Debuts, Departures, Dystopia and Debacle - Aug 12 - What's To Watch?

 

     Rolling into the heart of February!
     As discussed last week, this week's already seen the return of Resident Alien (Syfy) for the start of the back half of its second season, and the arrival of the third and final season of Locke & Key on Netflix. The former's going to be a week-to-week affair which should take us to the last week of September; this week's new episode quickly brought me back up to speed on the plot points; mid-March seems longer ago than it probably should. The latter series had all ten episodes land at once, and will most likely fall for me this weekend; at 61 I still have no portion-control skills.
     Casually watched fairly quickly - the longest episodes were 47 minutes, and there were only eight episodes for this season. Locke & Key's final season gave it an appropriate send-off, in part by changing the perspective on the nature of the keys. The very final scene had some formulaic winces, but we're left with a reasonably well-rounded and complete tale, while still having options open for someone to pick the story up somewhere in the future.
     This Sunday will see the third season finale of Evil arrive on Paramount+, with a Rockne S. O'Bannon script. This season was pared down from the 13 episodes each of the previous two seasons, to a mere ten. I can't be happy about that shrinkage. I'm curious to see the state of the characters by the roll of closing credits. A fourth season was greenlit last month, so barring a new national/global upheaval it seems reasonable to expect we'll see that season commence roughly next June -- a world away. If things go as planned I'll be a couple months into looking at a different set of walls by then.
     Watched that season finale of Evil around 4AM - a peaceful time of day to wake up, especially on a day when you know you can go back to sleep when you want. (Which I did... and I did.) The story moved fairly well along, including some intentional frustrations, and gave us an interesting starting place for next season. Now to see if Kirsten, her husband and daughters, and their allies all put their heads together to be sure they have as clear a picture as possible.
     A cleverly-written show, I'll be watching for the full fallout from the revelations in this season-ender... and to see what the tone of season four will be now that the season's pop-up book changed just ahead of the new season. Also, I'm wondering if Wallace Shawn's Father Ignatius will be sticking around for the new season.  
     Monday will see he final episode of Better Call Saul arrive on AMC. It's been a pleasure seeing the story unfold, and now we'll finally see the end of that journey. Grievous flaws and all, I'm still sympathetic to Jimmy/Saul, and Kim, and so am conflicted in figuring out what to realistically hope for. Self-destruction seems to be the theme, though.

     An odd item I came across on Amazon Prime recently is a 2017 film co-written and directed by Bill Watterson. A fantasy adventure comedy horror piece about a largely aimless 30 year-old with a history of never finishing anything. In a weekend plunge of creativity, with his girlfriend out of town, he creates something surreal. Using cardboard boxes and art supplies, he builds an elaborate labyrinth inside a fort - all in their apartment - that is vastly more than it appears to be. It's Dave Made a Maze (2017  NR  81m)

     It's a whimsical fantasy adventure piece, though it does ultimately stick with the horror category; however abstract and craft-y the carnage may be, it's of lasting consequence. The film's peppered with familiar faces and voices from various (often genre) shows, including actors from Criminal Minds, to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Venture Brothers.
     As with nearly anything on Amazon Prime, I've no idea how long it's going to stay put, or more importantly how long it's going to remain as a free to Prime members item; things randomly slip back behind additional paywalls all the time. It's also available on Tubi, where there'll be some commercials, but it's much more likely to stay accessible. References along the way at least suggest that it is/has been part of both Shudder and Epix, so if you have either of those it's possible it may be found there. I currently do not, or else I would have checked.

     My experience with concert events has been minimal, both because I've never been a fan of large concentrations of people, and I've seldom seen one that was a good listening experience. Oh, some great performances have come out of live music events, but I've still found that the recordings from properly miked bands are the way to go if I really want to hear and enjoy it. Live and in-person the crowd's going to ultimately put me off, the chances I'll be able to hear anything clearly on-site are low, and sense of "connection" with the performers is almost guaranteed to be illusory. Your mileage may certainly vary, and I'm genuinely happy for fans of big venue, live music events -- I wish you weren't so routinely being absolutely ripped off by the criminal ticket sale system.
     Sometimes these things go so horribly wrong that no one can sanely claim anything to the contrary.
     Between HBO/HBO Max and Netflix there's roughly four hours of critical retrospective about the debacle that was Woodstock 1999. A tragic failure at almost every level, made so much worse by the unbridled, unprincipled greed behind the (nominal) organizers' actions. From food and water, to sanitation and security, organizational ineptitude, and a bottom line focus on maximizing profit, it was a perfect shitstorm.
     On HBO/HBO Max it's the 2021 documentary (that had previously been on Netflix, where I hadn't taken notice of it last year) Woodstock 99: Peace, Love, and Rage (1h 50m)

     (Related aside, HBO Max also currently has a director's cut of the 1970 film about the 1969 Woodstock concert, for historical and cultural contrast.)
     Meanwhile, back on Netflix, there's the recently-arrived, three-part documentary Trainwreck: Woodstock '99 (2022)

     The three-parter currently on Netflix has some issues, particularly in how it covers the sexual assault aspects. They seemed to manage to upset various viewers by simultaneously rushing through that aspect, while including graphic, insufficiently edited material that struck some as insensitive to the victims.

