Ms. Marvel, Vol. 4: Last Days (2015)

Great volume.  As the title suggests, there’s some heavy stuff going on here, and Kamala rises to the challenge like a pro, even as she worries that she can’t be everything her city needs.  However, just when things are looking hopeless, we take a detour to a two-issue crossover appearance our hero made in Amazing Spider-Man, offering up Kamala at her excitable superhero-fangirl best enthusiastically teaming up with Spidey (some spoilers.)

The way I understand it, something major was going down at the time of this publication in other Marvel titles that I don’t read, and it’s the fallout from this apocalypse-level event that Kamala gets caught up in.  There’s something mysterious and catastrophic happening in Manhattan, and but it’s rippling into the nearby Jersey City, which gets ignored by the authorities amid the ongoing crisis.  Kamala takes it upon herself to get people to safety and look out for them in whatever way she can, but she’s emotionally suckerpunched by a cruel opponent looking to use the present chaos to his advantage.  Fortunately, just when she needs it most, she finds a bit of help from the person who inspired her name.

Yep – Ms. Marvel meets Captain Marvel!  It’s my favorite “Kamala fights alongside one of her heroes” story so far, striking an excellent balance between Kamala being overwhelmed/disheartened by the enormous task at hand and awestruck at meeting Captain Marvel.  For her part, Carol is encouraging and understanding, but she’s not there for handholding – she’s there to get the job done.  Along the way, she helps Kamala find the faith she needs to keep fighting even when she knows there might not be a win this time.

The story also does a nice job in rounding out Kamala’s family more, especially her mother and her brother Aamir.  I like how the comic is taking the parts of Kamala’s life that she initially seemed to view as thorns in her side and showing why she actually couldn’t do without them.  Kamala’s parents and brother can feel too stereotypish at times in the earlier volumes, but here, they feel a lot more real.  I really enjoy the scene where Aamir stands up for who he is and why it’s so important to him.

And then, just for fun… Spider-Man!  Just an amusing romp with Kamala and Peter chasing after some baddies who’ve stolen a Terrigenesis cocoon for nefarious purposes.  Kamala is awesome pestering Peter with annoying fangirl questions and geeking out over helping him execute some of his “classic moves.”  After the heaviness of the main plot, the shift here is kind of jarring but does make for a nice breather.

Warnings

Comic book violence and thematic elements.

Paradise for Buster (1952)

I don’t know too much about this short – who made it, whether it was filmed for cinema or TV – but I do know that I like it.  Out of all of Buster’s later work, this project might be the one that would feel most at home among his silent stuff.  Much of the Keaton Renaissance-era stuff looks to recapture that feel from Buster’s career, and I think this one does it the most successfully.

Buster is languishing away at an office somewhere, uninspired with his work and despised by his punctilious boss, when he receives news that he’s unexpectedly inherited a farm from a late relative.  Then and there, he quits his job and hightails it out to the country, where his new windfall doesn’t turn out to be all it’s cracked up to be.  As it happens, the farm’s previous owner was deeply in debt; nothing’s up to snuff and the whole thing is due to be sold at auction shortly.  Buster tries to make do around the crumbling farm as he ponders how to get out of his inherited financial pickle.

The short does a great job of capturing the silent-movie feel.  There’s an ever-present musical soundtrack to accompany the slapstick, and seeing the film again confirms my suspicions that more music would’ve greatly improved a lot of the Educational and Columbia shorts.  The music keeps everything lively, and the short hums along with great fun.  As for dialogue, it’s only used on an as-needed basis – apart from a couple plottier scenes bookending the short, there are only a few stray lines here and there to clarify things.  Again, it’s much more along the lines of the level of dialogue you’d get in a silent short.  Characters aren’t artificially silent, but there are long stretches of physical comedy where talking simply isn’t necessary.

And that physical comedy is definitely a treat.  There’s all kinds of goodness to be found here.  Buster clowning around the farm is a hoot.  A few of my personal favorites include a) Buster trying to break open a piggy bank (and the mayhem that follows,) b) Buster wrestling with the mind-of-its-own water pump, and, as always, c) Buster getting into trouble while fishing.  The gags come fast and funny, with Buster calmly and determinedly pressing on the face of all the chaos around him, which never fails to entertain.

