Month: August 2022

Hudson Mohawke – Cry Sugar (2022)

Length: 63 minutes
Synopsis: Varied but always bombastic experimental dance music
Recommendation rating: 4/5

What I like about it: big bold synth sounds
What I don’t like about it: too loud, not very danceable

Review:
Opening with smooth strings before bouncing into bassy breakbeat house, this is a wild ride. Disjointed but playful, it proves to be an impressive collection of dance music that is almost impossible to dance to but lots of fun to listen to, providing you like jazz and synthesisers.

Content notes (may contain spoilers):

Bob Marley with the Chineke! Orchestra (2022)

Length: roughly 45 minutes
Synopsis: Classic hits reimagined by a reverent Black British orchestra
Recommendation rating: 4/5

What I like about it: great musicians
What I don’t like about it: doesn’t feel complete – hoping for a volume two

Review:
This project takes a mixed approach to its source material, sometimes changing it up and sometimes providing only subtle backing to Bob’s classic tracks. The selection is mostly as expected for a ten-song collection, with only a couple of underloved picks. Feels like a worthy attempt to preserve Marley for the 21st century, it probably won’t replace Legend but it could for the kids who haven’t heard that before.

Content notes (may contain spoilers): the last song is a sexy one

The Mountain Goats – Bleed Out (2022)

Length: 47 minutes
Synopsis: Mixed bag of indie folk rock but a few great songs to add to their expansive canon
Recommendation rating: 4/5

What I like about it: the sax on Extraction Point and the funky Guys On Every Corner; the lyrics on First Blood, Incandescent Ruins and Bleed Out; all of Hostages
What I don’t like about it: the first few more rock-based songs; Wage Wars, Get Rich, Die Handsome; Need More Bandages

Review:
At first I wasn’t too happy with this album. The first few tracks are exuberent but fairly standard indie rock. John Darnielle is clearly excited to have the full band back together, letting them fall apart at their own pace at the end of the first track, Training Montage. Mark on You is forgettable and Wage Wars, Get Rich, Die Handsome feels like a real low point. I was ready to give this a 3 and call it a misstep but it started to pick up with the more complex and laidback Extraction Point and John’s reliable lyrical genius kicks in with Bones Don’t Rust and especially First Blood. My interest sustained from there, the highlights were the long Hostages and the final two tracks, especially the title song which does a favourite Mountain Goats trick – capturing a joyful, to-the-death defiance previously found in songs like Heretic Pride and Up the Wolves.

Content notes (may contain spoilers): violence and military themes, death

Heels (2021)

Where to find it: StarzPlay on Amazon
Length: Eight 1-hour episodes
Synopsis: This show works itself into a shoot, brother
Recommendation rating: 2/5

What I like about it: very occasionally funny, interesting or well-written
What I don’t like about it: inconsistent, nonsensical, unpleasant

Review:
Whether or not you enjoy professional wrestling, you will loathe this hacky drama’s attempts to gain cheap heat. Taking itself way too seriously and having an outdated view of wrestling that makes its present-day setting uncanny, none of it really connects with the audience like it continually promises the promotion at the heart of the show can, telling us how good they are because they don’t know how to show it. It has no idea what it wants to be – this show is supposed to be realistic but episode two features a barfight in which a 5’2″ woman incapacitates an uncooperative 6’4″ attacker via headscissors takedown – and drops too many smark terms and historical references to be successful with the mainstream. It’s amazing how much this show’s flaws overlap with those of All Elite Wrestling, maybe they’ll share a fandom.

Producer Mike O’Malley’s cameos are pretty good and the show has one cool sequence: a camera-choreographed fight in a petrol station that is cinematic and extra “fake”, just how I like my wrestling.

Content notes (may contain spoilers): sex, sexism, violence, injury

Blunt Talk (2015)

Where to find it: No UK streaming I could find
Length: Twenty 25-minute episodes
Synopsis: Sanctimonious newsreader ruins life for mild laughs
Recommendation rating: 2/5

What I like about it: Patrick Stewart, season one
What I don’t like about it: season two, guilty of what it ridicules

Review:
At first this show seemed right up my street, with verbose and farcical elements clearly inspired by Frasier. Patrick Stewart, whose comedic instincts are very underrated, plays an egotistical talk show host – a kind of cross between Piers Morgan and Bill Maher – whose life and show fall apart with mildly comedic results. There’s even a great scene in the pilot of Stewart interacting positively with a trans sex worker! But sadly its premise proves too thin to sustain even ten episodes and season 2 is an unfunny wreck. Has many Newsroom moments of preachy liberalism and despite that supposedly being a flaw of the main character, it extends out to the show as a whole and adds an extra meta layer of hypocrisy.

