Isle Bet

Last night, I caught up with the most recent film from Wes Anderson, the animated Isle of Dogs. In an alternate version of Japan where all dogs have been exiled to a Trash Island for fear of disease, a young boy goes after his beloved four-legged friend by venturing into the forbidden zone. Anderson-ness ensues.

If you've ever seen a Wes Anderson movie, then you know what I mean by that last part. Very few filmmakers working today have as highly stylized a signature as this director -- in all the good and bad ways you can take that. On the good side, you're going to get something you couldn't get anywhere else when you watch a Wes Anderson film. It's going to be supremely artistic, with each image methodically composed as a feast for the eyes. On the other hand, style will routinely swamp substance. And you won't feel that you've "never seen anything like it before"; you did, the last time you watched a Wes Anderson movie.

I find it particularly hard to decide just what I think of Isle of Dogs. Animation does actually seem like the perfect medium for Wes Anderson -- particularly this style, as developed previously for Fantastic Mr. Fox. You can actually see how it's "fussed over," with individual hairs moving between frames of the stop motion photography. Huge landscapes are created for outrageously wide shots, filled with details you'd have to freeze frame to ever notice. Equally extreme close-ups allow you to scrutinize every last detail of the figures created for the animation. It really is gorgeous.

Still, it can also be so damn "look at me, I'm quirky!" at times. And not always in service of the story. Not incidentally, this movie does actually have an intriguing story. I'd go back and forth between thinking Wes Anderson was the perfect person to tell it and pining for the more conventional version of the same tale.

The central conceit really shines as an Anderson film. We hear dogs speak English, while all the Japanese characters speak their native language (which is not subtitled much of the time). It makes for easy access to the dogs as characters, making their matter-of-fact behavior particularly funny in contrast to the strange inscrutability of the human characters.

On the other hand, the conceit is often used as a substitute for anything approaching actual character development in the film. The main dog, Chief, goes through a totally unmotivated transformation just because three-act structure demands it. Other dogs get running jokes that pass for character traits. (Not that it isn't funny every time Duke says he's "heard a rumor," but that is literally the extent of his personality.) The movie trades on the deep bench of Wes Anderson's recurring group of actors to generate attachment.

It is, as ever, a great cast, used here in a sort of meta typecasting. Edward Norton is direct and all business. Bill Murray is lazy and laconic. Jeff Goldblum is hyper and operating at a different energy from the rest. Scarlett Johansson is the one female of any consequence in a male-dominated cast. Tilda Swinton flits briefly in and out in a bizarre contrasting role. They're all doing "the thing they're known to do in all their movies." Bryan Cranston is a newcomer to the Anderson fold, but he's humorously trading on his image to some extent too. His character is a sort of Walter White in reverse -- all prickly menace and anger, softening throughout the story.

I did waffle back and forth between finding the movie endearing and just plain weird, but I'd say it was in at least a two-to-one ratio in favor of being won over. I couldn't help but think the movie was getting in its own way some of the time, but most of the time it felt like exactly what it needed to be. I was certainly entertained. I'd grade it a tenuous B+. If you liked Fantastic Mr. Fox, this is even better. If you're not so sure on Wes Anderson, you might want to steer clear -- though I do think this is one of his best that I've seen.

DS9 Flashback: Whispers

Sometimes, when a story pulls off a really good twist, an audience is rewarded by going back to experience the tale again. The new context can make for a different, yet equally rewarding experience. This isn't always the case, though, as with the Deep Space Nine episode "Whispers."

O'Brien is fleeing in a runabout, reflecting on the circumstances that led him there. The last few days have been a slow descent into paranoia for him, with everyone aboard the station behaving oddly. Though he worries it has something to do with pending peace talks being prepared with an alien race, he can't explain how the change has come over every single person he knows -- even his own wife and daughter.

I remembered this episode of Deep Space Nine more clearly than most from the second season, because I remember it being one of the truly great episodes of the season -- a sign of the improvements to come in the series. I remember effective suspense. and a great twist I don't think anyone could have seen coming. Of course, I also specifically remembered that twist as I now watched the episode again, and that made all the difference.

I generally write these Star Trek reviews without regard to spoilers. The series are decades old, and I assume the readers who hang in with these longer-than-usual posts have watched them already. Still, it feels like I ought to throw up a warning here and say I'm totally going to spoil the twist here. It's worth noting because I did think the episode was really great the first time around, and really not the second time.

So, having honored the internet custom, let's get to it: O'Brien is a duplicate, created by aliens and sent back as a sleeper agent to sabotage the coming diplomacy. (He's actually called a "replicant," an homage to Blade Runner selected by episode writer Paul Robert Coyle because "android" felt too evocative of Data and "clone" was not accurate by his reckoning.) The episode is more or less what it appears: Invasion of the Body Snatchers. It's just that there's only one Body Snatcher. It's the main character, and he doesn't know it. The weird behavior he sees in everyone else is their reaction to his potential alienness.

This is a really fun premise that I think collapses under even the slightest scrutiny -- which is, of course, exactly what you give it when you watch it a second time. First, the replicant technology is overpowered and/or underused. If aliens have the ability to read the mind of O'Brien and transfer it into a replicant with such fidelity that even the copy thinks he's real, why do they even need to do that? Is O'Brien's knowledge itself somehow not enough to carry off the espionage they have in mind? What's the sleeper agent going to do that's so much more effective? Indeed, to make the audience believe everyone else is "possessed" and O'Brien is the hero, we don't see O'Brien do anything nefarious, making him basically the least effective sleeper agent ever.

The far bigger problem, though, is that the weird behavior of everyone else in the episode makes no more sense once you actually know the twist. While you can understand why our heroes might not take the word of "some strange aliens" at face value, the measures they take to contain a major security threat are just this shy of non-existent. Even short of throwing O'Brien in the brig (which, obviously, would be pretty terrible if there's any reasonable chance they're wrong about him), they could be more insistent and more exhaustive with Dr. Bashir's tests. They could relieve him of duty. There's some hand waving at the end about how they didn't know what the replicant would do if found out, but it's hard to believe those consequences could be worse than letting him roam the station.

In a way, the entire episode becomes a Keiko episode once you know the twist, and if anything, she's underreacting more than anyone. She could declare a sudden trip to Earth to see family, anything to avoid sleeping at night next to someone who might suddenly kill her and her daughter, for all she knows. Instead, she hangs in there (understandably shifty and weird) until... at some point I guess everyone gets confirmation that O'Brien is a replicant?

The atmosphere of the piece works even if the logistics don't, with several great scenes. The dinner where Miles wonders if maybe his own wife is poisoning him is wonderfully tense, framed in unusual, super-tight closeups. The behavior change of Odo is creepy, between when O'Brien first gets to him and later "everyone else" has. There are also fun little bits of character sprinkled throughout -- from learning about O'Brien (his mother died, his father remarried, his birthday is in September) to getting concentrated doses of quintesstial hothead Kira and science-mode Dax when O'Brien listens to their log entries.

Other moments don't work so great. The framing device of having O'Brien narrate his last few days in a log are dull -- and, as it turns out, originally unplanned. The first script reportedly came in short, and without the option to cut away from O'Brien to other characters (whose conversations would give the twist away), the writers came up with the flashback structure as a way of padding the page count. Unfortunately, it feels like a detective device, a film noir element, which is very much a different style than the "body snatchers" vibe the story is trying for. The action at the end is rather languidly paced too, between small sets (that don't really allow running) and generically dry music (as dictated by producer Rick Berman's sensibilities about how Star Trek music should sound).

Other observation:

• Well, not so much as observation as some research I did: another way of padding the episode -- but one more grounded in established character -- was to have O'Brien calm himself in the runabout by singing "Minstrel Boy" (a callback to the Next Generation episode "The Wounded"). What, you don't remember this in the episode? Apparently, an error in the script had him naming the wrong shuttle chasing him during the scene. They filmed the mistake, and couldn't cut around it or go back for a re-shoot, so the entire sequence was cut.

My memory from the first time around was that this was going to be an A- episode. I was shocked and dismayed to find it only a C+ on the rewatch. Maybe that should average out to a B or something, but the fact is it simply doesn't hold up like so many other Deep Space Nines.

