The First Five of "The Wheel of Time"

I had a friend in high school who loved Robert Jordan's "The Wheel of Time" books, so while I haven't read them, I'm well aware of their popularity and longevity.  I was looking forward to the new adaptation, which Amazon was touting as one of their more ambitious productions.  Unfortunately, I think they oversold this.  They oversold this a lot. 

"The Wheel of Time" is a fantasy series, where dark forces are massing as the primary magic users in this universe, the Aes Sedai, are searching for the reincarnation of a powerful figure known as The Dragon.  This search brings the Aes Sedai Moiraine (Rosamund Pike) and her bodyguard "Warder" Lan (Daniel Henney) to a small village and five young people, one of whom they believe is the Dragon - Mat (Barney Harris), Rand (Josha Stradowski), Egwene (Madeleine Madden), Perrin (Marcus Rutherford), and Nynaeve (Zoë Robins).  An attack on the village by Trollocs forces the group to flee toward the Aes Sedai stronghold, the White Tower, but they get split up and encounter further dangers.

I've tried not to look at too many comparisons of the book series to the screen adaptation, but it seems like one of the primary problems here is that the creators have taken a series that was originally geared more toward young adults, with a younger set of characters, and aged everybody up so that we could get something that feels closer to "Lord of the Rings" and "Game of Thrones."  The trouble is that nobody does the work of making sure that the five youngsters are properly written to reflect this change, so they come across like an especially dim set of early twenty-somethings who act like very young teenagers.  In other words, they're CW protagonists tramping through what's supposed to be a prestige television show, and come off as pretty ridiculous.  

Now, this isn't always a fatal blow to a series.  I'm a great lover of terrible '80s fantasy films and cheesy '90s syndicated adventure shows.  The simple pleasure of watching a bunch of familiar character types going off to have an adventure together can be enough.  The trouble is that "The Wheel of Time" doesn't understand how to do this.  And it's not smart enough to subvert the old tropes, or ambitious enough to do anything new with them. And it doesn't have the deep pockets to hide the deficiencies with fancy effects.  The better actors do what they can, but too many of the cast look like they don't want to be there.  And while the opening sequence is beautiful, all too soon we're stuck with a bunch of remarkably tedious characters who just feel like they're going through the motions.  

Frankly, it's incredibly disappointing that a series with a pretty decent level of production quality and with source material so beloved should be this badly written.  The pacing is pushing way too fast, skimping on the character moments to get to the action.  Rosamund Pike and Daniel Henney, who are easily the best actors on the roster, are barely keeping my interest.  I'm honestly not sure whether any of the younger cast members have any actual acting ability because they're given such awful dialogue and barely any character traits, let alone actual characterization.  Rand has a thing for Egwene, but she's standoffish.  Nynaeve doesn't trust the Aes Sedai.  All five of the kids start manifesting various powers, which some react to better than others.  

The worst part is that the show just isn't very entertaining.  There are an awful lot of characters to keep straight, and the show is more worried about the plot than making any of them likable or interesting to follow.  There's an absolutely deadly dearth of humor, aside from a few minor characters who show up way too late in the proceedings to make much of a difference.  I don't mind that the show is silly, with its dodgy effects and trite hero's journey narrative, or even that it's so self-serious and treats everything in deadly earnest.  I just don't think it's very much fun.  And if it's not fun, what's the point?  

I criticized "The Witcher" for a lot of these same issues, but at least "The Witcher" gave me two good characters and let Henry Cavill beat things up regularly.  With "The Wheel of Time," there's no such luck.

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Oscars Aftermath 2022

Well, this was a rough one for me, folks.  Aside from Ariana DeBose and Jane Campion, I wasn't too  happy with who got the statuettes this year.  I made my peace with "CODA" getting Best Picture a few days ago, after it swept the guild awards, but personally I ranked it dead last out of all the contenders.  Jessica Chastain and Will Smith were boring choices for Actor and Actress, the screenplay winners were awful, and I'm relatively meh on "Drive My Car" and "Dune."  Oh, and Lin Manuel Miranda really lost to the Billie Eilish song?  Really?

So, instead I'm going to focus on the telecast itself, which was at the center of a maelstrom of drama for months because of the Academy's attempts to reverse the ratings nosedive that the ceremony saw last year.  They decided not to announce eight of the categories live in order to save time, but still ended up going forty minutes over the allotted three hours.  They settled on having three hosts - Amy Schumer, Wanda Sykes, and Regina Hall - after going without one for the three years prior.  Performances of the nominated songs were kept in the telecast, plus "We Don't Talk About Bruno" for good measure, after they were moved to a pre-show last year.  

Having the telecast open with a thunderous Beyonce production number was probably the smartest move - it helped the ceremony open with a bang, and confirmed we would be getting big stars all night.   There was a lot of ruckus over the inclusion of the Fan Favorite contests, which most commentators saw as a variation on the Popular Film category that the Academy leadership tried to implement a few years ago.   However, no actual Oscar was handed out for winning - they didn't even merit a presenter.  The rules for the Twitter-based voting were designed to allow for crazy vote manipulation by fans, so this was clearly a stunt from the beginning.  I was fine with the quick montage countdowns as a compromise.  Of all the audience attracting hijinks, this was honestly one of the most benign. 

Wanda Sykes bumming around the Academy Museum was fun, and Amy Schumer's monologue wasn't bad, but most of the host segments were pretty mediocre.  The Regina Hall bit in particular is one of those things that you could not get away with if the genders of the everyone involved were switched.  I appreciate the livelier "In Memoriam" segment we got this year with the show choir and additional speakers.  Anniversaries were a big theme of the ceremony, trying to get the audience to link the Oscars to their favorite films.  I liked the 60th anniversary tribute to the Bond films, though it's a reminder that these films have famously been unrecognized by the Academy.  The 50th anniversary tribute to "The Godfather" was less successful - a half-hearted montage followed by Francis Ford Coppola and his leading men thanking Mario Puzo and Bob Evans.  

This telecast was marked by a lot of little awkward moments - Ryusuke Hamaguchi's stop-and-go speech, Chris Evans trying to segue into a "Lightyear" preview, teleprompter stumbles, a too-brief glimpse of Governors Award winner Liv Ullman, the nip slip, and the noticeably edited down pre-recorded categories being dropped into the telecast at random.  Makeup and Hairstyling came after Best Actor!  Was that BTS?!  On the other hand, the sign language accommodations for the deaf "CODA" cast and crew were excellent.  Troy Kotsur easily had the best speech of the night.  Best presenters were the casts of "Pulp Fiction" and "White Men Can't Jump" - a reunion I didn't realize I wanted.  

