3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): Dead of Winter

2025, Brian Kirk (21 Bridges) -- download

No, not a remake of the 1987 Mary Steenburgen flick, but a curious cold-weather crime thriller set in the snow-bound northern reaches of Minnesota, shot entirely in Finland. It has a limited cast that makes it feel like a Pandemic flick but somehow doesn't feel... small. We watched it because it has Emma Thompson doing her best Frances McDormand "homespun midwest" accent. And because I like cold weather flicks.

As mentioned, in the wilds of Minnesota, probably close to the Canadian border, amid rural dirt roads, lakes and bad cell reception, Barb and her husband ran a bait shop. They lived a small life, their home a cozy mobile-home across the yard from the bait shop proper. Her husband Karl has recently passed and she has promised him that his ashes will be scattered on the lake where they had their first date -- yes, he took her ice fishing on their first date and it seems they never left that life behind. The depiction of that connection is exquisite, emotive and true. 

But Barb hasn't been to Lake Hilda in quite some time, and a news-making snow storm is on its way, so when she chances on a tucked away cabin on a side road, she stops to ask for directions. A startled man is nice enough, tells her she is near it, and explains away the blood on the ground as a nose bleed. Barb thinks nothing of it and heads off, finding Lake Hilda and getting lost in memories. But then she hears a gun shot, a crack as clear as new ice in this empty wilderness. She hides behind her truck and spies the man who just helped her chasing a young woman across the ice. He recaptures her and suddenly Barb has a new goal.

The Man (Marc Menchaca, Companion) is married to an irascible Woman in Purple (Judy Greer, Halloween Kills), who is obviously very ill. They have kidnapped the young woman for reasons unknown, but obvious The Woman is desperate, and The Man is utterly under her thumb. Barb dives into a rescue mission without thinking, promising the young woman (Laurel Marsden, The Pope's Exorcist) through the basement window that she will not leave her, no matter what.

The thriller part of the movie is pedestrian enough, but Emma Thompson is, as usual, compelling as Hell. Barb is not the woman Emma Thompson is, entirely rough around the edges, likely having spent most of her adult life in a stinky one-piece set of overalls. I cannot say if the accent is accurate but it is definitely regional. I could not help but think of her other recent role, as Zoë Boehm in Down Cemetery Road, which I did watch but did not write about (still having issues with writing about TV despite a failed attempt to reignite it), in that the character entirely stands out. I could not say faithfully that Emma Thompson has been a "character actor" throughout her career but maybe she is giving it a go? Maybe next up she will get a Liam Neeson "aging action star" type role?

If I was disappointed by anything with this movie it was the lack of role that Winter played. The movie starts with the hinting of coming Bad Weather but.... we never really see it. Its gawddamn cold, for sure, but there is no blinding blizzard or even never-stopping heavy snow. The movie is just set in a wintry environment. I wanted to feel the weather instead of just observing it having happened.

So This Is Christmas Leftovers (2025) - part 2

A Carpenter Christmas Romance - 2024, d. Jake Helgrin - Crave
Bach et Bottine (aka Bach and Broccoli) - 1986, d. André Melançon - Crave
Jingle Bell Heist - 2025, d. Michael Fimognari - Netflix

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A Light Toast to HallmarKent: A Carpenter Christmas Romance

The Draw: It was on.

HERstory: Andrea Metcalf is a famous romantacy writer who returns to her perfect small town (which is no longer perfect because it burned down after a lightning strike five years ago sparked a rampant blaze) to work on the latest in her successful novel series. Shortly after arriving she runs into Seth, her old high school crush who she has complicated feelings about. Does he run the local hotel with his dad, maybe? I dunno, I missed the first 45 minutes. 

She used to tutor him and when she became his place of solace when his mother was dying of cancer, they started going out, but he would only take her out in public in neighbouring towns. He was the popular funny sports guy and she...was not...and he had a reputation he felt he needed to uphold.

Him and Andie have a lovely afternoon together one day, and his neighbours kids show up at the diner and start jumping up and down on him, and then his pretty neighbour turns up and says to them to leave Seth and Andie alone, as it looks like they're on a date. He downplays it and says they're just old friend and Andie goes cold on him. Old patterns are returning, and she was hoping to have outgrown those insecure feelings.

