Netflix’s Dirty Money. Episode 2 and the cognitive dissonance of these assholes is staggering.
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“Due South,” a comedy-crime drama about a Canadian Mountie from the Yukon ostensibly assigned to the Chicago Canadian consulate, but solving crimes in his spare time (along with his pet wolf). Most enjoyable.
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Hap and Leonard season 2 is up and running!
Shows I am looking forward to in the near future:
The Americans (final season)
Silicon Valley
Jessica Jones
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It’s definitely soapy but I’m still liking The Path.
It’s like Breaking Bad but with yoga teachers instead of meth cooks 
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I can’t wait for that. Btw, Noah Emmerich (Stan the FBI agent) is one of the most underrated actors in the world.
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I just finished up the second season of Versailles. I really like that show.
Possibly related, maybe need to curl my locks in a flowing manner.
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No argument here, but the show has such a superabundance of talented actors that it would be hard for any one to stand out.
I agree. But Emmerich stands out to me because he is so natural and I think underappreciated. Speaking of acting, I love how meta that show is… actors acting that they are acting that they are acting.
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I just watched the classic concert “Stop Making Sense” again for the first time in 30 years (though I have played the album many times). It is still awesome. David Byrne’s shenanigans onstage are priceless.
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A friend of mine is going to see him this week.
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JESSICA JONES
JESSICA JONES
JESSICA JONES
JESSICA JONES
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Ditto. Got 2.5 episodes in tonight.
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The Good:
This is beautiful and hopeful. It has a fantastic aesthetic that creates an amazing sense of place. It is also the most oscar-worthy sci-fi/fantasy film I think I’ve ever seen.
This deserves all of the accolades it has received. Ignore the premise, as it’s probably the least interesting part of the movie.
This was alright. Better than Batman and Harley Quinn, but less fun. It also suffers a bit from being a one-shot.
I hadn’t seen an adaptation of this before. It’s a good old-fashioned murder mystery with a solid third-act twist that felt fresh despite the age of the source material.
The Bad:
So very boring.
It’s difficult to overstate how much I dislike this movie. They managed to take an extremely tired premise, add some competent mid-tier actors, and somehow end up with something that is less than the sum of its parts.
I feel compelled to write a recap, so here goes:
Beware the Wall of Text
Braven(Momoa) is a logger. I guess he’s the boss or something. He helps load logs onto a truck. He tells the truck driver that there’s a storm coming and to be careful. Braven heads home, where we learn the following:
- He’s a hard worker, because it’s been 5 days since he’s seen his family, and that’s apparently normal.
- He’s good at nature, or something, because some birds told him that his daughter was hiding in a tree.
- His wife does archery (we find out later she teaches it), as she almost immediately leaves carrying a large case with a bow in it.
- He has a father(Lang), who is looking for Christmas lights.
- There is soup on the stove. (There is no payoff for this setup)
Braven heads into the shed where he finds his father confused and muttering to himself. He’s clearly got some sort of issue with his mental fitness. (We learn later that there was an accident, possibly involving a helicopter?) Braven helps his father back into the house. I’m not sure the Christmas lights are ever found.
Back to the truck driver. He meets up with some guy who loads a hollowed-out log filled with drugs onto the truck. They drive for a bit before a tire blows and they veer off the road, dropping part of the load, including the drug log. They scramble to transfer the drugs to a duffel bag so they can stash them before the cops get there. I don’t know why they think the police will inspect the logs. The truck also catches fire and sort of explodes, but noone seems all that concerned. The hike with the bag of drugs out to Braven’s cabin (not his home) and stash the drugs, with driver assuring his partner that Braven won’t be coming out there any time soon. They had back to the truck and wait for the police to arrive, then get a ride to a nearby motel.
Meanwhile, Braven’s father has wandered off into town. He stumbles into a bar. The bartender recognizes him and immediately calls Braven, who has apparently just noticed that his father is missing after falling asleep while reading his daughter a book. Also, his wife arrives just in time for him to leave to go retrieve his father, whom he finds in a bar fight after attempting to leave with a woman that he believes (in his altered state) be his dead wife. Braven attempts to intervene, but ends up fighting as well. This goes on for some time until the Sheriff arrives, but does very little to establish Braven as either an exemplary or even a competent fighter. The Sheriff takes both men to the hospital to treat the father’s injuries, informs Braven that there will be no charges pressed this time, but warns him that will be tougher consequences in the future. (There won’t.) Braven speaks to his fathers doctor, who suggests that they consider more supervision for the father. Braven bristles at the idea of putting his father in a home, and although the doctor says that there are other options, no other options are discussed. His wife and daughter are there, and they take his father back home.
