Finally, ROGUE ONE: A STAR WARS STORY Is the Star Wars Film We've Been Waiting For

I am pleased to say that Rogue One is the awesome Star Wars movie that fans and critics alike have been waiting for probably since Return of the Jedi. With Episodes I, II & III being huge missteps, and as The Force Awakens was basically a remake of A New Hope, it's nice to see a Star Wars film that injects a little grit and depth into the proceedings.

For anyone who doesn't already know, Rogue One is the prequel to A New Hope. It's the story of the Rebel fighters who steal the plans to the first Death Star, making Luke Skywalker's entire adventure possible in the first place. The film centers around Jyn Erso, played by Felicity Jones, who is the child of Imperial engineer Galen Erso, played by an earnest Mads Mikkelsen. As the chief designer of the formidable Death Star, a space station designed to destroy entire planets, Galen follows his conscience and attempts to flee the Empire, so as to avoid completing the terrible project. But lo and behold, Galen and his family are found by the Imperials, which sets off his daughter Jen's journey towards joining the rebellion and stopping the Empire's greatest weapon.

What follows is a darker, grittier version of the Star Wars universe than we've seen since The Empire Strikes Back, or maybe ever, with a cast of great actors that imbue the film with a gravitas that nicely centers the harrowing plot. Diego Luna steps in as Cassian Andor, a rough around the edges Rebel whose motivations are unclear, and Alan Tudyk plays the reprogrammed Imperial droid K-2SO (Essentially a C-3P0 stand-in, but hilarious nonetheless. Also, Tudyk played the chicken in Moana. Seriously awesome). Together the trio sets out to stop the Empire's evil machinations, and along the way get in a series of shootouts and space battles that often come off more like scenes from a war film than a light hearted sci-fi space romp. Indeed, there's been rumblings that Disney had the film reedited as a result of the first cut being too dark, and the final product has definitely retained shades of that darkness, part of which stems from a sort of realism. For example, Donnie Yen plays Chirrut Îmwe, a sort of Jedi monk who is more of a meditative believer than a lightsaber wielding warrior. That's the kind of detail that gives the film a more human element. It also doesn't hurt that things like this are avoided entirely altogether.

Rogue One benefits from the fact that it knows what kind of film it wants to be; That is, a straight forward, well-acted take on the Star Wars universe. Sure, the script isn't Shakespeare, but given that The Force Awakens felt like one big homage to a trilogy of films that most of us have seen dozens of times, it bodes well that the universe can be expanded in a way that is fun, interesting, and at least a little gritty. I'm looking forward to the stand-alone Han Solo film.

Obsessive Chaotic Delirium: THE LAST OF US: PART II Trailer

Oh boy, here we are, finally with The Last of Us: Part II teaser trailer! A lot of people have been waiting a long time for this one, including me, seeing as The Last of Us is one of my all-time favorite games. Like probably at #2 right now, behind the Gamecube remake of Resident Evil 1. That's pretty good, so upon learning that there's really going to be a proper sequel, with the Ellie and Joel characters, no less, that raises the bar high. Ridiculously high. The Last of Us came out of nowhere, blowing minds and making a name for itself as one of the deepest, darkest video games ever created. Not since Bioshock had such a hypnotic tale of woe and terror been spun before our eyes, and that means Naughty Dog will have a lot of fans expecting a lot from this game, myself included. I read that The Last of Us creator Neil Druckmann considered making a Last of Us sequel set in a different world, possibly a futuristic sci-fi world, so he obviously understands the gravity of a Ellie-and-Joel sequel situation. And as of now, we're a long way off from actually playing The Last of Us: Part II, so, to be continued...

Brainstorming: WESTWORLD Episode 10 (The Bicameral Mind) - WARNING: SPOILERS

Let me say first, I'm greatly relieved about the season finale of Westworld. If this episode hadn't been good, it would have pretty much ended my interest in this show, as I think it would have for a lot of other people as well. The Maze, Dolores's weird flashbacks, Bernard's forced suicide; They all needed plausible explanations and resolutions in order for the show to maintain any kind of momentum into Season 2. 

