What's To Watch? - Dec 16 - Pre-Holiday Disarray Hodge Podge

 

     Particularly disjointed this week. No good reason to go into specifics, just the opening caution that these are disconnected bits that just happen to find themselves in this Friday piece.
 
    Thanks to an old friend, I had access to Apple TV+'s Ted Lasso as of this past weekend, and happily binged through the 10-episode season one that weekend, and have since rolled into the 12-episode season two. I believe I have five or six episodes to go. I'm trying to savor them.
     The foundational premise is that an American college football coach (the eponymous Ted, played by series co-creator Jason Sudeikis) is, to the international sports world's surprise, hired to coach a (fictional) English Premiere League football (which Americans would call soccer) club, despite his having no experience with the sport. The "why" of the job offer is also laid out, as I recall, within the first episode, but I don't want to risk spoiling any of that for anyone. The show is largely centered on who Ted is, how he approaches people and life, and how he affects them. Ted's folksy, country boy manner causes people to underestimate him at first, and to wonder if he's simple or this is just an act.

     Wonderfully, it was as good as I'd heard from the various reports over the past year, being a series with terrifically broad appeal. The core message of the power of genuinely good people to bring out the best in others, and improve lives, is a vitally-needed tonic. By the time I was moving through season two there were moments where I suddenly became conscious of sporting a big, genuine grin. I just became aware of the sensation on my face. Just a sincere reaction to (mostly, ultimately) happy moments. I think I needed this more than I realized.
     It was a little saddening to find that season three - most likely sometime in 2023 - will be the final one. Still, I have to respect the decision.
     The only down side for me was that because of the interface I was using I couldn't get closed captions to work. Between the cadence, accents, and individual speaking volumes I was often missing out on pieces of dialogue. Sometimes getting two words in three, at some points likely getting as little as one in six - there are points in Roy & Keely scenes where I was down to about one word in eight, and getting by mostly on voice tone and facial expressions, neither of which are plentiful with Roy. The series will definitely warrant a rewatch, both on its own merits and as a personal rejuvenator - The Good Place has gotten that sort of role for me, too - so a revisit will be welcome, all the more so as I will have more details to catch the second time around.
     This also works nicely as a loose companion piece to FX's Welcome To Wrexham, which covers the real-life buy of a Welsh football club by tv star Rob McElhenny and film star Ryan Reynolds. Each show has dropped at least one reference to the other in an episode.

     Last Sunday, Cartoon Network ran the sixth season-ender for Rick & Morty. I enjoyed this season, dark moments and layered loops of self-reference well-included, more than I did season five. This next Sunday, starting at 11:30 PM Eastern, they'll be doing a marathon run of all 10 episodes. With it starting at that point on a Sunday night, I suspect for most that'll be a matter for recording options, as opposed to a live, marathon watch. Here's the initial trailer they put out, just before they launched the first half of the season.

     Also this past Sunday, Cartoon Network ran their Adult Swim Yule Log. I really wasn't sure what to expect, so I had it recorded. While it starts off briefly as a traditional fireplace video, it quickly pulls back and begins to tell an increasingly convoluted horror story. Definitely TV-MA material. No nudity, but disturbing themes and gore, in a horror story that includes multiple genres, from psychotic rapist and killer family theme, to supernatural, and science fiction threats. As the week rolled on, HBO Max added it to their offerings. (It's also available on Adult Swim's site, via this link, until January 1st.) It's there as Adult Swim Yule Log (The Fireplace) (TVV-MA  1h 37m) The 15-second promo (seen below) gave zero warning of what to expect -- which, yeah, is how Adult Swim best operates. I will reiterate that this is neither for kids nor sensitive viewers. It's a twisted, sometimes wacky, horror film.

     One of several items that I neglected to work into last week's piece, was last Friday's arrival on Netflix of Guillermo Del Toro's Pinocchio.

     A touching take on the tale, with interesting visual/design choices. I'll admit my eyes watered even during the trailer, but admittedly I'm getting sappier in my dotage.

     A new Netflix special - a holiday edition of the Murderville series they put out this past February (which I covered back in February) - recently arrived. Now as then, Will Arnett plays Detective Terry Seattle, and while he and most everyone else has a script to work from, a special, celebrity guest detective trainee has to improvise their way through the plot -- and then posit a solution to the crime. For this special, the guests are Jason Bateman and Maya Rudolph. In keeping with the season, it's Who Killed Santa? (52m)

      I'll likely get to it sometime this weekend. Based on the earlier series, it varies sharply from guest to guest, so with only two in play for this special I hope they chose well.

     Something that's been on Netflix since November 16th, but I've yet to get to, is a psychological drama period piece, set in rural Ireland in 1862. The story's based on Emma Donoghue's 2016 novel of the same name, which in turn was based on the historical phenomenon of "fasting girls." Florence Pugh stars as an English nurse who is hired to travel to an Irish village and closely observe a girl whose family claims has not eaten in four months. It's The Wonder (2022 R 103 m)

     An early November theatrical release - mainly for Academy consideration - followed two weeks later with its Netflix premiere. Most of the praise for it's been centered on Pugh's performance.

