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Mike talks with Dave and Darren about M3GAN, the witty, homicidal robot girl-doll that’s won a nation’s hearts (and screens) and A Man Called Otto (not about a robot, but featuring Tom Hanks as a mean human who eventually becomes a little less mean — a “PC jerk,” as Mike calls him). A nice, light week — but the coming of Plane and the House Party reboot may change all that. . .
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Cartoon: Teacher Leave Those Kids Alone, Ed Newman
Link: Noble Lies Are No Excuse for Ignoble Acts — Kathleen McCarthy marks the second anniversary of the January 6 debacle in Washington DC as an occasion in which Congressional committees have once again drawn and disseminated the wrong conclusions; observes the farcical House District 81 ballot-recount in Scott County; suggests the hand-counting of ballots may be worth the carpal-tunnel strain (if only to remove the suspicion of machine irregularities affecting electoral outcomes); and decries the ongoing degradation of the democratic dogmas — state and federal, personal and political — as a resistable phenomenon rather than the inevitable outcome of the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
Link: Petitioning for Redress of the Bamboozle — Todd McGreevy notes that January 6, 2021, was an historic moment, insofar as mass movements to petition the federal government for a redress of grievances have rarely been pitched in such numbers, and the one-tenth of the one-percent of potential bad actors on the scene that day shouldn’t have been the lede-line. (FYI: Did you know that, of the rights granted us in the Bill of Rights, the right to petition for a redress of grievances has never been adjudicated before the high courts?)
Link: Whiteside County Sheriff John F Booker’s Office Dispatch, January 11 — Sheriff Booker declares that he’s chosen to follow the Constitution rather than his state government’s recently-passed Protect Illinois Communities Act, which contravenes our Second-Amendment rights, and will therefore refuse to enforce PICA.
Link: 2022 Year in Music: The Year’s Top Albums from Local DJs and Musicians — The QCA’s DJs, musicians, and critics offer their lists of the best albums 2022 had to offer listeners.
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Mike (Shulz) talks with Dave and Darren about Avatar: The Way of Water (enjoyable, even if Edie Falco was unaware that it hadn’t already been released, and bombed), Babylon (“absolutely the mess you think it is,” “thoroughly obnoxious,” “couldn’t stand it”), The Whale (“I would have flipped off the movie if I could have”), Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody (“It works, kind of, because it’s non-stop Whitney songs,” “a Wikipedia page,” “a PG-13 version of Whitney’s life, which feels wrong to me”), Puss in Boots: The Last Wish (“The script is great, and it’s filled with incredible jokes,” which the trailer somehow managed to avoid sharing audiences), and Roald Dahl’s Matilda the Musical (“It was decent, it was okay, and it has Emma Thompson as the bad guy.” Need one say more?).
“Avatar: The Way of Water,” “Babylon,” “The Whale,” “Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody,” “Puss in Boots: The Last Wish,” and “Roald Dahl’s Matilda the Musical”
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Mike Schulz talks with Dave and Darren jaw about the dubious-sounding merits of Chantal Akerman’s celebrated 1975 Jeanne Dielman, 23, Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles, and The Fireplace, an Adult Swim Yule Log that’s reminiscent of “Too Many Cooks” — in a good way — before segueing into the dramedy Spoiler Alert, based on an end-of-life memoir where the focal character is “aggressively irritating” — but the film’s “pleasant, at best” nonetheless; Emancipation, Will Smith’s “attempt to reclaim the Oscar’s glory,” but which probably won’t happen, despite his portrayal of Whipped Peter, a real-life slave who gets his own back; and Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio, whose stop-motion-animated charms are lost on Mike, in spite of (or because of) the critical adoration it’s received. . .
“Spoiler Alert,” “Emancipation,” and “Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio”
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Mike, Dave, and Darren suss out the forthcoming Avatar sequel, which needs to make approx $2 billion in order to break even, before getting down to Violent Night (David Harbour as a pissed-off Santa and a “transcendent” scene that acts as a hilarious corrective to the Home Alone house-defense sequence); RRR (an Indian action musical that’s “really over-the-top and well-staged,” with musical numbers that are “insanely good, insanely well-choreographed and fast and fun”); Sr (a Netflix documentary about Robert Downey Jr getting to know Robert Downey Sr, who died in 2021); Stutz (doc about Jonah Hill’s therapy with Dr Phil Stutz — better than it sounds); Causeway (an Aghan War vet played by Jennifer Lawrence which ”could have been better”); and All Quiet on the Western Front (an adaptation of Erich Maria Remarque’s 1929 novel about a German soldier’s experience in the First World War — “talk about ‘Violent Night’!” — that may well be an Oscar-winner when that hallowed event finally rolls around).
“Violent Night,” “RRR,” “Sr,” “Stutz,” “Causeway,” and “All Quiet on the Western Front”
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Mike gives lightning hot takes to Dave and Darren on the myriad of film he managed to watch since the previous week. Just look at that list.
“Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery,” “Devotion,” “Bones & All,” “Good Night Oppy,” “Strange World,” “The Menu,” “She Said,” “The Wonder,” and “Spirited”
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Mike discusses with Dave, and Darren how real-world events (read: Chadwick Boseman’s death) have made “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” “a bit of a bummer,” especially when paired with “dumb jokes” that don’t land — are you sick of Marvel movies yet? Well, then, “Aftersun,” set in the present, reflects upon a character’s “beautiful, sad” family history, and it does grief considerably better than “Black Panther”’s director Ryan Coogler; and “The Good Nurse,” a drama concerning Jessica Chastain’s efforts to neutralize Eddie Redmayne, a suspected serial killer. While Chastain shines, Redmayne’s general dislikeability prevents audience-interaction with his character beyond sheer irritation. And who wants to go to the movies to be irritated?
“Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,” “Aftersun,” and “The Good Nurse”
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Julian Assange Rots in Prison Because He Spotlighted the Manipulative Bitch
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Mike discusses with Dave, and Darren how The Banshees of Inisherin could have been darker, considering the subject is loneliness in late middle-age and digit-removal in early-1920s Ireland, but is fine with its likability; how Armageddon Time is a little bit “afterschool-special-ly” for a film with a title like Armageddon Time, but, since it’s set in mid-Eighties Manhattan grade school, he “quite liked it” anyway; and how Decision to Leave, “a Korean take on Vertigo,” is playful, scary, and funny, with an “innocent-ish” ingénue — like a Hitchcock film (whether Korean or not left unspoken).
“The Banshees of Inisherin,” “Armageddon Time,” and “Decision to Leave”