I have to power through the little things to get to the big stuff - because FUCK THE BIG STUFF
I have to get my mind off the end of Philippine history the election results and the anxiety of waiting for a job offer somehow. So, here are my not fully thought out-thoughts on the shows/stuff I consumed last week.
We Own This City, S1E2 (produced for HBO by George Pelecanos & David Simon, 2022)
Themes: the same themes from the Wire (literally), the Baltimore PD, corruption in the police and justice systems, race relations and injustices, crime and drugs
I was super excited about this show because I'm a huge fan of David Simon. At least when it comes to the themes and setting, We Own This City (WOTC) shares a lot with the Wire. Both shows feature the Baltimore PD and deal with issues about crime, politics, class, and race relations in the city. But WOTC differ in source material (The Wire is an original series, while We Own This City is based on a book by Justin Fenton) which ultimately shapes its deviation in approach and storytelling.
Whereas the Wire unfolds in an almost obsessively linear way where like a chess piece you can only go forward, WOTC spirals. It jumps between timelines to show how all the different actors - the Civil Rights Division (CRD) of the DOJ, the FBI, the IAD, the City Mayor's Office, the Plainclothes and Beat Cops, and the Gun Trace Task Force - come together around the problem of policing, which is epitomized by the case against Sgt. Wayne Jenkins (played by hottie of the every season John Bernthal).
WOTC is not slow and procedural like the Wire. Sure, it benefits from the spatial context of Baltimore that was laid down by the latter. But it takes liberties with the way it depicts time and relies on other devices to illustrate the story.
For example, Lovecraft alum and fave Wunmi Mosaku plays an attorney for the CRD who, in the second episode, kind of goes around making expository comments on how bad police corruption is.
Which, for me, is something... different. I don't know if I like it yet. Right now, it just reminds me of how much I appreciate The Wire's character-driven storytelling because it leaves judgement up to the audience. The Wire is a show where every single character moment paints a careful and nuanced picture that adds depth and a feeling of authenticity to the bigger story.
The current format of WOTC doesn't really have the room for that kind development. It accommodates a heavy-handed tone that the Wire was very careful to eschew. It doesn't mince words about the failures of policing and how those failures are not just abetted by the system, but encouraged. This time around, the show runners make it very clear that corruption in the police force is a feature, not a bug.
There's still 2/3 of the show to go and I'm really enjoying it so far.
Russian Doll, S2 (produced for Netflix by Natashas Lyonne and Amy Poehler, 2022)
Themes: time travel (and a new way of expressing it???), generational trauma, trains! as a metaphor for crossing lifetimes, east Germany, nazis, hungarian sewers, hungarian nuclear plant nightclubs, hungarian treasure hunts, krugerrands
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In Season 2, Nadia deals with the death of a loved one. And while Season 1 uses the timeloop to unearth all of Nadia's repressed issues, Season 2 uses subway time travel to explore generational trauma and how it became part of Nadia's inheritance. It's as jarring and complex as it sounds.
There were a couple of episodes that gave me so much anxiety that I almost didn't think I was going to finish it. For example, the episode where [Spoiler (click to open)]Nadia loses the krugerrands on the way home from her mother's timeline and the where [Spoiler (click to open)]she gets a hold of her grandmother's inheritance in Budapest. I was afraid she was going to lose it again!!!
But in the end they were able to wrap things up. Nadia made peace with her past and learned how to live in the present.
Which is...wew. How very timely for me, huh?
Last Saturday I watched the Makati rally from a coffee shop in Tanay. I had to drive my dad to Pinugay to oversee this painstaking land acquisition that was started by my grandfather. I will never forget that day. We all felt like we were standing on the precipice of a new history being made. It wasn't lost on me how removed I was from the movement, stewing in resentment in the mountains as I ran errands for an inheritance from my very pro-Marcos grandfather. We were busy recovering the past while the rest of my generation clamored for our future. Little did I know how symbolic, how prophetic that day was going to be.
I'm not going to mince words about the new Marcos regime. Throughout Duterte's administration, plenty of veterans and young activists talked about how every government transgression that forced us into the streets in the past six years was a step closer towards the larger scheme of placing the Marcoses back into power. I used to think that it was a dark, paranoid fantasy that didn't account for the greed of new players - like the Dutertes - or the plotting of other clans - like the Arroyos.
