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Tag: watchable list (Page 6 of 6)

Watchable July 19 to 25, 2021

July 19, 2021 /

Woodstock 99: Peace, Love, and Rage (July 23, 9 p.m., HBO/Crave)

Attendees navigate a sea of trash at Woodstock ’99. PHOTO CREDIT: Catherine Lash/Courtesy of HBO

I had two thoughts after watching this documentary film, part of “Music Box,” a new series by Bill Simmons exploring pivotal moments in music: How did more people not die? And thank goodness I wasn’t there.

Not that I would have been: the original Woodstock, which the ’99 festival was meant to emulate, happened when I was 7; and I was well past the demographic that thinks braving the elements and peeing in Porta Potties is an acceptable tradeoff for a concert experience by the time ’99 happened.

This doc’s POV about Woodstock ’99, in case you were still wondering, is that it was a disaster. You’ll not hear from fans raving that they had the time of their lives. After watching footage of attendees packed into a former air force base in Rome, N.Y., in 110 F heat without adequate water; of backed up portable toilets and people literally smeared in shit and piss; of mobs of young men roaming the grounds fixated on “titties”; of the Night 3 riot that included looting and burning everything in sight, I can’t disagree that the festival looks in hindsight like one of Dante’s circles of hell.

The official toll was one dead — David DeRosia, who died of hyperthermia due to overheating during the Metallica set — 44 arrests; eight sexual assaults, although it’s estimated there were hundreds more; and one big black eye for the promoters. (Curiously, the doc omits the number of physical injuries in its statistics, although an ambulance technician who was there says medical staff were transporting 1,000 people a night from the scene overcome by the heat.)

The various talking heads in the film, interspersed with footage of the event, try to pin down a why for the mayhem that ensued, which is perhaps a fool’s errand.

Among the targets are promoters Michael Lang and John Scher. Scher, in particular, does himself no favours in footage of the daily press conferences on site, being combative and dismissive with journalists bringing up the problems they were seeing. He also, in an interview, blames the victims for all the instances of women being groped by men in the crowd.

Also faulted in the film: MTV, which covered the event live; an audience made up largely of young, white men and some of the bands that played, with the latter criticized for fuelling unrest in the crowd.

One does wonder what geniuses thought packing 220,000 or so people onto a largely asphalt surface in searing July heat was a good idea. The security guards, largely undertrained and unprofessional according to the doc, were confiscating water from attendees, and bottles of it were selling for $4 apiece, an outrageous price back in 1999. Among other things, the doc shows people bathing in fountains meant to provide free drinking water and a long line for the ATMs as concert-goers sought more cash so they could pay to stay hydrated and fed.

Some of the interviewees say the problems began with trying to replicate a 30-year-old event that wasn’t as idyllic as it was made out to be at a time of social unrest in the United States (it was the year of Columbine and Y2K), with a lineup that included bands that appealed mainly to angry young men.

Obviously outdoor music festivals can happen without turning into “Lord of the Flies” — the film mentions Coachella, which began just a few months after Woodstock ’99 and is still going strong — but it strikes me it’s not a bad thing that plans for Woodstock 50 fell apart.

Short Takes

Pope Francis in St. Peter’s Square in 2016. He’s one of the subjects of “In Their Own Words.”
PHOTO CREDIT: Stefano Spaziani/Courtesy of UPI/ALAMY

In Their Own Words, Season 2 (July 20, 8 p.m., PBS)

The new season of this docuseries about the lives of people who have transformed history, told in their own words but mostly the words of others, kicks off with Pope Francis, the former Jorge Mario Bergoglio. Obviously such a series seems predisposed to take a positive view of its subjects, although the episode does mention the Pope’s missteps, especially his early mishandling of reports of sexual abuse by clergy in Chile. There is no question Francis has also done good, particularly in his focus on the plight of migrants, the destruction of the planet and the role of women in the Church, even if those efforts haven’t led to substantive change. Future episodes profile Chuck Berry and Diana, Princess of Wales.

Chewbacca greets visitors near the Millennium Falcon replica at Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge.
PHOTO CREDIT: Courtesy of Disney Plus

Behind the Attraction (July 21, Disney Plus)

Look, I can’t pretend that this 10-part series is anything more than an extended promotion for Disneyland, but if you enjoy the theme park or just aspire to go someday, you might like this insiders’ view of its more popular rides and displays. I screened the first episode, which looks at the history of its “Star Wars”-themed Star Tours as well as the newish Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge. And I’m not gonna lie: Disneyland has never been on my wish list of places to visit, but I was kind of itching for a chance to pilot the Millennium Falcon. Other episodes cover It’s a Small World, the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror, the Castles, Space Mountain, the Haunted Mansion, the Hall of Presidents, the Jungle Cruise, the Disneyland Hotel, and the park’s trains, trams and monorails.

Scott Turner (Josh Peck) and Hooch in “Turner & Hooch.” PHOTO CREDIT: Eric Milner/Disney Plus

Turner & Hooch (July 21, Disney Plus)

This series is a sequel of sorts to the 1989 movie with the son of the original Scott Turner (Tom Hanks), also named Scott (Josh Peck, “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles”), teaming up with a dog named Hooch who’s the spitting image of the drooly movie canine. The premise is that Scott Sr. has died, leaving the dog to his son, a rookie U.S. marshal, who spends a big part of the first episode predictably resisting the ill-behaved Hooch. But, of course, Hooch ends up helping Scott and his partner (Carra Patterson) crack a case and then gets assigned to the canine unit. I only had time to watch one episode, which veered unconvincingly between a corny, family-friendly comedy and a cop drama with explosions, car chases and shootouts. Personally, if I wanted to watch a show about dogs and police officers working together, I’d tune in to Citytv’s “Hudson & Rex.”

