Commercial TV pretty much sucks, as I was reminded once again
last night during the season finale of “Mad Men,” the critically-acclaimed show
about a 1960s Madison Avenue advertising agency and the people who work for it.
Last night's episode took place in 1969, the night Neil Armstrong walked
on the moon. A founder of the agency (played by Broadway star Robert
Morse) dropped dead shortly after the moonwalk. The episode ended with his ghost performing a soft shoe routine while singing, “The Moon Belongs To
Everyone, The Best Things in Life They’re Free” as main character Don Draper
(Jon Hamm) watched misty-eyed, trying his best to convince viewers he was
finding profound meaning in Morse’s performance.
My dachshunds could have come up with a more convincing ending.
So, now that summer is officially here and all those
God-awful series that weren’t worth watching in the first place are in re-runs,
what's there to watch on TV?
Here’s my suggestion: Netflix Streaming Video. For $8.99 a
month, you can choose from hundreds of foreign and American movies, plus dozens
of TV series from around the globe. Non-English programming is subtitled -- helpful
if you, like me, are hard of hearing and are missing half the dialogue in the
programs you watch anyway.
If you don’t yet have Netflix, do not be intimidated by streaming video
technology. All you need is wireless internet and a cheap ($50 or less) device
any moron can easily hook up to his or her TV. (Trust me. If I can do it, you
can, too.) All TV programming will be delivered via streaming video in a few
years so you might as well adapt now.
Here are some recent Netflix streaming favorites,
pre-screened for your viewing pleasure. Some are series, so you can binge-watch
two, three or, on rainy days when you can’t go out and play, eight or nine
episodes back-to-back.
The Great Train
Robbery: This 2013 two-part BBC movie is about the 1963 robbery of a Glasgow-to-London
mail train that captivated Britain like no crime before or since. Part I
follows the perpetrators as they plan and execute the robbery, which netted
them £2,100,000 in small bills. Part II is the story of the Scotland Yard detective
who obsessively led his men on a quest to chase them down. It’s well-acted,
intelligent and, best of all, true. (Truth is stranger than fiction, you know.)
You will need to turn on closed captions for Part I because the South London working
class accents of the gang are, to this American at least, unintelligible. (3
hours.)
Mother of Mine: You
may not think of Finland as a major WWII battleground because American troops didn’t
fight there, but it was -- the Soviets and Nazis went at each other, leaving the
country in tatters. To keep them out of harm’s way more than 70,000 Finnish
children were shipped to other countries, mostly to neighboring Sweden, to live
with host families for the war’s duration.
The movie is the story of a Finnish boy
who came to stay with a Swedish farm couple still reeling from the recent
drowning of their only child. The farm wife is played to perfection by Maria
Lundqvist, an actress generally known for her comedic roles. You, of course, have
never heard of Lundqvist and I am only mentioning her name to make you feel
inferior, as if you should know who she is when, in fact, I had never heard of
her either until I saw this movie but I looked her up on Wikipedia and this is
my blog so I can drop names if I want.
Lundqvist’s character takes out her grief on the boy whose mother,
from Finland, eventually writes that she has fallen in love with a German
soldier and plans to move to Germany after the war ends. The boy’s mother informs
the Swedes they can keep her son. Something then happens you won’t expect.
My wife got teary-eyed at the end, a sure sign of a good movie. (2
hours.)
Air Disasters: As
long as one doesn’t fall from the sky with any of my family or friends on board,
I’m into plane crashes big-time.
This series of Canadian-made documentaries examines 10 of
the world’s most infamous disasters -- the Turkish Airlines DC-10 that killed nearly
300 when a cargo door blew off over France, the Air India 747 that exploded off
the Irish coast because of a bomb planted by Sikh terrorists, the South African
Airways 747 whose cargo caught fire over the Indian Ocean, etc., and
investigators’ frustrations as they painstakingly try to determine what went
wrong. Every episode includes re-enactments – pilots screaming “mayday” and the
terror of doomed passengers as the plane plummets. (Macabre, I know, but don’t
claim you haven’t wondered what it would be like because we all have.)
My favorite episode (nobody was killed) involved a shiny new
Air Canada 767 that, due to a ground crew error, ran out of fuel in the middle
of nowhere and the pilot was miraculously able to set the jumbo, which was
flying without hydraulics, down on a racetrack. For air crash geeks only. (10 one-hour
episodes.)
