Month: August 2022

I’m Thinking of Ending Things (2020)

Where to find it: Netflix
Length: 134 minutes
Synopsis: “Give it a rest, Charlie Kaufman, some of us have work in the morning, damn!”
Recommendation rating: 3/5

What I like about it: Jessie Buckley, the writing (sometimes), themes connected hard with me
What I don’t like about it: almost indecipherable, lost entirely up its own arse

Review:
You know how sometimes an internet movie review will say something like, “This is a really good movie when you watch it the second to twelfth time!”? Well I’m gonna try to save that first painful nonsense viewing for you by providing some context upfront, even though it’ll spoil the ‘reveals’ along the way. If you really want to go in knowing nothing – I assume you have time for the extra rewatches – this is not the review for you.

Most of the film consists of a young woman going to meet her boyfriend’s parents even though she’s unsure about the relationship. As is typical for Kaufman, strange things happen and get increasingly surreal as it goes; for instance the young woman doesn’t seem to have a name or occupation that sticks for more than ten minutes before being changed without any acknowledgement from the characters. The main story is inexplicably intercut with scenes of a quiet janitor cleaning a high school. By the end of the story, we learn that the janitor is an older version of the boyfriend and the only ‘real’ part of the whole film – the story that takes up most of the movie is in fact him daydreaming about what life would have been like if he had ever actually talked to a woman.

If you’ve ever seen one of these before (Being John Malkovich; Synechdoche, New York; Anomalisa) you’ll understand the kind of pretentious surreal symbolism you’re in for if you take this one on. Has a 4:3 aspect ratio, characters quoting poetry at each other and an extended Rogers & Hammerstein dream ballet. But if you can tolerate all this, it makes more sense than most of his back catalogue, possibly due to being an adaptation. Has a far better treatment of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl trope than his earlier Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

Content notes (may contain spoilers): suicide, relationship trouble, sudden loud bell sounds, the “autistic guys die alone” trope

Promising Young Woman (2020)

Where to find it: NowTV
Length: 110 minutes
Synopsis: A fearless but directionless woman finds a purpose in vengeance
Recommendation rating: 4/5

What I like about it: writing, aesthetics, soundtrack, Bo Burnham getting to flex some acting muscles, Laverne Cox (with a septum ring)
What I don’t like about it: sometimes cheesy or offensive, very heavy subject matter

Review:
This appears on the face of it to be a #MeToo slasher flick, a genre film cheaply cashing in on the zeitgeist, but it delivered on far more than that. Yes, the expected straw-bros are here with “locker room talk” that is as nauseating as it is stilted but around that is a tale with some remarkably considered and nuanced moments and plot twists that, if you don’t examine this too closely, make it stick with you. The thoughtful soundtrack is a highlight – particularly a slow, creepy string-quartet arrangement of Britney’s Toxic – and while not quite a great film, it is a very promising feature debut from writer-director Emerald Fennell and fascinating company if you can handle it.

Content notes (may contain spoilers): sexual abuse, violence, rape culture

David Byrne’s American Utopia (2020)

Where to find it: may be on NowTV
Length: 100 minutes
Synopsis: Broadway show from the art pop auteur
Recommendation rating: 3/5

What I like about it: choreography, band, music
What I don’t like about it: singing, time better spent rewatching Stop Making Sense

Review:
This show opens with Byrne alone on stage making observations about neurology, he’s wearing a grey suit with nothing on his feet, he’s soon joined by two backing singers dressed the same way as they all indulge in an interpretive hand-signalling dance. They’re joined by increasing numbers of live musicians/dancers (they do both at once and everyone else in this show is frankly more impressive than Byrne) and the choreography is also regularly reminiscent of Stop Making Sense, feeling like a big budget rehash. The setlist is basically a personally-selected Greatest Hits set, containing too much new stuff for all but the most hardcore Byrne fans but it is very well played and mixed. He was never a good singer but he seems to have gotten flatter and weaker with age. The artistic statements are beyond baffling, ranging from Dadaist poetry to a salute to Colin Kaepernick to just repeating “nyah nyah nyah” into the microphone. Plenty of cheap pops for the liberal Broadway crowd.

If you like spectacle, choreography and autistic art as much as I do, you won’t regret watching it – but then not many people do.