And, of course, the most talked-about moment of the night was Will Smith slapping Chris Rock onstage over a seemingly innocuous joke, while Rock was presenting for the Best Documentary Feature category.  And then Smith won Best Actor a few minutes later and delivered a lengthy, rambling apology to everyone except Chris Rock.  A day later, nobody quite seems to know what to make of this.  I have no idea what to make of this, except to acknowledge that ABC and the Academy got what they wanted.  Everyone's talking about the Oscars again, though for all the wrong reasons as usual.

There really is nothing like Oscar night, and against my better judgment, I'll see you all again next year.

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Rank 'Em: The 2022 Best Picture Nominees

It's been a good year for movies, and this is a pretty strong Best Picture lineup.  There are titles I think are missing, but no obvious clunkers, as there have been in years past.  From best to least best, here are the Best Picture nominees of 2022, ranked.

Power of the Dog - I could nitpick this to pieces, but it wouldn't change that Jane Campion's western about the myths of masculinity is easily one of the best films of the year.  I like that it defies easy categorization and it doesn't give up its secrets easily, almost demanding to be rewatched and discussed to pin down each of the slippery parties involved.  Most of all, I like that it gives four excellent character actors the chance to play characters - ones that will stay with me for a while. 

West Side Story - He actually did it.  Steven Spielberg got the gang back together and remade one of the most beloved screen musicals of all time.  What's more he successfully updated and reworked it for the 2020s, resulting in a more nuanced, more insightful, and more emotionally resonant version of the musical.  In the process, he's made one of his best pieces of cinema in years, full of youthful energy and vigor, with just the right amount of love for the original too.

Licorice Pizza - This is the kind of movie that I typically want nothing to do with.  It's full of problematic characters in a problematic era that too many filmmakers have whitewashed in the name of nostalgia.  Paul Thomas Anderson, however, embraces all the awkwardness and ungainliness of the '70s, portraying everybody as needing to grow up in some capacity, and accepting their fallibility with good humor.  Nobody - including our heroes - gets away unscathed.  

Dune - The biggest problem with this film is that it's incomplete.  Villeneuve's talent at orchestrating spectacle is impeccable, and he's assembled a truly dazzling array of talent both onscreen and behind the camera.  However, for everything that it manages to accomplish, I can't help feeling like I still haven't seen the full picture of what "Dune" is.  So far so good, but as much as I appreciate everything that went into this film, I'm not comfortable slotting it higher than this.  

Nightmare Alley - This is Guillermo Del Toro in a more subdued gear, remaking a classic film noir about a Depression era con man.  I really appreciate Bradley Cooper here, creating a more well-rounded monster than Tyrone Power in the original version.  The film always seems to be on the verge of becoming a splashier genre picture, which is a little frustrating considering what we know Del Toro is capable of.  Still, I like that this is exactly the film Del Toro set out to make.

King Richard - It's hard to make a good sports film these days, and the secret of "King Richard" is really that it's a film about the Black Struggle.   I feel like "Minari" did a lot of similar material better last year, but Will Smith hasn't been this good in a long time, and frankly may never be this good again.  And I just love that the big finale is built around negotiations for a sneaker deal - a totally cynical and realistic depiction of what success in sport really means.

Drive My Car - I just don't understand it.  Ryusuke Hamaguchi has made a three hour melodrama about a theater director processing his wife's death and infidelity, and it's taken the world by storm.  I find the film effective, if honestly a little boring, but there's nothing here that accounts for the outsized amount of praise that's been heaped on it.  Is it the Chekhov?  Is it the Murakami?  Is it everybody in Hollywood identifying with the pretentious main character? 

Don't Look Up - I think I like this better than most, because I'm more appreciative of Adam McKay's efforts to dramatize the frustration of being the voice of reason and responsible activism in a world that doesn't value it.  I like "Don't Look Up" better when it's being sincere, and sympathizing with its heroes instead of trying to lampoon its ridiculous villains.  As satire it's not great, but its anti-Trumpian messages are delivered in an entertaining way.  

Belfast - It's hard to be critical about someone's passion project, and Kenneth Branagh is finally creating something original that's clearly near and dear to his heart, but this one just wasn't for me.  For an earnest child's eye view of the Troubles, this just strikes me as way too sentimentalized and oddly romanticized.  The cast is stellar and deserves all the kudos they've gotten, but too often "Belfast" feels like a parody of the movie that it's trying to be.     

CODA - Finally, I think "CODA" is a charming movie, but half of it is your typical high school love story and rising star story that doesn't even try to mesh tonally or visually with the other, much stronger half, about the heroine's hardscrabble life in a fishing town.  It's absolutely a great watch for the right audience, and I'm glad it's getting all this attention, but when I look at some of the titles in the running that didn't get a slot, "CODA" is the first one I'd drop.  

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"Belfast" and "The Last Duel"

I really wish that "Belfast" worked for me.  I like that Kenneth Branagh is making something so personal and so sweet.  I like all the actors involved.  I'm not remotely surprised that some people adore this film.  However, I seem to be completely immune to its charms.  "Belfast" is about a working class family in Northern Ireland in the 1960s, who undergo some difficult times.  We see events unfold through the eyes of nine year-old Buddy (Jude Hill), who lives with his older brother Will (Lewis McAskie), his no-nonsense Ma (Catriona Balfe), and his loving Granny (Judi Dench) and Pop (Ciaran Hinds).  Buddy's Pa (Jamie Dornan) is frequently away for work in England, and isn't home when a Protestant riot breaks out.  Suddenly Buddy's once idyllic neighborhood is full of uncomfortable tensions, and his parents are fighting over the family's future.

Branagh's approach to the potentially difficult material is to couch it in nostalgia.  Buddy may be poor, but he's a happy, lively kid who has good relationships with his parents and grandparents, and has a healthy mischievous streak.  While his parents are debating moving to England, Buddy is more concerned with the pretty girl in his class, and getting roped into petty theft by one of the older neighborhood kids.  He sees the world in literal black and white, with the exception of movies.  The Troubles and all the difficult questions they bring stay mostly in the background, aside from an explosive final confrontation between the adults.  Buddy's attempts to grapple with these issues are fleeting, often played for laughs due to his misconceptions, or only seen through the filter of his childish worldview.  The tone of the film is kept very child-friendly, and it's designed to be an audience pleaser.

This makes for a very charming movie, but I couldn't get over how idealized and sanitized Branagh made his childhood.  Buddy lives in a version of Belfast that feels like it came out of a storybook, and Dornan and Balfe are unreasonably good looking for being working class Irish parents in the 1960s.  Even the local criminal figure, Billy Clanton (Colin Morgan), is oddly good looking.  I'd compare it to something out of a Hollywood film of the same era, but at least Hollywood was sensible enough to cast character actors with interesting faces in their melodramas.  And frankly, there's not much of a story to "Belfast."  It never feels like Buddy's family is facing any real danger or real strife.  There's a subplot with the grandparents that might have managed to tug the heartstrings if it had devoted more time to them.  But it didn't.

