The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Arts
Tuesday, November 24, 2015 — 5

TV REVIEW
‘High Castle’ proves 
Amazon’s acumen

New dystopic series 
adds substance to 
Amazon’s lineup

By DREW MARON

Daily Arts Writer

There’s a scene in the pilot of 

Amazon’s newest original drama, 
“The Man in the High Castle,” 
that will stick 
in your mind 
regardless 
of 
whether 

you 
choose 

to 
continue 

watching. 
It involves a 
routine traf-
fic stop where 
resistance 
truck 
driver 

Joe 
Blake 

(Luke Kleintank, “Gossip Girl”) is 
stopped by a highway patrolman. 
The encounter feels normal and 
neighborly despite the patrolman’s 
swatstika. Then, out of nowhere, 
ash starts snowing down on the 
characters. The highway patrol 
man explains, in a casual tone, that 
the ash comes from the hospital 
where various “undesirables” are 
being incinerated. The characters 
then go along with their day. 

“The Man in the High Castle,” 

based on the acclaimed novel by 
the late Philip K. Dick, represents 
Amazon’s latest foray into original 
content, and it does not disappoint. 
The series comes to us from execu-
tive producer Ridley Scott (“The 
Martian”), whose classic film 
“Blade Runner” revolutionized 
science-fiction for the screen and 
brought Dick’s work to the atten-
tion of Hollywood. Since then, the 
once-ignored author has received a 
plethora of big-screen adaptations 
including “Total Recall,” “Minor-
ity Report” and the criminally 
underrated “A Scanner Darkly.”

“The Man in the High Castle,” 

however, represents a huge leap 
forward in adapting Dick’s work. 
Free from the restrictions of main-
stream feature films, “The Man 
in the High Castle” is an epic, 
sprawling dystopia that is one part 
political thriller and one part hor-
rifying parable of what happens 
to a nation engulfed by fascism. 
Though the series does feature 
many characters connected to 

the struggle of the resistance — a 
major but welcome change to the 
source material — the most unset-
tling aspect of the series aren’t big 
set pieces (though there are plenty) 
but the quiet moments of resigna-
tion, where we witness Americans 
who have moved on with their 
lives following the most heinous 
war crimes in human history.

Like all great speculative fiction, 

“The Man in the High Castle” is as 
much about today’s world as it is 
about post-World War II America. 
In both “The Man in the High Cas-
tle” and, unfortunately, our own 
world as well, challenging author-
ity and people’s personal percep-
tions is a near-impossible task. The 
only hope for a better future exists 
as a series of film reels called “The 
Grasshopper Lies Heavy,” which 
shows an alternate reality, one 
where the Allies have won the war. 
Ironically, it seems the only hope 
for us to have any meaningful, 
intelligent discourse is through 
platforms like “The Man in the 
High Castle.”

As in the novel, we follow a 

number of different perspectives, 
including Juliana (Alexa Davalos, 
“Clash of the Titans”), a young 
woman seeking the film reels’ cre-
ator, the mysterious Man in the 
High Castle. On the way, she runs 
into fellow resistance fighter Joe 
Blake (Luke Kleintank, “Max”) 
who may have some secrets of his 
own.

The series also sees Cary-

Hiroyuki Tagawa (“Mortal Kom-
bat”) as Nobusuke Tagomi, the 
Trade Minister of the fictional 
Pacific States of America, whose 
allegiances lie against the tyr-
anny of the Reich. Tagomi, along 
with Juliana, are truly the main 

heroes of the show, and Tagomi’s 
storyline on the show will hope-
fully mirror the tremendous arc 
he goes through in the novel.

Finally, Rupert Evans (“Hell-

boy”) plays Frank Frink, a half-
Jewish 
factory 
worker 
and 

boyfriend of Juliana whose luck 
finally runs out after his signifi-
cant other becomes the target of 
the SS. Rufus Sewell (“Dark City”) 
rounds out the cast as Obergrup-
penfuhrer John Smith, whose 
solid, albeit par for the course per-
formance might be unfairly com-
pared to the Jew Hunter played by 
Christoph Waltz in “Inglourious 
Basterds.”

It’s the world of the “Man in 

the High Castle” itself, however, 
which truly stars as the series’ 
main character. Despite the show’s 
bleak tone, the cast and crew cre-
ate a highly engrossing alternate 
universe that is always believable. 
In particular, the much freer Japa-
nese territories showcase a fusion 
of Eastern and Western cultures 
that reminds American viewers 
how ignorant the view of the Allies 
as all-good and the Japanese as 
equal to the Nazis truly is.

