This month's list features many "& more" programs amid a bunch of movies that I had not seen before. Numbering picks up from previous months and new programs are indicated by an asterisk. The rating scale is 1-5 cans of tuna, with 5 being the top rating.
119. 911/One Day in America* (2021, National Geographic Channel, Hulu) – This 6-part documentary is a sobering recount of the events of that fateful day, now 20 years in our past. There are moments of futility, wrenching sadness and times that uplift the human spirit. This is not the kind of program you can enjoy, but it is one that we all should see to remember what happened that day and to appreciate the heroics of the firefighters, police, rescue personnel, medical staff and ordinary citizens who risked or lost their lives trying to save others. 4 cans.
120. 9/11 (2015, CNN) – Two French brothers who were shooting a documentary about a young firefighter had their cameras rolling when the first plane hit the World Trade Center and kept rolling through the second plane strike, the collapse of both of the Twin Towers and even into the following day, as the heroic firefighters dug through rubble looking for survivors. The engine company battalion chief here lost his brother, but most of the firefighters in the film made it out alive. Much of the footage is used in the movie listed above. 4 cans and a giant lump in the throat.
121. Click Bait* (2021, Netflix) – Don’t even start this 8-part series unless you have time to sit down and watch the whole thing, because you will be hooked immediately. The story centers on Nick Brewer (Adrian Grenier), a man who is kidnapped and recorded by his captors holding up signs claiming he abused and killed women. The video goes viral, with the warning that once it gets 5,000 views he will be killed. Now it is a race against time to try to track him down, with police and amateur sleuths who are experts in social media getting involved. There are plenty of suspects, red herrings and skeletons in the closets of many people on the case. The action rarely lets up. Good cast full of actors new to me, with Zoe Kazan as Nick’s sister Pia the best of the bunch. 4 cans.
122. Titletown High School* (2021, Netflix) – Welcome to “Friday Night Lights” in the real town of Valdosta, Georgia, where the legendary high school state champs have seen their program slide. Controversial Coach Rush Probst has been brought in to turn around the once mighty program, and he is used to doing things his way. Too much of this 8-part series focuses on teenage relationship drama (is cute Morgan too much of a distraction for young quarterback Amari? Does anyone really care whether seldom used defender Grayson wants to be with Zoey or Lenley?) and there is much less actual coaching and more general exhortations to the team about their abilities. Six parts would have been better at limiting the less important stuff. High school football, whether it is in Alabama (see Probst’s last series, “Two-A-Days” from his time at Alabama’s Hoover High) or Georgia or Texas (home of FNL) is depicted as being the most important thing in the lives of all concerned, with little regard for the future of the players (the series rarely mentions college opportunities for the players until the very end). The coaching practices, the raising of money, recruiting players, the ever-present boosters, all seem unseemly – because they are – even though it is reality. If you watched “Last Chance U” or “QB1,” this series is for you. 3½ cans.
123. Boatlift* (YouTube) – On the morning of the 20th anniversary of 9/11, I was glued to the TV, watching live coverage and listening to the reading of the names of the nearly 3,000 people who died in this horrific tragedy. But this very short (12 minutes) film gave me an actual lift. It is the account of how boats in the New Yok area came to the rescue of the people who made their way to lower Manhattan to get out of the city when the buildings fell. There were party boats, ferryboats and just about anything that floated that converged to rescue the people trapped on the Island. These were people who did their part in the tragedy to help strangers and whose role in rescuing a half a million people was a story I hadn’t known, and one worth seeing. 4 cans.
124. Once Upon a Time in Queens* (2021, ESPN) – This four-part documentary about the 1986 World Champion New York Mets is part of the ESPN “30 for 30” franchise. The lovable losers who captured the hearts of New York with their improbable 1969 World Series win had fallen on hard times in the years between then and the mid-1980s, until General Manager Frank Cashen brought in his old Orioles manager, Davey Johnson, to take the reins of a club that was suddenly flush with talent. Homegrown players Darryl Strawberry and Dwight Gooden were baseball phenoms and key trades brought professional hitters and leaders like Keith Hernandez, Gary Carter and Ray Knight to the clubhouse. No doubt this crew was ready to excel – as long as some nasty habits didn’t get in the way. According to this series, most of the team partied as hard as they played, drinking and using drugs on airplanes, frequenting nightclubs and chasing women. Davey Johnson as the manager was inclined to leave them along as long they showed up at the ballpark and played hard. But the early success, riches and pressures faced by young Gooden and Strawberry proved too much for them, and they both developed major league drug problems that shortened and interrupted what might have been Hall of Fame careers. The movie doesn’t shy away from these serious issues, but it also celebrates the team’s growth and success as they put it all together in 1986, dumping Houston and thwarting the Boston Red Sox to capture the World Series. It was fun taking a stroll down memory lane as the Mets captured the crown and the heart and soul of New York (minus the Yankee fans, of course). 4 cans.
125. Guilt* (2021, Masterpiece Theater, PBS) – Two brothers are returning from a party when their car strikes an old man in the road, killing him. Do they call the police? Do they try to get help? No, they carry him inside his house, put him in a chair and, once they discover that he was dying of cancer, they hit the road. Sure enough, his dead body is found and the cause of death is attributed to his cancer. But then someone notices paint chips on his pants and wounds on his legs, and his American niece turns up and the nosy neighbor tries to blackmail people and there is footage from a neighbor’s security camera and the brothers keep getting sucked into the quicksand that is this case. There is black humor amid the death, beatings, infidelities, betrayals and romance. This 4-part series leaves the door open for a possible sequel, and I’ll probably watch that one, too, because Guilt is a trip. 3½ cans.
