New Year's Binge: Blockbuster, Wednesday, Bad Sisters, Fleishman Is in Trouble

I am not a fan of New Year's Eve and believe the best way to celebrate this "holiday" is on the couch bingeing some great television. If you are similarly minded, this post is for you!

Blockbuster: If what you're seeking is a funny, half-hour, workplace sitcom in the style of Brooklyn Nine-Nine or Superstore, then this is the show for you. Randall Park stars as Timmy, a man who loves movies and runs the very last Blockbuster Video store on the planet. For many reasons, this is a losing proposition, but the man is determined to make this video rental store succeed and with his motley staff by his side, we can cheer him on in his hapless quest. Over the course of ten episodes, you will be able to watch the usual sitcom tropes unfold - troubles with corporate overlords, employees whose ambitions don't line up with their current jobs, and of course, some flickers of romance.

The best part of this show is the specificity of its jokes. There was one line about how if someone wanted to listen to The Fray, they should just watch an episode of Grey's Anatomy. This is a show that will probably make sense to 1% of the population, but I am in that 1% and I cackled like a loon. This show is a broad and hearty comedy, full of warmth like a nourishing stew, but one in a while there's a surprise ingredient that pops up out of nowhere. It's a great cast of people who are clearly having a fun time working together and playing off these scripts. Creator Vanessa Ramos was a writer on Brooklyn Nine-Nine so she brings that show's warm, gentle, familial tone to this workplace. And of course, what is the thing I find funniest about a show about the last Blockbuster store, a place we all went to rent videos if we needed to see movies or TV? It's streaming on Netflix.

Wednesday: If you don't want something too sweet and saccharine, then you need to be watching Wednesday. The brilliant Jenna Ortega stars as Wednesday Addams, the moody, death-obsessed, teenage daughter of the Addams Family, and in this show, she is shipped off to Nevermore Academy, a private boarding school for outcasts after she is expelled for her extreme behavior at the regular high school she was attending. This is where her parents went to school, and she is furious with them (Catherine Zeta-Jones and Luis Guzman play Morticia and Gomez, in a pitch-perfect piece of casting), but over the course of eight episodes we will get to see our heroine make her stamp on Nevermore and go from social pariah to the belle of the ball.

The main story arc involves a murder, so this show is a mash-up of genres as a horror mystery comedy, with lots of spooky and supernatural elements. But of course there are also many love interests to deal with and teenage hormones flying about the place. Wednesday's roommate, Enid (Emma Myers) is an exceedingly cheerful werewolf, and the school principal is played by the marvelous Gwendolen Christie, who certainly has her hands full trying to contain all these rebellious teens under her roof. Christina Ricci also stars as a teacher at the school, which is a beautiful bit of casting as she originally played Wednesday Addams in the 90s movies. While the show was created by Alfred Gough and Miles Millar, Tim Burton is an executive producer and directed four episodes, so the show also has that feel of a spooky and inventive Burton movie, with gorgeous production design, costumes, and plenty of gothic humor. It's a compelling and eye-popping watch, and while you may need to close your eyes at some scary bits, overall, it's a hell of a ride. 

Bad Sisters: If you want a black comedy mystery without actual horror, then this is the show you seek. Once I started, I voraciously ate up all ten episodes with a spoon. Set in Ireland, this is a remarkable mystery that opens with the funeral of John Paul "JP" Williams (Claes Bang, who I was shocked to learn was Danish!). John Paul was married to Grace (Anne-Marie Duff), who has four sisters, Eva (Sharon Horgan, who also developed this show with Dave Finkel and Brett Baer), Ursula (Eva Birthistle), Bibi (Sarah Greene), and Becka (Eve Hewson). The sisters are all very close, and as the show progresses, we discover just how close. Because it turns out that JP was a horrible and abusive man, and every single one of the sisters hated their brother-in-law. Until they finally decide that they should murder him.

Brian Gleeson (who I just discovered is son of Brendan and brother to Domhnall! Yay Irish actors!) and Daryl McCormack (who earlier this year starred in the amazing Good Luck To You, Leo Grande) also star as Tom and his half-brother Matt, who run the insurance company that would have to pay out JP's life insurance policy. While his death has been ruled an accident, the brothers have reasons of their own to not want to pay out the claim, so they start investigating for possible foul play. Which means that this show takes place in flashbacks where we track what the sisters may have been scheming, and then we see the present day investigation where everyone is freaking out about getting discovered. This whole time you have no idea how JP died, whether or not he was actually murdered, and if so, which sister(s) did it. It's such a brilliantly inventive, funny, and captivating script, and the conclusion is rich and satisfying and ties up all loose ends. The tone is dark but hysterical and these actors do a brilliant job of bringing their characters to life and making you root for them every step of the way. You will not be able to stop until you see how it all ends, and then you'll be desperately hoping that someone else dies so we get another season of watching the Garvey sisters and their shenanigans. 

Fleishman Is in Trouble: I loved Taffy Brodesser-Akner's 2019 novel, so I was very excited to learn she had adapted it into a miniseries for FX. Starring Jesse Eisenberg as Toby Fleishman, Claire Danes as his ex-wife Rachel, and Lizzy Caplan as Toby's college friend Libby, who also serves as the omniscient narrator of the series, this is a show about middle-age, marriage, gender norms, and just how self-absorbed human beings can be when beset by their problems. 

It's hard to say much about this show without giving away vast swathes of plot so I won't even try. Instead, I'll just exhort you to go along for the ride. These actors are doing some incredible work, and Brodesser-Akner has written impeccable scripts that fully capture the spirit of her novel. This is a brilliant translation of page to screen and there are stunning visuals and narrative devices to keep the story engaging, and twisty, and surprising. The first half is very focused on Toby's perspective of his divorce and subsequent dating life, but oh boy, just wait until things turns around and you get to hear what Rachel and Libby have been going through. This show perfectly captures how you should never just listen to one person's side of the story when trying to determine what went wrong with a relationship and also gets at the very different experiences men and women can have on either side of coupledom. It's a wonderfully executed show, and a beautiful portrait of the joys and pitfalls of human existence. And since it's all set in New York, I had many moments of pointing at the screen and saying "I know that street!" This is not a show for everyone, and many will moan that it's just about a bunch of rich, white, privileged assholes who don't have real problems. So if you can't stand that sort of thing, stay away. But as a psychological study and examination of the patriarchy, this is an incisive and riveting piece of television, and I fell for it hook, line, and sinker. 

Oscar Hopefuls: Babylon & The Whale

It's that time of the year when all the Oscar movies are out in earnest and the awards chatter is at fever pitch. So over Christmas break, I took a gander at two high-profile pieces of Oscar bait and...oof. 

Babylon: Written and directed by Damien Chazelle, this movie is a quintessential ode to Hollywood, a love letter to the movies that is meant to tug at the heartstrings of sympathetic Oscar voters who love nothing more than to fete their own profession. As soon I saw this film was three hours long, I knew that I might be in for a rough ride and I was sad to discover I was right.

The movie follows a bunch of characters involved in the movies from the height of silent cinema to the birth of the talkies. The first half is the best part of this movie - that's when you simply get a frenetic, chaotic, music video-esque introduction to the world of Hollywood and its gaudy hedonistic excesses. There's a massive scene set at a party/bacchanal at a producer's mansion, and the technical wizardry and choreography required to stage those shots are truly staggering. And then there is an extended scene once the switch to talkies is imminent, where we get a bunch of filmmakers trying to deal with how to make a talking picture. I burst out laughing at one point and couldn't stop giggling for a minute as an increasingly irate director lost his mind about all the various technicalities that kept screwing up his shot. 

If that last scene sounds a bit like Singin' in the Rain to you, you're not wrong. I was very happy when I thought that maybe this movie would just be an R-rated version of that picture. However, the second half quickly fell apart and took more of an interest in the rise and fall of its various characters, who weren't all that interesting. The cast is spectacular, with the likes of Margot Robbie, Brad Pitt, and Jean Smart swanning about, doing their best old-timey Hollywood acts. But gosh, this script is over-the-top and ridiculous and completely swallows its own tail by the end.

