Tag Archives: Dylan Minnette

TV Review: The Dropout 1.8 “Lizzy” (dir by Erica Watson)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

(Below, you will find spoilers for the final episode of The Dropout.  I would recommend not reading this post until you’ve watched the episode.)

After all the drama and the deception, The Dropout ended the only way that it could, with Theranos in ruins, Sunny out of Elizabeth’s life, and Elizabeth still unable to comprehend why everyone got upset with her in the first place.  While George Schultz tries to come to terms with his mistakes and Erika Cheung worries about whether or not she’s ruined her future career by coming out as a whistleblower, Elizabeth tries to do damage control by forcing Sunny out of Theranos and then going on television for a cringey interview that pretty much seals her fate.  Both David Boies and Linda Tanner (Michaela Watkins, who became the unexpected heart of this episode) tell Elizabeth that it’s important that she come across as being contrite and sincerely “devastated” by Sunny’s actions.  Elizabeth, however, can’t do it.  As she explains to her mother, Elizabeth has been locking away her emotions for so long that she no longer knows how to express or even feel them.

The end of the episode finds Elizabeth finally pursuing the life that she would have led if she hadn’t dropped out of Stanford, started Theranos, and gotten involved with Sunny.  She’s dating a younger man.  She’s going to Burning Man.  She owns a dog.  She’s ditched the turtleneck.  She’s let her hair down.  She’s speaking in her real voice.  She’s going by “Lizzie.”  She’s reverted back to being the somewhat flakey child of privilege that she was at the start of the miniseries.  Even while Linda Tanner confronts her with the number of lives that she and Theranos destroyed, Elizabeth doesn’t break her stride.  Elizabeth has decided that she’s moved on, even if no one else can.  It’s only when she’s alone that she briefly allow her composure to crack, just long enough to scream into the void.

Of course, the final title card informs us that it doesn’t matter how much Elizabeth wants to be Lizzie, the girl who goes to Burning Man with her boyfriend.  Having been convicted of defrauding her investors, Elizabeth Holmes is currently awaiting her sentencing.  She could end up spending the next twenty years in prison.  And, just as Phyllis Gardner predicted in the previous episode, Elizabeth has made it difficult for other female entrepreneurs to find success in Silicon Valley.

As the episode came to a close, with Elizabeth walking through the now empty offices of Theranos with her dog and an increasingly agitated Linda, I found myself thinking about how those offices progressed through the series.  Theranos went from a shabby office building in the worst part of town to being the epitome of Silicon Valley chic.  In the early episodes, the cluttered Theranos offices and labs were disorganized but there was also a very sincere earnestness to them.  Men like Ian Gibbons actually believed in what they were doing.  By the fourth episode, Theranos transformed into a secretive place that was fueled by paranoia.  With each subsequent episode, the offices became a bit less individualistic and bit more joyless.  In the final episode, the offices were dark and deserted, as empty as Elizabeth and Sunny’s promises.  Looking at those offices, it was hard not to mourn the lost idealism of those early days.  Sunny may have never shared that idealism.  The miniseries suggests that Elizabeth lost her idealism as soon as she finally started to get the positive publicity that she craved.  But the people who were there at the beginning believed in Theranos and its stated mission.  Even Elizabeth’s early investors were taking a chance because they thought she could make the world a better place.  In the end, Elizabeth and Sunny betrayed all of them.  As I said at the start of this review, The Dropout ended the only way that it could, with an empty office, a lot of broken hearts, and Elizabeth Holmes convinced that the world had somehow failed her.  Viewers may never fully understand what was going on in Elizabeth Holmes’s mind but they’ll never forget her or the story of Theranos.

The Dropout was a good miniseries, probably the best that we’ll see this year.  This is a miniseries that better be remembered come Emmy time.  Amanda Seyfried seems to be a lock to at least get a nomination.  Naveen Andrews deserves consideration as well.  The supporting cast provides an embarrassment of riches.  Sam Waterston, Dylan Minnette, Kurtwood Smith, Michaela Watkins, William H. Macy, the great Stephen Fry, Camryn Mi-Young Kim, Kate Burton, Anne Archer, and Laurie Metcalf, all of them are award-worthy.  Give them the Emmy campaign that they deserve, Hulu!

TV Review: The Dropout 1.5 “Flower of Life” (dir by Francesca Gregorini)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Who was Elizabeth Holmes?

Was she an idealist who got in over her head and ended up cutting corners with the best of intentions?

Was she a con artist who simply lied for the money?

Was she the abused and manipulated partner in a crime that masterminded by Sunny Balwani?

Or was she a sociopath who was simply incapable of feeling any empathy for the people that she manipulated and, in some cases, destroyed?

