Tag: TV (Page 8 of 17)

A pretty light month. I guess that happens when the election wipes out roughly a week of normal TV viewing. Plus I read a lot in November.

Here’s what I did watch.

Archer, season 11

The world’s greatest spy returns for another year. Archer seasons fall into one of two camps. There are the ones that make you laugh so hard that you are constantly rewinding/rewatching to catch the jokes you missed. And there are the ones that feel flat and never really get going.

Until this year.

This season started out as a snoozer but gained traction midway through the run and finished very strongly. The last three episodes kept this from falling into C territory.

B-

Tehran

I spent the week after the election watching this Israeli thriller. Tamar Rabinyan is an Israeli agent who sneaks into Iran in an effort to cripple the Iranian air defenses before an Israeli attack on several nuclear sites. Her initial effort gets stymied and she spends the next several days attempting to come up with a backup plan so the attacks can proceed.

Her efforts are further complicated when an Israeli tourist recognizes her in the Tehran airport just before she is detained by Iranian security authorities. During the interrogation of the tourist, the security team learns of their contact and begins searching Tehran for Rabinyan.

This was a pretty solid, modern espionage story. There are lots of very tense moments, a big double-cross near the end, but all of the work of the series is undermined by a poor ending.

A couple interesting things (at least to me) about the show:
As it was made in Israel for an Israeli audience, it is almost entirely in Middle Eastern languages. Mostly Hebrew and Farsi, but also doses of Arabic. There are moments of English sprinkled throughout, and even a shot of French.

Rabinyan’s family, and some of the other Israeli agents she works with, are Jews who came from Iran. I did not know there was such a thing. You usually think of modern immigrants to Israel coming from Eastern Europe. Glad to have my ignorance corrected.

Finally, this is an AppeTV+ show, presented as an Apple exclusive. So it made me laugh that no one was using Apple devices. Obviously Apple bought it for US distribution without being involved in its production.

B

The Other Guys

For all the Will Ferrell movies I can quote extensively, there are some I’ve never seen. Like this one. I don’t remember it coming out back in 2010, but saw an online discussion that included it and decided I should watch it.

It had the risk of being one of those movies that throws a terrific scene right at the beginning and can never again match that. But I was pleasantly surprised that it was funny throughout. Not an all-timer, but a decent way to spend 90 minutes or so.

B+

The Departed

Speaking of movies I missed, I’ve been meaning to watch this one for a long, long time. I chalk up missing it to having kids.

Man, this was a good way to end the month. Certainly not in the same league as Goodfellas, but it’s a fine entry in Martin Scorsese’s mob chronicles. Even better that he used some new faces and locales.

Scorsese’s movies are always dazzling and entertaining and magnificent, but rarely leave you feeling good after. This might have the most bleak ending of any of his movies, though. Those last ten minutes are just brutal.

A

Holiday Baking Championship

I’m through the first four episodes of this year’s season. I miss Lorraine Pascale.

B+

Baseball took up a lot of time last month. But I still squeezed in some quality television programming.

The Spy

This brief series tells the story of Eli Cohen, a Mossad agent who infiltrated Syrian society in the 1960s and became a deputy minister of defense before being discovered and executed.

It is a compelling, interesting story that is very well acted and paced, and beautifully photographed. I also enjoyed the old school spy tale angle. When we think of that period, we tend to think of traditional Cold War stories. But what was going on in the Middle East at the time was equally fascinating and, in some ways, far more consequential than spies chasing each other around Europe.

But the revelation was Sacha Baron Cohen in the lead role. I was floored by how good SBC was in a straight, dramatic role. He was excellent and believable, especially in the moments when Eli Cohen began to lose grip on who he really was after spending so much time in Syria.

A

Halloween Wars
Halloween Baking Championship

Ahh, it’s holiday food show season! October is always a fine warm-up for the real deal. Sadly, L doesn’t like to sit and watch these with me as much as she used to. She watched some of the Halloween Wars episodes, but we skipped a couple and went right to the finale Halloween weekend. That show kind of annoys me but I don’t turn down chances to spend time with one of my girls watching food shows.

I’m a bigger fan of HBC. This year’s crew wasn’t my favorite. But it’s a good way to get ready for the holiday season.

Halloween Wars, B-
Halloween Baking Championship, B+

Narcos: Mexico, season one

I loved the first three seasons of Narcos, which focused on the Colombian cocaine cartels of the 1980s. Done with the Colombians, the series moved up to Mexico, focusing on Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo’s Guadalajara cartel and the DEA agents who battled him.

This season took longer to grab me that the Colombian seasons did. Perhaps that is because Gallardo and/or Diego Luna, the actor who played him, were not as immediately compelling as Pablo Escobar/Wagner Moura in the first two seasons.

But this season cranked up the drama in the back half. As Gallardo’s cartel shifted from its own marijuana to transporting Colombian cocaine, the stakes got higher and the DEA became more interested. Especially agent Kiki Camarena. Camarena pushed a reluctant DEA bureaucracy to go after Gallardo’s interests much harder. His reward was to be kidnapped, tortured, and murdered. The episodes that center on his kidnapping are brutal and emotionally draining, and in some ways saved the season from being just ok.

A-

It’s The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown

L wanted to make sure we watched this before she went out on Halloween. It has always been the weakest of the Peanuts holiday specials. And it got me thinking about how terrible most of the characters are. A subject for a future post!

B-

11 Foot 8

Who doesn’t love those videos of (usually) trucks smashing into low bridges and overpasses because the drivers ignore safety warnings? Well this mini-documentary is all about one in North Carolina.

B+

Ted Lasso
As with the first month of shows, Ted Lasso continued to shine in the final five episodes of season one. Sure, there were predictable, clichéd choices in how the show progressed. But the dynamic between the main characters is what carried the program. I believe I said this last month but it was a little shocking how good Jason Sudeikis is in the emotional moments of Ted’s life. Hannah Waddingham and Juno Temple were both outstanding, too. A show that made me laugh, smile, and feel a little each Friday. I was suspicious of Apple TV+ when it first came out, and we only have it because we get it for free after buying a new device. A season two of Ted Lasso may be enough for me to actually pay for it a couple months next year.