You Will Be My Son: Philes, both oeno- and Franco-, will love this
French thriller about an aristocratic winery owner who chooses as his successor
the son of his overseer rather than his own well-meaning geek (there’s that
word again) son, with unpleasant consequences. Uncork a bottle of Bordeaux and drink
in the well-crafted plot, breathtaking scenery and the suspense, which builds
from scene to scene. From the get-go you know this isn’t going to end well. Whose
body is in that coffin being consumed by flames in the crematorium at the
beginning of the movie? You aren't going to hear it from me. (2 hours.)
The Sea Inside: This
Spanish movie, based on the true story of a quadriplegic who went to court for
the right to end his own life, stars Javier Bardem, an actor who has made some
questionable career decisions but not when he accepted this role. Shot in Galicia,
the sliver of Spain directly north of Portugal, it is a darn-near perfect
movie, a celebration of life and, surprisingly, death. Not to sound trite – OK,
I’ll sound trite – this movie will stay with you a long, long time.
We saw it at our local art movie theater when it came out in
2004. As the closing credits rolled there wasn’t a dry eye in the house. I’ve
watched it twice since on Netflix but my wife can’t bear to. I wouldn’t be
surprised to learn that Kimberly-Clark, which makes Kleenex, underwrote the
production. (2 hours.)
Orange is the New
Black: The storyline of this black comedy that sometimes takes serious turns can be summed up in five words – Private Benjamin goes to jail. An
educated young woman from an affluent family is sentenced to hard time in a
Federal women’s prison for drug smuggling in this original Netflix series that
premiered last year. What the series does well is toe a
careful line between making you feel sorry for the inmates as you learn their
stories, and reminding you that these women deserve to be where they are. Taylor
Schilling as Piper, the hapless inmate from whose point of view the story is
told, is especially appealing and likable. Season II – 13 new episodes – will
be available for your binge-watching pleasure on June 6. (26 one-hour
episodes.)
Jobs: Generally
panned by critics when it was released last year, this movie stars Ashton
Kutcher as Apple founder Steve Jobs. So, whom do you trust? The critics or America’s
only objective journalist?
It’s a good movie, not a great one, and Kutcher does a more-than-credible
job portraying Jobs as what he was -- a socially awkward, immature, meglomanical,
prone-to-depression perfectionist who was devastated when he was fired by his
own board of directors and took perverse pleasure in jettisoning them years
later when he was wooed back to save the company. (2 hours.)
Wallander: Based
on Henning Mankel’s novels (not that I’ve read any but critics always imply
they are familiar with the source) about a brooding Swedish detective who goes
around solving heinous and often out-and-out bizarre crimes, there are two
series by this name on Netflix –one from the BBC, the other from Swedish
television. Both were shot in Sweden. The
BBC version starring Kenneth Branagh as the title character, is, for my dime,
better than the Swedish version. For starters, it’s in English so no subtitles
are needed. It’s also faster-paced, a bit glitzier, and the cinematography is
incredible. It will make you want to visit Sweden or, at the very least, buy a
Volvo. (9 hour-and-a-half episodes.)
Spiral: I’ve
saved the best for last. This French attorney/judge/cop series will suck you in and
keep you awake at night, dissecting what you just saw and looking forward to
another evening of binge-watching. Intricate story lines cross then double-cross,
the acting is extraordinary and -- a bonus that might enable you to sound intelligent should you ever find yourself deep in conversation with a French law enforcement official -- you’ll learn about the French justice system.
It resembles ours in many ways but is decidedly different. For instance, French
judges often become involved in cases before any arrests are made and the cops,
once they arrest a suspect, can beat the s---t out of him to extract a
confession. Not necessarily a bad idea if you ask me but most Americans would
probably disagree.
Caroline Proust, as Police Captain Laure Berthaud, is incredible. She is, despite her tough exterior, deeply flawed, vulnerable
and utterly human and for that reason you want to give her a hug and tell her everything will be OK. (I’m sounding like one of
those effete critics again —forgive me.)
If you liked "The Wire" and/or "Breaking Bad," you will love "Spiral." It’s better. Really. (40
episodes, each approximately one hour.)
Enjoy your summer viewing.
You can thank me later. (And you will.)
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