TV RECAP: Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D Season 3 - Episode 5: "4,722 Hours"

NOTE: As ever, articles like this are brought to you in part by The MovieBob Patreon.


At this point, there are probably three types of AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D fans (with significant crossover, of course):

1. Marvel Cinematic Universe completists watching to make absolutely sure that they don't miss any subplots, threads, etc being either launched or tied-up here.

2. Fans of all things Marvel and/or comics in general watching to make sure they don't miss appearances by any characters or iconography that hasn't shown up elsewhere yet.

3. People who've genuinely become invested in the characters/world of this specific show, care about the characters and want to know what happens to them.

"4,722 HOURS" is a rare episode that feels designed with Audience #3 exclusively in mind: It's a single story strictly involving the series' own storylines, no cutaways to any other subplots and no (definitive, at least for now) ties to either the Cinematic or Comics Universe. It also happened to be pretty damn well-executed and a fine acting showcase for Elizabeth Henstridge, which I imagine helped soothe the lack of case-specific goodies for viewers of other stripes.

SPOILERS follow:

For those just jumping onboard: Midway through Season 2's back-half, it was discovered that S.H.I.E.L.D has been in (high-level secret) possession of a mysterious stone monolith that morphs into a "living" liquid form and back again seemingly at random and has existed on Earth since ancient times. In the final moments of the season finale, said monolith managed to leak out of it's containment-cell long enough to liquefy and (apparently) swallow Agent Jemma Simmons whole. Earlier this season, it was discovered that the monolith actually functions as a time-space portal and that Simmons was still alive... but had been zapped off to a mysterious alien planet that looks absolutely nothing like the California desert processed through a blue day-for-night filter.

Through the obsessive dedication to her rescue of her BFF-who'd-really-really-really-like-to-be-more Agent Fitz, Simmons was rescued and yanked back to Earth early on but has demonstrated signs of detachment and strange behavior ever since - particularly in a resistance to picking up her awkward mutual courtship with Fitz where it left off (he had just finished managing to ask her out to a for-real romantic dinner when the monolith "ate" her.) This culminated in a stinger from two episodes ago, wherein she confided in fellow Agent Bobbi "Mockingbird" Morse that the real issue she was having was that she was desperate to get back to wherever it was she'd been marooned. "4,722 HOURS" presents Simmons' story of her ordeal as she relates it to Fitz (who's help she requires to "go back"), in order to explain not only where she was and why she'd want to return... but why she was so reluctant to tell him in the first place.

The fact that there weren't many other reasons for her to keep a secret from her best (only?) lifelong friend that made any sense, it would appear that most fans already figured that last part (she met and fell into a romantic relationship with someone else while offworld) out well beforehand. But even with the guessing games neutralized, the meat of the story (NASA sent an astronaut team through the portal 14 years ago, Simmons is rescued and ultimately falls in love with the last survivor of the doomed expedition, Will Daniels) was compelling and interesting; even as the "showcase" stuff re: Simmons showing off her DIY survivalist chops before meeting Will was frontloaded into the beginning.

Budgetary issues for non-recurring FX, sets, etc is AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D's consistent bugbear, and while there's a certain amount of charm in the oldschool B-movie solutions this episode pulls out to try and work around it (I almost wish they'd gone all the way and just openly shot in Bronson Canyon - or did they?) it's hard not to wish that the alien world looked a little more "alien" or that there was more creature-feature action than Henstridge (however enthusiastically) pretending to wrestle a floppy rubber tentacle we're meant to imagine is attached to some much larger water-monster. Still, if they were saving the money for their big "mystery heavy" (the planet is "haunted" by a shadowy shape-shifter who comes and goes with the aid of a powerful sandstorm) it was probably worth it, as those sequences were impressively "different" for the series.

On the other hand, much as I enjoyed this one, I'm worried about where it's going. Fitz's luckless longing for his platonic lifemate has been at the core of his carefully-managed "adorkable" persona from the beginning of the show, it's been fun to watch AGENTS prod at it for drama to make him even more likable/identifiable (he has now endured drowning, shootouts with terrorists and diving into a black hole for this woman, but - awww! - still stammers like a schoolboy when actually trying to ask her out) and it's very in-character for him to immediately decide to help her rescue Will is perfectly in-character... but I hope they don't take this too far in the obvious direction.

Yeah, it's hard not to feel the character (he risked his life multiple times over to save her and it turns out she met someone else? Ouch!), but "Woe is me! Even the female nerds I actually have things in common with prefer jocks!" (it's made expressly clear that Will isn't a scientist, he was the other astronauts' macho survivalist backup) is a really tiresome male nerd angst trope, and I'd really hate to see Fitz become an icon to the internet MRA "male geeks are denied the sex we're entitled to!" set because the show decides to give him one righteous feeling-sorry-for-himself monologue too many over this. (By the same token, I'm genuinely depressed imagining how much slut-shaming hatemail and forum-posting is being directed at Henstridge right now.)


BULLET POINTS:

• Yes, when Will said that the planet "has moods," my first thought was Ego: The Living Planet, too.
• I'll say it but I bet I'm not the only one thinking it: How cool would it have been if "Will Daniels" had been John Jameson III instead? It's unlikely, but I wonder if that was ever floated as a possibility - he's never been among the most important tertiary Marvel characters (so he's probably not a big part of anyone's movie plans) and it'd be quite a "we're still worth paying attention to!" coup for AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D to have debuted the first official piece of the MCU-official SPIDER-MAN world.
• If AGENTS does one thing consistently, it's nesting reveals and twists inside one another in multiple layers. As such, it's probably safe to say that there's more to Will than we already know. The fact that we only "know" that his crewmates went space-mad and had to be killed in self-defense from his story (Simmons finds the bodies of transportees from other eras, but not them) his very science-ish understanding of the planet's glowing-hot substrata, etc. I hope he's not an out-and-out villain, as that would play way too much toward the "Lament of The Nice Guy" stuff I'm hoping they avoid re: Fitz.
• That said, if Will IS a villain, a possibility would be that he's actually just a further manifestation of whatever the Big Evil on the planet is (see below) and all his actions have been to trick Simmons into pulling him/it onto Earth. (Alternate theory: He's a Skrull.)
• On the other hand, y'know what we've been hearing a lot lately? "Death," used in atypical contexts. The Hebrew symbol for the word was on the scroll Fitz found that helped unlock what the monolith was, and Will refers to the Big Evil in the sandstorm as a personification of Death. As readers of these recaps are likely already aware, Death Personified is a major Cosmic Marvel figure whose romantic attention is the motivating goal of INFINITY WAR's big central villain. So, there's that.
• On the other hand, if Death is going to be an MCU character (I still think it's more likely they'll conflate Death and Hela into one character, debuting in either DOCTOR STRANGE, THOR: RAGNAROK or both) I can't really imagine AGENTS getting to be the place where she first appears. More likely, though, I think the whole monolith/portal/weird-planet subplot will tie back into the Inhumans/Kree business that's still technically the "A-plot" of Season 3.

NEXT WEEK:

"AMONG US HIDE..." is mainly promising more of the "Let's Get Ward!" storyline (yawn) but with Bobbi finally getting back into the field (yay!) for what may or may not still be a build towards the spin-off. The teaser is being explicit calling Andrew dead, but I don't care - I'm still thinking he's Lash. The title, incidentally, is a reference to Fantastic Four Issue #45, which featured the debut of the original Inhumans Royal Family; so presumably there'll be more from that storyline as well. 

ALSO: We're still awaiting the appearance of Powers Boothe, who's scheduled to reprise his role as the (now former) Security Council head from AVENGERS and WINTER SOLDIER. Word is AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D will reveal his character name if Gideon Malick, which some fans are predicting is a clue that he'll be the MCU version of Albert Malik, aka Red Skull II.

