Sunday Morning Sidewalk #23

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June 29

Spoilers

“Raspberry”

“Pickle”

This week we have two episodes of Win or Lose featured the mother-daughter duo of Vanessa and Rochelle. We get two completely different perspectives of Vanessa.

In the eyes of her daughter Rochelle, her mother seems to be self-indulgent person who is only ever on her phone, paying more attention to her followers than she is to her daughter. Because of that, Rochelle had to adopt a much more parent identity than she should have.

However, Vanessa had a much more difficult and responsible life than Rochelle ever expected. It truly gives us the look at a character in two completely different ways.

I really enjoyed how this story came full circle over the two episodes. The show took the story first from Rochelle’s POV and wound up with her in a certain location and then we saw Vanessa’s POV of the same time frame and how they ended up together at the end. It was an outstanding way to show how even two people who love each other can see and react to different things in a different manner, as well as not see the struggles of the other person. In Rochelle’s episode, she saw her mom as very superficial way and Vanessa saw Rochelle in an idolized manner. Both were only partial what they were like.

This series so far has been just tremendously well written and entertaining. It has laughs and the depth of characterization is surprisingly great. We are halfway through the series so far with episodes 5 & 6 next week.

Squid Game Season 3

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Spoilers

Squid Game Season Three dropped on Netflix yesterday and I was able to binge it on Saturday and what an emotionally ragged trip this show took us on over the last six episodes of the acclaimed Korean series.

If we are really being truthful, season three of Squid Game really should be considered the second part of season two, as season two left us with a huge cliffhanger and very little to nothing resolved. Season Two Part 2 or Season Three is really semantics, so who cares that much?

Season two had spent a lot of time building the characters participating in the Squid Game up, so we had connections to them and that we cared about them (or despised them, as the case may be). I guess we should have known that they were building up these characters in order to rip our hearts out in the last season… because that is exactly what happened.

Honestly, there were a few characters that I believed would survive this season because I couldn’t believe that the show would be that cold hearted. Unfortunately, the show could be that cold hearted because practically every character that I thought “no way do they kill them off” got killed off.

Seong Gi-hun (played by Lee Jung-jae) was the one I was sure would survive, but the show had a fate for him planned out. He was truly our hero of the show and he showed what an honorable man he actually was. His efforts to save the baby, as well as others along the way, made him the show’s breakout character.

Geum-ja was another character that I thought for sure the show would not kill off, and then she hanged herself, after stabbing her own son to prevent him from killing Kim Jun-hee moments after she had given birth. That round of hide and seek was just horrific and filled with tension and anguish. Hyun-ju was another who I was sure had a great chance of being safe, but she did not make it out of the hide and seek, despite the fact that she found the exit before anyone else. She returned to get Geum-ja and Kim Jun-hee, whom had been together the whole game, only to get killed from behind by Myung-gi, right in front of Jun-hee and his daughter.

The jump rope section was also just rough and showed the worst in the players of this game. In fact, the worst of them kept making it through and the characters that I cared about kept getting killed off. I felt satisfied by the end with the deaths of those rotten players though.

However, the VIPs arrived to watch the games and they all had zero accountability at all. Man, I really wanted those VIPs to pay some kind of price for their cavalier attitude toward the games and their downright cruelty and wickedness. Nope, they see the ending of the games when Seong Gi-hun threw himself off the large pillar to save the baby and the VIPs are just never seen again. I really wanted someone to burst into the room and blast them all with some automatic weapon.

Who would guess that Cate Blanchett would be involved in the recruiting for more Squid Games in the world? She made a cameo as an American recruiter playing ddakji with some guy in an alleyway.

The last ten-fifteen minutes was spent wrapping stories up, giving us some ideas on what the few surviving characters were doing, specifically those secondary characters, such as Seong Gi-hun’s daughter.

This was a rough final season as so many of the characters that we had bonded with are killed rapidly. As I said, I really wanted more of a final ending that does not make me think that the Squid Games could be brought back or continue on as the show outright implied. The VIPs needed some kind of comeuppance for me to feel completely satisfied. The sacrifice made by Seong Gi-hun was beautiful and packed an emotional wallop.

A powerhouse of a series.

K-Pop Demon Hunters

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June 28

The new animated musical on Netflix, K-Pop Demon Hunters, had a lot of buzz and because of that, I moved it into the June Swoon. I also was hoping that I could break the streak of disappointing or downright bad movies that I was on.

I am not a fan of K-Pop music. Nothing against it, but I am completely aware of it. It always felt manufactured to me with boy bands and the such.

I have to say, the music of this movie was sensational and worked so well with every note it used.

According to IMDB, “A world-renowned K-Pop girl group, as they balance their lives in the spotlight with their secret identities as bad-ass demon hunters, set against a colorful backdrop of fashion, food, style and the most popular music movement of this generation.”

