Stream On

In addition to Amazon Prime, I have started using two streaming services through the library, Hoopla and Kanopy. These provide some viewing choices while waiting for newer DVDs to come available through library holds and PBS to crank up some new offerings.

Three Identical Strangers – 2018 (3.0). [This was watched a couple months ago but left off the lists here]. This documentary has a dramatic way of telling a fascinating story of what can happen when well meaning academics forget about the importance of the human relationship of the people they study.

RBG – 2018 (2.9). SCOTUS Justice Ginsburg is a remarkable woman and this bio documentary does her justice. Interviews with family and colleagues are combined with archival footage and audio recordings of her appearances as an attorney before the high court on which she now serves. Her intelligence, dedication, commitment, amazing work ethic and outspoken brilliance in speaking for this discriminated against have made her an icon to young people, who gave her “The Notorious RBG” as her octogenarian Rap name. Her testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee was mesmerizing and the scenes of Senators of all political stripes paying rapt attention is as inspiring now as it was in 1993 when the Senate confirmed her appointment to SCOTUS by a vote of 96-3.

Victoria (Season Three) – 2018 (2.9). The series maintains the high quality values while still being subject to the complaints about season two, and this year there is too much time spent on the turmoil in the relationship between Victoria and Albert, especially with the introduction of her scheming half sister to the cast. The turmoil seems to be resolved by the time of the great exposition at the Crystal Palace, a major accomplishment for Albert, but perhaps at the expense of his health. Foreign Secretary Palmerston is a major presence and though he seems to exit at the end, history may bring him back.

Churchill's Secret – 2016 (2.8). Michael Gambon plays Winston and Lindsay Duncan plays Clementine in this telling of the three month 1953 recovery of the Prime Minister from a major stroke which was kept secret from the public for many years. The novel on which the movie is based creates a fictional nurse (played by Romola Garai) who tends Churchill and is key to his recovery. The toll the man's greatness took on his wife and children is shown, with the kids in particular coming off as unpleasantly damaged people.

Curb Your Enthusiasm (Season Nine) – 2017 (2.8). Seinfeld version 2.0 continues with Larry David style tact challenged quirkiness and HBO normal profanity. Young women are still supposedly attracted to old buggers - at least those with money. How long can this keep going on, but then why do we keep begrudgingly laughing?

Doc Martin (Season Eight) – 2017 (2.8). This series may be getting a little long in the tooth. New characters get introduced, often only for an episode or so, and the Doc always has an emergency that enables him to demonstrate his extraordinary medical skill, even while his Asperger type behavior continues. More imaginative writing would help insure a few more years in the picturesque setting with the quirky village locals.

Ida – 2014 (2.8). This Polish Oscar winner tells the story of a young novitiate run in bleak Poland in the 1960s, who came to the convent as an infant orphan. On the verge of taking her final vows she is informed that she has an aunt living in a Polish city who wants her to come for a visit. The aunt is a prosecutor and is severe, but with loose morals. The younger woman is informed that their family was Jewish and the two women agree to travel to the countryside to look for the burial place of their relatives who they expect were victims of violent death near the end of WWII. The journey affects each of them differently.

Minding the Gap – 2018 (2.8). Three teenagers from screwed up households in a post industrial rust belt city share a love of skateboarding as a way of escape. One is white and soon becomes a dad himself, one is black and sometimes feels like he is walking the line between black and white. The third, whose mother is Chinese, starts making home movies of their skating adventures and then grows into a documentary film maker, tracking the boys as they try to figure their lives out. There are some really exciting shots closely following the skaters as they whiz through the streets and everywhere that looks challenging. The movie maker probably just had a Go Pro on his head as he careened after his buddies, but the spectacle easily rivals the work of much more highly funded productions.

Short Term 12 – 2013 (2.8). The movie title is the name of a short term residential treatment facility for teenagers. The residence leader is a young woman in her twenties who has had troubles of her own in her youth, so she understands and relates to the kids particularly well. But her troubled background is baggage she has not been able to leave behind and she is not able to open up and share it with her therapist and boyfriend. The film has a genuineness about it and the characters are all appealing in their troubled ways, evoking sympathy for children who are victims of their own parents.

