Catching up with some of Netflix's holiday offerings: MA RAINEY'S BLACK BOTTOM, THE MIDNIGHT SKY and DEATH TO 2020

Let's start with the newest: the funny mockumentary about the year that's about to end: DEATH TO 2020. Making use of a very well-chosen cast of pros who know how to deliver, this only-70-minute movie is indeed pretty obvious in both its targets and its humor. But so was 2020 and the impossibly stupid and sleazy Trump administration -- as well as Britain's Boris Johnson and his twaddle. (The movie is pretty equally divided between British and American humor, characters and situations.) 

Everyone in the cast is aces, but in particular, hats off to Tracey Ullman, Hugh Grant, Lisa Kudrow, Kumail Nanjiani and Diane Morgan for capturing their characters so immediately and precisely. Created by Charlie Brooker (Black Mirror), who also co-wrote, and Annabel Jones, and directed by Al Campbell and Alice Mathias, the film tackles 2020 from last January onward and is streaming now on Netflix.

Both critics and audiences seem to be saying "nay" to  the new George Clooney movie THE MIDNIGHT SKY, in which he stars and directs. We found it not only timely and moving but very much worth sticking with. Yes, it is quiet and slow, but it is also increasingly gripping, dealing as it does with an apocalyptic world event (which is never fully explained but even this is a plus in terms of the movie's subtlety) that mankind has evidently brought upon itself. 

Set in 2049 and split between an Arctic locale, the character Clooney portrays and a young girl he has rescued, and the small crew of a space transport that has been seeking out another livable planet and is now returning to earth, the movie features one knockout scene (a "first," I believe) involving a wounded crew member that is surprising, stunning and should have you on the edge of your couch. Kudos to Clooney (and his fine cast) for trying something different and achieving so much. (Even if you do question how someone can fall fully-clothed into Arctic water and so easily survive. Maybe it's another effect of global warming?)

MA RAINEY'S BLACK BOTTOM is as good as you've heard, despite that bizarre take-down by Hilton Als of both the film and Viola Davis in a recent issue of The New Yorker. 

The film, directed by George C. Wolfe, actually improves upon the too-lengthy play by the late August Wilson which, among its many virtues, offers an awful and telling example of black-on-black violence, along with how and from where this comes. Ms Davis and the late Chadwick Boseman give wonderfully rich and powerful performances, with the rest of the cast not far behind. This is a "period" piece that seems all too timely still, with its leading characters as sad and multi-faceted as can be imagined.

All three films are streaming now on Netflix -- along with a load of forgettable Christmas movies that the behemoth always seems to "gift" us with around this time of year.

Five fine films on Netflix streaming: LADY J, YOUR SON, MIRAGE, THE CLAPPER and A FUTILE AND STUPID GESTURE

Will Forte and Dohmnall Gleeson (shown below, left and right, respectively) are terrific in this very cleverly handled bio-pic about the two guys -- Douglas Kenney and Henry Beard -- who started the National Lampoon magazine and went on (one of them, at least) to give us a couple of raunchy/weird comedy classic movies: Animal House and Caddyshack. As written by Michael Colton and John Aboud, and directed with unshowy finesse by David Wain, the film grabs you from the outset via its very interesting narrator, who only grows much more so by movie's marvelous end. Filled with oddball fun and a main character who, though not all that likeable, via Forte's rich performance, holds you in

sway just fine, the film is abrim with nostalgia, all right, but even more with crack performances and smart writing that, thanks to Wain's great pacing, keeps things bouncing along delightfully until the bill must be paid. How this is handled is every bit as wonderful as all that has preceded it. The movie resonates emotionally without being at all sentimental or cloying. It's a great memorial to a very funny and special magazine and to the guys (and gals, one of these played by Natasha Lyonne, above, center) who created it.

