Yesterday: A Fluffy Fable

I have been seeing the trailer for Yesterday for months and every time it came on, the release date of June 28 felt an eternity away. Thankfully, June 28 finally arrived, and I saw the movie today. And of course, I had built it up in my head way too much. Now that I've seen it, I wish I could go back to yesterday when I was still giddy with anticipation.

For those of you who haven't seen the trailer, a quick primer: the movie is about a struggling British musician, Jack Malik (Nimesh Patel), who wakes up from a bike accident to discover that he's the only person on the planet who remembers The Beatles. At first he is shocked and confused; then he realizes this means he can now pass off their music as his own. Within a few months, he has skyrocketed to fame as the greatest singer-songwriter the world has ever known, but of course fame brings its own problems, and he certainly starts to yearn for yesterday, when his troubles seemed so far away.

It's a thoroughly delightful premise, but it's all given away in the trailer, and it turns out there isn't much more to it in the film. There's the romance plot with his friend and manager, Ellie (Lily James), which goes through the necessary twists and tangles. There are the random British friends and family, familiar to anyone who has ever watched a movie written by Richard Curtis. Overall, this is an extremely British movie, which means that it has enough charm to make up for its other deficits. There was one scene where two characters were talking in a cafe, and although there was a lot of important emotional dialogue, I found myself transfixed by the bottle of Ribena on the table. There's something you don't see in New York everyday.

Lily James is probably the best part of the movie, wearing her heart on her sleeve at all moments and having to be teary-eyed for two hours as the man she loves spends most of the time ignoring her for fame and fortune. Nimesh Patel, while not as emotive, does do a wonderful job of recreating these songs that we all know and love. Watching him furiously try to remember the lyrics to Eleanor Rigby is quite amusing, because let's be honest, all of just wail "Aaah look at all the lonely people" and then go eerily quiet. Let's also take a moment to cheer that an Indian man was casually chosen to be the lead in a major movie that could easily have been played by any white dude. It's the one thing the Brits do well - Indians have so taken over England that they no longer quibble about just randomly having brown people star in their TV shows, and now movies, without any further comment on their Indian-ness. I guess it's the least they could do after all those years of colonial rule (yup, I went there).

The screenplay is typical fizzy and light Curtis fare, and while it has clever moments and jokes, it mostly feels a bit predictable and played out. It's a brilliant premise to start with, but then relies on cliches for a resolution, and fizzles out towards the end. The music is unsurprisingly excellent, but usually only when Patel is playing in intimate settings or in recording booths for the first time. Once he becomes a star, every concert feels terrifically loud and rushed, and you can start to sense why uptight adults may have objected to The Beatles as being loud and noisy when they first debuted. Director Danny Boyle certainly tries to keep things interesting by filming scenes at odd angles or using strange visual tricks to liven up the proceedings, but they don't really fit the traditional storytelling and stick out like a sore thumb rather than compel you to keep watching.

There's also a lot of Ed Sheeran in this movie, which feels terribly odd and will immediately date a film that could have otherwise been ageless. I'm a fan, but Curtis seems to be pushing the case that Sheeran is the successor to The Beatles, and that is an argument I am not going to endorse. The man is a great songwriter, but he would have been much better deployed as a cameo in this film (which is what the trailer implied) than an actual supporting actor. Or at least not playing himself, so some of the hubris wouldn't feel so overblown. Also, I love Kate McKinnon, but her character in this film is a real oddball and she made some very distinct choices that felt like she was in a whole different movie. Perhaps it was startling as she was the only American - I guess I needed her to be more British to fit in with the rest of the vibe.

Yesterday is a movie that starts out with a great idea but fumbles the execution. It has a good cast and arguably the world's best soundtrack, but the storyline meanders and either takes very familiar beats or entirely too weird beats, neither of which feel particularly satisfying. However, I will continue to hum Yesterday to myself on a daily basis. And perhaps that's why we needed this movie. To remind everyone that no matter how bleak the present seems, we can always continue to believe in yesterday.

Toy Story 4: What Does It Mean to Be a Toy?

My friend Katie and I went to see Toy Story 4 last week, but we had already seen many movie reviews talking about how this was a movie that tried to tackle the idea of the essential meaninglessness of life. As two ladies suffering from existential crises, this movie was exactly what we needed. Pixar might be sticking to animation as their medium, but let's just acknowledge that they no longer make movies for kids. You can take a young kid to this movie and they will happily giggle every time Forky comes on screen, but adults had better be prepared to sob and confuse the hell out of the oblivious children.

