Mr. Robot S4E03

TV

Forbidden

This week we got a rare look into Whiterose’s (known only as Zhi Zhang) past with a terrific cold opening.

In 1982, Whiterose and his secret lover–Chen–were working on behalf of the Chinese government, landing a huge partnership with IBM. On this trip in the US, the two were able to be together more openly, even if it was still behind closed doors. The Chinese government forbids homosexual relationships, so the men were using this partnership as a way to leave China. Zhi would parlay this success into a US Ambassadorship. With success in their grasp, Whiterose came out to her partner as a trans woman, showing her even bigger secret presumably for the first time. Chen didn’t hesitate to accept this revelation. It didn’t change his mind on anything, the love of his life was still there and they were planning a future together. But the plan didn’t work as expected. With such success, Whiterose was offered an even greater role in the Chinese government, meaning they wouldn’t be leaving the country. This news comes on the day of Chen’s arranged wedding day to another woman. Fraught with the realization that they’d never be leaving China, forced to keep themselves closeted and farther apart from each other. Whiterose tells him to be patient, that they’ll get away together and time, but Chen sees it as an admission of surrender. Unable to cope, Chen takes his life.

This devastated Whiterose in ways that still haunt her today. He uses Chen’s watch and inherited his obsession with time. His death–what Whiterose feels directly responsible for because of a choice she made–is most likely the cataylst for the plan that she’s been working on for more than 30 years.

When Whiterose is advised that Elliot and Page are probably in cahoots and they need to slow things down to keep an eye on them, she takes it as an admission of surrender. She demands that the shareholder meeting happen tomorrow (Christmas Day) to keep his adversaries from having the time to make something happen.

Elliot and Darlene are still under the gun, trying to figure out a way to get access to Whiterose’s financials when the shareholder meeting happens. They track down a contact of Susan Jacobs–Olivia Cortez–the only contact she had at the Cyprus Bank. Darlene is gung ho on helping Elliot with her and he won’t let her. He’s too afraid of putting her in danger and wants her to work on something else while he’s gone.

In typical Mr. Robot fashion, Elliot finds an in with Olivia. She’s divorced with a kid and she’ll lose custody if she gets caught using drugs again. With this leverage, Elliot is gung ho to simply blackmail Olivia into giving him her bank FOB so he can get the password into her work’s network. It’s impossible to get in without that FOB. Mr. Robot slows him down, saying he doesn’t need to go scorched Earth.

In one of the best character scenes in the show, Mr. Robot opens the door for Elliot to make a human connection. Something Elliot hasn’t done in a long time and is desperately needed because he’s extremely detached. Funny how the split personality, the one who isn’t actually a person, recognizes the value of not isolating yourself in order to truly fix things. Over the course of the night, Elliot discovers a kindred spirit and the keycode he needs.

Cue complications! On the way back from Olivia’s apartment, Elliot spots a Dark Army tail. He moseys back home in order to sell that he’s not up to anything only to find Tyrell Wellick in his apartment. The worst person to be caught with by the DA and he just starts running his mouth about stopping Whiterose.

While that is sending Elliot into a panic, the other side of the bear trap that he doesn’t know about is starting to shake loose. Vera is slinking around trying to figure out how to recruit Elliot to help rebuild his drug empire. He gets a whiff of Elliot’s problems with his ex-therapist, Krista Gordon. Just like how Elliot dug around Olivia to get leverage for what he wanted, Vera is doing the same to Elliot. It looks like the net of destruction around Elliot is about to get bigger.

Joker

Movies

Have you ever heard the saying “The feel good movie of the year”? Joker isn’t that movie. As one would expect, nothing good happens to the man we watch become the Joker.

Gotham City is a rough place to live in. Arthur Fleck is one of its citizens and every day is a challenge. Struggling to make ends meet while living and caring for his ill mother, Arthur doesn’t have too much to look forward to. He has to maintain his own psych meds along with his mother’s medication and scrape up enough money for rent and food. There are times when he forgoes food to ensure his mother has something to eat. He takes small jobs as a clown (store sales, hospital visits) with his ultimate dream to be a stand-up comedian. He also has a condition called Pseudobulbar Affect which causes him to laugh uncontrollably at inappropriate times. The highlight of his day is watching the Murray Franklin Show with his mom.

The movie wastes no time in starting Arthur’s descent into madness. He’s mugged and held financially responsible for the loss of the store’s sign. A co-worker gives him a gun for protection and the man soon lies about the gun to make Arthur look worse when he gets caught with it, leading to the loss of his job at the entertainer placement agency. Layer by layer, a man who for a long time has questioned his place and identity in the world gets more and more taken from him. This pollutes his mind and when cornered on the subway, he fights back with violence. At first spooked by the ordeal, he quickly comes to terms with it–with no remorse. On top of that, news of what he did hits the media and while no one knows it was him who killed those men, for the first time he feel useful. That he’s done something that people have noticed, he’s changed the world. Even though that change is bad, the feeling becomes intoxicating and he becomes more aggressive.

Joker isn’t the first movie to explore a person psychologically breaking, so it doesn’t really tread new ground in that regard. The main character being from comic books changes the expectations though. But let’s be clear, this isn’t a superhero movie. Despite the Joker not having a definitive origin (there are many stories over the decades) everyone knows what he is in the end: a monster. So where this movie goes is no surprise. With all of the violence reported in the world today, it makes a character like this all the more topical and scary.

