"Designated Survivor" is back after a ten-week hiatus, with an impressive and moving show from showrunner Keith Eisner and director Timothy Busfield, who also plays President Kirkman's (Kiefer Sutherland) shrink, helping him to deal with his wife's death. Busfield handled the flashbacks of Kirkpatrick telling his kids their mother would not be coming home with intelligence and sensitivity, showing how deep Kirkpatrick's grief was by the intensity of his expressions and, in the same way, showing how deep his anger was when he talked to the driver who killed his wife.
I like Eisner's tendency to concentrate on the President's foreign policy, avoiding the difficulties of domestic problems in a turbulent era by focusing on what is happening internationally. In this week's episode the focus was on Cuba, as some rebels there kidnapped a Congressional delegation that included Maggie Q, one of the strongest female characters in a series with several of them. The question was whether President Kirkman is too grief-stricken to make forceful decisions.
Sunday, March 4, 2018
Wednesday, February 21, 2018
The American Experience: The Bombing of Wall Street
History can help one understand the present. Unfortunately there is little history taught these days in schools simply because one cannot teach history without offending some person or other or some point of view. Most students these days don't know when the Civil War was because it can't be understood without attempting to understand slavery, for example. The American Experience, on PBS, is one show attempting to put things in the context of history.
Those who think terrorist bombings are something new should watch 'The Bombing of Wall Street", written and directed by Susan Bellows for The American Experience. The bombing at Wall and Broad Street on Sept. 16, 1920 killed thirty-eight people and injured hundreds of others. The perpetrators were never found, though the general thinking was that it was the work of Italian anarchists, followers of the deported Luigi Galleani. Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer and Justice Department investigator J. Edgar Hoover (who believed Russians were behind the bombing) started keeping lists of suspected "subversives," and the FBI continued to do so for many years, as Italian and Irish immigrants were replaced by Hispanics, Jews and others.
PBS and Turner Classic Movies are the two stations I watch the most. Before cable TV I would be amused by those who said they only watched Channel 13, but the station has remained true to itself (see my posting of Feb. 17, 2017) while all the channels around it have changed and meretriciousness reigns supreme.
Those who think terrorist bombings are something new should watch 'The Bombing of Wall Street", written and directed by Susan Bellows for The American Experience. The bombing at Wall and Broad Street on Sept. 16, 1920 killed thirty-eight people and injured hundreds of others. The perpetrators were never found, though the general thinking was that it was the work of Italian anarchists, followers of the deported Luigi Galleani. Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer and Justice Department investigator J. Edgar Hoover (who believed Russians were behind the bombing) started keeping lists of suspected "subversives," and the FBI continued to do so for many years, as Italian and Irish immigrants were replaced by Hispanics, Jews and others.
PBS and Turner Classic Movies are the two stations I watch the most. Before cable TV I would be amused by those who said they only watched Channel 13, but the station has remained true to itself (see my posting of Feb. 17, 2017) while all the channels around it have changed and meretriciousness reigns supreme.
Tuesday, January 16, 2018
Truth and Lies: The Tonya Harding Story
Truth and Lies: The Tonya Harding Story (broadcast recently on ABC, David Sloane executive producer) makes an excellent case (unintentionally) for abolishing the Olympics, which has become a sordid mess of cheating and obnoxious nationalism, where the only thing that matters is winning. It is still unclear whether Harding knew about the physical attack on her main competition, Nancy Kerrigan, before the 1994 Olympics but Kerrigan still won a medal there and Harding did not.
I find figure-skating a dubious "sport," since the judging is necessarily subjective. Harding was the first skater to do a triple axel in combination with a double toe loop and even she was unable to describe what exactly that was and what it meant. Perhaps it is something of the equivalent of the thirty-two fouettes in Swan Lake, though that is only a small part of the complex characterization required in that ballet. But figure-skating has other problems, particularly its elite image, which was not particularly enamored of lower-class high-school-dropout Harding, though she had many fans who appreciated how she overcame her poor and abusive childhood. Still, many of those who think in terms of class may be more offended by her use of "drugged" as a past tense of drag than the fact that her mother beat her with a hairbrush after she was drugged into the bathroom, and equally amused by Tonya's mother saying "we were not trailer trash; we had a brand-new trailer."
