Happy Thursday, everyone! It's a fun mix of high art and westerns and religious drama this week, so buckle in.
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Margaret has a very odd, troubled production history. In between Kenneth Lonergan's directing work on the excellent You Can Count On Me and the less interesting but somehow winning an Oscar for Casey Affleck Manchester By The Sea, Lonergan was making this odd, touching work about a bunch of New Yorkers all affected by a tragic bus accident. Filmed in 2005 and released in various truncated versions for almost a decade, Lonergan finally got to release his version in 2012. (There's also a whole bunch of lawsuits involved between Lonergan and the production company.)
One of the reasons I grabbed this is that I do want to compare the theatrical and directors versions. This is starring Anna Paquin, who I firmly believe will have an adult Oscar at some point but just hasn't made that leap yet.
Margaret is available for rent and purchase at the usual places, but I can't tell you about version availability. The theatrical version is 150 minutes according to this set and the extended version is 186.
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Hey, a JohnWayne I know nothing about! The Big Trail is apparently his big break back in 1930, directed by Raoul Walsh. He was a darn good director better known for directing Humphrey Bogart in High Sierra and James Cagney in White Heat. So I'm curious to check this out for Baby Wayne.
The Big Trail is available for rent and purchase at the usual places,
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Speaking of Westerns, did you know there are cheapo mid-Sixties westerns directed by Monte Hellamn and starring Jack Nicholson? Both The Shooting and Ride in the Whirlwind are sun-blasted westerns with overlapping casts and stories that in many ways pointed the way to the deconstructionist westerns of the next few decades like Bring Me The Head of Alfredo Garcia, Pale Rider and Unforgiven. They might seem a little outdated now that we're decades into examining Westerns but they're both very much worth seeing for early Jack Nicholson
The Shooting is available on Prime, HBO Max and Tubi,
Ride In The Whirlwind is available on Criterion Channel, Hoopla and Tubi.
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The Ten Commandments (and here we're talking about the 1956 version) is a staple of my childhood. For whatever reason, ABC would run it on Easter weekend no matter if it was close to Passover (and this is indeed a Passover movie). For instance, this year it airs on Easter, April 17th, which is actually within Passover this year ). It's a damn decent biblical epic, not quite the very excellent Ben-Hur but quite damn good in it's own right.
Now what I find really interesting about this set is that it also includes the 1923 version of The Ten Commandments, also directed Cecil B. Demille. I'm looking forward to watching that and playing compare and contrast with the differences in acting styles and effects and cinematography. Also, that only the first part of the movie is about the Bible. Apparently, the second half is a modern-day melodrama about a couple of brothers and their views on the Commandments.
The Ten Commandments (1956) is available for rent and purchase everywhere. The 1923 is up in various forms on YouTube as it's in the public domain now.
I
don't know about you, loyal reader, but I was absolutely addicted to
Game of Thrones (until the last season). When I learned Martin had taken
inspiration for his (unfinished) epic from England's Plantagenet
dynasty and the Wars of the Roses, it sent me down the proverbial rabbit
hole. A whole ton of YouTube videos later, I wanted something a bit
more in-depth.
I stumbled upon this work by chance,
and let me just say, it was exactly what I had been looking for! Dan
Jones draws from the British Royal Archives, and other primary sources
to breathe life into these long-dead Kings, Queens,and Princes of both
genders.
Due to the span of time we're covering
(1154c.e.-1485 c.e.)and the length of the book (560 pages), it does
sometimes feel like reading through all those damned begats in Genesis, but this few and far between. There is also some
history that should make you uncomfortable here.
This
book is the reason I became a Dan Jones Reader and started collecting so
many of his works. He has a talent for making dry dusty historical
figures real. It is the primary reason I continue to read almost
everything he writes.
After a couple of years of my
devouring and collecting his works, my hubby decided to give this one a
go. He read our e-copy while I had listened to our audio presentation.
He was upset at the lack of footnotes, but Jones does list his sources
in a bibliography. Hubby says because I had all those historical YouTube
videos I had an easier time knowing where certain information came
from. He feels if you don't have at least some background knowledge, you
may find the lack of source-citing disturbing, but I personally found
it to be a well written pop history, released right in time to
capitalize on all that sweet GOT money.
