No Sympathy for the Devil (1997)

In the ancient myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, they fall in love and marry, but then Eurydice dies.  Orpheus goes into the Underworld to win her back, but screws up and gets torn limb from limb, instead.  Cheerful stuff!

I mention this because No Sympathy for the Devil is a Greek film ostensibly based on this tale.  Of course, "Boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy goes on quest to win her back" is hardly unique to Orpheus and Eurydice.  The elements that make the legend unusual are the trip to the literal underworld, the "light and shadow" plot points that this introduces, and the tragic end.  The film reinterprets

In this adaptation, our never-actually-named male lead meets Eurydice first on a train station platform, and then again when she tries to shoplift at the store where he works.  For some reason, he is drawn to her, finding her "filled with light in a world of darkness".  Exactly why she might be like that is (at best) cryptically explained by some interactions she has other characters, a notable proportion of which appear to involve her getting naked.  I'm sure this was "vital to the Art", or something.

Anyway, our leads have a pill-popping sex session, lose consciousness, and are whisked off for treatment.  Eurydice goes missing, and the male lead heads off to a strange new town, filled with weird and often hostile people, to find her.

This film reminded me a lot of the work of Alain Robbe-Grillet, and in particular his first film, The Immortal One.  Like that film, it is about a man looking for a missing woman.  Like that film, it is deliberately shot in black and white.  Like that film, it's full of people talking very earnestly but very obliquely about things, and generally acting in strange and unexplained ways.  It's all very consciously Artistic, in other words, and to my mind would frankly have benefited from being a lot more straightforward.

M*A*S*H, Season 4 (1975)

As with my last M*A*S*H review, I'm not going to bother explaining the premise of the show again.  If you somehow got here without actually knowing, well ... you're on the internet.  You'll figure it out.

Season four presents a big shift for the show, as two major characters do not return.  This means replacements need to be introduced for both, of course, so who are these newcomers?

The first is Colonel Sherman Potter, a new base commandant to replace Henry Blake.  The second is B J Hunnicutt, who replaces Trapper John as one of the unit's doctors.

Of the two, I think Potter is definitely the more successful introduction, though this is no fault of Mike Farrell, who plays BJ.  Potter, you see, is pretty much the antithesis of his predecessor.  He's career military to Blake's civilian background, faithful to his wife where Blake was not, and a firm and decive leader whereas Blake was the quintessential ditherer.  About the only thing they have in common is that Potter is just as aware of what an idiot Frank Burns is.  These differences mean that Potter feels distinctive and has his own identity, even if he doesn't actually change the overall dynamic of the show that much.

BJ, meanwhile, is different from Trapper John in that ... he is faithful to his wife.  That's pretty much it.  Otherwise, he's basically just the same "Hawkeye's sidekick" character.  Hopefully the writers will find a way to differentiate him over time.

Another noticeable change this year is Major Houlihan becoming a bit more rounded as a character, with her positive character traits getting a bit more attention and her less positive ones becoming more nuanced.  I ascribe this to the season 2 and 3 efforts of Linda Bloodworth and Mary Kay Place.  It's disappointing but perhaps no surprise that it took the introduction of female writers to start giving the only significant female character some depth.  At least the male writers seem to have followed their lead, though.

Recommended episodes: "Dear Mildred", "The Kids", "Soldier of the Month" and "Der Tag".  Oh and sure, I guess "The Interview", which is very well executed, even if I am not personally as big a fan of it as some.

The Phantom (1996)

400 years ago, a young boy saw his father murdered by pirates.  Washed ashore on a remote shore, the boy dedicated himself to fighting injustice in the world, and passed that mission onto his son, grandson, and beyond.

Twenty generations later, "the Phantom", or "the Ghost Who Walks" is a near-mythical figure in local folklore; an immortal protector of the innocent and avenger of crimes.  I guess that original boy and his descendants all looked very much alike.  Even in a full body suit and mask, you'd think someone would twig to "this is not the same guy" at some point.

Anyway, it is now 1936, and an evil American business tycoon is seeking three mystical skulls that, when joined together, create a force beyond any explosive known to humanity.  The Phantom, as you might have already guessed, is the one man who can stop him.

It may seem hard to imagine in 2020, when Marvel has dominated the box office for over a decade, but in the mid-90s the only successful superhero films had been the first few Superman and Batman movies.  Rolling 45 million dollars on a lesser known property like The Phantom was a pretty bold choice - which maybe why, rather than a true superhero film, this feels more like "Indiana Jones, if Indiana Jones wore a purple bodysuit".  The gamble did not one that paid off at the time, though the movie has developed something of a cult following in the quarter-century since it came out.

