Posts Tagged ‘decider’

“Tokyo Vice” thoughts, Season One, Episode One: “The Test”

April 7, 2022

The biggest problem facing Tokyo Vice is the matter of its leading man. I’m not even talking about the sexual abuse and misconduct allegations swirling around Ansel Elgort, although yes, that too. But even as a simple matter of casting the right man for the job, something feels off here. Elgort’s affect is too flat, his eyes too blank, his semi-permanent sneer too pronounced. You can’t exactly do “wide-eyed idealistic rookie reporter learns the ropes in a strange land’s seedy underbelly” when the actor involved couldn’t be wide-eyed to save his life. (It’s possible the show leaned away from the more traditional approach to the part on purpose, but where Elgort’s concerned it comes across more as a matter of necessity.)

It’s worth comparing and contrasting Elgort’s casting to that of Miles Teller in Nicholas Wending Refn and Ed Brubaker’s Too Old to Die Young, another stylish cop thriller directed by a major talent, over on Amazon Prime Video. Teller’s character is supposed to be a dead-eyed, flat-affect sociopath, so selecting a fundamentally unlikeable actor and playing up his emptiness makes a lot of sense. (Hell, Tom Cruise has made a career out of it, including in collaboration with Michael Mann!) There’s none of that logic present in Elgort’s use in Tokyo Vice.

I’ll be covering Tokyo Vice for Decider, starting with my review of the series premiere.

“Moon Knight” thoughts, Season One, Episode Two: “Summon the Suit”

April 6, 2022

After watching Moon Knight Episode 1, I wrote on Twitter that “I kind of hope every episode has this same basic tone of Oscar Isaac bumbling around, blacking up, waking up, and realizing he just killed six guys or whatever.” I’m pleased to report that, after watching Moon Knight Episode 2 (“Summon the Suit”), this appears to be the direction in which Moon Knight is headed!

I reviewed the second episode of Moon Knight for Decider.

“Moon Knight” thoughts, Season One, Episode One: “The Goldfish Problem”

March 30, 2022

Written by series creator Jeremy Slater and directed by Mohamed Diab, “The Goldfish Problem” is a fun little diversion. Again, its success largely hinges on Oscar Isaac, who plays the Steven Grant persona as a more chipper and scatterbrained British version of his loser character in the Coen Brothers’ Inside Llewyn Davis. Whether he’s missing a date, taking part in a high-speed chase, getting yelled at by his boss, receiving strange phonecalls from an unknown woman on a burner he found hidden in his wall, or waking up surrounded by people he’s beaten the crap out of, he treats everything with the same sense of mild-mannered “oh, bugger” confusion. He’s a fun secret identity to watch, and that goes along way.

So does that final reveal of Steven/Marc/whoever in full Moon Knight regalia. It’s no exaggeration to say that the character has had the staying power he’s had in the comics world because that costume design—Batman at P. Diddy’s white party, basically—is so bitchin’. Based on the glimpse we get of him in this episode, the show has made no concessions to superhero-movie kevlar-uniform “realism” in translating it to the screen. He really does look like he teleported in directly from the funnypages, and that’s good to see.

I’ll be covering Moon Knight for Decider, starting with my review of the series premiere. It ain’t bad!

“Raised by Wolves” thoughts, Season Two, Episode Eight: “Happiness”

March 17, 2022

There’s an old short story by Clive Barker, the creator of Pinhead and the writer-director of Hellraiser, that I think about a lot. It’s called “Pig Blood Blues,” and you can read a pretty beautiful comics adaptation by Chuck Wagner, Fred Burke, and Scott Hampton right here. Go ahead, take a few minutes, I’ll be here when you get back.

Anyway, old Clive, he wrote a line in this story that was frequently on my mind while watching this final episode of Raised by Wolves’ extraordinary second season. The line goes like this—

“This is the state of the beast…to eat and be eaten.”

I won’t get into who in the story says it and why—that’s for you to discover—but I will say that there’s something so perfectly fatalistic in that line, something that sums up so much of what goes on in this season finale. The beast, of course, is humankind, and it’s their—our—fate to kill each other until some larger force comes to kill us all.

I reviewed the season finale of Raised by Wolves for Decider.

“Raised by Wolves” thoughts, Season Two, Episode Seven: “Feeding”

March 13, 2022

So we’re left with a ragtag band of survivors, adult and child, android and human, atheist and believer, running around trying to figure out how to save themselves from a giant tentacled serpent, an acid sea full of humanoid creatures, and an ancient alien intelligence that seems to want them all dead. I can’t be the only person reminded of Game of Thrones (and not just because of the similarities between the two shows’ scores), in which various fabulously wealthy families carried on killing each other while a threat to all life grew more and more powerful, the danger more and more urgent. Good thing these are only stories on TV, right?

Right?

I reviewed last week’s episode of Raised by Wolves for Decider.

