Perfect Harmony Review

When "Perfect Harmony" and "Sunnyside" both premiered this Fall, I had a hunch only one of the shows would survive due to NBC's penchant for cancelling promising shows (I still haven't forgiven the network for the double whammy of "Go On" and "The New Normal" circa 2013). I got an essay published on this at The Federalist but originally submitted it before "Sunnyside" got cancelled (fortunately, it's been picked up by Hulu). As a result, I cut out the "Perfect Harmony" part of the essay and focused solely on "Sunnyside." Here's the leftover "Perfect Harmony" stuff:

"Perfect Harmony" is an odd couple pairing between an uptight Princeton music professor (Brad Whitford) and the populace of a small Kentucky town. The (extremely laborious) premise for the set-up is that the professor has just been fired and is on his way to bury his dead wife and subsequently commit suicide when he hears a church choir singing awful music and decides on instinct to give them some quick pointers before pulling the trigger. He then decides to stay alive a few days longer through a choir competition against his new mortal enemy and things roll from there.

More than anything else, "Perfect Harmony" is a red-state/blue-state clash of values and the sentimental highs it hopes to produce are from people overcoming their differences and meeting in the middle. The show portrays the small-town characters as eccentric, the viewer loyalty generally leans towards the red state mannerisms of the locals as they are portrayed as far more emotionally open and genuine.

Recent Emmy winner Brad Whitford is far too grumpy to be interesting. Like Danny and Matt in
"Studio 60", Whitford's Dr. Cochran's genius is portrayed as something that goes hand-in-hand with being a 40-year-old trapped in an 80-year-old curmudgeon's body. In truth, it just comes off as annoying.  

Sadly, the show does have a star in Anna Camp who is somewhat of an original character with her perkiness, Spring beauty, and an internal battle between restrained Southern charm and frustration-driven id. Sadly, the show puts too much emphasis on Whitford who doesn't have much going for him. So far, the show pedals in broad characters with friends/roommates Dwayne and Wayne serving as a redneck tweedle-dee/tweedle-dum of sorts (though Dwayne has hidden dimensions), diva Adams Adams who owns the local restaurant. I have a soft spot for Rizwan Manji who has alternately played genuinely nice people and passive-aggressive social climbers ("Outsourced" "Arrested Development") in equal measure.

Not sure where the show is going, but let's hope it doesn't get cancelled as well. (Although, good news! Sunnyside got picked up by Hulu)

Norma Rae (1979) Review: Films and Capitalism

In preparation for a discussion I’m leading for the DC Film Society's Cinema Lounge on films and capitalism, I decided to watch “Norma Rae.” The 1979 Best Picture nominee tells the tale of a North Carolina town that successfully unionizes against a steel mill company thanks to the partnership of a Jewish union organizer and an uneducated single mother.


To call this a passion project for star Sally Field and director Martin Ritt would be an understatement. Field, stuck in the dungeon of sitcom-land (things I learned in my research here: Sally Field once was a bikini-clad sex symbol as the surfer chick “Gidget”; cover your eyes Forrest!), had just gone to the Actor’s Studio and studied under Lee Strasberg and was starting to get attention for the made-for-TV film “Sybil.” After nearly every other actress turned down the part (including two of the actresses she would defeat in the Oscar race that year), Field jumped on the part as a chance to prove herself. Her director, Martin Ritt, had been black-listed in the 1950s and was devoted more than before to make films with something to say. Ritt found a kindred spirit in Field who first met him at an anti-nuclear rally. Field, in turn, would call working under Ritt the best acting experience of her life and collaborate with him twice more.

The film is also enhanced by DP John Alonzo's grainy photography as most of the film (particularly the factory scenes) were shot on a hand-held camera.

The film’s authenticity was enhanced through location shooting. While the crew wasn’t able to film at the actual location of the strike in North Carolina, Alabama was trying to attract film productions at the time, which happened to be a serendipitous stroke as they settled on the small Alabama town of Opelika which had been dealing with its own labor issues at the time after the town had gone from a largely agricultural center to a primarily industrial base. While some extras came from nearby Auburn University, many of the factory workers appeared as background and Field said that in her climactic holding-up-the-sign scene (as shown above), that she could feel their energy and sorrow as she was walking to her arrest.

