TV Review: Zero Zero Zero

What an excellent show. Largely unhyped here in the US, this show has been on Amazon Prime in recent months and stands up with anything HBO, Netflix, or any other network can produce. Admittedly its not an Amazon product other than the money used to acquire its rights but…It deserves watching over 99% of what is out there.

Americans likely aren’t enthused by it given 2/3 of the show is subtitled as it divides its interconnected stories between Italy, Mexico, and the US for their bases. Don’t let that put you off. If you enjoy dark, modern tales of how the dirty, violent, and unfair the world actually is…this is for you.

Beautifully shot across the globe (including some of my personal favorites in New Orleans, Dakar, Casablanca) the beauty of the natural world—oceans and deserts and mountains and forests—is contrasted with that of our world which seems to be strewn with blood, lies, deception, and betrayal. Production values here are as high as any Bond film…but the “heroes” don’t escape with parkour run across rooftops…they die of disease, knives, bullets and by human hands.

Comparisons?? Well, for me (admittedly short of experience with some of the writers and directors other works) it carries similarities in style and story and violence with Netflix’s Narcos, the Sicario films, and much of Ridley Scott’s portfolio—Blackhawk Down, Black Rain, The Counselor to name a couple. No one as a character comes out looking like a hero…but you do FEEL for these anti-heroes, becoming invested in their stories and outcomes. Which is what the best of these works do. You begin to enjoy Pablo Escobar in Narcos, you begin to empathize with the hitman in Sicario…The same holds true here with the drug dealers, cocaine middlemen and Italian Mafioso.

A revelation in the work is the actor Harold Torres, who has had roles in numerous Mexican films and been up for the equivalent of an Oscar (for whatever that means) a number of times already in his young career. Here as a corrupt Mexican army soldier forming his own paramilitary narco commander he dominates the screen whenever he appears despite a lack of dialogue.

The direction too is phenomenal. When my wife comments on how much she likes the tracking shots or camera movements as a scene transitions from a hospital birthing room to the loading of trucks with soldiers on their way to massacre a birthday party, you know there is some talent behind the lens.

Don’t miss this one. Its is superb from start to finish.

Book Review: The Crossing by Cormac McCarthy

The second in McCarthy’s “Border Trilogy” series, “The Crossing” finds itself in an odd position of being a “sequel” that is better than its progenitor but also far less well known.

Much of that has to do with the poorly received “All the Pretty Horses” film. Still, “The Crossing” is the better of the two works. More complex than ATPH it shifts between three distinct stories, each connected to the protagonist’s three trips across the border into Mexico. The most remarked upon is the first of these three in an attempt by the young man to return a wolf to its supposed native mountains across the border. The book ends with that same character’s efforts to discover and return his siblings bones to the United States.

What occurs in between are numerous highs, lows, quasi-mystical conversations, horrific violence (of course), descriptions of nature worthy of a naturalist poet, and an adherence to an outmoded sense of honor. Like ATPH this work is headed by a young male who encounters events and people constantly at odds with his view of life. At every turn life is set against him only to fail in grinding him beneath its boot. Yes, Billy Parnham, like John Grady Cole in ATPH is a husk of himself by the end but…its a husk that is still upright and holds to his ideals.

Be forewarned...the book is hard, as all McCarthy’s are for one reason or another…Here it is McCarthy’s lack of English translations for speech between characters conversing in Spanish. No help is given to the reader in translating these sections were are very significant. Some contextual cues surround these passages but it is largely left up to the reader to either understand it or not. It gives the book a feeling like much of McCarthy’s works—that you are missing something. That there is something just under the surface that you are missing that might help you understand what stands behind the passages but just out of your grasp. That’s not a bad thing.

Book Review: All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy

I always seem to have an issue starting Cormac McCarthy works. The lack of punctuation, capitalization, and other structure devices throws me for a loop to start and makes me wonder if I really want to continue with the novel. It truly does get you to reframe how you read and how you interpret what are the thoughts or descriptions of the author vs. statements and viewpoints of the character.

I always continue however simply because the content is just so damn good. Yes its violent and highly masculine in nature. Yes it borrows from Hemingway and other “male” authors. Yes, it is highly likely to be “cancelled” along with his other works in the near future as being a last vestige of an older world version of what is quality writing. There is no magic-realism, there are traditional male/female roles presented, violence is a way of getting things done, now discarded ideas of independence, stoicism, honor, objective truth, and so on are seen as valuable. In short? Your modern high school teacher having been “educated” at Smith or Marist or other Liberal Arts junk factories will not only hate it but seek to eliminate it from acknowledgement.

Now, as for All the Pretty Horses itself, its by far the most “enjoyable” of McCarthy’s works I’ve read so far (others being Blood Meridian and Outer Dark) but still tells the tale of a doomed protagonist. From the beginning, no matter how pleasant the scenario (and maybe this is just from knowing McCarthy’s tendencies) the reader can feel the guillotine hanging over the characters, readying its fall at any moment. None escape the impact of seemingly inconsequential actions and associations.

