The Girlfriend Experience 2.3-4: Hard to Come By

The Girlfriend Experience continued its second season of split hour stories in 2.3-4 with two stories having almost nothing in common other than the girlfriend experience and sexual fulfillment being hard to come by.

Bria leads off with a guy who doesn't want to rush things, and resists her sweet offer of sex at least twice.   At this point, it's not clear if this is actually not a true girlfriend experience, in which the experience leads to, or frames, the sex, or just a longer lead time than usual (I suspect the latter).  And then, when she seeks some comfort in her witness protection protector, he says no, too, after they get all to the verge.  That, I guess, makes sense, since he takes his job seriously.  But Bria can't be happy that her powers seduction have failed with two men, in so short a time.

Meanwhile, Anna (I think) let's Erica make her come (I say I think, because I'm assuming faking it is a big part of her job), but Erica says she can't reciprocate.  Actually Erica's inability comes first, which makes it even more likely that Anna's faking it to keep Erica engaged.  But, who knows, we don't Anna well enough, as yet, to tell.

Given that each hour consists of two separate stories, it's reasonable to ask or wonder or whatever the right verb is about which of the stories is better.  It's pretty even, so far.  Bria's story is one hell of a witness protection tale so far, and all the characters, especially Kayla, have not yet come into play.  And you couldn't ask for a more relevant story that Anna and Erica's, given what we're seeing on the news every day.

More to follow.

See also  The Girlfriend Experience 2.1-2: Two for One ...  The Girlfriend Experience: Eminently Worth It (my review of Season 1)

 

It all started in the hot summer of 1960, when Marilyn Monroe walked off the set of The Misfits and began to hear a haunting song in her head, "Goodbye Norma Jean" ...

The Orville 1.6-9: Masterful

Completing my catch-up with The Orville, the immensely enjoyable take-off on Star Trek, I watched episodes 1.6-9 last night.  They each were superb.

• 1.6 is a classic undercover story, that was done so well on Star Trek: TOS.   The worst enemy (so far) in The Orville universe are the Krill, who don't look like Klingons but resemble them in penchant for aggression.  Interestingly, Bortus and the Moclans look more like the Klingons, and have some of their ferocity, but are more like the Worf-kind of Klingon on the bridge of Star Trek: TNG.  But neither are the Krill like the Romulans, who in effect are evil Vulcans not evil Klingons.  In any case, 1.6 was a great hour, and even had some tenderness with the Krill teacher, who also provided a great parting punch with her remark that the children Mercer saved will grow up to hate humans.
• 1.7 with its Like and Dislike buttons and their life-and-death impact is a little masterpiece in itself, and could have been a episode of Black Mirror, or even a satirical movie about life on Earth in 2017.  The Orville is doing a great job of reprising, updating, and injecting with humor the full range of Star Trek tropes, ranging from immersion in 20th (now 21st) human cultures to undercover missions on enemy worlds.
• 1.8 also delivers on another Star Trek staple, giving major characters their own episodes.  We saw this with Bortus in 1.3, and with the doctor and her boys in 1.8, as well as Isaac (LaMarr had the limelight in 1.7).  We also get a good post-civilization reduced to barbarity in 1.8, an always-necessary warning about our own world.
• But 1.9 was the most important of the foursome I saw last night.  The revelation that Kelly slept with Darulio because she was under the influence of his pheromones is a game-changer for The Orville, because it tells Ed (who was also under that influence in this episode) that Kelly's dalliance with Darulio was beyond her control.  Since I think Ed and Kelly are a great couple, I was glad to see that.  It was also good to see poor trodden-upon Yaphit finally get some with the doctor, for the same pheromonic reasons.

The Orville is firing its quantum drive on all cylinders, and I'll be back with a review for every part of the journey.

See also The Orville 1.1-1.5: Star Trek's Back ... The Orville 1.10: Bring in the Clowns

1st starship to Alpha Centauri ... had only enough fuel to get there

Outlander 3.9: The Seas

Ok, the ship at the end of Outlander 3.8 was not pirate but Portuguese, but we still got a good sea yarn this past Sunday in episode 3.9.

