Love and Death (HBO) - Miniseries Review: Trite True Crime Deep in the Heart of Texas

****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!****

My Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SKIP IT. Despite a great cast this is just another true crime retread with a prestige tv veneer.

The HBO miniseries Love and Death, which stars Elizabeth Olsen and Jesse Plemons and tells the true story of an extra-marital affair and murder in the small town of Wylie, Texas in 1980, finished its seven-episode run on Thursday.

The series, which was written by David E. Kelley, recounts the salacious tale of Candy Montgomery, a mild-mannered Texas housewife and church choir member who has an affair with a fellow married church member Allan Gore. Months after the affair ends Allan’s wife Betty is found brutally murdered with an axe.

Despite the fact that this is apparently a well-known tale and has already been made into a Hulu miniseries (Candy – starring Jessica Biel – which I have not seen), I did not know the Candy Montgomery story prior to watching Love and Death and so I won’t recount it in detail here for you in order to preserve spoilers for any of you who are in the same boat as I am.

The verdict regarding Love and Death is that it’s little more than a true-crime, Lifetime movie with an HBO prestige veneer and some top-notch acting.

Elizabeth Olsen is particularly good as Candy, as she masterfully captures the performative nature of a certain breed of Southern woman. Candy’s mask is so effective it even fools Candy into thinking she’s not who she really is.

As evidenced by her breakout role in Martha, Marcy, Mae, Marlene (2011), Olsen is a terrific actress but her career seems to be a bit stuck at the moment after getting caught in the MCU cul-de-sac. Her performances in the MCU films as Scarlet Witch have not been notable, but her work in the MCU TV series Wandavision was magnificent for the intriguing first half of that flawed season.

One can only hope that Olsen has put the MCU in the rearview mirror and now that she’s financially secure can explore more interesting projects and roles. Love and Death may have been her attempt at doing that, but unfortunately the series never lives up to her stellar work in it.

Jesse Plemons is also very good as the subdued and rather odd character Allan Gore, who sports a hairdo that is a first ballot Hellacious Haircut Hall of Famer.

Plemons is a master at filling quiet characters with a peculiar and pulsating inner life, and his Allan, who we are told has a “perfectly formed penis” – good for him, is bustling just under the surface and behind those curiously dead eyes but is always assiduously contained and constrained.

Plemons is one of the more oddly compelling actors of his generation and it’s always a treat when he’s on screen, even here in the tepid Love and Death, but he deserves better than this series.

Tom Pelphrey, who recently made a name for himself in the Netflix show Ozark, is terrific in the under-written role of the passionate and combative lawyer Don Crowder. After reading the post script at the end of the series I have to say that Crowder’s life seems to be much more interesting post Love and Death than it is during this story, and would prefer to have seen that tale told.

And finally, Lily Rabe does the very best she can with the unfinished character Betty Gore, and she too deserved much better than what was written for her.

As good as the cast is across the board, the problem with Love and Death is without a doubt the overrated writer David E. Kelley, who simply never elevates the story or makes it more than just another recounting of a true crime in a culture awash in true crime.

Kelley is considered one of the untouchables in Hollywood but I’ve never understood his appeal. Doogie Howser, Picket Fences, Chicago Hope, The Practice, Boston Legal, Ally McBeal and Big Little Lies are his most famous series and they’re all egregiously awful to the point of being entirely unwatchable. I’ve never liked a single one of his shows and never understood why others fawn all over him.

The failure of Love and Death lies at the feet of Kelley, who across his career has seemed allergic to insight and addicted to disingenuousness. Kelley’s consistent vacuousness as a writer and his vapidity as a storyteller infects Love and Death and leaves it completely devoid of profundity and power.

Love and Death reminded me of another true crime story given the HBO prestige treatment last year, The Staircase. That series, which starred Colin Firth and Toni Collette, was intriguing on its salacious surface but once you dig in to it there was nothing there…as it was devoid of even an ounce of drama or insight.

Like The Staircase, Love and Death is underwhelming as the longer the series went on the less interesting it became until finally you only finish watching it out of a demented sense of obligation or in my case, completion OCD.

Ultimately, Love and Death plays acts at being meaningful but is a rather vacant exercise in true crime exploitation and failed titillation. If you haven’t watched the series then trust me when I tell you that you never need to start. And if you have watched it then I assume, like me, you either regret the time committed or have entirely forgotten it.

