At least through the 22nd of this month I'm under the gun concerning some other matters, and it will likely continue to wreak havoc on the rest of my life. So, the following two Friday columns after today may be light. We'll see.
Arrived on Netflix yesterday was the second half of the second season of The Lincoln Lawyer. As mentioned several weeks ago, this is an adaptation of Michael Connelly's 2011 novel The Fifth Witness.
In the face of the ongoing strike, and very likely just as part of constant experimentation to see which method works best for generating viewer interest on these streaming platforms, they broke this second season into two, five-episode halves, hoping to generate a mid-season cliffhanger buzz. I've no idea how well or poorly that's worked for them in general, but it didn't do anything to draw me in in the short term. I've yet to get around to it, though now that the complete season's there I'm feeling more of a pull.
I've not refreshed my memory on the details of the first season, primarily remembering that by the end they effectively covered the main story arc, including the mystery at the core of it, but that we were left with an ominous note to remind us that larger, darker forces were at play deeper in the game. Menace was lurking. I'm likely going to depend upon this season's efforts to bring me back up to speed on any carry-over information.
As noted in some earlier pieces, Connelly manages to write characters in a way that has managed to draw me into genres that I normally don't bother with - be it his hard-bitten homicide detective (later just private detective, though there's pretty much always someone getting killed along the way) Harry Bosch, or in the case of this series a serial womanizing lawyer who manages to be charming and demonstrate a sufficiently solid core of ethics that exes can become allies, and who conducted so much business out of the back seat of a chauffeured Lincoln Town Car that he became known as "The Lincoln Lawyer."
So as not to spoil it for anyone - myself included - I'll just rerun the trailer for the first half of this season, as I'm reasonably sure the one for the second half will be tipping part of the season's hand.
As I have so much else pressing me for attention out in the real world, there's ample anecdotal evidence to raise the Vegas odds significantly that I'll be jumping into the new season very soon. You know, as opposed to doing the things I really, really should be doing. We'll see. I'll be sure to mention it if I do.
Oh! Should it be of interest, the 2011 film adaptation of the first of the Mickey Haller novel series, The Lincoln Lawyer, is currently over on Amazon Prime for any subscribers. That was the one starring Matthew McConaughey. I haven't seen that one, and I expect that it was tailored for the film's star, but I also know that Michael Connelly was pleased with the adaptation, and that it has an interesting cast, including Marisa Tomei, William H. Macy, John Leguizamo, Michael Peña, and Bryan Cranston, among others. The Lincoln Lawyer (2011 R 118m)
While I'm thinking of the split season approach Netflix has been going for of late, I should note that I just remembered another instance where it hasn't worked for me: Witcher season three, which they dumped onto the streamer in two, unequal parts, in late June and then late July. So far I've yet to start watching the season. Again, while I can't insist I'd have jumped in had they furnished the full season up front, I can say that knowing only part of it was there made it easier to shelve for another day.
Also arrived on Netflix as of yesterday is a live action movie adaptation of a manga about a young, corporate drone in Japan, who comes to see a zombie apocalypse as a liberating event, allowing him an opportunity to live rather than merely exist in a life of drudgery, with the likely trade-off of a long life for a much shorter one part of the deal. It's Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead (2023 TV-MA 2h 8m) [Note, this trailer's in Japanese with English subtitles, which is one of the options over on Netflix. Those who want it dubbed into English will likely find that's the default.) As noted a few weeks ago, there's an anime version of this that's been rolling out in weekly installments on both Netflix and Hulu. Each of those episodes are 24 minutes, they're up to episode four as of this week, and so far I've just been letting those build up.
This week saw the return of the indigenous people-centered and -sourced series Reservation Dogs as part of the FX on Hulu group of shows. I'd gotten around to it here in the column late last September, when the second season was coming to a close.
