Recommendations: Week of 11/25/24
Ladies and gentlemen, Ted Danson
I’ve been thinking a lot about comedy lately and trying to watch more. Many of the recommendations I give here are like “Here’s a great show and here’s why it’s a hard sell” and then the hard sell is like “It’s a meticulous recreation of the 1962 assassination attempt of Charles de Gaulle” or “I promise after you get through the rabid dog executions and the stoning scene it’s really funny” so it’s kind of a relief to provide you with easier watches this time around. Well, ok, I did include a surreal Truman Show-esque meditation on race in Hollywood that is also really funny. I still gotta be me, guys.
Man on the Inside (Netflix): I don’t always think Netflix knows what it’s doing. Specifically Friday the 15th of November, I don’t think they knew what they were doing. But they knew when they released this show a week before Thanksgiving. Ted Danson is like the Harrison Ford of comedy. He’s the Tom Hanks of existential dread, but make it funny. He is a national treasure. He dated Whoopi Goldberg and his stepson directed The One I Love, a movie that only I seem to remember exists. Ted Danson didn’t achieve all those things by wasting opportunities and so he said an emphatic YES SIR when Mike Schur, of every good comedy you’ve ever watched, said “Would you like to star in a show where you play a lonely widower infiltrating a retirement home to catch a jewel thief?” There was no answer to that question but YES and Ted Danson knew it. This show is adorable and you can put it on when you’re hanging out with relatives and likely please everyone. Danson plays this role beautifully, by turns devastated over the death of his wife and eager to throw himself into new friendships. There’s something so very good emanating from him in this role, so trustworthy and so comforting. I highly recommend this to any and everyone. Also, it has some really beautiful shots of SF.
Interior Chinatown (Hulu): I am desperately seeking, at all times, television that does something formally interesting with the medium. I will watch good actors standing in beautiful kitchens talking to each other (The Perfect Couple, etc.) but it’s safe to say we’ve made enough shot-reverse shot episodes of television to rival the grains of sand on the beaches of Cape Cod where dead bodies just happen to wash up. Interior Chinatown is not a smooth viewing experience, but it is trying something different and for that, it has my respect and my recommendation. It is the story of Willis Wu, a Chinatown waiter who dreams of having a bigger role in the story of his own life. Willis has spent his life learning Kung Fu because he believes the best role an Asian man could ascend to is that of the Kung Fu fighter his brother was. When Willis witnesses a kidnapping, gets pulled into a police investigation, and then a gang war, his life finally gets more interesting.
This show is highly surreal; if you want to take it literally then Willis is trapped inside a police procedural and must navigate its rules in order to pull himself into better and better roles (he graduates to delivery driver, then IT guy). But the show-within-a-show aspect is also highly metaphorical, with changes in lighting and perspective to show when the “show” is bleeding into his “real life.” Or is it all his imagination? Or is it all just within the show? Does it matter? This one might not be the thing to throw on and watch with grandma, but it’s a great thing to watch if you’re looking for something new.