Paul Levinson's Blog: Levinson at Large, page 276

Rectify 3.2: Daniel and Amantha

Saw Rectify 3.2 last night, thanks to Sundance having up on On Demand. My only regret is I wish the whole new season were up there right now.

Daniel and Amantha are so good together, I almost wish they weren't brother and sister and could be a proper - or improper - couple.  Not only do their names almost rhyme, but when they converse, their back-and-forth is a kind of poetry, and certainly brings out the wit and best of Daniel.  Amantha talks about losing weight - not eating, not eating, not eating, then binging, in self reproach - and Daniel responds in that low-key voice of his, "seems to be working".

Putting them together for a while in under the same roof - Amantha's - was a great idea, and gives us all sorts of possibilities for learning more about both of them.   Of the women now in Daniel's life - his mother, Tawney, Amantha - Amantha is surely the best, and the most interesting and original.

We also get a nice serving of Daniel's de facto time travel from the past to the present, in a little exchange him and Amantha, who's looking for her phone because she's late and needs to know the time.  This makes no sense, of course, to Daniel, who comes from a time, not that long ago, in which phones and watches or clocks were two very different things.

Teddy continues to be the most irritating character, and as such a perfect counter-weight to Daniel. At this point, the sum total of Teddy's role in the story is his literal embodiment of the results of Daniel losing it and lashing out.  I'd be happy if that thorn in our impression of Daniel would be the one that was being removed from the narrative at the end of the month, instead of Daniel.

But neither is likely to happen, and that's all to the good of this minute-by-minute story, in which none of our characters even seem to know as yet about what happened to the state senator in 3.1, last week on television, just hours ago in the tick-tock of Daniel's life.

See also Rectify 3.1: Stroke of Luck

And see also Rectify 2.1: Indelible ... Rectify 2.2: True Real Time ... Rectify 2.3: Daniel's Motives ... Rectify 2.4: Jekyll and Hyde ... Rectify 2.6: Rare Education ... Rectify 2.7: The Plot Thickens ... Rectify 2.8: The Plea Bargain and the Smart Phone ... Rectify 2.9: Dancing in the Dark ... Rectify Season 2 Finale: Talk about Cliffhangers!

And see also Rectify: Sheer and Shattering Poetry ... Rectify 1.5: Balloon Man ... Rectify Season 1 Finale: Searingly Anti-Climactic

 
another kind of capital punishment

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Rectify 3.1: Stroke of Luck

Rectify was back for its third season last night, and looks set to continue as one of the most thoughtful, intense, literate shows on television.

The US Supreme Court's decision late last month not to strike down capital punishment by at least one form of lethal injection makes Daniel's story in Rectify even more pressingly relevant, if that's possible, than it's been from the outset.  He was released from death row on a technicality, and at the end of last season confesses in a deal that will keep him out of prison but away from his family.

His family and just about everyone other than the original prosecutor - now state senator Foulkes, who brokered the deal - are in varying states of horrified, disgusted, and furious about Daniel's confession - as was the audience, certainly including me.  It's pretty clear that Daniel didn't do the killing, not withstanding his flashes of violence.  For by far the most part, you won't find a gentler, more tender soul than Daniel's, and it sure looks as if one of the others in the gang of boys killed the girl by the river all those years ago.

The lack of absolute, 100%-complete closure, though, on what exactly Daniel did and didn't do is one of the powerful engines of this story.  The other is its incredibly slow progression, usually not a plus in a narrative, but something that works just exquisitely in this series.  Daniel has a month to pack up and get out of town, and you know that we're not likely at all to see that at the end of this season.

So why did Daniel confess?  Likely because he wanted to get away from the pain he's been causing himself and his loved ones since his release.   As much as he's desperately enjoying breathing in the real world outside of prison, he hasn't had an easy time of it.  Indeed, few breaks if any have gone his way, until-

Senator Foulkes apparently has a stroke at the very end of this first episode of the third season. Although everyone in authority is saying they're sure that Daniel's second confession is a "done deal," it's likely that with Foulkes not bent on enforcing it, and the current prosector not at all convinced that Daniel did the crime, Daniel may finally be in for a piece of some kind of good luck in this show - the first since his release.

Is the stroke for Foulkes a stroke of luck for Daniel?  I'm looking forward to rest of this season.

