HBO's YEARS AND YEARS: Another surprising gem from the brilliant Russell T. Davies

We have been graced so far with only two episodes of the six-part series, YEARS AND YEARS, but if the following four are as good -- timely, prescient, frightening and utterly serious (yet with a lovely, light touch) -- this might just be the cable television series of the year. It is the creation of one, Russell T. Davies (shown below), who has already given us Torchwood, Cucumber, Banana, A Very English Scandal and Queer as Folk (among much else), so he hardly needs further bona fides. This new series, however, breaks new ground and may be his best yet.

Mr. Davies begins in the just-about now, in England, a country which, though frightened of the increasing stupidity, venality and craziness of America's Donald Trump, seems to be taking a turn toward increasing right-wing nationalism -- in the person of fledgling politician, Vivienne Rook (played to perfection by Emma Thompson, below).

Technology continues to give us new toys and surprises, a few of which are seen here, but employment and wages also continue to falter, even as the banking industry sleazes to new lows, while the wealthy grow even wealthier.

Same old same old, yet in Years and Years, the focus in on family, one extended example in particular. And Davies has created its individual members with his usual brilliant use of specifics and generics that join to give us a wonderfully alive and believable bunch.

Some of these folk are surprisingly into the politics of the scary-but-all-too-real Ms Rook (above), mostly because she seems to be speaking "truth to power" (just as some foolish Americans imagined was true of Donald Trump). Her slow, steady rise mirrors ironically the decline of our "group hero" family, as it endures problems of love relationships, immigration and deportation, Lehman Brothers-like collapse of banks, and a willingness to allow technology to take over one's entire body. (That last one takes us firmly into Black Mirror territory.)

Yes, we're only one-third into this series, but already we're hooked, frightened, amused, turned-on, and a whole lot more. The ace cast includes Russell Tovey (he of those magnificent ears, above, center right), Rory Kinnear (at left, top row, below), Anne Reid (below, above the computer), and lots more -- each of whom may be doing career-best work.

As is Mr. Davies. The man has given us the here-and-now, as well as a remarkably astute preview of what is to come. And while it ain't pretty, the fact that our family (some of them, anyway) soldiers on and maybe survives, is something to cherish. For as long as it lasts....

This British production, originally seen via the BBC, is being shown here in the USA on HBO, on Monday nights. Set your DVR.

Blu-ray/DVDebut for Olivier Assayas' genre-jumping jumble, PERSONAL SHOPPER

Yes, Kristen Stewart is always an interesting actress to watch, and after putting her through the paces -- and then some -- while helping her win a first-ever César award for an American actress via his remarkable Clouds of Sils Maria, French filmmaker Olivier Assayas (shown below) has collaborated again with Ms Stewart on a movie that, while never uninteresting, unfortunately never comes together in any genuinely meaningful way.

Instead, PERSONAL SHOPPER offers so much genre jumping -- from ghost story to murder mystery to fashion-plate parade to technology thriller to identity crisis to (no? yes!) a look at the French real estate market -- that by the time this film has come to its dead-halt finale, and the would-be ghost has answered the all-important question via a certain number of knocks, if you have not already given up in frustration or nodded off to dreamland, you're likely moan aloud, as I did, "Yeah, I figured as much. But so fucking what?!"

Now, M. Assayas has genre-jumped previously. Demonlover, in fact, is one of his most remarkable, ugly and joyous treasures. But here, as writer (of screenplay and dialog) as well as the director, he is working primarily in the English language, as he did in Clean and Boarding Gate, two of his least successful films. And he simply does not possess a gift for this. His dialog is too often ordinary and lifeless when it ought to be precise and probing.

Ms Stewart (shown above and below) is saddled with way too much of this tiresome dialog, and since she is a subtle but not particularly versatile actress, and since her character here is the most important thing in the film, that dialog ought to help her explore and deepen that character. It does not.

Rather, it allows the actress -- who relies to an awfully great extent to a single expression, or if we're lucky maybe two (to which all the stills above and below will attest) -- to simply "be herself" -- which is believable enough, all right, but not very interesting or meaningful in this case.

Her character, Maureen, has recently lost her brother to untimely death, and it would appear that his ghost may be trying to communicate with her (being a "medium" to the spirit world seem to run in their family).

So we get occasional "appearances" by this spirit world, and between shopping trips for her uber-wealthy client, someone/thing is also trying to reach her via cell phone. Because of this, we get rather lengthy texted conversations (M. Assayas proves better with texting dialog than with the speaking version).