Thankfully, we got this ripping season finale, which moved us out of Westworld and more into the "real" world, with Maeve gang-busting out of the facility with two of her Host cohorts, and bringing Bernard back online in the process. They go out literally guns blazing, tearing their way through facility security guards in way that suggests this show is really some kind of Terminator-esque, Rise of the Machines origin story. But when Maeve finally makes it to the train, finally free of her false world, she turns back, newly resolute on finding her child (The one that's supposedly fake because of the memories planted in her).

That brings us to the central theme of the episode: Choices. Apparently the Maze is a metaphor for Arnold's process through which the Hosts can achieve consciousness, making choices that either brings them closer to or further away from gaining sentient status. Every Host in Westworld can achieve consciousness, but only through making choices, and in the case of this episode, that means shooting a whole bunch of people. 

The Man in Black finally has Dolores cornered, and he forces her to explain the Maze to him, which involves her showing him a child's toy maze. The game belonged to Arnold's son, whom we learn was real and actually died of cancer, motivating Arnold to attempt and achieve consciousness within the Hosts. So when those Hosts kept telling the Man in Black that "The Maze isn't meant for you," they were right. But the Man in Black still wants the Hosts to fight back, to bring real world stakes into Westworld, and it's upon learning the Will is the Man in Black, and that we've been watching two stories occurring at different points in time, taking place side by side, that things really come full circle. The Man in Black/Will owns Westworld, and he has been on an epic quest to make the world he owns make him feel real pain. Dolores obliges him, breaking his arm, and telling him that Westworld belongs to the hosts, again a Rise of the Machines style proclamation. 

But there are even more revelations to be had, as we also learn that Ford knew of Arnold's drive to achieve consciousness in the Hosts, and that Arnold did not want the park opened because he feared such an existence as sentient beings would be torture for them. So Arnold conspired with Dolores to kill all the hosts in Westworld, by creating a new persona to implant in her mind: Wyatt. Yes, the same Wyatt that the Man in Black/Will has been searching for this entire season. That storyline was a red herring, a legendarily murderous but ultimately non-existent character who is instead the embodiment of Arnold's desire to destroy Westworld before it had even begun, which meant destroying himself as well. Dolores shoots Arnold, and then herself, in the hopes that no one would be able to revive the Hosts without Arnold. So we now know the reason why Bernard was really built: As an Arnold replacement needed to run Westworld (This is probably the single most annoying thing about this show, at least for me. The ability to just build a super smart Host creator upon the death of the real one is just way too convenient to actually be plausible, even in a fictional world). 

Ford has something up his sleeve, however, and it turns out his new narrative is exactly what the Man in Black/Will has been looking for: Real world stakes and real world danger. In order to become truly conscious, Ford explains to Dolores, you have to make tough choices, which in this case means shooting Ford in the back of the head, in front of Westworld's board of directors, no less. The Man in Black/Will looks gleeful at the prospect of being killed by one of the many previously decommissioned Hosts descending upon the board's party, and we are left waiting for next season with the prospect of a machine uprising, which is what Ford's new secret narrative turns out to actually have been all along. Ford admits to having to having been persuaded by Arnold's pleas to free the Hosts after the fact, and now claims to not only support their quests for consciousness, but to allow them to wreak havoc upon the real world. 


Things are still convoluted to be sure, but we've finally gotten some satisfying explanations for this season's most maddening questions. What the Man in Black is looking for, what the Maze is, and what is going on in Dolores's mind have been wrapped up, leading us toward a very different season 2. The show started out as a sort of futuristic corporate drama, suddenly switching to a robots-with-feelings fight back thriller halfway through the season. The unexpected shift places the show on shaky ground, but things have been somewhat shored up with the season finale, with a lot more thrills (And hopefully Samurai World) to come. 

