Shameless 5x03

“Imagine Britain without Chatsworth Buccaneers, who come on your face for the price of a beer,” Frank Gallagher muses, while his wife Monica dreams she’s having another baby. Her family isn’t too happy about it – it’s not like she’s been a good mother to her children. Mind you, she hasn’t seen a doctor or even taken a home test. “I am most definitely with child,” she smiles, because she’s dreaming of nursery rhymes, chicken and eggs, and she has morning sickness. Even Mandy Maguire doesn’t buy it. Six tests later, they still come out negative. Norma is delighted – and secretly hopes Monica will finally come back to her – and reminds her of their time together, how she was there for her when she was desperate and depressed. Mandy helps her snap out of it, telling her, “Don’t think about the one you’re not having, think about the ones you’ve got.” The kids make her a mother’s day cake for all the ones they’ve missed, so they can start again, and she gets the message.

For his part, Paddy Maguire is planning a fortieth birthday surprise party for his love. “Great woe will descend upon anyone who blows this,” he warns his sons, “Comprendo? Decco.” Foxy Karen is freaking out, for the party will be at The Jockey (as always). Alas, when she steps out for a bit, Ian and Jamie get locked up in the cellar and all customers upstairs rob them blind of all their liquor and furniture. Not even the Maguire scare tactics help to get the pub back into shape for the party. But when Frank explains the consequences of their actions, namely that The Jockey will close for business, they all come scrambling to safe their favorite hangout. “It’s not just a pub, a place of ale, it’s a second home to most of us, first for some,” he explains, “We need that beer flowing.” So the party is back on and both Paddy and Mimi pretend they didn’t know the other knew they knew. A bit slow, this episode, and neither compelling nor hilarious. Let’s hope the season picks up soon again.

Boardwalk Empire 1x12

The last episode this season of this grand series naturally goes out in style. That murderously hypocritical evangelic Agent Nelson Van Alden resigns from the Bureau. He is addressing a group of candidates for his replacement, warning them that they will be “bribed, coerced and tempted on a daily basis.” “Bring on the dancing girls,” one of the agents jokes. Van Alden hits him in his face. His partner Agent Sebso, he says, died in the line of duty from a heart attack, and, he continues, “I will not have his memory sullied by infantile humor.” Van Alden returns to his wife and informs her they will be moving to Schenectady, where he is going to work with his uncle in the feed business. When Rose protests he is doing God’s work as prohibition agent, he asks for God’s to give him a sign to stay in Atlantic City. He returns to clean out his office. Lucy stops in to say that he made her pregnant. A sign from God if there ever was one. For his part, Nucky Thompson is nervous the Democrats are going to win the mayoral election and tells his ward bosses to do whatever it takes to win votes.

Since leaving Nucky, Margaret is staying at the house of presidential candidate Warren Harding’s mistress Nan Britton. She is baking a barmbrack cake, an Irish Halloween tradition, hiding inside it a ring, a coin and a rag to foretell the future. When she and Nan attend the All Hallows Eve service at the cemetery, Margaret spots the grave of Nucky’s wife and son. She is touched and visits Nucky to hear more about his son’s death. A beautifully moving scene ensues between the two, in which he confides about the time, seven years ago, when he was too busy being treasurer that he failed to notice his wife kept caring for their baby even after he had died days ago. Just a few weeks after burying the baby, the mother committed suicide. Nucky continues that the time with Margaret and her children were the happiest days of his life. In tears she asks him how he can do what he does, despite the kindness in his heart. “We all have to decide for ourselves how much sin we can live with,” he replies. After giving her the cold shoulder, Jimmy is trying to make amends with Angela, though she tried to run away to Paris with Mary. She admits that she and Tommy are terrified of him, because Jimmy screams in his sleep – he is having nightmares about the trenches. She was lonely when he was away, and sure he would never come back. And who has been poisoning the Commodore? He has been digesting small doses of arsenic in his food for quite some time. He has been complaining about his stomach since Christmas. The new sheriff, Halloran, asks the maid why she did it. Looking angrily at the Commodore, she says, “’Cause if I used the shotgun I’da had to clean the mess up myself.” Nucky intervenes to prevent her arrest, hands her some money and tells her to go as far away from Atlantic City as possible.

Over in New York, Lucky Luciano and Meyer Lansky suggest to Arnold Rothstein he cuts a deal with Nucky and get rid of the D’Alessio brothers, rather than bailing off to Scotland. John Torrio is new in Chicago, but he could reach out to Nucky to dodge the imminent World Series indictment. Pay close attention, this is historic, a deal between the most dangerous and powerful gangsters of the country – and it is not the brainchild of savvy businessman Rothstein himself, but of his henchmen Lucky and Lansky. Torrio arranges a meeting, without telling Nucky of its nature. Jimmy and Nucky arrive to find Torrio and Capone, as well as Rothstein and Lucky. Nucky and Jimmy are caught off guard and none too please. Rothstein tried to get Nucky killed and take over his illegal liquor trade. Jimmy is unsurprised Rothstein would want to bury the hatchet considering the World Series scandal. Nucky offers to quash the indictment in return for one million dollars and the location of the remaining D’Alessio brothers. Rothstein agrees to end all hostilities between them.

Nucky recognizes an opportunity, calling a press conference addressing all the media about the vicious criminal that sprung up in reaction to the Eighteenth Amendment. He informs them that the woodside massacre was an act of gang warfare committed by Hans Schroeder and the D’Alessio brothers. He compliments his brother Eli, the former sheriff, for his tireless efforts uncovering the crime. Vote Republican, he urges the audience, to keep Atlantic City safe. And God Bless America. Meanwhile, Jimmy, Capone and Richard Harrow brutally murder the D’Alessio brothers in grandiosely operatic style. Harding gets elected to the presidency, Nucky’s candidate Bader wins the ticket, Eli is reappointed as sheriff, Rothstein escapes indictment, and Margaret gets the rag from the barmbrack. She decides to give Nucky another chance. Plots and conspiracies already start brewing, though, as the newly invigorated Commodore fumes about Nucky, wishing Jimmy will take back Atlantic City, with Eli’s help.

Shameless 5x02

This one is all about Mimi, the boss lady of the Irish mob on Chatsworth Estate. Back in the day there was the other Paddy, a bigger fish even that Paddy Maguire. Now he’s out of jail and has business to discuss with Mimi’s Paddy. Paddy Maguire is so nervous, he almost chokes on a cashew nut in the Jokey. It’s our Frank who’s Paddy’s guardian angel that saves his life. From the start of his meet with other Paddy, Paddy’s off on the wrong foot. A drink at the Jokey is his first stop, but other Paddy’s really hoping Paddy set up a woman for him. They walk into the pub, other Paddy admires sexy kitten Karen (as we all do), but seeing Mimi from behind, he asks “It’s not her, is it? A rhino on a joy bag?” Unwittingly, other Paddy sets off marital crises at the Maguires as Mimi spirals into a self-loathing depression, certain her Paddy can’t love her the size she is. There’s nothing her Paddy can do, she throws him out, and in his desperation he ties and gags other Paddy up, for Mimi to finish off as a make up gift. After the situation spirals even further out of control, Mimi and Paddy bond over who is more willing to kill other Paddy out of love for the other. But what business did he have to discuss with Paddy anyway? Other Paddy is retiring, off to Cyprus, wanting to sell Paddy one of his patches to go with some of the others the Maguires stole from him while he was in jail. After all that happened, he’ll ask somebody else!

