Mad Men - "The Crash" - Review

“The Crash” is a busy episode, and at times it’s a confusing episode. But it’s an episode that’s meant to be busy and confusing. The moment Don and the members of our now nameless ad agency take some doctor prescribed drugs the whole episode goes into a bizarre overdrive. The episode has the quality of a drug trip; it’s dream-like, fast paced, filled with unexplained jumps forward in time, and many elements seem arbitrary but potentially loaded with hidden meaning. But often, honestly, come off more arbitrary. Like what the heck is up with the creative team throwing exacto-knifes at Stan beyond adding to the already abundant sense of chaos and unproductiveness at the office?

After being dumped by Sylvie, Don becomes a wreck. He’s scheming of ways to win her back, and standing outside her apartment door, creepily hovering. The whole time Don has everyone convinced he’s working on the ad campaign for Chevy, but instead it turns out he’s crafting the perfect sales pitch to win back to Sylvie. If Don has been out of sorts before, he rarely has stooped to such maddening lows. When he collapses towards episode end, it feels like the only logical response to how much Don has been failing to tackle reality and the many things in his personal life (it also feels like the only logical response to the absolute craziness of this episode). For so long this season Don has been doing a terrible job at work and he’s been avoiding responsibility, in his marriage, at work, and with his children. 

There’s a general offness to this episode (well, there's an understatement if there ever was one). Everyone is talking in a highly mannered and fastpaced way that’s sometimes comical but mainly very strange and offputting. Even outside the office, the Sally B-plot is totally weird. A strange black woman breaks into the apartment and starts robbing the Drapers. Sally immediately recognizes that something isn’t right but she’s put into a fix by her age, her lack of knowledge of her father, and her general justifiable fear and confusion. 

Sally has been a character that’s been overlooked this season. After spending more and more time with her each season, it’s been disappointing to not see more screentime from the always great Kiernan Shipka. Shipka continues to nail the growing independence and rebelliousness of her character while still managing to undercut this with a youthful uncertainty. But Sally's storyline is part and parcel of the larger peculiarity of this episode and also has less to say about her than Don.

For this is an episode all about Don. We get more flashbacks to Don’s time living in a brothel, a formative experience. While these flashbacks don’t interest me nearly as much as some of the flashbacks in the past, they continue to fill out the backstory of Don and they set up the wonderful (if very on the nose) closing scene of the episode where Don equates the agency with a whorehouse (great resonance of “The Other Woman” here). We could have guessed that the prostitute introduced in "Collaborators" would deflower Don and it comes to fruition here. While the flashbacks aren’t the most interesting, they play off the episodes theme stated by soothsayer and daughter of the late Frank Gleason, “Does someone love me?” Don doesn’t want Sylvia; so much as he’s so damn lonely that he doesn’t want to lose the one thing keeping his mind at ease.   

“You have to let yourself feel it,” Peggy tells Stan in regards to his cousin dying in Vietnam. Don isn’t letting himself feel things though; he never has. He thinks he can just always reinvent himself and that will keep him one step ahead of the pain of his past. “The Crash” might literally refer to Ken’s car accident, forcing him to walk around with a cane. But it figuratively refers to Don, who has been all but destined to collapse in some form or another. It wouldn’t be all that surprising if the series ended with Don having to own up to everything he’s been avoiding for five plus seasons, and when he does it will be messy and self-destructive no doubt.

Our other "Don", Peggy, not be getting exactly what she wants (she clearly wants to hook up with Stan, and she even more obviously wants to sleep with Ted). But Peggy can control her urge; she, for now, is going to stay true to her boyfriend. As we know from our other “Don”, Pete, that it’s best to stay on the straight and narrow. No matter how good you are at assuming some part of the identity of Don Draper, it almost always comes at a cost.  

Take Sally for instance. This episode wants to parallel Sally and Don, to an extent. Sally is acting like she believes her father would have and how she expects her father would have wanted her to. But this ultimately leaves her doubtful. She apologizes for screwing up. But, of course, Sally handled this as well as we’d hope a fourteen year old to. And more importantly still, as Sally herself states, she doesn’t really know her father (but then again: no one truly does).  Don is still that child at the whorehouse and he's that way because he never got the affection of a real mother. Hence trying to hold onto Sylvia.