    Trying to track how Warner Discovery is handling its already in-play properties can be difficult. This is because of the still newly reconfigured corporate structure, most pointedly New Broom CEO David Zaslav, has been making sweeping changes in the corporation's business model. Among the perspectives shifted is how their streaming platform will work, and how content will and won't flow. At least one item fell into place, though, as they confirmed that Black Adam (still currently out in theaters, where it's been since October) is hitting HBO Max today, December 16th.
     I got out to see this back on November 3rd, a Thursday afternoon when I took a much-needed break from work. I was one of I think maybe 4 people in the theater at that off-time, which is just about what I'm comfortable with in this viral age.
    The Rock isn't going to get an award nomination for his performance, but it was still nice to finally see him in the costume. Also nice seeing some version of the Justice Society, even if it was a sort of remnant fragment, with a couple newcomers added in, and they were little more than ill-used attack dogs for special ops queen of dirty tricks and murder, Amanda Waller. Still, the introductions were made, a door opened, and with a little fuzzy memory work, maybe a claim or two of an "off-day" (particularly for Carter Hall/Hawkman - portrayed by Aldis Hodge, who looked great in civvies and costume, but was written as such a bellicose character for no clear reason other than simply so numerous, largely pointless, fight scenes were made inevitable), the general arc of the story and the mid-credits scene can open this into a larger, better DCU now that James Gunn and Peter Safron are officially in charge of such things for at least the next (almost) four years. Then again, this past week we've gotten the word from Gunn that they seem intent on rebuilding the DCU from the ground up, so... none of us can clearly say whether or not any of this will play off against anything yet to come from the studio.
     I don't know that I'm going to rush to rewatch this, but the holidays and ease of access -- and some curiosity as to a few specifics I didn't give full attention to in the theater -- may see me rewatching this at home somewhere in the next couple weeks, as I dodge the many other things I Really Should Be Doing. Being able to start and stop it at will, and so not have concentration split between the screen and telling my bladder to wait a little longer, can only help. Breaking it up a little

will also help combat the fight and "epic" scene fatigue that set in (deeply) in the final third of the movie. This is another instance of me thinking that if this could have been sent back for my 10 year old self to see in 1971, aside from complaints that it was stupid DC characters instead of cool Marvel ones (I was intensely polarized on that back then -- I'm a little less fanatical about it now), I'd have eaten it all up. My 61 year old, 2022 self, though, was starting to nod off a few times in the midst of frequently explosive combat.
     Anyway, it's there for HBO Max subscribers to take a look at now.  Normally I'd drop a trailer here, but there were two released, and for some reason they both reveal a plot point that's a significant reveal fairly deep into the movie, so I'm not going to propagate their mistake. (There's really not enough plot that they can risk spoiling any of it.) I'll instead just mention the name and specifics again: Black Adam (2022  PG-13  2h 5m), now on HBO Max.

       As a last holiday nod for the week, I'll remind those with Paramount + (or both Tubi and multiple copies on YouTube, with ads) that they have access to the 1984 British-American collaborative version of A Christmas Carol, with George C. Scott as Scrooge and David Warner as Bob Cratchit, along with a generally-accomplished cast.

     Disney+ subscribers, meanwhile, have The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992  G  1h 27m), which while a musical comedy drama, has Michael Caine as the sole non-muppet player, who keenly plays his Scrooge straight, hard-edged and serious, despite acting opposite Muppets; it's a fairly good combination, though I find that it resonates best, nostalgically, with viewers who first saw it when they were children -- so, those born in the '80s or later. This was the first big Muppets production following Jim Henson's untimely death.

     While I hated the original Top Gun (1986), and have virtually no interest in the sequel, Top Gun: Maverick (2022), I also know that my tastes are likely not yours. So,I'll pause to note that the former is already on Paramount+, and the latter will be joining that streamer next Thursday, the 22nd, and so is best mentioned this week. Do with that information as you will!

     Closing with a real non sequitur, a 1966 sci-fi film that, somehow, I at first didn't remember ever seeing, which was all the more surprising as it was produced under a pre-sale agreement for tv syndication once it ran in theaters, that advance money being used to finance production. Boiled down, it's all about an alien encounter at the bottom of the sea. It was also made for not a whole lotta money, and on a production schedule where it and one other production were filmed back to back over 14 days.
     The cast is primarily composed of "Oh, that guy! The bossy one who picked on what's his name!" and "It's that woman, from that show..!" character actors from movies and tv whose names I never knew or remembered. So, lots of face and voice recognition, but nary a flutter while reading the opening credits. The film's score was by Paul Dunlap, though it's mainly hand-me-down work going back to The Angry Red Planet, which has also been recycled for a variety of other projects over the years. It's Destination Inner Space (1966  83m) -- the trailer is low-res, but the film (free to be seen by Amazon Prime subscribers, or by anyone on Tubi or YouTube) is sharper.

     Oh, aside from the formula of two male leads whose characters turn out to have a grudging history,

for especially painful scenes watch for yet another familiar, character actor face, that of James Hong. Here he plays the undersea project's chef, Ho Lee, who's doing the whole befuddled foreigner, camp cook, comedy relief shtick, complete with broken English. Well, hey, it was a (likely very small) paycheck! At 93, I believe Hong (who was in this year's excellent Everything Everywhere All At Once, along with doing voice acting work in at least two other 2022 releases, Wendell & Wild and Turning Red) may have outlived (almost?) everyone else in the cast -- and is still at it, working continuously since 1954. I'd really love to get his perspective, looking back over many of the roles he had to deal with. To that end, I'll likely start (when I find the time) with a fairly recent, less than 17 minute, interview with him over on the Television Academy site.

     That's all for this week!
     I hope matters are manageable for you, and you're finding some time to enjoy. When we're next back together here the formal holidays (as in work-recognized for many of us) will essentially be here. Between now and then, the holiday miracle will be if I manage to be in any way prepared for them. Good luck to us -- every one! - Mike