Former Employee Anthony Rhodes Shares Some Colony Theater Stories

Earlier this month I posted about The Colony Theater�s closing and asked for folks to send in their stories about their experiences at the venue. I�ve only posted one so far � Brian Hill�s amusing story about seeing PULP FICTION at the Colony back in �94 � but for this installment I�ve got several that were sent in by Anthony Rhodes, a friend who I used to work with at the theater several years ago.

Anthony, who is the front man for the Raleigh band Army of Dog (pictured above), worked at the Colony from December 2006 - March 2011. 

First up, Anthony recalls how he got his job at the theater:

�I�m a musician. I used to be an aspiring writer. I never got anything published. I wasn't terribly good at writing. I'm better at music, I guess - I've had some marginal success in that world, at least. But some friends and I put out a literary journal back in 2006. It was mostly local writers, and we were proud of it. We even managed to get Quail Ridge Books to put our journal on their shelves.

Shortly after that, we created a MySpace page. And the very first friend request we got from from The Colony Theater. We of course accepted it.

A couple weeks before that, I'd fallen on hard times and I was looking for a second job. And because of that MySpace request, I messaged the theater through the literary journal page on MySpace. I asked if they had any openings.

The Colony Theater MySpace account messaged me back, and offered me a job. It was from the general manager - he was the one who'd bought our literary journal, and he�d liked it enough to send us a friend request. And that's how I came to work at The Colony.�

This story Anthony calls �I Guess You Didn�t Realize�:

�The register wasn't a register - it was a cash drawer, and we all had to do the math in our heads. Us employees - we had just about every price of every possible combination of everything, and the resulting change you were owed, memorized in our heads.

Unless you paid with a $50 dollar bill. Because nobody ever did that. But sometimes, people did.

People are used to handing you money and immediately getting their tickets or concessions, without pause. If as a patron, you hand us a $50 dollar bill, we didn't have that memorized, and we had to think for a moment.

One night, such a patron handed me a $50 dollar bill when his total was going to be $16. So I took a moment to think about what his change would be, instead of immediately knowing it, had he handed me a $20 dollar bill.

He became impatient, very quickly. And he started yelling numbers at me - a counterproductive thing to do when someone is doing math in their head.

And he totally messed up my internal math, and I got it wrong. He yelled at me for it, but I quickly corrected the error, and I gave him correct change. He told me I was a fucking moron, and gave me the finger.

Now the thing about working at The Colony was, at one moment you might be at the ticket window, and the next, you might be selling concessions. Your duties ebbed and flowed with the crowd and the line (or lack thereof at the ticket window).

And so as he came inside, I found myself also taking his concession order. He seemed surprised.

�Yeah, you didn't know I'd be making your food too, did you?� I said.

He looked a bit sheepish and ordered his concessions. He later came out of the movie and apologized to me, got a refill on his popcorn, and left a generous $5 in the tip jar.�

Anthony�s next recollection concerns when Godfrey Cheshire�s MOVING MIDWAY premiered at the Colony in 2007:

�In 2007 the theater hosted the premiere of the award winning documentary, MOVING MIDWAY.

The cinematographer/co-producer was present, and he was a very nice guy. We�re used to premieres like this, and often, the people behind the movie acted very entitled and aloof and treated us employees like shit. Not this guy.

He told us about his movie and answered our questions, and we talked about other movies, and other things in general.

A few months later, my Uncle Charlie died. At the graveside service, I stood a ways back, just taking it all in. A man walked up to me. He said �you look familiar.� I told him he did too. I asked him his name. He said �I�m Jay Spain.�

I told him it didn't ring a bell. He said he was in movies, and I asked him to name a couple as I worked at a theater - maybe our paths had crossed.

He said he produced MOVING MIDWAY. But he didn't want to make that a thing. He was just there to pay his respects to his Uncle Charlie. My Uncle Charlie.

Jay Spain and I are cousins, and we're still in touch now all these years later. Because of The Colony Theater and our Uncle Charlie.�

Finally, Anthony has a anecdote that he dubbs �My Dark Passenger�:

�For my five year run at the Colony, my shifts were Wednesday nights, Friday nights and Sunday afternoon. I loved working there, and I never took a shift off.

But one Christmas, after I'd been there about three years, my wife wanted to visit her family in Georgia, so I asked for the weekend off, and I was granted that.

My wife and I ended up coming back a day early, and I could have worked my normal Sunday shift. But I'd already gotten it off, and it was already covered, and not only that, I'd bought her the first season of Dexter for Christmas, so we decided I'd just stay home, and we'd watch that, instead.

Meanwhile at the theater, the first day I'd ever taken off, Michael C. Hall and his wife at the time (his sister Deborah on the show) - they came to the theater. While I was two minutes away at my house, watching the first season at home with my wife.

Son of a bitch.�

Be like Anthony! Send in your stories about the Colony to boopbloop7@gmail.com or message them to me on Facebook.

More later...

Really That Good UPDATE

Hey gang.

So, update on the status of the next REALLY THAT GOOD episode. Short version: It's coming, and soon. Obviously, I did not want to let the series go this long with VACATION as the most recent installment, but sometimes life gets in the way.

I could probably blame my recent health concerns, but the fact is it's less about that and more about that being the impetus to reconnect with parts of my life that I'd allowed to become detached. A social life, even one as haphazardly-managed as mine, is important to cultivate; and a side-effect of this is less time alloted between paid work to give over to passion projects - particularly passion projects that don't (for the most part) generate funding in and of themselves outside of viewers being hopefully wooed to chip in at The MovieBob Patreon.

That having been said, a greater impediment still was that I happened upon a situation where a film turned out to be impossible to place in proper retrospect without talking about its direct sequel, which in turn was impossible to itself quantify without talking about its predecessor. As such, the next REALLY THAT GOOD has become (by necessity) a two-film piece; which presents a new set of challenges and a rethinking of style and approach - which I believe I have cracked, hence this update.

I usually try to do these things as surprises, but since you've been kept waiting long enough I figured a small tease, at least, is in order. So...



The next REALLY THAT GOOD, ideally hitting in early November, will be Sam Raimi's SPIDER-MAN & SPIDER-MAN 2.

I've been picking away at this/these one/two for awhile in the background now, and I'm excited for how it's coming together. I can't wait to share it with you all, and I hope you'll find the wait worth it.

P.S. Just for a further tease, I also hope to have a second episode ready for late-November and at least one for December as well. One is a Christmas movie (that I am mentally-preparing to record sound for while remaining verbally-composed), the other is about a boat. Stay tuned :)

JESSICA JONES is Sooper-Serious Business, Yo

I liked DAREDEVIL a lot, but I never really got onboard that it represented some kind of next-level evolution for the Marvel Universe brand.

Too much of the story felt stretched-thin between the "main" beats (why is the law practice so incidental to the series so far?) and I'm less inclined to see it's much-ballyhooed aesthetic and tone as the welcome "dark side" of the MCU and more like the eyeroll-inducing "stuck in the early-2000s" side. A good series, but mainly one that does the best possible version of stuff I'd thought the superhero genre had managed to otherwise outgrow: Unrelentingly grim, afraid of its own four-color shadow (Matt Murdock, in both his getups, is the worst-dressed superhero in Marvel not named Quicksilver), celelbrity-villain dependent (yes, D'Onofrio was magnificent all the same) etc.

But for what it was, it worked. But I'm wondering whether or not having this as the default-setting of the Netflix/DEFENDERS Marvel material is going to prove limiting. Case in point, the otherwise very good looking first full trailer for JESSICA JONES:

I'm feeling this (Krysten Ritter as a bitter hard-living superhuman detective? Good pitch) but not without reservation. For starters, it occurs to me that no one seems to have asked how Jessica's comic backstory (put-upon average girl gets super-powers by accident, tries to be a superheroine, suffers a horrible fate that jades her on the costumed life, becomes superhuman-problems-focused private eye instead) is going to "work" in an MCU where widespread superheroism is only a few years old. Will she have even ever been "Jewel" in this version (the next-to-last scheduled episode is title "Jewel & The Power Man," which reads like an intent to take the piss out of the idea of Jones and Luke Cage acting anything like their "super" selves) And, if not, doesn't that negate a lot of the "point" of the edginess i.e. "Here's what happens when the fantasy fails?"

