[10 for 10... that's 10 movies (or tv shows) which we give ourselves 10 minutes apiece to write about. Part of our problem is we don't often have the spare hour or two to give to writing a big long review for every movie (or TV show) we watch. How about a 10-minute non-review full of half-remembered scattershot thoughts? Surely that's doable? ]
In this edition: So much lockdown TV to get through
Dark Season 3 (Netflix)
Umbrella Academy Season 2 (Neftlix)
Doom Patrol Season 2 (Netflix)
The Great Season 1(amazonprime)
The Wire Seasons 2&3 (HBO)
Unsolved Mysteries Season 1.5 (Netflix)
The Truth Seekers Season 1 (amazonprime)
The Crown Season 4 (Netflix)
Fargo Season 4 (FX)
The Venture Bros Season 7
Quick Thoughts:
Aunty Donna's Big Ol' House of Fun S1 (Netflix)
Rick & Morty Season 4.5 (Cartoon Network)
Harley Quinn Season 2 (Cartoon Network)
What We Do In The Shadows Season 2 (FX)
Raised By Wolves Season 1 (HBO)
Lovecraft Country Season 1 (HBO)
aaand...gggggoooo...
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Dark is a show that feeds off the binge watch. In fact it needs the binge watch. It's far too perplexing a puzzle to watch any other way. Even watching it as we have, binged watched in three separate, season chunks, separated by large gaps of time, it's not optimal. This show wants/needs you to start at the beginning and don't stop until the end. Hell the official Netflix recap before season 3 was over 10 minutes long! Usually a recap before a subsequent season is only 3 or 4 minutes, but the complexity of Dark's twisty narrative demanded the time, and even then could still probably have done with another ten to really clarify it all.
[Spoilers]
Dark is set in a small German town where the families are intricately connected, in ways they don't even realize. The series unveils these connections via a time travel mechanic that not only shows how characters are tied together but unleashes new threads of connectivity as a result. It all becomes rather heavy and needs a chart to figure out (even within the show, the third season has many different graphic representations of all these connections). I found myself consulting online documents more than once to keep it all straight.
Season three adds even more complexity to the multiple timelines and almost circular family tree by revealing a completely separate reality to the one we've become sort-of familiar with for two seasons. So not just one family tree, but two to keep track of. It's intense and brain-breaking, but the show feeds off this confusion, knowing that it's a dense, complicated mess. The crux is will unfurling the connective knots solve anything or destroy everything?
Season 3 is propulsive, it rarely slows down to let you catch up. It has too much to get through and at times it seems to jump too far past scenes that should explain what's going on. It doesn't care that you're confused, it must keep going if its ever going to get to its conclusion, it could dawdle all day. But, in the end, for all the brain breaking, there's a beating heart in there, and it concludes beautifully. The journey was a tremendously exciting one...I'm not sure if I'll revisit it any time soon, but it's an absolutely wonderful workout for the mind.
Season 1 Review [Kent]
Season 2 Review [Kent]
[14:32]
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Speaking of time travel, Season 2 of The Umbrella Academy takes the show back to the early 1960's, where each of the family members finds themselves living a very different life than they otherwise have known. Five is trying to repair the timeline that was destroyed at the end of Season 1, while Luther is working for Jack Ruby as hired muscle. Allison faces racial discrimination like she's never encountered before and falls in love with a civil rights leader. Klaus starts a hippie cult (because of course he does) and Vanya, struck with amnesia, finds herself working as nanny/housekeeper for a family with an autistic child. Diego wound up in an asylum.
The show brilliantly weaves the family back together in different ways, with most family members a little more than reluctant to leave their new lives, and loves behind. In fact it seems it's only Five who really wishes to get them all back to their natural time.
The show doesn't play too much with time travel, but when it does, it has real fun with it, like when Five needs to enlist the help of his younger (timeline-wise, but much older-looking) self, or when they try to get support from their grade-A asshole father, Sir Reginald Hargreeves long before he knew of their existence.
