Tayshia Adams and Kaitlyn Bristowe co-hosted an anticlimactic “Men Tell All” episode. PHOTO CREDIT: All photos, Craig Sjodin/ABC
Forget the shenanigans of “The Men Tell All” — Cody who? Karl blah blah blah — the only thing of note that happened on Monday’s “Bachelorette” was that Michael Allio took himself out of the running and broke many, many hearts.
I should have seen it coming when the episode began with a time-wasting chat about hometowns between Katie and co-host Tayshia Adams, and Katie said she was excited about potentially choosing Michael and becoming an “instant mom” to his son. It’s called foreshadowing, folks. It’s like when the dudes who freak out that they’re not getting picked at the rose ceremony get their names called and the ones who yammer on about how confident they are that they’re staying get sent home.
Michael himself was pumped about Katie meeting his parents, but then he made his daily video call to his little boy, James, and James said, “Maybe Daddy left because he don’t want to see me.” And Michael was crying and a producer was hugging him.
If Michael had stayed after that, then he wouldn’t be the man we’ve all grown to admire so much. He made the trek to Katie’s suite — thanks to those of you who pointed out she was wearing a special shade of breakup blue — and told her, “I’m not leaving because of you, I’m leaving because my son needs his dad.”
Katie, with tears rolling down her cheeks, said, “I want to beg you to stay. I just know that’s not an option.”
And they exchanged a couple of long hugs and a kiss and Michael was gone.
Who knows if Katie would have ended up with Michael had he stayed? She did say she saw them going to the end. But at “Men Tell All,” she made it clear there’d be no second chances.
Fan favourite Michael Allio with Tayshia and Kaitlyn on “Men Tell All.”
Michael had told Tayshia and co-host Kaitlyn Bristowe that he’d “100 per cent” be willing to take another shot with Katie because he still felt the same way about her. But Katie had moved on: “I have nothing but love and respect for Michael, but ultimately I could not dwell on the past,” she said. “My ending is ultimately how everything was supposed to happen.”
So Michael for Bachelor then? It could happen, but only if he was allowed to bring his son along. To me, it seemed like Andrew Spencer got more of a Bachelor edit on “Men Tell All.”
After revisiting his exit from the show — with nothing but good things to say about Katie — Andrew told Tayshia and Kaitlyn, “I’m still waiting for someone to just, you know, pick me for me, pick me for 100 per cent me.”
There was a definite potential Bachelor vibe around Andrew Spencer on “Men Tell All.”
Tayshia brought up the conversation that Andrew and Katie had on their one-on-one date about interracial relationships, saying “You were so courageous for talking about that.”
“Me being a Black man, I’m not afraid of shouldering or having to bear that,” Andrew replied.
Was Tayshia laying the groundwork for a Bachelor season in which Andrew would be dating white women again? Perhaps. She also told him, “You said you want to be chosen and you will.”
I honestly half expected her to introduce him as the next Bachelor at that point.
The one fly in the ointment are problematic tweets of Andrew’s that have surfaced. One post I saw described them as “misogynistic, fatphobic or racially insensitive.” So nothing’s in the bag just yet.
As for the rest of “The Men Tell All,” holy filler Batman!
I love Kaitlyn and Jason Tartick as a couple, but why were we watching a video of then getting engaged, which had nothing to do with Katie’s season? That segment about the men trash-talking each other on the stupid bash ball date? Waste of time. And revisiting the ridiculous WOWO challenge? Really?
I’m not going to talk about Aaron’s feud with Cody. I couldn’t even remember who Cody was until I was reminded in the highlight reel and I couldn’t give a crap why he was on the show.
As for Karl? Same old, same old. He now claims that when he told Katie that multiple men weren’t there for the right reasons he was really talking about Thomas but didn’t want to rat him out by naming him. Whatever dude.
The one notable thing about Karl’s time in the spotlight is that it gave Brendan more screen time than he had the entire season. Karl said Brendan, who’s Canadian, “only showed up for a free ticket to the United States so he could have free beer for the whole trip.” Brendan called Karl a snake and a scumbag. Karl told Brendan to shut the fuck up. Brendan accused Karl of spreading “fake news.” At one point they stood toe to toe as if things were going to get physical. They did not, we moved on.
There was some chat about Thomas and whether he was actually a “bad guy,” and then the talk moved to Hunter, who admitted that yes, he told a fib when he said he didn’t have a top four list, but he wasn’t lying about falling in love with Katie and . . . does anyone else find this tedious?
Speaking of villain Thomas, he wasn’t there in person but appeared on a video call and seemed like he was still campaigning to be the Bachelor. He apologized for taking attention away from Katie and the “amazing guys in the room,” and he said his life had been “transformed” by his time with Katie, without explaining what that meant. Yawn.
And finally, let’s talk about Connor, a.k.a. the Cat. Did some random woman really pop up in the audience to tell Connor he couldn’t possibly be a “bad kisser”?
Connor kisses a woman named Tara to the surprise of Tayshia and Kaitlyn.
Even if she wasn’t a production plant, somebody must have known what she was going to do before she did it. It’s reality TV in name only, people.
The woman, who was named Tara, was invited onstage to kiss Connor and she told Tayshia and Kaitlyn it was an 11. And then they smooched again, as Andrew yelled “You’re a tiger! You’re a tiger!” at Connor, and Connor plucked a rose from the bouquet on the table and gave it to her.
Honestly, that’s the most interesting thing that happened on “Men Tell All” aside from the fact that there was a live audience in attendance, a lot smaller one than in the before times but still.