One more note:  I really enjoy the gag pulled when Buster quits his job.  Having noticed how the window-glass in a door shatters every time the door is slammed, he deliberately marches past the five(!) vice presidents’ offices, opening and slamming each door in turn on his way to burn bridges with his boss.  The gag itself is a little basic, and by the time he gets to the end, you wish he’d throw in something unexpected, but I still like the thrust of it.  As much fun as Fumbling Buster Who Stumbles into Every Mess He Can is, I also love Agent of Chaos Buster, a mild trickster who enjoys messing with imperious people because he’s smart and he can.  It reminds me of scenes like the bit in The Scarecrow where he incites a fight between his roommate and the girl’s father by making each one think the other is giving him a whollop.

Warnings

Slapstick violence and huge amounts of “don’t try this at home.”

Doctor Who: Series 1, Episodes 9-10 – “The Empty Child” / “The Doctor Dances” (2005)

Rewatching this episode, you can recognize the Moffatisms that Steven Moffat now employs so liberally as showrunner – a flashy, sexy, larger-than-life supporting character (hello, Captain Jack,) repeated lines, major nightmare fuel, “gotcha!” dialogue, some weird gender dynamics, and a resolution that effectively erases most of what came before.  When I first saw it, the gender stuff with Rose was the only bit that bothered me, and this two-parter was in fact one of my favorite Ninth Doctor stories.  Now, I still like it, and there is some excellent stuff here, but a little shine has come off the apple.  (Just one episode-specific spoiler.)

Lots of different plot threads pulling at once, so I’ll try to condense.  The Ninth Doctor and Rose chase a dangerous object through the time vortex to WWII-era London, where they, separately, both encounter a big, fat Something Ain’t Right.  There’s a spooky little boy in a gas mask who keeps asking the same question – “Are you my mummy?” – to everyone he comes across.  The Doctor is warned off of the child by Nancy, a spunky London girl who knows more about the situation than she’s telling.  Meanwhile, Rose runs into Captain Jack Harkness, who, like her and the Doctor, is from another time and way more knowledgeable about aliens than the locals. 

First, there’s a lot of excellent dialogue – the Doctor’s “mouse in front of a lion” speech is gorgeous, and the Doctor, Rose, and Jack have good banter together – and the supporting characters are terrific.  Having now seen more of Moffat’s action-figure-style characters, I can see the parallels between Jack and River, Irene Adler, etc. (rewatching the rest of the season, I was struck by how much more authentic Jack feels in his later episodes,) but he’s still tremendous fun, and Nancy is a great, fully-realized character.  The Doctor is in good form, I love watching him hanging out with a bunch of street urchins, and Christopher Eccleston’s performance in the “everybody lives” moment is flawless.  Again, it’s something that’s since been overused, but here, in this episode, it’s so perfectly executed, and the Doctor’s hope resolving into elation is absolutely beautiful, and nothing can ruin that.

On the nightmare-fuel front, it mostly works.  Creepy little gas-mask boys asking, “Are you my mummy?” will always be creepy, and the repetition never grates like it does with some later monsters.  I also like that there’s an effort to explain why the child has all the random powers that it does.  In that sense, the story manages to hold together pretty well.  The “gotcha!” dialogue is less successful.  It’s undeniably clever, but after you’ve seen the same set-up trotted out ad infinitum, it feels a lot less so.  I notice, though, that while it’s used a few times here, it’s only in the second episode.  Maybe Moffat figured he coasted on the inherent creepiness of creepy kids in episode one and thought he had to up the hair-raising ante the second time around?

Which leaves us with Rose.  Moffat’s pre-showrunner episodes tend to reduce the companion’s role in order to focus more on his invented character de jure (Nancy/Jack, Reinette, Sally Sparrow, River,) and while Rose is still around for most of the story, she 1) spends almost half of it in a completely separate plot from the Doctor, and 2) she doesn’t do much to help.  The first point is just a bummer, since the Doctor/Rose relationship is easily the best thing about series 1, and the second is problematic.  Let’s see:  she makes a really stupid mistake and quickly damsels herself, she doesn’t contribute much to solving the mystery, and she just kind of goofs around distracting the Doctor when he’s trying to get them out of a tight spot.  Plus, the way she goes so giddy-schoolgirl over Jack is just weird.  Tractor-beam head-scramble or not, it’s like she’s taken over by her attraction to him.  I had flashbacks to Amy trying to jump Eleven’s bones which, while great from an ace-ish Doctor standpoint, is troubling from a so-does-Amy-just-have-no-control-over-her-libido-or-what standpoint.  It bothers me there, and it’s not much better here.

Newsies (2017)

Although this is the same stage version of the live-action Disney movie turned Broadway musical that debuted in 2012, I’m labeling this review 2017 because it’s about the recently-filmed recording of the stage show that just aired in theaters for Fathom Events.  I really enjoyed getting a chance to see this musical in action.

