5 More Film Books You Need to Read: Portable Film Schools

I'm glad I didn't go to film school. There's a good chance I'd be seated next to someone who won't stop going on about how Taxi Driver is their favorite film and the person in front who worships at the altar of Jean Luc Godard. I can just see the whole experience as exhausting. There's a story that PT Anderson shared where his first instructor at NYU said "If anyone wants to make Terminator 2, get out." Anderson thought "What if I want to make Terminator 2?". I often use this example when I find myself thinking "What if?" 

I posted a while back about a handful books I use for reference and discovering new genre flicks. Here are 5 books I turn to that are a hell of a lot less expensive than enrolling in a class. 

1. The Mind: Hitchcock/Truffaut

My fascination with this director goes all the way back to when I was ten. I was at a Hitchcock themed exhibit at Universal Studios in Orlando, Florida. It was called The History of Alfred Hitchcock: The Art of Making Movies.

I wasn't really aware of 'the body of work' from a director. I knew of Spielberg, Dante and Zemeckis. But Hitch had a body of work that spanned six decades. This exhibit was probably the best thing to happen to me in my development as a film geek. 

"This is going to be daunting." That was my first thought when I stared in wonderment at the film reel scrawled from wall to wall completing a circle around the room. Eyes moving left starting at "The Pleasure Garden 1925 and ending up, finally, at Family Plot 1976." The idea of tracking a director's body of work had never really occured to me before. Yet, there it was, literally splayed out in front of my eyes, the entirety of a filmography that spanned from the silent era to the 70s. All told: 57 films. I had a lot of homework ahead of me. They replaced the attraction at MGM Studios in January 2003. The reason- lack of relevance among the general public. What replaced this important piece of history? A Shrek 4D exhibit. 

Hitchcock/Truffaut is the essential companion to not just someone getting into the director, but getting into how film is made. It's a film school from one of the masters of the form. Hitch and Truffaut go through every single one of his pictures. I'm still on that journey I started as a kid in trying to watch all of his pictures. What better guide could you want on this journey than the Master of Suspense himself?

2. The Eye: In the Blink of An Eye by Walter Murch/

The Conversations with Michael Ondaatje

I have come to terms with the fact that I will never be a filmmaker. At least not a director. If there was one profession within the industry I would be interested in it would be editor. I haven't edited a single frame. Yet I have a fountain of ideas I want to someday make reality.

In the Blink of an Eye is a study of the discipline of editing. In the book, Murch discusses six criteria for editing:

Emotion, Story, Rhythm, Direction of the audience's sight, Bidemnsional space of the screen and Tridimensional space of the action (continuity). That scene is cool but does it serve the movie? No? Cut it. 

The Conversations allows Murch to spill his exuberance all over the page with his interviews with Michael Ondaatje. You hear him discuss his editing on The Godfather, The Conversation, Apocalypse Now and The Unbearable Lightness of Being. 

3. The Spirit: Sculpting In Time by Andrei Tarkovsky

"The distinctive time running through the shots makes the rhythm of the picture and the rhythm is determined not by the length of the edited pieces but by the pressure of the time that runs through them."

Andrei Tarkovsky only made 7 films in his lifetime. At least 4 of them can be considered masterful while the other half are really, really good. So it came as a no brainer that I had to have this book when I found out about it. 

I've always thought of myself of more of a spiritualist when it comes to the mysteries of life. Tarkovsky makes the kind of movies you go to when you have a good chunk of time cleared in your schedule. He's as much of a philosopher as he is a filmmaker. 

If his movies are his church, Sculpting In Time is his scripture. 

Also recommend: Notes on the Cinemotograph by Robert Bresson, Transcendentalism in Film by Paul Schrader

4. The Body: Making Movies by Sidney Lumet

Lumet doesn't have a distinct style. He just knows exactly where to put the camera, how to block a scene, how to use space. Even some of the more exciting stylistic directors would be jealous of a body of work that includes 12 Angry Men, Dog Day Afternoon, Network, The Verdict, Before the Devil Knows You're Dead.

This was the first book on filmmaking I read and it's lessons are still invaluable. You get to hear his theories on filmmaking, on-set stories, and his methods of working with actors. Lumet guides us from conception of the idea to the first screening. It's all told in a completely unpretentious, totally relatable prose. 