A-

Cobra Kai
Listen, I heard the talk. “Have you watched Cobra Kai? It’s really good!” And I would put it on my To Watch list and forget about it. After a few months I would delete it, only to put it back on when I came across another recommendation.

Well, folks, I finally dove in and watched the first two seasons over a three-day stretch. I can’t believe I waited so long. And I can’t believe I liked it so much.

It isn’t high art. But it was highly entertaining and shockingly well done. Was there cheese? Absolutely. But it was like the perfect amount of cheese that made it enjoyable without going over-the-top.

William Zabka is the big revelation of the show. I loved, loved, loved where they placed Johnny Lawrence in his life and how Zabka worked to add depth and growth to his character. And I love how his prime pupil, Miguel, goes from good to bad to somewhere in-between before the absolutely shocking end of season two.

I loved how all the feelings from the original Karate Kid movie are flipped. You want Lawrence to succeed while Daniel LaRusso comes across as a pretentious dick for much of the show. And having Robby Lawrence be LaRusso’s pupil, and morphing him from troubled kid you hate to kid you want to succeed to, well, whatever you feel about him at the end of season two, was supremely satisfying.

Lots of good supporting characters as well. Not to be creepy, but Amanda LaRusso is exactly the kind of girl I would have been totally in love with but utterly unable to talk to back when I was in high school. Plenty of excellent call backs to the original movie and the 1980s in general. Some great 80s music. As Johnny Lawrence would say, it is all pretty bad ass.

Season one, A+
Season two, A-

Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga
I was warned about this. Two friends who generally enjoy Will Ferrell’s work said this was not worth watching. But I saw it pop up on a couple summer lists of good things to watch so I gave it a shot…and I didn’t last a full hour. No real laughs and not much of a story to keep me engaged. Maybe it got better in the second hour but I’ll never know.

D

High Score
A brief and high level review of the history of video games. It begins with the development of Space Invaders and the rise of Atari, moves through Nintendo’s domination, the transition of role playing games from boards to computers and consoles, SEGA’s bold ventures in the ‘90s, and then two episodes about fighting and first-person games, respectively. Not exhaustive by any means. But for someone like me who had a childhood love of video games that has never quite translated completely to adulthood, it was good enough.

B+

Loopers
A Golf Channel documentary about the history of the role of caddy, narrated by Bill Murray. It was ok but kind of ruined by Golf Channel running commercials every four minutes. Even on the DVR that’s super annoying. But golf tournament broadcasts have commercials roughly every four minutes so I guess that carries over to non-tournament broadcasts as well.

B-

Stuck at Home in an Albanian Blood Feud
A short that explores the Albanian concept of “Kanun,” which allows for seeking blood in revenge for the death of a relative. Don’t get me wrong, we have some crazy, historically-based shit in this country. Witness how we treat people of color for example. But this stuff is truly insane.

B

The Death of Stalin
I knew going in that this was a satirical farce about the power struggle in the Soviet Union after the death of Josef Stalin in 1953. Still I was not prepared for how ridiculous of a movie this was.

I say ridiculous in the best possible way. It features British and American actors, in their natural accents, playing most of the major roles. Steve Buscemi is Nikita Khrushchev. He does standard Buscemi things. Which is an amazing way to think about Khrushchev, the man who pounded his shoe on the table and said “We will bury you!” a few years later. Jason Isaacs as Georgry Zhukov is especially fantastic. Rupert Friend as Vasily Stalin was absolutely delightful.

Even if you don’t care about history and have zero interest in the history of the Cold War or Soviet Union, this is an excellent way to spend an hour and 45 minutes.

A

Strapped: Peoria
The latest entry in No Laying Up’s small budget travel series.

The crew chose Peoria, IL because of a contest on the No Laying Up Refuge message board in which a group from Peoria raised the most money for charity. Despite that good will, this edition falls flat in relation to past seasons of Strapped. And it’s all because of Covid. One of the delights of Strapped is how they shine a light on aspects of the communities where they are playing golf. There is an Anthony Bourdain quality to the show when they dive into the history of race relations in Baltimore, the life of a struggling singer in New Orleans, or the background of a young PGA pro while in Southern California. That’s all missing since Peoria, and especially Bradley University, were largely deserted during the group’s summer visit. They couldn’t explore the locally owned shops and bars. There were no doubt some campus eccentrics or local history experts that they would have spoken to in normal times. They do pull in a couple interesting locals, but both are golfers and more cool guys than personalities unique to Peoria.

B

Funny what happens when sports come back. My media consumption was waaaay down in August. Or at least compared to the previous five months. Here is what I did knock out.

Jayhawkers

I remember when this movie was made. Justin Wesley, a recent KU basketball player and brother of former KU great Keith Langford, was cast in the main role as Wilt Chamberlain. A KU professor – Academy Award winner Kevin Willmott – was making the film. A few other notable locals from Lawrence had cameos. But it was a low-budget, semi-artsy film that never got a wide release, so I forgot about it.

Until July, when The New Yorker ran a piece about it. I had no idea the film was on Amazon Prime Video, so I added it to the queue.

It is a charming, well-intentioned film that also comes off as slightly stilted with a touch of cheese to it.

It is the story of how Wilt Chamberlain came to play basketball at the University of Kansas over hundreds of other offers he had, and his experiences during his time in Lawrence. The final 20 minutes are an extended retelling of one of the greatest NCAA championship games of all time, the 1957 game when North Carolina beat Wilt’s Jayhawks in triple overtime. It was a game that colored Wilt’s career forever and kept him from returning to Lawrence over 40 years.

The film plays a little fast-and-loose with the facts. Things that happened one year are pushed a year in either direction. Watching you would think that Wilt left campus immediately after that 1957 loss when he, in fact, played one more frustrating season before jumping to the Harlem Globetrotters for a year before becoming eligible to play in the NBA.

