House of Cards Season 2, Sophomore Slump? *spoilers obviously ahead*

                Meticulously shot, writing so succulent that its flavour lasts upon your lips, long after the line was spoken. Topped off with acting so meticulous, it leaves you with the shivers. The show’s second season is as to be expected, a vicious labyrinth and macabre display of twisted nature of power and those who wield it, all lovingly narrated by one of modern televisions most loveable villains. That said, the show suffers a fair bit in its sophomore season. Much like Homeland, it seems like the first go around left the writers in a bit of a pickle as to how they’ll top their first majestic performance.

                The second season begins with Frank sizing up his post and figuring out what his next move should be. As he sizes everyone up in relation to his new post, they fawn at him. The only ones who seem to truly understand how ruthless and methodical the Underwoods are, are the journalists from season one. As Zoe continues her investigation, we are led to believe that Frank will have to contend with the Nancy Drew of the journalistic world, even as he tries to drag president Walker out from Tusk’s heel. Sadly, this is not to be. In retrospect, after having seen the full season, the shocking end of the first season is kind of the first crack within what is undoubtedly Netflix’s best show. But we will get to that later.

                As usual, every shot, every scene, every episode, they are all shot and framed impeccably. The use of tones and shades alongside a perfect blend of contrasting colours is a work of genius regardless of anything else that comes from the show. From the creamy tones of the oval office, to the dark full colours of the Underwood home, the viewer is never looking at a dull or monotonous screen. The colour and set design as usual also serve to give the characters, more character without them ever having to say a word. Let’s look at Frank, throughout the show he is working on a model battlefield from the civil war. Building a model battlefield, mimics what we see on screen. He is creating his own battlefield, choosing who goes where and what colour they wear. Whereas his political battles show us that he is still a man who is grasping for the ultimate power. The miniature battlefield shows us how Frank sees himself. A god among men, making them do his bidding, something all but Claire are blind too it.  Another example is that of Raymond Tusk at the twilight of his arc. We find him in an elegant hotel, but it is fairly sparse and extremely clean. Off course since this is near the end of the season he is looking at the sunset. A lot more obvious than Frank’s battlefield, but no less striking. A man of power, at the twilight of not only him, but his empire as well. The show has also managed to capture the feeling of isolation perfectly. Even when the screen is filled with actors and happenings, the principles always seem to feel alone and separate from everyone else. The framing of the shots gives the audience a taste, of the rarefied air which the shows real life counter parts must breathe. Even when they meet those of equal stature, the isolation never leaves, probably due to the fact that they’re all ready to stab each other in the back, before they’re done turning.

                The dialogue is this show’s spice and vigor. It layered on so many levels that there are no straight conversations. Every single sentence has at least two, if not more, insinuations or layers. The care with which each line of dialogue is written is astounding. The writers took care to cross their T’s and dot their I’s. Frank’s soliloquys are as usual are a verbal delight. It’s verbal masturbation on the writer’s part and performance ejaculation on Spacey’s part, but when it sounds and looks this good, who would say no to such a fantastic jerk?

                The acting is usual, simply top notch. Spacey never misses a beat as the conniving Underwood. Penn, is as cold and methodical in her portrayal of Claire as Spacey with his rambunctious performance of Francis’. But in truth, it’s not the leads that hold our attention. It almost never is, the leads are anchors of the series, but it’s the other characters that make the world live and breathe. Molly Parker for instance is dazzling in her performance the new whip, Jaquelin. In credit to Parker and the writers she is devilish fun to watch as she tumbles into the moral abyss, even as she denies it and even lies to herself about how much she has fallen. Molly Parker brings earnestness even as she coldly tears down obstacle, read people, in her path. Her face offs with Claire are in many ways better than those Frank has with his numerous belligerents, and many a time, far more interesting. The writers make great use of two wonderful female characters as they battle over sex, but not in a salacious way, always intelligently and scathingly, twisting presumed expectations.

