"A Discovery of Witches" Year One

As an alternative to continuing the "Twilight" series, I decided to try out a recent television show that I'd seen described in a few places as "Twilight" for grown ups.  "A Discovery of Witches" features an alternate world where witches, vampires, and demons live among us, hiding in plain sight.  The heroine, Diana Bishop (Teresa Palmer), is a historian from a witch lineage, but has never developed her powers.  Her love interest is a vampire biochemist, Matthew Clairmont (Matthew Goode), who she meets when visiting Oxford.  

The worldbuilding of the series is promising at the outset.  This is a world where "creatures" are slowly losing their powers and dying out, and there's a long history of animosity between the different species, the only exception being a nine-person Congregation of leaders from each group.  Of course, interspecies relationships are forbidden.  Diana sets off a new round of political intrigue when she discovers a long-lost magical book, known by its catalogue designation Ashmole 782, that everyone wants for various reasons.  She attracts the attention of Matthew, the bigoted witch leader Peter Knox (Owen Teale), and many others.  This also starts to awaken her dormant witch powers, and sets her on a journey of self-discovery.

The series quickly establishes the patterns of a typical melodrama.  The romance between Diana and Matthew is fairly rote stuff, and there's not much chemistry between Palmer and Goode.  Goode makes for an excellent vampire, but is much less interesting as a romantic lead.  Palmer is a little flat, as the academic side of her character disappears almost immediately, leaving her to be yet another generic Chosen One who has to uncover mysterious things about her past.  The big cast of supporting characters, fortunately, offer some welcome distractions.  As a centuries-old vampire who is part of a powerful family, Matthew has loads of baggage, including a protective mother, Ysabeau (Lindsay Crouse), an evil ex, Juliette (Elarica Johnson), and a brother on the Congregation, Baldwin (Trystan Gravelle).  The witches are a machinating bunch, and Knox has recruited a new Congregation member, Satu (Malin Buska), who is set up as a rival to Diana, and is using Diana's gal-pal Gillian (Louise Brealey) as a spy.   More helpful characters include Matthew's lab minions Marcus (Edward Bluemel) and Miriam (Aiysha Hart), and Diana's lesbian aunts, Sarah (Alex Kingston) and Emily (Valarie Pettiford).

Still, while the Venetian setting is lovely, and the ensemble is generally more talented, I had a hard time seeing "A Discovery of Witches" as anything else than "Twilight" with more complications.  The story beats are largely the same, and Matthew Clairmont practically has the same dialogue as Edward Cullen regarding dire warnings of vampire bloodlust.  Diana Bishop, though a mature adult with a lot more on her mind, is prone to making the same rash decisions and pronouncements of love as any lovestruck teenager.  I have to wonder if this is just what comes with the genre territory at this point.  The historical fiction elements are nice, and some of the show's mythology around its supernatural creatures is fun, but these are ultimately disappointing.  The references to figures like Ashmole and Gerbert D'Aurillac are very surface level and unremarked upon.  The mythology is very incomplete, and after the first season I still have no idea what distinguishes a demon in this universe.  I also find the series much too quick to get into wilder concepts like visions and time travel. 

In the end, I think that straightforward fantasy romances like this just don't have much appeal for me.  I was waiting in vain for some meta-humor, or really any humor at all.  Though set in the modern day, it doesn't feel like the characters are part of the modern world - which I guess is by design - and they come across as very flat and distant.  The weaker actors are unable to keep the material about prophecies and curses from sounding silly, and it didn't help that I had a hard time telling some of them apart.  Even if the usual makeup effects have been dispensed with, you'd think that demons, witches, and vampires would at least have different fashion sense.    

"A Discovery of Witches" has been renewed for two more seasons, but I think this is where I leave it.

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An Election Season Recap

The 2020 U.S. presidential  election is about three weeks behind us at the time of writing, and I want to put down something before it recedes too far back in my memory.  After all, this was an historic election, held during a pandemic where much higher numbers of voters voted early and by mail, where the results were too close to call for several days, and the cultural divide was so pronounced that protesters showed up to vote counting centers in some states.