Now on to "The Last Duel," which I fully intended to pair up with Ridley Scott's other 2021 movie, "House of Gucci," but that review needed more than three paragraphs to adequately work out my feelings towards.  My thoughts on "The Last Duel" are more straightforward.  It's a very good film, but one I'm probably never going to watch again because I found the experience unpleasant - in a good way.  Three characters in 1300s France, the squire Jean de Carrouges (Matt Damon), his rival Jacques Le Gris (Adam Driver), and his wife Lady Marguerite (Jodie Comer), each recount the events that lead up to a duel between Jean and Jacques.  Marguerite claims she was raped by Jacques.  Jacques believes the encounter was consensual. The script was split up between three writers - Nicole Holofcener, who wrote Marguerite's POV, and Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, who wrote Jean and Jacques.'  Affleck also appears in the film as Count Pierre d'Alencon, the hedonist nobleman that Jean and Jacques have both sworn fealty to.

   

"The Last Duel" is refreshing in the way that it reframes the usual medieval tale of valor and chivalry from a feminist perspective.  Jean and Jacques' narratives present squabbles over land and position, and their attitudes toward Marguerite appear benevolent, if misguided.  Then we get to Marguerite's version of events, revealing that both of them are cruel and selfish in their own ways, and being a woman in the 1300s in this kind of situation was utterly nightmarish.  The film keeps getting more unpleasant and intense, with the actual stakes of the duel not fully revealed until near the climax.  There's so much riding on the outcome by the end, that the duel itself is one of the most thrilling fight scenes I've seen in years.  However, the preceding two hours of screen time that it takes to get there are absolutely exhausting to get through.  The emotional and physical violence, the culminating dread, and the sheer brutality of medieval society is unrelenting.

Thanks to Ridley Scott it all looks great.  The duel is wonderfully visceral and the actors really sell the damage that the two men deal to each other.  There's great attention paid to historical detail, as the film was based on true events that are fairly well documented.  However, none of the American and British actors attempt a French accent, thankfully.  The performances are good, and in the case of Jodie Comer very good, and it's a shame that the film was such a dud at the box office, taking it out of awards contention.  As Ridley Scott epics go, this is one of his better ones because it's themes and characters are so strong.  Those looking for simple action adventure fare, however, are advised to look elsewhere.     

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My Most Anticipated Films of 2022 - Part 2

Continued from last time, here's the other half of my list of most anticipated films of 2022, this time featuring all the indie, arthouse, and foreign films.  I want to caution here especially that there's no guarantee that these films will come out in 2022, since most of them don't have release dates and distribution is not a sure thing.  Some may score bigger deals later, but for now these are the movies that I'm more worried about slipping off people's radar.

Everything Everywhere All at Once - Even if this were just a glum indie movie starring Michelle Yeoh, I'd be onboard, but because this is the latest film from the fabulous filmmaking duo Daniels, we're going to get so much more.  I was moderately entertained by their debut, "Swiss Army Man," but this one looks like they're finally ready to unleash their full cinematic powers on unsuspecting audiences.

The Whale - Darren Aronofsky's latest film involves Brendan Fraser playing a 600 pound gay man trying to reconnect to his daughter, played by Sadie Sink.  Samantha Morton and Hong Chau are also in the cast.  This is based on a 2013 play, and being adapted by the original playwright, so I think we can safely rule out any "mother!" style antics.  Still, this is Darren Aronofsky we're talking about so all bets are off.   

Dual - Riley Stearns has had a fantastic track record so far, and I tend to love high concept, "Twilight Zone" -esque indie films.  They get away with so much more.  And it doesn't hurt that the cast is fabulous - Karen Gillan, Jesse Eisenberg, and Aaron Paul are in the mix, with Gillan playing a woman who has to fight her own clone to the death.  How could I not be excited to see a film with a premise like that?    

Next Goal Wins - I know that the whole Disney/Fox merger is still being sorted out, but where is this film?  Principal photography wrapped back in January of 2020.  I know they're swapping out Armie Hammer for Will Anett, how long could that possibly take?  And Michael Fassbender hasn't been seen onscreen since 2019.  I was kinda hoping this would be a comeback vehicle.  Where is this film?

White Noise - Noah Baumbach has quietly become one of my favorite directors recently.  His latest will star Adam Driver and Greta Gerwig in a satire about a small town's reaction to an environmental disaster, which touches off the main character's existential crisis.  I haven't read the Don DeLillo novel that this is based on, but Baumbach sounds perfect for this kind of material.    

Marcel the Shell With Shoes On - Jenny Slate is frequently heard in animated films because of her distinctive voice, so I guess it's not a surprise that she's written an animated character for herself, a little mollusc named Marcel.  She and writer/director Dean Fleischer-Camp collaborated on a charming short film about Marcel a few years ago, and now a feature version is being prepped with A24.  

Bones & All - Before we get Timothee Chalamet as Willy Wonka and more "Dune," he'll be starring in the latest Luca Guadagnino film with Taylor Russell.  It's a love story featuring teenage cannibals.  The YA novel source material has had very mixed reviews, but Guadagnino has demonstrated  that he knows what he's doing and I trust he'll be able to deliver something memorably touching and horrific.   

Infinity Pool - Speaking of horror, I wasn't the biggest fan of Brandon Cronenberg's last film, "Possessor," but the man has plenty of talent and I am very curious about his next film, about a romantic vacation gone wrong.  It's a sci-fi thriller of some kind, starring Alexander Skarsgaard.  The nature of the sci-fi and the thrills are yet unknown, but I expect the usual Cronenberg body horror in some capacity.  

 

The Son - Florian Zeller's last film, "The Father," was a wonderful surprise that netted Anthony Hopkins an Oscar.  That film was based on Zeller's own play, one of a thematic trilogy.  Now he's adapted another, "The Son," starring Hugh Jackman and Laura Dern.  Anthony Hopkins will also reportedly be in the film, though this is not a sequel to "The Father," having an entirely different set of characters.  

"The Imaginary" - A cryptic trailer was released last year for the latest Studio Ponoc film.  I really enjoyed their first feature, "Mary and the Witch's Flower," and I'm glad to see that they're tackling another.  This one will be based on a book by A.F. Harrold, about an "imaginary friend," Rudger.  It should help to tide me over until Miyazaki finishes "How Do you Live?" - currently looking at a 2023 release date. 

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My Most Anticipated Films of 2022 - Part I

I still feel somewhat doubtful about this, but I think the time is right to be writing my yearly film anticipation lists.  Please keep in mind that there are never guarantees about what's going to make it to screens by December and what isn't.  With the industry still in so much turmoil, I expect some of these titles will be delayed until 2023.

