What's On Your TV in March?
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2JulieLill
Inside Job
I found this DVD on the free shelf at work and it was still wrapped in plastic so I thought I would give it a go. The subject matter surrounds the financial/economic crisis of 2008. It still makes my blood boil about the way the politicians, banks and financial firms thought only of themselves and how much money was lost by those who could not afford to lose their money. I thought the movie was informative and interesting. It is narrated by Matt Damon
I found this DVD on the free shelf at work and it was still wrapped in plastic so I thought I would give it a go. The subject matter surrounds the financial/economic crisis of 2008. It still makes my blood boil about the way the politicians, banks and financial firms thought only of themselves and how much money was lost by those who could not afford to lose their money. I thought the movie was informative and interesting. It is narrated by Matt Damon
3Carol420
>2 JulieLill: Sounds like you found a hidden treasure.
4Aussi11
Great late night movie TV. multiple award winning "Mona Lisa" 1986, starring Bob Hoskins, Michael Caine and Robbie Coltrane.
5JulieLill
Citizen Hearst: An American Experience Special
Documentary, Biography, History
"William Randolph Hearst's media empire in the 1930s included 28 newspapers, a movie studio, a syndicated wire service, radio stations, and 13 magazines". But it also talked about his life and relationships. This was so interesting. I knew some facts about him but this went more in depth than anything I knew about him. Highly recommended.
Documentary, Biography, History
"William Randolph Hearst's media empire in the 1930s included 28 newspapers, a movie studio, a syndicated wire service, radio stations, and 13 magazines". But it also talked about his life and relationships. This was so interesting. I knew some facts about him but this went more in depth than anything I knew about him. Highly recommended.
6sturlington
I just finished the short series, The Tourist, on HBO Max. I found it entertaining, for the most part. Like many thrillers, it starts out intriguing but gets somewhat more ridiculous as it goes along. I was completely rooting for Helen, though, who plays a police sergeant who finds herself thrust into the middle of things, and the Australian scenery is beautiful. The ending left a lot to be desired, in my opinion, but thrillers rarely know how to end themselves.
7featherbear
Drive My Car (2021). Director & screenplay Ryusuke Hamaguchi; Takamasu Oe, co-writer. Based on 2 short stories by Haruki Murakami. I started watching this on HBOMax at about 9PM, not realizing it was 3 hours in length & finished watching about 12AM. I’ve never heard of Hamaguchi (he’s been making films for 20 years but is better known in Japan), but this particular one has been nominated for 4 Oscars, so I thought I’d take a look. It was absorbing, had to keep watching until the end. Begins with a woman telling a story with a fetishistic theme. She’s in bed with her husband. The husband is a former screenwriter who changed careers and is now an esteemed actor/director. The wife, Oto (means “Sound” in English, Reika Kirishima), has taken up his former career & is a screenwriter whose literary inspirations derive from having sex with her husband, Yusuke Kafuku (Hidetoshi Nishijima), who is responsible for writing down her trance-like stories, translating her speech into writing. Kafuku leaves for a conference – he gets a text message at the airport. He comes home unexpectedly to find his wife screwing someone or other (just a back view). I learned later he sees the act in a mirror; his wife may be unaware that he has seen her. He doesn’t confront, but stays in a hotel. He returns to his home later & lies to her about his trip. Back to normal, he goes to work at the theater as usual. But when driving to work he is involved in an accident where another car hits his by the side. His wife rushes to the hospital, & we can see from the interaction that she loves him. He is not injured, it turns out, but in the course of the physical examination the doctors learn he has glaucoma. I was assuming the glaucoma (in part the cause of the accident) would play a part in the film, but it doesn’t seem to come up in any significant way. But the metaphors seem to be pretty obvious – sex, and the creation of babies & screenplays (the couple are childless, having lost a daughter), glaucoma as turning a blind eye to Kafuku’s inner demons. He continues to drive to work, but one morning, just before he leaves, he tells the wife “we’ve got to talk” but doesn’t specify. When he returns after work, he finds his wife dead (cerebral hemorrhage). He is numbed by grief. He gets an invitation to produce/direct Chekov’s Uncle Vanya at a theater in Hiroshima. Get out of the doldrums by doing something a little out of the box. He drives to Hiroshima (I assume he’s based in Tokyo) in an old bright red Saab, which he cherishes (survived the crash, car repaired, keep going).
