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New Podcast! The Escapist Movie Podcast – “The Devil All the Time, Antebellum, Mandalorian, and Pushbacks”

The Escapist have launched a movie podcast, and I was thrilled to join Jack Packard and Bob Chipman for the fourth episode, primarily discussing The Devil All the Time, Antebellum, the trailer for the second season of The Mandalorian, and the changes to the release schedule after the releases of TENET and Mulan.

You can listen to the episode here, back episodes of the podcast here, click the link below or even listen directly.

New Escapist Column! On the Charming Crassness of “The Boys”…

I published a new In the Frame piece at The Escapist this evening. With the second season of The Boys releasing on Amazon Prime, it seemed worth a look.

The Boys is not a subtle television show. There is little ambiguity or nuance in its cartoonish portrayal of a world dominated by superheroes defined by their selfishness, vindictiveness and childishness. However, this lack of subtlety is not necessarily a weakness. The Boys is outlandish to the point of being crass, but that’s part of the appeal. These are crass and vulgar times, and so it seems reasonable to filter the superhero genre through that sensibility. The age of prestige television is over, but then there is nothing especially prestigious about this moment.

You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.

New Escapist Column! On Ridley Scott’s Science-Fiction Sensibility in “Raised by Wolves”…

I published a new In the Frame piece at The Escapist on Friday. With the launch of Raised by Wolves on HBO Max, I thought it was worth taking a look at the streaming science-fiction series.

The most striking thing about Raised by Wolves is the extent to which it feels like a Ridley Scott production. Scott did not write or create the show, the was Aaron Guzikowski. However, Scott directed the first two episodes, and they often feel like an extension of Scott’s work. There are obvious echoes of Scott’s iconic science-fiction work in classics like Alien and Blade Runner, but also shots and sequences that seem to have been lifted from Prometheus and Alien: Covenant.

This works rather well, as Raised by Wolves delves into some of Scott’s core thematic preoccupations. Like Prometheus, Exodus: Gods and Kings and Covenant, this is a story about religion. Like Prometheus, Gods and Kings, Covenant and All the Money in the World, it is also a story about parenthood and the responsibility of caring for a younger life. However, because Raised by Wolves is not tied to any existing intellectual property, it gives Scott a lot of space to work. More than that, it suggests that Scott is a brand unto himself.

You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.

New Escapist Column! On “Lovecraft Country” and Making Room in America’s Imaginary Spaces…

I published a new piece at The Escapist earlier today. Lovecraft Country premiered last week, an interesting exploration of a particular type of American weird fiction.

Lovecraft Country is a show that consciously blurs the line between America’s landscapes and its dreamscapes. In doing so, it touches on the psychological horror of generations of segregation of these spaces, exploring what it means for entire groups of people to have been excluding from these places real and imaginary. Lovecraft Country is about trying to navigate this terrain, and in doing so explores this familiar ground from a new angle.

You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.

New Escapist Column! On the Paradoxical Nostalgia of “Star Trek: Lower Decks”…

I published a new In the Frame piece at The Escapist this evening. Star Trek: Lower Decks launched last week, the latest entry in the larger Star Trek canon.

Lower Decks is an interesting phenomenon. It is perhaps the most overtly nostalgic Star Trek show of the new era, given how transparently it harks back to Star Trek: The Next Generation in both form and content. However, the show’s aesthetics – an animated series with a modern comedic sensibility – are likely to alienate those fans most obviously yearning for a nostalgic Star Trek hit. At the same time, the show’s reverence for the trappings of Star Trek prevents it from working in the mold of good comedy – even good Star Trek comedy.

You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.

New Escapist Column! On How Rhea Seehorn Made Kim Wexler the Best Character on Television…

I published a new In the Frame piece at The Escapist this evening. The Emmy nominations were announce this week, and there was a lot of good news in there – with nominations for Watchmen, The Good Place and Succession. However, there was one notable and glaring omission. It was an omission all the more notable for it fifth occurrence: Rhea Seehorn was overlooked.