Babylon is such a self-aggrandizing movie that is so besotted with itself - and perhaps that's a meta commentary on the lavish insanity of the self-involved people it is depicting. But no. I don't think it's that clever. This is a movie that wants to hammer home the message that movies are great, but ironically, it is terrible. Go for the production design, costumes, thumping score, and impeccable cinematography by Linus Sandgren. But if you're expecting a rousing and uplifting story, you're out of luck.

The Whale: Yes, Brendan Fraser does some fantastic acting in this movie and deserves an award. But I did not like this movie. The tone is icky and feels like it is trying to shame a person for being morbidly obese and turn it into a personal failing rather than a broader public health and societal failure. And I didn't realize the script by Samuel D. Hunter was based on his play, but it did then make sense why this movie is so claustrophobic and contained, where we sit in Charlie's apartment and watch people come in and out of his life and offer up snippets of his personal life to sort of explain why he is the way that he is, but never going very deep.

The movie tells the story of Charlie (Brendan Fraser), a morbidly obese man who is homebound and dependent on his friend, Liz (the wonderful Hong Chau), who is a nurse, to drop by and check in on him. She is extremely frustrated because he refuses to get health insurance and go to the hospital, but they are best friends and she cannot abandon him. When his angry teenage daughter, Ellie (Sadie Sink, who is having quite the year after her turn in Stranger Things) starts to visit him, that prompts more discussion of his past and what has now led him to his current state.

I simply couldn't get into this script or the dialogue. Everything felt so clunky and forced, and there was too much talk about how Charlie was "disgusting" and not fit for public consumption. Hollywood traditionally has such a phobia of fat people, and this movie feels like it's piling on to that narrative. Every time Charlie eats, it is sloppy and messy - that's unnecessary! Why must you show him wiping his hands on his clothes or smearing his face with grease? A person can be obese and still know how to chew their food and eat it neatly. If this movie had focused solely on an examination of Charlie's psyche and his emotions and the reasons he became the man he was, I could get behind it. But it became too much about "look at the fat guy." 

Fraser does a fantastic job of portraying the physicality of this role, and the strain and toll that all this excess weight does to a person's daily functioning. And then he also successfully gives this man a rich emotional inner life, grieving about his ex-partner, trying to foster a fragile connection with his child, joking around with his best friend. But director Darren Aronofsky doesn't let those moments live and breathe, always bringing us back to this fat suit and how gross this fat man is. I've had obese patients before and I know what barriers to care they face from health care providers who want them to take all the blame for their situation. Movies like this only further that narrative and make obesity seem like sort of carnival sideshow attraction. Fraser's performance is integral to ensuring that this man feels like a human being and not an animal (or...a whale, sigh), but with this script and direction, that's an uphill battle.

December Drama: Empire of Light, Bones and All, Pinocchio, Avatar: The Way of Water

December is proving to be a real grab bag of a month in terms of cinematic offerings. So strap right in for the following reviews about movies that feature drama, animation, fantasy, and some light cannibalism.

Empire of Light: I do not think this movie is objectively good, but my God it felt like it was engineered in a lab just for me. Set in 1980s England, it stars Olivia Colman (I'm already sold!), as Hilary, the duty manager at the Empire Cinema. We vaguely know that she has recently returned from hospitalization for a mental health condition, and she initially seems to be a rather quiet and lonely woman, diligently going about her day, but not getting much enjoyment out of anything. She is having an affair with her boss, played by Colin Firth (I am sold again!), but when a new young employee named Stephen (Michael Ward) is hired, sparks unexpectedly fly. 

This is a movie about a frustrated middle-aged woman with serious mental health issues and a young Black man dealing with how Thatcher's Britain has empowered all manner of right-wing nationalists. They have an unexpected connection, but the societal forces around them and their own internal struggles constantly get in their way. But the setting of this love story is this movie theater, this decrepit, but once glorious palace that lets everyone escape for a few hours in their lives. Toby Jones plays the cinema's projectionist, and the scene where he teaches Stephen how to change the reels is magical. And then of course, there's the scene where Colman sits in a theatre by herself getting a private screening of Being There. I could watch that woman's face all day because that is the look on my face every time I am at the movies. At the end of the day, this is a movie about how life is hard, but at least we can always go to the cinema for a pick-me-up. Inject that message directly into my veins.

Pinocchio: I don’t know how 2022 became the Year of Pinocchio, but I’m over it. After the disastrous live action movie starring Tom Hanks, I was wary of going into this animated take co-directed by Guillermo del Toro and Mark Gustafson, from a script co-written by del Toro and Patrick McHale. It has gotten a lot of acclaim for the animation, so sure, go ahead and watch this movie because it is very pretty to look at. And Jiminy Cricket voiced by Ewan McGregor is a treat. But it‘s still the same damn story and I’m afraid my patience has been sorely tested by it this year.

The main update is that instead of the whole insane donkey and carnival sequence, we instead get a frightening look at “what if Pinocchio was drafted into a young fascist group, designed to help Mussolini create an army of Italian boys to defend the fatherland?” I don’t know about you, but I’ve had enough of war for this year, and could not be compelled to care. Again, people do seem to like this movie, so I fully acknowledge I didn’t watch it in the best frame of mind. If you are not burnt out on Pinocchio adaptations or have a true love of animation and del Toro’s storytelling, this could be the absolute perfect movie for you. But for me, at this point in 2022? No thanks.

Avatar: The Way of Water: Welp, this movie was exactly what I expected it to be. Visually spectacular, bloated, and ridiculous. It's probably going to make a bazillion dollars and I will have to watch the sequels for many years to come, but oh God I'm not pleased about it. The script is so cliched that there were multiple times the audience just laughed out loud at the silliness of a scene or a particular line of dialogue. Nothing happens in this movie that you can't predict, but of course the CGI is stunning. I watched it in IMAX 3D and it is mesmerizing and colorful and gorgeous, but did I need three hours of this? No. 

The movie picks back up on the alien plant of Pandora where the indigenous Na'vi people are yet again being threatened by colonizing humans. This time, they specifically want to kill Jake Scully (Sam Worthington) the human who decided to stay in his Na'vi avatar form and fell in love with Neytiri (Zoe Saldana) in the first movie. Now they have children, both biological and adopted, and we will watch them flee from the humans to a new clan of Na'vi called the Metkayina who have a bond with the sea. Here, they will learn the way of water, how to dive and form symbiotic relationships with marine animals, and then proceed to have innumerable battles with the evil, grasping humans. If you like water and fighting, you'll have a grand time. I like water, but I certainly don't like extended fight sequences, so my patience wore thin by the halfway mark. Overall, this movie is self-indulgent and mediocre, and while I'm glad that James Cameron has perfected this motion capture technology, it's time for us to put it to good use in movies that have truly interesting stories to tell.

Bones and All: Here’s my one-sentence review of this film: I was expecting it to be more of a romance but it is heavy on the cannibalism. Directed by Luca Guadagnino from a screenplay by David Kajganich that is an adaptation of Camille DeAngelis' novel, this is the story of Maren (Taylor Russell), a young woman who is a cannibal, who is abandoned by her father (Andre Holland) after he realizes he can no longer protect her. She decides to look for her mother, who is presumably a cannibal herself, and on the subsequent road trip, she runs into Lee (Timothy Chalamet), a fellow “Eater,” and they fall in love, as they finally feel like they’ve found a kindred spirit. Along the way they run into other cannibals (there are weirdly way more than you would think), and those encounters either propel the plot forward or further add to the questions of the ethics and morality of cannibalism and the “rules” each individual abides by to feel like they are living their life the right way.

This movie creeped me the hell out and when I got home, I was exceedingly glad my dinner was meat-free. I’m not sure who the ideal audience is for this film - if you like romance, this movie has too much horror, but if you like horror, this movie has too much romance. It’s a real Catch-22. I found myself counting the minutes until it would be over because it would periodically drag and then suddenly get too gory. I can certainly give the director kudos for coming up with such a bizarre tone and filming it with such cinematic relish. And the cast is fantastic, with the supporting cast including brilliantly unnerving performances from people like Mark Rylance and Michael Stuhlbarg. But oh boy. I certainly did not eat this up with a spoon. 

