Joining the Legion

For years now, I'd heard about an unusual series of novels known as the "Bobiverse," by author Dennis E. Taylor. OK, much of the "hearing about it" had come from my husband, who listened to the first trilogy on audiobook and talked it up. But several other friends mentioned it too. And then, when my husband suggested "I would listen to them again," the first book entered the queue of things we listen to on our drives together.

That book is called We Are Legion (We Are Bob). It's a first-person narrative told from the perspective of... well, you probably guessed "Bob," and to a point, yes it is. Bob is a man from our time who fell into the resources to have himself preserved for reawakening/reincarnation in an unknown, more technologically advanced future. Which is exactly what happens... to a point. He is restored as a sentient AI recruited for a mysterious and particular mission soon revealed to have global importance.

I would spoil no more myself, except that the title really tips the hand there: Bob ultimately ends up copying himself, creating a number of different "Bobs" each with different personalities -- glitches in the code? Manifestations of chaos? Who can say, but each Bob takes a different view of their mission of galactic exploration, and pursues it differently. The first-person narrative expands to a "first-people (?) narrative" of many Bobs, each with their own problems and adventures.

This is a really intriguing format for a novel, once things get going. It's almost like a handful of novellas shuffled together. Some are lighter, some darker. Each seems inspired by a different particular subgenre of science fiction. You get something akin to Star Trek in one story thread, apocalyptic sci-fi in another, a tactical wargame in yet another, and so on. There's a lot of creativity and variety on display here.

And audiobook seemed like an especially good way to enjoy the story. This series is read by Ray Porter, whose narration I praised on Project Hail Mary. Dennis E. Taylor writes Bob with the same quippy, grace-under-pressure sarcasm of an Andy Weir protagonist, and Ray Porter is the man to deliver that for you in performance. But "Bob" is legion, as the title says, so Porter isn't giving just one performance here. Some of the Bob clones are only subtly different, but others are bigger departures. (And one adopts a 20th-century pop culture persona that Porter has a great deal of fun with. Almost as much fun as with his Admiral Ackbar impression.)

I like to hop series and genres when I read, and that's no different for audiobooks. So while I am listening to something else now, I eagerly look forward to getting back to the Bobiverse for book two. As for book one, I give it an A-. Now I get what everyone was talking up to me.

Black as Tár

Although there are five nominees for the Best Actress prize at this year's Oscars, the oddsmakers agree that it's really just a head-to-head race between Michelle Yeoh for Everything Everywhere All at Once and Cate Blanchett for Tár. I recently saw the latter. And while both the films are also contending for Best Picture, Tár would be nowhere near the running on my own personal list.

Tár is the story of the fictional Lydia Tár, force-of-nature conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic -- one of the few people in such a position, worldwide, that the average non-classical-music-listener might have heard of. The movie slowly tracks her decline as a brewing scandal overshadows all her accomplishments.

Some of my disappointment in this movie probably has to do with my own misaligned expectations. I think I was expecting "Whiplash with an orchestra." Yet Lydia Tár is not a shrieking tyrant, but rather a well-regarded genius hiding her dark side. Cate Blanchett is remarkable; I should say that before anything else. Yes, she gets a couple of flashy scenes, one of which is sure to be the clip played for her category at the Oscars. But the bulk of her performance is far more nuanced. Pair Blanchett's skillful subtlety with director Todd Field's penchant for long, unbroken takes, and you can see why her performance here is being regarded as among the best of the year.

And that is essentially the only thing I liked about the movie.

Tár is a glacially paced two-and-a-half hours. For nearly 45 minutes, it didn't seem as though there was going to be a plot here of any kind, but rather a sort of "tone poem" on the life of this character as she meanders through her life. Even when the plot does manifest, the movie still takes loads of digressions. It wants to show you in many, many quiet ways that there is a monster lurking under the surface here. But no flashing sirens, no big aha moments.

So, as you can tell, I was pretty bored by Tár. But on another level, I was very uncomfortable. That has to do with the issue of representation. Tár the character is a woman in a job dominated by men. She's a lesbian, and openly so. And she is a predatory monster.

Now, part of representation is that any particular individual within a minority can be a horrible person. It's wonderful that we now get a bigger variety of LGBT+ characters in entertainment than we did in, say, the late 90s/early 2000s, where the only such people in movies were the sassy gay best friends of popular school girls. But let's not lose sight of the real world, right now, where LGBT+ people are regularly decried as "groomers" by an obnoxious percentage of the public who want to roll back any gains that have been made. Yes, it's a group that's loud out of proportion with its size, but let's not pretend that group is small.

Sure, that crowd isn't really the sort of people who would ever see Tár. But if they did, they'd find an unfortunate validation of everything they say. LGBT+ people are hiding depravity as they prey on the young and vulnerable. Yes, Lydia Tár is one person, but it feels pretty damn irresponsible to me, in the current political climate, to invent a story like this about such a person. And that's to say nothing about how the movie is tearing down a woman of prominence in orchestral music -- right in the middle of a movie that goes out of its way, multiple times, to point out just how rare that is. (They name about five real-world female composers in an early scene, and I'm embarrassed to admit I only recognized one name to clue me in that they even were talking about real women.)

Yes, "Me Too" can be men harassing men, women coercing women, and plenty of other combinations. But that's a pretty "dark rainbow" to be elevating to the spotlight by making a movie about it. And to further elevate it by calling it one of the 10 "Best Pictures" of 2022 makes me uncomfortable -- and not at all in the way I believe movies sometimes intend to make an audience uncomfortable.

Cate Blanchett is outstanding, magnificent, truly Award-worthy. And that is all. I give Tár a D+, purely in acknowledgement of her skill. Otherwise, the movie is the worst of both worlds -- boring and dangerous.

Voyager Flashback: Demon

The unspoken (and obvious) reason that Star Trek takes us to alien worlds that look a lot like Earth is that they have to actually be filmed on Earth. And on a TV budget and schedule. But gradually, as more became possible on that budget and schedule, we began to get episodes like Star Trek: Voyager's "Demon."

Running low of vital deuterium, Voyager is forced to seek it out at an inhospitable "Demon-class" planet. But there, they discover a world that might not be as hostile to life as imagined.

When you look at "what they were going for" here, there are a lot of interesting ideas at play in this episode. Yes, it is neat for Star Trek to show more truly "alien" worlds. The idea of sentience created by the very act of encountering it is cool. That people could be cloned and not realize they are the clones is fascinating; were I the writer, I'd have probably explored the inherent horror in that idea, but Star Trek is good at "wonderment" and understandably takes that tack here. (It sure starts off as horror, though, with Kim and Paris separating on the planet for a brief moment, leading to Kim's disappearance.)

Still, despite an intriguing foundation, there's a lot here that doesn't really add up. How did Voyager get in such a predicament, this low on fuel? (It's not a good look for Janeway, if you think about it.) Critical thinking is destroyed at every turn on the altar of the "sunk cost fallacy": we diverted to this planet, so dammit we're going to fuel here; we lost Kim and Paris on the planet, so we might as well land the whole ship.

In the end, does no crew member object to being cloned by the "silver blood?" It seems like an exploration of identity, the most compelling idea in the whole episode, is totally side-stepped. Can the silver bloods only clone each individual once? And isn't the deuterium that Voyager needs entwined within the makeup of these new aliens? How does Voyager even get the fuel to leave again?

