Video, Film, and Television

Well At Least It’s Done And Quiet

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com, Steve’s Tumblr, and Pillowfort.  Find out more at my newsletter, and all my social media at my linktr.ee)

I’ve discovered some interesting “minichannels” online, New Ellijay and Retrostrange.  New Ellijay serves a local town as well as carries various shows and music.  Retrostrange digs into weird films, instructional videos, and more.  Both also carry old films and serials that are easy to get ahold of and broadcast due to being public domain, etc.

I find such things interesting because old and historical and odd media fascinate me.  However something else struck me about watching old movies and long-ago-ended television series.

They’re done.

The movies will not be part of a gigantic sprawling cinematic universe that both requires a flowchart and requires you to navigate angry fans wanting a director’s cut.  Oh they might get remade or something, but they’re done.

The television shows are over.  They’re not going to continue forever.  They’re not going to jump from streaming service to streaming service with their future uncertain.  You know what you’re getting, even if it’s frustrated at a sudden stop.

(My friends who are on a Columbo marathon probably appreciate this).

Right now in an age of remakes, cinematic universes, reboots, streaming-jumping, and more knowing something is finished is a great comfort.  You’re getting a certain predetermined experience then you can go on – you can even check online info to find what you’re getting into.

They’re also not being hyped.

You’re not listening to endless commentary about these old shows and films – unless you run into an obsessive fan.  You’re not facing trailers of trailers to remind you of trailers.  There’s no breathless news and updates about the properties dropping into your social media.

It’s refreshing to see things that aren’t being endlessly tossed against my consciousness like fastballs.

I get the other benefits of these channels and other services with older, “finished” properties.  It’s not just history and culture and curiosity, it’s a lack of some very annoying elements of our culture.

Steven Savage

One Piece: Long Live The New Flesh

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com, Steve’s Tumblr, and Pillowfort.  Find out more at my newsletter, and all my social media at my linktr.ee)

Unless the rock you’re hiding under doesn’t have streaming, you know that Netflix did a live-action season of the famous anime/manga One Piece.  I found this a curious choice because of the cancellation of Cowboy Bebop.  Ditching a retro space adventure for an over-the-top tale of superhuman piracy felt like choosing a pretty heavy lift.

Of course, I had to check it out, if only for morbid curiosity.  To get me invested One Piece would also be a heavy lift.

One Piece is something I tried to get into several times, across several dubs, and through an issue or two of the manga.  Despite its popularity – and my own love of fun weirdness – It never reached me, and it’s hard to say why.  One Piece should have checked several of my boxes, but apparently left its pen elsewhere.

So, I sat down, watched a few episodes – and found myself really enjoying it.  I dare say I was charmed by it, enough I was disappointed when I had to stop watching.  What was it that made me appreciate this show but not other incarnations?  Beyond, you know, having over two decades of episodes and a wallet-endangering amount of manga?

I realized it was the fact it was live-action and the actors were into it.  There were other reasons, but over and over I kept coming back to the cast.

Iñaki Godoy’s take on Luffy, the ever-cheerful elastic protagonist is charming and sincere – you aren’t sure how much he’s acting.  Emily Rudd’s Nami is relatable, the sane woman among a demented piratical sausage fest.  Jeff Ward’s theatrical pirate Buggy the Clown steals every scene, a sort of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia take on the Joker.  Everyone in the cast does great, embracing their roles with a gusto that suggests a scenery-intensive diet.

I realized that, for me, One Piece worked better live action.  No offense to the fine voice actors associated with it, nor Oda’s manic creativity.  The manga and animated One Piece didn’t connect with me on a human level.  I suspect it was a mix of the art style and over-the-topness were a barrier to me feeling connected to the work.

The live-action One Piece was different.  Gody’s little expressions and accents made Luffy a person.  Mackenyu’s Zorro, the I-hunt-pirates-but-these-are-my-friends bounty hunter projected amusingly straight-faced deadly cool mixed cold befuddlement.  Jacob Romero cries a single tear in a scene that says more than his motormouth character Usopp could say with words.  These weirdos were alive and I was enjoying it.

