Author: Andres Kabel

Armando Iannucci possesses a scorching, cynical wit and absolutely no mercy. His footprints are all over the recent eight-episode show, The Franchise, written substantively by Jon Brown. The franchise in this case is a massive, dumb superhero movie universe of films, in this case represented by a meaningless superhero Tecto in a ridiculous tale populated by ridiculous space creatures. The movie skewers every aspect of the on-set production, sparing no one from the main actors to the bit players and the workers on the set. Every episode is full of laugh-out-loud moments (as long as your sense of humor accepts savagery). The cast is wonderful: Billy Magnusson revels in being the super-silly, yearning lead actor; Richard E. Grant is hilarious as “number two star” with a profane tongue; ditto Daniel Brühl as the overweening writer/director and Lolly Adefope as the bantering intern; the brutish franchise manager is wonderfully accelerated by darren Goldstein. The actor who holds together the entire show is the wonderful Himesh Patel playing the assistant director who actually makes things happen and holds together the fractious, volatile crew. Patel is also the emotional core of the show, for savage satire is not enough to create a memorable experience; the AD actually loves the world of superhero movies. The script of The Franchise never misses a beat, the funniness never stops, and the sheer intelligence behind every scene is a joy to behold.

We should be so lucky. That the best spy thriller series in recent years, the Jackson Lamb adventures by Mick Herron, could end up being converted into a spellbinding TV series, goes against all my experience of screen adaptations. Season 1 was a kinetic introduction, Season 2 struck me as perfect, and Season 3 continued the high standard. The fourth season of Slow Horses amends the storyline of one of the best Herron books but retains the heart of that author’s plotting triumph. Gary Oldman continues to live and breathe the obnoxious but formidable spy maestro Lamb, managing to convey (as do Herron’s books) the oafishness and brilliance without drifting into caricature. In this episode, though, Jack Lowden nearly upstages him as the earnest, superhero-wannabe River Cartwright. When River’s old father (formerly a spy eminence) sinks toward dementia and a villain comes calling, River is plunged into an adventure that incorporates a mystifying trip to France, a terrorist bombing back in England, a relentless assassin, and an evil mastermind (played wonderfully by Hugo Weaving). Wonderful plot twists, the continued excellence of the supporting cast of “slow horses,” spot-on music, and gritty cinematography … Season 4 is yet another gold standard for modern series TV.

Comedian Brian Jordan Alvarez has branched out with a bold comedy-drama series, eight twenty-minute-long episodes of English Teacher, in which he plays a teacher in an Austin, Texas school who is gay. The show seeks to marry slapstick humor with an eclectic bunch of teaching staff and education issues, and often it succeeds. He himself is earnest in the lead role and the other key actors succeed to an extent without standing out, the sole exception being Sean Patton as an appealing, bluff sports teacher. The short episodes lend themselves to pithy mini stories, and a few of them work well, but too many are either too didactic or slight. Highlighting the issues the teacher faces as openly gay in the 2020s is clearly important thematically and again, sometimes the scripts illuminate, but sometimes there is too much raunch or too much weightiness. In the end, English Teacher is an engaging couple of hours spread over a week of watching but fails to ignite either as entertainment or meaningful drama.

As the seasons have accumulated on the zany, New-York-drenched show Only Murders in the Building, with its chemistry between Steve Martin, Martin Short, and Selena Gomez, I have kept waiting for a downturn, the pivot toward staleness. After the exemplary Season 2 (see my review), would Season 3 dip? Yes but only a fraction (see my review). Surely, however, this new Season 4, which even dares to flit across the continent to LA, would crash? Fortunately for us fans, the answer is resoundingly an affirmation. The three stars retain all their verve, with Martin Short deploying the best lines but Steve Martin also hilarious in many scenes. The remaining actors are superbly cast and perfect in performance, including new cameos from Zach Galifianakis and Eugene Levy. The writing team is adventurous with a ludicrous but delightful Season 4 plot concept and script, and a couple of adventurous directorial departures impart an edgy vibe. As if that were not all enough, there is even a completely unexpected and laugh-out-loud scenic moment involving John McEnroe on a Manhattan street. Another triumph of a season and Season 5 beckons…

Based on Anthony Quinn’s historical cozy mystery, Curtain Call, the trailer of The Critic bodes well, primarily because it focuses on the hypnotic, reptilian presence of Ian McKellan as the mid-30s London theater critic at the heart of it all. And the first half of the film solidly establishes the swirling character set around the critic, plus the plot hinge (which seems, on checking out the underlying novel, to be very different to the original), namely an arrangement the critic comes to with an aspiring starlet to help him retain his coveted newspaper standing. Yet even then the movie creaks. Gemma Arterton seems miscast as the femme fatale, as does Mark Strong as a repressed newspaper mogul, the pacing seems uneven, the cinematography has a muddy color, and the soundtrack is sleepy. But the second half of The Critic descends into a plotline and scripting mess, McKellan’s acting descends into unemotional hamming, and the conclusion falls with a clunk. A missed opportunity, this one, badly missed.