And the movie does use the fear of mental illness as one of it’s biggest attention-grabbing features. “‘Crazy’ people are dangerous” is the lazy and untrue go-to idea everyone tends to lean on. I never got the feeling that it exploited this idea though as Arthur is a complex character. I was watching someone’s world fall away bit by bit and left with not knowing which way was up anymore. When someone needs help and they have no support, it compounds problems.

Arthur’s problems aren’t simple. Pseudobulbar Affect–caused by brain trauma or other brain degeneration conditions–is painful both physically and emotionally. He gasps for air, he chokes on his saliva, and it’s embarrassing because it’s loud and uncontrollable. It’s a social nightmare he’s had to deal with for as long as he can remember. Long before we meet him, Arthur has been struggling. Then he loses his social worker due to budget cuts, removing his access to his medication and one of the few people he’s able to talk to about his life. Couple that with physical violence and a massive revelation about his mother, Arthur loses any kind of grounding he ever had. I never got the impression that I was supposed to be sympathetic to what Arthur does.

I will say that Joker has a very narrow view of the world. The whole thing is from Arthur’s perspective and it never looks past what he sees. What happens around Arthur–due to his actions–the movie never explores. So any kind of social commentary is pretty vapid.

I see the arc of Arthur to be a bit like Erik Killmonger, the villain from Black Panther (for me the biggest highlight of that movie). Their backgrounds are completely different but the storytelling goal is the same, to give you plausible history and reasoning to make you understand why the antagonist wants to cause so much harm. You can understand what they are saying but recognize that it doesn’t justify what they are doing.

Nor do I think Joker glorifies violence as none of it is celebrated and there are no allusions to it being good or helpful.

I did find this to be one of the most suspenseful movies I’ve seen in awhile. Joaquin Phoenix is going to get a ton of acting award nominations for playing Arthur. I give him my highest praise as I completely forgot it was him on screen. He moves differently, he has all of these personal tics that become noticeable as you watch. The character truly changes from the beginning to the end. Arthur does his best to try to fit in, he’s constantly at war with himself. It’s like he’s so unsure of who he is, he looks to other people to mimic how they behave. He’s just guessing how to get by, like “Is this it? Is this ‘normal?'”

It’s a fraught journey through two acts and when Arthur puts on the full Joker outfit in act 3, it really blew my mind. I was literally seeing the comic book villain on screen, it’s him. And that’s really scary. You don’t want to be anywhere near this guy. Even the big bads like Two Face, Penguin, and Killer Croc are really nervous around him. What is he going to do was all I could think of. Joker is anarchy and there he was in the flesh for the second time (Heath Ledger being the first).

I really liked seeing the mixture of current social issues and comic book Joker. Here, since this is the beginning of the character, he has no grand plans. He’s not filling balloons with poison gas or putting bombs around a city. Here he sees the start of being able to influence and manipulate people. That’s always been a huge part of the character. And there are real world parallels that the movie uses here. The influence of media, the rampant economic inequality that’s spurning anger, and the growing phenomenon of the mob mentality. Everyone is chanting for justice and for Joker, that’s cold blooded revenge.

Joker pulls on a few more familiar source material motifs. From the amazing hospital scene with Joker talking to Harvey Dent in The Dark Knight:

You know… You know what I’ve noticed? Nobody panics when things go “according to plan.” Even if the plan is horrifying! If, tomorrow, I tell the press that, like, a gang banger will get shot, or a truckload of soldiers will be blown up, nobody panics, because it’s all “part of the plan”. But when I say that one little old mayor will die, well then everyone loses their minds!
[Joker hands Two-Face a gun and points it at himself]
Introduce a little anarchy. Upset the established order, and everything becomes chaos. I’m an agent of chaos. Oh, and you know the thing about chaos? It’s fair!

This is basically what happens with Arthur’s confrontation on the subway with the men who turn out to work at Wayne Enterprises. People get abused and killed on the streets of Gotham all the time and no one bats an eye. But if it’s a well off white-collar worker? Tragic, headline news. This is one of Arthur’s biggest grievances with society and leads him to another keystone of the Joker manifesto: everyone sucks, everyone is mean, everyone is cruel.

And in the end, I think that last bit is what we’re all fighting against and the biggest message of this movie. Good versus evil means we all have to work together to make the decisions that keep us on the right track. Cynicism isn’t a virtue, don’t let that make you jaded, bitter, and isolated. The forgotten are people too, empathy goes a long way (which I think there is a huge lack of now with all the budget cuts to many social programs that will do way more harm than good). Work for other people the same way you would work for yourself. When society pulls up together, we all benefit.

Mr. Robot S4E02

Movies

Payment Required

After last week’s crackling season preimere, I thought the train would keep barreling through but instead Sam Esmail turned the burners down to “keep ’em sizzlin'” which was a surprisingly good idea.

The show opens with Price giving the background of how Whiterose became so powerful, starting is opening in the late 80s when the Berlin Wall came down. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, it left an opportunity to fill in the power vacuum with an eager cabal of investors that Whiterose assembled. This group, called The Deus Group, is the conspiracy theorists Illumanity come to life. Deus runs the world behind the scenes but the rest of the investors were fooled into thinking they had any say in what the company did. Whiterose steered the ship from the start for the sole purpose of getting her Congo installation done. Price, having saved Elliot’s life from the OD, tells him there is nothing he can do, even pulling off the hack he wants to will barely dent TDG. Much like the late Angela, Elliot is too stubborn for that message. He convinces Price to try to get all the members together while he works on a way to hack the group when they are together. He just needs an appropriate entry point. Susan Jacobs, who worked for ECorp as a liaison for the Cypress Bank is the best bet, but she’s the one who had a bad run-in with Darlene…but no one knows that.