Eventually Maureen discovers a dead body, the police are called in, and the murderer (there's really been only a single suspect here, so any "mystery" proves pretty paltry) is quickly caught. Then we're off to Africa for a bit more soul-searching. Trouble is, there just isn't much soul to search.

The movie is almost entirely comprised of Ms Stewart, and the actress is always a pleasure to watch -- even here, without much of a story to surround her. Nothing we see or hear seems all that substantial or even believable.

So I suspect that, in the case of this new film, Assayas was simply diddling or doodling away the time, trying to come up with a story, situation and character that will make his cobbled-together and rather goofy ideas cohere. He doesn't manage this, but he'll bounce back. He always does. (Summer Hours, for example, is one of the richest family/possessions films ever.)

Meanwhile Personal Shopper, from The Criterion Collection and running a too-long 105 minutes, arrives this coming Tuesday, October 24, on Blu-ray and DVD, for purchase and/or rental. 

Time, memory, mortality, character converge in Michael Almereyda's MARJORIE PRIME

It's the future, right, so this must be sci-fi? Yes, but writer/director Michael Almereyda has more on his mind than space ships, aliens, replicants or time travel. His latest film (his last one, the personal-history/documentary, Escapes,  just opened a few weeks back), MARJORIE PRIME, is more concerned with the way we use the latest technology we're given, and then -- as in Spike Jonze's wonderful Her, and the British TV Black Mirror segment, Be Right Back -- goes just a few steps beyond where we currently find ourselves and into quite a new world. This world looks a lot like our own, yet allows us to do so much more -- the end results of which are both helpful and maybe not so. With new technology comes new challenge.

In my last review of Mr. Almeyerda's work, I noted how empathetic this director, pictured at right, so often is. Here, that empathy extends to the "Prime" of the title (there are, it turns out, a number of these). A "Prime" is a kind of holographic creation of a recently deceased person, whom those left behind -- wife, husband, daughter, whoever -- can use to assuage the grief, guilt and any of those many feelings/problems that remain unresolved once a loved one has died. The first Prime we meet in the film is Walter, Marjorie's late husband, embodied here by actor Jon Hamm (shown at left, above and below), as a younger version of the man. Marjorie herself (played by Lois Smith, shown at right, above and below) is now aged and suffering from off-and-on dementia.

The film's other leading characters are Marjorie's adult daughter (Geena Davis, below) and her husband (Tim Robbins, further below), who clearly have mixed feelings about this use of a Prime, even if, as it does indeed appear, this is helpful to mom.

Almereyda, who both wrote and directed, gives us movies that are always intellectual feats. This one is just such a film -- and even more so than usual, I would say. It is supremely elegant and quiet, full of discussion about the uses and mis-uses of memory, along with how it works. Characters' memories allow us to see flashbacks of certain important moments, as well as to better understand the ongoing relationship between these four people, one of whom, Walter, exists almost only as a Prime.

Along the way, two other characters also become Prime, which makes for some surprise and further investigation (of mortality and grief, among other things). In Jonze's Her, the "machine" develops feelings, personality and much else that we might call human. Almereyda's Primes seem to do so, as well, but on a much less obvious scale and manner.

While the filmmaker and his creations are subtle and never push for our sympathy, they do empathize with our human feelings and failings -- and very well, too. Yet the film itself is rigorously unsentimental.

The performances are striking, intensely specific and deeply felt. The ensemble works beautifully together, keeping us ever on our toes as we watch and listen intently, calibrating who these people are -- both humans and their Primes -- and how much the latter are becoming, or at least mimicking quite beautifully, the former. All the actors are terrific, but Mr. Robbins, ever under-rated, is as good here as I have seen him.

The movie's final scene is one of great beauty, sadness, and surprise. You will wonder at it in both amazement and acceptance. Almereyda, like Jonze, seems non-judgmental (hence, perhaps, his great empathy), and unlike Black Mirror's Charlie Brooker, he does no finger-wagging. In any case, he has come up with one of the most unusual films of the year -- a must-see, I think, for thinking audiences.

From FilmRise and running 97 minutes, Marjorie Prime opens this Friday, August 18, in New York City at the Quad Cinema, in the Los Angeles area at Laemmle's Playhouse 7  and Monica Film Center, in San Francisco at The Roxie, in San Rafael at the Smith Rafael Film Center, and in Arlington, MA, at the Regent Theater.  The following Friday, it will open in another ten venues. Click here (then scroll down) to view all currently scheduled playdates, theaters, and cities.

