Friday Notes (Jan 27, 2023)

I still haven’t gotten used to writing “2023” — it feels like a misspelling. Perhaps in part because it’s an odd number. It’s not prime, and it’s kind of cute that it’s the product 7×17×17=2023. Lucky triple sevens! And a full house, sevens over aces. (Numerology would be another of those things that are fun but which I don’t believe.)

My 2022 plan for Serious Spring Cleaning didn’t end up nearly aggressive as planned. There’s still too much junk. And still too many (piles of) notes and notebooks.

So: Serious Spring Cleaning, take two, and another edition of Friday Notes.

These notes are largely about movies, TV shows, and some books I found noteworthy but not whole post-worthy. First, though, some random thoughts from my note pile.

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Dual is dual. The word “dual” gets used in two different ways. There is the duality of mind vs body or of a two-sided coin. The meaning here is of two distinct things. They’re aspects of one thing (brains and coins respectively), but their identities are distinct. The emphasis is on the difference. On the other hand, there are mathematical dualities that are two views of same thing. In this case the emphasis is on how the two apparently distinct things are really the same.

So, “dual” can mean one thing with two aspects, or two things that really are one. Really, the same thing but seen from opposite sides.

Dual meanings to dual! Dichotomy or Identity.

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Mac and cheese movies but done right.

I can’t remember which movie prompted that note (possibly the John Wick movies?), but it refers to genre movies that deliver exactly what you’d expect, pretty much “by the numbers”, but with expertise, awareness, and love. Comforting movies. Not so much in their content but in their shape and quality.

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I’m old enough to refer to things I did in the last century. In fact, it’s still true that I’ve lived more of my life in the previous century. Seems like another planet at this point.

Hell, the early 2010s seem like another planet at this point. What the hell happened to us?

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For all that men (especially young ones) supposedly are blinded and glamoured by beauty, the men I’ve known, myself very much included, might crave the idea of dating a supermodel but only take seriously women of substance.

The above note in response to a modern trend depicting (white) men as idiotic 1950s out-of-control frat boys (or ad men). Or insane villains. I suppose white men are, indeed, the last social group many think still can be depicted as craven horny total clowns. Or insane villains. (Both She-Hulk and Rings of Power were good at this. The new series Velma apparently takes it off-the-chain.)

Thank heavens for Pete Mitchell and Jack Reacher (and Jack Ryan)!

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And for movies like Mission: Impossible or R.R.R. (which I rewatched and loved all over again — see StoRy: FiRe vs WateR for more about the movie).

The first time I saw the first Mission: Impossible movie back in 1996, I was filled with anticipation and crushed by what I saw as a betrayal of (major character from the originals) Jim Phelps. I walked out really steamed. I had to disconnect the movie franchise from the beloved TV series. Two different things, no connection. And I’ve enjoyed the sequels just fine on that premise. Fun over-the-top movies. Mac and cheese movies.

Recently Amazon Prime offered the first four Mission: Impossible movies (for free, I mean), and I thought it would be fun to watch them all in quick succession (two the first night, one each on two later nights). Comforting and enjoyable.

It’s been long enough now (and I’ve seen it at least twice before) that I wasn’t tweaked by the Jim Phelps character assassination and enjoyed the movie just fine. The email thing with Job 3:14 was pretty funny (in a totally unintended way). It was directed by Brian de Palma, so adaptation issues aside, it’s a well-done film.

The second one is so obviously a John Woo film. (The doves are always a giveaway.) I’m a fan of his work (although Face/Off tweaks my loved ones in jeopardy thing).

The third one was directed by J.J. Abrams (for many of us the guy who drove the final nails in the Star Trek coffin). Hard to separate possible bias on my part, but it’s the one I’ve liked least. Blame a lot of that on a distaste for stories that put innocents, especially loved ones, in jeopardy. Movies like that just aren’t fun for me.

By the fourth one, directed by Brad Bird, the franchise fully reaches the over-the-top crazy stunts in exotic locations mode that distinguishes the rest of the movies. As with the Top Gun movies and so many others, Tom Cruise gives good movie.

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Shout outs to other movies I’ve enjoyed recently:

Bullet Train, directed by David Leitch (John Wick, Atomic Blonde Deadpool 2). A fun stylized black comedy about assassins. It stars Brad Pitt and a bunch of other names (including Brian Tyree Henry, who was so good in Atlanta). Watch for two surprise late appearances (one also from Atlanta and the other “America’s girl next door”).

Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, directed by Rian Johnson. Sequel to the 2019 Knives Out. I’ve enjoyed both immensely!

[A lot of people can’t forgive Rian Johnson for The Last Jedi (understandably so), but I overlook that because I’ve liked his other films a lot. Brick (2005) was very good, Looper (2012) was an excellent time travel movie (one I’ve meant to post about for years), and as I just said, I loved both the Knives Out movies. He apparently just got in over his head with the Star Wars movie. Or maybe submitted to studio pressure. So, he’s 4-1-1 with me. (The trailing “1” because I’ve never seen The Brothers Bloom, but it sounds like I’d like it, which would make him 5-1 with me. Good odds!)]

Just the other night I watched Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio (one of not one, not two, but three Pinocchio films released recently). It’s a Netflix production, but one of the good ones. I’ve heard the other two versions (Disney and a Russian one) are pretty bad. The Guillermo del Toro version owes much to the Carlo Collodi original and to del Toro’s dark and visually creative imagination.

Thumbs up on all three, but (as always) tastes vary.

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I recently mentioned I was watching Lilyhammer (2012-2014; three seasons; eight episodes each). It stars Bruce Springsteen’s drummer Steven Van Zandt (who also produced). Overall, I give it an Ah! rating and recommend it.

