July Movies Part 2: Kinds of Kindness, Twisters, Deadpool & Wolverine

It must be summer because I watched a movie about chasing tornadoes, a Marvel movie with two superheroes, and...a weird little Oscar contender from Yorgos Lanthimos. Let's get into it!

Kinds of Kindness: I think that I like director Yorgos Lanthimos's movies when he doesn't write the screenplay himself. But he definitely wrote this movie, and I don't know what to make of any of it. This film is an anthology of three different stories that star the same cast of actors, and each tale is weirder and gorier than the last. You've got Emma Stone, Margaret Qualley, Jesse Plemons, Willem Defoe, Hong Chau, Mamoudou Athie, and Joe Alwyn, rotating through a series of increasingly weird and outlandish characters, and if you came here looking for answers, I'm afraid I have none to give you.

There's a lot of body horror in all three stories, and a lot of heightened comedy that plunges into abject tragedy. You have a lot of characters who think they have their lives all figured out only to face crippling doubts and then face heinous consequences as they try to forge a new path for themselves. Everyone's flying too close to the sun, and everyone comes crashing down to earth, and at the end of the day, you'll walk out of the theater going, "Well, that was certainly an experience!" Your mileage may vary, but if you're looking for an absolutely bonkers night at the movies, this movie should be your top pick.

Twisters: If you're looking for an absolutely predictable and entertaining night at the movies, then this is the movie you go for. Written by Mark L. Smith and directed by Lee Isaac Chung, this film follows two teams of tornado chasers in Oklahoma who have different agendas but will ultimately have to team up if they want to save some desperate townsfolk from the ravages of climate change. There's riveting action, there's great visual effects, and there's Glen Powell walking through the rain in a white T-shirt. Check, check, and CHECK.

Daisy Edgar-Jones, Anthony Ramos, and Glen Powell play Kate, Javi, and Tyler, three separate storm chasers who are all operating under slightly different motivations. Kate and Javi go way back, and Kate has agreed to help him out for a week for a special project that she thinks could help people and Javi thinks will help him make money. Tyler is a YouTube star known as the "Tornado Wrangler," who likes to make theatrical videos of his storm chases, so obviously Kate thinks he's a moron. But if you've ever watched a movie or read a book before, you can imagine that their relationship is gonna take some...twists (sorry, I couldn't resist). This movie is a great popcorn flick, and it presumably has important things to say about the climate and taking care of our planet, but I don't live in tornado country, so I didn't really pay attention to that. I was more mesmerized by the white T-shirt in the rain.

Deadpool & Wolverine: Well, it's another Marvel movie. Directed by Shawn Levy, this film teams up the irreverent Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds) with the grumpy Wolverine (Hugh Jackson), who are up against an evil stooge from the Time Variance Authority (you may remember the TVA if you watched Loki, but otherwise...just go with it), played by Matthew Macfadyen, who is certainly delighting in being a Marvel villain. If one British villain wasn't enough, we also get Emma Corrin as a secondary baddie, and there is lots of action and adventure and R-rated hijinks.

At this point, I definitely have Marvel fatigue, so I'm not going to pretend this movie was a rollicking delight. It has an absolutely banging soundtrack, and it featured some incredible cameos that truly perked me up, including a shoutout to Wrexham that was very cheering. But I could not keep up any level of enthusiasm for the 2-hour runtime of this movie. The whole snarky Deadpool shtick was novel the first time but has worn out its welcome at this point. It's less funny than just very silly, and while it was clear to me that this movie is probably going to be an absolute riot and joy to the die-hard comic book fans, if you're a casual Marvel movie fan like me, you're probably not going to care that much. The music and cameos were my personal highlight, but that seems like a bit of a waste for a movie that was supposed to make me excited about Deadpool and Wolverine instead.

International Binges: Panchayat & Queenie

Are you looking to diversify your TV viewing by watching something a little less American? I recently binged my way through one British show and one Indian show and can highly recommend both depending on whether you're looking for drama, comedy, or a little bit of both.

