August Binges: Mr. Throwback, The Decameron, Taskmaster

I always find myself discovering a slew of new shows in the summer, free of the pressures of regular fall/spring programming. This summer has been no exception, with streaming services releasing a string of intriguing offerings. Here's a round-up of what I've been watching over the past month!

Mr. Throwback: This is a story about a man named Danny Grossman (Adam Pally), who used to be a basketball phenomenon in middle school and then had it all taken away from him and fell from grace. As a kid, NBA superstar Stephen Curry (playing himself!) was Danny's best friend, along with Kimberly (Ego Nwodim), who now run's Stephen's media company and manages his entire life for him. They fell out of touch after Danny was banned from playing middle school basketball, but 25 years later, Danny has re-entered the picture because he needs some money. He is hoping that he could leverage his friendship with Stephen to get out of trouble. But one lie snowballs into another, and what follows is a six-episode mockumentary as Danny furiously tries to maintain a giant lie, gets his ex-wife and daughter to play along, and has to deal with the naive Curry, who is willing to believe the best of everyone and the suspicious Kimberly, who can only assume the worst. It's a pretty basic sitcom with some fun cameos and jokes, but the premise does go stale pretty quickly. However, it's an insignificant time commitment and a perfectly pleasant way to while away an afternoon, so why not give it a shot?

The Decameron: Created by Kathleen Jordan, based on the 14th century short-story collection by Giovanni Boccaccio, this is a delicious little miniseries about what happens when a bunch of Italian nobles and their servants are trapped in a beautiful Italian villa outside of Florence, which they have fled to so they can avoid the plague that is raging through the city. The cast is stacked with people like Zosia Mamet, Saoirse-Monica Jackson, Tony Hale, Tanya Reynolds, Leila Farzad, Karan Gill, etc. and the entire thing has a distinctly British sensibility of heightened silliness and deeply dark humor. Every character has their own nefarious plots afoot and ambitions to get by in this plague-ridden world - some nobles are trying to make an advantageous marriage, others are trying to land a job, and meanwhile the servants are trying to decide if they need to revolt or just keep maintaining the ridiculous status quo even under these extraordinary circumstances. It's a lushly produced, extremely engaging series, just eight episodes long, and it will keep you thoroughly entertained from start to finish. Some people will die, others will thrive, but at the end of the day, I think we can all agree that this is the most oddly hilarious story about the Black Death.

Taskmaster: There have been 17 series of this game show to date, and I watched Series 5 months ago as it is widely recognized as the best series to date. Subsequently, I have now made my way through several more series, each one delighting me to no end with its absurdity and the charming relationships that develop between contestants over time. Created by Alex Horne, each series takes five comedians (usually British ones, but occasionally you'll get a Canadian or Australian thrown in there) and over the course of (usually) ten episodes, they have to do a series of "tasks" that have been set by Horne and will be judged by the Taskmaster, British comedian Greg Davies. The tasks range from the sublime to the ridiculous - they might win points for popping a balloon from the further distance away, or creating a work of art out of toilet paper. The inventiveness of the tasks is one reason to watch, but the contestants' befuddled reactions to the tasks is the main reason to watch. Sometimes they have an absolute flash of brilliance as they discover a secret loophole and complete the task perfectly, while most of the time, they blunder through in abject cluelessness, cursing Alex throughout. It is utterly joyous and one of the best ways you could spend an afternoon. Every series is available for free on YouTube, so honestly, you cannot complain you don't have a thing to watch this summer. Endless fun awaits you!

A Slew of Binges: The Gentlemen, Shogun, Ripley, Baby Reindeer, Fallout

A number of epic shows have been released on various platforms recently, and I have been diligently watching them all. Now, it’s your turn.

The Gentlemen: Spun off from Guy Ritchie’s movie of the same name, this is a series about what happens when Eddie (Theo James), the second son of a Duke, returns home when his father dies and discovers he has inherited the entire estate instead of his older brother, Freddy (Daniel Ings). That would be enough drama to be getting on with but turns out his father had partnered with a drug crime family to grow marijuana on the estate, so Eddie has also unwittingly inherited a drug empire. For various reasons, he has to team up with Susie (Kaya Scodelario), the woman who manages these illegal operations, and what follows are eight episodes that always end on a cliffhanger and are just straight up bonkers from start to finish. This show is funny, violent, and constantly surprising, and the lead performances are a delight. Give it a shot!

Shogun: Created by Rachel Kondo and Justin Marks and based on the novel by James Clavell, this is a sumptuous and dramatic show set in 16th century Japan. Cosmo Jarvis plays John Blackthorne, an Englishman who arrives in Japan to establish a trade route, but unwittingly finds himself becoming an ally of Lord Yoshii Toranaga (Hiroyuki Sanada). A bunch of warring factions are fighting for the title of Shogun, aka ruler of Japan, and over the course of ten episodes you will be treated to a lush, detailed, and vivid depiction of this period of Japanese history, featuring incredible performances and awe-inspiring production design. The show is almost entirely in Japanese, so be prepared to read those subtitles, but it's well worth the effort. It's also only a limited series that completely wraps up its storyline in this one season, so if you're looking for something that packs a lot of prestige but won't require a prolonged time commitment, this should definitely be your next binge.

Ripley: Based on Patricia Highsmith's novel, this limited series, created by Steven Zaillian, is gorgeous and riveting. Shot completely in black and white, and starring Andrew Scott as Tom Ripley, a conman who takes everything a step too far when he ends up murdering a wealthy American in Italy and taking over his identity, this is a delicious cat-and-mouse game that tells this story in a fresh and exciting way. Johnny Flynn is great as the clueless Dickie Greenleaf, while Dakota Fanning is wonderful as Marge, Dickie's girlfriend who is always suspicious of Tom but can never quite catch him in an outright lie. But most importantly, Andrew Scott is simply impeccable, somehow managing to make this man seem timid and insecure and then morphing into a homicidal maniac who will do anything to keep his newfound extravagant lifestyle going. The cinematography by Robert Elswit is insanely lavish and as you take a tour of 1950s Italy, you might never want to return to real life. In fact, book a trip to Italy right now - you'll be glad you did once you finish watching this show.

Baby Reindeer: Created by and starring Richard Gadd, this is a true story based on his own experiences. In the show, his character goes by the name of Donny Dunn, and he is an aspiring stand-up comedian who works as a bartender. A customer named Martha (Jessica Gunning) takes a shine to him, and what begins harmlessly enough suddenly devolves into a dangerous and frightening situation as this woman begins to obsessively stalk him and harass him day and night. But if you thought that was the extent of this man's troubles, wait till you get to Episode 4, when we get a flashback to an incident in Donny's past. I won't spoil what happens, but it is raw, visceral, and the most harrowing 45 minutes of television I've seen all year. It made my skin crawl and I felt so much awe for Gadd's bravery in taking this horrific incident and sharing it with the world. The show is twisty, disturbing, and remarkable, and there's a reason everyone's talking about it. It's challenging to watch, but it's well worth the effort.

Fallout: Created by Graham Wagner and Geneva Robertson-Dworet and based on the popular video game franchise, this show is set in a post-apocalyptic future (natch) after the Cold War devolved and nuclear bombs were dropped in the Great War of 2077. The action picks up 200-odd years later and we follow three separate characters who have all led very different lives in this but will now find their paths intersecting. Lucy (Ella Purnell) grew up underground in a Vault, an underground bunker designed to protect people from surface radiation. However, when her father is kidnapped by surface dwellers, she ventures out into the unforgiving wasteland, where she will encounter Maximus (Aaron Moten), a squire for the Brotherhood of Steel, an organization that dons militaristic armor and purports to defend the populace, but obviously has their own nefarious schemes. She will also meet The Ghoul (Walton Goggins), a man with a complicated past from the beforetimes who has now become a mutant (kudos to the hair and makeup department) and is out for vengeance and answers regarding what happened to his family. The plot is complicated and engaging, and the production design is simply unparalleled. There's a great deal of violence and but plenty of humor - it would certainly be a vibrant and unique addition to your watchlist.

