Capsule Movie Reviews Vol.2024.07

Read the explanation of method, madness, and spoilers.[1]

1. The Straight Story (1999) — 8/10
2. Shaolin Soccer (2001) — 8/10
3. What We Do in the Shadows (2014) — 6/10
4. The Unforgivable (2021) — 8/10
5. Predestination (2014) — 8/10
6. Fury (2014) — 9/10
7. Neal Brennan: Crazy Good (2024) — 8/10
8. Black Mass (2015) — 8/10
9. Batman: The Animated Series (1992) — 5/10
10. Masters of the Universe: Revolution (2024) — 2/10

The Straight Story (1999) — 8/10

This movie was directed by David Lynch and is considerably different than a lot of the rest of his oeuvre. The story is unique, but not fantastical and mind-bending.

Alvin Straight (Richard Farnsworth) lives in Laurens, Kansas with his daughter Rose (Sissy Spacek). Alvin was in World War 2 and carries a lot of baggage from that. Rose is a bit anxious and suffers from having had her kids taken away from her a long time ago. The state thinks he’s too simple to function, but she takes care of her father. Neither of them has a lot of money. They get by. Alvin smokes too much and should be using a walker, but the doctor settles for him using two canes instead.

Alvin learns that his brother Lyle is in a bad way and decides to visit him. His eyes aren’t good enough to drive anymore, though. Instead, he hooks up a trailer to his riding lawnmower and sets off on a 240-mile journey at about 4MPH. He doesn’t get too far before his lawnmower breaks down.

He picks up a used lawnmower from 1966 from a friend at John Deere. It’s old but guaranteed to run. Alvin sets out again. He meets a young girl who’s on the run, with whom he shares food and fire, but no judgment. Another day, he camps with a huge group of road cyclists.

“Alvin: You don’t think about getting old when you’re young… you shouldn’t.
Steve: Must be something good about gettin’ old?
Alvin: Well I can’t imagine anything good about being blind and lame at the same time but, still, at my age, I’ve seen about all that life has to dish out. I know to separate the wheat from the chaff, and let the small stuff fall away.
Rat: That’s cool, man. So, uh, what’s the worst part about being old, Alvin?
Alvin: Well, the worst part of being old is rememberin’ when you was young.”

He meets a woman who can’t seem to stop hitting deer, even though there’s only open prairie to either side. She is distraught. Where do they come from? Why do they hit her? “[T]hirteen deer in seven weeks[!]” Alvin doesn’t know. He just knows that deer are edible. This is probably the most Lynch-ian moment in the film.

“Alvin: Can I help you, lady?
Deer Woman: No, you can’t help me. No one can help me. I’ve tried driving with my lights on, I’ve tried sounding my horn, I scream out the window, I-I roll the window down and bang on the side of the door and play Public Enemy real loud! I have prayed to St. Francis of Assisi, St. Christopher too-what the heck! I’ve tried everything a person can do, and still, every week, I plow into at least one deer! I have hit thirteen deer in seven weeks driving down this road, mister! And I have to drive down this road! Every day, forty miles back and forth to work! I have to drive to work, and I have to drive home!
[she looks at the open fields around her]
Deer Woman: …Where do they come from?
[she kneels down and checks the deer’s pulse]
Deer Woman: He’s dead.
[she walks back towards her car]
Deer Woman: And I love deer!
[she gets in her car and drives off]”

Alvin’s mower’s transmission starts to go, so he has a scary and speedy ride down a long hill into the next town, coming to a stop in front of a group of semi-shocked townspeople. He needs more money for repairs, so he contacts Rose for his social-security check. A couple take him in and help him find people to repair his mower. He prefers to camp outside, though, and also turns down the offer of a ride to Mt. Zion. He wants to make his own way.

Before he leaves town, though, he has a drink with another veteran. Alvin’s a recovering alcoholic, so he has milk. They share horrific war stories. There is no honor in their stories. Honest veterans know the truth.

Alvin slyly negotiates down the pretty exorbitant price of the repair, then continues on his way. As he nears Mt. Zion, he meets a priest who visits his camp in a graveyard. The priest knows Lyle, but Lyle had never mentioned that he had a brother. Alvin demurs. In Mt. Zion, Alvin has to ask for directions. He has a beer for the first time in years.

