American Sniper

This Memorial Day I was inspired to pause from my year of #LongReads for a quick jaunt through what has to be the most polarizing autobiography of the decade. There's a lot to talk about here, but plenty has already been said, and most of the most interesting discussion surrounding American Sniper has had very little to do with the content of the book itself. I don't want to spend this post tackling "bigger picture" issues like whether or not Chris Kyle was a hero (he clearly was) or a liar (he definitely was) or an asshole (it's very possible that he was) or whether or not the War in Iraq had anything to do with 9/11 or to what extent American civilians should thank, praise, and revere those in military service or whether Kyle's death was tragic or ironic (it was both) or why his story resonates so forcefully with so many Americans and disturbs so many others - I can't get into all of that. Smarter people than me have written ad nauseam about these topics and besides, I'm late to the party; the point-counterpoint back-and-forth hit its peak more than a year ago during Oscar Season and while I have my own opinions on several of these subjects that go beyond my glib parenthetical dismissals, this just isn't the time or place for them. This is the time and place to talk about the book, American Sniper, before it was a movie, as it was written (to some extent) by Chris Kyle, before he died young, when he was simply, as the subtitle suggests, the most lethal sniper in U.S. History.

And as a book - strictly as a collection of memories meant to educate, entertain, inform, or inspire an audience - I thought American Sniper left a lot to be desired.

First and foremost, it was poorly written. Not just in a "good old boy has no use for complex sentences or fancy words" way; the memories had no real sense of flow. An anecdote here and there, a tidbit on training, a factoid about the rules of engagement, an interjection from Kyle's wife Taya - it all just seemed like it poured out of Kyle or his ghostwriters in some kind of loose chronological order. What's more, there wasn't really a story here. Sadly, the sole reason Kyle's life and achievements are known and celebrated by so many Americans is his untimely death; before that, he was a virtual unknown. Best-selling author? His book - this one - debuted at number ten on the best-sellers list and trickled down from there. (Here's a link to the current list of nonfiction best-sellers; you tell me how well-known any of these stories are.) Only after he was murdered did his book soar up the charts, and while the film adaptation was commissioned before his death - meaning the book was likely bound for eventual success anyway - his story as it's written here doesn't really pack a particular punch or hammer home any specific points, which is likely why the most emotional scene in the movie was footage from Kyle's real-life funeral procession.

I need to be clear here - I'm not trying to say that the man's life didn't matter or that his death is the most important thing to happen to him. Hundreds of people showed up to his funeral and thousands more came to a public memorial. Kyle was certainly by all accounts a well-known and heavily respected individual who made a positive impact on tons of people. But that doesn't mean that he had an interesting story to tell - or more importantly, it doesn't mean he know how to make his story interesting.

In several ways, Kyle's memoir read like a sixth grader's army man fan fiction. "The blast knocked me over. Both of my knees were hurt, and hurt bad. But I knew if I said so, they'd pull me out of action, and I couldn't leave my boys behind." That's a noble-as-all-hell sentiment, sure, but it also rings just a little generic. A little spartan. Experts have pegged the number of Americans injured in Iraq and Afghanistan at 900,000. We can thank each and every one of them for their service and their sacrifice, but that doesn't mean all 900,000 of them have interesting stories to tell.

Fortunately, Kyle was no typical soldier. He deployed four times to Iraq and along the way he racked up more kills than any other sniper in U.S. history. Unfortunately, Kyle seemed to have very little interest in talking about sniping. Aside from a few anecdotes, he spends very few of his 370 pages discussing sniping techniques or detailing his craft in depth. Instead he spends most of his pages talking about how much training sucked, how he was shitfaced the night before his wedding, how no one should fuck with a Navy SEAL, and nondescript accounts of different firefights he went through.

Frustratingly, there's an interesting psychoanalysis brewing in the margins here. Kyle briefly talks about how difficult it was for him to readjust to civilian life between deployments, and specifically to being a husband and father. He struggles with anger and alcoholism after his service ends. Toward the end of his fourth and final deployment, Kyle's blood pressure was through the roof and he wasn't sleeping at all following an incident where he'd been shot in the head and back (protected by his helmet and armor but understandably rattled). Kyle never uses the term PTSD and he makes it clear throughout his book that one of the worst things a SEAL can do is reveal any sort of weakness. When his enlistment is up, Kyle laments that he isn't back in the fray in Iraq protecting American soldiers. But these internal struggles are buried and tossed aside as quickly as they come up. That's fine - this is Kyle's story after all, and if he's not comfortable expanding on his psychological issues, who am I to ask him to do so? But by the same token, when you monetize your life story you open it up to criticism from people like me, right? That's the price you pay to become a best-selling author.

