Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur// Review # 21

Happy Black History Month, y'all! I know it's almost over, but that doesn't mean I can't check in.

It's been a hot minute since I've said anything on this blog. I bet you thought I forgot about you, huh? 

Well, you'd be... a little correct.

The truth is, I've been busy.

Between trying to get a book published and working a full-time job, I regret to say that I've been neglecting my duties to tell you about what I've been watching. I'm sorry to leave you hanging, but life's been a little hectic recently. (If you wanted to know what I've been watching in the meantime, you can follow me on Letterboxd here.)

Now that I'm back, though, I feel the need to put you onto something I discovered a while ago. 

Allow me to introduce: Marvel's Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur!

Listen close, because I'm only gonna say this once: Marvel's Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur is the Into the Spider-verse of cartoon TV shows. As in, this show is visually perfect, musically captivating, and dreadfully underrated.

This show SLAPS.

I cannot begin to tell you how much I love this show, but I can try. If' you're not watching it already, you're missing out.

Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur follows a Black teenaged girl named Lunella Lafayette as she goes about her life in the Lower East Side of New York City. Only, she's an absolute genius. After experimenting one day, she accidentally opened a portal to another dimension, summoning a giant red T-Rex named Devil. Together, Lunella and her dinosaur fight crime as the eponymous "Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur." They become the champions of the Lower East Side, taking back their power from anyone who tries to take it from them.

Similarly to Big Hero 6 that came before, long before it was animated, Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur started out as a Marvel comic book. Making her way onto the scene in 2015 with her first issue, Lunella Lafayette was declared the smartest character in the Marvel universe (Yes, that means even smarter than Reed Richards, Tony Stark, Victor von Doom, and Bruce Banner!), and along with her pet dinosaur, she started kicking butt and taking names using her genius and his strength.

The Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur comics ran from 2015-2019, and she has fought with everyone from the X-Men to Miles Morales's Spider-Man (BTW, thank you Sinclair, ilysm.) They share a lot of similarities with the Moon Girl I watched on TV, but they are definitely different. 

Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur Comic #1 (2022)

Marvel's Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur (TV series)

For example, one of Moon Girl's powers in the comic books is that she is able to create a neural link with Devil Dinosaur in order to switch consciousnesses with him. (While this happens in the show, it is only for one episode and is explained away using a scientific device instead of an innate ability). Another thing to note is that the Moon Girl from the comics is significantly younger than the one on TV at only 9 years old. The Moon Girl on TV is 13 years old and attends middle school with her best friend, Casey.

The show was how I first became familiar with Moon Girl as a character, and so the show version of Moon Girl is what I will be conducting this review on. I haven't read many Moon Girl comic books yet, but if I get my hands on a few, I'd be interested to see how many more differences there are in the characters.

Devil and Lunella in her secret hideout in a hidden underground subway tunnel.

 

I could gush about this series all day, honestly. If I did, I would start with the fact that Lunella is a little Black girl who also happens to be a genius, which is not a character model I've seen depicted so lovingly since Susie Carmichael on Rugrats in the 90s (and she was a toddler).

I've talked about the lack of Black kids in cartoons before [see my review on Craig of the Creek, along with my review of the first season of The Proud Family reboot (although side note- I did actually enjoy the second season of Louder and Prouder so much more than the first. Perhaps it just took a moment to find its footing)], but I appreciate so much that Lunella is an authentically Black girl who just happens to be a super genius. I love stories where we get to see complex, multi-faceted Black kids.

I also love that she's a superhero. There's so much to be said about the freedom of allowing a little black girl super-genius to partner up with a giant red dinosaur in the middle of LES NY.  It invokes a sense of playfulness that a lot of Black characters don't really get in media, especially in cartoons. While I admire cartoons that can stick to the reality of the Black experience growing up, like The Proud Family and even Craig of the Creek (which leans into a child's concept of fantasy without fully embracing the fantastical), Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur goes balls to the wall in an effort to give Black girls more freedom in cartoons.

Not only does Moon Girl fight aliens, but she also travels through dimensions, she has met universe bending omniscient super beings, AND she has a talking DINOSAUR for crying out loud!

 

A major reason why this show means so much to me hearkens back to a poem by Danez Smith called "Dinosaurs in the Hood."

Let’s make a movie called Dinosaurs in the Hood.

Jurassic Park meets Friday meets The Pursuit of Happyness.

There should be a scene where a little black boy is playing

with a toy dinosaur on the bus, then looks out the window

& sees the T. Rex, because there has to be a T. Rex. (Smith, par 1-5)

Moon Girl fills the hole that something like that “Dinosaurs in the Hood” would represent. Almost down to the T. Not only is there a T.Rex (because there has to be a T.Rex) but there is an element of whimsy and fantasy that mixes with Black reality that isn’t explored often enough in life, and even less often in animation. 

Not since the days of Static Shock (which was honestly before my time) have Black kids had the chance to see a Black superhero be the main character of their own fantasy cartoon. Sure, Black kids were allowed to have auxiliary characters in other cartoons (Cyborg from Teen Titans and Storm from X-Men the Animated Series come to mind), but to be the lead superhero, and to be allowed to be fantastical and witty and fun and human… that’s the dream, baby. 

To top it off, this superhero show deals with everything from racial discrimination in academic spaces, to gentrification, to lack of care given to communities of color. It's insane to me that there are entire episodes dedicated to the biases we hold of people with criminal records, and the politics of Black hair, and they're all treated with the amount of care and consideration required without talking down to the intended child audience! 

