Back to the well

Pretend It’s a City (MC-77, NFX) is an extended 7-episode encore to the 2010 documentary Public Speaking, and I see no reason not to repeat my review of that:  It’s “basically Martin Scorsese’s My Dinner with Fran, and your response with be predicated on how you feel about Fran Lebowitz’s animated gestural tabletalk.  Her acerbic, self-assured New Yawker commentary on any subject that comes to mind, and her cultivated Oscar Wilde-in-drag persona, will determine whether you are drawn into this portrait or put off, delightedly amused or definitely not amused.  Count me among the amused.”  Padding the proceedings  with shots of Fran walking down the streets of Manhattan, or across the large scale-model Panorama of New York from the 1964 World’s Fair, does not alter that assessment.  Nor does mixing in a few other interlocutors.  Feel free to pick and choose among the episodes, but don’t miss the finale, “Library Services.”
 
I’ve written two previous recommendations for earlier seasons of Call My Agent! (MC-84, NFX), but its fourth and final season seems to be getting more attention, perhaps out of pandemic viewing desperation.  This hour-long French comedy/soap opera follows the fate of a well-established but always-on-the-run media talent agency, with an enviable roster of stars, who make cameos episode by episode, frequently making fun of their own public personae.  It’s all quite hectic and comic, with tantalizing glimpses into the film business and behind the masks of fame, well-acted and lushly-lensed.  It helps to have some grounding in French film, but you don’t have to recognize the celebrities to enjoy the show (though this season’s high point is the fifth episode, starring Sigourney Weaver).  But you will have to work to keep up, both with the action and the subtitles, unless you are blessed with facility in française.  The series finale tries too hard to wrap things up with bow, but otherwise I found the whole very satisfying.
 
The History of Swear Words (MC-63, NFX) is surprisingly entertaining and informative, covering one naughty word in each 20-minute episode, six so far but likely to go further, I imagine, with a winning format established and many more swears to cover.  Nicholas Cage hosts, and a mix of linguists and comedians comment, in fast and fun succession.  Pick your favorite swear word, and give an episode a try.
 
I was happy to re-visit some high (and low) points of the Civil Rights Movement in John Lewis: Good Trouble (MC-70, HBO).  Dawn Porter’s posthumous portrait is not entirely hagiography, but would have benefited from digging a bit deeper into his personal relationships, either with MLK as mentor, Stokely Carmichael as rival, or Julian Bond as friend-turned-adversary, not to mention the rather perfunctory treatment of his wife.  Still an admirable life history of getting into good trouble, marked by 44 arrests for nonviolent protest, and a long and productive career as a legislator, worthy of remembrance.
 
I went back to the well of Britbox programming for a free week’s trial, to catch up with a variety of shows related to previous favorites of mine:
 
Though the term has apparently been around for a while as a variant of “sitcom”, I first heard “sadcom” applied to Don’t Forget the Driver (BCG) and it strikes me as a useful rubric.  These are half-hour comedy shows that are as serious as they are funny, and don’t shy away from painful topics.  Besides starring Toby Jones, this one has a bit of that Detectorists vibe, as he plays a travel coach driver in a seaside town on England’s south coast, again bonding with a long-lost grown daughter.  As he drives a bus-full of codgers to the military cemetery at Dunkirk, he comes back with a young female stowaway, come from Eritrea to find her immigrant brother.  Other episodes visit Hampton Court or a donkey sanctuary.  Without ever mentioning Brexit or the immigration crisis, the show comments on Britain’s insularity in subtle ways.  There are a plethora of characters and complications, too many in fact, as the final two episodes (of six) add more instead of satisfactorily resolving those already established.  So as much as I enjoyed this show in the early going, I wound up not eager to see any further seasons.
 
Similarly with There She Goes (BCG), which I thought might be along the lines of The A Word, but this series is both more jokey and more grim than that favorite of mine.  Based on the real experiences of the show’s creators with their developmentally-disabled daughter, Rosie’s problematic behavior is much more severe than Joe’s autism, perpetually acting out and creating mayhem.  The parents are played by David Tennant and the BAFTA-winning Jessica Hynes, in two seasons of five half-hour episodes.  Initially put off, I wound up getting through six episodes in all, before my free week of Britbox expired.
 
More than worth the price of admission was a late postscript to another favorite of mine, Upstart Crow (BCG).  I watched all three seasons a while back, and loved Ben Elton’s surprisingly truthful parody of Shakespeare, as played by David Mitchell (of Peep Show fame).  In “Tomorrow & tomorrow & tomorrow: Lockdown Christmas 1603,” instead of the usual bustle of characters, we have the Bard sequestered with Kate (a delightful Gemma Whelan, who could not be more different from Yara in GoT) in a London plague year.  He’s trying to compose Macbeth, and the two of them are coping with all the restrictions that have such a contemporary Covid resonance.  Lots of laughs on a revisit with these two characters.  And not a bad slimmed-down introduction to the series, if you're not familiar with it.
 
