Death Note (2017)

There is absolutely nothing wrong with Death Note. Except for, you know, everything.

Okay, to be fair, the film looks good (for the most part). It's well shot, properly lit, and nicely edited together, but all that style can't make up for the badly-told story that is the substance of Death Note.

I can sum up the film's problems thusly: Montauk is on the east coast.

Montauk, which is where L comes from, is a small community on Long Island. I know this because I spent a few summers there as a kid. It's a beach town, sandy and flat. The Montauk that appears in Death Note is deep in the forest, and the secret institution in which L was "born" is lies in the shadow of a mountain. Death Note was filmed in BC, and although I'm not intimately familiar with the province's geography, I'm pretty sure nowhere in BC could ever be mistaken for Long Island. And still no one thought to change this one minor plot point. The only reason L has to be from the east coast is so that Watari can waste his time traveling across the country (by train!). The clock is ticking, and Watari only has 48 hours to learn L's true name. Death Note is set in Seattle, but what the filmmakers don't understand is that it'll still take a while to get to Oregon or Idaho or the BC interior. Fuck, maybe even West Virginia--the geographic profiles are similar enough. Have any of them ever driven through the mountains? It takes time. But no, the film insists on trying to pass off west for east and this lazy oversight exemplifies why the movie--or more precisely, the story--kinda blows.

Another terribly-conceived moment comes right at the start of the film when Mia is smoking at cheerleader practice. Smoking. Even if her character did smoke (which I don't think she does because she never smokes again after this one scene), she wouldn't smoke during practice. I know I'm talking about unrealistic scenarios in a film about a magical killer book, but Death Note is set in the real world, and in this reality teens don't smoke on school property while practicing their sport.

Death Note starts off relatively strong, with the book quite literally falling out of the sky and into Light's life. He doesn't waste any time making good use of his new power, and movie hurtles along at a breakneck pace. And then everything comes to a screeching halt when L takes over the narrative. All that fun and exciting forward momentum runs up hard against L's investigation into Kira, and what could have been a tense thriller is instead a profanity-leaden PG13 drama.

Any sensible person in Light's situation would try to steer the investigation one way or the other, pitting their intellect against L's. Instead, Light lets himself get baited because this is no longer his story. To make matters worse, I'm not sure the movie itself is even aware that Light is no longer in charge. For the majority of the film's running time, Mia and L wrestle for narrative control, which is a huge problem for us because this film is really supposed to be about the moral ramifications of having power over life and death.

The whole thing comes to a head when Mia tries to strong arm Light into relinquishing the death note. One contrived chase scene later, we have our final showdown between the two teenaged lovers. Wait, what? Yeah, you read that right. The film ends not with Light and L facing off, not even with Light and Ryuk, but with a crazed girl lusting after power and her boyfriend's convoluted plan to undermine her. The film's eleventh hour attempt to give Ryuk some semblance of control over events is laughable at best. At worst, it's final proof that the filmmakers don't understand how to craft a story.

And what's with Light's hair? Either hire a blonde actor or commit to the dye job. Yeesh.

Suicide Squad

To  Amanda Waller
Subject  Re: Task Force X Review and Assessment

Details

Ms Waller proposed to organize a "team of very bad people who could do some good." Founded upon the supposed future threat of a metahuman whose ideologies run counter to our own, it is Ms. Waller's opinion that a task force of villains could be assembled to counter such a threat. (See Note 1)

After Ms Waller and her colleague, Sgt. Rick Flag, failed to maintain command and control of Enchantress, a metahuman who inhabits the body of Dr. June Moone, Ms. Waller proceeded with her plans to assemble and dispatch Task Force X. The task force's sole purpose was to extract a High Value Target (See Note 2) within Midway City; it was not to engage with Enchantress nor eliminate her. (See Note 3)

Task Force X did successfully locate Ms. Waller but their extraction plan was co-opted by Joker. This review board does not believe Ms. Waller had any reason to expect or anticipate Joker's actions, but is dissatisfied with her handling of the situation. This board sees no benefit in ordering the execution of Harley Quinn, and believes it to be a tactical error. Ms. Quinn's death would only raise the ire of Joker, and would have likely resulted in a second assault on Ms. Waller and Task Force X. The fact that Joker's helicopter was shot down does not forgive Ms Waller her error in judgement. (See Note 4)

No longer able to complete their mission, Task Force X took it upon themselves to engage Enchantress. Both Enchantress and her brother were destroyed, and Dr. Moone was returned to her original state. Although Task Force X proved victorious, it was due largely to luck and circumstance than to any strategic advantage the task force may have possessed. (See Note 5)

Final Assessment

This review board believes Ms. Waller acted in her own best interests when she deployed Task Force X. In addition, the board finds Ms. Waller put Sgt. Flag and his team in danger when she 1) failed to gather vital intel related to Enchantress' defenses, and 2) failed to act on new intel gathered in the field.

It is the board's recommendation that in the future a direct and specific need for Task Force X be established before the task force is assembled. This is to ensure the team members possess the proper skills and abilities to see their mission through.
_________________________________________________________________________________

Note 1

At no point does Ms. Waller address the issue of weather a group of villainous metahumans could, in fact, win a fight against an "evil" Superman. Superman is not human, and his strength and abilities are far superior to any known superhero or supervillain.

Note 2

Ms. Waller herself was the HVT that needed extraction.

Note 3

Ms. Waller specifically stated Task Force X would be created in order to deal with metahuman/superhuman threats to the United States' (and by extension, the world's) peace and security and/or to support the United States' efforts to combat terrorism. Ms. Waller provided an example of the proposed task force's benefit by using Enchantress to retrieve highly classified military documents from a foreign adversary.

The committee was impressed with Enchantress' abilities, but was dismayed by her unwillingness to withdraw and allow Dr. Moone to regain control of her body. Ms Waller displayed her ability to control Enchantress by stabbing her in her heart, which she keeps in a secure briefcase.

Note 4

Ms. Waller showed further errors in judgment when she called for a second helicopter. This review board believes that, after having witnessed the attack on Joker's helicopter, Ms Waller should have ordered a ground retreat. Such action would have, at the very least, forestalled Enchantress' attempts to capture Ms. Waller. By not ordering a ground retreat, Ms. Waller put herself, the United States, and the world in danger.

