Mystery

Review of miniseries, Taken

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Sci-Fi channel production also known as Steven Spielberg Presents Taken, December 2-13, 2002.  Executive producers:  Leslie Bohem and Steven Spielberg.   

When I hear of the movie title, Taken, I don’t think of Liam Neeson’s Taken, Taken2, or Taken3 about evil people kidnapping his family members. You can’t copyright a title so the same title can be used by anyone else. 

Instead, I think of producer Stephen Spielberg’s Taken miniseries (10 episodes written by Leslie Bohem) in which evil space aliens keep kidnapping and torturing humans all over the world, and treacherous humans take advantage of humans and aliens, but the story is focused on three generations of families over five decades–the Clarks, Crawfords, and Keys.

The story is narrated by 8-year-old Allison “Allie” Clark/Keys (Dakota Fanning), who sounds so mature giving the overview of each episode.

Aliens can appear in any organic shape especially human.  Humans are either their alien victims or fierce enemies trying to kill everybody including aliens.

Casualties

The series started with fighter pilots in a battle with German planes who see blue lights during the battle and it seems that the lights help the wounded among them.   The memories they have later of the surgeries are different.  They all survive in spite of their wounds but end up with physical and mental problems and all except one die early for no apparent reason.  The child of the survivor will be abducted by aliens for years.

Women in the series are fodder for military men and the women’s husbands or boyfriends, i.e. the Colonel Thomas Campbell’s (Michael Moriarty) daughter, a farm woman, a fresh woman, two female mediums, government undercover psychologist Harriet Penzler, etc.

Even military contractors were casualties.  Dr. Kreutz (Willie Garson who we lost this year) was a treacherous German-accented scientist working for the U.S. military; Dr. Goldin (Rob Labelle) a Jewish scientist who died because he wanted the alien to keep him in the memory of the happiest time in his life–his bar mitzvah; and Matt Frewer as an astrophysicist.

The only alien casualties of record were the ones who looked like doctors treating the soldiers injured in the original dog fights and the handful of aliens captured over the decades.

The actors were excellent.   I believed the treachery of the captain/killer Owen Crawford (Joel Gretsch) of humans assigned to the project of tapping into the one alien ship they had for decades instead of the fake weather balloon reported at Roswell

There was a different director for each of 10 episodes:  Breck Eisner, Felix Enriquez Alcala, John Fawcett, Tobe Hooper, Jeremy Paul Kagan, Michael Katleman, Sergio Mimica-Gezzan, Bryan Spicer, Jeff Woolnough, and Thomas J. Wright.   It was so interesting hearing the directors’ opinions in the extras after the miniseries.   I saw the miniseries week by week from its origination in 2002.   And, luckily for me, the Baltimore County Library had the miniseries I could borrow recently.  The pace is action, action, action!

Written by Rosa L. Griffin

Review of movie “Separation” (2021)

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I can’t blame the wife Maggie (Mamie Gummer “Ricki and the Flash”, “The Right Stuff”) for thinking her husband Jeff (Rupert Friend “Hitman: Agent 47”) is irresponsible.   He always seemed to be in a daze all the time—his mind only thinking of ideas for his past graphic novel career to the detriment of his wife and young female child Jenny (Violet McGraw “Black Widow”, “Doctor Sleep”, “Ready Player One”).

For instance, at his wife’s wake, he sees his face on a family portrait catch fire but stands there stunned.  If left to him, the house would have burned down around his guests.  Thank God for his daughter’s babysitter Samantha Nally (Madeline Brewer “Hemlock Grove”) who put the fire out with a fire extinguisher. 

But I believe the father-in-law Mr. Rivers (veteran Scottish actor Brian Cox “Red”, “Red 2”, “Red 3”) turned the wife against her husband by talking in her ear all the time.   And the babysitter (opare?) always seemed focused on the father’s artistic talents rather than his child.

Every time the husband sees strange events like the demonic loose-limbed Marcel Marceau-type mime Nerezza (non-CGI uncredited Troy James) a duplicate of one of the characters from his old graphic novel and doll on his daughter’s bedroom shelf, he just keeps backing up and acting like it never happened and tells no one.   The father burns breakfast for himself and his child  when they both see something else strange.   But isn’t that something he should tell somebody?   A lot of these happenings he thinks are dreams, but it turns out they are not.  

The father runs away leaving his little girl with the babysitter with no explanation.  Taking the subway (demon scene there also), he went to his friend’s new job site.   He finally gets a job but stays away all day without telling the babysitter.   An employer Alan (Simon Quarterman “WER”) tells him there is a “dark energy about you”.  

The acting was superb.   I assumed they all did what the director wanted, but there is a disconnect somewhere in the script.   The little girl’s father couldn’t be that dumb.

