This week I’ve watched two things that are, on the surface, tailor-made for me and that I’ve been meaning to watch for a while (well, just over a month since they were initially released). It turns out that it is worth looking below that surface. We’ll finish up with a little diversion into a comparison betwen two animated films for children, since I have a four year old daughter and that makes up a fair proportion of my watching. Let’s get going!
- The Franchise (Sky/NowTV) – This is a show almost custom made for me. It’s a behind the scenes comedy about the making of a less important film in a large and entirely fictional cinematic universe (it’s definitely just the Marvel Cinematic Universe, with a little bit of extra general franchise-filmmaking thrown in). So a comedy show with pedigree in production and casting, aligned to a more niche genre and about being creative. Wait, did I write this thing? No, a much more successful and talented man called Jon Brown did – reading this page about him on his agent’s website made me realise he sort of has the career I’d imagine for myself, some genre sitcoms that didn’t take off, writing episodes of progressively more successful shows, and working his way up to running a couple of major shows. But I wouldn’t have known his name. And I suppose that’s sort of the point of The Franchise overall, as stated in the final joke of the first episode – the first Assistant Director Daniel knows he has a terrible and stressful job, but it’s in showbusiness so he’ll never leave! My initial thought as I began watching was “Can it possibly keep up this pace of dialogue?” And for a long time it seemed like it was going to try! It slowed down once they got to lunchtime, with a bit of a chance to get to know the characters. It’s a clever way to showcase the fast paced world, and layer in quick jokes that you’ll only pick up on in a rewatch. The fast speech and crosstalk may put some people off, but I found it engaging enough. I immediately loved Daniel Bruhl as the director who thinks he’s too arty for this sort of film, but probably isn’t, and Lolly Adefope as the new 3rd AD who can see the flaws of the system. Himesh Patel1 as the lead character and 1st AD is very charming in a difficult role and Jessica Hynes, as a character I assumed was an assistant to the director but is script supervisor apparently, is delightfully mad and slightly more in her own world. Richard E Grant is, for me, a bit boring as a character. I’ve been told by others who’ve watched that he is the best part of it. But I think actors and their foibles are the most overdone and least interesting part of this sort of show. It was done to death in Extras (a show I loved but don’t think I could rewatch now with a new perspective on Ricky Gervais). When episode 1 ended, I immediately wanted to watch episode 2, which I did. If I have one criticism if that’s some of the one-liners stand out as overwritten (“like dogs in a washing machine”) and take me out of the reality, but that’s just finding the balance. I thought it would be a little more sitcom, like Avenue 52, but I’m on board with the comedy drama nature of it. And it genuinely made me laugh out loud multiple times.
- The Substance (MUBI) – This recent body-horror film, written and directed by Coralie Fargeat appeared on MUBI for Halloween3. I received many emails. They must have thought it was up my street. It really should be. It’s about an older celebrity, played by Demi Moore in a coup of understanding the story by casting alone, who is dismissed in her career simply for turning 50. She opts to embark on an experimental drug that creates another younger self from inside her, with whom she shares life (played by Margaret Qualley who I know from The Leftovers, one of the best TV series ever made). I’d seen a lot of reviews and discussion of it when it came out in September, and it’s description as a female-centric body-horror about beauty standards and objectification sounded like it had something to say. I am not squeamish when it comes to films (or much in real life either) so I wasn’t worried by whatever the horror content might be, The Thing and a lot of David Cronenberg being formative films for me. And yet, I have given up an hour in. I’m disappointed as I quite enjoyed Demi Moore, the generic setting and heightened style (which feels very David Lynch, another big influence on my tastes) and Dennis Quaid being supremely and disgustingly over the top. But it was starting to feel much less interesting, after I’d watched roughly half an hour of the younger version, Sue, being objectified in close up and seemingly endless montages of body parts in and out of clothing as the focus of the film. I’ve seen reviews claiming it is holding up a mirror to the audiences expectation of a young woman’s body, but it just felt cheap and indulgent. I can’t quite imagine what another hour and twenty minutes could do with the setup, other than it all to go wrong for the characters as they stop following the strict rules. I think I’d imagine a better ending than I’ll get, given I’ve already imagined a better film from the setup than I saw. I welcome alternate opinions!
- 10 Lives (Sky Cinema) & Despicable Me 4 (Cinema/Home Release) – Here are two children’s animated films, neither of which are perfect and one of which I vastly preferred4. Despicable Me 4 is the much better known of the two. It was our selection for a cinema trip this weekend, after a number of failed attempts over the last few months where it wasn’t quite the right thing for that day. It’s the fourth, or sixth if you count the probably better Minions films, in the Despicable Me franchise, and it really feels like a fourth to sixth entry. I kept waiting for the disparate threads of plot to relate to each other or coalesce in some sort of meaning, and they never did. The major plot is about whether a new baby really loves his dad or not, when he’s generally grumpy when he’s around. The villains were utterly boring and so tangential they might have been in a different film. The Super Minions, that we’d seen and enjoyed in Happy Meal toy form back in the summer, were a lot more fun than the rest of the film, and lasted maybe ten minutes in total. 10 Lives was the latest kids film on Sky Cinema that seemed age appropriate5 for a Saturday afternoon. It concerns a cat who finds an owner but runs out of his nine lives, and then wangles his way to getting a few more. It seems quite generic, though it has a few recognisable names in the cast, but is actually a very sweet film about living life for the connections you make to others. It has some very funny sequences, and laugh out loud lines. We watched it twice on that same day, a sure sign that it has made an impact. Despicable Me 4 has not been mentioned since we saw it.
So it seems like making assumptions about anything on the Televigion screen without watching them is a dangerous game! This basically means we all have to watch more TV and films, so I hope you’re OK with that. Please do get in touch, comment, message or email if you have any thoughts, or recommendations. Thanks for reading!
Footnotes
- Is it a joke to say that I’d forgotten about him starring in Yesterday, the film where the world forgets The Beatles? ↩︎
- The previous show from this team, a fast-paced and mean sitcom set on a spaceship with Hugh Laurie as the captain. Talk about being tailored for me. ↩︎
- MUBI is an excellent streaming platform for world cinema, older classics and artier fare that isn’t elsewhere. I surfed my way through a few months of a free trial and had a period of watching many films I’d missed or never seen, moved on for a while as TV watching took over and then was offered 70% off for 6 months to entice me back. I’ve only watched a handful of films since then, but have a full watchlist, the natural state of the middle-tier streaming service. I recommend it if your Netflix/Disney+ film perusal is at a standstill. ↩︎
- And both of which I fell asleep during, albeit briefly. ↩︎
- The Televigion Daughter has seen Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse multiple times and loves it, so she has sophisticated tastes for a four year old. ↩︎
Televigion 