Instead of flying to Lima, Peru today to
begin a charity challenge trek of the Inca trail to Machu Picchu I find myself
grounded, but fortunately with a great many reading and viewing options.
Movie releases have been delayed and
theatres closed across the continent with uncertain consequences:
https://www.indiewire.com/2020/03/pandemic-theater-chains-survive-coronavirus-box-office-1202217581/
However this interruption is already
proving to be a huge boon to streaming services which can continue to be
enjoyed in at-home isolation. I have a
half dozen. For more see this link and the articles below on the many streaming
choices.
Under
the circumstances all of the following review notes and recommendations refer
to content for home viewing, both TV and online.
My highest recommendation goes to this
new series I have already raved about:
Babylon Berlin (Netflix,
Germany 2020, 12 episodes) A++
I might add that the second season of Sex
Education is also excellent. A
Not
only has Netflix announced a $100 million dollar fund related to virus losses,
it keeps adding a stream of new docuseries in addition to feature films. I’ll start with four major new ones which
collectively add up to over 20 hours of viewing time.
Dirty Money (Netflix
season 2, 2020, six episodes) A+
This superb investigative series
continues to expose the manifold ways in which huge ill-gotten sums corrupt
societies around the world. I’ll just
draw attention to several middle episodes.
Episode 3 “Slumlord Millionaire” delves into the criminally corrupt
activities of the real estate company currently led by Trump son-in-law (and
unqualified advisor) Jared Kushner.
There is a pervasive pattern of abuse of tenants and defiance of
municipal and court orders. Jared’s dad has served time. The only surprise is why Kushner son wields
so much malign power instead of being locked up. The next episode 4 “Dirty Gold”
details the role of Peru in particular in a lurid chain from horribly dangerous
illegal gold mining in the Amazonian regions to the trade in gold linked to
narco-trafficking and money laundering on a grand scale. This is an often lethal as well as filthy
business. Another heart-wrenching
episode tackles elder abuse through “guardianship” scams.
Pandemic: How to Prevent an
Outbreak (Netflix season 1, six episodes) B+
This series could have been
stronger. The approach is somewhat
scattered, skipping between situations in different countries. And while the
timing of its release seems amazingly prescient, it has also been overtaken by
current events. The global
"pandemic” anticipated is one similar to that of the H1N1 strain of
influenza A—the so-called “swine flu”—that eventually infected some 2 billion
people during 2009. The series does not
deal with the emergence of a novel coronavirus such as “Covid-19”. However the multiple chapters over 6 episodes
do convey a fair amount of interesting information and observations. Although the series focus is on a potential
new flu pandemic, it exposes a number of notable weaknesses across societies in
terms of pandemic readiness and response that include woeful vulnerabilities
within the U.S. Also explored are the
ill effects on public health of the fanatic “anti-vaxxer” movement which has
continued to deny and resist the best medical science. [*As a historical note, by far the most
deadly pandemic in modern history was the so-called “Spanish flu” (which most
likely actually originated in Kansas) beginning 1918, the last year of the
First World War. It killed some 50
million people or more (estimates vary).
About 50,000 Canadians died at a time when our population was much
smaller (8 million compared to 38 million today) For Covid-19 to be as deadly it would have to
kill about 237,000 Canadians, equivalent to the total population of Saskatoon.]
Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and
Madness (Netflix 2020, 7 episodes) A
This addictive series is the most
gobsmacking wild and crazy—you can’t make this stuff up!—true story I’ve ever
seen documented on screen. The “king” of
the title is “Joe Exotic” (formerly Joe Schreibvogel) who ran an exotic animal
“zoo” in what a former reality TV producer describes as “bumf___” Oklahoma. The main attraction was the large felines,
lions and especially tigers (of which Joe claimed to have 227 at one
point). [Factoid: there are from
5,000-10,000 captive tigers in the U.S. compared to only 4,000 left in the
wild.] It was also a breeding operation
so that Joe and his troupe of misfits (one lost an arm) could sell visitors
poses with cute cubs. Oh, and the flamboyant gun-toting Joe is also gay who’s
had not one, not two, but three husbands. (OK, one is now an ex and one shot
himself.) Joe’s nemesis is a Florida
woman named Carole Baskin who with her second husband runs “Big Cat Rescue”
that targets the illicit wild animal trade.
Joe claims that Carol killed her first husband and fed him to the big
cats. Crazy Joe also mounts quixotic
runs for president and then for governor. Joe’s circle has included other sleazy
wacko characters like long-haired “Doc” Antle of Myrtle Beach, ex-con conman
Jeff Lowe, and Tim Stark of “Wildlife in Need”.
I’ll just say that Joe is now serving a 22-year prison sentence. To find out how and why—this human train
wreck is compulsively watchable!
