"A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood"

We saw the long awaited "A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood" earlier this week, and we were not disappointed.  As no doubt everyone knows by now, the movie stars Tom Hanks as Fred Rogers, and Hanks is, as he usually is, terrific in the role.  What people may not realize is that this is not a biopic about Fred Rogers.  Nor is it, as my friend Maryellen has pointed out on a Facebook post, a movie to which you would bring your little children in hopes of  them becoming avid viewers of "Mister Rogers Neighborhood".   

It does, rather, tell a very specific story about about writer Tom Junod (identified as "Lloyd Vogel" in the movie, and wonderfully played by Matthew Rhys), who is assigned to interview Fred Rogers by Esquire Magazine for a piece on Heroes.  The hard-bitten and jaded writer, who is experiencing some familial relationship problems of his own, falls under the spell of Rogers' universal lessons of kindness and the unique person-ness (a world that I just made up) that resides in each and everyone of us.  In seeing the effect that Fred Rodgers has had on this one specific person, we also see how he as affected every single person with whom he came in contact, either in person or through "Mister Rogers Neighborhood".  

In a country and a world where kindness seems to be in short, very short, supply, "A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood" gives us a  lesson on what it is to be kind.  That alone makes seeing this movie important and worth seeing.

Director Marielle Heller has made a movie that will no doubt garner multiple Oscar nominations.  She made a decision to shrink the screen to a 4-by-3 aspect ratio whenever the movie depicts the Rogers television show, which is really cool, and the use of miniatures to depict not only Mister Rogers Neighborhood, but the cities of Pittsburgh and New York, are wonderfully whimsical.  This should get Oscar noms for both Heller and for the production designers.  Rhys and Hanks should pull down nominations as well, although Hanks' nomination might very well come in the Supporting Actor category.

This movie gets Three and one-half Stars from The Grandstander.

One comment about Tom Hanks, and it is not an original thought from me.  Have you noticed how Hanks seems to now be portraying only real people in his films these days?  Fred Rogers, Ben Bradlee, Sully Sullenberger, the guy who  negotiated for the spies in "Bridge of Spies"?  Not sure what this means, but it just seems interesting.  Whatever the role, Tom Hanks is no doubt the Actor of Our Times, much like James Stewart and Spencer Tracy were in another time.

"The Americans" Finale Gets It Done

Matthew Rhys and Keri Russell

"Philip" and "Elizabeth"

Back in the USSR

This post will contain spoilers about the final episode of "The Americans".  You've been warned.

Regular readers know that I have been a steady watcher of the FX series "The Americans" from Day One.  Those same readers also know that I have felt that the series lost a bit off of its fastball a few years ago and went on for two and maybe even three seasons too long.  That said, in Episode 10 of Season 6, the final episode of the series, "The Americans" hit one out of the park with the bases loaded.

The show opened with Philip (Mathew Rhys) and Elizabeth (Keri Russell) realizing that the jig was up and that they had to lam it out of America and get back to the USSR, and that the only way to do this was to leave their son, Henry, behind.  "He doesn't know anything, he belongs here, he's an American" says Philip, and Elizabeth, who has spent this entire season killing anything that moves and showing no interest at all in her son, shows some trace of Mother Love, something that has been sorely missing from her character for six seasons.

There then followed four critical scenes:

1. Philip, Elizabeth, and Paige ready to take off and make one final phone call to Henry at his New England boarding school.  They have to act like it is just another call while knowing that they will most likely never see or speak to him again.  Henry pretty much brushes it off because he has to get back to a ping pong tournament being held in his dormitory. It was wrenching.
2. Dim bulb FBI Agent Stan Beeman has finally put two and two together and confronts the fleeing Philip, Elizabeth, and Paige in an empty parking garage. He goes all by himself with no backup, talks tough with the Jennings while brandishing his gun at them and then proceeds to let Philip talk his way out of the whole thing.  "Hey, you moved in next to me" Philip tells Stan, as if to say that this is all Stan's fault.   Paige then tells Stan that HE has to now take care of Henry, and Philip drops the bomb that Stan's wife just might be, although he's not really sure, a KGB agent.  In their final conversation, the Jennings' pawn off a kid on Stan and effectively ruin his marriage.  Stan then lets them drive away.  Stan Beeman was without a doubt the dumbest and most ineffective law enforcement agent in the history of television.
3. While traveling by train out of the USA into Canada, all passengers are being checked by Border Patrol agents with sketches of the fleeing fugitive spies.  It is an incredibly tense scene as the agents look over the passports of the disguised and separately seated Philip and Elizabeth before determining that these are not the people being sought.  There then follows a simply stunning scene when Elizabeth looks out of the now moving train window and sees Paige standing on the platform.  Keri Russell's reaction as she realizes that her daughter has abandoned her and is going to stay in America is simply brilliant.  The entire scene is played out with virtually no dialog and with U2's "With Or Without You" playing on the soundtrack.  The entire scene deserved multiple usage of the Pause/Rewind/Play button.
4. Throughout the six seasons of this show you knew that you were watching bad people and in the interest of justice being served, you knew that Philip and Elizabeth would need to end up either dead at the hands of American law enforcement or imprisoned for life.  It didn't happen. The Jennings make it back to the Soviet Union, but forever separated from their children, and with the knowledge that the country that they have served all of their lives is soon about to be changed forever, and in fact, the USSR that they have known will soon cease to exist.  Perhaps it is a fate worse than death for them.  In the final line of spoken dialog of the series, Elizabeth simply says "We'll get used to it."