With some kind of plan in mind Elliot gets a call from Darlene. She got a call from the assisted living home informing them that their mother has died. To say the kids didn’t have a good relationship with their mother is one way to put it so neither are invested in having anything to do with her. Being last of kin, they are forced to handle their mother’s stuff.

This episode mostly serves as a reconciliation for Darlene and Elliot. They’ve been drifting different streams of misery for some time now, and those streams have come to merge. Elliot is so pre-occupied with tracking down Susan Jacobs, that he barely registers anything. Darlene gets pulled in as they start to clear her room. When Elliot finds his old Walkman in a drawer, it makes Darlene think and evaluate their past. They also stumble upon a bank receipt that says their mother had a safety deposit box, Darlene insists they go see what’s in it. Annoyed that his sister is putting any value to anything their mother had or has, he reluctantly goes with her. She needs some kind of closure, she can’t detach like Elliot. At an E Bank branch (ugh) there’s nothing to find.

This entire sequence was fascinating to watch. Fantastically written and acted, I liked how this experience brings the two siblings together. Back in Elliot’s orbit, she notices he’s much more fidgety than normal and manages to get him to talk about what he’s up to. That leads into her admitting–but not officially saying why–he won’t be able to find Jacobs. That’s a huge speedbump in the plan but this also puts Darlene back on the hacking team. Elliot won’t be doing this hail mary to stop Whiterose by himself. This conversation also drops a massive bomb on Elliot.

She mentions Fernando Vera, that he approached her outside Elliot’s apartment. Blindsided, he doesn’t recall her telling him that and she replies, you didn’t seem to care when I told you so I didn’t either…should I worry about him? Vera’s been gone a long time, the ordeal with him was horrific, so him sniffing around is bad news. Elliot doesn’t let on. He also doesn’t let on to his sheer panic that she didn’t tell him, Mr. Robot kept this info from him. When Darlene leaves, he confronts Mr. Robot about it and he swears up and down that he doesn’t know what Darlene is talking about. He hasn’t kept any secrets from Elliot. So that means, Elliot has a third personality…

This scene with Darlene shows off one of my favorite visual storytelling techniques Esmail uses. Here, right after she says Vera’s name, Elliot’s eyes flick away from her, off to the right. There, in the pews behind her, Mr. Robot sits. To Darlene, he’s just checked out, she doesn’t know where his mind went. She steps over, unknowingly blocking his view of Mr. Robot, into his line of sight, forcing him to focus on her. She knows how to reengage him when he retreats.

Earlier in this episode, when Elliot gets frustrated with Price, he tags out of the conversation. Mr. Robot has been shown to be sitting behind Elliot has he talks to Price, and he starts talking to Price instead. Last episode, a similar moment happens when Elliot gets frustrated with Darlene and he taps out, with Mr. Robot quickly taking over, taking care to talk to Darlene gently as she’s in a bad state of mind.

If you don’t watch the show, you’d think that it’s a three–person conversation, not two personalities of one person navigating challenging moments. It’s deftly done and a treat to watch with subtle set-ups and follow-throughs (Esmail is such a good director).

While Elliot is with his sister, Dom is doing as she told to keep the Dark Army happy. She’s being interviewed by a superior about her partner Santiago. As far as they know, he’s AWOL, only she knows he was murdered with an ax in front of her. Right when you think she’s going to tell them the truth, she goes with the lie, Santiago was working with a drug cartel. Janice calls her that night and Dom tells her that she’s 99.9% sure the agent believes the cover story. It turns out Janice is a real stickler for efficiency and has the agent killed. This woman really loves her job.

Finally, Price visits Whiterose (who is decorating a Christmas tree as Zhi Zhang) and pulls the only card he can to get the Deus Group members to gather quickly: he’s retiring. Whiterose is pissed–which Price rather likes–because this throws her timeline into chaos, she had no plans for this to happen. With about a week to go before the Congo delivery, everyone has their back pressed to the wall.

Mr. Robot S4E01

TV

Unauthorized

The final season primier wastes no time in setting the stakes and the level of danger that will spool out through the remaining episodes.

Starting right where we left off in season 3, a broken Angela talking to her father, Philip Price. Exploited and devestated by White Rose, Angela is angry and ignores her father’s pleas to leave things alone. Accept that she was used by a sociopath and move on with the rest of her life. Angela isn’t having it and dismisses her father, who when walking away removes a wire taped to his chest. He is passed by two Dark Army members who quickly assassinate his daughter. Price, now distraught, is quickly called by White Rose who does her awful best to smooth things over. Price didn’t everything he could to help Angela, she just wouldn’t listen. Now focus on the business at hand–migrating those ECorp servers to the Congo as fast as possible. White Rose’s endgame is now scheduled for the end of the year.

Elliot and Mr. Robot are doing everything he (they) can to stop the move to the Congo. He’s been tracking the Dark Army’s moves for months and has found a target for him to exploit, a lawyer that White Rose uses to launder money. Elliot does is old blackmail routine with limited results as his smooth talking isn’t as convincing as it used to be. The lawyer ends up dead and Elliot walks into a trap.

