What's To Watch? - June 16-22 - Deceptive Appearances

 

    Locally, I'm heading into an often-rainy Friday and Saturday, which is likely okay on the balance because I have plenty do do indoors -- and being able to catch a nap here or there ain't bad either. Sun's set to return Sunday, in time for Father's Day, but I'm not rushing to plow through the weekend.
     Any text in blue has been added later than Friday.

      This week's new arrivals will start off with two I mentioned last week, as each arrived just yesterday: The start of the second season of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds on Paramount +, and the full five-episode dump of season six of the generally dark, tech-connected anthology, Black Mirror on Netflix. Despite feebly trying to exercise some restraint, I've watched the season opener for the new Trek, and not only indulged in breaking the seal on the new Black Mirror selection but have watched three of the five: Loch Henry (true crime theme with a retro-tech angle), Joan Is Awful (extremely meta, comically so, and the best of the three I sampled), and Beyond the Sea (oddly alternate 1969, and the most heavily flawed of these first three in terms of plot mechanics). I'll likely move on to the paparazzi-focused Mazey Day after this, and finish up with Demon '79.
      Having watched all five episodes, I'll note that the usual tech underpinnings for Black Mirror stories became much less of an issue - essentially nonexistant - in more than one of these... beyond the usual issues that come up when one considers period pieces where tech we've come to rely on didn't exist. This season of five episodes made for more of a mixed bag than usual, and at these early stages it's possibly more interesting to me to see how much variation there is between different people's lists of Best to Worst episode.    

     The Trek opener, if I'm to be honest, disappointed me, feeling (presumably unintentionally) comically packed with formula. At times it felt almost insulting. It boiled down to simple-minded fan service elements in my view. One fan did remind me that the addition of Carol Kane's Commander Pelia is a nice step; I don't want to elaborate on the specifics this early, though. I'll be interested to see what the character's arc will be. On the non-spoiler side, it's all the more interesting to know that the actress only became a convert to Trek upon being brought in for the role. Anything resembling science fiction hadn't been part of the 70 year-old actress' world, and she hadn't realized the depth and reach of Trek and its fandom until word got around of her casting to friends. Suddenly a topic of common interest, she found that so many people she'd known for many years were Trek fans.
     There's also closing credits tribute nod to Nichelle Nichols. Beyond all that, the final moments of the episode seem to be steering us back to a better focus, so ideally much of the season's opening hokum can be comfortably lost in the mists. The biggest threat to the series remains the desire to retro-pack so much into a prequel series involving characters first seen in the 1960s original series.

     In a far different tone than anything else I currently have lined up for this week's piece, I added a recent Netflix arrival to my queue. Starry Bill Nighy and set in the 1950s, it's an existential exercise as an aged, career civil servant facing his own mortality is ultimately inspired to reach for a more fulfilled life in the scant time remaining. It's Living (2022 PG-13 102m)

     The film is an adaptation of Kurasawa's 1952 film Ikiru (currently part of streamer Max's inventory), which was in turn inspired by Tolstoy's 1886 novella The Death of Ivan Ilych.

     Recently wandering over from MGM+, now also on Prime, is an unrated horror film that landed early this year. Between the title and the trailer, it's pretty much there for you to decide if There's Something Wrong with the Children (2023  Unrated  92m)

     To be bluntly honest about it, I'm feeling no rush to get to this one, but included it as I saw it was something new to Prime, and so for variety's sake. If anyone reading this saw it, feel free to chime in for good or ill.

     Arriving on Disney+ today is a documentary on Marvel Comics' primary, flesh, blood and flash ambassador.
     Nominally the co-creator of the Marvel Universe, including the Fantastic Four, Spider-man, the Hulk, the X-men, etc., his is a name and a voice that ended up reaching a far broader audience than the comics themselves ever likely will, between various mainstream talk show appearances over the years, some narration for cartoons that brought a generation into comics in the '90s, but also as someone who made a string of cameos in Marvel movies, up until his death in 2018.    

    He's also a figure of some considerable contention within comics circles, with some people regarding him as someone who built his and Marvel's legend on under- and often un-credited work others did. Any fan of much depth has staked out a personal position on the matter, myself included. This isn't the place to get into the detail, but most succinctly I am satisfied that without Stan Lee's contributions to comics most of what drew me into becoming such a huge fan, especially such a Marvel fan, wouldn't have existed. That said, the true creative engines behind the characters and concepts weren't Stan's. Put these two bits of information together, and an example of reality I would say that without Jack Kirby we wouldn't have a Fantastic Four, but without Stan the F.F. we might have met largely wouldn't have been worth meeting. This, at least, is my considered opinion.
     I've avoided spoilers on this, in part, because I'm curious to see if anything of the controversies will be mentioned in this documentary. Running at less than 90 minutes, and seeing that they're leaning on on the "in his own words" angle, I'm expecting it to focus on Stan's personal history and the legend as he promoted it. It also seems to be focused on Stan's centennial, last year.
     I'm fine with taking it in the spirit it's offered, but I've known several people who either won't watch it or who will be sputtering with fury. Happily, I won't be trying to watch it in the same room with any of them.
     It's Stan Lee (2023  1h 26m)

     Disney's lawyers have been - and are continuing now - to lock down settlements with key creators (often their estates) so as to be able to let the growing pool of deceased creators fill Disney's conceptual hall of legends, where the dead kind are preferred, with their heirs reasonably appeased and under NDAs.

     Sticking to the topic and this streamer, next Wednesday will see the arrival of the latest series in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Most indications are that the path to this series included the desire to give Samuel L. Jackson's Nick Fury a cinematic spotlight. Given the money that's put into these MCU series, however, doing a six-episode miniseries instead allowed them much more space to move around in than earlier plans for a movie.   

  When Skrulls were introduced to the MCU in 2019's Captain Marvel, one of the twists for the comics cognoscenti was that these natural shapeshifters, capable of impersonating anyone or anything, weren't introduced as villains. Instead, they were presented as an oppressed, hunted, and scattered population who were seeking a peaceful, safe refuge. However, as with any population that's been so singled out, there is inevitably a faction that responds proactively, looking to either directly strike back at those hunting them, and/or to establish a power base upon which to build a sanctuary homeland for themselves. Angry at being hunted, and tired of feeling as if they need to apologize for who and what they are, they decide to step up and potentially be the threat their enemies have cast them to be.
     Their natural abilities make them phenomenally well-suited to infiltration and espionage, both among those who have declared themselves as enemies, and among other free agencies that might be of use. One such people and place being humans and Earth.
     As the former director of Earth's premier intelligence agency, Nick Fury became aware of the existence, plight, and potential threat posed by the Skrulls earlier than almost anyone. He became an ally to the refugees focused on finding a new, safe homeworld, but also began to set people and machinery in motion to expose and declaw the threat posed by radicalized Skrulls, intent on infiltrating the highest echelons of political and military power on Earth.
     As the universe of the MCU varies in many significant ways from that of the mainstream Marvel comics, and that is far too broad and extensive a topic to get into here, I know that this miniseries is a core conceptual adaptation of the 2008 comics crossover event. It's Secret Invasion.

     Along with lead Samuel Jackson's Nick Fury, the series also sees several other actors reprising their large-screen roles. Among them: Talos (Ben Mendelsohn), Maria Hill (Cobie Smulders), Everett K. Ross (Martin Freeman) and James Rhodes (Don Cheadle).
     The six episodes will be arriving weekly starting next Wednesday (June 21st), running through July 26.

     A tad lopsided, but that's all I have time for this week. As ever, take care. - Mike