The Full Lid
22nd May 2020
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Welcome, my friends, to The Full Lid, your weekly 5 p.m. chunk of pop culture enthusiasm, career notes, reviews and anything else that I've enjoyed this week. Its email, but good!
As well as the big stories, you'll also find interstitial sections. Most of the time these are videos and this week is no exception. The work of small scale and indie film creators is a petri dish for creativity and this week, we're spotlighting three filmmakers. I absolutely want to cover more folks in this field so if you're one, or know someone who'd be a good fit here, get in touch.
I've been releasing TFL weekly for about three years (!) now so if you want to catch up on a back episode you can find an archive of the last last six months here. You can find me online here.
Contents time!
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Contents
Strange, New, Needed
Triggers Unguarded: Assassination Nation
Bog Bodies
Signal Boost Spotlight
Signal Boost
Signing Off / Playing Out
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Strange, New, Needed
Late last week, some genuine actual good news was released. Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is the new Star Trek TV show, focusing on the Captain Pike era of the Enterprise. Anson Mount’s definitive portrayal of Pike, Ethan Peck’s subtle and interesting new take on Spock, and Rebecca Romijn’s series-stealing hyper-competent Number One are all set to return. This command crew were seen to varying degrees in the second season of Discovery and all three have been thoroughly and enthusiastically embraced by the audience.
Of course, the first question to be asked about Strange New Worlds is: what’s it going to be like? Both Discovery and Picard have dealt with mature real world issues including PTSD, the moral imperatives of the services, bereavement, and whether or not Picard’s dog is in fact the goodest of boys.
Spoiler: He is.
I love Discovery's take on Trek. Others, not so much -- they worry the Star Trek they remember and the Star Trek of today are wildly different The hope for Strange New Worlds is it will balance these demands with a less serialized approach and a hark back to the fictional models of previous incarnations of Trek.
Which is a really roundabout way of saying ‘Is Strange New Worlds going to be fun?’
Yeah it is. And I have proof. |
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Two Starfleet Officers Walk Into A Turbolift...
The Short Treks anthology series is one of the best strands the show has ever had. That makes Netflix’s inability to promote or show them before the next season of the show arrives all the more frustrating; doubly so with the second series. Three of them, 'Q&A', 'The Trouble with Edward' and 'Ask Not', spotlight the Pike-era Enterprise crew. They are Strange New Worlds Season 0 and if the show is half this good, we’re in for a real treat.
‘Q & A’ (written by Michael Chabon, directed by Mark Pellington) focuses on Spock’s first day on the Enterprise. Actually it focuses on Spock’s first hours on the Enterprise, most of which are spent locked in a frozen turbo lift with Number One.
Peck and Romijn are one of those comedy double acts that sneak up on you. Peck’s Spock is not quite as buttoned down as the later versions, clearly thrilled at where he is and vibrating with the need to prove himself. Number One invites him to ask her questions until she gets annoyed, and he bounds at that like a pointy-eared puppy. It’s adorable and in line with every other version of the iconic character, while still being unique to this era.
Romijn’s Number One has a completely arresting combination of total authority and brassy, wry charm. Her take on Number One is more buttoned down than her charmingly grumpy Colonel Baird on The Librarians, but is also more aware of the price she pays for it. This is a pivotal scene for both these officers and the future Starfleet they’ll help build. Spock is painfully honest and open. Number One lets herself be open just enough and in the best beat in the episode she and Spock share a moment of glorious theater nerd geekery. It’s a beat of pure, honest joy... and it’s all Number One allows herself, or Spock.
There’s too much to do, the universe is too wide, too many strange new worlds. It’s a touching, delicate note to finish their conversation, Una suddenly all too aware of the professional bruises she’s trained herself to ignore. One of the strongest beats in all three Short Treks this season is a moment where she feigns having to check Spock’s name. The look that passes between her and Pike, and her and Spock, says everything about how instinctively these three work together.