How Mysterious

Board games often share mechanisms with one another. "It's just like [that], but with this little twist" is a common and easy way to explain many games. That's hardly a criticism; sometimes that little twist is the secret sauce that makes a truly great experience. Sometimes, though, it's truly remarkable what ingredients go into the blender of creativity.

For example: imagine Dixit crossed with Clue. As a co-op game. I couldn't have. But Oleksandr Nevskiy and Oleg Sidorenko did. And thus, we get Mysterium.

Mysterium casts one player as a "ghost" trying to help all the other players solve their murder by communicating with them from beyond the grave via cryptic visions. Three groups of illustrated cards are placed face-up in groupings before the players: suspects, locations, and weapons. (There's always at least one more than the number of "mentalists"; the difficulty ramps up -- a lot -- the more you use.) Behind a secret screen, the ghost has one card from each grouping assigned to each of the players, and must guide each player to their cards one by one.

The guidance is accomplished through another Dixit-style deck of strange, dream-like illustrations that nonsensically combine random imagery. The ghost can't give verbal clues. They just take hand out their cards to each player, giving everyone cards that are somehow meant to lead the players each to their own suspect, then location, then weapon. You have to be ready to make intuitive leaps and go on instinct, because the "perfect clue" is pretty much never there.

If all players successfully identify their three cards in seven rounds or less, then a final round ascertains which player's accumulated cluster is the actual solution to the mystery. The whole group wins if the players get that correct.

It's hard to imagine having playtested this game without the final components in hand. So much of what makes it tick is the random collages that are each of the ghost's clue cards. (Maybe they tested with a Dixit deck before commissioning the final artwork?) It's delightfully frustrating, in the most fun way, to try to derive the ghost's meaning from imprecise clues. Group discussion can be both an ally and an enemy. I've played as a mentalist and have had fun. I've played as the ghost and have had fun discovering that it's way harder than it looks.

The whole affair is intriguingly clever, the experience quite entertaining. Hell, it feels part "escape room" too, so long as I'm comparing it to other things. And the rulebook even offers up some suggestions for extra atmosphere, like playing spooky music or literally forbidding the ghost from speaking for the duration of the game.

I'm usually willing to play a game of Dixit with a group, even though it's hardly a personal favorite. But there's something in the extra elements, added challenge, and teamwork of Mysterium that I find much more compelling. I'd give it a B+. I hope it has some staying power in my gaming group.

Titanic

This weekend, I caught a lightweight bit of fun at my local theater, Teen Titans Go! To the Movies. It's a jump to the big screen for the Cartoon Network series about goof-off superheroes hanging around their fortress between their superheroics. (It's a series I've actually only caught on occasion, but has definitely made me laugh.)

Teen Titans Go! To the Movies is delightfully meta, as team leader Robin laments not having a superhero movie of his own and sets out to make one happen. DC allows the characters to be goofy and irreverent, much as with The LEGO Batman Movie, and with similar results. That is, the movie is both pretty funny, and actually manages to be better than all the "official" DC superhero fare of the last decade (outside of Wonder Woman).

On the one hand, it is very much a movie for kids (and adults who sometimes act like them). Early on, you get the longest fart joke I've seen since Blazing Saddles. Later on, there's an even longer poop joke that keeps getting one-upped. There's plenty in between aimed at the same demographic. (But don't pretend you aren't laughing at least a little.)

The big reward -- as has been the case with Warner Bros. animation for decades and decades -- comes in being an adult who pays attention between the slapstick. There's just as much humor in the movie (maybe more) that will sail right over the kids' heads. Plenty of it is referential. None of it is deferential or reverential; biting the hand that feeds you is this movie's brand. It mocks the tropes of superhero films with glee (all while actually being a decent one itself, of course).

The core voice cast of the show is there to voice their established characters (Greg Cipes, Scott Menville, Khary Payton, the omnipresent Tara Strong, and Hynden Walch). Joining them are two bigger names no stranger to animation -- Will Arnett (LEGO Batman himself) and Kristen Bell. There's also a raft of great cameos and casting of minor characters.

Is it one of the best things I've seen all year? No. But it delivers exactly the fun it promises. And, at a moment when even Marvel has mostly swerved into self-seriousness, it comes at just the right time. I give Teen Titans Go! To the Movies a B.

Invasive Reading

I've previously written about how I don't like Terry Brooks novels as much as I did when I discovered them as a teenager -- and how they made such an impact on me then that I keep reading them anyway. So, another year, another new book. His most recent release is The Skaar Invasion, the second of four books in The Fall of Shannara, a series meant to conclude the story of his long-running Shannara fantasy setting.

After this second book, it does certainly seem as though I'm going to get the closure I'm hoping for out of this series. Shannara has always been both serial and episodic, with Brooks releasing new connected trilogies all the time, but skipping decades and centuries in between. It didn't strike me as needing an overall "end point"; I figured that he could just eternally keep time jumping to new stories. But this new book (and this now halfway-complete set) has legitimately made it feel like a capital-E Ending is coming.

Plot moves are big this time around. Long-established elements of his fantasy world are being upended and destroyed. Callbacks to earlier books in the series abound -- and they feel quite deliberate this time, rather than the unintentional self-repetition of a long-time author. Yeah, okay, I'm onboard, the Shannara books could have an ultimate conclusion, and Brooks is doing a good job in constructing it.

That said, the story is big and largely satisfying, but the writing itself far less so. The characters all feel rather shallow, lacking enough to truly separate them from one another, and even less to separate them from similar archetypes Brooks creates in basically every new set of books he writes. There are, as ever in his work, tacked-on romances without any true sense of passion. Lengthy narrations masked as character introspection (from characters who don't seem like they should be so self-aware). Not enough personality revealed through action rather than thought.

This book was not a dense read, but it nevertheless took me a couple of weeks to get through it. The experience was a weird combination of not entirely enjoying it, while being engaged by the boldness of the some story moves and curious to see what would happen next. It's an experience I haven't really had with a book since years ago when I tore through a few Dan Brown novels and then just as quickly gave up reading any more.

That this novel, and Brooks, seem to be on a clear path to closure (and that there's enough promise in the plotting to suggest it's going to be worthwhile) tips the balance for me into calling this a B- book, rather than the some-level-of-C I'd give it if I were being more influenced by the writing itself. Still, I have a couple of friends who have also read lots of Terry Brooks -- and who have given him up -- and I'm not yet rushing to tell them they should give this series a try.

We'll see if he sticks the landing.

Block Party

The movie Blockers is a new spin on an old premise. On the surface, it's stamped from the same mold as countless other teen sex comedies, with a plot spurred in motion by three high school students who make a pact with one another to lose their virginities. From there, it takes two big departures. First, the teens are all female instead of male. Second, the real focus of the movie is on the parents who learn about the prom night pact and set out to stop it.

The changes count for a lot. It's not just a balancing of the scales, "girls can like sex too" move to have teen girls make the pact. It actually lets the movie mine some new comedic ground that's largely untouched by the movies that came before. And it's an even bigger twist to not have the parents be clueless figures at the periphery of the story. Putting them front and center actually makes for an entirely different movie.

Blockers is a bit slow getting started, which is a little odd as there really isn't that complicated a story to set up here. But it does pay off later, as the characters do matter here. Each of the three teens has her own unique character arc: one is looking to "go to the next level" with a long time boyfriend, one is just looking for a warm body to check off a box on the schedule of her life, and one is going along with the group to remain closeted as a lesbian.

Similarly, the three parents chasing their daughters each have their own angle. One is a life-long single mom afraid she's losing her connection to her baby girl, one is an overprotective father (whose wife actually doesn't agree with his attitude on the pact), and one is a father trying to be there in a way he hasn't since a bitter divorce. It's actually a rather carefully constructed narrative when you take a look at it. The characters aren't a simple framework for delivering jokes, they're actually a well-stocked toolbox for offering a range of perspectives.

But soon the movie does get up to speed, and it is primarily a comedy. There are hits and misses, of course, but more hits overall. The cast is led by Leslie Mann, John Cena, and Ike Barinholtz, and they make an effective comic trio. Some other reliable comic actors pop up throughout, including Hannibal Buress, June Diane Raphael, and (cast rather against his past comedic roles) Gary Cole.

