Tag: Jeffrey Wright

Zach’s Zany TV Binge Watchin’ Reviews: WESTWORLD SEASON 3 (& THE SERIES AS A WHOLE)(HBO)

What the fuck happened to WESTWORLD? This is easily another case of “oh how the mighty have fallen” indeed. I mean, Season 1 is near perfect. Perfect story. Perfect pace. Perfect acting. An incredibly creepy performance by the great Anthony Hopkins. We all wanted to go and have fun at that park. Then season 2 happened and instead of feeding us out of the same feeding tube, the same speed of flow, they put about two dozen extra feeding tubes on there and flipped the switch to overload. The sophomore slump was pretty much horrendous. Awful pacing, too many time switches and time line fuckery’s (even though I was easily able to keep up, about 90% of the audience couldn’t though). The acting was still there and the visuals were still crisp and clean, but everything else about it was absolutely convoluted. In the end we ended needed a break from the park. Well, SEASON 3 literally gave that to us, completely reinventing itself, hardly any time spent in a park, both narrative and visual wise, shorter and tighter episode count (8 instead of the other two seasons previous 10), and they even gave us Jesse Pinkman…errr, I mean Aron Paul (one of the seasons very few highlights). And while 1 to 2 episodes of the run were near perfect (in my opinion Episode 2 titled, “The Winter Line” and Episode 5 titled, “Genre.”) and the end to episode four titled “The Mother of Exiles” being very action packed, what the story led to, the other 5 episodes, the end game especially in the final episode titled “Crisis Theory” really led to nothing more than a bunch of meh. The story was supposed to be about fate and what we make for ourselves but in the end didn’t have any major or surprising revelations, I literally shrugged when it went to end credits, and it seemed that all that episode was for was a bridge to give its audience some very ho-hum after credits sequences that will likely build to another empty promise.

I’m still going to finish out the series however long it goes. It’s more interesting than The Walking Dead ever was a a whole (and I still watch that nonsense), but all of this convoluted storytelling makes me want to just go and watch the old short 95 minute movie that was written and directed by the great Michael Crichton. If you haven’t seen the old Westworld movie, please do, it is a real treat. Series showrunners Lisa Joy & Jonathan Nolan (yes, Christopher Nolan’s brother that co-wrote The Dark Knight wit him) say that this series is meant to last six seasons. I really want to know what is in there heads as to how. Even the end of Season 3, as shrug worthy as it was, felt like it could’ve been an ending if not for the couple of after credit only thinking about the future and not the present, ho-hum scenes. Now while all the critics and audiences’ thought it was bold for Westworld to go out of the parks, into the real world and in a new direction, we all agreed that after this season ended. We missed the parks indeed. My guess is that with supposedly three seasons left (I see the ratings completely dipping in Season 4 and that HBO tells them to wrap it up with a Season 5), the story will take us back to the parks that we fell in love with. Kind of like how Hunger Games went back to the arena in Catching Fire, but then Mockingjay book crashed and burned because there were no more fighting arenas. I know that sounds contrite and selfish, but if you can somehow manage to contain your story and keep it in motion with the environment the audience loves…why change the formula?

I would’ve agreed to the formula change if the narrative went somewhere I actually cared about. In the end, kind of spoiler alert, it’s all about Aaron Paul’s character, and his acting, along with Evan Rachel Wood (who’s a good actress but kind of too loud and brash on social media), and Thandie Newton, completely carry the season. They and the two masterful episodes I mentioned before are the only things that make Season 3 a tick above in quality to Season 2. The ONLY things. Especially the Genre episode. It’s the only episode of television to come as close to perfect as most of the episodes we saw in Season 5 of Better Call Saul. It’s action packed, challenges the mind, acted to perfection, and visually gorgeous. It sets up themes that you think will have surprising conclusions (but the final episode fails on that promise) and it is perfectly edited. I think you could watch that episode completely out of context and still enjoy it. If the conclusion to Season 3 had been as masterful as the set up, I would be completely into all of it and really excited for Season 4 (God knows when we’ll get that), but since the final episode was just a bunch of talking leading to a bunch of predictable and “who cares?” conclusions, when Season 4 ends up finally airing, I’m more than likely to be, “oh…Westworld is back, guess I could check that out again.” It’s just so disappointing because the potential is there, but they are having an extremely hard time unlocking it after they went successfully went in and out of Pandora’s Box in the wonderful first season.

