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House of the Dragon (S2:E1 – A Son for a Son)

Set 200 years before the events of Game of Thrones, season 2 of House of the Dragon picks up days after the conclusion of Season 1. Westeros is on the verge of war as the already cloven royal family reals in the aftermath of Prince Luke’s death at the hand of his cousin Aemond. Unwilling to forego vengeance, will Queen Rhaenyra’s next actions set the whole of the country in dragon flames?

House of the Dragon (S2:E1 – A Son for a Son) Review

Season one of the series was already at a disadvantage when compared to the electrifying early seasons of GOT. However, it quickly found its own voice, distinguishing itself as a more deliberately paced affair far more interested in political intrigue than in being an epic adventure with global repercussions.

Episode 1 of this season continues the trend even though it also sets the groundwork for what look to be set pieces to rival the scope, if not the emotional connection of Game of Thrones. And that’s really where this episode suffers the most: a lack of emotional connection.

Unhelped by the two-year gap between seasons 1 & 2, A Son for a Son doesn’t possess the same connective tissue as even some of the weakest episodes of its older brother. Its characters seem to blend together with names that are even more similar and indistinguishable from one another than they are.

All in all, the somewhat slowly-paced episode 1 of season 2 of House of the Dragon is held together by good performances and promise.

WOKE ELEMENTS

Oh, Varys

• Game of Thrones had no shortage of strong women in leadership roles. However,  unlike Daenerys and Sansa, who went through hell only to gain power organically, or Cersei, who schemed and connived her way to power and ultimately ruin, the leading ladies of House of Dragon wield power much more like their male counterparts. Furthermore, the competence scale has significantly tipped in their direction.
  • With all of his flaws, even after losing his hand, Jaime Lannister’s character arc was both that of finding redemption and, once again, becoming competent. Season 2 of HOTD seems to be setting the stage to make the men more or less irrelevant.
  • It’s fairly subtle at this point, and I might be wrong about the show’s trajectory, but I doubt it.

House of the Dragon (S2:E2 – Rhaenrya the Cruel)

The drama continues as the consequences of Daemon’s impetuousness begin to bear poisoned fruit. The Red Keep is in turmoil, the king is furious, and war is inevitable.

House of the Dragon (S2:E2 – Rhaenrya the Cruel) Review

Rhaenrya the Cruel is another perfectly satisfactory entry into the series. The performances are consistently fantastic, and the dialogue is better than almost anything else out there right now. However, the show still hasn’t reached GOT’s intrigue or on-the-edge-of-your-seat thrillingness. Instead, it continues to give off a very soap opera-like vibe, though with infinitely better script, performances, and production value.

WOKE ELEMENTS

Floppy Wieners

• I’m all for the franchise’s complete omission of gratuitous nudity. It added nothing to the original series and served as little more than cheap titillation. However, while this series shows a marked reduction, they make a concerted effort to hide female nudity without the same consideration for the men. Don’t get me wrong, junk isn’t spinning in the wind in scene after scene, but they will show completely naked men (junk hidden) while giving half-ass-crack shots to women playing dancing whores. It’s not an accident.

Geography Schmeography

• One of the things that gave the original such a wonderful sense of scope was its clearly defined geography, as shown by clear racial and cultural divides. You know, like the totality of human existence was before cheap and easy mass transit was a thing. Heck, have you been to modern-day Japan or Norway? They’re filled with Japanese and Norwegians.

House of the Dragon (S2:E3-E8)

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Deadpool & Wolverine Review

With painfully few exceptions, Netflix’s Beverley Hills Cop: Axel F being among the most recent, legacy characters and legacy IPs, especially male or male-centric ones, have been kicked around and treated like family members that the big studios that own them are ashamed to acknowledge. So, when it was announced that The House of Mouse was going to bring back one of the most beloved comic/comic book movie characters of all time, featured in a film franchise known for its diarrhea and masturbation jokes, one could be forgiven for puckering up in some warm dark places.

Fortunately, the main duo’s affinity for the character shines through in scene after scene as Jackman’s dour Wolverine plays rage-filled ying to Reynolds’ neverending diatribe of sophomoric yang. This dynamic was attempted in Deadpool 2 with Josh Brolin’s Cable but fell flat due to a number of factors, Cable’s lack of character development chief among them. In Deadpool and Wolverine, the chemistry sings.

Whereas 2 sometimes felt relentless and chaotic, by keeping the focus tight on its two charismatic leads and infusing it with the perfect combination of heart, humor, and brutal violence, Deadpool & Wolverine effortlessly soars past the dreg that has become the MCU specifically and Disney programming in general.

