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Post by artraveler on Oct 11, 2022 10:35:31 GMT -8
Dark Winds
First Season on AMC
subscription on Amazon Prime $8.95 per month. A one week trial subscription is available.
This is one of Tony Hilleman’s first novels and I am glad to see it done in a very real fashion. It has one of the best and most authentic Native American actors in the lead as joe Leaphorn, Zahn McClaron. McClaron recently played Akecheta in Westworld. He has been acting since 1988 so he is officially an overnight success.
Hilleman was very popular as a mystery writer in the 70s and 80s. He writes almost exclusively about Native Americans and unlike many writers doesn’t gloss over the good and the bad of reservation life. He is not afraid to cast blame, deservedly so, on Bureau of Indian Affairs. And show respect for those that respect the Navajo people.
The story begins with an armored truck robbery in Gallop NM and the robbers escaping by helicopter, flying it onto the reservation and it disappears. The FBI investigates and suspects that the robbers might be Navajo. While this is a federal matter stepping on Native American jurisdictional toes is ruled out. Instead, a Native American FBI agent is sent to fill an opening with the reservation police. Jim Chee (Kiowa Gordon). Chee left the reservation to get an education and becomes an agent of the FBI. The local FBI supervisor sends Chee to join the Navajo police and report progress on investigating the robbery.
Joe almost immediately sees through Jim Chee as an off-reservation agent and in questioning Chee determines he is FBI. The two reach an agreement, Chee will use FBI recourses and reports about two murders on the reservation and Joe will keep quiet about Chee’s status with the FBI and assist with finding the bank robbers.
The story revolves around Joe and his relations with his community, the white world. Joe views himself as grounded in Navajo culture but able to deal the larger community. On the other hand, Chee is assimilated but troubled about what he has left behind. The slow bonding between Joe and Chee and the eventual trust is a large part of the story.
This is a short series, six one-hour episodes, and the action moves quickly. The bad guys are not only the murders but also the bank robbers, one of which is Chee’s boss at FBI. Chee quits the FBI returns to the reservation.
Zahn is very convincing as Joe Leaphorn. Fortunately, for us there will be a season two, also a six-part story to be released sometime in 2023. There is no information on which Hillerman book or books will be the basis for season two. I look forward to seeing what the show runners do as Leaphorn and Chee battle for justice on the reservation. Part of the reason for the authentic reservation experience is the presence as executive producer Robert Redford.
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Post by Brad Nelson on Oct 17, 2022 19:52:31 GMT -8
Yes, and he was a major part of what I think was the best episode of the first two seasons.
Your descriptions sounds like something I want to watch. I have AMC as part of the package of channels on Sling TV. But it looks like you need AMC+ to get their original content.
As soon as the ALCS and NLCS series are done (Fox over-the-air has the World Series), I'll ditch Sling TV and do at least a 1-month subscription of AMC+.
Thanks for the review.
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Post by Brad Nelson on Oct 24, 2022 11:35:57 GMT -8
I've axed Sling TV and am doing at least a one-month subscription to AMC+ so that I can watch Dark Winds. I'm also search through their offerings. I've bookmarked A Discovery of Witches as well. It seems promising if only because one reviewer at IMDB writes, "OMG. No teenagers!"
The content of AMC+ apparently contains no commercials. However you feel about Sling TV and such packaged services, it seem ridiculous to pay them $50.00 a month and then have to sit through frequent and extended commercial breaks. It made content on nearly all of the channels unwatchable.
And it makes you wonder what that $50.00/month is for if all the channels have commercials on them anyway. What are you paying for? You should be able to watch all of these channels for free. Doesn't the plethora of commercials pay their way?
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Post by Brad Nelson on Oct 24, 2022 13:18:55 GMT -8
I think when I had subscribed to it temporarily a couple years ago it was $25 a month. Now it is $35 for the Blue or Orange collection of channels, or $50.00 to get both. Plus they'll try to sell up an upgrade on the DVR capacity that you have for $5.00 a month. Plus they have a bunch of other stuff you can add on.
But pay to watch commercials? At least HBO did it honestly. They offer a fee with commercials or without. I went with a year subscription plan with commercials (because it was so cheap...I think it was $65.00 for the entire year...and they were having a special). And the commercials are short...often no more than 30 seconds, and never more than a minute. I'm fine with that, especially since I consciously chose that option and could always upgrade to commercial-free. Of course, all of the HBO's homemade content does not have commercials no matter what tier you paid for.