It is an unfortunate aspect of our consumer-mad society that sports and the Olympics are seen as a way to become rich and famous, even if it means cheating to win.
I find figure-skating a dubious "sport," since the judging is necessarily subjective. Harding was the first skater to do a triple axel in combination with a double toe loop and even she was unable to describe what exactly that was and what it meant. Perhaps it is something of the equivalent of the thirty-two fouettes in Swan Lake, though that is only a small part of the complex characterization required in that ballet. But figure-skating has other problems, particularly its elite image, which was not particularly enamored of lower-class high-school-dropout Harding, though she had many fans who appreciated how she overcame her poor and abusive childhood. Still, many of those who think in terms of class may be more offended by her use of "drugged" as a past tense of drag than the fact that her mother beat her with a hairbrush after she was drugged into the bathroom, and equally amused by Tonya's mother saying "we were not trailer trash; we had a brand-new trailer."
It is an unfortunate aspect of our consumer-mad society that sports and the Olympics are seen as a way to become rich and famous, even if it means cheating to win.
Sunday, December 24, 2017
TV: Fall 2017
With more and more TV options, including Netflix and Amazon, there are fewer quality shows than ever. I find myself returning regularly to channel 13, the local PBS station, where there are fewer meretricious shows than elsewhere, including the most recent Ken Burns effort (co-directed by Lynn Novick, with voiceover narration written by Geoffrey Ward) "The Vietnam War." The series, for what it has to say, is rather bloated with war footage but does two things quite well: it empathizes the lies told by those in power to the American people and it includes interviews with many regular soldiers and their families --from all sides -- avoiding, mostly, listening to those in power who sent people to die and who killed millions of Vietnamese in a war that they knew from the beginning could not be won. Like too many documentaries there is much fudging of footage, from dubbed rifle fire and other noises to footage that may or may not be related to the battle being narrated, but I did learn things I was not aware of when I was dodging the draft (first with a student deferment, then with number 350 in the Shirly-Jackson-like lottery, though I was required by my hometown draft board to take the army physical), including how Le Duan was running the Viet Cong long before Ho Chi Minh died in 1969.
My favorite scripted show this fall was TBS's "The Search Party," written and directed by
Sarah-Violet Bliss, Charles Rogers and Michael Showalter. It ran for two seasons of ten episodes each and starred Ali Shawkat as a recent college graduate named Dory trying to find a school chum who has disappeared. She and her friends, who have dubious jobs as interns of various sorts, spend more and more of their time looking for Chantal and when they do eventually find her disaster ensues. The show is something of a dark comedy of social and generational observation, with entwined elements of mystery and melodrama.
Speaking of melodrama, I also liked "Somewhere Between", on ABC for ten episodes. It was based on a Korean melodrama, "God's Gift:14 Days" (written by Dong-hoon Lee and directed by Ran choi) --which I have not yet seen -- about a mother going back in time to try to keep her daughter from being murdered. This kind of theme is apparently popular in Korean TV and movies (Hong Sansoo's movies, for instance, often have people trying the change the past) Stephen Tolkin was the writer and producer of the series (he used four different directors) that had almost as many coincidences as a Wilkie Collins novel (that's a compliment; I'm a great admirer of Wilkie Collins).
I do also like David Guggenheim's "Designated Survivor," though it is still a little unsure of what it wants to be: a political series like Aaron Sorkin's intelligent "The West Wing" or more of a thriller aligned with star Kiefer Sutherland's previous show "24." Guggenheim is struggling to combine the two.
