TV, books, pods and movies: your red, beige and green flags, covered
Entertainment recs for the time poor | August 2024
I did the culture study so you could get the Cliff’s Notes
While entertainment recommendations are best left to the lovely Keryn Donnelly and her weekly Things I’m Obsessed With newsletter, I’ve accidentally devoured so much in Melbourne’s frozen state that I’d be remiss not to share and save you from making the same mistakes.
So, if you’re looking for some content, here’s what’s great, what’s okay, and what to definitely avoid - a week of entertainment red, beige, and solid green flags.
What to watch, read, listen to and see - and what to definitely avoid
Green flags - these are all great, trust me. I saw Hairspray at the cinema three times, so you know I get entertainment.
Cinema | Fly Me To The Moon - a fictionalised background and romance around the real-life space race in the 1960s, USA. Fun fashion, great one liners, a nod to the flicks of a bygone era and a stunning Scarlett Johansson make this one rocket to watch launch on the big screen. (Caveat - Magic Mike Channing Tatum is woefully miscast as a NASA space director, but you’ll get past it.)
TV | The Twelve (Binge) - S1 was one of the greatest shows Australia made in 2023, so I was eager to check out S2. While it is excruciating and somewhat perplexing that a platform called Binge, in fact, only releases episodes weekly, the drama centred on 12 jurors in a murder case has me just as involved as S1. It is a new story with a mostly new cast, so you don’t need to follow on - did a couple in a doomed romance kill the woman’s mother to get her inheritance? Did one of them do it, or neither? Decide as the case plays out for the jury as their own lives, biases and interactions impact their eventual verdict. Gripping.
Podcast | Hysterical (Wondery) - Man, Wondery have done it again. If you’re like me and love any kind of story around scams, cons, cults and crazy relationships, you’ll be hooked on Hysterical. While (annoyingly) only a few episodes are out for us cheap unpaid listeners, the podcast centred in middle America tells the real-life story about a group of teenage girls who all developed symptoms similar to Tourette syndrome in the 2010s. Were they making it up? Copying each other? Was there a cover up for something more sinister at the school? I don’t know, and I purposely don’t want to know until it gets to the end, so no spoilers!
Beige flags - these are like, okay, if you need to pass the time. You could enjoy them, or never think about them again and both would be acceptable, like Stacie Orrico, or lettuce.
TV | FAKE (Paramount) - there will be people who loved this true story about an Aussie journalism romanced by a love fraud, and that’s cool. Was it addictive? Yes. An insane true story that should tick all the boxes - scam, con, love fraud, secrets-secrets-lies-lies? Yes. But was it also so insanely infuriating that you’ll find yourself screaming at the TV in irritation and disbelief? Yes, yes, and yes. Watch at your own peril.
Book | Verity (by Colleen Hoover) - again, this is an author who is apparently as universally beloved as Taylor Swift on something called BookTok (?) so please don’t answer any DMs with knife emojis asking for my address. I randomly picked it up on a hotel bookshelf in Bali before I knew (yes, I was in Bali, how did that come up?) and delved in. The premise is fun - a somewhat unsuccessful writer is invited to finish the series of an incredibly successful author while becoming increasingly attracted to the author’s husband. She finds out the author has dark secrets - what happens if they’re revealed? For me, the payoff I was desperately needing after staying up past 2am to finish was not worth it. Please don’t egg/burn down my house, TikBook people.
Podcast | The Missing $49 Million (News) - I really thought I’d love this from the first 10 seconds, given the title that obviously appeals to my love of cons and scams (I need therapy). But I’m not sure yet. Like, the story is interesting enough for me to keep listening, but I’m also not hooked the way podcasts like Queen of the Con or The Teacher’s Pet had me gripped, you know? Will advise if this changes.
Red flags - run, don’t walk. These things sucked up my time, so save yourself. It’s too late for me
Movie | Kinds of Kindness (Cinema) - Oh my lord. What a spectacular waste of time. Clocking at almost three hours, I knew that considering this was Yorgos Lanthimos (Poor Things, The Lobster) this was going to be a bit… batty. What I wasn’t expecting was for it to be such boring, sensationalist, overt drivel that really had nothing to say. To me, it didn’t feel creative, or clever, or linked or interesting. Just like Emma Stone and old mate had one too many turns on the pipe and were like, omg, we should like, totally film this. It was so pointlessly excruciating that I did something I only have done a handful of times - I left early. Just not early enough.
TV movie | The Idea of You (Amazon) - I’ll get flack for this, but again, what a slow, pointless snooze-inducer. While I wasn’t expecting a straight-to-streaming romance to be worthy of an Oscar, I though it might at least be lame in a funny way, or half interesting, like its (more attractive and more talented) twin sister on Netflix, A Family Affair.
In this super lame premise, we’re meant to see bombshell Academy Award winning smoke show Anne Hathaway as some sort of 40-year-old over the hill single mother, who above all odds, gets into a relationship with the lead singer of a boy band. But instead of being funny like its twin sister movie, or actually great like similar-themed films Music and Lyrics or Notting Hill, that’s pretty much… it. They want for each other, but you know, society! She’s some old hag mum, run! Like the teens who disapproved of their rel in the movie, I too got the ick. Except for the entire film.
Anything else to review? Did I get it wrong? Let me know (without burning my house down pls).
-Japes-
More 🙏 reviews please!
Oh I love the concept of red, beige and green flags! I still need to see Fly Me To The Moon!