Let’s finish with Connor’s latest song, which ended with the catchy lyrics, “Katie, we’re lucky you gave all of us half a chance / But the guys on this season have got me believing in bromance.”
Next week, it’s back to the drama when I presume we’ll finally see the hometown dates, and Greg seems to be freaking out and Katie asks someone to book her a flight home.
You can tune in Monday at 8 p.m. on Citytv. And you can comment here, visit my Facebook page or follow me on Twitter @realityeo
SHOW OF THE WEEK: The Pursuit of Love (July 30, Amazon Prime Video)
Lily James, left, as Linda Radlett and Emily Beecham as Fanny Logan in “The Pursuit of Love.” PHOTO CREDIT: Courtesy of Amazon Studios
As the title suggests, this miniseries is about the amorous pursuits of heroine Linda Radlett (Lily James, “Downton Abbey,” “Cinderella”), but in Emily Mortimer’s adaptation of the 1945 Nancy Mitford novel it’s also about the love between two female friends and how they play the hand dealt them as women.
Over three episodes, cousins and best friends Linda and Fanny (Emily Beecham, “Into the Badlands”) move from post-World War I adolescence and juvenile delusions about love into marriage, childbearing and the disappointments of adulthood, culminating during the Second World War.
Linda is a passionate romantic who finds happiness outside the strictures of upper class society; Fanny is a more conventional soul frustrated by her inability to escape the bonds of her own propriety. The deep affection between them is tested by the different paths they pursue but never broken.
If that sounds overly serious, don’t fret. The show has plenty of moments of levity; enough period costume and decor porn to satisfy any historical drama aficionado, and a soundtrack punched up with 20th-century music, everything from Nina Simone and Marianne Faithfull to New Order and Sleater-Kinney.
Linda is the second eldest daughter of Matthew, Lord Alconleigh, a blustering bully of a man played by Dominic West (“The Affair,” “The Wire”) and modelled on Mitford’s own father; he keeps his children virtual prisoners and is vociferously opposed to women’s education and foreigners.
The educated Fanny was abandoned as a baby by her mother — known as the Bolter (played by Mortimer) for her habit of leaving successive husbands and fiances for greener pastures — and raised by her aunt Emily (Annabel Mullion).
Uncle Matthew and the Bolter, despite their flaws, provide some of the more droll moments in the series, along with the Radletts’ bohemian neighbour, Lord Merlin, played by Andrew Scott (“Fleabag,” “Sherlock”). The character is introduced in a delightfully anachronistic scene in which a pyjama-clad Merlin crashes a Radlett party surrounded by a louche posse of provocative companions dancing to “Dandy in the Underworld” by T. Rex.
Meeting Merlin is the beginning of the uneducated Linda’s crash course in what the wider world has to offer in a society in which marriage is considered the only respectable option for young women of her class.
For Linda, marriage also represents escape from her tyrannical father and stultifying country life, but she learns the hard way that marriage and the romantic love she cherishes above all don’t necessarily go hand in hand. Freddie Fox and James Frecheville play her husbands, and Assaad Bouab portrays her lover.
Fanny has the successful marriage but chafes at being a “sticker” as opposed to a bolter, wife of an Oxford don (Shazad Latif, “Star Trek: Discovery,” “Penny Dreadful”), relegated to taking care of the children instead of exercising her own intellect.
Though “The Pursuit of Love” isn’t a bodice ripper like “Bridgerton,” it reminds me of that dramedy in the way its central female characters manoeuvre within an oppressive system. Linda tells Fanny, in a paraphrase of a Simone de Beauvoir quote, that women are born with their wings clipped “and then everyone’s so surprised when we don’t know how to fly.”
Mortimer, who wrote and directed as well as executive-produced “Pursuit,” isn’t heavy-handed in putting a modern feminist lens on the story, which is also full of joy and fun and whimsy, but we don’t lose sight of what Fanny and Linda are up against, either.
It ends with Aunt Emily looking ahead to a time when women might choose to “be more than just a bolter or a sticker, or a Linda or a Fanny, and decide who they are, irrespective of who they marry.”
Buddy Guy: The Blues Chase theBlues Away (July 27, 9 p.m., PBS)
Blues guitarist Buddy Guy, who turns 85 on July 30. PHOTO CREDIT: Courtesy of PBS
In this documentary, an instalment of “American Masters,” revered blues guitarist Buddy Guy marvels that a boy who grew up picking cotton in Louisiana could go on to play the White House.
“You couldn’t even think of that, that couldn’t even cross your mind,” says Guy, who’s about to turn 85.
The doc makes clear that plenty of other people wouldn’t have believed it either when Guy got his start, leaving his Louisiana home for Chicago in 1957, chasing the music he’d heard played by heroes like Lightnin’ Hopkins, B.B. King, Muddy Waters, Guitar Slim and T-Bone Walker.
It was in those Chicago clubs that Guy developed his distinctive, fiery style of playing and singing, which seems at odds with the soft-spoken man in the film, who says modestly, “I still don’t think I’m good enough to be a professional musician.”
In fact, it wasn’t until the mid-1960s, when Guy and other Black American blues men were promoted by white British musicians like Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and the Rolling Stones, that Guy began to get some respect at home. Clapton and other admirers like John Mayer, Gary Clark Jr. and Kingfish pay tribute to Guy in the doc, which traces his journey from childhood in a poor, sharecropping family, falling in love with the sound of guitar and John Lee Hooker’s “Boogie Chillen,” to returning to Lettsworth in his 80s to have a street named after him.
Guy won his first Grammy in 1991, “the thrill of my life,” in his words. And he’s keen to pay his own homage to the greats who inspired him: “If it wasn’t for the Muddys, the T-Bones, the Lightnin’ Johnsons, I owe that credit to them,” he says.
