This week our teas on tap include a sandy sci-fi opening, a political documentary, a teenaged fantasy, and a macabre classic. Enjoy!
Dune
HBOMax - Science Fiction - Rival Factions
Synopsis
The adolescent heir to a planetary fiefdom must learn to stand on his own, as vying forces target his father’s domain and his mother’s heritage, in a swirling desert of danger and opportunity.
My take
Denis Villeneuve was the right director to helm a course through the baking sands of Dune. His last two films, Arrival (2016) and Blade Runner 2049 (2017), proved him a uniquely talented visual storyteller, as comfortable with internal human drama as with external sci-if landscapes. Dune and its projected sequel, Dune: Part Two, no doubt require both; and in Dune so far the filmmaker pulls off an impressive visual catalogue of people and places that is pregnant with the potential of significant human strife.
Most praiseworthy for its Art Direction, Costumes, Sound, and Visual Effects, the film stumbles only in that its characters’ stories are (literally) only half-told. Consequently, as a stand-alone release, the events of the plot lack a clear enough purpose to make the film’s scenes and settings more than cool notes about a possibly fascinating situation. And, sadly, the acting doesn’t much help — not that it was poor but just that, especially by being stylistically restrained, it offers little grapple for any viewer eager to hold, feel, and climb. So, I eagerly await Dune: Part Two, with the hope that seeing the work in its entirety will mend the story’s current ramps to nowhere in a fashion that adds the two-part release capably to Villeneuve’s already respectable repertoire.
Temperature check
Hot, if you can stand the wait
Love Life (Season 2)
HBOMax - Drama - Romance
Synopsis
An uncertainly happy New Yorker seeks fulfillment in platonic and ambiguously romantic relationships alike outside his marriage.
My take
The second season of HBOMax’ charming, under-the-radar Love Life takes the bold decision to diverge almost entirely from its first season’s clever character study and embrace what it calls a parallel study of a new character — this season, a straight black man instead of a straight white woman.
That both in-focus characters for the show are straight is, I’m sure, a matter of marketing; for a semi-anthological show to reach high rates of viewership, the logic goes I’d guess, it’s best to choose protagonists whose appeal will draw the biggest possible audience. The same logic, I cynically suspect, may be behind the early writing choice to have this season’s character question his own identity-based belonging, by explicitly tying him more to generally palatable (read: ‘white friendly’) cultural figures like Barack Obama and LeVar Burton than to others with more unique in-group clout, all to the character’s own admitted chagrin. As may be unsurprising, these palpable layers of marketing strategy (especially in early character building) bother me, because at heart Love Life (Season 1) earned its charm in my opinion by being an expressly human story about forging and fumbling connections; distraction with identity politics and business strategy, for me, clouds that picture and derails appeal.
Those qualms aside, the first three available episodes so far have been interesting enough: resonant in ways millennial audiences I think will appreciate, regardless of however they themselves identify, and comic (lightly), as intended.
If you’re new to Love Life, however, I’d definitely recommend warming up with Season 1 (and ignoring my skeptical preämble here while you’re doing so).
Temperature check
Tepid, if you’re not new
Four Hours at the Capitol
HBOMax - Documentary - Historical Event
Synopsis
Interviews with both January 6th insurrectionists and the law enforcement officials they stood against detail in gruesome color the vitriolic events of that surprising and fateful assault on the U.S. Capitol.
My take
The almost absent documentarian’s hand in telling in almost minute-by-minute detail the story of the January 6th insurrection at the Capitol is a terrific gift to anyone who wanted to know more about the who, what, where, when, and why of the events that day. The evidence, the filmmakers rightly appear to recognize, speaks for itself — and loudly.
Temperature check
Steaming
Locke & Key (Season 2)
Netflix - Fantasy - Coming of Age
Synopsis
Three siblings use magical keys to oppose the schemes of a power-hungry demon and other prying outsiders.
My take
A personal favorite from its inception because of its clever devices, Netflix’ Locke & Key (Hill, Cuse, & Averill [creators]) returns with added lore and trouble for its young protagonists in Season 2. These threats, born at the end of Season 1, help answer some lingering questions about the characters and their world we as the audience were left asking when last we saw them; and the world expanding the second season provides while finding those answers is interesting, even if done a little carelessly of the depth of the show’s overall plot.
On balance, however, the overall drama of the season does feel a bit concocted and improperly weighted this season. In future I think that this season will be viewed less as important canon than helpful bridge.
A bridge, however, will lead to a new place, so I remain excited for Season 3.
Temperature check
Tepid, unless you love the show
Insecure (Season 5) — Premiere
HBOMax - Comedy - Relationships
Synopsis
Issa and friends contend with continuing self-doubt, despite recent successes, in the ever-uphill trajectory of their lives.
My take
Issa Rae’s love letter to growing up motivated but not confident premieres its fifth season with a sharp return to form, hailing what made the series great in the past from compelling new angles. In the premiere episode, Issa and friends venture to the San Francisco Bay Area in order to attend their 10-year college reünion. While there, each faces professional questions that bleed back into her personal life.
The multi-track, parallel storytelling this premiere episode uses to structure its events provides a solid framework for its writers to explore substantive uncertainties its characters (and their peers both on and off screen) are feeling:
What does success mean?
Where is a good balance between self-care and self-control?
How do I want to be remembered?
Asking such questions in a premiere episode signals to me a strong start for a new season — a season which hopefully will dedicate its remaining time to thoughtfully considering and trying to find possible answers to the questions — or at least some hints at ways to get there.