Meanwhile, Lip has returned to Nottingham University, Ian is hoping to shag up with Carl’s teacher, Carl is hoping to score some girls, Debbie is worried Monica might steal her room, and Liam is becoming a little pyromaniac just like Marty. Outside, Monica’s ex-girlfriend Norma is dealing with a rodent plague, while at the Maguires Shane’s python eats Mimi’s puppy dog and Mick is determined to prove he’s a hard working man, living in his pink Cadillac, sure no one knows he’s gay. “It’s not pink! It’s fuchsia!” Definitely homo. The show is still wicked smart and uproariously funny. Yet it is getting progressively more difficult keeping track of all the characters. I didn’t even mention the idiotic scene at Yvonne’s local shop with the moronic police force, or Mandy’s well-meaning attempt to resolves the Maguires’ crisis. This lack of focus hinders maintaining the audience’s interest in all the various characters. Many, in fact, remain no more than caricatures. The beauty of the series, at first, I felt was its portrayal of the British underclass, drinking and cursing, fucking and fighting, but still managing to get by, by sticking together. There was a bittersweet sordid sense of humor through all the drama, but it was easy to relate to the Gallaghers. Now, I just miss Fiona and Steve, Kev and Veronica; Marty and Sheila are gone, and so is Lip. What is left is mostly meaningless fun at the expense of the criminally poor and the criminally insane.

Boardwalk Empire 1x11

Jimmy gets a call from his mother Gillian that his father, the Commodore, is dying. On his deathbed, the Commodore proudly brags he built Atlantic City and tells Jimmy that the wrong man is running town. After eating a biscuit, Jimmy doesn’t feel well, washes his face in the bathroom, and throws up. Gillian later reminisces about how she first met the Commodore, through Nucky, and how Nucky always took good care of them. Jimmy cannot shake off the thought that Nucky was no more than a pimp who brought young girls to the Commodore. He was fifty four, she was thirteen. That night, when visiting the Commodore again, a doctor runs some tests. Richard Harrow stops by after doing some reconnaissance about the D’Alessios, suggesting he kills the brothers’ mother, sisters, and one brother who is working in Philadelphia as a dentist, to give the dagos a warning. The doctor interrupts them, confiding to Jimmy that the test results show that somebody has been poisoning the Commodore with arsenic. Jimmy remembers the biscuit that made him vomit, and tactfully asks his mother a few questions. But she has no idea what he is talking about. He shows her the “Paris Green” arsenic he found in the kitchen closet.

For his part, Agent Van Alden discusses to botched transfer of witness Winslow with his assistant Sebso over dinner in a Chinese restaurant. Van Alden drills him about his chop stick skills, his reasons for joining the Bureau, and the incident. Van Alden knows Sebso is lying. How could Winslow approach him unexpectedly and hit him on the forehead with a rock, while he was supposedly about to urinate? Sebso feels the pressure and calls Nucky in a panic. Nucky advices him to divert Van Alden’s attention, perhaps wrap up a bootlegging operation, and even hands him a tip about a possible location in the woods. At the riverside in the woods, Van Alden and Sebso find a makeshift congregation witnessing a baptism. Van Alden gets evangelically inspired, calling Sebso a Jew bound for eternal damnation. But they find no illegal distillery. Later Sebso applies for a transfer to Detroit to get from under Van Alden’s scrutiny. Van Alden criticizes him for his expensive new shoes. “Temptation knows no rank.” Then they return to the site of the riverside congregation. Van Alden forces Sebso to accept a baptism and a forcefully tense scene ensues in which Van Alden’s evangelism turns diabolical. He drowns Sebso.

Meanwhile, Margaret is starting to resent her affair with Nucky, how he takes advantage of her political acumen, disagreeing with his illegal business, worrying that Van Alden is right about the death of her husband, and wondering when she will be replaced by another mistress. They have a confrontation in which he accuses her of using Lysol as a contraceptive, and she accuses him of getting her husband killed. When Eli catches wind of the row, he throws Nucky a tantrum how she is a liability of his own creation. The Democrats are very close to winning the elections, the D’Alessio brothers are coming after them, Eli’s life is on the line, and meanwhile Nucky prances about town with his mistress, getting ass-kisses by everyone who’s after his money. Nucky compares Eli to Hardeen, “if he wasn’t Houdini’s brother, nobody would give a fuck.” Nucky later informs his Republican friends that Eli has resigned and promotes Deputy Halloran to Sheriff. When Nucky arrives at Margaret’s apartment, he discovers she has left with the children. At the same time, Angela prepares to leave for Paris with Mary Dittrich and little Tommy. She packs a small suitcase and leaves a note for Jimmy. Then, when she arrives at the photo shop, the Dittrichs have both left without her. Then there’s Arnold Rothstein, who is about to be indicted for fixing the World Series. His lawyer suggests he comes to Chicago if he knows anyone powerful enough who is willing to do him a favor.

Shameless 5x01

Vernon Francis Gallagher waxes Shakespearean after electrocuting himself while urinating on a electrical generator. At the hospital a woman he confuses for a nurse tells him it would be a small miracle if he survived the weekend. He starts seeing visions of his twelve-year old self, who confronts him with the meaninglessness of his life. With death at his doorstep, he scrambles to find any significance in his life, his marriages, his children, only to be reminded of his failures, his absence, and his nearly continuous drunken stupor. His younger self reminds Frank of his mother’s death, and how he promised to make her proud. Before he dies, he needs to know what his legacy is. During a bar fight at the Jockey it hits him: this is his legacy, everybody having a merry old time getting drunk, kicking and punching, or having a little screw in the bedroom. Then he learns that the woman at the hospital wasn’t a nurse, but the wife of a dying patient, who resented his odious behavior – not to mention the stench coming out of his mouth. He’ll live.

Meanwhile Lip returns from university, but the cheer doesn’t last long. His girlfriend from Nottingham arrives, sending Mandy in a tantrum. They agreed to an open relationship, but with four simple rules: use condoms, don’t get involved, don’t tell, and don’t bring it home. Lip hasn’t even been able to abide by a single one of these rules. He lies to both girls, then tries to make amends with both. When he can’t choose, the other girl, Alex, suggests sharing and offers to be a part of Katie’s life. That spins Mandy over the edge, you don’t involve her daughter in this sordid mess. After the above mentioned bar fight ensued, Mandy breaks up with Lip, so he can fulfill his dreams. For her part, busy-body Lillian has started a little brothel business to earn some easy money. She believes she’s helping the girls out, as they would otherwise be on the street. When the local police are tipped off, they can’t believe it’s Lillian. They find the hookers, but no paper trail or evidence of unlawful gain. They have to let her go, leaving her to count her wad of cash. Shameless is called comedy, and it is often hilarious, but it is also profoundly honest about the real life tragedies of living in poverty.

Boardwalk Empire 1x10

Another very good episode in which several of the plot lines start to converge in interesting ways. Richard Harrow has a dream in which he walks the beach with one of the prostitutes of the Four Deuces, his face still unscarred. Then he wakes up from little Emily’s screams, who found him sleeping on the couch without his mask. Everyone’s already on edge, with Nucky narrowly escaping an assassination attempt, and Margaret slowly realizing the humiliating situation she got herself into. Nucky snaps at Harrow for frightening the kids with his horrifying face. He later does explain to Margaret that Harrow is a war hero and is there for their protection. “Success breeds enemies,” he adds, “which you’ll discover soon enough after women win the vote.” As for politics, the ratification for the women’s suffrage that Nucky is alluding to is now in the hands of Tennessee. It’s interesting how Nucky presents his position as progressive – as his only interest is getting more votes come election time. When she is reading to her children from The Wizard of Oz, Margaret invites Harrow to join them – allowing him to compare himself with the Tin Woodsman, which eases the children’s fear of him. Later still, Harrow admits to her that he, too, is troubled by his own face, but can hardly remember what he looked like before his face got disfigured. When the good news about the ratification has been announced, Nucky and Margaret have a glass of champagne, and he asks her if she could speak on behalf of his mayoral candidate Bader at the League of Women’s Voter meeting. She sees through his opportunism, yet she is still drawn to him. She agrees and gives a rousing speech to great applause.

