TV Obsessive
Welcome back! This week, Caemeron Crain can’t stop gushing about Mrs. Davis, Robin Moon has been reading Grady Hendrix novels, and Clay Dockery continues to look forward to the Oscars with some thoughts on Maestro.
Mrs. Davis Wants to Talk to You
Caemeron: This week, I finally got around to watching Mrs. Davis on Peacock. The series has been on my radar since before it came out, if for no other reason than that Damon Lindelof is one of its creators, but once I failed to find the time to watch four episodes the week it released, I felt like I was behind and let it slip to the back burner. This was a mistake!
The kind of themes we’ve seen in Lindelof’s other TV series (Lost, The Leftovers, Watchmen, etc.) are evident in Mrs. Davis insofar as we’re dealing with religious figures and concepts, along with a hypothetical pervasive AI, but I expect a lot of credit has to go to co-creator Tara Hernandez when it comes to just how funny Mrs. Davis is.
Of course, there has always been humor in Lindelof’s work, but it’s kicked up a notch here through the collaboration with Hernandez (or, at least, I think that’s the case—I actually haven’t seen anything else she has a writing credit on).
Perhaps more than anything, Mrs. Davis just feels incredibly novel. I could never predict where it was going, and where it went tended to be delightfully absurd. Given how Season 1 ends, I don’t expect this show to continue into further seasons, but if it does I will surely be there for it.
Regardless, if you haven’t seen Mrs. Davis yet, and you like the experience of saying “wait… what?!” while you’re watching TV, you should definitely check it out. If you don’t have Peacock at the moment, it’s worth signing up for it just to watch this show. Though, there is some other good stuff to watch on there!
Reading Grady Hendrix
Robin: When I think of the author Grady Hendrix, I think of the most enjoyable type of horror: cheesy, gory, horrifying, and above all, fun. I’ve now read five of his novels, two of them in the past couple of weeks. Each and every one of them is so chock-full of love for the horror genre, you can feel it oozing out of the pages like the blood of the characters that meet a grisly end within them.
Hendrix’s novels cover a range of topics and narratives, such as slashers, final girls, metal music, suburban neighbourhoods, vampires, capitalism, and demonic possession. There is at least a smidge of social commentary in all of his novels, often regarding feminism, racism, or class. Hendrix portrays some astute and sometimes scathing observations on society through the vessel of horror, but in my opinion, he never oversteps or lingers too much. He’s not trying to make some revolutionary statement. Ultimately, his main focus appears to be having fun with the genre. And there is nothing I respect more in an artist than being passionate about what they make.
You’d think it would be difficult to write a novel that perfectly replicates the vibe of an ’80s horror film, but Hendrix makes it look like a piece of cake. I can always picture the settings, characters, and scenes with such vividness—bright colours, witty dialogue, and lived-in worlds, no matter how small. As light-hearted as this might sound, however, there are some real scary, gruesome, and horrible moments throughout his stories that are almost too well-written. One example from The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires that I read the other day was a scene involving a cockroach crawling into a woman’s ear; it was so visceral it made me squirm. And I’m not a squeamish guy!
If you like horror, interesting characters, lots of gore, and most importantly, having fun, then I’d definitely recommend Grady Hendrix’s novels. His most recent publication is How to Sell a Haunted House, which I plan to get my hands on as soon as possible.
Previewing the Oscars with Maestro
Clay: Here is the next Lark in my series on what I think of the Oscar nominated films and how I think the film’s nominations will affect the 96th Academy Awards as a television show.
This week: Maestro
Maestro may be the hardest Best Picture nominee to write about. It seems dismissive to make this entry just about Bradley Cooper and his overwhelming desire to win an Oscar, but that is also the dominant sense that always comes back when thinking about the movie. To be sure to get this on the record: Maestro is actually an incredible movie; to me it was easily the most emotionally resonant film of the nominees, and it may have been the frontrunner in a bunch of categories in a less crowded year. But the nagging thought persists, Leonard Bernstein may be the center of the story, but it is Cooper who dominates the conversation.
Bradley Cooper plays Bernstein, the “Maestro” himself. He also co-wrote the film with Josh Singer. The movie which he also directed. And, oh by the way, he was also one of the producers. Clearly the film wouldn’t have been made without his dedication and incredible drive to make it happen. Even Spielberg and Scorsese, who are also producers, have both tried to make a Bernstein film for years, and failed. Cooper spent more than four years training to be a conductor, working with the Bernstein family, and really building a deep portrait of Bernstein that certainly comes across in the performance. The six minute recreation of Bernstein conducting Mahler’s “Resurrection” near the end of the film is one of the most exhilarating, beautifully composed and performed, and emotionally moving scenes of any film. There are moments like that throughout the movie; it is a profoundly personal and emotional experience that shows Cooper is the real deal.
Cooper has set a path for himself as the Warren Beatty of his generation. The path—a dashing actor known for bringing a sense of quality to even the most mundane roles turns into a serious auteur filmmaker— is one that many have tried and few have successfully been able to replicate. (I’m in the Affleck been not been able to camp.) But Cooper’s two directorial efforts, A Star is Born (2018) and Maestro, have been excellent and critically lauded. A Star is Born was nominated for eight Academy Awards and Maestro has followed that up with another seven. Cooper himself now has 12 nominations in his career. What he doesn’t have though is a Best Director nomination or, most importantly to him, a single win.
And that seems to be what holds back Maestro from being the best film it could be; and at its best it could be an all time classic. Hiding behind some intensely amazing scenes like the incredible Mahler performance, and the long one shot Thanksgiving scene where Bernstein and his wife Felicia (Carey Mulligan) argue in front of Snoopy, is a movie that seems to be striving not to be great, but to be seen as great. I saw Cooper himself speak at an event promoting the movie and he was gregarious, engaging, and very open about what this material meant to him and why working with the Bernstein family made the project worthwhile and meaningful. But he exudes, even in person, an earnest and striving sense of desire to be recognized and understood— and rewarded— for these efforts.
And it seems unlikely that this Oscar ceremony will resolve those issues for him. A Star is Born only won one Oscar, for Best Song, and at this point it seems that Maestro may not even win that many. Which is too bad, especially for Mulligan and Cooper (the actor), as their central couple really do feel deserving of some sort of honors. The relationship between Felicia and Leonard has been held up as the heart of the movie, and it is, and the performances are transfixing. But even then, they are mannered and pitched at a tone that doesn’t seem quite right for this year.
As for the television show itself, as seems to be the case with so many of the stories this year, all of this seems like a win-win proposition. They lauded the film made by the most famous actor-director (sorry Ben) working today, and he will be at the ceremony and he is certain to be featured prominently during the telecast. But Bradley Cooper will remain winless, which will likely make his next film even more of a story, and hopefully for the Oscar producers, an even bigger draw. Until he finally wins in 2044, or thereabouts, for making Maestro 2, a biopic of the great artist behind the making of Maestro.