The season's weak spots are in its lack of compelling villains. The Handler, while still poison-tongued, becomes almost an anti-hero in this one (Kate Walsh is such a delight), and the trio of Swedish assassins have almost no unique personality to glom onto as they persist as a threat throughout the 9 episodes. They really make you miss Hazel and Cha-Cha. As well Diego's obsession with saving President Kennedy's life is a frustrating aspect for his character. He develops a lot more than he did last season where we barely got to know him at all, but what develops is actually a frustrating profile of a man who can't seem to focus on more than one thing at a time.
It's a much more fun outing, but also a more potent one, as it addresses both Black and queer issues without trivializing them in a silly superhero adventure. The cast grows together and their dynamic is so much better this time around. Much improved.
Season 1 review [Kent]
[29:41 - only two shows in and I'm already 10 minutes behind]
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I feel like The Umbrella Academy and Doom Patrol are in competition with one another for title of "weirdes superhero" storytelling. While I thought season 1 of Doom Patrol was far stronger for it's sheer level of weirdness, season 2 of The Umbrella Academy wins out for how cohesive its storytelling is and how well the family dynamic plays a part.
Season 2 of Doom Patrol still explores the family dynamic but less so the family of the Patrol and moreso the individual families each character left behind. We learn some of the scarring that caused Jane's 64 personalities to manifest. Larry learns that his one son has died and reconnects, sort of, with his other son at the funeral. Cliff reaches out to his daughter, but in doing so leaves Jane vulnerable. Rita tries to resurrect her acting career and has to face both what her mother went through and what she put Rita through to further her career (whose dream was being an actress really?). And then there's the Chief, whose estranged daughter Dorothy needs to be handled with some serious kid gloves. And Cyborg, he falls in love with a woman who challenges him, perhaps too much.
These stories find the team not being a team at all, to its very detriment. What worked so well was the effed up dynamic they had in the first season, while this season separates them into, at best, pairings, but just as often sending them off on their own and having them sulk alone, pushing their makeshift family members away as they do so. There's some spectacular weirdness along the way, and the weirdness is just as great as it ever was, but keeping everyone separated so much made for challenging viewing. And the season ended abruptly, likely due to covid, so its ending, while closing out the main threat of the season, still doesn't provide any personal closure. Mercifully a season 3 has been cleared by HBO Max.
Season 1 Review [Kent]
[40:36]
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I struggled with The Great. From the screenwriter of The Favourite [review missing], this is very much a wheelhouse for Tony McNamara, twisted historical dramas with a deeply dark comedy streak. It's very funny, tremendously well acted, gorgeously shot, staged and costumed, but also so dark. In a time when people who admire tyranny are in power, and the people are being further subjugated, with any sense of civil and cultural progression being scaled back and eyed with disdain, this is a show that explores just how ugly the elite really are. There are people that cravenly desire to be among them, to be one of those who can look down upon the majority, but this show is trying to present that as being something horrendous and also something that can't really save you from the whims of a self-aggrandizing, ego-maniacal leader.
Nicholas Hoult, long grown up from his About A Boy debut, is fantastic as the petty, vile, unhinged Peter, Emperor of Russia. Catherine, played bravely and powerfully by Elle Fanning, is arranged as his bride, a sweet, naive girl from the German countryside who has wistful ideas what living as an Empress might be like, and fanciful ideas for advancing Russian civilization. Peter's very being crushes so many of her delusions, but she finds it in herself to survive, and manipulate, and carve out her own place in an aristocracy that otherwise loathes her.
What makes The Great such a difficult watch is two-fold. The first being that Peter is an oblivious ruler, subject to his own whims which are so regularly repugnant and offensively cruel. Living in his sphere is one of walking on eggshells and sleeping on nails. Catherine is basically tortured every episode, thus each episode is one of watching her shrewdly navigate Peter's evil and find her own corner of safety, and a small coterie of friends for solitude...and then eventually planning a coup.
The second is that the show, very pointedly at times, uses its setting and characters to reflect modern reality. One episode, in which Catherine brings the printing press into court, serves to play with Trumpian cries of "fake news" and the effective spread of disinformation on the populace. It's very very painful. Watching the show makes me fear the return of aristocratic rule, which is unfortunately the way we're already heading with scant few already controlling the majority fortune of the world. It's only a matter of time before fortune isn't enough and they seek power.
