Paul Levinson
Bio
Novels The Silk Code & The Plot To Save Socrates; LPs Twice Upon A Rhyme & Welcome Up; nonfiction The Soft Edge & Digital McLuhan, translated into 15 languages. Best-known short story: The Chronology Protection Case; Prof, Fordham Univ.
Stories (697/0)
Review of 'Big Sky' 1.3
Well, that was the best line in Tuesday night's episode 1.3 of Big Sky -- "You kidnapped the wrong girls" -- said by The Big Rick (title of the episode) to Ronald, after Rick retrieves Grace, with two arrows in the leg, after Grace escapes and almost makes her escape good, by getting a fisherman to help before Rick shoots him dead -- with an arrow.
By Paul Levinson3 years ago in Criminal
Review of 'Big Sky' 1.2
Big Sky 1.2 continued as one edgy kind of show, especially for network television. Interesting that David Kelley took this to a network -- ABC -- rather than a cable or streaming service, where "the goods," as the show artfully put it, could have been seen in the scene.
By Paul Levinson3 years ago in Criminal
Review of 'The Undoing' Finale
So the ending of The Undoing turned out to be one grand hiding in plain site situation: Jonathan, who had been the first suspect, and whom so much of the previous narrative suggested was too obvious to be the killer -- and with more than a few plausible other suspects around, not convincing but not implausible --turns out to be the killer, after all.
By Paul Levinson3 years ago in Criminal
Review of 'Tiger King'
“The 'content' of a medium is like the juicy piece of meat carried by the burglar to distract the watchdog of the mind,” Marshall McLuhan famously declared in Understanding Media back in 1964. The content of Tiger King, the runaway global hit documentary on Netflix, are the tigers and other animals in Joe Exotic's Oklahoma zoo, thrown pieces of meat, juicy and otherwise (some is expired meat from supermarkets). But the deeper story, underlying the meat, is Joe Exotic's unquenchable thirst for fame, relentlessly pursued through social media. And in the irony of ironies, he eventually obtained that fame, along with a prison sentence of 22 years for attempted homicide of an animal activist and mistreatment of animals.
By Paul Levinson3 years ago in Criminal
Dylan's Murder Most Foul
I didn't think about November 22, 1963 much yesterday, as I usually do on one of the worst anniversaries of my and maybe your lifetime, because I was busy with all kinds of other things, including doing a little virtual concert at Philcon (a science fiction convention) of songs from my new album, Welcome Up: Songs of Space and Time, my first new album in almost 50 years.
By Paul Levinson3 years ago in Beat
Review of 'The Undoing' 1.5
Well, the algorithm and the waiter were by no means the most important features of The Undoing 1.5, on HBO last night, but I didn't want to give away the main thing, actually two main things, in the subtitle, and the algorithm and the waiter were nice touches. Finding that Jonathan's attorney uses Amazon-level algorithms to get the crucial characteristics of the jurors, that was cool. (And Haley's one one outstanding lawyer, isn't she?) And the waiter constantly interrupting the meal that Jonathan, Grace, and Henry were trying to have in the restaurant -- that was a metaphor for this whole little series, being interrupted by all kinds of things, so that after five episodes, we still can't be sure whodunnit.
By Paul Levinson3 years ago in Criminal
The Undoing 1.1-1.4
David Kelley's The Undoing mini-series debuted with a star-studded cast on HBO late last month. I mean, with Nicole Kidman as Grace Fraser a psychologist and Hugh Grant as her husband Jonathan Fraser an oncologist on the posh side of New York City, and a murder and a missing person, we can just stop there and how can you go wrong, right? You can't. The first episode was sleek and blockbuster powerful, an East Coast analog in many ways of Kelley's California Big Little Lies, which was pretty hot, suspenseful stuff, too, over two seasons.
By Paul Levinson3 years ago in Criminal
Review of 'Borat 2 (Borat Subsequent Moviefilm)'
My wife and I just saw Borat 2 aka Borat Subsequent Moviefilm on Amazon Prime Video. As with the first Borat movie in 2006, it was at turns and sometimes all together (and altogether) hilarious, horrifying, over the top, sobering, and vulgar. And there's the already infamous Rudy Giuliani scene near the end.
By Paul Levinson4 years ago in The Swamp
Review of 'The Trial of the Chicago Seven'
My wife and I saw The Trial of the Chicago Seven on Netflix on Saturday. Having lived through the real trial of the Chicago Seven (originally Eight) in 1969-1970, we thought there was a little too much fiction in this docu-drama to be 100% successful and effective. Nonetheless, it was powerful viewing.
By Paul Levinson4 years ago in The Swamp