He eventually find the turnoff onto a forlorn road. Alvin’s tractor stops once more, but he’s able to get it running again. A helpful tractor leads the way to Lyle’s house, which is dilapidated. It’s set way back from the road and looks unoccupied. Alvin calls out. Silence. Rustling. The door moves. Lyle (Harry Dean Stanton) appears on the porch, leaning on a walker.

“Lyle: Did you ride that thing all the way out here to see me?
Alvin: I did, Lyle.”

Shaolin Soccer (2001) — 8/10

Stephen Chow wrote, directed, and starred as Mighty Steel Leg Sing in this wonderful farce about a lovable bunch of losers who win a soccer tournament. I’ve watched it before, but rated it lower at that time. It’s odd because it sounds like I liked it that time, too. I wrote:

“It has its moments and it’s quite goofy and funny and feels more like live-action anime, but gets a lot of tropes of the genre right, mixing the melodrama of Chinese movies with over-the-top but good effects as well as a lot of the gags associated with movies like Airplane. Don’t get me wrong, if you’re not ready for how goofy this movie is, you’ll turn it off nearly immediately, but some of the actors—especially the star, Stephen Chow—are quite charismatic. You won’t want to miss the power of Mighty Steel Leg’s final kick. Just carnage. You can guess the end.”

Like it says in the footnote: ratings are subjective and iffy.

What We Do in the Shadows (2014) — 6/10

This is a campy spoof on vampire movies and “house”-style reality shows. it’s directed, written by, and stars Taika Waititi and Jemaine Clement (of Flight of the Conchords fame). The whole film is shot as a documentary, with a crew that we only very rarely see. There’s a lot of mugging for the fourth wall, á la The Office.

Viago (Taika Waititi) is the middle-of-the-road, peacemaker, “mother” vampire of the house, while Vladislav (Jemaine Clement) is a hedonistic playboy. Petyr (Ben Fransham) is a Nosferatu-looking vampire who lives in a crypt in the basement. He’s at least 1000 years old and looks it. Deacon (Jonny Brugh) is the youngest vampire—less than two centuries—and is the young troublemaker, looking to break all of the rules. Jackie (Jackie van Beek) is Deacon’s slavish familiar.

Petyr converts Nick (Cori Gonzalez-Macuer), who’s even more of a rogue than Deacon and who brings Stu (Stu Rutherford) with him. Stu is an even better familiar than Jackie and actually lives with them at the house, introducing them to computers and other modernities.

They fight with werewolves, they are ostracized by their fellow vampires, and all sorts of other shenanigans. It’s all reasonably entertaining, carried mostly by charismatic performances that make mildly funny lines seem funnier. Jackie eventually becomes a vampire, taking her husband as a familiar. Stu becomes a werewolf, which opens the door to the vampires and werewolves becomes friends.

The Unforgivable (2021) — 8/10

Ruth Slater (Sandra Bullock) is in prison for having murdered a cop. She is about to get out on parole. It’s going to be a steep, steep climb integrating back into normal life. Society actively resists her. It wants her to be a criminal for the rest of her life. The movie very concisely shows that the idea of rehabilitation is something that’s forced on an unwilling and unempathetic people. People would rather have witch trials.

Ruth cannot associate with any known criminals. Her parole officer is an unempathic asshole, just barely keeping his hostility in check. She can’t get a good job. She’s a carpenter, but can only get a lowly second job working on renovations for a charity, while she chops up fish at night for her primary job, the one she needs to keep in order to stay on parole.

There, she befriends Blake (Jon Bernthal). They grow close and she tells him about her past. He blabs it to everyone at work, where one lady beats the everloving shit out of Ruth, saying that, as the daughter of a cop, she has every right to shithouse anyone whom she feels like. These people are just fucking nuts, honestly. Anyone who thinks it’s OK to just light into someone based on hearsay is a goddamned psycho who should also be locked up.

Ruth approaches lawyer John Ingram (Vincent D’Onofrio) for help in getting back in touch with her sister Katherine (Aisling Franciosi), who’d been adopted after Ruth went into jail. Her foster parents are Michael (Richard Thomas) and Rachel (Linda Emond), two appropriately biblical names. Richard Thomas played Johnboy on The Waltons and was also the FBI director in The Americans. He excels in roles that require a laser-like mindset that acknowledges no new information, hewing instead to a religious and righteous fervor. Anyway, he’s super-opposed to Ruth seeing her sister. Rachel is on the fence.