That said, Moon Girl isn't just a show focused on social issues (even though they are present), but this show tackles the general anxieties children may have about growing up, such as cyberbullying, fitting in at school, finding dates for dances, and navigating relationships with family and friends. Lunella deals with awkward scenarios at sleepovers, fights with her best friend, and she even wants to get away from her annoying parents sometimes, just like any other teenager.

Moon Girl is the Black girl's equivalent of Spider-Man, and I say that in all seriousness.

Not to keep making the comparison, though, but on a character level, I feel like this show was perfectly casted, just like how Into the Spider-Verse was perfectly casted.

Diamond White (who I knew from X-Factor when she competed in 2012), voices and the titular Lunella Lafayette. Not only is Diamond a talented voice actress in her own right, but she also sings a lot of the songs for the show (including the opening theme: see below), and brings Moon Girl to life in a way no one else could. Not only does she embrace slang without sounding inauthentic, but she brings joy and life to Lunella that reminds me of what it was like to be a little Black kid. I love her version of Lunella so much. 

But Diamond White isn’t the only iconic casting choice. In fact, the whole voice cast is absolutely stacked. 

Some of the voice talent featured in the show includes Laurence Fishburne (who also produced the series) as The Beyonder, an omniscient super being from another dimension, Alfre Woodard as Mimi, Lunella’s grandmother, and Craig Robinson as Lunella’s school principal. If that wasn’t enough, in season two, there are even some more unexpected voice actors in the cast, like Xolo Maridueña from Cobra Kai making an appearance, along with Robin Thede from Black Lady Sketch Show, and Erika Ishii from Dimension 20 (iykyk).

BTS of Laurence Fishburne as The Beyonder, talking about Marvel’s Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur

Aside from the voice talent, the characters themselves shine through the screen in every episode. As a character, I love that Lunella has a commitment to her family, but she also has a commitment to herself. She’s a genius who recognizes her flaws, but also learns how to overcome them with confidence and grace. She’s kind without being inauthentic, and she really cares about her community. Overall, she’s perfect- a 10/10 character. 

The other characters in this show are fun, too, with Lunella’s grandma Mimi and her best friend Casey immediately coming to mind. Mimi is loving, smart and caring, always teaching Lunella about how to stay true to herself and maintain her confidence in dark times. She also has a big secret that she really hopes won’t get out (no spoilers!). Casey is Lunella’s best friend and the only person she reveals her secret identity to. She’s a social media savant and constantly acting as Moon Girl’s manager/ PR rep whenever they’re in public. (Something I actually admire about this show is that they don’t make Devil a talking dinosaur. He mostly just growls and occasionally communicates with a slight speech affectation, however most of his dialogue is through images in thought bubbles so the audience knows what he’s saying without him actually having to speak.)

As if the characters and the voice acting weren’t enough to lure me in, the music of this show just had to steal my heart. The music is definitely a major highlight of the series for me. 

In the pilot episode of the show, Lunella's mom gives her an old tape player that she eventually tricks out into a multipurpose music player/ baddie tracker. During every major battle in the show, Moon Girl turns on her music to give her a soundtrack to fight to. Each song underscores the episode it's in perfectly, but especially in high-stakes battles. The sound design in this show is impeccable, and honestly the fight scenes have made me cry more than once just because they're underscored by the perfect music number. If there is a heavy thematic meaning to the battle, you better believe the song will come up again later on. I unironically have several songs from this show on multiple playlists on Spotify (My personal favorite is “My hair is a mood” by Jane Handcock; it’s the modern Black girl’s version of “I am not my hair” by India Arie. Again, iykyk).

To make my point as clear as possible, I'll just say that the composer for this show is Rafael Saddiq, who, if you didn't know, is a multi-hyphenate Grammy winner, and a producer on Beyonce's iconic Renaissance album, for which he earned two additional Grammy nominations. This man is serious about his business, and it shows.

Clearly, I know what I'm talking about, because as of February 2024, Marvel's Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur has five Emmy wins. Those wins were for outstanding main title (see below), outstanding casting for an animated program (told you!!), and outstanding special class animated program for the pilot episode (among other awards). (If anything, this is proof that I should be an Emmy voter.)

Moon Girl is an Emmy winner, baby! Now that's what I'm talking about!

THE EMMY WINNING Moon Girl opening title theme.

Season two just premiered earlier this month, and I've already binged every available episode of the series to date. Suffice to say that the second season builds on the first in the best way possible, although I'd be lying if I didn't say that my favorite episode of the show is in season two. As an anxious perfectionist, season 2, episode 7 holds a special place in my heart (particularly as I dip my toes in the publishing industry- yeesh). You should watch season two for that episode alone, but the entire season is excellent television. 

Poster for Marvel's Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur Season Two

Lunella with her new science teacher, Dr. Ojo (from Wakanda), in Season 2, Episode 7: “Make It, Don’t Break It!” of Marvel's Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur

I'll end this by saying if you haven't seen the show even after all this, you don't have to subscribe to Disney+ or just take my word for how good it is. You can see the show for yourself! The first six episodes of the show are on YouTube for free (along with the season one finale, so be careful of spoilers). You can watch it in this playlist, here.

I hope you love it as much as I do.

I know I did this review a little differently than I've done past reviews, but I've been away for a while, so things may be a little different around here while I settle back in. I just wanted to let you know that this show means a lot to me. I hope it means something to you, too.