If you don’t know much about Buddy Guy and the blues — or if you do and you’d like to revisit his life and career — you owe it to yourself to watch this show.
Love Is Blind: After the Altar (July 28, Netflix)
Married couple Cameron and Lauren in “Love Is Blind: After the Altar.” PHOTO CREDITE: Courtesy of Netflix
Netflix is dropping three new episodes of its 2020 reality sensation “Love Is Blind” that focus primarily on the two couples who made it out of the series with marriages.
If you were a fan of the original, you might be happy to catch up with Cameron and Lauren Hamilton, and Matt and Amber Barnett, as well as singles like Diamond Jack, Giannina Gibelli and Jessica Batten. If you weren’t, you might want to give this a miss.
Whereas the original episodes felt fresh with their premise of singles “dating” sight unseen, visually separated from the person on the other side of their “pod,” the new ones cover standard reality TV territory. There’s a staged event — a two-year anniversary party for the Hamiltons and the Barnetts — with a guest list primed to generate conflict.
For instance, Jessica is still persona non grata in Amber’s books for flirting with Matt after he and Amber got engaged, a stance that time seems to have hardened rather than softened. And then there are Giannina and Damian Powers, who did not get married but were still dating . . . except somebody forgot to tell that to the attractive “friend” whom Damian brings along to the party. I don’t care how big his biceps are now; I’d dump his ass if I was Giannina or the other woman, Francesca.
Anyway, you get the picture. If you’re a “Love Is Blind” completist, by all means enjoy.
Also coming to Netflix this week is “Tattoo Redo” (July 21), which is exactly what it sounds like: people who got bad tattoos getting them inked over but letting someone else choose the design. There’s also “Transformers: War for Cybertron: Kingdom” (July 29); the animated “Centaurworld” (July 30) and Season 2 of teen drama “Outer Banks” (July 30).
The Wedding of the Century (July 29, BritBox)
Charles and Diana, the Prince and Princess of Wales, on their wedding day, July 29, 1981. PHOTO CREDIT: The Associated Press file photo
I was one of the millions of people who got up at some god-awful hour to watch the wedding of Charles and Diana live in 1981.
Looking back at the grand occasion now, 40 years later, feels not merely nostalgic but surreal.
Having avidly consumed “The Crown” as it dramatized the misery of the marriage in its most recent season makes the sight of Prince Charles and the former Lady Diana Spencer vowing to forsake all others “so long as you both shall live” feel like the real fiction. Watch Diana progressing up the aisle of St. Paul’s Cathedral in her voluminous dress with its 25-foot train and try not to think of the fictional Charles giving Camilla Parker Bowles a bracelet the night before his wedding (a story that’s partially true according to Cosmopolitan).
Best then to approach “The Wedding of the Century” as a look back at a moment in history, with which I doubt anyone can argue.
The doc says it was the biggest televised event ever at the time, with some 750 million people watching around the world — and that was before PVRs and streaming and YouTube — although Diana’s funeral just 16 years later surpassed it with an estimated 2 billion live viewers.
Two-thirds of the film consists of “I was there” accounts from people like royal photographer Kent Gavin, cake maker Dave Avery, choirmaster Barry Rose and florist David Longman, with context provided by historian Kate Williams (who was 6 when the wedding happened, just FYI).
The real treat if you’re a royal wedding watcher is the enhanced British Movietone Productions footage of the event, as well as glimpses of the nuptials of Queen Elizabeth and Princess Margaret.
NOTE: The times listed here are in Eastern Standard Time, and reflect information provided to me and cross-checked where possible, but it’s always best to check listings for your own area. The selection of programs reviewed reflects what I’m given access to by networks and streamers, whether reviews are embargoed, how many shows I have time to watch and my own personal taste.
This date with Michael, Blake, Andrew and Justin (and artist Jacqueline Secor) was supposedly inspired by Georgia O’Keeffe. It felt more like “Sex and the City.” PHOTO CREDIT: All photos, Craig Sjodin/ABC
Well, whaddaya know? “The Bachelorette” can still surprise us. Monday’s episode was about an hour and 40 minutes of “yeah, duh” followed by 20 minutes of WTF when a favourite got sent home, then appeared to come back but went home for real in the end.
First for the “yeah, duh” part. Katie Thurston had seven fellows still hanging around when the episode began, but two of these things were not like the others. Mike the Virgin and Brendan hadn’t had one-on-one dates. In fact, Brendan hadn’t even talked to her at the rose ceremony or the group date before that but, bless him, he was chatting with the other guys about hometowns as if he had a chance in hell of getting one.
His already flimsy hopes became even sketchier when Greg became the first dude to get a second one-on-one (more on that later). And when the episode’s other one-on-one went to Mike (more on that later too), Brendan asked the question that all of Bachelor Nation had been asking week after week: “Why am I still here?”
Give him points for going straight to the source by heading to Katie’s suite. I think in his mind he was going to tell Katie how much he wanted her to meet his family and drink beer with his dad and she’d be all “That sounds awesome!” In actual fact, Katie was still drying off after her date with Greg (yes, I’ll explain) and looked like even she couldn’t remember who Brendan was when he knocked on her door (after an emergency swipe of lip balm).
Since you might be wondering who Brendan is, this is him in a previous episode with Katie.
Bottom line: Katie gave Brendan the standard you’re-a-great-guy-but speech and sent him home on the spot. He departed with minimal fuss, stopping to say goodbye to fellow Canadian Blake Moynes first.
Now back to Katie and Greg.
