Amazon Prime – The Joker On The Sofa

Poltergay: This is Real and French – Amazon Prime Review

A haunted nightclub starts to affect a couple’s relationship.

SUMMARY

Marc and Emma (Clovis Cornillac and Julie Depardieu. Yes, Gerard Depardieu’s daughter) are young, recently married, and new homeowners. However, it turns out that their house used to be the site of a literally underground spot in 1979 called L’Ambigu. As the name apparently suggests in French (I don’t get it, but apparently it’s a joke), the nightclub was a gay disco. One night, during a foam party, the foam machine malfunctioned and exploded, killing a number of people, including five of the most enthusiastic dancers, whose remains were, somehow, not found: Michel, Salopette/Shaggy, Gilles, Ivan, and Bertrand (Philippe Duquesne, Lionel Abelanski, Jean-Michel Lahmi, Georges Gay, Gilles Gaston-Dreyfus). In the present, it turns out that Marc can see these fantastic phantoms, but Emma cannot, nor can Marc’s friend David (Alain Fromager). This leads Emma to think Marc is going nuts from being secretly gay, something that results in her leaving him when he accidentally hits her father with a shovel.

However, Marc finds out that he’s neither crazy nor closeted when he discovers that any “pure” straight man (a man who has had no homosexual contact) can see the ghosts as well. Now that he starts to bond with the ghosts with the help of paranormal expert Professor de Sorgues (Michel Duchaussoy), the five poltergeists agree to help Marc win Emma back. Eventually, they succeed and even open up the world’s first intermingled living and dead gay disco.

Romance involves spectral voyeurs, I guess.

END SUMMARY

Most of my “B Movie Saturday” selections are based around the high standard of “whatever has a funny title” and you cannot tell me this movie doesn’t nail that particular requirement. I’m surprised that a movie with that title didn’t come out during the ‘80s, although I imagine that anything coming out back then with this title would probably have been insensitive to the point of being unwatchable. Instead, this movie starts off feeling like that kind of film, then somehow manages to subvert most of your expectations enough that it ends up being pretty entertaining. Also, despite being labeled a “horror” comedy on Amazon Prime, the only thing horrifying about this movie is that the ghosts are kind of perverted and invasive of Marc’s privacy (including watching him and Emma have sex and photographing him nude), although they’re from the 1970s, so I guess consent has come a long way.

Or maybe it’s okay to grope if you’re dead. I dunno.

The only comment I saw about this movie before watching it was a complaint on Amazon that all of the ghosts are reminiscent of the overly flamboyant gay stereotypes that populated cinema for most of its history. The word “mincing” was used in the statement, which might be why it appears to have been pulled since. The thing is, I think that’s really only true of the characters in terms of appearance. All of them are dressed in their finest, but of course they are, they died in a nightclub. They all have very different personalities and, while they do mostly enjoy messing with Marc, they all appear to be doing it for different reasons. Hell, Gilles even insists throughout the movie that, despite all appearances and his love of looking at nude men, that he’s straight and was only at the club “for the dancing.” This would be a lousy running gag if it weren’t played so seriously and if it didn’t end with him meeting the ghost of a dead Roman who died in a bathhouse that he was at “just for the bathing.” The two hit it off, naturally, and both quickly drop any pretense of being straight. It’s kind of an interesting character arc, particularly when the movie hints at why, even after dying, Gilles is so hesitant to admit his sexuality.

There’s not a lot of subtlety in the outfits, to be fair.

The key to the movie is that it is just campy enough, just caring enough, and just well-written enough to keep you hooked throughout. You do start to like all of the characters and want them to be happy. Yes, a number of parts of the film are goofy as hell, but they’re the right kind of light-hearted comedy that never feels like they’re punching down at anyone. It’s a fun film and that’s clearly what they wanted to make. The biggest downside appears to be that many of the jokes in the movie don’t work as well when you have to read them. However, even with the subtitles, you’re going to have a good time.

And yeah, there’s the obligatory Village People scene.

Overall, a pretty solid foreign comedy.

