Posts Tagged ‘television’

Review, Black Knight on Netflix

Posted: May 21, 2023 by John Ruberry in media, culture, entertainment
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By John Ruberry

A little over a week ago Black Knight, a six-episode dystopian series set in Korea, began streaming on Netflix. 

It’s 2071, decades earlier a comet struck Earth. The Korean peninsula is now a dunes-covered desert, only one percent of the population survived the disaster. Earth’s atmosphere is poisonous. Most of landmass of Earth is underwater,

The government is a corporatist dictatorship. The corporation is the Cheonmyeong Group, led by Chairman Ryu (Nam Kyung-eub), but run by his evil son, Ryu Seok (Song Seung-heon). The Republic of Korea–presumably North Korea and the Kim family didn’t survive the blast–is led by a president (Jin Kyung), but Ryu Seok is really in charge. He’s a Rahm Emanuel-style “Never let a crisis go to waste” type. 

That tiny population is divided into four groups, castes really, and the top group is the Core, which consists of the Cheonmyeong Group and the top tier of the government, and a couple of middle classes, General and Special. But the majority of the survivors are classified as refugees, who for the most part scrape out a miserable survival in the ruins of the former city of Seoul.

The Core of course enjoy a luxurious existence. 

All but the refugees have coveted QR codes tattooed on a hand that allows them entrance into restricted areas–and to purchase desperately needed supplies, especially oxygen.

Is there a way out from the misery for the refugees? Yes, the legit path is to become a deliveryman, a truck driver for the Cheonmyeong Group, transporting those vital supplies. Think of Mad Max in The Road Warrior driving a semitrailer as the wheeled army of Humongous follows him around the Wasteland, only for a post-apocalypse Korean Amazon. The greatest of these deliverymen is 5-8 (Kim Woo-bin). In the post-apocalyptic Korea, deliveryman eschew their birthnames in exchange for the numbered district they service. By the way, there are some female deliverymen.

The other way for the refugees to escape their bleak lives is the criminal path–becoming Hunters. Once again, think of the mobile gangs of the Mad Max franchise. These Black Nights fire back–and 5-8 even electrocutes a pair of them who make the mistake of climbing onto his truck. 

Yoon Sa-wol (Kang You-seok) is a mischievous refugee teen who idolizes 5-8–he even plays a 5-8 computer game–and he and dreams of becoming a deliveryman. Sa-wol is illegally living with two sisters, one of them is Major Jung Seol (Esom). The sisters, I believe, are classified as Special, one notch down from Core.

Sa-wol is an orphan–so yes, he’s yet another “chosen one,” along the lines of Luke Skywalker, Harry Potter, and Frodo Baggins.

Predictably, the paths of 5-8, Seol, and Sa-wol cross. 5-8 has learned that he has much more to offer Korea than being a deliveryman, even one who is already a folk hero.

Black Knight is an enjoyable Netflix diversion. There is of course an abundance of action but also some subtle humor. For instance, 5-8, despite breathing poisoned air, still smokes cigarettes. 

More direct humor is offered by Sa-wol’s pals, with the unusual names of Dummy (Jung Eun-seong), Dumb-Dumb (Lee Sang-jin), and Useless (Lee Joo-seung), who live with a clever mechanic and inventor, Grandpa (Kim Eui-sung).

But if you are looking for a romantic storyline, look elsewhere. There are no love stories in Black Knight.

If you are a connoisseur of compelling cinematography and sharp CGI, then you’ll love Black Knight. 

And if you drive a delivery truck for UPS, a grocer, and especially Amazon, then let your imagination run wild and dream away as you watch, and presumably love, this series. 

Black Knight is rated TV-MA by Netflix for violence and smoking. It is available for viewing in Korean with subtitles, in English, and several other languages. I watched it in Korean.

John Ruberry regularly blogs at Marathon Pundit.

Review: Season 2 of Shadow and Bone

Posted: March 26, 2023 by John Ruberry in culture, entertainment, media
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By John Ruberry

Two years ago here at Da Tech Guy, I had this to say about the first season of Shadow and Bone, a Netflix fantasy series.

If you like elaborate clothes, eye-catching special effects, and being transported to an alternative yet familiar civilization, then Shadow and Bone could be for you. But if you expect fully-developed characters and a coherent plot line, then stay away.

With the second season, which began streaming mid-month, we have more of the same.

Shadow and Bone is based on a young adult fiction series of books, set-in an alternative universe centered mostly on the nation of Ravka, which in turn is based on circa–1880s Russia. The costumes are Emmy-worthy, as is the CG art direction. The acting? Not so much.

