Westworld 1.2: Who Is the Man in Black?

As the second Presidential debate played out across lots of television tonight, the second episode of Westworld proceeded on HB0.   Actually, it's been available On Demand for about a week - as our own world becomes ever more like Westworld in our ability to control our fiction - but I just saw it in the past hour.

And it was an excellent hour, which furthered and honed a question which arose in the first episode last week: who is the Man in Black?

Only guests are supposed to survive deadly attacks from the android hosts, and the Man in Black is able to dish it out - kill posses and other congregations of bad guys, not to mention innocents who serve his goals - but he seems invulnerable to any shots that come his way, i.e., go right into him.   So that would make him a guest, right?

But he seems to be something more, or maybe other than a guest, would be a better description.  He's being watched by the technicians in Westworld, and they usually seem to focus more on the hosts than the guests.   And he talks about how long he's been pursuing his goals in Westworld, which raises the question, if he's a guest, can a guest stay in Westworld for decades like the Man in Black?

So to the extent that all of that throws a little doubt on whether he's guest, that shifts the pendulum back to his being a host, albeit a special kind of host who's invincible to other host bullets, and we're left with a choice of the Man in Black being either an unconventional host (invulnerable) or an unconventional guest (can stay in the amusement park for decades).

I've seen some wild theories batted about online about the Man in Black's identity (well played, by the way, by Ed Harris).   My favorite is that he's really the Gunslinger from the 1973 movie, played by Yule Brenner.   There is a resemblance, but that would mean he's been in the park, well ... do we know if there's any connection between the movie and the TV series, which could tell us if the series is taking place x number of years after the story in the movie?

Nah, I don't think the movie and TV series are connected in that way.  But even so, Westworld the series is continuing to raise provocative questions, and well on its way to being another winner for HBO.

See also Westworld 1.1: Isaac Asimov and Philip K. Dick Served Up by Jonathan Nolan, Lisa Joy, and J. J. Abrams



  

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Frontera: Powerful Border Movie with a Minor Problem

Just saw Frontera on Netflix.  Released this past summer without much fanfare, the movie brings to the screen many of the simmering issues presented in The Bridge - on FX for two seasons and now departed.  Ed Harris puts in a standout performance as a retired sheriff whose wife is killed, and devotees of Rectify will be happy to see Aden Young (Daniel on Rectify) as Harris's erstwhile deputy and now successor.   Also on good hand are Michael Peña (just seen as Mark Solano on Gracepoint) and Eva Longoria.

The story has some major twists and surprises, and I won't give any of them away.   But I can say that the movie really excels in a variety of intersecting plots that not only include family life on both sides of the border but sharply drawn differences in decency and brutality, intelligence and not so bright, in the the major and minor characters.   It's a measure of how well presented a movie is when you can remember minor characters such as an older women who helps a younger woman who's pregnant, and a sheriff's assistant who does the right thing.   At the same time, though we think we know the major characters pretty well, our expectations are slapped in ways that keep the story percolating and largely unpredictable - no mean feat in such a well-trodden area.

There was one small part, however, that bothered me, because it presented a conspiracy theory as if it were a matter of confirmed reality.  At one point, the people from Mexico being escorted to the United States by a "coyote" spot two in their group in Islamic prayer.  A bit later they freak out when they hear them talking Farsi.  As far as I know, the idea that political enemies of the U.S. from the Middle East - i.e., would-be terrorists - are entering the U.S. through the Mexican border originates in the over-active imagination of conspiracy theorists and some Republicans in Congress.   True or not, this played no role in the movie, and therefore its inclusion in the movie makes no sense - unless the makers of the movie were trying to smuggle in a half-baked political statement.

That said, I would still strongly recommend Frontera, for its great acting and memorable human stories.

Game Change

HBO's series are so superb, it's sometimes easy to forget that Home Box Office was first a movie channel, and has brought us some great original movies over the years.  Game Change, which premiered tonight, is surely one of the very best.

Based on the John Heilemann and Mark Halperin book of the same name, starring Woody Harrelson (Steve Schmidt), Julianne Moore (Sarah Palin), and Ed Harris (John McCain) in tour-de-force leading roles, Game Change the movie gives us a breathtaking, heartbreaking, frightening, but ultimately more or less inspiring view of the election of 2008 which all us remember, and most of us knew much of what the movie tells us.  We knew, for example, that Palin gave a great convention speech, bungled the Couric interview, went rouge in the campaign by not completely following McCain's positions, pretty much held her own in the debate with Biden, wanted to give a concession speech after the loss but was refused that precedent-setting privilege by some combination of Schmidt (campaign manager) and McCain.

We also knew that YouTube magnified Palin's interview blunders by keeping them in permanent play - I discussed this back in 2009 in New New Media, and Schmidt in the movie shows an astute understanding of this media revolution.

What we didn't know were some even more extraordinary pockets of Palin ignorance, including thinking the Queen of England is head of the British state, and Saddam Hussein was responsible for 9/11.   That someone with such astonishing lack of knowledge was almost a heartbeat from the Presidency was enough to give Schmidt and Nicole Wallace (responsible for tutoring Palin in history) more than pause, and I hope most people a kick in the stomach right through the television screen tonight.   One can only assume that the single-minded focus on winning the election was enough to keep Schmidt from even allowing himself to consider the option of trying somehow to get Palin off the ticket.

Not that any attempt to convince her to resign would have worked.  And in that toughness, the great enigma of Sarah Palin comes across indelibly in the movie.  She's devastated by the media's response to her interview fumbles - the depth of her depression and fury being something else that we didn't quite know - yet she manages to pick herself up, and give a good debate performance against Biden, speaking from her heart.

Nicole Wallace, unfairly blamed by Palin for the interview fiascos, reveals to Schmidt in the end that she couldn't bring herself to vote for McCain-Palin, another revelation in the movie.  It didn't matter, because of course Obama won by far more than one vote.  In that sense - Obama winning and Wallace not voting - the system worked.

But are we less vulnerable to someone like Palin getting the nomination for Vice President today?   Until the crazy way our Vice Presidential candidates are selected is changed, our democracy will ever be on the precipice.