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HARLEY QUINN – BEING HARLEY QUINN (S01E05 – 2019)

March 1, 2023

To be fair, I did warn everyone that I would not shut up about this show.

This was the episode that clarified what this show was going to be for me, and also crystallized a lot of feelings for me, while still making me endlessly laugh.

I don’t love that my personal emotional emblems are the women of Gotham, because I am a middle-aged dude. It’s not a great look, I admit, but I can’t help it.

HARLEY: “Okay, here it comes; here’s when that piece of shit pushes me in the acid.”

IVY: “Woah, woah, are you okay?”

HARLEY: “This whole time I thought he pushed me, that it wasn’t my choice. But it was!”

That said, this episode did a lot of self-reflective good for me. -Being Harley Quinn- is 100% trauma therapy, and exactly what I needed when I watched it. It is an absolutely perfect depiction of disassociation and also of repair.

Seriously, and sadly, the entire ep is an encapsulation of my youth:

HARLEY: “Oh, I wasn’t sweet at that age — or any age, really. I was a total shit back then.”

—

HARLEY: “Hey Ive, I think there’s something really screwed up about me.”

IVY: “I want to say this in the most loving way possible, but there’s no way this is just occurring to you now.”

—

IVY: “You know, in a way, it’s almost comforting to know that you’ve always been this fucked up.”

HARLEY: “Yes, isn’t it? I’m starting to realize why my mother recycled so many wine bottles back then!”

—

And the B-story! Gilda and Sy trying to dispose of everyone’s inert bodies is fantastically hilarious. I’d love to get a flashback to their spy days, but sadly, seems like they’ve been cast away from the show.

All of that said, you have my wife to thank or hate for this post, as she commissioned a surprise gift to me of Harley’s reckoning from one of my favorite artists, Dijana Granov — who also illustrated an astounding recreation of Catwoman’s creation from BATMAN RETURNS that gives me me endless comfort — which spurred me back to revisiting HARLEY QUINN S1. (See the featured image above! No that is not a screenshot!)

I’ll briefly note: I fucking hate feeling like this. It is unrelenting and terrible, but I am who I am, and I can’t pretend to be anything different and to do otherwise would undermine the positive work I’ve done towards getting better.

I’m lucky enough to have a supportive partner and friends and I have my therapists to aid with it, but goddamn. It does not get any easier. I’d be lying if I said it did. That said, it’s not getting harder, and I’m still fucking here, just like Harley fucking Quinn.

HARLEY: “My mind. My rules.”

conner4real – F**K OFF

February 28, 2023

POPSTAR: NEVER STOP NEVER STOPPING is — like JOSIE AND THE PUSSYCATS — a criminally underrated cult film about pop music and musicians. I could write forever about it, but instead, I stupidly want to focus on the deleted musical number FUCK OFF, which isn’t even in the film proper.

You might want to watch it first:

I have no idea why they filmed this. The lyrics alone — which apart from the FUCK OFF anthem also features the line ‘you think I look like a punk, when your face looks like an elephant’s c**t’ — automatically guarantees an NC-17 rating. (I especially appreciate the cut-away to a youth singing along to the lyric.) They spent a lot of money and a lot of time on this one weird number that — checks notes — well, it has almost nine million views, so maybe that’s why.

This song is wall-to-wall filth, pretending to be pre-teen-friendly, which is in-and-of-itself absolute perfection. I swear like a fucking sailor and even I was astounded by this song. (In a good way, though!)

Even better, it is visually perfect, featuring amazing choreography and eye-popping colors, crop-tops and Britney schoolgirl skirts and screaming audience members, all moving in-sync. It’s a perfect encapsulation of coming-of-age youth stadium shows.

My favorite incredibly stupid detail is the one audience member brandishing a GameBoy Color standing in as an iPhone.

It is a gloriously dumb-smart bit that was too good for the world, relegated to the bin of DVD extras, but is definitely worth your time if you have the stomach for it.

“I hope you get butt-fucked in prison! Be good to each other — peace!”

