Schlock Mercenary

XXX: The Return of Xander Cage took some time to get moving, and the first half had enough skin in it to have nearby Bond films politely requesting that Mr. Diesel not track sand through their garden. Somewhere around the mid-point the movie engaged for me. I think it may have been when I realized that they were going to attempt an ensemble piece, and that they might just pull it off. And they did! By the end it really was an ensemble piece, giving plenty of camera time to Donnie Yen, Deepika Padukone, and Ruby Rose¹. It also repented nicely for the Ice Cube installment of the Triple X franchise with some of the smoothest ret-conning² I’ve seen in a while. The second half of the film saved the movie from the first half, but it made me sit up and ask why they bothered with the first half, and imagining the ways they could have done Act I more entertainingly. That right there is what’s keeping XXX: The Return of Xander Cage from clearing my Threshold of Awesome. And that makes me sad, because the Deepika Padukone/Ruby Rose scenes¹ in Act III deserve to be above the threshold. ¹ I would watch an entire season of TV built around Padukone and Rose being gunslingers, perhaps headlining a full ensemble of ladybro³ wit, wile, and badassery. ² So smooth it might not even be considered a retcon, really. Spy movies can do this well by giving us the “you don’t have the whole story” moments, and it’s not even cheating when they do it right. ³ “Ladybro” is a term I first heard from editor Navah Wolfe, and I might not be using it correctly. I think it means “all X-chromosome buddy-cop-style relationships.” If it doesn’t mean that, then I need a different word that does.

Ordinarily I don’t review television programs, but there have been enough exceptions that I’m not breaking a rule at this point, you’re just experiencing another edge case. Netflix’s A Series of Unfortunate Events is proving to be delightful. I’ve watched the first four episodes, and I’m hooked. The series has two of my favorite things in it: clever writing, and Patrick Warburton. Imagine Kronk, or perhaps The Tick narrating in the bleak tones of Lemony Snicket, and warning you at the beginning of each episode that you really don’t want to continue. It’s a bold move. When your story, as part of the story, is telling people not to keep reading, or watching, you’d better be doing it in a manner so entertaining that the audience hopes the warnings will continue. In this case it is, and they do. There’s much more than just dire warning working in favor of this series. Malina Weissman and Louis Hynes are awesome, Presley Smith would chew scenery if given the chance, and over-the-top melodramatic performances are turned in by Neil Patrick Harris, Joan Cusack, Aasif Mandvi, Usman Ally, Joyce and Jacqueline Robbins, and Cobie Smulders, and I’m only halfway through. Were this series available on Blu-Ray or DVD I’d cheerfully pay season-of-TV-series rates for it. It’s not, but by that math the series totally paid for two months of Netflix just by existing.

I loved Hidden Figures. It was beautiful, and uplifting ,and pretty much the perfect first-film-of-the-year for me. It clears my Threshold of Awesome, and reminded me of how awesome actual human people can be. It also reminded me of how far we’ve come since the decade in which I was born, and how courageous we had to be in order to make it that far. And that’s pretty important because we have a long way to go, and more courage will be required. The leads, Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer, and Janelle Monáe, were all powerfully convincing, and Kevin Costner finally got to make up for Pa Kent, which I shouldn’t have been holding against him, but that’s a different story altogether. I also loved seeing Aldis Hodge¹ play support-staff for someone else’s genius, and Mahershala Ali² be so completely different than the Cottonmouth character he sold to me in Luke Cage. I wish we’d seen just a little bit more of the mathematics, enough for me to fully grasp the enormity of the problems faced by the space program, but that’s a tough call to make for filmmakers. Confuse the audience for just a few seconds, and you run the risk of losing everybody. So, you know, they probably made the right call. ¹Hodge played Hardison in Leverage, and I cannot un-see him as a hacker with mad grifting skills. ²Cottonmouth was pretty much my favorite character from Netflix’s Luke Cage. Shame about that mic stand thing.

Back in 1999 I had a boss who would consider our team’s approach to over-engineering some solution or another and say “I don’t want you to boil the ocean. Just make a nice cup of tea.” Put another way: “Don’t try to fix everything. Fix the thing right in front of you.” I’ve been thinking about how bad 2016 was, and I’ve determined that most of the worst bits were parts over which I had little or no control. A few of the worst bits, for me anyway, were totally my fault, but they weren’t bad enough to make the news so they don’t show up on the global score card. In short, the oceans aren’t my fault, but this cup of tepid water is totally on me, and I can do better. “Doing better” does mean looking beyond the top of the teacup. Maybe not all the way to the ocean, but at least to the rest of the mugs, cups, glasses, and carafes in the room. It’s possible that I can fix the thing right in front of me AND fix a few things that happen to be within reach. If I pay close attention, I may find that my reach even extends beyond the white-room drink station of this metaphor, and into the wider world of insufficiently incalescent beverage preparation. But first, a pot of hot water, right here. And as long as I’m heating water, there are things that can be cleaned in it, like the dishes, the laundry, and oh! A hot bath! 2017 is here. I don’t know what opportunities and crises will present themselves, but I’m here for them, as ready as I can make myself. And if I need to keep a pot of boiling water handy, at least that’s a thing I know how to do.

I saw Passengers on Tuesday night. Here are some words I used on Twitter: Beautiful. Powerful. Heartbreaking. Inspiring. Awesome. Chris Pratt did a fine job, and Michael Sheen was spot on, but Jennifer Lawrence absolutely owned her role, all the way to the bone. She was astounding, and without her performance the film simply wouldn’t have worked. Chris Pratt may have been positioned as our protagonist, but Jennifer Lawrence was the beating heart of the story. Enough gushing. It’s a fine movie, and it clears my Threshold of Awesome.

I saw Rogue One. The odds are pretty good that if you’re reading this, you’ve already decided whether or not to see it, and if you haven’t yet seen it you’d rather I not spoil anything. I’ll make this quick: It is a fine film beyond simply being a Star Wars film. I think it’s a better movie than The Force Awakens, and it does an outstanding job of setting up the original trilogy. It clears the Threshold of Awesome, and if you’re a Star Wars fan, I suspect you’ll be quite pleased with it. That’s it. Enjoy the movie!