I wasn't quite as taken with Blockers as I was recently with another comedy from earlier this year, Game Night. Still, it was enjoyable and fun. I give Blockers a B-. It's worth checking out if you're in the mood for something light and silly.

Cabin Pressure

Hello, readers! I have returned from GenCon (and have recovered enough to start getting back into a routine here). I figured I'd get started with the book that occupied my flight there and back, a new horror novel from Paul Tremblay called The Cabin at the End of the World.

This is possibly one of those books that's better experienced the less you know about it. It's also a very slim read, at just over 200 pages, so there's really not much hinting at the plot without digging well between the covers. Try this: a married couple, Andrew and Eric, rent a cabin far out of the way in New England, taking their adopted daughter Wen for a vacation. A group of four strangers arrive and proceed to torment the family. But it is not their wish to inflict physical harm; instead they bring an emotional torment, over what they say the family must do.

This is one of those books that seems tailor-made to become a movie. It's a compulsive page turner, and has a very tight unity of time, place, and action. Sure enough, I checked and it's already been optioned by a studio and is in development. (Getting strong reviews and endorsements from the likes of Stephen King will do that.) Tremblay's writing is strong in how it conveys a sense of space, and it's easy to roll a version of a film on the movie screen in your mind.

The scenario posed in the book will definitely strike fear into many readers. It goes right to the core of a parent's anxiety over protecting their child, and punches repeatedly. The opening pages in particular are a rather masterful unveiling of slow, creeping dread that definitely hooked me for the whole book.

The fact that the protagonists are a gay couple with an adopted daughter is definitely a plus. Though the character back stories do make this a salient point in the narrative, the simple fact is it didn't have to be this way. Tremblay could have chosen any couple with one child and written this book largely the same. It's representation done exactly right -- these characters are in their situation and also are gay; it doesn't define them or the story.

But there are some quirks to Tremblay's writing style that chipped away at my enthusiasm. Flashbacks and current action are interwoven tightly throughout the novel, but always with a shift between present tense and past tense verbage that always caused me a mental bump in the transition. He plays even more fast and loose with shifts in narrative perspective. Chapter headings identify a "perspective character," but the line is definitely blurred between how omniscient vs. subjective the writing gets. Things get very strange later in the book when two characters share perspective in a chapter; the actual sentence structure goes first person with strange "we"s and "us"s, implying odd, simultaneous thought. For me, at least, this does not work at all.

And one final word of warning. You need to be comfortable with ambiguity if you read this book. It is very much the nature of this story that you're never supposed to be sure what the the Real Truth is. Different characters have very different takes on it. There's a logical explanation that works, and a quite fanciful one. There are offshoots from the main narrative similarly steeped in uncertainty. And you will not get closure on all of it. I absolutely get what Tremblay is going for here. It fits the tone of the book, and in theory leaves readers to fill in the gaps. I'm also not certain I felt completely satisfied in the end.

But the story is, undeniably, suspenseful and chilling. I deliberately picked up the book without learning much about it, after simply hearing it was effectively horrific. On that promise, it delivers fully. I give The Cabin at the End of the World a B.

DS9 Flashback: Armageddon Game

The pairing of Chief O'Brien and Dr. Bashir got a sort of "trial run" in the first season episode "The Storyteller." But it was in the second season episode "Armageddon Game" that they were truly put on the path to friendship.

A pair of alien races have put aside a long history of war, and are now seeking Federation help in destroying their deadly biological weapons known as Harvesters. Julian Bashir and Miles O'Brien help with this, only to be hunted by the aliens themselves. Meanwhile, the crew back on Deep Space Nine is told that Bashir and O'Brien have been killed in an accident -- a claim that at first only Keiko O'Brien is inclined to doubt.

Writer Morgan Gendel (a semi-regular contributor, though not a member of the staff) pitched the germ of this episode. Aliens seeking to destroy a weapon would encode the specs as living DNA inside Miles O'Brien, then seek to kill him to destroy the weapon. Gendel says he was unaware of another episode from Deep Space Nine that had already played with the idea of living memory, so the pitch had to be changed. (He's talking about "Dramatis Personae." On the surface, I hardly see the similarities.)

Show runner Michael Piller shaped most of the finished episode. He asked for a "chase movie," and inspired Gendel to watch films like Midnight Run and North by Northwest before delivering the next draft. Unfortunately, that led to... well... a movie -- a script with too many locations, models, and more to be produced on a television budget. Staff writer Ira Steven Behr joked that that's how the episode then became "a chase movie on one set." In a very late weekend rewrite, Bashir and O'Brien's escape just took them directly to an abandoned building where they holed up for the entire episode.

The result isn't entirely memorable overall in terms of plot. The episode really does need some of that excitement and thrill that the chase would have offered. There are also elements that just don't make much sense. Bashir is able to cure the infected O'Brien from death's door when they're ultimately rescued. But if curing the Harvester disease is this easy, why not just give that cure to the aliens to solve their problems? Is it really plausible that these rivals who distrust each other this much could hatch a plan against the Federation together? (Hmmm... maybe it is? If you have a reputation for pacifism as much as the Federation, you'd had to believe you could do a lot to provoke them without actually risking reprisal.)

On the other hand, the episode does allow room for a lot of great character material between Bashir and O'Brien. We get a fun variation on the trope of the "doctor who has to explain how to doctor to the non-doctor" -- the infected and dying engineer must explain engineering to the non-engineer. Meanwhile, the two get into deeply personal discussions about their outlooks on life. Bashir reveals a story about a true love from his past that he lost in favor of pursuing his career. It helps to humanize him a great deal, suggesting that perhaps his constant hounddoggery isn't young male aggression, but a deliberate effort to hold any new real connection at arm's length. He and O'Brien debate whether marriage and a family are truly compatible with a Starfleet career. O'Brien cares so deeply about it that even as he thinks he's going to die, he spends his dying breaths on trying to change Julian's mind.

While the episode never for a minute tries to make the audience believe these two have been killed (probably wisely), it nevertheless plays the impact of that for everyone back on the station. It makes for several more great moments. Quark pays a heartfelt (if odd to "hew-mons") tribute to the two, giving out free drinks in honor of his "good customers." Sisko delivers the news of Miles' death to Keiko in person, and the scene has weight because of the loss we know Benjamin himself experienced with his wife.

It's a good episode for guest star Rosalind Chao as Keiko. After a numb reaction to the news, she digs in and won't believe her husband is dead. There are plenty of ways to read this, and only Chao could say for certain what she had in mind. But episode director Winrich Kolbe claims that he discussed options with her, and that she is ultimately playing guilt. Keiko thinks she didn't work hard enough at the marriage, and thus isn't willing to consider that it's over. That certainly has dramatic heft, if you choose to see it that way. In any case, I think it's a bit sad that they "womp, womp" Keiko at the end by having her be wrong about the detail she latched onto, that led her to think the video of the accident had been forged.

Other observations:

• Instead of wacky foreheads like most Star Trek aliens have, these aliens get wacky hairdos. So wacky, in fact, that writer Ira Steven Behr joked that the real conflict between the aliens must have originally started "because of the hairstyles." But the hair department had the last laugh, scoring an Emmy nomination for this episode in Outstanding Individual Achievement in Hairstyling for a Series.

• We get a fun callback to O'Brien's love of Starfleet military rations.

• Bashir mentions that he gave his medical school diaries to Dax to read. Given what the writers would decide (much later) to do with Bashir's character, it seems this was probably a pretty epic forgery.

• Runabouts are starting to drop like flies now.

The story is a bit lackluster, but the episode does extremely well by the characters. So, all told, I give "Armageddon Game" a B.

Reviewing the Fallout

The newest installment in the Mission: Impossible series, Fallout, is being touted by many as the best of them all. That's a hard one for me to judge. These movies are a real cotton candy confection -- they're often tasty and satisfying to consume, but they instantly evaporate into nothingness. I remember liking the most recent two films, but today I couldn't tell you much about them. There's an underwater sequence in... Ghost Protocol, right? Tom Cruise hangs off the side of a plane in Rogue Nation, definitely -- that's on all the posters. The plot? Hmmmm.....

