BenjAii
Joined Dec 2004
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Reviews13
BenjAii's rating
Drama and story-telling for grown-ups.
I can see why some people don't like this. It's not conventional and simple story-telling. The two main characters, Cleo Johnson and Maddie Schwartz are deeply flawed people. Schwartz especially so, as she is quite unsympathetic and unlikeable. Johnson's story is that of a smart person who can't stop making bad choices. I find all this refreshing and relatable. It's so much more like real life. If you're bored with it, good for you - go back to your Marvel movies or 'Emily in Paris'.
I also get to play one of my favorite TV and movie games - spot the twist in advance. I know there's one or two big ones here, but by episode three they aren't revealed, so it's fun to try and guess. Maddie Schwartz was suspiciously quick in finding a murder victim in a very remote location; something tells me that will have a bearing on things.
Kudos also to Jennifer Mogbock in episode 1. Her character is forced to sing on stage while severely intoxicated and manages to turn it into something strange and beautiful. Actually 'strange and beautiful' sums up the best about this show when it's hitting its high notes.
I can see why some people don't like this. It's not conventional and simple story-telling. The two main characters, Cleo Johnson and Maddie Schwartz are deeply flawed people. Schwartz especially so, as she is quite unsympathetic and unlikeable. Johnson's story is that of a smart person who can't stop making bad choices. I find all this refreshing and relatable. It's so much more like real life. If you're bored with it, good for you - go back to your Marvel movies or 'Emily in Paris'.
I also get to play one of my favorite TV and movie games - spot the twist in advance. I know there's one or two big ones here, but by episode three they aren't revealed, so it's fun to try and guess. Maddie Schwartz was suspiciously quick in finding a murder victim in a very remote location; something tells me that will have a bearing on things.
Kudos also to Jennifer Mogbock in episode 1. Her character is forced to sing on stage while severely intoxicated and manages to turn it into something strange and beautiful. Actually 'strange and beautiful' sums up the best about this show when it's hitting its high notes.
It's a vanishingly rare occurrence for the occult to crop up in popular entertainment outside of the horror genre, but "Strange Angel" is that rare breed.
If you dial back a few decades from the birth of the 1960's counter-culture in California and look for the precursors of psychedelia, LSD & Hippies, you could trace some of its parentage to the bohemian experimentalists in "Strange Angel".
It's 1939 and as William Gibson would say, the future just isn't very evenly distributed yet. Jack Parsons can see the future is in space. That still sounds futuristic when Elon Musk talks about it in 2018 and like Musk, Parsons wants to do something to make it happen. What happens next is the true story of the man who helped spark that future and his unlikely tutelage under the teachings of Aleister Crowley.
One episode in and this is already looking good. I'm especially enjoying Rupert Friend's turn as a wild eyed mercurial next door neigbour, who initiates/baptises Jack into the Crowleian mysteries via a swimming pool.
I'll be curious to see how this show does. The real Parsons died at age 37 under mysterious circumstances, but certainly packed enough drama into his short life to fill out several seasons if it all works out for "Strange Angel".
If you dial back a few decades from the birth of the 1960's counter-culture in California and look for the precursors of psychedelia, LSD & Hippies, you could trace some of its parentage to the bohemian experimentalists in "Strange Angel".
It's 1939 and as William Gibson would say, the future just isn't very evenly distributed yet. Jack Parsons can see the future is in space. That still sounds futuristic when Elon Musk talks about it in 2018 and like Musk, Parsons wants to do something to make it happen. What happens next is the true story of the man who helped spark that future and his unlikely tutelage under the teachings of Aleister Crowley.
One episode in and this is already looking good. I'm especially enjoying Rupert Friend's turn as a wild eyed mercurial next door neigbour, who initiates/baptises Jack into the Crowleian mysteries via a swimming pool.
I'll be curious to see how this show does. The real Parsons died at age 37 under mysterious circumstances, but certainly packed enough drama into his short life to fill out several seasons if it all works out for "Strange Angel".
I should start by saying, although I've never read the James M Cain novel, as a fan of classic golden era Hollywood films I love the original version of Mildred Pierce.
That didn't stop me enjoying Todd Hayne's new miniseries. It was fun to see the story retold and this is first class film-making for TV that easily outclasses a great deal of what gets pumped out for contemporary cinema. It's hard to say anything bad about the great cast and a beautifully photographed and realized recreation of 1930's Los Angeles.
Many reviewers seem to be posing the question Why? to a remake of this particular story. On one level there are obvious similarities to the Great Depression and the present times we live in coloured by an ongoing financial crisis. So is this a parable for our times ? Is there some deeper symbolic meaning to this storytelling that illuminates aspects of society ?
