Us (2019)

SPOILERS FOR THE MOVIE CONTAINED HEAVILY WITHIN THIS REVIEW.

Jordan Peele is now a first-rate horror director, it seems. Get Out was a great start, but I was curious where he could go from there. Fortunately, the answer seems to be into even more wild, pointed social commentary with his sophomore feature Us.

Director: Jordan Peele

Starring: Lupita Nyong'o, Winston Duke

IMDb

This is a movie so dense you’ll probably walk out of it wanting to see it again. There is a real breadth of ideas to be unpacked here, and the movie – aside from a few exposition scenes – doesn’t waste its time waiting for you to catch up, weaving its commentary into cat-and-mouse horror tribute and some slasher gore. Basically the premise is that this family is on vacation and runs into exact doppelgangers of themselves in the night - and from there everything just spirals.

It’s a wandering, free-form exploration of the political and social divides in America. There’s something to be said for a few wry winks about Trump/MAGA types – the doubles of everyone that pop up from the subterranean are wearing red, and the fact that they target rich liberal-types in Santa Fe is something I noticed for sure, for maximum dichotomy between them.

But the larger message is about poverty and classism. Lupita Nyong’o’s character Adelaide’s double, Red, talks with some real spite in her about how everything good Adelaide has has been duplicated in a worse way: “And the girl ate, her food was given to her warm and tasty. But when the shadow was hungry, she had to eat rabbit raw and bloody. On Christmas, the girl received wonderful toys; soft and cushy. But the shadow's toys were so sharp and cold they sliced through her fingers when she tried to play with them.”

And then, when asked who they are, an even more direct line: “We’re Americans.” Later she also has a line about how “we’re humans, too.” Individually these lines are pretty evident in meaning, but the thing about social commentary is that it’s more about consistency of messaging and how the message is woven into each scene, and the story overall. It’s all about the haves and the have-nots. The rage of the under-class, burbling up to the surface like a volcano. All that’s wrapped up in a fiery and exciting romp through a beach town. Gorgeous images of the shore and of a classic American amusement park serve both to make this look great as well as to amplify the message – this is an American problem.

We’re at a fairly precarious, difficult time in our history right now, as anybody who lives here probably knows. Peele feeds off that like a vampire and creates a film that’s chaotic and off-kilter as the political climate here. Nobody understands each other in America right now. Suitably, the red-suited doppelgangers can only scream and howl – they’re unintelligible to those from the above-ground world. Violence becomes the only language common to them.

And I think what’s striking to me is that there’s really no resolution to it. Peele doesn’t pose a solution for the divide or the chaos. He just shows it as it is, this glorious miasma of violence and resentment. The red-suited doubles win in the end, unifying themselves in a literal hand-linked chain across the land, which is a pretty glaring commentary of its own. They were able to unify and come up to the surface.

At the end it’s also revealed that Adelaide is actually the real ‘Red,’ having switched places with the above-ground version as children when they met in a hall of mirrors. Both of them lived the others’ lives and now the fake Adelaide does whatever she has to to keep her status – every woman for herself. It becomes less of a monster movie, upon knowing this, and more of a struggle between two human beings. “We’re people too,” the real Adelaide, who’s spent her life underground as Red, says with biting venom and bile through every word. And maybe knowing that, then it’s a bit of an oversight for someone like me to have ever thought the other red-clad doubles were true monsters at all in the first place. Even the slasher-style murders start to make more sense. They’re fucking angry as hell.

A good twist is one that you can watch the whole movie again after knowing and the rest of the movie retroactively makes sense in a different way. This twist adds to the layers of the film and makes it more than just another monster flick. The fake Adelaide’s fear is for her own self-preservation. That’s as human as you can get.

It’s a weird-ass movie to be sure. Vague and metaphorical and not all of the in-universe world-building is explicitly explained. Why were there these shadow-doubles living in caves underground at all? We only get a few lines explaining that stuff and it’s not really a thorough explanation. I kinda like the vagueness, not gonna lie. I wouldn’t have wanted a bunch of long drawn out backstory scenes for the mechanical functions of this world – that would’ve just dragged it down and the exposition we got from Red, in character, made sense for how she sees things, adds context to the movie, and that was enough for me.

Horror, like any fantasy, is about feeling rather than mechanics. What we’re seeing on screen in Us has more resonance and meaning than a lot of movies in this genre try for. I think this is an evocative, mesmeric and hard-hitting piece of film. I haven’t been this fascinated by a movie in a while now. I’m sure there will be even more things to notice about this on future viewings. If you like classic horror and/or social commentary, Us is fucking profound and insanely engaging in its labyrinthine mirror-hall of layers.