A Christmas Story Documentary: RoadTrip for Ralphie – 2008 (2.7). A Canadian couple who both love the classic movie A Christmas Story, decide to check out the reports that part of that movie was filmed near their home in Ontario. They embark on a quest to try and locate all the places where filming was done for the movie and they make a movie documenting their search. The result is a home movie that grows on the viewer as the joyful attitude of the couple and their success with their mission gains appeal. Along the way they offer lots of trivia about the making of A Christmas Story and we meet lots of people who were involved in various ways with the movie when made or through the years as it became a classic.

A Street Cat Named Bob – 2016 (2.7). Based on a true story and starring the real street cat, this story follows a street busker who took to the streets as a teenager and got hooked on heroin. We meet him when he is on methadone and his caseworker makes special efforts to get him housing. He does not do well with his income from music, until he is adopted by Bob who insist on busking with him, which causes business to improve significantly. There is an offbeat animal lover woman who lives in the same complex and they become friends. This is a feel good movie that doesn't quite get beyond that.

Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far OnFoot – 2016 (2.6). Made by Gus Van Sant for Amazon, this drama based on a true story is about an Oregon man who relocates to the party life in California to indulge his alcoholism and ends up in a wheelchair for life. Abandoned by his mother at birth, he struggles with his psychological burdens and with the help of AA and a good looking lover is able to parlay his quirky humor and marginal art skill into a career as a cartoonist. Slow, without much drama or character charisma.

Isle of Dogs – 2018 (2.6). Wes Anderson accents this animation with Japanese language and setting, but the eccentricity of his work is still present and the limited appeal of his style is even more of a detriment to anyone thinking a young child might like this.

Prime Time

After watching Amazon Prime shows via computer hooked up to the living room TV, I finally figured out how to link Prime with the Comcast Cable, so now can handle it all through the TV. Several movies from the Seattle International Film Festival are available on Prime, so I added those to my Prime watch list along with some of the Prime TV series that looked worth a try. I am not expecting much, but at least if I bail out I can just take it off the watch list and do not have to bother to return a DVD to the library. Speaking of the library, I have put many of the award nominees for this year on hold and expect them to start coming through in a few months.

One Mississippi (Season One) – 2015 (3.2). Surprisingly interesting in several ways, this dramedy series finds comedian and radio talk show host Tig Novato returning to her Mississippi coastal roots following the death of her mother and renewing her connections to places and family she left when she moved to LA. All the characters are interesting, there is some plot and drama and lots of soft commentary on sex, gender, race, politics, business, entertainment and relationships. Season one ends with the return to LA.

One Mississippi (Season Two) – 2015 (3.2). Season two of this series maintains the accomplishments of the first season while developing the various story lines and characters and introducing some new ones as Tig finds herself once again back in Mississippi. Unfortunately, Amazon, the producer decided the series was not popular enough for a third season.

Won't You Be My Neighbor – 2018 (2.9). The PBS children's TV icon Fred Rogers gets deservedly appreciative treatment in this biographical documentary. Many archival clips from his shows are combined with old interviews of Fred and new interviews with family, friends and colleagues. Most moving is footage of his appearance before the ornery Senator Pastore whose Senate committee was in charge of the Nixon budget which was going to cut funding to PBS. When Fred recited the lyrics of a song he wrote for a young boy who asked him what do you do with the hate you have inside, the Senator melted in a way that even Frank Capra would have thought too corny.

Angels Wear White -2017 (2.8). This Chinese drama tells the story of the sexual exploitation of two young schoolgirls by an important politician and the ensuing investigation by the police. We meet the two girls and their parents and also two young women who work at the motel where the girls were exploited and a female lawyer who advocates for the children. In the course of the movie we also meet the police, medical personnel, motel operator and low life criminal types, all of whom are mostly male and misogynists. The female director draws out impressive performances from the young actresses.

Bee Nation – 2017 (2.8). For the first time the Canadian Spelling Bee includes First Nation kids from the Saskatchewan tribal Reserve, and w get to follow several of them in this documentary, meeting their families and hearing from the kids and families about life where they live. Though they know they have disadvantages, mainly economic, they also know they have advantages, like a strong tribal community.

Cultureshock: Freaks and Geeks – 2018 (2.8). A reviewer likened this documentary to a special feature on a DVD. Some of those features were best watched after seeing the movie while others were helpful to watch first. In this case, the movie is actually the one year of episodes of the TV series and watching this documentary first is a good recommendation for watching the series. [Update March 2019: I ordered the series on DVD from the library and then realized I had ordered it about eight years ago and only watched the first two episodes before bailing out and giving it a 2.4 rating. This time the DVD from the library only includes a disk with the first three episodes and the library does not have the other disks with fifteen more episodes. I watched the three and thought they were a little better than 2.4, but will let my original rating stand and not try to find the other episodes somewhere else].