April Movies Part 3: Suzume & The Super Mario Bros. Movie

If your month hasn't contained enough Japanese, or Japanese-adjacent, animation, then this blog post might help solve that problem. Whether you love anime or love playing Mario Kart, there's something to tickle your fancy at the movie theaters this month!

Suzume: Written and directed by Makoto Shinkai, this is a rather gorgeous movie about Suzume, a young girl who meets a stranger and gets entangled in a mysterious quest across Japan. The stranger is named Souta, and it turns out that his family business is as a Closer. There is a worm in a realm underneath Japan, and there are doors scattered around abandoned ruins across the country. If those doors are open, the worm will have a chance to escape and create earthquakes, so Souta's job is to travel to those doors and close them, thereby ensuring Japan is protected. 

Meanwhile Suzume is an orphan who was raised by her aunt after her mother was killed in the 2011 tsunami. We get some flashbacks to the young Suzume, heartbroken after her loss and running around the countryside refusing to believe her mother is dead. Without giving anything away, the movie takes a turn towards the end that is very emotionally moving and brings everything full circle to the trauma this girl faced at a young age. 

Like with any anime, there are also some cute elements; here we have a cat named Daijin, who keeps leading Suzume on a merry chase across Japan to find the open doors. And lest I forget, the reason Suzume is having to close these doors is because Souta gets cursed early in the film, and is turned into...a chair. So yeah, there's a talking chair, and Suzume has a crush on him, because again, this is anime, and age-inappropriate romances are the norm. The romance element felt a bit icky, but the rest of this film is a marvelous adventure with an emotionally resonant payoff. And every frame is a work of art, accompanied by a wonderful soundtrack by the band Radwimps and composer Kazuma Jinnouchi that I kept humming after I had left the theater. I watched a dubbed version where Nichola Sakura voices the main character, and she did a fantastic job, so if you want to revel in the animation without the distraction of subtitles, I would certainly recommend this voice cast. So go forth and be transported by this tale.

The Super Mario Bros. Movie: This movie was surprisingly great. Directed by Aaron Horvath and and Michael Jelenic and written by Matthew Fogel, it's a tight 90 minutes that fully delivers all the nostalgia you want, with lots of jokes and fun animation. My only comment upon leaving the theater was that I have no idea if this movie would make any sense at all to a person who had never played any kind of Mario game. But I, the most casual of gamers, was still thoroughly delighted by all the sly homages to the Mario universe, both visual and acoustic (I still can't get over a scene where Bowser is playing the piano and plays a classic Mario tune). 

The premise is simple - Mario (Chris Pratt) and Luigi (Charlie Day) are Italian-American plumbers who live in Brooklyn and are struggling to strike out on their own. They discover a mysterious Warp Pipe that sucks them into the Mushroom Kingdom but they get separated. Luigi is captured by Bowser's minions and is imprisoned in his castle, while Mario meets Toad (Keegan-Michael Key), who takes him to Princess Peach (Anya Taylor-Joy), who has a plan to destroy Bowser and save the Kingdom. It's 2023, so the depiction of Peach is much more feminist, where she is a rousing leader of her people, active and agile and capable of fighting with the best of them. She takes Mario to the Jungle Kingdom to forge an alliance so they can fight Bowser with the Kongs, which is how Donkey Kong (Seth Rogen) also becomes a part of this movie. It all fits together beautifully.

This is a fun, breezy film that is colorful, clever, and charming. The voice cast is great, with all of these actors having a fun time, none more so than Jack Black who voices Bowser and recently has been climbing the music charts with his heartsick rendition of Peaches, a song about how much he loves Princess Peach. This movie is like playing any Mario game - there's not a vast amount of substance, but it's certainly addictive and entertaining. There are plenty of jokes and Easter eggs to suit every level of fan. So grab your kart and take a ride down Rainbow Road - wahoo!

April Movies Part 2: Rye Lane & Tetris

Would you rather not leave your house? Well then, streaming services have your cinematic needs covered. Pull up your Hulu or AppleTV+ accounts and settle in for a treat.

Rye Lane: Have you been seeking a sweet, fun, British romcom? Even if you haven’t, you should now, because Rye Lane is a lovely entry into the genre. Vivian Oparah and David Jonsson star as Yas and Dom, two people who meet at an art show under decidedly odd circumstances and then proceed to have one long magical day, Before Sunrise-style, where they walk through London and talk about their lives, their past relationship trauma, and their hopes for the future. What starts out as platonic friendship of course starts to morph into something more but these two are still dealing with a lot of grievances with their exes and may not quite be ready to move on.

Written by Nathan Bryon and Tom Melia, and directed by Raine Allen-Miller, this movie is charming and beautiful, making London glow with promise and making me immediately want to book a trip across the Pond. Oparah and Jonsson have splendid chemistry and they do splendid banter for 90 mins straight, which is truly what we should all demand from every single romcom. And if that wasn’t enough to entice you, there is a brilliant cameo halfway through this movie that gives it the perfect British romcom polish. So head off to Rye Lane for an absolutely delightful day of adventure and romance. 

Tetris: I had no idea what I was going to get with this movie but boy did it deliver. Set in 1988, this is the true story of how Henk Rogers (Taron Egerton) ran into someone marketing Tetris at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas and decided to buy the licensing rights in Japan for PC, console, and arcade. However, the game had originated in the Soviet Union, created by a man named Alexey Pajitnov (Nikita Efremov), and the worldwide licensing rights (ex Japan) were sold to a British media mogul in a convoluted fashion that would set the stage for a battle over intellectual property, handheld gaming rights, and an ideological standoff between communism and capitalism as the KGB starts to intervene in the business dealings. That’s right, this movie takes a hell of a turn. 

Written by Noah Pink and directed by Jon S. Baird, this is a twisty, funny, thrill-a-minute movie that keeps you thoroughly entertained for two hours straight. The finale is a very Hollywoodized version of the truth, but Rogers and Pajitnov actually existed, ultimately did found The Tetris Company, and now are producers of this film, so it’s not complete hogwash. It’s a wonderful story of how interconnected we all are in this era of globalization. It's a great tale about rapidly evolving technology and gaming and greedy corporate overlords. And somehow it’s also a spy thriller that involves the Iron Curtain and the KGB and Mikhail Gorbachev. By the time you’re done, you will be bopping along to the amazing score by Lorne Balfe and desperately want to play some Tetris. Mission accomplished.

Popcorn Flicks: Marry Me & Uncharted

Want a break from foreign movies and Oscar bait? Well you could do nothing better than head to the theater to watch a JLo romcom or a Tom Holland action comedy. Do you need some mindless entertainment for President's Day? These movies have you covered!

Marry Me: If you've seen the trailer for this movie, you already know what you're going to get. But that won't stop you from having a super fun time nonetheless. This is a cute, feel-good film about what happens when a glamorous pop star (Jennifer Lopez) gets jilted at the altar (well, technically it's the stage of a pop concert being watched by millions, but roll with it) and decides to marry a random stranger named Charlie (Owen Wilson) from the audience instead. Does it make sense? No. Is it the perfectly plausible plot of a romcom and allows for much zaniness and romance to ensue? You bet!

Wilson and Lopez have strangely compelling chemistry, but this might be down to the fact that we're talking about Jennifer Lopez here - this lady oozes so much charisma that she could make any pairing work, even if the movie consisted of her romancing a mop. But also, casting a music superstar as your leading lady means you're going to get some insanely catchy songs that will stick in your head for a while. I would catch myself humming the main Marry Me theme song months before I saw this film just from seeing the trailer.

