Category: Broken Girl Media

Film, Television, Radio, and Gaming

Reviews: January 2020

  • Knives Out: So, Brick is in my Top 100 of all time, Looper was okay, and The Last Jedi was the best Star Wars since Empire… but Knives Out is where Rian Johnson lost me. I was nodding off after 30 minutes of tedious exposition and scenery chewing, and the fact that it’s an utterly predictable whodunnit didn’t help wake me up. Ana De Armas is very pretty, and Don Johnson is a better performer at 70 than he ever was at 30, but that’s about as positive as I can be.
  • Speaking of The Last Jedi… The Rise of Skywalker was blandly watchable, in that going-through-the-motions, JJ Abrams way. The best and worst thing about it is Adam Driver, who is trying so much harder than everyone else, it’s like he’s in a different movie. Honestly, I’d have much preferred TRoS if it had been released as Kylo Ren: Tantrums of the Sith.
  • My hat is off to Olivia Wilde: Booksmart easily ranks as one of my favorite movies of 2019. It’s like Superbad, but with kids who actually deserve their improbably exciting night of adventure. It’s sadly rare for teen girls in comedies to be interesting characters without also being adorable or preternaturally sexy, but Wilde pulls it off.
  • I’m trying to watch Schitt’s Creek, but what a fucking slog. I’ve laughed about a dozen times in a dozen episodes —every time at something involving Catherine O’Hara, to her credit— which means it’s just about as amusing as Green Acres or Ed, the mediocre shows it most directly echoes. And Dan Levy…? I mean, maybe the world needed an even-fussier version of Johnny Galecki, but I sure didn’t. I’ve been assured it gets better, but I’m seeing no signs of it.
  • Fuck Steven Moffat with a pointy stick. That is my review of Dracula.
  • I’ve posted enough GIFs of The Child at this point to make it clear how I feel about The Mandalorian… if you’re familiar with its references —Kurosawa, Sergio Leone, etc.— the plot feels awfully thin, but I am helpless before the might of that tiny puppet’s gaze. (“Baby Yoda” is the cinematic manifestation of the 🥺 emoji.)
  • What We Do In The Shadows: Um… Thor: Ragnarok was very good, and Jojo Rabbit looks promising. Next.
  • The US version of The Circle is almost exactly what I expected it to be… The Circle, but with all of the kind, thoughtful, respectful people removed and replaced by obnoxious, shit-talking American morons. It’s watchable, but there’s no Brother Tim or Woody or Georgina in sight.
  • Downton Abbey: [SPOILER] Did you ever wish Tom Branson could be the central character in the world’s slowest thriller, about a bored widower who forgets he has a child and spends his time getting wrapped up in an incredibly stupid assassaination plot that’s a non-starter from the get-go? With a side-order of Maggie Smith being awesome? Julian Fellowes has you covered.
  • The Aussie version of Love Island is… holy shit, I’m not even sure. The Australians comprise the most physically unappealing, mean-spirited, and aggressively competitive cast in any iteration of the show, but in their trashy, melodramatic, gossipy way, they make for good television.
  • The Witcher: I’ve never made it past the first hour of The Witcher III, and I’ll never make it past the first hour of the show.

So I finally watched it. And was left disappointed.

Joker is a giant performance embedded in a hollow film. It’s trying desperately to be an homage to Taxi Driver and The King of Comedy, and Joaquin Phoenix is arguably better than DeNiro was in either of those… but when you look past its stylistic pretensions, it’s just a super-villain origin story that goes on for an hour too long.

And even that giant performance works against it, because It sucks all the oxygen from the room. With Taxi Driver, Scorsese made room for DeNiro to redefine film acting for his generation and turn Jodie Foster into a thirteen year old movie star and even give a young Cybil Shepherd a chance to shine… Joker’s secondary characters are as paper-thin as Arthur Fleck‘s understanding of people in general.

Yes, I suppose it’s an interesting inversion, turning TD’s unhinged, kinda-fascist Travis Bickle into an unhinged, kinda-anarchist clown, but that’s as deep as it gets. Unless “boy, we’re really shitty to people with mental illnesses” is what passes for insight these days.

But I’ll say this: between Joker, The Master, I’m Still Here, and Her, Joaquin is unquestionably the most accomplished actor of the twenty-teens. I can’t name anyone who went as balls-out over the course of the decade, and unlike Leo DiCaprio in the 2000s, he didn’t have the tailwind of a 1990s blockbuster pushing his career along. His fucked-up face and his fucked-up teeth and the ghost of his handsome, super-talented brother couldn’t stop him… it’s pretty goddamned amazing.

Harley Quinn

I watched very little animation in the ‘90s, and when I did, it was on MTV: Beavis & Butthead, a little Aeon Flux, and of course, The Maxx. (I can’t believe I’ve never done a post about The Maxx… I’ve let you all down. I need to correct my error.)

Anyway… that means I never watched shows like Ren & Stimpy, nor Bruce Timm’s Batman stuff. And I therefore have zero attachment to Harley Quinn.

With that said, the new DC Universe show is… kind of great. The writing is sharp and the visuals are impressive. And I mean, c’mon… there’s a joke about Harley drinking piss in the first five minutes of episode one, so how could I not be intrigued?

The casting is impressive as well: a ranting, histrionic, Chris Meloni-powered Commissioner Gordon? Good stuff. Lake Bell channeling Jane from Daria as Poison Ivy? Fantastic. And against all odds, Kaley Cuoco as Harley, finally finding a role that suits her particular skill set? I’m rather shocked.

Naturally, no one’s gonna watch it because it’s on DC Universe… but it’s worth seeking out.