(Spoiler) The villains:  the father-in-law, the babysitter, the dolls made from his prior graphic horror novel, mommy and demon mommy, and the father himself.   The husband and daughter finally make peace with demon mommy and all should be well.  But, when the mommy demon returned from demon town, she must have let other demons through.   No way should they have a sequel after this but the Marcel Marceau mime type loose-limbed horror returns practically begging for a sequel.

Directed by William Brent Bell.   Writers Nick Amadeus, Josh Braun.

Written by Rosa L. Griffin

Review of movie Shadow in the Cloud (2020)

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A young woman, Captain Maude Garrett (Chloë Grace Moretz), finds herself in a deadly hair-raising adventure.   All she planned on doing was hitching a ride with a combat Royal Air Force B-17 Flying Fortress plane during World War 2.   The chance of being on a plane which is likely to get blown out of the sky would be enough for me to pass up that trip.   So, obviously, she had a good reason for being there—a secret mission to deliver a satchel for the base commander.   Unfortunately, something else hitches a ride as well.

She was constantly trying to help the crew with the battle since she did have some flying experience but she was insulted at every turn, basically told to stay in her place as a woman.   So much so that the captain (Callan Mulvey) commanded that she be locked in the lower gun turret “for her own safety” especially after she mentioned the creature she saw flying in the cloud.  

The plane was in terrible shape that they all found out eventually when they tried to do things like get her out of the turret once the two battles started:  the one with the enemy planes and the one with the creature.   She constantly asked if her top secret satchel was ok, and she asked a certain crew member to keep an eye on it.

Because the crew couldn’t get her out of the turret, she had to fight the creature alone.   She was “Wonder Woman in fatigues”.  What was the creature attacking her?  It was the mythological Gremlin that is credited with tearing military planes apart.   It had wings like a bat, long teeth, long arms and legs, and a long tail.   It was nothing like the puppet-like creatures in the Gremlins horror movie comedies.

According to Wikipedia, “a gremlin is a mischievous folkloric creature that causes malfunctions in aircraft or other machinery.  Often, they are described or depicted as animals with spiky backs; large, strange eyes; and small, clawed frames featuring sharp teeth.   Originates in Royal Air Force (RAF) slang among British pilots stationed in Malta, the Middle East, and India in the 1920s, with earliest recorded printed use being in a poem published in the journal, Aeroplane in Malta, April 10, 1929.”

There were two other horror dramas about gremlins:  the Twilight Zone episode, “Nightmare at 20,000 feet” with William Shatner (1963), directed by Richard Donner, based on a short story by Richard Matheson.    Also, there was Twilight Zone The Movie, “The Gremlin on the Wing” (1983), with John Lithgow suffering from aviophobia.

I first saw Chloë Grace Moretz as a daughter in the re-make of the horror movie The Amityville Horror (2005) with Ryan Reynolds; as a child vampire and the only vampire in the movie, Let Me In (2010).   This movie was re-made from the 2008 Swedish-speaking movie with subtitles, “Let the Right One In”, that I also saw.  She was also the goddaughter in the movie Hugo (2011).

Chloë also starred as Hit Girl in the Kick-Ass movies (2010) and Kick-Ass 2 (2013).   I also saw her as the werewolf daughter in the movie Dark Shadows (2012), as Carrie in the movie Carrie (2013), a Russian gang victim in the Equalizer movie with Denzel Washington in 2014, and the action movie The 5th Wave (2016) about aliens taking over the earth.   There may be The 5th Wave 2 coming in 2022 I hope because the first one left me hanging.

I got a copy of Shadow in the Cloud from the library but would have liked to see it on the big screen.   It’s action-action-action!   The director is Roseanne Liang.

There was a tribute to military women at the close of the movie!

Written by Rosa L. Griffin

Review of The Nevers television show 2021

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Remember those feel-good television shows like Touched by an Angel, where angels walked among us and helped people with their daily lives?  Well, this is not that show.

The Nevers is not about the kindliness of mankind or angels.   As a matter of fact, kindness is rare in this American scifi, drama, and historical fiction.  “Victorian women find themselves with unusual abilities, relentless enemies and a mission that may change…”   Not for the faint of heart nor the prudish.  The constant violence is its own character in the series.

I saw the first 3 episodes of The Nevers for free on HBO as a merchandising tool to entice me to add HBO to the cost of my subscription to Xfinity cable TV.  The Nevers is wonderful.  It is about women who kick ass in their attempts to keep safe those who are “touched” or extremely different than the average person, especially other women.   The difference is that we don’t know how or why these individuals are now endowed with newly acquired “powers”, unorthodox skills, and/or odd physical appearances.  These things make the average person think they are demon-possessed or witches in the 1800’s.

But people were allowed to see some kind of bizarre-looking ‘vessel’ fly through the city and drop invisible dots which touched individual residents with new skills and odd malformations, making some people feel different almost right away, while in others, the transformations took time. All quickly forget what they have seen. They—different sexes (mostly women), races, and professions—are labeled as “touched” from then on. 