All you really need to know is that they showed up wearing a similar shade of green shirt, just like on their first one-on-one way back at the beginning of the season when they wore matching plaid shirts over hoodies.
Other things to know: they threw large fish at each other in an approximation of what happens at the famous Pike Place Market in Seattle, Katie’s hometown. They also shucked oysters together, badly, and shared a bubble-gum kiss in honour of the famous Seattle Gum Wall, which I have to say is kind of gross (the real wall, not necessarily what Katie and Greg were doing).
Katie and Greg blow bubbles in front of an imitation of the Seattle Gum Wall.
I don’t get the people who tweet that they don’t think Greg is that into Katie because, if so, he has me fooled.
There was talk of Greg’s difficulty with the “Bachelorette” process, the fact he sometimes felt insecure and that Katie sometimes worried that he’d leave, but he told her, “I honestly feel like the luckiest guy in the world. You just amaze me in every way. If we do move forward into next week I am really excited to show my family the girl I’m falling in love with.”
“I hope you know how I feel,” answered Katie before handing over the rose and a guaranteed hometown date.
To complete the Seattle theme, Greg and Katie kissed — and kissed and kissed — and got soaking wet under torrents of fake rain. “I think that I’ve found the love of my life,” Greg said in his voice-over.
“Flowery with a twist”
For the final group date of the season, Katie took Michael, Justin, Andrew and Blake to an “art exhibit,” but all the canvases were of flowers that looked like lady parts, or “flowers that aren’t just flowers,” in Justin’s words. “Flowery with a twist,” was how Blake put it.
Although it wasn’t stated in the episode, the paintings were supposedly an homage to Georgia O’Keeffe, the famous artist who made her home in New Mexico, where the season is being filmed. Truth be told, they reminded me of that “Sex and the City” episode in which Charlotte is invited to sit for an artist who paints vaginas. But I digress.
Michael and Andrew ponder art and life on the group date.
The guys had to make their own art: Michael sculpted a replica of Katie’s butt; Justin painted a rose and what looked like little ghost people; Andrew painted, um, sushi, except one of the pieces had teeth and a tongue; and Blake painted something that apparently was so dirty it had to be blacked out.
With that bit of silliness over, it was on to the after-party and, with only four guys on the date, everybody got conversation and kisses.
Blake told Katie that he wasn’t in love with her, “but the way that we’re going it’s fucking inevitable.”
Michael worried throughout the episode whether Katie would fit in with his son, James, and his former in-laws, whom he “takes care of,” but she reassured him, “If it’s us in the end, that’s all that matters and we’ll figure it out as we go,” and also that every rose she gave Michael was also a rose for James. “I can assure you that no one can love you like I can,” Michael told her.
Justin gave Katie a painting of butterflies and a blue rose, and she said she felt “110 per cent myself” with him.
Andrew recreated his and Katie’s one-on-one date with strings of lights and a suspended pink envelope. The note inside said, “I’m falling for you.” And Andrew added, “I really am.” Based on the way Katie kissed him after he said it you might have thought she was falling for him too. But it was Michael who got the date rose and the second guaranteed hometown.
“At some point every boy has to move on”
You might wonder what the point was of Mike getting a one-on-one date when it was certain that he didn’t stand a chance of getting a hometown rose. All became clear when a woman known as “Cuddle Queen Jean” greeted Katie and Mike in the woods and guided them into various poses that involved bodily contact. Would producers pass up the chance to make the season’s token virgin do something that might make him uncomfortable? Yeah, duh.
Sorry, ABC had no photos of Mike and Katie on the cuddle date. You’ll have to settle for this one.
Indeed, both Mike and Katie seemed rather uncomfortable given all the nervous laughter when they first began hugging and spooning, but then Mike relaxed because Katie is “a nurturer and man, do I love nurturers! She reminds me of my mom.”
Yes, that’s correct, Mike putting his body next to Katie’s put him in mind of his mom’s cuddles.
“Katie’s a better cuddler, there’s no question about it,” said Mike. “My mom’s gonna hate me for saying that, but at some point every boy has to move on.”
Mike even whispered “You remind me of my mom” to Katie while he was lying behind her with his arms around her. To Katie’s credit, she didn’t run off screaming right away, but she did let Mike go before they made it as far as dinner.
I have to say Mike was very gracious in his exit. “I’m bummed I don’t get to experience life with you. It doesn’t mean I’m not gonna be rooting for you,” he said.
“She knows what husband she’s looking for . . . it’s not me”
With Mike and Brendan gone, and Greg and Michael already in possession of roses, it seemed obvious that Blake and Andrew would make up the rest of the final four. Sure, Katie liked Justin, but his one-on-one had come late in the game, and she and Andrew seemed to have bonded over their difficult childhoods.
Greg, Michael, Justin, Andrew and Blake at the rose ceremony.
I actually expected Andrew to get the first rose at the ceremony, but it went to Blake and then Katie gave the final rose to . . . Justin?
With tears rolling down both their cheeks, Katie told Andrew she was building stronger connections with the other men “and you deserve more than what I can give you.”
“It’s bittersweet, but just know that I will forever hold you dear to my heart,” Andrew told her.
It kind of makes it worse when the men are so damn nice despite getting their hearts stomped on.
In the SUV of Shame, Andrew said, “She knows what husband she’s looking for and who that’s gonna be, it’s not me so . . .” wiping away tears.
Katie was a crying mess and, since there were still about 15 minutes left in the episode and she was telling some faceless producer that she wasn’t fully confident about the decision she’d made, it seemed obvious Andrew was going to return.
