I got about 15 minutes into it and impulsively switched over to the Criterion Channel, where I browsed the "Pre-Code Divas" collection, picked one almost at random, and watched it straight through to the end.
I tried watching the rest of that "Crown" episode the next day and only got through about another 15 minutes before giving up. Turned the TV off entirely.
Why is it so unwatchable? I'm not even up to the really bad thing that I've seen spoiled in various reviews. And by "really bad thing," I don't mean that Diana dies in a car crash. That can't be spoiled, and the show puts that first, before the opening credits, so at least you're spared wondering how they will depict that. (They show the car entering the tunnel, and you hear a crash.)
No, what I saw spoiled is this, so don't go there if you're avoiding spoilers. I'll just say I hate that device, but I hadn't got there yet. Should I force myself to watch to the end of the series because I've come so far? No, I've bailed on so many series. I'm not going to spend my evenings getting to the end of everything I've enjoyed for a season, e.g. "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel."
And Netflix doesn't even seem to expect it. When I go to its front page, I see all kinds of prompts to watch this and that, but nothing for "The Crown," even though Netflix must know I've watched all the other seasons.
Is everyone avoiding it? Maybe it's just bad enough that Netflix knows pushing it will backfire and has decided on a strategy of letting it build favor with fans. The new season has a 55% — "rotten" — critics' rating at Rotten Tomatoes, and a 100% fan rating, so — the idea might be — let it ferment slowly into a cult favorite.
But — speaking of cult favorites! — I love the pre-Code movies at Criterion. In October, I watched 5 from the "Pre-Code Horror" collection: "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," "Freaks," "Island of Lost Souls," "The Old Dark House," and "The Black Cat." And in November, I've been watching the "Pre-Code Divas."
The one I chose to escape from "The Crown" was "Safe in Hell." But I'd already watched "The Cheat," "Night Nurse," "Three on a Match," and "Baby Face." ("Design for Living," one of my all-time favorite movies, is something I've re-watched within this year, for reasons other than its inclusion in "Pre-Code Divas.")
Before this pre-Code frenzy of mine, I was very rarely watching movies. I could go months without watching a movie. I mean, I watched a bunch of movies in 3 days when I had Covid, but that just seemed to prove the essential indolence of movie-watching. You can rise above that low level, but you need to find the higher ground within yourself. It's not easy.
But pre-Code movies are working for me. Not sure why. They're short. But no shorter than an episode of "The Crown." There's no pretense of elevation, which is an annoying thing about "The Crown" when it is, in fact, leaning into trashiness. The pre-Code movies celebrate trashiness and anything else they can get their hands on. Sublime!
Here's a delightful sample, from "Night Nurse":
Posts
40 comments:
I guess you don’t need to hear about sunk cost theory. Considering it is historical fiction, you know the ultimate real life ending, so of the fictional drama isn’t working for you…. Save time for 2nd season of Reacher out Dec. 15th.
Short answer........NO!
It’s all oriented toward women.
I know the story. I don't need a bullshit "dramatization."
So many of these shows -- Maisel, The Crown, The Witcher -- lose their touch and I'm done watching. The first three episodes of the new season of "Julia" just dropped and it's already gone wrong. I'm afraid the series is going to end up like "The Bear": a cooking show that abandons the kitchen.
I don't care for "historical fiction" as it blurs the line between history and fiction, and I feel worse off due to the inability to distinguish between the two.
And actual historical history contains more than enough fiction for me.
The problem for me (as far as I can confidently talk about my own thinking processes, which is another of saying I'm guessing, I guess) is that a show like The Crown, that tells me ahead of time it is not entirely factual, becomes a burdensome mini detective subplot, asking questions (to myself) like 'did he/she really say that', did they really do that?
It's distracting to know that what I think I know about the story might be wrong. Especially when I'm looking to cheer for somebody out of the big ensamble of characters.
I can't seem to lose myself in the stories. My best guess as to why i stopped watching.
The first several seasons of The Crown were compelling because I wasn't deeply familiar with the history. Granted the show always presented a dramatized version of history, but that's the whole idea. I've found that seasons 5 and 6 feel much more like watching a soap opera. I'll watch it to the end, but I'd be satisfied if they'd ended the series after season 4.
A related note: depending on how receptive you are to silly British humor, you might enjoy The Windsors (Netflix). I often found it absurdly funny - almost Pythonesque - and the acting is top-notch.
