Sunday, June 29, 2025
June Movies Part 3: Karate Kid: Legends & F1
Friday, June 27, 2025
June Comedy Binges: Adults & #1 Happy Family USA
Need to delve into some comedy for a bit? Depending on whether you're interested in Gen Z or Muslim families, I've got you covered!
Adults: All the marketing basically posits that this is Friends for Gen Z. Which, fine? As a millennial, I have never felt more like a boomer than when watching this show and shaking my head at how incomprehensibly silly these twentysomethings seem to be. But as with all comedies, the show managed to win me over by Episode 3. There was a line of dialogue that struck me as being so brilliant and hilarious, that I instantly knew the show had found its groove. And once you love the writing on a comedy, you can forgive any number of flaws.
Created by Rebecca Shaw and Ben Kronengold, the show follows a group of five friends (played by Malik Elassal, Lucy Freyer, Jack Innanen, Amita Rao, and Owen Thiele) who live in Queens (very exciting for me, as I also live in Queens, though it was quickly apparent that this show was shot in Toronto, because the subways looked different, booooo). They all live in Samir's (Elassal) childhood home while his parents are off traveling, which is convenient as none of them seem to have jobs that would enable them to really live in NYC otherwise, except for Billie (Freyer) who loses said job pretty quickly. Over the course of eight episodes, the series follows the usual story arcs - there are work anxieties, sexual anxieties, romantic anxieties, and just the general anxiety of being a Gen Zer. The overall impression you get is that being a twentysomething is always the same, where you're perpetually struggling with your career or your love life, and the only thing that makes this Gen Z is that everyone's a little bit queer and everyone's deeply unprofessional. Give this show a chance - I was all set to cross my arms and declare that I was too old for this show, but it really won me over in the end.
#1 Happy Family USA: Well, we're back to having another war in the Middle East, so I guess watching this show would be pretty timely? Created by Pam Brady and Ramy Youseff, who also voices the main character, this is an adult animated show about a 12-year-old Egyptian boy named Rumi Hussein who lives in New Jersey with his parents and older sister, Mona. The show begins on September 10, 2001, and we get a glimpse into Rumi's life and ordinary teenage struggles with school and family life. Adolescence is painful enough, but then, September 11 happens. And now Rumi's life is upended by the fact that he is a Muslim teenage boy.
The show is very funny but also very astute. In particular, I love how it deals with the ways in which Rumi's parents deal with the aftermath of 9/11. His mother decides she wants to don the hijab and embrace her religion and Muslim community, while his father is desperate to prove that he loves America...to the point of going on Fox News to prove he's "one of the good ones." If that made you groan and then chuckle, welcome to the vibe of this entire show. It's incisive and wonderful, a dark comedy about one of the most painful moments in America's history and the immigrants who suffered because of it. Which sadly is all too relevant today.
Sunday, June 22, 2025
June Movies Part 2: Materialists and Lilo & Stich
Do you want a family-friendly live-action remake of a classic animated movie? Or a grown-up romcom about the perils of dating in the big city and having to choose between money or love? If the answer is both, keep reading!
Materialists: Writer-director Celine Song is back with another love triangle, this time between Lucy (Dakota Johnson), a matchmaker in New York City, her ex-boyfriend, John (Chris Evans), a struggling actor/cater-waiter still waiting for his big break in his late thirties, and Harry (Pedro Pascal), a handsome, rich man who meets Lucy at his brother's wedding, which Lucy is responsible for as she was his brother's matchmaker. Talk about a meet cute.
Lucy and John broke up years ago because they were always broke and fighting about money. So naturally Lucy is intrigued by Harry, a man who seems to be a "unicorn" in the NYC dating world and has everything she thought she wanted in a partner. But as the movie progresses, it's clear that while financially, Harry may have everything to offer, emotionally, John is the person she turns to. Who will she choose in the end?! That's for you to watch and discover.
While Song's previous film, Past Lives, was my #1 movie of 2023, this movie is not as polished and the story beats and dialogue oftentimes have a feeling of black box theater. I love this cast, I obviously love anything set in NYC, and the score by Daniel Pemberton is lovely. But this screenplay is throwing too much at the wall and nothing quite sticks. You'll probably learn a lot about yourself in terms of your reaction to Lucy's final choice of partner, so that's a fun introspective exercise. But there's a side-plot involving one of Lucy's clients that a lot of people are up in arms about because it comes out of nowhere and then is dealt with in a rather messy fashion that leaves a bad taste in your mouth. Ultimately, I enjoyed this movie as a parable about the horrors of dating in NYC in your thirties - there are some great montages when Lucy is interviewing her clients and cataloguing their increasingly insane demands. All of that stuff makes for great comedy, but ultimately, I was not sold on the romance.
Lilo & Stitch: My husband loves the original 2002 animated film, and we even went to Kauai for our honeymoon and took a picture next to the Lilo & Stitch mural in Hanapepe. If you're that kind of fan, this movie will certainly delight you. As a more ambivalent fan, I still found reasons to enjoy this movie, particularly the excellent choices made by the casting director.
