Artful Dodges and Other Life Hacks - November 5 - Friday Video Distractions

 

   Another week to remind me that groans and complaints about things already tasking me only seems to invite new ones, while doing nothing to alleviate the old. I've made it to another Friday feeling not only drained and behind schedule, but keeping my ear cocked for the phone, part of a chain of likely expensive bits of news and decision(s) to make. But hey, that's life. Now, to escape it in controlled packets.

     A quick aside: One of the viewing highlights for this week was episode 9 of season 3 of Doom Patrol over on HBO Max. I've lauded the series before, and recent weeks have only reinforced that for me.
     This season's turns as they've been dealing not only with their manifold personal problems, but contending with the Sisterhood of Dada, coming through the weaponized art of The Eternal Flagellation with several members seemingly healed into action irrelevance, and now the return (though new to nearly all there) Brotherhood of Evil, have been gloriously entertaining. Wild fun. The snippy domestic friction between the Brain and hirsute housemate Monsieur Mallah, the latter peeved that this revival of Brotherhood nonsense is disrupting the tranquility of their long retirement in Boca Raton, remains one of several scenes I'm already anxious to revisit.  Next week will wrap season three, and season four will be too long in coming.
     Recently finally got around to watching  and enjoyed the 10-episode comedy-drama (is "dramedy" now a passe' term, or been tagged as something more distinct? What are the young people and the cognoscenti saying these days?) on HBO Max: Hacks.
    Starring Jean Smart and Hannah Einbinder, respectively as a legendary comedy diva who has been largely in a Vegas cocoon of fans who've happily kept her insulating from adapting to the times, and as a 25 year-old comedy writer whose first blush with success was derailed by an "insensitive" tweet she made, which cost her her job and helped make her a professional pariah. A mutual agent lines up the two in the hopes of fixing two problems, even though the first isn't looking for a writer, much less an update of material, and the latter really doesn't want this job.

     It's a fun, occasionally thoughtful trans-generational and -cultural clash. If there's a core message it's that we all tend to form largely dismissive opinions of others, and that's a character and operational flaw we'd be wise to correct. Most meaningful growth, at least as adults, involves discomfort. Most of the messages in Hacks are cautionary tales about the need for (negative) impulse control.
     I'd have moved through it even more quickly than I did once I tried it, were it not for my schedule and deciding I didn't want to rush it. The series ran from mid-May through June this year, and was renewed for a second season back in June. So, if you have HBO Max, add it to the list of items to get around to, and if you don't, add it to the list of reasons to consider trying the service (which has a huge inventory) in the months ahead.
     The next series I want to mention is one that reminds me how once strong entertainment appetites can be overwhelmed by formula and sheer, repetitive volume, all the more rapidly as lesser talents get involved. I can still remember when zombie apocalypse was a relatively small, sub-genre, decided off the mainstream, existing almost exclusively on the big screen. Jump ahead to 2021, and Kirkman's adaptation of comics' The Walking Dead has not only been on the air for 11 years and spawned two spin-offs, but I wandered away from it during a mid-season hiatus a solid three seasons back. In this age of aggregating, streaming content such things have become like reading material -- things to often be stacked-up for binge-attention at some later, somehow more appropriate time. They're not pressing, as we have this sense of "having" them.
     So it was that I was almost surprised at myself when I set DVR pre-sets to record a new, Syfy series Day of the Dead, which started back in mid-October. Friday nights at 10 (Eastern), tonight will be the fourth episode. It momentarily seemed odd that I was open for this, when I'd left so many familiar characters behind in this genre halfway through their war with Negan back in season 8 of The Walking Dead.
     While there's a little more to it, I realized it's mostly two things: First, the new series offers what I'll luridly reference as "zombie porn," which is most decidedly not a reference to any nudity or sexual material, but rather just to one of the hooks of the genre: We get to see new characters facing the new and unbelievable to them - the beginnings of this rising of the dead. It's made loosely novel again via the surrogates.

