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Capsule Movie Reviews Vol.2024.18

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<n>Read the explanation of method, madness, and spoilers.<fn></n> <ol> <a href="#Tschugger">Tschugger S01--S02 (2021--2022)</a> --- <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt15425948/">9/10</a> <a href="#Tschugger3">Tschugger S03 (2024)</a> --- <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt15425948/">9/10</a> <a href="#Tschugger4">Tschugger S04 (2024)</a> --- <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt15425948/">9/10</a> <a href="#Titans">Titans S01--S04 (2018--2023)</a> --- <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1043813/">7/10</a> <a href="#Gundam">Gundam: Requiem for Vengeance (2024)</a> --- <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt30277745/">5/10</a> <a href="#OnePunchMan">One Punch Man S01--S02 (2015--2019)</a> --- <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4508902/">9/10</a> <a href="#Watch">End of Watch (2012)</a> --- <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1855199/">7/10</a> <a href="#Heron">The Boy and the Heron (2023)</a> --- <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt6587046/">8/10</a> <a href="#Killer">The Killer (2023)</a> --- <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1136617/">6/10</a> <a href="#Hyacinth">Operation Hyacinth (2021)</a> --- <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt14315584/">7/10</a> </ol> <dl dt_class="field"> Tschugger S01--S02 (2021--2022) --- <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt15425948/">9/10</a> <div>This show is a labor of love by David Constantin, who wrote, directed, and starred in much of it. Mats Frey and Johannes Bachmann are co-creators and co-writers. I was already delighted just by this show's very existence. I am 100% on board with what they're cooking. The first two seasons are mostly in Swiss German, with a smattering of English, Italian, and French. The Swiss German is in a dialect unique to the canton of Wallis/Valais. It's different enough in pronunciation and slang that I sometimes had to rely on the German subtitles to decipher what had just happened. I learned a bunch of new words and linguistic nuances. The written German was almost hilariously stilted compared to the extremely free-style Swiss German of Wallis, which seems as far from Züridütsch as Züridütsch is from German. This show takes place in modern Switzerland but it feels like it was made in the 80s or 90s. Switzerland sometimes do be like that, though! We don't like change, so I wouldn't be 100% surprised if some police stations in Wallis are still just as antiquated as depicted in this show. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. The eponymous Tschugger (Wallis-slang for "cop") is Bax Schmidhalter (David Constantin), who acts like he's a cross between Crockett from Miami Vice and John McClane from Die Hard. He is super-self-confident but he's also kind of a loser? I like him. He's been with the force for 15 years and he's still kind of riding the fame he earned about 10 years ago, when he made a big bust. Since then, he's been chasing one white whale after another, never again landing anything that big. He has good instincts though, so his station chief Biffiger (Laurent Chevrier) gives him a relatively long leash and puts up with a lot shit. We meet Bax as he's getting to the police station, parking in a handicapped spot right in front of Annette Brotz (Anna Rossinelli), who's on an inspection visit from Fedpol (the national police). <bq>Annette Sie sind auf einem Behinderten Parkplatz parkiert. Bax: Ich bin ja behindert [zeigt seiner Bandage] und übrigens in Wallis sagämer 'Personä mit bsonderä Bedürfnisse'.</bq> Bax is hot on the trail of a couple of pot-smugglers, who are using a drone to bring a giant bag in over the Italian border. He just needs to catch them red-handed. He gets the apprentice cop Patrick / Schmetterling (Cedric Schild) to go undercover and gives him a gun. He's a techie so he easily sells himself as a drone pilot and joins Valmira (Anna-Lena Miano) and Juni (Arséne Junior Page) up on the Simplon Pass to fly in a shipment. A word on Patrick: there are a lot of good characters in this show---they almost all grow on you, they're so endearing, each in their own way---but Patrick is really special. He has a speech defect---and not just because he speaks Züridüütsch instead of Wallisdüütsch---and he's just so earnest and nice and talented. They all grow on you, even if they start a little rough, but Schmetterling is just the best from the get-go. The other solid guy is Bax's brother (Fabrice Schalbetter), who's a doctor at the local hospital and an all-around cool guy. Schmetterling's undercover mission goes wrong and the out-of-power drone crashes in front of an Italian delivery truck, driven by two thuggish-looking Mafiosos. They tangle with Patrick, who shoots them but is shot himself. Long story short, Bax eventually finds him in the outhouse, like, in the bottom half, hiding. Filthy. In another thread, "Freu" Brotz is stationed there temporarily to investigate a wild party that the whole station had in the local forest (Pfynwald), where weapons were fired, and Bax had been shot through the hand. He hides the wound and tries to avoid getting the station-house in trouble---else they'll be merged with the dreaded French station house and would all have to speak French at work.<fn> There is, however, a person on the inside, working against Bax: his ex Greta, whom he doesn't suspect until it's far, far, far too late. He can't even conceive of her being as ruthless as she is---a total blind spot. She's in cahoots with the Italian crew that was smuggling the spaghetti sauce over the border in order to bring in a sacred key that unlocks a mechanism that will trigger a bomb that will blow the Grand Dixence dam. That's the overall story arc upon which a bunch of side plots, humorous diversions, and hijinks are draped. We also meet Mike (Matteo Santafemia), the schoolkid who drags the cops around by the nose, while being all gangster, and spraying ACAB all over the place. He's pretty great, really a good child actor with a well-written role. We meet him at the school where Bax and Pirmin (Dragan Vujic) are giving a Verkehrsschulung. He pretends to have been struck by Bax and Bax actually gets into the national newspapers again, as der Kinderbrätscher Polizist. This comes up again and again and again. Every time the newspaper talks about Bax, it's as the Kinderbrätscher. Greta goes on a trail of destruction, killing fellow cops and pretty much everyone else who gets in the way. There are two ski-instructors who get involved, kidnapping Valmira in order to blackmail Juni into giving up the key that he'd found at Fricker's (Olivier Imboden) house, a local businessman who fancies himself a bit of a Hugh Hefner and whom Valmira was using to launch her rap career. Bax's old band-tour-bus (a broken-down RV) plays a central role, providing more local color and more Swiss-ness to the whole affair. The biggest in-joke is just how much of a love letter this show is to Swiss culture as she actually is (not as people perceive it to be). Nearly every line of dialogue has double significance if you've actually lived here long enough and is doubly funny because of that. In the end, Annette Brotz teams up with Bax's ex-partner Pirmin, who's in the meanwhile also been suspended, for having sniffed coke by accident, and they end up in Fricker's helicopter with Juni at the helm (he's a crane operator, so a helicopter is a cinch, naturally). Bax manages to turn off the bomb and would be the hero again---but the national police wants to hush things up because it would be too embarrassing to admit how close they'd come to losing most of Wallis, Geneva, and parts of France to a weird bunch of cultists with a key that used to belong to Hitler. Definitely well-worth the watch. I would absolutely watch this again.</div> Tschugger S03 (2024) --- <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt15425948/">9/10</a> <div>Bax (David Constantin) is living and working in Bern. He's working on himself, doing yoga, running a smoothie stand. He has a man-bun, sandals, and a big beard. He has a bunch of friends who are pretty out there and offering him romantic advice. He's terrified of but desperately wants to meet "Freu Brotz" (Anna Rossinelli), who's also still working for FedPol in Bern. Pirmin (Dragan Vujic) is also no longer a cop because they merged his police station into another one and he didn't want to speak French. He's involved in a case where his father-in-law's notary has been killed and had all documents related to Diego Biffiger (Laurent Chevrier) stolen. He's working with Bax's doctor brother, who fishes a key out of the notary's large intestine. Valmira (Anna-Lena Miano) and Juni (Arséne Junior Page) are still trying to launch her career but they can't afford the big-time producer's fee. So they blackmail Mike (Matteo Santafemia) into helping them. We get a flashback of Bax driving too fast, drinking and smoking in his police car, singing, <iq> I don't fucking leave one behind mine.</iq> when he gets hit by the Blechpolizist. He reverses, J-turns, and knocks it over, stumbles over to it and gets photographed again and again, despite shooting it several times. Then his car catches on fire. Pouring the remains of his Abricotine on it only encourages the fire. He fries his hand and ends up wearing a leather glove on it for the next two seasons.