Clickbait: All That and More

Just saw Clickbait, just up, eight episodes of riveting mini-series, on Netflix.  It was that good.

Nick Brewer, a happily married family man with two sons, is kidnapped and the apparent victim of a sadistic and dangerous video hoax. He ends up --

Well. that's the only spoiler I'll give you.  He ends up-- 

[SPOILER AHEAD]

He ends up dead.

The story then turns on why was he killed, who did this to him, for what motive?  Was Nick not the decent guy he seemed to be?  If not, how bad was he?  What did he do?  To whom?  Each episode unfolds like a nest of Russian dolls -- or it Chinese boxes -- with different answers which fit right in and seem to make sense, until the episode ends.  Characters turn on a dime from good to evil, and then turn out maybe not so bad after all.  Except one.

All of this works, not just because of the carefully sculptured plot, but because of the attractive oddity of the characters and the powerful acting that beings them across.  Zoe Kazan as Nick's sister Pia, Betty Gabriel as his wife Sophie, and Phoenix Raei as Detective Roshan Amiri are especially good.  There's something about Raei's portrayal of Amiri, for example, a logic, a vulnerability, a toughness, a heart on his sleeve, that makes me want to see more of this Oakland detective with big ambitions.   But they're all memorable, Pia's sassiness, Sophie's mix of anger at the world and devotion to her boys (Camaron Engels as Ethan, and Jaylin Fletcher), who also put in strong performances.  As does, while I'm at it, Abraham Lim as reporter Ben Park, too.  I've seen almost none of them before, and now expect to see a lot of them in the future.

Clickbait is also packed with plausible scenarios and villains, and I guarantee that you won't guess the ending.  Ironically, the weakest part of this powerhouse is the first episode, which seems a little too cute and clever, and feels like you've seen it before.  But once the narrative takes off, at the end of the second episode, you won't be clicking on anything else, as Netflix easily serves you what comes next in this story.

Podcast: Foundation, COVID, Afghanistan

Welcome to Light On Light Through, Episode 188, in which Captain Phil on WUSB-FM Radio (Stony Brook, New York) interviews me about the Foundation series, how it relates to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the news that just broke this morning about the bombings in Afghanistan.   (Note: recorded before the news of the US casualties.)

Further:

• Thinking about Asimov's Foundation on Apple TV+
• "Rage of the Responsible" (Paul Krugman)
• Paul Levinson Talks to Rufus about The Man in the High Castle: Deconstructing the TV Series

Check out this episode!

2067: What's Good and Not

I finally got around to watching 2067 on Hulu, an Australian movie released back in October 2020.  Hey, it's a time travel movie, which I always think entitles reviewers to take their time to review.

And I liked the time travel part of this post-apocalyptic narrative.  The various twists and turns in time, in which the protagonist sees himself dead but nonetheless manages not to get killed, are very well tied up and explained in the end.  On that time travel account, I'd rate 2067 (written and directed by Seth Larney) pretty high,

Not so high on the post-apocalyptic part, though.  Our planet being ruined by an unhinged climate is the story of so many movies these days, that it has to be done with some kind of notable originality to be above the fold.  2067 was obvious and predictable on this account, although the vista at the very end was striking.

Similarly, the characters and their story was somewhat worn.  What fathers intend for sons, the perfidy of government officials, we've seen all of that way too often, as well.  I will say, though, that  Kodi Smit-McPhee as protagonist Ethan Whyte was good and even memorable in an odd but compelling way.

So, if time travel is your thing, as it is for me as a viewer, reader, and author, see 2067. It's a worthy, original entry in the genre.   If not, well, you might get more watching the Weather Channel.

 

Podcast Review of Reminiscence

Welcome to Light On Light Through, Episode 187,  in which I review the new movie (released 20 August 2021) Reminiscence.

My written review is here.

Check out this episode!

Reminiscence: Recalling the Many Things that are Good and Great about It

So here we are again.  Critics are giving Reminiscence (on HBO Max) mixed reviews, saying it's derivative.  I agree that it's derivative, but think it's excellent.  In general, I think being derivative is not a bad thing, and I disagree with the myopic critics who miss how well Reminiscence does it.