     Shifting back to the far more comforting world of a purely imaginary apocalypse:
     Arriving on AMC (with advance episodes appearing on AMC+, as they will doubtless stress during commercial breaks and most assuredly as the first episode ends - AMC in 2022 increasingly exists as marketing for an AMC+ streaming subscription) this Sunday is the first of a six-episode series set in the zombie apocalypse of The Walking Dead.
     These are to be six, separate slices of life, wherein we see how different people reacted to the catastrophic changes, survived (or failed to), and came to see that world. Stand-alone stories offering different perspectives on a catastrophically changed world. Tales of the Walking Dead.

     When The Walking Dead premiered back in 2010, I had already been having one of my personal worst years, with a death back in April that was a bookend of a nineteen month stretch of mostly surprise deaths that had been violently flipping my world since September of 2008. No need to relive those specifics here.

     I'd been a fan of Robert Kirkman's source series, The Walking Dead comic, since its debut in 2003 as a black and white comics version of "the zombie movie that never ends," which is how Kirkman framed the project in the first issue. His intention at the time being that aside from the normal market element of being canceled if it failed to sell well, this would be his own Romeroesque story of a zombie apocalypse that would go on and on. In the end, he pulled the plug on it in 2019 (confessing that he'd come close to doing so at one or two much earlier junctions in the story, changing plans mostly because the inspiration for new character and plot directions struck), not wanting it to become repetitive -- but that, too, is incidental.
     While I rode out the monthly comic through its unannounced end (Kirkman took pains to make it seem as if the comic was still going to be in production, only announcing the end of the story in what became its final issue), when the tv series went to its (very) roughly "mid-season" break in November of 2017, during their war with Negan's forces, I was finding it all too depressing against the day-to-day backdrop of a MAGA-infested U.S. out here in the so-called real world. While the tv show had made selective changes to the story from the comics, it was still following an outline of key events, so I had a good idea of what was coming for the characters. I wasn't in the mood for seeing them take the losses they would, nor to see them coming within a stroke of winning only to lose all over again, at least in the short term. So, I put it all on pause... and have yet to get back to it. That series is set to finally end just before Thanksgiving this year, btw, but that's not important now.
     The six-episode, standalone format for this new show will let me step back into that universe, no strings attached, for the first time since late 2017. That feels like just the right comfort level for me.

      Coming to Disney+ next Thursday, the 18th (why they shifted from Wednesdays as their new release day I've no idea), is the latest Marvel series. An action comedy starring Tatiana Maslany (Orphan Black) as Jennifer Walters, an attorney who also happens to be the cousin of Bruce Banner, aka The Incredible Hulk. It's a nine-episode first season of She-Hulk: Attorney at Law.

     I know, I know, "She-Hulk" was and will always be a terrible name. So blunt and unimaginative that it's barely juvenile. One of the more embarrassing ones. You're going to need to get past that.

     The thumbnail sketch reason for the leaden sobriquet is that in the late '70s Marvel's extremely one-sided contract with CBS (all the power was on CBS/Universal's side) for the Incredible Hulk tv movies and show, made Marvel vulnerable to CBS creating a female version, which they would then own outright. Show biz almost always moves to duplicate anything that's a success, the Bill Bixby/Lou Ferigno Incredible Hulk had been a hit for the network, and a successful, female-led spin-off of The Six Million Dollar Man - The Bionic Woman - had been done a few years prior.
     To preempt any such move, Stan Lee and the folks at Marvel slapped this

character together and launched her in her own comics series. That this hadn't happened until 1980 is probably the most surprising part. Lousy name, and nearly as poor of an origin story - that's not worth yet another digression here; I'll touch on the comics origin next week, after we've seen how they decided to handle the specifics in the show.
     It's important to understand how powerless and unsophisticated Marvel was back in the day. As a business it had been hanging by its fingernails through much of the 1970s; had they not scored a  contract to do a comics version of a new, little property no one had many expectations for - Star Wars - in 1977 it's well within the realm of possibility that the company might have collapsed. They did, however, and George Lucas' project was an unprecedented success, and all involved got a dynamic new lease on life.
      So, the creation of a She-Hulk (shake, shake, shake-off the cringe) was a blunt legal move, neither a creatively- nor an even remotely aesthetically-driven one. The lackluster, formulaic series that ran for just over two years did little to improve on any of that. It existed as a staked claim, which was all that was required of it. The early item most to their credit was that they didn't copy the rage-driven creature model the Hulk had long since fallen into, with Jen, instead, retaining her personality (what there was of it initially) and intellect in the transformation.

     It would take later writers to infuse her with more personality, and then take her one step farther by giving her a fourth wall-breaking shtick. She would eventually make occasional, narrative side-comments to the audience or the writer, showing signs that she was aware she was a character in an entertainment. It would also find her eventually finding herself back to some version of the career she'd studied so long and hard for prior to some of her cousin's blood being transfused into her.
     In introducing the character, as is the case with the MCU in general, Disney has the benefit of those miles and years of developmental rough road from the comics. Knowing what ultimately worked, the screen version appears to have skipped fairly straight to it. The series will abound with guest-stars, some of whom have already been introduced elsewhere, others making their MCU debut. We'll get to see, in a snappy, action-comedy format, how much they manage to expand and firm up elements of the MCU over nine episodes.