This hard-to-remember quality, combined with the long breaks between new films being released, is particularly tricky for this new installment, as it's a direct sequel to Rogue Nation. The villain is the same, the array of heroes is mostly the same, there's clear memory and history in their behavior with each other, and there are several mentions of past events. On the one hand, I find it refreshing that all this stuff matters in a big action film; on the other hand, I hadn't prepped with any "homework" of re-watching the earlier films, and just sort of had to roll with the punches.

Even if there had been no attempt at a meaningful story, though, Fallout would have delivered some solid visceral thrills. The action sequences are really a cut above this time around, very cleverly conceived. As per usual in this series, many of the stunts are filmed for real with little or no CG trickery, adding an extra visual jolt. The "mission" this time around leads very organically to the action, too. You know that movies like this are usually reverse-engineered: what sort of story can connect these two set pieces we've come up with? But Fallout doesn't feel like this at all, with action seeming to spring naturally from where the adventure leads.

I do think perhaps some of the action could have been more tightly edited, though. Exhilarating premises that start strong sometimes sputter before concluding. For example, there are two chases through the streets of Paris in the middle of the movie. Each one is rather long, and while another sequence changes the tempo between the two, they feel of a piece -- a piece that has you checking your watch after a while. The climax has similar problems. It's conceived wonderfully, breaking up the team and putting each person in the middle of their own simultaneous jeopardy. But it has a literal ticking clock that's meant to up the ante, and the actual time it all takes feels like nearly twice what's shown.

Still, if I believe myself and the ratings I gave the last few Mission: Impossible films (and I'd like to think I can), this indeed is the best of the franchise. I wish I could remember them all better, but I can say I definitely enjoyed this one. Smarter than most action fare, coming off more intense and more real (while being playful about the moments it's not realistic), Mission: Impossible -- Fallout is a fun ride. I give it a B+.

Out in the Colt

Colt Express is a board game with an inspired theme and great components to support it. Players are train robbers in the Old West, competing against each other to steal the most loot and become the greatest outlaw.

It's played across a series of train cars -- cleverly designed cardboard fold-ups that make large 3D pieces. Importantly, the inside and top of each car is visible. That's so the game can play out that fun cinematic cliche of running across the top of a train. You jump in and out of windows, climb ladders, and race between cars. A deck of cards simulates sudden braking of the train, going through tunnels, and other events that cause things to happen to your figures each round.

You're all shooting at each other and getting into fistfights, too. Whenever you take damage, a dead card is inserted into your tiny deck, which can effectively decrease your hand size and your options as you plan during each new round. A roaming sheriff figure on the train will also squeeze off shots at you, to the same damaging effect.

Up to this point, I'm mostly on board with the game. Beyond that point? Well... it starts to get a bit like RoboRally, and not in such a good way. Every round, you "program" four cards to represent the actions you'll take. Only after everyone has chosen their actions do you then reveal cards one at a time and see what really happens. There are a lot of ways the other players can interfere with your carefully laid plans. They can move the sheriff to your location, causing you damage and driving you onto the roof of the train. They can swipe the limited available loot before you can grab it. They can shoot you and inflict damage, or punch you and force you to drop loot you've gathered.

It's ultimately quite chaotic, and to me more than a little frustrating. RoboRally dilutes the frustration around the chaos in a few key ways. First, the boards are rather large, and players can place the "checkpoints" you must reach in places with more than one approach. In short, there's room to maneuver without inevitably and constantly being on top of the other players. But in Colt Express, there are only a few train cars and really nowhere to run.

Second, RoboRally's interference comes from the board just as often as the other players. Sure, a player messing with you is often what starts your troubles, but it often feels like forces out of anyone's control take over after that -- the conveyor belts, gears, and other obstacles printed on the boards. In Colt Express, all your difficulties are inflicted by one player or another -- even the movement of the sheriff pawn.

All in all, the "take that!" element of Colt Express is dialed up awfully high for my tastes. It's a fun distillation of a very specific setting, conjuring exactly the visuals it sets out to conjure. I'm simply not a fan of this much direct attacking on other players in board games. I can imagine plenty of gamers out there who would find it a real triumph. And by leaps and bounds, it's better than other combative competition games that leave me cold. Still, it's not one I'd want in my collection. I grade Colt Express a C.

DS9 Flashback: The Alternate

Over on Star Trek: The Next Generation, the writers had mined a lot of material from estranged family members in general (and, in the case of Data and Riker, fathers in particular). It was only a matter of time before the same lens would be applied to the Deep Space Nine characters.

Mora Pol, the Bajoran scientist who studied Odo's first efforts to shapeshift, arrives on Deep Space Nine. He's discovered evidence of a planet in the Gamma Quadrant that may point to Odo's origins, but a survey of the world turns up only a mysterious obelisk and a deadly gas that nearly kills the away team. The obelisk is taken to the station for study, but it turns out not to be the only thing brought back -- a less-evolved shapeshifter seems to have tagged along. Soon, dangerous attacks are occurring all over the station. But Doctor Mora suspects the attacks are in fact very much connected to Odo.

There's an intriguing gap between where the idea of this episode originated and where it ended up. Writer Jim Trombetta thought it would be fun to explore what would happen if a shapeshifter suffered from multiple personality disorder. A very literal take on this, exploring what happens when someone actually and completely becomes a different person, could have been quite compelling. The final product feels rather watered down from that, a simple take on Jekyll and Hyde.

The episode does have a bit of fun along the way, though, in setting up red herrings. You're made to think that a rogue shapeshifter is loose on the station, taking the form of people we know. Odo's story about the first time he shifted, to copy something he saw, hints at this possibility. The title of the episode itself, "The Alternate," suggests it. Dax's inexplicably weird behavior toward the alien obelisk in one key scene practically screams it.

But the most effective material in the episode is the family drama. While Odo contends in this episode that Doctor Mora is not his father, the relationship we see between the two feels very much like one of father and son. Mora expresses a very fatherly pride in Odo's accomplishments. He can't let Odo tell a story without jumping in enthusiastically to finish it (without picking up on Odo's annoyance at being interrupted). He wants to know everything about Odo's "adult" life. He speaks of the day "Odo moved out" with wistful regret.

In the end, Mora's instincts as a scientist give way to his instincts as a parent. When he figures out that the rogue shifter on the station is really an alter ego of Odo, he tries using fear to corral Odo back into the lab for experimentation. But when he sees firsthand how far gone Odo really is, and reflects on how repressed anger might have played a big role in that, Mora is suddenly willing to sacrifice himself for his "son." There may not be a blood relationship here, but it feels like a nuanced and realistic adoptive relationship.

Much of what makes this relationship work is the solid performance from guest star James Sloyan. He was a reliable, veteran Star Trek player, having already portrayed the Romulan Jarok on The Next Generation. (He would also play the future version of Worf's son Alexander in an episode made not long after this one.) Casting Sloyan wasn't the first thought, though. When the script was developed, it was imagined that Rene Auberjonois would have a dual role in the episode, playing his own "father" (much as Brent Spiner played Noonien Soong). The Odo makeup was a time-consuming application, however, too much to produce the episode on schedule with Auberjonois in both roles. The one nod to the dual-casting that survived was the styling of Mora's hair to match Odo's, suggesting the constable modeled his appearance on the doctor's.

Though Odo and Mora are the focus of the episode, we get a little bit of another father/son relationship: more quality parenting by Benjamin Sisko of Jake. They have a fun and timeless debate over the value of learning things in school that don't seem important -- Klingon opera, in this case. Jake challenges his father as teenagers will, and Benjamin is essentially cornered into whipping out "because I said so" as parents so often will.

Other relationships in the episode don't compare too favorably to the father/son stuff. Miles O'Brien admits to frequently lying to his wife, as he believes she wouldn't want to know the truth of how dangerous his work sometimes is. It doesn't feel like a model spousal relationship to me. Elsewhere, Bashir is again trying to land a date with Dax. We haven't really seen Bashir be this smarmy in season two, but suddenly it seems we aren't quite over this rather unlikable season one character trait of him endlessly pursuing someone who has rejected him.

Other observations:

• In one more angle on fatherhood, Sisko mentions his own dad in a story he tells Odo. The strong implication is that Sisko's father fell ill and died -- though this isn't made totally explicit, and the writers would end up going another way in future seasons.