Ruth instead approaches their other daughter Emily (Emma Nelson), who agrees to help her try to meet Katherine—or at least to be able to see her playing in a piano recital.

The psycho Asian lady at the fishery wasn’t the only one who believes in vigilante justice. The sons of the sheriff who Ruth had killed start plotting to kidnap and possibly kill Katherine, just to get back at Ruth.

With pretty much everyone against Ruth—even John is very, very reluctant—the big reveal is that it wasn’t Ruth who’d killed the sheriff. It had been five-year-old Katie who’d shot him, utterly terrified of the big man lumbering through the house while Ruth was screaming that he shouldn’t be coming in. But a five-year-old can’t carry the weight, so Ruth stepped up.

There’s a bunch of confusion, with the avenging brothers betraying each other (one sleeps with the other’s wife) and then with one of them kidnapping the wrong sister. Ruth manages to rescue Emily and defuse the situation without getting shot, killed, or arrested, which is a miracle. She finally meets Katie at the end.

Predestination (2014) — 8/10

This movie was a pretty wild ride, with a lot of time-looping, identity changes, and all-around confusion for those who aren’t ready for it. An agent is on the trail of the “Fizzle Bomber”, who is responsible for the deaths of nearly 11,000 people in 1970s NYC in a series of bombings. He’s been uncatchable. The agent is on the verge of catching him, but becomes horribly burned and barely returns to 1992 with a time-travel device. Someone had kicked the device to him as he was crawling to it.

The damage is bad, though, so the reconstructive surgery completely changes the agent’s appearance. He returns to the 1970s as the Barkeep (Ethan Hawke), where he meets a columnist (Sarah Snook) who writes “The Unmarried Mother” column for a famous newspaper. The columnist’s appearance is androgynous, but seems to be trying to present as male. They tell a story that’s guaranteed to pique the Barkeep’s interest. They bet a bottle of rotgut on it.

The customer tells a tale of how they’d been born as Jane, very intellectually and physically gifted but also ostracized. She ends up in the SpaceCorps but only as a potential “partner” for a male astronaut, despite being better than most of them at their jobs. During a physical, though, it’s discovered that she has a medical condition that disqualifies her from the Space Corps program.

Saving her from depression is a relationship with a wonderful man who is her counterpart in every way. He eventually and mysteriously disappears. She re-enlists in a Space Corps-affiliated secret agency, but is soon disqualified again because she’s pregnant. The pregnancy doesn’t go very well. She has a Caesarean during which her child is saved but she also discovers that she’s intersex. After the ensuing hysterectomy, she is forced to accept that her body will transition to a male gender. Jane becomes John.

The Barkeep reveals that he can help John get revenge on his lover. They travel together back to 1963. John finds Jane with the intention of targeting her lover, but finds himself falling in love with her himself. John turns out to be the lover that had spurned his younger self. He is both father and mother of their child.

The Barkeep travels back to 1975 to try one more time to get the Fizzle Bomber—remember, this was the whole point of all of this time travel!—but is only in time to witness the other agent being horribly burned. He kicks the time-travel device over to him. Once again, a person is meeting an earlier self. The Barkeep also then kidnaps Jane’s baby and brings it back to 1945, to deliver the baby to an orphanage that would become Jane. Jane, John, and the child are all the same person.

The Barkeep has completed his final mission, having created a supremely talented agent who has no ties to parents or children. He is allowed to finally retire by his boss Robertson (Noah Taylor) and chooses…1975. He’s still trying to catch the Fizzle Bomber. When he finally meets the Fizzle Bomber, he discovers that it’s a future version of himself, who’d gone back to surgically kill several thousand people whose sacrifice would save untold millions in the future. You know, the longtermism theory. The Fizzle Bomber says that he’d been sent there by their mutual boss Robertson. Barkeep is having none of it and kills his future self.

In a final reveal, we see that the Barkeep has the same surgical scars as John and that the Barkeep is actually also John after he’d recovered from his horrible burns. He is left to wonder whether the inevitable future can be changed or whether he will somehow end up as the Fizzle Bomber anyway.

Basically, because of time-travel and gender-swapping, five of the six characters in this film are the same person. I very much enjoyed the acting and also the tightness and presentation of the story, with reveals drip-fed regularly enough to maintain interest without confusion or spoiling. Very cool.

