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

Portents, Pasts and Unsavory Deals - September 24 - Friday Video Distractions with Mike Norton

 

     Another week down, September having less than a week's breath remaining.

     Among the items I've been enjoying this week were Sunday's episode of Evil (Paramount+), which I will continue to recommend, and Thursday's season three debut for Doom Patrol (HBO Max). That latter centers on some of the most deeply-damaged characters in any series I can think of. A distinctly inhuman menagerie to general appearance, yet all the more charmingly, deeply human and sympathetic for it, even at their (justifiably) crankiest.
     This new season kicked off with a trio of episodes, and, as I'd hoped, has brought more of the dark whimsy of season one back with it. It also took some of the time it lost during last season's COVID-truncated run to bring us a conclusion to that storyline before positioning us for a new story arc -- which in typical Doom Patrol fashion seems mostly to be other people's old business. I don't know how close the wrap to Dorothy's story arc this was to the original plan, but they seemed to get it to a tidy pivoting point, more fully clearing the decks for new-to-them business. In these three episodes we get to see something of the Brotherhood of Evil, see that the villains get stuck with their own mission-centered raw deals, too, and meet the Dead Boy Detectives in time to deal with a rescue mission to the afterlife.
     The sheer, sprawling, timelessness for the main characters - an odd benefit of their specific damages - makes for a sympathetic resonance in me, with the necessarily arrested childhood elements that are part of still being a comics fan in my sixties. Something in this allows me the illusion of sharing their storybook character immortality, and there's a nostalgic warmth and comfort in that.
     Also, over on Hulu, Mondays have been bringing me new episodes of the engaging, post-apocalyptic Y: The Last Man, and Tuesdays another installment of the often charming misfit mystery Only Murders in the Building, each of which I'd talked about in earlier installments. (Doom Patrol was part of last week's entry, and Only Murders back near the beginning of the month.)
   Arriving today on Netflix is a new supernatural series from Mike (Haunting of Hill House) Flanagan, focused on an isolated, island community that experiences a series of miraculous events and troubling omens following the return of a disgraced young man (Zach Gilford) and the arrival of a young priest (Hamish Linklater). It's Midnight Mass

     This is a seven-episode LIMITED series, and has received mostly strongly positive reviews. Wanting to keep it as fresh an experience as I can, I haven't dived into the full reviews. It's one of many items to practically be on my doorstep this month before I knew they were coming, which has its advantages. There's too much I'm aware of that I haven't gotten around to as it is.
      Adding some notes: I've watched it all, and can strongly recommend it. I don't want to liken it to any specific novel, movie or miniseries because I don't want to give it away. It struck me as something executed by a skilled craftsman who is a sharp-eyed fan of the best efforts Stephen King ever managed. (To clarify, this isn't a King story.) Certainly, depending on one's turn of mind, one could see much of it coming, but I rode with the characters and the story and my attention was held. Themes of religion, addiction, and redemption.
     One of the benefits of watching most of these things solo is that I don't have to run the risk of having a viewing companion who's trying to make a competition of it -- whether it's to try to get me to race to predict what's coming, or intent on not letting the story surprise them. I've known some of those people, and they are no joy in those circumstances. But I digress. As mentioned above, I recommend it.
     It's one of an odd flood of items - old and new - that have recently been coming my way that have strong Catholic themes, emphasizing the beliefs and rituals. That's something I was brought up in, so despite being decades-distant to me now, it still walks that line between striking me as completely pedestrian (the rituals are deeply-chiseled), and reminding me how lunatic and morbid the details are to an outsider -- to anyone who wasn't brought up in it from such an early age to have never seen it in its full conceptual horrors, with fresh, critical eyes.
     Arriving on Netflix next Wednesday is another supernatural horror item, No One Gets Out Alive (2021  R  1h 25m), that I'm more on the fence about -- which is largely to say I'll need to be in the right mood for it.

