Sequel on Sequels: Review of 22 JUMP STREET

One of the things I love best about Phil Lord and Chris Miller is how much they remind me of Brad Bird. Before directing 2011's Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, Bird had directed three films - all of which were animated. But instead of forsaking what he learned from his long tenure in animation, Bird utilized his remarkable skill of balancing and intermingling compelling story lines with brilliant action sequences in such films as The Iron Giant and The Incredibles and created one of the most exciting action movies of that year. What allowed him to do this was that he didn't treat his first live-action feature any differently than he did his animated features. With 22 Jump Street, Lord and Miller have now directed four films - two animated and two live-action. And like Bird, the key to their success lies in the fact that they treat all of these movies the same way. From Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs to 21 Jump Street to The Lego Movie, Lord and Miller are two brilliant jokesmiths who are both deeply knowledgeable of the pop culture zeitgeist and experts in layering gags of countless varieties. Be they meta jokes, visual jokes, referential jokes, throwaway jokes or jokes that are incredibly elaborate and carefully orchestrated, Lord and Miller are becoming two of the best in the business at taking what could easily be franchise dreck and turning it into something wonderfully entertaining. 

Like many animated features, 22 Jump Street is constructed on the foundation of extreme self-reference. Lord and Miller's 21 Jump Street mocked the idea of a creatively destitute Hollywood pulling an '80s TV show from the grave in an attempt to sell it to an audience who probably couldn't care less, and then did exactly that. Now, the sequel kicks it up another notch commenting not only on repeating old formulas, but also on the benefits of working with a much more exorbitant (though not unlimited) budget. After a successful investigation going undercover as noticeably mature high schoolers to bust up a drug-ring in the first film, Schmidt (Jonah Hill) and Jenko (Channing Tatum) now attempt to ride that success (and a souped up muscle car) to the streets. However, after a terrific failure their hopes are demolished (along with that souped up muscle car) and they are sent by Nick Offerman's Deputy Chief Hardy to the Vietnamese church across the street from the Korean church that served as the base of operations in the first film. There, in a much nicer office, the threatening Captain Dickson (Ice Cube) gives the duo their new mission - going undercover to bust up yet another drug-ring. But this time it's as noticeably mature COLLEGE STUDENTS. "Just do the same shit as last time," he tells them.

While 22 Jump Street largely shields itself from criticism by commenting on its own microwaved reheating of 21 Jump Street, Lord and Miller make sure to include tons of college-specific humor on top of it. Mirroring the rift that formed between Schmidt and Jenko in the first film when Schmidt got in with the popular kids and Jenko was relegated to associating with the science nerds, when the pair move into their freshman dorm room they begin to fall into disparate groups - but this time in the way you'd expect. Investigating a new drug, "WHYPHY" (Work Hard Yes, Play Hard Yes), which bestows four fours of Adderall focus and then four fours of acid trippyness and led to one student's death, Jenko bro-friends Metro City State's starting quarterback Zook (Wyatt Russell) and is recruited into his fraternity. Schmidt, on the other hang, simply cannot hang and winds up spending his time with the art majors including Maya (Amber Stevens), who was the dead student's roommate and who now lives across the hall. Once again the partners find students who use the drug and others who deal the drug, but remain woefully in the dark about the supplier. 

So, yeah, basically the exact same thing that happened last time (and 22 Jump Street is the first to admit it). Lord, Miller and screenwriters Michael Bacall, Oren Uziel and Rodney Rothman run the gamut of self-reference. From call backs to the first film and all the way back to the TV series, to references to the typical and often ridiculous repetition and excess of sequels, no meta stone is left unturned. Even the economics of filmmaking is lampooned in a particularly hilarious car chase where Jenko and Schmidt attempt to drive a helmet-shaped golf cart through less expensive areas of the campus in an attempt to save their department money. Still, a sequel being aware of its own rehashing doesn't necessarily make that rehash good or that self-awareness fresh. 

