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themattress · 4 years ago

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My Top 11 Danganronpa Characters

I love many characters in the Danganronpa series, but these ones are truly the Ultimate.

11. Monomi

Don’t get me wrong, Usami is a sweetheart and all, but on her own (as seen in DR2′s Island Mode) she’s pretty bland. While her forced conversion into Monomi caused her no end of grief in-universe, it made her a much stronger and more memorable character outside of it. Her interactions with Monokuma and position as his good counterpart / “little sister” are just perfect, as is the voicework done by Rebecca Forstadt. She, like her “big brother”, is iconic.

10. Sakura Oogami

I may love Nekomaru and Gonta too, but neither of them hold a candle to the original “tall, muscular giant who looks scary as Hell but is actually the nicest, most loyal friend you could ever hope to have” in the franchise: Sakura Oogami. Her lower placement on this list is only because she kind of recedes into the background among the cast until the reveal at the end of Chapter 3 (which is fitting given the nature of that reveal), but once Chapter 4 centers around her she easily steals the show as a powerful, noble and tragic figure who is nonetheless such a beautiful human being that she successfully ends the Killing Game.

9. Fuyuhiko Kuzuryu

A textbook case of a character you hate at the start and love by the end, Fuyuhiko’s development from a perpetually angry wannabe-thug who refused to be friends with his classmates and routinely threatened them with violence as a cover for his insecurities to a humble, honorable, brave, supportive team player was amazing to watch unfold, and Derek Stephen Prince sells it magnificently with his most touching performance since Ken Ichijoji . He may still be rough around the edges, but Baby Gangsta has always got your back.

8. Byakuya Togami

If you merged Sherlock Holmes and Seto Kaiba, and in the process filtered out all of the redeeming qualities, you get Byakuya Togami: an elitist prick of the highest order who has a dangerous intellect to back up his ego. As despicable as Byakuya is, he is also fascinating: I both hate hanging around him due to his constant insults and love it because I’m drawn to watching him work as he displays just how well the Togami family-sponsored education has served him. He’s as useful as an ally as he is formidable as an enemy, and once he learns there are some things beyond his sociopathic grasp and that it’s best to stick with those who know it, he mellows out into a reliable anti-hero. So yeah, awful person, fantastic character.

7. Chiaki Nanami

Hey, hey! Chiaki, as portrayed in DR2 anyway, is such a lovable character, at first seeming like an anti-social girl who would rather play video games and sleep than converse with people, but steadily revealing just how big a heart she really has and what a great friend she is once she connects with someone. As naive and weird as she is, she quickly picks up on things once she learns them, and is consistently one of the most perceptive people to have around in a class trial. And just when it seems like she’s becoming a tad too perfect to be realistic, we find out that she isn’t real and suffer one of the biggest emotional gut-punches in the series as she is cruelly taken away from us...except that even then, the bond she and Hajime forged is strong enough to keep her digital spirit alive within him. And Christine M. Cabanos brings it all home with her vocal performance. Chiaki, we will never forget you.

6. Nagito Komaeda

Who would have thought that a guy who at first seems like a weird, equally bland retread of Makoto from the original would end up being one of the franchise’s most famous characters? But it’s super easy to see why - when he shows his true colors it is bone-chilling, and the creepiness factor that Nagito brings with him only keeps on growing from there, as he shows how far he’s willing to go in order to create despair just so that hope can triumph over it. The story of DR2 would not nearly work as well as it does without Nagito in the role of the arch-antagonist for the other characters, all while he develops as a character too in a deliciously negative way which ends up culminating in what is probably the best class trial in the series.

5. Celestia Ludenburg

In a mystery-solving game like Danganronpa, Celestia honestly stands out as one of the most complex characters because she herself is a mystery. The game doesn’t really spell out her backstory, motivations or character arc given that as the Queen of Lies she has to keep a poker face about all that, but does allow the player to decipher it by themselves. While those unwilling to indulge their minds write her off as “crazy evil gambler lady who just wants money in order to become a vampire queen”, the people who pay attention to everything she says and does across the game (including / especially in her FTEs) can separate the truth from the lies and uncover the sad, pitiful reality of the character, a reality that haunts her all the way to her final moments. Call her Celeste or call her Taeko, that kind of depth deserves respect.

4. Gundham Tanaka

That’s right, my favorite DR2 character isn’t Monomi or Fuyuhiko or Chiaki or even Nagito - it’s GUNDHAM TANAKA! This man is a fucking legend, with Chris Tergliafera’s voice-acting perfectly capturing how endearing he is with his persistent delusions of villainous grandeur. But as funny as Gundham may be, he ends up not being a purely comic relief figure, playing a serious, emotional and noble role at the end of his run that gets me and many other players choked up. He may play at being evil, but in actuality Gundham is too good for this Earth.

3. Junko Enoshima

Do I need to explain myself here? It’s Junko fucking Enoshima! One of the most unique Big Bads in recent video game history! From the fact that the ultimate evil is a teen fashionista to the bizarre way she keeps changing her personality just to keep from getting bored to her ungodly despair fetish that has no rational basis for existing but simply does, Junko is less like a human being and more like a force of nature: gleeful, nihilistic despair incarnate. And though it’s true that she wore out her welcome past DR2, in her prime she is magnificent.