This show is obviously S tier. I feel the same way about Marvel's Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur that white women felt about the Barbie movie last year. Moon Girl is everything to me, representing facets of Black girlhood that I wish were more widely talked about in animation, and allowing grown ass women like me to feel seen for the first time in a cartoon about a girl who owns a dinosaur. It is easily one of my favorite shows, and I think it is on par with the Spider-verse films in terms of quality, heart, and care presented to its Black characters.

Happy Black history month everybody! 

I'm happy to be back.

Severance // Review #19

Here's an amazing show that no one is talking about: Severance.

Severance is a 2022 Apple TV+ thriller series starring Adam Scott (Parks and Recreation) and Patricia Arquette (who I personally know from one of my favorite movies, Holes), and it is potentially one of the best shows I've seen all year.

I watched the trailer for Severance when it dropped several months ago, and I was intrigued by the premise. Essentially, Severance is about a group of employees who work in the basement of the mysterious company Lumon Industries, only they chose to have their consciousness and memories split into their work lives and their personal lives. This means that when you're at work you cannot remember your personal life, and when you're at home, you cannot recall anything you did at work. This leads to some dark and interesting discoveries about consciousness and the nature of workplace culture as a whole.

Only after recently purchasing a new Apple product did I finally breakdown and start my free trial of Apple TV+ just to watch this show. 

And let me tell you- it was worth it.

To be clear, this show is insane in the best way. I cannot stress enough how phenomenal I think this show is. It's deep in a way that's complex and interesting, and the themes and philosophies that it examines are really incredible. I really liked this show, and I truly think more people should be talking about it.

Everything about this show works (sparing a few questionable line reads from Patricia Arquette, but we'll get to that shortly). I like everything about it from the characters to the sets, but most of all, I appreciate the name of the show for its use of double entendre.

(Get it? Because it's called Severance? It's like when you're fired, but also like the concept of the show- having your consciousness severed? Get it?)

That doesn't mean that this show is without its flaws, because it definitely isn't. However, I felt like this was one of the most exciting shows I've seen in a long time, because of how real it felt and how trippy the concept was.

Let's begin by breaking this down, shall we?

Category 1: Plot- B

The plot of Severance is as follows: Mark, a recently widowed man, lives in a small (Alaskan?) town that is dominated by Lumon Industries, the biggest company around. He works on the basement floor of the building for the Macrodata Refinement team (literally don't ask)- only, he and everyone else who works on the basement floor of this building have been "severed."

To be severed means that everyone who works in the basement offices of Lumon Industries has their consciousness split into two halves. Basically, there is your "work self" or your "innie" and your "real self" or your "outie." Your work self is confined to the basement offices of Lumon Industries, and they have no memories of the outside world or who they used to be on the outside of work. Meanwhile, your real self has no recollection of anything that goes on at work during the day. As far as they know, as soon as you clock in and blink, it's basically time to clock out and go home.

The concept of Severance is an elevator pitch for a show, but unless you're a specific kind of person, this show doesn't sound incredibly interesting. Most people would hear this concept and go, "Okay, yeah, so... It sounds predictable. Like... the company is evil, right?"

Well... possibly. 

It's pretty likely that's the case, but it's not really so black and white.

The show executes everything in a way that keeps you guessing. Even if you think you understand what is happening, more questions emerge to keep you fully engaged in the concept and the characters.

This show follows Mark and the other members of his team in Macrodata Refinement as they attempt to find out what happened to Petey, another severed colleague who was mysteriously fired. Without getting into spoilers for this show (because I really think you should watch it for yourself), once they start digging, it becomes clear that Lumon Industries is up to some truly shady shit.

Category 2: Characters- A-

Now, it's tricky to get into characters and their motivations and everything that makes this show interesting without delving into spoiler territory, and so I'll try to keep this section short (because, again, you should just watch the show). 

If I had to pin it down, I would say that the two main characters of this series are Mark S., the new lead of the Macrodata Refinement team after Petey was mysteriously let go, and Helly R., a new employee that Mark hired (she serves as a proxy for the audience to figure out what the hell is going on down in the basement of Lumon). The other employees in the Macrodata Refinement Division are Dylan, an employee who is obsessed with company perks, and Irving, an employee who is obsessed with following the company rulebook (more on these two aspects later). There are other characters featured throughout the show, but the main four are all in the Macrodata Refinement team (I'm hoping if I say it more it will start to make sense, but no luck.).

Now: imagine working a job you hate, but you're unable to escape it- ever. 

That is what Helly is struggling with, as she realizes that she no longer wants to work for Lumon Industries, and she would like to quit. However, it becomes immediately apparent that she cannot, as only her "outie" is able to quit her job for her, and the company strictly prohibits communication between a person's "innie" and "outie" (see my section on worldbuilding on why details like this are so impressive).

Helly R. (an "innie") (played by Britt Lower) attempting to leave a message for her "outie" self so that she can quit her job. SPOILER- it doesn't work.

I mentioned previously that Mark is a widow who is presumably working in the severed floor of Lumon to pass the days without having to think about his wife, and to ignore his obvious grief. However, despite that, Helly is easily my favorite character because she is the most sympathetic of the basement crew. Since we spend most of the show with the characters at work, we get to know Helly's innie very well, whereas we rarely see how she is on the outside world. 

Helly's innie truly hates her job and ergot, her existence. Since her "innie" can never leave the office, she becomes depressed and listless and even (SPOILER) suicidal. It is this desire to escape her mundane and awful experience that makes her the most sympathetic of the bunch, and this honestly shines a light on the immorality of severance as a concept. If part of you is unable to escape, then really, who is this program helping?

