Yes, that’s why I watched. I’ll probably watch the other two episodes and pretend it is in England rather than France.
Pulling from the old ‘America’s Test Kitchen’ thread drift, I’ll throw out
Landscape Artist of the Year
Landscape Artist of the Year (Canada)
Portrait Artist of the Year
all available on Tubi in the US. UK folks probably know them well. Competition shows between, yeah, painters. Very relaxing. A bare minimum of “meet the artist” intro and all the rest is process. So low key it’s almost meditative, even though there’s a $10,000 (or pound) comission/prize at the end.
I’ve found them tremendously relaxing low-stakes viewing.
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Can’t find mention of it so I thought I’d throw out Extraordinary Attorney Woo on Netflix. It’s a Korean series about a high functioning autistic woman who is an attorney. Very much like The Good Doctor, which is based on another Korean series. In the same genre there’s also Astrid, now airing on PBS. I enjoy all three.
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I’m really glad you enjoyed the pilot. There’s 12 series so far (S12 is currently airing on BBC and hooray, a new episode is up now). The show-runner said he’d be happy to keep going (the detectives have been a more rotating cast) and a spin off called Beyond Paradise will be premier later this month. (This one back in Britain, though.)
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Hard to pretend though, when so much is set and filmed in Provence (which is so very deeply recognisable).
It is ludicrous, though. I’ve been thinking about that a lot. It’s just very hard to buy British actors as French people, especially Allam, who’s grand, but who’s also the goto guy for the posho Brexiter for casting.
I was obsessing about it for a while since I really want to understand why it is so wrong.
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Last and First Men - 2020 - dir. Jóhann Jóhannsson - currently streaming on Shudder in the US, possibly elsewhere.
It’s not often you see something wholly unexpected. I had zero knowledge of the existence of this film. The summary said the cast included Tilda Swinton and it was only 72 minutes long. SOLD.
I expected a shortish, possibly arty sci-fi piece, given the scant summary and Swinton’s presence. What I did NOT expect was an incredibly moving, meditative (I find myself using that word a lot, lately. hmm) experience that’s far closer to Koyaanisqatsi than any sort of horror film.
The film is based on a cult 1930’s novel of the same name by Olaf Stapledon. It is a message sent back to us, the first race of men, through time, from the last race of men, two billion years in the future, from their settlement on Neptune. It details the events between our time an theirs, and their ultimate fate. And that’s it. In terms of ‘plot’, nothing actually happens in the film. The message itself is moving and tragic and hopeful. For having been written pre WWII, much about it seems extremely modern and prescient.
But the real strength of this piece lies in its form. There is no human presence in the film. Swinton reads (abridged) passages of the book in voiceover, and the screen is filled with stunning B&W 16mm photography of Yugoslavian WWII memorial monuments. . The scale of these monuments is often unclear, but some are as big as buildings. They consist of a variety of brutalist shapes that simultaneously evoke a sort of eastern-bloc retrofuturism and ancient stone carvings, like The Sphynx or the Easter Island heads. But this is so perfectly, expertly edited that extended passages pass wordlessly and remain completely compelling. Essentially, the film functions as a ‘visual’, very abridged audiobook. And as odd as that sounds, I found it totally engrossing.
And then there’s the music. Jóhannsson, who died in 2018, was known primarily as a composer. Among others, he did the absolutely haunting scores for Arrival starring Amy Adams, and Mandy, with a fantastic performance by Nic Cage. His work here is just as great. More the pity that this was his only feature as a director.
Again, this probably isn’t for everyone. But for those to whom the phrase “visual tone poem” is not an instance turnoff, this is just a FANTASTIC find. I’m so glad Shudder brings these odd ‘horror-adjacent’ works to wider public notice. Right along with Skinamarink and last years experimental stop motion feature The Wolf House, they’re really finding some genuine works of art to lay in among all the (beloved) 80’s trash and drive-in-style content they’re most known for. It’s kind of impressive, really.
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YES! My daughter discovered this great show. We watched a few seasons – we were not able to get the entire run.
So many cast changes to observe over a multi season binge!
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Pretty impressive collection of movies.
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For the people interested in British crime series, Happy Valley season 3 just finished, and it is supposedly top notch. Seasons 1 and 2 were magnificent imho. Before I start watching season 3, I’ll rewatch the first 2 seasons again.
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I watched season 1 again on Crackle (free, they have ads) and when I went back to watch season 2 again it said it had expired. I also can’t find anywhere in the US to watch season 3. Maybe later this year?
You can download it via a torrent if you like. There’s one with 16 seeds. At least 5 seeds will work. It’s 4.2gb, the whole season.
Filmed in New Zealand wine country:
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Thanks, it looks good. I need to check out Acorn and see what is new since I last watched.
Paramount plus
10 times as good and 1/10 the length (your math may vary) of Peter Jackson’s trilogy!
The greatest adventure …
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Sorry hbo
This should be followed by a viewing of Bakshi’s Lord of the Rings (which really only goes through The Two Towers) and then to Rankin-Bass’ Return of the King
It’s a very odd version of the whole story.
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They showed this at the new Beverly last fall
I think I missed the last unicorn !
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I do miss New Bev and all the showings from American Cinemateque.
But this month the new indie micro cinema near me did a whole Lamthimos restrospectovr (Dogtooth, The Lobster, Killing of a Sacred Deer, and The Favourite)
They also just showed Sun Ra’s psychedelic concert/musical/sci fi blaxploitation piece Space is the Place, which is weird and goofy and sincere all at once.
They also showed (and I FINALLY have seen) Wong Kar-wai’s In the Mood for Love and Chungking Express
He’s a master of color and framing. Both films show his love of frames within frames within frames. How he sections the screen match or contrast the distance (or lack of distance) between his characters. And the art direction is so stunning that it’s easy to mistake Mood for Love as an actual 60’s film rather than a period piece filmed in the early 2000’s. And performances he gets from his cast are just gorgeous.
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how cool.
I’ve always wanted to see Space is the Place and to get to see it projected in a theatre is a big win! Sun-Ra is the man, his music and story and personality are fucking amazing.
Would really like to see those Wong Kar-wai movies too. Sounds like you have a very cool spot to frequent with folks with passion selecting the schedule. I love being a regular at spots like this.
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