That’s the question that’s been at the heart of the first five episodes of The Dropout.  It’s also a question that the show’s version of Elizabeth Holmes (played, brilliantly, by Amanda Seyfried) is struggling with.  One gets the feeling that she herself doesn’t full understand what’s going on inside of her head.  For the first half of the episode 5, Holmes is an almost sympathetic character.  Still desperate for Sunny’s approval and seemingly convinced that Theranos can come up with some magic spell that will actually make the Edison work, Elizabeth comes across as being more self-delusional than malicious.  For the first half of the episode, it’s like we’re watching the socially awkward but earnest Elizabeth who we first met at the beginning of the series.  At her uncle’s funeral, she asks her mother if she ever had any hobbies when she was younger and her mom can only list several competitive activities that Elizabeth took part in.  But, as becomes clear, Elizabeth never did anything just for fun or just for enjoyment.  Instead, everything the she’s always done has been a part of an obsessive need to not only prove her own abilities but to also prove that she’s superior to other people.

Perhaps this strange mix of a grandiose self-image and gnawing insecurity is why she simply cannot bring herself to settle the lawsuit that’s been brought against her by Richard Fuisz (William H. Macy).  Instead, with the help of her newest mentor, George Shultz (Sam Waterston), Elizabeth brings in David Boies (Kurtwood Smith).  Boies is one of the leading lawyers in the United States.  Before getting involved with Theranos, Boies tried to put Al Gore in the White House.  After his involvement with Theranos, Boies tried to keep Harvey Weinstein out of jail.  Boies failed on both accounts but he was far more successful when it came to battling Fuisz’s lawsuit.  One of the key scenes in the episode comes when Schultz mentions that he and Boies are on different sides politically but that they’re willing to come together to protect Theranos.  It doesn’t matter that Schultz is a Republican and Boies is a Democrat.  What matters is that they’re both a member of the elite and Theranos, with its prestigious board of directors, is now a part of the elite as well.  Richard Fuisz, with his terrible haircut and his excitable manner, is far too gauche to be allowed to defeat Theranos.

Indeed, Elizabeth spends most of this episode worrying about the lawsuit and also what might happen if Ian Gibbons (Stephen Fry) is called to testify.  Gibbons’s name is on all of Theranos’s patents, along with Elizabeth’s.  Gibbons is perhaps the one person who can testify that Elizabeth had nothing to do with designing any of Theranos’s equipment.  When we first see Theranos’s legal team pressuring Ian to sign a statement saying that, as an alcoholic, he can’t testify, we’re left to wonder whether the team is working at the direction of Sunny, Boies, or Elizabeth.  When Ian points out that signing such a statement will end his career, no one seems to care.  Ian Gibbons goes home, plays with his dogs, listens to his favorite opera, says goodnight to his wife, and then kills himself.

Elizabeth’s reaction to Ian’s death tells us all we need to know about her and it pretty much erases whatever sympathy we may have had for her.  She’s a bit like a robot, trying to generate the “right” emotions but not quite sure the proper way to do it.  When told that Ian is dead and that the lawsuit is apparently dead as well, Elizabeth focuses on the finger puppets that she wants to stock in the Theranos Wellness Centers.  The puppets are for children to wear after getting their finger pricked but they’re also a part of Elizabeth’s fantasy world, a world where Theranos will be fine and she’ll be as famous and beloved as Steve Jobs.  And if that means that the Edison had to be built with technology with Sunny stole from another company, so be it.

The episode ends with Brendan (Bashir Salahuddin) quitting the company and George Schultz’s nephew, Tyler (Dylan Minnette), starting his first day.  Using her fake voice, Elizabeth gives a speech to her cult-like employees.  She talks about her uncle’s death and how it effected her and we know that it’s all a lie but Elizabeth sells it.  The only disconcerting note comes from Sunny, who can’t stop himself from casually threatening to fire anyone who doesn’t share Elizabeth’s version.  They’re a team.  Elizabeth knows how to sell Theranos.  Sunny knows how to terrify anyone who asks too many questions.

This was the first episode of the series to not be directed by Michael Showalter.  Instead, it was directed by Francesca Gregorini and there are a few scenes where you really do miss Showalter’s ability to balance the absurd with the dramatic.  That said, this episode worked due to the performances of not only Seyfriend and Naveen Andrews but also William H. Macy, Kurtwood Smith, and especially Stephen Fry.  Fry especially broke my heart, even though I knew enough about the real story of Theranos that I already knew that Gibbons was going to take his own life.  Still, Fry plays the role with such a wounded dignity that you are left with no doubt that Gibbons was the last of the true believers.  He gave his life for Theranos and, in the end, Theranos gave him nothing in return.

