The Fall (Season 1 & 2)

Allan Cubitt, 2013 & 2014

IMDB

4/5

There is certainly a variety of serial killer related dramas across the Television landscape. A lot of them are quite good: Dexter (until the awful final season), Hannibal, first season of True Detective, first season of Fargo. But there are of course some duds - like The Following.

The Fall, created by Alan Cubitt, is an offering set in Belfast Ireland. The film focuses on both sides of the spectrum. Gillian Anderson (widely known for her role in the iconic X Files) plays Stella Gibson, the reserved but dedicated investigator leading the hunt. Jamie Dornan plays Paul Spector, the man they are after. Paul is a family man who moonlights as a serial killer. He seeks out a particular type of woman and plans a meticulous strategy to sneak into their home and kill them. He is a man living two lives. During the day he is employed as a grief counseler. He gets his two kids ready in the morning and sends them off to school. He kisses his wife goodbye. It's not until his family is in bed that his nocturnal murderous side comes out. He has his wife convinced that he is working a suicide hotline when he is out filling his savage needs.

One interesting feature right off the bat with The Fall is the fact that you are introduced to Paul quite quickly. Once you are introduced, Paul and Stella get equal screen time. You learn quite quickly that Stella fits into the workaholic investigator trope that we've seen so many times. Strong-willed female. Sleeps at her desk, never really taking any time off, married to her job. Completely wrapped up in whatever case she's on. She's that person that can get into the mind of the serial killer. She knows how he thinks. She can predict his behavior. This concept is nothing new, we've seen it many many times.

This is where the series gets conflicting for me. You have two central characters, neither of which are very likeable figures. Stella is a very cold woman; she doesn't offer much in terms of vulnerability and openness. Paul is equally cold, and the lack of history provided just has you spending time with a distant man with no real sympathy for his evil compulsions. So it becomes a situation where you can tolerate Stella because she is dedicated to hunting down a guy that you just don't like because he continues to kill beautiful women for whatever reason. This decision to not reveal much of Paul's backstory may have been a deliberate decision by the show's creators, but that doesn't mean it was the right choice.

We discover more about Paul's past in Season 2 which does shine some light onto his dark proclivity. But this could have been done in the first. They could have even had some flashback sequences to provide more of a complete illustration of Paul. The lack of these elemnents were something that constantly troubled me watching the first season, but the series clearly was doing something right because I couldn't resist watching more even with those frustrations noted. The series without a doubt is better in the second season. Most notably the extended-length season 2 finale. That is without a doubt the best episode of the series thus far. Multiple story threads come together so remarkably and the balance of tension and delivery is outstanding.

Frailty

Bill Paxton, 2001

IMDB

3/5

Bill Paxton is an actor who wouldn't make a good straight up villain because of his charm / likeability factor. That is why his "Dad Meiks" character succeeds in this 2001 directorial debut (screenplay by by Brent Hanley) by Paxton.

Almost immediately you like the Dad character. Hard-working, eats dinner with his boys every night and warmly sends them off to bed before retiring himself. It's when he is awoken by a vision that it all changes. He tells his boys how God will be making a kill list for him, demons that he must rid the world of. Your suspicion of Dad grows, and you find yourself finding a certain comfort in Fenton's character, who is seemingly the only sane character left. His impressionable younger brother Adam is going to do anything his father wishes so there's virtually no hope for him to snap out of it.

What transpires is a dark southern gothic story with some real twists. The way that the film shifts your vision of who is good and bad is impressively executed. It's a good opportunity to see some of McConaughey's early acting chops which are evident in the film. He's kind of in his wheelhouse as the Texas-based drifter type that mutters slowly and thought-out. But overall it's a unique film that grabs you, and there's definitely some black comedy elements at work even if they are a bit buried beneath the surface. Paxton is really so perfect for the role as the eccentric father who really feels like he's God hand and doing something important. A straight up scary guy would never work. And it's his ability to be the benign father early on and get you invested in him as the good guy that is the springboard for all of the alternating that continues throughout the film.

Under the Skin

Jonathan Glazer, 2014

Can I Stream It?

4/5

Set in Scotland, a shape-shifting alien creature is secretly killing young men in an effort to feed a mysterious source. Soon the carefully maintained routine is disrupted when the seductress begins to gain an awareness, suddenly seeing the human race as something more than just lustful meat.

Under the Skin has a lingering quality to it, a quality existent in Glazer's past film Sexy Beast. But while Sexy Beast was simply rooted in great performances, this picture's lingering qualities are more obvious, more impacting, more elaborate. More intriguing. Glazer's cold black predatory piece plays out like a David Lynch created hybrid of Stephen King's Sleepwalkers and M. Night Shyamalan's Signs. The chilling score is noticeable from the get-go as the hum and the heartbeat manipulates your senses. Some of the images dance slowly across the screen, never slowing down to a bore.