There are several junctures where the episode just backtracks on the rules it laid out for us earlier. At first, the Demon-class planet is described as impossibly hostile, but the extent of the danger is gradually whittled away at to keep the plot going. Early on, it seems like the character throughline of the episode is going to be about Harry Kim and his desire to prove himself; that whole subplot evaporates 15 minutes in.

Granted, I don't like Neelix much myself, but characters go out of their way to be mean to him in this episode. Why does Tuvok stop Neelix from taking a pillow, blanket, and book to his emergency accommodations? All that stuff is already replicated, it's not a drain on resources, and Neelix is carrying it all himself. Tuvok just seems to be pulling rank and flexing because he can. And why is the Doctor such a child about having Neelix stay in Sickbay? Having people come there during an emergency is the entire point of Sickbay! (Anyway, the Doctor should know better than to get into an "Annoying-Off" with Neelix. No one is more annoying than Neelix.)

Other observations:

• Roxann Dawson returns from maternity leave. The scene where B'Elanna expresses concern for the missing Tom Paris is one of the more effective (if brief) scenes of the episode.

• Just before Tom and Harry take their shuttle down the planet, check the background for an unusually tall crewman walking by. He almost bumps his head on the ceiling!

• The whole conversation between Harry and Tom about putting on weight and being out of shape? Actor Garrett Wang was convinced the writers put this in as a dig against him and Robert Duncan McNeill, both of whom had noticeably put on pounds over the course of season four.

• Tuvok referring to "one of the Ensigns Kim" is an excellent (and correct) use of plural.

• At different points in this episode, Paris, Chakotay, and Janeway all take turns at the helm.

The ideas here are fun. The reveals are interesting. But so much about this episode feels slightly off that it's hard to become fully engrossed. I give "Demon" a C+.

RRRousing and RRRefreshing

When does a three-hour long movie not feel like a three-hour long movie? When it's RRR, the Indian action movie available to stream on Netflix.

From writer-director S. S. Rajamouli, RRR takes place in British controlled India in the 1920s. When a young girl is abducted by a British aristocrat, her tribe's guardian, Bheem, sets out on a rescue mission. That's sure to put him into conflict with Indian officer Raju, who seeks to advance within the British military by capturing the folk hero rumor has it is coming to town. But with neither man knowing the other's true identity... what happens if they form a deep friendship first? And what will happen if either learns the other's secret?

RRR is essentially a superhero movie, and most keenly feels like it's India's answer to Captain America (the Cap who fights Nazis, rather than CG aliens). A man who basically has superpowers stands up to oppression in a noble struggle for freedom. But, you know, in a fun way.

And I cannot stress enough how fun RRR is. It soars so far over the top that it dazzles repeatedly. Just when you think the action has peaked, when things can't get any more outrageous, the movie pushes even farther. The spectacle is amazing... and the tightrope act of how it's all written even more so. The movie has enough underpinnings in the real-world atrocities of colonialism that it never feels like a trifle, but it never gets so bound up in seriousness that it loses sight of entertaining first and foremost.

The two leads here,  N. T. Rama Rao Jr. and Ram Charan, are outstanding. They're called on to be serious at times, but to keep tongues planted firmly in cheeks at other times. They both have a ton of fight choreography. And (small spoiler), they have to sing and dance too. Imagine Hugh Jackman in The Greatest Showman, but also doing all his Wolverine-type stuff in the same movie. That's what both these actors are pulling off in RRR.

OK, there are a few weak spots. The CG isn't great (even though it seems like a huge milestone for Indian cinema). The English-speaking actor you might actually recognize from elsewhere, Ray Stevenson, gives a rather hammy performance. But the delights of this movie outshine any shortcomings.

RRR showed up on enough critics' "best of 2022" lists that some Oscar buzz began to build. Indeed, it landed an Original Song nomination for "Naatu Naatu," a highlight of the movie (and sure to be a highlight of the Oscar ceremony, if they can pull off a live performance). But it missed out on a Best Picture nod, perhaps in part because it also missed out on Best International Feature Film. Each country gets to submit just one film for that category, and India chose a different film to represent it. (Word is that the taste makers of India want to distance their cinema from "Bollywood," and eschewed anything of similar excess.) Without RRR in contention in the International Film category, it likely had a longer ladder to climb for Best Picture, and seems to have come up short.

But it definitely makes my Top 10 list for the year, sliding in at #5 with a very solid B+. Yes, three hours is a big commitment, but it's one that will be rewarded.

Prodigy: Supernova, Part 1

The two-part season finale of Star Trek: Prodigy began with the fittingly titled "Supernova, Part 1"

The Protostar crew goes up against a hostile Federation armada. Aboard the Protostar, Admiral Janeway knows why they're trying to avoid contact, but she's locked in the brig and has to convince her crew to listen to her.

In terms of delivering exciting action and adventure, this episode fires on all cylinders. The stakes are high, and the jeopardy feels real. In proper storytelling fashion, the episode culminates in multiple "all is lost" moments, with the Protostar kids beaten by Drednok, and then later with the Federation ships all infected and turning to attack each other. This all would have made an excellent cliffhanger end to a season, if that's what we were doing here; certainly, it tees up an exciting finale episode.

But there are moments throughout the episode that really didn't work well for me. I simply could not get on board with the writers' effort to redeem the Diviner. We met him as a despicable villain who enslaved children. Then he leaves his daughter for dead early in the season, before menacing the Protostar all across the galaxy. I simply don't think there's a path to come back from that and make him sympathetic, complicated, or tragic. So his attempt to save Gwyn's life near the end of the episode not only didn't move me, it felt like an eyeroll.

Another awkward moment came earlier, when Dal kissed Gwyn. Yes, reading signals can be awkward, and yes, teenagers can be especially bad at it. This is a situation that could happen, and Dal does immediately know he's done something wrong. And yet... the writers have to know that while they're not writing an explicitly "educational" show here, they are modelling behavior to a young audience.

Consent has been part of the public discourse long enough that it should have been portrayed here. I think you could have gotten all the desired mileage out of this moment had Dal suddenly asked "may I kiss you?", and for Gwyn to react with a shocked and too-harsh "what? no!" And that's a shame, because in the very next moment, Dal is modelling perfect Star Trek behavior. He learns that he can't be let into Starfleet Academy because he is an Augment, but he immediately resolves to help his friends get in anyway.

There are other effective moments in the episode too. Jellico is back to play the heel again. I still don't know why Ronny Cox was down for such a minor role in Prodigy, but I'm glad he's here. We also got another nice bit of Voyager continuity for the fans, when she talks her way out of the brig by interacting with someone whose people she encountered previously in the Delta Quadrant.

Overall, "Supernova, Part 1" leaves things in a place of wonderful tension. But for a few stumbles along the way, I think I'll call it a B-.

Banshee's All That?

The Oscar nominations were announced this morning. To the surprise of no one who was following the precursor nominations of various Hollywood guilds, The Banshees of Inisherin was one of the Best Picture nominees. Clearly, there is a receptive audience for the movie. I'm simply not in it.