He gets to Hiroshima. Arranges for auditions for the parts, and inquires about his accommodations; he has specified that the place be about an hour away from the theater; his process is to mentally work on the play & what he wants to show in solitude, but also because he can rehearse the various parts while driving, also in solitude. But for insurance purposes he is not allowed to drive himself around (thought the glaucoma would be raised as an issue but no) because a previous guest of the theater got in an accident. Kafuku reluctantly agrees to have a woman in her early 20’s chauffeur. The driver, Misaki Watari (Toko Miura). She is a stolid person, &, like Kafuku, a smoker, though she never does so in the car. Kafuku can no longer listen to his rehearsal tape in solitude, since Watari can’t help but hear. There are gaps in the recording for Kafuku to speak the Vanya part, with the late Oto doing all the other characters. She has perfectly timed her dialog so the pauses are precisely long enough for Kafuku to speak the Vanya part.
Now the auditions & table reads, the most fascinating part of the film for me. All the actors read and speak their parts in their native languages: Chinese, Japanese, Tagalog, Korean, and Korean sign language (Vanya’s niece Sonya is played by a Korean woman who can’t speak but is most eloquent in signing). One of the theater managers interprets the signing for Kafuku, who is directing.) How this works in staging is demonstrated with a clip from an earlier play in which Kafuku acted – Waiting for Godot -- also with multilingual dialog, where the translations appear as supertitles above the stage, as is sometimes done in opera. But in opera, all the players are singing in the same language; not the case with the Chekov play (no one in the cast knows Russian in any case). To begin, Kafuku has each actor read his or her part following the order of the script. By tapping on the table, the actor indicates his or her part has concluded, and that signals the next actor to read the assigned character’s part. By repetition, each actor knows when to begin speaking from the sound of the previous actor’s words, even though the words themselves might be unintelligible. Kafuku is getting the actors to immerse themselves in the rhythm of the words, and get their cues thereby, just as Kafuku knows the pauses in Oto’s voice when he must speak as Vanya.
We're only halfway through the film. The climax for me is the last scene from the Chekov play before a live audience. When I first saw the film Vanya on 42nd Street, a read-through/rehearsal in street clothes in one of the old movie theaters on 42nd in New York, there is a transcendent moment when Sonya (played by Brooke Smith) tries to reassure her uncle with a profession of her faith. It just knocked me over. There is something close to this (maybe it’s Chekov’s words, at least in translation) when Sonya/Lee Yoon-a (played by Park Yu-rim – with only this film in IMDB) performs the monolog in Korean sign.
And so on. Kafuku bonds with his driver Misaki, and they unburden themselves. Misaki leaves a cigarette in lieu of a joss stick in memory of her mother. The actor who takes the Vanya part instead of Kafuku has to leave the play unexpectedly – Kafuku will take over though the experience is physically and emotionally taxing), but not before Kafuku narrates to him Oto’s last story which he believes is unfinished; the actor, however, claims to have the true end of the story – the implication is he was one of Oto’s lovers & got it from the horse’s mouth, so to speak, although the ending could actually represent his own life. Yoon-a’s story of how she became mute & lost her ability to dance. How Chekov’s words comment on the world Hamaguchi creates.
If you don’t have access to HBO, you can rent it on Amazon Prime.
He gets to Hiroshima. Arranges for auditions for the parts, and inquires about his accommodations; he has specified that the place be about an hour away from the theater; his process is to mentally work on the play & what he wants to show in solitude, but also because he can rehearse the various parts while driving, also in solitude. But for insurance purposes he is not allowed to drive himself around (thought the glaucoma would be raised as an issue but no) because a previous guest of the theater got in an accident. Kafuku reluctantly agrees to have a woman in her early 20’s chauffeur. The driver, Misaki Watari (Toko Miura). She is a stolid person, &, like Kafuku, a smoker, though she never does so in the car. Kafuku can no longer listen to his rehearsal tape in solitude, since Watari can’t help but hear. There are gaps in the recording for Kafuku to speak the Vanya part, with the late Oto doing all the other characters. She has perfectly timed her dialog so the pauses are precisely long enough for Kafuku to speak the Vanya part.