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Post by Brad Nelson on Oct 24, 2022 15:39:08 GMT -8
I watched 90% of the first episode of A Discovery of Witches. It is a completely forgettable series. I also finished the first episode of Dark Winds. There is certainly a Longmire-ish feel to it. The Indians don't like white people. There's lots of dust and dirt. Everyone drives around in a beat up pickup truck. And they don't like white people. They are laying out the plot and characters in this first episode. So far, so good. This is not junk. My sole criticism is the tiring modern portrayal of "girl power" as being no more than going around with a permanent look of disapproval on one's face...what is also called "resting bitch face." The female deputy, played by Bernadette Manuelito, has that ailment. Simply wearing a scowl is no substitute for acting, but such is the current definition for what it means to play a "strong woman." Other than that, Zahn McClarnon is solid as tribal officer, Joe Leaphorn. And the preppie-looking Kiowa Gordon is good as the undercover FBI officer, Jim Chee. Joe's wife, Lemma Leaphorn (as played by Deanna Allison), is also prone to showing the entire range of human emotions shrunken down to a resting bitch face. I'm guessing there will soon be a new category in the Oscars and Emmies. "For Resting Bitch Face in a leading role, the nominees are…" But I want to see the second episode. That says something.  |
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Post by artraveler on Oct 24, 2022 16:23:06 GMT -8
And they don't like white people. Remember the time line this is set in the 1970s. Indian activism was at the forefront of the news. They had occupied Alcatraz Island and the women's movement, bra burners, were starting fires all over. It is also before the reservations discovered the wealth of Indian casinos. The BIA, bureau of Indian affairs, was a representative of a hated federal government and viewed on the reservations as an occupying force. I believe there was a lot more anger on the reservations then, there is now. A story I once heard that reflects this reflects the lack of funding for reservations and the health services. The federal budget year ends at the end of September. The story goes that if a reservation Indian must get sick he must do it before the 4th of July. Why? that is when the money runs out for the year. One of the many reasons when casino money started flowing into the reservations, the first thing they built was health clinics and told the feds to suck eggs. It is not so much white people but the federal government they don't like. IMHO with a lot of justification. |
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Post by Brad Nelson on Oct 24, 2022 16:39:22 GMT -8
One could say they were ahead of the line in hating white people. And I don't mind that, per se. The reality of attitudes among those old-timers I know in the Northwest who lived near Indian Reservations was not a high opinion of the Native Americans.
And to a large extent, as judged by reservation life, their attitudes were understandable. But there is, of course, a larger context. They got confined to those reservations through circumstances...primarily that of "bow-and-arrow does not beat Winchester rifles."
Longmire was great in the way it handled all this. We saw the truly bitter, white-hating Indians such as Officer Mathias. And yet we saw the cross-over people as exemplified by Henry Standing Bear and by Longmire himself. There was balance and perspective. The Indians had a legitimate gripe. And yet they could show themselves to be little more than small-minded bigots at times. It's difficult to play the victim card when you are pre-judging everyone around you.
We'll see how this plays out in Dark Winds but I expect some of the same kind of balance. It doesn't bother me that they hate white people. Get in line. To the extent that they hate the Federal government, we may be blood brothers in that regard.
Revenge of the casinos.
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Post by Brad Nelson on Oct 25, 2022 7:40:24 GMT -8
I'm through three of the six episodes of Dark Winds. I thought episode two was a little thin, the only real plot point being the Mormon family. I'm sure this will all make sense at some point, but for a heist, it does seem like an unnecessarily elaborate way to go about it. There's some Indian magic in this. I'm not sure turning the Navajo into spiritual super-beings does them justice. I appreciate some of the ceremonial stuff and their beliefs. But is this a supernatural series? This stuff seems out-of-bounds for a show such as this. Even average women seem to have a supernatural intuition. Resting Bitch Face (that is, Officer Manuelito) has cracked a smile, particularly in regards to getting to know pretty-boy (grandma's words, not mine) Officer Chee. The iceberg is melting. And they are handling this relationship well so far. Even Resting Bitch Face Jr. (Mrs. Leaphorn) was seen smiling in episode three. Things are looking up. Noah Emmerich is good as the FBI boss, High Pockets. He is the designated Bad and Insensitive White Person. And we know that such people exist. And he gets to have all that put on his character. Despite all the colored fabrics, ceremonial mojo, and deep traditional beliefs, this Indian reservation does not look like a place I would want to live. Resting Bitch Face (Officer Manuelito) had an honest moment when talking to Officeer Chee when she was explaining to him why she never allowed anyone into her home. She said that most of the men there were mama's boys, or something like that. At least the moral dynamic is not as black-and-white as the High Pockets character. There are bad Indians, good Indians, and very very bad Indians in this. And I didn't know that the Navajo reservation was the largest in the world. It's yuge.  The little cut-out in the middle is the Hopi Indian Reservation, no small thing either. |
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Post by Brad Nelson on Oct 25, 2022 9:26:58 GMT -8
Episode 4 is losing me a bit. The plot chokes on the stereotypical "omniscient criminal" who is right where he needs to be to kill someone who is finding some evidence. I'm afraid I can see this one going down the tubes at this point. There is no reason to watch it if this turns from a detective show to a supernatural "omniscient criminal" shtick. Why should I care when they just keep throwing in this dodge?
