The Nerdstream Era

Because of my Covid-induced torpor, I was not able to do much but lay back on the couch and binge stuff. There was nothing of interest on, and I had toyed with the idea of rewatching "The Americans" anyhow, so off I went and watched three seasons in five days. Hooray for Covid. I want to talk about the experience, but it comes with a spoiler warning. 

There was some mild buzz surrounding the Showtime series "Yellowjackets" that was sufficient for the network to immediately order a second season, expected to hit by the end of the year. The series, following the two timelines of a female soccer team crashing in the Canadian wilderness in 1996 and the survivors of same crash in 2021, received critical and audience acclaim for its mix of horror, mystery and survival thriller.

For the first time ever, I watched “Born on the Fourth of July”, the 1989 feature by Oliver Stone. Tom Cruise is playing Vietnam veteran Ronnie Kovic, who got paralyzed after taking a wound in battle and was traumatized before by killing civilians and a friendly-fire-incident. If you’re interested in my assessment on the quality of the movie – it’s pretty good and still watchable, mostly thanks to Cruise, who proves his dramatic qualities here (it’s so weird he turned to action movies late in his career after starting out as a drama actor). So if you’re interested in the subject matter and can cope with the somewhat unusual structure (getting there), then by all means, give this classic a go.

In the reviews of the previous three books I repeatedly mentioned, that while they are intricately and expertly plotted, the literary quality of the series performs a leap with the next two books, which together form the "Feastdance". We can see this quite clearly with "A Feast for Crows", which, when it was released in 2005, created some consternation. After the flurry of endings and payoffs that was "A Storm of Swords", this book seemed like a letdown to many, not following up on the breathless quality of its predecessor. That is understandable, as it began its inception as a written-out version of the ill-fated five-year-gap.

Continuing my reread, I've now finished "A Storm of Swords", and once again, I won't assume you need any kind of synopsis and quickly delve into the analysis. In the first book, my main theme was early installement weirdness, and in the second book, I focused on the expanding scope of the story and the developing of some themes. "A Storm of Swords" continues along these lines, but the two major aspects I want to discuss is the flurry of endings and what they're purpose is, namely setting up the five-year gap.

 

Valarr morghulis. Everything needs to come to an end, and so does the greatest series of all time, the popcultural phenomenon to end all popcultural phenomena. Unlike the preceding episodes, this one isn’t exactly subtle or multi-layered about what characters are doing and why they’re doing it; nor does it need to be. Everyone is stating their motivations clearly. Every ambiguity left is deliberate. It’s always thus with endings. We know that Samwise is happy in the Shire. We don’t know whether Frodo will be in Valinor. And so we know that Samwell Tarly has the right job and becomes happy in it. We don’t know whether Arya will ever succeed. And that’s just how it’s meant to be.

 

Sometimes, everything comes down to a choice. Sometimes, everything comes down to the flip of a coin. As the popular saying goes, each time a Targaryen is born, the gods toss a coin, and the world holds its breath. As Varys says, he’s quite unsure on what side Dany’s will land. From there on out, one metaphysical question, old as human deliberation itself, hovers over everything: Do we possess free will?

 

Last week, I wrote that it was so hard to assess the impact of the larger plot and themes as long as the show hasn’t finished the story yet, and the same still holds true today. For this reason, I’ll start with a disclaimer: I will try to call out the themes and larger developments as I see them unfolding right now, in the clear possibility that some red herrings will lead me astray. So I’ll not judge next week’s episode on the basis of whether it delivered on my readings of this one, as I hope my readers will not judge this review on the clairvoyance of its predictions.

 

I think this is the first time that I’m at a total loss writing one of these reviews. We’re standing here, at what’s likely the apex of a development that speeded past us in the last half decade. If you had told me in 2014 that in 2019, we’d be watching a battle involving thousands of people on both sides, three dragons and a zombie giant IN THE MIDSEASON FINALE OF A TV SHOW, and that we’d complain about how much sense the battle tactics made, I’d have declared you a bit lucid. This a show that couldn’t scrape the money together to show more than two horses and twenty people for the Tourney of the Hand only seven years ago!

 

My illustrious co-host Sean T. Collins wrote in his terrific review of the first episode that while all the joy coming from the reunions in the season’s first episode lacked a bit of the bitterness that was the trademark of “Game of Thrones” all the time, ending with the knife-sharp conclusion that “poison helps the sugar go down”. It’s a staple by now to point to George R. R. Martin’s rare statement about the endgame of the series that it would be “bittersweet”. This episode showed how this can look in practice.

 

I’m conflicted about this episode. Really, really conflicted. On the one hand, in about an hour, it presents the culmination of moments that have been set in motion eight years ago, if you’re counting show-time, or even 23 years, if you’re counting book-time. People who haven’t seen each other since the first third of “A Game of Thrones” come back together on screen. In this clash of reunions, the possibilities and limitations of the medium TV all converge into one messy hour of screen time.

Because of the great success of my series on the filmography of Kevin Costner (the Kevinography) and Channing Tatum (Channingography) - success defined by "no one made a fuzz about it" - I decided to also start one about Jennifer Lawrence. I had previously watched the Hunger Games movies and the X-Men movies featuring her, as well as Mother!, so I decided that before I rewatched those I would start with some I didn't already kow. 

 

Like most of you (I gather), I reread "A Song of Ice and Fire" about once per year, or near enough as makes no matter. For this reread, I want to focus on the structure of "A Game of Thrones", a kind of meta-analysis, if you will, and especially concentrate on "early installment weirdness". That term relates to the first volume of a series, or the first episode, or whatever your medium might be, and how it usually is a bit rough on the edges. Ideas are not fully formed yet, characters not really "there", and there are elements that didn't work and were consequently dropped.

Warning: Spoilers for "Promising Young Woman" incoming. 

Revenge stories are a classic in movies. Usually they involve some wronged manly man who then goes on a rampage to rectify things, usually by killing everyone, which somehow makes it okay. Look no further than half the filmography of Gerard Butler (especially the atrocious "Law Abiding Citizen"). Tarantino mixed the genre up by switching the manly man into a female woman, but that has gone stale since then, too.

This is part 16 in a series in which, for reasons not really clear, I watch all watchable movies with Kevin Costner. And maybe even some unwatchable ones. I will then comment on them here for you, including a synopsis in case you aren't familiar with them.

Synopsis: Mr. White (Kevin Costner) is a football teacher who gets angry quickly and cycles through jobs quickly. Now he hits the end of the line in southern California immigrant community McFarland, where he's hired as teacher and assistant coach. He quickly gets into another fight that leads to his dismissal from the football team, but he discovers something else: the Mexican-American kids that make up the school are damn good runners. So he trains them for cross-country running - and they train him in becoming a member of the community. When the team qualifies for the statewide competition, the stakes get a lot higher...