comedies and documentaries

[sasha_feather]

Feeling the need to zone out in front of comedies and documentaries right now; here were a few that were thought-provoking or entertaining or both.

Atsuko Okatsuka: The Intruder, wonderful stand-up special from a comedian who is popping up on my "for you" pages, and she is hilarious. Really looking forward to more from her.

Trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBoMRo3t-Bk

I tried the first 4 episodes of Hacks, about two women working together in the field of comedy. I liked a lot of things about this, some things made me uncomfortable, I'll probably watch more of it.

Carrie Pilby, on Netflix, was unfortunately not very good. I liked that it's a coming-of-age story about a brilliant, nerdy, lonesome young woman. I did not like that she was in an abusive relationship with her teacher, and that she doesn't seem to realize that it was abusive, so that was a bummer. Her father does express concern over that but the whole thing kind of dragged the movie down.

Stay on Board: the Leo Baker story is a doc about a trans guy who is a professional skateboarder. Neat to see the board tricks in this and learn a bit about the sport. Much of the discussion in here is the Olympics: skateboarding was added to the Olympics for Tokyo, and Leo qualified but did so as part of the women's team, so he is faced with a dilemma. Honestly, really a condemnation of the strict gender roles in sports.

Short documentaries:
Zion, about a disabled wrestler.
Jon was trying to find aliens, about a quirky rural gay guy.

Strange Way of Life is a short fiction film by Pedro Almodóvar, about queer cowboys, and starring Ethan Hawke and Pedro Pascal. You'd think I would have loved it. For some reason, maybe down to my mood and high pain levels, I found it stiff and unconvincing. There was a complicated back story and too much wooden dialog.

I am curious about other people's opinions and might watch it again because it's in my areas of interest, and I felt like, surely I'm missing something here. As a vidder: it's so incredibly frustrating when the film makers cut away from gay kissing, or in this case, fade quickly to black. For an R-rated short film this showed very little that one might be able to use in vids, a pity.

Comments

[jesse_the_k]

I am so there w you in disappointment w Strange Way of Life. I remember Almodóvar’s earlier movies as gleeful re gender and sex.

Did I squee to you re Standing Up, a French Netflix series? The Guardian review does a good job explaining how it follows four standup comedians trying to break in, and I found the actors excellent (if het). Subtitles and stage lights; no flashers I can recall but can't promise :(

[angelsaves]

ooh, have you watched We Are The Champions on netflix? one season, each episode is about a different niche competition. the tone really worked for me: both embracing the absurdity and respecting the hard work and love of the competitors :D

[sasha_feather]

Thank you for the rec! I have not seen that and will watch!