Drama

MANHATTAN (2014-2015)

November 25, 2020

(AMC+/fubo/VOD)? I honestly don’t know how many folks are familiar with WGN as a channel. If you live in the midwest, you know WGN, as it’s a local Chicago network and probably broadcasts to you. (Well, if you have an antennae or cable box.) They went national in the 80s — I have a vague recollection of watching Godzilla marathons on holiday weekends via their NYC affiliate, but I may be misremembering that.

Anyway, a handful of years ago, they decided to branch out into prestige television and produced the amazing, underrated UNDERGROUND series (created by Misha Green, who just wrapped up LOVECRAFT COUNTRY). MANHATTAN was the second of their big dramatic swings.

MANHATTAN is a deep dive into the community created by the US military to develop the first atomic bomb. A nerdy DEADWOOD, if you will. It’s a story of divisive opinions, splintered factions, and tawdry affairs — quintessential historical dramatic prestige TV — and while it had a number of asshole, self-important male protagonists, it also had Katja Herbers (currently on CBS’ underrated EVIL) as Helen Prins, Rachel Brosnahan (MARVELOUS MRS. MAISEL), and Olivia Williams (RUSHMORE, DOLLHOUSE) as smart women who refuse to be wallflowers. (Oh, and Mamie Gummer — Meryl Streep’s daughter — shows up in the second season in a role I will not divulge.)

The show occasionally feels a bit overburdened by everything it’s trying to accomplish: domestic drama, espionage thriller, docudrama, scientific intrigue, etc. but ultimately it’s more than the sum of its parts, not just because of the brilliant cast, but the stable of writers (including Lila Byock, who wrote some of the best parts of THE LEFTOVERS -and- WATCHMEN).

Sadly, even if MANHATTAN’s ratings were good (they were not), they still would’ve been canceled as WGN were sold off by Chicago’s Tribune Corp. and purchased by the conservative Sinclair Media Group, which had designs to turn WGN into a right-wing news outlet, and all original programming was shuttered. (WGN is now currently owned by Nexstar, another conservative outlet, but instead of hewing towards news, they’ve basically turned WGN into another TV nostalgia channel. Yay, capitalism.)

Season one trailer:

Season two ‘first look’ (kinda spoilers for S1?):

SLINGS & ARROWS (2003-2006)

November 20, 2020

(Acorn/AMC+/Sundance Now/VOD) SLINGS & ARROWS is the story of a Shakespeare theatre troupe in a small Canadian town that’s a barely disguised facsimile of the Stratford Festival theatre troupe and — wait, no! Come back!

Yes, on paper it sounds like something you’d fall asleep to watching PBS on a Sunday afternoon, but the show is far more intriguing than that. Created by Mark McKinney (KIDS IN THE HALL — oh, do I have your attention now?), Susan Coyne (MOZART IN THE JUNGLE), and Bob Martin (MICHAEL: EVERY DAY), it’s really about actor-turned-theatre director Geoffrey Tennant (Paul Gross, best known for DUE SOUTH, but was also in the core seasons of TALES OF THE CITY), prone to mental breakdowns, finds himself haunted by the death of his mentor Oliver (Stephen Ouimette, who did voices on the previously mentioned DOG CITY!), who was hit and killed by a car after a very lackluster opening night of the festival’s latest production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Given that Geoffrey’s ramshackle arthouse theatre had just been closed and he was out of a job, he’s approached about taking over where Oliver left off: to helm the upcoming production of Hamlet. Geoffrey reluctantly agrees, mulling over radical changes to the production when Oliver appears in front of him, chiming in regarding his significant changes, driving Geoffrey closer to the brink of madness than he felt he already was.

(Yes, this mostly occurs in the first episode. It’s an intense show.)

Given that it was a TV show that often consisted of watching actors rehearse, or prep for rehearsal, you might think that the cinematography would be dull or perfunctory, but it’s always engrossing, and the camera rarely stays in place (except when it knows best to do so).

From the actors to the writers and directors, the entire show is a love letter to the messiness of theatre, both on the stage and off. It’s one of the most heartfelt and earnest dramas I’ve ever seen, and is chock full of complicated characters, and even features a litany of swans.