I mentioned previously that everyone who works in the basement floors of Lumon were severed, and therefore unable to remember their outside lives when they were at work. This is only technically true. The supervisors who work in the basement are not severed, and they are free to keep their work and home lives intertwined. However, because they live in the same town as the other employees, as you can imagine, this can cause some interesting experiences. The two main supervisors in this show are Ms. Cobel, Mark's boss, and Mr. Milchik, her second in command and the supervisor of the basement floor.

It immediately becomes clear that they know more than they are letting on, especially Ms. Cobel, and it becomes especially clear that they are up to something. (Again, I know that was vague, but I really don't want to give anything away.)

My only gripe about this entire show, really, is with Patricia Arquette's Ms. Cobel. Somehow she was hard for me to get a read on as a character. This is mostly because some of Arquette's acting choices read as strange to me. I know that Severance is a mystery/thriller show with multiple twists and turns throughout, but Ms. Cobel just struck me as off in this show for some reason.

Perhaps that was intentional to make her the weirdest person on the show, but I could just never take Patricia Arquette seriously when she was acting angry or yelling at people for being bad at their jobs. I also had a bit of a hard time understanding her character's motivations in the series, especially regarding Mark. Maybe her unclear motivations were a writing choice more than an acting one, but out of everyone in this phenomenal cast, I always felt a little weirded out by Patricia Arquette's performance and character on this show.

Everyone else? 

10/10. No notes.

Category 3: Themes- A+

This show dives into so many themes within its limited 8 episode run, so I'm not entirely sure where to begin. Perhaps I’ll start with my favorite theme of the show.  My favorite aspect of the entire show is the concept of your memories or lack thereof making you into different people.

Mark and Helly’s innies are shown to be wildly different from their outies, mostly because they have no memory of what their life was like in the outside world. Without spoiling anything, I’ll just say that outie Helly seems to be cold and unfeeling (which would indicate that this is how Helly truly is) while innie Helly is emotional and expressive with her feelings. Conversely, Mark’s outie is a grieving widow who uses work to escape his reality. At work, Mark is unburdened with thoughts of his lost wife, and more curious about what is going on in the outside world. 

The pull of Severance for me is the idea that you can have two different versions of yourself that exist completely independent of one another that will never and have never truly met. The difference between the two is that one of them has memories of the outside world, while the other doesn’t. With this in mind, how would we really know which one is the “true” version of you? Are you meant to be the way the outside world made you, or are you meant to be the way you are when you’re severed from all of that? Something about this concept trips me up to think about, and I love considering the implications of what that means from a moral perspective.

There’s a lot to be said about memories shaping your personality and perspective on the world in this show, especially regarding Helly’s character. 

There is also an additional layer to unpack with the show regarding why someone would want to work in a severed environment like Lumon in the first place. For some in the show, it may just be to create an effective work-life balance so you never bring work home with you, but the deeper meaning of why someone would want to be severed in the first place can get muddy. 

For example: Mark.

It becomes very apparent in episode one that Mark uses the severed program to pass his days without truly living them. He just wants to avoid thinking about his wife. He would find it easier to clock into work and have time pass and then clock out than to spend all day having to grieve about his wife. Innie Mark has no idea that outie Mark even had a wife, and so he is using the severance program as a sort of time-lapsing experiment where he gets paid to work a job he has no memory of.

Aside from the themes of grief and memory, there are also several other themes that have to do with workplace culture, such as corporate structure and the importance of company policy and productivity above all else while at Lumon, including basic humanity (see my section on world-building for more on this). Some of the employees even form an unhealthy attachment to their work, indicating an ironic lack of work-life balance, in which your work is your entire identity. Ms. Cobel and- to a lesser extent- Mr. Milchik are especially guilty of this in the show. (In fact, we rarely, if ever, see Mr. Milchik outside of the office environment.)

Believe me when I say that the themes are where this show really shines, because there is a lot of food for thought packed into this show, especially regarding the morality of splitting your consciousness. 

It’s really strange. When I first started watching this show, I didn’t understand why people would want to be disconnected from their consciousness for work, until I realized that there are a lot of events in my own life that I would want to be present for, but not remember. 

The only thing is, for some part of me, that would be all I would remember.

Category 4: Worldbuilding- A+

The thing about Severance is that about 80% of this show takes place in the basement offices of Lumon, which is insane to think about.

There are several departments in the show that have all been severed. The main characters that we follow throughout the series are Helly, Mark, Dylan, and Irving. They work in the Macrodata Refinement Division. However, even though everyone on the Macrodata Refinement team is meant to organize a set of numbers on a computer everyday, it is unclear to even them what their job actually does for the company. Brilliantly, it is never disclosed exactly what it is that Lumon Industries does or even what Mark and his team do, leaving it intentionally ambiguous to keep the viewer guessing. 

Much of what goes on in Lumon Industries is a mystery, surprisingly, but not in an annoying or unsatisfying way. It is a mystery in a way that keeps you coming back for more, wanting answers.

One thing that becomes immediately clear during the first few episodes of this show is that the company wants to keep the "innies" and "outies" from communicating with one another in any way that isn't approved by the company. In the lore, the only way that an innie can send your outie a message is to approach Mr. Milchik or Ms. Cobel and have them record a video of you to be shown to your outie once off work. Your innie is not allowed to communicate with your outie, and you cannot transmit any written messages out of the Lumon basement for your innie to communicate with your outie. Essentially both parts of yourself are walled from each other. Only when your outie quits or retires do you ever get to see your "other" self. 

