For the week of October 16th, Starz and Lionsgate Home Entertainment are bringing the first season of Bryan Fuller and Michael Green's American Gods to Blu-ray. Just so I'm not accused of burying the lede: this show is a full-on miracle. As good as Neil Gaiman's original novel is - and it might be the best thing he ever wrote - Fuller and Green seem to have improved on the source material, using the lush, hyper-surreal aesthetic Fuller cultivated on his great procedural Hannibal to tell a story of men and gods, focusing specifically on ex-con Shadow Moon (Ricky Whittle) and the cross-country journey he takes with the mysterious Mr. Wednesday (Ian McShane, finally doing work again that ranks with his Deadwood and Lovejoy protagonists). To Fuller and Green, the plot is but a scaffold to hang nothing less than a mission statement about The Way America Works Today. Gaiman certainly wanted to examine the tortured contradictions powering America, but the series feels even more provocative in its sociopolitical message. At the start of Episode Two, Orlando Jones (in a brilliant cameo as the spider-god Anansi) delivers a riveting speech about African-American history that plays like a call to arms, and that's before we've really caught our bearings; Fuller and Green then make time for parables about technology dulling the masses, Jesus and illegal immigration, homosexuality in the Muslim community, and the uneasy relationship between gun violence and religion. On a lesser show, this agenda might play as didactic, so Fuller and Green are careful to up the entertainment value to almost ludicrous degrees. At any given moment, American Gods gets to be whatever show it wants to be. Sometimes it's a gory war story, then it'll become a buddy picture pairing the mismatched Shadow and Mr. Wednesday, all before transitioning into a sexually explicit soap opera; I even thought of Cheers in terms of how the bickering, will-they-or-won't-they interplay that Shadow's undead wife (Emily Browning) and unlucky leprechaun Mad Sweeney (Pablo Schreiber, stealing every goddamn scene he's in) share reflects that sitcom's Sam-and-Diane dynamic. On a molecular level, American Gods is so wholly itself that it still retains a hypnotic thrall when it's not making much sense. Look, I could say American Gods is the best show on television or make some lofty claims that it's as incendiary in its criticisms of our country as early Spike Lee was or argue that no show delights in the use and deployment of language as much as this one does (the dialogue is Deadwood-level transcendent), but both of those comments feel too familiar for a series like this one. How about this: I've never seen anything quite like American Gods, and I doubt I ever will again.
In his Blu-ray review, Jeffrey Kauffman wrote that the "occasional narrative hurdles the show encounters are fairly easily overcome. Whittle makes for an appealingly complex hero, and the large cast of 'elder' gods is often riveting, with McShane looking like he's having a field day playing the enigmatic Wednesday. There are any number of fun turns by the large supporting cast, which includes such notables as Kristin Chenoweth, Cloris Leachman, Peter Stormare and Orlando Jones (if I were handing out Emmys for guest star performances, I'd happily throw one Jones' way for his first scabrously hilarious monologue as Anansi, delivered to a ship full of slaves in the 17th century, alerting them to what the next several hundred years of the black experience in America is going to be like). The show doesn't shirk from some fairly challenging material, dealing with everything from slavery to drug abuse and offering some at least subtextual social critiques along the way. The writing is uniformly sharp, though those wary of pretty trenchant language might want to steel themselves. Some of the depictions of various behaviors are also intentionally disturbing, with several sequences featuring Bilquis being almost hyperbolically salacious."
