Hightown 1.7: Two Things

Well, there were more than two noteworthy things in tonight's next-to-last episode of the season - 1.7 - of Hightown.

But the phrase was in the best line of the episode, which had lots of good lines, as it always does.  The dialogue is one of the most enjoyable things in this fine series.   And my favorite line tonight was what the dancer says to Renee: "Men are only good for two things - money and dick".

Now that we got that out of the way, here's one of the important things in the story: Ray and Renee souring, and poor Ray is barely aware.  I'm sorry to see this, but it's almost inevitable given Ray's devotion to finding Sherry's killer(s), and how that conflicts with just loving Renee, which he also wants to do.  How can he get out of this?   Maybe if both Frankie and Osito are killed or in custody.  But I don't think that's likely to happen.

But speaking of Osito, what indeed did happen with him and Junior, after that great scene when he tells Junior to law low in Miami, and he Osito might even go to the DR for a while?  Osito looked just a tiny bit bothered when Junior said he was going to get something to eat before getting on the bus.  Did Osito think, as I did, that Junior might not get on the bus and instead call and even go see the mother of his child?

Tough to say.  But I also don't get why Junior was dead from drugs in that room (assuming he really is dead, and can't be revived).  Did he intentionally take a little of the bad dose intended for Krista?  If so, why?  Why was that preferable to going down to Miami?  Or, did Junior accidentally overdose?  Or did Osito do that to him?

Still tough to say.  I will say that I more than half expected Osito's killing of Kizzle rather than Junior.  Does that make it less likely that Osito would then kill Junior?  Yes and no.  He has motives for both - less likely to kill someone he just saved, more likely if he concluded that the man he saved was unreliable, and could lead to Osito's own death,   As I've saying for a while, Osito, played just right by Atkins Estimond, is really the pivotal character in this series.

See what I mean?  A lot more than two things.  And I'll see you here in two weeks with my review of the season finale.

See also Hightown 1.1: Top-Notch Saltwater and Characters ... Hightown 1.2: Sludge and Sun ... Hightown 1.3: Dirty Laundry ... Hightown 1.4: Banging on the Hood ... Hightown 1.5-6: Turning Point and the Real True

Colony 3: Ascending, in More Ways than One

I'm a little late reviewing the third season of Colony - well, more than two years late - because I missed its initial airing on the USA Network and then I couldn't find it anywhere for free until I happened upon it the other day on Netflix.  And I thought it was so excellent, so fine a season of science fiction television, so much better than its first two seasons, that I regret I didn't shell out the few bucks to see this third season much sooner.

[Spoilers follow]

In addition to the whole season being top-notch, there were two especially effective and memorable turning points.

One was the death of Charlie, killed in a hail of grey-hat bullets.   The grey-hat commandos had been called in by "Uncle" Alan, and Will understandably holds him responsible, even though Will, Katie, and Bram were about to be killed by a firing squad, when the grey-hats arrived and violently disrupted those proceedings.  Charlie's death was a daring, terribly transforming event for both Bowmans and the audience, upsetting the previous givens of the series, and letting us know that anything was possible.

The other turning point flows from Charlie's death.  Will is determined to kill Alan, who, conniving as he always is, feels genuine grief about what happened to Charlie.  In a sequence that lasts at least ten minutes, Will later in the season has a gun pointed at Alan, and later his head in a bucket of filthy water, and struggles with himself over whether he can do this.  Peter Jacobson gives a tour-de-force performance as Alan, alternately trying to reason with Will and screamingly pleading for his life, and the combination plus whatever Will has inside him gets him to let Alan go.   Some of what Alan said, especially that without the grey-hat attack Will, Katie, and Bram would have died, apparently got through the Will.  I was on the edge of my seat, the whole time, as this scene played out.

In addition to Jacobson, the acting by the rest of the cast was good, especially, again, Josh Holloway as Will, Sarah Wayne Callies as Katie, and Tory Kittles as Broussard, and it was fun to see Peyton List from Frequency on the science fiction screen again.  The plot was fairly complex, with two outer-space entities at war with each other and we humans caught in the middle, but it all made sense through the end, with some kind of alien attack ensuing in the sky above Seattle.  It would have been great to find out more about this in a season 4 of Colony, but--

The geniuses at the USA Network failed to renew the series, for who knows what reason, so we're left high and dry, or maybe under the clouds of battle in the sky would be a better metaphor.  Hey, if it helps, I'll pay money to any streaming service to see another season of this series which, because of this third season, now ranks as one of the better science fiction series ever to have been on television, above Falling Skies and Revolution, its two closest competitors in theme.