The central character of Shadow and Bone is a Grisha, Alina Starkova (Jessie Mei Li), a practitioner, although this term isn’t used much in the show, of magic. She’s a Chosen One character, an orphan like Harry Potter, who is dubbed the Sun Summoner. Alina is reluctantly placed in the position to heal the world of many ills, including disposing of “The Fold,” a smoke wall of sorts, inhabited by pterodactyl-like beasts that divides Ravka–kind of how the Ural Mountains separate European and Asian Russia.

The Fold is the creation of an evil Grisha, General Kirigan (Ben Barnes), also known as the Darkling. His dream is–along the lines of Darth Vader’s recruitment of his son, Luke Skywalker–to combine their talents and create a dark version of Utopia. 

Season Two begins as Alina, accompanied by her love interest who she met in an orphanage years earlier, Mal Oretsev (Archie Renaux), are headed to Noyvi Zem, an African-like nation. They are internationally known fugitives and…well really now, do you think they’ll go unnoticed? It is in Noyvi Zem where they connect with a key figure, Sturmhond (Patrick Gibson), a pirate, or as he calls himself, a privateer. 

Also back for the second season are the Crows, a midlevel trio of organized crime schemers: Kaz Brekker (Freddy Carter), Jesper Fahey (Kit Young), and Inej Ghafa (Amita Suman). They were hired by an underworld figure to kidnap Alina. The Crows have returned to their base of Ketterdam, a thriving city of vice based on Amsterdam. The Crows have two new members, another Grisha, Nina Zenik (Danielle Galligan), and an explosives expert, Wylan Van Eck (Jack Wolfe).

If there are midlevel hoodlums in Ketterdam, then of course there must be a Big Boss. That man is Pekka Rollins (Dean Lennox Kelly).

I observed in my Season One review that the Crows are much more interesting characters than Alina and Mal–and apparently, I’m not the only person who believes that, because a spinoff series centered around the Crows may be in the works. But if viewership of the second season tails off and the show is cancelled, we probably won’t see a Crows series.

As of today, Shadow and Bone is ranked fourth in viewership on Netflix.

There are many more Shadow and Bone characters–too many of them. And too many subplots. 

What about those Grisha? Even they are confusing.

There are three levels, I think, of Grishas. They are the Summoners who have power of wind, water and fire, Alina is one of those, the Heartrenders, whose powers are over the body, and Durasts, whose domain is chemicals, rocks, and the like. But the Grishas are not explicitly defined in Shadow and Bone, unless I missed something. A vintage-era Hollywood scriptwriter could have solved that head-scratcher by adding a one-minute conversation between Alina and a random passenger on the ship to Noyvi Zem, who could ask her, “Tell me about all of the Grishas?”

One of my criticisms of Season One is that maps showing the different countries were needed for coherency. This season has them.

Are there monsters? Yes, some ho-hum smoke beasts who are impervious to gunfire. And as I’ve seen too many times in bad mid-20th century science-fiction serials, of course that doesn’t stop characters here from shooting at them again and again.

While the universe of Shadow and Bone is of the late 19th century, there are some 21st century flavors. Ravka (Russia) is predominately white but multiracial. Nearly all of the romantic pairings are interracial–and there is nothing wrong with that.

But rather than focusing on check-box casting, Shadow and Bone needs to present viewers plotlines that are easy to follow, stronger performances from lead actors, and more frightening monsters.

Shadow and Bone is rated TV-14 for violence.

John Ruberry regularly blogs at Marathon Pundit.

Five Chosen Season Finale Thoughts Under the Fedora (Spoilers) A Nitpick, A surprise, A key teaching, Cliffhangers and The Bread of life in season 4?

Posted: February 8, 2023 by datechguy in catholic, culture, entertainment
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Tonight is the season finale of the Chosen season 3 for those like me who didn’t see it in the theatre. Here are some thoughts.

There was a big error right in the front. In Israel the queen wasn’t the king’s wife, kings had many wives, it was the king’s mother. We also don’t know which wife of David that was although given her age and pregnancy I’m betting Bathsheba.

It’s an interesting note because it was not uncommon to ask of the queen mother to intercede with the king on behalf of a need, which explains the “Hail Mary” prayer of the Rosary to a “T”.

I’m sure like me A lot of people expected the climax to be the feeding of the 5000, the fact that it ended on the walking on the water and calming the storm was a surprise. Thomas’ line concerning the 2nd most incredible thing he saw that day was funny but what was more significant to me was even having Jesus right and having Jesus do what he had already done that day the Disciples were still urging Simon Peter not to get out of the boat when invited by Christ.

