BIT BY BIT

 

The Studio is on Apple TV, and it is a delight. There are those who might say it is a bit too “inside baseball,” too “into the weeds” … maybe … for civilians. For me it was a trip down memory lane…. but funny, instead of maddening, and life-shortening, which would be closer to the real thing.

Co-creators Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg, Peter Huyck, Alex Gregory, and Frida Perez nailed it. Funny material, nice acting (Seth Rogen also stars in the series as well as directs, and there are some nice cameo appearances by the likes of Ron Howard and Martin Scorsese, who play themselves). The show is beautifully shot, a terrific collaboration between director and cinematographer in the idiom of La La Land. You may stop asking me what life in Hollywood was like. You can pretty much get it all from watching this series.

Your Friends and Neighbors is a much darker comedy/crime/social commentary piece starring Jon Hamm of Mad Men fame. It, too, has just cranked up on Apple TV and even though I have only seen the first couple of episodes, I can safely say it is nicely mounted, with decent casting, and a compelling enough story. I seriously doubt it will ever make my top ten list… even in a year of drought… but I will go so far as to suggest you give it a try.

All the above was sort of a stall… a march in place… while awaiting the arrival of Étoile, the new series from Amy Sherman-Palladino and Daniel Palladino, and the apparent successor to their creations, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and The Gilmore Girls… both tough acts to follow. Because the new series evokes the art of ballet, the Palladino series Bunheads also merits a shout out. The least successful of the Palladino oeuvres, Bunheads is much better than the fate its one-year run implies. The eighteen episodes of that series are currently streaming on Hulu.

All eight episodes for this opening season of Étoile have been released in one batch, but as of this writing I have seen only the opening chapter. The other seven are there, and I will get to them… one might say… “savor” …  each of them, one-by-one.

When I watched Younger (20 something minutes per episode) I devoured four to six at a time. Homeland, which took close to an hour per installment, was also tough to put down. I never watched only one episode; I would view at least three back-to-back. The Gilmore Girls? From three to five at a time despite the over 40 minute per segment running time.

Étoile is something different. It is visually dense. I watched that first episode, and great as it may well be, I did not immediately have to see episode two. I will, of course, but it was as if I needed a “rest” from all that energy, all that visual stimulation, all that… genius.

The Palladinos are simply awesome. I sat before my television screen as a decent painter might when viewing a Picasso, like a well thought of sculptor in the presence of a Michelangelo.

I did not love all of it. I have “notes.”

There are choices made in Étoile I like to think I would have made differently. There are very decent artists who might say that about any number of their betters while still conceding the brilliance of the work of art their self-sustaining critical eye has observed.

One might well ask the question, if The Studio may be too “inside baseball,” then what about this? Over the years folks seem to have demonstrated an interest in Hollywood and the movies… but how many folks really care about ballet? I guess we will find out.

If you stream it, there are eight chapters. Will it get even better episode by episode, or did team Palladino shoot their bolt on that first episode? I may not know much about ballet, but I do know something about the work this couple produces. I would not bet against them.

The Palladinos are, simply put, a cut above. Uncompromisingly brilliant; Étoile, episode one, is a solid example of that.

What is it about? It is about an hour…

of exhilaration, visual excitement, beauty, and the dance. And what a dance it is.

Give it a whirl… on Amazon Prime.

 

Barney Rosenzweig

KARLSON & LUSCHER WOULD UNDERSTAND

 

My last article referencing the Amazon flick Holland, and how ill-suited I thought Nicole Kidman’s male leads were, reminded me of a Cole Porter song. It was sung by the character Ninotchka, the 1957 communist commissar, played by Cyd Charisse in the MGM movie, Silk Stockings. The lyric, in a tune all about the physical attraction between a man and a woman, boiled down to Ninotchka’s no-nonsense way of thinking:

“It’s a chemical reaction… that’s all.”

Chemistry between two would-be sexual partners… on and off screen. Chemistry between fictional colleagues such as Cagney and Lacey, the actors who played those parts (Sharon Gless and Tyne Daly) chemistry, between an actor and a role, between a performer and the audience. Such series as Homeland, with the incredible Claire Danes, and Sutton Foster’s tour de force in Younger (both on HULU and recently reviewed here) are great examples of on-screen chemistry.

On-screen chemistry is all but undefinable. Not at all something one can readily predict. I decided to look beyond the sure-fire charisma of Sutton and Danes, Gless and Daly, and… having been vaguely aware of earlier work by Darren Star, the Younger showrunner (Sex and the City, Melrose Place, Beverly Hills 90210) I turned to Google to see what Mr. Star had done since Younger ended after a seven-year run. Emily in Paris was the answer.