And return he did, knocking on Katie’s door the next day and telling her he came back so they could part with smiles instead of tears. As they hugged goodbye yet again, Andrew gave her an envelope and told her to open it when he was gone. Inside was a note that read: “If you change your mind . . . I’ll be waiting.”
Cue Katie running down the hall, following Andrew down the stairs and leaping into his arms when she caught up to him, as dramatic music swelled. And she asked him if he wanted to stay a little longer and he said . . . no.
“I want my future wife to choose me and I wasn’t chosen so I had to say no,” he explained.
In other words, no matter what the card said he wasn’t actually waiting for her, so the whole thing was a production trick. At least he and Katie got in one last smooch before he was driven away for good.
Katie, still wiping away a few tears, concluded, “This journey just wasn’t for us at the end of it.”
But given the fact the Twitter campaign has already begun to make Andrew the next Bachelor, his journey might just be beginning.
Next week, we get hometowns and Men Tell All in one episode.
You can tune in Monday at 8 p.m. on Citytv. And you can comment here, visit my Facebook page or follow me on Twitter @realityeo
CORRECTION: Man, this is embarrassing. I totally did not realize until I read someone else’s recap that Blake’s painting had been blacked out by ABC and he didn’t just paint a black square and say it was about sex. What can I say, I’m out of practice with my black bars, especially when they cover a whole freakin’ canvas.
Attendees navigate a sea of trash at Woodstock ’99. PHOTO CREDIT: Catherine Lash/Courtesy of HBO
I had two thoughts after watching this documentary film, part of “Music Box,” a new series by Bill Simmons exploring pivotal moments in music: How did more people not die? And thank goodness I wasn’t there.
Not that I would have been: the original Woodstock, which the ’99 festival was meant to emulate, happened when I was 7; and I was well past the demographic that thinks braving the elements and peeing in Porta Potties is an acceptable tradeoff for a concert experience by the time ’99 happened.
This doc’s POV about Woodstock ’99, in case you were still wondering, is that it was a disaster. You’ll not hear from fans raving that they had the time of their lives. After watching footage of attendees packed into a former air force base in Rome, N.Y., in 110 F heat without adequate water; of backed up portable toilets and people literally smeared in shit and piss; of mobs of young men roaming the grounds fixated on “titties”; of the Night 3 riot that included looting and burning everything in sight, I can’t disagree that the festival looks in hindsight like one of Dante’s circles of hell.
The official toll was one dead — David DeRosia, who died of hyperthermia due to overheating during the Metallica set — 44 arrests; eight sexual assaults, although it’s estimated there were hundreds more; and one big black eye for the promoters. (Curiously, the doc omits the number of physical injuries in its statistics, although an ambulance technician who was there says medical staff were transporting 1,000 people a night from the scene overcome by the heat.)
The various talking heads in the film, interspersed with footage of the event, try to pin down a why for the mayhem that ensued, which is perhaps a fool’s errand.
Among the targets are promoters Michael Lang and John Scher. Scher, in particular, does himself no favours in footage of the daily press conferences on site, being combative and dismissive with journalists bringing up the problems they were seeing. He also, in an interview, blames the victims for all the instances of women being groped by men in the crowd.
Also faulted in the film: MTV, which covered the event live; an audience made up largely of young, white men and some of the bands that played, with the latter criticized for fuelling unrest in the crowd.
One does wonder what geniuses thought packing 220,000 or so people onto a largely asphalt surface in searing July heat was a good idea. The security guards, largely undertrained and unprofessional according to the doc, were confiscating water from attendees, and bottles of it were selling for $4 apiece, an outrageous price back in 1999. Among other things, the doc shows people bathing in fountains meant to provide free drinking water and a long line for the ATMs as concert-goers sought more cash so they could pay to stay hydrated and fed.
Some of the interviewees say the problems began with trying to replicate a 30-year-old event that wasn’t as idyllic as it was made out to be at a time of social unrest in the United States (it was the year of Columbine and Y2K), with a lineup that included bands that appealed mainly to angry young men.
Obviously outdoor music festivals can happen without turning into “Lord of the Flies” — the film mentions Coachella, which began just a few months after Woodstock ’99 and is still going strong — but it strikes me it’s not a bad thing that plans for Woodstock 50 fell apart.
Short Takes
Pope Francis in St. Peter’s Square in 2016. He’s one of the subjects of “In Their Own Words.” PHOTO CREDIT: Stefano Spaziani/Courtesy of UPI/ALAMY
In Their Own Words, Season 2 (July 20, 8 p.m., PBS)
The new season of this docuseries about the lives of people who have transformed history, told in their own words but mostly the words of others, kicks off with Pope Francis, the former Jorge Mario Bergoglio. Obviously such a series seems predisposed to take a positive view of its subjects, although the episode does mention the Pope’s missteps, especially his early mishandling of reports of sexual abuse by clergy in Chile. There is no question Francis has also done good, particularly in his focus on the plight of migrants, the destruction of the planet and the role of women in the Church, even if those efforts haven’t led to substantive change. Future episodes profile Chuck Berry and Diana, Princess of Wales.
Chewbacca greets visitors near the Millennium Falcon replica at Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge. PHOTO CREDIT: Courtesy of Disney Plus
Behind the Attraction (July 21, Disney Plus)
Look, I can’t pretend that this 10-part series is anything more than an extended promotion for Disneyland, but if you enjoy the theme park or just aspire to go someday, you might like this insiders’ view of its more popular rides and displays. I screened the first episode, which looks at the history of its “Star Wars”-themed Star Tours as well as the newish Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge. And I’m not gonna lie: Disneyland has never been on my wish list of places to visit, but I was kind of itching for a chance to pilot the Millennium Falcon. Other episodes cover It’s a Small World, the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror, the Castles, Space Mountain, the Haunted Mansion, the Hall of Presidents, the Jungle Cruise, the Disneyland Hotel, and the park’s trains, trams and monorails.