Eighth Grade – 2018 (2.8). The young actress (award nominee Elsie Fisher) who plays the middle school student does a great job of portraying the turmoil of struggling with that stage of life, with the updated inclusion of video blogging and the ubiquity of smartphones. There is an understanding single father, left in charge by a mother who apparently walked away very early, and there is no other adult female role of consequence.

Fahrenheit 11/9– 2018 (2.8). Michael Moore responded to the 2016 election and the first year of the Trump chaos with this documentary covering some of the political, economic and social issues that played into the outcome and what some of the ensuing chaos looked like. Notably absent was any treatment of Russian interference with the process. Pretty standard Moore fare.

Leave No Trace – 2017 (2.8). A PTSD veteran and his teenage daughter live in the forest near Portland, Oregon, because he prefers the hermit life to interfacing with people any more than absolutely necessary. The daughter is loving and faithful but once the two are arrested for illegal camping and are monitored by social workers who try to place them in a better situation, dad cannot stand it and runs away with the daughter. Ultimately she starts to feel like it is time to settle in one place and be involved with other people. Both roles are played well, with another young actress(Thomasin McKenzie from NZ) to watch in the future. Once again, the absence of the mother is not explained.

This Is Home: A Refugee Story – 2018 (2.8). Three Syrian refugee families arrive in Baltimore where a refugee assistance program helps them for eight months after which they are basically own their own. This documentary follows them during that time. The families are appealingly sympathetic, but most of the assistance workers are not impressive in the way they interface with the refugees. A church lady takes one refugee mother under her wing and her help is deservedly appreciated.

The King – 2017 (2.7). If driving the 1963 pink Rolls Royce that once belonged to Elvis Presley around various sites in the US that were associated with Elvis and interviewing people who knew him and encountering people on the streets and talking about him, having musicians and others sit in the back of the car and talk, and having some celebrities ride along, all while telling the life story of Elvis and making commentary on the social and political history of the US sounds interesting but confusing, then that pretty well characterizes this documentary.

Ava– 2017 (2.6). Hormonal Iranian teenager Ava fights with her parents, teachers and classmates, all of whom (with the sometimes exception of her father)are as unsympathetic to the audience as she is as they are overbearing and repressive. The female director was born in Iran but lives in Canada, which must explain how she is able to make a seemingly realistic movie about the bitter life in the country of her birth.

McQueen – 2018 (2.6). A young Brit fashion designer brimming with self-confidence and, in the minds of many in that business, talent, rises and falls and his story is told in an episodic manner in this documentary, using archival home movies and fashion show footage and historic interviews and new ones. Fashionistas might devour this while others will wonder why all the fuss.

Summer 1993 – 2017 (2.6). In this Spanish film a city girl of about seven has lost her parents to Aids and is taken in by her uncle who lives in the countryside. The movie follows the girl and her girl cousin of about three or four as they go through different adventures. Though the concentration on such young actresses is quite an accomplishment, the film does not seem to have any particular point of view, drama or character development.

What Will People Say – 2017 (2.6). Here is another drama about teenage girls dealing with strict parents as part of an immigrant subculture, this time Pakistanis in Norway. The girl goes through a sneaky wild stage in Oslo, but is caught and taken to Pakistan to be watched over by her strict aunt, but that does not exactly work out either. This Pakistani movie covers all the acting up of the girl but never goes into any depth in helping us learn about her feelings or those of her family members beyond that she wants to do what she wants and they want her to do what they want.

First Reformed – 2017 (2.5). From approving critics it seems one has to understand internal Calvinistic religious struggle and austere cinematic styling to adequately appreciate this movie. For we who do neither, this supposed thriller sucks. A mentally and physically sick minister is assigned to a historic church in upstate NY which has no actual congregation. He tries ineptly to counsel a despairing environmental activist and when the man dies the minister gets involved with the widow and in the process spurns a church lady who has been chasing him. The minister is being overseen by the pastor of a successful mega church financially supported by a leading polluter. There were possible plot lines for a decent drama or thriller, but what resulted instead is a disappointing waste of time.

