Noch Mehr Stadtgeschichten

You have to start at the beginning, so I'd suggest watching Tales of the City and More Tales of the City first. These mini-series are based on a six part series of books by Armistead Maupin. Maupin began writing these stories for a San Francisco newspaper in the 1970's. They became the Tales of the City book series. And in the early 1990's, he started serializing them for the small (TV) screen. I've watched all three of these films over and over again. They are (like the books) like getting a really juicy letter from an old friend you've been aching to hear from. This third installment is shorter than the previous, but packs in a great storyline and lots of fun. All of the actors from the 2nd Tales are back for more mystery and romance. The best thing about Maupin's stories for the new millennium is that he was the first author to integrate gay and straight characters into a novel and then watch them grow and age together as a family throughout the six books. For the cinema, this is still a HUGE leap. For those of us who've been living in reality, it's our world come to life. I'm anxiously awaiting the fourth book, Babycakes to be made into a mini-series, but in the meantime I watch Mrs. Madigal, Michael, MaryAnn, Brian and all their extended family look for love and excitement in late 1970's San Francisco.

What can I say? Mother Mucca is a character I just can't quite get into. I find her crusty, salty and slightly repulsive. You just know if you got too close to her she'd have that old person's smell. And with the cigarettes added to that well,......ugh. She doesn't have ANY of the love-able quirkiness Mrs. Madrigal has.

And the rest of this? It becomes tawdry and tedious. And then,........oh dear, we add in the terrible Jonestown Massacre and how two characters escaped and a fake Jim Jones. No, no, no! This is something out of Mary Hartman Mary Hartman, not Tales of the city!

If you've seen the first one there is something innocent and charming about it all. It may be very cliched but it works. The dialog here is bad, there are no real intimate conversations or situations with the characters. Maybe by this point in life we had lost that so no writer could quite come up with any ideas. We had moved on to empty sex and that was supposed to just hold everyone over.

Eh,.....hope they don't do anymore of these.

Another enjoyable installment, from Mr Maupin, about normal fun people who do find themselves tangled in many webs.

For anyone to whom the pacing seems a bit odd. Please remember that this was originally written for a newspaper. Each installment had to move quickly and leave the reader interested. It's good to see that Showtime has remained true to the articles (which were turned into books) again.

Being a huge fan of Mr. Maupin's previous two series as well as the books, I knew there was no need to worry about being disappointed...once again the "Gang" delivers...Pierre Gang, that is; he also directed "More Tales" a few years back and returns to helm this installment as well. The primary cast is back, however, noticeably absent is Mona Ramsey, who's gone off to Seattle, presumably to find herself. Laura Linney once again dives in displaying "further" sides (not to mention views) of Mary Ann. In fact, that can pretty much be said about every character this time around. Everyone gets to explore sides of themselves that before went untouched.

And that's as it should be, considering "Further" picks up four years after "More" as opposed to the few month gap between the first two series. It's 1981 and the feel of the seventies is dwindling, making room for the "me" decade to come. For this writer, one of the coolest aspects was the return of Mary Kay Place to the role of Prue Giroux, which she originated in a mere couple of scenes in the first "Tales" back in '92. This time around she is a main character with some very real problems, most of which center around a peculiar man named Luke, whom she finds living in the park. Luke, as played by Henry Czerny, is the character you will be hard pressed to forget. Olympia, as always, gives just the right balance necessary to keep everyone else in line. Bruce McCulloch (Kids in the Hall) is a riot as Father Paddy. Joel Grey shows up in a role that (if one didn't know better) seems tailor-made. Barbara Garrick goes round three with a new and improved DeDe; she gets my vote as the most underrated character and actress of the saga.

Armistead Maupin has always said that his primary influence when writing is Alfred Hitchcock - as you view, you'll see why he says that. As usual, the stories and characters overlap one another, going seemingly unnoticed by the participants. Maupin himself gives perhaps his most clever Hitchcockian cameo yet (big laugh).

My only complaint is that the we're treated to less screentime with this series. It's about a third shorter than the previous two. As I haven't read the book in some time, I don't know what had to be sacrificed to make this possible. One of the great strengths of the first two series was the near seamless adaptations of the books upon which they were based. Was it a budgetary decision? Or just simple storytelling? It does indeed move faster than the last series. In any case, some "Tales" are better than no "Tales". Let's hope they do the next three as well.

OK so this strays from the book slightly, but the extra story line written for Mother Mucca is great- Jackie Burroughs does such a fantastic job at playing this curious character and it's brilliant to see her back to play this funny and sweet role. It's also good to get some depth to her character as well as flesh out Mrs Madrigal as well.

The casting fits the books perfectly as in the previous two series with pretty much all of the same actors returning.

If only the next three books would be make for the screen. Can't wait to see the film interpretation of Night Listener, give it a look when it comes on general release.