The animation on the film was superior. It looked fabulous. The imagery and the colors stood out with every shot. The story itself was a little sparse. Yes, it was a fairly typical story of overcoming personal drama to form together with your family.

I am evidence that you do not need to be a K-Pop fan to enjoy this movie. I thought it was really a fun movie that moved at a brisk pace. It looked great, sounded great and had some wonderful action. It has everything.

4.5 stars

Babygirl

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June 28

I was going to go to see Babygirl at the end of last year, but something came up that caused me to not go. At that point, I put it on the list for the June Swoon. It was available on HBO Max and today was the day that I finally watched it.

I just did not like this movie.

According to IMDB, “Romy, the head of a large company, accustomed to managing people, becomes the plaything of young intern Samuel. The rules are simple: she obeys all his orders, and he keeps her secret. But the passion that escapes outside the office threatens to destroy them both.”

I want to start out by saying that this is a truly brave performance by Nicole Kidman. What it exposes to her as an actress is a passion for her work and her commitment to the role. The underlying insecurities of Romy had to be difficult to play and she does it with a flourish.

I did not enjoy the story. I found it dull and I was not interested in all the sex scenes that they showed. The scenes were very intense but I just found most of it uncomfortable.

Antonio Banderas was great in his supporting role. Banderas has been a great performer over the last several years as he has found a bunch of great roles and has excelled in them.

Star Trek: Section 31

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June 27

All I heard from everyone was that Star Trek: Section 31 was terrible. That is was the worst Star Trek movie ever made.

It starred Michelle Yeoh, so it can’t be as bad as they say, right?

Amazingly, somehow, it was worse.

I should have just trusted everyone who said this was terrible.

I pulled this up on Paramount + and it did not take me very long to realize that it may be the worst movie of the year.

I am not a Trekkie, but I can understand why they all despise this movie. It does not feel like a Star Trek movie. It feels like a cheap, low budget sci-fi film with a messy plot and a dirty feel. I would never guess this was a Star Trek movie, except for a few of the mentions, such as a Vulcan. That Vulcan did not act like any Vulcan I ever heard about though. Why did the Vulcan have the bad Irish accent?

The film looked terrible. It was dumb, storywise. The acting was not good, even from the Oscar winner, Michelle Yeoh, who seemed like she was just going through the motions.

Listen to what everyone else tells you. Don’t watch this movie. It is one of the worst of the year.

0.5 stars

M3GAN 2.0

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In 2022, a surprise horror film was released in January involving an AI robot named Megan that turned into a killer. It did not seem like it was going to be anything worthwhile, but turned out to be a big hit and was very entertaining. It became so successful, a sequel felt like it was destined to be released. That sequel was released this weekend.

M3GAN 2.0 was very much different than the original. The original was a horror film whereas this sequel is basically an adventure comedy/tech thriller.

Sadly, this was nowhere near as entertaining as the first M3GAN, as it was much more convoluted and silly. Silly is not a negative overall, as the entire concept does fall into the campy category, but this is not campy enough to make the film more than just a bad movie.

According to IMDB, “Two years after M3GAN’s rampage, her creator, Gemma, resorts to resurrecting her infamous creation in order to take down Amelia, the military-grade weapon who was built by a defense contractor who stole M3GAN’s underlying tech.”

The whole story with Amelia, the other killer robot was messy and nonsensical. These people recreated M3GAN for some reason despite her being a murder robot. The whole mess of the story just did not work for me.

The film was two hours long and that should just never be. Ninety minutes, tops for this. The fight scenes were fine, but shaky at times, which is not a personal favorite.

So much nonsense. I nearly lost my mind when M3GAN broke into a musical number. I mean the dancing earlier at least made some sense narratively. I felt just like Allison Williams did in the scene. She wanted out of there. So did I.

2.0 Stars

Hitpig

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June 27

The June Swoon has been on a bit of a down swing. It happens every year as we go through stretches of movies that are not very good. We’ve been luckier this year than before as we have had some really good films. Then there was Hitpig.

Hitpig was an animated movie from 2024 featuring a strong voice cast with a poor script. The humor is forced, the story is predictable and the dialogue is cringy.

According to IMDB, “Hitpig is a pig hired by humans to bring back their escaped animals. It’s not easy, but it’s a living. His latest hit is Pickles, a naive but vivacious elephant who has escaped the clutches of an evil Vegas showman. Though Hitpig initially sets out to capture the perky pachyderm for big cash, the unlikely pair find themselves on an unexpected adventure criss-crossing the globe that brings out the best in both of them. Set in a futuristic cyberpunk world, Hitpig proves sometimes what we want isn’t what we need. From Pulitzer Prize-winning author Berkeley Breathed’s wild imagination comes an adventure about learning that sometimes what we want isn’t what we need“

The voice cast was stacked. The cast included Jason Sudeikis, Lilly Singh, Flavor Flav, Rainn Wilson, RuPaul, Anitta, Andy Serkis, Hannah Gadsby, Lorraine Ashbourne, and Charlie Adler.

