What's To Watch? - Apr 22 - Guns and Cannolis

 

Another week! Where does the time go?
 

     In the news this week were worries for streaming king Netflix in the face of a sharp loss of subscribers and, likely, people feeling they needed to make public statements even when they hadn't yet decided on what to say. It's set off at least a small panic among streaming services as everyone else in the game had to at least pause to check their own plans.
      We're in the thick of a rapidly-evolving entertainment environment. Not a topic I'm going to lean into this week, but it'll be worth some attention soon enough. Shifting sands beneath our feet. A week and a half ago it seemed that Apple tv+ had the keys to the kingdom, now it feels as if HBO Max is where to focus.
     The optimist's view, and it's a supportable one, is that we're living in a great period for entertainment. However, in the absence of casual wealth we're likely going to have to adapt, and be open to selectively closing and opening some streaming accounts. Maybe think of it like shifting addresses with the season. I've yet to really begin to sort it out satisfactorily for myself. As I've said, it'll be worth some attention.

     I'm going to start this week with a list of show and movie premiere dates I'm looking forward to. The past two years saw delays and outright derailments of production schedules such that firm dates all but ceased to exist, and my attempts to keep this sort of list went with them. Not so much that Things Are Better, but simply that the biz adapted, the result of actual release dates (at least for items that are in post-production) is the same. I'm going to stick to 2022 for now - and particularly on the next two months - because even just on the public health scene there could easily be big ripples that will distort 2023's plans. I have a longer list elsewhere, which includes many things I'll be mentioning in future Friday pieces, but that so far I'm not necessarily having a reason to look forward to -- mainly for lack of info. Without a doubt I'm forgetting some things. I'll update this this weekend as they come to mind, but I have to start somewhere:

         Barry (HBO/HBO Max) season three April 24th. (Covered in today's piece)
         The Offer (Paramount+) a dramatization of the forces at work, pro and con, in the making of The Godfather. (Covered in today's piece.)
         Grace and Frankie (Netflix) Season seven final episodes (Final season, too) arriving next Friday, April 29.
         Ozark (Netflix) season four, part two. Final season. Also April 29.
         Doctor Strange In the Multiverse of Madness (theatrical) Officially May 6, but they'll begin having showings on the 5th. (I'm going to try to get out to see it sometime opening weekend, which would be a first since the start of the pandemic.)
         Star Trek: Strange New Worlds (Paramount+) May 5.
         Bosch: Legacy (IMDBtv) May 6  Titus Welliver stars, continuing the story as he settles into a new routine after the seven-season Bosch which ran on Amazon Prime.
         Hacks (HBO Max) season 2  May 12 (1st two episodes)
         The Kids In the Hall (Amazon Prime) May 13
         The Kids In the Hall: Comedy Punks (Amazon Prime) docuseries May 20
         Stranger Things (Netflix) season four, set to release in two "volumes" - May 27th and July 1.
         Obi-Wan Kenobi (Disney+) Six-episode miniseries Friday May 27 (the remaining episodes will land on Wednesdays.)
         The Orville (Hulu) June 2.
         The Boys (Amazon Prime) season three June 3.
         Ms. Marvel (Disney+) Six-episode minseries June 8.
         Evil (Paramount+) returns to start a 10-episode third season June 12. Episodes releasing each Sunday.
         The Umbrella Academy (Netflix) season three June 22.
         Thor: Love & Thunder (theatrical) July 8.
         Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (theatrical) November 11.

     I haven't gotten to this week's episode of Donald Glover's Atlanta (Thursday nights on FX, arriving on Hulu Fridays), a series which returned March 24th for its looooong delayed third season. I continue to recommend the series as both real and surreal, with some odd moments and powerful themes. I want to point out that this season they've done two episodes (so far), the first ("Three Slaps") and fourth, that anyone can just jump in with because they don't involve any of the series characters. You don't need to know anything else with those. It's a chance to sample the overall quality and depth without spoiling anything.