But alas, the paranoid fantasy has become a fact.
And it is frightening - I'm not gonna lie. Everyone I know is literally looking for a way out. Amidst this, Nadia's story tumbles around in the back of my head. Every day is filled with conversations of what to do, where to go, should we migrate and where. I have rid myself long ago of apologists for Duterte and for Marcos. But for others it's a whole new experience severing ties with loved ones over politics.
B and I have been talking about our family, our relationship with this country, what is being asked of us, and what kind of lives we dream of living. We're in our 30s now. We've gotten over the surprise of learning just how deeply history is woven into our lives. How often I look at the mirror and see my mom, how often I dream of my grandparents' sense of peace, how often I dread the bursts of anger I do not understand. There is no place in the world we can run to that will be far enough from the call of home. We carry it with us wherever we go.
At the core, Russian Doll Season 2 is a story about confronting the resentment that Nadia feels about things that are out of her control. There is ultimately nothing you can do about where you come from. You can't forget it, you can't change it.
Russian Doll Season 2 is a messy, jarring story of understanding that most of the people in our lives - past and present - are just like us, trying to do their best with what they'd been given. And, honestly, that's all we can do.
I'm not sure what I'm going to do in the next few days, in the next few months. But whatever it is, though it maybe tinged with fear and despair, I hope in my heart that it remains done largely, predominantly, out of love and hope.
Macbeth (directed by the Coen brothers, 2021)
Themes: bloodlust, murder, vengeance, birds, witches, my anxiety reading the elections into every monologue
That said. Macbeth is my favorite Shakespeare play.
From what we fear, yet know not what we fear, but float upon a wild and violent sea each way and none. - Ross, Macbeth
Incident in a Ghostland (directed by Pascal Laugier, 2018)
Themes: rape, home invasion, trauma, home re-invasion, re-trauma, ????
I couldn't finish it. I would like to finish it some other time but it filled me with so much dread. Plus, my sister was sitting right next to me. But considering everything that's been going on, I think the movie's theme of "bad history repeats itself" can't be worse than my reality.
We Own This City, S1E2 (produced for HBO by George Pelecanos & David Simon, 2022)
Themes: the same themes from the Wire (literally), the Baltimore PD, corruption in the police and justice systems, race relations and injustices, crime and drugs
I was super excited about this show because I'm a huge fan of David Simon. At least when it comes to the themes and setting, We Own This City (WOTC) shares a lot with the Wire. Both shows feature the Baltimore PD and deal with issues about crime, politics, class, and race relations in the city. But WOTC differ in source material (The Wire is an original series, while We Own This City is based on a book by Justin Fenton) which ultimately shapes its deviation in approach and storytelling.
Whereas the Wire unfolds in an almost obsessively linear way where like a chess piece you can only go forward, WOTC spirals. It jumps between timelines to show how all the different actors - the Civil Rights Division (CRD) of the DOJ, the FBI, the IAD, the City Mayor's Office, the Plainclothes and Beat Cops, and the Gun Trace Task Force - come together around the problem of policing, which is epitomized by the case against Sgt. Wayne Jenkins (played by hottie of the every season John Bernthal).
WOTC is not slow and procedural like the Wire. Sure, it benefits from the spatial context of Baltimore that was laid down by the latter. But it takes liberties with the way it depicts time and relies on other devices to illustrate the story.
For example, Lovecraft alum and fave Wunmi Mosaku plays an attorney for the CRD who, in the second episode, kind of goes around making expository comments on how bad police corruption is.
Which, for me, is something... different. I don't know if I like it yet. Right now, it just reminds me of how much I appreciate The Wire's character-driven storytelling because it leaves judgement up to the audience. The Wire is a show where every single character moment paints a careful and nuanced picture that adds depth and a feeling of authenticity to the bigger story.
The current format of WOTC doesn't really have the room for that kind development. It accommodates a heavy-handed tone that the Wire was very careful to eschew. It doesn't mince words about the failures of policing and how those failures are not just abetted by the system, but encouraged. This time around, the show runners make it very clear that corruption in the police force is a feature, not a bug.