Best Things I Watched in 2018

As the list below confirms, I continue to have trouble finding shows to watch that I can rate very high. Interestingly, the TV has been a better source than DVDs. This Is Us just started the third season, so I am looking forward to that. Another show that is due for a third season is Red Oaks, which just missed this list at 2.9. Maybe 2019 will be better. I have also updated the ratings links in the sidebar to include all shows viewed through 2018.

This is Us (Season One)	2016	3.7
This is Us (Season Two)	2017	3.2
Call the Midwife (Season Seven)	2018	3.2
The Durrells in Corfu (Season Three)	2017	3.2
Handmaid's Tale, The (Season One)	2017	3.1
Call The Midwife Christmas Special 2018	2018	3.1
Crown, The (Season One)	2016	3
Loving Vincent	2017	3
Coco	2017	3
Man Who Invented Christmas, The	2017	3
Instructions Not Included	2013	3
Three Identical Strangers	2018	3
Victoria (Season Two)	2017	3
Poldark (Season Four)	2017	3

Movie Lists Updated through 2017

Using Google Sheets, I have now updated my movie ratings links in the sidebars through 2017, covering just under 3500 shows. The next step is to add in the 2018 shows after the end of the year. When I do that, I will amend this post to show the 2018 update is done.

I could take advantage of the Google Sheets feature of automatic updates, using Sheets as my actual data entry source and maintaining an ongoing list of all movies rated alpha and another for all movies in ratings order, but for now I prefer to just update the online lists manually at the end of each year.

12 over 3 for 2017

I am finally getting my video spreadsheets updated to add in what I watched in 2017.  Here are twelve things I watched in 2017 that I rated over 3:

Call The Midwife Christmas Special 2016	2016	3.3
Mother of Mine [re-watched in 2017]	2005	3.2
All the Way	2016	3.2
Wadjda	2012	3.2
Witness, The	2015	3.2
Home Fires (Season Two)	2016	3.2
Veep (Season Five)	2016	3.1
Little Big Lies	2017	3.1
Tower	2016	3.1
Victoria (Season One)	2016	3.1
13th	2016	3.1
Call The Midwife (Season Six)	2017	3.1

And into the Fall

And here are more.

Red Oaks (Season Two) – 2016 (2.9). The second season maintains the style and approach of the first and thankfully does not bombard us with lots of new characters as it moves through the next year in the lives of the principals. One gets married, one pair of parents divorces, a young pair are sort of on again off again, a father faces possible jail time and at season end pretty much everyone is making changes for the coming year. We shall see what season three has in store for the next year of these lives.

The Dressmaker -2015 (2.8). Sent away from her small Aussie town as a young girl, supposedly for killing a young boy, the woman returns years later as an accomplished dressmaker and quickly acquires the women of the town as customers, even as they continue to gossip about her. Revenge is likely in her cards as she learns the true back story and we are entertained enough to watch it through.

Harold and Lillian: A Hollywood LoveStory – 2015 (2.8). This documentary is surprisingly fun watching. It tells the personal and professional story of a Hollywood couple who rose to the pinnacle of their movie professions ( he a story board artist and production designer and she a research librarian)while raising their three sons (the oldest with autism)and being known to all in Hollywood as the tops in their field and two of the most fun people to spend time around. Interviews with the couple and with many of their professional and personal friends are combined with archival footage from some of the mtriad of Hollywood classics on which they have worked.

The Man in the High Castle (Season Two) -2016 (2.8). This series takes significant liberties with the book on which it is based, but since it is all made up anyway, maybe that is not very important. As the Nazis plot to eliminate the Japanese, all the plots and subplots thicken for the principal characters, but leaving the viewer with the question how long one would want to play along with this fantasy, which started way back in 1962 and has barely moved forward in time.

Nowhere to Hide – 2016 (2.8). When the US led coalition pulled out of Iraq and turned control over to the Iraqui government, a man in central Iraq was give a video camera by a filmmaker who told him to record what happens. This resulting documentary edits five years of videos with written inserts of what is happening in the country as the videos move forward. It is just home movies, but of a dangerous place in a dangerous time.

