Beacon 23, on MGM+

In this far-future universe, AI’s have some legal recognition of sentience, so maybe the new actor and screenwriter contracts will be invalidated. Of course, they are still programmed to serve mankind and given Asimov-esque prime directives. Frankly, humanity has more pressing work for them than movie-making, because starvation and strife are strangling the far-flung human colonies. This “space lighthouse” is stationed in a remote corner of the galaxy, but it might be on the frontlines of human evolution and first contact in creator Zak Penn’s Beacon 23, based on the novel by Hugh Howey, which premieres tomorrow on MGM+.

Due to a freak malfunction, Beacon-keeper Solomon Smythe is unable to warn an approaching space cruiser of the dark matter iceberg in its path. Only one soul is saved aboard the life-pod he rescues. As luck would have it, she is Aster Calyx, an operative of the QTA company, dispatched to investigate the mysterious rocks he discovered orbiting the beacon.

Complications soon set in when Bart, the station AI unmasks Smythe as military deserter Halan Kai Nelson, who replaced the real Smythe. Nelson tries to hold Calyx captive, but her personal semi-sentient holographic AI, Harmony, soon has her freed. She and Nelson will have to forge an uneasy truce to defend the station against the pirates (or “wreckers”) we see forcibly entering the station during the first episode’s prologue. Indeed, they seem to have a lot in common when they start to understand how the stones drew them both to Beacon 23.

This is sort of “big dumb object” science fiction, except the “artifact” seems smarter than any of the characters. It is also a lot like Solaris, but with more action (which isn’t hard to accomplish). The AI can also be a bit twitchy, but Bart never goes the full HAL 9000. You might recognize many elements, but Penn and the writers re-assemble them in ways that feel fresh.

The alliance between Calyx and Nelson evolves in a manner that is interesting and credible. Lena Headey and Stephan James develop a nice on-screen rapport that definitely helps the series flow. Yet, some of best episodes are flashbacks to earlier eras on the Beacon. Howey’s source novel is a “fixed-up” of five related short stories, which is reflected in the series. However, in this case, it brings more variety that actually distinguishes Beacon 23 from other recent shows (like The Ark or Silo, also based on a Howey novel). Every major flashback is justified (except maybe the in media res opening), because they establish information and events that will be hugely significant later.

American Gigolo, on Showtime

The original 1980 Richard Gere film was the first of the super-slick blockbusters Jerry Bruckheimer has produced, but it still delved into a gritty criminal underworld hidden from polite society, the way Paul Schrader often did in his best films. For the sequel-ish series, Bruckheimer is still on-board as an executive producer, but Schrader was cut out of the process. At least he gets credit for creating the characters. Even if Richard Gere were not a Tibetan Buddhist and an outspoken critic of the CCP’s human rights abuses (very much to his credit), he would still be a little too old to play Julian Kaye, the high-class hustler. Despite all the fudging and retconning, creator David Hollander manages to channel the vibe of Schrader’s film pretty well in American Gigolo, which premieres tomorrow on Showtime.

It still starts with Giorgio Moroder & Debbie Harry’s “Call Me,” because it would be crazy not to. You maybe thought Lauren Hutton’s conscience finally spurred her to alibi Richard Gere at the end of the source film, but apparently it didn’t really happen that way. Instead, Det. Sunday discovered Kaye asleep next to the dead body of a client and convinced him to confess, the way they always did in NYPD Blue. Fifteen years later (in the mid-2000s) a terminally ill hitman makes a deathbed confession, which DNA-testing confirms.

Suddenly, Kaye is free and exonerated. So, who set him up? Frankly, Sunday seems more interested in that question than he is. Kaye kept in shape while serving his time, but he is not eager to go back to work for his old procurer, the notorious madam known as “The Queen.” As we learn in flashbacks, he had good reasons to resent her, even before his “troubles.” On the other hand, he would kind of like to see his “special client” Michelle Stratton (previously played by Hutton), but life with her rich and controlling husband has been hard for her.

There is a lot of flashy excess in American Gigolo, which is sort of the point (presumably, much of Kaye’s wardrobe is still Armani). The distinguished-looking Gere is probably too distinguished to play Kaye in his late thirties-ish, but Jon Bernthal is a spookily close likeness for him. Incidentally, there are a few Buddhist references in the first three episodes provided for review, which would be cool if they were intended as a hat-tip to Gere (seriously, without him, this series probably wouldn’t exist).

