Taking a turn

[Now updated through end of year, with comment on The White Lotus and The Crown, among others.]  

With this post, Cinema Salon turns a corner.  I’m giving up any attempt at breadth and currency of coverage, and the presumption of offering “consumer guidance” on the best new films and shows now streaming on various channels.  On one side of this page I expect to be posting periodic viewing diaries or thematic essays, and on the other career summaries of some of my favorite film makers and performers.
 
Here are some last bits of consumer advice on substantial monthly savings through “cord-cutting” and careful management of your streaming channel subscriptions.  It makes little sense to let multiple subscriptions go on indefinitely, especially as rates go up.  You can save 1/2 to 2/3 of your monthly charges, for example, by rotating Hulu, Netflix, and HBO Max subscriptions, rather than treating them like regular utility payments.
 
The lower cost of subscriptions that include commercials makes sense only if you put a very low value on your own time and brain cells.  I find the annual rate a bargain for the Criterion Channel and PBS Passport, Amazon Prime comes as a collateral benefit, and Kanopy is generally available with a local library card.
 
Other channels, led by AppleTV+, are good for an occasional month or two, when prompted by a particular show.  Many others, such as Showtime or Britbox for example, are certainly worth free trials from time to time, which you can multiply by going through Amazon Prime, Hulu, and HBO hubs, as well as signing on through Roku account or the channel directly.
 
Many media outlets offer periodic rundowns of the best programs currently streaming on various channels, easy to google.  As you may have noticed, I rely a lot on Metacritic reports as well as ratings.  Here’s a link to their listing of what’s best among a given channel’s recent and forthcoming offerings.  [This link is specifically for Hulu, but simply click on one of the other channel logos to navigate.]

As a sample of where these posts are heading, I append a few remarks on recent viewing.  Speaking of Hulu, I’ve just discovered how easy it is to pause your subscription for 1-12 weeks, so I’m doing so after squeezing the juice out of the channel for a couple of months.
 
Will postpone finishing the second season of Abbott Elementary (MC-90), which is quite enjoyable, but not unmissable.  Within the straightjacket of a 22-minute network sitcom (which I rarely watch), this workplace ensemble of teachers in a Philadelphia public school is fast and funny, sharp and witty. 
 
I’m not quite as enthusiastic about the third season of Ramy (MC-81) as I was about the first two (reviewed here and here), since it seems to be following the path of Atlanta in becoming darker and stranger, but I still look forward to further exploration of the Muslim milieu of New Jersey.  I expect some kind of redemption narrative in the next season, since Ramy and his family have been in a steep descent.
 
Despite its takeover by Disney, Hulu continues to have an interesting (if hidden) array of foreign films and documentaries.  Bitterbrush (MC-79) is in the estimable tradition of Sweetgrass (reviewed here) as a meditative look at livestock handling in the mountain West, this time cattle wrangling in Idaho instead of sheep herding in Montana.  The biggest difference in this case is that the cameras follows two women, who are engaging both with each other and the viewer, instead of just observing laconic cowboys.  The soundtrack of Bach is lovely and somehow appropriate.  This one is worth a look, both intimate and spectacular.
 
I’m not really a fan of British mystery series, but I am always eager to watch Lesley Manville at work, sort of like an English Meryl Streep, a swiss-army-knife of an actress.  So that led me to two recent shows.  In Sherwood (MC-90, Britbox), she’s the widow of the primary murder victim.  But in this series the murder is a mere Hitchcockian “macguffin,” the solution of the crime a throwaway, a local Nottingham joke about an archer in the forest.  What matters here is the portrait of a divided community in depth and over time, where the grievances of a miners’ strike decades ago still inflame daily life.  David Morrissey is the primary detective in this nicely-layered and -designed tale.
 
In Magpie Murders (MC-79, PBS), Manville is a book editor whose bestselling author dies suddenly under mysterious circumstances, leaving his last book without a final chapter.  So Manville must turn sleuth to find the missing chapter, and incidentally solve the mystery of the author’s death (the plot will ring a bell for those who’ve seen the Knives Out franchise on Netflix).  The story flashes back and forth between the enacted plot of the book, and Manville’s encounters with the villagers who were obvious models for the characters in the book.  Again, the solution of the mystery is not the real appeal here, at least to me, but the clever characterizations and the settings, added to Manville as the bookish sleuth, make it worth watching.
 