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Special for a number of reasons, chief among these that, even as it holds a very necessary mirror up to the ways in which would-be "reality" TV corrupts us all, THE CLAPPER also manages to show us the kind of Hollywood characters that almost no movie wants to get near. These are the barely-making-it, little people, some of them pretty bizarre indeed, who live and work in a Hollywood that is anything but the land of our dreams. Writer/director Dito Montiel may not be a critics' darling, but even so, the lousy reception this unusual little film received seems to me very unfair.

Ed Helms (above, center right) and Tracy Morgan (center left) make a sad but quite believable pair of "clappers" -- those folk who act as supposed "real" audience members made to laugh, gasp and applaud on cue -- while Amanda Seyfried is sweet and pretty as the gas station girl on whom Helms has a crush. Where this movie goes and how it gets there is full of smart little touches and a quietly angry attitude toward fake fame. It's certainly not a perfect film, but it's so much better than so much that's out there, you ought to give it a try.

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Anyone who's been wondering why they don't make a romantic time-travel movie like the popular 1980 hit, Somewhere in Time (which was only so-so in any case), don't miss the Spanish film now streaming on Netflix entitled MIRAGE (Durante la tormenta is the original Spanish title). It's maybe ten times more convoluted and interesting than was that earlier time-travel romance, and in fact is much more than mere love story (which doesn't even kick in until half the movie is over). This is also one hell of a mystery -- about death and love and life and caring and very oddball electronics -- that should keep you guessing and more right up to its not-quite-good-enough conclusion.

Don't worry: So smartly paced, beautifully acted and cleverly invented (by writer/director Oriol Paulo of The Invisible Guest) is the tale, that I think you'll forgive an ending that doesn't quite make enough sense. With the fine Spanish actress Adriana Ugarte in the lead, and a very hot young actor, Chino Darín, as the cop on the case, the movie offers plenty of eye-candy as well as a nearly first-rate story, niftily told. I'd watch the entire movie again just for the marvelous scene of a young man waiting at a railway station and literally growing up in the process.

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Get to know your children. Please! That would seem to be the important message of YOUR SON (Tu hijo), another Netflix movie from Spain and one of the darkest I've seen in some time. When the handsome late-teenage son of a successful doctor is beaten nearly to death outside a night club, his father becomes obsessed with finding out who did it and why. The journey takes him into uncharted territory, as this fellow -- who clearly has paid much more attention to his work than to his family -- slowly uncovers more and more ugly and unsettling information.

As directed and co-written by Miguel Ángel Vivas, of Kidnapped fame (or infamy), this much less "showy" movie is also a lot deeper. Extremely well-acted by the entire cast and especially by leading actor Jose Coronado (on the poster above), who brings gravity and tension to every one of his many scenes. He controls the movie, and by the time the film has reached its dark conclusion, you're with Señor Coronado in body, soul and hopelessness.

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Is there another current filmmaker who can write witty, scintillating, intelligent dialog about love, sex, relationships and hypocrisy better than Emmanuel Mouret? If so, I sure can't think who that he or she might be. After Shall We Kiss and Please, Please Me!, his latest endeavor, LADY J (original French title: Mademoiselle de Joncquières) should only burnish his reputation even brighter. Mouret has always seemed to me to be a modern-day Marivaux, but with this film he actually places his period a couple of centuries in the past to tell a tale of love and seduction, betrayal and revenge.

What makes this so very special, however, is Mouret's light-hearted and near-comical take on it all. Truly awful things transpire here, but so charmingly, graciously are they unveiled that we bounce right along with them, only slowly becoming aware of the cruel nature of what is going on. Still, Les Liaisons Dangereuses, in any of its incarnations, this ain't.

The movie stars three terrific French actors: Cécile de France (at right, two photos up), Edouard Baer (left, two photos up) and Alice Izaaz (above), each of whom proves so right for the role that you can't imagine anyone else managing it this well -- with fine support from the likes of Call My Agent's Laure Calamy as the "best friend." As we watched, my spouse and I kept marvelling at the wonderful dialog, of which we wanted to savor every subtitled word: It's that delicious. Miss this one at your peril.

