Tag: 3

The Afterparty (2022)

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

Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist (1995)

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

No Time to Die (2021)

Where to find it: Amazon Prime Video
Length: a marathon 163 minutes
Synopsis: James Bond does improbable things in exotic locales
Recommendation rating: 3/5

What I like about it: it can be pretty cool, Bond interacting with a more Millenial MI6
What I don’t like about it: tonal inconsistency, credulity-stretching CGI action

Review:
It’s a Bond movie alright! The problem is it has no idea which kind of Bond movie it wants to be. It opens very dark and stylish and seems like another Skyfall, then goes full Brosnan with laughable action and gadgets in the next scene. After that comes the obligatory overlong credit sequence / theme tune showcase, one of the images here was particularly memorable – Bond is walking through the desert among a ruined statue, calling to mind Shelley’s Ozymandius, and as the sand shifts it reveals that the statue is Brittania and the desert sand is falling through an hourglass. But then just as I’m starting to think this might actually be a good one, the first scene out of the opening titles is a joking scene set in a bio-warfare lab and featuring British comedy perennial Hugh Dennis. Like this, the tone of the film bounces up and down throughout, never quite meshing into what I’m sure they hoped it would be – a tribute to all that is 007, all at once: the cheesy one-liners and risible names (Lyutsifer Safin *eye roll*), the gadgets and action, the more-recent emotional drama and considered themes. It ends up as the worst of all worlds and falls flat on all of its themes, its incomprehensible plot and yeah-that’ll-do acting. Still, it’s a diverting blockbuster if you have nearly 3 hours going begging.

Content notes (may contain spoilers): murder, WMDs, violence and peril

The Larry Sanders Show (1992)

Where to find it: Amazon, I guess
Length: Six seasons of half-hour episodes
Synopsis: Sitcom set around a fictional talk show
Recommendation rating: 3/5

What I like about it: the characters, the humour, the realism, Rip Torn hamming it up
What I don’t like about it: many of the jokes are problematic, more are just dated

Review:
This early comedy success for HBO was foundational to the boom of single-camera sitcoms in the late 90s and early 2000s – shows like Arrested Development, The Office, Extras. It finds a lot of comedy in the duplicity of its characters; avoidant and neurotic host Larry, desperate sidekick Hank and producer Artie, whose sweet and complex nature and variance in tone steal the show in my opinion. You have to be willing to overlook some very mean-spirited jokes and the occasional slur to find the funny stuff though.

Content notes (may contain spoilers): mean jokes and slurs, addiction

Festen (1998)

Where to find it: BFI Player
Length: 100 minutes
Synopsis: Hard-to-watch Danish family melodrama
Recommendation rating: 3/5

What I like about it: fascinating psychological drama, the theme of avoidance
What I don’t like about it: this one is going to haunt me for a long time, ending doesn’t feel cathartic enough

Review:
A party for a wealthy Danish family takes a very dark turn around the 30 minute mark, which makes it hard to pull away from as we watch the fallout through unassuming home-video-style camerawork. This film was a big influence on HBO’s Succession but even as dark as that can get sometimes, this hits horrifying lows they wouldn’t touch. It’s a very good film but not much fun at all.

Content notes (may contain spoilers): child sexual abuse, incest, suicide

The Bob’s Burgers Movie (2022)

Where to find it: Cinemas for now, Disney+ later
Length: 100 minutes
Synopsis: The Belchers get involved in a murder mystery
Recommendation rating: 3/5

What I like about it: the song and dance numbers, characters I love from the TV show, increased animation budget and cool scene transitions
What I don’t like about it: could be better, basically an extra-long episode

Review:
Bob’s Burgers is a TV cartoon that has been running for over a decade and this, the obligatory movie version, fits in well with it. It won’t blow anyone away, especially people new to the franchise as a whole, but it’s funny and diverting and most everything one could want from a Bob’s Burgers movie

Content notes (may contain spoilers): innuendo and peril, buried alive, cartoon corpse

Hawkeye (2021)

Where to find it: Disney+
Length: Six 1-hour episodes
Synopsis: The guy from the movies tries to protect a young woman and stop a threat in time for Christmas with his family
Recommendation rating: 3/5

What I like about it: Hailee Steinfeld, the dynamic between the Hawkeyes, fun and followable action, the deaf stuff
What I don’t like about it: never quite delivers on its themes, these MCU things never have real stakes

