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  • Mythic Quest: Raven’s Banquet – AppleTV+ Review

    Mythic Quest: Raven’s Banquet – AppleTV+ Review

    Ian (pronounced I-an) Grimm (Rob McElhenney) is the creator of the world’s most popular MMORPG (Massive Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game), Mythic Quest. On his team is Poppy (Charlotte Nicdao) Mythic Quest’s lead programmer, story writer C.W. Longbottom (F. Murray Abraham), executive producer, David (David Hornsby) and financial expert Brad (Danny Pudi). Together they keep the game running and hope that the can appease their biggest critic, 14-year-old game streamer, Pootie Shoe (Elisha Henig). David also hires Jo (Jessie Ennis) as his assistant and if she’s not reined in, she may actually kill someone.

    Mythic Quest: Raven’s Banquet is the new sitcom from the creators of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. With Rob McElhenney writing and starring and Charlie Day and Megan Ganz on board as co-creators, the audience from Sunny may know what to expect.

    However, after an announcement at 2019’s E3 gaming event, Rob McElhenney put the audience at ease that it wasn’t just going to cash in on its audience and laugh at their expense (looking at you, Big Bang Theory). Instead, McElhenney et al teamed up with Ubisoft for advice and an insight into the gaming industry.

    Also cast is Ashly Burch, a name that gamers will know for her voice work on games like Horizon Zero Dawn, Life is Strange and the Borderlands games. With Burch being one of the staff writers, this further shows that the show is in good hands.

    Mythic Quest: Raven’s Banquet is not only a relatable office-based comedy, but a show that really knows its audience, knows all the in-jokes of the gaming industry and isn’t afraid to do something different to expand on its repertoire.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMaPCYRPhY0

    Halfway through its 10-episode run, Mythic Quest does a stand-alone episode that many will not expect, but many will enjoy as it follows a couple from their initial meeting, to their professional and personal relationship and does it over the space of 10 years. Something that other shows wouldn’t dare to do so early on, but it stands out as one of the best and only confirms that Mythic Quest is made by the right people.

    Although some audience may feel that the workplace sitcom may have run its course and the show does seem to run out of references to the gaming industry, it’s the connection between the characters that makes all the difference. Besides the typical characters that one may find in a quirky sitcom (the evil one, the egotistic one, the overworked one), the laughs keep coming and the main story even gives the audience a few surprises.

  • Bill And Ted Face The Music: The BRWC Review

    Bill And Ted Face The Music: The BRWC Review

    Few lovable losers have endured the test of time like Bill S. Preston Esq. and Theodore Logan. Those are the distinguished titles of the distinctly dopey Bill and Ted, a duo that has transformed into cult figures through their simpleminded SoCal charms. Featuring dedicated performance work from Alex Winter and Keanu Reeves, alongside a plethora of off-kilter gags, both Excellent Adventure and its sequel Bogus Journey have remained beloved comedic staples long past their initial releases. After nearly 30 years of waiting, Bill and Ted are finally back on the big (and small) screen with Bill and Ted Face the Music, a warmly nostalgic revival that captures the property’s earnest charms. 

    Bill and Ted Face the Music follows its titular protagonists, who are now middle-aged parents still trying to create their world-saving song. With the planet hours away from ending, Bill (Alex Winter) and Ted (Keanu Reeves) travel to the future in order to obtain the hit song from themselves, coming face to face with a future that isn’t quite as excellent as they hoped for. While they face their personal demons, their daughters Thea (Samara Weaving) and Billie (Brigette Lundy-Paine) travel back in time to help their dads assemble a historic band. 

    Shaking off any potential rust, Face the Music seamlessly conveys the alluring charms of its predecessors. Both Winters and Reeves have diverged down different career paths since Bogus Journey (Winters is a documentarian while Reeves is a marque action star), yet the duo slip back into their old-school personas with comfortable ease. The new-aged look has only made their slacker delivery more palatable, with the characters befuddling logic and good-hearted nature still generating the same uproarious laughs as before. Considering most modern comedies delineate towards a raunchy tonality, it’s refreshing to watch Bill and Ted’s comedic voice continue to embrace an innocent juvenility.

