I watch a lot of TV and movies
Length: 40:57
Synopsis: Surprisingly little drill
Recommendation rating: 4/5
What I like about it: conscious lyrics, some great tracks
What I don’t like about it: inconsistently ambitious, some underwhelming tracks
Review:
Opening with an amazing poem written and performed by his big sister, moving through reflections on violence in the hip-hop community and being a working artist, I liked this one a lot, especially Ms. Mural and On Faux Nem
Content notes (may contain spoilers): violence
Where to find it: Apple TV+
Length: Four 1-hour episodes
Synopsis: Documentary series about a flamboyant lawyer who perpetrates a huge social security fraud
Recommendation rating: 2/5
What I like about it: it is an interesting story with real-life heroes and villains
What I don’t like about it: stretched way beyond the natural length of the story, cheesy re-enactments
Review:
Horrendously bloated by interviews with self-important journalists and juvenile re-enactments, this would have been decent had it been a movie.
Content notes (may contain spoilers): suicide
Where to find it: BBC iPlayer (season one not currently available)
Length: 8 one-hour episodes
Synopsis: Darkly comic Scottish thriller about two brothers who commit a crime and try to cover it up
Recommendation rating: 3/5
What I like about it: really strong pilot, good brother dynamic, stylish and well-made
What I don’t like about it: loses its way quickly, the second season is awful and loses a whole recommendation point, hacky writing
Review:
This BBC Scotland drama commission started out really exciting but soon spiralled into a scale too large to care about, they try to pack about four seasons of Breaking Bad-style escalations into four episodes and then season 2 is a boring, bog-standard dark BBC crime drama. It’s a shame because the pilot was wonderful but never gets as good again.
Content notes (may contain spoilers): death by dangerous driving, violence, drugs and alcohol
Where to find it: NowTV
Length: 8 one-hour episodes
Synopsis: Man murders wife, HBO spend eight episodes pretending he didn’t
Recommendation rating: 1/5
What I like about it: Colin Firth is really good
What I don’t like about it: it’s several degrees beyond ‘grim’, boring
Review:
This ridiculous drama, based on a biased documentary based on a true crime, spends several ten-minute segments bloodily re-enacting improbable explanations of a real woman’s death in order to avoid addressing the probable explanation that he fucking did it. Boooooooo
Content notes (may contain spoilers): awful bloody violent death scenes
Where to find it: Netflix
Length: About an hour and a half, cut into 9 episodes
Synopsis: A man housesits a mansion, where he becomes obsessed with killing a bee
Recommendation rating: 2/5
What I like about it: delivers on Mr. Bean-esque calamity
What I don’t like about it: never quite comes together, very predictable, cruel to animals
Review:
Rowan Atkinson is following the time-honored tradition of British comics: funding your latest divorce by returning to the material you swore you were done with. This is a Mr. Bean movie in all but name; Atkinson plays a middle-age divorcé named Trevor Bingley who signs up to a housesitting app and finds his first job at a mansion where all expensive items are pointed out in the pilot ready for him to destroy in the coming episodes. And so it goes.
Content notes (may contain spoilers): he gasses the family dog and falls in its excrement, fire
Length: 34:21
Synopsis: Cuban beats with a pop sensibility and phenomenal vocals
Recommendation rating: 5/5
What I like about it: variety and brilliance is always an impressive combo
What I don’t like about it: can’t find a thing
Review:
This album opens with a grandiose fanfare before taking us on a fast and all-too-short journey through Spanish raps, sexy bottom-heavy pop tracks, a vibrant Latin breakup song that not even a guest spot from Ed Sheeran can fully water down and so much more. A beautiful experience, a wonderful work of art and I’m sure very commercially successful; it’s lovely to find a pop record I wouldn’t be slightly ashamed to own.
Content notes (may contain spoilers): ableist slurs, sex
Length: 47:26
Synopsis: Soulful vocals over funky overdriven guitars
Recommendation rating: 3/5
What I like about it: easy to bop to, an interesting mix of influences
What I don’t like about it: sometimes too loud, resembles The White Stripes in its weaker moments
Review:
At its heart, it’s a rock & roll record but there are plenty of intriguing and pleasant sounds if that doesn’t turn you off.
Content notes (may contain spoilers): none I found
Where to find it: Apple TV+
Length: Eight 35-minute episodes
Synopsis: A high-school reunion afterparty ends in a suspicious death, here’s the investigation
Recommendation rating: 3/5
What I like about it: entertaining, occasionally funny
What I don’t like about it: tonal inconsistency makes it hard to care about, feels like it could have been tighter
Review:
What do you get when you cross one half of Hollywood’s most unmissable production duo, a fun murder mystery concept developed over a decade and inspired by Rashomon, and an incredibly talented cast including Tiffany Haddish, Ben Schwartz, Sam Richardson and Ilana Glazer? Considerably less than the sum of its parts, unfortunately. It’s still good to fill an afternoon or two, each episode parodies a different genre and follows a different party guest’s version of events. Entertaining but over-engineered and hard to connect with.
Content notes (may contain spoilers): murder, alcohol, drugs, ableist slurs
Where to find it: YouTube
Length: Six seasons of 20-minute episodes
Synopsis: Animated sitcom about a therapist who treats stand-up comics
Recommendation rating: 3/5
What I like about it: charming and funny improv between Jonathan Katz and Jon Benjamin
What I don’t like about it: so ugly it helps not to look at it, most of the comedians featured are ignorant hacks
Review:
This animated sitcom, made with early cheap computer animation, follows a kind-hearted and soft-spoken therapist named Dr. Katz, his sardonic secretary Laura and his son Ben, the archetypal Gen X slacker. The format is simple: Katz’s therapy sessions are an excuse to reuse stand-up material and the real good stuff comes from the improvised sitcom around that. Jonathan Katz is very quick-witted and comes up with brilliant lines. If you haven’t tried and loved Home Movies (1999), maybe try that first as it’s a better implementation of a similar format.
Content notes (may contain spoilers): ableism, terrible 90s standup jokes
Where to find it: Netflix
Length: 110 minutes
Synopsis: It’s a Guy Ritchie gangster movie
Recommendation rating: 2/5
What I like about it: Hugh Grant, Jeremy Strong, surprisingly easy-to-follow for a complex back-and-forth format
What I don’t like about it: Charlie Hunnam, the open racism, so many attempts at “cool” which come off pathetic, failed humour
Review:
Every few years, Guy Ritchie makes a desperate attempt to prove that he made Lock, Stock and Snatch which come off as yet-another British gangster flick albeit with a big budget and only serve to remind us of Matthew Vaughn’s relative talent. This latest one opens with Matthew McConaughey seemingly being murdered in a pub, then cuts to Charlie Hunnam (who really should quit his day job) surprised to find Hugh Grant in his house playing the kind of sleazy ‘dark arts’ tabloid PI he’s been feuding with his whole adult life with great scenery-chewing relish. Grant’s Fletcher (all the characters are conspicuously mononymous) is there to pitch Hunnam a screenplay based on his life as McConaughey’s consigliere and provide comic relief for flashbacks explaining the complicated and violent story of a takeover bid on an underground drug network. Particular highlights include Jeremy Strong’s foppish and effete rival drug lord, Colin Farrell acting like he’s in a much better movie and the film’s laughable attempts at drug slang (“White Widow Super Cheese”). It’s reasonably entertaining but the most exhausting part of watching this movie is trying to overlook its flaws, which come thick and fast in a “throw it at the wall and see what sticks” way.
Content notes (may contain spoilers): violence, racism, drugs, vomit, rape