I'm about as liberal as they come, and was among those hoping for a "repudiation" of the Trump administration at the polls.  So, election night was a disappointment to me.  I went to bed after Florida and Texas were called for Donald Trump, fully expecting the announcement of his second term in the morning.  That didn't happen.  The "red mirage" and "blue shift" predictions proved to be correct, and it was clear that Biden had won by Friday.  On the other hand, the Democrats lost several Congressional seats and the control of the Senate is still up in the air.  

I mostly stayed away from the news coverage, especially as the days after election night were a waiting game.  Social media was more helpful, pointing me to sites where I could look at the raw data from incoming vote counts without any accompanying commentary.  While I felt it was important to be informed of Trump's antics during this time - trying to claim victory, trying to stop the ongoing vote count, and riling up his most unstable supporters - I also thought that the increased media attention was just encouraging bad behavior.  Even now,  Donald Trump refuses to concede, and has left the country in a state of limbo with Biden's transition on indefinite pause.  There's a definite endpoint - January 20th - but the waiting is not easy.  There's still the worry of more violence and more turmoil as Trump digs in his heels and the conspiracy theorists become emboldened.  

The scrutiny of the situation might be greater if it weren't for COVID ramping up again for the holidays, and the country in the middle of the worst surge of cases yet.  Lockdowns are on, and holiday plans are being cancelled.  We're currently eight months into the ongoing crisis, and this may be the most challenging phase yet.  The good news is that vaccines are being approved, so there's an end in sight, but it's much farther away than most people think it is.  Only frontline workers will be getting the first batch of doses expected to arrive in early 2021. Everyone else is going to have to wait until spring or later.  So, we're all still waiting.    Still trying to distract ourselves.  Still trying to ignore the crazies and doomsayers.  Still waiting for everything to go back to normal someday.

In the end, I don't think that anybody is going to walk away from this one happy.  The Republicans will be ousted, and Trump himself is in deep legal and financial trouble.  The Democrats will have won, but not by much, and the Senate will probably still be a major obstruction to actually getting anything done.  Meanwhile, thanks to heaps of misinformation, there's a significant chunk of the American public that thinks the election has been stolen, or will be keen on blaming Biden for the actions of the Trump administration.  This won't be the Darkest Timeline situation I was steeling myself for on election night, but it's a long way from good.

Looking at election-related media, I'm happy to report that by staying away from broadcast and cable television, I was able to avoid most political advertising.  Some still got through via the radio and increasingly through my podcasts - those automatically inserted ads are awful.  Social media was also pretty bad - I have my Facebook settings calibrated pretty well, but Youtube was pretty obnoxious and had a clear, sustained rightwing bias for the last few weeks.  I had to suppress laughter when it tried suggesting me Dinesh D'Souza "documentaries."  Regulation of election content is still woefully out of date when it comes to the internet.

As usual, it was the late night comedians I enjoyed the most, though some were clearly showing signs of fatigue from all the outrage, John Oliver and Stephen Colbert most prominently.  I'll be happiest for them, to be able to talk about other terrible things for a while, and not to have to think about Trump so often.

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My 2020 Holiday Wish List

Let's get right to it.  This year for Christmas I want…

For the theaters to come through the pandemic with as little damage as possible, and for the normal practice of theatrical moviegoing to resume as soon as it's safe.  Small indie theaters in particular need all the support we can get.  As much as I'm enjoying the pivot to streaming, the sudden loss of such a massive revenue source for the entertainment industry has been a real eye-opener.  We're not going to be able to gage the full effect of this for a while, but the longer the shutdowns go on, the worse it's going to be for everyone.  But...    

For a Netflix film to win Best Picture already, because this is the most fitting year for it to happen, and it really does need to happen to reflect the economic reality of how the entertainment industry works now.  Heck, I'm half convinced that Netflix's spending on their campaigns are propping up the whole awards season at this point anyway.  I know Hollywood is all about showing solidarity with the theaters this year, but mucking around with eligibility dates and delaying the ceremony really strikes me as bad sportsmanship. 

For "Venture Bros." and "GLOW" to get some form of an ending, be it specials, movies, or farewell miniseries.  Of all the COVID cancellations, these are the two that really hit me where it hurts.  They both seemed to be on the verge of ending on their own terms, only to be cut short by bad luck and bad circumstances.  "Venture Bros." in particular has weathered so many ups and downs over the years, I hate to see it go out like this, so close to the finish line.  I need more Dr. Henry Killinger, dammit!