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Post by Brad Nelson on Oct 25, 2022 9:44:42 GMT -8
Officer Leaphorn is now reminiscing about the Assimilation School that his parents took him to. We now call those "Public Schools."
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Post by Brad Nelson on Oct 25, 2022 13:08:03 GMT -8
I finished binge-watching Dark Winds. I thought the overall blot was without much originality or flavor. But the characters and actors were pretty good...except for the main priest villain who was a cliché wrapped inside of a cliché.
They've obnoxiously set up the second season by the "I can't die" Frank Nakai escaping after being shot point-blank in the chest.
I'm glad I watched this. And there is some quality involved. But I won't be watching a season two if there is one because they have nowhere to go with this...at least with their current crop of stale writers.
Did we ever learn why Joe Leaphorn calls Agent Whitover "High pockets"? I don't remember hearing an explanation. But (spoiler alert), another plot cliché having a dirty FBI agent. Not that having a dirty FBI agent isn't believable. But the way they did it made no sense at all.
Zahn McClarnon and (accepting the award for Best Standing Bitch Face in a series or miniseries) Jessica Matten gave the stories some gravitas, although the black-magic angle from that one Navajo witch seemed out of place in this series.
The stories we really cared about – Joe's son – were schlepped over. I wanted more back-story on that and the mine. There were some good scenes (among the best) between Joe Leaphorn (who lost a son) and Guy Atcitty (who lost a daughter). But moments like this were somewhat trivialized by the hackneyed, run-of-the-mill plot around them.
Kiowa Gordon was good-enough as Jim Chee, although certainly not a deal-maker for this series. This agent playing both sides of the game was one of the better plot points. I expected this to be more central. But it was, again, a good storyline that got overshadowed somewhat by the other cliched plot elements.
A quiet scene with Bernadette and her horses would have been nice and would have developed her character nicely. Did we really need the plot-gadget of the Mormon family taking away precious screen time? That could have been left out entirely while the writers explored a bit more depth instead of throwing plot points at the wall like spaghetti in hopes that something would stick.
In the hands of more capable writers, they could certainly do a nice season two of this. There are some good characters and situations set up. But I'm not going to hold my breath. And half the problem are those situations that have been set up. I can see season two being about hunting down Nakai, dealing with the mine accident – all things that are "been there, done that." It was actually the longer story arcs that brought down the Longmire series. When it was mostly focusing on a specific event or crime in an episode, it was very good. As soon as they went the story arc route, they stopped producing anything original or interesting.
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Post by Brad Nelson on Oct 25, 2022 13:38:19 GMT -8
After I finish my current book, I'm going to check out People of Darkness, which is the fourth book in the series. This is the first one that introduces Jim Chee, who acts alone. It's not until book seven that Leaphorn and Chee team up. |
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Post by Brad Nelson on Oct 25, 2022 16:09:00 GMT -8
If I keep AMC+ for an extended time (and I'm not thinking that I will), I'll start a separate sub-forum for the service. I watched the first episode-and-a-half of the eight-episode 2019 series, The Name of the Rose. Each episode is about 51 minutes long. If you've seen the 1986 movie with Sean Connery, this series will look very familiar. And it seems to have the same high production quality. Connery played an excellent William of Baskerville, a Franciscan monk noted for his intelligence. In the series he is played very capably by John Turturro. So far the story seems neither rushed nor stretched out. We'll see how it goes further on.  |
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Post by Brad Nelson on Oct 25, 2022 19:59:36 GMT -8
They do have a free seven-day trial. So you could get in and out, binge-watch the series, and pay nothing.
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Post by Brad Nelson on Oct 26, 2022 6:44:05 GMT -8
In episode two of The Name of the Rose, there is some broadening of the story to include some kind of peasant revolt. You can see how common people's lives are ruined by the power-seeking brutes of the world. In this case it is the (French?) Pope against The Emperor. And I don't offhand remember who he is the Emperor of. The French Pope means to eradicate the Franciscan Order thus William has seemingly allied himself with the Emperor.
