Best friend and girlfriend of Poussey finally find an appropriate tribute to their lost loved one and I cried all the way home.
It's rare in a multi-protagonist show that one person stands out. Early on, before OITNB became a thing, most of the first season was about Chapman. The writers saw that this clearly didn't work so they gave everyone a storyline, an arch, and a flashback …standard multi-protagonist rules, just watch Lost.
I was talking to a friend earlier about Mad Men, getting a little sidetracked, but that did also start out about one person; Don Draper, and then evolved with a plethora of new characters and the OG's having some serious stories, laments, and flaws. That's what makes them relatable.
Spoilers coming but you should have watched it by now; that show basically invented the binge watch culture.
Daya at the climax of Season 4. Sensing a pattern here.
A little bit on what is happening in the new season. Daya shoots the sadist CO Humps in the leg, and a riot breaks out in the prison. The riot actually lasts through out the entirety of the season and that MCC bitch Linda somehow gets mistaken for a prisoner so she's along for the ride. If you remember correctly, The girls at Litchfield are pretty eccentric to put it mildly so the riot has some wonderful and sometimes cathartic twists and turns. It's really a great season, and there's one woman that carries it through to the very end.
Taystee leads an action to throw away the 'bribes' that the governor provides in order to stop the riot because according to her, it wouldn't be justice.
If you haven't guessed, I'm talking about Tasha 'Taystee' Jefferson. Poussey's best friend. Danielle Brooks who plays her is barely old enough to rent a car, but her training at Julliard did her well, to say the least. Usually we focus on actors 'on the brink' if they bag a role like Jennifer Lawrence in Silver Linings Playbook at the ripe young age of like 23. When OITNB started, Brooks was actually the exact same age, and has maintained a consistency to the character and a commitment to the arch of Taystee. This season was definitely hers. I don't know of the season's past if I could assign them as belonging to someone. No, she doesn't get the most airtime, or the smartest quips, but my god, the depth of this girl was incredible.
And of course they set in on fire because they want 'to be motherfucking taken serious!' You go Taystee.
I kept having to remind myself of the youth of this actress and subsequent inexperience because you would never be able to tell, and though just like every season, a different character gets a flashback, and in the end, it's all about Piper (who is the worst), Brooks upstaged everyone in her passionate fight as Taystee struggles to deal with her grief and get justice for Poussey.
At the climax of the last episode, it was like watching a Shakespearean tragedy, just watching the performance that Brooks gave. I don't often say this, but it seemed to come from the bottom of the gut, and I cried rivers. It was a catharsis that no one was expecting, and Brooks definitely spread her acting wings.
What Brooks is able to accomplish as an actor in this scene is beyond me. She keeps you guessing the entire time, and the emotion is so palpable that it's impossible to separate yourself from it.
But what's truly important is that she is instrumental and a catalyst in every episode. As an actress, she has so much stamina, and so much of herself to give to the role I have no idea how she didn't fall down from exhaustion by the end. I've really never seem anyone so committed and playing the same character for 5 years, but her nuanced performance gives her so much staying power. It boggles the mind as to why we don't acknowledge her more. For such a tender age, you would never expect her to carry a show of over 30 main characters in its most chaotic season, but she managed, and she should be commended for it. There are a lot of brilliant actors that make up the Litchfield prisoners, and usually it is Uzo Aduba (Suzanne 'Crazy Eyes' Warren) who walks away with the Emmy's, which she definitely deserves, but I was taken aback at how well Brooks managed some really tough and complex material. Put it this way, if there was a riot at a prison I'd want to shadow Taystee, and if we were doing acting exercises at Julliard, I'd want to do them with Brooks. She is somewhat of an unsung talent that deserves way more recognition than she gets.
Prolly seen the trailer, but here it is anyway, it premiered in early June on Netflix so your binge should just about be over by now. Happy watching!
Now 30, Amanda looks like she's aged about 20 years in 6.
Like many of you I decided to Netflix and Chill with a rather unnerving documentary that was just released yesterday simply titled Amanda Knox. We all, or most of us, remember this scandal. To us American folk, we saw it quite differently from how Italians saw it. We know bits and pieces here and there, and almost kind of know what happened, but this documentary is not so much about the crime, but about the titular character and what she had to endure.
'Foxy Knoxy' as her friends called her decided to study abroad her second year of college in Perugia, Italy, a small provincial yet beautiful town in Umbria. She very quickly caught the attention of an awkward but pretty engineering student; Rafaelle Sollecito. They had a whirlwind romance of 5 days which culminated with them sleeping together at his place. The next morning this 20 year old woke up to just about the worst news anyone could; her British roommate Meredith Kercher had been brutally murdered in the dorm they shared together, with her body still there, and blood everywhere.
Where people got suspicious of Amanda was that she didn't call the police immediately and in fact showered, changed, and hung out a bit before she realized there was a body in the other room.
