Directionless apocalypse

I love post-apocalypse stories. When I first started reading Harlan Ellison, one of my favorites of his work was A Boy and his Dog, which is set in America, post-nuclear disaster. One of my favorite films at a young age was John Carpenter's Escape from New York. When I first started running RPGs, my favorite setting was Gamma World. It's safe to say that I'm a child of the Cold War. So, when I heard that there was a film on Netflix that was really popular and that fit those themes, I was definitely interested. Unfortunately, that film was Leave the World Behind and it was a failure on so many levels that it's just about arcing toward the sublime.

Every science fiction premise needs some level of suspension of disbelief. You have to be willing to accept the conditions that make up the world in question, whether it be the talking plants and fusion rifles of Gamma World or the island of Manhattan as maximum security prison of Escape from New York. The basic premise of Leave is that a cyberattack has crippled the power grid of the eastern seaboard of the US and all of the problems that ensue following that, including many that have little to do with a fairly believable scenario like that one, like sonic weapons transmitted over the entirety of Long Island and herds of deer trying to send a signal about this impending doom that's approaching. I mean, those things could be part of our suspension, as well, if they weren't from a different level of sci-fi than simply Con Ed in New York being hacked. But that's where you wonder how this script might have benefitted from a firmer hand that kept it going in a coherent direction, rather than the scattershot approach that later takes hold of it and squeezes hard enough that all of its elements get splattered in random directions, to the denigration of cast and audience.

First off, if a cyberattack did take down enough of society to cause chaos, how (and why) is it that this one section of Long Island was spared? Was it because they didn't want to try to shoot all of the nighttime scenes by candlelight? Or so they could still have a functioning coffee maker in the house so that you'd know people would last two days instead of becoming instantly homicidal? I mean, part of the basis of most adventure stories is that the circumstances in front of us are just slightly different so that our heroes have a chance to do heroic stuff. So, fine. Our characters have power where all of New York City, visible across the river, does not. But then we discover that it may be beyond just power grids, in that satellite networks are down, so that planes and ships no longer have functioning navigation systems. But, of course, they still have functioning engines and ways to turn them off or keep them running, so why are ships beaching and planes crashing? And why is the latter only happening 18 hours after the initial shutdown when one of our heroes is walking on the beach? Said hero, G. H. Scott (Mahershala Ali) is an investment banker with high enough contacts to know one of the Illuminati who has offhandedly warned him that this disaster is coming. Scott, of course, dismisses the idea of the cabal that rules the world but also repeatedly reinforces the idea that such a thing exists. So, which is it? If writer/director Sam Esmail was trying to avoid the historical racist implications of that theory, he wasn't doing such a great job of it. Instead, he veers right into hitting us over the head with the overt racism of Amanda Sandford (Julia Roberts) when confronted with Scott and his daughter, Ruth (Myha'la) returning to their home which the Sandfords have rented. I mean, yes, the problem of inherent racism drives a large portion of American cultural relations and politics, so you don't really have to be that heavy-handed with said message. Amanda is borderline shrewish when conveying her distrust of the Black people in the house (their house, which she clearly doesn't believe because, you know, they're Black...) with her children.

Yeah, I can't believe how dumb this is, either.

But then we have all of the other more obvious story points that simply don't mesh with our aforementioned suspension. Why does Archie's (Charlie Evans) lyme disease take hold overnight and become worse than any version of that disease ever seen? If it is even just lyme disease, why do they think that a couple pills from local survivalist neighbor, Danny (Kevin Bacon), will solve his problem? Why do the local deer seem intent on gathering around just their house and not others? Why do flamingos show up in a Long Island swimming pool? Are these the surrealist components that are supposed to make us as confused as the characters? Why do Amanda and G. H., completely at odds over the situation and their respective identities, suddenly fall into each others' arms and consider cheating on their partners with each other in the space of 48 hours? Why would a man as wealthy as G. H. ever play ball at the local YMCA? There are so many little things detached from reality here that it's difficult to believe that one person wrote it and, if that is the case, whether that person has been outside their home to interact with actual humans anytime in the past few years. Is Esmail an isolationist/survivalist? Even the seeming in-jokes are off key. We see a trashed house with a sign of the previous owners hanging loose that says the home was owned by The Huxleys. If that's supposed to be a reference to Aldous Huxley, I'd have to ask why, given that this is a disaster film. Huxley is best known among his fiction works for Brave New World; a society under total control, not one that is falling apart. Archie walks around wearing an "OBEY" shirt from They Live, which is about the subtle control of society through subliminal advertising, not its collapse from a systemic breakdown.

All of this confusion and lack of direction is reinforced by the melodrama of both the cinematography and the score. The camera did repeated close-ups during dramatic moments, just in case we couldn't figure that out, and then wide pullbacks and spirals from above when action was happening. The score was the stereotypical orchestral crashing whenever a plot point was revealed or a realization was made by any of the characters; often multiple times in the same scene. The whole storytelling approach was amateurish, at best, and didn't convey the idea of a major production that would be carrying the heft of a film with the above listed stars, as well as Ethan Hawke. But, then, Hawke was almost insipid in his contrast to his abrasive wife, Amanda, who was presented in a thoroughly wooden performance by Roberts, which likely wasn't helped by the boilerplate dialogue she was given. Her first lines, when she wakes her husband to announce that they're taking a last-minute vacation and why are spoken like she's reading from a book of middle American homilies about modern society. And, of course, the worst thing about the whole presentation is that it reinforces the conspiracy theories that are rampant today, by suggesting that there may be some kernel of truth to them, if people would only pay attention. What those theories also carry are the racist overtones of anything similar to the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which is kinda how this feels when you see the upper middle class White family having their vacation disrupted by all of the surrounding events (and Black people!)

It's just trash, beginning to end, and in no way worth your time or attention.

The difference between two stories we've seen before

I was looking forward to seeing Maestro, Bradley Cooper's latest film about the life of Leonard Bernstein. Larissa objected, thinking that she would find it too slow, as there's a lot to talk about in Bernstein's complicated life. Then we found out that it was a Netflix production, so we can watch it whenever, so that problem was solved. But we had already decided to see Fallen Leaves instead. The latter is a Finnish production about two average people leading fairly downtrodden lives who discover each other by chance and try to make contact, but keep stumbling over themselves, their lives, and other obstacles. It's a very simple story but it's effectively told and fairly entertaining. Indeed, it was done so well that it won the Jury Prize at Cannes this year, proving yet again that stories don't have to be complex, as long as they're well-written and well-acted and aren't predictable Hollywood boilerplate.

