Season 3 of Mrs. Maisel picks up the slack and has some great scenes and routines

Season 3 of Amy Sherman-Palladino's The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (Prime, 2019) is a definite step up from Season 2, which seemed to drift away from what gives the series its strength and its life: Rachel Brosnahan's portrayal of the eponymous rising-star standup comedian. RB in all but 1 (of the 8) episodes gives a hilarious shtick that is well-integrated into the plot line. Man will watch and enjoy this series from he performances alone - and she's funny even when not delivering lines, just watching her walk through a crowded room is funny enough. That said, the series is by no means perfect, with every episode having its highlights and dead spots. For example, the Weisman, particularly Tony Shaloub's character, are always annoying and ridiculously over-the-top whiners who are strain credibility at every turn. On the other hand, MM's manager, Susie (Alex Borstein) is more nuanced and funnier in this season than in either of the first 2, as she begins to develop her own career, notably by managing the career of comic Jane Lynch in her weird attempt to play serious drama (Miss Julie, of all things). Most of all, some of the scenes in Season 3 are beautifully conceived, filmed, and edited; in the 10th episode alone there's a great opening sequence in which we see two parallel scenes of Mrs. M and her ex early in their marriage and 4 years later - same setting, same characters completely different mood. Another great sequence simply shows MM walking through the crowded garment-district amid racks and racks of women's wear being cut out, sewn, prepared for shipping - a simple scene, maybe not even necessary, but good as any documentary on the industry in the 50s. And of course the Harlem barbershop scene in the 10th episode, this one Suzie's, a great and lively scene and probably incredibly difficult to script and plan. All in all, it's a season with its ups and downs, but the series is on the right track heading toward Mrs M's inevitable breakout as a headliner (in this season she's an opening act for a Johnny Mathis lookalike) in Season 4.

Hoping that Parasite will bring more recognition to the other works of Bong Joon-ho

The latest feature from Bong Joon-ho, Parasite (2019) has been the topic of much interest and discussion and has, I think, raised public awareness of this terrific South Korean writer/director; Parasite may well win an Oscar award and perhaps viewers will check out some of Joon-ho's other features (The Host, Memories of Murder, Snowpiercer, Okja - the most accessible - and especially Mother). Parasite is a genre-defying work that starts of as somewhat of a comic caper film: a family of 4 living in squalor in an impoverished Seoul neighborhood see a chance to lift themselves out of poverty. The teenage son gets a job as an English tutor to a high-school girl in a family of the Korean uber-rich, the father working as a CEO of a huge electronics firm, such as LG. Through devious means, the family members scheme to get the mother in the wealthy family to fire each of her servants (housekeeper, chauffeur, etc.) and to hire one of the family members (father, mother, daughter) - though she thinks the new hires are merely recommended friends, not family members. Up to this point, it's kind of funny - but then the story takes significant turn, which I won't divulge, but in effect it involves other Korean workers living in the sub-basement of the house of the wealthy and various interactions, many of them scary and brutal, between the workers and the super-rich, leading to an extremely gory conclusion. OK, so the delineation between the good and bad is ambiguous and blurred, but the obvious discrepancies of wealth within in this one prosperous country are vivid and horrendous and not really surprising; the film avoids the fate of over-simplification and heavy-handed messaging through its own wit and self-awareness: At various points in the developing story, the son/English tutor remarks "It's all so metaphoric!," which it is - but by saying so he invites us to share the director's vision. It's obvious that we're meant to sympathize (if not identify) with the impoverished, opportunistic family - at least up to a point. In the end, after the violent denouement, the question we're left with is: Which were the parasites?

