Other Stuff I Need to Review

Movies and TV: Sisters, Hunger Games, Master of None, The Fall

Here are a few short reviews of some movies and TV shows I've watched recently.


Sisters

Tina Fey and Amy Poehler are like chocolate and peanut butter: two great tastes that taste great together. On their own, they've done amazing things. They've each written excellent memoirs and starred in critically acclaimed TV shows. They've also made an effort to mentor young women in comedy and make sure that "feminist" is not a dirty word. Also, Amy Poehler once basically told Jimmy Fallon to fuck off, which makes her a goddess in my book. Jimmy Fallon. Ugh.

So, I was mildly disappointed that Sisters wasn't quite as good as I feel it could have been. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't bad. But with the bar set so extremely high for both comedians it was almost destined to not live up to the hype.

Fey and Poehler play--you guessed it--sisters. Fey is Kate, the older, wilder, and less responsible sister and Poehler is Maura, the younger, dorkier, more conscientious sister. When Kate and Maura find out that their elderly parents (played gamely by James Brolin and Dianne Wiest) are selling the family home and moving into a retirement community, the sisters freak out...and then decide to throw one last rager at the house and invite all their friends from high school.

Things get predictably wild. Maura begs Kate to be the "party mom" and stay sober so that she, Maura, can get crunk for once. Maura also has a crush on a neighbor (Ike Barinholtz) and she invites him to the party in the hopes of getting laid in her childhood bedroom (nothing screams "orgasm" like fucking on a twin bed surrounded by your childhood toys).

John Cena makes an appearance as a drug dealer who is, because he is John Cena, the size of a red oak. He definitely brought the funny in the few scenes he was in.

People get insanely drunk. Drugs are taken. Friendships mended. Lessons learned. The house destroyed. A ballerina figurine ends up in someone's butthole, which would warrant a trip to the emergency room in real life, but in the film only brings two lovers closer together in the intimacy of the moment.

Sisters is entertaining and mildly funny, but for Fey and Poehler, it's solidly in the 50-60th percentile of their accomplishments.

Grade:C+

***

Hunger Games: Mockingjay--pt. 2

I hate reviewing these Hunger Games movies because there's so much damn plot to cover. Look, if you've seen the fourth and final installment in the Hunger Games series, I'm gonna assume you're a big fan and don't need any plot description.

The 4th movie I'd say is my 2nd favorite of the film series (I only read the first book, which I know sounds insane to y'all Hunger Games fans. I only read the first Harry Potter book too! Bwahahahah!). My fave was the second movie--Catching Fire. My least fave was the third movie--Mockingjay pt. 1--because it was so damn pointless. They easily could have made Mockingjay into one, perhaps slightly long, film. The second half is where all the action happens, when Katniss and co. infiltrate the Capitol and have to dodge all these crazy booby traps. There are some pretty violent deaths here and some dark and morally ambiguous shit. If you read my blog regularly, you know that I love me some movie violence and ambiguous morals, so I was on board!

Also, as much as I hate to admit it, I begrudgingly see why Peeta is a better match in the long run for Katniss. I loved Gale because 1) he's hot and 2) he struck me as more of an equal to Katniss. But we all know that Gale is party to some pretty awful shit in this movie, so Katniss ultimately falls in love with Peeta. Also, I'm not going to lie--I like when "beta males" get paired with alpha ladies, and Peeta is pretty much the poster boy for betas.

I only wish there had been significantly more Haymitch in this movie. Haymitch is the best.

Grade: B

***

Master of None

There are plenty of comedians who speak for older Millennials (folks in their late 20's and early 30's), but none with quite the flavor of Aziz Ansari. Ansari has a very distinct voice and viewpoint--he is relentlessly optimistic, but not naive. He's insightful without being pedantic. He's equally likely to exclaim "dang it!" as he is "fuck!" (I am a huge fan of what I call "realistic swearing" in film and TV. One of my greatest pet peeves is when people swear "unrealistically" in movies and TV. It has nothing to do with the *amount* of swears, but rather *how* people use the swears). He just has something that other comedians don't, and his Netflix series Master of None proves it.

Master of None is as close to a perfect show--well, a perfect comedy--as I can think of. Every episode is laugh out loud funny, but also sweet (but not in that saccharine Modern Family way). It's a very rewatchable show. It has weird little quirks (Paro! Turtle climbing out of briefcase!  Lil Funyuns!) that you can say to your friends and they instantly know what you mean.

The plots of the episodes speak to the immediate zeitgeist (Texting is annoying! Uber! Finding the perfect taco!) but also to universal and timeless issues (We love our parents but they are also annoying! Racism is bad!).

Master of None has a few slight imperfections. Occasionally, the moral of the story is "told" rather than "shown", and I've discussed the show with people who think that this is realistic to the way Millennials talk and process events, and also with people who disagree and think it's not realistic. Also, I wasn't a huge fan of the Claire Danes episode.

But other than that, this show is fucking tight. A fuckin' plus.

Grade: A+

***

The Fall

And here's another awesome series I blasted through in about a week.

The Fall is a British TV series about a serial murderer, Paul Spector (Jamie Dornan, aka Mr. Grey, in his element as a twisted killer of women), and a Detective Superintendent, Stella Gibson (Gillian Anderson, who is the absolute tits) chasing him down. To say that Spector is a murderer is not a spoiler, as we see him kill a woman in either the first or second episode. The Fall is not a whodunnit, it's a cat-and-mouse game with the world's most lethal mouse.

The great thing about The Fall is how deeply it delves into the psychology of both Spector and Gibson. Spector is a husband and father, who appears capable of deep love for his children, even as he plans his intricate and sexually motivated murders of women. It's very uncomfortable to see killers as human and not monsters, but to dismiss all violent criminals as not-human is to refuse to confront the darkness that resides in literally everyone.

Stella Gibson is an equally interesting character. She's undoubtedly a strong, intelligent woman. She is cold, methodical, and ferociously competent about 85% of the time. But those few times that Spector or others get under her skin, she reveals vulnerability and warmth underneath.

The Fall calls out misogyny in a straightforward and unflinching manner. In a confrontation over the phone at the end of season 1, Gibson tells Spector that the reason he does what he does is not, as Spector argues, about the power. It's about hate. He hates women, plain and simple. Many criminal procedurals delve into the motivations behind murder (The Fall does this too, revealing that Spector had a less than ideal upbringing), but Gibson's no nonsense take on Spector's ultimate driving force--having zero empathy for the women he kills and a contempt for women in general--is a breath of fresh air.

There is some very intense (not necessarily gorey, but emotionally intense) violence in this show. If you are sensitive to that, stay away. But if you like intellectual crime shows with great acting, I highly recommend The Fall.

Grade: A