Their romance rekindles when Seth accidentally electrocutes himself in his garage. Andie comes running when she hears his scream and then sees that he works with electricity to do wood burning. He's working on burning a tree into a door to honour his mom, among other projects for the city.

They have a walk, connect again. They make out, and they do it (off screen). Afterwards they do the talking-under-the-covers thing, and Seth tells Andie he like-likes her.

In the years since Seth joined the military, served his duty, and returned home to do carpentry work. He's been a central figure in the community, giving free room and board to neighbours struggling after the fire and feeding the town and doing free repair work.

When Seth's attractive tenant calls and then comes knocking at 2am (bootie call), Andie is upset again, and storms out. He chases after her and explains that he served with her husband in the military and that he was KIA. He's been helping them out since the fire and things got...complicated.

But the big reveal is it turns out the fire that took out the city started because of an old generator with faulty wiring that maybe blew up when the lighting strike hit? I dunno. He's feeling guilty, and not the town hero that Andrea accuses him of being.

But everyone knows it wasn't Seth's fault and Andie and attractive tenant decide to host the town in a celebration of lights that doubles as a celebration of Seth and his efforts as the community's backbone. Andrea says she's going to stay, at least for a while...she can write anywhere, and she gives him the final page to her new book where the male protagonist of her series no longer dies.

The Formulae:Most of the formulaic beats of a holiday romance are around Christmas-themed things. I guess because the town burned down, it's not very Christmassy? Andie is regularly outside without a coat on so I'm guessing they're in like SoCal somewhere? I dunno.

Unformulae: Well, they do it, like two hot adults should. It's not just a chaste kiss, these hotties are gettin' it on.

True Calling? Not a single Carpenters song, never mind a Christmas one, is played.

The Rewind: Post-sex one night, Andie and Seth are each eating out of their own pint of ice cream. I mean, shouldn't they be sharing a pint, sexily feeding each other?

The Regulars: Hot brunette Sarah Pieterse (Pretty Little Liars) stars in her first Hallmarkie, as does hot hunk Mitchell Slaggert...and also Kaley McCormack who plays Andie's sister...as well as attractive neighbour actor Asia King. It's an all-new-to-holiday-romance ensemble... except that it was written by Sarah Drew, star of Hallmark's Mistletoe Murders.

How does it Hallmark? It's sexier than 98% of most Hallmarkies (this one's a Lifetime production...I didn't look into Lifetime's slate at all this year, but this one's from last year anyway, so whatevs) because the leads are soooo hot and you just want to see hot people do what hot people should do. But outside of that it's not very festive and kind of dull and the melodrama is revealed in big clunky ways. The big "festival of Seth" I really wanted to roll my eyes at, but it did get me a little bit in the feels (the actual tree burned into door, though, was not as impressive as I'd hoped).

How does it movie? Lord, no.

How Does It Snow? Not a flake.

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The third of producer Rock Demers' "Tales for All" series is a real stunner, mainly because Bach etc Bottine  (aka Bach and Broccoli in the Anglo world) doesn't seem at all like the kind of kids movie a kid would want to watch. Where La guerre des toques/The Dog Who Stopped the War was like a kids version of  a war movie, and The Peanut Butter Solution was the young viewer's version of a horror movie, Bach et Bottine is just a dramatic film, and a pretty melancholy one at that.

The film opens with a dream sequence. Fannie is in the desolate tundra, wind howling, snow blowing furiously. Along the way comes, I believe, her parents on horseback in pristine white snowsuits. The horse drops to its knees and falls over, and just when you think Fannie's mom's going to pull out a lightsabre and cut it open to put Fannie inside to keep her warm, she lifts up the saddle and there's a keyboard in the side of the horse. She starts playing and Fannie's father starts dancing and spinning her around. In voiceover, Fannie tells us her parents died in a car crash a few years earlier.  Fannie wakes up. She does not seem all that bothered by this very strange dream, and she finds comfort in her pet hamster.

Fannie's been living with her Grandmother, but Grandma is now sick and needs to go in a home, so she needs Fannie's uncle Jean-Claude (Jonathan in the subtitles and dub) to take care of her. It's coming on Christmastime and Jean-Claude has just started a year's sabbatical from work and he's focused on practising his organ playing for a big audition he has coming up. If he is selected he could go on tour in Europe for six months. Taking care of a 12-year-old is not part of his plan. So immediately upon Fannie's arrival he tells her it's only temporary and he consults with a fostering system.