2. Kyoko Kirigiri

As far as I’m concerned, Kyoko Kirigiri is the real main character of the original Danganronpa. Makoto is just the POV character; the Watson to her Holmes. And what a character she is; truly one of the greatest female detectives in all of fiction. What I love best about Kyoko is what a unique take on the Emotionless Girl / Ice Queen trope she is. It’s made clear quite frequently that she isn’t really emotionless and that she’s just really good at masking her feelings as a necessary part of her job, and that this doesn’t stop her from being a kind and compassionate person toward others in her own straight-faced way. The narrative doesn’t condemn her for the way she is and she doesn’t have to change it either; what she has to change is her distrust toward others and reluctance to rely on friends, plus her hypocrisy regarding that and her personal goal vs. everyone else’s. It makes her such a rich, nuanced character and I love her for it (fuck the Danganronpa 3 anime though, it did her so dirty).

1. Monokuma

I think I’ll just conclude this post with a screencap:

#Dangan Ronpa #Opinion #Analysis #Comparison

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weekendwarriorblog · 4 years ago

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The Weekend Warrior 10/16/20: SYNCHRONIC, FRENCH EXIT, TRIAL OF THE CHICAGO 7, LOVE AND MONSTERS, HONEST THIEF, THE KID DETECTIVE and More!

After the last couple weeks, I really need a break, which is why I’m writing most of this in transit to Columbus, Ohio to see my mother, sister and all (or some) of the friends that I made during my sabbatical to the city seven years ago for cancer treatment.

On, and look... Variety wrote about the movie theater chains and NATO lobbying Governor Cuomo to reopen movie theaters, showing that there’s been no proof of any cases leading back to movie theaters. (And more from The Hollywood Reporter…) New York leads and the world follows? More like ED leads and the world follows. Been saying this shit for months now and putting up with all sorts of needless abuse for it.

This week’s “Featured Flick” is actually a movie coming to theaters on October 23, but since I’m not sure I’m writing a column next week, I’m gonna review it this week! Cool? The movie is SYNCHRONIC (Well Go USA), and it’s the follow-up to Aaron Moorehead and Justin Benson’s amazing sci-fi film The Endless from a few years back. This ome stars Anthony Mackie and Jamie Dornan as parademics in New Orleans who have been coming across a series of bodies that have died in gruesome ways, all connected by a designer drug they were all taking.

I’ll just say right from the start that I loved almost everything about this movie from the amazing performances by Mackie and Dornan to the entire look and tone of the movie, which shows the duo taking huge steps forward as filmmakers, particularly Benson as a screenwriter. Unfortunately, I’m not sure what I can say about the movie and its plot without spoiling other’s enjoyment. I will say that it involves a designer drug and time travel and Mackie’s character has something odd about his brain that makes him better suited to figure out what is happening to the victims than others might be. Also, Dornan’s character Dennis has family issues, particularly with his daughter Brianna (Ally Ioannides), who disappears mysteriously, but it’s so nice seeing Katie Aselton as Dennis’ wife, as well as in another movie out this week.

I’ll also say that people who watch this movie will inevitably make comparisons to the work of Alex Garland and maybe even the more-versed ones might see a little of David Cronenberg’s Videodrome in the film’s trippy nature. The thing is that the movie is super-smart, and it’s obvious that Moorehead and Benson must have done a lot of research to make every aspect of it feel authentic. It’s just amazing what this duo can do with a small fraction of the money that Christopher Nolan had to make Tenet, and yet, they can create a complex and unique premise that’s actually easy to understand. Things like the camerawork, the music and sound design all add to the amazing tone and the mood that the duo have created.

I also think it’s Mackie’s best role and performance in many years, maybe even going back to The Hurt Locker, so as a long-time fan, I’m glad he connected with Moorehead/Benson to show that he’s more than capable of leading a movie like this.

Again, Synchronic will be in movie theaters and drive-ins NEXT Friday, October 23, but I want to give you an advance heads up, because Synchronic is likely to be the most original sci-fi or genre film you see this year. If you can’t get to the drive-in and don’t feel comfortable going to a movie theater, then I’m sure it will be on digital soon enough, but you definitely shouldn’t miss it!

Next up is Aaron Sorkin’s THE TRIAL OF THE CHICAGO SEVEN, streaming on Netflix starting Friday and the movie I was most looking forward to seeing this week. I was such a huge fan of Brett Morgen’s Chicago 10 documentary, which opened Sundance in 2007, especially with how he recreated the court trials using animation and a talented roster of voice actors including Hank Azaria, Mark Ruffalo and Geoffrey Wright. Sorkin has just as an impressive list of actors for his version, including Mark Rylance, Eddie Redmayne, Sacha Baron Cohen, Frank Langella, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and many more.

If you don’t know about the protests outside the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago – you see, back in those days, the Democrats were the bad guys… how times have changed!! Those protests led to a number of arrests but a few years later, the federal government charged a number of individuals with inciting the riot. The accused include Black Panther leader Bobby Seale, played by Yahya Abdul-Mateen II from Aquaman and Watchmen, Abbie Hoffman (Cohen), FBI agent Tom Hayden (Eddie Redmayne), Jerry Rubin (Jeremy Strong), David Dellinger (John Carroll Lynch) and two more. The six white guys are defended by Mark Rylance’s William Kunstler, who faces the tough Judge Hoffman (Langella) who is not putting up with any guff from these young revolutionaries.

All of the characters are quickly introduced with a quick-cut opening montage with actual newsreel footage, but then we’re quickly moved to a meeting to the Attorney General (Keaton) with the trial’s prosecutor (Gordon-Levitt). From there, we’re right into the trial about 16 minutes into the movie, although Sorkin frequently cuts back to the actual day of the Chicago protest to recreate what happened as testimony is given. Probably the part that will have the most impact and resonance is the way Seale was mistreated compared to the others, getting so riled up at the judge that the judge orders him chained and gagged. The trial would end up taking place for almost 7 months even though the results were eventually overturned.

