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When last we saw Peggy Carter in the second Captain America movie, she was an ailing lady in her 90s processing the fact that the love of her life, Steve Rogers, had not only survived a 70-year deep freeze, but was physically still in his 30s. Such are the problems of having a thing with Captain America, not least of which is that you will wrinkle and sag, but he will always look like Chris Evans.

The miniseries Marvel’s Agent Carter, which recently concluded its eight-episode run on ABC, is set immediately after the events of the first Captain America movie. There’s something to be said for miniseries—with less time for pointless fillers, we get to the good parts immediately. Granted, this is an action-adventure series with the blunt force trauma approach of comics, and not Breaking Bad, the gold standard in character development. It is 1946, World War II is over, and Peggy Carter is working in New York for the Strategic Scientific Reserve (SSR). The war had upended the social order: with the men fighting in Europe and the Pacific, women had taken over jobs traditionally held by males in factories and offices. Now that the men have returned, women are once more relegated to support staff in the workforce.

Read our TV column The Binge at BusinessWorld.

You Don’t Mess With the Zohan (We can’t find the clip of the “Electronics store is a dream killer” scene)

Superbad

We just saw this again last week with our cat Mat, who watched it from beginning to end. (He identifies with McLovin.)

Elf

Another favorite of our cats, along with The Two Towers.

Love and Death

Russian novels, spoofed.

The Lady Eve

Jokes flying so fast some just whoosh right by.

Nyugati station, from the National Geographic

We’re thinking of going in May and want to know if this is a good time.

Budapest because:

1. We’ve never been there.

2. Patrick Leigh Fermor walked to there from Holland (Though we’re taking the train from Trieste to Vienna to Budapest, making it a Vestiges of the Hapsburg Empire tour. Last year we traced the Nazi advance backwards).

3. We’ve read some Hungarian novels in translation and Hungary sounds so civilized.

4. The Lubitsch movie The Shop Around the Corner is set in Budapest.

5. A friend of ours went there many years ago and when he pronounces it “Buda-pesht” we roll our eyeballs but are secretly envious.

6. Every time we’re in Juan’s house we hear that Budapest song by the guy who writes songs named after cities (Barcelona, Amsterdam; we’re waiting for Srebrenica, Addis Ababa, Macchu Picchu) and like the properly insane interpret it as a sign.

7. We’ve seen Bela Tarr movies and while we can’t claim to understand them, we finished them.

Saffy: It is faithful to its literary source.
Drogon: There are not enough cats.

One advantage of riding taxis is that I get stories I can repeat in my column. Like the one about the driver who was reading a warrant of arrest for murder, which I hope he had not personally committed. I have had some memorable conversations with cabbies; practically the only thing we have not discussed is the Hardy-Ramanujan taxi number (1729), and when that comes up I know it is a sign that I should start a taxi company.

In recent years I’ve had only two arguments with drivers. The first driver checked the route with me every 30 seconds, and when I said, “I don’t know, you’re the driver,” flew into a rage and cried, “Kailangan mo bang mag-Inglis?” The other was a cranky old person who said we could not go straight on Legaspi Street towards Greenbelt, and when I pointed out that we could, launched into a stream of invective about women being possessed by the devil. Which made me furious, but I was not as proficient at cussing in Tagalog as he was, so I just tossed the exact fare on the front seat and said, “Mamamatay ka.” I had meant to say “Mamatay ka”—drop dead—but in my rage repeated a syllable, so it came out as “You will die.” Which is a statement of fact: everybody dies, if not now then eventually, but the crabby cabbie interpreted it as a threat and started screaming out the window as I walked off, thus increasing his chances of having an aneurysm and proving me psychic.

Read our column at InterAksyon.com.

From the archive: Makati Murder Mystery (2009)

So I’m in a taxi on a sweltering Tuesday afternoon, crawling through
the traffic on McKinley Road, and we stop at a red light. The driver
opens the glove compartment and takes out a sheaf of papers. I don’t
mean to look but I can read the print clearly over his shoulder. I
wish I hadn’t looked because it’s a document issued by a Regional
Trial Court. A warrant of arrest.

For Murder.
(more…)

Penny dreadfuls were cheap 19th century British magazines containing sensational tales of bloodsucking ghouls, accursed sarcophagi and other oddities. I imagine they were the print equivalent of Inday Badiday’s old TV program See-True, which in the 90s provided our daily ration of women giving birth to fish, men getting pregnant, and assorted weirdos, mostly of the showbiz variety.

So if a TV series calls itself Penny Dreadful, you know that it is not meant to be a searing analysis of the human condition. It is designed to frighten and disturb you, which is a challenge in these jaded times. The Showtime series created by John Logan (Sam Mendes is one of the executive producers) is only occasionally scary, but it may entertain you out of your wits.

The first two episodes, throbbing with foreboding and full of striking images, are directed by Spanish horror director Juan Antonio Bayona (The Orphanage). We are introduced to the regulars one by one. In late 19th century London Ethan Chandler, an American sharpshooter in a Wild West show, is recruited by Sir Malcolm Murray and his ward Vanessa Ives for a dangerous mission. He becomes their security escort when they enter a lair of pale, fanged, ornery creatures immediately identifiable to us as vampires but entirely new to these Victorians.

Read our TV column The Binge at BusinessWorld.