A stylish cloak on a standard frame

I generally like Ryan Coogler's films. I think he has a solid visual sense and good recognition of both the space and limits of the story that he's trying to tell. On those that he's been directly involved in (Fruitvale Station, Black Panther) and indirectly (Homeroom, Jesus and the Black Messiah), I think he's a key part of the process in getting stories told that often wouldn't be otherwise. Among those is his latest, Sinners. As with Fruitvale and Black Panther, he's both writer and director on this one and his sense of style is visible all over it. It's just that when we get to some of the plot details that I feel like he could've done even more to take it in his own direction and somehow play those last few notes. (Mild spoilers below.)

That latter phrase is based on the fact that the film is largely about music and its influence, not only in African-American culture, but world culture. It takes place in one of the most vibrant and deeply-felt areas of that musical culture: the Mississippi delta. That's where Coogler, regular leading man Michael B. Jordan, and regular accompanying composer, Ludwig Göransson, build story and music together so that one never becomes separate from the other. The film itself isn't a musical, per se, but has several musical numbers that tell large portions of the story by themselves. It's a stylistic approach that worked spectacularly, without forcing us to watch another version of West Side Story. The music wasn't just the vehicle for the story. It was the story. Central to that embodiment was Miles Caton, who played Sammie Moore, aspiring guitarist and the son of a preacher man. Caton was the very embodiment of Delta blues and his powerful voice and playing (ably assisted by one of my long-time favorites, Delroy Lindo, on piano and harp) drove the story forward even more than Jordan's excellent rendition of twin brothers, Smoke (Elijah) and Stack (Elias.) Everything presented there would've made for a great story even without the supernatural elements that accompanied it.

And it's there where the river kinda dried up. Due credit to Coogler for including the local Choctaw presence, who show up in pursuit of a bad element. Unfortunately, that bad element turns out to be a bog standard vampire. That English descriptive that I'm fond of is even more appropriate in this place, as the vampire, Remmick (Jack O'Connell) is appropriately European (Irish) in his desire to dominate or destroy the non-White cultures that he encounters. Of course, given the history of the Irish in this country and back in Europe, Remmick's appeal to solidarity among the collected peoples when he tries to convince the twins and their friends to join the non-human set is yet one more valid metaphor in the story that Coogler's trying to tell. But it's also the same, tired vampire myth that we've seen before; involving garlic, wooden stakes, and sunlight. Smoke's (ex-)wife, Annie (the wonderful Wunmi Musaku) is a practitioner of traditional spiritualism and medicine down on the bayou and, between her knowledge and the presence of the Choctaw, it feels like we could've ventured into something a bit more exotic and less retreaded than the same Romanian refugees who happen to be walking around with a Gaelic accent. Why couldn't we have had people possessed by corrupted shilombish or something like that? Instead, we get typical bloodsuckers who try to trick people into inviting them in, but are powerless to do anything else until that point.

My complaint about Black Panther was that it was telling an interesting espionage and international diplomacy story until we got to the third act, where everything devolved to explosions and cyber-rhinos. I assumed at the time that that was just the necessary price of entering the Marvel Universe. But that's kinda how this story ends up, too; with a cascade of bullets, blood, and fire, even after the supernatural elements have departed the scene. We go from a deeply-invested story about the power of music suffusing culture deep into the past and far into the future and, at the end, the only music we get is the staccato of a tommy gun, which kind of wipes the mind of everything that's been told before. For the first two acts, I really thought we were going somewhere and then the third just left us at the door of typical Hollywood horror flick, like a slightly more cultured From Dusk 'til Dawn. I liked the script and the dialogue (Women talking frankly about sex! Just like, y'know, real life.) I liked most of the characters and performances. I highly appreciated the music, including the Irish jig that Remmick and Co. engage in (Rocky Road to Dublin.) But, in the end, I came out of the film thinking about all of the opportunities missed, rather than the spectacle that I'd just seen, which is really unfortunate. It's certainly worth the time to see it, but I can't point at it and suggest that it's a song that's going to stick with you.

Batman: TAS, episode #54: Zatanna

This episode was an interesting comparison with the previous one. While we still ventured back into Bruce's past to witness his training in escape artistry with the magician, Zatara (Vincent Schiavelli) and his daughter, Zatanna (Julie Brown), we had a few more fireworks in the present based almost solely on Zatarra's use of "magic", confined solely to the idea of stage artistry. The original character is a long-time veteran of DC Comics and former member of the Justice League who first appeared in Hawkman #4 (1964.) In the comics, there was never any doubt as to who or what she was: an actual sorceress who not only communicated with the supernatural but used that power as a superhero; not just a stage magician as she's depicted here in the episode named for her: Zatanna. She was so much the sorceress that she even crossed the veil between DC Comics and the later imprint, Vertigo, when various mystical characters like The Phantom Stranger, John Constantine, and Dr. Fate gathered to deal with major threats from the magical end of the DC Universe. But that level of fantasy was considered to be too out-of-realm for this series by the production team, not least because they discarded the entity that was supposed to be the main villain of this story, The Gentleman Ghost (an arch-nemesis of Hawkman, incidentally.) No ghosts and goblins for the main dressed as a bat. Much of that disdain for the fantasy end of the comics is reflected in the dialogue, most often delivered by Zatanna ("I'm sure there's a perfectly logical explanation!" after her illusion ends up losing the money from the Gotham Mint; "This never happens to me in Vegas!" after she's arrested; "Why do you care about some leggy dame in nylons?" when The Batman rescues her from the vehicle taking her to jail; etc.)