As always, I'm splitting this feature into two posts, one for the mainstream studios film with bigger budgets, that everybody hears about, and one for the foreign, indie and art house fare that may break through to the mainstream eventually, but only the cinephiles anticipate this far in advance.  Netflix releases are now categorized with the studio films instead of the indies.  

Here we go.  Bigger releases first, in no particular order. 

The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent - Lionsgate acquired this script, which showed up on the 2019 Black List, about Nicolas Cage playing a fictionalized version of himself, who agrees to perform for a Mexican drug lord superfan in order to save his family.  It sounds meta and weird enough to be interesting, and hopefully Cage is game to sell the premise the way that only he can.  

Knives Out 2 - I don't want to think too hard about the wider implications of the "Knives Out" sequel ending up on Netflix, but I am definitely ready for more of Daniel Craig as Benoit Blanc.  The cast that Rian Johnson has assembled for this latest venture is super encouraging - Ethan Hawke, Edward Norton, and Kathryn Hahn! - and the marketing antics have already been hilarious.  I can't wait.  

Pinocchio - Here's one of Guillermo Del Toro's passion projects finally making it to screen, thanks to Netflix.  This is going to be done in stop-motion animation, with an all-star cast.  Del Toro has promised that this will be a much darker adaptation than what we're familiar with, and is definitely not to be confused with the live action "Pinocchio" being readied for Disney+ by Robert Zemeckis next year.

The Northman - Robert Eggers is making a Viking revenge saga.  That's really all I need to know.  Alexander Skarsgaard will star as Prince Amleth, one of the major inspirations for Shakespeare's Hamlet.  That means you can probably figure out who Nicole Kidman, Ethan Hawke, and Anya Taylor-Joy are playing.  Oh, and Bjork's appearing as a witch.  This will be her first major film since "Dancer in the Dark."

Nope - So far Jordan Peele has released a poster of a creepy looking cumulus cloud with a string of pennant flags hanging down from it, and I am so ready for this.  I liked "Us" and "Candyman" better than most, and I am definitely looking forward to both of his 2022 projects, "Nope" and the stop-motion animated film "Wendell and Wild" that he and Henry Selick have in the works with Netflix.  

Tár - It has been sixteen years since writer/director Todd Field's "Little Children" was released.  After multiple cancelled projects, he's finally back with a film about a female orchestra conductor, Lydia Tár, to be played by Cate Blanchett.  It's described as an "intellectual drama" about music, ambition, and motherhood that takes place in Germany.  Hildur Guðnadóttir will be composing the score.

The Fabelmans - Steven Spielberg hasn't been too consistent recently.  However, he can still deliver a great film occasionally, and "The Fabelmans" will be about subject matter near and dear to his heart -  his own childhood.  Michelle Williams and Paul Dano will be playing the fictionalized versions of his parents, and Seth Rogen will be playing a fictional uncle.  Fingers crossed that this goes well.

The Woman King - This film promises to show me something that I have never seen onscreen before, and I can't wait.  Gina Prince-Bythewood will helm a historical epic about the West African kingdom of Dahomey, and its female warriors, led by a general played by Viola Davis.  Key members of the "Underground Railroad" cast, which I enjoyed greatly last year, will be making appearances.

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (Part One) - The fact that it's a "Part One" should make me wary, but the first "Spider-verse" movie was one of the best films of the past decade, animated or otherwise, and I choose to see this kind of ambition as a good thing.   The less I know going into this the better, so I haven't sought out any information on the new films to date, and I'll try to keep in that way.  

Killers of the Flower Moon - Apple TV+ is doing its best to get into prestige film, and has Martin Scorsese's latest collaboration with Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert DeNiro in the works.  I'm trying my best to keep my expectations reasonable, because Scorsese is very hit-or-miss from me.  But as long as Scorsese takes it easy on the de-aging technology, this should be quite an event. 

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"Finch" Isn't the Name of the Robot

"Finch" was previously known as "BIOS," and I was curious about it for being the second feature from Miguel Sapochnik, who is famous for his work on "Game of Thrones."  It was also one of a handful of high concept, original science-fiction movies that were slated for 2020 - Tom Hanks and a robot surviving the apocalypse together sounded ambitious and promising.  However, "Finch" is very derivative, essentially "Cast Away" or "I Am Legend" with robots.  And though it's filled with fancy effects, "Finch" also feels much smaller in scope than I was expecting.

Tom Hanks plays our primary human character, Finch, who has survived a solar flare that turned Earth's atmosphere into a hellish mix of high temperatures, dangerous radiation, and extreme weather events.  Other humans have survived, but Finch is afraid of them, and keeps his distance, using the technology at his disposal to hunt for supplies during the daytime, when conditions are at their worst.  He only has his dog, Goodyear, and a few small helper robots for company.  Realizing that his exposure to the radiation is killing him, Finch builds an android, eventually named  Jeff (Caleb Landry Jones), and charges him with taking care of Goodyear after he's gone.  Circumstances force them to uproot from their home in St. Louis and flee toward the west coast in a camper van, as Finch teaches Jeff about the world and how to survive in it.  

"Finch" feels oddly like a throwback to the '90s and 2000s, mostly due to the presence of Tom Hanks, playing boomer music and dispensing his gruff life lessons.  I wasn't surprised to find Robert Zemeckis, the director of "Cast Away" and "Forrest Gump," listed here as a producer.  There's also the characterization of an AI like Jeff as a sort of childlike, benevolent entity similar to Johnny 5 from "Short Circuit," or "E.T."  I'm not saying this is a bad thing.  It's nice to see a story like this that has such a strong streak of optimism after the last few years of grim apocalypse media.  Hanks is as charming here as he ever was, and the effects work to bring Jeff to life is fantastic.  I love all the thought that went into his design - baseball glove hands, a mouthless red-orange head, his clothing choices, and a few other surprises.  You can see the influence of WALL-E, Chappie, and other cinema robots over the years, but Jeff is distinctive enough to be memorable on his own merits.  

Still, though "Finch" runs nearly two hours in length, it feels shorter than it should be.  There are these weird narrative ellipses and a rather abrupt ending that suggest some creative misgivings late in the game, or that the film's production was limited due to COVID or some other production trouble.  The wasteland that the characters inhabit is very evocative and well considered, but at the same time it's extremely stingy with certain details, and naggingly empty throughout.  If this were a smaller independent film, I wouldn't be so bothered, but this production clearly had the money for a few more flashbacks to the initial disaster.  I'll note also that there were also additional cast members announced for the film back in 2019, but none of them appear in the finished film.