See also Rectify 2.1: Indelible ... Rectify 2.2: True Real Time ... Rectify 2.3: Daniel's Motives ... Rectify 2.4: Jekyll and Hyde ... Rectify 2.6: Rare Education ... Rectify 2.7: The Plot Thickens ... Rectify 2.8: The Plea Bargain and the Smart Phone ... Rectify 2.9: Dancing in the Dark ... Rectify Season 2 Finale: Talk about Cliffhangers!

And see also Rectify: Sheer and Shattering Poetry ... Rectify 1.5: Balloon Man ... Rectify Season 1 Finale: Searingly Anti-Climactic

 
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Falling Skies 5.2: Hybrid

The fifth and final season of Falling Skies is still looking to be one of its best, judging by where it is now in its second episode.   I like the fast, no-nonsense pace of the fighters and fighting, good to see after the over-agonizing in some of the recent previous seasons.

But the big reveal takes place not in a hot battle, but in the insect that landed in Tom's hand at the end of the first episode.  We've seen insects put to provocative use in previous story lines in this series, but we learn in 5.2 that this insect is something different: a hybrid not only of at least two alien species, but with human eyes! This means that some advanced species is doing some more gene-splicing, with human DNA part of the mix.  The question, of course, is to what end?

This is an enjoyable science fiction trope, with a CSI overlay.  Where is Grissom, when you need him, to help make sense of this insect?  Anne is better than you might expect with DNA, but she's more of a biologist Jack of all trades than an expert like Grissom - he ended up where, in CSI, in Costa Rica? - and it will be fun to see how our gang can get to the bottom of this bug.

Too bad Roger bled to death last season - he certainly would have been of help in this.  We do have a guy who is deft with building flying drones, and perhaps his knowledge of flight patterns will play some role in the decoding of the insect and its meaning.  Otherwise, probably the best we can hope for is a revelation at some point that comes to Tom - hey, with any luck, provided by the same aliens who've seemed to have such an enormous impact on him and his spirit.

Looking forward to more next week.

See also Falling Skies 5.1: Still Worthy of Viewing

And see also Falling Skies 4.1: Weak Start ... Falling Skies 4.2: Enemy of my Enemy ... Falling Skies 4.3: Still Falling ... Falling Skies 4.5: Cloudy ...Falling Skies 4.7: Massacre Indeed ... Falling Skies 4.8: Spike ... Falling Skies Espheni: How to Pronounce? ... Falling Skies 4.9: To the Moon, Anne, To the Moon ... Falling Skies 4.10: Lexi ... Falling Skies Season 4 Finale: Self-Sacrifice and Redemption

And see also Falling Skies 3.1-2: It's the Acting ... Falling Skies 3.3: The Smile ... Falling Skies 3.4: Hal vs. Ben ... Falling Skies 3.6: The Masons ...Falling Skies 3.7: The Mole and a Likely Answer ... Falling Skies 3.8: Back Cracked Home ... Falling Skies Season 3 Finale: Dust in Hand

And see also Falling Skies Returns  ... Falling Skies 2.6: Ben's Motives ... Falling Skies Second Season Finale

And see also Falling Skies 1.1-2 ... Falling Skies 1.3 meets Puppet Masters ... Falling Skies 1.4: Drizzle ... Falling Skies 1.5: Ben ... Falling Skies 1.6: Fifth Column ... Falling Skies 1.7: The Fate of Traitors ... Falling Skies 1.8: Weaver's Story ... Falling Skies Concludes First Season

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True Detective 2.3: Buckshot and Twitty

Well, as I was saying last week, True Detective couldn't be crazy enough to kill one of its leading men in the very second episode, could it, as wild and iconoclastic as such a move might have been.  But we discovered in True Detective 2.3 last night - after a fabulous opening sequence with a bizarre but compelling Elvis-like impersonator singing "The Rose" (reminiscent of one of the best scenes in any movie, Dean Stockwell delivering Roy Orbison's "In Dreams" in Blue Velvet) - that Ray survived!  Because Ray was hit with two shotgun blasts, alright - but loaded with buckshot not lead.

Ok, first, I'm no weapons expert, and I wouldn't know buckshot from grape nuts cereal, or birdshot, either, but the point is that kudos to True Detective, that was an excellent feint. And while we're at it, the impersonator was apparently of Conway Twitty - not Elvis - but the two are pretty similar, anyway, and throw in Conrad Birdie there, too.  And one of other thing: the scene in Blue Velvet was a lip synch (not technically an impersonation) - Roy Orbison's voice coming out of Dean Stockwell's mouth - and so, it maybe seems, was "The Rose" in TD.

