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Archive for June, 2025

WHAT I’M WATCHING: “Life After Life”

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on June 27, 2025| 1 Comment »

Tomasin McKenzie

“LIFE AFTER LIFE”’  (Amazon Prime)

Tomasin McKenzie has been on the verge of first-class stardom for several years now. “Life After Life” should cement her reputation.

Now 24, this descendent of Down Under theatrical royalty has exhibited wisdom beyond her years in her choice of projects. 

Titles like “Leave No Trace,” “Jojo Rabbit,” “Lost Girls,” “The Power of the Dog,”  “Last Night in Soho” and “Joy” are not only good movies, they have  allowed McKenzie to display gob-smacking range.

She can play anything from childish innocence to middle-aged maturity.  “Life after Life” allows her to do it all in one four-hour miniseries. She’s unforgettable.

The thumbnail description of “Life…” (based on Kate Atkinson’s best-selling novel) is that it’s sort of a non-comedic “Groundhog Day”  with a protagonist who dies dozens of times only to be reborn back in 1910 to start the process all over again.

Our lead character, Ursula (played as a teen and adult by McKenzie), has vague deja vu-ish memories of her previous incarnations…just enough to avoid situations that in the past led to her demise.  Like Bill Murray’s weather man, she learns from her failures. 

Problem is, fate always catches up with her, throwing new dangers in her path. 

She dies. She is reborn. She dies. Reborn. Dies. Reborn.

Will she ever get off this karmic Ferris Wheel?

Created and scripted by Bathsheba Doran and directed by John Crowley (who has a way with young actresses…witness the perf he got from Saoirse Ronan in “Brooklyn”), “Life After Life” is crammed with fantasy elements.

Yet you can’t call it an escapist experience.  Life is cruel and though she finds moments of love, Ursula’s lives more closely resemble the trials of Job than a hopeful march toward Nirvana.

Born in 1910 to a well-off and loving Brit gentleman (James McArdle) and his brittle wife (Sian Clifford), little Ursula dies shortly after birth, strangled by her own umbilical cord.

Not to worry. She’s soon reborn; this time the country doctor overseeing the delivery acts decisively to save the baby.

Childhood in her parents’ green estate should be idyllic. But Ursula (played as a child and early adolescent by Eliza Riley and Isla Johnson) lives under a cloud of gloom.  Even as a youngster she sense that nothing is permanent.

Indeed, in less talented hands Ursula’s revolving door of disasters might seem ludicrous.

Death by drowning. A fall from an upstairs window. Fatal auto accident. Rape. Abortion.

Small wonder that adolescent Ursula is bitter, grouchy and even borderline homicidal. 

And that’s just the personal crises.  In the background we endure two world wars.  In one of her lifetimes Ursula marries a German and moves with her husband to the Third Reich, just in time to endure starvation with her three-year-old daughter. In another she and a lover are blown to smithereens during the London Blitz.

You cannot outrun fate.

The pitfalls inherent in this project were considerable.  It’s like playing a board game where you’re repeatedly sent back to the go position. Atkinson’s script and the editing (by Nick Emerson) deftly lay out just where we are in Ursula’s spiritual journey, with each succeeding life zipping through the scenes we’ve already witnessed to get on with her latest travails.

(For those of us who still don’t glom onto the film’s methodology, a voiceover narration by Leslie Manville pops up now and then to offer guidance.)

The performances of the huge cast are quietly spectacular.  There are so many catch-in-the-throat moments here that the four episodes become an acting marathon.

Holding it all together is McKenzie, whose ability to convincingly transform from freckled youngster to embattled adult and back again is positively superhuman.

For all its grim elements, “Life After Life” is weirdly poetic.  Each time Ursula dies she finds herself surrounded by gently dancing snowflakes, a recurring visual that suggests a kindness in death that is missing from our heroine’s lives. 

Prepare to be haunted.

| Robert W. Butler

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SHORT TAKES: “Surviving Ohio State,” “Cleaner”

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on June 26, 2025| Leave a Comment »

Rep. Jim Jordan

“SURVIVING OHIO STATE” My rating: B (MAX)

 108 minutes | No MPAA rating: PG

For those who have followed the controversy over the years, “Surviving Ohio State” will drop no new bombshells.

But Eva Orner’s documentary, about the sexual abuse scandal that wracked a powerhouse Midwestern University, does an admirable job of telling a big story that most of us have received only in bits and pieces over the better part of three decades.

Orner (an Australian whose “Chasing Asylum” savages her country’s response to refugees) takes her cues from the script by Jon Wertham, the “60 Minutes” correspondent whose 2020  series in Sports Illustrated  painstakingly examined decades of predatory activities at OSU and many years of coverups.