That weasel Agent Sebso plays the innocent victim while Van Alden and Superintendent Elliot interrogate him about the death of Winslow, their only witness implicating Jimmy and Nucky in the massacre in the woods. Elliot exonerates him on account of self-defense in the line of duty, but directs his anger on Van Alden for bungling the case from the start. Hoping that she will be his last chance for a lead in the Schroeder case, Van Alden visits Margaret and confronts her that she is consorting with the murderer of her husband, the father of her children. She catches on to his fiendish obsession with her and tells him to leave, but before he does the hypocrite preaches her about the fires of hell awaiting her. At night, that evangelical prohibitionist walks into a speakeasy, downs two shots of whiskey, sits down with Nucky’s former mistress Lucy, and ends up sleeping with her like a possessed animal. For his part, Jimmy tries making amends with Angela, expressing his admiration for her Impressionist paintings. But things run afoul again when little Tommy blurts out, as they are passing the photo shop on the boardwalk, that they are going to see “Mommy’s kissing friend.” Jimmy has been accusing Angela of having an affair with Robert Dittrich for awhile now. In anger he tears up the studio and throws Robert through the glass door, beating him to a pulp outside. When Angela comes to Mary to apologize, Mary suggests they run off to Paris together, leaving their men behind. In Chicago, Al Capone learns to cast his childish pranks, not because lazy-eye Torrio berates his behavior, but rather at a bar mitzvah. It noticeably changes him. Ready to take on responsibility, he offers to work at Torrio’s brewery and arrange distribution.

Doyle and two D’Alessio brothers visit Rothstein again in New York. These dago hoodlums are such idiots, it’s laughable. Rothstein tries to convey his business acumen, and one of the brother quips, “like the World Series.” After an awkward pause, he adds, “you put the fix in.” Rothstein is seething at their sheer and utter incompetence for botching the plot to kill Nucky. Doyle later approaches Nucky, apologizing and offering to switch sides, telling everything he knows about Rothstein and the D’Alessio brothers. He relates that the D’Alessios have been behind the lynching of Chalky White’s driver, the mugging of ward boss O’Neill, the casino heist that nearly cost Eli’s life, in addition to the foiled attempt at Nucky’s life. They concoct a plan to lure Rothstein’s henchman Lansky over to Chalky’s with as many of the dago brothers as possible. When Nucky and Jimmy arrive, Chalky and Doyle have already tied up Lucien and Matteo D’Alessio, as well as Lansky. While Lansky is trying to reach some kind of accommodation, Lucien tells Jimmy, Nucky and Chalky to go fuck each other. Jimmy grabs his gun. “Oh, oh, fuckin’ tough guy,” Lucien balks, “you’re gonna shoot me for mouthing off.” “I wasn’t going to,” Jimmy replies with a smile, “but you kinda talked me into it,” and shoots him in the forehead. Matteo tells Chalky the his brothers are going to kill him, “like they did that other goon.” Chalky strangles him with his bare hands. “You can go now,” Nucky informs Lansky as he unties him, “and please tell Mr. Rothstein what you saw here tonight.”

Boardwalk Empire 1x09

Nucky’s brother Eli confirms that the dago D’Alessio brothers were behind the casino stick-up in which he got shot in the stomach. Making matters worse, Democratic candidate for the upcoming mayoral election, Fletcher, is promising to clean Atlantic City from the current corruption. For her part, Margaret gets a taste of the influence she has gained as Nucky’s mistress. Her former employer, Madame Jeunet at La Belle Femme, begs her for help as the payoff money for running her shop has doubled. When she brings it up at home, Nucky snaps it’s not a suitable topic of conversation. Not much later, Nucky asks her to help him convincing the women of the Temperance League to vote Republican when and if they get the suffrage. She spots an opportunity to turn that around and get him to cut Madame Jeunet’s costs. It is a pleasure seeing Margaret grow into her position of power, but let’s not forget she is having an affair with the man who had her husband killed.

Jimmy returns to Atlantic City, but no one has received his telegrams announcing his arrival. Nucky asks him to take care of the D’Alessio brothers. Jimmy deliberately asks him if he wants him to kill them, confronting him with the fact that he’s a murderer and should not be entertaining foolish notions otherwise. When Jimmy returns home, Angela is having a little party with the Dittrichs, who run the photo shop on the boardwalk. By the awkward glances and startled silence, Jimmy realizes things had gotten a little intimate. Angela never received his telegram either. His jealous anger is a tad hypocritical, though, seeing that he had an affair with Pearl at the brothel in Chicago (even considered running away with her to California), but worse still, he turns abusive. She eventually seems to cave in, but it still feels like rape to these eyes.

Nelson Van Alden is livid when he finds out his mumbling junior partner, Agent Sebso, ignored the Jimmy’s telegrams and shoved them in the drawer. Sebso tells him Supervisor Elliot has made it clear enough he believes their being obsessive about Jimmy Darmody, Nucky Thompson and the Hans Schroeder case. Meanwhile, Jimmy has his mother help him trap Lucky Luciano, catching him in her bed. Walking down the stairs with a gun in his side, Lucky blurts out Rothstein cut the D’Alessio brothers in. And that’s when Agents Van Alden and Sebso arrest Jimmy. Suddenly Supervisor Elliot is all congratulatory. Jimmy obviously denies knowing anything about the heist in the woods with Capone. But then he spots Billy Winslow, who identified him on the scene. When Nucky visits him in jail, Jimmy tells him about the deal of the D’Alessio brothers with Rothstein, and about Winslow. Nucky promises to take care of things but cannot bail him out. “Five counts of murder. There is no bail.” Nucky then visits the Commodore, who is nearing his death, but refuses to see a doctor. Even his dog is sick. He suggests to Nucky they better replace Mayor Bacharach and Eli, too.

In New York City, Arnold Rothstein meets up with the two eldest D’Alessio brothers and Mickey Doyle. He offers them a partnership importing the best Scotch from Britain. Atlantic City is a perfect site, both for smuggling the liquor in and for distributing it to the eastern seaboard. First thing that needs to happen, though, is getting rid of the person running the city. Supposedly to protect their only witness in the Schroeder case, Sebso suggests transferring Winslow to Manhattan, but kills him along the way as a favor to Nucky. To make it look like self-defense, he smashes his own head with a rock. (At least, I suspect Sesbo is in cahoots with Nucky, for why else is he sabotaging the case?) Walking on the boardwalk with Margaret after an evening out with his preferred mayoral replacement, Nucky nearly gets shot by the youngest D’Alessio brother. Now things have heated up!

The Ghost Writer

The Cricket only just now caught The Ghost Writer (2010) by Roman Polanski. It’s an interesting movie – and when saying “interesting” you may detect a hint of reservations. The story has ambitions that unfortunately remain unrealized. The unnamed eponymous ghost writer (Ewan McGregor) is hired to rewrite the memoirs of the former British Prime Minister Adam Lang (Pierce Brosnan) – a barely disguised stand-in for Tony Blair. Lang’s previous ghost writer just died from drowning under suspicious circumstances. When the writer moves from London to the U.S., where Lang is staying for a lecture tour (the town is a fictional Old Haven, on an island off Massachusetts, thus Martha’s Vineyard), a conspiracy slowly starts to unfold. Not only was the ghost writer’s predecessor murdered, Lang is accused of illegally extraditing terrorist suspects to the U.S. and faces possible war crime charges in The Hague. The writer discovers a connection between Lang and the CIA, involving a Cambridge classmate, Paul Emmett (Tom Wilkinson), who is now a Harvard professor. Additionally, it becomes clear that Lang is having an affair with his personal assistant Amelia Bly (Kim Cattrall), while his wife Ruth (Olivia Williams) grows evermore impatient at her husband’s unwillingness to take her advice as he used to. The ghost writer gets chased around and eventually contacts Lang’s former Foreign Minister Richard Rycart (Robert Pugh), who is now the U.N. envoy who accuses Lang of the illegal seizure of terrorist suspects.

