3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): The Last Duel

2021, Ridley Scott (Black Hawk Down) -- Disney

Kent's post. 

Rashomon this, Rashomon that. A story about a rape, from three people, three perspectives, three "truths" but are we supposed to decide on which truth we will accept, which one is true? No, we are not. There is some truth in every tale, even the lies.

France, the Middle Ages. The first perspective is from Jean de Carrouges (Matt Damon, Dogma), a squire and a minor nobleman's son, is a soldier at the Siege of Limoges where he baited by the English into giving up the bridge, which leads to the fall of Limoges. But in that battle he saves the life of handsome Jacques le Gris (Adam Driver, Girls), and the two become fast friends.

Carrouges is a lug, all mullet and scars. He is a widower and childless, encouraged to (re)marry Marguerite (Jodie Comer, Free Guy), the daughter of a disgraced nobleman in exchange for a hefty dowry, for he is almost broke. He's shit with money. But a valuable tract of land is given by their liege lord Count Pierre d'Alençon (Ben Affleck, Dogma) to le Gris, cuz the two decadent men are friends. Carrouges is furious and thinks it best to go over Pierre's head to the King. It is not best and Carrouges is disgraced. When Carrouges' father passes away, and he should take ownership of his castle and captaincy, the slighted Pierre gives it to le Gris instead.

And age later a much diminished Carrouges buries the hatchet at a social event, in which le Gris becomes obsessed with Marguerite, and even later, while Carrouges is off fighting another war for his King, the only manner he seems able to make money, le Gris visits his estate and... well, rapes Marguerite. When her husband returns, she accuses le Gris and her husband believes her, and he pursues what he believes is his only recourse, a duel to the death. If he wins, and kills le Gris, then his wife is deemed believable. If he dies at the hands of le Gris, she will also perish by fire, as a liar.

Jean de Carrouges wins the duel. But given the perspectives, its not really the point of the movie.

Surprisingly, none of the recountings discredit the others. They all tell the exact same story, albeit with different focuses. Jean sees himself as a slighted hero, only trying to do right in the face of many, many injustices, the rape of his wife being the latest. Le Gris eye rolls his way through his own version, pointing out how Carrouges is the agent of his own folly, and professing great love for Marguerite, claiming she returned it. But he also points out that there is no real crime in raping a woman, which was true for the times. Marguerite's retelling is, of course, the most sympathetic, a smart, capable woman forced to marry a stupid lout and suffer the "affections" of an arrogant squire. She does not support Carrouges desire to duel, for she knows should he lose, she will die and her son will be orphaned. Its all so rather complicated, a story further complicated by the reality of an age past compared to our own 21st century morals.

There may be three "truths" but there is no doubt that Marguerite was raped. The greatest tragedy is that she is not the arbiter of her own justice, and she has no rights. Its the men, the pompous, arrogant, foolish men who are slighted by her rape. 

Being a Ridley Scott movie, it looks spectacular even if you forgive the astoundingly bad haircut given to Counter Pierre. As we are wont to do, the Middle Ages are always seen as cold, gloomy and full of mud. The battle scenes, while not really required for the story we are telling, are brutal, bloody and vast in scale -- Scott loves his battle scenes. 

I also need to address my comment back when Kent posted his viewing of it --- I was annoyed that here we have yet another movie hinging on the rape of a woman, where the actions of men are built on abusing a woman. That is not in doubt here, but the difference here from my dislike of this usual "plot motivator" is that its not the toss away point, its the entire focus of the movie, its the reason for its being. Usually in movies like these, all other aspects would show the men as great and heroic and "OMG I have to duel to save my wife's honour!" but even if you take Carrouges own coloured viewpoint at face value, its never really about anything but his wife.

KWIF: Past Lives (+2)

 KWIF=Kent's Week in Film

This week:
Past Lives (2023, d. Celine Song - AmazonPrime)
Nimona (2023, d. Troy Quane, Nick Bruno - Netflix)
Plus One (2019, d. Andrew Rhymer, Jeff Chan - Netflix) 

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Between watching films like Anatomy of a Fall and Maestro, the new Mr. & Mrs. Smith series on AmazonPrime, and hearing the neighbours yelling at each other through the walls nearly every day, for, oh, the past four years, I feel like I've gotten more than my fill of intense, unhappy relationships.  It's bad for the mindset to have too much of that in one's life, even peripherally.

Celine Song's Past Lives is kind of a bittersweet tonic to such sequences of relationship animosity. It's an ode to individualism as well as to love. It's an incredibly mature, thoughtful look at relationships and shows people who are capable of self-awareness and managing their emotions.

Na Young and Hae Sung grew up together in Seoul. By the time they were twelve they were intensely competitive with one another in school, but also incredibly attached. Just as they're starting to explore feelings for each other, Na Young is ripped away as her family emigrates to Canada. No word of a lie, but their last moment with each other is one of the most beautifully composed visual metaphors in cinema, thanks to a perfectly scouted location.

