No Huddle Reviews

"Dearest Rebecca, I know you have many questions. So do I. After all, life is a mystery. But if there's one answer to all of the riddles of the universe, one secret to happiness, I promise it would be simply this ... sheep. No, seriously, it really is sheep."

It really is. The Sheep Detectives is exactly what it sounds like. No. it's not detectives investigating sheep. OK, so it might not be exactly what it sounds like. It's the sheep that are doing the investigating here, so move over, Monk. Move over, Sherlock Holmes. Move over, Columbo. This one is going to be solved by the sheep. No, seriously. It's going to be solved by the sheep. It all started with a German book for the kids called Three Bags Full written by Leonie Swann in 2005. The screenplay is by Craig Mazin, and it was directed by Kyle Balda and is his first live-action film after directing popular animated titles like a few Minions films as well as being co-director of The Lorax. So now he's taking a stab at live action ... but that's not completely true. Yes, I'm talking about the ... sheep, which are all CGI. It's now out on Blu-ray from MGM/Amazon studios, and it's going to be a rare (these days) real family treat.

Well, this film features a pretty stacked cast of talents with the likes of Tom Waits, Adam Driver, Cate Blanchett, Mayam Bialik, Charlotte Rampling, and Indya Moore coming together in this triptych divided into chapters set in New Jersey, Dublin, and Paris. Not only is it a stacked cast, but it’s also a lot of repeat business, as this film marked the second collaboration between actress Cate Blanchett and director Jim Jarmusch after Coffee and Cigarettes, the third collaboration between actor Adam Driver and Jarmusch after Paterson and The Dead Don't Die, and the sixth collaboration between actor Tom Waits and Jarmusch after Down by Law, Mystery Train, Night on Earth (Waits composed it), Coffee and Cigarettes, and The Dead Don't Die. So obviously, Jarmusch has fostered some great relationships with impeccable group of actors and vice versa; the actors have found a creative storyteller with whom they wish to continue collaborations. This triptych is a example that creative storytelling, as the three chapters, or better known as movements, are narratively independent but thematically interconnected.

"Do you want to know if I'm innocent? The last time I was innocent was 15 years ago in court. Innocence doesn't exist in prison. It doesn't matter. Nobody cares. If you care, stay away from me. Don't ask me out to dinner. I get confused."

In January of 1992 at the Sundance Movie Festival the world was discovering a new filmmaker who brought his first effort, Reservoir Dogs, to the festival where it was highly celebrated and acclaimed. The world knew Quentin Tarantino. But that wasn't really his first film credit. Three months earlier at another film festival in Vancouver, Jan Eliasberg's Past Midnight with Rutger Hauer and Natasha Richardson was having its own place on the screen. So what's the connection? Screenwriter Frank Norwood was struggling with the film's script, and an unknown writer was brought in to give it some life. He was so unknown that he didn't even rate a writing credit, but the buzz is he wrote most of what appeared on the screen. Instead he gets a throwaway associate producer credit, and that might have been the end of a short career. Of course, it wasn't, and there are obvious Tarantino staples in the film, which might make a great drinking game if you're up for spotting them all.

"Solitude can be a little dangerous. So can being a Dutton. Violence has a way of finding the Duttons."

Hit television shows have a way of finding Taylor Sheridan, and Yellowstone became one of the biggest in recent years. He has an ability to attract major talent, and getting Kevin Costner for Yellowstone was a huge get and cemented Sheridan's hold on the modern drama by adding a little bit of the old frontier. Of course, his relationship with Costner soured over Costner's attempt to create the ultimate western epic four-part film series. He threw Sheridan under the bus to do it, and the result was a half season of Yellowstone that was rushed and built around the fallout and ultimately unfulfilling to the audience. But one relationship that hasn't soured is Sheridan's relationship with Paramount. He was ready to walk away until he set his sights on a huge ranch that was going to cost him $300 million. That love affair means that he's in for the long haul with Paramount, and we can continue to expect these shows for some time to come.

"Yeah, I'm old. So I know a thing or two about a thing or two."

Jack Reacher is a character found in a collection of novels by Lee Child, who is really British writer Jim Grant. We were introduced to Jack Reacher in the novel The Killing Floor. It would also provide the material for the first season of this Amazon streaming series. As the popularity of the books grew, it didn't take long for the character to reach the box office, and while he didn't resemble the literature character in any physical way, it was Tom Cruise who first brought him to life on the big screen. There have now been two feature films and 30 books released to carry on the exploits of Jack Reacher. Amazon and Paramount Studios have brought him to the smaller screen, and this time I think they did the character far better justice. The response has been quite positive, and now you can judge for yourself with release of Reacher: Season Three on Blu-ray. I had the opportunity to check out the Blu-ray, and it was a pretty good time, to be sure. Here's what I found out.

