Category Archives: Television

The Thematic Failure of ‘The Savage Curtain’

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If you know anything of the original Star Trek series episode The Savage Curtain, it’s that it is the one with Abraham Lincoln sitting in space.

Of course, it’s not the real Lincoln but one created by aliens from Kirk vision of Lincoln. Soon Kirk, Spock, and a couple of ‘good’ historical characters are engaged fighting with ‘evil’ historical characters, some from real history as with Lincoln and some from Star Trek’s future history. The aliens are curious about ‘good’ and ‘evil’ and has created this contest to learn about these concepts. (Really, a forced pit fight is a terrible experiment, but we’ll let that slide for the moment.) After some loses Kirk and Spock win the fight and the baddies run for the hills with the aliens drawing the conclusion that ‘evil’ when forcefully confronted runs away.

Really Star Trek? That’s you conception of evil, that it is something that is cowardly at heart? Was that the result when the fascists were fought tooth and nail over every damn kilometer of Europe? That when ‘forcefully confronted’ that fled?

This is back in my head because as I am writing a novel populated with evil werewolves instead of the more popular sexy ones it has gotten me thinking about the nature of evil.

It is not that evil is more cowardly. I think one of the defining aspects of evil is that it is inherently selfish. It considers its own wants and desire above all else. it considers others as resources to be used, exploited, and discarded not as people in their own right.

In my novel this has raised its head among the pack of werewolves and it’s something to consider when viewing tragic, evil events in our all too real world.

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Spooky Season — Interrupted: The Pigeon Tunnel

Apple TV+

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A few days ago, the latest episode of KPSA Cinema Junkie podcast appeared on my iPhone naming documentarian Errol Morris and his latest film ‘The Pigeon Tunnel.’ The title meant nothing to me, and I let the episode sit unplayed. Then YouTube offered up to me the trailer for The Pigeon Tunnel which is an extended interview and documentary about bestselling author John le Carre.

John le Carre is the pen name of David Cornwell. Cornwell worked for British intelligence with MI5 and MI6 during some of the most consequential years for the west then went on to under his pen name craft some of the most compelling realistic espionage fiction ever composed. I consider spy stories to exist on a continuum with Flemings’s James Bond at the fantastical end and Le Carre’s George Smiley at the other. The Spy who Came in from the Cold, both the film and the novel, are perfect representations of the Cold War’s cynicism. Well, with all that there was no way I wasn’t going to watch The Pigeon Tunnel.

This documentary/interview, comprised of footage of Cornwell speaking, dramatic recreations of events and fantasies of his life, and brief clips from film and television adaptations of his works mine three rich veins from its subject.

One is the man’s life itself, his abandonment by his mother, his criminal conman father, his alienation at elite British schools, and how betrayal weaves throughout his existence. It’s a fascinating study of how events and environment shapes a person.

Second is his work and like within the UK’s intelligence community, particularly during the period when it was learned that Kim Philby, a man who had reached some of the highest positions of trust in that community, had for the entirety of his career been a Soviet agent.

And finally, there is also discussion of the craft and art of writing with glimpses of how Cornwell sees himself, the process, and the meaning of writing.

This film, which could have been dry and disinterested is instead compelling and as irresistible as its subject. The only reason I did not watch it all in one go is that I started it too late and on a work night I must get those seven hours of slumber. This thing grabs you, not with overly dramatic recreations of escapes and dangers but with the quiet reality of human drama and the pain of merely existing.

Beth Accamando interview is well worth the listen and she follows it up with a talk with two of Cornwell’s surviving sons, giving us a peek into the filmmaker and the family of a man that is forever fascinating.

The Pigeon Tunnel streams on Apple TV+.

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Spooky Season Continues: Dreams in the Witch House

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Episode 6 of Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities is another adaptation of a story by H.P. Lovecraft, The Dreams in the Witch House.

Netflix

This adaptation, written by Mika Watkins and director by Catherine Hardwick takes several liberties with source material, transforming Walter Gilman from a mathematics student to a man obsessed with life after death following the traumatic loss of his twin sister as a child.  Sometimes serious alterations are required to adapt a story from one medium to another this element did not serious hamper my enjoyment of the tale, but there was another deviation from the original that did. During the episode’s third act several characters take refuge in a church and the pursuing evil is unable to enter the structure. This violates the core doctrines of Lovecraft’s world building. Our ‘gods’, merely stories we have told ourselves, have no reality in Lovecraft’s mythos and no ability to save, protect, or influence anything. Humanity exists alone in a vast hostile universe that is utterly unconcerned with our fate or even our existence.