Jean-Claude is a loner. He doesn't talk much to his neighbours and the cute woman at work who is clearly sweet on him doesn't get much out of him in return besides awkward smiles. Fannie both helps to bring him out of his shell and tests his patience, especially with her penchant for rescuing strays. Fannie and the neighbour boy set up a hostel for the plentiful strays in the storage shed outside Jean-Claude's apartment.

Fannie wants nothing more than to be loved by Jean-Claude, to be his family, but Jean-Claude is too self-involved to see past his own narrow band of interest, and he keeps putting up walls between himself and this traumatized child. It's quite painful viewing. It's clear Jean-Claude has the desire to love and be loved, but he has no ability to make it happen. 

The ending of this film is a real mind fuck. Much like the previous two "Tales for All", Bach et Broccoli is borderline traumatizing. Fannie leaves for a school trip, leaving Jean-Claude home alone, where he learns he dearly misses the poor girl. When she returns from the trip, though, they learn she has been placed with a new family and has one week left with Jean-Claude. Feckless as he is, he doesn't intervene. Fannie runs away from his audition performance, gives all her strays away to neighbourhood kids, and runs to her new foster family days earlier. Jean-Claude turns up at their door. He doesn't know what to say to the girl. In English he tells her he loves her. In French he says "Bonne chance" which is not the same thing.

There's an abrupt cut to the next scene which Fannie narrates, which finds Jean-Claude, his crush from work, and Fannie altogether in his apartment, redecorating, painting the walls stark white, making it a home. But the allusions to the opening, the narration, the blanket of white, does this tell us that it's only a dream? That there's no happy ending for Jean-Claude and Fannie?  I have to wonder if the subtitles/dub try to change the melancholy ending for the English market to a happy one... because even with these edits, it's evident that this is not the happy ending we're hoping for. The credits roll over Fannie holding her pet skunk Bottine/Broccoli and smiling for the camera. I'm trying to recall a film that I saw in the past few years that ends with the credits rolling over a character trying to hold a smile, and how unsettling that is (was it Pearl?).

Bach et Bottine is a complex emotional drama that happens to feature a child as one of the lead roles, but it doesn't make it a children's film. I can't imagine being a 10-year-old in the 1980's and finding this that interesting (not compared to the previous two films in the series), yet as an adult I found this guttingly emotional. The film has exceptional compassion for Fannie, and her yearning for Jean-Claude's acceptance, and it does an exceptional job of exemplifying Jean-Claude's fecklessness while still giving us enough understanding of him to root for him to come around (we don't ever dislike Jean-Claude so much as we are constantly frustrated by the slow pace of his evolution).

It's a slow burn film that will punch you in the gut. 

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Before even seeing the movie I had read the Toastypost as well as listened to the Deck the Hallmark podcast break down the film, so I already knew all the beats of the movie before I went into it. This is a film that twists and twists, recontextualizing the characters and their motivations as the film progresses, and if you know all the twists in advance, well... it's still kind of a cute, fun movie. Kind of.

Former Disney teen star Olivia Holt is Sophia, a shopgirl in a British department store called Sterlings, like it's 1954 all over again (see also The Crowded Day). She has her mind set on stealing some stuff, but so too does Nick (Connor Swindells) who apparently robbed the place once before after being hired by Sterling (Peter Serafinowicz) to set up security in the place, and he still has eyes into the store. He spies Sophia getting into the basement storeroom and stealing a bit of cash, and tries to blackmail her into helping him rob the storeroom of its most valuable jewels, but she pickpockets his wallet and turns things around on him.

Partners they agree. Sophia learns that Nick is a dad, divorced, and struggling after his incarceration. Nick learns Sophia moved to America with her mom when she was small after her biological father told them to piss off. Now they're back for the free health care, only her mom is so sick and needs to fast track her stem cell injections, which can only happen in the private sector. Sophia needs money.

They plan their heist and make it into the vault only to discover the jewels are missing. Plan B, steal the 500K Sterling keeps in his vault in his office, which is a lot more work, including an embarrassing attempt by Nick to seduce Sterling's bitter wife (Lucy Punch).