I have other complaints. One is that the book contains way too much humblebragging. Kyle plays the part of the simple down-to-earth everyman well enough - he likes hunting, he's a staunch Christian man, he thinks LA is full of weirdos and nutjobs, he doesn't much care for glory or recognition - but it seems like every other page contains a cringeworthy sentence along the lines of, "It's not that I thought I was better than the rest of them, but I knew they all thought I was better than the rest of them, and as such, I had to be better than the rest of them." Don't you see? Kyle was the greatest, but he'd be the last to admit it. He might even be the most humble person he knows! Just remember that, especially  when you read about one of the half-dozen times he was arrested for getting into a bar fight and whooping someone else's ass...

Perhaps more than anything, Kyle's memoirs rang false at times because of what an unreliable narrator he was. And I'm not even talking about how he lost a libel case against Jessie Ventura for claiming to knock him out, or how he made up some crazy claims about killing looters during Hurricane Katrina (which, why would you even?) or how recent news reports refute his stated medal count. I'm just saying that even within this 370-page memoir, Kyle couldn't keep his own takes and personalities straight. The cynic in me thinks he's a hypocrite at best and a liar at worst, while the skeptic in me allows that, hey, he probably didn't even write half of this book himself, so disparities make perfect sense on some level. Here are a few examples of what I'm talking about.

• He claims in the book's opening that his kill count means nothing to him and that he never kept track of his kills, but there are multiple instances later on where he cites specific kill counts from different missions and admits to getting competitive with other SEALs over kill counts.
• He states assuredly that every person he killed in Iraq was "evil" and a "savage" and thus deserved to die, without ever entertaining the idea that they were people like him who just happened to be fighting for the other side in an international war. (Hey, whatever he has to tell himself.) But then he's aghast over generalizations his enemies have made - in particular, that all the Christian American invaders were evil and deserved to die. Hmm.
• He makes multiple remarks throughout the book about how on-edge he would get between deployments, picking fights at bars for perceived slights and raging out during traffic jams. And then at the end of the book he says one of the things war taught him was how silly the rest of us are for getting stressed out over "minor things" - presumably things like perceived insults and traffic jams.
• He makes no secret of how much he enjoys killing Iraqi insurgents, at more than one point going so far as to say he only wishes he'd killed more. But then when he discusses run-ins with war protesters, he gets bent out of shape over being called a killer; he wishes protesters would direct their ire at Congress and DC instead of at guys like him, who are only following the orders they've been given. Come on man, own it! Don't freely admit that you love killing Iraqis and then play the "well I'm not the one killing all these Iraqis" card!

You get the picture.

To be fair, I didn't hate this book, and it may have even exceeded my expectations. It's probably the least impressive war memoir I've read, but hey, that's a pretty short list. If nothing else, it was interesting to get a perspective on the Iraq War from someone who fought in it with no reservations or guilt whatsoever. (Not sarcasm!) All things considered, I don't think Chris Kyle was very much like me in many ways. And that's a good thing! You wouldn't want a whole bunch of me defending our freedom abroad - that much is for damn sure.

Uncharted 4: A Thief's End

Keith posted a pretty good review of Uncharted 4 over at gametimebro.com a week or so ago, and I don't have much to add to his effusive praise. This was probably the prettiest-looking game I've ever played, which makes sense, given that it's on the newest and greatest system of any game I've played. Beyond that, it's an Uncharted game, and if you've played Uncharted 2 or Uncharted 3 you know what that entails: a jovial protagonist, tons of wall-scaling and rope swinging, mediocre gunplay, and chaotic action sequences that transition seamlessly back and forth from cut scene to playable sequence.

I can't go quite as far as Keith, who called this one of his top five games of all time. I'm not even sure if I'd place it above Uncharted 2. (That's no slight! I called Uncharted 2 the greatest game I played in 2011 - wow, yikes - so even if this one's only almost as good as that one then it can't be very far down my all time list.) But Keith's praise focuses in particular on the story in Uncharted 4 and that's definitely the game's highlight. Indie games have been kicking big budget titles' asses for years now in the "emotion-provoking storytelling" department, but Uncharted 4 ranks right up there with Infamous 2 and BioShock when it comes to action-adventure Triple A titles from the last, I dunno, ten years? It's a short list! Maybe the Tomb Raider reboot is also on it. (And here's where I have to mention that I haven't yet played The Last of Us. But I will! On my new PS4, no doubt.)