Yes, Reminiscence is reminiscent of Blade Runner.  Even more so in some ways of Total Recall, and for that matter, of all things Philip K. Dick.  But it also recalls a lot of Christopher Nolan's work, as well as movies as far back as the 1940s like Laura, and even Body Heat in 1981 to some extent.  And if it harkens to Westworld, well, Lisa Joy plays a central creative role in both.

I was a little bothered by Thandiwe Newton's character Emily motivated by the exact same thing as her character Maeve in Westworld -- finding her daughter -- but that's just one unnecessary misstep in a long list of gambits and interludes done very well in Reminiscence.  Among them are the deft mix of a flooded world and the refuge in memories, and outstanding acting by Hugh Jackman in the lead role, and Rebecca Ferguson as his all-consuming love interest Mae.

This is first time I've seen Ferguson, and I'm very impressed.  She's Swedish, and even before I knew that, she reminded me of Ingrid Bergman.  Come to think of it, Jackman's Nick Bannister reminded me a bit of Bogart.  Is that supposed to be bad?  Of course not.  It makes Reminiscence even more fun to watch.

I won't go into the plot, so as not to risk spoilers.  I will say that I like happy endings, and I'll leave it to you to decide where the ending of Reminiscence resides on the happy/sad meter.  Nick tells Mae that there are no happy endings, especially of happy stories, presumably because to end them is sad.  Mae responds that therefore she'd like to hear a happy story that ends right in the middle.  That's the kind of dialogue that lifts Reminiscence into a top tier, and if it reminds us of triumphs in cyberpunk ranging from Incandescence to Altered Carbon, so much the better.

Films Before Frankenstein, Parts 1 and 2

I was invited by Phil De Parto to give a lecture/lead a discussion for the Science Fiction Association of Bergen County about science fiction and horror movies prior to Frankenstein, in May 2021.  That event went so well -- aka left so much more to be covered -- that Phil invited me back in August 2021 to give a Part 2 of that lecture/discussion.   Both were via Zoom and were recorded.  Here they are -- enjoy!

Hit and Run: Lior Raz and Silvercup

I've come to know Lior Raz as one of the creative powerhouses (along with  Avi Issacharoff) of three seasons and a fourth forthcoming of Fauda, about the best depiction I've ever seen of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, viewed through the eyes of an Israeli undercover unit, in which Raz plays Doron, and therein stars in the series as well.

So of course I was going to see Hit and Run, a new series which debuted on Netflix, which also was co-created by Raz and Issacharoff, and also stars Raz.  This time he's an Israeli tour-guide, married to American ballet dancer, who is killed in a hit-and-run before the first episode is over.  Before the nine episodes of this first season are over, we see Raz's Segev as much in New York as in Tel Aviv, and a narrative seething with action and a cast who promise to become memorable in their first scene and usually do.

My favorites this time, in addition to Segev, are Tali (played by Moran Rosenblatt, also in Fauda), a resourceful, pregnant Israeli police detective who is Segev's staunchest ally in Tel Aviv, and Naomi (played by Sanaa Lathan, not in Fauda, but in The Affair), who's an investigative reporter with New York Magazine, was once in some kind of commando unit with Segev, and is now his staunchest ally in New York.

In addition to the non-stop action and complex fast-twisting plot, there's also more than a fair share of death meted out to all kinds of characters, which I consider a plus in this kind of series, because you begin to realize you never will know who will survive a given episode, because in fact you don't.  The scenery was also good.  As a life-long New Yorker, I was happy to see Silvercup Bakery -- or what was Silvercup Bakery -- in one of the many chases on the highway scenes.  Hey, the bread itself was white bread, probably the worst thing to give a kid, but it sure made a tasty sandwich.

Hit and Run was better than tasty, and I'd be stunned if there wasn't a second season, but I know less about the inner workings of television series than I do about bread, so who knows.  But I'll be back here as soon as I finish bingeing it, if there is a second season of Hit and Run, so see you back here.

getting an education about the workings of television from someone who knows

Outlier: Nordic Noir, Criminal Minds Style

Well, there's no team of FBI profilers working the case in Outlier, in fact no FBI and not much of a team at all,  but Maya Angell, a doctoral student in London who goes back to her hometown in northern Norway to investigate the killing of a young woman, would fit right in with the BAU.