Meanwhile, Elliot’s sister Darlene is self–medicating over Angela’s disappearance. Darlene lost so much last year that she’s having a problem hanging on to reality. She thinks she saw Angela come out of a homeless shelter and begs Elliot to help track her down. Elliot says to stop that Angela is dead and Darlene doesn’t believe him. He hasn’t shown her the picture that White Rose sent him. Darlene is handling this so badly as it is, he’s afraid of showing her the explicit proof.

Dom is living with her mother and is also a pile of nerves. She’s so paranoid she pulls a gun on the guy remodeling her mother’s bedroom. Her mother tells her to get herself presentable as they are having a guest over for dinner. A woman comes over and the dinner gets rather uncomfortable as it’s clear Dom’s mother is trying to set her up for a date. You can’t blame her as Dom is in some serious need for human contact. Of course she doesn’t know what Dom has gone through, watching her partner get murdered, pulling her into the service of the Dark Army. Her heart is in the right place. But it turns out this woman works for the Dark Army. Dom has no reason to be paranoid…her head is in a vice and the handle is being spun to close it.

This episode had every element I love about this show. Drama and suspense out of the wazoo, awesome spy and hacking stuff, and a clear aim at what this season is about. I think every episode is going to be all killer and no filler. Sam Esmail is a fantastic writer and his direction remains top of the line. His eye for framing scenes is amazing. Even with the long break between seasons, Mr. Robot hasn’t missed a beat.

Fall is in full effect

Life, Netflix Original, NY Rangers, TV

Summer held on for as long as it could, giving one last heat blast on October 2nd. Now the chill has officially moved in! So that means hockey weather is here.

And so is the NHL season! The New York Rangers beat the Winnipeg Jets 6-4 in the home opener last night. It was a hair raising game with too many Ranger penalties (looking at you Strome). Defense was super dicey at times, rookies Fox and Hajak looking rather cross eyed at times. That meant Lundqvist had to put on his crown to keep them in the game, saving 43 of 47 shots. One of those was a soft goal, but he was stunting most of the night. All in all, promising, if sloppy. Winnipeg was all over Panarin and he was still able to make moves, which also let my boy Zibanejad run around. Both Panarin and Trouba scored so dropping all that money on them seems like a good idea so far! Oh! And Staal was the first to score! Staal! So it’s a promising start, they just need to get comfortable as a team.

The fall season also means a whole lot of entertainment is flying straight at our eyeballs. A lot of returning shows of course and a couple of new ones.

I tried watching the new season of American Horror Story and it bored me to death, so I’m out on that one. The Deuce is on it’s final few episodes, The Righteous Gemstones is amazing. Ink Master wrapped another good season

Netflix is killing it, I have more on there than I know what to do with. The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance was fantastic. Derry Girls season 2 was terrific. Disenchantment and Big Mouth are back. I have a few stand up specials to watch, the last season of Orange is the New Black is on the backburner still, some horror movies I’ve had in wait I’ll get to this month. The Great British Baking Show! Between Two Ferns movie, The Spy, Mindhunter. El Camino!!!

On Amazon, I watched all of Undone in less than a week, liked it a lot and I’ve heard so much about Fleabag I need to figure out when to watch that. I’m probably going to stick to one series, finish the season, watch a movie, go to another series, and go like that until I run out of shows. Like I’ll run out of shows. Mr. Robot final season starts this Sunday! I think the Walking Dead is this weekend too and I have no idea why I still watch that.

And here’s a real big on out of no where: pro wrestling! All Elite Wrestling made it’s TV debut. I haven’t watched wrestling in I think 15 years so this was a trip. It was a lot of fun to watch and since I recorded it I can jump through the shoots (the story bits wrestlers do to set up fueds and such) that I have no patience for anymore. The talent they have is really fantastic. I’m happy to see anyone rise up to stick their thumb in Vince McMahon’s eye after all these years. Force his organization to be less garbage with competition.

Korn- The Nothing

Korn

The follow up to 2016s The Serenity of Suffering, The Nothing continues Korn’s upward trajectory. Once again shepherded by producer Nick Raskulinecz, this album sees the band rally behind singer Jonathan Davis during a massive time of loss to create one of their most powerful albums.

Dark and intense, The Nothing is a concept album about death. More specifically, it’s the journey through grief. It’s been a long time since Korn has taken this extensive path to tell a story and with Raskulinecz help and focus they are able to lift up from their past, continue experimentation, and deliver a sound that no one else can.

First and foremost, the production on The Nothing is breathtaking. The percussion from Fieldy on bass and Ray on drums anchors every track. Fieldy is dialed in to be so clicky and bold that you can practically see his strings vibrate as you listen. Ray’s kit is powerful and clear; the snares snap with every strike, the toms rebound in bliss, and the cymbals ring out to the heavens. Head and Munky bring some of their most memorable and heavy riffs along for the ride, the chugs, wails, and distortions painting the soundscape for Jonathan Davis to run with. And that leaves us with the vocal performance of Davis’ career.

JD’s work on this album was forged by the loss of his mother and wife. While he’s never been one to shy away from singing about his demons and desires, The Nothing is especially personal and cathartic. Right from his first words you can tell great care was taken in crafting these songs. His entire range is on display here and he delivers some of the most powerful growls and metal screams of his career. It’s amazing he can do what he does on this album 25 years into his career.

