Paul Levinson's Blog: Levinson at Large, page 72
February 10, 2022
Podcast Review of Raised by Wolves 2.3
Welcome to Light On Light Through, Episode 242, in which I review Raised by Wolves episode 2.3 on HBO Max.
written blog post review of this episode
Further listening:
podcast review of Raised by Wolves 2.1-2.2
podcast review of Raised by Wolves 1-3
podcast review of Raised by Wolves 4-5
podcast review of Raised by Wolves 6-10
Further reading:
Touching the Face of the Cosmos: On the Interaction of Space and Religion
Paul Levinson's books ... Paul Levinson's music
Raised by Wolves 2.3: Marcus and the Android Skeleton
A fascinating and important Raised by Wolves 2.3 today on HBO Max, in which Marcus beats Father in a fight, and Father works on bringing an android skeleton back to life (or tries to).
Other important and fascinating things happened too. But those were the two most important and fascinating.
Marcus beats Father in a fight. Campion later asks Father how that could happen? Father either doesn't know, or doesn't want to discuss this with Campion. Later, we see Father, still not completely recovered from his thrashing by Marcus, rather easily beat a brute of an industrial android. So Father, even hurt, is a pretty formidable opponent in a fight. How, then, did Marcus, a human, prevail over Father?
My best guess, at this point, is that Marcus himself has some sort of android essence. He certainly doesn't look like Father or Mother. But do we really know what's inside him? Did we get any clues to this in Season One? Perhaps Marcus is some sort of what we would today call a bionic human -- a human being invested with some sort of powerful non-organic materials.
Meanwhile, Father later discovers that some of his white fuel -- what serves in effect for him and Mother as blood -- can begin to animate the android skeleton. This now raises what could be a pivotal, crucial question of what that android will be when it comes to "life"? (Surely we'll see that happen, with any luck not too further in the future of this season.)
The title for this excellent episode is "Good Creatures". I assume that name pertains at very least to the flying serpent. At this point, I'd say the serpent being an herbivore is not as important as Marcus vs. Father, or Father and the android skeleton. But the presumably good serpent (after all, it may not be good, even though it is an herbivore) could have further, increased importance as the season progresses, just another reason I'm very much looking forward to the ensuing episodes.
See also Raised by Wolves 2.1-2: A Viking Out in Space, with Androids
And see also Raised by Wolves 1.1: Fast Action and Deep Philosophy ... Raised by Wolves 1.2-3: More than Meets the Eye ... Raised by Wolves 1.4-5: Halfway to Dune ...Raised by Wolves 1.6-7: The Look on Mother's Face ... Raised by Wolves 1.8-1.9: Frankenstein and Motherhood ... Raised by Wolves Season One Finale: The Serpent
Paul Levinson's books ... Paul Levinson's music
February 7, 2022
Podcast Review of Reacher
Welcome to Light On Light Through, Episode 243, in which I review Reacher on Amazon Prime Video.
Written blog post review of Reacher
Paul Levinson's books ... Paul Levinson's music
February 6, 2022
A Kind of Murder: Yep, Just That
I just a late 2016 movie, A Kind of Murder, on Amazon Prime Video. It's advertised as "Hitchcockian Noir," which it's not -- somewhere between not quite and not by a long shot. But, then, again, Hitchcock's work is so uniquely masterful, I've never seen anyone else's work equal to what he did, including some who came close, like Brian De Palma.
[Spoilers ahead ... ]
Here's the story: Walter Stackhouse, a writer in 1960 New York, is in an unhappy marriage with a mentally distraught wife. He's writing some kind of murder mystery, and collects newspaper articles about lurid and/or unsolved crimes-- including a recent case in which the wife of a bookstore owner in New Jersey, Marty Kimmel, turns up dead. Laurence Korby, a detective who is no Sherlock Holmes and has a nasty violent streak to boot, is sure Kimmel did it. When Stackhouse's wife, who tried to take her life with pills turns up dead in New Jersey, Korby isn't sure where her murderer is Kimmel or Stackhouse, because (as we should know from umpteen police dramas), the husband is always the first suspect.
So this is a pretty good, even excellent, set-up. And the acting (especially Patrick Wilson as Stackhouse and Eddie Marsan as Kimmel, but also Vincent Kartheiser as Corby, Jessica Biel as Mrs. Stackhouse, and Haley Bennett as his girlfriend) and the ambience are excellent. But the ending chooses to be stylishly ambiguous, rather than giving us the satisfaction of an answer to the whodunnit.
All we know for sure as the closing credits role is Kimmel killed his wife. He possibly/likely killed Corby and Stackhouse, too, though the scene was so dark you had to look twice to be sure. And, then, in the last scene, as Stackhouse is on his back, apparently dying from the wounds Kimmel inflicted, we see him going over in his mind all the major scenes of the movie, concluding with him sitting in his apartment at his typewriter, typing "the end".
