Cross 2.1-2.3: To the Rescue

My wife and I saw Season 1 of Cross (starring Aldis Hodge) a few years ago and really enjoyed it.  I didn't have time to review it then, but I thought it was fast-paced, full of twists and turns, and emotionally powerful.  I liked it just as much as, if not more than, the Morgan Freeman movies in the 1990s.

We saw the first three episodes of the second season last night.  It's starting as engaging and powerful as the first season, with a crucial additional ingredient:  it speaks to the political turmoil currently pulling our country apart, and comes in on the ethical, democratic side on two related, front-page issues.

Those would be the Epstein files and the ICE attacks on anyone they see as not belonging in this country.  

[Spoilers ahead .... ]

The new season opens with a pair of assassins killing a man disturbingly similar to Epstein on an island with middle-aged men and young female victims.  It was an opening gambit that posed a vexing moral question: Are Cross and company right to hunt such assassins? And, are this serial killer couple second cousins of Dexter Morgan?

Next, we have an immigrant who kills a vicious ICE officer (or whatever racist US police force), who had recently killed someone that Cross was about to subdue without violence.  It will be instructive to see how Cross investigates, but the series deserves credit for correctly depicting what ICE and the Border Patrol have been doing not just near our borders, but in Minneapolis, Chicago, and cities across our country.

As was the case in the first season, there's lots of hot romance in the story, and more than one crime and criminal that Cross and his associates must bring to justice.  Based on the first season, I'd say that no one (other than Cross) is safe in this narrative, and I'm looking very much forward to seeing how it all unfolds.

One Night in Miami: A Good Movie for Tonight

This seemed like a good time to review One Night in Miami, which my wife and I saw and loved on Amazon Prime Video the other night -- a good time because Joe Biden is President, a human being back in the White House, and Kamala Harris, in effect his first appointment all those months ago, is Vice President, the first woman and person of color as VP.

One Night in Miami details a long meeting between Cassius Clay (soon Muhammad Ali), Malcolm X, Jim Brown, and Sam Cooke in a hotel room after Clay beat Sonny Liston to win the World Championship in 1964.  The meeting really happened.  The conversations in the movie were scripted (by Kemp Powers) and superb.  Same for the acting (Eli Goree, Kingsley Ben-Adir, Aldis Hodge, and Leslie Odom Jr. in those four roles), and likewise the brilliant directing by Regina King.  And the story told can be a considered a preamble or foundation of Black people in power in America in the 21st century, Barack Obama to Kamala Harris.

Back in 1964, the ways to get that power were far from clear, and highly debatable.  Malcolm wants black people to stand on their own.  His greatest conflict is with Sam Cooke, who sings all kinds of sweet, catchy romantic ballads (which, by the way, I love), leaving it to Bob Dylan, much to Malcolm's consternation, to write and sing "Blowing in the Wind".  Jim Brown knows all about racism, but is in the game (football and soon movies) for personal success, at least to some extent.  The question is how much?  Clay on the verge of becoming Ali is just 22, high on his being "the greatest," but attracted to Malcolm's philosophy.

Pursuit of fame and money back then was and still is a soul-depleting business, unless you can figure out a way to pursue those goals, and keep them if you reach them, with your inner core intact, and devoted at least in part to loftier goals for yourself, your people, and the world.  The path isn't easy, and One Night In Miami portrays four black guys, incredibly talented and bright in different ways, on the edge of that path so well and memorably, it could have been a Socratic dialogue written Plato.   See it and learn and enjoy.

 

"Sam's Requests" in this anthology is about Sam Cooke!

City on a Hill: Possibilities

I saw the first episode of City on a Hill on Showtime.  I'll probably keep watching - mainly because its story and characters are nothing we haven't seen before, in movies and on TV, but very well paced and acted.

Kevin Bacon is back playing another FBI man, this time a seasoned and cynical agent in Boston in the 1990s.   He forms an unlikely alliance with a gung-ho DA in Boston by way of Brooklyn, played by Aldis Hodge, last seen by me in Turn.   (The two B's always did have a lot in common, though less so since the Brooklyn Dodgers decamped to LA in the late 1950s.)  As I said, the narrative is well acted.  Another Kevin - Chapman - who has played a cop or detective well in countless television shows, is back doing the same again.

The antagonists are a family of bank robbers (actually, armored car, to be more precise), who, like most of these Boston capers, aren't exactly Brinks robbery calibre.  But it's good to see a Boston crime family again, in full Boston accents, replete with leaders, dummies, and traitors.

The 1990s setting is the most original element in the series, and good to see.   But I thought the commentary was a bit too obvious.  I don't recall anyone especially talking about JFK in the 1990s, even in Boston.   On the other hand, yeah, it is Boston, so if he was talked about anywhere in the 1990s, that would be where it was.   And he did give the famous "City on a Hill" speech there as President-elect in 1961.

There's a great twist at the end of the episode, which of course I'm not going to tell you about.   But it was enough to get me off the fence and decide to watch at least the next episode.  Hey, I'm on Cape Cod right now, in almost shouting distance from Boston, and that's the least I can do.