Maia Kealoha, who plays Lilo, a young Hawaiian girl who finds the alien Stitch and adopts him as her dog, is deliciously charming, though over the course of two hours, hearing her scream out loud did remind me of why I don't want to have children. And Sydney Elizebeth Agudong, who plays Lilo's older sister and guardian Nani, who is struggling to take care of the bills and provide for her sister after the untimely death of their parents, is simply wonderful, a stoic, loving presence in the face of much insanity. But my favorite casting choice was Zach Galifianakis and Billy Magnussen as the two aliens sent to Earth to capture Stitch. Magnussen in particular is always excellent at goofy physical comedy and I couldn't help but grin every time he was on screen.
Of course, one is always forced to ask when reviewing a live-action remake, does this movie need to exist? My answer is mostly, no. But there are a few intriguing deviations from the original script, and again, this cast is so charming that they make it worth it your while. Despite the title of this film, the only character I truly empathize with in this story is Nani, a woman who is trying so hard to be a responsible and good person but keeps getting thwarted by her sister and her "dog." So, I was glad to see how this film dealt with her character and ultimately let her be the hero of the story. Justice for Nani!
Sunday, June 15, 2025
June Movies Part 1: On Becoming a Guinea Fowl, The Phoenician Scheme, The Penguin Lessons, Mountainhead
Saturday, May 31, 2025
May Binges Part 2: The Studio, The Royals, Etoile, Your Friends & Neighbors
Are you back for more binges? I've got plenty of recommendations, let's go!
The Studio: Every week, I would desperately await the next installment of this show, and every week, it never disappointed. Created by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, this is a show about what happens when Matt Remick (Rogen) becomes the head of a major film studio in LA and had to now start making uncomfortable decisions between making the artistic cinema that he loves or a big commercial blockbuster about the Kool-Aid Man. Hey, no one said capitalism was easy.
Every episode is a standout in its own unique way, and each one features a murderer's row of cameos. Martin Scorsese shows up in the first episode and gets to do some acting; it's kind of amazing. My personal favorite is probably Episode 2 which is entirely filmed like a one-shot and is about how Sarah Polley is trying to film a one-shot for a movie that Matt keeps interrupting, and it's all so meta and silly and glorious. This is a marvelous show for people who love movies but also love to mock studio executives. The cast is incredible, featuring powerhouse performances from Kathryn Hahn, Catherine O'Hara, Ike Barinholtz, and Chase Sui Wonders, and now you can just binge it all in one big gulp. How lucky are you?!
The Royals: Created by Rangita and Ishita Pritish Nandy, this show is a Bollywood extravaganza that is way too over-the-top and inane. I ate it up with a big ol' spoon.
Ishaan Khatter stars as Aviraj "Fizzy" Singh, a young prince who has been modelling and avoiding his family in India, but has to return when his father dies, only to discover that he has been named his father's heir instead of his older brother, "Diggy" (Vihaan Samat). Turns out the estate is massively in debt, so the family decides to strike a deal with a company that wants to turn their palace into a hotel where ordinary folks get to live alongside the royal family and get a taste of that royal life. The company's CEO is a feisty and ambitious woman named Sophia Kanmani Shekhar (Bhumi Pednekar) and of course, she and Fizzy butt heads and hate each other at first, only to end up in a tempestuous romance after. As you can well imagine, there are lots of side plots and complications. and all of it is a soapy, dramatic, silly, spectacular delight. Set in Rajasthan, the production design is elaborate and gorgeous, and the actors are fully committed to the silliness, so what more could you ask for? It's not high art, but it is total entertainment.
Etoile: If high art is what you seek, Daniel and Amy Sherman-Palladino have you covered with this show. The premise is that two struggling ballet companies in New York and Paris decide to swap some of their dancers and staff for a year as a stunt to boost ticket sales and generate some buzz. Luke Kirby plays Jack McMillan, who runs the New York Metropolitan Ballet Theater, while Charlotte Gainsbourg play Genevieve Lavigne, the artistic director of Le Ballet National. Lou de Laage also stars as Cheyenne, the etoile, aka prima ballerina of Le Ballet National, who Jack snags for New York. She is highly temperamental and opinionated, but the pain of dealing with her volatile personality is worth it when you watch her perform on stage.
There are many side characters, romantic entanglements, complications, and digressions about art. All accompanied with that trademark Sherman-Palladino dialogue that we know well from Gilmore Girls, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, etc. I have been to the ballet at Lincoln Center many times so it's also wonderful to get a peek behind-the-scenes, with many of the actual dancers from the New York City Ballet being featured throughout this show. The production design is impeccable, the acting is off the charts, and the choreography is sublime. I absolutely luxuriated in all eight episodes of this show, and the second season cannot come soon enough.
Your Friends & Neighbors: Created by Jonathan Tropper, this show stars Jon Hamm as Andrew "Coop" Cooper, a man whose life is falling apart in every possible way. He got divorced after he found his wife sleeping with his best friend, and then he subsequently got fired from his high-powered hedge fund job. He and his family were accustomed to a certain lifestyle, and Coop is now scrambling to keep up with the payments for all the bougie things that have becomes necessities, like private school, tennis lessons, and country club memberships. One day, he realizes that because he and his friends all live in a gated community, everyone is very lax about security, and he could probably make a lot of money if he selectively stole from his friends. These people just stash priceless heirlooms in random drawers and forget about them, so no one will even realize they've been robbed. What could possibly go wrong?