There's a sassy best friend (the always engaging Sarah Silverman), a protective agent (the lovely John Bradley who now seems to be in everything post-Game of Thrones), and a cute little moppet child (the charming Chloe Coleman who also seems to be the de facto adorable kid in everything): this movie has all the familiar and fabulous ingredients of a great romcom and serves as nourishing comfort food for the soul. Directed by Kat Cairo, this movie will effortlessly carry you along for the ride and deliver everything it promised. Go ahead, say I do.

Uncharted: An action movie based on a popular videogame franchise, starring Tom Holland as Nathan Drake, a young adventurer who is a fountain of knowledge of lore about ancient explorers and where they may have buried their treasures, and Mark Wahlberg as Victor "Sully" Sullivan, a more hardened fortune hunter who needs Nathan's help to find some of Magellan's lost gold from the time he tried to sail around the world. Read that sentence again. It should tell you everything you need to know about whether this movie is for you or not.

In my case, I was all in. I love me some Tom Holland (Wahlberg, less so, but Holland has enough charisma to carry everyone in this movie), and this movie felt like a breezy Bond film, with plenty of rooftop chases in foreign locales, some dubious women who may or may not be trustworthy (both Tati Gabrielle and Sophia Ali show up as fun characters for these men to tangle with as the plot proceeds), and ultimately, a Da Vince Code-esque treasure hunt that requires both brains and brawn.

Directed by Ruben Fleischer, this movie will deliver action, laughs, and good times. Some of the plot twists you'll see coming from a mile away, but overall, it is well-produced, well-acted, and just oodles of fun. This feels like a summer movie that has been released in February to save us all as we weather snow squalls and wait for spring. So grab some popcorn and indulge in some wonderful escapism: it's what Hollywood does best.

Squid Game: Join the Global Binge

Like everyone else on the planet, I bingewatched Squid Game last week. And when I say "everyone else on the planet," this is no exaggeration. In the middle of this binge, I was having my weekly game night with friends and one of them mentioned that she had started watching it. The next game night, she and another friend were halfway through, while I had finished. And then during my weekly therapy session, my therapist went, "have you seen Squid Game" and he started telling me his theory and I had to casually go "oh ok" without excitedly declaring "OMG yes, that is correct, how did you guess that" and spoiling the whole show for him. So yeah, maybe writing this blog post is a bit pointless if every reader has seen it already. But in case you're one of the few people who have yet to be persuaded, here you go.

First off, this is a Korean show, and I am a purist who prefers subtitles over dubbing, so that is how I recommend watching. Yes, you may not understand the words, but the tone is just as important a part of the acting and you need to hear how the original words were spoken, even if you need the subtitles to then translate them. This was particularly important for me because one of the characters is a Pakistani immigrant living in Korea, Abdul Ali. Played by Indian actor, Anupam Tripathi, this was the first time I had seen a South Asian person speaking in Korean, but at the same time, I could tell he was speaking it with a desi accent. It was kind of mindblowing and is definitely the aspect of the show that resonated the most with me. But in the grand scheme of things, this is not why the whole world is bingeing the show, so let's get to the actual plot.

The show is mainly focused on Seong Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae), a chauffeur with a gambling addiction who is in massive amounts of debt and of no use to his poor mother who is just trying to keep them all afloat. When he is approached by a stranger and given the opportunity to participate in a game for a big cash prize, he takes the bait. He and 455 other players are all transported to an undisclosed location where they are corralled together by mysterious masked men being led by a mysterious masked Front Man. The players are told the rules: they will play six games, and any players who win all six games get to share the prize money. Everyone else is eliminated when they lose a game. Seems straightforward enough. Except when they start to play the first game and discover that getting "eliminated" means that you quite literally are killed.

I mean, come on. How can you not be hooked by that premise and immediately decide to invest your time in the next nine episodes? The first half of this show is exquisitely scripted, giving you just enough backstory about Gi-hun and then the key players he starts to ally himself with in the game, but then throwing you into the insane mechanics of this deadly tournament. It has impeccable and inventive costume and production design, creating this eerie and dystopian world that all these players are trapped in that is colored so cheerfully to resemble a child's playground but ultimately is the site of such dark and terrible trauma. The episodes are propulsive and end with these nailbiting cliffhangers that meant I had absolutely no choice but to insist on watching the next one. And the actors are absolutely fantastic, each one portraying their character with a slightly different level of world weariness, cynicism, or painful hope that keeps diminishing as they play each game and start to realize just how low their fellow playmates will go to win all this cash. 

The second half, however, felt like the gimmick had worn itself out. There were some massive twists towards the end, but they were somewhat predictable, so you either already saw them coming, or if you didn't, they still weren't fully fleshed out and were mildly unsatisfying. The finale left me feeling like I had more questions than answers, which honestly, might be fine, since we'll likely all just be bingeing Squid Game 2 next year. I don't know how Netflix does it, but every once in while, they manage to get this collective momentum going around some random show and for a brief shining moment, the globe feels united in our single-minded obsession with this one piece of pop culture. So watch Squid Game to revel in the collective glow of humanity, even as the show ironically is based on a concept that demonstrates humans are absolutely vicious. You'll quickly find out if you're an optimist or a pessimist based on how you react to this show, but overall, if you just want to be entertained and thrilled, this is an excellent way to spend your weekend. 

Free Guy & CODA: A Comedy-Drama Double Feature

Are you in the mood for a fun comedy with some existential rumination? Or are you more in the mood for an uplifting coming-of-age family drama? Why choose, I’ve got two movies you can watch to cover the whole spectrum of human emotion!

CODA: Ruby (Emilia Jones, who I have just discovered is British and also learned American Sign Language in nine months for this film...wow) is the eponymous CODA of the film, i.e. a Child of Deaf Adults. Her parents (played by Marlee Matlin and Tory Kotsur) and older brother (Daniel Durant) are all deaf, so her entire life, she has served as their liaison to the hearing world, translating for them at restaurants and workplaces, and growing up far too quickly as she realizes how cruel the world can be to those who are a little bit different. She was bullied when she first arrived at school because she “talked funny” like the deaf adults who raised her, and this has made her painfully shy and mostly a social outcast, except for her best friend Gertie (Amy Forsyth). But things take a turn when she signs up for the school choir and her teacher, Mr. Villalobos (Eugenio Derbez), sees that she might have a talent worth pursuing.

There are long stretches in this film where the ASL scenes are not captioned, so you are going to watch Ruby and her family signing to each other and other folk and you’ll just have to figure out what’s going on. Turns out that is not too hard to do because people can still be incredibly expressive in ASL, both with their faces and the signs themselves, and you can quickly piece together the crux of the situation. It's a bit like if you're watching a foreign film without captions but can still tell from the actors' tones and expressions what is happening in the scene. I had never fully appreciated what a robust language ASL is before this, and it's a beautiful feat.

Written and directed by Sian Heder, CODA is a wonderful story about a family we don’t ordinarily see on the big screen. It isn't afraid to dabble in gray areas when portraying Ruby's family, who are allowed to be selfish and lusty and problematic and aren't just saintly put-upon deaf folk. They have their own issues and inner lives that they must contend with and much like last year's Sound of Metal, it's refreshing to see such a three-dimensional characterization of members of the deaf community that doesn't paint everyone with the same broad brush. But the storyline with the hearing folk felt much more trite and filled with coming-of-age tropes. There was a sweet but cringey teen romance and Mr. V's mentorship of Ruby was all very convenient and pat. Which ultimately meant that while I liked this movie a lot, I couldn't fully love it. However, it's still well worth your time, and features a performance of one of my all-time favorite songs that I will likely return to time and time again. 