The episode ends with Richard calling Phyllis Gardner (Laurie Metcalf), who was last seen telling a very young Elizabeth that there was no way to make the idea behind Theranos a reality.  Phyllis tells Richard that Elizabeth is a fraud.  And I have to admit that, as a viewer who had just spent 50 minutes with Elizabeth Holes and Sunny Balwani and David Boies, it was nice to hear someone come straight out and say it.

Next week, Tyler Schultz starts working at Theranos and he discovers that everything is not as it seems!  It’s the beginning of the end for Theranos and I’m looking forward to watching it all come down.

Ghostface returns in the new Scream trailer!

Posted on by Leonard Wilson

From the directors of Ready or Not comes yet another chapter in Wes Craven’s Scream series. I’ll admit I’m liking the cast in this one. We have Melissa Barerra (In the Heights), Jenna Ortega (Yes Day), Dylan Minnette (30 Reasons Why), Jack Quaid (The Boys), Marley Shelton (Planet Terror), Kyle Gallner (Jennifer’s Body), and Mikey Madison (Once Upon a Time…In Hollywood)

Then you have the returning cast, which includes Neve Campbell, Courtney Cox and David Arquette. Most importantly, it appears that Roger L. Jackson is voicing the Ghostface again! On a side note, Jackson was also responsible for Mojo Jojo’s voice in The Powerpuff Girls. (“Curses!”)

January movies don’t always do very well, but we’ll see what happens with this one.

Scream releases in cinemas on January 14th, 2022.

The TSL’s Daily Horror Grindhouse: Don’t Breathe (dir by Fede Alvarez)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

stephen-lang-in-dont-breathe1

I’m currently on vacation but don’t worry!  I would never let a little thing like taking some time off get in the way of reviewing movies here on the Shattered Lens.  (Especially not when we’re in the middle of our annual Horrorthon!)

Before we left Dallas, Jeff and I finally saw Don’t Breathe.  It’s hard for me to explain why it took me so long to see Don’t Breathe.  Ever since I first saw the trailer this summer, I had been excited about eventually getting to watch it.  When the first few positive reviews started to come in, I got even more excited.  Everything I heard about Don’t Breathe made it sound like this was a film that was specifically made for enjoyment.

But then the film was actually released and it was just so damn popular.  It was number one at the box office.  It got great word of mouth.  People on twitter wouldn’t shut up about how scary it was and how much they loved it.  While I realize that this actually says a lot more about me than it does about the state of current American cinema, there was a part of me that started to think, “How good could it be if everyone else loves it?”  Traditionally, the best horror films have always struggled to find an audience.  Whenever the majority automatically embraces any work of art, that’s usually not a good sign.

And so, I put off seeing Don’t Breathe.  I decided to wait until it was a little less popular.  I didn’t want to have to watch this film surrounded by a bunch of people who didn’t know names like Argento, Fulci, and Rollin so I waited until the showings would be a little less packed.  Finally, last Tuesday, I saw Don’t Breathe.

Seriously — what was I thinking waiting so long?

Like almost all recent independent horror films, Don’t Breathe takes place in Detroit and the first few minutes of the film are dedicated to giving us a tour of a city in decline.  As we stare at the collapsing buildings, the potholed streets, and the desolate lots of overgrown weeds, we’re forced to consider whether any cinematic horrors could possibly match the horrors of real life.

Those establishing shots of Detroit are important for another reason.  They also provide all the motivation that our three protagonists need.  All we have to do is look at the landscape and we understand why they’re so desperate to find something better in life.  (And, of course, you can’t find something better unless you have the money to look…)  Rocky (Jane Levy), Alex (Dylan Minnette), and Money (Daniel Zovatto) make their living breaking into houses and selling what they steal.  Money is their leader.  Alex’s father owns a home security company, which gives Alex access to everyone’s security code.  (Of course, Alex’s main motivation is that he’s in love with Rocky.)  As for Rocky, she’s just trying to raise enough money so that she and her younger sister can escape to California.

Money is given a tip about a blind army veteran (Stephan Lang) who apparently has $30,000 stored in his home.  (He won the money in a court settlement after his daughter was killed by a rich girl who was driving drunk.)  The veteran is the last remaining resident of an otherwise deserted neighborhood.  He spends all of his time in his large but dilapidated house, apparently living with only a viscous guard dog.  Money figures that all they have to do is drug the dog and then they can break into the house and steal everything that they need.  Money assures the hesitant Alex that it’ll be easy because the man’s blind and he really doesn’t need the cash anyway.

Of course, it doesn’t quite work out like that.  The three of them get into the house pretty easily but getting out proves to be much more difficult.  And when the man wakes up and hears his house being broken into, he turns out to be far more formidable and much more dangerous than any of them thought.

