Bass & the Machine: Marshal vs. Robots

Bass Reeves, who served as the prototype for the Lone Ranger, has been appearing on screen more and more often in recent years. Netflix’s new animated series Bass & the Machine, from its creator LeSean Thomas, presents him as a bounty hunter in an America of the steam-technology age. It is a story told in the style of anime, a world in which battle robots are commonplace and Native Americans possess supernatural powers.

The hero, stern and a man of few words, tracks down outlaws with the help of a cybernetic prosthetic that can turn into a double-barreled shotgun. He is given the task of rescuing a scientist who has gone missing, Dr. Eugene Starr, in the territory of the Five Civilized Tribes. As a reward for this he is promised $1,000 and an appointment as the first Black U.S. marshal, with equal pay for his work. For Reeves, it is also a chance to find General Rivenbark, the man who maimed him.

Over the course of his search for the scientist, Reeves is joined, against his will, by the scientist’s niece, Dana, a fourteen-year-old inventor. A pacifist by conviction, she prefers to take outlaws alive, relying for this on nonlethal devices and on reprogramming the service robots she encounters.

Responsibility for the animation lay with the South Korean company Studio Mir. The fight scenes are dynamic, and the world, which combines wooden architecture with rusting machinery, has been worked out down to the finest detail. The alternate history, however, does not feel fully thought through: robots exist, yet colonialism and racial segregation unfold in just the same way as they did in reality.

The great strength of the show lies in its exploration of the themes of racial injustice and oppression. At the heart of the narrative are Reeves’s complicated but respectful relationships with representatives of the Native peoples. A Black writer and a Native American writer worked together on the show’s dialogue, which lends it depth and a contemporary sound. Here the fantastic element serves as a means of talking about morality and retribution through the eyes of people living in an unjust country.

Summer in Baden-Baden: Dostoevsky’s Reader

Documentary filmmaker Anton Zhelnov has made his first feature film, Summer in Baden-Baden. The screenplay, based on Leonid Tsypkin’s novel of the same name, was written by Yuri Saprykin.

In the book, the hero rides a train from Moscow to Leningrad, reading the diaries of Anna Grigoryevna Dostoevskaya. Her recollections of the Dostoevskys’ trip to Baden-Baden, where the writer gambled away his last money at the casino, bring on visions of Dostoevsky and Turgenev.

The novel’s author, the virologist Tsypkin, lost his job after his son emigrated, and when the book came out in New York, he was dismissed again and died five days later.

In the film, the nameless hero acquires a name: he is Tsypkin himself, played by Filipp Yankovsky, who also plays Dostoevsky. Reality and imagination intermingle: on a stage, in place of a presidium, Tsypkin sees the railway station in Baden-Baden.

The black-and-white scenes from the writer’s life were filmed against stylized sets. According to Kommersant, the filmmakers turned their modest budget into an artistic device.

A Hen’s-Eye View

Hen, a film by the Hungarian director György Pálfi, opens with the birth of its heroine. For the next hour and a half, the camera follows her: the bird escapes the butcher’s knife, crosses a road, runs from predators and finally ends up in a pen belonging to the owner of a tavern. When she starts laying eggs, a longing to brood awakens in her.

A ruthless gang operates next door, and the viewer watches it through the heroine’s eyes. There are no computer graphics in the film: the role was played by eight trained hens that are indistinguishable from one another.

The film runs 1 hour 36 minutes, with dialogue in Greek, English and Italian.

Stranger Things Gets a Prequel

The streaming company Netflix has announced that it is working on a prequel to the series Stranger Things. The new project, titled Other Worlds, is due to be released in 2028. The action will unfold in the town of Marion in the state of Nevada, in April 1955.

Work on the project will be led by the creators of the original, the brothers Matt and Ross Duffer. The showrunner, that is, the producer in charge, will be Kate Trefry, who has worked on the scripts of Stranger Things since the second season and, drawing on the series, wrote the stage play The First Shadow. The first three episodes will be directed by the director Joe Wright, who is known for the films Atonement and Pride & Prejudice. Filming of the new series will take place in the state of New Mexico.

According to the Duffer brothers, the new series will keep the original’s spirit but introduce new heroes and villains. The team is now starting to cast actors.

“Godzilla” Eyes an Oscar

Takashi Yamazaki’s film, which was screened at the New York Film Festival, has won high praise from critics for the darkness of its tone and its special effects on a grand scale. Boris Kit, a columnist for The Hollywood Reporter, called it the most epic film of the year. Other reviewers drew attention to its carefully constructed dramatic arc as well as its exploration of the themes of collective guilt, grief and revenge.

On the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film earned an approval rating of 97%, trailing only two other installments in the series: Godzilla vs. Destoroyah, released in 1995, and Godzilla Minus One, released in 2023. Following such a warm reception, people began to talk about a possible Oscar nomination for the film. The picture went into general release on November 3.