Red Oaks (Season Three) – 2017 (2.8). The third season is short by a couple episodes as the characters move on another year, some relationships ripen, some are replaced and situations morph. Still a pleasant enough watch as we are invested in the characters. Unfortunately, it has been announced this will be the last season of the series

Training Day - 2001 (2.8). Denzel Washington won the top Oscar playing an LA cop heading a small narc unit practicing its own brand of “street justice”. The movie takes place on the first day of training a new white officer transferring in as a step to becoming a detective. The recruit is shocked by the outrageous way the mentor disregards the rules, but he tries to bend and hang on even as situations quickly escalate and he begins to realize he may be getting setup as a patsy. This is another example of the Oscar going to a portrayal of a mentally unhinged person, but Denzel is such a good actor he deserved to have an addition to his supporting Oscar for Glory (which still holds up on watching anew).

Voices of the Sea -2018 (2.8). In an extremely impoverished Cuban fishing village an older respected fisherman haas married a young widow resulting in a blended family. Though dissatisfied with what the Castro revolution has delivered, the man nevertheless is content to carry on his life in the village. But the woman wants more out of life and dreams of fleeing to the USA. She is not alone in that dream and this documentary shows the lure of the dream and the reality of the difficulty of achieving it and the consequences of failing to complete the quest.

Wonder - 2017 (2.8). A home schooled boy born with major facial abnormalities starts attending a large middle school in this appealing movie. He is strong of character and has supportive parents and older sister, but the kids at the school handle relating to their new schoolmate with mixed success. There are plenty of messages in this well acted film, but it does not get too bogged down until maybe a bit at the end. The DVD special features are disappointing in not telling about the genesis of the book on which the movie was based and on not telling more about the casting, direction and makeup of Jacob Tremblay the excellent young actor who also played the boy in the movie Room.

Mr. Robot (Season One) – 2015 (2.7). This series about an Asperger's type computer hacker who gets involved in taking down an evil global corporate conglomerate started off with lots of promise but by the end of the season it was a bit disappointing as the lead character became more unbalanced and took us with him to the point where we did not quite know what was going on for real and what was just in his head. The prospect of more seasons of such disorientation is not appealing.

Still Tomorrow – 2016 (2.7). A Chinese woman about 40 years old with muscular dystrophy lives in a small village with her parents. She has a husband who works construction in big cities and comes to the village once a year where the couple end up arguing about her wanting a divorce. Though she never finished high school, she has used the Internet and been discovered as a talented poet. Once her work is published she becomes a minor celebrity particularly to young people and she travels to book signings and media interviews. Her mother is diagnosed with terminal cancer and the daughter is not much emotional support. The poet and her husband have a young son, but we never see him, possibly because PBS POV once again cut a 88 minute documentary down to fit in a time slot of less than one hour.

All the Money in the World -2017 (2.6). This is the movie that was basically completed with Kevin Spacey in the role of J. Paul Getty when Spacey's scandals came to light. The decision was made to re-shoot all the Spacey scenes with Christopher Plummer in the role. Most likely this disruption did not improve the finished product, but the real problem is the script. It jumps around so much at the start that it threatens to undermine what is certainly a compelling story about the Rome kidnapping of a grandson of the richest man in the world. Things settle down enough by the end of the film to keep viewers watching. Even though we know the boy is going to live, we stay tuned for the details.

Dunkirk – 2017 (2.6). We have become so used to CGI footage in action movies that it is surprising to learn that Christopher Nolan made this movie about the evacuation of trapped British forces in 1940 with only a minimal amount of CGI and movie lot water tank work. A tremendous amount of logistical work went into recreating the time, place and events but the weakness of this movie is in the script. The attempt to tell the massive story from a subjective point of view of a few participants does not come across effectively, because of the lack of back story on the characters and the absence of cohesion from cutting back and forth between the various activities.

Human Flow – 2017 (2.6). The eye of the artist is evident in the beautiful cinematography of this documentary by Ai Wei Wei about the world wide refugee flows. Footage and interviews of refugees, commentaries by government and NGO officials and on screen data facts are the methodology, but there is no in depth analysis or proposals for improvements to dealing with the largest refugee traffic since WWII in spite of the fairly long running time of the movie.

Whose Streets? -2017 (2.5). The story of the police shooting of Mike Brown in Ferguson Missouri and the aftermath as the community came together in protest was extensively followed by the media at the time. This documentary was made during the events and included additional interviews in the aftermath. While we did get to meet a few of the activists up close, we did not see or learn anything we did not already know.

The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher: The Murder at Road Hill House– 2011 (2.4). Tell the true story of an 1860 murder of a young boy in a British country estate house from the wrong point of view and the result is an inferior mystery drama. This movie treated it like a whodunit that ended in failure to detect, only to quickly turn to a post scripted denouement that was disconnected from all that preceded it.