Ansa (Alms Pöysti), a grocery store worker and Holappa (Jussi Vatanen), a metal reclaimer, meet up at a bar on karaoke night, having been dragged there by their respective friends, Liisa (Nuppu Koivu) and Huotari (Janne Hyytiäinen.) There's a brief spark between them that they kind of grudgingly acknowledge and then make plans to meet again to see if it becomes a fire. Unfortunately, Holappa is a functioning alcoholic and Ansa isn't the surest person in social situations, so they end up missing each other in a variety of ways (mostly caused by Holappa.) The story doesn't get any more complicated than that, aside from the brief looks into Liisa and Huotari's perspective on life and relationships and the difficulties that our two leads have in remaining employed. It's basically a story about modern life and middle age. Of course, life in Helsinki is probably much different than it is in modern America, so there's not a lot of interaction with phones or the Interwebs or any of the other things that might suffuse wealthier societies and the process of people trying to hook up (My knowledge of modern Finnish culture and society is admittedly quite limited.) But the story doesn't really need all of that, either, since most of it is just an examination of how Ansa and Holappa are looking at life and whether they're willing to trust what it and each other are telling them.

There's a bit of a Coen Brothers air to the production overall, especially when it involves Huotari, who is easily the funniest character of the cast, as he tries to convince women, in general, and then Liisa in specific that, despite his gray hair, he's not actually that old and anyone who suggests that he is must be trying to pull a con. It's like Republican projection but far less sinister and far more amusing. But there's also some of the plaintiveness and resigned attitude that often pervades Coen stories, alongside the determination and willingness to keep forging ahead that is also a frequent feature of their characters. It also doesn't finish with a pat ending but leaves it open to question as to whether the relationship we've been trying to see established for the 81 minute runtime will actually be a positive one. That uncertainty, like everything else about this film, is just like life and can easily be understood and absorbed by an audience willing to see real people do real things.

That is, of course, a contrast to Maestro, which I started to watch last night. This is just the latest version of La La Land; a movie by Hollywood and for Hollywood that is solely concerned with Hollywood and the little tragedies within it that are only really relatable to those inhabiting it. In this case, the New York City musical scene stands in for Tinseltown. In the same way Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone tried to convey the horrible struggle of being an aspiring actor, Maestro takes us one step further and tries to convey the incredible anguish of being an enormously successful composer and conductor. Admittedly, Bernstein's life was more complicated by being a gay male in a period when such a thing, even among creative types, was far less acceptable than it is now and I think this is the angle that most occupied the thoughts of writer/director/star, Bradley Cooper. But the first hour of it plays out as a brief survey of how difficult Bernstein's life was on an emotional level when on every other conceivable level it clearly was not. This was not an aberrant personality like Oppenheimer trying to relate to the people around him. This was the extraordinarily popular and, again, successful Lenny Bernstein enjoying life with both his beard and the men he had on the side.

In contrast to Fallen Leaves, this film doesn't seem like life. It feels like a Hollywood depiction of life that few in the audience would ever be able to relate to. If the first hour had spent more time on the wider scope of Bernstein's life, instead of long shots on the faces of his male lovers feeling rejected when he marries Felicia Montealegre Cohn (Carey Mulligan), I might not have gotten so bored and disappointed that I turned it off. In some respects, that's a bit of improvement, since I could only make it through 15 minutes of La La Land before leaving the room. Obviously, there are a lot of ways to look at the lengthy life of an extraordinarily talented figure who had an enormous impact on 20th century music and continues to do so today (West Side Story was just remade by someone as notable as Steven Spielberg, as just one example.) But Cooper decided to take the overwrought approach that doesn't really explore the length and breadth of that impact, but instead decides to bring it all down to the emotional angle that plays up how trying Bernstein's personal life was. In a way, it's kind of like a very removed version of Fallen Leaves, but it simply has no way to make the personal connection that the latter film does because it's too preoccupied with the sense of its own tragedy. As someone who has tried to produce creative works for my entire life, I can tell you that I'd have given a lot for my life to have turned out as tragic as Bernstein's. (Obviously, I would've had to have had even a minor fraction of his talent.)

Maybe I'm wrong about the overall film, since I only made it through the first half, but I'm not sure that I'm willing to sacrifice the other hour of my far less interesting life to find out whether Cooper's vision changes. I'd rather see stuff about more relatable people. It's not that Bernstein wasn't presented as human, which is my frequent complaint about characters. He most certainly was. It's just that what he experienced is relatable to so few other humans that the message seems lost in its own attempted majesty. That's the difference between stories, even ones that we've seen a thousand times in various forms, that try to talk about life and those that imagine that their very removed life is somehow normal for the rest of us.

Searching for meaning

I'm not a Nicholas Cage fan. My favorite film of his is the one where he's drinking himself to death (Leaving Las Vegas.) The rest of his work is somewhere between competent (The Color Out of Space) and higher-end trash (Gone in 60 Seconds, etc.) So hearing Dream Scenario described in the trailer as "Nic Cage at his very best!" was not exactly a selling point for me, unless we were talking about something akin to LLV. Dream Scenario kinda gets there at points, but still not with enough tragedy or emotion to really hit that level. Or, in all honesty, to sell its own story in the first place.

Nominally, it's about Paul (Cage), underachieving science teacher (That's your cue Breaking Bad fans) who suddenly becomes a bystander in thousands (millions?) of people's dreams. Given the nature of our interconnected society, he instantly becomes famous when his story is released to the Interwebs, courtesy an old girlfriend looking for subject matter for her blog. Life begins to go awry from there, but we never really depart the stiflingly mundane life that Paul has built for himself and which he sees no route to proceed from except via his long-unwritten book. Paul is not an appealing character, lacking even the basic sympathy or mild wit that someone like Walter White exhibits in the beginning of his story. Instead, Paul's utter lack of ambition and inability to self-examine is used as a lever by which to portray the sudden rise of "normal" people to fame through modern social media and all of the downfalls that can accompany that status when your life is suddenly exposed to the attention of millions of people who would otherwise have ignored you. Paul, of course, is the most ignorable of people, appreciated by no one but the dean of his small college (Brett (Tim Meadows)) and his wife, Janet (Julianne Nicholson) and then only reluctantly, it seems.

There's nothing to engender sympathy about Paul's situation, which is the usual approach in situations like this and perhaps that was writer-director, Kristoffer Borgli's, intent to escape that typical angle; a move that I would normally applaud, especially when trying to tell a story that delivers a message about modern circumstances. But the message ends up being muddled because we find ourselves why we're bothering to watch this at all given that, again, Paul is so uninteresting as to be basically repellent to not only everyone around him in the film, but those watching it, too. There's some interest generated by the phenomenon itself (Jung was right-!) and why it's only happening to Paul, but pretty soon that's kind of shuffled to the side in the interest of delivering the "deeper" message about fame and all of its foibles. There are, quiet honestly, better ways to go about this and with far more interesting characters to do it with. Do you really want your audience to reach the point of disdain for your main character by the end of the film without him having done one interesting thing the whole time? I could watch any reality TV trash for two hours and get the same result. Even the almost-but-not-quite sex scene, set up to be a flashpoint which predictably fizzles, doesn't engender anything in the viewer except a question as to why they're still sitting there watching this.

