Bates Motel: Persuasion Review

 

BATES MOTEL: PERSUASION

Bates Gonna Trouble The Waters...

Bates Motel's Persuasion wraps up one storyline (the Annika disappearance) while giving us another one (the Annika murder).  Maybe Norma Bates is right: maybe crazies just seem drawn to her.  Even the relatively normal people that come her way end up connected to the loony bin she calls a motel.  Persuasion gave us genuinely creepy moments, some really strong acting from the cast, and even a bit of comedy.  Perhaps because we got a new mystery that may/may not tie in with the Bateses, I wasn't going all crazy for it.  However, it has just enough to push it to a higher level than what came before (which was really good by the way). 

Annika is still missing, the body at the end of the last episode being another girl. Norma Bates (Vera Farmiga) is still worried that her son, Norman (Freddie Highmore) is more involved than perhaps even he knows.  Norman, for his part, appears to be growing in confidence in regards to his mother and the entire affair.  He has no problem all but ordering her out of the room while Sheriff Alex Romero (Nestor Carbonell) asks Norman questions.

Norma has other worries besides a potentially homicidal child.  She's going back to school.  She gets off to a bad start with Professor James Finnegan (Joshua Leonard).  Not only does she fail to realize until it's too late that he isn't a fellow student who is demanding she get up from 'his chair', but that she's in the wrong class altogether.  Having signed up for Business, she somehow ends up in the Psycho-logy class (couldn't resist).  Professor Finnegan recognizes a lost soul (and perhaps, has designs on our fair mother): he offers her his card, suggesting she should try therapy.  At first she throws the card away, but almost immediately picks it up. 

Norman for his part is still slipping in and out of reality.  He is not sure whether he might have killed Annika, and "Mother" (his hallucinations of Norma) comes to give advise.  He gets into the tub, and slowly slips in.  Norma rescues him just before he finally drowns, but whether it is a suicide attempt (which he has done before) or merely a lapse in judgment remains to be seen.

If only she knew what her other son Dylan Massett (Max Thieriot) and his father/uncle Caleb (Kenny Johnson) are up to.  They are still working to get Dylan's marijuana farm going, even if it means inadvertently dragging Emma (Olivia Cooke) into this when a pot delivery comes to the motel and she finds herself having to bring it.  Dylan still doesn't trust or care for Caleb, but somehow is too soft-hearted to get rid of him. 

As for Romero, he now faces the political fight of his life.  Bob Paris (Kevin Rahm), the head of the Arcanum Club, wants Romero out of office and tells him in so many words.  He now faces Marcus Young (Tomiwa Edun), the rival candidate for Sheriff.  Romero won't back down, but he knows he's in for a bitter election.

Finally, Norma gets some good news: Annika is alive.  Norma gets some bad news too: Annika is bleeding in front of her, and gives Norma a USB, telling her to use it for her and her son.

A New Mystery....

I feel so much for Norma.  We see that this poor woman is really and truly doing her best and still floundering.  It's as if every decision she makes, even the right one, always blows up in her face.  Unlike the past, where Farmiga mined the angry side of Norma, here we see a genuine hurt and sadness within her, especially when dealing with Norman.

"I think one of us has a problem, and I'm tired of the assumption being that it's me," Norman tells his mother when he berates her for telling Romero that Norman was the last person to see Annika alive.  We see in Farmiga's Norma a genuinely hurt and fearful woman, her sadness in having somehow hurt her son mixed with the realization that perhaps he might be right. 

Norma Bates is a woman under siege from all fronts: family, business, personal, professional.  She appears to be the President of the Secret Club of the Damaged, a term Professor Finnegan comes up to describe people who hide their deepest troubles.  Bates Motel if nothing else restores Norma Bates' reputation.  No longer the deranged control-freak from the original film or Psycho IV: The Beginning, Norma Bates is just a flawed woman struggling to do her best and making a fiasco out of it (sometimes by her own hand, sometimes not). 

Farmiga is always excellent in Bates Motel, and nothing short of a lobotomy would alter her brilliant take on the role.  Persuasion, however, also does something more: it showcases Highmore as Norman.  He isn't a shrinking violet, but almost shockingly aggressive and assertive as Norman.  His confidence to almost arrogance when Romero interviews him is a standout.  In fact, the entire sequence is a showcase for all three: for Highmore in his cool confidence, for Carbonell in his professional but determined investigation, and Farmiga in her worry and inability to stay out of things.  Highmore in particular was Farmiga's equal: his rage real and frightening, his slipping into hallucinations even more despairing.

In the subplot with Dylan and Caleb, it's still a bit out there, away from all the craziness at the motel.  One hopes that this is a slow burn to a more shocking conclusion, because apart from the levity of seeing Emma (who looks amazingly hot) bringing up some pot, it's not really progressing the narrative.

The guest stars are all excellent.  Leonard I figure will play a larger role as Finnegan, and in his brief scenes makes a strong impression.  Same for Rohr as the kinky overlord of the Arcanum Club, who you know is up to no good.  As for Edun, is Marcus a good guy, a bad guy, or something else?  That too remains to be seen.

About the only real bits that were a bit disappointing was the Gunner/Emma reunion.  It wasn't.  These two had great chemistry, so to see it not have anything to do with each other was anticlimactic, almost a waste.   I also am not jumping out of my seat thinking about this new mystery Norma is finding herself in.  Poor Norma...she does attract all the wrong people.

Persuasion closes some stories, opens others.  Still, Bates Motel is growing to be a weird, fantastic, excellent program that does so much with the Psycho legacy that on the whole works so well both as prequel and its own entity. 

