A Gentleman in Moscow (Paramount, Amazon Prime)
A couple of years ago, I had the honor of being invited by the Lewis and Clark Public Library in Helena to interview Amor Towles onstage. It was a pretty awesome night, and although we didn’t become instant buddies, we did have about a half hour to sit and chat before we went onstage. Towles had just come from Hollywood that day, where he was discussing the productions of all three of his novels. I had heard that Kenneth Branaugh was slated to play the Count in A Gentleman from Moscow, so I asked him about it, and he said that there were some new developments, but he couldn’t say what they were.
I am very happy that the main development was casting Ewan McGregor as Count Alexander Rostov. If you haven’t read the book, you should, but one of the most captivating things about the story is that Rostov, who has lost everything in the Russian revolution, and because of his position, has been confined to house arrest in a very nice hotel, but in the attic, is a perpetually optimistic and cheerful character, even when he finds himself waiting tables to keep himself occupied.
Another interesting aspect of this story is there are not a lot of major events, which makes it a very character driven storyline, and one of the best characters is a young girl who also lives in the hotel, and who approaches Rostov with many many questions about what it would take for her to become a princess. The two develop a close friendship that endures into her young adulthood, and that’s all I will give away about that. But this series is just as delightful and charming as the book was. Highly recommend.
Five fortune cookies
We are Lady Parts (Peacock)
I have been saying for years that we need a series about a punk band made up of Muslim women. Okay, maybe I didn’t say that, but that’s the premise for this charming series. The main character is a nerdy scientist, Amina, played with wide-eyed charm by Anjana Vasan. Amina also likes to play the guitar, but her taste in music runs more toward Don McLean than The Beastie Boys.
The twist comes when Amina develops a crush on a young man, Ahsan, who hands her a flyer on the street announcing auditions for a guitar player in a girl’s punk band.
Amina shows up at the audition, mainly to try and find the young man passing out the flyers, and when she learns that he is the drummer’s brother, she agrees to audition, in hopes of meeting Ahsan. She never expects to get the gig, but the lead singer sees something in her that convinces her she would be a good fit for the band.
One of the best parts about this series is that the women playing the band members really are playing during the performance scenes, and they’re pretty damn good. Some of the plot lines are kind of goofy, but this is a good lighthearted comedy series that is unlike anything else I’ve ever seen.
Four fortune cookies
Sherwood (Britbox, Amazon Prime)
I am a big fan of just about any British crime series, and this one is terrific. The setting is a small mining town that is still haunted by the events of a strike that happened decades before. People from either side of the conflict still barely tolerate each other, and sometimes feel the need to let fly with a ‘scab’ comment. Just a day after Gary Jackson, one of the miners who went on strike, throws a comment toward one of the men who crossed the picket line, Gary is found dead in the street, an arrow piercing his heart.
The way this series plays with the fact that this town is near Sherwood Forest is great, as this mysterious killer continues to hunt people down with a crossbow.
But there are side stories that are equally compelling, and when a second murder takes place that seems to be completely unrelated, the tension between the scabs and the striking miners heats up once again, also bringing up ghosts from that strike, as many of the people involved in investigating the crimes were involved.
The cast features some familiar faces, including Kevin Doyle, who was one of the butlers in Downton Abby, and Lesley Manville, who is good in everything she does. But the standout performance comes from Adeel Akhtar, who plays a mild-mannered bus driver who has been ignored for most of his life and suddenly snaps one day, leading him to commit a horrific crime that just adds more confusion to the plot.
Five fortune cookies
Line of Duty (Hulu)
This outstanding British series has often been called the British version of The Wire, and I can see why. The writing is as good as it gets, and there are so many unexpected twists in the various storylines to keep you completely engaged.
The main characters are a group of cops whose man function is to root out crooked cops within their midst, so the conflict that they create just by doing their jobs brings an immediacy to the series from the start. And the cases they are assigned are fascinating—rich with ethical and moral complications that include really good cops doing things they would have never expected of themselves, then trying to cover them up.
The cast is not made up of stars, but of many solid actors that you will recognize from other great films and series’. The series also does a fine job of exploring the always interesting concept of why cops tend to be so loyal to each other, even in the face of some really horrific behavior.
Five fortune cookies
Mr. Bates vs. the Post Office (PBS, Amazon Prime)
This series is short—three episodes—but powerful. It’s based on actual events that happened starting in 1999, when the post office in Great Britain installed a new computer system to handle the accounting. All over the country, subpostmasters began to find discrepancies in their accounting from the time these machines were installed, but rather than address the issue with the manufacturer of the machines, the post office started telling their postmasters that they were the only ones having an issue with it. Not only that, but they were required to make up the difference when their accounts didn’t balance. Hundreds of postmasters were charged with embezzling, and a few went to prison. And dozens of them lost everything they had. It wasn’t until one brave soul, Alan Bates, began to realize how many of these cases there were, and brought them all together to fight the system, that the government finally conceded the problem.
Toby Jones, best known as the other Truman Capote when two films about Capote came out at the same time, is excellent as Alan Bates, but this series is mostly interesting because it’s such an infuriating example of how lazy bureaucrats can become so indifferent to the suffering of people who are impacted by their failure to perform their jobs.
Four and a half fortune cookies
Nolly (Masterpiece, Amazon Prime)
I am a big fan of Helena Bonham Carter, and one of the things I’ve always admired about her is her willingness to take on supporting roles, and deliver sparkling performances no matter how small the spotlight. So it’s nice to see her in a starring role in this series, and especially because the character she plays is something of a prima dona.
‘Nolly’ is Noele Gordon, who became a household name in Britain as the long-time leading lady for a soap opera called Crossroads. Again, this series is only three parts, so it’s an easy to digest, compelling story of how industry treats their icons.
The series opens with a rehearsal for one of their episodes, and it establishes right away that the writer, director and producers of Crossroads have all become incidental, as Nolly waltzes in and takes over the blocking, rewrites scenes, moves characters around, and does it in such a convincing way that nobody ever argues with her.
The twist comes when Nolly’s agent calls her one day to tell her that she’s being sacked (why do Brits get all the best words?). Nolly is stunned, and the rest of the series is a poignant look at how a woman who has never married, devoting her entire life to this role, has to come to terms with how differently things turn out when you’re not in charge of writing the script. Besides Carter, the rest of the cast is also great, with some very fun stereotypes that you would expect from the cast of such a series. But Carter is the main attraction, as it should be.
Five fortune cookies
Loved Gentleman. Look forward to watching the movie. And HBM *swoon* Adding that to my list too.
Gentleman has a great score as well.