Review: The Dark Knight (2008)

Feelings require some distance in order to ignore them. I can have clearer thoughts about The Dark Knight now that I have given it the proper pause, especially now that the world has remembered that anybody can play The Joker. Anyhow, in some ways a color negative to Batman Begins, some mischievous scamp took Nolan's usual stylistic clarity and sliced them to ribbons, scattering them in a high wind caused by a hospital explosion. The film is a fucking mess. There are some incomprehensible action scenes and the usual Three Things Going On at Once shit, and now there are baffling non-conclusions to major set pieces (What happened after Joker pushed Rachel out the penthouse window and Batman jumped out after her? Did he... slaughter everyone up there? I guess he just left...). The Dark Knight undeniably aims very high and every once in awhile, it hits the bulls-eye. Unfortunately, it is so reliant on the momentum it creates that when it is gone, during the dreaded re-watch, the strings are visible and a great many of them aren't attached to anything. A whole sequence where Bruce gives up being Batman lasts minutes but seems much longer, is quickly discarded, could ultimately be cut from the film with no impact. Rachel Dawes is still here and that's a bummer given that she has no function other than to show up in dangerous situations.  A courtship of Gotham between three characters is muddled by a literal romance and eventually, a plot for revenge. Harvey Dent doesn't need justification to lose his mind if Gotham won't let him be sane. Nolan might think we're smart enough to handle all the simultaneous Stuff but too stupid to take two steps into the unraveling of a character's mind. We need a sexual crutch, do we? Harvey is fucking her -- he clearly loves her. Bruce is no longer fucking her -- he's clearly jealous. Listen: I don't think I should be rooting for the villain here... perhaps tells these other guys to fucking cool it a little. The Joker may kill people but at least he doesn't WHINE.
[This review is a rewrite.]

Review: Following (1998)

Micro-noir. Three characters interact, each are lying to the other two. One lie ends up being really important, hidden behind the others. By the end, the characters suffer three fates: hell, limbo, and the one who got away with it. It's a tasty enough story but served with the bonus narrative structure cocktail, nonlinear puzzle pieces which seem impossibly complex at first but fall into place easily, as though Nolan knew how our minds with put it all together from the beginning. It's the work of a craftsman. It's so SIMPLE. A twisty, intense story can be told with small tools and very little money. Whenever this happens, the feeling of delight is its own reward, outside of the film itself. Maybe this means that the stunt outshines the material. A re-watch is a cold experience, one where you could have sworn you remembered the room being a little bigger. It's okay. This room is fine. After all, look at what this guy is doing now... making smaller rooms with bigger tools.

Review: Batman Begins (2005)

It turned out that Christopher Nolan could exist in the mainstream quite comfortably and we could all breathe a sigh of relief. He sure wasn't afraid to sink further into it. In what seems like a huge risk in hindsight, he approaches the story of Bruce Wayne in a novel fashion, using a lot of the same narrative trickery from Memento and some pretty heavy themes given that this is about a man in a costume who punches bad guys (Like Leonard Shelby, Bruce IS the plague on Thebes). The efficiency of the first half is Nolan operating at full capacity, or at least very near it, so I'm not quite sure what happened to the second half. It's possible that killing off the Rachel Dawes character in the second act could have cleared up the action (it certainly would have helped The Dark Knight immensely). And yeah, sure, the suit looks a little dumb and the Tumbler is never cool, but they have little to do with how suddenly preachy and overbearing the film's characters get. Was there no better way to dispatch the villain than via one-liner that sounds like it belongs to a different superhero? Whew, good thing that news report says no cops died in that stupid, reckless chase through the city or I might have to question how good I am at doing my job. "Is this a time to joke, Alfred, when there's a flaming log on my chest?" Should we really let Gordon drive the Tumbler? Ehhhh. Of the three Nolan Batmans, this is the strongest stylistically, the weakest in content, a film I want to like more until I remember what happens in it.

