Weekly Report from the N.T.A.B. Division of Media Review
Renfield/The Night Agent/Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies/Mrs. Davis
Note: we would just like to say how pleased and excited we are to observe that the regular publishing schedule as resumed. We trust now that things have settled down for Administration that it won’t fall to us or other departments to cover for them when they blow deadlines.
Renfield (in theaters) The premise is this: Renfield is still alive after all these years, having been granted a bit of Dracula’s power as a reward for serving him faithfully. He finds himself in a weekly group for people in co-dependent relationships and realizes that he’s got to change some things about his life.
It’s funny, right? A good sketch for Saturday Night Live (or a great sketch, depending on the season). It seems like it would be easy to tease twenty, maybe thirty minutes of jokes out of it. So, what’s the rest of Renfield about, then? The movie takes at least two hard left turns and bends the premise, well, not exactly into a pretzel, but certainly into something else. What starts out as a horror-movie-homage-tinged comedy transmogrifies into a gore-filled action thriller, and spends most of the movie trying to straddle that line, with mixed results.
Renfield is mostly successful, depending largely how you feel about horror comedies like American Werewolf in London, Vamp, and Vampire in Brooklyn. There’s an over-the-top amount of gore—a slapstick, burlesque amount—and it’s mixed with Wuxia-style vampire antics, and in a couple of place, some genuinely unsettling and creepy scares from Nic Cage, America’s National Treasure, who turns in an inspired performance as Dracula. I’ll go so far as to say this is one of Cage’s best roles, and if you’re a fan of Cage, you can’t afford to miss this film on the big screen. It may be his turn as the doomed count, a kind of mix of Lugosi, Lon Chaney’s London After Midnight, and his own father, that saves Renfield, keeping the train on the tracks, driving the plot forward so that Renfield and police officer Quincy have something to react to as they strive to get ahead of the Dark Prince’s evil plan. Well, that and the kinetic, almost percussive display of vampiric might.
Yes, I said “Quincy,” played by Awkwafina with the same exact delivery she brings to every role, so if you like that, you’ll love her in this. There are real Dracula fans at work behind the film, and if you’re one, too, Renfield is real inside baseball, and a lot of fun to watch for the myriad of nods, winks, and in-jokes. Non horror fans, you need to be prepared for some next-level ultra-violence and gore that will make the Crazy 88s fight scene in Kill Bill look like a Chuck Norris chop-and-kick flick from the 1980s. You know the elevator from The Shining? That’s a water balloon compared to this movie. You have been warned.
The Night Agent (Amazon Prime) An FBI agent stumbles onto an in-progress bombing, and manages to foil it with minimal casualties, even going so far as to unsuccessfully chase the bomber. Cut to some time later and because he got captured on camera during the attack, he’s become a target for an Alt-Right talking head and his horde of “patriot” fans. To keep him out of the limelight, he’s now got a job answering a phone in a room—secret agent stuff. When he finally gets a call on the red phone, it sends him spiraling into a web of conspiracies and black ops that he’s got to stay ahead of and not get ensnared within.
For not having any big names attached to it, this under-the-radar spy thriller delivers. It’s got juuuuust enough twists and turns to keep the plot moving forward, and there’s a couple of great red herrings that take a while to uncover. The action is brisk, well-shot, and appropriately suspenseful. The added irritant of the alt-right conspiracy theorists dogging their every move is one I’ve not seen before and it’s effective, since it’s used sparingly.
There’s an advantage to not watching movies set within large franchises; namely, you don’t meta-guess yourself out of getting wrapped up in what’s going on. The stakes seem appropriately high and you’re not quite sure they can pull slapdash plan off, particularly since our FBI hero isn’t burdened with an excess of intelligence. The Night Agent isn’t binge-worthy, meaning, you can watch one or two episodes a night and not feel rushed. If N.C.I.S. isn’t doing it for you anymore, slot this series into your viewing rotation and see if it doesn’t scratch that particular itch.
Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies (Paramount+)
Five years before the original Grease, Rydell High is hopelessly mired in the traditions of the past. It’s up to a few brave social outcasts to take on the hallowed institutions and bring a little color into the black and white world of the 1950s: the color, of course, is pink.
It’s probably due to the recent second season of Schmigadoon that had me click on the first episode of this new streaming series; I am not a fan of the original Grease, despite having grown up with the soundtrack playing in the background for most of my childhood, on into adolescence. It was a monster hit, and every girl my age saw the movie multiple times, owned the album, played the songs over and over...and over...and over...