See also Colony 2.1: Prelude ... Colony 2.2: 1969 ... Colony 2.3: The Wall ... Colony 2.7: Countdowns and Intentions ... Colony 2.8: What Passes for a Happy Ending ... Colony 2.9: Together Again ... Colony 2.10: The Fight Continues ... Colony 2.11: Twist ... Colony 2.12: The List ... Colony Season 2 Finale: Out and About

And see also Colony 1.1: Aliens with Potential ... 1.2: Compelling ... 1.5: Questions ... 1.6: The Provost ... Colony 1.7: Broussard ... Colony 1.8: Moon Base and Transit Zones ... Colony 1.9: Robot Arm ... Colony Season 1 Finale: Not Quite Enough

Hidden 2: Find It

          Mia                                     lawyer                                         Cad

Hidden is back for its second season on Acorn.  The close knit police procedural set in Wales is well worth your viewing time.

The villain this season is a psycho young woman, Mia, highly intelligent and attractive and able to get two men her age - all are in high school - to do her evil bidding: meting out murder to someone she deems worthy of this fate.  Lee is the brawn and not too bright.  Connor's bright and sensitive, and doesn't like being any part of any killing, or even associating with the killers.  But Mia's sway, in significant part sexual, is too strong for Connor to much resist.

Hidden takes the risky mystery tack of letting us know who the killers are in the very first episode.  This put us the audience in a position of knowing a lot more than DCI Cadi John and her junior partner DS Owen Vaughn, and the hook in the mystery is seeing how they learn the identity of the killers and deal with them.  Given Mia's persuasive powers, and the personal complexities of both Cadi and Owen's off-the-job lives, this is no easy task.  Indeed, all too often their off-the-job lives are so intertwined with their police work, they have a tough time having personal lives outside of their jobs.

The countryside is splendid.  My wife and I have been to England and Scotland a wonderful number of times, but not Wales.  Seeing Hidden will make you want to do that.  Sian Reese-Williams is totally convincing as Cadi. Annes Elwy is deadpan effective as Mia. And I especially liked Steffan Cennydd as the troubled Connor.  Hidden is perfect early hot summer, tired of COVID, television.  Find it and watch it.

See also Hidden 1: You Must See It

Perry Mason 1.1: The Young Man as Detective

Perry Mason debuted on HBO tonight.  As I'm sure - or I hope I'm sure - you know, this is the umpteenth time Perry Mason has appeared on TV in a series.  Well, a little less than umpteenth.   One brilliantly iconic time on CBS-TV in the late 50s through mid 60s starring Raymond Burr in the title role with that signature theme song, "Da da da dah, da da..."  And a couple of more times on TV, most of the time still starring Burr.   All of this following Erle Stanley Gardner's numerous novels, from which some half a dozen movies and a radio series were also made.

All of them had one thing in common, which the new HBO series does not.  Perry was a lawyer. On HBO, he's a detective.  He's also much younger on HBO, where he's played by The Americans' Matthew Rhys.  Whether it's correct to say he's "still" a detective, implying that the Raymond Burr Perry started his professional life as a detective, I couldn't tell you.  I haven't read the earliest novels, the first of which was published in 1933, about a year after the narrative in the HBO series begins.  There is the fact, cited on Wikipedia, that Mason's antagonist in the courtroom, DA Hamilton Burger (Gardner had the magic touch with names) tells Perry in the 1935 novel, The Case of the Caretaker's Cat (Gardner had a real talent for titles, too) "You're a better detective than you are a lawyer."  So I guess that gives the creators of the new Perry on HBO writ to make him a detective, though they hardly need my or anyone's permission.

But since this television series begins a little bit before the publication of the first novel, there's still time for Perry, if not to go to law school, to try to take a bar exam anyway?  I don't know.  But I'll give this new series a shot.  It does have a better kind of Delia Street than in the network series - I think the HBO street is more dynamic - though some purists think the Delia who worked as Burr's Perry's secretary was the gem of that Perry's multiple series.   Paul Drake, Perry the lawyer's detective, is also in this HBO series, but I don't think we've seen him yet.

I'll conclude with one thing I liked and one thing I didn't in the HBO series.  The sex was good, gritty when it needed to be, also sometimes funny.  But there was too much violence, and I really don't like stories in which kids are victims.

But as I said, I'll give this a chance.  I owe it to Gardner, whose writing I not only admired, but his advice, too. as when he famously said he said to an editor, "If you have any recommendations about the story, write it on the back of the damned check".  Or something like that.