The themes of prostitution have been abundant this season. And Don’s closing statement makes this blatant. Actual sex, in deed, takes place in the office. The people that get hurt the most when things are run on this sort of business model are people like kids (Don in the flashbacks or Sally and Bobby in the present) or people who mean well (the kindly prostitute, Ken). 

“The Crash” has a lot of ambition, and, while this ambition doesn’t always succeed, I really appreciate its ambition. At times this season, Mad Men has felt like it’s retreading a lot of territory we’ve seen so much of with not much new to say. It’s also felt like it has so much it wants to get in that it’s not necessarily being as substantive as it potentially could be. While this episode is often more style than substance, it's always nice to see the episodes of Mad Men that are structurally more adventurous, even if here it comes off as too frantic and hectic.

Grade: B+

"Star Trek: Into Darkness" - Film Review

There are a handful of reactions that you are pretty much guaranteed to have when you go to see a summer blockbuster. The big three are pleasantly surprised, mildly disappointed, and outright desiring your money back. There are summer blockbusters that are a rip roaring good time, that earn their spectacle through interesting situations and great characters. There are films that amuse you but leave you slightly dissatisfied. And then there’s those other ones you totally regret seeing it.

JJ Abram’s Star Trek fell squarely into the pleasantly surprised category. It was not the summer blockbuster that was most on my radar, but it was one that stuck with me after I’d watched the film. The film took something familiar and elevated it above the well-worn tropes that had made the series a cultural hallmark.

Star Trek: Into Darkness doesn’t stick with you the way its predecessor did. It’s what we might describe as mildly disappointing. 

Into Darkness reminds me of another recent summer blockbuster: Iron Man 3. Both are sequels to major successful franchises. Both fail to live up to the merits of a sequel. There’s more spectacle at times, but the spectacle never feels completely well-earned. The plotting is inelegant and the stories try much too hard to provide a gravitas that simply just isn’t there.

And this, mind you, is me talking about two films that I largely enjoyed. Into Darkness has some moments that are popcorn action at its most engrossing, but the plot is also frustratingly scattered. So much so that the film is often a collection of mostly good scenes that are somewhat disjointed. It takes a third of the movie to really get cooking, and even then the film has suffered from an opening sequence that’s uninteresting and perfunctory. There are also a number of twists piled on top of eachother that start to become tedious. 

There are many moments in the film that feel like they’re in this movie merely because the studio expects it’s the type of stuff we want in there. Scotty makes an off-handed quip. Kirk and Spock have disagreements over commanding the ship. McCoy amusingly suggests an alternative action to Kirk. Leonard Nimoy makes an appearance! But after a while a number of these moments come off as if they don’t service the narrative but rather are in place just to try to get a reaction out of the audience, to carelessly make us laugh or thrill us. And too much of it is leaning on our affection for these characters and this universe (granted, many of these previously mentioned expected moments really are a treat and arguably would have detracted from the film had they not been there). But as appealing as they may be, on their own a solid film they do not make. 

Don't get me wrong. The action of Into Darkness is wonderfully staged and addicting. This action is made all the more pleasurable by the tremendous performance of Benedict Cumberbatch in the role of the villain who vexes our heroes with his delightful scheming.  

There’s a lot of fun to be found in the film, but it just doesn’t step its game up the way a big budget sequel ought to. 

Grade: B

"Before Sunrise" - Film Review

Despite how cynical and jaded I may be about relationships, at heart I’m really a hopeless romantic. I want to believe in true love, and I go out of my way to watch rom coms because no matter how bad there’s something incredibly appealing about these romantic dalliances. But where the contrivance of romantic films so often undermines them, After Sunrise succeeds by taking a familiar story of a fleeting affair and turning it into something tremendously bittersweet.

The film manages this by taking the small steps towards the two lovers Jess (Ethan Hawke) and Celine (Julie Delpy) falling for eachother. At first, they’re merely intrigued by the other person, and in the spur of the moment they decide to get off the train and spend the day with eachother, ditching their original plans. But slowly their infatuation grows and grows, and the film, despite making this all preordained, makes it thoroughly satisfying to find the two become engrossed in their romantic feelings. The best part of this is how the film doesn’t bullshit us; it doesn’t build this up to the moment where they admit their feelings and get together. They’re talking about life, love, whatever comes to mind. They walk around Vienna, watching dancers, getting their palms read, and falling more and more for one another. But these two know they like eachother and they let everything about themselves and their feelings hang out there in the open. 

