September TV Watch: Reservation Dogs, The Chair, Wellington Paranormal

As ever, there has been too much TV over the past few months, and somehow I've still attempted to watch it. If you're looking for some new shows to add to your repertoire, I can offer up a spooky Kiwi cop comedy, a dramedy about campus cancel culture, and a poignant sitcom about reservation life in Oklahoma. Yeah, variety is the spice of life.

Reservation Dogs: Created by Sterlin Harjo and Taika Waititi, this is a look at four Indigenous teenagers (Devery Jacobs, D'Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai, Lane Factor, and Paulina Alexis) who have grown up on a reservation in Oklahoma and harbor dreams of leaving that life behind and heading off to California. However, over the course of the first season's eight episodes, you get glimpses into what life on the reservation is really like, and the combination of resourcefulness and frustration that the inhabitants exhibit on a daily basis. There are the folks who fully embrace their Indigenous identity but then become caricatures of themselves, while there are those who are so disaffected that getting out feels like their only option. 

This is the first TV series to be shot entirely in Oklahoma, and is also the first to feature all Indigenous writers and directors as well as a predominantly Indigenous cast and crew. I can't speak for actual Indigenous folk, but I imagine having that kind of representation in front of and behind the camera is powerful and suggests the show is fairly authentic in its representations of "rez life." I recognized some of the slang from Rutherford Falls, but while that show was most often about how Indigenous people interacted with the white folk in their life, this show is almost entirely about how Indigenous people interact with each other - which feels like some sort of Indigenous Bechdel test that we need to get established in the industry. As an outsider, I enjoyed this weird, funny, and periodically very moving glimpse into a hidden world.

The tone of this show can be all over the place. It's a comedy and there were a lot of jokes that I loved (the irony of the Diabetes Awareness Frybread Feast still makes me giggle), but it also deals with the more sobering facts of reservation life and issues that plague Indigenous people across the country. The central four kids are marvels, and they have excellent chemistry with each other but also command a presence in their standalone scenes and episodes. As the show moves from looking at their little gang of "Rez Dogs" and exploring their individual trials and tribulations, it offers up both universal themes of the challenges of adolescence that we can all relate to, but then highly unique themes of what growing up on a reservation has meant to these kids. Sterlin Harjo spoke on a podcast about the jokes on this show and how he tries to poke fun at the Hollywood stereotype of Indigenous people. Well, mission accomplished. After you watch this show, you'll finally be able to relate to some three-dimensional, fully fleshed out Indigenous characters, but also enjoy some magical realism and drama thrown in for good measure. Because don't we always need a spirit guide to lead the way?

The Chair: This is another "comedy" about what happens after Professor Ji-Yoon Kim (Sandra Oh) becomes the first female (and first POC) Chair of the English department at the fictional Pembroke University. As a Korean-American woman, she feels an obligation to promote more diversity and shake things up in the decidedly white and aged faculty of her department, but of course, her reach exceeds her grasp. Over the course of six episodes, Ji-Yoon has to deal with all manner of personal and professional shenanigans--oftentimes both at once given her increasingly less platonic relationship with fellow professor Bill Dobson (Jay Duplass)--and the results can be either high farce or tragedy.

Overall, this show is a short and sweet and fun binge. It's trying to do a lot and offer up a commentary on a number of things like cancel culture, freedom of speech, Title IX, etc. Everything to do with the college and the issues being raised there feels like something out of the woke social justice warrior's playbook but the show is smart enough to understand the morass of ethical gray areas it is wandering into and not offer up any tidy or neat resolutions. Things are a bit messy, and that's as it should be. Personally, I thought there was a lot more left to explore in terms of Ji-Yoon's family life, where she has an adopted Mexican daughter that she is raising as a single mother, with the help of her elderly father who is worried because he can only speak Korean and his granddaughter won't understand him. There's such a complex story there about identities and family that could be an entire show unto itself, but there simply isn't time to explore all of that in six short episodes.

Ultimately, The Chair's brevity is both a positive and a negative. It's a quick and easy show to watch and ruminate over, but it will probably leave you with more questions than answers. As a former English minor, I did appreciate how these characters had such a love of the English language, even if they vastly differed in their pedagogy, and, no spoilers, the song that plays at the end of the final episode truly delighted me with its whimsy. This show is funny and frothy but then the tone will suddenly flip flop into being much more serious and earnest, and it's hard to ascertain what exactly the writers, Amanda Peet and Annie Julia Wyman, want to say. It shakily walks along that balance beam and it does barely manage to land the dismount, but your mileage may vary depending on what kind of mood you're in when you start watching. So give it a try and see whether The Chair becomes yet another show you cancel this season.

