Category: Review

Pride & Prejudice & Airships, by Caylen McQueen

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Literary rating: ★★½
Kick-butt quotient: ☆½

As the title suggests, this is one of those literary mash-ups, similar to Pride & Prejudice & Zombies. However, beyond the steampunk influence apparent from the title, this adds another major twist, with the universe here being a gender-swapped one. For in this world, women run everything, with men being largely reduced to waiting for the opposite sex to woo them. Specifically to the novel, meet the Bennet family, who have five sons, whom their parents are increasingly keen to see married off. However, that’s going to be easier said than done in some cases. Elisander, for example, has some newfangled notions about the place of men in contemporary society: that they should be allowed to pilot airships, for one. Another brother is gay, a needless conceit which feels shoehorned into proceedings, in a particularly clunky fashion. 

While Elisander represents the main protagonist of the book, it’s the unusual setting which qualifies it for inclusion on this site. Of particular interest is Darcy Fitzwilliam, a female military captain who initially enters the plot as the best friend of a landowner to whom the Bennett parents are keen to wed a son. More or less any son. She takes an instant dislike to the family in general, and Elisander in particular – the antipathy is largely mutual. But you likely won’t be surprised to hear, that over the course of the book, the relationship between the two thaws out.

Also of interest is Darcy’s foster sister, Georgette Wickham, a pirate in the high skies. She owns an airship, which Georgette and her female crew use to carry out robberies. The Bennet family are one such victim, though Georgette turns out to be a bit more complex than she initially appears, particularly in her relationship with Darcy, and her half-cyborg sister. I’d like to have read more about them, and indeed the gynocentric society as a whole. I have… questions. How did it become this way? How does the issue of having and rearing children get handled? Despite an enticing cover, the book is annoyingly uninterested in things outside the Bennett clan and their marriage plans. The tech is also vague, being whatever is needed for the plot. For instance, there’s a throwaway reference to a “chip”. But just the one.

I will confess to not having read Jane Austen’s 1813 original, so that aspect of this mash-up is completely lost on me. As a steampunk story on its own terms, this is okay, though I’d liked to have seen more action from the women. In particular, it feels like it’s setting up a confrontation between Darcy and Georgette. While this does eventually take place, it’s over, almost before it has started. Perhaps there is more of note in the follow-up volume, Pride & Prejudice & Pirates? But there’s not enough here to make me more than marginally interested in finding out whether or not that is the case.

Author: Caylen McQueen
Publisher: Amazon Digital Services, available through Amazon, both as a paperback and an e-book.
Book 1 of 2 in the Steampunk Pride & Prejudice series.

White Haired Devil Lady

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★★★★
“Hair today, gone tomorrow.”

I’ve been on a bit of a kick of Chinese Animal Attack Movies of late. These are basically their version of those SyFy Original Movies, and typically involve some giant creature – snakes or sharks are particularly popular – menacing the population. Some are rather good fun. Others… are not. But I discovered that the same Chinese streaming services also do seem to have a small selection of action heroine flicks. Much the same goes there, in terms of quality: it will be a cold day in YouTube hell before I can get through Beauty Detective Mission. But now and again, there’s a minor gem like this, which helps to make up for all the crap I (and Chris) have endured.

This is not to be confused with any of the other “white hair” films. Most obviously, White Hair Devil Lady from 1980, but potentially also The Bride With White Hair or even The White Haired Witch of Lunar Kingdom. Though from what I’ve seen, some share a common origin: this one was adapted from the novel series Baifa Monü Zhuan by Liang Yu Sheng, and he’s also mentioned in relation to other movies. Anyway, what we have here is an evil court official, Eunuch Wei (Chui), who seeks the Red Pill which will give him immortality. Due to his murderous activities and general disregard for the local population, he incurs the enmity of Lian Ni Shang (Zhang W), who will do anything to stop him.