"So many of these shows -- Maisel, The Crown, The Witcher -- lose their touch and I'm done watching. The first three episodes of the new season of "Julia" just dropped and it's already gone wrong. I'm afraid the series is going to end up like "The Bear": a cooking show that abandons the kitchen."
My idea of a cooking show is Jacques Pepin on TikTok.
Althouse writes, "Why is ['The Crown'] so unwatchable?"
What's that crude remark about lipstick on a pig? Doesn't it apply here?
The Windsors are a sorry lot -- petty, dull, and childish. The last interesting one was Edward VIII, but he was Nazi. (Netflix should develop a series about the madcap adventures of Bertie and Wallace, given the growth of antisemitism among the useless parasites known as Gen Z, the payout should be huge.) Elizabeth was nice enough; she could drain the crankcase oil of a Willis Jeep, which is more than any of the others accomplished in a lifetime. So what do you do with such a cast of characters? If you're Ingmar Bergman, you might craft a slow-paced and depressing saga of existential angst, but that could only end in a string of suicides, not series sustainable. Therefore you fall back on the daytime television paradigm, the soap opera.* That's enough to keep similarly dull-witted viewers tuned in, but the rest of us? Ninety-years-old soft porn has its attractions. (Too bad they are long gone with hardly a worthy successor. Imagine what Bob and Ray could do with that "regal" material.)
* I am still convinced the soap opera format was conceived as a deterrent against truancy -- Go to school, kids. Daytime TV isn't cartoons and war movies.
"I don't care for "historical fiction" as it blurs the line between history and fiction, and I feel worse off due to the inability to distinguish between the two."
Would you say that about Shakespeare's history plays?
It seems to me history provides a setting that can be almost entirely fictional, just like all fiction stories are set in something that has to do with the real world. You can get hung up on thoughts about how that wouldn't really happen in the real world, but you suspend disbelief if you want to consume the work of art.
The new season of "The Crown" covers the material that was in the 2006 movie "The Queen." I think the opinion out there is that "The Queen" is much much better. Why not rewatch that?
Haha! I don't want to actually learn how to cook recipes. I just like kitchen drama and watching the chef hierarchy.
I haven't started it yet, dreading Althouse's will be my reaction too. I made the delightful mistake of re-watching the first 2 seasons before the new season was available. Reminded me how much I enjoyed the more or less real history and the actors portraying Elizabeth, Phillip, Margaret and even Churchill and Eden.
I remembered how disappointing I found the latest Elizabeth last season, not sure I can face her going through the Diana death cult fiasco. I fully expect it will all turn out to be a dream.
Historical fiction seems to me to work best when it provides accurate information about the era and the "real" characters, while weaving the stories of any fictional characters into that setting. Trying to elevate the story of Diana through fictional developments of the real characters in that tawdry spectacle of elitist entitlement is a tough slog, because few of the participants in that history are at all likeable. Think of how fun it was to hate that horrid Jeoffrey in GOT, and imagine if "Diana" had you hating every character, instead of trying to wring heartbreak from the somewhat slimy bathos of their lives?
It's only when you talk to someone who only knows the show - and not the history - that you realize how damaging "The Crown" is.
I encounter a lot of that where I live.
Bette Davis?
Most series jump the shark at some point. The question is, can it jump back?
Dodi Fayed? Princess Diana? Wow. I'm surprised at you. Do you buy those weird photo magazines they keep by the checkout lines?
It seems to me that any film about the British royal family will be a soap opera. The only question is, how well will it be done? This latest edition of "The Crown" is, to my taste, surprisingly better than last season, in part because, as Crack says, we already know what will happen in that tunnel at the Pont d'Alma, but not much about what was going on in the build-up to it. The "dramatization" of those events did a great job of depicting the madness of the paparazzi and their role in the tragedy, something that was missing in news coverage at the time. And, like any good historical drama (cf. Shakespeare), in it we can easily see our own times, in this case the social media madness into which Western culture has descended today. It's as if Diana lost her life to send us a warning, away from which of course we turned our eyes.
I enjoyed the early seasons with Claire Foy. Not so much the later series about Princess Diana which I gave up on. Princess Diana is a bit of a Debbie Downer. Kind of an anti-fairy tale. Beautiful girl marries the Prince, has an unhappy marriage, engages in revenge fucking, and dies in a stupid accident. Nothing about Princess Diana's story, except maybe for the very early chapter, is engaging. If someone with Diane's advantages can't figure out how to have a good life or even make minimal sense out of it, what chance do we all have?
