cometothepedlar.home.blog Open in urlscan Pro
192.0.78.31  Public Scan

Form analysis
3 forms found in the DOM

POST https://subscribe.wordpress.com

<form method="post" action="https://subscribe.wordpress.com" accept-charset="utf-8" style="display: none;">
  <div class="actnbr-follow-count">Join 297 other followers</div>
  <div>
    <input type="email" name="email" placeholder="Enter your email address" class="actnbr-email-field" aria-label="Enter your email address">
  </div>
  <input type="hidden" name="action" value="subscribe">
  <input type="hidden" name="blog_id" value="156238587">
  <input type="hidden" name="source" value="https://cometothepedlar.home.blog/tag/netflix/page/3/">
  <input type="hidden" name="sub-type" value="actionbar-follow">
  <input type="hidden" id="_wpnonce" name="_wpnonce" value="b2f4db0b70">
  <div class="actnbr-button-wrap">
    <button type="submit" value="Sign me up"> Sign me up </button>
  </div>
</form>

<form id="jp-carousel-comment-form">
  <label for="jp-carousel-comment-form-comment-field" class="screen-reader-text">Write a Comment...</label>
  <textarea name="comment" class="jp-carousel-comment-form-field jp-carousel-comment-form-textarea" id="jp-carousel-comment-form-comment-field" placeholder="Write a Comment..."></textarea>
  <div id="jp-carousel-comment-form-submit-and-info-wrapper">
    <div id="jp-carousel-comment-form-commenting-as">
      <fieldset>
        <label for="jp-carousel-comment-form-email-field">Email (Required)</label>
        <input type="text" name="email" class="jp-carousel-comment-form-field jp-carousel-comment-form-text-field" id="jp-carousel-comment-form-email-field">
      </fieldset>
      <fieldset>
        <label for="jp-carousel-comment-form-author-field">Name (Required)</label>
        <input type="text" name="author" class="jp-carousel-comment-form-field jp-carousel-comment-form-text-field" id="jp-carousel-comment-form-author-field">
      </fieldset>
      <fieldset>
        <label for="jp-carousel-comment-form-url-field">Website</label>
        <input type="text" name="url" class="jp-carousel-comment-form-field jp-carousel-comment-form-text-field" id="jp-carousel-comment-form-url-field">
      </fieldset>
    </div>
    <input type="submit" name="submit" class="jp-carousel-comment-form-button" id="jp-carousel-comment-form-button-submit" value="Post Comment">
  </div>
</form>

POST

<form method="post">
  <input type="submit" value="Close and accept" class="accept"> Privacy &amp; Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use. <br> To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: <a href="https://automattic.com/cookies/" rel="nofollow">
			Cookie Policy		</a>
</form>

Text Content

Design a site like this with WordPress.com
Get started
Skip to content

Come To The Pedlar

A Daily Review of Books, Film, Music, Stage, Television, and More…

Menu
 * Home
 * Contact the Pedlar


TAG: NETFLIX


TELEVISION: THE CROWN, ‘WINDSOR’ (DIR. PHILIP MARTIN)

Part of The Crown’s strength as a retelling of history is its ability – so far,
at least – to light on thematic hooks that tie together several different
narrative strands in order to clarify what’s at stake. While this doesn’t manage
to tie everything together (the soapy romance of Princess Margaret and Peter
Townsend trundles on unremarkably in Episode 3 as if they’re desperately trying
to make a spin-off happen), the name of ‘Windsor’ offers an important linking
point for the issues of legacy and family that are at the heart of Elizabeth’s
first days as Queen.

Yeah, you BOW, old man.

Windsor, as a name, indicates much more than family. It’s an institution, and an
institution that the British government are keen to keep in place. But this
episode brings together two threats to that institution. One is the man who
forsook the family name when he abdicated the throne, as ex-monarch David, Duke
of Windsor, sails back to England for his brother’s funeral. The other threat is
Elizabeth’s husband, Philip, who expects his wife to take his surname, thus
installing the Mountbattens as the new Royal Family. Off in the country
somewhere, the nefarious Mountbattens (who are SHOOTING and DRINKING CHAMPAGNE
the day after Bertie’s funeral, the cads) are already toasting their ascendance.

For so many reasons, of course, none of this matters. The whole monarchy is a
sham, a charade, an anachronism, and the idea that any of these people or their
decisions matter is laughable. One of the tensions in The Crown is that so much
of the ceremony and etiquette is rooted in tradition for tradition’s sake – as
Winston Churchill points out, it simply isn’t done for the Queen to ask him to
sit, not since her ancestor decided it was better to keep Prime Ministers
standing like Privy Councillors – and thus risks making everyone seem petty, and
yet the series is also heavily invested in the aesthetics and decorum of the
whole thing. It’s happy to pull out the tensions created by the etiquette and
formality, though doesn’t want to go too far in troubling it.

But ‘Windsor’ does good work in making it matter, by treating this as a set of
real family issues. David abdicating created a constitutional crisis, sure, but
it also dumped an enormous amount of work and responsibility on his younger
brother, which Elizabeth the Queen Mum is embittered about, convinced that it
ultimately killed her beloved husband. For all that the world’s media are
fascinated by the implications of the abdication and the fallout, ‘Windsor’
treats the reunion of the family as a largely domestic affair. Alex Jennings is
a fascinatingly ambivalent creation. In some ways he’s sympathetic – he seems
genuinely in love with Wallis Simpson, keen to try and mend relationships with
his family, and devastated by his brother’s loss. On the other hand, in a
particularly villainous letter to Wallis, he also confesses that he’s keen to
wring every last penny he can out of the family, and sneers at them behind their
backs. He’s a deeply unhappy man, torn between the things he wants and the
things he feels he’s entitled to, and like any toxic uncle, he unsettles the
equilibrium and risks jeopardising everything.