Twelve years later, Na Young, now Nora (Greta Lee), is an aspiring playwright, while Hae Sung (Teo Yoo) has wrapped up mandatory military service and looks to the next phase of his life. But he's not forgotten a piece of his past, and he reaches out through a series of connections on Facebook to find Nora, who, curious herself, reaches out in return. Their connection is as immediate as if they had never left it, only the attraction is much more adult and the emotions much more understood. Alas, a half a world away, and half a day's difference makes a relationship hard to sustain... and what's more, Nora is finding it distracting from her goals, from what she wants to achieve. With no hope of Hae Sung coming to New York and no time for her to make a trip to Soeul, she presses "pause" on whatever is happening between them. And they both go about their lives.  

I think one of the more difficult things in film and television storytelling is making video calling interesting to watch, but Song here really gets so much out of how her actors behave towards the camera (and just off camera). There's so much to be said about what we see on the screen within a screen, but then there's what we see in the scene that the characters don't see of each other...physicality, gestures... and then there's the missed connections, which, somehow, are just heartbreaking.

Another 12 years pass. Nora is married to another writer,  Arthur (John Magaro), and they have, what I think can be said is a very practical partnership. When Hae Sung, recently reconnecting with Nora, comes to New York to visit, there is clearly a rekindling happening between them, a palpable attraction that hasn't gone away in the 24 years since they were last able to touch each other. What results is a Before Sunrise-esque level of engagement, talking candidly about what life has been like, and what life could have been like in different circumstances. Arthur is not ignorant of the connection they share, he's not oblivious to the cliches of storytelling where he's the odd-man-out, but at the same time, there's a reality that all three players are fully aware up. No one is upending their lives just for some idea of "love".

The way the characters engage with each other, with openness and honesty that is both given and received, is absolutely refreshing. There's no real drama in Past Lives, there's no romantic cliches of "true love conquers all", there's just a heavy concrete slab of reality at the foundation of this movie, and in Nora's character. She is a realist, and despite whatever emotions come with Hae Sung, she has so many more emotions tied elsewhere that would be uprooted to be with him.

Despite the almost wet blanket scenario and absence of high drama, it's a very romantic movie. It is a movie about love, and it's never a bad time to be in the presence of love.

But it's also a movie about what it means to feel complete, and love is only a piece of it. Why do people cheat on their partners or leave their family behind to run off with a new fling? It's often got nothing to do with the other person and everything to do with themselves...they're chasing external happiness. 

Hae Sung, for his part, can't let go of Nora because he's not found happiness with himself. He's still chasing a feeling he felt long ago in someone else, rather than trying to find that feeling inside.  

--This is the last film of the Best Picture Oscar Nominees that I had yet to see, and this is the first time in a long time, perhaps ever, I've seen all Nominees prior to the ceremony. Last week I ranked the nominees in my preferential order (not who I think will win, just my preference), and I think Past Lives would fall into that middle pack with The Holdovers, Oppenheimer, and American Fiction, where any of these four films could swap places in the 3-6 slot. But I still like Anatomy of a Fall and Poor Things well above them all.--

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I like the idea of the Annupurna/Netflix feature Nimona, based on the graphic novel series by ND Stevenson, much more that I think I enjoyed Nimona.

The film starts with a bit of an overcomplicated history lesson voiceover describing how the mystical land and society was built around protecting itself from monster then jumps a thousand years in the future to find a techno-medi-evil terrain where a young street kid was taken in by the queen to be educated as part of the land's fabled knighthood, a position usually reserved for the elite families of the city. 

Ballister Boldheart is about to be knighted, bucking tradition, but during the ceremony he is framed for murdering the queen and goes on the run. He is found by Nimona, an energetic changeling who looks only for companionship from a fellow outcast. The pair have to battle both class structures and intolerance to uncover the truth of the Queen's death, as well as, perhaps, change some minds about changelings being the monsters this society has been so afraid of for generations.

Without really any fanfare, Nimona is a young adult fantasy-adventure that features queer characters as its leads.  Ballister was in a romantic relationship with Ambrosius Goldenloin, the champion knight, until Ambrosius cut his arm off when he thought Ballister murdered the Queen.  Nimona is trans-coded, and while the character is pronouned "she" throughout, Nimona kind of bucks the idea of even being gendered, or classified as any sort of form.  

I love that aspect of the film, that it so effortlessly includes these characters without ever awkwardly making a point about it, but at the same time, it's the entire subtext of the movie if you're looking for it. Unfortunately the setting of the film did absolutely nothing for me. The societal structure, the visual design, the meta-cross of fantasy and techno-future...I just didn't find it appealing. 

But the final act turned into a real emotional rollercoaster and really got me in the gut and got the tears flowing. The climax raises the stakes to a very surprising and intense level, and its resolution is a thing of absolute beauty.  I may not have been enthralled by the first two acts leading up to it, but it pays off really nicely. Riz Ahmed as Ballister and Chloe Grace Moretz both deliver really great voice performances as well. It's not a better film than Across the Spider-Verse in this year's Best Animate Picture Oscar race, not The Boy and the Heron, but it shouldn't be dismissed as so many Netflix originals often do.

Toasty's take...we agree.

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After finishing the aforementioned Mr. & Mrs. Smith series starring Donald Glover and Maya Erskine, this indie romcom starring Erskin and The Boys Jack Quaid popped up prominently on Netflix. I had never heard of the movie, so, as I do, I promptly took a gander at Letterboxd to see how the cinemaphiles had rated it, and they liked it, singling out Erskine as the film's key draw.

