To paraphrase Cosmo Kramer and Elaine Benes, it may well be unbridled enthusiasm that leads to Shinzo Tozawa’s downfall. In this penultimate episode of Tokyo Vice’s bitchin’ second season, the last yakuza boss standing seems to have it all under control, but the more he tightens his grip, the more seems to slip through his fingers. (That was a Princess Leia paraphrase, not a Seinfeld paraphrase.)
“Tokyo Vice” thoughts, Season Two, Episode Nine: “Consequences”
3 Body Problem Made Rosalind Chao a Braver Performer
The need for empathy’s an interesting point. As I watched the show, I’d think of the anti-alien characters as the good guys and the pro-alien characters as the bad guys. But the pro-alien characters aren’t necessarily evil at all.
Yes, exactly. I’ve been around people who are, for lack of a better word, enthusiasts. When you understand their background, you can understand why they were drawn to a cult mentality like Ye was.I don’t know what it was about me, but when I was young, I used to get approached by cults. I remember walking through a mall when I was still in my teens and a person approached me and handed me a pamphlet. I remember thinking, Wow, if I didn’t have a family or friends, or if I felt isolated, I could see how this would be attractive. They seem so nice and warm and loving. One would be drawn to that if you feel that everything has fallen apart for you.
God, this is the first time I’ve thought of that. I guess people thought I seemed vulnerable to that.
Were you?
No. I mean, I had a really close family. I think I appeared to be very naïve, and I used to spend a lot of time alone. I was very shy, a solitary person, and I think that emanated from me. Look at me blaming myself.
I interviewed 3 Body Problem actor Rosalind Chao for Vulture.
I’m Glad ‘Supersex’ Triggered Me
To see so much of myself on screen screen made me hurt, yes. It also made me feel less weird, less perverse, less alone. Other men experienced this? Other men felt this? Other men continue to feel it decades later? The sense of validation was indescribable. I would not want to be warned against it.
Now I’ve actually experienced being triggered, a phenomenon I’d only ever really viewed from a remove, almost academically. I’ve really gone through it, felt truly awful, felt like I wanted to shrivel up and blow away, felt like I wanted to puke my whole insides out. And while I can only speak for myself of course, I now really do believe that trigger warnings do more harm than good.
What would have happened had I seen “TW: child abuse” before watching that episode of Supersex? Well, not much in my case, as it was a paying gig I was obligated to do, and I’d have watched it anyway. Moreover, without knowing beforehandhow similar it was to what I’d gone through, I probably wouldn’t have given the warning much thought. I’ve been at this for a while, and I’ve seen plenty of rough stuff.
But had I seen a trigger warning, I’d have steeled myself for it. I’d have braced for impact, and thus the impact would have been lessened or even lost. The catharsis I experienced, that feeling that something inside me that was festering and poisonous was being violently forcibly expelled — so much for that. So much for that sense of validation, the gift of the knowledge that I’m not the only one. So much for the tremendous, miraculous privilege of being that moved by a work of art, of having a work of art speak directly to things inside myself I couldn’t even bring up on my own. This brought them up alright, pretty literally. I’ll never forget that. I wouldn’t want to go back.
“Shōgun” thoughts, Episode Six: “Ladies of the Willow World”
But this excellent episode has more going on than crucial back stories and thrilling war councils. It also contains the show’s sexiest, most romantic material to date. The writer Maegan Houang realizes that the concept of the eightfold fence, retaining hidden spaces for your true emotions while erecting barriers to obscure them, as emphasized in feudal Japan, is a gigantic gift for developing romantic tension between two characters.
Blackthorne’s visit to the brothel known as the Willow World, with Mariko acting as his translator, is presaged by an earlier scene. Passing through his house, Blackthorne overhears Mariko praying in Latin. He kneels down on the other side of the thin wall and begins reciting the Lord’s Prayer. Each can hear the other. Each understands that the other is communing with God, an incredibly intimate act. They share intimacy without impropriety.
Things get even more achingly romantic at the brothel. The pair are there on the orders of Lord Toranaga, who wants to reward Blackthorne for saving his life, and to compensate him for having endured the uncivil behavior of Mariko’s husband, Buntaro. Toranaga is also wise to the fact that there’s something going on between the Anjin and the Lady. Commanding her to serve as Blackthorne’s translator in a brothel may simply be a way to give them license to get naked in a private location together — although “private” is a relative term when even the sex workers are spies.
The lucky lady at the Willow World is Kiku. Girlfriend of the ambitious, jealous young Lord Omi, nephew of Yabushige, who is none too thrilled she will ply her trade with a barbarian. Kiku is acclaimed as the best courtesan in the region, and turns out to be a hell of a wing woman, too. Her erotic words about the pleasure and escape she can provide with her body are relayed to Blackthorne in Mariko’s voice, and the desire in that voice, as well as Blackthorne’s desire in hearing it, is unmistakable.
