Tag Archives: Netflix

Broken or Intentionally Busted?

Image result for when they see us

It’s can be difficult to watch When They See Us, but it’s certainly not for lack of craftsmanship.  Ava DuVernay’s  direction and writing pulls no punches in laying out the harrowing events endured by the Central Park Five while adding a necessary layer of humanity to their story that challenges viewers to reconsider what it means to find justice in America. This story has never lacked for attention, by media and director Ken Burns, but See brings a heretofore unseen personal side of the tragedy.

In April 1989, five teenagers (four black and one Hispanic) were arrested for the rape and near-fatal assault of a wealthy, young white woman in New York’s Central Park. The victim, Trisha Meili, has no memory of that night. Although there was no physical evidence linking the boys to the attack, Raymond Santana, 14; Kevin Richardson, 14; Yusuf Salaam, 15; Antron McCray, 15; and Korey Wise, 16, were all convicted of the crime. The real identities of all involved were subsumed by the case: Meili became “the Central Park Jogger,” while the boys became “the Central Park Five.” Image result for when they see us

This devastating miniseries restores the individual humanity to the six vulnerable humans at the center of the case. Written and directed by DuVernay, the fact-based Netflix miniseries reveals how the teenagers became pawns in a bigger game. The first episode shows how regular teen lives are destroyed by a simple a decision to go to a park. And we see police coerce confessions from scared kids who just want to go home.

In subsequent episodes, we watch as media create a narrative in which black kids from “a world of crack, welfare, guns” are driven to random attacks on white people, “wilding.” We see the shock on the face of one boy’s mother when she learns that Donald Trump has taken out full-page ads in four newspapers calling for the return of the death penalty. Final episodes take us through the brutality of prison time and the grim reality of life as an ex-con.

If those boys had been executed as Trump wanted, they would never have lived to see serial rapist Matias Reyes confess to the crime (providing case-clinching DNA) in 2002, or receive the $41 million legal settlement that Trump has called a “heist.”Related image

In an age of fast-paced, plot-twisting crime TV, the macabre momentum of this series feels agonizingly unstoppable at times: If Netflix’s Making a Murderer taught us anything, it’s the grim, sometimes illegal, measures police will take to make an arrest. And that sometimes slows See too much.

But if there are few shocks in See, DuVernay’s respect for the physical and emotional toll on the kids carry surprising power, even for a media-saturated story. You want to cheer when the wrongful convictions are vacated. But the sight of the now-grown men returning to their childhood bedrooms seems a hollow triumph. Ultimately, See underscores the unsettling question about relationships between police and minority communities: Is the system broken, or is it acting just as it was designed?

 

Who’s a Good Boy?

Image result for it's bruno!

You don’t have to be a dog nut to enjoy Netflix’s new series It’s Bruno! But it sure doesn’t hurt.

Otherwise, how else could we feel the offense taken by series creator Solvan “Slick” Naim when he sees dog owners who don’t curb their pooches? Or people who don’t restrain yapping pets? Or, worst of all to Naim, listen to people call his beloved puggle by another name? It’s Bruno!

Part whimsical comedy cross-pollinated with part street-savvy drama, Bruno! may be Netflix’s strangest series to date. Episodes typically range from 11-15 minutes. There is no real character arc (from human or canine actors). Some scenes are dog-food-commercial cute, only to be peppered with scenes of adult-only viewing, including sex, raw language and drug abuse. There’s no graphic violence, but think Benji Meets The Wire.Image result for the wire

To appreciate It’s Bruno!, it helps to know a little bit about why rapper Slick Naim is making the show; he wrote, produced and directed it. According to press reports, Naim got Bruno from a rescue shelter five years ago, and he thinks the dog is so awesome that, in 2015 he made a 10-minute short film that had Naim and Bruno trying to go to a supermarket. Netflix was so impressed, they produced the show (which continues the pair’s efforts to get into the store).

But it’s exactly the small scale of the stories that gives the show its charm. Lives aren’t at stake here, just contented pets, and what a nice change of stakes. Naim plays Malcolm, who gives Bruno the best food — premium turkey meat — and lets him eat at the table. When he walks Bruno around his block in Bushwick, Brooklyn, he’s very sensitive to slights. When a woman pets Bruno without asking, Malcolm reaches out and pets her granddaughter, asking her why the dog shouldn’t feel any less annoyed by that behavior.

When he gets to a corner, he regularly meets his “nemesis” Harvey (Rob Morgan) and his dog Angie. They get into an impromptu obedience competition, which Bruno loses when Malcolm can’t get him to respond to “down.” They vie for dog walking customers. They compete for local dog ads.

In one episode, Malcolm tries to track down the hipster who is not picking up after his dog. In another, he intervenes when he meets a crack addict trying to sell a stolen husky from his shopping cart, claiming it is a “Dire Woof from Games of Thrones!”Image result for dire wolfPerhaps the most entertaining character is a hyper chihuahua that yaps its head off every time he sees Bruno. Naim cleverly translates the barks in closed captioning and man, is that dog vulgar.