If you needed any more convincing, despite the fact that the show has barbs out for Stratford, my wife and I did trek up there some years ago — mostly because we were very enamored with SLINGS & ARROWS, but also the concept of the company — and we caught a brilliant production of MOTHER COURAGE, as well as a spectacle-laden KING LEAR with Colm Feore as Lear (who also appeared in SLINGS & ARROWS!) If Stratford still exists after the pandemic, I can’t recommend it enough, as it’s a perfectly relaxed vacation if you’re into theatre. I’m sure the swans will be waiting for you.

Season One Trailer:

If you’ve already watched SLINGS & ARROWS, the cast & crew just had a COVID reunion that ACORN has made available for free, which will almost assuredly make you want to re-watch the show:

ROUTE 66 (1960-1964)

November 19, 2020

(hoopla/Prime/tubi/VOD/Vudu) While this show was always on this month’s slate, I wanted to recommend it on the day of SUPERNATURAL’s (WB/CW, 2005-2020) series finale. SUPERNATURAL is a show that’s been a bit of a lingering constant in my life since I glommed onto it around the third season. I haven’t watched every season, but I drop in from time to time — usually for any episode that Ben Edlund has penned, or any of the obviously meta eps — and I’m looking forward to seeing how everything ends.*

But I’m supposed to discuss ROUTE 66! Here’s what you need to know about ROUTE 66:

1) It’s one of the first road trip shows, and the creator of the show (Stirling Silliphant, who previously pioneered shot-on-location TV with THE NAKED CITY) insisted on shooting in every location detailed on the page. He wanted the show to explore America, hence the title.

2) ROUTE 66 is fundamentally about two drifters, one sensitive (Tod, played by Martin Milner), one more callous and randy (Buz, played by George Maharis), and they drive from town-to-town solving mysteries and soothing community wounds in a Chevrolet Corvette. Sound familiar? They often come to blows with how to deal with a situation, with one wanting to drive off while the other wanting to stay and help those in need. Each week ended up with everything neatly tied up, and they’d drive off to another town, slightly satisfied. Also, just take a look at ‘em! 60s versions of Sam and Dean if you ever saw ‘em.

It’s a fine case-of-the week strategy, which is exactly why SUPERNATURAL stole it. SUPERNATURAL creator Eric Kripke’s elevator pitch for the show was ‘X-FILES meets ROUTE 66’.** SUPERNATURAL became something completely different — and rarely ever shot on location — but you could still see the ROUTE 66 roots showing even in the final season.

By today’s eyes, ROUTE 66 is a fun, but mostly insubstantial show. It often feels like smaller scale version of the teen drifter/loner film dramas that were released around the late 50s/early 60s but, unlike those films, it showcased parts of the US that hadn’t previously been aired on TV. It boiled down to an entertainingly slightly dramatic tourist show, of which I think the only comparable show on the air right now is THE AMAZING RACE (also CBS, but a reality show).

Later on in the series, when the show started flagging a bit, they started having fun some fun with it, most notably with -Lizard’s Leg and Owlet’s Wing- which features Tod and Buz working at Chicago’s O’Hare Inn, where Boris Karloff, Peter Lorre, and Lon Chaney Jr. just happen to be staying, and TV-safe horror antics ensue. (If you’d like to read more about the ep, see here: https://www.classicfilmtvcafe.com/2010/10/route-66-lizards-leg-and-owlets-wing.html ) You don’t have to watch every episode of ROUTE 66, but that ep is a fine spooky treasure.

(Not a trailer, but the full first episode.)
  • For what it’s worth, my favorite SUPERNATURAL episode is probably the 200th ep. While it’s complete fan-service, it also cuts to the quick about all that works about the show, including the hows and whys it’s lasted fifteen years.
  • (Spoilers for the …prior 199 episodes? Really, apart from one specific reference that’s a running joke throughout the series, it’s mostly benign.)

** https://twitter.com/therealKripke/status/674659951747334144 I honestly can’t believe that worked as an elevator pitch in the late 90s. I’d expect to hear back: “Route what-the-who? Like the dad song?”