But just like last time, the basis of the story is the past. Our hero and Zatanna rekindle their mutual affection developed while the former was training with her father (also an arch-sorcerer in the comics) and she takes a moment to ask what terrible event happened that caused him to put on the mask. The details of the story also might demonstrate why they were reluctant to engage the supernatural because the "bad guys" are, like last time, just the normal thugs of Montague Kane (Michael York) and The Batman shows just how those years of training with people like Zatara benefited him, by easily dispatching all of them who approach him until Kane has to do the "damsel in distress" sequence with Zatarra, which was kind of a jarring reversion to the past after listening to the very modern and self-assured woman for the first 15 minutes of the episode. Some of that bait-and-switch might have been because of the change in director. This episode is the only one of the entire series to credit two directors, as Dick Sebast was at the helm at the beginning but then left the project, so it was completed by Dan Riba.

But the way the entire story was constructed makes me think that it was delivered with intent and the switch in captain didn't really impact things overmuch. The final scene with the battle aboard the giant seaplane by which Kane is subtly exiting the city with all of its money (this after we're told that Kane reveals magicians' tricks because he's utterly familiar with their methods) is fairly mundane, even for just a 1930s-era noir. It reminded me of the final sequence in The Rocketeer, another film set in this time period which climaxes aboard a zeppelin and has similar moments of threat where it seems like our hero and the damsel are going to plummet from the skies. Despite my seeming criticism, I do understand why they would want to tone down the "magical" elements of the world that they've created for their version of The Batman. I was never entirely comfortable with those aspects in the regular books, either, since it steps away from his identity as a master detective/scientist/martial artist, but still a normal man and confronts him with things that no "normal man" would be able to deal with, which he then has to kind of brazen his way through, rather than actually "solve" them. In this case, it's an opportunity for him to exercise the skills that we've seen he developed over years and with the commitment and discipline to do so. It just smacks a little bit of the "you got your fantasy in my science fiction" kinda thing, an opinion that I generally reject, since the story is the story, no matter what genre is assigned to it. Also, I'm kind of a cross-genre person, anyway. There's one nice little tease right at the end, too, when Zatarra departs and leaves behind a note that she couldn't possibly have written beforehand. Is it (real) magic? Who can tell?

Next time we go back to the usual cast of characters and look at another kind of (mechanical) magic.

Batman: TAS: episode #53: Paging the Crime Doctor

This episode is a great example of how some of the best stories have nothing to do with the rogues' gallery. Interestingly, most of those good stories usually involve Dr. Leslie Thompkins (Diana Muldaur), from the Wayne Clinic and Paging the Crime Doctor is no exception. She's a hallmark for Bruce Wayne's past, since she was close friends with Thomas Wayne, his father. That gives the writers room to delve into his primary motivation- avenging the death of his parents -without constantly citing that event in Crime Alley. Unlike many of the other Leslie stories, though, this one managed to embed the surrounding shell firmly in the Batman mythos, as well, since the situation involves another close friend of Thomas' in Matthew Thorne (Joseph Campanella) and his brother, the far better known Rupert Thorne (John "The Voice" Vernon.) Involving Thorne means it's about The Batman, but leaving out standards like The Joker and Two-Face means that it remains on that human level that could have made it a Dashiell Hammett pot-boiler. The semi-tragic ending simply seals that as, instead of ending with the "... and all was well" Hollywood approach, we circle back to our primary motivation, as the only request that Bruce makes of Matthew, already weary of the corruption and glad-handing that is his brother's world, is to have a conversation: "Tell me about my father." That's a human note that everyone watching can relate to.

To fit that less-fantastical level, our hero has to be scaled down a bit, too. Without a super-villain to distract him, most of Thorne's typical thugs aren't going to be a challenge. But if the Darknight Detective is running around with a concussion, that's an extra layer that reduces him to mere human, as opposed to the figments of imagination (and years of training) that make him far more than that, in reality as well as in the minds of his enemies. Of course, there was one beat of modernity added, when a surgical laser somehow becomes a ready weapon that can fire lethal blasts of energy. I suppose the tommy gun animations do get a bit tired after a while. Speaking of animation, whichever studio they used was heavy on frames for many of the sequences. There was constant flow to static structures and "motion lines" attached to the activity of both people and vehicles. That gave it a bit of an old-school feel, which was helped by the full engagement of those noir elements in the visuals, as the use of shadow around both our hero and many other characters was omnipresent and impossible to miss. Indeed, the most fantasy-like element of the entire episode outside the laser was probably the throw of a gas/smoke grenade that one of Thorne's thugs made into the window of an armored car from another moving vehicle.