And that leaves us with a sparse, predictable, very well executed science-fiction buddy movie that is much more personal than similar projects usually are, but comes off as a little toothless for 2021.  The title, "Finch," is a remarkably bad title, but it gets to the heart of what the filmmakers ultimately decided to focus on, which was Tom Hanks's character.  His struggle and his humanity are lionized in a familiar, uncomplicated way, and if the movie had come out twenty years ago, I have no doubt that "Finch" would have been a sizable hit for everyone involved.  

However, Universal sold the movie to Apple+, forgoing a theatrical release entirely.  And it's hard not to think of "Finch" as another "Greyhound," a watered down echo of much better, more innovative films from an older era and style of filmmaking.  

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My Favorite Carol Reed Film

During my deep dive into 1950s films, I came to the conclusion that I wasn't a big fan of film noir.  I bring this up because I feel that I need to acknowledge that "The Third Man" is considered one of the greatest film noir ever made, and the best film directed by Sir Carol Reed, one of the most beloved English film luminaries.  I don't dispute this, but after a rewatch of "The Third Man," I'm afraid my position remains unchanged - "The Third Man" is a magnificent film, but not my favorite of Reed's by a long shot.  

Carol Reed's list of accolades is a considerable one - Academy Award winner, first winner of a BAFTA for best British film, and an influence on dozens of other prominent filmmakers.  He's best known for his post-war films about war and crime, psychological thrillers and suspenseful dramas, often about haunted men on the run.  My favorite Carol Reed film doesn't represent any of Reed's strengths.  Instead, it's almost the total antithesis,"The Agony and the Ecstasy," a film made near the end of Reed's career, during a slump in his fortunes, about Michaelangelo painting the Sistine Chapel.  It's one of Darryl F. Zanuck's notorious roadshow spectacles of the 1960s, and Reed was hired because Fox couldn't get Fred Zinnemann.  It was a notable flop, mostly remembered for the zany "Animaniacs" spoof it spawned a few decades later.

And despite it all, I love this movie.  I love that it opens with a lengthy, pretentious documentary segment introducing us to Renaissance art and the work of Michaelangelo.  I love that the scope is narrowly focused on the creation of the Sistine Chapel frescoes, and Michaelangelo's antagonistic relationship with Pope Julius II.  I love that the film is talky and grandiose and spends so much time hyping up Michaelangelo's art.  Critics of the time complained that the film was more art history lecture than cinematic experience, and ignored Michaelangelo's personal life, but that was one of the reasons I enjoyed it so much.  I've always loved films about artists and the creation of their art, and there are few artists with work as awe-inspiring as Michaelangelo.  I was totally won over by the production, which recreated vast sections of the Sistine Chapel in Cinecitta Studios in Rome.  The power of the images came through, even though the first time I saw "The Agony and the Ecstasy" was on a tiny television screen.  It's no surprise that the film was nominated for five Oscars, including for Best Art Direction and Best Cinematography (color).  

Most of the action, or inaction according to the film's detractors,  comes down to the artist and the pope.   They are played by Charlton Heston and Rex Harrison at their most ego-driven, and larger-than-life.  The two actors did not get along during the making of the film, which I think helped their performances.  They're both hamming it up delightfully in swords and sandals epic mode, not even trying to hide their distinctive accents, while their mutual disdain for each other comes across loud and clear.  Heston plays Michaelangelo as an antisocial grump who won't compromise on anything, while Harrison is the charming patron who gradually loses patience with his grand endeavors.  Rarely have I seen an Odd Couple pairing more over-the-top, couched in more ostentatious pageantry, and more entertaining to watch.  The inadvertent laughs these two provide fill me with such joy.           

As contrived and occasionally silly as the film is - there's a wild artistic epiphany scene, a deathbed resurrection, and a totally invented female love interest for the historically homosexual Michaelangelo - I so appreciate the film's willingness to elevate and celebrate artistic achievement in such magnificent terms.  When I finally saw "The Agony and the Ecstasy" on a more properly sized screen (not the original 70 mm, but good enough), I couldn't help but be dazzled by its scope and ambitions.  Art is often best appreciated through the eyes of other artists, and like Milos Forman was able to bring Mozart's genius to life in "Amadeus," I feel that Carol Reed and his crew were able to bring the work of one of the old Renaissance masters to the big screen in a memorably spectacular way.  

What I've Seen - Carol Reed

Night Train to Munich (1940)

The True Glory (1945)

Odd Man Out (1947)

The Fallen Idol (1948)

The Third Man (1949)

Outcast of the Islands (1951)

Trapeze (1956)

Our Man in Havana (1959)

Mutiny on the Bounty (1962)

The Agony and the Ecstasy (1965)

Oliver! (1968)

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"Swan Song" and "Zola"

I'm surprised at the good notices that have been received by "Swan Song," not because the movie itself is lacking, but because this isn't the kind of film that usually gets this kind of attention.  Written and directed by Benjamin Cleary, "Swan Song" is a science fiction film about a terminally ill man, Cameron (Mahershala Ali), who secretly clones himself in order to spare his wife Poppy (Naomie Harris) and their young son from the tragedy.  Cameron has second thoughts when the time comes to give the clone his memories, secretly insert him into his life, and say goodbye.  Glenn Close and Adam Beach play scientists, and Awkwafina plays a woman who also went through the cloning process.

"Swang Song" is an existential melodrama more than a typical genre film, carried by a strong central performance by Mahersha Ali.  It's a wonderfully humane, vulnerable performance, following Cameron's struggle to make the best decision for himself and for his loved ones.  The film itself commits to depicting his emotional journey in the most grounded terms possible, fully fleshing out Cameron's history with his loved ones, his struggle to accept his condition, and his quickly evolving relationship with his clone.  The film is so internal and so unconcerned with explaining anything to do with the creation of the clones, "Swan Song" often feels more like an allegorical piece than science fiction proper.

I think this is why I resisted its charms.  The film is a very straightforward, very charming and occasionally romantically tragic, but its characters have an odd lack of curiosity, and its approach to its subject matter is super narrowly focused.  Awkwafina is the only character allowed to be funny.  Cameron and Poppy are idealized in the extreme, living out a picture perfect life in the near-future that feels awfully contrived.  The film is entirely about Cameron's dilemma, and never considers the moral implications of the clone from any other points of view.  We don't get to see what happens if things go wrong, or really even entertain the possibility of it happening.  I think the film is fine for what it is, but its scope was too small for me to come away entirely satisfied.    

Now on to "Zola," the film that I have been trying and failing to write about for months.  It's more interesting to consider the circumstances around "Zola," and the social implications of "Zola" than the movie itself, which I can only describe as an interesting, but uncomfortable watch.  I know parts of it are meant to be funny, but none of the humor worked for me.  The movie is about the title character, played by Taylour Paige, who is a part-time stripper in Detroit.  She's cajoled into a road trip to Florida with fellow stripper Stefani (Riley Keough), her boyfriend Derek (Nicholas Braun), and her roommate X (Colman Domingo) to perform at a club.  Zola only learns that X is a pimp, and she's being shanghaied into a prostitution racket, when they're already on the road. Things only escalate from there as large amounts of money, guns, murder, and suicide come into play.  

