This new season kicked off with a trio of episodes, and, as I'd hoped, has brought more of the dark whimsy of season one back with it. It also took some of the time it lost during last season's COVID-truncated run to bring us a conclusion to that storyline before positioning us for a new story arc -- which in typical Doom Patrol fashion seems mostly to be other people's old business. I don't know how close the wrap to Dorothy's story arc this was to the original plan, but they seemed to get it to a tidy pivoting point, more fully clearing the decks for new-to-them business. In these three episodes we get to see something of the Brotherhood of Evil, see that the villains get stuck with their own mission-centered raw deals, too, and meet the Dead Boy Detectives in time to deal with a rescue mission to the afterlife.
The sheer, sprawling, timelessness for the main characters - an odd benefit of their specific damages - makes for a sympathetic resonance in me, with the necessarily arrested childhood elements that are part of still being a comics fan in my sixties. Something in this allows me the illusion of sharing their storybook character immortality, and there's a nostalgic warmth and comfort in that.
Also, over on Hulu, Mondays have been bringing me new episodes of the engaging, post-apocalyptic Y: The Last Man, and Tuesdays another installment of the often charming misfit mystery Only Murders in the Building, each of which I'd talked about in earlier installments. (Doom Patrol was part of last week's entry, and Only Murders back near the beginning of the month.)
Arriving today on Netflix is a new supernatural series from Mike (Haunting of Hill House) Flanagan, focused on an isolated, island community that experiences a series of miraculous events and troubling omens following the return of a disgraced young man (Zach Gilford) and the arrival of a young priest (Hamish Linklater). It's Midnight Mass This is a seven-episode LIMITED series, and has received mostly strongly positive reviews. Wanting to keep it as fresh an experience as I can, I haven't dived into the full reviews. It's one of many items to practically be on my doorstep this month before I knew they were coming, which has its advantages. There's too much I'm aware of that I haven't gotten around to as it is.
Adding some notes: I've watched it all, and can strongly recommend it. I don't want to liken it to any specific novel, movie or miniseries because I don't want to give it away. It struck me as something executed by a skilled craftsman who is a sharp-eyed fan of the best efforts Stephen King ever managed. (To clarify, this isn't a King story.) Certainly, depending on one's turn of mind, one could see much of it coming, but I rode with the characters and the story and my attention was held. Themes of religion, addiction, and redemption.
One of the benefits of watching most of these things solo is that I don't have to run the risk of having a viewing companion who's trying to make a competition of it -- whether it's to try to get me to race to predict what's coming, or intent on not letting the story surprise them. I've known some of those people, and they are no joy in those circumstances. But I digress. As mentioned above, I recommend it.
It's one of an odd flood of items - old and new - that have recently been coming my way that have strong Catholic themes, emphasizing the beliefs and rituals. That's something I was brought up in, so despite being decades-distant to me now, it still walks that line between striking me as completely pedestrian (the rituals are deeply-chiseled), and reminding me how lunatic and morbid the details are to an outsider -- to anyone who wasn't brought up in it from such an early age to have never seen it in its full conceptual horrors, with fresh, critical eyes.
Arriving on Netflix next Wednesday is another supernatural horror item, No One Gets Out Alive (2021 R 1h 25m), that I'm more on the fence about -- which is largely to say I'll need to be in the right mood for it. Based at least conceptually on the Adam Nevill 2014 novel of the same name (which was a very UK-centric affair, and a significantly different main character), the film centers on Ambar, a young woman who after years of caring for her terminally-ill mother in Mexico, comes illegally to the United States (specifically Cleveland) to try for a new life. Lining up under-the-table work in a garment factory, she rents a room in a near-derelict boarding house. There she soon begins to learn there are threatening secrets. Her precarious legal status and lack of resources make the situation all the more dire, as who is there to call on?
