South Park, "Handicar"

In its depiction of disabilities, South Park walks a very fine line. When it does touch on the subject, usually through the disabled characters Jimmy and Timmy, the show mostly displays a positive message of inclusion rather than pity. But, those same episodes get a lot of laughs at the expense of the characters and their, shall we say, slowness (both physical and the other way). That was most exemplified four years ago in “Crippled Summer” (the one with the summer camp for disabled kids not-so-subtly named “Lake Tardicaca”), and it’s highly evident once again in this episode. It’d be mean and disgusting if the show were less clear in its message of acceptance

This episode features two returning characters from that previous episode: Nathan and Mimsy, the scheming rival of Jimmy and Timmy and his dim-witted lackey, respectively. This time, they’re trying to sabotage Timmy’s nascent ridesharing app, clearly based on Lyft and other such services. Their plans find allies in several transportation entities, from rival apps and regular taxis that are losing business, to car companies whose luster is fading. But, of course, every one of their attempts blow up in their faces.

This episode has things we’ve already see on the show, and not just the same cartoony territory as “Crippled Summer.” The commentary on ridesharing services is almost word-for-word the same free market stance that's been featured before (well, not word-for-word, but it was so similar that it registered with me mentally as a such). But the episode hammers the point home by featuring Tesla, a company facing what arguably can be called legal sabotage in our world, as one of the bad guys trying to shut Timmy down. It’s a move whose brilliance is commendable; I mean, how many shows can intertwine such cartoonish slapstick with legitimate legal commentary? This isn’t just timelier than other shows, it’s much smarter. And yet it doesn’t overwhelm the episode so that it becomes preachy at all.

It’s the cartoon stuff that kind of lost me, mostly because the show it was spoofing—Hanna-Barbera’s Wacky Races—is one I am not familiar with. But that’s okay, because Mimsy and Nathan’s continuous slipups are quite funny, even though deep down I know I shouldn’t be laughing (especially one scene that you’ll know when you see it). I also enjoyed the little things: the Matthew McConaughey running gag that seemed pointless until a redeeming payoff, and a split-second jab at Ben Affleck, adding to the inexplicable running feud Trey Parker and Matt Stone have had with the actor throughout the show’s run.

South Park, "Cissy"

Well, I certainly misjudged Randy’s brief appearance “disguised” as pop singer Lorde last week. Turns out it was actually the starting point for a scathing rebuke of the teenage musician. As it played out, it made for one of those episodes where the show actually made me feel a little bad for laughing, probably even more so than any other time where that was the case.

It was just part of the episode’s larger theme of gender identity. Specifically, how the subject pertains to going to the bathroom, as Cartman claims to be transgender just so he can use the girls’ bathroom at school. Of course, the right he claims to use whichever toilet he wants only pertains to him and becomes a problem when other students call him on his BS.

Cartman makes it easy to laugh at because, like always, his position is untenable to the extreme and purely self-serving. The satire on gender issues cuts so deep, however, that it could almost be taken as not satirical at all. I mean, I’m pretty sure Matt Stone and Trey Parker are targeting people who are opposed to transgender rights by reversing roles and making characters who are cisgender (a term I and I’m sure many others haven’t heard until tonight) the victims of discrimination. But at surface value, the storyline could be seen as vindication of a scenario transphobes might really fear. Just because I understood what they were trying to say doesn’t mean other people will.

The Lorde subplot (she’s really Randy in disguise, and he invented her so he could use the women’s restroom at work) was less ambiguous. Sure, they were making fun of a ridiculous real hoax, and there were a few backhanded compliments for the singer. And the episode ends on a very pro-trans note. But the vibe of the whole Lorde spoof felt to me like they were basically calling her transsexual in the way an immature high-schooler uses gay slurs as insults. It’s one thing to poke fun at someone’s work (I loved the joke that enough Auto-Tune makes Randy’s lame everyday singing to himself sound exactly like “Royals”), but this was just mean.

I guess it’s okay that I laughed—cracked up, really, at both plots—because I got the satire, and because I’ve laughed at other things on the show that were as bad or worse. At least that’s what I’ll tell myself.

Gone Girl

**POSSIBLE SPOILERS HEREIN**

What is it about a David Fincher film that always stands out? Certainly he’s skilled at creating a dark and tense atmosphere, but there’s another factor to his work: psychology. The director always takes time and manages to get into the heads of his protagonists so the audience can feel their state of mind and truly understand their reactions to events unfolding around them. This, I think, is what makes a Fincher thriller so unsettling and effective, more so than any gloomy filmmaking techniques, jump scares, or (in the case of Seven) gory violence. It’s also why he’s still good when he steps outside of the thriller genre and tackles regular characters, such as Mark Zuckerberg in The Social Network (however accurate that movie might have actually been). 