All five of the above films are streaming now via Netflix. I suggest a watch soon, however, as one never knows when a film will suddenly disappear from view.

A six-film round-up of some classy Spanish cinema -- available via Netflix streaming

Spanish-language cinema, especially that from Spain itself, is increasingly well-represented by Netflix. Currently there are a dozen good movies available to view, and probably twice (maybe thrice) that number of smart, enjoyable television series, as well. Herewith: a quick round-up of half a dozen of the better films.

Manuel Martín Cuenca's THE MOTIVE, which he directed and co-adapted from the novel by Javier Cercas, has won a pile of deserved awards in its homeland and elsewhere. It's a dark, ironic comedy about the need to create -- even amongst folk who have no real talent for this -- especially one middle-aged fellow (the wonderful Javier Gutiérrez, shown at left) taking a creative writing course (Antonio de la Torre, below, left, plays his teacher) who wants desperately to write a great novel because his wife (María León, below, right) has just published a popular best-seller.

How he goes about this is alternately hilarious and horrible, involving especially his new neighbors (once he has moved out on his wife) and what he imagines is the "right" way to create. You won't know just where this film is going (until the very end) but you should have no trouble sticking with it -- so astute, funny and often remarkable are the visuals, dialog and performances. Movies like this one come along rarely, so while The Motive remains available on Netflix, pounce!

The crime thriller, PERDIDA, hits just about every typical situation and plot point from the last decade or so of mystery movies and television series, from mobsters, murders and disappearances to, yes, sex  trafficking. Yet thanks to smart pacing, decent direction (Alejandro Montiel), a very nicely woven story that involves past, present and a cold case that one particular female officer refuses to let die -- and to some strikingly beautiful cinematography and composition -- the movie is a nonstop pleasure to view.

The cast in peppered with a wealth of attractive, talented performancer, with the the leading role played by Luisana Lopilato (above), an Argentine actress (the movie's a co-production of Argentina and Spain and was filmed in the gorgeous/harsh Patagonia region of South America). Perdida translates to English as "lost," and just about everyone and everything in this dark and unsettling movie ends up that way.

A very odd mix of the mythic, majestic and monotonous, THE INVISIBLE GUARDIAN is another murder mystery involving a serial killer set in Basque country, featuring a female police inspector (Marta Etura) called in to track the killer in a community that doubles as her home town. The movie, directed by Fernando González Molina, is yet another that is often so beautiful to watch, as it ambles along, that some viewers (TrustMovies, for one) won't mind the longueurs.

The film is full of dark family matters (you'll meet maybe the most wretched movie mother of all time), the awful past and not-so-hot present, as events bubble up and begin to coalesce. The supporting cast is aces, with the impressive Elvia Mínguez (above) especially good as our heroine's older, nastier sister. I do wish the filmmaker has been better able to balance the disparate elements with a much less heavy hand. The movie often clunks along, with that title character always hovering rather tiresomely in the background (and sometimes the foreground). Still, The Invisible Guardian provides at least enough occasional fun and dark beauty to be worth a watch by those who enjoy mysteries set in fairly exotic locales.

Much, much better is the second film with the word "invisible" in its title, THE INVISIBLE GUEST, which is yet another murder mystery -- but it's an exceptionally elegant one. The film, directed and co-written by Oriol Paulo (The Body, Julia's Eyes) is full of twists and turns as our protagonist, played by the sexy, smoldering Mario Casas (see The Skin of the Wolf, below) struggles to free himself from being railroaded into a murder rap. Aided and/or blocked by other major characters, including his lover (another terrific turn by Bárbara Lennie, below, left) and a high-powered, uber-intelligent lawyer (the unforgettable Ana Wagener), our boy struggles but gamely soldiers on.

This movie may be every bit as manipulative as was The Body, but here, because the film is all about manipulation, the twists and turns seem not only appropriate but enormous fun. Performances are excellent, and so is the cinematography, locations, and just about all else. And the ending, unlike so many would-be mysteries, proves incredibly satisfying, too.