Model Emma disguised as a demon to try to meet her match on “Sexy Beasts.”
PHOTO CREDIT: Courtesy of Netflix

Sexy Beasts (July 21, Netflix)

The word that came to my mind after watching one episode of this new reality series was “vapid,” which seemed a good fit for both the premise and the contestants. The ostensible idea is that by having everyone dressed in weird costumes, the daters and their potential flames can bypass looks to fall for someone based on their personality. But in the premiere, demon Emma appeared to make her choice from three men dressed as a mandrill, a mouse and a statue based on how much she enjoyed snogging one of them. I can’t see how she would have deduced anything about their personalities based on the brief snippets of shallow conversation we overhead on their speed dates. At least on “Love Is Blind,” in which men and women also formed connections without laying eyes on each other, the couples talked about subjects beyond “What’s the craziest place you’ve ever had sex?” I don’t get the impression that “Sexy Beasts” is focused on anyone getting engaged or married. Just as well. I figure the most these pairs can hope for are a few weeks of hooking up.

Netflix also debuts animated superhero series “Masters of the Universe: Revelation” on July 23, but reviews of that one are embargoed until Wednesday.

Odds and Ends

If you’ve followed Keeley Hawes’ career through shows like “Spooks” (a.k.a. “MI-5”), “Bodyguard,” “Honour” and “Line of Duty,” you might want to add the 2008 “Life on Mars” sequel “Ashes to Ashes” to your viewing list, in which she stars alongside Philip Glenister (“Belgravia”) as a time-travelling police psychologist and detective. It comes to BritBox July 20.

NOTE: The times listed here are in Eastern Standard Time, and reflect information provided to me and cross-checked where possible, but it’s always best to check listings for your own area. The selection of programs reviewed reflects what I’m given access to by networks and streamers, whether reviews are embargoed, how many shows I have time to watch and my own personal taste.

This post has been updated to add “Turner & Hooch” to the list of reviews.

Watchable July 12 to 18, 2021

July 12, 2021 /

SHOW OF THE WEEK: SurrealEstate (July 16, 10 p.m., CTV Sci-Fi Channel/CTV.ca)

Tim Rozon stars as paranormally savvy real estate agent Luke Roman in “SurrealEstate.”
PHOTO CREDIT: Bell Media

Among the influences that “SurrealEstate” will put you in mind of are crime procedurals, the movie “Ghostbusters” and your favourite real estate porn — not to mention a fun throwback to “The Exorcist” in its opening minutes — but this made-in-Canada drama is its own thing.

It’s about a team of realtors, led by Luke Roman (Tim Rozon of “Schitt’s Creek” and “Wynonna Earp”), who specialize in selling “metaphysically engaged properties,” i.e. haunted houses.

The team includes gadget guy August (British-Canadian actor Maurice Dean Wint), researcher and ex-Catholic priest “Father” Phil (Toronto’s Adam Korson), office manager with attitude Zooey (“Wynonna Earp” vet Savannah Basley) and new employee Susan (Sarah Levy of “Schitt’s Creek”).

TV veterans Art Hindle and Jennifer Dale play recurring spectral characters while Tennille Read (“Workin’ Moms”) appears in multiple episodes as Megan, a client with a particularly troublesome house. And fans mourning the dearly departed supernatural dramedy “Wynonna Earp” can take heart from the fact that Wynonna herself, Melanie Scrofano, appears in one episode of “SurrealEstate” and directed two of them.

That’s the who of “SurrealEstate”; how about the what?

As much as comparisons between “SurrealEstate” and the movie “Ghostbusters” with its “Who you gonna call?” catchphrase are inevitable, the TV show is not that. It has its moments of levity, but its apparitions are generally not played for laughs. There isn’t a Stay Puft Marshmallow Man or Green Goblin in sight.

In fact, the ghosts in “SurrealEstate” are often spooky, if not dangerous. They include ancient malevolent demons, houses that hold their occupants prisoner, spirits out for revenge and even living people with deadly paranormal abilities. And the ghosts that aren’t that scary still have serious stories attached, like a little boy who haunts a former nun-run orphanage.

The show was shot in St. John’s and other parts of Newfoundland, which boasts some lovely homes and also apparently some haunted ones (E! posted an interview with Rozon and Levy in which they talked about guest stars feeling an otherworldly presence at their mansion turned hotel).

The series mostly follows a haunting of the week format, with the Roman Agency having to crack the supernatural case and banish the paranormal perp to make the sale, although there’s a through-line involving the very haunted Donovan House, in which Luke takes a particular interest.

As the suave and charismatic but guarded Luke, still wounded over a childhood trauma, Rozon — best known as immortal gunslinger Doc Holliday in “Wynonna Earp” and Alexis’s love interest Mutt on “Schitt’s Creek” — burnishes his leading man credentials. Likewise Levy, who played waitress Twyla (and at one point Mutt’s girlfriend) on “Schitt’s,” gets to be more than just a sounding board behind a cafe counter, portraying a professional overachiever with a messed up personal life.

The other members of the team also get their moments to shine. That lost little boy haunting, for instance, provides a plot detour into Phil’s back story and his conflicted relationship with the church he left. We learn that Zooey, who hides her feelings behind irony, lost her high school sweetheart to drug abuse and now cycles through relationships with unreliable men. We don’t know much about August beyond the fact he’s a whiz with technology and quotes famous authors, but that may change before the season ends.

The fact that the team, even initial skeptic Susan, takes what they do seriously grounds the show despite the paranormal subject matter. You might not believe in ghosts, but the Roman Agency does and that helps us believe in them.

The Beast Must Die (July 12, 10 p.m., AMC)

Cush Jumbo as Frances and Billy Howle as Strangeways in “The Beast Must Die.”
PHOTO CREDIT: Ludovic Robert/AMC

There’s no ambiguity about the end goal in this crime thriller, based on the 1938 novel by Cecil Day-Lewis (yes, Daniel’s father): “I am going to kill a man,” says bereaved mother Frances Cairnes, played by Cush Jumbo. “I don’t know his name, I don’t know where he lives, I have no idea what he looks like. But I’m going to find him and kill him.”

Jumbo, known in North America for “The Good Wife” and “The Good Fight,” brings Frances’s pain to anguished, visceral life as well as her fierce intelligence.

