I welcomed a return to Hulu
for the opportunity to finish the third season of Welcome to Wrexham (MC-77), and
also the most recent few episodes of Abbott Elementary (MC-83). Abbott continues to provide enjoyment in
the outmoded tradition of 22-minute sitcoms like Parks &
Recreation. Wrexham, however, continues
to find new directions to explore in the relationship between sports and
community. The show might have begun as
a seeming attempt to cash in on the appeal of Ted Lasso by two Hollywood
stars who buy an ailing Welsh soccer team.
But while Rob McElhenny and Ryan Reynolds provide an amusing throughline
to the story, they happily recede into the background of the overall
proceedings, which range far and wide.
The third season has fewer but longer episodes, with no diminishment of
interest and enjoyment. I eagerly
anticipate the fourth.
But the big lure back to Hulu
was of course the third season of The Bear (MC-87), which did not disappoint but did not satiate either,
something of a comedown from the highs of season two. It’s
clearly a transitional season that stretches out and accommodates other
characters’ stories, while remaining fixated on the inner struggles of main
character Carmy (Jeremy Allen White).
Show creator Christopher Storer allows himself to go on whatever
tangents he chooses, usually to good effect but with more angst than joy. Carmy’s maniacal pursuit of culinary
excellence begins to seem deranged, and Claire Bear’s absence unbearable. Syd’s (Ayo Adebiri) future with the
restaurant hangs in doubt. The rest of
the staff have their moments (Tina’s especially welcome), but this season
mostly serves as a tease for the next.
The eight-part series Under
the Bridge (MC-70) proved substantially
better than its overall MC rating, even though true crime dramatizations are
not generally my thing. For me the draw
was Lily Gladstone, but I’ve liked Riley Keough in other things as well. I was reminded of the Toni Collette-Merrit
Wever pairing in Unbelievable. Based on a nonfiction book by Rebecca Godfrey (played
by Keough), the series is set on Vancouver Island, where a group of mean girls
are responsible for the death of one of their number, a rebellious 14-year-old
whose strict parents are from India.
Gladstone is a First Nations policewoman who was adopted in infancy by
the white police chief, and formerly a close friend of the Keough
character. Backgrounding the whodunit aspect,
the series flashes back and forth in time and between characters, painting a
broad picture of an insular community coming to terms with familial trauma of
various kinds, grounded in teen bullying and infected by racism. Consider this series a sleeper for listing
among the best TV of the year.
With Origin (MC-75), Ava DuVernay tries to split the difference between Selma
and 13th, and winds up with an ungainly hybrid that falls short of
either, and would have worked better as a four-part docudrama like her When
They See Us. Presumably she wanted
to bring Isabel Wilkerson’s bestselling book Caste: The Origins of Our
Discontents to a wider audience than any documentary could draw. She thus makes Isabel herself (well-played by
Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor) the center of a somewhat melodramatic story, and proves
yet again that a writer working on a book is not a gripping cinematic
enterprise. The acting is generally
good, and the research travelogue and historical re-creations are mostly
effective, but they go together awkwardly, and at 2:20 the film is either too
long or not nearly long enough. Still,
the argument that caste is more significant than race in the marginalization
and persecution of different peoples – such as American Blacks, German Jews, and
Indian untouchables – is worth pondering
Though hardly an auteur, Roger
Michell made a lot of enjoyable films, from the 1995 Persuasion through Notting
Hill and beyond – his final feature, The Duke (MC-74), adds to that list.
Based on the true story of the 1961 theft from the National Gallery of
Goya’s portrait of the Duke of Wellington – by a retired bus driver from
Newcastle – this comedy-mystery stars Jim Broadbent and Helen Mirren, and
revels in contrasts of class, caste, and region, with Michell’s light hand
rather than the agitprop of a Mike Leigh or Ken Loach. The two stars, and a good supporting cast,
deliver a delightful tale of gumption and comeuppance.
Though you wouldn’t know it
from Hulu’s home page, they surprisingly continue to have some new and impressive
foreign films, despite takeover by Disney.