Everything from reincarnation to numerology, murder, parenting, the otherworldly and so much more join forces in THE WARNING, the very odd mix of the mysterious and sentimental from director Daniel Calparsoro.

Because its star, Raúl Arévalo (shown at left), is one of my favorite Spanish actors, I'll see anything in which he stars, and this film was certainly not difficult to sit through. By turns thrilling, shocking, moving and very weird, it manages to build quite a head of steam before reaching its maybe-not-so-effective finale.

Taking place in very different time periods that seem to be united via location and a murder that occurs there periodically, the movie bites off more than it can conveniently chew. Yet the provoking puzzle it puts forth should pull you in nicely and keep you interested and alert throughout. One of the veins the movie skillfully mines is that of parents who try to help their children overcome fears by forcing the kids to face these head on. Easier said than sometimes done, it turns out. The Warning may not be a great film, but it is an effective "grabber."

Mario Casas (of The Invisible Guest) scores again via his compelling and low-key performance in THE SKIN OF THE WOLF, an historical mostly-three-character mini-epic about a hunter who lives alone in the woods and "buys" a woman to keep him company and provide sex and whatever else she is able. As written and directed by Samu Fuentes, this first film is impressive for its gorgeous cinema-tography/wilderness locations, as well as for the performances of Casas and the actors who play the two different women he procures (Ruth Diaz and Irene Escolar).

Overall the film offers very little dialog, as our protagonist is mostly a grunt-and-fuck fellow, so we must make do with simply watching him and his partners "behave." They do this well, it must be said, but eventually the lack of communication begins to take its toll. There is indeed a plot, as such, and some mystery, even a climax. But how well you'll last out the proceedings -- even given the great beauty larded with immense hardship these characters must endure -- will probably depend on just how immersed you become in the difficult daily life on display. In its way, the movie becomes as much of an endurance test for the audience as this life must be to those living it.

All the above films -- and a number of others from Spain -- are available now via Netflix streaming.

Lee Liberman's Sunday Corner for September: HITLER'S CIRCLE OF EVIL via Netflix

We are looking and looking harder at the most violent, amoral dictatorship in the modern era and there are many new WWII movies to satisfy. Are we all preoccupied with the totalitarian state at the same time for the same reason? Despite much difference between the era of Hitler and our own, some similar strains are worrying today. Hitler’s Reich was a cult of trumped up magic and messianic ideology; 2018 is a personality cult of Trump. Cults are not recipes for governance. The 10-part British-made documentary/docudrama, HITLER'S CIRCLE OF EVIL, now streaming on Netflix, depicts the Hitler saga from the point of view of the players in his inner circle — his cabinet of sycophants. The series has generally been lauded for accuracy; it features interviews with assorted historians and docudrama’d visuals. In the period following WWI, moderate politics wasn’t working; the extremes veered further left and right than our own left and right. In the 1920’s-30’s it was communist/socialist versus heroic/messianic. The democratic Weimar Republic had emerged to replace the Kaiser; it struggled to govern during the depression that followed the 1929 Wall Street crash and the dire reparations the Allies imposed on Germany after WWI. Poverty and misery were gifts to the messianic Hitler movement.

Hitler’s story started with Dietrich Eckart, a playwright and poet of the far right and believer in the occult Thule society, which held that Aryans had become weakened by inferior races and sought a messiah, a “genius superman”. Eckart was a founder of the National Socialist Party, which became the Nazi Party. When Hitler spoke at a meeting, Eckart was amazed; here was ‘THE ONE’. Nazi fervor sprang from a theory of mythic Aryan superiority. Eckart’s famous play (making him rich) based on Henrik Ibsen’s ‘Peer Gynt’ is the story of Germanic superhero, Gynt, struggling against trolls/Jews. (Note that Anti-Semitism had been part of the world landscape almost from the creation of Christianity, long before the Nazi rise. The Reich weaponized Jews, Communists, Allies using propaganda.) Eckart finds in Hitler the rough stone he can polish, who can take the message to the people. (Roger Ailes, Steve Bannon, and Roger Stone chose Trump to do the same.) Eckart and Hitler bonded as teacher-pupil, father-son. Near death in 1923, Eckart is said to have written a friend: “Follow Hitler! He will dance, but it is I who will have called the tune…. Do not mourn for me; I shall have influenced history more than any other German.” Hitler called Eckart the spiritual father of Nazism and dedicated Mein Kampf to him.

