Category: TV

Bingeing on Films & TV

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To celebrate the departure of 2020 and to break the usual routine, the Chief Penguin and I indulged in several films. Then we continued our practice of watching one of several series in the evening. We began Thursday, Friday and Saturday with what we called Morning Movie Madness—a feature length film viewed after breakfast and after our sometimes morning walk.

FILMS

Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (Netflix)

Set in Chicago in 1927 during a studio recording session, this play by August Wilson focuses on Ma Rainey’s band members, and the anger, disappointment, and rage they experience as Black men in a white world.  One man is philosophical and still dreams, while another seethes.   Young Levee, a talented and conceited trumpeter, has ambition, but depths of resentment that erupt abruptly.  

Levee (nypost.com)

Chadwick Boseman is brilliant as Levee in his last performance, while Viola Davis is superb as Ma Rainey.  Although the setting is a recording session, there is little music and lots of conversation.  A serious play with relevance for today.

Mank (Netflix)

This is a dense film full of flashbacks. It’s based on screenwriter Herman Mankiewicz’s labored writing of the script for what became Citizen Kane, released in 1941. Orson Welles produced, starred in and directed that film and also received partial credit for its writing.  Kane, the character, is a composite of several moguls including William Randolph Hearst.  

Hearst, Louis Mayer, and Irving Thalberg are all characters in Mank, and this film lays bare the nasty politics and smear tactics employed by movie studios in the 1930’s.   I didn’t love this film, but appreciated the cinematography (shot in black and white) and afterwards, sorted out the sequence of events.  The Chief Penguin thought it was superb and considers it a strong Oscar contender.

On the Rocks (Apple +)

A full-page ad in the newspaper led me to this film by Sofia Coppola.  Laura, a young mother and writer, is stuck and feels unappreciated and ignored by her busy husband.  Her playboy father, played by Bill Murray, is lonely and wants attention. He encourages Laura’s worries and, wondering if his son-in-law is having an affair, involves his daughter in all sorts of tracking adventures.  It’s light fare and lightweight.  I’d call it just fair overall.

SERIES OFFERINGS 

Murder in Manhattan

The Undoing (HBO) 6 episodes

Jonathan, Elena, and Grace (express.co.uk)

Thanks to Cynthia for recommending this crime thriller.  It’s on HBO, but you can purchase it without becoming an HBO subscriber.

When Elena, the mother of an elementary student at a posh private school is murdered, suspicion falls upon oncologist Jonathan Fraser and his therapist wife Grace.  Their son Henry is a classmate of Elena’s son.  The series focuses on the Fraser family including Grace’s wealthy father (Donald Sutherland).  Did Jonathan commit the murder?  Can his brilliant lawyer save him?  Hugh Grant and Nicole Kidman play the lead roles.  I found it suspenseful and enjoyed the acting along with street scenes I recognized. 

Marriage Mart in Regency England

Bridgerton (Netflix) 6 episodes

Simon & Daphne (hellomagazine.com)

Using the romance novels of Julia Quinn as a jumping off point, Shonda Rhimes has created a series that is fun, frothy at times, bold, and always sexy with plenty of skin.  She has updated the hunt for an eligible male with a racially diverse cast (the real Queen Charlotte may have been mixed race!) and incorporated contemporary songs played in a classical style.  Randy men (rakes, some) indulge in the pleasures of the flesh while young women are expected to remain untouched and virginal until their wedding nights.  

The focus is on Daphne Bridgerton of a prominent family and Simon Basset, the enigmatic Duke of Hastings, who has just returned to London.  Simon has vowed to never marry, and Daphne wants only to marry for love. Together, they pretend to be attracted to one another to ward off suitors and ambitious mothers.  Daphne and her nerdy sister Eloise push back against society’s expectations. Eloise and another Bridgerton sibling even share a cigarette in the garden! 

The costumes are gorgeous and the ballrooms elegant, while Lady Whistledown’s scandal sheet is brought to life and wit with voiceover by Julie Andrews.  Overall, it is a definite change of pace from more staid historical dramas!  

Header image is Viola Davis as Ma Rainey (okayplayer.com)

Happy young woman watching TV

2020 in TV: My Favorites

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When I went back through my blog posts for 2020, I was surprised at how many TV series I had watched, particularly since March. I have listed only a selection, but these are the ones I thought were the best or enjoyed the most. In several cases, the categories are in order of preference rather than alphabetically. Happy viewing!