This really is perfect material for Sorkin, and maybe if I hadn’t seen Chicago 10 first, I would have been a lot more fascinated by the trial sequences, though Morgen did an equally great job working from the transcripts. Basically, what happened happened. Where Sorkin’s screenplay and film excels is showing what’s going on outside the courtroom, whether it’s the recreations or just conversations taking place between the plaintiffs. As might be expected from Sorkin, the screenplay is great with lots of fast talking, making for a movie that moves at a kinetic pace for its two hours.

If I had to pick a few of the best performances, I’d probably focus on Cohen’s Abbie Hoffman, which is more than just an accent, he and Strong’s Rubin bantering back and forth like a seasoned Vaudeville act; Rylance’s Kunstler is spot-on, and Langella is just great as the crusty judge, the film’s only true antagonist. I also appreciated John Carroll Lynch and in fact, all the performances, although I felt that with so many characters, Sorkin wasn’t able to give Bobby Seale the time his story truly needed. Still, I would be shocked if this isn’t considered a SAG Ensemble frontrunner.

Ultimately, The Trial of the Chicago 7 is a fine recreation of a certain moment in history that still feels relevant and timely fifty years later, even if it’s so heavy at times you either need to focus or, like me, watch it on Netflix in two sittings. I still liked Steve McQueen’s movie Mangrove that takes place in a similar era and also culminates in a trial just a little bit better.

Before we get to the rest of this week’s new movies, I have one last review from the New York Film Festival, and it’s the closing night film, FRENCH EXIT, from director Azazel Jacobs and writer Patrick Dewitt, who has adapted his own book. The film stars Michelle Pfeiffer as Frances Price, a Manhattan widow from wealth who discovers she has no more money, just as her son Malcolm (Lucas Hedges with longer hair than usual) has decided to marry his girlfriend Susan (Imogen Poots) though he hasn’t told his mother that yet. With no other options, Francis takes her son on a ship to live in Paris for a while at the home of one Mme. Renard (Valarie Mahaffey), an elderly woman who is a genuine fan of Francis and welcomes them as her guests.

This is one of those ensemble character dramedies that I wouldn’t even be able to begin to tell you why you should see it unless you miss seeing Pfeiffer in a semi-decent performance, but one that doesn’t do much as the film itself is so boring and insufferably pretentious most of the time I’m not sure I can even recommend it for that.

Jacobs and Dewitt previous made the movie Teri maybe ten years ago, and I was never really a fan, so I’m not sure why I thought that Dewitt adapting his own book would bear better results. Once Frances and Malcolm get to Paris, there’s just an influx of odd characters who show up, some who have more impact than others. I liked seeing Danielle Macdonald as a psychic medium the duo meet on the ship across the Atlantic who Malcolm bonks. She’s brought back when Frances wants her to conduct a séance to communicate with her late husband who she thinks is now inhabiting an omni-present cat. Like everything else, the relationship between Malcolm and Susan and how that’s affected by her meeting a new guy just never goes anywhere.

For the most part, the whole thing is just dull and uninteresting, and so pretentious it never really leads to anything even remotely memorable. I have no idea why the New York Film Festival would decide to close with this one. (Although the 58th NYFF is over, some of the movies will hit its Virtual Cinema soon, so keep an eye out! For instance, this Friday, FilmLinc begins a Pietro Marcello retrospective as well as showing his latest film Martin Eden in FilmLInc’s Virtual Cinema.)

Liam Neeson stars in Mark Williams’ HONEST THIEF (Open Road), a crime-thriller in which he plays Tom Carter, the uncaught robber behind 12 bank robberies who decides to settle down with Kate (Grey’s Anatomy) Walsh’s Annie Wilkins, who he meets while renting a storage space to hide all the money he’s stolen. After a year of things getting serious with Annie, Tom decides to retire so he calls the FBI and says he’s ready to give back the 9 million, but two crooked FBI agents (one played by Jai Courtenay, the other by Anthony Ramos) decide they’re going to take the money instead. Their plan to steal the money Tom’s trying to return leads to a number of deaths, including putting Annie in the hospital. When that happens, Tom has had enough, and honestly, there’s no one better at getting revenge than Neeson. (Did we mention that Carter is ex-Marine? I mean, of course he is!)

Many will go into Honest Thief expecting the typical Neeson action revenge flick ala Taken or maybe one of his high-concept thrillers, but Honest Thief isn’t nearly that exciting. It starts out fairly slow and dry with no real crime or action elements, although Williams does throw them in from time to time. The whole thing is pretty dry, and it’s a good 54 minutes before we get to the revenge aspect of the story and that’s after a lot of bad decisions being made across the board. Anyone who is still wondering how Jai Courtney has a career won’t be changing that decision by his turn as the villain, and it’s a lot odd when the movie tries to make a sympathetic character out of his partner, played by Ramos.

Regardless, any elements that make Honest Thief unique from other Neeson action movies are quickly tossed aside for the same usual cliches, and the action scenes aren’t even that great. While Honest Thief may not be an awful or unwatchable movie, it’s probably not the action movie you might be expecting from Neeson – more like a bargain basement The Fugitive with one plot decision that almost kills the whole movie.

Delayed a number of times and now dumped to PVOD (with minimal theatrical) is Paramount’s LOVE AND MONSTERS, which is written by the prolific Bryan Duffield (The Babysitter, Spontaneous), directed by Michael Matthews and produced by Shawn Levy’s 21 Laps Entertainment. In the movie, Dylan O’Brien plays Joel Dawson, a young man surviving the apocalypse with a small community after the government’s plot to blast a couple asteroids heading to earth backfires. Instead, it creates giant, carnivorous monsters out of the earth’s animals who eliminate 95% of the earth’s human population. (We learn all of this through a Zombieland-like animated prequel getting us up to speed.) Before the earth fell into disarray, Joel was in love with Jessica Henwick’s Aimee, but they were separated by the fateful events. Seven years later, they’re reconnected via radio and Joel has sworn to travel the 85 miles across the creature-covered wasteland to reunite with her. Hence, the title “Love and Monsters.” Get it?

