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Terrance Malick's gorgeous and painful epic opens with several sequences from Triumph of the Will. It's an uncomfortable opening because it's obviously a nod to Leni Riefenstahl's mastery of cinematic technique and dazzling technical innovations, and at the same time a hint about what's to come thematically.

I won't go into the plot at all here, or the characters. But I'm pretty sure Malick chose this material at this time for a reason. There is a scene in the film where an artist working in a church discusses how Christians look at art featuring scenes from Christ's life. They imagine themselves living at that time and being on the right side of history. Of course we all do that when we think of the past. Were I alive then I would have made the ethical choice despite the consequences, right?

The film shows us one man's decision to do the right thing during a terrible epoch despite enormous costs for himself and his family. There are terrible things happening right now, awful things bubbling up in the zeitgest. What decisions will we all have to make? Malick wants you to think about it. Along the way, every frame is a carefully thought-out work of art. Seriously, the guy has chops. Stunning Sven Nykvist level cinematography.




Zhang Yimou and Gong Li--one of the greatest director lead/actor teams ever, perhaps the greatest since Bergman/Ullmann? Great to see her back in a role reminiscent of her powerhouse turn in The Story of Qui Ju. This time she doesn't need the makeup.

Yimou obviously has tremendous weight to get away with making films which criticize or expose realities of the Chinese Communist system that others would never be allowed to film or release. Has the typical tear-jerking ending.




I thought the novel was horrifying and too real when it came out during the W. reign in the USA. Now under Trump it's much more horrifying. Good to see Baltimore stalwarts Simon and Burns back together again and making TV for HBO. I had some problems with the pacing, but after the finale it all made sense: slow, steady simmering build, then crashing awful finish. You can watch the series as similar events unfurl in the new concurrently. What fun!

Senatus Populusque Romanus

Sometimes friends try to tell me that television sucks now, and that television was much better when we were kids. That's utter bullshit. I grew up on wretchedly bad TV shows like Fantasy Island, The Love Boat, The Dukes of Hazzard, etc. I suffered through a spate of variety shows--including Donny and Marie, Captain and Tennille, Tony Orlando and Dawn, and Sonny & Cher--and still bear the scars. There were good shows when I was a kid, like All in the Family and pre-maudlin M*A*S*H, but those were rare bright spots cancelled out by insufferable pap like I Dream of Genie and Gilligan's Island.

Of course I'm comparing apples and oranges, because my argument that TV is much better now rests firmly on the strength of several HBO series I've watched lately on DVD, including The Wire and Deadwood. I don't know that broadcast TV has better shows than those when I was a kid because I don't watch broadcast channels often enough. But at least one pay channel is cranking out damn good series.

We finished Deadwood's amazing second season and eagerly await the third on DVD. I love the way expectations are foiled, and how calamatous Fate can claim seemingly vital characters without warning. I love this show for its Shakespearean subplots and its operatic intensity.

I watched HBO's Rome after Julio recommended it, and was completely blown away. The subject matter is perfectly honed for our era of executive over-reach and imperial wars. I don't think television had ever before made the hair stand up on the back of my neck, but the finale of the penultimate episode of Rome's first season did just that. Puts that Russel Crowe Gladiator crap to shame. This is really clever television, dramatizing history in an engaging and realistic manner. It's brutal, bloody, and damn sexy to boot. Like, totally awesome.

I need something to watch now while we wait for The Wire season 4, Deadwood season 3, and Rome season 2 to come out on DVD. I suppose Battlestar Galactica is next? Might as well find out what all the fuss is about.

Watch it

As the Mrs. and I wait none-too-patiently for the fourth season of The Wire on DVD, we've switched over to Deadwood, kindly lent us by Leesha and Big Red. It fills the void nicely. A lawless illegal prospector's camp open in Indian Territory serves as the setting. A naive East-coast dandy gets taken for a worthless stake by the more sophisticated, less edumacated members of a crime syndicate running things in town. The dandy's wife sips laudanum and hides out in the hotel. There are whores, gunslingers, snitches, a Chinaman whose pigs eat a questionable diet, and a marvelous over-the-top villain named Swearengen. A steely upstanding former Kentucky lawman named Bullock arrives with his Jewish partner to open a general store in town just as a dissolute Wild Bill Hickok rides in with Calamity Jane. Swearengen worries about every detail in his camp, and there are delicious conspiracies to ensure he maintains control. There is swearing on an Olympian scale. We've fallen hard already after only three episodes. A marvelous cast.

TV on DVD is awesome.

'Sulu' responds to Tim Hardaway

Netflix

The Corner is grittier and more painful even than Simon and Burns' latest project The Wire, which says a lot if you're familiar with that TV novel. This mini series will break your heart. A formerly middle-class family of dealers and junkies struggle through a year in Baltimore as they try to stabilize themselves in a marginal society. Scoring a blast occupies most of their time. The show doesn't deal in types, however. These are real people with dreams and hopes whose addiction destroys them slowly, and it's painful to watch.

I knew people in "the game" about 17 years ago, and wonder how they're doing today. When Fran gets clean and has to ride the bus to Hunt Valley for work every day I had to laugh; I thought of T and Chief and H-Man and Hawk and all those cats who used to work with me at Hunt Valley Mall and did the same--that's 2.5 hours on the bus every day. They were struggling to keep steady employment, to keep off the streets, but one by one they went from dealing to using to stealing in order to keep using. All of them but T fell to long prison terms last I'd heard. All of them were smart people in a terrible environment with few options, and I learned a lot about dignity from knowing those East Baltimore guys and gals. Last I saw T he was manning the register at the Timonium McDonald's, and he still had that big grin on his face. Some make it, many don't. The Corner strikes an occasional hopeful note but exposes the War on Drugs for the sham it is.

Indeed

I worried at a couple points that the third season of The Wire would derail. The scope of this TV novel was sufficiently enormous after season two, and with further additions to an already complicated fictional Baltimore I didn't think they could pull it off. Simon and Burns involve the machinations of the police brass, the mayor's office, and the city council this time around, fleshing out the context of street-level drug operations and police detectives from season one, and the story line never loses its edge despite taking on more bureaucratic themes. Richard Price, George Pelecanos, and Dennis Lehane help add realistic grit.

It's amazing how each of the three seasons is radically different. The first focuses on a loose band of detectives and grunts who try to crack a powerful drug operation, the second focuses on longshoremen and corrupt union officials trying to save a dying local industry by using money from smuggling to bribe politicos, and the third gets more deeply into the politics and corruption while tying up dangling plot lines from the first year. Cha and I are miserable now because Season Four isn't on DVD yet. We'll have to fill in time with Deadwood.

Aside from the great writing, the characters and incredible casting help make this series something special. The gifted but self-destructive Jimmy McNulty; the smooth gangster turned real estate mogul Russell "Stringer" Bell; tough-as-nails and sexy Detective Kima Greggs; the heroine addict and police CI Bubbles; the conflicted and vengeful Deputy Commissioner Rawls--I could go on. My personal favorite character has his shining moment as a righteous Angel of Wrath in season three:




"Indeed."