Even though Emily is in Paris, with a bit of Chicago thrown in, and Younger was mostly Brooklyn and Manhattan, the two shows share a similar visual style, especially in the establishing of locale and the setting of the tempo for the episodes. They also have, along with Mr. Star’s Sex and the City, the in-common theme of young women… on the make… in a tough work environment. What the shows do not share is the same leading lady. And there’s the rub.

Lily Collins plays the Emily in The City of Light and does not, in my view, have that certain chemical something. Not with the audience, not with the character she plays, nor with any of her fellow actors. Her filmography indicates that she works plenty and many of her roles have been as the lead. I cannot testify to remembering her in any of the listed films/TV shows in her oeuvre; as for Emily in Paris, I can flatly affirm that Sutton Foster she ain’t.

Carrying the weight of a show is not something Ms. Collins is really up to… at least not yet. Darren Star might have seen that in auditions and decided to “settle.” Maybe he doesn’t agree. Since all of this is hard to define, we are left to guess.

I know, I know, I am late to the game on Emily in Paris, but for those of you who have thought about the show but have yet to push the Netflix button for streaming and want my viewpoint …. FUGGETTABOUTIT.

It was my fascination with Sutton Foster… who oozes star quality (a euphemism for chemistry) that led me to the series Bunheads on Disney. It was a bonus to discover that this was a Palladino collaboration that preceded, by five years, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. Talk about chemistry.

Amy Sherman-Palladino and her husband Daniel Palladino, writers, directors, producers: I have never met either of them as they came along in the generation of TV creators more than a dozen years behind me, but there is no question as to their credentials in the TV industry or in the category of great chemistry.

There are few television shows… ever… that can compare with The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. The style, wit and acting ensemble of that series put it at the head of any class. It is on Amazon Prime and is a “must see.”

Bunheads, which I reviewed in an earlier column and is now on Hulu, got me to another show, the one that first brought fame and fortune to the family Palladino. That show is The Gilmore Girls, a flat-out terrific series of the not-so-recent past. It is now on Hulu and Netflix.

Don’t say it; I know I am not Columbus discovering America here. The Gilmore Girls was a bona fide hit from 2000 through 2007, during which time I was just sort of settling into my Island paradise, far away from Hollywood, generally not paying a whole bunch of attention to shows or show business.

I had yet to have my humongous TV screen installed, nor had I come to the place where I could concede someone else’s abilities to match my own in the arena of feminist iconry. Afterall, my creds were Cagney & Lacey, The Trials of Rosie O’Neill, and Christy (now all streaming on Amazon Prime).

The reality may well be, had I not gotten there ten to fifteen years before the Palladinos, I might have had to admit to being topped as the darling of the women’s movement by virtue of their presentations of The Gilmore Girls, Bunheads, and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.

Grab that moment of self-effacement while you can. It is rare and will not last long.

As in everything I have seen of the Palladino’s there is outstanding writing and great synergy between the camera work and the staging of the actors. The shows have wit as well as wisdom; the pace of the dialogue and the style and quality of the performances are admirable. All this, and yet, I was feeling that somewhere at the heart of this excellence there was a flaw.

It was at this point in the writing of this article where I considered returning to my chemistry “theme” at the risk of getting into great trouble with the zealots of Stars Hollow, who are reportedly legion and every bit as loyal to the Palladino show about a Mom and her teenage daughter, as were the fans of Cagney & Lacey.

My critical focus was on Lauren Graham who plays the daughter of Kelly Bishop (Bunheads) and the mother of Alexis Bledel (The Handmaid’s Tale). Ms. Graham is a terrific comedic actor who can deliver a line that even the Palladinos should appreciate. She is not bad looking and has a killer body, yet something was nagging at me. It was, for me, something chemical that was lacking. Was I being fair, or was it simply the absence of my newfound crush, Sutton Foster, that I was missing?

My judgment came into question. Could I have been influenced by the note I got from Tyne Daly, champion of a plethora of lost causes, who was offended by my earlier remarks about Nicole Kidman’s leading man in Holland? There was also the fact that Gilmore Girls is so good… and Ms. Graham is so good… that, just perhaps, I had gone off a rail here.