    As a good sequel should Face the Music brings some welcomed additions to the table. The inclusion of Bill and Ted’s chill daughters Billie and Tea add a fresh perspective for this third entry, with Samara Weaving and Brigette Lundy-Paine recreating Bill and Ted’s distinct mannerisms seamlessly while infusing their own voice into the roles. They are joined by a plethora of colorful new characters that add to the film’s zany comedic energy, including a murderous robot with deeply-seeded insecurities (Barry’s Anthony Carrigan continues to be a scene-stealer in comedic roles) and Kid Cudi who inexplicably explains the complexity of time travel. Screenwriters Chris Matheson and Ed Solomon deserve praise for their ability to capture the tonality and low-key charms of the originals while seamlessly incorporating fresh ideas to screen.

    While the script does reinvigorate its predecessors’ comedic energy, it’s noticeably lacking from a narrative perspective. In an effort to combine Excellent Adventure and Bogus Journey’s premises, the story suffers from a lingering sense of familiarity, lacking the creative spark or oddball plot beats that made the first two beloved staples. Director Dean Parisot’s sterile and flat direction suffers from a similar sense of timidness, with the film ultimately being content to simply play towards diehard fans nostalgia. The lack of ingenuity may limit the film, but it doesn’t mask the laughs and amiable energy that’s on display throughout.

    Bill and Ted Face the Music is a most excellent tribute to the offbeat and infectious energy of its predecessors. If this is the character’s swan song, it’s great to see them walk off on a positive note.

  • I’m Thinking Of Ending Things: The BRWC Review

    I’m Thinking Of Ending Things: The BRWC Review

    The internal machinations of our minds sometimes betray us. Fantasies spiral out of control, thoughts embarrass us by slipping through their Freudian holes, and in the midst of puzzling equations, they have the unfortunate knack of forgetting to carry the one. Charlie Kaufman’s “I’m Thinking of Ending Things” is one such puzzling equation set in a spiralling fantasy world filled to the brim with haunting mental slips twisted as cultural references coming to life. Following a young woman (Jessie Buckley) and her boyfriend Jake (Jesse Plemons), Kaufman’s latest is a confronting, often chilling look at life unfulfilled and the ways in which we compensate for that inside. 

    “It is beautiful out here. In a bleak, heartbroken kind of way.” so thinks the young woman, who for convenience I will call Lucy, the first of her many ever-changing names. Lucy thinks this while gazing out from Jakes car on the way to meet his parents for the first time. The whitewashed landscape outside is rapidly worsening in the snowfall, and despite the frequent chatter with her boyfriend, she cannot escape one perpetual thought, “I’m thinking of ending things”. What she’s thinking of ending precisely is challenging to dissect, but on the surface level, Jake is on the chopping block. 

    Most of the film takes place like this, isolated in the ever-plodding car and, as if driving some mythically foreboding road, the further they go, the more unsettling things become. Its subtle interactions the couple have that force this sensation. Moments where Jack interrupts Lucy’s thoughts, as if reading her mind, or the few times Lucy’s ever-seeking eyes find the camera and she stares straight through us. Yet these instances are only harbingers of what’s to come, which is a meeting of parents that makes Ben Stiller’s efforts look like a perfectly comfortable and effortless occasion. 

    Jack’s parents are freaky figures, simply named mother and father (Toni Collette and David Thewlis). They flow through time together while we are with them, aging rapidly both forwards and backwards through time, but they aren’t all that changes. Lucy’s name changes as well, as does her occupation, the way they met, her hobbies and interests. Suddenly it becomes clear that this is not reality as you and I know it. What we are seeing is a blank canvass upon which someone is painting their desires, and as they paint, they are changing their minds about what is ideal to them. Everything becomes infinitely more uncomfortable from this point as we realise how perverted it is that we are being made privy to this individual’s innermost desires. Almost every moment inside Jack’s childhood home only makes this more evocative. When we enter his room, the voluminous mise-en-scene reveals the sources of many of the references, and it’s clear whoever’s fantasy this is it’s made up entirely from the media they have consumed. 

    We do know whose fantasy Lucy exists in; he isn’t kept secret from us. In fact, throughout the film, we cut to him living his lonely life. Credited only as “Janitor” (Guy Boyd), our de-facto storyteller works in a local high school where he struggles with both his image in the eyes of the students and his empathy for those who are bullied. And through him, I’m Thinking of Ending Things becomes a melancholy tale of unrequited love within oneself. Even in his own fantasy, the Janitor faces rejection, and I can’t think of many things sadder than that. 