Sadly, this focussed eye for storytelling has been more absent than present in the show its past couple of seasons, drumming up drama in places that felt off track for the show’s core arguments (viz., that we all face self-doubt, even when we appear to be doing well externally, and that this self-doubt, when unchecked by solid anchors that can be our friends and family, our work, and/or our attention to our own values, can cannibalize our best parts); but perhaps it’s this extra contrast with the show’s recent past, that makes it exciting to see once again in earnest form.
Whatever happens, the plot, I’m sure, will benefit from the charming lack of aplomb Issa’s unique voice has consistently brought to the table, where I’ve been sitting happily through seconds, thirds, and fourths in hopes of these yummy fifths.
Temperature check
Hot
American Horror Story (Season 10) — Finale
Hulu / FX - Horror - Parable + Historical Science Fiction
Synopsis
Part 1: A struggling screenwriter winters on the Massachusetts cape with his pregnant wife and young daughter and finds inspiration there as desired but not as planned.
Part 2: A fateful decision by President Eisenhower sets into motion a decades’ long subduction of the United States beneath a very foreign power.
My take
While I had hoped that the final episode of this tenth season of the cult-beloved Ryan-Murphy vehicle would actually interlink the two stories this Double Feature season told — even if only fleetingly and tangentially — the story nevertheless concluded in typical American Horror Story fashion: with an unnerving upset of the audience at home.
Wait, however; understand my bitterness here, reader, in proper context: This season was far and away the best the show has had in years. The first six episodes in particular brought a chillingly fresh perspective to well-worn horror tropes and called on some fantastic acting from especially Frances Conroy and Macaulay Culkin — whose face, I’ll admit, it was a curious delight to see in a well-told story once again.
That said, achievement recognized, I still hoped for a summary ending to the entire season that would have truly set it a notch above anything else from this series in recent memory.
Disappointment aside, if you haven’t checked out this split season yet, I highly encourage you to do so.
Temperature check
Hot
Paranormal Activity: Next of Kin
Paramount+ - Horror - Ghosts & Demons
Synopsis
A young woman connects with her Amish birth family and, to her horror, discovers they aren’t what they seem.
My take
The latest installment in the Paranormal Activity series (Peli [creator]) is a curious one, perhaps most closely related in the horror family tree to American Horror Story’s sixth season (Roanoke; Murphy & Falchuk, 2016) than anything else in its title series. As a meditation on fear, the story clearly borrows from recent horror gems As Above, So Below (Dowdle & Dowdle, 2014) and Midsommar (Aster, 2019) for its frights and fright devices but turns them into a dialogue on technological vs. pastoral living rather than on ignoring vs. atoning for past mistakes or loss vs. sacrifice. Consequently, the film bizarrely others rural farming as the spooky antithesis to the comforts of modern electronics and, incidentally, implies that there’s nothing frightening left in our modern world to write a movie about. Perhaps designed to appeal in that way to the horror fan youth of big cities (i.e., viewers that have kept afloat the disconnected entries into The Conjuring’s [Wan (creator)] universe like The Nun [Hardy (dir.) & Dauberman (wri.), 2018]), the film nevertheless sits awkwardly for anyone actually watching. More likely a bid for viewership around the Halloween holiday for its parent streamer Paramount+ than a serious attempt at scares, this one may still rank as one of the most bizarre ways to tell me I should be afraid of country living that I may ever see.
Temperature check
Cold — all the above said, not a technical abomination.
Retrospective
The Addams Family (1991)
Currently for Rent - Dark Comedy - Hijinks and Mistaken Identities
Synopsis
The sudden return of Gomez Addams’ long-lost brother Fester threatens the stability of the deathly happy Addams family.
My take
Nominated for an Academy Award for Ruth Myers’ gothically opulent costumes and for a Golden Globe for Anjelica Huston’s ethereally en-pointe performance, the 1991 reboot of Charles Addams’ comic family as a major feature film (Sonnenfeld [dir.] & Thompson & Wilson [wri.]) is a storytelling marvel best appreciated now, thirty years after its initial release. At the time seen predominantly as a dark romp for a young audience, the film over time I believe has found a deserved respect for its efficient character building, standard-setting acting, dramatic sets, and organic storyboarding. Indeed, it is the natural way the writing lets the story unfold — following the decisions of well-built characters to their sensible conclusions, regardless of the conditions it takes to get there — that I find most refreshing. That kind of writing today feels almost completely unavailable, while production constraints commonly reshape plots to maximize popular attention instead of their own stories. (I shudder to think of the 2019 animated reboot of the Addams franchise, no less its sequel currently in theaters.)
Aside from its technical achievements, the 1991 film and its 1993 sequel also stand atop a cultural legacy in discussions on privilege, morality, and otherness that permeate our on-going national attention (see Be Kind, Rewind for more). While this legacy may be unsurprising given the Addams family’s (1938) inception as a living bastion for the internally set moral compass and the death of the beholding to social norms, it’s still nice to see the material handled with such a delightfully macabre and mature tone, as no other entry into our cultural landscape has yet been able to do (cf. Dark Shadows [Burton (dir.) & Grahame-Smith (wri.), 2012], for example).
Even though ‘spooky season’ may now be officially ended with the start of November, I’d still strongly recommend a revisit to this early ‘90s dark comedy, if only to see Morticia visit an employment agency.
Temperature check
Hot