If you want to check out some more by the Joker on the Sofa, check out the 100 Greatest TV Episodes of All Time, Collection of TV Episodes, Collection of Movie Reviews, or the Joker on the Sofa Reviews.

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One Night in Miami: A Fake Story of Four Real Men – Amazon Prime Review

A football player, a civil rights activist, a musician, and a boxer walk into a hotel room.

SUMMARY

It’s February 25, 1964 and boxer Cassius Clay (Eli Goree) defeats Sonny Liston (Aaron D. Alexander) for the first time to become the world Heavyweight Champion. Among the observers in the audience are: Malcolm X (Kingsley Ben-Adir), who is currently at odds with Elijah Muhammad (Jerome A. Wilson), the head of the Nation of Islam; Jim Brown (Aldis Hodge), who is currently coming off of one of the greatest NFL seasons of all time; and Sam Cooke (Leslie Odom, Jr.), who has recently been playing to predominantly unsupportive and all-white audiences. The four men agree to meet up after the match in Malcolm X’s hotel room, where personalities clash, friendships and loyalties are tested, opinions and passions are shared, and a lot of history might just have been made… if it were real.

There is a photo of Muhammad Ali taken by Malcolm X on that night. Really.

END SUMMARY

It’s always hard to address films like this where the people involved are real, as are many of the events depicted or referenced, but the actual conversations that are the focus of the story are fiction. This story is really just a study in what happens when you throw four major personalities into the same room. All of these men were legends in their respective fields and their contributions are still well-known. Malcolm X is frequently referenced as a civil rights leader during one of the most tumultuous times in US History (which will probably end one day), Jim Brown still holds 10 NFL records and appeared in a number of great films, Sam Cooke’s songs are still covered frequently, and Cassius Clay, as Muhammad Ali, is probably the most famous boxer of all time. It’s amazing how well the movie points out their extreme talent and success while still pointing out that they faced challenges that no white person would face. There’s a particularly disturbing scene between Jim Brown and a man played by Beau Bridges which is, apparently, directly lifted from Jim Brown’s autobiography.

Some variety in the attire, to be sure. All stylish, very different.

As with most movies that take place largely in one single location, the film’s strength is in the performances. Each of the four leads has to both represent a known historical figure and also to stand up to the performances of each of the others, which is a hell of a challenge. All four, though, pull it off amazingly. Eli Goree manages to portray Cassius Clay as both the self-promoting egomaniac that he was in public and also as a person with doubts about his conversion and about his life in general. Aldis Hodge plays Brown as a bit of an outsider to the group, with the least radical agenda, but an ambition beyond just being a football player (even though he was one of the best). Also, he nails the voice. Kingsley Ben-Adir captures the persona of Malcolm X as well as almost any actor does, but he adds a wonderful level of vulnerability that many portrayals don’t. Leslie Odom Jr. manages to not only play Sam Cooke, but give several great song performances while doing so. It’s not surprising that he earned a nomination.

The one thing that this movie does portray, even if indirectly, is that while these are all great men, they are also deeply flawed people. They all have their own selfish tendencies, their own flaws, and their own opinions about their roles as representatives of the black community. They all have their own fears and ambitions and I like that they feel like four real people, even if their public personas often dominated their lives. It takes a lot of control to make a movie that walks the line between making them legends and making them men and Regina King managed it in her directorial debut. Amazing.

Overall, it’s a great film and I really recommend it.

The Expanse: A Cold War… IN SPACE!!!! – Amazon Prime Review/Reader Request

The last season of this space opera is coming and you should get caught up.

