TV Roundup - Discovery, Inhumans, The Good Place, and not Stranger Things

Having spent November doing NaNoWriMo, I've fallen behind a bit on both my new TV watching and my reviewing. I'm going to do a bit of a catch-up here before getting back into it for December.

First up, Marvel's bid for Kinga Forrester-style global media domination continues with the opening quartet of episodes from Inhumans – ‘Behold… The Inhumans’, ‘Those Who Would Destroy Us’, 'Divide and Conquer' and 'Make way for… Medusa'.

We begin our story in Hawai'i, where a fish-looking dude named Triton fundamentally fails to rescue a newly changed Inhuman from men with guns. Then we transition to the Moon, and the hidden city of Attlian on the far side of Earth's only natural satellite(1), where the Inhuman Royal Family rules over a high-powered elite and a massive underclass of those Inhumans who turn out to have rubbish powers. Maximus, brother to Black Bolt(2), king of the Inhumans, came out of his terrigenesis purely human. He argues that the Inhumans should go to Earth and take over, allowing them to live and breathe free and liberate the toiling underclass. By replacing them with a toiling underclass of humans, certainly, but honestly in the early episodes he's scoring major points against the other Royals, whose interactions with their social inferiors are limited to patronising those who gain cool flying powers and dissing servants for being attracted to them.

Who is this girl? We will literally never know.

So, spoilers for this review if nothing else, I don't like the Inhumans. I'm going to watch the remaining four episodes of Inhumans, but the characters themselves I do not like.

With Triton vanished and Gorgon, leader of the Royal Guard, on Earth looking for him, and a young seer falling into his influence, Maximus launches a coup. He directs the Inhuman-hunting mercenaries to kill Gorgon, which doesn't go well for them, captures and shaves Queen Medusa's animate kung-fu hair - because what would this series be without a man forcibly divesting a woman he has expressed desire for of her power? - and tries to kill his brother to prevent him using his power, a voice which annihilates everything in its path. Since this power is basically uncontrolled - he can whisper or shout, but not focus the blast - Black Bolt has the ultimate power of awesome uselessness.

 

The hair is cool, but ind of moves around Medusa, instead of with her. The
result is to make Medusa herself seem a very passive character.

Medusa's sister, ice-slinger Crystal(3), uses her teleporting dog Lockjaw to send Black Bolt, Medusa, and douchebag quasi-Vulcan prognosticator Karnak to Earth, but she and Lockjaw are captured for a time. Black Bolt gets arrested after walking off with a suit, and he and Medusa try to find one another by basically treating the world like they own it. Black Bolt is broken out of prison and escapes with an Inhuman named Sammy to a compound run by Declan, a geneticist who is generally well-meaning, but working with Maximus, where Medusa finds them after generally being a dick to space scientist Louise. Gorgon hooks up with some surfing military veterans and barely fights off an attack by the Royal Guard, including Mordis, an off-brand version of Cyclops. Karnak gets a bump on the noggin and works on a cannabis farm while his powers are on the fritz, getting his freak on and apparently provoking one of his fellow farmers to start a lethal buyout of his comrades. Crystal escapes when called on to give a speech supporting Maximus, who uses this to accuse the Royal Family of being quitters wot run when the going gets tough. She gets to Earth, but Lockjaw is hit by a car, introducing her to friendly locals Dave and Audrey, to whom she is a dick about them accidentally hitting and failing to instantly heal her dog.

In short, a bunch of Inhumans who were dicks to their fellow Inhumans on the Moon come to Earth and are dicks to humans. Our heroes, folks. Inhumans is a massively ambitious show, with a cast full of superpowered characters, but there just isn't that much to like. Anson Mount's Black Bolt is a complete stiff on the Moon. He's better once he gets into prison and starts to look baffled by stuff, but a mute character is tough to do well in television, especially as part of a speaking ensemble. All of the Royals treat the underclass like crap, and it's not as if it’s a small divide. The Royal Family aren't the upper levels of an all-around crapsack society, they live in a glorious, artificial paradise, while the peons work in the mines and starve. There is some indication that Black Bolt may have been trying to make changes, but it's hard to see him as a man of the people and Maximus will always have that over him in terms of sympathy. The rest of the Royals are just as bad, always slagging off those who are 'only human' and looing down their noses at anyone whose powers aren't cool. No place here for Arm-Fall-Off Boy(4).