At the end of Toy Story 3 (spoiler alert!), Andy had gone off to college and bequeathed all his toys to a little toddler, Bonnie. So we now get to see how Woody and the gang fare in this new environment. Turns out Bonnie isn't quite so interested in playing with Woody, favoring some of the other toys instead, but Woody is still the purpose-driven toy he always has been, determined to ensure that the world is arranged to make Bonnie happy and that she always has the comfort of a toy, regardless of who that toy might be. Which leads to him jumping into her backpack when she heads off to her first day of Kindergarten and inadvertently helping her create a toy for herself out of a spork with googly eyes and pipe cleaners for arms. She names this horrific creation Forky, and he promptly becomes her favorite toy.

Unfortunately, once Forky gains sentience, he cannot comprehend the notion of being a Toy. He was created out of trash, and so all he wants to do is jump into the trash can and return to whence he came. Woody had to keep an eagle eye on Forky, constantly retrieving him from trash cans and desperately trying to drill into him the idea that his life's purpose is to be a Toy and make Bonnie happy. He gradually succeeds, but then further complications arise and the movie turns into a rescue mission as Forky gets kidnapped by the creepiest dolls ever that have been lying kid-less and unplayed with for years in an antiques store.

Word of caution: don't take very young kids to see this movie, because the creepy dolls genuinely turned this film into a Chucky-esque horror film. Even the adults in the audience were screeching when these ventriloquist dummies showed up on screen. There's quite a bit of carnage and high-stakes drama that ensues, as well as a beautiful romance for Woody, some entertaining comedy where Buzz Lightyear finally discovers his inner voice, and everyone eventually figures out that sometimes it's OK to be lost. Damned if I didn't wish I had a Woody in my life to help me figure those things out.

This is officially the final installment in the Toy Story franchise and it is bittersweet, entertaining from start to finish, and the perfect end to a series of movies that kept leaping from strength to strength. Tom Hanks' voice acting as Woody is unsurprisingly sublime, as are all the other actors who bring these characters to life, and the animation itself is a singular work of art. I was particularly beguiled by Bo Peep, a porcelain doll who shone during the entire film, and even the sound editing was perfect, with the porcelain clinking as she and her sheep raced across the screen on their various adventures. Everything about Toy Story 4 is imaginative, thought-provoking, and heartwarming. So leave your kids with the babysitter and head to the movies. These toys have some life lessons to impart to us adults. 

Years and Years: Winter Is Coming

I watched all of Years and Years when it aired on the BBC over the past six weeks. But starting June 24, American audiences can catch it on HBO every Tuesday. I've been telling everyone I know to watch this miniseries, so am now making it official on the blog. In these days of binge watching, I can honestly say that this show was appointment television at my house and I slightly bereft now that it's over.

Created and written by the extraordinary Russell T. Davies, the show centers on an English family from Manchester. While the show begins in 2019, by the end of the first episode we've had a time jump to 2024, and each subsequent episode bounds forward a year or two. The premise is to reveal what happens to the world as we elect increasingly right-wing and nationalistic demagogues to government. Basically, it's a warning about what is going to happen to us all if we continue to ignore politics. It is some of the bleakest TV I have watched, but it also contains revelatory and incisive storytelling that makes a strong case for compassion and kindness in the midst of all our current insanity.

The Lyons family is comprised of the grandmother, Muriel (Anne Reid), and her four grandchildren, Stephen (Rory Kinnear), Edith (Jessica Hynes), Daniel (Russell Tovey), and Rosie (Ruth Madeley). Stephen is a wealthy financial advisor who lives in London with his wife Celeste (T'Nia Miller) and their two daughters, Bethany (Lydia West) and Ruby (Jade Alleyne). Edith is a political activist, who at the beginning of the show has been abroad agitating in various countries and protesting human rights abuses. Daniel is a housing officer who is married to Ralph (Dino Fetscher), while Rosie, who was born with spina bifida and uses a wheelchair, is a single mom of two sons who works in a school cafeteria. As you can see, these characters are a veritable rainbow of personalities and socioeconomic classes, and all face different challenges in life. Therefore, they serve as the perfect family through which to view a world in which governments grow increasingly cavalier to citizen's rights, and start enacting all manner of drastic changes that seem reasonable in the short term, but quickly accumulate over the years to create a society that is out of control. You may have noticed that this show has some hard-hitting British acting talent, but to sweeten the pot, Emma Thompson also stars as Vivienne Rook, a British MP with Nigel Farage-esque views on Britain's place in the world and globalization, who starts out as a politician on the fringes but quickly amasses power whilst stridently complaining about "Fake News."

