Paul Levinson's Blog: Levinson at Large, page 164

Triple Frontier: Triple Good

I figured, how could you go wrong with Ben Affleck and Sons of Anarchy's Charlie Hunnam in leading roles, and Narco's Pedro Pascal thrown in there, too?  I saw Triple Frontier on Netflix last night and discovered I couldn't.  Not just the acting was excellent, and that includes Oscar Isaac and Garrett Hedlund, whom I haven't seen before, but the movie is one of best heist movies I've seen in years.  Best in terms of originality, action, sharp repartee, and heart.

The beginning was the most standard.  Five commandos, most of them semi-retired, get together to rob a drug lord in Colombia of his tons of money.  One guy pulls the rest together, kicking and screaming that they don't want back in the game.  We've seen that before, but story picks up in in the heist, when they find the drug lord's bank is literally his house, and he literally has a ton of money there or more.  I was watching too intently to recall the exact numbers (I'm not even sure what the "Triple" refers to in the title), but the money's much more than they expected, and makes their escape literally very heavy lifting.

The escape is the gem of the movie.  I won't spoil it for you and tell you specifically what happens, but there are surprises galore, not all of them happy by any means, with escape vehicles ranging from helicopter to mules, against some fabulous Andes scenery (so striking I wish I'd seen this in a theater).  In a way, Triple Threat is not only a heist movie, but a sequel to Narcos, in a fictional setting.

By the way, there's room for a sequel, just saying.  Check out Triple Frontier and enjoy.

 

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Project Blue Book Season 1 Finale: Truman

Well, Project Blue Book ended its first season tonight pretty much the way it's been all season long: intriguing, worth watching, but still not getting beyond its cheesy pulp, though some of that was good, too.

President Truman in Washington DC takes center stage in tonight's story.  General Eisenhower will be in the White House soon - it's 1952 - and that makes General Harding happy.  He thinks Ike, as a military man, will be more likely to believe that the UFOs are Soviet.

Of course, Hynek and Quinn and we know different.  And as I've been saying  for a while this season, I wouldn't be stunned if Harding himself was an extra-terrestrial, and he's using the Soviets to cover his tracks.  We'll just have to see next season.

It is significant that Quinn is now completely on Hynek's side in believing the UFOs are extra-terrestrials, and Hynek's not above lying to the Generals to keep his real work - finding out more about the extra-terrestrial visits - from being obstructed.  It's also not 100-percent certain what General Valentine really thinks about all of this.  There's room there for him to make an unexpected move next season.

Mimi has made it clear to Susie that Mimi's not in the mood for love - with her.  But Susie is continuing to move in on Quinn, and it will be fun to see how that goes next season.  I'll be back here then with more reviews.

See also:  Project Blue Book 1.1: Science Fiction, Or? ... Project Blue 1.2: Calling Roy Thinnes ... Project Blue Book 1.3: Peggy Sue Gets Space Ship ... Project Blue Book 1.4: von Braun ... Project Blue Book 1.5: A Theory ... Project Blue Book 1.6:  The Team ... Project Blue Book 1.7: The Star People ... Project Blue Book 1.8: 'Already Here' ... Project Blue Book 1.9: Shiny Round Object


here I am talking Ancient Aliens a few years ago on the History Channel

1st starship to Alpha Centauri ... Native Americans figure in here, too
Paul Levinson's books ... Paul Levinson's music

Rebellion/Resistance: Brilliantly Sobering Lessons

A superbly powerful two-season mini-series on Netflix - or maybe two linked mini-series - that details the Dublin uprising in 1916, and then, with an almost completely new set of characters, the move towards independence in 1920, also bloody, but more on an individual than a citizen army versus the British military basis.

These historical dramas are, if nothing else, a vivid lesson on the British not being as civilized and reasonable as many in America deem them to have been.  At least, not all of the British.  Their treatment of Irish prisoners is the kind of thing, I'm sorry to say, we here in America associate with Nazis in Germany.

