The Book of Rannells: Black Monday: 105 – “243” (2019)

This is a good episode.  It’s mostly stripped down, focusing more on the main three.  Some strong humor and important character development.

Mo and Dawn fly out to Los Angeles after receiving their very hush-hush “non”-invitation to the Predators’ Ball.  The highly-exclusive event is equal parts raucous partying and financial matchmaking, and Mo is desperate for a big score – that is, if his ego doesn’t get in the way.  Meanwhile, there’s news of an SEC raid in the cards, so the other traders have been tasked with a late-night “shredding party,” but Blair gets saddled with all the work.

All the Predators’ Ball stuff is really interesting.  I like the debauched secret-society vibe it gives off, with all the pointless dramatic subterfuge, and it’s intriguing to see Mo and Dawn’s uneasy place in the pecking order.  Upon their arrival, their (maybe) host declares them “our first Blacks” and Dawn “our first woman” (not counting the prostitutes at the party.)  Mo and Dawn, as usual, are very capable of weaving magic when they work together but struggle to put their personal issues aside long enough to actually do it.  Both of them here are making moves and playing games with each other, in an unspoken game of interpersonal chicken since the events of the last episode.

There’s also an effective scene at the top of the episode featuring a sexual harassment seminar from the firm’s lawyer.  Obviously, these traders have zero concept of not sexually harassing their coworkers, and Dawn is sure to give as good as she gets, but even so, this lecture is just ridiculously lacking.  In addition to the traders mercilessly mocking it the whole time and asking clueless bad-faith questions like, “Does it count if she’s really old?”, the lawyer’s advice is full-on nonsense.  Offering such (paraphrased) gems as, “Well, of course, you can still say anything you’d like to a woman, but where physical contact is concerned, it’s a little more complicated…”, it’s a comic nightmare of wall-to-wall misogyny.

Blair is mostly tucked away in his own plot here, but he’s still pretty fun.  Being stuck at the office with the shredder, which he inevitably screws up, leads to some good physical comedy, and it’s just enjoyable to watch him poke distractedly through other people’s things and field increasingly-incensed calls from Tiff about why he isn’t home yet.  My vote for Best Andrew Rannells Line Reading of the episode goes to, “He doesn’t bully me!  Although he did kind of take my lunch money.”  Ha!

Favorite Characters: Veronica Lodge (Riverdale)

Veronica was the first character on Riverdale to hook me back in the pilot, something I never would’ve anticipated.  I’m not against Veronica in the comics – I enjoy her presence well enough in Jughead, and Archie does some pretty good things with her – but I didn’t love her or was particularly invested in her outside of Riverdale.  But this version of Veronica is terrific, and even though she, like most of the characters, has been dinged up by the show’s fluctuating levels of quality, I still root for her (a few Veronica-based spoilers.)

One of Archie comics’ most enduring features is its Archie-Betty-Veronica love triangle, and I wasn’t surprised when, within seconds of Veronica meeting the other two in the show, that plot was off and running.  However, the series did surprise me with how quickly it pushed that idea aside to make room for more interesting storylines and directions in which to take the characters (sad when love triangles are so ubiquitous that a teen show opting instead for something interesting is noteworthy, but here we are.)  It’s an important pivot for the series in deciding what kind of story it’s going to be, and while she’s not the only factor in this change, Veronica’s character does have a lot to do with that.

While comic-book Veronica is a prototypical spoiled princess, a materialist daddy’s girl with all the boys at her beck and call, that’s not the tack they take with TV Veronica.  TV Veronica, it’s true, has until recently been a spoiled princess, and a mean girl to boot.  But she had a recent change in fortune after  her father was arrested in a very public scandal.  This is what brings her to Riverdale in the first place, leaving New York with her mom after the family’s dirty laundry airs on national news and most of their assets are frozen.  In season 1, Veronica still has a fair amount to learn about not being rich anymore (she’s awfully quick about making lavish purchases,) but she’s taken what happened to heart and is determined to come out of it all a better person.  Over the course of the series, of course, things happen with Hiram and the Lodges are back in the money, but while Veronica flirts with how associated she wants to be with her parents’ dirty dealings, she doesn’t leave behind the new attitudes she gained during the family’s period of disgrace.

