| LON'S "BEST IN STREAMING" LIST FOR 2023 DEBUT SHOWS AND LIMITED SERIES CATEGORY I'M A VIRGO [Amazon Prime Video] Boots Riley's comic fable stars Jharrel Jerome as a 13-foot-tall teen from Oakland who starts exploring the world on his own terms, after years of being sheltered by his concerned aunt and uncle (Carmen Ejogo and Mike Epps). It packs the satirical punch you'd expect from the rap firebrand and writer/director of "Sorry to Bother You," but I was even more struck by its absurdist creativity and visual invention. People think of Riley as a primarily political figure using music, TV, and film to push ideology, but he's also just a good storyteller, making stuff for adults that retains a sense of innocence and play and childlike wonder. BEEF [Netflix] You know how, in terms of the physical light spectrum, white is not a color, but a combination of all colors? "Beef" sort of takes this same view, but in terms of emotions. "Anger," in creator Lee Sung Jin's world, is not so much an emotion on its own, but the combination of a whole range of feelings: sadness, frustration, pride, shame, disappointment, and more. What starts as a relatively simple entry in the "feud that spirals out of control" sub-genre becomes a sort of all-encompassing character study, really digging deep into the psychology of its leads and the particular quirks that drive them to hate one another with such intensity. BLUE EYE SAMURAI [Netflix] This animated celebration of the Japanese chambara genre (samurai movies) gets all the details exactly right. The beautiful, fluid animation gives the characters a wide range of expressiveness, but also allows for several of the year's most intense, brutal, and exciting action sequences, in live-action or animation. The storytelling incorporates all the expected genre tropes and archetypes, but remixes them for a modern Western sensibility. The vocal performances are absolutely aces, especially Randall Park and Kenneth Branagh as the sneering villains. Sometimes, animation for adults plays basically just like any other cartoon, but with blood and boobs. But "Blue Eye Samurai" feels truly mature, a perceptive and dark samurai tale reminiscent of genre highlights like "Sword of Doom" or "Goyokin," just animated instead of shot with actors. COPENHAGEN COWBOY [Netflix] "Drive" and "Only God Forgives" vet Nicolas Winding Refn's Netflix crime drama fits neatly in with the writer/director's other recent output. It's a very deliberately paced, extraordinarily stylish, violent saga about a nearly-mute protagonist killing their way through a neon-drenched world populated by colorfully eccentric underworld figures. NWR can be something of a acquired taste, and anyone who braved Amazon's "Too Old to Die Young" will know what to expect here. But if you can get on his particular wavelength, few other directors are making anything that's this singular and cool, let alone for global streaming platforms. SCAVENGERS REIGN [Max] The quirkiest and most unexpected show of the year arrived on a Warner Bros. Discovery platform, of all places. I have no idea how this even happened. "Scavengers Reign" feels like finding a bananas, European graphic novel from the '70s in the back of a friends' parents bookshelf and then devouring it all in one sitting. The deceptively simple premise concerns long-haul space truckers who have an accident during a voyage and get stranded on a far-off, bizarre alien world, with little hope of rescue. But the show is really a patient, careful, and impossible-to-predict examination of the strange creatures inhabiting their new home, and the unusual rhythms of life there. This is a dark, beautiful, totally unexpected series that you should try to watch before David Zaslav inevitably deletes it. THE LAST OF US [Max] HBO's post-apocalyptic action drama ranks among the top projects ever inspired by a video game, and demonstrates that it's not JUST about copying over the original game elements as faithfully as possible, as fans have long suggested. TV's "Last of Us" actually departs significantly from the game version, by breaking away from the central perspective of its protagonists Joel and Ellie in a way that a game never could. In a game, we're controlling the main characters, and share their perspective. But in HBO's "Last of Us," the camera can travel around, and show us this world and its changes from the point of view of anyone it pleases. This doesn't just make the TV version an exciting new experience for fans, but allows creators Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann to rethink that entire world and scenario from the ground up. SILO [Apple TV+] Apple's sci-fi drama series is yet another "puzzle box" type show, that owes a major debt to "LOST." Right away, we're dropped into a reality that feels NOT QUITE RIGHT with a few pressing mysteries about how this world operates, and some curious protagonists who will stop at nothing to get answers. This is a formula, of course, but "Silo" understands that it's not JUST solving the puzzles that keep viewers coming back. We have to also invest in the people, however silly or outlandish their situation. The show's primary cast -- including Rebecca Ferguson, David Oyelowo, Tim Robbins, Harriet Walter, and Will Patton -- keeps everything feeling grounded and relatable, even though we're talking about a society of people living in a big underground bunker with complex, JJ Abrams-type rules about asking questions or going outside. POKER FACE [Peacock] "Poker Face" makes me miss episodic television. In another era, almost every show was on for 20+ weeks a year, and touted a malleable premise that allowed for an individual character to continually get in that many adventures. Rian Johnson's ode to the Mystery-of-the-Week genre perfectly replicates what works best about those classic shows, but with Peak TV flourishes. We get new cast members and new investigations each week, but ALSO an overarching season-long case for Charlie (Natasha Lyonne) to navigate. It's the perfect melding of old and new, and a show that was funny, emotional, dark, and surprising in equal measure. |
Comments
Post a Comment