Narcos Mexico Review: "You f**ked up, man."

Netflix has fallen on some hard times critically. It's mediocre productions (Hill House, Adam Sandler's movies, latter Kimmy Schmidt seasons) has begun to outweigh it's successes. But then there's Narcos. Yes, it pretty much tells the same story every season. Yes, season 2 was 40% Escobar moping around his prison. Yes, it's female characters are either window dressing or haranguing wives. But... but if you can get past those details, no judgment if you can't, you'll see one of the most gorgeous and addicting Spanish language shows in the world.

If you watch only one season, I say make it Mexico. It's brutal honesty about Mexico's jaw dropping depths of corruption alone make it the best story the series has told. There's a civil war raging south of the border these days. The line between the military and the police no longer exists. You can draw a nearly straight line from the 120,000 deaths in the last 20 years to one man: Miguel Gallardo. Played admirably, though a bit too softly, by Rogue One's Diego Luna. I say softly because I don't buy the toughest drug lords in the world trusting his sheepishly boyish gaze with all their product. The real Gallardo has a more manic Charles Manson thing going on.

 It's a good performance but it's firmly in the shade of Wagner Mora's coolly unsettling Escobar. I'm actually a bigger fan of his lieutenants Ernesto and Rafa. The both of them getting high at a safe house and giddily hopping up and down to test their state of the art CD stereo ("It doesn't skip! It doesn't skip!") is my favorite scene in the entire series to date.

Peña needs an emmy for this.

But what about the cops? As much as I love Pedro Pascal they've never been the stand out part of any season. But thanks to Michal Peña that has changed. He's a lovable prick with a nasty habit of getting in over his head. As bad as the Colombian drug war got under the Cali and Escobar they only ever managed to buy off a Judge or two. Gallardo eventually runs the table on Mexico's entire government. Even the American diplomats start giving the DEA a Chinatown shrug.

This is the secret sauce that makes it my favorite season. As an American I've become a bit sensitive to corruption in high levels of government. So I'm eager to see how the system... works so to speak. If I have one major complaint it's that Narcos: Mexico is very much a two-parter. Most of the major story lines reach a decent conclusion but it also has the most agonizing tease for next year. I want it right the hell now.

If you can avoid googling the names involved I promise you won't see where this story goes. That's a tall order being that Peña's Ki Ki Camerana was on the cover of Time and all that. But I was floored at several moments in the last quarter. Narcos knows the last season got wrapped up in a pretty bow for the most part and it's got some absolutely nasty surprises for you. The fact they were able to do this with what is 80% verified history (certain folks involved are still in the higher echelons of Mexican politics and are redacted) is nothing short of Olympic level story telling. I won't be canceling my subscription anytime soon.

Castlevania Review: Go for Baroque.

Lemmie set the mood...

I am not an anime guy. I've liked a few well enough but that was mostly in my insomnia laden teens where I was watching toonami at 3 in the morning. Bebop was great, Champloo too, but that's tourist stuff. For a genre that can barely afford to make mouths move or eyebrows twitch I find the vast majority of them unwatchable. I'm aware that this particular project is Japanese in style only, being written by Warren Ellis and all. Part of me feels guilty about that, but then no other anime has made me laugh out loud as much as this.

Castlevania's got jokes. Whedon style quippy jokes which I understand aren't for everyone; but you will never see them coming and that's what makes it work. This show is Gothic with a capital G but it still lets nearly every one of its characters be human. Even if they're slightly undead. This is key because if you're reaching for your phone every time this cast starts walking and talking you won't make it to the end. Lotsa' prowling around in the betrayal garden in season 2. Know that.

3 quid for a pint?! Bollocks.

But lets talk about the cast and how much frikkin' fun they're having. Richard Armitage has a high spot on my "hey, its that guy" list but I couldn't place his voice until I looked it up. I remember him from the end of Hannibal doing Ralph Fiennes proud as Dolerhyde. He lights up here as a vagrant demon hunting drunk. The dude can just say things funny. The biggest laugh from me for the whole run is just the way he reads the line "I like stories." Do you want to see an English Indiana Jones? Because that's what he accomplishes here.

Then we have Graham Mctavish as Dracula by way of King Lear. A immortal broken hearted mad man who is too self absorbed to kill himself before wiping out all life on earth. He's fantastic. His mopey monologues that boil over into barking madness are almost better than the script deserves. Its such a good performance I'd bet the man has wanted to play the big bat for a really long time.

Hope those of you out there aren't too catholic. Blasphemous doesn't even begin to describe the gore.

Oh. The action scenes are pretty good too. I'm sorry, they are crazy good. They aren't written so much as choreographed. No mindless clanging of swords here. Every movement from each character is trying to go for the kill. Big budgeted this show is not but all the action still has the tension of a boxing match. You're never quite sure who's winning until its over.

Fans of the games (hi there!) will get a kick out of the references to the series reoccurring levels. The laboratory, the library, clock tower, etc. One of Drac's maguffins is the weird polygonal save point from symphony of the night. The second to last episode even has a wall chicken if you look hard enough. Not that anyone would be lost if you're not in on the gag. Their Easter egg game is strong.

I'm glad I waited until the second season to hop in because it reaches a solid conclusion the first 4 episodes (season 1 is barely 2 hours long) couldn't even set up. It won't end there but it could have and that's the nicest thing I can say about the writing. The structure of the story is alloy steel. There are twists, turns, betrayals, and sucker punches all decently foreshadowed. It won't win any prime time Emmys but that's not what its going for. This is a bloody good time and I hope ya'll give it a shot.

Hello, Marc Simonetti.

Soul Music

Art posts are usually Chance's thing but more Discworld fans need to know about him if I'm not somehow the last fan on the train. In the last 2 years I have discovered and devoured Terry Pratchett's Discworld. I've come across the original covers of his books and they're... well... interesting. Its really busy and gives off a manic vibe that doesn't fit the author's voice at all. Pratchett is a lot of things but he's no more manic than a stiff cuppa'. I'd say I'm a big enough fan to want to hang a cover or two of his books on a wall but nothing seemed worth it.

Then I stumbled across Marc and his portfolio gushing with what is now the definitive visualization of Pratchett's work in my head. Compare small god's cover above with Marc's:

He says he's freelance and that's a tragedy. There's a city watch series in development and he's not making them concept art. A tragedy I say. I mean, they're calling it a "punk rock thriller." Its a show about high fantasy medieval cops so I don't know what the hell that means. I'd feel much better about it if they gave Mr. Simonetti here a call.

A free conundrum.

Destiny 2 is free on pc today. A game I've played to death that has finally, after a year, finally gotten rid of it's second job equivalent of a level grind. It's never been better and I've never seen it run in 60 fps. Or seen it load a menu in under 7 seconds. Those 7 seconds add up when you've been playing a game every 2 months for a year.

If only everything was for free... I paid $40 for it's last expansion in September, why would I do that again? Because the other dlc is bundled with it for a limited time? Oh, Bungie. This is evil and you know it. Evil.

Update: So seeing it in 1080 instead of 720 for the first time was like putting on a perfect pair of glasses. I knew I liked it before, but now? Now with twice the frame rate so aiming is twice as easy? Now I'm punching 20 levels above my weight screaming through the campaign in about 4 1/2 hours.

There's no going back.