Wellington Paranormal: If the first two shows sounded too tonally shaky to you, never fear. Here is a show that is an emphatically silly and un-serious sitcom. Created by Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi (yes, this is quite the Waititi extravaganza today) as a spin-off of their hit film What We Do in the Shadows (which they of course subsequently spun off as its own TV series), the show aired in New Zealand for three seasons before now making its way onto American shores via the CW and HBO Max. Where I proceeded to watch it as a completely mindless and fun romp filled with monsters and Kiwi accents.

The show follows Officers O'Leary and Minogue (played by Karen O'Leary and Mike Minogue), two unassuming and slightly incompetent members of the Wellington police force who are recruited by Sergeant Maaka (Maaka Pohatu) into the department's top-secret Paranormal Unit after they have an encounter with a woman who has been possessed by a demon. Following that, each episode is another predictable riot where the two cops will show up at the scene, completely oblivious to all the weird paranormal phenomena taking place around them, until it all crescendos in such a fashion that they realize that oops, maybe they need to handcuff that werewolf or take that ghost in for questioning. 

The show will periodically offer up some jump scares, but overall, this is much more of a comedy than a horror and it is a low stakes zany way to turn off your brain and just sink back onto the couch for some light entertainment. Despite the scares, it's rather soothing because you know exactly how each episode will go and hitting the "Play Next Episode" button has never felt more automatic. So if what you really need right now is to just lay there and giggle, and not have your TV demanding too much more input from your brain, this is the show for you. I know that doesn't seem like a rave review, but seriously, given the ongoing state of the world, isn't that the kind of television we are all craving?

Blue Bayou: An American Tragedy

Before we went to see Blue Bayou, my boyfriend asked me if I thought it was going to have a happy ending. Brimming with optimism, I said “Oh yes, I’m sure it will either end well or leave you with the sense that there is some hope for the protagonist!” Welp, spoiler alert. I walked out of that theater in tears. Now I want to make it clear, I thought this was a good and interesting movie and you should see it. But maybe not if you are having a rough week. 

Writer-director Justin Chon stars as Antonio LeBlanc (yes, the name is very on the nose), a Korean man who was adopted by a white couple in Louisiana when he was three and was raised as a full-fledged American. Unfortunately, he is not an American in terms of his paperwork as his adoptive parents never sorted out his citizenship. And now, after a minor skirmish with the law, he finds himself under threat of deportation to a country he had never known, having to leave behind his stepdaughter and his pregnant wife. That wife, Kathy, is played by Alicia Vikander. Who is a wonderful Swedish actress but is flirting with a Louisiana accent in this film with dire results. It really is a testament to what a good actress she is that I was still able to stay invested in this movie despite cringing every time she took her accent out for a spin. Thankfully, the other actors made up for it, though I'm sure if I was actually from New Orleans, I might not feel that way. 

As an immigrant myself, this movie raises compelling questions about what exactly it means to be an American. Since Antonio doesn’t look like a white man, his Americanness is constantly being denied. But then he meets a Vietnamese woman (played by the wonderful Linh Dan Pham) who invites him and his family over to her house for a big cookout. There, he learns how to make a summer roll, and his wife asks him if he’s ever eaten food like this before. He has to say No, and it’s clear that he has never identified himself as being Asian. 

This is a tragic movie about a loophole in US law that allowed Immigration and Customs Enforcement (the infamous ICE) to deport people who were adopted into this country as babies but didn’t formally have the paperwork to become US citizens. While this is a fictional story designed to tug your heartstrings to the max, the premise is fully factual and is one more entry in why America is a terrible place to be if you are poor and disenfranchised. At it's core, Blue Bayou is about a working class family that is managing to scrape by and live some semblance of the American dream. It is beautifully shot by Matthew Chuang and Ante Cheng and the scenes with Antonio on his motorcycle, or carrying his stepdaughter (shoutout to the riveting Sydney Kowalske who must portray SO MUCH heartbreak in this movie) on his shoulders, capture all the freedom and beauty that America promises to us all. That is, until the true American reality of racism, police brutality, and government bureaucracy and cruelty rip away all his dreams. There was a fun scene where Antonio's stepdaughter makes him dye his hair pink. But a few scenes later, we see him sweating with exertion as he's working a dire job to make some money to pay for his lawyer, and that bright pink dye is now dripping down his shoulders. America doesn't let you indulge in fun for very long when you're poor.