Interestingly, Blue Velvet's David Lynch was supposed, until recently, to be producing a new slew of Twin Peaks episodes, until he bowed out, so it was especially gratifying to see this Lynchian bow to his work at the beginning of last night's True Detective.  As was the case last year, part of what makes True Detective so appealing is not the storyline per se, but the ambience via which it is presented.   Hey, let's be honest.  It is the shimmering water color ambiguous ambience that truly makes True Detective what it is - like no other show on television, by a long shot, in the combination of its searingly misty imagery and mix of sound and music.

But the story's developing well, particularly at this point with Frank, who is a suitably complex racketeer, able to dish out a beat-down to an associate who foolishly bad mouths him, and take note that Ray is off his booze, drinking just water.  Frank is the too obvious source of the shotgun blasts on Ray - putting someone up to it - but why do that, to frighten Ray?  And the rounds are police issue, which presumably Frank could acquire, but why, to distance Ray further from the police? More likely the shooter is connected more directly to the police, or to Ray's paternity, or some combination.

Frank is not yet as interesting as Tony Soprano, but he's off to a good start, as is True Detective this second season.

See also Season Two: True Detective: All New ... True Detective 2.2: Pulling a Game of Thrones

And see also Season One: True Detective: Socrates in Louisiana ... True Detective Season One Finale: Light above Darkness

 
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Falling Skies 5.1: Still Worthy of Viewing

Falling Skies was back last Sunday for its 5th and final season.  I'm only somewhat sorry that the series will be concluding, since the story itself has been falling in the past few seasons, in addition to the skies.  Still, the alien invasion narrative has some power.

The most interesting feature in this new season is Tom, who comes back to our people imbued with all kinds of impressive powers, including knowing something of the future, and markers to tell which is best course of action to defeat what's left of the enemy on Earth.

Tom also returns with a fighting spirit - a zest to exterminate the bad aliens - also imbued by the masterful, good aliens.  The question remains, as it always does with Tom, is whether these new characteristics change him to the point where he's no longer himself, perhaps no longer human, and whether those changes will be worth the presumed ultimate victory over the bad aliens that the changes will likely bring.

Otherwise, Hal and Ben still both love Margaret, who explains to Hal, after he professes his love for her, that, yes, she does love him, but she also has feelings for Ben that neither she nor Hal can hope to control.   That's, of course, because they both now share an alien spine, which they need to be alive. That being the case, it's hard to see how Hal can prevail.

It was good to see our people do well against the bad aliens in this first new episode, though, which raises the question of how far that success can go.  Even aside from Tom losing something of his humanity as the price to be paid for such success, it's hard to imagine all of our people surviving - and, indeed, an Earth totally free from baneful alien presence.

Which makes this final season of Falling Skies especially worthy of viewing.

See also Falling Skies 4.1: Weak Start ... Falling Skies 4.2: Enemy of my Enemy ... Falling Skies 4.3: Still Falling ... Falling Skies 4.5: Cloudy ...Falling Skies 4.7: Massacre Indeed ... Falling Skies 4.8: Spike ... Falling Skies Espheni: How to Pronounce? ... Falling Skies 4.9: To the Moon, Anne, To the Moon ... Falling Skies 4.10: Lexi ... Falling Skies Season 4 Finale: Self-Sacrifice and Redemption

And see also Falling Skies 3.1-2: It's the Acting ... Falling Skies 3.3: The Smile ... Falling Skies 3.4: Hal vs. Ben ... Falling Skies 3.6: The Masons ...Falling Skies 3.7: The Mole and a Likely Answer ... Falling Skies 3.8: Back Cracked Home ... Falling Skies Season 3 Finale: Dust in Hand

And see also Falling Skies Returns  ... Falling Skies 2.6: Ben's Motives ... Falling Skies Second Season Finale

And see also Falling Skies 1.1-2 ... Falling Skies 1.3 meets Puppet Masters ... Falling Skies 1.4: Drizzle ... Falling Skies 1.5: Ben ... Falling Skies 1.6: Fifth Column ... Falling Skies 1.7: The Fate of Traitors ... Falling Skies 1.8: Weaver's Story ... Falling Skies Concludes First Season

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True Detective 2.2: Pulling a Game of Thrones?