Set in the 1920s on a small island off the coast of Ireland, the movie centers on Pádraic, who arrives one afternoon at the house of his longtime drinking buddy Colm, only to discover that Colm no longer wants to be his friend. No explanation is sufficient for Pádraic, no tactic Colm takes to end the relationship sufficient to put the matter to rest. And this taking place in a tiny town on a tiny island, the problem simply isn't going to go away. Indeed, it soon escalates to unthinkable extremes.

The Banshees of Inisherin comes from writer-director Martin McDonagh, who's been hit or miss for me. I found his In Bruges to be one of those movies that's far more fun to quote than it is to actually watch. On the other hand, I truly loved Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. But for me, The Banshees of Inisherin falls more in the former camp.

I suppose I should have expected that, what with this movie reuniting the two key stars of In Bruges, Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson. Both are good enough here, if outshined by co-stars Barry Koeghan and (especially) Kerry Condon. But also, none of these are Big Performances. The acting is earnest, but muted. It seems as though it's the turns of the plot that are meant to be big here.

And that they are. The movie does have a couple of funny moments, but generally the "black comedy" here is pitch dark. I found characters, setting, everything about the movie to emphasize isolation to such an extreme as to put the audience at a distance too. I simply didn't find the story accessible on any level. (It probably didn't help that I'm watching another "Irish story" right now, the TV series Derry Girls. It's much bolder, bigger, and laugh-out-loud funny. That'll be a topic for a future blog post. For now, suffice it to say that I found this movie dour by comparison.)

I'd love to be able to describe just who I think this movie is for. I do know of at least a couple of people who have seen it and did like it -- but there's no obvious throughline connecting them that wouldn't apply to me too. And my rating for the movie? D+. The "moments" here are just too few and far between for me.

Slow and Steady

Time for another entry in my unofficial recurring series, Reasons You Should Subscribe to Apple TV+. Today's topic: Slow Horses.

Slow Horses is a British spy thriller based on the Slough House series of novels by Mick Herron. It's centered on a group of agents who have all made mistakes while working for MI5. Those in charge don't want to fire these "slow horses," but neither do they want them anywhere near a sensitive case. So they're exiled to an administrative purgatory of an assignment, under the oversight of a crotchety old agent. Yet trouble has a way of finding them.

There's something about Slow Horses that evokes much of what I loved about the show 24 back in its original run. It's exhilarating and tense, and has a number of characters you quickly come to care about. But Slow Horses also jettisons some of the baggage that 24 developed over time. In proper British fashion, its seasons are just 6 episodes, each one based on one of Herron's original novels. So from the outset, the story knows where it's going and never has to vamp for time. It doesn't glorify torture, and the stakes are plausibly contained.

The people making it are clearly having fun and want to be making it, evidenced by just how much of the show there's going to be. Slow Horses was (once again, in British fashion) originally commissioned for just two seasons, and those were filmed back to back. But in very short order after the premiere of the first season, the show was picked up for two more seasons (also to be filmed back to back), based on the next two books of the series.

Heading the cast as surly Jackson Lamb is Gary Oldman, coming to TV for the first time. He excels as a prickly curmudgeon. (With a heart of gold? Inside a heart of coal, maybe.) Kristin Scott Thomas (no stranger to spy thrillers, if you've watched The Bodyguard) plays a high-ranking MI5 officer keeping the Slow Horses at arm's length. Amid the more "fresh young faces" in the cast, there's also Olivia Cooke (who shined in the debut season of House of the Dragon). And Jonathan Pryce recurs as the grandfather of the "hero agent" in the group, and himself a retired spy.

All that, and a catchy-as-hell original song performed by Mick Jagger for the opening theme? Slow Horses has become the latest in a long list of shows I give people, saying: "when you do sign up for Apple TV+ for a while, watch all of this." I give it an A-. I can't wait for season three.

Gun Show

Top Gun: Maverick was a massive commercial success that ran in movie theaters for months and months. So it took much longer than usual for it to arrive free with subscription on a streaming service where I could watch it. During that wait, I wasn't exactly holding my breath. That's because to "prep," I watched the original Top Gun again, for the first time in decades.

In watching the 1980s classic, I felt somewhat unable to explain just how it had become a 1980s classic. It seemed no better (or worse) than dozens of other movies of the time with awful dialogue, shallow characters, and badly interwoven subplots. It did have fantastic aerial photography, and a tacked-on romance to give it "four quadrant" appeal, so I guess that's it? But it was considerably cheesier than I'd remembered -- and I'd remembered a "cheesy 80s movie."

The sequel, Top Gun: Maverick, sands down some of the rougher edges -- but it's largely the same movie. While it doesn't quite go to the extent of the Avatar sequel in basically remaking its source, it certainly treats the first Top Gun like a recipe, with particular ingredients that absolutely must be included.

At times, the "substitutions" in this recipe are inspired; the main character must once again deal with the death of a friend, and the sequel's handling of this element brings more pathos than the original. At times, the substitutions are sort of "net neutral"; there's no explanation of what happened to Kelly McGillis from the first film, but Jennifer Connelly works well enough as the sequel's romantic foil. At times, the substitutions are a big shrug; more shirtless volleyball would be a bit too on the nose, apparently, so beach football!

But as with the original Top Gun, the real star of the show here is... the aerial photography! (Maybe you thought I was going to say Tom Cruise. Only inasmuch as his adrenaline junkie acting leads to shooting a lot of footage for real.) It would have been comparatively easy (to the 1980s) to fake a lot of this footage -- and indeed, some of it is CG (the aircraft near the end of the movie). But try not to take for granted that a lot of these fighter plane antics were filmed for real, and it looks truly impressive. Perhaps even a bit more than Top Gun was in its time.

And that's sort of the template for what Top Gun: Maverick is -- a cut above the original, across the board. The dialogue isn't quite as silly. The subplots still feel too numerous, but are woven together more skillfully than in the original. And it looks, for lack of a better word, amazinger.

So for the people who loved Top Gun (and have surely already seen the sequel), I get the enthusiasm. For me, who had a more tepid reaction to the original? Yeah, Top Gun: Maverick was better, more modern. I'd still say it topped out for me at about a B-.

Voyager Flashback: Living Witness

As I've been re-watching Star Trek: Voyager, I've actually found the series to be a bit better on average than I remember from its original run. But that's generally because it typically delivers "fine" episodes; there really aren't as many true stinkers (so far) as I'd thought. Yet neither are there any exceptional ones. Here I am, nearly at the end of season four, and I have yet to rate a single episode higher than a B+.

Spoiler alert: that changes today, with "Living Witness."

Centuries in the future, an alien civilization has built a memorial museum commemorating the time that a ship from another world arrived and inflicted lasting damage on their society. When one of the scientist-curators begins work with one of the artifacts from that time, he triggers Voyager's holographic Doctor from within his backup module -- and he's keen to set the record straight.

There are two main components that make this a stand-out episode of Star Trek. On the one hand, a lot of it is pure fun, in much the same way as a Mirror Universe episode (before that particular concept was thoroughly wrung out). The Kyrians' villainous conception of Voyager, brought to life in their own holographic simulation, allows cast and crew to all cut loose.

Delicious writing sees the episode open with Evil Janeway giving a menacing speech about violence. Chakotay and the Doctor are portrayed as enthusiastic torturers. Everyone bickers among themselves. ("Watch your mouth, hedgehog!") Plus, the writers sprinkle great accents throughout, from a Borg security force to a Kazon crew member to giving the Evil Doctor (meant to be an android) the same type of yellow contact lenses that Brent Spiner wore as Data.

