This review contains spoilers
for “Downton Abbey: A New Era.”
I watched “Downton Abbey”
for the first time during the
summer of 2020. It was the
summer after my freshman year
of college and we had all just been
sent home from the University
of Michigan due to the COVID-
19 pandemic. My mom and I
were sitting in the basement
one night, as we did most nights
during
those
six
months
of
isolation, looking for something
to watch when we stumbled
across “Downton Abbey.” I had
certainly heard of the show, and
my mom had friends who had
watched it, so we figured hey,
why not, we’ll give it a try. One
episode can’t hurt.
At the end of that first episode
my mom and I turned to each
other, shocked, awed and utterly
giddy. “Downton Abbey” was
going to take over our lives. From
that night onward we watched
two or three episodes every
night until we finished all six
seasons. We watched the first
accompanying film just days after
finishing the show. In the first
five minutes of the movie there’s
an aerial shot of the Abbey itself
— Highclere Castle in real life —
and my mom and I turned to each
other again. Only this time, we
were both on the brink of tears.
Something similar happened
a few weeks ago in the dark of
a movie theater. I went home
to Tennessee to get my wisdom
teeth out but, more importantly,
to see “Downton Abbey: A New
Era,” the second film installment
in
the
“Downton
Abbey”
universe, with my mom. The film
fed us yet another wide shot of
the Abbey, and my mom and I
shared a now-familiar look. We
had been expecting this — the
tears in our eyes glinting in the
light of the movie screen — and
we both laughed.
Wednesday, June 22, 2022 — 5
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Alex Garland’s ‘Men’ is almost a
parody of its genre
Given the almost-masterpiece
that was “Annihilation” and the
stylish excellence of “Ex Machina,”
nothing could have prepared me
for the disappointment of Alex
Garland’s
newest
psychological
horror flick. Not even the insistent
warnings from friends about how
much it sucked, the underwhelming
trailer or the fact that “Men” would
be the third film written and
directed by Garland that centers
on female suffering. Against better
judgment, I mustered the willpower
to park myself in the empty theater
— if not for myself, then for Jessie
Buckley (“I’m Thinking of Ending
Things”).
Buckley stars as Harper, a widow
whose husband committed suicide
after she asked for a divorce. She
escapes to a charming house in
the English countryside to process
the tragedy and is greeted by the
property’s
caretaker
Geoffrey
(Rory Kinnear, “Our Flag Means
Death”). Geoffrey, with his massive
chompers and repository of corny
jokes, seems relatively harmless
as he helps Harper settle in for the
duration of her solo trip. Geoffrey
asks Harper about her husband,
noticing that she hadn’t dropped the
“Mrs.” from her name — Harper’s
a bit spooked by this, but she later
calls her best friend Riley (Gayle
Rankin, “The Climb”), who reminds
Harper that she is there to heal.
Harper makes her way through
the surrounding nature and takes
note of a seemingly feral naked
man, also played by Kinnear, who
she suspects is stalking her. She
visits the town’s church, decorated
with pagan imagery, and eventually
makes her way to the pub. At every
location, Harper comes across
several men, each with Kinnear’s
face.
In a once-in-a-career acting feat,
Kinnear succeeds at distilling a
particular kind of evil into each role.
All of the men Harper encounters
belittle her in their own way: there’s
the vicar, who questions why she
drove her husband to suicide; the
pub-goers, who tease her for her
anger over the local feral man’s
release; and there’s even a young
boy with Kinnear’s likeness pasted
over his face, who accosts Harper
at the church and demands that she
plays hide-and-seek with him.
What is an electronic music concert without a mosh pit? Flume and
Channel Tres helped me find out
Detroit’s Masonic Temple was
popping off on Thursday night.
Hoards of young, drunk, bejeweled
humans flew past me as I glided
through the foyer and into the theater
aisles. I tried and failed to sneak into
the pit, so I squeezed into one of the
few remaining empty seats.
Channel Tres was already on
stage, alone, jumping around and
talk-rapping over his thumping house-
music beats. I was pretty bummed
about not being in the pit. I was instead
relegated to a cozy theater chair, when
all I really wanted to do was mosh
and vibe to some bumps, on my feet,
surrounded by dancing human beings.
And who were my fellow theater-
seaters? They were loud, but not
singing along — they were just yapping
away, chatting with friends as if this
was just another club and this was just
another guy, showing us some beats he
cooked up in his basement.
But Tres is not just another
guy. Tres is an artist, pushing the
boundaries of both rap and electronic
pop by seamlessly merging the two
genres with hit songs like “fuego (feat.
Tyler, The Creator)” and “Topdown.”
He is also the master of the indie-rap
feature, completely stealing the show
on songs like “Tunnel” by Polo & Pan
and “Palms (with Channel Tres)” by
Gus Dapperton. He deserved more
than the “Chatty Cathy” audience at
Masonic Temple.
And then came Flume.
Flume has been bridging the gap
between pop and the techno-sphere
for a while now. He’s a seasoned
performer,
having
headlined
Coachella, The Governors Ball and
most everything in between since his
self-titled breakout 2012 album. And
with that seasoning should come the
DJ spice, right? Lifting arms on the
beat, pushing buttons and, wait, what
does a DJ do when they perform?
Again, I started to feel some doubts
about the whole situation: why was I
seated at an electronic music concert
when I could just listen to Flume’s
songs on Spotify, maybe invite some
friends, dance and drink some brews
that don’t cost $12?
Usually Flume solves this potential
problem by starting a crazy mosh pit,
but again, that was not possible from
my cozy seat. It also would have felt a
little wrong to push and shove under
the Broadway-esque decor of the
venue, with stenciled ceilings and
velvet curtains. He might have done
better to perform at the Majestic
Theater or Saint Andrews Hall, two of
Detroit’s premier performance spaces,
each equipped with an ample dance
floor and an aptly dingy, club-like
vibe.
Flume often spices up his shows
with a host of surprise guests: Toro
y Moi, Vince Staples or, in the case of
the Masonic Temple concert, Tres
and Tove Lo. Tove Lo came out to
perform her single with Flume, “Say It
(feat. Tove Lo),” but also took over the
female vocals for “Never Be Like You
(feat. Kai)” and “Say Nothing (feat.
MAY-A.” These were by far the best
performances of the set because, well,
there was actually a performer on the
stage, and not just a dude, bobbing
up and down, pushing some damn
buttons.
But those three songs were not
enough to carry the performance, so I
decided to improve the vibe with my
own devices. In this case, that meant
ripping my dab pen like a third grader
destroying a juice box at snack time.
JOSHUA MEDINTZ
Daily Arts Writer
‘Downton Abbey: A New Era’ shows how
home and change move us all
MADDIE AGNE
Daily Arts Writer
LAINE BROTHERTON
Daily Arts Writer
Photo by Bella de Sa
Read more at michigandaily.com
Read more at michigandaily.com
This image is from the official trailer for “Downton Abbey: A New Era,” distributed by Focus
Features.
Read more at michigandaily.com