Note 5

The full extent of Enchantress' and her brother's powers were, and still are unknown. It is only happenstance that El Diablo was both present and able to fight the brother. Since Task Force X was assembled to counter metahuman threats in the abstract, there was no guarantee the members of the task force would be able to surmount any threats in reality. Harley Quinn and Captain Boomerang provide no tactical advantage. Killer Croc proved to be a valuable team member, but Ms. Waller had no intention of attaching him to the underwater unit; Killer Croc took it upon himself to assist the underwater unit in their retrieval and detonation of an explosive device.

El Diablo proved to be, far and away, the most important member of Task Force X, but it was nothing short of pure luck that his special abilities were essential in securing a positive outcome. Since Ms. Waller did not know Enchantress' brother was a fire god, and she had no way of knowing El Diablo's pyrokinesis could manifest to such an extent that he would also become like a god, El Diablo's appointment to Task Force X and his subsequent victorious battle with Enchantress' brother is fortunate indeed.

It is of further note that El Diablo had outright refused to join the task force when asked, and that, while on mission, he continually refused to assist his team members. Despite his success, this board finds his appointment to Task Force X was an unnecessary risk which put the entire mission in danger.

Terrible Moments in Taglining

"Putting the tea back in terror."

If this movie is putting the tea back, that would suggest there was a time when tea was ubiquitous in horror movies, as some kind of fixture or genre trope. Then filmmakers turned away from tea, perhaps dabbling in coffee or even pop. But now these guys are going back to horror's roots, and infusing their nazi zombie movie with a strong peppermint.

Terrible Moments in Taglining

"Evil is only skin deep."

So we've got nothing to worry about from this guy.

Morbid

Not pictured: What actually happens in the movie.

There is a penis at the end of this review.

Fellow horror blogger Chuck Conry made a movie. Good for him! And this is where the praise ends because Morbid is a badly written and poorly paced slasher throwback that fails to pay hommage to the genre.

The movie opens with two dudes engaging in a heated debate about the horror canon. It would be fun if it weren't a tired cliche. Moreover, the rest of Morbid isn't nearly as post-modern as this scene would have you believe. An attempt to invert the male gaze is undermined by the film's lack of shower scene nudity, and the interminable pacing of the kills--not to mention the action and blocking--suggests that Conry is better off behind a keyboard than a camera.

That having been said, Morbid's script is thin on plot. And pages. Clocking in at 72 minutes, Morbid is little more than a series of kills strung together and intercut with too-long scenes of people talking about teen melodrama. The story, such as it is, revolves around a post-game house party and a love triangle. The cops want to shut the party down and, well...that's about it. If you're wondering how a masked killer fits in, so am I. Only two victims have been found, and no one at the party either knows or cares about the double homicide, nor do they (or the cops) even realize the killer's still out and about. At no point do the party-goers know they're in danger, meaning there's no tension whatsoever.

The thing about the slashers of yor is that the killer had some connection, no matter how tenuous, to his victims, and that at some point the over-sexed teens realize (too late) their numbers are dwindling. This is what ratchets up the tension, when the suspense, which has been boiling under, boils over and all hell breaks loose. Conry, however, seems to have fixated solely on the gore, forgoing story and plot for body count.

And he's not the only one. The genre is chock full of no/low movies inspired by the slasher classics of yesteryear made by horror lovers who display more passion than talent. As good/bad as the inspirational source material may be, it still had some semblance of story--some reason why the movie is happening. This simple fact, this basic tenet of storytelling, seems to have escaped Conry.

Other things that escaped Conry include camera angles and perspective.

Unless, of course, I'm wrong. The possibility exists that Conry is a genius and I'm too dumb, too self-absorbed, or too elitist to see it. Maybe Morbid's total lack of story is a comment on the state of the genre today. The disparate and disassociative nature of Morbid's narrative is a direct criticism of story's diminished position among an audience that only cares for incident. That the town's Sheriff is more concerned about a kegger than a brutal killer is a wry dig at morality and a keen observation on slasher tropes.

Morbid is a horror comedy that isn't funny. None of the jokes land, with one exception, and it's more outrageous than hilarious. I also got a big kick out of what might be the worst rap ever, only because it was so bad as to be funny. I'm not sure if that was the intent. When I did laugh, I was laughing at Morbid, not with it, and that's a problem for a movie that's supposed to be funny on purpose.

Perhaps most annoying is the promise of an ending (I'm paraphrasing here) "as shocking as Sleepaway Camp." Granted, this part isn't Conry's fault; the DVD box suggests a surprising twist end I'll never see coming. So while I was fidgeting my way through the longest 72 minutes of my life, I was also trying to figure out the twist, trying to guess who's the killer. What I didn't realize is that Rue Morgue, who made the comparison to Sleepaway Camp, meant it literally. Meaning, there is a penis at the end of the movie.

A big one.

And much like the flaccid phallus that punctuates the film, Morbid lacks substance. Like all other no/low horror, it was a good effort, but this one falls way short of the mark. The film's technical problems not withstanding (matching, re-shoots, editing, not leaving the tripod in the shot when you're going handheld), Morbid's complete lack of narrative arc meant the project was doomed from the start. 

4got10

4got10 is a curiously terrible movie. There is no good reason why it's as bad as it is. That having been said, there are a number of bad ones.

Bad Reason #1: The Script

To say the script for 4got10 is underdeveloped assumes a complete story to begin with. And assuming so makes an ass out of you. Not me, though. Because I know this story didn't get much past the idea stage before it was committed to videotape.

Brian wakes up shot and surrounded by bodies, with no clear idea of what's happened. The cops roll up and he pretends to be dead, eavesdropping on the Sheriff's plan to steal all the cash and blow on hand. Shortly after this scene plays out, Brian himself takes off in the van and drives...somewhere. He's following a route dictated to him by the van's satnav. When he get gets to his destination--which is some guy's house--he takes the guy and his wife hostage then sits down for a good think.

Meanwhile, the Sheriff is packing to leave town. He's in the shit after his foiled attempt to steal the van and is planning to get the hell out of Dodge. This plan is also foiled when Danny Trejo shows up at his house demanding to know who shot his son. Danny strikes a deal with the Sheriff: if the Sheriff deliver's his son's murderer and the stolen van with money and drugs intact, Danny will let him have some of the cash.

Meanwhile, Dolf Lundgren is a DEA agent investigating the shoot-out.

Meanwhile Brian has sex with the woman he's take hostage. Tuns out she knows him. Brian, of course, has no idea who she is.