The film provides this all with a great sense of energy and spontaneity that you can’t help but root for these two. The Kiss, the one that was all but destined to happen, is dealt with fairly early on, and this removes much of the tension. Now they can be much more open with eachother, and their limited time together in turn becomes that much more problematic. They say that it’s for the best if they never see eachother again, never exchange numbers or addresses. But they’re really only fooling themselves.    

Much of this works due to Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy's amazing chemistry and how thoroughly they inhabit these characters. The pair is having an exciting, fun, memorable, occasionally transcendent, time, and thus we are too. 

The film’s pleasure comes in part from how simple this story is, and the little events that take place throughout the day. It feels very true to life. The conversations and incidences that take place come off as if they’re just occurring in that moment. But that simplicity is deceiving has it unravels to demonstrate hidden depths and really sweet and sad things to say about relationships, love, and life. 

After Sunrise is deeply romantic and bittersweet tale, and simultaneously very fun and rather sad.   

Grade: A-

"Room 237" - Film Review

About halfway through, Room 237 becomes absolutely mindnumbing. And it’s not because it’s a bad film (in fact, I’d say it’s a very good film), but rather because the theories it’s allowing people to elaborate on about Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining are totally insane.

At times it’s easy to laugh them off, but other times the theories are so baseless and off-point that it becomes frustrating and painful: people actually believe this nonsense? These obsessive cinephiles have taken semiotics analysis to its most extreme trying to penetrate through the exacting perfectionism of Kubrick's vision. The perectionism that has them convinced that every little detail was purposely placed (and even has implications about the staging of the moon landing, the Holocaust, and the slaughter of the American Indians).

 

Like a horror movie that crawls under your skin, the documentary is unsettling and disturbing because it drags you into the strange and twisted views of people who have read into The Shining way, way too much. 

But the film also never looks down upon or judges its interviewees. It simply presents their arguments and leaves it for us to decide how we feel. In fact, we never actually see any of these indvidual but merely hear their voices. While they often come off as having a few bolts loose, we've all had that experience where we read into a piece of art too much and were convinced our theory was right.

Room 237 systematically unfolds these theories and provides a fascinating window onto an intriguing subject matter. 

Grade: A-

"Stranger Than Paradise" - Film Review

 

I imagine the best mood to be in to watch Stranger Than Paradise is to be super depressed, just full on doubting humanity.

The film isn’t morbid and it doesn’t traffic in sadness, but everything about the film screams loneliness. We constantly find characters isolated, either in desolate cityscapes, empty apartment or hotel rooms, or rundown cars. 

And no one seems really all that content; they’re restless and frustrated, and they don’t really know how to articulate it all that well. Everyone is deadpan, which at times is used for humorous effect. These people are hapless and unmotivated.

When his cousin Eva (Eszter Balint) flies in from Hungary, Willie (John Lurie) isn’t happy to see her but rather is just really angry about the burden of dealing with her for a week. He’s a real jerk, dismissing her and never inviting her out anywhere. But over time a begrudging respect forms between the two. Enough so that when Willie decides to go on a vacation a year later with his friend Eddie (Richard Edson) they head out to Cleveland to visit her. They’re on better terms this time around, and the experience convinces Willie to head down to Florida with his cousin (title carded as “paradise” - although it feels like a warmer version of the shitty locales they've already been). But Willie keeps treating Eva lousy, ignoring her entirely, and he eventually blows their money gambling. She’s had enough and after running into some money through a misunderstanding (supposedly a miscommunicated drug deal) she hops on the next flight back to Europe. Willie runs to the airport but is too late to prevent her from heading home.  

Not much happens in the film. The plot is rather minimal, largely observing people and then at that mostly watching them sit around bored and disinterested. The film often feels more concerned with acting as a mood piece than telling a story. The film has a strong sense of atmosphere conveyed especially well by its low budget, black and white cinematography. Most of the time there’s not even dialogue, but just the actors inhabiting the places they’re in. The stripped down minimalism would be a point of inspiration for later American independent films and its style is familiar of many later indies.

There's a lot of low-key, understated humor to be found in the film and the obliviousness of its characters, as well as the occasional absurdity of events.      

A funny, dark, understated film that takes pleasure and finds humor in the everyday and the mundane. 

