June Binges Part 2: Off Campus & The Other Bennet Sister

I watched two romance series this month - they both couldn't be more different, but each was swoon-worthy in its own way. Do you prefer your smut to be sexy or Victorian? Either way, I've got you covered!

Off Campus: Created by Louisa Levy, based on the series of hockey romances by Elle Kennedy, this is a sexy show that has a naked butt within two minutes of its runtime. Don't say you weren't warned. Ella Bright and Belmont Cameli star as Hannah and Garrett, two college students who are taking a philosophy class together but otherwise have nothing in common. Garrett is the captain of the hockey team who already knows he wants to go pro, while Hannah is a music major who is struggling to make ends meet and doesn't give a shit about hockey. Obviously, the two of them don't get along, until...they very much do.

This show has all your classic tropes - you've got enemies to lovers and a little Hitch inspiration with Garrett trying to coach Hanah on how to win over Justin (Josh Heuston), the guy she has a massive crush on. The sex scenes are gloriously steamy, and I have never been more grateful to Shonda Rhimes for bringing Bridgerton to our TV screens and thereby ushering in this whole era of streaming romance series. But more importantly, this show has so much emotional heft and heart. Both Hannah and Garrett have extremely dark pasts and will have to confront a LOT of psychological baggage over the course of eight episodes. They make the classic mistake of trying to solve everything through their relationship, but the show cleverly showcases how your partner can't be your only emotional support in life; both of them end up turning to their best friends for additional guidance (played excellently by Mika Abdalla, Antonio Cipriano, Stephen Kalyn, and Jalen Thomas Brooks - a supporting cast that gets up to all manner of shenanigans of their own over the course of the series). And despite the heavy themes that are being discussed, the show never gets too bogged down, miraculously maintaining a breezy and funny tone that kept me smiling throughout the entire series.

The final episode has an epic cliffhanger and I simply cannot wait for Season 2. I have spent a lot of time this past week watching Instagram reels about this show, reading interviews with the incredible costume designer (Charlene Akuamoah, a true genius), and becoming obsessed with the soundtrack, listening to multiple featured songs on repeat like a besotted teenager. This show is a frothy and fantastic delight and it's exactly the kind of escapism I crave when the real world gets to be too much. If you're currently a single lady who is fed up of the dating apps (or a happily married one who is still in need of some diversion), put your phone down and pull up this show. Just revel in these hot, heterosexual men for a while. Yes, they initially seem like douchey hockey jocks, but my god they end up having hidden depths and being feminist AF. It's enough to classify this show as a fantasy rather than a romance, but for eight hours, just let yourself be transported!

The Other Bennet Sister: Written by Sarah Quintrell and Maddie Dai, based on the 2020 novel by Janice Hadlow, this is a beguiling piece of fan fiction about the life of Mary Bennet, the awkward and plain sister in Jane Austen's Pride & Prejudice, who is merely treated as a joke and a weirdo in that novel. In this story, however, she has a robust and rich interior life, and we get a thorough psychological understanding of this much-ignored woman who still deserves just as much happiness as her sisters.

Ella Bruccoleri plays Mary, and she is perfectly cast, managing to be both nondescript and captivating as the script demands. The first few episodes give us the events of Pride & Prejudice from Mary's perspective, including a thwarted attempt at wooing Mr. Collins. However, as her sisters are all married off while Mary remains the old maid, her prospects seem terribly bleak, and it is unclear what will become of our heroine - is she doomed to a life of genteel poverty? Thankfully, she has relations who can take her in, and what follows is a wonderful tale, with parallels to Austen's other heroines who encounter multiple suitors with varying complications. 

