Tag: 3

A League of Their Own (2022)

Where to find it: Amazon Prime Video
Length: Eight 1-hour episodes
Synopsis: Women play baseball and sleep with each other
Recommendation rating: 3/5

What I like about it: generally fun, gay
What I don’t like about it: just not very interesting

Review:
Every time this true story gets told, it sheds ever more fact. This time they make no pretence to historical accuracy, which keeps the story light but means whenever they make reference to the awful circumstances of the time, it feels cheap. Abbi Jacobson and D’Arcy Carden are great as the primary couple but in truth it’s an ensemble, the Hispanic team members particularly shine. Along with the story of the Rockford Peaches is the story of Max (Chanté Adams), turned away from the Peaches for her melanin levels, desperately trying to find anywhere that will let her play ball and be her beautiful butch self. Max (along with her friends and family) is by far the most interesting and memorable part of the show.

The trouble is it never generates much interest outside of its romances and rigorously follows feelgood sports-movie tropes such as the dramatic, overwritten locker room pep-talk and the hero selflessly helping a competitor cross the finish line, complete with swelling strings and everyone applauding.

Content notes (may contain spoilers): sex

The Importance of Being Earnest (1952)

Throughout September I will be raiding my collection of favourite movies to review one a day, with a focus on overlooked and underappreciated films.

Where to find it: YouTube
Length: 90 minutes
Synopsis: Classic comic play
Recommendation rating: 3/5

What I like about it: wordy, hammy, fun
What I don’t like about it: unimportant, problematic

Review:
The most popular and successful of Oscar Wilde’s plays, this bawdy farce finds two rakes assuming false identities to woo various ladies. Many quotable lines and fun farce with an unbearably syrupy ending.

Content notes (may contain spoilers):

Le Diner de Cons (1998)

Throughout September I will be raiding my collection of favourite movies to review one a day, with a focus on overlooked and underappreciated films.

Where to find it: Rent on Amazon
Length: 80 minutes
Synopsis: French farce
Recommendation rating: 3/5

What I like about it: wordplay, farce, not too long
What I don’t like about it: requires significant attention

Review:
Rich snobs hold a regular dinner party where they compete to bring the biggest “idiot”. One of them meets his match in his latest mark and his life unravels in the style of a farcical play. A fun mix of comedy-of-manners and comedy-of-errors.

Content notes (may contain spoilers): ableism in dialogue, less in plot

Isadora (1968)

Throughout September I will be raiding my collection of favourite movies to review one a day, with a focus on overlooked and underappreciated films.

Where to find it: No streaming
Length: Two and a half hours
Synopsis: Isadora Duncan
Recommendation rating: 3/5

What I like about it: Vanessa Redgrave, dancing, pretentious, beautiful and weird
What I don’t like about it: too long, almost no pace, Red Shoes is a better dance movie if you only have room for one in your life

Review:
Vanessa Redgrave doesn’t wear much and dances a lot as the bohemian ‘Mother of Modern Dance’. Much like its subject, the film is free-form, exhibitively pretty and ends suddenly.

Content notes (may contain spoilers): death, grief, nudity

Michael Collins (1996)

Throughout September I will be raiding my collection of favourite movies to review one a day, with a focus on overlooked and underappreciated films.

Where to find it: Rent on Amazon
Length: little over 2 hours
Synopsis: Biopic on the IRA’s top general from the Easter Rising to the Civil War
Recommendation rating: 3/5

What I like about it: history, tactics, guerrila warfare
What I don’t like about it: Julia Roberts is awful, Alan Rickman not a lot better

Review:
Liam Neeson plays the title role of the reluctant but dutiful soldier. Features great history such as his surgical co-ordinated assassination of British Army officers and the British Army’s massacre of civillians which followed, as well as de Valera’s prison break and the start of the Irish Civil War.

Content notes (may contain spoilers): violence

Children of the Underground (2022)

Where to find it: No UK streaming
Length: Six 1-hour episodes
Synopsis: The rise and fall of Faye Yager
Recommendation rating: 3/5

What I like about it: well edited
What I don’t like about it: really heavy

Review:
Tells the story of Faye Yager and her titular organisation, which hid mothers and children from abusers. Wisely leaves out Faye’s preoccupation with satanic ritual abuse until episode 3. She does good things, bad things, she enjoys it a bit too much. Fascinating but very heavy.

Content notes (may contain spoilers): child sexual abuse – a lot

Holiday (1938)

Throughout September I will be raiding my collection of favourite movies to review one a day, with a focus on overlooked and underappreciated films.

Where to find it: Rent on Amazon
Length: 95 minutes
Synopsis: Charming classic romcom
Recommendation rating: 3/5

What I like about it: fast-paced ‘screwball’ dialogue, that Grant/Hepburn chemistry
What I don’t like about it: it’s not much more than a transient Sunday afternoon movie

Review:
Cary Grant plays a free-wheeling young man who meets a snooty heiress and enters into a hasty engagement. She is captivated by his charm but believes she can change him by getting him a job with daddy as an executive, a fate worse than death for fun-loving Grant. Luckily, the heiress has a sister, Katharine Hepburn, who likes him just the way he is.

Content notes (may contain spoilers):

Ten Percent (2022)

Where to find it: Amazon Prime Video
Length: Ten 50-minute episodes
Synopsis: London talent agents struggle with work and life
Recommendation rating: 3/5

What I like about it: sometimes funny, good cultural satire
What I don’t like about it: drama-length episodes, poor guest stars, mediocre characters

Review:
It’s not a bad show but skippable and could be much better if it didn’t pad itself out to fifty minutes with interpersonal drama and weak mysteries. Hamstrung its own chances of success by skimping on the guest stars. Highlights include the ruthless and positive Americans and grande dame luvvie Stella.

Content notes (may contain spoilers):

Chocolate (2008)

Throughout September I will be raiding my collection of favourite movies to review one a day, with a focus on overlooked and underappreciated films.

Where to find it: No UK streaming
Length: 90 minutes
Synopsis: Muay Thai savant beats people up for an hour and a half
Recommendation rating: 3/5

What I like about it: my #1 autism movie – silly, cool, fun
What I don’t like about it: probably a little offensive, the dub

Review:
This one has a slow start as we watch the forbidden romance of a Yakuza and a princess of the Thai underworld but this long diversion produces a child named Zen. Zen is autistic and spends most of her days eating Smarties and watching Ong-Bak over and over and over again, thus downloading kung fu like Neo in The Matrix. When her mother falls ill and requires money for treatment, Zen and her cousin set out to collect on mum’s many debts among Thai organised crime figures. Thrown at Zen are a gang of kathoeys and a final boss who, like herself, is autistic. Try to watch subtitled if you can because the autistic sounds are extra offensive in the dub.

Content notes (may contain spoilers): violence, meltdowns, illness, sex (once at the start), injuries (real ones featured over the credits)

Black Bird (2022)

Where to find it: Apple TV+
Length: Six 1-hour episodes
Synopsis: An informant befriends a killer
Recommendation rating: 3/5

What I like about it: psychological, well-made, darkly fascinating, not too long
What I don’t like about it: always sickening

Review:
This grim and gritty series follows the autobiography of James Keene, a mid-level drug dealer who took on a job gathering evidence on a serial killer for the FBI to avoid a 10-year prison sentence. The acting is good, the writing is psychological, if you like these kinds of things (nauseating dark bloody true crime) then you’ll like this.

Content notes (may contain spoilers): violence, sex, sexual abuse, vomit