I did think it lost its way a little in the third season. Storylines seem to wander and then amount to nothing. The final episode was quite good and wraps things up (albeit a bit darkly in some regards). There is one big thread left dangling that you have to use your imagination to resolve. (I won’t spoil it. It’s worth the journey for yourself.)

On the negative side, it sometimes descends into slapstick, and it’s a little fantastical in the way that Frankie and others manage to get away with the things they do. Yet it has serious and dark moments, which often leads to a kind of tonal whiplash. The biggest complaint I’d make is that it sometimes doesn’t seem to know what kind of show it wants to be. (By slapstick I don’t mean pratfalls so much as Idiot Clown comedy that requires extreme stupidity from the characters.)

And I couldn’t quite decide if it’s a decent quirky black comedy from Norway, or if there’s a kind of genius in how it shows Frankie infecting everything he touches and corrupting it. At worst, it’s fun and different, but it might also be kinda secretly deep.

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I’m about two-thirds through Ally McBeal (1997-2002), one of many legal dramas created by David E. Kelley. One of the other legal dramas he did, Boston Legal (2004-2008) I have mentioned many times as one of my all-time favorite shows. Ally McBeal was hugely popular when it aired (it won awards), but I haven’t watched any of it until now (on Hulu).

Kelley created The Practice (1996-2004), another legal drama, just before Ally McBeal (note how they overlap and how Boston Legal picks up immediately after The Practice ends.) The Practice was a serious, even overwrought, drama with a lot of yelling (see this post). Boston Legal was a comedy, very broad at times, but the tone and style of the show was polished and cohesive.

The show is a tonal chaos that ranges from pratfall slapstick through seriously stupid Idiot Clown humor to somewhat better character and meta humor. It tries to be serious sometimes and almost always falls flat on its face. The characters are too stupid, too clownish, too utterly unreal for the serious moments to land. (At least with me.)

And I loathe Ally McBeal (Calista Flockhart). She’s horrible, dishonest, narcissistic, self-involved, empty, neurotic, angry, hostile, stupid, incompetent, and certifiably insane. I keep waiting for the flawed character hits rock bottom and finally changes/grows moment, but the show seems to take her seriously and treats her obvious mental illness as mere quirkiness. She hallucinates things and can’t control her behavior. That’s beyond quirky. That’s someone who needs help.

Worse, she bases her self-worth not just on others but on a man. Hopefully, The Man. Her life is mainly about finding The Man. She has no hobbies or other interests. Work is just something she does (she isn’t presented as particularly good at it). And she can’t get over a youthful romance that ended badly — especially when the guy from her past turns out to be a co-worker. Her inability to get over the past interferes with his marriage, causing it to end.

She’s clearly in need of therapy, but while several therapists are shown over the course of the series, they’re played for low laughs — some of the biggest Idiot Clowns in the series (including a pill-pushing Betty White). With all the sexism and slapstick, the show often seems more like Three’s Company than any legal show I’ve ever seen.

Some of the actors are fun to watch (I’ve always gotten a kick out of Jane Krakowski), but I often ask myself why I’m still watching. I suspect one problem is that the miasma of constant sexism from everyone involved hasn’t aged well.

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Last December I mentioned I’d added to my watchlist the FX adaptation of Octavia E. Butler’s novel Kindred. After reading the description of the episodes, as well as a few comments by viewers, I’ve decided to give it a pass. I think too highly of the novel to risk what sounds like a poorly done adaptation.

For one, they’ve apparently expanded the modern-day part of the story (which is mostly just a frame in the novel) and, from what I can tell, wimped out on the slavery part. With writing as good as Butler’s the best move is to be as faithful as possible to the original text (see this post about Kindred).

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Of course, I’ve been reading, too. I’ve long been fascinated by comedian Chelsea Handler. Watching her latest Netflix special inspired me to connect two dots: [A] I’ve never read any of her books. [2] Library e-books are easy and awesome. Say, maybe I should see if the library has any of her books (my fascination isn’t anywhere near high enough to buy them, but I’ve noticed them in bookstores (remember those?)).

So, I read five of them. Call it horrified fascination. (For a rather mild value of horrified.) I don’t generally find her LOL funny, but I do appreciate her sarcasm and bluntness., and she often makes me smile She’s an interesting character but probably hard to be friends with. Probably most comedians are.

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I haven’t decided whether I’ll post explicitly about The Clockwork Man (1923), by E.V. Odle, or The World Set Free (1914), by H.G. Wells. The first one is especially obscure, but had it not been overshadowed by R.U.R. (1921) it would possibly be known for introducing mechanical men to fiction. Unfortunately for Odle, the Czech play R.U.R. was wildly successful (it introduced the term “robot”) and The Clockwork Man remains almost unknown.

The World Set Free is about humanity experiencing a terrible global war (with a very good prediction of atomic-like weapons). It scares humanity into growing up and forming a future utopia from want or fear. A bit totalitarian, though, because you will participate in the New World.

The Clockwork Man features a man from 1000 years in the future suddenly sent back to Victorian England (where he interrupts a local cricket game). It turns out that, in the future, the women became so disgusted with men’s war-like tendencies they revolt and require all men to have a controlling clockwork mechanism installed in their head. This also provides (what’s an early description of) a virtual reality for the men to play in. But this guy’s clockwork went haywire and sent him back to the past.

Both, obviously, are social commentaries.

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You’ve probably heard by now that Jeff Beck died. Another virtuoso joins the heavenly band (the music must be incredible; Christine McVie joined recently). Here’s a clip to play you out:

Beck is one of those guitarists that guitarists are in awe of. A guitarist’s guitarist.

Stay shredding, my friends! Go forth and spread beauty and light.

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