SUMMARY

It’s the future, but not one of the super bad ones. The Solar System has been colonized and mankind has finally found complete and total peace. Kidding, we’re still fighting over stuff. The Earth, Mars, and the Outer Planets Alliance (Mostly Jupiter and Saturn’s moons) are all constantly at odds, leading Chrisjen Avasarala (Shohreh Aghdashloo) to try and keep the peace on behalf of the UN. As the series starts, Mars and Earth are basically on the brink of war and a woman named Julie Mao (Florence Faivre) has gone missing. An investigator, Joe Miller (Thomas Jane), is hired to find her. At the same time, an ice freighter is destroyed by a cloaked ship, resulting in the survivors forming their own crew: James Holden (Steven Strait), the captain; Alex Kamal (Cas Anvar), the pilot; Naomi Nagata (Dominique Tipper), the engineer; and Amos Burton (Wes Chatham), the mechanic. Now together aboard the ship Rocinante, the group has to navigate through the solar system as war breaks out and the universe keeps getting just a little bigger.

END SUMMARY

Until being asked to write this review, I didn’t fully consider how much happens in this series. While we are mostly following the Rocinante, we constantly are having season-long B and C plots that seem unrelated until they end up colliding with our main characters. Main characters in some of the seasons die only a few episodes in. Some characters that are central to one season will become irrelevant immediately afterwards, even if they don’t really disappear. And throughout all of it, we are constantly told about the state of planetary politics, usually through the eyes of Avasarala. While Firefly was the perfect embodiment of the Space Western and the “final frontier” aspect of space travel, this show better represents the Space Noir, and the kind of 1930s-esque political intrigue that is associated with it. It throws back to one of the darkest parts of humanity, that even when we finally can seem to have everything, we still want to fight to keep more of it than the other guy.

And even after centuries of barbers existing, someone will have this haircut.

As you might expect from a show like this, a lot of the focus is on character development, since it’s cheaper to shoot people talking than to show a space battle. Fortunately, even though a lot of the characters fit into some of the typical molds, they’re all given a lot of traits that make them feel more real than some shows would. The crew of the Rocinante, for example, are given the general philosophical foursome traits: James is an optimist who will try to live up to his morals, Naomi is more focused on the practical (like all engineers), Amos is all about survival over ethics, and Alex just wants to fly the ship. However, their personalities and histories, as they are explored over the series, show why they each are the ways they are and why they believe what they do, and it’s often more interesting than you would think.

When you have good characters, just putting them together makes a good scene.

The worldbuilding is fantastic and the sets and action sequences are much better than I would have expected for a show that began on SyFy. It helps, however, that the two showrunners are Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby, the writing team behind the film Children of Men. If you have not seen that film, it is a hallmark of managing to do a ton of worldbuilding efficiently without a ton of exposition.

Overall, just a great show. If you haven’t been watching it, the fifth season just came out and they’re hopefully going to finish the final season this year. Perfect time to check it out on Amazon Prime.

If you enjoy these, please, like, share, tell your friends, like the Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/JokerOnTheSofa/), follow on Twitter @JokerOnTheSofa, and just generally give me a little bump. I’m not getting paid, but I like to get feedback.

Bliss: It Never Quite Finds Its Feet – Amazon Prime Review

Salma Hayek and Owen Wilson bring us a new take on simulated reality.

SUMMARY

Greg Wittle (Owen Wilson) is a recently divorced office worker who spends his days daydreaming. He gets fired and accidentally kills his boss, Bjorn (Steve Zissis), before covering up the murder and heading to a bar to try and hide. He meets Isabel (Salma Hayek) a seemingly homeless woman who tells Greg that she created this world and that he is one of the few “real” people in it. She offers him some crystals that give him telekinetic powers. The two soon start spending time together, with Isabel warning him not to associate with any people who are not “real,” which includes Greg’s daughter Emily (Nesta Cooper). Eventually, Isabel pulls the two of them out of the simulation and reveals that they actually live on a utopian future Earth. However, Greg cannot remember any of his former life, and instead only remembers his life in the simulation.

END SUMMARY

This movie has some fun elements to it, but ultimately cashes in on none of the potentially interesting ideas. The idea of “simulated reality” has been used repeatedly since The Matrix became a massively successful hit, but that means that a movie that just says “what if reality is fake” doesn’t really count as innovative. While the idea of being the only two real people in a world of fiction or a real person having beliefs that he has a real daughter in a false reality might be good, the film barely touches on them. Instead, it mostly features some odd scenes of the pair messing around with their powers (which are weirdly dependent on drugs for some reason) and a bunch of exposition that, like Matrix Reloaded, is mostly more complicated than the ideas that it’s trying to convey. It’s like someone audited a first year philosophy class, watched The Thirteenth Floor, and then churned out a screenplay.