This is a Veronica who’s been working to reform herself.  She doesn’t want to be the cruel, popular girl who laughs at those weaker than her, not now that she’s learned how quickly circumstances can change.  So, instead of initially rolling with Cheryl and her cliquey squad, Veronica branches out.  She uses her fierceness as a force for good, standing up to Cheryl’s tyranny on the cheerleading squad and leading the charge for the reptuations of girls who’ve been slut-shamed by the football team.  She also becomes very genuine friends with Betty and puts that friendship above love-triangle considerations – although Veronica and Archie start dating eventually, it’s not until after Betty gets together with Jughead.

I like that Veronica is tough and formidable even as she learn to be kind, and I love that she’s highly literate and effortlessly bright at the same time that she waxes poetic over shoes and rocks a pearl necklace.  She’s girly and smart, considerate but not a pushover.  That’s beautifully complex for a girl on a teen drama, and that’s on top of her general solidarity with other girls, which, again, is awesome.

Unfortunately, Veronica has never quite equaled the heights of her first season for me, but that’s largely because of how she’s been weighed down by one Hiram Lodge.  Hiram and his secret deals and dastardly plans mostly just annoy me, and both Veronica and Archie are depressingly caught up in the Lodge Family Crime Syndicate story in season 2.  Season 3 still has Veronica very much in Hiram’s orbit, but at least she’s now placed more in opposition to her father and has been bringing her back in more interesting directions.

Still, though, Veronica can’t be fully dragged down by these less-entertaining storylines.  Because ultimately, she’s still the poised, erudite rich girl who’s been humbled and come out better for it but who continues to love a good bit of dramatic flair (no wonder she and Cheryl eventually became friends – they’re made for each other!)  She’s witty, she’s fierce, she’s delightfully extra, and on the whole, I’m happy to love her.

2019 Oscar Awards

I got busy after work yesterday and didn’t have time to do a new write-up, so I put up the Monkees post I’d written over the weekend and pushed this one back until today.  It was a bit of an odd Oscars, still more than three hours long despite some definite streamlining, and while many of the awards swung the way I expected them to, there were still some surprises.

It was a year when all eight Best Picture nominees went home with at least one award, even if Vice’s was for makeup and hairstyling – well-deserved, clearly, and awesome for the winners, but not one of the big-ticket awards.  Bohemian Rhapsody got the most awards of the night, taking both sound categories and Best Editing before Rami Malek won Best Leading Actor.  Black Panther got all the style points, winning for its costumes, production design, and score (featuring some terrific speeches!), while A Star is Born’s one Oscar win was for Best Original Song – again, well-deserved.  The Favourite and BlacKkKlansman both got one award, but in both cases, it was a major one:  Olivia Colman got Best Leading Actress and gave one of the most thrilled speeches of the night (her award was the biggest surprise for me – I figured Glenn Close was going to take it,) while Spike Lee and co. took home Best Adapted Screenplay.

When Roma won Best Foreign Film, I figured there went its chances for Best Picture.  Granted, if a foreign film was deemed the best picture of the year, you’d think it would also be best foreign film of the year, but Oscars don’t usually work like that, so I didn’t have high hopes for it.  Still, the film – and Alfonso Cuarón – had a good night, also picking up Best Cinematography and Best Director.  However, the night ultimately went to Green Book (the one movie I didn’t see – it’s Birdman all over again!), winning Best Picture along with Best Supporting Actor (for Mahershala Ali) and Best Original Screenplay.