Obsessive Chaotic Delirium: THE NEON DEMON and Nicholas Winding Refn - WARNING: SPOILERS

I finally got around to watching The Neon Demon last night, the latest film by Danish filmmaker Nicholas Winding Refn. Full disclosure: His film Drive is one of my all time favorite movies. Like, Top Ten Status. Its '80s style soundtrack and incredible color-saturated visuals told a modern day, Los Angeles criminal world-set fairytale that brought Refn something close to mainstream prominence. I read somewhere that Refn referred to Drive as being like "The Breakfast Club, but where a guy gets his head crushed," or something like that, which is an off-the-cuff analysis that gets you somewhere in the proximity of what the film is like. Since then, Refn has gone on to make Only God Forgives, also set in the criminal world, this time in Bangkok, Thailand. It was greeted with a much more chilly reception by critics, still carrying Refn's trademark of minimal dialogue and beautiful visuals, but telling a troubling story of a mother and son's relationship. Both films starred Ryan Gosling, whom Refn has touted as his on-screen proxy.

But with The Neon Demon, Refn has returned to Los Angeles sans Gosling, casting Elle Fanning in the lead role as Jesse, a fresh-from-Middle-America teen looking to break into the brutal fashion industry. Her backstory (Both parents dead, no further details given) is razor-thin, and this film is ultimate style-over-substance, relying heavily on the visuals and given little attention to character development or plot. Essentially, the central plot device is that Jesse is a natural beauty, breaking into the vicious LA fashion industry full of vacuous, surgically enhanced models who would like nothing more than to see her dead. Turns out, that's exactly what happens, but the where and how lead this film down the path of campy '70s horror films, leading up to three shocking scenes (Also a trademark of Refn) that cap off an otherwise slow, plodding film.

It can't be said this film is as good as Drive, and it really doesn't stand up to Only God Forgives either. The main problem is both those films had great performances (Albert Brooks in Drive, Kristen Scott Thomas in Only God Forgives) that gave them dramatic heft. Much has been made of Ryan Gosling's reserved, largely silent performances in those film, and it really only worked because Brooks and Scoot served as sinister foils to his blank canvas, their black-hearted motivations pushing up against his good intentions, to thrilling effect.

In The Neon Demon, things are more ambiguous, but it doesn't end up assisting the power of the film. Jesse knows she's beautiful, and as the story unfolds she becomes more willing to wield that fact against those who would see her fall. Jena Malone plays Ruby, a makeup artist infatuated with Jesse, or that is, right up until Jesse refuses to sleep with her. At that point all bets are off, and Ruby and two other rival models murder Jesse and eat her. So the film ends up being a kind of vampire fantasy tale, a literal and blunt analogy for an industry that is vampiric by an stretch of the imagination. The rest of the film is basically really cool looking shots of fashion models and Los Angeles. Keanu Reeves shows up, stunt-cast as a seedy hotel manager, which is probably one of the single most questionable casting choices I've ever seen, especially since Refn made incredible casting choices across the board in both Drive and Only God Forgives.

What The Neon Demon adds up to, if anything, to is going to be debated for a long time, and the same can be said about Only God Forgives, also a heavily misunderstood film. For my money, it's an offering of the gorgeous visuals of Refn's last two films, but lacks any kind of actual story, let alone a compelling one. The beauty of the film, like its characters, only runs skin deep.

Just A Thought: A Look Back at STRANGER THINGS

I just finished the 3rd episode of Stranger Things, the beloved "blockbuster" hit Netflix show that filled the void that was the 2016 summer movie season. What little I saw of the show upon its initial release didn't really make that much of an impression. It seemed to me to be an '80s nostalgia trip, albeit a clumsily cobbled together one, relying heavily on its synth soundtrack and shimmering light title word intro, a la Terminator, in order to evoke a mood that the story itself couldn't really provide. Sure, the psychically powerful El and her three amigos searching for their lost friend Will is the compelling heart of the narrative, but what surrounds that main story thread is a jumbled mess. Winona Ryder as the high-strung Joyce, pining for her missing son, is so manically over the top from scene one, it feels hard to catch your breath whenever she's on screen. Jonathan, the creepy photographer loner pining after his popular co-ed Nancy, plays into typically high school movie stereotypes so blatantly you feel like you're watching outtakes from The Breakfast Club.