                Doug Stamper, played creepily by Michael Kelly has a fantastic and tragic arc. As a man who has towed the line of the abyss for so long, it is bittersweet to see him succumb to his human failings. In Doug we first get a glimpse as to why Remy is spoken so highly of. Remy lived and made himself into a legitimate contender, while Doug, dies at the hands of Rachel, his impromptu prisoner, while narrowly avoiding Frank’s chopping block due to his growing infatuation with Rachel. Kelley manages to bring the tough, hard demeanor, one would expect from his character. But, in between, the writers show us his humanity, the cracks in his supposed perfect mask and how his addictions get the better of him. This along with the detour into Freddy’s, Frank’s rib guy, life bring so much colour to this slick and oily world. Reg E. Cathy is grand as a man whose life is catapulted to luxury, only to be sucked back down and destroyed by one slight misstep. The anger and acceptance seep through his teeth as he growls the lines. Cathy’s growling throughout the series is one of the many minor delights a show of this expertise offers.

                Then we have Remy, played wonderfully by Mahershala Ali. In season one, we only got a glimpse of Frank’s former protégé. We heard little bits and pieces about who he was and why he left. We always heard how good he was, but it was never really justified. This season we finally got to see Remy in action and sadly, the results are more tepid than hot. Ali does a wonderful job, but Remy’s character arc seems to tip toe a fine line, far too carefully. Maybe it’s because we didn’t see much of him in season one, but his softer side, seemed to hover over him like a wet cloud. Only when we get biting moments of Remy’s true intelligence to we as the audience get to peak at why Frank tread carefully around Remy, even if he jokes about the man’s lack of foresight. Simply put, Remy is quite possibly the show’s best bet at giving Frank a true adversary, rather than the mishmash we have gotten so far. Truly, Remy and Jaquelin could, together form a power couple as magnetic and charming as Frank and Claire. It’s only the writers insistence that Remy still has a little bit of heart left that keeps this from coming true.

                Speaking of adversaries, well this is one of the shows problems. Tusk and Walker seem more like stumbling blocks, rather than true threats to Frank’s dreams. Are we truly to believe that Tusk, a man with pockets so deep  and resources so great, that he can shut down the power grid of an entire coast line on a whim, would go down so easily against Frank, a politician who is openly reviled by much of his own party? In the same corner we also have Walker. A president so ridiculously inept that he makes Bush seem like a fantastic political choice. He is so clueless that Frank can basically sing and dance around the man, proclaiming his intentions as he pleases. This is one of the show’s biggest problems. The writers seem to be afraid of giving Frank a real challenge. They make his opponents either cartoonishly dumb, or handicap them by rules that the Underwoods can ignore, even if said opponent occupies the same murky world of morality and ethics.

                This is where my praise and love of the show must be truly put aside as I explain why the show took a step back in many ways. For a show such as this, stagnation is truly a stab in the side and at many times this show it would seem, simply sat on its laurels, succulent dialog. As I said earlier, the death of Zoe Barnes, was in retrospect a sign of the cracks too come. This is because, it basically gave Frank a free slate. It was so neatly wrapped up that Frank had nothing to fear, as if the writers got bored of the story line and wanted to through it away. But they didn’t, they kept dragging it along, first through Lucas then through Gavin as a set up for season three. It’s as if they had second thoughts about dumping that line but were not quite ready to let go. And of course Gavin is a great hacker, who listens to techno at super high volume while having a wine cabinet in his basically vacant apartment with a super high ceiling! Sorry, got a tad carried away their. But at the end of the day, this is more a minor problem. The real problem lies in how they have positioned Frank.

                In season one, we see that Frank is above almost if not everyone. We can buy into the fact that he should be in the next league up. We were led to believe that the risks would be greater. With a disappointed sigh, I must acquiesce that this is not so. Frank is so adept with toying with his opponents, that at times it loses its fun. You never get the sense that Frank is truly in any danger. For all we are told about the potential fall of Frank, the season never really feels like it could happen. His hubris is always justified, as is his villainy. Thus we never get to see the consequence for his actions, only the rewards. Rewards, which the show doles out too freely.

For a show so meticulous with its words and framing, it seems awfully anxious to put Frank in the chair. This makes the entire season feel almost as if it’s a point A to point B affair. Rushing through plot points with wondrous dialog, simply to show us a monster sitting at the head of the white house. It makes no real effort to make Frank grow as a character. He simply stagnates and begins to slowly congeal as the words spoken by Kevin Spacey, dance between your ears. Think of the way Homeland’s second season stumbled about trying to recapture the magic of its first season, that’s what House of Cards season two feels like.

