What's To Watch? - Dec 30 - From the Terror of the Known to that of the Unknown, 2022 Sets, 2023 Dawns

 

   This could be relatively brief one.
     Thoughts are turned more strongly toward the too many things that need doing, slamming up against so little time remaining in the year. For many of us, with Mon-Fri official jobs, the calendar gives us a little extra padding this calendar year, with the new year starting on a Sunday, spilling that holiday into Monday. Hypothetically, at least, that lets us better land in physical ruin on New Year's Day, knowing we have Monday, too, to better recover and readjust our sleep schedule before reengaging the workweek schedule on Tuesday. We know from experience that these four-day weeks will somehow feel even longer than the five-day ones usually do, all the more so following a general sense of holiday adjacency that's been with us since Thanksgiving.
     Anyway, while I will doubtless slip repeatedly into staring passively at screens for chunks of the next few days, it'll probably still mostly be catching up on things I've already spotlighted here in previous weeks, along with some nostalgic turns, and maybe indulging in rewatches of some movies and shows from this past year.
    As I suspect is the case for many of you, I've been finding myself thinking about people who've gone over the years. Some wistful, happy memories, but I'd be lying if I didn't acknowledge that it's more often a sense of loss, both in the here and now and in terms of lost opportunities. The latter are useful in reminding us to not make the same mistakes with the people we still have left. Reminding us that we're much less likely to feel regret at a partially botched attempt to reach out now than we would at letting that fear of awkwardness prevent us from doing something now, only adding to future regrets. Better an active failure now than a fearful self-restraint. Death will restrain us firmly, soundly, and eternally too soon. We only have agency if we take it.

     Last week, as I've mentioned at appropriate stages over the past few weeks, Amazon Prime wrapped its eight-episode first season for the Alfred Molina-starring detective series Three Pines. That continues to be a late 2022, solid recommendation. I believe Amazon selected the project with the intention of seeing it run for a while - there are 18 novels and a novella in Louise Penney's series of stories centered on Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, and streamers are interested in having popular, tentpole series that encourage subscribers to remain subscribers. On the other hand, there's the frequently mysterious metrics these services use to decide what's succeeding and what isn't. So far they haven't announced anything one way or the other. The more accounts streaming it the stronger its chances of being renewed are... and if you watch through to the end of episode eight, you are going to be very interested in seeing a season two. (Or, I suppose, you could just go for the novels.)

     Newly-arrived on Netflix is an absurdist comedy/drama written and directed by Noah Baumbach, starring two of his frequent collaborators, Adam Driver and Greta Gerwig. This is Baumbach's first feature that's not based on an original story by him. Instead, this is an adaptation of Don DeLillo's 1985, postmodern novel, White Noise.
     Set in 1984, Driver and Gerwig star as Jack and Babette - each on their fourth marriage - and their blended family. Jack is a professor of "Hitler studies," an academic specialty he made up, though it's all the more questionable as Jack neither reads nor speaks German, so his resources are sketchy. A rail accident unleashes a black, toxic cloud over their town, throwing everything into chaos. Exposure, quarantine, conflicts, all through the lens of people whose grasp of reality is questionable. It's White Noise (2022  PG-13  136m)

     Amusingly, especially since the subject matter is so utterly different, I'll also note that this isn't to be confused with the 2005 Michael Keaton horror thriller of the same name.

     While on Netflix, this past Monday, on Boxing Day, a 5-episode, British spy drama landed. In it Charlie Cox plays an MI6 agent who finds his seemingly bright future suddenly endangered, as his boss is poisoned and his associations with a Russian spy are exposed. Questions about his past are raised, especially as his boss being incapacitated suddenly raised his own position of authority. It's Treason.

     General buzz seems optimistic, and I already know even just from Cox's work as Matt Murdock/Daredevil that he has range and conveys a sense of depth. I'll probably mostly have to get used to him not playing a blind man. Reading encouraging things about his co-stars, too; people to watch for future projects.

  I see that TCM viewers are being invited to pass out of the current year and into the new one with a sequential run of William Powell & Myrna Loy films as the socialite detective duo in the Thin Man series. Starting Saturday at 8pm Eastern it'll be The Thin Man (1934), After the Thin Man (1936), Another Thin Man (1939), Shadow of the Thin Man (1941), The Thin Man Goes Home (1945), and Song of the Thin Man (1947). The first one became a huge hit for the studio, such that the second - though it was a full two years later - made a specific point of picking up right after the closing scene of the first.
     Those six films are the complete series, covering the immediate post-Prohibition era, through a second world war, and into that post-war era. An interesting stretch of times, and the films have a snappy patter charm. You could certainly do worse. Just don't make a drinking game of it, trying to keep up with Nick!
     Now, do I expect to be watching through those tomorrow night? Frankly, no. Were my video set-up here different than it currently is - I'm handling everything via a single, large screen, unlike in years past where I'd have a dedicated one for computer work, and would often have a movie or show playing off to the side on the other - I might let those cruise on as side-entertainment to dip into during stray moments.

     I don't think I've ever done any of the main network New Year's Eve shows.
     I can vaguely recall, when I was fairly young, there being some vague appeal to the idea of them, but most of it was really just staying up late. To the extent that I was ever exposed to any of them, I quickly realized they were not for me. If you enjoy them, then have at it! 

