What I Watched in February
After soft hiatus of January we are getting back on track with February. This month is overwhelmed by the grandness of „The Brutalist”, a movie that is like a diverse but traditional, home-cooked and fully satisfying meal. This filled my film needs, leaving rest of the month to TV: Better Call Saul, Abbot Elementary, Suits.
Season 1 of Abbot Elementary
Abott Elementary was something that I regretted not including in the main run of my sitcoms challenge.. I fixed my mistake now! It feels like watching Parks and Recreation again, however this time much more closer to the reality - the context of the public school is not occasional motive for gags while mostly just a loose setting to keep characters together like in Parks and Rec or The Office. The school both as a building and as an institution is pretty much a full character. This with very clever character writing makes grounded and relatable feeling that feels so refreshing in the age of ironic comedy.
Explaining why I love main cast would feel like explaining the joke. However, I still want to do it, since I'm impressed by how this sitcom doesn't transform into one character show - despite arguably one of teachers being a main character, there is no one central star that keeps the show going. Everyone feels both so complex that they can be focus of episode or season and despite this, the composition is greater then sum of a parts. This is something quite rare and from all the shows that I have watched over this two years it's quite a novel feeling.
The biggest applause goes to the Quinta Brunson, a creator of this show, who plays leading role of Janine. Her storyline moved me in almost every episode and her simultaneous lack of validation with the amazing competence felt so personal. Janelle James as Ava Coleman steals every scene that's she's in by her almost animalistic following of instincts mixed with the barely functioning adult with ego bigger then the school could fit. How she is still alive is the question that I will ponder till my death. Janine-Ava stories are one of my favourite, since they are almost always a battle between the social skills where one are born from empathy and sincerity and other are born from power, strength. Both have determination to take the fight as far as they need, resulting in the absurd but still human conclusions.
Also Ava is the master of style and I can't wait what the next wardrobe change would bring.
The Brutalist
I'm working on the special review for this one. I love concrete and brutalism as an aesthetic - showing what's normally hidden, exposing the beauty of simplicity and bold directness of the pure form.
This movie feels like the narrative interpretation of this art form. The picture that it paints feels so real that I was left speechless when I found out that this was fictional story. It felt so real, it gave the feeling of knowing a person over their full lifetime, so detailed, so refined, so honest, so factual, so authentic.
Now I understand why some movies are just a theme parks while others are not.
Season 1 of Better Call Saul
When the reputation precedes any information about the story and the compliments are flimsy, like „great” or „captivating” , watching given work for the first time can lead to a disappointment due to the inherent scepticism.
So, how was my first watch? I'm not as impressed as I thought I would be but still, that's a hell of a good show. The disaster that is waking up from the American Dream. The beautiful shots, like the job denial over the working photocopier from episode 8 or the recurring cigarette at the parking lot. Seeing all of this, I know that I'm about to fall in love.
Season 7 of Suits
Before I watched Better Call Saul, a show that elevates stories that it portrais, I watched season 7 of Suits, a show that barely can keep a story together. I could tell that I felt like watching Arrowverse again and this would be a compliment. This season felt creatively bankrupt, written by as many people as there were episodes. Not only that, it included poorly mixed up backdoor pilot for a spinoff. Just a definition of the series going wrong.
This season introduced Dulé Hill as Alex Williams, which I was excited for, since I loved him in Psych. However not only he doesn't get any characterization and it's just a plot device, he hardly appears in this season.