Friendship (in theaters)

I recently reviewed the first film I have walked out of in the theater in probably thirty years, and oddly enough, it happened again this week. I am a huge fan of Paul Rudd, and in this film, he plays Austin, his standard guy who is so cool that he makes it look easy. When Austin moves into the neighborhood of a kind of dopey salesman named Craig, the two strike up a friendship, and Craig quickly becomes enamored with Austin, who plays in a band, works as a weatherman for the local TV station, and likes to take Craig on adventures.

The problem from the start with this film was that Tim Robinson, who plays Craig, is so annoying that I didn’t find any logical explanation for Austin to put the effort into forming a friendship with him in the first place. The whole premise of the movie relies pretty heavily on that single decision, so it felt off from the beginning. And when Austin invites Craig to a night with his buddies, and Craig makes an absolute fool of himself, there’s little reason to care what happens next. Austin asks him not to come around anymore, but Craig has become obsessed with trying to rekindle the friendship. And to me, there’s just nothing funny about that. So I left.

One fortune cookie

Dept. Q (Netflix)

Matthew Goode, who is basically a younger version of David Tenant, plays DCI Carl Morck, who has recently been released from the hospital after getting shot in the line of duty. He’s another in a long line of smartass copes who manage to hang onto their jobs just because their such good cops. Molck is actually confined to the basement, and given a position working cold cases. It can sometimes be annoying how predictable these storylines are, but I guess people rind comfort in a known quantity as well.

Molck reluctantly takes on an assistant when Akram Salim, an immigrant with a mysterious history, played by Alexej Manvelov, pesters the brass so much that they finally give him a chance. And of course he proves to be a guy who’s also very good at his job, so despite Molck treating him like shit at first, the two develop a chemistry and start to make progress on a particularly fascinating case.

One of the most delightful things about this series is Molck’s relationship with his therapist, played by one of my favorite Scottish actresses, Kelly MacDonald. As much as Molck resists having to talk to Dr. Irving, she has a way of getting through to him mainly by not being afraid to give him shit about his petulant behavior.

The case is also interesting enough to keep you engaged, as the team tries to determine what happened to a very accomplished public defender who disappeared without a trace many years before, and speculation grows that she might actually still be alive. Great cast, good writing. Eight episodes.

Four fortune cookies

Pee Wee as Himself (HBO Max)

It probably tells you as much about Paul Reubens as anything else that he worked on this documentary for about four years and never told the director that he was dying of cancer. Reubens talks openly about how resistant he is to the process of being interviewed as himself throughout the film, and it shows as Matt Wolff, the director, constantly tries to prod Reubens into taking the interviews seriously while Reubens continues to lapse into what has worked for him for decades, throwing out stupid jokes and deflecting any serious questions.

But he does open up enough to reveal a great deal about how hard he worked to become one of the most unexpected and unique comic figures in American film and television. Reubens was part of the legendary Groundlings comedy troupe for years before he accidently came up with the character of Pee Wee Herman, and it’s pretty alarming how quickly things took off from there. But like most success stories, we learn that it was one of those fifteen year overnight successes.

Reubens also speaks very frankly about how hard he worked to hide his sexuality during his rise, and how sure he is that it would have had a negative impact on his career if that had come out. Which probably shouldn’t be surprising, but it was to me. And of course it makes you wonder how much that has changed.

Reubens comes across as someone who was completely driven, and although most of the people who worked with him seemed to enjoy the experience, it also seems clear that he paid a price for his determination to succeed, living a fairly isolated life, avoiding relationships, and mostly focusing on his work. Reubens recorded one last entry for the film just a day before he died, and that five minute section is about as revealing as anything else in the film.

Four and a half fortune cookies

What Remains (Britbox)

When a badly decomposed body is found in a flat, police soon realize that the dead woman has been missing for two years, which leads to many questions, not only about what happened to her, but why it took so long for anyone to notice she was missing.