Inhumans: Ultimately, far more Agents of SHIELD than Legion, but with the saving grace of a short season.

Next, the last two episodes leading to the mid-season finale of Star Trek: Discovery - 'Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum' and 'Into the Forest I Go'.

"I talk to the trees..."

The war is going badly for the Federation. The Klingon sarcophagus ship is back in action, which means that the Federation fleet is struggling to cope with waves of cloaked enemy vessels. They need a new edge; a means to detect and target the cloaked vessels before they pop out and murder your friends. They need - and bear with me on this - sonar. There's a world, right, which is all one big forest, except for what appears to be a naturally occurring antenna. The trees in the forest sing and the antenna broadcasts this song into space. The crew of the Discovery believe that this signal can be used to detect the cloaked vessels because gosh darnit it just can, THAT'S WHY, okay!

Burnham and Tyler accompany Saru to locate the source of the song, which turns out to be a kind of collective tree consciousness, which gets into Saru's head and makes him feel safe. This causes him to go mental and try to trap his away team on the planet, but Burnham and Tyler are able to stop him and Burnham seems to persuade the mind that they have good intentions and just want to bring an end to the war. Meanwhile, creepy Klingon interrogator L'Rell tries to defect while rescuing Admiral Cornwell, but is forced to abort and smack the Admiral against a thing that sparks, seemingly killing her, only to be condemned herself by Kol. Luckily for her, Kol is distracted when the forest planet sends a subspace shout into the void to invite the Klingons to attend a peace summit, because apparently trees are total Pollyannas.

It seems shocking that an M/M kiss is somewhere that, in Star Trek at least, no
man has gone before.

This brings us on to 'Into the Forest I Go'(5), in which the Discovery faces off against the sarcophagus ship. Stamets is getting burned out and intends to quit soon for the sake of his health, but not before undertaking one last mission. In order to defeat the sarcophagus ship, Burnham and Tyler will sneak aboard as it briefly appears to shoot at the Discovery and plant a few large, blinking and flashing sensor buoys in largely public spaces. Then the Discovery simply has to make a few hundred consecutive jumps in order to conduct a vast number of sensor sweeps from all angles.

The boarding party find L'Rell and the not-entirely-dead Cornwell, and Tyler freaks out a bit and has flashbacks to what is either him having sex with L'Rell back when he was Voq(6) or L'Rell committing what would be a very serious offence outwith the framework of a brutal military regime. Burnham has to go on alone, then to distract the Klingons by revealing herself as the killer of T'Kuvma the One and Only. She fights Kol and manages not to just fall down in the face of his slightly greater skill and vastly superior strength and resilience, buying time for the Discovery to bounce around it like a mad thing, vaguely reminiscent of Scrappy Doo.

Nice set. Shame if it were to... catch fire.

Anyway, Discovery transports Burnham, Tyler, Cornwell and L'Rell aboard, then blows the crap out of the Sarcophagus Ship. Lorca ships Cornwell off to a medical facility, L'Rell assures Tyler that she won't let anyone hurt him, and then a final black alert jump takes the ship... elsewhere.

The theory has long been out there that Tyler is in fact Voq, transformed into a human aspect like that dude in Trouble with Tribbles, and if this much is true then also brainwashed to believe that he is a human. I still subscribe to this theory, although I'm starting to hope that I'm wrong, because if I am then Star Trek is looking like it's going to tackle a serious subject in a serious manner (in contrast to previous series, which have tended to be played a bit more as Arthurian love potion plot than as sexual assault.

Anyway; now we're into the mid-season break, so Discovery reviews will return some time in January.

I watched the first episode of Season 2 of Stranger Things, but I want to take another pass at that when I have time to get a few episodes in, so finally for this time I caught Season 1 of The Good Place, a Netflix sitcom about the afterlife.

Eleanor Shellstrop (Frozen's Kristen Bell) finds herself in the afterlife after a particularly humiliating death, but learns that her sterling work as a human rights lawyer has earned her one of the small number of places in the Good Place. She will spend eternity in an idyllic neighbourhood under the direction of architect Michael (Ted Danson) and virtual guide Janet (D'Arcy Carden), cohabiting with her soulmate Chidi Anagonye (William Jackson Harper). The only problem is that Eleanor Shellstrop is not a human rights lawyer, but a self-absorbed, manipulative saleswoman who resents her compact, 'Icelandic primitive' house and envies on every level her perfect neighbours, Tahani Al-Jamil (Jameela Jamil) and Jianyu (Manny Jacinto). As her thoughtless bad behaviour appears to be plunging the neighbourhood into chaos, Eleanor struggles to learn to be a good person, with the aid of Chidi.

