Tag: 4

William Orbit – The Painter (2022)

Length: approx. 65 minutes
Synopsis: Confident, laid-back and varied electronic set
Recommendation rating: 4/5

What I like about it: interesting selection of songs, confident production
What I don’t like about it: most tracks are long, better in the background

Review:
Electronic pioneer William Orbit returns with this album, which feels like he had fun making it and playing with incorporating various genres into his own electronic style. The tracks can be indulgently long for a close listen but it’s not too intrusive to be distracting if you listen while doing something else.

Content notes (may contain spoilers):

The Rehearsal (2022)

Where to find it: NowTV
Length: Six 40-minute episodes
Synopsis: Nathan Fielder wastes HBO’s money, traumatises a child
Recommendation rating: 4/5

What I like about it: absurd humour, smart, a great idea
What I don’t like about it: not quite as good in execution, poorly paced, i’m absolutely furious at him

Review:
Nathan Fielder’s latest project finds him exploring such worthy and neurodivergent-adjacent themes as scripting/rehearsal, fear of social mistakes and empathy. He sets up a format in the first episode of finding a person who has been putting off something difficult and running them through the possibilities in a comically high-budget simulation. This is a (seemingly planned) misdirect however and the second rehearsal project gets Nathan’s personal attention and gets way out of control.

If you’ve seen Nathan For You and know his style, you’ll find plenty here to enjoy. He sets up awkwardness and absurdity that are very funny and the mix of simulation and real life is interesting, though far less subversive in this series as his targets move away from the world of business. The funniest moments in this are when Nathan, having chosen Evangelicals and Punisher tattoo guys for his show, is shocked to encounter anti-Semitism and breaks his usual deadpan character to deal with them, pranking one of them so hard that he drops out of the show. The rehearsals he sets up are soon shown to be inadequate and he tries to fix this by ‘going deeper’ and trying to make them perfect, using HBO’s infamous creative generosity to show how no amount of preparation can truly prepare someone for interacting with another person.

The final episode is both the best and worst of the series, it gave me extremely mixed feelings about the whole project which are at least mirrored by Fielder. As part of one of his staged rehearsals, he bonded with a fatherless and developmentally-delayed six-year-old, Remy, who became confused and very upset at losing Nathan when he wrapped on the show. I have no idea how this show was meant to end but this gave him a pretty much perfect ending, albeit a very exploitative and inconsiderate one. Having made a huge mistake while trying to avoid making mistakes, Nathan culminates by examining this and concluding that empathy – while flawed – is a worthwhile pursuit and that rehearsing to avoid living is not.

It hit me so hard I have to give this show a good rating but he owes the entire project, and frankly any remuneration from it, to Remy and his mother. Fielder says at the end, in a speech that may as well be to his vulnerable inner child, “It’s not bad to make mistakes, because it shows you have a heart.” He certainly does have a heart, but his heart and his brain need to talk more. This is a very clever project marred by an inexcusable choice to spend too much money on sets, crew and cast while spending none on having a child psychologist on set.

Content notes (may contain spoilers): simulated overdose, very upset child

Shiva Baby (2020)

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: Impressive psychological dramedy about young adulthood
Recommendation rating: 4/5

What I like about it: fascinating, often funny, great direction
What I don’t like about it: can be unpleasant, slow to build

Review:
A young Jewish woman caters a shiva with three unwelcome guests – her sugar daddy, her successful ex and a crying baby. Debuting writer-director Emma Seligman is a genius and the baby is used to incredible effect, their crying punctuating heavy moments for the lead character, and my favourite directing touch in this is how the baby isn’t shown and it becomes noticeable that the main character is avoiding looking at them, until she does and we get a radiant two-second insert of the little darling before she has a complete meltdown. Amazingly well-made.

Content notes (may contain spoilers): a baby screams most of the way through the movie, sex work, eating disorder

This Fool (2022)

Where to find it: Disney+ (I assume)
Length: Ten 25-minute episodes
Synopsis: Character-based comedy with a lot of heart
Recommendation rating: 4/5

What I like about it: funny, absurdity, acting, directing
What I don’t like about it: fond of gross-out humour, characters take a few episodes to grow

Review:
Julio lives in South Central Los Angeles with his grandmother, mother, sister and her two children. He works at a rehabilitation programme for gang members called Hugs Not Thugs, where most of their time is spent baking cupcakes. In the pilot, his routine is interrupted by the arrival of his cousin and childhood bully Luis, who moves from prison into Julio’s home and work. Everyone in this series is imperfect but kind-hearted; it makes for a great set of characters that really grow on you and it’s also the funniest comedy debut of this year.