Suffice it to say that I didn't "get it." I mean, I understand the point that Borgli was trying to make and sympathize with the idea, but it didn't sell me at all. I basically felt nothing but contempt for everyone in the film, to one degree or another, and not just because the person onscreen most often is an actor that I don't particularly appreciate. Maybe you could take the time to watch this on some streaming service if you're interested in oneiromancy about the world as a whole, but I wouldn't blame you at all if you didn't bother. 

Satisfyingly clichéd

I'm an Alexander Payne fan. Ever since Election, I've made sure to see everything that he's directed because there's something about his pacing and storytelling rhythm that simply sings to me. It's a comforting thing when you can begin watching a film and instantly know that it's a particular director's work. I've had that feeling with people from Christopher Nolan to John Carpenter and Payne is no exception to that. In that respect, even if I hadn't known that The Holdovers was his latest release, I would've been able to tell you that it was about five minutes into seeing the interchanges between irascible history teacher, Paul Hunham (Paul Giamatti), and student, Angus Tully (Dominic Sessa) along with the lighting, the camera angles, and the slow pans through the early 70s New England winter. All of that said, it's fair to say that the film doesn't really show anything new or exciting that deviates from that style and it's an open question as to whether it benefits or suffers from that.

Now, as Story Guy™, I'm usually the first one to criticize someone presenting a story that's immediately predictable or just a retread of others that we've seen before. By the same token, what I'm asking for more often than not isn't necessarily something new, but instead something good and The Holdovers does not fail in that respect. The embittered teacher who thought he'd achieve something more is no more new than the mother grieving for her lost son or the kid whose parents shipped him off to boarding school to get him out of their lives (How well do I know that story...) But the combination here is familiar enough to accept, but also written and performed well enough to hold the attention. It was probably even more entrancing for me than most of the rest of the audience because I attended a school a lot like the fictional Burton Academy for a couple years when my parents shipped me off there, ostensibly to get a better education, but mostly to just get me out. Giamatti's character speaks to that when he bemoans the fact that most of the students he has are unprepared for both the material he's teaching and the style with which he does it. And, just like my own experience, by far the most congenial character is Mary (Da'Vine Joy Randolph), the head cook in the school's kitchen, as adrift from human companionship as either of the other two leads and, like them, forced to put up with what she can get.

Interestingly, the concept for the film was initially Payne's but he decided to hand it off to writer, David Hemingson, after deciding that the TV pilot he originally had in mind didn't have enough to carry it. I think he was correct in that respect, in that the film's plot is comfortably familiar, but probably so much so that a TV series would have become repetitive quite soon and dwindled off into indifference. Hemingson's script is matched perfectly with Payne's approach and is easily among the highlights of the film. I think Randolph's line: "Don't fuck it up for the little asshole!" is among my favorites that I've heard uttered this year. But you have to give a nod to the performances, from the star in Giamatti to the veteran in Randolph to the newcomer in Sessa, who was not only in his first credit of any kind but was also attending one of the locations used to shoot the film (Deerfield Academy) just over a year ago. Giamatti carries a role much like he did in his previous collaboration with Payne (Sideways), but remains as magnetic a presence as ever, even in the cloak of the familiar. Sessa, on the other hand, switches nicely from the perpetually bored and insouciant teenager to the wounded child, longing for his father, and back again. Randolph, meanwhile, is the most consistently moving of them all and with the deepest well of emotion in most of her scenes.

And all of those positives have to be the shining stars in this firmament because, again, the story is nothing innovative and is entirely predictable from opening to ending credits. (I certainly appreciated the 70s-era MPAA screen notifying us of the 'R' rating.) It's not wowing us with anything. It's simply delivering a solid story and good performances in the same heartfelt way that Payne films like Nebraska or The Descendants did, if not quite so elevated in its look into the human condition as the latter. Or perhaps it simply felt that way because, again, we've seen this before; in my case, even moreso than others for reasons noted but not least because Hunham is as fond of Marcus Aurelieus' Meditations as I am ("This book, for me, is a combination of Christianity, Judaism, and Buddhism all in one and without a single mention of 'God'!") That book has been a touchstone for me since I was roughly the same age as Angus and holds a lot of advice about life which seems obvious only after you've read it; in many ways, like The Holdovers, which is comfortably clichéd, but something that you don't mind, and even look forward to, seeing again.

Focusing on the pedestal

We saw Killers of the Flower Moon almost a week ago and it's taken me this long to get around to writing something about it because, in the end, it was all very mechanical and technical writing is not really my strong suit. That's a forward statement that would prepare most readers with the idea that I didn't like the film. That's actually not entirely the case. I like most Martin Scorsese films to one degree or another. But the problem I've had with his output for the latter half of his career (basically anything post-Goodfellas) is that he's taking the "favored actor" concept to the nth degree. Instead of telling a story, he's just signing the actors that he likes working with and building a production around them which is mostly just an opportunity for them to show off. So, yeah, I have a bit of a critique in mind.

Now, there's nothing wrong with actors "showing off." That's kinda what acting is in the first place. Sometimes, it can even be a great thing. Gangs of New York was completely carried by Daniel Day-Lewis' performance as Bill the Butcher. Indeed, the entire story is centered on him and his experience, despite Leonardo DiCaprio's presence as the nominal lead. It's a fun time watching DDL do his thing for two hours because, as with many of his roles, he's magnetic every time the camera is on him. But it only took one viewing to recognize that the film was basically all about his performance. The story is weak. There is precisely zero character development, as everyone knows what Amsterdam's motivations are from the outset and they don't change and neither does anyone else. It's just a showcase to demonstrate what a great actor Day-Lewis is. And that's fine. Some films are like that. It's what's normally referred to as a "vehicle" for whomever the star is. But even most vehicles have a story that goes somewhere at least mildly interesting and too many Scorsese movies in the latter half of his career really don't. Killers is no exception.

The basis of the story is excellent. It's about the discovery of oil on Osage land in Oklahoma in the early part of the 20th century and how the tribe became the richest people per capita in the world. It's also about how White people then moved in and scammed, stole, and literally murdered many Osage for their land rights and that money flowing from it. This is, as all of you know, something of a repetitive theme when it comes to US interaction with the native tribes of this continent. In this case, it was simply among the most blatant. That sounds like a situation that not only is unfamiliar to many, which can often lead to a good story full of tension, but is also loaded with potential for personal drama, as well. And the film has both of those elements to varying degrees... except that it begins with a documentary approach that essentially wholly describes the circumstances that precede and extend through the entire film. It basically gives the audience all of the dramatic cues before we even reach a moment where said cues would've provided that tension. It's as if Scorsese decided that he didn't want to be questioned as to the idea of scoring cheap emotional points, so he told us all of the bad things that would be happening, rather than letting us discover them through the story. This extends to most of the action in the film, where we see all of the crimes happening in plain sight; most notably those committed by DiCaprio, as the male lead, Ernest Burkhart. There are no faces hidden in shadow or behind masks (for very long) that would create any kind of dramatic effect later in the story where we discover the dastardly Burkhart being involved in these activities against his wife's people and, of course, his wife. We're just shown in documentary fashion everything that's happening.