And apparently lives near a roller rink.

About halfway through the movie, the film changes completely by heading to the futuristic world that is supposedly the “real” one. In it, humanity has entered an enlightened golden age thanks to science, making almost everyone on Earth desire to be an artist or an engineer. Also, Bill Nye and Slavoj Zizek are there, which raises so many questions about who they would be in a world that has largely moved into a completely different kind of existence. However, since Greg doesn’t remember it, he has to learn everything anew, which is good for the audience, but no one seems bothered by the fact that he has essentially been replaced by a new person. It’s an element that seems obvious and is completely overlooked.

Also, the future is cool, but not cool enough.

Overall, it’s just not that great of a film. It seems like this should, at least, have some stuff to contemplate, but instead it’s just a waste of time.

Santa Jaws: It’s Ho-Ho-Honestly Pretty Jawesome – Amazon Prime Review

The movie was better than the subtitle pun. Hopefully Street Sharks won’t sue me.

SUMMARY (Spoiler-Free)

Cody (Reid Miller) is a young illustrator who has made a comic with his friend Steve (Hawn Tran) called “Santa Jaws” about a magical shark that ate an evil Santa Claus (Creek Wilson). On Christmas Eve, Cody has a fight with his family and his Grandfather, Papa Joe (Ritchie Montgomery), gives him an antique pen. Cody angrily uses it to ink a drawing of Santa Jaws, but it turns out the pen is magic and it brings the Christmas-themed Carcharodon to life. The shark quickly starts attacking the town of Port City, including Cody’s family. Now it’s up to Cody, Steve, and Cody’s crush Jena (Courtney Lauren Cummings) to stop the beast.

END SUMMARY

When I saw this title, I knew it was going to be a perfect watch for my bad movie group. This was supposed to be a complete and utter trainwreck of a film. Instead, this was one of the rare gold nuggets that you can find going through the river of crap that is the “horror film based on bad pun” genre. One of the best decisions in the film was to make the central conceit that it’s a comic book come to life. Comics are frequently full of weird physics and terrible puns, which allow for the movie to do over-the-top moments that might not work as well in other films. Since the main characters either wrote or read the comic, it seems more justified that they are willing to start engaging in the surreal logic… and making glorious puns while dealing with the shark. It also adds in a lot of great Christmas atmosphere, like having “Carol of the Bells” and “Ave Maria” in the movie soundtrack, and has a strong family theme.

Santa Jaws, the shark, is everything that I wanted out of this film. It’s not just that she (yes, despite the name, Santa Jaws is female) wears a Santa hat on her fin, as the movie goes on, she acquires progressively more holiday-themed accessories to become a living tribute to the holiday. Perhaps I should say weapons rather than just accessories, since the shark actually manages to use them in its killing spree, like using Christmas lights as a rope to pull people into the water. The shark is also mostly invulnerable and it’s weakness is nothing short of hilarious. While you’ll probably guess the ending a mile away (the film foreshadows it pretty well), it also allows the film to go pretty extreme on how it gets there, and I mean that in the best way.

The supporting characters are all pretty archetypal. Cody’s parents, Peter and Caroline (Jim Klock and Carrie Lazar), run a restaurant (and Peter teaches physics) and don’t listen to the kids no matter what they say. His brother, Josh (Arthur Marroquin), is the favorite who mocks Cody. His uncle, Mike (Miles Doleac), is a businessman so stereotypical that he first appears while talking on the phone about business and accompanied by his younger instagram model girlfriend Georgia (Haviland Stillwell). Oh, and there’s the comic-book store owner, Clark (Scott Allen Perry), who is, naturally, a pervy scumbag. While the basic roles are normal for this kind of film, the performances are definitely above average for “pun-based horror.”

