Songs 9-11: Vivo

*Spoilers.*

And we’re onto our final grouping of songs for Vivo! Even though I’d say this score wouldn’t unseat any of the others in the Lin-Manuel Miranda rankings, it still has plenty of catchy rhythm, clever lyrics, and the patented LMM trick of getting you to tear up simply because the melody hits you so hard. Another fine score from one of my favorite composer/lyricists!

“Running Out of Time” – The climactic song of the movie. It’s crunch time—Vivo and Gabi are on the last leg of their journey, but with obstacles arising every which way, they might not make it in time to get the song to Marta. The frenzied tempo and overlapping melodies add to this sense of urgency. I really like the electronic “M-I-A-M-I— / Running out of time” motif, the brief callback to “Keep the Beat” is a nice touch, and the song pairs beautifully with the candy-colored neon lights of Miami.

Best lyric: “When I thought we were done for, / My new friend gave us an encore.”

“Inside Your Heart” – It can be tricky when a musical builds up to a culminating diegetic song—it’s no secret that “One Song Glory” is way better than “Your Eyes.” In the case of Vivo and “Inside Your Heart,” I think it goes all right. It’s far from my favorite song in the film, but it resonates due to the feeling behind it. The song Andrés wrote for Marta before she left Cuba but was too afraid to share with her—it’s a big moment for Marta to finally receive the song and perform it. I love the 2-D animation on the dream sequence as Vivo watches, imagining both Andrés and Marta young again and dancing together.

Best lyric: “And this fear that keeps me by the door / Shouldn't interfere with you wanting more. / I am here, just on another shore, / Always in your corner watching you soar.”

“Grand Finale” – An updated reprise of “One of Kind,” this time with Vivo, Gabi, and friends in Miami. Vivo’s rap sequence is terrific, and I like how pretty much everyone gets their moment in the finale. It’s a homey, celebratory way to bring things to a close.

Best lyric: “Y'all don't understand my singing. / I'm running rings around / This riveting rhythm and swinging. / Somebody gimme the rhythm and gimme a minute / And gimme a limit so I can exceed it – / A brand-new song's just what we needed.”

Matilda the Musical (2022, PG)

The original cast recording for the stage show was my introduction to Matilda as a story, having been intrigued by their Tony performance and fallen in love with “Naughty” after seeing a video of a quartet of Matildas perform it at the Olivier Awards. I’d read other Roald Dahl books as a kid, but never that one. It was only in the last year or so that I caught up with the original novel and then the 1996 movie adaptation. But now things have come full circle with a movie musical adaptation, care of Netflix.

The musical tells the story of Matilda Wormwood, a 5-year-old genius born to a depressingly ordinary family that couldn’t care less about her extraordinary abilities.  Matters worsen when she starts school and comes face to face with the tyrannical Miss Trunchbull, whose strictness and inhumane punishments keep the student body in fear, and it’s up to Matilda to stand up to the Man (or Woman, in this case.)

I loved this adaptation. The past couple of years have offered up a wealth of genuinely terrific movie musicals. (Granted, I haven’t been able to bring myself to watch Dear Evan Hansen, so my sampling is biased, but thinking about In the Heights, tick, tick…BOOM!, and West Side Story last year, I stand by it.) The musical numbers explode with energy and personality—the kid ensemble is super talented and wonderfully synchronized, handling tricky group numbers like “School Song” and “Bruce” with aplomb. The dancing is terrific, and there’s a good mix of big wild performances, plot-driven songs, and fantasy sequences. “Bruce,” “Quiet,” and “My House” are standouts, and I’m always down for “Revolting Children.” The new song written for the movie, “Still Holding My Hand,” is gorgeously touching.

The film never drags between numbers, and the book scenes have just as much humor and heart as the songs. My knowledge of the musical is limited to the cast recording, so I don’t know what book changes might’ve been made in the shift from stage to screen, but it all feels good to me. It does have some significant differences from the novel, and at times seems to take inspiration from both it and the 1996 movie while still putting its own spin on things.

Alisha Weir is utterly fantastic as Matilda. She’s brilliant and precocious but always feels like a kid, which I think is so important in portrayals of child geniuses. I love watching her Matilda put things together as she observes them and plans her “naughty” retribution. A lot of Matilda’s classmates don’t have a ton of dimension, but the young actors differentiate them within their limited lines—I never had issues with who was who. After having seen Lashana Lynch play several badasses, I was excited to see her take on a very different sort of role as Miss Honey, and she’s wonderful. Quiet and often frightened, but she’s so gentle and kind, and that’s a strength of its own. Lynch is such a pleasure to watch in this film, and she also gets my vote for Singing MVP in a cast full of good voices. Emma Thompson 100% goes for it as Miss Trunchbull, going from ridiculous to scary and back again numerous times over the course of the film. The movie also features Stephen Graham and Andrea Riseborough as Matilda’s repellant parents.

Warnings

Strong thematic elements (including child abuse and neglect,) violence (though most of it is of the over-the-top variety,) mild language, and some “don’t try this at home.”