     Based at least conceptually on the Adam Nevill 2014 novel of the same name (which was a very UK-centric affair, and a significantly different main character), the film centers on Ambar, a young woman who after years of caring for her terminally-ill mother in Mexico, comes illegally to the United States (specifically Cleveland) to try for a new life. Lining up under-the-table work in a garment factory, she rents a room in a near-derelict boarding house. There she soon begins to learn there are threatening secrets. Her precarious legal status and lack of resources make the situation all the more dire, as who is there to call on?
    Coming to HBO Max and theaters here in the U.S. next Friday, October 1st, is the Sopranos prequel film, The Many Saints of Newark

     Set during the teenage years of Anthony Soprano (here played by the late James Gandolfini's son, Michael), it brings those formative years to life. We get to meet some characters who were gone and elevated to the level of legends by the era of The Sopranos, and otherwise see the younger versions of characters we got to know so well during the course of that show's six seasons. Watching and listening for signature elements in many of the characters will be part of the fun. I'm in the midst of my first, full rewatch of the series, which I'd originally taken in as it rolled out, season to season, on HBO. One thing I've been reminded of during this so far is how while it's thick with interesting characters, many with sympathetic elements, truly likeable ones are like hen's teeth. As with many a good character in a novel, these aren't people one would sanely want in one's real life.
     I didn't rush to add comments here, despite watching this Friday, in large part because I'm still processing it, and I'm likely going to have to watch it at least one more time to do real justice to the details. I'm early in season three of my first, full rewatch of The Sopranos since the series aired and I was following it season-to-season. The series' occasional flashbacks to Tony's childhood, along with the many, scattered references as characters talk about events and people in the old days, are all popping out more during this rewatch. A full appreciation of this prequel will include paying attention to those details, and seeing how much of it turns out to be self-serving mythology by those who survived that era.
     The performances are often fun, as we see actors playing decades-younger versions of the characters we met in the series. That first (and so far only) time through the movie was spent just trying to take it in as its own story, not doing a rigorous compare and contrast to the mythology presented in the series, and not pausing to note the specific actors' portrayals.
     In the 2020/2021 fashion of these HBO-Max simultaneous streaming and theatrical releases, it'll be available here for 31 days -- in this case, neatly, for exactly the month of October. After that, it'll disappear, to go through a pay per view/digital and physical sale period, before finally cycling back to HBO. I'll almost certainly watch it at least a second time before it leaves. I may let it percolate in memory a bit first, though, while continuing my rewatch of the series, and maybe doing an IMDB-dive into the casting to refresh myself and pin down more of the actor-to-role associations. Early nods go to Vera Farmiga as Livia Soprano, Jon Bernthal as Johnny Soprano, and and Michael Gandolfini as the teen-aged Tony, the actor playing a younger version of the character his late father did in the series. I've since read that Michael hadn't watched the series until he was preparing for the role, and that it was an "intense" process for him. Director Alan Taylor did reshoots of any scene where he caught any whiff of the young Gandalfini playing it too close to his father's version, as they wanted to be careful to convey that this is Tony at a much younger age, and so far less formed and focused.
      In general, everyone portraying a (later-)established character did a credible job of hitting identifying traits, but I was rolling with the story that first time through, deliberately avoiding being critical.
     The scenes involving the Newark riots of 1967 stirred some memories, as my mother and I were caught in a similar scene in a different (more Southerly) part of New Jersey around the same time. We had been living in Levittown, PA since summer of '66, but as my father was serving in the Navy the main grocery shopping was done over at McGuire AFB/Fort Dix in NJ (the price differences were extreme enough to make it worthwhile, especially when gas was so damned inexpensive), and the route we took through New Jersey wasn't as straight the shot then as it would be now. We went through some more urban areas, which normally wasn't a problem, but that wasn't a normal time. A woman in her early 30s and a six year-old kid got a pass, but there were some tense moments. We were not the right shade to be at that time and place. 
     Reaching back for an odd item I'd missed back in the day, only recently reading anything about it,

we find Arnold (1973). A horror comedy of the overly-elaborate revenge sort, the core plot is that a dying millionaire (dead before the opening credits) plotted an elaborate revenge on all of the people in his life, realizing they were only there hoping to claim his fortune. Through some unexplained loophole, despite leaving behind a widow, arrangements were made for his corpse to be married to his mistress, combining his funeral and posthumous wedding in a single ceremony. She is given control of his fortune (minus a few holdings) so long as she stays in some proximity to his corpse for the rest of her life. The deceased has planned everything meticulously, including having made elaborate recordings - some of them to be delivered at particular times to certain people, and others to be played so his corpse can seem to have conversations with particular people. Ultimately it's a souffle of stupidity, unable to support itself, but simply refusing to fall. Maybe it's more of a drunken juggernaut.  Here's the trailer. I honestly don't recall ever even seeing that, though apparently it was heavily advertised in some markets.