Well, you guessed it, a lot goes wrong. Ultimately, this is a show about how money can't buy happiness, and the many ways in which people who try to keep up with Jones's will remain in a never-ending spiral of debt and unhappiness. Coop partners with a local housekeeper, Elena (Aimee Carrero), and the episodes where we get to learn more about her life and the stark contrast it makes to that of her employers are always great to ground this show and make it clear who the real villains are. The cast, featuring stalwarts like Amanda Peet and Olivia Munn, is fantastic, and the overall plot is compelling and kept me invested through all nine episodes. It was well-paced for a weekly offering, but might be too bloated for a binge, so I do recommend you savor this one over a period of time, doling it out to yourself like a little treat when you need a dash of mystery and intrigue. Or just want to mock some rich people.
Thursday, May 29, 2025
May Movies Part 3: The Wedding Banquet & A Nice Indian Boy
Want a great way to either celebrate the end of AAPI Month or the beginning of Pride Month? Watch two cute movies about queer Asians getting married!
The Wedding Banquet: Written by James Schamus and Andrew Ahn (who also directed), based on the 1993 Ang Lee movie of the same name, this is a movie about two gay couples who are close friends and are about to become a lot closer. Lee and Angela (Lily Gladstone and Kelly Marie Tran) are trying to have a baby via IVF and facing biological and financial challenges. Meanwhile, Chris and Min (Bowen Yang and Han Gi-chan) have been together for years but still haven't made a solid commitment. Min is from a rich, traditional Korean family, and while he has been in the US all this time on a student visa, it's about to expire, so his conservative grandfather is threatening to cut him off from his trust fund unless he joins the family business. Min initially proposes to Chris, but for reasons, everyone decides it would be a better idea for him to marry Angela instead. It's convoluted, but it all makes sense. Kinda.
Youn Yuh-jung plays Min's grandmother and delivers a standout performance as an older Korean woman who has always known her grandson is gay and will now try to help him out of his predicament. A lot of hijinks and misunderstandings ensue, but you can rest assured that at the end of the day, this is a sweet tale about found family and how queer friends can come together to support each other. It's a charming movie with a great cast, and while it's fairly predictable, it's a nice, gentle watch, particularly if you have been watching nothing but gory action movies for the past month.
A Nice Indian Boy: Directed by Roshan Sethi and written by Eric Randall and Madhuri Shekar, who adapted it from Shekar's play, this is a cute little love story about what happens when a lonely Indian-American man named Naveen (Karan Soni) falls in love with a white man named Jay (Jonathan Groff) and has to introduce him to his parents. Jay was a foster kid who was adopted by an older Indian couple, so he is well-versed in Indian culture, but he is still white, which comes as a shock to Naveen's parents (played by the delightful Zarna Garg and Harish Patel), who were expecting Naveen to bring home "a nice Indian boy" after he told them that he met Jay at the Hindu temple. Oops.
There's not much plot here, but it's a heartfelt romance that delves into culture clashes, family dynamics, and Bollywood. It also astutely comments on the differences in Asian families between mothers and fathers - Naveen's dad is very uncomfortable discussing his son's sexuality, while his mom watches queer shows on TV in an effort to keep up with her son's life. I was surprised that Naveen was even out to his parents to begin with, but it's a half-hearted coming out, where he just told them he was gay, and then never discussed his life with them after that. That really tracks for most immigrant children. There's also a great parallel with his sister Arundhati (the lovely Sunita Mani), who was a good Indian daughter who had an arranged marriage and is now annoyed at all the acceptance and leeway her brother is getting from their parents. This movie is nothing revolutionary, but it will certainly bring a smile to your face, and sometimes, that's all you need.
Sunday, May 25, 2025
May Movies Part 2: Fight or Flight, Final Destination Bloodlines, Novocaine, The Ballad of Wallis Island, Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning
I've had a very busy few weeks at the movie theater as well as catching up on streaming, so if you need suggestions for Memorial Day viewing, here are my thoughts on some action films, a very gory horror comedy, and a gentle British musical movie. There's something for everyone!
Fight or Flight: Written by Brooks McLaren and D.J. Cotrona and directed by James Madigan, Josh Hartnett stars as Lucas Reyes, a disgraced Secret Service agent who has been disavowed by the US government and stranded in Bangkok for several years. However, he then gets a call from his ex-girlfriend and former partner, Katherine (Katee Sackhoff), who needs his help on an urgent mission. She needs Lucas to get on a plane flying to San Francisco and find out who on board is the Ghost, an elite hacker who has been responsible for numerous cyberattacks around the world and has evaded capture at every turn. No one has any information on who the Ghost is or what they look like, so this is already going to be a very difficult mission. However, once Lucas boards the flight, he also learns that a slew of assassins are also passengers. They are all determined to kill the Ghost and reap the many bounties that have been offered on this kill. So, Lucas not only has to find the Ghost, but also protect them from a plane full of deadly killers.
It's a bonkers plot executed to bonkers perfection. The identity of the Ghost was truly a surprise to me, and what followed was a very hilarious bloody action film, where more and more people were creatively killed on a plane. If that sounds like the kind of thing you would enjoy, go forth. It's good, mindless, long weekend fun.