My favorite scripted show this fall was TBS's "The Search Party," written and directed by
Sarah-Violet Bliss, Charles Rogers and Michael Showalter. It ran for two seasons of ten episodes each and starred Ali Shawkat as a recent college graduate named Dory trying to find a school chum who has disappeared. She and her friends, who have dubious jobs as interns of various sorts, spend more and more of their time looking for Chantal and when they do eventually find her disaster ensues. The show is something of a dark comedy of social and generational observation, with entwined elements of mystery and melodrama.
Speaking of melodrama, I also liked "Somewhere Between", on ABC for ten episodes. It was based on a Korean melodrama, "God's Gift:14 Days" (written by Dong-hoon Lee and directed by Ran choi) --which I have not yet seen -- about a mother going back in time to try to keep her daughter from being murdered. This kind of theme is apparently popular in Korean TV and movies (Hong Sansoo's movies, for instance, often have people trying the change the past) Stephen Tolkin was the writer and producer of the series (he used four different directors) that had almost as many coincidences as a Wilkie Collins novel (that's a compliment; I'm a great admirer of Wilkie Collins).
I do also like David Guggenheim's "Designated Survivor," though it is still a little unsure of what it wants to be: a political series like Aaron Sorkin's intelligent "The West Wing" or more of a thriller aligned with star Kiefer Sutherland's previous show "24." Guggenheim is struggling to combine the two.
Friday, October 27, 2017
American Playboy: The Hugh Hefner Story (R.I.P.)
I agree with much that was said about Hugh Hefner, pro and con, when he died. I do have something of my own perspective, growing up as I did in a small town in a working-class family. We had few books in our house and there was no library in town so my reading consisted of magazines and newspapers and paperbacks from a rack at the local grocery store, purchased with my $5.00 a week of paper route money (when I turned 12 my father said no more measly allowance from me, since I was now old enough to have a paper route). I would always try new magazines and was pleased to discover Playboy (it originally cost sixty cents) when it first appeared at Gohl's store; I had never seen naked women and the photographs in Playboy were part of its initial appeal (though fortunately I did not end up like John Ruskin, who supposedly became impotent on his wedding night when confronted with his bride's pubic hair). But much of its appeal to me was the writing: Playboy was the first place I saw, and read, among many others, P.G. Wodehouse, Vladimir Nabokov, Jean Shepherd and Ian Fleming, all of whom became favorites and led me to their books eventually. I knew nothing of the Playboy clubs or sleazy Hugh Hefner or the objectification of women. Playboy opened up the world beyond my oppressive home town for me and helped me to realize there was a whole, wider world out there. I had little or no interest in the consumer goods mentioned ---stereos, motorcars and other things I could not afford -- but Playboy also piqued my interest in politics, with articles about civil liberties by Nat Hentoff and civil rights by James Farmer and there was a detailed interview with Malcolm X. I even liked the cartoons and jokes(there was little humor in my house and sex was nothing to laugh about) and the Playboy Adviser, which told me useful things, like how often to get a haircut.
Amazon's American Playboy seems to be something of a vanity project, i.e. , Hefner as he sees himself. The 10-part series consists of old footage of Hefner and his friends and relatives being interviewed and cheesy re-creations of Hef's life (the series is directed by Richard Lopez, long associated with the History Channel). There's plenty of footage from the Playboy clubs and talk about how much money "bunnies" made and how much they loved the job. The bunnies were not allowed to date customers, except of course for Hef and his favorite celebrities. Again, however, Hef gets credit for highlighting African-American performers --such as Dick Gregory and Aretha Franklin --when they weren't allowed to perform in other clubs. Hef insisted on having African-Americans on his TV show even when Southern stations refused to broadcast it.
