What Are We Watching in October?

Something to keep in mind while your watching the movie.

Tell us what you're entertaining yourself with.

Soul (2020)

"After landing the gig of a lifetime, a New York jazz pianist suddenly finds himself trapped in a strange land between Earth and the afterlife." From IMDB

This was a sweet animated film.

Cable box is out & Amazon Prime has been off and on, so no old movies for a bit until successful reboot. No sports! Well there's still Netflix. Watching some re-runs of Seinfeld with morning coffee. Binged the Danish police procedural series in 6 episodes, The Chestnut Man. Plotting not too surprising, though I don't think I anticipated the killer. Something of a bogeyman who claims to be punishing bad mothers but one can't help but suspect he's only doing it to commit gruesome murders. Quite atmospheric, though. I suppose throwing in two mothers feeling guilty about sacrificing family for career makes it more up to date, but it turns out family life is pretty horrid; maybe that's the point. Apparently Danish kids like to make little stick figures with chestnuts, & this happens to be the signature of the serial killer. But forensics matches fingerprints on the chestnuts with a kidnapped child of a cabinet member who is dead and dismembered. Although the chestnuts eventually provide a clue to catch the killer, didn't seem really integrated with the story. Cops are a single mother paired up with an Interpol operative who's been booted out of international work for being "unstable." Odd couple stuff that should be pretty familiar, with a familiar story arc.You may not anticipate the twists, but you will have a pretty good idea when they occur within the narrative structure. I was hooked after the first 2 episodes.

Des 2020
"In 1983 Scottish serial killer Dennis Nilsen was arrested after the discovery of human remains which had blocked a drain near his London home."
This starred David Tennant and was a three part mini-series which I got from the library. Based on a true story. David Tennant did a wonderful job portraying the killer.

Killing for Company: The Case of Dennis Nilsen by Brian Masters is the book that is the basis for the movie.

>4 JulieLill: I just recently watched this on DVD also. He was something else.

Midnight Mass. Netflix 7 part series, ca. 1 hr. per episode. Director & co-writer Mike Flanagan appears to be on a long-standing gig w/Netflix. He’s responsible for the Netflix series The Haunting of Hill House & The Haunting of Bly Manor. The former based on the novel by Shirley Jackson, with the latter based very loosely on Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw. He’s also responsible for Gerald’s Game, based on the novel by Stephen King. He considers S. King to be a major influence, & I kind of get it, at least in the most recent series. King’s signature move, at least in his horror novels, is to create a set-up with well-rounded, sympathetic characters & then drops in some comic book or extremely literal horror situations, which for me has a disjointed effect overall. I’ve only seen Bly Manor, which transforms the James novella that only hints indirectly at the supernatural, into a very literal romantic gothic ghost story. Flanagan’s Mass is his most personal; he went from youth as a Catholic altar boy to alcoholic to atheist, & these memories are reflected in some key plot elements.

Takes place on an island off the Pacific Northwest mainland (or maybe New England). The primary industry, fishing, is kaput due to an oil spill, and apparently many of the inhabitants have emigrated to the mainland. Insofar as there is any community life, it centers around the church, with some of the community devout Catholics & others nominal (Christmas & Easter only for the most part). No Protestants in sight (though the hymns sounded Protestant to me – someone with the proper background would have a better idea; I was familiar with most of the hymns from Congregational & Baptist church & school). Outsiders seem to be the sheriff, a Muslim widower with a son), the town doctor who relies on Western science for validation, & the town drunk.

Returning to the island is Riley, on parole from a 4 year sentence for drunk driving manslaughter, with the conditions for parole being regular AA meetings; he returns to his island family: a doting mother, a rather hostile, rigid father, & a little brother. Another returning islander is Erin (played by Kate Siegel, Flanagan’s wife), who fled an abusive alcoholic mother & returns after her mother’s death several months pregnant.