     I want to particularly direct your attention to episode four, "The Big Payback", which I'm recommending with a little caution. There are people I know whom I wouldn't direct toward this, because it would fit in with some of their fears about where some social justice agendas might lead. An avid Fox news junkie's head might explode. It's a speculative, very near-future - as in, could be tomorrow - scenario that could have easily been a brief episode of Black Mirror. It's a prodding, evocative half hour that may drive you to your feet and start you pacing, even just as you wrestle with whether it strikes you as absurd or possible. I haven't had an opportunity to discuss it with anyone, but I'm sincerely interested in getting some people's reactions to it. And, again, it's a stand-alone item -- a mini-movie. It won't spoil anything about the main series, because none of those characters are in it.
     This week's episode, episode 6, "White Fashion" is back with Earn, Paperboi, etc., continuing to navigate worlds of privilege and oddly shifting advantage. The comedy continues to run to dark places, with cutting social commentary. As this continues, I'm hungry for a safe zone for Earn (Glover's character) to be able to openly react to the bizarre behavior of both the people he's meeting and those he's known long enough to have thought he knew well.

     Personal highlights for the past week included Better Call Saul (Mondays on AMC), Last Week Tonight (select Sundays on HBO), Julia and Tokyo Vice (both HBO Max miniseries). Each have one or more elements that I've been turning over in my mind since seeing them.
     From last week's items, I largely enjoyed what was done with The Batman, which arrived on HBO, though yet another reinterpretation of the characters keeps it all at least a little distant for me. Good cast and performances, but some choices among the changes (the origin and nature of the Riddler, perhaps making him a little too much like the Joker blended with Scarecrow, and changing yet again the particulars of Bruce's parents' histories and death) are at least fair game to be questioned.

     One of those items I'm noting, without any immediate pro or con bias because I pretty much only know what's in the trailer, arrived just yesterday, the 21st. It's a Japanese comedy-drama about a 32 year-old adman who discovers he's pregnant. He's Expecting (Netflix  8 episodes) is loosely based on Eri Sakai's 2012 manga
Kentaro Hiyama's First Pregnancy.

     The trailer doesn't give me much indication that it rises above the level of simple gender-swap for the sake of perspective -- not that exploring the topic of how becoming pregnant can, in social and professional circles, effectively dehumanize a person, or at least override their status as an individual isn't worth consideration, but if it doesn't have more style and nuance it could easily wear out its welcome in far less than eight episodes. This could be one of those things that keeps slipping away, remaining an option I never quite get around to, so (and this applies to so much in these weekly pieces) if you happened to watch it, please let me know how it struck you.

      This Sunday (24th) 10 PM Eastern on HBO will see the long-awaited return of Bill Hader and Alec Berg's, multiple award-winning (nominated at least 30 times, with three wins), dark comedy series Barry.
     Hader plays the lead, as a man whose talent for killing was discovered while he was a Marine, and who has continued that as a managed, private contractor as a civilian. Deeply dissatisfied with his life, an assignment in Los Angeles finds him drawn to acting, prompting the attempt to change his career. Some careers don't have a built-in exit, though, and given the clients they'd likely prefer any retirements include an exit from life, too.
     As with so many things, this third season was long-delayed by the pandemic. We last saw Barry, friends and enemies waaaay back in May 2019, so nearly three years!

     During the long hiatus, reportedly, a fourth season's already been written, but no clear word's come out as to whether or not HBO's given it a green light. As a fan, I'm seeing this as a missed opportunity, as they could have given the nod and allowed the show to get a head start on the next season's shooting, drastically-delaying the gap between seasons.
     As with the previous two seasons this will run eight episodes. They pack a great deal into these roughly half-hour (26-35 min) episodes, and so with just 16 episodes and a nearly three year break, I'm doing a series rewatch to get myself back up to speed.

     I've also done a season one refresh and then plowed through the seven-episode season two of Russian Doll (Netflix), another series that recently returned after a little more than three year hiatus. I did a preview of that late in last week's piece. Fast-paced and glib, and as I noted based on the trailer, this season sees a different, broader twist in play.