The show is a bit of a slow burn, and of course, it is very Regency, but it's still delightful to see Mary get a little lustful when she sees a man rolling up his sleeves and giving her a flash of forearm. Her suitors are charmingly played by Donal Finn and Laurie Robertson, while Indira Varma and Richard Coyle are lovely as her aunt and uncle who offer all the love and support she could never seem to get from her odious mother (played irritatingly well by Ruth Jones). Even though I knew what was going to happen, the final episode melted my heart, and I was so proud of Mary, who had learned to become a strong, independent woman, brimming with self-confidence. In its way, this is yet another feminist romance, but it will still satisfy the itch of any Austen lover who is looking for a new way to enjoy their favorite tale of love and marriage.

June Binges Part 1: The Boroughs & Spider-Noir

Another month is flying by, and there's still so much new TV to watch! I recently had surgery, and unfortunately, I've been using all my recovery time to nap instead of bingeing and blogging as I anticipated. But, I am now on the mend, which means it's time for me to finally tell you about all these epic shows you should be watching. Let's dive right in.

The Boroughs: Created by Jeffrey Addiss and Will Matthews (with an executive producer assist from Stranger Things' Duffer Brothers), this is a very bizarre and fun show about a group of older folk in a retirement community in the middle of nowhere who discover that maybe something rather sinister is going on. Something sinister that may involve...aliens? 

Frankly, that's about all I want to tell you about the plot. There are only eight episodes, and you'll have to figure out how things unfold from there. The cast boasts people like Alfred Molina, Geena Davis, Alfre Woodard, Clarke Peters, and Denis O'Hare, who are all people I have been watching for long enough that I was a little startled to realize that they are now old enough to be playing retirees. But these are all impeccably excellent thespians and man are they having fun. Older actors rarely get the chance to showcase their chops like this, and at one point I realized this show felt like The Goonies but for sixty-somethings. It has that crazy Spielbergian vibe of a group of people going on an adventure, and something weird and wonderful is afoot, and they're gonna band together to solve the mystery despite all the obstacles in their way.

The sci-fi element means that this show is probably not going to be everyone's cup of tea, but the plot is compelling, the actors are brilliant, and it's just so unique and unusual that I was riveted throughout. It's a quick and dirty binge that should keep you enthralled for the entirety of its runtime, so give it a shot. There's a lot of fun lurking in those boroughs!

Spider-Noir: Developed by Oren Uziel, this show is set in the 1930s New York in an alternate universe where Spider-Man is the alter ego of a world-weary hard-boiled detective named Ben Reilly. Who is played by Nicolas Cage. What more do you need?!

My husband and I watched this show in black and white as God intended. There is also a color version available for heathens; we did watch a few minutes of that version and begrudgingly accepted that it was still shot in an old-timey technicolor kind of way that still made it feel retro. But, come on. The show is called Spider-NOIR, what are you even doing if you watch it in color? The cinematography and production design is truly out of this world and it's an immersive and dazzling experience if it's been a while since you last watched a classic movie.

Cage is hamming it up brilliantly in this role, complete with a Cagney/Bogart-esque accent that is cleverly explained in the script. Karen Ruiz is wonderful as his weary secretary, Janet, while Lamorne Morris is his trusty friend and journalist, Robbie. There's a mystery involving a sudden rash of folks with superpowers who are taking over Manhattan and committing crimes, and of course, our hero has a tragic backstory and doesn't ever want to don his spider costume again but will eventually have to. There's some romance, beautifully choreographed action set pieces, and a whole lot of humor. It's an absolute vibe from start to finish, and even if you're not a superhero person, you should watch this show if you're simply a cinema person who wants to indulge in this world for a little while.

June Movies Part 1: Backrooms & Power Ballad

I headed to the movies this weekend and watched one Gen Z blockbuster horror film that everyone's talking about and one sweet, melancholy Irish movie that almost no one is talking about. I enjoyed both, but for very different reasons.