Next up is Rudolf Hess, a military man, pilot, loyalist to the Thule Society. Hess met Hitler at early party meetings and was besotted. In prison together after the Beer Hall Putsch of 1923, Hitler’s first and futile attempt to gain power, Hess counseled Hitler to shun violence and win at the ballot box. Uncredited, he helped Hitler write Mein Kampf in prison and supported him head, heart, and soul (an unrelated source reports they were lovers). Following prison, they suppressed the street thuggery of party member and military colleague, Ernst Röhm, and reshaped the Nazi party to win power through elections, losing cycles before they began to win. (Below, Hess with Hitler.)

Hess’s title was deputy Fuhrer but he wasn’t Machiavellian enough to survive the power machinations of the inner circle. In 1941, to regain his Fuhrer’s love, he flew alone, in secret to Britain to offer a peace deal; his British captors found him paranoid and mentally unstable. He was never again free; his colleagues were condemned to death at Nuremberg. Hess aged in Spandau Prison where he hung himself in 1987 at 93.

 After the Nazi’s had won a governing majority in the Reichstag in 1933, a one-party state began to consolidate and Hitler’s inner circle became like cats in a bag, asserts historian Guy Walters. Backstabbing and jockeying for favor and reward were encouraged. Manipulative Martin Bormann, for instance, morphed from drone to queen bee. Hess’s subordinate, Bormann seized on the seemingly mundane job of renovating Hitler’s Bavarian Alps chalet, wooing Hitler with the creation of what would become a grand second house of state. At the new mountain court, the inner circle, ‘the Berghof set’, would be feted and forced to ‘suck up’ to the boss. Bormann, the ’Brown Eminence’, gained control over Hitler’s finances and the party coffers, becoming gatekeeper and requiring servility by the others; Hess was completely marginalized. Bormann and Goring became mortal enemies; Himmler and Goebbels hated each other and both hated Goring. The ‘morality’ of the party became sophistication on one hand and depravity on the other, as Hitler’s chintz sofas were where they made plans to invade Poland and Russia and ‘purify’ Germany. (Below the renovated Berghof “mountain home”, bombed in 1945, now in ruins.)

Heinrich Himmler was thought weird even by Hitler, though both believed in the occult and ‘blood and soil’ mythology. Racial Germanic myths and symbols became Himmler’s religion. Too young for service in WWI, he craved militarism and soon gained a full portfolio of all internal and external police and security, his efficiency amplified by ruthless subordinate Reinhard Heydrich. They oversaw the extermination camps in which 11-14 million mostly Polish and Soviet citizens were killed. But pursuing his fetish, Himmler used camp slave labor to restore and embellish Wewelsburg Castle, dating from the early 1600’s, which he had acquired as an indoctrination center. It became a Nazi Camelot and the spiritual home of the SS where Himmler reenacted his fantasy of being a pre-Christian Saxon king. He took the forked cross (the swastika), a symbol of the sun throughout antiquity, coopting its beauty and humanity, likely forever. Wewelsburg, dubbed Nazi-land, is said to be an excursion for present day Germans as an object lesson of civil society run amok.

Joseph Goebbels: If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State. 