I'm also wondering if making David Tennant's Zebediah "Purple Man" Killgrave apparently a central focus is a great idea. Yes, he's important in this mythos, but I hope they haven't looked at how much everyone loved Kingpin in DAREDEVIL and decided that building the narrative mainly around the villain is the way to go for all of these series. Also, yes, it bugs me that he's not purple - or maybe he is, and just mind-controlling everyone to not notice it? That'd be fun. And it'd be a nice surprise if Rachel Taylor's Patsy Walker turned out to already be Hellcat, but I'm not counting on it (ditto Marvel using this series as a surprise-introduction for Carol Danvers, who was part of this project back when it was pitching as a network show but doesn't seem to be now.)

In any case, the series hits in about a month so we won't have to wait long to find out.

STEVE JOBS: An Intensely Talky Character Study In 3 Acts

Now playing at a multiplex near you:

STEVE JOBS (Dir. Danny Boyle, 2015)

As screenwriter Aaron Sorkin, and director Danny Boyle have stressed repeatedly, this highly anticipated portrait of the late Apple co-founder and CEO Steve Jobs isn�t a biopic - it�s an intensely talky character study told in three acts, each set backstage at crucial product launches in Jobs� career.

The first third is set in 1984, at the launch for the original Macintosh at the Flint Center for the Performing Arts in Cupertino, California. We meet Jobs (Michael Fassbender in his sharpest performance yet and with a flawless American accent to boot) fretting over making the computer say �hello� to introduce itself when turned on for the presentation.

In snappy, witty dialogue largely delivered within walks and talks � a very familiar Sorkin device � Jobs argues with key Mac engineer Andy Hertzfeld (Michael Stuhlbarg), and his trusted marketing chief Joanna Hoffman (Kate Winslet) over the issue.

Hertzfeld protests: ��We're not a pit-crew at Daytona, this can�t be fixed in seconds.�

�You don�t have seconds � you had three weeks. The universe was created in a third of that time,� Jobs responds.

�Well, someday, you�ll have to tell us how you did it,� Hertzfeld replies through a smirk.

Yep, there�s that Sorkin snap!

Floating in and out of Jobs� orbit are Jeff Daniels as Apple CEO John Sculley, who needles Jobs about how they used real skin-heads in the famous �1984� Apple television commercial; Seth Rogen as Apple cofounder Steve Wozniak, who wants Jobs to give credit to the Apple II computer team in his speech; and most importantly Katherine Waterson as Jobs� ex-girlfriend Chrisann Brennan, and her five-year-old daughter Lisa (Makenzie Moss), whose paternity Jobs denies.

These interactions take us up until Jobs is introduced onstage, then the film transitions to the man and his team preparing for the launch of the NeXT computer system at the Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall, San Francisco. This time our genius is worried that the dimensions are off on what�s supposed to be a perfect cube of a computer.

As he makes the rounds through the facility, Jobs argues with the same folks - Sculley, Woz, Brennan - but he�s beginning to bond with his daughter, played at age 9 by Ripley Sobo, so there�s some significant development there.

The concluding third of the film concerns the launch event for the iMac in 1998 at the same venue as the �84 Macintosh, and yet again we see Jobs go through the tangled motions with his minions (no, not those Minions!). Perla Haney-Jardine fills the shoes of his daughter at 19, who, of course, gets to finally connect with her father.

There�s some patented Sorkin character cutesiness present in such moments as Jobs telling his Walkman carrying daughter that he�s going to put �a thousand songs in your pocket� (the iPod, duh!), and when Wozniak and Jobs bicker over a Beatles analogy (�I�m tired of being Ringo when I know I was John,� Woz complains), but overall it�s a meticulously sculpted screenplay that�s a shoo-in for a Oscar nomination. I prefer Sorkin's script for THE SOCIAL NETWORK, but this is in the same lofty class.

As some scenes are strained and some beats are repetitive, STEVE JOBS falls just short of greatness, much like the man himself as these three spotlighted products were financial failures, but its strengths which lie in the delightfully punchy performances by Fassbender and everyone in the cast (seriously, there is no weak link in this ensemble), the volumes of perfectly on point one-liners, and Boyle�s inspired stylistic choices like using different film formats for each era (�84 in 16mm, �88 in 35mm, and �98 in digital) elevate it into a series of speculated conversations well worth cinematically eavesdropping on.

Jobs was a visionary, but, yeah, he could also be bit of a dick. Boyle, Sorkin, and Fassbender�s take on the man is that he was well aware of that, but it couldn�t be helped because �there is no off position on the genius switch,� as David Letterman would say.

More later...

TV RECAP: Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D Season 3 - Episode 4: "The Devils You Know"

Now we're getting back on track.

After nothing much special happening last week, AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D rebounds this week with an episode where not much happens for the most part... and then everything happens in the last 10 minutes or so. Not exactly appointment-viewing stuff, granted, but this time last year we were still dealing with the "Coulson keeps drawing maps" business, so yeah.

SPOILERS follow:

For the most part, we're continuing the threads laid down last time: S.H.I.E.L.D and ATCU are now (reluctantly) working together on the Inhumans "problem" in order to track the movements of the Inhuman-hunting monster Lash, with the added wrinkle of Daisy being extra-annoyed because she's getting the sense that Coulson's decisions are being swayed because he's kinda "into" ATCU boss Rosalind Price. Also annoyed: May's ex-husband Andrew Garner (Blair Underwood), the psychiarist who's been counseling Inhuman "Secret Warriors" prospects for S.H.I.E.L.D and isn't happy to learn that self-duplicator Alisha (last seen in Season 2) is already on active assignments. Meanwhile: Fitz is still trying to reconnect with Simmons, not yet aware that her real problem is that she actually wants to "go back" to the alien otherworld she was marooned on between seasons. Elsewhere: Agent May finally has enough of Hunter's recklessness in his let's-go-kill-Ward mission (me too - it's boring) and rats the whole thing out to Coulson, only to be surprised to find Andrew working at S.H.I.E.L.D.

The May/Andrew stuff is, surprisingly, the most compelling this time. The writing typically plays May as so close to the vest it's easy to miss when the show is actually setting up unseen parts of her story to be "mysterious" instead of just "taciturn badass." The idea is that she and Andrew did some near-reconnecting at the start of her leave, but then he took off without explanation and now she's even more bitter/jaded than ever - the duality now being that both parties have disappeared on the other to (apparently, in Andrew's case) go do secret work for S.H.I.E.L.D.

Oh, and it's also more compelling since Andrew promises to explain where he went and why "later" to May... only to be DEAD (apparently) by the end of the episode because Ward threatened to have him whacked after discovering Hunter's undercover gambit and Hunter called his bluff. So yeah, down goes Andrew, blown up in a convenience store explosion by Werner Von Strucker. Because this is a series that really needed to keep killing off it's Black supporting characters.

Anyway! The supposed Lash "origin" teased at the end of last week was more misdirection: Instead, we meet a soon-to-be-dead Inhuman whose "power" is breaking out in a rash around other Inhumans whose been helping Lash (who is also an Inhuman, just like in the comics) find his victims - his rationale being that being Inhuman is so unpleasant that these are mercy-killings. He turns out to be wrong, of course: Lash turns up to kill him by attacking the ATCU truck transporting him (and Daisy and Mack, reluctantly being allowed to inspect their "partner's" facilities) and describes his actions (existance?) as "necessary" rather than merciful.

For reasons unknown, Lash doesn't bother to kill Daisy - so she's alive/awake to see his retreating shadow seemingly morph back into that of a "normal" human (Lash looks like a hedgehog-man, if you haven't been watching.) "So he could be ayone!," she helpfully explains to Mack/The Audience... just before Rosalind awkwardly steps into the room (meaning that Lash is definitely NOT her, unless AGENTS' misdirection-lever is busted.)