Queenie: Created by Candice Carty-Williams, based on her novel of the same name, this is a glorious series about Queenie Jenkins (played by the incredible Dionne Brown), a young British-Jamaican woman in London who is currently going through the most hellacious few months of her life. There is no confirmation that the show will be back for a second season, so instead, sit back and let this series of eight perfect episodes wash over you. 

Queenie is a Black woman in London and she doesn't want to see her mother even though she does spend time with her aunt and grandmother. She has a white boyfriend (though that relationship is on the rocks as the series starts), and an incredible group of girlfriends that she enlists for support, mostly via a group chat, when she makes terrible decisions and needs some advice. Which is something that happens ALL THE TIME over the course of these eight episodes.

This is a classic story of a twentysomething grappling with some intense personal trauma whilst also suffering from a quarter-life crisis. She is trying to establish her identity, figure out how many microaggressions she is willing to put up with, and what are the boundaries she needs, without making the mistake of shutting out absolutely everyone in her life. Like all great characters, Queenie is such a unique individual, but her story is universally relatable - we all have those difficult relationships or moments when we just snowball from one terrible choice to another, and it's wondrous to watch this brave woman bare her soul and try to clamber out from underneath the weight of the world. The supporting cast are all incredible, but mostly, you'll just be mesmerized by this central performance from Dionne Brown and root for Queenie to find a way forward with every fiber of your being.

Panchayat: This show is like watching Parks & Recreation but set in a rural Indian village in Uttar Pradesh named Phulera, where a hapless young man named Abhishek Tripathi (Jitendra Kumar) has joined to be the secretary of the panchayat (the village council that serves as the local self-government). He has had to take this job because he didn't do well in his engineering exams, but now he is hoping to leverage this experience to get into a more prestigious master's program and get the hell out of this village.

The first season of this show is definitely the best. We are introduced to the motley cast of characters that make up the panchayat, led by the Pradhan (aka leader), Brij Bhushan Dubey (Raghubir Yadav), who is technically acting on behalf of his wife, Manju Devi (the glorious Neena Gupta), who was elected to the position so that they could say a woman was in charge to meet diversity quotas. The show is a pitch-perfect expose of the pettiness and silliness of local government, but while the characters initially seem extremely incompetent, you gradually learn to fall in love with their foibles and idiosyncrasies.

While I binged the first season in a day or two, I found the second and third seasons to be a bit slower going as things got a little too Bollywood. The genre slipped from pure comedy to a fair amount of drama, but I must say that they absolutely won me over with the final few episodes of Season 3. Writer Chandan Kumar, and director Deepak Kumar Mishra are finding that right tonal balance for a dramedy, and while I do wish they would lean more towards the hilarity of local village shenanigans (with a little romance to boot!) rather than the broader and more brutal world of Indian politics outside the village, they have a deft and wonderful touch that will certainly keep me coming back for future seasons. And special shoutouts to music composer Anurag Saikia, whose soundtrack and score for this show does a lot of heavy lifting in terms of setting the tone, while the lush cinematography by Amitabha Singh and Amit Kulkarni makes this show a true feast for your eyeballs.

July Movies Part 1: Fly Me to the Moon & A Quiet Place: Day One

Yes, my varied cinematic interests know no bounds. Today, I bring you two excellent movies, one a sci-fi horror, and the other a 60's romcom. Both feature charismatic actors giving dazzling performances, but if you're more into animals, both also feature prominent performances of the feline variety. Intrigued? I should hope so.

A Quiet Place: Day One: I have greatly enjoyed the Quiet Place franchise, movies about what happens to Earth after it has been taken over by an alien race with a superior sense of hearing. The aliens instantly kill any humans that make a sound, but otherwise cannot see them, so the first two movies followed the fortunes of a family with a Deaf daughter who could converse in sign language and were more prepared than most to handle this particular catastrophe. Well now Lupita Nyong'o stars in this prequel that takes us back to the very first day the aliens landed and the carnage they unleashed on the unsuspecting populace. More particularly, we see what they did to the island of Manhattan, which, as you can imagine, I ate up with a big ol' spoon.