TV MINISERIES

DETECTIVES, CRIMES & SPIES 

Acceptable Risk (Acorn)

An Irish series set in Dublin and Montreal, this pharmaceutical puzzler involves the murder of a high-level drug company executive and the investigation that follows, initiated by his wife, a lawyer for the corporation.  One of the best series we viewed this year!

DCI Banks (Amazon Prime)

Helen, Alan Banks, Annie (tv.eiga.com)

Complex series set in Yorkshire with fully developed characters based on the novels of Peter Robinson.

The Night Manager (Amazon Prime)

A suspenseful series based on the novel by John le Carre.  Hotel manager Jonathan Pine is recruited to spy on wealthy businessman Richard Roper who is suspected of illegal arms deals.  Hugh Laurie is perfect as Roper.

The Sommerdahl Murders (Acorn)

Danish detective Dan Sommerdahl works with his crime technician wife Marianne and his best friend, who’s very friendly with Marianne.  A lively series from Scandinavia.

Inspector Vivaldi Mysteries (Amazon Prime)

Wonderful Italian detective series set in Trieste.  Frederico Vivaldi is the lead detective and his son Stefano is also a police officer.  Their relationship is strained while Stefano’s mother, Laura, tries to ease the tension.

(pbs.org)

Flesh and Blood (PBS Masterpiece)

Her three grown children are distraught when their widowed mother, played by Francesca Annis, takes up with a retired doctor.  A fascinating thriller with a twist!

Mystery Road (Amazon Prime)

Detective Jay Swan is sent to help find two missing boys in Australia’s outback.  Great portrayal of the mistrust and suspicion between the indigenous people and whites.  

DOCUMENTARIES

Lenox Hill (Netflix)

Dedicated NYC hospital neurosurgeons and their patients in an emotionally charged and incredibly candid series. The lead doctors are graduates of Penn’s medical school.

Soldier Father Son (New York Times)

Single father, a soldier, raising his two sons, one of whom follows in his footsteps.

HISTORICAL DRAMAS

Belgravia (Epix)

London, 1840, striving middle class family vs. upper class toffs in a tangled story of love, marriage and ambition. Based on Julian Fellowes’ novel of the same name.

The English Game (Netflix)

A most absorbing series about the game of soccer and the rivalry between the mill workers’ teams and those of the arrogant rich.  This is Julian Fellowes at his best!

DIVERSITY AND DIFFERENCE

Self-Made (Netflix)

Madam CJ Walker was a Black cosmetics entrepreneur, a success story in an earlier and more difficult time for women and minorities.

A Secret Love (Netflix)

A documentary about a lesbian couple who lived together in Canada for six decades.  Most of that time they were closeted and presented themselves as simply close friends.

FAMILY DYNAMICS

The Restaurant (Our Time is Now) (Amazon Prime, Sundance)

This Swedish series follows restaurant owners Helga and her adult children, Gustaf, Peter, and Nina, from 1945 to the early 1970’s.  A social history of the era midst the trials and tribulations of love, marriage, and career.  Excellent!

Unorthodox (Netflix)

This semi-autobiographical series follows Esther Shapiro, a Hasidic Jew, through marriage and flight from her home in Brooklyn to refuge in Berlin.  

From Father to Daughter (Amazon Prime)

The coming of age of the daughters in an Italian winemaking family.  Documents these females’ evolving role in the family and the business over several decades.

LONG-RUNNING SERIES

Endeavour (PBS)

(radiotimes.com)

This year was Season 7 of the adventures of Morse and Inspector Thursday, and it was as good as ever!

Grantchester (PBS Masterpiece)

Season 5 was the second season with Will Davenport as the new vicar replacing Sydney.  While it took some adjustment for us, Will has settled in. These episodes with his sidekick Geordie were both deeper and darker in character.  

NOTEWORTHY FILMS

(vulture.com)

Since we haven’t been in a movie theater since Covid-19, we’ve seen relatively few films. Nonetheless, these several stood out and are in order of preference.

1917

A grim, painful, and gripping focus on one particular battle during WWI.  

On the Basis of Sex

We viewed this after Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death.  It’s a marvelous testament to how she advanced equal rights early on in her career.

Radioactive (Amazon Prime)

This is a biographical film based on the graphic novel of the same name by Lauren Redniss.  Some interesting special effects and a sometimes strange juxtaposition of modern-day events with those of Marie Curie’s life. Still worth watching.

The Return (Acorn)

After serving ten years in prison for the killing of her doctor husband, Lizzie returns to her small hometown in Ireland.  Poignant and moving with Julie Walters in the lead role.