I actually didn’t hate this movie, although it’s not really a family film or one meant for young kids, because it’s PG-13 for a reason, including mild violence i.e. people being chomped by monsters, and some sexuality. Dylan O’Brien does a decent job carrying it, but it relies just as much on the other people he meets, particularly Michael Rooker’s Clyde and his young ward Minnow, played by Ariana Greenblatt, the latter who is such a scene-stealer that it’s disappointing they’re only in the movie for a small chunk. They’re probably the funniest part of the movie.

I like giant monsters and these ones are certainly … interesting. They seem to have been toned down a bit maybe to be more kid-friendly, more like the kid-friend Godzilla than the terror we’ve seen in recent incarnations. There are also a number of great action set-pieces, and some good post-Apocalyptic ideas we haven’t seen, especially when Duffield’s dark sense of humor is able to come out and keep things fun.

Still, Love and Monsters is not a kids’ movie, and there’s something about it that might make people wish the filmmaker just went full-on R, because going further towards PG would have made even the best parts quite painful to get through. As it is, Love and Monsters is a suitably fine boy and his dog adventure – oh, did I mention the dog? – that would make a perfectly fine streaming movie.

We’ll get back to some of the other theatrical releases in a bit, but I wanted to get to two movies that were pleasant surprises, maybe because I went into them with absolutely zero expectations.

I wasn’t really sure what to think about Cooper Raiff’s SH#!%HOUSE (IFC Films) at first, maybe because it’s title is a little off-putting and not really particularly representative of what the movie is. Raiff himself plays Alex Malmquist, a fairly new arrival at his college but already missing home and his mother (Amy Landecker) and not really adjusting to the crazy college lifestyle as exemplified by his roommate Sam (Logan Miller). After a party at a frat called “Shithouse” (hence the title), Alex meets and connects with his dorm’s R.A. Maggie (Dylan Gelula) and the two spend the night bonding and hanging out.

Obviously, someone at IFC Films loves these platonic indie two-handers about people meeting and hanging out over the course of a night, because Shithouse is the second such movie after Olympic Dreams earlier in the year. They also must know that I’m a sucker for these kinds of semi-rom-coms, because just like with that other movie, I totally ate up everything Raiff was trying to do and say with his movie. The chemistry between the two leads is undeniable, and maybe it won’t be a surprise that Gelula also appeared in Raiff’s previous movie.

As with any relationship, things do come to an end, and this one crashes and burns in a very sad way for Alex the very next day. Maggie starts to pretend she doesn’t even know him, and she ignores his incessant texts saying how much he enjoyed their night together. Boy, I have been there back in my reckless and romantic days of youth.

At first, I wasn’t that into Raiff as an actor – remember what I’ve said about filmmakers casting themselves? – but Alex definitely grew on me. Gelula is absolutely amazing, and frankly, I can see someone “discovering” her in ten years and becoming a new Parker Posey, Kate Lynn Sheil or other similar indie ingenue.

The combination of the two is what makes Shithouse such a special experience, since their situations are quite relatable and Raiff does a great job with the characterization in his writing to make this quite enjoyable to see how things will resolve themselves.

I also wasn’t quite prepared for how much I’d enjoy Steve Byrne’s THE OPENING ACT (RLJEfilms), maybe because I was unfamiliar with Byrne, and as usual, I didn’t read the description of the movie before sitting down to watch it. If I did, I would have known that Byrne is a stand-up comic and presumably this movie is somewhat based on situations that have happened to him. It stars Jimmy O. Yang from Crazy Rich Asians (a great comic in his own right) as Willy Chu, a young comic who has always dreamed of making it in stand-up but instead, has been stuck trying to get slots at an open mic night, while holding down a day job working at an insurance company. One day, his friend (Ken Jeong) sets him up for an MC gig in Pennsylvania at the Improv where his idol Billy G (Cedric the Entertainer) will be performing, so Willy quits his job to pursue his dream.

Much of Byrne’s movie deals with Billy’s “adventure” in Pennsylvania with the club’s womanizing featured act (played by SNL’s Alex Moffatt) and trying to face the struggles of stand-up in hopes of getting to the next level. There have been better movies about the subject, like Mike Birbiglia’s Sleepwalk with You, but Byrne’s film is a nice addition, particularly because Yang plays such a likeable, benevolent character you want to see him do well even after he crashes and bombs on a Saturday night and is at risk of losing the Improv gig.

It’s obvious that Byrne pulled in a lot of favors from friends to get such a great cast of comics – even getting Whitney Cumming to make a cameo – but the likes of Bill Burr actually take on key roles, like Willy’s boss in that case. Moffatt is particularly hilarious expanding on some of his outrageous SNL characters to play a stand-up who actually does help Willy, even as he puts him in pretty awful situations. Cedric also gives another fantastic performance as Willy’s idol who gives him the cold shoulder at first but eventually comes around and offers him the mentoring that Willy needs.

The Opening Act isn’t anything particularly revelatory, but it is thoroughly entertaining, and a nice little indie that I hope people will discover for themselves, especially those who like (or perform) stand-up.

