Movie Review: Thor: Love and Thunder

I wish I could say I loved Thor: Love and Thunder but the film was a disappointment. I will cover

Disney Studios

the general reason why it failed to work for me, but I will avoid spoilers and anything that really hasn’t appeared in trailers. However, if you are concerned the short review is that the film failed and is likely for me the bottom of the MCU.

Still here? Okay Let me present my arguments why this film did not work for me. There are three major failures in execution in the movie.

1) The humor was forced.

2) The stakes carried little weight for the audience.

3) There was little to no thematic statement or argument in the film.

The 9:30 am showing I and my sweetie-wife attended was not packed but there was an audience, and I cannot recall very much audible laughter during the screening. All of the best jokes and punchlines seem to appear in the trailers and what was surprising seemed to be trying too hard. If felt like someone attempting to replicate Thor: Ragnarök but failing. Where the broad characterizations utilized in that film were set against an equally broad and exaggerated setting here the same over the top characters were principally in more ‘grounded.’ as much as any MCU setting can be grounded, and the clash of styles failed to be funny.

The villain of the piece if Gorr, The God Butcher, a being defined by tragedy and wielding a weapon that allows him to slay gods. Which he does. The problem is that all of these gods are new characters to us, disconnected from the on-going storylines of the MVU and divorced from its characters so why should any audience member have an emotional attachment to their demise? All the gods whose death’s would have a serious impact have already died in other films. Also, Gorr’s course towards his goal is ill-defined and inconsistent within the film itself. Gorr needs X to achieve his ultimate goal, but he doesn’t act like he is trying to obtain X until after the audience if informed of the need. It really felt as though the film was being written and re-written as it was being produced.

The film, as best as I can determine, has nothing to say. Thor: Ragnarök under its flashy, colorful, Kirby-Inspired production design and it broad comedic tone had a lot to say about the legacy of sin, crimes of the past shaping the present, and colonialism. Love and Thunder apparently has nothing more to say than live life fearlessly and with love but even that rather cliched message is at best muddled and buried in the confusing chaos of the movie.

I have respected and been vastly entertained by Taika Waititi’s previous creative outings, his work often infused silliness with deep emotional heart, but sadly I cannot in good faith say I enjoyed this movie.

Review: Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, Season 1

When someone says Star Trek because I am an older fart my mind immediately flies to The Original Series with Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and its ropey effects. When Next Generation arrived, I watched and enjoyed the series through about season five and after that I just sort of dropped off. Deep Space 9 I watched the first two seasons, Voyage I managed 3 episodes before switching it off in disgust and Enterprise lost me at the pilot, and with Discovery I managed 8 episodes before ‘space sonar’ drove me away. I had really liked Discovery but the hard drift away from the series history made it difficult to integrate with my existing fandom and eventually the rupture was too much ignore. Still, I had hope for Strange New Worlds despite having dropped out of Discovery before these actors had stepped into the series playing these iconic cannon characters.

Strange New Worlds has justified that hope.

Anson Mount brings his own spin, quite different while still honoring Jeffrey Hunter’s, to the character of Christopher Pike. The same can be said for Rebecca Romijn as Number One and Ethan Peck as Spock. There are echoes and resonances of the original portrayals enough to

Credit: Paramount Pictures

respect the prior actors but fresh enough for current styles and trends. The actor most divergent from the original portrayal is Jess Bush as Nurse Christine Chapel but it is an unfair comparison as Majel Barret-Roddenberry was given very little to do with the character beyond pining for Spock. The cast is large, and I am not going to cover them all, not even the pair of legacy characters with Uhura and M’Benga other than to say the entire cast is a delight and I do not think a single wrong has been miscast.

The ten episodes run of season one has finished airing. (A strange phrase as the series is only available via networked streaming.) The approach the show’s creators have used is not the sprawling tightly interconnected chapters of a ten-hour movie that has become so common with television of late, but rather a more episodic nature with each episode a self-contained story with continuing plot threads woven throughout the season. This comes close to the original series format allowing the show’s writers to have episodes that explore different styles that would likely clash in a more tightly plotted season, such as having comedic episodes, space battle episodes, and stories turning about a single moral question. Not all of these episodes land on target, I found the humor of Spock Amokforced but the beauty of a truly episodic series is that the next episode can turn things around.

Overall, I have thoroughly enjoyed Strange New Worlds, both the legacy characters and the new ones have a sharp chemistry that make watching a pleasurable and engaging experience. I look forward to season 2.