I had seen Erskine around over the years, including the recent Obi-Wan Kenobi series, but she wasn't that prominently featured (I haven't yet watched her comedy series Pen15). So Mr. & Mrs. Smith is my first big exposure, and wow...what an impact.  I'll get to that review later this coming week.  But with the Letterboxd recommendation of more wonderful Erskine business, Plus One became a must-watch.

Erskine plays Alice, who gets into an arrangement with her buddy, Ben (Quaid) to be each other's dates to the many weddings each has to attend that summer.  They're just friends to start,  she even acts as his wingman for a time, and there's not an ounce of romantic chemistry between them at first, but the friend chemistry is wholly palpable. But you can't spend that amount of time with one another in fancy dress, loaded with alcohol, surrounding by sweeping sentiments of love, and not, perhaps, get swept up in it.

But how do they know it's real?  I came to the movie for Erskine, but Quaid is a very likeable presence and the ostensible lead of the film (it really does focus more on Ben's life and POV than Alice's). Where Alice has recently gone through a break-up at the start of the film, Ben seems kind of terminally alone. He's the last of his friends who is single by the time the summer wedding season gets into full swing, and when he looks at his twice-divorced father (Ed Begley Jr.) who just proposed to a woman half his age, Ben thinks he understands why.  So when he gets together with Alice, and, more surprisingly Alice is all-in on the relationship, it's Ben who starts to get shaken by what they have.

In a way, Plus One follows a pretty similar formula to beloved Kent household favourite Holidate,  so there was something comfortable about the structure, though the timeframe of the relationship is sort of compressed over a few summer months as opposed to a whole year. Still, changing venues, different people surrounding the characters, and the device of leading each wedding "chapter" off with the best man or bridesmaid speech (and highlighting all the different tropes of said speeches) was terrific. 

Erskine is the standout here. She's a bundle of aggressive energy, with a sincerity and vulnerability that temper the aggressiveness into charming. As she'd proven in Mr. & Mrs. Smith, she's a versatile and gifted actress, comedic or otherwise, and I expect we'll be seeing an increasing amount of her over the next couple of year. Quaid has more of his mom Meg Ryan's charm than his dad's sort of smarm, which makes him kind of perfect for a romcom lead. He's not the stereotype of the romcom lead, but he is a guy you definitely root for to get his shit together.  It's charming.

3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): Medieval

2022,  Petr Jákl (Ghoul) -- Netflix

There are two kind of fantasy movies that attract a D&D player. There are the purely fantasy, the Lord of the Rings and ilk, which are purely fantasy: magic, elves, monsters and the like. And then there are the "historical fantasy", as in the swords & violence genre, but usually with a certain amount of historical placement; i.e. set on Earth. Medieval originally called Jan Žižka, as it is meant to be a historical drama relating the tale of legendary Czech mercenary ... cough ... Jan Žižka, is strongly in the latter category.

Duh. So, you are saying, if it has swords a D&D player will like it?

Yeah, but wow, does it fall into the The Shelf level categorization of an aging D&D player. It opens at a battle between said titular mercenary (Ben Foster, Hell or High Water) & his ensemble band against a crew of "knights" acting as assassins against Lord Boresh (Michael Caine, The Last Witch Hunter) as he travels to Prague to bid support for (Good King) Wenceslas (Karel Roden, Hellboy) in his bid to become Holy Roman Emperor. Wenceslas is competing with his half-brother, the notorious King Sigismund (Matthew Goode, Stoker), and needs the support of noble Henry III of Rosenburg (Til Schweiger, Far Cry). Boresh decides to force this assistance by having Žižka kidnap Rosenburg's fiance Katherine (Sophie Lowe, What Lola Wants), who happens to be the secret niece of the Kind of France.

This is all very European Historical Politics, stated in a way which implies we are supposed to know it, and care, yet my eyes glazed over. But Marmy explains enough of it for me, to recognize they barely pay attention to history, but present enough to have Žižka as the Hero. He is the Czech warrior who will stand up for What Is Right as opposed to politics.

Fuck, its violent. "Go Medieval On Their Ass" is the main phrase of the day. Despite being an honourable man, Žižka is a very very violent man. He kills as he needs to kill, to make the coin they need to raise to be successful mercenaries. He has few scruples, and is usually about the coin, that is until a rival mercenary Torak (Roland Møller, Papillon) impales his nephew. From there it is revenge, and a desire to protect Katherine, who is just a pawn in a game of little boys who would be kings, caring not a bit for the peasant folk they are supposed to be protecting. There is a hint of a love story, but it felt more Stockholm Syndrome to me, but Žižka ends up sacrificing everything, including his own men, to get her to safety. And they stab, slash, and crush with a mace many MANY people along the way.

Interestingly enough, Žižka is quite the folk hero in that area of the world and survived every battle he fought or led, and actually died at a respectable old age of 60ish. But no, not of "old age".

The Last Duel

 2021, d. Ridley Scott - rental

I'm not sure I ever got over three American actors performing as Frenchmen with vaguely British-ish accents. The occasional jeer from the crowd in French or the minstrel singing his campfire song in French only further exacerbated how weird it all was.

