate.  As the primary action unfolds, the creepy Mr Beck is keen to fully introduce The 'Impossible Girl' to the school, which turns out to have a number of skeletons hidden in its closets. After some mystery, the majority of the tale can be described as a thoroughly enjoyable romp. Two additional new 'assistants' help the Doctor overcome the real threat behind the cold-hearted bureaucratic school; one that Clara had intended to teach in, as a change-up from her hectic life in the capital city. Overall the story can be likened to a mixture of prior Sea Devil stories, with a 'Village Of The Damned' situation, as the local island/school community are all but completely mentally subdued. The Doctor and Clara clearly are at a stage in their partnership, where they enjoy each other's company and accept that they are very different in approach. Thus they can work together assuredly to solve the problems as required. I know many devoted fans prefer the Doctor to actually get on with his best friend, more often than not, and I count myself in that group. It is also welcome to have UNIT involved once again in these comics, with this present variant of the Doctor; (albeit now sadly announced as departing come Christmas this year). After the Zygon Invasion/Inversion story of Autumn 2015, this story honours continuity in typically faithful Titan style, by having both Osgoods feature in the narrative. Along with the much-loved Kate Stewart playing her role to help the Doctor, in the same way her father helped his 'predecessors', there has been a proper 'renaissance' for UNIT, of late. This is in thanks not only to the TV shows being seen globally, but also the work done across Doctor Who's various other mediums, ever since 2012's The Power Of Three. But ultimately the final triumph comes down to the TARDIS duo, and a pair of delinquent but warm-hearted teenagers, who have been too stubborn to be recruited by the Sea Devil's army of zombies. Come the ending there is a nice hint of the next stage in the journey of life for these two guest characters. The TV show - particularly the modern version - has always been good at not only wrapping up the main problem but making followers care about the fortunes of characters, most of whom are unlikely to ever be seen again.  Some nice light-heartedness helps the story from taking itself too seriously, which is a wise move given how close to the Establishment Nose the satire verges on, at times. The Doctor's blasé attitude, or boldness, when confronted by the pub of possessed villagers would certainly play out well on primetime TV. His weak 'sea urchin' disguise is a fun example of his inconsistent ability to blend into his environment. I also enjoyed the swordfish ally, he acquires as he pretends a completely inanimate object is of the same value as K9 or Kamelion from his days of 'youth', but a nice irony is made of this towards the final stages. Other elements though would stretch the budget quite considerably, with some of the action being worthy of a proper Hollywood blockbuster. With the fine artistic skills of Rachael Stott and Ivan Nunes on display, the epic scope of the action is translated handsomely well, however. This effort entertains throughout. I cannot honestly say any of the new characters were ones for the ages, or worthy of a further adventure down the line, but they fit well into a fun story, where the odds seem stacked against contemporary human society. The original Sea Devils had its flaws but always knew how to move the narrative into some new location, or confound expectations. In that sense then, The School of Death rises to the surface with gusto, rather than stagnating to the bottom of the sea, like the much-maligned Peter Davison sequel. --- The second story is rather more satirical and self-referential, both in terms of its moods and its themes. It does an impressive job in casting retrospective light over the Doctor Who mythos itself.  There is even a rather 'meta' take on the comic book medium which makes the story both entertaining, and distinctly different from other such stories, that centre on a mystery and a relentless force needing to be overcome.  A fun poke at the TV show's once male-dominated fanbase is briefly incorporated into the tale. As many know, the male-female ratio of Doctor Who aficionados has evened up considerably in recent years thanks to the quality writing and casting of the 21st century series. Readers get to see some decided vanity from the Doctor –  a defining characteristic whichever face/body he is inhabiting – when he displays outrage over the persona, or image, that he has online. This internet portrayal of our title hero reminded me of the very knowing TV portrayal of Clive, a superfan utterly obsessed with the mysterious Ninth Doctor, who featured in the reboot triumph that was Rose.  Also notable - if perhaps somewhat surprising, given how much Clara has experienced - is the Coal Hill School teacher's cynicism over comic book shop staff claims regarding people going missing. At this point in her (ultimately infinite) life, she has seen enough weird and wonderful things. Then again, real people that we all know, are contradictory and three-dimensional. Whilst very likable, Clara would not be human without some judgemental sides to her character, and some entrenched pre-conceptions over certain types of people. With perhaps other references to the biggest comics and comic book companies also being intended by Morrison, I did enjoy one particular nod towards Marvel’s Silver Surfer. This story also operates as a loose sequel to Series Eight gem Flatline, and does a fine job of using a well-designed monster without just simply repeating the same ‘gimmick’. Whilst ‘The School Of Death’ had more time to develop its key supporting characters, as well as have some decent tertiary ‘cast members’, The Fourth Wall still is well-paced, and does a fine job of marrying continuity between the Titan comics and the actual TV show.   Dialogue also seems to be pitched perfectly for the talents of Peter Capaldi and Jenna Coleman, were this to be an actual story made for Series 9. Prior stories (including the preceding Sea Devil one) have ‘cameos’ as panels within the story, enabling a clever parody on the comic book canvas and panelling techniques. The story also works on another level by having a strong message concerning escapism, especially one found in a personal hobby that others deem as 'not cool'. The danger of slipping too far into make-belief, however, should always be an important consideration for someone to still be healthy and interact well with others. For a story that had a solitary issue originally with which to get its objectives across, this is very impressive, and arguably the high point of this collection. --- Rounding off Volume Four is a fun, if very brief, sequel to Fourth Doctor debut Robot. With its limited page/panel count Robo Rampage acts more as a straight-up King Kong homage. The difference between the 1933 classic movie and this story, is that the English capital city is the playground for chaos, as opposed to Manhattan. As the metallic monster attacks the London Eye, this much 'older' Doctor rants over the greed and irresponsibility of humanity that has allowed for Professor Kettlewell’s invention to suddenly be back in the public sphere. This story has no Clara, but we do get a nice turn for Osgood, giving her more to do than in the main Sea Devil story. The UNIT scientist is still eager to be a proper companion (and into the bargain be excused from her day job duties). Showing her fanatical side, Osgood showers the grey haired wearer of sonic sunglasses with a number of 'alternative titles' to that of "Doctor". Some of those names are references to past TV stories. Ultimately though she tries to christen him with one of her own monikers. The previous two stories had their moments of mirth, but this one is probably the most amusing in terms of comedy, and can be regarded as a longer attempt at the (once customary) ‘bonus humour strip’. --- BONUS Two alternative covers are featured in full page size. They are credited to respectively Brian Miller, and Simon Myers. Other featured (albeit smaller-sized) covers are credited to Myers, Alex Ronald, Will Brooks, JAKe, and main artist Rachael Stott  The main title cover is credited to Alice X. Zhang, and also features in the gallery section --- SUMMARY Altogether then, this is a fine collection of wholly new original stories that help develop both the main two characters, as well as some of the recurring allies to feature in the Steven Moffat epoch. It deserves to be taken as authentic and official in the time lines as the main televised entity itself. Oddly, there is no separate title for The Fourth Wall story within the collection (although the phrase is found within dialogue), whereas Robot Rampage (originally published for Free Comics Day) retains its name in-story. Regardless, if the reader has missed some or most of the prior issues released in Year 2, then this collection is the best option on the market.  One to keep and enjoy. http://reviews.doctorwhonews.net/2017/02/twelfth_doctor_vol_4_the_school_of_death_titan_comi.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=tumblr