But that’s the point of Bruno! In a sea of true-crime stories and police dramas, what a binge-able, pleasurable change of pace for a series. Make Bruno a police dog and you’d probably have a great buddy cop series.

 

Preying on the Grieving

 

I spent half my career as a police reporter. After watching Ronald Gene Simmons executed for killing 16 people over the Christmas holiday, I realized I wanted out of the death business.

So I took a beat as far-flung from crime as I could imagine: movie critic. In writing this review for a website, I was reminded why I left:

 

‘Ted Bundy was not your typical serial killer. Educated, telegenic and media-savvy, Bundy redefined how authorities hunted and captured murderers. He also forged a macabre template for Hollywood that persists to this day.

Fittingly, Netflix’s new film, Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes, is not your typical crime documentary. Unlike the recent spate of real-life whodunnits, including Making a Murderer, The Innocent Man and The Staircase, Tapes is more concerned with documenting murder rather than questioning it.

While the murders are more than four decades old (the film marks the 30th anniversary of Bundy’s 1989 execution), it remains etched on America’s consciousness: Zac Efron will play Bundy in the film Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile, which debuted at this year’s Sundance and will be released commercially later this year. And the documentary set Twitter so ablaze with panicked posts after its release the streaming service tweeted that audiences “not watch the movie alone,” though that may have simply been slick marketing.

Still, the documentary included several revelations about the case and demonstrated how Bundy’s killing spree forever heightened the nation’s fascination — and paranoia — surrounding random violence.

Directed by Oscar-winning filmmaker Joe Berlinger (Brother’s Keeper, the Paradise Lost trilogy), he begins the four-part series with a troubling, unexplained truth about the country: Serial killings became en vogue in the 1970’s. From Charles Manson to the Zodiac Killer to Son of Sam to John Wayne Gacy, the decade was essentially blood-stained with a series of random slayings that transfixed the country.

But none captured public attention like Bundy. Unlike the other murderers, whose homicides were contained in relatively small geographic regions, Bundy’s murders spanned seven states, beginning in Washington and ending in Florida. And none neared his body count; while Bundy confessed to 30 murders of women, police speculate he may have claimed more than 100 lives.

Even the story of how investigators and reporters obtained more than 80 hours of audiotape was something out of a movie. Until two days before he was sent to the electric chair, Bundy refused to admit to any killings. So frustrated questioners tried a different tack, asking him to explain how a killer might have committed such atrocities yet remain uncaught. Speaking in the third-person, Bundy obliged, apparently relishing reliving his elusive methods and two prison escapes.

Among the shows revelations:

Bundy road-tripped after his first escape. Bundy, who had a college degree in psychology, knew that local police jurisdictions communicated poorly. So after jumping out of a second-floor window during his kidnapping trial, he stole a car and began a 3,000-mile road trip, killing women in seven states. It took months for authorities to link the slayings.

Bite marks sealed his fate. Because police had no fingerprints and DNA analysis had not yet been invented, Bundy was convicted on meager evidence:  bite marks on one victim — evidence now considered junk science. One of Bundy’s victims was bitten twice during her slaying. The marks matched Bundy’s crooked teeth, forensic experts testified.

Bundy was tried for murder while on death row. Florida prosecutors were so concerned Bundy might overturn his conviction on appeal, they prosecuted him on death row for the murder of 12-year-old Lynette Dawn Culver. He was found guilty based on a witness who saw Bundy force the girl into a van from her middle school.

Bundy started a family on death row. Bundy, who acted as his own defense lawyer, proposed to girlfriend Carol Ann Boone as she sat on the witness stand (prosecutors believe he thought it would make him appear sympathetic). She accepted and the couple, who surreptitiously copulated behind bars,  conceived a daughter on death row.

Bundy inspired FBI profiling. Following Bundy’s arrest — along with the high-profile surge in serial killings — the FBI began collecting details of the slayings into a single database, and began training agents to look for similar traits. Bundy himself became a profiler, collecting news stories and sharing theories with agents who would visit him for counsel.

Berlinger sprinkles the show with other sensationalist details, including that Bundy later confessed to necrophilia and beheading some victims. The confessions, often recorded in whispers through prison Plexiglas, were an attempt by Bundy to “cleanse his soul,” the film explains.

But the true revelation of the series is how Bundy remains imprinted on our culture. He had groupies at his trials, young women who attempted to deliver love notes to him through his attorneys (all rejected). And the pop culture image we have of serial killers remains Bundy-esque: brilliant, cunning and eloquent, sometimes dashing. Think Hannibal Lecter, Dexter, American Psycho‘s Patrick Bateman, You‘s Joe Goldberg.

The most telling depiction, though, comes from Bundy himself, in the last words captured in Tapes:

“We want to be able to say we can identify these dangerous people. And the really scary thing is you can’t identify them. People don’t realize that there are potential killers among them. How could anyone live in a society where people they liked, loved, lived with, worked with, and admired could the next day turn out to be the most demonic people imaginable?” ‘