[58:17]
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We finally got back on that horse of The Wire after a very long break. We finished off the last two episodes of season 1 (not sure why we left those dangling) and then dove into Season 2 which methodically rebuilt the investigative team after their dismantling at the end of season 1, slowly unveiled the relevance of the dock workers it was following, and caught us up with Avon Barksdale and Stringer Bell's drug empire, and then started twisting them together so meticulously. While it's probably that the characters from last season's drug trade didn't need to be as in the show as much as they were, the Wire makes its case that it's not a show just about the cops, but about Baltimore, and the people in the drug trade are an unfortunately prominent part of that city. Its a show that wants you to genuinely understand who is involved and why... really fleshing them out as people, not just "the bad guys".
The plight of the dock workers is strangely introduced but it becomes the most gripping element of the show, as various family members of the the docks union leaders start finding themselves further entrenched with organized crime (not to mention that their aiding the Greek mafia led to the death of many women who were being brought to America as part of the sex trade). It's gritty and dark, and you only start to get the sense of the toll working the job has on the people who do it, from all sides.
Season 3 pivots dramatically again, as a police Major decide to create a safe haven for drug dealing and taking to the obliviousness of his superiors and the politicians. Barksdale and Bell become the focus again, but their business is struggling and tensions rise between the men as Avon can't see past the world he lives in and Bell wants to go legit as a real estate mogul. The season starts off almost as a comedy, and then quickly gets serious as soon as the stakes are understood. The whole "safe haven" creates its own little economy for the downtrodden and provides a focal point for services trying to help people with clean needles, condoms and drug rehab services, plus providing social services for the at risk youth put out of a job as unnecessary runners. It's a ridiculously potent thought experiment which actually works, but is demonized and shut down because of political perceptions. There is a "war on drugs" so anything that appears permissive of it can't be tolerated.
It's by far the best season so far of a show that gets stronger every step it makes. The cops are so damaged, jaded and flawed, but it's understood how they come to be that way. Everything is laid bare, the game of politics, the corruption of hierarchies, the dominant need for a "status quo" that ultimately doesn't make anything truly better, maybe only a little worse in the deed.
Taking another break before season four but this show has damned well earned its rep.
Season 1 Review [Kent]
Full series Review [Toasty]
[1:18:03]
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Unsolved Mysteries is back to creep me out with its credits music (thank god netflix lets you skip the opening credits and jump to the next episode before its closing credits really get rolling... I normally don't like either of these features). Five new episodes that are incredibly compelling and, in one case, rather tranquil and serene.
It opens with the case of a prominent political advisor's body being found in the garbage dump, and then traces back his known whereabouts from there. It's fascinating to see what we can piece together thanks to technology (cel phone locations, video cameras), but also shows the limitations thereof. What happened between leaving that Pharmacy and arriving where he did? Who was targeting him? What role does the house across the street from his play into it? It's very perplexing.
The second ep is a locked room mystery. In a high-end Oslo hotel, a woman is dead, seemingly suicide, but nobody knows who she is. There's nothing to identify her in the room and she gave a fake name an home address at the front desk. Who is she and why is she dead. There are only mostly questions here.
A man on death row, a child murderer, not only gets to go out on a day trip to a local mall shopping, but leaves and is never captured again. There are hints as to where he has been, but he's never been close to being caught. Kind of infuriating.
Harrowing footage of the tsunami that hit Japan earlier this decade leads into a series of ghost stories. But these aren't tales of terror, rather tales of acceptance and of people helping the spirits to move on. There's definitely something cultural about these stories, but they're really quite beautiful.
A woman goes missing mid-winter from an affluent community outside of Detroit only to be found dead on an island miles away. Police say she walked into the lake, committing suicide, but the evidence doesn't add up. But the suspect seems obvious.
Two cases of missing children from the same park years apart highlights the desperate plight of parents whose kids have gone missing...likely stolen and raised as someone else. The potent episode ends with even more missing children and renderings of what they may look like today.
All of it is compelling viewing that will sit with you for a long time.