The series has already ignited 

a great deal of discussion, and for 
good reason. Despite its genre 
and its more fantastical elements, 
“The Man in the High Castle” 
might be the most political show 
currently produced. Though some 
of the characters, notably Tagomi, 
aren’t given their deserved spot-
light in the pilot, the first episode 
of the “Man in the High Castle” 
proves that Amazon can stand 
on its own as a creator of qual-
ity content and that the time for 
challenging, 
thought-provoking 

entertainment is far from over.

AMAZON

“What the hell is an Obergruppenfuhrer?”

ALBUM REVIEW
Freddie Gibbs sells 
out in new album

By SHAYAN SHAFII

Daily Arts Writer

Freddie Gibbs is nothing if not 

consistent. The man is admittedly 
one-dimensional and deadpan in 
his delivery, 
but my god, 
is there any-
one else who 
has gone this 
long without 
a single weak 
project? Just 
when 
his 

mixtapes 
became 
noticeably formulaic and safe (box 
Chevys and backwoods appear 
in everything he touches), he sur-
prised us all with the surprisingly 
versatile Piñata, the best rap album 
of 2014, which is not up for debate. 
Gibbs set the bar realistically high 
with mixtapes that brought a high-
er level of artistry to street rap; he 
was the only dude who could give 
you chills through a song titled 
“Let Ya Nuts Hang.”

Up until now, Gibbs has had a 

flawless track record. He under-
promised and overdelivered with 
all of his album-quality mixtapes, 
and matched the higher expec-
tations when it counted most: 
album time. Albums understand-
ably come with higher standards, 
and Shadow of a Doubt falls pain-
fully short of what was supposed 
to be his breakout project.

Straight from the jump, Shadow 

feels uncharacteristically generic. 
It’s as if he fleshed out all the ele-
ments that made his music unique 
and special, leaving only tidbits 
of an album he couldn’t seem to 
make. There are still flash-in-the-
pan moments when he seems to 
get it right, but they’re few and 
far between. There’s no jarring 
street-journalism, 
no 
smooth 

MadLib-curated soul sample, no 
left turns — nothing. He does just 
enough for the album to be toler-
able.

For example, he has a song 

titled “Narcos,” where the most 
gruesome line is “Chillin’ in my 
grandma basement / Probably 

dreamin’ ‘bout some cocaine.” On 
“Mexico” he recruits Tory Lanez 
(aka the “Great Value” Ty Dolla 
$ign) to yell “My whip color look 
like Rihanna / And all my bitches 
like designer.” Gibbs doesn’t get 
on much better, with three verses 
about nothing, not even selling 
drugs. “Mexico” confirms that 
Gibbs has become too concerned 
with being a “rapper” and less 
concerned with being Freddie 
Gibbs.

If that isn’t bad enough, what 

follows is the worst song of this 
dude’s career. “Packages” is so 
embarrassing I thought it was 
meant to be ironic at first. Gibbs, a 
man from Gary, Ind. (home of the 
Jackson 5), has absolutely nothing 
to do with the triplet flow that’s 
been booming in Atlanta the past 
few years. So when I heard him 
ad-libbing “I keep a pistol on me” 
with what sounded like his best 
Quavo impression, I was con-
vinced this was a joke. But then 
the signature 808 Mafia sirens 
went off, and that was that. Gibbs 
sold the fuck out.

That’s not to say Shadow Of A 

Doubt is all bad. Gibbs reached 
out to fellow Jeezy-hater and leg-
end Gucci Mane for “10 Times,” 
another great Midwest trunk-
knocker he’s so well known for 
pioneering. 
The 
song 
segues 

straight into “Lately,” which 

surprisingly features R&B style 
crooning weaved into thumping 
percussion. There’s even some of 
the smooth melodies he experi-
mented with on Piñata.

“Forever and a Day” is the 

obvious standout track, where he 
scrolls back to the autobiographi-
cal bars that immersed and won 
over his fans to begin with. For 
the first time on the album we get 
some real feelings. “I done did a lot 
of bad thangs’ just to get change / 
I done took it some levels that a lot 
of n****s won’t go” is hesitantly 
spit with just the right amount of 
regret. “Slung crack rock / Never 
had a wicked jump shot” summa-
rizes his opportunities in Gary: 
basketball or eight ball.

But what ultimately makes 

Shadow a disappointment is that 
this is the first time Freddie Gibbs 
has come up against a hurdle that 
wasn’t comfortably below him, 
and he failed. He sold out to find 
workarounds, 
forced 
artificial 

personas that hadn’t existed in 
his six-year run and marginalized 
himself to be as safe and boring as 
possible. Gibbs was never known 
for trying to be “cool” or “smart,” 
but he had a polished identity, 
and that’s all we can ask for. The 
instant he compromised himself 
and put on an olive green bomber 
jacket, Shadow of a Doubt was 
always going to be a shit album.

