#larry lore coming soon /j

[s0up1ta]

have an oc i made for an english project-

his name is larry

[ecargmura]

Pokemon Horizons Episode 57 Review - History Is Exciting

After two consecutive battle-focused episodes, Pokemon Horizons dives into a world building episode. Trust me when I say that there’s a LOT of world building. Though, it is mainly set up for possible future events. It’s also the first time the kids are eating a meal with the Rising Volt Tacklers at a restaurant and not at the dining table in the airship. Why did I point this out? I just wanted to…

The world building is mainly speculations on what Rakua could be and there are also details about what Paldea was like in the past. It was a lot of information and I know for a fact that it’ll come into play in future arcs. I do like that they talk about how Paldea used to be an empire back in the day and had an Emperor. Regarding Rakua, they reveal that it was once an ancient land in a place far from Paldea, meaning that it used to be a different region. Like how Sinnoh used to be called Hisui, I wonder if Rakua was what Kalos used to be called back in the day. Regardless, Rakua also has a connection to Terestal, hence why Terapagos wants to go there. According to Clavell and Geeta, there was an accident at Area Zero recently, hence why they closed it off. I wonder if this is related to Sada and if Koraidon and Arven will play a part in this later on since he’s the only one of the main three important characters to have yet to make an appearance in the anime. Speaking of which, Clavell and Geeta also seem to be aware of Terapagos’s existence. I wonder if this hints at their involvement for future events. Also, it seems that the stuff with Lucius happened a hundred years ago, but I do wonder if that’s a translation error because a hundred years seems a little too…short? Like Hisui was Sinnoh like around 200 years ago, so for Rakua and Paldea to have very ancient buildings that are only hundred years old feels a little too weird?

Raifort makes her debut here! She was absolutely wonderful with her passion for history and having a Zoroark like how she does in the games. However, she is a little less sinister in the anime. It makes sense since she’s not forcing the kids to go out and pull out stakes and seek out the Treasures of Ruin or wanting to use a young male for experiment purposes. What’s hilarious is that her voice actress is Takako Honda. If you weren’t aware, Honda voiced Pokemon Hunter J back in the DP era. If you played the DLC, Raifort used to be a thief before becoming a teacher, so it’s rather amusing to learn about this. Her purpose in the episode is to dump additional lore about possible past events and to help the kids appreciate the past and to give them insight just in case stuff relating to the past is brought up. I like how her Zoroark keeps playing pranks.

There were theories that Liko and Roy were going to catch Charcadet and Gimmighoul, but they do not do it in this episode. I feel like anime watchers jump to conclusions too quickly. They didn’t even bond with these two Pokemon in this episode. Maybe it could be a potential candidate in the future, but with the way that each of the kids’ second Pokemon doesn’t have a lot of screen time or battling experience does show that they’re not going to catch a third Pokemon anytime soon.

At the end of the episode, they start the Implementation Test, the second part of the Terestal Course. In this stage, they have to use two Pokemon and switching is allowed. They have to be smart on who to use and who to Terastalize. I hope that the kids can use Terastal on their second Pokemon because I’d like to see what their Tera type is. The matchups are Dot vs Larry, Roy vs Ryme and Liko vs Grusha—why is Liko always the unlucky one in these matchups?? Speaking of which, if two Pokemon is required for this stage, that means Coral has a second Pokemon! Don’t tell me she has another exploding Pokemon…

The kids dancing in the ending credits was so cute! Other than that, I can’t wait for all of these past events to play a part in the present timeline. I honestly love learning about history about a fictional world! The writer and storyteller in me loves these sort of lore building! I can’t wait to see the day all of the answers to Rakua, Lucius, Terapagos and Gibeon will finally be answered! What are your thoughts on this episode?

[sleepymarmot]

COUNTER/Weight liveblog, part 3

Finale +post-mortem

Am I glad to return to the political big picture! It's such a relief that the finale is in this format! Hopefully it won't devolve into another “fighting a giant robot” scene.