Project Gutenberg offers free e-books and as an author and publisher, I want to assure those you don't use the site that everything there is out of copyright, otherwise known as in the public domain. I am aware that people steal and use others' work, justifying it as "if you can't figure out how to keep it out of my hands, then it's mine." And while I have used Google Books from time to time, I feel uneasy when there, even when I am looking up something that isn't in print or is the kind of rare book which costs two hundred bucks. Google is trying to swallow up the whole world, including books which belong to authors, their estates, or their publishers. But this post is about Project Gutenberg, which not only did not need Google's abandoned mission statement "Don't be evil," because it started out good and has stayed good.
Project Gutenberg came into being in the early 1970s, when the late great Michael S. Hart.
Hart was a graduate of the University of Illinois and had a loose affiliation with what was then Illinois Benedictine College (now Benedictine University). He realized that the computer would revolutionize publishing in the same way that the metal plates used by Johannes Gutenberg to print his famous Bible did in the 1450s.
Before Project Gutenberg, if people wanted to read an old book held by a distant library, they didn't need the time off work and the travel budget to go to the book. With a system of linked computers, the book could come to readers in a computer lab, this being a time before the personal computer or the internet as we know it.
Michael Hart made Project Gutenberg a free service, supported by donations and grants when Hart could get them. He built the hosting computers from components, and he lived very frugally on part-time income. He took no money from the Project for himself. Hart passed away in 2011, at the age of 64, and if you search for his name, you find tributes to him, as well as over a hundred e-books he wrote and posted to the site for people to read for free.
In future posts in this series, I'll share some of the literary treasure I've found at Project Gutenberg over the years. I just love a service to benefit others, which makes no profit, and which is run by volunteers. Proof that it can be done!
In the meantime, if you want to look for free e-books at Project Gutenberg, HERE'S A LINK. You don't need to register with them or download anything or pay anything. Just search for what you want, click on the link for it, and read whenever you want.
Not
mine, although as I circle the sun for the 69th time, I’m aware that there are many
more sunrises behind me than ahead of me. Rather, it’s the confluence of two
books I’m reading and a conversation that took place on Facebook a month
or two ago.
(“Two
books I’m reading”? Yes, two. I generally read two – sometimes three – at one
time, switching between them like a basketball coach switches his team from a
zone defense to man-to-man.)
The
books are Dead Lines: Slices of Life From the Obit Beat by George
Hesselberg, a collection of obituaries and feature stories about the departed that
Hesselberg wrote during his decades as a reporter at the Wisconsin State
Journal in Madison, and The Dead Beat by Marilyn Johnson, an
examination of the art and wonder of obituaries.
As
someone who cobbled together probably more than a thousand obituaries during my
career – including one for my own father – I read Hesselberg’s work with envy,
wishing I could have done as well, and I pore over the examples Johnson quotes,
knowing I never wrote an obituary as pithy or odd as the ones she provides. I
heartily recommend both books.
And
the Facebook conversation? It took place, as I said, about a month or two
ago among the members – if I recall things accurately – of a group devoted to
the appreciation of Bruce Springsteen. One of the members noted that Bruce and many other performers in all areas of entertainment are at the age where death,
well, let’s say it would not be surprising. And the questioner asked other
members of the group whose deaths would hit them hard among television
performers, film performers, and musicians.
I
answered, of course. I kind of punted on television performers, not being able
to think of any whose departures would have a heavy impact. Maybe Alan Alda, I
said. As to films, I said that I doubted that the deaths of anyone still living
would have the impact on me as did the deaths of Sean Connery in 2020 and John
Barry in 2011, actor and soundtrack composer, respectively, in the early James
Bond films.
As
to music, I had to think. With the question coming in the framework of a group
devoted to Springsteen, he came first to mind. And then I thought about Paul
McCartney and Ringo Starr, the surviving Beatles. Bob Dylan came to mind, as
did Robbie Robertson and Garth Brooks, the two surviving members of The Band. And
I began to winnow as I pondered the question of whose death would grieve me the
most.
First
to be taken from the list was Dylan. I admire and enjoy his work and readily
admit his influence on my own long-ago songwriting. But there’s little in his
work or his persona to elicit affection. When the Texas Gal and I saw him in
St. Paul a few years ago, she was dismayed that he never seemed to respond to his
audience. The only words he spoke were to introduce his backing musicians. I shrugged.
“That’s Dylan,” I told her. “He’s not there to make friends. He’s there to
sing.”
