Santana

 The description of this movie sounds like it comes straight out of a summer action flick like Sicario, set at the U.S. southern border. A narcotics officer and his brother (a general in the military) get intel on the drug kingpin who murdered their parents, leading them on a mission for revenge. But this South African made film is set in Angola and has a distinctly African flavor (like the Queen Sono series I watched earlier in the year). While if follows much of the action formula for a police/revenge thriller, the fact that black magic is a legitimate tool of the bad guys and treated as a serious threat shows how culturally important and different this is than a typical western film. My only storytelling complaint is the last 5 minutes. A potentially great (i.e. dark, dramatic, atypical) ending was softened, likely as a setup for a sequel. But I understand the need for a franchise...

3 stars (out of 5) 

The Sleepover

A family friendly spy thriller where the parents get kidnapped "by ninjas" and the kids have to rally to rescue them. Everything you would expect in this kind of movie. An OK story, with cute yet awkward kids and one of the parents is high performing and the other is a doofus. All together we move through a series of improbably events which don't really need solid motivation and can be forgotten as soon as they happen, we move on to the next. Charming.

3 stars (out of 5)

Break Free: 2 People, 2 Years, 1 Goal

 This documentary is really an extended vlog of a german couple who, starting in Morocco, plan to travel down the west coast of Africa to South Africa. The woman has some prior connection to western Africa that is never really clarified, and her boyfriend is along for the ride. This is particularly interesting as the travel through these countries are not the typical "tourist Africa" destinations. The couple is really interested in immersion into culture and meeting and learning about people, not just putting on miles. So as they travel, they spend 6 weeks or 8 weeks "pausing" in different locations as the situation warrants. They communicate a lot of the difficulty of approaching a trip like this with a western mentality, exposing it for the limitations it brings. It is an different insight into cultures and people than I have seen before. Well done.

4 stars (out of 5)

World's Toughest Race

 A reality series based on the Eco-challenge 2017 race in Fiji. This is a nearly 700 km adventure race where teams of 4 paddle, hike, bike, climb, sail, swim, etc. across Fiji. For the elite teams, the race is continuous with racing happening nearly 24 hours continuously, finishing the entire race in 6 days. For the other teams, the narrative is that these are "regular people", but 2/3 of the teams finish in less than the limit of 11 days and they are not "regular people". This is an extreme race and it is fun to watch. 

3 stars (out of 5)

Perry Mason (serial)

The HBO series that chronicles the origin story of Perry Mason. Set in 1932 Los Angeles, Perry starts out as an investigator for down on his luck lawyer EB Jonathan when he gets the case of a lifetime. A child who was kidnapped is returned after the ransom is paid, but the child had been murdered. A classic Perry Mason whodunit. This is really good writing and acting. But what I love about this series is the portrayal of LA environment and culture in the 30's, and the introduction of all the Perry Mason characters (Street, Drake, Burger, etc.). Feels like a retro Bosch with its own personality. Love it. 

5 stars (out of 5)

Rogue Warfare

I watched this because I saw somewhere that the sequel Rogue Warfare: The Hunt was moving up some popularity chart somewhere and thought I should watch 1 before 2. Well let me say that there is so much wrong with this movie. It is not even B-movie quality. The storyline is that a special operations team is created with membership from the 5 permanent members of the UN Security Council (but 3 members from the US so there can be some early expendables without ruining the premise). This team is tasked with tracking down the "Black Mask" organization in the mid-east. The movie is full of pontificating and long speeches, factual errors, and just awful staging and action decisions. Skip this. Skip it with more enthusiasm than you have skipped anything in the past six month. And don't think that it is a so-bad-it-will-be-a-cult-classic. No.

1 star (out of 5)

Work It

 I like myself a good dance competition movie (Step Up series) or music groups (Pitch Perfect series). Work It is exactly following the formula. Existing high performing dance team, non-dancer encounters situation where she *needs* to dance but the team won't have her (and laughs at her attempt), non-dancer starts her own dance group with a group of unknowns to compete in the big competition. There is nothing novel here, and it is still pretty fun in a completely predictable and moderately presented dance numbers sort of way. 

3 stars (out of 5)

The Umbrella Academy (serial)

Season 1

On a particular day, around the world a strange phenomena took place in which women became pregnant and delivered a baby all in one day. Of the 70 or so occurrences of this phenomena, 7 children where "acquired" by an eccentric billionaire and adopted. They discovered that they had "powers" and became the crime fighting family in the Umbrella Academy. The seventh child (Ellen Page as Juno) is ordinary and basically ostracized by the others. This season picks up with all the kids returning home (in all their adult dysfunction) to attend the funeral of their father. At which point Number Five returns from his time-traveling to tell them the world is ending in a few days and only they can stop it. What is both fun and cringeworthy in this series is that as an observer, some of the decisions that are made are so clearly going to cause exactly the effect they are intended to stop... over and over. One wonders just when these superheroes are going to figure things out. But that is the fun part too, since the family and personal dysfunction is what really makes these characters worth watching. 

3 stars (out of 5)

Agent Carter (serial)

Season 1

Season 2

Set in the 1940's, after Captain America plunged to his "death". Peggy Carter is working in the New York field office of the Strategic Scientific Reserve (SSR), the organization that created Steve Rogers in the first place. So she is probably the most experienced agent, but also the only woman. Other characters of note are Howard Stark and his butler Edwin Jarvis. The story basically follows Carter and Jarvis as they work both in the SSR and outside of it to preserve national security. Season 1's villian is Leviathon, a deadly weapon that Stark created which has been stolen and is planned to be used on New York. Season 2 moves to LA and the two work to keep Zero Matter out of our universe. The real fun in this series is the chemistry between Carter and Jarvis, and the other characters that cheekily pop in to stir that chemistry from time to time. It is fun, and while set in the Marvel universe, it is basically regular people interacting and dealing with regular (albeit caricatured) 1940's problems. I will say that Hayley Atwell (as Carter) at times has a strikingly similar speaking pattern to that of Michelle Dockery (as Lady Mary Crowley). Especially with phrases such as "I'm quite sure that is destined to fail" or "How exactly do you expect me to ..." which are generic, but caused me to double take every time.

4 stars (out of 5)