“Raised by Wolves” thoughts, Season Two, Episode Six: “The Tree”

March 3, 2022

Raised by Wolves is, among many things, a work of ferocious body horror. The human—and android—body is a grotesque battlefield on this show—bleeding white goo, erupting into hideous tumors, sprouting growths that surround the victim like a cocoon, giving birth through multiple orifices, removing and consuming weaponized eyeballs, evolving and devolving into terrifying creatures, you name it. At the climax of this episode, aptly titled “The Tree,” it seems like we have a brand new body-horror image to add to the list: Sue’s transformation into a fucking tree.

I reviewed today’s episode of Raised by Wolves for Decider.

“Raised by Wolves” thoughts, Season Two, Episode Five: “King”

February 28, 2022

And there you have it! A narratively and emotionally complex episode, filled with far-out sci-fi imagery, fueled by powerful performances from Amanda Collin as Mother and Aasiya Shah as Holly (my God, the way she sobs when Marcus returns to her) among others, raising far more questions than it answers yet still delivering the goods from a storytelling and image-making perspective—all amid a bestiary that seems to be growing by the day. Raised by Wolves, folks. Isn’t it something?

I reviewed the most recent episode of Raised by Wolves for Decider.

“Raised by Wolves” thoughts, Season Two, Episode Four: “Control”

February 18, 2022

When reviewing a particularly bizarre episode of television, you always run the risk of blowing things out of proportion. The breathless prose you might adopt in order to describe what you’ve watched is a cliché unto itself at this point, and it’s a safe bet that someone out there is making genuinely outré work that puts any given hour of a streaming drama to shame. So I’m going to try and restrain myself when talking about “Control,” the fourth episode of Raised by Wolves’ second season, once I get past saying this: holy Jesus, that was bat-guano crazy.

I reviewed the second episode of Raised by Wolves‘ increasingly odd and percussive second season for Decider.

“Raised by Wolves” thoughts, Season Two, Episode Three: “Good Creatures”

February 10, 2022

[Morrisey voice] “Robot with a chainsaw, I know, I know, it’s serious.”

Actually, it’s not serious at all. It’s fucking wild, is what it is! Like, show of hands: Who thought Raised by Wolves would one day show Father, the clinically mild-mannered caretaker android responsible for the fate of the human race, battle a robot with a chainsaw for an arm to the death amid a cheering crowd? Hmmm…I’m not seeing any hands raised!

I reviewed this week’s episode of Raised by Wolves for Decider.

“Raised by Wolves” thoughts, Season Two, Episode Two: “Seven”

February 7, 2022

If you thought Raised by Wolves was going to be shy about showing us its big snake, think again. The second episode of the show’s second season—released simultaneously with the premiere—delivers on the batshit promise of the Raised By Wolves Season 1 finale in a big way. Not only does the giant flying snake return, it becomes the central focus of the entire plot, as the whole atheist Collective sets out to seek and destroy the beast. I’m guessing that this will be a taller order than they’ve anticipated, but hey, this is Raised by Wolves—I’ve been wrong before, and I could be wrong again.

I reviewed the second half of Raised by Wolves’ two-part Season 2 premiere for Decider.

“Raised by Wolves” thoughts, Season Two, Episode One: “The Collective”

February 4, 2022

The show continues to be a rare beast, a meditation on the human condition that doesn’t dwell on the whole what-it-means-to-be-human thing that drags down so much android-based SF. (We’re all human, we know what it means!) It’s strange, it’s mysterious, it’s funny, it’s gross, it’s impeccably acted, it’s beautifully shot by director Ernest Dickerson—it’s Raised by Wolves, and I’m glad it’s back.

I’ll be covering Raised by Wolves Season 2 for Decider, starting with my review of the premiere.

“All of Us Are Dead” thoughts, Episode Twelve

February 4, 2022

All of Us Are Dead ends on a note of mystery. Not the cliffhanger sort, the “gee I wonder what happens next” sort, but the “I actually have no idea where it would go after this” sort, the “I’m not really even sure how I’m supposed to feel about this” sort. And I’m glad for it.

I reviewed the finale of All of Us Are Dead for Decider. Speaking as someone who’d soured on zombie media, this show took me by surprise.

“All of Us Are Dead” thoughts, Episode Eleven

February 3, 2022

It’s getting bleaker. That’s the unmistakable trajectory All of Us Are Dead is taking in its final episodes, at least from where I’m sitting. There’s every possibility, of course, that the finale will take things in a more optimistic direction—but the casualties that began piling up in the previous episode have only mounted, and the city that surrounds them has been destroyed. It’s hard not to think that the show may well live up to its ominous title.

I reviewed the penultimate episode of All of Us Are Dead for Decider.