Oh, so the Chime are leading the faction game now! Somehow I completely missed the point of the two previous scenes that indicated Aria becoming the new leader of the Righteous Vanguard – I was very surprised and then 10 minutes later went “Oh that's what it was, time to go back and relisten”

Pronoun update: Austin consistently uses “they”, Art consistently uses “he”. End my suffering…

The sheer comedic impact of seven Makos, Larry and Lazer Ted all in a room together has healed my soul immediately. Can we end on this image so nothing bad happens

I'm so proud of Orth!! “I'm sorry, which one are you?” lmao

Oooh the relationship drama~ But how come Jacqui didn't know Jill was alive? Actually, now that I think of it, back then it was clearly said that Jacqui knows Jillian is back and is sad because Jillian doesn't remember her. This show's retcons…

Look I know shit must hit the fan pretty soon but for now this finale is just. So relaxing. I'm having a lot of fun listening to these squabbles. (The only exception were Mako and Orth – boys, stop fighting, why!)

That Cass & Aria scene was cool but please don't give me world leader old friends sneaking away for secret stress relief sparring sessions when I'm not supposed to start shipping them

Oh hell yeah, I was hoping that since Jacqui went with Jillian, Aria would go with Ibex. (Not very relevant here, but Ibex is from Kesh like Maryland, right? If so, there must be fanart of young Ibex and Maryland in 19th century outfits?)

Stop cryptically saying oh Sokrates isn't here, oh they aren't using their candidate name, like what's up with them?! Are they doing well? I'm worried!

Oh Orth wants to dance with Ibex huh *eyes emoji* Rematch! Rematch!

“I'll take anything” “Anything?” My mind, of course, autocompletes “Then perish”

THIS WAS A LOT and I need to take a couple of minutes to start breathing normally again. Also there just has to be a lovingly drawn fanart adaptation of this entire scene (in, like, fukcing Leyendecker style), come on fandom please say someone has done it

Jacq/Jill continuing with the heartbreaking scenes, I see

Mako doesn't like dancing now…… holy shit this is the most upsetting ball ever… (The cynical part of me must say that it's only Austin who talks about this connection, Keith doesn't and still sounds way less emotional about the whole thing than the others assume Mako to be)

I amend my previous statement, I also need fanart with snapshots of every dance: Orth firmly taking Ibex's hand and receiving a surprised but approving look, Jillian throwing her head back in laughter and Jacqui watching with a pained smile, sullen Mako leaning on a wall cross-armed and looking for an opportunity to slip away, Cass dropping his one-liner with a completely dispassionate face.

Wow Ibex is really getting ready for death. Sounds as if he knows the exact date.

HOLY SHIT THE DIVINES' ORIGIN STORY!!! FINALLY!!! I'm surprised they were all created by the same person…

I'm relieved Mako and Orth are on good terms again!

I love the new Aria as this competent politician who does a lot of swordfighting and dealing with old flames

Have I mentioned I really love the game they're playing? It almost synthesizes the best parts of the game they played previously – as if it was written just for this finale. It's so great how this show and specifically this campaign go through so many games, showing the universe and the characters from different angles, instead of having them be defined by only one game system and its limitations and quirks.

That's some real good mech if it can function for 80,000 years, Divines' body or not!

Okay, I fucking knew Liberty and Discovery would split up at some point (which is what I meant above by my expectations for AuDy's fate), but why is Liberty attacking Ibex?

Mako's robots!!! :DDD Now that's the real finale shit!

I CAN'T BELIEVE Keith missed Tower's brief appearance of all things. It's like a fucking scene from the show on the level of dramatic irony. They were truly not meant to be, even the universe in real life is saying that. Do you ever get rejected so badly that the guy you like runs away from you at the prom, and then lets you fall into a deadly portal with the rest of your planet, and then you get brainwashed, and then you are killed by an ally of that guy, and the person playing him doesn't even witness that?!