Another shining star atop the film’s refrigerator art, as Wade and Logan go on a worlds-spanning adventure, good-naturedly harpooning many of the MCU’s blunders and missteps via The Merc with The Mouth’s signature meta-humor, the Deadpool & Wolverine delivers scene after scene of the best fan service ever put to film. Do not go hunting for spoilers, and hide your eyes from all of the marketing because D&W’s cameos are beyond next-level, and each one discovered before its time will rob you of much of the movie’s magic.

All of these warm and fuzzies aren’t just good but are dearly needed because the film’s plot is only slightly more undercooked than its villain. Played with aplomb enough to almost make up for being little more than a glorified plot device, Emma Corrin, best known for her role as Princess Diana in The Crown, manages to squeeze out and amplify both drops of character development written for her Cassandra. Performing real-life magic, she manufactures a three-dimensional performance virtually from thin air.

Ultimately, Deadpool & Wolverine is a savagely hilarious action-adventure comedy that relies on a lot of fun action sequences, tons of charisma, and gallons of chemistry between its leads. By the film’s end, your face will hurt from smiling.

WOKE ELEMENTS

It’s The 3rd One

• There’s a sprinkling of sacrilege that inches its way past modern cinema’s ubiquitous overuse of the Lord’s Name. This is why I didn’t endorse the film as Worth it.

It’s Only Gay If You Don’t Laugh

• The marketing campaign had some fans worried that Deadpool & Wolverine would lean hard into the bromance that Reynolds has been hinting at since the first Deadpool. However, the movie avoids this like the plague and instead dishes out a continual barrage of gay jokes that lampoon homosexuality rather than glorifying it.

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Longlegs

FBI Agent Lee Harker investigates a series of gruesome deaths connected to a mysterious figure known as Longlegs. As the case unfolds, unearthing evidence of the occult, Harker discovers a personal connection to the merciless killer and must race against time to stop him before he claims the lives of another innocent family.

Longlegs Review

Since their earliest days, horror movies have relied on a handful of essential ingredients to deliver their thrills and chills. From jump scares to disturbing imagery, the only thing that has changed is each film’s specific usage and the degree to which it relies on those ingredients. Over the last two decades, it seems as though the art of eliciting fear from audiences with subtlety and creativity has been largely lost, replaced by the current crop of genre filmmakers’ race to see who can be grosser and more explicit. Enter Longlegs.

With its minuscule budget and cast of unknowns, Nicolas Cage and Blair Underwood notwithstanding, Longlegs harkens back to the days when the cinematographer and score were more essential than gallons of dyed corn syrup and an FX budget to rival a small nation’s GDP. Despite the fact that the film is a little underdeveloped, with far too little Cage, and loses a bit of focus in the third act, by going back to the basics, Longlegs delivers a delicious ever-present tension as the audience sits on the edge of their seats waiting for the shoe to drop.

Its quintessential 70s horror chic cinematography, with long lingering shots framed ever-so-slightly off-center, and director Oz Perkins’s (son of Anthony Perkins – aka Norman Bates in Psycho) keen sense of timing are the film’s true stars. However, its classically understated vintage score and some surprising performances shine nearly as brightly.

Obviously, seeing Nicholas Cage as a demonic serial killer is Longleg’s big draw, and the only disappointing thing about his disturbing performance is its abbreviated nature. He’s one part creepy, three parts demonically terrifying, and all Nicolas Cage. That said, despite having a relatively underwhelming resume of which her turn as President Whitmore’s daughter in the critically panned Independence Day sequel,  Maika Monroe surprises as Agent Harker. With Cage only appearing briefly, the bulk of the film lies on Monroe’s shoulders, and she is more than up to the task.

Even though the outward trappings of her role as an FBI agent combined with the time period in which Longlegs is set, not to mention the film’s tone, understandably invokes parallels to Clarice Sterling and Silence of the Lambs, Monroe’s Harker is wholly its own creature. The actress beautifully portrays the socially awkward agent with a grounded sincerity and realism that precludes what could have easily been a caricature. As such, she is the perfect straight man to the film’s bizarre goings-on.

Unfortunately, Longlegs flounders a bit under the weight of its concept and what appears to have been very limited access to Nicolas Cage. As a result, everyone’s character development is fairly rushed, with Cage’s character suffering the most. It also suffers from a botched reveal of its twist in an unnecessary and redundant montage that’s overlong, overly expository, and completely robs the film’s final minutes of virtually all of its momentum.

In spite of this and a rushed two-dimensional relationship between Harker and a catalyst character, Longlegs dishes out a quick and fun fright night worth seeing.

WOKE ELEMENTS

Lady Cops

• Nitpickers might take umbrage with yet another “strong female” cop-like character leading a film. However, not only have there been female FBI field agents since the 70s, but Lee Harker is a socially awkward mess and not some unstoppable bad@$$ who was clearly written to be a man until studio interference. Her feminity actually adds a nice layer of vulnerability to the story.

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