    Sad as it may be, everything does come across masterfully. Kaufman is sincere enough in his writing to simply let his mystery be clear-cut once it is resolved. However, the film’s issues lie in the presence of the conundrum itself. In both direction and content, this is an inaccessible film nearly impossible to fully comprehend in a single viewing, which can make its vast 134-minute runtime drag. It is so easy to get caught up in analysing every passing line as if the next one could be the Rosetta Stone for the entire piece, and doing this won’t uncover much of anything in this movie. The film’s twist lies in the big picture, and the references and the mind-bending are only the manifestations of the Janitor; they are what he is. In saying this, a firmer hand would likely have seen the film crumble before our eyes as a nuance-less mess, so whilst it all gets dangerously close to being pretentious, it remains respectable. 

    I would be remiss to end this review without mentioning two of the hottest actors in the world right now in Buckley and Plemons. The calibre of work they produce while almost exclusively seated in a car is phenomenal. They are becoming the kind of actors whose names on a cast sheet are all the convincing you will need to watch, and their efforts in digesting and reciting Kaufman’s abstract dialogue is some of the finest work of the year. Thewlis and Collette are also predictably irresistible in their quirky roles, and together they each make for a perfect ensemble. 

    I’m Thinking of Ending Things is unashamedly not for all tastes to worthwhile results. With this said, deciphering what it all means is justifiably difficult and will doubtless see many seek other avenues to spend their time.

  • Mulan: The BRWC Review

    Mulan: The BRWC Review

    One is unable to discuss Disney’s new live-action remake of Mulan without at least briefly mentioning the divisive decision to drop the film straight to Disney+ in favor of simply delaying a theatrical release. However many of us might feel about the controversial media conglomerate, it is undeniably true that today’s cinemas rely greatly on the studio’s output to survive (their films took a market share of almost 40% in 2019). Given the current circumstances, delaying it would’ve been the right thing to do.   

    Perhaps the biggest disappointment is the fact that the film was so clearly designed for the big screen, drenched in spectacle and just begging to be experienced in a crowd. Unlike the majority of Disney’s lackluster remakes, Mulan is prepared to step away from simply copying the 1998 original and actually try something new. In fact, this version is essentially a wuxia film (it’ll remind viewers more of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon than of the Disney classic); more of a modern interpretation of the Chinese legend than ‘just another remake’, and the spectacle of that vision feels completely wasted on a television screen. 

    Gone are all the elements that we know and love; there are no songs, love stories or talking animals, all of which are pushed aside as the story instead leans into themes of family, honor and trust.

    It’s almost admirable that the film strays so far from the original text on which it’s based in favor of new ideas, and it certainly shouldn’t rub people up the wrong way quite like previous remakes have done, as it doesn’t fall into the same traps. In fact, Mulan has all the elements to become something brilliant… so why doesn’t it?

    The answer to that is simple: it’s Disney. The studio’s model thrives on creating movies for mass appeal; ones that can rarely be called ‘bad’, since there almost always competently made and well-acted, but that are hardly ever bold enough to become something great. With very few exceptions, they’re usually what one might call ‘pretty good’ or even ‘just fine’, and that’s because that’s precisely what they’re designed to be; movies that neither offend nor blow anyone away.

    The reason Mulan never becomes more than ‘fine’ is because it’s unwilling to fully embrace the ideas at the heart of it. A fully Chinese wuxia movie that focused more on the mental strain of Mulan’s actions and on her interactions with those around her would’ve been far more interesting than what we got: essentially, a Marvel movie. It follows the same basic structure and is every bit as formulaic as any MCU release.

    In fact, Hua Mulan herself is now a superhero. This new interpretation of the character has the power of chi, and once again, that could’ve been interesting had it been handled creatively, but Mulan is introduced as the perfect fighter from the very beginning. She attempts to conceal her skills from fellow soldiers, but never from the audience, so it’s pretty difficult for the combat sequences (however pretty they might be) to have any real tension. 

    In the end, while Mulan isn’t as problematic as many other Disney remakes, the principle remains the same: thinking these films will be equal in quality is ignorant of what made the classics so special in the first place… the animation itself. Much like most others, Mulan worked better as an animated film because it was purposefully created that way; it’s how the story was supposed to be told, and although this remake has a more respectful approach than most, it’s still devoid of any of the charm that made the original so beloved.