She begins her work in Norway by telling the incompetent police chief that the man he has locked up for the crime couldn't be the killer, because he acts on his emotions too quickly.  The killer, Maya quickly realizes, is a serial killer, who operates much more carefully.

And then things get really interesting, as Maya realizes that some kind of sexual attack she experienced as a child, but can't quite remember, may in some way be connected to this serial killer.  Meanwhile, we get to meet him.  He's married, with two kids, a family man who gets his kicks by kidnapping and killing women when he's out on his job, installing video equipment in peoples' homes.

Maya is an intelligent, resilient, though deeply wounded character, and we get to slowly see how she wound up that way as she pursues the case.  Good acting in this role by Hanne Mathisen Haga, and the northern scenery is vivid and convincing.  The other characters range from interesting to ok.  I found her London fiance who doesn't want Maya to pursue this case to be annoying.  But Hanne's performance brings this definitely not-ensenble series home to a powerful and somewhat surprising ending.

This was just the first season of Outlier.  Will there be a second season?  I hope so.  But whatever happens, hats off to Arne Berggren, who wrote, directed, and executive produced this off-beat nordic noir series, which makes especially fine viewing on a few hot August evenings.

How Can You Mend a Broken Heart: Watch this Documentary, It'll Help.

For as long as I can remember, the Beatles have been my all-time favorite group, with the Rolling Stones and the Beach Boys vying for second place.  The Bee Gees were in my top ten, for sure.  But several things in the past few weeks have brought them into vying for second place too, in my heart and mind.

How Can You Mend a Broken Heart, a documentary named after one of the Bee Gees' great songs (they have so many), which came out last year but my wife and I just saw last night, was one big reason.  It brought home what I already knew, that the Bee Gees, who had such wonderful recordings in the 1960s, like "Massachusetts" (more on that below) and "To Love Somebody" that I loved back then about as much as the Beatles, went on to have an even more successful disco career (with songs that I liked enough, but not as much as their original 60s work), and then went on to record and write all kind of other great songs in the 1980s (with a concert in Australia at the end of that decade that was just nonpareil -- here's a sample -- I gotta say, these two lines from "Heartbreaker" -- "This world may end.  Not you and I" -- are among the best expressions of trueest love in this universe).

The Beatles and the Beach Boys were effectively finished by the 1970s (on the Beach Boys, without Brian Wilson performing and writing new material, they just were a different group).  The Stones continued, but were never quite as good after the departure of Brian Jones.  They had some good songs into the early 1980s -- like "Start Me Up" -- but not as huge in their influence on our popular culture as the Bee Gees' disco phase, the epitome of which was probably in the Saturday Night Fever movie.  So on the basis of just that level of analysis, I now put the Bee Gees in a tie for second place along with the Stones and the Beach Boys.

The Bee Gees of course are known for their harmony.  There are few sounds in this world as appealing and comforting as Beatles' three-way harmony, but the Bee Gees not only came from the same city (so pronounce words the same way) but the same womb.  Their extraordinarily beautiful and tight harmony for all the world often sounds like one person singing three parts.  Three of the Beach Boys -- Brian, Carl, and Dennis Wilson -- were also brothers.  But the fantastical, whispy, soaring arrangements by Brian took the voices in directions other than the vibrating, magical sound of the Bee Gees.

And then there are the individual voices themselves.  I would say Robin has the best voice of every one of the members of the Beatles, Beach Boys, Rolling Stones, and Bee Gees.  Listen to him sing "Massachusetts," and tell me that voice literally does not only touch but massage your heart.

Which brings me to one other reason (I'm not going to tell you all of them) that I've come to hold the Bee Gees in even higher esteem.  Listen to this gem of a cover of "Massachusetts" by the Last Band on Earth, a father and his two young teenage kids (a girl and a boy).  Robin's voice and that song are so thoroughly penetrating of the soul, even this cover manages to capture and convey some that.

Back to the documentary, Barry says near the end that he'd rather have his brothers alive and with him, than all the great hits that they made.  I really wish Robin and Maurice were still with us, too.  But it’s also true that the music they made brings me joy every day.