I take any chance I can to tell people about the show Reservation Dogs. If you get Hulu it’s on there – just 3 seasons, a total of 28 half hour episodes, not heavy on continuity, not a huge time commitment. In a way it’s comparable to my other favorite recent show, Atlanta, in that it’s just this incredible cast where every character is really hilarious to me in a different way, and also because the writers and directors are narratively playful and free. They’re willing to leave their teenage protagonists to do an episode all about the elders, then later one all about the elders when they were teenagers, then an episode where one of today’s teenagers meets a weirdo recluse who we start to realize was one of the kids in that flashback episode who has become estranged from the others. Things like that. But also it’s a very potent show about friendship and dealing with loss, so it’s the funniest show that I always find myself trying not to cry at.
They ended it this year and I already miss it, so it’s a good time for me to track down the handful of indie movies creator Sterlin Harjo did in the pre-Rez Dogs part of his career. I previously reviewed his debut feature FOUR SHEETS TO THE WIND, sort of a romance. Now I’ve skipped to his third one, MEKKO (2015), which Wikipedia describes as a thriller. That wouldn’t have occurred to me but yeah, I guess it makes sense to call it that. Mostly it’s just a slice of life following this big quiet guy named Mekko (Rod Rondeaux, MEEK’S CUTOFF, HOSTILES, THE BALLAD OF BUSTER SCRUGGS) getting out of prison after 19 years and trying to survive on the streets of Tulsa. (read the rest of this shit…)
