Monday Musings: What I'm Bingeing This Week - 'True Detective', 'The Woman in the Wall', 'Monsieur Spade' and did 'Killers of the Flower Moon' live up to the book? Plus! 'Ripley' Gets First Trailer

Just another a'musing Monday...

Jan 23, 2024

My watchlist was on 🔥 this weekend, how about yours?

I decided to flood my weekend binge list with new and current streams and there are a couple worth catching if you’re still on the fence. I’m also looking forward to the prequel series to the Talented Mr. Ripley on Netflix and the adaptation of Liane Moriarty’s novel “Apples Never Fall” on Peacock.

My Weekend Streams:

True Detective: It’s a Slow Burn, But It’s Burning. (HBO/Max)

I was excited to see Jodie Foster on the small screen in the fourth installment of True Detective. As always Foster gives a dynamite performance. The series reminds me a lot of Mare of Easttown (HBO) starring Kate Winslet, a female-driven detective story that saves space to make solving the crime more of a personal journey for the detective, revealing a lot more than just the mechanisms of working the case. The first episode spends a lot of time in the personal lives of Liz Danvers (Foster) and Evangeline Navarro (Kali Reis) while the next episode starts to reveal more clues to the mystery of the men who were found buried in ice in the middle of nowhere aka Ennis, Alaska. It’s definitely a slow burn, but that’s the pacing of all the seasons of True Detective as viewers take part in both solving the crime, and getting a lesson in character study from the writers. I am definitely intrigued and will continue streaming.

The Woman in the Wall: Sleepwalking Through This Series (Paramount+ with Showtime)

Hmm. There’s a lot going on in this series. I was already a bit bias going into this knowing that they were using the “sleepwalking” trope to frame the mystery. Ugh, how many times has this been done before? If writers are going to use this you better come at me with something I haven’t seen before. In addition to the mystery of the murders happening in Dublin, Ireland, we’re getting an entire backstory on the main character Lorna Brady (played by The Affair’s Ruth Wilson) who just has a lot of trauma going on. I don’t mean this to sound insensitive, but as a viewer it’s all dumped on you within the first twenty minutes, leaving you feeling drained enough to not focus on the actual mystery, nor care about the character. I loved the way the first season of The Sinner with Bill Pullman and Jessica Biel revealed the MC’s trauma….slowly and in parts. Anyways, I don’t judge a series based on the first episode so I’ll continue and report back.

Monsieur Spade: Skip Writer’s School, Stream This (AMC+)

I had high hopes for this series. From the creator of easily one of my favorite streams on Netflix, The Queen’s Gambit, I will tell you this….it did not disappoint. Clive Owen stars as the notorious detective Sam Spade, made famous in both the classic novel and detective film The Maltese Falcon starring Humphrey Bogart. This takes place years later and now he is living in the South of France circa 1963. The series is very French mid-century styled like if Don Draper were a detective eating brie cheese with a glass of Bordeaux at his desk. The look of the series is clean, sharp just like its dialogue. There are no words thrown away. Every sentence is spoken to reveal more of the character. I will never forget what one of my screenwriting teachers told me at UCLA about dialogue — keep it short, few words can reveal so much. Case in point - Escape From Alcatraz starring Clint Eastwood as prisoner Frank Morris.

Inmate: What was your childhood like?
Frank Morris (Eastwood): Short

I thought about that line a lot as I was watching this first episode. There was no need to explain everything. With just a spoken line or a time lapse showing someone’s grave you could know an entire history of someone without having the needless “fill in the blanks”. There’s a lot of masculine wit in this series, like you’ll find in most detective series, but the supporting female cast gets equal value as no character is left to flail in Monsieur Spade. Clive Owen fills the shoes of this legendary detective with quiet strength and it’s great to see him in something again. Definitely going to continue this series.

Killers of the Flower Moon: Surprise! The Screenwriter F**ked This Up (Apple TV+)

Before streaming this soon-to-be Oscar-nominated film (nominations are announced tomorrow!), I actually read the book by author and former New Yorker reporter David Grann. I thought the book was fantastic. From page five I was hooked, by page fifty I declared I would read anything from this author. I mean, the New Yorker broke both the Harvey Weinstein and fake heiress Anna Delvey scandals — their writers know a thing or two about deep diving into a story. Grann crafted an exciting, page turning murder mystery blended with historical facts, government corruption, and a moving account of the Osage people. While I was reading it, I prayed that screenwriter Eric Roth (Forrest Gump, Munich, The Curious Case of Benjamin Buttons) would stick to the structure of the book which was crafting the story like a murder mystery — dead body first, suspects after, investigation/reveal facts, catch the killer. Roth did not stick to the book. Instead, he revealed everything up front — the corruption, the motives. There was nothing left to salivate on, everything was handed to the viewer and in such a sloppy way I actually feel bad if you didn’t read the book because so many of the essential and rich characters were thrown away in the film version. Lots of critics of Leonardo DiCaprio playing Ernest and I kind of agree. He was distracting. He should’ve played Tom White, the investigator. When I talk of Monsieur Spade and how just a little moment can reveal so much I can suggest this to Roth who took the liberty to tell Ernest and Mollie’s (played by Lily Gladstone’s) longwinded relationship when the book thankfully didn’t even waste its time. It wasn’t needed. I don’t mind watching a 3 hour, 26 minute movie, but when there are places to edit, you gotta edit and this script was just too messy, not giving justice to the book. I would say skip the movie and read the book instead. It was my first great read of 2024!

Happy Birthday Diane Lane