Making matters more complex, Wei orders a martial arts school, the Wudang Sect, to deliver the Red Pill to him – its leader, Zi Yang (Zhang Q) does not realize this is a ploy to get rid of them. The lead member he sends, Zhuo Yi Hang (Shi), also knew Lian when she was a little girl. Cue romance, betrayal, and eventually, Lian being framed for the murder of Zi Yang. Given this runs 74 minutes, including credits, there’s quite a lot going on. On occasion, it does teeter on the edge of over-stuffed, yet I’ve definitely seen far worse in the wu xia genre, of terms of narrative coherence. Once it settles down, it’s fine, even if some elements seem swiped from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon i.e. the couple falling off a cliff embrace, accompanied by an emotional cello.

However, we are here for the action, and this is pretty damn impressive. It is somewhat quickly edited, yet like the plot, stays just this side of coherence, and the cinematography and design are super, especially considering the budget on this likely was not that high. Elements like Lian’s weaponized hair are rendered beautifully, and the CGI feels like it was used more to enhance the proceedings, rather than creating them wholesale. If the whole thing does feel like a throwback to the kind of flying fantasy films Hong Kong was making in the nineties, it’s does with enough care and attention to detail to pass muster. My attention was undeniably sustained throughout, and that’s more than can be said for many a more expensive work. It’s embedded below for your viewing pleasure.

Dir: Tianyu Zhou
Star: Zhang Wei Na, Shi Jun Zhe, Norman Chui, Zhang Qi

Orphan: First Kill

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★★★
“This sister is still doing it for herself.”

I’ve not seen the original Orphan. I suspect this does not matter very much, since what we have here is a prequel. I will admit to having been lured in by the barking mad central idea. It does justice to the lunacy, though can’t sustain itself entirely, and at least somewhat collapses under its own weight. We begin in Estonia, where Leena (Fuhrman) is a very, very angry 31-year-old. Not without justification, being trapped in a 9-year-old’s body due to a hormonal condition. Previous violence has got her committed to a secure facility, but Leena breaks out and decides to adopt the identity of Esther Albright, an American child who went missing years previously. 

This plan works surprisingly well, with few questions being asked and no pesky DNA tests. There is some precedent: the documentary The Imposter chronicles the story of a con artist who convinced a Texas family he was their long-lost son. There is also a good reason why Mom Tricia (Stiles) and brother Gunnar (Finlan) don’t want to rock the boat. Quite why Dad Allen (Sutherland) doesn’t do his due diligence is less clear. So the film can happen, I guess. It’s all very awkward, especially when “Esther” starts having most undaughterly feelings towards her not-father. Yeah, the whole thing is creepy on a variety of levels, and gets increasingly so, the more we learn about the Albright family and their assorted dysfunctions. 

I have to say, the makers did a startling job with Fuhrman, who in reality is now thirteen years older than she was at the time she starred in Orphan. They use a combination of makeup, forced perspective shots and child stand-ins to have her play a nine-year-old, and you truly cannot see the joins. Just a pity the same level of effort and craftsmanship was not applied to the story elements. Having read a synopsis of the original movie, if not exactly an everyday story of normal folk, it seems it might not require the same helping of what Chris calls “I’m so sure…” This likely goes to a solid 11 in that department. 

Not that it matters, providing you are fine with a pot-boiler of lurid elements, that exist largely to make the viewer feel uncomfortable. Which is, I guess, I point of most horror, admittedly. The tension between mother and “daughter” escalate like a pressure cooker, leading to a final confrontation, pitting them against each other in a burning building which is… Well, I’d say it is undeniably in line with what has got us to that point. In other words, it’s ludicrous and overblown, yet I’d be lying if I said I was not entertained. I do wish they had gone full-throttle into the possibilities of the scenario, for example sending Esther off to school to interact with actual nine-year-olds. The implications of the scenario are, overall, probably more horrific than the way it plays out on the screen. 

Dir: William Brent Bell
Star: Isabelle Fuhrman, Julia Stiles, Rossif Sutherland, Matthew Finlan

Kill Boksoon

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★★★½
“Joan Wick”

There’s a lot to admire about this South Korean film, though a couple of fumbles stop it from achieving the heights it threatens to do. You’d be forgiven for thinking it’s a knock-off of Kill Bill going by the title. But it’s as much a pun on the name of the heroine, Gil Bok-soon (Jeon). She has been an assassin since she was 17, and has worked her way up to be the top employee of the MK. ENT corporation, run by Cha Min-kyu (Sol). They are one of a number of competing companies offering killers for hire, but to ensure standards, certain common rules have been agreed, e.g. no kids, and are adhered to by all. Well… Kinda…