• Special effects supervisor Glenn Neufeld was displeased with the episode overall, arguing (somewhat accurately) that too much of the "monster" was shown to the audience, deflating the tension and scariness.

There are flaws throughout this episode, but the compelling relationship between Odo and his "father" redeem it overall. I give "The Alternate" a B.

Neighborly

Most documentary films are released in obscurity. A handful get a limited release in a few art house theaters. Very few make it to the local multiplex. But then, most documentaries aren't about beloved icon Mister Rogers, like the new Won't You Be My Neighbor? It's been receiving quite a warm reception, and I decided to check it out for myself.

As a kid, I loved Mister Rogers. I have only vague memories of watching him, but my Mom assured me I did so all the time -- sometimes the same episode multiple times as it ran throughout a day. My Mom has also told me that of the various shows I was that deeply into, Mister Rogers was one she never quite got. And watching some clips from it as part of this documentary, I could sort of see why.

There's a way to read Mister Rogers that isn't great. He's slow-paced and sing-songy, often repetitive. It can seem condescending and numbing. He was an ordained minister and a life-long Republican -- two things that send up an immediate red flag to anyone today interested in tolerance and equality. (Though before the 1960s, the Republican party was nothing like it is today.)

But that read is through a cynical, adult eye. Watching this documentary really puts you back in the mindset of a child, and shows you what made Mister Rogers so appealing and great. He really just "got" kids. He wasn't talking down to them, he was drawing them out in a way that made them want to talk up to him. It seems no subject was off the table. In his show, he'd tackle big issues like racism, assassination, divorce, and depression. And in a laudable example, his religion led him to be an open, loving, and accepting human being truly striving to leave the world better than he found it.

Through clips of the show, interviews with cast mates and family members, and news highlights, the documentary weaves an inspirational portrait of Fred Rogers. Some moments are quite impactful. The movie screened in a tiny theater, but nearly every seat in that space was full, and on several occasions I could hear muffled sobbing from all around.

The movie only briefly draws comparisons between Mister Rogers' show and the television of today. It doesn't too explicitly make a point contrasting the overall tone of culture and communication today. Nevertheless, that's the big takeaway you get from the movie. Remember when there was something, someone like this in the world? Wasn't it good? I suppose those sentiments are a hallmark of growing old. Indeed, it was an older audience, with me among the youngest in the theater. But the film shows you examples of how Fred Rogers gentle approach won people over, even people who started out adversarial. It doesn't seem nostalgic or silly to want to see that in the world again.

So I suppose, in its own small way, Won't You Be My Neighbor? is a tiny little voice encouraging the people who see it to try to be better -- in whatever form that takes. It's an obvious but sometimes necessary message. Worth seeing, and taking to heart. I give the documentary a B+.

Charter? I Hardly Know 'Er!

This weekend, after a month or so of regular plays, my gaming group completed the 12-game campaign of the legacy game Charterstone.

Charterstone is a worker placement game by Jamey Stegmaier, the designer of another worker placement game I quite enjoy: Viticulture. Instead of real-world wine-making, Charterstone is simulating the construction of a village in a fantasy land, at the behest of the always-cranky Forever King. Each of up to 6 players has an area of their board, their "charter," in which they will focus their efforts to develop the village and their strategy.

Of course, as a legacy game, Charterstone is made to be played multiple times, with permanent changes and additions to the game accumulating from one play to the next. The game leans into this with extensive stickering of the board, and many reveals of new components and mechanisms. Where it doesn't lean into it so much is in the story. Fans of earlier games in the legacy genre may expect a detailed plot with twists and turns along the way. Charterstone has only a little more story than a non-legacy worker placement game, which is to say it has a threadbare wrapper that provides logic and context for the actions players take, and little more.

For the first one or two playthroughs, fans of worker placement games might find Charterstone a little unsatisfying. As in Viticulture, the act of placing a single worker is rather simple and doesn't yield much, and you have to build to big things over time. But, this being a legacy game, the range of things you can do is quite constrained at the start. Some critics have likened the first few games to feeling like a "tutorial," which isn't an entirely unfair comparison.

Once you get a few games in, though, Charterstone reveals a detailed array of options that really engaged my play group. One mechanic in particular (which I suppose I shouldn't go too much into, as you could call that a spoiler) really leads to more power in each player's hands, and also offers up some intriguing strategic variations. If this were a conventional worker placement game, it would be the mechanic that sold me on it being worthwhile, fun, and distinct.

The legacy design of Charterstone doesn't force new mechanics into the game on its own with any regularity. This is both a plus and a minus. The designer has abdicated on pushing new mechanics onto the players at a particular pace, or walling players off from unlocking things too quickly. Some may think the experience should have been more curated. On the other hand, with the players free to progress at whatever pace they're comfortable with, the game really will be different from one group to the next. My group pushed pretty hard, and by the time game 2 was winding down, we were really finding it to be a fun experience.

Buildings change and grow in power, and your strategy changes with it. But the board is large enough that your focus will naturally drift to the the things in your "charter." Furthermore, a few late story developments also push hard on the players and discourage them from looking toward other players' charters. This actually works against the game, possibly making it peak around game 10. Players who've struggled through the overall campaign won't have the most efficient engine in their own charter, and focusing there will continue to be a losing proposition. Players who have found and built an exciting engine in their own charter will feel no incentive to look elsewhere for another. The overall campaign scoring is set up in such a way that you're not completely out of it just because you didn't win individual games. Still, if you've finished last a bunch? You may feel you have no hope with still more games to go.

I don't mean to sound too down on it, because our group did like it overall. We'd all consider picking up the "recharge pack" to start the campaign again from scratch. We'd probably also give a go at using the game's "evergreen" rules to play with the board we ended up with after the campaign.(I'm a bit skeptical of that playing well. Though even if it turned out not to be good, we got what we wanted out of the legacy experience).

In all, there are plenty of clever ideas here, and for around 8 games of the 12-game campaign, it's in a real sweet spot that had us all looking forward to the next time we played. Eight fun playthroughs of the same game is a real accomplishment in my group, which is always pushing ahead to the new. Worker placement fans will probably want to check out Charterstone. Fans of a more story-driven legacy experience, hoping for choices that impact more than just mechanics, may have reason to be more cautious. Overall, I'd grade the experience a B+.

Express Yourself

Having already seen two different adaptations of Murder on the Orient Express, it was fairly easy for me to skip the new version released last year. But it turned out that my husband had neither seen one nor read the book. Between his curiosity and my interest in what looked to be a stellar cast, as was up for seeing what Kenneth Branagh had to offer.

It's very hard not to talk about this version without drawing comparisons to previous ones, because the overall story isn't changed that much. Nor should it have been. This is the most famous of the Hercule Poirot mysteries written by Agatha Christie, and to touch a word of it without explicitly branding it as a "re-imagining" or "updating" (a la Sherlock) would be sacrilege. The flip side of that, of course, is that if you know whodunit, there's probably not much here for you. This story hasn't got much on its side besides the unusual reveal.

This adaptation in particular does a particularly poor job at injecting more than that. First, it's only really interested in two characterizations: Poirot and (very very minor spoiler here) the victim, Ratchett. On the latter front, a suitable amount of effort is put into making Ratchett a thoroughly detestable figure, which pays off in giving all the suspects ample motive for murder. You might even argue there's a meta component to seeing Johnny Depp in the role. Between the abuse allegations surrounding his divorce and some truly terrible movies he's made of late, the shine has faded from his star. There may even be some who'd thrill in him receiving a vicarious comeuppance like this.

As for Branagh's interpretation of Poirot, I'm not sure what to make of it. I recall past versions as being fastidious but not off-putting. Poirot and Sherlock Holmes are the two titans of classic detective fiction, of course, and I always felt there was just enough daylight between them to make room for both. This version of Poirot invites armchair diagnosis. His particular habits are obsessive-compulsive at the very least, and possibly some manifestation of autism. It's as though the screen writer saw the modern takes on Holmes as a functioning sociopath and decided it was necessary to tweak Poirot in similar fashion. But in doing so, I believe it erased whatever minor differences between the characters there was. This movie's Poirot is Holmes with a mustache instead of a Watson.