9/10

Next Episode: Unbreak-Able

The Boy Next Door: A Review (Review #706)

THE BOY NEXT DOOR

I went, most reluctantly, to The Boy Next Door.  I can say I'm glad I went.  The Boy Next Door is one of the funniest movies I've seen in a long time.  I don't remember laughing so hard at a movie since perhaps The Hangover.  Difference being that with the latter, I was suppose to laugh.  The Boy Next Door, to its credit, is committed to its own trashy premise and bizarre turns, logic be damned.  It reminds us that J-Lo still has a hot body at age 45, so much so that not even the equally physically attractive fellow Latin Ryan Guzman at 27 can match her. 

It's a battle of the bodies, and that's what is the real draw of The Boy Next Door.  You don't go to see a real movie.  That's too complicated.  A real movie requires plot, acting, a rational narrative.  The Boy Next Door doesn't have much of that.  It does have Jennifer Lopez and Ryan Guzman showing off their fantastic bodies, and that's pretty much all it needs.    

Claire Petersen (J-Lo) is shocked to discover her husband Garrett (John Corbett) is having an affair (I'd be shocked too.  I mean, J-Lo...).  Garrett leaves, which leaves Claire and their son Kevin (Ian Nelson) alone during the summer.  Claire's best friend and boss Vicky Lansing (Kristen Chenoweth) urges her to divorce, but Claire hesitates.  Enter Noah Sandborn (Guzman), grandnephew to Mr. Sandborn (Jack Wallace).  A recent orphan, he's staying with him while Mr. Sandborn is getting some kind of transplant (liver I think). 

As it so happens, Noah is going to go to Kevin's high school where Claire teaches 'the classics' like Homer (despite admitting to being almost twenty because you know, GED courses don't exist and a high school would naturally let a twenty year old enter as a senior.  Did I mention Noah looks almost 30?  Oh well, never mind).  Claire is impressed that someone so young can quote and love Homer the way she does.  She is also impressed by his hot body, which she observes from her window and he stands in his room naked.  He spies her, but seems to encourage this.

After a bad date set up by Vicky, a slightly tipsy Claire goes next door to help Noah with his chicken, and before you can say "cougar", Noah gets Claire to do the nasty in as close to pornographic a scene as one can have in an R-rated film.  Mind you, she did say "No", a few times, but when you look like Ryan Guzman...

Well, wouldn't you know it: she regrets this and he becomes obsessed after one night with J-Lo.  That's the way the ball bounces.  He hacks her e-mail to send a message to the principal (Hill Harper) to get into her class, and rather than deny it, she basically says, 'oh yes, silly me.  Forgot all about it'.  Why? Well, why not?

Garrett and Claire are close to mending their relationship, but Noah, who has befriended the friendless Kevin, turns their son against them.  Kevin even drops his favorite computer class to take boxing lessons, despite having some kind of ailment requiring shots.  Claire confronts Noah about his actions with Kevin, but does admit he did good in saving Kevin's life. 

Noah becomes more determined: he seduces Kevin's date for Fall Fling (what a bad title for what is essentially a cheap Homecoming/Prom) in full view of Claire.  He continues to manipulate Kevin, and even punches out viciously the bully whose been harassing Kevin.  This gets him expelled, but it apparently doesn't stop him from getting onto school property at least twice (where he graffities his sex act and prints out a photo of the two of them in bed.  It was convenient he had a hidden camera to film their tryst).  Claire discovers on Noah's computer the video as well as detailed plans for the braking system of automobiles, which by sheer coincidence matches the ones for Garrett's car, which was involved in a car accident.

It all comes to a dramatic conclusion when Noah lures everyone to Vicky's ranch house (who knew vice principals earned that much) where he will dispose of everyone save Claire.  He admits to killing his father and his whore in that car accident, and it all literally goes up in flames.



Reason 1 to watch
The Boy Next Door.

One figures that Lopez and company know in their hearts The Boy Next Door is pretty much trash.  The decision though is in deciding how to play with this trash.  Should they try to take this all seriously or should they try to admit that everyone about it is pretty much insane and inane and have fun with it? 

What The Boy Next Door decides is to let everyone figure it out for themselves, meaning that you have a weird hybrid where some are playing it for laughs, some are playing it straight, and some don't know what they're playing.

In the first category, you have Corbett, who appears fully aware that the whole thing is pretty ludicrous and is going to have fun with this.  In a 'too cool for school' performance, you can almost tell Corbett is thinking the whole thing a lark.  In the second category is Nelson, a young actor who is far better than anyone in this nonsense because he doesn't try to be camp in what should be a camp film.  He plays it as serious as possible, focusing more on the character than on the setup. 

In the final category, you have everyone else.  Chenoweth makes her Vicky into an almost cartoonish best friend (Noah's put-down of being an old, dried up tramp trying to be younger than she is seems sadly accurate given her almost screeching manner with Claire).

As a side note, Kevin's near-obsession with Noah and Claire's near-obsession with Claire aren't explored, but they would lend themselves to very interesting possibilities.

Reason Num. 2

In regards to our two stars, one wonders at the intelligence of their characters.  As each takes a more and more outlandish decision/action or doesn't do things that would be rational in our world, one wonders whether Barbara Curry's screenplay wanted them to be stupid.  Guzman shows that as an actor, he makes a very good dancer.  He seems to be aware that the lines are hilarious but also trying to play it as if he weren't trying to draw attention to it ("It got really wet here," he replies to the family, the double entendre clear).  It doesn't come off as serious or silly, but instead as someone trying too hard.

Well, J-Lo has a great body, but her performance shows that perhaps with the exception of Selena (her breakout role) and maybe something else, she can't convince anyone that she is a real actress.  In fairness to Lopez not even Meryl Streep could make Claire into a sensible character.  However, Lopez almost goes out of her way to try and make the ridiculous situations seem even more absurd despite the clear lack of logic.

