Horses are good company -- The Witcher

List of stuff I've watched, catching up from the last couple of weeks. Watching stuff is about all I can do right now. Due to concussion I'm watching things in English, with minimal flashing lights and otherwise visually easy to process, and taking recommendations.

Bank of Dave - boring but fine. nice to see Joel Fry (of Our flag means death) playing a young lawyer, who is helping a man start a small bank, and going up against the establishment. Comp het romance plotline was dull.
Beautiful Game - about the Homeless World Cup (soccer). Not very good but not horrible.

Merpeople - 4-ep documentary series about people who are, or want to be, professional mermaids, who perform at shows. The best part of this was the costumes and the photography. I appreciated that they showed the society of fat mermaids, and talked about queerness and race. Netflix.

By Hook or By Crook - an independent film from 2001 about two trans guys who are best friends. They are living a marginal existence, having adventures. This was super interesting and I loved it. The captions were terrible.

Last Voyage of the Demeter - Dracula thriller with a cool concept-- these people are at sea on a big sailing vessel, and a monster is on board with them-- but this was a bit disappointing. Not as fun or twisty as it could have been. You know the monster is going to live, so there is nothing satisfying in the narrative.

Godzilla Minus One. This is in Japanese but has a pretty decent dub, which worked much better for me cognitively. I went in knowing almost nothing about this film, and ended up absolutely adoring it. It's also the first Godzilla film I've seen. So, if it interests you at all, I encourage you to check it out. I have a lot of thoughts about this film but will save those up for a later post.

Under Paris - also has an English dub. This is a silly movie about a huge shark in the Seine. A scientist, some cops, and some young eco-warriors are trying to find the shark and almost all of them get eaten! It's just ridiculous and fun, and there are many scenes with divers down in the catacombs. A good bad movie where you sort of root for the monster.

Sue Bird: In the Clutch. A documentary about the career of the WNBA star. This is about 90 percent basketball, and 10 percent about her being a lesbian and an activist, coming out publically when she started dating Megan Rapinoe, etc, which are the parts I'm more interested in. Sometimes I wish I liked sports but we must accept who we are. Netflix.

QueenPins - a comedy about two friends who do some non-violent crime, via stealing and selling coupons. The two friends are pretty great, played by Kristen Bell and Kirby (both of "the good place"). There is a parallel plot involving cop-like dudes tracking the queenpins, and these people I hated. I've never liked Vince Vaughan, and the other guy was a fatphobic loser stereotype. So, I liked half this movie fairly well and hated the other half.

A Walk in the Woods - Did not finish, due to really nasty, vile fat phobia, specifically directed at fat women. Shame on you, people who made this film.

Out of Africa - 1985 adaptation of Isak Dineson's memoir, about her adventures in East Africa in the early 20th century. It's simultaneously a beautiful, well-made romance, and then it's also so disgustingly colonialist and racist. What a bizarre world we live in.

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.

The Holdovers

As this began I was like, OMG was this shot on FILM? It's so beautiful!

Turns out it was shot on digital but made to look like old film, warm and colorful.

This is a quiet film about lonely and grieving people spending a few weeks together in 1970 at a boarding school--they "hold over" during winter break when most of the people leave. I really enjoyed it. Well written and acted characters, and it's about connection and platonic relationships. A little too long at 2 hours 13 minutes.

I watched a documentary about Lil Nas X's first tour, Lil Nas X: Long Live Montero which was fairly light, fun, non-demanding viewing. I think he is wonderful!! I really appreciated hearing him talk about his relationships with his family, his love for his backup dancers, seeing the fun outfits, hearing from fans. Hearing him talk about other Black queer artists was moving. This does contain vomiting and flashing lights at concerts.

He's only about 24 or 25, and got famous early. When he talked about stuff that happened in 2019 it felt so long ago.

Some things on Netflix.

The Dads
A 10-minute doc that shows dads of trans kids who are trying to be supportive. This was nice but felt too short, like it's the opener of something longer.

Gender Agenda
A showcase of various gender-y comedians, put together by Hannah Gadsby. Loved this.

Heart Shot
A 20-minute fictional lesbian film, well made but didn't make a lot of sense because it felt like the opener to a thriller film. I'd love to see the whole film though! Features two young lesbians of color.

Long Shot
A short documentary about a man who was falsely accused of murder. His lawyer went the extra mile for him and got his case dismissed, using TV footage from "Arrested Development"-- a live shoot at a baseball game that just happened to have the defendant on camera. The arrest was really traumatic for this guy and it's luck and a good lawyer that got him free.

Blazing Saddles
I really enjoyed this and would have watched it sooner if I'd known how gay it is. Gene Wilder and Cleavon Little light up the screen, what a joy. Towards the end there is a song and dance number featuring men singing about bottoming, which they call "The French Mistake." This looked really good too-- film plus traditional and natural light! What a concept.

The Volcano: Rescue from Whakaari
A documentary about a disaster in New Zealand in 2019. People went on guided tours to an active volcano! For years! Then eventually it erupted and killed 22 people. Others were left with severe burns and trauma. This one has haunted me a bit. on the one hand, why would anyone take such a tour, but OTOH the companies doing these tours took advantage of naive tourists. One young man lost his whole immediate family. This was a disaster that was totally preventable. One thing I liked about this film was how it emphasized people helping each other.

Long Shot - Hulu, movie.

Charlize Theron and Seth Rogen, silly romcom. They play childhood friends who run into each other again. He's a recently-fired journalist, she's secretary of state who needs to inject some humor into her speeches. This was ridiculous and I loved it.

I used to dislike Seth Rogen but I've completely changed my mind about him. He's funny and nice. Charlize Theron gets to be so funny in this. They have good chemistry as the work-focused, serious woman and the guy who respects her and makes her laugh. The kind of het couple I can root for.

The politics were light and unrealistic and best not looked at too closely.

Vida - Hulu, series.

I found this too stressful, so quit after a few episodes, but others on here may like it. It's a family drama that features an all-Latiné cast and many queer characters. 2 sisters return home for their mother's funeral, and it appears they will stay to manage her bar and building. There is a fair amount of graphic sex and nudity. One of the sisters gives big Miss Parker vibes (from the 90s show the Pretender, intensely private, high-powered dominatrix type). Family dramas like this (think Fleabag) are not my genre, because all the characters seem so utterly miserable. But I think others view them differently; IDIC and YMMV.

Impressed with Josh Thomas' "Everything's Gonna Be Okay" (EGBO), I tried out his previous show "Please Like Me" on Hulu. I have mixed feelings and may or may not continue with it.

I enjoy Josh Thomas' awkward gay humor. I'm not as into the premise of this show, which is about a character (also named Josh) taking care of his mother, who has a mental illness, and also about Josh's friends and dating life. In particular, his best friend is someone I find annoying, and there have been a few racist moments in episode 1-5. It doesn't feel as warm as EGBO. I'm going to keep going, though! We'll see.

The other show I checked out this weekend was "The Big Leap," also on Hulu. I absolutely loved this scripted show in a reality-show setting. It's about a group of people who are amateur dancers; they audition for and join a cast that are going to be producing Swan Lake. There are several gay men, a couple of fat women, many Black characters, and people from various class backgrounds. The main producer of the show tries to ramp up the drama in order to make compelling TV, and sometimes he's an ass about it, but mostly the show believes in its characters and likes them. There are 4 episodes currently.