Germany does play an important role in this story.  Britain was at war with Germany in 1916 - the First World War - and we tend to think of the Germans as the bad guys, even though Germany versus England in that war was constitutional monarchy vs. constitutional monarchy, with no Nazis yet rearing their heads in Germany.  From the point of view of the Irish, who were open to any support for their independence from England, Germany was a likely ally.

The characters in both series were excellent, usually in shades of grey rather than black and white.  We have reasonable Brits and trigger-happy Irish, along with the more usual brutal British and heroic Irish.  Women also play a major role in both stories, being treated more equally by the Irish than by the British, an egalitarian characteristic that typifies many revolutions.

It's sobering to think that this situation has yet to be totally settled, even today, with Northern Ireland still part of the U.K.  If you're in the mood for some trenchant and educational television, outstandingly acted, these two mini-series are highly recommended.


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The Case Against Adnan Syed 1: Reasonable Doubts

The Case Against Adnan Syed debuted tonight on HB0, the first in a four-episode documentary about the murder of Hae Min Lee on January 13, 1999, for which Syed was convicted.  The podcast Serial in 2014 generated enormous international interest about this case, and the possibility that Syed was not the killer.  Presumably at least in part as a result of this and new evidence brought to light, the path to a new trial for Syed was set by a Maryland Court of Special Appeals in July 2016.  That court indeed so ordered a new trial in March 2018.  But a higher Maryland Court of Appeals overturned that order on March 8, 2019 - or, amazingly, just two days before the premiere of the HBO series tonight.  You just can't make this stuff up.

With all of these bizarre and incredible turns, this documentary has more than a fleeting resemblance to Netflix's two seasons and counting of Making a Murderer.  And although True Detective and The Night Of are fiction, the documentaries have a lot in common with those two series, too.

It's always important to bear in mind that documentaries -  though more truthful than docu-dramas if only because the documentaries show real people not actors - are by no means literal mirrors of reality.  The documentary creators have to decide what to show and what not to show in the true story they are retelling.  Still, I believed after the first season of Making at Murderer that Steven Avery and his nephew  Brendan Dassey were not guilty of the crimes for which they were convicted, and had no reason to change my mind after the second season.  Indeed, I now believe even more strongly that their convictions were wrong (testament to the great work of the defendants' attorneys, especially Kathleen Zellner).   After just one episode of The Case Against Adnan Syed it's difficult to come to any strong conclusions, but there certainly seem to be other suspects, such as Hae's boyfriend at the time of the killing, Don (Adnan and Hae were no longer a couple when she was killed).

I'm also naturally suspicious whenever a higher court reverses a decision of a lower court to reopen a murder case, which is also what happened in the Avery/Dassey cases.  I mean, we're talking about murder here, shouldn't our legal system bend over backwards to consider new evidence that comes forth?

As for the making of the documentary, it has good use of animation and Impressionistic paintings, which were one of Hai's  loves.   I'll let you know more about about I think about this case and the documentary in the following three weeks.

See also Making a Murderer: Showing Us the Truth about our Unjust Justice System ... Making a Murderer 2: The Very Pits of Justice

  Paul Levinson's books ... Paul Levinson's music

The Case Against Adnad Syed 1: Reasonable Doubts

The Case Against Adnan Syed debuted tonight on HB0, the first in a four-episode documentary about the murder of Hae Min Lee on January 13, 1999, for which Syed was convicted.  The podcast Serial in 2014 generated enormous international interest about this case, and the possibility that Syed was not the killer.  Presumably at least in part as a result of this and new evidence brought to light, the path to a new trial for Syed was set by a Maryland Court of Special Appeals in July 2016.  That court indeed so ordered a new trial in March 2018.  But a higher Maryland Court of Appeals overturned that order on March 8, 2019 - or, amazingly, just two days before the premiere of the HBO series tonight.  You just can't make this stuff up.

With all of these bizarre and incredible turns, this documentary has more than a fleeting resemblance to Netflix's two seasons and counting of Making a Murderer.  And although True Detective and The Night Of are fiction, the documentaries have a lot in common with those two series, too.

