South Park, "Go Fund Yourself"

South Park made headlines by trolling the Washington Redskins and the team’s owner Dan Snyder during their actual game this past weekend. It was an effective way to grab peoples’ attention and let everyone know the show hasn’t lost any bite, but unfortunately, the season premiere it was advertising didn’t live up to the promise.

On the show, the boys of South Park are seeking a name for their startup company and decide on “Washington Redskins,” which in their world as well as ours they are legally allowed to do. Not stopping there, the episode prominently displays (and vulgarly defaces) the team’s official logo, as if Trey Parker and Matt Stone are just daring Snyder to try and sue them. While the show’s version of Snyder and his team are painted as the marginalized “proud people” whose name is being misused, the rebuttal from Cartman sounds quite similar to the real Snyder’s reasoning for not changing the team name despite the recent pressure to do so.

It seems to try to address the issue the way “With Apologies to Jesse Jackson” addressed racism, but the results are not nearly as sharp. Clearly, the episode is more interested in trolling the NFL. Which they do, to ends other than the Washington name controversy, from the empty and ineffectual rhetoric of Roger Goodell lately, to a few little digs at Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones. The more concise and direct commentary is on crowd-funding sites like Kickstarter (which judging by the episode, Stone and Parker think are a waste of money), but it’s such a small part of the plot and plays second fiddle to the NFL stuff (plus, is that really an issue people care even a little about?).

Sadly, all the gags were only about as funny as about a million memes sports fans post online to make fun of opposing teams and players. I laughed at some of them, but it’s a little disappointing to sit for a whole half-hour episode and only get stuff similar to the junk on your Twitter feed. Even more so when the subject had so much potential for satire, and yet this was all they settled for.

Gotham, "Pilot"

DC is very publicly trying to imitate the onscreen successes of their longtime foe Marvel. Their next movie is a pretty blatant attempt to launch a full film universe to rival that of their rival. Likewise, the company has expanded into primetime television after Marvel found success in the medium. But unlike Agents of Shield, which is connected directly to the Marvel films, Gotham is its own story, separate from the upcoming DC cinematic franchise (as far as we know). That might be a benefit, allowing it to go in its own directions instead of just supplementing the company’s bread and butter on the big screen.

Gotham’s pilot looks great and sets the right tone. There’s a vibe similar to The Dark Knight, with detailed, modern cityscapes and gritty, realistic incarnations of familiar characters. But this particular Gotham City has its own look, with the right combination of the traditional Victorian design of the comics and more real urban decay (David Fincher’s Seven came to mind, especially since it rains a lot on the show).

The pilot opens with one of the most well-known and defining moments of the DC canon: the robbery and murder of Thomas (Grayson McCouch) and Martha Wayne (Brette Taylor) in an alley, with their young son Bruce (David Mazouz) watching in horror. Assigned to the case are detectives Jim Gordon (Ben McKenzie), a straight-shooting new guy, and Harvey Bullock (Donal Logue), a seasoned cop who knows how things really work in Gotham. As they investigate, Gordon as well as the audience come to see that there’s a conspiracy at work involving the police department as well as the city’s criminals.

Aside from a few cop show clichés (there’s one of those foot chases through urban corridors in which somehow neither cop nor criminal ever needs to take a breather), the pilot is quite good. Many supporting characters that could make for strong story arcs are put in place. Popular villains we expect are there, some upfront—a conniving young Oswald Cobblpot (Robin Lord Taylor) plays a big part, while a silent Selina Kyle (Carmen Bicondova) watches everything from the shadows—some in the background but still apparent. Also introduced are supporting characters that haven’t really had life outside the comics and cartoons, namely members of Gotham’s finest other than Gordon.

Logue is the first actor to play Harvey Bullock in the flesh, a prospect of the show that has high potential. In the comics, Bullock is something of an enigma: generally on the side of good, but never far from unspecified allegations of corruption. Logue’s portrayal, for now, errs more to the bad side, though more out of resigned acceptance of his own powerlessness than pure evil. The opportunity for personal conflict and character evolution is there, and Logue already has the character’s gruff, cynical deadpan down perfectly.

McKenzie brings the future commissioner's righteousness to his role, if not his strong voice of moral authority. In a series publicized as being Batman-less, he’s something of a question mark. Gordon’s had some strong personal moments over the years across different mediums, but the character is often defined by his relationship with Batman. In the pilot, young Bruce Wayne is far from putting on the cowl, but Gordon’s arc is focused on his obsessive drive (and later promise) to find the Waynes’ killer. I’m hoping all the Bruce Wayne stuff is gotten out of the way in the first episode and doesn’t hang over the whole series. We all know about Batman’s origin. As the pilot makes clear, there are plenty of other stories in Gotham City waiting to be told.

The Drop

Can a plot twist save a movie that up until that point isn’t very good? That’s the question I found myself asking after The Drop. Even if an ending makes the audience rethink what they just saw, does it make up for the fact that the rest of the picture leading up to it is rather boring and unengaging? Before I could decide on an answer, my mind had already moved on to other things, so I guess in this case it's a “no” by default.

The story follows Tom Hardy and the late James Gandolfini as, respectively, the bartender and the on-paper owner of a dive bar in a prototypical “old neighborhood” (the kind you have to wonder even exists in Brooklyn anymore). In reality, the bar is owned by Chechen gangsters and acts as a “drop bar” where they temporarily stash their dirty money. One night, the bar is robbed by two masked men, and the two are tasked to retrieve the money and find out who’s responsible.

What follows is a chain of events that make no secret of exactly where the plot is going. There’s no mystery or suspense. Instead, we’re mostly treated to tangential subplots that don’t seem to be going anywhere, or reminiscences about the characters’ better days gone by that we never see. Small punctuations of bloody violence do little to liven up the slogging, sleepy tone of the whole thing (even the initial stickup that puts the whole plot in motion holds no tension). The cast does little but mumble in mangled Brooklyn accents, as if they know this is an inconsequential film during the slow post-summer period and aren’t even trying. And all the gangster movie archetypes are beyond clichéd; somehow, this movie makes them seem even older, like relics from a past era of filmmaking.

Then comes the final revelation, where the picture shifts gears considerably. To be fair, it does add some depth to the characters, a kind of sad, cynical depth. At the very least, it shows that the rest of the film had a point. But as bad as it sounds, it botches it by offering a glimmer of hope. Not only does it dull the ending’s power, but it also sanitizes some pretty awful actions by the characters.

Then again, I’m not sure the picture would have been salvaged if they got the ending right. It’s too slight, too basic, and too insignificant. It’s not even exceptionally bad, just completely mediocre.