Claire and Jamie continue to explore - mostly enjoyably - the labyrinths of reestablishing a relationship after so many difficult years apart, and I thought that was handled very well, striking a right balance between getting to know each other again, but still very much loving each other.  And Claire's desperately missing her/their daughter was something that needed to be shown, and will no doubt play a major role in some future episodes (note again that I haven't read the novels).

I also liked Yi Tein Cho saving the day on the ship, though I'm not quite clear how he did it.  But he makes a great new enigmatic character,  just what Jamie needed to meet in the big city of Edinburgh, and now we the audience are getting to see at sea.  He's his own man, with an agenda all his own, and that makes him more like a character from the Seven Samurai than Hop Sing from Bonanza, even though Yi and Hop are both Chinese.

But the most appealing part of this episode was the promise of things to come, with some swashbuckling in the Caribbean, heralded by the new opening credits with lots of shots from the islands.  After two years of damp and chilly Scotland, I'm all for the blue skies and white sands of those adventurous islands.

See also Outlander Season 3 Debut: A Tale of Two Times and Places ...Outlander 3.2: Whole Lot of Loving, But ... Outlander 3.3: Free and Sad ... Outlander 3.4: Love Me Tender and Dylan ... Outlander 3.5: The 1960s and the Past ... Outlander 3.6: Reunion ... Outlander 3.7: The Other Wife ... Outlander 3.8: Pirates!

And see also Outlander 2.1: Split Hour ... Outlander 2.2: The King and the Forest ... Outlander 2.3: Mother and Dr. Dog ... Outlander 2.5: The Unappreciated Paradox ... Outlander 2.6: The Duel and the Offspring ...Outlander 2.7: Further into the Future ... Outlander 2.8: The Conversation ... Outlander 2.9: Flashbacks of the Future ... Outlander 2.10: One True Prediction and Counting ... Outlander 2.11: London Not Falling ... Outlander 2.12: Stubborn Fate and Scotland On and Off Screen ... Outlander Season 2 Finale: Decades

And see also Outlander 1.1-3: The Hope of Time Travel ... Outlander 1.6:  Outstanding ... Outlander 1.7: Tender Intertemporal Polygamy ...Outlander 1.8: The Other Side ... Outlander 1.9: Spanking Good ... Outlander 1.10: A Glimmer of Paradox ... Outlander 1.11: Vaccination and Time Travel ... Outlander 1.12: Black Jack's Progeny ...Outlander 1.13: Mother's Day ... Outlander 1.14: All That Jazz ... Outlander Season 1 Finale: Let's Change History

 

It all started in the hot summer of 1960, when Marilyn Monroe walked off the set of The Misfits and began to hear a haunting song in her head, "Goodbye Norma Jean" ...

The Orville 1.1-5: Star Trek's Back!

I'd planned on catching up on all the episodes of The Orville thus far before writing a review, but episode 1.5 was so good - and a time travel story to boot, my favorite kind of science fiction - that I couldn't wait any longer.  So here's this, and then I'll post another review when I'm caught up, and then I'll review every episode that comes after.

First, let me thank my colleague at Fordham University, Lance Strate, who recommended The Orville to me just last week.  He has a pretty good track record, his best recommendation so far being the reboot of Battlestar Galactica, which was much better than the original and superb.

I'm tempted to say The Orville is to Star Trek: The Original Series as Battlestar Galactica 2004 was to Battlestar Galactica 1978, but that wouldn't be quite right, because: (1) The original Star Trek was one of the best series ever on television, and the first BSG was, if not one of the worst, certainly nothing special, and (2) Battlestar Galactica 2004 was so dark as to be apocalyptic whereas The Orville is laugh-out-loud funny.

That's not surprising, since Seth MacFarlane not only stars in this latter day Star Trek as Captain Ed Mercer but is the creator of the series.  And the jokes are not only funny and continuous, with words like "dick" tossed around in just about every episode, but they don't interfere in the slightest with the outstanding science fiction in every episode, which was the strong suit of the original Star Trek.