From the constant, playful teasing of ‘Enterprising Young Men’ in the score to the final moment on the bridge, ‘Q&A’ is a charming, sweet-natured and nuanced look at life on Starfleet’s flagship, the price that’s paid for it and the people who gladly pay it. Strange New Worlds' emotional core is here, running the gambit between Number One’s frank assessment of Pike to a joyful, soaring rendition of Gilbert & Sullivan.
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We Need To Talk About Edward
‘The Trouble with Edward’ is about an idiot. Who may be a genius. And a spy. Edward’s a complex guy.
Written by Graham Wagner and directed by Daniel Gray Longino, 'The Trouble with Edward' is a screwball comedy that, under the fluffy surface, is all meat. Pike cameos as he says goodbye to Lynn Lucero, an Enterprise science officer promoted to captain of the science vessel Cabot. Lynne, played with total charm and bone dry comic timing by Rosa Salazar, is excited, confided and focused.
Edward, played by Archer’s whiskey-drenched soul, H. Jon Benjamin, is... also present. On Captain Lucero’s debut mission, the crew are assigned to help feed a planet. Edward has ideas involving tribbles, meat, their convenient lack of faces and gene therapy.
The word is no. Edward therefore goes anyway.
It does not go well. We learn Edward and his gene tinkering are responsible for the tribbles' famed exponential reproduction. They of course immediately swarm the ship, and Edward embraces his "dare to be great" moment. It's barely audible over the sound of a tidal wave of eternally pregnant, faceless furry meat pebbles.
‘Edward’ is very funny, and elevates to breath-stealing hilarious for fans of Trek continuity gags. Salazar and Benjamin sparring is one of the most instantly entertaining things I’ve seen in a long time.
Hidden beneath it are surprising implications. Edward appears to be wearing a Section 31 jacket when he engineers the tribbles. The planet the Cabot is sent to assist just happens to be on the edge of Klingon space. Captain Lucero, newly minted and young for command, makes for an easy scapegoat. The tribbles may just be meat under their fur, but ‘Edward’ has its teeth in a pivotical piece of Trek history.
And finally, ‘Ask Not’. Directed by Sanji Sanaka and written by Kalinda Vazquez, it stars Amrit Kaur as Ensign Thira Sidhu. Alone at a supply station when her Starbase is attacked, Ensign Sidhu is tasked with guarding the prisoner responsible for the attack. This prisoner:
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Tested to Destruction
What follows is a Mirror, Mirror of ‘Q & A’. Pike is Pike: driven, idealistic, bit of a problem with authority, bit more of a problem with his own being questioned. Anson Mount clearly revels in getting to play Starfleet’s King Arthur. You know he’s not the bad guy. Right? He's PIKE! But at the same time when he’s facing down Sidhu you can’t help but wonder...
But what makes 'Q&A' the best of the season two Short Treks is Kaur. Sidhhu is terrified, worried, preemptively grieving, out of her depth and Not Budging An INCH. She’s a pit bull with a phaser, completely unwilling to let the possible impact the definite. Like all good Starfleet officers she works the problem in front of her, matching Pike's alternate entreaties and rules laywer'ing beat for beat. She never stops calling him 'Sir'. Or drops the phaser.
The end of 'Q&A' was when I realized CBS had to be pushing ahead with a Pike-era show. The Engine Room is too beautiful a cacophonous science fiction proscenium to be intended for a single shot. Sidhu is too riveting a character -- marked but unbowed by tragedy, maintaining a long-distance marriage -- to never be seen again.
If ‘Q&A’ is a glimpse at the heart of Strange New Worlds, then ‘Ask Not’ is a glimpse at its soul: resolute, focused, idealistic, and just a little bit rock and roll.
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So what do these three episodes teach us?
First, that Strange New Worlds is a show grounded in original series Star Trek without ever feeling dated or stale. ‘Q&A’ reveals another in the long line of celtic Starfleet engineers (petition for a Manx ensign?) while ‘Edward’ provides a unique perspective on a classic critter. ‘Ask Not’ continues what Discovery started, confronting Starfleet’s darker tendencies straight in the face and, like Sidhu, not backing down. Wonder and joy spliced with determination and grit.
