Poker Face

Long In
The Truth

Poker Face
Created by Rian Johnson
Season 1 10 episodes
January - March 2023
Blu Ray Zone A

I bought new mystery TV show Poker Face for my mum for Christmas because it was being heavily compared to Columbo on the internet, a show that she had loved watching in the 1970s. I wish I’d have held out a few weeks longer because, when I grabbed it, it wasn’t available in the UK so I just assumed it wouldn’t be getting a release in this country. So it cost me more to import a copy than I needed to have paid, if the company putting it out over here had only got its act together and given it a simultaneous release.

Okay, so it’s created by Rian Johnson, who made a couple of films I really liked called Brick and Looper (plus one of the worst Star Wars movies ever... plus the Knives Out movies which, yeah, were okayish I suppose). He’s written and directed a few of the episodes and the lead actress who plays Charlie Cale (aka Poker Face), Natasha Lyonne,  also directed one of the better episodes of the show.

So, I’m not sure my mum could quite get into the swing of them, to be honest, but my dad and I really enjoyed it and, yeah, there are a couple of superficial resemblances to Columbo. The first being that Lyonne does resemble Peter Falk’s detective in her accent and some of her mannerisms (which a lot of people have pointed out to me). Secondly, the structure of the show is not, mostly, a whodunnit every week. Like Columbo, it starts off with the audience usually in full knowledge of the murder and perpetrator(s) in a five or ten minute sequence without Charlie Cale in it at all (my mum could never get the hang of this and kept asking if the woman from the last show was going to be in it). We then flashback to before the murder and find how Charlie has been inserted into that story from before the events we saw... and then we catch up to those events about half way through, as Charlie solves the case.

So here’s the thing... Charlie has a... let’s call it what it is, a super power. She can tell when anyone is telling her a lie. This gets her into trouble because a casino boss (Ron Perlman) bans her from gambling and has her working at a waitress in his casino instead (which she loves). However, when the boss’ son (Adrien Brody) takes over the casino, he involves Charlie in a scheme to get rich quick in a huge gambling game for him. But, he and his right hand heavy (series regular Benjamin Brat) murder Charlie’s best friend... something she figures out right before their end game and which, eventually, leads to chaos and death for the new casino management. From that point at the end of the first episode, Charlie is off the grid and on the run from Perlman’s character for the rest of season one.

So the format is, she’ll stop in a new town each week, get a temporary job and, pretty much every time, get involved with a murder which she’ll try and solve without the police, often bringing justice in her own, unique way. And most of the episodes have celebrity guest spots too... with actors such as Clea DuVall, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Chloë Sevigny, Ellen Barkin, Luis Guzmán and Nick Nolte all getting involved in the ‘murder of the week’. So there’s a star studded aspect to the show as well.

And it’s pretty well done, the format even allowing for a few twists and turns along the way, as not all the information is always revealed at the episode’s opening and some things become apparent later on which, sometimes, change the identity of the known villain of the episode half way through.

Added to this we have a conclusion to Charlie’s story arc in the final episode of season one, only for it to kind of get soft-rebooted for season two. So, when the casino boss finally catches up with her through his right arm, Benjamin Bratt, the capper of that initial meeting early on in the episode is a) not what you think it would be and b) not telegraphed either. In fact, there’s even a little successful misdirection involved on the part of the writer before the show comes back full circle, with Charlie now being similarly hunted by an even greater threat. I actually thought it was kind of a shame that they decided to soft boot it in that way but I can certainly see why that temptation was there on the part of the show’s producers. They want to keep Charlie hopping from place to place and this is their way of doing that.

One minor thing I didn’t like was the fact that, from episode eight onwards, they gave the main character a facial twitch every time she hears a lie. I guess it’s a nice visual shorthand but, it feels a little clunky and we were doing fine without that for the preceding seven episodes, I thought.

Even so, I really enjoyed the show and, I think I’ll grab the second series of Poker Face too, once it’s aired and played on TV and gets properly released on Blu Ray (otherwise they’ve lost me as an audience, frankly). Definitely worth a watch if you like a large slice of humour with your murder investigations, for sure.

Chapelwaite

Whole Lotta
‘Salem Going On

Chapelwaite
USA August - October 2021
Ten episodes
MGM

Warning: Mr. Barlow will enjoy some spoilers.

