Thoughts on PBS Documentaries on U.S. Presidents

PBS has been playing documentaries on recent US presidents. The documentaries are from the 90's and 2010s, and are pretty interesting, especially on how I can learn more about the country at a particular point in time before I was born or too young to remember.

My thoughts: LBJ wasn't very progressive with civil rights (he continued some of Kennedy's work, but signed a 1965 act banning immigration from Africans and Asians and Eastern Europeans), and made a bad choice in entering the Vietnam War, and was pretty regretful over it. He just seemed lost when anti-war movements started, and said privately that there would be killing no matter what measures he took to continue or end the war.

Nixon was a horrible person, and I am amazed he became president. He was a dirty person who ruined other people's lives for political gain, and was incredibly distrustful.

They didn't air one on Ford.

Carter was better as a peace activist than being the president, and him acting like a sermonizing preacher to the country backfired hard. He worked hard to broker peace between Egypt and Israel, but was in a tough spot with giving asylum to the shah, which led to the Iranian hostage crisis. And the hostages only got released the minute Reagan was sworn in as president, to take away a win from Carter. Carter seems like a nice guy, but shouldn't have been president, he seemed too small-town for it.

Reagan was charismatic and witty, but seemed stuck in his own head a lot, and his Alzheimer's affected his decision-making, leading his staff members to either take over his duties or resign over their disagreement with the Cold War or nuclear threats. His meeting with Gorbachev was groundbreaking in finding peace and understanding with Russia, but he also participated in the Iran Contra situation while feigning ignorance, and didn't publically acknowledge AIDS until 1987, six years after the disease started infecting and killing people. I could see why conservatives liked him, but his economic policies led to two major recessions, and he seemed too elite for the majority of average Americans.

Thoughts on Battle Creek

This weekend, I scrolled through Netflix, and decided to watch something starring Dean Winters, because I think he is hilarious in playing cynical assholes with a straight delivery. So I watched a short-lived TV show he did last year with Josh Duhamel called Battle Creek. I remembered seeing commercials for it last year and psyched at seeing Winters starring in a show, but I forgot about it, and it got cancelled.

I really liked it. Winters played a small-town Michigan detective whose police department was underfunded with outdated technology, so the FBI sets up a satellite office and sends in an agent (Duhamel) to work there and be partners with Winters. There is a lot of conflict between them, as Winters is more of a cynic who has hardly left his hometown, is blue-collar, and feels underappreciated in his work, while Duhamel is charming, handsome, liked by everyone, gets publicity when he solves a case, and drives Winters crazy with his vagueness about his past and his convenient lies about his backstory. Neither trust each other, and I liked watching the evolution as they both learned to work together, trust one another, and have a deeper understanding of one another, it felt really earned and worth it to watch.

It had a good ensemble cast. I liked seeing Janet McTeer as the assertive and caring police chief, Liza Lapira as a perceptive and intelligent cop, and Kal Penn as a mature and down to earth detective. There were some good guest appearances from Candice Bergin as an convicted con artist and Winters' mother; Robert Sean Leonard as a grieving father out for vengeance; Patton Oswalt as a party-boy mayor who gets nearly assassinated; and Bokeem Woodbine as a remorseless killer in a cold case.

The show even had a "will they or won't they" subplot with Winters and the office manager (Aubrey Dollar) being secretly attracted to each other, and denying their real feelings to just be platonic co-workers. Normally I don't like that trope, as it gets tedious (plus I thought the actors had too big of an age difference of 16 years that made it look less equal), but the show handled it well, and it ended up closing in a nice and less predictable way.

The show was a very good mix of comedy and drama, and would get dead serious at times, so much that I would forget about the comedic parts and be into the drama. I would say the humor and pace is like Castle, but it still felt like its own thing. I read an AV Club interview with Winters where he mentioned previous shows of his that got cancelled that he liked making (Life on Mars, Happy Town), and hoped that Battle Creek would last. Unfortunately, I don't think it was promoted much, and was easy to forget to watch.

