The Dynasty: New England Patriots (Apple TV)
Ever since ESPN started producing their excellent series 30 for 30, short documentaries about famous sports figures or significant events in the world of sports, there have been a slew of series produced in a similar style, where the filmmakers dig deeper into the story rather than doing what they used to do with sports documentaries and simply glorifying the achievements. The best of them, in my view, were The Last Dance, about Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls, and OJ: Made in America, which is of course about way more than sports, but was an excellent deep dive into how the idolatry in the sports world can create someone like O.J. Simpson.
The Dynasty follows the same formula, with interviews with most of the major figures who were involved in the rise of the New England Patriots incredible run of success, when they won six Super Bowl titles in a span of 18 years. The three people most responsible for this dynasty were, of course, Tom Brady, Bill Belichick, and owner Robert Kraft, who bought the team in 1994, and was only taken half seriously when he promised to bring them a Super Bowl victory.
Kraft comes across as the most likeable and honest of the three during the course of these interviews, telling a wonderful story about Brady approaching him during his first training camp, after being the 199th player drafted in 2000, and telling him it was the best decision he’d ever make. Kraft was amused, but of course it was this ridiculous amount of confidence in himself, along with a fiery drive to prove himself, that provided the impetus for Brady to become the best quarterback in the history of the game.
Brady comes across as a bit of a goofball, not your typical jock, which is kind of charming. But he also follows Belichick’s lead in not allowing himself to relax and tell the truth now and then, carefully sidestepping a lot of the more interesting stories from their incredible run. And he in fact completely disappears during the most troubling segment of the series, when they talk about the tragedy that tight end Aaron Hernandez brought to the organization, murdering one of his close friends and subsequently committing suicide while in prison. Kraft offers a heartfelt apology to the families of everyone affected by those events, while Belichick, who really comes off as a colossal asshole during the whole series, offers his usual, ‘We just had to move on’ bullshit. He wouldn’t even address one of the biggest mysteries of his career with the Patriots, when he benched one of their best defensive players, Malcolm Butler, during the 2018 Super Bowl against the Philadelphia Eagles, a game the Patriots lost in an offensive onslaught, 41-33. Butler had made the game-saving interception against the Seahawks in 2015, and to this day, nobody from the organization has a clue why Belichick benched him during that game.
I came away from this series wondering why Belichick even agreed to participate, since he spent every interview they did with him, staring at the camera like a guy who is sitting in a witness box, glaring at the camera and giving absolutely no hint of emotion or personality. And in the end, the men who made the most significant impression were the role players, people like Dion Branch, who looks like one of the members of Milli Vanilli, but who shared the pain of being Hernandez’s best friend on the team but not being able to see how much trouble that young man was in.
The story of the decline of the relationship between Brady and Belichick led to much speculation about who was most responsible for the success of their franchise, and many believe that Brady made his own statement about that by winning a Super Bowl of his own the year after he was traded to Tampa Bay. But the documentary really shows that it was probably Kraft who was more responsible for managing the huge egos these two men both brought to the team, and giving them what they needed to achieve an incredible run.
Four fortune cookies
Manhunt (Apple TV)
This series surprised me, considering it doesn’t boast a lot of well-known actors. The story focuses on the days following Abraham Lincoln’s murder, and the effort to capture John Wilkes Booth, who was on the run for nearly two weeks after the assassination.
Anthony Boyle is excellent as Booth, playing a man who is convinced that most of the country believes what he did is heroic, and is expecting to find his way to Richmond, Virginia and a hero’s welcome. Booth was accompanied on his escape by David Herold, played by Will Harrison as a young man who obviously regrets getting tangled up in the events, and makes countless efforts to make Booth see reason and turn himself in.
The other main character in this version of the story is Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, played by Tobias Menzies, who some of you will recognize as the younger version of Prince Philip in The Crown. I guess they wanted to save money in makeup, because Menzies plays Stanton without the enormous beard he wore in real life, and I’m also guessing there was some creative license in how the events unfolded as Stanton became obsessive about hunting down Booth. According to this version, he was running all over the country taking part in every aspect of the hunt, when in reality Stanton would be dead himself just a few years later from asthma. But if you suspend disbelief enough to realize that they’re just trying to get to the heart of the story, this series is really well done, depicting a lot of the behind the scenes politics that were at play in trying to keep the Union together with a new president, Andrew Johnson, who clearly shared a very different view of what direction the country should take.