Another actress who will induce me to watch shows I would otherwise pass by is Samantha Morton, so while I had Starz on trial, I took a look at one of that channel’s signature genres, all those queens and princesses of old, now joined by The Serpent Queen (MC-76).  She plays the older Catherine de Medici, narrating the story of her early life (played by Liv Hill) to her maid, a protégé in French court intrigue.  In the five episodes I saw before the trial expired, Morton’s role was disappointingly peripheral, but I found the contemporary parallels and updates to 16^th century politics witty for the most part, rather than silly like Hulu’s The Great (i.e. the other Catherine).
 
For another updated version of an old story, there’s Catherine Called Birdy (MC-75, AMZ), an unlikely departure for writer-director Lena Dunham, in adapting a well-known YA novel about a girl in medieval times whose father tries to marry her off to restore the family’s financial situation.  She’s a willful and independent young woman (played by Bella Ramsey, in a telltale lift from GoT) who goes to comic lengths to make herself unmarriageable.  This is not a bad film, but neither is it a good one.  But I did make it through, which is more than I can say for Rosaline (MC-61, Hulu), an anachronistic take on Romeo and Juliet, from the POV of Romeo’s jilted girlfriend, in the vein of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern – I gave it a chance because of Kaitlin Dever in the title role, but she was not enough to keep me watching.
 
As you can see, unless motivated to dig deeper, I’m just going to be recording my offhand reactions to what I watch, rather than trying to encapsulate films or shows in 200-300 words.

[Mid-December update]  Haven’t been watching my usual quota of tv series over recent months, more baseball playoffs then basketball, and a lot of rather old films, which I’ll be covering in my next post here.  But one show that captured my attention was the second season of The White Lotus (MC-81, HBO), which I liked rather more than the first (reviewed here), not only because it’s set in the one place I regret not visiting in my life - Sicily.  This season was not filmed under Covid lockdown, so you get to see more of the local sights.  Love the cast as well as the setting, particularly Aubrey Plaza, Haley Lu Richardson, Michael Imperioli, and F. Murray Abraham.  A mystery is telegraphed in the very first scene, and suspense colors the seven episodes, but the resolution is a ridiculous throwaway that nonetheless plays fair with the viewer.  The main concern is the social and psycho-sexual dynamics of a variety of characters at a plush resort.  That seems an ideal format for series creator Mike White, and I will welcome more seasons as long as character study exceeds plot mechanics. 
 
Though critical reception has fallen off for the fifth season of The Crown (MC-65, NFX), I remain engaged with the show, and look forward to its final season, even if I no longer consider it a real contender for my Top Ten list of all-time favorites.  Imelda Staunton’s portrayal of Queen Elizabeth completes an admirable trio with Claire Foy and Olivia Colman.  Jonathan Pryce makes a more sympathetic Phillip.  As Prince Charles, Dominic West does not look the part as much as his predecessors, but certainly acts the part.  I had, and have, little interest in Princess Diana, but admit that Elizabeth Debicki is extraordinary in the role, her stork-ish height almost a metaphor as she rises above the other royals.  And Lesley Manville as Princess Margaret is always a welcome sight.  I credit Jonny Lee Miller with making John Major an interesting PM, which I have no recollection of him being in real life.  I’m still mightily impressed by the show’s production values, and admired the arc of the season, even as it went off on tangents toward setting up the final season.   
 
I definitely appreciated the third and final season of Dead to Me (MC-70, NFX), which exceeded the previous seasons (reviewed here and here) by dispensing with the murders and concentrating on the humor, highlighting the series strengths – the quick wit of creator Liz Feldman, and the wonderful chemistry between Linda Cardellini and Christina Applegate – in a telling portrayal of female friendship and forgiveness.  Much of the acting is sit-com-ish, as is the setting, but those two are the real deal, and worth watching. 
 