Somewhere around episode 16, I caved. Something chemical was at long last going on and I found that Lauren Graham was, in fact, more than enough. She had won over even my cold, cold heart. I had spotted it faster with Claire Danes, Sutton Foster, Sharon Gless, and Tyne Daly, but just past the mid-way point in season one of The Gilmore Girls that certain something was (finally) there.

It was a chemical reaction… that’s all.

 

Barney Rosenzweig

WHODUNIT AND WHYDOIT

Uzo Aduba, who I first saw as one of the more interesting convicts in Orange is the New Black, now is on the right side of the law in The Residence and (you should excuse the expression) she steals the show.

I can think of a dozen actors I might have thought to cast in this primary role, and I would have been wrong all twelve times. Ms. Aduba is perfect, and the good news? She is not the only reason to watch this Netflix series.

The unusually large acting ensemble is top drawer. I feel compelled to single out Randall Park, who was heretofore unknown to me, as a perfect foil for Ms. Aduba, Isiah Whitlock Jr. is wonderful as the DC police chief and it would be remiss of me not to single out Jason Lee who, in one of the later episodes, performs one of the most spectacular monologues I can remember.

Right up there with the casting are the production values (sets, camera work, direction), and The White House setting as the locale for this murder mystery is terrific.

The pace of the show lags at times but making up for that is a fair share of snappy dialogue throughout and a bit of a spoof of a senate subcommittee hearing, featuring former Senator Al Franken, and a Marjorie Taylor Green prototype, nicely played by Eliza Coupe.

The Residence comes from the production entity of Shondaland and specifically from Paul William Davies, who also wrote multiple episodes of that company’s Scandal, a spiffy Network series starring the super sensual Kerry Washington.

The equally sensual Nicole Kidman stars in Holland for Amazon Prime and is, as usual, on her game. The production is first rate, and it turns out there really is a town named Holland. (Who knew?)

Kudos to the production designer for bringing Michigan’s tulip season to our TV screens for more than just the town’s population of thirty-four thousand to enjoy. Unfortunately, that… and Ms. Kidman… is sorta all there is on the plus side for this movie. The script is full of holes, the direction is sub-standard, and the casting illustrates the filmmaker’s lack of attention to detail which the screenplay pre-ordained.

I bought the sort of pedestrian union between Ms. Kidman and Matthew Macfadyen (the sycophantic son-in-law in Succession), but Gael Garcia Bernal as Ms. Kidman’s illicit lover was, for me, a “no sale.”

You may remember Mr. Bernal as the very interesting lead in the even more interesting TV series, Mozart in the Jungle. His acting chops are not in question, nor is his talent. This is not really about talent or past credits but more a matter of chemistry. As talented as Kidman and Bernal may be, there is ZERO chemistry between them. The movie, even if the script were a whole lot better, would always have an uphill climb trying to recover from that simple fact.

I could… and for some time in an earlier draft of this piece did… go on and on (with apologies to Editor, Debra Goodstone) about casting and chemistry and what goes on … or in this case doesn’t … between two on-screen lovers. In my career in Hollywood, I spent an inordinate number of days… months sometimes… trying to match actors and actresses… looking for the right Cagney for Lacey (there were two before Sharon Gless came on board). I have experienced the pain of replacing the lead in a successful pilot for a network TV series, have held up production on a fully cast (save for the lead) in another major Network TV series, fired the right actor for the wrong reason to the detriment of the movie.

A filmmaker fails to find the right actor/actors with the right chemistry at their peril. Better to take that very good script and hold on to it until the right casting can be found. Casting is all important. Think about all the terrible productions of Hamlet there have been. Trust me, there is very little wrong with the play.

That brings me to what is also very wrong with Holland. The script is of a tried-and-true design out of the Gaslight, Midnight Lace idiom. While it draws inspiration from Alfred Hitchcock’s Suspicion and Rebecca, it falls short because the plot devices are overly simplistic and contrived.

Holland is what I would call a lazy movie. The filmmakers had a commitment from Nicole Kidman and a cute idea about filming in an obscure, tulip laden town in Michigan. So far so good, but that is when it all went south. Little to no attention to detail in the script or in the casting followed. Nor was there enough attention to the classics in the genre that makes this sort of film work.

Point made? L-A-Z-Y. Nice tulips though.

 

Barney Rosenzweig

 

Dying is easy…

 

Dying is easy…

Do not jump to conclusions… despite the headline. My health is fine. The reference is rather to something attributed to Edmund Gwenn, a well-known character actor of the long ago, best known for his portrayal of Kris Kringle in the motion picture perennial, Miracle on 34^th Street.