Scott Turner (Josh Peck) and Hooch in “Turner & Hooch.” PHOTO CREDIT: Eric Milner/Disney Plus
Turner & Hooch (July 21, Disney Plus)
This series is a sequel of sorts to the 1989 movie with the son of the original Scott Turner (Tom Hanks), also named Scott (Josh Peck, “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles”), teaming up with a dog named Hooch who’s the spitting image of the drooly movie canine. The premise is that Scott Sr. has died, leaving the dog to his son, a rookie U.S. marshal, who spends a big part of the first episode predictably resisting the ill-behaved Hooch. But, of course, Hooch ends up helping Scott and his partner (Carra Patterson) crack a case and then gets assigned to the canine unit. I only had time to watch one episode, which veered unconvincingly between a corny, family-friendly comedy and a cop drama with explosions, car chases and shootouts. Personally, if I wanted to watch a show about dogs and police officers working together, I’d tune in to Citytv’s “Hudson & Rex.”
Model Emma disguised as a demon to try to meet her match on “Sexy Beasts.” PHOTO CREDIT: Courtesy of Netflix
Sexy Beasts (July 21, Netflix)
The word that came to my mind after watching one episode of this new reality series was “vapid,” which seemed a good fit for both the premise and the contestants. The ostensible idea is that by having everyone dressed in weird costumes, the daters and their potential flames can bypass looks to fall for someone based on their personality. But in the premiere, demon Emma appeared to make her choice from three men dressed as a mandrill, a mouse and a statue based on how much she enjoyed snogging one of them. I can’t see how she would have deduced anything about their personalities based on the brief snippets of shallow conversation we overhead on their speed dates. At least on “Love Is Blind,” in which men and women also formed connections without laying eyes on each other, the couples talked about subjects beyond “What’s the craziest place you’ve ever had sex?” I don’t get the impression that “Sexy Beasts” is focused on anyone getting engaged or married. Just as well. I figure the most these pairs can hope for are a few weeks of hooking up.
Netflix also debuts animated superhero series “Masters of the Universe: Revelation” on July 23, but reviews of that one are embargoed until Wednesday.
Odds and Ends
If you’ve followed Keeley Hawes’ career through shows like “Spooks” (a.k.a. “MI-5”), “Bodyguard,” “Honour” and “Line of Duty,” you might want to add the 2008 “Life on Mars” sequel “Ashes to Ashes” to your viewing list, in which she stars alongside Philip Glenister (“Belgravia”) as a time-travelling police psychologist and detective. It comes to BritBox July 20.
NOTE: The times listed here are in Eastern Standard Time, and reflect information provided to me and cross-checked where possible, but it’s always best to check listings for your own area. The selection of programs reviewed reflects what I’m given access to by networks and streamers, whether reviews are embargoed, how many shows I have time to watch and my own personal taste.
This post has been updated to add “Turner & Hooch” to the list of reviews.
Katie Thurston delivers the bad news to the men still vying for roses on Monday’s “Bachelorette”: No cocktail party for you! PHOTO CREDIT: All photos, Craig Sjodin/ABC
I can understand if Monday’s “Bachelorette” episode made you feel like spitting up a hairball: there was a pointless masturbation challenge; there was one of those lame fake wedding dates; there was a drag queen group date that was conspicuously short on drag; there was more House vs. Hunter drama; then Katie Thurston sent Connor the Cat home early and the other men were as bereft as she was (well, except for Blake).
And then we ended up with a top seven, just a couple of weeks from hometowns, that had everyone going “Huh?” Katie sees a future with Mike the Virgin and Brendan the Hair Quiff?
Well, no, of course she doesn’t. It was just a process of elimination. She told the fellows at the rose ceremony she had no more time for man drama and since Aaron, Tre and James had all stirred up shit by whinging about Hunter, they were marked for elimination. She also ditched the target of the conflict, a.k.a. Hunter, but no big loss there.
The irony is that while everyone on the House Un-Fraternal Activities Committee was worrying about whether Hunter was there for the right reasons, no one was paying attention to Blake, who stole deeper into frontrunner territory with a “Say Anything”-style visit to Katie’s suite while everyone else was still drying their tears over Connor’s exit.
Look out Greg and Michael and Andrew.
The episode began with an odd time waster in which Katie dispatched co-host Kaitlyn Bristowe to tell the remaining 11 men to lay off the “self-love” for a week, which Katie bizarrely described as a “fun challenge” dubbed Operation WOWO.
I have questions. Isn’t a sex-positive Bachelorette telling her suitors not to masturbate a little off brand? How would she know if anyone cheats? Would the camera operators stake out the bedrooms and bathrooms? And doesn’t a challenge imply some kind of reward? What was the point of them avoiding “solo hockey,” as Connor put it?
Ok, I’ve wasted enough brain cells on that topic. Next!
Katie’s first one-on-one date was with Justin Glaze, he of the hyper expressive face (and problematic teenage tweets, from what I read Monday night).
Katie and Justin on their fake wedding day.
The plot line going into the date was that Katie didn’t know if there was a spark between her and Justin or if they were just friends. And what better way to find out than with a fake wedding?
“Bachelor Nation photographer” Franco Lacosta oversaw the faux nuptials, which included the donning of wedding apparel, the reciting of vows they wrote themselves, cake, and lots and lots of kissing, so I guess that answers the question about the spark.