I thought Orth was going to challenge Kobus about Liberty…

“I have Liberty contained” *winces*

Every time it is asked what is Mako wearing I just mentally pull out the popcorn

“I welcome anyone to tell Cass that AuDy is a non-person”

Let me restate how much I'm loving how the scenes that in any other show would be minor fluff or short summaries in an epilogue are a legit fully rendered part of the finale

Sokrates & Orth reunion please!!

Aw Ted! It never occured to me that this comic relief character has, in fact, lost his entire planet and almost everyone he knows.

…I think I like Apokine Cass more than Chime Cass

That's a big lore dump holy cow! I'm glad Apostolosians are ex-humans after all, but I wonder how they turned into fish people

So what happened to the idea of Mako hacking Grace?

They just… went and straight up murdered two Divines… If it had happened early in the show I'd probably cheer, and no tears were shed for Grace, but Liberty… Just take a third of another player character and drive it into a sun…

Of course. I knew Sokrates is the kind of character who dies nobly in a grand finale.

I've spent all this time wondering how the piece of Voice in Mako doesn't get infected by Rigor, and it seems to finally happen and Larry seems to die repairing it, but what about all other Makos, aren't they in danger too?

This is way too easy so far, just sacrifice NPCs one by one to win.

This whole time I was assuming Mako saved as many clones as he could, not just his own… If he gets another turn I bet it's submit or die :/

Hello I'm crying over Lazer Ted! Choices in the campaign sound futile now: who cares which guy Mako saved – they both died anyway! All named NPCs did!

Except for Jacqui. Congratulations, the NPC Who Lived! (I mistyped “loved” at first, which is also relevant. And yes, I cried here too.)

How the hell would falling into a sun kill Rigor if it was previously not killed by a bomb that destroys hundreds of suns?

Poor Cass… Not only sacrificing yourself in such a difficult way, but to have a final conversation only just to learn that your friend, a passionate revolutionary further empowered by Righteousness, has deserted… The sheer contempt and disappointment he pours in just three words “Ibex told you”...

Welp. Mako's fate was not tragic like I feared! Good news I guess, but it's still kind of sad. And I think the saddest part is that Mako himself doesn't realize. Because it can just sound like the natural continuation of his character growth – after he had to learn to be the responsible one first in contrast to Larry and then to the other Makos. But it's not that, or not just that, and it's kind of chilling to hear that he never knows it, and never knows peace.

Executive Joie, oh my… It's so strange and cool how Aria somehow continues the legacy of Jace and Ibex at once.

The race is over. It's so strange that now there are no consequences to fear or spoilers to avoid.

I didn't like the final battle as much as the rest of the finale – I hoped for a more clever solution than just throwing bodies at the enemy (but I guess the intro warned me lol…). Especially since these bodies had very unequal impact – I'm not going to care about Diego Rose or Chet Wise or Orth's newly-created lieutenants or as much as I care about Jacqui -- so it felt unfair towards players/characters who had more important or likeable chracters in their faction. I'm opposed on principle to making the big confrontation feel important and emotional just by killing off characters (hi, J. K. Rowling and Russo brothers), I think it's cheap and emotionally manipulative, but in this case the emotional manipulation doesn't even work so it’s doubly disappointing.

If someone's reading this, you can see that what I expected or wanted from the story was not what it gave me, and that was frustrating or disappointing at times. But nevertheless, it was a wild ride.

I've slept on it and it still fucks me up that out of the Chime only Aria gets a genuinely happy ending! Cass is fucking dead, Liberty is dead while AuDy becomes a ghost, and Mako loses everyone and is lonely for the rest of his life!

It's so strange to listen to the opening theme in the post-mortem and think that this is the second-to-last time. (Relistens don't count, it's not the same thing.) By the way, I love that theme – it sounds like a half song with the words on the tip of my tongue, like space, or like city at night. Really atmospheric.