Review: Interstellar (2014)

As with Inception, it is with the same sort of excitement you feel sitting down with an original science-fiction film, experiencing it for the first time, immersing yourself in a strange world, uncovering its mysteries, walking through someone else's imagination. If Inception is a ray of light, Interstellar is the dark shadow it casts, when that journey is not nearly as rewarding, where the visceral excitement is replaced with a brief grace period, followed by bitter curiosity. An objective autopsy. What went wrong here? Why don't I care enough about the characters or the mission? Why these narrative decisions: a watch, a bookcase, a crowbar, narration? Turns out love is the answer? PFFFFFFFFT. Nolan's weaknesses, the blunt statements of subtext vs. the barrage of dual narratives perform here at their worst. A shame, because the film is beautiful, the robots are cool, and Hans Zimmer is in top-form and injects actual excitement into an otherwise baffling sequence involving space madness and a sped-up docking sequence (the film's good scene). This and Inside Llewyn Davis made me think that the secret geniuses of all these movies are actually the cinematographers. I hope it's a coincidence because otherwise, this whole Following Directors thing is a total crapshoot. Yeah, c'mon, Soderbergh is his own cinematographer and that doesn't keep the quality of his films consistent. People are allowed to have bad days, bad years, and bad really expensive productions dedicated to an incredibly flawed script.

Review: Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987-1994) [26-32]

Season 2! Surely, things get better from here... right?

"The Child" (4/10)
Out the gate with some "Woman's Right to Choose" -ness. Don't explore space, you may get space-raped and then space-pregnant. And then HUH? Oh right, Whoopie Goldberg is supposed to be in this show...
Like "Haven," the plot is some annoying-ass Betazoid boring bullshit, this time about an inexplicable Coppola's Jack Jesus child and Troi's reaction to it. Also some specimen transportation and Wesley struggling with... something or other. Grugh. I can't believe I miss Beverly Crusher, but seriously, this new doctor can go fuck herself.

"Where Silence Has Lease" (5/10)
Ah, the Mr Bigface episode. Worfsploitation continues.
Not that I don't appreciate procedural exploration but something about the way they break up the A Plot (the Worf stuff or the new FUCKING doctor's useless dialogue) makes it all a bit tedious. It picks up a bit towards the end, and like an olde school episode, nothing is really solved save they escape with (most) of their lives. More exile -- I'm guessing they post a sign outside the anomaly that says something like "dont go into here lol."

"Elementary, Dear Data" (5/10)
Wait... Data is Holmes in this scenario, so the title refers to- ohhhh, I get it, he's having fun wrong. Good thing that drunken whore of a new doctor explained it to me.
This is the second time a Holodeck program has gotten out of control and almost fucked up the ship. Someone going to talk to the design team and download a security patch? One that, you know, doesn't allow programs to extend their power beyond the confines of the Holodeck... just a suggestion. Picard knows that Moriarty is a murderous fiend, right?

"The Outrageous Okona" (5/10)
The Enterprise meets Captain Malcolm Reynolds and mild forms of wackiness ensue. Uh oh, Riker, looks like there's a new rapist in town.
I mean, this is the sorta thing I'm talkin about. Starfleet can just answer distress calls all over the fucking place, even if it means protecting a sex criminal with a sweet pony-tail and starting some intergalactic incident involving two civilizations? I imagine the Vulcan way of handling this is so much fucking better, where his brand of outrageousness is not tolerated and they isolate his ass until they can dump him on a planet where he can fend for himself. Then again, turns out he's a nice man in the end and totally not a rapekiller. I'm just sayin.

"The Schizoid Man" (5/10)
FUCKING NEW DOCTOR. Ooo, near-warp transport, that sounds familiar... and I love this Vulcan hottie, why the hell isn't she a major character?
A lot of focus on Data this season already. Hmm, I'm not onboard with it. It's like they decided they needed the Enterprise crew to acknowledge how weird he is, so that the audience is sure they aren't insane. Never mind that the crew would be used to him by now. It doesn't help that the episode itself is very bland and forgettable. In fact, what happened again?

"Loud as a Whisper" (5/10)
A guy with 80's hair experiences that frightening moment when everyone on your away team starts turning into skeletons.
I run into another typical complaint of mine, which is that the silent mediator should have been more alien in appearance. Some kinda reptile? I get that the producers probably want aesthetic distance for the audience to relate to the drama of the story, but is Star Trek really about that? Look at the ending: we aren't really shown a successful peace negotiation, but that having the confidence to attempt it is the actual victory. Pretty classy, and it deserved better execution.

"Unnatural Selection" (5/10)
Sweet, we're finally taking this cunt of an MD to task. And Jesus, does Wesley have to drive the ship all the fucking time? He didn't even graduate.
I have a bit of a soft spot for Germisodes because it requires the crew to scientifically evaluate the situation and think carefully before proceeding with containment, instead of reacting all emotionally to it. You have no idea how hard I was pulling for some Prometheus-ass shit to occur once the genetically engineered human was awakened. Sadly, Pulaski wasn't strangled to death, just infected. And she survived. OH WELL. (I'm surprised the transporter and/or Data aren't used to solve every problem.)