Bok-soon has a teenage daughter, Jae-yeong (Kim), from whom she has kept her career secret. But Bok-soon is still concerned Jae-yeong might follow in her footsteps, especially after she stabs a schoolmate in the neck. Bok-soon also breaks one of those corporate rules when she refuses to kill a politician’s son. This kicks off an escalating series of problems, largely driven by Min-kyu’s sister, Min-hee (Esom), a director of MK ENT, who had long resented Bok-soon’s special relationship with her brother. Bok-soon eventually finds herself on the receiving end of a contract, despite Min-kyu’s best efforts to avoid such a scenario, while also having to handle the teenage drama of Jae-yeong, and keep her personal and work lives separate. 

I enjoyed the world building here. It feels a little like John Wick in its creation of a shadow society of assassins, operating by its own rules just beneath the surface. There is a peculiarly corporate feel to this one, perhaps a reflection of South Korean culture. For example, Bok-soon hangs out at a restaurant with some employees of “rival” companies, shooting the business breeze. The place is run by a former assassin, and it’s all very convivial – at least until the contract on her comes out. What follows is likely the action highlight of the film (not least the fate of the poor, unfortunate owner). I also loved Bok-soon’s way of foreseeing how fights will go, like a chess master thinking moves ahead. A similar skill was seen in Zhang Yimou’s Hero; this ramps it up.

Less successful is the family drama. I’ve a low tolerance for whiny teenagers (I’ve lived through it!), and this all felt too soap-opera for my tastes. I get that the daughter’s secret is intended as a parallel for her mother’s, but it’s too obvious and generated more eye-rolling than emotional connection. With an extended running-time of 137 minutes, it certainly feels like unnecessary padding. I’d rather have learned more about the world of the assassins, rather than Jae-yeong’s (largely self-inflicted) schoolyard angst. But even discarding that, there’s still plenty to appreciate here, with Jeon’s strong performance at its core. If this were to follow John Wick in becoming a franchise, I certainly would not complain. 

Dir: Byun Sung-hyun
Star: Jeon Do-yeon, Sol Kyung-gu, Kim Si-a, Esom

Polite Society

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★★★½
“Almost everything, everywhere…”

Sitting somewhere between Everything Everywhere All at Once  and Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, you will find this British comedy. It shares the same immigrant culture clash origin of the former, and the teenage angst of the latter – though, fortunately, without Pilgrim‘s smug self-awareness. It’s the story of Ria Khan (Kansara), a teenage daughter in an Pakistani family in Britain who wants nothing to do with her family’s expectations, and instead, dreams of becoming a stuntwoman. Her older sister, Lena (Arya), recently dropped out of art school and, to Ria’s horror, is now heading towards marriage to hunky scientist Salim (Khanna). He basically represents everything about traditional culture Ria detests.

She decides her sister must be saved from this fate, with the help of her plucky school-chums, and in increasing defiance, both of her family and the evidence that Salim is a nice guy, who genuinely loves Lena. That is, until Ria stumbles across the secret laboratory under his house, and it turns out she might have been right all along. Except, it might be his mother, Raheela (Bucha), who is the evil mastermind, with a plan to… No, I can’t say. Not so much for reasons of spoilerness, more because it’s such a dumb idea for a villainous plot, James Bond wouldn’t give it house-room. Even in the Roger Moore era. Regardless, Ria’s only hope is now to kidnap her own sister from her own wedding, under the nose of both Rahella and the bride’s parents.

This manages to tread the fine line between self-awareness and blatantly being “meta”. Ria is excellent, delivering fiercely as the committed teenager, who is 125% sure she is utterly correct, regardless of what any so-called “facts” might indicate. However, the real star is likely Khanna, who in just a few scenes manages to steal the entire movie, as the epitome of an evil overlord. I did sense some of the cultural beats might be lost on those outside Indian society. Most of the time, there’s enough context you can work out the details (and it was refreshing that the script avoided the obvious “arranged marriage” trope). But what is an “Eid” and why would you have an “Eid soiree“?