PS: Here are some good pieces I’ve read about Us so far, which offer some views I didn’t know about or didn’t catch – I’m sure there are shitloads more, too.

https://twitter.com/kyalbr/status/1109984274114064385?s=19&fbclid=IwAR0trpsf-_PIpsflZZZLnIhOAuj_HXCYrtZXHYG4VooGwX9i1hGY6PVJjLI

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/us-was-movies-biggest-twist-hiding-plain-sight-1196584

https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2019/03/us-meaning-costumes-kym-barrett-interview-red-jumpsuit/585793/?fbclid=IwAR0wCXNaXkRBJPQK9YBjwQEjXwN1EdWc7pl94T0K5epng003Cbjbs-aA7WI&utm_campaign=the-atlantic&utm_content=5c9fe6f43ed3f00001723f9d_ta&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook

Dragged Across Concrete (2019)

S. Craig Zahler, a metal musician and now film director, has been making a name for himself with a series of gruesome movies even for horror fans’ standards: first, Bone Tomahawk was full of a lot of disemboweling and cannibal madness, and his last one Brawl in Cell Block 99 was full of enough brutal face-stompings and bone-breakings to fill up even the most devout gore-hound. Now we have Dragged Across Concrete, which based on the title I figured would be the most violent schlock-fest yet.

And it is pretty violent, yeah. But it also veers into something even more uncomfortable: mild conservative “anti-PC” racism.

Director: S. Craig Zahler

Starring: Mel Gibson, Vince Vaughn, Jennifer Carpenter

IMDb

I mean, it isn’t like they go full on MAGA hat or anything, but having Mel Gibson in a starring role was almost like a wink to the audience as to what this was gonna be like. Him and co-star Vince Vaughn, after their characters get suspended from the force for stepping on a Hispanic drug dealer’s head and neck on video, have a few lines early on about how PC everything is and it made me wonder what the hell this movie was playing at. Oh and another subplot has Gibson’s daughter getting orange juice thrown on her by a black kid while coming home from school, which prompts his wife to opine about how “she never thought she was racist before moving to this neighborhood.”

It’s all pretty perplexing at first – like, are we being asked to sympathize with that world view? Keep in mind that the actual plot has nothing to do with this. It’s like he just added it in for no reason really. It barely comes up again, but the stink of this stuff is striking as you go through the film. I think he was trying to show that yeah, these people exist and there’s not much you can do about it. They have pretty shitty, regressive-ish attitudes and yet they’re still out there working jobs and trying to figure their problems out like the rest of us.

It turns out, surprisingly, that the kind of people who espouse these pretty racist views aren’t dining on baby flesh every night. And not all of ‘em are wearing Klan uniforms or want some white ethnostate – some of ‘em are just mildly shitty. Most, in fact, are more like this than some extremity.

Zahler didn’t have to put any of these things in the movie – they’re ancillary and barely take up 10 minutes of screentime in this 2.5 hour movie. But at the same time, I’d much rather not have only movies that show people I like. That’s not a good path for anybody, that kind of sameness of intent.

If anything I think Zahler is just caught up in a whirlwind not of his own making. He’s just making movies he likes, but the culture around him has changed so rapidly and there are all kinds of voices right now that are genuinely inquiring as to why things are the way they are. And maybe there’s a sort of willful blindness in making a movie like this and just shrugging and going ‘well, it’s what I want to do, it doesn’t need to be political’ like he’s basically done several times. Unfortunately everything’s become political and the world is a goddamn dumpster fire because of it. I enjoy the guy’s movies. But I can see where detractors are coming from there.

But Zahler is nothing if not a storyteller, and we also have other plot threads coming together – another guy, Henry John, played by Tory Kittles, who’s getting back into crime to help his family. Jennifer Carpenter of Dexter fame is back in another Zahler movie, playing a new mother who gets caught up in the mayhem. Gibson and Vaughn’s cop characters get into this plot to steal a bunch of gold from even worse criminals, who Kittles’ Henry John is affiliated with. And Carpenter is kidnapped by the bad guys – people have also harped on this aspect of Zahler’s films, as it’s pretty antiquated damsel in distress type shit, but what can I say? He’s a metal musician and a fan of vintage gore and action movies. Not exactly the guy we should be looking to to lead us into the future.

What ensues is a lot of shootouts, some blood and guts. But also a typically well-paced narrative as Zahler has become known for. He takes his time with these scenes, relishing in showing you their conversations and their stakeouts in the car and their family lives – it’s all just build-up and table-setting but it’s compelling due to its rawness and the extent to which he takes it. It would be less so if he skimmed through it like other movies do.