For all the new streaming services to find their groove.  We're still in early days, and there's a lot of instability - see the Paramount+ rebranding efforts in the works - but I'm hopeful that most of the bigger streamers will survive in some form so that we have a real a la carte system to replace pay cable.  This means HBO Max needs to fix their carriage issues, AppleTV+ and Disney+ had better sort out their content deficiencies, and everybody needs to stop playing musical chairs with a few big blockbuster franchises.  Seriously, what are the Harry Potter movies doing on Peacock?  Right now, whoever can put together a reliable programming guide/content finder site is probably going to be the biggest winner of the streaming age.  And related to that...

For more classic films on streaming.  It's long been a complaint of the classic film fans that older titles are so scarce on the major streaming sites.  The HBO Max and Criterion Channel selections are certainly nice, and Tubi has come through a few times for me, but there are still so many, many titles that seem to be stuck in perpetual digital limbo.  To be fair, a lot of the old obscurities have been coming out of the woodwork and enjoying more of the spotlight thanks to increased online presence, but I think there's still a long way to go.  And while we're on the subject…

For more content licensing and less exclusivity.  The big selling point of many of the streaming services is that they offer exclusive access to certain content, like the "Peanuts" specials on Apple TV+ or the Ghibli films on HBO Max.  This often means that the content disappears from other platforms, like "A Charlie Brown Christmas" leaving broadcast television.  And this sucks, obviously.  Frankly, the "Disney vault" model has always been awful, and easier access usually turns out to be better for everyone in the long run.  In fact, kudos to Disney for the rerelease of so many of their library titles last year to help out theaters.

For the new "Dune" to be good, and to make enough money that they can get a sequel greenlit with this cast.  I'm dying to see who they'd cast as Feyd Rautha in 2021.   

And finally, for all the new films and television shows coming out next year to exceed my expectations, and for those that didn't to improve.  Yes, even the Snyder cut.

Happy holidays!

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The Curious Case of "Waiting for the Barbarians"

Ciro Guerra is a newly emergent arthouse favorite, easily the most prominent Colombian director after the success of "The Embrace of the Serpent" and "Birds of Passage."  He's worked on shows for Netflix and Amazon Prime, and toyed with Hollywood projects.  His English language debut, "Waiting for the Barbarians," features a handful of very recognizable actors, but otherwise follows his usual themes and aesthetics - namely an unsparing examination of the effects of western colonialism on indigenous peoples.

This time out, however, Guerra is far from Colombia and the cultures that he's featured in the past.  Instead, he's adapting J.M. Coetzee's novel "Waiting for the Barbarians," which is about unnamed groups of oppressors and natives.  Guerra's adaptation was filmed in Morocco, and uses a mix of different ethnicities and locales, with clear visual allusions to various real world actors.  Taking place two or three centuries ago, the story features a Magistrate (Mark Rylance), who heads a remote outpost somewhere in Central Asia, at the edge of the desert.  He owes allegiance to a vast, unseen Empire, but has been largely left alone to govern his little corner of the world as he sees fit, and has achieved a peaceful coexistence with the native populations.  This includes the Asiatic Nomads, who populate the desert and largely keep to themselves.

The peace is disrupted by the arrival of the sinister Colonel Joll (Johnny Depp), who  immediately starts accusing the Nomads of crimes, capturing and torturing them, and becomes obsessed with the idea of an impending "barbarian" uprising.  War is expected, and more soldiers are brought in to prepare.  The Magistrate, a good and gentle man, takes pity on one of Joll's victims, an unnamed girl (Gana Bayarsaikhan) who has been crippled and blinded.  He nurses her back to health and falls in love with her.  However, at her request he takes her back to the Nomads, bringing the wrath of Joll on himself, and sparking further resistance.  Among Joll's underlings are soldiers played by Robert Pattinson, Harry Melling, and Sam Reid.

I doubt that "Waiting for the Barbarians" would be getting much attention at all, if it weren't for the likes of Depp and Pattinson playing the vicious antagonists.  It's a curious film, with an epic sweep and an approach toward European colonialism that is very reminiscent of Werner Herzog's cinematic adventures in foreign lands from the '70s and '80s.  But for all of Guerra's efforts to evoke the era of the misguided Imperial conquerors, so much of the story and circumstances are clearly invented, specifically the Magistrate himself.  He's a wildly unlikely creature -  a sensitive, morally forthright, romantically inclined middle-aged man who is put in sharp contrast with the cruel, rapacious newcomers who supplant his authority, and are clearly the true "barbarians" of the title.