Chapelwaite is a ten part mini series based on an old Stephen King story, which many of you may remember reading in his short story collection Night Shift (I think I read it sometime in 1982). The story it’s based on is Jerusalem’s Lot which, as I’m sure many of you know, was a longish short story prequel to his popular novel ‘Salem’s Lot, set over one hundred years before the events which we all know and loved from both King’s amazing book and, no doubt, from having fond memories of being scared silly as kids, when the TV miniseries of ‘Salem’s Lot aired, starring David Soul (reviewed by me here). Based on is definitely the key phrase here though because, admittedly, when you try and stretch out a short story into ten episodes of approximately 50 minutes per episode, things are going to have to change or, at the very least, be expanded upon.

Such is the case here with some of the characters changed drastically from their source but with some of the incidents in the story being incorporated into the events which take place in the mini series. But, I didn’t find that such a problem, especially since (if memory serves and, if it doesn’t, then forgive me but it’s been 41 years since I last read it) the original story was told in the form of old letters of correspondence, with the fictional writers detailing the story from a first person point of view.

That being said, it’s actually a very strong series. It’s not one of those which attempts to wow you with a new twist or layer week after week, as certain elements are revealed, such as... say, From (reviewed here) or Yellowjackets (reviewed here). It sets out a lot of it’s narrative intent and path right from the start with, to be fair, not that many suprises around the corner. That being said though, it tells its tale in riveting fashion and, while not quite retaining the feel of King as, say, the completely non-King TV series Midnight Mass ironically did  (review coming soon), it’s still a very sturdy tale and it leans heavily on a very good script and a great cast of actors.

After the death of his wife at sea, Whaler Captain Charles Boone, played by the series’ executive producer Adrien Brody, inherits a handsome property in Maine from his cousin, named Chapelwaite... and decides to take his three children...  Honor (played by Jennifer Ens), Loa (played by Sirena Gulamgaus) and Tane (played by Ian Ho)... to live there and start a ship building business. However, there’s a curious malady in town killing people and the Boone family has been blamed for this. Pretty soon, the family curse which we see detailed in the pre-credits of episode one returns to haunt the grown up son (Brody) but, as he and his family, along with writer/governess/love interest Rebecca (played by Emily Hampshire), deal with the taint of his former family, not to mention the racial tensions caused by the skin tones of his children, it becomes clear that a) his cousins are not actually dead but... well... undead... and b) that the curious malady which has taken the small town in its grip is, of course, vampirism.

I won’t say any more of the plot as, like I said, there are not too many surprises but, it’s a sturdy ship of a show and the writing, acting and direction is all great. Actually, because like many shows, several different directors are hired for each episode, there are some minor stylistic differences in the way things are shot. The first episode (and, to some extent, the second), for example, feature a lot of establishing shots taken from a camera very low on the ground and looking up at the content of the frame... almost as a visual echo of the time when Charles Boone was whacked over the head with a shovel as a kid and having to look up and out of the grave his father dug for him. It’s a nice touch but it does seem to get jettisoned very early on in the series. This is not to say the direction is bad, however... just more noticeably different in this show than with others I’ve seen.

But it’s a great tale and, while not necessarily scary, it does have a lot to offer and, scares aside, there’s certainly a lot piled on in the way of tension and suspense. For example, when the family board Chapelwaite up and paint white crosses on its walls in expectation of a siege by a party of vampires and their human minions attempting to get in... the whole of the next episode is shot, almost in real time for a lot of it... and the battle for the house and something which is inside it (which two factions of vampires want, actually) lasts for the whole of episode eight. And it’s all topped off with the musical cherry on the cake via Mark Korven’s lovely score (sadly not available on CD at time of writing this).

One thing which worries me is the future of the show. Chapelwaite has a very definite ending to it... the story seems finished and some big sacrifices are made in the final episode. So it must have been as much as a surprise to the writers when the channel producing it renewed it for a second series.* Now, I really don’t know how they could continue this story in a plausible enough way so that the audience won’t think it’s a poor excuse for a sequel but, who knows, perhaps the only thing the new series will have in common is the house itself... plus various vampires (would be my guess). Either way though, I was really hooked on this one and Chapelwaite doesn’t disappoint on pretty much any level. Check this one out if Stephen King inspired, period vampire tales are your thing.