Bernthal is a little tougher and steelier than Gere was in the film, but that rather makes sense, since his Kaye has just done fifteen years of relatively hard time. In a gender-flip hardly worth noting, Rosie O’Donnell takes over from Hector Elizondo as Det. Sunday. In fact, she is one of the best aspects of the show, eschewing her regular shtick, in favor of dry sarcasm and world-weary cynicism.

The Aviary

Say what you will, but cults have a solid business model. There are low barriers to entry and high barriers to exit. Two women learn that the hard way when they flee from their former cult leader “Seth” through the New Mexico desert in Chris Cullari & Jennifer Raite’s The Aviary, which opens Friday in New York.

Awkwardly, Gillian recruited Blair into the “Skylight” cult and now she wants to get her out. As a senior member, Gillian had a glimpse of Seth’s latest treatment and it scared her back into sanity (or did it?). They made a clean break for it, but as they make their way towards Gallop, Seth is still in their heads—certainly psychologically and perhaps also in fantastical uncanny ways. As a result, they find themselves walking in circles and increasingly distrusting each other.

Aviary probably isn’t truly horror, but it has horror-ish elements. Cullari & Raite previously created the entertaining 12 Deadly Days, which a lot of fans unfortunately missed out on. It tries hard, but The Aviary is not as clever nor as much fun. This story might have worked better as a chapter in an anthology. There is a lot of is-it-or-isn’t-it manipulation going on that is intriguing, but it also comes weighted down with endless scenes of the two women trudging and bickering through the sand.

Fear the Walking Dead: the Zombie Prequel

Unlike Deputy Sheriff Rick Grimes, Travis Manawa and his family did not sleep through the zombie uprising, but they still never saw it coming. Like the Spanish Inquisition, nobody expects the zombie apocalypse. LA traffic and attitudes only makes the problem of undead hordes worse in Fear the Walking Dead—the Complete First Season (trailer here), the AMC Walking Dead prequel series now available on DVD and BluRay.

As far as viewers know, Nick Clark is the first person to see zombies and live to tell the tale. Unfortunately, as a heroin junkie who ran into traffic, nobody will give his warnings much credence, not even Clark himself. Frankly, his widowed mother Madison Clark and sister Alicia are rather glad to have him in the hospital, where he can presumably be watched for his own good. However, this is an unusually busy day for emergency services, allowing him to slip out.

Clark and her high school teacher boyfriend Travis Manawa will try to track him down, but the city seems to be crazier than usually. There have been a rash of police shootings in which the bodies are absolutely riddled with bullets. Like a budding Tarantino, Manawa’s son Chris is eager to protest the cops’ presumed excessive force. Naturally he takes to the streets to protest at a rather inopportune time. Manawa and Clark will try to round up their respective kids and ex-wives, in hopes they can ride out the unrest somewhere in the desert, until in a case of classic good news-bad news, the military imposes martial law.

Although the initial episodes are also rather sparing in their depictions of zombies, the first season of Fear is considerably grabbier than year one of the mother franchise. Of course, having Cliff Curtis (of Whale Rider and Once Were Warriors) to anchor the series helps tremendously. While Manawa starts out likeably square and straight-arrow, Curtis believably takes him to some dark places as the first season progresses. He also develops some believable chemistry with Kim Dickens’ Clark. Ruben Blades adds further heft as Daniel Salazar, an El Salvadoran barber who reluctantly offers the Manawas shelter during a riot.

So far, the younger generation is not keeping up its end as well, but poor Frank Dillane is sort of stuck playing annoying junkie behavior as the needs-to-be-killed-off Nick Mason. Alycia Debnam-Carey also shows some promise and poise as Alicia Mason, but Lorenzo James Henrie’s personality-free Chris Manawa could get eaten by zombies and viewers would barely notice. Unfortunately, the always reliable Sandrine Holt’s talents are largely wasted on Dr. Exner, who hardly gets any character development until it is too late, but Colman Domingo (who helped rock Passing Strange) pretty much steals the show when he appears in the late episodes as Nick Clark’s mysterious protector, Victor Strand. He is reason enough to comeback for a second season.