 Follow me on Twitter: @MPMActingCo

©2023

Looking California and Feeling Minnesota: Episode 68 - Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness

Grab your tinfoil hat and tune in to this blockbuster, groundbreaking episode, that absolutely everyone is talking about, in order to hear Barry expose the most diabolical conspiracy in cinema history involving Sam Raimi and Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. This is the episode that will change everything, everywhere across the multiverse!

Looking California and Feeling Minnesota: Episode 68 - Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness

Thanks for listening!

©2022

Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness: A Review

****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!****

My Rating: 1 out of 5 stars

Popcorn Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SKIP IT. A dreadfully dull stroll through the multiverse of mundanity where Marvel malaise rules the day. If you need to see it, save your money and wait until it hits Disney’s streaming service.

In the wake of having witnessed Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, the 28th, and most recent film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, I sat waiting for the usual end-credits scene and had a few thoughts.

The first of which was, if you’re the type of person who unironically uses the term “y’all”, I automatically think you’re a moron. I’m not saying that I’m justified in that belief, just that’s what I believe.

Another thought I had was if you pronounce words that begin with “s”, like “street” or “strange”, by adding an “h” to them and saying “shtreet” or “shtrange”, or if you’re so verbally lazy that you skip the pronunciation of “t’s” in words like “Manhattan”, and instead say “Manha’an”, or if you replace “th” at the end of a word with an “f” and instead of saying “mouth” and “breath” you say “mouf” and “breaf”, then you should drown yourself in a bathtub because you are so fucking stupid you don’t deserve to live.

The reason I was thinking about those rather random things is because a young white woman in her early 20’s sitting near me in the theatre was sharing her opinion of Dr. Strange, or as she called it, “Dr. Shtrange”, as the credits rolled and liberally used the term “y’all” and spoke about how the film was set in “Manha’an” and that it took her “breaf” away.

Unfortunately, “Dr. Shtrange” did not take my “breaf” away, although at various times throughout the movie I was wishing that I would stop breathing and be put out of my misery.

Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness opened on May 6th and, not surprisingly, has won the box office battle its first two weeks, raking in nearly $700 million worldwide against a $200 million budget. Marvel dominates modern movie going and it feels like we all have to pay our Marvel tax a few times a year just to stay on top of the cultural comings and goings, and I am no exception.

My relationship to Marvel movies and tv shows is that I am routinely underwhelmed by them but feel it my duty to watch. This says more about me than anything else, and what it says isn’t particularly positive.

Marvel’s new post-Endgame game plan seems to be to inundate audiences with sub-mediocre movies and tv shows with ever more complicated multiversal mania that are required watching if you want to stay relevant with the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

For example, if you haven’t seen the truly dreadful Disney + Marvel wokefest of a tv show What If…? then you might be a bit lost while watching Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. The same is true of Loki and even more true of the show WandaVision, which was an ambitious and mildly entertaining series starring Elizabeth Olsen as Wanda Maximoff/Scarlet Witch, the character she plays in Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.

But rest assured, being up to date on Marvel’s required watch list doesn’t make Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness coherent, it just makes it slightly less incoherent.

The plot of Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is so convoluted as to be absurd, just know that there isn’t a single universe in the multiverse that is even mildly interesting. This isn’t the multiverse of madness, it’s the multiverse of dullness.

Adding to the malaise in the multiverse is the fact that this film looks and feels cheap and rushed. For example, the visual effects are at times embarrassingly amateurish. Add in a scattershot script, generally poor performances and derelict direction, and you have a recipe for sub-mediocre Marvel movie mundanity.

What makes this movie so disappointing is that it’s directed by Sam Raimi, who you may recall, among other things, directed the three Tobey Maguire Spider-Man movies from the early 2000s. Those films, particularly the first two, were very good and extremely well made (the third one was a hot mess…but two out of three isn’t bad!). Raimi is a quality filmmaker and yet on Dr. Strange he seems to have succumbed to the Marvel virus and made the most sterile and anti-septic piece of incoherent corporate comic book crap imaginable.

To be fair, the first Dr. Strange (2016) film was pretty forgettable too, but this sequel somehow feels even more inconsequential, which is unfortunate.