Edward James Olmos directs THE DEVIL HAS A NAME (Momentum Releasing) starring the great Oscar-nominated David Strathairn as almond farmer Fred Stern, who has been running his orchard for three decades with trusty second Santiago, played by Olmos himself. Things are going well until they notice that some of the trees are rotting. It turns out they’re being poisoned by the water that’s been sullied by crude oil run-off from the nearby Shore Oil rigs. Around the same time, an opportunist named Alex Gardner, played by Haley Joel Osment, offers Fred a very low-ball offer to buy the farm, though Fred suspects something is up, and sure enough, Shore Oil is responsible.

Another movie I didn’t know what to expect other than a few cursory elements is this movie “based on a true story” movie about the little farmer taking on “The Man.” In this case, Shore Oil is represented by Kate Bosworth’s Gigi Cutler, a tough exec. at the corporation who thinks their lawyers (one of them played by Katie Aselton!) can crush this local troublemaker. When Stern’s lawyer (Martin Sheen) sues the oil company for 2 billion, they need to start taking things seriously, bringing in a tough “fixer” played by Pablo Schreiber.

I’m not sure where to begin with this movie that certainly has noble intentions in telling this story but suffers from quite a few issues, mostly coming from the script. I was a little concerned once I knew the premise, because I was not a huge fan of Todd Haynes’ Dark Water from last year, although I did enjoy the Krasinski-Damon-Van Sant ecological venture, Promised Land. This one falls somewhere in between, and probably its biggest issue is that it tries to create some humor out of the erratic behavior of the characters played by Bosworth and Schreiber; both performances are so off-the-rails at times it regularly takes you out of Fred’s story. (Osment is also pretty crazy but at least he fits better into his role.) Strathairn is great and well-cast, and Olmos is equally good, and I imagine that it’s partially because many of their scenes are together, allowing Olmos to direct with his acting. Aselton and Sheen are also decent, especially in the courtroom scenes.

Oh, and did I mention that Alfred Molina plays the Big Boss, who is interrogating Cutler as a needless framing device? Yeah, there’s a lot of characters, and when you hold this up against something like The Trial of Chicago 7, it’s just obvious that the film has too many elements for any filmmaker to be able to juggle at once.

Because of this, The Devil Has A Name is an erratic real-life dramedy that’s too all over the place in terms of tone, it ends up shooting itself in the foot by trying (and failing) to be funny despite the serious subject matter.

Next up is 2 HEARTS (Silver Lion Films/ Freestyle Releasing), another movie based on a true story from the Hool Brothers, who I really wasn’t very familiar with. I assumed this was going to be a faith-based movie, and maybe in some ways it is, but not really. It essentially tells two stories set in different time periods that you assume will somehow be connected. Ooh, boy.

First, there’s Jacob Elordi of Euphoria and The Kissing Booth – neither of which I’ve seen, mind you – who plays Chris Gregory, a college kid who connects in a meet-cute way with Tiera Skovbye’s Sam. Before we get too far into their story, we cut back to what looks like Cuba in the ‘50s and 60s, and meet Jorge Bolivar (Adan Canto), the son of an alcohol magnate, a soccer player who suffers a serious lung issue that puts him in the hospital. Years later, Jorge is travelling to Miami when he meets Radha Mitchell’s Leslie working as a flight attendant.

Both guys are pretty suave smooth-talking pick-up artists, and the movie spends almost an hour cutting between two very corny and cheesy romance stories that really don’t offer much in terms of story. Instead, it keeps following Chris and Sam’s life as they have kids, taking forever to get to the connection between the stories. I was getting pretty bored of the movie, but I felt like I had to stick it out to see what happens.

When you call a movie “2 Hearts,” you kind of expect it to be about a heart transplant of some kind, right? But no, it’s actually about a dual lung transplant that Jorge receives. Want to take a wild guess who the donor is? I certainly don’t want to spoil what happens, but for a movie that spends a good hour setting up the relationships between the two men and their pretty blondes with ups and downs that makes it seem like a Nicholas Sparks movie, it really throws a spanner into the fairy tale with all the melodrama that’s to come. It’s such a whiplash in terms of tone it pretty much destroys any chance of one enjoying the movie for what it is. It also loses a lot without Elordi, since the actors who play his family aren’t very good at all.

I had to actually look up the story to see how much if it was true, only to learn that Jorge was based on Jorge Bacardi who actually received a double lung transplant from one Christopher Gregory, inspiring him to create the Gabriel House of Care. The problem is that the time periods get so messed up by setting one story decades in the past. Using the same actors to play the people over that time with pretty shabby make-up just makes things that much more confusing. The big problem is that it spends so much time avoiding the actual plot and point of making the movie that by the time it gets to it, you just don’t care about the characters anymore.

The whole thing is very by the books and predictable, but ultimately, it’s hard to believe any of it, despite it being based on a true story. If you go into this movie expecting love and romance and all that kind of mushy stuff from the title, you’re likely to be disappointed when the movie finally gets to its point. (In other words, it could have used some giant monsters.)

Here’s another movie that I didn’t really know what to expect going in and that probably should have helped me enjoy it more… if it was anything resembling a good movie. Picked up at the Toronto Film Festival where it premiered last month, Evan Morgan’s THE KID DETECTIVE (Sony) stars Adam Brody as Abe Appelbaum, the “kid detective” of the titles, who as a child was one of those super-smart kids who have the deductive powers to help the people in his community, but as a 32-year-old, he just isn’t taken as seriously any more. When a high school girl named Caroline (Sophie Nélisse) comes to Abe to find out who murdered her boyfriend, Abe finally realizes that he has his first grown-up case, though he’s still obsessed with the disappearance of the mayor’s daughter (and his kid receptionist) Gracie many years earlier.