Though Kiku all but invites the two of them to make love, they know their every word and gesture are being scrutinized. Blackthorne follows Kiku to their bedchamber while Mariko insists on staying behind — but not before he brushes her hand with his own. I’m surprised no one’s kimono caught fire from the sparks that flew with that touch.
“The Regime” thoughts, Episode Four: “Midnight Feast”
I like the jokes. The giant triangular video screen that descends from the ceiling of the conference room while displaying the image of Elena taking an ice bath. Elena describing the smell of the impoverished area as “like a hog’s urethra.” Singer believing “given the China of it all” is a convincingly childlike thing for one of the kids to say. Elena and Nicky dipping fondue in a photo op. The final sex scene, which is both hilarious and, let’s be honest here, hot. (Imagine being the head of government and having everyone including your advisors and spouse clear the room so your crush can fuck you.) This is how this kind of wealth-and-power satire is supposed to be done.
I reviewed this weekend’s episode of The Regime for Decider.
“3 Body Problem” thoughts, Season One, Episode Eight: “Wallfacer”
“3 Body Problem” started out as the television equivalent of a Hans Zimmer composition: a steady crescendo, growing ever more menacing and spectacular. By the time of its bloody, brilliant fifth episode, with its repulsive boat massacre and staggering eye in the sky, it felt like a show capable of going anywhere, doing anything.
Then things simmered down. People spent their time reacting to the crisis. They worked or played hooky, they hid or revealed their feelings, they participated or declined to participate in the war to come. Will spent an episode dying, his friends grieving. (Also inserting his brain into a jar to be fired at an alien fleet, but definitely grieving.) Even so, given the relentless ante-raising of the show’s first five hours, the whole thing screamed “the calm before the storm.”
Well, the season finale has come and gone, and there’s no storm in sight. It wasn’t the calm before the storm. It was all just … calm.
I reviewed the season finale of 3 Body Problem for the New York Times.
“3 Body Problem” thoughts, Season One, Episode Seven: “Only Advance”
The problem is that compared to a Cyclopean eye in the sky or a boat getting sliced to pieces by an invisible web out of Stephen King’s “The Mist,” none of this is all that interesting. From the very first episode, it was apparent that ideas and images, not compelling characters and a novel plot, were the strength of “3 Body Problem.” Leaning into the characters makes the whole thing lopsided.
I reviewed the seventh episode of 3 Body Problem for the New York Times.
“3 Body Problem” thoughts, Season One, Episode Six: “The Stars Our Destination”
It had to let up at some point. After five escalating episodes in which each ending was more spectacularly grim than the last, “3 Body Problem” took its foot off the gas for its sixth outing. It’s hard to begrudge an eight-episode literary adaptation a bit of breathing room.
I reviewed episode six of 3 Body Problem for the New York Times.
“3 Body Problem” thoughts, Season One, Episode Five: “Judgment Day”
To Raj, it looks like the plan has failed. Using the experimental nanofibers developed by Auggie Salazar, finally free of that maddening alien countdown, now that the Shan-Ti have cut off contact with their faithful, they’ve constructed an invisible net that seems ready to catch the ship. Given how the team is talking about casualties, sinking seems the more likely outcome.
But to all appearances, the gigantic repurposed oil tanker is cruising right through the Panama Canal, passing by the support beams across which the nano-net has been stretched. Raj, who inherited his ends-justify-the-means attitude from his war-hero father, has long suspected Auggie’s heart isn’t in the project, since she’s pretty much told him so to his face. He suspects sabotage. He leans in toward her in the command center. “Why isn’t it working?” he asks her accusingly.
The camera shifts focus from his face to hers. “It is,” she says, never taking her eyes off the monitor showing her the ship.
It was at this point that I said, out loud, “Oh, this is going to be gnarly.”
“3 Body Problem” thoughts, Season One, Episode Four: “Our Lord”
Yet for all their apparent screw-ups, the San-Ti’s servants still appear to be on the winning side of Earth’s future history. Thanks to the script by Madhuri Shekar and the ghoulish confidence projected by Rosalind Chao as Wenjie, the arrival and triumph of the aliens is once again made to feel like a foregone conclusion — about as stoppable as a zombie outbreak in the opening minutes of a movie with the word “Dead” in the title.
