To somewhat understate the case, the new, third season of FX’s “The Bear,” back Wednesday on Hulu, is as magnificent as television ever gets. I’m not here to tell you what happens in it, but it’s not particularly a plot-driven season in any case — though there are challenges the characters face and the question, which hangs over the entire series, of who and what will manage to hold together, and who and what will break apart.
Created by Christopher Storer, who writes and directs many of the episodes, it’s a fundamentally musical show — and not just in terms of its use of recordings to underscore or create counterpoint with the action, which is standard screen practice, but constructed tonally, rhythmically. Words matter, of course — though probably fewer than 100 are spoken in the opening episode, a nonlinear montage of past and present moments set over a floating ambient score — but the impact of the series is less literary than it is musical; it lights up the limbic system.
With Sydney (Ayo Edebiri) by his side, Carmy (Jeremy Allen White) elevates his staff at the Bear into fine-dining professionals.
(FX)
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As a season, it’s an album, changing from track to track, much as Carmy (Jeremy Allen White) wants to remake his menu from day to day. It’s arranged in short and long movements, in major or minor keys, at tempos marked largo or moderato or prestissimo, with passages played fortissimo or pianissimo. Dissonance dissolves into consonance, consonance is drowned in dissonance. There are motifs (lots of clocks) and quotations. (Characters from the past reappear; R.E.M.’s “Strange Currencies,” the de facto “Love Theme from ‘The Bear,’” sneaks in.) Ensemble sections alternate with duets, trios, solos, tightly arranged or seemingly improvised. Each player is their own instrument, an individual timbre; the series isn’t so much edited as orchestrated. It’s an opera at times, a ballet at others.
There is a heartwarming unreality at the heart of “The Bear,” which began as “The Bad News Bears,” with beef sandwiches; now the team has advanced into the major leagues. Apart from Sydney (Ayo Edebiri), Carmy’s voyage into fine dining relies entirely on the staff he inherited from his late brother Mikey (Jon Bernthal), which, overcoming their resistance, he inspired, retrained and, as they say in the cooking competitions, elevated. There’s no question of trading them for seasoned professionals because all that matters within the world of “The Bear” is family, the people who know you, the people you know, who put up with you and whom you put up with, those who want, or at least will sit still to hear your stories and those whose stories you want to hear. This intimacy allows for scenes to play in fragments, without too much explanation. But we understand how the characters understand (or fail to understand) one another, and themselves.
Richie (Ebon Moss-Bachrach), unlike Carmy, is moving toward self-improvement.
(FX)
“The Bear” is, in its very premise, a story about food, the preparation of which is lovingly captured; but ultimately it’s more about service than cooking, more about the community a restaurant creates than any genius creating the dishes. (“I like the people,” says Mikey, in a flashback to his first meeting with Liza Colón-Zayas’ Tina.) Working at the point of contact between the back and front of the house makes Richie (Ebon Moss-Bachrach), running the front of the house, an unlikely hero of continuing self-improvement, in contrast to his cousin Carmy, who is solitary, broken and stuck. (Literally stuck, in a walk-in fridge, at the end of last season.) Cinematographer Andrew Wehde brings his camera in extra close, hanging at length on an actor’s face, letting us linger over freckles and lines and scars, blood vessels in a tired eye. It’s this attitude of tenderness that makes “The Bear” not just great, but beautiful.
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The season looks backward and forward, with episodes titled “Legacy” and “Children” and “Forever.” There is birth, and death. For much of the way it feels like a summing up, but we end on a suspended chord, with resolution hanging in the air.
Forget the “video game movie” curse;The Mortuary Assistantis a bone-chilling triumph that stands entirely on its own two feet. Starring Willa Holland (Arrow) as Rebecca Owens, the film follows a newly certified mortician whose “overtime shift” quickly devolves into a grueling battle for her soul.
What Makes It Work
The film expertly balances the stomach-churning procedural work of embalming with a spiraling demonic nightmare. Alongside a mysterious mentor played by Paul Sparks (Boardwalk Empire), Rebecca is forced to confront both ancient evils and her own buried traumas. And boy, does she have a lot of them.
Thanks to a full-scale, practical River Fields Mortuary set, the film drips with realism, like you can almost smell the rot and bloat of the bodies through the screen.