Free Guy: If you've seen the trailer for this film, you should know already if you're the target audience. Ryan Reynolds plays Guy, a character in a violent Grand Theft Auto-esque video game, who has no idea about the nature of his existence until he comes across Millie (played by the wonderful Jodie Comer), a woman from the real world (but...what is the "real world" anyway?) who is roaming around this video game in avatar form to find the definitive proof that the game's inventor, Antwan (a deliciously deranged Taika Waititi), stole the code for this game from one that she and her partner, Walter (the always impressively coiffed Joe Keery), developed years ago. 

Yes, I know that seems like a convoluted and tech-heavy premise, but I promise that the script by Matt Lieberman and Zak Penn deftly lays it all out for any layman to follow with ease and Shawn Levy directs the whole enterprise with an eye to making things zippy and not dense with exposition. Just strap in and enjoy the ride. All the actors are great, with L'il Rel Howery and Utkarsh Ambudkar showing up as well to round out the supporting cast, along with some fun cameos that will leave you chuckling. And the look and feel of this movie is pretty excellent, with the video game world featuring pitch perfect production design and just the right level of visual effects magic.

After we watched this movie, my boyfriend did insist we watch Ready Player One, which he thought was a superior film that this movie aimed to emulate. There are definitely parallels and your mileage may vary depending on how subsumed you are into gamer culture and how exactly you want your pop culture references served up to you. To me, Free Guy is at its best when it's sticking to its original premise and serving up some Truman Show vibes as Guy is faced with the idea that his reality is all the figment of some crazy creator's imagination. Towards the end of the movie, things get a little too cute with references to Marvel and Star Wars that serve as a reminder that this film was distributed by 20th Century Studios which is now a Disney subsidiary and therefore must kowtow to its corporate overlords with all the cross-promotion that money can buy. With Ryan Reynolds as the lead, such shenanigans were also inevitable - maybe if they had cast some indie darling in this role, we would have leaned more into the philosophical conundrums laid out by this whole storyline. But putting capitalism aside, this is exactly what you want from a summer movie. Is it high art? No. But is it solid entertainment with a fun, original idea and an insanely likable cast? You bet. 

The Queen’s Gambit: Lush & Languorous

Seeing as it sprang to #1 on Netflix, I binged all of The Queen’s Gambit this weekend. And I have never been more convinced that the world is really bored during the lockdown (or really in need of distracting themselves from the election) if they decided that this needs to be the next great binge watch. Don’t get me wrong, this is an excellent miniseries. But it did not need to be seven episodes long. 

Written and directed by Scott Frank, based on the novel by Walter Trevis, the series is set in the 1950s and 60s and tells the story of Elizabeth “Beth” Harmon (Anya Taylor-Joy), a young orphan in Kentucky, who is a chess prodigy and quickly becomes one of the greatest chess players in the United States, and eventually, the world. The production design by Uli Hanisch is absolutely impeccable, vividly capturing the look and feel of the era, and the costume design by Gabriele Binder is spellbinding. We track Beth’s evolution from poor orphan girl in a pinafore and terrible haircut, to a sophisticated and glamorous teenager and young woman. But the aesthetics aren’t the point of the series. The point is the chess. 

Oh the chess. There is so much of it. And I expect this series is a godsend to people who play and actually watch chess tournaments. But to me, there could be nothing duller than watching people move pieces around on a board. To be fair, the show does an excellent job of making this seem exciting by amping up the score (composer Carlos Rafael Rivera deserves much kudos for his soundtrack) and having the ticking chess clock in the background to ratchet up the tension and having people communicate the progress of the match in multiple analog ways as they can't simply share status updates via Google. But that technique only works for the first few matches. After a while, I was playing Candy Crush until the damn match was over and we could move on with the plot. 

There’s plenty of plot, with a tone that can oftentimes veer from the cerebral to the decidedly earthy in the blink of an eye, and a whole host of characters that come in and out of Beth’s life. The first episode is actually the most powerful, with Isla Johnston playing the young orphan Beth and showcasing how she first learns to play chess from the orphanage’s custodian, Mr. Shaibel (Bill Camp). We then get a wonderful turn from Marielle Heller as Alma, the woman who adopts Beth and proves to be flawed but incredibly supportive of her single-minded chess ambitions. And then there are the many men who flit through Beth’s life, mostly chess players, of course, but who all rally around in pretty fine fashion at the end, in a way that made me really love this series. Too often, we see women’s stories get sidetracked by romance, but in this show, Beth’s almost pathological genius for playing chess is front and center, and her success is paramount despite the many struggles she has to endure. 

Anya Taylor-Joy is the lynchpin of this enterprise and her eyes are probably the reason she was cast. Those large peepers have to do so much acting when she’s just sitting at a chess board, and she is an absolute marvel. Beth isn’t an overly demonstrative character and is generally pretty aloof and reserved. And yet, you can sense her frustrations and elations when she is playing the game she loves, and you do understand the love she has for her friends and family, even if she is not the kind of woman who can readily display that affection. It’s a tour-de-force performance and is the main reason I kept watching. Yes I wasn’t enthralled by the chess, but I sure was enthralled by this character. 

Ultimately, The Queen’s Gambit is a lush and well-crafted series. It is a bit self-indulgent and is a one-trick pony in terms of how it tries to make chess matches seem exciting, but it has an excellent cast that can see this story through and ensure our heroine triumphs. I did find myself wondering if it would have been a tighter and well-paced series if a woman was directing instead of a man who fancied himself as an auteur. We shall never know. But as someone who has been a fan of Anya Taylor-Joy since her sprightly turn in Emma, I’m glad this show has pushed her further into the spotlight, because I certainly wouldn’t mind seeing her in all the things. Less chess, more Anya please!

Class Action Park & Showbiz Kids: More Delectable Documentaries

Netflix took care of me during the early months of the pandemic and now I have been subtly shifting towards HBO as they step up their offerings. This week, I watched two of their new documentaries and they were both an engaging and wild ride. So settle in.

Showbiz Kids: Written and directed by Alex Winter (who I was shocked to discover is the same Alex Winter from the Bill & Ted movies - more on those in the near future!), this is a great behind-the-scenes look at what it means to be a child star. Featuring some incredibly well-known faces and candid interviews, this documentary sets out to explore what led these kids into show business in the first place, and the price they paid as they grew up.

The movie starts out by interviewing Diana Serra Cary, who was the famous child star, Baby Peggy, in the 1920s. Between 1921-23, she made over 150 short films and was earning a $1.5 million annual salary by 1924, at the ripe old age of 6. However, thanks to her parents' wasteful spending, the stock market crash in 1929, and general financial mismanagement, she ended up poor in the 1930s and struggled a great deal. A story that is not uncommon among the other child stars interviewed for this film.

We get to hear from Evan Rachel Wood, Henry Thomas (aka the kid from E.T.!), Mara Wilson, Todd Bridges, Milla Jovovich, Wil Wheaton, and Cameron Boyce, a "Disney kid" who seemed to have gone through the ordeal of child stardom more unscathed than everyone else. The stories won't shock you (too much), and the common theme is around missing out on childhood. While other kids were playing with their friends and having regular experiences at school, these actors were on set, surrounded by adults, working at something that they may or may not have enjoyed, but not realizing what they were missing out on until it was too late. Some had family pressure to keep acting, while others thought they were doing it for themselves. There's a lot of trauma around loneliness, feeling misunderstood, and of course, the awful predatory nature of Hollywood that led many to experience childhood sexual abuse and turn to drugs.