Making it through the Summer

With an old computer hooked up to the TV in the living room, Amazon Prime videos are now streaming. The last few library holds should be coming in soon and as fall arrives PBS should start some of their dramas for new seasons.

Instructions Not Included- 2013 (3.0). Eugenio Derbez plays an Acapulco man whose father scared the hell out of him trying to make him unafraid. He has an active sex life but then one day a woman shows up on his doorstep and leaves him with a baby girl he did not know he fathered. He tracks the woman to Los Angeles but then loses her trail as he gets work as a dangerous stunt man (English not required) and carves out a life as a dotingly loving father. He writes fake letters to the girl purportedly from the mother who is off on world saving adventures, which is why she cannot come see her daughter. One day when the girl is seven the mother reappears on the scene, just as the doctor has given the man terminal medical news. At this point we can pause to speculate where the script goes from here, but whn we play on we learn that we were a little bit right but not prepared for the actual ending and explanation of the message of the movie.

I, Daniel Blake – 2016 (2.9). For over fifty years Ken Loach has made British TV shows and movies, almost always with the feel of a documentary even if the story was actually a drama. The themes are invariably critical of the governmental status quo and advocating the need for progressive change. He won the Golden Palm for this story about an older widowed worker recovering from a heart attack and a struggling young single mother of two young kids. The meet at the government agency which is supposed to be helping them but which frustrates both of them by its bureaucratic incompetency and non-concern. There is a sort of father daughter relationship and the pain and frustration they feel comes across in the film.

Red Oaks (Season One) – 2014 (2.9). Humor, romance and drama are nicely blended in this series about college age kids working summers at a 1980's country club. The cast is filled out with some parents, older club workers and club members, the President of the club and his daughter and other romantic foils. The first season ends with people heading in lots of different directions and the audience wanting to watch more to see what develops.

Singing with Angry Bird– 2016 (2.9). A Korean opera singer decides to start a choir for children in a slum in India in this documentary. He is very intense in his style and the kids jokingly nickname him Angry Bird. But the kids thoroughly enjoy learning from him and singing the eclectic mix of songs he teaches them. The parents of the children are not sure what it is all about and when Angry Bird tries to explain it to them he soon realizes the best way to explain it to them is to get them involved in learning to sing and perform. The kids love the idea and it is uplifting to see the interaction of love between these parents and children who are so used to being considered of little or no value. The scene of the children in rehearsal sing to their mothers as they hold their hands is extremely moving. For some reason the version of the movie shown on PBS was cut down by about 30 minutes to fit an hour time slot.

Atlanta(Season One) – 2017 (2.8). Three charismatic young black men in Atlanta are trying to crack the local rap scene in this TV series. One gets some payola air play and creates a minor stir. One tries to be the manager while also working on his relationship with his daughter and her mother. The third just hangs around, philosophizes a bit and maintains a low profile. Some violence is expected, though it is taken more for granted than seriously. Marijuana is the norm and dealing provides a supplemental, though dangerous, income.

Ferdinand – 2017 (2.8). The classic story of the kind and loving bull comes warmly to the screen in this fun animated movie with humor and music and dancing and heart. The lack of industrial scale bombast and overly cute characters with famous celebrity voices is endearing, as is the fact that there will not be scads of rehashes and spin off merchandising.

The Insult – 2017 (2.8). In Beirut a verbal dispute between a Lebanese Christian man and a Palestinian worker leads to an aborted apology attempt, further insults and then a physical assault and ultimately a lawsuit that takes on a life of its own in this Arabic language drama. The men and their opposing attorneys (a father and daughter) represent political baggage and different viewpoints that have been smoldering for decades. On a larger scale, the movie is about “us versus them” thinking and the need for reconciliation.

Lindy Lou, Juror Number 2 – 2017 (2.8). After serving on a Mississippi jury that voted a death sentence to a young man for the stabbing murder of a woman, juror Lindy Lou struggled with issues of her own guilt for not listening to her heart and gut that were telling her not to kill him but to imprison him for life. In her struggles she visited the man in prison and became friends with him before he was executed. Over twenty years later she decided to find the other jurors and see if they shared any of her feelings. Her visits with the other jurors and her musings with her own family are the subject of this documentary which makes one wonder what it would be like to actually serve on such a jury. Though the case was in Mississippi and with an all white jury, the defendant was also white, so no issues of race were involved. Once again,for some reason the version of the movie shown on PBS was cut down by about 30 minutes to fit an hour time slot.