Dubbed the ‘Poison Dwarf’, Goebbels was a writer, womanizer, and ground-breaking propagandist. As minister, he controlled the press, including the ‘new media’ of radio and film, and applied commercial advertising to politics, employing slogans and subliminal cues to shape morale and public opinion. Propaganda became the art form under Goebbels that is now practiced cheerfully by our right wing (Stone, Hannity, Carlson, Limbaugh, etc). The external enemies were the Allies who subjugated Germany with reparations; the internal enemies were Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, Bolsheviks, and ‘degenerate’ social trends. Below, a poster in the U.S. Holocaust Museum reads: “Behind the enemy powers: the Jew”.

“The fat man ate, drank, and made riotously merry…..” wrote James Holland in World War II Magazine, 2016, about Hermann Göring, head of the Luftwaffe: “Göring’s dandy image made him a persistent figure of ridicule. But Hermann Göring was a colossus in every way: a wily Machiavellian with an outsize IQ, skilled at combining charm, guile, and ruthlessness to get what he wanted…..” Hitler called him “man of steel”. (Cartoon below)

Göring became president of the Reichstag and muscled Hitler’s path to a one-party state. He accumulated oligarchic power and extravagant wealth, but his eye was off the ball — the Luftwaffe was heading into war with capable bombers but ill thought-out, sometimes inhumane deployment of assets. Goring boasted that his fliers would wipe out the Allied retreat from Dunkirk. But the Royal Air Force defended strategically and 338,000 Allied troops escaped. Hubris also misled expectations about the Battle of Britain. British radar and (the first) strategic, coordinated air defense kept the carelessly deployed Luftwaffe at bay (below the Spitfire and Hurricane, British mainstays). That loss led to fighting on two-fronts (European and Soviet) and the Luftwaffe’s slow demise. New jet-powered planes enabled Göring to persuade Hitler that the Luftwaffe could rebound, making him Hitler’s chosen successor to the last few days. But Bormann loathed Göring and convinced Hitler he was a turncoat. Göring was arrested, but soon after, Hitler, Bormann, and the Reich were dead anyway. Himmler took poison after his British capture and Goring took cyanide moments before he was to be hung at Nuremberg.

As defeat closed in on Hitler, he gave the ‘Nero’ order to destroy Germany’s infrastructure. It wasn’t followed, and the rats began to scurry off the ship. A lack of knowledge, rigor, and humanity doomed the Nazi’s; the Allies were in possession of these virtues. In the last year, Hitler deteriorated physically and mentally, swinging from irrational euphoria to out-of-control rage, often hallucinating and delusional. Of all likely disease possibilities put forward by physicians (including tertiary syphilis and Parkinson’s), I like schizoaffective: brief reactive psychoses in a narcissistic personality unable to withstand reality.

The above post is written by our 

monthly correspondent, Lee Liberman

Our January Sunday Corner With Lee Liberman: THE CROWN -- Season Two

As intriguing story and stately pageant, Netflix’s streaming series, The Crown, continues to gleam. Peter Morgan, writer (below left, pictured with director, Stephen Daldry), treats the eyes and mind to the beauty and absurdity of the institution that we are at once possessive of, ga-ga over, and feel superior to — the British monarchy being our own origin story, the authoritarian regime that led us to create a democracy for ourselves. 

Right about now that constitutional monarchy is looking benign and not so absurd, compared to U.S. constitution fuzzies that have permitted exactly what we fought against in the 1700’s — authoritarian rule by an erratic, narcissistic, if not mentally ill leader. The British have since created their own democracy, walling off the Crown from Parliament, so that today it functions primarily as a large PR firm headquartered behind palace walls. Imbued with a deep sense of responsibility at home, Crown royalty work hard, some of them nearly 24/7, supporting charities and civic work that helps make Britain well-meaning, if not great.

Queen Elizabeth’s grandmother, Queen Mary (at right), held to the ‘divine right’ view of monarchy. She is said to have told Elizabeth: Monarchy is God’s sacred mission to grace and dignify the earth, to give ordinary people an ideal to strive towards…..