The skin effects are hauntingly accurate. The way the flesh moves during surgical scenes is so visceral. I’ve seen a lot of flesh wounds in horror films and in real life, and the bodies, skin, and organs. The Mortuary Assistant (especially in the opening scene) looks so real that I skipped supper after watching it. And that’s saying something. Your girl likes to eat.
Co-written by the game’s creator, Brian Clarke, the movie dives deeper into the demonic mythology. Whether you’ve seen every ending or don’t know a scalpel from a trocar, the story is perfectly self-contained. If you’ve never played the game, or played it a hundred times, the film works equally well, which is hard to do when it comes to game adaptations.
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Nailed It
This film does a lot of things right, but the isolation of the night shift is suffocating. Between the darkness of the hallways and the “residents” that refuse to stay still, the film delivers a relentlessly immersive experience. And thankfully, although this movie is filled with dark rooms and shadows, it’s easy to see every little thing. Don’t you hate it when a movie is so dark that you can’t see what’s happening? It’s one of my pet peeves.
The oh-so-awesome Jeremiah Kipp directs the film and has made something absolutely nightmare-inducing. Kipp recently joined us for an interview, took us inside the film, discussed its details and the game’s lore, and so much more. I urge you to check out our interview. He’s awesome!
The Verdict
This isn’t just a cash-grab; it’s a high-effort adaptation that respects the source material while elevating the horror genre. With incredible special effects and a powerhouse cast, it’s the kind of movie that will make you rethink working late ever again. Dropping on Friday the 13th, this is a must-watch for horror fans. It’s grisly, intelligent, and genuinely terrifying.
A former executive at Live Nation, the world’s largest live entertainment company, is suing the company, alleging that he was wrongfully terminated after he raised concerns about alleged financial misconduct and improper accounting practices.
Nicholas Rumanes alleges he was “fraudulently induced” in 2022 to leave a lucrative position as head of strategic development at a real estate investment trust to create a new role as executive vice president of development and business practice at Beverly Hills-based Live Nation.
In his new position, Rumanes said, he raised “serious and legitimate alarm” over the the company’s business practices.
As a result, he says, he was “unlawfully terminated,” according to the lawsuit filed Thursday in Los Angeles County Superior Court.
“Rumanes was, simply put, promised one job and forced to accept another. And then he was cut loose for insisting on doing that lesser job with integrity and honesty,” according to the lawsuit.
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He is seeking $35 million in damages.
Representatives for Live Nation were not immediately available for comment.
The lawsuit comes a week after a federal jury in Manhattan found that Live Nation and its Ticketmaster subsidiary had operated a monopoly over major concert venues, controlling 86% of the concert market.
Rumanes’ lawsuit describes a “culture of deception” at Live Nation, saying its “basic business model was to misstate and exaggerate financial figures in efforts to solicit and secure business.”
Such practices “spanned a wide spectrum of projects in what appeared to be a company-wide pattern of financial misrepresentation and misleading disclosures,” the lawsuit states.
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Rumanes says he received materials and documents that showed that the company inflated projected revenues across multiple venue development projects.
Additionally, Rumanes contends that the company violated a federal law that requires independent financial auditing and transparency and instead ran Live Nation “through a centralized, opaque structure” that enables it to “bypass oversight and internal checks and balances.”
In 2010, as a condition of the Live Nation-Ticketmaster merger, the newly formed company agreed to a consent decree with the government that prohibited the firm from threatening venues to use Ticketmaster. In 2019 the Justice Department found that the company had repeatedly breached the agreement, and it extended the decree.
Rumanes contends that he brought his concerns to the attention of the company’s management, but his warnings were “repeatedly ignored.”
At the centre of Madhuvidhu directed by Vishnu Aravind is a house where only men reside, three generations of them living in harmony. Unlike the Anjooran household in Godfather, this is not a house where entry is banned to women, but just that women don’t choose to come here. For Amrithraj alias Ammu (Sharafudheen), the protagonist, 28 marriage proposals have already fallen through although he was not lacking in interest.
When a not-so-cordial first meeting with Sneha (Kalyani Panicker) inevitably turns into mutual attraction, things appear about to change. But some unexpected hiccups are waiting for them, their different religions being one of them. Writers Jai Vishnu and Bipin Mohan do not seem to have any major ambitions with Madhuvidhu, but they seem rather content to aim for the middle space of a feel-good entertainer. Only that they end up hitting further lower.