Fury (2014) — 9/10

Sergeant Don ‘Wardaddy’ Collier (Brad Pitt) heads up a platoon in WWII. It’s been decimated. Boyd ‘Bible’ Swan (Shia LaBeouf), Trini ‘Gordo’ Garcia (Michael Peña), and Grady ‘Coon-Ass’ Travis (John Bernthal) are the only ones left. They pick up a new assistant tank-driver Norman Ellison (Logan Lerman), who’s only been in the army for eight weeks. They are not delighted with him. They head out from camp. Collier tells Norman:

“There might be a wolf hiding in the sheep. Kid, you’re up. Cast an eyeball on ‘em. Anything that makes a move, you cut them right in half. People are in the way? That’s their problem. You do what you gotta do. Copy?”

Not much was ever different, I guess. People like to pretend that only Israelis kill civilians. They’re not even the only ones who do it with gleeful abandon. The U.S proudly displays this in its history and culture. In war, there are no rules. I’m listening to Blowback S03 about the Korean/Chinese war and it was no different there. The movie quickly explains this by showing how not shooting a child leads to dead American soldiers. The child was leading an ambush. Everyone’s the enemy. These are the stories we tell ourselves to absolve ourselves of sins.

The lesson we should draw is not “shoot children,” it’s “don’t go to war.”

They meet up with Captain Waggoner (Jason Isacacs), getting their next mission. They’re to clear a town of “Jerrys”.

“Waggoner: Jesus. Why don’t they just quit?
Collier: Would you?”

They get halfway across a field and they’re lit up by a machine-gun nest in a foxhole. They take it out, but there are German anti-tank (HE) emplacements. They take them out as well. There are many, many more Jerrys in the foxholes. They kill everyone.

“Norman: Why would I shoot them if they’re already dead?
Gordo: So they don’t get up and shoot us in the ass!”

When they capture a German soldier, Collier gets Norman out of the tank to have him shoot him. This is a captured prisoner. He is defenseless.

“Collier: You are no goddamn good to me unless you can kill Krauts. Put a big fat hole in his back. [waits] Put a big fat hole in his fucking back!
Norman: No.
Collier: Why the hell not?
Norman: It’s not right!
Collier: Not right? We’re not here for right and wrong. We’re here to kill them. Why are you here? You’re here to kill him. You know why he’s here? He’s here to kill you.
Norman: Go to hell.
Collier: I’m trying to teach you something. It’s him or you.
Norman: Kill me. Kill me. Kill me. I can’t do this anymore.”

Collier tackles Norman, forces the gun into his hand, then makes him pull the trigger, shooting the defenseless German in the back. It’s unclear which lesson he thinks he’s imparted. The rest of the crew pick up Norman and try to convince him that Don Collier’s madness is what keeps the crew together. This part might be even more torturous for Norman than the shooting.

At the next town, they’re ambushed again. They take out a nest with another onslaught. A half-dozen Germans come out, on fire inside their Wehrmacht greatcoats. Norman cuts them down. Gordo says: “You should have let them burn.”

The mayor of the town comes out with a white flag. He gets them to let the “soldiers” go. They’re just children, really. One of them is older. He is the one who had all of the “cowards” hanged for not fighting for Germany. A soldier named “Angel”—face shrouded—is tasked with executing him. He does so, kneeling by the corpse to steal its watch. Unflinching. Gordo and Grady are soliciting the local ladies now. Grady: “It’s gonna be a two-fer. First him, then me.” They prod her toward their filthy tank, into the dank, stinking, oily confines where she’s to service them.

Collier takes Norman aside. “Ideals are peaceful; history is violent.” I can’t tell whether we’re supposed to believe this is profound or whether we’re supposed to see the hollowness of Collier’s worldview through such a vapid pronouncement.

Collier sees a curtain twitch. He and Norman investigate and find Emma and her mother. Collier donates several eggs and food to a repast. He takes off his shirt (for some reason? Maybe to wash?), while Norman begins playing the piano. Emma sings accompaniment.

Collier interrupts them: “She’s a good clean girl; if you don’t take her into that bedroom, I will.” Emma grabs Norman and they retreat to the bedroom. She seems to have understood Collier quite well. Collier washes and shaves in the hot water. His back is a mass of scars. In the bedroom, Emma seems not to understand anything that Norman is saying. He reads her palm. Then he leans in to kiss her. She falls back. End scene. Again, what are we supposed to think about this? Was it coerced? Of course it was. Emma seems to have liked it. Is the film really going to depict this like this? We draw our own conclusions. The film shows.