It is clear that they do this to keep the company's privacy protected and to ensure that the severed program remains secured, however, it quickly becomes a moral issue within the context of this show when the innies begin to wonder what the company doesn't want them to know about on the outside.

Outside of the obvious but restrictive rules (like the "innie" and "outie" communicating concept), there are some worldbuilding aspects in this show are just so insane to think about. For example, because everyone who works in the basement offices (sparing Ms. Cobel or Mr. Milchek) has been severed, they have no memory or concept of other relationships, religions, or events outside of the workplace. That makes them incredibly susceptible to workplace indoctrination.

For the innies, workplace culture becomes a cult. The employee handbook that was given to the innies when they began working at Lumon is meant to be used as a sort of Bible, with the Lumon founder, Kier Eagan, operating as a God-like figure. The innies are meant to religiously abide by the handbook, and obey the wishes of the CEO scribed within. Because the innies have so little else to latch onto, this becomes their religion, and workplace culture becomes synonymous with godliness. This becomes a core personality trait of Irving's innie.

The innies are also incredibly susceptible to false narratives and fictional information about and within the company due to their lack of consciousness outside of the basement. In an attempt to keep certain departments blind to one another, Mr. Milchek has provided two departments with false histories of violence and cannibalism regarding each other (which sounds wild out of context). 

The break room is another spectacular form of worldbuilding that is also a very fun double entendre. Ironically, the company break room is not a place where you want to go, the break room is a place where you are sent after disobeying company policy. In this universe, the break room isn't for taking breaks, it is where you go to be broken down.

A scene of Mr. Milchik (Tramell Tillman) in the Break Room that could've just as easily been ripped out of a horror film. OMG.

The company is also filled with artificial perks for meeting quarterly goals (Which will sound familiar to you if you've ever worked in a company environment where bonuses are available), like waffle parties, and "Music Dance Experiences" where you can listen to music and dance around. Again, this reinforces the cult feeling of being rewarded for doing something that wasn't initially made clear to you with arbitrary and useless perks. However, because it is all the innies know, they happily accept them. Dylan, the last member of Mark's Macrodata Refinement team, is especially susceptible to these perks.

Outside of Lumon, in the real world with outie Mark, it becomes clear that the idea of "severing" people's consciousnesses is controversial. It is becoming a political movement for activists who view it as morally wrong. (After all, some part of you is forever trapped in the place where you decided not to be mentally.) However, there are still talks about putting it into schools, and other workplaces next if the severance program goes well in the Lumon basement. SLIGHT SPOILER. The most jarring use of this technology, though, was when the pregnant wife of a politician wanted to use the severed program to forget the pregnancy and childbirth of her third child. Her husband was a known supporter of the severance program in government.

(SLIGHT SPOILER: The morality of the severed program becomes even more muddy once it is revealed that there is a such thing as an "overtime contingency," which I won't get into for risk of ruining the last couple episodes of the show.)

The world of this show is so fully realized, and all of the political and social discourse about this program feels very real. Everything about this world feels intentional and well-thought out, and so I can't help but admire all of the details in this show that really flesh it out for me. 

Other shows should really be taking notes.

Category 5: Cinematography- B+

I'm not usually one to comment on the cinematography of TV shows, but multiple episodes of this show were shot like a movie, and framed in a way to make the viewer feel unsettled or intentionally anxious. Many of the shots in this show are downright gorgeous. The cinematographer and director of this show really had a good time with it.

The craziest thing, though? Ben Stiller directed most of the episodes for this show. 

Emmy Award winning actor Ben Stiller, everyone.

Yes, that Ben Stiller.

I'm just going to say it: despite this show being a thriller, there are multiple scenes and elements of this show that could have just as easily been in a horror show. (See Mr. Milchik's gif above) The director of a show sets the tone, and the tone of this entire series is uncomfortable uncertainty. You can tell just from a few shots of the show that something isn't right, even if you don't know what it is yet.

Take this scene from episode two for example, where Irving (John Turturro) sees black goo falling from the ceiling above his cubicle.

This scene could have just as easily been in a horror movie, and yet, it wasn't. Even still, this show isn't meant to be horrifying or even scary- it's supposed to be intense and unsettling. Like Irving, the audience has no idea why he's seeing dark goop falling from the ceiling. Is it a side effect of being severed? Is it all in Irving's mind? Is there really something wrong with the basement floor? Nobody knows, which makes it all the more anxiety inducing. 

The cinematographer for Severance also deserves their flowers for making this show look incredible while sticking to the unsettling vibe. Everything about the set feels claustrophobic while also feeling never-ending. The basement offices of Lumon are constructed like a maze of white hallways, and everything from the lighting to the starkness of the office help to create a feeling of being trapped.

The show's cinematographer, Jessica Lee Gagne, did an interview where she spoke about all of the different elements that went into building a world like this. She discussed everything from filming in the maze of hallways to capturing the "severed" look for the characters. You can listen to that here.

I always love when a show is good, but when it looks amazing and is well directed, that makes it even better.

Category 6: Originality- A+

This show had a hell of a story that I just couldn't believe wasn't based on a book or a previously existing idea. Severance is so interesting because it's timeless in its messaging and its execution- nothing feels dated. This show feels evergreen. It could have come out 30 years ago or yesterday. So few things about this show are explicitly stated, leaving much of the show open to interpretation or quiet subtext. That's why I really thought that this show was a book that was adapted for TV instead of its own original concept (in a good way, not in the way that YA movies are adapted from books).