I’ve talked before about why I don’t have any interest in seeing Green Book, so I won’t rehash that again.  I’ll just say I wasn’t enthused about its screenplay win or it getting Best Picture.  Although I’d figured BlacKkKlansman probably didn’t have enough momentum to take home the top prize, it was the one I was rooting for, and as such, Green Book didn’t feel like a great trade-off.

As for other awards, Regina King very rightly won Best Supporting Actress at the start of the night for If Beale Street Could Talk, and I was thrilled for Spider-Man:  Into the Spider-Verse winning Best Animated feature – another great speech there.  Also, I never usually make my way around to any of the shorts, but the documentary-short winner, Period End of Sentence, really piqued my interest.

When it comes to the ceremony itself, I didn’t miss having a host too much.  There was no monologue, but I enjoyed Amy Poehler, Tina Fey, and Maya Rudolph’s quick summation of what it would’ve been like if they’d given a monologue, and I was fine with the lack of goofy bits that mostly just wind up dragging on.  The opening performance by Adam Lambert and Queen was great and got the show off to a strong start.  Plenty of enjoyable presenters:  I liked Melissa McCarthy and Brian Tyree Henry presenting the award for Best Costume Design in ludicrous costumes, and I smiled at Diego Luna excitedly flitting between English and Spanish as he introduced Roma.  Constance Wu and Chadwick Boseman got my vote for most telegenic pair of the night, and Awkwafina and John Mulaney hands-down won for the most delightful pair – I loved them geeking out over the fact that they were even there and how they prefaced both the categories they presented (the animated and documentary shorts) with, “It’s a good one!!”  Also, I really liked Trevor Noah’s introduction for Black Panther, discussing his “childhood in Wakanda” and getting in a choice Mel Gibson dig.

And yet, despite having no host, no extended “bits,” no Lifetime Achievement Award, and a relatively-short In Memorium segment, it still wound up feeling barely shorter than the average ceremony.  I don’t know what’s up with that.  Maybe the Oscars are like occamys from Fantastic Beasts, always growing to fill the available space (and then some)?

The Monkees (1966-1968)

Like many others, I was saddened to hear about Peter Tork’s passing last week.  Other than the basics (“I’m a Believer,” “(I’m Not Your) Steppin’ Stone”), I didn’t have much exposure to the Monkees at their prime until I was in college, so I didn’t have the more typical experience of people who grew up with them as kids (either back in the ‘60s or later in reruns.)  As such, it’s maybe weird that I enjoyed them as much as I did, but I found their thoroughly silly, weird show to be very charming and their music to be catchy and cool.  They helped me decompress from homework stress plenty of times, and I still enjoy watching the odd episode now and again.

The premise is simple:  a rock band, made up of four “long-haired weirdos” living in a cluttered beach house, go on all manner of misadventures.  Episodes range from more usual fare – one (or more) of the guys trying to woo a particular girl, the band schemes to get a record deal – to off-the-wall – the guys are kidnapped by pirates, the CIA recruits the band to catch Russian spies – to downright bizarre – whatever on earth is going on in their final episode.  At the center of it all are the endearing Davy (the romantic,) Micky (the goof,) Mike (the voice of reason,) and Peter (the “dummy.”)

This post is going to be a little all-over-the-place, and I want to talk more particularly about Peter later, but I’ll just get started and see where I wind up.  First off, I kind of love that their TV show is so weird and wild.  There are definite kids’-show antics, like goofy schemes involving the guys wearing disguises and faux-spooky romps with monsters.  There are also fun fantasy cutaways, surprisingly-sly bits of fourth-wall-breaking humor every now and then, unexpected serious/touching moments, and individual scenes where one or more of the guys are for-sure high as a kite.  I enjoy little touches like a pair of one-shot characters being named George and Lenny, I enjoy how the more clean-cut mod look goes out the window between seasons with Micky’s curly fro and Peter’s love beads, and I can honestly say that every episode makes me smile.  Also, deep questions – where does a rock band get that much dynamite?

