My Brilliant Friend (2018-24)

My Brilliant Friend has consistently been one of the best shows on TV. But it hasn't gotten so much attention stateside being in Italian. I think Americans are getting more accustomed to watching subtitled content. But I think that's kind of the Netflix effect pushing the content via algorithm. Outside of Netflix, if you have to look for the content yourself, people are not seeking it out. And it's a shame because there's a uniquely Italian story here that's quite beautiful. It's shamelessly melodramatic in a way that I think is more acceptable abroad. You might call it soapy in America, but we're getting more of that in our prestige content too. It's deeply felt, passionate, aided by Max Richter's extraordinary score and the striking cinematography. 

It's a story of epic proportions, spanning decades in the lives of two friends. It's about their lifelong friendship, with all the complications that come with two competitive women. And at its heart there is a story about the power of education in a poor and dangerous community.  The intellectual circle and the mafia circle often intersect. We watch the whole community grow old. As kids they may have been enemies, and as adults they may still hate each other but their lives are so intertwined nonetheless. Beautiful show.

Loki (2021-3)

The Marvel universe has gotten unwieldy.  In the early years, they used to be pretty good at making standalone movies. But now they've started making TV shows too, it's all so interconnected. Season 1 was actually pretty decent. But I did not follow a single plot point in Season 2. Single season contained shows is the sweet spot for Marvel. There's too much happening in between seasons. 

The Time Variance Authority is not named accidentally. The acronym TVA recalls the New Deal Tennessee Valley Authority program. The design of the TVA evokes the FDR era. The production design is the best part of the show. That and Owen Wilson playing his usual self. Ke Huy Quan is fun too. I don't know if I completely buy into the message of the show either. We're made to believe that the sacred timeline is the inherently correct one. But the fact that there are branches suggests that to be untrue. And I think I had other problems with it back at season one but I don't really remember now.

The Roommate (2024) (Broadway)

I thoroughly enjoyed The Roommate, starring Mia Farrow and Patti Lupone as two semi-estranged mothers who move-in together in Iowa. It's a two-hander featuring two big older women stars that do their thing. Mia Farrow plays a delightfully naive country bumpkin. Patti Lupone moves in from The Bronx and introduces her new roommate to veganism...and drugs. Patti basically plays her curmudgeonly self (sadly she doesn't sing). Her lines aren't exactly comedic out of context but she delivers them so matter-of-fact they elicit laughs. The two of them are actually friends in real life, and they look like they're having fun up there. Notably mom audibly laughed multiple times so you know it's genuinely funny. 

I would be remiss if I didn't mention the spat Patti Lupone had with Hell's Kitchen at the theater next door. She said it was too loud. It might actually have been a racialized comment. And the music might actually be too loud. And Patti Lupone is kind of known for being a diva that is also right for saying out loud what other people are thinking. Good fences make good neighbors and all that. For the record, we did not hear any Hell's Kitchen from out seats in the Booth Theater. But if a quiet little play without mics needs to compete with Empire State of Mind mic-ed up, I could see how that might be distracting.

Cult of Love (2024) (Broadway)

I had no expectations for Cult of Love, a stressful Christmas eve family drama. I had no idea what it was about. I got this ticket on Culture Pass simply because I saw Shailene Woodley and Zachary Quinto were in it. Little did I know the rest of the cast were also very good and some recognizable: Mare Winningham, David Rasche from Succession, and Barbie Ferreira from Euphoria. And I was very pleasantly surprised at the very engaging play that also features a number of songs, Christmas carols sung by the cast in four-part harmony as well as played on instruments played on stage by the actors (banjo, drums, piano, tambourine, etc.). The cast are not all known for singing but they sing valiantly in harmony. They're a convincing dysfunctional family who learned to sing as kids in church. The plot unfolds slowly and deliberately, secrets withheld until they're released at a time to land most dramatically on the audience. There are themes of mental illness, religiosity, drug addiction, bigotry and family. It deals with heavy themes with some levity.The playwright Leslye Headland has written a cycle of plays about the Seven Deadly Sins; this one is about pride. I don't think it's obvious, not necessarily the most prominent theme. But pride in a religious sense is about putting oneself above God. And I guess they all kind of do that, not least the would-be prophet. But I think in another sense, the four children have a pride represented by a burden they feel to their family; and they each feel like they must be the bigger person to take it upon themselves because the other kids are negligent. It's not exactly pride but it blinds them nonetheless from having relationships with their siblings. And we have to mention the casting of Shailene Woodley, the biggest star in the cast, who has a reputation that precedes her that she kind of leans into by playing this character. She is a would-be cult leader who is mentally ill but presents as an ultra-religious nutjob who is compelled to say awful things to her family. They're stunning zingers that either silence the audience or induce audible gasps. But don't we love to be shocked. 