It all comes to a head when the Sheriff arrives at the house where Brian's holed up. Shortly after he gets there, Trejo and his boys show up. A gun battle ensues. Brian survives, as does the broad. She takes off with a set of keys, keys that will open a locker at the bus station. It's where Brian hid the money before driving to the house.

Brian's too late to the bus station--the money's gone. But Dolf Lundgren isn't. He's in a parking garage, waiting for Brian. And now, finally, all the pieces fall into place. Or they would were this a better movie. Brian shoots Lundgren in the head and we're let in on the backstory.

Brian's an undercover DEA agent who brokered a deal with Trejo's lawyer's wife, aka the broad, to have her husband sent away. When Brian's in the middle of the big drug sale, Lundgren manipulates him into sparking the shoot-out. Lundgren shoots Brian with an aim to steal the money himself once everybody's dead.

If you're wondering what the lawyer has to do with any of this, you're not the only one. How and/or why the Sheriff and Danny Trejo show up at the lawyer's house is equally confusing. And at no point does Brian tell the broad where he stashed the cash--she just knows to go to the bus station. As does Dolf Lundgren.

4got10 wants to be this great twisted caper, with all these different characters and threads weaving an intricate web of deceit. But writing something like that requires time and patience, if not talent. 4got10's writer came up with the basic idea but stopped short of planning it out. So what should have been something along the lines of Lock Stock meets Get Shorty meets Once Upon a Time in Mexico, feels more like bad True Romance fan fic.

Bad Reason #2: The Cameos

Normally a cameo is a good thing. Or at least a surprising thing. 4got10 has three "big" "cameo" performances. In addition to Dolf Lundgren and Danny Trejo, Vivica Fox is in this movie, and only one of them has anything to contribute to the plot, such as it is. While Danny Trejo's drug lord character has a reason to be in the movie, Vivica Fox's DEA chief doesn't. Excise her from the script and you've freed up ten minutes that could be put to better use. That's not to suggest that Vivica Fox isn't good at her job, she just has nothing to do.

Most troubling of all is Dolf Lundgren. Clearly, he was only available for a couple of days but his character is more important to the plot and he should have more of a presence in the movie. If the script were better, it's likely Lundgren's DEA agent would do more, make more of an impact, but then he might not have been able to accept the role because he'd have to have been on set longer than a couple of days.

Bad Reason #3: The Spelling

Bad Reason #4: The Continuity

See that white van?

Here. I've pointed it out.

Now, take a look at this next photo and see if you can see it.

You can't because it's not there. Instead of a white panel van, there's a dark minivan parked in its place.

Note here the "braud"'s tattoo changes from one moment to the next.

And see how Danny Trejo is right-handed while his stand-in is a leftie.

Reason #5: The Budget

Normally I wouldn't hold a movie's budget against it. Unless we're talking about a billion dollar movie that looks like crap. Then yeah, it's a problem. But with low budget films, looking cheap isn't necessarily a strike against.

4got10 is low budget, and it looks pretty good, so that's a real accomplishment. But all that goodwill is undone by this one embarrassing prop:

How can a movie that can afford custom search engines and email graphics produce something so cheap as the evidence board seen here? There is no acceptable reason, no good excuse as to why this thing exists.

Like all the other terrible mistakes that found their way into this film, this awful bit of set dressing sums up all that's wrong with 4got10. It showcases a certain laziness on the part of the filmmakers, a lack of attention to detail and an inability to prioritize that completely undermines their efforts. 

Mr Jones

or, Everything That's Wrong With Your Movie Summed Up In One Image

That's Scott. He moved to the country to film a nature documentary. Periodically, he sets up his camera at this location to film himself indulging in self-pity. That lump in the middleground? The black thing on the rock behind him? That's his backpack.

This is the only time Scott dumps his bag in frame. Which means on this day, Scott set up his camera, walked into the middle distance with his bag, put it down, then hit his mark. Or maybe he dumped the bag first, then set up his equipment. Whatever the order of events, the point is Scott knows his bag is in the shot because he's set up this exact same shot a number of times.

And why is his bag in the shot? So it can get stolen.

By that guy, Mr Jones.

The theft of Scott's backpack kicks off the narrative--it's the inciting incident. His car keys are in there, and he needs to get them back. Why did Scott bring his car keys on a walk to his favourite shooting location? So he would have a reason to chase after Mr Jones. It's the same reason why he put the backpack on that rock, i.e.: to move the story forward.

Further to my point, this isn't the first time Mr Jones has shown up in this spot. He makes the briefest of appearances earlier in the movie, when Scott and his partner, Penny, are lounging on the rock. They don't notice him at the time, nor is it ever suggested they noticed him upon reviewing their footage--because they don't ever review the footage. Had Scott witnessed Mr Jones when watching the tape, he could have set up a sting in which he plants his backpack in the hopes it'll get stolen. That would have been acceptable, maybe even clever. But neither Scott nor his creator are clever, and nothing they do over the course of the movie is acceptable.

Nobody, no filmmaker, no matter how amateur would do what Scott does, and certainly not on the nth visit to this location. This is the worst kind of writing--a clunky, awkward kind of filmmaking. If your characters have to behave in counter-productive or counter-intuitive ways to get things rolling (or keep them rolling), then you're not writing hard enough. And Karl Mueller, the film's writer/director clearly didn't think this one through.

So there you have it. Everything wrong with Mr Jones (and a host of other films that follow a similar plot) summed up in one shot two shots.

Area 51

For a movie that took eight years to get made and released, Area 51 looks like it was slapped together in a matter of days.

Describing Area 51 as lazy just seems lazy on my part. But it does appear as though Peli kind of gave up on this one. No real effort was made to innovate or further develop either found footage filmmaking or the alien subgenre. Instead, characters and audience members alike stumble through the plot, while the movie awkwardly cuts between POVs because Peli doesn't know to manage two dynamic cameras.

Quite frankly, I don't know what's worse, the story or the execution. Reid is obsessed with aliens and plans to infiltrate Area 51. With him are Darrin, Ben, and Jelena. Ben really doesn't want to have anything to do with breaking into a military base, so he just argues with Reid all the time and drops everyone off by the side of the road. Reid, Darrin, and Jelena enter Area 51 with little trouble and what happens next has to be the most boring and visually incoherent exploration of a top-secret facility ever recorded. I'm not even going to bother trying to explain it. Suffice it to say, no aliens are ever caught on tape and what little alien activity does take place is more akin to a poltergeist going apeshit than what you would want or expect from a rampaging monster from beyond the moon.

