90-Degree Watch: Inside, Plan B, Romeo and Juliet, Friends: The Reunion

If you live in NYC, it's going to be a weekend of endless sunshine and 90-degree weather. Some of us might be excited about this. Others might be less than enthused and wondering what on earth to do as they stay indoors and crank up the AC. For that latter group, oh do I have a host of recommendations.

Inside: This is a comedy special by Bo Burnham, who you might last remember from his incredible turn as Ryan in Promising Young Woman. But here, he has reverted to his stand-up comedy roots. Except this is a one-man special that he wrote, directed, shot, and edited all by himself in his house during the pandemic. I could easily spend an entire blog post raving about this show but it's only 87 minutes long and I need you to savor it all without knowing too much beforehand. I've told everyone I know to watch it. It is wildly inventive, colorful, hilarious, and harrowing. When people ask me to describe it, all I can do is gush and repeatedly say at increasing decibel levels, "Oh my God, it's SO GOOD!" 

This show acutely captures the feeling of what the last year has felt like for those of us who have been stuck in our homes. There's the heightened insanity of everything that was going on - the social media explosions, the brand awareness campaigns, the endless FaceTime conversations, the absolute frenzy of trying to keep yourself occupied and then suddenly just wanting to give up on everything. The special mostly consists of brilliant songs that Burnham performs about a variety of topics. As a teaser, there's one where the chorus goes, "Is this heaven? Or a white woman's Instagram?" I mean, how can you resist? It's a simply genius piece of comedy that will leave you feeling vaguely unsettled as you remember just how excruciating things have been since March 2020. But also leaves you with the feeling of...now what? Excuse me, I think I need to go watch Inside again and soothe myself.

Plan B: This is a raucous teen comedy that reminded me a great deal of Booksmart. We have the ambitious straight-laced student, Sunny (Kuhoo Verma), who has gotten herself into a bit of a situation, and she teams up with her stoner friend, Lupe (Victoria Moroles), for a weekend of hi-jinks as they traverse the state of South Dakota in pursuit of a morning-after pill. In terms of the broad strokes, sure, this is a pretty standard teen movie. There's a party, things go wrong, then our duo must go on a quest to fix it. But oh what a duo. 

In case the actresses names' didn't give it away, we're talking about about two Indian and Latina teenagers. As you can imagine, I am always excited when I get to see an Indian teen on screen and this portrayal doesn't disappoint. It's not that she does something profoundly Indian or anything, but oh the joy of just seeing someone who looks like me getting up to the shenanigans that I've seen white kids get up to on screen for decades. And the movie is the directorial debut of Natalie Morales, an actress who always delivers when she's in front of the camera and clearly can also deliver behind it. I'll bang my drum again - women directors make amazing movies about women and girls! Shocking, but true. 

Plan B is yet another unique and satisfying entry into the teen comedy genre. It will still give you some R-rated insane surprises, but there's also so much heart, as well as a reflection on how we punish young women by chipping away at their access to reproductive healthcare. And as always, there's some great commentary on female friendship and how teenage girls can hide things from each other and have to warily navigate the waters of their burgeoning sexuality. But even if you're not interested in getting on my soapbox, you can enjoy this movie for the comedic pleasure it affords. TL;DR: Great performances, fun story, perfect weekend watch.

Romeo and Juliet: OK fine, comedy is not your thing, you need high Shakespearean drama? Well PBS has got you covered with a lush filmed adaptation of Romeo and Juliet. Originally planned to be a live play on the National Theater stage, director Simon Godwin was forced to change his plans as the pandemic shut down all live theatre in the UK. So instead, he filmed his actors on the stage, creating an eerie play-film hybrid that starts out with the cast in rehearsals and then slowly builds sets around them as the action progresses through the scenes that we all know so well but still feel so fresh in every new Shakespeare adaptation.

The most novel thing about this adaptation is the casting of Josh O'Connor and Jessie Buckley as the star-crossed lovers. They are full-grown adults, rather than the tiny teenagers we are used to seeing in the most famous filmed adaptations of this play. I know Romeo and Juliet is heralded as being an iconic romance, but let's be real, the Juliet in the play is only 13, everything about the reality of the situation is icky. But watching O'Connor and Buckley play out this doomed romance lends it so much more gravitas. They deliver beautiful, swoony performances, and as the sets and blocking reflect that all of this is still taking place on a stage, you get to experience this both as a movie and as a play. It's a worthy nod to the power of both theater and film and a reminder that while they did a great job of salvaging this piece of art, we did lose so much from not being able to watch it live on stage.

Friends: The Reunion: Alright, you're either in or you're out, you know who you are. If you're a Friends fan, you've probably already watched the Reunion, so you can keep reading to see what I have to say about it. If you're not a Friends fan, stop reading. There's nothing for you here. 

Friends shaped a large part of my childhood. When I started watching it, I was a 12-year-old in Bahrain and had no idea that two years later, I would actually be living in Manhattan, alongside the Friends (yeah I didn't realize they filmed in LA, it was a huge disappointment). The series finale aired when I was sixteen, right when I was taking my final exams in high school, and I remember my mother being very worried that I was going to fail my Maths exam the next day because I was so heartbroken. But I did not flunk, and my Friends love remained forever.

All this is to say that the Friends reunion is a hearty piece of nostalgia for those of us who care. It features a re-enactment of the famous trivia scene when Monica and Rachel lost their apartment to Chandler and Joey. There are some random cameos, and then some appearances from more beloved folk (yay Maggie Wheeler!). But most importantly, this is a chance to see the six Friends in a room together again, reminiscing, re-enacting scenes, sharing stories and gossip, and constantly tearing up or laughing as they remember the good old days. And yes, they featured some of the famous scenes from the ten seasons, and yes I laughed my ass off when I watched the blooper reel of the "Pivot!" scene. Because come on. How could you not? I know a lot of people were all about the Schwimmer & Aniston "revelations" but whatever. To me, this was a chance to reunite with a show that sparked my lifelong love affair with TV and gave me joy that continues to this day. I'll Be There For You, indeed.