Director’s Note: We would like to profusely apologize to all of our readers here at the N.T.A.B. who have been worried or otherwise aggrieved at the lack of communication from our department these last few weeks. Even though we were informed that much of the staff would be on some sort of extended holiday, we were not, in fact, granted access to the front office, wherein lies the necessary passwords to file these digital updates. This blatant attempt at sabotage has not worked, and we are back in our offices, trying desperately to catch up with recent offerings. That this has been done with zero assistance from the front office is, sadly, par for the course.
Sandman (Netflix)
I hadn’t planned on watching this series. This was Gaiman’s latest offering, following American Gods, a project I hated as a book and could not subsequently watch as a series, and Stardust, a story that was baffling to me in comic book form and self-indulgent and lackluster by turns as a movie.
I know this sounds like I’m bagging on the man, but it’s not true. I’m someone who likes Neil Gaiman, and hasn’t liked anything he’s written since The Day I Swapped My Dad for Two Goldfish. I think he’s a much better short story writer than he is a novelist, and I think he’s been handled with kid gloves for the last 30 years—at least—and people are afraid to edit him because he’s Neil—stop Fucking—stop Gaiman—stop.
But I was a fan, way back when. Sandman was our mutual success. I was working at a comic shop when it was announced, and we bought into the series heavily, promoted it, turned people on to it, and sold God-only-knows-how-many copies of the trade paperbacks when they were released. I’ll even argue that the reason why comic shops have trade paperback sections is largely because of the success of Sandman. That comic hasn’t been out of print since it first showed up, in 1988. It’s legitimately that good and deserves all of its accolades. Remind me to tell you about the series’ lone World Fantasy Award that it won; it’s kinda hilarious.
That nebulous group known as “They” have been trying to make a Sandman movie for decades. I would have argued that they were 30 years too late for something like that, and I would have been wrong. The Netflix series works in ways that a number of other previous Vertigo-based film and TV projects, most notably Preacher, did not. Evidently Gaiman had a heavy hand in the production of the 10-episode series, which encompasses the first two major story arcs from the comics.
I’m going to assume that you either have read these comics already, or that you intend to watch the series, and I’m not going to recap Preludes and Nocturnes and The Doll’s House for you. Instead, I will tell you that there’s a lot of the comics in this series—way more than I would have imagined. Lots of imagery, complete scenes, beloved characters, and more. In fact, Tom Sturridge (the actor who plays Morpheus) looks at various times like he was drawn by Shawn McManus, or Sam Kieth, or even Kelley Jones. They all do, in fact. It’s one of the best special effects in the show; the casting, when it’s not being jacked with, is spot-on. I love Patton Oswalt, but that doesn’t mean he’s got to be in everything.
The show also leans into the horrific roots of the comic, as well. Initially, the series was pitched as dark fantasy with horror-comic elements. The invoking of DC’s horror comic hosts, Caine and Able from House of Mysteries and House of Secrets, and the three witches from The Witching Hour, was a clear signal to readers that some of these stories were going to swing for the fences. That was more or less over with by the series’ end, but initially, Sandman was quite edgy.
And speaking of edgy, boy, howdy, if you want to rile up the five angry neckbeards in their parents’ basement (in and of itself a kind of Endless, but I digress), you can do it faster than lightning by simply gender-swapping a character, or changing their ethnicity. Whoo boy. I will not sugar-coat it; it was jarring at first. But the woman playing Constantine was note perfect. Likewise Gwendolyn Christie as Lucifer Morningstar. Lucienne may have been gender-swapped and is now a POC, but from the second she appears, she IS the Dreaming’s librarian. Oh, and Death? Probably my favorite character in this show.
Besides, consider the alternative: you cast that comic book by 1988 standards and the whole show would look like the cosplay corner of a Robert Smith fan club meeting. The Sandman comic book extended the whole Goth thing juuuust long enough for Hot Topic to gain a toehold, gamely stocking black t-shirts and pancake make-up until the emo kids could get dropped off at the mall and clean them out.