Content notes (may contain spoilers): strobe lighting

Nightmare Alley (2021)

Where to find it: Disney+
Length: Two and a half hours
Synopsis: Ambitious drifter climbs out of the carnivals but slips on a Freudian
Recommendation rating: 3/5

What I like about it: stylish, considered, compelling
What I don’t like about it: long, often unpleasant

Review:
Nightmare Alley (1947) was a great overlooked old noir – I confess I only saw it when I heard this remake was in production – about a drifter who joins the carnival and learns some mentalism tricks, using them to look out for himself and con everyone who cares about him until he meets his match in a wily psychologist. Remarkably dark and gritty for Hays Code Hollywood, it’s easy to see why it appealed to Guillermo Del Toro and this remake proves that the tale is a perfect match for his macabre visual genius. Particularly great are the larger-than-life carnival and Art Deco sets which present an absorbing imaginary world for a non-fantasy story, unusual ground for Del Toro but he packs plenty of fantasy into those visuals all the same.

Content notes (may contain spoilers): abuse, addiction, a man bites the head off a (convincing CGI) chicken, other grim CG violence

The Lazarus Project (2022)

Where to find it: NowTV
Length: Eight 45-minute episodes
Synopsis: Sci-fi time spies? Time flies!
Recommendation rating: 3/5

What I like about it: well-written – sometimes shockingly so, good acting and VFX
What I don’t like about it: plot can be hard to follow, cheesy at first and at times

Review:
It has taken Sky 30 years to make a good TV show but at last, perhaps thanks to new ownership by NBC-Universal, this latest offering meets the high bar of “watchable”. The first couple of episodes are difficult to connect with as they set up the premise: a secret military-intelligence team, headquartered in Britain, has the power to turn back time as needed in the event of World War 3, that most unwanted of sequels. If WW3 doesn’t occur in a given year, they “save” the timeline – like a video game when you beat the boss on the fiftieth attempt – on a date referred to as The Checkpoint. Most people are unaware of this happening and believe the world has just scraped by in a tense and increasingly chaotic Mexican standoff since 1952 (some of them may be found rocking and humming and writing reviews at the thought) and before we become aware of it too, we’re introduced to George, who remembers his life through the resets and is recruited by the aforementioned time cops to aid in their world-saving heroics.

Now I’ve spoiled a little of the mystery of the first two episodes there but there’s plenty more to be found in the coming episodes as things don’t go quite according to plan for George and the Lazarus team, and I was very pleasantly surprised about where they went from there as it starts to connect on some fascinating themes, primarily the cost of order in an inherently chaotic universe, without ever losing the kind of mainstream action appeal that will win the show success beyond armchair academics like myself. It’s very well-informed about the world (though its Asian and Eurasian targets are predictable) and also dances on the tonal tightrope with general ease, using comedic elements and science fiction without undermining the dramatic weight that builds as it goes. Everything else comes together well, including brilliant and sparingly-used (though justifiably repeated) visual effects, but for me the writing stole the show.

Content notes (may contain spoilers): WW3, WMDs, GTNW (it happens, on screen, a lot, much like in my nightmares, thanks), loss/grief/death, pregnancy and childbirth, military/spook/cop shit, violence, racism

The Sandman (2022)

Where to find it: Netflix
Length: Eleven 50-minute episodes
Synopsis: Sleepy emo wants his stuff back (it’s a difficult story to follow and more difficult to explain)
Recommendation rating: 3/5

What I like about it: genuinely impressive visual effects, cool concepts, great British cast, Dave McKean’s distinctive collages on the end credits
What I don’t like about it: they said it was unfilmable… and they were right!

Review:
The conventional wisdom among TV programmers is that we’re all just waiting for the next Game of Thrones, with several nine-figure investments coming to fruition and chasing that *ahem* throne this year including a GoT prequel from Warner and a newer, Thrones-ier take on Lord of the Rings from Amazon. Netflix seem to be the only ones who understand that the lesson to take from that earlier show’s great success (the last of the traditional TV era) wasn’t that people love medieval fantasy.

This $165,000,000 production – the world disgusts me, by the way – comes the closest I’ve seen in a while to an engaging potential franchise, and the budget shows in its incredibly ambitious and generally beautiful visual effects. The literary and visual ambitions of the original comic are preserved and it’s a first-rate adaptation but there’s a huge lack of humanity to the tale; as character after character is thrown at us it becomes increasingly obvious that none of them have any actual… well, character. The pace is fine for comics but dreadful for TV.