Of course, that was then. Elizabeth (the spectacular and very hard-working actress, Claire Foy) replies that her husband Prince Philip (Matt Smith) believes that church and state should be separate, that if God has servants, they are priests, not kings. Parliament steers its own track now, while the Crown’s adjustment to 21st century mores creeps forward. It offers a tone of caring and civic-mindedness — humanity absent in the U.S. of late.

In fact King George V (above, left), Elizabeth’s grandfather, broke with tradition to affirm that the House of Windsor owed its loyalty to the British people above all, and to establish the precedent of personal outreach and public service that the royals practice now. (A Netflix documentary, The Royal House of Windsor gives a full account of the history of the 100 year old dynasty.) Her parents, George VI and Elizabeth, outdid themselves bucking up the Brits during the blitz, remaining a presence in London (below).

Having been trained dutifully to serve, Elizabeth addressed the nation by radio on her 21st birthday: “my whole life, whether it be long or short, shall be devoted to your service.” Ms Foy portrays the model public servant. Every thought, every worry, every struggle appears on her face and in her eyes; the Queen’s earnestness is palpable.

Crown 2 offers another elegantly, expensively wrought 10 episodes each of which demonstrates, sometimes satirically, the clash between tradition and progress. There is threat to the royal marriage, education trauma for young Prince Charles, parliamentary crisis as England’s colonial domination slips, and for Elizabeth, learning on the job how to “be” with her subjects.

Take the episode, ‘Marionettes,’ in which the Queen delivers a staff-written, unknowingly condescending speech at a Jaguar auto plant that is promptly rebuked by a peer, Lord Altrincham (John Heffernan, above left, a character actor with a talent for satire and irony, shown with the real Altrincham, right). He calls her old-fashioned, priggish, and tone-deaf in the new age of republics replacing monarchies — his words ricocheting across British tabloids. Humble Elizabeth meets him in secret, where he offers suggestions, most involving her being more open and approachable, nearly all implemented in a year. Her first TV holiday greeting was a warm homily delivered in 1958 (below). The palace later conceded that Lord Altrincham did as much as anyone in the 20th century to help the monarchy.

Elizabeth’s flamboyant sister, Princess Margaret (Vanessa Kirby, below, right), gets two tabloid-ready chapters in her love-life following the debacle of her broken relationship with her father’s divorced equerry, Peter Townsend (the church still rigidly denying royal marriage to a divorce with a living spouse). Her next love is avant garde photographer Anthony Armstrong-Jones, later titled Lord Snowden. The versatile Matthew Goode (below, left) plays him as controlling and enormously sexy. Armstrong-Jones ran with a bohemian crowd of artists and intellectuals. He had several lovers while also romancing Margaret, including a married couple both of whom he had sex with, the wife pregnant with Tony’s child at Tony and Margaret’s wedding. The narrative suggests that his desire for her was partly fostered by his own mother’s disregard of him as the lesser of her sons and his need for her approval.

The marriage was happy for some years but eventually broke down, each of them willful and needing the spotlight, though they successfully raised two talented, artistic children and remained friends till Margaret’s death in 2002. Armstrong-Jones was the first commoner to marry into the royal family in 400 years, theirs was the first royal wedding televised (below), and their divorce the first since Henry VIII. (Prince Charles’s marriage to a divorcee has paved the way for Harry’s uncontroversial impending nuptials.)

One episode, Vergangenheit, (means ‘past’ or ‘past history’), was especially provocative and reverberates now—here. Peter Morgan’s narrative bobbed and weaved, so please watch Edward VIII, the Nazi King, also on Netflix, to get the full picture. According to this short documentary, the Brits were lucky to have the “divorcee” excuse to deny Elizabeth’s uncle David, new playboy King Edward VIII (Alex Jennings, below, left), his bride of choice, which led him to abdicate in favor of his brother, Elizabeth’s father, a man of responsible character. Our FBI had been watching David’s paramour, American Wallis Simpson (Lia Williams, below, right) because of her Nazi sympathies. President Roosevelt was fielding American anti-war sentiment on his way to war — he could not afford the glamorous duo rallying that sentiment into a movement.