He takes the audience seriously and delivers a full experience by not just jumping into action or sex or anything. By taking the leisurely and detailed route in setting up his story, the violence and action that comes later has more impact. Most Hollywood movies would just take five minutes to show a spouse character saying “please don’t die” and then jump into the action. Not this one.

The whole thing, like Zahler’s previous movies, comes off as a satisfying full meal. At 2.5 hours you won’t feel like you’ve been skimped on. It’s a three course movie and feels complete. I can’t always say the same thing about, say, a Marvel movie, which feels more like a big cheesy pretzel that will give you gas later.

Images copyright of their original owners, I don't own any of them.

The Prodigy (2019)

The Prodigy seems to posit that sometimes, parents are right to be afraid of their own children. But this is a pretty typical ‘bad seed’ type of movie like The Omen or Orphan or however many other ones. It’s so well-branded at this point it might as well be a corporate logo – Scary Kid, complete with creepy things said in a low voice, odd deadpan faces and spooky lighting! Get one at your local WalMart today!

Director: Nicholas McCarthy

Starring: Taylor Schilling, Jackson Robert Scott

IMDb

We start off with a serial killer dying when the police find one of his victims, a woman whose hand he cut off for some reason. Then at the exact same moment, Taylor Schilling’s character Sarah’s baby is born! Gee, I can’t imagine they’re showing us this for any hacky reason related to reincarnation or possession of any kind. Must just be a weird coincidence! I’m sure they filmed lots of other things that didn’t make it in, like just filming totally mundane random things for the hell of it! That’s how movies work.

The kid, Miles, grows up, and to my surprise the movie actually took its time here, establishing a family dynamic and only slowly introducing the creepier elements. I guess the story is that while the boy is gifted almost from birth, he also begins exhibiting some weird tendencies like when he begins speaking Hungarian in his sleep and it turns out to be some stuff like “you whore, I’ll cut out your eyes,” and you know, as far as an eight-year-old’s conversational skills, this isn’t that bad. Most eight-year-olds are way less interesting to talk to.

I think the craziest time to me is when he beats up a little kid with a wrench at school, and somehow is not kicked out after that – you never see the other kid again, but Miles is still there. But then again, what’s a little aggravated battery when you’re a kid? It’s just part of growing up.

So Sarah just goes to this weird doctor who tells her that reincarnation is real and her son is probably fighting off an evil spirit in his brain that could take him over completely! Imagine going to what you thought was a legit doctor and hearing that. He goes into insane detail about this. It’s like if you went to a totally normal doctor’s office with a bad cough and the guy turned to you and said unironically “you’re turning into a werewolf.”

But because this is some real brainless idiotic shit, the guy is totally right! He was on the money! He should probably try gambling because he’d be good at it most likely.

I think one of my favorite parts is when it’s revealed that the kid has rigged a baby monitor to spy on what his parents are saying, attaching it secretly to a picture downstairs. Are we sure this is a serious movie? Seems more like some kind of wacky sitcom. What will this boy genius do next? Maybe rig a school PA to play some hip trendy music so all the cool kids will like him?

Sarah's husband Edward flies off the handle randomly, losing his temper as if this were a fundamental aspect of his character and he were a fully three-dimensional character. But really it just seems random, and like a way to get him out of the movie for a while. He also gets into a car crash as well later – man, the script really tossed this guy aside like an old girlfriend it got tired of. The movie knew what to do with him about as much as a kid staying at his weird bachelor uncle’s house for a weekend.

Oh, and when she takes him to see that doctor dude, Miles blackmails the doctor into telling Sarah there’s no possession after all – he set up this whole plan to frame the doctor by taking his drugs, taking pubic hair off the toilet to put in his mouth (!!) to simulate the doctor putting his dick in his mouth, it’s fucking crazy. The doctor, though, he should probably quit – would you want anyone that easily outsmarted to be in charge of your mind? He’d probably get distracted and turn you into a vegetable.

I guess they figure out that to get the killer out of Miles, they have to complete the task he was there to do, which is murdering the killer’s final victim who escaped years ago. Sarah actually buys a gun and it looks like she’s gonna do it herself, which is completely batshit, like really just an out-there plot.

But if you’re afraid the movie might actually try something different and daring, nope! She wimps out and instead Miles, possessed by the killer, brutally murders the woman. Hooray for exactly the most predictable thing you could possibly do! But at least we got to see something completely, pointlessly cruel on top of that! That makes it all OK. Or maybe it makes it a total piece of shit. I can never tell.