Now the auditions & table reads, the most fascinating part of the film for me. All the actors read and speak their parts in their native languages: Chinese, Japanese, Tagalog, Korean, and Korean sign language (Vanya’s niece Sonya is played by a Korean woman who can’t speak but is most eloquent in signing). One of the theater managers interprets the signing for Kafuku, who is directing.) How this works in staging is demonstrated with a clip from an earlier play in which Kafuku acted – Waiting for Godot -- also with multilingual dialog, where the translations appear as supertitles above the stage, as is sometimes done in opera. But in opera, all the players are singing in the same language; not the case with the Chekov play (no one in the cast knows Russian in any case). To begin, Kafuku has each actor read his or her part following the order of the script. By tapping on the table, the actor indicates his or her part has concluded, and that signals the next actor to read the assigned character’s part. By repetition, each actor knows when to begin speaking from the sound of the previous actor’s words, even though the words themselves might be unintelligible. Kafuku is getting the actors to immerse themselves in the rhythm of the words, and get their cues thereby, just as Kafuku knows the pauses in Oto’s voice when he must speak as Vanya.
We're only halfway through the film. The climax for me is the last scene from the Chekov play before a live audience. When I first saw the film Vanya on 42nd Street, a read-through/rehearsal in street clothes in one of the old movie theaters on 42nd in New York, there is a transcendent moment when Sonya (played by Brooke Smith) tries to reassure her uncle with a profession of her faith. It just knocked me over. There is something close to this (maybe it’s Chekov’s words, at least in translation) when Sonya/Lee Yoon-a (played by Park Yu-rim – with only this film in IMDB) performs the monolog in Korean sign.
And so on. Kafuku bonds with his driver Misaki, and they unburden themselves. Misaki leaves a cigarette in lieu of a joss stick in memory of her mother. The actor who takes the Vanya part instead of Kafuku has to leave the play unexpectedly – Kafuku will take over though the experience is physically and emotionally taxing), but not before Kafuku narrates to him Oto’s last story which he believes is unfinished; the actor, however, claims to have the true end of the story – the implication is he was one of Oto’s lovers & got it from the horse’s mouth, so to speak, although the ending could actually represent his own life. Yoon-a’s story of how she became mute & lost her ability to dance. How Chekov’s words comment on the world Hamaguchi creates.
If you don’t have access to HBO, you can rent it on Amazon Prime.
8featherbear
Caught this one on Showtime.
The Green Knight (2021). Director/writer David Lowery. Photography: outdoors outstanding, but the interiors don’t translate to the TV screen – much too dark to figure out what’s going on. Haven’t read the original (I would require a translation from the Middle English original, Gawain & the Green Night, probably), & the film may inspire me to do so, if nothing else. Dev Patel plays Gawain, nephew of the king, who aspires to knighthood. Much of it turns on Christmas festivities, but much of it seems very pagan, pre-Christian. The Green Knight interrupts the King’s Christmas feast, rather impolitely riding his horse into the dining room. Because the interior is so dark, the scene comes across as uncanny. The GK & his horse are covered with what seems like a cross between green foliage & green armor, a pagan Green Man (the English folklore demon). He offers a challenge. A duel; the winner must meet the loser a year later. However the winner has wounded the opponent, the loser is permitted to inflict the same wound to the winner at the GK’s chapel. Gawain volunteers to fight the GK, but the duel ends with Gawain beheading the GK. That’s that? But the GK picks up his head & trots off. See you next year. The winner will be heading to his future beheading, but without the GK’s resources for recovery. The timeline following the duel is confusing. There is an interim period when Gawain becomes king, and his lover Essel (Alicia Vikander) becomes his queen. As the year ends, Gawain prepares to meet his fate. Although he doesn’t know where the GK is waiting for him, he sets out with a vague destination over the horizon. How is it he knows precisely when & where he will meet the GK? How does he know when to begin the journey? After all, the game rules require that he meet the GK at the end or beginning of the year. Much of the second half of the film is a record of Gawain’s year long journey or quest, his initiation into knighthood, and his adventures along the way, some supernatural, others highlighting Medieval brutality, not to mention romantic temptations somewhat reminiscent of the Odyssey, but with the adulterous relationship of Medieval romance as in some version of the Tristan & Isolde tale, and the proper Christian askesis when temptation tests him. There is a surprise conclusion.