I don't always agree that long running TV series have to end with everything tied in a bow in a Grand Finale of an episode.  The final episode of "Seinfeld" was a bomb, the finale of "The Sopranos", while not a bomb, was ambiguous and unsatisfying, but I think that the creators of "The Americans" got it just right.  The Jennings do get punished for their various crimes and sins, although maybe not in the way we like.  There was no cutesie fast forward of an epilogue to tell us Whatever Became Of those who remain behind.  We'll never know what became of Paige and Henry, or, for that matter, Philip and Elizabeth.  In it's own way, this becomes a very satisfying ending to this series.

(I have my own speculation as to what happens to one of the characters.  Henry remains at his New England boarding school, continues to excel at ice hockey, earns a scholarship to a big time hockey school, and gets drafted by the Washington Capitols.  After a long and distinguished career with the Caps, the aging NHL veteran Henry Jennings becomes a friend and hockey mentor to the Caps' young rookie sensation Alexander Ovechkin.  How's that for irony?)

So "The Americans" now comes to an end.  I never missed an episode, and while maybe the series should have ended a season or two earlier, the terrific final episode made it a most satisfying series to have experienced over the years.

"The Americans"

The season finale for one of our favorite TV shows, "The Americans" on the FX Network is this coming Wednesday, and we anxiously await it.

If you are unfamiliar with the show, it is set in Washington DC during the first term of the Reagan Administration, and it centers around the lives of Philip and Elizabeth Jennings, played by Matthew Rhys and Keri Russell.  The Jennings at first blush are typical Washington suburbanites who have two teen aged kids and run their own small business, a travel agency.  In fact, however, they are KGB agents who have been planted in the American capital city to spy for the USSR.  They do this with an incredible number of disguises, an appalling amount of violence, and the need to use sexual wiles to obtain such vital information.  (Like many shows on these cable networks, "The Americans" features healthy dollops of gratuitous nudity, including almost weekly shots of Ms. Russell's bare bum.)

How they can do this without arousing the suspicion of their children (for the first two seasons, anyway), their employees at the travel agency, and their neighbor, who just happens to be an almost clueless FBI Agent, is one of those questions that you just shouldn't ask.  Just sit back and enjoy the ride.

Season three has been a bit bewildering as the producers have give the Jennings an incredible number of balls to try to juggle in the air.  There have been plot threads involving the Russians in Afghanistan, something to do with South Africa, the KGB's desire that the Jennings' daughter be recruited into the KGB, a female KGB agent, the incredibly hot Nina, who is now in a Soviet jail, Stan the FBI neighbor's divorce, and a disturbing and very icky plot element that has Philip being ordered to become "involved" with the 15 year old daughter of a CIA officer. 

Oh, and I haven't even mentioned the bug planted in the FBI office by FBI secretary Martha, who is also married to Philip.  If you watch the show, you know what I'm talking about.  If you don't know, it really sounds preposterous, doesn't it?

Anyway, it had gotten to the point many times this season to say things like "now, who is this guy again?" or "why are they talking to this kid here?"  and "who is that lady?" As I said, I think that they have tried to do too many things his season, and it appears that they don't know what to do with all these elements.   And the show seems to have lost contact with the single great tension point of the series: THAT THESE SOVIET SPIES LIVE RIGHT ACROSS THE STREET FROM THE FBI AGENT WHO IS TRYING TO TRACK THEM DOWN!!!!!

Anyway, about halfway through the season we came to grips with the idea that we not even try to connect all the dots that are out there, and to just let the show flow over us.  Also, in the previous two seasons of the show, the season finale has managed to tie loose ends together and deliver a wallop that will make you anxious for the next season to come around.  We suspect that that is what will happen this time as well.

Wednesday night at 10:00 on FX.  Please don't try to call us during that hour.  We won't be answering our phone.