The Pride of Peacock

Finally having an incentive to do so, I subscribed to the Peacock streaming channel for a month (the Premium Plus option to avoid ads), in order to watch some recent films, and to catch up with a few shows of interest.
 
I’m a sucker for movies about newspaper work, and She Said (MC-74) follows nicely in a distinguished tradition.  In advance the title struck me as bland, and some people found the movie so, but upon viewing I find the title perfectly emblematic of the film, leaving the storytelling entirely up to capable women, and erasing the prefatory “he said.”  Start with estimable NYT journalists Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey, who broke the story that unleashed the #MeToo movement, and their film avatars Zoe Kazan and Carey Mulligan, reliably excellent.  As are Samantha Morton and Jennifer Ehle, as two of the women who come forward with testimony.  Rest of cast, and other credits, also up to the job of getting the story told.  With this film after I’m Your Man, I’m taking note of Maria Schrader as a director to watch.
 
Is the title character of Tár (MC-92) a “Rat” or the epitome of “Art”?  You’ll have to decide for yourself, though accomplished writer-director Todd Field and star Cate Blanchett - in a towering performance - offer plenty of evidence for any interpretation.  She’s a driven girl from an outer borough who’s raised herself into a "sacred monster" of music, a Leonard Bernstein-wannabe who has swept herself into the highest ranks of conducting, composing, and writing.  And into a position of cultural power, which she abuses unabashedly.  She’s conducting a live recording of Mahler’s 5^th symphony with the Berlin Philharmonic, while angling to make a young cellist her latest catch, casting aside earlier conquests, and sidelining her violinist wife and adopted daughter.  But does her deep and honest passion for music outweigh her more unseemly passions for control and exploitation?  The viewer cannot look away from either the horror or the exaltation of her quests.  Even without a background in classical music, this film immerses one in the subject and milieu, and leaves one with unanswered questions and yet deeper understanding.
 
James Gray’s autobiographical Armageddon Time (MC-74) is a highly-divisive film on which I come down on the “No way!” side of the divide.  Despite decent acting (from the likes of Anthony Hopkins, Ann Hathaway, and Jeremy Strong) and generally strong design, this story of Jewish coming of age in 1980 Queens struck me as an undigested and unconvincing memory-piece, with a resolution stolen from “The 400 Blows.”  In the background, we see Reagan being elected and get a foretaste of the future in the incidental characters of Fred Trump and The Donald’s sister (played by Jessica Chastain).  Centered on a not-especially-appealing 6^th grader who forms a bond with the film’s only black character, the story unfolds without great credibility or continuity, despite some believable moments.
 
Among TV series, one Peacock Original attracted my interest:  Poker Face (MC-84), an intriguing blend of Russian Doll and Knives Out, starring Natasha Lyonne and created by Rian Johnson.  She’s a wised-up drifter with a knack for finding her way into trouble - and one superpower, the ability to tell whenever anyone is bullshitting her.  So episode by episode, she runs into a lot of crime that she is uniquely positioned to solve.  The mystery is usually given away early, but the interest - and the humor - lies in how our little lady puts the whole story together, and metes out her own brand of justice before moving on.  Apparently modeled on Columbo, a show I never remember watching (nor Rockford Files or Murder, She Wrote, as other models cited) it’s witty and imaginative, and graced with any number of familiar faces showing up in each hour-long episode.  But crucially, the series has the beguiling presence of Natasha Lyonne, who has enchanted me since last millennium’s Slums of Beverly Hills and But I’m a Cheerleader.
 
Diversity is one of the great advances in recent sitcoms.  We Are Lady Parts (MC-83) is a case in point, a delightful romp about a group of British Muslim women, of varying ethnicity, who form the punk band of the title.  Written and directed by Nida Manzoor, with obvious autobiographical elements, it’s narrated by a shy and awkward Ph.D. student in microbiology, who’s a guitar virtuoso with performance anxiety and a hankering for “Bashir with the Good Beard.”  She’s the most endearing of a handful of engaging characters, each with her own piquancy.  All in all, too many good things to cram into six half-hour episodes, so look forward to the greenlit second season.
 
Two documentaries caught my eye on Peacock:  Most of the Selma to Montgomery march in 1965 passed through Lowndes Country, where 80% of the population was Black and not a single one of them was registered to vote.  After the SCLC Mississippi Summer of 1964, SNCC turned its attention to a grassroots effort in Alabama, a story very effectively told in Lowndes County and the Road to Black Power (MC-84).  Stokely Carmichael is a major player but local John Hulett is the hero of the piece.  The former first enunciated the slogan “Black Power” but it was a local initiative to oppose the Rooster ballot insignia of the white power structure with, instead of a Dove, the Black Panther image that was to become so famous when adopted in Oakland.  This is an inspiring and little told story of bootstrap progress.
 
Paper and Glue (MC-80) is a worthy sequel to the great Faces Places - even without the participation of dearly departed Agnes Varda - as it follows the large-scale photographic projects of French street artist JR, from a supermax prison in California to the border wall with Mexico, from the banlieues of Paris to the favelas of Rio.  In stunning examples of the social power of art, his building-sized portraits of local people build community through process and result, cooperation and representation.  Truly inventive and admirably engaged, this is work that gives art a good name.
 
So I definitely got my ten bucks worth of quality viewing out of a month of Peacock, but it’s likely to be many months before I have any urge to re-subscribe.