The film is honest in painting a picture of the Midwest in the late ‘50s. Although coach Phog Allen was careful to present Lawrence as an oasis from the racism that Wilt experienced in his previous travels outside Philadelphia, Wilt quickly runs into issues getting served at restaurants, being allowed to sit in regular seats at movies, and so on. But through Phog’s influence, the support of chancellor Franklin Murphy, the desire of the community for the team to win another national championship, and Wilt’s charisma, rules begin to bend for him.

Wesley is not a strong actor, and isn’t given too much. The loquacious Wilt the world would eventually meet is reduced to a man who nods and offers brief comments. But Wesley was a tall basketball player and could imitate Wilt for the action scenes.

As I said, it tries a little too hard at times. But it isn’t terrible. For KU fans, it’s a look at a fascinating point in the program’s history.

B

The Battered Bastards of Baseball

There are lots of reasons to love baseball. One of the most romantic is the idea of the small-town professional team, where the community rallies around a group of players who are mostly passing through on their way up or down the minor league ladder. Once upon a time the country was dotted with hundreds of independent teams, playing the lowest levels of baseball and giving countless men one last chance at the game.

By the early 1970s the independent teams had largely been wiped out, replaced by teams controlled by big league teams. Actor Bing Russell saw an opening in Portland as a chance to correct that and fulfill his longtime wish to own a team.

This film reviews his ownership of the Portland Mavericks, an independent, Class A team that played in the Northwest League from 1973 until 1977. The franchise was true to its name. Russell ran the club unlike any other in baseball. He kind of had to; with no MLB affiliation he had to take a different route to build a roster. The team was built on rejects and castoffs.[1] They played with an attitude and freedom uncommon in pro ball outside of Oakland.

To the surprise of nearly everyone, it worked. They won their division in their first season, finished second in year two, and then won their next three division titles. Their success rekindled a love for baseball in Portland, which had seen the AAA Beavers move to Spokane in 1972. Perhaps because of this newfound enthusiasm for the game, or perhaps out of an effort to run Russell out of the league, the Pacific Coast League expanded in 1978 and a new Beavers franchise replaced the Mavericks. Rather than take baseball’s paltry $25,000 relocation fee, Russell sued and won a $250,000 settlement.

This is just a fun, funny movie. It’s a great story, well told. And it makes you want to fall in love with some goofy team that nobody thinks can win.

A

Ted Lasso

I had no idea Apple was making a Ted Lasso series, based on the commercials from a few years back for Premier League soccer. Then I read this piece and figured, “Why not?”

Like that article, I was shocked at how much I enjoyed the show. Everything about it seems to be screaming “This is going to be terrible!” But it’s not. It is warm and kind-hearted and full of humorous moments. It may be the times we are living in, when every day seems more horrible than the one before, but I think I needed a show like this, that even with characters who are caustic and cynical, ultimately bends back toward empathy and kindness.

I have a huuuuuuge issue with the show, though. Everything we know about Ted Lasso leads us to believe he’s from Kansas. He coached a mythical Wichita State football team to the D2 national title. He wears shirts that represent Kansas City. He mentions KC being home a few times. But he talks like he’s from the south. And Jason Sudeikis is from Kansas City; he knows how we sound! Sure, there’s the classic, Midwestern hick accent that far too many people from my hometown have. But what he’s doing ain’t that; it that of an old ball coach from the Deep South. Maybe he figured since that’s the voice he used in the original commercials he couldn’t stray from it. Alas…

B+

The Endless Summer

I know I watched this, or at least parts of it, years and years ago. In high school, maybe? Or perhaps college. Something reminded me of it, I saw it on Amazon, and decided to rewatch it.

If you’ve never seen it, it is considered one of the greatest and most influential surfing movies ever. Filmed in the early 1960s, filmmaker Bruce Brown travelled around the world with Mike Hynson and Robert August searching out waves and an “endless summer” as fall and winter descended on America. They surfed in West Africa, likely the first to ever surf there. In South Africa, which had a budding surf culture, they discovered the perfect wave at Cape St. Francis that became a “must surf” spot. They also hit Australia, New Zealand, Tahiti, and Hawaii.

The footage is amazing for its time. Well-shot to begin with, it is also crazy that everyone was using long boards back then. Today you see surfers on shorter boards and remaining pretty static on them. Brown, Hynson, and August would all walk their longboards, passing from front to back as they rode waves, which blew my mind.

Brown’s narration is casual and goofy, sounding more like your uncle who thinks he’s super funny while showing family movies. Some of the commentary when they are in Africa is borderline racist, but it was the early ‘60s and I don’t think there was any true ill will behind them.

B+

John Mulaney: New in Town

Man, Mulaney knows how to do a standup performance. This is the second of his specials I’ve watched, and each time he nails the timing of the show. You get people laughing early, slowly ramp up the laughs, and the last 15 minutes should have people crying. In this case, his story of trying to get anxiety meds by faking an issue with frequent urination had me laughing so hard, and crying so much, that S was a little worried about me.

A

Pearl Jam Live at Lollapalooza 2018

One night I was watching some golf videos or something on YouTube when I noticed this over on the right hand side of the screen in the suggestions. Two-plus hours, and two bourbons, later, I was deeply satisfied with my choice.

A+

July is not over. But as we will be out-of-town next week, and I haven’t found much to write about this week, I thought I’d go ahead and share my media post for the month.

Brooklyn Nine-Nine

Always reliable, but never quite as great as Michael Schur’s other creations. What was strange was watching a show that was recorded before and during the Coronavirus outbreak. It was weird seeing commercials and promos from back when life was normal and then suddenly seeing them change in tone when April rolled around.

B+

Meet Don Byers

A Golf channel short about an insurance salesman from Omaha in his early 60s who became the oldest (known) college athlete. What made this piece interesting was the narrator and the production. Ron Livingston provided the voice overs, and with him in mind, Don Byers’ dissatisfaction in his insurance job was given an Office Space spin. Which was nice.

B

Free Solo

Despite my strong fear of heights, I was able to watch this without my stomach getting too upset.