Four years ago, in trying to explain how Uncharted 3 wasn't quite as enjoyable as Uncharted 2 for me, I said (with new emphasis added):

And that's where Uncharted 3 comes up a bit short, I guess. It wouldn't be fair to judge the game for its plot and character development. After all, that's not the way I've judged the previous two games in this series, and it seems unfair to ask Uncharted to suddenly become something it's never been, which is a game that can tell a memorable story with memorable characters. But the thing is, for a little while it seemed as though that's exactly what Uncharted 3 was trying to do. When the third level took place twenty years ago and depicted the day Drake met his wise-cracking mentor and sidekick, Sully, I was suddenly intrigued about their shared history in a way I'd never wondered about before. Just who is Nathan Drake, and what makes him tick? For the previous two games, I'd been content ignoring his history and letting him be a generic but charismatic 21st century hero. But suddenly, I wanted to know more about him, and that's thanks to Uncharted 3 willing to "go there" for lack of a better phrase. But just as soon as I thought this would be Drake's story, it wasn't; aside from a moment where the game's antagonist addresses Drake, "or whatever your real name is," implying that our hero has made up his own alias and is not in fact a descendant of the legendary explorer Francis Drake, we never hear about our boy's past again.

Maybe I can assume that Naughty Dog developers read my little blog post because Uncharted 4 feels almost custom-ordered to address that little complaint I had. More than an action-packed thrillride, it seems like what Uncharted 4 wanted to provide, above anything else, was a conclusive character analysis on Nathan Drake.

I don't want to say much else, because doing so would spoil the story in some ways, and for the first time in Uncharted the story really does matter. Suffice it to say that while Uncharted 3 left me wanting something more, Uncharted 4 has pretty definitively closed the books on the Nathan Drake saga in a satisfying way. Here's one more choice pullquote from my Uncharted 3 post:

I'm hoping for Uncharted 4 to happen more than ever, not necessarily to "redeem" Uncharted 3 but more to provide closure that Uncharted 3 didn't.

Four years later, satisfaction.

Trev's Movie Dump: March/April 2016

Took some time off to finish a script for that damn fellowship program. But now I'm back! (For at least a little while.) So let's talk about what few films I managed to watch (or remember watching) these past two months. 

Lilo & Stitch

As my girlfriend is a giant Disney-phile, this is one of Zoë's favorite movies. For me, it was OK. I dunno. It sort of kept my attention, but it wasn't anything to write home about. I feel like probably everyone else has seen it at this point, so I'm glad I've got it under my belt, but I don't imagine I'll be re-watching it anytime soon -- at least by my own choice.

Zootopia

Speaking of Disney, this was a delightful little film that critics are already hailing as an early Oscar contender. I certainly enjoyed it myself and thought the underlying tale on racial prejudice was interesting. Also the film had Shakira in it. So, you got me right there. 

I put this in the same bucket as Lilo & Stitch in that I wouldn't plan on watching it again anytime soon, but I did like it much more. 

10 Cloverfield Lane

I... fucking... loved... this movie!

No surprise to Sweeney (or Stan if he ever gets around to it), but if you've read my script and see this film, there are definitely some strong similarities -- despite the fact that this story is far superior to mine. First off, it's a smart, yet incredibly simple story. Girl driving off after leaving her fiancé crashes her car and wakes up trapped in an underground bunker by a crazy-looking John Goodman who says it's the apocalypse outside. Tension and suspense (all things I respond very well to) are high throughout this film as you constantly waiver wanting to trust or not trust Goodman. 

Another thing, Goodman is great in his role here as a slightly unbalance conspiracy theorist whack-job who's built a bunker in his backyard. Aside from his intimidating stature, you just never know if he's being compassionate or about to jump into crazy town. 

After going through this whole thrilling adventure (that never leaves one location) you arrive at the final act where... well, you'll just see for yourself where this film ends up. 

I'm not saying 10 Cloverfield Lane deserves any awards, but I had a damn good time watching. A DAMN GOOD TIME.

Also, despite this being in the same canon as Cloverfield, I didn't see that film before entering into this guy as wasn't lost for a second about what was going on. It can essentially stand on its own as far as I'm concerned. (Just remember that Cloverfield was story about a Godzila-like monster attacking NY, if that helps.)

Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice

Ok... I'm clearly the only one on here that adamantly enjoys comic-superhero movies. I mean, they're the perfect popcorn movies and are  completely deserving of that big screen, larger-than-life experience. That said, just because I see the cape crusader across the screen does not give it a free-pass as a great (or even mediocre) film. This guy right here is anything but that. 

It was bad. Like, "Holy shit what were they thinking?" bad. 

Despite my absolute love for Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns -- famous for establishing one of the most compelling Batman and Superman fight scenes ever -- I did my best to come into this film with an open mind. Free to receive whatever take/adaptation they were going to throw down. Unfortunately, what they threw down was pure garbage.