Now, there's nothing wrong with this if we were watching an actual documentary. Likewise, it might be a little more tolerable if we were watching a more typical 90- to 120-minute film. It would still be disappointing, but wouldn't have brought me to the point where I was questioning what the point of the entire last third of the film was. But it's because that last third of the film is DiCaprio's opportunity to step on the pedestal that Scorsese has given him and emote to his heart's content. Part of the problem may be that, if we're going to see a star vehicle, we generally want that character to be entertaining. That's why it's a vehicle, because you want to see this person, whether it be the actor or the character, if not both, on the screen. But Burkhart is an emotionally-stunted and largely unintelligent person. And, yet, the last hour of the three-and-a-half hours that make up this "epic" is mostly just DiCaprio reenacting everything that we'd already seen for the first two-and-a-half hours. The entire courtroom and jail sequences are him simply admitting to and retelling the events of everything we'd already seen happen. It's like we were given access to the rehearsal and immediately after were shuffled into a room to watch a script reading. We're getting the same information, none of which is new or surprising or particularly compelling. Instead, it's just an opportunity for DiCaprio to demonstrate his evident talent (something we're also already aware of; The Revenant is one of my favorite American films of recent years.) That's not unentertaining, to a point. Watching Burkhart struggle to admit his guilt with his wife (Lily Gladstone), Molly's, eyes boring into him is a fine piece of acting on both their parts. But it also just retells the story that we'd already had explained to us even before we saw it the first time.

If we were going to be shown an acting tour de force in lieu of an actual story, I'd probably have been more entertained by seeing one from Gladstone, who was delightful as the smartest person in the room from the moment she first appears. And she does get plenty of screen time, but simply not as much as old Scorsese favorites DiCaprio and Robert De Niro, who these days doesn't often play a character so much as he plays Robert De Niro playing a character. And, of course, there's any number of cameos of big names from John Lithgow to Jesse Plemons to a scenery-chewing Brendan Fraser to Jason Isbell, a country music star whom I follow on Twitter who's highly entertaining as he interacts with people who probably think the White folks in this film are either Heroes of Progress or being persecuted by the mythical CRT zealots. Those people probably didn't want to see this, anyway, because it's presenting a story that might force them to question their star-spangled (White stars, mind you) version of American history. It's a story that needed to be told because, again, most are probably completely oblivious to it. It's an interesting story, even if macabre. But it's presented here as an excuse to showcase DiCaprio, which isn't at all what this story should have been about. Indeed, the fact that all of the Osage roles other than Molly are often stereotypical stand-ins makes one wonder if it was written from the ground-up as a star vehicle, rather than just adapted to one when it came into Scorsese's field of vision. But apparently he rewrote it to insure that it wasn't just a White Man's Burden thing. I'm, uh, not sure that worked the way he wanted it to.

Scorsese isn't a bad director any more than DiCaprio is a bad actor. But you look at the first half of the former's oeuvre and you see things like Mean Streets, Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, After Hours, and the aforementioned Goodfellas. Then you look at the latter half and you see things like Casino, Gangs, The Departed, The Wolf of Wall Street, and The Irishman. There are high points to all of them. They're not bad films. But they're also not great films because they don't try to tell a story. They're mostly just settings for his favorite actors to do their thing and all of which you either know of because you watch the news (Wolf), have seen many times before especially from Scorsese (Casino), or get explained to you before the drama even begins (The Irishman which, honestly, is probably the exception to this group, in that it's really not a good film, overall.) I didn't actively dislike Killers. I think it's worth seeing if you don't know anything about the story of the Osage. Do I think it's worth sitting in a theater for three-and-a-half hours to watch the same events be relayed to you twice? No. No, I do not. Watch it via Amazon over a couple evenings or something like that and do it mostly for Gladstone's performance. But if you were expecting to see another Scorsese classic on the order of Goodfellas, I'm afraid you're not going to be able to see past the pedestal.

Mastery of tension

We wanted to see Past Lives when we saw the trailer at the Michigan Theater, but it didn't end up meeting our usual schedule. I don't recall if it was because it simply wasn't showing on Tuesdays or if showtimes were too early for us to make it. I remember thinking that it looked at first glance like a standard "long lost relationship" story, but there was something subversively attractive about it that elevated it beyond what I would have normally dismissed as boilerplate. With the recent dearth of interesting films at the two theaters, we decided to take a chance on this one on Apple TV+ and I'm really glad we did, because it was anything but bog standard and is one of the better films we've seen this year.

There's an art to cinematic romance that goes beyond the dreamy quality that many people associate with it. It's not just about living out fantasies. Sometimes it's about dealing with the emotions that are known to all of us and inherent to the human condition. The ability to display that is an art in and of itself because many will associate those presentations with sappiness or "chick flicks", but when you can convey real anguish and uncertainty and restraint, it creates a tension on the screen that is the essential hallmark of storytelling. It's what keeps your viewer glued to the screen. They want to find out what happens next, whether it's the predictable (Love conquers all!) or the not so much (Real life...) This film has that tension from beginning to end. From the moment we first see 12-year-old Nora (Greta Lee) and Hae Sung (Teo Yoo), we can feel the bond between them and their desire to immerse themselves completely in it. But we can also feel the restraint (the uncertainty of youth; the conflicting paths of life; the attachments to others) that they have to exercise to keep themselves from engaging in that deepest desire. It's a difficult task to sell that tension without overselling it to the point of melodrama and both Lee and Yoo, as well as writer-director, Celine Song, pull it off with aplomb.

Indeed, some of the best moments of the film are those without dialogue or obvious action, but which are instead simply studies of the two leads as their faces betray everything they want and everything they're containing as they try to navigate their changing circumstances from 12 to 24 to 36. I've often said that visual storytelling is often a lost art in modern filmmaking but Song's pacing and direction have it down. That extends to the sets and costuming, as well. There's nothing overly remarkable about any of the backgrounds or apartments or restaurants. They all seem everyday and normal because this situation is also everyday and normal, but no less important for being so. Nothing that you see detracts from the focus on the characters and the emotions that they're alternately struggling to contain and desperate to express. It's an extraordinary feeling when you can understand why it would be gratifying to some degree to see these two people finally get to interact in the way that they both want, but would also be a hindrance to the telling of a genuinely good story if they tipped over that edge. Again, that tension is what separates the film from the bog standard and it had to be maintained. The fact that much of the story was drawn from Song's own life probably made it that much easier to tell.

Some mention also has to go to Nora's husband, Arthur, played by John Magaro, who some might consider the truly tragic character in this drama, as he's the innocent bystander in this drawn out collision. He cogently identifies himself as the "White bad guy" in this romantic scenario when all he's trying to do is continue to love the woman that he's been married to for a decade. You feel for him at least as much as the two leads for knowing that his wife may still be bonded at the soul, as it were, to another person. But she also points out that she made the choice to have this life and she's choosing to spend it with him. It's that choice that kept Nora and Hae Sung apart the first time they rediscovered each other, so he's a conscious inclusion. But, of course, the genuine desire is written on Nora's face through the final third of the film, whether Arthur is present or not. In the end, it's a great film in the path of favorites of mine like Blue is the Warmest Color, because it's a film about humans and how we react to the world and the people around us. Highly recommended for a watch and a re-watch, for that matter.