So is he envisioning all of that including the typewriter in his mind as he takes his dying breath on the damp concrete? Or is he actually sitting at his typewriter typing "the end" -- the end to the whole story he has typed, which we just saw on the screen?
Well, I do like ambiguity in an ending -- like in "The Lady and the Tiger" or in the last scene of The Sopranos, but as I said, in "A Kind of Murder," that just too ambiguous by half. Or, as my wife said, maybe that's why the movie, an adaptation of The Blunderer, a 1954 novel by Patricia Highsmith, is called A Kind of Murder.
February 5, 2022
Reacher: Peach Pie, Stirred Not Shaken
Hey, see Reacher on Amazon Prime Video. At its best, and that's more than some of the time, the lead character named Jack Reacher but known just by his last name has some of the quick thinking and lethal delivery of another Jack, last name Bauer, on 24. And sometimes Reacher even recalls James Bond, with his wit and penchant for the sharp retort.
And Reacher has two assistants all his own: Roscow, a bright and beautiful and deadly when necessary young cop in a small town down in Georgia, and Finlay, detective captain in the same small town, who came down there from Boston. There's almost constant action, unpredictable twists, bad guys and worse guys in this thriller based on the Jack Reacher book series by Lee Child.
Which I haven't read. Come to think of it, I've been saying that about a lot of series and movies I've been streaming and reviewing here in the past few years, and that's likely because there are so many good series and movies out there and up there to stream. Reacher is one of the best.
Here are some of the things I liked most in this eight-episode series which I'm sure will have some sequels:
Reacher and the peach pie (I figured I'd start the list with a rhyme)Reacher and the dog (which Finlay names Jack -- ok, a spoiler)Reacher's tendency to say no to things he doesn't want to do, even when that answer is not socially advantageousThe folk wisdom of even the minor characters, like the woman who says about her dead husband, something like it's amazing what a woman will put up with, if her man "throws" her a good "hump"The range of cities in which the action takes place, not just the small town, but Atlanta, New Orleans, and New York.Alan Ritchson as Reacher, Willa Fitzgerald as Roscow, and Malcolm Goodwin as Finlay.So, ok, you get the picture. See what you think when you see the picture, actually, the series. And I'm wondering where possibly up north I can get a piece of that peach pie, and happy I was able to deliver this review with no real spoilers at all.
Podcast Review of Raised by Wolves 2.1-2
Welcome to Light On Light Through, Episode 242, in which I review Raised by Wolves episodes 2.1 and 2.2 on HBO Max.
written blog post review of these episodes
Further listening:
podcast review of Raised by Wolves 1-3
podcast review of Raised by Wolves 4-5
podcast review of Raised by Wolves 6-10
Further reading:
Touching the Face of the Cosmos: On the Interaction of Space and Religion
Paul Levinson's books ... Paul Levinson's music
February 4, 2022
Suspicion: Excellent Start, But Is It Four or Five?
Just saw the first two episodes of Suspicion on Apple TV+. Looks to be a top-notch crackling whodunnit, with all the trimmings.
Here's the crime: four people in a big New York midtown hotel, wearing British royal family masks (the Queen, Prince Charles, Prince Andrew, and Kate) kidnap the son of the biggest American media operation. (For some reason, the promotion for the show talks about five suspects not four -- Wikipedia says "Five people - three men and two women - have their lives turned upside down after being identified by London police as suspects in the kidnapping" -- and the above picture shows five. I have no idea why. Maybe that's part of the mystery?) The FBI and their British counterparts soon discover four Brits living not too far from one another in London were in New York the very night of the kidnapping, in the very hotel where the kidnapping occurred. Three protest their innocence and are convincing, at least to me, under intense questioning. The fourth, Sean, is apparently not only one of the kidnappers, but definitely a murderer, blowing up his girlfriend on a boat offshore in his smooth and so far successful attempt to elude capture.
So the question is: who among the other three are also guilty? All three? That would be an Agatha Christie move, but I'd say unlikely. But I'd say it's equally unlikely, though not impossible, that none of these three donned a royal mask and helped kidnap the kid in New York. So the question is which one or two? And the narrative is doing a fine job at this point in not giving us a clue.
About the acting, all of that is good, too. Among the actors I know, Uma Thurman plays the kidnap victim's mother, but so far we've barely seen her on the screen. Noah Emmerich plays the American FBI agent. First time I've seen him since he did a great job in the same job on The Americans, and he's off to an excellent start here. The London scenes work well. All we've really seen of New York after two episodes is the hotel. But there's clearly a lot more to come, and I'll be on top of this series, adapted from the Israeli False Flag series (which I haven't seen), with weekly reviews after every showing.
