Category: TV

Tidy Tidbits: Page, Screen, & Plate

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RECENT READING: WIVES IN THE 1960’S

Absolution by Alice McDermott

Author McDermott (Macmillan.com)

Set in Saigon in 1963, Absolution focuses on the lives of several wives of Navy officers.  Tricia, just 23, has only been married a short time to lawyer Peter on loan to navy intelligence.  She is taken up by the somewhat older, more sophisticated Charlene, mother of three.  Charlene is forceful, attractive, and domineering and has gathered around her a small group of women to do her bidding.  While society views their primary functions as motherhood and being a good helpmate to their husbands, Charlene has ideas about how to do good and raise money to help the local population.  Employing the talents of a local native seamstress and acquiring a bunch of newly released Barbie dolls, Charlene involves Tricia and others in her charity schemes.  

These events are re-lived sixty years later through the eyes of now senior citizen Tricia and Rainey, Charlene’s daughter (a child at the time). They have reconnected through letters.

I think what McDermott tries to do in portraying a little known aspect of American servicemen’s wives in Vietnam is laudable, but I found this novel hard to like.  Charlene is an unsympathetic character, and Tricia is too easily led until the packed punch of the culminating event. The details of 1960’s life were familiar and convincing, but I expected something more from the renewed connection between Tricia and Rainey, some better reason for retrospectively sharing their memories of that time.  Why did Rainey become significant to Tricia?  For me, it wasn’t clear.

The novel has received significant praise; I give it a qualified recommendation.

VIEWING DELIGHTS 

NEW YORK HIGH SOCIETY

The Gilded Age Season 2 ($ Amazon Prime et al)

Gladys Russell with her parents (TVInsider.com)

Julian Fellowes is masterful!  Creator of Downton Abbey, screenwriter for Gosford Park and The Chaperone among others, his latest drama, The Gilded Age, is both fun and insightful.  Set in 1882 in New York, it follows young Marian Brooks’ entrance into high society with its battles between old money (Mrs. Astor and the van Rhijns) and new (Bertha and George Russell).  Marian is a niece of the van Rhijns, and she and her Aunts Agnes and Ada live across the street from the Russell family.  

A young woman’s goal then was to conduct herself discreetly and find a promising rich man to marry.  Marian breaks with convention by teaching watercolors at a school and is good friends with Peggy Scott, Aunt Agnes’ Black secretary.  Add in Peggy’s parents, and her work as a journalist, and one gets a view of a Black middle class on the rise.  Historic events such as the opening of the Brooklyn Bridge and steelworkers threatening action add richness. They also document the social changes afoot.  

I thought this season was even better than the first one, and I loved the fashions.  The hats are something else! There are 8 episodes, and a third season is planned.   Highly recommended! 

COURAGEOUS FIGHTER PILOTS

Masters of the Air (Apple TV+)

B-17 bomber (AVweb.com)

This is not my usual fare, but the Chief Penguin and I are watching it together on our big TV.  Produced by Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg among others, Masters of the Air, a World War II series is getting rave reviews for its technical effects.  This account of the perilous missions carried out by the American pilots and crews of the 100th Bomb Group is harrowing, finger-biting, and compelling.  Risking daytime raids over Nazi Germany, the ten men in each plane never know whether they will get shot down, lose an engine and limp back, or need to bail out of a flaming plane into enemy territory.  Some missions were successful, and bombs were dropped on the correct target; others failed and some, but not all the men, returned to base still alive. 

Two majors known as Buck and Buckley, very different in style and temperament, are the lead characters.  With them and their men, one feels the physical and the emotional challenges they face in carrying out these missions.  

Based on a book of the same name, the series has nine episodes and is being released weekly.  Three episodes are currently available.  Recommended for WWII fans!

DINING NOTE

Duval’s on Main Street in downtown Sarasota reliably delivers fresh fish and nicely prepared meals.  We had lunch here earlier this week with graduate school friends visiting from Michigan.  Service is friendly and efficient and the food very good.  Our group enjoyed superior clam chowder, a twisted ahi tuna sandwich, salads, and a shrimp po’ boy.  

Tidy Tidbits: Mixed Bag Viewing

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This blog brings a round-up of two recent films (Oscar contenders), the latest season of a French crime series, and an outstanding production of a theater classic.

CHILLING AMERICAN HISTORY

Killers of the Flower Moon (Apple TV, $ Prime Video & others)

Mollie, King, Ernest (apple.com)

This is a very long film, more than three hours, so we watched it over two nights.  It begins slowly as young Ernest Burkhart arrives in Osage County, Oklahoma to “work” for his uncle William Hale, known locally as King.  As a paid driver, Ernest squires around people like Mollie, a young attractive Osage woman, heir to oil rich land.  Encouraged by his uncle and his own interest in her, Ernest marries Mollie.  While King is outwardly benevolent toward the Osage community, he is slyly buying up and acquiring the rich oil headrights.  He doesn’t hesitate to hire hit men to murder business associates or natives or to pressure Ernest to handle the orders.