Content notes (may contain spoilers): one instance of sudden violence/injury, gross humour (vomit, defecation)

McQueen (2018)

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: NowTV
Length: 105 minutes
Synopsis: Documentary on Alexander McQueen
Recommendation rating: 4/5

What I like about it: the shows, the fashions, well-made documentary
What I don’t like about it: a sad story

Review:
This documentary covers the short life and career of Lee Alexander McQueen. An outsider to the fashion industry with a gift for spectacle and improvisation, Lee climbed fast as the industry sought an xtreme edginess in the late 90s. Sadly, he accepted a job with Givenchy and destroyed himself with the pressure, developing a drug addiction and an eating disorder before ending his life in 2010. This portrait gives due weight to his designs and creativity while also delving into his life and working methods, all wrapped in an effortful elegance that he would probably be very proud of.

Content notes (may contain spoilers): suicide, abuse, drugs

George FitzGerald – Stellar Drifting (2022)

Length: 42:52
Synopsis: Space-themed set of electronic pop
Recommendation rating: 4/5

What I like about it: interesting composition choices, sounds great
What I don’t like about it: neither energetic nor laid-back

Review:
This album, in expansive headphones, feels like a trip through the stars. Of course, it may just feel like a competent electronic album if you’re not stoned off your ass.

Content notes (may contain spoilers):

The Red Shoes (1948)

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: Britbox on Amazon
Length: 135 minutes
Synopsis: Beautiful ballet
Recommendation rating: 4/5

What I like about it: gorgeous, serious, colourful
What I don’t like about it: long and pretentious

Review:
Featuring a thinly-veiled Ballets Russes, a Diaghilev-type takes full advantage of a young ballerina’s ambition, writing for her the ultimate prima role. Culminating in a 17-minute ballet that shows the conflicts between art and life and the demands put on dancers. It’s pretentious but it’s beautiful.

Content notes (may contain spoilers):

Galaxy Quest (1999)

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: All4 right now
Length: 100 minutes
Synopsis: The cast of Star Trek are mistaken by aliens for the characters they play
Recommendation rating: 4/5

What I like about it: fun, good effects, better than it ever had to be
What I don’t like about it: honestly, nothing stands out – it’s just a fun ride

Review:
The movie opens on a sci-fi convention as we meet the cast of Galaxy Quest – Tim Allen as the brash captain and the actor who likes to believe he’s as daring as his character, Alan Rickman as a thespian disappointed by his typecasting as the alien sidekick, Sigourney Weaver as the useless token female (“My whole job on the show was repeating what the computer said!”), Sam Rockwell as the dispensable and forgotten red shirt – all taking wonderful advantage of their real-life parallels. Complications arise when aliens appear, led by a hilarious performance from Enrico Colantoni, to recruit the captain in their intergalactic war, having based most of their technology on old broadcasts of Galaxy Quest and believing only the crew of that show can save them.

The film leaves me impressed every time I watch it, not because it’s a great film really but because not a single aspect is phoned-in. The practical effects, costumes, acting, everything is lovingly considered and it adds up to the most fun you’ll have watching something Star Trek-related.

Content notes (may contain spoilers):

Snowpiercer (2013)

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 BFI or Amazon
Length: two hours
Synopsis: The Communist Manifesto on wheels
Recommendation rating: 4/5

What I like about it: metaphor, action
What I don’t like about it: not fun

Review:
I gained a lot of appreciation for this in retrospect after watching Parasite and deciding I liked this one more. The metaphor works better – a train, constantly in motion and “unable” to stop, moves around a world ravaged by climate change. At the back of the train are some overworked and underfed people living in darkness and squalor, a revolution ensues and one of the proletariat fights his way through increasing luxury to the front of the train. There (spoilers for capitalism) he learns that the train is actually fuelled by human bodies and stops it in disgust, taking his chances in the frozen wasteland. And all of that, unlike Parasite, in an action film that I could show to pretty much anybody.

Content notes (may contain spoilers): violence

Culloden (1964)

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: just over an hour
Synopsis: The Battle of Culloden, in the style of BBC documentaries of the time
Recommendation rating: 4/5

What I like about it: a wonderfully didactic history lesson
What I don’t like about it: it’s no fun popcorn flick

Review:
Peter Watkins is a fascinating filmmaker, tending to favour an experimental documentary style over what he refers to as ‘the monoform’ of dramatic entertainment. Throughout his career, he filmed many fascinating and unflinchingly bleak documentaries on subjects like nuclear weapons and the Paris Commune, as well as satirical fiction such as Privilege, Punishment Park and the fantastic Gladiators. He would prove to be a formative influence on Adam Curtis, who is a formative influence on me.

In this, his first feature-length work, the Battle of Culloden is re-enacted by amateur actors as if a documentary crew were able to time-travel to the battlefield. The effect really works as unfolding developments build significant emotion for what seems, at first, like a dry history lesson.

Content notes (may contain spoilers): grim horrors of war, vividly described