Final Destination Bloodlines: I have never seen any of the Final Destination movies, but this one was certainly a great introduction to the franchise. Written by Guy Busick and Lori Evans Taylor and directed by Zach Lipovsky and Adam Stein, the film stars Kaitlyn Santa Juana as Stefani Reyes, a young woman who keeps having a recurring nightmare about her grandmother, Iris, in 1968, going through a deadly experience in a restaurant where everyone keeps getting killed in increasingly elaborate ways. Stefani decides to find Iris and ask her what this dream might mean. Well, turns out that dream is actually identical to a premonition Iris had when she was a young woman at that restaurant, and because she warned everyone about what she had seen, she saved them all from a certain death. Except, you can never evade Death. Over time, she realized that everyone who didn't die at the restaurant was getting killed, in the order in which they died in her premonition, and she subsequently became a recluse, trying to evade death at every turn.
Well, spoiler alert, Iris dies after meeting Stefani, and now Stefani realizes that everyone in her family is going to die in hereditary order, because they were all never supposed to be alive in the first place. What follows is a series of deaths via intricate Rube Goldberg-like chain reactions of events, which are insanely gruesome, but utterly comical. Your eyes will be wide open trying to figure out how each person is about to get killed, and let me tell you, these deaths are so convoluted that you will never see it coming. It's a silly, laugh out loud reminder that yes, Death comes for us all.
Novocaine: If you need even more blood and gore, perhaps you will enjoy this bizarre little tale written by Lars Jacobson and directed by Dan Berk and Robert Olsen. Jack Quaid stars as Nathan, a man who has an extremely rare (but real!) genetic disorder that means he cannot feel any pain. While this may sound like a good thing, it's extremely dangerous, because pain is a vital biological response that protects us every day. As an example, Nathan needs to set an alarm to remind him to pee every few hours, else his bladder might explode.
One day, some robbers burst into the bank where he works, steal a bunch of money, and kidnap Sherry (Amber Midthunder), the girl that he really likes. The police are delayed, and Nathan decides he needs to singlehandedly chase down these men and rescue Sherry. What follows is an extremely violent but funny action caper, where Nathan's body is battered and bruised in a myriad ways that he cannot feel. There's a lot of body horror here, so you're not gonna be able to stand this movie if you're squeamish, but much like Final Destination Bloodlines, all of this is played for laughs rather than horror. This movie should have been edited down to a tight 90 minutes, but Quaid is a charismatic lead (playing a role that is the polar opposite of his character in Companion), so this is a very entertaining way to spend an afternoon. As long as you don't mind a LOT of torture.
The Ballad of Wallis Island: Don't want any action at all? Then how about this quiet British comedy written by Tim Key and Tom Basden and directed by James Griffiths. Key stars as Charles, a man who won the lottery twice and lives on remote Wallis Island. His wife is now deceased, but when she was alive, the two of them were big fans of a folk duo called McGwyer Mortimer. So, Charles decides to invite Herb McGwyer (Basden) and Nell Mortimer (Carrie Mulligan) to the island for a private concert. Except the duo split up ages ago after a romantic breakup, and Herb has no idea Nell was invited.
This movie is heavy on the vibes, with gorgeous shots of this craggy, wild island and lots of melancholy and beautiful folk music. None of the story beats will strike you as particularly surprising or innovative, but Charles is quite funny as a hapless man who is just trying to get his favorite band back together, while Herb is grumpy and angsty, and Nell is just trying to make some money and sing some beautiful harmonies. It's a somewhat forgettable film, but it's quite pretty and poetic while you're watching it, and sometimes that's all you really need to be content.
Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning: If you want to celebrate Memorial Day like a true American, then head over to the theater for the latest Tom Cruise blockbuster. The final film in this franchise is here at last, written by Erik Jendresen and Christopher McQuarrie, who also directed. While I absolutely loved Dead Reckoning last year, this film needed some sharper editing and a lot more humor. The first hour was interminable, with a lot of talking and scene-setting and discursions on the AI known as The Entity, that is the main villain of the piece. The only reason I come to a Mission: Impossible movie is for the action set pieces, so I was terribly bored in the beginning.
Thankfully, the second half kicks into high gear, and we get all the trademark Cruise insanity. The stunt work is off the charts, with all manner of shenanigans on land, underwater, and up in the air. The plan is terribly elaborate, with multiple moving parts where every member of the team gets to contribute in some fashion to Ethan Hunt's hare-brained scheme, and they pull it all off with aplomb. Despite the shaky start, the film is ultimately quite satisfying, but it also makes it clear that it is time for this franchise to end. There are plenty of montages of events from the prior films, and nothing could serve as a starker reminder that while Cruise might be a perfect physical specimen, he really is getting too old for this shit. The man needs to quit while he's ahead, and this film is a perfect swan song.
Saturday, May 17, 2025
May Binges Part 1: North of North, The Four Seasons, Conan O'Brien Must Go
There has been a staggering amount of new TV on streaming services lately, and I've been making my way through them all, alongside catching up on the many returning seasons of my favorite shows. Phew. It's been an onslaught of TV, but it's all so good, so dive in with me!