About halfway through Don’t Breathe, there’s a big twist that I didn’t care much for.  As played by Stephen Lang, the blind man was already intimidating enough without turning him into a Saw-style super villain.  But, even with that in mind, Don’t Breathe works.  It’s a relentless and well-directed thrill ride, with the camera freely roaming through that deserted house and the cast all giving good and believable performances.

Ultimately, the film is dominated by Stephen Lang.  Lang is one of those good actors who never seems to get the roles that he deserves.  (He was in Avatar but, in that film, he was 1) saddled with a bad accent, 2) had to recite some of the most melodramatic dialogue ever written, and 3) was stuck playing a character who was so thinly drawn that it’s a stretch to say he was even one-dimensional.)  When you first see the man, your natural instinct is to feel sorry for him.  He’s blind, he’s got a tragic backstory, and now he’s got three people trying to rob him.  That’s why it’s such a shock when you first discover just how dangerous and evil he actually is.  Lang transforms the man into one of the most memorable monsters of this very monstrous year.

So, if you haven’t seen Don’t Breathe, go see it.  Don’t let the fact that its popular scare you off.

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TV Recap: Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Episode #12: “Seeds”

Posted on by Semtex Skittle

AgentsofSHIELD Sometimes it seems that all hope is lost. That a show with recognizable potential has past the point of redemption. That it’s game over. But that time is not this week! No! For indeed, peeking between the clouds of wooden acting and stilted dialogue, comes a new episode of Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D…. and spoiler alert, people of Earth… it’s a pretty good one.

You heard me.

Now Apparently A Permanent Fixture Previously On: As random plots get tied together from earlier in the season, we always need these recaps, I guess. Basically, this time, we need to remember that Skye is looking for her parents.

Cold Open: S.H.I.E.L.D. Academy! Do they have a Sorting Hat at future Hogwarts? Oops, no time to worry. The students are at the pool, only, it’s uh… freezing. For no apparent reason. One student is nearly trapped in the ice when it rapidly freezes over his leg, but another busts the ice open with the hilt of a pool skimmer. Yikes!

Act I: After the briefest of cold opens, Fitz-Simmons are talking about how they designed a device that can freeze pools! Well, it wasn’t designed to be used in that way, but someone has apparently weaponized it. For that reason, Fitz-Simmons have been recalled to the Academy. Well, the SciTech Academy. Apparently there are three … Communications, Operations, and SciTech. I think that answers my incredibly important question about how they’re sorted into Houses. I guess you just apply for the division you’re suited for! There’s a rivalry between Sciences and Operations. Skye makes a funny about this to a passing Agent May, who confesses that Ward, Skye, and Fitz-Simmons are going to the Academy… she and Coulson are bound elsewhere. Skye is a little worried about Coulson, actually. Remember, how he had it kind of crappy last week? Ward re-assures her. There’s something about Ward this week that seems less wooden. Maybe I’m imagining things. I hope not though.

At the Academy, the Shield ActionTeam is met by the lovely Agent Weaver (Christine Adams), apparently some kind of administrator. Weird that they don’t make that clear. It also seems like Agent Ward outranks her. I wish I knew a little more about how S.H.I.E.L.D. is organized (and by a little more, I mean a LITTLE, not a lot. Please no one inundate me). Does being Level 7 give Ward clout automatically, as well as determine his secrecy rating? Is Level 7 a rank? Has this already been explained and I just blacked out? Anyway, Agent Weaver is worried they might have a bad seed at the academy. Ward tries to explain the meaning of this term to Skye who helpfully informs him that it is also a phrase that normal people know of! It was a very Joss Whedon moment. I assume that Jed must have had some hand in this scene. It’s fun to try and guess.

While Fitz-Simmons prepare for their lecture on how you should be careful of the potential of dorm room science projects to be weaponized into something dreadful… Ward and Skye visit the Wall of Valor, a memorial to S.H.I.E.L.D. agents who have fallen in the line of duty. Skye wishes that she’d come up through S.H.I.E.L.D. the right way, but Ward talks her down. It’s a stunningly human moment from Ward. Did I drink a lot before this episode? I’d like to believe that, instead, Ward is finally a character instead of a caricature.

On the ActionPlane, Coulson and May rehash the whole ‘Coulson was dead and got brought back by mad science’ thing. More importantly, May has a line on one Richard Lumley (Boyd Kistner), former Agent, who vanished 23 years before. I have deep suspicions that he’s connected to Skye’s mysterious past! Sounds like fun.