The Man in the High Castle (Season One) – 2015 (2.8). Based on the novel by Philip K. Dick, this series from the “what if” school of history takes place in a post WWII world where the axis powers have prevailed. The eastern US is Nazi occupied and the West is under Japanese control, with the Rocky Mountains a neutral zone. The Nazis have weapons supremacy, but Hitler is content to not try to overpower the Japanese. However, some top level Nazis want to strike Japanese forces and are willing to “remove” Hitler if need be. The Japanese are trying to hold on to the fragile detente, though some believe stealing Nazi weapon secrets is the only way to insure peaceful balance of power. The drama is told through following individual Nazis and Japanese officials as well as American members of the underground resistance. The first season was interesting enough to invite a look at the second.

Marshall– 2017 (2.8). This drama involving the great Thurgood Marshall centers on one legal case, but it is not the school desegregation victory in the US Supreme Court in the 1950s. This movie is about a case in 1941 in Connecticut in which a black chauffeur is accused of raping his white employer. Marshall is the sole attorney for the NAACP and is sent throughout the states to defend Negroes on trial. He usually needs permission from the local court to associate with a local attorney on the case. In Connecticut, he is matched with a reluctant Jewish attorney with no criminal law experience. The movie is a combination of a “did he do it” movie with an unusual mentoring of a Jewish attorney by a Negro one.

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (Season One) – 2017 (2.8). Amazon Prime produced this series about a college educated 1950s NYC housewife who dotes on her husband and tries to abet his desire to be a stand-up comic in spite of his lack of talent. After their marriage breaks apart over his affair, she stumbles into doing stand-up herself, and she does have talent. The relationships between Mrs. Maisel and her husband, her lesbian manager and the parents and inlaws all provide legitimate fodder for humor tinged with pathos. Unfortunately we once again have too many f-words in the dialogue, which is not the way I remember the 1950s.

Victoria & Abdul– 2017 (2.8). Sixty two years into her reign Queen Victoria was emotionally and physically exhausted and felt there was no one including her children who could inspire her. Then along came Abdul. A tall, dark and handsome young Indian clerk, he had been selected to present the Queen a ceremonial coin from India. He was excited to go to England and see the Queen, but was instructed to merely present the gift, not make eye contact and back away. But he could not resist the majesty of the Queen and she could not resist his adoration and charm. Based on a true story of a short term but deep relationship at the end of Victoria's life, the drama benefits from the consummate regal acting of Judi Dench and the on scren chmistry with her young Indian acting partner.

Cameraperson- 2016 (2.7). After shooting documentary footage for various directors over 25 years, Kirsten Johnson decides to make her own movie as a bit of a memoir and also as an explanation of her work style. Directors were various generous in allowing her to go through all the footage she made for them, and most of what she selected for her film is actually outtakes. The resulting movie is also self-help counseling for PTSD like symptoms experienced in covering so many dangerous stories around the world. Watching the editing special feature on the DVD before watching the movie will help better understand what is being shown and how it came to be put together in the final form.

Versus: The Life and Films of KenLoach – 2016 (2.7). This documentary uses extensive interviews with the British director and those who have worked with him through the years and with his family members, combined with clips from over fifty years of his work to tell the personal and professional story of this progressive activist.

War & Peace – 2015 (2.7). At over 1,000 pages, it is no wonder few people have actually read the Tolstoy novel. This BBC adaptation mini-series has the look and feel one would expect and actually makes it possible to follow the characters on their war of attrition through the Napoleonic wars, but the bottom line is that it is hard to care what happens to these aristocrats except for the evil Helene and her brother, for both of whom one cannot help but wish the worst.

The Workers Cup – 2017 (2.7). Migrant workers from Asia and Africa are being exploited as they work on building venues for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. This documentary follows some of them while they engage in what the government and contractors hope will be a morale booster – a World Cup style tournament between teams from the various contractors. The individuals followed are interesting but there is not much depth developed,. The filmmaker also purposely avoided getting into exposing and commenting on the economic and social issues to any depth.

Roman J. Israel, Esq. - 2017 (2.6). Denzel Washington nails the role of an Asperger's attorney lost in a 1970s time warp in this drama. Sadly the script for the movie is not up to his level. It fumbles around and goes in various directions before deciding to become a bit of a thriller.