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Marvel's The Defenders  - Season 1
Marvel's The Defenders - Season 1
2017 | Action
Starts well, fades away into pure meh
The coming together of some lesser names in the Marvel universe (though I feel sorry for Daredevil being pigeonholed here, well done Affleck!) was exciting. The Defenders for me was the goal, with so much to watch first, two series of Daredevil, one each of Jessica Jones, Luke Cage and then Iron Fist. Sadly, that dreadful series of Iron Fist really pummelled me into near-submission. So I didn't start Defenders with the excitement I had hoped to.
The series starts well, setting up interactions between each of these characters and sewing the seeds of the plot that was to come. But that plot really turned out to be quite dreadful and clichéd (cabal of powerful rich pantomime baddies looking to take over the world/harness mystical powers in a ... wait for it ... hidden underground lair).
Luke Cage and Daredevil were not enough to rescue this plot or the series itself from Iron Fist's toxicity. The action scenes are now so boring, it really is just a room full of people punching each other. Go back to that iconic corridor action scene in Daredevil where he single-handedly takes out numerous people at pace, and then compare to this, which is him just hitting and being hit repeatedly over the space of a few minutes. While large scale combat scenes like that must be really hard to choreograph, I wish they had showed less of it and focused more on character development and plot.
By the end I was slightly energised for Daredevil series 3, but have opted instead for The Punisher.
  
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Kelly Reichardt recommended Ugetsu (1953) in Movies (curated)

 
Ugetsu (1953)
Ugetsu (1953)
1953 | Drama, Fantasy, Romance
(0 Ratings)
Movie Favorite

"I mean the thing with Ugetsu, and the whole Apu Trilogy [discussed next], that I was really looking at when I was making First Cow, was that they are super low-to-the-ground films. You get to the ambition of the potter in Ugetsu, and the sort of dream sequences of it. I love the way it’s filmed, in the way the small villages are filmed, and the way you’re in this hutch all the time and everyone is super low-to-the-ground. I mean everyone’s sitting on the floor all the time and you’re wandering through these small towns and you’re inside these hutches, and I liked that Cookie [in First Cow] is sort of a down-to-the-ground guy – he’s a forager. There are caste systems in both Ugetsu and the Apu Trilogy, and both of the protagonists are sort of at the bottom of the food chain and surviving hand-to-mouth. In the case of Ugetsu, I found that character relatable as far as King Lu [in First Cow] goes – he really wants to get a toe hold in the next level, and he’s very seduced by getting there; he just has kind of a narrow vision of like, “I’ve got to get to this place.” He also knows that he has to find a backdoor into it. And they’re all craftspeople in Ugetsu, and in First Cow Cookie is a cook and they’re constantly making things, and King Lu is sewing his slippers – it’s a life of just endless making of things because it’s how you’re surviving."

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    Little Girl Magic

    Little Girl Magic

    Games, Entertainment and Stickers

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    Little Girl Magic is a nursery, child care and dress up game for people who love to babysit. Adopt...

Just Mercy (2019)
Just Mercy (2019)
2019 | Drama
Superb legal drama
A very topical film at the moment, telling the true story of a man ending up on death row after a dubious murder trial with negligible evidence weighed up against copious amounts of evidence of his innocence. As usual, it is the story of the police and DA being under pressure to convict someone of the crime and finding an easy target.
Jordan plays young lawyer Bryan Stevenson who moves to Alabama to fight for justice for death row convicts. Among many cases he meets Jonny D (Foxx), who initially refuses to fight any more despite the paper-thin conviction he received. Persuaded, the pair start their fight against the system, met time and time again with prejudice, injustice and an unfair system that is unwilling to review past cases.
The irony of this unfolding in the town that is so proud to have been where Harper Lee wrote To Kill a Mockingbird, the story of a black man facing an unfair trial accused of crime against a young white female, was not lost on me. This wasn't made much of in the film, I would guess out of respect for the family of the actual murder victim here, and not wanting to suggest a parallel with the false crime in the book.
The film does well to portray the racial injustice, unbalanced legal system and prejudice experienced by the authorities and smalltown America, but not overdo it. This leaves the viewer to mull it on their own, which is especially important to do in the current climate.
An excellent film that gets the balance right between story, faithfulness to the facts and sewing thoughts and parallels with modern day life.