The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (2017-present) * * * (on Amazon Prime)

Created by:  Amy Sherman-Palladino

Starring:  Rachel Brosnahan, Tony Shalhoub, Marin Hinkle, Michael Zegen, Alex Borstein, Kevin Pollak, Caroline Aaron

Even if Miriam "Midge" Maisel's creep of a husband didn't have an affair and rashly move out of their plush Manhattan apartment, Midge would've found a way to outgrow him and forge her own way in the world.    We see early on how intelligent, humorous, and honest she is.   Her husband Joel is doomed to mediocrity because he's a schmuck.    Joel fancies himself as a stand-up comedian, and after he works long hours at an office job his garment-district factory owner father got for him, he heads to Greenwich Village to work a nightclub where few laughs come his way.    Midge acts as his de facto manager.   She makes meals which she uses to gain favor with the nightclub's manager Susie (Borstein) and thus get Joel a decent slot on the card, and supports him unconditionally as he goes on stage and mostly bombs.

Soon after Joel leaves Midge high and dry with two children and no income, she gets drunk one night and takes a taxi down to the nightclub where her husband plied his trade.    She takes the stage and engages the crowd in an angry, stream of consciousness monologue which supplies more laughs than any of Joel's pathetic sets.    Susie is astounded, and thinks Midge can go places with her "act". 
Midge is soon arrested for indecency after swearing and showing her breasts on stage, but after being bailed out by Lenny Bruce and shaking off the hangover, Midge finds her calling as a stand-up comedian.

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel is about Midge's journey to independence after years of deferring her dreams to take care of her husband and children.    If there is one glaring plot hole The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel doesn't address, it is how little Midge's children are shown.    They stay conveniently out of the way as Midge runs around town from club to club, and to Paris in Season 2.    Midge must have a live-in nanny and an endless supply of cash around to pay her.    It would've been just as easy  for Midge and Joel to be childless. 

Midge's stand-up act isn't particularly funny, but that isn't the point.   The stand-up is Midge's avenue for self-respect and living up to her potential.    Susie, who is as cheerless and downtrodden as Midge is perky and uptown, lives in a one-room apartment where the door hits the bed when she opens it. 
But after years living in the comedy doldrums and being mistaken for a man, Susie sees Midge as a chance to escape her humdrum existence and manage a rising star.    She and Midge have genuine affection for each other and forge an unlikely partnership which blossoms into an unlikelier friendship.

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel contains rich comic supporting performances with complement Rachel Brosnahan's lovable Midge.   We root for her.    Tony Shalhoub is Midge's Columbia professor father whose office at home is being further and further infringed upon by Midge and the kids moving in.    Rose (Hinkle), Midge's mom, questions her own marriage after watching Midge's disintegrate.    Moishe (Pollak), Joel's father, presides over a business which borrows money from loan sharks to keep the business afloat.    The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel isn't just the Midge Maisel show, but takes within an insular Jewish world of the 1950's.   The show has a distinct sense of time and place.   It lovingly recreates the era in virtually every way, down to the smoke-filled nightclubs and the staccato speech style.    The only thing missing is characters bursting into song, which I hope doesn't happen.

The Kominsky Method (2018) * * * 1/2 (on Netflix)

Created by:  Chuck Lorre

Starring:  Michael Douglas, Alan Arkin, Nancy Travis, Sarah Baker, Susan Sullivan, Lisa Edelstein, Danny DeVito, Ann-Margaret

Sandy Kominsky was once famous as an actor for a minute or two before settling into his life as an acting coach.   Unlike his counterpart played by Henry Winkler in Barry, Sandy is not one to vainly spout off his acting credits, mostly because he doesn't have any which anyone would readily recognize.   He has been divorced three times, which isn't a shocker, and his daughter Mindy (Baker) runs the business side of the acting school and is shocked to learn one day that Sandy owes $300,000 in back taxes.    Sandy is nonplussed, but more so when women forty years younger than he don't exactly swoon when he uses the cheap lines he did forty years ago.

Sandy's best friend is his agent Norman (Arkin), whose agency is still successful even though he has taken two years off to care for his dying wife (Sullivan).    With his wife's death imminent, Norman must learn to adjust to life after 42 years of marriage.    Arkin and Douglas (and their characters) are studies in opposites, and their chemistry is wonderful.    They play off each other with breezy familiarity like pros with exquisite timing.    It's a wonder they don't finish each other's sentences. 
Who knows?   Maybe they will one day.

The first season is eight episodes of quiet, gentle humor in a fast-paced show business world in which Sandy and Norman exist just outside of.    There are celebrity cameos by Elliott Gould and Eddie Money among others (Eddie actually performs on stage in Vegas in an Eddie Money tribute band in order to avoid the IRS).   The Kominsky Method creates numerous laughs with warm observation and intelligence throughout the season.   Sandy has prostate issues in one episode and his doctor (DeVito-in a nice reunion with Douglas from numerous previous films) tells him the good news, ("You have cancer, but the very slow moving kind,")   How is Sandy to take that?   He is as bewildered as we are, but in The Kominsky Method such logic is par for the course.

I was happy to hear a second season has been ordered.    There are plenty of comic gems to be mined from this material and from Sandy and Norman's friendship.   Sandy's career exists in between being a has-been and a never-was.   What's funnier is he thinks he has accumulated enough clout to argue with the director of a commercial he is starring in because the product he is endorsing isn't what it seems to be.   Elliott Gould, who is trying in vain to pitch an action film adventure starring himself, doesn't have such qualms.   At his age and Sandy's, you take what you can get.   

The House with a Clock in Its Walls (2018) * *

Directed by:  Eli Roth

Starring:  Jack Black, Cate Blanchett, Owen Vaccaro, Kyle MacLachlan, Colleen Camp, Sunny Suljic, Renee Elise Goldsberry

The House with a Clock in Its Walls is pleasant enough, likely to provide some brief thrills to younger viewers who because of Harry Potter like anything with magic in it.   But, it loses steam after an opening ten minutes which managed to fill me with wonder at least briefly.   Since I was not familiar with the novel on which the movie is based, I was curious about Jack Black's Uncle Jonathan, who lives in a Gothic mansion much too large for just him.    What exactly is his relationship with his neighbor Florence Zimmerman (Blanchett), with whom he bickers back and forth like an old married couple?    Jack Black and Cate Blanchett are among the most reliable and intriguing of actors, but what about this movie caused them to sign on the dotted line to appear?   The movie's visual effects overshadow everything anyway.

The story, which takes place in 1955, revolves around the nice, shy Lewis (Vaccaro), who is orphaned at age ten and is invited to live with his Uncle Jonathan, who he learns is a warlock, albeit a nice one, and Mrs. Zimmerman is a witch who has lost her mojo after the death of her family.    It seems the house has a story also, in which Jonathan's friend Isaac Izard (MacLachlan), a master warlock who lives in the house (I think) but then turns evil after returning from World War II.    He buries a clock in the walls of the house which will be used to set off Isaac's plan to rid the world of humans, because if they are capable of the horrors he saw in World War II, they aren't worth having around.

The movie juggles a lot, including Lewis' training to become a warlock, Isaac's story, Jonathan's futile attempts to locate the clock in the walls which makes noise but is hidden so well it can't be located, a school bully who Lewis briefly befriends, and another young girl in Lewis' class who clearly likes him.    But despite all of the juggling, The House with a Clock... can't help but meander along with curiously low energy.    The cast tries its hardest, but this stuff is old hat by now.   There is little which can be done to amaze us.    I was reminded of A Wrinkle in Time, another story written a long time ago which seems like it is recycling all of the visuals and ideas of other films because it took so long to make it to the big screen.

What we are left with is a nice, forgettable fantasy film with slumming actors in a story which doesn't do much to stir the imagination or your ability to even care much. 

 

Victoria and Abdul (2017) * * *

Directed by:  Stephen Frears

Starring:  Judi Dench, Ali Fazal, Eddie Izzard, Michael Gambon, Olivia Williams, Simon Callow

You think you may have seen this movie before.   Queen Victoria, played by Judi Dench, befriends a commoner despite the rabid objections of her scheming family and closest advisers.    She did so in Mrs. Brown (1997) and does so again in Victoria and Abdul.    In Mrs. Brown, Queen Victoria befriends a stable hand who dares to speak frankly to her.    In Victoria and Abdul, she befriends a humble Muslim man from India who teaches her about a land she rules but doesn't understand.    

We meet Queen Victoria late in life and in the twilight of her then-longest rule ever by a British monarch.    She is bored and tired, falling asleep at dinner and perfunctorily performing social duties such as meeting with her prime minister and other heads of state.    Abdul (Fazal) is taken by boat to England to present her majesty with a tapestry from the subcontinent.    Abdul is supposed to simply present the gift and move along, but he smiles at her and for the first time in a long time, the queen is intrigued.    She takes a liking to him, and is avid to learn about his culture and his home country.   

He introduces her to a mango, which is as foreign to her as his language.    Soon, Abdul is made her most trusted adviser, which doesn't sit well with her twit son Bertie (Izzard) and her pathetic inner circle which does nothing more than try to position themselves politically. 

Bertie is cruel to Abdul, even going so far as to drop any pretense of civility.    But Abdul remains loyal to the queen, even at his own peril.    The queen knows she can only do so much to protect him and keep the wolves away from the door, and he serves her until her death.    Victoria and Abdul is about how a common man's friendship awakens Queen Victoria for a brief time.    When she thought she had seen it all, Abdul shows her she hasn't seen enough.    There isn't a possibility of romance, since Abdul reveals he is married and Queen Victoria is simply too old to indulge in such a thing.   

But, when Abdul does declare after many months that he is indeed married, Queen Victoria is disappointed, maybe even jealous.    "This changes everything," she says.    What does she mean?

There are vibes.

If not for the discovery of Abdul's journals chronicling his little-known friendship with Queen Victoria, this story may not have told at all onscreen.    It is a delight to see Judi Dench tackle the role which earned her the first of many Oscar nominations to come, and Fazal plays Abdul with intelligence and grace.    He could be royalty himself if he weren't born a commoner, and if there is a moral to this story, it is that the difference between being common and royalty is luck.   Besides that,

aren't we all pretty similar?    Victoria and Abdul may seem redundant, with much of the same ground already covered in Mrs. Brown, but seeing Dame Dench play Queen Victoria once more is a treat enough to make the movie worthwhile.  

True Detective, Season 3 (2019) * * 1/2 (on HBO)

Starring:  Mahershala Ali, Stephen Dorff, Carmen Ejogo, Scoot McNairy, Mamie Gummer, Michael Rooker, Sarah Gadon

The first two seasons of True Detective wasted so much energy on the gloomy lives of the leads that it all but forgot about the murder they were attempting to solve.    They drank, did drugs, cavorted, and by the time they got around to figuring out who did it, we forgot what was even done.   Names were thrown about at a dizzying pace, and after eight episodes of red herrings and false leads, we simply didn't care anymore.  

Season 3 of True Detective managed to keep its eye on the ball and never let the case of two kidnapped children in 1980 Arkansas stray too far from the action.    When episode six (out of eight) ended, I felt the series had turned in emotional corner and we were in for something extraordinary.   But, extraordinary had to wait.   The final two episodes brought the case to a satisfying, if not overwhelming conclusion, but the greatness which was in its grasp slipped away.    My argument is the same for True Detective as it was for Sharp Objects, the HBO limited series from last summer which was a stylistic cousin of True Detective.    Eight episodes is far too gratuitous.   The stories can be wrapped up in half that time.    How many fights and reconciliations are we going to have to endure between Wayne Hays (Ali) and his wife Amelia (Ejogo)?    How much leaping back and forth between three different years (1980, 1990, and 2015) can we stand?    And does this season want to challenge The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King for the record for sheer number of false conclusions?

In this season, two Arkansas youngsters named Julie and Will Purcell go bike riding and never return. Detectives Wayne Hays and Roland West (Dorff) are on the case, and the theories of what happened are endless.   The children's troubled parents (McNairy and Gummer) are suspects for a brief time, as expected, but then the case leads to something more troubling and darker (of course).    Wayne and Roland are tight, drawing on their experiences as Vietnam vets and their mutual respect to do their jobs as a cohesive unit.    Because we soon meet Wayne again as an old man losing his mind to dementia in 2015, we know the case remains unsolved.    A reporter (Gadon) interviews Wayne about the holes in the investigation, which produced numerous suspects and even one killer convicted in absentia.    Wayne is haunted by his inability to solve the kidnapping, and wants nothing more than to solve it before his memory is gone forever.

The transitions between time periods are done well, but we wonder why they are done at all.   A chronologically ordered series would serve the purpose better.    Ali's performance is all the more impressive given the burden he has to carry, but for my money, Dorff's performance is the most complex, sensitive, and multi-dimensional.    He has the most powerful moments, especially in episode six, in which he reconciles with Wayne after many years.    Less impactful are Ali's scenes with Ejogo, which oscillate from quiet tenderness to full-fledged arguments at the drop of a hat.   We just wish they would stop seeing each other so we have one less tangent to go off on.

At least this season of True Detective keeps all of the clues, suspects, and plot twists straight enough to be followed.    The sheer gloom of the first two seasons is replaced by a genuine sense of guilt and regret for Wayne and Roland.   This case got away, and it eats at them because they are professionals.  This season at least indicates a step in the right direction.    Like the Oscars, True Detective should understand that less is more.