JOHN FROM CINCINNATI (2007)

November 18, 2020

(HBO MAX) Sadly, JOHN FROM CINCINNATI has been mired in controversy due to many DEADWOOD fans blaming it for their favorite show being canceled, as DEADWOOD creator David Milch put it on pause to pursue this oddity, and then HBO canceled both shows. While they’re probably not wrong — it’s complicated — JOHN FROM CINCINNATI deserves a better legacy than that.

JOHN was the creation of David Milch and renowned ‘surf noir’ author Kem Nunn, and I believe it’s best described as a quintessentially American spiritual surf journey. It’s focused around a being who speaks in riddles, who inserts himself into a surfing dynasty family (Mitch, Cissy, Butchie, and Shaun Yost), and the quirky characters drawn into the family’s orbit.

Milch retains his standard ‘every episode encapsulates a day’ structure and leans even more heavily into his lyrical prose, often in an intentionally obtuse way that can either delight or frustrate. Here’s an excerpt of a lengthy monologue delivered by John from a scene near the end of the sixth episode:

“If my words are yours, can you hear my father? Can Bill know my father keeping his eye on me? Can I bone Kai and Butchie know my father instead? My father’s shy doing his business. Kai helps my father dump out. Bill takes a shot! Shaunie is much improved. Joe is a doubting Thomas. Joe will not say Aleman. Joe will bring his buddies home. This is how Freddie relaxes. Cup of joe and Winchell’s variety dozen. Mitch catches a good wave. Mitch wipes out. Mitch wipes out Cissy. Cissy shows Butchie how to do that. Cissy wipes Butchie out. Butchie hurts Barry’s hand. Mr. Rollins comes in Barry’s face. My father runs the Mega Millions.”*

If you rolled your eyes at the exposition-dump above, this is not the show for you. It’s an incredibly idiosyncratic, overly theatrical, dark but not bleak show about people struggling to find hope, or at least that’s my read on it. I hesitate to say this, since it seems obvious, but the closest parallel is TWIN PEAKS, although it doesn’t lean so much on heightened melodrama and lacks a lot of PEAKS’ humor, but it’s just as thoughtful and a rich mine, if you’re willing to dig into it.

The cast is a murderers’ row of Hollywood talent and long-lasting character actors: Rebecca De Mornay, Bruce Greenwood, Luis Guzmán, Ed O’Neill (doing some MVP work acting alongside a number of birds), Garret Dillahunt, Jim Beaver, Stephen Tobolowsky, Dayton Callie — the list goes on.

Yes, DEADWOOD is a fucking masterpiece, but if you’re not afraid of some strange, JOHN FROM CINCINNATI will reward you.

  • There’s behind-the-scenes footage of the filming of that scene, which is a rare glimpse into Milch’s directing style:

There’s also a music video shaped from the monologue, which is actually not nearly as weird as the closing scenes themselves.

THIEF (2006)

November 17, 2020

(N/A) For some ridiculous reason, this amazing prestige mini-series has been unavailable to legally watch for thirteen years — it was never available to stream, and was never available via DVD. Finally, FX made it available when they brought their entire back-catalogue to Hulu earlier this year, but sadly, it’s disappeared again so find it however you can. I still covet my postage-stamp-sized torrent files because, for years, that was the only way I could re-watch the show.

THIEF aired during the apex of FX’s hyper-masculine antihero period — THE SHIELD was midway through its run and RESCUE ME was in its third season, but THIEF was very much its own beast. While THIEF is essentially a ‘height goes sideways, so how is this asshole going to get out of this jam?’ tale, it had an occasional emotional vulnerability to it that I’ve always appreciated. However, due to the fact that no one could watch it, I couldn’t recommend until now.

It also helps that the lead is Andre Braugher, giving it his all. I mean really, come on, you -aren’t- going to watch a show helmed by Andre Braugher?

