Tag: Apple TV+

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

Wolfwalkers (2020)

Where to find it: Apple TV+
Length: 100 minutes
Synopsis: A curious young girl defies her father’s orders and frolics in the woods with a werewolf
Recommendation rating: 5/5

What I like about it: gosh, everything – the impressionist art style with guide lines left in, the buddy relationship between the two main girls, the themes of colonialism, urban growth and conservation
What I don’t like about it: nothing – I wouldn’t change a single frame of this movie

Review:
Cartoon Saloon is an Irish animation studio with a 100% success rate since blowing the animation world away with The Secret of Kells and this movie refines that movie’s techniques to an awe-inspiring level. The film finds us in the thick of the Plantation of Ulster and introduces us to a young girl who lives in a walled colonist city. Her father ventures out every day into the untamed, natural Irish forest to hunt wolves who are threatening the city’s woodcutters. She follows him one day and meets a girl who lives in the woods and can turn into a wolf. This sets up a conflict against the judgement of her elders as she sympathises with the wolves and attempts to stop the systematic destruction of their home. Its ripe ground for exploring worthy themes and the film doesn’t miss any of them, coming down didactically hard on the side of nature, Ireland and paganism as it jolly well should. These films are only ever made thanks to EU funding, they never seem to find an audience but they really deserve one. This film is perfect, please watch.

Content notes (may contain spoilers): cartoon (but serious) violence and peril, especially against animals; patriarchal control; fire