Then Sarah chases Miles out into a field and tries to shoot him. Miles says he’s totally evil now and is only the killer, with Sarah’s actual son now completely gone. But of course, some random farmer guy shows up exactly at the right time, conveniently not hearing anything the kid said, and shoots Sarah before she can kill Miles. Of course! It’s not a lazy plot twist at all! Sometimes people just materialize out of nowhere right when the villain needs them to!

Then of course you get the lame-ass ending where Miles is at some new foster family’s place and he sees the killer in the mirror, signifying that HE IS ACTUALLY THE KILLER. Oh, wait, we already knew that. What a great ending, just reiterating what we already knew from the first act of the movie like it's a surprise!

Fuck The Prodigy, man. This is some seriously lame, dated, half-assed nonsense. Every decision made is cliché and the movie is afraid to take risks. The characters exist only as arbitrary hollow chess pieces to move around. The plot shies away from anything exciting and there’s no point to any of it. What was the message here? Serial killers are bad? Yeah, real Einstein-level shit, guys. At least Taylor Schilling is great – hope she gets a better movie next time.

Image copyright of its original owner, I don't own it.

The Year 2018 In Movies

Well, I deliberated how to do it this year, as every movie I was going to list as one of the worst of the year ended up being reviewed here already - so what was the point in just listing them all again? Instead, I decided to go ahead and list a bunch of my favorite ones in no order, because who really needs any more formality than that? There were a lot of cool movies last year.

I eschewed any superhero ones and tried to steer clear of the Oscar ones, because my blog really is like the dark side of any mainstream movie coverage most of the time. I think fans of stuff that is a little more off the beaten path will find a lot to enjoy here. Dig in. Consume some art. Have fun.

Sorry to Bother You

A fucking radical punch to the face. This was so vibrant, exciting and progressive. Director Boots Riley has such a fresh, unique style, and the story is a sardonic, dark and twisted and yet funny spin on how thoroughly fucked the working class is. I’ve never really seen anything like it, and fast dialogue and witty performances only buoy the whole thing. This is the kind of thing that will inspire you to go enact some change in real life. It’s a protest movie and I love the shit out of it.

The Favourite

Acerbic, cold and cutting; The Favourite is a dynamite film that tackles the question of power, of who holds it over who and what it means. Really, the film seems to think it’s more of an arbitrary thing, a farce we perpetuate ourselves, making ourselves miserable in the service of ‘power,’ whatever the hell that really means. Emma Watson is inimitable and the directing is quick and punchy, making this a movie I couldn’t turn away from.

Widows

A dense heavy-weight of a crime action flick. With killer script-writing by Gillian Flynn, this takes a somewhat stock premise and turns it into this labyrinthine, hard-hitting odyssey. The characters face real world issues and themes like sexism, racism, police brutality and income inequality are brushed over with Flynn’s masterful touch. Plus the action is awesome and director Steve McQueen knows how to make this one captivating as hell.

Hereditary

One of the best new horror movies. This is such a gut-punch, and so harrowing in every way. Every shot seems crafted to hurt you. The story blends a traditional ghost tale with real familial breaking-down and disintegration, turning grief into a weapon, used in a way I haven’t really seen before – it’s a more complex film than it initially lets on. Alex Wolff and Toni Collette are undeniable here, no matter how high their therapy bills might’ve been since this finished filming.

Annihilation

This one was a real trip, a visual feast for the senses as four women go into a bizarre parallel universe and things just ramp up in strangeness the closer they get to this mysterious lighthouse. Director Alex Garland’s previous film Ex Machina was more of a literary thing, with more social commentary – this is the exact opposite, a sci fi by way of fantastical adventure. It’s too tinged with darkness to be escapist, but the magnetic, transfixing visuals and sense of a journey are addictive here.

Isle of Dogs

This one was just fun. Wes Anderson has been an inconsistent director for me, but this, with its snappy visual humor and enjoyable characters – played by a really impressive cast – hit the spot. Its social commentary is a bit simple but it gets the job done. I watched and loved this for the sheer stylistic goofiness and ingenuity. It was an addictive little thing.

Eighth Grade

Bo Burnham’s film director debut is a personal, raw little tale, very human, and I found it a great watch. It’s funny in a subtle way, and a little bit tender, a little bit sad. Lead actor Elsie Day is a real fine and imbues this with a sense of honesty that you don’t get out of bigger-budget films all the time.

Mandy

Director Panos Cosmatos might not come out with movies very often, but it’s worth the wait if we get stuff that’s this awesome. Mandy is just a sledgehammer of a movie that takes its time to build character and then just starts tearing everything the fuck apart. Nic Cage gives the performance of his career and Cosmatos’ dedication to sheer blazing psychedelic weirdness in his destructive action makes this a vortex you won’t know how to or want to escape.