Amazon's American Playboy seems to be something of a vanity project, i.e. , Hefner as he sees himself. The 10-part series consists of old footage of Hefner and his friends and relatives being interviewed and cheesy re-creations of Hef's life (the series is directed by Richard Lopez, long associated with the History Channel). There's plenty of footage from the Playboy clubs and talk about how much money "bunnies" made and how much they loved the job. The bunnies were not allowed to date customers, except of course for Hef and his favorite celebrities. Again, however, Hef gets credit for highlighting African-American performers --such as Dick Gregory and Aretha Franklin --when they weren't allowed to perform in other clubs. Hef insisted on having African-Americans on his TV show even when Southern stations refused to broadcast it.
Monday, June 19, 2017
John Ford's The Colter Craven Story
John Ford's "The Colter Craven Story" was an episode of the series Wagon Train that Ford did as a favor to Ward Bond, the series star who had appeared in many Ford films, including Wagon Master (1950), the original source for the TV series. Ford also used outdoor footage from Wagon Master on "The Colter Craven Story" in order to avoid the claustrophobia of most TV Westerns.
Wagon Train lasted eight years on network TV; in 1959 there were 26 Westerns on prime-time TV. They disappeared for a number of political and economic reasons: the Vietnam War reminded us of how Native Americans had been treated in this country, Westerns became expensive to make as color took over TV, and many adults considered Westerns too violent for children, who were a big part of the audience, along with older adults, as advertisers looked for the best demographics, primarily in the 18-45 age range.
"The Colter Craven Story" effectively uses many John Ford regulars -- Jack Pennick, John Carradine, Mae Marsh, Anna Lee, Hank Worden -- in a story about an alcoholic doctor who had turned to drink after the Civil War battle Shiloh, when he could save very few of the wounded. Bond tells the doctor the story of his old friend General Grant, who had been kicked out of the army for drunkenness but had redeemed himself. Bond's flashback to Shiloh even includes a brief glimpse of John Wayne as Sherman (Wayne plays the same role in Ford's short but poetic section of How the West Was Won, 1962). Dr. Craven redeems himself by delivering a baby for parents who had already had four children die, the most recent nine years ago.
John Ford and Ward Bond were both alcoholics. Ford made his last film in 1966 and died in 1973 at the age of 79. Bond died at the age of 57 in 1960, before "The Colter Craven Story" was broadcast.
Wagon Train lasted eight years on network TV; in 1959 there were 26 Westerns on prime-time TV. They disappeared for a number of political and economic reasons: the Vietnam War reminded us of how Native Americans had been treated in this country, Westerns became expensive to make as color took over TV, and many adults considered Westerns too violent for children, who were a big part of the audience, along with older adults, as advertisers looked for the best demographics, primarily in the 18-45 age range.
"The Colter Craven Story" effectively uses many John Ford regulars -- Jack Pennick, John Carradine, Mae Marsh, Anna Lee, Hank Worden -- in a story about an alcoholic doctor who had turned to drink after the Civil War battle Shiloh, when he could save very few of the wounded. Bond tells the doctor the story of his old friend General Grant, who had been kicked out of the army for drunkenness but had redeemed himself. Bond's flashback to Shiloh even includes a brief glimpse of John Wayne as Sherman (Wayne plays the same role in Ford's short but poetic section of How the West Was Won, 1962). Dr. Craven redeems himself by delivering a baby for parents who had already had four children die, the most recent nine years ago.
John Ford and Ward Bond were both alcoholics. Ford made his last film in 1966 and died in 1973 at the age of 79. Bond died at the age of 57 in 1960, before "The Colter Craven Story" was broadcast.
Wednesday, May 10, 2017
TV Shows
TV shows come and go, some disappearing quickly, others hanging on forever. One show I liked this year only hung around for a few episodes: Kevin Williamson's Time After Time, with H. G. Wells chasing Jack the Ripper into the present in his time machine. It was perhaps too complex for many viewers and too expensive for the network. The movie of the same name, made by Nicholas Meyer in 1978, is available. Meanwhile, I am watching the following shows:
Noah Hawley's Fargo. It's based, somewhat, on the film of the same name by Joel and Etham Coen. It reminds one of a demented version of Garrison Keillor's Lake Woebegon stories and causes one to miss A Prairie Home Companion, though the humor in Hawley's show is much darker.
