By this point, everyone knows the M. Night Shyamalan gimmick is that there’s a twist at the end. And now it feels like he’s going out of his way to dispel those expectations. I was disappointed when Knock At The Cabin had a fairly straightforward ending (electing to completely ignore the ambiguity inherent in its plot), and I was somewhat disappointed here, with Trap. But let’s back up a little bit.
Trap is the latest thriller from Shyamalan, where Josh Hartnett – the golden boy of the early ’00s (40 Days and 40 Nights FOR LIFE!) – plays a father taking his teenage daughter to the Lady Raven concert, who’s clearly some sort of Lady Gaga/Olivia Rodrigo hybrid. I promise I won’t reveal anything not already in the trailer, as it’s fairly new to streaming, and you might want to watch it. Anyway, as seen in the trailer, the concert turns out to be an elaborate trap, set to catch a serial killer known as The Butcher. The authorities had been tipped off that a receipt for the concert tickets was found in one of The Butcher’s safehouses, and now Miss Bliss herself, Hayley Mills, is serving as the FBI profiler leading the plot to take him down. Once the concert starts, no one gets in or out. Well, as was also revealed in the trailer, Hartnett just so happens to be The Butcher. So, once he discovers the plan – thanks to a friendly, yet overly talkative, concessions worker – he begins to devise ways to get out of the arena, while also helping his daughter have an enjoyable time at the concert. You see, his two “personalities”, we’ll call them, are at odds. He’s both a devoted family man AND a coldblooded killer. So, the family man does want to see his little girl happy, while the killer wants to escape, so he can live to kill another day.
The movie is an elaborate game of cat and mouse, but it also carries a possibly unintentional message about privilege. It showcases just how easy it is for a white man to pretty much get away with anything, as long as he’s charming, in an “Aww, shucks!” John Ritter kind of way. Hartnett’s “Cooper” is the nicest guy, speaking to all of the employees, and graciously thanking them for their work at the show. He tells them how much it means to his daughter, but then, he also charismatically cons them into giving him increased access to help him escape.
I feel there’s a really good movie here, under all the fat, but it currently stands as a decent movie. You see, there’s an underhanded, almost infomercial approach to this project, in that it’s really just a thinly-veiled marketing vehicle to launch Shyamalan’s daughter, Saleka’s, music career. That’s because Lady Raven is played by Saleka herself, who also wrote 14 original songs for the film! That’s why I don’t feel the concert portion of the film really does the story much justice. There’s a constant cycle of Lady Raven performs song/Cooper finds an excuse to go exploring to find an escape/Repeat. It’s a bad rhythm. I won’t get into the other settings, but I will say that’s where I’ll admit the film finally came alive.
I do have to commend the casting, as Hartnett plays a great psychopath. I like that Alison Pill was cast as Harnett’s wife, as she does a really good job playing “woman who’s lost that twinkle in her eye”. I felt Saleka was a little stiff, but that’s to be understood, given she’s not really here for her acting. I really don’t know why Mills is here, though my buddy Brock pointed out that she was enacting an actual “parent trap”. Well played, M. Night. Well played indeed!
Trailer Park
Love Hurts (Theaters, February 7)
My God, do I love this trailer! I watched it three times in a row, which is something I rarely do. I mean, I’m not without reservations here. The whole “They keep dragging me back into The Life” angle has been done to death. Plus, I love the Comeback Story of Ke Huy Quan, but he feels kinda…rusty? It’s cute and all for them to have put Sean Astin in this, as it’s as close to a Goonies II that folks are ever gonna get. Still, I’m not quite convinced Quan wants to be acting. Almost like he did Everything Everywhere All at Once as something of a “This might be fun” one-off, then it hit big, and now he’s riding the wave. He feels almost like the weakest part of the trailer (except Marshawn Lynch – WHO told him he should go from football to acting?!), but I’m still eager to see how it all plays out. My favorite part of the trailer, however, is the use of Celine Dion’s “It’s All Coming Back To Me Now”. The Deadpools of the world have turned her into something of a joke in recent years, and I feel folks have forgotten just how powerful of a chanteuse Ms. Dion was. This song is used masterfully here, and it’s not just some slowed down cover of an old pop song. I know she’s struggling through illness, and the Old Celine is probably gone forever, but damn could that woman sing! I know the Man on the Street got tired of her from the Titanic hoopla, but I implore you to check out her discography prior to that. Start with 1990’s “Where Does My Heart Beat Now?”, and thank me later.