I'm also not sure octogenarian Ridley Scott was necessarily the right person to handle the delicateness of commenting on rape and gender politics in an oppressively patriarchal society. He kind of goes at it with a blunt hammer, seemingly more interested in the dick measuring contests more than the emotional gravity.  Presenting it basically as "Ridley Scott's Rashomon", and it's kind of in spite of his own impulses (and a credit to the script) that it actually succeeds at making any sort of commentary or allusions to regressive ideas about assault or women's issues still present in modern day.  

The first version told from the perspective of Jean de Carrouges (Damon) paints himself as the victim repeatedly, without ever finding fault in himself.  The second finds Jacques Le Gris (Driver) obliviously viewing himself as the consummate frat boy in the ultimate boys' club where the world bends around him, and that he doesn't just deserve what he takes, but that it's owed to him. The final segment comes from Margueite de Carrouges, who is married off to Jacques by her disgraced father and lives under the simmering cruelty of her somewhat inept husband and his mother, only to be raped by Le Gris and then having to go through a gauntlet of confession and cross-examination before justice is left up to two men in a fight to the death where the "winner" is a result of "God's will" and therefore must be the truth.

In the end, the winner of the brutal and fierce duel (very well constructed and shot, as opposed to Scott's shaky-cam, Gladiator-style, war battles earlier in the film) is victorious and heralded but it's not at all about justice or truth, just spectacle. Nobody watching, not the king nor the court nor the spectators nor even the victor himself really cares about the truth nor the crime itself (which is much more about the injury to another man's "property", not so much the assault upon another person).  The triumphant end feels so hollow. There's nothing to celebrate, but I can't tell whether Scott knows that or not, so caught up in the revelry this film is.

It's flawed, but still a tremendously engaging film.

3 Short Paragraphs: The Last King

2016, Nils Gaup (Shipwrecked) -- Netflix

Vikings on skis ! Well, that would be your tagline if you assumed all the Norwegian peoples were vikings. Technically vikings were the sea faring raiders from the Nordic countries, meanwhile at the end of the "Viking Age" there came the civil wars in Norway. Here endeth the history lesson.

Haakon is the illegitimate infant son of the just murdered King. His Birkebeinar loyalists are hard pressed to keep him protected from the assassin Baglers. Skjervald, who only recently retired to become a farmer, is driven to re-join the protective ranks with his best friend Torstein, played by Game of Thrones Kristofer Hivju (Tormind Giantsbane; the only real reason most people are watching the movie), and save the child king.

We've all seen medieval action flicks with chase scenes on horse and with carriage, but have you seen it on skis?  Seriously, the medieval Norse used skis to get around their country, with only a handy spear as a single pole, gliding down serene mountain-scapes, cross-countrying through the pines, and crab walking up the hills. Eventually, the Birkebeinars, made up mostly of farmers and peasant folks, have to stand up against the Baglers, who are backed by the Church & foreign nobility, in order to save their rightful king. Big battle, sacrifices, tragedy, king saved. But I am sure the skis bit will make it into a few adolescents D&D games, if adolescents still even play D&D these days.

Wintervision: New Mid-season TV

Galavant (Season 1) - Sundays @8 on ABC
Agent Carter (episodes 1-3) - Tusedays @9 onABC
Man Seeking Woman (episodes 1-3) - Wednesdays @10:30 on FXX
Schitt's Creek (episodes 1 & 3,4) - Tuesdays @9 on CBC
Young Drunk Punk (episode 1) - Wednesdays @8:30 on CityTV

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I hadn't heard anything in advance about Galavant, a 1/2 hour medieval musical comedy that ABC was seemingly trying to bury on Sunday nights in the January post-holiday haze.  I caught wind of it only the Friday before the first episode aired on some website or another noting that Weird Al, Ricky Gervais and Rutger Hauer were all set to guest star on a, well, "medieval musical comedy".  This was most assuredly going to be a train wreck.  I mean it's early evening network television, how could it not be?  Plus, ABC was apparently trying to get rid of it quickly, running two episodes a night for four weeks.  Burning it off quickly was certainly a sign of its quality, right?

I tuned in to Galavant at 11PM for the Pacific time zone airing, as my wife had already ventured off to bed and I was reluctant (and a little embarrassed) to watch the show in front of her.  It's a medieval musical comedy for the 8PM timeslot on ABC for Pete's sake.  So imagine my surprise when I found myself rolling on the floor with utter glee for the better part of an hour.  Galavant defied even my  slimmest expectations and for the following three weeks it became appointment television.  When co-star Timothy Omundson appeared on The Soup with Joel McHale between week one and two, he created a bit of an impression on my wife, and even she was on board with it.


The show ambitiously strives to be a little bit of everything, even when it conflicts with itself: it's raunchy and kid-friendly at the same time; it's a period piece, but not outside of making modern references; it's genre busting, yet also genre embracing;  it's a funny musical, but the music is incredibly well-crafted, not dispensable.  It's a rare show that achieves everything it sets out to do, without pandering.  It's a show that toys with metatext, the characters often aware that they're in a production, but it doesn't break the wall too often that it knocks it down altogether.  And the comedy doesn't solely extend from their self awareness.  Both the plot and the characters are exceptionally playful, growing in ways that convention dictates, and in ways that wink at the convention, and then also in ways that are just out of left field.  The fact is that it plays with three genres at once (being medieval fantasies, musicals, and comedies) and so it has three different ways to toy around and play with characters, story, and song without exhausting the possibilities.