The show isn't particularly subtle - in fact in the first episode we are faced with a world in which Brexit has taken place and Donald Trump has won re-election. But it keeps piling on the indignities and cleverly showcases how seemingly abstract political machinations have a very real impact on the various members of the Lyons family and start to tear their lives apart. Each episode is a new horror, though I don't think anything could have prepared me for Episode 4, which was viscerally chilling and appalling in a way that I cannot wait to discuss with people after they start watching this show. The final episode (which IS final, because this is a compact six-episode British miniseries, not an American show that will go on forever) will be divisive and felt very characteristic of Russel T. Davies' usual style on shows like Doctor Who and Torchwood. But we can discuss that when you get to it.

Lest I forget, the show isn't all politics. Over fifteen years, there are crazy advances in technology, and Davies is particularly effective in imagining how our lives evolve in both positive and negative ways to accommodate scientific breakthroughs. Bethany is at the forefront of exploring the human-digital interface and while her character's storyline has some bizarre beats, it all feels eminently plausible and likely in a very Black Mirror-esque fashion. I can't wait to see if some of these things come to pass, because none of them felt particularly out there - it's just a question of whether the world manages to stay standing for the next fifteen years so we can see the outcome.

Years and Years is a thought-provoking show that can appeal to audiences on multiple levels. It offers family drama, sociopolitical commentary, science fiction, and cliffhangers that will leave you impatient every week. If you've been at a loss following the end of Game of Thrones, this might be exactly what you need to be thankful for your HBO subscription again. Nuclear winter is coming - watch this show to find out exactly what the warning signs are for our total annihilation. 

Rocketman: Hold Me Closer Tony Danza*

I love Tiny Dancer, and that's about all the Elton John knowledge I possess. In the spirit of full transparency, I'll even confess that I had no idea "Your Song" wasn't an original song from Moulin Rouge until years later when I heard Elton John's original version (when I sing it, I still sing it like Ewan McGregor, I'm so sorry Elton). So when I headed to the theater to see Rocketman, a musical biopic about Elton John, I fully expected to be a little bit lost and not very invested in the subject matter. Boy was I glad to be proven wrong.

Taron Egerton plays Elton John and he is fantastic. I had no idea he was such a gifted actor and singer, as my only prior reference point was his work in Kingsman: The Secret Circle, but he gives everything he's got to this performance and it is brilliant. He might be wearing the most outlandish outfits, but the humanity of the underlying man is always front and center, and he never lets you lose a single emotional beat because you're distracted by his sparkly spectacles or gilded sneakers. That being said, kudos to the costume designer, Julian Day - he had plenty of material to work with, of course, but he does a wonderful job of recreating every element of Elton's look in loving detail.

The story begins with Elton walking into a rehab facility and then heads right back to his childhood to tell the story of the events leading up to this moment of reckoning. This movie is a full-on musical since every aspect of his life can be narrated through an Elton John lyric, so rather than much dialogue, you will get plenty of great singing and choreographed dance numbers that keep things moving briskly. It's a spectacular use of Elton's massive body of work and a wise choice by writer, Lee Hall - after all, what better way to tell Elton's story than through his own songs? Every musical number is innovative and I won't be surprised to see this on Broadway or the West End soon because it was designed for the stage.

The supporting cast includes Bryce Dallas Howard as Elton's mother, Sheila (she does a wonderful English accent and while her face was instantly familiar, I did not realize who she was until I had to look her up for this review), Jamie Bell as Elton's best friend and lyricist Bernie Taupin, and Richard Madden as the villainous John Reid, the music manager who, like all typical managers, uses Elton's talent to make oodles of money while driving him to a loveless, addiction-fueled lifestyle. The relationship between Elton and Bernie is by far the greatest aspect of this film, an epic bromance that I wish more men would emulate. The two are open with their feelings, tell each other they love each other, and Bernie is perhaps the most supportive ally a gay person could hope to have in their life. As much as this is a movie about Elton John, it's essential that Bernie gets his due as the man behind all those amazing lyrics. While he never wanted to be a performer and always let Elton take the spotlight, he is half the reason for these indelible songs.