   Starting next Monday (25th) and running weekly through May 30th on HBO (and, so, streaming on HBO Max, too), is a 6-part miniseries from The Wire creator & showrunner David Simon and frequent collaborator George Pelecanos. It's another Baltimore-set, police and crime-centered drama based on a nonfiction book by a Baltimore-based reporter. A tale of power and corruption, based on the rise and fall of Baltimore P.D.'s Gun Trace Task Force. Jon Bernthal arguably headlines a strong cast, with faces that will pop for viewers of The Wire, Treme, Bosch, Mercy Street, and Vera. It should be hitting most of the notes that The Shield did. It's We Own This City

     Out on the brink of next week's piece, Thursday the 28th will see nearly all things Corleone arriving on Paramount+. The Godfather (1972), The Godfather Part II (1974), and The Godfather Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone (1990) will all appear, along with the first three parts of a 10-part miniseries (the remaining parts will arrive weekly) aiming to dramatize producer Albert S. Ruddy's experiences adapting Mario Puzo's novel to the screen, surrounded by people for whom either getting the movie made or keeping it from being made were nearly life or death matters.
     I'm presuming there's no need to run a trailer for the movies, so here's the one for the miniseries: The Offer

     Depending on one's schedule, all of that goombah action may be more properly the province of next weekend and beyond, but knowing it'll be available Thursday could be useful.

     An update: With so many channels and streaming platforms in play, I keep overlooking things. Often I'll just let it slide into a later column, especially with the vast majority of the items being things we can summon to suit us. Still, I'm up for additions especially while the weekend's fully in play.
     So it is that I just noticed that Showtime (that's for us in the U.S. International audiences will find it on Paramount+) is launching a new series this Sunday (the 24th) based on a 1963 science fiction novel of the same name, that was also previously adapted into a 1976, David Bowie-starring movie. It's The Man Who Fell To Earth. This version stars the always captivating Chiwetel Ejiofor as Faraday, the interstellar traveler on a desperate mission to Earth. The rest of the cast is pretty promising, too, as the trailer shows.

     I've no idea how many episodes this season will be (only five are listed so far, running through the end of May), nor how open-ended their intentions are for additional seasons. I so far presume this will likely run about ten episodes, but we'll have to see.

     That's all for this week. We have some major life changes for me and mine starting by mid-May, with an uncertain elasticity. There's more prep work involved than I would have the stamina for even if I could find the time -- yet, I'll somehow have to find both. That's life, and it's better than its opposite. So, take care, and we'll meet back here next Friday. - Mike

What's To Watch? - Apr 1 - Careers in Crime & Space

 

  I've only rarely done April Fools jokes, and I'm not intending to do any here. I've never really approved of them, as so often they reduce to "Ha ha! What a moron! You trusted me!" Not the message I want to be associated with. If I ever mislead you here it's going to be a matter of taste, or an accident, not of sniggering design. So, enough of that.
     As with nearly every week, the column's subtitle is just one that came to mind as I rolled lightly over the choices I'd made. It's not to be leaned on as a strict theme.

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     Quick notes on a couple of items from last week: Season three of Atlanta (FX Thursday nights, and on Hulu the following day) got off to a strong start with the first two episodes, including a palate cleanser of a horror story nested in another horror. I haven't gotten to this week's episode yet.
     I watched the first of the three Julia episodes that just landed on HBO Max - introducing us to Julia Child and her husband in 1961, and beginning to recount her journey to becoming a celebrated tv chef. I'd have happily rolled through the next two, but, unfortunately, I had a job to get off to. I plan to get back to those soon.
     Aside from that, I'll note that four episodes in on season two I'm still very much enjoying this season's time travel story arc in Star Trek: Picard (Thursdays on Paramount+), and that this was the second week in a row where the episode ended with me hungry for the next scene - drawn in well enough that I wasn't mindful of the time. So, if you haven't been catching up, maybe that's an incentive to let it build up a little more so you'll have the luxury of being able to roll through to the next one.

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     I've deliberately steered away from some of the details, because I know most people like to wade in on their own.  
    Also as talked about/lightly speculated on last week, this Wednesday saw the debut of Moon Knight on Disney+. This six-part miniseries is primarily intended to introduce the character(s), who will subsequently appear in other (big) screen projects.
     A suitably confusing opening episode, given that we soon discover the long-suffering main character has more than one personality and identity, and that seemingly mystical elements are involved. We don't know how much of this is being filtered through the mind of someone who's significantly other than well. So it is with that the booming, commanding, generally unhappy voice thundering in the main character's head at some points of crisis... well, we should wait for a little more substantiation.