The shorts also show us that this is a show with a welcome modern approach to casting. Pike and Spock aside, the entirety of the rest of the Enterprise crew we see present as women, and an overwhelming proportion are not white. All of them are fun, nuanced, interesting characters who breathe life into a very different era of a very familiar ship.
The three shorts embody the exact qualities Mount, Peck and Romijn mention in the announcement. The curiosity of a new science officer on the biggest assignment of his life. The welcoming presence of a captain simultaneously the paragon of virtue and who just wants his damn red thing. The optimism of the benchmark of Starfleet first officer. The unifying ideals of an organisation that has its best days ahead of it. The future. Out there and getting closer all the time.
Like the man says, ‘Hit it.’
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is in early production now.
Star Trek: Discovery’s first two seasons are available in the UK on Netflix. If you bounced off season one, give season two a try, it's a very different show.
Star Trek: Picard’s first season just finished on Amazon Prime.
Star Trek: Short Treks’ second season will presumably show up on Netflix at the same time Discovery season 3 does. One episode, ‘Children of Mars’, is actually a vital lead-in to Picard. Turns out distribution rights are why we can’t have nice things. Or at least timely ones.
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Indie Film Creators: Chris Brosnahan
Showing you fear in a handful of dust, and horror in a plastic bag...
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Triggers Unguarded: Assassination Nation
Editor's note: spoilers
My favorite Lorde track has a line which stalks the halls of Salem High one step behind every girl targeted in Assassination Nation:
And everywhere we go I can feel the subtle taste
Of the deeds outgrown and the welcome overstayed
Released two years ago (and one of the lost movies I wrote about at the time), Assassination Nation is a film crammed with tension, simmering rage and that sense of the town you grew up in barely tolerating your existence. As long as you're on the football team. Or you're the Prom Queen. Or you're useful.
The girls of Assassination Nation have convinced themselves they don't need to be useful because they're too damn pretty. Em (Abra) and Sarah (Suki Waterhouse) revel in the safety of a mom who is a very professional masseuse (and, it's lazily implied, a sex worker). Lily (Odessa Young) has a boyfriend (an unrecognizable Bill Skarsgard) and an older man she calls 'Daddy' (Joel McHale, going full darkest timeline). Bex (Hari Nef) has secured herself a football player, Diamond (Danny Ramirez) and as the only trans student in the school is delighted by this fact even more.
They have the sort of happy lives where you step around a parent's alternate career, where you stride into school in a slow-mo line as banging techno plays. Where you only tell the Principal how you really feel when you're having a one-on-one counselling session with him, knowing he can't do anything about it. The kids aren't alright, but at least the kids are here. Safe in the same way everyone is safe in a small town. Smiles and clenched fists. Time passing as a montage that's somehow still half as fast as you need it to be.
Then this happens:
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The infamously anti-LGBT Mayor has his sex life dropped onto the internet. He takes his life in front of a live audience and the girls... shrug approvingly. It's not a good reaction but he wasn't a good man. Here in 2020 as everyone sits and waits for western politics to put down Ayn Rand, eat a cupcake, and maybe go the fuck outside, it's hard not to side with them.
Then the principal is doxxed. It's unfair but this time, the crowd have the scent of blood. Innocent photos of his daughter and a white-bread porn habit lead to his firing. Colman Domingo, effortlessly the best thing in Fear The Walking Dead for years, is great in this role. There's a shot where he realizes he's been doxxed and Levison throws the camera down a crowded school corridor away from him that's just breathtaking.
It happens again. And again. And again. And inevitably, Lilly's man is doxxed, she's attacked and identified as his girlfriend, and her mother throws her bodily out of the house. The deeds outgrown. The welcome outstayed.