As if to add insult to injury, the scenes are stitched together with no regard for geographic orientation or continuity. There is no way for the audience to orient themselves in the film space--there are no landmarks to help tie all the rooms, corridors, and stairwells together. Other reviewers describe Area 51 as a "sophomoric slump" but I think the film's incoherent visuals are evidence of a bigger problem: that Peli doesn't know what he's doing.

The nothingness inside the spacecraft is a nice metaphor for the nothingness inside the movie.

Further evidence includes the film's structure and style. At least half the running time is given over to Reid and co.'s preparation for their raid on Area 51. This includes stalking an employee, visiting a storage facility, and sneaking a bodycam into a strip club. There is absolutely no tension or suspense, either during the prep nor when they succeed at getting onto the base.

Moreover, the film begins as a kind of documentary, in which people talk about Reid and his friends in the past tense. It switches to found footage shortly thereafter, then back again to a more standard documentary style with a montage of conspiracy theorists spewing their crazy ideas. Classic found footage takes over for the remainder of the movie, but in name only. The film is cut together like a traditional third-person narrative. Admittedly, found footage has evolved past the need for a framing story to explain why and how the film exists, but Area 51 desperately needs a reason for being. The "invisible hand" is all over this thing, and even something as simple as "I found these two cameras and followed-up with the families" would help immeasurably.

But Peli doesn't seem to understand any of this, and appears to be in well over his head. Paranormal Activity was a cozy ghost story with good pacing and a great sound design. Area 51 is too big, with too many locations, and relies too heavily on the promise of wonders we can both hear and see (a promise which is never fulfilled). Worse still, he had a much better, easier, and more compelling story languishing off-camera. Peli had a real opportunity here to learn and grow as a filmmaker by developing Area 51 as a mockumentary about Reid and his slow descent into alien abduction/conspiracy theory madness. But all that good stuff happens between cuts, glossed over by a title that reads "Three Months Later."

Pictured: what it looks like to be in over your heard.

Area 51 isn't just a bad second movie, it's a step backward. Peli might be a competent producer, but this film proves, more than anything, that he can't script a story: Reid and Ben argue about stuff that should have been settled a long time ago; likewise, the night of the raid is not the night you field test your gear for the first time to make sure it works. The movie is too aware of its audience and (ironically) in too much of a hurry to allow its characters to behave normally and move the story forward on their own. Were this film made before PA, it could have served as an awkward but ambitious first step down an exciting career path for Peli. Instead, it's a harsh reminder that not everyone can or will live up to expectations.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Well, I finally saw it. I didn't want to, but I felt obligated to do so. And I have to say it wasn't nearly as bad as I expected. Of course, the bar so low as to be underground, but still I've seen worse. That doesn't mean the movie is any good--it's terrible--but it's not the worse thing ever.

I think there's some comfort to be found there.

Platinum Dunes's TMNT was doomed from the start; there was simply no way Michael Bay could make a new Ninja Turtles movie and not face a staggering amount of opposition. He'd already destroyed Transformers and now his company was taking aim at everyone's next favourite childhood property. Bay added insult to injury when he announced the turtles would be aliens. Aliens? Like this is some Biker Mice from Mars bullshit? But despite massive blowback and vitriol, PD made and released TMNT, disappointing fans and critics alike.

Pictured: some bullshit.

At least they changed the part about them being aliens. There's even a line in the script about it. "Are they aliens?" Vernon asks. "No, that's stupid," says April. Of course it's stupid. They're mutants. It's right there in the title. We don't need a clever line to remind us all about how gracious PD was to bow to "popular opinion" and rewrite that part of the origin story.

But rewrite it they did. This time round the turtles are the mutated results of trying to reverse-engineer an antidote for a poisonous gas. Why a lab would use turtles as test subjects is never questioned in the film, so I won't bring it up here. What I will bring up is the poisonous gas. In a minute. Bear with me.

So. Eric Sacks owns a big medical company that had a tragic lab fire that killed April's father many years ago. Turns out her dad set fire to the lab when he found out what Sacks was up to, namely trying to create a cure for some horrible disease he was planning to unleash on the city.

After the lab fire, Sacks thought all was lost and the Big Plan to Poison New York was mothballed. Then in walks April O'Neill who tells him all about how her pet turtles, which where the lab turtles, grew up big and strong and are, wait for it, the mysterious vigilantes who've been thwarting the Foot Clan attacks around the city. This is great news for Sacks because he's secretly in league with the Foot and their leader, Shredder who is, wait for it, Sacks's surrogate father who raised him when his parents died when they were living in Japan.

And why was Sacks planning to gas New York? So he could sell the cure and become rich. "Stupid rich," in his own words. Because he's not rich enough. Which is a real problem for him.

Did you get all that? Doesn't matter! Moving on.

TMNT is so full of problems it's hard to know where to begin. The easiest thing to do would be to compare it to the 1990 movie of the same name.

Does my nostalgia for old-school Ninja Turtles cloud my judgement with regards to PD's TMNT? Probably, yeah. But there's a reason I and everyone else like it so much, and despise this incarnation. What the new TMNT lacks is substance, from its bad CGI to its plot. The turtles are well animated, for the most part, but Splinter is so poorly realized he's difficult to watch. That's to say nothing of Shredder, who appears to have gravity-defying superpowers. Shredder fights with grace and ease, as if his enormous suit of armour was made of rice paper instead of chrome.

Make a list of white boy suburban stereotypes and you'll guess at least 50% of the turtles' characters and personalities, maybe 75 if you include "nerd." Only Leonardo fails the stereotype test but that's because he as no personality whatsoever. The bare minimum of effort was made to give these characters a life of their own, independent of one another: Raf butts heads with Leo because he's expected to; Mikey pervs on April because someone (wrongly) thought it'd be funny; and Donny's contribution to the team dynamic is his technological know-how, he does't say or do anything that isn't related to tech.

This dismissive attitude regarding the turtles' characters is explained by the fact that the movie isn't really about them. For whatever reason, TMNT is April's story. She's the central figure in all this, the fixed point around which Sacks and the turtles orbit. The movie breaks away from April only when the action plot demands it, like for expositions or a fight. Otherwise, TMNT is the April O'Neill Power Hour with Special Guests the Ninja Turtles.

Or, Memoirs of an Invisible Turtle?