                The last three paragraphs said and done, I would still highly recommend this show to anyone. The dialogue is amazing, quite possibly the best on TV today. A mixture of theatre with reality that poetically ensnares the viewers’ attention with an iron grip for fifty minutes at a time. The acting, sublime and nuanced, the roles are played perfectly, even if the role is that of a dunce. The visual grace of the show is operatic in scope. After watching this show you will wish that the same crew and DOPs light everything you watch. The sights, stick with you just as the dialogue does. For days and days and days. My final word of praise is left for the final shot.

                Frank, takes it all in as he waltz’ into his new office. After taking it all in, he turns to the audience and puts on his new class ring, which he got as a gift from Claire. He coolly stares at us, no lectures, no jokes. His gaze is a mixture of mockery and admonishment, as if he knows that we condemn and vilify him. But his stare shows us that we are no better, that our enjoyment is only possible through his villainy. Then he knocks his class ring to the desk and credits roll. What a site. Bring on season 3.

Jeff, Who lives at home

            I have just finished watching this Duplass Bros. feature, staring Ed Helms and Jason Segel. For those who don’t know who the Duplass brothers are I can’t completely blame you, that said, you should know who they are. In fact if you watch the glory of The League you already know one half of the team, Mark aka Pete. Just don’t go into this movie expecting the same sort crude humour. Instead, the Duplass brothers deliver an amazingly touching film with some great performances.

The film takes place during one day in the lives of Jeff, a man child afraid of the world, his brother Pat, a dick; I mean he drives a Boxter Porsche, and lastly their mother Sharon, a grown woman just looking for something new. All three deliver wonderfully touching performances. Segel plays Jeff and at first seems like he’ll be playing his regular shtick, but the script and direction of the Duplass Bros., gives his performance calculated calmness that is truly endearing. The last time Segel was able to deliver this kind of earnest performance was in Forgetting Sarah Marshall and ever since then he has been mimicking it with varied results, but never has he reached that pinnacle. Until now, he may have even surpassed it. Meanwhile Helms’ portrayal of Pat, was also a bit worrisome of me, but yet again Duplass Co., manages to deliver something fresh from a well-worn sock. He plays an asshole with few to no social skills, kind of like Andy Bernard from season two of The Office. The main difference in Pat from Andy is that where the writers from The Office struggled for years to give Andy soul, but because Andy is a caricature, a joke, a shtick, they were ultimately unsuccessful. Mark and Jay on the other hand succeed marvellously, simply because they make Pat a person and Helms just sprints along with it all without fumbling. Sarandon’s performance is probably the only one that brings up a gripe in me. This isn’t because it is bad but simply because there isn’t enough of it. Her story is simple and acted really efficiently, but unlike Jeff and Pat, her character never has room to breathe and soak up the events. This is a consequence of an ultra-lean 83 minute runtime.

This ultra-lean runtime has its pros and its cons. In its brevity the movie never meanders about with meaningless stand still. Every scene works with utmost efficiency, even if the characters have their heads in the clouds. This makes the film hard to simply dismiss or walk away from, since every scene is important. The cons on the other hand involve things like Sharon’s moment of crisis and growth feel rushed and at times over looked. The sense of urgency also means that we as an audience have no room to soak up the atmosphere, it’s always go-go-go, like the line at the soup Nazi’s kitchen. Though, one can pretty much ignore the con, because the end is just so damned good and brings everything together into one neat little bowtie without feeling forced, mainly due to the acting.

At the end of the day, this film fantastic. Not in a way that I might say, rush out and tell all your friends, but one of those nice movies that the next time you’re sitting at home on a Saturday night with a bucket of ice cream and a box of Popeyes, you definitely shouldn’t skip this over. Stop, check your clock, make sure you have a spare 83 minutes, you can skip this part because who are we kidding, if you’re home alone on a Saturday night using ice cream as chicken dip, you’ve got nowhere else to be that night, or possibly ever. Also, ice cream does not go well as Popeye’s dipping sauce.