Written and directed by Michael Sarnoski (John Krasinski does get a story credit), this movie does a wonderful job of imagining how the attack took place and how quickly humans realized the need for silence. It is an ingenious look at human adaptability and resilience (turns out thunderstorms and fountains make for excellent auditory camouflage), but also their innate decency and desire to help others. Yes, there's a lot of killing and jump scares, but this movie is also imbued with so much optimism and faith in the human race that it served as quite a balm to my jaded soul. Unsurprisingly, Nyong'o delivers a mesmerizing performance as a terminally ill woman with a service cat, who just wants a slice of pizza before the aliens destroy everything. She is ably assisted by Eric (Joseph Quinn), a British man who is in New York for law school and is absolutely friendless and alone as this apocalypse unfolds. 

This is a sad but somehow still weirdly hopeful movie and I was never bored for a se
cond. And there are some moving moments towards the end that genuinely made me shed a tear. The aliens get a lot more screentime than they did in the previous films, but they are deployed to good effect. The action sequences are tense and innovative, and as always, I greatly enjoyed how quiet the theater got as the entire audience felt afraid to breathe lest we disturb an alien around the corner. I love, love, love how these movies play with sound and silence, and this was a worthy prequel to show us how all of that began.

Fly Me to the Moon: If horror's not your thing, then surely a charming romantic comedy is precisely what you seek? Set in the 1960s, Scarlett Johansson stars as Kelly Jones, a brilliant advertising saleswoman, who is hired by the Nixon administration to improve NASA's public image and ensure they get enough public and congressional support to continue the Space Race and put a man on the moon. Channing Tatum plays Cole Davis, the NASA launch director, who is devoted to the Apollo program and is not too happy about this marketing woman with an elastic definition of the truth trying to sell his work to America. The two butt heads over Kelly's marketing tactics, but they are also two extremely attractive people who are definitely attracted to each other, so get ready for some real enemies-to-lovers intrigue.

The first half of the movie is all about the marketing shenanigans and motivations of our main characters. There's also a black cat that keeps running around the NASA buildings, which greatly worries the superstitious Cole. Then, Kelly gets told to prepare a Plan B, a fake moon landing set that can be broadcast if the actual moon landing fails. So, in the second half, we get to see how all of that pans out, with plenty of jokes that are sure to delight (or maybe anger?) conspiracy theorists. All along, costume designer Mary Zophres is doing phenomenal work, especially with Johansson's absolutely delicious dresses, while production designer Shane Valentino is knocking it out of the park with having to capture a 1960's aesthetic as well as bring the entire Space Program to life.

This movie is funny, moving, and honestly compelling if you're a space nerd who can't get enough about the Apollo missions. It captures the global collective awe at one of man's greatest achievements, but also manages to be super swoony and romantic. There are so many genres at play here, but director Greg Berlanti corrals everything together seamlessly, thanks to Rose Gilroy's script. Sure, it feels like there are some superfluous characters and some plot points that could be judiciously pruned, but I was too swept away by it all to notice. What can I say? I'm a real sucker for a romcom.

June Movies Part 3: Thelma & The Bikeriders

Do you want to watch a movie about a bunch of young folks on motorbikes? Or a bunch of old folks on mobility scooters? Either way, I've got you covered!

Thelma: This movie was completely off my radar, until suddenly a bunch of people were talking about it, and I decided to give it a try. June Squibb stars as the titular Thelma, a 93-year-old woman who still lives independently and enjoys her life. Her grandson, Danny (Fred Hechinger), enjoys spending time with her, but he and his parents (played by Clark Gregg and Parker Posey) still worry a great deal about Thelma and if she’s getting too old to live on her own.