If you're wondering how Shredder and the Foot Clan factor into all of this, you're not alone. I've seen the movie and I'm still not sure. The Foot fall somewhere on the spectrum between "street gang" and "crime syndicate." Shredder's pissed the Foot aren't getting the attention or respect he thinks they deserve, lamenting the fact that most people in the city think they're a myth. For the life of me, I can't understand why this would bother him. If anything, Shredder should be pleased no one takes the Foot Clan seriously--it's so much easier to carry out your nefarious deeds on the dl when nobody thinks you're a threat. What Shredder's big-picture plans are for the Foot, I have no clue. And it doesn't matter. The Foot Clan are in the movie because of course they are.

As a kid, I didn't tune in to Ninja Turtles for an important lesson about family or trust or some other crap. I watched the cartoon and the movies because they were fun. If, along the way, I learned something about teamwork or self-confidence, so much the better. TMNT seems to have missed the subtle point here, that the moralizing that takes place in kids' entertainment is woven into the story. In PD's version, any valuable lessons learned are undercut by the sheer awkwardness of the "teachable moment." Raf spews forth a desperate confession about why he fronts so much that, while heartfelt, will likely engender more ridicule than compassion. And Splinter offers up some garbage about how the turtle's greatest strength is their teamwork. That would have been a great lesson, sure, if their ability to work together (or not) was ever an issue.

The problem is the movie's all incident. There's no story development here, just a series of action sequences all piled on top of one another. And sometimes, that's all you want from a movie. But not this movie. TMNT wants desperately to tell us a story and to have it mean something, but it doesn't know how. Substance has been replaced by special effects, and the kids who see this movie will grow up never knowing the difference.

Tin Can Man

"I need a palate cleanser," I said.
"Me too."

Not two minutes after finishing Tin Can Man, we were watching something else. It's not that Tin Can Man is gross or disgusting or distasteful, but something about it left us feeling, I don't know, yucky, I guess.

Tin Can Man played a whole bunch of festivals, so I thought it had to have some merit. But no. No merit. Unless you consider David Lynch fanfic meritorious. Tin Can Man looks and feels like a student film made by a guy who really likes experimental film, horror movies, and David Lynch. That's me being complimentary.

Me being less charitable reads like this: Tin Can Man is a confused art project made by a guy who hates his audience, the film medium, and quite possibly himself, to boot.

Here's what happens in the movie:
-Pete gets dumped by his girlfriend and is reamed out at work
-A guy claiming to be his neighbour asks to borrow his phone because he had an "accident" and can't use his own phone to make a call
-The neighbour reveals he's not really Pete's neighbour, and that he killed the real neighbour
-Pete and the fake neighbour visit Pete's dad where the fake neighbour introduces himself as Dave
-Dave tells Pete to kill his dad, and Pete refuses
-Dave takes Pete to meet the Tin Can Man, whom Dave kills after forcing him to dance around
-Dave takes Pete to meet his family where they force feed him cake
-Dave turns Pete into the new Tin Can Man
-Pete tries to escape and stops a motorist, who promptly returns him to Dave
-Pete "performs" as the Tin Can Man, which I think is some kind of fever dream but I can't be sure because nothing in this this movie makes any sense so it could be that Pete really is introduced by a clown to an audience of people from his life, and that he really does take the stage and bow to great applause

Now would be the part of the review where I explain what all this means, but I'm not going to do that because I don't know what it means. Moreover, I truly believe the whole thing is completely meaningless. There's no story here, no logic or thought process. There's just Pete who completely fails to learn or grow, and Dave who just talks a lot of nonsense and yells.

Also the whole thing is lit by flashlight. Which really has nothing to do with story, but goes some way in validating the whole "experimental" angle I'm pushing. And experimental film, in my experience, has little interest in storytelling.

I can't fully explain why I disliked Tin Can Man so much, why it made such terrible impression, and left me feeling icky. I have very little time or patience for experimental film, and although I, too, was once a pretentious film student, I got over it. So that likely has something to do with it--why I roll my eyes and make exasperated noises at the mere mention of Tin Can Man. Whatever writer-director Ivan Kavanagh's problem is, he needs to get over it, too.

The poster claims the movie is "truly terrifying" and a "masterpiece." It's not scary, nor does it showcase any sort of mastery of the cinematic medium. Difficult to watch and impossible to appreciate, Tin Can Man is bad art masquerading as genre film.

Book Report: Devious

This is the first Lisa Jackson book I've read, and it will likely be my last. In short, I hated it. At least twice I considered leaving it unfinished. Why did I continue to read a book I couldn't stand? I don't know. I think part of me hoped it might improve while another, more masochistic part, was curious to see how much worse it could get.

I both was and wasn't disappointed--Devious was so much worse than I imagined. Also, and this is the kicker, I traded a book I really liked for this stinker.

Valerie Renard is a former police detective living in New Orleans. On the eve of her divorce, her sister is murdered. The following morning, her soon-to-be ex-husband arrives at her door. These two events are unrelated. Slade is not a suspect in Camille's murder, but his presence is a blessing and curse for Val who's determined to find her sister's killer and divorce her husband.

Camille's murder, it turns out, is the first in a series of killings made all the more sensational by the fact that most of the victims are nuns. As Valerie digs deeper into Camille's life, she comes to learn new and interesting things about her sister. And about Slade. No longer so certain about the path she's chosen, Val's life becomes even more complicated when the killer targets her.

The book's cover identifies Devious as being "a Rick Bentz/Reuben Montoya novel." Jackson has written a series of novels about the pair, two homicide detectives with the NOPD. Past adventures are referred to heavily in the text, and not as a nod to die-hard fans of the series, but with the self-conscious attitude of promotion. One problem, though: Bentz and Montoya are background players in this story. They do a minimal amount of detectiving while other characters take up most of the story.

What little police work does take place seems sloppy and half-hearted. It's hard to say whether this is because Devious is really Val's story or because Jackson isn't very good at writing procedural. I'm inclined to go with the latter because despite Val being a former police detective herself, she's not very good at solving mysteries.

But then, Jackson's not very good at writing them. Take for instance Camille's cell phone. The phone is mailed to the police and then disappears from the story. A second phone turns up in Val's house and it, too, leaves the narrative once it's collected by the cops. Was it the same phone? Did Jackson loose track of evidence? The answers don't matter because, in the end, the phone doesn't matter. It's a meaningless plot point. Then there's the curious signature left by the killer, a pattern of blood drops on the victims' clothes. What does it mean? We never find out. And what about the disappearing wedding dresses? Or the possibility of a copycat emulating the ritual of a killer last seen ten years ago?