Later, Katie confessed to Justin that the fake walk up the aisle (well, the space between the trees) was tough for her not only because her dad was dead but because he wasn’t her biological father, a secret her mother had kept from her, and now she was struggling to form a relationship with the man she didn’t know while mourning the one who raised her. Yeah, this woman has been through some stuff.
Justin said he wanted to support Katie (what the hell else would he say really?) and there was more kissing, and then dancing and kissing as a musician named MAX sang a song called “Butterflies.” All I know is it wasn’t country music, so bonus points there.
Drag queens Monet X Change and Shea Coulee with Katie and the group date guys.
Time for the group date. All that Blake, Andrew, Michael, Greg, Aaron, Mike, Brendan, James, Tre and Hunter knew going in was that it was about “queen” Katie looking for her “king.” But no Brendan, there was no medieval theme. Instead, two “RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars” winners, Shea Coulee and Monet X Change, were there. But the men weren’t being asked to put on drag — more’s the pity, Michael was game — but to “throw shade” at each other in a so-called Great Royal Debate.
The date was obviously designed to allow the other men to insult Hunter, but they mostly just got mushy with Katie. Greg even wrote a poem. At least Aaron kind of got it, taking a swipe at Hunter’s short stature by calling him a leprechaun and telling him he couldn’t add Katie’s “heart of gold” to his pot.
Clearly, these guys have never watched a minute of “Drag Race.” Also, Blake said he’d never met a drag queen before and didn’t know if he “should be checking them out.”
Mike, Andrew, Hunter, Blake and Tre take part in the “Great Royal Debate.”
Hunter claimed to be falling in love with Katie. That somewhat contradicted what he told Shea earlier when she asked if he was in love with Katie and he said he was “not in a place where I’ve been able to explore that.”
Hunter’s other offence in the eyes of his fellow contestants was that he told Greg he thought he, Greg and Connor would make Katie’s top four and then denied making a top four list. Like even writing that out, as much as I haven’t been a fan of Hunter’s, really guys? That’s what you’re obsessing over?
Katie warned the men at the after-party to spend their time improving their connections with her, but instead James, Aaron and Tre bad-mouthed Hunter and Hunter was unable to defend himself to her satisfaction. Katie was distressed enough by the drama to throw up, and she cut the party short and didn’t give out a rose.
Co-host Kaitlyn Bristowe and her fiancé Jason Tartick had a double date with Katie and Connor.
Then dear sweet math teacher Connor, the guy who dressed up like a cat on Night 1, got a one-on-one date, but it was clear he was in danger of getting tossed like yesterday’s kitty litter since Katie was already friend-zoning him.
It would come down, she said, to his kiss.
And no matter how hard date buddies Kaitlyn Bristowe and Jason Tartick were rooting for Connor, Katie wasn’t feeling it. She went to Connor’s room later, in jeans and a hoodie rather than her dinner dress, and told him that no matter how “great of a man” he was there was something missing in their kiss.
And Connor, struggling to hold back his own tears, kept telling Katie it was OK, that it was worth it to have met her.
What was more extraordinary were the reactions of the other 10 men when Connor went to say goodbye. They lined up to hug him; Michael kissed him on the cheek; Greg and Brendan and Hunter wiped away tears; Tre out and out cried.
Their genuine affection for Connor was a nice antidote to all the sniping.
Blake shows Monet X Change and Shea Coulee his strut.
But leave it to Blake Moynes to turn all that sadness to his advantage. As Katie sat in her suite still crying about Connor, she heard music outside. It was Blake doing his best John Cusack, holding some kind of speaker over his head blasting “Memorize You” by Laine Hardy, the song they danced to on their date.
He was there to cheer her up, he said, and judging from the amount of smooching they did in the hallway, in her suite and on her balcony I doubt she was thinking about Connor anymore by the time they were through. As Katie said in her voice-over, “When I’m with Blake I don’t think about anything else except him and I, I’m in trouble.”
I’m pretty sure Blake failed the Operation WOWO challenge when he got back to his room.
By rose ceremony time, Katie wasn’t messin’. She showed up just long enough to tell the guys she already knew what she wanted to do and there’d be no cocktail party.
Except there was another one of those fakeouts when Katie picked up the first rose, and after an inordinately long pause, called Hunter’s name, but instead of handing it to him asked him to go outside for a chat.
Hunter claimed to be “on fire with emotions” for Katie, but Katie didn’t seem particularly impressed. She gave her six roses to Blake, Andrew, Greg, Michael, Mike and Brendan and, of course, Justin already had one, which left Aaron, James, Tre and Hunter out in the cold.
Next week, we’ll presumably get our top four unless we have another one of those “To be continued” cliffhangers.
You can tune in Monday at 8 p.m. on Citytv. And you can comment here, visit my Facebook page or follow me on Twitter @realityeo
SHOW OF THE WEEK: SurrealEstate(July 16, 10 p.m., CTV Sci-Fi Channel/CTV.ca)
Tim Rozon stars as paranormally savvy real estate agent Luke Roman in “SurrealEstate.” PHOTO CREDIT: Bell Media
Among the influences that “SurrealEstate” will put you in mind of are crime procedurals, the movie “Ghostbusters” and your favourite real estate porn — not to mention a fun throwback to “The Exorcist” in its opening minutes — but this made-in-Canada drama is its own thing.
It’s about a team of realtors, led by Luke Roman (Tim Rozon of “Schitt’s Creek” and “Wynonna Earp”), who specialize in selling “metaphysically engaged properties,” i.e. haunted houses.