     Meanwhile, Summer Under the Stars (that link pops out to an interactive page of the listings) month continues rolling out for TCM viewers, offering 24-hour spotlights of various stars. The next block, starting with today:
         Friday Aug 12:     Jane Powell
         Saturday Aug 13:    Marlon Brando
         Sunday Aug 14:     Elizabeth Taylor
         Monday Aug 15:    Randolph Scott
         Tuesday Aug 16:    Raquel Welch
         Wednesday Aug 17:    Spencer Tracy
         Thursday Aug 18:    Shelly Winters
         Friday Aug 19:    Toshiro Mifune

     So many interesting choices in the mix, few of them I'll have practical time for with the work week and currently limited DVR space - I've so much on there, much of it from TCM, that I've yet to make time for. Far too much in the week for me to make a good highlights list for, but one of the items that popped for me is 2PM on Tuesday, as part of Raquel's day. It's the 1973 Stephen Sondheim co-written (with Anthony Perkins), multi-star whodunnit The Last of Sheila. Here's the theatrical trailer from back in the day:

     For me it's been another draining week, including some very unwelcome health news, and I need to try to... I'm not quite sure. Distance myself from the stresses will have to be part of the process, though. There's much to sort out, and I'm aces at putting such things off. Getting myself to accept, usefully, that time is running out will be a challenge. I'm used to hiding in the margins and uncertainties, and evading what I'm told is inevitable. Those are tough behaviors to break, especially when I don't want to.
     I hope you've found something in the movies and shows above (and in previous Friday posts) of interest, and that we'll all make it back here safely next Friday. - Mike

Struggle and Dream - August 5 - What's To Watch?

 

   First Friday of August, 2022. As a kid, in Eastern PA, I'd be staring down at the last month of summer vacation, with the new school year lurking just after Labor Day.
     Friday's piece now expanded by colored notes, after watching several of the new items.
     This week saw the season-ender for Seth MacFarlane's semi-comedic Star Trek hommage, The  Orville: New Horizons. I've been watching it week to week, but have been avoiding saying much about it as it's an episodic series and I prefer to avoid spoiling details for potential viewers. Also, it seemed that the majority of Orville posts I've read, the comments on them at least, in social media tend to quickly devolve into a race to the bottom sniping match at all or nearly all of the modern Trek series over on Paramount+, perhaps peppered by the occasional mentally-stunted chime-in from someone who uses "woke" as a pejorative much the same way as those same people used to reference something as "PC." Who wants to court any of that?
     Anyway, this long-delayed third season was the first one to be on Hulu -- and one way or another seems certain to be the only new season of it to be on Hulu.
     As had been seen even while it was still on Fox, working to find its footing and tone, the series is ultimately a fan's love letter to Star Trek, and while the comedic elements are still there, this latest season did lean more on the drama and, for lack of a more species-inclusive term, humanity, all while proselytizing enthusiastically for the ideals of Star Fleet The Planetary Union; a message of humane, post-capitalistic existence I can wholly embrace. More than its first two seasons, the 2022 show is an earnest Star Trek variant where the defining difference was mostly a

technical one: No transporters.
     The media landscape has changed considerably over the five years the show's been around. While this season aired first on Hulu, next Wednesday it'll move over to Disney+. At the moment, there are no contracts for a season four, so all of the talent has been lining up other projects. This season resolved some big plot complications by the penultimate episode, and ended on a note of calm and contentment that could serve as a series finale -- we don't know. Word from Seth himself is that its future will now largely depend upon what Disney sees in terms of streaming viewers.
    If they made more, I would watch. If this ends up being a wrap, well, they ended it with an overall upbeat, life goes onward & upward note. That's more than most tv projects have gotten.

     From 1988 until 1996, Neil Gaiman, in collaboration with some two dozen, diverse, graphic artists, produced a comics series called The Sandman for DC Comics' mature readers' imprint Vertigo. A series that ultimately developed spin-off series and specials, the titular focus is Dream - the lord of dreams and nightmares - who has also been known by various other names, including Morpheus. A being whose kingdom touches all of humanity as they enter his realm when they sleep. As it turns out, Dream is part of a family of anthropomorphic beings called The Endless, In descending order by age, they are: Destiny, Death, Dream, Destruction, Desire, Despair and Delirium.
     The series begins with the circumstances that captured and imprisoned Dream nearly a century earlier, when an occultist accidentally did so while trying to capture and nullify his older sister, Death, seeking immortality and the return of cruelly lost loved ones. While the wrong sibling was captured, Dream was not released -- for reasons best left in the story to explain.
     In the decades of Dream's absence from his kingdom, it falls into disrepair, additional elements of it escaping and running riot while others quietly occupied themselves, and others lay fallow. Mankind suffered for it all in various ways, including a plague of sleeping sicknesses. So, an early part of the journey is about Dream escaping, recovering, surveying the damage, rebuilding his power (including reacquiring various totems from unworthy hands), confronting old friends, acquaintances, and rivals, reclaiming his kingdom, reigning in rogue elements, dispensing punishments, and attempting to undo damage.
     Over the course of the series the emphasis sometimes wandered, and it became a gateway to other stories, on the way filling out the history of the world and the Endless, and allowing us to meet the many players.
     Today, a ten-episode first season of this series finally arrives on Netflix. Villains, eccentric characters, and schemers aplenty, I'm hopeful it'll make for a good time.    
     This first season aims to offer an adaptation of the first two collected volumes (the first 18 issues of what would become a 75-issue series) Preludes and Nocturnes, and The Doll's House.