*Releasing very soon now, it would seem.

what purpose did I serve in your life

 

 

 

No Eroteme Tome

what purpose did
i serve in your life
by Marie Calloway
Tyrant Books ISBN: 9780985023584

I’d never heard of this novel when I ordered it and even then, I had to find a cheap, second hand edition because this thing seems almost impossible to get now for a reasonable price, even though it was only first published 8 years ago and apparently “sent shockwaves through the publishing industry”. I found out about it by way of a death. Back in March, a guy I’d never heard of called Giancarlo DiTrapano died, aged 47. It was reported that he’d founded a publishing label called Tyrant Books which, again, I’d never heard of but was reported to handle literature that no other publishing companies wanted to touch. Ahhh... now that did sound up my street. So much so that I had a quick look through the titles his publishing company had handled and saw one which has a very striking and somewhat haunting photograph of the author on the cover... what purpose did I serve in your life by Marie Calloway.

The title had no question mark or upper case lettering... hmm, edgy? Or just pretentious. I wasn’t sure and, after having read this, I’m still not although there is often a healthy disregard for punctuation rules in the book and, although it annoys the heck out of me now (what have I become?) I used to be similar in the way I used to like to set text as a graphic designer in my early days, a quarter of a century or so ago, I can at least empathise with what is, like it or not, a conscious decision.

The thing is though, the book was supposed to account the authors sexual antics in an obscene and frank manner, by all accounts so, I figured that this one might be something to take a look at and can be my one (or who knows, possibly even my starting point) book put out by this publisher.

It arrived in a much larger format than a standard paperback and, it has to be said, does recount almost exclusively the sexual experiences of the writer. It’s not particularly erotic and the acts described within are really not all that shocking, unless you almost really want to be offended with whatever is in here, if it’s out of your comfort zone. I’m not sure why it sent those literary shock waves out though because, it doesn’t really look at anything that other books haven’t already explored, it seemed to me.

That’s not to say it doesn’t have value or points of interest though.

The book is split up in chapters with the first chapter, Portland, Oregon 2008, detailing how the writer lost her virginity (if that’s still a concept of something you can actually lose). It then goes on in chapters which are often tagged in parenthesis in the contents by Marie’s age at the time (either 21 or, in one case, 22) and details her sex work experiences, her sexually hooking up with various literary writers and also fans of her work (a lot of this book was previously published on line in blogs or magazines etc). One of the married writers, who she refers to only as Adrien Brody, was apparently recognisable to anyone who knew him and I believe this is another reason why the book was such a sensation when it came out. Although, why it seems to now be a footnote is something I can’t fathom or find out about yet.

I kind of empathised with the writer fairly early on because, when in London, she makes derogatory comments about the airhead conversations between groups of English schoolgirls and, well, I’m sure this is something we can all sympathise with, yeah? There’s also some nice chapters which are more about the way the text is presented rather than the actual message carried by the words. So big collages of multi-sized fonts on a page bringing scattered sentences and half statements or pictures from her phone with half legible writing covering them or even a presentation of various social media or chat posts.

There’s nothing new about breaking up the page in this manner of course. Even if you think back to the days of Blast magazine over 100 years ago and then forward on from there in various literary assaults, there has been a lot of typographic experimentation going on. However, it’s also not a common phenomena in modern day literature so it’s kinda refreshing or, I don’t know, maybe just relieving that this kind of word presentation is not yet dead. There was one section where I think the writer let herself down a little... not even in that particular section actually but, in a follow up on it.

To explain, one chapter is various black and white, not brilliantly reproduced pictures of the author with various, quite harsh and brutal criticisms of her work written over the tops of them. Quite often they are reversed out text and, occasionally, there will be areas of hard white on the photo but the text is still written in white so it disappears and becomes totally unreadable or even illegible in those areas. Similarly, a few of the photos have black type going over very dark areas to produce the same effect and I love the way that this is presented as both a ‘weight’ of negative criticism but also an erosion of it to express exactly how reductive, redundant and pointless it is. And just what the writer actually thinks of it...

