Peacock preens

Most of the time I don’t see the point of Peacock as a streaming channel, but several Oscar-nominated films brought me back for a month’s subscription.
 
Despite its eight nominations, I had a limited and ambivalent response to Edward Berger’s Conclave (MC-79), based on a Robert Harris novel, of a sort I would never read.  I appreciated the look inside the Vatican, but Roman Catholic ritual has never seemed so ridiculous.  Ralph Fiennes and Stanley Tucci are their excellent selves as two cardinals who are not interested in becoming pope, but leery of the leading candidates for one reason or another.  Isabella Rossellini is a welcome but underused presence.  The politics of the deliberations are sketched in, but the focus remains on personalities and process, and the airing of dirty laundry, rather than probing of issues.  The preposterous machinations are twisty enough and the cinematography opulent enough to keep one watching, even after it becomes clear that this is in no way a serious film.
 
Is Wicked (MC-73) wicked good or wicked bad?  It’s not for me to judge, having no familiarity with the Broadway musical, and little attachment to its Oz-ian precursors.  Two things I can say for sure: it ain’t no Barbie (lacking the wit and personal touch), and it’s way too long (and only Part One!).  Where the dance numbers by director Jon Chu for In the Heights seemed anarchic and energetic, here his stagings seem cluttered and clunky, overwhelmed by an excessive budget, lost in a lavish land beyond the rainbow.  This may give some people what they want, but I was more bemused than amused or enthused.  We can all agree that Cynthia Erivo is great, and that Arianna Grande is . . . something.  There are definitely a plenitude of “Oh wow” moments, but not all of them are the good sort.  So call me a curmudgeon on this one, but you may enjoy it.
 
The well-received Dreamworks animation Wild Robot (MC-85) has considerable visual appeal but is too busy and too sentimental to compete with Robot Dreams or the latest Wallace & Gromit adventure in the field of recent animated robot capers.  While its characterizations of many wild animals are impressive, they’re not a patch on the Latvian Oscar-winner Flow.  A service-minded robot washes up on a remote island, where she soon machine-learns the languages and manners of the local fauna, and takes under her “wing” an orphaned young gosling that imprints on her, as well as finding ways to help all the other species.  The other three “cartoons” I can recommend for viewers of any age, but Wild Robot seems to target grade schoolers and push a message of being nice and taking care, though not without some visual pleasures and tear-jerking moments.
 
Edie Falco rarely disappoints, and she was the main reason I gave a look to the unheralded I’ll Be Right There (MC-66).  She probably formed a relationship with director Brendan Walsh on her outstanding series Nurse Jackie, and the well-written lead role here seems ideal for her, so sympathetic, funny, and true.  She’s a divorced woman in upstate New York, with two problematic adult children, a problematic mother (the always-effective Jeannie Berlin), a problematic ex-husband, and two problematic lovers, one male and one female.  It’s a lot, but she seems up to it, and does not really mind being on call for so many people in need.  But maybe she should take a moment to consider what she needs?  The title may seem nondescript, but is in truth highly descriptive.   Consider this a worthwhile sleeper, you may not need to see it, but it’s a brisk and engaging film.
 
One Peacock show I’d earmarked to watch was the return of We Are Lady Parts (MC-84), whose second six-episode season might have been even better than its first, which is saying something.  Nida Manzoor’s series about a punk band of British Muslim women of varying ethnicity is comic and serious in equal measure, each of the women of distinctive type and individuality, and each given her due this season.  The music is hilarious and intense, and the exploration of diversity and sisterhood pointed and moving.  Over recent years, I have become a big fan of many English sitcoms, and this ranks with the best, and stands out for its novel perspective on life in the UK.
 
With The Americas (MC-60), the BBC Natural History Unit visits the Western Hemisphere and swaps out David Attenborough for Tom Hanks as narrator.  The spectacular but now-familiar wildlife footage remains a draw, though Attenborough’s eco-warnings are replaced by warm-and-fuzzy stories that anthropomorphize and denature the wildness they explore, not quite Disney but not exactly real world either.  Nothing against Mr. Hanks, but this series is blander than it ought to be, with no overarching narrative.
 
Peacock has a whole sub-channel celebrating the 50^th anniversary of Saturday Night Live, including the entire run of the show.  I feel like I was present at the creation, so to speak, but my attention to the program has waxed and waned over the years, more recently being piqued by YouTube clips that my grown son urged watching, especially of Kate McKinnon.  I missed the tenures of many cast members who later went on to become favorites of mine, like Amy Poehler and Seth Meyers.  SNL50: Beyond Saturday Night (MC-72) is a quartet of documentaries about the production of the show.  At least two of the roughly hour-long segments are well worth watching: “Five Minutes,” which matches cast members’ initial audition tapes with their own later commentary; and “Written By: A Week Inside the SNL Writer’s Room,” which describes the pressure cooker of putting on each week’s show.
 
While I still consider Peacock a third-tier streaming channel, there’s enough worthwhile viewing to subscribe for a month from time to time.  And don’t miss We Are Lady Parts.  I’ll be back sometime after the second season of Nathasha Lyonne’s Poker Face comes round.