REVIEWS: Wake Up Dead Man

Though I’ve not been as big a fan of the Knives Out franchise as some people, the latest installment, Wake Up Dead Man, blew me away and is perhaps among my favorite films this year.

Surprisingly, writer-director Rian Johnson’s detective character, Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig), isn’t even the lead character—it’s Father Jud, a priest sent to assist at a small upstate New York Catholic church. Immediately at odds with the parish priest—an intolerant brim-and-firestone preacher, Monsignor Wicks (Josh Brolin) whose ironclad control of his parish has shrunk the parish to a core group of regulars under his thrall—Father Jud is soon the prime suspect of the murder of Wicks and several other people at the church.

It’s a fun romp with an all-star cast, including Glenn Close, Mila Kunis, Jeremy Renner, Kerry Washington, Andrew Scott, and Thomas Hayden Church. 

But it’s O’Connor who shines as Jud, partly because below the surface is some real depth to the story and character. While Blanc is firmly not a believer and very much seems to reflect Johnson’s point of view, the movie nevertheless examines the power and grace of religious faith. Indeed, faith, belief and the mystery of the church are integral to the story, not just set dressing for the film. Indeed, it is the belief in the sacraments of the church that allows the film’s locked room mystery to be solved, helping to restore Father Jud’s commitment to his mission of serving the ministry, making for a profound and satisfying conclusion.

REVIEWS: The New Yorker at 100

I recent watched The New Yorker at 100 documentary on Netflix, which turned out to nicely complement the 100 Years of New Yorker Cartoons exhibition we saw at the Society of Illustrators during our visit to NYC in April.

The documentary offered a great glimpse into the magazine’s inner workings and history, including segments devoted to some of the magazine’s established cartoonists (and the cartoon selection process), as well as its iconic covers and distinctive spot illustrations. It was particularly nice to see fFrançoise Mouly, art editor of The New Yorker, in action, who of course is also the co-founder and co-publisher of Raw and Toon Books, as well as the spouse of cartoonist Art Spiegelman—a few weeks before, I had coincidentally re-watched the American Masters episode on Spiegelman, Disaster is My Muse, when I came across it on YouTube—Mouly is prominently featured there as well.

It also included an overview of some of the groundbreaking and celebrated articles and stories in the magazine, such as Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, which first appeared as a piece in The New Yorker, and Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood, first serialized in the magazine. One doesn’t always associate hard journalism with The New Yorker, but it definitely has become known for such work. As an example, Ronan Farrow brought his coverage exposing Harvey Weinstein to the magazine after others thought it was too hot to handle. There were other examples from its history of how the magazine stood by its reporters, a courage that seems to be lacking in many of today’s news outlets.

I’ve always been a fan of magazine and print journalism and, over the years, have intermittently maintained subscriptions to magazines like The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Wired, Esquire, Time, and The Economist. In fact, it was a career path I briefly considered, and worked as a copy editor at my college paper and interned at an ambitious startup magazine called Buzz in the early 1990s. 

During my brief time there, I worked as a fact-checker—my name is in the masthead on a few of the early issues. The New Yorker is considered the gold standard in fact checking and we were given a fact-checking style guide from The New Yorker to train us. So I was delighted to see the documentary cover its fact-checking operation and, must admit, my jaw dropped when I learned that the magazine had 29 fact checkers on staff!

Al Hirschfeld Exhibit

Election 2025

Coming in Rob Hanes Adventures #27

Coming in the next issue of Rob Hanes Adventures… 

Continuing the tradition of stories ripped from the headlines and inspired by real-world events, Rob Hanes Adventures #27 takes the series to Ukraine! 

When a U.S. official gets trapped in middle of the war zone, Rob joins forces with a private military contractor to extract him. Along the way, Rob encounters combat drones, snow, Soviet-era tanks, and an Eastern European warlord from Rob's past in command of a ragtag military unit made up of Russian conscripts and North Korean mercenaries—as well as the usual romantic entanglements! 

Read all about it in "The Killing Fields," coming next year...

First Comics News Coverage

I've just been featured at First Comics News and its Indy Spotlight column here!

The latest issue of Rob Hanes Adventures (#26) is now available to order, along with all back issues, both in print and digitally, at IndyPlanet!

Hot Takes: Boots and Teenage Bounty Hunters

Boots (Netflix)
Set in the 1990s before the ban on gays serving in the military openly was overturned, Boots is a coming of age 10-part dramedy series that follows a closeted teen’s experiences as he goes through boot camp after he joins the U.S. Marines. While the show is primarily told through the eyes of the teen fresh out of high school, it actually is an ensemble piece as we follow the journey of several of the aspiring marines, as well as some of the senior non-coms and officers, and the teen’s single mom (played by Vera Farmiga).

Complaints from across the political spectrum—with some accusing the series of being “woke,” while others see it as a glorified recruitment poster for the military—suggest that the show has managed to thread the needle of shining a light on the harshness and intolerance of military culture, while also acknowledging that it instills toughness, confidence and discipline into its recruits (as well as unapologetically turning them into efficient killing machines).

I found the show entertaining and engaging, and full of heart—even many of the drill sergeants, while certainly hard asses, are given moments to show their human side. While the entire cast is terrific, particularly Miles Heizer as the main protagonist, Cameron Cope, actor Max Parker, as a closeted drill sergeant and decorated marine, to be a standout in a heartbreaking and conflicted role.

Teenage Bounty Hunters (Netflix)
This 10-part dramedy series was quite a gratifying find—produced back in 2020, I had never heard of it and stumbled across it by accident. Thanks to a great fusion of writing and actors, I found the show charming and hilarious, and full of heart.

The series follows two non-identical twin sisters named Sterling and Blair Wesley (adorably played by actresses Maddie Phillips and Anjelica Bette Fellini), who by happenstance become bounty hunters under the mentorship of a gruff but kind-hearted bail enforcement agent named Bowser (Kadeem Hardison). Set in Atlanta, the girls are typical teens who nonetheless also come from a conservative right wing family (hence their comfort with handling guns), though they have good hearts and are ingrained with tolerance. While clearly genuine about their Christian beliefs, perhaps reflecting their generation, they nevertheless are less strident in how they interpret the Bible on issues like sex, race, and the environment.

That said, this is not an action series—indeed, it’s more of a coming of age story that focuses on the girls’ high school lives, friendships and first loves (and sexual awakenings), as much as their bounty hunter side hustle, if not moreso. And this includes their relationship with Bowser with whom they form their own familial bond. Tying this all together is the girls’ growing suspicion that their parents are harboring a dark secret about their past that eventually intersects with the girls’ bounty hunting.

While the first season did not end in a completely unresolved cliffhanger, it nevertheless ended with some revelations and loose threads that clearly would have driven the next season. Unfortunately, the show was not renewed for a second season, which I suspect might have partly been due to COVID. Given the great ensemble—and particularly the incredible chemistry between the incredibly charming and comedically gifted two leads—it’s criminal the show was not renewed.