Also, there are elements in The Boy Next Door that don't hold up (and that's saying a lot).  Claire discovers Noah's computer with all the information on it (the brake plans, the sex tape), but rather than just take the computer she decides, despite being warned by Vicky that Noah's coming, to stop and delete everything (which in her defense, is very nicely labeled for her convenience).  Oh, and she also didn't notice Mr. Sandborn has returned.  Ah, Mr. Sandborn, a character that pops in and out for no real reason save plot contrivances.

Also, the seduction of Kevin's date seems out of place and someone we never see or hear from again after yet another surprisingly explicit scene (and a chance for Guzman to showcase his awesome body).  Regarding Guzman's character, does anyone here stop to wonder why someone who looks almost thirty can go into a high school so easily?  Does anyone stop to wonder why in a gymnasium full of people, only Noah is around to help Kevin when he's having some sort of medical emergency?  Does anyone notice that Noah wears the same shirt and tie to school (having the curious effect of making him look like the cool teacher instead of a student)?

WHY BOTHER WITH SUCH TRIVIALITIES?  HAVE YOU SEEN THEIR BODIES?!

I think because director Rob Cohen doesn't realize he has an instant camp classic on his hands, he tries to make things really serious and dramatic, making things even more hilarious.  The concluding dramatic scene where J-Lo stabs Guzman in the eye with Kevin's needle, then later on puts her thumb in said eye, had me howling with laughter. I admit to chuckling through a few lines and scenes, but this was too much even for me to not react with the opposite reaction the film expects of me.

We know The Boy Next Door thinks it's really serious and deep by the closing song, Alex Clare's Whispering.  Never having heard the song, I wasn't sure if it was written for the film (it wasn't) but the song lends an extra layer of inadvertent comedy to the entire spectacle.  I left the theater laughing, repeating "whispering, whispering, whispering", finding the whole thing hilarious.  In fact, I laughed so hard after leaving that my stomach began to hurt and my eyes began watering.  "Whispering, whispering, whispering" just lent the already hilarious The Boy Next Door a coda of self-importance silliness.

Still, I'm an honest reviewer, and I did enjoy The Boy Next Door.  I enjoyed laughing at it. 

DECISION: D+

Selena: Twenty Years And Still We Grieve

1971-1995

Twenty years ago today, Selena Quintanilla Perez, better known simply as Selena, the Queen of Tejano music, was murdered by the president of her fan club over financial irregularities she discovered.  She was only 23. 

It was a terrible tragedy for Hispanics who knew her music well, myself included.  I remember a news scroll making the announcement, and I was shocked.  How could Selena be dead?  Who would kill her or want to kill her?  She never harmed anyone.  She was, by all accounts, a very nice young woman, eager to start a family and expand into the English-language market.  She was generous, appreciative of her fans, and despite her sexy wardrobe, known as a wholesome, positive role model for young girls.

Her death shocked the community, and not even Howard Stern could overpower her.  He mocked her murder and the reaction by among other things, putting the sound effect of bullets over her music.  The outrage was so great and so loud that the self-proclaimed King of All Media was forced to apologize on-air, and even did so in Spanish.  In El Paso, a local radio station had recently started carrying The Howard Stern Show at the time, with the tagline, "Howard Stern All Morning, Modern Rock All Day".

That station, or any EP station as far as I know, no longer carries Howard Stern. 

There is something that should be remembered about Selena.  She truly was 'one of us'.  Despite what most non-Hispanic Americans might think, the majority of Hispanic actors on Spanish-speaking television look more like Brad Pitt than George Lopez.  They tend to be fair-skinned with light-colored eyes; look up telenovelas soap stars like William Levy (which is his real name), Araceli Arambula, and/or Sebastian Rulli if you don't believe me.  Selena didn't fit that description and she didn't try to alter her appearance to fit some mold. 

She also was 'one of us' in that Spanish wasn't her first language.  She not only spoke English with greater fluency than she did Spanish (which she had to learn phonetically), she also disliked Mexican music in the beginning.  Her great musical idol was Donna Summer, not Vicente Fernandez (appropriate for a girl growing up in an English-dominated world during the disco era).  In that respect, she is really like many second and third-generation Hispanics who aren't as proficient in Spanish as people may think they are (or should be).

I think her death is a terrible tragedy because she really had still so much to give.  She was finally about to break through to English-language radio, with her song Dreaming of You released posthumously.  While Jennifer Lopez was certainly the greatest beneficiary of Selena's legacy (becoming a star thanks to the biopic Selena), one can only wonder what would have happened if she had lived.

Would she and J-Lo fight it out for dominance, or maybe have collaborated and done a duet?  Would J-Lo have achieved so much if she hadn't had the opportunity to play Selena onscreen (and for the record, despite being Puerto Rican, Lopez did a fantastic job as the Mexican-American Selena).  Would she have served as mentor and/or worked with someone named after her (Selena Gomez)?  Would she have pursued acting (she had a tiny part as a singer in Don Juan de Marco, but from what I understand she saw this as the first step towards a Hollywood career)?  There was so much she could have done, and her murderess took all that from her, over a paltry amount of money.

It has been twenty years.  She would have been in her early forties, perhaps with children, and a successful bilingual career, flowing easily between Spanish and English and perhaps embraced by both.  As it stands, she remains tragically young, untouched by a changing world.

Age cannot wither nor custom stale her infinite variety.

Siempre Selena...

      

Cinderella (2015): A Review (Review #705)

CINDERELLA (2015)

The thing about Cinderella is that it knows what it is: a pure visual confection, appealing to those who know the story best from the Disney animated feature that Cinderella freely draws from.  There's a reason for that: this Cinderella is a live-action adaptation of that Disney movie, perhaps a bit more expanded than its predecessor but an adaptation nonetheless.  I think that Cinderella, fully aware of what it is, didn't bother to be an update, a retelling, or anything other than a squarely traditional, visually sumptuous picture.  As a result, it is very good.