I heard of Winters through Oz (I didn't see it when it aired, I had just heard of him as one of the breakout stars), and enjoying seeing him pop up in a lot of NYC-based TV shows (Law & Order, Sex & the City, Rescue Me, Brooklyn 99, 30 Rock), even if he almost always was a streetwise cynical asshole. I like his warm, cigarette-touched voice, and how he can be absolutely hilarious in giving straight delivery of self-centered, arrogant jerkoffs. He rarely plays a nice guy (Rescue Me was an exception), yet I found him totally likable anyway. He just seems like an awesome guy, and I like seeing him pop up in stuff as a reliable character actor.

Southside with You - A Film Review

I liked Southside with You. It was a charming, pleasant, and chill movie about Barack and Michelle Obama's first date (albeit with some dramatic license of visiting places and having conversations that likely didn't happen on the date).

Both actors were really great in portraying young versions of the Obamas, and I liked how it portrayed the South Side of Chicago as a warm and close-knit community to grow up in, from Michelle's perspective. I liked how the two found common g...round despite their different upbringings (Barack being biracial and growing up in Hawaii and Indonesia; Michelle being black and growing up in working-class Chicago), because they were both dedicated to advocating on behalf of their people and having close ties to their community.

Sometimes some parts seemed too on-the-nose ("You are great at giving speeches!" "Follow your dreams!" "You can make a difference in the world!"), but that is a minor criticism.

I liked how peaceful the movie was in just following the two on their "not a date" (as Michelle kept re-iterating) through an art museum, a community meeting in a church, parks, a bar, and their reactions to the ending of Do The Right Thing. I especially loved the title sequence, where Barack is driving through Chicago to pick up Michelle as Janet Jackson's "Miss You Much" plays, and it both sets the time period and acts like a complement to the city scenery of black life.

This could be any indie movie about people on a date, and it does earn its comparisons to Before Sunrise, as well as any laid-back dialogue-driven film set in one day. I can't imagine what the Obamas would feel about it, but I felt the film was respectful and not overly worshipful of their characters.

The Lobster - A Film Review

I really liked The Lobster a lot. It is a dark satirical movie that pokes fun at the societal obsession with being coupled up in a relationship. Colin Farrell plays a guy who gets dumped by his wife, and because legally he cannot be single in a dystopian society, he has to go to a hotel where he has 45 days to find a mate, or he will turn into an animal (he chooses a lobster because he loves the ocean). Ben Wishaw and John C. Reilly are amongst the awkward singles, and it is both sad and painfully funny.

Farrell looks like Ned Flanders with a paunch, and is a very sympathetic character living in an unfair world obsessed with couples and punishing the single ones, who turn into dogs, camels, flamingos, peacocks, and other animals wandering around.

There is a group of rebels in the forest outside the resort, called The Loners, who live as single people and forbid romance, led by their sadistic and tyrannical leader (Lea Seydoux). Rachel Weisz plays one of the Loners (and narrator of most of the film), and while her and Farrell's characters predictably fall in love, their romance doesn't go as triumphantly as one would expect. Seydoux was great as the leader, someone who took her anger about being forced to couple up out on her pack, and delivered a chilling performance.

I loved how the movie was so matter-of-fact about these rules, how the hotel manager would deliver rules in a crisp and rehearsed voice, saying things like "if you become an animal, you must partner with an animal of the same or similar species. A dog and a penguin could never be together, nor could a camel and a hippo. That would be ridiculous." As opposed to the whole forced transformation idea or punishing people for being single.

I liked the supporting characters at the hotel, like an awkward young woman who gets nosebleeds a lot, a haughty young woman who treasures her long blond hair and ultimately becomes a pony with a blonde mane, and a heartless woman whose sociopathy knows no bounds. And the film was broken into two parts (hotel and the forest), and was well-crafted and had a stellar cast. I highly recommend it.

Thoughts on Call the Midwife

I am really enjoying Call the Midwife. I have been watching the first two seasons this weekend. I like how feminist and progressive it is, while staying accurate to its setting of 1950s London. It is about a house of nuns and midwives who provide maternal health services to poor and struggling women in East London, as well as providing support and care on visits to lonely elderly people and people in poverty.

I like how the nuns balance their beliefs between conservatism and liberalism, that the midwives and nuns are loving and supportive as a sisterhood, and how they truly care for the well being of their neighborhood.

