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  • WandaVision: Now In Colour – Disney+ Talk

    WandaVision: Now In Colour – Disney+ Talk

    Wandavision: Now In Colour – Disney+ Talk (SPOILERS!)

    Another week brings us another episode of the Marvel show ‘Wandavision’. However, Disney+ only released one episode this week, called ‘Now In Colour’. 

    In episode 3, Wanda and Vision deal with preparations of their unborn child and Wanda’s powers as they seem out of control.

    Overall, this may be my favourite episode. The show is now in bright, vibrant colour and the acting, characters and even setting of the house now resemble that of a 1960’s sitcom. The show also gives us an unfamiliar scenario: what would happen if a superhero with special powers became pregnant? Would that change anything? It’s an interesting and unique situation to place Wanda and Vision in, and one that is played mostly for laughs, which it succeeds at. 

    However, if you were expecting the show to slow down with its creepiness factor, then you would be very wrong. And it’s going to be difficult to discuss this episode without spoiling anything. So, this is a spoiler warning for episode 3 of ‘Wandavision’.

    As I previously mentioned, the show doesn’t stop with its eeriness: In the first 10 minutes, Wanda is worried about people finding out about their powers and, when Vision suspects something’s wrong, the show literally glitches and shows the start of that scene again but with new dialogue. The idea of escape is also spoken about a few times in this episode: Wanda’s doctor, Dr Nielsen, is planning on going on vacation but his car suddenly breaks down. He even tells Vision that ‘a small town makes it so hard to escape’. Then, near the end of the episode, their neighbour, Herb, and friend, Agnes, are talking and Herb tries to talk to Vision, to tell him that they’re stuck in this town. However, Agnes keeps interrupting him, telling him to be quiet. It’s clear that the townspeople want to leave this town but can’t; something’s stopping them from leaving and that they’re trapped.

    Herb also tells Vision about the new resident, Geraldine (played by Teyonah Parris), and that she just seemed to have popped into existence and doesn’t have any family or home. Geraldine helps Wanda deliver her babies, but when Wanda remembers her brother, Pedro aka Quiksilver, Geraldine reveals that she knows about it. Wanda then questions her plus questions the sword necklace she’s wearing and, when Geraldine avoids the questions, she disappears. Wanda tells Vision that she left when, in actual fact, she’s been transported to modern day. 

    The necklace is the logo of S.W.O.R.D, meaning that Geraldine may have been placed in this town to rescue Wanda. However, I still think Wanda is in control of the town and doesn’t want to leave, which is why she gets rid of Geraldine. She also doesn’t tell Vision what’s going on, meaning that Vision is unaware of what’s happening. So, this begs the question: is Wanda using this town as a place to grieve, either for her brother or for Vision? 

    All I can say for certain is that ‘Wandavision’ is getting very interesting, and this is the most excited I’ve been for a Marvel show ever!

  • Optoma CinemaX P2 4K Projector: Review

    Optoma CinemaX P2 4K Projector: Review

    The Optoma CinemaX P2 is an ultra short throw projector that offers big screen thrills without the need for a big room. My new flat is pretty tight so when placed close to a wall, it can cast a massive image. And the built in speaker is pretty decent too.

    The P2 is a great looking piece of kit with a beautiful matte white finish, with grey fabric grill – it doesn’t look like a projector.

    Plenty of options for your content, with three HDMI inputs: two to the back, one to the side. There are also two USB ports, an optical digital audio output, Ethernet and a 3.5 mm audio jack output. You can throw anything you have at it!

    The P2 plays the role of home entertainment hub. You can stream music from your phone, using the projector as a Bluetooth speaker. The sound is very good indeed.

    It’s also smart in the connected sense: the main home screen offers access to a settings menu, input source and small selection of apps.

    The supplied remote control is compact, beautifully heavy and largely button-free. It’s so subtly backlit you probably won’t even notice it illuminate. Beautiful.

    The overall image brightness is highly enjoyable, and brightness is still pretty good. You’ll be fine watching sports or Pulp Fiction with some level of ambient light, although to really make contrast pop you might want to pull the curtains.