So some of this side-story of the peasants detracts a bit from the central story of the murder mystery in the monastery. But then I do suppose there were these side stories in the book and that is why they can stretch this series out into 8 episodes. We'll see if they do too much stretching.
But certainly the Connery movie was brilliant in condensing the story down to the murder mystery. I read that this movie didn't do all that well in America but did well in Europe and elsewhere. And it supposedly helped re-ignite Connery's career.
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Post by Brad Nelson on Oct 26, 2022 8:51:53 GMT -8
That's along the lines of Dennis Prager who says it is immoral to walk into a brick-and-mortar store and waste a salesperson's time to learn about a product if you simply intend to buy it online. But you're not wasting the streaming service's time. This stuff is all automated. You are the one committing your time to sign up, create an account, establish a password, etc. The thing to be cautious about is whether or not you can make a clean break with a subscription. Thankfully, aside from the horrible Netflix, I have not run into that. Remember the pain it used to be to try to cancel a magazine subscription? The fact is, the publishing companies were simply dishonest. That deterred me greatly from ever subscribing to a magazine. But aside from Netflix, I've had no trouble as of yet with any of these streaming services. And if you do wish to continue with one of them later, it's easy to do so because you already have an account set up...if you remember all your account data. I usually try to write it down somewhere, but all great plans...
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Also note that you are not able to browse the content of many of the services until you sign up. It varies. I know with HBO Max I could add the app on Roku and then browse the titles and descriptions of all their content. If I clicked on something in order to watch it, it offered me a chance to subscribe. I also found out that sometimes the first episode of a series was available for free.
It's also true that sometimes you can browse the offerings on someone's web site. But this isn't always the case. The point is, you have no idea what you're getting into sometimes without being able to browse the content. (And I mean browse titles and descriptions, not sample the content.) And sometimes that requires signing up. Even then, to know if a certain service is for you, you might want to sample the content of a few promising series to see if signing up (if only for a month) is the thing to do.
And last, but not least, have no guilt. The streaming services want you to give you a free sample. They want to get you hooked.
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Post by Brad Nelson on Oct 26, 2022 16:15:39 GMT -8
I'm through four of the eight episodes of The Name of the Rose. It is mostly holding together pretty well. It's a little bit like doing the movie in slow or extended motion. The one main added subplot (so far) is the ass-kicking (I'm not kidding) female, Anna, who is hell-bent on avenging the murder of her family. At one point she takes on a Crusader knight (who is in full garb) in a sword contest. She wins. The other aspect that is filling in or extending the time is we get more in depth with the relationship between Adso and La Ragazza. And that mostly works just fine. It isn't cloying or obnoxious.  Ron Perlman did a memorable job as Salvatore in the original movie. But Stefano Fresi is giving his own interpretation (not a million miles away from Ron's) that is very good as well. The only character I'm ambivalent about is Michael Emerson as the Abbot of the Benedictine abbey. The Abbot in the movie was played more soberly by Michael Lonsdale. But this is certainly a different portrayal. Perhaps it is more authentic to the book. |
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Post by Brad Nelson on Oct 26, 2022 18:45:11 GMT -8
It's always worth a laugh. Fortunately it's just a relatively minor sideline to the whole story.
And if it helps any, she was wounded. But I think in real life, she would have been cut in half in the first blow.
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Post by Brad Nelson on Oct 27, 2022 13:44:07 GMT -8
I've read the first three eight chapters of People of Darkness. There is a marked difference reading a book written by a mature male as opposed to the frivolous "pass/fail"-graded-on-a-you-go-girl-curve as schlepped out in the Vagina Press these days. That is, this book is refreshingly (so far) not frivolous or insipid. |
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Post by Brad Nelson on Oct 27, 2022 15:34:39 GMT -8
Yes he does. And that's where I am.
Having read now about ¼ of this book, you can see how the AMC+ series seems to be a schlepped together conglomeration of parts of various books.
In this fourth book, Chee is working for the Navajo Tribal police and is thinking about accepting an appointment to the FBI. In the series, he is already working for the FBI and goes undercover as an officer for the tribal police and has never yet met Leaphorn before.
In the book, there is a message on Chee's desk telling him to call Captain Leaphorn, which he does. Like I said in my review, there is some quality to the series but the plot seemed a mess. Now I perhaps see why. The plot in the AMC+ series is cobbled together and not very well.
This fourth book also mentions (as the series did) an explosion at the mine. And at least this book goes into some detail of the circumstances. But the series glosses it over…it's a central plot element but it is given short shrift.
In the book, we haven't met Leaphorn and I think we probably never do. It apparently isn't until the seventh book in the series that Leaphorn and Chee team up.
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