The animation is good and the colors and character designs are well done. Little kids probably will enjoy the bombastic nature of the story and will be distracted by the look. Unfortunately, I need more in an animated movie than this offers.

Until Dawn

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June 26

I have been waiting for this movie to drop price on Fandango at Home before I purchased it. Then, just before the June Swoon is getting read to conclude (four days remaining) Until Dawn went on sale.

After watching it, Until Dawn was not on sale enough.

Based on a 2015 video game, Until Dawn is a survival horror film with a million jump scares and a bunch of horror tropes and cliches.

According to IMDB, “One year after her sister Melanie mysteriously disappeared, Clover and her friends head into the remote valley where she vanished in search of answers. Exploring an abandoned visitor center, they find themselves stalked by a masked killer and horrifically murdered one by one…only to wake up and find themselves back at the beginning of the same evening. Trapped in the valley, they’re forced to relive the night again and again – only each time the killer threat is different, each more terrifying than the last. Hope dwindling, the group soon realizes they have a limited number of deaths left, and the only way to escape is to survive until dawn.“

I couldn’t care any less about these characters. Because I couldn’t care less about them, I was bored as the jeopardy surrounded them. The film was chocked full of jump scares but none of them were anything but your typical jump scare. There as little thought behind them.

The concept itself had some possibility, but it also removed most of the drama, since we knew they would basically return at the end of the night. How did this work? No idea.

And the biggest crime here is that the killings were so dull, I am having trouble remembering any of them. Maybe the film just never grabbed my attention.

I did not like this one and I am glad I did not go to the theater to see it.

2 stars

Your Monster

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June 26

Rom Com- Horror? No way that is going to work.

Except it really does. Your Monster is a surprising film with some deeply troubled characters and an ending that is absolutely wild.

According to IMDB, “After her life falls apart, soft-spoken actress Laura Franco finds her voice again when she meets a terrifying, yet weirdly charming Monster living in her closet. A romantic-comedy-horror film about falling in love with your inner rage.“

Melissa Barrera is Laura Franco and Tommy Dewey is the Monster living in her closet. Unexpectedly, the pair hook up and seem to really get along. However, Laura is dealing with some deep seeded trauma from a relationship with Jacob Sullivan (Edmond Donovan), a writer/director of a play that he had originally written for Laura, only to recast when they broke up.

Laura has plenty of issues in the film, dealing with her own feelings of betrayal and anger. She is clearly not ready for any kind of relationship so, when she walks onto tryouts for the play, things were awkward.

The chemistry between Melissa Barrera and Tommy Dewey is off the charts and makes the weird story work. If that center relationship did not have the chemistry it did, the film would be a total flop. I was wondering about some of the characteristics of the character of Laura, but it all made sense in the end.

This was unexpectedly good and really became more of a character study. It is the type of film that might require a second viewing to see the subtleties in the story.

EYG Favorite Comic Covers of the Week

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June 26

Big week of covers this week. There are several this week that could have placed in other weeks, but they all came out on the same week.

Also-Rans: Dark Pyramid #4, News from the Fallout #1, Sleep #1 (Cover A), Minor Arcana #8, Hyde Street #7, The Thing #2, The Department of Truth #31, Out of Alcatraz #4, and Assorted Crisis Events #4.

Bronze Medalist

Absolute Batman #1 (7th Printing)

Absolute Wonder Woman #1 (6th Printing)

Absolute Superman #1 (5th Printing)

Cover art by Mark Spears

Okay, so this is cheating a bit. I put these three together since they are connecting covers by Mark Spears. They really look the best when together which is why I put them together. It also speaks to the quality of this week since these could easily have been the gold medalist. If I were choosing one of them, it would be the Superman cover.

Silver Medalist

Feral #14

Variant cover B

Cover art by Tony Fleecs & Trish Forstner

Another awesome movie homage cover for Feral. I love the black and white cover. When I saw this cover on Wednesday, I thought this would be the gold medalist this week. However, found another winner today.

Gold Medalist

Sleep #2

Variant Cover B

Cover art by Tim Seeley

The Sleep #2 A Cover was wonderful, but I saw this on the stand and I immediately grabbed it to buy as well. This cover really gives you the feel of this book, with the dark lines in the back and the red “sin” in the shadow. This is a great cover.

Art Spiegelman: Disaster is My Muse

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June 25

The second film for the June Swoon today is a documentary about the life and career of Art Spiegelman, a comic strip/book writer and cartoonist who you may never have heard about, but a man who has done more to elevate the perception of the graphic novel.

