(Prime/VOD) Somehow, I knew next-to-nothing about ORLANDO when I cracked open Virginia Woolf’s book roughly two years ago. Since then, it’s become a book I’ve extolled as brilliance I wish I’d encountered far earlier in my life.
Similarly, I came to Sally Potter’s adaptation only recently and, it too, is fantastic. However, it’s very difficult to discuss the particulars of its plot without divulging certain facets that make the book truly special, but here’s my attempt:
First and foremost: Swinton is absolutely perfect in this, and I love the audacity of how sparsely she’s adorned (except, of course, when she’s not). Obviously, it’s a role that rightly put Swinton in the limelight.
Second: Potter’s adaptation is more succinct, almost obscenely so as she could have given the scenes a bit more room to breathe, but instead she often races through the plot to the point where it feels more like a fever dream, as opposed to the lackadaisical pacing of the novel. The impact of which is felt nowhere harder than in Potter’s final act, which also bestows its own ending which, fair, it’s her film and all, but it’s -a lot-, and left a unique taste in my mouth.
Third: The gazes! They’re all amazing and all so wound with meaning, especially those that break the fourth wall.
Lastly: The cinematography and score. It has the formalistic trappings, portraiture stylings and sturdy tracking shots of a Greenaway film, but still engages with the action, as opposed to mannerly setting a tableau. Potter herself composed the music, which has a Nyman-esque minimalist flair that, yet again, engages more with the material than you’d expect.
In case you needed more coaxing: it’s Toby Jones’ first role and, despite that, if you’ve seen Toby Jones in anything, you know immediately that yes: that’s Toby Jones.
(VOD) For far too many years, I’ve habitually trawled through the entirety of the Chicago International Film Festival (CIFF) yearly schedule and shot off a list to a few friends to map out what we wanted to see together. The list would include not just a list of film titles and descriptions, but also trailers not linked in the CIFF schedule, additional context, interest level, and a list of potential screening times/conflicts.
It’s never been a fun job, but it’s a necessary one because CIFF is surprisingly daunting for reasons best left for another time, and most folks I know don’t bother with CIFF unless someone else puts in a bit of effort. Every year, I’m rewarded by finding a gem I wouldn’t have noticed otherwise, and had I not put in the effort, I probably would have missed out on THE TWENTIETH CENTURY last year. Thankfully, unlike many films that screen once at CIFF and are never heard from again, THE TWENTIETH CENTURY was picked up by Oscilloscope and can be purchased today!
The description I sent off in the yearly missive was: “It may be puerile, but I keep hearing that it’s like Maddin meets John Waters, and I’m down for that.”
Upon watching it, yes, Guy Maddin is an obvious inspiration, with its extreme Soviet-inspired camerawork, choppy editing/frame-gaps, kink, and scrutiny of Canada. However, director Matthew Rankin’s use of color, tempo, and symmetry makes it very much the work of a new auteur instead of something simply derivative. Yes, it’s weird but, despite its eccentricities, it’s rarely off-putting, and it’s supremely entertaining. The trailer will immediately inform you as to whether it’s something in or out of your wheelhouse. If it tickles you, please, pick up a copy.
(kanopy/VOD)? An electric 80s NYC ’10 years in the future’ dystopian film from Lizzie Borden (yes, the director legally changed her name) shot in the vein of Godard’s ALPHAVILLE in which nothing about the city is changed apart from the context. In this case, it’s: ‘what if socialism occurred in the US, but it ultimately sidelines all women, compromising their health and their right to work?’ Nearly 40 years later, it’s still shamefully relevant.
The end result is a vibrant exploration of activism helmed by a DJ and divergent feminist movements trying to organize and radicalize women to upend the machine, all pasted together from a mixture of pre-shot footage, on-the-street footage, and documentary footage, and paired with an amazing array of proto-punk feminist songs.
Warning: the end of the film coincidentally mirrors real events and might be painful to watch. To say why would spoil matters, but you’ll see it coming well before you actually have to watch it.
Please note: the following trailer is briefly NSFW.
(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):
(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:
(This is a combination of three monologues, just in case the segues feel abrupt.)
(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.
(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.)
(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.