So, we have to treat "Waiting for the Barbarians" as an allegorical story, about a good man espousing the ideals of the wrong era, struggling to stay good and protect his neighbors in the face of encroaching systemic evil.  And, despite some pacing issues, the film does a decent job of relaying this idea.  Rylance's performance as the Magistrate is very strong, the cinematography is gorgeous, and Guerra uses instances of violence and abuse very effectively.  I also appreciate the complicated relationship between the Magistrate and the girl, which is very one-sided and fraught with ambiguities.  Even when he has the best of intentions, and behaves honorably, he still inadvertently harms her.    

Where I think the film runs into some trouble is with the agents of the Empire, who are almost cartoonish in their villainy.    Frankly, it's distracting to have recognizable Hollywood stars playing the agents of oppression.  Johnny Depp, who I love in many films, sticks out like a sore thumb here.  Pattinson less so, though he only shows up in the third act and really doesn't have much to do.  They're all dressed like French Foreign Legionnaires and speak English, and it's all frankly a little too dehumanized and weird.  The soldiers' totally unscrupulous mistreatment of the locals, and pillaging of the landscape, however, ring all too true.          

      

I'm looking forward to more from Ciro Guerra, though I'd prefer if he stayed as far away from Hollywood as humanly possible.  

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Into the '50s

I've been making much more progress on my Top Ten project than I expected I would be, and I thought it would be a good time to write up a little of my experience working through the films of the late '50s.  

If I was unfamiliar with the water while wading into the '60s and the '70s, I'm even more unfamiliar with the '50s.  I realized that so many of my cultural touchstones came out of the '60s, from the James Bond movies to "The Twilight Zone."  With the '50s, it feels like I'm exploring a new continent.  Though I'm familiar with many of the Golden Age stars of the time, like Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly, and Marilyn Monroe and Elizabeth Taylor, it's very rare that I come across anyone still active in films now - I spotted a very young Tsai Chin in "The Inn of the Sixth Happiness," and Richard Beymer in "The Diary of Anne Frank."  

You definitely get a sense of the film world narrowing down a bit this far back in time.  There were fewer films made, and from fewer sources.  Looking at foreign films, there was almost nothing coming out of South America and  Africa, while other countries' film industries were still in their nascent stages.  However, the '50s were when Akira Kurosawa and Satyajit Ray were making some of their best work, and Alfred Hitchcock really got going.  I keep coming across wonderful experiments like the Czech sci-fi film "Invention for Destruction," that uses elaborate sets and animation to bring a world of vintage Jules Verne illustrations to life.  In Hollywood, the studio system was in full swing, and the major genres of the day were musicals, westerns, and melodramas.  Epics were also popular, including many war films.  In the wake of WWII, there was a lot more military presence across all genres, and heroes were often former soldiers of one kind or another.  

As I've mentioned previously, I've been reluctant about getting into '50s films because the social mores are so different, especially when it comes to race and gender.  Pre Civil Rights era, the mainstream studio films were fairly awful at portraying anyone who wasn't white.  Blackface was out, but there was still plenty of brownface and yellowface in use.  And pre "The Feminine Mystique," somehow I'm not surprised that the big female star of the era was sexy airhead Marilyn Monroe - who I know wasn't really an airhead in real life.  And yet, the late '50s had several movies about interracial relationships that were very progressive for their time.  The goalposts were in a very different place, but the basic outlines of your standard social justice picture advocating for more tolerance and acceptance are very familiar.  And once you got away from the big, expensive spectacles, you could find films like "The Crimson Kimono," where James Shigeta gets the white girl in the end.  And alongside Sidney Poitier, Harry Belafonte was a legitimate leading man in films like "Odds Against Tomorrow" and "The World, the Flesh, and the Devil."  