Paul Levinson's books ... Paul Levinson's music
Raised by Wolves 2.1-2: A Viking Out in Space, with Androids
Raised by Wolves was back for a second season on HBO Max yesterday, with two sharp episodes that advanced the narrative in all kinds of intriguing and important ways.
Travis Fimmel was superb, as he was in the first season as the sun god prophet Marcus. The actor has a unique way of expressing emotions, which (of course) first became clear to me in Fimmel's memorable performance as Ragnar in Vikings. In Raised by Wolves, we see it again as Marcus almost seeming to channel Rangar expresses his fury and disappointment about having to kill an atheist whom Marcus would much rather have converted to his spiritual perspective. And it worked so well -- if you think about it, Ragnar versus the Christian world is much like Marcus versus the godless world out there on that distant planet.
The unfolding story in the atheistic center was multi-layered and fascinating as well. Mother's beloved Campion doesn't see life and his world the same way as his android "mother" on a growing number of crucial issues. He doesn't see the world the same way as Paul, Marcus' adopted son, does either, but the two make a good team. And Mother (well played by Amanda Collin) and Father (well played by Abubakar Salim) don't see eye to eye, as well -- ranging from mother and father differences that we recognize in humans here on Earth (Father tells Mother she needs to treat Campion like an adult) to much more serious life and death situations.
The science fictional elements are vivid, ranging from life in the robotic center to the flying snake that seems reminiscent of Dune. In fact, the whole desert part of the Wolves story reminds of Dune, with nice frightening new ingredients like the acid water. Good thing Raised by Wolves is on in winter, when I'm not likely to want to jump in any nearby ocean for a swim.
I'll be reviewing every episode of this excellent new season of this powerful series, and I'll see you back here next week.
See also Raised by Wolves 1.1: Fast Action and Deep Philosophy ... Raised by Wolves 1.2-3: More than Meets the Eye ... Raised by Wolves 1.4-5: Halfway to Dune ...Raised by Wolves 1.6-7: The Look on Mother's Face ... Raised by Wolves 1.8-1.9: Frankenstein and Motherhood ... Raised by Wolves Season One Finale: The Serpent
Paul Levinson's books ... Paul Levinson's music
February 3, 2022
Podcast Review of Beforeigners seasons 1 and 2
Welcome to Light On Light Through, Episode 241, in which I review Beforeigners seasons 1 and 2 on HBO Max.
Written blog post review of Beforeigners.
More about The Silk Code.
Paul Levinson's books ... Paul Levinson's music
Beforeigners seasons 1 and 2: "Time, Time, Time -- See What's Become of Me"
I just binged the first two seasons -- twelve episodes -- of Beforeigners on HBO Max over the past few nights. On Jackie Reich's suggestion. She was Chair of my Department of Communication and Media Studies at Fordham University, and is now Dean of the School of Communication and the Arts at Marist College. She told me on Twitter, "all that time travel!" She has my number. As Ricky Nelson almost said, "I am a [time-] travelin man."
And, in addition to having a clever title -- the series is mostly about people who travel to the present from earlier times, i.e, before -- there's indeed plenty of time travel in this Norwegian series. And it's served up in a refreshing, unique way, with lots of humor along with the lethal breakneck situations.
[Some mild, general, situational spoilers ahead.]
The first season starts much like La Brea -- no explanation of why people from the past (in Beforeigners) -- two pasts, Viking times a thousand years ago, and Victorian times some hundred and thirty-five years back -- start popping up, thrashing around, in today's waters off Oslo. In La Brea, people from the present travel back to the past, and I'd also say that that very popular network series in the U. S., which I liked a lot, doesn't hold a candle to Beforeigners. Which means I really liked the first season of Beforeigners a lot. And I liked the second season even more.
Both seasons are not only refreshing, but fresh, in both the common and romantic/erotic senses of the word. Alfhildr Enginnsdóttir (the last name translates as "no one's daughter") comes from the Viking past, and has almost no inhibitions in what she says, does, and is willing to do in the present. She is partnered with Lars Haaland, a detective with the Oslo police. So what we have in Beforeigners is a science fiction/police procedural hybrid, also one of my favorite genres, as a reader/viewer and an author (for example, The Silk Code).
In the second season, things get even more complex and interesting. It turns out that travel from the present to the past is also possible, with disastrous consequences in some cases, including the appearance of one of the all-time horrendous serial killers in our reality, and the possibility of alternate realities springing forth before our very eyes ...
But I'll say no more, other than excellent acting by Krista Kosonen and Nicolai Cleve Broch in the lead roles, great theme song "Ain't No Love In the Heart of the City" (sung by the late Bobby "Blue" Bland, written by Dan Walsh and Michael Price), kudos to creators Anne Bjørnstad and Eilif Skodvin, and if you have any time at all and are even the slightest bit like me regarding time travel, see Beforeigners as soon as you can.
Paul Levinson's books ... Paul Levinson's music
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