Showtime

Recent reviews: ‘The Affair,’ ‘Kingdom’ and ‘Left Behind’

DG Creations, movie review, Movies, Reviews, Screening of Life, TheWrap, TV, Writing

review-trio-affair-kingdom-left-behind

I recently reviewed “Left Behind,” “The Affair,” and “Kingdom” for TheWrap. Much to my surprise, I most liked “Kingdom.”

Yes, it’s drenched in machismo and more than slightly misogynistic. But creator Byron Balasco has created a believable world of characters that circle around a Venice beach mixed martial arts gym. The first episode pummels viewers, but things ease up in subsequent episodes, and the DirecTV show’s better for it. Nick Jonas holds his own in a cast including Frank Grillo and Matt Lauria.

Read more here.

I was ready to like “The Affair” — beach settings! pay cable relationship drama! — but alas, I was far from smitten with the premiere. Biggest issue: the extramarital dalliance at its center seems awfully familiar. Oh geeze, another seemingly happy married man just can’t resist a weepy woman from a lower socio-economic bracket. How midlife crisis of him.

The Showtime series is indeed full of pretty beach scenes — it’s set in Montauk, Long Island — and has an intriguing he said/she said set-up, but so far the main characters just aren’t likeable enough to warrant a major commitment. I’ll check back, but am not overly optimistic that it will win a place in my cranky heart.

My review is here.

“Left Behind,” meanwhile, should have stayed a direct to video movie. The Rapture disaster reboot starring Nicolas Cage is didactic, and verging on parody. Production values: Not good.

More here.

 

Homeland Episode 401 with Claire Danes as Carrie Mathison

‘Homeland’ is back – and I’m on board

DG Creations, Reviews, Screening of Life, TV, Writing

True confession time: I have tried intermittently to get into “Homeland” since its debut, but never could. Too political or too something. In any case, not for me.

Until now. The first two episodes of Season 4, both airing tonight, had me on the edge of my seat. It was like a much better version of “Zero Dark Thirty” from an early episode bombing strike onward.

And Claire Danes, who will always have a place in my heart as Angela in “My So Called Life,” is riveting as Carrie Mathison. Maternity has not softened the CIA operative; she is as complex and devoted to her work as ever.

When her boss (playwright Tracy Letts!) inquires about the mental well being of another operative (Rupert Friend’s Quinn) fresh from the field, Danes’ Carrie urges understanding.

“Give him some time – he was right in the middle of it,” she responds.

“Yeah,” her boss says, “so were you.”

But Carrie isn’t like everyone else, as surely everyone knows by now. People keep asking the Drone Queen whether she’s ever troubled when tactics go wrong, and she deflects.

“I try to see the big picture – the mission,” she responds after one such inquiry.

“Homeland” took some knocks last season, which saw the death of Damian Lewis’ turncoat officer Nick Brody, the father of Carrie’s child. Whether or not disappointed fans will be ready to see the larger creative picture is up to them.

I just know I’m completely on board.

“Homeland” Season 4 debuts on Showtime at 8 p.m. ET/PT

So much for the land of the ‘Free’

DG Creations, HBO, networks, recession, TV, Writing

freecoverLatest blow to Chris Anderson’s argument that Free stuff always prevails — feevee subs are continuing to hold their own in this wretched economy, despite more cost free alternatives than ever. HBO and Showtime execs proudly touted this fact at the TV press tour last week, just days after Anderson’s grumpy interview with Germany’s Spiegel went viral.

Among the bon mots in that interview: “Free is the force of gravity.”

Don’t get it? Let him explain: “If we decide to resist it then somebody else will compete with something that is free. The marketplace follows the underlying economics. You can be free or you can compete with free.”

He then argues that Wall Street Journal “cleverly” uses free content to convert people to paid content — a variation of his argument in the book that HBO uses free content on YouTube to drive subscriptions. Neither tracks. People subscribe to HBO and the Wall Street Journal because they value the quality of the content. Other outlets haven’t been able to succeed with the same argument, but that doesn’t diminish either the WSJ or HBO’s achievement: Sometimes consumers ARE willing to pay, other times they aren’t. In fact, as The Wrap points out, feevee channels are doing well at a time when broadcast nets are struggling.

Sheesh.

Earlier: Glad she asked: ‘Free’ prodder; ‘Free’: A paradox of expediency