I get that the story eventually had to get to “how can these robots and humans go exist together in life?” But there aren’t too many ethical questions the series brings up to try and have a good and lengthy debate about the ramifications of said questions. It only half-assed, “well, because it just can” kind of answers. The season also tries to play with fate and has a couple of giant computers that can predict the outcome of every individual on Earth’s life, and of course some of the story is “how can we expose or shut down this system and start letting the humans of Earth make their own choices without any predestined paths. Should we let human’s make their own choices? The conclusion to this train of thought, again, is a bit ho-hum and disappointing. It’s just matter of fact one sided answers. Maybe the true answers are in future seasons? But with the way things concluded this past Sunday, I’m thinking there may not be much more to discuss on the matter. We’ll see. You want to know my biggest problem with Westworld? With about 80%-90% of the actors being robots, no one really stays dead. If they do die, Dolores (Evan Rachel Wood) can just use the Devos company technology to make a dozen more copies. WHICH FUCKING HAPPENS. I couldn’t keep track of how many Delores or Maeve’s there were this season. If death doesn’t really stick, why should the audience care? And one of the robot characters seem to have a definite conclusion, but since this actor/actress is one of the main stars of the show, I doubt he/she is done with it, which again, makes me beg the question, “why should we care if there aren’t really any true stakes?” Also, Jeffrey Wright’s character is extremely short changed this season…was he just not available where they had to write a really short story for when he was they could shoot it all quickly? Hopefully they bring him back with a vengeance next year. Westworld Season 3, and the series as a whole…has mastered the art and look of the artificial…but definitely not the intelligence.

Zach’s Zany Movie Reviews: ALL NIGHT AND A DAY (Netflix)

With ALL NIGHT AND A DAY being the last new Netflix film for a couple of weeks, I’m very relieved that it was a very decent one. More than decent, actually pretty good. Written by the guy that co-wrote Black Panther, which surprised me. I’m going to actually borrow the log line of Netflix first before going into my own description because it’s the best way to describe this film: “As soft-spoken Jahkor (Ashton Sanders) struggles to keep his dream of rapping alive amidst a gang war in Oakland, his ill-fated life and real-world responsibilities drive him further and further across the line of right and wrong with tragic consequences. Landing in prison beside his father, J.D. (Jeffrey Wright) whom he never wanted to be like, Jahkor embarks on an unlikely journey of self-discovery, exploring the events that unite them, in hopes of helping his newborn son break a cycle that feels unavoidable.” Now to add a couple of story details in my own words, this film sort of plays out like a murder mystery. Not the who, but the why. Not really getting into spoilers, Jahkor murders two people right at the beginning of the movie, and the film jumps his time to three places in his life: in prison after the murder, 13 months before the murder, and some scenes of him when he was a young boy in middle school. The film plays with that time really well, no jarring editing, always knowing where it is. The film is very dark and depressing, yet with a hopeful message that no matter where you are at in life, it is still possible to make a change.

To fore warn you all, the movie is very bleak, violent, and uses the N word a ton, but if you can get past all that, it tells a great story. The thing I was afraid for the most was that the movie was going to end the way many a tale like this has ended. But it subverted my expectations, the ending even boosting the plot from what came before. I was afraid the why of the murder mystery would end up being disappointing, but it wasn’t at all, and it even added a few twists during the lead up that I didn’t see coming at all. This is a hard life and gangster film through and through, but it felt realistic in the sense that this wasn’t based on a true story and they all became moderately rich and famous like Straight Outta Compton ended (great film too and recommend that highly if you haven’t seen it). The acting is great here, even the new Candyman and Black Manta in Aquaman Yahya Abdul-Mateen II gets a couple of scenes to shine. Jeffrey Wright (Bernard in Westworld; also in the Daniel Craig Bond movies) shows us in a light I’ve never seen him before, as a hard knocks father, and he passes all of it with flying colors. Ashton Sanders as Jahkor carries the film, and his facial expressions pave the way for the emotional journey that is to come, he is great in this as well.

The film is well written and shot, Joe Robert Cole (who also co-wrote Black Panther) managed to craft a dark film that manages to show a tiny bit of light at the end of the very, very murky tunnel, and I appreciate that he went in that direction instead of just going down the route of everyone just dying tragically, which if the film had gone that way, I wouldn’t be recommending it to you now. The film is perfectly paced and flies by even with it’s maybe 10-15 minute too long of a run time of 2 hours. But let’s face facts, this kind of movie wouldn’t get any kind of theater attention today (maybe a small chance at one theater in L.A. and/or New York), so a streaming platform is the best place for it, and really only Netflix fits that bill. Although I could’ve seen HBO pick this up as well, but it would’ve been too soon after the excellent Bad Education. The one masterful excellent part of this film is a several minute tracking shot a little under an hour into the film that deals with Jahkor and his lady walking through a party that features both sides of the gang war going on in the streets, with cars squealing and doing round about tricks, very impressive camera work. Love to see when directors try something a little different than pointing and shooting. But overall, solid Netflix movie. Might not get any recognition other than it being a decent film, but when you are swimming in Netflix shit and once in awhile get a life raft, you got to jump on.