     It's an ambitious undertaking, and I'll be interested in seeing the choices made. A series with so many strong, divergent visual styles and story elements is bound to fail in some respects - to varying

degrees and judgements by readers - a consequence of pinning elements down, casting roles, etc. This is especially the case not only here in 2022, where gender-bending and gender fluidity in general is increasingly common, though in the case of a series like this, populated by characters many of whom are themselves concepts, it really should be no problem at all. Still, I know for some it will be. Even if a Lucifer played by Gwendoline Christie is no issue, the seeming decision to remake supernatural conman John Constantine as Johanna Constantine (played by Jenna Coleman) will doubtless ruffle some feathers, even if just at the simple level of being forcefully at odds with broader notions of the DC Universe of characters, given that John has been part of two television series and was a key character introduced in comics earlier in the '80s as a conniving player in Alan Moore's reinterpretation of Swamp Thing. I can roll with it, but - on the face of it, here, before seeing the show - that does seem to be a gratuitous move. Then again, I'm getting ahead of things, as I haven't watched any of this yet.
     I will be trying to mostly allow it to tell this version as they decided. The source

works are still there, unchanging, safe, waiting to be revisited. A four-volume set of slipcase books collecting the main series, all in an oversize format to better appreciate them - especially with older, feebler eyes - has been part of what I've assembled in the past couple years as I (with no small degree of presumptive hubris) plan elements of a new stage of life for myself in four or five years.
     I'm not the person I was 30-odd years ago, and part of the interest in revisiting this sort of thing is to see what stuck with me from then, how that estimation holds or falls with the revisit, and to ideally catch many elements that I couldn't appreciate back in the day for lack of life experience.
     So far I've been saving my revisit of them, aside from some light browsing. The temptation to dive into them ahead of this series, as a refresher, was there, but I ultimately decided I'll allow the new series to tell the story its own way, and see how that works out.
     As mentioned, all ten episodes of this first season arrive today, so pacing will be a matter of available time, and restraint or lack thereof. Habit and history makes the bet that I'll have seen it all by Sunday where to put the smart money. Looking forward to this.
     Indeed, I had run through the complete season - even with restraint - by Saturday morning. I didn't apply the brakes by going back to reread the roughly corresponding books, preferring at the moment to let this production be its own, self-sufficient thing -- which it was. Removing any and all overt ties to the DC universe of characters was a wise move on more than one front. Most simply, there was nothing to be gained by the larger audience in retaining those ties, and certainly not enough even at points to justify all of the effort and inevitable distractions that would have involved; also, the DC universe as it currently exists is at best a patchwork, with multiple iterations of itself discarded along the way. While the comics started with many of those linkages and groundings, as it moved on they were left farther and farther behind.
     What the series is intent on bringing us is a cohesive narrative that is, again self-sufficient. No previous comics reading is required. There are echoes of some characters in the mix, but almost entirely sticking with the originals would have been of no interest to the mainstream audience. The echoes function as knowing nods to the comics cognoscenti; the most effective of which is when a character from an even earlier era, who was then refitted to be superheroic crusader of the dream realm, is suitably worked in as the fantasy life of a twelve year-old boy, complete with period costume. Also, as is so often the case with comics series that run over the course of years, it was a work in progress, published in serial fashion rather than produced as a single novel which was then subject to editing as a whole, including a rewriting process. What they become is often not what was key to the plans at the start. Here, adapting the first two story arcs of a 75-issue series, the early material's been rewritten to match what the full series came to be.
     What we have, is something that should work well for a broad audience, particularly if they are content with what is more of a concatenation of fables than an exacting story worked out in clockwork detail. If one is intent on finding fault with it, they can fairly easily do so, as the fuzziness of dream logic suffuses the story and the characters. Relationships, foibles, and possibilities for character growth are what are prized here, well over concerns for seamless storytelling. That's Gaiman's way.
     I enjoyed this first block, and am hoping that the bottom-line bloodbath that's been going on over at Warner following a recent regime change won't interfere with this project rolling on into a second season. I find myself just waiting for official word, one way or another, rather than trying to comb through the imdb listings for key people involved, because that can be maddening. Consider that the people behind and in front of the cameras have their own lives, and bills to pay, and that the final filming for what landed on Netflix this week was done a couple weeks shy of one year ago. The lack of financial commitment to a complete project from the start screws around with the paths of so many people.
     Regardless, what's been done stands well on its own. Stories are told, and the first two arcs of the larger tale are told. While it leaves us much more to potentially look forward to, any notion of "waiting for it to be finished" before starting to watch would be distinctly bone-headed.