And then there's Fitz/Simmons. After doing the world's worst job of hiding her private research into rebuilding the portal, Simmons reveals that she needs Fitz's help to go back to Planet Day-For-Night Desert because "something happened" there - something we'll presumably find out next week.

Good episode? Yeah, but more in the "keeps the stories moving" sense than "THIS is why you should be watching!" sense. I'm a lot more impatient for the next one than I was for this, though, so that's definitely something.


BULLET POINTS:

• Lemme get this out of the way straight-off: Andrew is NOT actually dead because Andrew is Lash. It explains everything: Why he vanished suddenly on May, why he's so big on helping S.H.I.E.L.D catalog Inhumans but not on actually clearing them for combat, how Lash is always one step ahead of everyone, where he's getting his data from and (from this episode) why Werner looked panicked instead of psyched after the hit. The only remaining question for me is whether he's always been Inhuman (meaning he would've been one when May killed the kid psychic in her "Cavalry" origin) or whether he's among the recently-turned.
• In the preview for next week, Simmons calls the mystery planet "Hell." Could be hyperbole, but recall that so far AGENTS' main point of connection to Cosmic Marvel has been through THOR-adjacent characters, and THOR: RAGNAROK supposedly involves Viking Hel.
• One imagines that Hunter probably isn't going to "come back" from willingly getting a fellow Agent's loved-one "killed" to settle a grudge. Is that spin-off back on or still off? I can't keep track anymore.

NEXT WEEK:
"4,722 Hours" appears to feature Simmons going all survivalist on Planet Whatever, with still no real indication as to why she'd want/need to go back there. Were there other people/things with her? Guess we'll find out in a week:

"JOY" Still Doesn't Want You To Know What "JOY" Is About

I dunno. At this point I feel like JOY (installment number three of a film-series where we're not supposed to notice that the director of SPANKING THE MONKEY keeps inexplicably casting Jennifer Lawrence as middle-aged mother/nurturer figures) should stop playing cute and just own the fact that it's about the invention and maketing of The Miracle Mop.



I "get" that the idea is probably to avoid seeming like a "gimmick" premise, but from where I sit "Hey, this sort-of kitschy infomercial thing you maybe snickered at back in the 90s actually has a pretty compelling story behind it" is a more interesting pitch than "Jennifer Lawrence sternly walks through out-of-context working-class Americana for a few hours!"

THE FIGHTER was a solid, occasionally excellent movie; but the fact is David O. Russell has been on a career plunge since the magnificent THREE KINGS and thus far this one barely looks better than AMERICAN HUSTLE - and AMERICAN HUSTLE was fucking terrible.

Venture Capital

Yes, the STAR WARS trailer is lovely. But this is the preview I've been waiting for. Has it really taken 13 years to get to 6 Seasons of THE VENTURE BROS? It has. That would be irritating for any other series, but here it's more like an indicator of how much care goes into everything:



Now, the fun part: Re-watching everything to remember where exactly things left off.

BRIDGE OF SPIES: Spielberg & Hanks Serve Up Splendid Cold War Spy Stuff

Now playing at a multiplex near you:



BRIDGE OF SPIES (Dir. Steven Spielberg, 2015)

You know we�re really getting into the season of Oscar-baiting when a prestige picture with such pedigree as this one comes along. I mean, it�s a Steven Spielberg film, starring Tom Hanks, concerning historical events, with a screenplay co-written by the Coen brothers � can you get any more Oscar baity than that?

But BRIDGE OF SPIES, the 29th movie by the most famous and successful filmmaker of our times, is a worthy, noble piece of entertainment that ranks with Spielberg�s best work, and it�s my favorite of his four collaborations with Hanks, of course, one of the most famous and successful leading men ever.

Set in 1957 at the height of the Cold War, the film posits Hanks as James Donovan, a Brooklyn-based insurance lawyer who was recruited by the CIA to his initial chagrin to defend an accused Soviet spy.

The assignment makes Hanks� Donovan very unpopular with the public � he gets nasty looks from folks on the subway looking up from their newspapers � and draws ire from his wife, played by Amy Ryan, elevating the role of the typical concerned wife-on-the-side, who asks: �Do you know how people will look at us, the family of the man trying to free a traitor?� (sure, it�s an easy, obvious role for Ryan, but if you have to have that part played - who better?).

Donovan consults with his client, Rudolf Abel (played with nonchalance by Mark Rylance) and explains that if convicted he could be facing the death penalty. �You don�t seem alarmed,� Donovan observes to which Abel says �would it help?� This line becomes a running joke of sorts.

As expected, Donavan loses the case but argues that Abel should be kept alive in case the situation arises in which the Soviets have captured an American then a trade could possibly be arranged.

Meanwhile, we are introduced to a group of U.S. fighter pilots who are sent on a secret intelligence gathering mission involving the Airforce�s new fangled high altitude, camera-equipped U-2 spy planes. One of the pilots, Gary Powers (Austin Stowell) is shot down and captured by the Russians.

Representing the CIA, Donovan travels to East Berlin to negotiate the trade of Abel for Powers, and another American, a Yale student named Frederic L. Pryor (Will Rogers), who was arrested and is being held without charge by the East German police.

Maneuvering through the negotiation process between East Germany and the U.S.S.R. is tricky for Donovan as has to work out the conditions of the deal with such prickly bureaucrats as Wolfgang Vogel (Sebastian Koch), a German lawyer; and German Stasi agent Harald Ott (Burghart Klau�ner).

Between meetings on the street of Berlin, Donovan is accosted by a group of young German toughs, who steal his overcoat. Afterwards, one of his colleagues asks �How did you lose your coat?� Hanks shrugs and replies: �You know, spy stuff.�

Spielberg and Hanks serve up splendid, you know, spy stuff here in this sturdy, grey-toned drama that beautifully builds to the tense prisoner exchange climax at Glienicke Bridge between East and West Berlin, where Powers� fighter pilot friend Joe Murphy (Jesse Plemons) is brought over to confirm his identity.



This stand-out sequence is where Spielberg�s longtime cinematographer Janusz Kaminski captures the film�s most stunning imagery with the glare of lights on the snowbound bridge juxtaposed with the pitch black of the night effectively surrounding these little men just doing their jobs, as one character puts it.

The film�s post script shines with Spielberg�s brand of sentimentality which many may find to be cheesy � i.e. such shots as a woman on the subway looks up from her paper to give our modest hero Hanks a smile of approval in obvious contrast to that earlier aforementioned scene - but it felt earned to me.

Hanks and Spielberg are among the only ones these days who can really sell such a Capra-esque vision of an all-American family man � an honest lawyer, mind you � who works to do the right thing to make the world a better place. Donovan�s role in the trial and the trade deserves such a treatise, enhanced by the timely commentary on how the Cold War of yesteryear echoes through the War on Terror of today.

It�s also a pleasure to have Hanks handling the sharply scripted dialogue by Joel and Ethan Coen, who co-wrote with Mark Charman, that�s so much better than what the Coen brothers gave him in one their rare misfires, 2004�s THE LADYKILLERS. Still, Hanks, as solid and dependable as his performance is, will doubtfully get any Oscar action for this (the Academy has been there done that), but I�m betting that Rylance, who quietly steals the movie as the amusingly jaded Abel, will get a nomination.

BRIDGE OF SPIES may be another case of the �Greatest Generation� saluting itself again, but it�s grand, old fashioned entertainment made by one of our most trusted storytellers, and one of our most trusted actors that does stately justice to its subject. So go ahead and label it Oscar bait, but that doesn�t mean it isn�t worth swallowing hook, line, and sinker.

More later...

SCHLOCKTOBER: "Ninja Gaiden: The Anime"

TV RECAP: Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D Season 3 - Episode 3: "A Wanted (Inhu)man"

AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D's greatest strength is its ability to pivot on a dime into an entirely different tone or story-thrust than it had been in before, but that's also its most prominent stumbling block: When the show can be anything, what exactly are people holding on to week-to-week? The previous seasons (in hindsight) aimed to mitigate this by dividing their first and second halves by broad over-arching storylines: Season 1 was "Why is Coulson alive?" followed by "Oh shit, HYDRA's back!" Season 2 went with "What is Skye, really?" and segued to "Meet The Inhumans."

