The Filtered Excellence: January 7, 2020

Bob Geldof once asked us, “Where is the filtered excellence!?” It’s right here. Once a week we take a break from comedy to bring you this week’s picks of the best things to watch, the most interesting things to do, great things to try, the best picks to read, our favorite things to listen to and more.


WATCH THIS

Pretend It’s A City. 10 years after the HBO’s Public Speaking, Fran Lebowitz and Martin Scorsese have teamed up once again for this Netflix limited series about the intricacies and beauty of New York City. Appearing at various spots across the city (The Players Club, The New York Public Library, and The Queens Museum and various public Q&A forums) Lebowitz adds her sharp, distinctive wit to subjects such as riding the subway, how cabbies and bus drivers have changed, navigating through a tourist heavy Times Square, building failures and more. She also gets personal when talking about money, her love of books, the loss of newspapers, how the music of Motown affects her mood, and her main passion, smoking. With Scorsese as moderator and guide, this is Fran Lebowitz at her absolute best, using the city’s past and present to deliver observations as quick and funny as any comic. It’s a acerbic love letter to a pre-pandemic New York, and the first great series of 2021. Pretend It’s A City is available now on Netflix.

Sylvie’s Love. The 2nd feature from writer/director Eugene Ashe stars Tessa Thompson as Sylvie Parker, a young woman working at her father’s record store when she meets Robert (Nnamdi Asomugha), an up and coming saxophonist who plays nights at a local club. The already smitten Robert takes a part time job at the store, and despite their class differences – and Sylvia already engaged to an affluent doctor away on military service – have a summer long affair. It comes to an end when Robert’s band gets extended work overseas and Sylvie decides to stay in New York to chase her dream to work in TV. Five years later, Sylvie is married, a mother to a young daughter, and producing a TV cooking show. When she has a chance meeting with Robert (who’s back in New York recording an album), old feelings – and secrets – resurface. Ashe recaptures the flow and feel of those classic Douglas Sirk melodramas perfectly, right down to the rich and vibrant colors, set designs and Declan Quinn’s pitch perfect cinematography. Thompson and Asomugha are electric as the couple who refuse to let time, backgrounds and career ambitions get in the way of their love. For Thompson, it continues a hot streak of success that has catapulted her to in-demand status. With standout performances, rich cinematography, incredible soundtrack and on point direction, this is vintage old school film making at its best. Sylvie’s Love is available now on Amazon Prime.

I’m Your Woman. This gutty, neo-noir from writer/director Julia Hart stars Rachel Brosnahan (The Marvelous Mrs Maisel) as Jean, a 1970s housewife who longs to have a baby. She unexpectedly gets her wish when her criminal husband Eddie (Bill Heck) shows up a baby under mysterious circumstances. She’s just getting used to motherhood when Eddie disappears and a man named Cal (Arinze Kene) takes her, the baby and a bag full of cash to a series of motels and safe houses. She’s later joined by Cal’s wife Teri (Marsha Stephanie Blake), father (Frankie Faison) and young son Paul as they try to avoid Eddie’s enemies and associates by all necessary means – while trying to piece together what happened to Eddie. Hart, who co-wrote the script with Jordan Horowitz, doesn’t beat you over the head with 70s references, but adds a perfectly selection of tracks by The Faces, Richie Havens, Aretha Franklin to heighten and transition to astonishing effect. Brosnahan delivers a great performance as Jean, who transforms from kept woman to a self-sufficient, quick on her feet heroine. Kene is spot on as Jean’s mysterious protector, and Marsha Stephanie Blake nearly steals the movie as Cal’s always in the know wife, Teri. Fans of classic 70s crime dramas/thrillers are simply going to love this movie. I’m Your Woman is available now on Amazon Prime.

Under The Grapefruit Tree: The CC Sabathia Story. For 19 years, CC Sabathia was one of MLB’s most durable pitchers, winning 251 games, striking out nearly 3,100 hitters, and winner of the 2007 American League Cy Young Award. Sabathia figured prominently in ending the playoff droughts for the Cleveland Indians and the Milwaukee Brewers, and played a key role in bringing a World Series Championship back to The Bronx in 2009. This new HBO Sports documentary intersperses these accomplishments alongside highlights from Sabathia’s final year in 2019. It captures CC on and off the field with family and teammates to tell how a kid from Vallejo, California left his mark in the record books. It also reveals Sabathia’s heart issues in 2018, and a well kept addiction to alcohol nearly ended his marriage and his career. Sabathia pulls zero punches, addressing career highs and lows with blunt, brutal honesty. It’s a fascinating, multi-dimensional look at one of the game’s great pitchers. Under The Grapefruit Tree: The CC Sabathia Story is available now on HBO Max.

Starring Peter Sellers. In a career that spanned four decades, Peter Sellers was a comedy chameleon, being able to transform himself into characters so refined and complete, that you forget that he was acting at all. The Criterion Channel looks back at Sellers’ career with a 10 film retrospective that shows the full depths of his talent. It includes the streaming premiere of The Ghost Of Peter Sellers, Peter Medak’s documentary about their disastrous 1973 collaboration of Ghost Of The Noonday Sun; star making turns in Stanley Kubrick’s Lolita and Dr Strangelove; The Ladykillers, The Mouse That Roared, Never Let Go, Mr Topaze, I’m All Right Jack, and a rare dramatic turn in The Optimists Of Nine Elms. It’s a multi-textured look back at a comic iconoclast. Starring Peter Sellers is available now on The Criterion Channel.

READ THIS

Silent City by Conrad Clifton. Shot entirely with 35mm and 120 mm film, electronic artist Conrad Clifton put together this book of photos that captures a New York at its most self-reflective and empathic in the midst of a pandemic. Clifton does document the protests and stark realities of a city that’s been shut down, but also shows how New Yorkers were still able to push through, overcome, and find a way to celebrate life even as the specter of death was everywhere. It’s a wonderful documentation of a most extraordinary moment in time. Silent City by Conrad Clifton is available exclusively at www.infinitypoolrecs.com

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Earl Douglas is a writer/photographer based in New York City. A frequent contributor to The Interrobang, Earl is also Executive Director for the New York chapter of The Black Rock Coalition. Earl worked in radio for nearly two decades at WNEW-FM and XM Satellite Radio, which included being the on-air producer for Carol Miller, Scott Muni and Ron & Fez, and a contributor to Opie & Anthony. Earl has also independently published a number of books including Black Rock Volume 1, Urban Abyss, Mobile Uploads, and For Shimmy. His latest project is the photojournalism magazine PRAXIS, which is available exclusively through Blurb.com.
Earl Douglas
Earl Douglas
Earl Douglas is a writer/photographer based in New York City. A frequent contributor to The Interrobang, Earl is also Executive Director for the New York chapter of The Black Rock Coalition. Earl worked in radio for nearly two decades at WNEW-FM and XM Satellite Radio, which included being the on-air producer for Carol Miller, Scott Muni and Ron & Fez, and a contributor to Opie & Anthony. Earl has also independently published a number of books including Black Rock Volume 1, Urban Abyss, Mobile Uploads, and For Shimmy. His latest project is the photojournalism magazine PRAXIS, which is available exclusively through Blurb.com.