Which is where the final portion of the film and Hill and Tatum's chemistry comes into play. After someone Jenko and Schmidt feel is wrongly accused and convicted for the drug crimes at MC State, the duo decide to pair up one last time for a Spring Break trip down to Mexico in an attempt to catch the real culprit - and it's pretty much insane. Hostages, shootouts, bare-knuckle brawling, chases on foot and in beautiful sports cars, helicopters, grenades and tons of barely-clothed college students drinking, doing drugs and god knows what else are all in full force and, more often that not, hilarious. And when the film does threaten to go a little too far down the self-referential rabbit hole, Hill and Tatum are there with the type of buddy cop chemistry that never gets old. A study in contrasts, the film has endless fun treating the partners like an old married couple who are constantly bickering but work the best when they're together. Hill has always been a particularly strong comedic actor, especially when given someone great to play off of (something he gets in spades with Tatum who has a face that is fantastically blank much of the time). I've also always found Tatum to be a much stronger lead in comedies as opposed to dramas. He has this casual wit and childlike excitement that is completely contagious.  

While 22 Jump Street's meta-commentary doesn't have anything particularly insightful to say and some of its jokes are overly juvenile and kind of just lie there, its ability to cleverly comment on sequels while being, for the most part, an immensely fun and entertaining sequel in its own right is terrific. It's a film that squeezes ever drop of humor it can get out of its leading men and the idea of a sequel for such an unnecessary franchise. And with the likes of the second and third Hangover films already out there as well as all of the putrid-looking trash whose trailers precede 22 Jump Street on the way, it's incredibly refreshing to have a movie that's in on the joke while having jokes that are actually funny. But let's just leave 23 Jump Street under construction, okay?

8 out of 10

Family Struggles: Thoughts on ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK Season 2, Episode 2: "Looks Blue, Tastes Red"

Much like with the premiere where what stood out to me was just how unpredictable our lives are from the time we are small children, "Looks Blue, Tastes Red" connects the familial structures of these characters who have spent their lives on the margins with the institution that makes them feel simultaneously central and marginal through the give and take of day-to-day prison life. Admittedly, as much as I enjoyed the premiere and its choice to focus on Piper rather than relying on the TV trope of spending the entire premiere checking in with all the characters to see what they have or haven't been up to since last season, I'd be lying if I said this wasn't the better episode. Like the premiere, "Looks Blue Tastes Red" focuses primarily one character, Taystee (Danielle Brooks). However, it does so without forcing itself to wholly serve that one character. Instead, Taystee's story deepens her personally while also providing a thematic anchor for the episode. Orange is the New Black works best when it's chaotic, juggling a wide range of stories all with their smaller themes and ideas just kind of floating around. It's good to see Season 2 already hitting the ground running. 

"Looks Blue, Tastes Red" solves one of the bigger problems with the flashbacks in the first episode. Besides being a bit on the nose, our brief trips back to Piper's youth didn't reveal anything important about the character that we didn't already know. Ideally, a flashback will give the audience insight into something formative about a particular character allowing us to not only better understand what they're going through in single episode, but also helping us to see who they are on a broader scale. With Taystee, we learn how she came to garner her nickname and get to see how someone who is clearly very intelligent and talented can wind in the system. After struggling for years in group homes, Taystee finally accepts the the sanctuary offered by a local heroin dealer Vee (Lorraine Toussaint), using her aptitude for mathematics to run the books and make supply runs. Eventually, she settles into an unconventional family that resides on the brink of stability. It's a life filled with arts and crafts, flax seed bread and salad bowls in one moment, and the funeral of her "brother," RJ, after he is gunned down by police in the next. 

This origin story of sorts resonates back at the prison where Taystee is competing with a number of other inmates in a Mock Job Fair - it's a tryout/training for the world waiting for the women outside (a world to which Taystee has already failed to acclimate when she was released last season). Taystee desperately wants to win, partly because she has convinced herself based on hearsay from a previous victor that winning will lead to an actual job, partly because she knows she has the mathematical skill and rote memorization that legitimately make her a viable candidate for a good job. It's not really a surprise that the episode begins with a fair of a different kind - in this case a "Black Adoption Festival." In both, Taystee is under intense scrutiny and overwhelming pressure to make herself appealing. And in both, she's told there is something wrong with her (she is too old to be attractive to perspective parents and too curvy to win Best Dressed at the job fair, even though she chooses the same outfit that won last year). Her sole victory comes in the mock interview where she mainly uses a respectful tone and well thought out, comprehensive answers to beat Flaca who primarily relies on sexual advances to win. When Taystee does finally win, it's a brief glimpse at how her intelligence and skills might finally be valued. Unfortunately, too quickly is this hope dashed when the promise of a real job proves to be a lie at the same moment that Vee turns back up in her life, this time in orange. 