And
though I will be sad when he inevitably leaves this life, that distance will
keep me from being heartbroken.
The
same holds true for Hudson and Robertson, the remaining two of the original five
members of The Band. Spectacular musicians both (and Robertson, especially during
the 1960s and 1970s, was one of the greatest writers in rock), they’ve never
seemed to put themselves forward emotionally as did – by performative necessity
– singers (and instrumentalists) Richard Manuel, Rick Danko and Levon Helm. Manuel’s
death in 1986 kind of slipped past me, as I was in a poor place, but both Danko’s
death in 1999 and Helm’s passing in 2012 hurt me in ways I had not anticipated.
Which
left, on that short list as I was thinking this out, Springsteen, Starr and McCartney.
I pondered the fact that the 2011 death of Clarence Clemons, the saxophone
player in Springsteen’s E Street Band, had hit me hard. But then, so had the
death in 1980 of John Lennon and – to a lesser degree – the passing in 2001 of
George Harrison.
And
I realized something: The Beatles, as much as I still love their music, were
the band of my youth. I discovered them much later than did most of my peers: I
was sixteen in 1969 when Abbey Road – the last album they recorded – caught my ear.
And for the next three-plus years, the Beatles were the main course among the
music I listened to in our basement rec room (complemented by more and more different
musicians and groups as the years went on, of course).
The
Beatles, then, provided much of the soundtrack for my later adolescence, and to
get back to the point of this excursion, yes, I will grieve when Ringo and Paul
depart, as a huge portion of my youth will go with them.
But
Springsteen . . . well, I came to Bruce late, too. I was aware of him, of course,
in 1975, when the release of Born To Run and the attendant publicity
brought him onto the covers of both Time and Newsweek during the
last week of October of that year. I thought about buying the album at the
time, but my list of albums to buy was long, and I was, I admit, a bit skeptical.
I’d not heard anything from his previous two albums, as far as I knew, so I
held back.
And
though I heard 1978’s “Badlands” and 1980’s “Hungry Heart” on the radio as well
as the string of seven Top Ten singles from his 1984 album Born in the
U.S.A., I still did not explore his music. Then, in 1987, my life changed:
A marriage dissolved, a new relationship began, and I opened myself to new
music, including Springsteen’s Tunnel of Love, a 1987 album written chiefly
about the terrors and joys of adult relationships.
I
was in my mid-thirties and dealing with those same things, and Tunnel of
Love was the right album at the right time. And within a few years, I had
every album Springsteen had ever released on my shelves, and I’ve kept pace
with him over the thirty-plus years since. And his work speaks to me still.
So,
the conclusion is what I thought it might be: Bruce Springsteen is the central
artist of my adult life, and his departure will wound me in ways that the death
of no other artist ever could. And to close this, here’s the joyous “All That Heaven
Will Allow” from Tunnel of Love, the album that made me a fan back in 1987.
Lavender. Great word. This is a post dedicated to lavender, the plant and the color. I love both, and had a nice encounter with a lavender soap, recently, which made me remember lavender things I have loved and lost, so here we are. The first time I recall smelling lavender was in the gift shop of Shaw's Garden, now called The Missouri Botanical Garden, in St. Louis. I had to ask someone what I was smelling, I didn't know, and couldn't imagine a cleaner scent to be found on earth. I'd go back there whenever I could; I loved the gardens. And I had to go into the gift shop now and then to get a hit of that lavender. It had an effect on me as a teenager, going through those ornate iron gates, through the old entrance to the gardens, which was on Tower Grove Boulevard, at that time, closer to Henry Shaw's house. I couldn't wait to go inside and see the unusual, to me, gift items and smell that scent. I felt it brought instant peace and order to my mind. Too bad I couldn't have carried a bunch with me throughout the day to sniff, or had essential oils to rub under my nose; I may have been a better student. Those oils weren't commonly found in shops in the 1970's, though. But lavender was effective for me in an aromatherapeutic way. As an anxious kid, it would have been a useful item for help in falling asleep when concerns kept my mind going late into the night.
Color. I loved the look of lavender eye makeup in the 60's and 70's and it does sometimes cycle around again. I can reminisce about the days when I had Yardley Moody Mauve (I believe that was the title) eyeshadow on my dresser, along with a pot o' gloss (Astral Wine) and some Love's Fresh Lemon perfume. I loved the packaging nearly as much as the eyeshadow, which I probably wore twice.