But the more immediate concern is Philip, and again it’s fascinating to see how
far The Crown is willing to go in exploring the tensions of the marriage. Philip
comes across appallingly in this episode, so unapologetically patriarchal that
it’s hard to see – even in the context of the time – what Elizabeth sees in him.
When Elizabeth finally stands up to him at the episode’s end and tells him that
she and the children will not be taking his name, his outrage and self-pity are
almost comical. This man is married to the literal Queen of England, and yet
he’s complaining that he’s had his career, his home, even his name taken away
from him. While this episode doesn’t go too far into it, the set-up here
suggests the potential for a fascinating exploration of the workings of misogyny
played out through the character of a man who simply can’t bear playing
second-fiddle to his wife.

What remains unclear at this point in the series is how much agency Elizabeth is
ever going to be able to wield herself, but in some ways that’s also essential
to the family and gender narratives being developed here. Elizabeth is, in many
ways, downtrodden by her family – the quiet peacemaker who has insults reported
to her by her mother and whose grandmother is pulling strings behind the wings.
She’s also patronised by Churchill, condescended to by her husband, and
micro-managed by her steward, and Claire Foy often just looks like she’s in
shock during this episode, especially as her father is laid to rest. But in
meeting with her renegade uncle, she starts to find her own voice: joking with
him, giving back as good as she gets, and genuinely surprising him. And it’s
this that leads her to finally take Philip in hand, and then to publicly
announce her own pleasure. There are flashes, here, of the woman who wants to be
the best she can be at this job, even if she’s only just beginning to learn what
that means.


Peter Kirwan television 1 Comment March 3, 2021 4 Minutes


TELEVISION: THE CROWN, ‘HYDE PARK CORNER’ (DIR. STEPHEN DALDRY)

The Crown, with its second episode, is settling into an interesting groove of
finding deep-rooted human stories while also offering a critical eye on one of
the world’s most exclusive institutions. It’s a series that’s unmistakably now,
for better and worse, in its fundamentally conservative and rose-tinted view of
a beloved monarch, and in its willingness to subject the past to scrutiny.
Despite being set in the early 1950s, the twenty-first century announces itself
most obviously in the scenes of paparazzi turning up to get the first snaps of
the new Queen just after she has heard the news of her father’s death, and the
journalists self-policing as they lower their cameras and respectfully take off
their hats, forsaking their chance for a quick candid. Look at how things once
were, says the show, indulging in fantasies of a more respectful past and also
offering pointed critique of the present.

I just can’t wait to be Consort.

Elizabeth and Philip are doing a tour of the Commonwealth, and it’s
cringe-inducing. The episode tries to have its colonialism both ways. On the one
hand, Philip in particular is a real bore, causing obvious offence when he
accuses one of the local leaders he meets of having stolen his war medals, and
compliments a king on his ‘nice hat’, and it’s good to know the series isn’t
planning to completely ignore Philip’s racism. Elizabeth, too, fumbles through
her descriptions of ‘savages’, and the episode’s framing of white, suited people
sitting on a podium while the local black population stand around absolutely
offers an indictment of colonial power dynamics. But in other senses, the
episode seems completely clueless, falling into tropes of paternalism which
imply that the indigenous peoples are absolutely happy with white leadership,
and which include scenes of black people lining up for the Queen, kissing her
feet, chanting for her, mourning her. While this might be understandable in the
context of a monarchy where everything is so stage-managed – how often is the
Queen truly greeted by people who are not carefully selected in order to show
obeisance? – the episode seems to be suggesting that the black population’s
dignified respect for Elizabeth is ‘correct’, especially in contrast to the less
civilised journalists and politicians who are already jockeying for position,
and as such inevitably falls into racist tropes.

The Kenya scenes, however, are effective inasfar as they set up the dramatic
contrast between an idea of freedom and an idea of service. Philip and Elizabeth
seem genuinely happy on their safari, and also separate from ritual and
responsibility, whether in the (awfully schlocky) scene of Philip distracting an
angry elephant (which is played up for ridiculous melodrama), or in their
lounging in a tree house. They’re so far away from the centre of things, in a
way they’ll never get to be again, and for all the colonial holidaying, the show
effectively makes clear how remote they are at the time of King George’s death,
and uses the long journey home to effect a long transformation as Elizabeth
slowly takes on her new mantle and grapples with what this means.



It’s all in the subtleties, and the show is much better when indulging in its
English restraint than in its occasional outbursts of melodrama. Vanessa Kirby
does some good grieving as Princess Margaret, but the show is leaning too
heavily into her romantic narrative, and the scenes of she and Peter Townsend
meeting in the boat-house to snog and cry, and of Peter defying his superiors to
take up a post in the new Queen Mother’s household, feel very soapy. But what’s
much more powerful is the solemn moment when a servant discovers George VI in
bed, dead. The silent moment as the servant checks his pulse, puts the King’s
hand on his chest, then kneels, bows his head and kisses the hand, is an
extraordinary one, a moment of snatched solitary grief from one of the people
who must have known him most intimately before the event becomes public.

There’s a background narrative trundling along about politics. John Lithgow is
having fun as the elderly and not entirely together Winston Churchill, splashing
his new secretary with displaced bathwater (okay, that was quite funny) and
excusing himself from cabinet meetings while fiddling with his flies. The
Machiavellian attempts of Anthony Eden and supporters to take over Churchill’s
chair are somewhat hammy, as if the show is attempting to do its own version of
Game of Thrones. The pay-off, of course, is getting to see Jared Harris’s King
George putting Eden in his place, absolutely refusing to licence a coup and
telling Eden to wait his turn. And Churchill’s dignified address to the nation
is a reminder of how this awful old man managed to appeal to a nation at times
of crisis, he stepping up to the plate to put collective feelings into words.