Hightown 1.5-6: Turning Point and The Real True

I got caught up in too many events to review last week's powerful episode 1.5 of Hightown, but it's just as well, since it serves as a perfect prelude to tonight's even more powerful episode 1.6.   So I'm reviewing the both of them right here, together.

The gist of last week's episode is that Krista is killed while Jackie's on, what's new, a bender.  Her killing is brutal - via Osito with an iron to her head - after Junior sorta bungles a plan to get Krista to overdose.  I say "sorta," because it was a bit of a lame plan to begin with, requiring Junior to the stay there and watch as Krista doses herself, and of course she gets suspicious.  Ultimately, also of course, it doesn't really matter, because dead is dead, and that's what Krista is.

But it does matter, deeply and greatly, to Jackie.  She had a lot invested in investigating and helping Krista, and her death is more than enough to turn her around.  With just two more episodes left this season (after tonight's 1.6), I think it's safe to say that we won't see her drunk or stoned again this year.   My guess is she won't even take a drink.

And she's already beginning to flex her sober muscle.  Her conversation with Frankie was one of the best conversation between any two people we've seen this season.  I mean, as is the case with a lot of what Jackie does, it touched on the insane - Frankie can still have her snuffed out in an instant, and she must know that.  And so does Frankie.  But she does manage to intimate him, at least a little, and that was very good and satisfying to see.

Ray doesn't do quite so well with Osito, who keeps his cool, cracks wise, has at least one great line - I'm gonna tell you the "real true" - and walks out of the Ray's interrogation with his lawyer and barely a sweat.  But it was a good-to-see interrogation, anyway.   And it sets the story up for the next two concluding episodes of the season, in which the vice is likely to tighten around both Frankie and Osito.

My prediction: only one will survive.  Although Frankie is the logical one, I'm betting it will be Osito who sees another season.  As for Junior?  You tell me.

See also Hightown 1.1: Top-Notch Saltwater and Characters ... Hightown 1.2: Sludge and Sun ... Hightown 1.3: Dirty Laundry ... Hightown 1.4: Banging on the Hood

Marcella 3: Nordic Noir on a Whole New Split Level

The third season of Marcella just started streaming a few days ago on Netflix.  It's more tightly plotted than the first two seasons, at times as intricate as the Godfather trilogy, and I'd say the best Marcella so far.

Most of the time, Marcella isn't Marcella.  She's Keira, and she's embedded herself with a potent mob family in Belfast.  But embedded isn't quite the right word, because Marcella has actually become Keira.  She believes herself more than pretends to be Keira.  This fits in well with the tenuous grip Marcella has on sanity in her prior two seasons on television.

The mob family she's now part of, to the point of eventually almost running, is a nice piece of narrative work.  The matriarch is still the boss, but she's getting competition from both of her sons.  Finn's the more usually violent and prone to think he's really running the family.  Keira's pretty comfortably and literally in bed with him.  Rory has the brains, is a bit of a nutcase, and wouldn't mind Keira in his bed, either.  Keira may well be open to that, too.

Meanwhile, Marcella's handler thinks he can keep Marcella/Keira on the razor's edge of being thoroughly a part of the mobster family but ultimately still undercover police, too.   There have been a fair number of cop shows over the years in which a deep undercover agent struggles to hold on to her or his real identity.  But none were quite as powerful as Marcella/Keira in this third season of the show.

The plot turns are jolting, i.e. great to see, and the ending is one of the best I've seen of any police series, period.  Anna Friel is better than ever in the title role, which is to say punch-in-the-gut compelling in every emotional twist and turn her complex double-identity requires.  I haven't seen most of the other actors before, but they were excellent, too.  Marcella 3 is an all together superb, eminently bingeable season, and lifts Hans Rosenfeldt's British Nordic Noir to a whole new split level.

Borrowed Tides and "Alpha Centauri"

As some of you may know, my second science fiction novel, Borrowed Tides (Tor Books, 2001), is about the first starship to Alpha Centauri.

As others of you may know, or as the same some of you may also know, one of the songs on my Welcome Up: Songs of Space and Time album (released this past February by Old Bear Records, with vinyl distribution by Light in the Attic Records) is "Alpha Centauri," about an astronaut who travels the 4.3 light years to that triple star system.   That song was written (words by me, music by Peter Rosenthal) around the same time as Borrowed Tides.

I performed it this past weekend, online, at Amazingcon.  Here's a video (that sounds like it was broadcast from Alpha Centauri) of the Zoom performance.



review of Welcome Up album by Joseph Neff for The Vinyl District

Quiz: And My Verdict Is ...

