Two notes, first on The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Season 2. Far too often the 2nd season of a hit series falls way short of the mark. We watched the first episode of Maisel 2 last night and I'm pretty sure we'll stay with the series but what a mixture of the good and the bad in this season kickoff! As to the good: Once again Rachel Brosnahan is a completely winning presence in every scene she's in. Her standup routine in this first episode is completely clever and surprising and hilarious; her stint on the B.Altman switchboard in the opening segment is great, too. The biggest surprise, though, was the hilarious episode w/ Alex Borstein (playing Susie Myerson), waylaid by a pair of thugs and talking her way out of trouble and winning them over. OK, but on the downside: The trip to Paris to bring back Midge's mother is just awful, completely nonsensical, never funny, and never helped by the one-note whining of Shalhoub.
Second, on Spike Lee's Blackkklansman, on which I posted yesterday. First, sorry but I got the date of the setting wrong - it must be about 1972 (not 68), though I'm not sure of the exact year. Sorry. Also, I've since learned that Lee took major liberties with the facts and the source material in turning Stallworth's memoir into this movie. For example (possible spoilers), there was no bombing and "Flip" was not Jewish. I don't object to his doing so - and I think any viewer would know that the relationship with the college activist was Lee's invention. Lee's changes made the narrative far more exciting and didn't belie the truth at the heart of the story - the racism of the klan, the bravery of Stallworth (even if somewhat exaggerated), but I do think Lee should have been more forthright, with some kind of cue that some facts and incidents have been changed and that the film is only loosely based on this true episode.
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