By REBECCA LERNER

Daily Arts Writer

In “Brooklyn,” the film adap-

tation of Colm Tóibín’s novel, 
we see the careful rendering of 
a story that 
has 
been 

told 
one 

thousand 
times: 
the 

immigrant 
narrative. 
But “Brook-
lyn” distin-
guishes itself 
through its creators’ ability to 
draw the loveliness out of a situ-
ation fraught with hardships.

“Brooklyn” begins at a fork 

in the road for Irish country 
girl Eilis Lacey (Saoirse Ronan, 
“The Grand Budapest Hotel”). 
She can stay with no definite 
prospects 
in 
Enniscorthy, 

Ireland with her cherished 
mother (Jane Brennan, “The 
Tudors”), sister (Fiona Glascott, 
“Indian 
Summers”) 
and 

friends, or she can immigrate 
to the unknown in America. As 
illustrated by the title of the film, 
she chooses the latter and sets 
out for Brooklyn. Eilis receives 
accommodations at a boarding 
house run by the amusingly 
tart Ms. Kehoe (Julie Walters, 
“Paddington”) and finds a job 
at a department store. Some of 
the most humorous moments 
of the film come from her 
interactions with the women 
who have lived in America for 
a while, as Eilis’s awkwardness 
and 
social 
anxiety 
in 
the 

city is juxtaposed with their 

urban American experience. 
These relationships between 
similarly aged young women 
could 
have 
easily 
devolved 

into 
rancorous 
competition 

for cheap amusement, but they 
always make an effort to help 
and guide Eilis.

But even with friends in 

her boardinghouse and guid-
ance from an Irish priest (Jim 
Broadbent, “Big Game”), Eilis 
is overcome with homesickness. 
Ronan a dual citizen of Ireland 
and America, sensitively por-
trays the frustration of being 
torn between two places.

As she adjusts to her new life, 

Eilis starts to take and excel at 
her accounting classes at Brook-
lyn College, unapologetically 
pursuing her dream of being an 
accountant despite being the 
only woman in the class.

Her 
homesickness 
evapo-

rates quickly when she meets 
Tony Fiorello (Emory Cohen, 
“Smash”). Tony is a sweet, pup-
pyish Italian boy with whom 
she locks eyes from across the 
room at an Irish dance. Their 
courtship is a nostalgic whirl-
wind that will make even the 
most cold-hearted of critics 
sigh and long for 1950s-style 
bathing suits. But the sentimen-
tality of their love never borders 
on sickly sweet or annoying 
because their romance is always 
firmly rooted in the reality of 
their lives.

Just as everything starts to 

seem a little too perfect, tragedy 
strikes back home, pulling Eilis 
out of Brooklyn and sending her 
back home to her mother. At 

home, she finds comfort in the 
familiar. She also finds another 
suitor, Jim Farrell, (Domhnall 
Gleeson, “Ex Machina”), and 
the whole town seems to be 
pushing them together. As she 
decides between Brooklyn and 
Ireland, and between Tony and 
Jim, Eilis seeks to answer the 
question of the movie: how to, 
as a person of multiple identi-
ties, define the word “home.”

The emotional effects of the 

film would be lost without the 
command of the camera by 
director John Crowley (“Closed 
Circuit”). Crowley creates a 
subtle but undeniable binary 
between America and Ireland 
in his use of cinematography, 
shown most clearly in the scenes 
on the beach in both countries. 
In New York, Tony takes Eilis 
to Coney Island, and they must 
dash between the hoards of peo-
ple to get to the water to swim, 
kiss and laugh. But in the sweep-
ing shots of the Irish beach she 
goes to when she returns, there 
is no one around for miles. With 
Eilis in the same bathing suit 
in both scenes, we can see her 
being entirely comfortable in 
either setting. Crowley presents 
this opposition, and we watch as 
she chooses her future.

“Brooklyn” is not just an 

immigrant narrative. It is the 
touching story of a young woman 
caught in a state of uncertainty 
 
— uncertainty in her family, 
career and relationships. The 
film may be set in the 1950s, but 
its messages of the confusion of 
youth and divided identity will 
endure for years.

FILM REVIEW
‘Badlands’ need work

By MATT BARNAUSKAS

Daily Arts Writer

AMC runs on “The Walking 

Dead,” and for good reason. The 
zombie apocalypse series is still 
television’s 
biggest 
hit, 

even though 
its 
ratings 

are 
lower 

than in prior 
seasons. 
This strong 
viewership 
becomes 
even 
more 

important as 
AMC relies 
on 
“The 

Walking Dead” to endure through 
an extended transitional period 
following the loss of “Breaking 
Bad” and the recently concluded 
“Mad Men.” Already, the network 
has released a spinoff, “Fear the 
Walking Dead,” and now plans to 
use “The Walking Dead” ’s sub-
stantial audience to build a lead-
in for its new martial arts series, 
“Into the Badlands.”