TERRIERS (2010)

November 8, 2020

(Hulu/VOD) TERRIERS deserves a mention simply for having one of the catchiest theme songs, and one of the least-helpful titles, in recent memory:

The 30-second version:

The full song:

Setting aside the theme song (which cites a sally forth punk! I love it so much!), it’s a gorgeously sun-soaked California private dick neo-noir. The core of the show is the camaraderie between the two private detectives, in-recovery Hank (Donal Logue) and the overly earnest fuck-up Britt (Michael Raymond-James). TERRIERS was a collective effort from THE SHIELD show runner Shawn Ryan and screenwriter Ted Griffin (OCEAN’S ELEVEN, WOLF OF WALL STREET), and I remember the exact moment that the show grabbed me: thirty seconds before the credits roll in the third episode, there’s a background motion that explains everything set up in the prior episodes, and I laughed for a minute straight at how perfectly executed the script and shot was. To say more would rob you of the delight of your own realization.

While I wish TERRIERS had managed to have a long, long life, the single season we received is a perfect single season of TV. If you’re a fan of THE ROCKFORD FILES, noir in general, or heartfelt platonic relationships, this is a show for you.

BUNHEADS (2012-2013)

November 6, 2020

(fubo/Hulu/tubi/VOD) Yes, everyone’s celebrating Amy Sherman-Palladino and THE MARVELOUS MRS MAISEL now, but everyone outside of my wife and maybe a few friends, had largely forgotten her once GILMORE GIRLS went off the air in 2006.

Enter 2012: I vividly remember walking with some folks through a mall to catch a Bollywood film in the Chicago suburbs, and there was a BUNHEADS poster front-and-center between us and the theater, and one dude I was attending the screening with lambasted the poster; ridiculed it. I was a coward, half-heartedly chuckling at his jokes, but inwardly very angry.

It hadn’t aired yet and yes, GILMORE GIRLS has -a lot- of issues, I won’t deny that (especially the Netflix mini — yikes) but Amy Sherman-Palladino has done far more good than harm. And this dude was mocking a poster because it dared to promote a TV show about girls & dance, -while- we were heading to see a frickin’ Bollywood film.

Setting that aside: BUNHEADS is the story of failed ballerina/current Vegas showgirl Michelle Simms (Broadway star Sutton Foster who you may know her better as the lead in YOUNGER, and I really had hoped I’d be watching her on-stage with Hugh Jackman in THE MUSIC MAN right now, but so it goes) who drunkenly latches onto Alan Ruck one night, marries him, moves to a sleepy California town, and then Ruck dies. Simms then falls into teaching at Ruck’s mother-in-law’s (played by GILMORE GIRLS’ Kelly Bishop) dance studio.

While Michelle has a fair amount of drama, the show is far more concerned with the stakes regarding the girls she’s mentoring, and really, it’s about their stories and experiences, and how Michelle helps to guide them through life, despite being a bit of a fuck-up.

It’s quintessential Sherman-Palladino work: sweet, smart, overly verbose, and extremely well-produced (albeit, yes, extremely white). The following numbers below should sell you on the show alone. Why yes, I’ll take a musical dance number inspired by Tom Waits’ Mule Variations!

If you’re a sound nerd, I love how they mic the floors (see Dance Routines Part 2, ~1:30), so you hear every landing, every hit, every slap. I’m hard-pressed to think of a show that was as aurally tactile as this.

If you’re a cinematography nerd, goddamn, the cheats they employed to ensure that the mirrors were always seen, but never the cameras? Blows my mind. And the China Balls!

BUNHEADS had a little something for everyone, and it’s a crime how ABC Family buried it. I’m hoping Amy Sherman-Palladino will revisit it in the future although, granted they did film a farewell dance as a way to give closure, I’d still love to see a reunion special.