Adapting the Neil Gaiman comic with too much reverence, this first season covers roughly 1/8th of the total source material but that eye-watering cost, combined with a comic-book plot too densely fantastical to connect with audiences at large, mean season two (at least at a comparable scale) may remain but a Dream…

Content notes (may contain spoilers): awfully gory violence, sex

Looking (2014)

Where to find it: NowTV
Length: 18 half-hour episodes and a movie
Synopsis: Cute gay slice-of-life dramedy
Recommendation rating: 4/5

What I like about it: characters, dialogue, soundtrack, my peoples
What I don’t like about it: probably doesn’t have broad appeal

Review:
I have a love for dialogue-heavy and plot-light media in which the appeal is largely watching people, and of course a love for queer media, so this feels like it was made for me and I’m disappointed I didn’t watch it sooner. Made by the gays over at HBO, this half-hour talkfest follows three friends in San Francisco as they work, date and live. Featuring down-to-Earth real world drama, cute romance, house music and funny gags, the dialogue often rings true when they’re not indulging in exposition for the broader audience they were never gonna get.

Content notes (may contain spoilers): lots of sex discussion and sex

Single Drunk Female (2022)

Where to find it: Disney+
Length: Ten 20-minute episodes
Synopsis: A young woman recovers from alcoholism
Recommendation rating: 2/5

What I like about it: thoughtful
What I don’t like about it: not very funny, not great characters

Review:
Sam, a twentysomething blogger, gets fired and arrested for drinking and has to move back in with her mum in Boston. I like media about recovery and this is well-informed, an early episode does a good job of portraying how slowly time moves when you’re newly sober, but it doesn’t distinguish itself much. The characters have no memorable traits and aren’t explored enough; this probably would have worked better as an ensemble without Sam being the main focus, she isn’t strong enough as a character for that and the AA meetings feel under-utilised. Also paced very strangely, six months can pass between episodes. Its heart is in the right place but quality-wise, it’s right in the middle of the road.

Content notes (may contain spoilers): addiction, recovery, alcohol, bereavement

This Country (2017)

Where to find it: BBC iPlayer
Length: 19 half-hour episodes
Synopsis: Cousins don’t grow up in rural England
Recommendation rating: 3/5

What I like about it: can be funny
What I don’t like about it: uncomfortable and unpleasant

Review:
This nice-and-cheap BBC cringe comedy is a family affair, written by and starring siblings Charlie and Daisy Cooper and also featuring their dad in a recurring role, and that definitely helps with improv. Their characters, cousins Kurtan and Kerry, live in a small village in the Cotswolds and reflect a life of limited influences, being around their late 20s but having many of the worse qualities of children. The show generally seems to have a mean and elitist view of the characters it features and only really lets its heart show through the character of the patient fatherly vicar, which only reinforces the patronising infantilising view that pervades the whole thing, especially being framed as a BBC documentary aimed at city-dwellers. It’s just so hard to tell which side they’re on.

Content notes (may contain spoilers):

The Offer (2022)

Where to find it: Paramount+ on Amazon Prime
Length: Ten 1-hour episodes
Synopsis: Tall tales about the making of The Godfather
Recommendation rating: 3/5

What I like about it: the acting, sometimes the writing
What I don’t like about it: ten hours?! it’s not fuckin’ Shoah…

Review:
It must be hard to justify having your own streaming service when your only bankable franchises are Star Trek and Spongebob Squarepants, so Paramount turn to making movies about Paramount making movies. Godfather producer Al Ruddy has been telling his version of events surrounding the making of that film and, like any Hollywood producer, he doesn’t let the truth ruin a good yarn. All the more lurid elements of his story – Frank Sinatra having Mickey Cohen try to kill him, Joe Colombo having him over for homemade dinner on the eve of his public shooting, his debt to Joe Gallo being called off last-minute by Gallo’s murder – involve people too dead to sue for defamation, while those still living are kept conveniently unaware of these elements by the selectively-truthful Ruddy.

The acting steals the show in this one with Miles Teller channelling Tony Curtis in the lead role to great effect. The actors get lost in their impressions of real-life counterparts; their Coppola, Pacino, Brando and Robert Evans are all remarkable and really help to generate interest in this ultimately uninteresting series. The writing is sometimes good, especially when taking advantage of parallels between scenes in The Godfather and circumstances supposedly involved in making it, and sometimes risibly overwrought “we don’t make movies, we make magic!” stuff.

Content notes (may contain spoilers): drugs, violence