There Was A Lot of Good Stuff This Year
Zom 100 (Netflix)
This is the live action version of the anime that’s currently playing on Netflix. I watched the anime version of this too but I prefer this version. It has the same basic plot as the anime, with little extras added, and I thought, more likable characters.
Akira Tendo is a much put upon and bullied office worker who works too much overtime, never takes vacations, and almost never has any time for himself. He’s bullied by his boss, is in an unrequited love with his female coworker, and generally hates going to work, but then his good fortune comes in the form of a zombie apocalypse. He sees this as a grand opportunity to complete a bucket list of activities before he succumbs to being a zombie.
He makes a list of all the things he’s always wanted to do and wished he could once do, and sets about actually fulfilling the list. He starts off with relatively easy things like cleaning his apartment, rooftop camping with steaks and fries, lazing around the house drinking beer, and shooting off some fireworks.
While out re-upping on beer he meets a bad ass zombie fighting girl he attaches himself to, and the two of them go off to save an old friend of Akira’s with whom he had a falling out after college. Apologizing to his best friend was one of the items on his bucket list, and his friend is so touched by this that becomes one of Akira’s biggest cheerleaders.
I really liked the relationships between these three characters, which thankfully DOES NOT become a love triangle. They’re just friends who care about each other. I also liked how the other two characters decided to join Akira on his bucket list quest, cheer him on, and even add their own wishes to the list. I was surprised that the list wasn’t already finished though. Akira doesn’t have a hundred items, and he and his friends would think of something they hadn’t done yet, and just add it to the list. Sometimes they would get the activity done, like driving an RV to the ocean, or being a superhero for a day, but the list started with only about ten items and by the end of the 2 hour movie there are only about 18 items.
Now, this zombie apocalypse is mostly played for laughs. The zombies are fast when they need to be, or conveniently slow whenever the characters need to pause and say a few lines, like when Akira encounters his first zombie hoard, and they’re chasing him quite quickly, until he needs to stop and reflect for a moment while they make sure to pause or fall down in the background. Yes, the zombies are dangerous but only when the plot requires them to be. So while occasionally Akira seems as if he might be in danger of being bitten he’s mostly safe. The movie is a comedy after all.
Unlike in the anime, Akira’s character arc mostly involves standing up to his bullying boss, whom he encounters later in the film, (and he has seemingly bullied an entire crew of people to work for him during the apocalypse), and gaining the confidence to save his coworkers from him and a great white zombie landshark, which is terrifying, utterly disgusting, and still deeply funny!
I really liked this movie, and hope there’s a sequel, because Akira and his friends weren’t anywhere near a hundred items on the bucket list and were basically making it up as they went along. This is not even remotely a serious movie, and I had quite a lot of fun, cheering Akira and his friends in their ridiculous adventures.
Spiderman: Across the Spiderverse (In Theaters)
I saw this with my niece and nephew when it was released because we are both huge Spiderman fans. Now, I’m more of a classic Peter Parker fan because that’s the Spiderman I grew up with, but Miles Morales has really grown on me. I like him a lot and I enjoyed this movie, even though it’s only the first part of a duo or trilogy.
Since I’m an art nerd, I paid really close attention to the various artistic styles used in the animation and I LOVED IT! Every prominent Spiderman gets an artistic style that reflects their nature. The Indian Spiderman gets really bright red and gold sari-like colors and a smooth drawing style. SpiderGwen gets some soft pastel pinks and blues which are often reflected in her environment and shows her moods, which I thought was a neat subtle trick. There’s the primary villain (who is a result of decisions Miles made during the first movie), who gets a chaotic black and white, polka dot, drawing style, as befitting his character, and another minor villain reflects an old school Leonardo DaVinci style (in keeping with that character’s personal philosophies about what is and isn’t art), and all these different styles just had me sitting there with a big silly grin!
But the plot doesn’t slack either, as it’s not all style with no substance, and the story successfully juggles a couple of narrative messages. If the first movie was about Miles taking that leap of faith and owning up to being Spiderman, this second film is about his full acceptance of his Spider Identity, what kind of Spiderman he wants to become, and trying to escape the league of Spidermen who have decided he is not worthy since it turns out that this version of Miles was never meant to be Spiderman.
In deciding what type of Spiderman he wants to be, we get to meet a lot of great Spidermen, some of which I knew from the comic books, including some great cameos from Spidercat, Spiderhorse, and a holographic Spidergirl of the future. But my all-time favorite character was the English Spiderpunk, Hobie Brown, (I also read those comics a long time ago) with the Indian Spiderman (Pavitr) running behind him at a very, very, close pace! I loved these two characters even more than the ones from the first movie, and it’s hard as hell to top Nicholas Cage as Spiderman Noir (Yes, I still want a Spiderman Noir movie.) There’s also Miguel O’Hara as Spiderman 2099, who I distinctly remember from the comics, and a very pregnant, Black version of Jessica Drew, who is also from the comic books. Classic Peter Parker also shows up and we get to meet his babygirl, MayDay Parker, (who got them spiderskills just like her daddy!)
Okay, I better zip it up before I give the whole plot away, but heads up! the lowkey MVP of the entire movie, is Spiderpunk! Pay close attention to everything he says and does, which is easy because, even though he only gets about five minutes of screen time, and Billy Idol sneer aside, he’s easily the funniest, coolest, and realest Spiderman to ever grace a movie screen!