The Green Knight (2021). Director/writer David Lowery. Photography: outdoors outstanding, but the interiors don’t translate to the TV screen – much too dark to figure out what’s going on. Haven’t read the original (I would require a translation from the Middle English original, Gawain & the Green Night, probably), & the film may inspire me to do so, if nothing else. Dev Patel plays Gawain, nephew of the king, who aspires to knighthood. Much of it turns on Christmas festivities, but much of it seems very pagan, pre-Christian. The Green Knight interrupts the King’s Christmas feast, rather impolitely riding his horse into the dining room. Because the interior is so dark, the scene comes across as uncanny. The GK & his horse are covered with what seems like a cross between green foliage & green armor, a pagan Green Man (the English folklore demon). He offers a challenge. A duel; the winner must meet the loser a year later. However the winner has wounded the opponent, the loser is permitted to inflict the same wound to the winner at the GK’s chapel. Gawain volunteers to fight the GK, but the duel ends with Gawain beheading the GK. That’s that? But the GK picks up his head & trots off. See you next year. The winner will be heading to his future beheading, but without the GK’s resources for recovery. The timeline following the duel is confusing. There is an interim period when Gawain becomes king, and his lover Essel (Alicia Vikander) becomes his queen. As the year ends, Gawain prepares to meet his fate. Although he doesn’t know where the GK is waiting for him, he sets out with a vague destination over the horizon. How is it he knows precisely when & where he will meet the GK? How does he know when to begin the journey? After all, the game rules require that he meet the GK at the end or beginning of the year. Much of the second half of the film is a record of Gawain’s year long journey or quest, his initiation into knighthood, and his adventures along the way, some supernatural, others highlighting Medieval brutality, not to mention romantic temptations somewhat reminiscent of the Odyssey, but with the adulterous relationship of Medieval romance as in some version of the Tristan & Isolde tale, and the proper Christian askesis when temptation tests him. There is a surprise conclusion.
9featherbear
Trying out the Peacock streaming service. Originates from NBC, & it appears most of the content is reruns from NBC TV shows, but it does have lots of movies, though most of them seem to be the equivalent of straight to video films. The free version has commercials at the beginning of the movie, but the commercials don’t interrupt the movie itself.
Copshop (2021) Director Joe Carnahan. An informant on the run (Frank Grillo, sporting a man-bun) gets himself locked up in the local police station. A hitman (Gerard Butler, also the producer) thereupon gets himself locked up in the cell opposite. Then another hitman (“Call me Tony”) shows up (Toby Huss) and the mayhem begins. Turns out the central, breakout performance is by Alexis Louder, who plays a rookie cop who uses a vintage six-shooter. A good thriller with lots of mayhem & impossible heroics, like the typical Gerard Butler movie, possibly influenced by Reservoir Dogs without the oddball Tarentino dialogue.
