‘Invasion,’ ‘Dune’ hit the small screen
Crop failures, power outages, crumbling infrastructure and public panic: It’s not today’s headlines, but the prelude to “Invasion,” a 10-part thriller series streaming on Apple TV+. Three episodes arrive today and the next seven unfold on a weekly basis, relating the story of an alien invasion from various perspectives in different parts of the globe, and even from a space station sent to make contact with whomever or whatever is messing with our planet.
The narrative follows the reaction of the White House as well as the chaos on the ground in small towns, the kinds of places where Sheriff John Bell Tyson (Sam Neill) is trying to maintain order.
As recently seen in “La Brea,” spectacles of this sort use the notion of a violent traffic jam to convey panic and fear. Nobody ever opts to escape the apocalypse on foot. ›
On a similar cosmic theme, the new adaptation of Frank Herbert’s “Dune” streams on HBO Max on the same day it arrives in movie theaters. Some time in the making, “Dune” will cover the first half of the acclaimed novel. “Dune” was previously interpreted by director David Lynch in 1984.
Screened at the Venice International Film Festival in September, this “Dune” has earned positive reviews, particularly for its visual effects, costumes and epic scale. One writer called it a three-hour-plus fashion show and meant that in all the nicest ways. Timothee Chalamet leads a large ensemble cast.
› If “Dune” is a movie streaming on television that probably should be appreciated on the big screen, the documentary “Becoming Cousteau” can be seen today exclusively in movie theaters, and will probably be best appreciated later as a television event.
Directed by two-time Oscar winner Liz Garbus (“The Farm: Angola, USA,” “What Happened, Miss Simone?”), this documentary profiles and celebrates a filmmaker, inventor and conservationist whose name became synonymous with underwater photography and television specials celebrating the wonders of the undersea world.
Cousteau’s specials arrived during the Space Race era and implicitly made the case that exploring the mysteries of our own planet was as important as sending rockets to the moon.
They were also broadcast at the same time that many Americans were bringing color televisions into their homes, devices that allowed them to appreciate Cousteau’s filmmaking.
It may just be my theory, but I believe that documentaries adapt to the technology that presents them. The great BBC “Planet Earth” presentations were best suited to the arrival of big-screen TVs in the first decade of this century. Our current era of binging true-crime docuseries requires little more than a phone-sized screen to appreciate. Nobody watches the human oddities of “Tiger King” for the visual spectacle.