I honestly don't have time here to dissect all the ways the film failed for me, but I'll touch upon two crucial points. 

First, the main villain... Lex Luthor. I can't for the life of me figure our what Lex Luthor wants, nor understand how he goes about trying to get it. I mean, on one level I get the sense he wants power (and sorry for advance if I'm spoiling anything, but I doubt anyone here gives two shits about this film), but give me something more than it. Does he want power to make the world safe? Does he want power to stop future alien invasions? It seems like he just wants power because POWER, but it's a very bland palate to start building a villain around. The industry would refer to this as an "arch" character in that there's very little dimension to their personality. They're evil and that's all there is to it. But, I'll humor the film for a moment. Even if we were to just go off the fact he wants "power" and nothing more, why does he want Batman and Superman to fight -- and, yes, through a very convoluted and elaborate scheme, he pits these two against each other. But, why? They weren't threatening you? Weren't really stopping you, nor aware of any "plans." So why have them fight? WHY?!

Luthor kidnaps Clark Kent's mom and forces Superman to do his will (which is to fight Batman), but he gets Batman to fight Superman because he's been sending him secret cards for months saying, "You let your family die!" (They allude that Robin has died or something... not that we really know that for a fact because no one fucking talks about it, but I assume that's how Luthor is trying to break Wayne's psyche.) And that's suppose to enrage Wayne enough he'll fight Superman? Guess so...

Context: As you've probably seen from the trailers, the whole world is in shock from the destruction and devastation of Metropolis that occurred in Man of Steel. Bruce Wayne took this hard as well and is all jaded and angry with Superman who he believes must be stopped. Ok, got it. But then why is Luthor sending Wayne all these random sociopath letters that are supposedly driving him insane. Let's ignore the fact that Luthor knows who Batman is for a second (even though the movie never touches on that HUGE POINT -- I mean that's fucking game changer right there and they gloss right over it) and just ask, how does this action serve his primary goal? The power thing. Who the fuck knows? I'm pretty sure the filmmakers didn't.

According to ComicVine.com, Luthor is considered one of the smartest men on the planet, perhaps the smartest. Initially, I was excited to see a Superman film where 1) Luthor is no longer running with a real-estate scheme, and 2) Luthor is always 10 steps ahead of everyone else. While we did move past the desire to gobble up spare land (yay!), Luthor is about as dumb as you can get in this film. Despite any classic flaws they may give him with an insatiable appetite for power and a complete hatred for any alien races, I would have loved for him to be not only be orchestrating brilliant plans that has the world wrapped around his fingers, but have him leaving audiences in shock as he surprises us with his deviousness. He does surprise, but only in his stupidity. I mean (SPOILERS) the guy blows up Congress and is instantly caught. Like, he doesn't even try and pin it on Superman or something. Just blatantly does something terrible and is busted. He goes about getting what he wants (power, I assume) in a fucking, mind-numbingly dumb way and that's such a let down. 

I've been told from fans of the film that this is actually Lex Luthor, Jr. and not the iconic Luthor I know and anticipated from franchise. I don't have a response for this. Not only does this fail to validate my previous grievances, but just seems like a completely unnecessary choice from a story telling perspective. And that leads me into my second beef...

WHY THE HELL ARE THEY RUSHING THIS STORY?

This movie is pretty much two stories in one. Hell maybe it's three. Hard to say because I was dosing off halfway through. Big point is that I feel like DC/WB are sprinting out of the gate to catch up to Marvel in making their own Justice League movies (which I believe is due next year... Oh, sorry only part muther-fucking one is coming out next year. God...). Why the hell can't they take their time? 

Unlike Marvel, DC has this tremendous gift of having complete control over all their intellectual properties -- meaning they can use each and every DC character. Unlike Marvel which is sort of fractured between three different studios (with at least Spider-Man sort of back under Disney's control). When you have access to all of your characters, is there anything wrong slowing building to the Justice League? Apparently WB totally disagrees and wants to jump into the big fights and ensemble pieces right away. Forget a gradual crescendo and allowing audiences to build relationships with several characters over a handful of movies. Just cram it all into one giant shit-storm and let's call it a day. 

Say what you will about the Marvel movies (as I'm aware both Stan and Sween aren't keen on them because you guys both lack two eyes and a beating heart), but I find them entertaining and fun. They aren't just fun because shit blows up and people karate chop each other. They're fun because (for me) they offer three quintessential things I think are necessary for superhero films: heart, humor, and spectacle. 