Squid Game, Season 2 (Netflix, December 26)
It feels like this took forever to make, and it kinda did. I mean, the first season came out during Covid, which was a whole election cycle ago! I’d have been the first person to tell you “Nobody cares about Squid Game anymore!”, as all of the merch and tchotchkes have gone to clearance, and we were all sort of a captive audience when the first season came out. There have been about 2 more dating apps, roughly 3 more social networks, and ChatGPT hitting the scene since then. Folks simply have better shit to do now! Then, Netflix released this trailer, and I just might still care. Just a little bit. I think my issue was that there was no real reason for Seong Gi-hun to return to the game. Like, they hadn’t taken his daughter hostage or anything. No, it’s just that, when it comes to gambling, he was “down bad”, as the kids say. And when you look at it through that lens, it becomes a fascinating concept once again: a man who’s so addicted to gambling that he’s surpassed the concept of money, and is instead gambling the most valuable thing he has – his own life. There was a line from the movie Civil War (the bad Kirsten Dunst one, not the good Captain America one) that has stuck with me: “I’ve never been more scared, yet also never felt more alive.” I think that’s what Gi-hun gets out of this. But what happens when even the game proves to no longer be enough for him?
One of Them Days (Theaters, January 24)
I’ve got to admit that my inner classist snob came out when I first heard about this movie. “No one wants to watch this ghetto mess”, I thought. But, ya know, not everything needs to be a blockbuster, and I miss that Hollywood used to regularly make mid-budget comedies like these. This is on the same level as Dude, Where’s My Car?, as well as Quiz Lady, which recently found itself released straight to Hulu. That’s just where these films end up now, so I’m actually glad to see it’s getting a wide theatrical release. People don’t remember this, but this is the sort of film that would have gotten heavy promo during the heyday of MTV. We’re talking commercial break shorts, with Keke Palmer and SZA playing their characters. Maybe they’d show up at the VMAs. We got a lot of what now seems like unnecessary shit, in hindsight, for films like Joe’s Apartment and The Jerky Boys: The Movie. Just the mere existence of this film makes me long for those halcyon days gone by. Anyway, I’m still not seeing it in the theater, but I’ll be right here waiting, like Richard Marx, for it to hit Netflix!
Marvel Studios Look Ahead (Disney+, 2025)
So, Disney just lies and lies. When everyone started souring on their output, and the entertainment media started crying about “Superhero Fatigue”, a recently reinstated Bob Iger said they were going to limit the Marvel show releases to 2 a year on Disney+, going forward. I count SEVEN here, and I’m not really excited about the ones you’d expect me to be excited for. Also, notice no X-Men ’97… I never made it past Season 1 of Daredevil, and I don’t like how coy they’re being about whether the Netflix shows “count”. No, just because they cast some of the same actors doesn’t mean those shows are in continuity. Just ask Coulson! So, Born Again doesn’t do much for me. I’m not looking forward to Ironheart because, frankly, I don’t like the MCU depiction of Riri Williams. In the comics, I LOVED that character, but she doesn’t come off the same way onscreen. I’m not sure what it is there. The Spidey cartoon looks interesting, but there’s always a Spidey cartoon running. And they’ll just replace this one in 3 years. I’d bet some South Korean animators are working on the follow-up cartoon as we speak! Never started What If?, so a 3rd season doesn’t grab me. As someone who worked in comics during the glut of Arthur Suydam’s Zombie Variant Covers, I LOATHE anything having to do with the Marvel Zombies universe. A Wakanda cartoon just feels like they’re stalling, waiting for Kid T’Challa to get some age on him, so he can take over for his daddy. No, the only one I’m excited about is the one that initially made no sense to me: Wonder Man.