This isn't the only change made to "modernize" the film. Though it remains set in the period in which it was written, the 1930s, Branagh (in his other role, as director) works hard to try to "open up" the film. There are sweeping establishing shots of the vistas in which the train travels. There are conspicuously long single takes with complicated camera moves that call attention to themselves -- generating interest in wondering how they might have been accomplished?

Once the train is stopped, several scenes take place outside, apparently just to create some visual diversity. These fail on several levels. The combination of green-screening and limited sets is unconvincing and far from seamless. The absence of visible breath belies the notion that they're trapped in snowy mountains. And stepping off the train at all deflates the inherent claustrophobia and tension of the mystery itself -- you know, the "we're trapped on a train with a murderer" part of the story.

In the movie's defense, it does have an impeccable cast. I may have reservations about this rendition of Poirot, but as a performance, Branagh commits with gusto. The passengers/suspects include Penélope Cruz, Willem Dafoe, Judi Dench, Josh Gad, Derek Jacobi, Leslie Odom Jr., Michelle Pfeiffer, Daisy Ridley, and Olivia Colman. Given only the tiniest morsel to work with in most cases, each makes the most of it. The performances here feel considerably more precise and refined than what I remember in either of the other adaptations.

Yet, ultimately, I'd recommend either of the other movies over this one... and ultimately, I suppose, the 1974 classic. Though in theory more modern acting would make the tale more accessible to a modern audience, the star of Murder on the Orient Express is meant to be the story itself. And it's presented in a more compelling, less compromised way in that 44-year-old film. I'd give this new adaptation a C.

A Celebration for the Dead

In reviewing Incredibles 2 last week, I mentioned that I'd recently caught up on another Pixar film I hadn't yet seen. That was last year's Coco, the story of a young boy's adventure through the Land of the Dead.

The movie didn't make the strongest impression on me right at first. It seemed a bit slow to get started, largely owing to a lot of exposition that has to be conveyed. (And which isn't always done in the most organic way.) The film is trying to place the audience in another culture that won't be readily familiar to everyone, and it's also setting into motion an atypically complex plot for an animated movie. There's a lot of track to lay before this train gets rolling.

Patience is rewarded here tremendously. Once the story really gets rolling, it's fantastic. It's a sweeping adventure, yet also intensely personal. It's dramatic and emotional, but doesn't feel unrealistic or broad even as it takes place in a very unrealistic and broad environment. Because the setup was so detailed, it's impossible not to see some of the plot developments coming, and yet that doesn't matter at all -- the joy of seeing the parts come together in a satisfying way far outweighs the need to be surprised by it.

Throughout, the visuals are amazing. Many Pixar movies are known for bright color, unusual settings, and smart character animation. Coco is a new benchmark in all of this for Pixar. Bright and iridescent, full of details, the Land of the Dead is a feast for the eyes. The characters are expressive as ever, and a particular triumph when it comes to the dead -- they do look like skeletons, but not in a way that's creepy or potentially frightening. The attention to the detail is remarkable, from huge crowds on one end of the scale to the particular fingering of a guitar to produce exactly what we hear on the other.

The cast is great throughout. Gael García Bernal and Benjamin Bratt are the most recognizable names/voices in major roles, but the movie really works as well as it does because of the performances by Anthony Gonzalez as young Miguel (the boy at the heart of the adventure), and Alanna Ubach as Imelda (Miguel's late, great-great-grandmother).

Knowing now how much I enjoyed it, I really should have made time for Coco a long time ago. I give it an A-. It also earns the #5 slot on my Top Movies from last year -- rather pointedly, I should say, kicking the Oscar winner The Shape of Water down a notch. If you haven't seen it yet, like I hadn't, do yourself a favor and make the time.

Oh, Bother!

This weekend, I went to the debut film from writer-director Boots Riley, the eclectic Sorry to Bother You. If you've seen the trailer, here's how you might recognize it:

Cassius Green gets a new job as a telemarketer, dreaming of getting out of debt. It's going terribly, until a co-worker advises him that he won't be very successful sounding black on the phone. He should adopt a "white voice." As soon as he does, he begins to rise like a rocket through the company ranks. But he soon discovers just how dark and sinister the company is.

This really only scratches the surface of what's actually going on in this movie. It's a scathing package of social commentary. You'd expect it has a lot to say about racism, and of course it does, but that might only be about third or fourth on the list of topics it cares about. It's also an indictment of capitalism, corporate greed, the silent acceptance of the conforming masses, junk television, pretentious art, and a few more I'm probably not thinking of. (All while being the most pro-union movie to be made since Norma Rae?)

Along the way, the movie makes its points using a unique and heightened sense of style. This story does not take place in the real world, but a version of it you might see on The Twilight Zone. And its presented with a broad palette of strong decisions, from jarring edits to theatrical staging, from satirical dialogue to clever insert shots, and natural acting to outsized showboating. The end result left me with a feeling of "what just happened? what did I just watch?" more than any movie I could think of since Being John Malkovich.

There's a lot about this movie that's going to have to roll around in my mind for a very long time before I figure out for sure what I think about it. I know I'm generally positive on the movie, but I can't decide if its wild, scattershot approach is a bug or a feature... or if its even really as scattershot as my gut reaction believed it to be.

I can say I'm unreservedly high on the cast, led by Lakeith Stanfield and Tessa Thompson. Both do an excellent job of portraying characters that aren't entirely likeable. Both characters make decisions you probably won't agree with, but thanks to the actors, you'll definitely understand them -- and you'll keep rooting for them instead of turning on them. The supporting cast includes great dramatic work from The Walking Dead's Steven Yeun, and an unhinged over-the-top turn by Armie Hammer. Minor (but entertaining) characters are played by Terry Crews and Danny Glover. And there's some hilarious voice-over work from David Cross, Patton Oswalt, Lily James, and Rosario Dawson.

For the moment, I'm feeling Sorry to Bother You lands at about a B+ in my view. It may rise or fall a lot over time as I ponder what it had to say and whether it feels especially insightful. (Or, even if it is saying something obvious, whether it gets credit for saying it at the right time, and in such a gonzo way.) If you check the movie out, I'd be curious to hear what you think. For sure, you'll have a lot to talk about (though perhaps not the words to articulate it).

Daa-Dum.... Daa-Dum... Daa-Dum....

I returned to the Colorado Symphony Orchestra this week, as they returned to their Film in Concert series, presenting Jaws.

It had been many years since I'd last seen Jaws, and part of the experience was remembering that it's an even better movie than I'd given it credit for. I'd remembered it as "pretty good," but I thought still more of it this time around. I think this time, I gave more credit to the first half of the movie: the depiction of a politician beholden to the Almighty Dollar, throwing away common sense and decency in its pursuit and not giving a damn about the collateral damage. (For some reason, that resonated with me more than the last time I saw the movie.) The last half of the movie thrilled, as always, but I better appreciated the whole package this time around.

Of course, the star of the evening was not the film itself, but the famous score by John Williams, performed live by the orchestra. There were discoveries there too.

The bass strings and cello are every bit as important as you think and more. There were additional players in these sections, beyond the orchestra's normal complement. (They were also the only performers asked by the conductor to rise for the applause at the end, giving them a fun and deserved moment in the spotlight.) These are the sections that carry the famous shark theme, the theme I'd suggest is the most recognized in all of film history. (And you could also see them getting a workout at other times, too.)

The harp in this music is hyperactive even for a John Williams score, plucking out very precise melodies and only occasionally playing the sweeping runs for which a harp is most commonly known. The tuba is quite active too, playing the most prominent horn part in that main shark theme (a part that could have gone to french horns, but comes off more sinister for being played as high as a tuba will go). Percussion is busy in this one too (again more than usual for Williams), deployed rather steadily throughout rather than used more sparingly to accent moments.

A friend of mine had recently listened to the Jaws score and noted that, as brilliant as that main theme is, there was another strand of oddly bright adventure music in the score that struck him amiss. I was on the "listen-out" for this during the performance... not that it was hard to miss when it came. In interviews, Williams has said that he perceived an element of pirate adventure in the construction of the story, and this music is no doubt playing to that. It is a bit jarring compared to the rest of the score, I'd agree.