As with the movie, Newsies is the story of the 1899 newsboys’ strike in New York City.  When Joseph Pulitzer looks to increase profits by charging the newsies more for the papers they buy to sell on his behalf, the scrappy boys team up to stand against him.  Led by the charismatic Jack and the reasonable Davey, and buoyed by the coverage of sympathetic reporter Kate, the “little guys” take on one of the most powerful men in America, vowing to fight until they get their due.

The show has closed on Broadway and its national tour has wrapped up, but this filmed performance includes cast members from both.  I’m familiar, of course, with the main leads representing the OBC – Jeremy Jordan (who now makes his home on Supergirl,) Kara Lindsay, Ben Fankhauser, and Andrew Keenan-Bolger – but the whole cast is excellent.  The staging is relatively light but effective, making use of a jungle gym of scaffolding to represent New York fire escapes and giving just enough impressions of the setting without getting in the way.

I really appreciate this recording for unlocking Jeremy Jordan’s Jack for me.  Even though he has a sublime voice that’s indisputably better than young Christian Bale’s in the movie (Jordan’s singing was the only thing that kept me from hating the fairly insufferable Jimmy on Smash,) his Jack never really worked for me on the cast recording.  Somewhere between the force of the singing, the thickness of the accent, and the strength of the emotion, it just felt like too much to me.  Listening to Jack’s songs, it always seemed like he was throwing his words at me, and I kept thinking, “Geez, guy, take it easy!”  Seeing the performance that goes with the vocals, however, I get it.  It all clicks.  Jordan is obviously considerably older than the seventeen Jack is supposed to be, but he plays seventeen quite well.  The Act I closer of “Santa Fe” was a particular revelation for me.  Whereas before I heard “overwrought,” I now see a frightened kid in over his head, taking on a giant and weighed down by the knowledge that he’s the one who’s led all his friends into this potentially very-damaging crusade; he wants to run away because he’s terrified and doesn’t know what to do.  I see that now.  Jordan made me feel that.

And the ensemble… Good gracious!  As talented as the leads are, this is a show where the ensemble, working as a unit, is the true star.  They create a powerful sound with their exuberant vocals on Alan Menken's superb numbers like “Carrying the Banner,” “Seize the Day,” and “Brooklyn’s Here,” and the dancing is seriously insane.  This is the sort of show where you quickly learn to get excited when all the main characters suddenly take a seat off to the side in the middle of a song, because that means the dancers are about to tear it up; what a treat to see them onscreen.

Warnings

A little swearing, some violence, and thematic elements.

News Satire Roundup: February 26th-March 2nd

Sunday, February 26 – This week’s Trump update included his plans for cracking down on immigration and rolling back the federal guidance on schools’ treatment of trans kids – awesome.  I loved John’s line about Trump keeping his promise to “to make entire subsets of the American citizenry concerned about their safety and well-being again.”  The main story was on the Affordable Care Act:  its beneficial and problematic aspects, the extreme hate for it among many congressional Republicans, and what little has been said so far about the plan to repeal/replace it.  I appreciated John going through the phrases brought up by Paul Ryan and co., explaining what each means and what the result could be, particularly for lower-income families.  Lastly, John’s plan to cast a lobster as Neil Gorsuch in his all-dog Supreme Court (as a reminder of the partisan game-playing that will have gotten him there in the first place) was excellent.

Monday, February 27 – After a quick Oscar bit (more on that later,) we got the next chapter in the ongoing saga of Trump vs. the media, focusing was on leaks from inside the White House.  I loved the montage of Trump singing the praises of WikiLeaks back when they were to his advantage, and the bit about a secret meeting to crack down on leaks (which was immediately leaked) was great.  Roy expanded on the Oscars in a piece positing that we’re in a time of “peak Blackness,” which helped make way for Moonlight’s victory.  He had some great examples, and I loved his point about how a white film being given something a Black film had earned was instantly rectified, whereas you’d normally have to make a movie about a Black injustice to get it acknowledged.  John Oliver was the guest, and he and Trevor talked about what he sets out to do on his show compared to the verbal “eviscerations” he’s often credited with giving.

Tuesday, February 28 – I liked Trevor’s assessment of “the Conway picture,” particularly his riff on Kellyanne Conway obviously not having a Black grandmother if she puts her shoes on a couch without fear.  Next up was a good story on the unfriendly crowds that have met many GOP congressmen at town hall meetings.  Highlights included a crowd chanting “Shame!” Game of Thrones style and a 7-year-old boy wanting to know why Trump is taking funding from PBS Kids “just to build a wall.”  This led into the topic of so-called “paid protesters” and a field piece from Desi outside a town hall in Birmingham.  It went down how these pieces usually do, with people touting groundless conspiracy theories who are completely tone-deaf to the glaring contradictions in their own statements – ayiyi.  The guests, rappers Run the Jewels, discussed making music for free public consumption and being woke while maintaining rap cred.