Hillary (Netflix 2020, 4 episodes) A
This very fine series alternates
between archival footage of Hillary Clinton’s remarkable life story, revealing
behind the scenes footage of her most important political roles—including of
course her ill-fated 2016 presidential campaign—and frank on-camera interviews in
which she is disarmingly candid about the most difficult low points. There are also a few separate interviews with
husband and former president Bill, several former associates and advisors, as
well as old school chums. There are no big surprises but one is left with a
subdued, reflective and broadly sympathetic portrait of Hillary. Her calm demeanour and admission of mistakes
in itself offers a striking contrast to the bombastic narcissism of the depraved
current occupant of the White House.
Westworld (HBO/Crave
2020, season 3, 5 episodes from March 15) B+
There’s no more Anthony Hopkins as
master evil genius but Evan Rachel Wood is back as “Dolores” and the human-like
androids are out to take over the earth.
Worth a look.
The Plot Against America (HBO
2020 from March 16) A
Based on the eponymous 2004 Philip Roth
novel, this arresting series imagine an alternate history in which aviation
hero Charles Lindbergh—a Nazi sympathizer who supported the anti-war “America
First Committee”—wins the Republican nomination and defeats FDR in the 1940
U.S. presidential election. That happens at the end of the second episode
(which aired March 22), and we see the effects through the life of a New Jersey
Jewish family. (There is also a rabbi who becomes a Lindbergh collaborator.)
The second episode also includes an allusion to a real historical event—the
February 1939 pro-Nazi rally of 20,000 people in Madison Square Garden
sponsored by the German American Bund, archival footage of which is captured in
Marshall Curry’s 2017 short film A Night
at the Garden (watch it at: https://anightatthegarden.com/.)
The timing is interesting given the
Trumpian closeness to the far right and its weaponization of social media to
spread false narratives.
This series is more chillingly relevant
as well as superior to the new Amazon Prime Video series Hunters which conjures up a contemporary group of Jewish vigilantes
who hunt down and eliminate former Nazis living in the U.S.
One hesitates to imagine a period of
proto-fascism in the world’s richest democracy.
However another four years of Trumpism would make that more plausible
given his autocratic instincts. The following is taken from the essay by George
Packer, “The President is Winning His War on American Institutions” in the
April 2020 of The Atlantic:
Tom Malinowski,
a Democratic congressman from New Jersey and former State Department official,
was born in Communist Poland to a family that had lived through World War II.
“I’ve often asked myself the alternative-history question of what might happen
if the Nazis took over America,” he told me. “Who would become, out of
opportunism or maybe even shared outlook, one of them? Some people would. Most
people would keep their head down. Some number of people would be courageous
and do useful things. A smaller number would do recklessly useful things. And
then some number, hopefully also small, would take advantage of the situation
to help themselves.”
The Platform (Spain
2019, Netflix) B
This very bizarre Spanish horror film
directed by Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia was the audience favorite in the Midnight
Madness program of last year’s Toronto film festival. The setting controlled by a “Vertical
Self-Management Center” is some prison-like structure “The Pit” with several
hundred levels. It has only three
classes: the top, the bottom, and those who fall. At the top there’s a gourmet feast. This is
lowered on a concrete platform through the levels, stopping for two minutes at every
level for the two inmates on each to grab and gorge what they can. Temperature
changes police violaters who could be cooked or frozen. We start on level 48 with the one character who
stays throughout, a disheveled man named Goreng (Ivan Massagué) who’s reading
Don Quixote. Goreng gets bounced among different levels and companions. Throw in some hallucinations and ravings, a
“panna cotta”, and news that “the child is the message”. Is this supposed to be
an allegory on social inequality or just plain bonkers? Congratulations if you have the stomach for
it.
Lost Girls (U.S.
2020, Netflix) B+
Directed by noted documentarian Liz
Garbus, this dramatization of true events is based on co-writer Robert Kolker’s
2013 book “Lost Girls: An Unsolved American Mystery” which discussed the still
unsolved case of the Long Island serial killer who murdered at least 16 people
(female sex workers). Amy Ryan stars as
Mari Gilbert, the mother of one of the victims Shannan, who is indefatigable in
agitating for a proper investigation of her daughter’s disappearance. There are
also fine performances from Thomasin McKenzie and Oona Laurence as Mari’s two
younger daughters, and Gabriel Byrne as a senior police officer.
The Last Thing He Wanted (U.S.
2020 Netflix) C
Although based on a 1996 novel by Joan
Didion, and directed by Dee Rees who made the acclaimed 2017 feature Mudbound,
this is a confusing misfire. The
setting is the Reagan era of the mid-1980s when the conflicts in Central
America were roiling and covert support to the rebel “Contras” attacking the
Sandinistas in Nicaragua presaged what became the Iran-Contra scandal. Anne Hathaway plays an intrepid reporter Elena
McMahon who wants to cover that action instead of the 1984 Republican
primaries. Somehow her dodgy ailing dad Dick
(Willem Dafoe) gets her involved in some kind of illegal arms for drugs scheme.
Elena gets drawn into a dangerous regional web that includes encounters with a
U.S. government operative (CIA?) Treat Morrison (blankly played by Ben Affleck)
and a resort owner Paul Schuster (Toby Jones) somewhere in Costa Rica I think. By that time the potential for a gripping
political thriller is lost.
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