The 355 (2022). Director Simon Rebeck. There must be a rationale for the title, but I missed it. CIA agents Mace (Jessica Chastain) & Nick (Sebastian Stan) are in Morocco trying to retrieve a computer drive with a program that can hack & shut down anything computer dependent (city electric grid, airplanes, Netflix). Nick is taken down by bad guys who answer to a supervillain (Jason Flemyng) also on the trail of the McGuffin. Mace teams up with maverick German operative Marie (Diane Kruger). Somehow a CIA therapist Graciela (Penelope Cruz) gets roped into the shenanigans, along with MI6 computer whiz Khadijah (Lupita Nyong’o). The spies follow the trail to Beijing, where the device is auctioned off in the backroom, where Chinese operative Lin Mi Sheng (Bingbing Fan) is keeping track of the bidders. Kind of routine James Bondish action thriller, with all the action performed by the ladies. My guess is that the film has too many stars eager to demonstrate female cooperation triumphing over male selfishness, so the result is a little out of focus, and the women are not all that different from the groups of anonymous tough guys the supervillain throws at them. By the way, a more interesting movie about female bonding is Tarentino’s often overlooked Death Proof -- mostly a lot of the Tarentino dialog (which I prefer to his nonlinear plots, or the violence – though he’s very good at it). The first half a group of women in a bar, talking; the second half, another group, this time female stuntwomen on their way to a shoot. Kurt Russell, who plays a fatuous villain, but my introduction to New Zealand stuntwoman Zoe Bell, who is terrific, plus lots of profane conversation (in both halves) from Rosario Dawson, Vanessa Ferlito (who dominates the first half), Tracie Thoms, Rose McGowan, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, and others. Part of Grindhouse, a double bill with the other movie directed by Richard Rodriguez. Both films are tributes to 70s B-movie double bills that used to play in theaters on 42nd Street in New York (when A list actors weren’t rehearsing Uncle Vanya I assume). Deathproof is not on the Peacock site, but might be streaming elsewhere.
Copshop (2021) Director Joe Carnahan. An informant on the run (Frank Grillo, sporting a man-bun) gets himself locked up in the local police station. A hitman (Gerard Butler, also the producer) thereupon gets himself locked up in the cell opposite. Then another hitman (“Call me Tony”) shows up (Toby Huss) and the mayhem begins. Turns out the central, breakout performance is by Alexis Louder, who plays a rookie cop who uses a vintage six-shooter. A good thriller with lots of mayhem & impossible heroics, like the typical Gerard Butler movie, possibly influenced by Reservoir Dogs without the oddball Tarentino dialogue.
The 355 (2022). Director Simon Rebeck. There must be a rationale for the title, but I missed it. CIA agents Mace (Jessica Chastain) & Nick (Sebastian Stan) are in Morocco trying to retrieve a computer drive with a program that can hack & shut down anything computer dependent (city electric grid, airplanes, Netflix). Nick is taken down by bad guys who answer to a supervillain (Jason Flemyng) also on the trail of the McGuffin. Mace teams up with maverick German operative Marie (Diane Kruger). Somehow a CIA therapist Graciela (Penelope Cruz) gets roped into the shenanigans, along with MI6 computer whiz Khadijah (Lupita Nyong’o). The spies follow the trail to Beijing, where the device is auctioned off in the backroom, where Chinese operative Lin Mi Sheng (Bingbing Fan) is keeping track of the bidders. Kind of routine James Bondish action thriller, with all the action performed by the ladies. My guess is that the film has too many stars eager to demonstrate female cooperation triumphing over male selfishness, so the result is a little out of focus, and the women are not all that different from the groups of anonymous tough guys the supervillain throws at them. By the way, a more interesting movie about female bonding is Tarentino’s often overlooked Death Proof -- mostly a lot of the Tarentino dialog (which I prefer to his nonlinear plots, or the violence – though he’s very good at it). The first half a group of women in a bar, talking; the second half, another group, this time female stuntwomen on their way to a shoot. Kurt Russell, who plays a fatuous villain, but my introduction to New Zealand stuntwoman Zoe Bell, who is terrific, plus lots of profane conversation (in both halves) from Rosario Dawson, Vanessa Ferlito (who dominates the first half), Tracie Thoms, Rose McGowan, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, and others. Part of Grindhouse, a double bill with the other movie directed by Richard Rodriguez. Both films are tributes to 70s B-movie double bills that used to play in theaters on 42nd Street in New York (when A list actors weren’t rehearsing Uncle Vanya I assume). Deathproof is not on the Peacock site, but might be streaming elsewhere.
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