The action is surprisingly robust, setting up each fight with an introductory title. It generally delivers with emphatic oomph that provoked comment from me more than once: the fight between the two sisters was particularly savage. It was also appreciated that Ria’s idol is Eunice Huthart, who genuinely is one of the top British stuntwomen, having doubled for Angelina Jolie in Salt. I would have welcomed a bit more action, especially towards the end. It seems to be setting up a big fight between Ria and Raheela: this doesn’t arrive, instead being simply Ria landing the signature move she has been failing to complete all movie. But as an entertaining mix of dry British humour and flying fantasy, this works better than I expected.

Dir: Nida Manzoor
Star: Priya Kansara, Ritu Arya, Nimra Bucha, Akshay Khanna

Kung Fu Ghost

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★★
“The spirit is willing…”

This is another example of someone simply trying to do too much on their movie. For Linch not only starred in, produced and directed this, she also edited it, did the sound design and was the colourist. It’s not hard to predict her talents are not equally divided. It’s a shame, since I really wanted to enjoy this: much like its heroine, there’s a plucky, can-do attitude present, which can only be admired. Unfortunately, anyone above the age of eight is going to be quite hard-pushed to overlook the flaws. While the action is not especially one of those, the volume there is underwhelming, and the romantic, comedic and dramatic elements are hugely variable, to put it politely.

Daisy (Linch) returns from Vietnam after inheriting the house belonging to her late grandfather (Dawson). This turns out to be handed, both by his spirit and that of William (Sargent), a younger, cuter ghost. It’s actually a good thing, because it turns out some bad people are after an artifact hidden in the house. It can confer the gift of eternal life, and they send a selection of thugs and ninjas to take the relic. With Grandpa now dead, it’s up to Daisy to take over his role as its guardian. While she’s training up to be able to do the job herself, Grandpa is capable of possessing her when necessary, which imbues her – not entirely willingly – with his martial arts abilities.

It is certainly family-friendly, emphasizing the importance of familial loyalty, hard work and honour. So that’s nice. Linch knows her way around a fight sequence; unfortunately, the same can’t be said for delivering her lines in English. A thick accent, compounded by ropey audio work, may well leave you straining to figure out what she is saying, though fortunately she can still emote well enough to put over the gist. The romance between Daisy and William is strictly boiler-plate stuff, and the comedy is not much better, despite a Ghost parody which does at least reach moderately amusing (I did also laugh at the Jean-Claude Van Damme reference). This leads to long periods where there is simply not enough happening to hold your attention.

It is the kind of story which I could imagine coming out of Hong Kong in the early nineties – perhaps with Sammo Hung as the grandfather, and Moon Lee as the heroine – so I get the concept for which Linch was aiming. This has to count as a swing and a miss: even the notoriously variable HK comedy would likely be an improvement over what we receive here. That said, I’d not be averse to seeing more of Linch, in the right vehicle instead of this misfire. Despite the problems, Daisy is a genuine and likable character, and I did want her to succeed. Though my biggest unanswered question is probably: what happened to the cat she left behind in Vietnam? Inquiring minds need to know…

Dir: Jennifer N. Linch
Star: Jennifer N. Linch, David S. Dawson, Noah Sargent, Rene Fernandez

Real Dangerous Fun, by K. W. Jeter

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Literary rating: ★★½
Kick-butt quotient: ☆☆☆

With this read of the fourth (in the Lincoln Square Books numbering) installment of the author’s Kim Oh series, I’ve now read all of the volumes that are currently available in paper format. All of the previous ones have earned high ratings from me, despite some flaws that can mostly be summarized as continuity or editing issues; it’s fair to say that this is one of my favorite action-adventure series, and I’m definitely a fan of the heroine. This particular book, however, proved to be the weakest of the series so far, and really only mustered two and a half stars in my estimation. The main drawbacks here only become really evident on reflection after the read, or at the very end, so all through the read itself I did enjoy the experience.