The overall arc of the season was apparently the story of the prodigal son (which he has not told yet) in the sense that Simon Peter and Eden are the faithful child who complains “Why is the fatted calf killed for a party for the one who did not obey?” The frustration of both Eden and then Peter in their suffering while so many are healed around them is poignant.

I also thought that Eden going to her local Rabbi and not waiting for Jesus’ personally was an important reminder that when are priest intervenes when we have problems we ARE getting God’s intervention as he is there in persona Christi.

Just because you don’t see someone dramatically commanding the waves to stop it doesn’t mean your relief from the storm isn’t an act of God.

There were two significant cliff hangers. First of them is Rabbi Shmuel. We know that he was invited by Christ to pray with him when the crowds were gone and that Christ made himself available to him, so:

  1. Did they pray together
  2. Did he question Jesus
  3. If so was he satisfied with the answer

That was to me the big cliff hanger, the second is Atticus Aemilius. He was right being the rabbis from Jerusalem in getting to the crowd, although they didn’t show it he obviously would have questioned them and more importantly he SAW Christ walk on the water and the sudden end of the storm.

Presuming he is a believer in the Roman Gods the idea that Jesus might be “A” God (as opposed to “The God”) would not be out of his comfort zone. The question is will he consider him a threat to Rome, basically a God of the Jews who is acting to challenge Rome or will his part be to be the one who reports to Tiberius, basically the Roman who produces the report to Caesar that is the basis for the movie “The inquiry“.

You could actually had Atticus urging and advising the death of Christ not because he doesn’t believe he is God but because he does.

That will be very interesting to see how it plays out.

Finally as of this writing they are still millions ($13.1) away from raising the funds needed for season 4. As of this day they have not yet payed for episode 4 so we don’t know when we will see it but we know a few things.

  • We know that Jesus will be healing Gaius’ son.
  • We know that even larger crowds will be following him

but most important of all

  • We know that boat will end up back in Capernaum

The significance of this is that in John Gospel directly after the feeding of the 5000 comes what is called “The bread of life discourses” The feeding of the 5000 and those words are basically John Chapter six and they, combined with the last supper, are the basis for the Eucharist where Jesus tells the crowd bluntly that they must eat his flesh and drink his blood and when challenged instead of explaining it as a metaphor doubles down, thus causing many of his disciples to leave him.

I’ve mentioned this before but I recall my Pastor upon hearing of the Chosen noted that Protestant productions that are not word for word adaptions of scripture invariably leave out the bread of life discourses as they are frightfully inconvenient.

I guess the rubber will meet the road in a year, how much influence the VERY catholic Jonathan Roumie will have on this decision will be interesting but either way we will see. (Of course if they do the feeding of the 4000 too they could always put it there).

Review: Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities

Posted: November 6, 2022 by John Ruberry in culture, media, oddities
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By John Ruberry

Late October arrived with what I thought would be a pleasant surprise, a new Netflix horror and suspense series, Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities. Del Toro, known for the superb art direction in his films, is an Academy Award winner for directing The Shape of Water, that film contains a controversial scene which we’ll discuss shortly.

There are eight episodes, set either in the early 20th century or the latter part of the century. Oh, for balance, there’s one set around 1950. All but one of them are based on short stories, two of them by del Torro, and two by H.P. Lovecraft, a horror and fantasy writer, the bulk of his work was published in the 1920s and 1930s.

First the good. The acting is superb and not surprisingly, so is the art direction and cinematography. The bad–well, the stories aren’t very good, and in what is becoming common with Netflix, the episodes are too long, each one of Cabinet of Curiosities‘ segments could be trimmed by anywhere from ten to twenty minutes. The episodes run from 38 minutes to slightly more than an hour. And like many Netflix original series, funding doesn’t seem to be an issue. That was not the situation with the low-budget horror movies that I grew up with and enjoyed, such as Vincent Price’s American International Picture films. Netflix needs to focus on the basics of entertainment, not the frills.

Del Toro, just as Rod Serling did with The Twilight Zone, introduces each episode. The titular character of Alfred Hitchcock Presents performed the same duty, and there is a Game of Thrones-style cabinet animation device as the opening credits run. Del Toro doesn’t direct any of the episodes.

But Cabinet of Curiosities, rather than emulating The Twilight Zone, harkens back to Steven Spielberg’s mid-1980s NBC anthology series, Amazing Stories. It should have been called “Stories,” because that heavily hyped series was anything but “amazing.” The Twilight Zone and Alfred Hitchcock Presents were rebooted around this time, both fell flat. As the saying goes, if Hollywood ever had an original idea, it would die of loneliness.