So stay on land for goodness sake. Seriously, it’s a shark, just stay on land.

Honestly, if you’re a fan of low-budget horror movies, this should immediately jump to the top of your list this season.

Christmas Catch: A Masterpiece of Cheesy Xmas Movies – Netflix/Amazon Prime Review

I may have just watched too many bad movies, because I enjoyed this.

SUMMARY

Detective Mackenzie “Mack” Bennett (Emily Alatalo) is single at Christmas and, due to her natural awkwardness, has trouble finding dates. This causes no end of derision from her partner, Reid (Andrew Bushell), and her superior/mom (yes, her boss is her mom) Captain Bennett (Lauren Holly). However, when trying to find a guy at a singles night, she accidentally falls, literally, into the arms of Carson (Franco Lo Presti), a perfect guy with whom she immediately connects. The only problem is that the next day FBI Special Agent Robertson (Genelle Williams) arrives to inform the local police that Carson is a professional diamond thief along with his ex-wife. Now Mack has to go undercover, as herself, and date Carson in order to find the diamond encrusted reindeer that he supposedly stole.

END SUMMARY

Cheesy Christmas movies usually tend to involve two people who learn to love each other despite starting out disliking or not understanding each other. This movie kind of eschews that by having the two main characters fall in love at first sight. Literally, when he catches her (get it?) as she falls, they immediately are attracted to each other and bond quickly. There’s no question that they’re going to get together. Honestly, I buy their chemistry a little more than I should, because the dialogue they exchange is actually more than just “oh hey, you’re a hot guy and I’m a hot girl and it’s Christmas.” It’s a genuinely decent meet-cute scene that actually makes you root for them throughout the film.

Also, this film lets the lead guy be more roguish than usual.

The general plot of the movie is predictable, of course, but the actual way it plays out has some fun moments, mostly because Mack’s character is almost entirely defined as “can’t flirt, not good under pressure.” It doesn’t help that her mother is her boss and combines the tropes of those roles we usually see in these films: too involved, inappropriate comments, lots of catchphrases, etc. It’s an insane conceit that her mother could somehow also be her commanding officer and no one seems to question that, but it leads to some interesting moments.

The actual humor that comes from the characters interacting is not bad, the only problem is that almost no one ever quite nails the delivery. I will be frank, aside from Franco Lo Presti (whose appearances on Letterkenny might make me biased), most of the performances are a little too clearly composed of people acting. Line delivery is often unnatural, but I admit that it is more challenging to do the style of comedy the film is asking for from the actors. Alatalo is being asked to flirt badly at one point and, while she does flirt badly, it’s not quite the trainwreck that the screenplay seems to call for. The other person is supposed to be repulsed, but it’s hard to buy that from what Alatalo does in the scene. Still, there are at least some genuinely funny moments.

Overall, I have to say this was close to one of the best cheesy Xmas movies I’ve ever seen. Yes, it’s got some bad acting moments, but it actually skips the “will they won’t they” facade and I appreciate that.

Wayne: A Psychopath with a Heart of Gold – Amazon Prime Review

The story of a boy, a girl, and a quest for an awesome car.

SUMMARY

Wayne McCullough (Mark McKenna) is a violent teen from Massachusetts whose father is dying of cancer. He meets a local girl named Del (Ciara Bravo) who lost her mother and lives with her violent father and brothers. After Wayne’s dad passes, Wayne resolves to get back his father’s stolen 1979 Pontiac Trans Am that is in the possession of Wayne’s mother’s (Michaela Watkins) new husband (Kirk Ward). They’re pursued by two police officers, Geller and Ganetti (Stephen Kearin and James Earl), as well as Del’s father (Dean Winters), Wayne’s best friend Orlando (Joshua J. Williams), and his principal (Mike O’Malley).