It is the documentation of Alex Hannold’s free solo climb of Yosemite’s El Capitan, the first time such a climb – done without any safety equipment – was ever completed.

It is absolutely gorgeous to watch, and does an amazing job capturing what it was like for Hannold to be hanging 3000 feet about the ground without any ropes or harnesses to save him should he slip.

It is also a look into Honnold’s life, which is a little odd. He likely has Asperger’s, and this complicates his relationships. He has a super-cute girlfriend who is clearly way more into him than he is to her. The part of his brain that registers fear doesn’t seem to work like most people’s, either, based on an MRI. He’s just a different dude, but those differences make it possible for him to do what no one else has ever done.

The most compelling parts to me were the moments the day before his climb, when the camera crew are going through their checklists and you could see on their faces that they all were pretty sure they were about to watch their friend die. And during the climb’s most difficult stretch, which he failed on consistently while practicing with ropes, one of the cameramen turns away and refuses to watch. That guy was me. I could watch the film already knowing the outcome, but in realtime, there was no way I could have continued to watch as Honnold attempted insanely difficult maneuvers with basically no margin for error.

A-

Tiger Slam

An accounting of the time when Tiger was at his most Tiger-ish, and won four-straight majors, including probably the two best major wins ever, the 2000 US and British Opens.

B+

The Human Bean

Back in April I watched Beau Miles’ A Mile An Hour, in which he ran a marathon, a mile at a time, over the course of a day, and did all kinds of cool stuff in between those laps.

Here, he decides to eat his weight in beans over several weeks as he preps for an endurance run. It’s pretty goofy and not as engaging as A Mile An Hour, but still entertaining.

B

Ted Williams: The Greatest Hitter Who Ever Lived

Funny story, remember when we moved into our new house two years ago and it took three-plus weeks to get cable installed? Well, shortly after the Comcast guys got the house wired, I recorded this show…and never watched it. Until now. You’d think I would have devoured it right away back when I was starving for content.

Williams has always been my favorite historic baseball player. Even knowing much of his story was mythological, I bought into him as the quintessential 20th century American Hero, capital H. As the show mentions, he was who John Wayne claimed to be.

So I was really surprised to learn that his heroic story was more complicated than I realized. Sure, he was a war hero – and lost nearly five years of baseball to service in two wars no less – but I never knew that for both World War II and the Korean War, he fought leaving baseball to serve. Now that certainly puts his service in heroism in a different light. It does not diminish his military accomplishments, or give back those five years in his prime that he missed. But it does undermine that he was a selfless athlete who sacrificed a significant chunk of his baseball career to serve his country.

S was in the room while I watched much of this. She has no idea who Ted Williams was or anything about him. The film is brutally honest about Ted’s brutal honesty. She was not a fan.

B

Jumanji – Welcome to the Jungle

I got this at the library. I really thought I had picked up the Jumanji movie that was just out over the last holiday season. Fortunately L and I had never seen this one and it made sense to start at the beginning.

So, this didn’t bridge any new ground at all. But it was surprisingly fun and entertaining. And it was tight. A solid family movie that takes roughly 90 minutes to watch? That’s good movie-ing there, my friends!

B

Jurassic Park

The other movie I picked up for L and I to watch. Man, this has not aged well. I remember being blown away by how realistic the dinosaurs were back when I first saw this. It was the ultimate 1990s summer blockbuster.

Nearly 30 years later, visually it looks very dated. It just doesn’t compare to what CGI can do these days. And the story, honestly, kind of sucked. Reading old reviews I saw how it was hailed as a return to form for Stephen Spielberg. Even with how awe-inspiring the visuals were back in 1993, I don’t see how this comes close to his best work in the 1980s.

C

Once Upon a Time…In Hollywood

I honestly wasn’t sure what to make of this flick. I enjoyed long stretches of it, but also didn’t really get where it was going. Well, I knew where it was going in terms of the historical event that anchored it, but I just thought it had a weird flow. It was entertaining as hell, but I never really latched onto some central theme that was pushing the story forward. Tarantino films often have that lack of traditional structure to them, but this felt different and more incomplete to me.

I also thought to myself, midway through, that it was the least violent Tarantino film I’ve ever seen. Boy the last 10 minutes did their best to make up for that. Yikes, some of that stuff I had to look away from. I did enjoy Tarantino’s alternative history take on what could have happened to the Helter Skelter killers.

The whole dirty feet thing put me off a bit. And for some reason I really enjoyed how much Leo’s character hated hippies, and the invective he threw at them.

As always, Leo and Brad Pitt were great. And Margot Robbie? Good grief, she’s like an angel from heaven. I could watch her do goofy 1960s dances all day.

B+ for the movie, many A+’s for Ms. Robbie

Mystify: Michael Hutchence
What a beautiful man Michael Hutchence was. Not just physically, he had a beautiful soul, too. He wasn’t a voice of a generation – well, maybe he was in Australia – but if you came up in the late ‘80s and listened to pop music, he sang a lot of songs that were in high rotation. INXS was never my favorite group, but they were often one of my 5-10 favorites, and I owned a surprising number of their albums.

I figured this would be a downer since he died by hanging himself. But I was not prepared for how brutal the last half hour would be. I did not know he had a traumatic brain injury he kept secret for the last six years of his life that pretty much turned him into a completely different person, which led to some serious substance abuse issues. I forgot how he got involved with Bob Geldof’s ex-wife, and how one of his final acts before he killed himself was begging Geldof to allow her to bring their kids to Australia to be with Hutchence.

B+

Lance

The Last Dance brought about a wave of nostalgia and good feelings, reminding us of the greatness of Michael Jordan and making us appreciate his pathological need to win.

This…man, totally different feeling. I needed a shower after watching it.

If you’ve been with me since the early days of the blog you know Lance was one of the biggest topics I wrote about in its first few years. And I’ve grappled with how I feel about Lance on here several times since his disgraceful admissions.

So I don’t know what I was expecting from this. I’m pretty sure I didn’t expect to feel as dirty as I did. I think I was hoping Lance of 2020 was a man who had made amends and adjustments and while perhaps not worthy of admiration, deserving of some forgiveness.

