Quick Shots - 15/Feb2016

'Black Mass' - a.k.a. The Depp-arted

The Whitey Bolger story starring Johnny Depp as the eponymous criminal, is a pretty tedious movie. Especially after 'The Departed'. 'The Departed' might have been a little silly in parts but it was  more entertaining, thanks to its source material also being the Hong Kong hit movie 'Infernal Affairs'.
As it is, this one goes through the motions with not much energy, and you do get the feeling as to why this story turned into 'The Departed' but the truthiness story of this one is nowhere near as exciting, gripping or intriguing as the outright lie that was 'The Departed'.

It's going to be debated for a long time whether the Academy fucked up in not giving Martin Scorsese any Oscars for his classics and then sheepishly handing him is director Oscar for 'The Departed; but this one, is simply tedious and unimaginative and makes the Scorsese movie look like a masterpiece. And they managed to do the 70s wrong - this might be its worst sin. It's generally a crappy movie, even with the amazing talent assembled to be in it.

'Inherent Vice'

A Paul Thomas Anderson film set in the West Coast of the USA during the early 1970s, starring Joaquin Phoenix as the down and out private eye. Should have been much more interesting than this turned out to be. It's not funny, it's not well put together as a private eye movie, even with echoes of Elliot Gould's turn in 'The Long Goodbye'; it hardly makes any bloody sense. The hair's nice and the cars are cool but as 70s movies goes, this too is a fail.

I wanted it to be. There are some promising moments, but it never really builds towards anything. It abdicates from its responsibility to tell a meaningful story. Instead it loses itself in the stage flow it creates for itself. When it ends, I drew a sigh of relief because I certainly couldn't take it any more.

'Show Me A Hero'

Oscar Isaac as the mayor of Yonkers, fighting for desegregation an public housing. That description doesn't exactly set the imagination alight, but it turns out to be a very interesting series about the nature of public housing and prejudice. Some of it is a bit didactic and there are stretches where it's hard to care about everybody, but eventually the mosaic of stories comes together and builds a bigger picture of the significance of the housing. The 80s and 90s look like the distant past in this series. I guess they now are, but it's really quite acutely nostalgic watching this series.

Bob Balaban and Winona Ryder are in it, which is an interesting bonus.

'Fargo' Season 2

This is how you do the 70s well. In fact, the whole damn thing is amazing. The soundtrack is pumping and it has some beautiful performances from the whole cast. Great writing, great directing, great editing, not much you can fault about this season of 'Fargo'. Very witty, very stylish.
If you have not seen this, go watch it.  Don't waste time on 'Black Mass' or 'Inherent Vice', this is where your 70s fix can be found.

Gang warfare on the screen hasn't been quite this visceral in a long time, and the mixed vernacular of the narrative makes for a heady cocktail of black humoured fun and wanton gun violence. It is simply breathtaking how the show goes from quiet and macabre to head-spinningly violent and bizarre. Unlike the stilted feel of the first season, this season has a fluidity and easiness of narrative that just keeps dragging you along.

I want to come back and do a proper entry on this one. It's really good.

'Supergirl'

This is also really good. The pre-season trailers were already looking good, but this series sure has the goods. As DC comic universe items go, this is much more fun than 'Gotham'. Melissa Benoist as the main character Kara/Supergirl is a standout. The rest of the cast is a bit shaky except for Calista Flockhart who shows the way. Who would have thought Allie McBeal would have amounted  to much, but no, Flockhart makes a great foil for Benoist's dorky straight female-Clarke-Kent routine.

Dean Cain and Helen Slater make appearances as the foster parents of Kara, which is kind of cute, but also in the tradition of previous Superman cast members that make an appearance in the new iterations. I know this will get howls of sexism thrown at me but... Benoist punches "like a girl"; but that's probably the point, seeing that she's Supergirl and not Superwoman.