All the superlatives you’ve read about Russian Doll are true. It’s wild, inventive, unique, unexpected, deep, funny, and must see TV.
Continue reading “Review: Russian Doll”Tag: Natasha Lyonne
Orange is the New Black, season 6
Orange is the New Black, season 6, starts after the riot of season 5. The way the government and prison authorities dealt with it was the focus of the season. Some of our favorite characters made it into Litchfield Max, while others were shipped off to distant prisons never to be seen again. Continue reading “Orange is the New Black, season 6”
Orange is the New Black Season 5: Thumbs Up vs. Thumbs Down
Orange is the New Black season 5 was both an emotional thrill ride and a disappointment. I want to discuss my likes and dislikes about the latest season. This is not a detailed review. There might be a few spoilers along the way. Continue reading “Orange is the New Black Season 5: Thumbs Up vs. Thumbs Down”
The Realest Real
The Realest Real is a movie by Carrie Brownstein. It’ll take you 6 minutes to watch and make you wonder about the wisdom of everything you say in the future on social media. Continue reading “The Realest Real”
Watch This: Trailer for The Intervention
The Intervention features a big ensemble cast in a situation likened to The Big Chill. Instead of a funeral, the motivation for this get together among friends is to suggest one of the couples get a divorce! That’s the intervention. Continue reading “Watch This: Trailer for The Intervention”
Orange is the New Black: Finding a Balm for Your Pain
Orange is the New Black season 4 puts viewers through the wringer. Abuse, murder, death, mental illness, surviving rape, corporate greed. It’s dark and horrifying. There are moments of hope, of light. There are ways of dealing. I thought it would good to end my series of posts on the latest season of Orange is the New Black with something brighter. There are spoilers ahead. Continue reading “Orange is the New Black: Finding a Balm for Your Pain”
Review: Hello, My Name is Doris
Hello, My Name is Doris starring Sally Field is an absolutely fabulous film in so many ways. Sally Field, as Doris, gives a fantastic performance. Is it better than her performances in Norma Rae or Places in the Heart? Maybe not, but it is 100% on the mark in creating the peculiar, unique individual known as Doris Miller.
Some spoilers ahead. Continue reading “Review: Hello, My Name is Doris”
Watch This: Trailer for Addicted to Fresno
I don’t know when I’ve been quite this excited about a movie. Addicted to Fresno is so perfect!
What exactly do I mean by perfect? Well, it stars Judy Greer and Natasha Lyonne as sisters who are completely nutso – funny already, that. Then there’s the rest of the cast: Molly Shannon, Aubrey Plaza, Clea DuVall, Allison Tolman and Jessica St. Clair. Don’t forget the writer Karey Dornetto and the director Jamie Babbitt. It’s an explosion of brilliant women. See? Perfect.
Oh, wait. I think there are some guys in the film, too. Maybe Ron Livingston, Fred Armisen, and Malcolm Barrett.
Lyonne’s character is a hotel maid. Her sister, Greer’s character, is a sex addict who blows into Fresno and gets a job in the hotel with her sister. They have a mishap of sorts with a dead body. It isn’t clear from the trailer what the mishap is or why a cart full of sex toys is the solution, but I cannot wait to find out.
Addicted to Fresno will be available on demand September 1 and will be released in theaters October 2. Laughter will be allowed.
Orange is the New Black: Sent to SHU
Two of our favorite characters on Orange is the New Black spend time in the segregated housing unit (SHU) in season 3.
Season 3 spoilers ahead.
According to a recent report on solitary confinement, the practice of solitary confinement is overused and ineffective.
. . . evidence mounts that solitary confinement produces many unwanted and harmful outcomes—for the mental and physical health of those placed in isolation, for the public safety of the communities to which most will return, and for the corrections budgets of jurisdictions that rely on the practice for facility safety.
Nicky
Remember the bags of Vee’s heroin that Nicky hid in the vent in the laundry? Yeah. That heroin. Well, Nicky and Big Boo (Lea DeLaria) decide to get it out of the prison. Luschek (Matt Peters) will help them and will sell it in the outside world. They plan to use the tunnel that opens into the greenhouse.
That plan falls through. Nicky gets nervous and moves the bags into a fluorescent light housing in the laundry. It falls out. The girls in the laundry get stoned on it. Luschek gets all the remaining heroin from them, puts it in a toolbox with Nicky watching, and carries it out of the prison.
Nicky saves one tiny bag and sticks it under Luschek’s desk. She can’t bear to let it all go. The laundry girls talk, so Caputo (Nick Sandow) searches electrical. Of course, they find the little bag.
Nicky gets all the blame and is sent to SHU Maximum Security [see comments]. Luschek points the finger at her, and that’s all the proof anyone needs. There is no investigation. Nicky’s just carted off. Luschek is not blamed for anything.
This happens in episode 3. Nicky is gone for the rest of the season. Orange is the New Black just isn’t right without Nicky, you know?
I wish there had been an episode near the end of season 3 where Nicky returned. It would have been good to see the effect on her. Maybe that will happen in season 4.