Season 1 Review [Kent]
[1:31:59]
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I like the Simon Pegg and Nick Frost combo, even if they're best served as part of a trio with Edgar Wright. Wright takes them over the top with style and panache, without him they're (and I say this with respect) merely very entertaining. Great friend that they are, they obviously pair well together and have fun creating and performing, which translates. Even a middling production like Paul is carried by their effortless camaraderie. So it's a little disappointing then that their latest collaborative effort, The Truth Seekers, keeps them apart so much.
The thing is Pegg is usually the lead in their pairings with Frost being the sidekick. In the many years since Shaun of the Dead, Frost has proven himself a great supporting player in many projects and on occasion a charming lead in middling productions. Here he gets the lead role in a Pegg/Frost production, with Pegg being relegated to the casual supporting role, not even the sidekick. For the sidekick, they opted to pair Frost up with some much needed diversity in their oeuvre with Samson Kayo playing Frost's young, reluctant, somewhat mysterious protege. Frost may be the lead, but the show is actually centered around Kayo.
The thrust if Frost plays a cable/internet installer, the best in his company according to his very jubilant boss (a curiously bewigged Pegg). In his off time, he investigates paranormal occurrences, hauntings mostly for his sparsely viewed youtube channel. When Frost is assigned by Pegg to be new hire Kayo's mentor, suddenly the paranormal occurrences start becoming far more paranormal and occur far more frequently. There are questions raised by the timing of it all, and the show, quite surprisingly is well aware and answers those questions.
I was expecting more of a silly comedy, but Truth Seekers actually takes its character study and storyline very seriously, even if humour does frequently work its way in. This 8-episode series plays at first like an of-the-week type mystery (indebted much to Doctor Who) but then very suddenly starts bringing it all together. That it plays out in half hour installments makes its 4-hour run time almost effortless to consume. But in that effortlessness there's also a lack of real investment. It's enjoyable but not tremendously memorable. It's likeable but it's not deeply charming. Where it tries to root itself into pop culture (such as cosplay or a nerd convention) it understands these things but doesn't capture the joy or excitement of them.
It's not trying to ape What We Do In The Shadows, to both its own success and detriment, nor does it ever get genuinely scary, or spooky, which it really should have. I liked it, just not as much as I wanted to.
[1:47:34]
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Of all the shows I watched while the world changed this year, The Crown was by far the one I found most captivating. Season 4 was a bit of a mixed bag, in terms of pacing and storytelling, character focus was all over the place, and it weighted most of its time in the early 80's before making a long jump to the late 80's in the final few episodes, skipping a lot of interesting points along the way, including the IRA set-up in the first episode that I thought would lead to the failed attempt on Thatcher's life later in the season.
Margaret Thatcher weighs heavily on the season, as does Princess Diana, two very powerful public forces in Britain in the 1980's, two very different women. The story of Diana is one of a betrayed promise, even if that promise was unsaid. She entered into the Royal Family expecting to be welcomed, only to find there was no love waiting for her at all, not even from her husband. The public was an entirely other matter, and left without any love and support at home she jumped both feet first into the adoration and attention of the public.
Thatcher meanwhile cared not at all for the perceptions of the public. She had a mission to change Britain, and she was going to bully and barrel her way through both politics and her royal overlords to see that it be done. Thatcher, Britain's first (and so far, only) female Prime Minister led the country for almost 12 years, and truly left an impact. History is still sorting out what she did, and the legacy she left, that's how complicated it was.
The dramatization of Diana's life is ropey and difficult to take, really
vilifying Charles as an emotionally abusive bully who resented her
popularity and resented her for not being Camilla. Where last season it
found some sympathy for him in the family's treatment of his
relationship with Camilla, the show paints Charles as deplorable and, in
many ways weak. Camilla doesn't seem mistreated, though, she's an
outside player and not responsible for Charles' behavior, even if she
mildly enables it.
Gillian Anderson's performance as Thatcher starts out as a strange impersonation of the woman, but quickly gives way to an impeccable, complex performance that literally steals the show, far more than Diana. The downside is Olivia Coleman is largely playing supporting role despite supposedly having the title. HRH Queen Elisabeth starts taking a more active role in later episodes (and the confrontations between The Queen and PM Thatcher are tremendous). Coleman is great, and imbues the role with so much subtlety, charm and humour, that implies both comfort and wisdom not afforded to Claire Foy in her years in the role. I'm going to miss this cast, which I wish had another season together.