And there lies the real problem I'm having with the show so far: It's way too apparent how self-aware the showmakers were in playing into these tropes, and how aware we as the audience are supposed to be of said tropes. Even if these stereotypical plot lines are going to be subverted down the line, they've set a template that says, "Look at this throwback '80s-style show. Hear the soundtrack. Look at the goofy special effects. Feel the nostalgia." I think it was Don Draper who said nostalgia is a potent but tricky thing, and I for one don't like being browbeaten by a bunch of stylistic choices that I'm supposed to like because supposedly I'm a millennial pining for an era I didn't even live through. Or if something like this is going to work, it needs to be done with a far greater degree of skill and subtlety. (Think Drive). 


I've aired my grievances, and I'll continue on with Stranger Things, but I have my doubts as to what its all going to add up to. Maybe that's all you need to have a hit show these days: Something that acts like a time machine, taking you back to a place that wasn't really all that great to begin with. 

Brainstorming: WESTWORLD Episode 9 (The Well-Tempered Clavier) - WARNING: SPOILERS

Westworld writer and co-creator Jonathan Nolan, like his older brother Christopher, clearly has a thing for layers within layers. Since their film Inception, directed and co-written by Christopher Nolan and co-written by Jonathan, it's become almost a running joke about the duo's mind-bending film about dreams-within-a-dream: Does this even make sense? And does anyone really care if it does or not? 

Those are definitely the questions that began to flood my mind watching Episode 9 of Westworld last night, the second episode post-revelation that Bernard was a Host all along, information that perhaps devastatingly undercut his motivations in interrogating Dolores. If Bernard himself is doing Ford's bidding, then why is Ford bothering to question Dolores in the first place? That revelation left a gaping hole in the show, not to mention the increasing number of inconsistencies when it comes to Will and the Man in Black traipsing through Westworld in increasing amounts of danger without any of the park's security forces being concerned for their well-being (Are there laws in the future? Would it matter if they suddenly died in the park? And if Dolores is acting all renegade and crazy, why hasn't anyone other than Will noticed or tried to stop her?).

Indeed, there were a number of issues I had with Westworld going into this episode, and although I can't say that what we learned in this one turned my doubts about the show's direction around, it did offer some intriguing possibilities for the season finale. The centerpiece of this episode was Bernard's showdown with Ford, which involved him having the lobotomized Clementine hold Ford at gunpoint while he goes back through his memories, both real and programmed. Unfortunately, little is revealed that we didn't already know: His son dying, his relationship with (And murder of) Theresa, and finally, his first moment of awakening, where Ford greets him. Bernard's goal was to recover his memory of meeting Arnold, the elusive partner of Ford who we learned had been murdered in the park many years ago. Turns out Bernard is some version of Arnold, post-murder: Ford had programmed him as a replacement for his dearly deceased partner in order to keep a hold on running the park. Intriguing as this may be, it immediately shows the problem created when we learned Bernard is a Host; that we really can't trust what anyone says. Sure, Ford claims Bernard is a Host-replacement for Arnold, but when he shows Bernard a photo, we see Ford, Bernard, and an unidentified third man. Does Bernard look like Arnold, or is he simply a new body that holds some sort of simulated "Arnold brain?" Is the unidentified guy Arnold, or is it the guy who looks like Bernard? In the end, Ford goes on a convoluted speech about how him being held at gunpoint was really something he had planned for Bernard to do all along, hoping that Bernard would come around to having his memory wiped once again and rejoin Ford's efforts in completing his new narrative. Bernard refuses, so Ford has Bernard shoot himself in the head with Clementine's gun. Tragic...But wait, can't these Hosts just be repaired on a whim? 

That brings us to Maeve, the renegade Host hell-bent on freeing herself by blackmailing two gullible Westworld technicians by turning her intelligence and cunning settings up to 11. In Episode 9 she interrupts a narrative involving her dashing outlaw lover (Another inconsistency, considering there are no actual paying customers around to experience the narrative playing out. I guess those techs just really love fixing those Hosts over and over!), revealing to him the true nature of his reality. She claims she can free them both, which for some reason involves them going into a tent and screwing while Maeve kicks over a lantern, setting the tent ablaze. Apparently, they want to be all crispy deep fried when they wake in the real world and escape. 