And this is what the episode is truly about. By putting George’s death in the
middle of the episode, we get to build up what’s at stake before then dealing
with the fallout, and as the episode goes on, it’s hard not to feel the weight
as we remember that this is the most recent time a monarch has died. The
institutional machinery that takes over, the terror of breaching etiquette, the
frantic worries of the BBC about whether they are going to be gazumped but not
wanting to break protocol, and the fumblings of Elizabeth’s family as they try
to remember how they’re meant to react to her, all effectively capture the
enormity of what it means, not just for a person to die, but for an entire
institution to suddenly reset itself. Philip arguing about whether he’s allowed
to accompany Elizabeth down the steps of a plane sets up one early conflict, but
perhaps the episode’s most striking image is the ghost-like Queen Mary (another
bit of high melodrama, but a fun one), dressed in full black veil, doing a
doddery full courtsey in front of her granddaughter and new monarch. It’s a
passing of tradition that Elizabeth is clearly only partly ready for.

Peter Kirwan television 1 Comment March 2, 2021March 3, 2021 4 Minutes


TELEVISION: THE CROWN, ‘WOLFERTON SPLASH’ (DIR. STEPHEN DALDRY)

There are moments during the first episode of The Crown where you get glimpses
of a very different show that it could have been. Such as the scene of Philip
and Elizabeth off on their holibobs in some Mediterranean paradise where it
feels like someone’s about to break into ABBA songs. Or the moment where Philip
is, for some unfathomable reason, allowed to approach his father-in-law while
he’s still under anaesthetic post-surgery, and seems for a moment like he’s
about to turn to the camera like Frank Underwood before offing Dear Daddy. The
Crown, of course, is a much more conventional beast than this. But nonetheless,
‘Wolferton Splash’ manages to cut past the monarchist porn and offer something
surprisingly moving as a meditation on death.

The Windsors were always good at speaking out the sides of their mouths..

The Crown announces itself straightaway as a show that is all about the
production values. Aside from a couple of conspicuously steep high-angle shots
designed to make sure you’re not looking too far outside of the immediate bit of
set, there’s a sense of scale and grandeur to the recreations of Buckingham
Palace, Westminster Abbey, Sandringham, and the streets of an immediately
post-war London. The cast is enormous (and basically contains everyone who’s
ever performed at the RSC), the costumes are lavish, the locations beautiful. If
you’re here for posh people doing posh things in posh locations poshly, you’re
in the right place.

Against this beautiful backdrop, Claire Foy and Matt Smith make for a beautiful
if cool couple. It’s impossible, really, to get over the sheer poshness of
everything, and while the accents are dead-on, it’s hard to invest too much in
the people for whom the word privilege was coined. That Foy and Smith manage to
make Princess Elizabeth and her new husband Philip occasionally winsome is a
triumph, really, with Foy in particular doing marvellous work with a range of
very subtly different repressed faces. It’s all in the pauses, as she hesitates
during her wedding vows and looks on at her poorly father. She’s waiting in the
wings at this point, and by the time we meet her she has already taken on much
of the dignity of her office. Yet she’s also young, and there are moments where
Philip and Elizabeth are simply enjoying themselves, setting up what will
shortly become the sacrifice in order to live a life of (pretty sweet) service.

At this stage, though, and to its credit, the show isn’t asking us to root for
or even especially like these people; it’s table-setting in order to understand
what is at stake. The royals are never, ever alone. Every scene is crammed full
of retainers and friends and servants and work, and the moments where – for
instance – King George manages to get a quiet moment to let Elizabeth in on the
secrets of how he manages the correspondence from Downing Street are few and far
between. Even cantankerous returning Prime Minister Winston Churchill gets to
shut the door on his troops and have a quiet conversation with his wife over
lunch in the Cabinet Office, but the royals live a life that is scrutinised in
all its minutiae, to the point where they barely have to tie their own laces.
And as such, their emotions and desire are buried deep, deep down.



And this is where the episode succeeds stunningly, in the person of Jared
Harris’s George VI. Harris is the kind of actor who always elevates whatever
he’s in, but he’s a revelation as Bertie (even if the show is able to ride the
coattails of The King’s Speech). George is dying throughout the episode, but the
shock is that he doesn’t know. In a particularly devastating scene, his doctor
tells him that he wanted him to know, that he felt the patient should have all
the facts at his disposal, but that he was over-ruled in the interests of what
would enable the king to do his job most effectively. The moment of pure
powerlessness as George quietly asks who else knows is a sad insight into just
how much of a subject the man who has no subjects is. It mirrors a moment
earlier where he suddenly lashes out at a man-servant who is making a meal of
tying his tie, before his companion Peter soothes him as if he’s a child, taking
over tying the tie himself. The king is alone, and kept in the dark even about
what’s going on in his own body, and it scares him.

And so, while the episode does some place-setting to bring characters such as
the Churchills, Margaret, and most importantly Elizabeth and Philip into the
frame, this is really George’s story, and Harris manages to make even
potentially mawkish material sing – literally, in the case of the visit of carol
singers to the palace, where George quietly gets up and joins the singers, tears
streaming down his face as he thanks them for letting him join them, but really
processing the confirmation of his diagnosis that he continues to keep a secret
from his family. And later, as he goes out shooting ducks, he grabs the gun like
a man possessed, shaking as he almost seeks to ward off death through shooting
at it. We’re into the final months, if not weeks, of his life, and the show is
leaning into what it knows is its strength – the fact that audiences know
exactly what’s going to happen – in order to smuggle in a moving stealth
narrative about what it means to face death when you’re in a position that
completely forbids you from admitting how you feel about it.

Peter Kirwan television 1 Comment March 1, 2021 4 Minutes


TELEVISION: BETTER CALL SAUL, ‘WEXLER V. GOODMAN’ (DIR. MICHAEL MORRIS)

With a season and a half left to run, it’s clear that Better Call Saul is going
to be a nail-biting finish for one Kim Wexler. For everything she’s been through
with Jimmy, Kim – in Rhea Seehorn’s outstanding performance – is still keeping
everyone guessing about which side she’s going to come down on. But it’s
becoming increasingly difficult to keep her options open. ‘Wexler v. Goodman’
concludes by showing us just how desperate her position is, as she can now only
see two ways out of her current situation: breaking up or marriage. The marriage
may be as much about legal protection as love (certainly it’s the least romantic
proposal ever), but the emergence of this sudden flip in a heated argument makes
clear that Kim is at a crossroads.