HARLEY QUINN: A VERY PROBLEMATIC VALENTINE’S DAY SPECIAL (2023)

February 11, 2023

My apologies in advance for posting yet again about HARLEY QUINN but I will never, ever shut up about this show.

It is not only a paragon of comedic entertainment, with a joke-per-minute count that puts ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT to shame, it features some of the most thrilling and cartoonishly squeamish scenes that would make Sam Raimi jealous, it dives head-first into some of the thorniest depictions of trauma — seriously, the first season’s Bensonhurst should be on every screenwriting syllabus — and it has one of the best penned romances of television time. (Suck it, Jim & Pam.)

And it does all of this under the umbrella of the scattershot DC universe somehow.

I’ll note that the show has radically changed over its three seasons: the first season was fundamentally about Harley separating herself from the abuse of the Joker and finding a supportive network. The second season was about her finding herself and reconciling her history. The third kind of blew up her support network, but also (finally) found her living her best queer life with her love Poison Ivy.

That’s a lot for a show to tear off, much less do well, and manage to do so in gut-busting way.

A bit of a sidenote: I think a lot of people get a tad too hung up over ‘being Harley’ or ‘being Ivy’, in the stupid way everyone in the 90s felt the need to label themselves as a Seinfeld or Sex and the City character. (I still don’t understand why anyone would want to self-identify with those hateful people, but it’s not for me to judge. Well, maybe a little, unless you’re a Samantha.)

What I love about the series — and what makes this special so very special — is that the characters are far more complicated than base archetypes. I can’t help but identify with both. I’m the filthy over-eager people-pleaser that Harley is, but I am also frequently misanthropic and want to do nothing but watch my stories and retreat from the world because I also hate everyone and everything. (Nothing personal!)

However, they make it work. They’re loving, but also have to be constantly mindful of each other’s needs.

That’s one of the great things about this show: it’s one of the first non-John Waters works I’ve seen that celebrates horniness, even against a culture that actively tries to beat it down. (Pun intended.) This episode is wall-to-wall horny in a celebratory way, in the way that I wish sex was more popularly portrayed. It’s mostly about Harley buying drugs to give Ivy the best orgasm of her life — which leads to one of the best lines of the show: “Oh you cannot possibly be mad about me wanting to get you off too good. THAT IS NOT A THING!”

Even us damaged folk want to get our freak on, and this show helps to normalize that.

And then there’s Bane! Kaiju Bane, fucking every building he sees because he took some bad drugs! Literally laying waste to the world, and it’s hilarious.

This show is bonkers, but also manages to be one of the most grounded works out there. I’m so tired of seeing poorly-penned 20-something relationships in media, and HARLEY QUINN gives us something meaningful and substantive, while also being narratively interesting!

I’d like to note that Alan Sepinwall is also extolling the show’s virtues (or, err, lack there of?) so I’m not alone:

https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-reviews/harley-quinn-hbo-max-twisted-valentines-day-special-abbott-elementary-dc-comics-1234673252/

Cripes, I didn’t even get to mention all of the WHEN HARRY MET SALLY riffs. Also: ETRIGAN and his rhymes?! And their V-Day hairdos! Just watch the damn ep — it speaks for itself!

Favorites of 2022: Film

December 20, 2022

This was not a great year for prestige films or flyboy-less blockbusters, but it was a fantastic year for small-scale genre films. Granted, I have missed out on a lot of films — I have yet to see ARMAGEDDON TIME or EO or WOMEN TALKING or a bunch of others as there’s never enough time — but below are my current favorites of 2022.

HATCHING

Brilliantly nuanced work about youth and child rearing. One of the most intriguing body horror films since Cronenberg’s THE FLY.

HATCHING (2022)

EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE

“[An] absolutely outrageous film; it’s mind-bogglingly high-concept, often amusingly puerile, always inventive, but also remarkably emotionally grounded.”

EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE (2022)

MARCEL THE SHELL WITH SHOES ON

“This is a quiet film, both in tone and in scope, but it confidently speaks volumes. It’s a work about ennui and minor victories and emotional stumbles while also being about longing for an accepting crowd. It’s a melancholy, complicated film told simply, one that’s destined for cult status, simply because it defies tonal categorization or, perhaps, because it’s so cute, so initially innocuous, while ultimately being a measured existential tale, one so immaculately put together in a way that will almost certainly have you smiling through tears.”