Nope. He still comes across as an absolute ass, only making statements of regret because he thinks that is what is expected of him and will allow him to get the attention he craves. There is zero sincerity or remorse in anything he says. The one moment he appears to crack a little, in the closing minutes of episode two when he speaks of Jan Ullrich, he turns that moment and makes it about himself.

Interesting and well done from a film-making perspective, but it is the final nail in the coffin of Lance’s public image.

B

Knives Out

A completely entertaining and fun two hours. I heard lots of people were put off by Daniel Craig’s accent. I loved it. I thought it had just enough ridiculousness in it to make it work.

A-

Without Bias

I have my DVR set to record all the 30 for 30 episodes and this aired the week of the anniversary of Len Bias’ death. I assumed it was new. I got about 20 minutes and kept thinking it felt weird. The tone, the graphics, the music all seemed out-dated. During a commercial I checked and saw that there was a very good explanation for that: it was made in 2009.

A pretty good overview of the potential Len Bias showed, how his life ended, and the tragedies that continued to plague his family. A little too maudlin in tone for my tastes, though.

B

8:46 – Dave Chappelle

It is kind of crazy that of all the things that have been in the media over the last month about race relations in this country, this is the piece that moved me the most. It’s not a traditional Chappelle performance. Rather, it is an extended monologue in front of an audience in which Dave shares his thoughts on the George Floyd killing and its aftermath. The moments when he pours his anger out were the most affecting moments I saw in June.

A

Wonder Woman

So S watched this one night, which is pretty funny. She told L and I that we should watch it, and we did a few nights later. I think L really enjoyed it. I thought the story was a little uneven, and the visuals were not nearly as dazzling as the Marvel movies are.

But let’s get down to the biggest question about this movie. My generation grew up in Linda Carter as Wonder Woman. And late 1970s Lynda Carter was one of the most dazzlingly beautiful women ever. Tough shoes to fill. Gal Gadot did just fine. I recently heard a term that definitely applies to her: she is galactically hot. Plus she looked like a true badass where Carter was always kind of, I hate to say it, girly in her action scenes. Different times.

B for the movie, A+++++ for everything about Gadot

Wind of Change

About a month ago I read Patrick Radden Keefe’s Say Nothing, which was excellent. Around the same time I was encouraged to read it by one friend, another friend recommended the Wind of Change podcast. It sounded interesting so I dropped it into my queue but kept putting it off. Until I realized that the podcast was hosted by Patrick Radden Keefe. I quickly moved it up the queue, slowly caught up, and completed it last week just after the final episode dropped.

It was also excellent.

The pod was built upon a story a friend of Keefe’s told him several years ago. This friend had contacts in the CIA and claimed a former CIA agent had told him that the song “Wind of Change,” by the German band The Scorpions, was written by the CIA in an effort to destabilize the Soviet Union and help democracy spread after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

This story sounded insane to Keefe, but he was intrigued and spent several years investigating. Over the podcast’s eight episodes, Keefe explores all angles of the story. The origins of the rumor. How the CIA has used pop culture to influence foreign populations over the years. How the CIA responds to requests for information. What it was like to be a rock musician in the final days of the USSR. A notorious late ‘80s Moscow concert performed by western bands. The infamous rock manager Doc McGhee. And, finally, Keefe sits down with Klaus Meine, lead singer of the Scorpions and writer of “Wind of Change,” to discuss the rumors and see how he would respond.

The story is really well done all around. Even if you don’t like late 80s hair metal, I bet you’ll enjoy this podcast.

A

Ozark

I’ll leave the big one for last. Over most of June I watched all three seasons of Ozark. I had never watched it before, despite having many friends tell me it was good. What always made me hold back were the reviews I had read which, while generally positive, almost always noted that Ozark fell short of matching a very similar show, Breaking Bad. I tried to put those critiques out of my head, but it was tough not to go back to them.

That’s because there are so many clear parallels between the shows. If you break things down you can argue that the shows are actually quite different, but from a 40,000 foot level, they do follow similar arcs and have similar elements. And while I really enjoyed Ozark, I agree with those critics who said for all its quality, it is definitely weaker than Breaking Bad.

What also jumped out to me, though, was how there are many parallels between Ozark and my personal favorite of recent prestige TV shows: The Americans. Many critics suggested that The Americans wasn’t really about espionage and global politics, but rather about marriage and how couples communicate, grow, and deal with the changes that life throws at them when the lust wear off. And marriage – and relationships in general – is certainly a huge part of Ozark. As with the common elements with Breaking Bad, for all that Ozark does correctly when it comes to relationships, I kept feeling like it was either following ground that The Americans had cut, or tackling similar themes not quite as well as that show did.

I think some of this comes down to there are no genuinely likable characters in Ozark. Everyone is deeply flawed and possibly evil. Hell, even the Byrde kids are loaded with issues. They are all compelling as hell, and I was always deeply interested to see how each conflict would resolve itself. But I’m never really rooting for anyone to win/survive. Both Breaking Bad and The Americans offered you characters to pull for. Sometimes those characters had huge issues that made it tough to love them, but there will still those glimmers that had you wanting them to get through their troubles.

I kind of want everyone to die in the last season of Ozark.

I realize it may be an unfair comparison, but for me it just doesn’t match up to either Breaking Bad or The Americans. It’s still a very good show, just not a legendary one.

A-

My goal for May was to knock a bunch of movies off my To Watch list. At first glance it will look like I did exactly that. But I must admit I watched eight of these movies in that last nine days of the month. That was solid work!

The Last Dance

Well, shit, I never got around to writing about this. I guess it’s because I’ve talked about it so much to so many people I never felt the need to share more here. So I’ll try to sum up quick.