Throughout this episode, faces are obscured at moments of choice.

This episode gives us our first flashback to Kim’s childhood, perhaps announcing
that the series is going to finally, belatedly, contextualise Kim. The brief
vignette of her as a child, choosing to walk home for three miles in the snow
with a cello rather than get into the car driven by her drunk mum, is telling
for many reasons: Kim’s stubbornness, her refusal to go along with the easy
solution that she knows is wrong, her dogged determination to see her threat
through. The camera lingers with Lil Kim (sorry) for a long time before she
finally disappears off the edge of the frame. Kim, as a child and as an adult,
is defined by her strong choices – which makes her final flip all the more
shocking.

So what’s going on now? Well, partly it’s that she’s genuinely unsure what the
right thing to do is anymore. On the one hand, she really does believe in Jimmy.
He is fighting to help an old man keep his home, and as part of his own
over-investment, has also tracked down the elderly Native American artist whose
photographed inspired the Mesa Verde logo, and is fighting to get her
reparations. Jimmy is tacky, trashy, brash and belligerent, but he’s also
fighting for people in a way that Kim admires and wishes she could do, and this
is why she has thrown her lot in with him and asked for his help to get Mesa
Verde to back out.

But Kim knows that Jimmy loves the hustle more than he loves anything else –
possibly including her. Jimmy’s ruse involves putting together a bunch of
stitched-up adverts, splashing ‘customers’ complaining about fraud and black
mould and all other sorts of banking crimes across video footage of Kevin
Wachtell’s father. It hits Kevin where it hurts, and Kevin overrules his lawyers
to shake on a gentleman’s agreement to just get rid of Jimmy. It’s a crass
battle, and Kim hates everything about it. But more importantly, Jimmy lied to
her. For all he tries to spin it as part of the plan, to make Kim genuinely
angry at him in order to throw her partners off the scent, he’s overplayed his
hand and shown that he will absolutely disregard her explicit wishes when he’s
in the throes of his own genius. It’s a devastating betrayal, and it’s hard to
understand how Kim could continue to want him around.



Jimmy has pushed Kim to the brink, and it’s hard to know what she’s going to do
next. This is where Jimmy’s approach differs from that of Mike. In the subplot,
Mike works calmly and methodically, taking on a number of personas (private
detective, police detective, patrol cop) as he lays false hints and paper trails
to persuade the cops – who are still pursuing the money-shop murder – to pick up
Lalo. Mike’s patience and subtle work pays off. When a patrol car pulls Lalo
over, the unpredictable Lalo goes straight to his gun; but then three more cars
turn up. Mike has worked not only to achieve his goal, but to achieve it so
comprehensively that there is no room for failure.

This is Jimmy’s tragedy and will be his downfall. He’s so in love with the
performance that he forgets he isn’t the star of anyone’s show but his own. He
simply cannot conceive that Kim wouldn’t be happy for his victory, and he is
genuine in perceiving it as theirs. He has become completely unable to see what
it means to tear away choice from Kim, to abandon her as convincingly as her mum
did on that snowy night when she went off drinking instead of picking her up,
and then drove off again when Kim refused to get in the car. Jimmy may not have
crashed his own car yet, but he has failed to take Kim with him – and Kim needs
to make the same choice again to not get in. This is her turning point, and
whether she’ll make the right choice now will presumably determine how this
whole show ends.

Peter Kirwan television 1 Comment February 7, 2021 3 Minutes


FILM: MANK (DIR. DAVID FINCHER)

Nothing screams Oscar-bait more than a black-and-white film about Hollywood’s
golden age, focused on one of the greatest films of all time, with a towering,
transformative central performance from an actor at the peak of his game and a
prestige supporting cast and crew. It’s not without its problems – it may be the
whitest film that’s likely to be on the Academy’s radar this year, for instance,
with not a single person of colour that I can recall on screen – but it’s a
beautifully crafted love letter to Hollywood’s past that will be hard for voters
to resist.

Walk and talk as Louis B. Mayer does The West Wing

Gary Oldman’s Herman Mankiewicz is onscreen in almost every scene, and it’s a
committed, unflattering portrayal. As the film jumps back and forth in time,
Mank slips between different degrees of inebriation and belligerence. At one
point he’s referred to as a ‘court jester’ – a perhaps unintentionally revealing
comment about the regal status that Charles Dance’s W. R. Hearst has among his
admirers – and that’s exactly how Oldman plays him. Mank is a genius who is
given an extraordinary amount of licence to call out both Hollywood studio
chiefs and newspaper magnates on their bullshit, and skewers everything with a
Shakespeare-quoting eloquence that performs his intelligence while never
sacrificing a warmth and empathy unusual in this money-driven world.

In the ‘current’ timeline, Mank is recovering from a car accident and writing
the screenplay to Citizen Kane from a carefully apportioned house where he is
given round-the-clock support and deprived of alcohol. This plotline plays often
as comedy, as he arranges for alcohol to be smuggled in through various
ingenious mechanisms and conspiracies, much to the exasperation of his typist,
Rita. But as the nature of his screenplay, based heavily on Hearst, becomes
clear, Mank comes under increasing pressure to change what he has done, and is
threatened with never working in Hollywood again. Orson Welles, John Houseman,
Hearst’s lover Marion Davies, Mank’s brother Joe, all turn up to put pressure on
him, and at stake is the future of Citizen Kane itself.

Mank makes no concessions to those who don’t know Welles’s film, and relies on
an assumption that the audience is invested in the importance of this screenplay
being made, and of its quality. There’s never really an attempt to demonstrate
its quality, other than some lazy references to its Shakespearean scope (yawn).
But the film is about Mank, not Kane. Fincher has thrillingly recreated the
style of the era, from rear-screen projection for driving scenes to
thirties-style sound design and, of course, a crisp black-and-white
cinematography, all accompanied by a Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross score created
on period instruments. It’s a dazzling homage that makes the whole thing look
like noir; The Lost Weekend feels like a surprising touchstone, especially in
Mank’s more drunken episodes.