That said this episode is likely to be passable for those unfamiliar with the mythos and is competently constructed. A suitable spooky season interlude worth an hour of your time, mostly.

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Season 3 Reservation Dogs & Native Media

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My sweetie-wife and I finished watching season 3 of FX’s Reservation Dogs a dramedy set on a Native American reservation in modern day rural Oklahoma as it follows s collection of teens, their less-than-legal antics, their interpersonal events, and the lives of the larger community around them. The series, a first with American television, with all the creatives coming from Native American backgrounds explores the lives of its characters while both simultaneous·ly honoring culture and religious belief and avoid the ‘noble savage’ stereotype. These characters feel real and continue to feel real even as they encounter spirits of their ancestors, vengeful mythical beings from their heritage, and possibly even extraterrestrial encounters. The mystical never comes off as either jammed in to make the story standout from wider American culture nor overly praised for being native but simply another part of the tapestry of the story’s world.

Our interest in the show when it premiered in 2021 came from the fact that Kiwi creative Taika Waititi served as the series executive producer, but the series has very little of Taika’s erratic chaotic energy and much more the product of its showrunner Sterlin Harjo, a creative whose career I shall watch closely.

There appears to be a little boomlet in Native media and it is one I welcome. In addition to Reservation Dogs there has been the excellent Predator prequel Prey set among the Comanche during the 18th century which also presented as a viewing option the ability to watch the film with an audio track entirely in the Comanche language. A sequel to Prey is already in the works,

 

 

 

The series Resident Alien about an extraterrestrial who mission to slaughter humanity is derailed by his interaction with the Earth’s population also utilizes Native Americans among it cast and world building avoiding simple tropes and cliche presenting its native characters as actual characters.

 

 

 

 

From north of the American border came Blood Quantum a Canadian zombie apocalypse movie with much of its cast and characters coming from First Nation peoples. (The Canadian equivalent to the phrase ‘native American.’)

It is quite a privilege to watch so much media that rejects the racist or adoring portrayals of native peoples in favor of more complex, emotionally interesting, and culturally engaging fare that is now finally becoming available.

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More Spooky Season with Terrific Writing: Velvet Buzzsaw

Three years before he gave us the best Star Wars ever with Andor writer/director Dan Gilroystalked the secluded, shadowy streets of horror cinema with Velvet Buzzsaw.

Netflix

Set in the world of high-end art Velvet Buzzsaw is populated with artists, buyers, critics, and agents, very few who are in any meaning of the word admirable people. Morf Vandewalt (Jake Gyllenhaal) is an insufferable, pretentious critic hiding behind a shield of ‘truth’ to remain unconcerned with the lives he casually destroys. Ruthless and amoral galley owner Rhodora Haze (Rene Russo) has abandoned art and her days as a punk rocker for commerce and profit. It is Rhodora’s protege Josephina (Zawe Ashton) that sets the plot and nearly everyone’s doom into motion when she discovers the masterful and disturbing art of her now deceased neighbor Vetril Dease. Ignoring the man’s last wishes that all of his art be destroyed upon his death and Stealing nearly a thousand pieces from Dease’s apartment Josephine and Rhodora exploit their ‘find’ launching a new, exclusive, and very expensive artist into the stratospheric heights of the art world. It is not long before those who have transgressed against Dease’s art or even art in general find that curse locked within Dease’s creations from his troubled and unbalanced mind stalks them to their doom.

Velvet Buzzsaw is not horror of the grotesque. It is not horror of sudden violence and gruesome deaths. This film is horror of the uncanny. The film is a slow burn, treading carefully from the bright artificial world of Los Angeles into a world ruled by incomprehensible forces and terrible retribution. A dark horrific satire, but by no means a comedy, this film passes judgement on those that abuse art with cynicism and profit. It is not by chance that the characters that survive the film have all in their own manner rejected the lifeless selling of art for the more honest living of life for art.

This also made a perfect companion piece to go with Pickman’s Model. Not only are both stories about artists and what they see with their eye, but Velvet Buzzsaw has a distinctly Lovecraftian vibe as Morf slowly uncovers the history and horror of Dease’s life and the trauma that propelled his art.

Velvet Buzzsaw is not for everyone. The characters, for the most part are thoroughly unlikable, but I found them interesting. This is not a horror movie with some splatter kill every ten minutes to wake up a jaded audience and it requires your attention, but for those who this is their jam Velvet Buzzsaw will bury itself in your mind.

Velvet Buzzsaw streams on Netflix.

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Even More Spooky Season: Pickman’s Model

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Pickman’s Model is episode 5 of Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities the anthology horror series produced by and streaming on Netflix.