I love how everyone continues to be into that moment where Aria has the opportunity to kill Cass lol (I am too)

Yeah, thanks for reminding me about that coin toss moment for Kobus in the finale, that was so sudden and shocking I was completely losing it for the long few seconds it lasted

I'm glad someone asked whether Jack knew the Big Spoiler in advance – he was so calm about it in the following episodes that I started wondering

Oh so it wasn't my imagination that the players needed the comic relief of the Lazer Ted episode no less than the characters

After a sad talk about Mako's dead friends, Andi, cheerfully: “I love to kill and I love to hurt and I never regretted anything I ever did! :D” which won the least surprising comment of the hour award lol. Honestly, after that one scene with Diego I started to get a bit nervous whenever Andi announced they had an idea… C/w was fun because I now realize the cinnamon roll Aubrey was actually them playing against type.

I love that someone asked about Mako's first kiss and/or Orth's fandom life!!

Keith's answer is sad, though… He “had literally never considered Mako even being capable of kissing someone, like it wasn't something on the table” and that was unexpected to me. I'd mentioned several times that he sounded reluctant to play up the romance, but I was assuming it was the player's preference, not an innate trait of the character whose attraction to someone was a part of his character creation. How do I interpret it? Mako is aro? Mako never had a chance to properly grow emotionally because his youth was fake and for the rest of his life, all emotional connections were sabotaged by Rigour's shadow, and also literally all his potential love interests died? Ugh, I just keep making myself more and more upset.

Holy shit I forgot about Art asking if there's an old Apostolosian mech on September by any chance lmao

Cene always knew?! Holy shit w h a t

It's nice to hear Ali talk about her growth in confidence as a player because she's definitely kind of an inspiration – for years I've thought tabletop roleplaying is too intense and I'll never do it, but when I finally tried out it was not so scary, so maybe there's hope for me too!

The concept that the real challenge of the final battle was that the easier it would be to defeat Rigor, the worse shape would the world be afterwards sounds much better than what that battle actually felt like to me. Instead of paying for victory with the health of society and their faction's political power, in the actual gameplay they paid with NPCs from their circle and that was it; the political consequences came later and sounded entirely unrelated. Maybe if they had to go against their faction's goals or sacrifice its assets – e.g. “use Minerva's Rigor-tech mechs in exchange for the promise to leave them alone afterwards” instead of “sacrifice all Mako clones”… Aria had something similar with Weight, but it was the price of Jacqui's life, not the price of a victorious battle against Rigour.

It's very cool to learn where the sound effects in the theme come from! And god, every line as its own take? My head hurts just imagining that…

Austin getting distracted by the idea of fucking Rigor was hilarious, but I never, ever want to hear the word “daddy” in this context! What's with these jokes this season, ew, please stop.

Excuse me, Ali wanted to kiss Ibex as who exactly, Jace or Aria? Both options are equally crazy!

See, “You wanna say ‘Oh he was just doing what was necessary, he was just doing the thing that's good in the end’, and yeah that's him working on you” is exactly why he reminds me of Dukat! Literally the same mind game on the viewers/listeners!

Why is the link broken, I want to see AuDy in Titanfall!

Listening to team “Fuck Ibex!” and team “Fuck Ibex ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)” yell at each other is very entertaining

“Nobody on the Kingdom Come is cishet” is a nice sentiment but I'm kind of confused by which definition of cis Cass is not. Have I missed something about them changing pronouns in-universe? Just because English doesn't have exact analogies for the Apostolosian pronouns doesn't mean everyone who uses them isn't following their own society's conventions. And now Austin also's saying “We never wanted to say these pronouns are equivalent to gender” which is, a, not true, and b, sends the whole problem back to square one – because if that's not the Apostolosian gender then what is? This! Is! A! Mess!

[weekendwarriorblog]

The Weekend Warrior October 30, 2020 – COME PLAY, THE CRAFT: LEGACY, HIS HOUSE, SPELL, HOLIDATE and More!

Boy, it was really nice having a week off last week, and honestly, I’m thinking of legitimately cutting back the number of movies I review for this column every week, since trying to review ten to twelve movies in any week is just too much, especially if I’m ever gonna get back to the box office stuff. I don’t expect that to be any time soon since movie theaters are still shut in NYC and any major release is either getting shuffled to next year or onto streaming.