Now, it's no question that BvS has got spectacle. Zack Snyder definitely has a gift for aesthetic vision (as seen from 300), but this film completely lacks heart and humor. It's just big muscle men (and a muscle lady) grunting around and acting sad and illogical for nearly three hours. 

I'm trying to keep my hopes up for the franchise because I adore Batman and the whole DC universe. The fact the Affleck is writing and directing the stand-alone Batman movie gets me excited (I'm mean if anyone knows story structure, it's the dude behind Good Will Hunting and Argo), but I'm definitely apprehensive for all the other titles despite how "excited" and "cool" the stills and trailers look. 

Follow up: Since starting this post a week ago, WB has announce that director Zack Snyder might be on the outs in regards to the future of their Justice League material. Makes sense. BvS had all the ingredients to be a blockbuster juggernaut. Instead is made less than a $1 billion worldwide, and saw nearly a 70% drop in domestic revenue from week 1 to week 2. While every film is expected to earn less and less as their box office run goes on, 70% is definitely on the high side. As if word got out how much of a disappointment this film was.  

Still, there are fans out there that wholeheartedly support this film. Defend it to the death. I don't agree with them at all, but I'm glad at least some folks go their money's worth of enjoyment out of this nearly 3 hour grainy-gritty, clobber-fest. 

We've still got Suicide Squad coming out later this summer, and I'm keeping my fingers and toes crossed that that film will (hopefully) blow me away. 

Middlesex

Hey, our first non-"dump" post in three weeks. The blog lives! Or at least it clings to life.

I really enjoyed this one. It's been on my radar since high school, and with transgender rights and issues making headlines of late, I figured there was no better time to read the story of an intersex man raised as a girl.

I wrote a little review for Goodreads (yeah, guess who's ten years late to the Goodreads party?) and rather than linking I'll just post it below:

Fantastic. Explores in equal measure both gender identity and the American Dream in the 20th century, all narrated by an intersex man raised as a girl. This was noticeably inward- and backward-looking, containing very few passages about what it is to be a modern man without a penis but very many about what it's like to be an adolescent girl in the 1970s waiting to "blossom" and struggling with sexual attraction. That's all in the second half, too. The first half focuses on the narrator's Greek immigrant grandparents and first-generation parents as they carve out a living in Detroit through bootlegging, war, race riots, and ch-ch-changes in general. Oh and there's also incest. Not an authentic memoir of any sort - author Eugenides is a cisgender straight man, so take the protagonist's internal struggles with a heap of salt - but eye-opening and poignant all the same.

And that's me quoting me!

Lastly, for what it's worth, the year of #BigReads is back on track thanks to this 529-pager right here.

Stan's Movie Dump: April 2016

I knew I'd slow down. I didn't even have to split my April movie dump into two parts! I bet I only watch like ten movies all summer. (I don't actually bet this.)

Inherent Vice

Damn - I wanted to absolutely love this. But like so many other Paul Thomas Anderson films, I couldn't. Not fully. There's a lot to like in this movie, an adaptation of a Thomas Pynchon novel set in 1970s Los Angeles that's equal parts stoner comedy, crime thriller, film noir, and character study. Some have called it "The Big Lebowski on acid" and while I can't fully agree with that description for various reasons, at least it explains the general vibe here. Maybe I'll rewatch this one day, and if I do I'm sure I'll pick up on more things and notice more and end up liking this more. Unfortunately, on my first go-round I could barely follow what was happening and even though I appreciated plenty of scenes and lots of bits of dialogue in isolation I've got no idea how they're all meant to link together.

Wild

Despite two academy award nominations in the acting department, Wild was never really on my radar. This was a Marissa choice and, credit to her, it was excellent. Nick Hornby (the Brooklyn screenwriter) clearly has a talent for adapting books that have no business succeeding as movies into great movies. But enough about him - this is the Reese Witherspoon show. Not in an "excessive anguish" type of way - good acting doesn't mean "lots of" acting, folks - but more just in the sense that she carried this thing from start to finish. There's a minute-long take where she just struggles to get her enormous backpack on for the first time and, wordlessly, she portrays little components from the entire spectrum of human emotion. There's really not much to the movie plot-wise - a woman with some demons in her past hikes the Pacific Crest Trail - and that's probably part of what makes it so great. I really liked this!

12 Years a Slave

Every bit as raw and disgust-inducing and great as advertised. Everyone in this was great, most notably Chiwetel Ejiofor and Lupita Nyong'o, who won an Oscar for her work here way back in 2014 before the Oscars were so white. It took me too long to see this - and it only took me two years to see it. See it!