Nordic Noir/Horror: Postmortem No One Dies in Skarnes

In the isolated rural town of Skarnes Norway the body of the funeral home director’s daughter is discovered in a field. Perhaps not to her good fortune, Live (pronounced Liva) is discovered to be alive before the police budget busting autopsy is performed. Grappling with fragmentary memories of the attack that left her for dead in the field Live discovers that not only has she developed a compulsion for blood but that dark familial secrets present new dangers from unexpected quarters.

Postmortem: No One Dies in Skarnes is billed as Nordic noir/horror/comedy though from the first two episodes I would say the show’s emphasis is horror/noir with only occasional touches of humor serving as counter point to the bleak tone and setting. Produced in Norway and currently streaming as a Netflix Original the show has a distinctly Nordic noir aesthetic, presenting the fantastic premise with grounded realistic performances and cinematography. While the story has one foot solidly in its own unique vampire lore the other remains planted in a world of overdue bills and heartless banks so familiar to the audience giving the fantastical a realism necessary for the audience suspension of disbelief.

This commitment to a realistic approach continues to its casting, hair, and make-up with the production eschewing the ‘cover model’ look for its female performers but a more grounded sense of attractiveness that avoids glam for a relatable appearance. The performances themselves are balanced to small emotes with a restrained quietness in keeping with the Nordic noir tradition and that serves the story better than loud overly expressive gesticulations.

Having watched just two of the six episodes of the first season it is difficult to say if the show succeeds. I am of the personal belief that ending are essential to artistic success of any film or series and that a bad one, looking at you Game of Thrones, can critically damage the good that came before. That said I am hopeful that Postmortem: No One Dies in Skarnes will stick its landing.

Monsters from the Id

In the classic SF film Forbidden Planet Professor Morbius enhanced by alien technology unleashes his Id as an indestructible monster to protect his paradise. In a very similar manner, the GOP crafted and unleashed their own Id when they struck the bargain in the Southern Strategy welcoming racists to win elections and now that monster is the party instead of the party’s beast. None of the those ‘wiser’ heads foresaw or intended for today’s Republican party. They had the very best of intentions, but forces unchained are quite difficult to contain.

Today I am seeing many on the left looking to their own monster to wield and that monster is violence. In their minds the recent and terrible court decisions are not a call to political action and work but rather a ‘justification’ to unleash the mob. hat rioting and violence are the bargains they would strike today.

I would ask them whose deaths are justified by their anger?

Thomas?

Roberts?

McConnel?

The Capitol Police person who just happens to be ‘in the way.’

Violence by its nature is uncontrolled and unruly. It will spread further then you ever intent and its final results are unforeseeable.

Violence is always justified in the first person and a crime in the third.

Writers Going to Write

One of the unfortunate side effects of being a writer, at least for me, is that it’s quite difficult to switch off the part of my brain that writes and re-writes while I am enjoying someone else’s artistic work. I remember attending a best-selling authors book tour at our local bookstore and after he read from a piece having the urge to provide feedback and notes. This applies to movies I watch as well.

On its release I thought Doctor Strange in The Multiverse of Madness was okay but rewatching it on Disney Plus has raised my appreciation of it. That said I have found one line of dialogue I really really want to re-write. Just add three words to line. That’s all.

Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen) when lectured about sacrifice by Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) answers “Don’t talk to me of sacrifice Stephen Strange. I blew a hole through the head of the man I loved, and it meant nothing.”

That’s a good line, gives real weight to Wanda emotional pain and it works but I think it could be better.

“Don’t talk to me of sacrifice Stephen Strange. I blew a hole through the head of the man I loved, and, because of you, it meant nothing.”

Strange gave Thanos the Time Stone which allowed Thanos to reverse Wanda’s act of killing her love in an attempt to save half the universe. Putting in those three words helps move her motivation from Strange simply being opposed to her to something much more personal.