5. The Hand: Story by Robert McKee

"Story is about principles, not rules. Story is about thoroughness, not shortcuts. Story is about respect, not disdain for the audience. Story is about originality, not duplication." This book is aimed at apiring screenwriters but has a ton of information on the craft of writing in general. So if you find yourself in a bind and want to make a movie where nobody goes through any changes in particular, you know, more as a reflection of what happens in the real world- stick to McKee. 

And why the fuck are you wasting my two precious hours with your movie?

I Care A Lot - Review

  I Care A Lot is a dark comedy character study during late-stage capitalism that suffers from late-stage Gone Girlism.

  I don't just mean the type-casting of Rosamund Pike in another Amy Dunne role but it wants to say so much and only gives lip service to its satirical aspirations, focusing more on its twisty plotting. I hate to do this because, typically, these kinds of criticisms are made from critics who want something one-note and palatable, but, in the case of I Care A Lot, it applies: this movie is a tonal disaster.

  Writer/director J. Blakeson wants to be madcap and goofy, deadly serious, reflective, and satirical all at once. It should have aimed more in the realm of Bad Santa or Observe & Report, rather than fucking Nightcrawler. It's too silly for its own good and is bafflingly lit and saturated; the colors nauseatingly pop like Netflix said "make it look like a car commercial!" My ears are just as offended cuz its score is so distractingly out of place with how synthetic and spacey it is. Clearly someone heard Uncut Gems' score and thought "yeah, I wanna try that."

  There is a great movie here, if it were in more capable hands, but Blakeson has his characters yap a lot of eye-rollingly unfunny and sometimes downright stupid dialog - as if he aspires to weave words like Mamet and Tarantino but sometimes he's just gotta phone it in. It definitely tries to be funny but all it got out of me were the kind of wispy, dispiriting smirks that would make a comedian shrivel up on stage.

  And unlike Amazing Amy, Marla Grayson isn't complex nor as nasty an orchid. She's small-time everything; she's clever, ruthless, manipulative and determined for a con woman working her ground-level machinations on the elderly. About the only edge she has is that her feminist ra-ra'ing clashes with her capitalistic ambitions/successes. What I will give it is that it's not a simple-minded movie fetishizing the GirlBoss but showing her for the monster she is.

  Pike is predictably great and so is the rest of this woefully misused cast; Chris Messina, Diane Wiest, Peter Dinklage, and Macon Blair. Eliza Gonzalez is...present. Critics tend to write in broad cliches about roles like this, with shit like "she does the best with what she's given" but characterization is the most important part of a movie like this so I'm gonna dig the fuck in.

  Gonzalez gives just as much as the role asks of her, which ain't fuckin' much.

  She plays Marla's girlfriend, Fran, and she exists solely as Marla's girlfriend, Fran. I never once cared about their relationship because there's no dynamic here beyond the basics: she's in on Marla's small-time con enterprise and helps keep the money coming in. They have a system worked out, which means they've been at this long enough to trust one another and work well together. Marla recklessly wants more and puts Fran in danger by not saying 'when.' But Fran blithely goes along with Marla's schemes, even when their collective fan is covered in shit, but she seems more motivated by plot than anything interesting or substantive. They may be lesbians and Marla might spout a lot of pseudo-feminist lines about not being intimidated by men's threats but Fran is just as one-note as any Wifey mannequin in post-Breaking Bad entertainment. I want something more than prosaic dialog where Fran plays the Reactress partner, saying things like "this is dangerous" as if apprehension is all that's on her mind when, clearly, there's more that could have come out of her mouth.

   There's one scene where she seems irked when an old acquaintance calls her "Frankie" instead of Fran. I have to do my best to give her -some- characterization, so...my guess is that her full name is Franceska...that's all I got. So not only did Blakeson not give her any depth but he actively has to shrink her name, too. He really wanted to write less and less about her, didn't he? He cares a lot. 🙄

C-

Fuck it: Top 10 Superhero Movies

Heading into a new decade means reckoning with the ‘new direction’ of the superhero genre: Marvel has moved into streaming to accommodate it’s ever-expanding and increasingly esoteric canon, and DC has lined up some of the most anticipated blockbuster features of my lifetime. One thing’s certain: superhero media isn’t going anywhere, and that’s mostly OK if it’s as good as The Batman looks to be. 