It's the show's pilot that hooked me, before it even the first commercial break by breaking the knights-and-princesses story cliche.  In the opening moments we meet Omundson, playing the giddily dainty King Richard, who has stolen legendary knight Galavant's true love Marlena, forcing her to marry him.  Played by the handsome, toothy Joshua Sasse, Galavant is dashing and charming, even when he falls prey to goofiness.  Galavant bursts in on the wedding, keen to fight for his love, but Marlena (Mallory Jansen playing a comedic iteration of Cersei from Game of Thrones) finds the wealth and power offered by Richard trumps true love and voluntarily elects to continue the wedding.

From there the plot fast forwards a number of months and thickens even more, with genuine intrigue that's funny, but no less exciting.  Galavant is in a rut, heartbroken, out of shape, drunk and broke, when Princess Isabella (the pristine Karen David) asks for his help in rescuing her parents and taking back her kingdom from King Richard.  What he doesn't know is that Richard has sent her to fetch Galavant so that he may kill him, since he suspects Marlena's apathy towards him has something to do with her residual feelings for Galavant (turns out not so much, she just despises him).

With the first two episodes setting up the general thrust of the show, the middle four jockey between establishing the status quo at the castle (Richard's search for manliness with his loyal guard Gareth [a very game Vinnie Jones], Marlena's infidelity and lust for power, some asides with the chef and jester) and the road trip taken by Princess Izzie, Galavant, and his squire Sid (Luke Youngblood, pop pop!).  The final two episodes bring the whole cast together for some really rich shenanigans that jump all over the place, potentially taking a lot of the characters out of character, but making for absolutely delightful entertainment.  The penultimate episode features the show's most riotously funny musical number as Sasse and Omundson, who have spent the majority of the series apart, come together for a little ditty about regicide.

The songs (from omposer Alan Menken (The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast) and lyricist Glenn Slater (Tangled)) of Galavant aren't particularly memorable, but they are exceptionally well executed, with the lyrics having to tow the line between genuine exposition and comedy, and faring quite well most of the time.  The best songs feature the characters singing sweetly about murder or death, or in the case of the romantic duets, mutual disgust leading to begrudging affection.  One of the smart moves the show makes with the songs is, unlike most musicals, these aren't big showy numbers.  Generally the songs remain contained to few people singing it, only occasionally breaking out into something bigger.  Beyond that, the songs act in the same way they normally do in musicals, as internal monologue, but what the show does is make them external, such that the other characters are kind of aware of what they are saying, though often not paying close attention.  It makes for a hearty giggle every time someone reacts to something in the song they're otherwise not supposed to hear.

I fell maddeningly in love with Galavant (the show, not the character).  It's truly an outstanding addition to the medieval fantasy comedy genre, that may even stack up to The Princess Bride in its ability to go for it (it will be interesting to note how well the show ages).  At eight episodes, it's really feature-film length but broken down episodically.  The cast is tremendous throughout, with Omundson the obvious breakout player, and will no doubt be seen cropping up more prominently between seasons.  The comedy doesn't aspire to be ground breaking, but entertaining, which it is, fully.  Where there's a handfull of "your mama" jokes and a play on Jon Hamm's name in the second episode that one could roll their eyes at, the show makes it clear that they know they're very silly and that it doesn't care.  It's game for anything.

Having bore witness to the majesty of Galavant, I have to wonder if the programming execs aren't actually subtly brilliant.  Burning through the show over four weeks with 1-hour blocks instead of eight 1/2 hour blocks perhaps serves the modern viewer a lot better, one more used to binge watching without waiting.  Given that Parks and Recreation is doing the same with its final season and that Agent Carter (which we'll get to in a moment) premiered with its first two episodes rather than just one, this may see a new trend on network TV.  In any case, ABC would do wise to know that too much of a good thing can spoil the soup, so the second season shouldn't go beyond 10 episodes.  Keeping the show at feature length will allow for quality songs, and tight storytelling that made the first season such a hit.  If they try to go full-season, it will burn itself out quickly.

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With Agent Carter, I'm tempted to say "I love it" and just leave it at that.  But I can't.  I need to gush.

What a strange entity Agent Carter is.  Peggy Carter isn't exactly a prominent character in the Marvel Comics Universe, and I don't think there was any sort of fan clamor to see much more of Haley Atwell's character after the Captain America: The First Avenger film (as that film was more about getting people excited for Marvel's Avengers blockbuster).  But someone over at camp Marvel saw something special in Atwell and her performance as Peggy, commissioning her for a short film that was packaged as a special feature on the Iron Man 3 blu-ray.  After the short was well received, and the initial success of Agents of SHIELD, it was announced that Marvel was shopping around a Peggy Carter series.  The short helped sell people on the idea better, but even still it was met with some apathy.  Afterall, it's just Peggy Carter.  It's not Captain America, it's not any recognizable Marvel superhero, it's just Captain America's old-timey girlfriend.