Wednesday, March 1 – I don’t think Trump’s address was quite as presentable as Trevor made it out to be, but I really Trevor’s point here, that the “presidential-sounding” speech about optimism, cooperation, and combating hate flies in the face of most of what Trump says/does, including things he said/did earlier that day.  Trevor’s list of contradictory Trump talking points was excellent, as was the comparison with a heist movie.  In the second segment, also on Trump’s address, I appreciated Trevor for calling out how surprised and impressed the media gets whenever Trump breaks out the “presidential” routine, reminding us that this has happened before and they seem to keep falling for it.  Having CNN’s Jake Tapper as the guest continued the night’s theme, with Tapper touching on the address as well as talking about how to report in an era when saying things the president doesn’t like gets equated with being “fake news.”

Thursday, March 2 – Good opening on Africa’s Mo Ibrahim leadership prize, awarded to a leader who peaceably steps down (in theory, Trevor points out, since no African leaders did that this year.)  More on Trump and Russia, this time with Jeff Sessions getting in on the unfortunate action; I don’t even know what to do with this anymore.  All the Sessions-is-a-hobbit jokes were fun, especially Jordan reporting live from his office in the Shire.  Adam made an appearance to talk about the recent rash of anti-Semitic threats and attacks, along with the administration’s extremely overdue/tepid response.  “Hey, Jews – it’s Adam from camp” made me laugh so hard.  Evan Osnos of The New Yorker was the guest, continuing the Russia discussion.  He laid out the situation as we know it pretty well, and I liked Trevor’s observation that the biggest story so far is mostly the fact that it feels like there’s a story here that hasn’t been uncovered yet.

A Little TLC(w): He Ain’t Heavy… He’s My Father (1994)

This movie… It’s quite something, but I liked it.  It’s a bit Back to the Future meets A Christmas Carol, with just a dash of It’s a Wonderful Life thrown in for good measure.  It’s also pretty darn entertaining and offers a fairly good starring role for Tony Leung Chiu-wai.

Chor Yuen has always had a tough relationship with his father, Feng.  He blames his meager upbringing on Feng’s to-a-fault generosity, the sort of man who cheerfully allowed the family to remain in poverty while giving constant exorbitant loans to neighbors and helping muggers get a leg up in the world.  A wish made during the mid-autumn festival, a night of magic, sends Yuen back in time to the early days of his parents’ relationship.  Knowing that his mother Laura came from a wealthy family who disowned her after her marriage, Yuen schemes to change the past and better his circumstances.  But as he gets to know his parents in their youth and sees life in their struggling but vibrant tenement neighborhood, he begins to understand where his father’s indefatigable “all for one” spirit comes from, realizing that life is about more than success.

For the most part, the film falls into a fairly gentle time-travel dramedy.  The neighborhood feels real and lived-in, and there’s a nice warmth to the relationships, both the ones we see in the community and the ones that develop between Yuen and his young parents.  Much of the humor hits just the right tone – I like the understated comedy of Yuen and Feng getting lost when they meet Laura’s rich parents, and there’s a fun bit of winking contrivance surrounding $50,000.  Tony Leung Ka-fai wonderfully fills the role of Feng the eternal optimist, and Carina Lau plays Laura with a nice blend of class and down-to-earth approachability.

Be warned, there is some weirdness going on here that I don’t like.  I wish they would’ve cast different actors to play Yuen’s parents in the present-day sequences.  The old-age makeup on Tony Leung Ka-fai and Carina Lau looks tacky, and they feel like they’re exaggeratedly playing “old,” a poor contrast to their more relaxed acting in the ‘60s scenes.  Some third-act hijinks requiring disguises get rather tasteless, involving both over-the-top drag and the discomfort of seeing Chinese people “brown up” to pass themselves off as Indian.  Finally, there’s a scene that, while it doesn’t go as far as sex, still gets very unpleasant with how it treats consent.