Yardley is most known for its soaps, and their lavender soap has been a bestseller for many years. Lavender may be derived from the latin, lavere, to wash, and historically it has been used in water and in salves to clean wounds. It is a very essentially clean fragrance, much like lemon, and is mildly antiseptic. It is said that it was carried in salve form by all Roman soldiers. People may have been protected from the spread of germs by carrying lavender wands. Inhaling the fragrance may have provided temporary cleansing of the nasal passages during times of sickness.
Clothes. Years later, I would save money to buy a cotton lavender sweater which I coveted, and finally bought with hard earned babysitting money. Wish I had a photo, but it was thick and ribbed and and had cabling down the middle and a big pouch pocket. More recently, I've wanted a pair of darker lavender corduroy pants when colorful corduroys were back in vogue one year. I could see these pants in my mind, but I never found them. Same with a dark lavender velvet dress....
I was happy to see a resurgence of lavender colors in makeup when I worked in the cosmetics and perfume department at Macy's in 2012. I was not going to use it myself, but loved the colors that came in, and the ads. Researching lavender in cosmetics, I find there is quite a fan base. Like this person:
I should mention that I've never found a lavender perfume I like, not even Yardley's. Nothing beats the fresh or dried flowers, themselves. When my kids were young I used to put what we called 'sleeping flowers' under their noses, just a wee speck of Aura Cacia lavender oil. My nephew would request it when he slept ove
A few years ago, I found a book which I truly regret not buying. It may still be sitting in a stack at Karen Wickliff books in Columbus, Ohio, for all I know, and I think I need to go back and get it.
I was surprised to find out that the song, Lavender Blue, was included in a 2015 version of Cinderella. I never saw it, but I always loved the little song, and am pleased it made its way into a modern children's film. Linked, are two versions. It was Burl Ives version that I first heard and fell in love with. And that's all I have to say about lavender today.
Trigger Warning: contains painting of Daphne Todd’s dead mother
Tomorrow marks Mothering Sunday in the UK. A time when we’re supposed to revere & celebrate not only our own mothers, but all mothers & what they give & sacrifice for their children. Many mothers are like this, but Mother’s Day assumes that all mothers have the same qualities, the same traits & the same patience. We know this isn’t true. & whilst I will be visiting my own mother, there are many that are unable to do so. Sometimes Mother’s Day is a difficult time for people, having lost their mother or having had a poor connection with her. We see other families through the lens of our own & days like this can be troublesome for many.
I’m not here to judge. Only you know. In the Art World, mothers are often held up as religious or sentimental paragons of love & virtue whilst with others, you can sense the tension when mummy sits as a model for the artist. Many famous artists have depicted their own mothers: Cézanne, Rembrandt, Picasso, Warhol – like the self-portrait, she’s perhaps a handy model. Or perhaps artists are attempting to say something about motherhood itself.
Whether you have or had a good or bad or a complete absence of a relationship with your mother, there is an artist that knows how you feel & expresses it not only for themselves but also for you.
Martin Creed, Mothers (2012)
Exactly.
James McNeill Whistler, Arrangement in Grey & Black no. 1 (Portrait of the Artist’s Mother) (1871)
Although I’m avoiding the Mother of All Mothers, it’d be churlish to avoid perhaps the most famous (excluding Mary) in Western art history. It’s often seen as quite a severe portrayal of a very austere woman but put yourself in Mother Whistler’s shoes. Look closely at her expression. She’s not used to this. She’s probably not used to anyone’s gaze on her for any length of time & she’s possibly not used to sitting still. Perhaps her joints are giving her bother, after all she’s not as young as she was. What is she even thinking? Her expression is almost as inscrutable as the Mona Lisa’s & perhaps that’s one reason for our enduring interest.
Helene Schjerfbeck, My Mother (1909)
It’s worth including the Whistler just to have a comparison with Schjerfbeck’s. Just a few years apart, the similarities in position, composition & palette (even the hands!) are profound. Yet there is a world of difference in terms of painting style, expression, formality & fragility. We know from Schjerfbeck’s many self-portraits how like her mother she is. There’s a peculiar (some might say beautiful) symmetry & sense of the circle of life in her self-portraits & perhaps this image of her mother combined with her final self-portraits complete that circle.
