(Hulu) A psychological thriller about an extremely ill young woman named Chloe (newcomer Kiera Allen) suffering from a litany of medical conditions — heart arrhythmia, hemochromatosis, asthma, diabetes, and paralysis from the waist down — and her overly protective mother Diane (Sarah Paulson). Due to these ailments, Diane opted to homeschool Chloe, but Chloe’s coming of age and can’t wait to go to college and expand her engineering knowledge, nervously waiting to receive an answer to her college application.
You can probably guess where this is going, and director Aneesh Chaganty (SEARCHING (2018) who co-wrote this with Sev Ohanian (who also co-wrote SEARCHING) are aware of that, and they cut to the quick rather than make you guess. The end result is a tense, clever little genre film shot with a self-assured hand, bolstered by strong performances — as you might suspect, Paulson makes a meal out of her role — and closes on a satisfying note.
(Hulu/kanopy/VOD) Released in May 2020, this doc focused on the first real attempt to create a self-sustaining, human-made biosphere, was perfect pandemic fodder, and remains that way. It’d be enough to just hear the tale of those who lived through two years of isolation, but the doc’s juiced by the corporate intrigue and mismanagement that occurred. A fascinating, bewildering experiment that calls for a slightly grander film than this, but I’m just happy to be able to experience it.
(Hulu/VOD) If you’re a big fan of Cinemax’s short-lived pulpy action programming — I, for one, am a big fan of one-season wonder QUARRY, based on Max Allan Collins’ gritty novels. — you’re probably familiar with M.J. Bassett, the writer/director of ROGUE *, and steadfast Cinemax action creative. (Bassett also helmed SOLOMAN KANE (2009) and SILENT HILL: REVELATIONS (2012).)
If you aren’t familiar with Cinemax’s action block, which includes STRIKE BACK and BANSHEE — the former of which Bassett contributed to — you know that you’re not watching for plot, but for jaw-dropping action set-pieces, stylish gunfights, and occasional bits of counterpointing character work. ROGUE is in the same mold: Megan Fox is a gun-for-hire, paid to form an extraordinarily well-armed troop to rescue the governor’s daughter (which governor? It doesn’t matter!) from a nefarious crime ring that traffics in guns, underage girls, and giant cats. (Before becoming a director, Barrett also was a nature photojournalist, so much of ROGUE feels like a big -fuck you- to the hurt that she’s witnessed.)
Shortly after Fox’s troop rescues the daughter and a few other girls from their cages, they find themselves stranded in the wilderness, pursued by the very angry crime ring and surrounded by the vengeful lions that they accidentally ended up freeing.
From there it dials into ‘survive until sunrise’ mode and, while the locked location could drag the material down, Bassett and the cast/crew elevate it into a thrilling romp. While Fox’s performance as an action hero is a bit hit-and-miss, the supporting cast — including Philip Winchester — insert their own quirky mannerisms and bring a bit of levity to what could otherwise be a mind-numbing array of bloody deaths. There are number of quaint little scripting details, such as one dude thanking another character for a hot grenade, during a massive firefight, that also ramp up the charm in a film that other filmmakers might not think to include.
* To be clear, this is unrelated to the giant croc film ROGUE (2007) that I recommended in October.
(Hulu/Freeform/VOD)? One of my favorite undersung TV shows of the last decade was PLEASE LIKE ME, a delightfully reflective queer Australian TV drama which introduced many folks to Josh Thomas and Hannah Gadsby. (It’s now available on Hulu.) Josh Thomas is now the showrunner of EVERYTHING’S GOING TO BE OKAY, on Freeform of all places, which positions him as the caretaker of his two teenage half-sisters after their widowed father dies.
While Thomas was the focal point of PLEASE LIKE ME, he takes a few steps back here. EVERYTHING’S GOING TO BE OKAY is primarily about his sisters, with the older sister trying to navigate teen life and her autism and the younger living in the shadow of so much grief.
However, like PLEASE LIKE ME, the show never wallows in sadness, and there are frequent moments of joy and warmth, as well as a fair number of laughs. I watched the last few episodes of the first season during the first lockdown and found it to be quite the balm. Perhaps you may, too. If all goes well, we’ll have a second season to look forward to.
Update (September 25th, 2021): Unfortunately, shortly after the second season finished airing, Freeform canceled the show, so two seasons is all we get.