22 Jump Street

Like the first one, it shouldn't have been as good as it was. Jonah Hill obviously excels in these roles and always has, but who knew Channing Tatum would be at his best playing the endearing athletic doofus type? This was decent.

Finders Keepers

I've been really excited to see this for months now, and it finally came to Netflix. The premise? One man finds another man's amputated leg in a smoker he acquired and the leg's original owner would like it back. A legal battle ensues. Did I mention that the entire ordeal takes place in the backwoods of North Carolina? I didn't need to, right? At any rate, what really drew me into this one was that it was made - or at least produced - by the same guy who made (or produced) The King of Kong, maybe the greatest documentary I've ever seen. That movie took something so outwardly pathetic - two guys vying for the world record Donkey Kong score, one a lovable everyman and the other a ready-made villain who hides behind technicalities and disqualifications - and made it into this weirdly moving feel-good underdog story. The set-up was ripe for something similar here - our amputee is a plane crash survivor with a pill addiction and the leg's new owner is a flashy showman - but alas, there was nothing special hiding underneath this outwardly pathetic tale. Sweeney, who hasn't seen the documentary, put it best when he said something like "I've seen the trailer and the story sounds insane, but how could this possibly fill an our and a half?"

The Mist

The Mist was the first Stephen King story I ever read and to this day it remains one of the best. It might be the quintessential King tale - a bunch of people in a small town in Maine get trapped in a supermarket by a thick fog outside full of unseen monsters. The situation grows more dire over the course of a day or two, with bigger and more frightening creatures attacking the store and the people inside growing more frantic and desperate, turning on one another in the process. Frank Darabont wrote and directed this screen adaption and holy hell did he nail it from start to finish. This shouldn't have been a surprise - Darabont had previously adapted (and elevated) King stories into The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile. Perhaps the best part of this movie was the devastating twist ending that didn't happen in the original novella. It had been spoiled for me beforehand, but still, good God.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier

I never wanted to see this. Didn't think I'd hate it or anything, just never really had any interest. And now that Civil War is coming out I've heard I really do need to see Winter Soldier in order to understand it. So I went ahead and did that, and holy shit was this exactly what I knew I'd been avoiding. Car chases, gun fights, explosions, yawn, yawn, yawn. We're oversaturated with comic book movies, folks, and there's no genre staler these days than PG-13 action movies. Yet they're still a license to print money. Like, everyone hated Batman v Superman and agreed that it had lots of problems, and still it broke box office records. Ugh. This wasn't even bad. It just wasn't anything I hadn't seen before. I actually fell asleep during this despite watching it at my house with company over.

White God

Ha. Another foreign film I saw on more than one "Best of 2015" list that I checked out on Netflix. This was just dumb as hell. A town (maybe an entire country?) passes new dog-owning laws. Dogs need to be pure bred, and no one can own any mutts or mixed breed dogs. Obviously, this results in just a shit ton of stray dogs on the streets. Not so obviously, these dogs form marauding packs who hunt and kill and devour people. Wow! It ends with a poignant and powerful trumpet performance. Secretly, I think this was actually a movie about racism! Blech. Eurotrash.

I'll be back after another ten movies or so, which, again, probably doesn't mean it'll be all summer before another movie dump.

Stan's TV Dump: April 2016

Hey now, a whole lot of shows wrapped up their seasons in April. I always thought May was the classic time to wrap things up. Not so, I guess! Anyway, here are a whole lot of reactions to a whole lot of television.

The Walking Dead: Season 6

Season 6 of The Walking Dead consisted of the eight episodes that aired last fall and the eight that aired this spring. It wasn't great. The show is much better overall than it was in its first two or three seasons, wherein nothing of any consequence ever seemed to happen, but that doesn't mean The Walking Dead has figured everything out. Not by a long shot! The first chunk of the season took place across what was ostensibly only two days or so. That's cool in theory, but the pacing was awkward. The second half saw our protagonist group turn into straight up bad guys in the purest sense of the term - if they weren't already - which would be an interesting arc (think Walter White!) if the show had any investment in the idea. And then between the infamous non-death last fall and the far worse cop out the show ended on this spring, it's just kind of difficult to trust that these writers know what they're doing. I already gave up on The Walking Dead once, but if I do it again - or maybe I should say when I do it again, since this show seems poised to run for fifteen seasons - I don't know if I'll ever give it a third chance. It just isn't very good!

Documentary Now!: Season 1

I missed this on IFC last year but caught up on Netflix in a matter of days. The mockumentary format has been done to death at this point, but Fred Armisen and Bill Hader churned out seven very specific spoofs in a way that breathed new life into the genre. (Or is it more of a format than a genre?) For me, these were completely hit or miss. I think the same was true for both Sweeney and Trevor. Between the three of us, I don't know if there was one episode we all loved - but I also don't think there was one that we all hated. Bright side, there's something here for everyone - maybe? (And yet there's nothing here for everyone.) I'll be back for a second look when Season 2 airs.