Directed by Mike Flanagan's DP, it actually looks pretty good, and moves along without really any lulls. It has its luminous moments, particularly around the seduction gambit and I enjoyed how the story effectively told us time and again that these two were never really ever going to pull this off successfully with their limited experience and skill set. The only reason they succeed is because they get help from more than one place (primarily because Sterling is such a douche, everyone's happy to take him down a peg). 

Even knowing all the beats I still had fun, but I imagine it was more fun not knowing. But the romantic angle was probably the least successful part of the film. Sophia and Seth seem more like buddies than lovers throughout the runtime. As much as this isn't a Hallmarkie, their "romance" feels very by the book Hallmarkie. Perfunctory. It's not that the leads don't have chemistry, there's just not a lot of romantic chemistry there, and much of it has to do with Swindells being too low key and reserved in that very British fashion. This needed much more spice to liven it up, especially if it wanted any rewatch factor.

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Toast & Kent's Xmas (2025) Advent Calendar: Day 22 - An Alpine Holiday

2025, Lucie Guest (Jingle Bell Run) -- download

Funny, it was original called An Alpine Christmas. I wonder if, after the fact, they decided to tie it to Norwegian Holiday and strip out most of the Xmas stuff... this one is definitely more "a movie that takes place around Xmas" than an Xmas movie.

Hallmarkie Fatigue is settling in and I realize I might just have to (gasp!) actually prepare for this come next year -- as in, actually research and only watch movies that scratch the itch, instead of just downloading / clicking a bunch of random ones that check some boxes. But what am I searching for? Well, either completely bonkers weird, or adherence to a particular sub-sub-genre of the Hallmarkie that checks all the PST Xmas boxes on my Bingo card. I know I said I would relax my demands on the movies and just allow them to be but... as the fatigue is settling in, I am unable.

This was not an Xmas movie. 

The Draw: Partially to give another go at "Hallmarkie in ______", as this one is set and actually shot in the French Alps... well, for the key outdoor shots where a mountain or quite Alp village was required. The rest of the interior stuff was done in Sofia, Bulgaria. But but, that was the draw.

HERstory: This is not primarily an example of the "Main Travels to PST" trope, and the romance is actually the secondary element to the movie. It is more about the reacquainting of two somewhat estranged sisters: Faith (Ashley Williams, How I Met Your Mother) and Kelly (Lacy J Mailey, Supernatural). They are drawn together near Xmas because their grandmother, who raised them, recently passed away. Faith is a free spirit, never settling down, who wants Kelly to join her in Florida for the holiday season, while Kelly is a stayed-at-home type, still in the apartment they were raised in. 

Early in the tense interactions they are interrupted by a call from a lawyer -- they are beckoned to a meeting where they find a request from their grandmother --- travel together to Mont Blanc in the French Alps, to follow the trail grandmother and her fiancé took ages ago. Its all planned and paid for, and a guide will be waiting for them when the plane leaves. They have to do before Xmas Eve.

Initially the differences between the two sisters dominates, as Faith is more than happy to run away to France at the drop of a hat, while Kelly has work work stuff. But, of course, at the last moment she recollects how much her grandmother's wishes meant to her and chases after the Uber.

In France they meet Frédéric (Julien Marlon Samani, Tiny Beautiful Things), the schmoozy self-confident guide who wastes no time hitting on Kelly. I should probably mention that there are some years between the sisters, and Kelly is the young-enough-for-romantic-entanglement sister while Faith has her already established romantic troubles -- she's been proposed to by a longtime boyfriend, but ran away instead of saying Yes. But nobody knows this yet.

Given that Xmas plays very little in this movie, I have no desire to count the beats / tropes. Let's just say the journey is fraught with sister trauma but slowly draws out the attraction between Kelly and Frédéric. The drama between the two sisters takes the front seat in the funicular ride.

Yawn.

I found it very weird to traversing a new romance while reminiscing about one that ended in a proposal. If anything, they should have jumped the shark and have Faith's BF show up on the mountain to pop her the question a second time. But no, it was more just about instilling a sense of adventure in Kelly so she would take a chance on love she just met.