In flashbacks, we get the drama of old Hollywood. We see Mank’s feuds with MGM
boss Louis B. Mayer, who is in Hearst’s pocket and is creating propaganda shorts
as fake news to try and prevent the election of socialist Upton Sinclair. Mank
finds himself caught up in a personal sense, with the guilt of his friend Shelly
Metcalf for filming the shorts leading to Metcalf’s suicide just after Mank
thought he had successfully talked him down. Alongside the studio shenanigans
and the thrill of old Hollywood excess, Mank’s plain-talking privilege leads to
a searing scene as he single-handedly rails against the entire of Hearst’s
circle – all dressed up in circus gear for a fancy-dress party – as he spins an
oral version of their cynical machinations that we can recognise will one day be
the screenplay that Mank is writing in the future.

This is a film that privileges style above all else, and at times it can feel
hard to find an emotional angle. The mannered conversations ape the screenplays
of the era, and thus can sometimes feel more intellectually pleasurable than
engaging at the level of character. It’s to Oldman’s credit that he finds Mank’s
heart in the moments where he falls quiet and allows a moment of real
significance to register. And some of the most effective moments happen around
him, especially when we find out that the housekeeper who is helping smuggle
Mank’s spirits into the dry house is doing so because Mank paid for her village
of a hundred souls to escape the Nazis and start a new life in America. Mank is
a rare soul – a flawed one, sure, but a fundamentally principled one in an
unprincipled town. Whether or not he deserves the sole credit for Kane, and
regardless of the ethics and permissions of its reworking of Hearst’s story,
Fincher’s Mank puts the writer squarely and uncompromisingly in the frame.

Peter Kirwan film 1 Comment January 24, 2021 3 Minutes


TELEVISION: THE QUEEN’S GAMBIT, ‘OPENINGS’ (DIR. SCOTT FRANK)

The rock n’ roll world of professional chess kicks off enticingly in The Queen’s
Gambit. Anna Taylor-Joy’s Beth emerges from being submerged in a bathtub to get
rid of a hotel porter; scrapes through the detritus of a drug and
alcohol-fuelled bender, ignores the person asleep in her bed, grabs some shoes,
and pelts through the hotel, to arrive at a chess board and the world’s press,
and dives straight into a game. The mini-series’ connections between fame and
lifestyle are cliched, but the juxtaposition between the bohemian world of the
hotel room and the formality of the chess room – filled entirely with
dour-looking men – feels fresh.

Wax on, wax off.

Although Taylor-Joy starts the show off, this first episode boldly takes place
almost entirely in her past thereafter, tracing how she was orphaned – following
her mother committing suicide by crashing the car they were both travelling in –
and sent to an orphanage that keeps its charges tranquilised, and where there’s
precious little freedom to do anything beyond sing the mandated hymns. It’s not
an evil place, but it’s an institution that gives precious little hope for
anything. Until, that it, Beth stumbles into the basement and sees the porter
pushing around some figures on a black-and-white checked board.

Isla Johnston is fantastic as the young Beth, taking on the weight of the
episode despite very little television experience at all. Beth is a fascinating
creation, and while she’s not original, the series wears its tropes lightly. She
is traumatised by what has happened, and disappears into herself, quiet and
reticent about speaking up. She quickly becomes addicted to the tranquiliser
pills, and shows anger when they are taken away from her. She listens carefully
to those around her and repeats not just their words but the tone of those words
– the bile as she spits out her first ‘Cocksucker!’ is quite extraordinary. She
watches older kids making out across the road with a forensic curiosity,
something appearing to awake inside her. And she has a vicious streak, which
takes easy pleasure in winning and which results in some surprisingly violent
outbursts.

The combination of restraint, boredom, fear and trauma all work against her, and
so the episode’s greatest triumph is in managing to paint chess as her escape.
As played by Bill Camp’s forbidding Mr Schaibel under a bulk in a dingy
basement, there’s nothing glamorous about it, and Mr Schaibel is gruff and
unwelcoming, albeit slowly begins to dole out praise for the prodigy. But what
Beth sees are the patterns. The episode does brilliant work in easing us into
this, and the chess all seems accurate yet clear. They begin with her repeating
some of the things she has seen Mr Schaibel do while watching her; then
progressing to intuitive developments, and only then refinement of the rules and
established tactics. She learns through doing, but emotional response and gut
feeling. And at night, she takes her tranquiliser and then watches chess pieces
emerge from the ceiling in gradually more complex arrangements as the patterns
begin taking shape and making sense in her mind. It’s surprisingly thriling!



And as the episode goes on, it becomes clear just how special she is. She takes
on the president of Mr Schaibel’s chess club and beats him easily. Then she
plays the two of them together. Then she gets up and looks away, and plays her
whole side without even looking at the board. By the time she is taken to the
high school and defeats the entire chess club of twelve simultaneously, working
her way around the tables methodically, one can see the path that will lead her
to international fame. And yet, as we watch these crushed men yielding their
kings, there’s also the inkling of something more forbidding as she recounts
their defeats almost with disdain, chocolate smearing her mouth, to Mr Schaibel.
She delights in the victory, and seems to have no empathy for those she has
beaten.

Even though the orphanage lets her out to play at the school, we’re a long way
from safe yet, though. Beth’s addiction is already taking hold, and it’s
sinister to see her demanding more pills from her only friend, who has managed
to hoard some. The episode ends with her breaking into a secure room, stuffing
herself with them and then trying to get away with the whole jar, before
collapsing in front of the orphanage’s appalled staff. But perhaps more worrying
is the threat of her being taken away from Mr Schaibel and the safe space of
tuition and investment that she has found. It’s clear that being paraded is not
necessarily good for her ego, and if he can’t be part of her training, will
anyone keep her in check? It’s a fascinating premise for a promising looking
series.