But Season 3, thus far, doesn't seem to have established a first arc or even a definite sense of purpose: Despite the season-specific "SECRET WARRIORS" branding, we mostly seem to be back in the scattershot, episodic structure of Season 1 but now the characters are all dragging two seasons worth of baggage and loose-end storylines. Maybe that's deliberate, maybe we won't know what this season is "really" about until CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR flips all the tables come May, but as of right now I'm missing the clear sense of purpose Season 2 already had by this point.

SPOILERS FOLLOW:

We're back to a three-way split storywise this week, in any case: Coulson and Daisy (formerly Skye) are still trying to protect newly-made (or "outed") Inhumans from both The ATCU and the monster Lash, Hunter and May are working to infiltrate Ward's new HYDRA start-up gang and Simmons, having been rescued from an alien world by Fitz, isn't re-adjusting to Earth all that well.

After taking a break last week to put the focus on reuniting Fitz/Simmons, "A Wanted (Inhu)man" turns back around to Coulson and Daisy racing against the government backed paramilitary outfit ATCU (Alien Threat Containment Unit) to get a handle on the rapidly-growing population of newly-turned Inhumans (read: Mutants, but because of Alien genetic-tampering from prehistory); the difference being that S.H.I.E.L.D wants to protect them and draft the willing into Coulson's "Secret Warriors" team, while ATCU boss Rosalind Price wants... well, it's not clear.

The key "wanted" aquisition this week is Daisy's (still boring) lightning-throwing pal Lincoln, who isn't interested in getting caught by either team but has to make a choice when ATCU leaks his name to the press and he finds himself in a tragic spot involving an old friend. Like everything else involving "Sparkplug" up to this point, it's not particularly compelling but it does the job of misdirecting a twist: Coulson is willing to give up Lincoln when it turns out ATCU's second-choice target is Daisy, but when he bolts (sorry) anyway The Director offers up a compromise: S.H.I.E.L.D (which, remember, is still technically unknown to still exist by nearly-everyone) will "temporarily" team up with ATCU.

Well... alright, then. It's a nice gray-shades turn for Coulson, taking him back to the morally-dubious problem-solver space he occupied prior to THE AVENGERS, but apart from that I'm not seeing how this is especially different from the deal struck with Talbot last season. The expectation, obviously, is that when CIVIL WAR's "let's regulate superheroes" thing kicks in ATCU will be said to be an arm of that, putting Coulson and his Secret Warriors in an awkward place, but even if that's the case it feels like a half-cooked plot turn for now.

The big secondary story continued to be Hunter and May (no James Hong this week, sadly) looking to climb into Ward's Nu-HYDRA team, which involved Hunter having to go through a FIGHT CLUB-style initiation to even get a meeting. The whole thing felt ugly and tonally off (this is another storyline where the super-spies on both sides just kinda agree not to use any of the scifi gadgetry shortcuts they have other times just because), with Hunter spilling (and losing) a ridiculous amount of blood while May wipes out a trio of would-be sexual-assailants - yeesh. A little grit is fine, but this reeked of AGENTS as the MCU's middle child trying to prove that it could be just as "cool" as its angry/ultra-violent baby sibiling DAREDEVIL.

The best stuff involved the Fitz/Simmons story, as Fitz's awkward but endearing attempts to help lead Simmons back to normality felt like it was teasing more interesting developments (in terms of the characters) than the showier A and B stories. The "button" of Bobbi and Fitz having developed a close personal friendship between seasons (he's helped her with physical rehab, she's turned out to have serious skills filling in for Simmons in the lab - alongside him) is getting hit especially hard in-tandem with Simmons being "different" now; which could make for some really uncomfortable drama i.e. one party or the other feeling like they might've waited too long to say... something. To me, that's more (potentially) interesting than the stinger of Simmons' "I have to go BACK!" (which has to be a deliberate LOST-reference, right?)


BULLET POINTS:

• What's up with Simmons? Could still be (literally) anything, but the idea that she might actually need to go back through the portal somehow (to help someone? to help herself?) is a good wrinkle. This being fan-theory bait, let me throw mine in: This isn't the "real" Simmons.
• Speaking of fan theories, another one being floated is that the monolith/portal is some kind of judging-mechanism that only gobbles up people "guilty" of something - recall that Simmons (unknown to everyone else) straight-up murdered a baddie last season. Notably, it also went all gooey for Professor Randolph last episode.
• ATCU's endgame? Honestly, I'd be surprised if a lot of the details of that still aren't even clear to the people making the show: The degree of foreknowledge the Marvel TV team has of the Marvel Film team's specific plans is unclear, and now that they're serving two different masters (Kevin Feige now runs Marvel Studios as a separate-but-related Disney division, but TV and Netflix are still under the thumb of Marvel Inc. majority-stockholder Ike Perlmutter - a man the near-entirety of the film division famously despises) that's not likely getting any better. My guess is that the ATCU's "real mission" won't be clearly delineated until it can be revealed as a "prototype" of the pro-registration side of CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR. That having been said...
• ...CIVIL WAR, the comic storyline, led more-or-less directly into another Marvel's event series (after WORLD WAR HULK, which sequelized the pre-CW PLANET HULK maxiseries) SECRET INVASION. In that story, it's revealed that The Skrulls (alien shape-shifters) had been quietly infiltrating all levels of human society for decades to gradually prime us for takeover, and that they saw the post-CIVIL WAR fracturing of heroes as a perfect "coming out" opportunity. Of note, Skrulls are the ancient arch-enemies of The Kree - who created The Inhumans specifically as anti-Skrull bioweapons. Thus far our main known detail about Rosalind Price is that she's good with disguises and otherwise lacks a tangible past. Oh, and the Skrulls? They have a Queen.
• I don't think we've seen the last of Professor Randolph, and I don't think he's coming back as a good guy.

NEXT WEEK: Lash (apparently) gets an origin story in "The Devils You Know."

Should've Led With This

As I said in this BMD piece, I was "onboard" with ABC's new MUPPETS show from the start, but even still I think it was probably a mistake for them to have not led with last night's 4th episode, which (thanks to stuff like this) felt a lot more like "classic Muppets" in execution - something the series has been criticized for.

That can't miss karaoke night deserves another look and another listen! #TheMuppetshttps://t.co/gRxTTXWOVE

� The Muppets on ABC (@TheMuppetsABC) October 14, 2015

The Recollections Of The Colony Theater Series Begins

As The Colony Theater in Raleigh is going to close in December, I've been collecting stories from local folks about their memorable experiences there at the over 40-year old art house.

Our first recollection comes from Brian Hill, a Facebook friend who I've seen at many of the theater's revival screenings such as Cinema Overdrive. Brian writes that this is his favorite story of seeing a movie at The Colony:

�Back in 1994 while I was at NC State for college, my friend and I decided to go see PULP FICTION, which was only playing at the colony. I picked her up at her dorm and we rolled over to the theatre to check out the film. On the way there, I noticed that she was acting a little weird, but not completely out of the ordinary.

We had had a beer before leaving and she was a fairly small girl so I chalked it up to that. Upon arriving at the theatre, we hit the concessions and grab a big thing of popcorn which she immediately starts woofing down like is mana from heaven. Again, odd, but not overly odd. Getting into the theatre she notices the carpeted walls and becomes mildly entranced, to the point that she walked over and petted them for a minute or two before we finally took our seats in the front row (house was packed!) This was sorta weird but I just let it go because I didn't really know what to say about it. Finally the movie started and I figured everything was cool.

Cut to the scene of Travolta and Thurman pulling up in front of Jack Rabbit Slims. Mia looks at Vince and tells him to �not be a square daddy-o� and draws the square in the air. This is depicted on screen with the dots drawing out the square. About a minute after that scene, I feel my friend�s hand roughly grab my arm and I look over and she is completely wide-eyed and looking mildly freaked out.