In the end, the two sisters loudly air their dirty laundry prompting Frédéric a number of times, until it comes to a head and the trio makes it to the top of the mountain, to see the spot where their grandmother and grandfather began their married life together. It sets the tone, and once back down in the lovely village of Chamonix, Kelly tells Frédéric she'd love to take a chance, and Faith decides to tell her BF the Yes Word.

One year later, Faith is preggers and ... I guess Frédéric is living in NYC with Kelly? Oh, and its Xmas again, not that it mattered.

The Formulae: Xmas barely took part in this movie. But I guess the tropes exist outside of the Hallmarkie (a label I attached purely to Xmas Time Hallmark [and type] movies) so, there is "We Just Met But I Love You", there is "I Am Not Quite Sure I Want to Commit", there are Dead Parents, Frédéric was not pursuing the life he really wanted to pursue (becoming a musician), there was some Hot Chocolate to be had, but that was more related to being on the side of a ski resort mountain than anything. Are cozy fires in a snowbound shack common enough to be a trope?

Unformulae: Its more about sister re-bonding than about the romance. There is no real PST and it might start in NYC but its not really there.

True Calling? Once they changed the name to "holiday", yes.

The Rewind: No rewind, but a few pauses at the actual shots of the tourist spots sitting on the top of peaks around Mont Blanc -- they are truly incredible and give me butterflies just imagining how they were constructed. Also, a chuckle at the memory from a photographer's review of Hallmark movies, "YOU CAN'T TAKE A SELFIE WITH THAT CAMERA !" as Kelly takes tons of selfies with a high end digital SLR that does not have an appropriate lens. 

The Regulars: I was here for Ashley Williams, who is Royalty. Laci J Mailey is a staple Canadian actor but not in Hallmarkies. Samani hasn't done any, but he was in Holidate. 

How does it Hallmark? I am not sure I can properly judge the movie on being a Hallmark movie, as the sisterly drama may be a staple out there, but it is mos def not a good Hallmarkie as Xmas barely plays out at all.

How does it movie? No.

How Does It Snow? In town, it could be October, but when on the mountain side, it was proper PROPER snow, as in trudging in blowing white out conditions.

KsMIRT: ice and fire

 K'sMIRT is Kent's Month in Reviewing Television, where each month(ish) I step through the TV series I completed watching each month in the 1 Great-1 Good-1 Bad format. Behold, finished in February.

This month:
True Detective season 4 - HBO/Max 6 episodes
Mr. & Mrs. Smith season 1 - Amazon Prime 10 episodes

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I had watched Season 1 of True Detective way back in 2014, but I honestly cannot tell you what I thought of it. The reason I write this blog is to record my thoughts on some of the pop culture I consume because otherwise those thoughts will be lost to the ether. My little peanut brain can only hold so much information... like a peanut-sized amount. I treat this blog like Guy Peirce's skin in Memento. If it's not tattooed here, I'm not really going to remember it.

What I know is I didn't watch Season 2, nor Season 3.  I don't know if that reflected as much on a dislike of Season 1 or if it was just the critical drubbing Season 2 received prior or early in its release was enough to put me off the subsequent seasons.  

What I recall of season 1 is thinking Alexandra Daddario was far too young to be having sex with Woody Harrelson, and also something about Lovecraft's King in Yellow being mixed up in all of it. Again, I don't know if those little impressions were good or bad.  Show creator Nic Pizzolatto did not become "a name to look out for", one way or the other.

But this new season of True Detective, subtitled Night Country, starring Jodie Foster and MMA fighter Kali Reis, hooked me from the first commercial. First, it's set in the depths of winter in the far north (Alaska), and desolate, wintery settings are my favourite. Second, it's set in the 30 days of night scenario, where, because of the location on the Earth's axis, there's no sunlight for a month every year. It's a conceit that hasn't been used nearly enough (the opposite setting, of days of no darkness has been used I think more often). Third, well, it's not Pizzolatto in charge, so, maybe the critical disappointment from Season 2  that probably tainted the reception of Season 3 would be scrubbed clean. And fourth, I mean, Jodie Foster, incapable of delivering a bad performance.