"Zola" was based on an epic Twitter thread posted by the real Zola, and a David Kushner article profiling her, which were then adapted by Janicza Bravo and Jeremy O. Harris for the film.  It's tempting to want to dismiss the story as a group of trashy characters doing trashy things, but dig a little deeper and you quickly see how race and privilege define how the characters relate to and interact with each other.  Zola is the smartest one on the trip, but because of her status as an economically disadvantaged woman of color, she can't get away from the self-destructive, violent, and criminal behavior of those around her.  Stefani is the worst, who is absolutely willing to rope Zola into dangerous schemes by playing on her sympathy and good nature.  

I appreciate that these characters are taken on their own terms, far from polite society.  Zola's actions may seem counterintuitive until you get acclimated to the context that the events are happening in, and learn to appreciate how canny and resourceful she really is.  The filmmaking is loud and brash and rough-hewn, but it fits these characters and their outrageous, vibrant lives.  The performances are dialed up so high that I had some trouble with them at first, but Colman Domingo and Riley Keough prove especially good at balancing the humanity and the insanity of their deeply damaged characters.  I wish that I liked the movie more than I do, because I think it offers some important ideas, but the aggressive style and the uncomfortable atmosphere wore on me.  Also, the film stays a little too close to its source material - cutting off too quickly, and leaving its characters in limbo.

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A Faulty "Foundation"

I'm familiar with Isaac Asimov's "Foundation" novels, but don't count myself as a fan.  They were too heady for me when I read them as a teenager.  I only got through two volumes before giving up.  Still, they made enough of an impression on me that when I learned that David Goyer and Josh Friedman were going to turn the books into a series for Apple TV+, I expected they were going to face an uphill battle.  "Foundation" is a series about the fall and rebuilding of a galactic empire, where a group of "psychohistorians" are able to predict and help shape the course of history through their study of higher level mathematics.  Their thousand year plan is called the "Foundation." 

What Goyer and Friedman have elected to do with the first season is to take stories from multiple "Foundation" books and have them all happen simultaneously, or in very compressed timelines, to avoid having the action take place over massive time scales the way they originally did.  We start with the central figure of the Foundation, Hari Seldon (Jared Harris) recruiting his protege Gaal Dornick (Lou Llobdell), and presenting the plan for the Foundation to the Galactic Emperor.  The Emperor is actually a triumvirate of young, mature, and old clones of Cleon I, who refer to themselves as Brother Dusk (Terrence Mann), Brother Day (Lee Pace), and Brother Dawn (Cassian Bilton and Cooper Carter).  From this meeting and subsequent events, multiple storylines unfold.  One follows the unravelling of the Empire with the Cleon clones.  One follows Seldon's followers on the remote planet Terminus, led by Salvor Hardin (Leah Harvey).  And then there's Gaal Dornick, separated from both, travelling a very uncertain path forward.     

Apple certainly spent a lot to make the first nine-episode season of "Foundation" look impressive, but too much of it ends up derivative of every other science-fiction show of the past few years.  The first episode, set on the galactic capitol of Trantor, and Gaal's watery home planet Synnax, is full of beautiful visuals of otherworldly civilizations, thoughtful concepts, and interesting dilemmas.  By the seventh episode, we're watching a bunch of characters dressed in grungy military outfits having shootouts in corridors with bad lighting.  To be fair, this isn't the only thing going on in the episode, but I found it roundly depressing how quickly "Foundation" went from talking about these bigger, more challenging ideas to fairly rote sci-fi action squabbles.  The Terminus storyline is completely revamped to turn Hardin from a politician into an action hero, and issues of statecraft into showy guerilla warfare.  And it's kind of a bore.  

Much more successful is the clone storyline.  From what I can tell, the idea to turn the Emperor into a triumvirate of clones is an invention of the series, and allows the actors to play a succession of different characters over multiple eras.  The show's exploration of the clones' relationships with one another, their absolute power, their obsessions with their legitimacy, and their ritual-bound existence all works very well.  Lee Pace is the show's MVP, playing each Cleon at the prime of his life and power.  A lot more finagling is deployed to keep characters like Gaal and Hari in the show.  I don't mind Gaal's role being expanded to give us an additional POV character for future seasons, but she didn't have nearly enough to do.  Meanwhile, Hari had a very set, very purposefully limited role from the outset, and adding all these other appearances and ongoing questions about his actions was a mistake.  There's so much material that was straightforward in the books, but set up to be big mysteries in the series, and I find it very aggravating.

What else could have been done to improve the show?  A shorter season, for one, that would have removed the need for so much filler.  More than surface level exploration of the franchise's themes for another.  I quite like that Gaal and Salvor were both gender and race swapped, which is oddly touching in a series where predestination and genetic destiny are seen as major forces.  However, this is very much a show focused on spectacle over science-fiction, and full of characters who talk the way that not-smart people think smart people talk.  I still have hopes that the creators can figure out ways to improve in future seasons, but it's going to take a lot of work.        

      

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"Passing" and "King Richard"

Still getting through the award season titles.

"Passing" is the directing debut of Rebecca Hall, a small, lovely film about two African-American women in the 1920s who reunite when they recognize each other while both passing for white women.  Reenie (Tessa Thompson) lives in Harlem, married to a black doctor, Brian (Andre Holland), and passes on a whim during a shopping trip.  Clare (Ruth Negga), is visiting from Chicago, where she lives as a white woman, and is married to a bigoted businessman, John (Alexander Skarsgaard).  Clare is totally isolated and uses her renewed friendship with Reenie to reconnect to African-American culture, but her presence brings tensions, and eventually danger to Reenie's family and community.

I was wary of writing anything about "Passing" because it exists in such a specific cultural milieu, and addresses so many thorny issues like colorism and privilege that I don't feel remotely qualified to talk about.  However, I can talk about the performances of the two leads, which are wonderful and fascinating.  Negga and Thompson do such layered, evocative work, always carefully balancing so many unvoiced needs and concerns.  And then there's the complicated relationship between Reenie and Clare, with its shifting balance of power and eventual turn into hostility.  Negga has the more memorable  role as Clare, who is absolutely miserable under her well-constructed facade of gaiety and liveliness.

And I can talk about the filmmaking, which is minimalist and delicate.  The cinematography is black and white, helping the film to look like period photographs of the era, and also to emphasize how Clare exists in this tenuous space between black and white, light and shadow.  I especially appreciate the way that the film depicts Harlem in the 1920s, and the way that African-American culture is portrayed as something so positive and so important to many of the characters.  However, Hall also uses a very light touch, and the script is very interior, so the film never feels like a "black struggle" movie.  It's awfully strong work, and I look forward to more from her as a director.     