Nick Raskulinecsz understands this band. As far as I’m concerned, he should be made the sixth member. Just like with The Serenity of Suffering he extracts the best elements from each player. You can hear the spirit of Life is Peachy, Issues, Untouchables, and Take A Look In The Mirror weaved into almost every song. I was especially thrilled to hear the funk of Peachy return as there is simply not enough funk in the world. It’s one of the biggest elements that got me into the band and it’s one of their most unique traits that’s often missing. Fieldy and Ray make this album crackle with a kinetic energy that is so infectious it’s nearly impossible for me to sit still. The darkness and depth from Issues and Untouchables glue together The Nothing along with the aggression of Mirror and the experimentation of JD’s solo work, Black Labyrinth, adding new textures.

Starting with “The End Begins” you are forced to attention with the return of the bagpipes. An introduction to The Nothing that invokes the turmoil of attending a funeral. Sobering to listen to with a step stone bassline and drum beat with Davis leading the procession to the sobs of mourning. A mesmerizing mix of “Daddy” and “Dead.”

Korn then slams you into “Cold” a pulse-pounding metal injection that sets the tone for the kind of energy you can expect to be whipped through on this album.

On my first listen, a number of these tracks gave me goosebumps. “The Darkness is Revealing” should be the final single, it’s the perfect example of Korn’s success with this album. Terrific energy, gorgeous dreamy guitars, a fantastic chorus, dynamic vocals, a fantastic danceable beat (some Follow the Leader vibes), and it’s one of the most approachable songs on The Nothing.

“Idiosyncrasy” has one of the best openings they’ve ever done and a real stand out song for Head and Munky’s work. And that’s a running theme of this album, their riffs are so catchy and cool from start to finish. There’s a lot of fun elements to check out on every song, the grooves they get into are rich and mesmerizing. Even though the lyrics can get intense, they don’t overwhelm the album and make it miserable or too dour. There’s a special tone to the music that makes it breathe. The structure of songs keeps it all flowing. the tempo and pacing of songs change frequently, which I love. Tracks like “The Ringmaster” are pure weirdo Korn with its curve ball into the off-kilter bridge as is “This Loss” which has a bridge that’s damn near a waltz! Freddy Mercury would be proud.

Speaking of “The Ringmaster” it’s the perfect song to talk about the care in mixing this album. The first verse goes:

Hey, you/ Yes, I’m talking to you /And what are you doing here?/ And why you look so sad, man?/ Brother, please come here/ Let’s talk and let it out/ Dear, you have nothing to fear/ Child, I’m the one that makes it, oh, so, so much better

JD’s vocals are doubled with two different styles singing the same lyrics, but their intent is different. It gives me the visual of a two-headed carnival barker standing in front of me, holding open the curtain to the main event tent, trying his best to sell me a ticket. Then, JD harmonizes with two different vocal deliveries for the sweeping chorus.

This kind of creativity, along with the juicy percussion and non-stop riffage make this one of the most dynamic songs Korn has ever done. Nearly every song has a memorable beginning and thunderous end.

We also have tracks like “Finally Free” and “This Loss” that offer the more somber and introspective side of JD’s lyrics. The passion and purpose of these songs are undeniable and touching. “Finally Free” is also another highlight of his vocal delivery, with spirited singing tagged with death metal growls. There is an epic howl at 2:45 that stretches out his entire breath, the music stops, and a digital gasp effect hits as if the whole band is breathing in together and then the music returns for the chorus. And while these songs are sad, they are also oddly comforting. “Can You Hear Me” is also another important song as it’s the calmest one on The Nothing and as track 8 of 13, offers a nice reprieve from the chaos. A better and more interesting “Never Never” style song, it’s grown on me over time and it contains one of my favorite choruses.

As a concept album, the order of the songs is deliberate and important. Listening straight through is a different experience from skipping around. “The End Begins” and “Surrender To Failure” bookend the path of mourning. “The End Begins” is where JD is openly grieving his wife’s death. Close to the halfway mark is “The Seduction of Indulgence” an interlude that sounds like something from a seance where he’s putting down all of his defenses, allowing the emotions to consume him. This marks the point of more introspection. In “Surender To Failure” we come to the moment where he’s exhausted from trying to think of what more he could have done. There’s nothing else he can do, “Looking for answers I’ll never find.” He has no choice but to accept what has happened.

Now, will all of this sway people who don’t like the band? I don’t think so as many of the pluses I’ve listed are what the detractors of Korn hate. They don’t like Fieldy’s loose sound, consider JD’s lyrics juvenile and uncomfortable, his rhymes simple, the guitars not technical enough.

This is 100% a Korn album and the band doesn’t try to be anyone different. I love that. They’re bringing me all the elements I want. The three shorter tracks are also very different from their norm with the music arrangement skewing towards JD’s solo material, as first hinted at way back on See You On The Other Side with “Tearjerker.” I will say that I don’t think anyone can deny the performance Davis has done on this album. His emotion is real, the crying at the end of “The End Begins” isn’t from an angsty adult. It’s the natural response of a person going through something we are all terrified of. If you’ve gone through the death of a loved one, you know exactly what he’s experiencing. And if you haven’t, you will. While some will roll their eyes to “God is making fun of me, he’s laughing up there I can see” from the bridge of “Idiosyncrasy” it’s delivered with such legit anger and frustration backed by absolutely crushing music that it’s one of my favorite parts.

I hope they play as many of these songs live as possible on future tours. The build-ups, breakdowns, and ferocious drops are what their fans love and will send the pits flying. The Nothing isn’t just Korn’s 13th album, it’s another seminal work in their discography. More than that, it’s another rung of the ladder that the band has built for their fans to grab onto and hoist themselves up with.