When Thelma receives some urgent phone calls from Danny and a lawyer, she mails $10,000 to a PO Box because she believes Danny has gotten himself in trouble. But she then discovers Danny was perfectly fine and she has been the victim of a common phone scam. What follows is a comedic caper where she teams up with her friend Ben (Richard Roundtree), who lives in a retirement home, to track down the fraudsters and get her money back. Of course, none of this is sanctioned by her family, so she eludes them as she sets off on a motorized scooter to get her vengeance.

Written and directed by Josh Margolin, this is a great film that tells a story of an oft-neglected segment of the population. But here, Squibb and Roundtree put in great performances, highlighting that yes, older folks have certain limitations, but they can get shit done nonetheless. It also showcases the dynamic between them and their well-meaning but micromanaging family members who can’t imagine how elderly relatives could possibly live independently without ensuing chaos. But it also serves as a reminder that old folks can be immensely stubborn and need to learn to ask for help when they need it. It’s a charming little movie and I particularly liked the ending because it wasn’t some treacly affair. Thelma got the last word, and that is only good and proper.

The Bikeriders: Written and directed by Jeff Nichols, who was inspired by Danny Lyon's photobook of the same name, the cast of this film is stacked with folks like Jodi Comer, Tom Hardy, and Austin Butler. Be prepared for a masterclass in accent work as we dive into a tale that spans from 1965 to 1973, about the Vandals Motorcycle Club and its various members who derive some sense of purpose from belonging to this chaotic group. Comer plays Kathy, a woman who falls in love and marries Benny (Butler), a biker whose whole identity revolves around the Club. She gets a front row seat to the rise and fall of the Vandals even though she has no real interest in being a biker chick herself. Hardy plays Johnny, the founder and leader of the Vandals, who has a strong personality and is obsessed with keeping this enterprise going.

Over the course of the years, we follow the trials and tribulations these characters face, as the club grows from a small, select group of guys, to a sprawling morass with chapters in multiple states. Kathy and Benny’s relationship is increasingly strained by his unwavering loyalty to the club, and the movie keeps you guessing to the very end as to how it all will end. This could have been an impossibly male movie that was just about drinking and fighting, but thankfully the Comer performance gives us a bit of a respite and the necessary outsider’s view of all this toxic masculinity. But if you’re squeamish about violence, this may not be the movie for you - you’re gonna see a lot of people get beat up before you get to the end.

This is a good, vibey movie, that captures the era and captures this very specific subset of America during that time. The actors are all putting in phenomenal work and the cinematography by Adam Stone truly conveys the freedom and joy of the open road that these bikers so reveled in. During the end credits, you'll get to see some of the original photographs that inspired this film, and you can see how perfectly the filmmakers have captured the essence of those photos. So get on your bike and head to the theater!

June Movies Part 2: Inside Out 2, Brats, Am I OK?

Seeking a psychological breakthrough this week? So are the protagonists of these three movies!

Inside Out 2: I mean, do I even need to say it? We all loved Inside Out, and the sequel (directed by Kelsey Mann and written by Dave Holstein and Meg LeFauve) gives us more of the same. Now, our girl Riley has turned thirteen, and is officially entering the big bad world of puberty. As such, a new set of emotions enter into her brain alongside the old stalwarts of Joy, Sadness, Disgust, Fear, and Anger. The new emotions consist of Embarrassment, Envy, Ennui... and they are led by Anxiety. You can probably see where this is going.

When Riley and her best friends head to an overnight hockey training camp, Anxiety takes over the console and starts driving her actions, overthinking and catastrophizing every interaction she has. In the meantime, Joy & co. embark on a journey through Riley’s brain to find and restore her Sense of Self. Along the way we get some beautiful metaphors about core beliefs, as well as some hilarity involving sar-chasms and the stream of consciousness.