I think the killing of Ned at the end of the first season of Game of Thrones, combined with the fact that its excellent ratings subsequently increased, has forever changed television.  Well, certainly the kind of superb television we've been seeing since The Sopranos on HBO, and soon after on Showtime, AMC, Starz, and now Netflix and Amazon streaming, as well.

But the problem with successful innovation is that you need to out-innovate the original innovation if the successor shows are to be as successful as the original. Which brings me to last night's True Detective 2.2 on HBO.

In the two episodes - including last night's - in which we were introduced to and got to know him, Ray was an interesting, provocative character, with all kinds of narrative potential.  Further, he was played by Colin Farrell.  So ... why kill him?

The usual provisos apply.  Maybe he's not dead.  We didn't see his head blown to bits in front of our eyes.  But those two shotgun blasts sure look that they did more than enough bodily damage to kill him.

But, ok, if Ray survives this, I take back everything I'm going to say, which is based on the assumption that he does not.  Why kill such a character?  Obviously to make a point that nothing is sacred in what television narrative has become, including a great character played by a talented actor killed almost right off the bat, actually not quite off the bat, but after we were beginning to fully go with him as a primary protagonist, which makes this even more striking. I guess this is a good lesson. Certainly it will keep viewers on their toes, and punish any who dozed off before the end of the episode, or missed it entirely, and read what happened to Ray in some online review such as this.

Do I like this new kind of television? I guess so, probably, I'm not sure.  But at this point, rather than passing judgement on it, I'm just noting it here - and saying I'll definitely keep watching, which probably means the ending of last night's episode did its job, though I'm sure I would have kept watching this season of True Detective anyway.

See also Season Two: True Detective: All New

And see also Season One: True Detective: Socrates in Louisiana ... True Detective Season One Finale: Light above Darkness

 
Like philosophic crime fiction?   Try The Plot to Save Socrates ...

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The Drop: A Lift

I saw The Drop last night - the Dennis Lehane movie (he wrote the screenplay, based on his short story, "Animal Rescue"), starring James Gandolfini in his final performance and Tom Hardy in what, by my lights, is probably the best performance of his career so far.

The plot is intricate, with lots of sharp, dangerous, fast and slow moving pieces, and it's all brought together beautifully in the end, with a twist that's stunning when it happens but perfectly plausible in retrospect - in other words, precisely the kind of surprise ending you would want.

Tom Hardy delivers of powerful performance as Bob, who seems well over his head in the lethal currents swirling all around him, but has a quiet strength and a heart, which we see applied to Nadia, the complicated love interest, and Rocco, an adorable puppy.  As a police detective remarks, you don't see Bob, even though he's right in front of you.  And Hardy's portrayal is as memorable as it gets, like a low key Pacino, if that makes any sense.

Gandolfini as Bob's cousin Marv was outstanding, making it all the sadder that this is his last performance. As he did in all his renditions of people in one way or another involved in criminal activity, Gandolfini managed to project a no-nonsense toughness combined with an appealing humanity.

All of this is played out against a tableau of a bar owned by the Russian mob, and used a "drop" place for its illegally gotten gains, and a psycho not connected to the mob who is thrown in for good and bad measure.  The pace and the dialogue are reminiscent of Tarantino at his best, and I found The Drop is one of the most appealing movies of this kind to come along in years.


a different kind of crime


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True Detective: All New

True Detective was back for its second season on HBO with last night, with no connection to the first season, except this second season looks like it could be almost as outstanding.

Colin Farrell plays Ray, a detective in the pocket of an LA hood, Vince Vaughn's Frank, for essentially very personal reasons.  The question, as it always is in these circumstances, is how much in the pocket - and what, if anything, will pull Ray out of it.

Rachel McAdams plays Ani, who at this point appears to be a much truer - i.e., non-crooked - detective than does Ray.   It's good to see a woman in this spot, and a welcome departure from season 1, in which the woman were mostly victims, with an unsympathetic wife and a prostitute thrown in.

Taylor Kitsch - a lot older than he looked in his superb Tim Riggins role in the late lamented Friday Night Lights - is the fourth major star, playing Paul of the California Highway Patrol, with his own host of problems, including a dangerous obsession with his motorcycle.