We all remember when the media descended on the dorm and outside of it there was Amanda and Rafaelle making out. Most saw this as bizarre behavior, like she couldn't give two shits, which she explains in the documentary was actually a comfort from someone she cared about in a time of crisis.
We all have different ways of dealing with shock, and this was hers.
The infamous kiss outside the crime scene that the media saw is extremely weird ....understandably so, but c'mon.
The government of Perugia didn't see it that way, and charged both Knox and Sollecito with first degree murder, with the former barely able to speak Italian, held without a lawyer for days of questioning without the use of a bathroom or food. She finally broke in what we here in the states would call a 'coerced confession', and after a very short trial both were found guilty and sentenced to 26 years and 25 years respectfully.
Where it gets really sick is that the judge, who is featured heavily in the documentary; a self-proclaimed devout Catholic (not that there's anything wrong with that) and a Sherlock Holmes aficionado, had dreamt up a scenario where Amanda was in the middle of some kind of Satanic orgy when Meredith walked in on her and paid the ultimate price. We now know that what actually happened was a violent burglary; poor Meredith was home alone when two men broke into the dorm, sexually assaulted her and killed her. But the judge still ...still believes his ridiculous Satanic ritual theory as if he has Rosemary's Baby on a loop in his head. This leads me to a very vicious double standard forced on Amanda Knox which made her spend 4 years of her life without a lawyer, and without support, in an Italian jail, to which she refers as 'the dark place'.
When defending herself she said something extremely important and resonant; 'I was sexually active, I was not sexually deviant'. It's sad to think that those two are mutually exclusive when it comes to women...perhaps not all women, but certainly for Knox.
Foxy Knoxy as a happy 19 year old with a sparkle in her eye, in her hometown of Seattle.
At her appeal, it was found that the judge was kind of a ridiculous sycophant, misogynist, and an overall crazy person. Also, there was heavy tampering with the crime scene, and both Sollecito and Knox's convictions were overturned. Thus ending the saga of a whole patriarchal state of mind against an innocent girl. She returned to Seattle in tears and disappeared from the spotlight, until she reappeared for this documentary. But it wasn't over. Apparently that same judge wanted her blood so badly that he petitioned for her to be extradited back to Italy for a second trial, to which the American government gave the finger. She was at last exonerated completely after two more years. On the whole, this scandal lasted for 9 years of Amanda's life. Yes her behavior was strange, yes she was promiscuous, does that make her a cold blooded killer? According to the government of Perugia, yes it did.
When she begins the documentary, she says that; 'if I am guilty, it means that I am the ultimate figure to fear, but if I'm innocent that means that everyone is vulnerable. Either I'm a psychopath in sheep's clothing, or I am ...you.' Those words basically sum it all up; Because she was young, beautiful, and rather odd, she paid a price of 4 years behind bars. 'Femme fatale', 'heartless manipulator', 'concertante of sex' ...even if these were true they don't spell murderer to me.
Seconds after hearing that the Supreme Court of Perugia had overturned her conviction.
Because I'm a woman, I think what happened to her was one of the greatest injustices and miscarriages of the criminal justice system. There is still a double standard where we as women are not just labeled whores for our sexual behaviors, (which are by the way are nobody's business) but can be put to prison for them. I believed in her innocence from the beginning and you're free to disagree with me. But, I believe a large part of her struggle was just because she was beautiful, sexually active, talked a lot about sex, and not much else. Would we for a second combine those traits with the premonition or heartless killer if it were a man? I doubt it.
Anyway, I'm going to get off my soap box, and just recommend you watch it. As a documentary it's very engrossing and competently made. Even if you think you know the story, you don't know all of it.
Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father (dir. Kurt Kuenne)
Edited, composed, written, directed and everything else by Kurt Kuenne this doc examines the life of his best friend, doctor Andrew Bagby who was maliciously murdered by a spurned ex-girlfriend and a film he made for the child she became pregnant with shortly before she killed his father, so that he would one day be able to watch it and know the father that he would never meet, but you would never believe what ends up happening. It's a punch in the gut, and it lingers. That's why it's brilliant.
Brother's Keeper (dir. Joe Berlinger)
Somewhere in the middle of nowhere, literally ...three illiterate farmer brothers live quietly on their father's land, until their father dies under mysterious circumstances. One of the brother's is accused of the murder and considering he's barely able to communicate, is pinned against a criminal justice system that wants his blood, and he's barely prepared to help himself. It's also shot very much in the style of Grey Gardens and really puts you in a completely bleak and uncomfortable place.
Tabloid (dir. Errol Morris)
This will not be the first time that Academy Award winning filmmaker Errol Morris will show up on the list, and this is the kind of film that John Waters would make if he made documentaries. It's so campy and lurid that it's wildly delicious. White trash beauty queen Joyce McKinney falls in love with a poor dope who happens to be mormon, her story goes that they kidnapped him and brainwashed him, so she kidnapped him back (I guess) took him to London and had sex with him while he was in 'captivity' to get rid of all the mormon nonsense in his head. This movie really speaks to the whole 'truth is stranger than fiction' thing.