The Batman stayed in that gas theme later, when trying to deal with one of those tommy guns pinning him in an elevator, as he chose to use a gas grenade to try to overpower the thug, rather than a Batarang to simply disarm him. Another aspect to the concussion, perhaps affecting his aim? Or a director's choice paced on pacing and frames? And, interestingly, despite all of the detachment from the usual cast of opponents, the "Crime Doctor" was an occasional adversary in the comics, first appearing in Detective Comics #77 in 1943. I don't recall any of those stories from my 25 years of reading said comics, but I'm betting that most of them weren't up to the quality level of this one (story by Mike W. Barr and Lauren Bright, incidentally.) Next time, we arc right back to the fantasy, with an appearance by a DC regular.

Sound and fury

I've generally appreciated Alex Garland's films over the years. I'm not a devoted fan, in that I'll run out to see whatever he does. But he hit a high point for me with Ex Machina and adding to that writing the screenplays for 28 Days Later (the best modern rendition of the zombie genre) and Dredd (the only decent adaptation of the legendary OTT British comic series) means I'll generally at least take a look at whatever else he gets involved in. That reputation took a minor hit for me with Annihilation (just another version of The Colour Out of Space) and Men, which I talked about here and an even larger hit with Civil War, which I didn't bother to cover. That review of Men was similar to this one in that, again, it's an interesting premise but there are various flaws which make it something less than a must-see or something I'd be eager to watch again (or own, in the way that I do Ex Machina.) In all of those respects, Warfare is no different.

Garland co-wrote and co-directed the film with Ray Mendoza, a former Navy SEAL, based on the latter's experiences in the Iraq War; specifically, the Battle of Ramadi and a couple of hours that Mendoza and his team spent trapped in a house while resistance fighters tried to extirpate them. On a technical level it is, as Garland's films almost always are, very well done. It's told almost completely in "real time", following every movement of and moment that the squad occupied the house and uses ground-level perspective on all of the characters involved, so that we see and hear what they do, with broader looks at the scene represented only by views of the screens of spotter planes as they track enemy movements around the city. It doesn't spare any of the tactical actions or approaches to the situation (multiple "shows of force" (where an F-16 comes in low enough to make everyone want to duck for cover), proper stacking of infantry, etc.) and it also doesn't spare the effect of those tactical actions. This is one of the films that I would generally refer to as "ferociously violent", like The Northman but even moreso. And that, of course, is all well and good if you lack any empathy whatsoever for the human beings that experienced all of this and were the ones behind the blood and the screams of agony and so forth, which presents us with the real problem in all of this...

The Iraq War was one of the more contemptible and stupid actions in this nation's history (almost surely to be surpassed by the current idiot in the White House any day now, which is saying quite a lot.) It was one of the purest expressions of imperialism ("You're sitting on our oil!") and complete obliviousness to the reality infusing the region. Indeed, we had spent decades supporting Saddam Hussein, not least because he was radically opposed to just the kind of fanatical Islamic tendencies that were unleashed as soon as he was toppled. We had a president who had decided on his own "show of force" and that was to unleash the US military machine on a nation that had absolutely nothing to do with the terrorist acts carried out by Al-Qaeda but which made him feel like a tough guy and, therefore, consequences (and millions of Iraqi lives) be damned. Just like other films about the period like American Sniper, this film does nothing to express any of that political reality. It's just an action moment that ends up lionizing the people involved and which will be responded to by much of the American audience with a "Thank you for your service!" obeisance and a complete neglect of the outright crimes committed throughout that period of time. Indeed, it's just a memoir of someone involved in a terrifying moment that doesn't reflect whatsoever on, for example, the terrorizing of the two families that lived in the house that the SEALs occupied. The end of the film even shows the return of members of the unit to that same address as if all is forgiven and now it's just a curio box for former soldiers to remember "those days."

Does it show the brutality of war? Sure does. Does it show the enormous amount of pain, terror, anguish, and trauma that accompanies combat? Absolutely. Does it deliver any kind of message about why any of that should be avoided like in movies such as 1917 and All Quiet on the Western Front? No. It's just an action moment. Certainly, some humans will be spooked by being that close to stuff they've only seen as sanitized news reports before, but just as many will think it's cool to see a JTAC in action and seeing someone hit the clicker to blow the Claymores and so on. In the end, I just don't see the point, despite my appreciation of its technical merits, and my disdain for the central story of this film and the way it's presented is why I still haven't seen things like American Sniper and why my opinion of Garland is continuing to diminish, seemingly with every further step he takes these days.