END SUMMARY

This series came out on YouTube Premium back in 2019 and did pretty well for being on YouTube Premium, but, as the platform seems to mostly have stopped making original content now, didn’t end up continuing. They finally moved it to Amazon Prime and, having watched it, I really hope Amazon keeps it going. This show is an interesting blend of action comedy that we don’t often see on television, because it combines a dark, twisted sense of humor with a heavy dose of graphic violence. Of course, this was made by the same people that made Deadpool, so really we should have seen this coming.

Wayne doesn’t have super healing, though.

The lead character is described throughout the series as a kind of Robin Hood or avenging angel figure. He is violent and probably a little psychopathic, but he always makes sure his targets have it coming. When he sees a woman being mistreated by her boyfriend, he can’t help but intervene, even at his own detriment. Early on, the principal indicates that Wayne, like his father, sometimes bullies people, but mostly protects the innocent by bullying other bullies. From a storytelling standpoint, this is brilliant, because we never feel bad about all of the horrible things Wayne does to people, and he does do some horrible things. It helps that we do get a lot of cute moments between him and Del in which it becomes apparent that he does have a very soft side underneath his mean exterior. McKenna’s performance has to carry a lot of narrative weight without a huge amount of dialogue, but he pulls it off flawlessly.

Similarly, Del is shown to be dealing with the tragic loss of her mother, with whom she was very close. Her mother was a con woman, leading Del to often have the same traits, but like Wayne Del has a strong moral center that appears to be born out of spiting her father’s criminal ways. She also is shown to want to stand up for the little guy and be a leader, initially selling cookies to supposedly raise funds for her mayoral run in five years, when she’s eligible. Of course, like most politicians, she’s also funding the campaign through theft. Bravo manages to be likable and demonstrate a connection to Wayne despite the fact that he’s violent and mostly emotionless.

The general theme of the series is that these two are rebelling. They’re good people but not the kind of “good” people that the world is prepared to accept. They don’t care about the rules and they really hate people who use the rules to hurt others. That’s what bonds them. Moreover, that’s what leads them to inspire many of the supporting characters to be more honest about how messed up things can be and to change it. It also includes just a ton of humor which is supplemented, rather than detracted from, by the violence.

It’s a Bonnie and Clyde with fewer ethical issues.

Overall, this is a great show that everyone needs to watch so that we can maybe get more of it.

Truth Seekers: British Comedy Horror Done Right – Amazon Prime Review

Nick Frost and Simon Pegg return to television and it’s pretty great.

SUMMARY (Spoiler-Free)

Gus Roberts (Nick Frost) is the number one broadband installer for SMYLE, Britain’s biggest internet provider. His boss Dave (Simon Pegg), the head of the company, partners Gus up with new hire Elton John (Samson Kayo). Gus reveals to Elton that he is more than just an internet installer, he also runs a paranormal investigation web channel called “Truth Seekers.” Despite having little luck with finding ghosts in the past, Gus and Elton quickly find themselves uncovering numerous supernatural occurrences. They’re joined on occasion by Astrid (Emma D’Arcy), a formerly haunted woman, Gus’s aged father-in-law Richard (Malcolm McDowell), and Elton’s sister Helen (Susie Wokoma). Together, they uncover a plot involving ghosts, mad scientists, and a cult run by the mysterious Dr. Peter Toynbee (Julian Barratt).

They install internet and hunt ghosts. Surprisingly, those can be related.

END SUMMARY

I’ll be upfront that part of why I instantly took to this show is my love of all of Nick Frost and Simon Pegg’s previous collaborations, from Spaced to the Cornetto Trilogy (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, and The World’s End). Even though Pegg is only a recurring character in this series, whenever they’re on screen together their natural chemistry takes over and brings a smile to my face. Frost and Kayo, though, also play off of each other masterfully and since they’re the majority of the show, that really elevates this above other “comedy version of the X-Files” series. It helps that all of the supporting characters are played with a huge amount of likability and with some great character development over the series. Helen, for example, is an agoraphobic cosplayer who also becomes fast friends with Richard, a tech-incompetent misanthrope. The interactions between the characters really get you invested in what’s happening to them and it pays off as the show goes on.