The rest of the tank crew knocks their way into the apartment. Grady and Gordo are monsters. It is unclear whether Bible is involved in the whore they’ve left as a gift for Norman in the tank. Collier imposes a modicum of order, but they’re savages. It’s lord of the flies. The acting is spectacular.

Grady pushes it too far. “Why should I shut up?” Collier pounds his fist into the table and spits his last bite of eggs at Grady. Grady deflates. Gordo whines that “we’re just drunk.” Order is restored.

They’re savages, ruined shells of men. They fight each other, they fight everything, they have no moral core, no principles, no sense of right and wrong, just plunder and base animal urges. The war has taken everything that they ever were—and it’s doubtful they were ever much—and chewed it up. No, Israeli soldiers are not unique in their cruelty or savagery. It’s the war. It’s the feeling that anything goes because every threat is existential. That’s what destroys men.

Grady’s filthiness is contrasted with Collier’s scrubbed appearance. But their souls are equally dirty. Grady carries his filth on the outside, in his unkempt, unwashed appearance, in his filthy leer, in his base urges expressed without hesitation. But Collier, who exudes an air of peace, was the one who shot a surrendering a soldier in the back. He’s the one who killed with Norman’s hand. He’s just as rotten as his men, just as corrupted by war. His facade almost makes him worse. He can still hide among us.

A German bombing attack hits the town. Norman hides under the tank. Grady and Gordo in it. Emma’s building is destroyed. Norman sprints to the rubble; Grady drags him down, “You gonna raise her up? Like Jesus Christ? Where the fuck do you think you are? This is war.”

Collier tells Norman:

“I started this war killing Germans in Africa. Then France. Then Belgium. Now I’m killing Germans in Germany. It will end soon. But before it does, a lot more people gotta die.”

They’re crossing one of hundreds of interminable fields. A tank shell takes out the rear tank in their column. Grady is locking and loading. Wardaddy says that the tank is their problem. It’s on. They’re hitting it with all they’ve got. The shells bounce off. The German Panzer takes out two more U.S. tanks. “Roy’s gone. We’re all that’s left.”

Holy shit, what an amazing action sequence. Fury is alive. The German tank is dead. The relief is palpable, watching the adrenalin leave their systems. Their tank is damaged, but Wardaddy says they’ve got a job to do. They approach the crossroads when a mine blows their tread. Wardaddy asks “can you fix it?” Grady responds “yeah, why not?” Grady confesses to Norman.

“Norman, I’m sorry. You know? I think you’re a good man. It’s what I think? [chuckles] I think maybe we ain’t, but I think maybe you are. I just wanted to tell you that.”

The Germans are coming. The tank’s busted. Wardaddy stays with the tank. Norman volunteers to stay. Bible jumps up. Gordo too. Grady is last to mount up. They’re all standing on top of a busted tank. It’s Macgyver time. They’re in the tank, loaded up, ready to die killing as many Germans as they can. They’re getting a “little tight” on good whisky. Norman takes a swig. Grady says, “Damn, you’re a fightin’, fuckin’, drinkin’ machine!” Don christens him “Machine”.

The Germans are all over the tank. They open the top hatch. The crew unloads on them. Grenades, Norman’s mowing them down like corn. They all run out of ammo. The rest of the ammo is outside. Wardaddy lays down some smoke to cover their exit. They got what they came for. Wardaddy has some trouble coming back in. He takes a shot in the shoulder. They mow down more and more Jerrys who are trying to take advantage. They’re back to a stalemate.

The Germans find some Panzerfäuste. They sneak up on the tank. The first shot misses. The second one penetrates the tank and slice through Grady’s entire midsection. (Somehow, and highly improbably, not exploding inside the tank). The Germans hurl grenades. They’re still being cut down like corn. But there are too many of them. The German commander send his troops back in, “Die haben fast keine Munition mehr. Das ist unser Land! Machen sie fertig!”