Actually, I call it a sitcom, and it has many of the hallmarks of the genre, but it becomes apparent through the course of the season that it is actually a developing series, which develops its characters and situation before finally throwing a massive curveball in the season finale(7). The leads are all excellent, and even though none of the characters are intrinsically very likeable, Bell actually manages to make us root for the vaguely reforming horror show that is Eleanor. The show is witty and fast-paced, and notably features a widely diverse cast - the leads are a white woman, a black man, an Asian American man and a British Muslim woman.

Also, the running gag that no-one can swear in the Good Place could be annoying, but is forking hilarious. That must have taken some doing.

So, in summary: Discovery is a definite keeper, Inhumans has the virtue of smallness, and The Good Place is a gem to set alongside The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt.

(1) A status I would not be surprised to see challenged by the revelation that it was put there by the Kree in a later instalment.

(2) As near as I can tell, this is his given name.

(3) Who is painfully princessy.

(4) Admittedly this is at least partly because he's a DC character.

(5) The title is taken from a poem by naturalist (John Muir https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YInfr0hm4A): 'Into the forest I go, To lose my mind and find my soul.' It's a beautiful line, although probably the 19^th century equivalent of those 'this is an antidepressant' memes if you really analyse it. It is also widely attributed to 'unknown' for some reason.

(6) See below for theory discussion.

(7) Season 2 is making a strong showing, despite the immense challenge set by this twist cliff-hanger.

iZombie - Season 3

So... was Blaine's hair always that colour?

Season 2 of iZombie wrapped up an ongoing conspiracy plot involving an energy drink that makes people into zombies, and introduced another, as PMC Filmore Graves was revealed to be a front for the coming zombie state, devoted to staving off 'D-Day' (discovery day) until they are ready to establish a zombie homeland.

Man this review requires a lot of use of the z-word.

Liv and her crew ally themselves with Filmore Graves, while Ravi keeps working on his cure. Major joins FG's zombie strike team, since no-one else will give the Chaos Killer a job, even if he is only the Chaos Kidnapper, and then has to be cured (the first cure having terminal side-effects.) Relief when he turns out not to have lost his memory is tempered by the realisation that ex-pusher turned zombie underworld leader Blaine has been lying about his own amnesia, including to his sometime lover Peyton, who becomes a full-time cast member this season. Also unfortunate is the fact that the remaining stocks of the cure go missing before Liv can be cured, the last having been given away by Major in a fit of do-right altruism. In addition, word of the zombie massacre at the Max Rager party gets out and anti-zombie activism becomes a thing, leading to the murder of a zombie family who turn out to have been old friends of Clive.

iZombie has a lot of good points, although most of them are mirrored in other series. It is, however, one of the very few series where a man (Ravi, in this case) acts like a dick over love and no-one cuts him an ounce of slack. Rose McIver's chameleonic ability to shift persona with Liv's brain-diet remains impressive, as is the fact that when she calls to warn the FG team that they are heading into a trap, their uptight, military leader accepts the word of a proven source, instead of dismissing her as female or a civilian. I've lost track of the number of lives lost to warnings being dismissed that way. I still don't trust FG, and suspect them of stealing the cure. Fortunately, there is a Season 4 on the way to answer lingering questions.

The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt - Season 3

Lemonading.

This past weekend was a festival of threes, as I watched three season 3s: The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, iZombie and 12 Monkeys.

The first and lightest of these saw Kimmy refuse to divorce her dubious husband in order to protect yet another easily-led woman (played by Laura Dern) falling into his clutches, and thus have to find her own funding to attend college. She briefly attends Columbia on a rowing scholarship, but fails a vital test on the grounds that all sorts of weird shit just keeps happening in her life, like being dragged off by the Feds to help talk down her former bunker-mate Cindy who has turned cult leader herself, apparently on Kimmy's advice. Meanwhile, Jaqueline is struggling to have the Washington Redskins renamed, ultimately persuading them that 'Washington Gun-Takers' will result in a massive uptick in merchandise sales as a much larger demographic flock to buy and burn team shirts.

