Did you feel the earth move under your feet? The TV business has been shaken – not delicately stirred – by news that Netflix is now in the original programming business.
Actor/producer Kevin Spacey (American Beauty) and director/producer David Fincher (The Social Network) have joined forces to produce the very first made-for-connected-television series — a political thriller called House of Cards — that will only be accessible via streaming from Netflix by its subscribers.
Mama, I know what I want for Christmas.
According to TheWrap, there is a commitment to 26 episodes (that’s two 13-episode seasons), which is a huge number. Netflix beat out both HBO and AMC to acquire the series which will begin late next year.
Based on the novel of the same name by Michael Dobbs, House of Cards was originally a British television series set at the end of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s tenure and revolved around a man who was privy to every secret in politics and was willing to betray everyone to take Thatcher’s place. The Netflix version will move to the United States with Spacey as the man with his eye on our nation's top spot, the presidency.
Traditional TV network executives must be trembling in their boots. “Television” series, as we know them, just flew out the window and onto the Internet.
By the end of 2012 we won’t be asking, “What’s on TV tonight? We might be asking, “What’s on Netflix?”
Austin Abrams has been a professional actor for 15 years, but the 30-year-old seems to just now be getting his due. After years of mostly supporting roles in films like Paper Towns, Brad’s Status, and Weapons, he has been charged with leading two films in 2026 where he’s largely acting by himself: First Resident Evil and now Whalefall.
Abrams plays Jay Gardiner, who has returned home to California a year after the death of his hard-ass father, Mitt (Josh Brolin). The two had a tempestuous relationship, and while his mom (Elisabeth Shue) and sisters (Jane Levy and Emily Rudd) reminisce fondly about him, Jay finds it difficult to come up with good memories. The two did share a connection with the ocean, and Jay decides to honor him by going scuba diving.
Ignoring warnings of whale activity in the area, Jay makes his way out into a notoriously dangerous part of the ocean near their home. Soon after he starts swimming, he encounters a sperm whale chasing after a giant squid. Jay inadvertently gets sucked into the enormous creature’s mouth and, ultimately, inside its body. Faced with a seemingly inescapable situation, Jay’s only hope lies in the lessons his father taught him.
Directed by Brian Duffield and adapted by Duffield and Daniel Kraus from Kraus’ book of the same name, the film is at its best when it depicts Jay struggling to survive within the whale. The claustrophobic nature of the setting and the various obstacles (multiple contracting chambers, the squid, and more) he faces make every scene inside the whale feel as intense and cover-your-eyes scary as any great horror movie.
Naturally, the entire movie can’t be about his survival efforts, and so the filmmakers toggle back and forth between Jay’s ordeal in the whale to memories of times with his father. Not so coincidentally, these remembrances come with subtle or overt wisdom from Mitt that would serve Jay well in his current situation. More often than not, these flashback scenes are so on-the-nose that they come off as cheesy instead of inspirational.
It’s also difficult to derive any big emotions from the story other than revulsion at the way Jay’s body is brutalized while he’s inside the whale. None of the characters in the film receive a notable introduction to the audience before big events start happening. It’s next-to-impossible to be invested in their stories when their personalities are being revealed in bits and pieces throughout the movie.
Abrams does well enough in bringing out the terror Jay feels in the whale and the sullenness/anger he has toward his father in other scenes. But whether it’s because his lines in the whale are hard to understand (he’s often talking around a scuba mouthpiece) or the disconnect the character has with father, there’s just something missing in his performance. Brolin’s performance is one-note, and Shue, Levy, Rudd, and John Ortiz don’t appear enough to make a big impact.
With Kraus onboard as the co-writer of the film, it may be the case that Duffield was not given leeway to change the story of Whalefall too much. What might have worked in the book doesn’t seem to translate equally to the film, and while Jay’s nightmare in the whale is effective, the rest of his story doesn’t come across as successfully.