His latest film Gone Girl, adapted for the screen by Gillian Flynn from her bestselling novel, seems like it’s going to be a little of both, at least for a while. The eponymous girl is Amy Elliott-Dunne (Rosamund Pike), who disappears from her Missouri home on her anniversary. Her bar owner husband Nick Dunne (Ben Affleck) appears detached and a little too unemotional about the ordeal, and certain subsequent events start to arise suspicion. As more revelations about Nick surface and the community turns against him, the film alternates with passages from Amy’s diary detailing their relationship falling apart. It begins to seem a little apparent where the plot is going, but it’s still a compelling narrative about the unraveling of a marriage, mostly thanks to Affleck for excellently creating the most awful husband ever put on film. Or at least he seems that way because he comes off like a slimy person you might actually encounter, not an exaggerated movie character.

But oh, do things take a sharp, brutal turn. Where we think the picture is going turns out to be dead wrong, and where it actually goes is much more horrific. It’s a jarring, shocking twist, and the story keeps building on it to crazy degrees. In the hands of some horror schlock-master or cheap thriller flick hack, it might all seem excessive, and it probably still is here. But Fincher slowly travels to each new depth like a calculating master of tension, never giving viewers even a brief reprieve, even when it ends. The film isn’t jump-from-your-seat scary, but you’re never at ease watching the horrifying plot unfold.

As much credit is due to Pike as Fincher. She at first appears so sweet and sad, her marital trials and misfortune earning her the audience’s sympathy and her husband their ire. But when the truth is revealed, she really hits it out of the park. At her worst, she’s a cold, unstoppable incarnation of pure hate and destruction (think Anton Chigurh with a principle and without the cattle gun). Unusual for a Fincher film, in her we get a peek inside the mind of the sinister force at work instead of its victims or its chasers. What’s there is truly twisted and frightening because it only makes sense to her. Never once does it seem like her actions have a justifiable point. And yet, we empathize with her. She not only manages to manipulate the other characters into believing she's the pure, doe-eyed domestic angel, but we the audience almost almost forget about everything she does and buy it ourselves. It’s a great villainous performance that doesn't fall under the “love to hate” cliché; Pike just makes you feel queasy and uncomfortable and so unclean. Affleck's character, who unquestionably does bad things and could have been the bad guy in many movies, comes off as almost saintly by comparison.

Admittedly, if you think about it, the film is much better than it should be. It doesn’t really offer any insights on marriage, abandoning the subject completely when the thriller plot gets going. Speaking of which, that thriller plot contains some things that only happen in pulp crime stories, and Amy's master plan becomes a little less realistic the more extreme it gets. The exploration of the media plays more like parody than allegory (though that doesn't make it any less entertaining, particularly Missi Pyle's nth degree riff on a certain crime show pundit). And contrary to some analyses, it doesn’t really make any great statements on feminism. As a matter of fact, taken seriously, it can arguably be considered antifeminist, if not misogynistic.

But, so what? The movie’s made with such quality, so adeptly directed and masterfully acted that none of that hurts it at all. In fact, knowing that it's not completely grounded in reality might make it a little easier to stomach. No matter how dysfunctional your relationships might be, chances are they’re not as bad as this.

South Park, "Gluten Free Ebola"

Ah, it’s been a while since the people of South Park have been in a full-blown panic. When there’s a story about something that could harm us, you can count on the little mountain town losing its collective crap. It always makes for some free laughs (at least from me), and more than that: every time the news ominously strokes our fears about the latest threat, the ridiculousness of the townspeople’s rabid hysteria cuts the tension and lets us know we shouldn’t all freak out. And that reassurance couldn’t have come at a better time than now.

This time, the threat sending the town into a frenzy is a potential health crisis. No, not that one (though the episode clearly has its allegorical eye on it, spelling it out in the title for those who can’t catch the connection otherwise). The culprit causing all the panic is gluten. In one of their patented reversals, the show appears to be ripping on the latest food trend (going gluten-free) and its adherents who take every opportunity to tell people about it. But low and behold, the little wheat compound causes some hilarious maladies.

The episode doesn’t go as far with its concept as it could have, and doesn’t make much of a point about gluten-free dieting or disease scares, other than that panicking is a bad idea. But then, that seems to be by design. The final revelation about the now-retired food pyramid (anyone else remember that?) seems to distinctly not make a point besides saying "Screw you!" to fad diets, while reminding those looking to dissect the episode for a bigger message that it’s just a cartoon.

The solution worked well and was funny. Many other parts—the vulgarly macabre gluten deaths, the aforementioned panic scenes with dim-witted everyman Randy front and center, Cartman’s supremely weird dream about pyramids and Aunt Jemima—were, too. The B storyline—a conclusion to last week’s plot in which the four main boys try to get Lorde to perform at a party to win back their friends—was a disappointment, however. After building the point up the whole episode by referring to but never actually showing the singer, they could have at least provided an amusing celebrity parody instead of just more Randy.

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.