But it's not really about the ongoing plot, such as it is, so much as the moment to moment interplay of characters and dialogue. On this front, Kimmy and Titus's unhealthy co-dependence goes from horror to horror, while the interlude at Columbia brings back one of my favourite dynamics - Kimmy vs. Xanthippe - although their rivalry has eased somewhat at this point, not least because Kimmy is back to calling herself Schmidt and it turns out that everyone knows that she was a mole woman now. Through all this, and all the terrible things that people thoughtlessly do to one another in the show, it is ultimately about the uplifting power of hope and friendship, and the fact that Sea Lions control the media.

Once more, The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt is a hit and miss show that scores largely through unrelenting weight of fire. Did a joke fall flat? Who cares? Here's the next one! And in fairness, far more land than don't.

The Tick

If the sight of a big, blue butt is a deal-breaker, switch off now.

It's Amazon pilot season, which means it's time to get random.

The Tick began life as a logo, became a comic book character, obtained perhaps his greatest success in an inimitable animated series. His live action incarnation was... less successful. More costumed sitcom than action adventure, thanks to budgetary concerns, it was a witty romp with a strong awareness of the world of superheroes it was parodying. The Tick's complete and repeated inability to penetrate a jerky Superman expy's 'glasses and hairdo' disguise even when he sees him take the glasses off was priceless, and the line 'you killed the Immortal' surely deserves some place in media history.

But that was then and this is now, and with the genre riding high it's apparently time for another live action reinvention. This time it's Peter Serafinowicz donning the blues, with Griffin Newman as his sidekick Arthur. The pilot hits a lot of familiar beats, including the Tick trashing Arthur's apartment looking for his hidden HQ, but there's a darker edge here. Arthur first appears in civilian clothes - something that never happened in either the animated or previous live action shows - and only acquires a very techno-looking incarnation of his moth suit in the closing seconds. His history is also tragically expanded, having been obsessed with tracking the supposedly deceased supervillain the Terror since his father became collateral damage in the defeat of the City's former superteam, the Flag Five. There is even a hint that the nigh invulnerable Tick, with the reflexes of an Olympic level jungle cat and the strength of a bus stop full of men, is a manifestation of Arthur's subconscious, although his pummeling of villains is real enough.

There's actually something almost sinister about the Tick's grin in the face of
Arthur's more gritty origin storyline.

For all its familiarity, The Tick is a new beast, and where its live-action forerunner eschewed one-off mayhem for sitcom, this version is front-loaded with arc plots and even mythology, opening with the arrival of the world's first superhero, possibly from space. Jackie Earle Hayley, fresh from being a creepy bastard on Preacher brings a potentially recurring creepy bastard presence to The Tick as the supposedly deceased Terror. It is also a very beautifully made series, with some truly sumptuous cityscapes serving to make the City itself more of a presence.

There is some significant tonal dissonance between the Tick's trademark superheroic nonsense - "You're standing there, in your way, but you're a better door than you are a window, so open yourself up, step through yourself and join me over here." - and Arthur's tragic history and mental illness (in the animated series his sister Dot worried that he wasn't dating; here she's worried that he's skipping his meds and might be involuntarily confined by the police.) That this is deliberate is clear from the juxtaposition of a radio discussion of the Flag Five being 'blinded with weaponised syphilis and then shot to death', and a later flashback to the brutal reality of the scene as it plays out in front of the young Arthur. The question, I guess, is whether that dissonance would be the series' hallmark or its undoing. In a more crowded superhero market, the creators are clearly going for something in a darker line of satire. It's a risky bid with the Tick, but could work. I do find myself hoping that we get a chance to find out.

The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt

I don't think I've encountered anything this yellow since Season 1 of Utopia.
That was also less funny than The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt.

The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt is a sitcom created by Robert Carlock and unstoppable comedy machine Tina Fey, with the 13-episode first season released on Netflix in a oner; like Daredevil, but with more jokes.

