Best Thing I Watched — July-August

Once Upon a Time in Iraq (BBC Two)

Rocketing to a strong contender for Top 5 show of the year, this straightforward 5-hour documentary is largely made up of interviews with current and former Iraqi residents giving their (largely civilian) perspective of their country before, during, and after the heaviest fighting of the Iraq War. Interviews with westerners (including journalists and a solider) help fill in details and essential context to understand Iraq’s sociopolitical climate in the time frame surrounding the war.

This BBC Two production was condensed into a 2-hour episode of Frontline, and, while not bad, it dispenses with the journalists and soldier completely, losing extremely helpful context and geopolitical background (especially from the journalists) and cuts out three hours of the Iraqis’ interviews (one Saddam Hussein acolyte’s interview is boiled down to a few sentences of what a fan he is of the former Iraqi president, losing his extended and effusive praise about how good Hussein was, how loyal he was to Saddam, and details like how he grew out his beard because of Hussein (juxtaposed with a different Iraqi’s interview who had mentioned how devotees of Hussein imitated his sartorial and grooming habits)).

All the Sins (Finnish: Kaikki synnit) (Elisa Viihde via Walter Presents)
My discovery of Finnish shows continues; what started earlier this year with the best war series I’ve seen, to a likeable if a bit too cute rom-com featuring a blind lead (Donna), and now a noir-ish crime drama. After its initial spurt of popularity, Scandinavian noir shows have been churned out left and right, both by the Scandinavian countries and by non-Scandinavian countries aping its style (and of course numerous English-language remakes). It had grown a bit tiresome with shows seemingly just checking off the Scandi-noir boxes (dark aesthetics, two complicated leads oft with one exhibiting Asperger’s-like tendencies, gruesome-sometimes-ritualistic murders, probably takes place in the middle of the woods or something, seedy underbelly of a town with lots of secrets) with what felt like a cookie-cutter bog-standard plot. That said, co-creator Merja Aako considers it Finnish Weird rather than Nordic Noir.
While All the Sins has been renewed for a second season, based on its blurb it doesn’t sound like it’ll be returning its leads who were a solid 80-95% of what made All the Sin such a compelling watch. Johannes Holopainen is particularly watchable as a detective returning to his home town against his wishes to investigate a murder (earning a much-deserved Golden Venla nomination for Best Actor in the Finnish equivalent of the American Emmys). He’s a quieter character but there’s a lot bubbling under the surface, the gears are grinding behind a quiet facade. He also gets several emotional scenes and easily sells it, no artificial tears needed.
I’ve been sampling various foreign series during CoronaTimes, of the 51 foreign-language shows I’ve sampled over the past two months, this was only one of three I watched beyond one episode, polishing off the (admittedly short) season under a week, working at an episode-a-day pace (the other foreign shows watched beyond an initial sampling, Sløborn and How to Sell Drugs Online (Fast), were both German and helpful in current attempts to learn the language). I’ll have to re-evaluate my Best of 2019 list as it deserves a spot.
The last episode didn’t quite stick the landing, losing some of its propulsive watchability and was a bit pat but was still a nice season ender. Regardless I would really really love to see Johannes Holopainen and Maria Sid return as detectives Lauri Räihä and Sanna Tervo, a wonderful cop pairing up there with Linden and Holder.

Honorable Mention:
Gangs of London (Sky Atlantic via AMC), specifically the action scenes
Strains credulity. Strains logic. Strains cogent storytelling. And yet
Spectacular fight choreography, spectacular stunt work, and spectacular action set pieces.
If you’ve watched one gangster movie, you’ve watched them all, and this series doesn’t re-invent the wheel by any means. Sure, its cast of characters feels like a gangster United Nations with Kurdish PKK, Albanians, Pakistanis, Welsh travelers, machete-wielding Africans mixed in with the English, but it still boils down to warring factions fighting for territory. The characters aren’t anything we haven’t seen before and the dialogue ranges from passable to cliche-ridden, but a strong cast sells the dialogue and breathes dimension into and makes us grow attached to their characters: Michelle Fairley continues to do strong work post-Game of Thrones (adding to her collection of post-GoT antagonistic “bitch” characters after 24: Live Another Day and The White Princess); Joe Cole ably leads the show, making a strong enough impression that I’ll have to seek out his BIFA-winning turn in A Prayer Before Dawn; relative newcomer Ṣọpẹ́ Dìrísù earns leading man status; and while Brian Vernel (probably best known for being the Scottish guy in The Force Awakens) got stuck with the drug-addled gay trope, by the end of the season was the one I most wanted to survive alongside his character’s sister (Valene Kane).
Gareth Evans (of The Raid fame, firmly back in martial arts territory after a watchable horror detour in Netflix’s The Apostle) created Gangs, directed two episodes (among the three best that stand head and shoulders above the rest), and directed the show’s numerous fight scenes.

The cinnamontography on Street Food: Latin America (Netflix)

Movie: Get Duked! (fka Boyz in the Wood)

Amazon has digitally released a trio of strong films so far in 2020 (Blow the Man Down; The Vast of Night) that largely flew under the radar despite strong reviews. Future cult status is often predicted nowadays for under-the-radar gems (see: recently-ended little-watched nihilistic workplace comedy Corporate and a predicted Office Space cult status trajectory) but in the streaming age of 500+ scripted shows a year and tens upon tens of weekly releases (and that’s just from the streamers), the likelihood of something gaining fans little by little, bit by bit until it garners cult status dwindles as it has to compete for attention with the tens of weekly releases, each with their own marketing campaigns fighting to get users to hit play. More likely, excited word of mouth about scarcely-watched programs that “you HAVE to watch” gets the would-be cult hit added to the queue list, never to be heard from again.

Long preamble to say that had Get Duked! (fka Boyz in the Wood) been released yesteryear before the plethora of streaming services with their legions of original programming and global imports it would’ve been a solid contender for cult status. But in today’s era of peak TV, it feels doomed to become just another one of countless movies available to stream on Amazon. Which is a shame because this survival-thriller-comedy has (rightfully) drawn comparisons to sci-fi-comedy Attack the Block (itself a cult hit) and deserves to be regarded with the same level of esteem that Attack does.

To put it shortly: Get Duked! is the most deliriously fun movie I’ve watched, reminding me of the giddiness I felt with The World’s End, Attack the Block, or Kingsmen: The Secret Service, but even more so.

8.5/10

On the docket for Fall: The Boys (Amazon); Deutschland ’89 (Amazon Prime via SundanceTV); Fargo (FX)
My Top 20 TV Shows of 2020 list is coming together and the above fall shows are intriguing prospects to potentially make it