I thought this show was so smart and interesting that someone else had to have written it in novel format before Apple TV+ got their hands on it. 

But no.

This was a 100% original idea from writer Dan Erickson, and I have to give him his kudos for creating something so delightfully strange and unique that I couldn't help but talk about it.

As I mentioned before, the concept of the show itself sounds interesting on its own, but only as an elevator pitch. It takes someone with a very clear vision to make something so unsettling and yet so introspective that it literally made me reconsider the ethics and morality of workplace culture.

I can't help but be impressed by the level of creativity, thoughtfulness, and just plain ingenuity that this show displays. Everyone delivered on this project, but the writing was where this show really shined. Without the originality of the concept and the masterful understanding of the world, this show wouldn't have stood a chance. 

Overall, I really love Severance. I thought it was amazing, and now I can't wait for season 2 so I can get all of my questions answered. It is easily an A-tier show. I would personally recommend Severance to everyone I know, especially if they hate their jobs- just to show them that things could be a whole hell of a lot worse.

Now that that's over, we have all been awarded a five minute "Music Dance Experience."

Party on, y'all. 

Thank you for reading.

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I really appreciate you. I hope you're staying safe out there. See you next month!

Review Rapid Fire (Five Recent Releases)

So I don't know about you, but lately I've been doing a lot of binge watching. Maybe it's because the pandemic is resurging due to the Delta variant making a massive comeback in the United States, or maybe it's just because it's still so hot outside, but I've been doing a lot of this:

You know?

Because of this, I recently binged a lot of content. But because I was too lazy to write entire reviews dedicated to each of things I watched recently, I decided to lump them all together in a sort of rapid fire review. What follows is a collection of my thoughts on the following movies/shows: Cruel Summer, Black Widow, Jungle Cruise, Vivo, and The Suicide Squad.

Let us begin in alphabetical order:

Black Widow- C-

Black Widow was... disappointing, to be sure.

I went into this movie with moderate to high hopes, and after I watched it I felt like I should have watched something else.

Unfortunately (because we live in a society, and there aren’t many female-led superhero films), I can’t help but compare this movie to the last superhero movie that I watched, Wonder Woman 1984.

That’s not to say that these movies are similar, because they’re not. That’s to say that they were both uniquely bad in their own way. 

Actually, in a lot of ways Wonder Woman 1984 was a lot more fun to watch. At least Wonder Woman 1984 tried something new and wound up being a campy, garbage mess. In a way, it’s almost admirable how broken that movie was. 

Meanwhile, Black Widow felt like a knockoff Mission Impossible movie, in a bad way.

Structurally this movie is just as good as any other Marvel movie, but in practice, everything about this film felt unnecessary. For instance, this movie takes place immediately following the events of Captain America: Civil War, which came out in 2016. Disregarding the fact that the MCU has moved on way past that point in their timeline (Even ignoring the newest Avengers movies, at least two Spider-Man movies and another Thor movie have all come out after Captain America: Civil War.), this movie just doesn't have a solid excuse for existing in the year of our Lord 2021.

To summarize: the plot of this much anticipated Black Widow movie follows Natasha Romanov (played by Scarlett Johansson, obviously) and her "sister," Yelena  Belova (played by Florence Pugh), as they work to retrieve a serum that cures other black widow agents from being brainwashed. They must travel to the Redrum in order to take down the manipulative guy who is running the entire black widow operation, and work to free the other widows from his clutches.

I've seen several people online say that the sole purpose of this film is to set up Black Widow's replacement in the MCU, her sister, Yelena. I don't disagree. There was a point in the film where I had the serious thought that Natasha was not the main character of this film. Truthfully, I believe that Yelena was meant to be the star of this movie, but the studio wasn't able to market the film without Black Widow. 

I have also seen some criticism saying that this movie felt like it was a sequel to a Black Widow movie that we never got previously, as many people have been demanding a Black Widow movie since she first appeared in Iron Man 2 in 2010. I've seen many fans online citing that the movie could have been a lead-in to the first Avengers movie, where Black Widow and Hawkeye often reference a mission that went wrong in Budapest. It really would have been interesting to see the origins of that comment instead of just having the characters reference something that happened offscreen.

Anyway, aside from this movie being basically irrelevant and incredibly on-the-nose thematically, my main complaints about this film are: 

1. The plot kind of slogged for me, and the parental characters of Melina and the Red Guardian really seemed redundant (especially when the Red Guardian was essentially useless to the plot). 

2. The action scenes were... fine(?), but I found them mostly unimpressive, because- again- we all know Black Widow does not die in this movie. The stakes felt low even when they wanted the action to feel real and exciting. It just seemed a little hollow.

3. The bad guy in this movie visibly looks like he smells bad (to the point where I literally said so while watching this film). SPOILER So imagine my delight when I discovered that his superpower is being stinky! I laughed so hard because this movie was so dumb.

As it is, Black Widow just feels like it came out too late for it to matter to anyone, especially since the character that the movie was named after is canonically SPOILER dead in Endgame.

 

Movie poster for Kate (2021), starring Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Woody Harrelson

Overall, if you're looking for a female led action flick that kicks ass, just go watch Kate on Netflix instead. It's a surprisingly better Black Widow movie than the actual Black Widow movie.

Cruel Summer- D

I’m just gonna say it: this show is BORING.