At the Academy, Fitz-Simmons begin their lecture. Apparently they’re held in some reverence at the Academy. Meanwhile, Ward is interrogating the near-victim of the pool freeze, a young man named Seth (David Zovatto), one of the top students at SciTech. Seth admits that the academy is competitive, but that they don’t typically attempt to kill one another to gain pole position. He also claims not to know a student named Donnie Gill (Dylan Minnette)…

…Who at the same time is freezing over solid during Fitz-Simmons’ lecture! Fortunately, Fitz-Simmons are seasoned field operatives, and Skye and Ward arrive just in time to identify the freeze device responsible and smash it. Their combined efforts save young Donnie before he suffers much in the way of undue effects.

Oops, there’s the scene changes I’ve been missing. In a tinted limo, we’re re-united with hilariously evil CEO Ian Quinn (David Conrad) who you might remember from the Gravitonium debacle. He’s just here to tell us he’s involved in this somehow, before we’re back to the Academy.

Eh, it’s just some filler dialogue. Donnie has a 190 IQ, no friends, no enemies, has trouble relating, blah blah blah. The faculty is worried about him. Wards wants Fitz-Simmons to take the group to the students’ refuge, The Boiler Room. There’s another scene change in here, but I don’t even want to talk about it. I spent more words explaining that than the time we spent scene-changed. Ugh. Anyway, Ward ACTUALLY wants Fitz to go make friends with Donnie Gill. Simmons and Skye make fun of him, because he’s abruptly acting like a human being, and this is new for all of us. Humour helps break the tension. The rest of them will check out the Boiler Room. I capitalize it, because apparently the SciTech students turned the literal boiler room of the campus into a nightclub. No, I am not kidding. There appears to be no cover, and while Ward is twice the age of any student on campus, apparently real S.H.I.E.L.D. agents drop by from time to time.

Over at Donnie’s place, Fitz and he compare notes on being the biggest nerd on campus. Fitz is impressed by the cool gadgets that Donnie’s been working on. In his own time, he also invented weird things. You know, like technology that could be weaponized into a FREEEEEEZE gun.

In Mexico City, May and Coulson being unobtrusive in their bright red ActionCorvette. They are talking about Skye. Actually, May is doing almost all of the talking. This is a day for breakthroughs for everyone! Skye has finally completely won May over, we discover. This is actually nice to hear. I was tired of May being unbearably frigid toward poor Skye. Or maybe I was just bored after we had to deal with it from Ward as well? Hmm. Coulson’s got concerns about the whole ‘re-worked his brain and implanted false memories’ thing. May does not. I like that Coulson is dealing with some stuff to make him more interesting. He’s not so smarmy here, and he doesn’t feel like he knows everything anymore. He even says he’s ‘tired of secrets’. We all know that’s not true, right? He’s a man of secrets. Fortunately, about this time, they spot Lumley and go into pursuit mode.

It’s a hilarious kung-fu mismatch between Agent May and Lumley. He literally hits her with a pallett, which slows her down for a second, while Lumley attempts to flee. But then we discover that the unobtrusive and very stealthy bright red Corvette can fly. Well, then! Coulson identifies himself, and Lumley sags in relief. Or despair. Or something. “Oh good. This is about the baby girl, isn’t it?” Time to learn cool things!

Lumley tried to take a cyanide capsule. Coulson is horrified. What did he think they were going to do with him? Well, there’s a story! 24 years ago (this is the number associated with Skye’s infancy, in case you forgot) Agents Lumley and Avery were in China. A whole S.H.I.E.L.D. team had apparently been wiped out trying to recover an 0-8-4 (this is the code given to an object of unknown origin. Previous examples include the Peruvian artifact we saw earlier this season, or perhaps even the Tesseract itself (this is the dumb, generic name given to the Cosmic Cube in films such as ‘The Avengers’). It turns out that the 0-8-4 these agents were retrieving was a baby girl, who exhibited no special powers that they ever observed. One by one, everyone who knew about the kid was hunted down and destroyed, including Agent Avery. Lumley is the only other survivor. Before her death, Agent Avery faked a Level 8 (!! who the eff is level 8 if Phil Coulson is only level 7? Just Nick Fury? It all seems kind of arbitrary though, let’s not think too hard) clearance. Avery assigned the S.H.I.E.L.D. foster system to move Skye around every few months not because she wasn’t wanted… but to keep her safe. Wow. Let’s take a breather after that.

Back at the Academy, Skye has blended in. Because she’s very smooth, as we’ve seen, she apparently flirted with the bartender and convinced him that she’s a Level 7 operative at the Sandbox (a S.H.I.E.L.D. pure research facility). After she expressed curiousity over top candidates who might be interested in assignment there, she was pointed toward one of the lovely young ladies from the cold open. Ward decides to check it out. Meanwhile, up in Donnie’s dorm, Fitz tries to befriend the troubled young man. He also helps him solve a problem with power generation for some dorm room science project Donnie’s been working on. I’m sure that was a good idea.