If anything, I wonder if that’s the kind of story we find ourselves in. (For the record: I enjoyed “Game of Thrones” having already read George R.R. Martin’s source novels, and I’m enjoying “3 Body Problem” without having done so with Liu Cixin’s.) Unlike earlier apocalyptic series like “The Walking Dead,” which dispensed with the story’s prologue — the “uh-oh, something really bad is about to happen, in fact it’s already started” segment — in the first few minutes, “3 Body Problem” is taking a nice, leisurely approach to watching the blade fall on humanity’s collective neck. The tension is delightfully excruciating.
I reviewed the fourth episode of 3 Body Problem for the New York Times.
“3 Body Problem” thoughts, Season One, Episode Three: “Destroyer of Worlds”
More important, though, while the coming invasion feels unstoppable and fear-inducing, it is also a lot of fun. Invasion and apocalypse stories are just stories about slashers or vampires writ large, in which the monster is multiplicitous and the victim all of humanity instead of just a bunch of foolish teenagers or wan Englishwomen and their suitors. Much as we dread seeing people get what’s coming, there’s an undeniable allure to watching the worst-case scenario play out — as long as it’s happening safely onscreen.
I reviewed the third episode of 3 Body Problem for the New York Times.
How the New Road House Updates the Bizarre, Beer-Sluggin’ Best Bad Movie of All Time
In the years since its release, Road House became the most basic of basic cable pleasures. A perpetual fixture of weekend afternoon timeslots on commercial cable networks that air movies for dudes, it won over a generation with its neo-western vibe, its assortment of colorful (read: weird) characters, and its unceasing onslaught of people getting struck in the head. Not even the censorship of the film’s colorful language and gratuitous nudity, male and female alike, kept it from achieving this life after theatrical death.
Along the way, cult comedy icons like the Mystery Science Theater 3000 crew and Clerks director Kevin Smith sang the movie’s praises. Kelly Lynch started telling a well-received anecdote about how Bill Murray and his brothers call her husband any time they catch her big sex scene in the movie on cable. And a growing legion of fans discovered you can’t find its unique blend of sturdy construction and cockamamie content anywhere else.
So when Amazon announced plans for director Doug Liman—an action-filmmaking expert with Go, Mr. & Mrs. Smith, and the Bourne franchise on his resume—to helm a remake starring Jake Gyllenhaal in the Swayze role, the reaction from certain cinephile quarters was as if someone decided to take a crack at Citizen Kane. How could anyone hope to recapture the goofy glory of the original?
Turns out you can’t—and that’s exactly the strength of the new film, out on Prime Video on March 21. Liman, Gyllenhaal, and company recognize that what made the original Road House so delightfully stupid won’t quite work in 2024.Their version ends up being a sweet-natured, hilarious, and, of course, psychotically violent tribute to an unlikely masterpiece, and the creators’ affection for the original article shines through in every frame.
“3 Body Problem” thoughts, Season One, Episode Two: “Red Coast”
Clearly, fans of spooky technology have much to enjoy in this episode. On one side you’ve got the unfathomable sophisticated video game of unknown origin, and on the other a good old-fashioned scary radio transmission. The video game stuff, however, feels airless and stale, despite the gorgeous CGI vistas and bizarre body-horror moments. In a story where so many things are happening in the real world, it’s tough to get that worked up about the goings-on of a virtual one.
The “Do not answer” broadcast, on the other hand, fits into a long lineage of paranormal communications both on and off screen. It’s explicitly linked to the so-called “Wow signal,” the aforementioned anomaly detected by OSU, and it’s reminiscent of eerie phenomena like numbers stations, or staticky calls from disappearing planes above the mythic Bermuda Triangle. In movie terms, I couldn’t shake a flattering comparison to the dream broadcast from “Year One-Nine-Nine-Nine” in John Carpenter’s “Prince of Darkness.” But the horror trope of the final warning before the plunge is a nearly universal one, embodied by all the old men in slasher franchises who warn groups of oblivious teens not to travel to a masked killer’s stalking grounds. Perhaps a slasher on galactic scale is firing up his chain saw with Earth as his destination even now.
I reviewed the very good second episode of 3 Body Problem for the New York Times.
“3 Body Problem” thoughts, Season One, Episode One: “Countdown”
We’re in the early going yet, but it would be a tough sell to say the plot and the characters are strong suits of “3 Body Problem.” The actors are entertaining, but so far they’re playing not much more than broad personality types engaged in a mildly interesting sci-fi mystery. Chao has the more dramatic backdrop of the Cultural Revolution, depicted here as a full-on “1984” meets “The Crucible” dystopian nightmare, to play against — not to mention the more dramatic setting of that satellite installation. But it’s a low bar to clear.
No, it’s the imagery that lingers more than anything else. The colossal transmitter, roosting at the cliff’s edge like an enormous bird of prey. The gradual way the countdown clock emerges into Auggie’s consciousness, from a blur on a karaoke video to a full-on superimposition over the face of anyone she tries to talk to. The uncanny sight of the stars flickering as one. Can the story and the characters rise to that level?
