Bushels of Apple

I think it’s fair to refer to AppleTV+ as the new HBO, not having the most product in the pipeline, but what’s there is “cherce” (cf. Kate Hepburn in Pat and Mike).  My previous round-ups are here and here.  Some of their headliners do not appeal to me, but we’ll start with new seasons of three series I really like.
 
Sharon Horgan, as writer and lead actress, has been a must-watch for me since Catastrophe, so I was eager to see Bad Sisters (MC-76) come back for an unexpected second season (first reviewed here).  It did not disappoint, but I’m glad that Horgan considers the Garvey sisters’ story now complete.  The five of them were a delight from start to finish, but it’s good to know when a series has reached its limit.  Seasons one and two echo back and forth nicely, but another death for the sisters to confront collectively would have to be a manufactured mystery, and not the organic development of these two.  Season two returns most characters and adds several well-portrayed new ones.  The brilliance of the characterizations and comedy remain, as well as the attractive Irish setting.  I would draw a strong contrast between this and an anemic comic mystery series like Only Murders in the Building.
 
I was also eager for an unexpected second season of Pachinko (MC-87).  I liked the first season so much that I read the book, and wondered how they would come back for more.  And the series returns impressively, if not quite the revelation of the first go-round.  This saga about a Korean family living in Japan continues to span generations, following the matriarch from youth to old age in rapid time shifts.  The second season’s time frames switch between WWII and the end of the Japanese boom years in the 1980s.  There’s a new dance & music opening title sequence in a Pachinko parlor that rivals the Emmy-winner of the first season, and almost all the characters recur.  I renew my strong recommendation for this outstanding series.
 
The fourth season of Slow Horses (MC-82) was fully expected, but fully satisfying nonetheless.  These adaptations of Mick Herron’s Slough House spy novels are at the apex of franchise entertainment.  Stylish and kinetic, well-acted and well-shot, with welcome characters and attractive English settings (mainly London), these MI5 thrillers stand well above the typical run of British mystery series.  Count on many foot chase scenes and a final shootout, but also count on canny characterizations and a continuous current of humor.  Gary Oldman, Jack Lowden, and Kristin Scott Thomas remain to lead a stellar cast through its familiar yet still intriguing paces amidst the underbelly of spycraft.  Now we can expect more of such pleasures from two further seasons already in the works.
 
Alfonso Cuarón has made some great films, so I forgive him for Disclaimer (MC-70).  I wouldn’t mind if he had consumed a couple hours of my life for this potboiler, but 350 minutes over 7 episodes?  Give me a break.  I want at least half that time back.  He suckered me in with Cate Blanchett and Kevin Kline, teased me with Lesley Manville and a totally new look for “Borat.”  Then served up a total turd of a climax, which only made me recollect the mendacities of the preceding episodes.  A sad comedown for the creator of Y Tu Mamá También (the memory of which is cheapened by this takeoff) and Roma (a masterpiece of personal authenticity that shames this sham of a story), and many other worthy films in-between.  A lot of talent gets wasted here, and it’s sad that this is the sort of teleplay that can get financed these days, with resources that could have produced three deeper and more truthful films.
 
Apple also offers some feature films of interest.  With Fancy Dance (MC-77), I came for Lily Gladstone but came away impressed with Native American writer-director Erica Tremblay’s feature debut, after she had worked on some episodes of Reservation Dogs.  The film addresses several topical concerns, such as the disappearance of indigenous women.  Gladstone is the sister of one such, trying to search for her, while taking care of the 13-year-old niece endearingly played by Isabel Delroy-Olson, whose great hope is to be reunited with her mother for the grand Pow Wow that gives the film its name.  Gladstone resorts to some petty crime and enlists her niece in various cons to get by, until the authorities displace the child into the custody of a distant white grandfather.  The aunt abducts her in turn for a fraught road trip back to the Pow Wow.  The finale is gratifying in its own way, but hardly resolves all the issues raised by this promising film.
 