In fact, the whole Mock Job Fair acts as one big lesson about the struggles of living within the prison system (a system we know to be corrupt from last season as well as from Figueroa's attempts this season to convince a reporter that the prison's money is going towards rehabilitating the prisoners rather than into Figueroa's pocket) where, as Taystee is essentially told in her final confrontation with Figueroa, there is no reward. "You do your best because that is what you're supposed to do," Figueroa tells her. Winning does not bring any advantages with it, nor does it grant you a better life. Leanna is told by the woman from Dress for Success that she would look great in a peach suit, but is then criticized and told the look is unflattering. Black Cindy is equally criticized for her loose fitting, burlap sack like dress, but it was the only plus-sized dress provided to her. Eventually Taystee complains enough to get 10 dollars of credit for the commissary, and she's happy that she has something - anything - to show for all her hard work. When a person enters prison, they lose everything they once had and what replaces it is only the hope of something coming along to make the long day-to-day worth it. It's like in an earlier scene where Vee tells Taystee that people don't have careers in their neighborhood. You get a job if you're lucky and you deal with it. But like in her confrontation with Figueroa (which also keeps with the family-prison connection when Figueroa tells Taystee, "I'm not your goddamn mother!"), Taystee can't accept the idea that there isn't something more out there. Because, deep down, she knows that she's capable of something much, much bigger. 

But like I said earlier, "Looks Blue, Tastes Red" also benefits greatly from connecting the prison and familial structures together in a wide variety of different stories. Granted, some of these stories are stronger than others. Red struggling to accept her new role outside of running the kitchen staff, dealing with having no money (and greying roots) and eventually forming a bond with a group of older (scratch that, "mature") inmates featured some brilliantly subtle and emotionally resonant acting from the magnificent Kate Mulgrew. Likewise, I really loved the small scene between Leanne and another inmate where they talk about how peaceful things have been since Pennsatucky (their mother of sorts) has been gone. However, I wasn't particularly compelled by Daya struggling with pregnancy related constipation. I was equally unimpressed by Larry's father taking him to a gay bathhouse (because it was cheap!) and telling him to go out an get laid even though he's still pining after Piper. The cringe-worthy scene was only outdone by Larry going over to Piper's friend Polly's house where she tells him about her husband going on a vision quest and leaving her at home to take care of the baby - all the while her tits are hanging out of her nursing bra. It's fairly clear, or was presented as such, where this story line is going and all I can really say about that is BLAH. However, Larry trying to stick his penis in something aside, even with the lackluster constipation storyline, the theme of family - anchored by the seen of Taystee, Vee and RJ around the dinner table - is still present with Glorida and Aleida both trying to mother Daya during her pregnancy. What I love about these scenes is that the ideas they bring up go beyond the individual characters and touch upon the lives of those connected to them. It's there with Maria Ruiz whose baby daughter (and baby daddy) comes to visit her after she gave birth last reason, and it's there with Red whose son comes to see her and explains to her that the struggles she is facing are not the only ones plaguing their family. 

While "Looks Blue, Tastes Red" wasn't perfect, it reminded me of what I love most about this show and the world it has created. While I enjoyed the trip to Chicago, I hadn't realized just how important knowing these characters is. While instances like Piper's new cellmates shitting four times a day or licking her face in the middle of the night were funny, they were funny in a broad sort of way. What's so wonderful about the laughs in this episode is the nuance we have from spending so much time with these characters. That nuance is what makes Crazy Eyes sharing her penchant for working with round objects and Big Boo's relationship with Little Boo getting too weird so great. It's also what makes Janae being told by the aptitude test that she'd be an impeccable professional athlete so heartbreaking. Even with characters that are utterly despicable like Pennsatucky and Healy, there's something nice about seeing them again. I think it's having that familiarity back. Even when it's Healy threatening Pennsatucky to cover up his own corruption or Pennsatucky extorting him in turn to get oral surgery, there's that feint aroma of home. That may be the ultimate prison-family connection. No matter how messed up a home this prison actually is, it's our home. And we're right back where we're supposed to be. 

ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK Returns: Thoughts on Season 2, Episode 1: "Thirsty Bird"

Since ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK is one of my favorite shows (and since it's available to anyone with Netflix), I thought it might be cool to give my thoughts on each episode as I watch it. I'm hoping that it'll not only force me to parse the season out a little more instead of devouring it all in two days, but that it'll also allow me to think a little more about what exactly is going on. I have a bad habit of mindless TV watching is what I'm saying. I'm going to try to fix that... With mindless "analysis." Let's see how this goes. 

Life's a strange thing. When you're born into this world, no one knows what's going to happen. The possibilities are literally endless. People grow, things they see influence them, they make choices, things happen as a result of those choices, they change and eventually they end up somewhere. Sometimes that somewhere is exactly where they thought it'd be. Some people grow up thinking all the way that they're going to become a doctor. They take the hardest science classes, they volunteer at nursing homes, they do well on the MCAT, they get into medical school and eventually there it is - dream accomplished. But some people aren't that lucky. Sometimes when a person is in the process of growing, making choices and changing, something unexpected happens. Some people may get into a car accident or get shot or get some kind of cruel disease and all those dreams come to an end. Other times, something will happen that sends a person on a path they never could have seen coming. 

When Piper Elizabeth Chapman (Taylor Schilling) was a young girl, I doubt she could have pictured herself in a Chicago penitentiary selling her panties to a hitman in order to get a message to someone  and trying to capture cockroaches so her cellmates can train them to carry cigarettes to other parts of the prison. But that's exactly where she finds herself at the end of the premiere episode of Season 2 of Orange is the New Black. It's hard to say exactly what started her on this path. It could have been when she was a child and saw her father kiss another woman. When she tells her mother about the incident, she is punished and learns as a result that sometimes not telling the truth is the best thing to do. It could have also been when she met Alex Vause (Laura Prepon). Piper had been a good girl her entire life - she wouldn't even jump off the school bus with her friends even though it was tradition and the bus driver slows down to 5 mph for them! When she meets Vause, she is swept up in her mystery and her charm. Alex jets her across the globe, they stay in the nicest hotels and eat in the fanciest restaurants. Everything seems perfect. So perfect that when she finds out how Alex makes all her money - she's an international drug smuggler - she can't give up the life. She lies to her family and she lies to herself and eventually she agrees to transport a suitcase full of drug money to Alex. Cut to ten years later and she engaged (to a man!) and living a law-abiding life in the upper middle class. Then she's arrested. Then she goes to jail. Then she reunites with Alex and makes new, unexpected friends. Then she makes an enemy of the drug addict turned religious zealot, Pennsatucky (Taryn Manning) who tries to kill her at the Christmas Pageant. Then she beats Pennsatucky (maybe to death) and get thrown into to solitary. Then we meet back up with her. 

What I like about this premiere, apart from the interesting (and I think admirable) choice to focus only on Piper for the majority of the runtime, is how Piper's journey to Chicago and eventually to the court room to testify against a drug cartel kingpin acts as a microcosm of sorts for her life up to this point. Much like her life before she went to prison, where she is heading in this episode remains largely a mystery until she actually gets there. Like her jetsetting with Alex, Piper rides on a plane where she meets a plethora of new people - some of whom appear to be friendly like Lolly (Lori Petty), while others are threatening like the aforementioned hitman and a woman in a Hannibal Lecter mask. Piper does things she regrets like crushing her cellmates' cockroach and giving her birth info to Mazall (Rebecca Drysdale) who licks her forehead and appears to be insane. She does things that she is ashamed of like trading her panties for favors and asking a prosecutor to help her catch a bug so her cellmate who shits four (yes, FOUR) times a day won't beat her up. People who Piper thought might be her friends turn on her as we see the penguin ladies shun her for knowing Lolly and then stomp and kick Lolly while she watches. Again she commits a serious crime because of her feelings for Alex and again she is stuck in a hopeless situation as a result. But much like last season, she then finds comfort from an unexpected source as the new Yoda brings her a cigarette on its back.