That said, the biggest smash hit of 1958 was "South Pacific," and I can't begin to describe all the ways that "South Pacific" is utterly deplorable from a modern POV.  I couldn't even enjoy Ray Walston in the film, and I love Ray Walston.  When it comes to adventures in foreign lands, especially in the East, the white savior trope is everywhere.  Well-meaning pictures like "The Inn of the Sixth Happiness" are wildly inaccurate and condescending.  And romance really isn't what it used to be - and thank goodness.  After sitting through a string of musicals with bad boy heroes like "Kiss Me Kate," "Pal Joey" and "Jailhouse Rock," the predatory, patriarchal nonsense can really start to grate.  Elvis and Frank Sinatra's music were a big part of my childhood, but I doubt I'll ever look at either of them the same way again.    

I have turned up a few new favorites and films worth seeing, that couldn't be made today for one reason or another.  I prefer 1958's "A Night to Remember" to "Titanic."  I love Gregory Peck making a stand for nonviolence in "The Big Country."  And even though the film is a highly, highly misleading account of actual facts, "I Want to Live!" is one of the best film noir I've seen, and a scathing takedown of the tactics of the press, right up there with "Ace in the Hole."

I've got an awful long way yet to go, but the mountain doesn't look as insurmountable as it once did.  Happy watching.

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"The West Wing," Year Three

Moderate spoilers ahead.

Well, the early phase of the Bartlett administration is over. Season three has made some adjustments, and feels more like the television dramas of the last decade - more serialized, featuring thornier conflicts and imperfect characters, with no clean and tidy resolutions. Starry-eyed idealism has largely been replaced with more cynical politicking as Jed Bartlett's re-election campaign is in full swing. His staff is screwing up more often and facing harder challenges. Bartlett himself is clashing more frequently with them. Josh and Sam are still arrogant jerks from time to time, but there are more repercussions for their behavior.

The third season started out pretty shaky, with all the flashback episodes I wasn't very interested in, and the scandal over the President's multiple sclerosis secret taking up so much of the narrative. As much as I enjoy Martin Sheen as President Bartlett, I like "The West Wing" much better as an ensemble show, and the first part of the season is awfully Bartlett-heavy. It's not that I'm opposed to learning more about Bartlett's past and psychology, but it comes at the expense of everyone else around him. I'd have loved to get more of Sam's background, or CJ's. Charlie is easily the most underutilized of the regulars, and only gets something substantive to do at the very end of the season. When we do see more of the staff, the humor is dialed way, way down, and there are several episodes that are very issue-focused, and don't make the best use of the characters as characters. Instead they sometimes feel like mouthpieces for political views that are randomly assigned. CJ is against affirmative action in one installment, and this is conveniently never mentioned again.

Still, Sorkin is at his best here, holding his characters to account for their mistakes, setting up higher stakes, presenting compelling moral dilemmas, and getting the audience invested in larger themes and issues. The season finale, unlike previous years, feels like less of a stunt and more of an organic endpoint to several ongoing storylines that have been properly developed over the course of the season, CJ's romance with Mark Harmon notwithstanding. Bartlett feels more humanized and less infallible, which is preferable to having him on a pedestal. I miss some of the cozy camaraderie of the earlier seasons, but I also appreciate the more realistic depiction of a political system that is constantly getting bogged down by special interests, bad faith actions, and plain, old fashioned political maneuvering. One of my favorite moments of the season is watching Sam getting totally outplayed by a rival working for the opposition.

There aren't many prominent new characters this season. Josh's newest love interest is women's rights lobbyist Amy Gardner (Mary-Louise Parker), and I hope that she stays around for the long haul. She's by far the most interesting and personable of all of Josh's love interests so far, and Parker has a fantastic onscreen dynamic with Bradley Whitford. I wonder if Mandy would still be around if Parker had been given her role at the start. And we need more Ainsley, who only makes a handful of special appearances. And more Abby Bartlett. I'm even warming up to Donna more, now that she's not always orbiting Josh.

The show's success is also clearly having an impact, with a mediocre special dedicated to real life White House staffers, with the participation of Presidents Ford, Carter, and Clinton, and a post 9/11 bottle episode that didn't really work. It was a valiant effort at a mature response to still-unfolding events (at the time the show was originally aired), but it didn't work. The self-importance of "The West Wing" has never been more pronounced, with guest stars like Lily Tomlin, getting bigger, and Sorkin clearly addressing criticisms of the show's first two seasons in various forms.

I admit I nearly gave up on "The West Wing" entirely after the first few episodes of this season. The twenty-plus episode seasons are starting to wear on me, and the filler hasn't been great. However, I thought the show recovered nicely toward the back half, and I'm looking forward to the presidential election and the further events in the show's universe next season.
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"Weathering With You" and "Promare"

I've been neglecting the anime world recently, and COVID has given me a rare opportunity to catch up. Here are some quick thoughts on the two major titles from last year.

First, Makoto Shinkai's "Weathering With You" is one of the more entertaining titles in his catalogue. I'm not very fond of Shinkai's teen romances, especially the ones that get super introspective and angst-ridden. "Weathering With You" stays fairly light and humorous throughout, even though it features a needlessly Hollywood-style action climax. The characters are better defined, and the fantasy elements are more interesting, occasionally veering into Miyazaki territory in a way that none of the other Shinkai films have before.

Hodaka (Kotaro Daigo) is a runaway teeanger who is having a hard time surviving in Tokyo, but he's taken under the wing of a disreputable publisher, Suga (Shun Oguri), and his assistant Natsumi (Tsubasa Honda). He then befriends a girl named Hina (Nana Mori), who turns out to be a "sunshine girl." Her prayers can temporarily stop the unusual torrential rains that have been plaguing Tokyo for months, and Hodaka helps her turn this skill into a little business. Hina and her younger brother Nagi (Sakura Kiryu) have been recently orphaned after the death of their mother, and are also barely scraping by.

As usual, the biggest selling point of Shinkai's film is its gorgeous visuals. A larger budget has given him the ability to do fuller, smoother animation, and multiple scenes full of rain and cloud effects. The weather is like another character in the film, often driving the plot along and playing a big part in the film's ending. The pace is very lackadaisical, often just following how Hodaka is enjoying his life and finding his tribe, which makes for a very pleasant watch. I like "Weathering With You" more than most of the other Shinkai films because it has a very strong supporting cast - rough-edged Suga, precocious Nagi, and hot-blooded Natsumi are a lot of fun to watch. The specificity of the modern Tokyo setting is also a plus, giving us meticulously detailed beauty shots of busy streets and neighborhoods. So even if Hodaka is the usual romantic idiot teenage hero, and the love story is paint-by-numbers, there's a lot more to see and enjoy.

Now, switching gears entirely, we have "Promare," the wild new action film from Studio Trigger about a dystopian future where the emergence of the pyrokinetic Mad Burnish terrorists has created a world where the fire fighting force of Burning Rescue is treated like a celebrity superhero team. One member of Burning Rescue in particular, Galo Thymos (Kenichi Matsuyama), is deeply committed to his cause, and to protecting the city of Promepolis and its leader Kray Foresight (Masato Sakai). The trouble is, the Mad Burnish are actually being persecuted by Foresight, and in danger of being further victimized as part of his dastardly plot to escape the impending apocalypse. Galo and the Mad Burnish leader, Lio Fotia (Taichi Saotome), have to put aside their differences and team up in order to save the day.

The clear precursor to "Promare" is "Gurren Lagaan," the Studio Gainax adventure series with which it shares key members of the creative team, including director Hiroyuki Imaishi. This isn't just because Galo Thymos is a dead ringer for "Gurren Lagaan" hero Kamina, but because the two anime share a very similar visual sensibility of incredibly kinetic animation, highly stylized designs, and action sequences of epic scope. So much of "Promare" is action scenes, these hugely ambitious scenarios that mix 2D and 3D animation to create impossible, colorful clashes to fill the screen. The bombastic, over-the-top opener was so overwhelming, I was a little worried that "Promare" wouldn't actually have a comprehensible story. Instead, it turns out that "Promare" is a perfectly good science-fiction fable at its core, with a passel of fun characters. It's very comic book level stuff, where every new revelation is underlined several times and adorned with exclamation points, but very enjoyable if you can get on the same wavelength.

I want to emphasize that this is some of the best animation I've seen come out of Japan in a long time. The momentum of the action, and the energy coming out of it is incredible. It's also beautifully designed from top to bottom, utilizing these minimalist shapes and searing neon colors to keep expanding and expanding the scope to the point of ludicrousness. Eventually there are spaceships and trans-dimensional flame aliens involved and the whole planet gets set on fire. It's beautifully bonkers and so much more than I was expecting from a film billed as being about superpowered fire-fighters.
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