McNeal (2024) (Broadway)

In Robert Downey Jr.'s Broadway debut, he plays a writer using AI to write his new book. There's a confusing meta plot where he may be writing the play that we're watching unfold before our eyes. It's fine but the gimmick about AI isn't really saying anything new or meaningful about AI. And I bet AI technology improves so much over the next couple years that this will quickly feel outdated. And it's just kind of boring. I did fall asleep a bit in the scene at the agent's office. It's really unfortunate because I like Andrea Martin a lot. She's so funny but I missed half her scene and don't know if she landed any jokes.

There is a plot in here that is very similar to The Wife. McNeal wins the Nobel Prize in literature but he might have sold his wife's writing as his own. Or he might've adapted her story into his own, and does that make it his? There's some gender politics thrown in there. And much to everyone's surprise, he says multiple times that he admires Harvey Weinstein. Just wasn't on my bingo card this year. The character though is very much Iron Man. Robert Down Jr basically plays the same character, and I bet that's why he was cast. He's a macho man who is successful and brazen, fast-talking, generally dismissive of other people--not exactly likeable but on some level respectable? That plays out in real time to as his profiler from the newspaper starts our repulsed but is slowly converted to write a piece about him that's just about as good as it was going to get based on the garbage he's spewing at her.

The set was pretty cool. The sets at Lincoln Center Theater are always handsomely made. It makes use of screens to display the AI. There are some deepfakes that don't really add anything to the story.

Yellow Face (2024) (Broadway)

We came for Daniel Dae Kim and was pleasantly surprised when Ryan Eggold from The Blacklist and New Amsterdam came on stage. I thought he looked familiar but I couldn't quite place him. I thought he might've just been a generic looking white guy they cast. Alas he was but a famous one at that. Funnily, he plays a macho white guy pretending to be Asian. The plot is hilarious with some genuine laughs. It cleverly blurs the line between reality and fiction, drawing from David Henry Hwang's own life. I love that meta plot. David and his father are two of the main characters. Francis Jue reprises his role as the father from the Off-Broadway run in 2007. Some 15 years later, Jue is older, perhaps a more convincing elderly Chinese father. I thought he was excellent. I saw Jue play Hwang himself in Soft Power a few years ago. I think time has probably served this play well. The thorny topics the play tackles are more germane now than ever in a post-Crazy Rich Asians, post-#OscarsSoWhite, post-Shang-Chi, post-Hamilton world. The play does need a lot of background context on Hwang's life. The small cast of seven feature actors who play multiple parts without regard to race or gender, while commenting hilariously on race-conscious casting. They recite lines from real (or we're at least led to believe they're real) articles to place us in context. It's a bit of a cheap conceit but it works. We enjoyed this very much! Lastly, the curtain call was super short. The small cast took their bows and they were off the stage in probably a minute, definitely no more than two. And it's not because the audience wasn't applauding. They were just really brief.
 

Ripley (2024)

The Steven Zaillian miniseries adaptation of The Talented Mr. Ripley is stunning. Shot in crisp black and white, it looks unlike anything else Netflix has ever made. Cinematography Robert Elswit deserves his Emmy for this. He has an Oscar for There Will Be Blood, and was nominated for another black-and-white project Good Night, and Good Luck. Zaillian also won an Emmy for directing. He does an incredible job at building suspense. The interesting shots and the mise-en-scene say so much without words. And the production design (and location scouting) is phenomenal. From episode 1 in 1960s New York to Roma and Atrani and Napoli and Palermo and Venezia, we are completely transported.  Those palazzi are to die for. The old American Express travel offices take you to a past when international travel was limited to the wealthy--who knew all the random services they used to offer!

I like the Anthony Minghella adaptation, but this is arguably better, perhaps with the lone exception of Dickie and Marge. I don't think Johnny Flynn nor Dakota Fanning are very compelling. They don't ooze the pretty boy allure of Jude Law. Andrew Scott makes the Ripley character his own. His Italian is very passable. I watched the first 6 episodes without subtitles, not realizing that there should've been subtitles. I thought I was supposed to be in Ripley's head not understanding the language, but as his Italian got a lot better, the subtitles still weren't appearing. I actually understood probably 75% of the Italian anyways; I at least got the gist of it. It wasn't until episode 6, which is almost entirely in Italian, that started to get more complex for my skill level. The real standout for me is Maurizio Lombardi, who plays Inspector Ravini. His Italian-accented English is so good. And his Italian is spoken so clearly, I could follow everything he was saying.

I think this version sort of de-emphasizes the themes of homosexuality and class and race. And I don't mind that. This is just a totally different standalone adaptation. It's slow, dragging out for 8 episodes whereas the movie runs just over 2 hours. It luxuriates in its slowness, building suspense and allowing all the consequences to unfold. It's funny at times, though subtle. And though it went over my head a little at first, I liked the Caravaggio analogy. His signature chiaroscuro is a clear inspiration for the look of the show.