Marc Chagall, Mother By the Oven (1914)
For better or worse, sometimes a mother is a dominant presence looming over our interior lives, larger than life even when she’s no longer with us. Certainly Freud (Sigmund, although Lucian made a beautiful painting of his mother) would say so. At first glance, it seems like this is one such presence. The palette, particularly when you know Chagall’s other work, makes her seem rather doomy & oppressive & literally larger than the other figure. Feige-Ite Shagal in fact ran a grocer’s out of their house, so the painting perhaps says more about how she made a living.
Daphne Todd, Last Portrait of Mother (2010)
This painting sparked much conversation about the purpose of depicting the dead. Still taboo in many cultures, death remains a part of life & the death of a parent will occur in the lifetime of most of us. Todd is not the first person to portray their dead (& consenting) mother, but it is a vivid & very lifelike image. It doesn’t shy away from what the surface of death appears as, in fact it goes into great detail. Do we accept death? Do we turn away? Or like this & other artists, do we confront it head on, despite our grief & sense of loss? Do you feel this is an appropriate way to honour our loved ones? Much of an artist’s job is to explore & to ask questions we might be afraid of asking. Todd goes boldly.
Alice Neel, Mother & Child (c. 1962)
I thought about saying more about this beautiful double portrait, but someone who relates to it intensely has written something much better:
Perhaps as tender as Basquiat gets, in chalk. His own mother survived him by twenty years.
Cecilia Beaux, Mrs James Blathwaite Drinker & Her Son (1922)
There are a number of jarring elements to this painting, but it’s an undoubtedly beautiful image of the mother’s face. Despite the sentimental nature of the picture, the impressionistic style lends her face an ethereal & serene quality worthy of inclusion. Motherhood does this to some women & it’s a lovely thing.
Édouard Vuillard, Interior, Mother & Sister of the Artist (1893)
A peculiarly blank mother yet her pose & clothing suggest a no-nonsense, assertive character.
Gottfried Lindauer, Heeni Hirini & Child (1878)
As discussed in a previous blog, Lindauer’s depictions of Māori people are stunningly rendered & sympathetic. This gives a clear sense of the weight of the child, regardless of how portable it is...
Käthe Kollwitz, The Mothers (1921)
Of course it’s a war image. In this masterful German Expressionistwoodcut, Kollwitz responds to the devastation of loss following the First World War. Despite her incredible warning, despite all the warnings & all that has happened in the interim, here we are again in Europe; again mothers are experiencing this trauma.
LaToya Ruby Frazier, Momme (2008)
This powerful photograph forces the viewer to ask questions about this mother-daughter relationship. Are they confronting, defying or ignoring each other? Or are they standing together, almost merging as one? Are they lost in their own thoughts? What have they been through together? What does their future hold? Where are they now?
(There is a series of photographs & they seem to be fine, although to my eyes the mother is dominant in each…)
Uemura Sh En, Mother & Child (1934)
As with much Japanese art, we’re given a more unusual angle. Here’s a less-shown view of the baby – the back of its head – showing the hair & traditional clothing. It’s a wonderful composition & as highly stylised as the image is, the mother’s expression seems natural.
Vincent van Gogh, Mother Roulin With Her Baby (1888)
As tired yet satisfied as we’d expect a mother to be, this chimes with our view of modern motherhood – she’s delighted with her newborn (& it’s evidently delighted too) but she’s still having to do everything else as well & she could really do with a nap.
Since last time, it seems much of my viewing's been rewatches of older material. In large part as a
run-up to May's debut of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, I wanted to revisit the first two seasons of Star Trek: Discovery. Sure, it's season two that sets up the characters we'll be following into Strange, but I wasn't going to just dive back in there. My
experience with season one had been choppy, as I'd watched the
CBS-televised first episode back in late September 2017, and it was off
in 2018 when a thumb drive with the files for the full first season made
their way to me. (I didn't subscribe to Paramount+ - well, it was still
CBS All Access then - until nearly the end of 2020.) It's been fun and
interesting to work through the first season again, "meeting" Michael
Burnham and the various series regulars again, now that I know they're
each interesting enough to pay attention to. I need this feature in Real
Life, because I really seldom know who to pay attention to the first
time around.