It’s unfortunate because of a few things, the first of which is that Dr. Strange is actually quite a fascinating comic book character. After seeing the first film I had a reader send me some Dr. Strange comic book titles to read and I thought they were terrific. The character, and his world, is weird, but not weird for weirdness sake. It’s a complex character and one worthy of a decent cinematic exploration.

Another thing that irritates about these Dr. Strange movies is that the films never live up to the stand out casting of Benedict Cumberbatch as the master of the magical arts and former Sorcerer Supreme himself. Cumberbatch’s Dr. Strange is a deliriously intoxicating combination of insecure smugness and aggressive arrogance that is pretty great to behold…but the stories they put him in and the movies that surround him are needlessly vapid, vacuous and abysmal.

Speaking of abysmal, Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness boasts what may very well be the worst performance by an actress in Marvel Cinematic history, which is quite an achievement. Xochitl Gomez plays America Chavez, a young-women who possesses the ability to traverse the multiverse. The dead-eyed, charisma-free Gomez is so awful in the role that it was physically uncomfortable to witness. It was like watching a homeless person defecate under the golden arches in front of a McDonalds and then put it on a bun and serve it to an unsuspecting public.

Gomez’s character, America Chavez, of course speaks Spanish because we have to hit all the right demographic buttons, and on top of that box-checking bit of virtue signaling she also has two mommies. In a nod to Marvel’s supreme subtlety, the name of Ms. Chavez’s universe of origin where everyone is a Spanish speaking Latina lesbian is…the Utopian Parallel. I shit you not. Here’s hoping the woke brigade and their alphabet contingent at Disney can learn Spanish and move to the Utopian Parallel and churn out their shitty movies to their heart’s content and spare the rest of us in this miserable universe their insipid cultural politics.

Speaking of mommies, Elizabeth Olsen is a good actress who was absolutely phenomenal in WandaVision playing Wanda Maximoff/Scarlet Witch, but who is remarkably dreadful playing the same character in Dr. Strange. It’s sort of bizarre, but Olsen’s angry mommy on a multi-versal rampage just feels off here. Olsen seems completely uncomfortable on-screen as Wanda/Scarlet Witch, which manifests by her continuously being completely off-breath and off-voice throughout.

The rest of the cast, including some surprise cameos from stars playing Marvel icons - all of which will go unnamed so as to avoid spoilers, are pretty awful too. One is so horrendous that it genuinely shocked me.

As for the movie’s fate, Dr. Strange is undoubtedly going to dominate the box office for weeks on end and by year’s end will be one of the top grossing films, but that says less about the quality of the film and more about the crumbling nature of the entertainment business and the rapid decline in audience expectations. Such is life in this universe of corporate controlled, crap art/entertainment.

My advice is to avoid Dr. Strange in the theatre as it is most definitely not worth your hard-earned money. But if you’re a complete-ist and you want to stay on top of all things Marvel, just wait for it to stream on Disney + and watch it there. But even then it’ll still feel like a giant waste of time.

The bottom-line regarding Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is that it made me yearn to live in a universe where Marvel movies weren’t so reliably and relentlessly sub-par.

©2022

Looking California and Feeling Minnesota - Episode 43 : WandaVision/Falcon and Winter Soldier/Loki

On this unique episode Barry and Mike take a look at three Marvel series streaming on Disney Plus - WandaVision, The Falcon and Winter Soldier, and Loki. Topics discussed are the joys of Elizabeth Olsen, Tom Hiddleston's Loki long game, and Kevin Fiege as Marvel Timekeeper.

Looking California and Feeling Minnesota - Episode 43 : WandaVision/Falcon and Winter Soldier/Loki

Thanks for listening!

©2021

Wind River : A Review

****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!!****

My Rating : 4.5 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation : SEE IT IN THE THEATRE. This is a top-notch film that works on multiple levels and should not be missed.

Wind River, written and directed by Taylor Sheridan, is the story of Cory Lambert, a tracker/hunter with the US Fish and Wildlife Service, who teams up with FBI agent Jane Banner to solve a murder on the Wind River Indian reservation in Wyoming. The film stars Jeremy Renner and Elizabeth Olsen, with supporting turns from Graham Greene and Gil Birmingham.

The first thing to know about Wind River is that it is not an art house film, well...not really. Writer/director Taylor Sheridan writes mainstream types of stories, about the drug war in Sicario (2015), or bank robbers in Hell or High Water (2016) and now a murder mystery with Wind River, but Sheridan is so skilled and gifted as a writer he is able to infuse these well-worn narratives with such originality, insight and intelligence that they are elevated from the mundane to the sublime. 