There are parts of the crown which seem to overwraught, typically any two-hander where family members have a meaningful conversation with one another. Those meaningful conversations (the most egregious one being Charles and Diana in Australia, where they hash it out, temporarily) seem like necessary plot devices for either moving the plot along or providing blunt insight into otherwise nuanced relationships. They don't play very well.
There are great episodes here, though. The conflict between the Queen and PM over apartheid in Africa, the guy who broke into Buckingham Palace, twice, and the Queen trying to suss out who her favourite child is, and even the finale where The Queen bestows an honor upon Thatcher had me tearful.
Despite any of its faults it's an absolutley gorgeous and captivating show, incredibly well performed. The fact that it leads to so many thinkpieces and articles about what it gets wrong or how it dramatizes things I think only makes it that much more of an experience.
Season 1 Review [Kent]
[2:09:19]
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I eagerly awaited this fourth season of Fargo, which I'd been holding as one of my favourite shows on TV right now...even with a mediocre third season. It was delayed due to the COVID outbreak so I had to wait even longer, but my excitement upon its arrival was palpable.
That excitement was met very quickly with tempered expectations as I wound up watching the second episode first having accidentally missed its debut. I quickly caught up, but in a backwards fashion Show creator Noah Hawley revealed in the first two episodes that he was going at his own pace once again, trying to find that sensibility the Coen Brothers imbue in their productions which balances oddity, humour, and a strangely familiar reality that could very well be history even though it's highly unlikely.
Here he tells the story of Kansas City mobs, first with a history lesson, and then zeroing in on the Italians and the African Americans, both unwanted outcast populations in 1950's an both trying to secure a place for themselves in a hostile reality. To keep the peace, the Faddas (headed by Jason Schwartzman) and the Loys (with Chris Rock at the helm) traded sons, but we're obviously joining them as the peace starts to fray.
On the outside is a mixed race family running a funeral home, a nurse who euthanizes/murders her sickly patients, a twitchy widower cop, two escaped female convicts who fancy themselves outlaws and a US Marshall from Utah, of course played by Timothy Olyphant.
As with any season of Fargo disparate players all have their purpose in the story, and it's the obliqueness in how they all fit together that makes the show engaging. Where in the first two seasons this made for really exciting, compelling storytelling, these past two seasons something has been off. It's almost as if there's too much planning, too much intention. That we see too many characters put on the board before we know what they're all doing there. Young Ethelrida is the absolute most likeable and compelling character of the season, but she's sidelined for the majority of it and doesn't have a large enough role to play. The show abandons the need for a focal character, and in doing so kind of loses focus. Where Season 1 had Molly Solverstein, and Season 2 lept back 30 years to follow her father, Seasons 3 and 4 operate as leaderless ensembles and struggle because of it.
A lot of interesting things happen here, but they don't all feel like a part of a whole, even though they actually are.
Pilot Review [Toast]
Season 1 Review [Kent]
Season 2 Review [Kent]
Season 3
[2:26:18]
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Being a Venture Brothers fan has been a challenge. The show aired for a couple of seasons in Canada and then disappeared, leaving fans to find subsequent seasons on DVD, only for the show to take LOOONG hiatuses between seasons, and for DVD/Blu-Rays of those seasons to be found as "import only" in Canada. Season 7 debuted in the US in 2018, and then made its way to the newly founded "Cartoon Network Canada" in 2019 after they aired all the previous seasons. I managed to PVR the first half of season 7 before missing out on a couple episodes then capturing the final few, having to wait for the series to cycle through all of its seasons again to fill in the gaps.
I love the Venture Brothers, as problematic as it can be (rewatching those early episodes reminds you how different a time it was 15 years ago), it's adventure and superheroes brought to a strange level both self-awareness, where there are rules of engagement and heavily political organizations that govern good guys and bad guys. If anything the bad guys have more rules to adhere to than the good ones.
This season shies away from the Venture family as it takes more interest in the inner working of the Guild Of Calamitous Intent. The Monarch strives for Level 10 Villainy, while Dr. Girlfriend/Mrs. The Monarch finds much difficulty in her status at the head table of the organization. All kinds of weird shit ensues, with much hilarity.