Review:
The switch from movies to TV is working out very well for Disney’s Marvel project, they’re much more diverse in tone than the films, generally less dark and more fun and this is a good example of that. Partially adapted from the Matt Fraction/David Aja comic book that was the hottest thing in comics ten years ago, this series finds Clint Barton reluctantly mentoring Kate Bishop, a young and impetuous archer, as they have silly battles with the velour-tracksuited Russian mafia. In this adaptation, Clint is dragged into the situation even though he would rather be home celebrating Christmas with his family, while Kate seems to be enjoying the adventure. Impulsive youth vs. responsible adulthood is a definite theme here – “What are you, 18?” “I’m 22!” “There’s no difference.” – but it never really pays it off by having Clint tell off Kate and she really deserves it in this one, but they just play the dynamic for laughs. It’s fun but it seemed like it was going to be better around episode 3

Content notes (may contain spoilers): general superhero fighting and peril

Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangers (2022)

Where to find it: Disney+
Length: 95 minutes
Synopsis: Dale tries to convince Chip to reunite their double act to cash in on nineties nostalgia
Recommendation rating: 3/5

What I like about it: funny, meta, well-paced and easy to watch
What I don’t like about it: Andy Samberg, animation can be a little janky, feels like a cover version of a Phil Lord and Chris Miller movie

Review:
The premise of this one can be a little disconcerting; it involves a parallel Earth in which cartoon characters live among humans and the 90s cartoon of the same name was shot on a live-action set by the cartoons themselves. It’s odd but soon established and then the writers begin to cram in jokes. Some are really quite funny: Dale has gotten “the CGI surgery” to make himself more appealing to the youth but it hasn’t worked out and he’s working nostalgia conventions alongside some notable and hilarious characters that I won’t spoil here. The main problem with this one is acknowledged in an early line from Chip: “Dale, absolutely no one wants to see our cartoon rebooted” – it’s enough for a fun, distracting Sunday afternoon movie but not enough to bring any real excitement to the viewing experience and that puts a ceiling on the enjoyment level. The team behind this one is basically The Lonely Island and it is funny and competently made but this nod-wink “we know you don’t want it so we made it meta funny” thing has been done over and over since 21 Jump Street and it starts to feel like when you’ve seen one, you’ve heard the joke(s).

Content notes (may contain spoilers): cartoon body horror

The Double (2013)

Where to find it: Rent on BFI Player or wait until it’s on Film4
Length: 90 minutes
Synopsis: A meek office worker finds his life usurped by an assertive doppelgänger
Recommendation rating: 3/5

What I like about it: the retrofuture aesthetic, arresting visuals, music
What I don’t like about it: slow and quiet, demanding lots of attention

Review:
Jesse Eisenberg ably plays the double role of nerdy doormat and arrogant charmer but the real star here is Richard Ayoade, setting up visuals and sequences that Kubrick would be proud of. The music, a mix of staccato stings and Asian crooning, is another highlight. Worth watching if you don’t care much for plot.

Content notes (may contain spoilers): stalking behaviour, suicide, violence, cutting, depersonalisation

The Outlaws (2021) Season 1

Where to find it: BBC iPlayer
Length: Six 1-hour episodes
Synopsis: A diverse group meet in Bristol for court-appointed community service and become entangled in local organised crime
Recommendation rating: 3/5

What I like about it: funny and snappy dialogue, characters and plot which eventually become engaging, fun pacing
What I don’t like about it: the characters begin as crude satirical stereotypes and the premise and plot feel cheesy through the first half of the series, it’s more than a bit contrived

Review:
It took me several tries to care about Stephen Merchant’s new series because it has such a weak opening; a fun premise is marred by characters made of straw and used as target practice for the show’s admittedly very strong jokes. Had I binge-watched the show, this may have been less noticeable because by the latter half of the season they were more fleshed out and easier to care about and by the end I felt the contradictions within and between each member of the group had been fully explored and partially resolved, the perfect end point of the story circle. It’s nice to see a TV show get an honest first season that doesn’t just feel like a pilot for a hopeful franchise and it makes me all the more excited to see a second.

Content notes (may contain spoilers): drugs and alcohol, racism and prejudice, police and crime, mental health (particularly histrionic “personality disorder”), some peril but little violence