The title is an obvious nod to the popular tabletop game, and while Hungry doesn't reinvent the wheel, it is a mid-tier thriller. The narrative centers around a diverse group of holidaymakers who book a routine alligator-watching flatboat tour through the Louisiana bayou. There were some familiar faces amongst the cast, such as Madison Davenport, who I haven’t seen since the television version of From Dusk Till Dawn, as well as Joaquim de Almeida, who serves as the primary human catalyst for the film's deadly events. Following watching the film, I did find myself having to research the overall likelihood of an African hippopotamus in the Louisiana bayou. Not so much because I consider the idea a legitimate threat, but more so because I wanted to identify just how out-of-left-field the premise of the film was overall. Based on my research, I was correct to surmise that the idea was out of left field, but not quite as much as I thought it was. Because on the one had there are no wild hippos in the bayous of Louisiana or anywhere else in the United States, but the idea of hippos in the bayou does comes from a real historical proposal.

"Allow me to introduce myself. My name is August Christopher. I was named for St. Augustan, who coined my favorite phrase, 'Give me chastity and give me constancy, but do not give it yet.'"

See if you can follow me here. The Saint started as a serious of novels by Leslie Charteris in 1926. He was a debonair "spy" who dressed with sophistication and really liked the ladies. He liked the finer things in life, and that often included a nice new weapon or gadget from time to time. I think you're with me so far. He reminds you of Ian Fleming's James Bond. And it's true that Fleming based his super spy on two people. One of them was himself. Yes, Ian Fleming worked on Her Majesty's Secret Service. He was inspired by The Saint, Simon Templar, for many of his personality attributes. The character drifted for decades. There were several Hollywood versions from the 1930's to the 1950's. Like Bond, he was played by several actors, including the immortal Vincent Price. But it wasn't until 1961 that James Bond took his first steps on the path of becoming the most successful movie franchise in the history of the industry. Sean Connery brought the larger-than-life spy to life on the silver screen, and it caused an avalanche of movies, books, and particularly television shows

"One thing I remember about me pap was that he always used to throw me up in the air. Yeah, heh heh ... but he'd never be there when I come down, you know. Heh heh heh. Boy, he had a sensek'a humor, didn't he? Yeah, that was me pap. I remember the time he gave me a electric eel as a toy. Hah, yeah, that was fun. Or, or he'd rock me cradle real, real, real hard and I'd lose me formula. And then he'd say "One day, you'll be a sailor." Heh that's ... that's what I yam today, yeah. Hm. Yeah. Sometimes he'd bounce me on his knee. Heh, most o' the time he'd miss, though, 'cos he couldn't see too well with one eye ... heh, oh, me pap, yeah ..."

It all started with, of all people, Dustin Hoffman. He had a desire to make something that was very kid-friendly.. His original idea was maybe a clown version of Dracula or Frankenstein, and he took the idea to producer Robert Evans. Evans thought the horror comedies were a terrible idea, but in the conversation it came up that the theme from Popeye cartoons was still pulling in over $75,000 in royalties after decades since the last cartoons were made. So the idea of a musical based on Popeye was born. He went to King Features Syndication, who hold the Popeye rights, and bought the film rights.

So, I’m usually a huge fan of dialog. That's normally my jam. I love some good wordplay. However, in the case of Exit 8, the minimalism of the dialog worked in my favor given my inability to understand Japanese. And when there are subtitles, I find my focus split between paying attention and reading. However, fortunately, Exit 8 Director Genki Kawamura intentionally constructed the film with a sparse script to replicate the isolation and quiet focus of the original video game. That’s right, it is based on a video game, and based on my research it is a pretty good likeness of the game in terms of story mechanics, visual and environmental continuity, as well as overlapping anomalies and non-playable characters (a.k.a NPCs). Inspired by the concept of liminal spaces such as the fictional Backrooms 4chain imageboard thread, the game, as well as the movie, is set in a passageway of the Japanese metro. Within this setting, the main character, an unnamed man (dubbed “The Lost Man”) is caught in a looping subway corridor and must spot possible anomalies in each loop to escape.