Ella (Lily James) has a pretty happy life.  She is loved by her mother (Hayley Atwell), who tells her to 'have courage and be kind', but Mrs. Tremaine soon dies.  Her father (Ben Chaplin), soon remarries, and the new Mrs. Tremaine (Cate Blanchett) comes, accompanied by her two daughters Anastasia (Holliday Grainger) and Drisella (Sophie McShera).  Mr. Tremaine, a wealthy merchant, goes off for business, and he too dies.  The Lady Tremaine is displeased that she is now a widow twice over, and slowly pushes Ella to be the sole servant in her own home.  Her stepsisters mock her, dubbing her Cinderella (from the cinders that cover her face).

She has no one to confide in but her mice friends and her horse.  She rides and meets someone who tells her he is Kit, an apprentice on a hunt, but who is really the Prince (Richard Madden).  Unaware of who he really is, she is the first person to treat him as a person and not as royalty.  The King (Shakespeare denier Derek Jacobi) wants his son to get married to a princess quickly, as he is dying.  The Prince wants to marry for love, but nonetheless the King orders a ball to find a bride.  The Prince, however, gets his father to invite the kingdom's nobility and aristocracy as well as foreign princesses to the ball.

As such, the Tremaine's daughters can attend, and Lady Tremaine is determined to marry one of them off to the future monarch.  That is, except for Cinderella, who is forbidden to go, royal edict or no royal edict.  Cinderella is heartbroken, but she gets unexpected help from her Fairy Godmother (Helena Bonham Carter), who uses her rather ditzy style of magic to help Cinderella attend the ball. 


At the ball, Cinderella discovers that the apprentice Kit, whom she fancied, is the Prince; the poor farmer's daughter Kit (his father's nickname for him) is the same girl who has dazzled the entire Court.  However, she must flee at the stroke of midnight, in her rush leaving her glass slipper. 

Kit soon becomes King, and begins his search for his Queen.  The Lady Tremaine discovers the other glass slipper and when Cinderella rejects a deal to make her the power behind the throne, the Lady Tremaine smashes the glass slipper.  She then strikes a deal with the Grand Duke (Stellan Skarsgard), who wants the new King to marry a true royal princess.  The King, however, will not be denied.  With his own glass slipper, he orders all the maidens to slip it on.  Obviously, it fits none, and when they arrive at the Tremaine estate, the sisters are fitted and found unfit.  Cinderella, locked in the tower, attracts the attention of the soldiers by her singing, but both the Grand Duke and Lady Tremaine push to leave.  However, one of the soldiers stops them. It is the King in disguise, who insists on having all the women try the slipper.  The shoe literally fits, and they marry (the Lady Tremaine, her daughters, and the Duke we are told, leave the kingdom, never to return). 

And they lived happily ever after, the Fairy Godmother tells us.

Again, Cinderella breaks no new ground.  It isn't attempting to update the traditional story or have a new spin on the tale.  It is determined to stick to as traditional a narrative as possible, and bless director Sir Kenneth Branagh for being firm in his vision to make this a visual feast while sticking with total tradition. 

We get all the traditional motifs of the Cinderella story: the wicked stepmother, the mean stepsisters, the charming and beautiful Prince, the sweet Cinderella.  About the only big change is making the Fairy Godmother a batty, slightly bonkers figure.  Then again, since it IS Helena Bonham Carter...

The real brilliance in Cinderella is that it knows exactly what it is: a pretty film where everyone is asked to play their roles with no real introspection.  James proves to be a pretty but simple Cinderella, all sweetness and loveliness but not much of a spine to stand up for herself or against her stepmother.  Blanchett is vamping it up as the wicked Lady Tremaine, devouring the scenery but doing it with a wicked sense of wit.  Madden is pretty as the Prince, and I don't think much is asked of him apart from that.  Bonham Carter is the comic relief, daffy, scatterbrained, with a 'bibbidy-bobbidy-boo' thrown in once or twice for good measure.

It's a sign of the professionalism within the production that Bonham Carter and Branagh, who had an affair that broke up Branagh's marriage to Emma Thompson, worked together well (he directing, she starring). 

I think that everyone pretty much understands that Cinderella is suppose to be pretty-looking, straightforward, traditional.  The highlight is the costuming, which is big, colorful, beautiful. 

I found Cinderella to be pretty, enjoyable, sumptuous, and on the whole entertaining.  Its greatest strength is its total sincerity, its complete lack of cynicism or irony.  It knows what it is and doesn't pretend to be anything else.  It's an unapologetic family film, where good triumphs over evil, where we see two pretty people fall in love, and which is a lovely confection for the eyes.

Go into Cinderella with that in mind, and you'll find it is a wish fulfilled.  Go into Cinderella in any other mood, and your heart will grow cold.       

DECISION: B-

Introducing Dorothy Dandridge: A Review

INTRODUCING DOROTHY DANDRIDGE

The title Introducing Dorothy Dandridge is really a pun.  The phrase 'introducing so-and-so' is used when someone is going to make their debut (and I suspect, is expected to make a big splash).  However, it also works in that Dandridge is perhaps not as well-remembered as she should be and thus, the film has to 'introduce' her to us.

In what turned out to be a curious bit of casting history, Halle Berry, who would go on to be the first African-American woman to win a Best Actress Academy Award, plays Dandridge, the first black woman nominated for a Best Actress Academy Award.   Berry herself would win an Emmy Award for her performance as Dandridge, one of five Emmy Awards Introducing Dorothy Dandridge would win out of its nine nominations.  Introducing Dorothy Dandridge plays like many Hollywood biopics: a story filled with triumph, tragedy, and an untimely death.  Now add the extra layer of racism, and we get a fascinating, if not completely perfect, rendering of Dandridge's life.