From the Oscar-winning 12 Years a Slave to the even-better Small Axe series of films, Steve McQueen has made some great cinema, but Blitz (MC-71) does not fall into that category.  There are some bravura visuals (which despite widescreen color and CGI effects have nothing on the great Humphrey Jennings documentary Fires Were Started), but the story is conventional, almost folkloric and sometimes decidedly Dickensian, about a child undergoing trials as he tries to make his way back to his mother.  She’s played by Saoirse Ronan, which is a plus, but the biracial boy did not impress me as he did some commentators, though he did give McQueen the opening to show some cracks in the myth of British solidarity under attack.  There are other good performances, but nothing to raise the film out of the ordinary, which is a disappointment from a director of this stature.
 
On a night when I didn’t want to strain my brain, I was happy to be entertained by George Clooney and Brad Pitt in the “cleaner” comedy Wolfs (MC-60), as each lone wolf is called into a messy matter that may harm Amy Ryan’s election as D.A. and they are compelled to work together while repelled by their very similarities.  The rapport of the leads is well-honed and it’s enjoyable to spend time in their company.  Nothing consequential, this is a lightweight entertainment that might hit the spot on a given night, if you haven’t already OD’ed on buddy comedies or this particular pair.
 
If you’re into nature documentaries, Apple has a notable new entry, The Secret Lives of Animals (MC-tbd) in ten half-hour episodes, true to the BBC brand but with Hugh Bonneville doing his best David Attenborough imitation. 
 
With lots of time left on my Apple free trial, I will no doubt have some postscript to this round-up.  But for now, I conclude my survey with Bread and Roses (MC-79), a film about Afghan women mounting resistance after the Taliban returned to power.  It’s mainly composed of cellphone video by the women themselves, so the film has immediacy, but little shape or coherence.  What comes across is how strange a place Afghanistan is, and how dire is the plight of women returned to a fundamentalist rule that deprives them of education, work, and even basic freedom of movement.
 
A second season of Colin from Accounts (MC-85) was enough to make a brief special offer from Paramount+Showtime seem worthwhile.  If, like me, you are a confirmed devotee of Catastrophe, then you owe it to yourself to seek out this Australian odd-couple comedy, created by and starring real-life couple Patrick Brammall and Harriet Dyer.  He is the 40ish proprietor of a Sydney brewpub, she is a 30ish medical intern.  Colin is the dog who brings them together and keeps them together.  Their coworkers and families fill out the roster of kooks who populate the show, as it oscillates between cringe comedy and authentic relationship drama, doing justice to both and remaining both wildly funny and fondly truthful.
 
Looking around for anything else to watch on P+, all I could recommend are some already-seen shows such as Couples Therapy and Freaks & Geeks.  But I was enthusiastic enough about the final season of the HBO series Somebody Somewhere that I was eager to see more of Bridget Everett, and P+ had her Comedy Channel cabaret act Gynecological Wonder (IMDb), which is infinitely raunchier, and hilariously shocking in its exuberant naughtiness.  Wondering whether the understated portrayal of the series or the raucously uninhibited comedy act was closer to her real personality, I watched some YouTube interviews that confirmed my impression that her routine was inspired by Bette Midler, as a consciously self-freeing effort to bring out a different side of her personality.  This may be too over-the-top for many, but I heartily recommend Somebody Somewhere for everybody.

In fairness P+ has added a lot of very good movies lately, but none I hadn’t seen.  They did have one offbeat film I couldn’t find elsewhere:  The Eternal Memory (MC-85) is the second Oscar-nominated documentary from Chilean filmmaker Maite Alberdi (The Mole Agent, recently fictionalized into the Netflix series Man on the Inside).  This one follows the struggle (and reward) of a long-time relationship, as one of the partners is gradually succumbing to Alzheimer’s.  He was an undercover journalist during the Pinochet regime and spent much of his subsequent career trying to prevent those years of dictatorship being memory-holed.  His second, younger wife is an actress who became culture minister in a later democratic administration, and now she tenderly cares for him as his mind slips away, in a medical drama that is also a love story and a political metaphor.