My late wife, Sue, was for whatever reason a big, big fan of the amateur stunts, practical jokes, and
exchanges of abuse that has been the Jackass
group's stock in trade since they debuted on MTV back in late 2000. I
knew another film in their series was coming a while back, and this week
it landed on Paramount+... so I watched it for her. Were she still
around, I know she would have talked me into lining up tickets and we'd
have gotten her wheelchair into a theater back in February, and so would
have added a little to the film's $78.1 million dollar worldwide box
office. All much as we did for her back in 2006 when the second movie
rolled out. Most of
the aging, damaged gang is back for this, save for Ryan Dunn, who died
nearly 11 years ago in a drunken crash, and Brandon "Bam" Margera, who
was reportedly booted off the site early on in this project due to drug
issues. Along with them are a mix of mostly younger people who are the
next generation of cannon fodder.
As
ever, it's an odd mix of masochism, (mostly) macho sadism, and
homo-eroticism, along with gross-out humor. There's a train wreck eye
magnetism to it all, mixed with a degree of nostalgia as a core group of
men who are now in their late 40s to early 50s engage in acts of
physical abuse that were unwise for any of them twenty five years ago.
Being well of an age where "sleeping funny" can leave me hobbled, I
wonder what state they'll be in by the time they cross the 60 line -- if
they cross it. Given the injuries they've already taken I'm guessing
it's all about keeping limber and accepting the pain of motion as the
price of admission to continued life. Here's
the trailer for the film, and the knowledge that even if they don't get
back together to do more of these they reportedly had so much film shot
that there will at least be a Jackass 4.5, which will include some other items and much of the behind-the-scenes material. Anyway: Jackass Forever (2022 96m), is currently streaming on Paramount+.
It's been nearly four years since the season two finale of Donald Glover's nuanced, layered, comedy-drama series Atlanta aired, but at long last season three began last night on FX (and on Hulu
as
of today) - dropping the first two episodes of a 10-episode third
season. Glover stars as Earnest "Earn" Marks, a college drop-out and
would-be music manager, and rapper Paper Boi (Brian Tyree Henry),
navigating the Atlanta rap scene. The series also includes Lakeith
Stanfield and Zazie Beetz, each of whom have subsequently enjoyed
success in films. All
in all an unlikely match for me, but much to my surprise the show
managed to catch my attention and the characters hook me early on.
Donald Glover, the series' creator, also composes and performs as a
rapper under the name Childish Gambino -- that's in real life, as they
say, not as part of this show -- so he's familiar with the professional
channels the characters are navigating. Despite
the long time coming, the return snuck up on me. I've not gone back for
a rewatch of the series, which I followed week to week during its first
two seasons. Fortunately, Kate Aurthur over at Variety, has taken a stab at bringing viewers back up to speed on where we last saw each of the players back in 2018. The
show had been greenlit for seasons three and four, and once production
resumed they were able to roll through the filming of both. The
fourth and final season is set to debut later this year. This current
season will be running Thursday nights on FX through May 19th - again,
showing up on Hulu the following day. Here's the commercial/trailer for this new season.
Wow! The new season came in with a kick! The season-opener, "Three Slaps", is essentially a standalone item that anyone could just watch, as it doesn't involve the cast from the main story, aside from a small linking/context scene at the end that the newcomer can simply ignore. It starts as a little horror story, then swaps that out for a much more real life one that's intentionally unsettling on more than one level, aiming to spark some conversations. The second episode hooks us back up with the series characters, much farther down their paths than when we last saw them.
Shifting settings sharply, while I've not given so much as a glance at the show's first season, I will at least note that the apparently highly-successful Bridgerton
(on Netflix) is back with an 8-episode second season today. Frilly,
historical dramas focused on high society, social status/climbing, etc.,
with Lady Ticklebottom and Lord Thistlethorn or such similar nonsense
are not anything I'm drawn to. However, I try to remind myself that if
it's well-written and performed, and deals well and cleverly with deeper
human and social issues, that the historical and fashion trappings can
fall away. I need only look to the previous item this week - Atlanta
- which overtly is focused on an urban setting and success in an
industry which identifies things as music that I generally wouldn't
classify that way, to remind myself that there can be ample rewards for
looking past the surface. Anyway, for what it's worth, here's the trailer for season two of Bridgerton.
