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DonMichigan
Reviews
Atypical (2017)
Unwatchable
I worked through the first episode, but it was a bit of a struggle. I turned off the second episode after about 10 minutes. This show has multiple levels of things wrong with it, starting with bad acting and finishing with bad writing. Jennifer Jason-Leigh is particularly bad in this. The writing is typical Hollywood: there's very little character development; the dialog is unnatural; and everything has to be about sex.
The Crown (2016)
Perhaps the finest television ever
That's a bold statement, I recognize. I've watched every episode of season 1 and 2 five times at least, and I've watched through season 3 twice now. With each watching I find another level of subtlety I'd missed before. The writing, the acting, and the directing are nearly flawless.
It's a shame more television -- and movies, for that matter -- can't be more like this. They take the time to develop characters; they pace the show to let the drama build and permeate; they don't resort to cheap-thrill mechanisms to spice things up.
10 stars is the highest rating I can give, but it feels like I'm selling the show short by giving it only that rating.
Land Girls (2009)
Perfectly good TV with proper expectations
I watched all three seasons of this show recently, and my impression is it's necessary to have the right expectations going in. This is *not* like "The Crown," or the 1995 version of "Pride and Prejudice." It's a couple of notches below that.
BUT ... as long as you understand that, it's fine. It's a warm, gentle period piece drama with a hint of humor. It's well crafted, but as others have noted, some of the characters are a bit thin. The main characters are well done and sustain themselves throughout the series.
The Crown: Tywysog Cymru (2019)
Even better upon second watching
I've seen each episode of season 1 and 2 at least five times, and I'm working my way through season 3 for the second time. My first watching of this episode did not move me the way the second watching did. There are subtle details that are easy to miss on a first watching.
Some of the lower-ratings for this episode speak of how the Queen (Oliva Colman) is so heartless and cold. Without providing spoilers, I would ask such reviewers to re-watch the final scene between Charles and Elizabeth, and listen carefully to what Charles says about himself and, by inference, what he says about Elizabeth. Then think back to season 2 "Vergangenheit" and pay attention to what the abdicated Edward says about Elizabeth directly to her face. Hint: it has to do with her not "having a mind of her own."
One of the over-arching themes of the show is how wearing the crown changes the person. In season 1 we see a playful, somewhat innocent and reserved Elizabeth. In season 2 she starts to harden as the pressures to be queen while burying Elizabeth takes its toll. In season 3, in the episode "Aberfan," we see an Elizabeth as Queen expected to play the role of grieving sovereign, which is not natural for her. She retreats further.
Finally, in "Tywysog Cymru" we see an Elizabeth, fifteen-plus years into the role as queen, feeling betrayed by Charles for going "off script" without approval, and for then justifying that with claims that *he* has a beating heart; that *he* has a mind of his own ... which implies that his mother, Elizabeth -- who has had to bury herself for all those years -- does not. Watch the reaction on her face as Charles says that; then go back and watch "Vergangenheit" and watch her reaction when Edward says the same thing.
This episode is a masterpiece of subtlety. In ranks in the top five of all episodes so far in terms of story, filming, and acting.
Lost in Translation (2003)
Haunting for those of us who faced things similar
I found "Lost in Translation" to be a haunting movie. It's the story of a movie actor -- no longer at the top of his game in the movie business, but able to cut a living off his pass success: he is in Japan to do a commercial for a whiskey company, for which he'll earn $2M -- and a young woman, married just two years, in Japan with her photographer-husband. Both are overcome by the foreign nature of Japan (which I understand is utterly different than any place else). Both are in a bit of an emotional free-fall, but for different reasons. Bob, the actor, played by Bill Murray, is I'd guess in his late 40's or early 50's and is starting to honestly face the prospect of getting old. Bob's wife of 25 years, never seen in the movie but rather heard on the phone, appears to be more interested in decorating and tending the kids than in Bob as a person. Charlotte, somewhere in her early 20's, appears to be mature for her age, and is married to a somewhat immature man. Her husband, John the photographer, is off for days at a time, leaving Charlotte all by herself in the hotel room. So the two see in each other as manifestations of what they think they want or need at that point in their life. Their sense of isolation and loneliness exaggerated by the size and overwhelming nature of Tokyo. They cross paths in the hotel and strike up a companionship, and that's when the tug-of-war starts.
The haunting nature of this movie, for me at any rate, was found in the sad and lonely way Bill Murray played his character. It wasn't a pathetic sadness, just a dis-jointed loneliness. And the attraction Murray find in this other woman -- a younger woman at that -- is something I can relate to, as I'm sure many others can as well. Murray plays the struggle in his heart nearly flawlessly: the pull of excitement and newness against the sense of the proper as well as the honest commitment he has to his wife. It made me painfully uncomfortable at times, because I know that feeling all too well.
All that said, there is one scene in this movie that steals the emotional strength of the story. It's unfortunate because the scene in question could have been dropped without loss of continuity of plot.
***SCENE SPOILER***
The scene in question is where Bob Harris (Bill Murray) wakes up to find that he'd spent the night with the lounge singer. Had that scene not been included, then the moral struggle portrayed by Murray would have been all the more powerful. As it stands, his having violated his marriage vows with the lounge singer makes his resistance to Charlotte's attraction far less powerful. The integrity of Murray's character was sold for a short five minute scene that could easily have been eliminated. Without that scene, the struggle Murray's character is undergoing is a powerful one of temptation versus what's right. With that scene -- us having seen that Murray's character doesn't know, or isn't able to follow, what's right -- simply leaves the strength of his conviction in question.