I made this list expressly for the purpose of posterity -- one thing you’ll notice about it is that it’s dominated by the 2010s, and assuming the next 8 years continue (if not strengthen) that trend, this’ll be something to look back on: where I was at in 2021. 

10. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

Spider-Man and Batman are neck-and-neck as the most consistently entertaining superhero properties and their respective rogues galleries are largely to thank for that. They have the most iconic villains in the comic world, and more than a few of those familiar faces show up in full-force in this metaphysical Monster Mash. Pair that with inventive animation, a catchy soundtrack, and Nic Cage’s best performance (and role) of the 2010s and you can see why it’s the best Spidey film. 

9. Batman Returns

It’s more of a Burton film than the first one, and yet it’s more of a Batman film, too. The twisty plotting and tragic themes are immediately recognizable to anyone familiar with the canon (particularly the 80s and 90s canon), but more than that: its quasi-controversial re-interpretation of the villains is very much in the spirit of the comics, which have a long, rich history of illustrators and writers taking artistic liberties with aesthetics and lore. Also, the impact Pfeiffer’s Catwoman had on my sexuality cannot be understated.

8. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2

If I’d made this list in 2017 this one woulda been higher, so my impulse is to unpack why it fell, but instead I’ll think back on why I loved it so much initially (and still dig it now). Mainly, I prefer my superhero movies (or movies in general) with as little plot as possible - this is a big ask for a genre whose appeal and financial success hinge on twists and reveals and continuity, but I’m willing to take what I can get when I can get it. With James Gunn at the helm, I expected to get from the first Guardians what I ultimately got from its sequel, which is: loveable weirdos relating to one another in funny, poignant ways, unencumbered by plot mechanics. 

7. Logan

When the trailer first dropped, featuring Johnny Cash’s “Hurt,” I nearly dismissed it outright. To this day, I’m still amazed that the movie itself was able to pull off a tone that a 2 minute trailer couldn’t. It’s not my favorite Mangold film, but it’s probably the strongest testament to his proficiency as a filmmaker. That said, if you look at it too closely it can seem a bit silly - especially considering what hokey adventures these particular characters have had together. It’s better to look at it as a ‘realistic’ Mad Max-style road movie in the spirit of Terminator 2. And like Dark Knight, it’s proof that superhero movies can aim for melodramatic highs and hit their mark with a straight face.    

6. The Dark Knight

Maybe I’d be better off if this film never happened. Maybe we’d all be better off, including Chris. It came too close to greatness to not be great, and yet it isn’t. Never in my entire life have I argued so much about a particular franchise. Whatever Nolan lacks as an artist, he’ll always have that: my attention.

Speaking now as a Batman fan, it’s still the best representation of the character in film (good luck, Matt). And yes, it’s better than The Animated Series as well, because as great a show as that was, its demographic put a ceiling on its tonal ambitions. Nothing in that show or any other Batman media impacted me like the last ten minutes of this. Its legacy might belong to Heath Ledger, but its greatest scene belongs to Aaron Eckhart. 

5. Glass

“Like a comic book” is a tough thing to define, so I won’t try to, but whatever it means, this movie pulls it off better than Unbreakable or Split, and that isn’t necessarily a criticism of either of those films - this indefinable quality serves only to help prop up some messy, plotty Horde/Glass/Overseer fanfiction written by their biggest fan: M. Night Shyamalan. 

I wasn’t the first one to say it and I won’t be the last: this works better as a Split sequel than as an Unbreakable sequel, and I like Split more than Unbreakable (spoilers!) so that earns its sequel a spot in the top 5 (barely).

4. X-Men: First Class

Once again, “like a comic book” is tough to define. Based on my own interpretation, this is, unquestionably, the most comic book-y movie I’ve ever seen.
More specifically (and articulately), it succeeds for me because, of all the X-Men movies, this one most closely resembles the animated series, my childhood introduction to the characters. 

The dialogue and visual FX are a bit hokey at times (the former of which, incidentally, contributes to its ‘comic book’ quality), but the period elements and cast carry it over the finish line - McAvoy, Fassbender, and Bacon, in particular, make for possibly the most dynamic triad in the whole history of the genre -- more than Batman-Harvey-Joker or Overseer-Horde-Glass. 

