Your Weekly Dose (5/13/22)
Radio silent the last several weeks due to a cross country move/road trip. Random travel suggestion: don’t sleep on Sioux Falls, SD, and be sure to visit Covert Artisan Ales & Cellars when you’re there (or look for their beers if you’re in the region). We’ve also been neck-deep in home renovations, but I’ve managed to find some time amid painting and changing out door handles and light fixtures to offer up another dose of pop culture prescriptions. If there’s a running theme to this week’s recommendations, it might have something to do with the concept of the multiverse and travel through time and across cosmic distances.
FILM
Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness
This was my first theater-going experience since moving back to Jackson (grateful for cheaper ticket prices!). It’s more a continuation of Wandavision than the original Dr. Strange film, so you definitely want to watch that Disney+ series before jumping into Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. This is as much Wanda’s story as it is Seven’s.
Wanda/Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen) is after a new MCU character, America Chavez (Xochitl Gomez), in the hopes of acquiring her power to jump between universes at will. She’s trying to find an alternate universe, where she can be reunited with her sons. Dr. Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) agrees to protect America because he knows the disastrous effects that Wanda’s dark magic will wreak on the multiverse.
You don’t really want to overthink the Multiverse of Madness, but this is one of the darker entries in the MCU, and director Sam Raimi’s comedic horror sensibilities are all over this one. Thematically, it’s very much in line with Wandavision, particularly regarding grief, letting go, and the extents to which we would go to be with the ones we love. As with most comic book films, it also asks what we would be willing to sacrifice for a better world.
Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is currently playing in theaters everywhere.
TV
Outer Range
Amazon’s latest (and one of its better) series plays like a mashup of Yellowstone and The Twilight Zone with a dash of weirdness à la Nicolas Winding Refn films.
The Abbotts are a ranching family in Wyoming. The paterfamilias, Royal (Josh Brolin), happens upon a mysterious hole in his west pasture that, while swallowing up anything that falls into it, might also be a portal to other times and places. Could this be the reason for his daughter-in-law Rebecca’s disappearance? Could this be why his neighbor (and enemy) Wayne Tillerson (Will Patton) wants this west pasture land so badly? Could this be why the mysterious traveler, Autumn (Imogene Poots), shows up and asks to camp on Royal’s land? All the questions! And on top of it all, things get even more complicated when Royal’s sons Perry (Tom Pelphrey) and Rhett (Lewis Pullman) accidentally kill Wayne’s son Trevor. Royal must now cover for his sons, while also keeping the portal a secret.
There’s much to commend here. The performances across the board are strong, but the crown might go to Noah Reid, who plays another Tillerson son, Billy, who has the voice of an angel and isn’t afraid to belt out some classic power ballads at the most awkward times. This is also a supernatural series that has an Old Testament feel, particularly with its relationships between neighbors, parents and their children, and siblings. It features one of the best prayer scenes I’ve seen in a long time, as a desperate, confused Royal angrily demands answers from God during a blessing over a family dinner (you can see part of that in the trailer below). Royal’s wife Cecilia (Lili Taylor) is a religious woman, but tragedies and unexplained events begin to chip away at her faith. This is an erosion that Royal has already experienced. It would be easy to be heavy handed with a more conservative, evangelical faith here, but, thankfully, the writers don’t.
My only problem with this series has more to do with the broader streaming environment into which it released than anything intrinsic to it. The series creators are clearly giving us a slow burn, teasing us with new revelations, but leaving so many questions to be answered in later episodes. But this is a gift that we might never get to fully open and enjoy. A second season has yet to be confirmed, and, given the fate of so many series these days, the lack of a quick renewal announcement leaves me skeptical that we’ll get one. What is the hole and why does it appear on the Abbotts’ land? Where (or when?) is Sheriff Joy (Tamara Podemski) at the end of the season finale? Where has Rebecca been all this time? Will Billy be the next American Idol? Maybe we’ll never know.
All episodes of Outer Range are now streaming on Amazon Prime.
Hyperion
When I recommended The Sparrow to a friend recently, she almost immediately countered with her own recommendation, Dan Simmons’ sci-fi classic, Hyperion. I can’t believe a) that I had never read it, and b) that I’d never even heard of it. Having read it, I now put it up there with the aforementioned Sparrow and another of my dystopian favorites, A Canticle for Liebowitz, both of which effectively blend sci-fi and religion/theology/spirituality.
Here’s a summary of the plot that I cribbed from a fan forum:
[The Hugo Award-winning Hyperion] is the first of four books set in the fictional Hyperion universe. Over a thousand years into the future, humankind has conquered space travel and colonized hundreds of worlds in this arm of the Milky Way. The novel tells the story of seven individuals of different backgrounds whom are chosen to travel to the outback planet of Hyperion as pilgrims on the “Final Shrike Pilgrimage” (still not sure what that is) to the mysterious, ancient Time Tombs (jury’s still out on exactly what these are), wherein lives a creature of extreme power, the Shrike (not to be messed with!). As the Seven Pilgrims brave the perils and surprises of their journey on the labyrinthine world, each of them tells their tales to the others, detailing their backgrounds and motives, in order to learn the reasons for which they were chosen for this Final Pilgrimage.
But this summary really doesn’t begin to capture the breadth and insanity of the world (universes?) that Simmons has created. Hyperion is The Canterbury Tales by way of Star Wars…and it’s a trippy trip indeed. Each pilgrim’s story is a profound tale of love, loss, and devotion and ranges from the comic to the sublime. And then there’s the setting of Hyperion itself and the other worlds from which each of the pilgrims come. I’m still not sure that I have a firm conceptualization of them, but I know they read unlike anything that I’ve seen on film or television…or maybe my blurry visions of the worlds of Hyperion are an amalgamation of the best elements of them.
Hyperion has proven to be a bit of a prophetic text as well. Simmons seems to have recognized the extent to which we would give ourselves over to technology and a world wide web. He was also aware of the ways in which corporations could (would?) then exploit this addiction to assume power over not only individuals but the nations they constituted and the worlds in which they lived.
Like The Sparrow, Hyperion also has a critically acclaimed sequel that I’m anxious to start. Hyperion is available wherever books are sold, but consider ordering your copy from an independent bookseller like The Bookies in Denver, CO.