Her 6-year-old son Martin was killed by a hit-and-run driver on a vacation visit to the Isle of Wight and the local police have mishandled the investigation. So Frances, a widowed teacher, takes matters into her own hands: leaving her job and apartment, disguising her identity, and tracking down a suspect with as much dedication and ingenuity as a crack detective.

That’s how she comes to meet rich developer George Rafferty (the ever reliable Jared Harris), after befriending his much younger sister-in-law Lena (Mia Tomlinson) on the pretext of shadowing her for a mystery novel she’s writing. Frances ends up moving into a cottage on the Rafferty estate, where she has a close-up view of George’s casual cruelty and the dysfunction of the family, which includes George’s harridan of a sister Joy (Geraldine James, Marilla on “Anne With an E”), his troubled wife Violet (Maeve Dermody) and bullied son Phil (Barney Sayburn).

Frances has to keep up the pretence of being a writer — not easy to do when her grief can swamp her at a moment’s notice — and try to win the confidence of the odious George while avoiding police detective Nigel Strangeways (Billy Howle), who has decided to reopen the case.

Did George really kill Martin? Will Frances really kill him?

Along the way to answering those questions we delve into Strangeways’ own trauma over witnessing the death of his former partner, as well as the Rafferty family dynamics, but this is Jumbo’s and Harris’s show and it’s not always clear who’s the cat and who’s the mouse in their interactions. Frances has the force of her resolve on her side, but George has his cunning and entitlement.

When the resolution comes — after a couple of twists that keep us guessing — it’s hard to say that anybody has really won.

Schmigadoon! (July 16, Apple TV Plus)

Melissa (Cecily Strong) and Josh (Keegan-Michael Key) get trapped in a musical in “Schmigadoon.” PHOTO CREDIT: Courtesy of Apple TV Plus

A Martin Short leprechaun and Cecily Strong singing. Aaron Tveit swaggering and Jane Krakowski high kicking. Kristin and Ariana with voices that ring, these are a few of my new favourite things.

With apologies to Rodgers and Hammerstein, if you recognize that I’m playing with the song “My Favorite Things” from the 1959 musical and 1965 movie “The Sound of Music,” you’re likely already predisposed to enjoy this comedy, an affectionately mocking love letter to the musical.

It stars Cecily Strong of “Saturday Night Live” and fellow comedian Keegan-Michael Key (“MADtv,” “Key and Peele”) as Melissa and Josh, a pair of Manhattan doctors who meet cute by the hospital vending machine, start a romance and, several years later, are trying to reconnect on a couples’ retreat when they wander off a hiking trail and end up in the old-fashioned town of Schmigadoon.

Yes, that’s a play on “Brigadoon,” the 1947 Lerner and Loewe musical (and later movie) about two tourists who stumble into a magical Scottish village that appears for only one day every 100 years.

If you’re a fan of musicals, you’ll enjoy spotting all the references to the canon packed into “Schmigadoon!” They start from the moment Melissa and Josh follow a “Wizard of Oz”-like path into town where the citizens greet them with an exuberant song and dance that will put you in mind of “Oklahoma!”

Musical hater Josh can’t wait to blow the old-timey (and very fake looking) town while musical lover Melissa treats the townsfolks’ penchant for breaking into song like an entertaining diversion, but when they try to leave the next day the portal back to the real world has closed. A leprechaun (Martin Short) informs them that they can’t go until they find true love. Not only are they trapped; the love they thought they shared has been exposed as a lie.

Josh and Melissa quickly break up, which leaves them free to explore other romantic entanglements. For Josh that includes farmer’s daughter Betsy (Disney star Dove Cameron), channelling both “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers” and “Oklahoma!”; and schoolmarm Emma Tate (Ariana DeBose of “Hamilton”), a ringer for Marian the Librarian from “The Music Man.” Melissa’s admirers include Danny Bailey, a Billy Bigelow stand-in (“Carousel”) played with appropriate bad boy swagger by Broadway vet Aaron Tveit; and Doc Lopez (Mexican heartthrob Jaime Camil), a Captain von Trapp-like disciplinarian (“The Sound of Music”).

The show also stars former “Cabaret” MC Alan Cumming as Mayor Menlove (get it?); Ann Harada of “Avenue Q” as his wife, Florence; Kristin Chenoweth as town scold Mildred Layton, who puts her “Wicked” pipes on display in a fun number that borrows from “The Music Man”; Fred Armisen as her husband, Reverend Layton; and Jane Krakowski in a small but impactful role as the Doc’s fiancee, the Countess (yep, “The Sound of Music” again).

Showrunner and musical theatre lover Cinco Paul created the series with his “Despicable Me” co-writer Ken Daurio, with “SNL’s” Lorne Michaels executive producing. Paul wrote the songs, which are pitch perfect imitations of what you’d hear in a real golden age musical but also wink at the inherent silliness of the form, not to mention the sexism (the racism isn’t explicitly confronted aside from the fact the cast includes non-white faces).

Kudos are due to the ensemble of singers and dancers who bring the musical numbers to life (Mississauga’s Amanda Cleghorn of “So You Think You Can Dance Canada” among them). Strong, a musical fan in real life (as is Key), gets to join in on the singing and hoofing.

I have no idea how “Schmigadoon!” will play with the musical-adverse, but if you love them, as corny as it sounds, it might just put a song in your heart.

Short Takes

The first major group portrait of the Beatles taken by Terry O’Neill during the recording of
“Please Please Me” at Abbey Road Studios in 1961. PHOTO CREDIT: Courtesy of Terry O’Neill

Icon: Music Through the Lens (July 16, 9 p.m., PBS)

Watching this series will remind you just how much music appreciation is a visual as well as an aural experience. Over six episodes featuring dozens of interviews and many, many pictures, the docuseries takes us into the world of music photography from the point of view of the takers and the taken. The first episode, which I screened, is a treasure trove of stories about capturing everyone on camera from Robert Johnson to the Beatles and Rolling Stones; Jimi Hendrix to Joy Division; B.B. King to Bob Marley; Beyonce to Billie Eilish; and Sinead O’Connor to Snoop Dogg. Future episodes, on subsequent Fridays, explore concert images, record covers, magazine images, music photography as art and the future of the medium in the digital era.