Grade: B 

Game of Thrones - "Second Sons" - Review

The Second Sons (the mercenary group who provide this episode with its title) are a second rate mercenary group. They’re frequently looked over in favor of the more reliable Gold Company, who supposedly have never broken a single one of their contracts. Here we find them hired out to defend Yunkai from Danaeries and her Unsullied. It’s a fitting name not only for the company but for a lot of the characters of this series, as many of them are bunch of “cripples, bastards, and broken things”, to use another turn of phrase from this show.

Dany herself was long suffering as a “second son”, playing second fiddle to her brother Viserys, who also found himself never receiving the respect or glory he believed he felt was owed to him. But in a way, Dany isn’t the “second son” of this storyline, it’s Yunkai (and to a lesser extent the Second Sons themselves). Yunkai is rightfully scared after their southern sister city Astapor was sacked by Dany. Dany’s steely resolve in the face of the treachery of a bitter, resentful city and an atrocious and violent mercenary corps is making her enemies. But her enemies are also slightly baffled that someone as feminine and young as Dany would be so militant and headstrong. It flies in the face of what someone who is a supposed “second son” ought to be acting. 

Indeed, besides Daario the captains of the Second Sons want to kill Dany and get rid of this nagging problem which to them is just a short term issue. Daario is a second-in-command who has yet to receive the respect he feels he deserves. But he foresees the opportunity to hop ship and turn the mercenaries over to Dany (not only that but he’s also quite infatuated by Dany). 

“Second Sons” is a surprisingly focused episode by Game of Thrones standards, besides scenes with Arya and Sam at the beginning and end of episode, the show mainly seems content to hone in on three big stories: Dany and the Second Sons (and the mercenaries in fact get more screentime here than Dany), Tyrion and Sansa’s wedding, and Melsandre’s scheme to sacrifice Gendry. Some stories are welcome reprieves to be away from (especially the always torturous, pun intended, story of Theon) and some are sorely missed, but it’s nice to see stories play out across an episode in a way they typically don’t.  

The wedding is a lovely drunken affair (the Lannisters, in general, love their wine) filled with plenty of awkward encounters, sniping, and people speaking amusingly or despicably frankly. Tyrion and Sansa are a weird pairing, there’s no denying it, but in some respects it’s a very good match for both of them (though Sansa might not fully see this and Tyrion may dread it). Tyrion is looked down upon, never given the attention or respect he deserves, and constantly made a mockery of (Joffrey stealing the step stool so Tyrion can’t get the cloak on is simply the worst!). Sansa, in her current position, is not going to find someone who will treat her as kindly as Tyrion. She’s a prisoner and anything is better than the option of Joffrey (who threatens to rape her in a disgusting, atrocious scene). 

The story on Dragonstone finally picks up steam after a long stretch of absence. Melisandre sets a trap for Gendry to fall into. Stannis becomes increasingly uneasy about the whole sacrifice and goes to Davos to clear his head. Davos is pardoned on the condition that he never tries to kill Melsandre again; he agrees but refuses to stop speaking his mind. This season has been doing a much better job with Stannis, Davos, and Melisandre. The characters are being given much necessary depth that wasn’t filled in last season. Melisandre’s encounter with Thoros two episodes ago shows she’s not completely in control and at times, making this up as she goes along. Stannis’ interaction with his wife and daughter clued us into why he’s just a little screwed up. His conversation with his daughter and his scene here with Davos present just enough hesitation about the plan he’s going forward with that it becomes much more interesting to watch, and makes Stannis more a character than a plot device. While that whole sex business with Gendry just comes off as more weird than intriguing, the steps put forward leading up to the scene shade it in a way where it’s still really interesting and exciting to watch.  

The final scene with Sam, while very cool, felt a little out of place. Game of Thrones has many pleasures to it, but for a number of viewers I’m guessing it’s the very big, insane moments. While I love these moments, I also love many other things about the story it’s telling and the way it goes about telling it. At times, it appears as though the writers are purposely putting a big awesome moment like Sam killing the white walker just to get us to come back for the next episode (believe me I’d be returning even if it didn’t feature a gargantuan, titillating moment at the end of every episode). But the episode didn’t need a moment like this leave us wanting more. If the Dragonstone story rubbed you wrong or the Dany plot didn’t get your blood boiling (which I could potentially see as these stories have their problems), I really hope that the wedding left you very pleased. It’s filled with all these nicely observed, tiny moments that are an absolute delight to watch. Tywin being enraged; Olenna throwing off a quip; Cersei being bitchy; Peter Dinklage getting to play a wasted Tyrion; Joffrey being the worst little shit on the face of the planet. 