In fact, I'd say The Orville is more like Star Trek the original series, truer to its pace and elan and sense of wonder, than any Star Trek since, with the exception of Star Trek: The Next Generation, which was in some ways better and some ways worse (and, come to think of it, The Orville is in some ways more reminiscent of the best parts of TNG and its interspecies-diverse crew than it is of TOS).  But everything else that's come since, whether on TV or in the movies, is just not as good, whatever their redeeming qualities.  (Ok, I only saw the first episode of Discovery, because I'm too cheap to pay for yet another streaming service, but that first episode was at best only all right in comparison to the first episode of The Orville.)

I won't summarize that for you - if you haven't seen it, do - but each of the five episodes I've seen so far packs a different kind of punch.  To return to episode 5, it's not quite as good as "City on the Edge of Forever" from TOS or "Yesterday's Enterprise" from TNG -- which are about the two best hours of time travel ever on television -- but it's pretty close, has respect for all the paradoxes of time travel, and like almost all fine time travel, even a thread I don't quite get.  When Kelly confronts Ed about telling the time traveler about Kelly and Ed's marital problems (they got divorced, because Ed found Kelly in bed with an alien who came in blue),  Ed says of course the time traveler knew, she came from the future, and Kelly says no, our problem took place in the past, and Ed admits he told the traveler.  But ... wait a minute, maybe that was a joke!

Kelly, by the way, is played by Adrianne Palicki of Friday Night Lights, and I'm always happy to see a star from that great series on TV again, just as I am about anyone from The Wire.  The crew, by the way, consists of five humans (Ed and Kelly, a woman doctor, and two guys on the bridge or whatever that is), a younger officer who looks like a Bajoran (well played by Halston Sage), a Lt.  Commander of some sort who looks like a Klingon (and lays an egg - not a bad joke, as Ed quips, but offspring), and some kind of highly intelligent android who sounds like Data but looks like the Tinman digital edition and maybe a little C3PO.  There's also an intelligent kind of slime with Norm MacDonald's voice, but I'm not sure if he's part of the crew.  These homages to Star Trek are of course deliberate and delightful, as is the music and the overall feel of the series.

Star Trek's back!

See also: The Orville 1.6-9: Masterful ... The Orville 1.10: Bring in the Clowns


1st starship to Alpha Centauri ... had only enough fuel to get there

The Walking Dead 8.4: The King's Not Smiling

Not just the most powerful episode of The Walking Dead this season, but tonight's 8.4 is one of the best in the overall series so far.

First, it was a King Ezekiel episode, which was long overdue and a sight for sore eyes.  But this episode was just tragically perfect in all kinds of ways.

The King has been saying "And yet I smile" for a while now.  It was a constant reminder that, in a narrative such as The Walking Dead, there would come a day when he'd say that no more (all right, I won't write any more in King-speak).

We saw why that would happen at the end of last week's episode, when the King's force is ambushed.  That was shocking.  But the way it played out tonight was exquisite.

Ezekiel keeps denying as he's a king, to himself and even more eloquently and agonizingly to Jerry (who was just fabulous in his ferocious loyalty tonight).  Jerry's response, "Dude, I have to" call you my King said it all, and surpasses even Ezekiel's later, poignant protestation that he's not a king, he's just "a man".  The only way to survive a zombie apocalypse is to have at least the bare bones of order.

And speaking of the zombies, they had one of their best nights tonight, too, literally rising from the dead, all around Ezekiel, as he climbs up and out of the dead who sought a few minutes earlier with their last breaths to protect him from the lethal ambush.  This is the first time we've seen so many dead get up and go staggering, right in front of our eyes.

Carol had her best night in a while, too, saving Ezekiel and Jerry at a crucial time, after she disposes of most of Negan's people aka Negans.  But ...

Well, I haven't read the comics, but you didn't need that to know that Shiva would both come on and save Ezekiel and company at a crucial time, and die in the process.  I don't quite get why she couldn't pull free and get away, but the narrative arc called her to die in that sacrifice.

This episode makes clear why The Walking Dead is the most watched drama series on any channel or streaming service.  It's a show for the ages.