MARCEL THE SHELL WITH SHOES ON (2022)

NOPE

High-concept filmmaking with the heart of Cahiers du Cinéma; an audacious look at Hollywood’s role in representing history and people.

NOPE (2022)

RESURRECTION

The film that made me ask myself: “Why the fuck do I put myself through this?” A brazen and tautly constructed spiral of trauma.

RESURRECTION (2022)

WE’RE ALL GOING TO THE WORLD’S FAIR

“A meditation on finding one’s identity and transformation [and] how people reach out through technology when there’s no other way. It’s a heartfelt, singular work.”

WE’RE ALL GOING TO THE WORLD’S FAIR (2021)

YOU WON’T BE ALONE

“Equal parts Truffaut’s THE WILD CHILD, Virginia Woolf’s novel ORLANDO and Sally Potter’s film adaptation, and Angela Carter’s THE BLOODY CHAMBER and Neil Jordan’s adaptation, THE COMPANY OF WOLVES.”

YOU WON’T BE ALONE (2022)

Noteworthy

CRIMES OF THE FUTURE

Cronenberg returns to body horror in a big way, letting Kristen Stewart do whatever she wants, indulging Viggo Mortensen in breath work, all while showcasing Tarkovsky-esque backdrops.

DO REVENGE

If life is fair — and we all know it is not — this film will become a cult-classic, at least as long as long as it’s available to stream. It starts off as a private high-school STRANGERS ON A TRAIN and then becomes something completely different, all backed by an astounding 90s soundtrack. Shades of a modern JAWBREAKER from the creators of SWEET/VICIOUS.

MRS. HARRIS GOES TO PARIS

Extraordinarily winsome character drama that puts the delights and desires of the best features of attire forward.

PEARL

A surprising “paean to 50s Technicolor melodramas” from one of the most humanist genre filmmakers working right now.

PEARL (2022)

Halloween 2022 Programming: Contemporary

October 30, 2022

For over a decade, my wife and I have had a tradition where I draft up a selection of horror films for Halloween viewing, and she picks one from each group: contemporary, classic, and cult, and I thought I’d share my suggestions this year.

Due to timing and circumstances, I’m providing our contemporary first today, then classic and cult tomorrow. I will note that I have not seen all of the contemporary suggestions, but most of those that I have seen will have links to prior write-ups. I’m also including some personal notes to provide context.

HATCHING (2021)

“A young gymnast, who tries desperately to please her demanding mother, discovers a strange egg.”

Trailer, but I’d suggest passing on it as it gives a lot away:

THE DARK AND THE WICKED (2020)

“On a secluded farm, a man is bedridden and fighting through his final breaths while his wife slowly succumbs to overwhelming grief. Siblings Louise and Michael return home to help, but it doesn’t take long for them to see that something’s wrong with mom—something more than her heavy sorrow. Gradually, they begin to suffer a darkness similar to their mother’s, marked by waking nightmares and a growing sense that an evil entity is taking over their family.”

Been in my queue for a bit, but haven’t watched it yet.

THE LOVE WITCH (2016)

“A modern-day witch uses spells and magic to get men to fall in love with her, with deadly consequences.”

A delightfully colorful feminist work masquerading as a campy 70s throwback.

SLAXX (2021)

“A possessed pair of jeans is brought to life to punish the unscrupulous practices of a trendy clothing company. Shipped to the company’s flagship store, Slaxx proceeds to wreak carnage on staff locked in overnight to set up the new collection.”

I’ve been meaning to watch this campier version of IN FABRIC since it was released, but have yet to.

TIGERS ARE NOT AFRAID (2017)

“A dark fairy tale about a gang of five children trying to survive the horrific violence of the cartels and the ghosts created every day by the drug war.”

That description makes it sound like a thriller, but it has more in common with THE COMPANY OF WOLVES.