Some can crush things with their hands, some can heal easily or heal others easily, some can read minds or see visions, or have the ability to control electric power, etc.  What if these abilities were from God?   One mother kills her own daughter who has new abilities and starts turning in others with these new abilities, thinking she is doing God’s work.  However, as a result of her work, some of the “touched” are kidnapped and experimented on by a “doctor” who intends to find out how they came to receive these new abilities.   Meanwhile, those he experiments on are lobotomized and/or deformed slaves working in tunnels while others are trained to kill and kidnap more “touched”.

Where are the good people in all this?  The “good” people wear many faces.   Their goodness is an illusion.  Most of the “touched” are good and are helped by seemingly nice people who only help to their own ends.   It seems the touched only trust each other. They solicit charity to keep their “orphanage” running. You can guess how it is with anybody who’s different.  Many of the scenes allude to the horrors still going on today.

Laura Donnelly (new to me) plays Amalia True, the head mistress of the “touched” in her orphanage.  She works on ways to help with her and their survival including fundraising.  Amalia is also “touched” with visions and physical strength.

Ann Skelly (new to me) plays Penance Adair, the woman who is “touched” with science and mechanical genius and is Amalia’s co-manager of the orphanage.

Olivia Williams (The Sixth Sense, Ms. Austen Regrets, Hanna, etc.) plays the charitable benefactor to the touched orphanage who has an ulterior motive for her kindness.

Pip Torrens (Preacher, Poldark, The Mystery of the Spanish Chest (Poirot), etc.) plays Lord Gilbert Massen whose “touched” daughter died in his arms probably because she was too young to receive the “gift”.  He and his secret group of wealthy men want all of the “touched” to be destroyed.  So, he is definitely not a friend to the “touched”.

Eleanor Tomlinson (Jack the Giant Slayer, Colette, Poldark, etc.) plays Mary Brighton who is “touched” with a voice from heaven which calms and calls to other “touched”.   She is also the ex-wife of a police detective.

Ben Chaplin (The Truth about Cats and Dogs, The Remains of the Day, Cinderella, The Legend of Tarzan, etc.) plays the ex-husband police detective Frank Mundi who acts like he is on the side of the “touched” but works for those who are not on their side.

Amy Manson (Being Human, Once Upon a Time, etc.) plays Maladie (malady vs. my lady) who is a woman who is “touched” just as she is going into an asylum, escapes and wants to kill everyone especially the “touched”.   Her power is pain which comes in handy for her in the asylum.

Nick Frost (Attack the Block, Shaun of the Dead, The World’s End, Snow White and the Huntsman, etc.) plays the leading gangster Declan “Beggar King” Orrun who helps whoever pays the most.

Denis O’Hare (True Blood, American Gods, The Proposal, etc.) plays Dr. Edmund Hague who unmercifully experiments on the “touched” to try to find out where their gifts come from.  He is unsuccessful in his task so far.  Be prepared for the horror of his “work”.

Zackary Momoh (Harriet, Doctor Sleep, Death in Paradise, etc.), plays Doctor Horatio Cousens who has been “touched” with the ability to heal fatal wounds practically the same day.

Rochelle Neil (Terminator: Dark Fate, Death in Paradise, etc.) plays Anne Carbey who is “touched“ with the ability to start fires from her hands.   She assists Maladie in her murderous spree until she sees a better way with the more decent “touched”.

Kiran Sonia Sawar (new to me) plays as Harriet Kaur who is an aspiring lawyer and a “touched” woman who can turn objects into glass with her breath.

The series was created, written, and directed by Joss Whedon (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Justice League, Angel, Avengers movie series, Toy Story, Cabin in the Woods, Speed, etc.).   Update:  Joss Whedon has left the show.  (“‘The Nevers’ Can’t Escape Joss Whedon’s Shadow, for Better or (Mostly) Worse”, Alison Herman, April 13, 2021, The Ringer)

I love the show thus far and hope to see the rest of the episodes. HBO has another winner here.  No wonder there was such a fight for this show between the networks and streaming services.  (Wikipedia)

Written by Rosa L. Griffin                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   

Caregivers Part 3—A Little Selfishness is Good

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I watched Paul Bettany play a character who was raised to put only God first in the movie, “The DaVinci Code”.   A bishop took advantage of this man’s self-mortification by flagellation (torture of his own body) and assigned him in the name of God to kill the members of a secret society who believed that Jesus was the father of Mary Magdalene’s baby. Here’s a character who gave his all to God not realizing until the end that he had been used for nefarious purposes.

Like the penitent man in the movie, many of us who are caregivers give our all without thought to our own mental, social, and physical well-being, especially those of us who serve family members 24 hours a day and are not paid. 

