Darker Days - Dec 3 - Friday Video Distractions

 

     Finally got to turn in the rental car and get mine back, and all it cost me was more money than I care to get into here. That it's done and paid for are two, separate, reliefs.
     In three weeks it'll be Christmas Eve. In four we'll be in the final hours of 2021. Can that be right? Sure, it's straightforward, factual and not to be refuted, but it's always here and gone too suddenly to be a comfortable fit, emotionally. Yeah, yeah, but why should I berate my time management skills when I can rail at the universe? It's a good hobby.
     Last week I gave you a heads-up about the Wednesday returns of It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia (FXX and Hulu) and Lost In Space (Netflix), as both are things I've been looking forward to. I've already enjoyed the first two episodes of the former - kicking off with the gang looking back on 2020 through the lens of their pandemic schemes - and the entire 8-episode, full-of-heart, series-ender of the latter.
  Arrived also with the new month this past Wednesday on Netflix is screenwriter and director Jane Campion's The Power of a Dog (1921  126m). An adaptation of Thomas Savage's 1967 novel of the same name, set in 1925 Montana, this international production stars Bendict Cumberbatch and Kirsten Dunst. Masks, toxic masculinity, and anger as the glue that seems to hold some men together. The cultural gulf from 1967 to 2021 makes a key reveal something much less than surprising, but that doesn't detract terribly.
     A Venice International Film Festival award-winner (for the director), and with ample praise for the leads, this is receiving much attention for the Academy Awards... if such things are of interest to you.

     Beautifully shot and powerfully performed, the weight of the opening voice-over lands hard by the film's end.
    Arrived on Netflix Thursday the 2nd is a horror film out of Thailand, The Whole Truth (2021  125m). When their mother is hospitalized, comatose following a car accident, a pair of siblings are taken in by grandparents they never met and were never told of. In their house, they find and are drawn to a hole, at eye level*, in the wall. There's more than one unusual thing about this hole.

 Coming to Netflix next Monday (6th) Davids Fincher and Prior bring a documentary series about cinema. One of several items I just found out about, I only know what's presented in the trailer, but it has my interest. It's Voir.

     Amazon Prime's big original content for December's coming a little later in the month, and some other info I was given proved to be incorrect (resulting in a piece being cut out of this post), so maybe I'll just remind myself to get around to looking at The Wheel of Time over there.
     Then again, before leaving Prime for the week, I'll toss in a mention of one that seems of possible interest, but may be a tad too depressing for me:  Undergods (2020  1h 32m).  Set in a dystopic Europe, it's a mix of dark fantasy tales about generally unfortunate characters.

     Today (Dec 3rd) Hulu sees the return of retro comedy pen15, for the second half (7 episodes) of its second season. I couldn't help but notice it's formally referenced as a "cringe comedy." Co-created by its stars Maya Erskine and Anna Konkle, who play middle school versions of themselves. They were each 31 when they began this project, but they manage to make it work. They're playing 13 year olds, with their contemporary co-stars all being (roughly) 13 years old. Best friends, beginning to come of age together. This is the trailer for this new, half-season.

 As it'll be beginning before next week's post - the first episode appearing December 16th - HBO Max has a new, 10-episode, limited series: Station Eleven. Based on Emily St. John Mandel's 2014 novel of the same name, it's about a flu pandemic that wipes out the majority of the world's population. The series is set 20 years later, seeing how the depopulated world is working out for the pockets of survivors.

      For no good reason I'm going to close with a true mess of a film.
     Whatever sci-fi film it was originally intended to be started filming in 1961, only to have director Bill Reband run out of money

and shelve it. Four years later, low-budget filmmaker Herschel Gordon Lewis (who was in a wobbly transition from making nudie films to taking on the mantle of the "Godfather of Gore") was looking for a second feature for a double bill for his latest film, and bought the partial film from Reband. He shot some new scenes, added some dialogue, and put it together as a disjointed bit of cinema. Unable to get nearly anyone from the earlier production back for new scenes, most were replaced by other actors who played other characters... yet still mostly picked up where those characters left off. The monster was played by Henry Hite (born Henry Marion Mullins), whose career was based on his height (7' 6¾", though he billed himself as 8' 2" and "the world's tallest man") and seeming lack of concern about embarrassing appearances. Aside from a Vaudeville act with both a normal-sized man and a dwarf, and this unfortunate film, he also worked making appearances as the Corn King Giant, a food products shill.
    It all came out with the terrible title Monster A Go-Go (1965  68m). A shortish film, but even at 68 minutes it's likely longer than it deserves.

     That's a wretched note to end on, but that's where I'm leavin' ya.
     It's occurred to me too late that this week's assortment is, on the whole, downbeat. I'll try to watch for that next time. - Mike

 * I had to mention the level, in an at least an attempt to fend off "glory hole" jokes.