Scarlett Johansson's femme fatale creature is calculating, tactical. She's precise in her pursuit. If there is any compromising moment in the hunt, she scraps the moment and moves on to the next attempt. Using sex as bait on young men is just too effective. When you see a black wigged, made-up Scarlett how can you not get into a van with her? The fact that these scenes were filmed using hidden cameras on oblivious walker-bys without making that segment of the film gimmicky only adds to Glazer's skilled film-making abilities. It's a film that almost demands to be re-watched, as you are likely to find little marks here and there that you may have missed. It's the long-awaited true Cinephile's alien movie. And although the film gets lost a little bit in it's own abstraction as the female creature begins to empathize with the human race, the memorable imagery never slips between the cracks. When the two humans are submerged and the one sees the other get "processed", how are you to ever erase that from your brain? There is an artful brutality to this picture that Nicholas Winding Refn only wishes he could have achieved in Only God Forgives. So many aspects that will stick with you for days, months maybe. Mica Levi's score is so much like the background noise we heard in The Master or There Will be Blood, but it's so brilliantly embedded in the fabric of the film that hearing anything remotely resembling the sounds after will trigger your memories and have you looking behind your back for a Dodge Sprinter as you walk down an empty street. As the cold temptress creeps through the Scottish city, Glazer forces you to look at your own race through a different set of eyes. You sympathize with the poor young men that are so unfortunate to fall victim to their own libido. But you soon find yourself sympathizing with the very creature that so mercilessly takes them from the world. Another testament to Glazer's pure brilliance with making this film. Under the Skin is a hypnotic art piece. So cleverly disturbing without being pure gore, and unnerving without using any horror cliches.

True Detective (Season 1)

Nic Pizzolatto

Can I Stream It?

5/5

Detectives Rust Cohle (Matthew McConaughey) and Martin Hart (Woody Harrelson), opposite personalities, are paired up to track down a suspected serial killer that has recently killed a local Louisiana girl. 

There are monsters in the world. They are among us, lurking in the shadows. They prey upon women, upon small children. An ominous force. This evil immersed in the Louisiana Bayou adds a certain eeriness to it. It may be the soundtrack to the series, which at times sounds like Pink Floyd's The Machine. Or it may be the imagery, of the wicker bird traps suspended in the trees or the spooky mist that seems to float through the dark rooms. True Detective certainly knows the ingredients, and has all of them brewing. Junkies. Whores. Bible Thumpers. Junkyard Backyards. Wear and tear. Battered histories.

True Detective is one of those once in a lifetime series that you encounter. Once you're done watching, you're a changed person. For better or worse. And it's very difficult to give it proper treatment here, because it's just so smart and so elaborate that a simple review won't be able to cover it all. We can discuss how it's helping to usher in this Matthew McConaughey renaissance (a.k.a. McConaissance) stage - where we are seeing an actor completely reinvigorate his career from god-awful rom-coms in the early 2000's to serious dramatic roles in 2013. We can talk about how the show is almost a blend of The Wire mixed with the under-rated and forgotten Carnivale set in the backdrop of a demonic Louisiana much like True Blood. But that still doesn't reveal enough of the show's attributes. On paper, the show probably appears to be just another detective drama. But oh no. The first couple of episodes show you great performances and great writing. At that point you know it's a show worth watching. And then episode four shows you the greatest single-take in the history of television. And then episode five shows you that everything you thought regarding the direction of the story could be all wrong, and that it might be serviceable to go back and re-watch everything that you have already seen once because it's just not enough. 

If we are living in the second Golden Age of Television, True Detective is certainly a harbinger of it. It is saddening to see such life changing series like Breaking Bad fade away into the past. But if this series is any sign of whats to come, we haven't seen anything yet. Or perhaps we are in the middle of watching one of the greatest series ever made right before our very own eyes, right now. At least it's only the beginning. How the hell are we supposed to let go of these characters to make way for completely new ones next season? 

Madness in the White City

Bill Kurtis, 2007


3/5

The world was on the edge of their seat waiting for the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago. The fair, called The Columbian Exposition, would showcase the world's first Ferris Wheel, the first fully electrical kitchen with a dishwasher, spray painting, and even a newly created popcorn confection that would later be called Cracker Jacks. Little did the visitors to the fair know that nearby there was a hotelier, H.H. Holmes,  murdering his occupants in his very own fun-house. What carries this 45 minute documentary is the story. There is beautiful black and white archival photography of the Guilded Age. The large scale of actually creating the fairgrounds is amazing and impressive. It's unique that while such a large scale construction project is really displaying the American spirit at its best, there is a Psychopath right across town revealing the worst side of humanity. Because it is a TV movie you should expect poor reenactment footage, and you will get a dose of that. Overall, an interesting quick watch that should please.