Just as masterful a critique of society is Stanley Kubrick's Barry Lyndon, which Criterion is re-releasing this week. For many viewers (myself included!), Barry Lyndon seems the most immediately daunting of all Kubrick's works. It's long (just over three hours), slow, and defiantly unsexy in its subject matter; Kubrick trades in the interstellar travel, gang violence, and wartime atrocities of his other films for a far more measured study of social mores in 1700s England. All of that sounds like less than a ringing endorsement, I'm sure. Yet for those willing to immerse themselves in the sedate, hyper-patient world Kubrick has created, Barry Lyndon offers an experience that's still unique among the annals of film history. See, everything about the film is deceptive. Kubrick might not be working in the sci-fi milieu of 2001: A Space Odyssey or A Clockwork Orange, but he's working with tools that are just as advanced - Kubrick and DP John Alcott acquired the same kinds of Zeiss lens that NASA used for the Apollo moon landing. Not only does this technology allow Kubrick and Alcott to capture the film with only available natural light (and decades before the digital revolution, to boot), but the clarity and density of the images almost turn Barry Lyndon into a virtual-reality experience. You feel like you can lean into the frames and move around. And once you've made that visceral connection, you start to realize the most amazing thing about Barry Lyndon: it is consistently, relentlessly funny. Despite what you might infer from the title, we don't see the movie through Barry's perspective. Instead, we see it through Kubrick's, who regards his hero the way the Old Testament God regards Job. Kubrick clearly thinks that Barry is a boob who's ill equipped to handle any of his lofty ambitions (at times, Lyndon's deluded self-confidence resembles an art-house version of Ron Burgundy), and so he structures the film as a series of escalating humiliations that Barry fails to endure. Barry's misfortunes ultimately take on the dry misery you might find in a Jim Jarmusch movie - the film's celebrated late-stage duel, where Barry tries to behave nobly and is immediately punished for it, could have inspired any number of the conflicts in Ghost Dog. Even the film itself operates against Barry. How else to explain the narrator (Michael Hordern), who spoils key plot points (like, Barry's ultimate fate) long before Barry experiences them, or Kubrick's meta casting of Ryan O'Neal, who himself seems so out-of-place in Kubrick's period-accurate, art-directed-to-perfection world (O'Neal's terrible Irish accent stands in stark contrast to the many other authentic voices) that you're unsure if Kubrick has typecast him perfectly or is just mocking O'Neal the actor, until you realize it's both, and that O'Neal's clear discomfort fits Barry like an ill-fitting glove. To Kubrick, Barry stands reflective of all humans and their misbegotten dreams of being better than they are, and if we can't laugh at our own foibles, Kubrick is sure as hell going to. Maybe Kubrick's richest, finest feature.
Svet Atanasov noted that "a lot of what makes this film special has to do with Kubrick's ability to sell it as a beautiful and very elegant period piece, which in a way it actually is. But it is also one of the most cynical dissections of human nature that you are likely to ever see disguised as a period film. Barry's rise to the very top of the social ladder is like a clinical study of the many human flaws and vices that make it possible for opportunists like him to thrive and hurt those that become trapped in their lies and secrets. Quite like an experienced physician, Kubrick provides multiple examples in which he carefully highlights the pain and damages that they inevitably bring with them...O'Neal was an unusual pick to play the ambitious Irishman as he does not look like an authentic William Makepeace Thackeray character, but there is something about his obvious stiffness in a number of different sequences that actually helps his transformation in the period environment that Kubrick created. The film's visual beauty is absolutely astonishing, though this is hardly surprising. Kubrick, cinematographer John Alcott and production designer Ken Adam are quite simply an unbeatable team."
