Up first this week is one of the oddest films I’ve seen in a long time, The Sheep Detectives. I genuinely have no idea who this film is for because it’s about talking animals, but it’s a murder mystery that’s not aimed at kids. Yet I also had fun with it. Hugh Jackman plays a sheep herder who feeds, medicates and reads to his sheep. They can communicate with one another, but humans don’t understand them. He winds up dead and the local officer (Nicholas Braun) has to figure out who did it. There is a will read by a lawyer (Emma Thompson) pointing out all the potential suspects. The sheep (voiced by the likes of Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Bryan Cranston, Chris O’Dowd, Regina Hall, Patrick Stewart, Bella Ramsey, and Brett Goldstein) try to go about their lives while putting together the clues to solve the murder of their shepherd. I liked it, but again, I have no idea who it was made for. It’s too adult themed for the under 10 crowd that would normally be the target audience for talking animals. Non-weird adults aren’t gonna be into a talking sheep movie despite the star-studded cast. It’s just odd enough to work for the audience it’s aimed at, but a regular person popping on the new Hugh Jackman movie might be utterly confused by what they are watching. It’s based on a book, but I haven’t read it so I don’t know how accurate the adaptation is to the source material. If you’re looking for a movie that’s just odd enough to work give it a try. I was pleasantly surprised.
I was not pleasantly surprised by Father Mother Sister Brother, the latest from Jim Jarmusch. I haven’t seen one movie of his that I can say I understood the point of. His latest is 3 stories about 3 estranged families in 3 different countries that have nothing to do with one another. The first sees Adam Driver and Mayim Bialik visiting their father Tom Waits. They all have issues, there’s some awkward conversations, they leave, Waits gets up to go to dinner. Cate Blanchett and Vicky Krieps visit their mother Charlotte Rampling for tea. They have issues and awkward conversations as well. Indya Moore and Luka Sabbat play the sister and brother who go to Paris after their parents are killed in an accident. What any of it has to do with anything is beyond me. If you are a Jarmusch fan you’ll probably love it, but I got absolutely nothing out of it.
Shogun’s Ninja gets a neat Blu-ray release this week. It features the first leading role for the always awesome Hiroyuki Sanada and it also features Sonny Chiba so that combination alone is worth the watch. Sanada plays a young man who was exiled to China after his father’s land was taken over. He returns years later and puts together a group of men who were loyal to his father to get the land back and find the gold that’s allegedly been hidden. A blade hides the map to the secret gold. Sanada is in fantastic shape and handles the action with ease. Chiba of course helped with the fight choreography and handles his work with ease as well. The costuming is top-notch as is the set design of the era. I hadn’t seen it before despite seeing a lot of Sanada’s work. If you are are a fan of the genre you’ll love the wire work and fight choreography. You could see the potential Sanada had even at a young age.
James Mangold’s often forgotten Identity gets a 4K release this week. I call it forgotten because until I popped it into my 4K player I didn’t realize it was a Jimmy Mangold flick. I have seen it before, but not in 20 plus years. I think I owned it on VHS back in the day. I completely forgot all the twists which is good because it felt like watching it for the first time. John Cusack plays a driver for a famous actress. Amanda Peet is an escort. Ray Liotta is a cop doing a prisoner (Jake Busey) transfer. John McGinley is the husband of a woman who gets hit by Cusack’s car. They all find themselves at a rundown motel run by John Hawkes when a storm shuts down all the roads. There is a side-story about a prisoner who’s about to be executed, but his doctor says he’s too insane to be killed. You sit there wondering what that has to do with the people at the motel and well I won’t ruin it. It appears on paper to almost be a horror flick like Vacancy or Psycho, but it’s more of a psychological thriller. Despite the cast it doesn’t seem to get mentioned often as one of Mangold’s best and rewatching it decades later, I like it. If you haven’t seen it or haven’t seen it in a long time, check it out.
Reacher: Season 3 hits physical media this week. I don’t know if it’s because the lead actor can’t keep his personal opinions to himself, but the show has lost a lot of luster to me. The first season was incredible and the second season was solid, but this third season just feels like more of the same. There is plenty of violence and action and he does fit the role well, I just wish I didn’t hear so much about him personally. Despite taking place in Maine and featuring Anthony Michael Hall, I can’t say I loved Season 3. It’s fine and perfectly watchable, but man was I hyped for the series after Season 1. Reacher gets involved with the DEA in Maine after he saves a boy from being kidnapped. The DEA is looking for a missing agent and gets Reacher to go undercover because the father of the boy has ties to what’s happening. There is also someone in Reacher’s past that he wants revenge on as well. I don’t know if the third season was a big letdown for everyone, but it was for me. I was looking forward to it, but when I actually watched it, I had a hard time separating the character from the actor. But if you’re a fan you’ll dig it.
Last we have Marshals: Season One, a spin-off from Yellowstone. Luke Grimes returns as Kayce Dutton this time using his military experience as a marshal in Montana. Grieving the death of his wife and raising his son alone, Kayce is offered a job with the US Marshals department by a former military friend played by the underrated Logan Marshall-Green. I watched the 13 episodes over a few days and to me it feels more like a CBS cop show like Blue Bloods than a Yellowstone series. The action feels more like TV action than the more adult stuff we got in Yellowstone or even 1883/1923. It’s definitely a crime procedural more than a neo-Western. I’m not sure how much Taylor Sheridan was involved, but it doesn’t feel like he was. Grimes is still good in the role and I like the addition of Marshall-Green and guest spots from Chad Michael Collins and Michael Cudlitz, but it’s more a show where you can miss an episode or two and still go along with it which isn’t the norm for a Sheridan product.
The Nerds Templar 