“In man there is implanted a sporting instinct to side with the underdog, but this is in man, the individual. Mob psychology is different from individual psychology, and the psychology of the pack is to tear down the weaker and devour the wounded. Man may sympathize with the underdog, but he wants to side with the winner.”– Erle Stanley Gardner
Perry Mason! The once omnipresent law pugilist, now impossible to find.”The Case of the Velvet Claws” keeps Perry Mason outside of the courtoom, playing a cat-and-mouse game that puts him on the rodent side of things. Mason is a force for justice but, like a good lawyer, doesn’t so much as blink without charging a hefty fee. Della Reese is fantastic as the secretary who sees things with clear eyes.
A “Sulky Girl” is bound to inherit from rich uncle- as long as she doesn’t marry anyone. Which she already has. The courtroom twist will be very familiar to modern readers. Love the way the novels end with a teaser for the next mystery.
A “Lucky Legs” contest scam has swindled a small town. The alleged showbiz conman is found dead, knife protruding from chest. But then, why is there an unused blackjack in the room?
Gardner has been objectioned out of the mystery/ noir canon but that’s a crime. (4)
“Master of the House” (Carl Theodor Dreyer) : A gentle, empathic dismantling of the patriarchy, ahead of its time both thematically and structurally. (5)
Lots of Harold Lloyd shorts on Filmstruck! (5)
“Greatest Hits” (Benny More) : “The Barbarian of Rhythm” doesn’t sound like a compliment in English, but in Spanish, Benny More ransacked tired salsas, mambos, and sons and revitalized them for some very Bright Ages, before his early death in 1963, when he was only 43 (let’s just say that, like many musical geniuses, he partied hard). His wide-ranging, genre-hopping influence in the Cuban tradition parallels that of Louis Armstrong’s in American Jazz, and I doubt there are many Cubans, heck, Latins, who can’t swing to “Bonito Y Sabroso” (“Look how sexy and sweet Mexicans dance mambo! They move hip and shoulders exactly like Cubans!” doesn’t sound like a particularly deep observation except that its international inclusiveness presages similar city-shouting/ globe-trotting dance hits. Oh, and he could also sing boleros like “Como Fue.” (5)
“Coco” (Soundtrack) : The folkloric Mexican canciones are individually wonderful. As a listening experience, though, does anyone need 17 iterations of “Remember Me”? Yo no. This version with Miguel and Natalia Lafourcade will do: (2)
It would be odd if I didn’t root for Camila Cabello: She’s from Cojimar, Cuba, a little village just outside my native Havana, so SHOUTOUT TO QUASI-HOME-GIRL GONE RICH! She’s already got an ok duet with Shawn Mendes and two hot solo songs: “Crying in the Club” (with its Christina Aguilera echoes) and that “Havana” hit that Benny More would have gone crazy for. It’s too soon to say that Camila :: Fifth Harmony as Beyonce :: Destiny’s Child. But who knows? (4)
As for Fifth Harmony as a group, they actually beat Destiny’s Child in production, and they don’t indulge in the more ridiculous linguistic distortions of Matthew Knowles’ spawn. That means they don’t coin words like “Bootylicious” but it also means they’re “Worth It” and “Boss”. Ally Brooke, Normani Kordei, Dinah Jane, Lauren Jauregui still troop on sans Camila Cabello but they should hold auditions for an addition, because the name’s bound to sound dumver as time goes on. The empowerment by way of narcissism and materialism may be what the arket demands, but young people, specially young women, deserve better. No, your cute, over-priced brand-name purse and your Oprah name-dropping have no correlation with your character, except perhaps a negative one. (4)
“Thor: Ragnarok” (Taika Watiti): An extra dose of comedy makes this superior to the previous Thor, but two weeks after the fact, it’s already a forgettable, glib blur of jokes that land as heavy and obvious as Mjolnir. (3 for non-geeks, 4 for geeks)
Procedure-heavy, informative, and dull as a Power-Point presentation on the history of criminal profiling, “Mindhunter” is David Fincher’s self-cannibalization: a shiny, sterile, lesser “Zodiac” for TV. And yet the topic will lure in fans of true-crime, (the series is based on a no doubt superior non-fiction book tracing the history of the FBI’s involvement in serial-killer investigations.) But the dialogue is stiffer than a three-week-old corpse, and the bland acting by the lead, Jonathan Groff, is some of the the worst I’ve ever seen on a show that wasn’t “Mulaney.” Groff (“Spring Awakening”, “Hamilton”) may be okay when seen from the balcony doing his “Look, Ma, I’m on a Broadway Show!” thing – but on screen he looks like (here comes the painful truth) the kind of guy that would have beaten the crap out of his candy-ass on day one of training at Quantico. If you can survive the pilot, there’s an amazing turn by Cameron Britton as Ed Kemper in episode 2. Except if you saw “Zodiac,” you already saw Fincher doing this exact same blood-chilling scene. (3)
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