Showbiz Kids isn't a feel-good documentary at all, but it's a vital look at how we treat those precocious "child stars" when they're off camera. I have admired the work of many of the people interviewed in this documentary, but hearing about their childhood experiences, I wonder if it was worth it. There are also some stories focused on current actors who are trying to make it big in Hollywood and Broadway, and while one has the hope that in the #MeToo era, both children and parents are a lot more clued in, it still seems like a gruelling process. There certainly is a good way to do it, but the consensus appears to be that ideally, you shouldn't do it for too long. Hollywood is too toxic and all good things come to a sudden and abrupt end.

Class Action Park: I haven't laughed so hard as I have while watching this movie. It is so utterly ridiculous and incredible that I found myself giggling non-stop as the former employees and patrons of Action Park kept describing various rides at this amusement park that operated in New Jersey from 1978-96 and had to shut down when the volume of personal injury lawsuits got too high. The movie's central tenet is that timing was everything - this park reached its peak in the 80s when America was all about deregulation, greed, and doing whatever you wanted. And Action Park was the living embodiment of that spirit.

Founded by disgraced trader (of course), Gene Mulvihill, the park featured three sections: the Alpine Center, Motorworld, and Waterworld, the latter of which was one of the first water parks in America. All three sections featured rides that were often conceived by Gene, involved shoddy construction with absolutely no feedback from an actual engineer, and trial runs by the park's teenage employees, many of whom would suffer unconsciousness or bloody injuries during these test runs. The documentary features interviews with former employees, as well as comedian Chris Gethard, who went to Action Park frequently as a child, and my God, hearing these people describe these rides and how insane they were, induces both hysteria and horror. And the staff were all teenagers, leading to a general sense of abject lawlessness about the place. Every day consisted of accidents, fights, and general chaos, and yet somehow, this place only got shut down in 1996. At one point, they even had to arrange to have their own ambulances, because they were taking away resources from the New Jersey residents around them. It's a wondrous story.

Halfway through, the movie does take a turn as it focuses on the story of a boy who died at Action Park. At least six people are known to have died after accidents on the park's rides, and who knows about the number of lasting injuries? The state of New Jersey had no regulations mandating that Gene accurately report injuries resulting from his crazy rides, so all we have to go on are the stories from the people interviewed in this film to guess at the devastation wreaked during the years of operation. In fact, I first heard of "Traction" Park from my colleague, Anthony, who used to visit as a kid and either broke something or got very banged up on one of the rides. It's a badge of honor connecting all park attendees - if you had no scrapes or bruises, you must have been doing something wrong. To paraphrase one of the interviewees, part of the thrill of going to Action Park was that it was a 50/50 shot that you would either have the greatest time of your life, or come out in a body bag. 

Directed by Chris Charles Scott and Seth Porges, Class Action Park is a scintillating documentary about a truly bonkers subject. I only finished watching it yesterday but I'm already planning on re-watching it because I still can't believe some of the things I saw. One hopes that you couldn't get away with such a place in 2020, but given how crazy life currently feels, it's nice to know that we've dealt with plenty of craziness in the past too. One particularly revealing factoid? Donald Trump had the chance to invest in this park in the 80s, and he didn't because HE thought it was too nuts. So strap on your seatbelts and get ready to watch this documentary - it's gonna be a bumpy ride. 

Documentary Double Feature: Boys State and The Speed Cubers

This Friday, I enjoyed yet another unusual double feature, this time focused on documentaries about boys. One gave me hope, one gave me some despair. So par for the course in 2020. 

Boys State: Every year, the American Legion runs a week-long immersive program in each of the 50 states where politically-minded teenagers can participate in an exercise in self-government. There is a separate Girls State, but filmmakers Jesse Moss and Amanda McBaine chose to make this movie about the 2018 Boys State in Texas, and the result is an intriguing documentary that won a Grand Jury Prize at Sundance.

It’s hard to know how to feel about this movie, given that it presents a mass of contradictions, much like our current political system. The film closely follows the boys who have chosen to run for State Party Chair or Governor of the two parties that the boys are divided into at the beginning of the week. It’s Texas, so the crowd skews conservative, but there is a particularly telling moment when a kid delivers a rousing speech about how he is passionately pro-life, but then in a private interview with the filmmakers, admits that he was just pandering to the crowd; he is personally pro-choice, but he recognizes the need to play politics. Which begs the question - why should a bunch of 17-year old boys have such strident opinions on abortion anyway? These are the dolts who grow up to become the men who tell women what they can do with their bodies. And of course, their political stance may be pro-life, but the minute their mistress gets knocked up, it’s pro-choice all the way.

On the flip side, there are the kids who genuinely want to change policy, establish gun reform, and embrace a "you do you as long as you’re not hurting me" ethos. They stick to their principles, rally the crowd, and deliver speeches based in genuine moral conviction. Of course, it's no surprise that the boys of color seem largely charged with doing the work and garnering votes based on actual policy reform and visions of bettering society for all, while the white kids thrive on rabble-rousing and generating faux outrage to muster votes. The challenge with Boys State is the same challenge with current political life - both types of candidates do enjoy some measure of success, so it’s a bit of a crapshoot regarding who gets to come out on top. I had strong views about who was the more empathetic and compelling speaker, but ultimately, there’s a clear distinction between personal passion and political ambition. For some folks, politics trumps policy-making, and it’s quite easy to tell which is which. The trouble is, voters seem to prefer the politics, and that's where things go awry. 

Setting politics aside, however, it’s obvious that this is an immersive and engaging experience and at the end, there is some overwhelming emotion and love that these boys express for each other. They have forged truly close bonds and friendships in just one week and maybe that's the only takeaway that matters. Political opinions come and go, but human connection makes a lasting impression. 

The Speed Cubers: This is a short 40-minute documentary about two very different but remarkably talented boys named Feliks Zemdegs and Max Park. They both share a passion for speed cubing, i.e. the ability to solve a Rubik's cube in an extraordinarily short amount of time. I learned to solve a cube when I was ten, using algorithms I learned from a Google search. I am not an innate solver who can see the patterns and right the cube without having to recite the formulas in my head, so it usually takes me two minutes to solve a standard 3x3 cube. Speed cubers like Max and Feliks, however, are solving these in under ten seconds.

Feliks is from Australia and was the world champion for years. Until Max came along and slowly started beating all of his records. Max is autistic, and we get his backstory about how his mom first introduced him to cubing as a way of improving his fine motor skills. This is a really simple documentary, but at the heart of it is the relationship between these two boys who have developed an unlikely friendship instead of an antagonistic rivalry. Rather than resenting Max, Feliks sends him congratulatory texts every time Max breaks one of his world records. When they meet up in Sydney for the 2019 World Championships, it's clear to see how much love and esteem they share for each other. It’s a very sweet story about how two people can challenge each other to be the best rather than tear each other down for a crazy competition. And of course, you get to see a lot of kids solving Rubik’s cubes in rapid time, sometimes one-handed, sometimes blindfolded, sometimes with their feet. 

I get it, it’s a niche subject, but by telling this story through the lens of two such unique and humble cubers, filmmaker Sue Kim hit the jackpot. The result is a genuinely heartwarming movie that has a pulse-pounding finale as you eagerly wait to see who will be crowned World Champion and if yet another world record is going to be smashed. It's a nerdy thrill, but it's also quite wonderful, and it's a worthy way to spend an hour of your day.

Floor Is Lava: That's All You Need to Know

Over the past week, I kept hearing about Floor Is Lava, a new game show on Netflix. People kept raving about how silly but wonderful it was. So over the weekend, I took the plunge. I visited my parents in the middle of my binge, so I made them watch it with me too, and by the end, my mom couldn't walk across the living room without me yelling, "Noooo, the floor is LAVA!"