Set on a reservation in Oklahoma, it follows a group of characters - primarily a group of friends who are weathering adolescence - who have grown up on the reservation. A Peabody and Independent Spirit award-winner, it proved both funny and poignant, and offered important insights into how their culture and perspective differs from that of the wide White world outside. A tribal community, it's very much an extended family. It's also a world drenched in folklore about lingering spirits, which some of them can see and hear, and having been invited in, so do we.
Season two left the group of friends stranded in California, where they'd traveled to fulfill the oft-mentioned dream of their friend, Daniel, who died before the series began. Here's the trailer for this new season. They kicked this season off with two episodes this week, one new episode set to appear each Wednesday through September 27th. This third season is to be the show's last, so I'm especially interested to see where we leave everyone by that tenth episode. I'm in no rush to get there, though. I want to enjoy the remaining ride, and spending time with these people.
Beginning today on Amazon Prime is a seven-part series adapting Australian novelist Holly Ringland, centering on Thornhill, a flower farm that is also a refuge for troubled and abused women. Shot in Australia, and starring Sigourney Weaver, it's The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart The first three episodes arrive today, then there will be one per week through the finale on September 1st.
Coming to Hulu next Tuesday, the 8th, is the start of season three of Only Murders In the Building. This reminds me that despite watching and enjoying the first season, after starting to watch the second season early on I think the weekly doling out of episodes worked against me, and I never got back to it. Such brief contact that I can't recall what the beginnings of the second season mystery were. So, that's a reminder to me to go back and watch the season.
This new season will see series mainstays Steve Martin, Martin Short and Selena Gomez joined by Meryl Streep.
My attention elsewhere, August snuck up on me with respect to at least one thing: TCM's Annual Summer Under the Stars. Click on that and it'll open a new screen, showing the list of stars for the month, each of whom gets a 24-hour run of films. Each day begins at 6am, and concludes just before 6am the next day. Each film listed on that page is itself a link to more information about the film.
With the various and ongoing, mostly lamented, changes that have been part of owner Warner Bros. Discovery's new regime, headed by David Zaslav, fans of TCM have been keeping a wary eye for any changes and signs of lowered quality in selection and curation. We're still in too-soon-to-know territory, and I lack the free time to really dig in on it in terms of the films selected, much less which ones will have intro and outro pieces supplied by various hosts.
We're now four days into the month, so 24-hour blocks of films either featuring or at least including Lucille Ball, Anthony Perkins, and Stella Stevens are already behind us, and depending on how far into Friday you're reading this, films with Jackie Cooper are already well in progress.
Listing the stars for this week, plus next Friday since it'll already be in progress by the time next week's column appears, we have:
Friday, Aug 4th: Jackie Cooper *
Saturday, the 5th: Errol Flynn
Sunday, the 6th: Debbie Reynolds
Monday, the 7th: Robert Ryan
Tuesday, the 8th: Joan Blondell
Wednesday, the 9th: The Nicholas Brothers *
Thursday, the 10th: Rhonda Fleming *
Friday, the 11th: Alan Ladd
* Actors getting a TCM Summer Under the Stars spotlight for the first time.
As I recall, mom made mention - in a way that seemed to walk the line between feeling peeved at being deceived by cinematic trickery, and maybe feeling a little self-conscious about having such a shallow reaction - that at least some of the glamour of Ladd faded when she learned some years later that he was only 5'6".
Among the things I'd like to be able to ask her would be exactly how old she was when she saw it. I know that movies would return years later for new theatrical runs, and this seems more like something she'd have seen on a date as a teenager, than as an 11 year-old during the year it came out.
That's all the time I have for this week.
Summer's been such a distant abstraction for me for so many years - the obligations of adult life generally, cruelly snatching away so much of the significance and freedom that it had in childhood, when Summer meant vacation and freedom, and some degree of the promise of a relatively fresh start come September. While at the distance of a dream, I still keep some of that feeling packed away, somewhere deep inside. A wistful object of reverence, and the faint ember of a hope that I'll get to connect with it again.
Take care, and we'll return next Friday. - Mike
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