But onto Tony Leung Chiu-wai as Yuen.  He has a talent for playing unlikable characters you can still root for, and Yuen is one of the more complex example of that type I’ve seen from him so far (he’s no Chow Mo-wan in 2046, but they can’t all be.)  Yuen is jaded and shallow, he’s hung up on what he doesn’t have, and he’s more than a bit of a conniver.  And yet, his better qualities are present often right alongside his more dubious ones.  It’s harsh when Yuen blows up at Feng for being careless with his money and not having made anything of himself, but he’s not saying it soley for himself – he also sees how rough things have been on Laura who feels she can’t stop Feng from being so irresponsible.  Similarly, while Yuen’s selfishness is a definite factor in his attempts to change the past, it also becomes increasingly indicative of how fond he’s growing of young Feng and Laura, reflecting his desire to do them a good turn.

Leung really shines here in Yuen’s gradually-developing relationship with his young parents.  He balances Yuen’s many conflicting emotions so well:  shock at actually seeing Feng and Laura in their youth (his first glimpse of Laura is a hoot,) difficulty recognizing his bickering parents in the in-love couple in front of him, wanting to resist Feng’s good-naturedness because of their fractious relationship in the present but being continually drawn in by Feng’s easy confidence and reassurance, coming to care about them as friends as well as parents, increasing guilt to think of the harsh things he said to Feng in the present.  Leung plays fantastically off of both Carina Lau and Tony Leung Ka-fai, and these are the scenes in which you really root for Yuen to get it together, where you see his potential to become a better person.

Recommend?

In General – I think so.  It’s a very imperfect movie and the start is a little rocky, but it ultimately has a lot to recommend it.  It’s a creative film with a fair amount of heart.

Tony Leung Chiu-wai – I would.  Leung does a fine job here and has terrific chemistry with his costars.

Warnings

Sexual references (including references to rape,) language, drinking, and brief violence.

Favorite Characters: Claire Temple (The Defenders)

I realized that I’m not quite sure which of Marvel’s Netflix shows Claire “belongs” to.  She first appeared on Daredevil and has had an important, if periodic, presence there, her spot on Jessica Jones is brief but memorable, and she makes her biggest showing so far in Luke Cage.  So, I’m sticking with The Defenders – Claire goes with everybody!  (Some Claire-related spoilers.)

I remember sitting up and taking notice as soon as I saw Rosario Dawson’s name in the credits for Daredevil, and right out of the gate, she doesn’t disappoint.  Claire is a woman who essentially gets Matt’s world of superhero insanity dumped in her lap.  She happens upon an injured Matt outside her building, and Claire, a nurse, realizes this is the same masked man who so many of her recent ER patients have encountered, either saving victims from further harm or giving bad guys a brutally-sound thrashing.  She decides to take him up to her apartment and treat him herself, thus beginning an odd relationship whereby she becomes the one Matt goes to when he’s broken and bleeding.

It’s a neat dynamic.  I like that, from their first meeting, Claire learns about Matt’s powers.  That’s not information he usually gives away unless he absolutely has to, but with Claire, there’s barely a second thought.  Whatever the reason, though, he picked a good person to reveal himself to.  Claire can be trusted absolutely – she’s as discreet as she is highly competent at her job, and she proves herself a valuable ally for tending to the many serious injuries that come Matt’s way when he’s being Daredevil.  She’s not easily shocked and is able to handle much of what comes her way with a level head and a steady hand.  That said, over the course of season 1, she comes to realize her dealings with Matt can’t always be about fractured ribs and stitches, she can’t always drop everything for this masked man’s crises and do whatever he needs her to, and she can’t always patch Matt up when she feels like her help is enabling him to go down a progressively darker path.  It’s not that she isn’t compassionate or that she doesn’t want to help (she is and she does, as she proves when she pretty much instantly goes to bat for a couple more superpowered strangers – Jessica and Luke – who need her help,) but she can’t just be the one on retainer for whenever Matt needs her.  She can’t just be a function within his world.

This leads Claire to some soul searching about what she wants, and when she decides to get back into the helping-superheroes game, it’s on her terms.  Running by chance into Luke again, she’s the one who approaches him, telling him a little about her experiences with Matt and deciding that this is the contribution she wants to make for good.  I just love her partnership with Luke so much.  Yes, she’s still a player in someone else’s story, but she’s making a lot more of her own moves, supporting someone else as a conscious choice rather than not wanting to say no to the bleeding vigilante on her doorstep.  With Luke, she offers the usual medical help, brainstorming workarounds for his unique physiological condition and keeping her cool in some pretty intense situations.  However, she also helps out in other ways.  She’s intuitive and resourceful, she has strong ideas, she’s ready to support Luke in whatever way he needs as he digs into his past, and near the end of the season, she gets her own non-powered chances to be a hero, protecting other civilians during a hostage crisis and generally keeping people alive until Luke can get to a place where he can take out the bad guys.  If I were a superhero, I’d have plenty of reasons to totally want Claire in my corner.