Coming
up next week, on Thursday March 31st, will be the start of a new
comedy-drama biopic series on HBO Max, based on the life of television
chef Julia Child. As it'll be arriving Thursday, dropping its first
three episodes to start (of 8, with 1 per week dropping thereafter
through May 5.) I wanted to give you the opportunity to dive in as time
permits Thursday evening. It's Julia The
lead is played by Sarah Lancashire, who I can see is going to be a much
bigger deal to British audiences (and the more pretentious ones over
here in the states) primarily for her television work there. From what I
can see she'll be solid in the role, but it's just a case of my not
being familiar, it seems, with anything she's been in. My eyes are
perking up to see David Hyde Pierce, Bebe Neuwirth, and Isabella
Rossellini, though I must confess I didn't immediately recognize Pierce
until he spoke. That was a consequence of the full-retreat hairline,
fully appropriate for the role of Paul Cushing Child, Julia's husband,
who was a decade her senior. I'll be interested to see how both the performances and the points of history compare to Nora Ephron's final film, Julie & Julia
(2009), which featured Meryl Streep as Julia Child, and Stanley Tucci
as her husband Paul. While it's currently only streaming on Starz, or
available to rent or buy, I'll add the theatrical trailer for that here
even if just for a quick comparison.
Starting March 30th (Next Wednesday), over on Disney+, is the latest Marvel mini-series, Moon Knight. They seem to be mining the underlying disassociative identity disorder
(what we used to refer to as multiple personalities) in a way
that lets them play with how much of it is delusional and how much a
genuine mystical influence. Centering
on a man who has ample reason to doubt his sanity, memories and actions
in general, it looks to be the most violent thing to come out of the
actual Marvel studios (the Netflix shows were done under a different
group), and is also yet another reason why the platform made the recent
addition of parental controls and added content previously prohibited. I'm
going to be very interested to see how they've chosen to adapt this
character, but I'm prepared to let it be whatever they've decided on, so
long as it all works.
As
we've gotten closer to the series, and we've gotten more of a glimpse
into it, I've tempered my expectations a bit with respect to the action
we'll see while he's in the full Moon Knight garb and doing something
other than beating someone with his fists. The other action scenes, in
full, caped costume - a negative image Batman, are meant to tap into
some fan expectations, but uncomfortably remind me of the
people-on-wires, fantasy combat moves seen in many wuxia -
stylized Chinese martial arts films. Certainly, this sort of thing
clearly works for many people around the globe, but it's never worked
well for me. A touch of it in the extended fight scene between The Bride
and the Crazy 88 in Tarantino's Kill Bill: Vol 1 (2003) was as much as I was up for. As an example, Ang Lee's international hit Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
(2000) was, for me, a sleeping pill. If I ever make the effort to give
it another try, I may get past my earlier difficulties and engage with
it on a more emotional and cultural basis, as there's much going on in a
story with multiple levels, but the action sequences were the initially
and frequently praised draw and those largely failed for me with the
first bit of dreamlike, float-flying, wire antics. On a related note, as
much as I can admire the dedication and physical demands of the craft,
I've never been enthralled by ballet.
Anyway, with Moon Knight,
I'm expecting to mostly be drawn in by the seeming madness, interested
in seeing how deeply and far they're going to take the story down a
mystical path, and how long they'll keep any tension alive as to whether
or not this is purely a matter of perception, belief, and delusion. While
I'm very familiar with the comics source material, I know that
selective rewrites have often been made in these MCU adaptations, and so
that it's better to remain flexible. Best to try to appreciate what
they're building, instead of going the irritating route of slavishly
looking for adherence to source material. Too much time and energy can
easily be wasted by fans of print source material, sitting, arms-folded
in judgement (even if just in their mind), and too, too ready to inflict
"but, in the novel..." asides on companions who may or may not
be too polite to let you know they wish you were off reading something
and allowing them to enjoy the movie in peace. I'm still reigning that
in with every new outing, even just at the internal monologue level.
It's almost comical how I'll routinely come away from
a first showing of one of these adaptations with a "well, I liked it, but..."
review, with its litany of reservations. In each instance, once I
return for a re-watch (often years later) I'm pleasantly surprised that
it's much better than I'd remembered. Why don't I allow myself to have
nice things the first time through? Treading
a line between the source comics, which have undergone several creative
turns over the years, and what seems to have become the show's
narrative, the central character, Marc Spector, is a nearly life-lapsed
Jew, the son of a rabbi, who became a mercenary. A violent man who
managed to excel in a violent business, but then got in over his head in
one instance with a treacherous associate,
and
- depending on what one chooses to believe - either came close to death
and had a psychotic break, or died and was resurrected by the Egyptian
god Khonshu, a vengeful deity who wants to have human agency in the
world again. In the
show, Marc suffers from a dissociative identity disorder (what we older
folks still want to call "multiple personalities") that has become so
extreme that his personalities aren't initially aware of each other. The
series is referenced as a mini-series, the implication apparently being
that following this series the character will be appearing in movies,
rather than back for more seasons of this self-titled streaming series.