    The Optoma CinemaX P2’s bright, sharp images and surprisingly big sound are good enough to make it great value for money – this is a projector capable of delivering king-sized pictures in all but the brightest of rooms.

  • Acasa, My Home: Review

    Acasa, My Home: Review

    Acasa, My Home: Review. By Ryan Lambert.

    The first detail I noticed while watching director Radu Ciorniciuc‘s “Acasa, My Home” is how close the camera is to the action at hand, sitting behind a group of brothers paddling a small boat through filthy water, chasing a brown goose. With the exception of some vague Google Earth cinematography a few minutes later when the title card appears onscreen, the remainder of the film is spent within a few feet of the family at the center of this cinematic tapestry, benefitting from a high level of access to the subjects during a bizarre transitionary period in their lives.

    The Enache clan are roamers and scavengers, fishers and hunters, a pair of Romanian Gypsies with nine children who live in the woods near a river delta, butting heads with cops and social workers alike. As father Vali claims early in the runtime, “I moved here because I hate this wicked civilization.” 

    Vali is a fascinating and idiosyncratic patriarch for this small army of blood relatives. One day his aim is to become an honorary park ranger for his work preserving the land; later on, his unhinged goal is setting himself on fire to prove a point to the police. His spawn may be dirty and lagging behind in education compared to their peers, but at least they are together — the film proves to be semi-sweet during the more intimate scenes of family discussion (and dancing).

    The State is indifferent to these joys, stepping in with threats to take the kids away. The audience has an exclusive front row seat for each and every development, witnessing a forced conversion from Wild Child to Village People and all the associative culture shock that comes with it. These are people that simply want to be left alone, a semi-dysfunctional family unit spending life on the margins until The Man drags them back to the “real world.”

    Why are cinderblock cities and concrete jungles considered to be more real? Seen from the lens of scrappy individuals living off the land, the trials and traditions of society seem artificial. This is the invasion of the natural world by bureaucracy, as government officials — acting with the worst brand of institutional cruelty — destroy the Enache family’s self-built hut on the edge of the city, sending them packing to subsidized public housing where the lights don’t even work.

    To sell the dramatic divisions between their life before and their life after, the film frequently returns to the motif of fishing: early on we see one of the sons selling recently-caught fish door to door, and later this same endeavour leads to a violent arrest for illegal poaching. The boys take it in stride, crossing busy streets like they have a deathwish.

    This is observational filmmaking at its finest, so proximate to these people and their story that for moments I forgot I was watching a documentary, thinking that this level of direct coverage must have been planned and executed as a work of fiction.

    Ryan

    Ryan is a filmmaker and critic from Atlanta. He takes inspiration from rhythm and people-watching, and his other interests include 8-ball, artificial intelligence, and clowns. His previous video work has appeared in showcases organized by Out on Film and Collect Atlanta, and his previous writing has appeared in Skewed and Reviewed, Blood Knife, and more. He is currently in development on two feature-length film projects. Sign up for his newsletter at flickpicking.org for weekly movie picks and production updates.

  • Brothers By Blood: Review

    Brothers By Blood: Review

    Mobsters’ opulent lifestyles are typically painted with a double-edged brush onscreen. While revered classics like Goodfellas may indulge in the criminal’s bounty of luxuries, these films always reveal the unavoidable pit of emptiness and death waiting around the corner. The latest mob drama Brothers By Blood avoids that duality altogether, entrenching its viewers in the grimy mucky-muck of the Philadelphia gang scene. Writer/director Jérémie Guez’s film thrives upon its well-thought circumstances, spinning a meditative web on crime and the cicular toll it often takes.

    Based on Peter Dexter’s Brotherly Love, Brother’s By Blood follows Peter (Joel Kinnaman) and Michael (Matthias Schoenaerts), two cousins raised to take over the family nefarious family business. While Peter embraces the taxing grind with a wicked sense of self-importance, Michael looks to drift away from a lifestyle that has broken his family in the process.