Hellfest

Super fun, vibrant horror flick that impressed me way more than I thought it would. Might not be anything terribly substantial but this was a serious blast of adrenaline and the best slasher I’ve seen in years. The setting is cool and macabre and there’s an actual sense of suspense and danger for these characters – you don’t want them to die. It’s 80s B-level schlock given the A-level film treatment and made with care.

Hold the Dark

Director Jeremy Saulnier has been building up his cred for years with movies like Blue Ruin and Green Room, both these raw, gritty action flicks with no pretense. Hold the Dark is his best yet. This is just a force of nature, and the perilous setting and inescapable action make it a legitimate experience. It’s primal and even kind of beautiful in a weird way. His dedication to making movies with no Hollywood bullshit at all is commendable.

Thoroughbreds

A sick puppy of a film, centering around a demented relationship between two adolescent girls and the fucked up things they do. I found this to be a wicked little romp, and those into fucked up entertainment will enjoy this.

Calibre

A killer, tightly-wound corker of a horror flick about two guys who get more than they bargained for going hunting in a small town. It never lets up and the story is the focus here. The tension is palpable and the whole thing will leave you with a churning sick feel in your gut. You know by now if you’re the type who’ll enjoy this one.

Death of Stalin

Like The Favourite, this is a movie that examines and then pisses on the idea of power in politics. It’s a dry-witted film and just skewers the ridiculousness of the whole idea of these ‘Leader’ types of authoritarian governments. I found it a unique film, worth seeing for sure, especially if you’re a history buff.

Leave No Trace

Director Debra Granik put out a great movie called Winter’s Bone years ago and is now back with another sparse, intimate drama set out in nature. This one’s about a father and daughter out in the wilds living off the land – and yet contrasting with the whims of modern society encroaching upon them. It has something to say about that, on how it’s become so hard just to live on the land that has always been here. And maybe a little bit about mental illness. I found it affecting.


...And I'll throw in a few disappointments for the hell of it:

Sicario 2: Day of the Soldado
The first movie was one of my favorites of the last few years – dark, gritty, morally ambiguous and made with an exquisite and artful eye by Denis Villenueve. This one feels more like a generic action movie, and not even a particularly good one. Without the same level of intrigue in the story and with the two leads acting like stock garden variety anti-heroes out of a syndicated network TV show, this comes off stunted and dull. The streak of mild racism in this one doesn’t help, either.

Deadpool 2
I didn’t like the first one that much, and this is more of the same. Some funny moments, sure – but that’s just what the movie is supposed to do, not a reason for praise. Overall this was full of two or three lame jokes for every decent one and yet again the story was fairly standard and dull. I’m not sure why these sorts of movies think you have to do a cliché storyline in order to make fun of cliché in film. And it’s not as edgy or interesting as it wants you to think.

And props to The Happytown Murders for being the first movie I can think of to rival Shyamalan's The Visit for worst movie of the decade! A truly horrendous spectacle of crap!

Let's now wash ourselves clean of last year's movies and instead go forth like babes anew, ready for a whole new year of entertainment.

Holmes & Watson (2018)

Holmes & Watson is the kind of movie you make when you don't give a shit anymore, really. This is a woefully insane movie that had Tony and I just wondering what kind of gambling debts Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly had to settle that led them to do this shit. It's getting press as one of the worst movies of the year and had a 0% on Rotten Tomatoes at first – now it's gotten to the clandestined, unparalleled highs of 8%. Hallelujah!

But what exactly is it that makes it so godawful? Well, strap in, kids!

Director: Etan Cohen

Starring: Will Ferrell, John C. Reilly, Ralph Fiennes

IMDb

Co-written with Tony.

This thing starts off with a young Sherlock Holmes as a child going to a British boarding school, where all the kids are mean to him and force him to kiss the backside of a donkey by blindfolding him – hey, you little jackasses, what do you think this is, Bird Box? And they made fun of him because he did the thing THEY TRICKED HIM to do. What imagination! What candor! You really showed him by executing a planned trick and him falling for it! The height of comedy!

In response, young Holmes immediately, like as he’s standing there humiliated, becomes super smart, cold and detached – he even makes his tears recede back into his body, which is something I imagine alt-right assholes wish they could do to mask their own insecurities. Then he gets every other kid expelled from school for various things he immediately deduces they've done – I wonder what their parents think about this. BUT AT LEAST SHERLOCK GOT HIS EDUCATION, THE LITTLE NARC.

No, seriously; every teacher just teaches him alone for the rest of his time there, I guess. No other students were admitted? Nobody found this weird? OK then, movie.