I’d been wanting to see the Christmas 2019 ten-year reunion of Gavin & Stacey (BCG), but I wound up finally finding it on HBO Max rather than Britbox.  Not an essential addition to the canon, but a pleasant reminder of characters and storylines from an enjoyable series.
 

On HBO Max as well, I discovered a newly-revived show I’d missed altogether in its 22-episode run in 2007-2009 – Pushing Daisies (MC-86) is certainly a distinctive piece of work from creator Bryan Fuller, with whose work I am otherwise unfamiliar.  Is it a fantasy-mystery, or a zombie-romance, or a comedy-drama?  Yes, all of the above.  With candy-color visuals and a Dr. Seuss narration, full of wicked double-entendres that whip by.  Also with eye-popping design, witty writing and direction, and an excellent cast.  Lee Pace, in a far cry from his subsequent starring role in Halt & Catch Fire, is the child-like “Pie Maker,” proprietor of the pretty-enough-to-eat Pie Hole.  He’s got one secret power, a touch that can bring the dead back to life.  A second touch will kill them off again, but if untouched after one minute they will continue living and someone else will die.  Sort of a ridiculous premise, but this show embraces it in a big Technicolor hug, and moves fast and funny enough that you never question it.  The Pie Maker is recruited by a gruff P.I. (Chi McBride) in a scheme to claim rewards for solving murders, by briefly waking the dead as witnesses to their own killers.  Anna Friel is the childhood crush, who’s been murdered herself, so when the Pie Maker reanimates her, he can’t bear to give her a second, deadly, touch – ever.  Kristin Chenoweth is the Pie Hole waitress with a thing for her boss, and suspicions about the new girl hanging around.  Each 44-minute episode covers a clever enough mystery, and encompasses all manner of comic romantic contretemps, in a pastel make-believe universe.  
 
Then I took another look-see at Freaks & Geeks (MC-88, Hulu), one of my all-time favorite shows, finally available on streaming.  I didn’t catch the show’s abbreviated single season in 1999, but caught up with it on DVD in 2004, when the series’ seminal quality was already established, and so many careers launched, creator Paul Feig and producer Judd Apatow above all.  I developed a crush on main character Lindsay Weir (who vacillates between the freaks and the geeks) and have looked for Linda Cardellini performances ever since.  James Franco, a poor man’s Ethan Hawke, has been all over the map – acting, writing, directing, whatever.  Seth Rogen and Jason Segel have rather improbably established successful starring roles in the movies.  Martin Starr has gone from delightful dork to sardonic satanist Guilfoyle in Silicon Valley.  This tale of life in a Michigan high school in 1980 mixes truth and hilarity in a way that will resonate with anyone who has mercifully survived an American high school, anywhere in any era.  Highly recommended.
 
Also went back to the well by looking at Lonergan again.  Kenneth Lonergan cemented his exalted place in my esteem with Manchester by the Sea, but recently I’ve gone and re-viewed his two previous films, also favorites of mine.  In retrospect, the most striking aspect of You Can Count on Me (2000, MC-85, HBO) was the first impact of Laura Linney and Mark Ruffalo, who have continued to surprise and engage for two decades.  But Lonergan’s perceptive and funny writing, the Upstate NY locations, and the supporting cast all contribute to the story of two adult orphans, the irresponsible younger brother and the seemingly responsible older sister, more alike than different, and relying on each other to negotiate an unsatisfying parentless world.
 
For a while, I’d been looking for the extended three-hour cut of the highly-divisive Margaret (2011, MC-61, HBO), and it finally turned up as an “extra” to the contested initial release version on HBO Max, certainly amplifying my understanding and admiration for one of this century’s great films.  Anna Paquin is outstanding in the central role, as an intelligent but difficult Manhattan prep school student, who causes a bus accident and then has the victim (Allison Janney) die in her arms.  In buried reaction to the trauma, she begins to go off the rails, damaging herself, her mother (J. Cameron-Smith, Lonergan’s wife and always excellent, especially as the mother in Rectify), her teachers (Matt Damon and Matthew Broderick), the bus driver (Mark Ruffalo), and even the best friend of the deceased (Jeannie Berlin).  This was one of those times when the longer version seemed shorter, because it made more sense, having more time to adumbrate its themes.  Incorporating more “city symphony” passages, additional scenes, and a different sound design, clarifies the overall subject as post-9/11 New York City (it was actually filmed in 2005, with subsequent years of litigation).  Much as I liked the somewhat shorter version, the longer is more capacious and deeply resonant.