A man(Dillahunt) enters a diner. The IMDB says his name is Kassen, but I don’t ever remember that coming up. He sits down at a booth across from another man. It’s clear that Kassen is the boss, and this other man has messed something up. Their conversation is interrupted by a phone call. He also lights a cigarette. The phone call is from the Drug runner from earlier (not the truck driver, the other one), who informs Kassen that his shipment is delayed, but stashed somewhere safe. Kassen tells him that he will be coming to get the drugs personally. During the call, the waitress repeatedly asks him to extinguish his cigarette, but he ignores her. After he ends his call, he repeatedly slams the other man’s face on the table, leaving him battered and bloody. He motions to the others in the diner to keep quiet, which they apparently do because nothing come of this scene. It exists solely to establish that this is our villain, he is arbitrarily violent, and doesn’t seem to care about hiding any of that.
Braven gets up the next morning and finds that his father is remarkably lucid. He decides to take his father out to the cabin to shut it down for winter. His daughter wants to come along, but his wife quickly comes up with an excuse to prevent her from going. His daughter expresses her disappointment in the most predictable fashion.
Kassen arrives at the motel with two cars full of goons. They pick up the truck driver and the driver and the drug runner and head out for the cabin.
Braven and his father arrive at the cabin. His father confirms that the electricity is working by turning on the lights, and then proceeds to light a oil lamp and open up the curtains. This is not presented as being a result of his condition. Braven attempts to discuss his father’s limitations and the need for additional supervision, but his father balks at being sent to a home. Other options are mentioned again, but not elaborated on. The conversation is fruitless, so they continue exploring the cabin. Braven discovers the drugs, and his father discovers that the door to the shed where the drugs are stored has been broken.
Kassen and the others arrive at the entrance to the cabin grounds, where the truck driver notices that the gate is open and realizes that Braven must be there. Kassen tells a couple of his goons to split up so that can flank Braven, and there is no discussion of attempting to resolve the issue peacefully.
Braven and his father decide to leave the drugs as is and head home to avoid whomever might be looking for them. Right on cue, Braven’s daughter shows up, as she had stowed away in his truck. They get into his truck and start heading out. One of the goons spots them and prepares to shoot them with his rifle, but is stymied due to a deer crossing the road which causes Braven to stop his truck where a tree is conveniently blocking the goon’s line of sight. The goon makes no attempt to change position. Braven’s nature sense starts tingling due to the deer’s presence, and he decides to head back to the cabin. Kassen and his goons arrive and demand that Braven bring them their drugs. Braven, fearing for his family’s lives, brings only half of the drugs out, and offers to meet them elsewhere with the rest. The truck driver tries to reason with Braven, but Kassen just shoots him in the head and then demands Braven retrieve the remainder of the drugs immediately.
This is getting tiresome. I’ll try to keep the remainder brief.
- Braven fills a bag with stuffed animals, leaves it outside the front door, and uses the distraction to shoot an arrow through a porthole in the door and into a goon’s head, killing him.
- Braven’s father shoots one of the goons with a rifle, but only wounds him.
- Braven leads Kassen and the goons on a chase via ATV, using another decoy bag.
- He drops off his daughter part way through, with instructions to climb the nearest mountain, get a mobile signal, and call her mother.
- Braven somehow manages to get one of the goons isolated, fights him, wraps a tow cable around him, and sends the ATV off a cliff.
- The goon grabs him on the way and pulls him along with him. The goon lands on a large rock and dies. Braven lands in the ocean and lives.
- Braven steals the dead man’s clothes, which miraculously fit, and are drier than his.
- Braven gets shot at by Kassen. I’m not clear whether he gets wounded or not.
- Braven’s daughter manages to get a signal and calls her mother, but is cut off before she can tell her mother much more than there are men shooting at them.