Note: Header image of young woman watching TV from vectorstock.com

Tidy December Sunrise

December Diversions

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ON THE SCREEN

Holiday Cooking Class 

The other evening, we enjoyed a cooking demonstration.  Clarkson University, the Chief Penguin’s alma mater, invited alumni to see and join their campus chef in the preparation of several dishes.  They included a colorful cranberry and whiskey cocktail, baked brie, baby potatoes wrapped in bacon, and julienned root vegetables with pistachio butter.  

One example of baby potatoes (serious eats.com)

The ingredient list was shared ahead of time and full recipes after the event.  The chef was very well organized, moved efficiently through the steps, and we could almost taste the results!  This was a different kind of viewing experience and a very successful one!  We haven’t yet bought any ingredients, but we will likely try at least one recipe.

The Queen’s Gambit (Netflix)

Young Beth (Netflix.com)

The Queen’s Gambit, the name for an opening chess move, is a suspenseful seven-part series, even if you don’t play chess or understand the intricacies of the game.  It’s the 1950’s and when Beth Harmon’s mother dies in a car crash, the eight-year-old is sent to a very strict orphanage.  Lonely and feeling out of place, she lingers in the basement where the custodian plays chess by himself.  Observing and later learning from him, she demonstrates a real aptitude for the game.  

As a teenager, she is adopted by a childless couple. With the encouragement of her new mother, Beth enters a state chess championship, mostly to earn the prize money. As the 1960’s advance, Beth’s prowess takes her across the country and around the world.  She stands out as female in a very male world  One wonders if and when she will stumble.  

At first, I thought her character was based on a real person, but this is an adaptation of a novel of the same name by Walter Tevis published in 1983.  Good entertainment!   

RECENT READING

CHILDHOOD IN POSTWAR BRITAIN

This Time Next Year We’ll be Laughing by Jacqueline Winspear

Jacqueline Winspear is the author of the popular and award-winning Maisie Dobbs mystery series.  She has now put her hand to writing about her childhood growing up poor in rural Kent.  Born in 1955, when asked if she considered herself more a child of the 50’s or the 60’s, she reflected that her childhood was really Edwardian.  Steeped in nature and the countryside, she and her brother John spent summers spent picking hops with their parents.  They also lived for many years without indoor plumbing or a telephone.  It was a spare life based on hard physical labor of all sorts.  

In sprightly prose, Winspear shares her delight in being outdoors in all weathers and her love of stories, stories told by her mother, but also by her many aunts and uncles.  Her parents started married life as vagabonds of a sort. Later, her father established a business as a home contractor while her mother rose in the civil service as a prison administrator.  The memoir is a collection of stories and reminiscences, many grounded in the horrors of WWI, with only a bit about how Winspear became a writer.  More than anything, it is a loving and candid tribute to her parents, both deceased, and to a way of life now gone.  (~JWFarrington)

A NOVEL FOR LIBRARY LOVERS

The Lions of Fifth Avenue by Fiona Davis

Writers of historical fiction often settle on a particular period and then create multiple works set in that era.  Fiona Davis focuses her novels on notable historic buildings in New York.  Earlier works highlighted the Dakota apartment building, the Barbizon hotel for young women, and the art school housed in Grand Central Terminal.  Her newest, The Lions of Fifth Avenue, takes place largely within the New York Public Library’s grand edifice.  In the early years of the 20th century, an interior apartment for the library superintendent was tucked away out of sight.  

Lion sculptures outside the New York Public Library (nypl.org)

In 1913, Jack and Laura Lyons, the superintendent and his wife, live in this apartment with their two children Harry and Pearl.  Jack is responsible for the safety and security of the building including its rare books.  When books go missing, he is a prime suspect.  Fast forward to 1993.   Sadie, a special collections librarian, is organizing an exhibit of rare first editions and other works in the Berg Collection, when several volumes go missing.  How the thefts in 1993 are linked to the events of 1913 make for an intriguing story of family relationships and the world of books.  

Davis has done her research, and it shows in her knowledge of the NYPL and the trade in stolen books.  She also brings in changing sexual mores and the constraints faced by women who desire more than just housewifery and motherhood.  The reader can assume there will be a happy or satisfactory ending, but how the author gets us there keeps us engaged.  (~JWFarrington)

Diversions: Reading & Viewing

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ETA

This is the hurricane season that just doesn’t want to quit. It was a wild week with tropical storm Eta bearing down on Florida’s southwest coast. In our area, we experienced torrential rain (8 inches total) and wind gusts up to 50 miles an hour. At high tide, the surge brought brought water and debris through our mangrove hedges closer to our homes than anyone had ever seen. Some folks had roof leaks, but other than that, we were very fortunate. Thankfully, we were spared hurricane force winds.