The show is based on a game you may have played as a child, where you pretended the floor was bubbling with lava; so to get from one part of the room to another, you had to jump on furniture and navigate across without touching the floor. The show has taken that simple concept, and elevated it to a bonkers game show level. Here, teams consisting of two to three players are introduced to a room that is filled with 80,000 gallons of roiling, slippery "lava." Each room has a theme, like "kitchen," "bedroom," or a "planetarium" complete with a flat Earth and lunar module. These rooms are filled with obstacles and teams have to devise a path to get from the entrance to the exit without falling into the lava. There are always multiple paths, and usually teammates need to split up, because one path will lead to a key that helps to open up another path and make it easier to get to the exit. 

First off, the set design is brilliantly inventive. There's a lot of joy that went into designing these rooms, and you have to appreciate the silly puns (see the aforementioned flat Earth) that abound as teams make their way. There's also constant commentary from the show's host, Rutledge Wood, who is hyper-enthusiastic and having way more fun that anyone else as he gently mocks everyone on their deadly journey. And then, of course, there's the lava. Its composition is a proprietary secret, but they have done a wonderful job of making it glow and bubble, and it is horrifically slippery and makes every course a hundred times more difficult to navigate as it covers the obstacles and make them even harder to traverse. 

Which brings us to the teams. These people have fully bought into the silly, fun insanity and they are game for anything. When someone slips and falls into the lava, their teammates will scream in despair (whilst also giggling) as though this truly is the end for that person and that they won't shortly be reunited in the team interview after the course is complete. Everyone playing this game is perfectly pleasant, but what I find truly fascinating about this show are the gender dynamics at play.

In order to win, you want to get as many teammates across to the exit without dying. And if there's a tie (i.e. two teams all managed to get one person across), then the tiebreaker is who managed to get across fastest. As a result, you need to be quick but also cooperate. When teams are composed solely of men, there's a tendency towards "every man for himself." Which means that almost no one makes it across and everyone dies a fiery death. However, if you have an all-women team, or at least one woman on your team, there's a much more collaborative strategy. And that's something you quickly learn as you binge watch ten episodes of Floor Is Lava. Yes, it helps to be hyper-flexible with great upper body strength so you can sashay along monkey bars and lunge across six-foot jumps. But even if you're not that fit, you can survive the course if everyone lends each other a helping hand. Sometimes, all you need is someone to catch you as you take a running leap on to an ottoman, or someone behind you to push you on the giant canoe so that you have enough momentum to jump to the exit. The women inherently seem to understand this and will strategize to ensure everyone can make it across. And sometimes, they will sacrifice themselves so that their teammates have an easier time getting across. As opposed to a lot of the men, for whom each course is just a personal showcase for brute strength, which inevitably leads to a face full of lava.

Yes I know, Floor Is Lava is a silly game show and not some great social science experiment. But as my friend Laura joked, the people on this show who aren't looking out for each other are probably the same ones who are currently walking around refusing to wear a mask. Given that we are all currently stuck indoors, this show serves as a great microcosm of humanity and the different personalities at play as we become increasingly reliant on global cooperation to get through a crisis. Wait, did this blog post suddenly become a public health manifesto? Never mind. Back to the matter at hand. Floor Is Lava is a raucous good time. If you're bored at home, this is a great way to while away a few hours. I just fast forwarded straight to the courses as I didn't care for team introductions and whatnot, so you can set your own pace through this show. But by the end, I guarantee you might start clambering on your sofa or swiveling on your office chair as you try to hop on to your bed. Why? Because the Floor. Is. Lava!

Only Connect: Devious Quizzing

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the BBC's Only Connect is the most difficult quiz show on television. Currently in its ninth series, each edition features an astonishing display of mind-bending mental gymnastics, esoteric trivia knowledge, and seemingly miraculous problem-solving.

Each episode pits two teams of three people against each other and consists of four rounds. In Round 1, teams are given a series of four clues and they have to guess the connection. The fewer clues you need before spotting the connection, the more points you win. In Round 2, the clues make up a sequence, so you have to figure out what the fourth in the sequence would be. Be prepared for the occasional team that successfully guesses the fourth in the sequence after just one clue - it's like witchcraft. Round 3 introduces the evil Connecting Wall, a scrambled grid of 16 clues that have to be sorted out into 4 connected groups in two and a half minutes. And to end things, there's the Missing Vowels buzzer round, where teams are given a category and then have to identify a series of words or phrases with the vowels taken out. 

Hosted by the marvelous Victoria Coren Mitchell, a woman who is firm but fair, and always funny, this show is incredible not only for the quality of its contestants but the quality of its writers. I can't imagine what sort of people come up with such elaborate and tricky clues year after year, but they are frighteningly clever. The Connecting Wall is particularly devious, featuring multiple clues that could belong to multiple categories, further complicating an already thoroughly complicated puzzle.

The show often deals with very British topics, so it can be rather disheartening to a non-British viewer like myself when you simply cannot figure out any connections. On the plus side, you can always dismiss a particular set of clues as being too British and therefore not feel like quite such a fool. The show's website offers up a plethora of Connecting Walls so you can play for yourself and measure your connecting prowess. It's an addictive and frustrating pursuit, a form of schadenfreude that only a quizzing nerd like myself could recommend. So delve into the world of Only Connect and follow me down the rabbit hole. You'll be so glad and annoyed that you did. 

Was It Something I Said? Yes, It Was

To readers of this blog, it comes as no surprise that I am a fan of British panel shows in general, and comedian David Mitchell in particular. So imagine my delight when I found Channel 4's Was It Something I Said?, a panel show that is hosted by Mitchell, and if that wasn't enough, features the marvelous Richard Ayoade and Micky Flanagan as team captains.

The show follows a simple format: each week there are are two guest panelists who join Ayoade and Flanagan and a guest narrator who is responsible for reading the quotations. There are various rounds based on these quotations - the first round is called Threesomes, where the teams are given a quote and have to decide which of three famous people said it. This is followed by a round where teams are given two or three words from a famous quote and have to complete it to the best of their ability. Occasionally there's another round where teams are given a bizarre quote and have to figure out what the person was talking about. And before each commercial, Mitchell will pose a Fill in the Blanks quote that the teams try to complete after the break.

This is pretty standard fare and like all panel shows, what makes it stand out is the quality of the panelists and the guest narrator. Their banter can make or break the show, and the best guests often go off on complete tangents that have nothing to do with the quote whatsoever. This brings me to the final round, which in my opinion is the best one. Eponymously titled, Was It Something I Said?, this round features a quote said by someone on the opposing team, the guest narrator, David Mitchell, or some random celebrity. Naturally, determining the quote's origins becomes a matter of dissecting the various personalities on the show, often with hilarious results. In fact, this round most resembles my favorite panel show, Would I Lie To You? because it relies on the panelists' personal knowledge of the other people featured on the show. 

You can find episodes of Was It Something I Said? on 4 on Demand, or through some judicious YouTube searches if you live outside the UK. I particularly recommend Episode 5 with Charles Dance as guest narrator and Robert Webb as a panelist on Micky's team. The show just wrapped its first series and is still tinkering a bit with the format and a somewhat distracting attempt to engage a Twitter audience. But it's a promising start to what will hopefully become a long-lived series on the ever-expanding panel show line-up. 

Brooklyn Castle: Champions of Chess

Documentaries about American public schools tend to focus on the horrors of the education system. However, if you tuned in to POV on PBS this week, you were treated to Brooklyn Castle, a wonderful movie about I.S. 318, an inner-city junior high school with a chess team that has won more national chess championships than any other school in the country.

Directed by Katie Dellamaggiore, Brooklyn Castle follows a select group of I.S. 318 students who are dedicated members of the school's after-school chess program and determined to continue their winning streak at the national championships. Their chess coaches are an incredible woman named Elizabeth Vicary, who spends long hours teaching and devising lesson plans, and John Galvin, the tough but kind assistant principal who holds all the students to a high standard. We follow these students as they enter various local and then national tournaments and experience their bitter disappointment with each loss and triumphant joy with every win. It is particularly lovely to see these kids motivate each other and derive just as much pleasure from winning the team trophy as they do from an individual win. 

