Snap Judgments

Finished up a bunch of series in the last six months, rocking 'em old school one episode a week because, you know, life and such. I find bingeing has ruined the viewing experience and the tide is turning in my favor. Here are 9 series, quick takes all to fit in this format because I care. A lot. Maybe too much.

Best of the lot has to be Hulu's remake Shogun, far exceeding my expectations above and beyond, a really magnificent, compelling epic. This time around, they managed to do it right. This is what major scale series and productions should be modeled upon. That it was so popular world-wide is major step in the right direction should they attempt something along these lines again. Hopefully, it's not a fluke. Showering it with Emmys is frosting on a beautiful cake.

Ripley on Netflix has to be one of most gorgeously shot shows 
on television probably ever and it's all in glorious black and white. Hah! Andrew Scott makes the lead character so creepily bland that's damn near hypnotic. This show is a slow burn and turned my stomach into knots, which is a good thing for a thriller.

Then there's 3 Body Problem, a show I expected to be similar to the sensational German series Dark from a few years ago. It missed that mark by a country mile, though it had its moments, enough to keep my interest to the end. However, glad to see Rosalind Chao get an overdue decent role after all this time.

Endings are notoriously difficult to pull off, "sticking the landing" as I like to say. (Who said it first? Was it Amelia Earhart?) If you can't manage the finale, it can sometimes negate what came before. Case in point: The Veil on Hulu. Five episodes of really taut story-telling leading up to a potentially smashing finale and...it goes right off the rails and limps off into the sunset. Fortunately, Elisabeth Moss saves the day once again, making this the best of this bunch. She's a goddamn jewel.

Under the Bridge, also on Hulu, had a decent wrap-up which actually rescued it from obscurity since it was two episodes too long, junked up with unnecessary sub-plots that proved there wasn't enough faith in the source material.

The worst show of the year thus far, Netfix's Eric could barely get out of the first episode without tripping over itself, particularly painful for me since I am a Cumberbitch and he was the only reason I stayed with it. He owes me one since what followed is a trash heap that I had hoped the last episode would at least give it some kind of redemption. Instead, it had to be the worst hour of television imaginable. I'm still holding my nose from this one.

Amazon Prime's Fallout is a better than your average bear post-apocalyptic show with enough twists to make it appear fresh when it's just another notch on the genre. But anything with Walton Goggins is worth your time and mine.

Also on Prime is Good Omens 2, a swell adaptation of a Terry Pratchett/ Neil Gaiman collaboration
about the relationship between an angel (Michael Sheen) and a demon (David Tennant). And Jon Hamm is a hoot as an amnesiac Gabriel.

The second season of AMC's Interview with the Vampire elevates it to a new level, setting the bulk of the story in a vampire theater. The role of Claudia, the young girl turned vamp who must spend eternity in the body of a child with adult sensibilities, was re-cast this season and the actress who portrays her, Delainey Hayles, is superb-fierce, compelling and ultimately heart-breaking.

As of this writing , I haven't finished the new season of The Bear, Dead Ringers, Mr. and Mrs. Smith or The Lazarus project. I'll get to 'em, okay? What's the rush? Damn, you're pushy. I've got better things to do with my time besides watching TV like blog about watching TV...

Yikes. I'm a sad soul. What's it like outside these days?

Binge This, Sucka!

Okay, fine. time to put away from aversion to binge watching TV series since most of the frickin' world is sequestered indoors like the OJ jury while the pandemic continues. I used to say there wasn't enough time in the day to catch on everything that's being offered. Now there's all the time n the world, isn't there? That is, of course, as long there is still a world after all this...

Sorry. getting bleak again. Promised myself that I'd only make some suggestions for y'all to watch, some obvious, others I hope you'll take a gander at because they are certifiably Cherney Approved.

Netflix has a bunch of new shows I consider worth your while, particularly a couple in the reality category.

TIGER KING is a true crime limited series that is absolutely bat-shit crazy, revolving around private zoo owners who are breeding lions and tigers and bears in captivity for fun and profit with murder, polygamy, big kitties and totally gonzo whackjobs. This show was so nuts, with more layers than a Blooming Onion of lunacy, it was a welcome diversion from the real-time craziness we're dealing with right now. Two big furry thumbs up.

UGLY DELICIOUS, now in its second, but way too short season, is chef David Chang's non-fiction series is part travelogue, part history lesson and part social commentary revolving around food around the world. This is the best show of its kind since Anthony Bourdain passed into the Great Beyond.