Review: Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987-1994) [18-25]

"Coming of Age" (6/10)
Wesley works hard to achieve adulthood and justify his presence on a starship, while Picard deals with sudden continuity. A guy breathes out of a misty mouthpiece.
-- Next Gen decides that they need to establish a running narrative. Good on em! The best part is that Picard is taken to task for decisions made in previous episodes, so I know I'm not the only one who's being all 'Hey, wait a second,' although that means I sympathize with the spineless auditor we're all supposed to hate. Ah well, at least they didn't kill him off at the climax.

"Heart of Glory" (5/10)
Neutral zone adventures, Geordi's underwhelming eyesight, and Klingon racial stuff.
-- Manages a somewhat compelling situation while succumbing to cliches. The whole plot, even, is this well-mined conflict about a character making a choice between two opposing forces in his soul. And whatever. Just go watch Mamet's Homicide instead.

"The Arsenal of Freedom" (5/10)
Man, just as we were about to distance ourselves from the Original Series, this one catapults us right back into it.
-- A lot of miniarcs to deal with here. Picard and Dr. Crusher get closer, Geordi comes into his own as he takes command of a risky situation, Troi advises, the away team runs around on an obvious jungle set, and there's some arms dealer satire. Get pretty exciting at the end, though, so this one could have been worse. It also could have been better, without all that talkin 'bout theys feelings.

"Skin of Evil" (5/10)
And now, Drunken Blob satire. I hope Jonathan Frakes got a lot of money that day.
-- A very long hostage situation solved by some sleight of hand and exile (which always works). Seems like another unmade Original Series script, one that I would gladly take over "The Apple" and a lot of others... something about it all is very unsatisfying. That's it for Lt. Yar, huh? And we never got to find out what the rapegangs were, nor did Data get to avenge her. Hmmph.

"Symbiosis" (5/10)
Stupid Dummy satire now? Nope! Space drug dealers! Oh, and Tasha Yar is still alive, and very involved in the plot. Serves me right for reviewing by the production order.
-- In addition to the super cool concept concerning a virus where only its symptoms show up, I really enjoyed the fancy footwork around the Prime Directive, though which part of it allows starships to answer distress calls by civilizations they otherwise cannot interfere with? Ah well. Except for the super preachy scene where Yar explains to Wesley what drug addiction is, I mostly didn't want to kill myself! Higher five it goes.

"We'll Always Have Paris" (5/10)
Another weird, unfocused episode, I don't even fucking know anymore.
-- Such strange handling of what information the audience gets to have first, I actually thought the show was telling me that Picard had a homosexual fling in Paris. House of Cards style. But no, another jilty chick. The time manipulation in this, used sparingly because we have to be bored with a lazily tied-in subplot, was pretty fucking awesome. More of that?

"Conspiracy" (6/10)
John Carpenter directs an episode. AND LOOKS LIKE I SPOKE TOO SOON.
-- The return of some sentient worm things. If I remember correctly, the curative method is to let it eat its way through your brain until you scream in agony and it exits in a river of blood out your ear. This is totally survivable. Here, we close out the arc mentioned briefly in "Coming of Age" and solve that whole infiltration to the top levels of Starfleet problem. Easy, because it's like three guys. A fine episode if we'd had a longer time building towards it. As such, it's barely a six. Sheesh, I think I've calibrated these 5s already.

"The Neutral Zone" (5/10)
Not really what the title indicates. Are you CERTAIN you don't want to introduce the Borg instead?
-- An episode so incredibly close to the Original Series that it even mimicks its stupid wacky joke score. Now as I've stated before, I am all for the man-out-of-time-bespeckled-with-joy but not when he is insufferable and getting in the way of my Romulan negotiating! For nothing really happening except the promise of more things happening, it's... okay. Are these Dick van Winkles ever mentioned again? They're... silly.

Review: Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987-1994) [10-17]

"Hide and Q" (5/10)

Q, appearing like a natural disaster in SimCity, prevents progress for awhile to indulge in a game of "The Squire of Gothos." I mean "Spectre of the Gun." I mean Risk. How do you write female characters again?
-- It's a long, circuitous, poorly-paced route to get to two elements crowding the frame in the climax: Riker struggling with newfound powers and humanity's desire for happiness. The former takes center stage for much of the episode, while the latter is far more compelling. Q then chides the Enterprise for not seizing an opportunity to use such powers for Good but what does he do with his own power other than play pranks on everybody? Fucking asswipe.