Now, I knew fanboys were gonna complain about the race swap, but I didn’t have high hopes because it was announced the show would be part of the Marvel Spotlight imprint, which is the Disney+ way of saying “C’mon, give this a chance. You don’t have to have watched all that other shit to enjoy it.” I get it – after 16 years of films, there’s a lot of baggage to scare away new viewers. But I live for the continuity stuff, so I want it all connected, damn it! So, Marvel Spotlight = BAD. Or, so I thought until I saw Trevor. Yes, the “Mandarin” is back, I assume having completed his sentence for his participation in the events of Iron Man 3. I love that character, and it sort of makes all the sense in the world: Simon Williams is an actor, Trevor is an actor. I love it. Honestly, I don’t even need Simon to get powers. I sorta hate Wonder Man’s power set anyway. Just give me a buddy show with those two on a movie set. When it comes to Wonder Man, I am ALL IN!
Will Around The Web
- Earlier in the week, I did a deep dive into the history of what I thought was one of Celine Dion’s best original songs. Turns out it was a cover, and I looked at several other renditions of the song.
- Then, Adam & I released a “treat” bonus episode of Remember That Show?, where we covered the “Halloween Howlers” episode of the Punky Brewster cartoon!
Things You Might Have Missed This Week
- Jon Stewart extended his contract with The Daily Show through the end of 2025, so I guess New York comics can pretty much assume they’re no longer in the running for the job.
- This week saw the 10th anniversary of Too Many Cooks, the viral Adult Swim sitcom parody that took the internet by storm.
- After 18 years away from the franchise, Shawn and Marlon Wayans have inked a deal to develop a new Scary Movie installment.
- Well, we can stop waiting for The World’s Most Beautiful Baby, as it’s being reported that Channing Tatum and Zoë Kravitz have broken their engagement, and are no longer together.
- The Miami Heat unveiled a statue of retired star Dwyane Wade, which ended up looking like Stargate SG-1‘s Teal’c having an orgasm:
- Finally, as the Office Ladies podcast tackled the series finale of The Office, hosts Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey revealed that a scripted scene with Michael Scott’s wife Holly (played by Amy Ryan) would have featured the names of Michael and Holly’s children: Chebonshur and Lowshebin. No, neither is a typo.
So, this might be long. It might not. We’ll just have to see where it takes us, shall we? So, my boss is really into theatre, and has a new “favorite musical” at any given minute. She had told me about this new concept album, called Warriors, by Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda and Eisa Davis. A lifelong fan of the 1979 film, The Warriors, Miranda had toyed with the idea of adapting it for the stage. While that didn’t happen, what came from the process was this album, where the plot of the film is reimagined, through song. The kicker here, however, is that the titular gang has been gender-swapped to be comprised of women. Anyway, my boss was really excited about the album, and wanted me to hear it. I gave it a listen the other day, and it was pretty good. Didn’t exactly grab me, but there was some good stuff there. What I found, however, was that I couldn’t really follow the plot, solely through music, because, well, I’d never seen the original film.
Yeah, I know what you’re thinking, but movies have always been my blindspot. I’m a TV Guy, not a Movie Guy! So, after watching Trap, I decided to try to find The Warriors. As far as streaming goes, it’s really only on Paramount+ if you have the Showtime add-on. Yes, I own it on blu, but I didn’t feel like setting all that up. Thanks to some nice soul on YouTube, however, I found the films uploaded in 12 8-minute files. So, guess what I did. Yup, I finally checked the film off my list.
While I’d never seen the movie, I was more than familiar with it because it’s been parodied and homaged throughout pop culture for over 4 decades. Everyone knows “War-ree-uhrs! Come out and play-ay!” and “Can you DIG IT?!” But I never really knew the story beats behind the quotes. In case you’ve never seen it, The Warriors are basically the main gang in Coney Island, and all of the gangs across the five boroughs of New York are summoned to a park for a message from Cyrus, who’s basically regarded as some kind of Gang Jesus. This summit will require all of the gangs to travel through rival territory, so a temporary truce has been established. Once at the summit, Cyrus proceeds to preach to the roughly 20,000 hoodlums that there’s power in unity, and that there’s more of them than there are cops. The gangs are really digging his message until he’s shot by Luther, a member of The Rogues, who then pins the shooting on The Warriors. The cops show up, and everyone disperses. Now, The Warriors have to get back to Coney Island, unsure if the truce is still in effect following Cyrus’s assassination, and the movie follows their journey home.