Peter Kirwan television 1 Comment December 8, 2020 3 Minutes


TELEVISION: STAR TREK: DISCOVERY, ‘SCAVENGERS’ (DIR. DOUG AARNIOKOSKI)

There was a time when Michael Burnham was characterised predominantly by her
Vulcan heritage. Her ability to appraise a situation logically and to make the
difficult call, regardless of orders or diplomacy, if she felt it was the
correct one, was a brilliant melding of intellectual pragmatism and human
impulsivity that made her a fascinating wild card character. And while she was
capable of forming close bonds, her emotional reticence meant that she kept
herself at something of a distance, her decision to go rogue (and their
consequences) forming divisions as well as building bridges.

In fairness, the episode was unlikely to ever recover from this shot.

But now we’re in Season Three, and the series has taken a turn towards
privileging emotion in all characters, especially Michael. The year she spent
roving the future by herself (at least, with Book) has largely been unseen, but
it has turned her into a self-possessed, sometimes beatific, individual with an
absolute conviction in her own rightness. This is the episode where Discovery
thankfully tries to challenge that, suggesting that it might not always be good
for Michael to go off following her heart and doing her own thing without
thought for the consequence of others; the problem is, of course, that she was
still right.

The episode’s best decision is to have Tilly weigh in, and not on Michael’s
side. Saru, frustratingly, still feels the need to consult one of the most
junior people on the ship about every command decision, but it’s a welcome
relief to see Tilly offer an opinion based on her sense of the needs of everyone
– that Michael’s decision to go rogue to rescue Book threatens the good standing
that they so desperately need in this future. What is frustrating, though, is
that Michael herself is completely oblivious to the possibility of consequences.
After her mission, she is demoted from her role as first officer, and stands
there with tears streaming down her cheeks, as if losing her commission is a
blow she can’t recover from.

Regardless of what would happen in classic Trek series (frankly I miss Picard,
Sisko and Janeway’s adherence to regs, which always gave a framework for the
ramifications of interpersonal decisions, and thus made it a big deal when the
captains broke the rules), it feels out of character for Michael herself. Sure,
her decision to go and rescue Book (and to drag Philippa along because, hell,
why not?) is entirely predictable; but it feels like Michael of even a year ago
would have stood stoically, fully prepared for and expecting the consequences,
and maybe even a little defiant. Sonequa Martin-Green never gives it anything
less than her absolute all, but the problem with this is that it weakens Michael
considerably, suggesting that she is exhausting every last reserve she has to
deal with every slight setback. I’d have far rather seen her nod, accept Saru’s
decision as if she’d always known this would happen, and then allow her a quiet
tear alone in her quarters – committed to her decision, but acknowledging what
it has cost her. Quite frankly, it looks exhausting to be this character, and to
have to respond to everything as if it’s (a) completely unexpected and (b)
catastrophic.



The other issue this causes the show is that, as there’s no clear chain of
command and most of the bridge crew have had zero character development (I feel
like I’m starting to learn some of their names, now), there’s no-one obvious to
step up as first officer. But also, perhaps more regrettably, one suspects that
it doesn’t actually matter, because even if Michael was bumped down to ship’s
cook, the story would still be about her. This episode is devoted to trying to
build up the bond between her and Book, who has been captured in a scavenger
camp. The early shot of Book’s ship arriving and the cat turning on the
viewscreen is hilarious (and speaks to many of us in the COVID era working from
home), and the effects work on the planet is really impressive, with a good
pitched battle and a low-atmosphere shoot-out that is impressively realised
(though, Michael flying a massive fucking ship picking off pedestrians with
laser cannons is not a good look). But in building up to a massive snog between
the two of them, it’s hard not to feel a little deflated that the series is
working to expand a single character’s story yet again, rather than developing
the ensemble on whom all the series’ promises of group camaraderie and mutual
love and trust are built. If you trust and love the crew, let us get to know
them.

There’s so much promise in this series. The moving little conversation between
Stamets and Adira where he chooses to believe in her imaginary boyfriend is
actually quite nice and feels earned. Philippa having panic attacks gives this
character something to do other than snark. The scene of the crew being
introduced to the gadgets of the future is actually pretty adorable, and
everything with Tilly and the enormous cat is great. And as a stand-alone
episode, the little story in miniature of the scavenger camp does some good work
in quickly sketching relationships between Book and his fellow captives. But
this series really needs a holodeck or shore leave episode, or a ‘Naked Time’,
or anything divorced from all of the destiny stuff that would give the cast time
to properly establish themselves. The showrunners are clearly desperate for us
to get The Federation (whatever that even means at this point) back, but I’d
settle for a single crew.

Peter Kirwan television 1 Comment November 23, 2020November 24, 2020 4 Minutes


FILM: PROJECT POWER (DIR. HENRY JOOST AND ARIEL SCHULMAN)

Like many Netflix original films, Project Power has a concept that outstrips its
execution. It’s a relatively high-budget film with a blunt, purposeful
socio-political message, and a continually inventive concept that combines X-Men
with Crank to often literally explosive effect. If it doesn’t always work, it’s
hard to work out who to blame – ultimately it’s in the actual plot, rather than
in any of the individual elements, that it fails to spark.

The human torch was having an especially bad day.

The concept is brilliant. Someone has synthesised a drug that gives people
superpowers for five minutes. No-one knows what their power will be until they
try it – and some people simply explode straightaway. So the stakes are high,
with potentially limitless power to gain but everything to lose. And the agency
that has synthesised this drug has unleashed it on post-Katrina New Orleans for
free, turning it into a mass-distributed drug that is creating enormous power
disparities, especially as the criminal underworld uses it to gain an unfair
advantage.

It’s an excellent set-up, and an inspired setting. The disillusion of New
Orleans is reminiscent of Treme, a city which feels abandoned by the rest of
America and where there’s a disregard for policy and authority on both sides of
the law. Coupled with this, the film obliquely addresses opioid addiction (and
its disproportionate effect on the African American population) and the drug
culture of America that keeps an underclass abject. The film has a commendably
diverse cast that draws attention to white special interests and corporations,
and their willingness to use a majority Black population as cannon fodder in
their explorations.

