Posted by: nacho
« on: May 31, 2020, 10:02:38 AM »
COVID Binge roundup!
THE GREAT: A baby Fanning plays Catherine the Great. Luckily, I read about this before I watched it so I went into it without expecting any history and instead settled in for the tragicomic fantasy that this show really is. And it was great. It's very chick-flicky at times, but it also made me think of season 3 of Blackadder. In fact, some things seemed directly lifted from that show.
HIGH FIDELITY: The gender swap with Zoe Kravitz isn't a problem here since Rob's character -- a misguided, underachieving Gen Xer -- is fairly interchangeable. Switching that out for a misguided, female Millennial is very interesting from the social studies side of things. The problem here, though, is the show's obsession with the movie. They play the same songs, they're lockstep with the script (sometimes scene for scene). All that does is make you want to stop watching the show and put the movie on instead. This obsession with the movie extends to setting, place, and sense of time. Our new Rob is walking so strictly within John Cusack's footsteps that this almost feels like a high school play based on the movie and set during the same time as the movie, which is the sort of thing that could work except that we are being asked to believe that this is 2019. I can't help but think that the character of Rob would be different today than (s)he was 20 years ago. I don't demand that everyone in a fantasy be in touch with our world, but I do think 1999 and 2019 are very different. The real problem here is that they do this gender swap, okay, fine, but then they make her beholden to every single man she meets. She's weak and, at times, subservient to them. This is the sort of gender swap that is keenly aware of gender, which defeats the purpose of a gender swap. Worse, that gender awareness clearly comes from a #writersroom full of men.
DEVS: There's something afoot at the off-brand Google campus! Devs is fascinating, and good. I helps if you have a working knowledge of the "technology" behind Quantum Leap, which is fun. But Devs isn't really straight up sci-fi. It's murder mystery, intrigue, action, fantasy, and everything in between.
CATCH-22: The remake is beautifully shot, well acted, and has great potential...which is wasted on weird gimmicks and attempts to simplify and play up the humor. Instead of a very black social satire, we just get straight up zanyness. All in all, the show feels like the showrunners are so taken with their clever idea to redo Catch-22 that they just couldn't get enough of themselves, you know?
DAS BOOT: This is how you do reboots. Though, it's not really a reboot. Different sub, different crew, and a different mission. The story is told in two sections: First, we have the sub crew trying to survive at the turning of the tide for the Wolf Packs. So we know that they're doomed. On the sub is a green captain and a seasoned first mate who don't get along, and that fractured relationship sort of infects the entire crew and the mission. Also on board is a radio operator who is working for OSS, trying to get them the codes to Enigma which.... Back on land, in occupied France, that radio operator's sister is thrust into the machinations of the resistance and the OSS because she's the one who has the Enigma plans. So the second section of Das Boot is a straight up spy thriller. Heavy stuff, but enjoyable.
THE LOOMING TOWER: An in-depth and beautifully acted story about how the intelligence servies fucked up in the years leading up to 9/11, from the boots on the ground all the way up to the cabinet level. This is a fascinating study that's very much in line with the book (and intercuts occasionally with actual footage showing scenes that were just acted out). Loved everything about this, but it's not for you if you're moody.