    Brothers By Blood certainly doesn’t sell itself well at first glance. Guez’s opening frames introduce a string of familiar mob movie mechanics that set a seemingly predictable roadmap for what’s to come. While Guez’s story never becomes all that inventive, the adept writer/director lays its all-too-familiar events out with thoughtful reflection. This isn’t a film about the high-steaks moments, rather opting to depict the menial cruelty behind their day-to-day routine. As we see Peter continually beat down the innocent, the audience feels Michael’s painful discontentment continuining to grow. Paired alongside a flashback subplot connecting the protagonists to their violent forefathers, Brothers effectively digs its heel into the casual callousness permeating through their broken family structure.

    Guez’s no-thrills direction helps establish his familiar plotting into an astute character study. His minimalist hand allows the setting’s dour reality to take center stage over distracting creative flairs. Brothers by Blood is also boosted by two dedicated performances from its central stars. This may just be Joel Kinnaman’s best performance to date, with the usually stoic actor transforming into an unrelentingly twitchy gangster. His aggressive bravado sells Peter’s shallow fixation towards grandstanding over those around him. Matthias Schoenaerts’ subdued skillset makes a perfect juxtaposition to Peter’s boisterous presence. The wildly-underrated character actor sensitively taps into Michael’s demons with well-conveyed confliction.

    Kinnaman and Schoenaerts keep the narrative engaging even when it’s not up to their talents. While I appreciate Guez’s search for substantive ruminations, his button-tight 90-minute runtime deserves more room to breathe. A bevy of simplistic subplots (Maika Monroe is given little to do as a thankless love interest) ultimately work to detract from the central narrative’s down-to-earth strengths. If the dynamics weren’t quite so compacted, they could have grown into something far more substantial.

    Even with some messy misgivings, Brothers by Blood elicits a more personally-drawn tale than your typical mob movie. If anything, this serves as another reminder of Schoenaerts remarkably subdued abilities.

  • David: The BRWC Review

    David: The BRWC Review

    David: The BRWC Review. By Alif Majeed.

    You got to hand it to Will Ferrell as from time to time, he does attempts to surprise you. He might not always succeed, but he gets you by his side when it does. 

    What makes movies like A Deadly Adoption and Casa de Mi Padre so interesting is how he plays it straight with no nudging or winking at the audience. The first shot of David that you get of Will Farell looking stressed and disheveled. You see him as a tired therapist rather than a guy trying to show off his dramatic chops. William Jackson Harper, the titular David, is having a therapy session with Will when the latter’s son, (the other titular David, played by Fred Hechinger), barges in angrily demanding that he come for his wrestling match that is about to start in half an hour.

    The 10 minutes short perfectly portrays the relationship between the absentee father and his stubborn son. He is all too aware that his son’s wrestling stint is just the latest fad he got into, causing him to dismiss his aspirations. He is just too involved with his patients (or so he thinks) to prioritize his son’s latest whim.

    What pulls a tiny wedge in his plan, though, is David, (the son, not the patient), who has not realized his own half-hearted seriousness about his aspirations, which are his mere whims. But to him, it is a life or death situation where not being present at the bout almost amounts to an act of treason from his dad. 

    Will Ferrell and Fred Hechinger play off each other rather too well, with Fred going toe to toe with Will. You could argue that Fred has the showier role as the stubborn brat, but Farrell knows when to pull back and allows Fred to take center stage.

    Caught between the dueling father-son is William Harper, playing the exasperated patient who is mostly reacting to the duo. But a perfectly placed glance here or a throwaway line there from him helps push Will and Fred further in their story. He also gets the defining moment of the short when he, the one guy among the three with a potentially life-threatening disease, resolves the conflict between the two in the most touching way possible.

    It was a pleasant surprise knowing Zach Woods, known for his role as Jared Dunn in Silicon Valley, the exasperated guy mostly reacting to the others in that show, directed David. I liked enough of what I saw in David to look forward to whatever Zach Woods comes up with next.