See also:  The Walking Dead 7.1 ... The Walking Dead 7.7: Negan and the Kids

And see also: The Walking Dead 6.1: The Walking Herd ...  The Walking Dead Season 6 Finale: Who Was It?

And see also: The Walking Dead 5.1: The Redemption of Carole ... The Walking Dead 5.3: Meets Alfred Hitchcock and The Twilight Zone ... The Walking Dead 5.4: Hospital of Horror ... The Walking Dead 5.5: Anatomy of a Shattered Dream ... The Walking Dead 5.6-7: Slow ... The Walking Dead 5.8: Killing the Non-Killer ... The Walking Dead 5.9: Another Death in the Family ... The Walking Dead 5.11: The Smiling Stranger ... The Walking Dead 5.12: The Other Shoe ... The Walking Dead 5.13: The Horse and the Party ... The Walking Dead 5.15: The Bad Guy ... The Walking Dead Season 5 Finale: Morgan and Optimism

And see also The Walking Dead 4.1: The New Plague ... The Walking Dead 4.2: The Baby and the Flu ... The Walking Dead 4.3: Death in Every Corner ...The Walking Dead 4.4: Hershel, Carl, and Maggie ... The Walking Dead 4.6: The Good Governor ... The Walking Dead 4.7: The Governor's Other Foot ... The Walking Dead 4.8: Vintage Fall Finale ... The Walking Dead 4.9: A Nightmare on Walking Dead Street ... The Walking Dead 4:14: Too Far ... The Walking Dead Season 4 Finale: From the Gunfire into the Frying Pan

And see also The Walking Dead 3.3 meets Meadowlands ... The Walking Dead 3.4: Going to the Limit ... The Walking Dead 3.9: Making Crazy Sense ... The Walking Dead 3.10: Reinforcements ... The Walking Dead 3.11: The Patch ... The Walking Dead 3.12: The Lesson of Morgan ... The Walking Dead 3.13: The Deal ... The Walking Dead 3.14: Inescapable Parable ... The Walking Dead 3.15: Merle ... The Walking Dead 3.16: Kill or Die, or Die and Kill

And see also The Walking Dead Back on AMC ... The Walking Dead 2.2: The Nature of Vet  ... The Walking Dead 2.3: Shane and Otis ... The Walking Dead 2.4: What Happened at the Pharmacy ... The Walking Dead 2.6: Secrets Told ... The Walking Dead 2.7: Rick's Way vs. Shane's Way ...  The Walking Dead 2.8: The Farm, the Road, and the Town  ... The Walking Dead 2.9: Worse than Walkers ... The Walking Dead 2.11: Young Calling the Shots ... The Walking Dead 2.12: Walkers Without Bites ... The Walking Dead Season 2 Finale

And see also The Walking Dead 1.1-3:  Gone with the Wind, Zombie Style ... The Walking Dead Ends First Season

The Girlfriend Experience 2.1-2: Two for One

Well, The Girlfriend Experience has returned to Starz for its second season, and its very different from the first.

To begin with, each hour contains two separate half-hour stories, with different characters, which so far have no connection to each other.  And no discernible connection to the first season, either.

And the specific storylines are also different in tone and texture from the compelling attorney/call girl (the same person) who was the central character in the first season.  Now we have a political story in the first - maybe, I don't know, like The Good Wife, or its political parts.   And in the second we have a Homeland kind of story, or at least a call girl (actually two) put into some type of high-tech witness protection set-up on an offshore island.

The common thread, of course, is all the call-girls are providing girlfriend experiences, or will provide them, for whatever reason.  And this still makes the stories more interesting than just a call-girl or prostitute story (not that those can't be interesting, too, as demonstrated by The Deuce this year on Showtime).  But the desire for not just sex but a girlfriend for the money makes the men inherently more unusual, ranging from almost verging on decent to sick sadistic bastards.

It's tough to be new or original on television these days, with so much already done, and so much new coming out on every streaming service, as well as cable and the ancient networks.  But Starz is giving us a good run for its (or rather, our) money, and The Girlfriend Experience is part of this, and looks to still be well worth watching.