And Then There Were None: Season 1

It feels strange to call this three-hour miniseries event a television show - let alone to append it with "Season 1" as if a second season is even feasible - but here I go anyway. This British production first aired in America in March on - wait for it - Lifetime! It's a pretty straightforward adaption of Agatha Christie's world-famous murder mystery by the same name. I liked it just fine! Most of the performances were solid and the idea that the story is set in a big British mansion just ten years after the end of Downton Abbey should give you a partial idea of what you're in for. This isn't must-see by any stretch and I'll likely forget about it soon enough, but it's also a very easy watch if you're looking for a quick three-episode series and you've already seen Black Mirror.

American Crime Story: Season 1

This was so much better than it ha any right to be. When news broke that Ryan Murphy was going to do a show on FX about the O.J. Simpson trial, I was with everyone else in picturing a horrible campy mess of a melodrama that made light of a double homicide and fell completely off the rails by the fifth episode anyway. But we were all wrong! And very happily wrong, at that. Even Ryan Murphy couldn't fuck this up - though he certainly tried, shining way too bright a light on the 1994 Kardashian kids who had absolutely nothing to do with the case or the hype surrounding it. There were a number of brilliant performances in this miniseries. There was also whatever the hell John Travolta was doing. Somewhat ironically, it seemed like the biggest names - Travolta, Gooding, Schwimmer - gave the worst performances. I was only seven when the O.J. verdict came down, and as such I'd completely missed all the intricacies of the trial and the media coverage and the racial divide. Holy shit, you couldn't make this stuff up. Maybe that's why Ryan Murphy couldn't botch this - there was already a batshit insane story and he didn't have to make it any crazier. Or, maybe he was just completely hands off with the development process on this one. Regardless, this was excellent. Will lightning strike twice? Eh. The next season of American Crime Story is going to be about Hurricane Katrina. So, yeah - I'm not holding my breath.

Trailer Park Boys: Season 10

Ugh. There's a chance I burned through this series way too quickly, watching nine seasons in two or three months' time last fall, and maybe I'm just sick as hell of this show and these characters. But... yeesh, this was a bad season of Trailer Park Boys. Unfunny, stale, even kind of depressing - the show began in 2000 with a no-name cast and every single actor who's still alive today has nothing else to do but keep squeezing paychecks out of the turd this show has become. The three main actors bought the rights to the show from the series creator a few years ago, and that's what prompted a Netflix revival. I didn't notice a discernible dip in quality between Season 7 (2007, original creator) and Season 8 (2014, actors at the helm) but this was just terrible. It had its moments, as any ten-episode season of comedic television will, but I can't stress enough how out-of-touch this felt. Not helping my opinion? A few days after Season 10 came out, the actor who plays Bubbles - easily the show's breakout character, its heart and soul, and the only real reason to watch the show in the first place - was arrested on domestic assault charges, prompting the immediate resignation of another main character. These guys play total assholes on a TV show set in a depressing trailer park, but maybe they really are just total assholes who want nothing more than to smoke weed and drink liquor in an actual trailer park. Gah! This sucked.

Animals: Season 1

Back-to-back garbage TV shows. I'm sorry everyone! Animals is a (crudely) animated show that imagines what it'd be like if all the animals in New York had human-like interactions and conversations with one another. The best part about the show was how many recognizable and talented actors it managed to bring out across its ten episodes. The worst part was just how inessential it all was. Ten episodes, twenty-five minutes each or more - that's over four hours of cartoon animals making conversation with each other. Usually it was funny enough, but it was all so clearly improvised and meaningless and who-gives-a-shit. I'm not saying I won't be back for Season 2, but if I am, Animals will likely remain little more than background noise while I do laundry or cook dinner or even just fuck around on my phone or laptop. There's a reason HBO aired this on Friday nights at 11:30!

Togetherness: Season 2

In its second season, Togetherness did something truly unique among modern television shows - something I don't think I've seen a show do in years. It got canceled! Seriously, nothing gets canceled anymore, particularly nothing that's on cable that's already been renewed once. The showrunners thought Togetherness would last for several more seasons and they had planned out, roughly, several small-scale stories to tell about the group of people at the show's center. But honestly? Maybe the show was better off lasting just two seasons. The first one focused on a marriage in really rough shape and a budding "opposites attract" type of relationship between Amanda Peet and Steve Zissis. Both stories ended unhappily. The second season dealt largely with the four characters coping with a now-broken marriage and it ended rather happily for everyone. What was left to do or say here? Put these people back through hardship and heartache by showing us three more years of ensuing break-ups and meltdowns? I liked Togetherness just fine, but this isn't a loss I'll be lamenting at any point in the future near or distant.