     Over on Hulu today (here in the U.S., that is, in most other parts of the world it'll be on Disney+), a different, more visceral and sinewy item, part of a franchise also going back to the 1980s, arrives. In this case the franchise is the sci-fi horror action stories involving alien game-hunters known as Predators.
     Set in 1719, in the Comanche Nation (what are the Southern Plains of the present United States), it's the story of an early encounter between humans and one of these powerful, stealthy hunters that came to Earth looking for what it judged to be worthy prey.
     Suitably enough, it's simply titled Prey (2022  R  1h 39m)

     This is technically the sixth film in this franchise (the other five are also there on Hulu), though by far it's the one set earliest in time. I'm optimistic about this one.
     I see they've even offered an option where it's all dubbed into Comanche, so someone gave this project their special attention.
     Nicely conceived and ably done, fans of the 1987 film, in which a band of highly-skilled mercenaries found themselves up against a mysterious and powerful opponent, should enjoy this period piece in which the flip the characters encounter is the more basic one of the roles of hunter and prey. That this fits in with a Comanche coming of age ritual where hunters prove themselves by hunting something that is also hunting them, makes this an even tidier package, in terms of theme. Those who may be inclined to rush to identify "woke" elements, self-tellingly using such as a pejorative, are invited to keep their peace and come back when they mature.

     Also arriving today on Netflix is a movie I'd barely been aware of, which I'm mentioning here simply because I see it's hitting the streamer and many people find themselves looking for a couple hours of random actions to munch popcorn to. I'm assured this is another adaptation of a video game I've never heard of and will almost certainly never play, a treasure-hunting romp starring Tom Holland, Mark Wahlberg, and Antonio Banderas, the latter looking rough enough in the trailer to remind me that we're only 8 months apart. Yeesh! It's Uncharted (2022 PG-13 1h 56m)

     From the look of it it's going to be a great deal of sudden, random movement (maybe something the cat will want to watch with you?) strung together by cliches. Maybe it'll be better than that.

     Returning August 10th - next Wednesday - to Syfy with the back half of its second season, is the sci-fi comedy crime procedural Resident Alien. It hit its mid-season break back in mid-March, and in all the flurry of life I'd forgotten they still owed us eight more episodes in this expanded season. Out of sight, out of mind. It's almost amazing how this brief teaser trailer from back in March refreshed the plot points for me.

     I'll also note that a couple weeks ago they formally greenlit season three, which will be 12 episodes.

     Speaking of August 10th and returning series that have sneaked up on me - over on Netflix this time - the third (and final) season of yet another comics-derived series, Locke & Key, arrives.

     Adapted from Joe Hill's (pen name of Stephen and Tabitha King's son) comics, the first two seasons were generally fun and conceptually engaging, including the central gimmick of the magical keys. All factors considered, I think they've paced this out just about right in wrapping this up.

     While you're there, kicking around Netflix on the 10th, I'll note for no particularly good reason that arriving that same day will be a sci-fi workplace action comedy from South Africa, which mainly seems to remind us that work is, and people in general are, so bad an alien invasion is going to be more welcome than another day of that shit. Ideally it'll at least offer us the catharsis of seeing lousy co-workers and foul roommates eviscerated and fried by alien visitors. I don't know -- that was my most optimistic take-away from the trailer. It's Office Invasion.

     As mentioned last week, August is TCM's Summer Under the Stars month, wherein each 24 hours, from 6am to 6am, is a spotlight of films and features on a single actor. (That link will pop out with an interactive page for the month.)
     From today through next Friday the stars in the spotlight are:
         Friday, Aug 5:     Orson Welles
         Saturday, Aug 6: Audrey Hepburn
         Sunday Aug 7:    Gene Kelly
         Monday Aug 8:    Maureen O'Sullivan
         Tuesday Aug 9:    William Holden
         Wednesday Aug 10:    Greta Garbo
         Thursday Aug 11:    Laurence Harvey
         Friday Aug 12:     Jane Powell

     As is often the case with these spotlight months, if one looks down the list of offerings for a given star and fails to see what should be an obvious choice, be patient enough to scan through the other offerings for that month. A good example among the above is that Greta Garbo's 24 hours doesn't include Grand Hotel (1932). However, if one looks to the 20th, Joan Crawford's day, they'll find that film in the mix. TCM's curated by movie fans, after all, and they generally try hard to work all the angles they have available.
     So much goodness in the mix for the month, it reminds me how near-certain it is that there's material that's as good or better in there, I just don't know it yet.