Ward is not good at flirting with young S.H.I.E.L.D. cadets. The dialogue here isn’t that good, and neither is he. It’s kind of a bummer. He’s made great strides during this episode, but right here, I either want to punch him in the face, or do the Picard-style facepalm til the scene is over. Right up until young miss… whatever… drops a bombshell. Donnie and Seth are friends. They’ve been bantering for weeks about how they would get to meet the great Agent Fitz. Ward immediately spots the problem. They just now arrived… and didn’t know they were coming… and oh. Right.

Fitz decides to play hero after he realizes that he’s been had, and that helping Donnie with his science project probably actually means that he just taught Donnie how to power a full scale version of the FREEEEEEEEEEEEZE machine. Unluckily for Fitz, Seth is also present, and shoots him in the head. Probably non-lethally. But still. It all comes together now; Seth and Donnie have been in touch with comically evil CEO Ian Quinn (But he really just loves free enterprise, guys! Emphasis on the comically evil.), who seems to do nothing in life except fly around in his private jet and facilitate supervillains and weapons of mass destruction (though, to be fair, he may just not have had time to rebuild his magnificently appointed villa since we last saw him). Skye even confirms with Coulson that this is Quinn’s modus operandi.

Oh, right, we’re back on the ActionPlane now. Coulson is acting kind of weird toward Skye. I WONDER WHY. Fitz thinks that Donnie is still not a bad guy. Also, he abruptly realizes that the device he saw used exotic and rare materials that could never be obtained on the open market by cadets. They’ve got a financial backer.

In a parking lot somewhere, Seth is on the phone with amusingly sinister CEO Ian Quinn.

On the ActionPlane, we now learn that Seth’s father works for Quinn WorldWide. Remember how, to the rest of the world, Quinn isn’t full of cackleworthy menace? Hmm. Even Seth and Donnie probably don’t know that he’s hysterically foul. Quinn tells Seth he wants a full-scale demonstration to prove that the device is worth his time now that the ActionTeam is on the case. Then he hangs up the phone and immediately orders his pilot to turn around. Remember what I keep saying about him? It’s ha-ha funny! It’s heinous!

Donnie is having second thoughts about just randomly firing up their untested ice machine at full scale. Seth convinces him otherwise, and they push the big red button. Only, instead of doing whatever idiotic thing they thought they would do… well, even Donnie doesn’t know what dumb thing they just did.

On the ActionPlane, Coulson squares with Skye. He tells her the whole truth. The music rises as he does so. The music tells us how we should feel about each of these scenes! I’m still in shock over the fact that Coulson decided to square with Skye. Is this show getting like… a lot better? Please, dear reader, you tell me. Skye says that the truth about her past cannot be worse than what she imagined. Coulson assures her: “It is.” Rise, emotions! Obey that musical cue! The music is so ascendant, it can carry us through to other scenes…!

Agents Ward and Weaver witness the instanteous formation of a huge, dangerous storm system.

Skye is in tears.

Donnie and Seth are at the eye of the same storm. Seth is triumphant; Donnie is deeply concerned. While the device worked… they could be in terrible danger.

After the break… Donnie is yet more concerned. They seeded the clouds, only they did a REALLY good job. Ice is coming. Like, a capriciously lethal amount. He begs for Seth’s help to try and reverse the process. Coulson orders Ward to see if he can extract Donnie and Seth, but Ward takes one look outside and says: “Not so much”. The only remaining recourse is to land the ActionPlane in the eye of the storm and get the two young men out manually. Luckily, Agent May is a good pilot and stuff. I’m sure they’ll make it. Uhh… not before Seth is hit by a bolt of lightning though. An unfortunate consequence of holding on tight to a metal object that rises up above its surroundings. Donnie is knocked back as well, and the machine is totally fried. The ActionPlane descends, the ActionTeam is here to save the day… but Seth is already too far gone, despite Fitz-Simmons’ best efforts. Donnie is devastated.

In the aftermath, Donnie is being shipped out to the Sandbox, where S.H.I.E.L.D. can keep an eye on him. May wants to revisit the whole ‘she and Ward are making love with machine-like precision and wooden facial expressions’ thing but Coulson’s not concerned. She also seems genuinely upset, like a real human being, at how badly it must have hurt Skye that Coulson told her the truth. Coulson, though, is positively glowing, as he talks about Skye’s reaction… guys, it turns out that Skye is a hero, she’s an ‘up’ person, and she gives her all for the team. Now, I don’t want to put too fine a point on this, BUT ALL THE VIEWERS KNEW THAT ALREADY COULSON, GOOD GRIEF. We got over ‘conflicted allegiances Skye’ like ten episodes ago. As part of the exeunt, we see Donnie making ice with his finger. Hey, it’s the influence of farcically vicious CEO Ian Quinn! Makin’ dem Supervillains!