Gordo gets shot while tossing a grenade. It drops in the tank. He covers it. Gordo’s gone. Bible went off the tank to get a gun. Machine goes off to save him. There are very few Germans left. One is crawling slowly through the corpses toward the tank. He snipes Bible. He’s about to snipe Wardaddy. He does. Wardaddy stands back up. He hits him again. And again. He drops inside. Somehow still alive, but not for long. Machine looks at him. “I’m sorry son.” Machine says, “It’s OK. What can you do?”

The Germans climb up on the tank. Machine wants to surrender. Collier tells him to use the hatch beneath the tank. The Germans drop potato mashers into the tank. Machine slips out, plays dead under the tank. Wardaddy is gone. Later, Machine pops his head up when a German looks under the tank with his flashlight. His eyes are wide. He raises his hands in surrender. The German hesitates, then leaves him there. In the cold morning, Machine climbs back into the tank to cover Wardaddy’s corpse with his coat. Soon after, he’s rescued by Americans.

Jon Bernthal is a force of nature, as usual. Shia Labeouf is quietly awesome, as usual. Brad Pitt plays his WWII guy, which is good, as usual. Michael Peña brings his own special magic to the table. Some of the overhead shots are great. I wonder how much was practical effects? According to Fury (Wikipedia), … almost all of it. Amazing.

Neal Brennan: Crazy Good (2024) — 8/10

I like Neal’s specials. His best bit in this one is about how craziness is intrinsically linked to excellence in sports. He goes from Michael Jordan to Michael Phelps to gymnasts. Kyrie Irving. And so on. He makes the joke that the “sun is police for white people”. He moves on Sigmund Freud’s coke habit, that most of his books should have been titled “This May Be the Cocaine Talking…” Or that the Wright brothers’ idea to fly was classic methhead thinking. Rappers are all crazy.

He took a swipe at Woody Allen in a joke about God distributing points for character traits and there was nothing left over for “not fucking his family.” Great. Nice one. Way to promulgate a 30-year-dead myth, though. Everybody laughed. Because it’s not true, but people think it’s true. That’s what makes it so funny, right?

The following citations come from Neal Brennan: Crazy Good (2024) | Transcript (Scraps from the loft).

This is a great line about crypto and Bitcoin enthusiasts:

“My issue with crypto is everyone who told me about crypto had never spoken about finances before, ever. It’s like, “Weren’t you a DJ three weeks ago?””

Exactly. Why am I listening to you about anything, especially finances?

He talked about the state of social-media and public performances, which are getting so over-the-top because it’s lucrative.

“Yeah, but again, some of these girls are full of shit. You know they are. This can’t all be trauma. Everything’s trauma to them. They’ll be like, “I had so much trauma today at Starbucks.” “I was literally shaking.” Well, you’re addicted to Adderall, so that checks out. [audience laughing]

“Also, ladies, if you can talk about it on social media, probably not trauma! Just letting you know. Trauma’s a physical thing. Physical thing. Not a vibe, a physical thing that happened to you that’s so jarring to your body and spirit that you don’t know how to process it, let alone post about it on social media with captions and music.”

I mean, it’s obvious that it’s not trauma. It’s performance. For money. It’s not real. It’s like getting mad at Sylvester Stallone for being a boxer or a soldier. He’s neither of those. He’s and actor and a painter. Or it’s like getting mad at a comedian for an “opinion they have” or “story they told” on stage. It’s not real. Get a grip. Just don’t watch it. Still, the burn was pretty funny.

I am pleased to report that this next joke checks out. I’ve got a lot invested in there being no encryption back-doors in messaging services.

“You’re not really friends with somebody unless you’re both worried that if your text messages went public, you’d both lose your jobs. That is a friendship, and you cherish it and you nurture it, and you should encrypt it, probably.”

On Donald Trump and Joe Rogan:

“if you had asked me in the year 2004 who the most consequential political figures in America would be in 2024, I would not have said the host of The Apprentice and the host of Fear Factor. Would not have said it.”

Finally, I don’t know if this is a metaphor for anything else, but it’s pretty funny in its own right. You kind of have to see him deliver the lines, though.

“A woman said, “Neal, you know what’s great about you? When I tell you I’m gonna have an orgasm, you keep on doing what you were doing.”

“[women cheering and applauding]

“A lot of the guys have no idea why you’re applauding. [audience laughing]

“Fellas, keep on doing what you were doing. Same angle, same rhythm, same force. [women cheering] Keep on doing what you were doing. Same angle, same rhythm, same force.