The eponymous Kimmy (Ellie Kemper) is one of four 'Indiana mole women' rescued from a bunker where they had been held for fifteen years by charismatic preacher Richard Wayne Gary Wayne (Jon Hamm), who decides to move to New York City using her share of the 'Mole Fund' donated by the public. Before long, she finds herself sharing a flat with flamboyant gay actor Titus Andromedon (Tituss Burgess), renting from insane septugenarian landlady Lillian Kauschtupper (Carol Kane) and working for socialite Jacqueline Vorhees (Jane Krakowski) as a sort-of nanny.

That's the sit; the com arrives in the form of a barrage of short exchanges and one-liners, mostly revolving around the culture clash between the worlds of the four regulars and in particular Kimmy's attempts to deal with the world after fifteen years of isolation and no post-eighth grade education that wasn't received from a manipulative jerk who taught her about Jesus's crazy brother Terry. Kimmy herself has an utterly unbreakable (roll credits) air of optimism that powers through obstacles and shrugs off her own misunderstandings. She is an absolute innocent, and yet in her way more worldly than her friends.

Each of the characters is drawn as a sketch and then fleshed out, mostly in the form of jokes, such as the revelation that Jacqueline is a Lakota Sioux who rebelled against her parents and Titus' constant struggles with his insecurities. They also have Titus sing at every opportunity, since Burgess has a lovely tenor. Carol Kane's completely deadpan delivery is amazing, even if I did occasionally think Kimmy had fallen in with the Penguin's mum. The minor characters are also wonderful, if less deep, and if not every bit works the show takes the tried and tested approach of just having so many of them that you're rarely kept waiting for a laugh. The pace is actually so frenetic that its hard to keep up with at first, with the upshot that binge watching is a great help, letting your brain get into the right rhythm; the The Wire, but with more jokes.

Why the success or failure of the Ghostbuster's reboot will not stand or fall on the gender of the leads

This poster has one of the better cast shots, which
is why I used one from the sequel.
Also, one of the men on this poster isn't on that cast
list. If it was the black guy people might make
assumptions!

Okay, so my title is a bit of a gimme:  the success or failure of the Ghostbuster's reboot will not stand or fall on the gender of the leads because claiming that casting women in the main roles is 'feminazing a classic' or 'gynocentric' are as much pathetically transparent misogynist strawmen as claiming that 'women aren't as funny as men'. It's also a little disingenuous, because casting women to lead Hollywood movies sets one up for the gauntlet of a production and marketing machine that sees male stars as the only bankable assets. Any film in the action or science fiction genres that doesn't cast a 'name' male lead is taking a gamble that the studio won't royally bollocks its advertising and bury it in a release dead zone so that they can blame their predicted poor turn out on overall low ticket sales, but I for one don't think that it's a gamble that it's wrong to take.

Also, this is not to say that the casting of the leads can't sink the film, just that it won't be because they're women. Casting the wrong women will kill a film as surely as casting the wrong men, but given that the script is unwritten, anyone claiming that casting a woman in purely hypothetical role X will ruin the movie since role X is clearly intended for a male actor (maybe that should be role Y?) is either the greatest prophet since Nostradamus* or talking out of their arse.

So, and working purely from my own NSHO, what are the factors on which Ghostbusters not-actually-3 will sink or swim?

To start with, what were the keys to the success of the original? To understand that, it helps to see that the film almost never happened at all; at least not the way it ended up.

Dan Ackroyd produced the first super-high concept version of the script as a vehicle for himself and John Belushi. Ivan Reitman saw the impracticality of the script and Ackroyd worked with Harold Ramis to ground the concept in the present day. The death of John Belushi led to Bill Murray being brought in, with Ramis - only an occasional actor - and Ackroyd as the scientific members of the Ghostbusters, and Ernie Hudson rounding out the crew as the straight man. Sigourney Weaver was the serious acting talent and Rick Moranis was annoying, but in a role that called for him to be so. The song 'Ghostbusters' was a sensation, despite not being very good on a musical level.

The result was almost a perfect storm of action, special effects and humour, making it hard to pin down why the film worked. There is no better illustration of this illusive quality than Ghostbusters II, which reunited the same team, but failed to please on the same level. Nevertheless, there was enough residual energy for The Real Ghostbusters to run another two years and Extreme Ghostbusters to... well, get made in the first place, and for people to feel a massively proprietorial affection for the original movie on its 30th anniversary**.