Mistletoe Merriment: Spirited, Falling for Christmas, The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special

Are you listening to Christmas music all day long and need some new pop culture for your annual holiday rotation? Well, here are two films and a special designed to get you in the holiday spirit!

Spirited: This is a modern-day update of Dickens' A Christmas Carol, where Will Ferrell is the Ghost of Christmas Past, tasked with helping teach a lesson to Clint (Ryan Reynolds), a media consultant who seems to have no scruples whatsoever. As you can imagine, Reynolds and Ferrell are perfectly cast, the former being a peak douche until his heart finally starts to stir, while the latter brings some of that naivete of Buddy the Elf but has been tempered by seeing much more of the world and knowing just how horrid humans can be. 

No spoilers, but there's a fun twist about Ferrell's character's back story. And did I mention, this movie is a musical? The songs are by Pasek & Paul, so get ready for some witty and charming numbers that feel imbued with Broadway magic - I wouldn't be surprised if an actual stage adaptation is in the works because the whole film does feel like it could easily be turned into a Holiday Spectacular.

If you're in need of some Christmas spirit, you can't go wrong with adding this movie to the mix. It has the right blend of humor and heart, a dash of snark tempered by a soupcon of sentiment, and the overall tone manages to be light, frothy, and ultimately, gooey and Christmassy. It's too early to tell if this can become a classic, but it's certainly a good option in 2022 if you're in need of some holiday cheer.

Falling for Christmas: I don't do Hallmark or Lifetime Christmas movies. I tend to be a purist who sticks to the classics and known quantities during Christmas (like my beloved While You Were Sleeping, of course). But when I was told Lindsay Lohan was in a Netflix Christmas movie, I had to watch it. And let me tell you - it is not good, but damned if I didn't start putting my Christmas tree up halfway through the movie because I was overwhelmed by the spirit of the season.

Lohan stars as Sierra, an entitled rich girl whose father owns several ski resorts. She and her social media influencer boyfriend are staying at one of these resorts when she has an accident on a dangerous ski slope and falls (you get it? Falling for Christmas!), wakes up in a hospital, and, of course, has amnesia. Chord Overstreet plays Jake, the man who found her and brought her into the hospital. And luckily, he owns a local bed and breakfast, where he lives with his mother-in-law and young daughter (he's a widower, the sexiest category of Christmas movie leading man), so Sierra can recuperate there while the local police try to figure out who she might be.

It's all terribly predictable and full of cliches, but that's what you want from this kind of movie, right? Just grab a cup of hot chocolate, huddle into a flannel blanket, and settle in for a cozy romcom that also features some magic from a whimsical Santa. Merry Christmas everyone!

The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special: If your biggest gripe about Christmas is that it doesn’t feature any new Marvel movies, well, Disney+ has you covered with a 45-minute special featuring the main cast from Guardians of the Galaxy. Written and directed by James Gunn, be prepared for the same irreverent tone and comedy stylings as the movies, but with a lot of heart and holiday warmth.

I won’t get into the weeds as this is a short watch and you deserve to get a highly concentrated dose of merriment. Suffice to say, there are typical human-alien miscommunications and a delightful guest star who makes for a fun addition to the shenanigans. It’s cute, features some great songs, and is a quick way to get a holiday fix without absolutely wallowing in eggnog. If you’re not a complete Scrooge, but you like to only think about Christmas in brief spurts, this might be exactly the right dose of holiday pop culture for you. 

Thanksgiving Leftovers: Glass Onion & Strange World

If you didn't get caught up on these movies over Thanksgiving, it's not too late. Whether you're seeking a murder mystery or an animated climate change parable, there's something for everyone!

Glass Onion: Come on, if you watched Knives Out, you already know that there's no way Rian Johnson could make a bad movie. The man is one of the best writer-directors in the business and the fact that he has chosen to use his talents to take Daniel Craig, give him a ridiculous New Orleans accent as Detective Benoit Blanc, and deploy him with a cast of shadowy and mysterious people who all have motive and opportunity and need Benoit to solve a dastardly murder is the best thing that has ever happened for the world's holiday viewing options. If I could get a new Knives Out sequel every Thanksgiving for the rest of my life, I would be the happiest woman in the world.

It's a mystery so I can't spoil anything, not even who gets killed. All I'll say is that the cast, including folks like Edward Norton, Kate Hudson, Kathryn Hahn, Leslie Odom Jr., Dave Bautista, and Janelle Monae, are all sublime, playing heightened versions of classic whodunnit stereotypes and giving their best Clue impersonations (every time Hudson screamed, I was immediately reminded of Lesley Ann Warren). It's a twisty and devious little script that keeps doubling back on itself and throwing new information out there to muddy the waters, but it is also scrupulously fair and gives you all the information you need to solve this mystery yourself. But why would you want to when Benoit Blanc is on the case? I noticed the main clue right away but the film managed to distract me with many red herrings - Agatha Christie would be proud. 

This movie also boasts sublime production and costume design. Everything is taking placed on a beautiful sun-drenched Greek island which feels like a self-contained, bizarre, slightly unreal world. You're stepping into a mystery novel for two hours: it's a captivating delight from start to finish and you won't regret a second.

Strange World: If you're in need of a Fantasia-esque Disney experience, you've come to the right place. This is an animated movie with a lot of color and whimsy, and a not-so-subtle message about preserving our planet. It's perfect for young kids, but it's also fun as an adult because it's just so weird and wonderful to look at.

Jake Gyllenhaal voices Searcher, the son of the famous explorer Jaeger Clade (Dennis Quaid) who disappeared on an expedition many years ago. Searcher is now an adult with his own family, and he leads a very settled, stable life as a farmer, helping to grow Pando, the miracle plant that helps to power the world he lives in. But of course his son, Ethan (Jaboukie Young-White), is not content with being a farmer and is harboring ambitions to be an explorer like his grandfather. What follows is an expedition into a mysterious realm, because Searcher needs to figure out why the Pando plants are all dying. He teams up with a host of people, including his wife, Meridian (Gabrielle Union), and they all have a twisty adventure set in a gorgeous land brimming with weird creatures (many of which are destined to become fun squishy toys for Disney to market to young children). 

The third act reveal about what is happening to the plants is rather stunning, and this is a great example of inventive storytelling and visual artistry, with great voice acting all around. This is also a very diverse movie. Searcher and Meridian are an interracial couple, Ethan is gay, and their dog only has three legs but happily runs all over the place and joins in the shenanigans. Everyone is very accepting and casual about living their life as befits them and I hope animated movies continue to better reflect the world as it is. After all, when your movie is set in a world filled by weirdly colored blobs, it doesn't feel like there's any reason to insist all the humans be white. Directed by Don Hall and written by Qui Nguyen, this movie has been flying under the radar, but it's well worth a shot if you need something charming to watch this month.

Memoirs of a Director: Armageddon Time & The Fabelmans

Oscar season is upon us and as all the prestige movies roll into theaters, we have two semi-autobiographical films about the directors' childhoods. Both men are grappling with Jewish identity and families who don't fully support their artistic endeavors, but they still put their individual stamp on these films to make unique and compelling cinema.

Armageddon Time: Written and directed by James Gray, this film is a perfect snapshot of 1980 in the life of Paul (Banks Repeta), a sixth-grader growing up in Queens, New York. He loves to draw and dreams of being a famous comic book artist, but his dreamy nature means that he doesn't do particularly well in public school and keeps getting into trouble. He befriends a young Black boy, Johnny (Jaylin Webb), who has already been labelled a troublemaker by their teacher and most other adults; what follows is a story of the tenuous friendship between these two kids, and the many ways in which the system always fails Johnny while giving Paul multiple chances to succeed.