King is a smiling devil, smooth and suave while dim Ernest loves Mollie, but loves money more. Ernest isn’t smart enough to catch on to what he’s being asked, then ordered, to do.  Seemingly unaware of Ernest’s treachery, Mollie struggles to save her community.  Based on true events, the film reveals the horror of these white men’s actions toward the Osage slowly until finally the nascent FBI steps in to investigate more fully.  

The performances by Lily Gladstone as Mollie, Robert DeNiro as King, and Leonardo DiCaprio as Ernest are all Oscar worthy.

IN THE PINK

Barbie ($ Prime Video et al)

Ken & Barbie (nyt.com)

As you might expect, everything in Barbie Land revolves around the color pink.  Bubble gum pink.  Doll Barbie is in control and her compatriots are everywhere. Each girl is empowered to be active and productive.  Ken is docile and along for the ride.  When Barbie and Ken leave Barbie Land for the real world of humans, they are both in for a shock.  Here, men run things, and women and girls are definitely lesser.  

I liked some of the spirit of the film and the theme of female empowerment, but I found it all a bit much, cluttered and too long, with a story line that was only okay.  Given its popularity at the box office, I thought I ought to see it. Verdict: colorful and sometimes cute, but not memorable.

FRIENDSHIP & CRIMES

Astrid Season 3 (Prime Video)

Raphaelle & Astrid (Plex)

High-functioning autistic Astrid Nielsen works for the Paris police in their archives.  With her razor-sharp observational skills and her encyclopedic knowledge of previous cases, she assists inspector Raphaelle Coste in solving complex and often exotic crimes.  While the premises of some crimes strain credulity, the real meat of this series is the burgeoning friendship between Astrid and Raphaelle and Astrid’s growing comfort in a platonic-verging-on-romantic relationship with Tetsuo.  

Along the way, Astrid works to become more socially comfortable and gains new knowledge about her late father’s last activities.  I’ve enjoyed every season of this series, but this one is even more wonderful.  Highly recommended!

TIMELY THEATER

Inherit the Wind (Asolo Repertory Theatre)

Rachel, Drummond, Judge, Brady, Rev. Brown (yourobserver.com)

Asolo Theatre has a new artistic director from Minneapolis, Peter Rothstein, and this is his first production in his new role.  It is superb, soaring high.  Written in 1955 and loosely based on the Scopes Trial of 1925, Inherit the Wind deals with the teaching of evolution in a small public school in the south.  Much of the action is set in and around the courtroom with the accused young teacher’s fate played out in a battle of wits between the attorneys.

Prosecuting attorney Brady is modeled on politician and presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan, while Drummond, the defendant’s attorney is a Clarence Darrow clone.  Add in preaching from local fire and brimstone Reverend Brown and the ambivalence of his more nuanced daughter Rachel, friend of the accused, and you have other perspectives.  

While initially, the play looks like a contest between religion on one side and science on the other, it’s more complicated than that.  Both lawyers are extremely strong and present in their arguments, but underneath there is humanity and fellow feeling between them. Neither man is one-dimensional.

Staging and casting are excellent.  Given his fondness for musical theatre, Rothstein’s incorporation of several hymns sung by the community as punctuation points in the action is highly effective. Definitely worth seeing!   Inherit the Wind runs through February 24th.  

Note: Header photo is from Astrid, season 3, courtesy of World of Television.

Tidy Tidbits: On Screen and Plate

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FRENCH WHODUNIT

Anatomy of a Fall ($ Amazon Prime, Apple TV)

Vincent, a lawyer & Sandra (The Daily Beast)

This is the third excellent new movie we’ve watched this season.  Sandra, her husband, and their son Daniel are at home in Switzerland.  Sandra, a writer, is being interviewed.  A thud is heard.  Investigation reveals the body of a man lying in the grass.  How did he get there? 

This French film, much of it in English with subtitles when French is spoken, is a fascinating and occasionally suspenseful examination of what or who caused the man’s death.  It’s also an excavation of a marriage, a fractured one with issues and disappointments.  One spouse has been more successful than the other, and their son had an accident which compromised his capabilities.  

French filmmakers like dialogue so perhaps some viewers might wish it were more concisely written. Nonetheless, the Chief Penguin and I were fully engaged.  The courtroom scenes with a cool and calm Sandra are especially compelling.  Highly recommended!

CRIME IN GOTLAND

Murder in Sweden, Season 2 (Prime Video)

Sebastian & Maria (PBS SoCal)

Titled, Maria Wern abroad, Murder in Sweden is an outstanding crime series.  Lead inspector Maria is a youngish widow and mother of a son and a daughter.  She’s also in a developing relationship with her colleague, junior detective Sebastian.  The rest of the team consists of two other men, Ek and Arvidsson; a tech person, and their boss Hartman.  Together they tackle challenging cases from chilling attacks on a politician, to death at a teen party, to the strange illness of a man on a plane claiming a murder has been committed.  

The cases have a dark side that can be hard to watch.  One of the most unsettling ones concerns online bullying and threats to Maria’s son’s high school class.  Over the course of the season, Maria both learns more and has more questions about her policeman husband’s death ten years before. 