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The pattern culminates in a moment of cathartic violence so absolute Lily, Lill's attacker, and the movie all stop and look at what's just happened.
Then jumps ahead a week to find the entire town has been doxxed. It's Invasion of the Bodysnatchers via your Twitter account, The Monsters are Due On Maple Street but they're already in the WhatsApp chat. Everyone wears masks, everyone is on edge, and to quote Kurt Russell's finest hour: No one trusts anyone anymore and they are all very tired.
But there's still a woman available to be blame so the shrieking manbabies of the town can feel better about themselves by ending someone else's life.
What follows is the movie's biggest ask and best work. The girls are attacked in a brutally realistic, untidy gunfight. There's an attempted lynching, a terrifying fight to the death in a bathroom slippery with blood, and a moment of total catharsis. The four girls, dressed to kill and ready to pull the trigger, leading a phalanx of women and the few terrified but rational men into battle.
They are all, clearly, terrified. None of them bolt. Because this town, this white picket fence Purge factory, is their town and no one else has made a stand. To borrow a line from a President who would absolutely not be on their side: if not now, when. If not them, who?
Assassination Nation is a red leather raincoat'ed Banquo, refusing to leave the feast and staring down every other teen movie, arm in arm with Heathers and Pump Up The Volume. It's terrified and terrifying, consumed with rage and utterly unwilling to give in to hate. It wears the clothes of a teen movie, the stylings of a grindhouse action flick and the sucker punch ending of the original Battle Royale. Killer looks all, and the women of Salem need every single one of them. Uncompromising, brutal, frightening, darkly wry, essential cinema.
Assassination Nation is widely available now. Big thanks to the mighty C A Yates for the heads up.
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Sarah is a prolific and lyrical filmmaker I've featured a couple of times before in various capacities. Here she is, in full glorious flow, about the pressures of indie film-making and how her gran was the best bad influence possible.
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Follow this link to toss a bean in the caffeine cup. |
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Bog Bodies
Killian has a problem. Killian is a problem, a young thug who's badly screwed up. Driven out to the bogs by old friend and mentor Keano, and Gerry, a man who no one calls friend, Killian escapes. Wounded, terrified and on the run, he meets Neev, a young woman in a similar situation and together they run for their lives.
This is one of the earliest panels in the book:
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I've driven the kin of these roads. Roads haunted by a hundred thousand bikers once a year, roads that connect one side of the Isle of Man to the other, even though no one's entirely happy about that fact. These are Irish roads rather than Manx ones, but that sense of writing yourself into and out of existence as you move is something very familiar to me.
It's also, quietly, one of the book's central themes.
Shalvey has a glorious ear for dialogue and a tremendous eye for the horror of the mundane. There's an early extended sequence when Killian escapes, running across flat land, in decent light. Gerry and Keano watch him go, discuss the plan, express annoyance that they're having to do this at all, and then go on with their business. This is a day at the office for them, death riding in the back of the car and asking whether you'd mind turning the radio up.
The relationships in the book are brutal in their simplicity. Gerry wants Killian dead. Keano... kind of does but feels bad for the kid. Killian wants to live. Neev wants to know who she is. All of them want to live. They're not all that lucky. That stark black landscape, the sense of your footprints and your presence slowly fading away? In this book, everyone faces it.
Bog Bodies feels like the platonic ideal of a crime story: pared down, focused and character-centric. Gavin Fullerton's line art here gives the book's characters the sweaty, panicked, lived-in feel they like to pretend they don't have. Gerry is a seething little ball of hate whose entrance is a highlight of the entire story. Keano is a Gleesonian big man with some interesting secrets and the most backbone of the lot. Killian is desperately young, a man's crimes in an idiot child's body. And Neev is a ticking timebomb of terror and rage, disgusted at the fact she has somehow been decided on as a victim. All of them orbit the bogs, and the ties that bring them there, like a constellation of panicked stars circling a black hole.