The film – and the novel by Robert Harris on which it is based – poses some appropriate questions about the post 9-11 political landscape. Unfortunately, it never really explores these questions in any depth. It certainly is baffling that a Labour PM could have been such an American lapdog – especially at the time of the Bush administration. Adam Lang, however, remains a rather flat character, more of a womanizer and heavy drinker. We get no indication what motives him, why he is such a staunch pro-American, or what his thoughts are on the war on terror. We are led to believe that he merely became politically active through his wife Ruth, who was his trusted advisor for years. We get no indication either what motivates her, why she is throwing temper tantrums, or why she approaches the ghost writer for solace and sleeps with him. In the end, we learn that she has been a CIA agent from the start, recruited by Emmett, and thus her emotional instability becomes only more puzzling and her motivations even more obscure. There’s a hint at a rightist intellectual think-tank, Arcadia, with ties to the CIA and a weapons dealer in whose private jet Lang is flying. It is all tossed in our direction, perhaps even vindictively, for us to make sense of. But the moral quandaries, the fascinating grey area between good and bad, are left unaddressed. It is, for one, a government’s responsibility to protect its citizens, whether from terrorism or other menaces. How to implement national security without breaching human rights, international laws, and personal privacy, those are important questions from which this film shies away.

Even on the level of a thriller the movie falters. Polanski employs some of the usual ploys to create suspense: it rains a lot, skies are broodingly dark, much of the actions takes place on an isolated island, the ghost writer stays at an empty hotel, until a crowd of journalists and protesters swarm all over the place, Lang’s modern minimalist villa is menacingly impersonal; then there are the eerie strings on the soundtrack, the car chase, suspicious people in the background. The tension between the characters, however, could have been emphasized to greater advantage, and should have been the main focus. Cattrall’s Bly just stands there as Williams’ Ruth throws fits of frustration, while Brosnan’s Lang sits and looks on. The best scene, in terms of suspense, is carried by Wilkinson’s Emmett, fiddling nervously with his fingers while sternly rebutting the ghost writer’s insinuations. The penultimate scene in which the ghost writer passes on a note at the book presentation to confront Ruth about his discovery is utterly senseless – it fails as the final act and remains implausible from the ghost writer’s perspective (or we have to acknowledge that he is just plain stupid). To bring home the conspiracy hypothesis, the ghost writer gets run over while trying to escape with Lang’s original (coded) manuscript.

On a personal level, we might speculate that Polanski was driven to produce and direct an anti-American film. While editing the movie, he was himself under siege, i.e., under house arrest in Switzerland facing possible extradition on account of pending charges of sexual abuse going back over thirty years. Such a personal motivation may, in part, explain the rather one-sided perspective and why the moral dilemmas facing the various characters is so little explored. In the end, Adam Lang is no more than a mindless pawn in American imperialism, manipulated by his wife, both hungry for a figment of power and the easy comfort that comes with it. That is not to say that I personally condone the extradition of terrorist suspects so that they can disappear in detention camps until they confess under torture – or die. I do believe, however, that Polanski’s personal experience of facing extradition (in his mind, at least) on trumped up charges plausibly suggests that he sympathizes with the victims of Guatánamo Bay. Yet, America is not the embodiment of everything that’s wrong in this world. These are times in the grip of terrorism, which – whatever its motives or leanings – is easily identifiable as criminally evil. This film never addresses this side of the story, other than in politicians’ hollow sound bites. To your Chirping Cricket, that’s a missed opportunity.

Boardwalk Empire 1x08

The Cricket is pleased to say that all the patient waiting is starting to pay off. This was by far the best episode since the pilot, with just enough intrigue, action and drama to make watching the rest worth my while. Nucky Thompson heads to Chicago for the Republican Convention and even manages to tip the hotel manager enough to get the Presidential Suite, while presumed-Republican candidate General Leonard Wood gets shoved off to the Ambassador’s Suite! Nucky explains that Wood is “a war hero, a former chief-of-staff, and a practical shoehorn for the Republican presidential nomination,” while he on the other hand is a “magnificent tipper.” What a character! Then Nucky meets that backstabbing, double-dealing Senator Edge, who is hoping to win the vice-presidential nomination and asks him to attend a party in his stead hosted by Harry Daugherty, the campaign manager of Warren Harding. (If you know you’re U.S. history, you’ll know that Harding will be elected President.) When Nucky realizes Harding is having an affair with a woman who had his baby, he offers to help keep her out of the picture in Atlantic City until the elections are over. In return he demands that Senator Edge be blocked from the vice-presidential nomination. Nucky sits down with Torrio in the Four Deuces to talk business, speaks with some Ohio Judge who assures him to trust Daugherty, and meets Jimmy who’s looking mighty fine in his new suit. Nucky barely gives Jimmy a second glance, but merely chides him for not looking after his wife and kid.

Jimmy’s wife Angela has not been receiving any money from her estranged husband, but she refuses to find a job – despite Gillian’s reproach. She is hoping to find an art dealer in New York willing to sell her paintings in his gallery. We soon learn that Jimmy has been sending Angela money from Chicago, but that that self-righteous flagellant Agent Van Alden has been intercepting his letters hoping to find any evidence of Jimmy’s involvement in the death of five men. Van Alden’s wife Rose begs him for a surgery she believes would cure her infertility. He consoles her he will look into his finances, but in the end writes her she should trust in god’s plan – and turns Jimmy’s money over to Angela. Meanwhile in Atlantic City, Sheriff Eli Thompson takes over some of his brother’s responsibilities. Sitting in Nucky’s office, he’s waiting for all the people who usually show up asking favors, handing bribes, or bringing collection money. But no one appears, except Ward Boss O’Neill who excuses himself from the week’s collection at the casino. Eli decides to pick up the money himself – unwittingly walking into the D’Alessio brother’s hold up at the casino. Eli gets shot in the stomach and is taken to a hospital.

For her part, Margaret is enjoying some time with her new friend Annabel, when a drunk Lucy throws a scene for being replaced as Nucky’s mistress – and suddenly without money. After trying to calm her down, Margaret slaps Lucy in the face, tells her the next slap won’t be half as pleasant, and walks off. When Nucky is informed of the shooting, he calls Margaret, tells her to move into the Ritz with her children, and asks her to safeguard the ledger he keeps in his office desk. He will return on the next train from Chicago. At night he asks Jimmy to return to Atlantic City, realizing that he’s held under siege, though not yet knowing by whom. Jimmy reminds him that just a few hours ago he paid him barely half a glance. But Nucky cautions him that the Italian mobsters won’t let an Irishman get too far. He offers Jimmy a share in profits and assures him he will take care of Van Alden. Margaret resisted the urge to open the ledger all night, but the next morning she flips it open – finding full evidence of all Nucky’s illegal trades. See, things are seriously starting to heat up! Just a few more episodes, but I have enough faith to believe the show is going to get more interesting from here on.

Boardwalk Empire 1x07

The pace remains slow in Boardwalk Empire, and the audience is kindly requested to remain patient while the plot slowly unravels. Alas, the scenes and characters that pass by are not always that interesting to wait for them to pay off. In this episode we learn something about Nucky’s childhood and his abusive father. Perhaps this is meant to provide some depth to his character and provide a motivation how he became a power player in Atlantic City. His affair with Margaret has hit an impasse. She sits pretty, not knowing how to engage him when they are not in bed together. She sure isn’t like Lucy, who complains she feels empty without Nucky inside her. Nor does she want to be like Annabelle, another concubine on Mistress Row, who advises her to let him keep his secrets to himself, but plucks her own man’s pants for financial security. Margaret would rather that Nucky confide in him. Meanwhile, Van Alden interrogates an eye witness of the Jimmy’s heist gone wrong; while Jimmy’s wife Angela is getting romantic with his mother Gillian.