Then we fast forward to years later as Sherlock Holmes and Watson are world-class detectives, ready to solve any case. Well, actually they’re complete idiots and weirdos, only Holmes occasionally has a burst of deduction to solve whatever hamfisted case they come across. I guess all that specialized education for Holmes didn’t bother to teach him even the most basic things about how to interact in the real world. They get drawn into some kind of mystery involving someone threatening to kill the queen, I guess, although personally I’d trust any random homeless man on the street a thousand times before I hired these obvious deviant maniacs. I’d be afraid of these guys murdering me in my sleep. They’re fucking bonkers.

I mean, a lot of the rest of the movie doesn’t even make enough sense to critique in my usual way - the plot is a lot of nonsense that’s silly on purpose, and the main issue is that it’s weird instead of funny like 99% of the time. These gags are so strange that you’d swear they were working off some ancient parchment full of things an alien civilization found funny hundreds of millennia ago - they’re certainly not funny now. There’s a lot of shots of characters eating raw onions for some reason? A lot of random vomiting? A scene where two characters exchange a romantic glance while performing an autopsy?

It’s just head-scratching. It’s gibberish. Even when the comedy isn’t outwardly terrible like in the first scene of him as a kid, it’s so confusing and bizarre that you don’t laugh anyway.

Then there are the scenes that take up the majority of the film where they just extend lame gags for long enough that they could call this a full length movie rather than a serial killer’s demo reel for SNL. There’s one segment where they break a bee hive conspicuously in Holmes’ apartment and spend several minutes messing around with that - there’s no reason why they have it there except for this gag and the plot doesn’t advance at all, so it’s pretty much a hollow thing and wastes all of our time. If you could fast forward past an entire comedy segment and your movie doesn’t lose much, maybe it sucks… well, maybe it’d be fine if it were legitimately funny, but we know that ship sailed when we saw the first scene.

The second one they do involves the queen coming over, you know, like she does. They end up knocking her unconscious, and then there’s a long sequence of them trying to hide her body, using an obviously fake voice that nobody catches onto, and finally almost chopping her body to pieces with a hacksaw! Wow! I wonder what repercussions there will be for that and what comedic reactions we’ll get! Oh, nothing at all and this was a non-sequitur? OK then.

Seriously - without some of these scenes this would probably be basically a short film. The padding is so much that you could heal a guy with horrific back pain by just lying them down on this movie’s rolls of fat. It’s like a cloud. No substance at all.

There’s really zero point in going into all the other random shit that happens… just to gloss over it, they meet two women from America who fall in love with them, because this is that kind of movie. Also there’s some really dumb dialogue about how America is so noble and has a democracy and a fair justice system. So, you know, if you were thinking this movie was gonna be the second coming of Sartre, you’re wrong about that.

I guess at the end of the movie, Holmes figures out the killer must be someone close to him who can predict what he’s going to do, and so with no real reason he suspects Watson, having him arrested and almost hanged. It turns out, through an overly-long, dragging sequence, that we figure out he’s really just upset because Watson was going to leave him and be with the American woman - so, great reason to do all this! What a stand-up guy! This movie doesn’t have the complexity to tackle stuff like this, and it’s somehow glossed over and done lazily even though they spend time on it.

Anyway, that’s Holmes and Watson. It’s a baffling piece of cinema. Some parts are so weird they border on avant garde, and then you just get other things that are fairly normal, dumb-ass comedy without much in the way of any humor. By the end of the movie it seriously slows down and becomes a more generic picture and this is where it pretty much lost me. Most of the things that happen are inconsequential, and so the movie as a whole tends to feel like a waste of time.

It’s not good, but for those curious like we were due to the awful reviews… well, don’t bother. It sucks. That’s pretty much all there is to it.

Image copyright of its original owners; we don't own it.

House of Cards Season 6: Chapter 72 / 73

Well, it's here, the final two House of Cards episodes and the removal of the metaphorical ulcer on all of our subsconsciouses. I know some people like the show, but fuck it, this isn't about them. I am glad this is show is done. Now all that's left is for me to pump out some paragraphs detailing exactly what was so strange and silly about these episodes...

So apparently it's several months in the future, and Claire is pregnant and has a 70% approval rating as president. Wow, I knew this was fantasy, but goddamn is that a stretch. The Russian troll farms alone would've crucified her by this point. Let alone the mommy's boys who live in their parents' basements and consider a day of posting on Reddit to be productive. I guess there is some kind of plot about an app that invaded people's privacy, which Claire gets credit for slamming – but that's all very boring and ends up leading precisely nowhere.

Another thing that leads nowhere is the Shepherds' storyline, with Greg Kinnear's character getting accosted by a random girl at an event for polluting the city with chemicals. It really has no relevance. I guess they had to fill up screen time. I would've preferred if they had put in one of those old Windows maze screensavers instead. Those were cool and more engaging than this.

