Phyllis McGuire 1931-2020

 

Pierre Cardin 1922-2020

 

last work of 2020. Mixed on paper

 

Perry Mason 2020

Not your parents’ “Perry Mason” so the tagline for this 8 part HBO series goes, which is fine with me. I hated the mid 50’s t.v. series with Raymond Burr which bored this 9 year old to tears, so there was no love lost. Sunday nights I would leave the living room when my parents tuned in to Perry and didn’t come back in until I heard Fred Steiner’s pounding theme music which to me was the best part of the show. The new series is not great, sad as that is, but it’s pretty damn good and should keep Noir, old L.A. fans, movie lovers and depression era afficionados perky and happy for most of this series. 

It doesn’t hurt that the cast is great especially Mathew Rhys who is Welsh by birth and  has an impeccable American accent and plays Mason with a worn, torn and sad display. Our Perry is not a lawyer (not yet that is)  but a private dick working for the ever present but always wonderful John Lithgow who plays the lawyer man. His assistant is Della Street who is sassy and rough and tumble so unlike lady like Barbara Hale, she is also a lesbian oh my. Beautifully played by another Brit Juliet Rylance with a hard midwestern accent.

The series opens with a fast and penny dreadful plot concerning the kidnapping and murder  of a 2 year old child which will recall the Charles Lindbergh kidnapping especially since the series is set in 1932, and is ghastly and grim. There are other plot twists that are based on real life people including  Aimee Semple McPherson the Pentecostal  Evangelist  phony who took over the country with her pseudo               religious crap in the early 30’s and even brought her show to the Capitol Theatre in Times Sq. Here in a Jean Harlow blonde wild hairdo she is played by Tatiana Maslany a young actress I had never seen before and is watched and handled by her mom Birdy played by the great Lili Taylor. The large supporting cast are terrific and especially notable for me was Shea Whigham who plays Mason’s sidekick and underpaid partner in private dick land and Veronica Falcon who plays a Latino airplane flyer who owns an airfield next to Mason’s “Farm” and is sometimes his main squeeze. A whole series could be made just on her character alone.

The plot can at times be confusing, there is just so much of it, and a little more pruning might have helped. I also liked Chris Chalk who plays a lonely and racially put upon black cop named Paul Drake who knows more of the plot then we certainly do. There are loose strings all over the place, and someone should be held accountable, maybe creator and director Timothy Van Patten. The art direction and the look is beautiful and not overdone, and the wonderful jazz score by the great Terence Blanchard is smoky, boozy and memorable. He even pays tribute to the original theme over the closing credits of the last episode. A second season is coming. 

Barbara Rose 1936-2020

 

The West Wing 1999-2006

 

Might this be the best television series ever?  I finished up the series the other day, forcing myself to binge to near death because Netflix is removing it from streaming on Christmas Day. Nice present Netflix. I never watched it when it ran on NBC, I’m not a network tv viewer even though I grew up on it. Something drew me to it. Was it the current politic landscape? was it the cast? I mean 7 years of Allison Janney and Stockard Channing who could ask for anything more?

The series has a style in writing closer to 1930’s and 40’s romantic comedies than to the anything goes sex and violence cable shows that are so prevalent now, and this made the series more appealing in a retro sort of way. Imagine if it had played on cable instead of NBC. Because it was on Network TV there were no nasty cuss words or nudity so the creators had to depend on subtle words and looks and fast fade outs  and because of this the series had a marvelous refreshing feel to it, as I said golden age romantic comedies with great writing and acting.

The battle of the sexes and the politic power conflicts have a Howard Hawks Preston Sturges influence with overlapping dialogue and fast and furious action in very small spaces.  The look of it can be called walking and talking in the oval office since much of the action is done literally with the cast walking and talking. Smart dialogue and snappy retorts flow and fall like an early winter snow storm and no doubt the cast had instructions on how to walk and sashay down these corridors of power.

The most noticeable and sexy sashay belongs to Bradley Whitford, who moves his hips and crouch with subtle but very noticeable moves. Sexy without being trashy the way I sometimes like it.  The story is about the eight year term of a liberal American president played with wonderful force and delight by Martin Sheen. There are crisis after crisis some of them pushed to disbelief with most if not all of them having happy endings or somewhat happy endings. Some of the political jabbing and jousting was dull and sleep inducing, and not even Janney could attract my attention over the minute details of budget deals and the cost of living bills, but one could not help me admire the chutzpah             of even attempting this on prime time t.v. 