Last night was a good night for mini-series finales.  I just reviewed I Know This Much Is True.  Here now a review of Quiz, which ended its three-episode run on AMC yesterday, and tells the true story of Charles Ingram, who in 2001 won £1,000,000 on the British television show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? and was promptly brought to criminal trial along his wife and an accomplice for his success on grounds that he and they were cheating.

First, a bouquet of provisos from me.  I didn't see the series in the U. K. or anywhere in 2001 or after, and have no idea what Ingram and his wife were really like (actually, are really like - oops, am I giving too much away, implying that neither received a death sentence?).  In fact, I haven't read a word of the two books upon which the series is based.   So my impressions and conclusions of the Ingrams' innocence or guilt are based entirely on the little series.   And this is also a good time to repeat my frequently voiced advisory about docu-dramas: don't mistake them for anything like the entire truth, maybe not even the essential truth.  Indeed, even a documentary can't be expected to convey the entirety of any matter, so we certainly can't expect that from a docu-drama.

So, Quiz is a little docu-drama series about a very big matter - well, £1,000,000 is not as much in American dollars as when I was boy coin-collector in the late 1950s, but it's nothing to sneeze at.  Certainly the Ingrams, real and portrayed, were happy to get it.   But did they lie and cheat to get it?

Well, based on what I saw i.e., the testimony of the three episodes, I would say ... no, they did not.  Their defense attorney, well by portrayed by Peaky Blinders' Helen McCrory, was utterly convincing that the plethora of coughs in the studio made it highly unlikely that Charles benefitted from coughs from his wife and accomplice signifying yes and no to possible answers to questions on the show.  And Charles certainly didn't cough his way into Mensa.

And speaking of fine portrayals, Matthew Macfadyen was just perfect as Charles, as he's been in everything from MI-5 (aka Spooks) to Succession.   And Michael Sheen, another actor who's great in everything he does, was just outstanding as host Chris Tarrant (and again, I have no idea what the real Tarrant was like).

But I do have an idea about the mini-series, and that's that it's eminently watchable and enjoyable television.  See it before you research the real Ingrams, if that's your inclination.

 

I Know This Much Is True: Much, True, and Worth Watching

My wife and I binged I Know This Much Is True, which ended its six-episode run last night on HBO.  Let me say this about the mini-series for starters:  If you thought Jude the Obscure was a grim narrative, wait until you see I Know This Much Is True.  But do see it.

This is the story of twins, Dominick and Thomas Birdsey.  Neither one is well adjusted.  They don't know who their father is, and their step-father is harsh and abusive.  Thomas, the difficult of the two boys, grows into a schizophrenic as a young man.   He's not a danger to others, but he is a serious danger to himself.

Dominick has to deal with this, after understandably not helping things at all when he was a boy.  In addition, he suffers a life-crushing experience that has nothing to do with Thomas.  This is what I mean about being in Jude the Obscure territory.   One soul-piercing experience is more than enough for most tragic dramas.   Two, unrelated to each other, is, well, over the top or at least a little hard to take.

And Mark Ruffalo's acting as both brothers is so powerfully effective that you have no problem believing all of this is happening.  He deserves an Emmy for best actor.  And speaking of Emmys, so does Rosie O'Donnell, as supporting actress playing social worker Lisa Sheffer.  O'Donnell brings just the right mix toughness and empathy to this role, and along with Ruffalo she'll bring tears to your eyes, if you have anything close to a beating heart.

So see I Know This Much Is True, expertly written and directed by Derek Cianfrance, based on the 1998 novel of the same name by Wally Lamb, which I haven't read and don't intend to because, well, no offence, but Thomas Hardy's 1895-1895 Jude the Obscure was more than enough.

 

Gold Digger: For Love or Money?

My wife and I binged Gold Digger (2019) over two nights on Acorn TV via Prime Video.  It's an excellent, atypical whodunnit - atypical because, well...

The story is about a 60-year-old woman romantically pursued by a good looking, well-spoken, apparently sweet and sensitive guy in his mid-30s.  The woman is divorced, and her kids are sure the guy wants to marry their mother for her money (at least most of them are; she is undeniably wealthy).  To make matters even more intriguing, her ex-husband, now living with her her former best-friend, lives within driving distance.  All of this takes in Devon, England.

Pretty compelling set-up, right?  One problem, though, is that the 60-year old, Julia Day, is played by Julia Ormond, 55, and still a lot more than passably attractive.  This has the effect of making Julia and Benjamin (played by Ben Barnes) less jarring together than maybe the people who made this series intended the two to be.  In fact, in many scenes they looked so good together that you pretty much forgot their age difference.  Come to think of it, maybe that's what the intention was all along.