It's always important to bear in mind that documentaries -  though more truthful than docu-dramas if only because the documentaries show real people not actors - are by no means literal mirrors of reality.  The documentary creators have to decide what to show and what not to show in the true story they are retelling.  Still, I believed after the first season of Making at Murderer that Steven Avery and his nephew  Brendan Dassey were not guilty of the crimes for which they were convicted, and had no reason to change my mind after the second season.  Indeed, I now believe even more strongly that their convictions were wrong (testament to the great work of the defendants' attorneys, especially Kathleen Zellner).   After just one episode of The Case Against Adnan Syed it's difficult to come to any strong conclusions, but there certainly seem to be other suspects, such as Hae's boyfriend at the time of the killing, Don (Adnan and Hae were no longer a couple when she was killed).

I'm also naturally suspicious whenever a higher court reverses a decision of a lower court to reopen a murder case, which is also what happened in the Avery/Dassey cases.  I mean, we're talking about murder here, shouldn't our legal system bend over backwards to consider new evidence that comes forth?

As for the making of the documentary, it has good use of animation and Impressionistic paintings, which were one of Hai's  loves.   I'll let you know more about about I think about this case and the documentary in the following three weeks.

See also Making a Murderer: Showing Us the Truth about our Unjust Justice System ... Making a Murderer 2: The Very Pits of Justice

  Paul Levinson's books ... Paul Levinson's music

The Orville 2.10: Exploding Blood

Well, critics are waking up, after the two-part episode last week and the week before, about how good and important The Orville is.  Will Harris of The Verge observed that "With the two-part episode Identity, The Orville has matured into serious science fiction".   I actually thought the series was born serious science fiction - that is, in its very first episode - but, hey, welcome to the club.

Episode 2.10 was another excellent example.  Friendship, revenge, and the difficulty of enemies stepping back from war were all well explored.  Spoiler alert:  Let's just say that Ed did better with the Krill tonight than Trump did with Kim last week.

And there are lots of good feints and twists as loyalties and savvy were continually tested.  But my favorite part of this episode was a genuine piece of science fiction I don't think I've come across before.   The secret weapon is blood in a humanoid species which explodes when it comes into contact with our kind of atmosphere.  On their home planet, there's something in the air which prevents this from happening.  Needle marks turn out to be not injections but withdrawals of blood to make a powerful explosive weapon.   That's what I call a nice, neat classic little package of science fiction.

The strong narrative continuity which typifies The Orville also continued in fine form.  A possible peace with the Krill follows perfectly from the alliance of humans and Krill at the end of last week's episode.  And in that same subplot, it was good to see Isaac where he belongs on the helm of The Orville, and Yaphit getting a medal for his oozy heroism last week.

Next week's an Orville vacation.  I'll see you back here in two.

See also The Orville 2.1: Relief and Romance ... The Orville 2.2: Porn Addiction and Planetary Disintegration ... The Orville 2.3: Alara ... The Orville 2.4: Billy Joel ... The Orville 2.5: Escape at Regor 2 ... The Orville 2.6: "Singin' in the Rain" ... The Orville 2.7: Love and Death ...  The Orville 2.8: Recalling Čapek, Part 1  ... The Orville 2.9: Recalling Čapek, Part 2

And see also The Orville 1.1-1.5: Star Trek's Back ... The Orville 1.6-9: Masterful ... The Orville 1.10: Bring in the Clowns ... The Orville 1.11: Eating Yaphit ... The Orville 1.12: Faith in Reason and the Prime Directive


1st starship to Alpha Centauri ... had only enough fuel to get there
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Project Blue Book 1.9: Shiny Round Object

Well, the round shiny object in tonight's Project Blue Book - 1.9 - wasn't in the sky, or even on the ground.  It was in Barney's neck, and was evidence that he had been abducted by extra-terrestrials.