Not all is peachy, though, as apparently Doug Stamper is on the run, only surfacing from random gas stations in the country to call Seth Grayson, another old character nobody cares about, and tell him a bunch of Frank Underwood diary quotes from the beginning of the fucking show, about characters like Zoe who have long since been dead. This show expects us all to be fucking historians. Jesus – if you don't have much to focus on now, maybe your show needs work if all you have is stuff from six years ago.

Oh, and would Frank have kept a diary? He didn't seem like the type. Not with all his machinations. But who am I to criticize obviously flimsy plots you made as a half-assed attempt to cover up for Kevin Spacey's real life misdeeds? You do what you gotta do to get by, show, even if it is as shameless as possible. We all have those times.

Hm, what else have I missed? Oh yeah – the plot to assassinate Claire, orchestrated by Annie Shepherd and a bunch of other people, sitting around a board room in the middle of the day like goddamn supervillains. It's so insane, even though I am positive people will try and spin this as “oooOOOOOoooh, this happens in real life all the time!!” I dunno. I just love the line where Annie says “What are we going to do about the conspiracy nonsense when that comes up?” Conspiracy nonsense? YOU ARE CONSPIRING RIGHT NOW. THAT IS HAPPENING. I get what she meant, but damn do I love some of these goofy-ass lines.

The episode ends with an utterly fucking insane moment of Claire sitting in a dark room and singing a horrific nursing rhyme... “Row row row your boat / gently down the stream / If you see a crocodile / don't forget to scream.” It's literally like a fucking horror movie. God this show has lost its fucking mind.

In 'Chapter 73,' everything just starts unraveling. News of the potential assassination has reached Claire, and she's in panic mode, beginning to talk about nuking Russia or something. It's all very insane and I guess the show is playing up her pregnancy and how people feel about a pregnant woman. It's sort of trying to make a statement? Maybe? I dunno. It could be worse at it, I'll give you that – but I hardly think this is a very insightful message or anything. Not like House of Cards will be what people reach for in terms of feminist critique later.

It's just that they're not really saying anything. They have people reacting poorly to Claire because she's pregnant. Big whoop. What do you really have to say in deeper layers beyond 'people are biased against pregnant women's ability to lead'? Claire even makes a big speech about “pre-conceived notions.” Actually, she's had several lines this season like that, just direct and on the nose. It would be fine if it were better written or had more of a point, but there's just nothing to hook you in beyond that and so it feels like preaching. Just saying “Women are treated bad” out loud isn't really a feminist critique so far as writing a fictional TV show goes.

The issue with the show now is that it's gotten rid of every interesting character. Most of the ones focused on the last two seasons – Jane Davis and the Shepherds and Mark Usher – there's nothing interesting about. It's like if they just started following around random accounting people in an office. I don't give one single shit about these characters.

So I guess if you're gonna go out, there are worse ways than a bunch of scenes of a pregnant President threatening to nuke everyone. It's actually kind of funny, I'll give them that. She orders everyone out of the White House pretty much, intending to try and isolate herself from the impending assassin.

Doug Stamper shows up, probably the most obvious candidate for an assassin, but he's just allowed to walk around wherever I guess. This is the same White House where Frank pushed a woman down the stairs and into a coma in broad daylight – confirmed.

He and Claire have a talk and it's revealed that Doug was actually the one who killed Frank! My god! It's barely elucidated on as to why this happened. There's enough drama in this scene to be some kind of bargain-basement version version of Shakespeare. All the overwrought emoting, but none of the talent. I guess you got to work with what you have. It is almost like some kind of strange Scooby Doo episode reveal. "I would've gotten away with killing Frank if not for the show's lame writing!"

Then Doug stabs her in the neck, and she stabs him in the gut, killing him. Who knows how this is going to play when the general American public finds out that a woman killed a man in the White House? I mean, for real life, that still wouldn't be shocking. We'd be like 'big deal, last week Trump took a shit on the floor of the Iranian embassy on live TV.' But in this universe I'm sure it's at least a bit of a feather-ruffling.

So, I guess in general, this was how I expected House of Cards to end when I started watching it years ago. No complaints here! Since this episode aired, though, Kevin Spacey was formally charged with sexual assault for the first time and he released an utterly insane video where he acted as Frank Underwood and blathered on about how he wasn't dead and every accusation against him is a lie. So I guess we can brace for THAT spinoff – wouldn't you find it morbidly curious to watch him try to make a sequel to House of Cards on his iPhone where he tries to make it actually legit? 'The REAL story' or some such garbage? That would be fucked up, but interesting in the way a car crash is.