Erin & Riley were childhood sweethearts & part of the set up involves their re-discovering their relationship, worked out via a theological discussion about life after death. Riley is probably Flanagan’s spokesperson; he espouses a rather Buddhist-scientific spirituality, about one’s atoms becoming one with the universe. To Flanagan’s credit, he gives the religious Erin the most touching lines (which she recants in the last, climactic episode); in general he has to acknowledge that for some religion probably has brought out their best selves.

The 2 are a sidebar to the main event, the appearance of a temporary substitute for the community’s parish priest, who has been sent off on a pilgrimage as his dementia became more obvious. Hamish Linklater, who plays the priest, does a star turn as the substitute priest. Linklater is tasked with delivering long, complex homilies as well as ministering to the doctor’s mother, who suffers from dementia, & as Riley’s AA sponsor – verbally taxing stuff which makes the series worth watching for that alone. His deaconess Bev is the town scold & makes a good dark angel to his light. I’ve seen complaints that her character is one-dimensional, but a lot of people have been acting like one-dimensional zombies in these times, & she does well in a completely unsympathetic part. Midway through the series Flanagan starts to transition to Stephen King horror, but he entangles it with benign miracles, so it isn’t immediately in your face.

Been watching season 11 of Vera on BritBox subscription via Prime Video. Only 2 episodes but 90 min. each, so like 2 movies. Vera’s story arc seems a bit stalled; she & her assistant Kenny & the other members of her crew are background, used only to bring out the characters involved or touched by the crime (murder) in question. Preferred the second episode, regarding the death of a social worker. In both episodes the victim is recalled by the people who knew him or her, and the recollections about the victim’s character conflict in interesting ways. My problem with the first is that, while the victim turns out to be, ultimately, a jerk, I didn’t think he came to life so to speak in the memories of the people who knew him (except maybe the murderer). Ironically 2 key story lines of thwarted love intersect through the crime in episode 1. In episode 2, the social worker’s story is much more affecting since her gravitation toward her job & her care for her clients, and the reason for her deviation, make tragic sense – though the conclusion seemed too good to be true. Still, the victim became a social worker because her belief in happy endings.

Powered down & re-watched the samuarai movie 13 Assassins on Prime Video. Terrific extended battle at the end. Takes place toward the end of the Tokugawa shogunate, with 2 veterans on either side embody the fading bushido ethos. Suspect the director's view point is more sardonic; oddly enough, the villain, bored, sadistic, enjoys the spectacle from a degenerate esthetic perspective -- could be a bit of self-criticism of the creator of such films, as well as the audience for them. There's also a salt of the earth hunter playing the Toshiro Mifune part from Seven Samurai, who is impaled several times but, cartoon-like, rises from the dead & provides a raspberry to the bushido seriousness.

Modern samurai movies have difficulty taking bushido seriously -- I'm currently re-watching Blade of the Immortal (purchased for streaming from Amazon video some time ago) where the anti-hero can't be killed & who contends with a group of mercenaries who ignore all the ritualized fencing associated with the way of the samurai, & overcome their enemies by any means necessary.

Burn After Reading 2008
5/5
It is a hoot of a movie, it is classed as a Black Comedy.
It has a magnificent cast.

Alan Bennett's BBC series Talking Heads the second is coming up this evening.

Last week it starred Imelda Staunton.

Cable box replaced Thursday so watching non-streaming TV again after a month & a half hiatus. Discovered I missed the entire 12th season (8 episodes) of Archer, but with on-demand was able to binge the whole thing. This was Jessica Walter’s last go-round; I believed she died shortly before the season was completed. Malory Archer (Sterling’s mom) had a pretty good send-off in the last episode (with a guest appearance by Ron Leibman, deceased some time ago – magic of computer voice reconstruction). Otherwise, I did have the sense that the series was repeating tropes. The first season involved a rivalry between Mallory’s spy agency (with the unfortunate name ISIS) and a far richer & more technologically advanced intelligence corporation. The Archer agency, now impoverished & nameless, and feeling miffed for not getting credit for saving the world in the previous season, is in (non)-competition with a new, rich, enormous spy agency bent on world domination. Symbolically, Sterling struggles with his physical limitations post-coma & has inadvertent memories of his first assignment (where he managed to get his mentor killed). Malory’s departure (and the sale of her agency to the rival spy agency) might be a good way to bring the series to an end, but maybe it will keep going like Barry the immortal robot, who also appears in the last episode.

