[CASUAL] January Movie Challenge

[Haschel Cedricson]

Only Murders In The Building (Entire series, ten 30-minute episodes each)

Fantastic show, binged right through it. Steve Martin and Martin Short are obviously old pros with excellent chemistry, and the choice to bring in Selena Gomez as their younger foil works far better than it has any right to. The stylistic choices are fantastic, the mystery is engaging, and it also explores deeper themes like loneliness. Can't recommend enough.

Also, normally I find that Martin Short wears out his welcome fast but this show is perfect in terms of letting him do his thing without overdoing it.

[Haschel Cedricson]

4.75) John Wick

An excellent action film, marred only by the fact that the last part seemed a bit superfluous; I can buy an unstoppable ball of revenge blasting its way through the movie, but once revenge on the primary target has been achieved there's no need to keep going. I also wish I had gotten to learn more about

the hotel

, although I understand that will come up in the second movie.

[Haschel Cedricson]

I think if I watch a movie I'm not going to bother checking the running time.

[Haschel Cedricson]

5.75) John Wick: Chapter 2

The first film explores what happens when an unstoppable force focuses all of its energy on one target. The sequel could have easily done the same thing but wisely chose to invert the formula by forcing Wick to shift from unstoppable force to immoveable object. The mythology is fleshed out in a way that doesn't feel hamfisted, and while it does raise a few questions (how many elite hitman freelancers ARE there?) they aren't the sort of thing that detracts from the movie. The John Wick films aren't high art, but they are still well-crafted entertainment.

Particular props go to the editing decision to show several non-contemporaneous fights at once instead of having them be setpieces one after the other. It not only kept up the pace but also contributed to the feeling of being targeted by an endless enemy.

[Haschel Cedricson]

6.75) John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum

Some mixed feelings here. In terms of pacing this movie does a fine job of not wearing out its welcome, the action scenes have fantastic fight choreography, and things are varied enough with different styles of martial arts and improvised weapons that it never feels like the same old same old from the first two movies. However, the writing in this one falls flat. I'm reminded of The Dark Knight Rises, where the third movie in the trilogy squandered it with a whole bunch of philosophy. This movie feels the same way at times only it somehow doesn't even commit to that. I can tell the writers want to discuss What Does It Mean To

Be

A John Wick? until they've gone up their own ass, but even their attempts at asking and answering this question feel rushed.

There are still entertaining parts, and this isn't a bad movie. However, the first two were great and this one is merely okay.

[Haschel Cedricson]

17) Designated Survivor, Season 1 (21 episodes)

This deserves a longer review and analysis; there is a lot to like but also some problematic elements that deserve to be explored in depth. At times the plot gets ridiculous but never to the extent that Scandal did. Honestly I was afraid it was going to be West Wing Meets 24 and it hasn’t gotten there yet.

[Haschel Cedricson]

28) Designated Survivor, Season 2 (22 episodes)

Not entirely sure how to judge this one. It's an entertaining show, sure. At times it's not quite sure which direction it wants to take, though. I'm reminded of House of Cards, season 3. Part of the fun of watching House of Cards was seeing how Underwood was going to scheme his way into becoming the president. Once he was president, though, the show struggled because watching somebody attempt to get power is a lot more fun than just watching somebody with power. So too does Designated Survivor suffer from the passage of time - at this point the nation has recovered from the Capitol bombing so now the show dabbles a bit too close to being a West Wing clone.

That's not to say it's all bad; the midseason finale was great as are the following episodes following the emotional ramifications on the president. It's no Two Cathedrals (what is?) but it's still a fascinating portrait of the stress that comes with being commander-in-chief, without the ability to ever truly take time off.

[Haschel Cedricson]

35) Designated Survivor, Season 3 (10 Episodes)

Wow, that was... something? So Designated Survivor ran for two seasons on ABC. ABC gave up on the show, but Netflix picked it up for an additional 10 episodes. Normally we don't think too much about what network is airing a show or how the show is distributed, but there are definite side effects to the change in production. Aside from the obvious shortened series run (10 episodes vs 21/22), there are a ton of characters from the first two seasons who didn't make the move to Netflix. A few of these are explained (the president's son is off at college now!) but the majority are just gone, their absences not even commented on. It's a bit jarring to discover that not only will we not be getting closure on some old characters, but we are also introduced to new people that we are now supposed to care about. Some of these do better than others.

The other big change caused by the move to Netflix is that the characters are allowed to swear now. It's a bit jarring at first; we've just seen two full seasons of nobody swearing ever and now the president is saying fuck, his young daughter is calling things "shitty", and Kal Penn describes a political rival as a cunt. It's not a big change, but its certainly one way to set itself apart from The West Wing.

I don't want to spoil too much about the plot of the season. The general story arc is whether or not President Kirkman can get reelected as an independent candidate. It's obvious that he's going to pull it off; the entire point of Designated Survivor is to show an alternate world where the Good Guy Who Just Wants To Fix Government is given the opportunity to do so. What is interesting is the writing choices that the show uses to get there. One of the new characters is a social media intern who helps the president get his message to the voters and let the voters get their messages to him. To this end the show uses actual videos by non-actors talking about how politicians have failed them on a wide range of topics from the opioid crisis, employment, health care, gentrification, and more. These are real people who are not breaking the fourth wall per se but are certainly opening a window in it.

We are also introduced to President Kirkman's sister-in-law, a trans woman who at first exists merely to drag Kirkman into the culture wars (the right hates that Sasha exists, the left hates that Kirkman never mentioned her before because maybe he was embarrassed(?), Sasha wants to be left alone as a private citizen). At one point Sasha attends a trans support group where trans people discuss their journeys and tell their stories. Once again, these are not actors and their stories are not scripted. It's a little hamfisted in terms of storytelling, but there's no denying that its powerful at hammering home a message.

Unfortunately where Designated Survivor misses the mark is a crucial element of the show that has been baked in since the very beginning. Kirkman is an independent, and the show wants us to believe that his brand of practical centrism will help the nation. However, it sends mixed messages when it comes to Kirkman's own stances. He's liberal on almost all of the social issues. We are told that he's a fiscal conservative but we never see evidence of that. He's certainly stronger on national security (which tbh is to be expected considering he became president thanks to a bombing that killed thousands), but a real-life Kirkman would be running in the Democratic primary. This is at odds with the stated premise that his centrism is somehow a strength. Designated Survivor wants us to strive for compromise while also ignoring its own beliefs that one party is more correct on the issues than the other. Hell, in the three-way presidential race the only antagonist is the Republican nominee; I barely remember the Democratic nominee's name and the only reason he exists is to make the electoral map closer. Its bad writing and ultimately bad politics.

The other disappointing part of this season is the storyline for FBI agent Hannah Wells. She is investigating a bioterror conspiracy, which is potentially exciting except for the fact that her storyline is 100% divorced from the main cast until episode 8 of 10. She never interacts with the president, she's never acknowledged by a character we know, and ultimately the entire storyline feels like a missed opportunity and a waste of a good actress.

All in all season three took some ambitious swings. Not all of them landed. Despite the flaws I still found it to be an entertaining show and I don't regret that I watched Season 3 unlike some other shows that became "rescued" by Netflix (looking at you, Arrested Development).

[Haschel Cedricson]

For what it’s worth when it comes to TV shows I’m only counting full seasons, as they lend themselves well to being reviewed as a whole. I’ve watched individual episodes of other shows but I’m not claiming points for them because that feels like cheap pointgrubbing.