A Vampire Comedy with Bite… What We Do in the Shadows reviewed #WhatWeDointheShadows @TaikaWaititi

[Guest review by Nadine West @andiekarenina]

There is a very specific Taika Waititi humour. If you’ve seen Thor: Ragnarok, you already know it. It revels in incongruity, wordy monologues that reveal more than the speaker intends, occasional pratfalls and the thwarting of best-laid plans and, if you like it, it’s entirely addictive. Call it a Kiwi thing; in the land where no tall poppy is safe from culling, prodding at the pomposity we all try to hide in our dark hearts is a sure-fire comedy winner. When the protagonists are immortal vampires, and the setting is the meek streets of Staten Island, What We Do in the Shadows comes dangerously close to being a comedy masterclass.

The FX TV series is based on, spun off from or otherwise riffs upon the 2014 film of the same name starring Waititi and his co-creator, Flight of the Concords’ Jermaine Clement. This original vampire-in-the-city film was set in Wellington, became a cult hit as a result of its dry humour and faux-documentary style, and seemed destined to remain yet another in the long list of underrated NZ films. (Full disclaimer – I used to teach several Kiwis who now work in the film industry and I am biased as all hell. Pay more attention to NZ creators, you fools.) When Waititi smashed Thor: Ragnarok out of the ballpark and had his moment as the darling of Hollywood, however, studios asked him what he wanted to do next. His answer? I’d like to make What We Do in the Shadows again, please. And I’d like to make it BRILLIANT.

And it is brilliant. Perhaps it’s just a happy coincidence of my humour and theirs, but I have not guffawed this much for years. The series is a single-camera reality documentary parody (and without going too full-film-nerd, the camerawork and lighting are impeccably 1992’s The Real World, with amateurish lighting, camera-swing and dodgy focus-pulling, but at night) following three house-sharing vampires, Nandor, Laszlo and Nadja, as they attempt to co-exist, dispose of corpses, host high-pressure orgies and, just perhaps, take over the world.

The burden upon vampire-kind to take over the world – or at least the New World – leads us straight to one of the pilot episode’s classic lines: Matt Berry’s Laszlo contemplates this sacred task. He is dressed in a black cape. His fangs glisten. He furrows his brow and waves one laconic hand – “Yes, conquer the New World…but as you can see…it’s fucking massive.” This series likes bathos. They like it a lot. Undercutting is what they do: every time Laszlo transforms into a bat the CGI is movie-standard and the magic is real, but Matt Berry has to awkwardly shout “BAT” each time, in the tones of a cricket umpire calling “out”. When Nandor decides to launch his dominion over humankind by controlling their leaders, he ends up at a Staten Island Borough Council meeting, trying to hypnotise grey, earnest bureaucrats who ignore him in favour of a discussion of zoning regulations. (“They cannot be hypnotised,” he notes, aghast, “because they no longer have souls.”)

The cast is uniformly excellent. Once again, a little bias creeps in, because the unimpeachable and glorious Doug Jones is here as Baron Afanas, a recurring guest starring role which allows Jones to flip-flop between deeply creepy and deeply silly, often within the same line of dialogue, whilst giving us one of those physical performances that no one does better, because Doug Jones is a god who can do no wrong and this is a hill I will die on. In the main cast, Kayvan Novak makes a delicious Nandor – slightly haughty, slightly baffled – longing for a homeland and delighting in glitter and “creepy paper”. Natasia Demitriou is a cheerfully demented Nadja, and Harvey Guillén gets huge mileage and moments of genuine pathos out of Guillermo, Nandor’s long-suffering familiar whose only wish is to be “turned” by his master.

There are, inevitably, one or two nit-picks. The energy vampire idea – despite the character of Colin being very well played by Mark Proksch – wears out by episode three and stays threadbare. (He doesn’t feed on blood, he feeds on energy! Like that awful guy at your office! And he wears a grey cardigan! Yes, still the same single joke, over ten episodes!) The “LARPing as a rich mine of virgins” joke is old, so old, pretty offensive, and hit repeatedly with a mallet for diminishing returns. And, well, I don’t get on with vomit humour in any form, never have, never will, and let’s just leave that one there before I go green again.

But overall, this is a genuinely brilliant tv show. It is knowing – the use of vampire lore and canon is impeccable – but it is not self-satisfied. It slips in cinema-quality effects that you will barely notice happening, because it gets mundanity so very, very right. It makes you laugh out loud, not just once, but repeatedly. It will make you want to take up a VERY specific kind of gardening.