Paul's family life is portrayed by a who's who of actors, with Jeremy Strong playing his taciturn father, Irving, who is prone to bouts of violence and has a massive chip on his shoulder, and Anne Hathaway as his overwhelmed but ambitious mother, Esther.  All they want is for their sons to succeed in life and have a better life than they did, and they have the support of Esther's father, Aaron, played with overwhelming kindness and generosity by Anthony Hopkins. Aaron is the only family member who truly sees Paul and his dreams, and he encourages him to be the best person he can be. But as the movie proceeds, it becomes clear that even his grandfather's support is somewhat rhetorical and will always take a backseat to the practical considerations of ensuring Paul can have a better life.

This movie imbues every character with nuance, never painting anyone as an abject villain (well, except for cops and teachers, who very literally divide the world into black and white). Instead, there are many grey areas to navigate here, and Paul quickly comes to learn that having the best of intentions still cannot translate to the best actions and outcomes. It's a somewhat heartbreaking tale, but there's also a great deal of hope in it. And the fact that we know this is semi-autobiographical means that I left the theater with a sense that here was a man who, like that little boy, is still trying to do the right thing. It's up to you as the audience member to decide whether or not he succeeds. 

The Fabelmans: Directed by Steven Spielberg, who co-wrote the screenplay with Tony Kushner, this is the story of Sammy Fabelman, a young Jewish boy in the 1950s who we follow as a young boy to his first years in college as his family moves from New Jersey, to Phoenix, to California in service of his father's job. His parents, Burt and Mitzi, are played by the wonderful Paul Dano and Michelle Williams, and while they are both very loving, they take different tacks in supporting Sammy's burgeoning love for film and cinema. His father, an engineering genius who is the family's breadwinner, wants his son to be sensible, and stable, and go to college instead of indulging in this "hobby." While his mother, a woman who could have been a concert pianist but instead chose the traditional path and became a housewife, encourages him to be an artist and follow his dreams.

This is a movie about the push and pull between art and responsibility, the outsize influence our families have in shaping our lives when we are younger, and the turbulence and turmoil of adolescence. There's a lot of family drama (and at times comedy) here, but I found myself unmoved by those emotional machinations. There is a lot of attention paid to how Sam's movies make the people around him feel, but for me, this movie was such a piece of technical brilliance that I found myself simply captivated by its story about filmmaking, and couldn't be bothered about the humans.

There are long, loving scenes of spooling and unspooling and splicing film, making cuts and edits, finding the right piece of music to score, indulging in different genres, finding novel techniques to achieve special effects, coaching your actors to get just the right emotion. It's a master class in directing - you're watching the novice Sammy learn how to direct, but because Spielberg is directing this movie, you're benefitting from the fact that he is now this incredible, seasoned director who knows exactly how to tell this story about his younger self. There are scenes where he simply lingers on Michelle Williams' face as she watches a film, or shows how the pulse in someone's neck slowly fades away, or suddenly veers into an homage to West Side Story in the movie's final act when Sammy becomes a high schooler. It's almost Inception-esque, with films within films, and directing within directing.

The final shot of this movie made me laugh. That's all I'll say. But as far as I'm concerned, it is the most memorable and classic way to end this film - that one shot captures everything I've said about the winking, meta nature of the script, and serves as a reminder of how lucky we are to still have Steven Spielberg directing movies.

Feminist Fury: Call Jane & She Said

Well, 2022 has been a year to infuriate most women with the overturning of Roe v Wade and continued indignities to our rights and protections as human beings. So if you're feeling the need to watch some movies about women fighting back against sexism, corruption, and the patriarchy, this blog post is for you.

Call Jane: Directed by Phyllis Nagy with a screenplay from Hayley Schore and Roshan Sethi, this is a fictional story about the very-real group called the Janes, a group of women in Chicago who helped women get abortions in the pre-Roe era from 1969 to 1973. Elizabeth Banks stars as Joy, a suburban housewife who develops complications during her pregnancy with her second child. Her doctor advises her that the only option would be to terminate the pregnancy, but unfortunately, the hospital's medical board (comprised of all male doctors, natch) does not agree, prioritizing the life of the unborn fetus over the life of the very sick mother. At her wit's end, Joy tries every loophole, but cannot find a way to get a legal abortion. Which is when she discovers the Janes, run by the competent and compassionate, Virginia (Sigourney Weaver). They have developed a whole system of how to help women obtain abortions, shepherding them to a doctor on their payroll, and making follow-up calls to ensure their health and safety afterwards. It's extremely illegal, but these women know how dangerous unwanted pregnancies can be to desperate women and are willing to fight the good fight.

The movie is beautifully scripted, always propelling you along Joy's journey as she first gets this abortion and then gradually finds herself sucked in by the Janes. This film has much to say about gender roles, mothers and daughters, solidarity amongst women, and the many ways in which the patriarchy can pit women against themselves. Joy is a prim and proper Catholic and while she recognizes the need for an abortion in her case, she is still very judgy of other women who seem to be using the Janes' service in a more "casual" fashion. But Virginia sets her straight on the Janes' philosophy to never judge the women they take on, and we get to watch Joy's gradual evolution from a slightly frustrated housewife to a strident feminist activist.

The movie also doesn't shy away from all the complications and problems with this group of very white women. Wunmi Mosaku plays Gwen, the group's only Black member, who is frustrated that women of color often cannot avail them themselves of the group's services because they are too poor to pay the exorbitant fee charged by their shady doctor. It's a showcase for the need for intersectional feminism, and how solving one problem cannot solve for all of society's ills; you need to evolve and change and be capable of fighting more than just one fight at a time. Thankfully, this is a story where women band together and triumph, showing remarkable resilience and courage. But given that this country has yet again failed to protect abortion as a right for us all, this movie is a stark reminder of what the women of 2022 are facing once again.

She Said: At this point we are all aware of the broad strokes of the Weinstein scandal. But this movie is the story of Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey (played by Zoe Kazan and Carey Mulligan), the New York Times investigative journalists who did the fearless reporting that first exposed Weinstein's predatory behavior and eventually got him held to account for his crimes. It's a little sad that a movie with so many roles for women exists just because it is about sexual harassment and assault in the workplace, but oh well. C'est la vie. 

Directed by Maria Schrader from a screenplay by Rebecca Lenkiewicz that adapts Kantor and Twohey's articles and book recounting their investigation, the movie is a fast-paced thriller, a throwback to films like All the President's Men or Spotlight, where we all know where the story is headed, but we are all watching with bated breath anyway to see what happens next, and how these reporters are going to find their sources and then convince them to go on the record. Mulligan and Kazan are wonderful and you empathize with them every step of the way, particularly as their characters are reckoning with their own challenges with marriage and motherhood (this movie is a reminder that behind every great woman, there's a man who is willing to take care of the damn kids). But they are relentless and determined to give a voice to women who feel like the entire system has let them down.

This movie is shot in New York, which meant that I spent a lot of time excitedly recognizing places I've been to and identifying weird production design matters like the fact that a Wafels & Dinges kiosk had been renamed Weinman's (what gives, does big Wafel not support women?!) But apart from those delightful asides, this is of course a movie that made me alternately sad and furious. Ashley Judd features prominently, as the first woman who agreed to go on the record, and while it's great to see her tell her piece in this movie, it's just another reminder of all the movies we didn't get to see her in after Weinstein blackballed her in Hollywood. This is a movie where you can already predict exactly how you're going to feel when you walk out, but it is still a great watch. It is riveting, moving, and ensures that attention and focus is given to the brave women who spoke up so this monster could finally be silenced. Now we just need to take down all the other monsters in his wake.

Comic Chaos: Weird, The Menu, The People We Hate at the Wedding

Do you need some laughs over Thanksgiving? Well here are some reviews of three very different comedies - whether you're into music, murder, or mayhem, I've got you covered.

Weird: The Al Yankovic Story: I'm not an Al Yankovic fan - I know he exists, I've heard some of his song parodies, but he's not someone whose career I have been following closely over the decades. However, that really didn't matter when watching this movie, because it is a ridiculous and witty satire of the musical biopic genre that led to my then having to Google questions like "did Weird Al really date Madonna?" (No, he did not.) The genius of this film is that while it purports to be a biopic, it is just a tissue of lies with random truths scattered throughout. But with Daniel Radcliffe playing the adult Al Yankovic, you're in for a damn good time.

