Father Malone's Weekly Roundup - Agatha All Along, Ghost World, Road to Perdition

ripley jeans. Okay, I know I've been going first a lot lately. Jesus you her hp K, Thank you hp You are a much lovelier guest than Harvey Peacar, Harvey peak Car. What's your guy going on? Dog? That should help ease us out of the all hallows with drolls. Finally, time to talk the MCU here on the round up. Now, if you listen with any regularity to Anthology's attack, you'll know I am a big old comic book fiend from back in the day the seventies. Y'all. You could buy

stacks of old comics at any shop. Random titles from random characters, completely out of sequence, if you were lucky to get any consecutive issues of anything. The regular titles were still being pumped out regularly, but there was forty years of accumulation of comic books that most people thought were worthless. I didn't care about the condition of the book or the genre. It was all sustenance. But the

older I got, the more refined my palette. And while I still read a lot of Batman Captain America, as the years went on, the comics I was reading had very little to do with traditional superherism. My guys were John Constantine, though the comic He Sprang from Swamp Thing is my true blue favorite over there at Detective Comics.

But at Marvel, oh baby. Ever since the dit code nominated sixties, Marvel had a weird tributary branching off from the usual fair First and foremost, they have Ghostwriter. Oh yes, and they also have Blade, who first appeared in Tomb of Dracula. I have that issue framed on my wall. But you heard right, Dracula had his own series. Actually he had a few series. Not to mention Morbius, I know it was a terrible movie, but the point being

there were two vampires with their own titles. Doctor Strange obviously spent some time in the underworld, and they've got Mephisto and Man Thing and Monster of Frankenstein. You have superhero fatigue. Fuck you. I have been waiting for the

supernatural this whole time. Finally, finally we got were Wolf by Night, which, if you've only seen that horrible black and white version, they released it the last second, I'm assuming because they were in a slump and didn't want this to be another wrung down the ladder, so they tried to play up the campier aspects of the story. Watch it in color. It is remarkably better. I mean it shouldn't be, except, of course, it was conceived of and shot to be a color film. What is this

trend about desaturating film down to black and white? It's always forced and always a gimmick. But before we got to an honest to god were Wolf and proper monsters and monster hunters in the Marvel universe, Wanda Vision introduced us again finally to the use of magic in Wanda's arsenal. She started out a mutant, which she always was, but Wanda is so pale a character when you snack her

up against the Scarlet Witch. The standout of that show was its antagonist, although really Wanda was the hero and the villain, a little known and seldom front and center character that debuted back in nineteen sixty nine in a run of Fantastic Four of All Titles. She was a governess to Sue Storm and read Richard's kid Franklin. Her name is Agatha Harkness, and this is Agatha all along, Nagatha.

powerless and banished, ultimately another of the Scarlet Witch's victim. Here, she's pulled back to the world of reality and lack thereof by a young man who needs to find the Witch's Road, a path made famous through song, and the song is good. It's gonna get stuck in your head. The young man is referred to as the Team throughout the entire series. Any attempts to speak his name becomes scrambled by magic, keeping his secret throughout. It's kind of

like kill Bill, Remember and Kill Bill. Anytime the bride said her name, they'd throw up a censor bar and have this horrible bleeping sound, and then you find out her name is Beatrix Kiddo, and who the fuck cares because it has no impact on anything else in those and those films useless, and as we know, nothing useless can be truly beautiful. It's a lot more purposeful here, and it actually serves the story, the story concerning Agatha assembling a coven and taking to the Witch's Road in

an attempt to regain her powers. It's very Wizard of Oz, which they actually play with here pretty delightfully. Speaking of delights, the entirety of this fucking cast, Catherine Hahn is worth her weight in Disney Stock. She absolutely destroys in anything she's in. Here's some extra credit homework for you. Check out Parks and rec season four campaign Shakeup. That's her first appearance as Jennifer Barclay. She'd end up doing ten

episodes and they're all fucking killer. As a contrast, check out her performance in A Revolutionary Road from two thousand and eight. That's the film starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet. It's a romantic follow up to Titanic. No, it really isn't, but Catherine Han is fantastic here, probing so much heart out of a heartless character, and they keep her as heartless as when we left her, which is refreshing. I'm gonna withhold my waterfall of praise for Patty Lapone when