I'm reading a book about the Duke of Wellington's later career. It's reassuringly dull. Now there was a guy who found a way to make sense of life and to leave the world a better place than he found it and himself along with it......Immediately after Waterloo, he was the great hero of Europe. The ruling Tories voted him a two hundred thousand pound grant. The opposition Whigs opposed this. They wanted to give him a three hundred thousand pound grant. Their measure carried. The French, Prussian and Russian rulers also tipped him lavishly for his service. Unlike Napoleon, Wellington was not in service for himself but in service for his King and for the monarchies.......Napoleon has captured the imagination of posterity. After Lincoln, he is the most written about historical figure. So far as I know there haven't been any biopics about Wellington's life, but Napoleon routinely attracts the best writers and actors and directors of every generation are attracted to the drama of his life......Well, no matter, In his own time on earth, Wellington got the fame and the glory and the hot opera singers. That's way more rewarding than the admiration of Byron and Beethoven.
Is that ending really a surprise? The Tudors ended with Henry VIII getting yelled at by all his dead wives.
I have watched most of 'Crown' but stopped for some reason.
I will probably pick it up again as I feel oddly compelled to finish what I start.
The guy who plays Charles is far too handsome for the role (he was great in 'The Hour').
The actress who plays Diana is gorgeous, so there's that...
'So many of these shows -- Maisel, The Crown, The Witcher -- lose their touch and I'm done watching.'
Being Netflix, I'm kind of surprised Diana isn't black...
William: "So far as I know there haven't been any biopics about Wellington's life..."
The closest is Bernard Cornwell's Sharpe's novels, which chronicle Wellington's campaigns from India through Waterloo, through the eyes of a fictional soldier. Turned into a Brit TV series, which I've never seen.
I did watch Baby Face per the recommendation in another thread. I can imagine a modern day remake of it quite easily. It hits a similar tone to something like the movie Hustlers from today.
Also the fact that reading Nietzsche is what sent her down her path is pretty hilarious.
Shakespeare was soap opera particularly tudor propaganda gleaned from merton
Debicki is an interesting choice for diana she has proved devious in man from uncle the guardians, and innocent in night manager (to the villains actions)
She played a similar character in tenet, married to a very over the top russian oligarch played by brannagh (which is recycled from the tom clancy film
Maybe it's explained elsewhere, but if there is a child dying upstairs, why does the Night Nurse spend so much time trying to get the drunk mother to visit her, instead of calling for the doctor?
A set-maker once told me that shows don't turn a profit until season 3, which explains the efforts to keep these things rolling as long as they can - to the point where they become soap operas.
So many shows have great first seasons and then dissipate into lazy, incoherent writing because, well, it's all been done. At least rock bands have the dignity to break up or put out solo albums.
I'd watch the show but only if they incorporate illegals into the storyline. What a treat to watch the Royals in Buckingham Palace interact with the people that the British government welcomed into their society. Much more fun than watching illegals in the US cavort with the Trumps in Mar-A-Lago. Or the Obamas in Hawaii.
Ah, Night Nurse. Perhaps my favorite pre-Code film. It makes clear what was often slipped by casually - that anything to do with liquor was in fact illegal. (Compare to the Marx Brothers' Horsefeathers.) It's like viewing a recent (80s-00s) film where lots of characters smoke weed on camera.
one good thing about movies from the 30s and early 40s is they kept it short and full of plot or action. No drawn out boring scenes. Casablanca 106 minutes, Fugitive from a chain gang 91 minutes. Scarlett Pimpernel 97 minutes. DOA is only 83 minutes.
robother - the Sharpe series was very enjoyable.
Sean Bean was very good, Daragh O'Malleyas as his sergeant did extremely well.
Roger Sweeny said...
Bette Davis?
Barbara Standwyck
I enjoyed the new episodes of The Crown. It's flawed and inaccurate, but a way to pass time while making dinner. The actress playing the Queen grows into her role this season.
I wish Lawrence Fox hadn't been banned from acting for his politics. I was hoping for one more round of Endeavor/Morse/Lewis.
Stanwyck
I watched "The Divorcee" last weekend but will need to watch it again due to the poor sound quality. I missed a lot of the dialogue. The pacing and scene blocking still had vestiges of the silent era.
"Satan Was A Lady" was a real hoot. All the actors seemed to have a blast chewing the scenery. Any similarity to later versions of "The Maltese Falcon" are purely coincidental.
I watched it. Maudlin.
Post a Comment