Much like the original, this movie is marvelously inventive and poignant, finding ways to talk about the difficult emotions that overtake us in adolescence and often persist into adulthood. It is particularly meaningful how Anxiety overtakes Joy - much of adulthood feels like a desperate bid to reclaim the Joy we felt during childhood after all. The movie arrives at a wonderful conclusion, but we can all only hope to have such emotional balance as Riley eventually achieves. So watch this film and then call up your therapist - there’s a lot of work left to be done!

Am I OK? Max has weirdly classified this film as a romantic comedy, and I’m not quite sure why, apart from that label providing a reassurance that the ending won’t be terribly devastating. But otherwise, this is a gentle and lovely movie about a 32-year-old woman, Lucy (Dakota Johnson), who has only just realized that she is gay. As if that weren’t enough to be dealing with, her best friend, Jane (Sonoya Mizuno) has gotten a promotion at work and will be moving to London. So, Lucy's life is somewhat imploding, and we get to watch how she navigates it all.

Written by Lauren Pomerantz and directed by Tig Notaro and Stephanie Allynne, you can let this movie gently wash over you. It’s a funny and moving coming out story. It also serves as a reminder that no matter what your gender or sexuality, dating strangers is always a horrifyingly stressful proposition; and in this case, the hurdles feel especially difficult. But this is less a story about Lucy's love life, and more about her loving friendship with Jane. The two women are such wonderful friends, supportive and usually aware of each other’s every thought. This movie serves as a perfect chronicle of the highs and lows of female friendship and how two besties can navigate a rough patch, only to come out with an even stronger bond. So, watch this film and then give your BFF a call. Or better yet, watch this movie with your BFF and revel in the most romantic relationship of all: friendship.

Brats: Directed by Andrew McCarthy, this is a documentary about the origin of the term Brat Pack and the subsequent impact it had on the 80s actors who were considered to be a member of the Pack, including McCarthy himself. I was expecting this movie to consist of McCarthy thoughtfully interviewing fellow members of the Brat Pack, but not really participating in the movie himself - after all, wouldn’t it be meta to just have the documentarian be a Brat Packer who is showcasing that this is the direction in which he took his career? But alas, ‘twas not to be.

Instead, we get what feels like a 90-minute therapy session where McCarthy hogs the majority of the screen time. He does interview other folks, but no one seems as obsessed as him with unravelling what this term did to their career. They’ve all moved on, but McCarthy seems determined to hold on to a grudge. He does eventually have an interesting tete a tete with David Blum, the journalist who wrote the infamous article that coined the term in 1985, but at that point, their conversation just feels like a re-hash of all the other conversations he has had with Emilio Estevez, Ally Sheedy, Demi Moore, Rob Lowe, etc.

If you are an ardent fan of the Brat Pack, maybe this movie will move the needle for you. But overall, it feels like a bit of fluff with very little substance. Judd Nelson and Molly Ringwald declined to take part in the film, and all that does is make me wish I was watching a documentary about them instead. Spare yourself the trouble and just watch The Breakfast Club for the true Brat Pack experience.

June Movies Part 1: Laapataa Ladies, Hit Man, Origin

I’ve already watched three great movies and we’re only midway through June! Dive in for some cinematic wonder.

Laapataa Ladies: It had been a while since I watched a Bollywood movie, but I knew director Kiran Rao could be trusted to deliver the goods, while working from a script crafted by Biplap Goswami, Sneha Desai, and Divyanidhi Sharma. What follows is a rousing tale about rural women in India, their hopes and dreams, the different paths their lives can take, and the stumbling blocks in their way.

Nitanshi Goel and Pratibha Ranta star as Phool Kumari and Pushpa Rani (or is that really her name...), two women who both get married in their respective villages on the same day. Following the wedding, they must now travel to their husbands’ villages, and they both end up on the same train. Dressed alike in their bridal saris, and conservatively veiled (because heaven forfend a woman show her face to anyone except her family), it’s impossible to tell the two women apart. Which means that in the middle of the night, when Phool's husband reaches their stop, he quickly grabs her and hurries off the train. Except he didn’t grab Phool, he got Pushpa instead.