I’m covering 3 Body Problem for the New York Times, starting with my review of the premiere. This is the first time they’ve ever done episodic reviews for an all-at-once season launch.
“Tokyo Vice” thoughts, Season Two, Episode Eight: “The Noble Path”
But as driving as Tokyo Vice’s plot can be, it’s the look and atmosphere that keeps me coming back excited week after week. Carefully composed and illuminated nighttime street scenes. Vistas of the city seen through windows behind our characters, or our characters seen through a window from somewhere high in the sky above the city. Needlessly gorgeous interior shots. Seriously, if you look at my notes on the gifs that illustrate this review, the adjectives are all effusive: “Stunning elevator shot,” “really cool hotel hallway shot,” “incredible street scene with the green phone.” Even in a show this good-looking, director Eva Sørhaug and DP Corey Walter do memorable work here.
Actors, of course, can contribute to the look and the atmosphere of a show as much as anyone. All these handsome men in tailored suits. Ansel Elgort painstakingly lighting and smoking a cigarette as Jake guts his way through his meeting with Yabuki. Rachel Keller and Show Kasamatsu getting into bed at the end of a long day, looking exhausted and beautiful. The way actors look and move and sound is as much a part of the art of filmmaking as cinematography or editing, and in this case it’s all sumptuous stuff. This suits Tokyo Vice, the most sumptuous show on television right now, to a tee.
“Shōgun” thoughts, Episode Five: “Broken to the Fist”
By now, all Blackthorne wants to do is take his ship and his crew and go home. He feels he’s upheld his end of his deal with Toranaga. But following that punishing conversation with Lady Mariko, she refuses to translate accurately for him anymore, and his pleas go unheeded.
But John Blackthorne has a talent for being in the wrong place at the right time. His shipwreck on the shores of Japan placed him in grave danger, but it was also what gave him the chance to alert Lord Toranaga, the closest thing Japan has to a ruler, to the perfidy of his Portuguese allies. He winds up a prisoner, but his imprisonment allows Toranaga to delay, and then escape, his impeachment and execution.
Now, just moments after Mariko sabotages his request to leave, he bears witness to an earthquake and a landslide — the kind of natural disaster that horrified him when Mariko first told him about such occurrences.
The landslide gives Blackthorne the opportunity to spring into action, find Lord Toranaga buried beneath the dirt and help drag the man to safety. The Anjin slaps Toranaga on the back a few times until he coughs up the last of the dirt blocking his airway, and then gives Toranaga the swords gifted to him earlier by Lady Fuji, an act just as impressive to this audience in its way. Once again, by finding himself in a jam, Blackthorne is also perfectly positioned to prove his worth to the man on whom his life depends. He is the luckiest unlucky man on television.
I reviewed this week’s episode of Shōgun for the New York Times.
“Supersex” thoughts, Episode Seven: “The Cock Comes Last”
All that and more applies to leading man Alessandro Borghi. Borghi’s fearless, shameless performance as Rocco is one for the ages — an actor leaping naked into the deep end and swimming downward as far and as fast as he can. It’s not just the countless sex scenes, or the explicit dialogue. It’s the willingness to be seen as a sex idiot, a man whose dick does his thinking for him. This can make him seem incredibly sexy or incredibly vulgar, like a dog humping another dog in the park while everyone watches. Emma Stone just won an Oscar for this kind of genitals-first performance, and I think Supersex has more to say, more insightfully, about sex than Poor Things manages to muster, that’s for sure.
A seemingly endless font of sexual fantasy, fetish, and dysfunction, Supersex is one of the bravest shows I’v ever seen. It turned me on and fucked me up. I’m grateful to have watched it.
“The Regime” thoughts, Episode Three: “The Heroes’ Banquet”
Okay, now I’m really paying attention. For the second time, The Regime has bucked my expectations of what The Regime would be about.
“Supersex” thoughts, Episode Six: “Resurrection of the Bodies”
Watching Supersex is like shaking a snow globe filled with particles of the densest psychosexual shit imaginable, then seeing how these poor bastards deal with the fallout. Its frankness and ambition in this are unparalleled in my memory.
“Supersex” thoughts, Episode Five: “The Island”
Supersex has already conjured up some of the most intensely traumatizing sexual experiences a person can have; perhaps it was inevitable that it would eventually get around to some of the most intensely transcendent. Set apart from the other episodes even by its title, “The Island,” Supersex’s fifth episode and its best since the premiere, chronicles a months-long lost weekend of endless, loving, liberating sex between Rocco and his new girlfriend, his first girlfriend. In this, as in its portrait of Rocco’s abuse and awakening, the show is fearless.