The premise started off interesting enough, with a small Texas town looking for a girl named Kate Wallace (played by Olivia Holt) after she’s been missing for several months. Many assumed that she ran away or that she had been kidnapped or killed. Turns out, she was being held hostage in her Vice Principal’s basement as his prisoner. 

The show really kicks off when Kate Wallace accuses another girl, Jeannette Turner (played by Chiara Aurelia), of seeing her in her Vice Principal’s house and not reporting it to the police so she could be rescued. (Remember this, as I’ll circle back to this later.) The show depicts what happened before, during, and after Kate’s kidnapping (without becoming too graphic or really lingering on any issues of sexual abuse, much to my relief), and how she and the town around her dealt with the aftermath of the situation. 

In a lot of ways, though, this show felt like an after school special. The entire time I was watching Kate Wallace interact with her VP, I felt like I was watching a very special episode of Full House or something where they talk about not getting too close with strange adults, as they really shouldn’t have anything in common with teenaged girls.

Despite that, I can get behind the show’s messaging, and I can even see what the show was going for in terms of showing how someone like Kate could be so easily groomed and eventually kidnapped.

What I can’t get behind is this show’s inexcusable run time. It took about ten hours of my life to get to the very predictable conclusion of the show, and I really think we could have wrapped that up in about half the amount of time.

This show did not need to have hour long episodes. This show easily could have been chopped into shorter episodes and I definitely feel like I would have gotten more out of it. I also feel like this show's story didn’t need to be told non-linearly the way that it was, with each episode shifting between the summers of 1993, 1994, and 1995, respectively.

I think this is unnecessary because only some of the flashbacks included in the show held useful information, while other scenes were just tangentially related. Usually the really juicy information came at the end of each episode so that ABC and Hulu could trick you into watching the next episode, and into thinking the show is better than it was.

I also felt like this show had issues with its characters: 

Namely, some of the characters could have been combined or even removed from the show entirely. Specifically I think Vincent and Ben are unnecessary. Their relationship did nothing for me but muddy the waters of this already bloated, poorly lit show.

As for Jeannette, one of the main characters of the show, I felt like she was a wasted character throughout most of the series. Without spoiling anything, let me just say that her ending was predictable. I was only moderately satisfied by how they rounded out her arc. Aside from that revelation, my biggest gripe with her character is how terrible her actress looked in that short-haired wig from the 1995 timeline.

I had a lot of thoughts on why I didn’t like this show, and so maybe if they do another season of Cruel Summer, I’ll do a full-length review on it later. For now, my advice is to skip this show and watch Little Fires Everywhere instead. It’s a better thriller/ miniseries than this could ever hope to be.

Jungle Cruise- C 

I didn’t care much for this movie, and again I think it’s just because the movie is too long. Like Cruel Summer, this movie felt bloated and it felt like there were too many things going on at once, only to pay off in a moderately satisfying ending.

This movie is technically fine, but I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone over the age of 12, unless you just really like Dwayne Johnson and his "jungle cinematic universe."

Dwayne Johnson pictured (from left to right) starring in Journey 2: The Mysterious Island, Jumanji (1? I don't know) and Jumanji: The Next Level (I think?). (The fact that I can't tell between the Jumanjis definitely proves that this man stars in too many movies taking place in the jungle.)

The plot of Jungle Cruise itself was fine, although it was very reminiscent of The Mummy (1999) and the entire Pirates of the Caribbean franchise. The story follows Lily, played by Emily Blunt, and her brother McGregor, played by Jack Whitehall, as they search for this mystical Amazonian tree that grows flowers that can cure all human diseases. They need a guide, so they recruit Frank, played by Dwayne Johnson, an Amazon riverboat captain who knows the river better than anyone.

I didn't really have many objections to the script other than the fact that the pirates should have been the main villain of the movie, and the German World War I villain in this movie should have been cut from the film entirely. About halfway through the movie I practically forgot about him anyway. Since this movie definitely pulled inspiration from the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, I wish they had chosen to stay focused on the undead pirate villains and their creative elemental powers instead of the generic human villain.

As a side note, I think this movie had bad gay representation. To be honest, I think I’m tired of Disney’s poor attempts to include LGBTQ+ representation in their media, as they seem to botch it every time they try. It's in everything from announcing "the first official gay character" as LeFou from Beauty in the Beast, to that one monster woman from Onward voiced by Lena Waithe.

In this movie, I found McGregor's character tiresome. I recognize that he was meant to be the comedic relief of the movie, but I didn’t find him particularly funny or even all that charming, really. I really like Jack Whitehall as a comedian, actually, and it was disappointing for me to see him star as what was essentially a gay prop. He really served no purpose in the film and could have been entirely written out of the story. 

I did appreciate McGregor’s speech about being ousted by his family due to his sexuality, however, I think it was a little strange to frame this “coming out” moment as a reason to support Lily, just because she was the only one in her family that didn’t immediately reject him. While I support the effort that was made there, I think the way it was done was very calculated (both in the way that the scene never explicitly said the word “gay” or “queer” and in the way that it could very easily be edited out for foreign audiences that do not support LGBTQ+ rights).

Anyway, I guess it really doesn't matter what I thought about this movie, as it apparently did well enough to get a sequel greenlit, with Blunt and Johnson set to reprise their roles in the next movie, and so maybe Jungle Cruise will be just like Pirates of the Caribbean after all. And we all know how well those sequels have gone over...

The Suicide Squad- C

First, a warning: don’t watch this movie if you’re squeamish. There is so much gore and guts flying around that you’re likely to vomit if you have a weak stomach.