What follows is a delicious comedy with plenty of social commentary. There’s a reason Pushpa got off the train with the wrong husband, but the movie patiently and carefully takes its time to reveal her past and what exactly she is planning to do now. In the meantime, Phool gets off at the wrong station and realizes she is completely lost. She doesn’t know what village she was headed to, and her own village has a common name that could be any of a dozen rural villages across the country. A ragtag group of folk who work around the railway station take her in, giving her shelter and food, but it’s unclear how she will ever find her way back to her husband.

I won’t spoil anything, but I will reassure you that this is a comedy, so don’t expect anything tragic to happen. Instead, this is a gentle movie with some great actors, all beautifully capturing the joys and heartbreaks these women will experience during this adventure. Ravi Kishan also stars as a police inspector who is the typical corrupt villain of the piece…until he isn’t. This is a film that is all about subverting expectations while still reminding us of the importance of women’s choices and giving them a chance to get ahead in the world. It’s a story that never gets old.

Hit Man: Directed by Richard Linklater, who co-wrote the screenplay with Glen Powell (who also stars), this is a wild and twisty movie about Gary Johnson (Powell), a college professor in New Orleans who also works part-time for the police as a fake hit man. He’s the guy they send in to talk to people who want to murder someone - he walks in, gets them to tell him the whole plan, hand over some cash, and then walks out while the cops show up to arrest the would-be murderers.

Of course, things go haywire when a beautiful woman, Madison (Adria Arjona), hires him to murder her abusive husband. Gary takes pity on her and gives her some advice, ensuring she doesn’t incriminate herself while the police listen in. And then things get increasingly murky as the two of them embark on a secret affair.

This movie is hilarious, dark, and twisty. And weirdest of all, it is (kind of) based on a true story, though the filmmakers have certainly taken a considerable amount of artistic license. I had no idea what was going to happen from one point to the next and every scene was yet another delightful surprise as I watched things spiral and escalate completely out of control. You won’t be able to predict a minute of this madcap mayhem so just settle back and enjoy the ride.

Origin: I loved Isabel Wilkerson’s book, Caste: The Origins of our Discontents, which re-framed America’s original sin of slavery as evidence of casteism, rather than racism. She laid out her argument by making comparisons to Nazi Germany and their treatment of Jews, and the Indian caste system with their treatment of Dalits, aka the “untouchable” caste. Well, in this movie, writer-director Ava DuVernay has audaciously decided to take the story of the real-life author and chart her personal journey while she was writing this book. What follows is a unique tale where we both get insights into Wilkerson’s personal tragedies that spurred her on to throw herself into researching this book, as well as a cinematic representation of the book itself, with all its central arguments about caste systems in various countries and their unifying pillars.

Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor offers up a tour-de-force performance as she plays Wilkerson, who endures tremendous personal loss and goes through a great deal of soul-searching while researching incredibly difficult and often incendiary subject matter. The supporting cast is filled with stalwarts like Jon Bernthal, Niecy Nash, Vera Farmiga, Audra McDonald, etc. who all do great work. But overall, the tone of this film is a little hit-or-miss. Does it want to be personal, or does it want to be didactic? Is it offering up an impersonal history lesson or searing political commentary? Like the book, its scope is vast and ambitious, but unlike the book, it struggles to cohere into a fully incisive whole. 

DuVernay is a tremendous filmmaker, but I would have much preferred if she had adapted Caste in the style of her documentary, 13TH, that did such a terrific job of diving deep into the racist history of America’s prison system. This subject matter is meaty and complex and deserves many hours of cinematic justice, not just a two-hour movie that is trying to tug at your heartstrings about this one woman’s story while also educating you about entire swathes of history in three different cultures. The movie does call out all of the parts of the book that astonished me, and shows the eye-opening connections that led Wilkerson to develop the thesis for her book. But somehow, telling the narrative through her eyes instead of giving us the information in a more straightforward manner made the whole enterprise feel a bit too Hollywood. It’s still a good and unusual movie, but unfortunately, I was expecting something great.