     To the degree that we can trust anything, we're also introduced to what appears to be the main character's primary opponent, Arthur Harrow, who presents as the mystical, messianic man on the ground for an ancient deity, Ammit. It seems that ancient Egyptian god of judgement in the afterlife has grown impatient, and is looking to judge people while they're still alive, passing judgement on them for lives not yet fully lived.
     I'm looking forward to seeing how the rest of it plays out. As I watched the first episode at an insomniac's hour - mere minutes after it appeared on the service, and so a few tics past 3 AM here on the East Coast - I'll be interested to see what a rewatch of the episode does.
     The rewatch, at an hour of clearer consciousness, had me noticing more details. There's also at least one more, confirming reveal in the closing credits (one of the credits -- there aren't any mid- or post-credit scenes) as the impatient, commanding voice thundering in the thick of Steven's confusion - by F. Murray Abraham - is named.

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     Today on Netflix, we have an ensemble comedy about a group of actors confined during COVID-19 lock-down in a hotel, where they're trying to complete the 6th film in a flying dinosaur, action movie, franchise. Judd Apatow directs and stars with a cast that includes Karen Gillan, David Duchovny, Keegan-Michael Key, Kate McKinnon, Pedro Pascal, Fred Armison and Peter Serafinowicz: It's The Bubble (2022  R for language, sexual content, drug use and some violence   126m)

     The screenplay was inspired by the situation the actors went through during the making of Jurassic World Dominion (2022). Pandemic protocols found them all living in, and essentially confined to, the same hotel. As this comedy includes elements of a film within a film, they took advantage of that to initially release an arch teaser for the fictional film (Cliff Beasts 6: The Battle For Everest) back in early March... before revealing the name of the actual comedy film they've made.

     Fun enough, it's a good cast for the project. Among the touches, I appreciated David Duchovny taking shots at himself. Mercifully, Kate McKinnon is only used in short doses and plays a character we're not meant to like -- so it's a good dosage and a natural bit of casting.

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      Also arriving today on Netflix is the ten-episode first season of a British sci-fi, road trip, adventure series about a mixed crew of kids having to band together against a machine intelligence. Based on the trailer it's aimed primarily at the age group of the main characters -- not that there's anything wrong with that, but expectations have to be adjusted. It's The Last Bus.

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     While nothing remotely new - fourteen years old, in fact - I took note that arriving today on HBO Max is one of the first official Marvel Studios movies, The Incredible Hulk (2008), which hasn't been streaming (sans commercials) anywhere I'm subscribed to. It'll be nice to have access to it again after all this time. (There's a persistent tangle due to an agreement made with Universal back in the '70s that complicates all big screen things titled "Hulk", which is why this may never make its way to Disney+, and why multiple, likely, Hulk-centered projects aren't likely to be coming to the big screen as such. I can tell anyone interested in some detail, but I'm not going to get into it here.)
     That year they knocked out the first two films in what would become an entertainment franchise juggernaut, and we really weren't at all sure what they were going to get right and what they weren't. Honestly, they weren't at all sure either, including what the audience would respond well to, and how much detail they'd be looking to absorb. Sure, the comics fans generally live on the details, but even now we're relatively few. They weren't even sure they'd be able to hook a fiscally-significant audience, as the vast majority of mainstreamers didn't know Iron Man, much less Tony Stark, as we entered 2008, and the only Hulk those people were aware of were those who were old enough to remember the late '70s/early '80s tv movies and shows, and maybe Ang Lee's, underexposed, 2003, almost-nature film. 
     It was fun to revisit that after all these years, seeing how they were feeling their way through the process. I'd somehow forgotten the much-appreciated at the time touch of allowing the origin to be treated via some flashback scenes and a brief bit of exposition, rather than pulling a DC and thinking they had to ponderously reintroduce the main characters and reshoot the origin arc.
     I'm almost at the stage where I might go back to rewatch Hulk (2003) - mainly to refresh myself on a few specifics, just for the hell of it. At the time I was mainly happy to see it even just in finally getting a Hulk at an appropriate power level.