Directed by Eric Appel, who co-wrote the screenplay with Weird Al himself, this is an over-the-top movie that feels like an SNL sketch but has the legs to keep the joke going for 100 minutes. The cast is marvelous, with all manner of great comedians and actors popping in for cameos, and once I got used to the idea that I wasn't supposed to take any of this seriously, I could sit back and enjoy the show. You won't leave this movie having learned much about Weird Al at all, but you will get to hear a lot of his music and have a newfound respect for his satirical talents. After all, he is "the best, OK not best, but arguably most famous accordion player in a very specific genre of music."

The Menu: Directed by Mark Mylod (known for his work on Succession - an "eat the rich" show that is certainly relevant to this movie), from a screenplay by Seth Reiss and Will Tracy, be prepared for a movie that is thrilling and funny, but will also leave you feeling deeply hungry by the end. This is the story of an acclaimed chef (played by the always menacing Ralph Fiennes) who runs an exclusive restaurant called Hawthorne on a private island. Guests have to be shipped in to enjoy his dramatic and meticulously crafted tasting menu, and this movie gives us the story of what happens when the chef has decided he has had enough of catering to his wealthy, privileged, and rude clientele. 

Anya Taylor-Joy also stars as Margot, a woman who has been dragged on this excursion by her boyfriend, Tyler (Nicholas Hoult), a pretentious dolt who is obsessed with food and likes to condescend to her about her palate. The other guests include actors like Judith Light, John Leguizamo, and Janet McTeer, who are all playing different types of rich asshole who are about to get a comeuppance. I won't give anything further away, but suffice to say, once this meal gets underway, it becomes increasingly clear that maybe everyone shouldn't stick around for dessert. The movie is beautifully plotted with an eerie and elegant production design capturing the absolute desolation of this remote restaurant that's going to quickly become the scene of much horror. The guests are terrible people, but so is the chef who has given up his life to satisfy these people and turned into a monster himself who treats his staff contemptibly. It's a delicious (pun intended), funny, and thoroughly entertaining movie that you can't tear your eyes away from. And once you finish, you're really gonna need a cheeseburger.

The People We Hate the Wedding: Based on the 2016 novel by Grant Ginder (that I absolutely loved and highly recommend), this is a light and fun adaptation by the Molyneux sisters, directed by Claire Scanlon. I'll be honest, I read the book five years ago and only remember that I loved reading it, but cannot tell you if this film is true to the novel. Instead, I had to judge the movie on its own merits, and I found it to be a frothy bit of fun, one of those 90-minute crowd pleasers that are perfect for a Sunday afternoon. 

This is a story of a complicated and dysfunctional family that have to gather in England for a daughters' wedding. Naturally, chaos ensues, all set to a soundtrack of banging pop music hits. You've got Allison Janney playing the matriarch, with Kristen Bell and Ben Platt playing her American children from her second marriage, who are jealous and judgy of her more rich and privileged English daughter from her first marriage, played by Cynthia Addai-Robinson. People like Karan Soni, Jorma Taccone, Dustin Milligan, and Lizzy Caplan also pop in and out of the supporting cast, keeping things fresh and interesting. The challenge of condensing this book down into a movie is that we have a lot of complications without much depth or background about the various resentments and insecurities festering in this family; I would have happily watched this as a six-episode miniseries instead. But as long as you don't get too hung up on the details, you can enjoy a classic comic tale of families that harbor secrets, bicker, and then have to learn to forgive and move on.

This One's for the Girls: Catherine Called Birdy, Hocus Pocus 2, Disenchanted

Do you have young girls at home? Well here are a bunch of movies they might enjoy. Though, let's be real, I'm 35 and wanted to watch these movies too. So whatever, gather round, young and old, and stream some charming young adult movies to while away the winter blues. 

Catherine Called Birdy: Directed by Lena Dunham who adapted the screenplay from the beloved novel by Karen Cushman, this is an utterly charming movie set in medieval England, about a young girl, Catherine (nicknamed Birdy, natch) who has just turned fourteen, has gotten her period, and is therefore of marriageable age. Played by Bella Ramsey, the wondrous actress you may remember for her scene-stealing turn as Lyanna Mormont in Game of Thrones, prepare yourself for some rousing feminist comedy. 

The cast of this movie is absolutely stacked with Billie Piper playing Birdy's loving mother, and Andrew Scott playing her layabout father who has mismanaged the family's funds and therefore needs to marry his daughter off for a good dowry. We also get Joe Alwyn (aka Mr. Taylor Swift) as Birdy's Uncle Greg, who she is very attracted to in the manner of most teenage girls and their tendency to unfortunate crushes. 

As someone who was once a teenage girl herself, and as an Indian woman who has had to rail against arranged marriages all her life, this movie certainly struck a chord. It is fierce and funny, and I will be reading the book posthaste. The production design and costumes are all beautifully rendered, the soundtrack is filled with incongruous pop music that will keep your toes tapping, and Ramsey is an absolute star, commanding the screen in every scene and making you root for this awkward but endearing child who simply wants the freedom to be a kid for a little while longer. It's a slight but satisfying film and certainly worthy of adding to your ever-growing streaming queue.

Hocus Pocus 2: Every year, my friend Laura and I watch Hocus Pocus for Halloween. So we were very excited to do a double feature with this brand new sequel. Unfortunately, our love for the original could not be matched, but I suppose it's still a valiant effort to tap into our nostalgia and desire to revisit these witches once again.

Bette Midler, Kathy Najimy, and Sarah Jessica Parker return as the Sanderson sisters, three women who were burned at the stake during the Salem witch trials. 29(!) years have passed since the events of the original film and apparently everyone has gotten over it. So of course, yet again, a virgin lights a Black Flame Candle, and the witches come back to haunt the youth of 2022 during Halloween and yet again try to cast a spell so they can be powerful forever.

The main difference here is that they've eschewed a teen romance plot. Instead, our protagonists are three young teenage girls (played by Whitney Peak, Belisssa Escobedo, and Lilia Buckingham), and they must band together with their own special brand of magic to defeat these old witches. The movie feels very Disney, and doesn't feel quotable and fun like the original, but maybe it's just a question of having to watch it a dozen more times until it seeps into my bones. It follows a lot of the same beats as  the original, has nothing particularly fresh to add on, and ends with a whimper that suggests there will be no further sequels. It's a great watch to indulge in your nostalgia, but ends up being more of a trick than a treat.

Disenchanted: My mother and I went to see Enchanted in theaters in 2007 and absolutely loved it. Now, 15(!) years later, we have this perfectly adequate sequel that went straight to streaming on Disney+. It deals with the age-old question of what happens after "happily ever after." We had left our lovely heroine Giselle (the always charming Amy Adams) with her true love, Robert (the always dashing Patrick Dempsey) and his daughter, Morgan (played by Rachel Covey in the original, but now played as a more sarcastic teenager by Gabriella Baldacchino) living in an apartment by Central Park. However, this movie opens ten years later, Giselle has had a baby, and they've decided to move to the suburbs. Gasp.

What follows is a story about the difficulties of continuing to live a fairytale life when the very real problems of parenting a baby and moody teen intervene. Giselle also finds herself up against a trio of territorial moms, played by Yvette Nicole Brown, Jayma Mays, and their leader, Maya Rudolph. Let's revel in that casting for a second. Of course, Giselle then makes a wish, things go awry, and we get a lot of special effects and magic as everyone tries to sort everything out before the stroke of midnight.

The songs aren't very memorable, the costumes are fantastic, the special effects are standard. Amy Adams is acting her heart out, particularly in some scenes that require her to play a double role of sorts, but none of that can help this film re-capture the magic of the original. What made Enchanted so...enchanting, was the fish-out-of-water concept, but here we get a wicked stepmother plot that turns our heroine into an anti-heroine and that's no fun. Like with Hocus Pocus 2, Disney is trying to cash in on our nostalgia for the original - they succeed a little, but like Giselle, our wish for more of a fairytale doesn't quite come true. 