Dark Comedy Binges: Mr. & Mrs. Smith and Bodkin

Yes, I watched even more TV last month, so if you're already done with my last slew of recommendations, I'm back with two more twisty and funny shows for you to binge. Ready, set, find your remote!

Mr. & Mrs. Smith: What an absolute delight. This show is inspired by the fairly insipid action spy comedy from 2005, so I figured it would be a diverting bit of fluff. But given that it stars Donald Glover, who co-created the show with Francesca Sloane (a former writer on the weird and wonderful Atlanta, who serves as the showrunner here), I should have known better. 

Glover and Maya Erskine star as the titular couple. They both separately interviewed with a shadowy organization to be secret agents, and were then told they would be living undercover with each other as a married couple, with the aliases of John and Jane Smith. They move into an insanely impressive brownstone in New York City (they even have a plunge pool - what largesse!) and start getting instructions from their mysterious overlords. Each of the eight episodes feature different missions that could be as simple as intercepting a package, or going to Italy to protect an asset from violent gunmen hellbent on killing them all. The action sequences are always thrilling and inspired, and the locales get increasingly more elaborate and beautiful. But what is more exciting than each mission of the week, is the overarching story of this couple as they navigate their intense relationship.

At the beginning, John and Jane want to keep it strictly professional. Well, that doesn't last very long - in their line of work, it's a bit hard to maintain boundaries. What follows is a deliriously funny but also very astutely observed relationship as the two get to know each other and develop a delicious rapport. Erskine and Glover are such incredible actors, and this show takes full advantage of their acting range and prowess. The scripts also feel so true to life, with the two of them having meandering conversations, making each other laugh, and falling in love over such seemingly simple nonsense. Of course, they also have major problems, and one of the show's highlights is Episode 6, when John and Jane go to couples counselling and have very convoluted conversations with a therapist where they can't reveal what they do for a living.

This show is effortlessly engaging and I desperately hope there will be a second season. But if there isn't, it's an absolutely perfect single season that you must devour immediately. It contains a multitude of genres and human emotions and will keep you on the edge of your seat until the very end. It also features a brilliant supporting cast, with famous names popping in to just do one episode before they are either helped or killed by the Smiths. So are you not intrigued? Start bingeing!

Bodkin: Created by Jez Scharf, this is a dark and funny mystery about a cold case in a beautiful Irish town named Bodkin that turns out to maybe not be so cold. Will Forte stars as Gilbert Power, an American podcaster who desperately needs a new hit and has decided that this trip to Bodkin and investigating the mysterious disappearance of three people during the Samhain festival. As far as he is concerned, he is less interested in solving this case than delving into the local characters and collecting some kitschy ambiance for his listeners. 

Gilbert is assisted by Emma Sizergh (Robyn Cara), a young British journalist who is eager to learn more and further her own career. Unfortunately, he is also accompanied by Dubheasa "Dove" Maloney (Siobhan Cullen), an Irish investigative journalist who is not thrilled about helping this clueless man but has reasons she needs to leave London for a bit. She is supremely uninterested in making a fluffy podcast, and instead, starts to dig up dirt on the inhabitants of Bodkin. This means things quickly start to take a dark and murderous turn.

If you're a fan of true crime podcasts and British comedy, this show offers up a neat little satire with an actual mystery to boot. I will confess, the plot was entirely too convoluted for me, featuring a whole mess of characters and tangled motives and alibis that I'm not sure I fully reconciled by the end. There are also a lot of nuns, which may or may not be a selling point. But this show is only a seven-episode commitment and features stunning Irish scenery with many fun accents. Sometimes, all you want is to lie back with a show where a bunch of sweary and grumpy townspeople are ganging up on the American, and this show delivers that in spades. And for some reason, the Obamas are executive producers on this show, so you might as well give it a shot!