I leaned over and whispered at her to see if she was ok to which she replied, in a VERY nervous sounding tone: �Did you just see Uma Thurman draw a square?� And I was, �yeah?� She immediately whipped her head around and was like �You did????� in a very happy/excited tone. After that, she sat back and watched the flick with no more issues and the night ended.

The next day I asked her what the deal was and she told me that before I had picked her up one of the people in her dorm had given her some mushrooms and she was tripping the whole time. And when she saw the lines on the screen she thought it was the trip and was about to freak the hell out. After she realized it was part of the movie she calmed down. To this day I think about that every time I go to the Colony (and every time I watch PULP FICTION).�

Editor�s notes: The picture at the top of the post isn't from when PULP FICTION originally played at The Colony in �94 - it�s from a more recent Cool Classics screening of the film a few years back. Also, it always bugged me that the square that Uma draws looks more like a rectangle.



Have a story about The Colony Theater to share? Please send them to: boopbloop7@gmail.com. And thanks to Zack Smith and the Indie for their shout-out in this post about the theater's closing.

More later... 

Schlocktober Returns

Realized I managed to NOT post last week's IN BOB WE TRUST, which featured the revival of SCHLOCKTOBER. My bad. Here it is below, along with the new one from this week:

LAST WEEK:

THIS WEEK:

"HAIL CAESAR!"

The Coen Bros back in 1940s Hollywood mode?

George Clooney as a hack leading-man blithering through a costume epic?

Scarlett Johansson as an Esther Williams analog?

To paraphrase Mr. Oswalt: What god did I please???

TV RECAP: Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D Season 3 - Episode 2: "The Purpose in The Machine"

First things first: "Purpose in The Machine" introduces Agent May's father. As he turns out to be (played by) the legendary James Hong - one of our all-time greatest character actors - it is now automatically the most important episode of AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D that has ever aired or likely will ever air.

Anyway...

By now I've come to terms with the fact that a lot of the reasons I've come to genuinely enjoy AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D are probably the same things that both the series' creators and other audiences find the most frustrating - in particular its tendency to change-up tone, direction, story-arcs, character roles and general narrative flow on a whim. Yes, I'm aware it's more a function of Marvel TV and Marvel Film not really being on the same page a lot of the time, but what works works. Case in point: "Purpose" opting to (seemingly) resolve what easily could've been a season-long plot thread (Agent Simmons, believed dead by everyone but Fitz, is stranded on an alien planet) in the season's second episode. Did not expect that.


The "let's get Jemma!" storyline takes up the bulk of the episode and (happily) serves as opportunity to reintroduce Peter MacNicol's Professor Randolph, the standout one-off character from the early-half of Season 1. A blue-collar Asgardian commoner who's been anonymously chilling on Earth for a few thousand years (random stone-worker in his own world but a super-strong near-immortal here,) Randolph was for a long time AGENTS best example of its then-unrealized potential to do interesting things with the Marvel arcana; and it's both fun to see him back (MacNicol has been relieved of his supporting role on CSI: CYBER, so here's hoping he picks up a regular spot here) and intriguing to see hints of deeper intrigue to him: He clearly knows more than he's telling about The Monolith, is strangely insistent that "any" portals be destroyed and has an... "odd" reaction to learning that The Inhumans still exist or that Daisy (formerly Skye) is one of them.

That last part is especially interesting from a future-storyline perspective: We've already seen both Kree and Asgardian visitors react with fear to the presence of Inhumans and/or Inhuman-adjacent technology on Earth, which could make things very complicated with the series already plunging into the expected Inhumans-as-X-Men-replacements stuff re: government/military crackdowns. Historically, the middle is not the safe place to be in Marvel narratives. In any case, by the time things wrapped up The Monolith was atomized and Fitz/Simmons were reunited, though with her suffering some clearly heavy PTSD from... whatever she went through on the other side; with the only new information gleaned being that The Monolith was at one point in the possession of a pseudo-Masonic group of 19th Century Brits - wonder if that's going anywhere?

Elsewhere, the secondary-business re-introduced Agent Ward, continuing in his quest to rebuild a leaner, meaner new HYRDRA in his own image. I'm still not really feeling this storyline (unless we're going to get something more like the COBRA-esque HYDRA of the comics, HYDRA has been done at this point) but I enjoyed the misdirection of this step, as we're led to think Ward is kidnapping a rich young brat to torture for his money but instead learn the "kid" is Baron Von Strucker's heir and Ward was looking to test his resolve and recruit him. I'm still not "invested" enough to care about the eventual setup that comes from this (Strucker Junior enrolls in the College psych course of May's ex, who's also S.H.I.E.L.D's on-call therapist) but it's something.

I also found myself feeling a little impatient with how slow the build to Daisy/Coulson's "Secret Warriors" team is turning out, though it's at least more interesting than Nu-HYDRA or (at least so far) Hunter and May teaming up to go kill Ward (though that one did lead to some highly-agreeable quiet-drama scenes with Ming-Na Wen and the aforementioned Mr. Hong.) I'm more and more getting the sense that the anti-aliens/Inhumans/etc sentiment stuff is part of the build to either the mid-season break (for another AGENT CARTER miniseries - hooray!) or for the innevitable CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR tie-in, but I hope it doesn't continue to sit there inert until then, with Dr. Buzzkill showing up every few episodes to say "Nope, not yet."

Bullet Points:

• Where was Simmons? Still no idea, but given her reaction after leaving (waking up clutching a shiv in defense) it's pretty clear she wasn't alone there. Also, we know other people have been there before -  wonder what's become of them?
• Randolph refers to the activities of the 1830s Monolith-dabblers as "half-baked Satanism." Something to note: The Inhumans are showing up instead of Mutants here for purposes of MCU-worldbuilding because Mutants can't be used outside of Fox movies, but the same rules don't actually (entirely) apply to television; which (unless I've got it twisted) means that, if Marvel wants these guys to be an incarnation of The Hellfire Club, they could be.
• Also: Randolph describes attending a very EYES WIDE SHUT-ish party at the castle where the Monolith-machine was hidden, guided by "a man dressed as an owl." Wouldn't it be funny if he was any relation to a certain Daredevil nemesis?
• Coulson threatening to turn Randolph over to the alien-hunters was a nice nudge toward getting him back to the morally-ambiguous space he occupied before we found out his motivation was being a Captain America fanboy. The Secret Warriors are going to be the off-brand X-Men, fine, but that doesn't mean Coulson needs to be Professor X.
• Unanswered question from Season 2: Where is General Talbot in all of this? (I'm crossing my fingers he turns up alongside the returning "Thunderbolt" Ross in CIVIL WAR.
• It just occured to me that Randolph could easily turn up on AGENT CARTER. That would be pretty great to see.
• We still never found out what made the Monolith liquefy apart from when Daisy and/or The Machine were making it happen, but it seems like it only ever did so in the presence of Inhumans, Randolph (and Asgardian) ...and Simmons. I still don't think she's Inhuman, but maybe an alien of some kind?

NEXT WEEK:
"A Wanted (Inhu)Man" promises to pull Lincoln back into the storyline. I have no particularly strong feelings for this character, but apparently a lot of fans hate him. I bring this up because I now learn that his derisive nickname is "Pikachu" in some circles, so now even though I know they're eventually going to call him Spark Plug I really want that to come up somewhere.

Video Review: THE MARTIAN

Review: THE MARTIAN

Note: Video review is in-production alongside several other projects, but I know people have gotten tired of waiting so for now here is a text version - as ever, content like this is possible in part through The MovieBob Patreon.


THE MARTIAN (2015)

HOLY FUCKING SHIT does it feel good to love a Ridley Scott movie again!