From the Past to the Future: Till & Wakanda Forever

If you go to the theatre right now, you can treat yourself to a particularly powerful double feature with two very different but equally remarkable movies that feature an abundance of Black talent in front of and behind the camera. One is a story of this country’s horrific racist past. And the other is the sequel to a futuristic fantasy of Black excellence. Either way, you can’t go wrong.

Till: Almost every one I know has refused to see this movie because it will be too sad. And yes, I can confirm that I sobbed. But oh it is such a good movie, such a deeply moving and beautiful portrait of a heartbroken and devastated mother who channeled her overwhelming grief for her son into something powerful. Directed by Chinonye Chukwu, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Keith Beauchamp and Michael Reilly, this movie takes its time, never rushing a single scene, and allows every character to display the riot of emotions that they experienced in the wake of this traumatic event.

Danielle Deadwyler is an absolute revelation as Mamie Bradley, the mother of Emmett Till (played by the heartbreakingly charming Jalyn Hall), the fourteen-year-old boy who was brutally lynched in Mississippi in 1955. The film tells this story from the very beginning, showing us how close Mamie and her son were, and how nervous she was to send him off to stay with relatives in Mississippi after he had been born and raised in Chicago and never experienced the deeply segregated racism of the Jim Crow South. We then see the events leading to his horrific murder, and the subsequent aftermath. 

This is a brutal story that we are all familiar with from textbooks and online articles, but this movie channels Mamie's emotion and heartbreak in a searing way. We see the guilt of her relatives who couldn't save Emmett when his murderers abducted him from their home, and the absolutely disgusting proceedings of the court case where the white defendants were allowed to brazenly lie while the Black witnesses, despite fearing for their lives, bravely offered up the truth, but to no avail. Is it an infuriating and painful movie? Of course. The fact that it took until March 2022 to pass the Emmett Till Antilynching Act in this country is a reminder that we are still barely making any progress since 1955. But it's an important and inspiring movie as well, about the strength and courage of Mamie Bradley and the other Civil Rights leaders who kept fighting despite constant horrors and indignities. It's a useful reminder that while a society may be the absolute worst, it always contains people who are striving to make it better.

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever: This was one of the most anticipated movies of the year and yes, I can reassure you, it absolutely does not disappoint. Like the original film, this is a brilliant movie that features captivating production design, music, costumes, and Afro-futurism giving us a vision of an African superpower that the rest of the world regards with awe. However, in this sequel, director Ryan Coogler (who also co-wrote the screenplay with Joe Robert Cole), introduces us to the new civilization of Talokan, led by Namor (Tenoch Huerta Mejia), a half-human half-god who has been leading his people since they fled underwater to escape the colonizers who were enslaving the Maya. They also have vibranium, and now their existence is being threatened by the United States and other countries who are trying to get their hands on this invaluable metal.

What follows is a thoroughly intriguing plot where we have two civilizations that have traditionally been oppressed by white Europeans now facing a conflict against each other that has been instigated by those same white folk. This movie may be nearly three hours long, but you will be riveted as you watch this marvelous interplay between people of color who have been pitted against each other by their oppressors and now have to deal with the ugly human thirst for vengeance. There's plenty of action, distinct stunt choreography, and sublime cinematography to keep your eyes glued to the screen.

Of course, this is also a movie about grief. Chadwick Boseman, the actor who played King T'Challa/Black Panther in the first film, died in 2020, and this movie fully grapples with the death of that character and the impact it has had on his surviving family members. Angela Bassett and Letitia Wright are fantastic as Queen Ramonda and Shuri, T'Challa's mother and sister, who are mourning his loss and dealing with it in entirely different ways and finding it hard to come together as a family. If you are mourning the loss of Boseman, this is a movie that will help you process your grief in a myriad ways, and it's a loving and beautiful ode to an actor that we all dearly miss. It's sad to think of the many directions this franchise could have gone if he was still alive, but this movie is a fitting tribute and a reminder that the filmmakers still have plenty of ideas up their sleeve to ably steer this ship in the years to come. Black Panther was one of my all-time favorite movies in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and with this installment, it continues to be a highlight of the genre. Wakanda Forever!

Flee to Distant Shores: The Banshees of Inisherin & Decision to Leave

If you’re looking to escape from America for a bit as we try to ascertain the state of our democracy, I’ve got two intriguing movies for you. Pack your suitcase, we’re going to Ireland and South Korea!

The Banshees of Inisherin: I have watched two movies written and directed by Martin McDonagh and seen two of his plays. If you are similarly familiar with his work, you will not be surprised by the tone of this particular movie. As always, we begin with a black comedy with some intriguing, very Irish folk on the fictional island of Inisherin, and the dialogue is biting and hilarious and intriguing. And then everything just escalates and gets wildly preposterous and really puts the “black” in black comedy.

I don’t want to give too much away as you need to experience the whiplash for yourself. The film reunites the dream team of Brendan Gleeson and Colin Farrell (they previously starred in McDonagh’s brilliant 2008 directorial debut, In Bruges). Here they play Colm and Padraic, two best friends who would reliably rock up to the pub for a pint every afternoon. But this movie opens with a dramatic twist - Colm simply doesn’t want to talk to Padraic anymore.

This evokes a whole range of emotions from Padraic. First he thinks it must be a joke, then he gets increasingly perplexed, then he gets depressed, then he gets very angry. Colm declares that Padraic is exceedingly dull and he needs to focus on writing music rather than chatting with this boring man, which is a rather brutal way to dismiss a long-standing friendship. Meanwhile Padraic lives with his sister Siobhan (Kerry Condon) and she offers up a great contrast as the seemingly only sensible person on this island while these two men bicker. The entire island community is a close-knit bunch of weirdos who are trying to avoid all the troubles raging on the mainland (the movie is set in 1923 during the Irish Civil War) but instead, this disagreement between Colm and Padraic escalates into its own troubling saga.

This is an extremely funny, extremely dark, twisty movie about how spectacularly insane men can be. It examines the bonds of friendship and family, the ache of loneliness, and is all set in the most beautiful landscape you can imagine. The setting is idyllic, even while the people turn into absolute lunatics, so strap in for a very unexpected journey.

Decision to Leave: We don't get to see many film noirs anymore. But director Park Chan-Wook (who co-wrote the screenplay with Jeong Seo-kyeong) has got you covered. In this movie, we get a stylish, ethereal mystery, wreathed in fog and lust, and while the plot is at times so twisty that it can make your head hurt, you cannot tear your eyes away from the screen.

Park Hae-il stars as Hae-jun, a detective in Busan who specializes in solving murder cases. When he is called to investigate the death of a man who fell from the top of a mountain, he finds himself intrigued by the man’s wife, Seo-Rae (Tang Wei), a Chinese immigrant who fled to South Korea in a shipping container and then married her abusive and now-dead husband. Her Korean isn’t great, so there’s some great use of translating apps and banter about vocabulary and her strange use of overly formal words. I’m sure this back-and-forth is even more rich if you speak Chinese or Korean, but it still makes for riveting viewing as you’re reading the subtitles and feeling the sexual tension ratchet up between these two characters.

Hae-jun is married but his wife lives in Ipo, so there’s a lot to contend with as he travels to see her on weekends and then returns to Busan during the week to continue his weird obsession with this case and the dead man’s wife. I won’t give away more plot, but suffice to say, there are plenty of twists and turns and fake outs that keep the suspense dialed up to an unbearably high level. Park Chan-Wook won Best Director at Cannes this year and I can certainly see why. This movie feels like a work of art in the way that it is shot and the choices made in how to frame scenes, blend images, and make unsettling transitions. It is certainly a puzzling spectacle, and while it did feel a bit too long, I can’t claim I was ever bored. This is a movie that trafficks in a lot of vibes, but at the end of the day it also delivers a rather robust mystery, and that is always a winning combination.

TV Bonanza Part 3: Welcome to Wrexham, Magpie Murders, Business Proposal

Do you want to spend less time in America when you watch TV? Well then today I am taking you on a journey to Wales, England, and South Korea. Strap in, it’s gonna be a fun ride.