The central figures are a cop, Frank, who has started taking the Power drug
himself illegally to even the odds when chasing criminals (it makes him
invulnerable and strong); his supplier, a teenage wannabe rapper, Robin (who is
the film’s MVP); and an ex-soldier, Art, who is trying to track down his
kidnapped daughter. It turns out that his daughter evolved powers naturally and
the company kidnapped her to synthesise the drugs from her. Art himself also has
power, revealed at the end of the film as he detonates himself to save the rest
of them – though Tracy, the daughter, is able to use her powers to bring him
back to life.

Perhaps it’s this, actually, that makes the film feel a little flat. By giving
Frank invulnerability, Art an all-powerful explosive, and Tracy healing, the
film makes its heroes so powerful that they’re able to overcome any odds, and
that these safety net powers are slowly revealed rather takes away the threat as
the film progresses. Earlier on, the film is much more exciting. In pursuing
baddies through New Orleans, Frank comes up against an invisible man committing
a robbery and a human flame hiding out in a slum. Both villains are
fantastically rendered, and beaten with wit and ingenuity (the human flame being
held in a bath is a really nice touch). And the film keeps finding fun
additional powers, from twisty contortionists to people with built-in weapons to
a particularly great moment (albeit one where the limits to the CGI budget
shows) as one bad’un grows into a giant and starts tearing down a club.



The elements all feel cool, but with the plot fairly pedestrian and slow, it
doesn’t reach its full potential, either in the political angle or in sheer awe.
One stand-out sequence shows a dancer who develops a heat-related power trapped
inside a glass display case while a fight rages outside, and the controls
helping her regulate her temperature are shattered – in a single tracking shot,
we see her slowly dying and breaking into ice while glimpses of the fight are
seen outside. And Dominique Fishback as Robin is wonderful and charismatic, her
energy and ambition offsetting the two more established actors. There’s so much
here, and hopefully when the inevitable sequel rolls around (hoping that it
does), they’ll be able to give the set-up a story that does it full justice.

Peter Kirwan film 1 Comment November 19, 2020 3 Minutes


TELEVISION: BOJACK HORSEMAN, ‘NICE WHILE IT LASTED’ (DIR. AARON LONG)

After the traumatic penultimate episode saw Bojack experiencing his own death
through the hallucination of a last supper with all of the people in his life
who have already died, and ending on a flatlining beep, the show’s final-ever
episode has a lot to do. It’s a controversial episode – some online commentators
feel that committing to the uncertainty of Bojack’s fate would have been a
bolder end for a show that has never been scared of ‘going there’. But in the
end, the showrunners settle for something much more perfect – something that
addresses the difficulties of the desire for closure in a world that so rarely
allows it. It feels much more true to the emphasis on mental illness, and to the
fundamental hope that has always refused to be completely quashed.

That’s what it’s all about

After focusing on guest stars in the last episode, the finale features only five
voices, allowing the show’s core cast to say their farewells, and every single
one is perfect. A prologue sequence shows what happened to Bojack – the
resuscitation, the arrest, the trial, the sentencing to prison where Bojack
finds himself directing a drama therapy group doing Miss Julie. But he’s given
the opportunity to get out for a day for Princess Carolyn’s wedding to Judah
(yes!!), and so he gets one last chance (in the series, at least) to say goodbye
to everyone.

It’s the ever-faithful Mr Peanutbutter who picks Bojack up from jail, as always
promising him the utterly no-strings love and affection that Bojack despises.
The dynamic between them has finally settled. Bojack no longer needs to lie to
Mr Peanutbutter, but genuinely finds comfort in their relationship. And while Mr
Peanutbutter is still getting into scrapes (including attempting to replace the
Hollywood sign, but instead renaming the town Hollywoob), he’s also now entirely
successful, having won the Nobel Prize for Television, and working on himself
and his career rather than throwing himself into another relationship. He’s the
only person who will always be there for Bojack – as there as he is for anyone –
and their mutual dependence suggests that maybe, just maybe, this friendship may
last.

At the wedding, it’s Todd who sees that Bojack is alone and demands that he come
with him urgently to deal with something – only to reveal that he just wanted to
help Bojack out of the room. Todd and Bojack’s relationship is irreparably
destroyed, as clear when Todd refused to let Bojack into his housewarming party.
But Todd is fundamentally the kindest man who ever lived, always ready to help
people who need it, and as he unpacks the lyrics of the Hokey-Pokey for Bojack,
the show finds the most perfect encapsulation of Todd’s child’s-eye view of the
world, as he explains that it’s not the Hokey-Pokey that it’s all about – it’s
the turning yourself around. Cue waterworks. Todd and Bojack won’t last, but
Todd will continue to make the lives of everyone he encounters better.

With Princess Carolyn, there is unfinished business. It’s wonderful to see PC in
her element, with Judah already off signing contracts (it turns out this is the
public relations wedding, and they actually got for-real married some time
earlier). This is the scene that could have been most mawkish, as Bojack tries
to explain what Princess Carolyn means to him. But again, the episode sidesteps
mawkishness by turning the whole thing into a metacinematic commentary on how
this should go in terms of the tropes – and in explaining the tropes, Bojack
finds himself able to tell Princess Carolyn just how wonderful she is. The two
dance, and part, acknowledging that they served a part in each other’s lives,
and can now let each other go.