North of North: This is probably the buzziest show this year - everyone I have recommended it to says, "Oh yeah, I've heard of that!" But I'm here to convince you that you need to go ahead and watch it. Created by Stacey Aglok MacDonald and Alathea Arnaquq-Baril, this Canadian show stars Anna Lambe as Siaja, a young Inuk woman who lives in the fictional Arctic town of Ice Cove, in Nunavut. It may be one of the coldest places on earth, but this sweet sitcom will make your heart go warm and fuzzy. And with only eight half-hour episodes in the first season, you'll binge it all in one glorious afternoon.
The show opens with Siaja realizing that maybe she got married and had a child way too young and needs to find a new identity for herself. She gets a new job with the town manager, Helen (Mary Lynn Rajskub), who is a well-meaning white lady who neds more help providing valuable services to the local Indigenous population. Over the course of eight episodes, we also reckon with Siaja's relationship with her mother, Neevee (Maika Harper), who raised her as a single mom, and has a lot of baggage of her own. I won't spoil any further details, but let's just say Siaja meets a lot of interesting new people, while learning lessons from all the regular folk around the town, and while a lot of the subject matter is deep and painful, everything is told with a light, comic touch that makes this story sing. The beats may seem familiar, but the setting and the people represented on this show are unlike anything you've seen before. Get ready to spend an absolutely delightful time in Ice Cove.
The Four Seasons: This miniseries is based on a 1981 movie written and directed by (and also starring!) Alan Alda. As a huge Alda fan, I had already watched this movie many years ago, and had no idea Tina Fey, Lang Fisher, and Tracey Wigfield had turned it into a miniseries until my friend Laura told me about it. I figured I would check it out and then promptly binged all eight episodes in one go. Damn does this show go down easy.
The premise is simple: there are three couples who are great friends and like to go on vacation with each other four times a year, in every season. However, one year, when one of the couples goes through a divorce, this causes some significant turmoil in the subsequent vacations, as you can imagine. The show is sharply written, with each season being covered in two episodes, with a massive cliffhanger in the middle that will make it impossible to not keep watching. And the couples are played by Tina Fey and Will Forte, Steve Carell and Kerri Kenney-Silver, and Colman Domingo and Marco Calvani. That cast is just excellent, and they play off of each other beautifully, fully capturing the little foibles and annoyances between longstanding friends and their partners and their shared history over the years. It is an extremely funny show, but it can also be extremely incisive and real and sad. There is no Netflix bloat and each episode is a perfect little morsel that tells the right amount of story, develops these characters, and quits while it's ahead. I heaved a great big happy contented sigh when I finished watching, and I'm certain that you will too.
Conan O'Brian Must Go: I have always been a big Conan fan and particularly loved his travel show on TBS, Conan Without Borders. So, I was delighted when (HBO) Max decided to throw some money at him to fund this new travel show. Currently in its second season, the show features Conan visiting a new country each episode to meet fans who called into his podcast, explore the local culture, and get up to many silly shenanigans in typical Conan fashion.
Those shenanigans are obviously not to everyone's taste (certainly not my husband's, who refuses to watch this show with me!) so I understand that your mileage may vary. But man, I'm just captivated. There are only three episodes this season, so I've watched him ravage Madrid with Javier Bardem, and do the haka with Taika Waititi in New Zealand. But if you've never seen the show, you can explore the entire back catalogue (Max also will let you watch Conan Without Borders) and indulge in some absolute silliness. Conan's fans are often as weird as he is, so they can do some pretty ridiculous things when he's in town, but there are also often moments of real wonder, punctuated by Conan's deep love of world history. There was a particularly powerful episode in 2019 when he visited Ghana with Sam Richardson, but then there are also hilarious episodes in Japan or Korea when he is faced with a completely unique culture and will not be able to fit in as a 6' 4" gangly Irishman. It's the perfect show for those days when you just want to travel away to far-off climes from the comfort of your couch and chuckle.
Sunday, May 4, 2025
May Movies Part 1: Thunderbolts*, Another Simple Favor, All We Imagine as Light
It's only the first week of May but I've already enjoyed three movies in the theater and on streaming. Whether you're into anti-superheroes, foreign film, or wacky thrillers, one of these films is bound to whet your cinematic appetite.
Thunderbolts*: Marvel is back, baby! After a recent series of lackluster films, I left this movie with a decided spring in my step. Written by Joanna Calo and Eric Pearson and directed by Jake Schreier, this outing gathers up a ragtag crew of burnouts that you may or may not remember from prior movies and assembles them into a motley crew that will eventually call themselves the Thunderbolts. And yes, there's an asterisk on the title for a reason, that you'll get to at the very end of the movie, though it's certainly not a major spoiler.Florence Pugh, David Harbour, Wyatt Russell, Hannah John-Kamen, and Sebastian Stan are all excellent as they play somewhat existential superpeople trying to figure out what their next steps should be. They are reluctantly united when they have to deal with Bob (Lewis Pullman), a dangerously unstable man who underwent an experimental trial to become invincible and is now (unsurprisingly) causing some major problems. The best part of this movie is that while Bob is purportedly the "villain" of the piece, this is actually a movie about mental health and tackling depression and trauma, topics that are the especial forte of these particular superheroes. There are some great set pieces, including a return to New York that reminded of the first time I watched The Avengers with awestruck glee in 2012, and foolishly declared that no one even needs to make a superhero movie again because we had reached the pinnacle. Marvel has gone through a lot since then, and while this movie is now treading through well-worn grooves that are no longer so novel as they once were, this is a well-crafted and fun film that genuinely tugs at your heartstrings and perfectly sticks the landing. This is the Marvel we all love, and this movie represents an excellent return to form before we launch into the millionth phase of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Another Simple Favor: Written by Jessica Sharzer and Laeta Kalogridis and directed by Paul Feig, this is a sequel to A Simple Favor, a movie I loved in 2018 but no longer remembered anything about. So, after doing a quick readthrough of the plot in Wikipedia (which was not so quick because, damn, that plot was twisty and insane), I pushed Play and settled in for a truly wacky sequel.
