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ACF Middlebrow #16: Jack Ryan
This week, James Lileks and I give you a mini-episode on Jack Ryan, then (The Hunt for Red October) and now (the Amazon series), Cold War and War on Terror, Boomers and Millennials, Soviets and the absent Chinese today, silly shadowy corporate conspiracies and stories of heroism in the national security bureaucracies, the redoubtable Tom Clancy and the rather wishy-washier Amazon, as well as a hilarious fantasy ending that involves a Jeff Bezos-Mark Zuckerberg war. So a Middlebrow conversation with all the fun and insight! Listen, enjoy, share!
By the way, if you want to see Jim from “The Office” not just as Jack Ryan six-pack abs star, but as indie director, the impressive and very popular horror A Quiet Place was also on the Middlebrow podcast!
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I haven’t listened to the podcast yet, but the use of the term “wishy-washier” above leads me to think the annoying moral equivalencies and attempted “balance” in the Amazon series haven’t escaped notice. Although I’m impressed by the production values, and some of the performances, it’s ceased being a must watch for me.
Not quite the equivalencies you’d expect–the French are racists, the Americans not, put simply…
Perhaps, but the Tim Hutton character is not exactly a positive portrayal. As to the French, I found the discussion in the car between the Frenchman and Wendell Pierce (upright, solid Muslim) painful after the tragedies in Paris.
There, I see your point. It’s certainly tone deaf.
I also thought it’s insanely hilarious to have the French cop woman brag that America is so anti-racist by suggesting black people have amazing opportunities or success or what have you…
I do like its realistic negative portrayal of France. Its nice to see Americans being good guys again.
But I found at lot of the series derivative. In many moments I would think. “I have seen this before and it was done better then.”
You want to see a real spy show. Watch the Sandbaggers.
Re: Mark Zuckerberg. South Park already did it. Sorta.
Not really that much of a surprise for John Krasinski to jump to action movies. The eighties, the heyday of action moves you refer to, gave us both Kurt Russell and Bruce Willis doing that. And people laughed and laughed at the idea of them as action stars. Now, it’s hard to think of either of them as ever being anything else.
And James… Indiana Jones didn’t find a way into the sub. He rode on the outside, like a man.
You make a good point about Bruce Willis especially.
But the heyday of action movies had, of course, a need of action stars. Today, it would be unsurprising if some young talent turned to superheroes instead.
You’re also right that the public is rather fickle. But there it is.