Speaking of Bourdain, one of his producers is working on another travel show, AMC's RIDE WITH NORMAN REEDUS festiring the star of THE WALKING DEAD as he travels the length and breadth of the planet on a motorcycle, occasionally accompanied by a celeb biker. Norman has a goofy, near adolescent sense of wonder that is totally infectious.

HBO has had a few Winners lately, most notably THE OUTSIDER, not only the best TV adaptation of a Stephen King book, but one of the best in any medium. It plays like TWIN PEAKS by way of THE WIRE. A brilliant cast, most notably with Ben Mendelsohn and the brilliant Cynthia Erivo, anchor this show with a gravitas most shows only wish they had.

USA has a new season THE SINNER, which is quite good in a sometimes awkward way, but I prefer BRIARPATCH, a crime meller that makes no sense but is so much fun, you won't even care. Starring Rosario Dawson (finally!), this cray-cray tale of corruption in a Texan town based on the Ross Thomas novel has more twists and turns than a Rube Goldberg contraption.

Give them a look. You don't like an episode, move on to the next show. Obviously, there's more out there: THE CROWN, BETTER CALL SAUL has a new season, DISPATCHES FROM ELSEWHERE, another weird and wonderful AMC show if you find yourself missing the late, lamented LODGE 49, BABYLON BERLIN, the great German show I dearly is back on Netflix and Pamela Adlon's sensational BETTER THINGS on FX. Oh, God! There's so much! What a cornucopia!

Or, if you're ODing on screen time, consider the words of Roald Dahl's Oompa Loompas:

Happy Quarantine!

2018: Well, That's Over

2018 will go down as...another year. There were extreme highs and severe lows, much like any other
and time marches on like an endless parade with rapidly deflating balloons and floats that have seen better days than this one. But since we have to leave some kind of mark on the world, I'll give you a few of the better things that I experienced this year, pop culture-wise, my field of expertise that needs some serious weeding. You want the bad stuff? Look elsewhere. Try Facebook. You'll have a field day.

As always, keep in mind that these are my favorites things that I encountered in 2018, not necessarily that were released this year. 

FILM

SHAPE OF WATER 

Guillermo del Toro's Oscar winning film won my heart over as no other did, a perfect birthday present to myself.  See blog post

DUNKIRK

Christopher Nolan's masterful WW II epic confirmed him as one of the finest filmmakers of this generation.

ISLE OF DOGS

Do I have any "Best..." of lists that don't include Wes Anderson? Uh-uh.

THE BALLAD OF BUSTER SCRUGGS

The same can be said of the Coen Bros. And it is. 

THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WIND

Orson Welles' final film, finished by other hands, finally arrived after a 40 year wait, filled to the brim with brilliance and pretension, at times infuriatingly annoying, often jaw-droppingly fabulous. After another viewing, which some might consider an endurance test, I'll have more to say, but for now, I can only bow in respect. Catch the companion documentary THEY'LL LOVE ME WHEN I'M DEAD on Netflix as well.

TV

THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE, BABYLON BERLIN and TABULA RASA

Three on Netflix top my list of faves. HILL HOUSE is probably the best ghost story ever committed to the small screen (well done, Mike Flanagan). BERLIN is a brilliant German series set in the days between the World Wars while RASA is another one of them ferrin' shows, this time from Belgium that I fell head over heels in love with. See blog post 

. 

THE AMERICANS

Ending on such a terrific note, a case study on how to wrap up a series

TRUST

This Getty kidnapping saga on FX featured a career defining performance by Donald Sutherland

THE TERROR and LODGE 49

Two swell AMC shows, one a 19th century thriller set in search of the Northwest Passage and the other, almost a prequel to THE BIG LEBOWSKI

MUSIC 

Grant Lee Phillips's WIDDERSHINS has to be my favorite album of the year, particularly the song "The Wilderness" while the best tune of the year had to be Nathaniel Ratecliff's haunting melancholic

"You Worry Me" moved me like none other.

BOOKS

FICTION

THE BARTENDER'S TALE by Ivan Doig

An author I had been unaware of until recently won me over with this coming of age tale set in Montana

THE TWELVE LIVES OF SAMUEL HAWLEY By Hannah Tinti

Many books I read this year dealt with parental issues for some reason, this one standing out from all the rest

NON-FICTION

THE AVIATORS by Winston Groom

From the author of FORREST GUMP, of all books, comes this superb telling of Charles Lindbergh, Jimmy Doolittle and Eddie Rickenbacker

ROBIN by Dave Itzkoff

I finished this soon after the death of Anthony Bourdain, a suicide that hit me as close to home as Robin Williams' did as few years before. Maybe that has something to do with my admiration of this book, but mostly because Itzkoff found a way to tell Robin's tale with all the warts exposed and with the respect he deserved.