Alright, alright, look. I know people have been asking me about dialing back the profanity on these things, but, I�m sorry � it�s been a long time since one of our undisputed greatest filmmakers actually MADE a great film, and I�m excited about it! This hasn�t happened since the Director�s Cut of KINGDOM OF HEAVEN, and that was in 2005� and since he�s already announced that he�s going to follow this one up with another FUCKING �Prometheus� movie, it probably isn�t gonna happen again for awhile. So how about you get off my ass and enjoy a rare unabashedly positive review, huh?



THE MARTIAN is the best movie I�ve seen so far this year � and since it�s now October, pronouncements like that start to actually mean something. After a solid decade producing movies that looked great but often broke down on the narrative level, Sir Ridley has once again landed on solid base-material and turned in the kind of filmmaking that�s so good you want to call it a miracle� except that�d actually be doing it a disservice: There�s nothing mystical or ephemeral about why THE MARTIAN is great, the answers are all right up there onscreen. The cast is great, the acting is great, the script is tight as hell, the direction is nigh-flawless, the FX work is gorgeous � hell, even the song choices are good.

Everyone is on the same damn page and everyone is doing their damn job. THAT�S why it�s good� which is amusing, considering that that�s also a fairly concise breakdown of the film�s plot, theme and overarching ideals � but I�m getting ahead of myself.

The basic premise here is that in the near future NASA has finally managed to launch a manned mission to Mars. But there�s a storm on the planet�s surface bad enough that the crew has to abort the mission and take off early, and amid the chaos one of them � specifically Matt Damon as team botanist Mark Watney � gets swept up in the storm and thrown to certain death. BUT! By sheer random chance, Watney is NOT actually dead: He�s just stranded, alone, on the Red Planet.

Fortunately for him, Watney happens to not only be a brilliant and capable enough scientist to literally life-hack his way into creating a sustainable longer-term existence on Mars; he�s also one of those Movie Scientists whose ALSO kind of a �bro� and loves to quip sardonically about everything he�s doing for the audience. We�ve had a TON of these �It�s okay for me to be this smug all the time because my confidence comes from my admirable intelligence� heroes lately, and to be honest Watney would probably be insufferable if we had to spend the whole fucking movie with him � but we don�t.

And that's where THE MARTIAN goes from being merely a solid film to a genuinely excellent one, transcending it's starting point as a rock-solid genre exercise to become something like a masterwork.

See, while it'd be all well and good to just stick around on the red planet following Watney � especially since this is absolutely the finest �Movie Star� turn of Damon�s entire career to this point - the film instead cuts back down to Earth where NASA soon discovers what's happening and mobilizes what soon becomes a global effort to bring him home; an effort through which THE MARTIAN slyly reveals it's true colors: this isn't some hackneyed cautionary tale about the dangers of exploring the unknown - it's a high-stakes procedural about the AWESOME power of knowledge, which has placed Mark Watney in one of the most impossible situations imaginable MAINLY so that it can thrill us with detailed depictions of smart, dedicated people figuring out how to get him out of it.

This is, in effect, a love-letter to science, space-exploration and NASA in particular � both in terms of it�s history and also it�s ideals: There�s no �villain� in THE MARTIAN other than shitty luck and Mars itself � none of the human characters turns out to be an asshole or cartoonishly unreasonable in order to generate false drama, there�s no bullshit love-triangles or personal pettiness employed to make us like or dislike certain characters, none of the sappy tacked-on �personal growth� narrative that kept pulling me out of GRAVITY and (thank GAWD!) none of the pseudo-spiritual bullshit that ruined INTERSTELLAR.

Hell, the movie doesn�t even try to impose a �character arc� on Mark � and he�s the MAIN character! He doesn�t �change� or �grow� or �learn� anything through his ordeal, he and everyone else just face down the problems they�re presented with and solve them one after the other. That�s easier said than done � the whole reason cheap drama and forced-arcs exist in drama is because procedural storytelling isn�t always the most riveting thing in the world � that�s why you fill your cast up with people like Jessica Chastain, Michael Pena, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Kate Mara, Kristen Wiig, Jeff Daniels, Sean Bean, Donald Glover� AND why you hire a director like Ridley Scott. And that�s why, if everyone shows up and does their job, you�ll get a great film out of it.

Now folks� I�ll admit I�m the easiest lay in the world for stuff like this. I�m �that guy� who never stopped being in love with outer space. I�m �that guy� who thinks we oughta be dumping as much funding as we POSSIBLY can into NASA come hell or high water because I do NOT want to die without at least seeing humanity be on it�s way to something like Starfleet in my lifetime � and I�m that guy who if you hear this and come at me with some short-sighted �but people are still� and we need money for� but it�s not as important as�� my response is always going to be SPACESHIP. FUCK YOU. That�s why it�s been hard for me to write this review, because I wanted to be sure I loved this movie MAINLY as a movie, and not just because it�s a fellow �let�s get our asses back to space!� booster � but yeah, this one is REALLY that fucking good!

I cannot think of a single thing I dislike about this movie. I love Scott�s direction, I love the cast, I love watching Matt Damon remind us how GOOD he can be when he�s not making an idiot of himself of that fucking reality show, I love how tight Drew Goddard�s screenplay is, I love how well-executed the denser scientific stuff is handled so that it�s still 100% compelling even though I understood MAYBE 20% of what they were actually talking about, I love seeing Sir Ridley bust out a couple of those music-montage sequences he ALWAYS kills at but doesn�t do enough of, I love the way it celebrates and lionizes the idea of science and mathematics skills as essential tools of survival WITHOUT any shitty STEMLord �Nyah! We run the world now!� pandering �Revenge of The Nerds� bullshit, I love the way it celebrates a GLOBAL future of cooperation via a key subplot involving the CHINESE Space Agency without feeling like it�s unnecessarily getting into OR avoiding politics.

There just isn�t a SINGLE place where THE MARTIAN goes wrong � it is, quite simply, an absolutely perfect realization of exactly what it wants to be. And I haven�t enjoyed a single movie more this year. Don�t miss it.

This review and others like it are possible in part through The MovieBob Patreon. Do you operate an outlet and would like MovieBob content to appear there? Contact Bob at BobChipman82@gmail.com

A Call Out For Recollections Of The Colony Theater

Sadly, I just learned that The Colony Theater in North Raleigh is closing this December. This personally affects me as I have worked there since 2009, and have enjoyed many, many movies there over the years starting  with seeing THROW MOMMA FROM THE TRAIN on a date back in 1988.

At one point I had read that The Colony opened in 1969 as a Jerry Lewis Theatre (the comic actor owned a chain of theatre franchises in the late �60s and early �70s) but while some say it was owned by that company, it actually began life on December 29, 1972 as the one screen Six Forks Cinema.

In the mid �70s a restaurant was converted into a second theater and it was re-opened as The Terrace Twin by Bill Rawls Theatres in 1977. After performing as a second run house, owned by Martin Theaters, in the late �80s and early �90s, it was restored and turned into a art-house cinema named the Colony Theaters 1 & 2 by Bill Peebles under his company Ambassador Entertainment.

This information is according to commenters on the theater website cinematreasures.org, particularly one who goes by the handle rayyson, who the my few paragraphs comes close to plagiarizing I must confess.

I�m sure that many of my local readers have good memories of attending films at the Colony, whether it was a screening at one of their great series like Cool Classics, or seeing a first run independent film in limited release, or hearing one of the countless times that somebody dropped a bottle and it noisily rolled down the floor of the theater, so I wanted to ask folks to share them with Film Babble Blog.

Email your Colony memories to boopbloop7@gmail.com. They don�t have to be very long or detailed, but if the story calls for that � do it up! I�ll be sharing some of my memories in a series of tribute posts. as well over the next few months leading to the theater�s final days. 


I have been through a theater closing before with the Varsity Theater in Chapel Hill, where I worked from 2004-2009. Happily the Varsity re-opened at the end of that end year after an extensive remodeling by its new owners.

In the N & O piece linked to above, David Bracken wrote that �Hobby Properties, the owner of the center, is hoping that a new owner will lease the space and continue operating it as an independent theater, said Boss Poe, Hobby�s director of leasing and sales.� 

That would sure be great if it could remain a theater space, but for now let�s pay tribute to the grand old twin cinema with some favorite recollections. Here�s hoping to hear from you.