126. The Courier* (2020, Prime Video) – Greville Wynne (Benedict Cumberbatch) is a not-so-smart businessman who gets drafted to aid the MIG and CIA in delivering documents from the Soviet Union to the British and Americans in advance of the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. This spy movie is based on a true story, where the Brit and his Russian contact Alex (Merab Ninidze) become friends as Wynne makes his frequent trips to the USSR to gather documents and information. He is actually a businessman, and not a very good one, and he knows nothing about what he is conveying. If you’re looking for a suspense movie about spies, I’d recommend “Bridge of Spies” with Tom Hanks over this one, which dragged a bit. 3 cans.
127. Muhammad Ali* (2021, PBS) – Documentarian Ken Burns does a deep dive (eight hours) into the life of boxer Muhammad Ali, born Cassius Clay. Ali transcended his sport, becoming the most famous person of the century before dying in 2016 at the age of 74. Burns offers a detailed portrait that examines the youthful, brash Ali, how he got into boxing, his triumphs and his falls. And much of the story focuses on Ali’s embracing Islam as his religion, his infidelities and his preparation (or lack of at times) for his fights. Ali was a character that no one had ever seen – colorful, braggadocios and self-confident. As in many stories of athletes, there is a rise, success, and then a fall, as Ali recaptures the heavyweight championship after being banned from the sport because of his refusal to serve in the military on religious grounds. His three bouts with Joe Frazier, his fights with George Foreman (the “rope-a-dope” fight), Ken Norton and former sparring partner Larry Holmes are covered and show his deterioration as a fighter as well as his failing health. It is poignant and cruel to watch him endure tremendous punishment as he got older. His eventual diagnosis with Parkinsons, his shuffling gait and his limited speech are sad to witness from the man who could “float like a butterfly and sting like a bee.” He was bigger than life and his decline so sad to witness. He truly was “The Greatest.” 4 cans.
128. The Eyes of Tammy Faye* (2021, Movie theater) – Let’s start with the fact that the heavily made-up eyes of Tammy Faye (an unrecognizable Jessica Chastain) don’t blink. Ever. Maybe she was afraid that those false eyelashes and the ton of mascara would weigh down her lids to the point where she couldn’t open them again. And then there’s that white stripe under the permanent, tattooed brows, which looked like it was applied with White Out. By the end of this movie, Tammy’s features were so exaggerated and distorted that for a minute I thought I was watching Dustin Hoffman in “Tootsie.” However, none of that make-up or the wigs or the outfits can take away from the story of Tammy Faye and her holier-than-thou husband Jim Baker (Andrew Garfield), TV evangelists whose preaching and pleading for good Christians to send money to their ministry kept them on the air and living in opulence for years. They were doing the work of God, who they proclaimed loved them – and you, too, as long as you sent in money. But it didn’t start that way. Both Jim and Tammy Faye were true believers who got caught up in money and power and all that it corrupts, including infidelity and really sketchy financial records that resulted in Jim’s going to jail. Chastain plays Tammy as a petite and perky woman trying desperately to please her flock and her husband. I was reminded by Chastain’s dead-on Tammy of Renee Zellweger’s transformation into Judy Garland. Expect her name to be called when they read off the list of nominees for this year’s Best Actress Oscar. Garfield also deserves kudos for his portrayal of the smarmy con man preacher, full of wide-eyed innocence and greed. You truly can’t make this stuff up. I have never watched their PTL show, but I’m glad I saw the movie. 4 cans.
129. Promising Young Woman* (2020, HBO) – Whoa! I can promise you that if you see this suspenseful revenge drama, you will be blown away by Carey Mulligan as lead character Cassie. Cassie is out to avenge the death of her friend Nina when both were promising young med students, before a traumatizing event resulted in both of them dropping out. I can’t say too much about the plot without spoiling the movie, so I’ll just say that Mulligan plays the character to the hilt. This is a timely story, full of suspense and a reflection on the times we live in now. 4 cans.
130. LuLaRich* (2021, Amazon Prime Video) – Before I started this 4-part Amazon docuseries, the only things I knew about the women’s clothing company LuLaRoe were hearing news stories on major issues with product quality of their big selling leggings. That was just the beginning. The company, started by DeAnne and her husband Mark Stidham, began when she started selling a line of colorful maxi skirts. Sales soared, so she decided to expand the business by bringing in new people to sell. Thus was born a multi-level marketing business, where each person gets rewarded not only for selling products but for bringing in more people to do the same thing. If you’re thinking “pyramid scheme,” so was I. The enthusiastic founders touted the company as a way for women to be successful while still caring for their families and supporting their spouses. What started as a business grew exponentially and began taking on cult-like aspects. The company promised 100% refunds for defective merchandise and then reneged. They paid out handsome bonuses to the higher level “mentors” and then changed the process. The documentary features the founders in depositions for a lawsuit in Washington where DeAnne sounds as if she knew little about the operations of the company she founded. There are plenty of promises made and broken here. If you like a juicy business story, like “The Smartest Guys in The Room” (the story of Enron), you’ll appreciate this in-depth look at the business of pushing leggings. 3½ pairs.
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