Enough dithering: the real question you want answered is this: did I like it? Would I recommend it? Okay, here you go. This series is like the force cave in The Empire Strikes Back.
Luke: “What’s inside?”
Yoda: “Only what you take with you.”
If you walk in, breath held, expecting to be whisked away into the Dreaming while Tori Amos serenades you in the background, well, cool beans, here’s your new favorite show. If you go in, arms folded, looking for something to piss you off, oh boy, are you gonna love this! And if you watch it not quite knowing what to expect, like most of the critics did, then you’ll walk out going, “Well, that was all over the place.” And there will be a nugget of truth to all of it.
The pacing? I had some friends flipping out over the glacial drift of the first two episodes. I watched them, and thought they covered a hundred years at a fairly brisk clip, but what do I know? I asked the head of bunker operations if she thought those first two episodes dragged, and she said, no, not at all, because she needed that set-up for what’s obviously coming next. She hasn’t been waiting all her life for this show to happen; she just walked into the living room one day and asked, “Is this a Cure video?”
She liked it more than I did. She had a lot of questions for me, the answers to which all started with, “Well, in the comics...” My ultimate takeaway: it was way better than I thought it would be. And sometimes, it was exactly what I thought it would be, as well. I think they managed to address or mitigate most of my concerns about the adaptation going in. I also think this is the best adaptation of Gaiman’s work of anything else I’ve seen to date. It’s not perfect, but it’s very well realized and they were able to get a lot more of the comic into the series than I ever thought they would.
Season 2 is positioned to adapt my favorite story in the series, “Seasons of Mist,” and I do so hope they don’t screw that up.
The Gray Man (Netflix)
Ryan Gosling plays a murderer (because, you know, just look at him) who gets a second chance to make something for himself, as an elite assassin-agent named Sierra 6. There are other numbers, too, we find out, as well as an entire wing of the CIA out to kill him—bring him in—or something, and they play a game of cat and mouse, kidnapping people, having massive gunfights, and doing stunts that make you wince when they land.
Now it was Janice’s turn to turn to me and say, “Okay, in the book...” or “That’s not how they...what are they doing?” The upshot was that the people who made The Gray Man moved so many elements and pieces and parts around, they could have named it anything (“the Gray Man” isn’t THAT cool a name, y’all) else and it wouldn’t have borne any resemblance to the book series.
But, it was directed by the Russo Brothers, and in addition to The Gosinator, they brought Chris Evans onboard because everyone forgets how good he is at playing assholes, and let me tell you, he cranked that role out of the park. He honestly makes the movie, on moxie alone, because The Gos is doing his charming best but he’s just not enough, even when he gets to play opposite Billy Bob Thornton.
Netflix does the big dumb blow-up movies pretty well, and this one slots right in there. I’m sure the sequel will have an even higher body count. They may be trying to steal some of John Wick’s thunder. Good luck, guys. You’re gonna need it!
NTAB Directorial Culture Exchange Update: Alfred Hitchcock
The master of suspense, one of the most lauded and influential directors of the 20th century, and also one of the most controversial (and getting worse with each new revelation in hindsight). I don’t know if there is a corollary between deviant behavior and genius, or if there’s just an aura of permissiveness that surrounds auteurs that gives them carte blanche to push the boundaries of good behavior, and then explain it away as the unfathomable workings of a genius (a stance which is 100% bullshit, by the way, but seemed to be par for the course for the first six or seven decades of filmmaking).
I don’t remember which of us added Hitch to the list, but we both agreed to stay away from the films we’d already seen and knew so well. This was easier for Jes than for me, so she got to go first and picked North by Northwest, one of the many collaborations with Cary Grant.
I think there’s something awfully charming about a lot of Hitchcock’s suspense movies in the way they frequently turn on a notion of propriety and good behavior. They just feel so very British in sensibility. Case in point, Cary Grant is mistaken for a spy and picked up by villains, hoping to intercept the courier. When Grant finally convinces them he’s not the guy they want, they fill him full of liquor and arrange for a car crash. When Grant comes to and tries to contact the authorities to have everyone arrested for kidnapping, no one believes him, including his mother, who actually throws him under the bus in front of the cops. And the cops? Useless.
