(Criterion/HBO MAX/VOD) It’s undeniable that Orson Welles — the man who faked an alien invasion via a radio play — is a trickster, but his ‘cinematic essay’ F FOR FAKE is perhaps the apex of his trickster skills. It’s not just an examination of art forger Elmyr de Hory, not just a profile of Clifford Irving’s illicit and fabricated Howard Hughes biography, but also a deep dive into the nature of authorship, authenticity, intent, and narrators. Despite how heavy that sounds, the film’s extraordinarily playful, staying true to Welles’ trickster self.
HBOMAX
THE KNICK (2014-2015)
(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.
- If you’d like to read more about Soderbergh’s process of shooting THE KNICK, there’s an in-depth article available at Vulture: https://www.vulture.com/2015/10/on-set-steven-soderbergh-the-knick.html
THE NAKED CITY (1948)
(Criterion/HBO MAX/VOD) THE NAKED CITY tries to be a lot of things: a detective story, a portrait of New York City and its citizens, plus an attempt at bringing a neorealism aesthetic to the silver screen. Despite its reach, it succeeds wildly with all of its aspirations.
Directed by Jules Dassin (who would make the underrated noir NIGHT AND THE CITY before being blacklisted), it’s just as much as producer/narrator Mike Hellinger’s film. Prior to being involved with film, Hellinger was a New York journalist and short story author, and you can see his background peppered through the entirety of THE NAKED CITY. (In fact, Hellinger was still giving notes about the film’s post-production on his death bed.)
THE NAKED CITY revels in the fact that they shot on location in New York City, and they even brought on infamous crime photography Weegee — who had a well-known photo book of NYC named NAKED CITY — to consult during production. (Despite Weegee’s involvement, it doesn’t revel in matter-of-fact violence the way Weegee’s photos were known for.)
Lastly, in a world before DRAGNET, THE NAKED CITY made the effort to detail the police procedural process, mostly via character actor Barry Fitzgerald as the head homicide detective. The end result intentionally veers away from overt sensationalism, often feeling more like a drama than a detective story — at least when the narration isn’t being too cheeky — but it is all the better for it.
MILDRED PIERCE (2011)
(DVD/HBO MAX) I love Curtiz’s adaptation of James M. Cain’s MILDRED PIERCE — he certainly knew how to work the material to fit Joan Crawford — but it’s Todd Haynes’ (CAROL, FAR FROM HEAVEN) version that is truer to Cain’s novel. Yes, most of Cain’s works are lurid and pulpy crime tales, sensational enough to be banned, but MILDRED PIERCE is the exception. Cain paints a detailed portrait of a difficult mother with an even more difficult daughter, both of whom get wrapped up with a exploitative cad. It’s an epic character piece that deserves every minute of the approximately six hours that Haynes gives it.
Haynes enlists Kate Winslet who plays the role with a muted air — not quite the hysterical, over-protective mother that Crawford portrayed — while Evan Rachel Wood brats it up as her daughter, and Guy Pearce gleefully tears into inhabiting a genuine shitheel playboy. As you’d expect from Haynes, the cinematography is lush, the production design department spared not one piece of patterned wallpaper, and everyone’s stitched to the nines.
Most importantly, Haynes knows how to let scenes breath. Cameras track contemplatively, gazes wander, and characters sit with themselves, processing the ramifications of their actions. While it may not be as fondly recalled as the initial adaptation, or even any of Haynes’ prior works, it’s a mini-series that merits the extra time.
POPEYE (1980)
(HBO MAX/VOD) This is perhaps one of the strangest films in Altman’s already eclectic oeuvre: a live-action children’s musical adaptation of the comic strip adventures of Popeye, penned solely for the screen, directed by Robert Altman, with Robin Williams as Popeye. Yes, this happened, all because Paramount lost the bidding war for the film rights to ANNIE.