Jessica Gunning, who achieved recent success as the co-star of Baby Reindeer, plays Melissa Young, the awkward, reclusive young woman that most of the neighbors knew but didn’t know well, which explains why, when she disappeared, they all just assumed she had moved away. But Len Harper, a detective who is on the verge of retirement, becomes obsessed with this case, and the further he digs into the story, the more obvious it becomes that there are several people in this community that had sketchy relationships with this young woman.

As with most good British dramas, the acting is terrific in this one, and they do a nice job of developing several possible suspects as we get to know the other characters. Just when you’re sure that the control-freak lesbian photographer who took some photos of Melissa in lingerie just a few months before she disappeared is the most likely killer, another storyline emerges. David Threlfall is great as Harper, a cop who is having a hard time accepting the fact that his career is about to end. Mainly because he doesn’t have anything else going on in his life.

Four fortune cookies

A Dangerous Friendship (Masterpiece, Amazon Prime)

When the young king of France marries Anne d'Autriche, a strikingly beautiful young woman, the members of the court surround the couple on their wedding night to ensure that they consummate the marriage. It’s not a very romantic beginning to the marriage, and it soon becomes clear that, not only were they unable to complete the task that evening, but that night set the tone for the way their marriage has played out ever since.

Jérémy Gillet is hilarious as Louis VIII, the nerdy, stuttering king of France who is completely clueless about how to accomplish just about anything, but tries to compensate for that with petulant temper tantrums. His wife Marie, played with wonderful quiet reserve by Stephanie Gil, just wants to do her duty as well as possible, but because the king makes no effort to visit her bed, she becomes convinced that he’s not attracted to her.

Enter Marie de Rohan, the spirited young woman who marries the king’s brother, and quickly makes an impression on the court by being completely irreverent. The queen is at first put off by this impudent young woman, but Marie’s authenticity eventually gets through to the queen, who is used to having everyone around her surrender to her every wish. The two become very close, and it is through Marie’s guidance that Anne is finally able to awaken the king’s sexual drive.

The emphasis on sex makes this series unusual, but it also provides a lot of interesting opportunities to explore a very different aspect of life during this time period, which would be the late 12th century. This series is funny but also has some wonderfully tender moments.

Four and a half fortune cookies

The English Game (Netflix)

Julian Fellowes is best known for creating and writing much of Downton Abbey. He also wrote one of my favorite films set in England, Gosford Park, directed by Robert Altman. So I had high hopes for this series, another of Fellowes’ creations.

The series is is based on the true story a football (soccer to you fellow Americans) league in the 1870s. At a time when football was still very much a gentleman’s game, where nobody would ever think of getting paid to play, the owner of a working class team decides to hire a couple of star players from a nearby town to play for his factory team, which gives the upper classmen a run for their money in the finals.

When the news surfaces that the two young men were paid, the upper class team, which also happens to contain all of the board members for the league, imposes restrictions on the team, and sets up a fight by the players themselves, who rightly point out that the only possible way the working class teams would ever have a chance against the rich teams are if they are able to play for money so that they’re not exhausted from working at a factor job all day.

The case apparently established a whole new approach to the game that created the framework for the leagues we see today, so it was a significant story. Sadly, this recreation of it is a bit overwrought. It’s hard to make a sports series es without some degree of overdramatization, I suppose. But this one has a lot of that. It also doesn’t help that most of the actors don’t appear to be very good athletes, so the scenes from the actual games are not very well done.

Two and a half fortune cookies

Paranoid (Netflix)

Leslie Sharp has been one of my go-to British actresses ever since she starred in a very dark Mike Leigh film called Naked in 1993. In this series, Sharp plays Lucy Cannonbury, a woman who witnesses the brutal murder of a female police officer in a public park. Lucy actually ran to the scene and protected the woman’s child while the murder was taking place.

The story becomes complicated when the detectives who are in charge of the case start receiving mysterious notes from a ‘ghost detective’ who seems to know a lot about the case. There are also further complications as two of the detectives become romantically involved, and another twist develops as Lucy becomes involved with one of the other cops, even though he seems to be on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

This is another quality British series that keeps you engaged throughout.

Four fortune cookies