we cover Penny Dreadful. Deborah Joe, repped from that seventy show, does her usual solid work. Ali On shows up as Alice Wu Gulliver, who feels like an original character but actually debuted back in twenty seventeen in Doctor Strange. She's known as the Wu Usually. The standout I want to say is Ombrey Plaza. She is consistently surprising with her range and depth of characterizations, and there are scenes in this series where Plaza, a character even darker than Agatha,

absolutely broke my heart. I wanted to say she's the standout, but that title goes to ssher Za Meta. She was on SNL for four seasons where they never managed to lean into her strengths. At the time, I thought that strength was comedy, but after this it's pretty much everything. Where's her show? She deserves one, and she easily gives everyone a run for their money here. The time spent on the road is tremendous. It's like a glossy hammer

horror film interior for exterior, and it fucking works. But nearly everything here does. First and foremost is its adherence to the occult a horror television show that loves horror, how novel, and it actually scared me. It was a jump scare, which ordinarily I would dismiss, but filmmakers have been playing with jump scare dynamics for the past twenty five years or so, all massive attempts at misdirect, so much so that they telegraph the scare as obviously as

the ones they're trying to replace. So when a jump scare does work, I gotta give it credit. Oh In, the Salem's Seven make their flesh and Blood first appearance here on film. They're a group of villains created by Lenuen, co creator of Swamp Thing. They're a decent and dreadful menace here, and I'd like to see way more of them. Your opinion may vary on the current state of the MCU, but Agatha all along is a great step in the right direction. Can we get the Midnight suns up in

active already. Oh you know what here, I'm going to weigh in on Blade where I think they're going to go with Blade. Whenever they get to that battle World plot line, we are not going to get a standalone Blade movie. He's going to appear in a big old Avengers movie, and when we get them, it's gonna be Wesley Snipes again. After that, we'll get a standalone Blade film with our new Blade. Hopefully they're writing that script right now, right now for us start paate years in

the future. Think of how polished it could be. Think of all the weird references and other non starter properties you could layer in. Excellent choice, Mike ca nine Companion. I mean, we want nine straight hours of it, so I can't imagine you're choosing anything else.

comic book adaptations that might make one say I was a comic book. So in that vein here's ghost World.

The movie chronicles the adventures of Enid Coleslaw played by Thora Birch, and her best friend Rebecca played by Scarlett Johansson Johnson Joe Hanson. I get conflicting accounts as they graduate high school and are faced with the onrush of adulthood and responsibility. All set in the netherworld of every town America. A horizon crisscrossed with telephone and power lines, televisions flickering from every home and apartment window, and there are strip malls as far as the eye can see.

This is the first feature film from Terry Zwygoff, who previously had only ever directed one documentary. Sure the documentary was the fucking masterpiece Crumb, about famed underground comics hero R Crumb. Hey remember in Return of the Jedi, Jaba had that little hairless bird demon that cackled at everyone. That character's name was Salacious B. Kram, after Robert Crumb. On the surface, it seems appropriate given the ogling of Princess Leah, but really, if you know the man's work,

you know she was not his type at all. Anyway, zwygov makes every wrong step as a filmmaker if you're a studio exec. No stars, no plot, no early two thousands strung together collection of songs shout out as a soundtrack. The lead character's choices are painful and at times make you question their viability as a human, never mind a protagonist. Oh and the detachment and melancholy right down to the lilting spare piano score. It's also very, very funny, hilarious

in places. Klaus and Swagoff Pepper the frame with the greatest collection of oddballs and weirdos since well Crumb. Honestly, there are characters who have maybe two minutes of screen time without any dialogue that I remember more vividly than anyone in the latest Joker movie. Incidentally, did you see Quentin Tarantino crowing that that's a masterpiece? Okay, Quenton, you're

still edgy, irrelevant? We get it. I mentioned Birch and Johansen, but this is the indiest of indie films, so naturally it's also got Steve buscemi Ileana Douglas, Bob Balaban, and in an uncredited cameo, the Late and Aluminous Miss Terry Gar Klaus and Zwagoff would collaborate again on Art School Confidential, which we'll probably cover at some point. That was an original screenplay, though not based on a comic, so it doesn't qualify for tonight's show. Zwygoff is one of the

cheap Suit Serenaders. That's our Crumb and the Cheapsuit Serenaders, a jazz combo that plays music from the twenties and thirties. As such, we get a lot of jazz and blues in the film, including the absolutely haunting Devil Got My Woman by Skip James.