Welcome to Wrexham: I love a sports documentary. I don’t really love watching sports (except the second innings of a cricket match) but I am always down to watch a documentary that edits all the highlights together for me in a way that gets my blood pumping and makes me want to jump off the couch and scream in support of a team I had never even heard of before I pressed Play. Which is what will happen to you when you watch Welcome to Wrexham, the story of how Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney bought a struggling Welsh football team and decided to invest in it so that it could move up into the next league in the English football league system.

The show is perfect for a novice like me who knows nothing about how English football works. It gives you a rigorous primer in the background of this team, the town, the players, the coach, the support staff, the fans, the local pub owner, just every damn thing that goes into the ecosystem of running this team. It is comprehensive and empathetic, effortlessly weaving in individual stories into the grand narrative of this team’s quest for promotion into League Two, and it finally made me understand why people get so passionate about football. Every match that is played is a nail-biting extravaganza, and this show is beautifully shot and edited, cutting away at crucial moments and giving you just the right context you need to appreciate every moment for its grace and pathos. And it’s also a story about the bromance between Reynolds and McElhenney, two very non-English men, who earnestly share a desire to help this Welsh town and its people (along with having a healthy fear of losing the millions of dollars they've poured into this venture). If you love football, you will love this show. If you don’t know anything about football, you may love it even more. 

Magpie Murders: I just recently finished reading Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz and then discovered they adapted it for TV this year. So I promptly binged the whole series and found myself just as charmed by the show as I was by the book. This is the story of Susan Ryeland (the marvelous Lesley Manville) who is Alan Conway's editor. Alan (Conleth Hill) is an arrogant mystery writer and while Susan doesn’t love the man, his books are a reliable bestseller for her publishing company. However, the latest manuscript she has received, the latest in a series starring fictional detective Atticus Pund (Tim McMullan), is missing the final chapter, containing the grand denouement of the murderer. And before she can get that chapter, Alan turns up dead, due to an apparent suicide. Heavy emphasis on the “apparent.”

The show does an ingenious job of taking the twisty structure of the book and successfully adapting it for TV. Because what we get are two separate murder mysteries - the one involving the author of the book, but also the one contained within the book itself, which is set in the 1950s in a sleepy English village where the lord of the manor has been killed. Alan wrote people from his real life into his books, so the casting is doing double duty here to make those connections. If you’re looking for two compelling stories for the price of one, I highly recommend you watch this show, though even more than that, I highly recommend you gobble up the book like I did first. I will say the book was allowed to be a bit more liberal with its language, so the show got a bit laughably prudish at times. But the acting and production design are, of course, impeccable, because the British know how to pull off a murder mystery series like no one else. This story is an ode to Agatha Christie and Poirot but is still fresh and fun, so you can get your daily dose of nostalgia along with six episodes of murderously entertaining television. 

Business Proposal: I was looking for something light and fluffy to watch and my friend Candice suggested this show. As I hadn’t watched a Korean show in a while, I figured I should dive back into that world, and oh what a treat. For twelve episodes, you will get a screwball comedy that is full of twists and turns but never fails to delight. Kim Se-jeong and Ahn Hyo-seop star as Shin Ha-ri and Kang Tae-moo. Ha-ri works as a researcher for the food company where Tae-moo has been newly appointed as the CEO. His grandfather is desperate for Tae-moo to get married and insists he go on blind dates with the daughters of other wealthy Korean families. Meanwhile, Ha-ri is best friends with Jin Young-seo (Seol In-ah) who is the daughter of a wealthy Korean family (can you see where this is going?). When Young-seo's father asks her to go on a blind date with Tae-moo, she begs Ha-ri to take her place instead and act crazy so that he will want nothing to do with her. And from there we get a classic tale of mistaken identities and absolute hilarity.

This show brightened my day in hourly installments. I would dole it out to myself when I needed a boost and it never failed to charm me. It's a steady romcom, where you’re desperately waiting to see when these people will figure out who they really are and acknowledge their feelings for each other. The side plot involving their best friends also stumbling their way into love means that you get even more lovely romance than you were expecting. And you will also get plenty of laughs from the supporting cast who make up the family and colleagues of the main characters. As with any Korean show, the production design and costumes are stellar, and there’s even more emphasis on food than usual given that the leads work for a food company. If you’ve been looking for a breezy way to get acquainted with Korean TV, this is definitely the way to go. But maybe grab some fried chicken and kimchi before you start.

TV Bonanza Part 2: The Rings of Power & House of the Dragon

Two powerhouse fantasies have been jostling for our attention these past few months and it's very clear to me who won. But let's dive right into my reviews and see if you feel the same way!

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power: As a lifelong LOTR fan, obviously I was going to eat this show up with a big ol' spoon. And of course, I was terrified they were going to ruin it and create some sort of bloated behemoth like the Hobbit movies that I eventually gave up on. But to my delight, the creators, J. D. Payne and Patrick McKay, have delivered an engaging and vibrant world, that can stand perfectly well on its own two feet but has plenty of callbacks and asides for us die-hard nerds who have spent way too much time in Middle-earth.

This show tells the story of how the Rings of Power (including that all-powerful One Ring that would become the focus of this world so much later) came into being. But don't expect that to happen right away - there's a lot of table-setting to be done. There are many different storylines: there's a band of migrating Hobbits who run into a mysterious stranger whose identity will remain secret until Episode 8; there's the story of young Galadriel (played by the wonderful Morfyyd Clark) who is on a vengeful quest against Sauron and has to team up with Numenorean and Southland men (and women!) to go into battle with some dark forces; and we have young Elrond (played by the equally wonderful Robert Aramayo) who serves as an ambassador to the dwarves because of his long friendship with Durin IV (a charming Owain Arthur) and his wife, Disa (the even more charming Sophia Nomvete).

The casting of this show is far more diverse than anything we saw in the movies and there are plenty of leading female characters who have just as much to do (if not more) as the men. Shot in New Zealand, the scenery, costumes, and production design are just as awe-inspiring as ever, and the show manages to both fall into comforting rhythms we've come to expect from the original LOTR trilogy, and also feature some genuine surprises and narrative trickery that keep you on your toes. The first season finale was genuinely a roller coaster where you couldn't be sure what would happen until the very end and it certainly whetted my appetite for future seasons. This is a show that has taken what worked in the original, and then improved upon it to create something worthy of 2022 audiences. It is leaping from strength to strength and I can't wait for Season 2. 

Game of Thrones: House of the Dragon: Yeah, this show just took Game of Thrones and said, let's do more of the same! I slogged my way through the first season hoping for something fresh and appealing (to be clear, I did love GoT until the battle-heavy politics of the final seasons), but I merely got a lot of blood and gore, a lot of incest and nudity, and confusingly-named characters who I simply could not keep straight in my head and whose political machinations bored me to tears. Unlike Game of Thrones, which could move across different lands and introduced variety by virtue of geography, this show is merely concerned with in-fighting amongst the Targaryen clan, with Paddy Considine playing the ailing King Viserys I Targaryen who currently commands the Iron Throne (the show takes place 200 years before the events of Game of Thrones). He declares that his heir will be his daughter Rhaenyra (played initially by the younger Milly Alcock and then by the older Emma D'Arcy in the latter half of the season), which of course angers the traditionalists who think there can only be a male heir (why is it that the fantasy genre chooses to incorporate changes to our regular world like dragons and magic, but then insists on retaining the patriarchy?). Let the drama commence.

There's a lot going on in this show from week to week, none of which I was following particularly well. Again, the casting is slightly more diverse, with House Velaryon containing many Black people in blond wigs, and there are plenty of powerful women running around, but my God, must we constantly be subjected to bloody childbirth scenes? And of course there's plenty of rape and incest going around because in the GoT universe, sex is always used as a bargaining chip or a means of exerting power over other individuals. 