Korean-American (though, as we learned in the previous book, she and her brother are only half Korean in their ancestry) protagonist and first-person narrator Kim, as series fans will already know, is the guardian and caretaker of her wheelchair-bound younger sibling Donnie. Not able to pay for their food and rent as a bookkeeper (she’s good at it, but not very credentialed) the series opener showed how, by a believable story arc, she opted for a career change as a hired gun. She’s occasionally a paid assassin (though, as she says, only of “the kind of creeps on which there was a general consensus that if they stopped breathing, it’d pretty much be an improvement to the world;” she does have ethical “standards” for herself, and Jeter doesn’t directly depict that side of her work), but mostly as a bodyguard or “security” for employers whose business interests may attract violent hostiles. They tend to be shady types (whom she doesn’t much like or respect), and job security isn’t very dependable.

When our story opens, some two months have passed since the previous book. Kim’s now about 20, and Donnie around 14 (the ages aren’t explicitly stated, but inferred from time progressions from book to book). Since her former boss didn’t survive the previous adventure (and had fired her anyway), she’s been between jobs since then, and her savings are dwindling. Now, however, an opportunity knocks. A wealthy but sleazy tycoon wants to hire her to accompany his college-student daughter to fictional Meridien (supposedly the smallest country in South America) for spring break. This won’t (so he says) be a very taxing job; Lynndie Heathman doesn’t so much need a bodyguard as a kind of glorified nanny to keep her out of serious trouble. So, Kim’s soon flying to Meridien –with Donnie in tow, albeit against her druthers.

She’s reluctant to bring him anywhere near the sybaritic conditions that await them; but although he’s able to look after himself for awhile if he needs to (and has, at times), as he pointed out, Child Protective Services knows she’s landed this job and won’t look kindly on him being left to his own devices for this long. (And she doesn’t plan on letting him participate in any drunken orgies!) Knowing the kind of intense searches today’s airplane travelers are subjected to, she’s opted not to bring along a gun. But, hey, it’s not as if any danger is likely to present itself on this gig, right? (I was reminded of the Robert Burns poem about “best laid plans….”) On the flight, Donnie strikes up an acquaintance with Mavis, a full-scholarship anthropology student who’s headed for Meridien on her department’s nickel, not to party but to do research, and who’s (like him) more than a little tech-savvy.

We’ll see more of her (long story!). Jeter doesn’t explicitly establish her age, either (and that’s going to be an important detail, in my estimation!) We only know that she’s not old enough to drink, “Even for here;” if the drinking age there is 18, I’d guess she’s 17. (Kim noted that she seemed younger than the rest of the college crowd, and refers to her once as underage.) Some teens enroll in college early (and dual enrollment programs for high school juniors and seniors exist at a number of colleges); but this should have been explained, and I can’t think that she could be any younger than 17.

We’re not surprised when this expedition goes south (in more ways than the geographically obvious one!) early on. This tale is an excursion into the darker recesses of what human nature is capable of, though there’s light in the darkness. With a time span of just a few days, the plotting is taut and the pace mostly quick (it slows a bit in the middle, only because it has to). As always, Jeter handles action scenes well, and the setting is evoked effectively. Kim’s her usual self, and for series fans her wry, snarky narrative voice (with a chip on the shoulder as far as wealthy, entitled snobs are concerned, but given her circumstances, it’s hard to blame her) comes across much like her sitting down with you as an old friend she trusts completely, kicking back over a cup of tea and recounting her experience.

And along the way, there are the revealing moments that show her inner dissatisfaction with aspects of her present life, and her yearning for more normality and human connection; she’s a three-dimensional person who comes across as just as human as you or I, and that’s no mean literary achievement. A couple of plot elements show significant authorial research (smoothly integrated); and Donnie and Mavis’ video technology know-how will come in handy. There’s no explicit sex; and while there’s some h- and d- words and religious profanity, which I didn’t like, there’s no obscenity and the language is in the bounds of realism with a degree of tasteful restraint. You can expect some violent deaths, and you’ll encounter one grisly image in particular that even had Kim “a little nauseated;” but the grisliness isn’t any worse than it has to be.

What pulled my rating for this installment down wasn’t the kind of continuity and editorial issues some earlier ones had; those weren’t present here. But there were more serious basic logical issues. In the first place, the main villains here acted in a way that was (from their standpoint) highly unnecessary and unwise, against their own interests, and that’s just papered over in the apparent hope that we won’t notice. But that creates a logical hole you could drive a fleet of trucks through. Secondly, Kim’s plan at the end completely depends on somebody else acting in a certain way in two respects, one of which was likely enough but not guaranteed, and the other of which was IMO actually quite unlikely. Things fell into place here because she had the author pulling strings on her behalf, but in real life that factor wouldn’t be present.