I won't say anymore about the plot, because I don't want to spoil the shock and the fun.  What I will say is that this mini-series forthrightly poses the question of is it impossible for a guy in his 30s to lustfully love a woman of 60, or does he have an ulterior motive, and the narrative provides all kinds of twists and bumps in your viewing journey.

All of which is buoyed by the acting, which is consistently superb.  Ormand is outstanding in every scene, as is Barnes.  And my favorites in the supporting cast are Alex Jennings (as Ted, the ex-husband) who was non pareil in both Victoria and The Crown, and  Nikki Amuka-Bird (as his girlfriend, Marsha) whom I haven't seen before but steals almost every scene she is in and is a non-stop fountain of clever lines artfully delivered.

So ... see Gold Digger, ponder and enjoy.

 

Great New Review of "Welcome Up" / Live, Free, Online Concert this Saturday

Paul Levinson Hey, a great new review of Welcome Up: Songs of Space and Time went up by Joseph Neff on The Vinyl District yesterday.  What I especially love about it is the way Neff puts Welcome Up in the context of Twice Upon A Rhyme, concluding that Welcome Up "hits the ear as the best kind of long-delayed follow-up to a phenomenon of cultish proportions; unstrained, totally comfortable in the present time, but sounding like nothing else on the current scene."  Read the whole review, with thoughts about each song -- such as, "the album’s standout is really “Picture Postcard World,” which infuses the soft-pop cheer with persistent psych swirl (getting downright underwater toward the end) as Levinson hits just the right level of crooner" -- over here. And speaking of Welcome Up and Twice Upon A Rhyme, I'll be singing songs from both, as well as a couple of new songs, at a virtual (online) totally FREE one-hour concert at Amazingcon on Saturday, 6-7pm.  Although the concert is totally free, you do need to register beforehand, which you can do here.  You register just once for the entire three-day online convention, which will feature all kinds of science fiction stars, whom you can see here.  In addition to my concert, I'll be on several panels, and also reading from my novelette, Robinson Calculator -- my complete schedule is here.  What a treat it would be to see some of you on that Zoom screen on Saturday! Songs from Welcome Up: Songs of Space and Time played on Dig Vinyl's Melodic Distraction playlist, American Dream with Yvonne Howard Margolin's 37th Anniversary Destinies, WUSB Radio Carl Thien's WZBC show (scroll down to Part 2) Patrick Rands' Abstract Terrain show on WZBC Radio in Boston Kevin Anthony's Psychedelic Jukebox Captain Phil's WUSB-FM show.  Plus the following stations: Bellarmine Radio, Louisville, KY; KDWG Radio, Dillon, Montana; The End, Cleveland, OH; SYN Radio, Melbourne, Australia You can get all the Welcome Up music, any time, here: Listen to entire album FREE on Bandcamp & Spotify Order multi-color vinyl from Light in the Attic CDs in stock - get them here And here's Twice Upon a Rhyme: Listen to entire album FREE on Bandcamp & Spotify Original, sealed 1972 HappySad Records vinyl New remastered Sound of Salvation vinyl from Those Old Records Here's a one-hour virtual concert I did in April with songs from both albums at HELIOsphere: Beyond the Corona.   Video clips from Welcome Up here and here. More Welcome Up Reviews and Interviews: Taro Miyasugi says Welcome Up: Songs of Space and Time is "a stunning folk pop album with gorgeous late 60s elements like vintage velveteen cloth..."  Evan LeVine observes about Welcome Up that "any fan of Twice Upon A Rhyme will be overjoyed by it... As otherworldly, mystical and far-out as the subject matter may be, the songs burst with love and warmth and humanity."  in-depth interview about Welcome Up in Klemen Breznikar's Psychedelic Baby Magazine  new audio Bear Tones podcast in which talk about Welcome Up and Twice Upon A Rhyme. And ... early warning:  another new review of Welcome Up in the next issue  (#54) of Ugly Things Magazine. Music Samantha (rough mix, from Welcome Up) If I Traveled To The Past (rough mix, from Welcome Up) MORE MUSIC Press "Welcome Up (Songs of Space and Time) is a contemporary dispatch, firmly sent. It hits the ear as the best kind of long-delayed follow-up to a phenomenon of cultish proportions; unstrained, totally comfortable in the present time, but sounding like nothing else on the current scene."— Joseph Neff, The Vinyl District, Jun 10, 2020 Connect Update Contact Info      Unsubscribe      Report Abuse      Privacy Physical inquiries can be sent to: 65 Shirley Lane, 9146596160, White Plains, NY, 10607, USA If our email is in your Spam/Junk Folder, please add Levinson.paul@gmail.com to your address book. Powered by  Fan Reach