3. Unbreakable

It’s on everyone’s list, and rightfully so. To this day, it remains the most artful and visually stunning superhero movie ever made (by a pretty wide margin), and long before the “dark, gritty superhero” boom of the modern era, M. Night pushed “realism” in the genre to its absolute limits and ended up doing for comic book movies what Exorcist did for supernatural horror.

2. Split

As cutting-edge as Unbreakable was, I’ll posit that it may’ve been a little too arthouse for its own good - it belongs in a museum, not a DVD rack. Split, by contrast, is a full tilt nailbiter. And smartly, this “origin story” isn’t so much about the origin of a villain as it is about the origin of a villain’s modus operandi, which is more captivating than tracing somebody’s emotional journey. But, to that point, it even manages to get the psychology right thanks to McAvoy’s performance (which towers above the whole trilogy) and a sparing, effective use of tense flashbacks. It’s what I wish Joker was. Hell, it’s what I wish Unbreakable was, too. 

1. Shazam!

It’s a lotta things at once: old school buddy comedy, Big with superheroes, demonic possession film featuring Todd McFarlane-esque demons (w/ exceptional VFX), and one of the 2010s’ only seasonal/Christmas movies alongside Krampus. It improves upon everything Raimi was doing, yet the only ‘gimmicks’ it employs are tastefully discrete throwback vibes. Mostly, though, it’s a sandbox for Zachary Levi and Jack Dylan Grazer to showcase their unbeatable chemistry.

It broke DC’s losing streak by supposedly “copying the Marvel formula,” but if anything, it’s exactly what DC has tried to be all along: mood-driven and chic. The only thing that changed was finesse.

At the end of the day, like a lot of other tentpole properties, the pathos of superhero movies has always belonged to the kids (or ‘the young at heart,’ if you’re looking for more PC verbiage), so this is exactly where the genre belongs: in the realm of artful, well-crafted kids movies, which are nearly extinct nowadays.

Films of 71: Get Carter

Before Mean Streets, Mike Hodges stripped away any romanticism to be found in the gangster film. There's a streak of evil running through the British crime film, a streak of which can be found in The Long Good Friday and The Hit. 

Jack Carter isn't just another typical anti hero. He is a total bastard who wouldn't think twice about getting someone innocent killed in order to achieve his ends. His mission is to find out who killed his brother and as you see him dish out copious amounts of pain on his quest of revenge, you realize just how far he is willing to go. Michael Caine is known today as someone who brings this air of British classiness to the films he is in. Not enough people know him for arguably his best and most ruthless role. 

Hodges never really retained this quality after Get Carter. He would go on to direct Flash Gordon, but that is miles apart from what he was doing here. 

WandaVision's Finale Succeeds Where Watchmen's Failed

 
  Watchmen asked us, in its final moments of televisual life, whether or not Angela Abar would become a God. But a more important question wasn't being asked: Should she become one?

   Ozymandias sermonizes "anyone who seeks to attain the power of a God must be prevented, at all costs, of attaining it" before he executes his ego-maniacal daughter and her plan for deification. But unlike Trieu and now-liquefied Senator Keene, Angela doesn't seek power, but since she does abuse what power she has as a police officer--throughout the series she brutally beats and tortures 7K cronies--the ending is shockingly naive. Am I taking some moral high-ground to a black woman (who's already survived a murder attempt) beating up terroristic white supremacists? No. But do I think someone who just broke someone's fingers should be a God? Same answer but emphatic: No.

  Angela's a great character and her complexity is exactly why this palatable ending is so baffling. It's implied that she'd use her Ostermanhattan powers responsibly, but... I'm doubtful. As strong-willed and sharp as she is, she's just as scared, angry, and violent - no matter how justifiable or righteous that anger is, it negates the ending's hopefulness.

  Giving her God-like abilities is a cop-out that eschews her dealing with, not only her own trauma, but the compounding generational trauma she lived through in Episode 6. Just south of her finding the egg, but north of watching Jon die, her Grandfather tells her "you can't heal underneath a mask [...] wounds need air." Angela has wounds she hasn't even begun to open, which is dangerous when you can bend reality at will. Later on he says that he admired Jon but "with all that power, he didn't do everything he could have done," it's an inspiring sentiment but that's all it is. By walking on water she's running from her pain.