Designated Survivor has had four showrunners so far this season, with Keith Eisner most recently replacing Jeff Melvoin. The show has gone back and forth between West-Wing-style politics and family to deep conspiracies, with Kiefer Sutherland not afraid to ask, "Who are you working for?," just as he did on 24. Eisner previously worked on The Good Wife so I expect future shows to have less conspiracy and more family drama.
Joe Weisberg's The Americans is an intelligent Reagan-era spy drama, with a Russian couple in deep cover as ordinary travel agents while stealing secrets and occasionally killing Americans (usually in self-defense) The show is effective, with a number of different layers, including the Russians' love for their country and their ambivalence about America.
I watched the first two seasons of Paul Scheuring's Prison Break in 2006 and 2007, with the first season about the break and the second season about avoiding capture. I stopped watching when they went back to prison in the third season. They are back this year in an attempt to break out of a prison in Yemen and then out of the country. So far I find it a bit too specific, lacking the original abstract intensity,especially of the first season.
Eric Overmeyer's Bosch is an impressive attempt to merge stories from different Michael Connelly novels about LA detective Hieronymous Bosch; it's in its third season, ten episodes each, on Amazon. The best episodes are those written by Connolly himself, where the action slows down and Bosch muses about his life while listening to his favorite jazz. Excellent use of Los Angeles locations.
I don't know if Colony will be returning next season but the show, created by Carlton Cuse, is stylishly made and with considerable relevance to the current political climate, with Los Angeles being ruled by alien conquerors helped by human collaborators. I also look forward to the return of Timeless, the time travel series by Eric Kripke and Shawn Ryan, where the time travelers attempt the impossible combination of improving the past without changing anything.
Noah Hawley's Fargo. It's based, somewhat, on the film of the same name by Joel and Etham Coen. It reminds one of a demented version of Garrison Keillor's Lake Woebegon stories and causes one to miss A Prairie Home Companion, though the humor in Hawley's show is much darker.
Designated Survivor has had four showrunners so far this season, with Keith Eisner most recently replacing Jeff Melvoin. The show has gone back and forth between West-Wing-style politics and family to deep conspiracies, with Kiefer Sutherland not afraid to ask, "Who are you working for?," just as he did on 24. Eisner previously worked on The Good Wife so I expect future shows to have less conspiracy and more family drama.
Joe Weisberg's The Americans is an intelligent Reagan-era spy drama, with a Russian couple in deep cover as ordinary travel agents while stealing secrets and occasionally killing Americans (usually in self-defense) The show is effective, with a number of different layers, including the Russians' love for their country and their ambivalence about America.
I watched the first two seasons of Paul Scheuring's Prison Break in 2006 and 2007, with the first season about the break and the second season about avoiding capture. I stopped watching when they went back to prison in the third season. They are back this year in an attempt to break out of a prison in Yemen and then out of the country. So far I find it a bit too specific, lacking the original abstract intensity,especially of the first season.
Eric Overmeyer's Bosch is an impressive attempt to merge stories from different Michael Connelly novels about LA detective Hieronymous Bosch; it's in its third season, ten episodes each, on Amazon. The best episodes are those written by Connolly himself, where the action slows down and Bosch muses about his life while listening to his favorite jazz. Excellent use of Los Angeles locations.
I don't know if Colony will be returning next season but the show, created by Carlton Cuse, is stylishly made and with considerable relevance to the current political climate, with Los Angeles being ruled by alien conquerors helped by human collaborators. I also look forward to the return of Timeless, the time travel series by Eric Kripke and Shawn Ryan, where the time travelers attempt the impossible combination of improving the past without changing anything.
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