At every fucking turn this show was less dramatic than real life. It was completely devoured by reality. Every goddamn time. If it was a better show than the awful garbage it became in its final seasons, I might have even felt bad.

Images copyright of their original owners, I own none of them.

House of Cards Season 6: Chapters 70 / 71: Strap In For The Ride, Kids

This pairing of episodes at least picks up the pace enough for it to be exciting, even if it is still utter trash – it's at least exciting trash. We learn in Chapter 70 that Claire has been missing from the spotlight for weeks for an unknown reason. All the TV talking heads are speculating over it and saying she's not fit to lead. These are probably the most realistic parts of the show at this point, when the news anchors are on, though if it were TRULY realistic than they'd have a bunch of Nazis on as guests all the time for “fair and balanced” free speech.

Claire, it turns out, is actually just pretending to be a basket case. She faked some photo with her mascara running and her screaming like she's in horrific grief. The whole thing is like some kind of pastiche of cliches for how a female president would be viewed by the media, and honestly, as much as I hate to say it, it kinda works. It's the only time so far that the show remembered what it's supposed to be, which is complete over the top fiction and fantasy.

Meanwhile, Vice President Mark Usher and a bunch of random people who I guess we're supposed to know all begin to try and invoke the 25th amendment to remove Claire. In real life this hasn't been done even when our president is buddying up with dictators, but here they go shockingly fast to it. I guess that's just how much this country hates women. I can't even say it's totally unrealistic.

Doug Stamper is doing all kinds of fun things like beating up his old therapist and finding out that Frank Underwood's will actually gave everything to him, but it was hidden from him! Woohoo! Isn't it fun being in this circle of characters? It's actually amazing how sexy this makes politics look. In reality it's a bunch of geriatrics screaming at each other. This show soups it up like a fucking James Bond car.

The episode ends with Claire firing everyone trying to 25th amendment her, and instead installing an all-female cabinet for the first time in history. Will this actually be expounded on, or is it good enough just to show a bunch of chicks sitting at a table? I guess we'll find out on the NEXT EPISODE, COMING RIGHT NOW!

'Chapter 71' is kind of like the beginning of a person's descent into Alzheimer's – it's not pleasant, but some parts of it are undoubtedly interesting. For some reason the show focuses a lot on the family drama in the Shepherd family, with son Duncan finding out he was actually the child of the family maid! Dun dun DUN!!! Actually it's super boring and drags this thing down like an albatross. Holy shit is it mundane. Why should I care about this? I'm guessing there could be a payoff later, but honestly I do not trust the show to follow through in a meaningful way. Since, ya know, I don't care about these characters at all.

Claire, meanwhile, has to address talk about the several abortions she's had, telling the nation it's her business and no one else's and they should all fuck off – well, the last part is implied, but with this show, wouldn't it be believable for the president to do that?

The rest of this is just her doing what she does best, scheming to kill everyone. Not a skill they taught in school. She manages to get the Shepherds' scandals out there to where they'll be arrested and Mark Usher, she gets fingered by the FBI for working with the Russians – this is surely something nobody in real life can relate to or that makes them tired or their eyes glaze over. Very fresh subject matter!

Doug Stamper meets with Tom Hammerschmidt, who asks him straight up if he killed Rachel the prostitute from several seasons ago, and if Frank killed Zoe Barnes – it's still amazing to me that this fucking show is still stuck on stuff from the very beginning of its run. Move the fuck on! My favorite part of this scene is when Tom asks Doug about these murders and Doug is like “are we still on the record?” That was way funnier than anything else in this bullshit, hands down.

Then, to cap it all off, House of Cards actually has the balls to rip off the scene from The Godfather where everyone gets murdered. They literally just do that, having Tom Hammerschmidt, that lady Jane and Cathy Durant all murdered in succession. I know it's silly to be amazed at this when the presidency in real life has its share of shady shit going on behind the scenes – but come on. It's literally just The Godfather. I'm surprised they didn't literally show, scene-by-scene, as she cut off a horse head and put it in someone's bed.

Oh, and then she and Doug meet to talk about Frank's will some more. It's baffling that this is a plotline here. Why are you focusing on Frank? I thought the whole point was to shove him out of the way so Claire was in the spotlight. Having all this feminist-empowerment stuff and then just going back to talking about a white sex abuser man is the hardest 180 ever. There are skid marks on the road and your tires are on fire from that. The cops are probably coming.

But don't worry – Claire is PREGNANT now! Plot twist! What?! There are two episodes of this entire show left and man I can't wait until it's all over forever.

Images copyright of their original owners; I own none of them.