    Checking, I saw that CBS has a Nashville's Big Bash show from 10:30 to 1:30 Eastern.
    ABC is still allowing Ryan Seacrest to be New Year's Cryptkeeper for Dick Clark's New Years Rockin' Eve Vault of Forgotten or Imagined Youth - Dick having gone to that Bandstand in the Sky back in 2012.
      NBC will be running Miley's New Year's Eve Party as a two-hour block, 10:30-12:30 East Coast and Pacific, with some SNL show following it. Miley Cyrus' co-host for the event will be Dolly Parton, which almost seems a jab at CBS' Nashville locale choice. You're having a party in Tennessee without Dolly Parton? Anyway, a quick read tells me that Miley's show was the big ratings draw last year, so I'm guessing adding Dolly (who's not only talented but a simply wonderful human being) is a move to broaden the appeal even more.
     Obviously, millions of people love these shows. I'm not one of them. Much as with parades and major sporting events, these mostly seem like glimpses into Hell. But that's me. I'm not the guy to invite to a party. Again, if you enjoy it - be it because of nostalgic connections, or you just, simply, like it - that's great. Enjoy!

     Oh, speaking of horrors, one of the few newer things I watched this past week was the movie X (2022 R). Set in 1979, it's trying for a Tobe Hooper, Texas Chainsaw Massacre vibe, and not doing a bad job of hitting the mark. The obsessions at play here are different, though, and nothing involves a chainsaw.
     It centers on a sextet of would-be filmmakers, ranging from their late teens to mid-thirties. They're  headed to a relatively remote, somewhat impoverished, Texas farm, where their guy in charge has arranged to rent them some space where they can, on the quiet, shoot a porno film ("The Farmer's Daughters") for a market that's just starting to boom. Each is doing it for their own reasons, each as a path up and out of their current station in life. Unfortunately, the elderly couple who own the property have some baggage of their own.
     It's genre-suitably brutal, but genre-appropriately so. It gets messy, and you'll have some empathy with the pain. Nudity is definitely involved, but it was still handled with restraint. Some of the sexual themes may be more challenging, including the very real ones that remind us that the minds in old bodies still remember being young, and still have the same desires they always did. All of these things, only you can judge your tolerances for. The performances are solid, and Mia Goth plays a dual role in the film, both as the aspiring sex symbol Maxine, and as the elderly Pearl. The film was produced, written, directed, and edited by Ti West.
     Again, it's X (2022  R  106m)

     I saw this on Showtime, which can also be accessed via Paramount+, Hulu and Amazon Prime, though I believe that would likely be only either via a Showtime subscription or direct purchase through those platforms.
     It's also worth noting that a prequel film, Pearl, is also in early release video on demand or to purchase on Amazon Prime. These are the first two of an at least three-picture series West has announced, though I'm at a loss as to where the third picture would fit in. While I enjoyed X well enough, I'll be at least waiting until Pearl is free to Prime subscribers or shows up on Showtime.

     While at the intersection of Prime and horror, I just became aware that one of the films I'd heard generally good things about (from horror fans) was Ethan Hawke's The Black Phone (2022 R 1h 43m). I'm running with the first trailer here, from last year, as the second one seems to give too much away.

     I may get to this this weekend, or I may not. I'm not in a rush.

     While some new stuff will be arriving a little later in the month, as of January 1st HBO Max will be adding all three of the John Wick films for a limited, January-only run, to give people a chance to catch up on the franchise before the March theatrical release of the fourth one, or even just so the hold-outs can at least, finally, say they watched at least the first one. They're over the top, cathartic violence, and knowing that Keanu is such a fine human being only makes the roleplay more fun. If he's killing them then you know they deserve it. I'll just drop the trailer for the first one, from 2014, here:

     Also returning (?) to HBO Max as of the 1st is the fun, instant classic, horror adventure with a big twist: The Cabin In the Woods (2012 R 95m). Produced by Joss Whedon, directed by Drew Goddard, and co-written by the pair, it was released on my birthday-adjacent weekend that year and was my choice of outing. I made a point of getting it on disc when it was released that way late in the year. One of the recent facebook memories reminded me that I brought it over to a friend's house as a side-feature during the holiday get-together that year with him, his wife, and some other friends.

     I'm going to close this week with a free-to-see film, parked on YouTube. Nominally from 1975, though one would have had to have been in Australia to see it then, at a film festival. U.S. theatrical release was in January of '76. Set in the waning days of Prohibition, it was an action comedy. But it was an R-rated action comedy, with violence and death. A mixed message bag that seemed destined to confuse and disappoint critics and a general audience alike.
     Starring Jack Palance and Carol Lynley, along with a small array of "Oh! That guy!" faces, including then-future Karate Kid heavy Martin Kove. Lynley, whose career had been sliding downward since a mid-'60s peak, was finally enjoying a resurgence thanks to a supporting role in the highly-successful TV movie The Night Stalker (1972), and as the young, oddly childlike, singer (lip-syncing to Renee Armand's performance of "The Morning After") aboard The Poseidon Adventure (1972)... but then she skidded into this production. 

    An odd little moment, it's worth noting that Palance, who in this picture plays the city's big crime boss, has a scene where he's reading a Batman comic. (We'll set aside that as it was supposed to be 1932, this was seven years before Batman first appeared in print.) Jump ahead 13 years our time and he plays the big mob boss of Gotham City in the first Tim Burton Batman film.
     Distributed by Embassy Pictures - this was a few years before producer Yoram Globus and his partner Menahem Golan bought The Cannon Group and started pumping out fairly low-budget, profitable films at a good stream.
     I don't have any budget or box office figures for this, but it's been noted that most of the production budget likely went into the antique cars used. At least one review noted that much of the stage dressing was at a high school drama club level, so the less than stellar quality of the print below may be a mild blessing.
     Anyway, it's The Four Deuces (1976)

 If you have Paramount+, I've since seen, this is in their movie collection there, so it'll be a better print.

     Well, an odd way to end an often odd year. I've run out of time for this week's piece, and I'm getting too close to running out the year. Some things need getting done. Enjoy this final piece of 2022, and let's try to make 2023 strong steps up for us. - Mike