Transgender teen Levi, left, and his twin sister Kailyn. PHOTO CREDIT: Mina Lumena

Levi: Becoming Himself (July 16, CBC Gem)

This touching and thought-provoking documentary may open your eyes and your heart to what it’s like to be a transgender teen. For Vancouver’s Levi Nahirney, transitioning from female to male is just one part of an identity that also includes being Vietnamese-Canadian, a twin and an adoptee. Obviously there have been challenges — including homophobia and transphobia — but the film isn’t a downer. Levi, now 19, has lots of support from twin Kailyn, adoptive parents Tom and Lois — who recounts that Levi was 3 when he first began asking why he wasn’t a boy — his birth family, his friends and the online LGBTQ community. Levi is sharing his story in the hope of inspiring other trans people. “I want to be someone who could potentially save someone’s life,” he says.

Odds and Ends

Ronan Farrow in the docuseries “Catch and Kill: The Podcast Tapes.” PHOTO CREDIT: Courtesy of HBO

“Catch and Kill: The Podcast Tapes” (July 12, 9 p.m., HBO/Crave) revisits Ronan Farrow’s investigation into the Harvey Weinstein sexual abuse allegations, work that earned him a Pulitzer Prize and was turned into a podcast and bestselling book. The news release for this docuseries promises “new insights into this culture-shaking story.”

Crave also has “100 Foot Wave” (July 18, 10 p.m., HBO/Crave), about the 10-year journey of surfer Garrett McNamara to conquer a 100-foot wave in Nazare, Portugal.  

On the Netflix slate this week are Season 2 of popular coming of age drama “Never Have I Ever” (July 15), starring Mississauga’s Maitreyi Ramakrishnan; the new reality show “My Unorthodox Life” (July 14) about shoe designer Julia Haart and her escape from the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community she grew up in; and crime series “Heist” (July 14), which substitutes major thefts for the usual murders.

Amazon has the second season of the fashion competition series “Making the Cut” (July 16), starring “Project Runway” escapees Heidi Klum and Tim Gunn, and the sure to be popular horror movie sequel “A Quiet Place II” (July 13), written and directed by John Krasinski, and starring him and real-life wife Emily Blunt.

NOTE: The dates and times listed here are in Eastern Standard Time, and reflect information provided to me and cross-checked where possible, but it’s always best to check listings for your own area. The selection of programs reviewed reflects what I’m given access to by networks and streamers, whether reviews are embargoed, how many shows I have time to watch and my own personal taste.

Watchable the week of June 28, 2021

June 28, 2021 /

SHOW OF THE WEEK: The Legend of the Underground (June 29, 9 p.m., HBO/Crave)

“The Legend of the Underground” profiles men in Nigeria who don’t conform to the country’s
rigid ideals of masculinity. PHOTO CREDIT: Courtesy of HBO

As Pride Month events wind down in Toronto and other places around the world, it’s worth noting the ongoing persecution of anyone who doesn’t conform to a heterosexual ideal of masculinity in Nigeria — so much so that media reviewing this documentary were asked not to refer to interview subjects still living in that country as gay, homosexual or anything else that would imply they weren’t straight.

And frankly, I have no issue with that because I watched “The Legend of the Underground” with an underlying sense of dread of what could happen to the “non-conformists” who appeared on camera saying or doing things that might single them out for punishment by a homophobic regime and a citizenry that largely approves of its anti-gay laws.

And yet, the human spirit is resilient. These men persist — despite a law passed in 2014 that bans not only same-sex marriage and relationships but participation in “gay clubs, societies and organizations”; and the risk of torture, even death, at the hands of police and vigilantes.

The doc, directed by Jamaican-American Giselle Bailey and Nigerian-American Nneka Onuorah, focuses on men who live in ways that defy the prevailing norms, whether that’s dressing in women’s clothes, wearing makeup or dancing in high heels.

There are scenes of joy throughout the film — dancing and partying and sharing meals and hugs — but also sobering reminders of the price of not conforming.

James, a young man with a flare for feminine fashion and a large social media following, shows the scar where his aunt bit him on the eye, and screens full of death threats.

There are also emotional scars, no less real for the men rejected by their families.

One of the film’s key subjects, Micheal, says he was asked to leave home at 12 or 13 and lived on the streets for years, becoming infected with HIV.

He fled Nigeria in 2012 after a photo taken of him at an AIDS conference in Washington was seen online back home. When he returned, his apartment was ransacked and he was beaten until he passed out.

He settled in New York but still feels the pull of the country of his birth, returning in the doc to visit friends and meet with fellow activists.

There are signs of hope referenced — the striking out of charges last October against 47 men charged with public displays of same-sex affection at a party; country-wide protests that same month against police brutality — but there is clearly a long way to go.

Micheal continues his advocacy from the relative safety of New York, having founded the non-profit group GBGMC, but others try to effect change from inside Nigeria, including James, who expresses his wish to inspire billions of people with his videos and posts. 

“You have rights. Do you know why?” he asks. “Because you’re human.”

No Sudden Move (July 1, Crave)

Don Cheadle and Benicio Del Toro in “No Sudden Move.” PHOTO CREDIT: Courtesy of HBO Max

The main reason to watch this film from the prolific Steven Soderbergh is to see skilled actors practising their craft.

Don Cheadle leads the cast as Curtis Goynes, a hood just out of jail in 1954 Detroit who takes on what’s supposed to be an easy job for an unknown boss. He and Ronald Russo (Benicio Del Toro) are told to “babysit” a wife and two kids in a suburban home while Charley (Kieran Culkin, “Succession”) drives the husband, Matt (David Harbour of “Stranger Things”), to his office to steal documents from his boss’s safe.

Obviously things don’t go as planned — there wouldn’t be a film if they did — and a double cross sets the criminals for hire on the trail of whoever’s behind the job with the goal of enlarging their payout. And then the double crosses just keep on coming as Curt and Ronald put the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle together.