From Sony Pictures Home Entertainment comes the latest Marvel adventure Spider-Man: Homecoming. Homecoming marks the iconic web slinger's first solo feature since Marvel Studios regained the (partial) rights to the character, and kudos to director Jon Watts and co-screenwriters Jonathan Goldstein, John Francis Daley, Christopher Ford, Chris McKenna, and Erik Sommers for trying to do something a little different. See, there are two movies here. One is an ode to '80s teen comedies, and while I'm tired of what feels like cynical opportunism in terms of how studios commodify nostalgia, I do find this particular movie decently charming. Tom Holland plays teenage Peter Parker exactly the way Michael J. Fox would have in 1985 (that's a good thing), and the young supporting cast is all aces, with Jacob Batalon and Zendaya scoring top marks as, respectively, Peter's best friend and his idiosyncratic fellow mathlete. Zendaya, in particular, is so good you wish more of the movie focused on her - she creates the impression that her character is always doing something interesting whenever she's off camera. This material is slight, but it works, and that's enough. The other movie is a pedestrian superhero affair, with weightless CGI battles and plenty of callbacks to other MCU features. I guess it's cool that Peter gets reprimanded by Robert Downey Jr.'s Tony Stark instead of by his Uncle Ben, but the links to the greater MCU deny Homecoming further opportunities to plumb its own world for nuance. To wit: casting Marisa Tomei as Peter's Aunt May is an inspired choice, and it'll be even better if Tomei ever gets anything to do (she has more spark and humor in her one Captain America: Civil War scene). Points go to Michael Keaton's coldly pragmatic Big Bad The Vulture, but one great hero-villain confrontation (that chilling scene between Keaton and Holland just before Prom) does not a good movie make. Ultimately, Homecoming doesn't offer the character much in the way of a net gain. Yes, it's better than Spider-Man 3 and both Andrew Garfield outings, but that's a very low bar to clear. We're still a long way from Sam Raimi's great Spider-Man 2.
Martin Liebman writes that the film "leans on humor. Heavily. Most of the first half and much of the rest of the movie is built around dry humor that often get a laugh but grows a bit tiresome as the film seems ever more intent on generating laughter rather than showcasing action or building character. It does, to its credit, take the humor as an opportunity to character build, which includes reintroducing audiences to the character by way of Peter's video diary that sees him recruited, travel overseas, and eventually battle amidst the action from Civil War. Homecoming, then, isn't an origins story. It assumes audience understanding of how Peter Parker became Spider-Man and doesn't bother with the spider bite, the gradual changes to his physiology, the slow harness of his newfound powers, that sort of thing. The Civil War montage simply establishes this film's place in the greater MCU. There's a brief discussion between Peter and his friend Ned about the Spider-Man origins, but such begins and ends there. And that's wise, not only wise because the character as-is has been previously established in another movie but because, frankly, as the third go-round for Spider-Man in well under two decades, there's no point in rehashing the same thing that audiences have seen before...Action scenes see Parker battling his enemy on large scales and through swaths of destruction. He fights to save innocent people in harm's way, using all his might and superpowers to hold up an elevator or keep a boat afloat. But that's true of practically all of the Superhero movies. There are only so many ways to skin the proverbial cat, in this case only so many ways to depict the character's physical strengths, unnatural abilities, mental state, and emotional connections to others. Things are going to get blown up, people are going to be in peril. There wouldn't be a movie like this otherwise, but to say that watching these same scenarios play out for the sixth time just in Spider-Man movies isn't getting a little long in the tooth would be to lie. That said, the movie does do it well, and there's enough interesting character and universe development along the way to keep the picture moving even when its action scenes largely stall out not because they're not exciting, but because they're repetitious."
Universal Studios Home Entertainment hosts the Blu-ray release of Girls Trip, which might be the sleeper hit of the summer. Want proof? It's October, and Girls Trip, which came out in July, is still playing at my local first-run theaters. To date, the film has grossed over $135 million worldwide (and on top of a tiny $19-million budget, to boot), and its success stands emblematic of two truths: 1) viewers crave energetic, raunchy farces, and 2) any studio executive who thinks that movies with predominantly black casts and crews won't make money clearly needs to have their heads examined. As important as it is for movies to be good, lots of good movies flop at the box-office (don't believe me? Blade Runner 2049 would like to have a word with you). What matters more is to land at exactly the right moment, and Girls Trip most certainly did, riding the crest of the R-rated-comedy wave at a time when viewers crave stories about more ethnically diverse characters. Viewed in that light, the film's impact suggests something cautiously optimistic about Hollywood, that studios can turn a profit without pandering to a four-quadrant audience. That said, I can't keep putting off the actual review, so here's where I wish I could write something different. As it stands, I'm so grateful that Girls Trip exists without actually liking it all that much. Girls Trip might style itself as a hangout film about four best friends (Jada Pinkett Smith, Regina Hall, Queen Latifah, and Tiffany Haddish) who embark on a debauched vacation in New Orleans, but make no bones about it: the film is a thinly remixed take on the Bridesmaids formula, and I wasn't the biggest Bridesmaids fan, either. Part of the problem here is that none of the leads act like they're in the same movie together. Smith is headlining her own light comedy about a single mom learning to loosen up while Hall is starring in a dramedy about a purpose-driven woman who learns the world has other plans for her. Meanwhile, Latifah has her own interpersonal drama as a struggling career woman, and Haddish is doing a Melissa McCarthy riff as the resident wild card with no filter and a bottomless appetite for vice. Everyone does a good enough job (and Haddish is legitimately hysterical - she deserves to be the biggest comedy star in the world), except the tones never sync up. That indecision sinks into Girls Trip's larger DNA as director Malcolm D. Lee tries to balance hard-R laughs alongside genuine sentiment. I blame Judd Apatow - just once, I'd like to see a comedy that only wanted to make me laugh as opposed to smuggling in some sincere life lesson. Again, though, I'm glad more viewers didn't have my reaction. We need more movies like Girls Trip, problems and all.