The Seal is Broken

Friday’s SCOTUS decision to reverse Roe is utterly unprecedented. Yes, the court has reversed and overturned decisions, major monumental decisions, but never before has the court rescinded a legally recognized individual right. A week ago the people had X number of rights, today it is X-1. The long, arduous path that this nation had struggled on of slowly, inexorable, expanding individual rights has ended. The line has been crossed and it can never be uncrossed. For the rest of the nation’s existence the member of court will know that with enough cajoling and pressure they can remove any right that they find unpleasant. We know already that a member of the court is looking are more recently won rights as targets for elimination. “Cooler heads” tell us to not panic, that this lone voice on the bench has not the votes to imperil those rights. Well, for 50 years there was not the votes to imperil any individual rights and then there were. Precedent and legal traditions no longer stay the court’s hand from the political ends they wish to obtain and for those conservatives cheering you are far too short sighted. That abandoned respect of precedent and tradition can just as easily apply to Heller and MacDonald. Why should liberal justices have any more respect for you recently won rights as you had for theirs? You have initiated a no rules cage match where only victory matters and it will not end any time soon. The aged old guard of the liberal party has continued to play by rules that right has long abandoned but the next generation of liberal pols have watched and learned the lesson to whipped them with and the tables always turn.

I do not celebrate this, but I do welcome it. A return to politics with rules and norms can only be achieved if the right suffers, and suffers terribly, for the unrestricted warfare that they have unleased.

I dream, I hope, but sadly without a lot of faith that it will come to pass, that Friday represents the Right’s Pearl Harbor moment. A devastating attack that was meant to cripple an enemy but instead woke a slumbering giant and that brought about the attacker’s utter ruin.

Disney+’s Obi-Wan Kenobi

The six episodes of Disney+’s latest Star Wars derived series Obi-Wan Kenobi had now released and with the finale watched I can give me impression of the show.

meh

Obi-wan Kenobi lacked the flair and novelty of The Mandalorian but also presented more heart and characterization that The Book of Boba Fett landing squarely between the two shows.

Set ten years after the rise of the galactic empire, the fall of Anakin Skywalker to the dark side of the force, and the slaughter of the Jedis, the series follows Obi-Wan Kenobi, on hiding from Imperial Inquisitors hunting the few remaining surviving Jedi his force-powers atrophied to near non-existence. Kenobi’s seclusion is shattered when as part of a plot to draw him out of hiding ten-year Lea Organa is kidnapped and her adopted parents call upon him to find and rescue her. Leaving the safety of his desert cave Kenobi brings him in the sights of an obsessed young Inquisitor and exposes him to a vengeful Darth Vader.

The problem with Star Wars in its most recent iterations is that development-wise it has grown quite incestuous.

The original film released in 1977 drew inspiration from Japanese Samurai movies, American adventure serials, and Campbell’s theory of the monomyth. (Along with literary SF traditions such as John Carter and it even angered Frank Herbert who felt it had lifted significant elements from his work Dune.) The point is that Star Wars 77 engaged in that rich artistic tradition of being in conversation with the culture and its artistic history.

The new millennium’s Star Wars is only in conversation with itself. It’s references are to other Star Wars stories and properties. With the exception of The Mandalorian which borrows heavily from American Westerns and Samurai films each new film and television series is an act of self-cannibalism as plot and story are derived almost exclusively from the pre-existing cannon.

While Disney’s other property the Marvel Cinematic Universe has been critiqued for an overreliance on 3rd act CGI heavy battles the MCU has shown that superheroes can be used to tell a variety of stories. Political Thrillers (Captain American: the Winter Solider) Dysfunctional Family Comedies (Guardians of the Galaxy) and even Horror (Dr. Strange in The Multiverse of Madness) but Star Wars remains telling the same sort of story over and over with few exceptions. The Mandalorian and Rouge One are the rare examples of the franchise taking risks and going in new direction with new characters with little use of the tired Skywalker drama.

Obi-Wan Kenobi was not bad, but it was tired and gave me very little that was truly emotional engaging, I have hopes, but they are fading, that the franchise will find new territory to explore and leave the Skywalkers to history.

CineFix’s Top 10 A24 Films

The YouTube Channel CineFix-IGN, which releases regular and top-notch film analysis and exploration videos this week dropped another of their ‘Top 10′ lists, this time for movies released by those lovers of indie cinema A24.

Consistent with their previous top 10 lists they broke the list down into categories. I found it amusing that I had seen 7 of the 10, a personal record for me I think, and own 3 of them on physical media.

Here is the listing of their top 10 A24 titles.