(fubo/Hulu/peacock/VOD) SUPERSTORE has always flown under the rader. Often marketed as a big-box retail version of THE OFFICE (US) because it’s comprised of eccentrics and weirdos all trying to get by in their humdrum work environment, it has more in common with the warmness of PARKS & RECREATION, in that the characters are often trying to help one another through each day. It’s also a show that subverts how we imagine work-based sitcoms, how the audience is supposed to suspend disbelief that every employee is treated equal, that each one of them goes home at night to live in a place they can easily afford, and none of them ever have to worry about how they’re going to pay for an unexpected car repair.
While the show would be entertaining enough if these characters were placed in their own universe and the writers blissfully ignored everything happening in the real world, SUPERSTORE often tackles heavier topics, such as unionizing, immigration, and natural disasters. Few sitcoms are able to manage the delicate balance of real-world problems and humor — usually coming across as either overly glib, or as a Very Special Episode — but SUPERSTORE not only manages it, it excels at it.
The season six opener, which aired a handful of weeks ago, deals quite frankly with COVID and we watch as the show barrels through months of COVID prep and paranoia in the expert way only a five-year-old show could juggle. They don’t rely on title cards to relay the day or month, they let you figure it out through visual indicators and character dialogue because they realize you’ll pick up on the major touchstones. Sure, it won’t play the same to viewers in 10 years, but few shows do.
In the second episode of season six, the novelty of safety precautions have faded into the background but still linger as a threatening presence, and the show depicts several characters struggling with their fear and stress. Despite that, they still make it funny without defusing the importance of these characters’ struggles.
I know folks are pretty reluctant to invest in old-school 22-ep season shows — I get it! — but this one is worth it. It’s the full package: heart, humor, and hope. Feel free to skip over the first season, as it’s a bit rocky! If you don’t want to deal with COVID in your TV shows, steer clear of season six! (I know I get a bit squicked out when the show has characters talking close-up and unmasked, just for the sake of trying to wring the most out of a scene.) I don’t know what the future holds for SUPERSTORE — perhaps one more season, at best — but if that’s the case? It’s been a good run.
Season 1 trailer:
Season 4 mid-season trailer:
(The actual tone is really an odd mixture of the two: not as much spectacle as S1 promises, not as preachy as S4 appears.)
(VOD/DVD) A comedic neo-noir from Jonathan Groff (LATE NIGHT WITH CONAN O’BRIEN, SCRUBS, HAPPY ENDINGS) where most of the major players are fools, out-of-touch with reality, or a combination of both.
Andy (Andy Richter) is a wide-eyed suburban accountant who, within five minutes of opening his private practice in a mall court, is duped into the world of investigating underground crime. Joining him is Simon (perfectly annoyingly played by Tony Hale) as Andy’s partner/video store owner whose store resides a floor under Andy’s practice, Wally (Marshall Manesh), as the tech guy/the middle-eastern restauranteur in the same mall court, and grizzled ex-private investigator Lew Staziak (Harve Presnell), who often drags Andy into as many cases as he drags him out of.
While it pokes fun at the genre (it was naming each episode after a noir film a decade before RIVERDALE was), it’s shot with the luster of a Barry Sonnefeld film, and the plotting is as tight as a drum. While the show is silly, the jokes are either sneakily smart, or the stupidity of them are so well-crafted that you don’t care. Also, it never goes as broad as say other genre parodies, like POLICE STORY! or ANGIE TRIBECA.
The series was unceremonious cancelled after four episodes — despite only having a six-ep order — which I’m oddly okay with. While I’m sure they could have sustained this level of quality for another six episodes, what we have here is more than enough.
One caveat: while the pilot is about as perfect of an initial episode of a comedy — this show hit the ground running — the second episode, despite being co-written by BUFFY alum Jane Espenson, leans far too heavily on the premise that folks can find a larger person attractive. I don’t mean there are a few jokes here and there — the episode starts with them and fires off about one or two gags a minute until the ep closes with one more joke. Maybe circle back to it, because it’s one of the rare misfires for the show.
A few out-of-context jokes for you:
“The man’s crazy! He’s throwing babies at us!”
“Gene Kelly’s 50th was a big night. Buddy Hackett took off his pants and sat down on the cake! That was comedy back then: it wasn’t funny, but they committed.”
“Someone’s moving in! I wonder who… said the owl.”
“What do you known about the chicken business?” “Oh, that’s bad news. Like the pork business without the conscience.”
(I swear, the show’s better than this trailer makes it look.)
(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:
