Cobra Kai (Season Two) * * * (Streaming on Netflix)

Starring:  Ralph Macchio, William Zabka, Courtney Henggeler, Xolo Mariduena, Tanner Buchanan, Mary Mouser, Jacob Bertrand, Nichole Brown, Martin Kove

Season two of the Cobra Kai series fulfilled what I asked of it in my review of season one:  To stabilize the main characters so we can gain a sense of who they are.   With Daniel (Macchio) and Johnny (Zabka) now in focus, Cobra Kai is more involving, albeit somewhat ludicrous entertainment.   The showdown in the high school between Miyagi-Do Karate and Cobra Kai members runs on so long it loses all credibility, but it ends on a somber note.  With no teachers, security guards, or police in sight, we think we're watching the end of the first Kill Bill.   These kids could give Bruce Lee a run for his money. 

I found myself willing to follow the stories even while having misgivings about some of them, and that is what television is all about.   Daniel and Johnny are enemies in the beginning to be sure, but then are allowed to cool their feud long enough to have dinner together with their significant others.    Maybe they aren't so different after all.   Any truce or hint of friendship, however, doesn't last long because of matters like their kids are dating each other.  

We also take a trip down memory lane, with the manipulative and malignant Kreese (Kove) fully in the Cobra Kai fold, but he has motives of his own, and they don't necessarily include Johnny.   Johnny meets up with one of his old Cobra Kai buddies from high school (Rob Garrison), who is dying from cancer and goes on one last motorcycle ride with his old gang.    These scenes are poignant because Garrison would later succumb to the disease in real life.   Ali (played by Elisabeth Shue in the original Karate Kid movie) figures into the story without having shown her face yet.   

Daniel's obsession with putting Cobra Kai out of business with the opening of Miyagi-Do puts an anticipated strain on his dealership and his relationship with wife Amanda (Henggeler), who wakes up alone more often these days and has to handle the lion's share of the work at the dealerships.    Henggeler is funny and warm, giving Amanda depth and a personality, she's not just there to be Daniel's put-upon spouse.    Johnny becomes less of a wild card, and the writers forged a path for him in which he has to decide if wants to remain the immature jerk he was in high school, or grow up and teach his students a more honorable way to learn martial arts.   Daniel wants to do the right thing, but is he letting his ego obscure forgiving Johnny and finally letting bygones be bygones?

With the inevitable return of Ali to the series and a common enemy forming for both Daniel and Johnny, Cobra Kai season three now becomes eagerly anticipated Netflix watching.   

Enola Holmes (2020) * * * (Streaming on Netflix)

Directed by:  Harry Bradbeer

Starring:  Millie Bobby Brown, Henry Cavill, Helena Bonham Carter, Sam Claflin, Fiona Shaw, Louis Partridge. 

Enola Holmes is not simply a gender-switching take on the famous detective.   Anchored by a spirited performance by Millie Bobby Brown in the title role, Enola Holmes stands on its own as a detective story and an examination into a period when England, and the world, were reluctant to allow greater freedoms to women. In Victorian England, women were expected to act properly, not make a fuss, and obey their husbands. Vote? Ha.  The newspapers of the day debate whether women should be allowed to show their ankles in public.  They are a long way off from suffrage, which is at the center of debate in the House of Lords.  

Enola (alone spelled backwards) is raised by an anagram-loving mother in the English countryside.   

Enola's more famous brothers Sherlock (Cavill) and Mycroft (Claflin) have forged their own fame and fortune.   Enola's mother (Bonham-Carter) urges her daughter not to be beholden to the whims of men, but to make her own way.   Mom has a few secrets, such as her membership in a secret women's group which keeps Enola out of meetings, and on the morning of Enola's sixteenth birthday, she disappears.   Enola discovers a few clues hidden in anagrams and houseplants.   She asks her brothers to come home to help find her, and they embarrassingly walk by her at the train station because they forget what she looks like.

Enola, after discovering a few clues and a wad of money, lights out for London to find her mother.   On the train, she encounters the teenage Viscount Lord Tewkesberry, Marquess of Basilwether (there's a mouthful for ya) stowing away in her compartment.    Played by Louis Partridge, he is on the lam from his family and for reasons which may be related to Enola's mother's disappearance.   By helping the viscount, she may be helping to find her mother as well.   Plus, she likes him, and not just in a friend zone kind of way.

I suppose you can't have any story even related to Sherlock Holmes without hearing the phrase, "the game is afoot," and Enola Holmes tells its story with quick cuts and energy similar to Guy Ritchie's take on the legendary sleuth.    Brown breaks the fourth wall often, either with dialogue or a quick glance or look, and it can't be coincidental the movie is directed by Harry Bradbeer, who directed Phoebe Waller-Bridge's Fleabag with the same point of view.   Enola Holmes starts with heavy reliance on this narrative structure, but soon settles into a traditional storytelling mode, which is fine by me.

If Enola Holmes relied solely on its mystery, it would be a slight, cute movie with little else going for it except costume designs and set decorations which capture a hustling late-nineteenth century London. But, when Mycroft, who has made Enola his ward upon their mother's disappearance, tracks Enola down and tosses her into a finishing school, we despair at seeing society attempting to squash Enola's individuality and spirit.   When she tells Mycroft she does not want a husband, Mycroft coldly replies, "this is another thing we are going to have educated out of you,"  we cringe, because the last thing we want is for Enola to be like everyone else.    Mycroft isn't necessarily a villain, but a product of a male-dominated British culture terrified of change.   Sherlock, even with his superior powers of deduction and reason, seems baffled by anything not related to solving mysteries.   However, he starts to gain at least some insight into the human condition when dealing with Enola.

I'm sure there will be an Enola Holmes sequel in our future, and it will be welcomed, as long as Enola doesn't morph into a female Sherlock Holmes and is allowed to continue on her own path.  

Michael Clayton (2007) * * * 1/2

 

Directed by:  Tony Gilroy

Starring:  George Clooney, Tilda Swinton, Tom Wilkinson, Sydney Pollack

George Clooney excels at playing the smooth operator who knows the angles.  As Michael Clayton, a "fixer" for a high-powered New York law firm, it's his job to know the angles and to anticipate new ones.  This is soul-sucking business, and soon Michael finds it's more than he can handle. He is an attorney, yes, but his job isn't to try cases.  It's to put out fires. Clean up messes.  As he tells one client in a boatload of trouble:  "I'm not a miracle worker.   I'm a janitor,"  He's correct, and this type of work weighs on him.

Michael's janitorial services are put to the extreme test when his friend and colleague Arthur Edens (Wilkinson), the lead attorney defending the firm's top client in a multi-billion dollar wrongful death class action suit, commits an act of pure insanity.   Arthur is tired of defending a guilty client, and one snowy night, he strips naked during a deposition and runs after the plaintiffs in a parking lot.  He is thrown in jail, and soon released to head back to New York.  Michael has to clean up the mess, which gets worse when the chemical company's chief attorney Karen Crowder (Swinton) decides to take the cleanup to more dangerous levels, including murder.  

Is Arthur insane, or crazy like a fox?  No matter, when we see him walking on New York's streets with a shit-eating grin on his face, we know the answer, or we think we do.   For a few moments, Arthur deludes himself into thinking he can just walk away.  Not in this world.  Michael learns that also, and soon finds himself the target of Karen's thugs.   Michael Clayton has elements of a legal thriller, but it is also a character study of a man up to his eyeballs in debt from a failed restaurant venture with few options except to do what he does best.  Would he rather be in a courtroom?  Definitely.  Will it happen?  No way.   

Michael Clayton is a gripping story of trapped people.   Arthur is trapped in a case which leaves him guilt-stricken.   Karen, in order to protect her job and her chances of promotion, feels she has no alternative but to tidy up loose ends permanently.   And then there's Michael, trapped in a job he never anticipated having when graduating from law school.   When his boss, Marty Bach (Pollack, in another gem of a performance from the acclaimed director) pays off his debt, Michael is now even further trapped, unless he can scheme his way out.   Even if he can, will it be enough to set him on another path?

We learn how much bullshit the people in Michael Clayton can put with, and lines they won't go beyond.    Arthur hit is limit.   Michael is about to hit his, and Karen finds if killing off Arthur can advance her career and protect her company's interests, she can live with whatever pesky guilt she may encounter.   Swinton (in an Oscar-winning performance) is as sleek and tailored as Karen, but she is far more ruthless and cold.   You may think Clooney is playing another smoothie role, but Michael Clayton is only smooth and unruffled on the outside.  We sense what all of this is doing to him on the inside, and this is where Michael Clayton exits the routine and enters a world of murky morals and consequences.    When he tells Karen in a critical scene, "I'm not the guy you kill, I'm the guy you buy," just listen to the self-loathing dripping from his voice.  

   

Tenet (2020) * 1/2

 

Directed by:  Christopher Nolan

Starring:  John David Washington, Robert Pattinson, Elizabeth Debicki, Kenneth Branagh, Michael Caine

No need to worry.  There will be no spoilers revealed in this review of Christopher Nolan's Tenet.   I am not champing at the bit to let the cat out of the bag.  I feel stupid saying this, but Tenet is nearly indecipherable.   It makes Inception look as transparent and as easy to follow as a children's book.   The more the movie attempts to explain itself, the more confused we become.   I can explain the bare bones of the plot to you, but anything deeper you're on your own.   

John David Washington (from BlackkKlansman) stars as The Protagonist.   Why does he not have a name?   It is one of Tenet's many mysteries, but not a fatal one.   After a laborious setup involving a rescue of a powerful man when a Kiev ballet performance is invaded by terrorists, The Protagonist is selected for another mission:   To stop World War III.   Okay, but how?   Well, not in the traditional way.  The Protagonist is taken to a lab where "inverted objects" exist, such as a bullet shot from a gun which can fly backwards in time instead of forward.   So, in theory, you can shoot someone in the past without actually having to travel in time to do so.   (I think).   This isn't just done with bullets, it can be done with a nuclear weapon also.   

The Protagonist tracks, with relative ease, the arms to a villainous arms dealer named Andrei (Branagh), who is threatening the world's destruction by sending the weapon back in time to destroy life in the past, thus destroying life in the present.   It's explained as The Grandfather Complex, the paradox in which if you kill your grandfather in the past, you will cease to exist as well.   The Protagonist, who is teamed up with a partner who knows more than he lets on (Pattinson), must stop the nuclear bomb from exploding in the past, and kill Andrei in the present.   He gets help from Andrei's wife Kat (Debicki), whom Andrei blackmails into staying with him by threatening to prevent her from seeing her son.   This is supposed to be the emotional tug which pulls the story along, like Cobb's mission to see his own children in Inception, but it seems tacked on and without much heart.

Tenet is bursting at the seams with chases, crashes, explosions, and then stopping to explain why all this happening and how.   This would normally be a positive and allow us to regain our footing, but the explications may as well have been spoken in Klingon.   We only sink further down the rabbit hole of muddled plot twists, as characters occupy the present as well as the past, and obliterating the laws of physics in the process.    A little confusion is okay, and with a relatively normal movie, seeing where we were bamboozled is part of the fun.   Tenet, with all of its action sequences and visuals, is not fun but a slog.

Tenet, like all Christopher Nolan movies, is a superior production in terms of visual splendor.   The actors are to be applauded for the great effort they inject into characters who exist at the service of an all but incomprehensible plot.    Tenet is too much concept and too little of just about everything else. 

Cobra Kai (2018) Season One * * 1/2

 

Starring:  Ralph Macchio, William Zabka, Courtney Henggeler, Xolo Mariduena, Tanner Buchanan, Mary Mouser, Jacob Bertrand, Nichole Brown, Martin Kove

Like the first two episodes, Cobra Kai is passable entertainment, continuing the Karate Kid saga over thirty years after the All-Valley Karate Championship match between Daniel LaRusso (Macchio) and Johnny Lawrence (Zabka).   The loss to LaRusso still affects Johnny negatively all these years later.   His liver must be begging for the mercy the Cobra Kai dojo doesn't give its opponents, since Johnny is rarely seen without a beer in hand.    He may even eat once in a while, but still manages to stay in decent shape.  

He reopens Cobra Kai after saving a student named Miguel (Mariduena) from a beating by bullies, one of whom is Daniel's daughter's boyfriend.    Other students follow after Miguel whips a group of bullies' asses and the video goes viral.   Bruce Lee would've been proud, although the bullies make the same fatal mistake goons in karate movies always make:  They attack the hero one at a time instead of all at once.

Daniel, despite owning a successful car dealership and having a loving family, feels out of balance since the death of Mr. Miyagi.   He is appalled to see Cobra Kai rearing its ugly head in the San Fernando Valley again, and wants to do what he can to stop it.   The simmering issues between Daniel and Johnny percolate, as Johnny tries to muster up self-respect and Daniel tries to find inner peace.  Any later misunderstandings could be solved if either Daniel or Johnny would simply explain what happened instead of dummying up, but Cobra Kai is not a show without a Daniel/Johnny feud, so any arguments have to explode into full-blown drama.

Even after all these years, Johnny is a bully, as fully demonstrated by his treatment of his students, and Daniel is a decent guy.   The show's treatment of Johnny is uneven.   One minute he is a borderline alcoholic bully who terrorizes his students, and the next we are asked to sympathize because he was bullied as a teen by a grumpy stepfather and his Cobra Kai sensei Kreese (Kove), who molded Johnny into what he is today, which isn't a comforting thought.    

In the middle of the battle between Daniel and Johnny are each's children.   Johnny is estranged from his son Robbie (Buchanan), a juvenile delinquent who applies for a job at Daniel's dealership to get back at his absent father, but soon becomes Daniel's karate student.    Buchanan is able to handle the subtle changes Robbie undergoes, as we see him learn to accept responsibility and even grow up a little.

We wish the personality swerves Daniel and Johnny go through each episode were less drastic, so much so that we don't know where we stand with them.   However, Cobra Kai is watchable, mostly light fare, which is sure to appeal to fans of the Karate Kid universe and perhaps rein in a new generation.   Let's hope season two finds a way to stabilize its leads.  

Midnight Express (1978) * * * *

 

Directed by:  Alan Parker

Starring:  Brad Davis, Randy Quaid, John Hurt, Paul L. Smith, Irene Miracle, Paolo Bonacelli, Bo Hopkins, Norbert Weisser 

Yes, Billy Hayes is not a likable fella.   He was convicted in 1970 of smuggling hashish in Turkey and, after originally being sentenced for 3-5 years, was then sentenced to life imprisonment.   He did the crime, but does the time fit the crime?   Turkish officials wanted to make an example of Billy, and Midnight Express is a movie which functions as a nightmare.   Billy's Long Island family tries in vain to have him set free, and he slowly loses his sanity in prison.   How he found the wherewithal to escape is based on a series of fortunate events for him.    

Midnight Express is a harsh film to watch, and gripping because of the universal emotions it creates; fear and hopelessness.   Even though Billy is a drug smuggler, we begin to pity him being stuck in a foreign prison for perhaps the rest of his life, clinging to whatever fragile state of mind he has left.    Based on his autobiography, the intelligent and literate Billy did indeed escape from the Turkish prison and successfully crossed the border to Greece (and freedom) weeks later.    Midnight Express ends with Billy, disguised as a prison guard, walking right out the front door of the prison.   The rest of his journey is not depicted, except his reunion with his family in Greece which is done by a montage of still photos.

Since Midnight Express is a forty-plus year old movie, I don't feel bad revealing the ending, and I'm sure the story is well-known anyway.   Midnight Express, Alan Parker's second feature film, is not about Billy's eventual escape, but how bleak things looked for him until that point.   His fellow prisoners, such as an American played by Randy Quaid and a Brit played by John Hurt, are in various stages of drug-induced apathy.   Then, there is the squirrely Rifki (Bonacelli), who snitches on the other inmates.    Billy finds love, sort of, with Erich (Weisser), and they sort of consummate their relationship.   The movie cuts any sex scene short, but Billy admitted in his book that he indeed had an affair with Erich.

Oliver Stone's Oscar-winning screenplay and Parker's superb direction keeps us involved and finds sympathy for characters who are ultimately less than sympathetic on the surface.    Brad Davis, in one of his first major film roles over a brief career cut short by his death from AIDS in 1991, is intense, and ultimately identifiable as a scared, naive man who wasn't cut out to be a drug smuggler.   The scene in which he is captured, with kilos of hash taped to his body, is a lesson in tension and suspense.   

Midnight Express isn't gratuitous in its depiction of the harsh realities of the prison, but instead it focuses on how the prisoners choose to escape that reality, whether it's drugs, sex, or hope.   What remains is vivid and enduring to the viewer.   And who could forget Giorgio Moroder's Oscar-winning pulsating score?  

Unhinged (2020) * *

 

Directed by:  Derrick Borte

Starring:  Russell Crowe, Caren Pistorius, Gabriel Bateman, Jimmi Simpson

After the opening scenes of Unhinged, in which a man bludgeons a family to death and then burns the house down, we are privy to opening credits which play like a Trump campaign ad.   You know:  Be afraid, be very afraid, especially of road rage.   What oxycodone-popping hulk Tom Cooper (Crowe), who killed his own family and burned his own house to the ground, has isn't road rage.  He uses a traffic altercation with a young woman named Rachel (Pistorius) to unleash his sociopath personality on his next victims.    

Unhinged is a slasher film with none-too-subtle subtext of how escalating daily pressures can lead to guys like Tom stalking you.    Tom apparently went through a nasty divorce, and perhaps so because he is, after all, insane.   And now he wants to take it out on the world, or whoever has the misfortune of crossing paths with him.    You would think he'd want to get out of town asap, especially when witnesses saw him leave the burning house in a gray pickup truck, but this is the kind of movie where the police are conveniently elsewhere allowing Tom to stalk his victims.    There was a mention in the opening credit fear montage about police funding being cut back, a poke at the idea of defunding the police.   In Unhinged, the cops show up only when the plot requires them.   The rest of the movie has Tom with the run of the country.

Rachel's bad day starts with oversleeping.   She is a hairdresser who used to own a salon, but since it closed she takes on clients who don't appreciate her being late.   Her soon to be ex-husband wants the house, she has money issues, and a teenage son Kyle (Bateman), who we know is around to be a potential victim for Tom.   Rachel gets caught in traffic on the way to Kyle's school, and after pulling behind Tom at a traffic light, she leans on the horn when he doesn't move on green.   Bad idea.   Tom isn't the sort to let such a slight go, and after catching up with Rachel at the next light, she blows him off and incites his ire and a promise to show her what a bad day is.   He makes good on the promise; stealing her cell phone after she stops for gas and replacing it with a flip phone so he can learn all about her and call Rachel to terrorize her.    

Tom brazenly kills Rachel's best friend/lawyer (Simpson) in a diner where he was supposed to meet her for breakfast.   She is late, of course, but with very good reason since Tom is causing mayhem in her life.   Soon, Tom goes after Rachel's family, and even sooner, Rachel fights back.   Unhinged isn't going to win any points for unpredictability.   It's a slasher film with hints of a message which isn't required or even explicable.   Should we understand Tom because he got the short end of the stick in life?   (His story is helpfully summarized by a television news reporter, which is much more detail than you would usually get about a murder and arson suspect).   Tom isn't given much personality except for that of a psycho, so with little to go on, we just wait impatiently for his demise.   However, Russell Crowe, with his bulging eyes and even bulgier waistline, does try to elevate Tom from a mere spree killer.   He's too good an actor to star in such a movie, but a paycheck is a paycheck.   At least, he didn't phone it in.  Pistorius makes an identifiable victim.   

For a ninety-minute film, Unhinged could use some tighter editing.   Scenes unfold at a glacial pace, and any tension unravels long before a payoff.   It seems Rachel and Kyle are in the car forever before encountering Tom the first time, and the diner scene feels longer than it needs to be.   Unhinged is the first movie I've seen in a theater since theaters closed in March.   It is good to be back in a theater once again, although the quality of what's showing on the big screen hasn't improved since the six-month break.    Unhinged is still sticking around in theaters because, let's face it, there isn't much else out there.   In a normal time, Unhinged would've played to sparsely populated theaters and lasted about two weeks before it started disappearing from theaters.    It isn't horrible, but instead rather ordinary and forgettable. 

Just Go with It (2011) * 1/2

 

Directed by:  Dennis Dugan

Starring:  Adam Sandler, Jennifer Aniston, Brooklyn Decker, Nicole Kidman, Dave Matthews, Nick Swardson

Watching the dreary Adam Sandler/Jennifer Aniston comedy Murder Mystery recently, it brings me back to their first onscreen encounter, 2011's Just Go with It, which has some nice scenery and the fortune of having three beautiful women in the cast, two of which sport bikinis at the right time.    As if there is a wrong time for such a thing.   The screwball plot doesn't do much for me, so I take pleasures where I can get them.   I don't know if this is the first of Adam Sandler's movies to play like a Hawaii travelogue, but it isn't hard to notice that many Happy Madison productions don't mind taking the road trip to exotic locales. Not that it really helps the screenplay.

The plot is far more convoluted than it needs to be, but I'll describe it anyway.   A Beverly Hills plastic surgeon named Dr. Danny (Sandler) is not married, but wears a wedding ring while picking up beautiful women he plans to bed and dump.   The ring seems to be alluring to his conquests, but then a gorgeous blonde named Palmer (Decker) enters Danny's life.   She may be The One, so much so that he takes off the wedding ring and plays it straight with her.   But, alas, Palmer discovers Danny's wedding ring and asks if he is married.   In a move which does little more than expand an already ludicrous contrivance, Danny says he is married, but about to divorce.    Palmer wants to meet the ex, so Danny asks his long-suffering assistant Katherine (Aniston) to, get this, go to Hawaii with her two children and pose as Danny's future ex-wife so Palmer can meet her and keep the deception going so he can eventually marry her, I guess.

Danny's life, and ours, would have been simplified if he just admitted that he wasn't married, and then either tells the truth about why he has the wedding ring on hand or makes up a sentimental reason why he keeps it.   Sure, those ways might not have led us to Hawaii or seeing Aniston and Decker in dueling bikinis, but Just Go with It could have wound up as a short film and less consuming of our time.    I suppose I could've just gone with Just Go with It if it were funny or engaging, but it is neither.   Add in two other inexplicable characters, including Danny's cousin (Swardson) who for some reason adopts a German accent and pretends to be Katherine's fiance.   So I suppose in order to make Palmer feel better, Katherine has to be engaged herself.   My mind boggles.  

The other totally unnecessary character and subplot involves Devlin (Kidman), Katherine's high school enemy who winds up in Hawaii also just to continue their dumb feud.   Sandler, Aniston, and Kidman are far too talented to appear in this silliness.   Brooklyn Decker has also done well for herself in a key supporting role on Grace and Frankie.    Just recapping about the plot is exhausting, I can't imagine how much energy was expended in writing it and performing it.  Well, maybe not as much as I expect, because Just Go with It is a remake of 1969's Cactus Flower, which won Goldie Hawn an Oscar.   

I will have to visit Cactus Flower and compare to this one.   I sincerely hope the source material isn't nearly as dismal as its remake.  

The Crown-Season Three (2020) * * * (streaming on Netflix)

 

Starring:  Olivia Colman, Tobias Menzies, Helena Bonham-Carter, Jason Watkins, Jane Lopataire, Charles Dance, Josh O'Connor, Erin Dougherty, Derek Jacobi

A new cast breathes fresh air into The Crown, which stalled plenty in season two with tangents and subplots which distracted from the more fascinating characters.   Oscar winner Olivia Colman and Tobias Menzies take the reins as Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip, and as both approach middle age, we witness more depth and growth in the royal couple than ever before.    It took a moment to get used to not having Claire Foy and Matt Smith around, but these actors make the roles their own.

Beginning in 1964, The Crown picks up with Elizabeth and Philip far more settled into their marriage and Philip's place in the monarchy than previously.   There is no mention of Beatlemania gripping the nation and the world, but newly elected, progressive prime minister Harold Wilson (a terrific Jason Watkins) is introduced.   The queen doesn't know what to make of him.    Is he so progressive that he plans to make the monarchy obsolete, or is he a monarchist at heart?    As the season progresses, the shifting nature of Wilson's and Elizabeth's relationship provides ample theater.

Elizabeth undergoes extraordinary effort to not show emotion, to be a rigid, neutral monarch in chaotic times for her country, but Colman is great at allowing us to see inside, whether through a tear or a facial expression.   Philip's face is even less expressive than his wife's, and his best episode, which coincides the Apollo 11 moon landing with Philip's midlife crisis, doesn't just allow us a peek into Philip's inner turmoil, it puts it on full display with a humble speech to a group of burnt-out priests he previously ridiculed.

We see more of the young adult Prince Charles (O'Connor) and Princess Anne (Dougherty), who are involved in stories of their own involving Charles' trip to Wales, where he learns to ingratiate himself to the populace, and Charles' romance with Camilla Shand, who would later become Camilla Parker-Bowles.   While Charles fully understands the family dynamic which is slowly moving against him, Princess Anne deals with her family with directness and youthful arrogance.   It's not as if she has any chance of being the future queen.    There are many dialogue references to Charles one day becoming king, which provide perhaps intentional laughs because as of September 2020, Queen Elizabeth reigns still, and a now 72-year-old Prince Charles has to wonder if his day will ever come to be king.   The Crown fully exploits the family tension between the idealistic, naive Charles and his mother.    Parallels between Charles and his exiled uncle Edward (Jacobi) are delved into as well.

Helena Bonham-Carter takes over as Princess Margaret, whose marriage is crumbling due to her husband's philandering.    Margaret is capable of pulling a welcome surprise out of her hat, such as a state dinner with President Lyndon Johnson (Clancy Brown) in which the UK's financial future is at stake.   Margaret, no stranger to making a public spectacle of herself, finds a way to ingratiate herself with Johnson in the most unexpected ways, and the UK's finances are secured.    Queen Elizabeth is aghast, because she could not possible behave like Margaret on her worst day, but she also can't argue with success.

Season three, aside from some minor hiccups, moves along swiftly and sets up a fourth season involving Margaret Thatcher and Princess Diana's marriage to Charles.   The queen is celebrating her silver jubilee, and Queen Elizabeth has more or less grown to understand her role, how she must behave as queen, and how she must make sometimes devastating personal sacrifices for the good of her crown. 

Mississippi Burning (1988) * * * *

 

Directed by:  Alan Parker

Starring:  Gene Hackman, Willem Dafoe, Frances McDormand, Kevin Dunn, Brad Dourif, Gailard Sartain, R. Lee Ermey, Stephen Tobolowsky, Pruitt Taylor Vince, Michael Rooker

Alan Parker's recent death brings back memories of two of his best films, Fame and Mississippi Burning.  Their plots and milieus are as dissimilar as can be, but both movies contain a theme of outsiders treading into uncharted and frightening territory.   In Fame, the freshman year students at New York's prestigious High School of the Performing Arts are hopeful, but terrified of failure.   In Mississippi Burning, the outsiders are federal agents investigating the disappearance of three civil rights workers in 1964 rural Mississippi.  The agents feel as much trepidation as the citizens of the small town they descend upon to find out what happened.  Blacks in town are outsiders even though they have been living there their entire lives.    The whites, at least most of them, are fearful of the government interfering with their way of life and would like the agents to exit ASAP.