Because Halloween is this Saturday, we can expect a lot of horror movies but a few other things as well. Thankfully, this is also a relatively quieter week as is next week before things absolutely EXLODE once again. Who knows? Maybe movie theaters will be reopened in New York City by then, too.

The highest profile movie of the week (and the one getting the widest theatrical release) might be Jacob Chase’s COME PLAY (Focus), a horror movie that he expanded from his earlier short film “Larry.” The feature stars young Azhy Robertson as Oliver, an autistic boy who discovers a book called “The Misunderstood Monster” on his phone, which awakens a monster called “Larry.” As Oliver’s parents (John Gallagher, Jr and Gillian Jacobs) try to understand what is going on with the boy, Larry continues to wreak havoc on everyone around the boy.

I was generally mixed on this highly high-concept horror movie, maybe because it seemed like a fairly cheesy concept that completely over-utilizes the concept of a monster that inhabits technology to the point where you immediately think of Lights Out. That was also based on a short film expanded into feature, but that was also directed by David F. Sandberg. Chase is a perfectly capable filmmaker, and he has two great actors in Gallagher and Jacobs, the latter playing a far more dramatic role than we’ve seen from her in quite some time.

The problem is that the first hour or so isn’t particularly scary, it actually feels kind of dull and derivative. It’s not really until the last half hour when we get to see Larry in a far scarier physical form than just inhabiting and controlling technology, where things pick up and that last act of the movie does sort of make up for the earlier part of the film.  Come Play isn’t terrible, and I’ve definitely seen far worse, but it’s also no Babadook in terms of doing something original or innovative within the horror realm.

As if we didn’t have enough remakes going on right now, Sony and Blumhouse decided to dump their THE CRAFT: LEGACY, declared as a “continuation” of the beloved 1997 movie, to PVOD this week. I never was a huge fan of the original Craft, but it’s as much a beloved cult movie as any other out there. I truly believe that for any Millennial woman who was in her teens in 1997, this is probably her favorite movie, or maybe it’s just the women I tend to meet.  Anyway, this one is written and directed by Zoe Lister-Jones, who made that wonderful Sundance movie Band-Aid, and it stars Cailee Spaeny as teenager Lilly, who arrives in town with her mother (the wonderful Michelle Monaghan) to live with her mother’s new boyfriend (David Duchovny) and his three sons. Lilly is immediately picked on at school until she falls in with a trio of fellow girls (Gideon Adlon, Lovie Simone, Zoey Luna) who notices Lilly’s ability and wants her to become the fourth in their mini-coven they’ve created to explore their witchy powers.

Even though I know plenty of women who absolutely love the original 1997 movie, and there’s nothing wrong with that, The Craft never really connected with me, so I went into this without any real emotion about the movie being remade… I mean… continued. Oh, let’s cut the crap. There’s almost nothing that connects this movie to the earlier movie other than it’s another group of teenage girls getting into witchcraft. Maybe there’s some easter eggs in there that didn’t jump out at me, but any actual connection with the first movie seems so tacked-on to a movie that just isn’t very good otherwise. (Lister-Jones leans so heavily on her movie’s soundtrack to keep any sort of momentum going.)

As much as I love the cast Lister-Jones put together, particularly Spaeny and Monaghan, her movie is so disjointed starting with all the silly giggly girly stuff at the beginning, to all the Y.A. lovey-dovey Twilight crap (mostly dealing with Lilly’s hunky love interest of sorts played by Nichoas Galitzine) to about an hour into the movie when things finally get darker but then immediately starts falling apart.

I won’t go into further details to avoid spoilers, but it takes almost an hour to get to anything even remotely resembling an actual plot.  If you’ve seen the original movie, you’ll already know the basic arc except that like last year’s Black Christmas remake -- also by Blumhouse – the movie transforms into a big female empowerment fight against the evil man, who you can figure out quite easily who that might be. I generally felt that Spaeny was really misused and the visual effects to show the girls’ powers are so lame I’m wondering how they got past the Blumhouse quality control standards.