 

What We Do in the Shadows has, cheeringly, already been recommissioned for a second series. FX has a winner on its hands, and we can only hope that this one runs and runs.

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John Wick 3 took more in the opening weekend than John Wick 1 did in its entire run! #johnwick #johnwick3 #KeanuReeves #HalleBerry

 

The John Wick movies have quite rightly earned a cult status. The fresh fighting style that’s used (I heard Keanu describe it as being based on ‘gun katas’), the cool Matrix stylings and intertextuality, the simple righteous revenge plots, the intriguing underworld and global hierarchy of assassins, the lack of fear when it comes to the body-count, and Keanu’s inimitable style of acting… all combine to give us a compelling, adrenaline-fuelled and screamingly addictive ride. And it’s a welcome ride that really has resurrected Keanu’s career, to boot!

The first movie in the sequence opened without much media fanfare but quietly grew in audience and fame. Now, with John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum, we have a movie that has taken more at the box office in its opening weekend than the first film did in its entire run. Added to that the fourth movie is already confirmed and a TV show spin-off called The Continental (named after the uber-cool, steampunk assassins’ hotel) is also being produced. Oo, and if you want my guess, the gun-toting Halle Berry character from the third film (along with her trained killer dogs) will also get a spin-off!

Regular readers of this site will know that this often grumpy reviewer was a massive fan of John Wick 1 & 2. So what did this often grumpy reviewer make of John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum? Well, indulge my grumpiness here, if you will. The title of the film itself is something of an indicator that the simple innocence of the first two movies has somewhat been lost. Things have become somewhat overloaded with new and contrived expectations. (For reference, Parabellum means ‘Prepare for war!’)

You see, the first two movies were based on simple revenge plots. In the first movie, John’s dog is killed by mafia types (and the dog was a gift from his wife before she died!) and his car is stolen. The mafia types have failed to realise that John is a notorious retired assassin… whom they have just brought out of retirement! Gulp! We cheer as the aggrieved and grieving John sets out for revenge upon the entire mafia. We are properly engaged, meaning that the action is emotionally compelling, no matter that it is overblown and not credible. It works morally and symbolically. The second movie is very similar… and that’s just fine indeed.

Yet the third film departs from the plot premise of the first two. It’s simply John on the run from all the other assassins because he has broken the rules of the assassins’ hotel/world. Hmm. Morally, we don’t feel much for John concerning this… after all, he’s a cold-blooded assassin himself. When we don’t care, the umpteen fight scenes become tedious rather than compelling. The refrain of the movie is ‘There are always consequences!’ but that is just a tautologous nonsense statement about the cause and effect nature of the world and basic physics, surely. The film struggles and strains to give itself depth… where before it naturally had it with simple elegance and without effort. Chapter 3 is by turns a dull and painful struggle to watch. Even the baddies in this third part aren’t properly bad. We have the Adjudicator character and her hired samurai, but they are simple functionaries, simply doing their jobs… and not actually evil for the fascinating sake of it. So we can’t even root for John based on his being more morally attractive than who he’s up against.

Look, true fans might be able to see past the inadequacies of the third film anyway, and I note the film has good scores from IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes, so maybe I/we shouldn’t talk too much more about it. Certainly, the third film does offer some new ideas and some extra world-building. And it’s setting up one helluva war for the fourth film! So let’s just say John Wick 3 is the equivalent of The Matrix 3, and leave it at that. I, for one, and no doubt one of many others, fully intend to watch the fourth movie and all future spin-offs – and maybe that’s the only real test of things! Onwards to war!

 

Skull face appears on international author’s beer glass while drinking in Jamaica Inn! The new Turin Shroud? #JamaicaInn #TurinShroud #DaphneDuMaurier

Behold!

I’m a Star Trek fan, so I live in hope – review of Star Trek Disco, season 2 #StarTrekDiscovery #Netflix

Guest review supplied by Nadine West @andiekarenina…

Let me be clear: I absolutely love the individual members of the cast and crew of Star Trek: Discovery. During Season 1, I was obsessed with “After Trek”, the Netflix banter-with-the-stars show that was available to watch once the episode of the week had aired, because Sonequa Martin Green, Doug Jones, Anthony Rapp et al were just all so darned adorable. Their respect and love for each other shines through, and the showrunners have made sterling efforts to craft a piece of popular science fiction that embraces diversity with true Trekkian IDIC fervour. I would squeeze every man, woman and tardigrade involved in the series, make them mojitos and cupcakes, and have their babies.