Content notes (may contain spoilers): sex, nudity, drugs, violence (boxing), climate change

Avoidance (2022)

Where to find it: BBC iPlayer
Length: Six 30-minute episodes
Synopsis: A kind-hearted man avoids his way into being a total prick
Recommendation rating: 3/5

What I like about it: good treatment of its theme, decent writing
What I don’t like about it: it’s not very funny, sometimes want to shake the main character

Review:
Romesh Ranganathan writes and stars as Jonathan, a man who avoids all the problems in his marriage until his wife chucks him out so he imposes on his sister Dan and sister-in-law Courtney, who can barely hide her displeasure. In the pilot, Jonathan kidnaps his son Spencer to avoid telling him about the breakdown of his parents’ marriage and makes similar uncaring and unfunny decisions throughout. Bright Spencer and aggressive Courtney are the main highlights in this very missable comedy.

Content notes (may contain spoilers): divorce, parenting

Hullraisers (2022)

Where to find it: All4
Length: Six 25-minute episodes
Synopsis: A young mum tries to rebalance her life in East Yorkshire
Recommendation rating: 4/5

What I like about it: funny, Yorkshire
What I don’t like about it: it’s not quite great

Review:
Follows Toni, who is struggling with identity as her kid has just grown out of needing constant attention, along with her older sister and more experienced mum Paula and her young, unattached friend Rana, representing two identities Toni feels caught between. Mostly I just like hearing coarse Yorkshire women cackling with each other, reminds me of home.

Content notes (may contain spoilers): sex, one of the leads is a cop

The Owl House (2020)

Where to find it: Disney+, I assume
Length: Forty 25-minute episodes
Synopsis: A young girl finds family in a strange and distant realm
Recommendation rating: 4/5

What I like about it: imaginative, funny, weird and gay
What I don’t like about it: already cancelled by DSNY for a lack of merchandising opportunities (though three specials have been promised to wrap it up)

Review:
One for weird goth kids who like cute cartoons inspired by Hieronymus Bosch paintings. Has a great cast, good jokes and (by season two at least) great drama. If you liked Gravity Falls or Steven Universe, you’ll like this.

Content notes (may contain spoilers):

Little Simz – Sometimes I Might Be Introvert (2021)

Length: 65:12
Synopsis: London rap with erratically beautiful production
Recommendation rating: 5/5

What I like about it: the music, the production, the lyrics, the flow, the cover art
What I don’t like about it: no I think everything is listed above

Review:
Deserving to win the Mercury Prize for best British album next month, this album takes hip-hop and R&B to operatic heights, with choral and orchestral elements and themed intervals connecting the songs. The artistic confidence shown throughout the production is laudable, as is the vulnerability on display as Simz gets to grips with feelings about her absentee father (I Love You, I Hate You) and her empathy for the man who stabbed her (Little Q, Pt. 2). Introversion is of course a common theme (Introvert and Protect My Energy) but so is pride and confidence in her communities (Woman, Point and Kill). This has one of my favourite features an album can have: it’s hard to pick favourite tracks and feels like the album must be heard in full.

Content notes (may contain spoilers):

Shakes the Clown (1991)

Where to find it: Rent on Amazon
Length: 87 minutes
Synopsis: “The Citizen Kane of alcoholic clown movies”
Recommendation rating: 3/5

What I like about it: the punky DIY vibe, the core analogy, Tom Kenny
What I don’t like about it: it’s very unpleasant and falls just short of being much good

Review:
The bitter tone pervading most of this movie comes from writer-director-star Bobcat Goldthwait’s jaded experiences on the stand-up comedy circuit. In this low-budget debut film, he dials up the absurdism by making them into actual clowns but keeping their cliques and status obsession. They all desperately want to host a TV show and get jealous of one another’s bookings at children’s parties. The core analogy works very well, lampooning comics taking their art too seriously and viewing their audience as children, among other targets, in the premise alone. They drink their days away fighting amongst themselves in a cliquey clown bar, only uniting to ridicule and beat up mimes (here playing the part of prop comics, I assume). The plot does not work as well as the premise, feeling formulaic and obligatory. Bobcat’s lifelong friend Tom Kenny is a highlight as the villain of the piece.

Content notes (may contain spoilers): alcoholism, urine, violence