This is a silly and mostly obnoxious girls’ movie that made me feel old AF as it chose to deal more with feelings than anything even remotely resembling scares. After watching it, I was far less surprised The Craft: Legacy was being dumped to VOD rather than getting a theatrical release.

Streaming on Netflix this week is Remi Weeke’s feature debut HIS HOUSE about a refugee couple (played by Ṣọpẹ Dìrísù and Wunmi Mosaku) who escape from war-torn South Sudan to try to create a new life for themselves in a small English town when they start experiencing all sorts of weird and nefarious occurrences in their new home.

His House is a bonafide horror movie, but one that’s so entirely unique to the genre by adding the fish-out-of-water experience of two immigrants into the mix. It also seemingly uses authentic African mythology and lore to make the supernatural aspect of the story feel much more relevant to the couple at the movie’s core, while at the same time showing the xenophobia experienced by immigrants in the UK.  That last part is something we doesn’t have many opportunities to experience so much in the U.S., but between this and Steve McQueen’s upcoming “Small Axe Anthology” we get to see how racism in the UK shows its ugly face in a different way than it does here.

Weekes’ clearly has a solid handle on the material for his feature debut, which even includes a small role for former Doctor Who Matt Smith, but I was more impressed with the strong performances by the two leads combined with how Weekes worked with his team to create actual scares in new and intriguing ways.

More importantly, Weekes’ film shows how important it is to establish strong core characters before throwing them into any sort of supernatural horrors, which is why this ultimately works better than some of the other horror films of the week including Spell (see below).

Significantly creepy but tying that into a strong narrative about the immigration situation in the UK, His House delivers on both aspects to create a strong and impressive debut from Weekes. This is a genuinely scary movie that thrives on offering original ideas vs. retread.

Premiering on Premium VOD and Digital (and maybe in a drive-in or two? Who knows?) is Mark Tonderai’s supernatural thriller SPELL (Paramount Home Entertainment), starring Omari Hardwick and Loretta Devine. Hardwick plays Marquis T. Woods, a successful lawyer on his way to his father’s funeral in Appalachia with his family when the plane he’s flying gets hit by a storm. Marquis wakes up trapped in an attic by a Ms. Eloise (Devine) who claims she has complete control over him using a Hoodoo talisman known as a “Boogity.”  Marquis urgently has to escape her dark magic and save his family.

I tried hard to avoid going into this semi-cynically since “horror noir” is now a huge thing thanks to the success of Jordan Peele’s Get Out and Us. Every single horror film with a black lead has tried to combine the same amount of Peele’s socially-aware relevance with typical horror scares. Spell definitely has that despite being written and produced by Kurt Wimmer, best known for the 2002 sci-fi film Equilibrium.

Spell doesn’t take too long getting Hardwick’s family man Marquis out of his comfort zone and back to his Appalachian home where, as a kid, he was abused by his religiously-devout father who believed in the area’s Hoodoo customs. Like classic horror movies like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and even Hills Have Eyes, Spell is fashioned as people from a different background coming upon strange and deadly Southerners, here represented mainly by Devine’s character but also by almost everyone Marquis and his family meet once they get down to the Appalachia area.

The movie only really gets going once Marquis is trapped by Devine’s Ms. Eloise, and that’s where it turns into a supernatural-tinged version of Misery as he repeatedly tries to escape. I generally love Devine and glad she was able to get more of a lead role that may have normally gone to Octavia Spencer, but Devine has an even harder time getting past her likeable nature, and honestly? By the third or fourth time she has used the term “Boogity” – it’s used a lot – it become even harder to take the movie very seriously.  In general, the movie feels like the filmmakers were trying to throw in too many ideas and only some of them work.

What Tonderai has going for this movie is that he has made a sharp and stylish movie that ably builds the tension as it goes along. It even throws in some deeply disturbing gory movies as it builds to a bit of a revenge action-thriller by its crazy last act. Because of that, Spell finds a way to get past its derivate roots to deliver a thriller that’s likely to keep the audience’s rapt attention despite its issues.