David too was pro-German, seduced by Hitler’s charisma and power. He wanted to reconnect with his German ancestral roots decisively severed by his father because of anti-German sentiment in England during World War I. George V dropped the German family name in 1917, inventing ‘House of Windsor’ (named after one of their palaces) for the sake of "Englishness."

David’s attraction to power played out in his love for Wallis: she was the dominatrix; he the submissive. His admiration for Hitler was narcissistic and naïve; his public statements argued against Britain’s call for war with Germany in the name of “peace.” Meanwhile, Hitler feted and cultivated the couple for future use (as Putin has done with Trump). Hitler’s ambassador to Britain, Joachim Ribbentrop, had an affair with Wallis while she and David were courting; she remained Ribbentrop’s confidante for years, passing him British secrets. FBI and (literally dug up) German war files reveal that David was being groomed as Hitler’s puppet king, if/when Germany conquered Britain. David believed the continued bombing of London would lead his brother, King George VI, to surrender — a revelation that horrified his family. To David, Nazism was a self-evident good; he was mystified, angered at his family’s rejection (in the face of) his “peaceful” and “noble” ambitions. (In the first season of The Crown, the family disdain of David and Wallis seemed overly cruel; only in Crown 2, do we find out why.)

Because loose-lipped David had already hurt the war effort, especially tipping Germany to choose the least defended route to invade France, Churchill contrived to keep the couple as distant as possible. They were kept out of England and shunned by the royals, even by his mother, Queen Mary. In the end Parliament leadership was grateful that Wallis’s divorces kept David from the throne and the crisis his rule might have provoked. Fortunately he was too passive and shallow to overcome the constraints placed on him — but what if he had been strong and manipulative?

Given that both our nations have verged on authoritarianism in the modern era, one is left to ponder whether either system has more to offer than the other in so far as protecting our inalienable rights.

The above post was written by 

our monthly correspondent, 

Lee Liberman.

Netflix's latest: a James C. Strouse trifle titled THE INCREDIBLE JESSICA JAMES

Not terribly bad, but unfortunately not very good either, THE INCREDIBLE JESSICA JAMES, starring an either miscast or mis-directed Jessica Williams, makes its streaming debut via Netflix this Friday, July 28. As written and directed by James C. Strouse (shown below and who, as Jim Strouse, did a hell of a lot better with his earlier People Places Things), this thankfully short movie introduces us to a character who, in current rom-com fashion, is incredibly inappropriate.

Except when, conveniently, she isn't. This little matter of conveniences sticks out throughout the film like a sore thumb. You may notice it first as Jessica has a date with a new guy (Chris O'Dowd, as delightful and real as always) and suddenly decides to have a few "honest" moments. Great. But then we're back to the nonsense again. Our girl Jessica (below) is a control freak, and this is understandable when so many things in her life are going wrong -- from significant others to the workplace to her lifelong love of theater.

Nonetheless, the girl is, as they say, a handful, carrying her inappropriateness into every area of her life. At best she's mildly amusing; at worst, she's just annoying. -- never more so than at the family baby shower for her younger sister (below), at which her gift is both dumb and, yes, inappropriate.

The themes here include how to fit into things, what divorce does to children, hook-ups vs relationships, and commitment -- to everything from a man to the theater. Plenty of little life lessons are learned along the way, all worked out sweetly and conveniently, and, as with most rom-coms these days, much too quickly and easily.

I don't think I've seen Ms Williams in anything other than Mr. Strouse's earlier People Places Things, in which she was quite good. I suspect that she is not being shown to her best here, but as Mr. O'Dowd (above) notes at one point, she does have a beautiful smile.

If you're interested, the only place to see The Incredible Jessica James right now (starting this Friday, anyway) is via Netflix streaming. So: your move. (That's Lakeith Stanfield, above, left, who plays Jessica's ex very well, even though his character, too, seems only quasi-real.)