And there's Detective Montoya who singles out one suspect, to the exclusion of all others, without any solid evidence. His tunnel vision prevents both him and his partner from investigating all possible angles.

Jackson introduces too many plot points, following up on too few. Some revelations come much too late in the story to be properly developed, while others have no pay-off. Why bother harping on Sister Lucia's ESP if it serves no purpose other than to traumatize the poor woman? And what's the point of a coded message in a secret diary if we're not being led down a new path of inquiry and intrigue that will ultimately lead to the killer?

Devious has all the makings of a scandalous and sensational murder mystery/thriller but Jackson has no idea how to fit the pieces together into a well-paced and satisfying story. The book begins with the murder of a nun and then stops dead as people faff about and the author repeats herself in character descriptions and backstories. A badly handled misdirection results in near-total confusion at the end when the killer is revealed.

The book holds no suspense. The killer's identity is a complete surprise--there is perhaps one clue that suggests who the killer might be but this is only mentioned in passing and is then dismissed. Characters continually get in each other's way, preventing the story from moving forward, and the author holds back important information that turns out to have tremendous consequences for everyone.

I can't remember a book I've read in recent years that had as many problems, was as badly written, and was as dissatisfying as Devious. Perhaps the only good thing that I can take away from it is a lowered standard for publishing which I feel confident I can surpass when I finally get around to finishing my own masterwork of literary fiction.

Camp Dread

Dear Sir,

I regret to inform you that after having watched your movie, Camp Dread, I must request a refund for both my money and time spent. Anticipating your questions as to why I feel owed, and in order to prevent any further contact from you--ever--I have listed my reasons below.

Having read about, written about, and watched a lot of horror movies, I feel I am sufficiently qualified to pass judgement on yours. In short, it stinks. It plays as if you yourself have never a horror film but have only had one described to you in the broadest terms, perhaps something along the lines of "hot kids get killed at camp." You interpret the word "hot," to mean both physically attractive and sexually charged. This isn't a criticism, per se, but it does reflect a rather generic understanding of horror movie conventions. Worse is how you characterize the hot kids. I hesitate to describe them as either stereotypes or archetypes, given how thinly written they are. Suffice it to say, you mistake physical attributes and sexual orientation for personality. You've created a cast of characters who have little to no individuality (or humanity) and who serve no purpose other than to die.

Far be it for me to hope for a prize-winning filmic adventure, but I can't be blamed for wanting to connect to or identify with at least one character. Or to even be interested in the story at large.

I find your premise ludicrous, to say the least. Not only does it make no sense to send a group of delinquent youth to an unlicensed rehabilitation camp that doubles as a set for a reality television show--a show that will never air but only leveraged as a template for a future horror movie--you appear to have little to no familiarity with legal system. It is simply impossible for a girl who murdered her rapist brother to be sent to rehab camp to begin with, let alone the same camp as another girl whose only "crime" is homosexuality. Moreover, these "kids" as you describe them are in their twenties; they are adults and adults are not sentenced to rehab camps. At least, not in the way you suggest.

Leaving aside the larger issues of law and order, let us focus on the events that take place at your fictional Camp Rehab. Your characters are players in a survival reality show. They will undergo challenges that will force them to work together, presumably to help them better themselves, and win immunity from the "killer." The killer is an unknown individual who periodically eliminates players by "touching them on the shoulder" or through some other generally peaceable interaction. That's all well and good, but not once do we see any of this happen. If we're to engage with these people and their story, we need to see the reality show, and actual reality unfold. Instead all I saw was a lot of forced animosity, a terrible sexual encounter (interpret that any way you wish), and some rather bland death scenes. There's no sense of escalation and no one knows the reality show premise is a sham. I know this, of course, but for the people that matter, i.e.: the "hot kids," they're never given a chance to figure out what is really going on.

Your basic scenario of "hot kids get killed at camp" is not developed enough for the type of story you are trying to tell. You appear to be attempting some blend of postmodernist subversion and meta-criticism but you are not well-versed enough in the genre to succeed. The story you want to tell is full of intrigue and double-cross. The story you've scripted is not. You also appear to be unfamiliar with basic literary terms. You mistake "MacGuffin" for "red herring," which is bad enough, but your use of MacGuffin (read: red herring) in the script suggests you don't know how it is employed. A MacGuffin is a motivator, usually a desired item, that drives the plot, such as the case in Ronin. A red herring is a false lead or misdirection, such as communism in Clue. You make a small effort to establish the Sheriff's brother as a red herring, which you incorrectly identify as a MacGuffin, but he only shows up twice, once at the beginning and then at the end as a corpse. There is no good reason to think he is the killer when your movie devotes absolutely no time to solving this mystery.

I note that you managed to sign both Eric Roberts and Danielle Harris for this project. While these names do carry some weight and brand-recognition, it is simply not enough to get me on board with your movie. As I stated at the beginning of this letter, you lack an instinctual understanding of horror cinema (or cinema in general) which prevents you from being able to properly tell your story through film. And that is what I am interested in: story. I can watch "hot kids get killed" in any number of horror movies. What I'm having a harder time finding these days is watching them die for interesting reasons in interesting ways.

Sincerely,

DM

This Is Why Your Movie Sucks

Not too long ago I gave a short talk at Podcamp Toronto about crappy horror movies. I wasn't able to record the session, so here's my presentation script and slides. We had a great conversation afterward about terrible movies, which I'm unable to reproduce here. Trust me when I say you missed out on something fun ;P

I love horror movies. There's no other genre that's as expressive. Existing on the edge of legitimacy and acceptability, horror movies can push the envelope and explore themes and ideas that can be too riske for mainstream cinema. Or that's how it used to be, at any rate. But even if horror isn't the uniquely safe space it once was for edgy storytelling, it's still a place where people can explore and experience “negative” emotions, particularly fear.

There's this notion that horror is easy, and in a way it is. Slap some makeup on your buddy, film him chasing your friends and you've got a zombie movie. But in another way, horror is really very hard to do: you have to entertain and scare your audience, make them feel anxious, make them jump, make them care. And a lot of films, big budget and small, can't.

So you want to make a movie, but where do you begin? With story. Film is, for the most part, and especially for the no/low budget filmmaker, storytelling. So what's your story? If it's about a guy who kills people, I'm gonna stop you right there.  