Why did I click on the show, anyway? I honestly can’t tell you, but I found the show to be charming in that “I see what y’all did there” kind of way. Yes, of course, the real social constructs and struggles of the 1950s are either conveniently hand-waved away in order to have an engaging, multiracial cast, or drawn into the existing plots and conflicts on an as-needed basis. The willing suspension of disbelief margin is higher than most other shows, but then again, if you were a person who watched Glee, I’m sure you’ll find your way into the show with little difficulty.
The characters are fun, and there’s plenty of snicker-laughs, if not guffaws, per episode, and at least one toe-tapper, too. I mean, they wrote 30 songs for this ten-episode series, so something had to land every so often, right?
I don’t quite know who Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies is aimed at. My initial presumption is that every Gen-X adult with kids who like musicals thanks to a minor resurgence of them will sit down, family style, and dissect the not-subtle commentary on social media/bullying/gossip, the Patriarchy, girl on girl hate, double standards in gender politics, being true to yourself, etc., etc. etc. It doesn’t quite work as nostalgia, but there are flashes of pieces of bits of hints of the original musical that only a 50-something would catch, as well as a couple of tried and true callbacks, such as mooning. How far we’ve come, folks.
Mrs. Davis (Peacock)
From IMDB: Sister Simone partners with her ex-boyfriend Wiley on a globe-spanning journey to destroy Mrs. Davis, a powerful artificial intelligence.
From Wikipedia: Mrs. Davis is an American science fiction drama television series created by Tara Hernandez and Damon Lindelof for Peacock. The series stars Betty Gilpin as a nun using her faith to take on technology.
From Me: After an inspired opening display of outstanding violence, we cut to a lone island in an unnamed sea, on a beach with the remnants of a shipwreck, and in the opening cards, Damon Lindelof’s name flashed as the camera panned over the surf and I nearly had a panic attack.
Damon Lindelof, doing desert islands, AGAIN!? Oh, GOD give me strength. Or better numbers. Or polar bears and smoke monsters. Or something.
Talk about stones, Damon. Sisyphusian stones.
Those tiny log lines above don’t even begin to scratch the surface of whatever the hell this series is. I want to assume that it’s a wry commentary on the fears of artificial intelligence, coupled with Alexa and Siri, in a world that is both changed and as of episode four, not much affected by a super computer that has been allowed to take over the world. I also want to assume that there’s an intentional dynamic pull between faith in God and a love of Amazon’s convenience.
What this feels like, however, is a big-ass apology for Lost. There’s so much ambient Lost energy in the show, right up to and including structuring episodes so that we begin with a flashback of a main character before we zoom into the present day (clearly labeled, by the way, so you always know where you are in time). I sincerely hope Lindelof has learned from his past mistakes and has an endgame for this show, but I have to tell you...I have no idea what I’m watching.
I don’t know what to tell you. Janice thinks it’s got a Preacher (the TV series) vibe to it. She was lucky enough to have not watched Lost, so she’s not busy putting characters into Kate and Sawyer molds and trying to squeeze them into shape, like a Play Doh Fun Factory. I’m engaged with it, for a number of reasons including the use of magicians in the show as some kind of metaphor for I-don’t-know-what. I never in my life expected to see a major portion of a television show devoted to a mash-up of Monty Python and the Holy Grail and Hands on a Hard Body. I honestly don’t know if I’m supposed to laugh or what. Is it a satire? Kinda. Dark and absurdist? Sorta. It’s clearly building to something, but…what?
That’s it: I need a consensus, here. Go watch the first two episodes, and if you’re hooked, watch the next two, and then comment below about what you think. I’m fascinated, but Lindelof has tricked me before. Are you all in? We may need to discuss what’s happening on a week-by-week basis.
Both Kay and I thought The Night Agent was pretty good , kept things rolling along nicely and we didn't binge watch it either. As for NCIS , Kay has always had a crush on Mark Harmon so she's not so keen on it now LOL!
I've had arguments about Nicolas Cage... To me, he's one of the best and certainly most underrated actors of his generation. A lot of people don't get that when he plays it broad, he's supposed to play it broad. It's like Vincent Price, who seems to be a one-dimensional ham, but when you watch all his Poe movies in a row, you suddenly see the nuance. For more Nicolas Cage, I recommend his 1988 "Vampire's Kiss"; he's completely unhinged in it - but supposed to be...