The movie piles indignities upon this man and it is insanely over-the-top in terms of how often it keeps pulling the rug out from under him. It eventually felt like an endless storytelling exercise and I was quite numb to the emotion of the entire thing because there was so much tragedy that it all started to feel too abstract. But the final scene hit a crescendo (both in terms of a soaring score by composer, Roger Suen, and an acting extravaganza from Chon and Kowalske) that finally broke me down. I suppose I appreciate the catharsis but damn, that was a lot to handle on a Sunday night. So if you need to purge your soul and enjoy a reckoning with America in all her beauty and despair, head on over to the Blue Bayou. It's gonna be quite the journey.

Respect & Annette: Movies & Music

I recently watched Respect and Annette, two movies that feature a lot of music. One is a fairly straightforward and not particularly innovative Hollywood biopic, and the other is...lord I don't know what it is. But if you've been feeling like you need some more movie music magic in your life, you could give these a try!

Respect: Directed by Liesl Tommy and written by Tracey Scott Wilson, this is a standard biopic about the life and times of the great Aretha Franklin. The best thing this movie has going for it is the casting of the incomparable Jennifer Hudson as Aretha, because, of course. No matter what else you think about this film, it can't be denied that Hudson takes Franklin's songs and imbues them with all the passion and heart that the circumstances require as we learn more about her traumatic childhood and upbringing. 

Yeah, there's a lot of terrible childhood trauma to unpack here. It's rather sad how the stories of so many of our greatest female icons are accompanied by horrific stories of abuse. As great as Hudson is in this role, my friend Laura and I were blown away by Skye Dakota Turner, the young girl who has to play the young Aretha, who both has to showcase incredible singing chops, but also has to showcase the fact that Aretha got pregnant at the age of 12. Following that, we move on to her first marriage to Ted White (played by Marlon Wayans, who is ordinarily a swoony leading man, but here is an unmitigated asshole), which is marred by all manner of domestic abuse. We also observe her relationship with her father, C. L. Franklin (played by Forest Whitaker), a Baptist pastor who was a celebrity in his own right and is the reason Aretha knew so many great musicians as well as Civil Rights activists, including Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. But, Franklin was also a controlling and domineering man who thought he knew what was best for Aretha, and is the reason much of her early career was stifled. 

Overall, this is a story of an incredible woman and the terrible men in her life - a sadly common tale. But what holds it all together is that music, those songs that are all burned into our psyches and always feel so soaring and triumphant, no matter all the heartbreak and devastation that lay underneath. When that lady takes the stage in her gorgeous costumes, impeccably coiffed and made up, you know you're in for a treat. But I was also impressed at how much time the movie spends in the studio, showing us how Aretha tinkered with arrangements and instrumentation. We all know her voice is remarkable, but I was surprised to see how much work was going on in the background with the music and harmonies to craft these songs into works of art that would stand the test of time. This movie is mostly a sad and harrowing tale, but at the end, Aretha triumphs, rising above her demons and heading for spiritual salvation, taking comfort in the gospel music that propelled her to ultimate stardom. And that's why she deserves our utmost respect.

Annette: Oh where to begin? There are two reasons I watched this movie. One: it stars Adam Driver, and lately I have strived to become an Adam Driver completist because he seems to always do something different and offbeat in each movie he's in (mission accomplished here!). Two: this movie was written by Ron and Russell Mael, the brothers behind the band Sparks. I had never heard of them until I saw The Sparks Brothers documentary in June, which is where I first heard that they were finally getting to make this movie after years of it getting stalled in the Hollywood production machine. Well, now director Leos Carax has made the movie, I've watched it, and I'm...perplexed.

Driver stars as Henry McHenry, a stand-up "comedian" (in quotes because whatever glimpses we see of his comedy are not funny and mostly meant to provoke his audience), who has a whirlwind courtship with Ann Desfranoux (Marion Cotillard, sporting violently red hair), a world-famous opera singer. The unlikely pair get married, and soon Ann gives birth to a baby named Annette. For most of the film, that baby is played by a wooden puppet. I hope that gives you a clue as to the kind of weird ass movie this is. 