I thought it kind of brave and ‘right on’ that portions of the text were left unreadable but, alas, one of the later chapters actually reproduces the text of those criticisms as is, as part of the main flow of the account so... yeah, it kinda felt like the artist that is Marie Calloway had a sudden worry about just leaving it in that form and went about undoing the wonderful obfuscation of the critical data she’d so boldly introduced in the earlier chapter. Oh well... we all have days where we doubt ourselves, I guess.

Still, this doesn’t detract from the fact that it’s a seemingly authentic account of someone who seems to be a little naive about certain things and somewhat less than confident in certain areas. Which I suspect is a complete fabrication since she’s managed to pursue and win both a publication and divided opinion which, by its existence, places her as someone who is at least thought of as a serious writer. Which is kinda cool.

This book has been called by some as an embodiment of the ‘great American novel’ but, yeah, I’m not so sure and I suspect that the fact it seems to almost have disappeared without trace maybe means it’s not quite got that status... although, having read the dictionary definition of what makes a great American novel, I can kinda see how some people might want to champion this as an example of one, just as I can see how other readers might be terrified if this work earned that reputation. Similarly, I’ve heard it said that this is a book from a strongly feminist viewpoint but, okay so I’m a guy and possibly not in the best position to judge but, it doesn’t seem to be all that feminist and neither does it seem to be whatever the opposite of that term is, to me. It just seems to be an honest account of a young person’s sexual, somewhat masochistic and often narcissistic experiences in the wild and... there’s not a great deal to be said about that.

And there’s not much I can add to that either. what purpose did I serve in your life is a breezy read which takes the reader on a sketchy tour of sexual ideas and writerly musings, written by a person who you possibly feel you need to protect from some of the harsh realities of the world and which, as a work, you may or may not have an affinity with. I really don’t want to judge it as anything other than that because a lot of my expectations of it were merely from the baggage I bring to this myself as a reader and I feel a book like this almost excludes itself from criticism by the phrasing and presentation of its content. Other people can do that and opinion seems divided. I would happily read another book by this gal but, well... there seems to be nothing out there so the one thing I would take away from this would be that this girl needs to write something else and get it published very soon, or people will stop taking notice.

Splice Mines of Kessell*

Splice 2010 US

Directed by Vincenzo Natali

Screening at cinemas now

Woohoo! Another corker genre movie from one of the more interesting artists working in film... Vince Natali.

I first became aware of this guy’s work about ten years ago when I was sitting on my own in the old Metro cinema in Rupert Street (before it became The Other Cinema and died), watching his amazing film Cube (couldn’t get any of my friends to go with me to see this thing so from that day I was forced to become the Harbinger of Natali for a while). I didn’t know much about it at the time but, frankly, any movie which just puts a number of actors in the same single cramped set (doubling as different chambers with the occasional lighting change) was going to get me into the cinema. What I saw that day was both an “actors” film and a directorial tour de force. The subsequent appearance of a not very good sequel and an appallingly “missing the point” prequel, studio lead by other directors, is perhaps a testament to just how influential (the first Resident Evil movie has a very blatant homage to it) and provocative this movie was... it got people’s attention.

The next movie I saw by Natali was his lesser known (for some bizarre reason) and bigger budget sci-fi thriller Cypher. This time he had a couple of “known” actors in it (Jeremy Northam doing his usual and very welcome Cary Grant homage and Lucy Liu) and the film zipped along in a very Philip K. Dickian way and, although it was very easy to see each twist along the way long before it actually happened (a problem in Splice too), it was nevertheless a fine, entertaining, moody piece of film-making... with perhaps a touch of cyberpunk thrown in for good measure. Also a film I’d recommend... just on the basis that more people should know about this movie.

And now we come to Splice. This is the third film I’ve seen by this director and, to be honest, it played out pretty much as I was expecting it too... which is handy, actually, because I was expecting it to be quite good. Not great but... not too shabby, either.

Again, this time around we have two known actors taking the joint leads.

Adrien Brody is in here, who seems to turn up in almost every other genre thriller, fantasy, sci-fi or horror going just lately... King Kong, The Jacket, The Village, Giallo, Predators. He’s pretty solid in this.