Sophia
Motherhood is one of the main themes throughout all of season 3. Sophia’s story as a parent is particularly difficult and touching. Her son (Michael Rainey, Jr.) is doing the teen rebellion thing and she doesn’t know how to help with it. She doesn’t know if he needs mothering or fathering from her. She’s conflicted and upset. Her wife (Tanya Wright) says Michael is out of control.
She tries to help by having him come to the prison more often. Gloria (Selenis Leyva) is trying to see her teen-aged son more often, too. She arranges for him to ride with Sophia’s wife for the visits.
The boys get in trouble. Sophia blames Gloria’s boy. Gloria blames Sophia’s boy. Sophia’s wife stops bringing Gloria’s son to visit.
Tension between Sophia and the entire kitchen staff results in Sophia being targeted with transphobic bullying. It sweeps through the prison like a wave. She’s attacked and beaten up by other black women. They even take her blonde wig right off her head. Dirty fighting, that.
The fight wasn’t Sophia’s fault, but she gets taken to SHU “for her own protection.” Nothing happens to any of the instigators or attackers, although, to Gloria’s credit, she looks really sorry about what happened.
Misuse of Solitary
At least in Sophia’s case, Caputo argues against sending her to SHU. But the for-profit bosses running the prison overrule him. I have heard that putting transgender prisoners in solitary “for their own protection” is a common practice in prisons.
In both cases, SHU was used as a quick answer rather than a solution. In both cases, the person who will suffer the horrors of isolation for who-knows-how-long should have been handled in some other way.
There are documented cases where people are kept in isolation for YEARS. As many as 80,000 individuals may be held in isolation per day in federal facilities alone. “Long-term isolation can create or exacerbate serious mental health problems and assaultive or anti-social behavior, result in negative outcomes for institutional safety, and increase the risk of recidivism after release.”
Nicky and Sophia have decent mental health. What if Suzanne (Uzo Aduba) or Morello (Yael Stone) or the paranoid new prisoner Lolly (Lori Petty) ended up in SHU? What about the depressed Soso (Kimiko Glenn)? They would be basket cases when they came out. Or dead.
Piper (Taylor Schilling) did a couple of short stints in SHU in previous seasons, but she had more people working to get her out. What happens when no one is trying to get someone out?
I know Orange is the New Black is TV, not real prison. But I think it brings the injustice and inhumanity of the real prison system into focus for the general public with story lines like these for Nicky and Sophia.
It’s easy to understand why the real Piper Kerman came out of prison and wrote a book. And why she became an activist for prison reform. And why she continues to provide input into this series.
Orange is the New Black Rewatch Binge
June 12 and the release of season 3 of Orange is the New Black is just far enough away to let me rewatch the first two seasons in a cozy binge.
This is what fascinates me: the series starts out with the main story being about Piper, the privileged white woman who ends up in prison. The regular cast members listed are Taylor Schilling, Michael Harney, Kate Mulgrew, Laura Prepon, Michelle Hurst and Jason Biggs. By the second & third episode some of the actors like Danielle Brooks, Uzo Aduba, Natasha Lyonne, and Laverne Cox begin to show up as guest stars.
Actors we’ve grown to love from the show such as Dascha Polanco, Selenis Levya and Samira Wiley were listed in the ending credits. They didn’t even show up as guest stars early in the series.
I’m struck by how much of the story of what’s happening in Litchfield Prison has moved away from the white characters and how the minor actors in the beginning like Samira Wiley have moved up to become regulars.
As viewers, we have become attached to characters that we might never have had a chance to like and respond to anywhere else but in Orange is the New Black. It’s brilliant how Jinji Kohan and the other writers let Crazy Eyes and Big Boo and Gloria and Nicky and Morello sneak their way into our hearts by bringing each to the front slowly. Not to mention Sister Ingalls (Beth Fowler) and Maritza (Diane Guerrero), Watson (Vicky Jeudy) and many others.
After two years, the most popular characters on OITNB are played by Samira Wiley, Danielle Brooks, Lea DeLaria and Laverne Cox. We no longer have to be lead into Litchfield stories by holding hands with someone white. Because of great writing, great acting talent, great personal presence, the most “other” members of the cast have become the default stars on Orange is the New Black. The story and the characters took off like a runaway train with a momentum that has carried us far from the original story in the book by Piper Kerman on which the series was based.
There are still white people in the story. Piper and Alex are still there, Red is still around, Nicky and Morello are still there, all the correctional officers and prison bosses are still there. But Piper is no longer the chief focus. In season 2, when Vee (Lorraine Toussaint) was around, much of the focus was on her and her effect on everyone at Litchfield. We’ll see where things go in season 3, but I’m 100% behind the diversity. I’d love to see one of the Hispanic characters become more known and important.
We’ve accepted the rainbow of characters who inhabit the prison, we care about them all. It’s a act of writing and planning by Jinji Kohan that I admire and respect. Diversity on our TV screens has an effect on the culture. I can’t wait to see how OITNB brings more of it in season 3.
What I’m waiting to see is the day when a black woman or a Hispanic woman or an Asian woman can be the lead character to lead us into a drama like this one.