Sugar (2024)

Sugar is described as "a genre-bending contemporary take on the private detective story set in Los Angeles".

Apple tv+ new noir series SUGAR by Mark Protosevich (The Cell) divided people because of its gimmick.  It's L.A. Noir with a Twist. And it's a show for cinephiles with a cinephile dick and lots of classic noir films quoted directly on the screen (Kiss Me Deadly, Double Indemnity, Night of the Hunter, The Big Heat, Sweet Smell of Success, Sunset Blvd. and many many more -see the whole list here.).  

Colin Farrell is great as John Sugar, a private eye roaming LA in his superb blue 1966 convertible Chevrolet Stingray Corvette, but there's more than meets the eye (sic) in this 8 parts neo-noir series (short episodes, 30 mins.) as opposed to Ripley or Fallout or The Sympathiser's 1 hour + durations-named here the series I enjoyed this year so far, plus The Gentlemen). And I was waiting for each epsidode, so I watched this every week, for a period of two months, having heard from before starting it that it had a twist, quoted by The Guardian as terrible. Well, it's quite the opposite, great and new and brave.

Well, I for one, enjoyed it very much. Maybe because I so much like Colin Farrell and his (sad) smile, and his gaze. Farrell is great whatever he's in, either being Alexander, The Way Back, In Bruges or its L.A. version,  Seven Psychopats, even a lesser London Boulevard.. arthouse: Lanthimos' The Lobster but better in The Killing of a Sacred Deer, Ondine, Triage, The Beguiled, up to the grand summit- The Banshees of Inisherin,   

in True Detective season 2 -or unrecognizable (great too!)  in the new Batman (waiting to see his turn as The Penguin in his own series), even aa a cameo (in Gilliam's Parnassus).

And Amy Ryan  (which I recentley rediscovered in Gone Baby Gone), as an old rocker (Patti Smith, Blondie, Joan Jett style- who would believe her as that? ), was great, mature, warm.

Plus the dog is fabulous (and the cat).

And mr. James Cromwell, as an old Hollywood tycoon.

Series directed by Brazilian Fernando Meirelles (which went from his Cidade de Deus to great American TV)-5 eps. & Adam Arkin (Alan Arkin's son, an expert streaming series director- Succession, The Offer) -3 eps.

Great soundtrack too, with cool songs, some known, some obscure. Whole list here. Very nice use of Iggy's The Passenger.

“I believe movies are a conspiracy. They you set up from the time you are a little kid. They set you up to believe in everything, from ideals, and strength, and good guys.”

(Minnie in Minnie & Moskowitz by John Cassavettes-1971)* 

* I mean Gena Rowlands in the film Sugar goes to see in a cinema on ep. 2