The actors all shade their characters with archness. Kate Mulgrew shows us a Janeway who seems to be annoyed by absolutely everything. Tim Russ flashes the most wicked smile at one point, all the more unsettling for Tuvok's usual lack of emotion. Everyone mispronounces "CHUCK-oh-tay."

The production design is great too, with a lot of minor and cost-effective changes adding up to an environment that feels really different. Swapping out the Starfleet purple undershirt for black and giving characters black gloves instantly makes everyone look more severe. Red lighting, removing Chakotay's seat on the bridge (and increasing the size of his face tattoo), and getting Neelix into a uniform all make a noticeable impact. Of course, there are bigger changes too, like a return of the fully-Borg Seven of Nine, and the armed-to-the-teeth appearance of Voyager when we get an exterior view of the ship. (A lot of money also seems to have been spent on the enormous alien museum set.)

But it all basically would just be a Mirror Universe episode if there wasn't the second main component of the episode: it has a moral point to make (as great Star Trek often does). First, strong commentary is offered about cherry-picking history to support a modern point of view. We see how the Kyrian re-creation plays up the martyrdom of their fallen leader -- and amid so many other inaccuracies about the Voyager we know, we're primed to understand that we're probably not seeing the truth about that either.

When the scientist Quarren begins to interact with the Doctor, we move to a new act in the morality play: a study in overcoming cognitive bias. Here is a living witness (the Doctor even says the name of the episode!) trying to set the record straight, and he is rejected because his account doesn't fit the established narrative. But Quarren is able to overcome the propaganda to see the truth.

Last comes the most potent message of all, as the episode becomes a parable about bigotry. There are two peoples involved here, the Kyrians and the Vaskans. Whether you read the relationship more as post-slavery racism or the anti-Semitism of Holocaust denial, the effect is just as striking. The dialogue feels taken straight from real life: "I have Kyrian friends." "It's always about race!" Demonstrations turn to riots, and may lead to civil war.

Add to all that a truly inspired ending: we jump again even further into the future (the farthest in the future Star Trek had ever gone, at least until Discovery came along) to find out that the Doctor helped heal this alien society. And this comes on the heels of a great scene in which the Doctor has a crisis of identity about the harms his presence is causing. It's all great stuff.

OK, there are a few small bumps in the road you have to overlook. How did all these artifacts end up on this planet? (We don't see Voyager come under the sort of attack that would imply a lot of damage and a hasty escape, that would explain leaving so much stuff behind.) We've always been told the Doctor is irreplaceable, and that's totally undermined by the concept of the "backup module" that allows this whole story to happen. Why does the Doctor struggle to remember events that, from his perspective, happened only days ago? And why must he clearly embellish history in his own version of events, inserting a little heroic moment for himself in his own re-telling? Still, I find it easy to look past these details when everything else is so well done.

Other observations:

• This episode is directed by Tim Russ, becoming the third Voyager cast member to helm an episode (after Robert Duncan McNeill and Robert Picardo). Clearly, I think he did an excellent job, but from his interviews, it seems clear he did not enjoy the experience. He spoke a lot of the time pressures, and never directed another episode after this.

• The Doctor talks at one point about missing B'Elanna in particular. She isn't seen in this episode, though, because Roxann Dawson was on maternity leave at this point.

At last, we've done it -- a top-tier Voyager episode. Mostly. I give "Living Witness" an A-. (Perhaps an unqualified A is yet to come at some point in my viewing.)

This Time, It's Personal

Steven Spielberg has been weaving elements of his youth into his films practically since he began directing movies. But it's only now, after more than 50(!) years in the business that he's made a movie that's fully and explicitly inspired by his upbringing: The Fabelmans.

A major recurring theme of Spielberg's career has been separation and divorce (especially in his films of the 70s and early 80s). So of course, that's a big element of his semi-autobiographical movie. The other element is just as expected: his own love of movies, and his journey toward a career making them. The Fabelmans doesn't do the smoothest job of blending these two things together smoothly. And weirdly, this is sometimes to the movie's advantage.

Right at the end of almost every year, some movie celebrating the art form of movies themselves arrives to excite the Oscar voting base. Because The Fabelmans is only in part the story of a young man falling in love with movies, it's far less a work of Hollywood self-aggrandizement than you might expect. The Fabelmans hardly suggests that movies are (or should be) a universal love; they are explicitly this one person's passion. Other characters in the movie have their own loves, and encourage or discourage the main character accordingly.

Of course, dirge-like tales of a decaying families are perennial Oscar favorites too. But The Fabelmans is also only in part that story. Because the main character has another part of his life that is profoundly joyful, the movie isn't relentlessly heavy. It has plenty of levity throughout. Add to that the fact that Steven Spielberg isn't trying to perform a hit job on his late parents, and the movie at times feels quite light and brisk.

The craft of the filmmaking here is impeccable as always for Spielberg. The cast is great: Gabriel LaBelle is a wonderful find to anchor the movie as Sammy, and Michelle Williams gets to play bigger than life as Sammy's mother. Paul Dano and Seth Rogen are both solid in their roles. And Judd Hirsch and David Lynch each make the most of glorified cameos; Hirsch nails the key emotional scene at the core of the movie, while Lynch makes his single scene -- the final one of the movie -- into one of the best endings of the year. (Plus, Spielberg's literal final shot is one of the most fun and clever things in his entire filmography.)

But while I can appreciate all that on an intellectual level, The Fabelmans sailed right by me on an emotional level. For this surely being Spielberg's most personal movie ever, I was surprised how little I was moved by it. Maybe the parade of Easter eggs throughout hurt in that regard. The shot reminding everyone of E.T. reminded me of how much more deeply that movie made me care. The nod to Raiders of the Lost Ark played for a bigger laugh in that movie. The evocation of Close Encounters of the Third Kind made me aware of how much more powerful that movie was in portraying a father's obsession, and so on.

The Fabelmans is still a decent movie. Spielberg just understands moviemaking on such a deep level that the "floor" on one of his movies is still quite high. But at a grade B, it would never place on a Top 10 List of Spielberg films -- and it just missed out on my Top 10 List of movies, generally, for 2022.

Prodigy: Mindwalk

With the last episode before its two-part season finale, what did Star Trek: Prodigy do? A Freaky Friday!

As the Dauntless closes in on the Protostar, an odd confluence of events causes Dal and Admiral Janeway to switch bodies. Aboard the Protostar, Janeway helps her holographic counterpart, and finally learns the reasons for the strange behavior of the Protostar children. But aboard the Dauntless, Dal struggles to allay suspicion... and the Diviner and the Vindicator are both still on the loose.

Body swapping is a time-honored Star Trek staple, and I feel like the results are usually good. Strange New Worlds just did its version, and the "hijinks" made for perhaps the greatest episode in a great season. And even if that was quite recent, I'm happy for Prodigy to serve up its own take.

I feel like it's best to lay as little track as possible when setting up a Freaky Friday; how it happens usually isn't very important, and some hand waving is welcome to get to the meat of the story. That said, I feel like this episode maybe goes a bit far in that respect. The set of coincidences here, involving Dal's DNA and a phaser blast, are fast but also so weirdly specific and detailed that you can't help but get stuck on it -- especially when resolving the situation requires you to keep thinking about how wild this scenario is. Quite simply: this is not my favorite of Star Trek's body swap setups.