The framing device is of Dorothy Dandridge engaged in a long overnight call to her friend and ex-sister-in-law Geri (Tamara Taylor).  Dorothy remembers all her life as she makes a collage of photos of that has gone before. 

There was the physical abuse and terror she faced from Auntie (LaTonya Richardson).  Auntie was the 'personal friend' of Ruby Dandridge (Loretta Devine), the mother of Dorothy and her sister Vivian (Cynda Williams).  It's not directly stated, but one guesses that Auntie and Ruby (who worked in Hollywood in primarily maid parts) were longtime partners.  Dorothy catches the eye of legendary dancer Harold Nicholas (Obba Babatunde), one half of the brilliant Nicholas Brothers dance duo.  She and Harold marry (and she enters marriage a virgin), but Auntie's violent assault to see if Dorothy really was a virgin traumatized her, making sex more a chore than a pleasure.

Harold proves to be a bad figure, as he went golfing while Dorothy waited for him at home when she went into labor.  Over Dorothy's objections, she was taken to the hospital, where she gives birth to her only child, a daughter she names Harolyn, whom they call Lynn.  Lynn is diagnosed as mentally retarded (to use the terminology of the day), who will remain mentally at four for the rest of her life.  Dorothy is devastated by the diagnosis and she tries to be with Lynn as much as possible, but work (and a divorce from Harold) make it impossible.

Dorothy catches the ear of Earl Mills (Brent Spiner), a music producer who was tricked into listening to her unofficial audition at a party.  Mills is intrigued, but Dorothy is determined to have a Hollywood career.  That career leads her to take on roles like a jungle Queen in a Tarzan movie (where her questions about logic are dismissed in favor of her showing more skin).  She agrees to hit the club circuit to raise her profile (and get some income).

She has to push against rather ugly racism, but her charm, talent, and beauty win even the most hostile of audiences.  Dorothy, however, continues to push for a film career, and a new opportunity has come up.  An all-Negro (again, the term of the day) musical based on the opera Carmen.  Carmen Jones' legendary director, Otto Preminger (Klaus Maria Brandauer) thinks Dandridge is too soft and lady-like to be his sultry seductress.  However, a quick wardrobe change and appearance in Preminger's office takes that idea off his head.  Even before filming begins, they become lovers, with Preminger serving as her mentor on the set and in the bedroom.

Dandridge is a sensation as Carmen Jones, and all her work gets her where she wants to go: to the Academy Awards as the first black woman to receive a Best Actress nomination.  She not only attends the ceremony (and is seated among the elite rather than the back of the room like Hattie McDaniel, the first black Academy Award winner), she gets to present an award, another barrier broken as she becomes the first black female presenter.

Obviously, she didn't win (even if she had had weak competition I doubt America would be ready for a black female Oscar winner), and worse, Preminger started giving her bad advice.  20th Century Fox president Darryl F. Zanuck (William Atherton) wants to build her up to be the first real minority sex symbol by casting her in non-black roles (an Italian, a Mexican, and an Asian) in order to build her profile.  She agrees to star in the film version of Rodgers and Hammerstein's The King and I as Tuptim, a slave to serve as a concubine for the King of Siam.  Preminger tells her she, an Academy Award nominee, should not go back to playing slaves.  Despite Miller's frantic pleas, Dandridge reneges on her promise, damaging her career and inadvertently passing a chance to be in a successful and artistically creative project.

Her career in clubs isn't too hot either.  She still objects to being hidden away in penthouse suites, forbidden to cross the casino floor or use the backstage restroom.  She's even told that should she decide to swim in the casino's pool, it would have to be cleaned.  Dandridge will not be denied, and she dares to put her foot in the water.  As she finishes her set, she and Mills find the swimming pool has been drained and is being scrubbed, just because she put her FOOT in the water.

A short-lived marriage to hotel owner Jack Denison (D.B. Sweeney), an abusive man who bilked her out of her fortune, temporarily puts her down, as does an unhappy reunion with Preminger on the film of Porgy & Bess (Preminger having abandoned her prior) and having to give up her parental rights to Lynn due to inability to maintain her hospital bills.  Miller, however, comes to the rescue.  He gets her to get off the pills and booze and puts her up in a spa.  Here, she regains her health and gets better news: club dates and foreign-film projects are opening up.  It looks like Dorothy Dandridge is making a comeback.

Sadly, she injures herself when tripping over weights, fracturing her ankle.  We go back to the beginning, where she ends her call and hears from Mills, who is coming to pick her up for New York and a booking engagement.  She decides to bathe before leaving, but when she doesn't respond to his calls, a frantic Miller bursts in.  He finds Dorothy Dandridge dead: on the bathroom door, nude.  It is unclear exactly how she died: the investigators on the scene speculate that she may have died from a rare embolism (bits of bone that floated into her blood stream and blocked blood flow to her brain), or it was a suicide (a note previously written by Dandridge having been discovered). 

Dorothy Dandridge was only 42.

Introducing Dorothy Dandridge is an excellent film.  It has high production value and is an extremely well-acted production.  In regards to the former, the recreations of events like Dandridge's Oscar presentation and Carmen Jones look authentic all around.  Comparing the two you see that Introducing Dorothy Dandridge took great care in replicating the moments to where they match them remarkably well. 

Berry is simply brilliant as Dandridge, whether in channeling her anger at being mistreated by the racists or in her coquettish nature with men.  The anger and the heartbreak Dandridge has (in particular with regards to her daughter) are moving.  We celebrate Dandridge's defiance when she dips her toes in the water.  However, when we see that the casino has kept their word to clean it out, Berry doesn't speak, doesn't emote, but shows a quiet pain and reflection on what she has to endure.