Other notables in the cast include Brendan Fraser, Jon Hamm, Matt Damon; Ray Liotta and Bill Duke as a pair of mob bosses, and the late Craig muMs Grant (“Oz”), who died in March of complications from diabetes.

There aren’t a lot of women in the flick, including Amy Seimetz as Matt’s wife; Julia Fox as a mob wife and Frankie Shaw as the secretary with whom Matt is having an affair, but at least they get some agency in relation to the men.

As for the documents at the centre of the action? They’re nowhere near as sexy as the targets in other Soderbergh heist movies like “Out of Sight” and “Ocean’s Eleven.” They’re plans for a piece of automotive technology, the significance of which is explained in a postscript about a real life anti-trust case against GM, Ford, Chrysler and American Motors in 1969.

If that seems a bit prosaic for a gangster film, well, my take on “No Sudden Move” is that it keeps the brain engaged but doesn’t really make the pulse quicken.

Crave also has “Intergalactic” (July 2), a series about a female cop in outer space (Savannah Steyn) wrongly convicted of a crime whose fellow prisoners stage a mutiny aboard a prison transport ship.

Staged (July 1, Hollywood Suite)

Michael Sheen and Anna Lundberg as themselves in Season 2 of “Staged.”
PHOTO CREDIT: Courtesy of Hollywood Suite

It’s no secret that success in showbiz can lead to excess, a truth proven by any number of wretched movie sequels and seasons of shows that have gone on too long.

Alas, “Staged” — a gem of a series that I loved first time around — has fallen into the trap of thinking more is more.

In its first iteration, Michael Sheen and David Tennant played pandemic versions of themselves, bored actors attempting to rehearse a play by Zoom but spending most of their time sniping at or commiserating with each other as their hair, and the lockdown, grew longer.

Clearly, this wasn’t a reality show, but its fly-on-the-wall vibe made it feel fresh and funny.

Alas, Season 2 feels too, well, staged. It’s gone meta with the premise that Season 1 of the show was enough of a hit in the U.K. for the greenlighting of an American remake, one that Sheen and Tennant aren’t welcome in because they’re not considered famous enough in the States. The pair spend most of the new episodes plotting to sabotage the recasting of their roles, but the series’ charm has decreased in inverse proportion to the growth of its guest stars (15 to the first season’s five) and episodes (eight instead of six).  

It still has its moments — mostly when Sheen and Tennant are onscreen alone together, although Phoebe Waller-Bridge and Cate Blanchett are also entertaining in Episode 7  — but the instalments feel long and overstuffed.  

And although the timing of its Hollywood Suite debut isn’t the show’s fault, it’s less appealing now to watch people boxed in by computer screens just when life in Canada is getting back to some semblance of normal. 

Hotel Paranormal, Season 2 (July 2, 9 p.m., T+E)

A scene from Season 2 of “Hotel Paranormal.” PHOTO CREDIT: Courtesy of Blue Ant Media

The closest I’ve come to staying in a haunted hotel was having dinner at the Angel Inn in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ont. I felt a sense of unease when I went downstairs to use the washroom and later learned guests had been seen ghosts there. If I’d encountered anything like the spirits in “Hotel Paranormal” I might have ditched my date and run screaming into the night.

The spectres in the show’s second season — at least the first episode, which is the only one I screened — bring more than unease; they seem downright terrifying, whether it’s a spirit trying to drive away the new owners of the Jefferson Hotel in Texas; the ghost of a sadistic prison warden in a Scottish hostelry; or the apparition of a very unhappy woman in an English hotel.

But if you love a ghost story you’ll enjoy these vignettes, which feature interviews with the hauntees and spooky re-enactments of the hauntings, whether or not you’re a true believer. Speaking of believers, “Ghostbuster” Dan Aykroyd, who comes from a long line of paranormal explorers, is back to narrate the show. I had a chance to chat with him for the Toronto Star and you can read the interview here.

Odds and Ends 

Director Questlove at a “Summer Of Soul” screening in Harlem in June.
PHOTO CREDIT: Roy Rochlin/Getty Images

Disney Plus has something that I believe, sight unseen, is definitely worth watching, “Summer of Soul (. . . Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised) (July 2), a documentary by Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson featuring previously unseen footage from the so-called “Black Woodstock,” the Harlem Cultural Festival of 1969. It includes performances by Stevie Wonder, Nina Simone, Sly & the Family Stone, Gladys Knight & the Pips and more. The film won the Grand Jury Prize and Audience Award at Sundance.  

I didn’t get an advance look at film “The Tomorrow War” (July 2, Amazon Prime Video), but it stars Chris Pratt (“Guardians of the Galaxy”) as a hot dad who has to travel to the future to fight a battle to save humankind.

Netflix has a bunch of new things out July 1 that I also didn’t get to screen. They include the Swedish drama “Young Royals,” a gay coming-of-age story about a prince; the Italian romantic drama “Generation 56K,” which shifts timelines between the present and 1998, when its protagonists were first introduced to the internet; and “Audible,” a documentary about a deaf high school football player. On July 2, the streamer has “Fear Street Part 1: 1994,” the first in a series of adaptations of the popular teenage horror novels of the ’90s and beyond.

Christine Baranski and Audra McDonald are back for Season 5 of “The Good Fight” (June 1, 9 p.m., W Network) and the partners are under pressure over Diane’s status as a white principal in a Black law firm.

If you’re a fan of gritty crime drama, morally ambiguous detectives and/or Idris Elba, then note that all four seasons of “Luther” are on BritBox July 1 (and are also viewable free on CBC Gem if you don’t mind the ads).

Watchable the week of June 21, 2021

June 21, 2021 /

SHOW OF THE WEEK: Epstein’s Shadow: Ghislaine Maxwell (June 25, Crave)

Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein in a poster image used at a news conference by the acting U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York. PHOTO CREDIT: John Minchillo/AP file photo

A Toronto filmmaker, Barbara Shearer, made this three-part docuseries about the woman accused of procuring young victims for notorious sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, and it’s a fascinating and horrifying tale.

Epstein died in 2019, his death ruled a suicide, although there are still some who theorize he was murdered to hide the identities of famous and powerful men who shared his taste for sex with teenagers.