I highlight two new stand-up routines on Netflix:  Hasan Minhaj: The King’s Jester (MC-tbd), which follows neatly upon his earlier Homecoming King and Patriot Act (recommended here).  And with Trevor Noah: I Wish You Would, the polyglot comic and mimic breaks out of the constraints of hosting The Daily Show and unleashes a language-drunk barrage of finely-crafted impressions and observations.  
 
Over on HBO, Jerrod Carmichael’s sit-down comedy(?) performance Rothaniel (MC-94) earned a spot on many best-of-the-year lists.  He announces his theme as secrets, digs deep into his family’s secrets, and then divulges a big one of his own, in an intimate setting where he seems to be talking to friends.  Ultimately I found it more therapeutic than entertaining, unlike Hannah Gadsby for example.
 
Speaking of sit-down comedy, I had a sneaking appreciation of Jonah Hill’s attempt, in Stutz (MC-76, NFX), to make a film about his therapist Phil Stutz, their deep and funny relationship, and the elder’s fully-developed “tools” for living with the inevitable “pain, uncertainty, and ceaseless work.”  As voyeur rather than participant, I’m very interested in the therapeutic relationship, so I’m a sucker for shows like In Treatment or Couples Therapy.  Somewhat skeptically, I gave Jonah and Phil a chance, but wound up watching the whole thing, entertaining the ideas expressed if not quite buying into them.
 

By some mysterious algorithm, YouTube recommended a music documentary I’d been looking for the chance to see, ever since it first appeared (in two 90-minute episodes) on Epix, to which I’ve never had a subscription.  Laurel Canyon (MC-85) looks at the community of musicians that produced the L.A. sound of the mid-Sixties:  Byrds, Buffalo Springfield, Mamas and Papas, Doors, Joni Mitchell, Linda Ronstadt, Jackson Browne, Eagles, etc. etc.  Definitely my era of music, if not my absolute favorites, so I found the intermingling of all these voices quite evocative of my youth. 

Inadvertently back on Hulu for a month, I watched more of the amusing but inconsequential workplace sitcom Abbott Elementary, always useful as 22-minute viewing filler, but was glad for the chance to see Fleishman is in Trouble (MC-79).  Unaware of Taffy Brodesser-Akner’s popular novel, which she has adapted into an eight-episode series, I was attracted by the cast of Jesse Eisenberg, Claire Danes, and Lizzy Caplan, and was not disappointed.  The first two are a successful Manhattan couple, doctor and theater agent, going through marital and career difficulties as they hit their forties, in a story narrated by friend Caplan, presumably the author’s stand-in, who has her own midlife problems.  Each is annoying and yet somehow lovable, in their whining about their privileged lives, at least in this witty yet probing telling.  At my age, it’s hard to take fortysomethings complaining about getting old, but nonetheless I was happy to spend some time in their company, mostly while pedaling my stationary bike.
 
Also happy to spend time on the court and in the locker room with East Los Angeles College Huskies, as they return to vie for a state JuCo championship, in a second season of Last Chance U: Basketball (MC-90, NFX).  Returning from the first (my rave review here) are the method-to-his-madness coach and his assistants, but the players have turned over and it’s a new batch of young Black men, gifted but thwarted in various ways, aspiring to move up to Div1 or the pros.  I put this documentary series in a don’t-miss class with the great Hoop Dreams.

Before going back on hiatus with Netflix, I watched The Lying Lives of Adults (MC-79, NFX), an adaptation of an Elena Ferrante novel that was worth watching, if not up to the level of My Brilliant Friend and The Lost Daughter. I confess to having never read her (their?) novels, but I have been intrigued by their adaptations, each with protagonists I fail to understand but I nonetheless take an interest in. With a strong sense of place (Naples) and time (1990 perhaps), the story centers on a smart but abrasive 16-year-old girl who is a rebel looking for a cause, and for a lost aunt (the always-appealing Valerie Golino), as friendships are gained or lost, lovers rejected or invited, families broken or put back together. Maybe the books get inside the heads of Ferrante’s characters, but I’m attracted to the enigmatic surfaces of these adaptations. For a change, I’m content not to understand, but simply to observe.