     Second, as it's a Syfy series I'm never sure where and when it's going to land as streaming content -- eventually, most likely it'll be Netflix, but it could be a looooong wait -- where I'll be able to watch it sans commercials. It's at the stage of currency where having the DVR catch it, so I can watch it when I want and do Hulk-like, 30 second leaps through the commercial breaks with the press of a well-worn button, is optimal. The downside is that my Fios DVR service has storage limits, so there's more of a press to watch items there so I can delete them and free up space for upcoming shows and movies. So it is that often lesser items get a faster viewing track than better material that's in a more stable location.
     Anyway, this new series is still at an early enough stage that we don't know the exact mechanism nor all the rules. The reanimated dead here are more Romeroesque in general slowness (much as those of The Walking Dead), though we're still working out whether or not being bitten is a death sentence, and  the usual head-shot solution isn't a remedy here. There are also elements of the very non-Romero, zombie sub-genres where whatever contamination or force that's reanimating corpses is also affecting the long-buried, so the local cemetery is suddenly busting out with corpses (some of whom dies with pretty amazing sets of teeth, it seems) erupting from the ground. Inexplicably, even parts of bodies are seen to move with deliberation. Magic or silliness -- it's too soon to tell.
     In a note reminiscent of one of the casual but repeated references in Jim Jarmusch's 2019 dark comedy zombie-fest The Dead Don't Die (which I and son Nick enjoyed, but didn't seem to be a crowd-pleaser), there seems to be a connection between local fracking operations and the undead unrest, though it may not be as direct as simply new contaminants.

     Some of the characters in this new series at least start off as cliches, none so more than this small-town, rural Pennsylvania mayor, Paula Bowman, who's cast in a role that would normally have been given to a man: White, Conservative, pro-gun (and pro-open carry), mayor who is tied to the town's contract with a fracking company, and otherwise tends to sneer at the feelings of "snowflakes" while acting in service of greater personal power and glory. She has a trophy husband whose looks have meant he's never had to focus on developing his wit or intellect -- a nice guy, but used to being generally kept. So far Paula's interesting mostly because she manages to walk the walk, as it were, demonstrating a willingness to act decisively and forcefully despite very possibly being the physically smallest character in the town. She's played by Canadian actress/singer-songwriter Miranda Frigon, who's under 5' 4".
     Anyway, there are other characters of interest, which we get to spend much of the time with - younger (and much older), more ethnically-diverse and simply likeable characters, but not such that I'll spend the time on them here at this early stage. (I'm already a little thrown that I've taken this much time with it.)
     As with most Syfy fare I so far can't really recommend it, but I still wanted to point it out while it's still relatively new, and episodes can be streamed on Syfy's site and likely one's cable provider -- albeit with commercials. If any of the above, and the trailer (in a moment) combine to be of interest to you, you now know that it exists. My work is done.

     I'll have much to highlight over on Disney+ as we roll through the month, but this week I'll just note that X-Men: First Class (2011, 2h 12m) has joined the offerings there, where it may end up remaining for all time. Part of the now-defunct Fox X-verse of films, from their attempt to relaunch the franchise with new actors. It's all owned by Disney now, so with the multiverse and all there's always the possibility of some eventual, cameo call-backs. No special reason for me to mention it, but it popped out at me while checking for newly-arrived items at the streamers. Probably just impatience waiting for new Marvel material while mostly ignoring The Eternals.

     Hulu's gotten an infusion of new-to-them, old material as of the new month, too.
     Not generally much of a John Wayne fan, but a few of his that I've liked to watch are now in the mix here: True Grit (1969), The Quiet Man (1952 and horribly dated -- but worth it at least for the cross-country fist-fight, complete with pub break), and The Shootist (1976 1h 40m Wayne's final film role, and something that coincidentally I brought up in lab conversation earlier this week.)
  

   Also in the Hulu mix is the George Pal-produced War of the Worlds (1953  1h 25m), which is one of those films fondly remembered from childhood. Sure, the ghastly 1950s U.S. socio-political atmosphere infected it with ham-fisted, pro-religion touches that likely would have gotten an apoplectic rise - or at least an overt series of eye rolls - out of secularist H.G. Wells had he lived to see hear them. I know I groan at a few spots. The last couple times I watched it I shut it off while the Martians were still winning, or at least before the final narration, so as to at least let it end on a more dignified note.
     Many, many changes from the source novel as the human center of the tale was relocated to the Pacific Coast, but the alien war vehicle redesigns, including trading in the mechanical tripod design for ones with invisible, electromagnetic ones, remains elegant. I'll want to check, but I expect this is the hi-res, restored 2018 version that the Criterion collection later put out, where they went back to the 3-strip Technicolor originals, instead of the inferior Eastman Color stock they'd been replaced by during the '60s, seeking to restore the visual quality it originally wowed with.
     Paul Frees' narration, including an on-screen turn as a broadcast correspondent, are among my most fondly-remembered touches in the film.
 