There is something about a good actor whose voice, expressions, gestures, and postures let them become a character.  The cast seemed to be channeling the characters, making them flesh.  For me they became people.

I’ve often wondered how different media work when translated to others, but would argue animation is perhaps the easiest medium to transfer a creation to.  Seeing One Piece I’m left wondering if that’s always the case, and find myself rethinking assumptions about what form fits what kind of works.

I’m only a few episodes in.  The show has room to disappoint me – but the cast and characters certainly didn’t.

Steven Savage

Barbie: A Painfully Honest Beautiful Impossibility

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com, Steve’s Tumblr, and Pillowfort.  Find out more at my newsletter, and all my social media at my linktr.ee)

The “Barbie” movie was a wonder – I say this without exaggeration.  An exploration of pop culture, gender, identity, and humanity with an exceptional cast and amazing visuals, it deserves all the praise it’s gotten ad then some.  I expect it will be the focus of viewing parties, re-releases, and film class studies.

Yes, it’s that good.  It is also a surprise it’s that good because this movie is one with baggage.  Barbie the property brings in issues of sexism, merchandising, strange choices, and often being low-hanging fruit for mockery.  It could have easily failed, or just been a mildly fun ephemera if the people behind it played it safe.

They didn’t, they leaned into the very large load of issues Barbie brings with her, turning all the challenges of making a film about her into the movie.  “Barbie” is good because it’s incredibly honest about the flaws in what it’s based on, and that is what the story is about.

“The poison becomes the medicine,” as the Buddhist saying goes.  So let’s look at why it works – and yes there are spoilers, if you haven’t seen it yet, just go do it.

Barbie as a toy is aspirational, presenting a woman who can be in any profession, but bears a legacy of sexism.  Barbie is still the slim consensus-pretty woman even if she’s been President.  The movie leans into this, ranging from the character of Barbie finding she and her friends didn’t fix the world, to Barbie being told to her face all the negative things she represents.  The ambiguity of Barbie the toy is dealt with in the film directly to the point that the doll herself gets told off.

Barbie is also the subject of decades of blatant merchandising, with new Barbies, new accessories, and more – indeed this movie has its own merchandise.  The movie of course mocks and calls this out in many ways: conversations, showing Barbie’s ridiculous accessories, to Mattel executives (led by a wonderful Will Ferrel) seeing dollar signs from new ideas.  The film never lets you forget it knows what it’s based on, admits it while celebrating the good of Barbie, and mocks the hell out of it’s origins.

If you want to talk merchandise, you have to talk Ken, because the Barbie-Ken pairing is what people expect.  However, what do you do with Ken who is, basically, an accessory?  You turn his own issue of identity, where he forever craves Barbie’s attention yet has no life of his own.  When Ken finds the patriarchy of our world, he imports it back to Barbieland, to seize control in a sad attempt to be empowered and to matter.  Ken is the villain.

When the film dives into patriarchy it is brutally hilarious, as various Kens try to adapt the signifiers of self-destructive macho swagger from our culture.  Their antics are knee-slappingly funny, but also disturbing as these plastic men lean into posturing and the omnipresent hint of violence.  The human women who become involved in Barbie’s adventures are brutally honest about the sexism they deal with – but also find a way to turn that knowledge into a way to defeat the Kens.

But “Barbie” isn’t just about these issues.  It deals with everything from the value of play to questions of humanity versus immortality.  “Barbie” uses a famous plastic doll to cram in enough ideas for three films.  There’s “going hard” and then there’s whatever Greta Gerwig did in this film.

This is all pulled off by a stellar cast that – and I cannot emphasize this enough – deserve multiple Oscars.  Margot Robbie delivers an incredibly nuanced performance.  Ryan Gosling turns living-accessory Ken into a complex and messed-up character.  There’s not a single actor who isn’t “on” in this movie.

Like I said, it’s good.

It is a strange, funny, disturbing, hilarious movie about a popular doll.  It could not have been these things and done it so well if it had played nice or avoided controversy.  But fortunately for us, “Barbie” is about all the flaws and ambiguity surrounding the toy and it’s world, and that’s why it’s a truly good film.

It’s a movie that celebrates Barbie by being about everything wrong about her and our world – and that’s an achievement.

Steven Savage