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But what really shines are Rebecca Nalty's colours. Look at that pair of panels. Look at how the moon lit countryside works as a backdrop for the way the light falls on Gerry and Keano. Both men half in shadow, one happier about it than the other. Look too at the smear of red around the boot, the brake lights covering the car in the metaphorical blood neither man wants on their hands. This is GREAT, clever, stuff and every element of the book exists in lockstep with every other. Look at the lettering from Clayton Cowles too, as rounded and relaxed as the way the men talk to one another and with just as much of a hard edge under the surface.
But let's go back to that car, writing itself into existence up in the hills, filling every page with that sense of impermanence and danger. No one's on solid ground, as the book slips (literally in one case) into jet black comedy and then into something even richer and stranger.
When the night ends, everyone has their answers, and none were expected. What you have is one hell of a book, and a story that shines intensely bright, even up there in the dark.
Bog Bodies is released on May 27th. Please, if you can, buy it from your local comic shop - they really need our support right now. You can find yours here.
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Signal Boost Spotlight
YA and MG Authors
This is a special Signal Boost, focused on YA and MG books, an area suffering massively right now. I'm always looking for more projects, across pop culture, to help boost and I'm especially interested in helping under represented groups get seen. Even electrons are limited and I can't guarantee I'll be able to cover everything, but I'll do what I can. If you have a project that needs some extra eyes on it, get in in touch.
Elatsoe by Darcie Littler Badger
Set in an America shaped at least much by the monsters, magic and knowledge of its Indigenous people as it's colonizers, this is Darcie Little Badger's long form debut. It follows Elatsoe, a young girl who can raise the ghosts of animals. Her Lipan Apache family have passed the skill down through generations and when Elatsoe's cousin is murdered, she must use it to protect her family and discover the truth. Illustrated by Rovina Cai, Elatsoe is out in August.
The Strangeworlds Travel Agency by LD Lapinski
Flick Hudson has just discovered the best travel agency on the planet. Strangeworlds takes you on holidays to the hundreds of other worlds out there. All you have to do is, jump into the right suitcase. That is, unless you live in the city of Five Lights. Five Lights is disappearing, street by street and only Flick can save it.
The Falling In Love Montage by Ciara Smyth
Saoirse is 17, done with exams and ready to get drunk, watch horror movies and stop thinking about all her problems kissing girls. Ruby is everything she isn't; happy, a romcom fan and a firm believer in true love. She challenges Saoirse to try a summer romance with the serious parts left out, just the montages. But what happens when the montage ends?
Midnight's Twins by Holly Race
Fern King discovers the world that mirrors our own, Annwn. This is where you go when you dream, protected by the Knights. But now, Fern's hated twin Ollie has been chosen as a Knight, nightmares are on the rise and Annwn and London are about to be far more connected than she thought...
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Dragon Daughter by Liz Flanagan
Milla is a servant on the isle of Arcosi. She's just about getting by until she witnesses a murder and realizes that she is now the guardian of the last four dragon eggs in the world...(The sequel has also just been released).
The Unadoptables by Hana Tooke
Lotta, Egg, Fenna, Sem, and Milou came to the orphanage in the oddest of ways and the matron has never forgiven them for that. But when a mysterious gentleman threatens to tear them apart, the children flee into Amsterdam and prepare to fight for the survival of their unique found family.
The Mask of Aribella by Anna Hoghton
Aribella is the daughter of a Venetian lacemaker and she has a secret; sparks fly from her fingers when she's angered. Aribella has always thought this made her an outcast. She's about to find out it makes her a warrior in a battle to defend the city itself.
Wonderscape by Jennifer Bell
Arthur, Ren and Cecily investigate a mysterious explosion on their way to school. When they do, they find themselves aboard The Principia – a pirate-research ship captained by Isaac Newton. The year is 2473, they're trapped in an epic reality adventure game and the three friends are about to blow the games' biggest secret wide open.