Season one of Fear also ends more decisively than the first season of the original Walking Dead. It reaches an emotional crescendo for the main characters totally in keeping with what fans expect. Needless to say, not everyone will return for season two. Leaving viewers primed for more, Fear the Walking Dead—the Complete First Season is good zombie television (but it still cannot compare to the George Romero movies that so clearly inspired its world). Recommended for zombie fans, it releases today on DVD and BluRay, from Anchor Bay Entertainment.

AIR: A New Kind of Apocalypse from Robert Kirkman

In the post-apocalyptic future, two technicians will wrestle with some thorny issues of lifeboat ethics. They happens to be in charge of the lifeboat maintenance, but they are not as stable as you might hope. Complications will most definitely arise in Christian Cantamessa’s AIR (trailer here), the first theatrical release from Walking Dead creator Robert Kirkman’s Skybound shingle, which opens this Friday in New York.

Due to war, pestilence, and plague, the Earth’s surface atmosphere has become toxic. An elite lucky few were sent into suspended animation in deep subterranean bunkers. In each lifeboat-like shelter, two not so lucky technicians are roused every six months to run diagnostics and check the sleepers’ vitals. They only have one hour and fifty nine minutes to get back in their pods before all the oxygen is sucked out of the bunker and back into the tanks.

Unfortunately, both Bauer and Cartwright are showing signs of stress. The former is becoming increasingly aggressive, while the latter is seeing visions of one of the suspended scientists he clearly fancies. However, his mental projection of Abby often manages to give him rather timely advice. He will need it when his personal pod suffers a malfunction.

The apocalypse is usually more compelling on a personal level than on a big macro plane—and AIR is a good case in point. There is something very effectively old school about the one set (albeit a rather complex one, impressively rendered by Brian Kane’s production team) and its two or three character dynamic, depending one’s point-of-view. Cantamessa has a firm handle on close-quarters action, dexterously slamming airlocks and sending Bauer and Cartwright shimmying through air-ducts. Despite its claustrophobic nature, AIR is still quite cinematic looking.

No stranger to Kirkman or playing twitchy survivors, Walking Dead’s Norman Reedus has instant credibility as Bauer, yet he still manages to keep the audience off balance with his erratic behavior. Djimon Hounsou is also well cast as Cartwright, the strong, silent, hallucinating type. Although nobody could really sink their teeth into a role like the apparitional Abby, Sandrine Holt still has the perfectly cerebral yet sensitive presence to memorably haunt Cartwright and the film.

AIR is another fine example of how inventive filmmakers can make tight, tense, relatively action-oriented science fiction with hardly any visual effects to speak of. Granted, it is small in scope, but frankly that is rather refreshing in such an overly bloated genre. Recommended pretty enthusiastically for fans of Kirkman and post-apocalyptic SF, AIR opens this Friday (8/14) in New York, at the Cinema Village.

The Returned: the Hit French Series Americanized

Generally, in the western tradition, rising from the dead is usually either something miraculous or horrifying. The jury is still out whether an isolated Pacific Northwestern community’s sporadic resurrections are a blessing or a curse. For two formerly grieving parents, it is certainly the former case when their youngest daughter literally walks back into their lives. However, she is not the only formerly deceased to reappear in The Returned (promo here), an Americanized remake of the French television show of the same name, which premieres on A&E this Monday.

Four years ago, Camille Winship perished with most of her classmates in a school bus accident that devastated the town. As the show opens, she comes to near the fateful scene and rather confusedly makes her way home, unaware of her temporary death and the subsequent passage of years. Her all-but-separated parents, Jack and Claire, had tremendous difficulty dealing with her loss, particularly her father. Understandably, they are not quite sure what it means for their relationship when she comes back, but they are instinctively protective and secretive. It is almost too much for her older sister Lena to take, considering she always suspected Camille was their favorite.

Quite faithful to the original source material in the early episodes, co-writer-showrunners Carlton Cuse and Raelle Tucker give us plenty of backstory for the Winships, but slowly dole out tidbits of history on the other once dead characters for dramatic effect. Unfortunately, probably the storyline getting the second most screen time after Camille Winship’s family involves the formerly dearly departed bar band bad boy Simon Moran and Rowan Blackshaw, the fiancée he stranded at the altar in the worst way possible. However, the most intriguing story arc follows Victor, a mysterious little boy given shelter by Dr. Julie Han. After four episodes, viewers will truly have no idea what to expect from him, unless they have seen the French show. However, it is safe to say one returnee is a seriously bad cat, but his secrets remain closely guarded.