Although, once the premise kicks off, it pays all the expected dividends. The animators have a lot of fun depicting Janeway-as-Dal and Dal-as-Janeway. Actors Brett Gray and Kate Mulgrew both give great vocal performances in the opposite roles. As a bonus, Mulgrew also acts opposite herself, in a pivotal scene between Admiral Janeway and Hologram Janeway.

We get key plot points in the ongoing story. We get a hilarious shout-out to one of the worst Star Trek: Voyager episodes ever made. The comedic tone spills over to other characters besides Dal and Janeway; even the villains get a light moment. So yeah, overall, this is a really fun episode. But it really asks you to turn your brain off and go along for the ride. I was only partial successful in that, and so I'd give "Mindwalk" a B. But I'm guessing it went over great for the primary, younger audience.

2022 in Review -- Movies

If you've been reading my blog over the last couple of weeks, you've seen me posting a lot of movie reviews. What little "suspense" there might be about my favorite movies of 2022 has largely been spoiled. Nevertheless, I'm now caught up enough to post my movie overview for last year.

2022 marked another big drop off in the number of movies I saw: I watched only 47 movies during the calendar year. I ascribe the downturn to a rise in the number of "must watch TV shows" I tried to keep up with. And generally failed to do. TV is an entertainment hydra at this point; by the time you finish one show that people say you simply have to see, three new shows have sprung up in its place. (And Netflix has already cancelled one of them.) Perhaps for 2023, I should try to build a list of Top 10 TV shows?

Anyway, only 6 of those 47 movies I saw were viewed in a theater, with "wait until I can stream it on a service I already pay for" becoming the default way for me to view most movies, it seems. Partly because I'm operating on that delay, I've so far seen 21 movies officially released in 2022. To me, that felt like just barely enough to come up with a credible Top 10 List, and I fully expect titles near the bottom to drop off in the weeks ahead, as I continue to watch more movies. (Indeed, I watched some of the movies on this list in the first weeks of 2023.)

With links to my earlier reviews:

1. Roald Dahl's Matilda the Musical
   
2. Spirited
3. Good Night Oppy
4. Turning Red
5. Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery
6. Descendant
7. Bros
8. Prey
9. Nope
10. Avatar: The Way of Water

I feel like there's a decent mix there -- popcorn flicks, musicals, documentaries, animation, action, suspense. There aren't any what you might call "Oscar bait" movies, though. I have seen a few of those that simply didn't make the list. (Still more movie reviews for the weeks ahead.) But moreover, conventional Oscar bait seems not to be in fashion this year. The Producers Guild of America announced their nominees this week; they usually overlap 8 or 9 out of 10 Oscar nominated Best Pictures, and their list this year had far more "popular movies" on it than usual.

I think my biggest 2022 "blindspots" may be in the horror genre. I've seen a couple of online articles touting 2022 as a banner year for horror films, with numerous breakout hits and less-talked-about releases that have been declared worthwhile viewing for fans of the genre. Perhaps I'll focus my catching up there.

We'll see what 2023 brings to the local theater. (And, ultimately, to my streaming device and couch.)

Updated 5/2/23:

1. Roald Dahl's Matilda the Musical
2. All Quiet on the Western Front 
   
3. Spirited
4. Good Night Oppy
5. Turning Red
6. RRR
7. Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio 
   
8. Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery
9. Descendant
10. Bodies Bodies Bodies
    

Water Works

If you were to rank movies I've seen by the gap between their global box office success and how much I remember about them, James Cameron's Avatar would top the list with no close second place. The particulars of the movie had vanished so completely from my mind that I knew I would have to watch it again before joining the throngs to see the new sequel, Avatar: The Way of Water.

I can't really say that memories came flooding back as I watched the first Avatar again, but I can say that seeing it confirmed the vague sense I had about it. It had an unexceptional script; the plot was fueled by tropes, and the dialogue (especially the constant voice-overs) clanged. But it looked amazing. That was even watching it at home, not in 3D (as originally released), and even 13 years later (with all the subsequent advances in visual effects).

Avatar: The Way of Water is all of that, again. Exactly.

The plot of James Cameron's new sequel is a regurgitation of exactly the same plot points of the original movie. The protagonist's story is carved up among multiple characters this time around, but everything is so much the same that it borders on ritualistic. That, plus the dialogue is just as tin-eared, with voice-over just as ham-fisted. If you didn't have to watch the first Avatar just to reconnect with a few basics about the setting, then you'd probably do well to skip it entirely and just watch The Way of Water, because it's the same movie.

From a technical standpoint, it's also exactly the same movie -- though in this case, I mean this as enthusiastic praise. As I said, the visuals of the first Avatar still seemed to hold up to me on a recent viewing, even several ways removed from "the author's intended experience." Watching it today, I thought, "yeah, I can see why this blew everyone's freaking minds in 2009." (Myself included.)

My mind is blown all over again seeing what The Way of Water pulls off. CG characters look so real that you simply cannot question their reality. There is no uncanny valley. And the "degree of difficulty" in what is depicted is orders of magnitude above what the first Avatar showed. Real human actors are more fully integrated into more critical action. CG characters interact in complex ways with complex lighting, water... everything that an animator would absolutely avoid if they were trying to make things easier on themselves. It is, quite frankly, hard to imagine how the visuals could ever be improved upon. (Maybe some day when people start making literally 3D movies? Holograms you can be inside?)

Well okay, there is one thing you could do to improve the visuals of Avatar: The Way of Water, but it has nothing to do with the impressive work of the animators. James Cameron has opted to revisit the experimentation with "High Frame Rate" that some directors were playing with a few years ago. Audiences rejected it at the time, noting that the HFR made everything look cheap and fake. Cameron believed he'd cracked the code now, though, combining a new process for adjusting the visuals in post-production with a decision to only use HFR in some shots of the movie (sticking with a conventional 24 frames per second for more intimate, dialogue driven scenes).

James Cameron did not crack the code here. If anything, he made it worse. That is, unless he was trying to give the world a "tutorial" on why everyone should turn off motion smoothing on their TVs by serving up a 3-hour-long side-by-side comparison of what movies look like with and without it.

Honestly, my experience with the HFR footage here is so horrible, it makes me question whether what I'm seeing is the same thing everyone else is seeing. Like "what if the color I call red is what everybody else sees as blue?" kind of existential uncertainty. Because it is inconceivable to me that a director as obsessed with perfection as James Cameron is would want any audience member to see his movie the way I did.

The stated goal of HFR is to render the world with hyper-realism, to remove the "jutter" of 24 frames per second and make you feel like you're looking through a window rather than at a screen. And when the camera is locked off, not moving at all, HFR does do exactly that. Every character (CG or not, when it comes to Avatar), every blade of grass, looks perfect and sharp. Any single freeze frame is a beautiful photograph suitable for framing on your wall.