I’m sure there’s gonna be people out there who watch and appreciate The Kid Detective for what it is, a wry and slightly clever noir pastiche pseudo-comedy, but anyone who has seen Rian Johnson’s first film Brick or the underrated Mystery Team (starring Donald Glover very early in his career) might feel that this doesn’t live up to either. Besides the fact that Brody really hasn’t developed much personality as an actor, the film rolls along with a fairly flat, deadpan tone that just never gets remotely exciting. The humor is subdued and yet it feels like everyone is constantly trying too hard, particularly Morgan, while at the same time not really taking any chances. This is a movie that could have been edgier but instead, it milks its flimsy high-concept premise as long as possible before giving up.

Like Love and Monsters, Sony is releasing The Kid Detective into theaters on Friday, and hopefully parents will check that rating before assuming it’s a kid flick. Although there isn’t so much bad language or anything that wouldn’t warrant a PG… other than the fact that it’s not particularly funny or even entertaining and kids will be super-bored.

I can’t believe there’s still more! Amazon’s “Welcome to the Blumhouse” anthology series continues this week with two more movies in the series of eight, which you can now watch on Prime Video:

Easily my favorite of the four movies I’ve seen is Zu Quirke’s NOCTURNE (Amazon), which follows a pair of twins, Julie (Sidney Sweeney) and Vivian (Madison Iseman), who are both competitive concert pianists at the Lindberg Academy, although Vivian is clearly the better, as she’s heading off to Julliard while Julian is taking a gap year.

Before we meet them, we see a young violist jumping off the balcony to her death for some reason, and we learn that she was the finalist to play a concerto, so now that slot is open and both Julie and her sister desperately want it.

Nocturne is certainly more like the horror movies we expect from Blumhouse, which is both good and bad. The good is that it is indeed quite scary as Quirke’s team uses really eerie lighting effects and other things to create suspense. But there’s also an artiness to what Quirke does that elevates Nocturne above the normal high-concept horror-thriller.

Quirke, who also wrote the film, delivers all the characterization you expect from a good horror film so that you really care about the characters, and she’s put together such a fine cast, particularly Sweeney who has to run a gamut of emotions as Julie. I also like Rodney To as Julie’s tough instructor Wilkins

Again, I won’t say too much more about the actual plot, although if you can imagine a Faustian bargain and how that plays out for those around Julie, you can probably understand why a super-fan of The Omen might dig what Quirke did in this environment.

The fourth movie in the “Welcome to the Blumouse” series is EVIL EYE (Amazon), from Indo-American filmmakers Elan and Rajeev Dassani, a relatively innocuous thriller based around the relationship between Pallavi (Sunita Mani from last week’s Save Yourselves! and GLOW) and her mother Usha, played by Sarita Choudhury. Pallavi is in her late 20s and single and her mother keeps wanting to get her set-up with a nice man, as a good Indian mother is wont to do. When Pallavi meets Sandeep (Omar Maskati), things are going well since he has money and her mother thinks her daughter has hit the jackpot, until she realizes that Sandeep has a dark secret.

Here’s another thriller where it’s really tough to talk about the plot, because obviously the filmmakers want the story to unfold in the specific way it was written. Apparently, this one was once an Audible story, and the first thing I noticed was how amazing Sunita Mani looks from her fairly glammed down roles in other things. I think she’s just wearing make-up and has her styled different but I’m not sure I would have known it was the same actor in Save Yourselves! Because I had to do a double take.

The problem with Evil Eye, and it’s been a problem with some of the other “Welcome to the Blumhouse” movies, is that it isn’t necessarily what I’d consider horror. It really plays a lot more like a romantic drama, other than the fact that Pallavi’s mother has visions and believes in astrology enough to send her daughter trinkets to protect her from the “evil eye.” In fact, the movie just gets weirder and weirder, as it starts introducing supernatural elements, and without giving the big plot twist away, it does expect one to believe in reincarnation.

I wish I could have liked this more, but it really seems like it would be better suited for a show like “The Outer Limits” or “The Twilight Zone,” since the premise is stretched so think for about 30 minutes longer than necessary. I think the filmmakers did perfectly fine with what they had to work with – the two main actresses are just fab – but I think I’d need to see some of their other work to see if the issues I had were just cause the story isn’t that interesting or by their limitations in making it.

(And I promise that I do have a feature on all the filmmakers from the first four “Welcome to the Blumhouse” series coming over at Below the Line, but it’s been a pretty tough piece to write.)

I reviewed Alex Gibney’s new doc Totally Under Control (Neon/Participant), co-directed with Ophelia Harutyunyan and Suzanne Hillinger, in last week’s column but it’s now available to watch On Demand and then it will be on Hulu starting next Tuesday, October 20. Obviously, everyone wanted to get this out there and make sure people see it before they get too in-deep with the election.

I also reviewed David Byrne’s American Utopia (HBO), directed by Spike Lee, a few weeks back, but it will be on HBO and presumably HBO Max on Sunday night. Not as big an event as Disney+’s Hamilton but still worth watching, especially if you’re a fan of Byrne or his band the Talking Heads, because it actually acts as a nice counterpoint bookend to the late Jonathan Demme’s fantastic Stop Making Sense, one of the best concert documentaries ever made, or at least top 5. I’m bummed I missed Byrne’s show on Broadway, and it doesn’t sound like Broadway will be coming back anytime soon so I guess this HBO documentation is the best any of us can wish for.