Hot Girls Wanted (dir. Jill Bauer)
A Netflix original, this film is deeply disturbing and very matter-of-fact about a hugely controversial matter. It takes us into the seedy world of amateur porn, the irony of which is that it's actually not amateur. Girls are hired by a Craigslist pimp of sorts, specifically because they look very young innocent inexperienced and virginal; not Jenna Jameson clones. Apparently amateur porn is the hottest thing on the internet and sells more than regular porn. The industry thrives in Florida, where the laws are more laxed than California and you don't have to use protection (I know). It takes you inside a dorm of sorts where girls from small towns want to make it as porn stars. How's that for an American dream for ya?
The Thin Blue Line (dir. Errol Morris)
This might be one of the greatest movies every made. It actually resulted in the exoneration of a wrongfully convicted man for Murder 1, and in the state of Texas we know what that means. Randall Adams and a kid named David Harris were implicated in the shooting of a police officer after they were pulled over for a minor traffic violation. My man Morris loves reenactments, and utilizes sound like no one before him. What he recreates is dream-like and entrancing; recreating a scenario from many different points of view, points in time, and perspectives. It's an incredible story told by an incredible storyteller.
Into the Abyss (dir. Werner Herzog)
Veteran buzzkill director Werner Herzog has been making documentaries about death, nothingness, emptiness, depression, all that fun stuff for 4 decades now. He's a total picker-upper, but I have to hand it to him, every single film narrative or documentary has been absolutely unforgettable. This is one of his latest efforts, concerning two inmates on Death Row in....Texas (sensing a pattern here?) Both were convicted when they were barely legal adults, and both are very close to the end. It's like the updated movie version of the Truman Capote classic 'In Cold Blood'.
The Queen of Versailles (dir. Lauren Greenfield)
This is a genius film, and if you've not seen it yet, well you're a loser and I hate you. Jackie Siegel is the small town blonde wannabe model who married a man her father's age; the wealthy financier and Vegas builder David Siegel. (picture a Jewish Donald Trump) So now they live in luxury in the Everglades, and Jackie's nouveau riche poor taste is too hilarious for even Woody Allen to parody. I mean she has a literal gold throne. She decides to buy a property that (I shit you not, is twice as big as The White House) and model it architecturally and aesthetically after the Palace of Versailles, but then the recession hits, the Siegels loos everything, and keeping up appearances becomes an increasing but hilarious struggle.
Tab Hunter Confidential (dir. Jeffrey Schwartz)
I worked at the PR firm who ran the publicity campaign for this film so I'm a bit biased, but I'm also biased because I love the stories of closeted actors from the 50's who had to hide their true selves and live in lavender marriages as matinee idols as not to lose their career a la Montgomery Clift and Rock Hudson. Tab Hunter was the Chris Hemsworth of that period. He was like a Hitler wet dream; blonde, athletic, tall, blue eyes, large package, and a face that looks like it was carved out of marble by Michelangelo. This autobiographical film let's Tab Hunter himself do the talking about the golden age of Hollywood and it's big world of secrets; him being the ultimate embodiment of that.
Last shot of the season. Perhaps the most gut-wrenching ending ever. If you're like me, you choose to believe that Poussey's New York adventure was a beautiful limbo that she'll live forever.
Unless you've been in a cave or are pathetic human being (yeah I said it) you've binged the 4th season by now of the Netflix juggernaut Orange is the New Black. I've been waiting to write about it for a while because unlike most, I care about not spoiling shit for people. As the show usually ends on a cliffhanger, I thought people would be more careful about that, especially because this season was perhaps the most gut-wrenching and as Kate Mulgrew (Galina Reznikov) said on Good Morning America 'excruciating' season to film. And that's coming from a cast member who knew...imagine how it was for us.
Class structure and institutionalized racism take front and center seats this season, where Litchfield becomes a microcosm of the hypocrisy we live in
I'd like to talk about something I at first considered to be Easter eggs of socio-politics, but lets face it; they were front and center this season. Let's backtrack to a few of them. Some of my favorite ones that were so hilarious and painful at the same time were amazing as commentary about the world that has completely gone to shit, from the mind of Jenji Kohan. When we finally find out why Suzanne 'Crazy Eyes' Warren is serving time at Litchfield, we start with her working merrily at a Costco-type warehouse. There's a receipt she checks and it goes something like this 'mayonnaise, orange juice, ASSAULT WEAPON' ok have a nice day!'
Chapman has to suffer some serious consequences for inadvertently creating a prison gang full of white supremacists. Absolute power corrupts absolutely, and in prison, they will brand a swastika on you without hesitation.
