Space, Spooks, Spies and Sundry - Friday Video Distractions with Mike Norton

 

   No attempt at a theme this week. My attention of late's been more taken up by work, worries, trying to get some quality sleep, and more reading than watching tv and movies. The fuse is running perilously close to the holidays, I'm trying to determine what I should even aim for, and humans have seldom seemed as frail and vulnerable to me as they do in the dimming light of 2020.
    The most recent, most-enjoyed video items have been things I've been finally getting around to on my DVR, most of which were recorded a while back, some via "free" periods earlier this year, others just along the way. As they're less current, I'll toss those mentions in near the end.
    Looking a little ahead, coming to Netflix December 23rd, is Midnight Sky

          One of those projects that got this close before I was even aware of it coming, it's an adaptation of Lily Broos-Dalton's first novel, Good Morning, Midnight. I'm going in with very low-key expectations, expecting plot elements seen better done elsewhere, and much, much more heart than mind, but will be happy to be pleasantly surprised.
   The film's getting a theatrical release starting today - part of the basic agreement for this film when it was contracted, so that it'll be eligible come awards season next year - but was set from the beginning for release this month on Netflix. This is another of those projects whose production just missed being affected by the pandemic, with filming wrapping in early February.
     Of a very different stripe, something that's already available (on both Amazon Prime and Hulu, as part of the general subscription) is Body Cam.

     One of those seen and acted upon on a whim bits of viewing, I hadn't been aware of it until I ran across it.
     A supernatural thriller which took on a topic that probably got a little too big for its ambitions - unarmed minorities being shot and killed by police - between its being written in 2017 and the original, planned release in 2019, when the press of news events saw it get treatment by the studio (Paramount) that only seems so oddly familiar in 2020 because the pandemic's done it to nearly everything. Originally set to hit theaters May 17, 2019, the studio first pushed that back to December in the now darkly comical hopes that the topicality and furor would have died down, then less than a month before that planned release realized this wasn't a topic that was cooling down to be comfortable movie house fare, and so went straight to digital. Ah, well, it probably wasn't as if anyone was really expecting it to be noted by The Academy.
     It's a better film than the average review indicates, but it's far from a superlative one. The subject it's built around is simply too polarized for most people to just casually roll with in 2020, and I'm not saying that as a criticism of either the film or those who are unlikely to be comfortable watching it. It doesn't have a fresh and incisive take on the subject, and at heart remains a ghost story.
     Recent DVR clear-outs (mentioned near the top) that I enjoyed included Quentin Tarentino's Once Upon A Time In Hollywood.
     An end-of-the-sixties period film I'd really intended to see when it was out in theaters, but the plans never fell in line. As with other Tarentino films with historical framing - built around major, well-reported events - the director is ultimately far more interested in enjoying the possibilities, history be damned, than in any slavish devotion to historical accuracy. Stylish and star-studded, it's a good time, with a violent and viscerally-satisfying climax. I picked that up courtesy of an extended free Starz period back in April, when some of the cable providers were doing more of that as their nominal support for pandemic stay-at-home orders -- obviously with the not-so-secret hope that at least some of the still-employed shut-ins would decide to add a subscription.

     Jumping back to 1965, for real this time, I enjoyed The Ipcress File. A more-intelligent-than-its- contemporaries, counter-espionage thriller, starring Michael Caine in the lead as Harry Palmer. An adaptation of the 1962 Len Deighton novel of the same name. While it has a technical gimmick as a key plot point, it's otherwise a relatively sophisticated, downbeat spy novel, especially at a time when the Bond franchise was already increasingly gimmick- and cliche-ridden, and had inspired an array of increasingly farcical imitations.
     One of the bits I'd found out was that in that first Deighton novel of what would - because of interest generated by the film - become a successful series, the protagonist told the story in the first person, and remained nameless. Caine himself, at the request of the director and the producer, came up with the name "Harry Palmer" when asked to come up with a dull, uninspiring, everyman name for the bespectacled, working class, quietly insubordinate, main character, who'd essentially been blackmailed into his occupation. The naming then fed back into the novels, becoming canon.
     What makes this, oddly, a little more timely is that ITV recently announced a new, 6-part adaptation of the novel, the new screenplay by Trainspotting writer John Hodge, with Joe Cole in the lead, and Lucy Boynton and Tom Hollander in principal roles. James Watkins will be directing. That's reportedly something aimed to be shot, in Croatia and Liverpool, and shown sometime next year. The general feeling being that, if it's successful, especially with seven subsequent novels to adapt, they'll have a new franchise to work.
     Here's a complete, fairly visually and audibly clean version of the 1965 film over on YouTube. The lack of reliable subtitles isn't even the issue it would normally be for me, as the version I had recorded didn't have them either.

     Looking ahead into the coming week, I'll once again remind anyone interested that CBS All Access will begin its 10-part, weekly adaptation of Stephen King's The Stand starting next Thursday, December 17th. The tenth episode is to be a new coda, written by King himself.

     As I write this I remain uncertain how much I'll actually be in the mood to watch it. That's irrespective of any casting choices and character changes to adapt to more contemporary demographics and social themes. I simply remain unsure how much I'm going to be able to settle into and enjoy the story at this point in history.
     Oh, a few TCM notes before I close out.
     Saturday at noon (Eastern) they'll give what I think is the first direct nod this month to the holiday theme, by running the 1938 version, starring Reginald Owen, of A Christmas Carol.

     As big block mystery items, TCM has carved out what seem to be two, big packages Tuesday night to roughly dawn Wednesday. One eight-hour block, starting 8 PM, followed by a four-hour one. The cable guide FIOS provides just has them marked as "movie", and TCM's online schedule is cagier still, just skipping those twelve hours. So, I don't know what it'll be, but this sort of thing is often how they slip in some surprise content. No specific hopes gotten up, as these have sometimes been a disappointment, but my curiosity's there.
     In a different vein, they'll be running two Bette Davis films during the early daylight on Friday the 18th. Jezebel (1938) and The Letter (1940), at at 6:30 and 8:30 AM, respectively - all times Eastern. The latter was recommended to me a while back as a key Davis performance; I'd only noted the earlier film as I saw they were running two of hers back to back.
    Next time, unless some other theme overtakes me, I'll try to spend a little more time getting into a holiday spirit with the spotlight here. In the meantime, take care, and take a look at the entries for the other six days of the week here on the C7 blog. There's much of interest to be found there if you give it a chance.   -- Mike.