Catastrophe: Season 2

One of the hottest trends on TV right now is to focus on relationship issues through the lens of the half-hour format. It makes sense. Spending nearly an hour at a time with two people struggling to live together, trust each other, move forward in harmony - it's too much! But that's still subject matter worth exploring on television, so people have learned to repackage it into more of a comedy format. Just look at Togetherness, Married, Love, and You're the Worst for four prime examples of this trend from the past couple of years. The tone may vary from show to show, and each has a unique balance of wit and bleakness and levity, but they're all loosely dealing with the same part of the human experience. In that respect, a show like Catastrophe is a refreshing change of pace. In the broadest sense, you could throw it in the same pile as all those other shows, but where those series are all happy to wallow in the drama for various amounts of time, Catastrophe is more of a straight-up comedy where the two leads occasionally legitimately despise each other but thanks to the tone of the show you know everything's (probably) gonna be fine. If anything it's a bit unrealistic - Rob and Sharon will be in the middle of a big argument about their parents or their future or bad sex or something, legitimately yelling at each other, and still they'll be cracking one-liner after one-liner. It's a funny show! And an easy one to get into. And since there are only six episodes per season, it's an easy one to binge. I can't call it essential television, but I like it plenty - and that's enough, right?

Girls: Season 5

Great season. I've seen and heard a lot of chatter from critics suggesting this is the year Girls "grew up" but I don't think that's really what happened. Instead I just think the show found compelling stories and struggles for most of its characters but was otherwise the same show it's always been: a borderline-satirical depiction of New York millennials making questionable decisions and struggling in general. Maybe what made the fifth season stronger than the previous two or three was its ability to recognize and in some ways specifically suggest that aimlessness in the city loses its charm and appeal as you gradually slip away from twenty and closer to thirty. For the most part, these characters are still making questionable decisions and living selfishly, but they're also feeling the weight and anxiety of those life choices. Next season will be Girls' last and I'm excited to see where Lena Dunham and company take these characters before sending them off. After attracting way too much attention for all the wrong reasons in its first two seasons (Lena Dunham's body, the racial makeup of the cast), Girls has quietly been one of the most consistent shows on TV for years now, and I'm glad this fifth season brought the show back into the limelight a little bit.

Better Call Saul: Season 2

Kind of conflicted here. On one hand, this is definitely one of the best dramas on television today - tense, gripping, character-driven, immaculately directed. On the other hand, it's a little bit slow and low-stakes, no? Like, we know that Saul and Mike and most of the main antagonists are going to survive the series since we've seen them all pop up in Breaking Bad. And there's only such an extent  to which an audience can be expected to care about, I dunno, eldercare lawsuits. It's tough - this is so clearly inferior to Breaking Bad, and yet it's still possibly the best show on TV so far in 2016. Kind of emblematic of the general rut TV has been in lately, I think.

Brooklyn Nine-Nine: Season 3

I don't have a ton to say here. This is an enjoyable ensemble-based comedy with an easy tone and plenty of great jokes. It's a poor man's Parks and Recreation, like if Parks and Recreation never pulled on your heartstrings and only had one breakout character. (Andre Braugher's Captain Holt is legitimately approaching Ron Swanson levels of greatness three years in, but give me Andy, April, Tom Haverford, and Leslie Knope ahead of any second character here.) Still, any comparison to Parks and Recreation is a good comparison. It doesn't seem like Brooklyn Nine-Nine will ever reach must-see TV status, but as far as comfort food sitcoms go, this one's alright!

Broad City: Season 3

Take this with a grain of salt - this is the show's third season and all - but I couldn't shake the feeling several times this season that Broad City was getting just a little bit complacent and repetitive. There was an episode about halfway in, in particular, where Abbi and Ilana spend some time in the suburbs, that just felt completely stale and predictable. Fortunately, the second half really felt like it picked up some steam and by the time Season 3 was winding down I was back to thinking it was clever, funny, and unlike anything else on TV (or at least better than everything else like it). One day, without a doubt, this will be as gray and tired as Workaholics. Until then - and probably even once that happens - I'm all in.

Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt: Season 2
This is good enough to look forward to every year, but it's not an outstanding show by any stretch. If anything, it fills the unique hole left behind by 30 Rock - and still it's a pretty different show from 30 Rock. I like it! Don't love it. But that's good enough, right?

And that's how April went down.