Taylor Sheridan is unquestionably the best writer working in Hollywood today (proof of this being he has two nominations and one win for the most prestigious award on the planet…The Mickey©®!!). His previous screenplays, Sicario and Hell or High Water, were exquisite masterpieces. The script for Wind River certainly lives up to his stellar earlier work. 

Wind River is Taylor Sheridan's first time directing a major feature film. His direction is unspectacular but noteworthy for being both proficient and efficient. Sheridan keeps the pacing taut but never rushed, and allows his scenes and his actors some breathing room in the vast expanse of the Wyoming wilderness.  

As screenwriter, Sheridan is a physician who keeps properly diagnosing the disease eating away at the core of America in general, and the American Man in particular. Sheridan's characters are not verbose, but they speak volumes about the wounded state of masculinity in this country. While on the surface Wind River is a murder mystery in Big Sky country, it is considerably more than that. Wind River is a meditation on grief and the current state of Man. The film reveals the festering toxicity of damaged masculinity that is contagion in America, and that infects and destroys everything it touches (look no further than the current occupant of the White House for proof of this). Sheridan has written about the world of men effectively in both Sicario and Hell or High Water, and he does so again in Wind River. The murder-mystery story is well-executed and intriguing, but for me the most compelling part of the film is Sheridan's sub-text dealing with the debilitating state of modern manhood and the crippling effect of grief. 

Jeremy Renner plays hunter/tracker Cory Lambert and delivers the best performance of his career. Renner's work is well crafted, meticulous, detailed and is most definitely Oscar worthy. Renner's Lambert is a reserved and laconic man, but the anguish and fury contained within him is palpable. The scenes between Renner and Gil Birmingham's Martin Hanson contain some of the most subtle and layered acting on film this year. The scene between the two men on the front porch of Martin Hanson's home is a wrenching one, where the pain that pulses through these men's souls reveals itself out of the abyss of their heartbreak. It is a startlingly fantastic scene that would have been ordinary in the hands of lesser actors. 

Elizabeth Olsen does terrific work as well as fish out of water FBI agent Jane Banner. Olsen's Banner is in over her head, but she has the smarts and guile to keep herself together, until she doesn't. Her scene with Renner towards the end of the film highlights her skillful, subtle and wonderfully effective work in the film. Olsen is an often overlooked actress, but she is a potent talent who just needs the right script to shine, thankfully she gets one with Wind River.

The supporting actors, particularly Graham Greene, as a local Indian police chief, and the previously mentioned Gil Birmingham as Martin Hanson, are fantastic. They are two characters used to the bleak existence of life on the reservation, and their existential grief and angst hang over them like storm clouds. 

Another actor who has a very minimal but pivotal role is Jon Bernthal, and his work is exceptional. With minimal screen time and dialogue, Bernthal is able to create a fully formed and multi-dimensional character that is unique but familiar. Bernthal's work is vital to the film, and he shows himself to be a really strong actor capable of doing a lot with a little.

Cinematographer Ben Richardson makes the most of the glorious setting and delivers crisp visuals highlighting the contrasting colors of the wintery mountains. Richardson's striking visuals combined with Nick Cave and Warren Ellis' soundtrack make for a mesmerizing film going experience. 

As someone who has felt the biting sting of grief, Wind River resonated deeply with me. As someone with an intimate connection to the Native American community, my kindred relationship to the film was further enhanced by Sheridan's respectful but brutally honest assessment of the state of Indian life in America that was both depressing and infuriating. The fact that Native American women are the only group of people in the United States for whom they do not keep statistics regarding missing persons is one of the more incredible statistics you can find…or not find in this case. It is also all the evidence you need to understand that Native people in America have been dehumanized for centuries by many Americans and the U.S. government, and continue to be to this day. 

In conclusion, Wind River is a terrific film that boasts an Oscar worthy performance by Jeremy Renner and and equally impressive script from Taylor Sheridan. Wind River was very captivating but at times difficult to watch, but regardless of how emotionally wrenching the film could be, it was always honest and insightful about humanity and the malevolent world we inhabit. I highly recommend you spend your hard earned money and go see Wind River in the theaters. The lessons it imparts are ones we all desperately need to learn.

©2017