Stranger Things (Netflix) Season Four: A TV Review

My Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SEE IT. It’s a piece of empty pop culture calories and shameless nostalgia delivery system but to its credit it is exceedingly well made.

When I sat down to watch the newly released season four of Stranger Things, Netflix’s hit sci-fi horror series, a ‘strange’ thing occurred.

Episode one began with a recap of what happened in season three as a reminder of what’s going on in the story…and I didn’t remember any of it…not a goddamn thing. I know I watched all of season three when it came out back in 2019, but for some reason I couldn’t recall a lick of it. So, I went back and actually watched all of season three again before diving into season four, and while it was vaguely familiar, it didn’t really ring any bells. I would’ve gone back and watched season one and two to jog my memory too but I just couldn’t commit that kind of time to something I’d completely forget anyway.

My Stranger Things amnesia could be a result of season three having premiered three long years ago, and goodness knows a lot has happened in those three years, in fact my failing memory could be a result of numerous head traumas inflicted over those three years as I banged my skull against the wall in a fruitless attempt to make the madness and moronity of our times disappear. Who knows?

Or maybe the reality is that I didn’t remember the details of Stranger Things because the details of Stranger Things are not worth remembering.

Which brings me to the one of the stranger things about Stranger Things, which is that while I have no idea what is going on in the convoluted plot, and while the four lead male actors, Finn Wolfhard, Gaten Matarazzo, Noah Schnapp and Caleb McLaughlin, are among the very worst and most annoying actors currently working in entertainment, I still find myself thoroughly enjoying the show.

The reason for that is because it’s exceedingly well made by creator/writer/directors the Duffer brothers. While “the Upside Down” and various monsters and nefarious government agencies and all of that are all a blur, what isn’t a blur is the show’s commitment to its aesthetic and how beautifully designed, structured and photographed this whole series is.

The Duffer brothers are a couple of gloriously old school storytellers paying homage to their directorial forefathers through their skilled use of shadow and light, color, sound and music to convey an entire mood, and that is what makes Stranger Things so enjoyable an experience and so seductive, if not addictive, a series.

The brilliance of the Duffer brothers is also obvious in the basic premise of the Stranger Things pitch, namely that it’s a glorious nostalgia delivery system for Gen Xers filled with a Gen Z cast in order to interest younger viewers that skillfully exploits the archetypes and storytelling tropes of both the sci-fi and horror genres in familiar but original ways.

To its credit, Stranger Things was one of the first series in the recent wave to use 80’s music as a siren song to attract Gen Xers to a show geared toward Millennial and Gen Z viewers. The success of that approach is seen in season four’s use of Kate Bush’s song “Running Up That Hill” as a plot point, which has led to a rousing resurgence of Ms. Bush back into the spotlight and her introduction to a whole new generation.

Another plus for the show is that despite the truly atrocious performances from the four lead male actors (who it seems get worse with every passing day), as well as poor Winona Ryder – who is just awful and is an astonishingly hollowed out shell of her former self, the cast are actually very good.

Millie Bobby Brown is sort of the break out star of the show because of her impeccable bone structure, and while she is certainly a beauty and is decent as Eleven, the psychic warrior/screwed up kid, it’s Sadie Sink that is the major talent on the show. Sink’s Max is a complex and conflicted character and her portrayal is never anything but utterly compelling. One can’t help but hope that Sink stays the course and we get to see what she can do as she gets older.

David Harbour is also great as the charmingly rough and tumble sheriff, as are Joe Keery, Maya Hawke and Natalia Dyer as Steve Harrington, Robin Buckley, and Nancy Wheeler respectively. Keery in particular is outstanding as a comical leading man, and his repartee with Hawke is a poor man’s version of a 1980’s Indiana-set, vacuous teenage Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn.

Season four was split into two parts, with the first seven episodes premiering on May 27th and the final two episodes premiering on July 1st. What was odd about this structure is that while the first part of season four was “normal” in that the episodes were roughly an hour long, the two episodes (episodes 8 and 9) of part two were an hour and a half and two and a half hours respectively. So, basically part two of season four is two feature films….which is kind of weird especially considering that it isn’t the series’ finale as season five is coming down the pike.

All that said, I had no problem with the length of those two episodes, and found them to be enjoyable enough that I kept watching them, so that says something. And the same is true of the entire series….it isn’t great or life changingly good, it is just an extremely well-made piece of pop entertainment.

If you like 80’s nostalgia, good music, horror and sci-fi movies and can tolerate a very uneven cast that is both brilliant and boorish, then Stranger Things is a very pleasant distraction from our often times infinitely stranger and more frightening reality.

©2022

Black Widow: A Review and Commentary

Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes 47 seconds

My Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

Popcorn Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SKIP IT. The movie is a middling Disney money grab chock full of predictable Russophobic caricatures and #MeToo pandering that doesn’t propel the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s storyline forward.

This article contains plot points and minor spoilers for the movie Black Widow.