I loved it. It brought back a ton of memories. I understand that the control Michael Jordan had over the series was problematic, but that’s true no matter who makes a film. And if giving him control was the cost of getting him to talk, it was worth it. I’ve fallen a little out of love with MJ in his retirement as we’ve seen just how pathological his need to win is and how he’s struggled to shut it off. But putting it back in context of his playing days made me overlook the troublesome aspects of that drive. I thought the most powerful moment of the series was the final scene of episode seven or eight, when he was explaining the cost of his personality. In general I don’t think MJ has regrets or shame or pain for anything he’s done. But in that moment, he showed that there is a price. He may have “boys” from his playing days, but does he truly have friends, when his goal was always to dominate everyone, even the players he was close to?

This was great and I’m equal parts craving and dreading the next attempt to do a series like this. I’m not sure it will work for other athletes the way it worked for MJ’s story.

A

Lunar
A cool little short that recreates the Apollo moon landings with pictures taken on the Apollo missions.

A

A Parks and Recreation Special – Full Special – YouTube
Who better than the P&R cast to give us a moment of happiness in the midst of this horrible time? Except for that Jerry. God, Jerry!

A

The Irishman
I have no excuse for putting this off so long. Goodfellas is one of my very favorite movies ever. I also loved Casino. Another Martin Scorsese mafia epic with Robert DeNiro and Joe Pesci would seem like a no-doubter, right? Especially when you throw in Al Pacino’s addition to the gang.

I put it off from months for one reason or another but finally – FINALLY! – started it on Friday, May 8, and watched about an hour. The next evening I pulled it up on my laptop with earbuds, thinking I would watch a half hour or so until the kids started to head upstairs and I finish on a TV. Next thing I knew it was two hours later and I had watched the entire movie.

So, worth the wait? Absolutely. A fantastic third chapter to Scorsese’s mob trilogy. It is a compelling, wonderfully shot, entertaining movie. Al Pacino is especially fantastic, adjusting his typical manner to fit Jimmy Hoffa’s upper midwest accent. That said, it was weird hearing a bunch of New York/New Jersey Italians attempt to speak like Philly Italians, Irish, and Detroit Germans.[1]

What stuck out to me was the tone of the movie. It felt like a long, bittersweet good bye. It is hard to imagine Scorsese, DeNiro, and Pesci doing another three-hour mafia movie together. This was their valedictory lap, and for all the goodness, there was that hint of sadness knowing that this is the closure of one of the great chapters in American film.

After watching I looked up Frank Sheeran to learn more about him. I came across this article which pokes a lot of holes in the biggest assertions made about Sheeran’s activities. Reading it makes me think of this movie more like JFK. JFK was a brilliant movie, but it was also full of shit. From a historical perspective, I think The Irishman has to go into the same bucket as JFK.[2] And it is a reminder even if Goodfellas and Casino were based on journalistic accounts of mob life, there was also plenty of Hollywood polish put on those stories, too.

A

Beastie Boys Story
We have Apple TV+, or whatever it’s called, free for a year thanks to buying a new Apple device.[3] That gave me the chance to watch this, an ATV+ exclusive. All I knew about it going in was “Spike Jones Beasties documentary.” Which was enough for me. So I was a little surprised by its format: a live, on-stage show by Ad Rock and Mike D in which they basically ran through the same subjects the wrote about in Beastie Boys Book. It was fun, funny, touching, and perfect for a Gen Xer that grew up on the band.

A

Jerry Seinfeld: 23 Hours to Kill
Seinfeld stand up, what’s not to like? It felt like he left his fastball behind, but it was still a decent watch.

B

John Mulaney: Kid Gorgeous at Radio City
This was some funny shit. My stomach hurt from laughing through the first 40 minutes, and then he got to Trump stuff and I had to pause a few times to catch my breath.

A

The Crying Game
I don’t know that I had ever seen this all the way through, back in the day. Actor Stephen Rea, who plays Fergus, was married to Dolours Price, a key member of the Provisional Irish Republican Army in the 70s and 80s, and a main focus of the book Say Nothing. With the references to the movie in that book, I figured it was worth a watch.

For those not old enough to remember, this was a very controversial movie when it came out. There was a big twist, about halfway through, that Miramax asked audiences not to reveal after they saw it. The secret got out quick, but it was still shocking when you saw it. Hell, it’s kind of shocking now, 30 years later, but that’s more because of what kind of nudity we do and do not allow in our cinema even today.

What this really made me think about was a college roommate, who one night after a few too many beers and some late night, reality TV, asked how we would all react if we brought a “lady” home and found out she was not, in fact, a lady. This roommate and I butted heads often, and I wasn’t having his theoretical exercise. “I would know right away and never make it that far,” was my response. This instigated like a 90-minute, drunken argument that several other roommates zinged in and out of. He thought I was dismissing a legitimate question. I thought he was spending too much time worrying about a situation that was highly unlikely to happen.

The film? It felt very dated production wise. There were some elements I thought were strange: the tone shifted from light to very heavy randomly, for example. But it deserves credit for tackling a huge issue in a very honest way and in setting the stage for all the other noir-ish, arty films that would come in the ‘90s.

B+

Some Westerns

I keep a long list of movies I want to watch, but only knock off a couple each year. I just always keep movies after books, music, sports, and TV sports when dividing up my media time.

I noticed last month that several of the movies on my list had a common theme or genre. I’ve never been a big Western guy, but several movies on my list could either be classified as modern Westerns, or were influenced heavily by the classic genre. So about a week ago I decided to dive in and knock a bunch out. Along the way I added some more, so I have a long list to still get to. Below is an accounting of that week-plus of viewing.

There Will Be Blood
This has been on my list for years. Years I tell you. What a performance by Daniel Day Lewis. What a great story. How wonderfully photographed. A nearly perfect movie.

A

Django Unchained
It’s Tarantino, so you kind of know what you’re getting. A dazzling story with plenty of problematic moments. Lots of violence, often almost cartoonish in its gore. Homages to great films and film genres of the past. Sharp writing. A+ acting performances. Thus, nothing about the movie really surprises. But I really enjoyed Tarantino’s take on the classic Western. Jamie Foxx and Christoph Waltz were fantastic as the two lead characters.