I’ll briefly sum up each Cabinet of Curiosities entry, in the order of their release. If you are running out of time with my post, or if you are running out of patience, I have this message. Just two of the eight episodes are worth viewing, “Pickman’s Model” and “The Murmuring.”

Lot 36: Nick Appleton (Tim Blake Nelson) is a bitter Vietnam veteran who is physically and emotionally damaged from that war. This entry is set just as the First Gulf War is breaking out. Appleton, who makes his living by buying abandoned storage units, is a racist who listens to conservative talk radio. The implied message of course is that everyone who listens to what liberals call “right-wing radio” is a bigot. But everyone I know who listens to conservative talkers do so because they are tired of government overreach and they don’t like high taxes, among other things. Appleton purchases a storage unit owned by a Nazi who recently died. Get it? American bigot, Nazi, white supremacy. I’m stupefied that the director of this bit didn’t dye Nelson’s hair bright orange here. “Lot 36” is based on a del Toro short story. I hated this segment.

Graveyard Rats: And this episode is based on what? Okay, the answer to that question is easy. Masson (David Hewlett) is a formerly well-to-do man who is now struggling along as a graverobber in a town known for the macabre, Salem, Massachusetts. There’s plenty of plot build-up here, as is the case with much of Cabinet of Curiosities, but little payoff.

The Autopsy: Minor spoiler alert: Just as with surgeries, autopsies are never solo projects. F. Murray Abraham, who never gives a bad performance, portrays a dying coroner, Dr. Carl Withers, who is investigating a mysterious accident at a Pennsylvania coal mine. Again, the set-up doesn’t match the ending of this episode. Watching the autopsies got me wondering. Why weren’t twenty minutes of this segment sliced off?

There is also an age-restricted YouTube video available here.

The Outside: Set in the late 1970s, as was “The Autopsy,” Stacey (Kate Micucci) is an unattractive and socially awkward bank teller surrounded by pretty but shallow female co-workers. Her hobby is taxidermy. Stacey’s life is altered as she becomes enamored with commercials touting a facial cream; the ads are subtle parodies of the faith healers who were often found on late night television at the time. Some of the facial cream comes to life. There is an erotic scene, an homage to Amphibian Man getting it on with a woman in The Shape of Water, in “The Outside.” I hated this episode too.

Pickman’s Model: Although this offering is extremely disturbing, “Pickman’s Model” worked for me. Will Thurber (Ben Barnes) is a wealthy art student at a Boston area college. All is well for him–until he sees the nightmarish paintings and sketches of Richard Pickman (Crispin Glover). A well-known lesson from the life of Vincent Van Gogh is that the boundaries between creativity and insanity are narrow. Oh, one little correction. Pickman tells Thurber that one of his ancestors was burned at the stake during the Salem Witch Trials. In fact, all of the executed accused witches in Salem were hanged, save one who refused to enter a plea. He was pressed to death.

Dreams in the Witch House: After his twin sister dies, a now-middle-aged Walter Gilman (Rupert Grint) is attempting to reconnect with her by way of spiritualists. There is a kissing scene with Gilman and a witch–she has been burnt to a crisp. Eww. There’s a lot of other weirdness here too. And while for the most part it is visually striking, “Dreams in the Witch House,” plot-wise, is vacant. As with “Pickman’s Model,” this segment is based on an H.P. Lovecraft story.

The Viewing: An eccentric wealthy man, Lionel Lassiter (Peter Weller), invites five seemingly unconnected celebrities to his mansion to view a mysterious object. To place them all on the same mental plane, they snort high-grade cocaine. And while there is a lot of action, it’s impossible to ascertain what it all adds up to. Nothing, is what I think. At nearly an hour in length, there is plenty of time for the scriptwriters to present their message. But they don’t. Perhaps the writers were on drugs when the produced the script. This piece was too boring for me to despise.

The Murmuring: Two married ornithologists, Nancy (Essie Davis) and Edgar Bradley (Andrew Lincoln), are devastated by a tragedy. They travel to a remote Canadian island to study the murmurations, that is, the cloud-like flocks of a wading bird species, the dunlin. But the crumbling old house they are staying in offers them plenty of distractions from their work. As a nature lover, I particularly enjoyed this entry–and I could easily see it fitting in as an episode of the original Twilight Zone. Not so with the other seven segments. “The Murmuring” is the other episode based on a del Toro short story.

Each entry is a stand-alone, you can watch one of them, two of them, or all of them. If you choose the last option–you’ve been warned.

Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities is rated TV-MA for violence, disturbing themes, nudity, drug use, vivisection, and gore.

John Ruberry regularly blogs Marathon Pundit.

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