“All of Us Are Dead” thoughts, Episode 10

February 2, 2022

So that’s where things stand after this grim episode: more kids dead, zombies on the move, and an entire city on the chopping block. Only two episodes remain; the question is now, to use the tagline for the horror classic The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, who will survive—and what will be left of them?

I reviewed the tenth episode of All of Us Are Dead for Decider.

“All of Us Are Dead” thoughts, Episode Nine

February 1, 2022

The most impressive thing about All of Us Are Dead is how it can continue to mine pathos out of a premise — “zombies overrun society and a small band of survivors in a unique location struggle to stay alive” — that you could easily have dismissed as totally exhausted by now. (Hell, dismissed it!) In this particular episode, that pathos stems from the fear, and the fact, of abandonment. It stands to reason: In a world overrun by the living dead, being left for dead by the living is perhaps the worst thing anyone can endure.

I reviewed the ninth episode of All of Us Are Dead for Decider.

“All of Us Are Dead” thoughts, Episode Eight

February 1, 2022

Honestly, other than the impressively unpleasant violence, the lasting image of the episode is of the kids gathered around the fire, talking honestly amongst themselves. They’ve spent so much of their lives worried about their grades, their teachers, the opinions of their classmates, their future prospects—and now that their future may have been taken away, they’re able to be honest with each other about all this, for the first time in most of their lives.

In essence, the zombie outbreak functions like an encounter group, forcing them to shake free of their social constraints and relate to one another for real. I don’t know if that’s social commentary or just a convenient storytelling device, but it’s the kind of character work the show requires to stay ahead of the zombie-show pack. In a genre that, for the past twenty years or so, has largely focused on the need to survive above all else, it’s refreshing to see a zombie outbreak that brings out people’s most vulnerable sides, instead of turning them all into unrepentant hardasses. The hardasses are what got them all into this mess, after all. Now’s the time for something new.

I reviewed episode eight of All of Us Are Dead for Decider.

‘All of Us Are Dead’ Season 1 Ending Explained: Do the Students Survive the Zombie Outbreak?

January 31, 2022

Zombie fans rejoice: The undead are back in a big way thanks to All of Us Are Dead. The Korean-made Netflix original series tells the story of a group of high-school students struggling to survive a zombie outbreak that begins right there in their school. Combining inventive and thrilling action sequences with a cast of relatable, sympathetic characters, it’s injected new life (no pun intended) into the zombie genre.

Adapted by writer Chun Sung-il from the webcomic Now at Our School by Joo Dong-geun, All of Us Are Dead appears to be following in the pop-culture footsteps of Netflix’s other big Korean horror hit, 2021’s Squid Game. But after all of its pulse-pounding zombie action, the finale ends on a decidedly ambiguous note. What does it all mean, and what does it say about the potential for more stories in the All of Us Are Dead universe?

Here’s everything you need to know about the ending of All of Us Are Deadwarning: major spoilers ahead!

I wrote a little explainer about the ending of All of Us Are Dead for Decider.

“All of Us Are Dead” thoughts, Episode Seven

January 31, 2022

It’s perfectly fine zombie-action filmmaking, adding some new wrinkles to the basic concept and positioning the survivors for one last push for freedom. I miss some of the emotional power of its predecessors, which here is limited to the plight of that poor kid on the roof. But this is all a setup for the next installment, and I understand the need to keep things plot-centric. My hope is that the remaining episodes will reinject (reinfect?) the proceedings with the sense of pain, loss, and against-the-odds optimism that distinguished its predecessors. I think it’s a smart enough show to pull it off.

I reviewed the seventh episode of All of Us Are Dead for Decider.

“All of Us Are Dead” thoughts, Episode Six

January 31, 2022

When modern zombie media invokes the concept of “shades of gray,” it usually means that one of the heroes of the show or movie you’re watching is about to kill someone in cold blood, because it’s kill-or-be-killed time, bro. It’s tantamount to an endorsement of violence against outsiders, a fascist fever dream. Not so with All of Us Are Dead. Though the episode avoids making tidy proclamations about morals and ethics and then forcing all the characters to either abide by or defy them, thus self-categorizing as good or evil, it also genuinely wrestles with the morally ambiguous choices its characters make. It asks What price survival? and provides no easy answers.

I reviewed the sixth episode of All of Us Are Dead for Decider.

“All of Us Are Dead” thoughts, Episode Five

January 29, 2022

“Hope and wisdom. Which do we value more?”

“Even if the entire world has turned into zombies, let’s not despair.”

“We need hope more than logic.”

The trapped kids at the core of All of Us Are Dead’s narrative understand how important it is to believe in a light at the end of the tunnel, to forego despair in favor of a belief that, somehow, things will turn out alright. Unfortunately for them, there’s little evidence to support their hopes at present. And if the episode’s surprise ending is any indication, things may well get worse before they get better, if they ever get better at all.

I reviewed the fifth episode of All of Us Are Dead for Decider.