This movie was so much fun, and not just because of the cameos, but the plot had plenty of little twists and turns, and the film’s message echoed some of the messaging I saw in The Flash movie, (about saving everyone) and I cannot wait to see its conclusion next year.
Last Voyage of the Demeter (In Theaters)
I was really looking forward to this as I said in a post earlier this year and I think it was worth the wait. I cannot say it was an enjoyable film because that would imply that it didn’t scare the pants off me, which is, of course, exactly what I wanted it to do. I really got invested, and I considered it worth both my time and money.
Now, the clearest description I’ve heard of this movie is it’s basically Alien At Sea. This is a classic old school creature feature, with lots of practical effects and an incredible star turn by the Spanish actor Javier Botet, who I’d never heard of, but apparently I’ve been watching him in a lot of monster movies.
This is the OG Dracula in attendance here. If you walk into this expecting the Dracula from any number of romance-adjacent movies of the past thirty years, you’re gonna be disappointed. This Dracula barely speaks. He kills, slashes, stalks, flies, and skulks, but he doesn’t talk. He’s a monster and a disease. This is not the suave, well spoken, sophisticated gentleman that you’re used to seeing.
I’ve read Dracula multiple times over the years. It’s one of my favorite novels, and the Voyage of the Demeter is one of the early chapters of the book, chronicling Dracula’s journey from Transylvania to London, as told in the Captain’s log, and this version of Dracula is as described in the book. The director remained as faithful as possible to the chapter and the plot is fairly simple. Just like the movie Alien, there’s something on the ship, picking off the crew one by one, and discovering what the monster is and fighting it, is the bulk of the movie. This isn’t just a retread of the Alien movie, although there are some formulaic parallels in keeping with this type of film.
The mood of the film is exactly as it should be to induce maximum dread, even though you know more about what’s happening than the crew. I could’ve done without a few of the convenient thunderstorms that popped up whenever Dracula was on the move because it made things hard to see at times. I was rooting for the crew though, and the Black character, Clemson, who is the primary, is a made up character just for the movie.
That there is a setup for a possible sequel is mildly annoying, but to be honest, I wouldn’t mind seeing another more accurate version of the rest of the book. Coppola’s 1992 Bram Stoker’s Dracula is about as close as Hollywood has ever gotten to actually filming the book, and it still has never been topped. I don’t expect a sequel to do that, but I would watch a straight up Horror version of Dracula, that’s a mashup of 30 Days of Night and Aliens!
The Last Of Us (HBO/Max)
Let me confess, I’ve never played the videogame this series is based on. I’ve heard a lot about how good it is, and I’ve watched a few videos that explain the monsters in it, so I didn’t exactly walk into this series blind. I knew who the two primary characters were and what the goal was. I can say that you do not need to have played the videogame to understand or like this series. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Based on reviews of those who have played the game it is faithful enough to be worth watching but has enough depth and story explanation to be satisfying for those who haven’t.
The basic premise is that humanity has been overcome with zombie-like creatures that infect human beings through a fungal infection based on the real world Cordyceps infection. Like a lot of zombie adjacent movies and series, there is more than enough body horror to satisfy even the most jaded Horror movie fan, the special effects are excellent, and there is plenty of action and pathos. Once again though, what captured and kept me interested were the characters, and thankfully that’s where most of the focus is.
Joel is a burnt out survivor who finds it hard to get close to others after losing his daughter during the pandemic outbreak, and Ellie is a young girl who is seemingly immune to the virus, that he must escort to a medical facility to determine if there is a cure. In other words, this is your standard zombie road trip movie where people need to travel somewhere or accomplish some goal at the end of the world. Where it excels is in the writing and character. There are certain things expected to happen because we’ve seen this type of plot dozens of times, especially if you enjoy zombie (and zombie-adjacent) movies and shows, but there are also more than a few unexpected gems that make the series more than award-worthy.
For me and a lot of other critics, the outstanding episode was #3, Long Long Time, not least because the title is one of my favorite Linda Ronstadt songs. It isn’t often that a show about zombies makes me cry but as I said this is where this series excels. I got deeply invested in two characters who, while they were peripheral to the story in the game, are fully fleshed out here, and done in such a way that they didn’t feel like token or tragic characters, and their storyline added to the overall theme of the show. I consider this particular episode one of the finest hours of television I watched this year. It stars Nick Offerman as Bill, and Murray Bartlett as Frank, as the gay couple from the game, in an episode that is universally hailed as the series greatest.
But the show doesn’t stop there. There are many beautiful moments within the season that made me sit up and take notice. Another of my favorite episodes is the one where Ellie falls in love. Some of my favorite scenes simply show Ellie and Joel walking and talking to each other, including one where he and Ellie feed a pack of giraffes they encounter in Central Park!
I think there is definitely going to be a season two, since so many people seemed to enjoy this, and there is a part two to the game, although the focus there isnt Joel, but Ellie and her adventures. I always hesitate to say something is fun when it made me cry, or scared the bejeezus out of me, but this actually was fun to watch, since it did for me exactly what it promised.
Next Up: More Summer Movies I Loved
Geeking Out about It 