Sensitive topic? Most definitely, but poking a stick at how ridiculous it is that people can purchase assault rifles in this country is brilliant commentary, especially considering what just happened in Orlando. It's about time SOMEONE addressed it, because it's clearly being overlooked (save for the congress filibuster). Something else that sticks in your craw like an uncomfortable zit that's in the weird part of your back was when a CO mentions that she knows about 'extraction techniques'...yeah, she's a torturer, a lot of them are. The Abu Graib parallel was so apparent this season; like when a CO asks Blanca to stand on a table which she does for days. I think someone even says that its 'a bit Abu Graib' but let's face it; the new CO's are former vets with shiny faces that used to be torturers...thanks Bush Regime.
We see institutionalized racism so much during this season. The fact that a huge conglomerate of new inmates that are stuffed into Litchfield are all from the DR basically gives credence to the fact that the system has been doing that for years. For every white person locked up, there's 10 people of color. Think about that, don't want to? Ok.
CO Coates tries to explain to his rape victim that he didn't see it that way. Guess what, doesn't matter. And you have to wear that rape badge the rest of your life. And rightfully so.
Well anyway, if you're a girl especially, you followed the whole Stanford rape fiasco, where a dipshit judge gave a Stanford swim star 6 months for a violent rape where there were witnesses? 3 months with good behavior? How shitty is that sweaty turd to swallow? Rape is rape, and that's something that couldn't be clearer. Remember last season when Pennsatucky (Taryn Manning) was brutally raped by CO Coates? We didn't see it coming, in fact I'm sure some of us hopeless romantics thought that they might actually get together a la Daya and CO Bennett, and then he rapes her. Horrifying. In this season, it's made apparent that CO Coates like for real didn't understand that what he did was rape. Rape is rape bro. He's not an idiot, probably a bit on the dumb side, but I'm sorry, he's a rapist. Just as Big Boo (Lea DeLaria) said; there's no forgiving that. Pennsatucky eventually does forgives him, but to her, and to basically everyone with a pulse, he'll always be a rapist, dumb or not.
A peaceful protest is met with abhorrent violence. It doesn't just happen in the world of fiction people.
On to the next and most excruciating thing ever, of all time...not just on OINTB. When Poussey Washington (Samira Wiley), an audience favorite gets killed. What starts out as a peaceful stick-it-to-the-man protest where the entire prison population stand up on their tables in the cafeteria, Dead Poets Society style, demanding that the captain (Piscatella) resign. CO Piscatella is a misogynist, sadist, and all around monster. Instead of doing the rational thing which would be oh I don't know, anything except for what he ends up doing, he brings the close of the season to the most egregious end imaginable. He calls in the rest of the staff to forcefully take down the inmates. CO Bailey, a boyish dimwit that looks like he wouldn't hurt a fly, ends up being responsible for the worst thing to happen on that show to date. Mirroring the Black Lives Matter movement, he accidentally murders Poussey by jamming his knee into her back, effectively cutting off air to her lungs. That was a scene that stays with you like whatever scene from whatever film still makes you cry just by thinking about it. It was cataclysmic, especially because most of the cast didn't even know what was going to happen until they shot it.
Poussey's death scene. I still can't get it out of my head and probably won't for a while. It's not just that she was a 'fan favorite'; this was an indictment of every single time a person of color was murdered in cold blood and the perpetrator got away with it in the end.
Taystee (Danielle Brooks), Poussey's BFF, who works as the secretary to prison warden Caputo, overhears his statement to the public where he decides not to reprimand CO Bailey. Outraged, she launches a full on protest at Litchfield. 'They didn't even say her name!' she screams, rallying the rest of the inmates to follow her. The greatest injustice just happened, and all the higher-ups can think about is how to play it to the media. If that's not a full-on retrospect on the truth, I don't know what is. Her greatest line, which I believe sums up the gravity of the situation, is when Caputo says he's sorry for her loss, to which she retorts; 'I'm tired of people calling it my loss like it was my 100-year-old granny that croaked instead of cold-blooded murder'. There you go folks. There ain't no justice in the world, and especially now that the world is basically on fire. And as long as people in positions of power are only concerned with is how to spin it to make themselves look good in the face of a horrific injustice, innocent people will continue to die, and the disenfranchised will continue to suffer. Was that too dark? Well, it's supposed to be. Here's to Jenji and her chrome-plated balls for addressing all of it so blatantly and with such pathos that it broke all of our hearts. This is what makes Orange is the New Black more than just a fun binge-watching session on Netflix. The towering statements it makes are brilliant, and they are not crammed down the audience's throat because someone on that team studied literally devices. I have respect for a lot of what the show brings to the front, but what I respect the most is how unapologetic and brutally honest it is. Time and time again, that's the art that stands head and shoulders above the rest, that touches the heart, and doesn't care if it hurts, because it's supposed to.
Great news uber nerds! One of your favorite Doctor's from Dr. Who (if he's not your favorite, you can go fuck yourself) has a big career on the biggest online streaming binge watching wreck your life platform. The quirky Scot that stands at about 6'5 (which is technically a giant I think) and always has something really snarky and Scottish to say is literally on every show you can and should binge watch right now.