Perhaps the key lesson to learn from GII is that 'more of the same' is unlikely to cut it. A new Ghostbusters film is going to have to do something new. Nevertheless, its commercial success confirmed the affection for the original cast and characters. Obviously, the longed-for sequel with the original cast starring is never going to happen now, with the death of Harold Ramis, but if anything is to be done, the public - or at least vocal sections of it - will expect some serious cameos.

With that in mind, a hard reboot (as of 10/10/14 the confirmed direction for Paul Feig's female-led offering) is probably the thing most likely to kill the film. It's not definite, but it essentially squanders any nostalgic loyalty to the franchise and brings the commercial future of the movie down to the here and now.

Wow; when I say it like that it feels like a good thing, but the danger is that the association, once no longer a blessing, will become a bane. In addition to losing the resentful fans of the older film, there is an automatic skepticism of a remake/reboot to overcome. It's a shame, because done right the positive association with the original Ghostbusters would have been a good way to launch a female-led sequel with a boost to take it past Hollywood's usually gynophobia. As it is, there is every chance that the reboot factor will kill the film before a single frame hits the digital medium and idiots around the world will say: "See; we told you women weren't funny."

In an interview with Rolling Stone***, Feig said the following:

1. "My favorite thing to do is work with funny women. I was like, what if it was an all-female cast? If they were all women? Suddenly, my mind kind of exploded: that would be really fun,"
2. "I love the first one so much, I don't want to do anything to ruin the memory of that. So it just felt like, let's just restart it because then we can have new dynamics. I want the technology to be even cooler. I want it to be really scary, and I want it to happen in our world today that hasn't gone through it so it's like, oh my God what's going on?"

On the first point: On a high concept like Ghostbusters, I can't help but feel that this is a bad reason to fix on an all-female cast from the get-go. Maybe it will work, maybe it won't, but don't you want to see what's in the script first? Still, fuck it; if that's how you roll as a director maybe that's just what's going to bring out your best work, and if you're working with a writer you know writes those parts well (I'm not really familiar with Feig's collaborations with Katie Dippold, but clearly they feel they work well as a team) then go for it.

On the second... I don't think that anything in that want list couldn't be done with a 'new generation' sequel, except wanting the world to be a clean slate, and remember how I was saying of GII that it turns out more of the same isn't what people wanted then? I'm not convinced that it's what is wanted now. For fans of the old, it's a do-over of something that didn't need to be done over, and from the perspective of the project as a new film, relaunching just means that you're retreading old ground instead of making your own mark.

There exists a Ghostbusters film about the supernatural being forced into the public perception; there exists a Ghostbusters film about the world trying to deny it. Why not have this film be about a world that thinks it's ready for the next Gozer, the next Vigo? Hell, why not go balls to the wall and use the goodwill of a Ghostbusters project to make Ackroyd's original concept?

Ghostbusters hit the perfect combination of writing, cast and direction, in part from the combination of Bill Murray's improvisational performance and Ramis and Ackroyd's investment in their own script, which allows them to project Egon and Ray's total commitment to the high concepts of the movie which would otherwise seem laughable. The absence of anyone as utterly involved in the movie as Ackroyd was is likely to hurt the film, and the chances of pulling together an ensemble as great as the original line-up is slim, not because the female performers aren't out there - or, indeed, the male performers to pull off a reboot - but because the team-up in Ghostbusters was relatively untried, thus bringing in no preconceptions outside of Murray and Ackroyd's work on Saturday Night Live, and that it worked as well as it did a matter of ineffable alchemy. 

No producer can cast for the ineffable, as much as they might try. In other words, it is possible that such a cast could be pulled together for a rebooted Ghostbusters, but you couldn't do it a-purpose.

Ultimately, the film's success will depend on a multitude of factors, and its commercial and artistic success may vary wildly. For my money, the reboot is the greatest reason for skepticism, but I think that commercially that is going to end up shackled to an all female cast like an anvil.

* An attempt to do a prophet/profit pun fell down based on the fact that I don't know who posts obscene profits these days.
** I saw it at the cinema; I'm so old.
*** Rolling Stone online, http://www.rollingstone.com/movies/news/new-ghostbusters-film-will-be-series-reboot-20141009; get me, citing sources like some kind of professional.