GENDER DYNAMICS AND FAMILY LIFE

This Is How It Always Is by Laurie Frankel
Author Frankel (book page.com)

First a confession, I started this book last year.  It didn’t captivate me, and I did a lot of skimming before setting it aside.  This year it’s a book group selection so I picked it up with more serious intent.  And this time, I became immersed.  Oh, it did take a few chapters to become accustomed to what seems like Frankel’s scatter shot or kitchen sink approach to sentences.  Put in as many words and related phrases as possible and string it out into a fairly long sentence.

I got past that, and I made the effort to learn the four older children and keep them straight.  The bedtime fairy tale that writer/father Penn spins for them featuring Prince Grumwald and Princess Stephanie, plays an important role which I was impatient with previously.  

This is a novel of family life.   Anyone who’s been a parent, particularly a parent of more than one child, will relate to issues of schedules, schoolyard fights, and the general messiness of kids.  More importantly, it’s about a child born Claude who wants to dress like a girl and be called Poppy.  How these parents, ER doctor Rosie and author Penn, and his/her siblings keep Poppy’s big secret, and what the ramifications are, make for a poignant, heartwarming, and ultimately life-affirming novel.  Recommended!

VIEWING: SWEDEN AFTER THE WAR

The Restaurant, or the translated Swedish title, Our Time is Now (Amazon Prime, Season 1; Seasons 2-4, Sundance for $)
Lowander Family with some of the wait staff (netflix.com)

This Swedish series has been compared to Downton Abbey in its popularity in that country.  We too can become immersed in a post-war world seen through the lens of a family-owned restaurant.  It opens in 1945 Stockholm at the Djurgardskalleren, a very formal dining room serving traditional fare.  The Lowander family:  matriarch Helga, sons Gustaf (restaurant manager) and Peter (initially a budding lawyer), and pampered daughter Nina (creator of the DK Club) will soon be celebrating the restaurant’s 50th anniversary.  Business is at a low ebb.  Chef Backe is a fixture.  He both admires and feels threatened by rising chef Calle’s talents.  

But times are changing.  The wait staff, especially Maggan, seek better working conditions through union membership.  Women like Nina feel stifled by dated expectations of a woman’s role.  As the 50’s lead into the 60’s, new music emerges, new cuisine is introduced to restaurant patrons, and society loosens up.

The four seasons unfold through the decades into the 1970’s.  It’s an absorbing story of loves and longing, failed and successful marriages, and sibling rivalries over who has the most power.  All against the backdrop of the social issues of the time.  Highly recommended!

CULTURE THIS WEEK

PIANO RECITAL—Jeremy Denk

Thanks to our friend, Patricia, we’ve discovered the rich offerings from the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society.  Their first concert was presented live to a small audience and available online for viewing for 72 hours.  Pianist Jeremy Denk gave an exquisite performance of pieces by Robert and Clara Schumann, Bolts of Loving Thunder by contemporary composer Missy Mazzoli, and Brahms’ Four Piano Pieces.  The Mazzoli piece was commissioned for Emmanuel Ax in 2013 and inspired by some of Brahms’ early work.  

Jeremy Denk (latimes.com)

Thanks to my resident tech whiz, we were able to watch on our big screen!    Unlike some organizations that set a fixed price for each streamed performance, the PCMS takes a pay-what-you-want approach.  This recital was 50 minutes, a perfect length for at-home viewing.

SERENADE FOR STRINGS—Sarasota Orchestra

If you’re local, you’ll be pleased to know that the Sarasota Orchestra has put together its own series of concerts. They are presented live for a small audience in Holley Hall and then later streamed.  Live tickets sell out quickly, but the streaming versions are only $10.    

The orchestra’s first program, featuring thirteen musicians, consists of works by Tchaikovsky and the 18thcentury composer, Joseph Bologne.  We have yet to watch this concert, but our streaming ticket allows five days from the date the link is sent out.

Covid-19 has forced cultural organizations to adapt and be creative in new ways.  I foresee a future where you’ll have multiple subscription options.  Like magazines that you can receive in print or online or both, there may well be these kinds of paid combo packages for concerts, opera and dance.

Note: Header photo is out a window showing tropical storm Eta in action. ©JWFarrington (some rights reserved).