Gwenn was fatally ill In the late 1950s when he was visited by a friend who supposedly said something to the effect that, “this must be terribly difficult for you,” to which the actor’s last words were reported to be, “… dying is easy… comedy is hard.”

True or not, the saying is part of a show business lexicon that has endured as such for more than a half century.

All that is a long way to get me into some commentary about comedy which, admittedly, is not my bailiwick. Don’t get me wrong… personally I think I am a very amusing fellow, but… I would concede... not everyone would agree. Certainly, there is nothing in my oeuvre to indicate a penchant for dialogue or characters that might evoke gales of laughter.

All that said, I do enjoy a good laugh. They are harder to come by these days but most recently my rave review of the Netflix revival of Younger, starring Sutton Foster, stands as evidence that scarce though it may be, comedy may still be found. And that being said… especially since of late I have gone on and on about the great dramas to be seen on movie and TV screens, I thought I would bring to you… in no particular order… this drama guy’s suggestions for things to watch (or, if you will, re-watch) that should readily amuse and entertain.

First off, a disclaimer: these films are of a different era and may not suit one’s sensibilities in this time of the Me-Too Movement. Most, if not all, might not even be made in our current heightened consciousness environment regarding sexism and racism. Okay… I will give you that. But when these films were made, they were… (hell, still are) … really terrific works of art.

Starting off with some classic motion pictures in this idiom… I would begin with the Preston Sturges gem, The Lady Eve, starring Barbara Stanwyck and Henry Fonda (currently available on Amazon Prime, Apple TV, Google Play, and most streaming services). His Girl Friday, starring Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell, and directed by Howard Hawks, is in the same league and can be found on the same venues as The Lady Eve.

Even better might well be Frank Capra’s It Happened One Night with Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert, or Bringing Up Baby, another film directed by Hawks, this time with Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn. Those same two actors star in The Philadelphia Story, directed by George Cukor. I would round out this primarily pre-war era with Leo McCarey’s brilliant, The Awful Truth with Irene Dunne and Cary Grant, and Holiday … not a knee-slapper, but one of my personal favorites. Once again, George Cukor directs Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn.

Getting past the black and white epoch of motion pictures, I can easily suggest, My Cousin Vinny, starring Joe Pesci and Marisa Tomei, When Harry Met Sally, starring Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan and directed by Rob Reiner from a Nora Ephron screenplay, Get Shorty, starring John Travolta, Danny DeVito and Gene Hackman, Woody Allen’s Annie Hall, and Some Like It Hot (filmed in black and white but a lot more recently than its forbearers).  Everyone knows this wonderful Billy Wilder movie stars Marilyn Monroe, Jack Lemmon, and Tony Curtis but I thought those folks should (once again) be memorialized here. Amazon Prime should be an easy place to start searching where to stream all of these.

Here are the TV shows that are every bit as worthy as the above listed motion pictures… and where to find them: Amazon features the close to perfection The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Younger (my current passion) has its seven seasons on Netflix, while slightly lesser works such as The Good Place, Seinfeld, Derry Girls, Dead to Me and Fisk can also be found adjacent to Younger on Netflix. They are all worthy of your attention.

Hulu has about as interesting a failure as you will ever see in Bunheads. It stars Sutton Foster of Younger fame. ‘Nuff said. This streaming service also has Modern Family and Boston Legal, two of the better Network TV comedy shows, with the latter being the series that proves just how good writer/producer David E. Kelly used to be. Hulu also has The Bear. Simply put, a great television series.

That brings us to MAX, which thankfully continues to put forth Hacks as well as reruns of Veep, and Barry with the acknowledgement that television simply does not get much better than these shows. They are followed quickly on the premium channel by Curb Your Enthusiasm and The Larry David Show. All terrific series and all with solid credentials for entry in the pantheon of Television’s absolute best comedies.

That’s it… the subject may be humor, but I am dead serious about these recommendations. It will be hard to top them. Finally, a query: How many of you went from watching Cory Booker give his record breaking, more than 25-hour, filibuster then immediately segued into Frank Capra’s classic motion picture, Mr. Smith Goes To

Washington? To those who did not join me in this exercise, you missed something special.

It would be fun to get the numbers from the normally very secretive Amazon about the “hits” the movie got on their service… and even more interesting to speculate how many of the movie’s viewers would agree with me that the Dems should redistribute the movie as a counter punch to the growingly infamous Elon Musk and his (to- say-the-least) ham-handed political tactics.

 

Barney Rosenzweig