Netflix Studios

Adapted from the short story of the same title Pickman’s Model is presented from the viewpoint of Will Thurber, (Ben Barnes) after he encounters in is art class Richard Pickman (Crispin Glover) a talented artist but whose paintings and drawing unsettle the viewer with their grotesque imagery. Thurber flees from Pickman after having been granted a viewing of the artists more private work and for the next twenty years seeming builds a normal life, but plague by nightmares induced by Pickman’s ghastly talents. Thurber’s world crashes when Pickman returns to his life with a planned public exhibition of his work.

Screenwriter Lee Patterson and director Keith Thomas while deviating in large measures from the source material have produced the most compelling and interesting adaptation of Lovecraft’s short story. A persistent and failed by most filmmakers challenge is depicting Pickman’s art. Particularly in an age where all manner of gruesome brutality is depicted not only in entertainment but the evening news it is nigh impossible for any film to present paintings as unsettling as what is described in the short story. Thomas avoids this trap by a couple of tricks, first never giving us a full dead-on look at the art. We see the images in shaky flashes and fragments, not in a static whole shot. Second, with clever lighting and small nearly subliminal changes in the art from moment to moment we can never be precisely sure what it is we see and what is some trick of the light. I found the presentation of ‘unnatural art’ as well depicted as in Gilroy’s Velvet Buzzsaw another fantastic piece of art inspired horror.

The performances, carried expertly by Barnes and Glover, are spot on and while depicting well-known character types never descend in tropes. Crispin Glover, donning a regional accent that avoids being overly broad, is perfectly placed as the disturbed artist Pickman.

Pickman’s Model is a perfect addition to this year’s Spooky Season.

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Happy Star Trek Day

Paramount Studios/CBS Home Video

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September 8th, 1966, Star Trek aired its first episode Mantrap, and the world has never been the same.

I was born in 1961 and as I mentioned in my post My Tangled History with Star Trek this series has always been a part of my life, re-runs of the original cast in the 70s and 80s, the one season of Star Trek: The Animate Series, and to limited amounts the various takes on the Universe and its characters since the show’s inception.

Beyond fandom Star Trek has left its imprint on the world and its events. In 2020 when a deadly pandemic swept the globe and the United States launched as massive drive to find a vaccine, and find it fast, the effort was named Operation: Warp Speed and no one had to have that moniker explained to them. Therapists speak of the need for people to ‘lower their shields’ and they are not referring to metaphorical iron and steel but force-walls of defensiveness. Perhaps the cultural impact that will live the longest beyond this beloved series is the concept that your evil twin sports a Spock style goatee.

Star Trek can be brilliant, such as combining the themes of Moby Dick and the madness of Mutually Assure Destruction in the unforgettable episode The Doomsday Machine. It could be profoundly silly with comedic episodes such as The Trouble with Tribbles, question the nature of identity with episodes like What are Little Girls Made Of, or The Serene Squall (Star Trek: Strange New Worlds), proving the versatility of the premise and science-fiction in general.

Of the show could be stupid too, taking swing that should never been attempted, Spock’s Brain, Turnabout Intruder, or Patterns of Force where I contend Spock uttered his most idiotic line in any film or episode when he named Nazi Germany as a model of efficient government. (Hell, man, The Fascists of Italy ruled longer than the ones of Germany. I have always envisioned someone off camera forcing Leonard Nimoy to speak such drivel.)

Star Trek has seen many series, movies, and even timelines. Fans can argue endlessly and to great amusement and entertainment which series or captain was best, which episodes were best or worst, which run had the best writing, which timeline which show is in, but what cannot be argued and must simply be accepted is that Star Trek made reality its own ‘strange new world.’

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I SUPPORT WGA/SAG AFTRA

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I have not made much in the any of public posts, but I want it to be clear that I support the Unions WGA and SAG-AFTRA in their fights for fair wages, fair compensation, and fair treatment particularly when it comes of residuals and abusive artificial intelligence application.

I have been chomping at the bit to see Dune pt. 2 since Part one finished screening the first time I watch it. This is a masterful interpretation and now the second part of the story will be play in theaters until next year.

Is this frustrating to me? Yes. Am I impatient for this move? Yes. Am I going to waver in support of the strikers for my personal entertainment desire? Fuck no.

There has been movement lately but the suits need to understand that while for them these issues are at the margin of how much profit they take back for their companies for the working actor and writer these are questions of career existence. You aren’t going to break them with PR pieces and low-ball offers.