For now that's not important, but it's still a detail of interest to me,
as someone interested in the larger tapestry that's being woven here in
what is Phase Four of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Next
Tuesday (March 29), on both HBO Max and Hulu (and, as I understand it,
will also be on Disney+ come April 6th) the latest Kenneth Branagh
(director and lead actor) adaptation of one of Agatha Christie's Hercule
Poirot mysteries arrives to general streaming: Death On the Nile (2022 127m). As with the previous Branagh production, 2017's Murder On the Orient Express,
which also was from a script adaptation by Michael Green, there's the
challenge of not only aiming to faithfully adapt a fairly well-known
novel from the 1930s, but also will be competing with a similarly
star-studded 1970s theatrical version and at least one done for television. Again, too, it's a story of a
death happening in a fairly closed, exotic to most of us, environment,
in a distinctly period piece, under the carefully-trimmed mustache of
the famed Belgian detective. Here, too, we soon find a surfeit of
motives among the passengers. So, even as a source novel, it's a case of
a sequel trying to capture the lighting in the bottle of a previous
success. It'll be another case of trying to allow
myself to enjoy the production on its own merits, as opposed to going
immediately for comparisons to the earlier production and/or the source
novel. I don't think many doubt the sincerity of Branagh's affection for
the source material, though that's never a guarantor of a successful
final product. Among other factors there can be a considerable swing in
reactions from the audience based on both their affections for the stars
du jour chosen for the roles. Those familiar with the source
material (and of various adaptations of it over the decades) are free to
spot character changes, omissions, and substitutions, and speculate on
the motives (screenwriter, director, and/or studio focus group) behind
each. Having the relative luxury of being merely an
audience member, I'm content to take it in and try to enjoy it as its
own thing. Here's the trailer:
The
two things that hit me strongest are that it feels as if Gal Gadot's
star was riding particularly high when this was being cut together, and
that I'm not a fan of whatever pulsing song that is they've threaded
into the trailer. It doesn't seem at all evocative of the period --
though, of course, that's the basis for a long and impassioned
discussion of film in general, ranging from the choice of including
"Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head" in 1969's Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, to the less casually anachronistic use of Scott Joplin's music in The Sting, as that was a couple decades out of step with the music of the period the film was set in.
This week's flashback freebie is another ABC Movie of the Week (in this case, weekend),
making for the third of these in a row. Unlike the past two weeks,
though, this is one that I honestly only vaguely remember the commercial
promoting it. Just a hair over 50 years old, this first aired Saturday
February 5th, and as I revisit the schedule for back then we likely had
the tv parked on CBS for most of that evening back in '72. Starring Elizabeth Ashley, Ben Gazzara, and a young Michael Douglas in a very early role, just before he hit as a co-star on The Streets of San Francisco.
In this horror-thriller/whodunnit, divorced mom Helen Connelly (Ashley)
lives on a ranch, with her daughter, Peggy. Her ex-husband is Doremus
(Gazzara.) Craig (Douglas) is a psychologist at an institute for
troubled youth. Helen begins getting calls from her nephew, Michael. A
big problem is that Michael is believed to have died fifteen years
earlier, and the voice on the phone seems age-appropriate for when he
died, not the voice of an adult. Michael casually drops details that few
if anyone outside the family would know. Following each call, someone
associated with the family from back around the time Michael "died"
dies. Helen's not sure if the calls are happening, or if she's cracking
up -- not to mention the worry that she may be the next one to go. Craig was Michael's brother, and both boys were in their aunt's care fifteen
years ago when Michael disappeared in a snowstorm, and was presumed
dead. It's When Michael Calls (1972 87m)
That's
enough for this time, no? When next we get together it'll be April.
That's scary enough all on its own, even before I remember that I
haven't gotten around to doing my taxes yet. As ever, take care, and meet me back here next Friday. - Mike
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