Kim also came across as uncharacteristically naive in accepting the supposed lack of danger in this job so uncritically; and later she made one error of judgment that immediately set off even my warning bells. (Her late mentor Cole would have chewed her out royally!) Finally, Jeter introduces one or two intriguing mystery elements in the first chapter –and soon drops them completely down the memory hole. :-( Another major negative (for me) appeared only in the final paragraphs. For that reason, it might be spoilerish to discuss it here, though it isn’t a spoiler for anything to do with the main plot. But despite these negatives, I’d still recommend the book to most fans of the series.

Author: K. W. Jeter
Publisher: Lincoln Square Books; available through Amazon, both for Kindle and as a printed book.
A version of this review previously appeared on Goodreads.

Mercy Falls

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★★★
“Come to beautiful Scotland! And die!”

Even though I haven’t lived there since the eighties, I remain a sucker for a Scottish film. This delivers, with no shortage of rugged mountain landscapes, beautiful lochs, a ceilidh band and trees. So. Many. Trees. The foliage is understandable, because most of it takes places in the woods, where Rhona (Lyle) and her friends are looking for a cabin, deep in the wilds, which belonged to her late father. To help find it, they enlist the help of local Carla (McKeown), whom they meet down the pub when they have a pre-trip planning get-together. She initially seems fun to be with. But once they’re away from civilization, a shocking incident proves she… has issues, shall we say. And might not be the only one in the party.

The “trip into the woods goes wrong” subgenre of horror has been a staple of the industry for decades – not least because, it’s cheap to do. Why bother with expensive sets, when you can just run around a forest for the bulk of your running time? [Though from previous conversations with Scottish film-makers, the dreaded blood-sucking local insects know as midges, might make that choice of location a decision to regret!] There’s not a lot new in this incarnation of it. Having the threat come from inside the party is a moderate twist, as is having both leads being women. But horror, generally, isn’t something which requires innovation. It’s considerably more about the execution. Or, perhaps, the executionS.

There, this film is a bit of a mixed bag. If the supporting characters aren’t much more than stock characters: the slut, the jackass, the nerd (that would be the guy reading Homer in the woods!), they serve their purpose, which is mostly to die at the hands of Carla. The effects are limited, but I’d say, respectable enough. One extended impalement is likely the highlight, helped by the victim’s enthusiastic selling of their injury. The script is perhaps the weakest element, with a few moments which had us rolling our eyes, in particular the “we might be going to die, so let’s go ahead and have sex” scene. At 103 minutes, trimming might be warranted, as this stretches the material a bit thin. On the other hand: did I mention the lovely scenery?

It all builds as you’d expect, to a somewhat decent face-off between the heroine and villainess. It is somewhat problematic, in that the latter’s background should give her such an edge, as to be able to wipe the floor with Rhona inside ten seconds. Something like handicapping Carla with an injury could have helped make the playing field feel less one-sided. However, we were still reasonably invested in things by this point, and McKeown definitely makes for a convincing nemesis, capable from flicking an internal switch and going from friendly into “you are all going to die” mode in a moment. Nobody could accuse this of ambition, yet it does what it does well enough to entertain us.

Dir: Ryan Hendrick
Star: Lauren Lyle, Nicolette McKeown, James Watterson, Layla Kirk
Mercy Falls is available now on Tubi.

True Spirit

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★★½
“Plain sailing.”

This blandly inspirational tale from Australia is based on real events. In 2009, sixteen-year-old Jessica Watson (Croft) set sail out of Sydney Harbour, intending to become the youngest person ever to sail around the world solo and unassisted. 210 days later, she returned to Sydney safely. There: I’ve spoiled it for you. Oh, alright: in between departure and arrival, stuff happens. There is also some stuff which happens before she leaves, with certain parties questioning whether she is fit to carry out such a dangerous voyage, citing her lack of age and ocean-going experience. A close encounter between Jessica’s boat the Pink Lady and a freighter, while on a test sailing trip, only seemed to confirm there was good reason for concern.