I think what the movie is most known for is its memorable visuals. Each gang has its own uniform and theme, and you’d never confuse one for another. While The Warriors are basically a Native American themed gang, with leather vests, headdresses, and ranks like “Warlord” and “War Chief”, The Baseball Furies are basically the band KISS in baseball uniforms. The Trumbull ACs are the skinhead gang, which was crazy, seeing as how there were black guys in that gang. I thought to myself “This is the most inclusive, yet culturally insensitive, movie I’ve probably ever seen!” While, surprisingly, there were no racial slurs, James Remar’s Ajax had a particular homophobic slur he said about three times, which was pretty much every time he spoke.
I think the movie never originally resonated with me because I don’t “get” gang culture. It’s all just kind of dumb to me, as that’s not the environment in which I grew up. “So, you 8 guys claim this city block as your ‘turf’? Have at it. I’ve gotta carry these groceries up to my 5th floor apartment. Don’t get any blood on the stoop!” Despite that, I’m pretty vocal in that I basically romanticize pre-Giuliani NYC. The grimier and grittier the better. I think, in a former life, I was probably stabbed coming out of a Times Square peep show. God, I love that New York! People went to Times Square for hookers and pimps, not raggedy Elmo and a Toys “R” Us with a Ferris wheel! My dad was a New Yorker, and maybe he passed that down to me or something.
So, the movie is, in many ways, something of a love letter to that era. At least, in hindsight. When it was filmed, however, that’s all they knew. But you begin to see what’s really going on here. Turf = respect. If you can hold your turf, you can gain respect, and that’s the only currency that matters in their world. Some of these guys were never gonna leave Coney Island, so this was almost an “investment”. They’d, hopefully, grow up and become mechanics or something. They’d tell folks “I used to be in The Warriors”, hoping the other party would respond with incredulity. The whole “I used to BE somebody!” We might look at that as sort of sad, but that’s all they’ve got going for them. Deborah Van Valkenburgh’s Mercy is a good example of this, where she’s a trollop just hoping to hook up with the next “sure thing” out of town. The gangs call her a whore, but she’s quick to tell them “I ain’t no whore!” She’s got her plan, and the gangs have theirs.
I enjoyed the film as much as my recent viewing of A Face In The Crowd, with The Warriors quickly joining my list of Favorites. With added context to the story, I, then, revisited the Warriors album so that I could really compare and contrast the differences. The most striking thing is that the visuals are lost in an audio medium, so Miranda makes up for it by meshing different genres. You may not be able to see the Asian gang, but the fact that theirs is a K-pop boyband song sort of fills in the blanks for you (“We Got You”, btw, is probably my favorite song on the album!). They also have tonally different endings. Whereas the album ends with a typical Miranda “This is the start of a new day!” hopefulness, the film ends on a more somber “I guess they lived to Warrior another day.” You’re not left feeling too optimistic, but maybe Swan and Mercy can make it work, if he can avoid getting stabbed by The Orphans.
It’s quite the Chris Gaines experiment, though. If you’re not familiar, country superstar Garth Brooks put out Garth Brooks in…the Life of Chris Gaines in 1999, where he adopted the alter ego “Chris Gaines”, who performed pop/rock songs. It became something of a pop culture joke, but the explanation was that it was a marketing tool for an upcoming film, in which Brooks would star as Gaines. Well, the movie never came to fruition, just adding fuel to the joke fire. It’s actually a pretty nice “get” at thrift stores, if you ever run across it, but it’s forever enshrined in the annals of “What Was He Thinking?” moments. Similarly, there are conflicting reports as to the intention of Miranda’s album. Is it the soundtrack for the originally planned stage production, or is it merely just an experiment? For now, it seems like the latter is the true explanation, but that doesn’t mean a stage show won’t materialize someday. Anyway, there’s an “emergency brake” I have at my disposal with these posts. You see, I’m supposed to choose something that was noteworthy in the world of pop culture for the week, and that tends to be something that was globally impactful. However, I can also narrow that down to “something that was noteworthy in the world of pop culture to me.” Maybe it didn’t affect you, but it certainly affected me. I found a great new album, and discovered a classic film I’d never experienced. So, that’s why The Warriors – movie, album, whole kit and caboodle – had the West Week Ever.