The latest example is La Chimera (MC-91), Alice Rohrwacher’s
acclaimed film centered on a British archaeologist in Tuscany. Now, my son is a British archaeologist whose
career started on an Etruscan dig (he’s currently digging in the Republic of
Georgia), but he’s nothing like the one played by Josh O’Connor, who is a grave-robbing
scoundrel and a lost soul, though not without redeeming qualities. Like an archaeologist, Rohrwacher excavates buried
artifacts and seeks to explain ancient enigmas from surviving fragments. If you’re not willing to dig with her, don’t
bother to join her expedition. Her cast
offers committed support, led by Isabella Rossellini. From the get-go, you don’t know where this
film is going or how it’s going to get there, but you feel in the sure hands of
a filmmaker who knows what she wants to say and can find some means to say it,
even when the meaning is not immediately clear.
Oddities abound, but sense is made, as we put the disparate shards back
together, with a deep grounding in film history. The quest may be chimerical, but it’s rooted
in a magical reality.
I read that Wim Wenders’ Perfect
Days (MC-80) was
reverse-engineered from a desire to highlight the remarkable architecture of
some of Tokyo’s public lavatories. If
so, mission accomplished. But so much
more is accomplished in this mostly-silent portrayal of a toilet cleaner (a
remarkable Koji Yakusho, awarded Best Actor at Cannes) going about his daily
rounds. His mysterious backstory is
filled in with a few clues and encounters, but the collections of books and
cassettes in his spartan apartment suggest that he was once something quite
different, having chosen (or resigned himself to) a limited and regimented
existence. Nonetheless his face
registers quiet delight with that existence, and a genial response to other
isolated people. Hard to make this sound
like something you might want to watch, but believe me, it's profoundly humanistic
and heartening, and deserving of its Oscar nomination for Best International
Feature. I enjoyed the largely-English music
soundtrack as much as the Ozu-inspired filmmaking.
Adam Driver held my attention
as Ferrari (MC-73), as did Penelope Cruz as his wife, but Shailene
Woodley is largely wasted as the other woman.
Michael Mann’s busy film does not come close to the recent Ford v.
Ferrari in making motor sports the least bit interesting, but a 1000-mile
cross-country race does allow for an engaging travelogue through Italy (minus
the fatal car crashes).
I was misled by the title of The
Supremes at Earl’s All-You-Can-Eat (MC-55) to
think it was the origin story of the great Motown singing group. And somewhat misled by a NYT recommendation,
though in the event I did not regret watching, in appreciation of the stories
of three middle-aged Black women, arriving in the same week that one of their
number was nominated for President. Fine
actresses tell a rather formulaic and box-checking tale, spanning three decades
of Sisterhood. I was also misled by the
mismatch between the younger and older actresses, though each was pretty good
in her own right, led by Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, Uzo Aduba, and Sanaa Lathen.
Older movies tend to move
from one streaming channel to another, but several I was interested in seeing
again recently showed up on Hulu. The
Big Lebowski (MC-71),
despite the charm of Jeff Bridges as The Dude, does not rank with the better
Coen brothers’ films, but Say Anything (MC-86) certainly holds up as
John Cusack’s breakthrough film and as Cameron Crowe’s directorial debut. Slums of Beverly Hills (MC-68) was
mixed up in my memory with the slapstick of Bette Midler’s Down & Out in
Beverly Hills, but I watched to see a teenaged Natasha Lyonne, and was
impressed with Tamara Jenkins’ debut feature based on her own teenage years,
which she would follow up at decade intervals with the excellent films The
Savages and Private Life.
Abbott Elementary meets Sex Education in English Teacher (MC-83), moving from
elementary school in Philly to high school in Austin, and from ABC to FX so the
“fucks” are flying. Brian Jordan Alvarez
is the creator and star, in the mold of Quinta Brunson of Abbott (though
gay as all get-out) – he also has a crush on a hunky Black fellow teacher. The ensemble of E.T. is not as engaging
as that of A.E. so I’m not sure how long I will persist in watching, but
it’s not without its sitcom laughs.
Hulu is proving stickier than
I expected. Emmy awards are a devalued
currency, but it caught my attention that Shogun won 18 (!). I’d gotten 20 minutes into the first episode
when I decided the show was yet another GoT clone, which I didn’t need
to see. On second approach, I wonder
whether it might turn out to be more on the order of Wolf Hall. We shall see – and I shall report.
For a while I’ve been
intending to pause my Hulu subscription and wrap up this survey. But now I intend to re-up for another month,
with the Disney+ add-on, so I’ll break off here and come back with a sequel.
No comments:
Post a Comment