WE HAVE ALWAYS LIVED IN THE CASTLE (2018)

“Merricat, Constance and their Uncle Julian live in isolation after experiencing a family tragedy six years earlier. When cousin Charles arrives to steal the family fortune, he also threatens a dark secret they’ve been hiding.”

A fine adaptation of Shirley Jackson’s final novel of the same name.

THE WOLF HOUSE (2018)

“Tells the story of Maria, a young woman who takes refuge in a house in southern Chile after escaping from a German colony.”

A stop-animation marvel that I’ve been meaning to watch for some time.

HARLEY QUINN (2019-)

August 27, 2022

(HBO MAX) Despite being a pretty hardcore comic book nerd as a youth — I still have the long boxes to prove it — I never quite embraced comic book movies or TV. Apart from the occasional oddity like MYSTERY MEN or BIRDS OF PREY or THE SUICIDE SQUAD or LOKI or that one trauma-laden flashback episode of WANDAVISION, they’re rarely as weird or imaginative enough to keep my interest.

I’ve previously stated that I stayed away from comics for years because I thought they were just endless stories of people punching each other and, while I eventually found comics that consisted of something more that endless fight scenes — or at least used the fight sequences to communicate something larger — most of the MCU and DCU works consist solely of sexless, soulless, dull rope-a-dope tropes that exist solely to prop up future films; all sound and fury, signifying nothing. (Sorry, Will.)

This lead me to initially punt on the animated DC TV show HARLEY QUINN. Sure, BIRDS OF PREY was a sparky lark, and I ate up BATMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES when it aired waaaay back in the day, but I assumed HARLEY QUINN would be just as defanged as most of its film brethren.

How wrong I was.

I don’t know how the fuck this show got made, but it’s such a filthy delight. The pilot itself is a marvel of a mission statement: it scrutinizes the toxic relationship between Harley and The Joker, sees her free herself from him (kind of) and discovers a new found family of D-list villains, including who I know to be her one-true-love, Poison Ivy.

It’s kinetic, it’s weird, it runs a mile a minute, it’s extraordinarily punk, and it’s unapologetically smutty but it’s always in service of the story. It’s an encapsulation of being liberated from live-action. It fully leans into all of the potential of animation, which given that most comic book movies nowadays are essentially an array of CGI sequences, you think there’d be more experimentation, but nope!

It also, just like LOKI, acknowledges that the characters are smart but completely askew. It literally features the following exchange from Harley to herself:

“Ooooh. You’re smart.”

“I know. I’m you.”

It ticks all of my boxes, and I haven’t even finished watching the first season yet. (So far, there are three seasons. I would not be surprised if HBO MAX shelved it, which is why I finally pulled the pin on watching it.)

Now, a few choice quotes:

JOKER: “You know she has HPV?”

BANE: “Most sexually active adults do.”

POISON IVY: “That potion makes people fall in love with me, and then kills them.”

KITEMAN: “Whaaat?”

POISON IVY: “YES! What did you think, you kite-fucking-freak? My name is Poison… Ivy!”

KITEMAN: “This is why I stick with the kites. So simple.”

“I hate you, dad.”

“I hate you, too, son.”

HARLEY: “This is so fucked up, but weirdly moving.”

(Plays far better here than it did in FLASHFORWARD!)

HARLEY to IVY: “I can’t listen to ya when you’re dressed like a 40s housewife who is fucking her husband’s boss.”

“You are truly the Shakespeare of the sea!”

AQUAMAN: “I prefer to think of myself as the Dickens of the deep!”

HARLEY: “Oh, I did it! Although no one said I could run a crew!”

IVY: “What? Hello? Hi. I said you could run a crew.”

HARLEY: “Yeah, but you’re my friend, I mean, come on, it’s like when your mom says you’re the prettiest girl in school.”

KING SHARK: “That’s what my mom said!”

HARLEY: “I just tried to touch myself! That is a stripper rule!”

To cap it all off, it has a banger of an intro/outro, one that I always have to fucking keep HBO MAX from skipping over because you can’t fucking prevent auto-play with HBO MAX.

I haven’t even touched on the amazing voice acting! Lake fucking Bell! Ron Funches! Kaley Cuoco! Alan Tudyk! Christopher Meloni! J.B. Smoove! Jim Rash! Tony Hale! Jason Alexander! It is an embarrassment of riches!