Backrooms: Written by Will Soodik and directed by the 20-year-old (!) Kane Parsons, based on YouTube videos he started creating in 2022, this movie is extremely wild and twisty and slightly impossible to explain. But my god it's a vibe, and I vibed hard with it. Chiwetel Ejiofor stars as Clark, an angry divorced man who aspires to be an architect but instead owns a struggling discount furniture store. After his wife kicked him out, he has been living in the store, and has noticed the electricity is behaving erratically, with power surges and losses at all hours. One night, he goes down to the basement to investigate why the lights are off, and he sees something shimmering on one of the walls. When he approaches, he discovers he can walk through this wall, and into the titular "backrooms." 

This is where all kudos goes to Danny Vermette, the incredible production designer, without whom, this film would be nothing. The backrooms are a weird and eerie, slightly-off maze of interconnected rooms that just keep getting stranger and stranger as Clark wanders through them. The score and sound design by Edo Van Breemen and Parsons also deserve a lot of kudos because we get the constant hum of the overhead fluorescent lighting as an accompaniment, but then the sudden footsteps, or sudden silence that signifies only bad things could happen next. Honestly, the sound design scared the crap out of me more effectively than the appearance of actual monsters.

Yes, there are monsters lurking in these rooms, and yes, things will get a little bloody towards the end, but the majority of the time, you are just wandering through this insane world, trying to figure out what's going on, and having a mild panic attack for 110 minutes. Ejiofor is excellent as our protagonist who is also a little despicable, while Renate Reinsve is an excellent audience surrogate, playing Clark's therapist, Mary, who has her own intricate back story that will unfold over the course of the film. It's all very layered and complex, like the backrooms themselves, and there are so many interpretations you could come up with as you watch this film. The main thing though, is that you have to see it. It's a wild ride, and I joyously went along for it.

Power Ballad: Directed by John Carney, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Peter McDonald, this is a classic Carney piece about the conflict between artists who make music because they love it and the record labels and big stars who make music because of capitalism. Paul Rudd stars as Rick Power, a former rockstar who settled down in Ireland 15 years ago after he married an Irish woman and had a daughter. Giving up on his rock dreams, he now sings for a wedding band. It's not glamorous work, and he misses being able to play his own songs instead of the usual comfort fare required at a wedding. 

At one wedding, however, Rick meets a famous singer, Danny Wilson (Nick Jonas who is not playing a character too far from reality, but still acted the hell out of this part, much to my surprise). Danny was formerly in a boy band but is now trying to strike out on his own, and he's trying to write songs for his upcoming album. He and Rick have an all-night jam session once the wedding festivities conclude and joyously make music together, riffing on each other's work, and enjoying a very creative collaboration that leave both in admiration of each other. What could go wrong?

Rick goes back to his life, and Danny goes back to his, and then six months later, Rick hears a song playing at the mall. He instantly recognizes it as "How to Write a Song Without You" a song that he has been noodling on for years, and that he had shared with Danny during their collaborative night. Well, Danny was able to add a bridge, produce the hell out of it, and now has a #1 single on his hands, with no songwriting credit to Rick whatsoever. What follows is a story that made my husband nervous, because he thought the tone of the film was going to become very dark and insane. But I knew the most I could expect from a Carney movie was a little melancholy and a lot of soul. There's a fair amount of comedy, because how could you not when you have Rudd at the helm, but he does a great job playing this slightly sad sack musician, who isn't quite living his dreams and just wants recognition for finally writing the hit song he has been chasing for so many years. 

It's a beautiful story about creativity and collaboration and credit, all topics that are so dicey and controversial when it comes to making music and art, and it's deftly told and distilled with that traditional Carney whimsy and Irish flair. I loved this movie and it made me tear up at various points. And not for nothing, "How to Write a Song Without You" is a certified banger - I hope it starts climbing up the charts, because nothing makes me happier than when a movie about a hit song actually generates a hit song. It's such a difficult task, and initially, when I heard the song in the movie, I didn't think it was that great, but by the time you hear it twenty times, in multiple contexts, with different production values, you really do learn to appreciate the art and craft of songwriting. It's a beautiful musicology lesson and movie all wrapped up in one.