PENNIES FROM HEAVEN (1978)

November 5, 2020

(DVD/YOD) You may be familiar with the Hollywood film PENNIES FROM HEAVEN (1981), starring and ushered into existence by Steve Martin, but it’s based on a six-ep British series penned by Dennis Potter. To be fair to Martin, the film sticks very closely to the original series, but the Hollywood gloss gets in the way, to the point where the film can’t see the premise for the trees. For example:

Potter’s ‘Yes, Yes’:

Martin’s ‘Yes, Yes’:

But I’m getting ahead of myself. PENNIES FROM HEAVEN is an incredibly unsavory lip-synced jukebox musical that takes place in the 1930s about a man’s midlife crisis — Bob Hoskins as Arthur Parker, portrayed Willy Loman style — and the women he leaves in his wake. On paper, it’s not terribly appealing, partially because Potter frames Arther as a noir hero, eschewed by his wife (and therefore, society) because of his sex drive (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=duIlaVlLwX4&list=PL10169BEFFBF3C1B6&index=14 ). However, Potter’s women are far more fascinating than Arthur, and the musical numbers still resonate, well over 40 years later. Take for example, Arthur’s paramour, teacher Eileen:

Potter’s ‘Love is Good for Anything that Ails You’:

Martin’s ‘Love is Good for Anything that Ails You’:

What’s dictated via Hollywood’s PENNIES FROM HEAVEN — no offense to Bernadette Peters’ performance — is the longing, the frustration, the thrill in letting loose. It’s all spelled-out. Contrast it with Potter’s number, where it’s all simply acted out through Cheryl Campbell’s amazing performance.

And here’s a number featuring Arthur’s long-suffering wife. (The number doesn’t appear in Martin’s film.)

Potter’s ‘You Rascal, You’:

If you aren’t into 20s/30s era American Jazz or post WWI British miserabilia, this probably isn’t a series for you, but if you’re into either one, hunt down a copy.

PROFIT (1996)

November 2, 2020

(DVD/YouTube) PROFIT has the dubious honor of ushering in the modern era of asshole male anti-heroes, despite the fact that practically no one watched it which resulted in it being cancelled having only aired four episodes (four more were aired on the late, lamented — at least by me — Trio channel, and are available on the very out-of-print DVD).

That said, critics loved it, despite the fact that the lead character — Jim Profit, yes that’s his name — is a cutthroat corporate man, willing to do anything to get ahead. The storytelling engine has him crushing a fellow employee (or just someone in his way), then celebrating by opening up a hilariously dated virtual reality app and shattering their poorly rendered 3D likeness.

On top of this, he has severe mental issues: he killed his father, slept with his mom (well, step-mother), and every episode ends with him climbing naked into a cardboard box to sleep.

While you might think that this would be played as a soap, no, it’s played straight as straight as can be, often with grizzled narration from Profit himself, occasionally even addressing the audience. It helps that Jim Profit, played by Adrian Pasdar, could turn on the charm in a way that few other TV anti-heroes have managed. (Gandolfini excepted, of course.)

At the time, there was nothing like it on air, which sadly seems to be why FOX briefly flirted with the idea of rebooting it. (Given the state of the world right now, it appears they’ve wisely realized that’s a terrible idea.)

I’m not going to say PROFIT was a great show, but it did have a lot of fantastic — albeit absurd — character work. Also, just about anyone reading this probably has loved one of the shows that creators John McNamara (THE MAGICIANS, JERICHO, BRISCO COUNTY JR.) or David Greenblatt (EUREKA, GRIMM, SURFACE) have been heavily involved with. (Also, both worked on ANGEL.)

While the entire series is difficult to find, the 90min pilot is available on YouTube, which should give you more than enough of a taste for the show.

IMAGES (1972)

October 15, 2020

(kanopy/tubi/VOD) In-between MCCABE & MRS. MILLER and THE LONG GOODBYE, Robert Altman directed this British psychodrama oddity, loosely based on lead actress Susannah York’s children’s book IN SEARCH OF UNICORNS. I know we always think of Altman as a loosey-goosey director, reveling in overlapping dialogue and aural confusion but, after all, his comeback film was the mannered murder mystery GOSFORD PARK (and, holy moly, what a cast that film had).

This is Altman as European horror art film director, and IMAGES is a genre take on the likes of Bergman’s PERSONA. Altman still can’t resist a bit of messiness, as it’s still a bit difficult to suss out the how’s and why’s and when’s after the credits roll, but it’s a thrillingly performed bit of a mess, and York is perfect in her role(s).