Maxwell is currently in a Brooklyn jail awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges — a far cry from the life of luxury she lived as daughter of notorious U.K. newspaper magnate Robert Maxwell. Her father figures largely in Shearer’s portrait of Ghislaine, a 59-year-old, Oxford-educated, one-time British socialite.

More than one of the former friends and acquaintances interviewed in the series suggests the key to Maxwell’s identity lies in her relationship as a “daddy’s girl” to a demanding, terrifying father and that, when Robert died under mysterious circumstances in 1991, Epstein took his place as a father figure.

The doc also gives credence to that famous quote about the rich being “different from you and me.” In the milieu of enormous wealth and privilege that Maxwell grew up in, rules were for other people, as one interviewee notes. One gets the sense of billionaire Epstein ordering up schoolgirls to defile as casually as a meal or a bottle of Champagne.

But why would Maxwell, who’s accused of acting as a madam for Epstein —procuring girls from places like the New York Academy of Art and Central Park, or Mar-a-Lago when she and Epstein were in Palm Springs — take part in such vile debauchery? Speculation about daddy issues and codependency aside, no one can really say.

Maxwell refused to be interviewed for the series and her case won’t come to trial until November.

When it does, some observers believe Maxwell’s defence will be that she was just another victim of Epstein’s, but that strikes me as an inherently sexist view and also an offensive one. If Maxwell is guilty, surely she exercised some free will in what she did. It’s as hard to picture her as a victim as it was to view Karla Homolka as a victim of her serial killer and rapist husband, Paul Bernardo.

There is another entity painted in a damning light in “Epstein’s Shadow”: a justice system that treats the rich differently than other people. Epstein was given a slap on the wrist in 2008 despite copious evidence of his sexual activity with underage girls uncovered by police in Palm Beach. It wasn’t until 2019 that he was arrested on multiple sex trafficking charges after a Miami Herald investigation embarrassed the FBI into taking action.

Some believe the case against Maxwell will never make it to open court, either because she’ll be killed in jail or because she’ll be given a deal to prevent her giving evidence against public figures who were part of Epstein’s sordid world.

From Earth to Sky (June 21, 9 p.m., TVO/TVO.org)

Douglas Cardinal is one of the Indigenous architects featured in “From Earth to Sky.”
PHOTO CREDIT: Chapman Productions/TVO

On Monday, National Indigenous Peoples Day in Canada, attention will still naturally be focused on atrocities of the past, particularly the 215 children found buried at a former residential school site in Kamloops, B.C, but this documentary film offers a narrative of inspiration and hope without minimizing the pain of what came before.

In 2017, Toronto musician and concert promoter turned filmmaker Ron Chapman met Indigenous North American architects who were preparing an installation for the 2018 Venice Biennale. That lit the spark of “From Earth to Sky,” in which seven of those architects are profiled.

The film begins with Douglas Cardinal, who’s Siksika from the Blackfoot Nation in Calgary and credited as the the first Indigenous architect in Canada, if not North America. Among his buildings are the Canadian Museum of History and the National Museum of the American Indian, part of the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C. Not bad for someone who was told as a student it would be impossible for him to become an architect.

Also included in the doc are the first female Indigenous architect in America, Tammy Eagle Bull of Oglala Lakota Nation in South Dakota; Wanda Dalla Costa of Saddle Lake First Nation in Alberta; Alfred Waugh, who’s Chipweyan from the Fond du Lac Band in Saskatchewan; Brian Porter of the Six Nations of the Grand River in Ontario; Daniel Glenn of the Crow Nation in Montana; and Patrick Stewart of the Nisga’a Nation in British Columbia.

All of them have faced obstacles that white architects wouldn’t have to surmount. Cardinal is a residential school survivor; others have endured the generational trauma of residential schools and other fallout of colonialism. But there is an optimism in their work: a pride in traditions and hopefulness for the future that is expressed in the beauty and purpose of what they create.

Common themes emerge as the subjects discuss their practices: involving the communities the buildings will serve in the planning; incorporating traditional Indigenous designs and values in the construction; respecting the natural environment.

For Cardinal, these are practices that can benefit architecture as a whole, especially in the face of global warming.

“The Indigenous teachings can be the foundation for replanning and redesigning our cities,” he says. “We have the responsibility of set(ting) an example not only to our own nations, ultimately to the world as a whole.”

Short Takes

From left, Donald MacLean Jr., Sandy Sidhu, Jordan Johnson-Hinds, Natasha Calis and Tiera Skovbye
in Season 2 of “Nurses.” PHOTO CREDIT: Courtesy of Corus Entertainment

Nurses (June 21, 9 p.m., Global TV/StackTV)

The conceit of this Canadian drama is that it’s about, yes, nurses, rather than the doctors who are the usual heroes of medical dramas. Let’s not pretend it’s reinventing the wheel; the beats will be familiar to anyone who regularly consumes medical shows as the five lead cast members juggle patient care with personal issues and romantic entanglements. But they’re a generally likeable crew and you get to see familiar Canadian actors guest-starring as patients, including Jean Yoon of “Kim’s Convenience” in the first episode of the new season. A couple of new regulars join the cast, including Rachael Ancheril (“Rookie Blue,” “Killjoys”) as new boss Kate Faulkner and Jordan Connor (“Riverdale”) as nurse Matteo Rey, a potential love interest for Grace (Skovbye).

A teenaged Michelle McNamara as seen in a new special episode of “I’ll Be Gone in the Dark.”
PHOTO CREDIT: Courtesy of HBO

I’ll Be Gone in the Dark (June 21, 10 p.m., HBO/Crave)

This special episode of the popular true crime series is a postscript of sorts. It deals with the 2020 sentencing of Joseph DeAngelo, the Golden State Killer — whose identity writer Michelle McNamara relentlessly chased before her death in 2016 — and the victims finally venting their fury directly to the man whose rapes and murders irreparably altered their lives. That story is woven together with the one that set McNamara on her lifelong true crime obsession: the unsolved murder of Kathleen Lombardo in Oak Park, Ill., in August 1984. But the fact that killing is still unsolved, along with the possibly related stabbing of a neighbour of Kathleen’s who survived, Grace Puccetti, leaves the viewer without a sense of catharsis and makes the whole episode an awkward addition to the original series.