I love the English murder mystery genre. The Killing was aiiight, but it got way too bleak, even for a show called The Killing. I needed something to fill my show hole void, and dating...please. Get me another show. So Netflix, in all of their algorithmic wisdom was like well you clearly like to watch shows about multiple homicides and troubled characters. And I was like, yeah you pretty much nailed it, Netflix. Whatcha got? And they gave me Broadchurch. If you haven't checked it out, I'm praying for you. Not only is it a show that rejuvinated Tennant's career as someone besides the Doctor, it is a crossover hit, and I'm not talking genres. It's popular in the UK where it's set, and here stateside. Check it out, seriously. More importantly, his co-star is this brilliant Olivia Colman. The two play DCI's (That's detective chief inspector to you American folk) in the small seaside town of Broadchurch where a bizarre murder (or accident) occurs that shakes up the whole town. Now, this is a trope that gets played out on mmmm every episode of Dateline, but trust me, with Brits at the helm, it's pretty brilliant. Btdubs, Olivia Colman might be the greatest woman ever, check her out as, again, a DCI on the Tom Hiddleston mini-series The Night Manager.
Tennant as DCI Alec Hardy with Olivia Colman as DCI Ellie Miller.
After that show was over for me, and I was about to enter another show-hole; deep depression, day-drinking, you get the picture. Netflix throws something else my way. This one is not that great, but I've never seen David Tennant in such a light. It stars one of my favorite actresses; the understated Emily Watson as the wife to Tennant's some kind of higher up British politician (I don't know how British parliament works). The show is called you guessed it...The Politician's Husband. Tennant is blonde, he's aggressive, and not in the cool-I've never tried this before-kind of way; in the straight up I'm going to ruin your life and make you cry for days...way. But it's really the blonde that upsets me the most. Anyway, that's only 3 episodes. So it's like a hold-over.
Don't know what Tennant's penchant for purple is, but I dig it...just no more BLONDE!
But there's Netflix again, kind of like my show-hole sponsor, was back with a 'not to worry' there's another one. And at this point I'm thinking; who's playing a shitty joke on me? I started (for god knows what reason) watching Marvel's Jessica Jones, and I'm in a full on binge. Now, I don't read comics, I have no shame admitting that. My dorkiness only goes so far. Krysten Ritter starts as the eponymous character who's a brunette badass with a heart of gold and the strength of ten men. I know, I wish she was my best friend too. She has a dark past though, if you've read the comics, first of all, dork! Second of all this is going to be very redundant but her past includes a very mysterious man in purple (gah!) who has the power to control people's thoughts, and for one time did her's.
Marketing still for Marvel's Jessica Jones ...yes it's sexy. I think so too.
She escaped miraculously from his mental kunfu grip and is now on a mission to help those also afflicted. It's not my cup of tea, but let's face facts. I will watch a Tennant show when it comes up. His name is Kilgrave, and if he told me to jump into traffic, I might just do it.
I know it's only a matter of time before another Tennant show makes the rounds and I can't wait. Or at least put Olivia Colman in more stuff, because she's earned her stripes. Thank you Netflix!
Also check on my previous post that includes a game of who'd you rather with Tennant included here.
I know I’m way late coming into
this, but I really only binge watch shows these days because my weekends are loads of fun spent spooning my dog and streaming Netflix. I don’t watch
shows one by one on TV like some chump. And since Netflix started streaming American Horror Story, I finally had
something beside Lost re-runs or
desperately trying to pay attention to the turd waffle that is TURN. I love to be scared ergo I avoided
shows like that because I’m thinking; ‘how terrifying could it be, it’s on television?’
turns out VERY. I’m a full on addict and on the third season. Yay! My life is
awesome!
I was always intrigued by the
series considering it stars so many reputable actors including a number of
Oscar winners; Kathy Bates, Jessica Lange, Gabourey Sidibe, Joseph Fiennes,
Frances Conroy, I mean how bad could it be if the biggest names in Hollywood
are flocking to it like a moth to a flame?
The premise is awesome. Making a
show like this, you have to ask yourself, how do we keep this consistently terrifying
in a TV format? We’re not Alfred Hitchcock. So here’s what the creators did;
every season takes place in a different place and time and under different
circumstances recycling the main cast into new roles. It’s bizarre but it
totally works. Every season has a subtitle. The first one is ‘Murder House’
which takes place in a heavily haunted house in Los Angeles that an unassuming
family moves into.
Don't mess with the Lange. She's a witch.
The second season is subtitled;
‘Asylum’, the third is ‘Coven’, you get the idea. Asylum takes place in the 60’s, while Coven is set in New Orleans, but what’s consistent (perhaps the
only consistency) are the actors even though every season they play different
characters.
Let’s move on to what we find scary. Me personally? I hate blood and guts, that’s not at all frightening to
me, it’s gross more than anything else. I love suspense. Dark corners,
unexplained noises, moving shadows…you get the idea. American Horror Story
utilizes both. It is not for those with a weak stomach. It’s pretty damn gory.