The 2019-2020 NHL Season is here!

NY Rangers

OK, pre-season. But it kinda counts!

It’s too early to anything substantial but it’s very good feeling to have hockey back on. Plus, it was a fantastic off season so that’s exciting. The Rangers have without a doubt a better team now, it’s just a matter of coach Quinn finding the lines and that team chemistry forming. A big question is how goal tending is going to be and that’s a make it or break it issue for getting to the playoffs. Time will tell.

After this first game, the team looks fast and the power play lines are without a doubt better. Just seeing one game, it boosts the confidence level of the offensive line but the defensive line has been a problem for years. That half is still unclear.

The other takeaway is that the Devils are also way better than last year. The rival games are going to be nuts. The Metro division just got even better.

The Darkest Winter Update 21

The Darkest Winter

Yesterday, I did another book appearance. This one was at an apartment complex in Caldwell, just down the road from the library I did a few months ago. Thanks to Frances at the Caldwell library, I got this one set up (networking!).

And it was another success! It was expecting at most 12 people at the Marian Manor and it turned out to be closer to 30! I did my intro as I normally do but added what the book was about as there were people in attendance who weren’t part of their book club so they didn’t read The Darkest Winter. From there went into the genesis of the story and how I wrote it and the goals I wanted to accomplish in the story. Then I opened it up to questions.

I received a ton of great questions! Many of them made me think much further than just surface-level “how did you come up with X” responses. I’ve found that a lot of people are very interested in the writing process: how a story comes together, if my characters surprised me, what parts of writing I do and don’t like, my process, other authors I turn to for inspiration.

I still tend to ramble on with my answers. I simple question can lead me to many anecdotes and I actually found myself forgetting what the question was and then asking, “Did I answer your question?” That’s much better than a yes or no answer, I think. Plus I’m keeping much better eye contact with the audience so I can see when I’m losing people. I consciously caught myself going on too long so I don’t think I went too overboard. I’d say I kept half the answers short and sweet, so that’s good. That gives me some wiggle room.

I’m definitely able to read my audiences better. I kept it entertaining, I walked around, was animated in my answers, and kept their attention for an hour. That time went really fast and that’s in large part because they were so good. I got a few laughs in too which is an amazing feeling. Turns out I’m great with crowd work! I wonder if watching all that stand-up comedy over the years has rubbed off on me.

Many came up to me to ask more questions, a lot of thanks for coming, a ton of compliments on not only the book but my presentation. One woman even told me that she stayed up past midnight multiple times to keep reading! That’s probably the best compliment an author can get. That and when is the next one coming out, which I was also asked!

I like doing these a lot, they’re so much fun. I’ve also noticed that going into these, I am not nervous at all. Speaking in front of my writers’ group for all these years had upped my public speaking game so well. I also attribute it to knowing the material backward and forwards, inside and out, that I can easily answer anything.

The Darkest Winter has been out for a year now. With that, this will be the final update. The whole experience has been cataloged here and it’s been enlightening, to say the least. The next project is stewing in the pot and I hope you’ll join me on that journey as well.

Movies, get yer movies here! (The sequel)

Movies

Escape Plan- If you take out the hyper violence and gore out of Saw, you get this movie. What’s left is a surprisingly fun watch. You see the trailer and it’s impossible not to make the comparison. Instead of being kidnapped, the group of people here are brought together under the guise of being invited to win money by figuring out the world’s most difficult escape room. Then in typical murder mystery fashion they start making connections that they weren’t randomly chosen for this and the world building of who is doing this and why comes together at the end to set up a sequel or two. Making a PG-13 Saw movie is a pretty safe bet when it comes down to getting funding for a Hollywood movie. Even if it is far from original, it’s well made and it got the budget needed to do the script justice. The cast is good, the direction is solid, and the production design is really impressive. The entire movie takes place almost entirely in just a few “puzzle” rooms and they are all hyper detailed, unique, and are really the stars of the show. I’d say this is a good movie to watch on a rainy day and you just want to take it easy.

Jungle- I watched this because Daniel Radcliffe is in it and he’s great in basically everything. Based on the true survivor story of Jossi Ghinsberg, Radcliffe plays Jossi, a young man traveling the world as he figures out what he wants to do in life. When the movie starts he’s been on the road for months, been in many places around the world and makes a new friend named Kevin in Bolivia. The two run into Marcus, whom Kevin knows from his own journey around the world. Together they meet Karl, who says he can bring them to a remote Indian village in the jungle that basically no one in the outside world has seen and Jossi is all about going. He doesn’t want to do touristy stuff and this is the perfect chance to go on a real adventure. The others soon agree and a few days into the trip, it’s clear they’ve made a mistake following Karl. Jossi gets put through the ringer and you are with him every step of the way. Well made survival movie as great care was done to make each brutal step feel like it’s own unique challenge instead of one long montage of misery.

Glass- I loved Unbreakable when it came out and M. Night Shyamalan turning that one off into the start of a trilogy all these many years later has been a lot of fun to watch. Split was a wild romp with the great James McAvoy as the twists and turns of his character with 24 personalities unraveled on screen. I think the ideas in Glass bring it all to a really creative and enjoyable head with McAvoy returning as the monster, Samuel L. Jackson as the manipulator, and Bruce Willis as the super hero. With so many comic book movies coming out, it’s a real treat watching one that paints outside the lines. Shymalan is a big fan of comics and he gets to do his own thing while paying a lot of homage to the industry here. It’s light on action but no worse off for it. The character work is great and I really liked the reveal at the end. I’d recommend watching the first two movies if you haven’t to get the full enjoyment out of this one.