Cruse and Tucker might be faithful to a fault adapting The Returned, but there are plenty of similar thematic precedents out there already, including the Canadian film also titled The Returned and the BBC America show In the Flesh, both of which chronicle the challenges of the formerly deceased in treatment for their zombie condition. However, A&E’s The Returned still mostly works, if you come to it without any baggage from its source material, because of the strength of its cast.

Mark Pellegrino is convincingly guilt-ridden and surly as Jack Winship and Tandi Wright is similarly engaging as the more stable but equally pained Claire. It is quite compelling to watch them process an unimaginable turn of events. Likewise, India Ennenga and Sophia Lowe truly look like sisters and share believably catty sisterly chemistry as Camille and Lena, respectively. As usual, Sandrine Holt’s sophisticated presence just generally elevates the proceedings and she sensitively expresses Han’s frustrated maternal instincts in her scenes with the squirrely Victor. Strangely though, Agnes Bruckner, who has a bit of a cult reputation for films like The Pact gets little work of substance in the first four episodes as busybody copper Nikki Banks. If only the same could be said of the quickly tiresome Blackshaw and Moran, played with excruciating angst by Mary Elizabeth Winstead (so much better in Faults) and Mat Vairo.

Over the course of the initial four episodes, A&E’s The Returned remains light on allegorical pretension and heavy on its extreme form of family drama, which is all for the best. In fact, the local pastor played by Carl Lumbly is unusual sympathetic and down-to-earth. When unknowingly challenged by a rather embittered returnee, his words on faith sound heartfelt rather than rote. He is one of many in the ensemble who inspire optimism The Returned will continue to be quite watchable. Highly moody but weirdly grabby, The Returned is worth checking out for fresh viewers in search of new genre television when it premieres this Monday (3/9) on A&E.

Klapisch’s Chinese Dolls

The interconnected group of friends and lovers from Cédric Klapisch’s L’Auberge Espagnole and Russian Dolls represent a European microcosm, but to pursue their second chances at life and love they appropriately congregate in Lower Manhattan. Chinatown will see an influx of Francophone expats in Klapisch’s Chinese Puzzle (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

Novelist Xavier Rousseau is way behind on his latest deadline. He has been a bit distracted by the dissolution of his marriage to the British Wendy. Following his soon to be ex-wife to New York for the sake of his kids, Rousseau kind of-sort of experiences fatherhood again as the sperm-donator for his best pal Isabelle and her Chinese-American partner Ju. With little money and fewer prospects, Rousseau crashes in Ju’s hipster-friendly Chinatown apartment. It will become quite homey when he hosts his former lover Martine and her two children during their New York vacation.

Will sudden proximity rekindle their relationship? Fortunately she is rather understanding of his green card marriage to a second generation Chinatown New Yorker, but keeping up appearances for immigration will lead to a lot of door slamming and mad dashing about. Yet, somehow it all still represents the mature phase of his life.

Although Puzzle is the concluding film of what Klapisch calls “The Trilogy of Xavier’s Travels” (picture that on the DVD boxed set), it easily stands alone. However, those who are emotionally invested in the prior two installments will take great satisfaction from the nontraditional familial bonds that develop between the characters. In fact, it might be the most unabashedly optimistic and upbeat film for all concerned, propelled along by Loïk Dury and Christophe “Disco” Minck’s infectiously peppy Cesar Award nominated score.

Like a comfortable old shoe, Romain Duris exudes loser likability as Rousseau. He also shares some pleasant (if not exactly scorching) screen chemistry with Audrey Tautou’s Martine. In a nice change of pace following films like The Kid with the Bike and Hereafter, Cécile de France shows a keen facility for slightly naughty physical comedy as the Belgian Isabelle. Strangely, the American marketing campaign is not playing up House of Cards’ Sandrine Holt as Ju, but she adds some class and dignity to the proceedings.

Puzzle is a breezy and buoyant film, but it is not utterly vacuous. It clearly celebrates family and friendship, suggesting playing the cards one has been dealt might just turn out to be a blessing. That it is an unusually attractive cast of characters grappling with impending middle age just makes it all the more cinematic. A can’t miss for fans of Xavier’s previous travels, Chinese Puzzle is recommended for Francophiles and international rom-com audiences when it opens this Friday (5/16) in New York at the Angelika Film Center downtown and the Lincoln Plaza Cinema uptown.