Based on the DC comic series, DOOM PATROL (HBO) follows a team of misfit superheroes shunned and heavily traumatized for the “gift” of powers they received and that carry a great personal cost. The show strikes an almost perfect balance between strong characterization, great acting across the board, excellent dialogue, and just enough weirdness to make things unpredictable. I just finished Season 1 and loved it as something cerebral and refreshing in the superhero genre.

The characters we’re introduced early on include Cliff Steele (the always lovable Brendan Fraser), a racing driver turned into Robotman after a tragic accident; Larry Trainor (Matt Bomer), a test pilot who lives with an energy being inside him; Rita Farr (April Bowlby), a vintage movie actress who under stress turns into a gelatinous blob; and Crazy Jane (Diane Guerrero), who has split personality disorder, with each personality having its own superpower. They live in a house under the protection of Niles (Timothy Dalton). When Niles is captured by the nefarious Mr. Nobody (excellently played by Alan Tudyk), a villain who reminds me a bit of Q from STAR TREK, the team must confront their problems and become the heroes they were destined to be, aided by the superhero Cyborg (Joivan Wade).

This is a weird show, combining serious drama with comedy with wacky oddities and a strong dash of meta self awareness. All these elements come together in a nice balance to make it likeable, surprising, and filled with interesting ideas. If any of its elements were overplayed, DOOM PATROL wouldn’t have worked nearly as well for me, but the show balances them almost perfectly with a high degree of integrity. But be warned: This is not even close to being a conventional superhero show. The story doesn’t so much roll out linearly as spin like a washing machine, a lot of the problems our heroes face are self-created by their powers, and there are numerous digressions and back stories.

Overall, I loved it and will be heading into Season 2 soon. I was happy to hear the series was just renewed by HBO for a Season 4.

Based on the Arthurian legend, THE GREEN KNIGHT (2021) is a film adaptation of the medieval poem, “Sir Gawain.” I found it beautiful and stirring and loved it, though thematically it’s muddled, making me appreciate the journey more than the destination. This is the kind of movie where it might be fun to go into it knowing nothing more than it’s about Gawain and set in the King Arthur legend, so you might skip this review if you haven’t seen it. Still with me? Here goes:

It’s Christmas Day, and Gawain, King Arthur’s nephew (he’s the son of Morgana the witch) awakes in a brothel. Growing up in Camelot, he lives around the great knights of the Round Table but missed all the action, and as a result he lives a life of relative decadence in a stark Camelot that is at its peak of glory but tired and already waning. Enter the Green Knight, the product of his mother’s magic, who offers a Christmas game to test the virtue of Arthur’s knights: Any knight is welcome to give him a blow if in one year’s time the monstrous knight may return it. Stirred by his uncle’s attention, Gawain plays the game, but now in a year he must journey to face the Green Knight. Along the way, he will be tested to find out his true character in an examination of the value of character and what it means, particularly in relation to one’s worth as a human being–not only in the face of adversity but also death.

The film making here is just art throughout, from the fine acting to the sublime world building and cinematography to the stirring music to the rich sound quality to the overall brooding atmosphere. I absolutely loved everything about the film’s presentation and the superior craft behind it. That’s 80% of my review. It’s just a beautiful film that offers a dreamlike experience akin to the 1981 film EXCALIBUR, though with far less sex and violence. I watched the movie at home, all the while wishing I’d seen it in a theater.

Where the film was uneven for me as a viewer, however, was in story, mostly in the character of Gawain himself. In the medieval poem, the story works because he’s already a knight of almost perfect virtue, who must be tested and uphold his perfect virtue right up to the final test. In the film, he starts as a lazy, fun-loving rich kid, so the tests don’t quite work, of they’d work better if he failed them until finally discovering his moral courage. If he’d given in to his familiar desires at each test only to get a comeuppance or have his gains stripped away to show they don’t add up to anything lasting, it might have worked better for me as a morality tale. Then Gawain’s journey of self-discovery would have more actual discovering.