    It’s visually stunning, the action sequences are terrific and Liu Yifei is fantastic in the lead role, but it lacks the magic, heart, character or life of its animated counterpart. In short, it’s ‘just fine’, and you’ll likely feel just as you did after Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast or The Lion King: wishing you were watching the original.

  • Guy Ritchie, Snyder, 65: Weekly Round Up

    Guy Ritchie, Snyder, 65: Weekly Round Up

    When I was a young, wide-eyed boy, Guy Ritchie films seemed like something special. It wasn’t that they were good – they’re okay – or even that I enjoyed them all that much – I do, but again, they’re okay – it was that they felt tangible, achievable, even. As a kid, I wanted to make films, but stuck in the dead-end of England with no real connections or cash, left me at a loss as to how to do it. And then Lock, Stock and Snatch hit, and suddenly… it all made sense.

    Flash forward several years and things have changed. I no longer consider Ritchie the height of what I can achieve, and Ritchie himself has moved on from East End gangsters to big-budget blockbusters like Sherlock Holmes and Man From U.N.C.L.E. His last movie, The Gentlemen, saw him return to his gangster roots, but before that he’d brought Disney’s Aladdin to life in a live-action remake of the classic cartoon.

    As Ritchie has moved up through the ranks of Hollywood, so too has one of the stars of his two early movies, Jason Statham, and I’ll admit I have been sort of waiting for an eventual reteam of these two. This week it appears I got my wish, as we learned the pair are not only scheduled to reunite on a film currently in post-production called Cash Truck but are also planning to join forces again for a spy thriller.

    I might be alone in this, but I quite enjoyed Ritchie’s Man From U.N.C.L.E., so the prospect of him returning to the spy sub-genre is rather tantalizing for me. That he’s doing it with Jason Statham, king of the over-the-top action sequence only sweetens the deal. The film will be called Five Eyes, and will follow an MI6 agent played by Statham who is “recruited by global intelligence alliance ‘Five Eyes’ to track down and stop the sale of a deadly new weapon that threatens to disrupt the world order.” I’m looking forward to this, and not least because it’s not about superheroes.

    Speaking of superheroes getting in the way of everything, do you guys remember a little while back when we learned of Zack Snyder’s new movie, a post-apocalyptic “zombie heist film” called Army of the Dead, that took place in Las Vegas? Well, while the news around Snyder may have been predominantly overtaken by his upcoming cut of Justice League, Snyder himself is still working on the movie, which was apparently originally developed to be a sequel to his 2004 Dawn of the Dead remake.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6512XKKNkU

    The film will drop via Netflix, although when that will be remains a mystery at this point. Still, the streaming service seems to be fairly confident in the film, since this week they greenlit not only a prequel movie but also a spin-off animated series.

    The prequel will reportedly center around German actor Matthias Schweighofer’s character, and Schweighofer will both star in and direct the film. The spin-off animated series will reportedly focus on the character played by Dave Bautista in the film and is going to be written by screenwriter Shay Hatten who, as well as writing Army of the Dead, was also behind Jock Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum.

    And while we’re on the subject of horror (the film has zombies in it, so it’s basically a horror), while many of us are still waiting on the release of A Quiet Place Part 2, the original film’s screenwriters, Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, are busy in pre-production on a brand new horror film that they have written and will direct.

    I’m quite curious about this one, not only because I thought A Quiet Place was a really interesting concept for a film, but because the duo’s other movie, which they also directed, the 2019 horror Haunt, is really twisted and has some genuinely scary moments.

    The film is called 65 and will be produced by Sam Raimi, so it could be something interesting. Perhaps most curiously, the filmmakers have managed to bag actor Adam Driver for a lead role, who is coming to the project hot off of his busy 2019, which saw him star in a Star Wars movie and earn an Oscar nomination for his role in Noah Baumbach’s Marriage Story.

    While Driver’s presence will certainly elevate the film’s status, given the actor is currently busy shooting Ridley Scott’s upcoming historical drama The Last Duel – which just returned after a COVID-19 related hiatus – and is also in talks to appear in Scott’s next movie – a true-crime thriller called Gucci which stars Lady Gaga – it could be a little while before we see this one.