After a two-year, Covid-induced drought, Marvel is finally back in theatres with the much-anticipated Black Widow.

Black Widow was originally set to kick off Phase Four of the Marvel Cinematic Universe back in May of 2020, but Covid crushed those plans and Marvel fans have had to go to the streaming service Disney Plus to get their Marvel fix in the form of the series WandaVision, Falcon and the Winter Soldier, and Loki.

Black Widow, in case you’ve forgotten, is actually Natasha Romanoff, the former KGB superspy turned Avenger who is portrayed by Scarlet Johansson.

The movie Black Widow, which besides being in theatres is also available to stream on Disney Plus for a hefty fee, is set right after Captain America: Civil War and five years before all the unpleasantness with Thanos in Infinity War and Endgame because, spoiler alert, Black Widow actually dies in Endgame. Consider this movie to be cinematic CPR on Natasha Romanoff.

The fear heading into Black Widow was that it would be the wokest Marvel movie yet. That fear was formed when Ms. Johansson made some pre-release noise about how she was uncomfortable with how her character was “hyper-sexualized” in earlier movies, and also that this film was going to be Marvel’s #MeToo movie.

Adding to that sentiment were tweets from various kiss-ass woke media outlets triumphantly declaring that the film “passed the Bechdel test”, which measures size and substance of female representation in a movie, and “puts men in their place and makes them “squeem”, whatever the hell that means.

It seems an odd marketing strategy to alienate half of your potential audience by having friendly media outlets tell them if they watch your film they’ll “squeem” (which sounds uncomfortably like a cross between ‘squeal’ and ‘cream’) and be put in their place…but what do I know?

After watching the movie, I can report that Black Widow is a middling, rather unremarkable and unnecessary Marvel movie that contains a heavy dose of cultural and political propaganda.

The political propaganda is pretty derivative, just some good old fashioned Cold War Russophobia. Throughout the film Russians are painted as the shallow stereotype of innately ruthless, cold-blooded, heartless killers indifferent to human suffering. In one scene Natasha watches an old Bond film, Moonraker, as a sort of knowing wink from the filmmakers about the throwback Cold War caricatures.

The cultural propaganda doesn’t come in until the final act of the movie, which not surprisingly, is also when the whole venture goes completely off the rails with megadoses of Marvel monotony.

It’s in this third act that Marvel runs the #MeToo flag up the pole and turns the movie into a metaphor for breaking the iron spell of the nefarious patriarchy that brainwashes women and takes away their freedom and choice.

The bad guy, General Dreykov, played by a terribly miscast Ray Winstone who absolutely butchers his Russian accent, is meant to embody both the misogynist patriarchy and the inherent villainy of Russians. Dreykov has stolen little girls and trained them to be killers, and if they weren’t up to snuff, killed them. Dreykov is like a Russian Jeffrey Epstein in that he controls world leaders with his army of women, except he traffics in violence, not sex, and his island is in the sky, not the Caribbean.

In a literal sense, Black Widow must defeat Dreykov so as to free his army of mind-controlled females. In a metaphorical sense, she’s fighting to free all women from the prison of the patriarchy and to exact revenge for the abuse they have suffered at its hands.

I have to say Black Widow’s painfully obvious #MeToo metaphor didn’t make me “squeem” or feel put in my place, although it did make me throw-up a little bit in my mouth. And yawn profusely.

Whether it be the insipid Russophobia or the forced MeToo stuff, the overwhelming sentiment conjured by Black Widow is one of indifference. The movie, especially in the shadow of Infinity War and Endgame, just doesn’t seem to serve any purpose at all.

That isn’t to say there’s nothing redeeming about it. Some of the performances, particularly Florence Pugh and David Harbour, are quite compelling.

Pugh, who plays Black Widow’s sister Yelena, absolutely steals the show. Watching Pugh consistently out shine her more famous scene partner Johansson was glorious to behold. Pugh is a terrific actress, but the magnetism she displays in Black Widow reveals that she’s capable of being a gigantic movie star, much bigger than Scarlett Johansson.

David Harbour, who plays Black Widow’s father, the Russian superhero Red Guardian, is also terrific. Harbour is a dynamic presence and sinks his teeth into the Marvel movie inanity with gusto.

Other performances, most notably from two usually very good actors, Rachel Weisz and the aforementioned Ray Winstone, are uncomfortably sub-par, as is Scarlet Johansson’s bland and rather diffident portrayal.

The bottom line is, if you are a devoted fan of the Marvel formula with its forgettable fights, loud chases and snarky humor, you may enjoy Black Widow even though it is meaningless in relationship to the wider MCU canon. As for me, a fair-weather Marvel fan, I found it to be a rather tepid venture, devoid of any real purpose except to line Mickey Mouse’s coffers.

If you want to avoid the vapid cultural and political propaganda that permeates Black Widow, and keep your hard-earned money from the clutches of the Disney devil, I recommend you skip the movie, you really won’t be missing anything.

 A version of this article was originally published at RT.

©2021