A

Hell or High Water
I had never heard of this movie before, yet it was nominated for the Best Picture Oscar. That just shows how out of it I generally am with movies.

Thus it was a great surprise. This feels like the ideal modern western: it has nothing to do with cowboys and Indians, or life on the range. But its bank robbing theme and gorgeous cinematography draw clear lines to the classics. The lead characters were all wonderfully filled by Jeff Bridges, Chris Pine, Ben Foster, and Gil Birmingham. The movie makes you root for both the cops and robbers, and sometimes against both. A nicely ambiguous ending.

A

No Country for Old Men
I read this book sometime around when the movie came out and, as per my usual style, never got around to watching the flick. So the details were fuzzy but I remembered the basics. And the Cohen brothers nicely added their own twists while remaining faithful to Cormac McCarthy’s original story.

A

The Rover
Here we divert a hair for a movie that in most ways is not a Western at all, but pulls in so many references to that genre that it can safely be called a modern Western.

This one takes place in the Australian Outback ten years after an economic collapse has caused massive upheaval. The almost always amazing Guy Pearce has his car stolen and spends the next hour and forty-five minutes trying to get it back. Along the way there is much violence, most from Pearce’s gun. At the end, after he recovers his car, we see why it was so important to him. At first glance, it seems utterly ridiculous that so many died for this cause. But, considering the world he lives in, you realize despite his acceptance of brutality and death, he maintains a strong connection to the past and that he isn’t the cold, emotionless killer he seems to be. This is one of the bleakest movies I can remember watching.

B

True Grit
Hey, two Cohen Bros Westerns in one month! And this one is a legit Western, a remake of a John Wayne movie that takes place in the late 19th century. This had a few more quirks than No Country For Old Men, which made it feel more like a Cohen movie. Jeff Bridges with another fine performance, and I absolutely loved Haile Steinfeld

A-

Marriage Story
To wrap up the month, S and I watched this together Sunday night. I think we had very different views of the film. She found it depressing. I was, honestly, laughing out loud at some scenes. I felt like it was really playing up the ridiculousness of the process of getting a divorce.

But I also found it to be very powerful. I was a child of divorce, and while my parents’ divorce was not heated in any way, it was still hard, and I was sympathetic to that angle. Scarlett Johansson and Adam Driver were excellent. And there’s that scene, that one scene, which if you’ve seen this, I’m sure also left you breathless. My first thought following that scene, once I was able to breath again, was how many takes did that require and how wrecked were Johansson and Driver after? Oh, and the scene when Charlie walks in on Henry reading the letter Nicole wrote to take to their initial mediation? Yeah that really go to me.

A

A full month of being locked in had the expected effect on what I’ve been watching on TV: I consumed a shit-load of content! I thought about breaking this list into multiple entries. Instead I’m going to put on my editing hat and pare these down as much as I can. I will put the items I write most about at top, and share progressively less as we move through the list. They are also divided into three categories: TV shows/movies aimed at adults, web shorts, and kid shows (or at least shows we watched with the kids).

Part One: Grown Up Shit

Better Call Saul, season five
This season did not disappoint. To me it was a little more slow burn than recent seasons, but the final three episodes really ratcheted things up. The last two episodes were especially brilliant. Hell, the final 5:00 of episode nine, “Bad Choice Road,” were as good as any five minutes on any show ever. The confrontation between cartel boss Lalo Salamanca and Jimmy “Saul Goodman” McGill and Kim Wexler was utterly amazing. I don’t recall ever doing this before, but as soon as it was over I rewound and watched it again. Rhea Seehorn is the breakout actor of BCS, and her utter evisceration of Tony Dalton’s Salamanca was as savage as any scene of graphic violence that Saul or Breaking Bad has ever offered. It is a travesty that Seehorn has not been nominated for an Emmy. If it doesn’t happen this year I will demand a congressional investigation.

‘Kim Faces Off Against Lalo’ Talked About Scene Ep. 509 | Better Call Saul – YouTube

The final episode had me constantly on edge, as Wexler revealed a totally unexpected side of herself, Salamanca avoided an assassination attempt, and McGill/Goodman showed rare restraint, lack of confidence, and even vulnerability. The episode wonderfully sets up what should be an amazing final season.

Better Call Saul is the best show on TV right now, period. It is approaching the heights set by its predecessor. If Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould can nail season six, BCS will enter the pantheon as one of the great shows of all time.

A

Hunters
An Amazon Prime series with immense potential that came up short.

Al Pacino leads a ragtag team of people hunting Nazis in 1977 New York. Not just your standard Nazis who fled Europe in the 1940s and blended into American, either. In this show there is a whole secret society of Nazis who are poised to use chemical warfare to take over the US.

Sounds promising, and there were some excellent moments throughout the show’s 10 episodes.

However, the show couldn’t decide what it wanted to be. It pulled in elements from comics and super hero flicks, but in random moments rather than as a core part of the show. There were a lot of strange structural elements. The show wildly zigged and zagged between exceptionally dark moments (depictions of life in Nazi concentration camps, moments of extreme violence in 1977) with moments that were supposed to be cartoony and funny. And there were some serious issues about time and space, with people somehow driving between the Deep South or California and New York in a matter of hours.

The final episode tries to make up for some of these flaws with two massive twists. One of those twists was pretty wild and successful. My jaw hit the floor. The other felt forced and manipulative, designed purely to set up a season two. I rolled my eyes at that moment.

There were some great performances. Pacino was Full Pacino, playing an elderly Holocaust survivor to the max. Dylan Baker was absolutely fantastic as a Nazi hidden within Jimmy Carter’s administration. And Jerrika Hinton was excellent as FBI officer Morris, who must navigate the old boy FBI not only as a black woman but also as a lesbian struggling to forge a relationship while keeping it secret.

Not a waste of time yet disappointing because there was so much promise here.

B-

Tiger King
Well, what to say about this absolute train wreck of a show? I watched this over about 36 hours on Easter weekend, unable to look away. I don’t know that I have any particularly insightful comments. I’m in the camp that pretty much no one who was on screen has any redeeming qualities. By the end I felt some sympathy for Joe Exotic, simply because, as the final episode focused on, he got absolutely hammered while people around him who were just as guilty of the same crimes weren’t prosecuted.