I.S. 318 is a Tier 1 school, which means that nearly 70% of the students live below the federal poverty line. Each member of the chess team comes from a low-income family and they have incredibly supportive parents who fervently believe in the importance of an education. The film documents the pressure that these students are under: the one girl, Rochelle, is determined to win the Girls' National Championship because first prize is a full-ride college scholarship and her mother can't afford to pay for a college education. She loves chess and wants to improve her rating so that she can become the first female African-American chess master, but now that she has entered high school, she is finding it increasingly challenging to balance schoolwork and chess. Similarly, there's Alexis, the son of South American immigrants who have put by every spare cent for his college fund. As the admissions test for specialized high schools approaches, he is racked by anxiety, determined to get into a good school but terrified that he might not make the cut.

Brooklyn Castle does an excellent job of weaving the students' personal stories and ambitions with their chess progress over the school year. By the end of the movie, it is amazing to see how far these children have come, not just in chess, but in life. One boy has been elected to student government and is doing impressive things to help with the school's budget and ensure that the chess program has funding. Another student, who struggles with ADHD, has made great academic strides and has improved his focus along with his chess rating. The threat of budget cuts is constantly looming on the periphery and the future of I.S. 318's chess program is never certain.  However, the teachers, administrators, and parents are fiercely dedicated to these students and they won't go down without a fight. 

You can watch the entire movie at the POV website or at Amazon. After you do, you'll really wish you had learned to play chess properly. 

Would I Lie To You? Why, Yes I Would

Would I Lie To You? is yet another brilliant British panel show, in the tradition of QI or The Big Fat Quiz of the Year. However, this program is not concerned with informing viewers about the news or trivia. Instead, it involves celebrity teams telling outrageous stories that could be either true or false and proving that sometimes the truth really is stranger than fiction.

The team captains for every episode are Lee Mack and David Mitchell, two fantastic comedians with very different but equally hilarious comic sensibilities. Each week two celebrities join each team - they may be comedians, newsreaders or other famous folk, but they add a great deal of variety to the proceedings and bring some unbelievable stories with them. The host for the first two series was Angus Deayton, a TV presenter with a sarcastic and withering sense of humor, but the current host is Rob Brydon, who lends a cheerier tone to the whole affair and keeps launching into the celebrity impersonations that kept me so amused in The Trip.

The first round involves a celebrity picking up a card and reading off a statement. For example, "When I was younger, I has so many imaginary friends that we formed an imaginary gang." It is then the duty of the opposing team to relentlessly question and mock the celebrity and determine whether the story is a truth or a lie. Then they play "This is my," a round where a stranger comes up on stage and all three members of one team claim to know him/her. The other team has to figure out who's telling the truth. Finally they finish up with Quickfire Lies, which is similar to the first round but is supposedly more rapidfire. Usually it just devolves into giggles and mass hysteria.

It's hard to explain the magic of Would I Lie To You? just by describing it. So my advice is to go watch it - if you can't access it on the BBC iPlayer, there are plenty of clips on YouTube. And be forewarned: even though each episode is only half an hour long, you might want to set aside more viewing time for yourself. You won't be able to stop at just one. 

Wreck-It Ralph: It's Hard Out There For A Villain

Animated movies just keep getting better and better. Each year, the storylines get more intricate and the animation gets more sophisticated, until we have to accept that these movies aren't just for kids anymore. Pixar seemed to have a monopoly on award-winning animation (and Brave is still the most likely Oscar winner this year), but Disney's Wreck-It Ralph, which is also an Oscar nominee, proves that the Best Animated Film category is more hotly-contested than ever.

Wreck-It Ralph is set inside the world of video games in an arcade. Each game is inhabited by a cast of characters that follow the gamers' instructions, but when the arcade is closed, they are free to live their lives and hang out with characters from other games. Our hero, Wreck-It Ralph, is actually the villain in a game called Fix-It Felix, Jr. The game's premise is that Ralph indiscriminately wrecks the building that all the other characters live in, and the gamer has to help Fix-It Felix, Jr. use his golden hammer to repair all the damage. If the gamer succeeds, Felix gets a medal and everyone throws Ralph off the roof of the building.

Ralph is tired of being a villain - he doesn't get to live in the apartment building with the other characters and has to live by himself in the town dump. Everyone is scared of him and he is so big and clumsy that he can't help but break things whenever he tries to walk into the building. Things come to a head when Ralph isn't invited to celebrate the game's 30th anniversary, so he storms out of Fix-It Felix, Jr. to see if he can win a medal in some other game and return a hero.

Wreck-It Ralph weaves together several plot lines as Ralph wanders into different games, and features delightful references to classic arcade games. I am not a gamer by any stretch of the imagination but I was still able to appreciate the references to Pac Man, Mario Kart, and other games that have become pop cultural touchstones. The animation is splendid, recreating a varied spectrum of video games and completely immersing you in Ralph's strange but wonderful world. Of course, voice acting is a crucial element of any animated movie, and Wreck-It Ralph is chock-full of fantastic performances. John C. Reilly is sympathetic and hilarious as Ralph, Jack McBrayer is the obvious choice for the nice but naive Felix, Jane Lynch is marvelous as a strict sergeant from a violent alien-shooting game, and Sarah Silverman is adorable as Vanellope, a young "glitch" in a Mario Kart-esque game who becomes Ralph's unexpected ally.

Wreck-It Ralph occasionally gets bogged down in exposition but that is only to be expected when you are inventing a brand new world and have to make sure the audience is aware of all the rules and restrictions that are in play. The dialogue is whip-smart, full of puns and double entendres to keep both children and adults entertained, and every scene is loaded with inspired and creative situations. The movie's resolution is executed with flair, tying up all the loose ends and giving us a charming tale about how everyone has their part to play, even the villain of a video game.

The Big Fat Quiz of the Year: A Year-End Delight

The British panel game show is a format that always brings me joy. I've already waxed lyrical about the marvelous QI, currently in its tenth series on the BBC, but a few weeks ago, a friend alerted me to Channel 4's The Big Fat Quiz of the Year. Established in 2004, the show celebrates the end of the year with a pub quiz-style panel show that recaps the newsworthy moments of the year. 

Jimmy Carr hosts the show every year and offers up sarcastic, racy humor and the world's weirdest laugh. The questions present more of a challenge for American viewers - there are a few about American pop stars or politicians, but otherwise the focus is squarely on UK events. But at no point does this diminish the sheer pleasure in watching these shows and attempting to complete a "Say What You See" puzzle, which consists of pictographic clues that often rely on British slang to be solved. I've been traveling back in time with the quizzes (I'm currently on the year 2007), and the more I watch, the better I get at delving into the cultural references and obscure Britishisms that warm the cockles of every Anglophile's heart. 

Of course the joy of any panel show is the caliber of the panelists, and Big Fat Quiz is reliably stocked with well-known British comedians like Rob Brydon, David Mitchell, Richard Ayoade, and the always hysterical pairing of Noel Fielding and Russell Brand. You won't recognize most (or any) of these people if you are a British panel show novice, but believe me, you won't forget them after spending two hours in their company.

American TV is grossly dismissive of the holiday season and for the next several weeks, networks will put on a predictable assortment of Charlie Brown specials, re-runs, and It's A Wonderful Life. British TV, on the other hand, is all about celebrating the holidays in front of your television sets, and the Christmas special is a highlight of any British series. So this year, along with the sure to be wonderful Christmas specials of Doctor Who and Downton Abbey, get excited for The Big Fat Quiz of 2012. And head on over to YouTube so you can catch up on all the end-of-year goodness you've been missing so far. 