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Dangerous Remedy by Kat Dunn
The Battalion des Mortes are the last hope of those facing the guillotine. Led by a revolutionary's daughter and wanted by both sides, they're the last hope for France. If they can live long enough to save it...
The Knight's Daughter by SH Cooper
Mary McThomas is being raised as a lady, but she wants to follow her father's path as a knight. When he's seriously injured, she discovers just how winding that path can be and just what dangers she'll have to face to get where she needs to be and to save her village.
Ship of Shadows by Maria Kuzniar
Aleja wants adventure and when a ship crewed by female pirates pulls into her Spanish port town, she finds it. But what she also finds is that adventure has a price and to win over her new crew, Aleja will have to risk everything...
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Signal Boost
Podcasts
- The always-brilliant Alex and Sharon Shaw are starting to draw the threads of their massive podcast fiction universe together. The first episode of Uncivil War is available now!
- The Underwood Collection is a wonderful fan project that explores a different research organization in the world of The Magnus Archives. The season two trailer is available now.
People and Projects
- UNDEAD SINGLES HAS COME FOR YOUR DREAD MEATS! Which is a roundabout way of saying one of my favorite people and creators, Jordan Shiveley, is publishing a book. A book about singles ads. And blood. Maybe teeth. Or maybe the ads have teeth... Jordan is the absolute best, this is going to be great fun, please go help it happen.
- Josie Jaffrey's May Day is set in an Oxford beset by vampires and defended by the Seekers. Jack Valentine is a Seeker and desperate to pin a murder on their vampiric nemesis. But the vamp may be the one person who can help crack the case...
- A lot of journalists lost their jobs this week. Iris Blasi is an agent who loves working with journalists. If you're a journalist looking for work, you should read this.
- Francesca Myman is a fantastic artist who needs your help in order to stay in her home. Check out her Patreon and please donate if you can.
Awesomeness
- Marc Bernardin is a genius and this is proof. The Plague Nerdalogues are a chance to donate a small amount to charity in order to hear amazing names read classic monologues. You want Jonathan Frakes doing Kirk's Wrath of Khan monologue? And totally destroying your emotions? You want Tricia Helfer as Bill from Kill Bill? You want Phil Lamarr doing Samurai Jack doing Inigo Montoya's 'You killed my father' speech? YOU KNOW YOU DO! Go get it, and help some people in need.
- Dropbox have released 25 curated boxes full of free playlists, book recommendations, recipes and more.
- Animal Crossing: Doom Eternal. Just.... there are no words. Go watch. Apparently the two fandoms love each other's games which is amazing.
That's this week's Signal Boost, folks. If you have a project you'd like to see here get in touch.
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Signing Off / Playing Out
That's The Full Lid for this week folks, hope you enjoyed it.
We're approaching the end of a few weeks on the sprint and I am feeling it. Time for more water, more sleep and more VENGEAAAAAANCE! on Streets of Rage 4. Which I'll be talking about here in a bit.
In the meantime, the Team KennerStuart Instagram will probably feature photos of the amazing cheddar and spring onion muffin bread I'm going to bake again. The first loaf mysteriously evaporated...
Our weekly Bedtime Stories stream on Twitch was fantastic fun this week. "The Voice in the Night' by William Hope Hodgson is the only horror story I know of that unites Japanese horror, classic English supernatural fiction and Naruto. Yes, seriously. I hope you check it out. Join us every Wednesday at 10 p.m. BST. Subscribe to the channel to get notifications for other pick-up streams.
This work is produced for free. If you like what you read please consider dropping something in the tip jar. Thank you :).
Or if you'd like to receive even more of my words, check out The Full Lid Plus, my freshly-launched substack deep-diving through Disney Plus. Subscriptions are $5 a month and greatly appreciated.
Playing us out this week is Captain Bigtime's interval show from The Rusty Quill's Eurovision Fan Final. It is the most pure embodiment of Eurovision I've seen since 'Love Love Peace Peace'. Just press play. You're not ready. None of us were. It's better that way.
And this?
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is a Full Lid.
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