See also The Girlfriend Experience: Eminently Worth It (my review of Season 1)

 

It all started in the hot summer of 1960, when Marilyn Monroe walked off the set of The Misfits and began to hear a haunting song in her head, "Goodbye Norma Jean" ...

Outlander 3.8: Pirates!

Well, with Black Sails sailed off the air earlier thus year, Outlander couldn't have come up a pirate thread at a better time - that is, if you like pirate stories (I do) and if that ship at the end of episode 3.8 whose men captured young Ian are pirates. 

I think they are.  But who can be sure (since I haven't read the novels, I'm only sure of what I've seen on screen).  I'm indeed sure that tonight's episode was excellent, in the new series that's come back to us with Claire's return to Scotland and the past.  Her reunion with Jamie, and all its difficulties, have been handled with intelligence and style.

As always, I have questions (and maybe these were answered already in the novels).  But -

1. Why didn't Jamie go up to the stones, rather than swim to the island, when he was out of prison, any time during the 20 years?  Is it possible that stones won't work for Jamie?  But, if so, how would he know that?  Or, did he try to travel to the future via the stones, but got nowhere?

2. Less cosmic: how was young Ian supposed to get the coins and jewels back to Jamie and Claire without a boat?  It's already been established that the swim is rough, even treacherous, so what was the plan?  (And my wife wonders why young Ian couldn't take a boat in the first place?)

But I'm loving Outlander, anyway, and the prospect of Jamie and Claire going to the same part of the world as James Bond, played by Sean Connery, another Scot, would fictionally do in our own century - come to think of it, around the same time Claire was in Boston - is appealing indeed.  How do you say shiver me timbers in Scottish?

See also Outlander Season 3 Debut: A Tale of Two Times and Places ...Outlander 3.2: Whole Lot of Loving, But ... Outlander 3.3: Free and Sad ... Outlander 3.4: Love Me Tender and Dylan ... Outlander 3.5: The 1960s and the Past ... Outlander 3.6: Reunion ... Outlander 3.7: The Other Wife

And see also Outlander 2.1: Split Hour ... Outlander 2.2: The King and the Forest ... Outlander 2.3: Mother and Dr. Dog ... Outlander 2.5: The Unappreciated Paradox ... Outlander 2.6: The Duel and the Offspring ...Outlander 2.7: Further into the Future ... Outlander 2.8: The Conversation ... Outlander 2.9: Flashbacks of the Future ... Outlander 2.10: One True Prediction and Counting ... Outlander 2.11: London Not Falling ... Outlander 2.12: Stubborn Fate and Scotland On and Off Screen ... Outlander Season 2 Finale: Decades

And see also Outlander 1.1-3: The Hope of Time Travel ... Outlander 1.6:  Outstanding ... Outlander 1.7: Tender Intertemporal Polygamy ...Outlander 1.8: The Other Side ... Outlander 1.9: Spanking Good ... Outlander 1.10: A Glimmer of Paradox ... Outlander 1.11: Vaccination and Time Travel ... Outlander 1.12: Black Jack's Progeny ...Outlander 1.13: Mother's Day ... Outlander 1.14: All That Jazz ... Outlander Season 1 Finale: Let's Change History

 

It all started in the hot summer of 1960, when Marilyn Monroe walked off the set of The Misfits and began to hear a haunting song in her head, "Goodbye Norma Jean" ...

Curb Your Enthusiasm 9.5: Schmata at Large

Well, I held off reviewing Curb Your Enthusiasm 9.5 as long as I could - because I don't usually review comedies - but it deserves a review, if only because it had the word "schmata," the second in as many weeks for a show on HBO (the first was in The Deuce, from Harvey).

This time, in Curb, it's from Larry, but 9.5 was one of those episodes with lots of good schtick and lots of good lines, from everyone.   It was also good to see Larry maybe start up a romance with the mail deliverer aka mail woman, though, of course, given it's Larry, he torpedoes it before it's really had a chance to begin.

Other good segments delivered their expected dose of humor wrapped in insult, ranging from Larry commenting on the baby with Asian eyes to Larry refusing to go along with the "thank you for your service" to Jeff's soon-to-be-son-in-law, who served in Afghanistan.