Now, on to "King Richard," and I admit that I'm guilty of questioning why a movie about the rise of tennis superstars Venus and Serena Williams should be focused on their father, played by Will Smith.  Then again, I knew very little about the Williams sisters or their background.  It turns out that they grew up very working class in the rougher part of Compton, California.  In the film, their father tongue-in-cheek refers to it as "the ghetto."  He and his wife Brandy (Aunjanue Ellis) have their hands full raising five girls, including Venus (Saniyya Sidney) and Serena (Demi Singleton), who Richard is coaching on his own with very limited equipment and facilities.  Their dedication and sacrifice, along with a few shrewd managerial decisions, and a lot of luck, are what ultimately lead to success.

  

The film was designed as a showcase for Will Smith, but it also succeeds at being a feel-good sports movie, and I can't think of a significant one about tennis since "Wimbledon."  "King Richard" is very much a crowd pleaser, and the scenes of melodrama and the suspenseful tennis matches are all handled well by director Reinaldo Marcus Green.  However, it's the script by Zach Baylin I find the most impressive, for managing to address themes of race and privilege in a way that feels genuine while still staying mostly audience friendly.  Also, the depiction of sports culture and the business around rising young players is very good.  A potential sneaker deal becomes a big plot point late in the movie.

Richard Williams is not a particularly likeable figure, but he makes for a great film protagonist.  He's almost the only one who believes in his children for so long, and remains so protective, that he regularly clashes with coaches like Paul Cohen (Tony Goldwyn) and Rick Macci (Jon Bernthal), and even starts second-guessing his daughters at critical junctures.  He strikes me as someone who would be exasperating in real life, but Will Smith's charisma is still a force to be reckoned with, and it's impossible to resist when he turns on the charm.  And this sort of movie is a rarity these days, and Smith is really very good here, so it won me over eventually.   

   

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"Better Call Saul," Years One and Two

Spoilers for the first season ahead.

With "Better Call Saul" finishing up this year, I can't put this show off any longer.  After enjoying "Breaking Bad," I fully intended to watch "Better Call Saul," but never made it past the first episode the first time around.  Waiting this long has made a binge possible, and very overdue.

You do need to have some familiarity with "Breaking Bad" to enjoy it best, since several characters in addition to Saul Goodman cross over between shows.  A big reason why "Saul" works as well as it does is that while we're following the career of Jimmy McGill (Bob Odenkirk), who will one day become the title character, in the background our old pal Mike Ehrmantraut (Jonathan Banks) is engaging more directly with Albuquerque's criminal element.  It's not that Jimmy's journey from a criminal lawyer to a *criminal* lawyer isn't exciting on its own, but it helps every few episodes to have a gunfight or a break-in that Mike is better positioned to deliver.

Jimmy in "Better Call Saul" has the same rough character arc that Walter White in "Breaking Bad" does, where we watch a man in less-than-ideal circumstances slowly lose his soul to the dark side.  Jimmy has never been entirely on the straight and narrow, however.  We first meet him as a struggling public defender, trying to make a go at a legitimate legal career after a long stint as a con-artist in his youth.  A huge influence on him is his older brother Chuck (Michael McKean), a much more successful lawyer who is now housebound after becoming hypersensitive to electronic signals, and is reliant on Jimmy as a caretaker.  The ailment might all be in his head, but Chuck is too afflicted to work, and is technically on sabbatical from the firm he's a partner at with Harry Hamlin (Patrick Fabian).  The other major new character is Kim Wexler (Rhea Seehorn), an associate at Hamlin, Hamlin, & McGill, who is Jimmy's love interest and moral compass.  When Jimmy is tempted to break the rules or stray into criminal activity, Kim is the one who encourages him to do the right thing.

Of course, we know that Jimmy's dark side is going to win out.  So far, each season has started with a brief sequence that takes place in the present day, where Jimmy is a fugitive after the events of "Breaking Bad," hiding out as the lowly manager of a Cinnabon in Omaha.  The big question is what happens to Chuck and Kim, and some of the other characters who don't appear in "Breaking Bad."  Mike has some dealings with Nacho Varga (Michael Mando), a shrewd, likable member of the Salamanca gang who seems destined for tragedy.  Jimmy, however, feels like he could go either way after two seasons.  We watch him struggle mightily to be a lawyer on his own terms, deal with the demons of his past, and juggle his various schemes.  He's a fascinating character - incredibly clever and competent, but also clearly not able to fit into the mold of the straitlaced lawyer that Chuck does.  The performances of Odenkirk and McKean are dynamite stuff, and the exploration of Jimmy and Chuck's complicated relationship is the best part of the show so far.

I also really enjoy slipping back into the "Breaking Bad" universe.  The creators are so self-assured in handling the production and stylistic choices.  They're comfortable enough to have long sequences of no dialogue where Mike is surveilling a criminal operation, or to throw around references to very old movies like "Ice Station Zebra" and "All That Jazz."  Taking place in the early 2000s, with a cast populated by many older actors, "Better Call Saul" has a certain quality of old fashioned, Clint Eastwood-esque, romanticized American masculinity.  Conflicts are often framed as Jimmy against the system, or Jimmy against the snobs, but it's also very clear that it's Jimmy's individual choices that land him in hot water.  "Better Call Saul" continues the tradition of Vince Gilligan and his fellow writers writing themselves into corners that require a lot of ingenuity to write their way out of again, and it's very entertaining to watch everyone hustle for those big twists and thrills.

I think the first season outpaces the second by a pretty wide margin, mostly because it moves so fast and has so much work to do in setting up all the characters and laying out their backstory.  Mike's history as a police officer and his reasons for moving to Albuquerque are covered in a single, heartbreaking episode.  There's another where Jimmy goes back to his old hometown to relive his con-man days, before embracing an even riskier future.  The second season is very good, following Jimmy's attempts to integrate into a more formal law firm setting, and fighting his way out from his brother's shadow, but it also moves more slowly and is clearly a chapter of a larger, unfinished story.   

I think it's safe to say I'm in this one for the long haul.  I'll be back soon with more.

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"Prisoners of the Ghostland" and "Malignant"

So, a Sion Sono movie finally happened to me.  I know, I should have seen one of his films before now - and it's become clear to me exactly how long this guy has been around - but better late than never, right?  And where better to start than his long-awaited collaboration with Nicholas Cage?  Cage is in over-the-top cartoon character mode, playing a convict in a post-apocalyptic world who is coerced into undertaking a mission to retrieve a missing girl, Bernice (Sofia Boutella).  The movie enthusiastically tries to live up to him.  