Watching THE GREEN KNIGHT, I was struck by the similarity with Aronofsky’s MOTHER!, which is similarly visually rich and puzzling but in contrast utterly dominates its theme. For me, MOTHER! was ingenious in its retelling of the Bible as allegory that included Earth as the protagonist. By the end, the theme emerges to virtually burst in the viewer’s mind like an epiphany, magnifying one’s appreciation. THE GREEN KNIGHT is a bit muddier. There’s something there, though its parts are far more open to interpretation. Aronofsky seemed to know exactly what he wanted to say when he made MOTHER!, I’m not sure David Lowery was as focused with THE GREEN KNIGHT.

Overall, I found the film affecting and quite an experience and recommend it. It casts a spell on you, even if the incantation is a bit diffused.

Based on the stellar novel by Jonathan Lethem, MOTHERLESS BROOKLYN (2019) is a neo-noir crime film written, produced, directed, and starring Ed Norton. Not a faithful adaptation, but Norton reinvents the source material in a way that’s still compelling. Overall, I liked it a lot.

It’s New York in 1957, and Frank Minna (Bruce Willis) runs a private detective agency staffed by the Minna Men, men plucked from an orphanage and given mentorship. One of these men is Lionel Esrog (Ed Norton), a man plagued by Tourette syndrome. When a mysterious job goes wrong, Lionel decides to step up and solve it, putting him against the city’s most powerful men.

In the novel, Lionel is sort of a mascot, regularly ridiculed and overlooked because of his condition, which provides him the perfect cover as a private eye. Because nobody takes him seriously, nobody considers him a threat. In the end, he alone cracks the case, only to find out it’s not the stuff of his mentor’s romanticized PI noir affectations but far more mundane. In the film, Norton interprets the character differently, treating Tourette’s as an inconvenient disability but allowing the other characters to regard it with more sensitivity and him with more respect. I wonder if Norton went too far; honestly, the trait could have been dropped, and it wouldn’t have changed the film much at all.

In the film, Lionel ends up tangling with powerful forces seeking to demolish parts of Harlem to make way for new roads and bridges, which will enrich wealthy men, bringing in great actors like Alec Baldwin, Willem Dafoe, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Bobby Cannavale, Cherry Jones, and Ethan Suplee in a 1950s New York that is immersive and amazingly constructed. Overall, it’s very well done, and the whole is compelling, though it was missing something that would have made it a far greater film. I believe it’s Lionel himself. The character is plenty likeable, but he doesn’t really undergo any change, he doesn’t really have to conquer his disability or much stemming from it. He starts the film smarter than everybody else and somewhat misunderstood, he ends it that way.

Overall, I liked the film and even admire it, though it fell far short of knocking me out.

In Alfonso Cuarón’s GRAVITY (2013), a doctor (Sandra Bullock) conducting a research project on the space shuttle is wrapping up and on her way home when the Russians shoot down one of their own errant satellites with a missile, starting a chain reaction of super fast debris hurtling around Earth’s orbit and shredding everything in its path. What follows is a breathless fight for virtually you-are-there survival using every bit of meager means at her disposal.

There’s not a lot to talk about when it comes to character. Dr. Ryan Stone is in long and deep mourning, which draws her to the solitude of lifeless space. When she’s challenged with a fight to survive, she has to decide if she really wants to live and what she has to live for. Otherwise, really this is a Michael Crichton-scale series of escalating tension and horrible challenges, with a roaring, ominous soundtrack ratcheting the tension to 11, flawless CGI putting your brain in outer space, and plenty of sweat as a single misstep will send you hurtling off to die of asphyxiation alone and in the dark.

In short, the film is beautifully shot, riveting, and pretty spectacular, surprisingly effective to an extent it makes you physically uncomfortable to watch it at times. On the downside, there isn’t much going on other than an astronaut fixing one problem only to be confronted by another bigger problem in a very plot-driven story. Overall, I found it pretty compelling.