This show brings me so much joy at a time in my life when I’ve desperately needed it — although it is worth nothing that S01E05 deals with trauma-centric disassociation that is not fun if you’ve lived through it, but is still excellently well-played. And if you have lived through it, well, you’ll feel seen.

MADE FOR LOVE SEASON TWO (2022)

August 8, 2022

(HBO MAX, for now) I’ve written about MADE FOR LOVE twice before — first concerning the initial HBO season and second regarding the original novel. Now I’m writing about the second and, sadly, final HBO season so, this will probably be the last time I’ll write about it.

Both the initial novel and the first HBO season dialed in on a very sloppy woman named Hazel who routinely made bad decisions and rarely thought about or regretted them, which lead to the trauma of being a woman escaping from a technological bubble created by Byron Gogol, an obsessive man’s technological spider-web. She ultimately gets roped back into the bubble — The Hub — but MADE FOR LOVE’s second season is a tad more flip, far more darkly comic, albeit at the cost of a lack of focus.

While the end of the first season of MADE FOR LOVE aptly set the stage for a second season — going against the grain of its source material, I’ll add — the second season feels like a wild swing for the fences; it tackles a number of wide-eyed high-concepts in ways that recalls cyberpunk classic MAX HEADROOM while still hewing close to its character study of Hazel’s difficult relationship with her father, how she can course-correct her life, and ultimately find a better version of her self.

There are times when the season feels rushed, however there are also a number of subplots and character arcs that feel tantalizing but sputter out — especially the reintroduction of Zelda, the dolphin that aided Hazel’s escape in season one. However, the highs exceed the lows — this season ventures into batshit-crazy territory and completely exploit the universe. I wish I could say why without spoiling matters.

Season two bites off more than it can chew, certainly, but goddamn it is an aspirational piece of high-concept work that utilizes tech and humanity in ways that feels revitalizing.

THREE BUSY DEBRAS (2020-)

May 20, 2022

(adult swim/HBO MAX/VOD) Three housewives, each named Debra, get together for brunch and occasionally other activities in their vibrant suburban town of Lemoncurd. When together, they’re often passively-aggressively acting out against each other, indulging themselves in hedonistic activities, or partaking of bursts of violence, all while often adorned in white clothing and surrounded by similarly stark interior design.

These are the antics of adult swim‘s- THREE BUSY DEBRAS, aired in a half-hour block featuring two ten minute tales to bewilder and amuse. While THREE BUSY DEBRAS, the vision of Sandy Honig, Mitra Jouhari and Alyssa Stonoha, clearly comes from their improvisational roots, it feels like it has a self-imposed set of absurdist rules that gives the show a more mythic air.

Its reliance on often immature behavior, neediness, and willful oblivion to the wants of the more grounded folks around them reminds me of the extraordinarily silly character comedy STELLA, although unlike STELLA — which was delightfully nihilistic with its messaging — THREE BUSY DEBRAS is often unabashedly feminist, albeit often rendered through a very skewed sense of humor. For example, one episode in the second, current season, details several stories of Lemoncurd women in history, including the advent of ‘smoky eye’ when a woman in ‘one billion BCE’ (Before the Curded Era) garners two black eyes when she trips and falls face-first on a stone-built fire. The second tale in that episode celebrates Susan B. Shoppin’, who ‘bravely’ fought for the right of the women of Lemoncurd to be refused the right to vote.

The second season of THREE BUSY DEBRAS concludes this Sunday (May 22nd) at 10pm EST on adult swim/Cartoon Network, just enough time to catch up from beginning. However, if you’re pressed for time, I suggest jumping into the second season, as it feels sharper and wilder and well-honed. Or you can just watch at your leisure via HBO MAX, whichever suits your needs.

MADE FOR LOVE (2021-)

April 28, 2022

(HBOMAX) MADE FOR LOVE is not exactly the most enticing premise for a television series, despite the fact that Alissa Nutting’s novel that the show is based on was very well-received. (It is worth noting that Alissa Nutting is credited with writing on the show as well.)