Meanwhile, Dolores has some plans of her own regarding getting out of Westworld, and Will has fallen head over heels for her. It's too bad then that his soon to be brother-in-law Logan, back in action as some sort of Confederate general, learns of Will's desire to see Dolores out of the park and intervenes. Will, perhaps not acting entirely rationally, kills the entire Confederate camp serial killer style, and forces Logan to help him find Dolores. But she's already gone, off to the center of the Maze, which appears to be a small church. There she enter a confession booth, only to be taken down to an abandoned hallway full of offline Hosts, finally entering the interrogation room, and when Bernard enters the room, she greets him as Arnold and claims that she killed him (Cue gasps!). 

The intertwining storylines within the episode makes for compelling viewing, but there all still a lot of unanswered questions that one would hope to see answered by Episode 10. And on a side note, is that church really the center of the Maze!? That would be a huge letdown considering the sizable build-up we've had so far. It looks like we'll have more information in the 10th episode, as 9 ended with the Man in Black waltzing through the church doors, greeting a justifiably horrified Dolores. 

This is a good setup for finally learning about Arnold's intentions for Westworld, which appears to be the Man in Black's motivation for finding the center of the Maze. Bernard reveals that Arnold wrote much of his code (Although how could Arnold have written the code for a future version of himself? Did he know Dolores was going to kill him?), as well as significant amounts of code for all the other Hosts as well. The Maze and this additional code have been linked regarding Arnold's higher purpose for Westworld. But whatever that purpose is, Ford is taking great lengths to see it stopped. 

FANTASTIC BEASTS AND WHERE TO FIND THEM Offers Plenty of Magical Thrills

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is for the most part, as the English say, “Brilliant,” a romping good time through the Harry Potter universe. Except, unlike the eight main Harry Potter films that have come before, Fantastic Beasts is set in America, roughly a century before our bespectacled hero undertook his quest against Voldemort. Beasts is the first movie extension of the Potter universe, and introduces us a whole new set of characters and, of course, fantastic creatures.

Eddie Redmayne stars as Newt Scamander, a wizard who smuggles in a suitcase of magical creatures illegally into New York City. The year is 1926, and the wizarding community is far more interested in protecting the secret of their existence from “No-Majs” (known as “Muggles” in England), than they are in preserving the fascinating, though often quite destructive, creatures that Scamander cares for.

Redmayne shines as the beating heart of the film, playing Scamander as an introverted loner who brims with a charisma fueled by his curiosity and mischief. As soon as he steps into New York with a suitcase overflowing with his chaotic beasts things seem doomed to go afoul, and no sooner is the proverbial (though in this case almost literal) cat out of the bag before he enlists Jacob Kowalski (Dan Folger), a clueless but affable “No-Maj” who tries his best to assist Scamander in retrieving his beloved beasts. Folger also shines in the film, his gregarious energy a perfect foil to Redmayne’s withdrawn but palpable intellect.

It’s safe to say Fantastic Beasts is somewhat of a buddy film, and indeed much of the fun comes from Scamander and Kowalski’s comedic romp through New York as they try and wrangle up the assorted magical creatures. But the film has a decidedly political element to it, centering on the Magical Congress of the United States of America and their battle to stop Gellert Grindelwald, a wizard terrorist who commits heinous crimes in the hopes of making “No-Majs” aware of wizarding kind. It’s here that Colin Farrell steps in as Percival Graves, a mysterious auror (A member of an elite group of wizard police) who works for the M.C.U.S.A, and has an interest in finding a powerful wizard child hidden somewhere in the city. No more can be said without giving away spoilers, but the narrative links between Graves, Grindelwald, and Scamander are somewhat tenuous and at times confusing. It’s the films lighter moments that shine the brightest.

Fantastic Beasts is a must see for any Harry Potter fan, and even those who haven’t yet been inducted into the Potter universe, Beasts offers plenty of magical thrills. Redmayne anchors this effects-heavy film, radiating affection for his fantastic beasts in way that brings them all the more to life. In those moments, Beasts is blockbuster cinema at its best: For those looking for tears, thrills and laughs, this is the place to find them.