Trying too hard to be something different

It's been a few weeks. There hasn't been much playing at the Michigan Theater that's been particularly interesting, so we've mostly just been watching TV on Tuesdays. But there hasn't really been much of that that's particularly compelling, either. We've had the misfortune to see a film that we were hemming and hawing about seeing at the Michigan and also another Apple+ TV series that is ending up like all of the rest of them, other than Severance.

The film was Bottoms; another Emma Seligman feature that is the follow-up to her fairly-entertaining Shiva Baby, which we did see and did enjoy, but wasn't compelling enough for me to sit down and type out a couple thousand words about. It was originally a short film and then was popular enough to become a long film and didn't really benefit from the necessary padding of the script. Meanwhile, Bottoms, which stars and was co-written by Rachel Sennott (also the lead in Shiva Baby) is one part bog-standard teen sex comedy and one part parody of same. The characters are all hyper-realized stereotypes of those idiots you detested in high school, except for the main group, which is the poor nerds that somehow end up with all of the girls. At any moment, I was waiting to hear Robert Carradine's bellowing laugh erupt from one of the women that mostly occupied our time. But the problem, of course, was just that: We've seen all of this before. Many times. None of it is new. None of it is original. None of it is really that funny. The only difference here is that both leads (the other being Ayo Edebiri, best known as Sydney from the spectacular The Bear) are gay. That's a nice acknowledgement of modern viewpoints and the identities that many people had even back when you and I were in high school, but it doesn't make the tired plot or screenplay any better. It just makes it an even more obvious retread with some modern window dressing to try to sell it to new audiences (much like Bros.)

Seriously, the summary offered by Rotten Tomatoes (where the film has a 93% approval rating...) is "Propulsive and over-the-top, Bottoms is an instant high school comedy classic that feels both current and nostalgic." I can assure you that there's nothing inherently "propulsive" (whatever that actually means) about it, especially when it comes to the leaden predictable plot. That, of course, is probably what makes people feel "nostalgic" about seeing the same thing they've seen since the 1980s introduced us to Porky's. I'm sorry to say that nostalgia was not the overarching feeling I was getting. It was more like boredom. And, of course, the "current" part was, again, likely down to the fact that many reviewers seem smitten with the idea of gay people being something original in storytelling when they should just be regular people in a decent story, if one were being told. If they wanted to make a film about being LGBTQ+ in high school, then they could have written a script that fully engaged that topic, rather than simply using it as a note of "modern" difference from the almost 40-year-old Revenge of the Nerds. There really was nothing that made this film stand out- script, direction, performances -from any of the dozens of lookalikes over those past four decades, which is really disappointing after the solid films that we've seen both Sennott and Edebiri (Shiva Baby, Theater Camp(!)) in this past summer. And, yes, I should get around to writing something about The Bear.

Until then, I'll have to content myself (and you) with writing about Apple+'s attempt to be different in a similar failing fashion to Bottoms. As noted, other than Severance, the offerings on Apple+ have been pretty subpar for any number of reasons. The problem with our latest attempt to find something interesting, Invasion, is also one of trying too hard to stand out from the crowd and missing the target in the process. Just from the title, you're automatically aware that the series is about an attempt by little green men to conquer/eradicate/make aggressive contact with/something-as-long-as-it's-violent our little green world. Again, this is a plot that goes back to H.G. Wells at the end of the 19th century (War of the Worlds is 125 years old this year, in fact.) However, in this case, rather than show the snake-necked saucers of the Martians laying waste to the countryside, through the three episodes we've watched, we've seen the presumed aliens once, for about 15 seconds. In their place, we've gotten four stories about emotional and personal loss that just happened to occur during this supposed crisis.

We have the estranged former doctor who gave up her career to be the perfect housewife; the career soldier wrestling with the effects of distance from his own marriage; the fragile schoolboy dealing with bullies and absent parents; and the brilliant engineer who is enduring her first long separation from the love of her life, driven by their mutual careers. Again, all of these are themes of emotional and personal loss and all of which are completely ancillary to the ostensibly overarching theme of an alien invasion. Any of them could have happened in the midst of any other kind of disaster (pandemic, terrorist attack, worldwide forest fire) and any of them could simply have been happening on their own, no crisis required, such that the focus of the show called "Invasion" isn't any SF element at all, but simply the angst of these people going through their personal problems. But all that does is make a footnote of what is supposedly the central thrust of your story. Said invasion is a background element, at best. I think the idea was that they'd tell the story of a "war of the worlds" at the ground level, by showing what happens to these normal people facing normal problems who are suddenly thrust into extraordinary circumstances, akin to the classic Alien. But all they've done is provide a veneer of SF to a pretty standard melodrama; to the point where you wonder why it's considered speculative fiction at all.

Now, I was just complaining about seeing the same, old thing and, certainly, we've seen a few hundred alien invasion-type films and TV series that put our (human) heroes in trying times over the years, from ongoing wars like Battlestar Galactica to plain, old Earth-gets-firebombed stuff like The Tomorrow War. None of that is particularly exciting or original anymore. But none of them try to pretend they're something they're not in the hopes of approaching it from a nominally original angle, either. All of the stories and characters (and performances) in this show are interesting enough. It's not been boring. But it could have just been titled "Four Stories of Loss" with any of the premises mentioned above (jokes or not) and we would have had the same result. But we came into this with the idea that this is about an ALIEN INVASION and instead it's about a lot of longing (and appropriately plaintive looks) for when things can be "normal" again; presumably post-divorce, post-mourning, and post-getting back to primary school before someone kills you and takes the conch. Clearly, they've tried to slow play this as a different way of approaching the stereotypical assumption that many would make and that's all well and good. But it also sets up the viewer to be disappointed as we wade through the emotional debris and wonder what visitors from other worlds have to do with any of this or why they'd bother. We're probably not going to anymore, either.

Story isn't everything

Despite my absence, it's not as if we haven't still been seeing films on a regular basis this summer. While lacking motivation to keep writing about them, there have been a few good ones. Among them are the big hits of the season: Oppenheimer and Barbie. Since everyone within reach of the Interwebs has talked about them, I don't think it serves much purpose to join the crowd. Suffice it to say that Oppenheimer was a Chris Nolan film, with his style all over it, and a great representation of a very complex man. Similarly, Barbie was excellent; extremely well-written and with obvious themes that still didn't continually beat you over the head with them. In faux irony, the funniest thing about the film was that, despite those themes, the person who stole the show was Ryan Gosling as Ken. Anyway, if I get any feedback to this stuff at all, maybe I'll go into more detail on one or both of them, but I feel like there's not much more to be said that hasn't already by far bigger names than mine. In contrast, what did feel compelling was our most recent viewing, which was tonight of the French film, Passages.

