(AMC+/fubo/VOD) RECTIFY is leaving Netflix on March 3rd, when I imagine it’ll pop up on AMC+, so you have less than a week to watch this heartfelt exploration of a man — Daniel Holden (Aden Young) — found guilty of killing a girl, sentenced to death, acquitted of murder, and his re-entry into society.
Rather than RECTIFY being about society re-embracing him, it darts the other way. This is not about whether Daniel Holden is guilty, but is about him trying to find peace with his community, family (including TIMELESS’ Abigail Spencer), and himself. It’s a singularly human drama from DEADWOOD’s Ray McKinnon that had a surprisingly long life thanks to the Sundance Channel, and is well-worth making time for before it leaves Netflix.
(Prime) SYLVIE’S LOVE is a lovely Sirk-ian throwback romance from writer/director Eugene Ashe. It features Tessa Thompson as Sylvie, a bright young woman who dreams of a job in television and whose fiancee Lacy (Alano Miller) is overseas fighting in the Korean War. Nnamdi Asomugha is Robert, a skilled Jazz saxophone player who immediately falls for Sylvie immediately upon seeing her in her father’s (Lance Reddick) record store.
It’s a sweet, lushly shot old-school melodrama of two people who keep finding themselves thrown together, despite the obstacles they put in front of themselves.
(Netflix) I CARE A LOT is an overstuffed marvel; part huckster film, part heist film, part crime thriller, part courtroom drama, but all confidently shouldered by Rosamund Pike. Pike is Marla Grayson, a woman who preys on the elderly via an elaborate scheme in which she pays off a doctor to state in court that the elderly person is unable to take care of themselves and require a legal ward, then they suggest Marla. Marla then scuttles them off to a nursing home, sells off all of their belongings, milks their bank account until the person dies, then look for the next mark.
She’s a monster, and Pike revels in it. Just that premise alone could have carried the film but, it turns out that Pike and professional and personal partner Fran (Eiza González) end up abducting the mother of a crime boss, played with relish by Dianne Wiest (HANNAH AND HER SISTERS) and Peter Dinklage. Matters escalate, then culminate to what feels like a very unsatisfying Hays code-ish ending, but you can’t argue that you don’t see it coming.
While I could talk about the performances all day, director J Blakeson (THE 5TH WAVE) and cinematographer Doug Emmett (SORRY TO BOTHER YOU) also spend a refreshing amount of time with color theming, riffing off of Pike’s blond hair and ice blue eyes, to the point where there’s a shot where the color swatches are practically painted on someone’s tremendous heels. It’s a welcome change in this age of dull-sheen films.
(Criterion/kanopy/VOD) Ken Loach’s SORRY WE MISSED YOU is a slow-motion car crash of a financial horror story about a family trying to get by while giving all of their spare time to low-wage gig jobs. The husband Ricky (Kris Hitchen) has just sold his wife Abbie’s (Debbie Honeywood) car to purchase a delivery van in order to delivery Amazon packages and the like around the U.K., and Abbie is now forced to bus around to her nursing jobs. Both of them are out of the house for twelve hours a day, which results in their teenage son’s troublemaking escalating and their young daughter being the one waking her mom and dad up when they fall asleep in front of the television. Bills mount up, fees spiral out of control, and it looks like there’s no way out.
While their debt and stress casts a pall over the film, Paul Laverty’s (who penned Loach’s prior film I, DANIEL BLAKE) script inserts enough kind and sweet moments, such as one afternoon when Ricky takes his daughter along delivering packages, and there’s a poignant scene between Abbie and one of her ‘clients’ where they share family photos. The client pointedly shows off pictures of her in her old union job.
That one scene, where Abbie’s client talks about her old union job as ‘the good times’, is the only explicit commentary that Laverty and Loach insert, but ultimately the entire film is a plea for a return to the age of unionization and workers’ rights. They make sure to hammer home the simple fact that the gig economy is a return to pre-union times: a return to the company store, a return to being nickeled-and-dimed, a return to job inequality, a return to inexistent worker protection.
Near the end of the film, the daughter yells “I just want to go back to the way things were before!” and, while she’s too young to realize that the ‘before’ wasn’t necessary significantly better, she realizes it’s far better than the stressed-out hell everyone is dealing with now. She deserves better. We as a society deserve better than this.
(HBO MAX/VOD) Steven Soderbergh’s THE KNICK was part of the ‘auteur TV’ moment that bloomed in 2014, which included shows like TRUE DETECTIVE where the entire series was helmed by a sole director with a vision. Not only did Soderbergh direct all twenty episodes of the show, but he also shot it — not just taking on director of photography duties, but also filling in as the camera operator, -and- he edited it.*
The end result is a spectacularly modulated historical drama featuring Clive Owen as Dr. John Thackery as a brilliant doctor/addict at NYC’s Knickerbocker Hospital at the turn of the 20th century, Eve Hewson (the previously mentioned TESLA) as a nurse who falls into Thackery’s orbit, and André Holland (MOONLIGHT, HIGH FLYING BIRD) as Dr. Algernon Edwards, fighting for his right to practice medicine as a Black man. Its use of wide lenses, extended long takes, and unflinching portrayals of early 20th century surgery made it look like nothing on TV, and it sounded unlike anything else thanks to a throbbing electronic score from stalwart Soderbergh composer Cliff Martinez.
The second season ends with a jaw dropping moment, one that you will never forget — although you may wish you could unsee it — one that seemed to put a pin in the show but, no, there’s been talk of the show being revived; first with Soderbergh at the helm again, now with Barry Jenkins as the show runner. I hope it happens but, if not, Soderbergh gave us two astounding seasons of television that deserve to be seen by more folks.