(Hulu/VOD) Was the world asking for another biopic about Nicolas Tesla? No, at least I wasn’t until I heard this one was helmed by cult filmmaker Michael Almereyda (NADJA, THE ETERNAL).
Michael Almereyda’s has recruited his regulars to bring TELSA to life: Ethan Hawke is Tesla, Kyle MacLaughlin is Edison, Jim Gaffigan is Westinghouse, and there are several other established, white, male actors. Eve Hewson (THE KNICK) is J.P. Morgan’s daughter Anne, who serves as the narrator in-and-out-of-time, trying to convince the viewer how Tesla’s current ranking in the cultural consciousness is unforgivably woeful (which goes against everything I know).
While it often looks and feels like an early naughts PBS docudrama, where the re-enactors often break the fourth wall to educate the viewers through a hazy digital video lens, Almereyda ladles out numerous idiosyncrasies to try to keep the audience off-kilter, such as roller skating scenes; anachronistic ice cream cones; obvious rear-projection with intentionally misplaced lighting setups; fictional interactions where Hewson’s character then informs the viewers that the scene ‘likely didn’t happen this way’; even a full-blown musical number.
Those bits of whimsy keep the film breezily entertaining. I know if my hungover high school science teacher screened it for class one day, I’d feel like a lucky boy (although I’d expect the teacher to make the requisite number of caveats that this biopic has ‘fictional elements for dramatic effect’). Despite the (presumably intentional) cheap sheen of the biopic, the blocking and camerawork is top-notch, and no one phones in a performance. I’m especially fond of Ebon Moss-Bachrach’s (GIRLS, BLOW THE MAN DOWN) loose turn as Tesla’s right-hand man.
That said, in the age of modern re-enactments like BIZEBEE ’17 and CASTING JONBENET, it feels like TESLA isn’t formally daring enough, doesn’t push itself far enough, which is a shame as Almereyda is known for grounded weirdness. However, this film is based on his first screenplay, which may account for why the tomfoolery feels quaint, as opposed to a grand remark on the unreliable nature of recreating history. Given the times we’re currently living in, perhaps a safely odd, comfortably unreliable biopic is what you need right now.
By the way, if you’re looking for some more fact/fiction-blended Tesla works, I highly recommend Samantha Hunt’s novel THE INVENTION OF EVERYTHING ELSE.
(Hulu) Yes, PALM SPRINGS is yet another film riffing on GROUNDHOG DAY, where folks are trapped reliving a day over-and-over again, and while everyone was surprisingly pleased when EDGE OF TOMORROW, HAPPY DEATH DAY, and RUSSIAN DOLL proved to be amazing works, I don’t think many people expected Hulu’s PALM SPRINGS to capture the same kind of magic.
Yet, it does. It’s an utterly charming high-concept rom-com that improves on the formula. Samberg plays a less-aspirational fuckup version of the lovable, learnable lunkhead he’s played on BROOKLYN NINE-NINE and it works here, but Cristin Milioti (who I know from FARGO S2, but others may know from HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER) is the star of the show. She’s another fuckup — describing the hows and whys would sadly spoil matters — but she’s the lynchpin of the film, the actionable agent that refuses to settle for living every day as a bridesmaid. Oh, and J.K. Simmons is a third-wheel in a very delightful way. (RIVERDALE fans may want to note that Camila Mendes is in it too, but is given very little to do but sit around and look sultry.)
The trailer below arguably gives a bit too much away, so I’d skip it, but it’s there if you’re on the fence.
(Hulu/VOD) BABYTEETH opens with a jarring glimpse at self-destructive youth before unfurling into a portrait of a family trying to cope with matters they’re not prepared for.
The rest I’d like to leave a mystery, however don’t fear the the trailer as it masks most of the better turns, and it highlights the fact that Essie Davis (MISS FISHER, THE BABADOOK) is in it and she’s brilliant, as always. Eliza Scanlen turns in a magnificent performance as the daughter, making terrific use of her moony facial features. (Scanlen hasn’t had many roles, but she’s been noteworthy in all of them, including Beth in LITTLE WOMEN (2019) and Amma in SHARP OBJECTS.)
While the subject matter might cause a different filmmaker to shoot a treacly mess, director Shannon Murphy keeps a commanding grip on the tone, leaving you off-kilter much of the movie while deftly cranking up the emotion resulting in an extraordinarily moving end.