 I see the "If You Could Have Any Superpower, What Would It Be And Why?" icebreaker a lot on dating apps Not just from the app itself but other users posting it to stoke a response. After WandaVision, the real question is "Are You Emotionally Stable Enough To Even Have Superpowers?" WandaVision's finale picks up what Watchmen neglected and examines it, showing us the damage that someone who's compartmentalizing their pain does with Godly control. In the best scene of the series (and I'd argue the entire MCU), Wanda's confronted by the townspeople she's been unintentionally torturing all season. They're angry, anguished, exhausted, confused, and afraid. These aren't just innocent bystanders, they're fully-realized human beings who each get a moment to address their abuser...who happens to be our 'Hero.'

  I was knocked flat on my ass that they were going in this mature, necessary, thoughtful, and nuanced direction with it. Not to mention its placement in the episode, too: it barges into the middle of the show's first big cgi Superhero Fight™ and completely subverts the MCU's 13-year Good vs. Bad formula. Wanda's not so much an antihero as she's slowly melting into a full-blown villain in denial, which is one of her more subtle superpowers. She created a world of TV make-believe but her cathodic Heaven is Hell for the extras. It's like the inverse of The Truman Show but it's even worse than that: she's been suppressing her grief by burdening them with it.

  She tries to convince them they're fine, quivering desperate lies that they're "at peace" but they're not having it - they haven't had control of their own minds so they refuse to shut up now. She screams to drown out their noise and reflexively chokes them with her power. She's not actively choosing to do this but, because of her instability, her powers aren't wielded: they're misemployed. Agatha, the indirect villain to Grief Itself, tells her "heroes don't torture people," which is less sobering than a mocking prod to her failures as an Avenger - to add another layer of humiliation to the mounting emotional summit Wanda's falling from. Of course Agatha has her own agenda and wants Wanda to use her power so she can absorb it, but it doesn't take away from how right she is.

  One of Wanda's last lines in the series is "I don't understand this power, but I will" before she whisks off to isolate herself. She can't undo the damage and she doesn't seek forgiveness for it (nor does she deserve it) but she takes the necessary steps to not cause anymore suffering while confronting her own. It's a complicated, challenging way to end this superhero show - which is why it's the perfect way to end this superhero show.

Almost Perfect: Mystic River

Ever have a movie where just about everything about is perfect? The casting, writing and the score, it's all incredible. But then there's that one thing that sticks out; the rock in the shoe. It keeps it at an A when everything ele about the movie is an A+. 

Nothing is absolute, perfection has no depth, so there are plenty of movies like this for me, I'm a discerning guy, but the king of this hill is Mystic River. 

I had read the book a couple years ago and it catapulted into my top 20 books. Dennis Lehane says he wasn't quite ready to write the book when he started. He felt he had to write a few books to get to where he wanted to be in order to write Mystic River. So he wrote the Kenzie and Genarro detective series. It was then he felt he was ready. Pouring everything into the book, Lehane says the first 50 pages are the most autobiographical from his growing up in Boston. There is a tremendous psychological tension and focus on these characters as they get pinballed from grueling decision to grueling decision. The book is a Shakespearean tragedy. A Macbeth with Boston accents. 

Brian Helgeland took on script duties when it came time to make it into a film. It only took two years from it hitting book shelves to hitting theater screens. Like LA Confidential, the book has three protagonists. Also like LA Confidential, it's a sprawling 500 page monster. Helgeland's work on the script for LA Confidential has shown that, though its practically impossible to retain everything from a book that big in order to make a 2 and a half hour movie, what is important is to maintain the essence of the book. He does exactly that with River. 

The cast are all on their A-game here. Sean Penn as Jimmy, Tim Robbins as Dave and Kevin Bacon as Sean, Marcia Gay Harden as Celeste Boyle and Laura Linney as Annabeth Markum. 

Annabeth's brothers are the Savage brothers. The two goons Jimmy takes with him to corner Dave Boyle into ultimately confessing to a crime he didn't commit. Annabeth reinforces that Jimmy did the right thing in a terrifying "Daddy is King" monologue toward the end. She knows exactly who Jimmy is and finds strength in enabling him at his absolute worst. 