It's that expectation that this series continually plays upon.  Peggy Carter, as a property and in the show, is completely underestimated by almost everyone around her.  The pilot episode goes to great lengths (and they are quite great) to show the audience, at the very least, what makes Peggy so special.  By mid-way through that first episode, I think everyone watching had bough in.  Agent Carter is amazing.

The crux of the show finds Peggy a low-level Agent at the SSR (Strategic Scientific Reserve), just one notch above receptionist essentially.  The SSR primary focus at the moment is finding Howard Stark, after it's discovered he had been manufacturing all kinds of dangerous weaponry and that somehow it's wound up in the hands of the enemy, a secret organization named Leviathan.  The SSR suspects that Stark sold the weapons, while Stark has secretly asked his old ally, Peggy, to help clear his name.  The conflict is obvious.  As Peggy gets deeper into understanding just Leviathan is, the more risk it poses not just to her physical well being, but to her status at the SSR and as an immigrant in America.

There's a lot of fuel for Agent Carter to mine:
First there's Peggy's past, having lost the man she loved (and not just any man, but Captain Frigging America) and her wounds still stinging.  She has a raw spot where Cap is concerned, and it's what allows Howard to manipulate her, while also keeping her from forging any bonds with anyone else.

Secondly, there's the time, set in the mid-1940s, post-war, women having had a taste of liberation during the war are being force back into the home as the men return to their jobs.  Women have proven themselves capable but are still deemed inferior.  The show manipulates this thread expertly, allowing Peggy to both stand in defiance of it, but also use it when its advantageous to her.  Her ability to stand up for herself, to handle herself in a fight, it shows her strength, but her manipulation of the institutionalized sexism and exploitation of people's misguided expectations shows her intelligence as much as her ability to piece together clues and perform fieldwork.  Atwell is an utter genius in this role.  She able to sell Peggy's toughness at every turn, but she's also equally capable of selling her intelligence.  Most times Atwell carries herself with such incredible confidence that its easy to believe she's the smartest person in the room (which she generally is).  At the same time, Peggy isn't flawless, and Atwell knows how to leave those chinks in her armor.  She's got her triggers that set her off or leave her blind, at the same time she's also not so smart as to be ahead of the story.  She's capable of failure and the stress of the work she does, the impact it has, breaks through emotionally from time to time.  How could anyone not be utterly infatuated with Atwell/Carter after watching this show?

Thirdly, the show exists in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (the "MCU") which allows it to connect with everything that has already gone on in both subtle and overt ways.  Naturally it's connected to the first Captain America movie, but it's also connected with the Iron Man series, since the world of Howard Stark (Tony's dad) plays prominently in the show.  It also pulls in elements from the comics that have yet to appear in the MCU, morphing them to the time period and giving them new life.  For the nerds in the crowd, it gives them the easter egg hunts they look for in genre adaptations, but it doesn't derail the show.  Unlike Agents of SHIELD this series manages to organically tie to the MCU and the source comics in a way that benefits the show, rather than being thrust upon it.

Not to harp upon Agents of SHIELD but where it faltered for so long was lack of purpose, lack of character clarity, lack of direction, and a general unease about its place in the world.  Agent Carter has none of that.  It knows where it fits, but it also doesn't seem to be as concerned (at least not yet) about fitting it.  From Peggy's first meeting with Howard in the pilot, it's absolutely clear what the show's mission statement is: find Howard's missing weapons, clear his name.  That it's also got a compressed season order -- only eight episodes -- means it's not farting around with side stories and tertiary character building.  It's story driven, almost cinematically, which most full-season shows can't sustain.  Likewise, it has an energy and confidence that Agents of SHIELD has strived for but never attained.  Weird that Agent Carter feels more like a Joss Whedon show (punchy dialogue, strong female protagonist) than the one he actually created.

I'm eager to see the series play out, but also just as keen to watch it again.  I'm an unabashed fan of The Flash and Arrow on the CW, and I even am modestly enjoying Agents of SHIELD, but those shows, despite my fandom, don't instill the craving to watch them over and over again.  Agent Carter I definitely want to go around again.  I hope that subsequent seasons run about the same episode order.  8 episodes allows for a much tighter series, and a much more enjoyable way to experience a different era of the Marvel CU.

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Man Seeking Woman isn't the first comedy series about the dating life of the awkward adult male but ... wait, now that I think about it, perhaps it is.  Sure most comedies that feature single guys tend to have a heavy dating component with a revolving door of women, but those are mostly sitcoms where the situation is what the show is largely constructed around, not exploring dating and all the weird things (some) men go through emotionally and mentally throughout it.  Man Seeking Woman is a show that exclusively focuses on its lead character's dating life, much like any romantic comedy tends to do with its female protagonist.  The difference here is the show's heavy use of metaphor-as-reality to process the inner anxieties of the lead.  This may indeed be a dude's version of Sex and the City, The Mindy Project or The New Girl.

Jay Baruchel is perfectly cast as the average, somewhat awkward leading man.  I was surprised to learn that the role wasn't written with him in mind, for this is Baruchel's bread and butter (not that he can't play against type...see Goon for instance).  I was likewise fascinated to learn that this wasn't a product of the Apatow gang, instead coming from Saturday Night Live writer Simon Rich, based of his book of short stories, and produced by Lorne Michaels.  It's certainly a lot sharper and more daring than your typical SNL sketch (not that I don't have much affection for SNL).  But all that known, the show certainly makes more sense.  It does have the feel of a loosely sequential set of short stories or sketches.