Those of you that have been reading my stuff for a while (all four of you) will likely remember that I'm not generally a fan of French cinema. It often strikes me as complicated for the sake of being so and emotionally detached while presenting as emotionally overwrought. There have been exceptions over the years, as films like Blue is the Warmest Color are among my favorites. That film, in fact, is what led me to be interested in Passages, since the female lead is Adèle Exarchopoulos, who was also one of the leads in BitWC. Also like that film, Passages is another examination of modern LGBTQ+ relationships, where Tomas (Franz Rogowski) and Martin (Ben Whishaw) are a married couple in Paris until Tomas begins an affair with Agathe (Exarchopoulos) and things get complicated. That's a very simple story that, as you might expect, is quite character-driven; mostly by Tomas who is the chaotic spindle upon which all the other threads are twisted, mostly to their chagrin, continual or eventual. It sounds like something that me, the story guy and the not-really-fascinated-by-French-film guy, wouldn't be a fan of. But I was the only person of the three of us walking out of it with a positive reaction.

What sold me is the humanistic portrayal of the characters and the fact that none of them shied away from the reality that love, in many cases, makes people stupid. (Moreso than usual, in any case.) It becomes a fairly humorous story, but not because it's played for comedy. The gasps of frustration in the audience at Tomas' actions were easily audible. The humor instead arises from the shock that not only could he keep doing these outrageous, selfish, destructive things, but that Martin and Agathe kept coming back for more. That's what love often does to you and I appreciated that co-writer (with Mauricio Zacharias) and director, Ira Sachs, kept driving that point home. He didn't expect anyone to approve of or understand the decisions made by any of the main characters. He just presented them as realities because, to many of us, they have been (and sometimes still are.) Story Guy is also fond of characters that are humans first, roles second, and all of the characters in this story fit that description. It's not entirely beyond the realm of reason that Sachs put some of himself into Tomas, a filmmaker in this story, as well. As much as some think that injecting oneself into one's characters is a natural progression, it takes a certain level of bravery to expose oneself in that fashion, too, which potentially makes this story that much more interesting.

In a similar fashion to the big hits of the summer, I think Passages is well worth the watch. I doubt it will have as broad an appeal as those films, but I don't think it was intended in that fashion, either. It's peculiar and will have an attraction to those of peculiar tastes, which just may describe why I can't get any traction by writing for a living, either.

The entertainingly familiar

Many directors have a style that accompanies most, if not all, of their work but no modern voice in cinema has as distinct or consistent a style as Wes Anderson. From The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou forward, Anderson's films have inhabited a slightly off-kilter fantasy world that is alternately charming, bemusing, and fascinating but never boring. His latest, Asteroid City, is no different in this respect. Set in the 1950s, the ideally kitschy age for an Anderson story, the film takes us through a science fair, some midlife crises, teenage discovery, postmortem grief, and first contact with at least semi-intelligent extraterrestrial life. Any one of those themes could have been central to an Anderson film and would doubtlessly have turned into an interesting story full of sly witticisms and quirky moments that you'd rarely see in most other directors' work. The fact that all of them were crammed into one story might be what makes this one feel slightly lacking when one lists the better films of his oeuvre.

It's at least mildly reassuring to know that it's not just Anderson fans who respect his work, as the list of actors that are piling into the tiniest of parts in his last two films (the previous being The French Dispatch) is beginning to become a story in and of itself. While City had a collection of those who are now Anderson regulars, like Scarlett Johansson, Adrien Brody, and Ed Norton, it also includes Tom Hanks, Matt Dillon, Hong Chau, and Willem Defoe, among many others. Some of those marquee names had screen time in the range of two minutes or less. But this was apparently the chance to be "in an Anderson" and they took it, no matter how ephemeral the role. It's a fair question to ask at this point whether their popping up for a few seconds and being noticed by the audience is the entertainment of the moment or whether what they're saying and doing onscreen is supposed to be the focus in the traditional manner. When I think back to what I still regard as the pinnacle of his career, Moonrise Kingdom, I remember a film where virtually every character had an important role to play in the story and wasn't just a moving part of the scenery or a lever to move a scene from one spot to the next with a famous face attached. That latter state leaves many of them as not very memorable parts of the overall story. Indeed, among the most memorable characters are the trio of girls who are Augie's (Jason Schwartzman) daughters, Andromeda, Cassiopeia, and Pandora (the Faris triplets: Ella, Willan, and Gracie, respectively) none of whom received star credit but all of whom had more comedic and dramatic impact than many much more hallowed names.

All of that said, the star of the piece was definitely Johansson, who delivered what was probably her best performance since Lost in Translation. In the lighthearted world of Anderson, Midge was the character who was dryly poking holes in everything and getting everyone to admit that they knew there was more to the story and the world than what was being told to them. The fact that her daughter, Dinah (Grace Edwards) develops a relationship with Woodrow (Jake Ryan) at the same time that Midge and Augie are hooking up is just part of the symmetry that Anderson tends to embed in the worlds where it seems like random events are the order of the day. In a way, that's part of the point, in that all of those events, while symmetrical, are still random. That's, again, part of what gives his films their charm, because nothing seems planned, even though all of it is, meticulously. It's also worth noting Jeffrey Wright as General Grif Gibson and Bryan Cranston as the TV Host for lending the artificial gravitas that the rest of the cast spends their time orbiting around and often inadvertently defying. That, too, is part of the whimsy of Anderson's worlds and it's still an appreciable thing.

But in a way it's also the weakness of the film in that it's kinda the same thing that's been happening for 25 years now. It's still a treat for those of us that are fans, but it's the same treat that we've been getting for a long time and not nearly as delightful as it was at its height in films like Moonrise and The Grand Budapest Hotel. I don't think the formula has gotten tired, per se, but it also no longer carries the weight that it once did. Moonrise, while in that same vein of whimsy, was also a deeply emotional story of emotional discovery between two inhibited teenagers and the rediscovery of same by many inhibited adults. That kind of discovery story had a small part in City, but it was a very minor note in an otherwise patchwork quilt of themes. The impression that I walked out with wasn't the fascinating story of a place and population just slightly askew, but a director recycling his old material in an attempt to do something new which really wasn't. I don't want to say that it was tired because I didn't become bored or impatient or disinterested. I was chuckling basically the whole way through. But it felt almost too familiar; as if I'd seen it all before. That's not to say that it's a bad film or not worth seeing. It absolutely is. But in the same way as with Dispatch, I didn't walk out of the theater thinking that I'd seen something magical. It was just more Wes Anderson.