And obviously, there’s the music too.  Swept up in nostalgia after Peter’s death, I discovered that much of their music is available on Amazon Prime (three of their studio albums and a greatest-hits compilation,) and listening to it since the weekend has reminded me how good their stuff is.  “Prefab” or not, you can’t deny how listenable so many of these songs are.  There are the usual suspects, like “Mary, Mary,” “Daydream Believer,” and “Pleasant Valley Sunday,” but I also want to shout out a few of my personal favorites:  “Sometime in the Morning,” “You Just May Be the One,” and “She Hangs Out.”  In the years since I became a low-key fan, I’ve read a little about how Mike Nesmith in particular had a part in the creation of the modern music video, and the music sequences on the show were an early predecessor of that.  Whether filmed performances, montage “Monkee romps,” or a combination thereof, these musical interludes were a great way to further the synergy between TV show and actual band.

Really, just how the group came about is interesting to me, the fact that it was intentionally designed and built by a studio.  I’m sure that was really tough for the four band members/actors to navigate, as the show brought with it enormous fame but the lingering attitude that they were manufactured, not “real” in the way that most bands were.  In years since, we’ve become more used to prefabricated music sensations, like the boy bands of the ‘90s/’00s and contests like American Idol or The Voice.  But the stigma around that type of success is still with us – boys bands continue to get tons of scorn, and we’ve seen how many American Idol winners aren’t fully taken seriously unless they’re able to distance themselves from their American Idol image.

For the Monkees, though, the way they were manufactured actually made room for them to be a really interesting group because they were all so different.  Under ordinary circumstances, what would be the chances of Davy Jones and Mike Nesmith ending up in the same band?  Their styles and their sounds were all different, but because they’d been picked out by some studio suits who brought them all together, the result was one band whose sensibilities could be really eclectic.  Something I really like about the albums available on Amazon Prime is that most of them are remastered and include a lot of bonus tracks, and so I’ve come across a handful of songs with different versions sung by multiple Monkees.  It’s cool how the same song has a completely different feel when sung by, say, Mike versus Micky.  It’s not just the vocals that change – the whole feel is different.  And yet, it’s all the Monkees.  I like that.

As I said, I can’t finish this post without talking about Peter Tork.  When it comes down to it, Mike is probably my favorite, but Peter is a very close second.  On the show, I like how Peter’s “dimness” is often interchangeable with his sweet innocence.  There’s the classic “The Devil and Peter Tork,” in which the other three band together to save Peter after he accidentally winds up selling his soul to the devil in exchange for playing the harp.  I like how indulgently the other Monkees sigh, “No, Peter,” when he does something clueless, and I love this one quick bit in a random episode where each of the guys is shown imagining a beautiful woman on their arm, but in Peter’s case, he’s just hugging an enormous stuffed tiger – bless him.  Although he never sings nearly as much as the other guys, I still like seeing the ways his talent as an instrumentalist and songwriter comes through.  Like Davy Jones before him, even though so many years have past, I think many of us still have this preserved image of Peter as a young musician in the ‘60s.  As such, it’s hard to think that he’s gone, and we’ll all miss him.

I also want to mention what was probably my actual first exposure to the Monkees:  their guest appearances on Boy Meets World, most memorably, the season 3 episode with the Matthews parents’ 20^th anniversary.  While Peter and Micky had both popped up before on separate episodes (as Topanga’s dad and Alan’s buddy, respectively,) this episode brought both of them back, along with Davy as a former friend/hanger-on from an old backpacking trip through Europe.  Naturally, it culminates in them saving the anniversary party with an impromptu performance of Alan and Amy’s song, “My Girl.”  I remember how much I enjoyed the episode as a kid without knowing the significance of the actors in it, and it was a lot of fun to go back and see it again after being introduced to the Monkees proper.  Good times.

Warnings

Some don’t-try-this-at-home stuff, occasional veiled drug references, and an unfortunate amount of racial insensitivity (including way too many white people playing Asians and Latinx people in one-off episodes.)