For his part, Lucky Luciano sends one of his henchmen to Chalky White so as to cut out Nucky as middleman. But Chalky suspects Nucky is testing his loyalty and refuses the offer. Then Luciano and his henchman visit the D’Alessio brothers, who are trying to get a foothold in the bootlegging trade with Mickey Doyle. Instead of nicking cash from Nucky’s runners, Luciano suggests they rob Nucky’s casino together with half going to Rothstein in New York for the privilege. Over in Chicago, Capone has spotted the thug, Liam, who slashed Pearl’s face before she killed herself. Jimmy meets another war veteran, Richard Harrow, who lost half his face. The poetic irony is doubtless not lost on Jimmy. He takes Harrow to the Four Deuces, treats him on Bourbon shots and prostitutes. Harrow was a sniper whit such an accurate shot, he killed a German with a single shot just an inch under his eye. Later Jimmy confronts Liam, tells him a harrowing story about a German soldier caught in barbed wire between the trenches. Being alive sure was worse than being dead, Jimmy muses, but he promises he won’t kill Liam – he just doesn’t ever want to see him again. He walks away. A shot is fired that kills Liam with a single shot just an inch under his eye. I don’t have to tell you that Harrow is packing up his riffle across the street. The famous toccata con fuga on the soundtrack alludes to The Phantom of the Opera, while the scene switches to Lucy watching Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by herself.

Boardwalk Empire 1x06

This episode is very much about the women – and about family life. Now that Nucky Thompson has shown his interest and has offered to provide for her, Margaret asks for advice from Mrs. McGarry of the Temperance League what she should do. Mrs. McGarry tells her she should do what she sees fit, but gives her a pamphlet on birth-control, entitled “Family Limitations.” Nucky’s mistress Lucy is already feeling the competition and tries to mark her territory. When Lucy tries to humiliate her, Margaret insinuates that perhaps Nucky is interested in more than just sex. “Maybe your cunny isn’t quite the draw you think it is,” she tells Lucy. Nucky offers Margaret a new house to move into with her children, but it doesn’t take long for her to realize she has moved to “Mistress Row,” and is nothing more than a concubine like the other girls in the street. She also learns quickly that Nucky at the drop of a hat breaks his promises, cancels their plans and has her wait all evening by the phone.

Lucky Luciano, sent to kill Jimmy Darmody, has by now commenced an affair with Gillian, still thinking she’s Jimmy’s wife. He tells her she’s the first broad in years to put lead in his pencil. (He’s had gonorrhea, see.) It’s only when Rothstein asks him over the phone if he has found Jimmy, that Luciano learns Gillian is Jimmy’s mother. Over in Chicago, Torrio wants out of Greektown so as not to further aggravate Sheridan. When Capone protests, Torrio rebuffs him with a curt, “You drive my car.” Then Jimmy suggests that retreating will give the wrong message. At Jimmy’s counsel, Torrio arranges a meeting with Sheridan. The air is tense, but they come to an agreement to cease the hostility and let bygones be bygones. As they are leaving, Torrio visits the men’s room, while Jimmy and Capone grab their guns and assassinate Sheridan and his crew. For his part, Agent Van Alden after reading up on Margaret’s immigration papers and learning she had a miscarriage on board from Ireland, flagellates himself with his belt while staring at a picture of her at sixteen.

Boardwalk Empire 1x05

Prohibition or no, people will drink. Nucky Thompson is making his fortune on that truth. The Temperance League, however, is seeing numbers dwindling and have little means to change anything. Then Margaret Schroeder speaks up. She noticed men shipping barrels of beer off a truck behind her home that morning. Perhaps Mr. Thompson could be of help, he’s been of great assistance to her since her husband died (or, rather, got killed as scapegoat for Jimmy’s shootout), she might try and arrange a meeting. Once in Nucky’s office, she realizes her folly: asking a man who’s making a living off the illegal liquor trade to shut down some contraband beer operation. He promises her to take care of it before the tide goes out, and emphasizes he isn’t doing this as a personal favor to her. “Yes, I realize that,” she replies. That night, another shipment is loaded into the garage behind her home. So, Margaret turns to Agent Van Alden, who informs her he doesn’t have the means or personnel to enforce the law. But when she tells him ward boss James Neary owns the garage, it’s a whole other ballgame.

Van Alden busts the St. Patrick’s Eve Celtic Dinner with the press and the women of the Temperance League watching everything outside. Although Nucky spots Margaret among the chanting crowd, he is only drawn more to her for standing up against him. At night, while Van Alden’s men destroy the beer barrels, Nucky knocks impatiently on Margaret’s door. He needs to be with her and they kiss passionately. If she is his angelic conscience, then he must be her repressed desire for danger. (Your Cricket can’t seem to find their mutual attraction very compelling, though. The “opposites attract” trope feels rather trite.) Meanwhile in Chicago, Jimmy’s precious Pearl shoots herself with his gun – seeing no other way out after her face got cut up badly. Jimmy hits Chinatown to forget his miseries in an opium den. Over in New York, Rothstein is afraid of getting caught for fixing the 1919 World Series (i.e., the Black Sox Scandal).

Boardwalk Empire 1x04

In Chicago, young Al Capone walks into the Four Deuces brothel and shoots a blank in Jimmy Darmody’s ear, who’s lying in bed with a lovely lass named Pearl. After Capone leaves, laughing out loud, Jimmy and Pearl already talk about leaving for California together. Jimmy then joins Capone to Chicago’s Greek Town, where some speakeasy owner is informed that he is are in John Torrio’s territory now, not Sheridan’s. Capone beats up the man to bring home his point. Jimmy is visibly disturbed and tries telling Capone that violence is not only unnecessary but not gentler persuasion might be more effective. Later, at the Four Deuces, Jimmy explains that “You don’t invade a country all at once. You take it over one piece at a time.” When Sheridan drops in to express his annoyance that those Brooklynites Torrio and Capone are trying to take over Greek Town, Jimmy suggests there is room enough for all of them, but Capone insists on fifty percent of Sheridan’s take. When the latter agrees to an accommodation, Capone is convinced his bullying has worked. Jimmy tells him that’s one way of reading the situation. Later still, one of Sheridan’s goons takes Pearl to her room, sleeps with her, and then carves his knife across her face. To facilitates his exit, his buddies start shooting downstairs, while Pearl screams in pain.

Back in Atlantic City Nucky Thompson wants his sheriff brother to step up the murder investigation of Chalky White’s driver Kendall. With the upcoming elections, Nucky wants to be sure he can count on the black vote. So, brown-shirt Eli Thompson raids a Ku-Klux Klan meeting and arrest the Grand Cyclops Joseph Dinler for Kendall’s lynching. “Being a member is not against the law!” one member exclaims. “No, but stringing up darkies is,” Eli replies. Then Chalky White interrogates Dinler, building up the suspense to terrorize his into a confession. But even when he cuts off one of his fingers Dinler sticks to his story that he has no knowledge of the lynching. For his part, Lucky Luciano is looking for Jimmy, but only finds his rather assertive mother Gillian (sassy Gretchen Mol) opening the door, perhaps thinking she’s Jimmy’s wife. “I am looking for James,” he says telling her he’s a friend. “His friends call him Jimmy,” she replies. When she tells him Jimmy isn’t in, Luciano asks, “So where can I find him?” “Have you tried looking up your ass?” she retorts. Luciano follows Gillian around for days, attending her burlesque shows and waiting outside the Beaux-Arts Theater. She asks him what it is he wants from her, he tells her she must have a pretty good idea, and she replies she knows what it is she wants, and asks him to wait for her after the last show.