The show is about a smart-ass firecracker, Hazel Green (an amazing fictional name, played by the astoundingly elastic Cristin Milioti) who, while down on her luck, selling false raffle tickets for free smartphones to make ends meet, ends up marrying tech capitalist Byron Gogol* (played by the delightfully creepy Billy Magnussen, who was Marcus in one of my favorite episodes of TV ever: THE LEFTOVER’s ‘Guest’). Byron then moves Hazel into his home: the Hub, a hyper virtual reality workplace campus, a place where she has no agency, where she has to periodically log orgasm ratings in order to play the flight simulator video game she uses to numb herself to her situation.

Hazel finds herself loathing Byron and this technological purgatory, and she finally snaps when she discovers that Byron has been using her — without her consent — to develop ‘Made for Love’: implants that ‘co-mingle’ two beings, tethering two together so one can see and feel and experience what the other is feeling.

Hazel then runs, falling backwards to home, to her sadsack father (a delightful Ray Romano, whose dramatic skills have been vastly underrated) who — after the death of his wife/Hazel’s mom — has adopted a realdoll to replace his romantic and physical urges. Byron, being the controlling megalomaniac that he is, is completely unwilling to let her go, for both personal and capitalist reasons.

What follows is a thrilling and heartfelt and intelligent exploration of human desire, tech and surveillance culture, infatuation & the kept woman, and the masculine, blinkered approach to problem-solving emotional relationships. All of this is bolstered by pitch-perfect sound design, music supervision, cinematography, and production design; the Hub is so expertly handled — a modernist dystopia of tech and interior design; watch for how the show constantly throws visual barriers between Hazel and Byron, and how Byron’s often lathered in an icy blue; there’s one moment in the third episode where Hazel literally smells agency, then acts upon it; and the integration of the Gogol logo to also reflect handcuffs is a stroke of brilliance.

MADE FOR LOVE is a show flexing all of its muscles. It is in complete command of what it wants to convey and how it wants to convey it. I initially thought it was a limited series, but no, it ends on an open note, and the second season airs April 28th.

  • I know a number of folks label him as an Elon Musk techbro, and yes, I think there’s some of that there, but personally I think his DNA is more Howard Hughes than Musk.

SEARCH PARTY (2016-2021)

February 22, 2022

(HBO MAX/hoopla) SEARCH PARTY would have been a memorable cult TV show even if it were a one season-and-done and, while I was a bit gobsmacked to see that it was renewed not twice, not three times, but four! — I had no idea how this show could sustain itself for a second season, much less five — it’s always had a very singular dry, but confident and clever, comedic voice.

The first season introduces us to a group of self-centered, off-putting millennials tearing themselves away from their guac-and-toast brunch to solve the mystery of a missing acquaintance they barely know, and matters go amazingly awry.

I can’t quite describe the following seasons without diving into spoilers regarding the end of the first season, but each season tackles a different sort of genre: the second turns into a crime thriller, the third a legal procedural, the fourth centers around a kidnapping, and the fifth jumps into the a cultish future before going full horror.

If you’re having a hard time wrapping your mind as to how all that works without it becoming some sort of Ryan Murphy-ish anthology series, I don’t blame you. On paper, it sounds absolutely bonkers and, in reality, it’s a high-wire balancing act without a net that they manage to walk without barely a wobble.

It’s the rare show that gets to have its cake and eat it too: the actors (including Alia Shawkat as Dory, the propulsive element of the group) imbue the characters with a certain quizzical ennui that is irrestable, so you both love and hate them. You get to see them reckon with their selfish attitudes, but also empathize with them. Add to that some whipsmart dialogue, vibrant cinematography, a haunting electro score, and a litany of fantastic cameos from actors you’d never expect to see on a TBS show* (including Michaela Watkins, Ann Dowd, and one of Louie Anderson’s final performances which, unsurprisingly, is amazing), and you have an idiosyncratic show for the ages (or at least for ages 25-40).

For those brave enough to endure a trailer for the first two seasons (and the second season spoilers are very vague):

  • It’s worth noting that the last two seasons were HBO MAX-exclusives.