The show's use of literal metaphors is what really makes it stand out.  The series picks ups as Josh, recently dumped by his fiancee, is picking up the last of his things.  He's an emotional wreck but putting on a brave face for his ex.  He steps out of her front door and it immediately starts to rain.  Pan wide and we see it's literally only raining on him.  Then a bird drops dead from the tree above, bouncing off him.  In the second vignette of the pilot, Josh is set up on a date with his sister, and she's a troll... literally a troll, but Josh, to his credit attempts to valiantly overlook this fact and engage with her, but he naturally finds it hard.  In the third act, Josh is invited to his ex's engagement party only to learn that her ex's new beau is Hitler... a 125-year-old, wheelchair bound Hitler (played under gobs of makeup by Bill Hader).  I genuinely love the way the show manifests emotional stress physically but doesn't just treat it as metaphor.  Gorbachenka the troll is aware she's a troll and has no apologies for it, and the patrons of the restaurant are well aware she's a troll and don't seem to care.  It seems to be only Josh's issue.  In synergy, the same applies to Hitler, where Josh is the only one outraged by his ex's new boyfriend (is it really because he's Hitler or just because he's dating his ex?).

The second episode uses this device expertly as Josh, wanting to text the girl he met on the train, freezes at the challenge.  His over-sexed best friend Mike (Eric Andre) keeps suggesting he send a dick pic, while his sister starts off strong but then likewise comes up clunky.  Smash cut to a war room where Josh takes in a series of suggestions from military advisers (fans of Battlestar Galactica will appreciate Michael Hogan's gruff one liners), the amount of time, angst and deliberation spent over what to say no doubt familiar to the average joe.  The episode ends after a miserably failed date with a montage of Josh's sad return home and shots of all the romantic things he did to set up, all underscored by sad 4-piece chamber music.  Josh steps into the kitchen where there's the 4-piece playing said underscore, and he tells them to pack up, that its not happening.  The exchange that follows is an utter delight.

The show delightfully toys with reality and surreality, presenting it all as real, but for the most part not unnatural.  In the third episode, Mike coaxes Josh into joining him on a club outing, but Josh knows all too well it's not his scene, so he finds distractions to prevent their outing.  "First, let just pound these beers real quick then we'll go, 5 minutes...", Josh says, and there's a goofy montage of them aggressively downing the beers to krunk music (and a barely audible aside noting "this is a terrible way to drink beer").  Then, stepping up to the club, Josh says, "We need to eat something, fuel for dancing and flirting...let's just pound some mexican food.  5 minutes?"  Cue montage in Josh's apartment with bags of groceries, a mexican cookbook, a mariachi band joining them, cooking up the burritos and serving an intricate meal.  Next in line at the club, Josh stalls once again: "Wait, let's just pound a 10,000 piece jigsaw puzzle first."  Cut to a montage of them finishing the puzzle in rapid order, mounting it, hanging it on the wall, taking a photo, adorning the cover of "Puzzle Aficionado" (it reads "Josh and Mike put it all together").  Finally entering the club, the last ones in, the bouncer lifts up the magazine in his hands, being the very same "Puzzle Aficionado" and exclaims "Oh shit, that was Mike and Josh!"  It comments on the excuses that guys put on to not get out and put themselves out there, and then delivers the comedy via an utterly absurd trio of montages that can't really be reality, but manages to present it as the reality of the show with a brilliantly unexpected tag.

One of the immediate draws of the show was that it was shot in Toronto... I always enjoy scoping out the backgrounds, seeing familiar locations repurposed... it's like a side game to the actual show.  It's not playing Toronto, because of course it's not, but it's also not playing really another setting either.  If anything it's an as yet unnamed fictional metropolis, which is perfect given the heavy fantasy-tinged elements of the show.

It's certainly an apt comedy for the FX stable fitting well as a sort of cross between Louis and Wilfred in a way.  It has a low-key, character-centric vibe to it that allows each vignette to move at its own pace.  It's not aiming for laugh-a-minute, and generally there's at least a kernel of truth behind every aspect of ridiculousness.  It's an immediate favourite.

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Canadian television has a lot of great talent, but for the most part, that talent is wasted under low production values or scuttled off to America to actually do something worthwhile.  There's the odd breakthrough here or there, an SCTV or Kids In The Hall, a show that will be able to transcend its limitations through sheer inventiveness, but for the most part Canadian television strives to play broadly without any real panache and lacking a lot of interest as a result.  It's not just all about production values either, there's a general attitude to Canadian television, a slower pace, a decided lack of heightened reality that seem almost mandated to differentiate it from flashier materials south of the border.  We're all about moderation up here.

Schitt's Creek, in its most jaded summary, is a Canadian version of Arrested Development mashed with Green Acres, the premise of a rich family suddenly finding themselves on hard times and moving out to a rural community, in this case the aptly named "Schitt's Creek", a small town that Eugene Levy's patriarch had purchased as a joke a decade earlier for his son (played by Levy's actual son, Dan Levy).