The film’s narrative is largely constrained to the events of real life but that doesn’t mean that real life was particularly disappointing. The film teases out a romance between Norma and organizer Reuben but, in real-life, the age difference was too big for it to enter either of their minds. At least we’ll always have the skinny dipping.  Norma instead is paired romantically with a good-natured guy (Sonny, played by Beau Bridges) who is …um, how shall I say this delicately without feeding into southern stereotypes… a simpleton who seems a little slow for a woman who’s suddenly reading books and might be the first person in town who can answer the trivia question “Do Jews have horns?”

Because that’s how they do in the South, apparently, the two get married one date into their courtship, and it’s genuinely unclear midway through the movie if Beau Bridges is her true love (although, really, why marry Beau when his brother is such a stud?) or simply a distraction en route to a certain loud-mouth union organizer from way up north. It’s a convincing enough misdirect that when their marriage is at a breaking point and Sonny makes the perfect gesture to let her know he’ll be by her side through thick and thin, it’s the emotional high point of the movie. Sonny's politically apathetic about the union issue and it’s not exactly George and Kelly Anne Conway levels of political division, but much of the movie’s conflict is about how the people at the top try to sow divisions at the bottom, so it'll do.

The bad guys who run the factory try promoting Norma to give her a taste of power in hopes she’ll forget about the people she’s supposed to be helping and pretty much admit that this is their evil plan. Then they try sowing discontent among various groups along racial and socio-economic lines. Isn’t this pretty much what Karl Marx warned about?

I originally classified films that critique capitalism with the subgenres of films that might posit their villain as someone who perverts capitalism; films that attack an entire industry; or films that attack the institution of capitalism itself. The third category, which I believe is the most damning critique of capitalism, suggests that human nature devolves under the pursuit of money over material wealth.

There’s a lot to stylistically admire and Sally Field’s portrayal of Norma Rae (or rather the real-life activist Crystal Lee Sutton composited with approximately four other characters due to issues with Sutton not selling her life rights) is quite a firecracker of a performance. But as a film that explores the root of capitalistic evils (or just plain evil in general), “Norma Rae” is a film about the triumph of the human spirit, though it certainly flattens its villains and suffers thematically in its efforts to paint capitalists one way and those who seek to resist it in a more heroic light. .

Why exactly are the factory foremen determined to not change with the times? The degree that their hostility is determined by historic inertia, religious prejudice (the Jewish union organizer is so loud about his religious affiliation, it’s not really clear whether he’s asking people to hate him for being Jewish and if that’s part of his baiting), or a desire to protect their wealth (that’s the root of capitalism) is pretty variable here. That would be worth answering but the general principles are worth exploring here.

Pursuit of Happyness review

The tagline of "Pursuit of Happyness" was basically "story of a poor guy trying to get a job" when it came out which seemed a little (as the millennials say) basic.

After watching it, it hit me that there aren't that many movies about a guy who desperately needs a job trying to make something happen. Even if this was an actual film genre that had been steadily populated throughout the years, this story would stick out for its specificity.


The protagonist Chris Gardner (Will Smith) is a father weighed down to the breaking point with bills to pay and a son to care for. His backstory isn't filled in that well which might be intentional because little of it adds up. How did he get the job where he sells obscure medical equipment and why doesn't he impress his bosses enough to ask for a raise with that? Why didn't he take advantage of the free education that came with his service in the navy? Why did he choose to live in the country's most expensive city? In real life, Chris Gardner's first wife came from a wealthy family and she introduced him to high society life where he was mingling with Danny Glover and Samuel L Jackson. Why didn't he try to use some of that social capital?


Nitpicking aside, we're asked to accept that Gardner is an unexplained sort of poor which sort of works if we consider that we likely won't know the backstories and explanations behind every homeless person who approaches on the street for a spare dime.


In order to invest us in this character (much like a positive-leaning biopic), the film wants us to identify with his greatness primarily through his bravery. In reality, Gardner made a cost-benefit analysis and might have even came to the wrong conclusion for all we know: Sacrifice six months of pay for a 1 in 20 chance of landing a job as a broker when you have a kid to support and a landlord on your back? In reality, Gardner had a small stipend ($1000 a month in 1983 which would probably be more by present-day standards) and the training program at Dean Witter offered jobs to almost anyone who passed the test. And while the movie is enhanced by seeing a guy go against such odds, there's already plenty of natural drama built into the man's situation. He has to go homeless, attempt to sweet talk clients when he has no experience making sales, and play nice with his bosses who don't understand his stresses.

The film is primarily known for Will Smith's Oscar-nominated performance and the moment when his son Jaden was introduced to the world (as Chris's son). But it deserves quite a bit more credit than that.

