Occasionally while looking up details on a movie or tv episode, I'll happen to note the release or broadcast date - what a wonderful age we live in for indulging nerdy/geeky impulses!
Recently, while thinking about seasonal television, most specifically about holiday episodes of shows, I fairly quickly thought about the ones that Dan Harmon's show, Community, did during its six-
While checking for some details, I happened to notice that today, December 9th, is the twelfth anniversary of that show first airing back in 2010. That was a particularly dark and trying year for me, between my wife's sudden death in April, and the cultural and intellectual descent here in the U.S. that saw the rise of the astroturf Tea Party, which had then just had a horrible impact in the mid-term elections. While I had to remain focused and engaged in many practical matters as a simple matter of economic survival, personally and emotionally I was largely shutting down, leaving myself protectively numb. This little island of televised emotional warmth was likely a little more attractive for me, providing me a safe, quiet, vicarious outlet, as Abed was going through his own holiday crisis, retreating into a claymation holiday fantasy. (Community is currently available on both Amazon and Hulu.)
Starring Alfred Molina as Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, these are adapted from Louise Penney's series of novels. The titular, relatively remote and insular village, founded as a sort of artistic sanctuary, and its inhabitants, have at least a little of the eccentric feel of Lynch's Twin Peaks.
An addition to the novels is a separate thread - a case involving a missing, indigenous woman, Blue Two-Rivers - which runs as a background mystery and investigation, seemingly over the course of this eight-episode season. In an odd way, Blue is to this series much as Laura Palmer was to Lynch's -- yet it's still significantly its own thing, as Blue's case is separate from the people of Three Pines. Granted, I'm drawing an inference from these first two episodes, and because I was not familiar with Penney's novels and don't want to spoil any plots, I've not done any digging. I want to enjoy the show for what it is -- I can dive for nuance and signs of changes made in the adaptation later.
Based on the first two episodes, I
This thread tugs at longstanding, unresolved issues with the mistreatment of indigenous cultures by government officials, where a history of attempted forced integration gave way to a separate but unequal isolation, where there seems to be a very thin veneer of pretended respect from officials, while their pattern of inaction and general demeanor makes it clear that deep down they consider the indigenous population to be an unnecessary, backwards problem they just want to either "grow up" and integrate with "proper" society, or die off and go away. Crimes against, and disappearances among, these people tend to be officially dismissed as quickly as possible.
Molina's scored a plum role here, and I suspect he would very much like to see this series roll on for quite some time, and for this to become a role he's remembered by many for. With 18 books in Penney's series, along with a novella, and the added material focusing on the native peoples, there would appear to be rich soil to draw from.
The
cast overall seems excellent, bringing us characters I already want to
get to know more about. In the mix is Jean-Guy Beauvior, one of the
misfits Gamache has taken under his wing during his career,
As mentioned, it's a solid, interesting cast.
If you have Prime, I'd highly recommend giving this a look. For this week's blog, this may be my easiest, broadest-appeal recommendation, depending upon the time you have available for such things.
Last week brought us "White Out", this week's to be "The Cruelest Month" - each presented in two parts. This will continue for the next two weeks, the season ending just before Christmas, on December 23rd.
One of (likely many) items that arrived last Friday that I hadn't noted at the time, was a documentary by Chris Smith, in which Robert Downey Jr. tells us about the life and career of his father, filmmaker and actor Robert Downey Sr. It's alternately funny, touching, and heart-breaking, It's Sr. (2022 R 90m) This had a theatrical release back in mid-November, and arrived on Netflix Dec. 2nd.
Next Monday (the 12th) on Netflix a special edition of David Letterman's My Next Guest Needs No Introduction will be an interview recorded back in October with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Conducted some 300 feet underground on a Kyiv subway platform. Here's a clip/promo for it:
Next Tuesday, the 13th, the complete 8-episode first season of the first television adaptation of any of Octavia E. Butler's works, arrives on Hulu. In this case, it's her 1979 novel Kindred.
In it, Dana (Mallori Johnson), a young African-American woman and aspiring writer on the cusp of geographic (a move to Los Angeles) and career transitions, suddenly and uncontrollably finds herself being pulled between the present and the terrifying scenario of life on a plantation in 1815, where her status is ultimately that of property. She begins to discover and try to unlock key secrets in her family history... and not be lost to the past. It's Kindred.
Most definitely not to be confused with the 2020 film of the same name, this fantasy drama (occasionally classified as science fiction, but the author herself makes the clear distinction that the time travel is a fantasy literary device here, and that she finds the "science fiction" label wholly inappropriate) is likely taking a gamble that with the impending holidays more people will find time to watch the series, recommend it, and in turn get to discuss it over drinks.
The debate over the best way to deliver streaming series continues. Many believe that releasing them one or two episodes on a weekly basis helps raise the volume of fan buzz, while others contend that many will wait for the final episode to drop before beginning anyway, any early buzz wasted as they avoid spoilers, with the possibility of a significant percentage simply forgetting about it in the meantime -- so just deliver it in a single drop. Back to the other hand, the serial delivery argument also contends that the instant gratification of a full season drop can find people binging, but not in a sufficiently conscious way to really absorb the material; the combined effect is that audience is looking at it over a shorter stretch of calendar time, going through it with about as much attention as one gives a bag of chips they're shoveling into their face. These people are having fewer "downtime" stretches in between episodes where they might be bringing it up for possible conversation with others, their interest in how plot points might resolve coming through; once they've watched it all, that sense of ongoing emotional investment tends to drop as they move onto the next thing.
It'll be interesting to see how Amazon's and Hulu's experiments with these things go.
Over on HBO Max, the 13th (next Tuesday) will see the arrival of a recent theatrical release, the black tragicomedy The Banshees of Inisherin. Here, writer/director Martin McDonagh reunites Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson, who worked on McDonagh's 2008 directorial debut In Bruges.
Set in 1923, on the fictional Irish isle of Inisherin, Farrell and Gleeson play two lifelong friends whose friendship suddenly switches off. Folk musician Colm (Gleeson) abruptly decides to break off the friendship with his earnest, but dull, friend and drinking buddy Padraic (Farrell), in order to concentrate on his music and doing things for which he'll be remembered. Padraic, shaken by the sudden rejection by one of his few, he thought true, friends, presses to reconnect, prompting Colm to escalate matters via a bizarre ultimatum, threatening self-mutilation.
It's The Banshees of Inisherin (2022 R 114m) An extreme version of what some of us have found ourselves a part of at some point in our lives, when one person decides to make social changes in their life, concerned with achieving something better than what they've managed before.
Two weeks from now we'll be getting into Christmas weekend. Simple statement of fact, sure, but it all seems to move with frightening speed the more we remember that we don't have any brakes.
For now, I'm still pushing to clear this week's work obligations out of the way while trying to keep something in the tank for some of what needs to be done this weekend -- so that's all from me for this week.. Good luck to us all! Take care. - Mike
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