Four and a half fortune cookies
Palm Royale (Apple TV)
It always makes me nervous when a series boasts a cast of incredible talent like this one, because just because people are superstars doesn’t guarantee that they’re going to have good chemistry on-screen. And of course so much of it depend on the writing. But this series comes pretty close to doing it just right.
The main character, Maxine Simmons Dellacorte, played with brilliant insecurity but pluck by Kristin Wiig, is a young newcomer to a very exclusive community in Palm Beach. Maxine has no qualms about letting everyone know that she will do whatever it takes to be accepted in this community, even if they treat her like shit, which most of them do when she first arrives.
The small cluster of women who seem to wield the most power in the community are led by Evelyn Rollins, played by the always pitch perfect Allyson Janney, and Evelyn makes it very clear that Maxine has no chance of ever being made to feel welcome, until a series of events give Maxine some surprising leverage in that relationship.
Rounding out the cast are Laura Dern as Linda Shaw, a hippie healer who is Evelyn’s stepdaughter and has seemingly turned her back on the wealth and privilege she was born into. There’s a wonderful nearing the end of life scene between Linda and her father Skeet, played by Dern’s real-life father Bruce, and it’s not hard to imagine that there was not a lot of acting necessary for that scene. And finally, Josh Lucas is great as Maxine’s husband Douglas, who we eventually find has a checkered past of his own.
But the biggest delight in this whole series is Carol Burnett, whose character is mostly rendered mute by a stroke, but who accomplishes more than most accomplished comedians can with her facial expressions, and an occasional unintelligible phrase. She’s incredible.
Four and a half fortune cookies
Franklin (Apple TV)
I’ve never been a big Michael Douglas fan, although I really enjoyed The Kominsky Method, but I think that was more because of Alan Arkin, one of my all-time favorite actors. Douglas seems to always play a barely disguised version of Michael Douglas. But I’ve always been fascinated with Benjamin Franklin, and I thought maybe if there’s a historic figure who might force Douglas to dig a little deeper and actually inhabit a different person’s personality, it might be Franklin.
Not so much. Not only does Douglas seem to talk like someone from the 21st century, but he doesn’t seem to have made any effort to explore what made Franklin so fascinating, which was his incredible gift with words. Douglas’s Franklin is a smartass of a very contemporary variety, not to mention a very common lech. Franklin was of course known as a ladies’ man himself, but again, it seems a lot more likely that his turns at seduction came about because of his charm and wit rather than the usual lines of an old man who thinks he still possesses the same appeal he did when he was in his forties.
This series could have been really interesting, as it is supposed to be about the time Franklin spent in France trying to save the federation. But not only is the story so badly written that it’s hard to follow, but Douglas is clearly not up to the task of playing a character so unlike himself.
One fortune cookie
I’ve decided to start featuring some of my favorite classic films. I worked at one of the biggest video stores in the country when I lived in San Francisco during the ‘90s and early 2000s, and I had a chance to take a deep dive into foreign films and the best of classical movies. So here’s my first:
Sweet Smell of Success (MGM or Prime Video)
Burt Lancaster became one of my favorite actors after watching so many of the classic films, and part of the reason was because he took enormous risks, even forming his own production company so he could take on roles that the big studios discouraged him from playing.
In this dark look at the underbelly of public relations in the big city, Lancaster plays J.J. Hunsecker, a ruthless columnist who has the power to make or break careers during the heyday of the newspaper business. Tony Curtis is brilliant at Tony Falco, a small time hustler who does a lot of Hunsecker’s dirty work for him, rounding up information, or paying bribes to people to do Hunsecker’s bidding.
When Hunsecker’s sister Susan, played by Susan Harrison, falls in love with a young jazz musician, Steve Dallas, played by future Adam-12 star Martin Milner, Hunsecker is furious, not wanting his sister to get tangled up with a young man who will never be able to support her in the way Hunsecker thinks she should be.
So he puts Falco to work framing Dallas for a drug charge, a task Falco isn’t happy about as it’s clear to him that the two are really in love, and he has a soft spot for Susan. So although he resists Hunsecker at first, his desperation to keep his job leads him to carry out the plan, which leads to tragic results.
This film has a fantastic jazz score, and is one of the best movies I’ve ever seen about how power and influence can lead people to make decisions that hurt other people more than they realized until it’s way too late to correct their mistake.
Five plus fortune cookies
As usual ❤️ Really enjoyed reading about the classic one
Great choices. I'm watching Palm Royale and really enjoy the Art Direction along w the performances. Thanks Russell