But the funniest shtick has to be the mixture of words and pantomime, carried over in at least two scenes, wherein Larry tries to determine if the chef "made a face" when the waiter presented Larry's request that the dish be broiled rather than sauteed.  As in all things Larry, his goal of knowing what was on the chef's face makes perfect sense: you don't want to get the chef to change the order he or she's expecting or accustomed to preparing, unless you're sure that's ok with the chef.

My wife and I discuss this every time one of us is thinking of asking if a dish can be slightly changed to our liking, especially at a restaurant where we've never eaten before.  Once, on Cape Cod about ten years ago, my daughter and I asked for our fish to be prepared slightly differently, and it came out way too dry.  But my wife didn't ask to have her order changed, and she said her food was delicious.

I'd like to see Larry and the mail deliverer give it one more shot, maybe in a restaurant, where Larry can opine about changing the order and gauging the chef's face, and no one will be wearing a schmata of any kind.

See also: Curb Your Enthusiasm 9.1: Hilarious! ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 9.2: Wife Swapping ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 9.3: Benefits ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 9.4: "Hold You in his Armchair"





It started in the hot summer of 1960, when Marilyn Monroe walked off the set of The Misfits and began to hear a haunting song in her head, "Goodbye Norma Jean" ...

Stranger Things 2: Bigger, Better

I found Stranger Things 2 bigger and better than 1 -

1. More science, less metaphysics in 2 than 1.  For me, this makes the horror impact of the story even stronger.  Will is infected by a kind of virus from the other dimension.  That means there's a logical way to fight it - in this case, heat.  And this in turn means our heroes have a logical chance of winning, in addition to the supernatural, supra-physical, which also plays a major role, in the person of Eleven, aka Jane.

2. Speaking of science, the demogorgons aka demodogs are a good addition, too.   Dart, in particular, makes a nice viper (as per Aesop) or snake (as per Al Wilson's "The Snake" - see my review of The Lady in the Woods for more) which Dustin takes in, nurtures, and is almost killed by, more than once.  And many people are indeed killed as the demogorgon molts into numerous demogorgons.  But Dart remembers Dustin at a crucial time, and eats his nougats rather than Dustin, so in Stranger Things 2 the ancient fable has a better ending than it does in Al Wilson's hit record.

3. Sean Astin and Paul Reiser make great new characters.  So, for that matter, does the much lesser known Sadie Sink as Max.  (Tiny spoiler: one of the three won't be coming back, but I won't tell you which one.)  In Stranger Things 2, all three bring spunk and heart in different ways to the story.

4. Back to Eleven: she has a much richer role in Stranger Things 2 than 1, though in 1 she was certainly a crucial if not the crucial character.  But in 2, we're treated to a high-octane episode in Chicago, with Eleven moving all kinds of things around.

In general, the canvas in 2 is larger than in 1.  The narrative in 2 is much more than a boy lost, and though most of the action still takes place in the small town in Indiana, you get a feeling that much more of the world is at stake.   Good job on all accounts.

See also Stranger Things 1.1-1.5: Parallel Horror ... Stranger Things 1.6-18: Lando to Fringe


more parallel worlds ... "flat-out fantastic" - says Scifi and Scary

Heather, the Totality: The Bombshell

As everyone knows who has read this blog or seen me talk at conferences about The Sopranos,  etc., I've long admired Matthew Weiner's work on both The Sopranos and Mad Men, and indeed consider it to be at the very apex of television.  I was thus more than pleased to get a slightly-advance copy of Weiner's first novel (due to be published November 7) late yesterday, and read it one-and-a-half sittings (a little in the wee hours of the morning, the rest just this afternoon).  It's only 134 short pages, but it's so compelling I'm sure I would have read all of it in that time, anyway, had it been twice as long.

It didn't need to be. Weiner's novel is exceptional, very much a slice of life in New York at this moment, and very different in style and pacing at the same time.  There's only one line of true dialogue, and it's a bombshell.  The descriptive passages are reminiscent of both Dickens and Salinger.  And the story rings true on all kinds of levels.