In what passes for our real world - that is, the world you and I know, off-screen - Barney Hill and his wife Betty indeed claimed they were abducted by aliens from the Zeta Reticuli star system in 1961 (our system for keeping track of time).  They confirmed their stories several years later, under hypnosis - that is, under hypnosis they recalled that they had been kidnapped by extra-terrestrials.  The government (as far as we the public know) thought otherwise - that they two had similar dreams.  Books have been written about them. Movies have been made.  And tonight it was Project Blue Book the television series' turn.

As always - so far - our intrepid team come to no conclusion they want to stand up for and shout about.  Hynek and Quinn now both clearly believe there are extra-terrestrials at work on Planet Earth.  When Hynek asks Quinn what Quinn really believes, Quinn replies that it doesn't matter what he believes.  That's good enough as an admission.  He's being paid to help keep the public from going crazy about visits from the stars.   But, at some point, I'm hoping this character has to see that such a strategy is bound to fail, if, after all, we're indeed being visited by starships.

Meanwhile, on the Russian front back at Hynek's home, Mimi is drugged, seduced, and photographed by the wily Susie, which all turns out to be prelude towards the big terrestrial shock of the evening.  I liked this earthquake. I was glad to see her husband dispatched to someplace that even the aliens presumably can't reach.  He was an unpleasant and brutal guy.

Next week, the season finale takes us to Washington DC.   It's been an odd and interesting season, and I'll tell you more about what I think about it next week.

See also:  Project Blue Book 1.1: Science Fiction, Or? ... Project Blue 1.2: Calling Roy Thinnes ... Project Blue Book 1.3: Peggy Sue Gets Space Ship ... Project Blue Book 1.4: von Braun ... Project Blue Book 1.5: A Theory ... Project Blue Book 1.6:  The Team ... Project Blue Book 1.7: The Star People ... Project Blue Book 1.8: 'Already Here'



here I am talking Ancient Aliens a few years ago on the History Channel

1st starship to Alpha Centauri ... Native Americans figure in here, too
Paul Levinson's books ... Paul Levinson's music

The Widow: Jolt to the Heart of Darkness

Check out The Widow, eminently binge-able on Amazon Prime Video, a top-drawer action series with great locations in the Congo and strong acting by Kate Beckinsale in the lead role.

She's the widow, and gets caught up in lethal twists and turns after she sees what looks like a quick shot of her husband in a demonstration in Kinshasa three years after he was reported killed in a nearby plane crash, in which not every passenger's body was identified.  Just about everyone is a culprit - including, yes, our dependence on smartphones - and memorable characters abound, from a 12-year old girl pressed into service as a child-soldier (well played by Shalom Nyandiko) to a guy from Iceland (with a love of Whistler's Mother) who did survive the flight but was blinded (well played by Ólafur Darri Ólafsson).  Even Charles Dance puts in a customarily suave, savvy, and dexterous performance.

But Beckinsale runs the gamut from heartbroken to furious to tender - not always to different people - and since her Georgia Wells had some military experience, she's also good with a gun.   There've been many other screen narratives of people looking for lost loved ones, but none with this level of kick-in-the-stomach shockers in just about every episode, and none situated in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.   The combination of the downed flight in the jungle, intercutting of all kinds of flashbacks, and psychological stressors undergone by all sides in the story are reminiscent of Lost at its best (including a strong supporting role by Alex Kingston), and in a different way, of 24: Redemption, which thrust Jack Bauer into a fictional African nation beset by all manner of murderous characters.

I wouldn't quite say Georgia Wells is a female Jack Bauer, but they do have a lot in common, and I certainly would be up for seeing her continue in a sequel series.  Kudos to writers Harry and Jack Williams.

 
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The Tunnel: Final Season: Moral Dilemma Par Excellence

I see, to my surprise, that I never got around to reviewing the first two seasons of The Tunnel - the British/French take on the Swedish/Danish Bron/Broen, and the American The Bridge.  Indeed, though I reviewed The Bridge, I thought it was not the best of the three.  That accolade belongs to The Tunnel, though I have yet to see the last two seasons of Bron/Broen, so I conceivably could change that ranking.