Each case is solved in two episodes and there are 8 episodes total.  In my opinion, Season 2 is better than Season 1, which I also watched.  Recommended!

LUNCH OUT

Indian fare near Venice

Our good friend in Venice invited us down for lunch at Tikka Indian Cuisine.  This is a popular small restaurant located in a strip mall on the 41 Bypass with a Big Lots.  We were advised to arrive early as it quickly fills up.  And indeed, we got there about 11:15 and by noon, it was almost full.  When we finished, folks were lined up at the door awaiting tables.

Sample Tikka lunch (yoursun.com)

The lunch menu offers a selection of appetizers (samosas and the like) and combo lunches.  Combos include your choice of entrée with sides of rice, naan, and chef-selected appetizer and dessert.  We three ordered the korma, rogan josh, and vindaloo, all with chicken.  Other options were lamb, shrimp, paneer cheese, or vegetable.  The korma was appropriately mild, my rogan josh was medium spicy which was plenty of hotness for me, and the Chief Penguin bravely went for the vindaloo.  Even at medium level, it was very spicy—but then vindaloos are typically the hottest of Indian curries.  

Each combo was served on a thali (round metal tray). The day’s appetizer was a generously sized samosa and the dessert a rice pudding.  For vegetarians, there are several main dishes including yellow lentils, chickpeas, and a potato and cauliflower dish.  And if you dine in the evening, you can select from several tandoori dishes including one with salmon that our friend recommends.  Yum!

Tidy Tidbits: Reading, Watching, Enjoying

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READING—FASCINATING WOMAN

Gardner Portrait by John Singer Sargent, 1888 (Gardner Museum)

The Lioness of Boston by Emily Franklin

I’ve long been a list maker: lists of to-dos, lists of TV series and films to screen, lists of places to visit.  Before we moved from Cambridge, MA, many years ago, I made a list of things the Chief Penguin and I should do before we left.  I made a similar list of activities and outings in 2006 before we moved from six months in London back to the U.S.  On my list for Boston was a visit to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.  Filled with art and books, it’s a treasure trove of a collection.

Emily Franklin’s The Lioness of Boston is an intriguing portrait of Isabella Stewart Gardner.  Born in 1840, Isabella was an unconventional woman who wanted to do something significant, to be known as something other than a society wife.  Frustrated by the strictures of staid Boston’s social scene, she chafed at the retiring role she was expected to play.  Comfortably married to Jack Gardner, and then mother to a son, Belle still sought more outlets for her interests and her energy.  

She cultivated friendships with Charles Eliot Norton (first art history professor at Harvard), Henry James, Bernard Berenson, and others.  She got allowed into lectures at Harvard, began traveling abroad, and sat for John Singer Sargent for her portrait.  Her interests in rare books and art blossomed, and she became both a collector and a supporter of artists.  The museum she created is her legacy.

This is a novel, not a biography, and its narrative arc is shallow focusing primarily on Gardner’s friendships and relationships and imagining her interior life.  Leisurely paced and enjoyable!  Now I must make a return visit to Boston. (~JWFarrington)

VIEWING—FAVORITES RETURN

Chelsea Detective, Season 2 (Acorn)

Max & Layla (VitalThrills.com)

Detective Inspector Max Arnold who lives on a houseboat is back for another season, this time with a new sidekick.  DS Layla Walsh is much younger and keeps him on his toes.  Between solving a gruesome murder or two, Max remains entangled with separated wife Astrid (she’d like to get on with her life) and with his somewhat interfering, but doting Aunt Frances.  Set in the tonier section of London, it’s less gritty than other British crime series and as engaging for the human relationships as for the murders.  There are four episodes in the season.

Hidden Assets, Season 2 (Acorn TV & Roku)

Bibi Brannigan, Christian, Claire (TellyVisions.org)

This Irish crime series flips back and forth between the Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB) team in Limerick, Ireland, and the Counter Terrorist Unit (CTU) in Antwerp.  If you haven’t watched the first season, you should, as this is a continuation of an ongoing story of smuggled goods, bombs, murders, and the Belgian port. 

There is a new principal in Ireland, Claire Wallace, who replaces DS Emer Berry.  Emer had a solid working relationship with Christian De Jong, her counterpart in Antwerp. Now, Claire and Christian must forge a new partnership to be jointly successful.  The stakes are high, politicians are involved, and it’s fast paced.  I’ve now watched three of the six episodes.  Highly recommended!

HOLIDAY WEATHER

December is a month for socializing and parties.  This week we caught up with a friend over lunch at Mean Dean’s in Bradenton and celebrated a birthday dinner at another friend’s. On Saturday, we enjoyed our community holiday party—this year a brunch.  It was a lovely day.  The air was softly warm, and the sun was shining.  

From now until May, Florida weather is perfection.  If not perfect, then at least wonderful and magical much of the time.  No need for coats or jackets, gloves or hats, let alone boots.  Sandals and short sleeves will suffice.  Living here this season is a treat!

Note: Header photo is of the courtyard at the Gardner Museum, courtesy of the museum.