10) Debut features: Lady Bird (2017) dir. Greta Gerwig

9) Science Fiction: Ex Machina (2015) dir. Alex Garland

8) Fantasy: Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022) dir. The Daniels

7) Coming of Age: The Green Knight (2021) dir. David Lowery

6) Survival Horror: Green Room (2016) dir. Jeremy Saulnier

5) Supernatural Horror: Hereditary (2018) dir. Ari Aster

4) Existential Horror: The Witch (2016) dir. Robert Eggers

3) Traumatic Drama: Midsommar (2019) dir. Ari Aster

2) Quirky Character Drama: Uncut Gems (2019) dir. Josh and Benny Safdie

1) Capital ‘D’ Drama: Moonlight (2016) dir. Barry Jenkins

The three I have not yet seen are, Lady Bird, Green Room, and Moonlight. The owns I own are Ex Machina, The Witch, and Midsommar.

Green Room is the film I have the most anxiety about watching. It is a strange quirk of character that fantastical horror, monsters, witched, zombies, cam create dread in me but far from enough to cause any hesitation in starting the film, but grounded realistic horror, such as trapped in a back room while a gang of fanatical neo-Nazis led by Patrick Stewart try to kill you can set my hand trembling. The utter banality and real-world nature makes such a prospect more terrifying than all the zombies or Swedish death cults.

Of the seven that I have seen the one that worked the least for me was Uncut Gems. While exceptionally made and Adam Sandler’s performance was fantastic, I found his character so repellent and unsympathetic that I cared nothing for his fate. Nor was he interesting enough as a character to leapfrog over his repulsive nature. It was not the actor, but the character as written that left me cold.

Still, when the A24 logo appears on the screen I know that quality and vision will follow.

Noir Review: Pickup Alley (1957)

As part of the collection Noir Archive #3 Pickup Alley is a British police and crime film that in the UK was released as Interpol but retitled for its American distribution.

Victor Mature plays narcotics detective Charles Sturgis, a man with a personal vendetta against a major drug smuggler Frank McNally, the incomparable Trevor Howard, who murdered Sturgis’ sister. When drug mule Gina Broger, Swedish Actor Anita Ekberg, shoots one of McNally’s underlings when he attempts to assault her, this creates the crack in the operation that finally

Warwick Films

allows Sturgis to properly begin the chase. With teamwork from Interpol and Across the ocean and the European continent Sturgis follows Gina in his dogged pursuit of McNally, a criminal so talented and intelligent that no police force has even a decent sketch of him much less a photograph.

Pickup Alley is a mediocre film, neither great nor terrible. Mature is good enough as the vengeance obsessed detective but doesn’t rise to the heights of some of his other performances. The stand-out actor here is Howard, thoroughly enjoying himself, reveling in his character’s evilness, with only occasional forays into eating the set. It’s worth watching this film just for his performance.

Ted Moore’s cinematography and John Gilling’s direction are competent journeyman work lacking any particular flair. The film is shot and the frames composed professionally but feel like that are missing that extra bit that elevates work from competent to artistic. That said the budget appears to be fairly limited and that may have hampered the overall look of the production.

Pickup Alley, a nonsensical title, is neither great nor bad but at 92 minutes neither does it overstay its welcome. worth watching once but unlikely to become anyone’s favorite noir.

I’m Back

So, I have been busy these last two weeks looking after my sweetie-wife following her surgery. Everything went very well and today I am returning to my day job. I am also returning to, hopefully, regular updates to this blog and back to my writing.

Here are a few thoughts on recent shows but not full deep dives.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds

Following the adventures of Captain Christopher Pike, commanding officer of the Enterprisebefore Kirk, this series seems to have found the right balance between honoring the past and original series while striking out for new territory with new characters and fresh takes on old ones. I am particularly enamored with Jess Bush and her take on the underutilized character Nurse Christine Chapel. There are breaks with canon but so far these have created new and compelling storylines that justify the rupture.

Ms. Marvel

The latest MCU series to debut on Disney+ Ms., Marvel follows the life of Kamala Khan a Pakistani-American highschooler and devoted Captain Marvel fan as she navigates life in the MCU, her Muslim family and neighborhood, with varying levels of devoutness, and her sudden and inexplicable acquisition of superpowers. The show’s style is vibrant, energetic, and exploding with energy, much like the life of a teenage while neatly balancing the fantastic with the reality of modern life for a character caught between tradition and the wider American culture.

I have very little actual knowledge of Muslim-American culture, and less that would apply to the specifics of being Pakistani-American teenage girl, but the show feels honest and respectful giving me an insight I have not before possessed. Well worth the watch.

Robert Mitchell Evans

Literary Saboteur