Odd bits in the mix, too, such as the last of Orson Welles' 24 hours being given over to a Brian DePalma-directed absurdist comedy starring Tommy Smothers as a corporate man who attempts to escape his highly-paid career straight-jacket by becoming a poor-but-happy tap-dancing magician: Get To Know Your Rabbit (1972  92m). Including supporting players John Astin, Katharine Ross in the role of "Terrific Looking Girl", extremely familiar-faced character actors including Charles Lane, Hope Summers, and Allen Garfield, and the late Bob Einstein as a police officer, there should be plenty to watch for.
     Oh, I know the film by reputation, that it bombed and did so in large part because the tone was too flat and deadpan for U.S.audiences at the time. Tommy Smothers hated the production enough that he skipped out for days at a time and refused to return for retakes. The studio was unhappy with DePalma's cut, so they hired Peter Nelson to recut it and direct a new sequence, still didn't like it, so it sat on the shelf for a couple years before they dumped it into theaters without any fanfare, where it quickly disappeared.
     A seemingly serviceable copy of it is here on Youtube, so I'll add that here if you're casually interested:

     As I have TCM, have the DVR set to record it, and am awash in more that I want to see than I have time for, I'll catch it over there.

     That's all for this week. I have things to do, as I'm sure is the case for you. Time to get to it! Keep cool, and I'll see you all here again on the 12th. - Mike

What To Watch? - Jan 14 - Recollections, Rebirths and Rescues

 

     Two weeks into the new year, and I've no more idea what to make of it than I did much of 2021. For good or ill, at least part of the time we get to climb into our electronic cocoons and stream shows and movies, new and old.
     My personal, starting focus today will be the final episode of The Expanse, arriving today on Amazon Prime. I'll be watching that as soon as my time is once again my own, whenever that'll be, on Friday. (Post-viewing notes are in green) Solid finish -- or, more accurately, resting point. While the series on Prime is at an end, I know they intend to continue to story in some form. Would I have liked to see more - a longer season six? Sure. Still, with respect to the main conflict that dominated the final two seasons, we got a good resolution. As good a resolution as one can get in any realistic scenario where everyone doesn't die. We're left with much uncertainty, and more than one real cliffhanger with regards to the new frontier, but especially for the characters we're been invested in over the bulk of the series, we're at a good plateau. A good point to let it ride for a while, and maybe have us catch up on how things pan out after a few years. I'm going to miss not having a confirmed, new season on the way, though.

     This week on Disney+, we reached the third episode of the Star Wars series, The Book of Boba

Fett. Another home run by Jon Favreau (as ever, IMHO, as a self-confessed casual Star Wars fan), this series is bringing us three timelines of origin for Boba Fett, one (the most lightly trod so far) from his childhood, as the only clone Jango Fett rose as his son, another immediately post-Return of the Jedi, as he escaped the Sarlac, was stripped of everything, and had to work his way back up, and of his later path, fully re-armored, establishing himself as the official crime lord, the Daimyo, on Tattooine, which includes a growing band of recruits he wins over.
     I've been enjoying it from the start, though I've seen grumblers who apparently only want a sizzle reel of top-form, mystery man Boba kicking ass, apparently utterly unmindful of how monumentally boring that would be for a main character in the series. No, instead we're getting to know the man beneath the armor, someone who has seen and known what it's been like to be powerless, to be seen as a thing - be it a commodity, a tool, or a weapon - and has quietly resolved to not do that to anyone else. He is determined to build his new position on a foundation of respect, rather than the fear that his opponents and competitors rely upon.
     While I can sympathize with the (apparently) many, or at least more vocal fans who are finding the absence of a mysterious, ass-kicking bad-ass to be pablum, I'm looking forward to the next installment so far.

     A non-spoilery, behind-the-scenes Easter egg of sorts (I'm abusing the term a little here) is that as the new Daimyo on Tattooine, Boba now has a sort of court protocol droid, 8D8, and I was immediately taken by the voice. It's a quality voice and delivery, with only a little of the effect coming from an electronic robotization of it. It has a proper dignity and a subtle edge of menace, reminding me obliquely of (mostly) voice actor Paul Frees, and what actor James Mason could deliver - without doing an impersonation of either. It turns out to be the work of English, (mostly) comedic actor Matt Berry. Matt is known most broadly, I expect, as the vampire Lazlo Cravensworth on the tv version of  the always fun What We Do In the Shadows, was supporting character Douglas Reynholm on the series The IT Crowd (from not long after the point when that series got good - the first four episodes are abysmally moronic, so don't judge the show on its start), and for voice work in the animated series Disenchantment, and Toast of London.

   Ricky Gervais has an interestingly mixed reputation. Many have long since written him off as a bitter, snarky, cynical little man who makes fun of people's beliefs, and/or as the insensitive, self-deluded David Brent character in the original, U.K. version of The Office. (I know a few people who simply won't look at his work in anything based on some part of that.) Others have been drawn in by the sensitive side of his interests and projects, ranging from protection of animals to sentimental series such as Derek (two seasons, then a completing special back in 2014 - often and increasingly treacly, but effectively so) and After Life which is concluding as of today, as season 3 arrives on Netflix.
     After Life follows a misanthropic man in the wake of his beloved wife's death by cancer, where she recorded a series of videos to help him seek out the social help he'll need to build a rounded life in her absence.