Not likely, though, seeing as how good The Tunnel, especially its final season 3, is.   I've admired Stephen Dillane's work since I saw him play Thomas Jefferson in the John Adams mini-series in 2008 (I thought it was longer ago than that).  He plays Karl, the British and non-Asperger's detective.  Clémence Poésy I don't recall having seen before - actually, she was in some Harry Potters and In Bruges, a movie my wife and I loved,  and she does a fine job playing Elise in The Tunnel.  In all three versions, the detective with all the advantages and disadvantages of Asperger's - the focus on logic and details, the lack of social sensitivities - is a woman.

Also in all three version, the team is sooner or later thrust into a severe moral dilemma - whether to save this person or that, when at least one of the likely victims is someone beloved to at least one of the detectives.   This moral choice - whom to throw a rope to when two people, not near each other, are drowning - was given the best presentation, the epitome of this dilemma, I thought, in the final episode of The Tunnel.

I won't say anymore about that, in case you haven't seen it.  I will say that all three versions require a strong stomach, meaning the villains they deal with are as perverse and ethically as ugly as these sort of monsters come.  In fact, the going was so rough in season 3 of The Tunnel that I was close to deciding I didn't like it as much as the other versions and seasons.  Until the ending.

So ... see this.  It's human beings with souls fighting humans who've lost them, a story that typifies a lot of our age, and presented here at its searing best.

 
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The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Seasons 1 and 2: Triumph for Risks and Laughter

I don't usually watch comedy on television or streaming, and review it even less.  But our daughter Molly raved about The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel after the first season, and given that she'd recommended such winners as Alias and Sons of Anarchy, her praising of Maisel certainly put it on the possible list.  Sisters-in-laws and in-laws urged us to watch it, too.  But what put me over the top was the lunch I had with Bob Mann, a professor with inimitable tastes  (I was a guest on his late, lamented Sirius XM Radio show "Let's the Consider the Source" at least 50 times.  It should be coming back as a podcast soon.)

Maisel was everything Mann and the family said it was.  Hilarious and profound, and one of the best portrayals of Jewish life in 1950s New York City on any screen.   Further, Mrs. Maisel, mother of a baby girl and a young son whose husband Joel leaves her at the beginning of the story, provides a memorable tableau of late 50s Village cafe culture and extended media, as she tries to break into the stand-up comedy circuit.

She's enormously talented, and her riffing routines in themselves provide one of the real joys of this series.  Other highlights include
a 2+ episode spot-on depiction of the Catskills in the summer, at least as good, and in some ways better, than what we saw in Dirty Dancinga portrayal by Luke Kirby (Rectify) of Lenny Bruce - who recognizes Maisel's talent, and does what he can to support her - that I actually liked better than Dustin Hoffman's in the 1974 Lenny, which, I don't know, was powerful, but too much Dustinand speaking of acting, Rachel Brosnahan (House of Cards) as Mrs. Maisel, Tony Shalhoub (Monk) as her father Abe Weissman, a professor of mathematics at Columbia University (though it looked like some of the exterior scenes were shot at Fordham), and Alex Borstein (never heard of her before) as Maisel's manager are just off-the-chart in their unique and fabulous performances.But not everything has been perfect in this delightful, insightful series.
Some of the details were anachronistic, i.e., incorrect for the time portrayed.  The Defenders debuted in 1961, and couldn't have been known to Maisel characters in 1959.   Same for Louis Armstrong's "What a Wonderful World," which was released in 1967.  Were the producers of Mrs. Maisel not allowed to look at IMDb and Wikipedia as part of their immersion in the time?The guy who played Steve Allen at the end of season 2 looked nothing like him.   Even Elvis Costello or someone I saw on Meet the Press would have been better.But these are small quibbles for a series that has already taken its place along side of All in the Family and Curb Your Enthusiasm as laughing out loud, stoking your heart, and learning about life comedy.  And the second season was even better than the first - wilder and more clearly drawn story lines, always a good sign in a series.  Another triumph for risks and Amazon Prime Video.

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