A Little TLC(w): The Duke of Mount Deer: Season 1, Episode 19 (1984)

*Episode premise spoilers.*

This wasn’t my favorite episode. While it has some good stuff going for it, it leans heavily on a plot that doesn’t really work for me.

At the emperor’s command, Wai Siu-bo has been forced to become a monk (it makes sense in context.) And given that he’s all about fine food, gambling, and beautiful women, he is not about that life. When two benefactresses of the temple see him kissing Sheung Yee in the woods, that sets off a firestorm. The benefactresses, having decided that Siu-bo is a lecher, come at him with swords bared. But because Siu-bo is always most enchanted with women who are tougher than he is, he instantly falls in love with one of them.

The plot in this episode hinges on several things. First, the benefactresses catch Wai Siu-bo with Sheung Yee in the forest. Since he’s now technically a monk, he’s not supposed to be canoodling with women but at all, but he’s not molesting her like they say. However, in the ensuing fight, wherein Siu-bo is already smitten with one of the sisters-in-arms, he tears her dress and accidentally gets an eyeful, which horrifies her.

What follows is an unfortunate wash-rinse-repeat cycle. The benefactresses either attack Wai Siu-bo or accuse him of being a lecher, and Siu-bo gets one of the other monks to protect him from the attacks/defend him from the accusations, all the while continuing to flirt with the one he’s in love with. So, even though the whole thing did begin with a misunderstanding, we’re left with a story in which two women’s accusations of a man’s sexual harassment fall on deaf ears, and the man keeps trying to get close to one of the women despite her repeated objections.

Yes, I get that it was the ‘80s, and there have been plenty of shows that have depicted much worse, and far more recently. And Wai Siu-bo has always been, shall we say, a very determined flirt. But seeing the entire plot of this episode revolve around that dynamic leaves a bad taste in my mouth. It’s not really cute, or funny, here.

But like I said, there are things in this episode that I like. The monk that Wai Siu-bo ropes into protecting him is a total Shaolin nerd, and whenever he fights the benefactresses, he’s constantly calling out the names of their moves and geeking out over them. There’s also a fun bit where Wai Siu-bo receives a confidential decree from the emperor, for his eyes only—the emperor takes Siu-bo’s illiteracy into account in a creative, neat way.

Tony Leung Chiu-wai has some good stuff too, even if I’m not a fan of Wai Siu-bo’s story in this episode. I like his unfiltered amazement at his fellow monk’s moves, and he has a moment of reckoning near the end of the episode that’s nicely done. I’m also fond of his quick thinking of avoiding an attack from the benefactresses when they follow him to a brothel (naturally, when he’s forced to become a monk, he reacts with as many sins as possible.)

Top Five Relationships: Romantic (Marvel Cinematic Universe)

As mentioned earlier, the only reason this post exists is She-Hulk—I regret nothing. In the early years, the MCU struggled with romance, but I think they’ve managed to get quite a bit better at it. Across the films and shows, here are my favorite couples to date.

 

 

Steve Rogers & Peggy Carter

This pairing lost a bit of its shine for me after Endgame, but I can’t deny how much I love Peggy and Steve in Captain America. Despite some trite plotting at points, like the contrived misunderstandings that delay them actually getting together, I really enjoy their relationship. From the start, they respect each other, which is something both of them sorely need, and I like seeing them work together during the war. And regardless of where the franchise eventually takes things, the moments in Captain America that revolve around their planned date are lovely and bittersweet.

 

 

Vision & Wanda Maximoff

In the films, these two have very little screentime together, but their scenes are still strong enough to wreck me at the end of Infinity War. While I’m not sure if they would’ve made this list based solely on that, WandaVision is more than enough to seal the deal. Within the wild context of the Hex, they’re so funny and charming together, and as things start to get darker and more intense, we see the depth of their relationship and just how much they mean to one another.

 

 

Wenwu & Li

They’re only in one film, and Li is dead for most of it, but my god, the romance. The makers of Shang-Chi knew what they were doing by opening the film on Wenwu’s mythic history, and most particularly, the story of how he and Li met. The scene of their fight slowly becoming a dance/courtship is so beautifully shot and acted. In the space of a couple minutes, you fully believe that this serene warrior woman is something that 1000-year-old warlord has never seen before, and when she bests him in combat, his whole world turns on its head. Being together means giving up their old lives, but they both forge ahead into the unknown happily—the soft flashbacks of cozy Xu family time are absolutely lovely.

 

 

Marc Spector, Steven Grant & Layla al-Faouly

It’s hard to say exactly what the situation is between these three and what’s going to happen, but the dynamic between Marc, Steven and Layla is so messy and juicy I couldn’t help including it. Layla is Marc’s ex-wife, but he still loves her. He just pushed her away because he thought he was protecting her (a fact that Layla does not appreciate when she finds out.) Meanwhile, Steven has only just met Layla, having remerged from what seems to have been a long dormant period in his and Marc’s DID system, but he’s instantly taken with her, and she definitely appreciates his nerdy sweetness. In any future Moon Knight content we get, I’m rooting for Layla to be with both of them—I don’t know if a Disney property would ever go with that resolution, but I figure two guys with the same body might have a better shot at it than any other love triangle out there.

