Various Beginnings, Returns, Continuations and Endings - Sept 10 - Friday Video Distractions with Mike Norton

     Welcome back! My first post of Year Three of the Consortium of Seven!
     I've been revisiting these pieces to add comments after getting to the movies/shows, which I'm putting in this blue font.
    The latest of this year's big screen & HBO Max simultaneous releases arrives today, as a woman's childhood imaginary friend is introduced to everyone around her. No, it's not Drop Dead Fred (though that might make for an interesting double feature), it's Malignant (2021 R  1h 51m Available on HBO Max till October 10th)

    I can't say this one grabbed me strongly. As ever, your mileage may vary, as is seemingly the case with many James Wan fans. The opening flashback section, indirectly introducing us to Gideon, and his powers of control over electricity and electrical equipment struck me as comic book cliche, almost to a level of parody.
     Speaking of HBO Max, I was too busy last week to do much with it, but I'm happy to report that my Vizio smart TV finally saw them adding the app for it, so I can finally make proper use of the service.  Having to navigate it via a browser was irritating with my clumsy set-up.
     Now to figure out how to get it to default to showing me closed captions... It keeps resetting, even when I'm watching a series and it moves on to the next episode.
     Arriving today on Netflix is the sixth and final season of the fantasy crime dramedy series Lucifer.
     Largely as a matter of licensing, and how the deal was made to bring the series to television (and how could one properly deal with this character without having deceptive deals involved?) it's technically noted that this is some form of adaptation of the Lucifer character created by Neal Gaiman,

Sam Keith and Mike Dringenberg first in the pages of Sandman, and then spinning off into his own solo series for seventy five issues. That set up expectations in the minds of the comics cognoscenti which were immediately dashed when they saw that what came to Fox was a crime procedural with sexual tension between the two, too attractive to be believed leads - a kick-ass, female LAPD detective, and the fallen angel, former king of Hell, Lucifer Morningstar; the latter having decided to abdicate a throne he never asked for, come up to Earth, and open a fancy night spot in LA. A charming fellow, he's a deal-maker with the special ability to get anyone to reveal their deepest, truest desire -- well, anyone but detective Chloe Decker, which is part of what attracts him to her. Also, Lucifer never lies. But when someone with supermodel looks and a suave style opens a club in LA, everyone takes it in stride that a guy presenting himself as Lucifer Morningstar is just spinning a glamour. It's all part of the show, so absurd truth becomes easily-accepted lie.
     I was on board from the start, interested to see where this might go, content to let it be its own thing.
     The infamously vile Christian fundamentalist organization American Family Association, under the misnomer banner of One Million Moms, had gathered a bit over 134,000 signatures to try to block the show from airing only raised interest. The many critics who dumped on the show because it was "another crime procedural" only proved to me why I generally don't care what critics have to say.
     It ran three seasons on Fox, then following a decision not to renew for a fourth, a fan campaign helped steer it to a pick-up from Netflix, bringing us these three seasons.
     Here's the brief story so far trailer they put together to accompany the release date announcement for this final season, back in late July. It's mostly a riff of scenes from the previous seasons which wouldn't in the least bring any newcomers up to speed -- and nor should it.

     I'm hopeful for it getting a proper send-off with this final group of ten episodes.
    Happily, it did. I hadn't gone into it with a marathon in mind, and even pointedly broke it up, nudging myself to do and watch other things after an episode or two, but then I went back for a couple more, and the final ten were casually gone by early Sunday.
     Starting Monday, exclusive to FX on Hulu, is an adaptation of the Brian K. Vaughn, Pia Guerra series Y: The Last Man.

     The comics series ran 60 issues from 2002 to 2008. It won industry awards, and I know many who are excited to see it adapted to the screen.
     I found the initial pitch - which sounds suspiciously like one for a pornish, adolescent fantasy - to be a little off-putting. The main character is meant to be the only hetero date option remaining among  billions of women. Indeed, the seemingly supernatural sweep is down to the cellular level, wiping out not only the living males at every stage of life, but even any sperm that had been kept frozen in storage.
     Ideally, the people behind the series have a distinct plan for the length. That they have a specific endpoint in mind - I'm perfectly fine with them having various subplots they'd like to get to if the show is successful enough to give them the room - but I demand (to the extent I can do such a thing) that they are given the opportunity to wrap it up. If it's not pulling the viewership that they want, and the people paying for it decide it's not the asset they thought it would be, that they are told to skip to the endgame, and then given a set number of episodes to resolve it. I'm presuming this has been greenlit to be a permanent part of the Hulu archive, and that by this stage they have the sense to know that it's far more valuable to them as a potential subscriber draw over the long haul if it presents a complete story.
     Caught the first episode when I innocently ran across it during another splash of insomnia early, early Monday morning. So far, so good. They dropped the first three episodes there on day one, which is likely a good idea. It gives more of an opportunity to dig in and start to get acquainted with the players. The remainder of the run will be one per week.
     Back over to Netflix, having arrived this past Wednesday, is the second season of Into The Night. Produced in Belgium, it deals with a seeming sweep of death across the Earth as the Sun rises, with us following a desperate group flying to outrace the sunrise by flying West, searching for sanctuary.
     I'll risk that it's not too much of a spoiler to reveal that some of them made it to a sanctuary by the close of season one. How safe a haven that may be is the open question of season two. If I recall correctly Netflix provides options for this, including a full English dub.

     At this point I have no idea whether this second round of six episodes concludes the story or not.
     Before moving on from Netflix, I'll mention that while doing a sweep for items I decided to add  Tidying Up with Marie Kondo to my watch list.

