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amazon, anal sex, Donovan, England, game pairings, Morrissey, Roman Empire, small world, vampires
In addition to tempting me with known quantities, the streaming services (and Amazon especially) have been offering up a number of movies and series that I’d never heard about before I saw them there. Many do look interesting to me. They draw my attention primarily because they are tagged for expiration at the end of each month. Once again, I had so many such choices such that I had no hope of actually consuming them all before they up and went come the end of May.
After having discovered a culinary delight (and subsequently cleaning my plate) in Mayor of Kingstown, I found myself with only 3-4 days to sample from all the remaining flavors. I sadly had time to partake only of four from more than three dozen courses.
The seaside town that they forgot to bomb
My top choice come crunch time prevailed courtesy of my usual metrics. This program ranked very highly on IMDb (8.0) but, in addition, it is an interwar period piece dealing (so the summary text promises) with the run-up to World War II. The show is Badehotellet, a Danish series that has been running since 2013 and is currently in its 10th season. Obviously, it is quite popular with its home audience.
The title of the show translates to “The Bathing Hotel,” a phrase that doesn’t have much meaning in English, especially in this day and age and even more so on the far side of the Atlantic. For the US and the UK, the title Seaside Hotel is used which, besides being a translation more-or-less, corresponds to the show’s working title from when it was under development. I feel like the original title somehow has more heft, but it is easy to understand how something had to be done.
The sheer lack of time before expiry meant I couldn’t possibly have gotten in more than a handful of episodes (I watched three), so I shouldn’t really complain about this last point. I will anyway. This was another show where the pilot episode doesn’t fully engage. The IMDb episode-specific evaluations agree – this show rates better once it gets going. If it comes around again, I’ll surely try to watch a few more episodes.
A strange dust lands on your hands and on your face
My next try was a TV series originally from the cable channel AMC. Into the Badlands is an update to the martial arts genre for the streaming-service generation. It accomplishes this by placing the story into a post-apocalyptic future. When I looked up the show online, I was sure I would discover the comic book IP that the show was taken from. As best as I can tell, there does not appear to be any. In-and-of-itself, this exception is somewhat refreshing but the story and the setting still have that graphic novel feel running through it… even though it doesn’t get it from an actual graphic novel.
I can see what this show is trying to do and, if I appreciated that effort – well – I’d probably be engaged by the show. I’ve told you before, though, I am not really a fan of martial arts and, from one episode, that seems to be primarily what this is. I have watched enough martial arts movies to recognize some of the “classic” fight setups and I can see those reproduced here with current (2015, for the first season) aesthetics and CGI. It’s just not what I would want to sign up for given other choices. As I said, I had some three dozen other choices before me.
Perhaps if its world-of-the-future were better conceived I’d be tempted to follow along some more of its story. Into the Badlands uses the not-uncommon idea that some unnamed civilization-ended catastrophe has created small, isolated outposts for society’s remnants. It’s a way to get around the “small world” problem imposed by a TV-level budget. My problem with it is that it is too small and too contrived.
In this future, the word has devolved back into feudalism, colored with this post-apocalyptic, almost steampunk, aesthetic. This world that remains is ruled by a handful of Barons who live large on the wealth of their futuristic serfs/slaves. Because the Barons want to go all-in on the retro feel (I can only imagine), they’ve banned firearms and enforce their rule through a privileged elite of martial arts knights.
It’s the fact that this makes almost zero economic sense that turns me off. Because of the underlying lack of logic, I can only assume that I’m being shown some heavy-handed allegory. Not heavy-handed enough, apparently, that I know what I’m watching but I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t want to know anyway. Something about capitalism == feudalism I suppose?
After one episode, it was time to see what else was out there.
Every day is silent and grey
At last Norm MacDonald can be satisfied. The new version of Interview with the Vampire has got to be gay enough for just about anyone.
It’s an interesting sign of the times that the show1 bares a lot more manflesh than lady parts. And while the gay sex may not be porn-level explicit, it is as explicit as I’ve come to expect from Hollywood via the portrayal of non-gay sex. Speaking of non-gay sex, there is an extraordinarily-detailed post-coital discussion regarding the aftermath of a backdoor, end-around between participants of opposing gender. Did this stuff actually show on cable?
Smut aside, is it a better telling than the original movie? Indeed it ought to be. Why remake the old film but come up with something less? Alas, one episode is not enough to tell. The reviewers seem to be very pleased with this one. I do think I like the actors better than those in the Cruise/Pitt original. Lestat’s portrayer (Sam Reid) is more convincing and Louis’ acting (via Jacob Anderson) is properly emotive (i.e. not just brooding). I’m just not sure I needed this one to be updated.
Histories of ages past; Unenlightened shadows cast
As May slipped into June, I started one more series. The Amazon original production Britannia was slated to expire on June the 3rd. Or maybe it wasn’t. Or maybe it was but they changed their minds. I am having trouble figuring this one out.
The nature of this expiration obscured its coming from those who would watch for such things. You see, Britannia has long been set up as a teaser for the Amazon Prime subscription. The first episode of Season 1 is available to anyone to view for free, with or without the Amazon Prime membership. The joy of watching that first episode might entice viewers to plop down for the full Amazon Prime subscription. Because of that, the algorithm that warns of the show’s leaving tends to get confused. When it appeared that Season 1 was, in fact, leaving, no warning was associated with Season 1 or any of its episodes. You had to open up Season 2 to get the warning. You wouldn’t, of course, do this unless you had already completed Season 1.
Looking back, now several weeks after the fact, it does appear that it was Season 2 and Season 2 alone that expired. This would also be a logical explanation for why it was labeled as it was. As always, the business side of this model utterly escapes my understanding. If Britannia is meant to be a draw for Amazon Prime, why not allow viewers to watch more than one season’s worth of episodes?
There is a part of me that is glad that I didn’t know about all of this in advance. Unlike with the three shows I talk about above, I was actually of a mind to watch Britannia. I was waiting until I hit a lull in some of my other selections, yes, but it was sitting there on my list. I can be a sucker for sword-and-sandals -style dramas and therefore figured I could overcome the marginal IMDb score of 6.9. With now two episodes under my belt, I’m afraid that even this number might be a little high.
Or maybe I’m just not in the right mood. I wanted some form of history-based drama and, as usual, I was willing to accept some artistic license being used to sex it up a bit. What Britannia offers is just a little too disconnected and a little too weird. For example, the opening titles explained how Caesar, when he invaded England, was frightened off by Druids.
It also really bugs me that everyone in the show seems to speak a single language.
And yet, this may be the first of these shows that I return too. As I say – I noticed, as the rains of June began to fall, that Britannia (or at least its first season) remains available in my Prime Video menu. Unlike Caesar himself, I can still go back to old Britannia.
Game Pairing: A Total War Saga: Thrones of Britannia.
The List – “How I dearly wish I was not here.”
Netflix
Split
Copenhagen
Happy Gilmore
Amazon
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas
Aus dem Nichts
Kingdom of War
Harry Wild
The Art of Crime
The Wedding Banquet
The Secret of NIMH
Red Rocket
Charade
Fearless
The Front Page
Memoirs of a Geisha
The Sound of Noise
Christian
Hair
The Vikings (1958)
Kes
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead
Never on Sunday
Avanti!
Interiors
How to Train Your Dragon
The Woman in the Window (1944)
- For Interview with the Vampire, as I say, I also watched but one episode. For all I know the sexual variety may grow as the season, and the series, goes on. I don’t know and may never. I’m not sure I care. ↩︎
et tu, Bluto? 