So far, my favorite characters have been Chummy (a sweet woman who grows in confidence in her midwifery skills and socializing), Cynthia (a dorky and mousy midwife with an endearing charm in her innocence); and Sister Monica, a nun who is a little mentally frail and forgettable, but refuses patronizing attitudes from others, and is otherwise quite lucid in her observations. The lead character, Jenny, is a good person, but not interesting, she acts more as the vessel in which the audience enters into this world as a nurse entering the slums to help women have babies. I do like hearing Vanessa Redgrave's voice as the mature Jenny, looking back on her memories as bookends to the episodes.

The show is in its fifth season now, and I likely will catch up with it through Netflix.

Eclipsed - A Theater Review

I really enjoyed seeing Eclipsed, it was an excellent play. The play was about five women surviving during the Liberian civil war under Charles Taylor's dictatorship, and how their lives were affected as victims, whether they were concubines, soldiers, or attempting to save women's lives. The first act had a lot of humorous moments within the "wives" in their home, while the second act got much heavier and tougher to watch.

Lupita Nyong'o was the billed star, and she was excellent, especially in tracking the emotional journey from a naive young girl forced into sex slavery to being manipulated into becoming a soldier to be "free," and facing PTSD and mental conflicts.

I was also amazed by Pascale Armand as Wife #3, as she was both naturally funny as the comic relief (especially in running gags of her wigs scaring the other women), and deeply emotional as a woman forced to carry to birth a child of rape. And Saycon Sengbloh was stunning as Wife #1, the "mother" of the group, maintaining hierarchy, and feeling as if there is no life for her without war, because she has been a sex slave for many years, and she cannot imagine life after it. All of them received Tony nominations, so it will be fun to see if any of them wins (if Nyong'o wins, she will be halfway there to being in EGOT territory).

It was tough in scenes where the women, due to trauma, could not remember their parents or their birth names, just accepting their new roles as methods of survival.

I wasn't as interested in a character who was a former sex slave turned soldier, because the actress's performance didn't show much complexity, even in a scene where she has an emotional breakdown. And I had sympathy for the woman trying to save the other women, though I found her to be preachy and patronizing to women she treated as victims.

Danai Gurira wrote a truly stunning play, and I am glad this made it to Broadway. Plus, since the cheap mezzanine section I was in wasn't very full, I got to move down to the front of the mezzanine and be closer to seeing the show, so that was sweet.

Thoughts on Spaced

I watched Spaced last weekend, a 1999 British TV series created by and starring Simon Pegg and Jessica Hynes. and I enjoyed it. There were only two seasons, of 7 episodes each. The show is about two slacker friends who pretend to be a couple so they can live in a great apartment in a house, and their misadventures with romance, seeking employment, befriending their oddball neighbors, and deciding what to do with their lives.

I liked director Edgar Wright's style a lot (quick cuts, flashbacks, imagining of schemes and plans, good punch lines and unexpected answers), and I could see precursors to Shaun of the Dead (Simon Pegg's character Tim is playing a zombie video game and imagines himself the shotgun-wielding hero with pre-kill one-liners) and Hot Fuzz (Nick Frost's character imagines himself as Neo from The Matrix, with long coat, shades, and guns).

I liked that Jessica Hynes as Daisy had a likable everywoman feel to her, as an optimistic woman who wants to be a successful writer, but distracts herself when she doesn't want to do hard work. I looked her up, and most of her stuff is British, I would like to see more of what she has done.
I liked Simon Pegg's energetic performance, though I didn't really like Tim, as he was immature and self-centered. But he and Nick Frost had great chemistry together as best friends. They both have this childlike enthusiasm together that is endearing and sweet to watch.

I also appreciated that the people in the house gained more depth than their initial weirdo exteriors, like a ditzy young woman who was funny and sweet, a seemingly antisocial artist who was sensitive and caring, and an uptight landlord who really wants to be accepted and liked by others.

The second season was stronger than the first, as it had gotten past the initial quirks of the supporting cast, and the characters seemed more grounded and less lost. The cultural references really dated the show (a Spice Girls "girl power" reference, The Matrix parodies, a Fight Club parody), but luckily there weren't too many of them.

So I enjoyed it, mostly laughing at the sight gags and visual humor. It was a pretty short-lived show, but was a huge jump-off for several talented people.