Berry also has a great moment when she re-auditions for Preminger, using her feminine wiles to show she is no sweet girl, but a sultry sex goddess who could lure men to their doom.  She has to play Dandridge playing Carmen, a hard feat that Berry does well.  Berry may not be the greatest of actresses today, but when given good direction (courtesy of Martha Coolidge) and a good script (courtesy of Scott Abbott and future uber-producer Shonda Rhimes), Berry can be quite capable of giving an effective performance.

Her two primary costars, Spiner and Brandauer, are also excellent as the nervous but loyal Mills (who has carried a torch for our torch singer too lately revealed) and the arrogant but brilliant Preminger (whom we figure would not leave his wife for anyone, even Dandridge).  Coolidge uses silences to convey emotions, to let us know what is going on.  Seeing Preminger walk away while Dandridge is performing on stage says so much without having to say anything vocally.

Other characters, like Williams' hot-and-cold sister Vivian and Devine's Mother Ruby do get a bit short-changed, popping in and out with little rhyme or reason.  Sometimes certain events, like Dandridge's relationship with Lynn, do get short-shifted and are rushed.  The entire Denison marriage was done almost as an afterthought, with Sweeney being a small part of what perhaps could have been a more important role.

Still, on the whole Introducing Dorothy Dandridge did exactly that: serve as an introduction to a pioneer.  Dorothy Dandridge broke down walls for African-American women in entertainment.  She was beautiful in any hue and by any standard, and as Mills points out to her, by taking some of the degradation she is making it slightly easier for the next woman.  She took the blows so that others, like Berry, would not.  Her legacy should not be forgotten, even if it is also tainted with pills, booze, and lousy decisions (Dandridge's rejection of the role of Tuptim, a part played in the film by another minority trailblazer, Puerto Rican legend Rita Moreno, was a terrible mistake).  We feel a sense of optimism when she begins her recovery and her comeback, only to mourn when we find her in the same sad situation another screen beauty ended up in.  Like Marilyn Monroe, Dorothy Dandridge was found nude when dead, her corpse left exposed while the investigators looked her over.

Dorothy Dandridge's importance in African-American history, particularly with regards to film, should not be forgotten or ignored.  Introducing Dorothy Dandridge does much to keep her legacy alive. 

A well-acted, well-written, well-directed biopic (albeit a bit rushed), we are very pleased to be Introducing Dorothy Dandridge.

1922-1965

8/10

Bates Motel: The Arcanum Club Review

 

BATES MOTEL: THE ARCANUM CLUB

Norma Bates Goes Clubbing...

We've got creepy neighbors.  We've got orgies.  We've got yet another disappearance with Norman Bates somehow connected.

Why knew life in Oregon was so flat-out weird?  Bates Motel's newest episode, The Arcanum Club, makes the cheerful oddballs of Portlandia look like Walton's Mountain.  Compared to the loonyness of White Pine Bay, Twin Peaks looks like Newberry. 

Annika Johnson, recent Bates Motel guest, has disappeared.  Norma Bates (Vera Farmiga) becomes alarmed and angry that despite the declarations of her son Norman (Freddie Highmore), he was the last person to see Annika alive.  Norma has Norman take her to the last place Annika went, but that turns out to be a false lead.  With a little help from Emma (Olivia Cooke), Norma discovers that this party girl had an invitation to a place called the Arcanum Club.  Norma attempts to go there as Annika, but she does not know the password and is told to leave.  Undaunted, she sneaks in where she gets a big surprise: in a remote cabin away from the main building, she witnesses an orgy being observed by a mysterious figure.  She is spotted though by an old friend, Sheriff Alex Romero (Nestor Carbonell), who urges her to leave.  Norma wonders what Romero, who recently left the motel himself, is doing in a place like this.  He tells her he is there merely to 'press the flesh', but is not there for any tawdry business.   Norma tells him about Annika and urges him to investigate.  As she leaves, she comes across the Lee Berman Memorial Bypass, close to completion.  In a rage she drives her car to the sign and knocks it down before returning home.

Norman and Emma have gone out on their first real date, where Norman wishes he were Peter Pan and suggests Emma could be his Wendy.  Wendy and Peter, Emma reminds him, didn't have sex.  This sex talk is interesting, as Norman asks Emma if she had sex with Gunner (Keenan Tracy) and she says yes.  He asks if she feels bad afterwards, but she says she feels naughty, not guilty. 

Gunner has his own issues.  He's hooked up with Caleb (Kenny Johnson), a ne'er-do-well and the father/uncle of Dylan Massett (Max Thieriot), Norma's other son.  Dylan reluctantly lets Caleb stay in the cabin where Dylan is planting the legal pot.  However, they have a creepy neighbor, Chick (Ryan Hurst), who is bound to give them trouble.  Oh, and a woman's naked corpse is found floating in the water.

Despite Bates Motel's best efforts to be fair to everyone, you can't get away from the fact that Vera Farmiga is simply the best thing on the show.  She does so much within the hour, going through all sorts of emotions.  When Norma learns through Emma that Norman did go with Annika despite Norman telling her a few minutes prior that he hadn't seen her, her face expresses so much.  There's anger veering to fury, but there's also fear and alarm, panic at what she thinks her precious son is capable of.  The range of emotions is what we see, and just for that, Farmiga deserves another shot at winning a well-deserved Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Emmy. 

Throughout The Arcanum Club, Farmiga does so much.  She's comic when she arrives, disheveled after smashing through the sign.  She's raging in fury when she sees the embodiment of what will kill off her business.  She's almost prudish when she witnesses the goings-on of the elite.  She's tender and almost heartbroken when Romero leaves.