And that might be because of my overall perspective at the moment and not from any marked failing on the part of the film. I've been writing about this stuff for a long time, in the same way that I've been writing here and here for a long time. Lately, none of them are giving me the kind of return that I've always been hoping for. Well, honestly, none of them have turned into what I'd vaguely hoped for, which is landing a regular gig writing somewhere. But even doing it in the hopes that something might happen has begun to be less than what I'd usually expect. In other words, I'm not really enjoying it anymore and am giving serious thought to giving up on the idea of writing on a regular basis. I don't think I'm running out of things to say. I just feel like not enough people are particularly interested anymore, if they ever were. In a way, I'm kind of doing the same thing and it feels like only the usual suspects are paying attention; kinda like Wes Anderson's fans. So, I've been giving some serious thought to simply shutting down and moving on to something else. What that might be, I have no idea, but it certainly seems that writing for a living is not in my future after almost 40 years of trying. We'll see what happens next, I guess.

The limits of expectations

There hasn't been much traffic here lately. A combination of other activities (vacations, etc.) and a lack of compelling films at the Michigan/State Theaters has led to a similar void at this blog as currently occupies extratime.blog (which is a result of it being the off-season for Euro football.) But we have been watching new things. They've just been on the small screen. Back in the day of cable bundles, there were often complaints about how one might be paying insane fees for some channels simply to gain access to the smaller ones that you really wanted. This was frequently from people paying ESPN's fees as part of their cable bill when they weren't sports fans at all. Given the variety of my interests, I never had that issue, but still found myself bemoaning the fact that I had access to 300 channels and actually watched less than a tenth of those. The idea of splitting everything into distinct networks so that one could actually get what you were paying for was seen as the ideal transformation. Of course, now we have the (predictable) opposite problem, in that there's so much fragmentation among streaming networks and show producers that in order to see everything you'd like, you're paying basically the same amount you would have for that cable bundle, but in eight different directions, instead of just one. This was a long preamble to get around to the fact that we've engaged yet another streaming network, in the form of Apple TV+, because Tricia recently replaced her iPhone and was given three months' access to the network for free. Given that Apple is the home of such heralded shows as Ted Lasso, I was half-excited and half-cringing at the idea of paying for yet another streaming service, if we found that what was on offer was actually worthwhile. The results have been... mixed, to be diplomatic about it, so there may be no need to be concerned about another bill when our free time runs out. But let's start at the top.

Ted Lasso. This was the show that put Apple TV on the map, coming as it did during the dark days of the initial COVID lockdown in 2020 and giving people at least one ray of severe positivity in their lives. That circumstance of timing is what I would suspect is one of the main drivers of its popularity. At that time when people were actively concerned about leaving their homes or associating with their friends and relatives, it must have been awfully reassuring having Jason Sudeikis on the screen on a regular basis to remind you that there was still some sunshine in the world. And that's all well and good, except that it doesn't really replace the rather average quality of both plot and writing. The basis of the show- that the vengeful new owner of Premier League club, AFC Richmond, somehow hires a Div. II American football coach to be the club's manager in the hopes of driving it into the ground (or at least to relegation) -is essentially the plot of Major League (and, indirectly, Slapshot) so we're not really seeing anything new here. This involves completely ignoring the ridiculous media firestorm and likely outright revolt by the club's members and supporters that would accompany any such move, to say nothing of inquiries by the PL wondering why one of their clubs is seemingly sabotaging its own- and, thus, the league's -product. But let's put all that real world stuff aside, accept our absurd premise, and get down to the meat of what the show is. Or, more accurately, isn't.

The main problem I had with Ted Lasso is that it wasn't funny. It's not that it wasn't cerebrally funny or didn't really appeal to my often obscure sense of humor. Those are both difficult paths to walk and I've watched (and laughed at) more than one show that didn't really hit the nail on the head in the same way that, say, Rick and Morty does. But this show wasn't funny at all. It was really just pedestrian. Characters did obvious things with motivations planted in front of them to do so. The joke was already right there before the dialogue came from their mouths, making it akin to already having heard all the jokes even before we watched the show. Certainly, I'm probably very far from the target audience, having watched English football for 45 years and having fully acquainted myself with the George Bernard Shawisms ("Two people separated by a common language.") of the dialectical differences between the States and the mother country. It's not particularly interesting (or funny) to me to see people wondering about calling cleats "boots" and comparing them to the trunk of a car. Indeed, the only time I laughed out loud during the entire first season was when the staff were talking about other managers getting in touch in the face of Ted's obvious failures and started listing names of those who'd contacted the club: "Tony Pulis, Alan Curbishley; Harry Redknapp has called three times." Now, if you know anything about English football over the last decade-and-a-half, that line is hilarious. But it was also utterly lost on probably 99% (at least) of the American audience who were otherwise apparently intended to be amused by the "aw shucks!" approach of Sudeikis and Co.

And, of course, a lot of people were amused. That's fine. There's nothing wrong with that. (see above about "obscure sense of humor.") But I'm always far more interested in shows or movies that are going to make me think. I received much advice about "turning my brain off" and just being entertained by what Ted and others were doing and that's never, ever going to happen. If I'm going to spend an hour watching something, I want to get something out of it other than just having spent an hour not having to think. There has to be a story that interests me. Or at least a character that's compelling. Or even a couple lines that I'd find interesting enough to repeat or remember or even try to swipe for something I'm working on. Ted Lasso had none of that. The characters were all very obvious and mostly quite simple. The story is, as noted, reprocessed from previous efforts and/or so unrealistic as to make me think that the writers didn't even bother to research their setting. And the dialogue is simply routine. There's nothing there that's memorable outside of a an offhand joke that an extreme minority of viewers would appreciate. My reaction to the show has drawn all kinds of negative reactions from my friends; ranging from disbelief to disdain that I wasn't able to appreciate something that was universally-praised. This is not a new phenomenon (see: Titanic among many, many others.) So, yeah, it could be "just me", but it was also a really poor start for Apple TV if I tuned into their hallmark (ahem) property and came away completely detached. We watched the first season and I have no interest in pursuing it any further.

Foundation. So then we moved on to something that is actually rooted in the familiar (e.g. not an obvious outsider's take on something like English football.), in that I've read all of the novels by Isaac Asimov upon which the show is based. The problem that has followed the books around for decades in terms of trying to adapt them to other media is that they're far more Glengarry Glen Ross than Star Wars. In other words, Asimov's work was often about two people in a room holding a conversation on high-end topics (cultural, political, scientific), instead of going through events or initiating actions that tell a story about how the galactic empire is dying. There's a lot more talkin' than there is actin' and that's occasionally a difficult problem when trying to adapt said prose to a visual medium. It's not insurmountable. As GGR displays, it's quite possible to tell a great story about people talking about doing stuff, rather than actually showing them doing it. It's just a different approach and Asimov's books are cornerstones of modern science fiction for taking that approach and showing just how cerebral that kind of storytelling can be; even when not considered "hard" science fiction (e.g. sticking to the actual physical constraints of the universe and embedding those principles in the storytelling approach.) But the problem is that Asimov's rather distant relationship with most of his characters burdens the story with the problems that everyone predicted (Psychohistory!) over the many, many years of thinking about how to adapt the Foundation series to film or TV.