    I enjoyed the first two series (6 episodes each, released in March 2019 and late April 2020, so we've been waiting a while -- thanks, COVID-19), and am looking forward to this. All are available on Netflix.

    A horror series loosely based on a podcast of the same name, Archive 81, also lands on Netflix today. An archivist takes an assignment to fix damaged videotapes, and is drawn into a 25 year-old investigation of a dangerous cult. It's a partially "found footage" item with ample cheats, as we get to see the documentarian filming the footage. Granted, I guess that was how they did it with part of The Blair Witch Project, so why not? The 8-episode series will unfold in two time frames, with the 1994 investigation by Melody Pendras, and the contemporary work by archivist Dan Turner as he's drawn into the mystery. James Wan serves as executive producer, but I've no clear idea what he provided aside from the gravitas of his name for promotional purposes in the supernatural horror community.

 Rounding out the new Netflix offerings today, we have a special, featuring three stories, by three different directors, all done in stop-motion animation. Creepy, but promising. It's The House (1h 37m).

     Yesterday, on HBO Max, a Suicide Squad (2021) spin-off launched with the action comedy series Peacemaker.
     John Cena reprises his role from last year, with James Gunn back to write all eight episodes and direct five of them. Peacemaker is the embodiment of toxic masculinity, a technically proficient dealer of violence and destruction, but emotionally stunted. This series is set to explore the character's origins along with following subsequent missions. The first three episodes dropped Thursday, and the remaining five will appear each successive Thursday. Here's the Red Band trailer, which in this case mainly means they're not filtering out the profanity.

    I'm curious to see how this plays out, with him being the central character. So much will depend on the supporting cast to balance things out. I'm expecting the brow here to be more uni- than high-. ...and so it pretty much is. Special note that the along with profanity, there's ample nudity, sex, and graphic violence. I roll through most of it barely noting it, but I know these things make a difference to some. This certainly isn't some Disney+ super-action piece, and children shouldn't be anywhere near it.
  That said, the packet of the first three episodes is an often playful mix, with musical touches... which is pretty much a James Gunn standard move. So far the series has been giving us some insight into how Chris Smith/Peacemaker came to be the profoundly messed up person he is. We see more of his internal struggle, and once we meet his profoundly racist, xenophobic father (played by Robert Patrick) we understand a bit better. I've no idea how far they'll want to take any road to redemption for him, in what's essentially a violent action comedy series, but it's not as if this sort of character's going to be fixed quickly or easily. As mentioned above, from here through February `7th it'll be a new episode each Thursday.
      Here's the opening credits dance number for each episode, showing the cast and bringing the whimsy.

     Back over to Disney+, two days ago, the least-anticipated Marvel Cinematic Universe release so farfinally arrived: The Eternals (2021 PG-13   2h 37m).
     During these plague years, this was the easiest one for me to let wait until it came to me. I was never fond of the comics source material, all the way back to when Jack Kirby brought it to Marvel in 1976. I thought then, and maintain now, that the Marvel Universe didn't need this "ancient astronauts" mess shoehorned into their continuity, much less another pantheon of inscrutable, cosmic, space giants returning to potentially pass Doomsday judgement. Unfortunately, those in editorial power disagreed, and the interweaving began primarily with Roy Thomas' work over in issues of Thor in 1978. Other characters' histories were retroactively changed to make them Eternals... and Hell, only comics nerds care about any of this. There's no reason to put you through that here. Let it suffice to say I've never cared for, nor had much use for, The Eternals.
     However, they're intellectual property held currently by the House of Mouse, and are now part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, so here we are, and here's the trailer for the film.

     I can't see any of this clearly due to the personal history with the source material, so I can't yet tease that out and just see the events of the film as their own thing. To be bored with a film while watching the trailer isn't a good sign, though. I expect I'll at least find some good character interaction moments - the MCU has yet to fully let me down - but I'm in no current rush to get to this, especially as I'm all but certain the central threat is going to be horrible nonsense.
     Moving on.

     On Showtime, fans of Liev Schreiber's "fixer" Ray Donovan, which had a run of seven seasons, are today getting a series finale via Ray Donovan: The Movie.
     A slightly shorter seventh season (10 episodes rather than the standard 12) aired its final episode roughly two years ago, with Showtime announcing a couple weeks later that that was the end of the series. That that was a surprise to the fans was one thing, but that it was also a surprise to the people in and behind the show was wholly another, as they hadn't approached that season as a final one. Season six closed at what could have been a credible exit point, but seven ended largely in chaos.
     Pressure from the fans and from people on the show speaking out through various media resulted in Showtime authorizing a film to help tie up the various loose ends, and provide more definitive background on key bits of pre-show history for Ray and key members of his clan. The announcement was made a little over a year following the cancellation announcement, and now the film's finally here. I'm likely going to rewatch at least the final episode of season seven ahead of this, to better bring myself up to speed.