Like a lot of rah-rah sports films, this one begins by describing the long culture of winning at Ohio State and the near-maniacal loyalty of its athletes and fans.  We’re introduced to legendary wrestling coach Russ Hellickson and his assistant and former collegiate wrestling champ Jim Jordan. (Yes, the same Jim Jordon who is now a rabidly MAGA member of Congress.)

We’ meet the late Dr. Richard Strauss through the testimony of students and student athletes who were his victims.  Strauss, a physician in the athletic department, had a reputation for fondling the genitals of athletes under the guise of a medical exam.  He didn’t come off as an overtly dirty old man….more like straight-faced professional engaging in business as usual. His handsy practices were tolerated because the young players were too naive to realize precisely what was happening to them.

And then there were the showers.  Strauss would take several a day, but only if there was an athlete in there with him.  At one point after a tournament a wrestling referee found himself in the showers with the masturbating M.D. 

Those who complained got knowing shrugs and answers like, “Well, that’s the Doc.”  Strauss’ behavior became a running joke.

Except that in interviews numerous athletes (mostly wrestlers but also members of the fencing and hockey squads) exhibit traumatic responses to even talking about Strauss. Tears. Trembling.  Big tough guys in their 40s and 50s going to pieces before our eyes. There was damage done.

The first hour of “Surviving Ohio State” chronicles the abuse in blushing and/or stomach-churning detail.  My main beef with the film is that we keep getting the same story from a variety of individuals…the movie makes its case, but only at the risk of becoming repetitive.

Just when you think you can’t take another twisted anecdote, the movie shifts to the effort by former OSU jocks to sue the university for what they endured.  Their  legal effort was almost derailed by the statute of limitations; it took the intercession of the U.S. Supreme Court to get it back on track.

The former students interviewed say it isn’t about the money.  They want the school to admit its complicity in tolerating Strauss’ behavior and then covering up the scandal.

In the film’s final chapter that we return to Jim Jordan.  The former wrestlers who appear on screen  invariably say that Coach Jordon was completely aware of Strauss’s transgressions.  Jordan has repeatedly denied that this is the case.

I’ve never been a fan of Jordan’s politics, but after this I can hardly watch or listen to the guy.

Perhaps even more disheartening is the behavior of the beloved Coach Hellickson, who after meeting with former students agreed to join them in their quest, then did a 180 and prertty much evaporated from sight.  

Throughout the all, the University refused to admit to any wrongdoing.

Daisy Ridley, Matthew Tuck

“CLEANER” My rating: B- (MAX)

97 minutes | MPAA rating: R

For an unapologetic ripoff of “Die Hard,” “Cleaner” is ridiculously diverting.

Terrorists take over a high-rise office building during a big celebration. They kill a few hostages.  They can only be stopped by one lone individual who’s in the wrong place at the right time.

The good news is that the script by Simon Uttley, Paul Andrew Williams and Matthew Orton throws some unexpected twists into the familiar mix.

For starters, the bad guys are ecoterrorists whose plan is to the reveal to the world the dark secrets of a polluting energy conglomerate and the government officials who facilitate its environmental depredations.

Our lone wolf  protagonist is a female window cleaner who is dangling outside the building 30 floors above the street when the invasion takes place.  Her name is Joey (Daisy Ridley of “Star Wars” fame) and as luck would have it she’s a former special forces operative with a lethal skill set.

Oh, yeah, she’s also babysitting her autistic brother (Matthew Tuck), a geeky guy who carries a replica of Thor’s hammer but is something of a savant when it comes to computer hacking.  His talents will come in handy.

“Cleaner “ gets off to a slow and rather desultory start.  I was almost ready to bail after five minutes. 

But then it kicks in and director Martin Campbell (a veteran of the Bond franchise) deftly juggles the growing suspense and carefully choreographed action.

| Robert W. Butler

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WHAT I’M WATCHING: “Étoile,”“Suspect: The Shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes”

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on June 16, 2025| Leave a Comment »

Lou de Laâge, Luke Kirby

“ÉTOILE”  (Amazon Prime)

Given that the hardasses at Amazon have already cancelled “Étoile,” one might question whether it’s worth investing time in a show for which there will apparently be but one season.

Well, yeah.

Let me put it this way…if you got off on the cultured people doing below-the-belt things in “Mozart in the Jungle” (a series about the backstage goings-on at a big-city symphony orchestra), you’re a perfect candidate for this show set in the rarified world of ballet.