     It may help to remember this was an era where elaborately contrived revenge films with comedic turns had more traction, even just among several Vincent Price films, The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971), Dr. Phibes Rises Again (1972) and Theater of Blood (1973) -- any one of which is a far better suggestion than Arnold.
     Arnold's mostly interesting for the people involved.
     First, this was produced in part by Bing Crosby Productions, which just strikes me as a strange connection. The cast includes Stella Stevens, Roddy McDowell, Elsa Lanchester, Farley Granger, Victor Buono, John McGiver, Bernard ("Dr. Bombay") Fox, and Jamie Farr as the man-servant Dybbi, complete with heavy, dark makeup, a Sikh's turban,  eye-patch, white suit, and one of those badly done hook hands involving an overlong sleeve. All in all it looks as if it was shot by people used to making television.
     Almost mercifully, no one officially carries the film. It's never been issued on disc, and the one time it was issued on tape was in the mid-80s. However, here's a fuzzy copy on YouTube should you want to push through it.

      Not quite the type of thing I've been ending these pieces with recently, but it'll do. My week's running away from me again, and I'm less spry by the day.
     Take care, and we'll meet back here next week for the start of October.  - Mike

It's a Long Road - Sept 17 - Friday Video Distractions with Mike Norton

 

     Fact and fiction in the mix again this week.
     Today, in the latest of HBO Max's simultaneous releases with theaters, is the latest from producer, director and star Clint Eastwood.
     Based on N. Richard Nash's 1975 novel, it's Cry Macho.

     Nash's novel began as a screenplay he pitched and pitched without success - then it was just called Macho - so he reworked it into a novel and added Cry. The novel was enough of a success that he took the original screenplay around again, didn't change a word, and this time got bites. Hey, you're either seen or you're not.
     It became another of those projects lost in seemingly endless production Hell.
     Over the years it was optioned by Fox and several other studios, only to have the options run out and be out for sale yet again. Eastwood was offered the part back in '88, but passed because he was doing another Dirty Harry film (The Dead Pool). He offered to direct, and suggested Robert Mitchum for the role, but that went nowhere. In the early '90s Roy Scheider had the part, with filming begun but never finished. Attempts with Burt Lancaster and Pierce Brosnan started up and sputtered out. Arnold Schwarzenegger was lined up for it, but then put it on hold due to his gubernatorial run for California. In 2011 he was ready to pick that up again, but his divorce and the scandal over the son he'd secretly had with an employee scrubbed all of those plans. Nash himself had passed away back in 2000, and so 21 years shy of seeing the film completed. Considering the likes of Brosnan or, especially, Schwarzenegger in the role, it's likely a good thing it passed each of them by; it's more likely the role would have had to been rewritten around each of them.
     In interviews the now 91 year old Eastwood's noted that he was interested in the role from the start, and reached a point where he revisited it as something he'd aged into. This film marks the first time since 1992 (for Unforgiven) that he was on camera on horseback. The wrangler for those shots was more than a little nervous about the thought that Eastwood might end up knocked out of the saddle.
     This isn't the kind of film I'm strongly drawn to, but I'm intending to take a look at it sometime during its 31-day run on HBO Max.
     Another portrait in things macho begins this Sunday, the 19th, as Ken Burns' four-part documentary of Muhammad Ali begins. It's airing as a roughly 2-hour piece for each of four consecutive nights, Sunday through Wednesday. It attempts to carve his complex life into four blocks, and as much as I'm interested in many of the details along the way, I'm probably most interested in the final block, as the fourth installment covers 1974-2016.