John Dies at the End

I read the novel John Dies at the End just over a year ago. It's the weird, semi-stream of consciousness story of two slackers who accidentally contribute to the salvation of the universe as we know it, or are incurably insane, or both. The movie John Dies at the End is based on that novel and directed by Don Coscarelli, the creator of Phantasm, Bubba Ho Tep and The Beastmaster (the original one, not the one with time travel in).

In the nature of the beast, the process of adapting the book has meant that a little tightening up was needed, and when I say a little, I mean like the Wicked Queen tightened Snow White's corset*. The result misses a great deal of the anarchic nature of the original and pulls the rambling plot into a fairly coherent form which... feels like a bit of a shame to me. I get it, I just liked the original.

On its own terms, however, the film is a blast. The effects are discount - seriously though, a family killed by giant spiders are played by the costume lady and her family; that's where the budget is coming from - but the film eschews CGI and cheap practical effects are so much better than cheap CG that it just isn't funny, and the film still works with them. Chase Williamson (Dave) is a little wooden, but that can honestly be put down to the fact that Dave is pretty stoned throughout most of the film, especially given the quality of the rest of the cast. Paul Giamatti is the big name, but Rob Mayes carries the ludicrous glee of John, and Clancy Brown as Marconi is wonderfully weird (he was the fucking Kurgan; what the fuck?)

There are some slightly bizarre changes (the fact that the dog is called Bark Lee, not Molly, weirds me out, although apparently that's just because that's the dog actor's name and I guess it's easier to get it to respond to Bark Lee), but overall the film's story is pretty tight for something distilled from such craziness, without losing the craziness altogether.

It's also pretty funny, so yay!

* For those who don't know that version, before going the poisoned apple route, the Queen disguised herself to sell Snow White new corset laces and tightened them until Snow White choked.

Date Night

On a recommendation from a friend which I can only accurately describe as glowing, Hannah and I watched the 2010 Steve Carell and Tina Fey romcom Date Night last night (thanks, LoveFilm).

Carell and Fey (thankfully not repeating her accent from Muppets Most Wanted, which we'd rewatched on Sunday) play the Fosters, Phil and Claire, a married professional couple with two children. When their best friends (played by Mark Ruffalo and Kristen Wiig, the first - but by no means the last - of many top flight actors who will be making a flying visit to this film) confide that they are separating due to the romance in their marriage deteriorating to the point that they are 'excellent room mates', the Fosters decide to be spontaneous and replace their usual movie and dinner date night with a trip to the city, where they steal an unclaimed reservation in order to eat at an exclusive restaurant.

This one act of dishonesty leads to a mistaken identity and a madcap chase across the city as corrupt cops and gangsters try to reclaim a flash drive that they believe the couple has stolen. At the same time, the Fosters rekindle their relationship and end up doing all the things they thought they'd left behind.

The story is unashamedly silly, and the film's life comes from the performances - mostly Carell and Fey, but also the unexpectedly prominent supporting cast, which includes Ray Liotta, Mark Wahlberg, James Franco and Mila Kunis, as well as a silent will.i.am as himself - and from a surprisingly adept action set piece featuring two cars joined at the front bumper. The gag reel in the credits reveals that a number of routines in the film were improvised by Carell and Fey from a broad premise, and the strength of the partnership tells in the end results.

All in all, Date Night was a lot of fun.

Muppets Most Wanted

So, I love the Muppets, always have done. I have always loved The Great Muppet Caper, and The Muppet Movie grew on me as I got older. Muppets Treasure Island and Muppets Christmas Carol are amazing, although Muppets from Space was a bit of a let down for me.

And then there was The Muppets, a bold gamble relaunching the franchise for a new generation. Some didn't like it, most did; I loved it, as did Hannah. And now our daughter loves the Muppets as well - the memory of sitting on the sofa, watching Elton John being savaged by crocodiles as Arya fell asleep in my arms is one I will always treasure - so naturally we went to see the advance screening of Muppets Most Wanted on Sunday.

I had a great time. The movie has all the usual Muppet energy and fun, loads of great bad jokes and songs and dances. I do have to say that, for my money, it's not as good as The Muppets, but that's not that much of a caveat.