And yet. And yet. There is a big problem, and the problem is that now, at the end of Season 2, I am so unbelievably sick of this ponderous first person Star Trek that I could scream.

Let me explain. Just in case you don’t know, the designations of first and third person come from prose fiction: first person means a narrator who tells the story as “I”, like in Jane Eyre or To Kill a Mockingbird, and third person is where no one character is speaking, where the author can move more fluidly around the stories of the characters, who are “he/she”, like in Of Mice and Men or Harry Potter. First person means you’re deep inside one head, seeing only what that person sees, and you’re also a bit stuck there…and you begin to see my drift. I am so sick to the back teeth of being stuck in Michael Burnham’s head that I want to smash my way out of her fictional skull with a claw hammer and experience anything, ANYTHING, beyond her frame of reference.

Now I know Trek has always had central characters. Yes, there were more Spock episodes than Sulu episodes, more Picard episodes than Geordi LaForge episodes. And yes, there was a point at which the Voyager writers’ room forgot that any character except Seven of Nine existed, but I blame that on the hip-to-waist ratio hypnotism effect and forgive them. But broadly speaking, all previous Trek series have been confidently, vibrantly third person storytelling which allows us to see a full spectrum of characters’ lives – both those in our regular crew AND those we meet along the way. Some token examples amongst so many: in TNG, we saw more minor characters like Deanna Troi drive many episodes, delved into her complex relationship with her mother (all hail Lwaxana!) and even saw her involved with complex storylines like working undercover as a Romulan officer to aid Romulan defections (Face of the Enemy, TNG 6:14). In DS9, Quark, Dax et al drive several humorous and moving episodes: in Voyager, even the omni-tedious Tom Parris gets to be the star of his own Sliding Doors-style narrative in Non Sequitur, amongst many others. Even cameo characters – Joan Actual Collins, anyone? – are allowed room to grow and become firm fan favourites.

Let’s turn, then, to Season 2 of Discovery. If Season 1 was focused on Michael Burnham, then Season 2 developed a kind of Michael Burnham OCD which deformed everything else around it. Tilly’s genuinely interesting confidence growth arc? Sidelined. Ariam, a fascinating character with great story potential? Featured, corrupted, spaced and exploded in five minutes flat for dubious plot reasons. Stamets and Culber’s hideously painful reunion, separation and resolution? Nah, eight lines of dialogue across five episodes ought to do it

Stamets: Everything is super perfect now you’re back from the dead, golly gee.

Culber: I have seen too much. I am no longer the man you knew. We must break up.

Stamets: *sad eyes*

Culber: Now I shall have a fight with Tyler.

Stamets: *sad eyes*

Culber: I shall now go and work on the Enterprise for reasons.

Stamets: *sad eyes, melancholy astrophysics*

Culber: PSYCH! I shall stay with you now you are injured and we might die, love puppy.

Stamets: K. I’m very bleeding. I miss my spore drive.

I exaggerate. But honestly not by much. The writers clearly also have no idea what to do with Jet Reno, my actual favourite new Trek character in eons, so they just give her two lines of “generic acerbic lesbian bantz” every three episodes. As for everyone else on the bridge who’s not Saru, you would have to google their names before you could discuss them. Don’t pretend to me. You refer to her as “redhead who looks a bit like Willow from Buffy with the face-thing” too. Indeed, at the end of Season 2, Admiral Cornwell (Who? The one who’s been hanging around without much to do who isn’t Michelle Yeoh, that’s who) is summarily exploded by a photon torpedo in what is clearly intended to be a heart-rending moment…but since we know next to nothing about her, we simply go “eh, torpedoes” and shrug, before flashing back to yet another endless scene of Michael and Spock droning on about their feelings.

And droning feels like the operative work here: S2 Discovery was remarkably one-note from start to finish, because it abandoned episode variation in favour of through-arc. There’s no room for more light-hearted, positive, even fun episodes here, when everything is wall-to-wall Vulcan childhood trauma and looming apocalypse. (Sidebar: tv writers? Enough apocalypse already, guys. Seriously. Umbrella Academy, Sabrina, Thrones, Disco and sundry others – make us genuinely care about saving ONE life. I promise you faithfully that it will be more emotionally powerful than all your “oooh the world nearly ended but it didn’t” shenanigans, however much brass-and-string music you wheel out. Wrath of Khan, guys. Joyce on Buffy. Re-watch and learn.)