First time on DVD! THE IT CROWD: The Complete Series -- from MPI Media Group

Watching one of British television's (hell, television from anywhere) great series, THE IT CROWD, which ran from 2006 through 2013, proves just as spectacularly funny and off-the-wall an experience today, via the new DVD release of the complete series from MPI Media Group, as it did discovering it for yourself via the various sources it has graced down the years since its debut. If there is a single drawback, that would be the crass and stupid laugh track that accompanies it -- and which seems even louder and more crass now, sometimes nearly drowning out the delightful dialog, than it did a decade ago when the series made its debut.

The product of a very creative, talented and probably slightly unhinged writer/ director named Graham Linehan (shown at left), the show mixes to marvelous effect the talents of this funny fellow with those of his just-about-perfectly tailored cast of three leading actors plus several excellent supporting ones. Add to this the choice of the ideal workplace and occupation: the IT (Internet Technology) department located in the scuzzy basement quarters of a major corporation that seems to produce nothing and is run by perhaps the most obtuse, narcissistic and hilarious of bosses (think a British version of Donald Trump, if that sleazeball idiot were at all -- except for his appearance -- funny).

How all this works together for maximum effect -- silliness (based closely enough on reality to smart and sting) goosed into great, hilarious mountains of humor that arrives equally from character and situation -- is the stuff of legend. The cast, most of whom have gone on to some renown, includes Chris O'Dowd (above, center, and at bottom), Katherine Parkinson (above, left, and below) and Richard Ayoade (above, right, and at bottom)

Among the great episodes (there are many) is the one about the speech having to do with the Internet, in which one of our trio actually shows the audience the Internet itself! This is, I think, one of the funniest episodes I have ever seen because it makes such great use of so much that we think we know (and don't know) about the way we live now, while providing its characters (and actors) with the juiciest of moments to run with. And, oh god, they do.

A word must be said for subsidiary actors like Matt Berry (above, as the boss) and Noel Fielding (below, as, well, you'll discover who he is), both of whom add such bizarre and memorable moments to the show.

I do wish this amazing series could be separated from its god-awful laugh track. But I suppose we must be grateful for what blessings we have. And those, my friends, are copious indeed.

The new Five-Disc Boxed Set of the complete series hits the street this coming Tuesday, November 1, from MPI Media Group and includes the entire four seasons, plus the stand-alone program, The Internet Is Coming, which has never before been available here in the USA -- and is every bit as funny and wonderful as all that preceded it. Extras include a very nice 16-minute interview with Linehan and his cast.  

DREAMS REWIRED: Luksch, Reinhart & Tode's poetic & amusing look at communication and technology down the decades

The talk seems all about "now," and yet the visuals of DREAMS REWIRED offer up the past in all its bizarre splendor. The movie in question is a new documentary that wittily combines mankind's need for communication and entertainment with poetry, technology, philosophy, history and marketing. Add to this a splendid narration from none other than Tilda Swinton, who reads the cleverly allusive script with her usual panache, and you have a recipe for very smart art-house entertainment.

As written and directed by the trio of Manu Luksch (shown at right), Martin Reinhart (below, left) and Thomas Tode (further below, right) -- with some help in the writing department from Mukul Patel -- the documentary is immediately charming and challenging, as it plies you with information -- along with funny, unusual visuals -- so fast that you dare not blink. A collaboration of Austria, Germany and the UK, the doc's visuals -- even though they have most to do with movies, television, telephones, wireless and the like -- come

not from the usual Hollywood-laden archives of most American documentaries. No, these arrive in large part via Europe and the UK and so offer us Americans a distinctly different look at a subject we thought we knew all too well. All of this is also quite different in ways too varied and bizarre to describe in detail (which would ruin their surprise, in any case), and they impart not only a smart visual sense to the film, but a lot of humor and even occasional grace, as well. They also make quite a good match for the sometimes odd but always on-target narration, as voiced by Ms Swinton, whose

lustrous yet highly intelligent voice lends itself well to the often telling, wide-ranging implications of this tale of communication, entertainment, marketing and societal behavior. Dreams Rewired, you see, is not content to simply offer up a little history and a lot of fun, along with reams of archival photos coupled to a smart narrative that manages to be both thoughtful and poetic. It also wants to challenge us rather fiercely to put all this together and run with it to a genuine conclusion.  Unfortunately, it does not always make this so easy to manage.

For whatever reason (perhaps because some or even much of the archival material was itself undated?) , the filmmaker have seen fit to leave out any dates entirely. Consequently, my spouse and I found ourselves too often wondering (aloud or to ourselves), "What year was this?" Also, the film seems to go back and forth in time, covering the same technology but in perhaps different eras. (Television seems to rear its head as a "new" attraction multiple times.)