Most of all, however, Piper is forced to come to terms with who she really is. In the best scene of the episode, Piper is telling Lolly on the plane about what happened between her and Pennsatucky. Pennsatucky was crazy, she tells Lolly, and she just wouldn't stop coming so Piper hit her. She hit her and she hit her and she kept hitting her. Something in her just kept going, she couldn't stop. And as she tries to hold back tears, ultimately breaking down into sobs, the camera slowly moves across her face in one continuous shot - just as the realization of what's actually inside washes over her. She isn't that young girl we see in the flashbacks getting the back door for the bus driver and not wanting to see Dazed and Confused because what if it's rated R for something that will scar her for the rest of her life. No, she is the woman who lied to her friends and family, who fell in love with an international drug smuggler and helped her transport a suitcase full of money. She is the woman who went to prison for it and who does whatever it takes to protect herself and stay alive. She may tell herself that she's not like these other women, that she's just going to do what she's told until she can get out and be with Larry (Jason Biggs) again. But the truth is, she is the woman who beat Pennsatucky within an inch of her life (though didn't kill her) and who lies under oath because Alex tells her it's what needs to be done if they're both going to avoid being killed by Kubra's men. It's going to be interesting to see how Piper deals (or doesn't deal) with this new realization and if this first episode is any indication, people discovering who they really are could be a driving theme of Season 2. 

Admittedly, the majority of the flashbacks played a little too ham-handedly. The whole thing with Piper seeing her father cheating on her mother with another woman and then getting in trouble for telling on him was fine. But then to have the scene where she is calls her dad to wish him happy birthday and at some point ends up telling him that she learned everything from him after she lies to him while he sits waiting on her mom to take him to dinner makes it feel like they're beating you over the head with what they're trying to do. Same thing goes for the scene where Piper's grandmother tells her that not telling the truth is sometimes the best option. It's a completely unnecessary scene that does nothing but directly express what the show has already communicated with subtext. 

Other than that, however, I think it's a strong return to one of the best shows going. It was a bold decision to only follow Piper for the vast majority of the episode, but Jenji Kohan and company (including Jodie Foster who directed the episode) handle it with aplomb. It's interesting to see the ways shows on Netflix take advantage of the unconventional release of every episode at one time. The creators here seem to realize that most viewers will be be viewing the next episode immediately after the first, so they aren't pressured to do some of the normal things a premiere would do. We don't have to check in on every character from last year right now. If you want to catch up with them, all you have to do is let Netflix take over and continue playing episodes. Likewise, instead of a loud (though it was audibly loud) and insane cliffhanger, Orange is the New Black instead opts for something that feels like an organic progression of this episode while having enough propulsive energy to drive viewers who weren't already going to watch the next episode to stay on the couch. 

It says a lot that I've stopped writing this piece multiple times trying to talk myself into watching Episode 2 before finishing it. Orange is the New Black is a show that exudes confidence. It's mix of comedy and drama remains one of the strongest out there and from what I've seen so far, it seems to be the perfect balance of a show that is meaty enough to actually sit back and reflect on while remaining an amazing bit of entertainment. 

This whole parsing out the season business may be harder than expected. 

A Beautiful Turd: Thoughts on A MILLION WAYS TO DIE IN THE WEST

You see those goats? You get to see about five of those goats' penises in Seth McFarlane's new movie, A Million Ways to Die in the West. Sure, only one of them is "real," but who cares, right? The other four or five come courtesy of McFarlane's character, Albert, experiencing a drug-fueled hallucination brought on by a group of Native Americans he meets while on the run from Liam Neeson and his band of notorious outlaws. The goats do a song and dance number about mustaches (a reprise from an earlier song) and end the number by shooting water fountain like piss out of their erect penises like some attraction outside a Las Vegas casino. I can't believe I just typed that. 

Actually, I can't believe I even watched this movie and that I'm now going to briefly write about it. I fully realize that this kind of film has a built-in audience and that I'm simply just not part of it. But all I can do is share my opinion. So here I am and here you are and, well, I guess here goes. 

From the beginning with his choice of booming orchestral music, gorgeous wide shots of breathtaking Monument Valley and the large, old-timey, red and yellow opening credits, it's pretty clear Seth McFarlane wants A Million Ways to Die in the West to be his Blazing Saddles. Mel Brooks's 1974 classic is now famous for its satirizing of the racism obscured and ignored by the myth-making done by Hollywood about the American West. It's a film that's full of raunchy (for the time) humor, sight gags and pratfalls and deliberate anachronisms like the mention of Wide World of Sports or the appearances of Count Basie and Nazi soldiers (no relation, thank god). It tells the story of Cleavon Little as Sheriff Bart, a black man who is sentenced unjustly to be hanged but is saved at the last minute by Harvey Korman's Hedley Lamarr who then makes him sheriff (and resident outsider) of the all-white town of Rock Ridge.