In a final segment, Coulson calls amusingly malicious CEO Ian Quinn to threaten to blow him out of the sky if he ever comes near a S.H.I.E.L.D. aligned nation again. Quinn’s unruffled, and tells Coulson that … ‘The Clairvoyant told me to say “Hello”‘. Because we can’t have two groups of bad guys. God forbid. They’re all one group of interconnected evildoers, responsible for all of the evil! The musical cue tells me dread, but I felt ‘yawn’. Tsk tsk. The music wasn’t powerful enough.

Guys, this episode was great! The best one so far, by a clear margin! I know that people have already fled this show, and believe me, I get it. No one watches it more times than I do, despite the pain and suffering it causes. But if every week was like this one, we’d have an above-average TV show. Isn’t that all we can ask for from the broadcast networks anymore? Anyway, I’ll join you all again next week, for another journey into the unknown. Meanwhile, I’m going to see how a guy gets entrance into the S.H.I.E.L.D. academy… seemed like a pretty happening place.

Review: Let Me In (dir. by Matt Reeves)

Posted on by Arleigh

In 2008 a little film from Sweden swept through the film festivals and earned a rightful and well-deserved place in many film critics and film circles “best of 2008” and “top ten” lists. This was Swedish filmmaker’s film adaptation of the John Ajvide Lindqvist vampire novel, Let The Right One In. It was a vampire film that appealed not just to horror genre fans hungry for a vampire film that was the polar opposite of the current “Twilight” vampire craze. Horror fans wanted something that wasn’t watered down and emasculated to better appeal to the tween girl set. So, Alfredson’s vampire film was embraced by these horror fans and when news came that the rights to the novel was licensed by British-studio Hammer Film and an American-remake was set for production the reaction was decisively negative.

Fans of the original Swedish film were quite protective of the film and saw any plans to remake it for the North American audience as a cynical cash-grab. Their argument was that the original film was such a great one that there should be no need to remake it. Why fix something that wasn’t broken was another point made. It didn’t help the side of those supporting the remake that Matt Reeves was chosen to direct the remake. Reeves was better known as J. J. Abrams friend (some would say Reeves owes his success to Abrams and that he was coattailing the successful producer-director) and the director of the POV monster film, Cloverfield.

As strident fans of the original continued to vent and complain about the remake already failing (despite not an inch of film being shot) the producers were gradually filling the roles in the remake with some very interesting names. Fresh off her break-out performance in Kick-Ass was Chloe Grace Moretz taking on the role of Abby (the vampire child in the original was named Eli) with Kodi-Smit McPhee (The Road) taking on the role of the young boy Owen who befriends her. One name after the other filled out the cast with some very good veteran actors from Elias Koteas to Richard Jenkins (taking on the role of Abby’s Renfield).

Matt Reeeves’ version of Lindqvist novel from Alfredson comes from using the novel itself as the base for the screenplay Reeves himself wrote for the remake. While Let Me In shares many similarities in characters and situations from the original Swedish film, Reeves film does use more of the themes and details from the novel than Alfredson did for his adaptation. Let Me In definitely has enough about it which will distinguish itself from its Swedish counterpart and stand on its own.

The film switches locales from a suburb of in Sweden to a snowy Los Alamos, New Mexico (yes, it does snow in New Mexico). We learn quickly that Owen has become quite the loner due to the constant bullying by classmates. He spends time alone in the plaza area of the apartment complex he lives in with his mother (played by Carla Buono who we never fully see). He fantasizes of getting back at those who have and still bullying him even to the point that he buys a small pocketknife and practices his retribution on one of the trees in the plaza. It’s during one of his nighttime practices with the pocketknife that he first encounters Abby. There’s a certain wariness during their encounter with Abby proclaiming that Owen will not become a friend. But in time the two do become friends with Abby becoming quite protective of Owen once learning about the bullying he has to endure on a daily basis.

The change in Abby’s relationship with Owen doesn’t sit well with Abby’s Renfield. He asks Abby never to see Owen again as he goes out to procure Abby more fresh blood (a previous attempt goes awry forcing Abby to go out into the night to hunt). It’s in the scenes between Abby and Jenkins character that we see more of the duo’s relationship mirroring the novel’s. The novel explores the theme of pedophilia and while Reeves adaptation wasn’t quite obvious about it there are clues and small character interactions which hint at this pedophilic relationship which the Swedish original never really touched upon.