One of the great films of the 21st century: Edward Yang's Yi Yi

The last film by the late Taiwanese writer-director Edward Yang, Yi Yi (2000), has a solid claim to be one of the greatest movies of the century (so far); I posted recently on Yang's earlier film, A Brighter Summer Day, also a terrific film though a little more challenging for American viewers, as it requires, or at least improves, with a little fore-knowledge about the Taiwanese history of immigration from mainland China. Yi Yi (translated roughly as A one, an' a two...) requires to special topical knowledge - it's a straight-out brilliant film at 3+hours (and worth all of that - and today would probably be conceived as a miniseries) about a year in the life of a Taiwanese family, beginning with a wedding and ending w/ a funeral. Over the course of the film we see each member of the family going through a personal crisis, some by the end of the year/film stronger for the experience, others perhaps not. The central event that drives the plot concerns the teenage daughter, Ting Ting; at the outset, she made a mistake and forgot to take out the garbage from their upper-story apartment; her grandmother, who'd not been feeling well, took out the garbage on her own and suffered a stroke in doing so. Ting Ting is thereafter consumed by guilt and remorse. Over the course of the film, each family member speaks in monologue to the near-comatose grandmother, and these monologue scenes are powerful, moving, revealing, and sometimes strange. Other plot elements developing over the course of the film involve the young brother who's being picked on by some kids at school and develops an interest in photography (an obvious analog for the director himself); the father who has an encounter with the girlfriend of his youth and is an uncomfortable fit in a youth-dominated Taipei electronics firm; and the mother, who suffers a nervous breakdown and spends time in a New Age retreat. So much happens in the film, and it all feels real and engaging - and we watch much of the action through windows in the tall apartment buildings, office buildings, and street scenes (such as a NY Bagels coffee shop) in then modern-day Taipei (with some sequences, far more placid and serene, in Japan/Tokyo). The concluding moments of the film a fantastic, guaranteed to bring a sob or tear. The early death of Yang was a tremendous loss to world cinema, a writer-director who worked at the height of cinematic naturalism, on a par, it would seem, with Ozu, Kurosawa, Bresson, maybe Bergman (though less existential), yet with a style and deliberate pacing of his that could carry and advance several interwoven plot lines that build upon one another and move the narrative toward a powerful, unified conclusion.

A documentary that exposes excessive government control of private lives in China: One Child Nation

The documentary film One Child Nation (2019, directors Nanfu Wang & Lynn Zhang) starts off just strange (at least to American viewers) and becomes increasingly horrifying and terrifying. It's a look at the policy adopted by China about 35 years ago to encourage couples to have on child only - as the country feared a shortage of resources and huge economic consequences if the population grew rapidly. Nothing in and of itself bad for a nation to adopt such a goal, though to Americans it would, and does, feel like too much state intrusion into private, personal lives of others. That said, the government at first supported the policy through massive propaganda: slogans pained on buildings and road signage (not too different from what we see in the U.S. today about auto safety and drunken driving), then with many to us weird songs and dances - and then the story becomes much stranger, as the government imposes severe penalties on families that have a 2nd child - and w/ the government eventually adopting policies that led to infanticide and forced sterilization (of women, of course). the directors travel to China to meet w/ people in Wang's family (she now lives in the U.S.) and in her home town or village to see what these people say in reflecting back on the policy (rescinded a few years ago, as the population has become stable). We see people who were responsible for thousands of infant deaths and sterilizations of thousands of women lamenting: What could we do? It was state policy. Others have reacted by leading a life of penance, supporting family planning and medical clinics. Then, strangest of all, they filmmakers report on the adoption industry that arose during this era: People procuring in all ways imaginable abandoned babies, selling them to state-run orphanages, which in turn sold the infants to foreigners eager to adopt children - so the state looked away from this criminal behavior because everyone was making money. (Much of this was uncovered by a reporter now living in Hong Kong.) Toward the end, the film loses a bit of its steam as they filmmakers focus on an organization in Utah trying to learn the true origin of many U.S.-adopted babies and to reunite some with their Chinese families; unfortunately, at this point none has been reunited, so the film is missing its final big punch (the movie from a few years back, Twinsters, does show this kind of surprise discovery and reunion of twin sisters, born in Korea and raised apart in the U.S.). All told, though, though it break no new cinematic ground, One Child Nation is worth watching for its expose of governmental control of the lives of people - even now, under the current "2-child" family movement in China.

Why to watch Atlantics despite its evident flaws

Senegalese director Ati Diop's new movied on Netflix, Atlantics (2019) is a really ambitious and unusual first movie starts off great and then seems to lose its way (or lose its audience). The film has something for everyone, in its odd way. It starts off focusing on a strike or walkout on the part of the workers and laborers - no trade unions in Dakar of course - walking off the job because they've gone 3 months without pay; this section of the film is shot in cinema verite style and it looks as if we're set for a realistic expose of working conditions in this impoverished African city (with an astonishing skyscraper on the horizon, for out of proportion to everything else and obviously symbolic of the haves and have-nots). Then we start to follow one of the workers, Souleiman who meets up with his girlfriend, Ada, and he's worried about making money now that he's walked off the job and thinks of taking a boat to Spain to find work - so we're now in a love story and an immigrant/refugee story. Then we see that Ada is engaged to a wealthy man from a local Muslim family - though she obviously does not love him (nor he her) and we're in a Romeo & Juliet story and a class of religious and social classes. Then, on her wedding night, there's a arson attack on her husband's home and the story becomes a police procedural. Then ... the investigating officer gets strangely ill and many of Ada's friends become possessed and wander the streets at night like zombies and threaten the man who's w/held wages - and all the while there are reports of S's return to Dakar but nobody quite seems able to find him, and at this point the movie is virtually impossible to follow and seems to be shooting off the rails. So all told Atlantics is a curiosity and a promising work - worth watching alone for the street scenes in Dakar, which are amazingly sad and sometimes exciting - and as a debut of a director with lots of talent but obviously still trying to find her way; a solid and straightforward plot line would be of help.