     Ali is another of those 20th century icons whose primary claim to fame was never of any direct interest to me. I've always considered boxing to be barbaric, and both age and information have only reinforced that view. Given all of the knowns about the long-term damage, part of me is still taken aback that it's legal.
     Instead, it's the man himself, his character, charm, showmanship, and the force of will involved in his social and political stances, that I find interesting. (There's a loose corollary here with Frank Sinatra, of all people. I am far more interested in Sinatra for his determination, force of will, and self-reinvention than I've ever been for his voice. I revisit Frank's recording catalog every so many years and have yet to understand why it was ever such a point of broad appeal.  My current, general playlist has 1261 songs on it - some 79 hours 40 minutes of music - and Ol' Blue Eyes isn't currently in there once.)
     I have all four parts set to record on the DVR, but I also know myself well enough to know it'll come down to a whim as to whether or not I start to tug on that thread in a timely fashion, or, failing that, will find myself deleting it unwatched because it's taking up too much space, fully intending to track it down later. This is one of those cases where I could argue it's being put out too quickly.
     Starting back in April, HBO ran the limited series Mare of Easttown, which was set in a modified version of a section of Eastern PA, and shot reasonably nearby. An excellent limited series, it ran for 7 installments to much, justified, acclaim. Recently, Showtime began airing a murder mystery of its own, this time set in more Western PA, in part of the Rust Belt. PA is a large state, and different sections of it may as well be different states, or even separate countries in many respects.
     This one stars Jeff Daniels as a police chief who is faced with a murder investigation where his connection to the accused makes the matter complicated. It's American Rust. Here's the trailer.

     The show is based on Philipp Meyer's much-lauded, 2009, debut novel of the same name. It's set in the fictional town of Buell, set in Fayette County (a real place), and so adjacent to Maryland and West Virginia. A place where industry boomed for decades, then collapsed, leaving the locals with their woods, guns and not much in the way of bright prospects unless they can move away.
     Concerning this adaptation, whereas critics were quick to laud Mare, unadulterated accolades for Rust are more difficult to find. Praise for the lead actors, sure, but most of the critics need to see more than the first three episodes screened for them to decide if the story will support itself, concerned that all interest will fade if key faces and voices aren't in the scenes. New episodes airing Sunday nights, the third (apparently of 8 -- that number based on info in a wiki, otherwise seemingly concealed like a state secret) will be this Sunday.
     As an audience-fishing move, they're leaving the first episode out on YouTube for anyone to watch:

     This is more likely something I'll be jumping into soon.
     Hulu's just this week launched a new anthology series that's very broadly attempting to capture aspects of contemporary life. The creation of writer, actor, producer, and comedian B.J. Novak, it's a series of half-hour, stand-alone stories, packaged as The Premise.

     (As an aside: This is part of FX on Hulu, which is a bit of what's now, I suppose, legacy branding. FX was slowly developing content for a possible, eventual, streaming service of its own, but deals with Disney - which has full control of Hulu, and bought out all of Fox's entertainment biz - finds all of this now just a subset of Hulu's programming.)
     Half-hour stories with interesting casts, tackling the general human condition and both timeless and contemporary issues looks like an easy "yes." Then it'll just be a matter of whether we come down on the same side of various issues.
      Arriving next Thursday, September 23rd, on HBO Max is the start of the third season of Doom Patrol. I make no apologies for saying that this is much more to my immediate, arguably arrested, tastes. Barring life going well off the rails, I expect to watch this fairly soon after it appears.
     In what is now typical fashion for these DC series on HBO Max, the first three episodes will arrive on day 1, then we'll get a new one per week as it rolls out this thirteen-episode season.
     Indications so far are that they learned the lesson of the contrast between seasons one and two, and have given more attention to bringing in eccentric villains. (Season one's Mr. Nobody, played by Alan Tudyk, was hugely important in keeping it fun.) New to the mix in season three are the Brotherhood of Evil, and the Sisterhood of Dada, Madame Rouge, and the Deadboy Detectives. The trailer has me a little concerned that they went too light and wacky, but there's no point in pre-judging any of it, especially from a trailer. Pandemic interference caused season two to be cut down by a full episode, rushing some elements of the finale. Seeing where it picks up will be the first point of interest for me.
     I'm hoping for a fun time.

     While continuing to hold out so far, the pile-on of positive recommendations for items on Apple tv+ have been continuing. Ranging from The Morning Show, to Ted Lasso, to Schmigadoon! (heard about it at length during one of Terry Gross' Fresh Air interviews on NPR - that's a link to the 36-minute interview), it's been continuing to build. Next Friday they're launching a new series, an adaptation of Isaac Asimov's classic Foundation series. I'm not yet sold on it, as I'm afraid that they're going to fall down the path of gimmicking it up with explosions, violence, and gratuitous sex in an attempt to make it more commercial, and that the desire to hold the cast in place longer it may fail to make the great leaps in time that the source novels did. It's too difficult to tell from the trailer, in part because I don't know how much of the series they're mining for clips.