Financially successful or not, is it any good?  Well, the effects have certainly dated and the action sequences are vastly less ambitious than something like The Winter Soldier, but I find that The Phantom has a goofy kind of charm, even though I find the whole "white saviour" backstory of the character (which, to be fair, is from the original comics) to be pretty on-the-nose. 

The film also has a great selection of actors in the villainous roles, all of whom gleefully ham it up.  They're fully aware that this is meant to be popcorn movie fun, I reckon.

The White Queen (2013)

England, 1461.  Edward of York has just won a crushing victory at the Battle of Towton and it seems that the cause of Henry VI and his Lancastrian allies is lost.  Edward will be crowned King and, whatever their allegiance, all hope that the realm will finally have peace.  (Spoiler: no, it won't)

Elizabeth Woodville is the daughter of a Lancastrian lord, but she is determined to be the new king's wife.  Anne Neville is the daughter of Lord Warwick, the man whose support made Edward the king, and who might well be able to make another.  Margaret Beaufort is an implacable foe of the House of York and the mother of Henry Tudor, who has a remote but plausible Lancastrian claim to the throne.  Though none of these women can rule in her own right, they are all determined to shape the future of the realm.

Like Richard III a few weeks ago, this show is based on the War of the Roses, and covers many of the same events.  It's got a very different explanation for why and how those events unfolded, however.  Not surprising, given that (as I mentioned in my review) Shakespeare's play was always intended as Tudor propaganda.

Now this is not to say that The White Queen is necessarily "more accurate" to real history: my perception of the author on whose work this is based is that she's more interested in telling a story than being all that meticulous about accuracy.  It is however probably a more balanced account, without unequivocal heroes or villains.

Most interesting to me, however, is the way that this series foregrounds women in history, showing the desires they had and the ways that they might have influenced and directed events even in the absence of formal power.  I really enjoyed this factor of the show, which makes it feel quite different to the typical male-centred account of history.  If that sounds at all interesting to you, you should check it out.

Green Lantern: First Flight (2009)

Hal Jordan is conducting a simulated test flight when his entire simulator is yanked through the wall of the building and carried into the desert.  There, Hank finds a dying alien who bequeaths him with a 'power ring': a potent device that lets him turn his thoughts and willpower into glowing green force fields.

The dying alien was one of the 'Green Lanterns', who are basically interstellar cops and peacekeepers.  They're not impressed at a human grabbing one of their rings; apparently they know enough about Earth to not be impressed by us; but a senior officer, the not-at-all-suspiciously-named Sinestro, convinces them to give Hal a chance.

From there, things play out pretty much as you'd expect.

"Things play out pretty much as you'd expect" is probably the biggest problem with GL:FF.  Even if you aren't already aware of Sinestro and Hal's long comic book history, the basic plot outline is thuddingly obvious, with perhaps exactly one mild surprise in the whole thing.

Said plot is also rather undermined by the fact that character dialogue specifically calls out the good guys' mind-reading ability, even as the entire thing relies on them being taken by surprise by Sinestro's betrayal.

Oh gosh, I hope I didn't ruin it for you by revealing that the guy named Sinestro is a baddie!

I've never been a huge Green Lantern fan (despite the fact that I spent quite a long time playing someone with the same basic power-set in a superhero RPG).  This film certainly hasn't changed that.  It's pretty pedestrian stuff.

Dexter, Season 7 (2012)

Season six of Dexter was pretty bad, but it ended on a thumping cliffhanger that actually injected some excitement and a real sense of new possibilities for season seven.  I'm not going to talk about what that was, even though this all happened nearly a decade a go, in case you've actually stumbled across this unspoiled.

Anyway, the good news is that you don't need to watch season 6 because this season kicks off with an extensive "previously on Dexter" that recaps everything you need to know to settle in for the season 7.

And, at least in my opinion, that ride is worth taking.  The contrivances and conveniences of the show are still coming thick and fast, mind you, and the "Minotaur Killer" who turns up for several episodes early on is a clear sign that the show is heading ever deeper into absurdity, but season seven otherwise delivers lots of fun.  There's an interesting antagonist for Dexter to engage with, and a disruptive new factor in his already complicated home and family life.  It's very much a show that's desperately juggling custard pies in an attempt not to get smacked in the face by any of them, but at least for these 12 episodes, it succeeds.

One spoiler I will give you: none of those custard pies stay in the air in season eight.  In fact, it's almost like the show goes looking for vats of custard to face-plant into.  If you have been enjoying Dexter, I strongly recommend pretending that this was the last season ever made.