That's not a story. It's an idea. And not much of one. Moreover, it puts the emphasis on the villain and when you do that, you immediately divest your film of tension and suspense. Slashers were never about the villain. Certainly Jason Voorhees and Michael Myers became the stars of their respective franchises, but they were never the main characters. The victims are the leads in horror because it's through them we experience fear. Noted film scholar Noel Carroll took pains to point out the audience takes its cues from the positive human characters in the movie they're watching; if the protagonist is afraid, so too is everyone in the theatre. But if the role of the victim is overshadowed by the role of the villain, then we the audience can't be afraid.

We can be startled by jump scares and grossed out by gore effects, but we'll never exeprience that rush of fear we get when Annie and Lori are being stalked and chased by their would-be killers.

But nobody seems to understand this anymore. Platinum Dunes' and Rob Zombie's remakes of beloved 70s and 80s horror franchises are proof that horror filmmaking, even at the mid-budget level, has no respect for its characters. We go to watch them die. We cheer for the bad guy as each kill is more elaborate and gorier than the last, and we know the victims' survival is meaningless because the killer will survive to kill again in the sequel.

Your movie sucks because these movies suck. You say you want to make a movie about a guy who kills people, and maybe you'll even attempt to explain why he does so. But again, you're misunderstanding something fundamental to the genre: it doesn't really matter why because this isn't his story.

Also, horror villains always kill for revenge OR because they're crazy. But mostly for revenge. So don't waste my time and yours fleshing out an elaborate backstory for your bad guy. What's more important is how he kills and is defeated. Because he has to die.

In mainstream horror, the movie ends without the bad guy being defeated outright, leaving it open for a sequel. It might make some kind of financial sense, but researchers in California found that movie audiences thought teaser endings were unrealistic and predictable. Audience members in the study preferred films with traditional endings in which the villain is killed, and if given the chance, would change teaser endings to more traditional ones.

When a villain dies at the end of a movie, he gets what he deserves. When he survives, audiences are less likely to enjoy the film and can find the whole movie-going experience to be rather dissatisfying. Again, mainstream horror doesn't seem to get it and neither do you, which is another reason why your movie sucks.

What all this is driving at is story. Your movie needs to tell a story with a beginning, middle, and end. If a bunch of people die horribly along the way, so much the better. But more important than body count and gore is logic. Does your story make sense?

Probably not because this is your first time doing this. That's fine. In fact, that's awesome. Just get someone else to read your script. Someone who'll be honest with you. I can't tell you how many movies I've seen with glaring plot holes and logic problems—no/low and studio productions alike.

Last October, Toronto After Dark screened Found, a no-budget movie made by a first-time director. This is the same festival that closed with Big Bad Wolves. It's kind of mind-blowing that a film like Found should be programmed together with We Are What We Are and Last Days on Mars but it also goes to show that a good story well told (with some fantastic gore effects thrown in) will resonate with audiences.  

Found is based on a book, which means that director Scott Shirmer already had a complete story—it just needed some adaptation. Shirmer also had access to makeup and effects artist who got her students involved in the production. Finally, Shirmer himself has taken some editing classes and has an education in film production. Found's a bit of a perfect storm, but it all stemmed from having a good story that was complete and free of plot holes.

So what about story? There's a multitude of books that will tell you how to write a story. Among them is Story by Robert McKee. In it, McKee addresses conflict. Recalling high school English, there are three types of conflict: man vs man, man vs nature, man vs self. McKee insists that conflict must exist in every scene in a movie script, which most writers interpret to mean man vs man.

This is wrong. I can't stress this enough. Not every scene needs conflict—story is not told through conflict alone—and ninety minutes of non-stop bickering is the worst kind of writing there is. There's no “right” way to write a movie but there is a wrong way and mistaking bitchiness for character conflict is very wrong.

Characters need to be likeable if we're to feel for them. Why invite a bunch of people you don't seem to like to your isolated cabin? Who goes on a road trip with enemies? No one. So why are you cramming your scenes full of bad people who do nothing but bitch at each other? Because you don't know any better. Because you've been led to believe this is the proper way to introduce conflict into your script. The conflict is the guy killing everyone, everything else takes a back seat to surviving the killer/zombie/force of evil that's running amok.

If the audience—and the movie itself—has no respect for the characters, then we're just waiting for them to die.

And die they will! In the grossest and most shocking ways possible. But what's unpleasant isn't necessarily scary and your movie sucks because you don't understand the difference between visceral reactions and true terror. Most no/low movies go for gore and jump scares because they're relatively easy to produce. Only found footage horror movies are capable of creating an atmosphere of suspense without really trying because of their narrow field of vision and immediacy. 909 Experiment and Area 407, which are among the worst found footage movies I've seen, still have their moments—they don't last very long but they're there. More traditional 3^rd person-narrative movies have to work a little harder to build a tense atmosphere and most just go for gore.

Gore may be gross and hard to watch, the new Evil Dead was alarmingly gory, but it doesn't get the same emotional response as something that's truly scary. Scares derive from surprise and suspense. A good horror movie should provide both but most contemporary horror is heavy on jump scares and your movie probably sucks because you don't understand the different between what's temporarily shocking and what's truly frightening. But don't feel too badly about that. To quote Hitchcock, “There is a distinct difference between 'suspense' and 'surprise,' and yet many pictures continually confuse the two.”

He goes on to explain the effect of dramatic irony: if we know there's a bomb under the table but the diners don't we're held in suspense, waiting for the bang. But if we don't know there's a bomb, the bang is surprising. There's no build-up to a jump scare or startle effect, but there's a great deal of tension that's created when we know something bad's going to happen.

Suspense is emotionally demanding and can wear down an audience, making them susceptible to jump scares but just cramming your movie full of startle effects won't make it scary.

All of these things I've mentioned--bad characters, bad writing, reliance on jump scares--are common to no/low horror because they're present in mainstream genre movies. What I'm saying is sucky no/low movies are terrible because the films that serve as inspiration are terrible.

Garbage begets more garbage. There's nothing wrong with copying your favourite movies, Tarantino's built a career on that, but when you're duplicating bad movies you're guilty of making more bad movies, adding to a huge slush pile of rotten films of dubious merit.

So why are we even watching this crap? It exists because so long as people have had access to cameras they've been making movies. And that's great, but the Internet is the reason why we're now drowning under a tide of terrible no/low backyard horror movies. Before the Internet existed, you make your sucky film, you showed to your friends and that was the end of it. Today you have an opportunity to share your creation with the entire world.