Grant: “You kidnapped me!”
The Maid: “No, you were a guest and you had too much to drink.”
The Cops: “Well, we’re satisfied.”
The movie gets good when Grant decides to strike out on his own, and we get to see the charm and elegance he was best known for, even if it was a put-on. I hate that the reissue posters and the video cassettes all put the biplane on the cover, telegraphing one of the most nail-biting scenes in the film, but since when is a marketing department ever very smart?
Janice found the premise, that everyone in Grant’s life would suddenly decide that yeah, he could have done all that crazy stuff, and then lie about it, a bit hard to swallow, but the intrigues and espionage that came afterward very engaging.
I’ve seen most of Hitch’s American films, and a good number of his British films, but I’d never seen The Jamaica Inn, starring Charles Laughton and (introducing) Maureen O’Hara. This was a great period potboiler with a really grim and dark opening that shaded the rest of the movie, as a gang of pirates forces a ship to crash on the rocks in a violent storm and then wantonly slaughters the survivors as they struggle up from the sea onto the shoreline.
The action surrounding the Jamaica Inn, full of the cutthroats and the innkeeper and his wife, is fairly relentless, with lots of great character actors doing great character work, and Charles Laughton chewing on every piece of scenery he can cram into his mouth. It’s kind of his movie, and he’s appropriately stately and saturnine in turn. It’s a bit obscure, and I don’t want to give anything more away, but if you’re in the mood for something darkly different, this tense costume drama is indelibly Hitchcockian in direction and storytelling. Worth a look, if you like that sort of thing.
I don't usually watch Netflix, because its CEO is one of the primary movers in the program to privatize public education, but my Roku died and the only channels I can get on my Blu-Ray are Amazon and, yep, Netflix.
That said, I was curious to see what was done with the Gray Man, and was suitable quashed and disappointed to discover it had been diluted into just another excuse for impossible stunts and lots of flash/bang. The underlying theme of the novels—a man betrayed by his country after doing his country's dirtiest work—was barely visible; and without that you got nothin'. My recommendation: read or listen to the books.
I was debating The Sandman, because I've never really gotten the whole "Neil Gaiman is a god" mindset. I mainly passed it off as my normal immunity to the whole Cult of Personality movement. I'll maybe give it a look now, since you recommend it.
As for Hitchcock, I'm also too old-school to throw out the creative baby because they're discovered to have s*** in their bathwater if their body of work has a sufficient level of quality. I don't read two well-known SF writers because they don't meet that criterion, but when I'm looking for actual suspense, I'm always happy to find something by Hitchcock. It's not just the stories, or the directing, but what seems to be a superb instinct for casting just the right actor for the part. As a once-aspiring thespian myself, that's important to me.
Which reminds me I need to see if the "Presents" series is still available on streaming somewhere…
About "The Sandman" - haven't seen it yet. In no hurry to see it. The comics were a perfect fin de siecle storm about a god wondering if he should go on, even as the millennium drew to a close. And yes, the previous adaptations of Gaiman's books were all ... meh. Even "Coraline", which should have been hard to screw up.
About Hitchcock - haven't heard about his personal evils and don't really care to since he's dead. As for his movies, I think my favorites are "The Lady Vanishes" and "The 39 Steps". (And I think the Bill Murray comedy "The Man Who Knew Too Little" was a fantastic send up of Hitchcock movies, even moreso than Mel Brooks' "High Anxiety.")
"They may be trying to steal some of John Wick’s thunder."
The John Wick franchise is doing that all on its own with its "Continental" prequel - the whole point of the Wick movies (aside from violent combat) is learning a little bit at a time about the portal world Wick inhabits. Give us a whole movie or miniseries about a central setting and it's like the magician telling you how he did it. (And don't get me started on the mistake of casting Mel Gibson. Talk about the sins of the artist.)
As always, thank you for your insights.