     Meanwhile, over on HBO Max, I recently started to watch a Norwegian series where people from various eras, going back to prehistory, begin to appear in waves in the present. The people appear in flashes of light, in bodies of water, and the energy involved has short-term disruptive effects on electrical power

and computer technology in the area. After us seeing the dawning, puzzling evidence of the new reality posed by the first wave, the show jumps ahead several years to a point where it's just part of daily life.
    The phenomenon remains unexplained, but presents an ongoing, pressing issue as society has to at least attempt to integrate those open to such things, and otherwise is presented with something analogous to dealing with the functionally mentally ill. Police and social assistance agencies have buckled under the strain.
     Secondary social impacts include views held by those of different eras gaining some resonance and traction with some in contemporary society. While the phenomenon is a global matter, the show is based in and centered on Oslo, which more than has its own hands full, so we're focused on what's happening there. The clusters of time-displaced appear to be coming from the Stone Age, the Viking Age, and the 19th century. The show is Beforeigners, and it has just recently finished its second, six-episode season. Here's the trailer for the first season.

     As mentioned above, I've only just recently started this, and so am still in the first season, deliberately avoiding looking into too much about the series so as to avoid spoiling the remaining episodes. As best I can tell, so far nothing official's been said about a third season. Presumably they're waiting to see how much of an audience it comes to pull, as exclusive content for their streaming service. (This was the first series set up by HBO Europe, and so is bearing the extra burden of being a test case for whether or not this is the best use of funds, or if they should do more as Netflix has and just look for international shows to buy out and import.)
     The show has multiple layers, and aside from the crime procedural aspects (the show's male lead is a police detective whose life has been upended by the new arrivals, while his young partner is the first time-shifted person in that area to go through the police academy) that lend greater urgency, it's the conflicts and meshing of the beliefs, mores and cultures of these various timelines, and the influence of those time-displaced people on current society, that's generally of much greater interest.
     There's a fun segment where two warrior women, who in their time had been shield-bearers for those who worshiped Odin, drunkenly mock the idea that Christianity, formed around the iconography of a bloodied, physically-broken god (in their view) has become the culturally dominant religion.

     The next two weeks' posts will be themed, so today, while I'm talking about new/upcoming items, I'll include some for later in the month.
     January 21st Netflix will have the first half of the fourth and final season of the Justin Bateman crime drama Ozark. In season one, Bateman played a partner in a business where, unbeknownst to him, his partner was in up to his neck in business with organized crime. Mistakes were made, the partner was killed, and the innocent partner had to quickly negotiate terms to keep from being killed. (That's all pretty much the opening episode set-up arc, as I recall.) I watched season one however far back it was that that was the only part around, and while I liked it enough to finish that season I wasn't immediately in the mood for season two... so I have no idea where the story's gotten by this point. I'm dropping the season four, part A, trailer here in case you're up on the series and looking forward to it, but I'm not going to watch it just yet.

     Arriving on Syfy starting January 26th, is season two of Alan Tudyk's sci-fi crime procedural comedy Resident Alien. I wasn't an immediate fan of the show in the first season, but it quickly grew on me. This preview piece is more of a behind-the-scenes set-up, and so treats the events of season one as written and known, so, fair warning there if you haven't watched any of it. If you have cable, and they provide the Syfy channel, then you can sign in at Syfy's website and watch the first season there. If you don't then it's available for purchase on Amazon, and behind their subscription paywall on Peacock. (I enjoy the show, but I wouldn't see myself paying something extra for it.)

     Off on January 28th, Netflix will present season one of All of Us Are Dead, a Korean zombie series. At this point my initial reflex, upon reading just that much, was that I wasn't looking for more zombie action just now, but the trailer's caught my attention. Highly energetic! Looks as if it could be fun, and if nothing else it'll remind me that I'm well and truly waaaaaaaaay too old and slow for a fast-zombie apocalypse. It's still fun to watch from over here.

     
     Closing with a trippy piece I first saw at least six years ago, it's the complete 1939 The Wizard of

Oz -- with the film chopped up and reshuffled (with the help of some apps) to be presented in alphabetical order. It starts with every instance of someone saying "A" in the film, laid out in chronological order, then does the same with every instance of someone yelling "Aaa!" in surprise or fear, and so on, and so on. The titles/credits were snipped and resorted so they would be in alphabetical order, too, and so this is of Oz The Wizard.
     Years ago this used to be on YouTube (and it may yet lurk there, under some other name to avoid narcs), but currently I'm only seeing it on Vimeo, so with Blogger's structure it seems I can only just provide you with a link (it should pop out on its own screen when you click on it):  Of Oz the Wizard.
     Being drunk, high, or punchy from lack of sleep may be critical to the entertainment experience. Some I've shown this to over the years have quickly hated it. I've found it to be something I'll find a little mechanical and even tedious one moment, but then suddenly hilarious the next as it riffs through a chain of sounds, with varying voices and inflections, some spoken, some sung, some munchkin. Because the film itself is so familiar to most of us, there's something about this that works through all of the disjointed resorting, pulling us through the story. Looping us through large chunks of the film, via unique slices, again and again.
     Seriously, that's far more than enough for this week. Between what's above and various items from the past several Friday posts, there should be more to watch than you have conscious time for.
     Take care, feel free to let me know if you watched any of these (for good or ill), and see you back here next week with (probably) part one of a two-part theme! - Mike