When Nucky throws a “surprise” birthday party for himself everyone of importance is present, including Commodore Kaestner, Senator Edge and Mayor Hague of Jersey City. The conversation turns to the topic of suffrage and the Commodore belittles Nucky’s girlfriend Lucy for not knowing anything about politics. Then there is a wonderful exchange between Margaret Schroeder and Senator Edge (Geoff Pierson, who plays Captain Matthews on Dexter) on the topic. She stands her ground very well, while the senator snaps one condescending remark after another. She tells him that if they withhold something most women want, they will always know to withhold something most men desire. She impresses Nucky, who understands he will need the female vote as much as he will need the black vote in the upcoming election. He may be Republican, but he sure isn’t dumb. He takes Margaret for a dance at great applause. And even as Lucy jumps out of the enormous birthday cake, Nucky cannot keep his eyes off Margaret. Readers of these chirps will know that this Cricket needs his time before becoming engaged in new TV series. Still, I can’t say I’m much enthralled yet by this show. I’m not much drawn to any of the characters, although Nucky and Margaret and sympathetic.

Boardwalk Empire 1x03

One of the victims of Jimmy’s shooting turns up in the hospital instead of the morgue. Before brown-shirt Eli can silence him forever with a pillow, Van Alden walks in to interrogate him. Eli can hold him off for the time being, but the witness remains alive. Not much later, with a warrant in hand, Van Alden whisks the guy away to New York. When his assistant urges him to take the guy to a doctor before he dies on the backseat, they are forced to take him to a dentist. After the dentist administers two doses of cocaine, he comes to just enough to tell Van Alden in Yiddish to go and fuck his grandmother with his little faggot penis. Before he dies from Van Alden squeezing his intestines through the open wound in his stomach, he tells him one of the guys at the shooting was called Jimmy. Van Alden wants to arrest Jimmy right away, but his superior, Supervisor Elliott, orders him to see his wife and get a rest, while he will consult with a U.S. attorney about their next course of action.

When Rothstein gets wind of it in New York, he sends Lucky Luciano to kill Jimmy. For his part, Nucky tells Jimmy to leave town and think about finishing college. Jimmy’s having marital troubles anyway, suspecting his wife Angela of having an affair while he was in the trenches. So he leaves her and his kid, and takes the train to Chicago, no doubt to look up his buddy Al Capone. Meanwhile, Nucky has gotten Margaret a job in a haute-couture shop Belle Femme at the Ritz with Madame Jeunet. Naturally, that means she’ll have to help Nucky’s lady friend Lucy in and out of lingerie while she rubs in Nucky has a soft spot for the charity cases. There is not much else to say about the episode. It was mostly focused on the development of the characters and their relationships. There were some scenes with Chalky White, the African-American gangster who has taken over Mickey Doyle’s bootlegging trade. I’m not too prone about the gratuitous nudity, even if Paz de la Huerta has beautiful breasts. Nor do I know why it is significant that Lucky Luciano has gonorrhea. The Cricket remains slightly skeptical and hopes our patience will be rewarded eventually.

Boardwalk Empire 1x02

We’re in Chicago, at a funeral. A large crowd has gathered in front of the church. There are even reporters on the scene. Big Jim Colosimo was murdered upon his return from New Jersey. Al Capone is walking behind the coffin bearers brushing off the journalists. Back in Atlantic City, County Treasurer Nucky Thompson gets a visit by Probation Agent Nelson Van Alden investigating the death of Hans Schroeder, who got pinned for Jimmy Darmody’s shooting of Arnold Rothstein’s men. After some back and forth, Nucky delicately points out that as a Probation Agent he should be raiding stills, rather than investigating a case of homicide. Nucky’s brother Sheriff Eli Thompson soon pays Margaret Schroeder (an angelic Kelly Macdonald) a visit in the hospital. She just had a miscarriage after Hans physically abused her. Eli implies she didn’t really know her husband, what he was up to at night, or who he associated with, and so he could well have been involved in the shootings – and she wouldn’t want her children ending up in custody, would she. He also hands her an envelope stashed with cash from his brother. The moment she gets home from the hospital Van Alden is at her door asking questions about her husband and Nucky Thompson. The uptight evangelist even steals her ribbon, which he’ll later clutch and sniff. Margaret decides to return the money to Nucky, offering to work for him rather than demean herself to his charity.

Over in New York, big time gangsters Arnold Rothberg and Lucky Luciano send for Frankie Yale, demanding to know who ordered the hit on Colosimo. Rothstein calls Nucky to complain about the missing cargo that ended up in Chicago and demands $100,000 for damages. Nucky warns Rothstein not to show his face in Atlantic City and hangs up. When Jimmy clocks in for work, but Nucky tells him he can go and be a gangster, but will owe him the privilege if it’s in his town. And he still owes Nucky $3,000, too, for the hijacked booze. That night he brings the money, but Nucky teaches him a lesson by placing it on the crabs table and lose it in one game. So, the stage has been set, and the various subplots are slowly introduced. There are quite a few characters, which make it a little difficult to keep up with. The tone is decidedly different from the Martin Scorsese’s pilot – not as grandiosely operatic, without onscreen violence, and a greater focus on the characters and their relations. The story remains engaging, though I am keeping a wait-and-see attitude, as this episode has the feel of something of filler. Still, a good show, with cinematic aspirations. No doubt it will take awhile for the plots and subplots to unravel. I’ll keep you posted.

Shameless – Series 4

When we return to Chatsworth Estate, it is Lip’s 18th birthday – except he finds out it is actually his 19th, because his parents delayed his birth registration for a year. He is in for quite a day! Frank accidentally sets Sheila’s kitchen on fire. Kevin and Veronica are arrested in Romania trying to adopt a baby illegally. The Irish mobster Maguires moves in next door. Frank’s first wife Monica decides to move back in after nearly six and a half years. Marty returns with the little baby from Romania, making his way back across the Continent hitching rides. So, crammed in the same house now are Monica, Frank’s four sons – Lip, Ian, Carl and Liam (well, Ian isn’t biologically his) – and Debbie, Carol, Marty and Sue (his girlfriend) and his new baby, plus Lip’s girlfriend Mandy and their baby Katie, too. Honestly, I have no idea what Monica is doing, but Frank never told Sheila he never filed the divorce papers – and that the bigamist is now married to both of them. Sheila is understandably upset by Monica’s return. She dreams of going Kill Bill (parts one and two) on Monica, but she opts for a more subtle approach – trying to get Monica back with Norma. To make it worse, Frank can’t keep it in his pants for too long, and soon is sleeping with his first wife again. Monica wants Frank to tell Sheila they never divorced, and isn’t legally married to Sheila. He can’t handle the pressure or the guilt. But when Sheila catches Monica having a cocktail sausage, she puts two and two together: Monica is neither a vegetarian nor a lesbian, but has been having sex with her Frank. Knives fly, and Frank too. And if that isn’t enough, Sheila and Monica decides it’s up to Frank to choose between them, neither will share. The kids group together in favor of Sheila, of course, Monica left them over six years ago, and Sheila is the best thing to Frank. In the end he chooses Sheila, but when she discovers he is still married to Monica she leaves him for good.

Meanwhile, Jamie Maguire came back from his ten-year prison sentence for murder. Instead of return to his criminal family, he decides to work at the Jockey. Sexy kitten Karen plays cat and mouse with the former jailbird, always playing hard to get, even though she’s the easiest piece on the estate. Knowing he is a Maguire, she doesn’t trust him one bit, but is clearly fancies him – and he is all over her. Then he proposes out of the blue. He’s spent ten years in prison, he doesn’t want to waste anymore time, he knows what he wants out of life: her – and who can blame him? She’s a well right piece of ass. What endears him to her is when she realizes he hasn’t had sex since he went to prison! Naturally, the Maguires use any means necessary to make sure Karen stays with Jamie, which includes manipulation, threats, and tortures. Paddy Maguire fears for his life when three of his former inmates all die within the span of a week under suspicious circumstances. He needs to calm his nerves, but scares the shit out of his doctor. So he prescribes him “placeboesque anti-depressants” for a “pretended depression by proxy”! In the end, Paddy learns it was Jamie who took them all out, because they were planning on killing Paddy and taking over his shady ventures.