    Arriving on Hulu today is the second (new) season of the revival of Animaniacs. I watched the first couple this morning -- each with a piece featuring Wakko, Yakko and Dot, and another with Pinky & the Brain, and the rapid-fire, frequently cutting humor is still there. At worst the production lag resulted in more of an emphasis on Trump and even Brexit in one piece set in ancient Rome, but, hey, it works, and unfortunately it's not as if either of those real world debacles have gone away.
     Also newly-arrived (okay, yesterday) on Hulu is Playing God (2021  1h 35m). A con artist team targets a grieving billionaire, offering him a meet and greet with God. Despite a trailer that otherwise seems to give the movie away, I'm still uncertain what to expect in terms of a message, and I'm leery of digging for more info, not wanting to give even more away. Alan Tudyk (grieving billionaire) and Michael McKean (playing God) get me interested enough to risk potentially shoddy plotting and an indecisive message. The two leads (Hannah Kasulka and Luke Benward), playing the sister-brother con team are almost completely unknown to me.

     On Netflix, as I know at least one person who's a fan, I'll mention that season 5 of the animated, raging hormone adolescence comedy series Big Mouth landed today. A little of this goes a loooooong way for me -- I'm not sure I've gotten out of season one yet. The subject matter's not a go-to for me, and the line style succeeds a little too well for me in conveying the unpleasantness of most people as sexual beings. Hey, I'm at least owning my hang-ups.

     On Netflix since Wednesday is a new, made-for-Netflix, gangsta western The Harder They Fall. Interesting cast and possibilities.

     While not strongly drawn in by the true crime genre, and particularly wary of anything with an "inspired by true events" tag (the best one can hope for is that it helped the writers think of a story worth telling), Swedish production, The Unlikely Murderer, looks as if it could be an interesting series. Based on events surrounding the 1986 assassination of Swedish prime minister Palme, and how inept police work allowed the assassin to get away with it in nearly plain sight. The total run time is 3h 48m.

     Arriving today on Amazon Prime we have the intersection of Benedict Cumberbatch and Victorian era cats in The Electrical Life of Louis Wain (2021  PG-13 1h 51m). A biopic focused on the ultimately tragic tale of late 19th century artist Louis Wan, whose rise to prominence came through his surreal cat paintings, which reflected his failing sanity. The popularity of Wain's work is credited with popularizing cats as house-pets, rather than simply keeping one around to deal with local rodents. Co-written and directed by Will Sharpe, the film also stars Clair Foy, Andrea Riseborough, and Toby Jones. I'm informed it even has a brief appearance by Nick Cave, appearing as H.G. Wells.

     I'm looking forward to watching this, but at the same time I want to try to line up something else, or a different, affirming activity, to follow it up as I'm expecting it to leave me sad in the balance.
     It would probably have been classier to close on that note, but this Sunday. over on Showtime, we'll be seeing the return of serial killer Dexter Morgan, who we last saw in a mute, dehumanized state back on September 22, 2013, when the 96th episode of Dexter aired. Over eight years?!
     A great deal of (former) fan ire's been unleashed on that series finale over the years, in what I still see as an unfair focus. In reality, it was most of that final season that was a problem, with the show having gone fully off the rails well before the final episode, the audience's credulity abused beyond all reason by how Dexter managed to remain free and seemingly undetected. To only react to the final images of the series as if those are the problem still strikes me as absurd. The final few episodes had a clear arc, as the sociopathic Dexter had been stripped, a piece at a time, of his support system, his near life-long project of faking humanity till he might make it finally, fully abandoned. The silencing of his inner monologue was just the final deconstruction. We were just left uncertain with how temporary or final that state was to be.
     Anyway, starting Sunday we'll get to see where the intervening decade of survival adaptations has taken him as we see the start of Dexter: New Blood.

     Looking forward to it, including the full makeup of his new life. I'm particularly taken with how adoptive sister Deb has become his new, internal sounding board and general Jiminy Cricket virtual conscience, replacing adoptive father, Harry, who was banished as part of the late season eight deconstruction mentioned earlier. I can't be the only one looking on with interest. Any (former) fans with an opinion?

     Continuing my Friday vigil for the first of the diagnostic calls concerning the car. (It's quiet. Too quiet.) I don't know how late I should let it go before calling for an update. Making arrangements for an almost certain transfer from one mechanic to another will only be part of it, and it's getting late on a Friday afternoon. Finding out what support they have with respect to a rental car will be another.
     Wish me luck in sorting things out. Ideally I'll be in a much better state next week! Take care, and stay warm! - Mike