Celeste doesn't have the strength or support Annabeth has but she does crave it. You see this through the story. She views herself as weak up until her husband Dave comes home with blood all over him.She immediately goes into action: hiding the clothes, making sure he's ok.  It's only when she finds out that Jimmy's daughter was murdered on the same night that she begins to second guess herself. This is a piece of writing that struck a nerve. Her second guessing combined with that craving of support provides a tragic arrow toward her husband Dave. 

The crux of the story and why it has such an impact on me is it dealing with childhood trauma that never stops traumatizing. It's why King's It has such an effect on me. There's a scene right at the beginning when the three boys are drawing their names in wet cement. Jimmy's name is right above Sean. Indicating his power over him. Dave is at the bottom and half way done. He didn't stand a chance. Lehane makes a class distinction between the three of them in the book. When John Doman's character comes out of his car and walks up to them, he makes a choice. He sees in Jimmy's eyes that he's a fighter and he will put up a fight. Sean is middle class with a chip on his shoulder. All he has to do is go in his front door and he is protected. Dave is a weaker character than Jimmy and the fake cop can see it. So he chooses him. 

That was the last time Jimmy saw Dave. 

WHY IT'S NOT AN A+

Clint Eastwood has never impressed me as a director. I remember watching Unforgiven as a kid and digging the characters played by Clint and Gene Hackman. But that was it. You can say he is more concerned with subtracting than adding in order to highlight the performances. That's fine. It's just with Eastwood you don't have a particularly interesting style. There's a classiness to it. None of the scenes feel as elemental as the performances within them. 

This is why Mystic River is so frustrating. Had another director directed it, this could have been Top 50 easily. 

Quick And To The Point: While I'm Talking Finales...

 

  I used to enjoy The Mandalorian. It was a nice, minimalist break from all the typical Star Wars shit that limited the very world of Star Wars. Finally we had a an adventure story that didn't revolve around anyone in the trilogies. The galaxy felt bigger, especially since it was a week-to-week serial.

   That all shrunk when [digitally de-aged] Luke Skywalker showed up for the most shameless hallway fan service since Darth Vader's hallway slaughter in Rogue One (a movie I hate on the whole, so this is double-fisted insult to injury). I guess I should have expected it, the mention that there was a Jedi Knight who'd be training Grogu, but it caught me by surprise - not in a good way, either. It was like feeling pee on a toilet seat right as you sit down. This is the kind of moment that kills every bit of interest I have in a show; I could not care less where it's heading now. And it's a shame, too, because Din's goodbye should have gotten me teary, but Luke's presence, alone, undercuts any little bit of drama that might have otherwise moved me.

   Every Star Wars story starts with "In A Galaxy Far, Far Away..." and, well, do you know how massive a fucking GALAXY is? Apparently, Disney does not. Of course character is more important than world-building but I'm tired of the same old characters again and again.

WatchmenVision

  Ever since Watchmen's finale let me down I've been wary of any show that manages to convince me that it's Good, especially as it hurtles toward its finale. Yeah-yeah, someone else bemoaning another Lindelof closer, I know - which is another, albeit smaller, reason I don't want to hate it because up until See How They Fly, I've loved his endings; Leftovers' finale is my favorite episode of the series and Lost's finale, while it's not perfect, is still very much LOST, for much better than worse.

  But Watchmen's finale was u n r e c o g n i z a b l e. I'd never seen a show that was as good as Watchmen was, for 8 whole hours, only to totally botch the landing like this anomalous episode did. The cold open is a gobsmackingly idiotic screenwriting scheme to show how our central villain came to be. Then our main character is reduced to reacting to things rather than doing anything - she's positioned on the literal sideline of all the action. And our villains are outdone by script-sanctioned stupidity and some physics-defying fan service (squid is on the menu again!). I mean it, for the first 8 hours this was an intelligent, nuanced, and downright cool show. It's maddening.

  Anyway, I could ramble forever about it, but that's not the point of this post.

  Episodes 5 and 6, Little Fear Of Lightning and This Extraordinary Being, are still two of the best hours of television ever produced. It's the power of episodes like these, as well as It's Summer And We're Running Out Of Ice and She Was Killed By Space Junk, that made episode 9 such a frustrating letdown. I wouldn't be gutted by heartbreak if I wasn't in love in the first place and watching these week-to-week was a passionate moment in my complex relationship with this show.