“I can’t feel anything because you take up all the air!”
“This is the worst possible parenting I can imagine.”
(Hulu/VOD) I love fictional (emphasis on fictional) works about con-artists, smooth talkers, grifters — however you want to name ‘em, I’ll line up to watch a work about ‘em.
BUFFALOED falls into the genre of ‘grifters with a heart of gold’ that I like, as opposed to the grifters that took over film around the late 80s. (I blame WALL STREET.) It features Zoey Deutch (who keeps flying under the rader, but she’s fantastic in FLOWER) as Peg, a lower class teenager living in Buffalo, NY whose father died of a heart attack when she was young, leaving her with her brother (SCHITT’S CREEK’s Noah Reid) and her mother, played by Judy Greer. Peg is consumed with having enough money to never have to worry about finances ever again and, as a youth, runs a few mostly-harmless small scams like reselling buffalo wings and trafficking loosies in her high school parking lot.
Peg gets accepted into her first college pick, but her mom informs her that they don’t have enough money to actually send her, so she upgrades her grifting and starts selling counterfeit Bills football tickets, which eventually lands her in jail before she has a chance to finish high school.
Several years and many lawyer bills later, she gets out and gets a phone call from a debt scammer (yes, we’ve culturally moved along from the penny stocks of say, BOILER ROOM (2000) to debt collection) and she sees an opportunity to wipe out her owed ‘cash’ as a debt collector and she leaps at it, albeit on her own terms.
The film is brash and brisk: the script — via Brian Sacca — is tighter than a drum, and director Tanya Wexler gives it proper verve. If there’s one fault, it’s that the portrayal of the town and characters occasionally become more cartoonish than necessary but, otherwise, it’s a fun, well-crafted, and well-disguised screed against the state of consumer debt in America.
(Hulu/VOD) I had very low expectations for a TV adaptation of 12 MONKEYS. I simply didn’t think the film’s inevitability and nihilism lent itself to serialized storytelling. I’m happy to admit that I was wrong.
12 MONKEYS is — by far — one of the most audacious and human time travel TV shows to make it to air and, despite the fact that I re-watched it during the pandemic, the hurt and twinges I felt while re-watching weren’t because of a portrayal of plague death, but because the ensemble were literally breaking the laws of time and space to rectify these deaths, whereas far too many people in real life right now aren’t fucking willing to wear a mask to save themselves and others.
That said, the plague is only a small part of this show; it’s used as a springboard towards some of the most high-concept plotting I’ve ever seen in a TV series. (Yes, I watched and loved FRINGE.) Where the characters are and what they’re trying to do in the first season is so far removed by the end of season four that it’s astounding, but it still works!
While the show is so high-concept, and so inventive, what really makes it work are the women. The men are mostly soldiers, grunts — disposable — although they all have their own quirks, emotions, and interesting character arcs, the women are the ones that propel the series:
The show gender-swaps Brad Pitt’s Jeffrey Goines to Emily Hampshire’s Jennifer Goines, which was a stroke of brilliance. It ramps up the pop culture riffs while giving her an autonomy and agency all her own. (She also gets some of the best set-pieces, and the writers clearly love writing her, sometimes a little too much.) Time scientist Katarina Jones is my favorite character: so driven, but so aware that she’s toeing an exceedingly dangerous line, while still trying to be mindful of her own humanity and what’s at stake and -juggling causality-. With apologies to Tracy Kidder, she’s the show’s soul of a new machine. Cassandra Railly hews close to Madeline Stowe’s character from Gilliam’s film in the first season, but becomes something radically different after, and someone far more interesting.
Better yet, just about every episode in the four seasons is satisfying — there’s not a single episode in the bunch where you feel the characters acted in a way that betrayed themselves, or that there was some sloppy plotting just to find some feel-good closure — and the show sticks the landing in ways you wouldn’t believe. And the lighting! In these days of under-lit, over-dramatic works like OZARK, it’s refreshing to see a show that leans into bright bursts of light, a show that pays attention to hues, that tints appropriately instead of painting everything in shapeless grays.
Most importantly, the show has a command over tone that comes along so rarely: it’s propulsive and smart, but it’s also poignant and — perhaps most importantly — surprisingly funny. The characters quip and throw barbs at each other like family, but you’re familiar enough with ‘em to get the inside jokes and swatches of character building they provide. For a show about the end times, you’ll find yourself laughing far more than you’d expect.