The show was created by Daniel Palladino and Amy Sherman-Palladino, the big brains behind “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,” and like that long-running series “Étoile” (French for “star”) is a potent mix of comedy and social observation.

And there’s an astonishing cast.  More on that in a sec.

The premise is that to battle a post-COVID downturn in attendance, ballet companies in NYC and Paris hold a cultural exchange, sending key players across the Big Pond in the hope that fresh blood will revive public interest in dance.

Running the two companies are Jack McMillan (Luke Kirby, so terrific as Lenny Bruce in “Maisel”) and Charlotte Gainsbourg.  

Both are fine actors, and Gainsbourg brings with her a rep as the most desired French actress since Bardot.  She’s not a conventional beauty and almost never plays a seductress, yet I personally know several middle-aged men who think she’s sex on wheels. That audience base in itself should have been enough to keep the show around for a second season.

Stealing his every scene is Simon Callow as Crispin Shamblee, the ruthless mogul (we’re talking international arms dealing and heavily polluting industries) who uses his millions to rescue the two dance companies but in return demands a big say in their artistic and day-to-day decisions. He’s hateful in a Koch-ish way, but so puckishly erudite the screen lights up every time he’s on.

Tobias Bell is a font of insecurity and arrogance as the American choreographer shipped to France for the season; David Haig is loveably amusing as the New York company’s artistic director, nearing retirement and overflowing with sex-and-drug anecdotes from his dance career.

The breakout star, though, is Lou de Laâge as Cheyenne, the French prima ballerina who come to NYC with a chip on her shoulder and a bad attitude that could singe your bangs.  When we first see Cheyenne she’s on a Greenpeace ship confronting a fishing fleet…think Greta Thunberg on speed.

In my book the surly Cheyenne is one of the season’s great characters.  And the fact that de Laâge also appears to be a first-class dancer only seals the deal.

For that matter, all of the actors playing dancers seem to actually know their stuff.  I kept looking for evidence of post-production sweetening in the big production numbers, but couldn’t find any.  This appears to be the real thing — good actors who are also terrific ballet dancers.

Conleth Hill

“SUSPECT: THE SHOOTING OF JEAN CHARLES de MENEZES” (Hulu)

In 2005 the London transportation system was racked by a series of terrorist bombings that brought the metropolis to a standstill.  

This four-part Brit docudrama divides its time between the Jihadist perpetrators and the authorities engaged in a nationwide manhunt.

But as the show’s title suggests, there was collateral damage. A Brazilian worker named Jean Charles de Menezes was misidentified as a possible suspect and murdered by trigger-happy police as he innocently rode a subway.  This was followed by a massive coverup as the police tried to minimize their culpability in his death.

British viewers are no doubt already familiar with the incident, which may account for the satiric edge creators Kwadjo Dana and Jeff Pope give to the proceedings.

At least some of that attitude is warranted.  After a successful subway attack a second wave of suicide bombers were dispatched, but their homemade bombs were duds, succeeding mostly in scaring commuters and burning the would-be martyrs who triggered them. It was a sort of black comedy of incompetence and “Suspect” plays it that way.

But the real knives are sharpened for Sir Ian Blair, the head of the Metropolitcan Police and portrayed by Conleth Hill as the worst sort of pompous autocrat, always ready to burnish his resume or cover his ass.

Hill already had strong  credentials in unctuousness thanks to his turn as the conniving eunuch Lord Varys in “Game of Thrones.” 

But here he ups the ante, delivering a dissection upper class arsery so shamelessly self-serving that I found myself roaring with laughter.

Which is not what you expect from a show about real-life terrorism, but there you have it.

Actually, “Suspect” is the perfect title.  It’s not only about suspected perpetrators.  It’s also about officials whose motives are suspect.

| Robert W. Butler

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WHAT I’M WATCHING: “Mobland,” “Dope Thief,” “Dept. Q,” “The Four Seasons”

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 2, 2025| Leave a Comment »

Paddy Considine, Pierce Brosnan, Helen Mirren, Tom Hardy

“MOBLAND’’  (Paramount )

When it comes to reprehensible behavior and mindless violence, American criminals seem positively enlightened compared to the mayhem-dishing psychos inhabiting British series like “Gangs of London” and, now, “Mobland.”

In “Mobland” the seemingly omnipresent Tom Hardy plays Harry, the stoic but ruthlessly effective lieutenant to the Harrigans, one of London’s two major crime syndicates.

Hardy, who is watchable in even iffy material, here gets the most out of Harry’s slow-burn personality. This is a guy who seems calm even when spraying a machine gun in a war for supremacy in London’s illicit drug trade.