“Women will say, “I’m gonna have an orgasm,” and the guy will say, “Now’s a good time for the corkscrew.” Dummy! [audience laughing]

“Keep on doing what you were doing! Same angle, same rhythm, same force. “Neal, how am I gonna remember that?” ARF.”

Black Mass (2015) — 8/10

This is the true story of James ‘Whitey’ Bulger (Johnny Depp), who grew up in South Boston—”Southie”—with his brother Billy (Benedict Cumberbatch), who becomes a Senator, and John Connolly (Joel Edgerton), who ends up in the FBI. Connolly works with Charles McGuire (Kevin Bacon), John Morris (David Harbour), and Robert Fitzpatrick (Adam Scott). The story starts with Kevin Weeks (Jesse Plemons) turning state’s evidence on his role in the Winter Hill Gang that ended up running South Boston and that went head-to-head with the Mafia from the North in an epic turf war.

The story follows the sheer brutality of all parties involved. The Italian Mafia is trying to take over Bulger’s territory. He’s eyeing their territory. The Feds want to make cases. They don’t really care how, so they enter a deal with Bulger, protecting him from all police activity, while going to town on the Italian Mafia. Is Bulger actually helping them? It doesn’t seem that he’s actually providing them with any actionable information, all while reaping the benefits of being under the protective aegis of federal law enforcement.

We follow Whitey’s life from a youth to the field general of the Winter Hill gang. He marries and has a child, which seems to anchor him somewhat. His child dies of Reye Syndrome—and Whitey always kind of blames his wife for having given the child aspirin, for having followed the doctor’s instructions. No-one could have known but Whitey needs to blame someone. The tragedy is portrayed as having been formative of his brutality but I don’t believe it. It looks like that brutality was there all along.

Connolly becomes more and more like the lieutenants of the Winter Hill gang. He’s chummy with them. His wife (Julianne Nicholson) hates it and lets him know it. This causes a rift between them. He’s bringing home the bacon, after all. McGuire starts to doubt the effectiveness of the whole scheme, while Connolly starts to actively fight to protect his cash cow Bulger. He starts to tip Whitey off to moles within his own organization, getting people that the FBI works with killed in the line of duty.

A new assistant U.S. attorney isn’t buying any of it—and also isn’t obligated by prior relationships to put up with it. He discovers that Bulger has never really helped the FBI and that Connolly and his crew are really the only ones who’ve ever benefitted from the relationship within the FBI. Bulger goes on the lam, calling his brother one last time. The others are rounded up. Brutal but low-level bastards like Weeks are given slaps on the wrist for having turned state’s evidence. Connolly caught a 42-year bit for murder, while Whitey was only finally caught in 2011, whereupon he picked up two life sentences and died in prison, seven years later, at the age of 89. The most brutal man in the story lived free until he was 82.

Batman: The Animated Series (1992) — 5/10

I thought I would like this better, but it’s just too slow and childish for me. I stopped at the second episode, Christmas with the Joker, which was just so formulaic and boring that I had to give up. The artwork is great, which is why I gave it a higher rating. The stories are pretty childish, though, even though the dark themes and murderous intent is not really for the level of child that would enjoy the simplicity of the plots.

Masters of the Universe: Revolution (2024) — 2/10

Indecipherable trash. I couldn’t get through the first half of the first episode. I didn’t realize it had been made in 2021. It’s voiced by Liam Cunningham, Stephen Root, Lena Headey, Gates McFadden, Keith David, Diedrich Bader, and Mark Hamill, so I had higher hopes. I guess they were just there for the payday.

A sample of the script (TV Show Transcripts) from the first five minutes or so.

“Orko: And I’m Orko, his fearless friend with the tiny ticket to Subternia.
Scare Glow: You.
Adam: We didn’t come to fight, Scare Glow. Our friends were sent to Subternia by Skeletor when he stole the Power. So we ask that you let us leave the land of the dead with the souls of our friends, Clamp Champ and Fisto.

“[…]

“Buzz-Off: Anyone else feeling buzzed?
Snout Spout: I feel a sneeze coming on. ( trumpets ) Even cowboys get the pews… as in pew, pew, pew! Yeehaw!”

Clamp Champ? Fisto? Scare Glow? Snout Spout? What is happening?

Look: either the LLMs are already writing everything or we won’t notice when they start doing so. If you’re used to watching stuff like this, then you’ll never, ever notice.