But moreover, what I think may really be going on there is that this "high adventure" music may be the only part of the score that sounds completely like conventional John Williams music. That's a bit backwards in terms of history -- this came before basically any John Williams score widely known today. But the style everyone knows is very much this particular, small slice of the Jaws music: prominent brass, bright melodies, and a strand of swashbuckler throughout.

What everyone remembers from Jaws is something entirely different. Critics have endlessly noted how director Steven Spielberg captured key elements of Alfred Hitchcock's style in making Jaws. Well, John Williams captured key elements of Bernard Herrmann's musical style in composing the score. Much of the music of Jaws (and certainly that iconic theme) sounds very much like an evolution and re-imagining of the music to Psycho, had it been composed for a full orchestra instead of strings only, with emphasis on the lower strings rather than the higher. Not that I think there are specific passages where Williams "copied" Herrmann, or anything so crude. The two compositions just seem cut from the same cloth to me, that cloth not being "typical John Williams."

Not that my appreciation for John Williams was lagging in any way, but this line of thought may have made me appreciate him even more. That "out of place" adventure melody really only seemed so to me in the sense that it wasn't fully compatible with this soundscape he'd created for this film, a soundscape that was essentially entirely out of his comfort zone. Making that choice, to do something unusual, couldn't have come easy. And it was a tremendous risk. (Famously, Spielberg was said to have laughed the first time Williams played for him on piano the "two note" theme for the shark. (It's more than two notes, by the way.)) John Williams took that risk, found this music, and it's beyond perfect for what this movie needed. If he also tacked on one sparingly used melody that doesn't quite gel with the rest, well, I can't begrudge him indulging in something more in his comfort zone. I hardly think it detracts from the genius of the rest, nor does it harm the whole of a really great movie.

Getting a chance to engage with this score I know less well than others made for a great night at the symphony. (Though it felt like maybe an expensive evening at first. Very, very little of the first half of the movie is scored. Fortunately, conversely, that felt like how much isn't scored in the second half.) Once again, the Film in Concert series delivered for me, and I'm looking forward to another one.

Jungle Love

2017 closed out with two especially popular movies out in theaters -- Star Wars: The Last Jedi, and Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle. (Colons were in demand.) The latter certainly seemed like a fun ride, but not in a way that made me feel I had to rush to see it at the time. Instead, I recently caught up with it now that it's easily available at home. And indeed, it was a fun ride.

I know I've seen bits and pieces of the original Jumanji starring Robin Williams, but never the whole thing. I know I've read the original children's book by Chris Van Allsburg. None of this really matters, though, as there's really nothing to get "caught up on" here. The premise explains itself easily enough: some teens are sucked into a video game. And really, that's plenty for just shy of two hours of light entertainment.

That really is what Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle is. It's light, not pretending to aim at more (nor really should it try). But it is a lot of fun. The movie leans hard into a variety of video game cliches, and generates plenty of fun for it. The jokes about cut scenes, re-spawning, weak NPC dialogue, and so forth never really get old. Yup, bad games are totally like this. It's funny.

Really, the weakest moments in the movie come when the script fails to follow this north star. It tries to build up a major villain using the techniques of bad movies and not bad video games -- giving us a pair of scenes with the villain that no human character is there to witness. Within the video game conceit, these moments should not be happening. And they're nothing but moments of pure mustache twirling, being mean to henchmen and displaying villainous powers that aren't used effectively in the climax of the film anyway.


The film's strongest moments come in watching the main actors play against type. Dwayne Johnson is the video game form given to the shy nerd, so Johnson gets to lampoon his own ever-confident, supremely manly image to great effect. Jack Black is the embodiment of a stuck-up, appearance-obsessed teenage girl, which is a comedic gift that keeps on giving.

The other stars aren't so much deliberately cast against type, but they nevertheless bring the funny. Karen Gillan gets to play a wallflower thrust into a Lara Croft-style video game persona, and does some wonderful physical comedy in adjusting to the change. And Kevin Hart? Well, I don't know that I've ever seen a whole Kevin Hart movie before, feeling that the cloying persona I've seen in trailers was more than enough. But I actually thought he was great here, and used in just the right amounts to be funny. Maybe one of his other movies might be worth a look some time after all?

I watched Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle fairly close to Game Night, and though I enjoyed both, I found a sharp contrast. Game Night tries harder to tell a story, and has many comedic peaks and valleys. Jumanji may not have had a lot of laugh out loud moments for me, but it did keep a smile on my face throughout. The two films took different routes to get there, but I'd grade both a solid B.

That's Incredibles

I've had a mini-Pixar marathon over the last couple of days, catching back up with their most recent films I hadn't seen. I'm going to start with the one still out in theaters, Incredibles 2.

It's hard to overstate how different the cinematic landscape has become in the 14 years since the first Incredibles. Or, should I say, the "Cinematic Universe," as Marvel now has us all on a steady drip of superhero movies (with others chiming in regularly with their own efforts). The Incredibles was an oddity at the time, a sort of retro throwback.

The thing is, it still is to a large degree. If The Incredibles had been just a straight-up superhero movie, a sequel giving us more of the same would easily be mixed up in the shuffle of everything else. But that first movie was a cocktail of superhero, old-school James Bond spy thriller, and family drama. And so is its sequel.

Pixar has always made movies that play well for both adults and kids. But more than perhaps any other of their movies, the Incredibles films feel to me like they make absolutely no concessions to a younger audience. There are no cute animals. No characters tailor-made to be a toy every kid will want. The biggest comic relief character is an opinionated old fashionista with a weird accent.

Incredibles 2 embraces this identity and soldiers forward. The plot is dense and grown-up. It's also very current, even with the 1960s vibe permeating so much of what we see (and hear, in Michael Giacchino's again-excellent score). A married couple has to deal with a role reversal in job and home life. The lead role narratively (and the "bread-winning" role within the family) is taken over by a woman. Gender bias and feminism are key elements of the plot. Our protagonist is trying to push public opinion to bring about social change and civil rights. It frankly feels subversive that all this has been slipped into a major animated movie.

"Slipped in" feels like the right way to put it, though, because the movie still has all the high-octane action sequences you could ask for. Indeed, it's more clever about its action that a fair number of live-action superhero movies we've seen in the past decade. A handful of new characters are introduced, each with specific and highly visual superpowers that are very cleverly chosen to play off of each other and our established Parr family.

Really, the only major flaw is that the movie does drag just a bit it the middle act. It may be that one of the elements that makes it unique -- the domesticity -- works against it just a bit through this section. Watching Mr. Incredible struggle to be the stay-at-home Dad hits all the tired and familiar cliches you've seen many times before.

Still, I found Incredibles 2 to be a fun, enjoyable ride overall. I'd give it a B+. It's not quite good enough to break into the crowded upper tier of Pixar's best, but it's still a solid movie well worth seeing.

That's How You Get Ants

Marvel's latest film (and last of this year) hit theaters this weekend, Ant-Man and the Wasp. I quite enjoyed the first Ant-Man (more, I think, than most), and so I was looking forward to this one.

It was nice to have a Marvel movie again that was basically pure fun. Black Panther was certainly strong (and most people seemed to like Avengers: Infinity War more than me), but humor was definitely the garnish to those movies and not the main course. I was ready for something more along the lines of the 2017 slate (Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Spider-Man: Homecoming, Thor: Ragnarok), and was fairly sure Ant-Man and the Wasp was going to fit the bill. It terms of tone, it certainly did.

In terms of quality, Ant-Man and the Wasp had a real double-edged sword of a plot going. It's all about the efforts to rescue Janet Van Dyne (Hank's wife and Hope's mother) from the Quantum Realm. On the plus side, I loved the scale of that. (That's not a shrinking pun). Our heroes aren't trying to save the entire world, they're trying to save one person who they care about on a very personal level. It's a story line that comes organically from character, and might be the most character-driven story in a Marvel movie. That's all great.

On the minus side, this personal story is inextricably woven with a mountain of silly technobabble. Scott Lang even comments on this at one point in the movie, making for a good laugh line, but ultimately not changing the fact that the execution of this very personal story feels quite impersonal at times. Since Doctor Strange's arrival in the Marvel universe, I'm just not sure that there needs to be this much phony explanation behind what we're seeing, particularly when one of the main characters doesn't understand it himself.