The film begins with the Muppets left alone at the end of the last movie - and, just FYI, you may find the revelation that that heartwarming crowd scene where the Muppets were welcomed by their devoted fans is now, in-universe, written off as peopled entirely by hired extras to be utterly devastating - and segues into the first musical number, the self-deprecating 'We're Doing a Sequel'. We then meet our antagonists, 'tour manager' Dominic and Constantine, the world's most dangerous frog, and the film swiftly carries us into a story of the Muppets' comeback world tour being used as cover for a series of audacious crimes, while Kermit is replaced by Constantine and thrown in a Siberian gulag.

The plot is mostly used to string together a series of set-pieces. It's more substantial than the 'getting the band back together' riff of The Muppets, but there are two things slightly lacking. Jason Siegel's script absolutely crackled with love for the Muppets, and the new film isn't quite willing to go all in in the same way. Also, in the unpredictable manner of musicals, this time Bret Mackenzie hasn't thrown up anything to match The Muppets. 'We're Doing a Sequel' is fun, but pales beside 'Life's a Happy Song' (or 'The Rainbow Connection', 'Hey a Movie', 'Shiver My Timbers' or 'Scrooge', making it perhaps the weakest Muppet opening number of all), and the big show number, 'Something So Right', is no 'Man or Muppet', Celine Dion or no Celine Dion.

That being said, on its own lights there's a lot to like. 'I'm Number One' is a fun villain song, the gulag chorus singing 'The Big House' is both enjoyable and a nice call back to Caper, and the 'Interrogation Song' is much better than it has a right to be, thanks to the energetic byplay between Ty Burrell and Eric Jacobsen as Sam. 'I Can Get You What You Want (Cockatoo in Malibu)' is an oddity, being the most Conchordesque of the songs in the film, and sticking out in much the same way 'I'm Not Crying' did in The Pirates.

There is also the usual parade of cameos, and just as I was too young to get a lot of the cameos in The Muppet Movie the first time around, I think I'm too old to get a lot of them this time. Still, there are plenty of faces I did recognise in between the twelve year olds, and contrary to my fears from the trailers, not everyone in Europe ends up being an American doing an accent.

So, overall, Muppets Most Wanted wasn't the Muppet sequel I wanted, but it was the one that I got and I'm okay with that.

About Time

So, cards on the table; I am a sap for Richard Curtis's particular brand of minimal social commentary, middle-class romantic comedies, even while I do recognise their failings. About Time is also a very soft SF film about time travel; like The Butterfly Effect without the butterfly effect.

As ever, this will not be a spoiler free review.

Tim (Domhnall Gleeson as Hugh Grant as Richard Curtis) is a charmingly awkward youth who lives in a Cornish idyll with his eccentric father (Bill Nighy), stubbornly practical mother (Lindsay Duncan), mental-but-gentle sister Kit Kat (Lydia Wilson) and sweetly dim uncle (Richard Corderay). In his 21st year, his father tells him that the men in his family can travel within their own lifetime to revisit any point in their past and change their own actions.

Moving on, he gets his heart broken and learns that sometimes there is no right moment, just the wrong girl, and moves to London to practise law. Here he meets Mary (Rachel McAdams), the woman of his dreams, but loses her when a well-meaning piece of time travel helps out a friend, but leads to him erasing their meeting. We then follow his attempts to find her, their budding relationship, and very occasionally see Tim use his powers to improve his life.

This is a Richard Curtis movie, so overall it is light, fluffy and very sweet, with occasional darker moments which are all about humanity, rather than society. It has a fair amount in common with Four Weddings and a Funeral, but uses time travel instead of social format for its repetitions and has Rachel McAdams instead of Andie McDowell, which may qualify as the most pleasing replacement of one American actress with a celtic patronymic surname for another in the history of cinema. It is also, on occasions, deeply affecting, as when Tim is forced to choose between the future and the past, or his sister's happiness and the very existence of his first child.

And, as noted, it does have some problems - I would love to see someone produce a companion piece with a family in which the women can travel into the future, and once more London is depicted as very, very white - but as I often find with Richard Curtis movies, I find it hard to care that much. It also avoids some obvious traps: Tim never uses time travel to cheat Mary, their connection is immediate in the first instance; he also, given an opportunity, does not cheat on her and then 'undo' it, which I was worried might happen at one point. The film also never uses the conceit to allow Tim to wallow in revenge fantasies or do anything mean-spirited which only he will then recall.

About Time: It's not going to set the world on fire, but it's a lovely little film which it really is hard to dislike.

And now I'm pondering writing that story about women who can travel into the future.