Speaking of, while I know there are many #Normero fans out there, I for one wouldn't be too thrilled to hook Norma and Sheriff Romero up.  After all, I want both of them to live.

The Arcanum Club has unintended moments of comedy.  Intentional or not, when Romero tells Norma that he's there "pressing the flesh", it is a bit of a double-entendre given what we've just caught a glimpse of.  In an almost innocent and slightly jealous fashion, Norma asks "Then why are you here?"  Romero replies, "I'm not here for that," referring to the orgy. 

Too bad.  Kind of wish he were.  He lives like a virtual monk, and if anyone needs a release in this town...

Earlier, Norma yells at her son, "I don't know why, but unhinged women seem drawn to you," complete with hand gestures.  Part of me wanted to say, "YOU should know, lady who wants her eighteen-year-old son still sleeping with her..." A mixture of possessiveness and genuine concern is expressed in the scene between them.  Norma is both frustrated and fearful, and finds no recourse or easy solution.  The fact that Norman thinks Annika is a 'nice girl' should be setting alarm bells like crazy.  The fact that at one point he refers to Annika in the past tense should raise more.

Highmore and Cooke are working so well on-screen as Norman and Emma.  One almost feels for Norman who is making a stab at a normal relationship (no pun intended).  We still see that for Norman, sex and violence go hand in hand, an erotic attraction being tied in to brutality.  The fact he pulled away from Emma in their kiss shows that at some level he a.) knows about his impulses and b.) genuinely cares for Emma, whom he doesn't want to harm.

The one thing that I think isn't working is the subplot with Dylan and Caleb.  This time it isn't Thieriot, who has grown on me as both an actor and a character.  We see that he really is a very kind young man who is beaten up way too much by everyone all around.  We see that Caleb is actually a better father to Gunner than he is to Dylan.  Granted, Caleb didn't rape Gunner's mother or conceive his own nephew as well, but still, I feel so much for Dylan.

It's the 'creepy neighbor' business that doesn't excite me, because I wonder where this particular story is going.  That, and the 'creepy neighbor' is a little too obviously creepy.

Another thing I wondered about was when Norma crashes the party.  How exactly did she manage to climb over the wall in an evening dress without doing anything to it?  Furthermore, weren't there any guards roaming the place to keep intruders out?

Finally, in the credits a supervising producer is listed as Steve Kornacki.  They don't mean the MSNBC host, do they? 

Minus those bits The Arcanum Club continues to showcase some simply extraordinary acting (in particular by Farmiga).  We get the sense that Annika is pretty much done for, and that no matter what Norma may want, she knows in her heart that Norman Bates is dangerous.  Let's face it, this is the third death he's been involved with in some way.  Eventually, everyone's going to have to wake up.

8/10

Next Episode: Persuasion

The Legend of Lizzie Borden: The Television Movie

THE LEGEND OF LIZZIE BORDEN

It's one of the most infamous crimes in American history: the brutal murders of Abby and Andrew Borden.  The woman accused: Lizzie Andrew Borden, spinster.

Lizzie Borden has become a byword for 'psycho', a woman whom the popular culture has convicted of murdering her father and stepmother despite being acquitted for the crimes in a court of law.  That's what we should remember: in the eyes of the law, Lizzie Borden did not kill her parents.  However, for all intents and purposes, Lizzie Borden is forever remembered as a murderess, a cold-blooded creature whose nursery rhyme is a perverse tribute. 

Borden has entered into infamy, an American figure of diabolical evil. She's been the subject of songs, plays, and even, perhaps bizarrely, a ballet (Fall River Legend, choreographed by the legendary Agnes de Mille).  No surprise that a television movie was made as well. Premiering in 1975,  The Legend of Lizzie Borden uses her tale to tell of a family in chaos, and while it presents a plausible way Borden might have done it, there's no way to prove the telefilm's theory now, nearly a hundred and twenty-five years after the infamous murders. 

The film starts by saying that this story is 'based largely on fact', and it is built on historic records, for the Borden murder case was one of the first major trials given wild publicity through various press accounts of varying credibility.  It was the sensation of the time, a true cause celebre.  Lizzie Borden (Elizabeth Montgomery) welcomes a neighbor into her home with some chilling words, "Papa has been murdered.  Won't you come in?"  Whether it is shock or cool acceptance we don't know, but there is a gruesome crime scene.  The Borden patriarch, Andrew (Fritz Weaver) has been hacked to death.  There are police and a lot of nosy people milling about, but when the family maid, Bridget (Fionnula Flanagan) refuses to go upstairs, a neighbor who goes with her makes a more grisly discovery.  Abby Borden (Helen Craig) is dead too, hacked to death as she was making up the beds.  This is a double shock to everyone.

Into this chaotic scene comes Lizzie's sister Emma (Katherine Helmond).   She asks her sister one question, "Did you kill Father?"  Lizzie says, "No, I did not".  However, that's not the end of it.  In the inquest, the prosecutor Hosea Knowlton (Ed Flanders) is quite aggressive towards the Spinster Borden.  Arrogant, bullying, and condescending, Hosea leaps on all the inconsistencies and evasions Lizzie gives.  As a result, she is found 'probably guilty' of murdering her parents, and held for trial.

The trial becomes a media sensation: Patricide Spinster Murderess!  Some, however, rally to Borden's defense, seeing this as persecution because she's a woman.  The trial soon becomes a battle between the arrogant (and rather clumsy) Knowlton and the shrewd defense attorney, former Massachusetts governor George Robinson (Don Porter).  Knowlton, thoroughly convinced that Borden is a murderess hiding behind her skirts, keeps making mistake after mistake.  He makes mistakes in how he handles the witnesses, even friendly ones.  Knowlton badgers them, bullies them, and is generally arrogant with how he treats everyone who hints at seeing things contrary to his own vision.