Frances Ha or alternatively, A middle aged white man has more insight on mid twenties women than Lena Dunham

                Frances Ha at first seems like it’s going to be your typical indie film about a struggling artist fighting the good fight for an hour and some before finally breaking through and showing everyone around them, that yes they did indeed have the power. As it turns out, thankfully, Frances Ha is not that film and frankly I should have known better, seeing as this yet another Buambauch triumph, Greenberg, Squid and the Whale, hipsters and film studies students should have queued up their film boners right about now. Instead what we get is a film about a woman who has just entered the real world and struggles to find her place in it.

                Frances is young, beautiful, in a frumpy natural sort of way, and completely relatable. This rests solely on Gerwig, who performs marvelously. She is magical as the whimsical Frances. A neurotic mess, but not a creepy one, rather compassionate and soulful to a fault. Gerwig deftly mixes in jittery exaggerated movements to liven up her words as she uses carefully chosen enunciation and pauses to further involve the viewer in the character’s insecurities. Gerwig is simply sublime yet sadly overlooked in this year’s boisterous awards season.

                The secondary character’s all serve to further along Frances struggle through life. Adam Driver plays a variation of his Girls role, a quirky artist with questionable morality and social sense. Except, he isn’t an over bearing piece of furniture in this film. He is a full-fledged character with a real personal philosophy rather than a series of quirky moments.

Michael Zegen is the other standout in a secondary role. This guy is on a role, taking on all manners of roles of varying temperance and knocking each one out of the park.  Zegen brings life and maturity to a character that’s already been done to death. He is not annoying, nor is he tiresome, both these things have equal due to the acting and the writing.

                Baumbauch and Gerwig have written an exquisite narrative that is whimsical, baffling, heartwarming and enlightening all at the same time in many instances. The characters are all written with care and tenderness, they aren’t caricatures of clichés, rather they are reflections of the real world, only ever slightly exaggerated to prove a point. The dialogues in large groups cross cuts frantically and eloquently allowing you to follow each narrative strand, even as jokes and witticisms fill the air.  There are even moments of banality in the dialogue that conveys meaning and spirit in the words not said as the awkward pauses commence. The narrative, much like Frances, is a disjointed mess of quick cuts that take the character through a short time in her life an extremely fast pace. The film doesn’t really have a true narrative, but rather through a series of moments in one woman’s life held together through the glue of themes.  It’s grand adventure, whimsical like a Wes Anderson film but grounded enough in reality to remain relatable with a modicum of real rather than kitsch. Buambauch and Gerwig navigate the angst of the new working generation with care and grace. Further the finale is extremely fulfilling, specifically because it does not give in to viewer expectation. You don’t get to see what you want or expect, Gerwig and Baumbauch give you what you need.

                The film isn’t simply a wonderful narrative strung together with performances, its cinematography is striking and the music is engrossingly well chosen. Shot in black and white, with all the right angles, its use of contrast never ceases to amaze. The way the light shines off Sophie’s glasses in the darkness, or the way Paris looks under the black and white gaze is striking to say the least. It reminds one of Sin City, except it’s natural and not shot on green screen. It’s natural, beautifully so.

                The music is wonderfully picked. It’s all low key hipster stuff, but without making one feel like a douche for enjoying it. Not that faux hip underground stuff you get in mainstream, young adult movies. No this is the real deal and it serves to heighten every scene. It’s almost as if Baumbach and Gerwig stole the music selectors from HBO and made them choose the most perfect music all without ever making you feel like a douchebag for enjoying it.

                The film is a great statement to the world. It’s not about following your goals or telling you how special you are. It’s focused on reality. It doesn’t need cutesy hipsterism and the latest fashion trends to prove its point or drive its story, I’m looking at you Girls. It doesn’t need a colour palette from an acid trip and characters that all fall under the category of quirky oddball, Wes Anderson. It gets by on strong narrative, exquisite performances and a narrative that is wonderfully endearing while simultaneously touching. Anyone who is a fan of Baumbauch or Girls should watch this film. It will bring warmth and joy as it resolves, even if it isn’t what you hoped that resolution would bring.