I watched this film in preparation for a talk I'm leading in a week about capitalism and movies. My thesis was originally that there are some films that have standard pro-capitalist bents and some films that challenge the assumptions of capitalism as the best possible distribution system of wealth.

From the synopsis I assumed that this would simply be spreading the gospel of capitalism. This is a story, after all, about a guy who analyzes his options, and ultimately decides that doing flawless work in subservience to his bosses would be the best way to rise to the top. From a standpoint of the main character's narrative, yes, the film is an allegory for the benefits of working your way up the corporate ladder and buying your time.

However, reading this film through a more modern-day lens where critical race theory and privilege (whether socio-economic or other) is a big factor in how we talk (not that I agree with all of it), the film doesn't shy away of the ways in which Gardner is held back from a system that penalizes him from the cyclical pattern of poverty he was born into. Wherever you stand on the "race explains everything" line, it's undeniable that if he was born into better circumstances, he would have better been prepared to deal with his employers. Everything from his arrest for parking tickets to the discomfort he might have with his array of bosses who were born into wealth highlights it's not a particularly fair meritocracy despite the fact that he succeeds anyway.

With Gardner's happy ending, the film has its cake and eats it too. Or does it?

Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency Season 2: A very belated review

As someone who has historically not been an enthusiastic novel reader, Douglas Adams stands as one of the few people to open me up to the delights of the form. Whether it’s the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series or Dirk Gently, his delightful absurdity is sprinkled nearly everywhere in the book whether it’s the larger plot points (the answer to life, the universe and everything being 42, an alien race torturing people through bad poetry readings) or clever dialogue (“flying is throwing yourself at the ground and missing”).

The idea of “Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency” (I’ll have to add an IIRC caveat, I’m too lazy to look this up) is that the protagonist is a thoroughly amoral and lazy detective who calls himself a “holistic detective” so that he can bill anything he does to the case. Since everything’s related to everything, there’s no telling that anything he does isn’t related to the case.

He manages to capture the whimsical absurdity of Douglas Adams’ book series. The TV series takes on a more mystical approach while keeping the absurdity confined largely to the character of Dirk character himself (Samuel Barnett). Gently is a classic cuckoolander with recently-fired bellhop named Todd (Elijah Wood, hitting the same beats of schlubby directionless as “Wilfred”) as the straight man keeping him in check. Both series have been populated with a wide array of characters with the most Dirk-like being a female holistic assassin named Bart (Fiona Dourif) who takes casual violence to such extremes that the gore is placated by (what TV Tropes refers to) as crossing the line twice. Others like black wing officer Hugo Friedkin (Dustin Milligan of “Schitt’s Creek”) have the lone character trait of being a little dense. Mildly humorous but mostly blah. At least there’s a variety of tonal flavors in this awkward-yet-charming character stew.

The key emotional relationship is between Todd and his sister Amanda (Hannah Marks) and while two young adult siblings bonded by their shared directionless (“Casual” and more recently “Lodge 49” have done it well), the two have an affable chemistry. It also helps that the relationship is complicated by random chronic illness and Amanda having superpowers making her more than just another audience surrogate.

Both seasons of the show are serialized and zany but don’t necessarily match the profound zaninesss, say, of the source material. The second season, which I saw recently, revolves around a traumatized child in rural Montana (as ideal for a fish-out-of-water vibe as any Western state) with telekinetic powers who creates an entire imaginary world that has been operating on its own for thirty years.

The mystery unravels gently enough for the slower viewers (AKA me) not to get lost in all the technobabble. As such, there’s some catharsis when the loose strings get tied together at the end, but it’s mostly about watching zany characters navigate tight situations in a way that’s a bit more fun than the average serialized crime story.   

The second season’s chief villain, Suzie Borden (a nod to Lizzie, perhaps?), is a bored housewife with a rebellious teenage son, who gets a little taste of supernatural power and goes to town. She’s curiously sympathetic at first: One can easily see her as the mildly put-upon housewive trope getting her revenge against society for putting her into a box and stripping her (and perhaps all domesticated women) from their dreams. However, our audience sympathies cleverly switch when we learn that while Suzie sees herself as Carrie (a movie I recently reviewed), her peers see her as more in line with a plastic from Mean Girls.

Like many ensemble series, the level of interest in what’s on screen changes with whether we’re following a good character and a good storyline. Suzie’s one of the bigger draws here.

The series’ first season was such a freaky lightning in a pan that it’s pretty impressive for lightning to strike twice as it did here.