In other news, Kash Karib gets himself in such financial trouble, he has to lay Ian off from the convenience store. Yvonne is livid when she finds out Kash has taken out loans on the shop and their house. She never wants to see him ever again. The situation is so serious, they stage his suicide – and he is indeed never seen again. Ian runs into a girl who just stole ten grand worth of scratch cards off the Maguires and now the Gallaghers have to hide her up their attic. When she finds out, Mandy is forced to choose between the two families. She stands up for Lip and Ian, but eventually her father finds out anyway. Even though he’s gay, Ian feels attracted to the girl, and they end up sleeping together. He rushes off with her. She wants to leave town with him, but he feels it’s not right. He returns to his charming gay ways fast with one of the Maguire sons. They snort up post-coital and get caught by Paddy. Briefly Kev’s ex-junkie/prostitute sister Kelly shows up unannounced at the Maguires, not realizing her brother’s in jail in Eastern Europe.

The story of Frank and Monica plays out throughout the whole season. Never mind what Frank sees in her, I cannot figure out why Monica ever decided to return and make everybody’s life miserable. Frank prefers to avoid the whole situation and stay in Sheila’s house. It’s none too surprising that he has to leave there, as Sheila has put up the house for sale. Now he has to move back in with his kids, his not-so-estranged wife and her bird Norma. Debbie tries to wedge herself between Frank and Monica – to the point her mother pushes her to find a lad and get laid. Carl rather wants his family back together and will do anything to get rid of Norma. For her part, Monica plays Frank against Norma. Her bird takes it a wee bit too far, tying Frank up and taking him to the police station on account of attempted rape. “Have you seen her?” Frank exclaims, “yourself?” After Debbie’s had a good word with her, Norma drops the charges on the condition that Franks stays away from Monica until they’re back together – and she even throws in a grand to sweeten the deal! “How much do you love her now, eh, Frank?” The deals falls through, though, when Monica pleads Norma to drop the charges or else she won’t ever forgive her. So, Monica is here to stay, alas.

At the end of the season Lip, the smart one of the family, gets offered three scholarships to choose from so he can go to the university. But where does that leave Mandy and their baby? We will have to wait and see. This leads me to one aspect of the show I find myself struggling with: the loss of my favorite characters. First we saw Fiona and Steve leave, then Kev and Veronica, and Sheila soon after. I adored them, and miss them on the show. Now Lip is leaving for college. That leaves Frank and Debbie (oh, yes, and Karen, too, for obvious reasons). I care much less for the remaining characters. I don’t know where Marty and Sue went. The Maguires are too much of caricatures, and next season we’ll have to deal with Yvonne and her kids. Still, Shameless is one of the most heart-wrenching, delightful, endearing shows you’ll ever see, full of humor and human emotions. You may have heard that HBO is preparing an adaptation for American TV, which is quite a shame. Why can’t Americans get used to the accents, throw in subtitles, and enjoy the original? I would urge you to do yourself a favor and check out the U.K. version before they start airing the rip off, no matter it will feature William H. Macy in the role of Frank Gallagher.

Boardwalk Empire 1x01

This Fall HBO brought a new series to the American TV screens, Boardwalk Empire, about Prohibition Era Atlantic City, N.J. It is created by Terence Winter (The Sopranos), and co-produced with Martin Scorsese and Mark Wahlberg. It stars Steve Buscemi as Atlantic County’s corrupt treasurer and hypocrite politician Enoch “Nucky” Thompson (based on the historical kingpin Enoch Johnson), who pledges his heartfelt support to the suffragettes of the Temperance League, minutes before he swears to his fellow hotshots that even if Prohibition will turn the country dry, he will keep Atlantic City “as wet as a mermaid’s twat.” The décors are on gloriously grand operatic scale; we get arrogant Rolls-Royces and stately abodes, flirty flappers and blackface Dixie-land, comedy and cabaret, dirty dancing and midgets boxing, contraband dealings and moonshine bootleggers, dangerous gangsters in fabulous fashion plus humorless Federal Agents and their footsoldiers in the war against illegal liquor. It is January 1920 and Enoch Thompson fully intends to reap the benefits of the Prohibition, dealing in contraband and moonshine. Conveniently, Atlantic City’s sheriff is Nucky’s younger brother Eli. Thompson has invited high level gangsters from New York and Chicago to talk business. Meanwhile, Thompson’s protégé, Jimmy Darmody (Michael Pitt), has returned from the Great War with Gerry shrapnel in his leg and ambitions as dark as his experience in the trenches. Waiting outside the mobster convention, he happens upon one of Big Jim Colosimo’s low-level henchmen, Al Capone, who has ambitions to match Jimmy’s. Together they rob a shipment of whiskey off New York gangster Arnold Rothstein and kill several of his men, while they tipped off the Feds about Mickey Doyle’s bootlegging operation. From the looks of this pilot episode, the Cricket will be cheeping cheerfully about this show. Thanks Zory!

Danger After Dark II

Noriko’s Dinner Table (2006) by Sion Sono is a companion piece to Suicide Club (2002). However, it’s neither a prequel nor a sequel. Noriko is an awkwardly shy town girl, desperate to break away from her boredom. Her only friends she meets online. In voice-over narrations she tells us how it is she came to Tokyo. When she first meets her online pal (about half an hour into the movie), you just know things are going to get seriously weird. The pal introduces herself as Kumiko. And just so you know we’re talking seriously messed up we flash forward straight away to half a year later when fifty four girls cheerfully jump in front of the 7:30 train at Shinjuku Station. Meanwhile, Noriko’s family has no clue where she is. Her sister Yuka is still in Yokohama, too, happily telling her boyfriend how her sister may have been one of the suicide girls, and that she knows how all the girls arranged to meet at the station. She shows him the screen with the red and white dots: red for female suicides, white for male. Suddenly the screen turns black with the text, “Am I connected with myself, Sis?” She leaves home, too, but leaving her father clues that he manages to put together: the Suicide Club does exist. For her part, Noriko idealized Kumiko’s happy family: they are connected and share their love at all times. She learns to connect with herself – and empathize with others. Kumiko works in “family rental” pretending to be some client’s family member for money. In his own search to find his daughters, Noriko’s father learns that he really is in search of himself. Like its predecessor, this film thus explores computer-age alienation, the loss of connectedness, and emotional isolation in modern urban society. If you were expecting another splatterfest, though, you will be disappointed as the movie is more of a psychological drama. It is also one of the rare occasions where the cinematographic effects (fast editing, dangling cameras, etc.) actually work well to convey the emotional landscape of the characters.

Aragami (2003) by Ryuhei Kitamura is the counterpart of Yukihiko Tsutsumi’s 2LDK (2002). This film, too, features mainly two actors battling, set within a single set, and was produced within one week. But that is where the similarities end. Interestingly, while the cinematography (as well as the continuous electronic pop rock synthesizer soundtrack) is decidedly modern, the story is set in a once-upon-a-time far-faraway, reminiscent of a traditional Japanese tale. A samurai regains consciousness in a remote mountain temple after falling at the entrance with life-threatening wounds. He learns that his companion did not survive, but the inhabitant of the temple invites him to stay and entertains him with a luscious meal, French wine and Russian vodka. He regales the samurai with frightful stories about Tengu (long-nosed mountain goblins) and Aragami, the Raging God of Battle. The samurai soon discovers that his wounds have all healed, but how? His host explains he gave him his friend’s flesh! But who is this host? He was once the legendary Miyamoto Musashi, the greatest warrior ever known, but now has become none other than Aragami himself! They duel, but even when Aragami runs his blade through the samurai’s stomach, it leaves only a scratch. His wounds heal due to the cannibalistic meal, but he is not immortal, as the head or the heart will kill him dead. Aragami has become weary of his existence and hopes this samurai will be the one to kill him honorably. Although the sword-fighting acrobatics are worth the watch alone, it’s the increasing psychological tension that makes this film a satisfying experience. Quite a feat considering the constrained conditions of two actors in a single set!