I was raised to believe in the “Golden Rule”—Do unto others what you would have them do unto you.  According to Matthew 7:12, “Therefore whatever you desire for men to do to you, you shall also do to them; for this is the law and the prophets.”  (World English Bible) “For there is no man who would that another should act towards him with a double heart” (Augustine).  Today, it’s kind of been twisted into “do unto others before they do unto you”.

According to Christie Bates, an author on Medium.com website Human Parts Humans 101, “You’re Supposed to be a Little Bit Selfish”, March 9, 2021.   “So many of us neglect our own needs to avoid seeming self-centered, and then we wonder why we are so unhappy.  It’s a scale of self-negation (freezing cold) vs. selfishness (boiling hot).  A little selfishness puts us at an average 98.6 degrees for this example = self-caring and responsible.   There’s a whole range of normal temperatures/healthy ways to be responsible to both ourselves and others.   Self-mortification is just as self-centered as selfishness.

As a child, we only thought in extremes.  Too much or too little is a problem.   Maybe you were having a hard time saying ‘no’ to babysitting.  Either extreme of identification with self is inauthentic and can lead to stress and pain for you and others.”  [A summary–Please read the article for yourself]

I’ve heard of couples leaving their young children at home alone to go on vacation.   Too hot.   Never going on a vacation at all?  Too cold.   I remember from church that we were supposed to put God first, then others, then self.   That doesn’t leave much for ourselves.   I know a woman who alternates between getting her own hair done and getting her loved one’s hair done.   That makes sense to me.

A good thin book to read is Teraleen Campbell’s Carefree to Caregiver.   It tells section by section what she learned in taking care of her mother who went from staying in her own home to having to be moved to a nursing home near friends and relatives for her comfort but a distance away from her daughter/caregiver.   She explains what she and her mother went through.  She also leaves a page for notes after each section.   Ms. Campbell includes the things she found out along the way which would be useful for a caregiver to know.   We in the Coffee Tea and Me Caregivers Support Network just finished reading and discussing Ms. Campbell’s book over the past few weeks.   Her book is available on Amazon.

Written by Rosa L. Griffin

Mr. Bean as Maigret

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In July 2019, I saw Rowan Atkinson starring as Detective Inspector Jules Maigret in a 2016 ITV series (episode 1.2, Maigret’s Dead Man) that I saw on WETA UK.   The killer, Dacourt, played by John Light, who as a short man with delusions of grandeur, goes for the “bad” girl dancer while he has a wife and kids at home.

I saw John Light as a top thief who was on one episode of the “Father Brown” tv show and returned for a second episode later in that series.

I was pleasantly surprised to see Rowan Atkinson as a detective.   He was so great in the “Mr. Bean” comedy tv series in which his eyebrows and eyes were so expressive—a great part of his characterization.   I liked seeing him also as a department store jewelry salesman in the movie “Love Actually”.  

The icing on the cake was seeing him playing a dead-pan serious detective.   He played the Maigret character so well that it brought tears to my eyes.   Well-done Rowan!

Maigret Sets a Trap, Season 1, Episode 1, 2016

This is the second time I’ve seen Rowan Atkinson starring as Detective Inspector Jules Maigret on August 20, 2021 (season 1, episode2) which takes place in 1955.   Five women are stabbed to death with what appears to be a pen knife which had to be used twice or more to kill each victim.   The politicians over his head think they could find the killer in the five months it has taken so far and threaten to have a detective inspector from another region take his place.

Maigret is under intense pressure to produce the killer.    As a last resort, he recruits a dozen policewomen to act as decoys.   The killer attacks one of them and gets away.  A most unassuming polite person Marcel Monsin (David Dawson) is eventually arrested for the crime but must be proven to be the murderer without a sure witness.   I was crying by the end of the episode this time for a different reason:  sympathy for the murdered women, sympathy for Maigret’s plight, and sympathy for the killer.

Another character in this episode is the paparazzi who are squealing at his heels at every step, especially the female one (Rebecca Night?) who outwits the rest in getting scoops.   I had a hard time finding out who the female reporter was.  The actress/the character she played differed on different sights.

Judge Comeliau (Aidan McArdle) is the judge who tries to run interference between Maigret and the politicians and is eventually unsuccessful.   I saw McArdle as a psychological strategist getting other people to do terrible things just by talking to them in an episode of Poirot (Curtain: Poirot’s Last Case).  He also played the murderous husband in Ms. Scarlet and the Duke.

Atkinson has done it again as the rarely smiling Maigret!   But you can tell by his facial expressions what he is feeling: frustration at not catching the killer, the politicians trying to tell him how to do his job, empathy for the families of the murdered women, pain at mistakes being made, etc.   Also, this version of Maigret has a wife played by Lucy Cohu which I am not sure all Maigrets had.

Written by Rosa L. Griffin