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New Escapist Column! On “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” as a Parable About the Legacies of Interventionism…

Posted on February 17, 2023 by Darren

I published a new In the Frame piece at The Escapist this evening. With the release of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, it seemed like a good opportunity to look at the movie’s thematic preoccupations.

Quantumania is something of a frustrating jumble of a movie. However, there are some interesting ideas nestled within it. Most engagingly, Quantumania feels like a movie that is about the legacy of foreign interventionism, dropping its characters into a strange realm that was forever altered by the pragmatic alliances made decades earlier. It’s a film about whether characters that call themselves heroes owe any obligation to help those less fortunate, particularly when that suffering is a direct consequence of earlier choices and actions. Quantumania doesn’t necessarily say any of this particularly well, but it tries.

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

Filed under: Movies | Tagged: allegory, america, ant man and the wasp, ant-man and the wasp: quantumania, comic books, in the frame, metaphor, politics, quantumania, the escapist, War on Drugs, war on terror | Leave a comment »

Non-Review Review: White Boy Rick

Posted on December 3, 2018 by Darren

White Boy Rick struggles to articulate what it is actually saying.

The basic premise of White Boy Rick is quite clear from the outset. The film is set in Detroit. Barring a coda, the bulk of the action unfolds in the four years following on from 1984, during Ronald Reagan’s second term. Although the President himself is not directly discussed in the context of the narrative, there is an early conversation in which two agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and one member of the Detroit Police Department ruminate upon Nancy Reagan’s famous “just say no” appeal.

Ricked off.

White Boy Rick is an earnest and well-intentioned movie exploring the consequences of the so-called “War on Drugs” in eighties America, and the manner in which that campaign was both fruitless in terms of its nominal objectives and actively harmful to the communities in which it unfolded. White Boy Rick attempts to position itself as a tragedy about a young man – the eponymous character’s age is something of a recurring battle cry – who happens to get wrapped up in something much bigger than his own circumstances.

Unfortunately, White Boy Rick struggles to construct a strong and engaging narrative around this central thesis statement, repeatedly stumbling in trying to graft the character’s arc and decisions to the broader social commentary that it wants to make. The result is a deeply frustrating film that squanders potentially interesting subject matter.

Daddy’s home.

Continue reading →

Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Detroit, eighties, film, Matthew McConaughey, Movie, non-review review, reagan, review, War on Drugs, white boy rick, yann demange | Leave a comment »

Star Trek: The Lost Era – Well of Souls by Ilsa J. Bick (Review)

Posted on February 14, 2014 by Darren

This November and December, we’ll be finishing up our look at the second season of Star Trek: The Next Generation and moving on to the third year of the show, both recently and lovingly remastered for high definition. Check back daily for the latest review.

We’ll be supplementing our coverage of the episodes with some additional materials – mainly novels and comics and films. This is one such entry.

Well of Souls is a story of the Enterprise-C, the ship introduced in Yesterday’s Enterprise. One of the best-received episodes in the history of Star Trek: The Next Generation, Yesterday’s Enterprise established Rachel Garrett’s ship as the troubled Enterprise, the tragic flagship, the doomed space craft. Ilsa J. Bick builds on that characterisation in Well of Souls, one small story from some point in Garrett’s command of the Federation flagship.

While Well of Souls feels like a rather unconventional Star Trek novel, it is charming in its own way. Bick connects her tale to the themes of Well of Souls, suggesting a troubled ship manned by a struggling crew. The novel returns time and again to the theme of unfortunate choices, the weight of making the best decision of the options open. Unlike Kirk or Picard, Bick seems to suggest, this version of the iconic starship doesn’t get that many lucky breaks, with her crew repeatedly forced to accept the least bad of a selection of unappetising choices.

Well of Souls is a thoughtful, introspective piece. It doesn’t flow or pace itself as well as it might, but Bick crafts a compelling picture the never-the-less. While not quite the best of the Lost Era tie-in novels, it’s ambitious and insightful. It lacks the energy of Serpents Among the Ruins or The Art of the Impossible, but it’s still a very worthy read for anybody looking to sketch out a gap in the Star Trek mythos.