I won’t get into the exact details, many of which you may know if you have watched the generally detested film version of this novel that came out in 2000 and which I’ll now have to go back and rewatch simply to make my own comparison after having read the book as I originally viewed it some decade or more ago and do not remember any feelings on it one way or another.

The core of the novel takes place in the ranchland and deserts of Northern Mexico though does venture into the towns and a prison of that same area in the just post WWII period. We often think of films and works like The Wild Bunch and others as showing the true end of the American West as being something taking place in the late 1800s or at the latest, very early 1900s, but McCarthy has drawn the closing of the American West forward some 50-80 years to the mid 20th century. In truth, McCarthy is pointing out that these issues, these cultures, these landscapes and the “hardness” that they demand, never go away. The independence and self reliance that is seen as an outdated characteristic associated with the white, American, cowboy, never really go away just because times change—thus the reason why McCarthy has moved his same motifs into very current periods with No Country for Old Men and his flashier pop-spinoffs like Taylor Sheridan have put forth works like Sicario and Yellowstone.

Backing all of McCarthy’s prose is his clearly deep love of the terrain and environment itself. His descriptions of the brush, dirt, dust, animals, vegetation, landscapes are near without equal (Edward Abbey perhaps?) in my various readings. This is not a novel written by someone who has a cursory knowledge of the hardscrabble lives of those living on the Western edges of our country (whether that is US or Mexico) but someone who has lived it first hand. The phrase “write what you know” comes to mind and McCarthy knows the depths of both man and nature better than almost anyone else I have read.

TV Review: Tiny World

This is one of the few shows to date that I’ve watched on Apple TV+ and its almost worth the service and its monthly sub $10 cost for this alone. This isn’t an Apple TV+ ad but I’ve enjoyed other programs from this service as well. We’ll see if their quality continues.

Tiny World narrated by Paul Rudd with a nice American voice spoken in a very calm and “nature show” manner with just a hint of his typical sarcastic and juvenile humor tone is focused on the small creatures that quite often go unnoticed in our natural world. At such a minute scale virtually all creatures become “cute” and are anthropomorphized so that the viewer can see themselves even in a spider.

The show nicely glosses over blood and guts of the natural world while still showing its kill or be killed nature…it just Disney-fies it a bit to make the show particularly viewable for children, likewise for mating and sex. Which I’m sure was deliberate. This isn’t a scientific discourse.

Taking place over six episodes, each in a different habitat and filmed over ten years, it is the camera work and imagery that you are left with. The colors are heightened for effect, music moves in time with animal displays and so on. Its a wonderfully enjoyable product helping you appreciate the world beneath all our feet and the fragility of life.

Taking things a bit beyond just the beauty of the show, it becomes to me an important primer for youth on evolution and species differentiation. Seeing the unique and remarkable adaptations to their environment and pressures of these animals makes you almost wonder if there isn’t some grand artist behind the scenes directing things…almost. Its when you make the logical connections behind each of these unique adaptations—from colors to arrow sharp tongues to poison spittle to predator mimicry that you understand the long paths that these species took to get there. This makes it all more impactful as you realize it has taken countless millennia to get these tiny wonders to the exquisite beauty and functions they have today…all of which can be wiped away in a fraction of time.

Absolutely worth watching yourself and should be viewed by every grade school class to fire their imagination and thinking.

Film Review: Midnight Special

Wow…what a gods awful film. I have rarely seen a bigger pile of dung and only goes to show what clickbait and media shills will do to try and drive views and revenue.

I came across one of those eye grabbing headlines on the Inverse website that was jammed into my brain by the Google algorithm seeming to key off my love of sci-fi. Well…Inverse is owned by “Bustle” which bought the old trash Gawker sites and has a ton of other “millennial” garbage sites as well. So I should have known.

But I didn’t. So when I saw the headline “The One Sci-Fi Movie You Must See Before It Leaves Netflix” I read through its article proclaiming how great Midnight Special was and then watched it the following weekend.

On the surface you’d think a film with Michael Shannon, Joel Edgerton, Kirsten Dunst, Sam Shephard and Adam Driver would be a lock to be good or at least well produced and that the actors would demand quality writing. Not so much.

Never have I watched a film with as many holes and question marks at this. Nothing…literally nothing is explained. Nothing makes sense. Characters show up and leave without explanation. No exposition is provided on anyone. Primary characters divorced but now meeting up? No explanation. Key “bad” guy having left the “ranch” but now providing help to the protagonist? No explanation. Blue light coming out of a child’s eyes? No reason. The earth shaking and splitting when the boy has light out of his eyes? No explanation. Aliens showing up from an alternate dimension? No explanation. And the biggie…the boy with blue eyes born to the divorced couple ends up BEING one of the aliens…How’d that happen?? No explanation.

What a complete, gross example of waste and hubris. This film could not possibly be worse…yet there it is…across the internet proclaiming how great it is with “aggregate critic and public scoring” to back up its claims!! Its a sham…its all a sham. Never…ever…waste your time on this.

Film Review: Da 5 Bloods

Been a loooooong time since I wrote anything here but what the hell…

Given where we are in the country and the hype surrounding the release of this film I felt I should see it when it “opened” which was last Friday 6/12. Filmed in early ‘19 and written originally back in ‘13 it does not have nearly the connections to current events that may critics try and draw. That said, given the ongoing issues regarding the BLM movement and the deaths of African Americans that have driven the aforementioned, it is nothing, if not timely.