Ultimately, 12 MONKEYS is so satisfying is because it reckons with the fact that it -is- a serialized show, and that their time machine — simply because of the nature of TV -and- because they created a fucking time machine — can never bestow a proper ending for these characters. There can never be catharsis, and they use that self-awareness as a prop to the utmost effect. Everyone believes their mistakes and missteps are reversible, but causality/narrative gets in the way. The stakes escalate, rippling into more mistakes, more grief, which results in more attempts to rectify human missteps. (The show quickly shakes up its endgame to address this, but to reveal how would be cruel.) It’s brilliantly and profoundly tragic in a way I’ve rarely seen in a sci-fi show, which is what makes it so special, and so worth your time.
S1 Trailer:
Fan-based S1 Trailer:
One caveat: sadly that I need to mention that the show’s pretty myopic when it comes to representation. The few times you do see anyone that isn’t white, they’re part of a ramshackle tribe, a servant, or a prop.
A fortunate thing about 12 Monkeys is: you can watch any clip and still have no idea when/where it happened, so spoilers don’t exist! (That said, watching these will detract from the surprise from encountering them in the show, but if you’re on the fence about the show, they may convince you that it’s something special. That said, they’re mostly Jennifer clips, because she’s so entertainingly erratic, even out-of-context.)
U + Ur Hand:
Related:
Admittedly, this traffics in a fair amount of fan-service, but in-context it’s not as bad as it looks.
Jennifer in the bunker:
Endless Jennifer lines:
Life Isn’t Measured By Clocks (Spoilers for the entire series, but it’s endless heartbreak):
Many Endings. It was… is… a Love Story. (Spoilers for the entire series/ibid):
(Hulu/VOD) DIFFICULT PEOPLE is for everyone who watched SEINFELD and realized those four friends were garbage people, but still loved the jokes (and loved the series finale).
It features Julie (Julie Klauser) as an aspirational comedian/writer stuck recapping TV (this is back in the days of -Television Without Pity-), her best friend Billy (Billy Eichner) as an aspiring comedian/actor, and a long list of brilliant supporting talent such as James Urbaniak (HENRY FOOL, VENTURE BROS) as Julie’s long-suffering boyfriend and NPR stooge, Andrea Martin (SCTV, BLACK CHRISTMAS, GREAT NEWS) as Julie’s mother, and Cole Escola and Gabourey Sidibe as co-workers at the coffee shop Billy works at.
The eps are mostly self-contained and normally feature Julie & Billy scheming to advance their writing and acting careers, but often fail miserably because they’re terrible people that can’t go two seconds without (wittily) tearing into someone, and you kind of love them for it. They know who they are, they know they aren’t going to change, and they know the world will never accept them, but they know they’re goddamn funny and smart so they’ll never stop trying or shut the fuck up. While their jokes are absolutely filthy and hurtful, they always punch up.
Somehow, despite being one of the first Hulu original shows, and despite neither Klausner or Eichner being terribly well-known names at the time, they managed to get the most ridiculous guest stars -and- make proper use of them! Deborah Harry! John Mulaney, in the part he was born to play: an eccentric rich young man into Edwardian clothing, technology, and vernacular! Stockard Channing! Victor Garber! Jessica Walter! Nathan Lane! Martin Short! Micky Dolenz! Mink Stole! John Cho! Even goddamn Lin-Manual Miranda:
Also, DIFFICULT PEOPLE had the best goddamn cold opens, partially because they always had the perfect quip and then smash-cut to WHITE REAPER’s -She Wants To- (captioned solely as DRIVING PUNK MUSIC), which is the perfect punctuation. (Similarly, just about every ep manages a perfect kiss-of before launching into WHITE REAPER’s -Half Bad-.)
Here’s a montage of the best/worst lines and insults, including some cold open jokes:
S2 Trailer (because the S1/S3 trailers? Very misleading.)
It’s not for everyone. Hell, it’s not for most well-adjusted people. However, it’s a show I routinely re-watch — and I rarely re-watch TV, apart from single scenes or sole episodes for research — because it’s so gleefully over-stuffed with jokes and gags, and the pacing is perfection. I know it’ll probably never happen, but I do hope that they’re able to find an outlet that’ll bring the show back five years from now, even if it’s just for a special.