Rocketman is an engaging musical romp that will absolutely sweep you away. It is extremely dark in places, and I certainly hope Elton's parents are dead because they come off as fairly awful human beings, but we all know the story has a happy ending as he is still alive and touring today. It's a remarkable ode to a remarkable man, and a week later, you'll still find yourself humming I'm Still Standing and wishing you had some sparkly shoes to dance around in.

*The title of this post is a reference to one of my favorite Friends jokes about misquoting the lyrics to Elton John's "Tiny Dancer." I regret nothing. 

Late Night: Ladies Take Over

A movie about writing for a late night comedy show, starring Emma Thompson and Mindy Kaling? Sold. I had high expectations going into this film, and it did not disappoint. How could it? It stars freakin' Emma Thompson and Mindy Kaling.

Late Night is about an aging late night talk show host, Katherine Newbury (Emma Thompson) who is going to lose her show because she refuses to keep up with the times. She has no idea who anyone is on her writing staff, hates social media, wants to interview Doris Kearns Goodwin instead of an Avenger, and is apathetically coasting along until she is put on notice by the new network president (played by powerhouse Amy Ryan). In an effort to shake things up, Katherine tells her producer, Brad (the wonderful Denis O'Hare), to hire a woman into her all-white male writer's room. When Molly Patel (Mindy Kaling) shows up, she gets the job, despite having no experience except for the lifelong dream to work on the show. What follows is a tale of a woman trying to prove she isn't the token diversity hire and her cantankerous boss who needs to figure out how to foster a less toxic work environment and get her mojo back.

I don't quite know where to start with this movie because it has so many delicious little sub plots and moments, and reams of feminist dialogue that felt so familiar because they reflect the conversations I have with friends and colleagues all the time but never see represented on screen. Written by Mindy Kaling, the entire movie is a brown feminist manifesto about the challenges women, and particularly minority women, face when they're the only person who looks like them in a room. Katherine Newbury faced the uphill battle of being the very first female late night talk show host, and she considers herself to be a staunch feminist. Yet, as her writer's room reveals, hers is the old-school feminism of bringing yourself up by your own bootstraps, instead of pulling up women alongside you once you make it to the top. Molly Patel is the whirlwind that challenges her, forcing her to reassess and get with the times.

Lest we forget the men, the always magnificent John Lithgow plays Katherine's husband, Walter, and the dynamic between those two characters is pitch perfect as they undergo their various trials and tribulations. We also have Hugh Dancy and Reid Scott playing two of Katherine's writers who get entangled with Molly in a deliciously Pride & Prejudice-esque fashion that made me squeal with suppressed glee when I recognized what was happening. This movie takes some serious turns, but when it's light and romantic, the DNA of Kaling's old TV show, The Mindy Project, certainly peeks through.

This movie is all about the central Emma Thompson performance. I simply cannot imagine what it would be like without her. She is at the peak of her powers in this role, both as an actor, but also as a style icon - I came away wanting her haircut and every single suit she wore. Her character is put through the ringer in this role but Thompson cycles through those emotions effortlessly. Kaling is her dynamic best, playing a hyper-competent but still fallible woman who keeps up a relentless optimism to achieve her dreams. Unlike Katherine, you never get much backstory to Molly and what led to her comedy ambitions - it feels like there must have been more information there, but it got cut out, which is a shame. The movie does feel a bit choppily edited at times, and while a short run time is always a blessing in a comedy, I think we could have certainly sat through a few more minutes, especially to meet members of Molly's family and experience some more of her Indianness. However, if I were writing a movie starring Emma Thompson, I can see how I might get sidetracked to give all the screentime to Thompson and have none left over for myself.

Late Night is brimming with ideas and you could watch it multiple times to discover moments you had missed before. The casting is pitch perfect, with every actor playing to type (or sneakily subverting their type) in refreshing ways. The cameos are plentiful, the costumes are gorgeous, and a ton of the scenes in New York City were literally filmed four blocks away from my house along the street I walk past to work everyday. As a brown lady who can only aspire to Kaling's greatness, Late Night is wish fulfillment of the highest order, and I hope she has many more scripts waiting in development. Till then, I'll keep walking along the street Kaling walked on and whisper, "I have spread my dreams under your feet. Tread softly because you tread on my dreams."

Always Be My Maybe: A New Twist on a Classic

With the success of Crazy Rich Asians, Hollywood cottoned on to the fact that people are cool with watching Asian people fall in love. So the brilliant Ali Wong and Randall Park got together with screenwriter Michael Golamco and wrote Always Be My Maybe, a classic romcom with an Asian-American twist. It's a typical love story, but there's nothing typical about the characters involved.