The first problem is that the story is huge. This is a tale that is almost required to take place over decades and centuries in order to come to its conclusion. So, unless you're willing to markedly deviate from Asimov's work and introduce things like suspended animation or time-shifting (not something I would advise unless you want to be accused of ripping off Star Trek's worst excesses), you're going to need to do one of two things: 1. Simply carry forward with multiple actors filling the roles of the books, such that few characters are seen for longer than a couple episodes, giving the audience no chance to develop familiarity and, thus, relate to them. 2. Tell your story in a non-linear fashion so that multiple, concurrent storylines are running simultaneously in "show time", even if they're at different stages in story time. They chose #2, which is clearly the wiser choice if you expect to get renewed for multiple seasons. Now, don't get me wrong. I love non-linear storytelling. Among many standout elements to Pulp Fiction, one of its strongest is that non-linear approach that sets up the story to work and then later blend together in ways that simply going from point A to point B would not have allowed. But that approach works well in a film because you're telling your whole story in two hours. I've found it to be less viable in TV series because, unless you're binge-watching the whole thing, it's quite easy for the average audience member to lose track of- and, thus, lose interest in -what's happening when you're shifting between characters, their children, and their grandchildren, all ostensibly pursuing the same goal. Having to do so much setup of those characters, their surroundings, and their motivations only adds to that potential confusion. In watching the show, I'm OK with it because I read the books and I know what's going on. I know that Tricia tuned out almost instantly, not only because of its slow pace but also because, unless she was riveted to the screen, she probably lost track of what was happening pretty quickly.

Visually, it is impressive, which is what you'd hope for given the massive scope of the story and the modern techniques we have for conveying that majesty. I've only watched the first four episodes and I've been able to appreciate what they're trying to do here. Of course, they also never fully escaped the problem that has dogged attempts at the "unfilmable" series in the past in that, in many ways, it is kinda unfilmable and they've had to make alterations to the story already that many purists would reject and which deviate not only from the narrative but from Asimov's thematic intent. The Star Bridge and its destruction? Doesn't even exist in the books. The cloned emperors? Nope. Both of those are seemingly attempts to add compelling narratives to the story (unrest in the galaxy leading to the dissolution of the empire; said unrest perhaps arising from the "same" man/men being in power for so long, but also struggling with their own preprogrammed roles) but neither are present in Asimov's work because the story he was trying to tell was about the loss of knowledge from one generation to the next and Harry Seldon's attempt to forestall that. Having a ruler who is cyclically cloned from his predecessors and is, thus, infused with their knowledge and history from birth is directly contradicting Asimov's entire premise. It's seemingly become a story of rejecting history, rather than forgetting it. The former is a great premise, too (witness Ron DeSantis' fervent attempts to almost literally whitewash history and education in the state of Florida), but it's not the story Asimov was trying to tell. But in doing so, they again haven't escaped the essential problem, but have instead simply presented another version of a slow, difficult story in a visual medium. Will it be worth it? I don't know. Like I said, I've watched four. I'm not fervently compelled to go back to it and Tricia has no interest whatsoever.

Severance. In a final attempt to see if Apple TV was going to work for us, I picked up a suggestion that came from friends on ThereWillBe.Games in the form of a dystopian version of Office Space. Now, anyone who knows me will know that I am all over dystopian and/or post-apocalyptic stories and will almost always stop to watch anything that carries one or both of those labels. I created an entire comic universe called "Dystopia" and wrote hundreds of pages of script about it so, yeah, I'm onboard for most of that stuff. Having watched the first three episodes in our first evening of trying it out, it's quite possible that the third attempt is, indeed, the charm. Tricia sat up and took notice in the first couple minutes it was on and we've both stayed fully involved in all three episodes. These are fully-formed characters, with human idiosyncrasies that they struggle with, and a premise that, while still firmly in the SF/Twilight Zone realm, isn't that far removed from the present day (in true, Twilight Zone fashion; RIP the genius that was Rod Serling.) Unlike Ted Lasso, I was instantly interested and familiar with what they were presenting. The production design (the austere, brightly-lit, maze-like corridors of the workplace; the dark and shadowy or bleak and gray depiction of home life) is excellent and the themes (the cult-like devotion to the founding CEO (at least mildly ironical in its presence on Apple TV...), the attempted division between work and home life but not for the benefit of the employees) resonate with what our world is like right now. On top of all that, the cast has multiple highlights in the form of Patricia Arquette, Christopher Walken, and John Turturro.

But the best work so far has been done by, appropriately, the lead, Adam Scott, as Mark S. He's the first "severed" person we meet and it's clear that he's struggling with many other issues above and beyond that from the moment we first see him, crying in his car outside Lumon Industries. His reason for being severed is a perfectly understandable one, if extreme and tragic (People are often like that.) And he provides both a perfect example of what Lumon expects their employees to be (chipper and constantly motivated and positive at the office), as well as what an actual emotional human can often endure outside (devastated by his wife's loss and his largely friendless existence.) Indeed, he's almost the case study for why Lumon would want to do this from a work-efficiency (and emotionally void) perspective, in that he's the model employee at work because the severing prevents him from bringing personal problems into the office. (Hearken back here to Gil's (Steve Martin) argument with his boss in Parenthood; the latter of whom chides Gil for constantly complaining about problems with his kids while his competitor for a partnership is always on the go ("I'm not even sure if he has kids!")) But Scott isn't alone here, as Jen Tullock does great work as his concerned sister, Devon, who nevertheless doesn't want to interfere in either Mark's grieving for his wife or his decisions as to how to handle it. Likewise, Tramell Tillman is excellent as the supervisor, Seth Milchick, who exudes an aura of chipperness and menace at all times; often simultaneously.

This is the one show among the three that instantly had me thinking: "Oh, yeah. I want to see more of this." That came from not only being interested in a story about actual, fully-formed humans, but also being interested in how those humans deal with a story that respects the viewer. This isn't simplistic like Ted Lasso or overly-burdened like Foundation. It is possible that, like many of these mystery premises, we could end up with an overly-elaborate justification for why all of this is happening (see: Lost, Battlestar Galactica, etc.) But it's also possible that we could end up with something more along the lines of True Detective, season 1, where the essential elements of the story aren't the genre itself (in this case, SF; in TD's case, crime), but the people involved in it. It's not like there haven't been a couple missteps. Britt Lower, as Helly R., provides a dynamic personality and a much more typical reaction to the circumstances of being essentially imprisoned on the "severed" level. But that immediately led me to question why she would have been accepted into the program in the first place. Considering the amount of psychological screening that takes place in major corporate hiring practices in the real world, it seems like something as drastic as the severing process and her reaction to it would have been flagged by Lumon long before Helly underwent the procedure. She's the one flame in the otherwise tepid existence, which is a great conflict element, but still seems quite out of place at the moment.

So, that's Apple TV. I'm still not certain that we'll hold onto it, since we have multiple other services to watch (and some that should probably be turned off by now), but Severance at least provides something of a compelling argument that was otherwise lacking to that point. We'll see how it develops.