Still, with the backing of her mom (Paquin) and dad (Lawson), as well as her sailing coach Ben Bryant (Curtis), she intends to prove them wrong. Ben is on a bit of a quest for redemption himself, his reputation as a sailor having been damaged by the death of a crew member on his watch. Just to confuse matters, no such person existed: he’s a composite of various people who helped out, and exaggerated for dramatic purposes. Speaking of facts, while Jessica did go around the world, her journey was not long enough to qualify for the official record (the closer to the poles you go, the less distance is needed). This is something the film effortlessly ignores. I guess being the youngest person to kinda do something is less interesting.

I think my main complaint is how mundane much of the 210-day journey was. A couple of storms, including one on the final leg, along the South of Australia, is about as dramatic as it gets. Otherwise, Jessica gets a bit whiny after the Pink Lady is stuck in the doldrums for a week, and has some encounters with dolphins (though I suspect these might have been digital!). That’s really about it. It’s all reasonably well-handled from a technical perspective (except for some ropey storm CGI), and Croft’s portrayal of the young heroine is decent. She’s not depicted as some kind of saint, and is given a good deal of personality, so you will find yourself rooting for her to succeed.

There just isn’t very much sense of danger here. Part of it may be the factual nature of the store: we know she survives, even subconsciously, negating any genuine feeling of peril on the high seas. But it hardly seems like she was “solo”, being in almost perpetual contact with Ben and her family through a sat-phone, and even posting regular entries to a vlog online of her trip. Obviously, having her sitting around on a yacht by herself might have been more challenging from the film’s perspective, but as is, this feels more like a slight challenge, akin to going on holiday by yourself for the first time, rather than the life-threatening endeavour it actually was.

Dir: Sarah Spillane
Star: Teagan Croft, Cliff Curtis, Anna Paquin, Josh Lawson

A League of Their Own

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It has been a very quiet year for action heroine films. Here we sit, entering the sixth month of the year, and the only one of the top 100 movies in 2023 at the North American box-office I’ve reviewed here is Everything Everywhere All at Once – and that actually came out in April last year. [I’ll probably add Polite Society to the list shortly] There have been a couple of high-profile streaming titles, such as The Mother, and last week, I discovered the third series of La Reina Del Sur had hit Netflix. It made the top ten shows in the US, which is quite impressive. But it’ll take a few months for me to get through its 60 episodes.

Since there’s nothing new to “feature”, I decided to dip back into the archives and revisit some old reviews, which are in need of updating for one reason or another. I’m starting with League of Their Own. This is partly because it deserves more than the three hundred words it got when originally reviewed 20+ years ago, and partly because of the Amazon reboot into a TV series which came out (as we’ll see, a very apt phrase!) last year. I think my original review (below) was a little harsh, though it may be that I’ve changed since. Baseball is now an intrinsic part of my everyday life, especially during the summer, and I can perhaps appreciate the film that much more.

Indeed, of all the films about baseball – and there have been some classic – I’d rate League behind only The Natural overall. The latter captures the mythic, almost epic quality of the sport, but League simply sparkles in terms of story, characters and dialogue. Virtually everyone involved gives at or near career-best performances, and considering that includes Tom Hanks and Geena Davis, this is a high bar indeed. Hell, even Madonna is good, though it feels more as if the character was written for her, rather than she’s playing a role.

At its heart is the relationship between sisters Dottie (Davis) and Kit (Lori Petty). Kit has been overshadowed by her sister for her whole life, but can at least hold her own in the baseball arena. When the chance comes to play professionally, it’s Dottie the scout wants, but Kit who needs the opportunity, and convinces the scout to take them both. Thereafter, it’s partly about Kit trying to come out from under the shadow of her sister, but also coach Jimmy Dugan (Hanks) rediscovering his love for the game, and all the women proving the game they provide can be every bit as entertaining for spectators as the male version, even if the quality of play is lower]