Of the movies I didn’t have time to watch this week, the two that I’m hoping to still get to are two docs: Inna Blockhina’s SHE IS THE OCEAN (Blue Fox Entertainment) and Rick Korn’s HARRY CHAPIN: WHEN IN DOUBT, DO SOMETHING (Greenwich). She Is the Ocean explores the lives of nine women who all have a passion for the ocean. The Harry Chapin doc may be more self-explanatory, and I wish I was a bigger fan of Chapin, the famed singer/songwriter/activist, because maybe I would have watched this movie earlier. (But seriously, look at how many movies came out this week, when I was hoping it would be “slower”!) Also, I’m a little bit interested in the K-Pop doc #BlackPinkLightUpTheSky that will air on Netflix, just because, I dunno, I like adorable, young Asian women, so sue me?

Premiering on Disney+ this Friday is Justin Baldoni’s CLOUDS, starring Fin Argus as musician Zach Sobiech, who has only months to live when his cancer starts spreading, but he follows his dream to make an album and becomes a viral music phenomenon. I’m not sure if this is a true story but it certainly sounds a lot like a faith-based film called I Still Believe that hit theaters just before they all shut down due to the pandemic. Coincidence? I think not.

Also this week, the 32nd ANNUAL NEWFEST LGBTQ FILM FESTIVAL begins on Friday, running through October 27 with opening night being the well-regarded Ammonite, starring Kate Winslet and Saoirse Ronan, but it will be done as a drive-in, so I’m out. Over in Los Angeles, the AFI FEST starts on Thursday and runs through October 22, and that’s also showing a lot of cool festival/awards films that I haven’t had a chance to watch yet like The Father, I’m Your Woman and more. I missed my chance to get press accreditation, so yeah, I guess I’ll be waiting on that.

And then we get to all the movies that I didn’t have time to see or didn’t receive a screener, so here we go. This week’s unfortunate dumping ground:

Lupin III: The First (GKIDS) (This anime film is being released as a Fathom event on Oct. 18 – dubbed, and Oct. 21 – subtitled)

Belly of the Beast (I’ve actually heard good things about Erika Cohn’s doc about illegal sterilizations being conducted in a woman’s prison.)

Don’t Look Back (Gravitas Ventures)

Rom Boys: 40 Years of Rad (101 Films)

The Antidote (Cinetic/Brand New Story)

Monochrome: The Chromism (Tempest)

J.R “Bob” Dobbs and the Church of the Subgenius (Uncork’d)

Monster Force Zero (WildEye Releasing)

Ghabe (GVN Releasing)

The Accidental President (Intervention)

In Case of Emergency (Kino Lorber)

I’m not sure how much of a column I’m gonna write next week since I won’t have nearly as much time to watch movies or write about them in the coming week, while I’m in Colmbus. There are a couple high profile movies I hope to get to, so we’ll see what happens.

By the way, if you read this week’s column and have bothered to read this far down, feel free to drop me some thoughts at Edward dot Douglas at Gmail dot Com or drop me a note or tweet on Twitter. I love hearing from readers … honest!

#TheWeekendWarrior #Movies #Reviews #VOD #Streaming #Synchronic #TrialOfTheChicago7 #FrenchExit #LoveANdMonsters TheKidDetective #Nocturne #2Hearts #Shithout #THeDevilHasAName #TheOpeningAct

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daresplaining · 7 years ago

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MCU Danny Rand Week: Day 3

A Favorite Relationship

We are (gasp) not going to be talking about Danny and Luke (though they are our favorites)! Or Danny and Misty (who we adore in the comics and will be sharing two upcoming shows)! Or Danny and Colleen (who have been wonderful in the Netflix-verse, though we’re still not sold on the necessity of the romance)! We’re not going to take this opportunity to geek out over all the comics-based Danny relationships that we’re so incredibly excited about seeing in the MCU. Trust us... there will be time for all that later, and we’ve already blogged about them quite a bit. Instead, we’ve decided to focus on something unique to the Netflix shows, with which we feel they did an incredible job: the relationship between Danny and Davos.

Danny and Davos do know each other in the comics, of course-- they hate each other’s guts. Davos (AKA Steel Serpent) has been an Iron Fist antagonist since the first solo series, where he introduced himself to Danny by intermittently jumping out from behind buildings and trying to steal his chi.

Davos: “Step into my arms, young fool. [...] Your life is mine for the taking, boy-- but I want more than that. I want what your cursed father denied me. I want the Iron Fist!”

Iron Fist vol. 1 #15 by Chris Claremont, John Byrne, and B. Patterson

(Not creepy at all, dude.)

Danny has no idea who this guy is or why he’s so angry, which adds a certain amount of humor to their early encounters. In fact, Davos doesn’t have anything against Danny himself-- he’s still angry at Danny’s deceased father Wendell, who was his best friend back in K’un-Lun.

Caption: “It’s an unpleasant mixture of feelings you struggle with this day. You cheer on Davos in his bouts, as he does you in yours. You pray you won’t face him. But you study his moves. You look for flaws. ‘If it can’t be me, then let it be you,’ is what you’ve said to one another these past two years. But do you truly mean that...?”

Immortal Iron Fist #10 by Ed Brubaker, Matt Fraction, Kano, et al.

Despite their close friendship, when Wendell beats Davos in the qualifying tournament and wins the right to fight Shou-Lao, Davos goes a little bit nuts. He is the son of Lei Kung the Thunderer, has a big ego (and a few psychological issues-- Lei Kung is a great guy but not the most attentive father), and is convinced that he is destined to be the Iron Fist-- so much so that he does the unthinkable. He runs off to challenge the dragon in secret. But even Shou-Lao doesn’t take him seriously. Davos is left with a few nice scars and a destroyed psyche.

Caption: “But the monster turns and slithers away, back to its cave. It turns its back on you... and you know why. You know it in your heart. It does not find you worthy.”

Immortal Iron Fist #11 by Ed Brubaker, Matt Fraction, Kano, et al.