Issa Lopez acts as showrunner, writer (or co-writer) and director on every episode of the season and that creative consistency is everything. This is rock-solid storytelling from start to finish, with everything, and I mean everything, feeling entirely consistent and unified for the whole run. While six episodes, it really does feel like it could be a 5-hour movie because of the visual uniformity.  There's also no downtime, no filler, no stalling for time.

The first episode wastes no time in introducing its more metaphysical elements, and it definitely isn't being cagey or shy about it. But it's also very sharp in how it incorporates into the story. The setting is a Native American community that has expanded because of mining operations, but the mine's environmental impact on the town has been having increasingly severe repercussions. The ancestral community and the new community clash over protests around the mine.  With a large indigenous cast of characters, it would have been easy enough to lean into just Native spirituality, but it's clear that there's more going on beyond that, and the bleed between them makes it hard to distinguish, intentionally.

 It's a murder mystery, it's a horror story, it's a political statement, it's a police procedural, and, by nature of a largely female cast and writing crew, it's a complex feminist story as well. 

The story starts with a singular mystery, the disappearance of all members of a remote research station, only to be found naked, frozen together in the ice, looking like a mutated mass of flesh. But as Foster's Chief Danvers investigates this crew, it dredges up a cold case from years earlier that wound up severing her partnership with Reis' Navarro, who moved on becoming a State Trooper. 

The reunion of Danvers and Navarro is enough of a story on its own, but this True Detective tale encompasses the whole town, and there is a pretty broad cast of characters that we meet, and have some role to play in everything involved. It feels like we've met half the town by the time the series is finished, and we certainly have a clear idea of the politics at play, and the conflicts that persist.  

We get deep into Danvers and Navarro's family life, as well as Danvers' new protege, Officer Pete Prior (a breakout performance from Finn Bennett), whose dad (John Hawkes) was originally slated to be Chief before Danvers was assigned, and the contention is palpable.

Night Country is an incredibly deep and thoughtful series, presenting hard edged, flawed characters with a richness that allows you to dislike them, but understand them, and root for them to not just figure out what's going down, but also figure out their own lives as well.

This was an incredible series from start to finish, and watching week to week was somehow both frustrating and satisfying. Each episode is so densely structured that they're filling on their own, but that still doesn't stop them from just seeming like a course of the overall meal.

The finale could have went many different directions. It had the potential to go full blown action or horror spectacular, but it instead goes the detective route without forgetting that the metaphysical still is woven completely throughout the story. It does wind up being satisfying in its resolution without demystifying its paranormal aspect. 

I may not remember Season 1, but this one will stick with me for a long time. Foster does not disappoint in the slightest, playing an exceptionally traumatized character (and hurt people hurt people) while Reis is just an incredible presence who should be allowed to do whatever she wants after this. An immediate favourite performer. I'm very likely buying this one on Blu-ray, because it's worth revisiting.

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Speaking of not remembering things... the 2005 Doug Liman-directed, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie-starring film Mr. & Mrs. Smith holds absolutely no space in my brain. I recall seeing it in theatre when it came out, but I've never revisited it. What I recall is the conceit of the film, two mercenaries, married to each other, are advised they need to kill one another. Watching a film where Brad Pitt physically fights his wife has not aged well as a concept. 

There was a Mr. & Mrs. Smith Hitchcock film in the 1940's but that was a screwball comedy about a warring couple. Then there was a short-lived Mr. & Mrs. Smith action/espionage series in the 90's starring Scott Bakula and Maria Bello that finds two special agents having to pretend they're married and do missions. 

Strangely, this latest Mr. & Mrs. Smith, created and developed by Donald Glover with Francesca Sloane, is deemed to be based off the 2005 film, which gave no credit to the 90's series, even though there's direct parallels there.

This series seemed to come out of nowhere. It's a problem with AmazonPrime where they seemed to have put all their promotional money into a failed Lord of the Rings series and nothing else in the year since. I never seem to know when anything is debuting or returning to Prime. It was actually a TV reviewer I follow that tipped me off to Mr. & Mrs. Smith's premiere two days before it dropped.

I'm always up for more Glover. The love for the Community cast runs fairly deep. But Glover's Atlanta was one of the most creative and experimental series in the past decade that fanned that flame of fandom. Mr. and Mrs. Smith doesn't take a lot of creative risks certainly not as many as Atlanta, but enough to feel elevated from, say, a network action-oriented series.