     While I'm so far not drawn in by the ads I've seen for the action drama series set in a mostly blind world, See, such upcoming science fiction dramas such as Finch (a man, his dog and a robot he's training to take care of his dog film starring Tom Hanks) and Invasion (sci fi series following an alien invasion from the perspective of different people around the world), along utterly non-sci-fi items such as a comedy starring Rashida Jones, Marlon Wayans and Bill Murray - On The Rocks - have at least made their way onto a mental list.
     As it's all on a streaming platform that this programming was developed for, it's not going anywhere -- just broadening and deepening -- so there's no rush. Note: I don't have any apple devices (many viewers got access as part of a package that came along with a new piece of equipment) and don't have any plans to change that. All mentioned to prevent someone from making that suggestion to me.
     I have a bad habit of adding services but not cancelling them. With respect to Apple TV+, I see that the monthly fee is $4.99, or there's a less-advertised annual plan of $49.99, so a savings of $9.89 -- all pre-tax. Again, though, no rush -- but it's creeping in as a next likely addition. I have to look into the details as to number of users/devices a single account can be used for. Disney+, and Paramount+ have already been recurring, annual subscriptions I've made as a general family entertainment gift. If I add this one, it'll be the least expensive so far.

     Almost the end of this week's piece, and the weekend nearly here, it's time to reach back into the 1950s/early '60s for another b-list sci-fi or horror film. Feeling a little peckish? This week it's the luridly mis-titled The Brain Eaters (1958   61 min.).
     This was a Roger Corman-adjacent production, with Corman as an uncredited co-producer. TV and film character actor Bruno William VeSota had wanted to direct another film, so he approached Corman with a script, looking for guidance in lining up financing. The script is credited to Gordon Urquhart, an Illinois-born actor and writer who was apparently an associate's of VeSota, likely from his time in Chicago. Urquhart had died of cancer in 1957, at the age of 33, and so was gone before this project got rolling. That's mostly of note with respect to a point I'll pick up later. Anyway, the film was shot in six days on a budget of $26,000, which is about as Corman a detail as I can think, this side of stories of actors being asked to park and use their cars' headlights to light a scene.

     It was released as part of a double-bill, with either Earth vs. the Spider or Terror From the Year 5000, depending on which part of the country. This was all part of the teen-targeted, drive-in market I mentioned a few weeks back, for which Corman and others cranked out many films in the late '50s and early '60s. Unlike some of the others, I don't have any information on how well or poorly it did.
     The film's historical elements include a very small role by Leonard Nimoy (misspelled "Nemoy" in the credits) as Professor Cole, and that upon release it was the target of a lawsuit by noted science fiction author Robert A. Heinlein, claiming it was plagiarized from his 1951 novel The Puppet Masters. Corman claimed ignorance of Heinlein's work, though once he read the novel he agreed about the similarities, and settled out of court for $5000. As part of the agreement, though, Heinlein didn't want his name in the credits. Actor John Payne (perhaps best remembered as the romantic lead in Miracle on 34th Street) had been chasing a deal to produce a film version of Heinlein's novel since 1953, managing to get a deal signed by 1959, but felt that the story was now too damaged by the plagiarized version, and so abandoned the project. Payne is noted as (one of) the first in Hollywood to try to pin down rights to make a James Bond film in the '50s, too, having paid fees to do so for Moonraker (1955 -- the novel), but reportedly balked because he thought he'd get rights to the series --?! He was a sharp cookie in some respects - he carefully negotiated his contract once he had enough clout, insisting that his films be shot in color, and that following their theatrical runs the rights would revert to him, so he would have the rights to income from eventual rebroadcasts on tv. A lifelong Republican and conservative, though, he mainly seemed to see things only as they would benefit him.
     Now, after all that, here's a fall-back access to The Brain Eaters. Fortunately, though, the ever-wonderful Tubi (and if you can access this, you can access Tubi) has a much better copy. It's free, an easy sign-up, and they're pleasantly light on the commercial interruptions. Go watch it there if you have the choice.

     That's enough for this mid-September week.
     Take care, and come back next Friday.  - Mike