Oh, and in the meantime - patronize the Colony! Here's their website with their schedule. Now playing there are a couple of fine films: SLEEPING WITH OTHER PEOPLE and PAWN SACRIFICE. 

Great stuff is coming up like Cinema Overdrive's presentation of THE SLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE on Oct 14th, Cool Classics October selection THE SHINING on Oct 21st, and the final HARRY POTTER movie, HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS, PART 2 on Oct 25th.

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SICARIO: A Superbly Dark Cartel Counterinsurgency Thriller

Now playing at multiplexes from here to the borderline:

SICARIO (Dir. Denis Villeneuve, 2015)

Emily Blunt proves her action star turn in last year�s terrific Tom Cruise vehicle EDGE OF TOMORROW was no fluke in this superbly dark cartel counterinsurgency thriller in which she plays a tough as nails F.B.I. agent named Kate Macer.

After a gripping opening that has she and her partner Reggie Wayne (Daniel Kaluyya) storming a Mexican drug lord's safe house in Arizona, Kate gets recruited by Department of Defense advisers Matt Graver (a typically brash Josh Brolin) and Alejandro Gillick (Benicio Del Toro) for a high-risk CIA-led drug operation across the U.S.-Mexico border.

Kate increasingly senses that the system behind the mission is incredibly corrupt, partly because she can�t figure out who the task force actually works for (particularly De Toro�s ultra shady Alejandro), and if their tactics are doing more harm than good, especially in the chaos of a traffic jam shootout on the outside of Juarez, Mexico.

The team is following a bloody trail that leads to drug kingpin Fausto Alarcon (Julio Cedillo), who it is revealed brutally murdered Alejandro�s wife and daughter. Kate learns this following a raid of the cartel's secret cocaine-smuggling tunnel that runs beneath the border - one of several stunning, standout set pieces on hand.

SICARIO, which is Spanish for �hitman,� is Villeneuve�s most fully realized work. The director�s previous films, including INCENDIES, PRISONERS, and ENEMY were intriguing and fairly solid, but this intensely driven treatise has really seared itself into my psyche in a much more profound way.

Working from a well crafted screenplay by Taylor Sheridan (Sons of Anarchy), Villeneuve keeps us up close with the characters, but knows when to give us distance via striking long shots impeccably filmed by legendary cinematographer Roger Deakins. Incidentally, Villeneuve and Deakins have been both tapped to do the long awaited sequel to BLADE RUNNER. Their riveting work here makes me think they could seriously do that project justice.

Justice is what Blunt�s Kate desperately wants here in the murky, immoral terrain that makes up SICARIO, and the actress puts forth a lot of power in both the pulse pounding action moments, and in the edgy confrontations with those she doesn�t trust. People who don�t know the British actress (her American accent here is spot on) by now are really missing out � the woman has mad range.

However, as good as Blunt is, Del Toro steals every scene he�s in, and he does it by barely speaking. His cold yet fascinating presence has us questioning his motives as much as Blunt does, and when he does speak � every word has disturbing weight.

SICARIO may stir memories of such like-minded thrillers such as Steven Soderbergh�s TRAFFIC and Kathryn Bigelow�s ZERO DARK THIRTY, but it has something those otherwise fine films were strongly lacking: a real conscience.

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Lost Age

Colin Hanks, following in his dad's footsteps as a friendly chronicler of history/pop-Americana:

This is gonna kick my ass, I can already tell.

I was a video-store guy, so my physical media retail experience lacks the direct rock n' roll connection of my record-store brethren (musicians, even burnouts, make everything "cooler" by presence, even if they're just working the checkout between dive gigs) but I'm desperately nostalgic for that "scene" all the same. Yes, streaming is a lovely modern convenience. Yes, lack of physical overhead levels the field for films/distributors of diverse backgrounds. 

But the end of the video/music/game/etc store as community hub for enthusiasts and dilettantes alike is a genuine cultural loss, there's no question about that. People ask all the time how so much of film/TV/etc fandom has become toxic and narrow lately, and I can't think of single bigger culprit than removing the idea of physical, real-world interaction with the media itself, with other consumers, with salespeople and so forth. We've very much lost the concept of growing by sharing spaces/interest, and this looks very much like a eulogy for that.

Don�t Diss On Matt Damon And Miss THE MARTIAN

Now playing at multiplexes from here to Acidalia Planitia:

THE MARTIAN (Dir. Ridley Scott, 2015)

Two years ago around this time we had Alfonso Cuar�n�s GRAVITY, last year there was Christopher Nolan�s INTERSTELLAR, and now there�s this year�s cerebral sci-fi fall release about astronauts struggling for survival in space, Ridley Scott�s THE MARTIAN, an adaptation of the 2011 bestseller by Andrew Weir that I never got around to reading. And with the news that they just found water on Mars, it couldn't be more timely.

Set in the near future, the film stars Matt Damon as Mark Watney, a NASA Astronaut who is left behind by mistake on Mars when the crew of the Ares 3 mission are forced to evacuate during a dangerous dust storm. In the chaos, Damon�s Watney is impaled by flying debris and sent flying off into the distance, leaving his team members to believe that he�s dead.

After Watney regains consciousness and gets back to his house base module in the middle of a large northern basin on Mars called Acidalia Planitia (a real area on the planet) he sizes up the situation via a direct-to-camera video log: �I have no way to contact NASA or my crewmates, but even if I could, it would take four years for another manned mission to reach me, and I�m in a hab designed to last 31 days.�

Our hero figures in order to make water (I guess this aspect is now retro-dated) and grow food on a planet where nothing grows, re-establish contact with NASA, and make the months long journey on the Mars rover cross-planet to the landing site of the next mission he�s �going to have to science the shit out of this!�

Meanwhile back on earth, NASA scientists and officials, including Chiwetel Ejiofor as Director of Mars Mission, Jeff Daniels as the head of NASA, Kristen Wiig as NASA�s head of public relations, and Sean Bean as the flight director, find out that Watney is still alive and they attempt to do the math, with the help of Donald Glover as a awkward scruffy astrodynamicist, and unravel the red tape needed to get him back.

Oh, and the NASA brain trust struggles with whether or not to tell the returning crew headed by Jessica Chastain, who, guilt-stricken at leaving behind her fellow colleague, would surely go against orders to turn her ship around to go back and try to save him if she knew. Also on board with Chastain are Kate Mara, Michael Pe�a, Sebastian Stan, and Aksel Hennie, who each have their moments and add to the film�s driving force of humanity.

Damon�s performance as the can-do optimist Watney is so solid that you�ll forget about the controversial crap he�s said that�s had him raked over the coals by the press lately. Here he�s a guy you are really rooting for as he successfully grows a crop of potatoes and laughing with as he bitches about the only music he has to listen to � Commander Chastain�s disco collection on her computer: �I will not turn the beat around!�

Despite the stakes, which do carry considerable weight, this is one of Scott�s sunniest and most fun films. Especially when compared to his last space epic, the ALIEN prequel PROMETHEUS, which I found more grueling than a good time.

Sure, there shades of many movies in play here from APOLLO 13 to CASTAWAY; from the aforementioned GRAVITY to 127 HOURS and so on, but THE MARTIAN never feels derivative. Drew Goddard�s tightly scripted structure smoothes out the tropes into a thoroughly engaging, and consistently gripping narrative. It�s also the second film I�ve seen this week that well utilized the 3D format � THE WALK was the other.

THE MARTIAN and THE WALK, which both open this week, are also alike in that they are inspirational epics that were immaculately shot by the same cinematographer, Dariusz Wolski. I�ll be shocked if Wolski doesn�t take home an Oscar next year for one of these visual feasts.

It�s so nice to be back in the �movies are getting good again� season, with such a marvelously gripping movie as THE MARTIAN heading the herd. Just don�t be dissing on Damon so hard that you miss it.

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