A Million Ways to Die in the West is similar. It's overflowing with raunchy humor (among other things). Seth McFarlane and his cast of actors (who are admirably down for anything) trip and fall and shit themselves and die left and right. And the cultural anachronisms that Mel Brooks used as a clever device for comedy are shifted by McFarlane into the entire tonal basis for his film - characters essentially live in two eras, commenting about the West with a modern sensibility even as they live through it. Everything seems to be in place to make for a new classic. Unfortunately, the shit literally and figuratively hits the fan. The frat boy gross-out humor doesn't produce a quarter of the laughs they're meant to and where Blazing Saddles felt like it had something important to say about the film industry and society as a whole, A Million Ways is just one tedious joke about how horrendous it must have been to live in the Wild West. However, the worst part isn't the immature jokes or the repetitive pratfalls or even the lackluster story. 

The weakest strand in Seth McFarlane's summer blockbuster lasso is himself. Both Mel Brooks and Seth McFarlane are showmen. They're big, they're loud and they're theatrical. The difference is that Mel Brooks understands where his strengths lie. He may be a fine actor (may be), but he's a writer first and foremost. In all of his strongest movies (e.g. Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein, The Producers and The Twelve Chairs) he was writer and director and played only a small role in the film. When he got older and decided to do more egocentric works like Life Stinks or Dracula: Dead and Loving It, giving himself larger roles on top of his other duties, his work floundered.  Likewise, when McFarlane tries the same with his own vanity project it's another prime example of a person not having anyone with the authority to question or critique his actions. While all the other actors are admittedly trying to be as funny (to the point of caricature) as they can, they still remain professional movie actors and do their best to inhabit the roles given to them. McFarlane on the other hand tries too hard to be the funniest man in the room. His line readings and physical performance culminate into something akin to a standup comedy routine. (In fact, the only character he has any real similarities with is Bill Maher's, who is actually a standup comedian in the movie.) He goes on long diatribes about how farts will kill you and how the doctor will kill you and how horrible everything is and he's so far removed from the other characters for so much of the film's runtime that it all just becomes tiresome. It might have been different if no one else realized how awful the West was and he was the sole voice of reason. It might have even been different if everyone performed at McFarlane's level. Unfortunately, plenty of other characters realize the inherent abysmal nature of their conditions and react in more subtle, sometimes amusing ways. Even in a world of caricatures, McFarlane manages to feel cartoonish.  

In the end, nothing really worked for me. None of the jokes really hit the marks they're intended to (except one particular one involving an awe-inspiring dollar bill). What could have been vulgar and biting satire about Hollywood, masculine culture or a plethora of other topics turns into a series of dick and fart jokes for the sake of dicks and farts. None of the characters are compelling whatsoever. Though much more grounded than McFarlane, Charlize Theron as Albert's love interest Anna is still overly written, a manic pixie cowgirl who's beautiful and funny and quirky and everything that Louise (Albert's first love played by Amanda Seyfried) isn't. Liam Neeson as the main villain, Clinch Leatherwood, is only in the movie for a few scenes and does little besides acting all Irish and intimidating and Neil Patrick Harris is basically Barney Stinson with an old-timey mustache. Giovanni Ribisi plays his go-to lovable weirdo (though less interesting and more pathetically stupid than his other roles) whose girlfriend Ruth (Sarah Silverman doing Sarah Silverman) is a prostitute who fulfills all of her clients' craziest desires but won't sleep with him until their wedding. (They're good Christians after all.)  

Though it is a beautifully shot film with absolutely stunning visuals, well choreographed and directed set pieces and spectacular costume and set design, there's just no saving A Million Ways to Die in the West. There's an old saying that I think sums things up perfectly (and the fact that it does says everything): 

"You can dress a turd in a tuxedo, but at the end of the day it's still a turd." 

I guess you could say the same thing about goat penises. (It's cool if you use this in your next movie, Seth. Just shoot me a writing credit.)

3 out of 10