Odds and Ends

Adam Demos and Sarah Shahi in “Sex/Life.” PHOTO CREDIT: Amanda Matlovich/Netflix

I have seen a couple of episodes of the new Netflix drama “Sex/Life” (June 25), but reviews are embargoed so I’m not allowed to tell you what I think of them. It stars Sarah Shahi (“The L Word,” “Person of Interest”) as a wife and mother of two with a seemingly picture perfect life who suddenly starts lusting after her bad boy ex (Adam Demos, “UnREAL”).

Honestly, I think Helen Mirren could make reciting the phone book sound interesting, but I’ll have to reserve judgment on “When Nature Calls With Helen Mirren” (June 24, 8 p.m., Global TV) since I haven’t seen it yet and it looks kind of dumb in the trailer. Mirren narrates the “unscripted comedy,” in which humans give voice to animals.

Also arriving on June 25 is Season 7 of “Bosch” (Amazon Prime Video). Alas, the screeners I requested never materialized, but I recommend it on the strength of the other six seasons and the excellence of Titus Welliver in the title role. Amazon also has “September Mornings” (June 25), a Brazilian drama about a transgender woman whose new life is complicated when she learns she fathered a son in her previous life.

Disney Plus has “The Mysterious Benedict Society” (June 25), based on the kids’ books by Trenton Lee Stewart, about a group of orphaned children recruited for a secret mission inside a boarding school. Tony Hale (“Veep,” “Arrested Development”) stars as Mr. Benedict.

NOTE: The dates and times listed here reflect information provided to me and cross-checked where possible against broadcast and streaming schedules, but it’s always best to check listings for your own area. The selection of programs reviewed reflects what I’m given access to by networks and streamers, whether reviews are embargoed, how many shows I have time to watch and my own personal taste.

Watchable the week of May 31, 2021

May 31, 2021 /

SHOW OF THE WEEK: Sweet Tooth (June 4, Netflix)

Christian Convery as Gus in “Sweet Tooth.” PHOTO CREDIT: Kirsty Griffin/Netflix

Up until I watched “Sweet Tooth” I wouldn’t have thought a dystopian drama could be heartwarming, but this series based on the Jeff Lemire comic books is one of the most moving shows I’ve seen.

It’s not that there isn’t darkness here; the story is, after all, set 10 years after a virus has laid waste to the world as we know it, so there’s death and fear, cruelty and ignorance, but also goodness and innocence and, yes, sweetness and hope.

Most of that is down to the title character, a boy named Gus who’s part human and part deer, nicknamed Sweet Tooth for his love of candy. And he’s not the only hybrid, the term for children who began to be born with the physical features of animals at the same time the virus emerged. But Gus was raised in isolation so, when he finally emerges into what’s left of the world, he’s a naif: able to fend for himself in a practical sense but with no real idea of just how dangerous humans can be.

His protector and his teacher in that regard, reluctantly so, is a jaded ex-football player named Tommy Jepperd (Nonso Anozie) who has just enough humanity left in him not to turn his back on Gus.

There are others who seek to protect the hybrids, including an orphaned young woman who calls herself Bear (Stefania LaVie Owen) and Aimee (Dania Ramirez), a former therapist who has set up a sanctuary for hybrids at an abandoned zoo. But they’re up against a paramilitary force known as the Last Men who are intent on wiping out the hybrids, whom some blame for causing the virus.

The other key character is Dr. Singh (Adeel Akhtar), whose only concern is keeping his sick wife alive and her condition hidden from nosy and potentially murderous neighbours.

These character strands are pursued separately at first, but it’s obvious they’ll eventually be pulled into Gus’s orbit, which is a good thing. The series is at its best whenever Gus is onscreen. He is truly the heart of the story, and the casting gods were smiling on the production team (which includes actor Robert Downey Jr. and his wife Susan as executive producers, and Jim Mickle as showrunner and director) when they found Christian Convery to play him.

The young Canadian actor perfectly embodies Gus’s guileless innocence and his persistent faith that things will work out, even when everything around him suggests otherwise.

On the face of it, a postapocalyptic drama might not seem like the optimal entertainment for a pandemic-weary world, but “Sweet Tooth” reminds us of the human capacity for good even at the worst of times.

Netflix also has Season 2 of “Feel Good,” debuting May 28, the dramedy in which Canadian comedian Mae Martin plays a fictionalized version of herself. As the season begins, Mae returns to Canada and to rehab, leaving George (Charlotte Ritchie) behind in London.

Tulsa: The Fire and the Forgotten (May 31, 9 p.m., PBS)

Forensic archeologists excavate a suspected mass grave at Tulsa’s Oaklawn Cemetery in October 2020 in “Tulsa: The Fire and the Forgotten.” PHOTO CREDIT: Courtesy Jonathan Silvers/Saybrook Productions

Monday is Memorial Day in the U.S., which honours that country’s military. It’s also the 100th anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre, a confluence that lends a certain irony given that members of the National Guard were reportedly present when a white mob razed a Black neighbourhood in Tulsa, Oklahoma, from May 31 to June 1, 1921, murdering as many as 300 Black citizens, leaving thousands more homeless.

If you don’t know anything about the massacre, you’re not alone. This doc makes the point that even some Tulsa residents didn’t know about it until fairly recently. I personally had never heard of it before viewing the 2019 fantasy series “Watchmen.” 

But this film, directed by Jonathan Silvers and produced by Washington Post reporter DeNeen L. Brown, both recounts the history of the atrocity and draws a line from it to ongoing anti-Black racism, not just physical violence but mental, emotional and economic oppression of Black communities.

At the time, Tulsa’s Greenwood area was a thriving neighbourhood, known as the Black Wall Street for its wealth. In just 16 hours more than 35 square blocks were destroyed, a tragedy that was blamed on its victims. 