Captain Marvel- This is what you’d call a cookie cutter Marvel movie. No surprises in this comic book movie. It’s not that it’s bad, just kinda…there. It certainly looks good, the special effects doing their part to make the fantasy elements look real. But acting-wise, it falls short. Samuel L. Jackson is his charming self, happily glowing and sashaying through all his scenes. Brie Larson as the title character more or less sleepwalks her way through this. Most of the time it doesn’t seem like she’s having fun on set. She’s monotone through the whole movie until the last act where Carol Danvers shows some kind of personality. Everyone else felt pretty forgettable to me too. In the Marvel library, I think this is going to be a one and done for me (along with Black Panther and the first 2 Thor movies).

Movies here, get yer movies here!

Movies

The end of the summer months means the TV schedule is pretty light so that gave me room to catch a few movies. Netflix keeps rolling out the hits and the fall TV season is starting soon so that means movies will be put on the back burner. Let’s get to it.

If Beale Street Could Talk- A beautiful but heartbreaking film. It’s the early 1970s New York City and 19 year old Tish and her 22 year old boyfriend, Fonny, are madly in love. One day Fonny is wrongly accused of a terrible crime and detained. While waiting for trial Tish tries everything to get him free while preparing for their first child to be born. Exceptional acting and cinematography bring this love story to poetic life but there are some strange decisions in the presentation. This half love story and half political/social justice strife tale is stitched together with stage production and voice over narration. Whenever the switch happened it took me right out of the movie and I lost interest. It feels like the movie abruptly changes genres (mediums, really) with melodramatic lighting and character exposition. Oddly awkward moments that mar an otherwise great movie.

Alita: Battle Angel– This turned out to be way more fun than I thought it was going to. Based on decades old manga series, director Robert Rodriquez helms this action fiesta. Alita is a cyborg that was found in a dump and revived by Dr. Dyso Ido. With her memory wiped, she comes to learn who she was and who she is as she gets tangled up with cyborg assassins and the mega corporation that runs Iron City. They used the Avatar motion capture technology to make this movie and as a result the visuals are amazing. Some of the best CGI around makes for some fantastic anime-action come to life. Alita is a lot of fun to follow around, there’s some neat world building that sets the stage for a lot more that I hope we’ll someday get to see. As far as action movies go, this is one of the best in a many years. Plus it’s a brand new world for Hollywood to explore so that makes it stand out more. Nothing else looks like this.

Creed II- I loved the first movie and this absolutely a worthy sequel. Adonis Creed is the heavyweight champion and as such he must defend his belt. From the other side of the planet comes his biggest threat–Viktor Drago–the son of Ivan Drago. While Rocky’s career went skyward after their astonishing fight in the 80s, Ivan went home a failure and his boxing career basically ended on the spot. Now, Ivan has been training his son to go win the success he never did by taking on the son of the man he killed in the ring 30 years ago. The challenge comes to Adonis as a sense of pride and revenge, how can he turn down a fight with this kind of legacy on the line? When Rocky steps away, wanting nothing to do with petty revenge, possibly repeating history that’s haunted him all this time, Adonis looks elsewhere for a new cornerman. A great movie on many levels, Dolph Lundren returns as Ivan and the guy they found to play Viktor, Florian Munteanu, is a hulk of a human being. He and Michael B. Jordan standing toe to toe perfectly mirrors the 1985 American movie classic, Rocky IV. While you can predict almost everything as it comes, it doesn’t keep this movie from being a great experience. I can’t see any Rocky fan not liking this picture.

Baskets <> Legion

TV

Baskets and Legion ended their runs this month and while the above posters make the shows look completely different, they actually have a lot in common.

Both are about men who are lost, a childhood irreparably damaged followed by adulthood fraught with failure and further trauma. Any effort to change things for the better never seems to pan out.

Baskets is the more grounded (and funny) of the two with Legion based on some of Marvel’s X-Men characters. Legion is able to go much farther into the surreal and is much more of a head trip.

That said, Baskets takes place in Bakersfield. California which offers its own levels of wild characters.

Through four seasons, Chip Baskets struggles for success. He fails out of a prestigious French clown school and his marriage disintegrates too. Clowning is his life’s passion and that profession is hard to get respect in even the best of circumstances. Being a starving artist is rough and when everyone thinks you’re a joke, having a healthy amount of self-esteem is even harder. Plus his love life is a failure too, so Chip has to crash back at home where his mother does her best to keep him going. In a constant battle with his twin brother Dale, Chip is always fighting for air. While Dale has seemingly done better at life that Chip, he has his own mountain of problems to overcome.

Always in the backseat of the decision making, season 3 saw Chip get real responsibility as the CEO of The Baskets Family Circus. He’s able to dabble in clowning as well as run the show. For a guy that’s struggled to grow up, it’s the most responsibility and control he’s ever had. He jumps at the chance to be seen as an adult to everyone around him. Season 4 sees that opportunity get difficult and he seeks council elsewhere with a life coach he finds (hijacks) from his friend from Martha.