It’s also surprisingly very blatantly sexual. It doesn’t shy away from any extremities.
There are severed heads, buckets of blood, naked men, a lot of simulated sex…basically
everything that you wouldn’t expect to see on TV.
Another regular on the show is fabulous actress Sarah Paulson. I heard in Freakshow she has two heads. I don't know why or how, I just want to see it damn it. My god, what have I turned into?
Of all the bright spots and
innovation of this series, I’ll have to give the gold medal to Jessica Lange on
this one. She’s absolutely fabulous and this completely resurrected her career.
She’s played a controlling Southern Belle, a lunatic nun, the head of a witches’
coven, and she’s unbelievable. She’s so frightening and enticing at the same
time. Having her front and center every season was a very smart move. Also, at
this point we know that basically every kind of story has already been told, to
the point where we find ‘found footage’ horror movies actually interesting…ugh.
Ergo, the show strives to be as outlandish as possible. It’s hard to believe in
its campiness but it’s delicious. I’m more titillated than terrified and can
watch it with the lights off…as I said my dog is usually there. Dear Netflix,
please start streaming the 4th season; American Horror Story: Freak Show so I can get caught up for the 5th
season. I only have like 2 weeks before it’s premiere and I can’t wait to see
what you’re going to do with Lady Gaga.
Below, trailer for Hotel...
Below, trailer for Coven, the season I'm currently on and my favorite so far.
Let's firstly admit that the hardest thing for a writer to do for scripted TV is something that involves multi-protagonists. Lost nailed it, but those shows are few and far between. Those of us who have watched Orange is the New Black from beginning to end can see that the writer's first avoided this, but soon realized that the gold was in the neck (supporting characters) not the head (Piper Chapman). They also had enough wear with all to utilize the same 'flashback' recipe that worked so well for the Lost cannon. It's simple math. You have a prison, there's clearly more than one person there, and each one of the supporting characters has a reason they ended up in federal corrections, so why not use half of each episode to explore that? And boom, they struck gold. The first season was very flawed, but because it was so innovative, exploratory and unapologetic it was good bait and got all of us hooked. But had they stuck with following around the needy, entitled Chapman (Taylor Schilling) for all three seasons ratings would have plummeted faster than Donald Trump's.
By the second season, they started giving the more prominent supporting players their own episodes and flashbacks. One in particular that sticks out is Lorna Morello's (Yael Stone). I've heard men who couldn't care less about that show say that they loved that episode and talk about it with vigor. Morello starts off the series as a rather hair-brained quasi-racist Italian from Jersey whom we don't necessarily hate but we definitely don't respect. The hyper-feminine inmate can't stop talking about some boyfriend and their subsequent wedding and we soon realize she has delusions of grandeur. She also seems to be somewhat sexually ambivalent in that she seems totally committed to this nameless faceless man, but allows Nicky Nichols (Natasha Lyonne) to go down on her on a daily basis. She keeps collaging what she calls a 'vision board' for what she absolutely believes will happen upon release, but somewhere deep inside of us we know that something is not exactly lining up. In the second season we learn the gravity of all of it. Turns out Morello was actually a 9th-level stalker of that guy she claimed was her fiancee and was convicted of breaking into his house on several occasions.
One of the most heartbreaking stories of the inmates of Litchfield. Lorna's plight is unforgettable even though totally implausible.
The genius of the writers made us actually feel for this woman in her flashback episode because as the truck driver for Litchfield, she decides to take off one day to that man's house and finds that he's in the middle of planning his wedding to someone else. She puts on the woman's veil and takes the world's saddest bath in their house. And we just can't help but feel sorry for her.
By the third season, the writer's had covered most backstories of the Litchfield inmates who have more than 4 minutes of screen time with one serious omission. Someone whom I connected to immediately, and someone who talks about her life so much to her inmates that in fact she might not need an actual backstory episode; Brook Soso. She's introduced in Season 2 as a quirky, naive, teeny, and highly educated blabber-mouth who annoys everyone around her, sticks out like a sore thumb, but has a sweet disposition regardless. By season 3, she's finally pushed to her breaking point, by being constantly picked on, dehumanized, and bullied, culminating in Leanne's (Emma Myles) cutting off her hair while she's sleeping, the likes of which we haven't seen since the soap in sock beating of Gomer Pile in Full Metal Jacket.
Everyone at Litchfield is given some kind of forgiveness and turnaround. Even the homophobic meth head Pennsatucky (Taryn Manning) has a 180 degree change of character, the only one who seems to be actually getting worse is Chapman herself. But Soso seems to have always remained an innocent, never plotting or being vindictive, she's the classic victim, but by the end of the season she turns from victim to survivor and we can't help but applaud that.
Brook finally stands her ground.
The writers definitely give her her comeuppance though. Considering she's one hell of a smart cookie she retorts to her bully by saying 'it's hard for me not to be condescending when you're literally beneath me right now' when the others are forced to wash the floor. And my personal favorite; 'I can't help that I have Pocahontas hair and it's not my fault you chose Meth over teeth'.
