I don't often mention or think about theatre or TV or movies here - I watch too much of them to mention! and half at least are unspeakable - but finally caught up with the TRANSPARENT series this past month. It bedeviled and fascinated and puzzled me and energized me enough that I'm going to write a little about it.

Ostensibly about gender identity (the main protagonist, a father of three who decides in his late 60s to embrace his lifetime-closed identity as a woman), it morphs early and often - and ends - much an essay about indentity at large - particularly religious identity, and here mostly Judaism. 

The stunning (to me, at least - controversially received) Musicale Finale, a 90 minute one-off after four complete seasons, was almost all about Judaism, I think. I found the music to be delightful (if totally pop), the lyrics thoughtful and funny, and the production great. (The whole series was amazing to view, beautiful and colorful and deep). The series had to end abruptly, and without Jeffrey Tambor in the Finale, as he was fired from the production after the fourth season, following  accusations of sexual misconduct (harassment charges from trans members of the cast and production staff, ironically - he denied charges but admitted being difficult to work with).

The characters were what drove me crazy - each one completely self-centered, most very selfish (if comic). No one did a thing but worry about themselves really, throughout. But in the Musicale, the three kids don't do much - a host of non-central characters lead the parade. This was part of Slate's well-put review:

The Pfefferman children—Sarah (Amy Landecker), Josh (Jay Duplass), and Ally (Gaby Hoffmann), now nonbinary and going by the name Ari—have always been phenomenal talkers. Volatile need monsters who can only be safely interacted with through a protective screen, they unload their unruly feelings and abundant sexual energy on basically everyone with feverish, realistic linguistic verve. Highly emotional and narcissistic, with the same relationship to boundaries that kids learning to play soccer have to orange pylons—knock ’em over!—their verbal too-muchness, the never-any-small-talk mania with which they carry out their existence is so much of their charm. But the musical reduces them to non-native speakers.

The Prisoner tv series

Lonesome Dove

So I'm 20 years behind on this phenomenon, but it has waited patiently for me. What a fine book! Not fancy except in its panorama, not sophisticated except in its characters, not exotic except in its elevation of the cliched American West. I recall shunning Larry McMurtry because he was too popular. Ah, youth. I can't imagine writing a novel this profound and this popular, this accessible. Every character grows over time, and eventually shows even a sliver of humanity or fatefulness that allows the reader to empathize with them (except, perhaps, Blue Duck, the murderous, rapacious soulless Indian outlaw, who kills everything in his past).

About halfway through the book I started sensing there was something beyond cowboy camraderies to Call and Gus' relationship: it is essentially a chaste gay marriage that they call the Lonesome Dove Ranch.

The TV mini-series is wonderful, too. Producation values are a little tacky, a little late-80s, but what are you going to do with on a mini-series budget? Robert Duval absolutely nails Gus, and Tommy Lee Jones is excellent as the stony, silent Call. Ricky Schroeder (!) is impressive as the young boy Newt.

LOST it is

LOST has become ludicrous. I was with the bs of the smoke monster, the bs of the hatch, even the bs of the "udders" (as Jin calls The Others). But ya lost me with all the time travelling.

Why? Time travel has a way of snuffing out of the force of narrative. It makes a wimpy, whimsical thing out of causality, the "necessary relationship of one thing (cause) to another (effect)," and so on. It makes a racehorse plot into a silly flying horse: sure it looks cool, but it's hard to believe.

The actors look exhausted from the strain of so much explaining, too, as if they were also reading the crawl along the bottom of the screen of some episodes, where back-story is given "for those just tuning in." Right. Explain explain explain. Jack has lost all of his authority to Sawyer, who now runs the show. Sawyer looks exhausted by the sublime effort of making love to Juliet. Ben continues to be beat up by just about everybody in the cast, his face is always mangled, but no one has the good sense to kill him and end our misery. Hurley can't lose weight no matter how far back in time he goes. Kate looks continually peeved and sunburnt. I could go one, but why bother? This guy's got the whole annoying thing covered.

Superman and the Mole-Men, 1951

Recently saw this, the full-length Superman movie that come out of the TV series, for the first time in, oh, call it 35 years. Saw it with the kids: they were as creeped out by it as I was way back in 1973. Dismal lighting values and a cheap creepy soundtrack are all it takes, people, take it from me. The racial edge to the film -- the townspeople rise up in full riot configuration, with guns, chain, broken sticks, pitchforks, even BARBER POLES. and rush off to annhiliate the thus-far harmless, tiny, if odd and furry, Mole-men -- is pretty sharp for the early fifties. That's clearly what they are going for, and it's highlighted by the absence of anything other than white actors in the production.