And then you have the one and only Sarah Polley! Yeah, I could mention her track record includes absolutely mesmerising performances in films like Hal Hartley’s No Such Thing, Isabel Coixet’s My Life Without Me or Zack Snyder’s brilliant remake of Dawn of the Dead. I might even mention the critical waves she’s made as a director in her own right (Away From Her). But let’s really knock your socks off with just how good this gal Polley is with a little bit of movie trivia everybody seems to conveniently forget these days... so I’ll start this back from the top. You should all go and see Splice because it has Sarah Polley in it... the little girl from The Adventures of Baron Munchhausen all grown up! There... hopefully that got ya.

Ok. So Splice. I saw a trailer and read some pre-release hype on it somewhere (not something I’m usually apt to do but you couldn’t escape it these last few months) and it certainly looked like Natali was poaching on Cronenberg territory here... which is pretty much the way it is. Splice is, very much Cronenbergian in its basic concerns (which is not unfamiliar territory to Polley either, who may also be remembered for her supporting role in Cronenberg’s eXistenZ). It’s very much a biomechanical take on the age old Frankenstein story and this is very much giving a nod in Brody and Polley’s character names of Clive (after Colin Clive, direct descendant of Clive of India, who played “Henry” Frankenstein in both Universal’s 1931 Frankenstein and its 1935 sequel The Bride of Frankenstein) and Elsa (after Elsa Lanchester who played both the title role and Mary Shelley in The Bride of Frankenstein).

I don’t think it’s giving too much away to say that the two lead characters “gather the stuff of life around them”, to lazily paraphrase Shelley, and create a spliced something/human lifeform... but they forget, obviously, to heed good old Uncle Ben’s advice, “with great power comes great responsibility”... oh, hang on, wrong movie/comic... good advice though. Somebody should have said it to them.

One great thing about Splice is that it really isn’t a horror movie until right near the end when.... oh wait a minute... lets not get ahead of myself. It isn’t really a horror movie but Natali must have known that this is how the pitch would be received and perceived by its potential audience so although it’s really not about big scares... it does tend to play around with the cinematic language of horror movies for a lot of it.

There’s a scene near the start of the movie, for instance, involving two slug-like creatures created by our “dashing scientist heroes” where everybody on screen is acting all “wow” and isn’t everything all fluffy bunnies and baby kittens and Natali paces it so you are expecting the absolute worst thing to happen and the suspense is slowly dissipated and you unwind as the scene turns out to be a fluffy bunny moment after all... but then of course, when a similar scene happens later in the movie, the worst does happen... which is kinda inevitable by this point as it’s the worst thing that can happen to the company putting up the money for the scientists so you just know what’s going to transpire... which is a shame because I really would have liked to have been taken by surprise at some stage in the proceedings.

The real star of the movie is the creature itself... starting as, presumably, CGI and then at some point “growing” into a real actress (one of whom is pictured above). This is a really strong performance, both from the effects crew and from the two actresses who play her. It’s a bit E.T-like at times but always with a threat hanging overhead.

And then we have some real problems with what seems to me like an overtly Hollywood ending for he last 20 minutes and I really can’t blame Natali for doing this... he needs to get his movie funded. But it’s a real shame because there is a point in the narrative where I feel things reached a natural ending. It didn’t peak and I’m sure a lot of the audience would have left disappointed but for me... that’s where things should perhaps have been left... at a point which is, after all, a very natural ending (without giving anything away I hope)... but then... well, for the last quarter of an hour/20 mins or so, the movie turns into an action/horror romp with chases and bloodletting and, well stuff I won’t bother telling you about but you’ve seen it all in umpteen teenage horror flicks (if you’re unlucky). This, for me, was the one big disappointing thing about this movie... and then, to pour salt on the wounds it has a little, 5 minute concluding scene put in which is obviously supposed to be some kind of twist ending but... really... after what just happened 5 minutes before... there’s no way the audience havent already worked this one out... apart from the three girls in the row in front of me who actually gasped when Sarah Polley stands up at the end... oh, really? You honestly didn’t see that coming?

But you know what? Never mind the possibly flawed ending... Splice is worth a watch as a taut little weird-science film for the current generation. If you like Vince Natali’s other movies and you’re into early Cronenberg... then Splice is well worth the price of the ticket!

And... you know... the little girl from The Adventures of Baron Munchhausen is in it! ;-)

*Okay... anybody who actually gets that reference in the title is seriously as sad as I am and you need to get out more!