A Post In the Machine.
Sugar, Zone of Interest, whatever the hell is going on at Apple TV+, helpful tips about madness and some moving stories.
I was going to write a post for the end of last week and then I had to admit to myself, as I sagged on couches, drooped in chairs, used my Theragun on tired muscles, drank wine while scrolling lazily through my well-curated Tumblr succession of architecture, design, butts and style, that I was just way too fucking wiped out to write anything.
I’ll get something up Friday, I thought, then just repeated the first paragraph above. I did, however, have a series of Very Good Thoughts, links, videos, minor essay type blocks of quality intellectual curiosity, all set for a Something On Sunday column.
You can go check the archive, it’s not there.
The previous Thursday through Sunday I raced around in a Cargo Van of Sadness — yes, again, for fuck’s sake — and completed what should be the final soul sucking moving trip to Portland, complete with side trek to Santa Cruz and back to the Bay for good measure before it all started, and a sprint home in the dark on Easter.
Wheee.
That it took me — no exaggeration — until Saturday to feel “mostly normal” is just kind of pathetic and I’ll speak of it no more but there’s your perfectly good reason for day drinking and napping and watching random TV.
Thanks, I needed it.
I mean, I had to fend off emails from angry tax people about where the hell all my paperwork was and, uh, yeah, I spent the weekend “adulting,” which is one or one-and-a-half notches down from hurtling a cargo van through the darkness of outer Sacramento farm land at 75 mph on Easter, just aching for a bed to flop into.
Scratch “mover” off of the cool late career detours I might take to entertain myself.
There are great stories of courage and grit in the world — a friend’s 20-something son just beat stage four cancer over the course of a grueling year for that whole family, which is fucking amazing and heartening so, yes, I’m fully aware that my woes are lame and, worse, if anything remotely that awful and trying were to happen to me I’d fold up like a cheap tent and snap my poles and mold away in someone’s forgotten yearly Bulky Pick-Up pile of scraps.
So I took my downtime with the knowledge that things are not bad at all, really.
Then I watched “The Zone Of Interest.”
Oh, things are bad.
Jesus, that Jonathan Glazer film is bleaktastic and haunting and still necessary and probably not the movie we should have chosen to catch up on culture. Evil pretending to be deaf or unaware or, more accurately, uncaring on even a microscopic level, is excellent fodder for a film (and book!), but one of the things I can’t shake, beyond the brain-rattling, fractious, ominous, superb score, is just how methodically planned out every shot was, how choreographed every close-quarter movement of people was, how precisely Wes Anderson-esque (which beats saying “how precisely German”) each physical movement was.
I became obsessed with the opening and closing of doors, the turning out of lights, walking crisply in clean lines, etc. I wondered how much thought — my guess being “so, so much” — went into every scene with the dog.
Metaphor Dog?! Here, boy!
How to make a film that takes place just outside the frame, in reality?
With care, is the answer.
If you haven’t seen “The Zone Of Interest,” rectify that.
I watched the first episode of “Sugar,” on Apple TV+, partly because I like Colin Farrell and partly because we decided to watch AMC+’s “Parish” at a later time, and we also delayed that, that….you know, that other show that just came out or seemed new and….well, you get it.
Watching “Sugar” was interesting because if ever there was an endorsement for “L.A. Confidential,” it’s this. It’s a great film. We should watch it together in real time!
“L.A. Confidential” would also be a great idea for a TV series despite two failed tries and all the talk in the world about doing it leading to nothing. Unless it’s on MGM+ or something.
But “Sugar”? I don’t know. Well, wait, I do know that without Farrell I would have turned it off in under 20 minutes — 15 tops. But I watched the whole thing and, well, it doesn’t know what it wants to be, I don’t know if I want to watch it try to find itself and there weren’t enough good parts to offset the bad ones so, oh well for now.
But it did make me ask this — out loud, even: “What the fuck is going on at Apple TV+ with all these light period pieces?” (One doesn’t say “plus” when saying Apple TV, but you know what I meant).
I’m still paying for Apple TV+ and like a lot of previous content on it but have taken a break from it lately because so much of the recent offerings have been so…dubious?