That being said, if you were interested in watching this movie because you hoped that it would be better than the original 2016 Suicide Squad, you will be very pleasantly surprised. It’s definitely better than David Ayer’s Razzie Award nominated screenplay of the same name. In fact, dare I say that this film was actually… good?

Starting from the top, let me just say that this movie serves as a soft reboot to the original movie from 5 years ago, with several characters playing the same roles that they played in the first Suicide Squad (like Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn, and Viola Davis and Joel Kinnamen’s Amanda Waller and Rick Flag, respectively.) In this movie, though, instead of being treated like props in a glorified music video, all of these characters are actually developed (to a certain extent). Not to mention, in addition to the characters from the original film, The Suicide Squad introduces new characters, like the ridiculous Polka-Dot Man (played by David Dastmalchian) and King Shark (voiced by Sylvester Stallone). Based on their names alone it was clear that the studio decided to go balls-to-the-wall and shine a light on some of DC’s wilder characters. In fact, director James Gunn even admitted to doing so when he chose to include Polka-Dot Man in the movie. 

The unofficial leads of this movie are Bloodsport, played by Idris Elba (not to be confused with Will Smith’s character from the original movie, Deadshot. Never mind the fact that they are basically the same character but with different names.) and Peacemaker, played by John Cena. Bloodsport is roped into joining this suicide squad in order to help his daughter (but again, let’s not get him confused with the guy that Will Smith played, who also happened to be doing the whole “suicide squad” thing for his daughter…). During this “suicide squad” mission, Bloodsport, Peacemaker, and their crew are sent to a fictional Latin American country to shut down an evil plan known only as Project Starfish.

Poster for Deadpool (2016) starring Ryan Reynolds

To put it simply, if you liked either of the Deadpool movies, you’ll like The Suicide Squad. It has a real Deadpool energy to it that is hard to explain. It could be considered similar because of the swearing or the violence, but it’s probably the humor that makes me think they’re similar, to be honest. 

This movie succeeds where the previous Suicide Squad failed because of its inclusion of more ridiculous elements and characters, sure, but this movie was also written better than the original Suicide Squad. Each character in this film has a backstory that is character relevant or they’re shown to make decisions that impact the story in a way that makes sense. These characters feel fleshed out despite how silly their superpowers are or how insane they look. This movie was, overall, a better constructed film than the original in practically every way.

(It also didn’t hurt that the finale of this movie didn’t include a giant sky-beam, unlike the original Suicide Squad.)

Perhaps I rated The Suicide Squad (the good one) a C because while it was much improved from the first movie, I couldn’t help but think that it could have been better. Maybe it just wasn’t my particular style, but I did enjoy it nonetheless. 

I will argue, however, that the better version of Harley Quinn and King Shark are in the DC animated show, Harley Quinn, that is on HBO Max.

Harley Quinn the animated series on HBO Max, starring Kaley Cuoco as Harley Quinn

Vivo- B

Vivo was the best new release that I’ve seen recently, and it proves that Sony Animation is on a roll. Similarly to Wish Dragon, though, Vivo got next to no promotion from Netflix or even Sony animation. Again, the only reason why I even knew about this movie when it came out was because I follow Lin-Manuel Miranda on Twitter, and he’s the lead voice in the movie.

Regardless of how you feel about Lin Manuel Miranda or his other projects (*cough, cough* the In the Heights controversy), this movie is worth watching just for the sake of the music and the animation. It's a wonderful film that will likely make you cry.

Vivo is the story of a little kinkajou from Havana named (unsurprisingly) Vivo. (Right off the bat, it is explained that no one can understand Vivo, because he is not speaking in English even though that is what we, the audience hear.) Vivo was rescued from predators by an old man named Andres, and the two bonded over music. One day, Andres receives a letter from his long-lost love, Marta Sandoval, who moved to Key West to become a famous singer. The letter asks Andres to come to the last performance of her career, but when Andres isn't able to, Vivo must travel to see Key West himself to show Marta the love song that Andres wrote for her when they were younger.  

In many ways, Vivo felt like the 2011 animated movie, Rio, starring Jesse Eisenberg and Anne Hathaway. They both took place in Latin American countries with talking animals that happened to sing, but the themes are much different, and they manage to tug on your heartstrings in different ways.

Poster for Blue Sky's Rio (2011)

To be honest, I feel like Vivo is one of those films that is perfectly catered to me: the music is good, the animation is smooth, and the film has a certain feel-good quality that used to be reserved for Disney movies, but is no longer exclusive to them. I especially appreciate that this movie was racially inclusive, depicting Afro-Latinos in its main cast. Since most of the movie takes place in Cuba and Florida, it made sense that the cast featured Afro-Latino actors like Zoe Saldana and Juan de Marcos Gonzalez. I also really liked Gloria Estefan in this movie as Marta Sandoval. (Although I think maybe they should have been this conscientious when casting In the Heights, but that's none of my business...) I'm always one to hype up a movie for doing the bare minimum and casting people of color. 

Overall, if you liked Wish Dragon and Hamilton, you will love Vivo.

Anyway, that's most of what I've been watching recently. Maybe I'll do another one of these at some point in the future, as I certainly have thoughts on Marvel's newest show, What if...?, along with the new iCarly (2021) reboot that just concluded. I'm not sure if I want to do full blown reviews of them, though, so this format may be the best way to talk about multiple shows/movies at once.

Thanks for reading! I hope everyone is out there staying safe. If you haven't already and are able to do so, please go get vaccinated.