First—The criminally under utilized and under appreciated Delroy Lindo dominates the film. No one else comes close. His conflicted Vietnam Vet with an affinity for Trump and MAGA hats is phenomenal. Its his film and his character of Paul is the prism through which we see the events including the death of the larger group’s leader, Norman, who is seen only in retrospect. Lindo’s Paul is more nuanced that critics give voice to. His criticisms of immigrants who take jobs from African Americans and his love of Trump for telling things like it is strikes a chord of truth in how some people of color view the President. Lee won’t see things in that manner but does little here to dissuade the viewer from agreeing with Paul’s strong beliefs. There is no counter to those jobs being taken away or the bluntness of the President’s language—conversely the course language, past relations with whores, children out of wedlock, heavy drinking, male bonding, etc. used here only serves to back the view that Trump talks and walks like a run of the mill American male of all colors and not the pantywaisted waif that Lee’s liberal leanings would have you want.

Second—The film is uneven. It has gigantic gaps in logic and emotion. Primary example? When Paul leaves the rest of “Da Bloods” behind to wander off into the jungle he does so with barely a blink or a tear from his son who has accompanied the group to this point. Nary a mention is made of his absence and none of his end. Its a thread that diverges completely from the rest of the film and it being self contained without impact or impression on the rest of the characters is a major fault. We return to it in the end by means of a previously written letter by Paul which is read by his son David but you sit and ask “Yeah, great, you’re sad now but you didn’t do anything to follow your father when he was at his weakest or even look back? How am I to have sympathy for you?”

Third—it does come off a bit like a Spike Lee film in the guise of Tarantino production. Both have operated in similar veins for years with Lee probly finding such comparisons insulting…but there it is. From the color palates, to the colorful language, the pop culture references, the work with people of color…they are more similar than they are different at this point, particularly since Lee has gone more mainstream vs. his early days of She’s Gotta Have It and School Daze which were decidedly uncommercial works. Here I mention the connection simply because some of the pop culture references are forced—Flight of the Valkyries as the boat goes up river? This is so much the case that the NYT came out with a “pop culture guide to Da 5 Bloods” today in order to key viewers in on all the references Lee makes. This isn’t additive. Its references for references sake…a “how cool do I look that I can include this?” moment. Tarantino does it and here so does Lee.

So what’s the end result? A largely enjoyable film that has Lindo’s performance as its centerpoint but is NOT the cultural voice on the issues of racism, class warfare, BLM or similar that critics wish to portray. Nor is it a real look at the African American experience in Vietnam that others have pushed out. Too little of the film deals with the war at all keeping enemies nameless and faceless and barely mentioned. Lee pays lipservice to the statistical inequities of more African Americans fighting and dying (on a % basis) than whites in Vietnam but that is glossed over in a one sentence description and not delved into further. This is a commercial film despite all its critical trappings—you get the “happy” ending, you get the resolution, the characters get the gold (literally), the good guys win, the bad guys lose, the violence is muted, people dance through clubs in Saigon, etc. Its enjoyable but does it speak to our real problems in a reasoned and impactful way? No. Watch it for Lindo. Watch it again for Lindo. Go back and watch Clockers for Lindo. Then get on with it.

Film Review: The Way Back

Well…if I’m being political…there certainly is a reason this film has gone unnoticed.

You couldn’t find a more anti-communist film in today’s Hollywood. From beginning to end the Communist system and officials are endlessly demonized—and appropriately so. While part of Russia was busy trying to beat back Hitler, Stalin was also busy rounding up hundreds of thousands and shipping them off to Siberia where many would die simply for being an intellectual or merely suspected of having an opinion outside the Communist party line.

Over and over the film hammers home the removal of individual freedom in the Russian system. Over and over you are struck with the cruelty of the Communist system and its supporters.

The film itself was directed by a top notch filmmaker in Peter Weir (Gallipoli, Year of Living Dangerously, Dead Poets Society, Witness, Truman Show, Master and Commander: Far Side of the World, etc.) and it has A-list actors in Ed Harris, Colin Farrell and Jim Sturgess. All do solid work in their roles as Polish and Russian escapees from a Siberian gulag. Their foot based journey over 4000 km from Siberia to India is covered in detail taking them from snowy forests in Russia to caves and deserts of Mongolia. Never leaving their side though is the horror of being returned to the Communist system…and its that fear, less than that of the harsh prison that hangs over everyone. A system that turns wife against husband, brother against brother…one that strips individuals of all free will that is the bigger horror than any environmental danger.

This one likely goes on all “young conservatives” list of films to watch from the past 10 years. Its faults, and it has a few, is its length (at over two hours you FEEL the length of their journey) and externalization of danger as almost all conflict is vs. nature itself or vs. the Communist system. There is no person or object against which the characters really struggle…they just move from one poor environmental condition to the next, which makes for some pretty scenes on film but not overly thrilling.

Worth a watch. Might want to sit Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez down for a watch as well…