536 WORDS / 4 MIN READ / ORIGINALLY POSTED JANUARY 25, 2015 (EDITED)
FILM Caught The Three Musketeers (1939) on late-night TV, reminded me of Dolphy’s films– a little comedy, a little drama, some musical numbers, a love story, a chase, a sword fight— the three Ritz Brothers even put on a long dance routine that can only be described as maglalatik, but with cymbals instead of coconut shells. Catch it if you can, if just for that one number. Our culture truly is a treasure trove very few of our filmmakers have mined, leaving the task to foreigners.
TV While the Brits and Kanós claim credit for inventing the detective story, Tang dynasty China had its own sleuth, the redoubtable Judge Dee, so the crime drama has always been a matter international. MHz Networks (which airs here on one of the PBS channels) regularly presents subtitled policiers from France, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden, Germany, and Italy. I like Il Commissario Montalbano best, a nonlinear policier from Italy’s RAI-TV, protagonized by a police detective in Sicily. Salvo Montalbano is a far cry from the Ellery Queen and Philo Vance whom I grew up with, but I really like the bittersweet undertone of his series, though the slapstick of his underling Catarella is so lowbrow, it’s beneath even Chiquito in that Rome-based film the latter made with Erap and Diomedes Maturan (if you know that film’s title, refresh my memory– Erap sings Arrivederci Roma in it and Maturan, Danny Boy.)
And if you still follow Scandinavian noir, you may want to check out the German series Cenk Batu, Undercover Agent also on MHz). Tending to repetition, it plays on the grinding stress and emotional toll of undercover work. Look is really low-budget, but the hero Cenk of the title is unusual for Germany: He’s from a denigrated minority (Turkish). There’s one episode you may especially like, about industrial espionage, which exploits true noir tropes. Here the Germans are the good guys and the Swedes are the bad guys. There’s also an episode where the German Chancellor (Merkel?) is the target of a hired hit, interesting in light of Sony’s The Interview (2015) and the 2006 award-winning Brit film Death of a President (what if George W. Bush was assassinated?). Let me know your reaction if you catch either of these TV dramas.
REALITY TV Any of you watch ABC’s Shark Tank? Might be the only program on American TV that regularly features Asian faces. Was impressed by the Indonesian’s book light, no idea re the science behind it. And that Pinóy Medical Physics PhD student– I actually tested a REM-sleep device very similar to his, many years ago, while working on lucid dreaming. I agree with the Sharks’ negative opinion of it completely.
And what about that 13-year-old entrepreneur? Seeing her made me remember that I actually started my first business at age 10 or 11— I opened a pa-arkilahan ng komiks, dalawa singko (remember that?) I was doing well too— made enough to pay my sister her wages, and plowed the remainder right back into inventory (new US comic books = 35 centavos each). Then my father came home and kicked all my customers out of our yard. Business folded the next day. And that’s why I’ll never be on Shark Tank!