SPOILER ALERT. Stop reading here if you still haven't finished the season, I mean it's been two months get on it. In the last episode, the barrage of negativity against her takes its toll and Soso, left without any other options takes about a drum of Benadryl, saved by the grace of Poussey, Crazy Eyes, and mostly Taystee. And in the last episode gets inducted into their clique, considering she's been a lone wolf from her induction day. She might not be the most dynamic inmate at the Litchfield Correctional Facility, nor one with any kind of interesting journey to prison. All we find out about her is that she had a strict mother who pushed her since she was old enough to walk.
As women, we can all find one or more characters from the inmates at Litchfield to relate to. I definitely see aspects of myself in Gloria, Nicky, Flaca, and of course Red, but Soso had my heart from the word go. Her story might not be as interesting and dynamic as everyone else's but her character is one that I recognize very well.
Finding peace in the freedom lake.
In a brief flashback we see her get scolded for playing the piano wrong, and as a child upon whom piano was forced, I totally remember that and can fully relate. Keep in mind I had Russian teachers fresh out of the Soviet Union, so it wasn't pleasant. I personally can also relate to when she straight up asks for help and gets none. With Healy (Michael Harney), the chauvinistic old-timer with ancient morale and a strict disposition telling her that depression is all in her head and she just needs to lighten up and the prison doctor trying to shove SSRI's down her throat, when all she wanted was just a little acceptance, we can understand why Soso felt so trapped. And in that amazing lake scene when she clings arms with Poussey (Samira Wiley) and then physically and metaphorically jumps into her circle, it's such a release. It seems that most things that happen to her, happen unfairly, and perhaps that's why she's not given a backstory. Everyone else is definitely guilty whether they were forced to do what got them incarcerated or not. But Soso is almost like a child. She has an adolescent innocence about her, and even though she can be a know-it-all and seems to never shut the fuck up, we're all glad that Taystee was able to revive her. Let's hope for a full on Soso episode in Season 4.
Perhaps one of the best marketing strategies for this film was to sell it like something out of time, something surreal, keeping in touch with its Neo Noir roots.
Except for a few 10 Best of the Year critic's lists, and some outcry here and there that Jake Gyllenhaal was robbed of an Oscar nomination, this film barely made returns upon release and flew quietly under our radar until it reappeared last month on Netflix instant. It's been in the 'Trending Now' category holding firm ever since, and everyone is kicking themselves for not seeing it earlier.
This was truly a sleeper hit. I can only imagine that dreaded pitch in any executive producer's officer in Hollywood. 'Hey, so yeah, it's a neo-noir...I'll explain later what that is, anyway film about a sociopath who undertakes a career in crime news as a stringer who eventually kills everyone who stands in his way of achieving his dream of exploiting the absolute worst in all of us. It's an indictment...I'll explain that later too of the news industry, and a satire, yes I'll explain later, on our vicious need for sensational news. Who do I see in the lead role you ask? Well I'm really hoping Ryan Gosling will return my phone calls. How long have I been waiting by the phone? About a year'.
Lucky for us, appropriately named Bold Films, finances the project, and the man who eventually returned the phone calls was none other than the extremely versatile Jake Gyllenhaal who's acted in everything from niche cult classics like Donnie Darko, to Oscar caliber films like Brokeback Mountain, to just absolute shit like The Prince of Persia.
The way that particularly Gyllenhaal is photographed gives such a window into the thematics of his character. Against the bleak darkness of an unforgiving world, he illuminates the worst part of what we can't see amongst it. (Ooooh that was poetic)
We know the man has chops, also we know he's experimental and fearless. He might be a pretty boy, but god damn, if his performance in Brokeback didn't make you well up, then check yourself for a pulse. Sorry Ryan Gosling. Once he was on board, it was an easy break. Filmed on location in LA, where permits and state tax laws make it almost impossible to afford shooting there, somehow they pulled it off. The setting was such where it had to be the third main character, and that's exactly what they achieved. The opening montage of LA landmarks in the middle of the night was wordless visual poetry. First time filmmaker Dan Gilroy wrote such a flawless script, I can't understand why he had trouble selling it, wait yes I can. It's seedy, it's dark, and it's an indictment of LA culture in particular, the likes of which we haven't seen since Sunset Blvd.
When it finally landed on Netflix, that's when we all took notice. but it was too late. Open Road had run such a piss poor Oscar campaign, that the film barely garnered a nod for Best Screenplay. And of course, everyone finally understood that outrage we read about that Jake himself lost out an Oscar nom to Bradley Cooper; in the film community Cooper was vilified of not only costing Jake the nomination, but also costing David Olyelowo the nod for Selma, the latter of which perhaps being more of an outrageous happening.
In one of the more grizzly parts of the film Lou Bloom beats the police to an active home invasion and what he does next is completely shocking and yet portrayed with an unapologetic spirit.