Season 7, well over a decade after it started, still proves itself vital, alive with genre-busting purpose, and a clear admiration and love for its characters. The narrative of the show is so rapid fire that it leaves each episode on a semi-cliffhanger, and skips past the resolution entirely, leaving the fallout to play out while the next adventure takes place. It's a bold and constantly surprising way to tell stories, but it does them effortlessly.
If I'm being critical of something I love dearly, it's that the creators imbue their comedy perhaps with too many dated references (there's a handful of music video references made that certainly age its creators) and I wonder if those glaringly Gen X drops are what led to Adult Swim cancelling season 8. All hope isn't lost though, as the head of programming for HBO Max is looking at the series for a run at that service. Fingers crossed.
[2:40:45 - that only took an hour longer than intended...oy]
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Some quick thoughts on:
I thought the first half of Rick & Morty Season 4 was some of the strongest episodes of the series, and I was expecting continued highs from the second half (once I actually understood more was coming). I felt maybe a little let down but perhaps I had just set expectations too high. "Story Train" was great, twisty fun, but perhaps too meta. "Promortyus" riffed on Aliens in amusing ways but seemed like expected R&M. "The Vat of Acid Episode" (hmm, no pun) was supremely goofy, and I loved it. "The Childrick of Mort" was intentionally unpleasant. "Star Mort: Rickturn of the Jerri" paid off a longstanding thread in a meaningful way, as the show likes to do from time to time. I need to give this batch another watch. Not quite as grand as most of the first half, but certainly no slouching happening in the R&M camp.
Harley Quinn's first season was a blast, and the second season continues even stronger as it delves deeper into DC canon, gives Harley's team more focus (the journeys that King Shark and Clayface go on are tremendous fun) and even give Harley a worthy romantic foil that makes you believe she's quite over being "the Joker's girlfriend". Poor Batman and Commissioner Gordan are mercilessly mocked, however, so if your sensitive to how either of those characters should be portrayed, I guarantee you're not going to enjoy this show. But I do enjoy how the show started incorporating the men's rights complaints into the show and handily dismantling them.
The second season of What We Do In The Shadows maintained the high bar of the first season and the film, and finds that its secret weapon is Harvey Guillén as Guillermo, giving him much more of a spotlight this season. I've done a lot of rewatching of favourite comedies during our restricted COVID life, but this is the one waiting in the wings. The Superb Owl party, Colin's promotion, Mark Hamill, Lazlo and Nadja's songwriting history... so much great stuff that needs to be cemented in my brain.
A few months ago I was praising Raised By Wolves rather heavily. I would now like to recant that praise. The show, somewhere around episode 6 or 7, starts to firmly lose sight of what made it interesting to start with. It starts tracing around the same spiral, maybe not repeating itself, but moving in familiar patterns that become tedious. It also starts abandoning its grounded nature and introducing metaphysical elements, religious manifestations and ghosts and some other nonsense that feels at odds with the show. Even Mother and Father start behaving in ways that feel out of character for them. It's the lack of consistency in their portrayal (obviously their evolution is part of it all, but still) that drove me most nuts, until the utterly batshit insane finale which, if I said involved Mother giving birth to a flying snake, you would think I was making it up. But that's exactly what happens. And then the show can't even commit to a sacrifice. Even as it descends into madness in its final few episodes, the finale is just a harsh slap in the face daring its audience to continue to care.
At the same time as I was praising Raised by Wolves, I was also heralding Lovecraft Country. It's a show that took some missteps, regularly, and may have had some really bizarre editing choices, and even done things with its characters that I thought were contradictory or maddening, and used an anachronistic soundtrack that drove me nuts... but I still admired it greatly for going the places it did, exploring spaces, themes and genres in a new way. It's serialized anthology format I greatly appreciated, and while it seemed like the more individualistic episodes were stronger than the overarching plot (episode 5 - "Strange Case", episode 6 - "Meet Me In Daegu", and episode 7 - "I Am." are the high points of the show) it's still a remarkable, potent, and in the end, enjoyable series. I'm not quite certain what to make of its final moments though. It felt very Tarantino, and random.
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