By far my favourite episode of this series was the most traditional Star Trek episode of them all, New Eden, closely followed by the next most traditional, Sounds of Thunder. In New Eden, the crew discover a human civilisation on a remote planet, living in prelapsarian harmony; our crew must wrestle with the dilemma of whether to leave them in their innocence or to tell them the truth some of them half suspect – that they belong to an advanced and intergalactic species. In Sounds of Thunder, we meet Saru’s species and their eternal enemies, the Ba’ul, and our preconceptions of the history between these two races are skilfully and enjoyably subverted. These two episodes stand out because they are the best of Trek: outward looking, full of the spirit of – ironically – discovery, and focused on exploring the universe and the moral dilemmas that arise as we learn more. In both of these episodes, I genuinely cheered at the intelligent writing and plotting that took me out of Michael bloody Burnham’s endless psychodrama and into the starry galaxy instead.

Perhaps next season, with the confirmation of a new showrunner and the option to re-boot a little, Discovery will begin to find its feet and its wider horizons. I’m sceptical, but I’m a Star Trek fan, so I live in hope.

Remarkably un-male-gazey – Captain Marvel review #BrieLarson #CaptainMarvel #GooseTheCat

Guest review supplied by Nadine West @andiekarenina…

I don’t remember the 1990s being this cool. Truthfully, if you actually lived through the 1990s you will probably have a split thought process as you watch Captain Marvel: firstly, that Garbage, Hole, top-gun shades and flannel shirts were all much more awesome than pop culture history has given them credit for; secondly, that this pop culture has been pretty strenuously cherry-picked…and anyway, it’s Brie Larson who makes it all cool.

There is something remarkably un-male-gazey about this latest instalment in the MCU, something that felt fresh and different in a way that DC’s Wonderwoman from 2017 failed to fully deliver. Maybe it’s partly the 1990s clothes after all: it’s hard to let your camera crawl all over your female protagonist’s curves if said curves are hidden under Gen-X layering and baggy jeans, but it’s a long cold drink of fresh water, as a woman in the cinema, watching a comics franchise, to see a female hero framed, shot and lit like a character, not a pneumatic ass-robot. Partly, though, it’s the writing. Hat tip to Ryan Fleck, the only chap in the writing and story-creation process, but this is a film that wears its women-positive credentials all the way down to the bone. Anna Boden (writer/director) and Geneva Robertson-Dworet (writer) offer us a script that is refreshingly free from heteronormative tropes and forced love-interests from top to bottom: Jude Law’s Yon-Rogg could have been the sexy mentor with an erotic hold over his beautiful protégé, but he isn’t. Young Nick Fury – an eerily de-aged Samuel L. Jackson – could have been lechily fascinated by young Carol, or paternalistically amazed by her talents, but he isn’t. It’s almost as though the writers were interested in getting a hero story told, and didn’t need a digression into “yes, but boobs” getting in the way.

Brie Larson, as Vers/Carol/Captain M, has been criticised for being too bland, too baffled, but I found her compelling throughout. She has humour, not in “wisecracking banter” – and yes, Iron Man et al, I’m rolling my eyes at you – but as in wryness, a sense of the absurd and an understated intelligence that informs her performance. A story that spends a good half of its running time with an amnesiac protagonist is always going to result in a confused central character, which makes it all the more moving when Danvers finds herself reunited with her best friend and co-pilot Maria Rambeau, and pieces together the legacy of love and found family that the Kree have stolen from her. Lashana Lynch is brilliant here: Maria’s character is wounded by loss, protective of herself and her daughter, loves Carol fiercely and, just when the viewer might begin to feel a bit queasy about the POC-as-sidekick trope, is given lots of agency and action that’s all her own.

The plot is largely cleverly handled: it has divided critics, and the sympathy-switcheroo halfway might have been ultimately unsurprising, but the narrative risk to begin in the Kree world with minimal exposition pays off, just as the second half with its refugee/oppressed group allegory works well as far as it goes – these are broad strokes administered without subtlety, absolutely, but they are not without resonance to a 2019 audience. The other caveat I have about the plot is towards the end, and this one I can’t quite get past: once Carol is freed from the control of the Kree, she essentially becomes unstoppable, firing lasers from her hands, knocking missiles out of the sky, flying around, doing energy booms to scare bad guys, GLOWING FROM WITHIN…and, well, meh. Superpowers ain’t no fun if they’re limitless, as we’ve all learned, and the finale of Captain Marvel leaves us with a rousing butt-kicking that has no damn jeopardy left in it.  Of course she’s going to win. Of course she’s going to hang in the sky glowing yellowly like we’ve learned nothing from the misery of watching Iron Fist.