Sheen is married to Stockard Channing who is a doctor (sounds familiar doesn’t it) who has her own windmills to battle who doesn’t appear enough for my money. They have three independent daughters, the youngest one being in an early role Elisabeth Moss. 

His power staffers are there to charm and hold the fort with the great Allsion Janney as his intelligent and sassy (there’s that adjective again) press secretary who brought me to curses for the bimbos that have been lying for Trump for the last 4 years. She is so witty and fine with those bedroom eyes and great laugh as she takes on the White House Press corps, leaving several of the male members huffing and puffing. Tall and willowy she cut some of them down to size. The cast was large and superb with so many standouts including John Spencer, Richard Schiff, Mary Louise Parker, Lily Tomlin, Anna Deavere Smith, Rob Lowe, Alan Alda and Jimmy Smits who takes control in the last season as a presidential candidate.  The large writing and directing staff also deserves attention with  the main squeeze going to Aaron Sorkin who came up with the whole idea and also wrote and directed some of the episodes.      

Jack Lenor Larsen 1927-2020

 

Ma Rainey's Black Bottom 2020

More of a theatrical event than a movie one, its really a filmed play with two powerhouse performances by Viola Davis and the late Chadwick Boseman. Based on Ma Rainey the gay black blues singer of the 20's who little is known about. Tied up in the play-film is a story of the African American experience of the early part of the 20th Century that is set in Chicago and brought to mind the great Jacob Lawrence's seminal series of small paintings that document this important migration moment in African American history when thousands of black people left the south for the north and a better life, or so they thought. The film is short and is mostly compelling when Viola Davis is on, I wanted more of her. Boseman is the thorn in everyone's side, cocky, argumentative, violent, and ultimately heartbreaking throwing himself at a brick wall, literally and figuratively. There are too many loose ends and lost chances with this adaptation that was directed by the highly regarded theatrical director George C. Wolfe but I would still say see it if only for two great actors at the top of their game. Don't be surprised to see Boseman get a posthumous Oscar for this.

December 2020 mixed on paper

 

Ann Reinking 1949-2020

 

The Prom 2020

Sometimes the best of intentions are not enough, as in the case of this well meaning but vapid and annoying musical based on the Broadway musical. Seeing this loud but not vulgar enough flashy and false take on inclusion and acceptance make me realize why I hate Broadway musicals and not crying that they are missing from our entertainment landscape at least for now. However I have a long history of seeing some legendary shows and performers, the list is long, but this monstrosity is not one of them. The plot is thin a youngish high school lesbian wants to take her girlfriend to the prom but meets up with the expected stereotypical bigotry led by a terrible Kerry Washington who's closest daughter is the girlfriend in question. There is a gay friendly but straight (yeah right principal wrongly played by Keegan-Michael Key who pushes for the teen lesbian played by the way too old jo ellen pellman to believe as a high school teen. Somehow some Broadway has beens get involved to help things along in one of the worst plot devices I think I have ever seen in a movie. Horribly played (and I mean horribly played by Meryl Streep in a red fright wig, and an anorexic looking Nichole Kidman along with two gay twits along for the ride acted with relish and not much else by James Corden and Andrew Rannells. The mess is full of terrible songs, not one of them a keeper and is full of dead end spaces and the usual garish sets and costumes that we have come to expect from Ryan Murphy who maybe should take a rest from making movies, his latest American Horror is also terrible and tacky. There are two flashy dance numbers that as usual with Murphy is chopped up and thrown at us with his usual vacant flair. This is to be avoided at all costs, and hey if you need a good musical there are plenty to pick from this one is certainly not one of them. Unclean unclean.

December 2020 mixed on paper

 

Pamela Tiffin 1942-2020

 

oddball press from October 2020

 Just saw that this was published in October. Had no idea. well here it is. Poem by Deta Galloway and one of my postcards. 

https://oddballmagazine.com/poem-by-deta-galloway/

Oddball Press December 2020

 Poem by Uguw Leonard Elvis along with a photo by me. 

https://oddballmagazine.com/poem-by-ugwu-leonard-elvis-2/?fbclid=IwAR2OyhoMrUXeJmK8hOHy2FIDxNtFspr67A07HW47chf_6wFLm8IKTaCG31Q

December 2020

 

Warren Berlinger 1937-2020