Coming to HBO Max and theaters here in the U.S. next Friday, October 1st, is the Sopranos prequel film, The Many Saints of Newark Set during the teenage years of Anthony Soprano (here played by the late James Gandolfini's son, Michael), it brings those formative years to life. We get to meet some characters who were gone and elevated to the level of legends by the era of The Sopranos, and otherwise see the younger versions of characters we got to know so well during the course of that show's six seasons. Watching and listening for signature elements in many of the characters will be part of the fun. I'm in the midst of my first, full rewatch of the series, which I'd originally taken in as it rolled out, season to season, on HBO. One thing I've been reminded of during this so far is how while it's thick with interesting characters, many with sympathetic elements, truly likeable ones are like hen's teeth. As with many a good character in a novel, these aren't people one would sanely want in one's real life.
I didn't rush to add comments here, despite watching this Friday, in large part because I'm still processing it, and I'm likely going to have to watch it at least one more time to do real justice to the details. I'm early in season three of my first, full rewatch of The Sopranos since the series aired and I was following it season-to-season. The series' occasional flashbacks to Tony's childhood, along with the many, scattered references as characters talk about events and people in the old days, are all popping out more during this rewatch. A full appreciation of this prequel will include paying attention to those details, and seeing how much of it turns out to be self-serving mythology by those who survived that era.
The performances are often fun, as we see actors playing decades-younger versions of the characters we met in the series. That first (and so far only) time through the movie was spent just trying to take it in as its own story, not doing a rigorous compare and contrast to the mythology presented in the series, and not pausing to note the specific actors' portrayals.
In the 2020/2021 fashion of these HBO-Max simultaneous streaming and theatrical releases, it'll be available here for 31 days -- in this case, neatly, for exactly the month of October. After that, it'll disappear, to go through a pay per view/digital and physical sale period, before finally cycling back to HBO. I'll almost certainly watch it at least a second time before it leaves. I may let it percolate in memory a bit first, though, while continuing my rewatch of the series, and maybe doing an IMDB-dive into the casting to refresh myself and pin down more of the actor-to-role associations. Early nods go to Vera Farmiga as Livia Soprano, Jon Bernthal as Johnny Soprano, and and Michael Gandolfini as the teen-aged Tony, the actor playing a younger version of the character his late father did in the series. I've since read that Michael hadn't watched the series until he was preparing for the role, and that it was an "intense" process for him. Director Alan Taylor did reshoots of any scene where he caught any whiff of the young Gandalfini playing it too close to his father's version, as they wanted to be careful to convey that this is Tony at a much younger age, and so far less formed and focused.
In general, everyone portraying a (later-)established character did a credible job of hitting identifying traits, but I was rolling with the story that first time through, deliberately avoiding being critical.
The scenes involving the Newark riots of 1967 stirred some memories, as my mother and I were caught in a similar scene in a different (more Southerly) part of New Jersey around the same time. We had been living in Levittown, PA since summer of '66, but as my father was serving in the Navy the main grocery shopping was done over at McGuire AFB/Fort Dix in NJ (the price differences were extreme enough to make it worthwhile, especially when gas was so damned inexpensive), and the route we took through New Jersey wasn't as straight the shot then as it would be now. We went through some more urban areas, which normally wasn't a problem, but that wasn't a normal time. A woman in her early 30s and a six year-old kid got a pass, but there were some tense moments. We were not the right shade to be at that time and place.
Reaching back for an odd item I'd missed back in the day, only recently reading anything about it,
Arnold's mostly interesting for the people involved.
First, this was produced in part by Bing Crosby Productions, which just strikes me as a strange connection. The cast includes Stella Stevens, Roddy McDowell, Elsa Lanchester, Farley Granger, Victor Buono, John McGiver, Bernard ("Dr. Bombay") Fox, and Jamie Farr as the man-servant Dybbi, complete with heavy, dark makeup, a Sikh's turban, eye-patch, white suit, and one of those badly done hook hands involving an overlong sleeve. All in all it looks as if it was shot by people used to making television.
Almost mercifully, no one officially carries the film. It's never been issued on disc, and the one time it was issued on tape was in the mid-80s. However, here's a fuzzy copy on YouTube should you want to push through it.
Not quite the type of thing I've been ending these pieces with recently, but it'll do. My week's running away from me again, and I'm less spry by the day.
Take care, and we'll meet back here next week for the start of October. - Mike
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