[Diversion. The distinction between quality and entertainment was made clear to me over the past few months as I’ve followed the battle for Wrexham to get promotion from the fifth to the fourth tier of English football. The talent on view is not of Premier League quality, clearly. But the decisive contest against rivals Notts County – won 3-2 by Wrexham after their keeper saved a penalty in injury time – was the most dramatic and enthralling game of football I’ve ever watched. So, the appeal of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League doesn’t need explaining, even if they’re not the major-leagues]

Writers Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel do a remarkably good job of keeping all the threads of the story moving forward over the course of the season. Events culminate in the final game, where the two sisters face off, on different teams, for the championship. Dottie knows its her last game, since she’s going to quit and start a family. Kit, however, needs the win, for her self-esteem. It is, of course, Sports Cliche 1.0.1, with the title decided on the final play, Kit barreling into Dottie at home-plate. Yet it still works. Even the wraparound segments, which I disliked at the time, now seem to provide a suitable send-off for the characters we have grown to love over the preceding two hours. Hence, its rating is upgraded to a very solid ★★★★.

Then there’s Amazon’s League of Their Own. It’s basically unwatchable. I tried, trust me. But it takes a story that operated at the intersection of sports and humanity, and turns it into one firmly located on the cross-streets of sexuality and race. And that’s fine. It’s certainly a version which could be told about the AAGPBL. But it isn’t what I wanted to see, and it certainly shouldn’t have been called A League of Their Own, because that creates a set of expectations which the film is unable to fulfill, despite forcing in famous lines like “There’s no crying in baseball!” Call it Lesbians in the War Who Occasionally Play Baseball: that’d be a more accurate reflection of the show’s interests.

Even as that, it’s not very good. The CGI used during the baseball games is flat-out terrible: nobody involved here looks even slightly competent (an area where it differs radically from, say, GLOW). It’s also a thoroughly unconvincing rendition of the period. The dialogue, attitudes and even the incidental music, all appear to come from significantly later times, to the point why you wonder why they bothered setting it in in the forties at all. Turning a frothy and subtly empowering comedy-drama into a social commentary sledgehammer, where baseball is an escape from straight society, was never a good decision. At least the largely (and justifiably) forgotten 1993 series, for all its flaws, operated in the same thematic ballpark. Pun not intended.

None of which takes away in the slightest from the joys to be had in the original movie. We watched it last night, and never mind baseball, it has to be one of the best sports movies, regardless of gender, of all time. That’s probably because it’s a rare entity which works both in terms of its sport and without it. You could remove every scene of them playing baseball and you’d still have a thoroughly entertaining, if somewhat confusing, film. About an all-women bus tour of the Midwest, I guess. But the AAGPBL was an entity that certainly needed to be better known too, and A League of Their Own is the telling of their story which it deserves.

★★★½
“A chick flick with balls…and strikes.”

Deserving credit for being about the only female sports film of note, this is actually pretty good, despite a pointless and schmaltzy wraparound, which gives us nothing but some wrinkly baseball, one of Madonna’s least memorable songs and Geena Davis as a thoroughly unconvincing pensioner. Which is a shame; if the bread in the sandwich is stale, the meat is tasty and filling.

From 1943 to 1954, women played professional baseball, a fact largely forgotten until this film. Davis plays the star catcher, taken from the countryside to play ball – giving a new meaning to “farm team”, hohoho – along with her sister (Petty). The movie covers the first season, under a recovering alcoholic coach (Hanks), leading to a face-off between siblings in Game 7 of the championship.

Davis is excellent and entirely convincing (she’d go on to make final trials for the US 2000 Olympic archery team): the interplay between her and Hanks is great, and most of her team-mates are also true personalities. However, Madonna is superfluous, given the similar presence of Rosie O’Donnell [I’m struggling to avoid obvious jokes here]. Jon Lovitz steals the first quarter as an acidic scout, and it’s a shame when he leaves.

If the characters are great, there’s a lack of narrative drive; how can you get excited over playoffs, when it looks like every team qualifies? The friction between Davis and Petty vanishes for much of the movie, in favour of a series of entertaining but – being honest – unimportant diversions. When we reach the finale though, it’s great; ever bit as exciting as any World Series Game 7. And coming from an Arizona Diamondbacks fan, that’s praise indeed.

Dir: Penny Marshall
Star: Geena Davis, Lori Petty, Tom Hanks, Rosie O’Donnell