Turns out, this mixture of incongruent ingredients actually worked. The shantytown feels like Altman’s returned to MCCABE & MRS. MILLER, and his trademark overlapping dialogue finds a home in over-crowded comedic numbers. The songs, while extraordinarily basic, are sweetly catchy and are always in-tune with the characters, while also managing to mine the past of the comics and animated reels.
Altman also managed to luck out with a rather subdued Williams, who perfectly encapsulates Popeye’s mutters and utterances, while also being able to turn on the physical bravado when necessary. Also, there’s Shelley Duvall, in the role she was born to play: Olive Oyl. Altman gives her more to work with than you’d expect of Oyl and Duvall runs with it, while still echoing the familiar in-peril shrieks but buttoning it with a defiant barb.
If there’s one fault of the film, it’s the camerawork, which approaches physical comedy with Altman’s standard approach to his improv-centric filming style: a hodge podge of clumsy master shots. Sadly, that doesn’t play well with the slapstick scenes here, so several of the big physical numbers feel slipshod.
Otherwise, this feels like a template for future musicals adapted from ill-fitting sources. While it wasn’t nearly as successful as ANNIE, it’s a far more interesting work.
I USED TO GO HERE (2020)
(hoopla/HBO MAX/VOD) I love films about fuckups, folks who are old enough to be aware that they’re stumbling through life but simply haven’t honed the skills to steady their adult steps, and I USED TO GO HERE is certainly about a fuckup about to fall flat on her face. It’s the tale of Kate (Gillian Jacobs), a 30-something Chicago-based writer whose fiancé has broken up with her because of how he’s portrayed in her first novel and, complicating matters, her first novel lands with a thud, her promotional tour canceled.
Written and directed by Kris Rey, who has spent quite a bit of time in Illinois — delightfully obvious from the opening which showcases a corner of Chicago’s Lincoln Square as opposed to shots of The Loop — keeps the film breezier than most probably would. The script is peppered with deflecting quips that keep the emotional hits her character takes at bay as she tries bolster her self-confidence while navigating her old campus fifteen years after the fact. While it could get away with it, the film rarely leans on many of the traditional tropes you’d expect from a ‘revisiting my old stomping grounds!’ work.
That said, the film succeeds because of Jacobs, who has been perfectly playing fuckups for years (best exemplified by her run as Britta on COMMUNITY https://uproxx.com/viral/britta-brittad-it-community/ ). She’s always been fantastic at turning in clueless performances but, with I USED TO GO HERE, she turns up the self-awareness a bit without making it too winking or hammy. Consequently, her journey is a winsome and entertaining one.
ENLIGHTENED (2011-2013)
(HBO Max/VOD) The tagline for the first season of ENLIGHTENED was: ‘A woman on the verge of a nervous breakthrough,’ which does a damn fine job of succinctly setting up lead character Amy Jellicoe’s (deftly portrayed by co-creator Laura Dern) trajectory as a woman who thinks she has it all together, then a corporate affair destroys her world.
Mike White* (CHUCK & BUCK, SCHOOL OF ROCK), the other co-creator and head writer, does a great job of showcasing Amy’s attempts at becoming well-adjusted, trying to re-insert herself into her old positions only to find that they don’t fit. While flailing to find some kind of constant to hold onto, she reaches out to her addict ex, Levi (Luke Wilson).
What follows is a melancholy story of growth that, to some, may feel overwrought, but you’re seeing life through Amy’s eyes, and Amy is so well-realized between Dern and White that it’s worth enduring a few wide-eyed, over-earnest monologues. In fact, my favorite moment of the show occurs four episodes into the first season. She reflects on her life during an outdoor weekend retreat that doesn’t quite go the way Amy had hoped, and it’s the first time that she opens up to the audience:
(The score really heightens that monologue, so it shouldn’t surprise you that Mark Mothersbaugh (DEVO) was responsible for it.)