  There've been plenty of shows that have just outright lost my interest along the way, like Mr. Robot s2, Preacher s3, Legion s2, Fargo s3, Evil episode 2, Killing Eve s2, Game Of Thrones s1, and Lovecraft Country episode 3. I can usually sense bullshit and dip out before the ship sinks but Watchmen didn't have any red flags.

  Or maybe it did and I wasn't paying attention.

  Even without seeing it all 'til quarantine (The Righteous Gemstones, Lodge 49, Euphoria, Black Summer), 2019 had some of the best TV of the decade; it kicked off with Russian Doll in February, followed by the return of Barry in the spring, and Mindhunter in the summer - all great seasons capped off with fantastic endings. Even Orange Is The New Black, one of the most bastardized shows I've ever given my loyalty to, had a satisfying ending despite Jenji Kohan's typical bullshit throughout s7. So by the time Lindelof's Leftovers follow-up came around in October, I wasn't just drunk on hype, I was dipsomaniacal - nothing could convince me it wasn't gonna be fantastic TV. And that's my fault, which I didn't realize at the time.
 
  Despite my conspiratorial mental gymnastics; something happened in the writers' room with HBO wanting something more concrete and accessible; there's a secret unreleased 10th episode that recontextualizes it all like Part 18 did for Part 17 of The Return; I accepted it.

  This is Lindelof's ending.
It's done, it sucks, move on.

  So after sobering up I went on to enjoy Better Call Saul, DEVS, The Outsider, and Perry Mason quite a bit, but not without some [thankfully unwarranted] apprehension. I never gave myself over as completely as I had to Watchmen.

  Until WandaVision, that is.

  This show has become an obsession. And I don't mean that in an ironically cutesy, memetic way. I mean I am diagnosable, that's how obsessed I am. But I'm also self-aware and trying to keep my guard up. This could take a nosedive in quality despite how great it's been so far.

  The first two episodes conjure plenty of mystery-box intrigue but they also function surprisingly well as straight-up sitcom episodes. Usually these kinds of retro-kitsch throwbacks wink too much for me, doing half-hearted bits to canned laughter, but there's no meta cynicism to be found. They were literally filmed in front of a live audience who are actually laughing, and me along with them because they're genuinely funny. Episode 1 is a riff on The Dick Van Dyke Show and I Love Lucy (Dick Van Dyke was consulted for authenticity) while episode 2 is Bewitched. The cast is fully committed to everything without any pithy too-good-for-this smirking and eye-rolling. Olsen, in particular, brings so much to every episode. They don't make any distracting nods but, instead, just use those classic shows' frameworks to do their own thing - with creepy bits injected to let you know something is wrong. Sometimes you'll see something downright disturbing while the chipper sitcom music will defiantly keep the tone 'lite,' which is consistently effective - the balancing of tones is as immaculate as the pacing.

  Every new episode brings us a decade closer to now and new zeitgeist shifts evolve the show a little more, slowly revealing what's going on. But new mysteries are piled on top of freshly-answered questions. Episode 8, the penultimate episode, functions like a Retrospective, but unlike the usual design of The Clip Show format, showing us what we've already seen, these ain't re-runs. We're taken through an odyssey of buried trauma and anguish, giving reason and weight to this loving sitcom 'reality' with shit that's been kept from us.

 

  What they also manage to do--and I really love this--is tell this story in a way that feels like a comic book. Every episode is a new issue, since reading a new print every month has an episodic structure to it, and it's just as much a character study as it is a mystery. It's not like most comic book movies which condense everything into a 90-minute origin story set-up that leads to an effects-heavy conclusion - the sequels are always more interesting for this very reason. WandaVision has Marvel pacing everything out and giving its two most neglected Avengers a worthy 6 hours to stretch their legs. Each episode is only 30/35 minutes, at the most, and the tense cliffhangers are framed--both stylistically and narratively--like exciting panels on the last page! It's frustrating but it's designed to lure you in for another week - and it works.

  Ever since Friday I've been having flashbacks of Watchmen's wreckage and it won't stop until I see the finale at 2:30am this coming Friday. I have faith in WandaVision because, so far, it's my favorite thing the MCU has ever produced. Then again, Watchmen was my favorite thing Lindelof had ever done

...up to a point.