Here’s the trailer, but you may to skip it — and the show — if you do not have a strong stomach.
(Pluto/Roku/tubi/VOD) NAKED CITY was a long-running TV show adapted from the 1948 film THE NAKED CITY, bringing a more grounded police procedural to the small screen, ten years after the film, and seven years after DRAGNET made the leap from radio to TV. While show creator Stirling Silliphant (THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT writer, creator of the previously mentioned ROUTE 66 which was spurred into existence by an episode of NAKED CITY) had nothing to do with the original film, he took to heart the intent of putting NYC and its citizens on display.
The first season features John McIntire and James Franciscus inhabiting the same THE NAKED CITY roles as Lt. Detective Dan Muldoon and Detective Jimmy Halloran although John McIntire quickly grew tired of New York City and the show, so he was written out in a -jawdropping- way, then NAKED CITY was recast and turned from a half-hour show to an hour long, and recast again — this with Paul Burke as the lead detective — and with him it finally found some legs.
The show’s fumbling worked though, as the delay allowed NAKED CITY to capture a completely different New York City than the one portrayed in THE NAKED CITY, a NYC with counterculture, where the youths had started to distrust the police, as opposed to the fantasyland of 60s DRAGNET. (I’ve watched far too much DRAGNET: https://tvannotations.tumblr.com/post/60116769951/dragnet)
Like its modern day companion LAW & ORDER, it made the most of the NYC theater scene and booked a number of extraordinarily talented guest actors who hadn’t been discovered yet, including Cicely Tyson, Peter Falk, Bruce Dern, Suzanne Pleshette, and many more. Even if you ignore the adept location shooting, brisk plotting and deft character work, the show’s worth a watch simply for the faces that pop up.
“There are eight million stories in the naked city. This has been one of them.”
(Prime) Obviously we’ll be hearing a lot about this series over the upcoming months, but a lot of ink has already been spilled as to whether Steve McQueen’s SMALL AXE is TV or film. You’d think that, since Krzysztof Kieslowski did something similar with THE DECALOGUE in the late 80s, critics would have an answer to that by now. Personally I don’t care. Call it a modern successor to the televised theater anthologies of old for all I care. Let him win a bunch of Emmys and Oscars!
It’s a singular achievement in this day and age — each and every segment of SMALL AXE would land on anyone’s ‘best of’ list this year — and to release five masterpieces in one year? It feels like McQueen challenged himself to direct the hell out of a wide range of genres, personally investing himself by showcasing London’s Black community he grew up in, daring himself not to fuck it up.
Visually sumptuous with scenes full of food preparation, simmering, consumption; aurally entrancing with music endlessly throbbing, knives and forks clattering on ceramic; exceptional performances that bolster meticulously crafted scripts — it’s fantastic cinema. Or TV. Or cinematic TV. Or just great art.
Yes, you can watch every film on its own — although I’d suggest going with the suggested viewing order — and you will find each and everyone to be exceptional, but watch them together, watch the timeline of events unfold, watch matters ebb and escalate, and the whole becomes a greater sum of its parts. It’s remarkable.
(Starz/VOD) The flip-side to yesterday’s IZZY GETS THE FUCK ACROSS TOWN, THE CLIMB involves a best friend who actively works to undermine his friend’s relationships because he wants him all to himself.
Similarly overworked, it also features inter-titles for each scene, but writer/director/actor Michael Angelo Covino goes the extra mile by insisting that each and every scene be filmed in one long take.
While it’s a perfect companion film to IZZY, and I couldn’t resist suggesting the two back-to-back, two facets rub me the wrong way: 1) While I love watching films about fuckups, that love doesn’t extend to asshole dudes, and these dudes are very blinkered. 2) While I love a proper long take, and I realize they’re utilized here to heighten the feeling of being present within these significant moments, and while they’re often fluidly and adeptly executed, it feels gimmicky, and several scenes would have benefited from a handful of rigid cuts.
Never the less, it’s an intriguing look at male friendship and forgiveness, which is certainly to be applauded.
(hoopla/peacock/tubi/VOD/Vudu) I don’t know how many favors debut writer/director Christian Papierniak asked to nab this amazing cast, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s now indebted to 80% of LA. I’d watch any film that featured just -one- of the following performers:
Mackenzie Davis Carrie Coon Dolly Wells LaKeith Stanfield Kyle Kinane Alia Shawkat Rob Huebel Annie Potts
Somehow he managed to wrangle all of ‘em for this chaotic ‘one fuckup’s last gasp at attaining an old flame’ film. I’ll grant that it’s overworked — did we really need inter-titles for every scene? — and if Mackenzie Davis wasn’t the lead the film probably wouldn’t work, but she is and ultimately it does. Also, Mackenzie and Carrie Coon ‘reunite’ and play a HEAVENS TO BETSY cover that features -many- layers and that scene alone is worth the price of admission. (I’ll save you the search.)
“I’m not going to wish you good luck.” “No, no one in their right mind would.”
(Hulu/Paramount+/VOD) FREAKS & GEEKS is finally available to stream! If you haven’t already purchased the DVD, or have enough grey hair to have watched it when it first aired, Hulu managed to clear all of the music rights and — after a bit of a stumble out of the gait — have the eps properly ordered.
If you’re a product of the 80s — especially if you were a nerd in the 80s — it’ll be a trip down memory lane. If not, given how absurdly recognizable all of the actors and creatives are, it’ll be another sort of nostalgia for you, as it introduced the world to: Judd Apatow, Linda Cardellini, Paul Feig, James Franco, Busy Philipps, Seth Rogen, Jason Segel, Mike White. A laundry list of modern heavy hitters, all of whom cut their teeth on this show.