It’s like, “I got a friend at Apple TV+ that will buy that in the room if there’s a big star attached and you’ve got an elevator pitch I can drop an anvil on.”
I see the appeal if you’re trying to make a network TV series in the early 2000s but in the streaming age? Then again, Apple TV+ has been doing this since “The Morning Show” so it’s a feature not a bug.
After being on something of a roll, creatively, either the mojo is loosening or I’m just too exacting as a model viewer.
I didn’t want to watch “Lessons In Chemistry.”
I kinda-sorta wanted to watch “Monarch: Legacy of Monsters,” but I didn’t and I’ll blame the title there.
I had zero interest in “Masters Of the Air.” (I did note to myself that it seemed very, very Apple TV+, which I think is now officially a thing we can point to.)
I still might watch “The New Look,” because I love Ben Mendelsohn, but events of the world aren’t making me want to watch a show about how fashion rose from the ashes of events of the world. But Mendelsohn will probably drag me in.
It’s possible I’ll watch “Constellation,” even if it reminds me of “The Signal,” but it’s pretty telling that my sci-fi loving partner hasn’t watched it twice already. Very curious to figure out what put her off, but we’ve made a loose pact to give it a shot.
“Manhunt”? Who walks enthusiastically into a pitch meeting with, “Let’s revisit the assassination of Abe Lincoln!” and — more important — who buys that? Well, we know. Big nope on watching that one.
I don’t care how many stars you put in “Palm Royale,” it’s not happening. It is, however, YET ANOTHER PERIOD PIECE SHOW ON APPLE TV+. If the trailer is insanely bad and I’ve never heard even one person talking about it, why would I trade precious time to watch it?
Speaking of period pieces (anvil drops), so is “Sugar,” of course and, somewhat hilariously, the upcoming “Franklin,” aka “Michael Douglas Is Franklin.” I wouldn’t watch that even if Ben Mendelsohn played Ben Franklin.
I ask, then, in conclusion, what the fuck is going on at Apple TV+?
My answer is this: I think the person who bought “Franklin” also bought “Manhunt,” and — wait, I’m getting off the point — I think every single executive at Apple TV+ has been watching “Yellowstone” and all of its devil children offspring and thinking, “We can do that, with more gloss!,” while drooling.
I’m beyond worried that 2024 is essentially the prequel to the “Civil War” movie and I think all the months ahead of us will need anti-depressants galore. Stay safe and get yourself some pills, people. Better (and safer) living through chemistry.
Or you could move. I might. I’m getting good at it.
I was looking at my hopeful tax write-offs and noticed Max, Disney, Netflix, Apple TV+, Amazon, Sundance TV, BritBox, Hulu, Criterion Channel, AMC+ and perhaps one or three others I missed? What was even more troubling is that I am using three different ways to pay for all of them instead of having them on one card where I can stare dumbfounded at what I’m supposed to be watching and perhaps get a better, clearer understanding of where to trim. Let my woes be your guidance.
I haven’t done much reading this year after, I think, a very optimistic and positive start to 2024. Still plenty of time, I know, especially when I’m not in a cargo van, but I miss reading. I miss slowing down and reading. Am I even capable of that anymore? It’s a 2024 resolution, so we shall see. Plus, I think Ben Franklin, or Michael Douglas Is Ben Franklin, would endorse all of us reading more.
On the sunny side of this dour observation is that I have been soaking my brain in all kinds of architecture and design sites, and it’s making me happy. “The Architecture of Happiness” indeed. Make yourself a comfortable space, people. Your lived environment is part of your lived life, so pay it some attention.
In one of those reminders that I'm about 85 percent nicer post full-time TV critic here on Substack than I was in my past life, when I'm NOT (like this post) the results are tangible. The person who created and wrote "Manhunt" was a paid subscriber who just unsubscribed. Ah, see, those "When I Was Cruel" lyric tattoos are on my legs for a reason...
That said, I've really liked most of this person's work and said so, out loud and in public.
I see things are getting softer out there...
I like Sugar. It’s mysterious enough to pique my interest. Have only seen first two episodes, though. Keep hoping for something of Severance quality.