The actual plot of the show is a nice blend of episodic mysteries that tie into the larger plot thread. Almost everything that happens early in the show ends up paying off down the line. While that does make some of the first episodes a little slower, it’s a streaming series and you don’t really have to wait that long to get through it. It helps that a number of the “monsters of the week” are fun and creative, but really it’s the dialogue and the performances that will get you through the weaker parts. Since it’s only eight episodes long, you never really have to worry about having invested too much.

I will give the show credit for having some legitimately good horror to balance out the comedy. There are a few parts of the series where I was shocked at how far they were willing to push the envelope. The ghosts that follow the characters are often played straight with horrific wounds or disfigurements and the kind of jerky motions that we associate with the inhuman. There’s an episode involving possessed objects that was even more disturbing on a number of levels, but I don’t want to spoil it here. Similarly, the show has a number of solid dramatic moments that end up standing out when contrasted with the mainly comedic tone, but never feel like they’re conflicting with it.

Overall, I really liked the show. It also ended with a lot of potential for future plotlines, so I hope it keeps going. Give it a try.

The Boys (Season 2): No Subtlety, All Awesome – Amazon Prime Review

The Boys are back and America is in trouble. Those things aren’t related.

SUMMARY (Spoiler-Free for Season 2)

After the events of Season 1, the Boys are now fugitives. Billy Butcher (Karl Urban) survived his encounter with Homelander (Antony Starr), who impregnated Billy’s wife Becca (Shantel VanSanten), resulting in their son Ryan (Cameron Crovetti). Hughie (Jack Quaid), Mother’s Milk (Laz Alonso), Frenchie (Tomer Capon), and the Female (Karen Fukuhara) are all underground. Hughie’s paramour Starlight (Erin Moriarity) is still a member of the Seven, along with Queen Maeve (Dominique McElligott), Homelander, Black Noir (Nathan Mitchell), and newcomer Stormfront (Aya Cash). They’re now being directly overseen by Mr. Edgar (Giancarlo Esposito), the head of Vought International. The Boys have to deal with both the superheroes and the newly-minted supervillains, while also finding a way to get themselves out of trouble with the law.

END SUMMARY

I really don’t want to spoil things in this article, but it’s almost impossible to talk about one of the best parts of the season without spoiling it, so I’m going to briefly say the following:

This show took a big swing this season and it paid off. If you didn’t like the first season of the series, you might still like this one. It ratcheted the social commentary up to eleven and it was merciless. Rather than just satirizing superheroes and the superhero film industry, this season satirized America and American politics. The performances remain excellent, the show’s violence remains over-the-top enough to be almost comically entertaining while also being devastating when the narration calls for it. The dialogue isn’t the best, but it’s a bit better than the first season.

They also focused the cast of characters a bit better.

Without spoilers, I really recommend this season even if you weren’t thrilled with the last one.

SPOILERS

This season’s about America’s relationship with white supremacy. It’s not subtle. Stormfront, a character named after the former largest white supremacy publication in the US, is revealed to be a racist who murders minorities for fun and claims they died of other causes. However, when she first appears, she just seems confident, outspoken, and in favor of “law and order.” Naturally, she uses the internet to make herself more popular and to fully muddy the truth of any of her actions. Later, when Homelander murders someone on film, she’s able to shift public opinion back towards him by use of these troll farms and masterful public relations. She and Homelander become romantically involved, with her being one of the only people capable of standing up to him and capable of making him submit to her wishes. But the real revelation is that she’s not a new hero. In fact, in the 1970s, she was operating in the South as a hero named Liberty who was removed from circulation because she kept murdering minorities. She’s just been rebranded as “Stormfront” and given a heavy internet cult following. Moreover, the Liberty persona was not her original self either. She’s actually a Nazi and the first person given superpowers by Compound V.

Why would a Nazi like a tall, blonde, ubermensch… ooooooohhhhhhh.