I normally wouldn’t like a show like this. I’m not into reality TV. I don’t like watching white trash, total disasters get their 15 minutes.

But there was something insanely compelling about the show. I think most of that lies with Joe, who was as original a character as has appeared on TV in some time. For all his endless flaws, the dude is certainly interesting.

B+

Reply All podcast, episode 158: The Case of the Missing Hit
I don’t venture outside of my normal podcast rotation very often, especially these days since I seem to be behind on so many. This show got a lot of run so I threw it into the queue.

It’s a pretty fascinating account of a man in California who was haunted by a song from his college years that was stuck in his head yet he could not find anyone else who could identify it. His memories were so strong that he even recorded an acapella version of it – with him singing all the musical parts and lyrics – to try to run it through music identification software and find a match. It produced no results.

Reply All got ahold of the story and used their powers to bring in experts from all over the country to review the song. Rock critics, artists, producers, and DJs. No one could identify the song, though.

Until they caught a lucky break.

I highly recommend listening as both the path to get to a resolution and the
resolution itself are highly compelling. Also, who hasn’t got a song stuck in their head that they can’t place? This show is confirmation that we aren’t all totally crazy.

A+

Fleabag
This is a damn-near perfect show. It is funny as hell, making me laugh to the point of tears several times. There are also scenes that moved me to tears from their poignancy or pain. It has several scenes (and episodes) that are deeply dark and difficult to watch.

The show has depth, addressing all kinds of issues you wouldn’t expect a comedy to cover: gender roles, expectations, and double-standards; dealing with the loss of a parent and your surviving parent finding a new partner; sibling issues; the difficulty in running a small business; religion; substance abuse. But, famously, sex is the big issue that Fleabag is centered on. There is a lot of very frank discussion and representation of sex. Definitely a show you watch after the kids go to bed or with headphones on.

Phoebe Waller-Bridge – it is very hard for me not to call her Phoebe Bridgers – is a genius. I’ve put Killing Eve on my watch list and hope her contributions to the next Bond film salvage it from a difficult production process.

The show is brilliantly written, superbly cast and acted, and wonderfully shot. Like I said, a damn-near perfect show.

A

No Laying Up: Strapped
The humorous, budget travel and golf series the NLU guys put out. Season six was in Southern California, and gorgeously shot. Seriously, it’s crazy what you can do with digital cameras and drones these days. As always, it was a great watch and inspired me to go back and watch the previous five seasons. The beauty of a three-episode season: you can knock it out in an hour.

A

Let’s Go Crazy The Grammy Salute to Prince
Broken down here.

A

Shorts

Voskhod
A 30-minute film about an American hermit who communicates with a Soviet cosmonaut via amateur radio in the early 1960s. There’s a sci-fi element to their communication that is kind of cool. A strange story that I’m not sure worked.

B-

Marcy Learns Something New
Rachael Dratch as a single mom looking for ways to connect with others. The avenue she takes is completely unexpected. And her performance, which is pretty straight, is absolutely fantastic. Warning: This is highly not safe for work.

A-

Bush Pilot: Reflections on a Canadian Myth
You know things are getting weird when you watch a documentary made in 1980 about Canadian bush pilots. I found this fascinating, though. And I loved the photographic elements of it. I’m not taking pictures much these days but have been feeling the urge build.

A

A Mile an Hour – Running a different kind of marathon
Looking for things to do? This guy has the perfect way to spend a day!

B+

Kid(ish) Stuff

Troop Zero
Entertaining and fairly light family friendly flick on Amazon. Most of the characters were quirky, in a fun way, which made for a lot of laughs. One element of the ending seemed awfully forced but it was also brushed over pretty quickly so it wasn’t bothersome.

B

Soul Surfer
M and C watched this a few years back, but I don’t think I watched it with them. L just read the book and didn’t remember watching, so she wanted to take a stab at it and I watched with her. It’s the story of surfer Brittany Hamilton, who lost her arm in a shark attack when she was 14 and recovered to still have a pro surfing career. It’s pretty saccharine and light, but is also a pretty solid family watch. L told me that actress AnnaSophia Robb had never surfed before she got the lead role. I’m sure she had some help, but she was awfully impressive.

B

Despicable Me
Can’t watch this too many times. L and I still laugh a lot each time we watch it.

A

Nacho Libre
There were only two compelling things about this movie. 1) Jack Black. Even in a fatally flawed movie he is good for some laughs. 2) Ana de la Reguera. Despite being dressed as a nun she gets an A+. My browser history likely has some time spent looking at pictures of Ms. De la Reguera. Otherwise this movie was pretty awful.

D

Ferris Bueller’s Day Off
We forced all the girls to watch this, hoping they would enjoy it. None of them seemed to get it at all. Which was a big bummer. “Let my Cameron go!”

A for the parents, no idea how the girls would grade it.

Onward
Your standard quest movie. And it had elements of just about every big quest movie ever wrapped within it. The core story – about searching for connection with a lost relative and, in the process, realizing you had everything you thought you were missing in an unexpected source – was nice. But this did not feel up to Pixar’s normal standards. L disagreed, though. When it was over she immediately said, “Ten out of ten, would recommend!” I asked her if she was sure and she said, “Wait, twelve out of ten!” She’s watched it at least one more time since then.

C+ for me

*Dr. Dolittle *
L and I watched it on my suggestion. We saw it in the Disney+ listings and I said, “Oh, that movie is hilarious! You’ll love it!” L did like it, but about five minutes in I realized I was thinking of The Nutty Professor, a movie which she can most definitely not watch yet. I thought this was kind of crappy.

D

Jane Goodall The Hope
We had to go to school a week ago to pick up a workbook from L’s teacher, and she suggested this to us. It was interesting and pretty good, although it often bordered on the hagiographic. Goodall was kind of a looker when she was young. Who knew?!?

B