Glover is the known quantity, the draw, but his co-star, Maya Erskine, is the kaboom, the mind-blowing explosive stick of dynamite that makes the show feel revelatory.  It is a two-hander of a series, where both performers receive top billing, but it does feel like Erskine's show. She seems to be doing the heavier lifting acting and character-wise.

Jane and John Smith are each, independently recruited to a non-descript organization to run high-risk operations. They are selected and partnered and given their new identities as well as a gorgeously renovated brownstone in New York that seems well outside almost everyone's affordability rating.  They are given their missions by an unknown contact they call "HiHi". The first mission is a literal cake walk, but not what it seems and gives them a sense of what they're in for, as well as the tidbit of 3 fails remaining.

Across 10 episodes, the Smiths actually develop feelings for each other, and a genuine partnership is formed, but the missions start exposing their weaknesses as a couple and threaten to tear them apart in the end. Ultimately, if you're aware of the "source" film, they're going to start trying to kill one another, but when it happens it's still pretty shocking, because they do such a good job of wanting these crazy assassins to work it out.

I loved this show. It's full of wonderful action, comedy, romance and intrigue bits, plus it sets up the stakes from the get-go that play out delightfully. Glover leans into his charm, wearing it as a mask with just cracks of vulnerability beneath. He's playing at being a cool agent, but once we really come to realize what a mamma's boy John is, it really spells out his personality. Erskine is, as noted, an explosive performer... she sells everything she needs to sell, including her diagnosed psychopathy, yet it's the way she plays her detached coldness that makes Jane so completely likeable. We're going to be flooded with Erskine as a result of this.

There's some wonderful guest stars in this, including Parker Posey, John Turturro, Michaela Coel, Sarah Paulson, and more, but my favourite was Ron Perlman who is the Smith's escort mission in Italy. As they're young in their "marriage" the conversation of kids comes up, and, hilariously, Perlman basically acts like a toddler throughout the episode, testing both of their parenting mettle. It's a freaking delight, and Perlman kills the assignment without being too cartoony about it.

It's a great looking show, handing the romance and the action with equal style and verve. The globetrotting aspect must have made it an expensive shoot, but all the different locations are shot beautifully. Each episode has a mini-movie feel, but they also all chain with each other so that consuming them is all too easy.

The first season leaves a second season teased up and a full possibility. Hell, we still know absolutely nothing about the organization they work for by the end of the final episode.  With Amazon dropping the whole season in one shot, it just means the wait for another season is going to feel that much longer.  Lady Kent and I wanted more immediately upon completion.

3 Short Paragraphs: Cold Pursuit

2019, Hans Petter Moland (In Order of Disappearance) -- Amazon

I swore the original was also called Cold Pursuit, but apparently not. Hans Petter Moland returns to (re)direct the American version of his own movie from Norway. Based on the trailer, I can see that he pretty much just re-did his original movie (with Stellan Skarsgård), shot for shot, transplanting it to Kehoe, a ski resort town in Colorado, while retaining the otherworldly snowbound look of the original. I will have to go back to Amazon and find the original, as I know it's there somewhere.

Nels Coxman (Liam Neeson, Love Actually) is a snowplow driver and Kehoe, Citizen of the Year award winner. He and his wife Grace (Laura Dern, Jurassic Park) live in an absolutely lovely little cabin high on a mountain, all alone. Soon after, their son is murdered by drug dealers, but local police just blame a heroin addiction & overdose. Grace leaves Nels, as he won't acknowledge that the two didn't "know" their son. Nels knows his son didn't do drugs, and tracks down the drug dealers who killed him, to take revenge.

This movie has a very Fargo feel to it. It's not comedic per se, more just darkly amusing, as we see how ludicrous the whole revenge plot that spills into a drug gang turf war is. I have a feeling that Skarsgård played a much more reserved man than Neeson, who we are already quite convinced has a particular set of skills that lend to killing drug dealers. But the performances are great, and the visuals are incredible. Just that one scene of Nels riding the snowplow on a main road that is about 12' below the top of the snow, a line of cars slowly following him, was so familiar to snow we had when I was a kid. I just wished that the plot centered more around him, as he felt more like a catalyst to the event, than a main character.