The main addition is that there are many more dragons. As the series begins, it's hard to understand why the Targaryens even bother as the dragons never seem to do anything. But towards the end of the season, that special effects budget starts to come through and there seems to be a promise that maybe we'll get more dragon entertainment in subsequent seasons. I don't know if that's enough to tempt me though. I'm kind of over this dark, grim, medieval world. And at one point, when Daemon Targaryen (a deliciously creepy Matt Smith) started listing a tally of dragons, much like a recitation of all the Greek ships in The Iliad, I felt my patience waning. This show is steeped in its lore, and given how dull and needlessly violent that lore is, I think it's time I stopped watching.

TV Bonanza Part 1: Reboot, The Patient, She-Hulk: Attorney at Law

An inordinate number of new shows popped up in August or September so I have been making my way through all of them for the past few months and am now ready with a grab bag of reviews. Settle in this week for a recap - there’s gonna be something for everyone!

Reboot: This is a sublime comedy from the mind of Steven Levitan, who previously created Modern Family and Just Shoot Me. Here, we get a show about rebooting a show, a behind-the-scenes satire of Hollywood and show runners and writers and the studio executives at Hulu. It’s a delicious meta commentary on the state of the television sitcom, and is an absolute delight for all eight episodes of its first season. It also boasts a stellar cast of folks like Rachel Bloom, Paul Reiser, Keegan Michael-Key, Johnny Knoxville, and Judy Greer, and because it’s not on network television, it can be liberal in terms of content and language. So don't watch with young kids.

The first episode has a big twist at the end, so I’ll just give you the basic set-up. There was a beloved network sitcom called Step Right Up and now a hip young showrunner (Bloom) wants to reboot it as an edgier dramatic show. However, the old showrunner (Reiser) is brought in by the studio, so we’re going to get a clash of the generations. There are fun moments in the writing room where the young diverse woke writers have to face off with the elderly Jewish writers who have a very different comic sensibility. And there's tension among the old cast members; they were off building very different lives for themselves in the past decades and now have different ambitions and hopes for this next step in their career. 

Reboot itself is very funny, occasionally filthy, and full of heart. The show within a show suffers from the usual TV problem where people are pretending it’s funnier that it really is, but since it’s a traditional sitcom, the mediocrity is kind of the point. This show is a gem, seek it out. With this cast and this caliber of writing, it has legs and will be well worth your time for many more seasons.

The Patient: This is a taut and brilliant ten-episode limited series from the minds of Joel Fields and Joe Weisberg who gave us The Americans. Here, they give us the story of a serial killer, Sam (the wonderful Domnhall Gleeson) who wants to try and stop killing, so he kidnaps Dr. Alan Strauss (the even more wonderful Steve Carell) to be chained in his basement and give him daily therapy to work through his issues. Needless to say, these aren’t ideal conditions, but needs must and Alan uses all his years of therapy training to apply all the empathy he can muster for this incredibly dangerous patient, whilst also reckoning with his own fears and fractured relationship with his son, who he may now never see again.

The scripts are impeccable, clearly indicating that the writers are very familiar with therapy speak and how these sessions ordinarily go even in extraordinary circumstances. The actors are brilliant, deftly navigating their way through this tense two-hander where they are able to demonstrate the full range of human emotion with a simple expression or change in tone. I recommended this show to my therapist and he quite enjoyed it, which does speak to what a good job it does in portraying the patient-doctor relationship, even in the most heightened of circumstances. Every episode has some fantastic cliffhanger that will keep you jonesing for the next installment, and it was always a highlight of my week. Now you can just binge it all in one satisfying gulp and join me in hoping that maybe Steve Carell will finally win his Emmy for this performance.

She-Hulk: Attorney at Law: Oh what sheer fun. This show might be the most meta thing I have ever witnessed on television and it has fully dug its heels into the Marvel wink-wink-nudge-nudge comedy sensibility. The glorious Tatiana Maslany stars as Jennifer Walters, cousin to Bruce Banner aka the Incredible Hulk (Mark Ruffalo has many cameos through the season). After the two of them get into a car accident, Jen discovers that now she too turns into a Hulk when she gets angry. Which sucks because she has a promising career as an attorney and cannot afford to keep Hulking out in court. 

Bruce gives her some Hulk lessons and she turns out to be a quick study, because as a woman, she has had lifelong training in keeping her anger in check. This show is a feminist delight, always making jokes about the shit women put up with on a daily basis, and Jen is the female superhero I didn’t know I needed but am very pleased to have. Each episode of the season is charming, self-referential with Jen frequently breaking the fourth wall to talk directly to the audience and comment on how it’s all going, and is an irreverent and fun time. There’s an overarching plot that keeps you engaged from week to week, the special effects and action are always on point like with any Marvel property, and the finale is a whimsical ode to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. This show is a great treat for people who have stuck with Marvel on this never-ending journey - I have mostly slogged through their more dramatic shows, but She-Hulk is a light, frothy comedy that strikes exactly the tone that I love most about Marvel.  So dive right in for eight episodes of surprising and silly superhero shenanigans.

October Olio: Amsterdam, Rosaline, Ticket to Paradise

There have been a lot of great movies to watch in October. But there have also been some middling ones. If you’re looking for something that’s “fair” but not excellent, an excuse to just distract yourself for a few hours, then this blog post is what you seek.

Amsterdam: This is a great movie to spot celebrities. It’s an all-star cast, a wall-to-wall who’s who ensemble, starting with the central trio of Margot Robbie, Christian Bale, and John David Washington, and ending with the likes of Taylor Swift. Yes, Swift is in the movie for a glorious cameo that sets everyone off on an adventure. I won’t get into details about the plot (mostly because I seem to have forgotten all of it) but this is a period piece set in 1930s New York. Our protagonists are all Americans who first met each other in France during World War 1, and now they are reunited and faced with a murder mystery that they must solve with a complicated series of characters and motivations that appear to be loosely based on a true story, with “loosely” being the operative word. 

This film is meant to be a screwball comedy but it’s not particularly funny, and mostly just frantic. Writer-director David O. Russell had some kind of vision here, but despite all the ingredients being right, the final result falls flat. Watch it if you like lovely production design and great actors, but don’t expect a coherent or engaging story. If you're anything like my boyfriend, you will get a lovely nap out of it.

Ticket to Paradise: This is a movie where George Clooney and Julia Roberts play David and Georgia, a couple who got divorced 14 years ago and can’t stand each other but are united in their love for their daughter, Lily (the lovely Kaitlyn Dever). Lily went on a trip to Bali, fell in love with a man after two months, and now, instead of returning to America to start her law career, she is getting married and staying in Bali. I like to think of this as Eat Pray Love: The Sequel.

If you’ve seen the trailer, you’ve pretty much seen the entire movie. Directed by Ol Parker (who co-wrote the screenplay with Daniel Pipski), this is a very standard romcom, with megastar wattage because Clooney and Roberts are, of course, utterly charming goofballs with great chemistry. But the plot is predictable, the dialogue is lazy, and you’ll get what you expected. Bali truly is a paradise and you’ll be jonesing for a vacation after you watch this film. So head on to the theater for some charm and good vibes, but don’t expect any surprises.

Rosaline: In this movie, we yet again find our girl Kaitlyn Dever in a romcom! Here she plays Rosaline, the girlfriend who was jilted by Romeo when he found Juliet instead. So what follows is a Romeo and Juliet behind-the-scenes spoof, where half the movie is just scenes from the play, but now with Rosaline rolling her eyes in the background or attempting to break this couple up so she can get back with Romeo.

It a a fun premise, directed by Karen Maine and adapted by Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber from the young adult novel, When You Were Mine, by Rebecca Serle. Dever is a charismatic presence who does well with what she’s given, and there’s a lot of entertaining supporting character work, including Minnie Driver as the Registered Nurse and Bradley Whitford as Rosaline’s supportive but hapless dad. Enjoy the cameos and Shakespearean production design, and the comic take on what is ordinarily a timeless tragedy. There's also a great soundtrack, very reminiscent of the Bridgerton method of injecting contemporary pop into period pieces. It's a good way to spend some hours on the couch - you could do a lot worse. Like Juliet did.