Set in a post-apocalyptic world 

where guns have been banned and 
seven barons fight for power, “Into 
the Badlands” presents a world 
where 
hand-to-hand 
combat 

reigns supreme with visual flair. 
This strong display masks some 
lackluster storytelling, but it can’t 
hide every shortcoming.

“Into the Badlands” follows 

Sunny (Daniel Wu, “The Man with 
the Iron Fists”), the best warrior 
(or “Clipper”) under Baron Quinn 
(Marton Csokas, “The Lord of the 
Rings”). Right away, the series 
establishes its protagonist as a 
force to be reckoned with. Draw-
ing from Chinese kung-fu influ-
ences, action director Stephen 
Fung (“Tai Chi Hero”) and mar-
tial arts coordinator Huan-Chiu 
Ku (“Fist of Legend”) develop an 
over-the-top style, where combat-

ants move with almost inhuman 
speed and agility as they fight to 
the death. One standout scene is 
a rain-drenched battle between 
Sunny and four bowler-hat-wear-
ing assassins sent by Quinn’s rival 
baron, the Widow (Emily Bee-
cham, “28 Weeks Later”). The 
fight is shot with cinematic flair; 
long takes and slow motion create 
an engrossing sequence that never 
overuses any one effect.

As Sunny, Wu and his stunt dou-

ble Tengfei Tang (“The Forbidden 
Kingdom”) bear the most weight in 
selling these sequences, they’re up 
to the task — not just pulling off the 
choreography, but bringing a cool 
confidence to the warrior. Sunny 
is a conflicted fighter who swears 
loyalty to Quinn, a man who saved 
him years ago, but wishes to define 
his own path in life. This desire 
manifests itself in Sunny’s forbid-
den relationship with a doctor, 
Veil (Madeleine Mantock, “Edge 
of Tomorrow”). Always stoic, Wu 
hides Sunny’s torment under a col-
lected demeanor. It’s a straightfor-
ward character and could benefit 
from more nuance as Sunny tries 
to define his existence.

Sunny’s difficult situation is 

heightened after he rescues the 
mysterious young man, M.K. (Ara-
mis Knight, “Ender’s Game”), in 
the episode’s opening. Claiming 
to come from somewhere beyond 
the Badlands, M.K. is supposed 
to bring a new hope to Sunny, but 
the character is incredibly grat-
ing. Whether it’s poor writing 
or bad delivery on Knight’s part, 
M.K. usually comes off as a smart-
ass brat. After hearing Sunny’s 
name, he snidely remarks, “Why? 
Because you brighten everybody’s 
day?” If that reads poorly on paper, 
it sounds even worse when spoken. 
Hopefully, M.K. improves, as the 
show has invested a lot in explor-
ing the character’s enigmatic 
origins and abilities. However, if 
Knight can’t endear M.K. to the 

audience, his journey of discovery 
will instead become an unwel-
come labor for viewers who would 
rather spend time with someone 
else — potentially on another net-
work.

The other storylines also 

struggle to distinguish them-
selves. Quinn deals with a dis-
contented son, Ryder (Oliver 
Stark, “My Hero”), who the 
warlord believes isn’t ready 
to take his place. Meanwhile, 
Quinn’s new wife, Jade (Sarah 
Bolger, “Once Upon a Time”) 
competes with Quinn’s first wife 
and current matriarch, Lydia 
(Orla Bradley, “American Odys-
sey”). While not necessarily ter-
rible, these threads lack any real 
intrigue in their current forms. 
“Into the Badlands” needs to 
improve its storytelling or risk 
becoming an unwelcome delay 
between excellent fight scenes.

However, there are other 

elements that stand out for the 
new series. A strong production 
design creates an interesting 
atmosphere and sparks inter-
est in the show’s larger world. 
Quinn’s plantation-like fortress 
calls into question how other 
pockets of civilization and cul-
ture have developed and how the 
other barons manage their hold-
fasts. However, there are some 
elements that don’t mix well: 
the Eastern-influenced, warrior 
class Clippers occasionally clash 
with the Southern antebellum 
and old West aesthetic that most 
of the other characters have.

As a companion to “The 

Walking Dead,” “Into the Bad-
lands” works well as a visually 
engrossing action series. It’s 
lighter fare than its emotion-
ally exhausting lead-in, but 
“Into the Badlands” needs to 
strengthen its narrative to live 
up to its own visual standards 
and to keep its promising audi-
ence.

Nuanced ‘Brooklyn’

A-

The Man 
in the High 
Castle

Series Premiere 

Amazon

A

Brooklyn

Wildgaze Films 

State Theater

ESGN

Probably singing about some cocaine.

C-

Shadow of 
a Doubt

Freddie Gibbs 

ESGN

TV REVIEW

B-

Into the 
Badlands

Series Premiere 

Sundays at 
10 p.m.

AMC