People don't like dark films, people in Hollywood that finance most films definitely don't like dark films that point a mirror at their own culture and show them the ugliness of their own black souls. But we forget the main points. When Sunset Blvd. (perhaps one of the best films ever made) was released the only Oscar it won was for writing, but it lost literally everything else. Writers know good shit when they see it, too bad their a niche minority in Hollywood.
We want to believe we're noble, and heroic human beings who overcome unsurmountable odds to achieve mental and emotional clarity; hence the Bradley Cooper nomination. Did you really think that Gyllenhaal's Lou Bloom; a straight up vicious sociopath who commits atrocities in order to further himself in a business that glorifies violence, as an antihero could stand up to that? Not with the Academy being 80% old white dudes. And Eastwood, his director being one of their own.
Not since Ace in the Hole has there been such a taught satire of using the news to better one's own career with the subjects of the news being those that pay the ultimate price have we seen such a bleak look into the duality of man, and not since Network has there been such a quippy satire of the news industry; where if you can't find the news, you create it, and the bloodier the better. As Rene Russo ever so eloquently puts it 'picture our news cast as a screaming woman running down the street with her throat cut'.
'I always say if you're seeing me, you're having the worst day of your life.'
All of those thematic elements that give every film studies student a boner aside, the writing is absolutely perfect. Everything is right there on the page, and writer/director Dan Gilroy really fused his directing ability with putting it into the script first so that the actors who read it would know exactly how to play their characters. One rule of making a film about an anti-hero or an antagonist front and center is that no matter how vile they are, the audience has to find something within them that they can relate to. You cannot have a full on villain that is completely unrelatable carry your film, because the audience will hate you, and they'll hate the film.
Take Network par example. Faye Dunaway's character of Diana Christensen; the ruthless head of the TV station that goads everyone around her into the realization that the news is what they tell people it is, and if it's not there, they'll create it, is a total monster. Faye even asked her director Sidney Lumet what her character's vulnerability was, and he told her 'she doesn't have any'. This was coupled with two other characters who did (played by William Holden and Peter Fitch) the latter of which finally realizes that his life has been bullshit and gives that iconic speech of 'I'm Mad as Hell!' to a shocked audience.
the "I want something people can't turn away from" in parentheses (no matter how violent) notion was first galvanized by Faye Dunaway the ruthless station head in Network (seriously watch it, can't believe you haven't yet)
Does Lou Bloom have vulnerability? Probably not, few sociopaths do, but we are attracted to him nonetheless, because we all know what it's like to be hungry, ambitious, and at times ruthless, we've all done something we're not proud of to get what we want, because we want it so much, not to Lou's extent, but we've been there...especially if you live in LA. He's a great antagonist because it's not his vulnerability we relate to, or any weakness he might have, but his motivation. Out of loneliness, anger, and frustration, Lou Bloom dehumanizes himself so that he can utilize a robot-like systematic means of climbing to the top without any second thoughts to his actions.
On top of which, the story albeit heavily saturated with elevated themes doesn't push any of that into your face. It's Neo-Noir at its best. It's shot against a bleak backdrop of the bad neighborhoods of LA to accentuate the bad parts within the characters; a rusty environment leads to questionable choices. Noir is not supposed to be easy to watch. By definition, it's dark, it is not uplifting, and more importantly, it's the 'bad guy' that usually comes out on top. And if there is no such resolution, then there is none to speak of at all. A hallmark of Noir is ending it ubiquitously without giving the audience the answers it hungers for; so is the world going to be ok? Probably not, Noir dictates. Because there will always be people like Lou Bloom in the world.
Me personally? I love films like that, that's what I was raised on. The great noirs of the 40's like Detour, Kiss Me Deadly, and Double Indemnity coupled with the death and lunacy laden films of Ingmar Bergman made me the finely well-adjusted adult I am today. This isn't Robert Zemeckis or Frank Darabondt, and Tim Robbins will not finally get to stand in the rain after being incarcerated for 40 years at the end of it (I'm talking about Shawshank Redemption for all you novices). This is the real world, where people aren't born malevolent, but their environment forces them into a desperation that brings out the worst in all of us. We don't want to admit it, but we'd go there too if we were hungry enough.
Beautifully written, beautifully acted, beautifully marrying neo-noir gritty realism with (excuse the cliche) heart-pounding echo of a good-old-fashioned action thriller, Nightcrawler is definitely one of the greatest films of that year, if not in fact my subjectively favorite one. Birdman: Or the Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance (which won Best Picture last year) might have a lot of sappy sentiment that it masks in unique and brave directing techniques and indelible performances, but a man who overcomes tremendous odds to succeed in the liberation of his soul is much more appealing to viewers than a man who without a second thought brings mayhem and sadistic cruelty to the world around him and effectively makes his environment more ruthless simply by being in it. Brings new cadence to the phrase; 'If you can't beet 'em, join em'.
Below clips of aforementioned films and trailer for Nightcrawler. Also the shooting script is available online. All it takes is a good Google search. Or ask me, fuck it.
