Tag: stan

reviews, television

Perpetual Grace Ltd (STAN)

by CJLeave a Comment on Perpetual Grace Ltd (STAN)

Damon Herriman is an uncommonly versatile actor with an intriguing, enviable and unique career. In Australia, he’s a star character actor – itself a rare position – and in the United States he’s cornered a strange market, of misfits and malcontents of sometimes limited intelligence and potential danger (he’s playing Manson in Tarantino’s upcoming film). He has a laser-like ability to hone in on any of his characters’ exact level of intelligence and worldliness, so that, for example, his character in Perpetual Grace Ltd, Paul, is smarter than Dewey, his character on Justified, but not as smart as Kim on Secret City, who’s much smarter than Buddy on Quarry, and so on and so on. The secret sauce is that all of them may be a little bit smarter than they let on, or a lot more dumb than they think they are.

This ability to be so specific is important for Perpetual Grace Ltd, because Paul kicks the whole thing rolling, setting up a drifter (Jimmi Simpson) to help him rob of his parents (Ben Kingsley and Jacki Weaver) of four million bucks. They’re corrupt preachers, and the universe of their operations is New Mexico, but really, it’s Coen Brothers World, even though those filmmakers have nothing to do with this show, except to leave their influence all over it.

Despite wearing that influence on its sleeve, Perpetual Grace Ltd delivers. It’s funny, sharp and funky. Kingsley brings his Sexy Beast, Simpson is a natural at roles like this, and Weaver… well, you can tell there’s something brewing. I’m in. This is fun TV made with seriously good ingredients, such as this sublime, highly intelligent cast; they’re all smart enough to know how to play dumb, and I’m guessing some of their characters are too.

reviews, television

STAN: Catch-22, The Bisexual, Pen15

by CJLeave a Comment on STAN: Catch-22, The Bisexual, Pen15

 

New and newish TV on STAN.

Exquisitely directed by Grant Heslov, and featuring a perfectly wry, extremely charismatic central performance from Christopher Abbott, the pilot episode of Catch-22, a new six-episode adaptation of the infamous 1961 anti-war novel by Joseph Heller on Stan, shows enormous promise. Rather than trying to outgun the intensity of Saving Private Ryan and its followers, this thrillingly entertaining show seems to be indebted far more to Robert Altman’s film version of M*A*S*H than anything else; it presents its World War 2 bomber pilots and their idiotic commanders in a wold that includes beer, swimming and girls. There is horror, of course: people die and they bleed. But the tone is light, jaunty, aided by a wonderful period soundtrack of popular songs, and as such may be a throwback, but a truly delightful one. War is insane, so we may as well laugh at it.

The Bisexual, from feature-film auteur Desiree Akhavan (The Miseducation of Cameron Post) is a half-hour comedy about an Iranian-American living in London, Leila (played by Akhavan herself) who splits up with her long-term girlfriend to explore her bisexual side – ie, men. It’s cool, stylish and intriguing, with some really good laughs and excellent performances, and – it almost goes without saying – fresh. This is the kind of content that comes with cultural revolution; it’s a far cry from Modern Family, let alone Married With Children or The Honeymooners, all considered radical in their day. The Bisexual doesn’t scream out its agenda on the battlements; it takes its own modernity as a given, and that’s fresh indeed. Worth a watch.

Pushing formal boundaries more than narrative ones, Pen15 stars creators Maya Erskine and Anna Konkle as two American “7th graders” (12-13 year olds) dealing with high school. The formal twist is that Erskine and Konkle are both in their 30s. The revelation is that, in almost every scene, you completely buy them as kids, even when the only other actors in scenes with them are actual kids. It’s pretty remarkable and lots of fun, and the tone is buoyant and giddy. This is a show about female friendship at a very particular age, and it feels very much like it’s nailing it; despite its overtly comedic style, it feels very, very real. It’s set in 2000, so there’s nostalgia to be revelled in as well. Worth watching.