So that's the good stuff I exposed myself to (careful...) while there was many others moments to cherish in 2018. First and foremost, the birth of my little warrior granddaughter Athena came into the world to claim it as her own. While I only had two of my plays produced this year, they landed on the same weekend, something else I toasted in celebration. I began work in earnest on a long-gestating novel of which I'm still putting together.

I lost a good lifelong friend in Glen Chin, a man whose heart and spirit were as huge as his talent and damn near lost another, giving me that feeling of mortality that keeps rearing its head as the clock continues to tick, tick, tick. Has this given a new perspective on the world? No. But if stop being selfish enough to realize that there's more to life outside of my narrow vision, I might just get out of this, certainly not alive, but with enough hope left behind for those I truly care about. Their numbers rise and lower with the tides...and so do I.

Cryptic comments for the end of 2018. Bring on the last year of new century teens.

NEXT!

Fondling The Boob Tube

Not so long ago, there was a consensus that no matter how channels you had at your disposal, there would be some days or nights when there is absolutely nothing to watch on TV. Streaming has changed all of that. 

Now we are in the midst of a glut of options because, for one thing, the world is at your greasy little fingertips and for another, the competition for eyeballs is at a fever pitch, making this finest era of television in history. Now there is so much to see that you will never be able to take it all in and there is something new all the time.It's a constant flow. And if this bubble bursts as all do, there will still be enough for everyone.

Naturally this comes at a cost, much like everything these days when soon, we'll be charged the air we breathe.(Sound far-fetched? Look what has happened to water.) The world has been turned away from film, an industry that doesn't do itself any favors and is suffering as a result. This is causing exhibitors to scramble about and beg an increasingly fickle public to fill their dwindling coffers with sheckels now spent on home entertainment.

And with the plethora of product to feast upon, we the unwashed are encouraged  to binge as much as possible, making everything disposable, ourselves included. It's just what we the world needs-another addiction. It's all misdirection, life controlled by a up-close magician as the world crumbles around us at an alarming rate. Murder...poverty...war? What else is on my queue?

Sermon over. I'm as guilty as anyone else. I watch WAY too much TV and now, I'm about to support your habit like a pusher offering the very best visual crack money can buy. Yup. Here are some recommendations for your edification.

This last spring has been a brilliant season, especially for new series.

AMC presented the superb gothic thriller THE TERROR about a disastrous attempt to discover the Northwest Passage with the explorers not only stuck fast in the ice for several years, but also preyed upon by a mythical creature that may or not be a bear. So great to see Jared Harris in a starring role that he runs with like the champion thespian he is.

BBC America's KILLING EVE is a blast in the pants, an excellent example of what women can do before and behind the camera with Sandra Oh going against my new fave rave Jamie Comer as a hitwoman par excellence with wackadoodle tendencies.

I haven't seen Ridley Scott's ALL THE MONEY IN THE WORLD about the Getty boy kidnapping, but I have been following the FX series TRUST, a different take on the same subject. I can imagine Christopher Plummer's performance as J. Paul Getty must be noteworthy since it earned him an Oscar nod, but I find it difficult for it to top Donald Sutherland in the same role. This is a career defining moment for this veteran. Every moment he is on screen is an acting lesson that could and should be studied for all time. And here are four words I though I'd never write: Welcome back, Brendan Fraser. I hope this leads to a new chapter of your career.

On the NETFLIX side, here are a couple of international shows that blew my socks off.

From Belgium comes TABULA RASA, a title that infuriates me because I can't seem to remember it as soon as I say it. Since the show involves an artist who, after an automobile accident, suffers from short term memory loss, it seems appropriate. This amazing show combines elements from MEMENTO, THE SHINING, DON'T LOOK NOW and THE SIXTH SENSE into a bountiful stew of its very own.

BABYLON BERLIN from Germany also mixes very different flavors in this espionage thriller set during the end of the Weimar era and the advent of the Third Reich. Think CABARET mixed with THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI and Fritz Lang's DR. MABUSE films and you've got yourself a virtual Obtoberfest of wunderbar viewing. Liv Lisa Fries is a sensational heroine while series star Volker Bruch carries the show. (Bruch could very well portray the young Buster Keaton if the offer ever presents itself.)

So there's five from me. Despite what I said before, I have now added to the problem. Woe is me.