And yet, so unusual and imaginative are the visuals (and the use of these) and the ideas that constantly bubble up throughout the 85-minute movie, that I suspect you'll be happy to give it a pass regarding its odd time-line.

If only for the chance to see that early "cell" phone whose wires evidently had to be wrapped around a fire hydrant (something metal, at least), or the chic woman's garters that concealed an early form of radio, or a scene from an early (probably Russian) sci-fi movie (above), the wealth of fun to be found here -- and then somehow dealt with -- is extraordinary. (Snippets of over 200 films are said to have been used throughout the documentary!)

Dreams Rewired, released by Icarus Films, opens for its world theatrical premiere in New York City at Film Forum on Wednesday, December 16, for a one-week run; in Houston at 14 Pews on December 17, and in Chicago (at Facets Cinémathèque), Los Angeles, (at Laemmle's NoHo 7) and Santa Fe (at The Screen) on Friday, December 18. Click here, then scroll down to the correct movie to see all currently scheduled playdates, cities and theaters.

10.000 KM: Carlos Marques-Marcet's long-distance love story is hot, cool -- and real

Anyone who's ever been in, is now, or plans to undertake a long-distance love relationship will prove a shoo-in for viewing 10.000 KM, the new film from Spanish writer/director Carlos Marques-Marcet, his first full-length work. By turns sweet, funny, angry, sad (and a lot more in between), the movie should grab you from its opening shot -- of a couple cumming -- in which, while the sex is plenty hot and intimate, the talk that accompanies it proves even more so. These two lovebirds are fascinating to watch at work and at play.

Has Senor Marques-Marcet himself (the director is shown at right) been in this kind of relationship? Whether yes or no, the guy has captured the essence of it all, in particular the manner in which modern  technology allows us to appear to be "keeping in touch" while actually drifting farther apart and feeling additionally frustrated because we would seem to be so "close."  The director gives equal play to both his young man and young woman, doling out the good and not-so-good character-istics pretty equally and always deftly.

As the relationship grows (and maybe unravels), we peer into the themes of work and career vs relationship intimacy, as well as into male vs female needs and behavior. Humor and sadness bubble up in unlikely places -- trying to prepare a cooking recipe via Skype, dancing together while holding their laptops aloft -- and so do anger and hurt. As for sex, well, 10.000 KM proves rather definitively that in-person beats the hell out of digital every time.

The movie is a two-hander, something very difficult to maintain, and in recent seasons only the one-hander, Locke, has done this sort of thing any better. This is thanks to Marques-Marcet's skill and to the two actors he has used so well and who deliver performances that are about as real as you could wish. Who is the stronger character is a question that is raised as we move along, and the answer may surprise and unsettle you a bit. The actors chosen by the filmmaker also prove spectacularly well cast -- as sexy and real as each is talented and versatile.

David Verdaguer (above, right) -- those deep, dark eyes and lean, lithe body! -- proves as gorgeous and pliable as you could wish. Clothed or nude, he is always at his best, and the journey his character makes, in terms of both physical distance and emotions, is one that this actor brings to thrilling life.

Natalia Tena (above) is equally good -- visually and emotionally -- as a woman who works hard to understand her various roles and make them coalesce. Her explanation of how and why her man loves her is one of the highlights of the film. While her character's great strength is clear, so is her abiding need for both his kindness and his cock.

My only complaint is that the filmmaker has chosen to divide his movie in sections based on the days apart the couple has spent -- beginning with Day 2 and ending, if I am not mistaken, with Day 201. In between, we get days 16, 33, 40, 51, 71, 91, 93, 101, 106, 128, 132, 135, 141, 142, 155, 160, 162 and 171. I'm all for specificity, but this is overkill. Also, should we begin parsing the actual time between days -- hey, that early period was two weeks, but this last one spans more than three! -- we'll miss important moments having to do with the behavior on view.

Otherwise, 10.000 KM proves a model independent movie: genuine, thoughtful, amusing, moving and disturbing. If you're a fan of love stories, this may be the best you'll get this year (after the enchanting, adult fairy tale 5 to 7, of course).

From Broadgreen Pictures and running 99 minutes, the movie opens today, Friday, July 10, in New York City at the IFC Center, in Los Angeles at the Sundance Sunset Cinemas -- and will expand to other theaters around the country beginning next week.  For those of you not near NYC and L.A.,  the film hits VOD simultaneous to its theatrical debut today.