But the moment that camera starts to move at all, things move too fast for the eye to keep up with. They literally seem to be moving too fast -- characters moving, almost "drifting," with unnatural speed. To my eye, backgrounds actually get less clear; moving by at seemingly a different speed than the foreground, everything turns to a blurry mess and I can't track what's going on. The big action scenes that are supposedly the showcase for using HFR? They border on incomprehensible to me, save in the blissfully relaxing shots where the camera isn't moving. And I'm not even having the experience that a handful of people report: having extreme motion sickness triggered by HFR. (Though I have tried VR goggles before, and found they can give me that sensation.)

Let that all serve as further testament to how amazing the visual effects work is in Avatar: The Way of Water. Because I hated-hated-hated the back and forth of conventional footage and HFR. I never stopped being aware of it, and that utterly destroyed any chances that the movie would engage me with its recycled plot. And still, I praise the movie as the most triumphant, accomplished visual effects work ever. It looks amazing. (Though if there is such a thing as a screening that has the 3D but not the intermittent HFR, that's the version of the movie I would recommend.)

I always wrap up my reviews by giving out a grade. But how can I possibly put one grade on this experience? The story took a lackluster element of the first Avatar and simply repeated it. (To be fair, not really doing it any worse. Just taking the uninspired and being uninspired again.) The technical achievement reached unimaginable new heights. And one galaxy-brained creative decision about the frame rate threatened to wreck the entire thing.

I'd give it a B, I guess? Yes, the visuals were THAT jaw-dropping, that with everything else pulling against the experience, Avatar: The Way of Water still just barely sneaks onto my Top 10 list of 2022, soon to be posted. (At least, until I see just one more worthy movie to kick it out to #11.)

Seeing Red

Turning Red was released on Disney+ in March of 2022, so I was well behind the crowd when I finally watched it a few weeks ago. But better late than never, as they say. Now I'm posting about the movie as it reenters the public conversation, with many critics putting it on their lists of the best movies from last year.

If you're late to the party too, Turning Red is the story of 13-year-old Mei, who learns she has inherited a family curse: when she's overcome by strong emotion, she transforms into a giant red panda. As her mother tries to impress upon her the importance of control, Mei tries to continue living her teenage life -- which includes doing whatever she must to go to a concert by her favorite band.

Turning Red is the brainchild of director and co-writer Domee Shi, who was also behind one of Pixar's best shorts of the last decade, the wonderful Bao. Here, given 10 times the runtime to play with, she includes 20 times as many ideas... yet retains the same emotional connection that made the short so good.

This movie weaves together Asian culture and a Canadian setting. It's a curious time capsule of some sort, set 20 years ago, but at times feeling like an 80s movie with 90s sensibilities. It subverts expectations by having the main character's secret revealed to all in the first act rather than the final act.

The movie has been touted for its diversity, and rightly so. It's easy to see the metaphor for menstruation at the core of the story, and that's a huge barrier being shattered: for an animated movie, aimed at a family audience, to center on this. Yet I think the real trick is how, even while being so specific, Turning Red remains quite universal. At a larger level, this movie is about finding out who you are as you grow up, and breaking out of the boxes defined by your parents, your friends, and more.

There's great animation, which really goes without saying in a Pixar movie, but should be said all the same. Same goes for the voice cast, which here includes Sandra Oh and James Hong, but mostly features actors being cast for their talent more than their name recognition. And there are catchy songs too -- not necessarily the norm for Pixar -- from Billie Eilish and Finneas O'Connell.

I'd give Turning Red a strong B+. It's a shame that Pixar made three solid movies in a row (Soul, Luca, and Turning Red), yet none of them was released in movie theaters. But I suppose they're all right there on Disney+, any time you want.

Roald Trip

More than a decade ago (!), I had what remains to this day my most potent experience seeing live theater, when I saw the original production of the musical Matilda in London. Years later, I had a disappointing experience seeing the touring company of the Broadway version of that same show. Muddy sound, a less effective cast, and a too-big stage (compared to the original) prevented lightning from striking twice -- showing that while great on paper, a production of Matilda was not guaranteed to be good. So it was with nervous hopefulness that I approached the new film version of the material, the abundantly titled Roald Dahl's Matilda the Musical.

It would be easy for someone like me, who saw the stage version, to focus on what's changed in this new adaptation. It's been slimmed down to under two hours. Characters have been omitted. A few songs have been truncated, and a handful of others have been cut altogether (though also, a new finale has been added). But at the core, I'd say all that's meaningfully changed here is the amazement that it could be performed flawlessly straight through, night after night.

And that "I can't believe they're doing this" quality of the live version isn't lost so much as traded. The wonder is still here. The movie does an excellent job of opening things up with lavish visuals, taking full advantage of the new medium. Songs are given added context, a running subplot of a story told by Matilda is brought fully to life, the orchestra and dance routines are both vastly expanded, and more.

Through all this, the amazing songs by Tim Minchin remain as effective as ever. The droll commentary of "Miracle," the inspiring anthem of "Naughty," the stunning cleverness of the "School Song," the bittersweetness of "When I Grow Up," the tear-jerking simplicity of "My House," and more -- they're all still here. But now a wider audience has easier access to appreciate all those things.

The cast is exceptional. As with the stage version, it relies mostly on finding a large number of effective young talent to play the school children -- even more so here, as there are no adults playing the "older children." Alisha Weir, who plays Matilda, is an amazing discovery, anchoring this movie as perhaps no child actor has anchored a movie since The Sixth Sense. Emma Thompson almost literally vanishes into her role, enduring a transformative makeup job to play the wicked Miss Trunchbull. And Lashana Lynch is excellent as Miss Honey, key to the entire emotional turn of the movie. (I'd been questioning why all the character's Act I songs had been cut from the film, but that seemed to make it only more effective when Lynch finally does sing. And boy, can she.)

That London stage experience will always reverberate in my mind -- and even as good as this movie is, it cannot top that. It's probably just that comparison (unfairly) making me think of this as an A-, rather than a simple, straight A. But either way, this stands right now as the best 2022 movie I've seen (on a list I have yet to post).

Watching it is as simple as firing up Netflix. I can't recommend that highly enough.

Peeling the Onion

Knives Out was a movie I quite enjoyed when it was first released, and it held up (maybe even improved a little, in my view) when I recently watched it again. That re-watch, as you might guess, was in "preparation" for the second Benoit Blanc story, Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery.

Glass Onion sees writer-director Rian Johnson throwing his sleuth character, played by Daniel Craig, into a twisty new mystery with an all-new, all-star cast. A conceited tech billionaire has invited his friends to participate in a murder mystery game at a palatial escape pad when a real mystery emerges. Just like that, the game is on.

Except that nothing is as simple as what it seems. In this aspect, Glass Onion impressed me even more than Knives Out, as it doubled down on two key aspects of the previous movie. First, the "class critique" of Knives Out is made even more explicit in Glass Onion, with the line between the haves and have-nots driving the entire case. And this time, added to the mix is a scathing and timely criticism of just how stupid billionaires can be.

Second... well, this gets slightly spoilery (of both films), so skip this paragraph if you need to. One of the most clever aspects of Knives Out is how the mystery didn't appear to be the mystery until well into the story. We think we know what has happened until very late in the game, when new information makes the audience rethink everything that has transpired. Miraculously, Glass Onion pulls off this trick again, even though the audience will surely be expecting it. Once again, the mystery you think you're watching is not the one you're actually watching.