The chief joys of "Prisoners of Ghostland" are in its worldbuilding.  The post-apocalyptic world of Sion Sono consists of a mostly intact Samurai Town, ruled over by the corrupt Governor (Bill Moseley) and his enforcer Yasujiro (Tak Sakaguchi).  Not too far away is the "Ghostland," inhabited by roving bands of evil mutants and an oddball group of outcasts, led by the bookish Enoch (Charles Glover) and priestess Chimera (Cici Zhou).  Samurai Town is a mixture of western frontier town and geisha district, full of eye-popping colors and stylized images.  The Ghostland is Sono's take on a "Mad Max" style desert wasteland, with similarly incredible costuming and production designs.  There are "rat men" who salvage and construct machinery.  There are catatonic depressives who encase themselves in mannequin parts.   

So, it's a terrible shame that none of this gonzo excess is much fun.  Sono is constantly tripped up by the awful English language dialogue and the half-baked characters.  Way too much time is taken up by the Governor's "granddaughter" Susie (Yuzuka Nakaya), a crazed victim of all these bad men in power, who has regressed to childhood - and the performance is just awful.  To make matters worse, the film's pace is punishingly slow, and there's not much action until very late in the story.  Cage's character is haunted by his past, specifically a bank heist he carried out with his former partner Psycho (Nick Cassavetes), that resulted in a massacre.  The recurring image from this event is an exploding gumball machine that sends candy flying everywhere in hypnotic slow motion.  And that's really the metaphor for the whole movie - beautiful pieces of genre candy bouncing around, making a mess, that you don't get to enjoy as it was intended.         

Now, on to James Wan's "Malignant." 

A woman named Madison Lake (Annabelle Wallis) suffers a supernatural attack that kills her abusive husband Derek (Jake Abel) and her unborn baby.  The killer, a psychiatric patient named Gabriel (Marina Mazepa and Ray Chase), has an array of powers including electrical manipulation, super strength, and a strange psychic bond to Madison.  On the case are a pair of detectives, Shaw (George Young) and Moss (Michole Briana White), while Madison and her sister Sydney (Maddie Hasson) look into clues from Madison's past to try and find Gabriel.

"Malignant" is a film that relies totally on its third act twist, and it's a good enough twist, executed with enough enthusiasm that I think many horror and action movie fans will enjoy it.  However, it does take ninety minutes to get there, and those ninety minutes are pretty dire stuff.  They reminded me of nothing so much as a sub-par episode of "The X-files," except without any strong characters to follow and a strange lack of atmosphere.  "Malignant" is pretty slick and flashy for a film that's supposed to be horror - well, I suppose it's less straightforward horror and more of a creepy creature feature.  The biggest issue is really the cast.  Madison and the detectives are pretty thinly written, but I think stronger actors could have breathed more life into them.

What we're left with is the monster, Gabriel, who isn't all that original as far as monsters go, but James Wan finds enough interesting body horror angles and fun images to help him make a heluvah impression.  The best scenes in the movie are the action set pieces, and "Malignant" would have been so much more enjoyable if there had been more of them.  I'm all for a good, slow buildup, but in this case, the more monstrosity, the better.  I wouldn't mind seeing Gabriel again, but in a movie that is maybe half an hour of buildup and ninety minutes of thrills next time.    

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Tonight at Eight/Seven Central

Life after traditional broadcast television has occasionally made me nostalgic for the oddest things, like certain commercials or programming blocks.  Lately it's been time slots.  The whole way that I figure out what to watch from day to day has changed completely.  Appointment television hasn't exactly disappeared, with many streaming services sticking to a weekly release model for shows.  Netflix is still a holdout, but even they're starting to dole out shows in smaller batches instead of full seasons at once.  

However, the concept of time slots is becoming irrelevant.  Practically the only people who watch media the second it premieres are either the die-hard fans or the poor entertainment journalists who are obligated to binge whole seasons of shows so they can publish their articles in a timely manner.  There's still a fairly entrenched population of casual viewers who watch programming because it happens to be on while they happen to want to watch television, but that kind of passive viewing is no longer considered the norm.

In the analog era, I used to spend every Sunday morning with the weekly television listings, mentally making notes on what shows and movies were airing at what times, and sometimes making plans around anything really important, like the Oscars or a new episode of "The X-files."  I was enough of a nerd that I kept track of premiere dates for new and returning shows, but individual episodes were impossible to really pin down more than a week ahead of time.  During sweeps and premiere months, the episodes would mostly be new, and over the summer they'd be repeats, but sometimes shows were cancelled early, or they never showed the reruns, so if you missed an episode, you might have missed it for good.  Especially if you liked the more obscure, less popular shows, you had to keep an eye on the listings in case the time slot moved, or there were pre-emptions. I feel like fans had much more intense relationships with television pre-streaming, because you had to commit more.  You had to be on time every week, or reliably know how to program a VCR or DVR.  You associated certain shows with certain days and times.  Thursday was "Friends" and "Seinfeld."  Sunday was "The Simpsons."  

In the streaming era, I keep calendars now, instead of referencing listings.  I prefer to make my own so I can combine different media - VOD and streaming premiere dates for feature films, streaming premiere dates for various series and specials, and occasionally those few remaining broadcast-only events that I'll eventually figure out how to watch online.  Everything, even "American Crime Story: Impeachment" will eventually find its way online, because if it doesn't, for a good portion of the population that means it's simply not worth watching.  If I didn't maintain my calendars, though, I'd be in no danger of missing out.   I can watch these shows whenever it's convenient for me, not when it's convenient for the majority of potential viewers.  I don't have to worry about choosing between shows because they happen to occupy the same time slot.  I don't have to watch them as they premiere if I don't care about following the discourse - and yes, the discourse is still a thing.

It didn't really occur to me until my calendars started merging with my "To Watch" lists that streaming content hasn't just bust out of time slots or traditional seasons, but viewers really have been left to program their own lineups entirely, and it's now perfectly normal to be discovering older shows years after they were cancelled, or to be devoting as much time to watching Youtube creators as it is to be following studio-produced shows.  We've gone way beyond the old dream of the "a la carte" model of choosing your own bundles of specific channels you wanted from the pay cable stations.  Today, it's closer to having the ability to choose the specific shows, and the specific episodes.

But strangely, I can't quite shake the habit of thinking about shows in terms of timeslots, even after all this time.  I'll end my night with late show clips around 11PM.  I tend to save genre shows to watch on Friday nights because that was always when they would air the nerdy science-fiction programs like "The X-files" and "Doctor Who."  I really don't miss appointment television, but I'll admit the instant gratification is less fun, in a way.  

Saturday morning cartoons watched on Thursday afternoons just isn't quite the same.    

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