Martin Liebman was a far bigger fan of the picture, writing that Girls Trip "overcomes core point-to-point scene and shenanigan cliché with not just spunk and spirit but a perfectly cast ensemble that's completely committed to shaping the story, the characters, and entertaining the audience...[The film] tightropes a very fine line between agreeable and obnoxious. The movie veers towards the latter at almost every turn but wrangles its way solidly back to the former, even as it celebrates comic excess in practically every scene. Its secret isn't balance. The film is full-frontal insanity, indulging in a near endless string of gratuitous language, sex jokes, alcohol abuse, and general hard partying. None of that is new, none of that is particularly interesting. What makes it work is the cast's commitment to it, the total absorption into character and the antics that propel the experience throughout, from the mundane details of their lives on through to the chaos they experience and the eventual realities they face and the tough decisions they're forced to make. The film rounds the characters nicely, never leaving them as simply props to propel humor. For all of them, there's always a greater underlying component at play, some that are known off the bat, some that are revealed and dealt with as the film progresses. Girls Trip parties hard, but it works its characters hard, too, contextualizing their antics and their relationships and rounding them into real people, never content to simply make them comedy-propelling props."
Finally, we end on a TV release almost as exciting as American Gods: Warner and Adult Swim's Samurai Jack: The Complete Fifth Season set. Anyone already familiar with Genndy Tartakovsky's animated action extravaganza already knows the following: that it is one of the finest programs of its ilk (animation historians will one day speak of Samurai Jack in the same reverant tones as Looney Tunes or Fantasia), and that its fourth season finale, as it were, seemed a particularly cruel twist of fate. As Tartakovsky cast his title warrior into a dystopian future, Cartoon Network then pulled the plug on the series, leaving matters stranded on the cliffhanger to end all cliffhangers. The ending sorta works ironically (it reminds me of Ash's fate in the Army of Darkness director's cut), but it doesn't fit the tone of the show that preceded it, and try as he might, Tartakovsky couldn't generate enough interest in a follow-up (we were thisclose to a movie-length conclusion). Until now. Thirteen years later, Adult Swim bankrolled Tartakovsky to finish his vision, and the end result might be the single greatest stretch of Samurai Jack. It's certainly the most violent; while Tartakovsky never pushes things to Rick and Morty levels of brutality, he certainly takes advantage of Adult Swim's relaxed content standards which allow for bloodier violence and brief, stylized nudity. Yet the graphic content still fits the Samurai Jack universe. Tartakovsky has let the show darken organically. Jack's time in the future has hardened him, and that simmering rage becomes the core emotional journey: to what degree will Jack let anger and revenge steal his soul? Most cartoons don't even approach such questions, but Samurai Jack stares unblinkingly into the void. If you've never seen an episode, I guess you could start with Season Five, except you do yourself no favors - start from the very beginning and savor the journey.