However, while I found the plotting of Glass Onion to be masterfully clever, I found the characters somewhat less compelling than in the original. And the same kind of goes for the cast. There are highlights; besides Daniel Craig hamming it up once again as detective Benoit Blanc, Glass Onion gives all the space over to Kate Hudson to play over the top, and Janelle Monáe excels in a way that you can't fully appreciate until deep into the movie. Not that the rest of the cast is bad, by any stretch; Edward Norton, Kathryn Hahn, Dave Bautista, Leslie Odom Jr, and more are all clearly having fun and making things fun for us to watch. I just didn't quite feel the crackle I did with the Knives Out ensemble.

Still, mysteries are difficult in general to pull off well. So the fact that I can compare this with Knives Out at all and find some things I liked more (even if there are others I liked less)? For me, that makes Glass Onion a success. Though I'll pick Knives Out if forced to choose, I'd also give Glass Onion the same B+ I gave the original.

I'll certainly be there for whatever Rian Johnson and Daniel Craig do with Benoit Blanc next.

Prodigy: Preludes

The first season of Star Trek: Prodigy has concluded, but I'm several episodes behind with my recaps and thoughts. So let me backtrack to the flashback-centered episode "Preludes."

As the Protostar crew commiserates with Dal over his newly discovered origins, they share their own tales about their pasts. Meanwhile, aboard the Dauntless, Asencia reveals her own history, and the plight of her people.

The episode is really a big swing for the writers of Prodigy -- pausing the overall story line just as it's accelerating toward a climax, going back to pick up the "origin stories" of the characters so late in the season, weaving in a more complete revelation of what happened to Chakotay... and trusting that the children in their audience will go along with it all. I don't know firsthand how it landed with that audience, but from my view, it all seems pretty successful.

There are interesting back stories to be shared here, after all. Zero's wasn't exactly my favorite (but then, neither is Zero my favorite character), but I thought there was interesting color in the rest. Rok-Tahk's history adds context for why she's so keen on scientific pursuits and so against using her physical assets. Her size and strength brought her little pride in her past, only shame and embarrassment. There's an especially dark aspect to her backstory, that the "hero" she worked with might just be one of the most diabolical villains ever on Star Trek. He was getting upstaged by his child co-star, so he sold her into slavery!

Jankom Pog's backstory was a fun merger of comedy and drama, and I found it especially clever in that it "answered" a "question" that I never really thought to have: why does Jankom Pog talk about Jankom Pog in the third person? Besides that tidbit, his tight little flashback showed us the origins of his skills in fixing things, gave context for why he seems to know so little about other Tellarites (he's from a sleeper ship, from another time), and why he's a bit socially awkward (he went a long time without interacting with anyone else). And it was nice for voice actor Jason Mantzoukas to be able to bring some pathos when he's normally (reliably) just relied on for laughs.

I thought "Preludes" was a really solid episode, worthy of a B+. I'm still three episodes behind in blogging about Star Trek: Prodigy, but I should have time to get caught up before the final season of Star Trek: Picard arrives.

Opportunity Rocks

Yesterday, I teased that two documentaries were making my Top Movie List of 2022. Today I'm blogging about the other: Good Night Oppy.

Available to stream on Prime Video, this documentary is about the Opportunity rover sent by NASA to explore Mars. Expected to last 90 sols (Martian days), the rover went on to be surprisingly long lived. The film documents many of the fascinating scientific discoveries it made, and depicts the hardships it overcame. Moreover, it documents the people who made Opportunity, investing so much of their time and effort into the project that the little rover became like family to them.

My love of space travel -- both fictionalized and real life -- is well chronicled here on my blog. If you share any of that interest (and if you're reading this, chances are high that you do), you will get swept up in Good Night Oppy. At a basic level, I was watching just to learn more about the accomplishments of this Mars rover... and the film certainly delivers that. It's a great look at the science, the engineering achievement, the technical side of space exploration.

But this documentary is equally about the people behind all that. I'm not entirely sure that Good Night Oppy does the best job of answering that question some people often ask ("Why do space exploration?"), but it does show you people for whom that's not even a thinkable question. Their enthusiasm and passion is infectious, and it really makes you empathize with them and understand them.

Consequently, Good Night Oppy is a surprisingly emotional film. In just 105 minutes, you begin to anthropomorphize this little rover nearly as much as you do watching an emotion-seeking missile of a movie like WALL-E. And if it's doing that to you in less than two hours, what of these people who poured years of their lives into the little guy?

There are lovely accents on this story, in the form of a soft and sweet score by composer Blake Neely, and a stately narration by Angela Bassett. But overall, this movie feels almost like a real life Star Trek episode -- space exploration is the background for telling a very human tale.

I give Good Night Oppy a B+. I do feel like you don't have to be into space exploration to like it, but I'm certain you'll enjoy it if you are.

Buried History

Before I can post my list of top movies from 2022, I need to catch up by posting reviews of several said movies. Two are in fact documentaries: one I'll wager many of my readers have heard of, and one I'll wager they haven't. Today, I'll examine the latter.

Descendant is a fascinating dive into American history from filmmaker Margaret Brown. It focuses on Africatown, near Mobile, Alabama. This is the area where, in 1860, the last ship to transport enslaved Africans to the United States, the Clotilda, arrived illegally and was deliberately sunk to hide any evidence.

The movie opens as something of an "unsolved mystery." Residents of the town recount the story of the Clotilda as it was handed down to them, but as the ship itself has never been discovered, it's a somewhat debatable story. And others in the town (including local descendants of the slavers themselves, who don't appear in the documentary) might just as well wish be forgotten.

The film quickly opens up to be about more than the question of finding the ship. The question of justice looms large. What would it take to make things right today? Not even all the people whose lives are more directly impacted today can agree on that, so how are YOU to feel? It's heady stuff with no right answers, and stirs up a lot of thoughts and feelings.

And, as such, it really can't offer you any kind of resolution -- which admittedly hurts the movie's ability to function as a narrative. Ultimately, my grade for the movie takes a hit for this reason, for my own impulse to seek a fully packaged experience in a film. Still, the other thing I tend to seek is to be taken on an emotional journey, and Descendant definitely does that. 

Moreover, this is exactly the kind of story that some people -- in the "ignore racism and it will go away" camp -- are trying to suppress. This movie is a powerful demonstration of the other (truer) argument: that racism can't be addressed (or even fully understood) without examining the full scope of its evils. I'd never heard of the Clotilda, and certainly did not know that the importation of slaves was actually made illegal in the U.S. well before the the Civil War. Yes, it's awful history... but it is the history of the people in Descendant, and they want to share it.

It's apropos, perhaps, that this story you may never have heard from is now being recounted in a movie you've also probably never heard of -- because it was released without fanfare on Netflix, in the same way 99% of things released on Netflix are released without fanfare. I only learned of Descendant from a film podcast I listen to, and I'm very glad a did. I give it a B, and a recommendation.

High Spirits

Before I get on with the business of listing my Top 10 Movies of 2022 (at least, that I've seen so far), I have to backtrack and catch up with a couple of "late entries" that I only watched in the last couple of weeks. And I'll start with a movie with an "expiration date" that's already gone by, because it's a holiday movie.

Spirited dropped on Apple TV+ early in December. It's possibly the 500th "modern take" on A Christmas Carol and Ebenezer Scrooge. It's distinguished somewhat by being a musical take on the tale (though it's not even the first run at that). Though, as they say: "but wait, there's more."