There's still 2/3 of the show to go and I'm really enjoying it so far.
Russian Doll, S2 (produced for Netflix by Natashas Lyonne and Amy Poehler, 2022)
Themes: time travel (and a new way of expressing it???), generational trauma, trains! as a metaphor for crossing lifetimes, east Germany, nazis, hungarian sewers, hungarian nuclear plant nightclubs, hungarian treasure hunts, krugerrands
In Season 2, Nadia deals with the death of a loved one. And while Season 1 uses the timeloop to unearth all of Nadia's repressed issues, Season 2 uses subway time travel to explore generational trauma and how it became part of Nadia's inheritance. It's as jarring and complex as it sounds.
There were a couple of episodes that gave me so much anxiety that I almost didn't think I was going to finish it. For example, the episode where [Spoiler (click to open)]Nadia loses the krugerrands on the way home from her mother's timeline and the where [Spoiler (click to open)]she gets a hold of her grandmother's inheritance in Budapest. I was afraid she was going to lose it again!!!
But in the end they were able to wrap things up. Nadia made peace with her past and learned how to live in the present.
Which is...wew. How very timely for me, huh?
Last Saturday I watched the Makati rally from a coffee shop in Tanay. I had to drive my dad to Pinugay to oversee this painstaking land acquisition that was started by my grandfather. I will never forget that day. We all felt like we were standing on the precipice of a new history being made. It wasn't lost on me how removed I was from the movement, stewing in resentment in the mountains as I ran errands for an inheritance from my very pro-Marcos grandfather. We were busy recovering the past while the rest of my generation clamored for our future. Little did I know how symbolic, how prophetic that day was going to be.
I'm not going to mince words about the new Marcos regime. Throughout Duterte's administration, plenty of veterans and young activists talked about how every government transgression that forced us into the streets in the past six years was a step closer towards the larger scheme of placing the Marcoses back into power. I used to think that it was a dark, paranoid fantasy that didn't account for the greed of new players - like the Dutertes - or the plotting of other clans - like the Arroyos.
But alas, the paranoid fantasy has become a fact.
And it is frightening - I'm not gonna lie. Everyone I know is literally looking for a way out. Amidst this, Nadia's story tumbles around in the back of my head. Every day is filled with conversations of what to do, where to go, should we migrate and where. I have rid myself long ago of apologists for Duterte and for Marcos. But for others it's a whole new experience severing ties with loved ones over politics.
B and I have been talking about our family, our relationship with this country, what is being asked of us, and what kind of lives we dream of living. We're in our 30s now. We've gotten over the surprise of learning just how deeply history is woven into our lives. How often I look at the mirror and see my mom, how often I dream of my grandparents' sense of peace, how often I dread the bursts of anger I do not understand. There is no place in the world we can run to that will be far enough from the call of home. We carry it with us wherever we go.
At the core, Russian Doll Season 2 is a story about confronting the resentment that Nadia feels about things that are out of her control. There is ultimately nothing you can do about where you come from. You can't forget it, you can't change it.
Russian Doll Season 2 is a messy, jarring story of understanding that most of the people in our lives - past and present - are just like us, trying to do their best with what they'd been given. And, honestly, that's all we can do.
I'm not sure what I'm going to do in the next few days, in the next few months. But whatever it is, though it maybe tinged with fear and despair, I hope in my heart that it remains done largely, predominantly, out of love and hope.
Macbeth (directed by the Coen brothers, 2021)
Themes: bloodlust, murder, vengeance, birds, witches, my anxiety reading the elections into every monologue
That said. Macbeth is my favorite Shakespeare play.
From what we fear, yet know not what we fear, but float upon a wild and violent sea each way and none. - Ross, Macbeth
Incident in a Ghostland (directed by Pascal Laugier, 2018)
Themes: rape, home invasion, trauma, home re-invasion, re-trauma, ????
I couldn't finish it. I would like to finish it some other time but it filled me with so much dread. Plus, my sister was sitting right next to me. But considering everything that's been going on, I think the movie's theme of "bad history repeats itself" can't be worse than my reality.