Ben Whishaw

Keira Knightley and Sarah Lancashire have bigger names.

But I can't take my eyes off of Ben Whishaw in "Black Doves."

Really, we wanted to watch "Silo," but that's week to week and isn't ending until the middle of January. Apple is fumbling here, because no one survives without the youth and the youngsters want it all and they want it NOW! Which is why they're on YouTube for streaming, and addicted to TikTok. To employ the old model is to abandon hope of snagging young people and their turbocharged word of mouth. Youngsters live online, and that's why their choices dominate in culture, that's why it's hard to break musical acts that appeal to oldsters. This won't last for long, as the boomers and Gen-X'ers die off. We thought the major labels were forever, but it turns out their power was based on an old construct, the domination of the few, and that's not how it works anymore. Even the news business doesn't get it. You may be following the lowering of salaries for TV news stars. When no one is watching, you can't pay exorbitant salaries. The money is online and this is anathema to oldsters, who believe the smartphone is the devil.

So we pulled up "Black Doves" because Karen and Jake raved. That's right, I didn't get turned on to the show by the media, everything is bottom up today as opposed to top down. There's an alternative network for news and information that far exceeds that of the mainstream. But since it can't be easily categorized and distilled, it's to a great degree ignored. That's what the mainstream does. If it doesn't understand something, assuming it's even aware of it, it pooh-poohs it.

Think about this. The older someone gets the harder it is for you to change their preconceptions. They'll tell you the new is trash. They don't want to re-evaluate their underpinnings. But to survive and win in today's society you must do this, everything you believe must be up for grabs. We live in a fluid society. As for politics... Now you understand why the general public has detached, now you understand why fewer people voted for Kamala than Joe. People no longer believe, they no longer have trust, in a world where RFK, Jr. wants to get rid of the polio vaccine. I mean you throw your arms up and get on with your life. Sure, there are true believers, but they are the minority, and the rest of us are sick of the tyranny of the minority so we've given up. Talk about a cynical society.

But it gets even worse. If I read one more story on the Taylor Swift Eras tour... This is what the mainstream does best, promote the already existing while it ignores the developing outside. And statistics mean less than soul. Swift waited until the tour was over to release the gross, an exact total of $2,077,618,725, as if art were sports and was quantifiable. Like when I put on a record I think of how much money the artist took in. Talk about getting so far from the garden.

What is there to believe in?

Netflix. Which knows you succeed today by diversifying your product portfolio so you can appeal to the entire public, which doesn't want to consume the same thing, the exact OPPOSITE of what the major labels are doing.

So don't tell me what happens in "Black Doves." We're only two episodes into the six total.

And somewhere along the line Keira Knightley aged. And I'm not referencing her looks, but the fact that she's now a woman not a kid, is pushing forty, and this begs the question...HOW OLD AM I???

And Keira is good.

And Sarah Lancashire is never bad. But she's more one note here, less the rounded role she played in "Happy Valley."

But Ben Whishaw?

HE'S SPECTACULAR!

I'm watching "Black Doves" and wondering where I know this guy from.

And when we turned off the TV last night I went to Wikipedia and saw he was in "The Hour," an English series about a current affairs TV show set in 1956. The tone, both in look and substance, was delicious. And not over the top like in U.S. productions.

And in "Black Doves"...

Whishaw's performance is subtle. Which draws you to him. You not only look at him, but into him, you contemplate what's in his brain. He can be quiet, thinking.

Whishaw looks kinda like a young Mick Jagger, as in you can't really decided if he's ugly or beautiful, maybe just a sexy beast.

And Whishaw as Sam... He's got this high hair and beard, he's scruffy, yet together.

His removed personality... You're never quite sure what he's thinking, what he's going to say. He's a bit of a mystery, which is intriguing, which draws you to him.

And Sam makes mistakes. Which is something the hero rarely does.

And he's torn by thoughts of a past love.

He's a hit man but he's human. Not an assassin with a heart of gold, but someone who's more than an automaton. There are emotions involved in killing.

Knightley and Lancashire are more two-dimensional. Whereas Whishaw is akin to a real person. You don't know anyone quite like this, but you want to. Quiet, with charisma, an inner strength, even though he's not a hunk.

I don't know how he does it. They call it acting. It's not just a pretty face, a model, who is now an actor.

And Whishaw has got a list of credits an arm's length long. He was even in "Fargo," but that's American TV, and I never warmed up to the show.

And I'd like to say "Black Doves" is of the quality of "The Bureau," which has now been remade as "The Agency" for those who can't handle foreign productions, but Whishaw is a cut above.

Ben Whishaw is a star.

A star is not someone who has to convince you of this. A star is someone whose power emanates from within. Today everybody is so busy selling, so busy batting us over the head with their achievements, saying LOOK AT ME, LOOK AT ME, that we've forgotten what stardom is.

Humphrey Bogart, that's a star.

And I'm going back all those years because that's when the formula was intact, when the public was truly intrigued.

And then movie stars were eclipsed by musicians and...

Now we know so much about these people but adore them so little.

It isn't easy to articulate why Ben Whishaw is so great. It's something you feel. And feeling is the essence of great art. We've abandoned that in search of attention and profits. Everybody wants to throw everything at the wall. Everything is massaged before it's promoted, the edges rubbed off for mass consumption, like the paint-by-numbers, made by committee songs purveyed by the majors that succeed less and less.

The public doesn't want them.

The public wants something more subtle, more meaningful.

Like Ben Whishaw.

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