Greta (2019) * * *

Directed by:  Neil Jordan

Starring:  Isabelle Huppert, Chloe Grace Moretz, Maika Monroe, Colm Feore, Stephen Rea

A naïve, grieving young woman finds a purse on a New York City subway and decides to return it to the owner.    Her roommate and best friend advises simply taking the cash out of her change purse and calling it a day.   But Frances (Moretz) wants to do the right thing, and Greta is about how Frances should have followed her friend's advice and walked away a few dollars richer.  

We've seen movies about roommates from hell, boyfriends/girlfriends from hell, and in the case of Greta a newfound friend who wants to be your momma from hell.    When Frances returns the purse to the quiet home of Greta (Huppert), the purse's owner, she and Greta become fast friends.    Frances recently lost her mother and Greta fills that void.   Greta's daughter is said to have moved to Paris and her husband recently died, so Frances helps slake her loneliness.   Their blissful friendship doesn't last long, as Frances discovers a secret which turns Greta from kindly, lonely woman to full-on stalker.

Frances invites Greta to stay out of her life, but Greta is a clinger to the nth degree.   She stands across the street from the restaurant where Frances waits tables and stares for hours.    The inevitable truths about Greta come out, and her unwillingness to go away makes her even scarier.    Huppert doesn't turn Greta into a stark-raving mad woman.   She is menacing, yes, but also sad and pathetic.   Is she so lonely she is driven to such obsession with Frances, or is there something darker and more disturbing at play?  

Chloe Grace Moretz is the picture of innocence and naivete.   So innocent in fact, she seems to believe Greta will simply go away, or fall for a ruse dreamed up by her roommate Erica (Monroe), who thinks something is off about Greta even without meeting her.    It is just an odd friendship which gives Erica creepy vibes, and we learn soon enough those vibes are warranted.    Frances is just the type of sweet woman who doesn't want to cause a scene which attracts predators like Greta.  

Directed and co-written by Neil Jordan (The Crying Game), Greta is not without its plot holes.    For instance, where does Greta get all of the drugs she uses to knock out unsuspecting threats like a private eye who comes snooping around?    And what happens if a male decided to return the purse instead of a female?    But, no matter, because Greta is campy to be sure, but on that level it is involving and disturbing enough to recommend.

The Sisters Brothers (2018) * * *

Directed by:  Jacques Audiard

Starring:  John C. Reilly, Joaquin Phoenix, Jake Gyllenhaal, Riz Ahmed

Aside from its cutesy title, The Sisters Brothers is an unflinching look at the Old West.   Paid assassins Eli Sisters (Reilly) and his younger brother Charlie (Phoenix) have made a lucrative living as hired killers but have no place to hang their hats.   They sleep out in the elements, fight off filth and disease, and long for a better life which they never realize.    Eli accidentally ingests a spider in his sleep and is sick for days afterwards.    Life has to get better somehow.

Set in the early days of the Gold Rush, the Sisters Brothers work for the unseen Commodore, who assigns them to track down a debt-owing prospector who may have invented a chemical which quickly illuminates gold when poured into a stream.   This would cut down on the labor, and allow the fortune seeker to light out with his stash that much faster.    The plan is, the prospector Hermann Warm (Ahmed) will be captured locally and held by fellow tracker John Morris (Gyllenhaal), who will turn over Hermann to be tortured and killed by Eli and Charlie.    But, John begins to believe in the potential of Hermann's ideas and sets out to California in search of gold along with his quarry. 
Eli and Charlie wish to add John to their list of targets when this change of plans is discovered.

What connects Eli, Charlie, John, and Hermann is their desire for a better life.   When Eli and Charlie rent a hotel room in San Francisco for the night, Eli is tickled pink to be able to use a flushing toilet and eat at a fine restaurant.   It beats spiders crawling into your mouth out in the wilderness.    Eli wants to quit working for the Commodore.   Charlie wants to dispose of the Commodore and become one himself.   John and Hermann want to use their newfound riches to establish a Utopian commune somewhere in Texas.    But, life has other plans, especially when Hermann's get-rich quick scheme has toxic side effects and the impatient Commodore dispatches goons to get rid of all four men.

The Sisters Brothers contains some of the best work in years from Reilly, Phoenix, and Gyllenhaal, all delivering complex performances.    The characters have depth and yearnings, all of which may not be possible in such a harsh, unclean world.   But, they will push on and try their mightiest.    The Sisters Brothers isn't a series of gunfights, in fact there are maybe three in the entire film, but instead a story about how these men would love nothing more than not to participate in gunfights at all.    The film doesn't end in bloodshed, but in quiet solitude and finally peace at long last for two of the characters.    Sometimes a warm bed and a hot meal is worth more than all of the gold in the California rivers.