The Unfettered Critic – September 2020

We interrupt your regular life to bring you these reminders: Wear the mask. Maintain social distance. Stick close to home.

Don’t go to movies. Or the theatre. Just turn on the Boob Tube.

Is there anything there you haven’t seen? Maybe on the Food Network…?

After you’ve burned through “Chopped,” “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives,” and “Guy’s Grocery Games,” we’re guessing you’ll turn to streaming, an arguably necessary evil during plague times.

There are countless streams in which to dangle your toes. But probably the first place you’ll want to wade is Disney+, where you’ll encounter Hamilton.

Yes, Hamilton—Broadway’s most sought-after theatrical ticket until the pandemic darkened the lights of the Great White Way. And now it’s on film.

Does it live up to the hype? Yup. It’s a dynamic revelation of the accessibility of rap to everyone, even old boomers like us, and a mind-blowing verification of the rewards of untraditional casting.

We were won over instantly by the electrifying performances, the songs, costumes, choreography, and staging. Creator-writer-performer Lin-Manuel Miranda isn’t William Shakespeare (he’ll need a few more successes under his belt to get there), but he has an undeniable gift. Who else could have so entertainingly schooled us in the little-known details of “how a bastard, orphan, son of a whore and a Scotsman grew up to be a hero and a scholar…the ten-dollar Founding Father named Alexander Hamilton?” Miranda found the right story and the right way to tell it, introducing it to the American consciousness at just the right moment.

Onward.

It’s hard to say “no” to free. Thus, when offered a year’s free subscription to the new Apple+ streaming service, we sampled two shows we’d been curious about: For All Mankind and The Morning Show.

The former has a tantalizing premise. What if the U.S. hadn’t been the first country to put a man on the moon? This series may remind you of an alternate reality version of 1983’s The Right Stuff, itself a somewhat aggrandized tale of America’s “space race.” If you enjoyed that flick, and, more recently, Hidden Figures, you’re bound to like For All Mankind.

The Morning Show brings us a behind-the-scenes look at a fictional news program rocked by unsavory revelations about the program’s star (Steve Carell, playing against type). While stylistically reminiscent of Paddy Chayefsky’s Network, the obvious influence of the “Me Too” era makes the show feel closer to reality television than satire. Parental warning: a lot of expletives are voiced by Carell and fellow leads Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon. This show definitely won’t put you to sleep!

Disney+’s The Mandalorian inspires a confession from your Unfettered Critics. While we LOVED the original Star Wars trilogy (1977-1983), we did NOT love the three “prequel” movies that followed, and were disappointed by the final (third) trilogy that culminated last year. So we didn’t hold much hope for The Mandalorian, a new series set in the Star Wars universe. But we gave it a chance—and surprise! It feels more like Star Wars than the past six movies, utilizing the familiar tropes without distorting them. The lead character is a not-as-amoral-as-we’re-initially-led-to-believe masked bounty hunter (like Boba Fett, but not) traveling across wild and wooly regions of space to hunt his quarry. The genre is Sci-Fi Spaghetti Western: think Clint Eastwood in his good, bad, and ugly period, with a bit of The Lone Ranger thrown in. Cinema-quality visual effects (which makes sense, seeing as Star Wars established most of those effects) are superb.

So will you find anything you like in the stream?

Find out. Dip in a toe!