Anna Kendrick and Blake Lively are both back as Stephanie and Emily, women who started out as best friends in the last film and then quickly had a bit of a falling out after Emily turned out to be a murderer. Oops. Now, Stephanie has written a book about all the drama that went down in the first movie and has moved on with her life, but then Emily shows up on bail from prison and asks Stephanie to be her maid of honor since she's getting married to a wealthy Italian. So, we all whisk off to Capri, where, of course, some murders happen, and Stephanie has to figure out what on earth has gone down again. The costumes are simply stunning, the scenery in Capri is gorgeous, and the script is ridiculous and will make you roll your eyes so hard they might fall out. But listen, this movie is only on streaming, so just sit back on the couch, relax, and gaze at all the beauty on the screen while sparing your brain from the actual plot. There are worse ways to spend a weekend!
All We Imagine as Light: Written and directed by Payal Kapadia, this movie won the Grand Prix at Cannes last year and I was devastated when I couldn't figure out how to catch it in the theatres. Thankfully it's now available on streaming, and I ate it up with a big ol' spoon, like I knew I would. Set in Mumbai, this movie follows two Malayalee nurses, Prabha and Anu (the remarkable Kani Kusruti and Divya Prabha). They are roommates who work at the same hospital, but Prabha is older and wiser, while Anu is more of a starry-eyed youngster who hasn't had the hope knocked out of her yet. Over the course of the film, we follow these two women's love lives, or lack thereof, as well as their friendships and adventures in this bustling and bewildering city.
This is not a Bollywood movie - nothing is glamorous about their lives, and throughout the film, we get multilingual voiceovers from the ordinary working-class people who make up the bulk of this city, all struggling to make a living and who talk about Mumbai like it's a fantasy. This is a city of dreams - people come here in the hopes of making some money to send back to family members in rural villages, and to make a better life for themselves. But so many of them are reduced to just anonymous, miserable lives, and even after decades of living here, they are chewed up and spit out without a care in the world. In the midst of all that, it's a wonder to watch how Prabha and Anu navigate their lives, and the final shot of this movie, which tellingly does NOT take place in Mumbai, is truly one of the most beguiling and beautiful scenes portrayed on cinema. This is not the kind of Indian movie I'm used to seeing, but it reminded me a lot of Dhobi Ghat, another Mumbai-centric movie I adore. Movies about the "ordinary" people of Mumbai always end up being the most extraordinary, and this film is a true masterpiece.
Tuesday, April 29, 2025
April Binges: Dying for Sex & Dope Thief
If you're looking to settle in on the couch for a spell, I have two very different shows you could watch. A comedy about sex and death or a drama about drugs and corruption. Pick your poison.
Dying for Sex: Created by Kim Rosenstock and Elizabeth Merriwether, this show is loosely based on the podcast of the same name by Molly Kochan and Nikki Boyer, who here are played by Michelle Williams and Jenny Slate. The show kicks off when Molly receives her terminal diagnosis of Stage 4 breast cancer that has metastasized to her bones. Faced with this knowledge and the realization that she has never had an orgasm, she decides to leave her husband, Steve (Jay Duplass), and finally explore her sexuality. Which is complicated, for many reasons, as you can imagine.
While this is a show about a woman who is trying to live out some sexual fantasies, that plot is entirely secondary to the true story here, which is that of the depth of her friendship with Nikki. Molly is dying, and rather than relying on a husband or romantic partner, the person who she is depending on in her final days is her best friend. I was entirely ambivalent about the sexcapades on this show (though the introduction of Rob Delaney as Molly's neighbor and potentially something more thrilled me to no end), but what will truly make you weep is the relationship between these two women and the deep familial bond they share.
This is just a miniseries, because, spoiler alert, Molly will in fact die at the end of the eight episodes. But you will go on a stunningly moving journey that is equally funny as it is sad and embraces a very positive and wholesome view of death that more Americans need to consider. The final episode involves a character played by the magnificent Paula Pell, who is absolutely the person I want at my deathbed, explaining why death is a normal, natural bodily process, all with a big, excited smile on her face. I'm sure most people will avoid this show like the plague because of their own neuroses about the subject matter, but for those of you brave enough to wade into these waters, I promise you will be amply rewarded.
Dope Thief: Created by Peter Craig, based on the novel by Dennis Tafoya, this show stars Bryan Tyree Henry and Wagner Moura as Ray and Manny, two small-time crooks in Philadelphia who have hit upon the brilliant scheme of dressing up as DEA agents and breaking into the houses of drug dealers, pretending it's a raid. Once there, they "confiscate" all the drugs and money, which of course makes for a nice haul for them. But things quickly go south when they decide to raid a meth house that undercover DEA agents were already working in. People are killed, a lot of money goes missing, and now Ray and Manny must go on the run.