It’s in these small character interactions that Reeves’ film begins to differentiate itself from Alfredson’s version. The narrative between the two films still remain the same, but Reeves’ version explores the darker themes in the novel source while Alfredson concentrates more on the growing relationship between the two primary characters. These differences could be seen in how Reeves films Abby’s attacks while hunting her prey to be more animalistic (though at times the CGI seems too apparent when Abby attacks) and Abby’s subtle manipulation of Owen. I say manipulation because Abby seems very intent on trying to befriend and put Owen at ease despite the earlier comment that they will never be friends. Not to mention her Renfield admitting to Abby that he has gotten tired of what he has done to keep Abby safe and that maybe he wants to get caught to just end it all.

The film moves along quite leisurely but with a sense of growing dread not just between Owen and his bullies, but between Abby, her Renfield and those suspecting the duo. Owen gets caught in the lives of these two newcomers and soon gets confronted by Abby’s true nature and his own reaction to this. It’s a reaction that at first shows Owen fearing Abby and wanting to escape the growing bond between the two of them, but seeing how Abby’s been nothing but helpful to Owen he chooses to remain at her side. Abby rewards Owen’s protective nature by saving Owen from a near-deadly encounter with the school bullies at the school swimming pool.

This is the one sequence in Reeves’ film which many fans scrutinized to no end. The original film shot the scene with an almost arthouse eye despite the obvious violence involved. It was a scene where Alfredson filmed it as “less is more” and let the audience’s imagination run wild. Reeves’ does the same but adds his own stylistic touches to the sequence. not too much to make it so different from Alfredson’s version, but enough that it’s not a shot-for-shot copy. Again Reeves’ chose to show Abby’s violent predator aspect in this scene, but still keeps the focus of the scene on Owen as he struggles underwater. It’s only once he is out that we see — just as he does — the aftermath of Abby’s promise to protect Owen.

The question remains whether this American-remake stands up to the original. In terms of storytelling it more than holds it own from the original film and at times actually surpasses Alfredson’s version. This Reeves version journeys through the darkside more than the original film. It definitely strips away much of the arthouse sensibilities of Alfredson’s film which made it such a beauty to watch even if at times the narrative became more than too slow to keep one’s attention. Reeves’ adaptation doesn’t ramp up the pacing of the film, but keeps it moving forward even if at a gradual pace. When violence does occur in the remake it happens quickly and with a sense of brutality that the original film fails to deliver. The remake doesn’t linger on the gore and violence, but does show enough of it to remind everyone in the audience that this is a horror film first and foremost.

If there was one quibble to be made about this remake its that Reeves relies too much on CGI to show Abby at her most dangerous. Each attack made by Abby was shot at a wide-angle and we see every move but with each move done using CGI which gives it too much of an artificial look to it. It’s a testament to Moretz’ performance as she switches from a friendly Abby when interacting with Owen during their time together at night to one of a predator older than anyone in the film doing what was necessary to attain the blood needed to survive. Reeves could definitely have used less CGI and went for a more natural approach using sudden edits to show the ferocious nature of Abby’s attacks.

The film’s cast does a great job with the roles given to them. While it was Moretz’s and McPhee’s performances as Abby and Owen that keeps the audience’s attention and keeps it from wavering it’s the supporting cast around them which provides the glue. Koteas as the detective who begins to suspect Abby as having to do more with the attacks than previously mentioned was very good, but in the end it was Richard Jenkins in the Renfield role who would steal every scene he’s in. His character’s fatalistic acceptance of his role when it came to Abby was palpable. We watch him do horrible things to people and to himself, but we also get a sense that he couldn’t stop on his own if he wanted to. He has been doing the role of blood procurer for Abby for so long that he doesn’t know what else to do. I will say that Jenkin’s with the garbage bag mask when out hunting for victims will be the images that will stick to people’s minds long after they’ve left the theater. Some will even unconsciously check the back seat of their cars at night before getting in.

In the end, this remake of Let The Right One In doesn’t feel, look and sound like the cash-grab that cynical fans of the original have proclaimed it to be. Matt Reeves does a great job in adapting more of the novel in his version and using some of the darker themes in that source to allow his film to stand on its own when compared next to Alfredson’s version. The performances by everyone involved was wonderful and keeps the story’s slow pacing from losing the audience. While this remake doesn’t have the arthouse quality of the original film it does have a certain grittiness to its look which lends quite well in pointing out how brutal the narrative really was not just in physical violence but in how one of the two leads manipulates the situation to benefit it’s survival even if there was some genuine affection between Abby and Owen. In the end, Abby gets everything and continues to exist for another boy’s lifetime.

Fans so vocal of their negative attitudes towards this film will not have their minds changed, but those keeping an open-mind will be rewarded with one of the better horror films of the year. If the original Swedish adaptation never existed I’m quite sure that all the accolades heaped on Tomas Alfredson’s film would be given to Matt Reeves instead. A remake should never be discounted because its one of an original that’s already lauded for its quality. There’s been bad remakes but thankfully Let Me In is not one of them.