In short, this really is a brand new tableau, with new characters, pace, as well as story.  There is at least a flashback or two showing how Ray became indebted to Frank, but even that seems much less dominating that the relentless but highly effective flashes backwards and forwards and all through time in the first season.

Look, it's hard to imagine anyone in this season putting in as quietly searing a performance as Matthew McConaughey did in the first season - one of the best ever on television and of his distinguished career - but this second season is off to a good start, and I'm looking forward to more.

See also Season One: True Detective: Socrates in Louisiana ... True Detective Season One Finale: Light above Darkness

 
Like philosophic crime fiction?   Try The Plot to Save Socrates ...

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Poldark Rebooted on PBS

Poldark was back on PBS last night, in a brand new rebooting of the series.  (Hey, rebooting can have a literal, original, nondigital meaning here, since there are lots of boots in the muddy terrain of this narrative.)  My wife and I loved the original two Poldarks back in the 1970s - adopted from the books - right up there with Upstairs, Downstairs and I, Claudius as the best-ever on PBS, to this very day.

What always attracted me to the story was the reverse of what we in America usually see in the aftermath of our successful 1776 revolution.  To England, that war as a humiliation, and those who returned to the isle got no big rounds of applause.

Certainly not Poldark, presumed killed in the war, who returns to find his true love on the verge of marrying his cousin.  Poldark is slow to react - this is a hallmark of the man, who will learn the hard way that he needs to move more quickly on his feelings, and forget about what he thinks may be the right or courteous thing to do.  In that sense, Poldark is parable about Britain casting off its traditional moorings, and, though, they may not like to admit this, becoming more like wild, irreverent America.

The heart of the story is indeed the crumbling caste structure, against which true love struggles to find a way.  There's a tendency whenever you see a remake to compare it - usually unfavorably - to the original.  Robin Ellis was just outstanding as the 1970s television Poldark, as were Angharad Rees as Demelza, full of sauce and soul, and just about everyone in those two series.

It's too soon to tell if Eleanor Tomlinson will be as good as Demelza in the 2015 version, but Aidan Turner seems to have all the right up-right stuff for Poldark, and I'm looking forward to more.

See this more detailed recap and analysis of the new Poldark in The New York Times.


 
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Jurassic World: A New Kind of Weapon

I saw Jurassic World tonight.  As a fan of the earlier Jurassic movies, I was hoping for the best but was ready for less.  Sequels upon sequels are tough going.  The verdict: this Jurassic movie was one of the best.

The twist in the movie - so don't read on if you don't like spoilers - is that the raptors are being trained by a Navy man, Owen.  We soon learn why: the US wants to use them as literally biological weapons.   As the chief military spokesman Hoskins, played by Law & Order's Vincent D'Onofrio says at some point, wouldn't it have been great if we had these raptors on our side at Tora Bora.   In other words, wouldn't  it be great if we could put raptors out in the field against ISIS today? As Hoskins also says, they could be a lot more pinpoint effective than drones.

The sinister military motive, which actually does make at least a little sense,  is a new and significant element in the ongoing story of genetic rescuing of extinct species, the scientific hubris in the original movies.  In those stories, scientific arrogance and commercial greed combined to create tragedy on the island.  But the scientific god-playing is upped in Jurassic World, where we soon learn that a new breed of dinosaur, a genetically engineered mix, is about to be unleashed in the park, to thrill the patrons.   Idominus rex has been bred to terrify but of course not kill humans - but, of course, that's exactly what will happen before too long.

Hoskins has a bright idea - use the raptors, at least partially trained, to take down the indomitable genetically engineered dinosaur.   Unfortunately, one of the secret genomes that went into the design of Indominus was from the raptors, so in another nice twist, the raptors turn on Owen when they go face to face with the new dinosaur.  Later, Owen manages to get them back on his side, and, unless I missed it, there was no clear reason given why - which makes this a little bit of a hole in the story.

But the ending was plausible and worked great in the story and on the screen.  Claire, the female lead, seeing that even the raptors are no match for the vicious, highly intelligent Indominus, lets the Trynnosuarus rex out onto the field, and the surviving raptor and T. rex fight Indominus to a standstill, where in one nice last twist it is dispatched  by the monstrous dinosaur lurking in the nearby water pictured above.

Beautifully photographed, teeming with excellent special effects, and with ample room for a sequel, Jurassic World may just have put the dinosaur and genetic engineering back in business as bigger than life villains on the screen.

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