ENLIGHTENED is Amy trying to course-correct her life, trying to become a better person, but frequently screwing it up with her own navel-gazing and endless hope for external accolades to tell her she’s on the right path. It’s a mature character study that’s rarely told through TV nowadays.
Dern & White had hoped to tell a three season arc, but the critical acclaim wasn’t enough to make up for the paltry ratings, so they only received two seasons. Nonetheless, the second season ends satisfyingly enough.
“There’s time. There is time. There is so much time.”
Season one trailer:
Season two trailer:
- Fun fact: Mike White was on two seasons of THE AMAZING RACE with his father, and they were delightful although — spoiler alert — they never came close to winning.
JOHN FROM CINCINNATI (2007)
(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.
HAPPY ENDINGS (2011-2013)
(HBO MAX/Hulu/Netflix/VOD) Yes, I know the title is terrible, and it’s exactly why I didn’t watch this show until several years ago. Sure, it’s supposed to reflect how you can still be friends with your ex, despite her leaving you at the altar, but 1) that’s not what anyone thinks of when they hear that term and 2) that’s hardly what this show is about. It’s a hangout show that’s best described as a filthy Z-grade FRIENDS. (Okay, so maybe the title is slightly representative of the show.)
The worst part of the title is its poor use of phrasing, because this show -loved- twisting phrases. If you love the Marx Bros., you will love this show. Take, for instance, the rom-com-con cold open. (Yes, I’m skipping over the racist parrot bit because no one needs that.)
Or the following what-if joke regarding Mary Tyler Moore:
However, wordplay won’t get you very far if you lack a cast that can convincingly deliver quips, and HAPPY ENDINGS had one of the great ensembles; they wrangled a melange of brilliant comedic and improv actors (Adam Pally, Eliza Coupe, Damon Wayans Jr., Casey Wilson) and straight-laced performers (Elisha Cuthbert, Zachary Knighton), all of whom brilliantly handle their ‘so smart it’s dumb/so dumb it’s smart’ banter.
Not all of the humor has aged well, like uh, the racist parrot, the ‘Dave is 1/16th Navajo’ bit, and all of the fat jokes made at Max’s (Adam Pally) expense, but it holds up better than, oh say, 30 ROCK. Also, as a resident of Chicago, I’d be remiss to note that it severely misrepresents the city layout, almost to a hilarious degree, where many of the streets and addresses simply don’t exist. (One address cited would land them in the squarely in the middle of Lake Michigan.)
Those qualifiers aside, HAPPY ENDINGS is perhaps better than any other modern sitcom at what the show calls ‘pile-ons’. Taken out of context, none of the jokes are rarely amazing, but when unfurled over a scene they build on each other, and while the first or second gag maybe elicited a slight chuckle from you, by the time the scene has ended you’re doubled-over gasping for breath and have to rewind because you couldn’t hear the final quips over the sound of your own laughter.
CARNIVAL OF SOULS (1962)
(AMC+/Criterion/fubu/epix/HBO MAX/hoopla/kanopy/Paramount+/tubi/Vudu, anywhere really, although I watched The Directors Cut via my Criterion copy) One of the few films I discovered because of a video game — no, not CARNEVIL — I’d read about it influencing SILENT HILL.
CARNIVAL OF SOULS is a surprisingly singular vision from industrial film Herk Harvey, who only made this one film, but he made that swing count. A woman is the sole survivor of a three-person car crash, and goes about trying to move ahead in life, but can’t shake a gauzy hazy or the stare of a ghostly man.
It’s a surprisingly quiet film, despite the often oppressive organ soundtrack, and while it’s built upon a number of small moments, it culminates in an astounding final sequence. Art-house horror, full of tension and dread, well before such a thing widely existed.
One final note: I believe some song I’m quite familiar with sampled Mary’s meeting with a Dr. Samuels, as well as the exchange: “Now you quit licking your chops, she’s outta your class.” “You wanna bet?” If anyone knows who sampled them, let me know!