By intertwining her history and existence with Homelander’s, the show gives us a strange commentary on the relationship between the USA and racism. Homelander’s formation was based on DNA from Stormfront. In other words, his existence always contained traces of racism. Then, she rebranded herself based on the American image and used it to secretly try and destroy African-Americans, but eventually she risked getting exposed and had to go underground. Now, thanks to the internet, she can rebrand herself again. By marketing herself just right, she can be out in public and tie herself directly into the supposed movement to support America. In other words, she’s made it so that people supporting patriotism are supporting racism and those that condemn racism are accused of being unpatriotic. This is, of course, only a fictional world and none of this is happening right now in reality. No one kneeling to protest racism, for example, would ever be accused of being unpatriotic, particularly since the right to protest was one of the most fundamental ensconced in the Constitution.

Naturally, she loves having her boobs lasered.

Overall, though, this show does a great job of giving some commentary about the nature of racism in America. I look forward to seeing Season 3.

My Spy: It’s Cute, Just A Bit Too Adult – Amazon Prime Review

Dave Bautista stars in this action comedy about a spy being outsmarted by a 9 year old.

SUMMARY (Spoiler-Free)

JJ (Dave Bautista) is a former US Army Ranger who now works as an agent for the CIA. Unfortunately, he’s not particularly good at infiltration, so he blows his first major mission, resulting in him losing part of a plutonium core. Because of this, he’s assigned to keep an eye on Kate (Parisa Fitz-Henley) and her daughter Sophie (Chloe Coleman), the in-laws of a major illegal arms dealer. JJ is accompanied by his Tech Operator Bobbi (Kristen Schaal). Unfortunately, Sophie soon discovers that JJ and Bobbi are watching over her family and starts to blackmail JJ into being her friend and guardian while she tries to fit in at her new school.

Also, she gets ice cream, because she broke the CIA. You get Cake for cracking the FBI.

END SUMMARY

There’s a long history of “action star with cute kid” comedy, ranging from fun movies like Kindergarten Cop and The Pacifier to terrible movies like Cop and a Half and The Tooth Fairy (I love The Rock, but that movie sucks). However, most of those movies are smart enough to be marketed and targeted towards children. This movie, bizarrely, decided to get a PG-13 rating, but only to add a little bit more violence and a few swears, without trying to make the movie more appealing to adults.

This isn’t a scene that should be in a PG-13 movie.

It’s pretty sad that the film decided to make itself mostly inaccessible to children, because the chemistry between Bautista and Coleman is honestly pretty solid. Their interactions are really cute, particularly when Bautista is teaching her spycraft. Her desire to use him as a father figure is not really subtle, but it works anyway because of Bautista’s sincerity in being concerned for her. Unfortunately, the film mostly relies on “cute” over “funny,” which is also a bad call if you want it to be for everyone.

A kid on a lie detector is cute, but the lines weren’t very funny.

It’s not like Bautista can’t be funny; he’s great as the straight-man in Guardians of the Galaxy and was pretty funny in Stuber with Kumail Nanjiani. Kristen Schaal, who is tragically underused in this movie, is typically hilarious. Coleman, although young, also has some decent comedy instincts. Yet, somehow, aside from a few scenes of Bautista’s tough-guy character being paired with Brittany Spears music, which is an old gag to begin with, there’s not a ton to laugh about in this film. There are a lot of heartwarming moments, but the humor isn’t there, at least not for adults. We get some scenes of Coleman humiliating the two grown spies, which should be funny, but it’s been done so much in other movies that it’s really predictable. I will admit that I liked the part where she just Googles how to find the source of the hidden cameras, because I constantly wonder why people don’t just search for answers in films more often.

How dare you not fully use Kristen Schaal!!!!

Even more bizarrely, the action sequences in this film aren’t particularly outstanding. The opening of the film does contain Bautista kicking a decent amount of villainous backside, but after that it is a long time before we see any more of his action chops, and the final fights just aren’t great.

People falling and fire aren’t exactly blowing my skirt up.

Overall, I just don’t get why the heck this movie wasn’t just made into a kids film. It’s not like there would be a huge amount to change to do so, and I think kids would like it. Adults, though, not so much.

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