Robinson, for his part, is more courtly to everyone.  Moreover, he uses his wits to get at the hot-tempered and self-righteous Knowlton.  Robinson gets the medical examiner to testify that Lizzie Borden was on prescribed morphine when she appeared at the inquest (thus somewhat out of it, so out of it that she might contradict herself and not be aware of it).  He also takes advantage of a tactical mistake Knowlton made. 

In an effort to shock the jury and get them to see things his way, he shows the court Mr. Borden's skull and uses the ax found at the Borden home to prove that was the murder weapon.  This he did after the forensic examiner from Harvard kept insisting that the blood found on the weapon was animal, not human (concurring with Borden's account of her father having killed pigeons with an ax, much to her horror).  When he fits the ax into the skull, the shock causes Lizzie to faint in front of the jury.

We do learn other things during the trial, thanks to Lizzie's flashbacks, which show her struggles with Abby and Andrew over money, Abby's insistence on Andrew changing his will, and how the death of Lizzie's biological mother affected her.  In the extended sequence, just as the jury is about to rule, Lizzie has either a flashback or a vision of the murders.  We see that Lizzie killed both Abby and Andrew while nude, which made the washing off of blood easy.  Whether this was real or an expression of Lizzie's drugged fantasy the film does not establish.

Lizzie Borden, having been found not guilty, goes home in an upbeat mood.  Emma has beaten her to their home.  She looks Lizzie in the eye and says she'll ask it once more, then never mention it again.  "Did you kill Father?"  This time Lizzie does not answer, and as the camera spins round her, we learn that the sisters died nine days apart and that the Borden murder case was never solved.

The Legend of Lizzie Borden is a really good Gothic horror film where all the elements come together so splendidly.  The first and most important element I believe is Elizabeth Montgomery's performance (which earned her an Emmy Award nomination).  Going as far away from Samantha Stephens of Bewitched,  Montgomery made Lizzie into a total human being.  She made Borden sympathetic as she endured the horror of prison and accusations of murder.  She then turned it around when we saw the less sympathetic aspects of Borden: her shoplifting (something so common the local merchants always added extra to the bill, which Andrew quietly paid), her somewhat haughty demeanor to Emma.

When it comes to the actual murders, Montgomery reveals more than just her body.  She gives Borden this rage that is unleashed on both Andrew and Abby, a flinging fury that can no longer be contained.   Much has been made of the fact that Montgomery appeared nude (though this being network television, most of this is left to the imagination, perhaps a quick glimpse of nipple at the most).  That, however, should not take away from Montgomery's brilliant performance in The Legend of Lizzie Borden.  In turns whacked-out, malicious, tragic, and cold, Montgomery really reaches high in her performance.

As a side note, Hayden Rorke, better known for his work in I Dream of Jeannie, has a small part as a newspaper reporter.  Thus we are treated to a joint appearance by Samantha Stephens and Dr. Bellows. 

Helmond, best known as the vampish Mona Robison in Who's the Boss, is also excellent as the put-upon older sister.  She is the only one who is innocent in this maelstrom, a woman who loves her sister but also fears her and fears for her.   In one critical moment though, we get through William Bast's screenplay a suggestion, however slight, that Emma gave tacit approval for Lizzie to perhaps do her vile deed.  After Lizzie tells her that she'd rather see Abby dead than have the will changed, Emma quietly says she will be leaving on a short trip to a nearby town the next day.  Nothing overt, but the suggestion lies there.


This is the other brilliant aspect of The Legend of Lizzie Borden.  The screenplay leaves much to the imagination.  In fact, the entire scenario of Lizzie murdering people while nude is done in a way that never states directly whether this is how it was done or whether this is how Lizzie imagined it could have happened.  We get a lot of conjecture but nothing solid.

We also get to see the trial (which I think is accurate in terms of history), and see how in some ways, things have not changed.  The trial of Lizzie Borden reminded me so much of the trial of O.J. Simpson.  In both, the identity of the accused was used in their favor (her gender, his race).  In both, the prosecutor(s) came off as aggressive, hostile, even vindictive.  In both, the high-priced legal defense came across as more pleasant and shrewder.  In both, the prosecution badly bungled evidence it thought would make their case (with Borden, the father's skull, with Simpson, the infamous 'black glove').  In both, they were found not guilty...but have been seen as such ever since.

At one point, Hosea makes a dismissive remark to his wife when she suggests that perhaps 'hiding behind her skirt' was the only thing Borden could do.  "Next thing you know, you'll want the vote".  Apart from being a sexist pig, Knowlton continuously lets his own zeal block his case, and we see that Borden didn't so much win than Knowlton lost.

The Legend of Lizzie Borden is also enhanced by the somewhat creepy score which keeps to the Victorian Era with a tinny-piano but also includes a rather off-kilter children's choir that enhances the mood of vague unease.  The editing also enhanced the film, especially when we see the disastrous skull demonstration (billed as The Trump Card, each new segment having a distinct title) and when we 'witness' the actual murders.  The askew angles, photography, music (or in the second murder, near-total silence save for the ticking of a clock) all create a creepy weirdness that is fascinating and terrifying.

Did Lizzie Borden really "take an ax and give her mother forty whacks"?  Legally, the answer is no.  Realistically, the answer is no one can answer beyond a reasonable doubt.  The infamy of the Borden murders will forever taint Lizzie Borden's memory, innocent or guilty.  The Legend of Lizzie Borden, while nowhere near the definitive or final answer to one of the most infamous American crimes, is still a fascinating watch that still holds up nearly forty years after its broadcast thanks to some fine directing (by Paul Wendkost) and a brilliant performance by Elizabeth Montgomery, who never lets us know whether it was real or all in her mind.

1860-1927

9/10