The film stars Will Ferrell (who became a Christmas icon with Elf) and Ryan Reynolds (whose winning charisma has weathered movies both good and bad). It also features Octavia Spencer (and yes, she sings), and a handful of entertaining cameo appearances best not spoiled.

But one of the things I found most entertaining about the movie is how these actors are all used. This is not Will Ferrell in "dumb man child" mode -- and both he and the movie are better for it. I've always disliked those kinds of Ferrell performances. (Indeed, I watched Elf for the very first time this holiday season, and it left me cold. But that's subject for perhaps another review.) Here, as the Ghost of Christmas Present, Ferrell behaves within the bounds of relative normalcy (for a musical comedy), and actually shoulders the movie's most dramatic and emotional moments.

Ryan Reynolds, meanwhile, twists his charm into being the film's cartoonishly heartless Scrooge character. You'll like him and have fun hating him because he's Ryan Reynolds, a calculation that works equally well.

The movie is more clever than I expected for a Scrooge repackaging, with more intricate plotting, fun fourth wall breaking, and irreverence. But it also brings in, at times, just the right amount of sentimentality for a Christmas movie. This is really the strike zone that fans of Scrooged have long felt that movie hits, starting Spirited on the road to possibly becoming a more enduring holiday classic. (But... probably not, since you can only watch it on Apple TV+.)

And the songs are great. I would expect no less, given who is writing them: the team of Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, who broke out with Dear Evan Hansen on Broadway before their songs became the best things about not-quite-as-good movies like The Greatest Showman and La La Land. They once again bring their A game here; even the "cut song" that plays over the end credits is a brain-sticking winner.

It's possible that Spirited just hit me in an especially un-Grinch-like moment of the holiday season. But in any case, it hit me. I'd give it at least a B+. I'd certainly give it a recommendation too, except that the window for holiday movie recommendations has probably closed. Next December, then, maybe?

2022 in Review -- Games

Happy New Year, everyone! After several weeks off of blogging, and several holidays, I'm now back to start 2023 as I start each new year here -- with a few looks back at my entertainment consumption of the year before.

I'll start with board gaming, which actually dropped off a lot in 2022: I played 201 games throughout the calendar year (18 of those online via Board Game Arena). Why the drop of nearly 30% from 2021? My best theory is that at various times throughout the year, I and most people I know were getting Covid. Quarantine would take different people out for a period of isolation, and while thankfully no one faced a serious case, people were sick and not in the mood for online games.

Or maybe not. But it gives me the opportunity to express some gratitude that there were no serious Covid infectionsin my circle among many cases. (Vaccines!)

Anyway... I played 78 different games in 2022:

24    The Crew: Mission Deep Sea
10    So Clover
10    The Quacks of Quedlinburg
9    Exit: The Game – Advent Calendar: The Mystery of the Ice Cave
9    Kokopelli
8    Secret Hitler
6    Azul: Queen's Garden
6    Turing Machine
5    Green Team Wins
5    Harry Potter: Hogwarts Battle
4    Azul
4    Between Two Castles of Mad King Ludwig
4    Cascadia
4    Just One
4    Old London Bridge
4    Planet Unknown
3    Cat in the Box
3    Gutenberg
3    Roll for the Galaxy
3    Scout
3    Whirling Witchcraft
2    Art Decko
2    Can't Stop Express
2    Decrypto
2    Hanabi
2    Long Shot: The Dice Game
2    Merlin
2    Nidavellir
2    Skull King
2    Subtext
2    The Crew: The Quest for Planet Nine
2    Twice As Clever
2    Viticulture
2    Viticulture World
1    3000 Scoundrels
1    6 nimmt!
1    7 Wonders
1    7 Wonders Architects
1    Akropolis
1    Ark Nova
1    Augsburg 1520
1    Azul: Stained Glass of Sintra
1    Bad Bones
1    Black Orchestra
1    Can't Stop
1    Catch the Moon
1    Clever Cubed
1    Clue
1    Condordia Venus
1    Crown of Emara
1    Dune: Imperium
1    Fantasy Realms
1    Forbidden Island
1    Furnace
1    In the Year of the Dragon
1    Juicy Fruits
1    Las Vegas
1    Lost Ruins of Arnak
1    Master Word
1    Mombasa
1    No Merci
1    Nyet
1    Paperback
1    Picture Perfect
1    Rolling Realms
1    Santa Monica
1    Splendor
1    That's Pretty Clever
1    The Castles of Tuscany
1    The Chameleon
1    The Red Cathedral
1    The Speicherstadt
1    The Taverns of Tiefenthal
1    Truffle Shuffle
1    Tzolk'in: The Mayan Calendar
1    Watergate
1    Wingspan
1    Zooloretto

As usual, I didn't tally games I played in the course of work. (Though my job shifted in 2022 much more to the production side of making board games over the design/development side, so I didn't play as much in that context either.)

Some games I counted only by the "session." This included both of The Crew games -- where I counted "1 play" no matter how many missions were played (successful and failed). "Session" was also how I counted the Exit: The Game Advent Calendar my husband and I played through in December. We were not diligent about playing once a day in the run-up to December 24th; instead we played on 9 separate occasions, each time tackling multiple accumulated days' worth of puzzles.

• Once again, The Crew topped my list. In 2022, it was the newer Mission Deep Sea -- even only counting it "by the session." It won't surprise me at all if that game tops my 2023 list too. I've played the campaign all the way through three times now, and my group still isn't tired of playing it. So long as the game remains our go-to ("I don't want to start another long game, but I could play a few rounds of The Crew"), it's probably going to stay atop the list.

• Excluding that (and go-to party game So Clover), The Quacks of Quedlinburg tops my list with 10 plays. It's honestly not a personal favorite of mine, but everyone in my group (including me) likes it well enough that whenever someone suggests it, there's usually quick agreement. (But my own preference would be for the next title on my list, though: Kokopelli.)

Other observations:

• Wingspan dropped off a TON since 2021, and that has almost everything to do with an observation I made about it in my last annual wrap-up. The Oceania expansion does radically alter the game, and it turns out: probably not for the better. I noted last time that the addition of nectar (a "wild" resource) arguably makes the game too easy. That "argument" has won the day in my group. Another new expansion has arrived, Asia, and we're likely to give that a try. I suspect we're going to remove the Oceania expansion before we do.

• Speaking of "expansions that weaken the game," we've also decided we don't like the Charms and Potions expansion for Harry Potter: Hogwarts Battle after all. Fun as the "charms" mechanic can be, we've found the "potions" to be time-consuming and tedious. And we've found that the overall balance of the expansion leaves it far too easy for experienced players to beat the game. In our two most recent plays, we stripped out that expansion (leaving the Monster Box of Monsters) and found that we enjoyed the experience more than we had in a long while. We lost both times, but barely on both occasions -- and that felt much more rewarding than lengthy cakewalks.

• For the first time in years, I wasn't part of any Legacy game experiences in 2022.

• I played three different versions of Azul during the year, and the play count reflects my order of preference for them: I quite enjoy the new (to us) Queen's Garden, I still think the original is an elegant triumph, and Stained Glass of Sintra is decent.

We'll see what emerges from the collection in 2023!