From what I've read of the novel, it seems this may have been James Cain's intention. Although Mildred Pierce is credited as his most ambitious work no one has ever mentioned it in the same breath as "great American novel". Is Mildred's vain pursuit of Veda's love and approval an allegory for ordinary folks pursuit of a chimerical and ultimately false credit card maxed "good life", that is ultimately a betrayal of who they really are and their true values Maybe?, maybe not.
It seems clear we are to think of Mildred as an tragic heroine on an operatic scale. Someone who's one blindness and weakness, her love for an ungrateful daughter, is her kismet and will be her ultimate downfall. But the story never really succeeds on this level and it's telling that it seems so well suited to it's styling as a Joan Crawford melodrama.
What's stopping it ? I think the problem is for this story to touch the greatness it's striving for this that its two central characters are never quite believable. Veda comes off as an almost cartoon or pantomime baddie. On the one hand we can understand (if not sympathize) with her disgust of lower middle class Glendale and aspirations for the finer things in life. But this never explains the level of hatred and sadism she displays towards her mother. Perhaps there is no explanation for this, the Italian teacher who so aptly sums her up is right, perhaps she's just an exceptional one off, a beautiful poisonous snake to be admired from afar, but never touched.
Even if we except this and take Veda's exceptional malevolence as believable the problem is that Mildred's character doesn't quite gel either. In almost every other area of her life we see Mildred as not only being clever, resourceful and capable but exceptionally so. The story of her entrepreneurial rise to success shows her dealing with people and situations with insight and astuteness. Yet this so completely deserts her when dealing with her daughter ?
Of course that's supposed to be the whole point of the story and in the tradition of capable heros with ruinous great flaws, something she can do nothing about. It's just that somehow here it never seems to quite work on the subconscious level these stories need to succeed at if they are to satisfyingly tap into the great archetypal themes they are aiming to communicate with.
So maybe Joan Crawford's version wins in the end, never the less HBO's mini-series is well worth a spin as a very superior soap opera told with cinematic flair.
That didn't stop me enjoying Todd Hayne's new miniseries. It was fun to see the story retold and this is first class film-making for TV that easily outclasses a great deal of what gets pumped out for contemporary cinema. It's hard to say anything bad about the great cast and a beautifully photographed and realized recreation of 1930's Los Angeles.
Many reviewers seem to be posing the question Why? to a remake of this particular story. On one level there are obvious similarities to the Great Depression and the present times we live in coloured by an ongoing financial crisis. So is this a parable for our times ? Is there some deeper symbolic meaning to this storytelling that illuminates aspects of society ?
From what I've read of the novel, it seems this may have been James Cain's intention. Although Mildred Pierce is credited as his most ambitious work no one has ever mentioned it in the same breath as "great American novel". Is Mildred's vain pursuit of Veda's love and approval an allegory for ordinary folks pursuit of a chimerical and ultimately false credit card maxed "good life", that is ultimately a betrayal of who they really are and their true values Maybe?, maybe not.
It seems clear we are to think of Mildred as an tragic heroine on an operatic scale. Someone who's one blindness and weakness, her love for an ungrateful daughter, is her kismet and will be her ultimate downfall. But the story never really succeeds on this level and it's telling that it seems so well suited to it's styling as a Joan Crawford melodrama.
What's stopping it ? I think the problem is for this story to touch the greatness it's striving for this that its two central characters are never quite believable. Veda comes off as an almost cartoon or pantomime baddie. On the one hand we can understand (if not sympathize) with her disgust of lower middle class Glendale and aspirations for the finer things in life. But this never explains the level of hatred and sadism she displays towards her mother. Perhaps there is no explanation for this, the Italian teacher who so aptly sums her up is right, perhaps she's just an exceptional one off, a beautiful poisonous snake to be admired from afar, but never touched.
Even if we except this and take Veda's exceptional malevolence as believable the problem is that Mildred's character doesn't quite gel either. In almost every other area of her life we see Mildred as not only being clever, resourceful and capable but exceptionally so. The story of her entrepreneurial rise to success shows her dealing with people and situations with insight and astuteness. Yet this so completely deserts her when dealing with her daughter ?
Of course that's supposed to be the whole point of the story and in the tradition of capable heros with ruinous great flaws, something she can do nothing about. It's just that somehow here it never seems to quite work on the subconscious level these stories need to succeed at if they are to satisfyingly tap into the great archetypal themes they are aiming to communicate with.
So maybe Joan Crawford's version wins in the end, never the less HBO's mini-series is well worth a spin as a very superior soap opera told with cinematic flair.