That premise sounds exciting, and the cast is excellent, but I could NOT get into this show at all. I begrudgingly binged my way through all eight episodes, sort of hoping that maybe something would happen that would hook me, but that moment of revelation never came. This is a dark, gritty, serious affair, occasionally lightened up with the Henry's deadpan comic timing or Moura's frantic confusion, but this felt like the kind of involved plot about drugs, prisons, and vengeance that makes for a fantastic read, but a thoroughly dull TV show. If each episode was a tight half hour, maybe I would have resented it less, but I got really tired of sitting down for 45 minutes to an hour each week. Perhaps others who love crime shows would enjoy it, but this show was emphatically not made for me. It easily slots into the category of Apple TV+ shows that have great actors, high budgets, and are thoroughly forgettable. You are welcome to convince me otherwise, but for now, I am not planning on tuning into Season 2; I have suffered enough.
Sunday, April 27, 2025
April Movies Part 2: Sinners
Sunday, April 20, 2025
April Movies Part 1: Snow White, Warfare, The Amateur, Drop
Sunday, March 30, 2025
March Movies Part 2: Flow & Black Bag
I got sidetracked by TV and haven't watched many movies this month, but here are two good recommendations to tide you over till the end of the month. Whether you're looking for Oscar-winning animation or a slick and stylish spy thriller, there's something here for everyone.
Flow: This is the Oscar-winning animated movie from Latvia, the first movie from that country to win an Oscar. Even better, it was made using completely free open source software for a ridiculously low budget, and still managed to beat out top animation studios like Pixar and DreamWorks. Isn't that backstory enough to make you a fan?Directed by Gints Zilbadolis, who also co-wrote the script with Matiss Kaza, this movie follows a little cat who is trying to make its way through a seemingly post-apocalyptic world where a flood keeps threatening the land. In a desperate attempt to escape the rising sea level, the cat manages to hop aboard a sailboat that has been boarded by a capybara. Along the way, they pick up a secretary bird and a lemur. There are also some very dumb dogs that show up and cause some complications.
This movie might be Latvian, but it has entirely no dialogue, just the universal language of these animals trying to work together in their very unique ways to survive the flood, get some food, and get on with their lives. The animation can feel like it was done for free at times, but mostly it feels quite astonishing and clever, perfectly capturing how these animals move and act, particularly the differences between cats and dogs. It beautifully depicts the natural world and is a simple story, magically told.
Black Bag: There's nothing simple about this story. Written by David Koepp and directed by Steven Soderbergh, this is a movie about a married spy couple, George and Kathryn (played by the impeccably cool combination of Michael Fassbender and Cate Blanchett), who work for MI6 in London. George is tasked with conducting an internal investigation when a top-secret software program goes missing and MI6 suspects they have a mole. There are five suspects, one of whom is...Kathryn. So, George invites the other four to dinner and has the world's most awkward dinner party. Following which, more things start to unravel.
Wednesday, March 26, 2025
March Binges Part 2: Deli Boys, The Pitt, Apple Cider Vinegar, The Residence
Tuesday, March 18, 2025
March Movies Part 1: Mickey 17 & The Monkey
Headed to the theater? Well, I've already been and here are some thoughts on what's out right now.
Mickey 17: Written and directed by Bong Joon Ho, this is the story of what happens when an Expendable named Mickey becomes a Multiple. OK, hold on, I'll have to explain some more, won't I? This movie is set in the future where various groups of humans are striving to colonize other planets. Mickey (Robert Pattinson) is a man who is fleeing all his debt collectors on Earth, so he agrees to sign up for a mission to the planet Niflheim as an Expendable. Humans have developed the technology to print out clones that can contain the memories of the original, so as an Expendable, Mickey is basically a human lab rat who tests out various hostile environments or substances to see how a human would die, and then he gets re-printed out the next day as a new version of himself who still remembers everything that happened to him. As you can imagine, there are many dubious ethical and moral implications to this, and all of that comes to a head when his overlords accidentally print out the 18th version of him, assuming that Mickey 17 died. Only, of course, Mickey 17 is still alive, and now he and Mickey 18 must figure out how they both co-exist as Multiples.
Everything that I've explained is contained in the 2-minute trailer for this movie, which I watched a dozen times while at the movies last year. In the movie, however, all of that backstory takes up almost the entire first half, which is why I accidentally fell asleep for a lot of it. Oops. So, I'm here to tell you that this movie wasn't quite my cup of tea. It's an intriguing premise, but the execution fell flat for me. Pattinson is doing a good job, but the comic tone of the film was often histrionic and too over-the-top for me. Particularly when we get to Mark Ruffalo and Toni Collete as the villains of the piece who are just being way too zany for my liking. I don't think this movie quite nailed its tone, and while it had a solid philosophical quandary at its center, it resolved that quandary in a way that felt a bit too pat and Hollywood. I'm sure there are a lot of people who might get a lot out of this movie. But I was not one of them.