Just in time for Halloween, Netflix releases HOLIDATE, starring Emma Roberts and Luke Bracey as Sloane and Jackson, two people who hate being single on holidays and facing judgment from their families. When they meet, they pledge to be each other’s “holidate” for any festival occasion for the next year.

High-concept R-rated Rom-Com warning!  Not that I’m NOT a fan of this genre when done right, and actually, director John Whitesell (of the “Big Momma” sequels) does a pretty good job getting a lot of laughs out of his amazing cast that includes Kristin Chenoweth (two weeks in a row!), Jessica Capshaw and more.

It’s a little weird seeing Emma Roberts, who I’ve met and interviewed since she was a teenager, in such a racy R-rated role that includes a lot of humor that would not seem out of place in Bridesmaids or an Amy Schumer movie. I’m sure she hates being compared to her famous rom-com star aunt, but Roberts really has mastered the comedy aspect of the genre that’s just as any meet-cute romance. It reminds me a little of two of my favorite rom-coms of 2019, Last Christmas and Plus One, and even if it doesn’t try to be particularly deep or thought provoking, it sure as hell is entertaining.

Despite there being quite a bit of silliness and even some low-brow humor in Holidate, it’s definitely going to be a lot of people’s guilty pleasure, because Roberts and Bracey are so absolutely adorable together. (This movie was so obviously made before COVID because there’s so much partying and Christmas merriment unlike anything we’re likely to see this year.)

Martin Krejci’s THE TRUE ADVENTURES OF WOLF BOY (Vertical) stars Jaden Martell from the “IT” movies as hairy-faced soon-to-be-13-year-old Paul Harker, who lives an isolated life with his garbageman father (Chris Messina). Frustrated by his secluded life, Paul runs away in an effort to find the mother he never met, making a few similarly odd friends along the way.

This is another movie that could have gone either way depending very much on the tone, but its tone is so all over the place that I never quite figured out if this was supposed to be a kids’ movie, something for young adults or just some sort of tax write-off that managed to convince a number of serious players like John Turturro (who has an exec. producer credit) and Chloë Sevigny to get involved.

Martell is generally no slouch himself, having had a number of starring roles, but it seems like this might have been filmed years ago because he looks and sounds like a 10-year-old. You don’t have to get too far into the movie before you see Martell with his hairy make-up, clearly inspired by The Wolfman, as he’s picked on by other kids and eventually decides to run away from home. First, he returns to the carnival where Turturro’s Mr. Silk puts Paul to work as a sideshow freak. That doesn’t work out so Paul runs off and encounters two wild outcast girls, played by Sophie Giannamore and Eve Hewson. That whole time, Paul is being pursued by a detective who wants to bring him home to his worried father.

Sadly, Chris Messina, who has been taking on so many more interesting roles recently, just doesn’t have a ton to do here, and others like Turturro, are so badly overacting it takes you completely out of the movie. The movie does get a little better once Giannamore and Hewson’s characters are introduced into the mix, but Paul’s story never does much to win over the viewer’s interest, so the movie never finds its footing. Even the sentimental final act that introduces characters played by Sevigny and the always great Stephen McKinley Henderson barely makes up for all the earlier silliness. It will be available On Demand and Digitally this Friday.

The movie above has absolutely nothing to do with Andre Gower’s doc Wolfman’s Got Nards (Gravitas Ventures), which is available via VOD right now. It’s a look at the 1987 movie The Monster Squad, which I never really was that into but there’s no denying that it’s the definition of a cult film, because I know so many people who are obsessed with this movie. (Some of are actually in this doc! Germain Lussier and Jen Yamato, I miss you guys!) Gower’s doc covers how the movie got made with Shane Black co-writing it with director Fred Dekker, who basically went on to make…um… Robocop 3. This isn’t quite as fun as the recent You Don’t Nomi in terms of a doc about one specific movie, although there’s a lot of great behind-the-scenes footage, and horror fans will love all the nerdy talk about making the creatures and physical effects for the movie. Maybe it’s because I haven’t seen Monster Squad in so long that I just couldn’t get quite as excited about this doc as others might. I think if you love The Monster Squad, this movie will make you plotz!