When I first heard of the premise, this father-son cast, and it's groan inducing title, I wasn't very inclined to tune in.  The elder Levy has seemingly taken any job since American Pie, so he's not an outright indicator of quality, while the younger Levy was primarily a host on MTV Canada which isn't exactly a ringing endorsement for acting quality.  I had to wonder if the younger wasn't utilizing the cache of the elder in order to get himself a prominent role on TV.

Then I saw a few posters at bus stops around Toronto, and noticed a very persuasive additional cast member in Catherine O'Hara.  While Levy can't exactly be counted upon for starring in the best quality vehicles, O'Hara is nothing short of a comedy goddess and is always worth watching.  I was tentative still but I was definitely going to tune in.


The show is actually quite charming.  It's got the expected Canadian pacing but it's built more for an American cable-style audience (unfortunately it tries to pass itself off as set in America, though).  The addition of Chris Elliott to the cast as the town's mayor was a genuine surprise (most definitely a pleasant one as well).  The show wisely builds up its small town through its cast of supporting players, thus leaving the leads to their eccentricities (Eugene, surprisingly, the most straight-laced of the crew).  There are beats to this sort of comedy construct that seem almost unavoidable, such as the inevitable relationships formed between members of the upscale family and the rednecky townies, but it will be how the show handles its central characters in these beats that it can really differentiate itself.  So far it's not doing too badly.  The characters aren't horrendous people which is a good start, and the townies also aren't *that* rednecky.  I'm actually keen to watch this, so long as convention doesn't start to set in and O'Hara keeps doing what she does so well.

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Young Drunk Punk is a Canadian show that makes no illusions about where it's set: Calgary, 1980.  Unlike the classic The Wonder Years, this show isn't trying for full-on earnestness.  It's a period sitcom, like That 70's Show (only more single camera, no studio audience, perhaps more akin to The Goldbergs...I dunno, I haven't seen it), taking advantage of the culture of its setting, juxtaposing, these kids deep into punk music and the aesthetic against the suburbs of Calgary and its cowboy hat-clad denizens.  

The show comes from Kids in the Hall alum Bruce McCulloch (who co-stars as the father of the main character) and it does feature a lot of his usual touchstones, although a bit more gentle.  Where his Kids in the Hall sketches that related to father-son dynamics were quite dark, here the father-son dynamic is a strained one where the two lack any real understanding of the other, it's not irreparably distant or in any way abusive.  Likewise McCulloch's sketches from his mid-20s relating to his youth featured a radical sense of anarchy and misdirected aggression, here, again, it's softer revolting, in part to make the characters not jerks and to make their antics more cartoonishly amusing.  This is not to say that the show is toothless, but rather that it's not trying to bite anything.  It's focused on being amusing, not making any grand statements or pushing comedic boundaries.  Of the Canadian sitcoms to crop up in recent years, this is the first one since Corner Gas that feels like it has any real legs.

The series opens at a fascinating point, with the lead, Ian (Tim Carlson), and his best friend Shinky (Atticus Mitchell) attending their high-school graduation, usurping the valedictorian speech for a dose of their style of anarchy (which comes mainly in the form of trying to expose their peers to greatness of punk music).  Where most coming-of-age comedies of this sort revolve around the awkwardness of high school for outsiders like Ian and Shinky, this show starts by showing they made it through, confident in who they are, but unsure of where to go from there.  In 1980, graduating high-school still primarily meant going out and getting a job, rather than considering college or university, and Ian's dad forces him out into the job market by decreeing he pay rent.  Ian's plans to go live with his sister are curtailed when she returns home after breaking up with her boyfriend (who Ian snidely nicknames "Cowboy", as he's nicknamed all her boyfriends).  The second episode finds Ian and Shinky doing pick-up manual labor, winding up working for Cowboy at a ridiculously hazardous job site full of desperate men.

The cast is quite great.  McCulloch as Lloyd is allowed to be both the authority and the oddball, playing into his strengths while also being very amusing.  Tracy Ryan as Helen, Ian's mom, is likewise given a choice role in being in charge, prim, but not your typical prude or humourless housewife (she works at Woolworths), and one has to wonder if she's oblivious or indifferent to what exactly it is her family is doing (so long as they're playing by her rules she seems okay).  It's too bad that Ian's sister, Belinda is yet another vapid, oversexed dumb bunny, but Allie MacDonald has nailed the role, and in Belinda's favour is that she's not yet a direct antagonist for Ian (they seem to have worked past that, although they're not in any way accepting of each other's lifestyle choices).  Of course it's Carlson and Mitchell as Ian and Shinky that the show hinges and both are thoroughly up to the task.  They live in the clothes like they were actually theirs and they are more than adept at delivering a well-timed one-liner as well as pulling out a physical performance.  The opening sequence of the second episode finds Ian taking punches outside a bar while Shinky watches and eggs him on (a familiar skit from Kids in the Hall) only for the reveal that they're trying out to be bouncers.  Carlson can take his lumps very well.

It's a genuinely entertaining show, upholding American-style production values and single-camera comedy pacing, but not losing any sense of Canadian-ness either.  I take some pleasure in recognizing that this would likely play just as well in the states as That 70's Show played in Canada.  It's quite accessible and fun.  I don't know if it sustains for four or more seasons how strong its legs will be, but I have no doubt that a solidly amusing first season is in store.