"Too Short a Season" (5/10)
A young guy in old man makeup? Uh oh, some Fountain of Youth plot is on the horizon. Fused with Die Hard.
-- Well, on the horizon behind us, really. This is more about dealing with the aftermath of a foolish Admiral reversing his age to... properly leverage a hostage situation I guess. Because it's something he dealt with 45 years in the past and being young again would make dealing with it much easier? Yeah, it's a mess by the end of it all, a vestigial symptom of being a sequel to "A Private Little War." At the very least it's an apology for it, and it showcases Picard's preferred method for conflict resolution: synthesizing pity!

"The Big Goodbye" (5/10)
Holodeckisode. They miss an opportunity to go into black & white. Lawrence Tierney!
-- And again that problem with burying the lead, showing us the Enterprise crew reacting to the problem before Picard and others know there's an issue, and we wait as they catch up. How new is the Holodeck, by the way? Perhaps what we saw in "Encounter at Farpoint" is the Holodeck in limitation, ie it can only generate lush settings and not other characters or interactive storylines. I'm guessing Picard's reaction to it is more for our benefit than an accurate reflection of its use. There's a lot of that going on. Wait- Picard walks back onto the ship with lipstick smeared on his face. Does that mean he could leave with lung cancer too? And did he accidentally leave the program running? Perhaps he shouldn't have started with something so advanced if this narrative shit is new. The bad guys sure survive for a long time in the hallway, with no holo-emitters. SHOULD I IGNORE THIS FUCKING SHIT ARGH

"Datalore" (5/10)

An extinct civilization teaches the Enterprise how to properly bury stuff. Like the goddamned Lead. Some Dead Ringers shit ensues. A glimpse of what the hell Data is, finally.
-- Why teach the sketchy, overconfident copy of Data to pilot the starship? You know that's going to go south at some point. Face mutilation! Quickly! Before the serial killer takes your identity! Oh shit, he thought of that first. Good thing for the Enterprise that Lore chooses to become incompetent and slow down his horrifying plan at just the right moment. And we're still not listening to Wesley even though he's allowed on the bridge? I wish I liked this one more, but man that stuff in the second half really annoyed me.

"Angel One" (5/10)
Oof, bad composite work and bad eighties hair. Women in charge of things... pfft, please. What is this? Malaysia? Picard sure gets taken down a lot, already. 
-- They almost hit the mark with this one in spite of the heavy-handed sexual subjugation talk and another violation of the Prime Directive as they prevent a civilization from carrying out its own laws. The virus aboard the Enterprise subplot justifies itself by confining the away team to Angel One and leaving them to deal with the situation using time-tested speeches about equality and blahblahblah. I'd take this one in place of a couple of previous episodes where they failed using this exact formula. Still the show is getting in its own way with its nonsense.

"11001001" (6/10)
Ooo, GOOD composite work and some Holodeck questions mercifully answered. Did the ship's computer just take a BREATH?! That half-sentence tradeoff shit seems wildly inefficient.
-- Riker The Rapist Asshole returns and helps demonstrate the Holodeck's ability to discern highly subjective phrases and colloquialisms and generate some bad acting. And then there's a neat little plot about a planet in peril and in need of the ship's memory banks. It's not bad, very reminiscent of 80's science fiction somehow, and for all the hullabaloo it works as a fun diversionary episode. Get past the awkward direction in the beginning and it's clear sailing ahead.

"Home Soil" (6/10)
The Enterprise uses a terraforming station as their own personal tourist trap and annoy people trying to do their job. Suddenly MURDER and then FORGIVENESS FOR THE MURDER JESUS A MAN HAS DIED, DID WE FORGET THAT?
-- Really more of an excuse for the supernerd who wrote this to show off his knowledge of terraforming, and how much thought he put into the Federation's method for contracting it out, as well as how first contact with a new flavor of life is handled when warfare seems inevitable. A well-directed and suspenseful trip to the same ol' conclusion in the same ol' "The Devil in the Dark" territory. Ah well.

"When the Bough Breaks" (5/10)
Ahh that age-old dilemma of 'do I sell my children for vital scientific information?' Who hasn't been in that pickle. Holy shit it's Deep Throat from the X-Files!
-- It is initially impressive that this episode does in ten minutes what the Original Series would have taken twenty-seven to do, leaving plenty of room for everyone to worry over solving this issue. It doesn't quite keep up the pace and it's pretty easy to see where they're going with it after awhile. Aint no tragedy beyond that, and Picard's Captaining methodology is finally well-suited to the situation when Enterprise children are kidnapped. Thaaaaaat's when you say 'fuck off to yer ways.'