January Meme: My recent month at Disney +

[selenak]

oracne asked me about my recent month on Disney plus: likes and dislikes.

This was the third month in as many years, because I already subscribe to two streaming services and am just not willing to subscribe to Disney full time. Otoh if I do it once a year or so, enough stuff I really want to see has accumulated, and I can add some things which weren't must watchs but which I was curious about. Which was true this time around as well.

My main reason for paying the Mouse near the end of November as the Peter Jackson edited three part documentary on the Beatles project that started out as Get Back and ended up as Let it Be, and for that alone, it would have been worth it, see my reviews for part 1, part 2 and part 3. The Fab Four epic in three installments remained my overall favourite. While I was there, I also marathoned two Marvel shows I wasn't curious enough about to return to Disney before this point, i.e. The Falcon and the Winter Soldier and Loki, and watched Hawkeye in real time. (The last episode was dropped a day before my month ended.)

All three were enjoyable, though not as original an attempt to experiment with the format as WandaVision had been. Otoh, WandaVision didn't stick quite stick the landing, and also, the changing sitcom through the tv ages gimmick was not something repeatable. Mind you, the ending was something both Loki and Falcon & Winter Soldier had problems with as well. Hawkeye may have been less ambitious in what it wanted to achieve, but it told exactly the story it wanted to tell from start to finish and was the perfect pre Christmas fluff to consume while also selling the serious emotional undertones (and the new characters, like Kate and May/Echo). So in terms of new-to-me Disney Marvel since the last time I joined, Hawkeye wins.

Lastlyl, I discovered Disney plus also offered The Last Duel, and while I can see why this wasn't something people wanted to see in their spare time, and mocked Ridley Scott for being upset it flopped, I thought it was actually pretty good. For those who've never heard of it, it's based on the last officially recognized judicial duel fought in France, in which one Jean de Carrouges, Knight, challenged Jacques Le Gris to a duel to the death after Carrouges' wife Marguerite had accused Le Gris of having raped her. The story is told from three povs, Jean de Carrouges (Matt Damon), Jacques Le Gris (Adam Driver) and Marguerite (Jodie Comer), with an obvious nod to Rashomon, but that only goes so far. The stories in "Rashomon" widely diverge when it comes to the bandit and the Merchant's wife. In The Last Duel, there's no question for the aiudience as to whether or not a rape has taken place (even in Le Gris' pov, though it's also pretty obvious why he is kidding himself on that count); where the pov diverge most blatantly is actually on the three takes on Carrouges - in his own pov, he's the stern-but-fair type, an honorable knight who's tender to his wife; in Le Gris' pov, he's a blustering, ridiculous buffoon; for Marguerite, he's a cold selfish tyrant who cares only about his own glory and constantly has to placated. It's also telling that Marguerite notices the world around her, the servants, the other women, while Jean is only focused on the slights against him (the trial by combat is only the last of a whole series of law suits he engineers), and Jaques the medieval frat boy only cares for his pleasures, which more often than not happen in the vincinty of his boss (and Jean's arch nemesis), Pierre d'Alencon (Ben Affleck enjoying himself enormously as a perpetually bitchy character prone to have threesomes with Jacques). Because neither guy remains sympathetic while their delusions about themselves get narratively skewered, the tension doesn't come from wanting either of them to win but from Marguerite's life being at stake if her husband gets defeated. There titular duel not withstanding, it's a medieval court room drama, and I found it captivating to watch.

In conclusion, I didn't have any dislikes last month. But I'm still not subscribing to Disney full time.

The other days

Comments

[oracne]

Thanks! I, too, enjoyed Hawkeye - I have been viewing the various miniseries as being sort of like fanfiction, in that I'm enjoying the format experimentation.

[muccamukk]

My interest in the Last Duel is more or less "It sounds like an interesting exercise in storytelling, but I wouldn't pay $13 and risk covid to go see it." I'll hopefully catch it when it swings around to a service I already pay for.

I agree that Hawkeye was the one show that actually managed the scope of its ambitions, which was probably because it had fairly low ambitions.

[sovay]

Lastlyl, I discovered Disney plus also offered The Last Duel, and while I can see why this wasn't something people wanted to see in their spare time, and mocked Ridley Scott for being upset it flopped, I thought it was actually pretty good.

I was wondering if The Last Duel would end up streaming anywhere—I read an interview with the three screenwriters that made me very much want to see it, but movies in theaters are not something I am doing right now. Thanks for the heads-up!

[selenak]

You're welcome!

[liriaen]

The Last Duel - that was the first time I lugged my carcass to the cinema since the onset of the plague! I didn’t regret it (although it will remain a solitary outing for a long time, after people far and near couldn’t even wait until it got dark in the room before yanking down their masks and inhaling nachos…)
I thought it needed the big screen, too. It stayed with me for a long time. The Rashomon style storytelling was effective, and the car crash ending for the men was horribly inevitable…

[selenak]

I wish I could have watched in on the big screen, but by the time I could have, it wasn't shown there anymore. So I was glad of the Disney alternative.

(Ridley Soctt films in general are made for the big screen; I'll never forget watching Thelma and Louise for the first time, and when the helicopter showed up in the canyon...