The second episode of Jane the Virgin (on Monday, Oct. 20) was as well-written as the first.  This CW series is the new Desperate Housewives—i.e. the new plebeian, seriocomic soap—but so far it’s better than Housewives.  It’s livelier and more amusing and, well, somehow a little less plebeian.  Too, it’s moving (in the second episode), notwithstanding the gimmicky tear falling in slow-mo from the eye of Yael Grobglas’s Petra.

Gina Rodriguez is appealingly fine as Jane, resourceful and not as conventional as she could be.  Yara Martinez also impresses as a doctor named Luisa, strikingly subdued in pain and fear.  Among the men, Jaime Camil never overdoes his comic vigor as a telenovela star.

The ratings for Jane have been decent.  Let’s hope the show remains decent.

Anthony Mann’s Bend of the River (1952) is a rugged, natural beauty-loving Western, but much about the narrative doesn’t hold up.

Surely a pack of hostile men would not ride their horses into an unoccupied area with a burning campfire and thus risk an ambush from their enemies.  Surely Jimmy Stewart’s cowboy would refuse the further services of scalawags who try to overturn his plans to deliver food to a settlement.  And a few other befuddling things go on as well.  Adapting someone’s novel, scenarist Borden Deal should have known better:  The plotting makes this movie impure in a way that a Western flick like Shane is not.

Bend is a rich movie, yes, but that’s only owing to what the director, Mann, has done.

Cover of Bend of the River

So far we’re waiting for the maturation of such villains as the Penguin and Catwoman and of Bruce Wayne’s Batman (if indeed it takes place) in the new Fox TV series, Gotham (on Monday nights), but in the meantime there is no mere modicum of criminal activity in depraved Gotham City.  All the perniciousness gives police detective Jim Gordon (Ben McKenzie) a run for his money, forcing him to consort with future costumed personages.  He makes a promise to young Wayne, for example, that he will find his parents’ killer.

The sleaziness of the police force, etc. is a stale element in Gotham, and yet the show tries hard not to be boring.  It can be hard-nosed fun if also a bit raffish, and there is first-rate acting from Donal Logue and Robin Lord Taylor (as the future Penguin).  Some of the female thespians could be stronger.

Selina Kyle’s first appearance as The Cat in Batman #1 (Spring 1940). (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Who says there will be a pre-Tribulation Rapture?  It doesn’t seem quite compatible with what the Bible says about the suffering of the saints, but maybe the Christians who believe in it are right; I don’t know.  The 2014 Left Behind movie has a way of making the concept slightly dubious, even though this is not the apocalyptic picture’s problem.  The early footage is promising, but afterwards Vic Armstrong proves he doesn’t know how to direct the film, which is why it is rhythmless, clumsy and pseudo-clever.

Left Behind is a more successful Christian action film than the very bad Trinity Broadcasting Left Behind of 2000, but this isn’t saying much.  Nicolas Cage’s commanding performance as Rayford Steele, however, is enjoyable, and the not-bad Nicky Whalen (as Hattie) is a beautiful woman.  You might want to try out the movie, after all.

English: Sir Alan Ayckbourn was lunching with Critics’ Circle members at the National Theatre on 22 April 2010, on the occasion of the presentation of the Critics’ Circle annual award (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Alan Ayckbourn play, The Norman Conquests, and its televised performance (in 1977 and available on DVD) make for a magnificent experience.

This is actually a triptych of plays featuring six British characters, all but one of them related.  Many a fault, or sin, is manifest among them; many a sad moment arises.  Norman is an assistant librarian and a great, rather promiscuous, lover unhappily married to a woman he nevertheless yearns for.  He conducts an affair with Annie, who inwardly recoils from such a feckless man but is subtly resisted by the naïve chap, Tom, of whom she is fond.  Matronly Sarah nags her husband Reg mercilessly, but is disappointed enough with her marriage to enjoy the odd attentions of the Norman she deplores.

A serious play, then, but, as everyone knows, Ayckbourn writes comedies—which is why his plays get mounted—so there is no depressing content.  The cast is superlative.  Tom Conti (Norman), for example, is nearly startling in his nuances.  Penelope Wilton was as good an actress in her thirties as she is now, and had better material in Norman than she does in Downton Abbey.  As Annie, she can be fiery but yearningly sensitive as well.

Also, I’d like to say this:  Again, it is a 1977 production, and it’s refreshing to see a show which never questions whether a character who is less than a he-man, e.g. Norman, is genuinely heterosexual (instead of, say, bisexual).  Behind such questioning is the wish to see homosexuality as more pervasive than it really is.  No, The Norman Conquests is a strictly heterosexual comedy.