This crime results in his being kicked out of K’un-Lun, which does not help his mood. Even though Wendell ends up failing in his attempt to be the Iron Fist, Davos is still angry and bitter-- and stuck on Earth, which just makes it all worse. When Danny appears on the scene as the Iron Fist twenty years later, Davos turns this anger and bitterness on him, and-- when he is able to find his way back-- on K’un-Lun in general. He self-styles himself “Steel Serpent” and becomes a nightmare haunting the eternal city-- at best horribly embarrassing, at worst deadly. In his most recent appearance, he aided an invading force in sacking and burning K’un-Lun, then murdered both his father and adorable reborn baby Shou-Lao (thus destroying the entire future of the Iron Fist legacy). Just to make a point, because he’s just that much of a jerkwad.

Davos: “I tried to be reasonable. I really did. I tried to do the right thing! To make amends. But no one ever listens. No one respects me. Not until I do something really, really bad.”

Iron Fist: The Living Weapon #11 by Kaare Andrews

He’s one of those bad guys who is great fun to hate, because he’s a self-centered, violent sore loser with no redeeming qualities, who frequently gets his butt kicked. We really enjoy 616-verse Davos. With all of this in mind, it is amazing that the Netflix show was able to craft a version of the character who we care about on an emotional level-- and a lot of that comes from his complex friendship with Danny.

As much as we like to laugh about comics Davos holding ridiculous cross-generation grudges, this disconnect between him and Danny means their relationship lacks substance. Davos is the eternal evil jerk with a chip on his shoulder, and Danny is perpetually annoyed at him because of this, and that’s pretty much it. By de-aging Davos and transferring his childhood friendship from Wendell to Danny, the Netflix show instantly crafts a dynamic that is far more engaging.

Added to this is the fact that Davos doesn’t appear in-person until the very end of the season. This is effective from a geeky standpoint-- while we assumed he’d be making an appearance, since he’s a core Iron Fist villain, there was no indication in any of the promotional material that he was going to be in the show-- and this made his arrival that much more exciting. But it also allows for his character to be introduced in a really effective way: via Danny. All we know of MCU Davos for the first nine-and-a-half episodes comes from Danny’s fond stories of the shenanigans he and his best friend got up to in K’un-Lun. We love this as fans (one of us is extremely attached to Danny’s happy experiences and friendships in K’un-Lun, so this was a gift), but it’s also a simple but effective way of showing how close they are and how much Danny cares about Davos. It lays the groundwork for that friendship to receive further development-- which it does, in spades, once Davos arrives on Earth.

(Good Davos introductory line, or best Davos introductory line?)

Once he arrives to rescue Danny, we get to see all of this love in person. We are instantly given another shorthand introduction to their closeness in their fight to escape the Hand compound-- which showcases their combat chemistry and the fact that they have been fighting alongside each other for a long time. It’s awesome. Danny finally has an ally that he knows he can count on, and Davos’s willingness to travel all the way from K’un-Lun and to stick by him further cements their bond.

All of this adds power to the undercurrent of pain in their relationship, which becomes more and more apparent the longer Davos sticks around. Just like in the comics, MCU Davos feels robbed-- but he can't just come right out and be furious and bitter about it because he still cares for Danny. There are no awkward chi-stealing hugs here. Instead, Davos’s true feelings are slowly revealed the more he is confronted with them, putting cracks in a friendship in which we are now emotionally invested.

An interesting detail in Davos’s complaints is his assertion that Danny was chosen to fight Shou-Lao. This contradicts Danny’s version of the story, in which he specifically states that he was not chosen-- that he earned the right to face the dragon through hard work and dedication to his training. Obviously, both are biased, but favoritism on the part of Lei Kung and Yu-Ti was part of Davos’s complaints in the comics as well. We never learn the precise details of how Iron Fist candidates are chosen in this universe, but in the comics (as mentioned above) it is tournament-based. In some ways, it’s neat that we don’t find out whose version is closest to the truth (though we’d personally believe Danny over Davos any day). In this fight, both sides have valid points, and that adds nuance to the situation.

Added to this is the fact that their own personal demons are colliding. Davos needs to understand why Danny left. So does Danny. His quest throughout the show is to understand his own motivations, which are being repressed alongside his trauma about his parents’ deaths. He knows he shouldn’t have left. He needs to understand and justify why he felt compelled to do so. When he is unable to give Davos a straight answer about why he abandoned K’un-Lun, Davos gets angrier. When Davos presses Danny about this, digging into that emotional sore spot, Danny gets angrier. At this late point in the show, he has begun to understand that he left because of his parents. But that isn’t a good enough answer for Davos, which just places both of them in even more pain.

As if that weren’t enough, we are then bludgeoned with their inevitable physical brawl and this. There is more to this fight than jealousy. We’ve seen that already. Davos doesn’t just want to take Danny’s chi. This isn’t all about the Iron Fist, and-- though we’d easily believe that this Davos might actually give a damn about K’un-Lun, unlike his comics counterpart-- it’s not about K’un-Lun. Just as Danny disguises his trauma-based need to stay on Earth a little longer as Hand-related, Davos cloaks his pain at having been abandoned by someone he considers a brother with lofty statements about protecting K’un-Lun. That is what’s so fantastic about this version of their dynamic: it’s all personal. Their anger is laced with the pain of the fact that they actually love each other, and want to continue loving each other, and the fact that fighting in this way is hurting them both. It’s brutal-- and we cannot wait to see how this impacts the show’s upcoming take on Davos’s revenge quest. Bring on the trauma.

#dannyweek #Netflix Iron Fist #Iron Fist #Danny Rand #Davos #Steel Serpent #Commentary

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