Before we get to The Glamorous Life of Sachiko Hanai (2003) by Mitsuru Meike, it might be useful to first discuss (however briefly) the pinku eiga genre. Pinku eiga emerged in the 60s as a genre evading Japanese censorship laws by blocking or blurring genitals while maintaining a required minimum quota of sex scenes (some four or five per hour). Terms such as “soft-core” or “sexploitation” are somewhat misleading, as the genre often contains elements of action, thriller, violence, horror, and/or political commentary. In this case, the titular Sachiko Hanai is a role-play call girl specialized in playing home-tutoring. What sets the narrative is that Sachiko next gets hit by a bullet in the forehead while trying to take a picture of a shady business transaction running foul between a North Korean and Middle Eastern in a cafeteria. Miraculously, she survives, but the bullet lodged in her brain spurts her intelligence to ponder the abstract universe and subjective truth in mathematical equations. Plus, she can foresee future events, which involve sex and violence – and she finds she has a much delayed taste sensation. We are bombarded with musings about situationalism, rationalism and the Platonist view on Christianity, objective reality and Japan’s lack of a nuclear military strategy to match that of Russia or the U.S, all combined with sex (not the sensual erotic or even graphic pornographic kind, but of the prosaic, romping, five-minute sort – including six gallon ejaculations). Sachiko also discovers a silver cylinder containing a clone of George W’s finger. He appears to her in a reflection urging her to defend world peace and democracy. I’m sure you can guess where that finger is going. While she is climaxing, we are shown images of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the toppling of Saddam Hussein’s statue, and of Bush inspecting his fleet. Meanwhile, the North Korean who shot her in the cafeteria hopes to retrieve Bush’s finger, for it controls nuclear Armageddon. In the end, after abstract infinity, cogito ergo sum, beef stew, dues ex machina, and more sex, Sachiko walks out of a primordial cave straight into nuclear obliteration. A must see!

Danger After Dark

Not too long ago, the Movie Cricket borrowed a box set of Japanese movies. The one that I really wanted to see again was Suicide Club (Jisatsu Sākuru, 2002). That film, directed by Sion Sono, opens with one of the most memorable cinematographic scenes you will ever see: young girls come walking down the stairs onto the train platform, in their school uniforms, they step up to the edge, hold hands, and on the count of three all fifty-four jump in front of the train together, blood and body parts gusting all over. With more and more suicides happening, the police are left clueless about their connection. Are they dealing with a cult, or a fad? In that respect, the story is a murder mystery, but one larded with tropes of the horror genre: rainy nights, dark and empty office building, curtains flowing in the breeze, power failure, splatter and gore, strips of human skin. Then there’s the all-girl idol-group Dessert, who sing about e-mails and jigsaw puzzles. Gradually things get more and more weird, to the point of a psychedelic trip into delirious hallucinations and delusions of glam-glitter grandeur. “I want to die as beautifully as Joan of Arc inside a Bresson film,” some psychotic freak sings, “Lesson one: apply the shaving cream – and smile as you then slowly slice away the heart.” In all, this is an exploration of isolation in urban Tokyo, of alienation in modern society; a social commentary of the dehumanization of online interacting and pop culture mass media; and about people finding meaningful relationships in committing mass suicide.

Next up in the box comes 2LDK (2002), directed by Yukihiko Tsutsumi, about two roommates (played by the beautiful Eiko Koike and Maho Nonami). (The title is a classified ad abbreviation for a 2-bedroom apartment, with shared living room, dining room and kitchen.) One is a neat, reclusive country girl who only recently arrived in Tokyo; the other is a fabulous hip chick with money to burn on Gucci, Miu Miu, Chanel and Hermès. One is a well-educated lover of theater; the other is an air-head beauty pageant queen who began her acting career in porn. One plays classical piano; the other listens to heavy metal. (Guess who the Cricket was rooting for.) They find out that they are competing for the same lead role; the extrovert Lana taunts the introvert Nozomi about a man she has a crush on; but Lana is also jealous about Nozomi’s bigger breasts. In the close confinement of their apartment (the whole film is set within the titular 2LDK), their petty quarrels soon escalate from insecurities and envy to mutual murderous hatred. Thematically there are some parallels with Suicide Club, in that 2LDK also deals with isolation in urban Tokyo, but rather than turning that social seclusion inwards, this film unleashes the claustrophobic and paranoid violence outwards between the two young women. And that violent rivalry is brutally ugly. For a film shot on one set within a week with only two actresses, it is quite an achievement to keep the viewer engaged, but the performances, the dialog, and the cinematography and offering excellent, though gory, entertainment.

The last movie of the set is Moon Child (2003), directed by Takahisa Zeze, and stars J-pop idols Hideto “Hyde” Takarai and Gakuto “Gackt” Kamui (who also co-wrote the script). This film is a futuristic science-fiction martial-arts gay-glam vampire organized crime action horror thriller comedy drama. It follows the life of orphaned Sho (Gackt) and his friends through the first half century of the 21st millennium, when Japan has suffered a major economic collapse and many people have taken refuge in the multi-ethnic “Asian Special Economic Zone” of Mallepa on mainland China. The Mallepa Orphans make their living through robbery and in so doing run into conflict with the Cantonese mafia. The orphans have one advantage, their guardian Kei (Hyde) who happens to be a vampire. Gradually the group of friends falls apart, while Kei is imprisoned. In essence, then, this is a story of love and friendship, the ties that bind. Kei provides the common trope in vampire stories, that is, the loneliness that comes with immortality as friends become mere drops in the ocean, tears in the rain, that wash away in the sad agelessness of the undead. Unfortunately the movie employs those musical interludes – when the writers have to move the story forward, but can’t write a script for the scene. The film also drags on for two full hours, resorts to the cheap and cheesy ploy of cancer to bring Kei and Sho together one last time, and ends with a dual suicide at sunrise. In all, it’s not an awful movie, but it isn’t one that comes with the Cricket’s chirpiest recommendation.

You may now find a follow up of sorts: Danger After Dark II!

[A special shout out goes to Anthony and Sander!]

Inglourious Basterds

Apparently I am one of the few people who didn’t enjoy Quintin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds (2009). I am not a big fan of his films to begin with. This is another piece of genre blending filled with cinematic references, particularly to Sergio Leone and Ennio Morricone, what with the opening words, “Once Upon a Time ... in Nazi-Occupied France,” dramatic music based on the theme of “Für Elise,” a panoramic shot of the French countryside, then a close-up of a man’s face. I’m already annoyed. The various plots are frightfully contrived and the dialog is too smart for its own good. For no good reason, we get other references to WWII films, like Where Eagles Dare, some unnecessary Marvel Comics lettering, unwelcome voice-overs, Edith Piaf, Marlene Dietrich, Leni Riefenstahl, Max Linder, and on and on. The main story is an indulgence in an alternative reality, there are jokes about situations that aren’t funny, there is no moral core, violence is a means to solve problems, and Jews perpetrate atrocities as awful as their enemies. The characters remain flat – Brad Pitt’s First Lieutenant Aldo Raine is particularly distracting with his faux-Tennessee drawl jabbering about Nazzies. The only redeeming quality is Christopher Waltz’ performance as SS Colonel Hans Landa, who is fluent in German, French, English, and Italian, and has a knack of making polite conversation even when he’s interrogating. In brief, the movie is about two plots to eliminate the German high-command, including Hitler, Goebels, Göring and Bormann, while they attend a premiere at a Parisian cinema theater. And apart from Alder carving a swastika in Landa’s forhead, that’s it. The End. History has been rewritten.