STREAMING/BINGING
and what’s left of Network Television
Rooster – 10
Forgive me for the lateness of this blog, but this is the time of year I get involved in this magical thing called Jazz Fest, as well as obsess over a certain baseball team. A couple of hundred pitches a night cuts into your time...
HBO’s Rooster is what I call a gentle comedy, the kind I love. The laughs are knowing chuckles rather than belly laughs, and I’m enthralled with each character. Steve Carell stars as Greg, a successful author who takes a writer residency at a New England college to be close to his daughter, Katie, a teacher there. Played by Charley Clive she has split with her husband, also a teacher. Archie is played by Phil Dunster, of Ted Lasso fame, and he has gotten one of his students pregnant. There are wonderful supporting characters, and I can see them all going on to be stars.
I recently saw one of those lists that populate the
internet. It was the top 100 situation
comedies of all time. The one that I
would pick as the best of all time, the Bob Newhart Show, didn’t even crack the
top 100. So, it was ridiculous, at least
to me. The Bob Newhart Show was just
such a gentle comedy, with great quirky characters, whom we fell in love with
over the run of the series. It was the
least acclaimed of the power line-up on CBS Saturday Night that I think
included, at least 1973-74, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, MASH, All in the Family,
and The Carol Burnett Show. Legendary,
to say the least.
Here’s a little
trivia. Jay Tarses (and half of the
comedy team Patchett and Tarses) was an executive producer of The Bob Newhart
Show, and his son Matt Tarses is a producer on Rooster. This makes me the only living person not
named Tarses who knows this. (And now you know.) Talk about
nerdy. I once met a guy with the last
name Tarses and regaled him my knowledge of his family and he looked like he
had been struck by lightning. I even have a reel to reel somewhere of a
Patchett and Tarses sketch, because I used to tape such things, rather than do things like, well, leave the house. They both
went on to be successful show creators.
I’m crazy about The Bob Newhart Show and I bet I’ve watched it all the
way through at least 3 times. If you
want to see how good TV can be, work your way through the series. Gently.
Check out Rooster for some low-key comedy. Like most stuff on the screen, you'll like it, or you won't. Blame me if you don't.
MOVIES
Apex – 7
Charlize Theron plays Sasha, an insatiable thrill seeker in this thrilling, but cliche ridled Netflix movie.
Unfortunately, the opening includes some
crazy mountain climbing and since I don’t like heights, I think it was
realistic and exciting, but I looked away a lot. The camera is the star as the scenery is
amazing as Sasha bounces from continent to continent until she runs into a
serial killer. While it’s exciting, the
movie kind of falls apart when she hits the movie cliché section of the
story. First, her tormenter is one of
those guys who covers ground amazingly well, keeping up with her while she goes
breakneck speed. Then, the same
tormentor clearly drowns but comes back to life. Sure.
And finally, Sasha gets the upper hand, but doesn’t finish him off, a
real movie standard. If I’ve said it once,
I’ve said it a million times…”kill him.”
But she doesn’t so he again pops back to life. Life in the movies.
The Founder – 8
Michael Keaton plays the relentless visionary Ray Kroc, who developed McDonalds
into the preeminent franchise in the world.
This tells most of the story, how Kroc convinced the McDonald brothers
to let him franchise their concepts from their successful San Bernadino walk-up
restaurant. Kroc was pretty ruthless as
he gradually took the reins from the brothers.
It’s not a pleasant story but it’s a real one. Success in America isn't always pretty, even when the girl is.