and one. You'll immediately take to it or you will fucking hate it. Seems to be the way of things. But as one final enticement, it's one of my favorite endings of any film ever. All right, now, this was supposed to be the segment where we talked about Robert Semechis's new film here starring Tom Hanks. You know that gimmicky lockdown camera and we have to endure a family as they get old and die. Barring the quality, it is an unusual premise for a film, but even more

so for a comic book. That's where that one came from.

But I couldn't slep my weight to the cinema this weekend, so instead I have a different oddball comic book adaptation also starring Tom Hanks.

The source material is too good. I didn't like this movie. Hanks is miscast. He's great as your friend and neighbor. I believe him in a villainous role. But this guy, no, not Midwest contract killer Michael Sullivan shortened from Osullivan in the book for no particular purpose. Sullivan works for the Looney crime family, and when his son witnesses some of the family's activities, the entire Sullivan family is marked for execution.

Solid premise, but for some reason the film just lacks momentum, which is odd because it's an on the lamb trying to evade capture story. It ought to be crackling along. Instead, it just kind of limps. It's like Sam Mendy's was afraid to spoil the overall sense of seriousness. These are serious men engaged in see is business. I wasn't expecting the untouchables, but would a few breathless action moments hurt?

In the book, the relationship between O'Sullivan and his wife Annie and their children is a sweet one that ends in unexpected tragedy. In the film, Annie might as well be wearing a sign that says put bullets here. The book like its inspiration the famed Japanese series Lone Wolf and Cub which was also the inspiration for the Mandalorians. But you know that, nerds, that's about the relationship between father and son more than it is a revenge tale. The film, however, is a slow grind toward an eye

for an eye for an eye justice. Unfortunately, it doesn't have one new thing to bring to the table in its execution. Wait not true. Along the way, it does manage to come up with one innovation. A character created for the film, McGuire played by Jude Law. Oh how I love maguire like a grubby, psychotic Luigi, a freelance killer who shoots crime scene photos as his day job. A truly grotesque and disturbing individual. You can imagine him

and Anton Shaguraz buddies. He's put on Sullivan's trail by Paul Newman, eventually catching up to him at a diner in the middle of the night, and it is everything I hoped the rest of the movie would be. Nobody cares if a screenwriter alters a book for the better, And this is the best scene in the film, Hanks in Law having a quiet conversation about nonsense, both fully aware of who the other is while they maintain their facades.

Listen to the disdain and admiration in Law's voice as he takes stock of Sullivan's lives.

an important movie to deliver in an entertaining movie. The book is about breaking the cycle of violence in this family's life, maybe about breaking the cycle of violence in everyday life. It's open to interpretation, but the ending feels inevitable, as any great work should. The film also has the sense of inevitable, but not because there's no other way the story could have ended. It's more of a shrugging, well let's get this overworth kind of inevitability. Not a

great place to present your film from. But what do I know. I'm just a fake Irish priest who talks to his dog all day. The fact that I understand your replies has no bearing on my credentials. If anything, it makes them worse. Anyway, thank you once again, midnight

viewers for joining us here. Tune in at the end of the week. We're going to be diving back into the dark Side. That's Tales from the dark Side. We're taking a look at Comet Watch and a Dream Girl. That's a good episode of Midnight Viewing. I'm not vouching for the quality of the material reviewed. All I'm saying if you want to get in touch with me fatherm

Alone seven to one at gmail dot com. If you want to support the show Patreon dot com, slash fatherom alone, or if you're feeling the sting of the lack of funds, you can do us a simple favor and simply like and subscribe to the show. If you're feeling verbose, you can leave us a review, hopefully positive, or just share it or tell someone to listen. Hell you just listening is greatly appreciated. For Ripley Gene, I'm father Alone. We're

gonna leave you with a line from ghost World. Maybe now you can understand why I can't get a date, well, at least not.