Review: STATION ELEVEN & Danielle Deadwyler on HBO Max

I wrote these late night musings from Facebook about Station Eleven, a limited series on HBO MAX. It was based on the novel of the same name by Emily St. John Mandel. I liked the musings enough to re-post them here.

I’m slowly working my way through Station Eleven again for a second time. I’m really trying to savor the experience and watching it very slowly and deliberately. It’s a fantastic show and the experience watching this a second time and watching how the onion of the story reveals itself is just a damn good experience.

The show is based on an acclaimed novel, which I have not read. But I LOVED her next two books, Sea of Tranquility & The Glass Hotel. The show really captures the meat of how her novels work, how they flow and how time ultimately doesn’t matter. It’s all about the characters and their journeys.

I was initially turned off by this show by the poster as seen in the header. I love Makenzie Davis, but there’s just something about this image that doesn’t do it for me. Makes it feel like The Fault in our Stars or whatever. And I like that movie, but it’s not what I’m looking for. It’s a bad representation of what this show is and becomes. It’s about the characters and each episode is a different focus on a different character and how they all interact inside this story about the end and beginning of the world. It’s post apocalyptic and it’s so very timely. It’s filmed in 2021 in the middle of the pandemic and it really captures that feeling of dread and our dreams of being alive felt during the Covid pandemic.

The performances are incredible. There is not a weak link in the cast. This is a murderers row of character actors. I’ve love Gael García Bernal and this is one of his best roles. He’s so damn fucking charming in this! Mackenzie is damn good. She’s been amazing in everything since Halt and Catch fire. But Himesh Patel as Jeeven really steals the show. Over and over again he just steals my heart more and more. His character has such a great journey and is the real heart of the show. He makes it work for me.

But holy shit! I’m watching episode 3 and the actress who plays Miranda is amazing. She changes shape in each scene she’s in. I had to look to make sure it was her because she metamorphizes in each scene as the episode jumps in time. Her performance was a powerhouse! Just holy shit!

Piano player Cava Menzies (left) with The Piano Lesson Star Danielle Deadwyler (Right) at Mill Valley Film Festival Piano Lesson Reception.

So i had to pause everything to look and see who she was and low and behold… It’s Danielle Deadwyler! She’s the star of THE PIANO LESSON, which played at Mill Valley Film Festival this year and she attended a party i helped plan. Hot damn, i wish i had paid more attention to her credits, i knew she was in Station Eleven, but because she’s such a chameleon in her roles… I didn’t put it together that she was MIRANDA! And it feels good too cause that party kicked ass and i booked the music. The photo below is of the piano player i hired taking with Danielle. Cool stuff. And i wish i had known because that would have made taking this photo so much more…”HOLY SHIT!!!!” She’s so good in this show!!!

This is a hard show to just sell to someone and I kind of get why the poster is so bad. It’s about the end of the world and the new beginnings that follows. It jumps through time a lot. It’s sad, but hopeful. It’s got a fantastic soundtrack. It’s made me want to learn more about Shakespeare. It makes me happy to be alive. How the hell do you put that on a poster?

If you liked ARRIVAL, The Leftovers, Children Of Men, Motorcycle Diaries, or I Saw The TV GLOW…. There’s a great chance you’ll like the tone and vibe of this. It’s really fantastic. It just feels to me like a warm old sweater or blanket. It fits just right for me.

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Editor’s Note: This is the raw draft of the interview published by New Noise Magazine. This draft has not been seen by an editor. There will be errors. Chris Fogal must not like his haircut, because this is a man of many hats. He’s the lead guitarist and vocalist for the vastly underrated pop-punk band The Gamits, and the lead guitarist for TaunTaun, now a Denver metal institution. On top of those two bands, Fogal owns and operates one of Denver’s premier recording studios, Black And Bluhm. It’s there that we chat with Fogal about his newest project, Dwayne with Andy Tanner from Laymen Terms, Andy Thomas from Tin Horn Prayer and Switzerland’s Michael Marti from Goodbye Fairbanks. Fogal, you already have The Gamits and TaunTaun. What do you get out of starting another band? Well, TaunTaun doesn’t do much anymore and the Gamits had just finished a bunch of touring overseas so it seemed like the perfect time to do the Dwayne thing. I really needed to write some stuff that had nothing to do with either of the other bands. I also have a new band from Switzerland called Midrake in which I play the drums so I’m up to 4! In January it looks like I might be in 5 bands! You’ve known both Andy’s for years with Tanner being from Laymen Terms and Thomas from Only Thunder and Tin Horn Prayer, how did Michael Marti come into the mix of things?Michael is our Swiss friend that I have been touring with for about 13 years on and off. We are super tight and even go on vacations together and stuff. We always talked about doing a band together so it was him and I that started Dwayne. Originally it was gonna be the two of us with acoustics so we could just have an excuse to get in a car and drive all over Europe eating food and partying. It became a whole band later when the songs started coming together. That’s when I called on the Andy’s to join the party. Recording technology has advanced so far and so drastically over the last few years, you can do almost anything without being in the same room. You own your own studio with Denver’s Black in Bluhm, What stops you from having more Frankenstein projects such as this one?Well nothing really. Right now I’m beginning collaboration with a couple buddies. I shouldn’t spill the beans until it actually happens but one of them is in the middle east and one is in California so yeah, there are no limits these days! With your other bands having such exciting and memorable names, why did you drop the ball with Dwayne? I never thought the Gamits was a very good name but at the time we came up with Dwayne I was pretty drunk and I wanted a name that raised no expectations and was not serious in any way. I asked my friend Dan something like ” what’s a stupid name from the 70’s or 80’s?” and the first thing he said was Dwayne! I don’t know why but I thought it was super funny and out of the whole list of potential names it just stuck. What are the future plans for Dwayne? How are you going to pull off double duty on a Gamits/Dwayne tour? We just got some great news on the label front and the tour front so in November we do a short midwest tour with both bands, then it looks like the album won’t be out until January so we will do some more USA shows after that. Then we head to Europe for Greotzrock and at least three weeks of tour over there. That’s not until May so there are no plans past that. I’d like to record more soon. Oh, we will also have a flexi vinyl record in November with a B side not on the album and a couple downloads that are on the album so there’s that.