QI: Laugh & Learn

The British may produce lavish Emmy-winning costume dramas and hilarious Golden Globe-winning sitcoms, but they are also obsessed with panel game shows. Their TV shows have such short seasons that they need something to fill up the airtime, and panel shows featuring celebrities and comics are their chosen way to go. Which led to the development of what is perhaps the best panel quiz show of all time, QI.

QI (Quite Interesting) is hosted by Stephen Fry, British treasure and Renaissance man. Each episode features four celebrity panelists: three of them vary from week to week, while Alan Davies is the constant fourth. Davies plays the Bertie Wooster to Fry's Jeeves - he will often give the obvious answer, setting off a loud klaxon, flashing lights, and garnering -10 points. And the only rule on QI is that you must never be obvious. The show has a simple set-up: Fry will ask a question and anyone can hit their buzzer and answer. However, the questions he asks are anything but simple. They cover a broad range of subjects and often set out to illuminate myths that have become accepted as fact. For example, when asked what the largest living thing on the Earth is, the obvious (and therefore wrong) answers include blue whales and giant redwoods. In fact, the right answer is the honey mushroom. And beware anyone who answers, "Blue!" when asked what color the Greeks thought the sky was. Turns out, they thought it was bronze because they had no word for "blue."

With questions like that, contestants generally can't be expected to win points by being right (although sometimes they can surprise Stephen and even themselves by coming up with the right answer). Instead, points are mostly awarded for being interesting. This leads to a lot of hilarity, because if you get a bunch of actors and comedians together, there will be a scramble to be the funniest person in the room if you can't be the smartest. But witty banter aside, the guests can have shockingly esoteric interests and skills that lead them to impart some genuinely engaging knowledge. Daniel Radcliffe (aka Harry Potter) astonished everyone with his knowledge of magical history and other oddball subjects. On last week's episode, Bill Bailey was found to be an adept birder who could name various species by sight. And there are a surprising number of panelists who transitioned from some unlikely jobs - Jo Brand, a popular comedienne, used to be a psychiatric nurse, while actor Ben Miller attempted to get a PhD in quantum physics at Cambridge before leaving to pursue comedy. As a result, contestants often go off on tangents that might teach you more than the actual answer to the question.

Of course, if the panelists are flailing, Stephen Fry is at the helm to supply a steady stream of quips and facts. The behind-the-scenes QI elves constantly supply him with information via an earpiece, so he can address panelist's questions and come up with delightful tidbits that suit every turn in the conversation. As a viewer, I spend the entire half hour laughing at the absurd tangents and jokes that result from every question, but am subsequently shocked to discover that I have in fact managed to learn something. So head over to the BBC iPlayer or seek out episodes of QI wherever you can. The show started its tenth season last Friday, so there is enough quite interesting material available to keep you occupied for a long time.

Dead Island: The Trailer That Made Gamers Cry

It is Friday so I felt like writing up a more whimsical post. Ergo, today's post concerns the trailer for the zombie video game, Dead Island. The video is below:

I discovered this trailer in February when it started making the rounds on Twitter. I almost didn't click on the link because who sees the words, "trailer for zombie video game" and thinks that is worth their while? (Well some people do, just not me.) But after multiple people on my Twitter feed had posted links to this trailer with comments like "This is amazing," "Masterpiece!" etc., I thought I might it was worth a shot. And over the next week I watched this trailer more than a dozen times.

First off, the music. The piano and violin score composed by Giles Lamb is just beautiful and tugs at your heartstrings in a weird way that you would never expect while watching zombies feasting on humans. The game's Facebook page had the music available for download at one point and now you can buy it off iTunes if you so desire. I love listening to it, because it is a great stand-alone piece without the gory visuals.

Secondly, the visuals. That first shot of the girl's eye is shockingly realistic and it takes a few seconds to realize that you're not watching a live-action scene. Sure things get progressively game-like and bloody from that opening scene, but it still looks pretty stunning for a video game and shows you that the world of gaming has come a long way from playing Asteroids on an Atari. 

Finally, the story. You'd have to have a heart of stone to not get swept away by the devastating story that this trailer tells in a few short minutes. Presented in reverse chronological order (which drew instant comparisons to the marvelous Coldplay video for The Scientist) you get progressively more horrified as you discover who exactly the dead girl at the beginning of the trailer is. The story is heartbreaking, and in fact, upon the trailer's release, there were several articles written by people who succumbed to tears upon watching it. So much depends on the way the story is presented. On the one hand it could be an action-adventure tale to tell about a family that goes on vacation only to become infected by the zombie plague that is ravaging the island's inhabitants. But when you add that image of a little girl struggling to get to her parents who are willing to do anything to save her, suddenly you forget all the horror elements and just connect on an emotional level.

The Dead Island trailer caused a big stir (and some controversies) when it surfaced and I loved it just as passionately as all the other people who wrote about it. However, unlike the gamers who said that this trailer made them eager to play the game, I didn't really care. I've never been much of a gamer, and am certainly not interested in a zombie slasher RPG. What I loved about this trailer was its supreme artistry on every level. Yes it was a brilliant marketing ploy, but when advertising is this good, it's true art. And if more video games start emulating the Dead Island example, we can look forward to a slew of trailers that will merit Best Animated Short Film nominations at the Oscars. 

Hexic: The End of a Soul-Sucking Quest

I have been playing Hexic since the age of 15. That's 9 solid years of off-and-on enthusiasm for this devious game that has always bested me. But no more. Last night at 10:59 p.m. I created a cluster of 3 black pearls and officially WON a game of Hexic. This is such an insignificant achievement in the grander scheme of things, but considering that it has taken me 9 years, I simply had to blog about it.

Hexic is a spectacularly straigthforward game, very like Bejeweled. All you have to do is rotate the colored hexagon pieces on your screen so that you make clusters of three like-colored pieces and they are replaced by new pieces. However, the added layer of game play comes from the fact that if you can arrange six hexagons of the same color around one piece, that center hexagon will turn into a "starflower." But it doesn't stop there. If you can successfully make six starflowers and then arrange them in that same pattern around one hexagon, you will create a "black pearl." And unlike other games like Bejeweled that just go on forever until you either run out of time or can no longer make a valid combination, Hexic actually has an endgame. If you make a cluster of 3 black pearls (or for the more ambitious, an arrangement of six pearls), you win. The game just ends. And that ending is what I have been seeking for so long.

Now I am 100% certain that there are plenty of Hexic players (possibly some among you who are reading this post) who are mocking me right now for taking so long to do this. I'm sure a basic understanding of spatial reasoning and judicious hexagon-wrangling would help anyone achieve this goal in no time at all. But somehow that has always eluded me. I have always been on the verge of winning when suddenly an unfortunate move will make my starflowers pieces combine with each other and disappear, leaving me with the arduous task of making more starflowers in a futile attempt to get to that damn black pearl. Or a bomb will appear and no matter what I can do, I simply can't get it close enough to two other like-colored pieces before it explodes and destroys my game. But yesterday was finally my day. I was making starflowers left and right, they all went exactly where I needed them to go, the black pearls were created with surprising ease, and when I made the third pearl, it was exactly next to the other two so that I didn't even have to do any work to create a cluster of pearls. It was perfect.

There are many web games out there that people love, which are vastly more complex or interesting. But just as people used to (and still do) laud Tetris as a marvel in the field of computer games, Hexic is easily my pick for a simple and utterly conniving game that can take up hours, days, weeks (and in my case, years) of your life. Now that I have finally defeated it, I don't know if I will ever really play it with as much enthusiasm. But I do know that when I play it again, I won't scream in frustration if a bomb explodes before I've made a third black pearl.