We meet agents Rupert Anderson (Hackman) and Alan Ward (Dafoe), who come from different backgrounds and approach the job differently.   Anderson is a Southerner who once was a sheriff in a town like this one.   He knows how the people think, and how to disarm them with some good-ole-boy charm.  Ward is a by-the-book fed whose manner causes people to avoid him.   He believes he is on a mission to change things, and wonders aloud why the townsfolk can't see that.   But, he is running the investigation and believes in doing things his way, until a crucial moment in the film when he understands he must abandon his stubborn methods to get to the truth, and hold the killers accountable.

Based on a true story, it comes as no surprise the three missing civil rights workers were murdered and found dead in a swamp.   The local KKK does little to conceal its disdain for blacks and for the agents' presence.    Like the mafia, there are the bosses, like sheriff Ray Stuckey (Sartain) and local KKK grand wizard Clayton Townley (Tobolowsky), and the cronies like Deputy Pell (Dourif), whose abused wife (McDormand) does not share her husband's views on race relations or much else.  Anderson and Ward theorize that the local authorities picked up the workers and delivered them to the KKK to be killed.    Anderson thinks Mrs. Pell can poke holes in her husband's alibi because he senses the good in her; the willingness to finally stand up against the racism she has witnessed all her life.   Anderson plays her at first, but soon falls in love with her, and she with him, to an extent. 

While the investigation rolls on, Mississippi Burning captures the overall atmosphere of fear which pervades the town and its black citizens.   The essence of racism is prevalent everywhere.   The black characters are terrorized, living under a cloud of potential lynching and death at every turn.   Churches are burned to the ground.   In one sad, terrifying, and revealing scene, the local KKK thugs burn a church and attack its parish.   A young boy falls to his knees and prays, hoping the violence would cease as mayhem ensues around him.   He is soon kicked in the head by a Klansman, showing us there is no depth to which the perpetrators wouldn't stoop.

Mississippi Burning is violent, yes, because 1964 Mississippi was a violent place.   But there is also a slight sense of hope that things will change.   Have they changed?   In some ways yes, and in other ways no.  Jim Crow laws are no longer on the books, but still far too many people act as if they still exist in spirit.   The performances, especially Hackman's and McDormand's (both Oscar-nominated), are universally excellent.   Mississippi Burning not only works mercilessly as a procedural and a thriller, but as a document depicting a time not very long ago where minorities were openly terrorized and others turned a blind eye to such.  

The Crown (Season Two) * * 1/2 (2017) (Showing on Netflix)

Starring:  Claire Foy, Matt Smith, Jared Harris, Alex Jennings, Vanessa Kirby, John Lithgow, Jeremy Northam, Ben Miles , Matthew Goode

The Crown's uneven and sometimes bloated second season could have trimmed a lot of fat.   The good episodes are very good, and the performances are always stellar, but the most fascinating character, Queen Elizabeth II (Foy) takes a back seat to the supporting players far too often.   I'm all for giving the other characters their time to shine, but soon The Crown begins to feel like, "The Princess Margaret Show" guest starring her regal sister.   

Or we can rename The Crown, "What's Bothering Prince Philip This Week?"  The queen's increasingly mopey husband (Smith) looks to be about three seconds away from telling someone to f*** off at any given time.  Yes, it can be a tad uncomfortable to be the man in a marriage to a queen in a male-dominated society, but mostly every man in the world would switch places with you.    This was explored with greater efficiency in the first season.   Now, Prince Philip is becoming insufferable with his myriad insecurities and infidelities, which he kind of, sort of confesses to in the season's final episode.   It's a pity, because the moments where Prince Philip is shown to be more compassionate than his colder spouse reflect the push/pull of their marriage vividly.   

This season's best moments occur with Queen Elizabeth figuring out the line between wife/mother/sister and sovereign.   She makes promises to her sister, Princess Margaret, that she can marry only to renege on the pledges.    She has her own preference as to who would become her private secretary, only to be told that she must follow protocol and hire the man she doesn't prefer because he has more seniority.    Advisors warn her that following her own heart would lead to an Edward VIII type of situation, which may seem like an exaggeration, but perhaps they're correct.

