Really short one here today. I started out with the Defrosts having a lot to write, and I’ve got less and less to say - partly just because that’s the way it goes when you get what’s on your mind off your mind, partly because I need to work on word counts and a tendency to feel a whole post needs to be about a lot. I have literally one observation to make: every time I do check Twitter, Pete Buttigieg is posting about how Trump’s various faults are a distraction from his conventional Republican policy priorities (restrict abortion, cut taxes) compared to conventional Democratic policy priorities. If Harris loses the election, and possibly even if she wins, he is laying the groundwork to appear like a prescient messenger for the future.
No spoilers for The Batman or The Penguin ahead.
My media recommendation for this week is The Batman (2022) and The Penguin, the current spinoff series following The Batman. If you missed the hype, the long and short is that The Batman hits that rare sweet spot of being a dark, gritty movie on paper that also has a heart, a gentle sense of humour, and engaging performances from a great cast. Seriously, if you said a decade ago Robert Pattinson would be playing Batman it’d be taken as a joke, but no, he’s really good!
The last Batman film widely agreed to be great was The Dark Knight (2008), a fascinating fourteen year gap given Hollywood’s obsession since for superhero movies. While TDK is better overall, it lacks the same depth of themes, character arcs and vulnerability that The Batman enjoys. Plus, The Batman is an actual, bona fide noir detective movie! How many of those do you get anymore in general, let alone for the detective superhero?
Saying all this is my way to avoid talking much about The Penguin - we’re only six episodes in and events are moving rapidly towards the season finale, so who knows what today might be a spoiler tomorrow. My pitch is simple: this is barely a superhero show at all, and unlike TDK I mean that as a compliment. The series feels no need to get caught up in bizarre twists of lore or universe building the way so many Marvel shows have. You’re getting what I assume the Sopranos is like, with its very down to earth focus on crooks in a broken city.
You’re also getting some of the best performances I’ve seen in years. Colin Farrell, under the impressive makeup work, is absolutely smashing this show: as soon as I finished Episode One, I was sold purely based on the strength of his showing. (I also think Deirdre O'Connell as the Penguin’s mum is acing this.) There are a few different actors to point at and go “oh, I recognise you from elsewhere!” The breakout star, though, is Cristin Milioti. Somehow, her B-plots are proving to be just as enthralling as those of the far-better known star in Farrell. She’s hit a really sweet spot that more morally complex scripts have been struggling to attain for a while now, between vulnerability and culpability, and, just like Farrell, the lines she spits out are super entertaining. Just go watch!
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