Treme (2010-3)

David Simon paints an exquisite portrait of New Orleans post-Katrina, showcasing New Orleans culture of music, food, corruption and of course Mardi Gras.  I admit that I now have a much better appreciation for jazz, both traditional and modern. The show and city are filled with music; my favorite scenes featured Delmond's modern jazz trumpet.  My least favorite music came in Davis's strange punk-jazz-folk-opera concoctions; he also does not have a very pleasing singing voice.  I also was not a big fan of Annie's French-folk fiddle.  Really, I did not enjoy the non-Jazz genres.

The show tackles lots of prevalent issues that arose in the aftermath of the 2005 hurricane.  A recurring theme was police corruption and the frustration of civil rights lawyer Toni Bernette and clean cop Terry Colson over the lack of accountability.  Our character of interest was Nelson Hidalgo, a well-connected, money-hungry, neoliberal, professional schmoozer "carpetbagger venture capitalist" from Texas.  He makes a ton of money (from the government) in the demolition and rebuilding efforts of the city, but nothing ever actually gets done.  The Jazz Center that was his focus for much of the final two seasons never gets off the ground.  And by the series end, he packs up and leaves New Orlenas for good, moving on to Galveston devastated by Ike to run a similar scheme and make a second fortune.

Simon has a very interesting manner of narrative storytelling.  There is arguably no main character in the series (New Orleans itself is the protagonist, so to speak, omnipresent and never changing).  There are several characters with independent, sometimes intersecting story lines.  The scenes alternate between characters, such that we never get a full story till the end of the season.  Of course, some characters have more interesting plot lines than others and some you just dread seeing on screen.  Because of the slow pace, you really have to be committed to watching the whole season lest the story just unravel too slowly.  It picks up a little in season two, but the third season was a bit of a lull.  The final season gives a fitting farewell to everyone.  The final season was nominated for the Emmy for Outstanding Miniseries after the Miniseries/TV Movie split.    

Wild (2014)

This movie features a whole lot of hiking.   Hiking is a very slow sport.  To make matters worse, Reese Witherspoon is hiking in the middle of nowhere up the Pacific Crest Trail.  So for starters, this was not really my type of movie.  But I can appreciate what hiking means for Witherspoon's character Cheryl Strayed, whose memoir this movie is based on.  Hiking has a regenerative power.  She is giving herself new life and accomplishing a massive feat to prove that she can make it on her own.

The narrative is told with a lot of narration and time jumping, so to speak. I imagine the narrations giving us first-person insight into her thoughts are reflective of the story's origin in a book.  Strayed's hike is linear, but there are many flashbacks interspersed in the movie.  These are powerful memories, that don't only cause her to remember but take Strayed back emotionally.  She is emotive, expressing fear and frustration and moments of bliss.  Reese Witherspoon gives a gritty performance as the solo hiker. We see her anguish and her perpetual pain out in the desert.   Laura Dern, too, as Strayed's optimistic mother is good in the few scenes that she's in.