Over the past fives seasons of Better Call Saul, Seehorn has quietly turned the character of Kim Wexler into the most compelling and engaging character on television. This is particularly notable because Kim exists in the context of a prequel to a series in which she was never mentioned and did not appear. Kim was arguably created as a bit of padding around the show’s ties to Breaking Bad, but has emerged as the most complex character in the show: a collection of riveting contradictions with much greater depth than initially appeared. She is astounding.

You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.

New Podcast! The X-Cast – Fight the Future Minute #86 (“Well-Manicured Sacrifice”)

So The X-Cast reached the end of the show’s fifth season, and approached The X-Files: Fight the Future. This naturally meant it was time for another breathtakingly ambitious project, so the podcast is going literally minute-by-minute through the first X-Files feature film. I’m joining the wonderful Kurt North for two brief stretches featuring the Well-Manicured Man.

And so my time on the Fight the Future minute comes to an end. It has been a pleasure. I like to think that Kurt and I go out like the Well-Manicured Man himself, in a blaze of glory. We discuss everything from the Well-Manicured Man’s flare for the theatrical, to his somewhat unnecessary killing spree, to how exactly we imagine the local papers are going to cover the weird murder-suicide-in-an-alley sequence. It’s fun, it’s playful, it’s a recording I really enjoyed – and which I hope you enjoy as well.

You can listen to the episode here, or click the link below.

New Podcast! The X-Cast – Fight the Future Minute #85 (“Well-Manicured Murder”)

So The X-Cast reached the end of the show’s fifth season, and approached The X-Files: Fight the Future. This naturally meant it was time for another breathtakingly ambitious project, so the podcast is going literally minute-by-minute through the first X-Files feature film. I’m joining the wonderful Kurt North for two brief stretches featuring the Well-Manicured Man.

And so my time on the Fight the Future minute nears an end. However, there’s still one minute left. So this provides a nice opportunity to talk about the weirdness of the Well-Manicured Man’s plan during this exposition-driven sequence that apparently includes crossing “double murder-suicide” off his bucket list. We also discuss the narrative conventions that require a propulsive conspiracy thriller like Fight the Future to generate completely absurd tension and suspense in place where it really has no reason to exist.

You can listen to the episode here, or click the link below.

New Podcast! The X-Cast – Fight the Future Minute #84 (“Well-Manicured Rationale”)

So The X-Cast reached the end of the show’s fifth season, and approached The X-Files: Fight the Future. This naturally meant it was time for another breathtakingly ambitious project, so the podcast is going literally minute-by-minute through the first X-Files feature film. I’m joining the wonderful Kurt North for two brief stretches featuring the Well-Manicured Man.

And so, after the exposition comes character motivation – which is handily provided via exposition. The limousine sequence in Fight the Future is notable primarily as a bridging sequence. In terms of the “play the hits” aesthetic of Fight the Future, it serves to get Mulder from Scully’s abduction to his Arctic expedition. As a result, it’s a section of the film tasked with tying all of this together, in a rather condensed and contracted period of time. The results aren’t always elegant, but there is something fun about them.

You can listen to the episode here, or click the link below.

New Podcast! The X-Cast – Fight the Future Minute #82 (“Well-Manicured Truth I”)

So The X-Cast reached the end of the show’s fifth season, and approached The X-Files: Fight the Future. This naturally meant it was time for another breathtakingly ambitious project, so the podcast is going literally minute-by-minute through the first X-Files feature film. I’m joining the wonderful Kurt North for two brief stretches featuring the Well-Manicured Man.

Who doesn’t like exposition? Especially when it’s delivered by a veteran British character actor trying to cram as much as physically possible into the space between two set pieces? We’re in an incredibly dense stretch of Fight the Future in which the film tries to offer a cliffnotes of the show’s mythology for the blockbuster audiences watching in cinemas. The result isn’t always elegant, but it’s surprisingly effective.

You can listen to the episode here, or click the link below.