Still, the framework does serve well to provide exactly what I'd hoped: Ant-Man and the Wasp is a funny and entertaining movie. The jokes land well, largely thanks to two people in particular. Paul Rudd has crazy-ridiculous chemistry with everyone in the movie, especially Evangeline Lilly, Abby Ryder Fortson as his daughter Cassie, and Randall Park as the agent monitoring him. And again, as in the first film, Michael Peña steals every scene he's in with high energy and great timing. (One of the best scenes of the whole movie riffs on his machine gun delivery to hilarious effect.)

The action is pretty solid too, and here it's other performers who get to shine. Evangeline Lilly gets to kick a lot of ass this time around. And Hannah John-Kamen (well-known to anyone who watches Killjoys) is a potent adversary as Ghost. The action feels quite clever and specific to this movie; they get a lot of mileage out of shrinking/enlarging gags that you couldn't really do in another Marvel movie, plus phasing trickery with Ghost.

Sitting largely outside the action, Michael Douglas still adds fun to the proceedings. This time, we have Laurence Fishburne and Michelle Pfeiffer as well, forming the trio that definitely carries what drama the movie does have. (Side note: the "de-aging" CG effects that keeps showing up in these Marvel movies does keep getting better and better. The flashback scenes here showing these actors as we knew them to look in the 1980s is more convincing than ever.)

I didn't quite enjoy Ant-Man and the Wasp as much as the first Ant-Man. Still, I'd say it falls in the bottom of the window I'd call a B+. But surely Marvel already has its hook set in you and you'll be seeing it no matter what I say, right?

Are You Game?

Earlier this year, as Black Panther reigned supreme at the box office, a low-budget comedy broke $100 million as quietly as can be done. Game Night is the story of a group of friends who find themselves out of their depth -- the scenario they mistake for actors staging a game for their entertainment turns out to be real criminals threatening their lives.

The cast makes this movie, and it is a great cast. Jason Bateman and Rachel McAdams star as Max and Annie, the hyper-competitive hosts of the group's regular games. Max's swaggering brother is played by Kyle Chandler. Jesse Clemons is the profoundly creepy next-door neighbor trying to cope with his recent divorce. The ensemble is filled out with Billy Magnussen, Sharon Horgan, Lamorne Morris, and Kylie Bunbury.

Of the group, Clemons is really the only one adopting a "character," by typical comedy film standards. It's a tongue-in-cheek, quiet and intense performance that's inherently funny for being such a weird gear change from everything else. But that's not to say the rest of the cast isn't funny. It's just that the filmmakers opted for realistic characters to populate their ridiculous situation. You get a good mix of people mainly known for comedy (like Bateman), people not really known for comedy (Chandler), and people who haven't done comedy in a long time, but who are really great at it (McAdams).

The result is some enjoyable silliness. There's actually a commitment to telling a real story here with twists and turns, and character arcs that see everyone grow and change over the course of the story. As such, it's not wall to wall laughs. But it's all part of a smart "peaks and valleys" approach to the comedy here. If there aren't many smiles for a few minutes, don't worry -- soon will come a sequence that is (as they say) laugh out loud funny.

Beyond that, I think the less said about the movie, the better. There are some surprising and fun actors that pop up in smaller roles, but it's better to be surprised by them. There are some sequences that I could highlight as especially funny, mostly of a physical nature, but that would just be giving away the best moments like a bad trailer.

So instead, I'll just say that I was pleasantly surprised by this fun little diversion. I'd give Game Night a B. Love of games not required (though if you're here, you very likely do). Love of comedy will be rewarded.

The Marginally More Magnificent Seven

Early last year, I watched the recent remake of the classic film The Magnificent Seven, and was generally underwhelmed. Now I've found time for the 1960 original. (Well, not quite "original." For that, I'd have to see Kurosawa's Seven Samurai. Someday.)

As is often the case in watching films from earlier eras, the pace and narrative style of this movie are radically different from today, and a bit harder to get into. It's at times a painfully languid film, feeling every minute of its just-over-two-hours duration. On the other hand, it does care more about its characters than the typical film of this era, and often this is the reason the narrative slows. Throwing focus onto one of the film's seven heroes isn't a bad thing.

Another perk of watching these classic films is that you get to track the ancestry of modern movie cliches. Watching a movie like this is like going to the source, rather than watching a copy of a copy of a copy. The movie was engaging on that intellectual level, as moments would pop up and I'd wonder if this was where a particular trope began.

In the story, each member of the team is given a specific introductory scene, some of them quite elaborate. It's very well cast, with each of the actors lining up well to their character. Yul Brynner is a solid leader, inspirational and moral to a fault -- a sort of Jean-Luc Picard in an age that was more likely to portray a James T. Kirk. James Coburn also stands out, though perhaps more for the writing of the character than the performance, as his knife expert Britt gets a showy entrance.

The performer making the biggest meal of his role is Horst Buchholz as Chico, the young hothead with more rage than sense. In a way, he stood out to me for not being as famous (or going on to be as famous) as most of this cast... though also for not tamping down emotion behind the typical cool and collected facade of a Western hero. Reading about the actor after I finished the movie was interesting too; around this time, he was known as "the German James Dean," and probably would have broken big but for poor role selection. (Filming conflicts with far lesser known things kept him from taking parts in West Side Story and Lawrence of Arabia.)

The biggest star of the film may well be the musical score, composed by Elmer Bernstein. It's one of the most famous Western scores in cinema, with a main theme that you've very likely heard even if you don't know it comes from here. The music was actually the thumb on the scales that pushed me to watch the movie, as one of my favorite podcasts will be talking soon about this score. While I'm not quite sure it would make my own personal list of best movie scores, it certainly deserves its place in history, and I think holds up fairly well today.


For its good points, though, I found myself impatient at times watching this movie. I liked it better than the comparatively soulless remake, but I still don't think I'd recommend it to someone who isn't a fan of classic films. (It doesn't hold up nearly as well as, say, another 1960 film: Psycho.) I'd give The Magnificent Seven a C+. If you're a fan of Westerns or classic films -- that is, if it's the sort of movie for you -- chances are you've probably already seen it.

Fallen. For You?

This weekend, I took in the newest Jurassic Park film, Fallen Kingdom. It was something of a mixed bag -- better by a touch than the franchise's previous installment, but not without its flaws.

The smartest move of the movie was to set the bulk of it off of the island. After a first act that sees our heroes returning to Isla Nublar to rescue dinosaurs from an impending volcanic eruption, the rest of the movie turns to a billionaire's mansion on the mainland. It's a Victorian environment perfect for old-fashioned horror thrills, a dank fun house perfect for interesting set pieces.

On the flip side of things, though, the film doesn't really use the new setting to do much that's new. The vast mansion becomes the setting for the same schtick -- running from stampeding dinos, watching mustache-twirling villains get their come-uppances via snapping jaws, and so forth. And these films literally keep trying to one-up themselves by always introducing a new "baddest dinosaur you've ever seen."

Not that the movie doesn't have a bit of novel and different in it -- it's just that most of that comes before the change in setting. There's a sequence of underwater peril that's new for a Jurassic film. There's also a fun "Don't Wake the Dragon" style scene that's a welcome change of gears. Still, they do miss an opportunity to really exploit a "The Floor Is Lava" scene for the most blockbuster-like spectacle possible.

The character work is perhaps a notch above standard for these movies, and certainly better than in the last film. Claire, Bryce Dallas Howard's character, is the main protagonist of this story, with Chris Pratt's Owen being the sidekick. She's the one with more screen time, and the one with a personal journey that affects her more by the end. It's more subtle than, say, movies like The Last Jedi, that are unafraid to put female characters unabashedly front and center, but it's still a nice pivot for the series.

The film also does something interesting with its obligatory child in peril. The Jurassic movies always have to have one, it seems. This one does too, and she starts out with the same justification as all the others we've seen -- this is a relative of one of the characters. But as the plot unfolds, there's a bit of a surprise in this child's role in the overall plot.

I'd say Jurassic Park: Fallen World rates a B- overall.... though close to being a B, where the previous installment was closer to dropping to a C+. As these dinosaur-sized action movies play better on the big screen, you should probably go out to see it now if you plan to see it at all. If you'd been thinking you'd skip it though, well, I can't really say it's "must see" fare.