     Her new series, Sparking Joy with Marie Kondo, is being pushed now, which was what reminded me of her. To say that I have nearly lifelong issues with clutter (honestly, in some significant ways I'm a hoarder) would be a mild statement. I need to at least start to get myself into a more receptive state of mind. Wish me luck, and I won't shy away from any inspirational, personal experiences any of you might have about de-cluttering one's life.
     Over on Amazon Prime a couple things caught my eye.
     A 4-part documentary on the rise, cultish fanaticism and twists, then fall of a company I'd never heard of is laid out in LuLaRich (2021)

     This may simultaneously scratch that shadenfreude itch, and also be an oddly fun palate-cleanser for the investing focus I've been drawn into in recent months, wherein I've been giving special attention to a list of factors one looks for in a company worth investing in. Seeing past the hype and often genuine enthusiasm - nearly ignoring it in deference to facts and figures - is an important part of the process.
     Another casual watch that first weekend, it pulled me along and through, even though I deliberately broke away between episodes. It was an interesting ride, even just tracking my own sympathies with the players. I had a sense of general, genuine good will through the first and a chunk of the second episode, as it seemed to be a case of good intentions leading to an out-of-control situation. The shades of Mormon conditioning coming through were the first warning sign, revealing an intrinsic narrowness of  view and fairly typical blindness to one's own privilege. After that my sympathies started to turn harder and harder against the LuLaRoe founders. Beyond that it was mostly a matter of the ultimately unknowable, and whether or not they were saying what they were saying from a position of belief or as a defensive legal posture.
     It was interesting to track the journeys of several people, including seeing where they settled by the end.
     Arriving on Amazon Prime is a 2019 independent film project that's being branded as 2021 because this is its big, U.S. debut: The Tangle (1h 39m).
     In a near-future world, all mankind is linked by a nano-bot maintained Artificial Intelligence that connects every mind and is supposed to make violence against each other impossible. A secret agency polices it from within special tech-safe rooms that allow them to operate unaffected by the bots pervading everyone else.

     A neo-noir tech thriller, I'm approaching it warily as most of the criticisms have to do with protracted, less than natural exposition. Very talky. Ideally this will turn out to be the root of praise, marking it as a more cerebral outing that resisted devolving into an action picture with broader, lower common denominator appeal.
     As for ongoing, current series tv, I've been enjoy the latest seasons of the FX/FXX (I can't keep which is which straight) series What We Do In the Shadows, and Archer. Episodes of both series show up on Hulu the following day. Over on Paramount+ each Thursday is bringing us a new episode of the Star Trek animated adventure comedy Star Trek: Lower Decks, and on Sunday a new episode of Evil. 

    The former manages to be episodic, moving the stories and relationships of the characters along while deconstructing the various tropes of over half a century of Star Trek adventures. The latter is clever fun, as the trio of often philosophically-differing investigators move from assignment to assignment, investigating claims of the supernatural, employed by the Catholic Church. Significant subplots run alongside, connecting the episodes. The cast is terrific, and not just the leads, and the writing sharp, with humor, drama and creepiness blending with deceptive ease. Definitely a show to watch from the beginning, to just jump in with a random episode would be to cheat yourself.
     The ninth episode of season two is this Sunday, and we're in a straight-shot run of Sundays through October 10th's season finale - refreshing after the aggravating dry patch that was nearly all of August. I've been devouring each new episode early (early) Sunday mornings (they appear just after 3AM Eastern), and will miss it when we're again between seasons. At least I know it's been renewed for a third season. I've mentioned the show a few times, talking about it at some length the first time back in October of last year.
     Another hectic week, despite the Monday holiday. My staff gradually returning from out-of-state trips (one delayed an extra day by food poisoning), and us observing stepped-up COVID protocols for a a while in case either of them asymptomatically brought back anything. Meanwhile, well, that's not for here. I just have other matters on my mind, and they're tapping me out. I am the world's largest, delicate, hothouse flower.
     Closing this week with another '50s/'60s sci-fi or horror picture, I've decided to go with one that's really more interesting in its origins than its end product: Battle Beyond the Sun (1962  64 min). I'm offering it in the spirit that it's an interesting work of piracy and repurposing - more interesting to be aware of than necessarily sitting through it.
     This US version of the film was set up by Roger Corman, who hired young film-school student Francis Ford Coppola to re-cut, culturally scrub, and add footage to a 1959 Soviet science fiction fantasy Nebo Zovyot ("The Sky Calls").
     As I understand it, Corman negotiated a price to have the right to distribute it in the West, and had no qualms about turning it into a very different film. Even the actors, director's, etc. names are changed in the credits to anglicized ones. Other footage is worked into the film, ranging from stock rocket launch footage, to gratuitous giant monsters, to some footage from the Rose Bowl Parade - the latter used as part of a heroes' homecoming finale.
     The original Soviet film was very distinct about the two nations represented being the USSR and USA, and was a decidedly pro-Soviet, anti-American piece, framed as the speculative imaginings of a reporter who's just interviewed a space scientist and ponders a time perhaps not far off when a manned mission to Mars is being planned. In the U.S. version, the dream/fantasy framework is removed, it's set in 1997, years after an atomic war, and the two nations are the post-apocalyptic ones of North Hemis and South Hemis.
     Here is the US version: Battle Beyond the Sun

     ...and here is the Soviet original (with English subtitles) Nebo Zovyot ("The Sky Calls")

     That wraps things for me for this week. Tomorrow's art post by Esther will wrap the first, full week of posts for Year Three of the Consortium of Seven. I hope you check out all of the other contributors' posts, and come back to see me next Friday. -- Mike