The Monkey: Written and directed by Osgood Perkins, this movie is a very funny horror movie about a cursed toy monkey and the twin boys who unfortunately become enmeshed in its bloody vendetta. Theo James plays identical twin brothers Hal and Bill (Christian Convery plays them as young boys), who have a rather difficult relationship, with Bill constantly bullying Hal. But then the brothers find a creepy monkey toy in their closet, and every time they turn the key in its back, some random person in the vicinity dies a gruesome death. They try to get rid of the monkey after it kills someone very important to them, but then we flash forward to 25 years later where Hal is now a loner who is too terrified of having close relationships lest the Monkey rear its ugly head. Which it does.
This movie is only 98 minutes long, so while it doesn't have much plot, you'll be perfectly entertained for the entire run time. It's based on a short story by Stephen King, and you can tell there isn't much story there to stretch out, but as we are subject to increasingly zany and bloody deaths, you can't help but chuckle and settle in for the ride. It's very silly, but very entertaining, and sometimes that's all you want for a quick diversion at the movies.
Wednesday, March 12, 2025
March Binges Part 1: The Agency, Paradise, Running Point
Now that the Oscars are over, do you need recommendations of some new shows to binge? Well don't fret, I've got you covered!
The Agency: Created by Jez and John-Henry Butterworth, the cast of this show is a veritable who's who of Hollywood, featuring folks like Michael Fassbender, Jodie Tuner-Smith, Jeffrey Wright, and Richard Gere. With the occasional cameo from other famous folk. Fassbender stars as Brandon Colby (though he usually is only referred to by his CIA code name of Martian). He was deep undercover in Africa for six years, but when he is suddenly recalled back to London Station, he has to abandon the woman he has fallen in love with, Dr. Samia Zahir (Turner-Smith). He becomes a senior case officer, dealing with various shenanigans involving a missing agent in Belarus and a new field officer who could be deployed to Iran. But when Samia shows up in London, Martian is desperate to somehow win this woman back, under the guise of his old cover. As you can imagine, trying to juggle his undercover love life with all of his important case work proves to be a challenging task. Particularly as Samia starts to get mixed up in something the CIA might want some intel on.
This show is twisty and complex and will always keep you on your toes. There are multiple threads and characters that don't always seem to be interrelated, and by the end of the ten episodes, you do get the sense that maybe what you've watched is a very long prologue to set up a more satisfying Season 2 climax. But it's well worth a watch if spy thrillers are your thing, and this cast is firing on all cylinders. John Magaro offers up a lot of comic relief as a junior case officer who always seems to be in over his head, while Jeffrey Wright and Richard Gere are fascinating as Martian's bosses who have to maneuver through all the bureaucracy of managing the CIA. Fassbender's accent is definitely questionable (I had to remind someone multiple times that he was meant to be American in this show), but overall, this is quite an indulgent, high-budget TV treat if you're looking forward to a long, riveting binge.
Paradise: For a truly riveting binge, however, might I introduce you to Paradise? Created by Dan Fogelman, this show stars Sterling K. Brown as Xavier Collins, the lead Secret Service agent on the President's detail. The President is Cal Bradford (James Marsden), and spoiler alert, he dies in the very first episode. What follows is a murder mystery, with plenty of flashbacks so we get to spend more time with Marsden. But, if that's not enough, there's a whole other twist to this show that is revealed at the very end of Episode 1. I absolutely refuse to spoil that, so you're going to have to watch to find out what the more mind-blowing aspect of this show is that makes every subsequent episode of its eight-episode run so fun to watch.
There are some great performances from Julianne Nicholson, Krys Marshall, and Sarah Shahi, but I won't get into any details about who they're playing as you need all of that to unfurl over time. Suffice to say, this show has a thoroughly engaging and intriguing premise that never gets stale, and with Sterling K. Brown at the helm, how could you possibly take your eyes off the screen? The production design is also spectacular, for reasons that will become apparent. This is a high-concept and highly entertaining show that I eagerly watched week to week, but now you can gobble up the first season in one fell swoop and wait with me desperately for the second.
Running Point: Speaking of gobbling up a season in one fell swoop, I devoured the ten episodes of this show over two days and it was utterly delicious. Created by Elaine Ko, Mindy Kaling, Ike Barinholtz, and David Stassen, this show stars Kate Hudson as Isla Gordon, a woman who unexpectedly becomes the CEO of the professional basketball team her family owns, the LA Waves, when her older brother (played by Justin Theroux!) has to step down to go to rehab. She has her other brothers Sandy and Ness (Drew Tarver and Scott MacArthur) beside her as the CFO and general manager, respectively, as well as her best friend and fiercely competent chief of staff, Ali Lee (Brenda Song). And she's engaged to a lovely man, played by Max Greenfield! I mean, the number of charming actors in this show just keeps growing and growing. If that's not enough, Chet Hanks plays one of the obnoxious basketball players on the team, and it is by far the most exquisite casting I could have ever imagined for that singular man.
This show is absolutely chock-full of plot and every single episode ends with an insane cliffhanger that is designed to have you hitting Play Next Episode on repeat. Isla's work life is an endless barrage, but there's also plenty of relationship drama to go around for everybody, and it's impossible to get bored for a second while you watch this engaging cast of characters play off of each other in increasingly wild and wonderful ways. It's like a big bag of candy that has something for everyone, and the impeccable costumes and production design certainly make it easy on the eyes as well. This is a gem of a comedy; the only thing wrong with it is that it's all over too soon and we now have to wait for Season 2. Alas.