Not long ago, I got in my car in the parking lot of a supermarket, and noticed a guy looking at a woman who was walking by.  There was something in his eyes that, I don't know, was more sinister than just appreciation.  I stayed in my car a few minutes, until the woman got safely in her car and drove away.

This is the spark plug of Heather, the Totality.  A father (Mark) notices a construction worker looking at his 14-year old daughter (Heather) as she walks out of their building.  That scene happens 2/3s or more into the novel.  Before that, we learn a lot about Mark, Karen (Mark's wife and Heather's mother), Heather, and the construction worker, Bobby.  We learn enough about Bobby to know that Mark's concerns about what Bobby might do to his daughter are well-founded.

I'm not going to tell you the ending.  Give yourself a treat and get a copy of this novel, destined to be recognized as a new kind of story telling.

  
It all starts in the hot summer of 1960, when Marilyn walks off the set
of The Misfits and begins to hear a haunting song in her head,
"Goodbye Norma Jean" ...

The Day I Met El Chapo: Rings True

I just saw "The Day I Met El Chapo: The Kate Del Castillo Story" on Netflix.  I've half-joked that I admire El Chapo's construction of a tunnel (or his people constructing a tunnel) which enabled him to escape from a Mexican prison a few years ago - well, more truth in that joke than half, I've always thought tunnels under buildings were cool - but nothing that I'll say in this review is joking.  Like the documentary, it's 100% real.

I first became aware of Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto when U. S. Presidential candidate Donald Trump went to Mexico to meet him.  That meeting did people who opposed Trump in the U. S., and therefore the people of the United States, no favors.  It helped legitimize Trump and his dangerous bluster.  I therefore didn't like Peña Nieto, for that very important reason, from the moment I first heard of him.

Having seen "The Day I Met El Chapo," I like Peña Nieto even less.  If we are to believe what is shown in the movie, and said by many of the people interviewed - journalists, actors, producers, and mostly Kate Del Castillo herself - the Mexican government under Peña Nieto, embarrassed by El Chapo's escape, have persecuted Del Castillo, even though El Chapo has since been recaptured, extradited to the U. S. (the day before Trump's inauguration), and is now awaiting trial in Brooklyn.

The reason is Kate's meeting with El Chapo, along with Sean Penn, several months before El Chapo's recapture.   The purpose of the meeting was undeniably murky, and included making a movie about El Chapo (Kate's main reason for going to the life-endangering meeting), an article Sean Penn was writing about El Chapo for Rolling Stone, and the excitement of meeting an iconic actress (apparently El Chapo's reason, partially reciprocated by Kate, which makes that a second reason for her).  How or why any of that should be illegal, or grounds for the Mexican government coming after Kate, defies logic, and makes Peña Nieto the worst bad guy in this documentary.

Sean Penn doesn't come out smelling like a rose, either.  He denied (in an interview by Charlie Rose) tipping off the U. S. or Mexican government about El Chapo's whereabouts, and points out that El Chapo was ultimately captured nowhere near where  their meeting took place.  But why then did he refuse to appear in the documentary?  What was he afraid of?

And some of the media, who suggested that Kate was having an affair with El Chapo (she admits that she slept with Penn), or laundered money for him, on zero evidence, come off poorly, to say the least, as well.   Being an already well-established actress, her stated reason for taking the meeting - to discuss making a movie about El Chapo - seems much more plausible.  And Kate indeed seems like a passionate person -  but passionate about her work, and her desire to help the Mexican people - not to share El Chapo's bed or his money.

The current crisis with opiates in the U. S. should tell us something about drugs in America.  Years ago, a friend of mine from Colombia told me something which has always stuck with me: the group most responsible for the drug problem in America are not the suppliers, but the people who take the drugs.  Until we do a better job as a society in getting people not to take addictive drugs, we'll always have a drug problem, whether the drugs are supplied by foreign cartels or American pharmaceutical companies.

In the meantime, we should be grateful that people like Kate Del Castillo, who started it all with a tweet, are willing to stand up for their beliefs.

  
It all starts in the hot summer of 1960, when Marilyn walks off the set
of The Misfits and begins to hear a haunting song in her head,
"Goodbye Norma Jean" ...