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    April appears to be a light month for Amazon Prime with respect to anything original, with nothing of that sort arriving today (they'll have something next week), but the raft of new-to-them and returning films on April 1st includes the eminently rewatchable O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000), Young Frankenstein (1974), Fargo (1996), the 1956 version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, indy sci-fi hit District 9 (2009), and an unconnected trio of M. Night Shyamalan films: The Sixth Sense (1999), Unbreakable (2000) and Signs (2002).  

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    Next Monday, the 4th, will finally see the arrival of the fifth season of Better Call Saul on Netflix, where the first four seasons have been parked for several years. Up until then, if you wanted to catch up on that penultimate season, you needed to have AMC+.  Consequently, I haven't seen any of those fifth season episodes since they aired back in 2018.
     The sixth and final season of the show will begin arriving on AMC come April 18th, so we'll get to that in a couple weeks.
     Netflix's offerings so far include season recaps for each of the first four seasons, but I'm not sure to expect one for the fifth to be included in this roll-out. I haven't decided how much of a rewatch I want to do ahead of the new episodes -- I don't want to race through a full rewatch, but I also don't want to drop back in cold. As often, I really won't know how I'm going to handle it until I'm doing whatever that will be.

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     Next Tuesday, April 5th, Paramount+ will be adding a remastered version of Robert Wise's Director's Edition cut of Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979  137m).
     All the enhancing was done 20-odd years ago, when the big push to move everything over to DVDs was on, and so had been done in standard definition, hence this not being something they'd been trotting out in the past 20 years. Now it's all in 4K HD, and being promoted as part of First Contact Day, celebrating April 5th (2063), when the first human warp speed craft flew, and a Vulcan survey ship made first contact. It remains to be seen if any of the tinkering will render the film less of a sleeping pill - if nothing else, the losses of the years between make seeing some of the faces a little more poignant - either way, intrepid viewers will soon have a chance to find out. Here's the new trailer.

     Additionally, here's an interview/promotional piece with Producer David C. Fein about the timeline and process.

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     Also on Paramount+, beginning two days later (April 7th), an adaptation of Jake Edelstein's memoir of his time in the late 1990s when he (an investigative journalist) came to work for a Japanese newspaper to explore the world of the Japanese crime syndicate. It's Tokyo Vice.

     Ansel Elgort and Ken Watanabe star in this new, limited series. The first three episodes land that first Thursday, two more on each of the 14th and 21st, and the finale on April 28.

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     Holding on to the closing theme of early 1970s tv movies I've been on - and the 92nd birthday of John Astin just

this past Wednesday - I'm going with a generally fondly-remembered tv movie from February 1972. Co-written and co-produced by Garry Marshall and Jerry Belson, directed by Jerry Paris. A comedy Western, it centers on an orphaned infant who was rejected by all, grew up mean, and aspired to be even meaner. This rose from the ashes of an unproduced series created in 1969 called Sheriff Who?, as a core gimmick for the series would have been a special guest lawman/hero each week, who would have been killed off by Roy.
     I know almost without a doubt that it won't have aged well, or certainly not evenly, that it'll likely quickly remind me that the line between shtick and formula is largely a matter of audience mood, but I like the concept, I like John Astin, and I remember enough of the silliness of it fondly. Astin played Roy with a childlike affability that seems to come naturally to the man.
     John Astin stars, with a cast including Mickey Rooney, Dick Shawn, Henry Gibson, Dom DeLuise, Edie Adams, and Milton Berle, It's Evil Roy Slade (1972   97m)

     That should be an ample start for April. I'm sure I've forgotten to mention some things, but I want to get this in place so it can auto-publish on schedule, and then I have a lasagna to assemble in the crockpot so Friday's dinner is taken care of before I head off into the (too-) busy work day. So, of course, I'm suddenly wanting to go through the TCM schedule for the coming week... but I simply don't have the time to even begin that. Take care, get your tax filings out of the way if you haven't already (I wish I had!), and watch something you enjoy. See you back here next Friday. - Mike

What's To Watch? - Mar 25 - Struggles and Pain: Life Essentials

 

    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