Edward VIII makes a few more appearances in London in an attempt to reemerge from exile.   He attempts to find work with the government, and Queen Elizabeth is ready to sign off until a long-dormant secret rears its ugly head and forces Edward into exile for good.    Speaking of that secret, why would someone not destroy the report which documents Edward's potential treachery, especially since Winston Churchill and George VI agreed to bury it for the sake of national security?    Why leave it in a box somewhere for a historian to find it?   Or worse yet, leave a handy note on it which draws attention to its potential explosiveness?   I'm reminded of the crucial scene in In The Name of the Father (1993) where an attorney conveniently finds a folder that reads "don't show to the defense".   

Like season one, Prince Charles and the other children are rarely seen, except for an episode in which Prince Charles is sent away to his father's alma mater boarding school and struggles with everyday life. Other than that, I wonder if Queen Elizabeth could pick her children out of a lineup.   Season two was a down season, a near miss with superior, authentic production values and strong actors doing what they can with the material.   Season three will feature a new cast and Oscar winner Olivia Colman as Queen Elizabeth.   Maybe a fresh coat of paint will help.   

The Crown (Season One) * * * 1/2 (streaming on Netflix)

 

Starring:  Claire Foy, Matt Smith, Jared Harris, Alex Jennings, Vanessa Kirby, John Lithgow, Jeremy Northam, Ben Miles 

Peter Morgan wrote 2006's excellent The Queen, which won Helen Mirren a Best Actress Oscar for her portrayal of Queen Elizabeth II.    The Crown, created by Morgan, chronicles Her Majesty's early years and her eventual reign beginning with the passing of her father King George VI (Harris).    Morgan's The Crown works best when it is beset with palace intrigue, which isn't handled in soap opera fashion, but as a method of shaping Elizabeth from naive princess to a sturdier, but colder regent.    

As The Crown opens in post-WWII Britain, Elizabeth's fiance Prince Philip (Smith), a former Greek royal, is dubbed Duke of Edinburgh and they marry.   This is not an arranged marriage lacking passion, but it appears to be genuine love.   Philip is essentially stripped of his former identity to marry Elizabeth, which at first suits him, but as the marriage rolls on he seethes more and more about what he perceives as a lack of respect from the palace staff.    He is "just the husband", in his eyes, and perhaps even in Elizabeth's.   This silent tug of war between Elizabeth and Philip treks onto dangerous ground as season one ends.

As King George VI is succumbing to lung cancer, Winston Churchill (Lithgow) is elected once again as prime minister.    He loses a loyal supporter when the king dies, and his weekly conferences with the new queen are handled with much more trepidation.   Lithgow, while considerably taller than the real Churchill, is a life force who barks, scowls, and stubbornly tries to hold on to his post even as his health is failing him.   At first, he thinks he can pull the wool over Elizabeth's eyes after suffering a stroke and pretending he isn't bedridden, but how Elizabeth dresses down the iconic Churchill after discovering the ruse is masterfully handled.   Check out the look on his face.   He looks like a scolded child who is sad to have disappointed his mother.    This is among the best performances of Lithgow's carrer and The Crown wanes a bit without his presence.

The Crown also gives the supporting players room to breathe while not removing the spotlight from its main subject.    Princess Margaret (Kirby) is a dichotomy.   She enjoys the lifestyle not being the queen affords her (which includes a lot of smoking and partying) while envying her sister's station.    She is also in love with a married member of the palace staff, WWII hero Peter Townsend (Miles), who later divorces his wife, but that does not change their inability to marry in the Anglican Church's (and Elizabeth's) eyes.    These episodes provide the greatest internal conflict for Elizabeth between her personal feelings and her duty to her position.  

Also present is the former king Edward VIII (Jennings), who historically abdicated the throne because he could not marry the twice-divorced American Wallis Simpson.    He is exiled in the south of France on a pension (poor guy), but he longs to be accepted again by his family and visits London for the first time in years after the death of his brother.    Jennings, who played Prince Charles in The Queen, does a wicked job of not always showing us his cards.    Underneath his charismatic, graceful exterior is a schemer, but not one we can easily pin down.   And his relationship with Wallis is explored, and we find how much he truly loved her.    

Foy not only elegantly handles herself like a monarch, but her transformation from princess to queen is quite a sight.    Foy navigates Elizabeth's internal pressures and conflicts beautifully.   She rules without ever raising her voice.    Smith not only resembles Prince Philip physically, but while not being quite sympathetic as a man relegated to the sidelines while his wife rules the United Kingdom, we can understand his frustration over trying to figure out his place in a still male-dominated world.   But, while he is a loving and hands-on father, Elizabeth is rarely seen in the presence of her children.   Is this a standard trope with television series these days in which children spend the majority of time off screen?

Season one of The Crown provides us access to an intimate world of privilege and tradition, and how both can hinder progress.    As the 1950's sweeps on, it becomes apparent the monarchy needs to change with the times, but will that be enough to save the UK from the unrest that is coming?