- Her mother was already on the way to the cabin, having discovered the daughter’s note about going with her dad.
- Her mother calls the sherrif from earlier, who starts heading to the cabin.
- Braven climbs a tree by using a coat as a climbing strap, because that’s a thing that loggers do I guess.
- He uses this to ambush one of the other goons, but gets shot at before he can do much other than knock the goon down.
- Braven’s father has a brief fire fight with the drug runner, which ends in him killing him with something that I think might have been a rotisserie skewer.
- At some point, Braven’s father gets grazed in the head by one of the sniper goons. This seems to trigger his condition or something, as he gets very disoriented. Or maybe he was just shot in the head.
- Braven makes it back into the cabin and tries to help his father. He stashes him in the shed/room that was established earlier as having a broken door.
- Despite having a rifle with some ammo and a bow with some arrows, Braven proceeds to go on the offensive using only unconventional weaponry.
- He places an iron tool of some sort into the fire, and then uses it to grab one of the goons by the neck. I’m not sure if that kills him. It was very Home Alone
- He throws a flaming axe (I think) at another goon, then throws a jar of alcohol (moonshine?) at him. Both the goon and the cabin are soon ablaze.
- He jumps down from the upper floor and hits another goon in the face with an axe, which he had broken the handle in half on his knee for some reason.
- Kassen finds Braven’s father in the shed/room, and holds him hostage, demanding the rest of the drugs, then stabbing Braven’s father in the stomach.
- One of the goons catches up with Braven’s daughter, and then Braven’s wife shows up and shoots an arrow into his hand.
- Braven’s wife proceeds to run up to the goon and start hitting him with the bow, rather than firing additional arrows.
- They fight, and she stabs him several times before escaping, but does not kill him.
- Braven’s daughter runs off, and is found by the Sheriff on his way to the cabin, who takes her with them.
- The Sheriff arrives at the cabin and is almost immediately shot by Kassen.
- Kassen retrieves the bag of drugs from the burning cabin and runs into the woods.
- Braven chases after Kassen, encounters his wife, and kills the good that was following her. His wife heads back to the Sheriff’s vehicle to their daughter.
- Braven chases after Kassen some more, carrying a bag of supplies he hastily gathered earlier from the shed/room.
- Braven uses a rope to distract, but not trip Kassen.
- Braven sets out a Bear trap, and then attempts to manipulate Kassen into stepping into it. This does not work, and Kassen mocks Braven for it.
- Braven runs at Kassen, pushing him off a cliff. Braven steps in the bear trap along the way, so that he is dangling off the side of the cliff by his trapped leg. It’s probably very painful.
- Braven somehow manages to climb back up the side of the cliff. He wife and daughter arrive at the head of more police officers that had arrived.
- Braven is reunited with his family. The End.
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Beware the wall of text
Thank you for taking one for the team.
Not that I would have seen it, but … wow … that sounded tedious.
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I had (have?) the original. It was good and looks like they didn’t stay with the Mike Mignola’s art for the basis which gives me a small sad. I kinda thought Batman as a character worked better in that time period than modern day.
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Didn’t like the change they made from the original graphic novel. I was hoping it would combine both of those books (Gotham by Gaslight & Master of the Future) as an alternate version of Batman.
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I am enthralled by Wormwood. I always knew about MK Ultra LSD experiment guy jumps out of window in NYC, but had no idea there was so much to it. This is the best Errol Morris doc yet, and the actors for the re-enactments are great. *
*I think someone mentioned Wormwood upstream.
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I don’t know if Jessica Jones gets any product placement from Whiskey distributors, but it should
I choose to think that I’m a connoisseur that I recognize them by bottle
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I finally figured out why this was one of my dad’s favorite movies. And I have a lot in common with both Burns brothers.
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Finally got to see the 7th season of Game of Thrones. The endings weren’t totally unexpected. The loot train attack was pretty fucking spectacular. And I wonder how they plan to prove Jon’s/Aegon’s claim to the throne or if he’ll renounce in favor of his aunt? Jaime is clearly going north to join the war and Cersei is all alone now with Qyburn and Ser Gregor, a highly unpopular queen, calling on a private army to win the war, ignoring the real threat to her and Westeros.
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