What I've Caught Up With, January 2025 Part 2

I got through a lot of television in January. I've finished the Mike Flanagan NetFlix shows by watching The Midnight Club, which should certainly have gotten a second season (and certainly could have). I also finished Parks and Recreation and Peaky Blinders, both of which I was close to finishing when January started. I got through the three current seasons of The Lincoln Lawyer, and I'm looking forward to the fourth season, and also finished Doom Patrol. I'm currently through the first season of The Righteous Gemstones, and my new workout show (which will go through April) is Battlestar Galactica.

What I’ve Caught Up With, January 2025 Part 2
Film: Operation: Daybreak (1975)

I grew up watching World War II films, and Operation: Daybreak felt incredibly familiar to me. This is especially true of the ending. The film tells the story of the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, given the title of Reich Protector and stationed in Prague and seen as the most likely successor to Hitler. Several Czech citizens are parachuted into the area to carry out the assassination, which eventually happens and which caused terrible reprisals against the Czech people. It’s a pretty standard war film, with good performances, particularly from Timothy Bottoms and Anthony Andrews as the assassins.

Film: Heat and Dust (1983)

Like most Merchant Ivory productions, Heat and Dust is pretty to look at. Rather than being a period piece, it’s half of a period piece. Anne (Julie Christie) inherits the correspondence and diary of her great-aunt Olivia (Greta Scacchi). Of particular interest to her is her great-aunt's time in India, where she had a torrid affair with the ruler of a nearby province (Shashi Kapoor). As it happens, Anne ends up having her own affair with a married Indian man (Zakir Hussain) while she is pursued by an American charlatan posing as a Hindu mendicant (Charles McCaughan). It’s certainly luxurious as most Merchant Ivory pictures are, but it also seems very much to want to exoticize the idea of having not merely an extra-marital affair, but one that crosses racial lines.

Film: Soundtrack to a Coup d’État (2024)

One of the many problems of the American public school system is that if you really want to understand the way the world works, you have to do a lot of the work yourself. This is especialy true of history, which seems to be taught in a way that suggests that only American history is meaningful. Then again, when you look at what happened in the Belgian Congo in the early 1960s, you could make an argument that anywhere the U.S. had plans could be argued as American history. Soundtrack to a Coup d’État looks at the assassination of Congolese president Patrice Lumumba who was attempted to decolonize Africa. The film exposes the larger American policy of sending Black jazz musicians to countries around the world as an unwitting smokescreen for CIA operations. It’s a strange day when you wake up and realize that your country does what they accuse others of doing. I’ve known for years, of course, but it’s a lesson that keeps showing up.

Film: The Way of the Dragon (1972)

The Way of the Dragon is the last movie staring Bruce Lee to be released in his lifetime. While most of Lee’s work is about kicking ass and taking names, this one is far more comedic, at least in parts. Oh, don’t worry—the ass-kicking is still very much there, and like the best of Lee’s work, we’re going to get hand-to-hand combat and some solid weapons work. In this one, country bumpkin Tang Lung (Lee) is sent to Rome by his uncle to help with a niece’s restaurant, which is currently targeted by a local mob boss. Plenty of fights ensue, and for some reason, Tang Lung spends a lot of time looking for a bathroom. It’s not a great movie, but it does feature a 10-minute fight between Lee and a young Chuck Norris in the middle of the Colosseum, which is the real reason to watch.

Film: Big Eden (2000)

This feels like it was almost the inspiration for at least a part of Schitt’s Creek, at least in terms of how it addresses same-sex relationships. Successful artist Henry (Arye Gross) learns on the eve of a show that the grandfather who raised him (George Coe) has suffered a stroke. Henry takes the first flight from New York to Big Eden, Montana, where he grew up. He learns upon arrival that his high school crush Dean (Tim DeKay) has also just returned to town. Looking to reconnect with Dean, Henry doesn’t seem to notice the attention he is getting from the local general store owner, Pike Dexter (Eric Schweig). The entire town is surprisingly supportive of this gay romance triangle. It’s the fantasy of acceptance that makes this work, and rather than being about struggling for acceptance, this is just a sweet, little rom-com that ends up being entirely enjoyable.