Simon Helberg also stars as Ann's accompanist who is in love with her and devastated when she chooses Henry over him. But oh poor Ann, because shortly after the marriage, stories come to light in a #MeToo-esque fashion about Henry's treatment of women and anger issues, and she will come to regret this marriage. In classic fashion, as her career continues to flourish while Henry's flourishes, the relationship worsens, and things take a violent turn.

I seem to have forgotten to mention - this whole thing is an opera. Almost all of the dialogue is sung by the actors, and the songs are exceedingly weird, which is not too surprising if you know anything about the music of Sparks. Honestly, I would recommend watching this film as a double feature with The Sparks Brothers. It will still make zero sense to you, but at least you will have some much-needed context for the insanity that is transpiring on your screen. This is one of those movies that critics seem to delight in, but I am absolutely baffled by. If you like your cinema to be bizarre and offbeat and utterly wild, go forth, Annette is the movie for you. But otherwise, you may want to find something else.

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings: Marvel Goes Kung Fu

With the arrival of Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings in theaters, Marvel has finally given us a movie with an Asian-American superhero. And what follows is an excellent amalgam between a classic Marvel movie and a classic kung fu blockbuster. A Crouching Tiger, Hidden Thanos, if you will. So no surprises, it's a wholehearted recommendation from me, but if you're looking for more details, let's get into it.

Simu Liu stars as Shang-Chi, a man who was been living in San Francisco since high school and works as a valet alongside his best friend, Katy (the always charismatic and hilarious Awkwafina). However, when the two of them are on a bus one day, they are attacked by some villains, one of whom sports a deadly steel blade for an arm (as you do). Shang-Chi fights them off in the first of the movie’s incredibly unique and epic action sequences, and once that’s over, he has to explain to Katy that yeah, maybe there’s a bit more to him than meets the eye. He also knows that these attackers are going to go after his sister next, so they fly off to Macau for the next stage in their adventure.

All I had heard about this film before seeing it was Simu Liu and his star power. He is fantastic, but the most entertaining thing about this film for me is the supporting cast, which includes Tony Leung as Shang-Chi’s highly problematic father and Michelle Yeoh as his maternal aunt. Leung and Yeoh are absolute royalty in Hong Kong cinema and their casting in this film gives it an instant boost of prestige. And come on, Yeoh was in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. When she’s on screen, you know it’s about to get real. Add to the mix newcomer Meng’er Zhang who plays Shang-Chi’s estranged sister, Xialing, and you’ve got a complex set of family dynamics to work through, further complicated by the fact that every family member is a trained assassin who could snap you like a twig.

The stunt choreography in this film is jaw-dropping and I could watch some of those action sequences on a loop. There’s even a “fight” sequence at the beginning of the film between Shang-Chi’s parents when they first meet, showcasing how their initial battle turns into this incredible tango where they fall in love. That dynamic continues throughout this film when all the family members come into conflict. This a family that has gone through a lot of tragedy and kung fu seems to be the only language they now have in common to express their frustrations, which makes for some poetic scenes where fights turn into ballets, and the emphasis is less on inflicting pain than engaging in some violently persuasive communication.

The movie also boasts excellent production design and visual effects, with every set piece looking like an absolute treat and featuring a seamless blend of the modern and ancient worlds. The costume design is similarly eye-catching, with everyone getting to sport some splendid outfits that allow them to fight ravaging hordes of monsters and humans in style. And the soundtrack is a thumping reminder of both worlds that this superhero inhabits, alternating between traditional Chinese instrumentation and all-out hip-hop, which propel the movie forward while never letting you forget that this is a hero who is both Asian and American. You'd also be hard-pressed to forget that fact given that a significant portion of this film is in Chinese with English subtitles, a fact that I appreciated, because there's nothing worse than a Hollywood movie where you have a bunch of people speaking in English when they ordinarily would be speaking in their native tongue. 

Impeccably directed by Destin Daniel Cretton, Shang-Chi is a refreshing entry into the Marvel Cinematic Universe that feels both familiar and ground-breaking at the same time. It is funny, especially as Awkwafina is on hand to provide comic relief throughout, and it is zippy, moving with dizzying speed from one action set piece to the next so you’re never too bogged down in exposition or bored with too much Marvel lore. That being said, there’s plenty of lore and cameos that Marvel fans will enjoy, all setting up the fact that, of course, these characters will be returning. Given the box office records that this film is currently smashing, it’s clear that audiences wouldn’t mind seeing Shang-Chi show up in many more movies. So join them and indulge in two hours of sheer summer entertainment. It’s what Marvel does best, and boy did they deliver.