And finally, Diane. This was always going to be the hardest conversation, as
Diane is the one who knows him best. And they have a confrontation to get
through, as Diane still has the voicemail that Bojack left her, accusing her of
it being her fault if he drowns. Their friendship is over, completely dead, and
this conversation is angry, regretful, broken. And yet, the closeness between
them means that there’s still something there, and this is where Bojack Horseman
finds its most uncomfortable truths – that the connections we have with those we
have hurt are often as close as the ones with those we love. Diana is someone
new now, though still herself, and it’s an air-punch moment when she reveals
that she married Guy. Bojack doesn’t deserve her; he never did. But once again,
in this beautifully written conversation, Bojack is able to come to an
understanding of who Diane was to him, and vice versa. The conversation heals
nothing, but it does draw a line under this part of their lives. When Bojack
goes back to prison – and when he gets out – his life will be different. But the
bit of his life that the series captured will shape him forever, and he’ll be
the better for it. It’s the perfect, unsentimental, honest ending to one of the
best television shows ever created.

Peter Kirwan television 1 Comment November 9, 2020 3 Minutes


TELEVISION: STAR TREK: DISCOVERY, ‘PEOPLE OF EARTH’ (DIR. JONATHAN FRAKES)

There’s a fantastic episode in ‘People of Earth’, and it’s a shame that it’s so
buried in the gaps between scenes. Discovery has a longstanding problem with
pacing; the show is packed full of ideas, and yet the repeated insistence on
rushing to emotional climaxes before earning them, on foregrounding the comedy
that would usually be part of a B-plot while skipping through the resolution of
the episode’s crisis, and on using gnomic statements in place of character
development, all squander the potential. It’s a shame, as this series of
Discovery could have been so much more.

Episode MVP: Burnham’s hair

Never have the above weaknesses been more true than in the cold open, during
which Burnham emotionally reunites with every member of the crew – having been
separated from them for only an episode, even though a year has passed for her –
in a sequence that drags out the episode so that the intro sequence appears
around eight minutes in. It is so, so important that this series establish the
bonds between the crew, and it’s done that very well. But this is a series that
has still failed to give most of its bridge cast memorable names, let alone
character beats or backstories. Sonequa Martin-Green sells it as hard as ever,
showing the importance to Michael of her reunion, but a better series wouldn’t
make the actor do all the heavy lifting.

It’s lazy, really. The episode wants the pay-offs without doing the work, the
emotional resolution without the conflict. In a couple of snapshots of Burnham’s
last year, we see her passing time, working as a trader, searching for her
shipmates, going through several hairstyle changes. But what looks like a
fascinating show only lasts for a few seconds. Instead, we get much more of
Burnham and Book offering desperately clunky back-story as they go through the
current crisis swapping stories of ‘hey, this is just like that time when…’ .
We’re repeatedly told that characters means a lot to one another, that they’ve
built relationships; but the show (and this episode in particular) isn’t
interested in actually showing us these relationships. After the camera kept
repeatedly profiling one background crew member, I looked her up and discovered
her name is Lieutenant Nilsson; who knew? A final shot of several of the
supporting cast having some R&R on future earth suggests that we’re meant to
care about these people, but actually giving them personalities, stories, the
occasional line would do a far better job than any number of portentous shots of
people staring out into space.

The actual plot of the episode has promise. Using the spore drive, Discovery
jumps to Earth to chase up a decade-old message from a Starfleet Admiral; on
arriving, though, they find that a heavily militarised Earth has become
isolationist and refuses to allow them through its forcefields. While Discovery
hasn’t so far given a sense of being directly political, this feels particularly
apposite in the Brexit/Build The Wall era, as Earth has declared itself
self-sufficient and cut off contact with the rest of the universe in the wake of
the collapse of the Federation; in this, the Brexit analogy is probably most
potent, offering an image of a world where both the UK and Europe suffer from
being broken up. This new Earth is not persuasively much more advanced than
Discovery’s period (and at this point I’m very suspicious that the show is going
to ever manage a coherent imagination of what a 900-year time jump might mean),
but we at least get some decent drama and conflict as the future Earth starts
inspecting and threatening the new arrivals.



The situation is exacerbated by the arrival of an alien raiding party that
demands Discovery’s dilithium. The action and crisis are frustratingly
portrayed, with Burnham and Book’s bold action in taking the alien leader
neither shown nor explained. The conflict that is stoked among the crew is more
interesting, as Burnham goes off on her own without asking for Saru’s
permission; Georgiou goads Saru to be more aggressive; and Saru himself stays
true to Starfleet ideals by insisting on dialogue. Detmer still seems
traumatised and has to be told repeatedly to follow orders. There’s real
potential here to work with the conflict, and again, less time with everyone
hugging and more following up on these tantalising threads would be great. And
there’s also potential in the revelation that the aliens are actually a human
colony from Titan who’ve been forgotten by Earth, though … hang on, I’m getting
a call … sorry, I take that back, The Expanse wants its plotline back.

The episode’s frustrating inconsistencies are summed up by the arrival of Adira
(Blu de Barrio), a character played by a non-binary actor who is referred to as
‘she’ by characters within the show; a precocious and intimidating
sixteen-year-old who spins on a dime to suddenly become an awkward child at a
moment’s notice. The revelation that Adira is a Trill is an interesting one, but
even in this one episode, and despite de Barrio’s engaging performance, this
Wesley Crusher-lite figure is given conflicting personalities and motivations,
turns out to have a magical connection to the mission, and gets absorbed into
the warm family banter of Stamets. There’s so much potential in this character,
but three episodes into Season 3, and after a great first two episodes, it feels
like Discovery is once again making bad choices and, like advertising a
non-binary character then referring to them as ‘she’, spending too much time
talking about doing the work and not nearly enough actually doing the work.

Peter Kirwan television 1 Comment October 30, 2020 4 Minutes


POSTS NAVIGATION

Older posts
Newer posts
Create a free website or blog at WordPress.com.

Come To The Pedlar
Blog at WordPress.com.
 * Follow Following
    * Come To The Pedlar
      Join 297 other followers
      
      Sign me up
    * Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.

 *  * Come To The Pedlar
    * Customize
    * Follow Following
    * Sign up
    * Log in
    * Report this content
    * View site in Reader
    * Manage subscriptions
    * Collapse this bar

 

Loading Comments...

 

Write a Comment...
Email (Required) Name (Required) Website

Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website,
you agree to their use.
To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy