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Guilt (2019)
Two totally dissimilar seasons
Season 1 was a like a Coen brothers story, which could be summed up as an unremarkable dark comedy that was barely worth my time.
Season 2 had higher aspirations and dropped the silliness that came with the first season. The writer wanted us to be intimate with the characters in their journey to redemption, and Mark Bonnar spent much of his screentime negotiating between fragile bravado, terror and torment. It was a pleasure to watch, and I hope the writer is able to do similar work in the future.
The Watch (2020)
Decent madcap Brit-sf
I have never been a fan of literary fantasy of any ilk, whether Harry Potter or Lord of The Rings, and especially anything by Terry Pratchett. Now that I've disqualified myself from having an opinion based on any expectations derived from the source material, I did enjoy watching this. My opinions of the cinematic renderings of fantasy are decidedly more positive though, so my enjoyment isn't shocking to me.
If you have no idea who Terry Pratchett was, you might find this enjoyable, especially if you like British-style farcical madcap adventures. Although one may be tempted to compare the two, Depp's Jack Sparrow is but a mere speck against Richard Dormer's Vimes.
If gender-bending or color-blind casting bothers you, you're probably too old at heart to be in the intended audience anyways. Other than that, the script is not brilliant but serviceable, the acting is generally okay, and they had obvious limitations in their budget for production, but all of that is par for the course with every similar British show.
Life is too short and nasty to be bothered too much about self-indulgent teeth gnashing about how cinematic adaptations aren't faithful enough for one's liking. In other words, ignore the user reviews and you'll probably be fine, unless you love the company of those who constantly whinge.
Sex Education (2019)
It serves as an unintentional warning
The Golden Age of television will be remembered for the huge amounts of money that the two main players were prepared to throw at original productions, but those who were hoping for braver fare are finding the pickings are not necessarily richer. Sex Education is a case in point.
On the surface it sounds progressive - various characters drift in and out, each the abbreviation of someone you might have known in school. Gay, virginal, unnaturally endowed, intelligent misfit, sexually confused but self-avowed pervert, sexually rapacious divorcee, etc. But scratch each one and you find that they've all been done to death before, sometimes better, so it all starts to get a little tedious.
However, the biggest crime committed by the writers is the absence of peril. It leaves one with the impression that the world really doesn't find any of these portrayals especially scandalous unless one comes from an insular community with old moralities. The only exceptions are when the gay character is punched in the head by some rednecks, which the show doesn't dwell on much, and the simmering trauma suffered by a young woman who is furtively wanked on in a public bus. Much airtime is given to emotional repercussions of the latter but not to the former, which puzzles me a little.
Case in point is Maeve Wiley - the epitome of what happens when writers fall in love with a character and coddle it. She is the most lovingly rendered of all the show's characters. Preternaturally intelligent, yet wise to the ways of the world from her dysfunctional upbringing in poverty. The writers spare no effort in making you know these things. However how does someone so accomplished in churning out dozens of original essays for a fee also manage to not know how to work the system to her advantage? And where is the peril lurking for her? Is it that she never connects with Otis? That's hardly peril, even if its at the hands of her manipulative neighbor. Unless the bar has been set so very low.
Regardless of the complaints about the second season here in the reviews section, it sets the stage (very slowly) for the conflict between Otis and his mother. We all know the car crash will happen but it happens very slowly. Perhaps something tragic will happen in season three to set the stage for Otis to mature.
There's nothing terribly wrong with the show, it's all a few pleasant hours, and the ensemble cast are good. However, the writers have generally kept the story on an emotionally short leash, and that's the greatest flaw of this show. If it had been commissioned by channel 4 UK or similar, it would have been more brave and therefore would've had a good chance of becoming a classic.
Finding Alice (2021)
The Durrells redux
Imagine, if you will, The Durrells with the same matriarch, transplanted into a rural property worth of Grand Designs. In a nutshell, this is what Finding Alice is, and it poses the greatest strength and weakness of this series.
If you liked The Durrells, it was probably due in large part to Keeley Hawes. To her credit, she doesn't play a carbon copy of her previous role in Finding Alice. A large amount of her emotional space is occupied by constant bewilderment due to her sudden loss and the ensuing predicaments her dead spouse has embroiled her into posthumously. Despite the superficial similarities in roles, the emotional range demanded of her in Finding Alice was much greater than in The Durrells, notwithstanding the more restrictive norms of expression in the latter.
In Finding Alice, although they lived as though they were married and raised a daughter together, it turns out they were not, in fact, married. She was also financially dependent on him, and had no insight into his business dealings. What's most strange is that his beautiful new home with its Finnish kitchen and soothing pigmented plastered walls was designed soley by him. How many Grand Designs are there where the spouse did not have a hand in the interior finishes? All of this leaves me with the impression that she was more a kept woman with a shared child than a spouse.
Although numerous reviews would have you believe she was behaving "stupid" or "annoying", one just needs to be reminded that this is mostly a reflection of the commenter when it forms the crux of their commentary. It's mostly a comedy, and parts of her character are magnified in the service of the story.
Other similarities with The Durrells include Alice encountering a couple of potential suitors in her grief, although these encounters are never tinged with malice, and numerous attempts at reconciliation with her offspring and in-laws. Unlike The Durrells, she isnt an alcoholic, and her daughter is not a sex- or animal-crazed oddball. Sometimes she swears, and makes sardonic jokes about death, which seems to have offended some in the reviews section here, moreso than alcoholism would perhaps.
The ending was quite abrupt, and leaves me with a sense that more was planned. I haven't checked online for any plans for a continuation, so I don't know if it was planned or not. Whatever the case, it was about the right time to end at six episodes anyways. There's far too many interesting shows right now to get stuck in something too long.
In a nutshell, if you liked The Durrells, and enjoy irreverant British humour that pokes fun at death, semen and the sex lives of the geriatric, then you'll probably like this. Although it isn't as rose-tinted as The Durrells, it has that same easy-going, optimistic feel to it. Otherwise, give it a pass.
La linea verticale (2018)
Gentle comedy about a frequently experienced trauma
The description is brief, but the show didn't disappoint. Perhaps for some a touch too much melodrama but they are brief, infrequent and ultimately appropriate. Gentle jabs are made at the doctors, nurses and mostly the patients. There's an episode that makes light of the confusion around diet. One patient proclaims the others must go vegan. Another laments the loss of Italian flavours prepared on a cutting board passed down generations. When a nurse points out he should still eat all these delicious herbs, he points out they accompany his favourite dishes of various meats. The mother of a priest can't understand why her constantly nauseas son on a gastric feeding tube cannot eat his favourite meals she's made for him. An oncologist says eat anything to a patient because it doesn't matter.
Our protagonist keeps having surreal episodes where he speaks to the oncological surgeon, revered by everyone in the department, but is never able to meet him in person. After his surgery, his insides hurt, he suffers from constant nausea, an infection makes him delirious, and he finds out he's lost some pieces of himself to the cancer. After recovering from surgery, his oncologist reveals the dizzyingly terrible list of possible afflictions from chemotherapy that he will embark on.
The first episode starts off with self-pity and bewilderment from an unexpected cancer diagnosis. But despite the ongoing small traumas he experiences due to the illness and treatments, he ultimately he decides to see things in a positive way.
The Flight Attendant (2020)
Sweet merciful God, I beseech you to put me out of my misery
I wanted to watch something escapist, light, nothing intellectually demanding. At first this seemed to fit the bill. Superficially it's written like a cross between something of current middle-aged Sharon Horgan and current Phoebe Waller-Bridge. But it fails miserably when its artistic ambitions clash with its decidedly commercial need to stretch a thin story to an unnecessarily onerous eight episodes. After four episodes in, we must suffer through the writer's questionable decision to not show any progression in the emotional development of the lead. She's making the same gape-faced goldfish air gasping expression halfway through the series as she leaves a trail of destruction. Yes, we know, her alcoholism is deeply rooted and has fractured all her relationships. It's rehashed every single episode with just incremental details added as an insincere offering from the writers as some semblence of character development. Did HBO get suckered into believing that this production needed eight episodes of funding to tell a story that has been done well so many times times before with greater economy?
The device of talking to the deceased grew thin very quickly. It serves to merely provide another means for the lead to whine, since she actually has no friends who can provide this role. Occasionally a clue is dropped in, as if by sheer dint of being an idiot, one can solve mysteries by merely attending mental fugues like any number of idiotic television series of late. On paper, it probably looked better than it did - "ah, she'll communicate with the dead, like Skaarsgard in River, where he'll wrestle with unsettling yet cryptic encounters". Instead we ended up with the artistic equivalent of nails on a blackboard, in case you forgot what that sounded like five minutes ago.
Ambassadøren (2020)
Flawed remake of Veep
This show hews too closely to Veep to not make a comparison. Despite Veep's problems, it is mostly endearing, yet Ambassadøren leaves me cold. The writing is lacking in the punch that is needed to keep viewers interested. If they were going for a more British style of gentle comedy, it was lacking in sparkle and wit. If there's a second season, I'd be willing to give it another go.
Shigatsu monogatari (1998)
Tastes great, less filling
High school graduate from Hokkaido infatuated by now-graduated senior applies and is accepted at the same university as the subject of her infatuation. Goes to school, tries to fit in, and works up the courage to talk to her crush for the first time.
The story has great promise, but at 67 minutes, nothing feels developed and many story lines just end abruptly. It feels more like a TV series pilot than a standalone movie.
The movie itself is fairly unremarkable. Many things are suggested but not said. Moves fairly slowly. Lots of sepia tones and misty whites. Ok if you're prepared to just relax and not expect too much in the way of story.