But the real acting meat goes to Pierce Brosnan as Conrad Harrigan, the arrogant, emotionally loose-canon boss of the clan, and especially Helen Mirren as his wife Maeve, a scheming Lady Macbeth with a gloriously foul mouth and a chess master’s talent for duplicitous scheming. Emmys seem obvious.

Toss in Paddy Considine as their tormented son, Anson Boon as  his homicidal spoiled-brat teenager and Joanne Froggatt as Harry’s kept-in-the-dark wife, and you’ve got a pedigreed supporting cast.

Keep your eyes open for brief but telling perfs from the likes of Janet McTeer and Toby Jones.

Wagner Moura, Brian Tyree Henry

“DOPE THIEF”(Apple +)

Is there any role Brian Tyree Henry can’t play?

He’s impressed as a perplexed rapper in TV’s “Atlanta,”  been a heavy in actioners like “Bullet Train” and showed his humanistic side in “Causeway” and “The Fire Inside.”

He massages all those facets into his lead performance in “Dope Thief,” a crime drama that also serves as a touching bromance.

Ray Driscoll (Henry) and his buddy Manny (Wagner Moura) are ex cons who now earn a living by posing as DEA agents and ripping off drug houses.  It’s the perfect crime, since their victims aren’t about to go to the authorities for redress.

Perfect until, that is, their latest score results in a shootout. Turns out their target was actually part of a federal sting operation.  Among the dead is a government agent; surviving but badly wounded is DEA agent Mina (an excellent Marin Ireland), now determined to track down the guys responsible for killing her partner.

And that’s not even mentioning the white supremacist motorcycle gang who were the original target of the sting and now seeking to recover their cash.

“Dope Thief” alternates between high drama and some satiric comedy, not always making the transition gracefully.  But Henry and Moura are weirdly compelling as two guys in way over their heads, with Moura’s character burdened by a bad case of conscience.

And you’ve gotta love Kate Mulgrew as Ray’s chain-smoking, casino-crawling mother (or is it stepmother?)

Alexej Manvelov, Matthew Goode, Leah Byrne

“DEPT. Q” (Netflix)

Based on Danish author Carl Adler-Olsen’s series of crime novels, “Dept. Q” takes his yarn about a squad of police misfits and plops them down in Scotland.

Matthew Goode, whom I usually associate with fairy genteel roles, here is having almost too much fun as scuzzy, scraggly Carl Morck, a police detective with a Scroogish personality who, to keep him out of his colleagues’ hair, is given his own cold case unit operating from the dank basement of police headquarters.

Though a fierce loner, Carl finds himself saddled with other officers from the department’s roster of losers. 

Alexej Manvelov is borderline brilliant as Akram, a quiet, seemingly gentle refugee from Syria whose kindly exterior hides a disturbing knowledge of torture techniques.  Leah Byrne is Rose, a Kewpie doll of a cop out of the loop since accidentally killing a citizen during a high-speed chase. And Jamie Sives is Hardy, Carls’ old partner now paralyzed after a shooting but still able to man a computer.

This first season is dedicated to the search for a prosecuting attorney (Chloe Pirrie) who has been missing for four years.  Periodically the action shifts from Carl and  his crew to a remote location where the woman has been enduring a hellish imprisonment.

Though there are parts of the yarn that seem underdeveloped or even superfluous (I’m thinking Carl’s contentious relationship with his angry motherless stepson and his mandated sessions with a shrink played by Kelly Macdonald — who may in upcoming seasons turn into a love interest), the central crime and its slow unravelling makes for compulsory viewing.

Erika Henningsen, Steve Carell, Tina Fey, Colman Domingo, Will Forte, Marco Calvani

“THE FOUR SEASONS”(Netflix)

This spinoff from Alan Alda’s 1981 feature film is a quiet delight.

The movie followed a group of middle-aged friends through four vacations, each set in one of the four seasons (with musical accompaniment featuring Vivaldi’s ever-popular “Four Seasons”).

Tina Fey and Will Forte are Kate and Jack, long married but starting to see cracks in the relationship.  The flamboyant Italian Claude (Marco Calvani) and the workaholic Danny (Colman Domingo) are a gay couple going through their own issues.

And then there’s Nick and Anne (Steve Carell, Kerri Kinney), who shock their friends with a divorce.  Things get really uncomfortable when Nick starts showing  up for group gatherings with Ginny (Erika Henningsen), a dental hygienist half his age.

Like the film, this eight-part series is consistently funny while tackling some pretty serious themes about marriage, infidelity, the middle-aged blahs  and how the hell you’re supposed to support both members in a failed marriage.

| Robert W. Butler

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