That said, there’s plenty to leave an audience happy. Goose the cat is everything everyone has said he is, and more. Nick Fury is just wonderful in every way, as is sarky Australian Skrull-fella Talos. The meta-Marvel stuff is as fun as ever, with even a final-reel gag about how you pronounce “Marvel” to cheer up the fan-boys and girls. The locations and set-dressings are brilliant, and anyone over the age of 35 will be insufferable as they shout “Ooooh, PJ Harvey poster! OOOOOH, Jumping Jack Flash with Whoopi Goldberg VHS case! OOOOOH I had that Sony Sports Walkman!”

Young people, let them have this one. It’s not very often that you get to have a fun superhero movie with incredible women at its heart that ALSO allows you to believe, for two hours, that the 1990s were brilliant.

Some proper Airyfairyiam – review of Star Trek Discovery episode 9 #StarTrekDiscovery #ProjectDaedalus

Good episode, this one. We learn that Airiam was a normal Starfleet officer who was in a horrible shuttle crash: her husband died and she could only survive as a cyborg; and every night she has to decide which memories to delete because of her limited capacity. There is a moral dilemma here, as in many ways she doesn’t wanna hang on to the painful memories, even though they define her. It makes her an intriguing and compelling character from the get-go. She is lonely and only has emotional input from playing various parlour games with others – without a human body, her social options are entirely limited. It makes her a tragic figure really, and this is the main interest of the episode.

It starts poorly. The female admiral (Cornwell) arrives on the Disco to give us all the exposition and scenario we need for this episode. Sigh. Bad writing. And SPOILERS straight from the beginning. Very bad writing. We are told we have to get to the HQ of Section 31, known as ‘Control’, which is the superbrain of Starfleet. The thinking is Control has lost control to ‘logic extremists’ (Vulcan terrorists). Meanwhile, Airiam’s eyes go red every now and then, due to the alien infection she got several episodes back.

We get to Control, Burnham and Spock having an argument about the pros and cons of logic along the way (vaguely relevant, but also fairly contrived). Airiam continues to act suspiciously – she doesn’t even trust herself – and nor does Commander Nhan – not that either of them bother to flag it up to anyone in a position to stop her.

The away-team (containing Burnham, Airiam and Nhan, OF COURSE) arrives in Control. It’s a mess. There’s a showdown… and it actually works. It’s emotional and tragic. And we pretty much save the universe from ‘the extinction of all sentient life’. Phew, that’s alright then.

But this episode works overall. There are decent themes about the nature of being, artificial intelligence and sentience. Worth a look.

The disorder of ‘The Order’ on Netflix #theorder #netflixreview

So, in quite orderly fashion, a college kid joins a secret magical order (called ‘The Order’). All ordinary so far. But then he’s extraordinarily kidnapped and turned into a werewolf, meaning he’s now a disorderly inside man in the werewolf fight against the Order. We never really find out why the werewolves are fighting the Order, but werewolves aren’t great thinkers, so never mind.

A love interest is chucked in. There are buff boys and bints aplenty. There’s a range of random murders (the police never get involved though, for some unfathomable reason), meaning there really can’t be many students left alive at this college. But no one seems too upset by that, since pretty much all the students are so annoying. There are enchanted blades and stabbings, but magic goo to heal the wounds, except when the series forgets about the magic goo and wants to create jeopardy. There are betrayals (sort of). There’s a kinda cool ‘necrophone’ that lets people speak to the dead, but it gets pretty promptly destroyed (shame). There’s a magical gauntlet that tortures people till they tell the truth (use it on Trump!). Oh, and there’s a deep-voiced mad supermagus with a big old grimoire that might destroy the world… or save it… we’re not sure which and it doesn’t matter really.

This series is utter junk in terms of character and continuity. It shouldn’t work. It shouldn’t be compelling watching. But somehow it is. It’s fairly baffling how it manages to pull it off. True, it avoids clumsy exposition and there are some funny lines… but is that all we need these days? Maybe. Don’t we need logic and credible plotting? Apparently not. Expedience seems to be the name of the game. High tempo and fun rushing around is all we want these days, cos that’s all we have time for in our stressful and hectic lives. I can’t believe I’m saying this: I enjoyed the series and would recommend it to a degree. Says a lot about me, probably.