Soon on the small screen

"Divorce," design and "The Deuce."

By HANNAH BROWN
A Late Divorce (photo credit: Courtesy)
A Late Divorce
(photo credit: Courtesy)
Soon on the small screen ’Divorce,’ design and ‘The Deuce’ • By HANNAH BROWN Given how rich Hebrew literature is, it’s remarkable how little of it has been adapted for movies and television. And it’s even more remarkable how few of these adaptations have been good.
So Channel 1’s new three-episode miniseries based on A. B. Yehoshua’s novel A Late Divorce sounds very promising. It will air on Thursdays at 9 p.m. starting January 7.
It was directed by Ram Loevy, who made the excellent miniseries of Yehoshua’s complex novel Mr.
Mani in the mid-1990s. A Late Divorce, one of Yehoshua’s best books, tells the story of two aging parents who have been separated for years, and a series of events that take place among the couple, their adult children and their grandchildren during the week before Passover, when the father returns from the US to make the divorce final.
The TV series has a strong cast, with Doron Tavori (Lemon Tree) as the father, Rona Li-Paz Michal as the mother, Rotem Keinan as the professor son, and Alon Dahan as the profane and funny lawyer sonin- law.
IF YOU catch a glimpse of Dynasty on the CBS channel, you will most likely be blown away by insane fashions that were so popular then: the huge shoulder pads, bigger hair and fussy ruffles and fringes. In fact, by the time you finish laughing, the show will be over and you won’t even notice the melodrama.
Will Empire, today’s African- American version of Dynasty, which is set in the hip hop world, inspire such ridicule in the future? There’s no way to know, but one of the liveliest aspects of this show is its fashion, particularly the crazy and colorful outfits worn by Cookie Lyon (Taraji P. Henson, the show’s breakout star), who plays the ex-wife of music mogul Lucious Lyon (Terrence Howard).
While in the first season Cookie favored animal prints, in the second season, which airs on YES Drama on Mondays at 10 p.m.
and Tuesdays at 12:30 a.m. (also on YES VOD), her taste has evolved but not grown more subtle. In the premiere episode, she appears at a rally to free her imprisoned ex in a gorilla suit, which she strips off to reveal a Gucci gown adorned with feathers and crystals. For daywear, she favors brightly colored leather in patchwork patterns and a red pantsuit adorned with zippers.
Women’s Wear Daily quoted Valerie Steele, the director of the museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York, as saying that Empire “is going to provide inspiration to the more-is-more aesthetic,” and The New York Times cited numerous examples of designers who were influenced by it recently.
Other than Cookie’s wardrobe, another reason to watch Season Two of Empire is the appearance of Andre Royo as Thirsty Rawlings, a sleazy lawyer who helps Lucious get out of jail. Royo will always be remembered fondly by fans of The Wire as Bubbles, the strangely endearing heroin addict and police informer. The Wire, considered by many to be the greatest show in the history of television, had its share of wonderful actors, but Royo was one of the standouts, and some of his scenes in the final season moved me to tears. He has worked in a few movies and TV shows since The Wire ended in 2008, but until I saw him as Thirsty, part of me believed he really was a Baltimore junkie. He is perfectly underhanded as Thirsty, and I only hope that the character gets more important as the season goes on.
THOSE WHO loved The Wire will be pleased to know that the HBO pilot for The Wire creator David Simon’s new show, The Deuce, is in post-production. It is set in the porn industry in New York’s Times Square during the bad old days of the 1970s and ‘80s. James Franco will star in dual roles as twins who ran businesses during this sleazy era, one that contrasts so bizarrely with the superstore theme park Times Square has become.
Two of Simon’s previous works following The Wire were brilliant.
Treme was a series about post- Katrina New Orleans, and the miniseries Show Me a Hero was about desegregation in New York.