It began after a young Black man was falsely accused of assaulting a white woman in an elevator and other Black men went to the city’s jail, some with guns, to protect him from being lynched by the crowd of white men that had gathered. After a melee broke out and the Black men fled back to Greenwood, the attack began. 

The white mob was unimpeded by the city’s police, some of them even deputized by the force. None of those men, some of whom can be seen proudly posing in photographs, were ever held accountable.

And the story of what’s called one of the worst incidents of racial violence in U.S. history is still being written: the legal fight for reparations to survivors and descendants of victims is ongoing; and this summer, bodies that might belong to massacre victims will be exhumed from a mass grave in a city cemetery. 

Girls5eva (June 3, 9 p.m., W Network)

Paula Pell, Sara Bareilles, Renée Elise Goldsberry and Busy Philipps in “Girls5eva.”
PHOTO CREDIT: Heidi Gutman/Peacock)

Think of “Girls5eva” as the TV equivalent of a pop song: fun, a little frothy and catchy enough to get stuck in your head.

The latest from executive producers Tina Fey and Robert Carlock (“30 Rock”), created by Meredith Scardino, a writer on Fey’s and Carlock’s “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt,” “Girls5eva” lampoons 1990s and early 2000s girl groups, and the sexism and commercialism surrounding them. 

The group of the title is sort of a New York version of the Spice Girls . . . if the Spice Girls faded into obscurity after one hit.

When hip-hop star Lil Stinker (Jeremiah Craft) samples that hit, “Famous 5eva” (cuz 4eva’s too short), the four surviving “girls” get booked to back Stinker on “The Tonight Show,” leading to dreams of renewed stardom.

Easier said than done, of course, for a group of 40somethings in an industry in which, as their sleazy former manager Larry (Jonathan Hadary) says, “For ladies, 35 is checkout time. That’s a quote from our greatest president.” (The point is made in an even  funnier way by legendary producer Alf Musik, played by Stephen Colbert, who writes Girls5Eva a song called “Invisible Woman.”)

But “chill one” Dawn (Sara Bareilles), “hot one” Summer (Busy Philipps), “fierce one” Wickie (Renee Elise Goldsberry) and gay one Gloria (Paula Pell) persevere through others’ indifference and their own self-doubt, learning to write their own songs (with the help of a fantasy Dolly Parton, played by Fey) and to think outside the boxes they were put in by the music biz.

The first season culminates in a snatched moment of glory that is preposterous, predictable and emotionally satisfying all at once.

It took me a few episodes to warm up to “Girls5eva” but, once I did, I was fully invested in the group making good, even narcissistic Wickie (Goldsberry), who gets the best lines.

Speaking of lines, the jokes fly by fast so best pay attention. Same goes for the clever lyrics of the songs, written mainly by Scardino and composer Jeff Richmond, with real life singer/songwriter Bareilles pitching in on a couple of them. (My favourite, though it’s not a Girls5eva tune, is “New York Lonely Boy,” which pokes fun at Gen X parents and their fedora-wearing, sushi-eating only children: “The Strand is his Disneyland.”)

“Girls5eva” isn’t particularly deep or envelope-pushing but, like an earworm, it doesn’t have to be to grab your attention.

Short Takes

Mary Galloway and Kaitlyn Yott as Abe and Daka in “Querencia.” PHOTO CREDIT: APTN lumi

Querencia (June 1, 11 p.m., APTN lumi)

This is the first original series for APTN lumi, the streaming service of the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network. It’s about the relationship between two Indigenous queer women, winningly played by series creator and director Mary Galloway and Kaitlyn Yott. Daka (Yott) has come to Vancouver to try her luck as a dancer, despite her misgivings and those of her family. Abe (Galloway), a musician, has been on her own for a while and, unlike Yott, is out of touch with her Indigenous traditions. A misunderstanding on the part of Daka’s new roommate brings them together, even though Daka has previously identified as straight, and a spark is struck. The series, a clear-eyed and compassionate look at two young women growing into the people they want to be, will be part of the Inside Out Festival, screening virtually beginning June 2 at noon. There will also be a premiere event June 1 hosted by imagineNATIVE with musical performances and a Q&A.

Ballerina Boys (June 4, 9 p.m., PBS)

Josh Thake, left, and Duane Gosa perform with Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo.
PHOTO CREDIT: Laura Nespola/Courtesy of Merrywidow Films LLC

Anything that brings together the art forms of ballet and drag seems like a good thing to me, which would seem to be proven by the fact Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo has been in existence for some 47 years. This documentary, a Pride Month offering from PBS’s “American Masters,” makes it clear that behind the comedic aspect of men in tutus with faux Russian names there is serious discipline and respect for ballet tradition. Started in New York in the years following the Stonewall riots as “kind of a lark,” in the words of co-founder Peter Anastos, the Trocks grew into a genuine ballet company, one that tours all over the world when it’s not locked down. Despite early disapproval by what Anastos calls “the muckety muck dance establishment,” the company persevered, quite a feat in the ’90s when it lost half its dancers to AIDS. It brings ballet to audiences who wouldn’t know a plie from a pirouette, and to places that aren’t exactly gay-friendly. And it’s clear the dancers love what they do, despite the pain of pointe shoes; they talk in the doc about how performing in drag makes them feel like themselves. The film ends fittingly with a 2019 performance in Central Park of George Balanchine’s “Stars and Stripes” commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riots.

Odds and Ends

I didn’t get an advance look at “Lisey’s Story” (June 4), the Apple TV Plus series that Stephen King adapted from his own novel, although reviews I’ve read suggest that’s not a bad thing. You’ll have to judge for yourself. The cast is certainly top notch, including Julianne Moore, Clive Owen, Joan Allen and Jennifer Jason Leigh.

Amazon debuts “Dom” (June 4), a crime series based in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and based on a true story about a man who’s part of the drug trade and his police officer father.

The Smithsonian Channel has the original series “Searching for Secrets” (June 6), which digs into hidden history in “the world’s most iconic cities.” The list includes New York, London, San Francisco, Berlin, Paris and Singapore. Sorry Toronto.

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