A Wrinkle in Time (2018)

Meg Murry's father went missing four years ago, shortly after the arrival of her foster brother, Charles Wallace (no-one calls him 'just' Charles).  This disappearance is the subject of continued gossip at their school, perhaps partly because of Meg's own self-isolation and Charles Wallace's general oddness.

'Odd' probably isn't quite strong enough a word to describe Charles Wallace's new friend Mrs Whatsit, though.  She's outright weird: and she's also just the beginning of the strangeness that's about to invade Meg's life.  Because her dad didn't do this disappearing thing by halves, and finding him - which is what she needs to do - is going to involve some truly out of this world experiences.

Last year, I read the novel on which this film is based.  I have to confess I wasn't that impressed with it, so I had reasonably low expectations of the film.  Unfortunately, even those weren't really met.  No disrespect to the cast, who are personable and work really hard to make this seem like a magical adventure, but the script just doesn't work all that well. 

For one thing, it's got a number of "big spectacle" scenes that really don't feel like they're there to be anything but spectacle.  They don't really connect narratively or emotionally.  For a second, the entire last act is basically people talking at each other, and again, the whole thing lacks much emotional heft.

I will pay the one "creepy suburbia" scene which is pretty well executed.  But that's not enough to lift this into even a qualified recommendation.

The Middleman, Season 1 (2008)

Wendy Watson is a struggling young visual artist sharing an illegal sublet with her best friend (also a struggling young artist) and making ends meet through a succession of grindingly menial temp jobs.

Or at least, she is until an accident at AND Labs ("Re-scrambling Your DNA!") unleashes a monstrous tentacled Thing.  A mysterious stranger quickly appears to destroy the beast, but Wendy's calm and focused efforts to Stay Alive beforehand draws his attention.  You see, that mysterious stranger is the Middleman, who protects the world from the bizarre and the weird.  He is in need of a protege, and Wendy fits the bill.

Thus it is that Wendy finds herself in a world of trout-eating zombies, luchadore conspiracies, boy band alien invaders and other strangeness that seems like it is straight out of a comic book (which is fair enough, since that's what The Middleman started as).

I was a huge fan of this show when it came out, and was very disappointed when it ended after only one short season.  Not surprised, mind you: this is definitely a very quirky show and honestly it's probably harder to believe it got green-lit in the first place than that it didn't manage to attract a large audience.

On the re-watch, over ten years later, I'm a little bit less of a fan than I was then.  Sometimes that very quirkiness does seem a little forced, with episode 9 being a particular offender in that regard.  Also, I'm not sure that ironically calling out the way that your script is sexualising Wendy actually makes it okay that you're doing it.  Overall though, it is still a fun show with a distinctive identity and a great cast.  If you're at all into geek media, you should check it out.

Dolemite (1975)

Sentenced to jail for a crime he did not commit - though let's be honest, he wasn't exactly on the straight and narrow - the man named Dolemite is offered a chance for freedom: if he helps the federal authorities find down evidence to bring down the city's corrupt mayor and the dirty cops who work for him, he'll be pardoned and released.

Dolemite's not keen on working with the man, but he is eager to settle up accounts with the rival who set him up, one Willie Green, and with the dirty cops - those same cops who work for the mayor - that carried out the actual arrest.  So it's not too long before he's back in his best pimp suit and reunited with the young women who are his primary source of income.

I'm not kidding about the pimp suit

Dolemite's time inside has hurt his business financially, and he's lost his beloved club "The Total Experience", but his friends haven't been entirely idle while he was in the big house.  Every one of Dolemite's buxom employees is now a bona fide kung fu killer.  With this army of lethal ladies at his back, Dolemite's determined to get back his club and wreak revenge on those who set out to destroy him.

Right off the bat, I want to be clear about one thing: I have not given this film a qualified recommendation because it is in any way good.  It's not.  The acting is wooden and the sound sometimes iffy.  The fight scenes are even less convincing than the spoken performances and the boom mic doesn't so much 'occasionally drift into shot' as 'deserve separate billing for how much it is on screen'.  The whole thing is transparently a vanity project for comedian Rudy Ray Moore, who wrote and produced the film, played the lead, and several times brings the whole movie to a halt to deliver a 'funny' monologue.

No, the film is not good.  But in this case, that's part of the attraction.  Dolemite is camp, brash and completely without self-awareness.  It shamelessly throws itself into its extravagances of costuming, cussing, and clumsy fisticuffs.  There's something charmingly naive about it, for all its sex and violence.