Spiegelman is most well know for his work on the graphic novels Maus I & II, which told the story of the Holocaust and the death camps through anthropomorphic animals. In Maus, the people of Jewish faith were portrayed as mice while Germans (and other Fascists) were shown as cats.

Maus is the first, and currently only, graphic novel that won a Pulitzer Prize and is one of the major factors that allowed a different perspective of graphic novels among the academia. It allowed people to see what kind of stories that was capable of being told in this format.

The doc looked at Spiegelman’s beginnings as a child inspired by Mad magazine and how he wound up working as a cartoonist. They showed his work through the times of the underground comics and included the work of people who inspired him, such as R Crumb.

They outlines how the work on Maus took him years, as he struggled through this very personal story.

I wondered as I watched the doc if it would address the recent controversies of how some schools and libraries have banned Maus from their shelves. The film did have a section on this topic, with Art Spiegelman’s own comments accentuating the fear of what this could mean.

We get several comments, words from Art Spiegelman himself, really showing us who he is as a person as well as a creative force.

4 stars

Chicken for Linda

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I have no idea where this one came from.

I had Chicken for Linda on my list of movies for the June Swoon, but I do not remember where I heard about it. I knew it was an animated movie, but that was about it. I had rented it on Fandango at Home, but when I started it, I realized that it is in French.

According to IMDB, “Linda is unfairly punished by her mother, Paulette, who will do anything to make it up to her. Even a chicken with peppers when she can’t cook. Linda absolutely wants to have the chicken that her father made that day…But there is a strike, a general strike.“

The film is unlike any animated film I have seen. The animation was very stylish and different than I had seen before which was a cool feature of it. The colors made much of the film stand out and each color had a purpose to the characters.

The story was very sweet, and surprisingly deeper than one would expect. It had a lingering sadness to it with plenty of humor and joy to go around. Ridiculous situations occur all around and the animation style served it well.

All this trouble for chicken with peppers?

Ironheart E1, E2, E3

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SPOILERS

Riri Williams returned from her appearance in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever to her own Disney + series. Six episodes total, three debuting this week and then concluding next week.

I find that a strange release schedule. After watching the first three episodes, I think this was interesting enough to spread the release out more than two weeks.

Riri winds up in a heist crew to make money after she was expelled from MIT. The crew was led by Parker Robbins, aka The Hood (Anthony Ramos). The Hood has a magical cape that gives him a variety of powers. Anthony Ramos is awesome and brought some serious chops to the show. He was especially great in episode three.

Where did he get this magical cape/hood? In the comics, this is tied to Mephisto, but will he actually make his long awaited appearance in the MCU? It seemed for sure that Mephisto was involved in WandaVision, but never arrived. There have been rumors that Mephisto would be showing up in this series, but, again with all the rumors during WandaVision, I’ll need to see Mephisto before I believe it. Mephisto was named dropped in Agatha All Along so I guess we’ll see.

Dominique Thorne is really great as Riri. The show is giving us an intriguing relationship between Riri and her AI N.A.T.A.L.I.E., based on her best friend who died in a violent shootout along with Riri’s step dad, Gary. There are questions about the AI but I really enjoyed this dynamic between these actresses. Lyric Ross played Natalie.

Alden Ehrenreich was great too as Joe McGillicuddy, who is revealed in episode three as being the son of Obadiah Stane, aka Iron Monger from the first MCU movie, Iron Man. I liked this little twist (and it was funny to have Stane’s ashes in a Ziplock bag in Joe’s kitchen).

These episodes were quite long, in comparison to some other MCU Disney + shows. Episode three was 50+ minutes long. I like that a lot more than those short 30-35 minute shows.

I liked what I saw so far. I expect next week to bring the goods even more as each episode got a little bit better this week. Episode three was definitely the strongest so far.

Revelations

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June 24

The second June Swoon film of the day was on Netflix and it was one that I had to read. What I mean by that is, of course, it is a Korean film and it had the English subtitles for the dialogue.

According to IMDB, “A pastor and a detective, driven by their beliefs, pursue a missing person case, with the pastor seeking retribution after a divine revelation identifies the culprit who abducted his son.“

This was wild. This had a ton of twists and turns as the characters involved all were crazy in some way. The strangest things were happening and I found myself truly engaged with the story. Each character flipped around during the story and I bought everything.

There were a lot of dumb choices made by characters, particularly the pastor, and it built a really strong story.

Like all good Korean films, I forget that I am reading the film as I became even more involved in the movie. It just seems to be natural.

Actor Shin Min-jae stood out among the others in the cast with his crazy performance. Ryu Jun-yeol was also great as the quickly descending pastor.

If you like Korean movies, Revelations would be a decent watch. I was into the film all the way through, even during the moments when I was yelling at the characters.