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My Tangled History With Star Trek

CBS Studios

Credit: Paramount Pictures

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When Star Trek first hit the air in 1966, I was a wee lad of five. I have some memories of watching the series then, being confused as to how the Enterprise blasted-off from Earth, (I was an avid watcher of the American space launches) until the concepts ‘built in space’ and ‘never landing’ was explained to me. It was the 70s that cemented by love for Trek, with the afternoon ‘stripping’ of the series where episodes were shown in random order each weekday afternoon usually alongside other classics such as Gilligan’s Island or Green Acers.

When Star Trek: The Motion Picture hit the silvered screens in 1979 I was there for multiple screens in my local theater. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan remains one of my favorite films. Of course, in 1988 Star Trek: The Next Generation was released into syndication, and I was pleased to have new Trek in my life.

However, I never loved Next Gen the way I loved the original series. I watched it weekly for most of its run, but by season six found that the storylines and writing simply didn’t command my attention. I went to the theater for some of this cast’s feature films but was so repelled by Star Trek: Insurrection that even that stopped being one of my activities.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine came along and it was (shoulder shrug) alright. I watched a few seasons, but not as much as I had Next Gen and dropped out of regular viewership before they progressed to their ‘war’ storyline.

Star Trek: Voyager I managed to choke down three episodes before I fled from it. I found too much of that series either poorly thought out or simply stupid to continue watching save for an episode here and there written by a friend.

Star Trek: Enterprise held promise that enticed me. The idea of going back to a less tech advanced Federation I found fascinating, but I managed only the pilot episode and walked away. It was not for me, and I had absolutely no interest in a ‘temporal cold war.’

Star Trek: Discovery held my attention for several episodes, but I have a clear memory of switching off an episode when they mentioned a ‘space sonar’ and I never returned.

Star Trek: Lower Decks I watched several episodes and generally found I liked it on the same level as The Next Generation but ultimately the characters grated on my nerves. Farce is fine on limited doses, but I have a low tolerance for it as a running series.

Which brings us to Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.

I adore this show.

It is difficult to understand why this series is working for me when so many of the others repel me. I do think part of the reason is that it has embraced an episodic format. While not as episodic as television of the 1960s where the episodes were intended to be ‘stripped’ and shown out of order,Strange New Worlds has enough continuing storylines that the order of the shows is vitally important, but it also has the freedom to do episodes with standalone stories much like the original series. Not every episode is a banger and some certainly engage me more than others, but the series overall has grabbed.

This set of characters are far more interesting than the fairly bland set from Next Generationwho were presented as far too perfect for my tastes. Chapel has become one of my personal favorites instead of the one-note cardboard cutout as presented in the original run. After all, did anyone really notice her absence in Wrath of Khan?

For those people who love the various variations that didn’t work for me I am happy for you. What a boring world it would be if we only loved the same things. Strange New Worlds hasn’t worked for everyone and their big swings like the cross-over with Lower Decks and the musical episodes have sparked strong emotions but that is so far better than a bland meh. Take swings in your art, try something outrageous, most of all create what you want to see.

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Not a Proper Review: Ahsoka

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Last week on Disney+ the latest series et in the Star Wars universe, Ahsoka released the two episodes.

Disney Studios

Ahsoka Tano (Rosario Dawson) is a character from the animated Star Wars Series Rebels and has been briefly depicted by Dawson in the companion series The Mandalorian. The series Ahsoka centers on the chaos and rebuilding following the fall of the Galactic Empire including threats from still loyal Imperials along with the return of a much-feared Grand Admiral Thrawn (Lars Mikkelsen.)

This is not a proper review because I feel that to fully analyze the success or failure of a piece you must continue to the conclusion. It is in the ending that films and stories ‘come together’ and a botched ending can undermine and ruin an otherwise strong piece. I will not be following Ahsoka to its conclusion as the series in the first two episodes failed to give me any sort of emotional connection that compelled anymore of my time.

I have seen on social media that a number of fans are quite pleased with the series and thrilled to watch more. I am happy for them. It is good to find the art that speaks to you and thrills you and makes you happy. Happiness is a resource all too scarce in these days and years and I will not gainsay anyone for the art that gives it to them.

For me, however, Ahsoka, came across as flat in its characterizations. Not one the major characters presented in the first two episodes seemed to have any real interior life, speaking and acting solely in service of the plot. The plot itself felt like a retread, a McGuffin hunt with a device already employed in the sequel trilogy, a map to lost character. While the visual effects, particularly the ‘Volume’ set are impressive and make locations unavailable to television budgets a reality, and the fights are well-choregraphed there is not enough on the screen to hold my interest.

I hope the fans are happy and I hope for them that the series delivers the excitement and drama that it promises but for me this is a miss.

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