Now trying to catch up with (Awkwafina is) Nora from Queens Season 2. Realized I’d seen the first 2 episodes before, both of which involve Nora Lum exploring alternative futures where she isn’t living at home in Flushing with her grandma & father while all her high school friends seem to be leading successful adult lives. Episode 2 has a nice guest spot for SNL cast member Chloe Fineman as a ditsy serial killer – Bowen Yang (also SNL) turns up in a later episode, as another Chinese-American trying to become independent from his family by becoming an actor rather than a wealthy tech entrepreneur. A number of these episodes seem to be structured on The Wizard of Oz master plot where Dorothy/Nora, after a sojourn in fantasy, discovers there's no place like home, i.e. ungentrified Queens.

One surprise involving the replacement cable box was that all of my DVR’d movies were recovered. Turns out they were all hanging out in the “cloud” so in a way even much of my Comcast/Xfinity cable content is actually streaming (I assume this also applies to the on-demand TV shows), just like Netflix.

The Toll
Weird, bizarre film about a uber driver who picks up a passenger, gets lost in a forest and weird supernatural things happen to them. Skip this one!

Dune: Part One. (2021) With my replacement cable box, I now have access to the HBO Max streaming service. This big tent movie premiered on the service 10/22. Director is Denis Villeneuve, whose earlier films include: Arrival, Sicario, Blade Runner 2049. Based on the first half of the popular novel of the same name by Frank Herbert. Not a big fan of any of Villeneuve’s previous films (they aren’t bad & all worthwhile viewing but not super exciting) but for me this one was his best, & I look forward to Part Two. Visually sumptuous, but much of the film is filtered to simulate night or dark interiors & some scenes appear to be almost completely in the dark – might be better in IMAX.

I read the novel maybe 40 years ago & thought I didn’t remember much, but a lot came back watching the movie, so I didn’t get all that confused by the story, but you are warned. I imagine Star Wars was an influence, but also Starship Troopers, Lawrence of Arabia, Game of Thrones, & East Asian martial arts films. Lots of fighting with blades, which is why I referenced martial arts, though I’m not sure it’s adequately explained how blades get around the individual electronic shields, one of the sci-fi gizmos that the creators (but it may have been Herbert’s original idea) use to characterize futuristic technology – my favorite tech feature was the ornithopters, which I don’t recall from the novel. Not an upbeat film, so don’t expect anything uplifting; probably closest to Game of Thrones in tone, what with all the machinations & backstabbing. Although the hero is referred to as a Messiah, & a potential replacement for the devious emperor, it appears he will set off a war of all against all.

Setting is mostly a planet that consists largely of sand dunes & very little water. The dunes are mined for “spice,” a hallucinogenic substance used by humans to navigate between the stars; without it, no space empire. There are 2 elements that make this a dangerous enterprise: gigantic sandworms & Fremen, the indigenous inhabitants who continuously attack the miners. Since temperatures regularly peak at 140 degrees (Fahrenheit or Celsius not specified), it makes sense that a lot of the action takes place at night or underground, so the general desert environment might be considered the third element. Incidentally, “spice” is sandworm poop in the novel, though this detail hasn’t come out in the movie. Though the story takes place 9K in the future, the combination of futuristic & medieval tech is one of the features of the time-setting. I don’t recall whether this is explained in the film, but I learned that (as part of the backstory) humans stopped using AI & computers 1000s of years ago (probably the last straw was social media), hence the odd mix. In part they need “spice” because they lack AI support in space navigation. I forgot to mention the Bene Gesserit (or “witches” for short), a group of women into eugenics & mind control, who might be pulling the strings behind the political & economic conflicts, & not necessarily for the good. So, if you like action & monsters & witchcraft & devious politics, check this out. Characters aren’t very deep, but that’s science fiction movies, feature not a bug.