<fn> This time, instead of the Kinderbrätscher, he's the Betrunker Polizist. Pirmin seeks him out in Bern but he's not ready to leave his eso-scheisse<fn> cult yet. Pirmin is back at the police station, getting the stink-eye from the French police officers and getting no help. It turns out that one of Bax's good friends Julie is being scammed by "Romeo", who is actually Juni, who is pretending that Mike is his kid needing an operation. This is Juni and Valmira's scam to get enough money to produce her first record. At the date in Bern, the joke is that no-one understands Wallis-Düütsch. Juni can't go through with the scam because Julie's too earnest and nice, but Bax's other friend tackles him and they get mixed up with the cops. In the tumult, Valmira absconds with Julie's wallet with CHF20K in it. Bax escapes on his Mister Smoothie three-wheeled bike when he hears that they've fished Freu Brotz's body out of the Aare. Bax goes to her apartment, which is open, and decides he needs to go back to his old self to solve her murder. Pirmin's wife Regina (Lena Furrer) kills an intruder and Pirmin wants to cover it up because that's not allowed in Switzerland. It turns out that his wife is not who he thinks she is, and that their new au pair also has secrets. Meanwhile, Bax is on his way to Wallis in the back of a Berner paddy wagon, with Juni and a young cop who worships Bax---but also believes in a million conspiracy theories. Bax takes advantage. Valmira returns with the money and the producers tell her that Xerdan Shiqiri wants to start rapping and that they should team up as Vaschqiri. Nice. Valmira is not impressed and bails. Bax and Juni end up at the same Bergstation up on the Simplon where Valmira's kidnappers had taken her in Season 2. The kidnappers are still using it. Bax and Juni steal their van, getting away before crooked Romandie cops show up. In a nice callback, Pirmin ends up getting pulled over at a Verkehrsschulung, where he has to keep them from finding the body of Fricker's crew chief (whom Regina had shot). Meanwhile, Italians are looking for Patrick, for some reason. But Patrick is in deep hiding, in the woods, on a secret mission of his own making. Bax and Juni are driving the van (which is full of cocaine) toward the same traffic stop, where they bust through. At the ski station, the two dirty Romandie cops kill the two Skilehrer / drug-dealers / kidnappers and blame it on Bax. Bax, Juni, and Pirmin are in the woods, looking for Schmetterling (Cedric Schild), who's retreated from society and set traps everywhere. Schmetterling finds them and takes them to his home base---Bax's old RV. Schmetterling has been assassinating contract killers. There are only two left. Juni takes off to rescue Valmira, Schmetterling runs over the the two hitmen and keeps going. One of them wakes back up. Bax, Schmetterling, and Pirmin discover that (A) Diego Biffiger (Pirmin's deceased father-in-law) had been in the NBD (and that he had a 1st-class GA to travel to Bern) and (B) that he had a lock-box in the basement of the NBD building but that they need a fingerprint to get in. Off to the graveyard to dig up his father-in-law's body. It's unclear how his body is still in such good shape, though. Valmira and Juni wake up after a night together in the back of the Italian hitmen's car, to see that one of them has found them. They escape, but keep him on their tail instead of throwing away the tracker. They lead him to the two producer-idiots. The hitmen and producers kill each other in a fabulously bloody scene. Juni and Valmira hide under the desk and are untouched, like in a cartoon. Meanwhile, Pirmin, Bax, and Schmetterling are on their way to Bern to get the contents of the safe-deposit box. Also, Pirmin's son Benjamin is there because <iq>Ich muess no hei, hüt isch Papatag,</iq> Schmetterling hacks the NBD with a cool-ass trick that I didn't see coming at all. Pirmin and Bax are trying to sneak in but Bax drops the finger into a sewer. He drops Benajamin in there to grab the finger---they've been talking about the kid's strong grip for four episodes. Bax gets in with the finger. Schmetterling was already having trouble guiding them because they'd given away his glasses for Diego's disguise. But now the two crooked cops find him and dart him. Bax and Pirmin get in, and discover a bunch of documents talking about Operation Platon. The two cops show up and dart the two of them as well. They set the documents on fire. Pirmin pulls his Belinda Bencic and caps the two cops. It turns out that they all had so much LSD in them that the poison couldn't take effect. They end the season at the cemetery, at Freu Brotz's grave. The second ending is somewhere in the U.S. capitol building, where they are testifying in Wallis-Düütsch. Much more of this season was in French than the first two, which had hardly any French at all. I love how Swiss this is: <iq>Mir bruuched Verstärchig in Gampel!</iq> and Bax's stolen ski-trainer jacket says Aletch Skigaudi on it. Another in-joke is that the Italian hit-men don't use WhatsApp because roaming costs way too much in Switzerland.</div> Tschugger S04 (2024) --- <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt15425948/">9/10</a> <div>Bax is living with Pirmin and Regina but he's already worn out his welcome. He and Pirmin are back on the force but only Pirmin knows French. Bax's French is Unterirdisch / Souterrain. A group of Züri ladies in a tour bus find Pirmin's burned-out car in the mountains, with the dead body still in the back. Pirmin and Bax have finally caught Mike red-handed, spraying ACAB on a wall, but Pirmin wants to answer the call with the car because he knows it's his car. The body in the back was killed by his wife in the last season. So, they get to the car and Pirmin scratches the VIN off---but Mike is watching him from the cop car. He has to bribe Mike by telling him he'll drop the charges for spray-painting. <iq>Du bisch miin Bitsch.</iq> When Pirmin and Bax head back to the house, Pirmin goes inside to retrieve the weapon, which he finds in a safe, along with a pile of passports. He doesn't find Fricker (Olivier Imboden), who'd broken in and found a huge pile of gold bullion behind a bookcase in the house that Pirmin and his wife had inherited from her father (Diego Biffiger). Meanwhile, Valmira and Juni are still looking for the big breakthrough. They go to a campground, where Patrick lives in Bax's old tour-bus, spruced-up, to enlist his help in contacting big-name rappers. Schmetterling hacks into the Moonlink system that connects right to a big star's (Tizzy-B) car and they manage to get her to come to Switzerland to record a "featured" track. She wants first-class, though, so it's going to cost CHF30K, at least. Bax and Pirmin have an argument, but make up. Bax gets shot; they ride the Goldwing to the hospital. On the way, they see Mike, who's stolen their cop car, drive straight into a lake. Pirmin wants to help, even though Mike would make him his bitch with everything he knows, but he has to help Bax first. Mike is done. Bax's brother (Fabrice Schalbetter) stitches him up. They head to Patrick/Schmetterlin's trailer just in time to inadvertently help blow it up. Patrick, Valmira, and Juni were trying to get the insurance money to fund the recording, but only because Patrick though Juni was dying of cancer. Pirmin and Bax now know that Pirmin's wife and Nadira are up to something. Fricker's still trying to get the gold from Operation Platon. Bax's brother, the doctor, is an absolute star, man. Wallis-düütsch, French, he's crushing it. Just cool as hell. They discover more and more of the story together (the story that we already saw above). Oberstaatsanwald Dominic is pulling a lot of strings in the background, to keep information from coming to light. He cleans up the loose end of Fricker. He pays off Valmira for the burned RV, just to keep them all quiet. Patrick finds out that Valmira lied to him about Juni's cancer and leaves them, taking to the road per Anhalter. They shift scenes to show Regina in the school. On the chalkboard is written, <bq>Buchstabe [A]<ul>Ameise Auto Apfel Arbeitslosen- versicherung</ul></bq> Pirmin and Bax pick up Schmetterling, promising to take him to Zürich. Instead, they head to Chavalon, which is just off the Rue de Miex.<fn> They manage to break in to the secret base, shove in the floppy disk, and discover that it's an ICBM silo from the 80s. They leave Patrick tied up there. He tries desperately to contact the police, but only Peter is left in the station and he doesn't speak French very well. He doesn't know that he could speak German because Patrick's gagged, so he fumbles his way through answering in absolutely atrocious French. Bax and Pirmin pick up Regina from the school. They go to their house to pick up Nadira, but the female assassin beats them to it. During the shootout, Bax can't help but be impressed/attracted to Regina, who's kicking all sorts of ass. When she yells out to the assassin in Arabic, Bax asks, <iq>isch das Rätoromanisch gsii?</iq> Valmira picks up Tizzy-B at the airport in her Fiat Panda. Tizzy convinces her to go save Schmetterling and forget the song. Regina, Bax, and Pirmin run out of runway and get picked up by the Edelweiss commandos. Back at Chavalon, Valmira and Patrick are trying to figure out how to stop the countdown to launching four nuclear missiles at capital cities in Europe. They call Bax, whose phone connects via Bluetooth with the cop car where he's currently being transported into custody. He is pissed that they just pick up his phone, violating his "privatsphäre". They hang up on Schmetterling. The cop car is also an "Edison" (like Tizzy-B's) and is suddenly taken off and takes off like a bat out of hell up to Chavalon. It stops and only unlocks the back doors---it can only be Schmetterling who's hacked into it and is using it to rescue Bax, Regina, and Pirmin. He's got his laptop open on the hood of Valmira's shitty little Fiat Panda, commandeering the modern Edison. Bax and Regina take off after Nadina, leaving Pirmin to take care of Schnydrig and Ida. Bax continues to be wicked impressed with Regina's skills. Schnydrig admits that he, Fricker, and Biffiger were made responsible for removing the Americans' nuclear weapons but they just collected the cash for doing it---and never did it. Ok, so they need the diskette to deactivate the rockets, but Bax has it, and he's currently clutching the top of the Edison that Regina's driving like a bat out of hell after the old prop-plane about to take off with Nadina. 80s music is cranking, and Bax is doing a Van Damme-style split between the plane and the top of the cop car. Bax gets in the plane just before it takes off. Bax is knocked out; he's not as strong a fighter as he thinks he is. As he's about to be dragged out of the open door by the kidnapper, Regina drops the lady out of the door and saves Bax's ass. She'd climbed in as well, leaving the Edison on auto-pilot. Nadina and Regina are trying to figure out how to land the plane. Bax finally calls Pirmin and learns he needs to bring the disk back. He's holding up the disk to show Regina that they have to bring it back, the plane bucks---it's losing altitude---and Bax drops the diskette. It slips through his fingers, and flies out of the plane, taking out one of the engines. The Fiat Panda pulls up to the missile silos (great ad for Fiat Pandas, really), the plane flies overhead...and crashes into a mountain. Three parachutes land behind Valmira, Schmetterling, Pirmin, and Schnydrig. The diskette's gone, though. Luckily, Peter (Danh Ho) had made a copy of the diskette days ago and can burn a new copy. He has to decide which of his old, classic games to overwrite---which is painful. The copy is also painfully slow. They stop the launch with seconds to go. Oberstaatsanwalt Schnydrig has one more turn, though. He knocks out Nadira, cracking a pipe to leak pure oxygen into the room, and locking the door behind him. Somehow Juni shows up and pulls them all out. Grill-party ending. Patrick and Valmira are ... an item, I think? Pirmin unknowingly burns the blueprint that shows the location of the Operation Platon gold in his house. The end. It's amazing how much they managed to pack into just five 30-minute episodes, but there you have it.</div> Titans S01-S04 (2018--2023) --- <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1043813/">7/10</a> <div>This series has overall good and relatively believable visuals; the effects are done well and the CGI is well-integrated. The story is interesting enough, although it relies heavily on either Deus Exes or on one of the characters doing something spectacularly stupid and unexplained, just in order to move the story forward. There aren't going to be any quotes, as no-one is really eloquent, except perhaps the Scarecrow / Jonathan Crane (Vincent Kartheiser, who played Pete Campbell in Mad Men). He's pretty over-the-top at times---especially in his final spiral---but he's a pretty good actor. He's at his best when he's singing If I only had a brain<fn> while executing his master plan. But I'm getting a bit ahead of myself. That's all from the third season. The first episode is dark; it hooked me. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that this show felt a bit more like The Boys than Doom Patrol. The next several episodes were more mediocre and exposed cracks in the consistency of the acting and writing. Still, it's entertaining enough for a workout show.<fn> The basic story arc of this season introduces us to Dick Grayson / ex-Robin (Brenton Thwaites), who's still kicking ass at night, but on his own, no longer with Batman, and in Detroit, not Gotham. We learn that he used to head up a team of Titans but that they'd broken up for some as-yet unnamed reason. <ul> Rachel / Raven (Teagan Croft) is on the run because people are hunting her for her "dad", whom she has either never met or cannot remember. She has budding powers that she can neither understand nor control. Rachel runs into Koriand'r / Kory Anders / Starfire (Anna Diop), who's got amnesia and has otherworldly powers and visions. Kory's initial story arc is pretty cool; she was a lot cooler when she didn't know who she was. Hank / Hawk (Alan Ritchson) and Dawn / Dove (Minka Kelly) are a bird-themed crime-fighting duo who used to be in the Titans but are now working on their own. They've got beef with Dick (OMG phrasing)<fn>, but they eventually settle things. Hank is actually quite funny, sensitive, and a pretty good actor, playing against his beefy appearance.<fn> Jason Todd / New Robin (Curran Walters) shows up to make Dick's life difficult. He's kind of a pain but he mostly means well. He's definitely not as good at being Robin as Grayson is/was. Donna Troy / Wonder Girl (Conor Leslie) also used to be a Titan and has returned as some sort of cop. Or not. She acts like a cop. Everyone's a cop, though. Dick's a cop. Barbara Gordon's (Savannah Welch) a cop (but she only shows up in season 3). Hands down, the best character throughout all of the seasons but even already in season one is Gar Logan / Beast Boy (Ryan Potter). He's just a nice guy. He joins the group from the Doom Patrol house in the first season. Conner Kent / Superboy (Joshua Orpin) is also pretty good but his character suffers from the same problem as Superman, in that he's just pretty much unstoppable so they have to keep smacking him with kryptonite to keep the narrative under control. He's a genius engineer, too, apparently (because he's half Lex Luthor), so he also suffers a bit from Tony Stark syndrome. Still, he's a nice guy and one of the better characters. Unsurprisingly, he's friends with Gar.</ul> That's the cast, with the story arc carrying these people through the formation of their team, the sundering of it, and then the reformation of it. <h level="3">Titans, Season 1: Trigon</h> Season one is mostly about Rachel, who's being pursued by a mysterious organization that commands families of super-agents who do some real damage to Hawk, Dove, and Robin. Dove, in particular ends up in the hospital, in a coma. Kory is very cool at first, and then becomes a bit lamer as we learn more about her. She's dedicated to helping Rachel, as is Dick. They all break Rachel's mom out of an asylum. As always, there are a lot of weird things in these super-hero shows and movies, but it's the needlessly weird things that stick in your craw. Like, OK, Rachel can emit a cloud of violet/black knives from her mouth and sic them on people. We accept that because she's got powers. But, Rachel's mom doesn't have powers and no-one bothers to explain how, despite having been trapped in a mental asylum for years, she bounces back immediately. It turns out that Rachel's mom---I can't even remember her name---is actually in cahoots with Rachel's father, who is an other-dimensional demon named Trigon (Seamus Dever), whom Rachel manages to dispatch by the end of the show, along with her mother, while coming into her own vis á vis at least some of her powers. The laser-like focus on Rachel detracted from this first season, as Kory and Dick were cooler before Rachel showed up. Some of this wraps up in season two, but it's basically a season-one story arc. <h level="3">Titans, Season 2: Deathstroke</h> Season two's story arc is about Slade Wilson / Deathstroke (Esai Morales), who is a ruthless killer who'd gained powers as part of a government experiment (I mean, of course) and is now an unstoppable killing machine. We learn in flashbacks that he's the reason that the Titans broke up in the first place. Well, that, and because they're a bunch of judgmental babies with two-dimensional personalities. But the reason given by the show is that they broke up because Dick had said that he'd killed their friend Jericho by accident---who was Deathstroke's son---but what really happened was that Deathstroke had killed him but only because Dick put him in danger and Dick doesn't explain it that way because he's a fucking martyr and will absolutely lie about things to both make himself look heroic but also to make himself suffer. Luckily, Dick's surrounded by people who leap to judgment without consideration, empathy, or logic and generally don't give him a break for how obviously damaged he'd been by having been raised by an obviously sociopathic Bruce Wayne (Iain Glen). Deathstroke's daughter Rose Wilson (Chelsea Zhang), who has Wolverine-like powers of healing, joins up with the Titans. She is just awful, flouncing around, and being an Asian honeypot, with Jason eventually falling for it. It's not well-written and not well-acted. Marty-like, Dick puts himself in prison, then helps people break out. This season also gets Conner out of Cadmus's clutches. Donna dies saving Dawn from a structure collapse just after they'd gotten killed Deathstroke, and gotten Conner and Gar back from Cadmus. Wait, what? Why did that have to happen? Is this a cliffhanger? In the age of streaming television? Desperate much? <h level="3">Titans, Season 3: Scarecrow</h> Season three is all about the Scarecrow. The Titans end up in Gotham, dribbing and drabbing there. The city is falling apart and the Scarecrow takes it apart even more. He hornswoggles Jason---by manipulating his inferiority complex---into becoming Red Hood, who terrorizes the city. Everyone dies in this one. Donna died in the last season, but Hank dies in this one, and Tim Drake (Jay Lycurgo)---who is a self-styled investigator of the Titans and will become Robin in season 4---also dies. Jason dies, too! But Scarecrow brings him back nearly immediately with an immortality pool left by Raz Al-Ghul (just don't worry about it). Rachel and Gar use the same pool to bring back Dick after the people of Gotham kill him as Nightwing (where he martyred himself again by completely ignoring obvious malice). They really, really leaned into the whole "kill a character and bring him back" thing. I think Hank was the only one to have stayed dead.<fn> There's a side-story with Kory and her sister Blackfire (Damaris Lewis)---who's getting jiggy with Conner---but it's honestly not that interesting and involves some very sub-par acting. The end of season three was very uneven and more than occasionally painful, except for the last minute, where Rachel struts in---always strutting; it looks so awkward---to dump a bunch of evil right down Crane's throat. But even that feels a bit tacked-on. I guess it showed that the Titans have learned to tie up loose ends instead of leaving them in Arkham Prison, like Batman always did? Is that what <iq>being a better Batman</iq> is about, Dick? Capital punishment? <h level="3">Titans, Season 4: Mother Mayhem</h> In season four, we get the typically 21st-century gloss on these types of things, in which the team doesn't take a private jet but instead takes a super-fancy tour bus to Metropolis. Remember, everyone in every show watch is wealthy, even though they have to obvious source of income. It's a communist paradise.<fn> There, they visit an advanced laboratory and get a lot of help and boosts and money and stuff. Lex Luthor (Titus Welliver) is back in the picture, seemingly being lined up as the big enemy for this season. Superman is out of the picture, but Conner is interested in meeting at least one of his fathers. He meets Lex Luthor but Lex dies right in front of him because of Mother Mayhem's curse (Franka Potente). She turns out to the be the bad guy, not him. Twisty! So, yeah, she's trying to get her son Sebastian (Joseph Morgan) to help her resurrect...wait for it...Trigon! Yup, it's a reboot of season one with another witch in place of Rachel's mom. She likes to use snakes, conjuring them up in people's guts and having them exit through their mouths. It's pretty grim stuff, actually, much more grisly than the other seasons. It's magic! Superman hates magic, which is why he's off in another corner of the galaxy, pretending to tend to a collapsing star or something. That's why neither we nor Conner get to meet Superman. It's definitely not because the show couldn't license the character. Conner hates magic, too, especially after this season, where he's constantly targeted with it. After his final go-round with it---where Gar had to turn himself into a virus and rescue him from the inside---he shaves his head, starts calling himself Mr. Luthor, and goes all bad-boy. Dick is still Dick. Even when Mr. Luthor starts calling him Richard, he says that he <iq>prefers Dick</iq><fn>. There are a quite a few flashbacks to fill in a lot of pieces. For some reason, we get a bunch of them showing what Sebastian's life was like, as his mother (Mayhem) tries to convince him to voluntarily summon Trigon (it has to be voluntary). In one odd scene, they show a comp-sci teacher dress him down after class for having shown him up during class by pointing out a <iq>shortcut</iq> that consisted of turning <c>x = x + 1</c> into <c>x += 1</c>, which, I thought they were kidding about it being brilliant, but they were deadly serious about it. Jesus wept. Like, don't even mention programming "tricks" if you literally have no idea about programming. So, um, they just kind-of low-key invent teleportation in order to get Sebastian back out of Mother Mayhem's fortress. Conner gets there first and Mother Mayhem takes advantage of him because his powers are somehow useless against magic. So, Conner's unconscious and trapped, again. They'd been ready to teleport Sebastian out, but now they need to save two people because Conner Luthor thinks he can do it all himself. They could really only get them one at a time anyway, but even before that can happen, everything goes tits-up anyway. Raven does get her power back, but she turns completely white in the process. It is not explained why or what effect this is supposed to have. Probably fan service. Kory doesn't really do much, but she does better than Jinx, who basically dies of cockiness with an assist by Mother Mayhem. Dick kicks a bunch of people's asses but doesn't manage to shift the balance significantly. Gar fucks right off to "the Red" by willing it. Weird. We'll find out more later. Sebastian goes through with the ritual and is kind of a bad-ass, self-healing, super-strong dude now, ready to summon Trigon. They just need to pick up the horn first. Dick, Kory, and Rachel follow Mother and Sebastian to a weird little town that has an extra-dimensional extrusion in which its inhabitants have lived for decades, waiting for the return of Trigon. There's a radio station lulling everyone into Stepford Wives-like subservience. Dick, Kory, and Rachel smash it up, with an assist from Bernard and Tim on the other side (our side of the dimensional portal). Conner is nowhere to be found, still flouncing around in his "Mr. Luthor" persona. Gar, meanwhile, is whisked off by Dominic Mndawe / Freedom Beast (Nyambi Nyambi) to the top of Kilimanjaro for a chat about his real role in the world. He is to be the protector of "the Red", a realm that binds all life. Gar learns a lot, learns that he is much more powerful than he thought, and returns to the Red to find his friends. He turns down Mndawe's kind offer of living out his (now-)eternal life completely alone, away from his friends and family, in service to a universe of life. Gar wakes up with the Doom Patrol, at their home, but it's just a replica. No-one knows where they are. Kory eventually just shows up there---horrific, horrific writing and acting ensue. Seriously, the Doom Patrol characters are terrible, which is why <a href="{app}/view_article.php?id=3890">I stopped watching their own show.</a> Meanwhile, Conner convinces Sebastian that he'll support his career, while Mother Mayhem yells at him for being weak.<fn> Oops. Sebastian sets her on fire. Is she done? Just like that? He joins forces with Conner to build his video game. It's hard to know who's manipulating whom. At any rate, the game---Abraxus---is released to instant worldwide popularity. Conner is just buying time until he can figure out a way to destroy Sebastian and the Horn. It doesn't take long before the game starts hurting people---it siphons their life-force to Sebastian. Now there are three things going on at once: Sebastian is trying to deploy his game to even more people; Gar, Kory, and Tim are trying to hack in to the LexCorp servers and stop him (Conner helps without revealing his betrayal to Sebastian); and Dick and Rachel are using black magic to sever her bond to Sebastian. Did they just throw in every damned thing they could think of into this final season? Or does a lot of this stuff come from the original comics? At any rate, in the spirit of the increasing rapidity of things happening, all of those tasks were accomplished in a single episode, but guess who's back? Mother Mayhem, naturally. Also, Dick has made Tim the new Robin (which was Dick's plan all along). Time meets up with Red Hood, bringing Jason back for one last hurrah, this time training Tim to be a better Robin. Mother Mayhem makes Sebastian her bitch. He's got a whole whiny, shitty thing go on. Conner's walking a fine line, helping him but not enough to get him to blow the horn. I'm exhausted with all of the new plot lines. Now Kory, Gar, and Dick are discovering a secret project at LexCorp. The files are encrypted but everyone talks about how they're just going to decrypt them without a password. I guess their confidence isn't misplaced: they'd just recovered files from the recycle bin that we'd watched Mercy (Natalie Gumede) "permanently delete" a few scenes before. So, if permanently deleted files can be recovered---they kind-of can, unless you do secure-erase, which is kind of what I would expect "permanently delete" to mean on a military-grade computer---then why shouldn't you be able to decrypt secure files? I mean, they can just whip up a quantum computer. Conner meets up with Dick and Kory. This is actually one of the best-acted and -written scenes in the series, surprisingly. <bq>Conner: I made things worse. I did things that Titans don't do. Dick: People like us...we're close to the darkness. We seek it out. Sometimes it has its way. Conner: We're supposed to be better. Dick: Sometimes we're not.</bq> And then Dick has to mention "family" and "each other" and ruin the moment. They proceed to the "Starfire" lab, where Lex had been trying to replicate Starfire's power. Sweet God, now they swing back into such utter cheesiness. Rachel: <iq>I'll watch the pressure.</iq>; Gar: <iq>Heat's at 35%.</iq> WTF does that even mean? Conner and Sebastian go to a showdown with Mother Mayhem. Sebastian kills her with the horn, inhaling her power. Conner whips the Starfire globe at him, seemingly draining all of his power ... but instead Sebastian / Brother Blood drops Conner's ass with one shot. How?And where the hell did Brother Blood's new costume come from? Eh, whatever, he's a blowin' the damned horn and here comes Trigon. ...And there goes Trigon. Brother Blood / Sebastian just killed him, pretty as you please. He tore out his heart and drank its blood and power, blablabla. We're just along for the ride here. This wasn't even foreshadowed, there is no way to know how he knew all of this, but now Brother Blood is the big baddie, I guess. And now he's after a <iq>fully functional wormhole</iq> at S.T.A.R. Labs---he wants to go to Tamaran to destroy it. Sure, Ok. Kory stops the van and gets out. Hey, neat. They just happen to have stopped right next to Dick's fancy car, which just happens to be parked on the street they were on. This is just ludicrously lazy writing. Are we supposed to be so caught up in the flurry of Deus Ex Machinas and last-minute plot-twists that were never even alluded to, to not notice? Waitaminnit, now Kory is the only one powerful enough to open the "Icarus Gate" (the wormhole)? And Brother Blood isn't powerful enough, but she is? Didn't she have to recharge for a day after blowing up a gas-station bathroom back in the first season? I guess training works! I like how the computer corrects Sebastian when he says "10,000" suns by saying "Earth suns," even thought that's redundant. #confidentlywrong. Hey, Conner's alive again! Had I mentioned that he'd died? Well, he comes in and beats Brother Blood after the other Titans had softened him up. Blood's plan to destroy both planets has been foiled. But wait! He gets back up. Kory flies him right out the ceiling---did we know that she can fly? She seems a lot more like Captain Marvel now---and into the stratosphere, blowing them both up. Everything thinks she's dead. Pathos for, like, two minutes. Then she's back. Phew! It's laughable how much they're cramming into this season. Wrap-up and a definite ending. It's so nice how the Titans have two billionaires in the team. That’s how you take all of the prosaic tension out of the story.</div> Gundam: Requiem for Vengeance (2024) --- <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt30277745/">5/10</a> <div>I gave it an extra star because Gundam is pretty awesome. I should probably take away another star because this entire series looks like and acts like a video-game cut scene. It's only six episodes of about 20 minutes apiece, but that's still a lot of uncanny valley. Some of the character models look much, much worse than others. All of the supporting characters move like it's 1999 again, some of them even doing that float-walking thing. It's wild that this shows up on Netflix in 2024. I'm kind of fascinated with the backstory about how that could even happen. Like, I've seen Unreal Engine 5 machinima from people claiming that they just started using Unreal Engine a week ago that looked better than this. And don't even get me started on the wooden voice-acting that feels like people reading from a script for the very first time ever. This is about as natural as a Google developer video. DEFINITELY NOT ROBOTS. I mean, except Gundam. I'm pretty sure he's a robot? Or a powered mobile suit? Gundam's pretty awesome though! He's kind of indestructible. He has a huge chain gun, a huge electro-sword, and can jump and move much more quickly than any of the other robots. The whole show focuses on soldiers from the other side, though, so Gundam is supposed to be the bad guy? I'm not even going to list any of the characters because it absolutely doesn't matter. The lead is a fierce woman, of course. All you need to know if that Gundam is tearing a formerly dominant force a new asshole, with everyone on the run from it. This show is almost all fighting, a mix of giant robots and standard tank warfare. The Gundams are nearly impervious, and have vastly superior beam weapons. Some of the robot battles are pretty good, though, if I'm honest. It's a bit of a mystery why the two cobbled-together. mobile units / mechs were able to almost take out two Gundams but you know how plots be sometimes. As the show proceeds, the valley keeps getting uncannier and uncannier. There is a gloriously androgynous and fancily dressed corporal who shows up to flounce around the base and give everyone orders. The mission in the second half of the first season is to obtain one of the GMs, which are superior to all of the mechs that they have but still inferior to the Gundam. They fail, of course. Why? Because the Gundam is unstoppably good at what it does. It just keeps chopping off arms and heads and shooting its beam weapon right through the chest cavity of other mechs, where the pilot sits. I was only able to get the English dub but I don't think it makes much of a difference. The dubbing isn't even close to the problem. It's just really amazing how bad the dialogue, acting, and animation are. The final speech about children fighting in wars was absolutely terrible. I hope to God that this isn't representative of Japanese cartoons because then I have some questions for grown-ass adults who watch them all the time.</div> One Punch Man S01--S02 (2015--2019) --- <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4508902/">9/10</a> <div>Saitama is the eponymous and aptly named One Punch Man. He begins the series as a hobbyist hero, someone who's trained incredibly hard to become the most amazing hero the world has ever seen (even though it largely isn't aware of him). He is unprepossessing, unassuming, and always unperturbed. Although he fights dozens of baddies, he's also largely bored doing it, because no-one comes even close to his power. Whereas Gundam was relatively insipid and formulaic, I have to admit to being charmed by this show's all-in devotion to making a piece of art. It's obviously a labor of love. The art style is fantastic, switching from highly detailed and intricate to two-dimensional and pencil-shaded, depending on mood. It's funny, it's ironic, it's tongue-in-cheek, it's self-deprecating. It has a kick-ass heavy-metal soundtrack except for the credits music, which is a syrupy song about love and features a cat at the end. The credits almost always play before a final post-credits scene, which kind of makes you watch the sappy credits music again and again, which is a great troll. There are so many well-thought-out heroes and villains, and they just keep coming, some falling to the wayside nearly immediately whereas others get longer arcs. Seriously, the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_One-Punch_Man_characters" source="Wikipedia">List of One-Punch Man characters</a> is enormous. Some merit repeat appearances and even survive to the end of the first season. Some of them are just kind of one-off jokes, like "all-back man". It reminds me of the cornucopia of characters in The Boys (both the comic books and the TV series). The story is relatively simply and yet it draws you in and keeps you watching. Saitama keeps you watching. There is never any doubt about his ability to vanquish his opponent and yet, the lack of tension doesn't detract from the show---it adds to it. There isn't any kayfabe bullshit here. Sometimes other heroes fall, seemingly slaughtered. Some stay down but most reappear, bandaged but alive, ready to fight again. It's a cartoon, in it for fun, that doesn't waste any time with useless coherence when it would be more fun another way. Think Tom and Jerry. Except everything Saitama touches dies. From one punch. Unlike the heroes, who usually lie there, unconscious-and-possibly-dead-looking, the monsters vanquished by Saitama are usually splashed into pile of giblets or, at the very least, have their heads and most of their thoraxes punched right the hell out. Early in the first season, the cyborg Genos joins Saitama as a disciple. Soon after, Genos applies to be in the Hero Association and aces the entrance exam. Genos enters immediately into the top class (S), whereas Saitama barely makes it into C-class because, although he far exceeded the record for every physical test, he flunked the intelligence test. He's not dumb; he just couldn't be bothered. He's very Buddha-like in that way, beyond the vagaries of the physical world---other than eating, which is mostly what he's doing when he's not kicking ass. That, and shopping. In season one, things start off slowly (of course), with someone named Vaccine Man, then Genos shows up, along with Mosquito Girl. There's a multi-episode story arc about The House of Evolution, where Saitama eventually faces off against Carnage Kabuto. One punch. Saitama is utterly unflappable. He's only panicked when he realizes he's missing a huge sale at the local grocery-shopping center. Hammerhead is next, with his whole crew. We meet Speed-o'-Sound Sonic, who's quite powerful in their (looks like girl; talks like a boy) own right and is jealous of Saitama. So, not going to fight him but also not aligned with him. He tries to provoke a fight but Saitama knocks him out without killing him. Genos is almost always involved, often doing reasonably well but sometimes getting his ass kicked within an inch of his life, not occasionally losing limbs and parts of his face. They climb the ranks of the Hero Association. Next up is another multi-episode arc about the Seafolk people attacking, culminating in the Deep Sea King, who takes out a lot of heroes---including a prolonged fight with Genos---before finally facing off against Saitama. Lots of preamble. One punch. In the grand finale of season one, a giant alien ship shows up, with some unique, interesting, and powerful heroes. As a group of S-class heroes face off against Melzalgald, who is kind of a regenerative hydra, Saitama busts onto the ship and starts wreaking havoc, not even breaking a sweat until he finally faces off against the captain of the ship, Boros. This is the first time that the fight doesn't end after just one punch. Boros is powerful and can take several punches. In the end, though, Saitama vanquishes him (after having been punched to the Moon and returning under this own power), with Boros whispering his last, saying that he now realizes that Saitama hadn't even been trying his hardest---he was just trying to keep things interesting with a slightly more-powerful foe than anyone else he'd ever faced. The battles are glorious, intricate and overwhelming, evincing the incredibly powerful forces at play, sometimes showing entire swaths of cities destroyed in the wake of a single blow. In the final, big battle, Saitama's final punch of Boros clears out 1/4 of the clouds in the Earth's atmosphere. It's very, very cool. Saitama is basically Superman, but so much cooler. Like, he wants to be a hero but only on his own terms. He'd usually rather go food shopping. In season two, there is a clearer story arc that already starts in episode one. Garou is a human who wants to be a monster, not a hero. He trained with S-3 Silver Fang and has incredible martial-arts moves, speed, and power. Is he a match for Saitama? Of course not. But they don't face off for a while yet. Instead, Saitama hears about a martial-arts tournament and he's intrigued by what that could be. Also, you can win ¥3M, so he's even more intrigued. He fakes his way in as another fighter who's too injured to compete. Garou had beaten him up but not killed him. Saitama exchanges blows with Garou but he's not aware of it. He thought Garou was trying to rob him so he just lightly tapped him to knock him out. Garou picks a fight with S-class Metal Bat and increasingly tenacious and powerful bugs: Junior Centipede and Venus Mantrap, then Senior Centipede and Raffleseidon, then, finally, dragon-class Elder Centipede (Centichoro). Instead of helping Metal Bat, he of course steps in to help the Centipede fight Metal Bat. Metal Knight (S-6) shows up but it's not enough. There are monsters sprouting up everywhere, in every city. Garou doesn't have as easy a time of it with Metal Bat as he expects. Metal Bat grows stronger the more injured he is, crediting it to "fighting spirit," which absolutely has to be tongue-in-cheek. The next part is as well, where Metal Bat's little sister shows up and stops him from caving in Garou's head, then stops Garou from retaliating. They stop fighting because she told them to. As you can probably tell, Saitama is featured a lot less in the first several episodes, with the focus being on other heroes and monsters. With these insights, though, we learn that the monsters work together, just like the heroes, and they know their rankings as well (even though those rankings are assigned by the Hero Association). There are also more giant bosoms and scantily clad bad/naughty ladies than in season one. Back at super-fight 22, Saitama looks tinier and more unassuming than any of the other fighters. He one-punches his first opponent (knocking him out, not killing him), whereupon the conclusion of the announcers isn't that he is inordinately strong but that his opponent was a weakling. Saitama goes through the rest of his opponents with a single punch (naturally), then faces off against also-unranked-but-powerful Suiryu. Saitama spends most of that match trying to keep his wig from falling off, while the other guy does his absolute best, thinking he's going to win easily. Saitama finally loses his wig, and is disqualified, even though he blew almost all of Suiryu's clothes off with one punch, holding back just enough not to end the match. Suiryu doesn't get the hint and keeps fighting, giving everything he's got. Saitama hip-bumps Suiryu across the arena, transferring and reflecting Suiryu's energy back at him, but drops his pants in the process---because he's unable to properly tie his gi's belt (because he's not a martial artist and has no idea what he's doing). Meanwhile, Genos has been defeated by a monster---one of the dozens sent by the Monster Association and its terrifying leader the Demon King Orochi (big boss battle coming up!)---and lies shattered and armless in a crater. The monster Gouketsu shows up at the arena, interrupting the ceremony and, handily defeating the heroes and conscripting the martial artists. One by one, they eat the monster cells and are transformed. Suiryu does not, and stands against the monsters---but only because a bubble-busted, bikini-blad ring-girl said she'd go out with him if he did. He bests Choze but Gouketsu easily pounds him to a pulp. Gouketsu leaves Suiryu with newly monstrified Bakuzan, who keeps ruining him some more. Saitama is nowhere to be found. Until he finally returns and flattens Bakuzan with one punch. King (the fake hero and Saitama's video-gaming partner) meets Saitama and gives him advice on how to get out of the funk he's in that no-one can even give him a challenge. They run into Garou, who's just had his ass handed to him by Watchdog Man, who looks wicked unassuming but is fast and powerful, a bit like Saitama. Garou sees King and wants to bag him, energized by the opportunity. He attacks King. Saitama kicks him through a wall, calling him a hoodlum. The grand finale is bit extended, short on story, long on nearly endless fight scenes with Garou on his last legs and yet still being capable of fighting off multiple heroes. After waking from having been knocked through a wall by Saitama, flicked like a bug, he takes refuge in a barn. He doesn't remember what happened at all, he only vaguely remembers that King was there---which is what always happens to King: it's how he managed to become #2 without ever fighting anyone. His superpower is to be there at the right time when someone else vanquishes a monster and for no-one to remember that he had nothing to do with it. Anyway, Garou is mending, all bandaged up, when a bunch of A-class and B-class heroes show up to take him in. He defeats all of them, despite dizziness, etc. etc. On his last legs, Silver Fang and his former master Bomb show up to take care of Fang's errant student once and for all. There is an extended fight, in which an already diminished Garou---who'd been further poisoned by arrows and otherwise knocked about while defeating the other seven heroes---is nearly eliminated but still standing---seriously, this is like WWE---when Centichoro shows up to stop them killing him. Garou is whisked off by a giant parrot-monster, taking him to Orochi to build him up again, stronger and more monstrous, leaving Silver Fang, Bomb, and Genos take on Centichoro. Bomb and Silver Fang nearly topple it, but it just molts its skin and grows larger. Genos attacks it from within but it recovers, with Genos once again not only losing a leg but also being devastated from his failure to eliminate a monster. King shows up, calling to Centichoro to come and get it from a real hero. He and Saitama had stopped playing their video game because Saitama always lost and had built up a head of rage and frustration and needed to go for a walk. So, they headed out to find some way for Saitama to rid himself of his frustration. King was quite brave to stand as Centichoro bore down on him---remember, he has no super-powers or fighting skills---only for Saitama to step in at the last moment, haul off, and one-punch Centichoro's lights out forever. The entire centipede just disappeared. The end. There were some tantalizing threads left open for a third season, but it's been five years and only recently have there been rumors that it's coming, possibly in 2025. The Garou story-arc isn't complete, nor is that of the monster association. There are a few veins of content still to be mined.</div> End of Watch (2012) --- <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1855199/">7/10</a> <div>I <a href="{app}/view_article.php?id=3500">watched and reviewed this in 2017</a>. The rating stands. On the first viewing, I wrote that partners and officers Brian Taylor (Jake Gyllenhaal) and Mike Zavala (Michael Peña) mostly seem like good cops, which I think they are. The movie depicts LA as a war zone, where even the beat cops have to act like soldiers, with nearly everyone a potential source of violence and death. They make some good busts, one of them a cowboy-like figure in a fancy truck, with even fancier gold weapons and a ton of drugs. They stop at a house on fire and rescue three children, for which they get medals from the city. Then, they bust another cowboy-like guy who's got 50 people in a cage in his home. He's working for the cartels. The DEA tell Taylor and Zavala to cool their jets or the cartels are going to come after them. On the personal side, Taylor is recording everything on his own camera, for an elective he's taking for a degree he's trying to get. He's <iq>the smartest guy</iq> that Zavala knows, but I don't think that bar is that high. Taylor's not dumb but he's not nearly as smart as he thinks he is. He has the classic overconfidence of an ex-Marine. They both wear their stupid wraparound shades, looking hard. Zavala married his girl Gabby (Natalie Martinez) right out of high school and they have a kid about halfway through the movie. Taylor is getting serious with Janet (Anna Kendrick). He eventually puts a ring on it. Taylor even wears his stupid shades during the bride-and-groom dance, which is painful to watch. A couple of nights later, Officer Van Hauser (David Harbour) and his rookie partner are jumped in a neighborhood, with Van Hauser earning a knife straight through the eye and the rookie getting beaten within an inch of her life in a nearby alley. Taylor puts a stop to that, arresting the guy. Orozco (America Ferrera) and Davis (Cody Horn) roll up and chastise them for not having killed the perp. Those two lady officers are ruthless. This movie leaks testosterone everywhere and from everyone, men and women alike, all playing relatively brash and coarse roles. Most of the dialogue was written by a high-school student...or was taken from the internet. It's fine, but it's not deep, even though it very clearly thinks that it is. Peña and Gyllenhaal are good, though, really convincing as South LA cops. They take a welfare-check call, talking into Taylor's camera, talking about how this is the kind of call cops in "normal" (not South LA) districts handle all the time. They figure they can do a good deed instead of cherry-picking interesting-sounding cases from the "stack". Even here, though, the house's elderly inhabitant is dead, chopped up and having been stored in a bag by squatters. There are cases of drugs there. The place had been only very recently abandoned. They find more chopped-up bodies and heads in a room off the kitchen. Taylor is retching, believe it or not, while Zavala stays cool. Biggest drug bust of the year. The cartels are not happy. Our heroes are on patrol when they see Tre (Cle Shaheed Sloan), who Zavala had fought earlier. Tre expresses his appreciation that Zavala "did it clean" and never pressed charges for assaulting an officer, so he lets them know that the cartels have put a hit out on the two. The hit-crew is the latin gang that had done a drive-by earlier in the movie. Their dialogue is also scintillating. They're not dumb, though. They set up Taylor and Zavala by committing a flagrant moving violation in front of the two patrolmen at night, luring them in to a chase into an apartment building with a courtyard. Assassins are waiting with AK-47s on the balcony above. The initial barrage misses. The officers hide in an apartment, trying to call for backup. They move the curtain. The crew lights up the apartment. Taylor's combat instincts kick in; he takes over the escape. They're away, out, making their way throw back alleys. Taylor caps another one. <iq>They're everywhere.</iq> <iq>Where's the cavalry, man?</iq> They take out a truck-full of killers but they'd missed the last one, in the truck bed. He tags Taylor in the collarbone, just above the vest, before Zavala head-shots him. As Taylor loses consciousness, the crew of caricatures who started this whole thing roll up and shoot Zavala in the back. They laugh (because of course they do). They also refuse to drop their weapons (because of course they don't), so the cops that show up light them up. Taylor survives. Zavala does not. End of Watch 2 could have just been about PTSD.</div> The Boy and the Heron (2023) --- <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt6587046/">8/10</a> <div>The setup, pacing, and elements identify this film as 100% a Miyazaki film. It starts with young Mahito Maki's mother Hisako being engulfed in a great fire in the hospital where she was a patient. Mahito ran and ran through the streets to try to save her but arrived far, far too late. While I was watching the movie, I was certain that the fire had been started by an Allied (read: American) bombing but, now that I think about it, the movie was post-war. So, I was just imagining things, thinking that I was watching Grave of the Fireflies instead. Mahito moves to the countryside to stay with his aunt Natsuko, who is pregnant with his sister-to-be.<fn> His father apparently already owns the factory there. Mahito doesn't take too kindly to Natsuko, warming up very slowly to a low temperature. In her gardens, he encounters a strange heron that comes very close to him and seems to be trying to communicate. There is an odd, magical tower on the grounds that seems to be kind of alive and kind of not. It is where the heron lives. Mahito hunts the crane with Kiriko, one of the sweet old servant-ladies living in what I think we can, quite frankly, call an estate, or a manor, or a Japanese mansion plunked down amid sumptuous gardens. These people are doing just fine, is what I'm trying to say here. Eventually, the heron transforms into a squat ugly man---don't ever change, Miyazaki!---and transforms back when Mahito heals him with a hand-whittled wooden plug. They all travel together to an ocean world where Mahito encounters a much-younger Kiriko. We're in full-on fantasy world now and, because of my unfamiliarity with Japanese culture, I have no idea what is just for fun and what is supposed to be a metaphor. It's lush and beautiful and consistent, though. There is a group of pelicans that seem somewhat malicious but may also just be part of the circle of life. They are trying to eat the adorable little Warawara, to whom Kiriko and Mahito had sold a large, slobbery fish, The Warawara ordinarily find themselves in the bushes on the island but the nourishing food allowed some of the mature ones to begin to rise to be reborn in the outer world (our world) as people. There are also a ton of parakeets that are trying to stop this. They, in fact, seem to be running the whole tower. There are doors back to the outer world, through which Mahito espies his father searching for him. He continues his search for Natsuko, who has also disappeared into this fantasy world. They encounter a wizard, who is actually Mahito's great-uncle, who'd disappeared long ago. His task has long been to keep this "below world" running but he's losing his gift, or his energy, or ... something. He nominates Mahito to take over for him. Mahito is less interested in that and more interested in getting back to the outer world, having learned his lesson that he should appreciate what he has. With no-one to mind the little wooden Jenga blocks that apparently determined the continued fate of the below-world, it begins to slip, disintegrating and flooding and, eventually, disgorging those residents that survive back into the outer world. Had I mentioned that Mahito wasn't actually skipping school during any of this because he'd been bullied, had gotten into a fight, and then had smashed himself in the head with a rock so that he could get a longer leave of absence to convalesce? I hadn't? Well, all of that happened at the beginning and seemed to be quite important in establishing why Mahito was able to flout the State's strictures about obligatory education. I guess it's important to mention that when you're about to send a boy off to a world ruled by parakeets. The film ends by putting fantasy firmly in the past and showing that life goes on. Miyazaki makes sure that we know that Mahito, Natsuko, and his father move back to the city, having mostly forgotten about their adventure with the heron. Perhaps it was all just a giant metaphor for a coping mechanism for Mahito to be able to live with having lost his mother at such an early age. Perhaps the hope is that, having used the power of fantasy to heal himself, he would no longer smash himself in the head with rocks in order to solve problems he encounters in the real world. The final scene in the tower was nearly a one-to-one copy of the one from <a href="{app}/view_article.php?id=4515">Gormenghast</a>; I was strongly reminded of the flooding and collapse of the tower. I can't help but think that it was deliberate. It gets an extra star for being so beautiful and for being hand-drawn. It really is nicer. I'd watch it again just for the sumptuous visuals.</div> The Killer (2023) --- <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1136617/">the 6/10</a> <div>The Killer (Michael Fassbender) is on a job. <ul> He's on stakeout. His silky voiceover guides us through his ritual. He watches patiently for his target to appear. He discusses the necessity of the skill of patience. He sleeps in snatches of time, with not time for REM. He describes it as torture. He performs his yoga breathing and stretching, impressively flexible and toned. He nimbly descends the stairs to retrieve ... McDonalds? He justified it somehow but I forgot the half-assed explanation already. </ul> David Fincher is directing, so you probably already know what it looks like. It looks smooth. The content is, on its surface, boring, but the film is not. It's visually interesting and Fassbender is, if not exactly riveting in this role, at least interesting enough to keep your attention. This is, kind of, where the problem lies. The only other actor of note is Tilda Swinton, who plays "The Expert". She shows up for about ten minutes before he takes care of her in a thankfully non-protracted encounter. She asks him for a hand up, and he shoots her in the head. <bq>Forbid empathy. Empathy is weakness. Weakness is vulnerability.</bq> He is a professional. The story arc is that the Killer is on a job. That's where we start; see above. We watch him work. We watch him yoga. We watch him wait. We watch him finally get his shot. We watch him tag the target's hooker instead. The jig is up. Like, way up. That target is not going to be a target again for a long time. His guard is going to up. The client is going to be pissed. The killer is outtathere. He's on his scooter, evading the police, dumping evidence. He's free and clear. He's in trouble, though. He's never missed before. He's not supposed to miss. Missing isn't allowed. He flies home to the Dominican Republic to find that his house has been broken into and his girlfriend Magdala (Sophie Charlotte) attacked. The Killer tracks down the perpetrators one by one, creating a plan and then executing it, usually somewhat inadequately, though he mutters his mantra in an internal dialogue that one must <iq>stick to your plan.</iq> Still, people are dropping and he moves on to Hodges (Charles Parnell) who organizes his contracts, He kills him as well, extracting the next targets before doing so. This is where we get a long and messy fight, followed by ten minutes of cool, smooth discussion at a high-end restaurant with Tilda Swinton. The Killer finally gets to the Client (Arliss Howard) and...leaves him alive. No-one can even begin to understand why he lets him live. Does he not shoot rich assholes for free? Because the guy was an incredible asshole, leaving a swath of destruction in his private-equity wake. The Killer can't suddenly be that worried about the police. Whatever. He flies back home and enjoys the sun with his now sexily scarred girlfriend. The end. I was more excited looking forward to a movie starring Michael Fassbender and Tilda Swinton directed by David Fincher than I am having watched it. I wasn't aware until I'd read the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Killer_(2023_film)">Wikipedia page</a> for the film that the film was based on a French comic book. Unlike with Bong Joon Ho's excellent <a href="{app}/view_article.php?id=3074">Snowpiercer</a>, which inspired me to read the French graphic novels <a href="{app}/view_article.php?id=3797">Le Transperceneige by Jacques Lob and Jean-Marc Rochette (1982)</a> five years later, this movie is absolutely not inspiring me to find out what the comic books are like. I suppose a lot of the quasi-pithy lines were taken from the comic books? Stuff like, <bq>Fate is a placebo. The only life path is the one behind you.</bq> WTF? You must be taking the piss, right? Right? Maybe it sounds better in the original French? <bq>Le destin est un placebo. Le seul chemin de vie est celui qui se trouve derrière vous.</bq> Not really.</div> Operation Hyacinth (2021) --- <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt14315584/">7/10</a> <div>This is a Polish film about a case in 1985/1986 when Poland was tracking and prosecuting gay people for being, well, ... gay. The movie title describes a giant dragnet operation that eventually ended up registering over 11,000 homosexuals and their "enablers" before it was (supposedly) discontinued. I learned from <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Hyacinth_(film)">Operation Hyacinth (film)</a> that, <bq>In 1980s Poland, hyacint was a derogatory term, similar to the English pansy, used to refer to homosexual men.</bq> My initial reaction was, "that's an add odd negative epithet that is totally unique to slavic culture,' and then I read the word "pansy" and realized that I'd always just taken the epithet at face value and had never thought about how it's a flower. #weareallprettymuchthesame The movie follows the story of police officer Robert (Tomasz Zietek), whose father (Marek Kalita) is not only a domineering, dismissive, and small-minded jackass who also happens to be chief of the "militia", which passes for the police at the time. So, he's his son's boss. Robert has just been accepted to officers' school, thanks in no small part to his father pulling the strings. At first, we watch Robert and his partner Wojtek (Tomasz Schuchardt) investigating popular hotspots---like free-standing public toilets---but, soon after, Robert goes undercover to investigate a villa where at least one wealthy guy Gregorczyk (Dariusz Majchrzak) was paying male gigolos and possibly eliminating them. Once he's murdered, the police become interested. It's kind of obvious that Robert would be chosen to go undercover. I don't know how deliberate it was, but he kind of looks like the gay stereotype of the time (and the one that kind of continues to this day in popular culture). He's not nearly as rough-looking as anyone else at the station. He's well-dressed, well-coiffed, has a thin mustache, and sensitive eyes. He's not weak-looking, though. Though he's thin, he evinces a confident machismo that isn't overbearing. He's perfect. Though Wojtek looks like a bear, there is no way he could have pulled off an undercover assignment, as he would have been unable to hide his disdain and disgust. So they sent the sensitive twink instead. Robert starts to infiltrate that world---and that world starts to infiltrate him. He starts to wonder what it's like. It's not like he doesn't have any idea whatsoever. His fiancé Halinka (Adrianna Chlebicka), who also works for the militia, has a very slender body, with almost no breasts and very little on her hips. She's pretty but she's not voluptuous or very undeniably female. One night, after the investigation had started, he pulls out a gay-porn tape that they found during the Gregorczyk investigation and just casually watches it while she sleeps. She's right there; if she opens her eyes a bit, she's watching two men kiss. No problem, Robert, you're just doing your job, right? Dude's trying to get caught. It's a cry for help in getting out of the closet. There's also the time at a dinner, where Robert's mom asks Halinka if she has a wedding dress yet. She says no, but that <iq>Robert picked the material.</iq> I honestly don't know if this is supposed to be a hint, or if it's the kind of hint that's insultingly cliché, or what the intent was. Anyway, Robert discovers a lot of dirty business but he also discovers his own, second, sexual awakening---to absolutely no-one's surprise at all. Many of the young men in Robert's new orbit are very attractive and he is quickly taken with Arek (Hubert Miłkowski), whom he not only pumps for information but also takes as his first male lover.<fn> It's nice to see that a Polish movie can depict man-on-man sex as absolutely unrealistically as Hollywood movies depict man-on-woman sex. That is, the evening begins in a bar, where they empty at least two bottles of vodka; a third member of the evening is lolling and nearly passed-out on the table.<fn> Robert and Arek are also obviously listing. When they return to Robert's apartment, their drunkenness is nearly gone. Their eyes are clear. Not only that, but Robert is an absolute professional at topping, sliding in without even looking or hesitating or fumbling or lube or, God forbid, a condom. He's also immediately an amazing lover. Kudos, Robert. This is par for the course, as movies have typically depicted the sex act in miraculous ways, in which people are able to easily couple, regardless of angle, gravity, or lubrication. The movie probably already thought it was being brave enough for having shown two men kissing---one of whom has a mustache, so it's very clear that he's a man. Or perhaps the censors got to it, and said enough is enough and there's a director's cut somewhere. It's not that this hasn't happened for depictions of heterosexual coupling in so many other movies. Hell, American TV shows required actors to keep one foot on the floor at all times for decades. It's also possible to just fade out and let your imagination do the work. This movie didn't do that, so it committed to showing the coupling in at least some detail. It just depicted it in a cartoonish and physically unlikely way. Robert's dad breaks up the party, but Robert seems to have gotten away with it. His dad, looking out of the window in the other part of their L-shaped apartment, lends the lie to that. Arek is out down in the street, walking away. How the hell did he get outside? Is there a second door? Even his exit from their first tryst seems physically impossible. Robert's instincts are either not great, in which case it really is his father who's propped him up all of these years, or he's blinded by love, or maybe it's just all of the drinking and hangovers that are part and parcel of his undercover work. He goes to bring in Gregorczyk, who's acting all nervous. He's very clearly not going to go quietly. He acts this quite well. You can see him moving his hands over the table nervously, as if he's making---and then has made---a decision. Robert notices none of this. The man excuses himself, then throws himself off his balcony, plummeting to his death on what I can only assume are the cobbles below. After that, Robert's father busts him, revealing that he'd had him tailed and knows all about his new, second life. He makes Robert interrogate Arek, who's been picked up for being gay. Robert releases Arek, signs the confession of homosexuality himself, and storms out, chasing after Arek. He's gone, though. You know who's not gone? Halinka. She watches him wildly chase a beautiful young man out the door and, almost certainly already suspecting what's going on, catches up with him. Robert can't even look at her. It's over. Robert returns to the precinct at night, breaks into his father's safe with the key that he's very fortuitously found, reads the file he finds, and watches another tape. Arek is on it. He also sees his father's boss on it, looking pretty manly but also pretty gay. Well, well, well. Robert confronts Arek, telling him to leave the city. Robert goes on a bender, downing almost an entire bottle of vodka---remember, he has a very slight frame---then easily returns home. He tears up his room while downing another bottle of vodka. When his mom shows up, he's coherent. Ok. Sure. <bq>Robert: I lied. I lied to everyone. Robert's mom: Except yourself. [exits]</bq> At his award ceremony for having cracked the Gregorczyk case, Robert sees his father bribing his boss (who's also a huge gay hypocrite) to leave Robert's career alone. They pass Robert's pink file to Commander (Miroslaw Zbrojewicz), who lumbers out with it. Robert gives chase, to the docks, where he finds Arek. Robert tries, once again, to get Arek to run, but the ninny does not. Commander clips him in the leg. Robert gets the drop on Commander and still gets stomped. Arek's got the gun; Commander gently plucks it out of his hands, knowing he won't shoot. He drags Arek into the water to drown him. Robert interrupts the party with a stone to the skull. Again and again and again. Finally, Arek agrees to hightail it. Fade out.</div> </dl> <hr> <ft>These are notes for me to remember what I watched and kinda what I thought about it. The amount of text is not proportional to my enjoyment. I might write less because I didn't get around to it when it was fresh in my mind. I rate the film based on how well it suited me personally for the genre, my mood and. let's be honest, level of intoxication. I make no attempt to avoid spoilers. Links are to <a href="https://www.imdb.com/user/ur1323291/ratings">my IMDb ratings</a></ft> <ft>As we would see in seasons three and four, this is not a problem for anyone but Bax and Peter.</ft> <ft>In fact, that hand is covered up for all four seasons. In the first two seasons, he had a bandage on it because it had been shot through in the Pfynwaldfest. In the second season, it was because he'd burned it in a drunken stupor. I wonder what the story is behind that? Is there one?</ft> <ft>"eso" is short for Esoterik, which is a catch-all term for yoga, meditation, therapy, etc.</ft> <ft>I have ridden my bike up that road a couple of times. A good friend used to live in Miex and now his ex-wife (also a friend) lives there. It's deep in the hills of Valais. I write Valais because that region is definitely French-speaking.</ft> <ft>That's the song that the Scarecrow sings when he's first introduced to Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz movie.</ft> <ft>That's a show that I watch while doing indoor body-weight workouts in my living room.</ft> <ft>I swear, they cannot stop saying things like <iq>You know how much I love Dick,</iq> and seemingly not noticing at all.</ft> <ft>He stars in the <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9288030/">Reacher</a>, which I hadn't planned on watching, but now might, solely based on his ability to project charm and charisma.</ft> <ft>And, now that I think about it, it's probably because he moved on to star in <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9288030/">Reacher</a> instead, so they wrote him out of the show, relatively gracefully, I must say.</ft> <ft>I know, I know, Dick inherited a fuckload of money from Bruce and I guess he's just financing everything. But the point stands that no-one ever has to worry about money, always has ready cash. There's just a billionaire unquestioningly funding all of their lives. It's basically <a href="{app}/view_article.php?id=4305">fully automated luxury communism</a>.</ft> <ft>I am not making this up, I swear. Nobody smirked.</ft> <ft>Franka Potente's German accent slips out now and then.</ft> <ft>No-one wastes a word on this being odd or possibly a problem or the neighbors maybe chattering or maybe Mahito's dad having problems getting promoted because he'd not only started shacking up with this wife's sister after she'd died but he'd knocked her up. I didn't see anyone in the rest of the family batting an eye, either.</ft> <ft>You thought I was going to go for the obvious pun about pumping, but I demurred.</ft> <ft>The one with the most body mass, of course, because science.</ft>