Marriage Story is Baumbach's best and most ambitious film to date

Marriage Story (2019) is Noah Baumbach's best and most ambitious movie to date; it's a powerful drama about the breakup of a marriage (and family), very sad and disturbing throughout and painfully believable. I'm not sure that it's a balanced depiction of a break-up - in my view the wife, Nicole (Scarlett Johannson) is far less sympathetic that her spouse, the beleaguered Charlie (Adam Driver - is he in every movie this year, btw?) - and I wonder if female viewers find her more sympathetic than I did; it may be a gender thing. In essence, we meet this Brooklyn couple, and their 8-year-old son, as they've started the process of mediation to lead to what they believe will be a completely amicable divorce. But from the first scene we see the fractures, as they squabble in the mediator's office w/ Nicole in particular refusing to go along w/ the "assignment" (listing things you like about your spouse. We see eventually that she's taking the lead on the break-up; she feels her husband in self-centered and has stifled her career - yet she's no Nora (Doll's House): She is the lead actor in his theater company and is offered a lead role in a show bound from Broadway. We soon realize, or should, that there are about a hundred ways in which she could advance her acting/directing career w/out breaking up the marriage; there has to be another reason for her ire (Charlie's been relegated to sleeping on the couch for a year!), but Baumbach does not reveal any more of her story. The essence of the film is the complete impossibility of an amicable divorce. Nicole breaks faith with Charlie and hires an extremely aggressive divorce lawyer (Laura Dern), and Charlie has no choice but to follow suit, so to speak, and they're at each other's throats (again, Charlie gets more of our sympathy as he's clearly being pushed aside in his desire to share custody of their son and he's financially strapped while N relies on family wealth). The high (or low) point of the film is the scene in which N visits C in his sterile rental apt in LA (she has moved to LA w/ their son) as they begin to discuss matters peaceably and rationally and the discussion completely goes off the rails. In fact there are many great, and always sad, moments - including all the visits of both C and N to their attorneys. the courtroom scene near the end is a little formulaic and I think matters could have been wrapped a little more dexterously at the end - did we need the 2 musical #s? - bu all told it's a well-scripted and well-paced drama that will provoke a lot of thought and self-examination among many viewers.

The Top 5 Returning Miniseries I Watched in 2019

Closing out my lists of the best shows I watched in 2019, here are the Top 5 Miniseries, Returning, that I watched in 2019, listed alphabetically:

Call My Agent (Season 3): In this rarity, a series that gets better with each season, we end up caring about each of the characters in this high-end Paris talent agency, despite their double-dealings and infidelities, and we appreciate getting what feels like a true inside look at this complicated profession - what agents have to do to get, retain, mollify, appease, and coddle the talent and how they manage to earn their 10 percent.

The Crown (Season 3): Moving along with a new cast (notably, Olivia Colman as Queen Elizabeth and Helena Bonham Carter as Princess Margaret) to the reign of Elizabeth II in the 1960s and beyond, this series gives us the best of British acting, writing, and directing, with all 10 episodes clear and crisp, thoughtful and provocative; as with the first two seasons, the producers held back nothing on design and milieu - perfectly recreating all the lavish environments where the royals ruled and sported, down to the last detail. 

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (Season 3): Although Season 2 sagged a little, the pace picked up in Season 3 in which we see the eponymous Maisel, played flawlessly by Rachel Brosnahan, on the cusp of fame as she takes her act on the road - along with her manager, Alex Borstein, as Susie Myerson, who's getting better and funnier as the series develops. 

Mindhunter (Season 2): In the first season, loosely based on facts, Agents Ford and Tench developed the concept of identifying serial killers via psychological profiling - a new and controversial methodology in the FBI at the time - and Season 2 is even better, as it moves away from a series of profiles to dramatize the use of those new technique in one particularly sensitive and troubling case, the series of abductions of black children in Atlanta in the 1980s.

Veep (Final Season): Julia Louis-Dreyfus is perfect once again as the egotistical, tempestuous presidential candidate Selena Meyer, and we see her maneuver her way through minefields on her way to the nomination, supported by her loyal staff members whom she rebukes and abuses and on whom she depends completely; all of the supporting players are credible and rich - a true ensemble production - and most of the secondary characters are as well, most notably Timothy Simons as the odious candidate Jonah Ryan.