Wong and Park play Sasha and Marcus, childhood best friends who grew up in San Francisco as next-door neighbors. They briefly got together as teenagers but circumstances intervened and their paths diverged. When they meet fifteen years later, Sasha is a famous celebrity chef (classic romcom occupation), while Marcus is still living with his dad and helping out in the family's HVAC repair business. He also performs in a local band, Hello Peril, which is your chance to watch an Asian man rap some hilarious songs. There may be a vast socioeconomic divide between them now, but they quickly fall back into their friendship, and eventually, something more.

There's no need to go into details - it's a short and sweet romantic comedy, you know how it will end. But how you get to that ending is what makes this movie so enjoyable. If you haven't heard already, there's a Keanu Reeves cameo, and believe me, you cannot predict what he gets up to. If you've seen Wong's brilliant Netflix specials, Baby Cobra and Hard-Knock Wife, you know what she brings to the table, but Sasha is a much more toned-down romcom-appropriate heroine than Wong's stand-up persona. Randall Park is the perfect match for her, and together, they bicker and banter with zippy screwball energy.

This movie is very Asian in a delightfully understated way. It's the little flourishes, like when Sasha takes her shoes off at the door when she comes home from school, or the joke about how on earth Marcus's Asian girlfriend is able to sport dreadlocks. Of course, like with Crazy Rich Asians, there are plenty of gratuitous shots of delicious food that will make your mouth water. But my favorite part of this movie is when it subverts stereotypes and just lets its characters be normal human beings who aren't behaving in the "typically Asian" way. For that, my absolute favorite character would be Marcus's dad, Harry, played by the marvelous James Saito. He is the most loving character in this movie, open with his feelings, supportive of his son, never shaming him, giving him the right advice when he needs it. We need to see more dads like this on screen, Asian or otherwise.

Always Be My Maybe is a perfect movie for a Netflix night in, and is yet another successful entry into the Asian American film canon. I had no idea Ali Wong could act, but I sure hope I see her on more shows or movies now, and I definitely want to see Randall Park play the charming leading man much more often. Also, let James Saito star in his own romcom, because I would watch the hell out of that. Netflix, get on it.

Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj: Late Night Goes Indian

We have a lot of late night shows these days and it becomes a challenge to decide who to pay attention to. John Oliver and Samantha Bee remain a weekly staple on my TV watchlist, but now I get to push for my latest favorite, Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj.

Am I biased? Sure. After all, what's prompting this blog post is a recent episode dedicated to corruption in cricket. As Minhaj delved into the ruckus that the Indian Premier League has caused, and how the BCCI has undue influence over international cricket and stifles the ability of smaller nations to join the game, I was in heaven. But don't worry - he doesn't just do Indian news (though when he covered the Indian elections, I did immediately make my father watch it and then ask my grandma who she was voting for). Patriot Act borrows its DNA from Last Week Tonight with John Oliver - it's a short half hour that is generally dedicated to a single topic, at the most two, and ranges broadly from domestic to international issues. But the two hosts couldn't be more different, which is why while the shows may be alike, the viewing experience is completely unique.

Minhaj doesn't sit behind a desk - he follows the Samantha Bee model of standing up throughout the show, which instantly gives it a different kind of energy. However, while Bee generally stands in one place while she delivers an indignant rant about how women are being screwed over by the US government again, Minhaj tends to roam around the stage, looking at different cameras, pointing to audience members who crack up at certain jokes or get way too excited about a cricket reference (that would be me if I ever made it to a taping). It's a bit like watching a stand-up act, except a rather depressing one in which you learn that no one is saving the rainforest.

There's a lot of news these days, and none of it is good. As such, I like my news delivered to me by intelligent comedians, who don't beat around the bush but at least make me laugh while they enumerate the many ways in which we are heading to Armageddon. With Patriot Act, I get the additional joy of getting my news delivered from an Indian Muslim man who is very American in terms of swagger but can still pull off a joke where he points to a picture of a corrupt Goldman Sachs banker and goes, "Look at this gulab jamun with glasses." I died.

Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj is a continuing lesson in the importance of diversifying the late night landscape. This isn't a saturated market - there's more than enough news for everyone to cover, but the trouble is we seem to keep hiring white guys to cover it. When you hand the reins over to new voices, they report on new stories, open up different parts of the globe to you, explain old problems with a new perspective, and force you to be a little less myopic. Come on gulab jamun, take those glasses off and let Hasan Minhaj broaden your horizons.