In Treatment

Just heard about this highly original HBO series from an interview with the star, Gabriel Byrne, on the Leonard Lopate show on WNYC this week. Well, Rita just had to see what all the fuss was about, watching therapy sessions with psychoanalyst Paul, who runs his practice out of a home office in the suburbs. Adapted from a popular Israeli series called “Be Tipul,” the show follows Paul Weston throughout his week as he sees different clients, Laura, Alex, Sophie, married couple Jake and Amy and finally Paul himself in session with his old mentor, Gina. (played by Dianne Wiest) The drama is absolutely riveting. I watched one free episode off the HBO website on Wednesday and by Thursday, I had viewed about 9 half-hour episodes in one sitting! The intensity of the acting and the writing is extremely compelling. Check it out.

http://www.hbo.com/intreatment/about/
http://www.wnyc.org/shows/lopate/episodes/2008/03

Me and My Shadows

Believe it or not, Rita used to wonder what was the big deal about…Judy Garland. Can you imagine?
With only a childish perspective from multiple viewings of The Wizard of Oz, “Somewhere over the Rainbow” and perhaps, “Zing! Went the Strings of my Heart” were the only songs I had any passing familiarity (and like Louis B. Mayer in the movie review that follows, I was not so impressed).

By chance, I happen to catch the made-for-tv bio pic, Life with Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows (2001) based on daughter Lorna Luft’s biography of her legendary show-biz mama. The very great Judy Davis (an Australian actress known for a few Woody Allen pics from the 90s) channels the haunted chantreuse quite unlike any living actor I have seen so far. Tammy Blanchett also does an admirable job portraying young Frances Gumm (Judy’s birth name before MGM changed it) auditioning for the imperious movie mogul, Louis B. Mayer. Judy becomes a big star but she pays a high price for her fame, a lifetime addiction to amphetamines that the studio prescribes to her to keep her weight down and her perky energy up. When she collapses on the set because of the bullying of her director, she’s only given 3 weeks to recover even though the doctor insists she needs 6. Her mother (Marsha Mason as the quintessential stage mother) and the studio push and push poor Judy until she is just a bundle of nerves but that voice…that voices flattens all in its path.

My favorite part is when Judy Davis as Judy is seen backstage revving herself up for her famous Concert at Carnegie Hall which is considered to be a once in a lifetime, star performance. A very famous critic is said to have wept openly at Judy’s performance. Picture perfect, the issue of that concert has never gone out of print. If one listens to that CD and sees the actual concert footage from Judy Garland: The Concert Years there is no doubt, you too shall also be converted to a die-hard Judy fan. Not just for gay men anymore (or Rufus Wainwright who had the audacity to try and recreate her concert.) Judy Garland was performer who gave of and above her humanity and she had the voice to do so. The documentary contains clips from the variety show she hosted on CBS during the 60s. Among the highlights on DVD are her duets with Barbara Streisand, her daughter Liza Minnelli, Lena Horne and Tony Bennett. Lorna Luft hosts the documentary and covers a happier time in the singer’s life, when she returned to her career as a singer and stopped doing movies, with the notable exception of her one-woman tour de force in A Star is Born. These are all must-see rentals.

Six Feet Under (2001-2005)

Created by Alan Ball (American Beauty), this dark drama series starred, Peter Krause, Michael C. Hall, Frances Conroy, Lauren Ambrose, Mathew St. Patrick, Freddy Rodríguez, Rachel Griffiths with occasional guest stars, Lili Taylor, Patricia Clarkson, Kathy Bates and Richard Jenkins.

I can not rave about this HBO series enough. I am still working my way through the remaining two seasons on DVD. I love the character development and the concept of the show which goes as follows: the Fishers run a funeral home in Los Angeles. The father, Nathanial Fisher, dies in the first episode and from then on, each episode opens with a death, setting the tone. The two sons, Nate Jr. and David, inherit the family business. All of the family members cope with the loss of the father in their emotionally dysfunctional way.

It is rare indeed to love each main character but I can’t help but find something sympathetic and relatable about each one. Nate, as the errant, wayward son who got away from his uptight family, comes back to face his “responsibilities” as half-owner of the mortuary. As the eldest, I totally relate to his impulses to escape and be free.

Then there is younger brother David, the closeted gay man who did everything he was “suppose to” but resents it. Isn’t there a little David in all of us?

Nihilistic Claire whose boredom and attitude is just a convenient cover-up for the attention and guidance she craves. She is an adolescent on the verge of adulthood—you just want to give her a big hug and reprimand her for hanging out repeatedly with “bad boys.”

Poor repressed mother Ruth, who longs to let her hair down and travel the unpaved road of life, is one of my favorite characters. Among other things, her sexuality blossoms after her husband dies. She has not one but two male lovers, Hiram, the hiker, and Nikolai, the Russian florist. In a great episode, Ruth is invited by her co-worker to a graduation of a self-improvement class called “The Plan” and then decides she should take the course too. The self-improvement jargon she picks up at the weekend seminar is hysterical.

Nate meets his match in super brainy Brenda and her promiscuous tendencies. Brenda’s mentally disturbed younger brother, Billy is an intriguing, reoccurring character. David and Keith remind me of many gay couples trying to reconcile being openly gay in a heterosexist society.

The music choices are superlative—they underlie the ethos of the characters and what they go through.