Another, possibly higher-profile doc is Frederick Wiseman’s CITY HALL , which will debut exclusively at venerable New York arthouse Film Forum’s Virtual Cinema today. It’s a four and a half-hour documentary that follows the day-to-day of Boston’s City Hall and Mayor Marty Walsh as they deal with situations both mundane and extraordinary (like the Red Sox’s 2018 World Series win) over the course of a few months. At 90 years young, Wiseman is a veritable documentary legend who has been working in that medium since the mid-60s with something like 45 or 50 films under his belt. (Some of those films have been and will continue to be streaming as part of Film Forum’s “Wednesdays with Wiseman,” many of them including Q&As with Wiseman and other Oscar-winning documentaries.) Surprisingly, I only first heard of Wiseman when he won two awards from the New York Film Critics Circle a few years back for In Jackson Heights (just over three hours long), and there’s no question he’s a master of what he does, which is cinema verité documentary that does exactly that… documents. I honestly couldn’t get past two hours of watching this stuff, but maybe that’s just me.

Also streaming at Film Forum beginning Friday is King (A Touch of Zen) Hu’s 1979 martial arts drama Raining in the Mountain, starring Hsu Feng, which should be worth a view.

Another interesting doc out this week is Julie Sokolow’s Barefoot: The Mark Baumer Story (1091) about a writer and activist from Providence, Rhode Island named… well, you can figure that out… who decided to walk across the country barefoot over 100 days in order to protest people (including a certain POTUS) ignoring climate change.  It’s a pretty amusing and quirky movie, and if you didn’t know better, you might think it’s a spoof ala the amazing IFC series Documentary Now, but no, it’s real, and Sokolow does a great job keeping this quirky average joe interesting through the film’s 85-minute runtime, although he does get a little annoying, because he’s one of those friends who will just not shut up while complaining about Trump… and this is during a walk that took place before Trump’s inauguration! It’s definitely a very unique and different political doc from others we’ve seen this year maybe because Baumer does seem so down-to-earth despite his kookiness. I liked this doc almost but not quite as much as My Name is Pedro from earlier in the year because it does show that weirdos CAN make a difference! It’s available pretty extensively right now on VOD and digital on most platforms including iTunes, Amazon, and more. You can watch the trailer below and find out viewing options HERE:

After a few months of offering Digital Live Screenings, Metrograph is adding “Ticketed Screenings” for those who don’t want to commit the insanely reasonable $5 a month for a membership. First up this Friday is Olivier Laxe’s doc Fire Will Come (KimStim) which follows Amador Coro, a man accused of starting a fire who returns home from prison to live with his mother in Galicia (the director’s ancestral home), an area for having a high number of wildfires. The film, which won the Un Certain regard Jury Prize at Cannes last year, will have a weeklong run, and it includes a conversation between Laxe and cinematographer Ed Lachman, and a collection of Laxe’s short films will also be available.

A few of the movies still available this week (at least through Wednesday) as part of Metrograph’s Live Screenings include Red Squad, The Werewolf of Washington: Director’s Cut, The Edge (as part of the Robert Kramer retrospective), and Roni Moore and James Blagden’s Midnight in Paris. You can learn more about all of these and joining the Metrograph with a digital membership at the Official Site.

Other movies out this week that I wasn’t able to get to:

US KIDS As an Act of Protest (Speller Street Films) Attack of the Demons (Dark Star Pictures) Madre (Strand Releasing)

Probably the most exciting news for those planning to keep Disney+ past the first free year they got through Verizon, is that The Mandalorian Season 2 debuts on Friday! Also, Parasite director Bong Joon-ho’s Memories of Murder is now available On Demand, so if you haven’t seen it yet… do it now! (Also, The Hostis on Hulu, so no excuse not to watch some of Director Bong’s pre-Parasite films.)