 

 

Matt Murdock & Jennifer Walters

Yes, the reason we’re here. Jen and Matt give off instant fireworks, from their competent sparring in the courtroom, to their after-hours flirting at the barring, to their eventual team-up in Jen’s first actual hero mission. They have some strong similarities but a lot of differences too, and as both superhero partners and a couple, their energy crackles on the screen. I love that Matt gets to be fun and breezy with Jen, it cracks me up that she can’t find the zipper to get his super suit off, and they have top-shelf banter. 100% fun MCU couple, and I am all the way here for it.

Other Doctor Lives: Sex Education: Season 3, Episode 3 (2021)

*Season 3 arc spoilers.*

This episode is pretty good, maybe my favorite of season 3 so far. While kind of busy—there are a lot of plots going on, and not all of them get their due—things come together nicely on the whole and I like some of the developments we see here.

Hope’s latest initiative is school uniforms, which almost everyone hates, naturally. Jean is back together with Jakob (she discovered after their breakup that she was pregnant, and they decided to make a go at being a family,) and he and Olla have moved in, which Otis does not adjust well to. Maeve has a tough but important encounter with her mom. Otis and Ruby go on a double date with Eric and Adam, which is unexpected all around. Jackson gets closer with new student Cal.

The biggest detractor to this episode is that there’s just so much happening. Each of the plots mentioned above have at least one or two subplots attached to them, and several storylines bleed into one another. As such, there isn’t really a clear theme or direction for the episode, even though there are a couple stabs at one.

But while the whole is messy, there’s plenty of good stuff to be found in the individual stories and scenes. I appreciate that Olla’s perspective isn’t lost in the shuffle of the big move—she gets important scenes with both Jean and Otis concerning it, we have another reference to her friendship with Adam, and there’s a strong scene where we see Lily getting too distracted to really be there for her girlfriend. In Maeve’s storyline, there’s an excellent confrontation between her and her mom in which Maeve acknowledges the complicated factors at play here. Despite the many ways her mom has let her down, she recognizes that addiction is an illness, saying, “I know it’s not your fault and I know you’re trying, but you haven’t beaten it yet, and you might not for a really long time. That doesn’t mean I won’t always love you.”

I haven’t mentioned Cal yet, though they’ve been present since the start of this season. This is their first chance to really get highlighted, though. Jackson and Cal have been circling each other a bit since he first noticed the new kid, and today, both give each other support while they’re having a tough time. Jackson opens up about his struggles with anxiety, and Cal, as a nonbinary person, feels very uncomfortable in the new uniforms—Hope relents to Cal’s desire not to wear a skirt but insists that their jacket and trousers be too fitted for their comfort. I welcome this new character and always appreciate storylines for Jackson, but I do worry that the budding relationship between these two will be somewhat at the expense of Jackson’s friendship with Viv. (And they do appear to decidedly be friends at this point, which I find a little surprising. I would’ve bet money after season 2 that they were going to get together.)

The moment Eric texted Otis about looking forward to their double date, my eyes about bugged out of my head. Otis/Ruby and Eric/Adam? It seemed a trainwreck in the making, which is of course the reason this plotline is happening. And to be sure, the story is full of unexpected turns. Ruby shows Otis parts of her life that he’s never seen before, Adam drops a couple of wild bombshells, and even the very idea of Otis taking Ruby to a bowling alley is surprising. This storyline has fun, sweetness, and a little drama.

One issue that’s coming up this season is that, so far, Eric and Adam’s relationship seems to be more about Adam than it is about Eric. Although Eric reacts to and wrestles with things, Adam is the main mover in their plots: Adam needs to come to terms with being bi, Adam needs to work on his communication skills, can Adam make nice with Otis and Ruby? This puts Eric/Ncuti Gatwa in a less dynamic position, frequently playing second fiddle to Adam in their storylines, even as Eric’s personality is certainly more out-front than his. Given that I was relatively pleased early in the series to see how much agency and plot focus Eric had as Otis’s Black/gay best friend, it’s disappointing to see him kind of take a backseat to his white, more masculine boyfriend.

Don’t get me wrong—Gatwa still does well with what he has. I get a kick out of Eric voguing as he gets ready for his date, and he has a delightful reaction to a wild situation with Adam’s mom. And he has fantastic non-verbal acting in a scene where Adam’s mom is introducing him to someone. As she defers to Adam about the nature of their relationship (it’s been established that she most likely knows they’re boyfriends, but Adam hasn’t come out to her,) Eric’s smile fades to hear Adam call him a “friend,” and then he has to quickly pull himself together to pretend it doesn’t bother him. A devastating moment, beautifully played.