Handycams gave more people greater opportunity to experiment with filmmaking; streaming and VOD gives more filmmakers greater opportunities to distribute their movies. Moreover, changes in the film distribution landscape mean filmmakers can be in charge of their own distribution without having to go through a middleman. And then there are companies like Echo Bridge, that welcome submissions and package a bunch of films together on DVD. They don't appear to be all that discerning, either.

Distributors can't be blamed for why your movie sucks, but ease of access to terrible films is part of the reason why you were able to see your film through to distribution—and why you're contemplating making another one (you left it open for a sequel).

To sum up, your movie sucks because the movies you watch are terrible. There are some truly fantastic horror movies out there but no one's watching and imitating them. People mimic what's trendy and popular, which goes a long way in explaining the critical mass of zombie and found footage movies. There's also a great deal of money to be made milking horror audience's nostalgia. Everyone's going to see a remake of Carrie—doesn't matter if it's any good.

Horror remakes exists because their titles have some recognition value, but remaking a beloved “classic” isn't the same as revisiting a theme. Scholar and author Kim Newman writes that remakes

“[confirm] a movie's place in some pantheon while suggesting we really don't need to look at it anymore.”

As a no/low filmmaker, you can totally jump on the bandwagon, and riding popular sub-genres will net you viewers, but a good film needs more than just a cliched theme or style to give it legs. It needs a solid story, good characters, some atmosphere, and just a touch of originality. Right now you haven't got any of that, and this is why your movie sucks.

The Purge

Or, How to Survive a Home Invasion on the One Night When Crime is Legal in 14 Easy Steps

Step 1: Lock down your enormous house using your state-of-the-art security system.

Step 2a: Explain to your son why The Annual Purge is important, be sure to moralize and rationalize as much as possible.
Step 2b: Don't have a separate disarm code so your son can open the door for a stranger.

Step 3: Get distracted by a side-plot about your daughter's older boyfriend who wants to chat with you man-to-man about their relationship on the one night when he can kill you and get away with it.

Step 4: Resolve side-plot by killing the boyfriend. Search house for stranger. Catch him.

Step 5a: Waste time deciding whether to hand over the stranger to the mob outside your house.
Step 5b: Listen to some bullshit about how the homeless exist to be killed during The Annual Purge.

Step 6a: Incapacitate stranger, tie him to chair, then decide to fight rather than hand him over.
Step 6b: Do not untie stranger. Do not ask him about his army days. In fact, just forget about him altogether.

Step 7: When the mob breaks through your too-easily penetrable security doors, split up and roam the house. Be sure your son knows to keep his flashlight on and to wave it around a lot even though he's supposed to be hiding in the basement.

Step 8: Shoot bad guys. Don't pick up their guns, though.

Step 9a: Repeat step 5b.
Step 9b: Get stabbed by the head bad guy. Die. Your wife takes over the narrative, as do your neighbours who kill the remaining bad guys.

Step 10: Get tied up by neighbours and listen as they explain how they're going to kill you and your children because they're jealous of your late husband's success.

Step 12: Get rescued by the stranger you forgot all about in Step 6b.

Step 13: Force everyone to sit out the rest of the night in quiet civility. You're trying to be the better person, but your neighbours are too resentful to understand your message.

Step 14: Send everyone home in the morning in a wholly unfulfilling and dissatisfying ending to a movie that could have been a mildly interesting film about a post-occupy America in which the underclass has been pacified but instead turned out to be a paint-by-numbers home invasion with some bad social commentary crammed in.

Hemlock Grove (season one)

Of all the things to adapt for television, why would anyone choose a debut novel? Indeed, some books debut to fanfare, the authors lauded for their literary skill but Hemlock Grove and its author, Brian McGreevy, don't belong in that camp. McGreevy's publisher, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, have published award-winning authors, but again McGreevy isn't one of them.

I vaguely recall seeing this book at the bookstore and I might have been curious about it. But then I likely dismissed it because I don't like werewolf stories. I'll admit, this does bias me somewhat. And I'm not a fan of Eli Roth, either. So there's that. But I do like mysteries. I was willing to give a werewolf mystery TV show produced by Eli Roth a fair chance.

Truth be told, I did kind of enjoy the first half of the season. It had intrigue: brutal murders; a shady medical research facility; church-sanctioned monster hunters; a gypsy werewolf; a would-be vampire; teen pregnancy. I was curious to see how all the characters' stories would intersect, what the outcome would be. Would the unlikely pair of Roman and Peter identify the crazed werewolf that's eating the townsfolk before Dr. Chasseur finishes her investigation? What is project Ouroburos and is it connected at all to the various dragon references made throughout? And what, exactly is Oliva's role in everything that's taking place?

The answers, when they finally came, ranged from stupid to disappointing. Hemlock Grove, more so than any other horror TV series in recent memory, managed to piss away its potential resulting in what appears to be a hastily-assembled mash of plotlines. Hastily-assembled, and it took nearly thirteen hours to tell the story.

All of Hemlock Grove's story is crammed into the back end, and the final episode is less an end and more of a waypoint, a place to check your progress along a tiresome winding road. This kind of story telling is at best amateur, at worst deceptive. Moreover, there's very little investigation that takes place in what is, ostensibly, a murder mystery. Rather, the show's running time is devoted almost entirely to relationships and feelings, and what little horror there is exists only in terms of premise and special effects.

Gripping werewolf murder mystery or prime-time family drama?

Rich pretty-boy Roman is the only character with any arc, and even he takes a powder halfway through the season. To suggest that Hemlock Grove's twisting plot is what keeps the show interesting only proves that you don't know what a plot twist is. Hemlock Grove holds no surprises, or any real closure for that matter. Character plots don't intersect in any way that make sense and the various stories being told are properly developed to provide the viewer with any sense of forward momentum.

In short, the story goes nowhere and then, as if realizing it took too long, it rushes toward an end that defies logic and undermines expectations. It's disappointing in the extreme and upsetting to think everything that happened was just laying the foundation for a second season. I haven't felt this cheated since Underworld.

Hemlock Grove has all the potential to be a really good mini-series. A shorter format would cut out all the fat, but alas the greedy folks at Netflix had to go whole hog with a whole thirteen episodes of what is mostly filler. But maybe it's not their fault. Maybe that's just what you get when you pick a first-time novelist to write you a TV show.