All in all, Chip just wants to be independent. The ability to control his own life can come from that and he desperately wants it. So this guy who lost his father at a young age, always in the shadow of his mother and brothers, keeps fighting for it. For years he’s kicked as hard as he can to keep his head above water and in this last season, it all comes to a head. When he tries to save the rodeo and his mother takes control away from him, he breaks. It’s a testament to who he is that the people around him come to save him, they don’t let him drift away. There’s no clean ending to Baskets but we do get to see that Chip gets back up and continues to get his own pride, independence, and chance to be happy.

In Legion David also struggles for identity. His father abandons him as an infant, his mother dies when he’s very young and his sister does her best to raise him. Soon he’s diagnosed as a schizophrenic and institutionalized. He’s told that he’s crazy–that the things he’s seeing and the fantastic things he can do aren’t real–turns out that he’s anything but. As David discovers, he was inhabited by a powerful evil force when he was an infant and he’s a mutant himself. The son of Charles Xavier, one of the most powerful mutants, David has unfathomable powers.

Like Chip Baskets, David was drawn a bad hand from the start and his life is a struggle because of it. Resentful of his father abandoning him–left to deal with these terrifying powers and a legit monster inside of him on his own–for a long time David doesn’t know which way is up. He ends up killing a lot of people and harming the ones who at one point fought at his side.

The comic book origins of Legion offered the writers a lot of outside the box storytelling possibilities. This show frequently goes off into the deep end to show if it’s concepts and ideas. The production is unbelievable with it’s editing, set design, direction, and cinematography. There’s no other show on now that looks or tries to do the stuff that Legion does. The budget keeps the action scenes from being huge, but what they do is really effective (something The Walking Dead needs to learn from). It can get confusing to watch, there’s a lot of heady concepts being thrown around in untraditional ways (looking at you season 2). Now that the series is complete, I think being able to watch it all without having to wait will be a big help in understanding the story.

David’s story is one of redemption. He has terrible visions from a powerful being that makes him dangerous to others. He desperately wants to fix what’s wrong with him and on that journey, he finds out a lot of painful things about his past (things that he had no control over). His father let all this happen to him and his family and that makes the anger in him grow even more. Once excised of the demon, it doesn’t change his mentality. He starts a cult where he brainwashes everyone into loving him and it does nothing to help him. It’s all phony and he knows it. By using his powers to try and fix things, it’s made him just as dangerous as before, but now he can aim his powers where he wants them. A threat to mankind, his old friends come after him to shut him down. When all his plans to make his life better fail, David becomes obsessed with changing the past.

And that’s where David’s redemption comes in. In this last season, he finds Switch, a mutant with time travel powers. The end becomes a race between life, death, and morality.

Both of these shows are about a broken person and their relationships. They take very different paths in exploring their concepts but they both do extraordinary things with their character studies.

Widows

Movies

When the people around you are involved in crime, it seats you next to them in the life raft, whether you know what they are doing or not. Being an accomplice or guilty by association can have the same amount of blowback, just from different sides of the law. In Widows, four women are left with the debt their dead husbands left behind after a heist goes wrong. They are forced to fight for the future when the most dangerous people in Chicago come to get their money back.

Heist movies are a lot of fun and when they are done right, it’s some of the best storytelling around. Widows is one of those movies. It’s a smart and believable film with a cast of three-dimensional characters led by the powerhouse, Viola Davis (Veronica).

Veronica, Linda, Alice, and Amanda don’t know each other, but their husbands do. The trouble comes to these women when the men are all killed stealing $2 million from Jamal Manning, a man with deep ties to the criminal underground and growing ties to the political world of the city. With the men dead, it opens a new dangerous void. Linda’s business is taken from her, Amanda is left as a single mother, and Alice is left adrift having been dependent on her husband’s cash flow. When Jamal comes to Veronica, threating her for the money–which was destroyed in the heist–Veronica is forced to take charge and put a plan into motion. Her husband, Harry, was the leader of the group[ and planned all of their work. He kept detailed notes and she finds them, detailing a $5 million payday. She contacts the other women and the layers of the story build and unfold from there.

The pacing of Widows is remarkably done. Not just in terms of plot points and progression, but with character traits. Each scene seeds what happens next, small character details and actions that don’t seem to be important come back to make a big difference. I also like that the women are all normal, there are no superheroes or highly trained professionals fixing things. They come from different backgrounds and are at very different points of life. The thrills come from watching these characters work their own angles, using their own talents to make the heist happen. No one stands still in the story, they are all important. When problems come up, when ideas don’t work, it ratchets up the fun and excitement perfectly. The crisis level never gets outlandish.

It’s a very believable move too, enough is done to make everything plausible. A lot of world-building is done in a short amount of time and it all feels natural. This great script comes to life with the fantastic direction of Steve McQueen. The camera placements and movements are carefully and artfully done. All the detail of the story isn’t told in dialog, it’s subtly expressed with the scenery. My favorite shot is the one after the press conference in the projects with Jack Mulligan. He does all of his talking points about his small business initiative and then flees in a town car after a reporter pressures him on some of his scandals. The camera is placed on the hood of the car, pointed to the left, towards the windshield so we can see everyone standing in this dilapidated block as Jack gets in. The car drives away from the projects and the characters talk in the backseat in one complete take. We never see them talk, just voice over. As a powerful man whines about his political world, the environment changes. In about two minutes, the borders of a few tax brackets are crossed. The camera has panned to the right, the car stops in front of a big beautiful home, Jack stops ranting, and he exits the car.

I wish I had seen Widows sooner, I completely missed it when it came out. Easily one of the best movies of 2018.