Here’s the thing; the Battle of the Blackwater might have been very cool, and the sack of Astapor as well, and countless other moments. But a series can only get away with such massive, thrilling moments by giving us characters that are worthy of following into that shit storm. The real pleasure of Game of Thrones is following these very well-realized characters and hoping against all hope that George RR Martin’s story doesn’t thoroughly fuck them over irrevocably, whether it be by mercenaries, an arranged marriage, a sacrificial ritual, an ice monster, or a former knight. For the moment, they’re safe, but as we head into the penultimate hour how long will that still be true? For when you’re a second son, you’re not given many options or much hope.

Stray Observations:
-Arya and the Hound are a lot of fun to watch together even very briefly. The series is very good at mismatched duos. 
-“A man who fights for gold can’t afford to lose to a girl”
-Cersei explains the Lannister house diddy "The Rains of Castamere" which essentially recounts the time the Lannister's committed the medieval equivalent of genocide to the family line of house Castamere.
-Cersei so doesn't give a fuck about Loras: "No one cares what your father once told you".
-Drunk Tyrion threatening to cut off Joffrey's dick. Could we get a more intense and hilarious moment?
-Shae finding the clean bedsheets was a very  nice moment that had me smiling a wide grin.  

Grade: B+

"Badlands" - Film Review

You know how the old story goes. Boy meets girl. Boy and girl fall in love. Girl’s father disapproves of boy. Boy kills father. Boy and girl flee the state.

Things only proceed to escalate from there as we quickly learn that the shy, naïve Holly(Sissy Specek)’s boyfriend Kit (Martin Sheen) is a bit stark raving mad and bit a trigger happy, a combination that makes them wanted criminals as they hop scotch across the Midwest. 

Wherever they go, Kit soon kills someone, forcing them to take off once more. Holly slowly realizes that she doesn’t quite have this guy all figured out. 

Badlands is a film that’s slow and contemplative. It enjoys pondering about life, love, really anything that’s on writer-director Terrence Malick’s mind. It’s languorous and drawling, letting things tease out before having tiny explosive moment where all seems to go to hell. And even then the moments of violence seem dry and matter-of-fact.

It’s never entirely clear why Holly falls for Kit or sticks with him through the madness of the road trip and killing spree. Perhaps it’s because she’s quiet and no one has really noticed her before. Perhaps it's cause she's a little crazy herself. She doesn’t seem terribly upset at the death of her father, shocked but not saddened. She seems to be in a trance as she goes along with burning down her house so they can fake their deaths.

Kit, as played by Sheen, has an undeniable charm. He’s got James Dean good looks and a smooth talking way with words. It’s never entirely clear what exactly is going through this guy’s head (the film is from the perspective of Holly and she narrates the film). Sometimes it’s simply baffling as to why Holly has shacked up with this guy, and just as indecipherable why this guy went gun-ho criminal (he’s obviously got a few bolts loose but it’s all just a little impenetrably vague). Their initial courtship is really sweet, but twenty minutes in the film takes a turn for the more unusual, bizarre, and unexpected.  

While the film never recaptures that immediate sweetness, there’s an odd pleasantness that abounds. As seen through Holly’s innocent doe-eyes, the story becomes at times a case study of the wonders of life and the tiny details that make life so fascinating and strange. 

Badlands takes its title from the terrain of the Midwest where the story is set. This geography is dry, arid, and flat; the lands are “bad lands” in how they’re seemingly of little use to humans. Badlands sometimes takes its title seriously; there’s a treachery to this world we live in, certainly (these two individuals are in deed a little treacherous, a little off. Just a little too dispassionate about their crimes). But the film also is passing off its title slightly ironically: may be the geographical nickname has got it wrong. The film contrasts how disconnected the characters are with some beautiful, vital imagery. There are plenty of weird and grand, frightening and awesome, terrible and great things in the badlands if you look hard enough. 

Badlands doesn’t always have the most cogent of throughlines to its narrative, but it’s carried by the strong performances of its two lead actors, a fascinating and strange story, and a wonderful ambiance.  

Grade: B+