The team includes gadget guy August (British-Canadian actor Maurice Dean Wint), researcher and ex-Catholic priest “Father” Phil (Toronto’s Adam Korson), office manager with attitude Zooey (“Wynonna Earp” vet Savannah Basley) and new employee Susan (Sarah Levy of “Schitt’s Creek”).
TV veterans Art Hindle and Jennifer Dale play recurring spectral characters while Tennille Read (“Workin’ Moms”) appears in multiple episodes as Megan, a client with a particularly troublesome house. And fans mourning the dearly departed supernatural dramedy “Wynonna Earp” can take heart from the fact that Wynonna herself, Melanie Scrofano, appears in one episode of “SurrealEstate” and directed two of them.
That’s the who of “SurrealEstate”; how about the what?
As much as comparisons between “SurrealEstate” and the movie “Ghostbusters” with its “Who you gonna call?” catchphrase are inevitable, the TV show is not that. It has its moments of levity, but its apparitions are generally not played for laughs. There isn’t a Stay Puft Marshmallow Man or Green Goblin in sight.
In fact, the ghosts in “SurrealEstate” are often spooky, if not dangerous. They include ancient malevolent demons, houses that hold their occupants prisoner, spirits out for revenge and even living people with deadly paranormal abilities. And the ghosts that aren’t that scary still have serious stories attached, like a little boy who haunts a former nun-run orphanage.
The show was shot in St. John’s and other parts of Newfoundland, which boasts some lovely homes and also apparently some haunted ones (E! posted an interview with Rozon and Levy in which they talked about guest stars feeling an otherworldly presence at their mansion turned hotel).
The series mostly follows a haunting of the week format, with the Roman Agency having to crack the supernatural case and banish the paranormal perp to make the sale, although there’s a through-line involving the very haunted Donovan House, in which Luke takes a particular interest.
As the suave and charismatic but guarded Luke, still wounded over a childhood trauma, Rozon — best known as immortal gunslinger Doc Holliday in “Wynonna Earp” and Alexis’s love interest Mutt on “Schitt’s Creek” — burnishes his leading man credentials. Likewise Levy, who played waitress Twyla (and at one point Mutt’s girlfriend) on “Schitt’s,” gets to be more than just a sounding board behind a cafe counter, portraying a professional overachiever with a messed up personal life.
The other members of the team also get their moments to shine. That lost little boy haunting, for instance, provides a plot detour into Phil’s back story and his conflicted relationship with the church he left. We learn that Zooey, who hides her feelings behind irony, lost her high school sweetheart to drug abuse and now cycles through relationships with unreliable men. We don’t know much about August beyond the fact he’s a whiz with technology and quotes famous authors, but that may change before the season ends.
The fact that the team, even initial skeptic Susan, takes what they do seriously grounds the show despite the paranormal subject matter. You might not believe in ghosts, but the Roman Agency does and that helps us believe in them.
The Beast Must Die (July 12, 10 p.m., AMC)
Cush Jumbo as Frances and Billy Howle as Strangeways in “The Beast Must Die.” PHOTO CREDIT: Ludovic Robert/AMC
There’s no ambiguity about the end goal in this crime thriller, based on the 1938 novel by Cecil Day-Lewis (yes, Daniel’s father): “I am going to kill a man,” says bereaved mother Frances Cairnes, played by Cush Jumbo. “I don’t know his name, I don’t know where he lives, I have no idea what he looks like. But I’m going to find him and kill him.”
Jumbo, known in North America for “The Good Wife” and “The Good Fight,” brings Frances’s pain to anguished, visceral life as well as her fierce intelligence.
Her 6-year-old son Martin was killed by a hit-and-run driver on a vacation visit to the Isle of Wight and the local police have mishandled the investigation. So Frances, a widowed teacher, takes matters into her own hands: leaving her job and apartment, disguising her identity, and tracking down a suspect with as much dedication and ingenuity as a crack detective.
That’s how she comes to meet rich developer George Rafferty (the ever reliable Jared Harris), after befriending his much younger sister-in-law Lena (Mia Tomlinson) on the pretext of shadowing her for a mystery novel she’s writing. Frances ends up moving into a cottage on the Rafferty estate, where she has a close-up view of George’s casual cruelty and the dysfunction of the family, which includes George’s harridan of a sister Joy (Geraldine James, Marilla on “Anne With an E”), his troubled wife Violet (Maeve Dermody) and bullied son Phil (Barney Sayburn).
Frances has to keep up the pretence of being a writer — not easy to do when her grief can swamp her at a moment’s notice — and try to win the confidence of the odious George while avoiding police detective Nigel Strangeways (Billy Howle), who has decided to reopen the case.
Did George really kill Martin? Will Frances really kill him?
Along the way to answering those questions we delve into Strangeways’ own trauma over witnessing the death of his former partner, as well as the Rafferty family dynamics, but this is Jumbo’s and Harris’s show and it’s not always clear who’s the cat and who’s the mouse in their interactions. Frances has the force of her resolve on her side, but George has his cunning and entitlement.
When the resolution comes — after a couple of twists that keep us guessing — it’s hard to say that anybody has really won.
Schmigadoon! (July 16, Apple TV Plus)
Melissa (Cecily Strong) and Josh (Keegan-Michael Key) get trapped in a musical in “Schmigadoon.” PHOTO CREDIT: Courtesy of Apple TV Plus
A Martin Short leprechaun and Cecily Strong singing. Aaron Tveit swaggering and Jane Krakowski high kicking. Kristin and Ariana with voices that ring, these are a few of my new favourite things.
With apologies to Rodgers and Hammerstein, if you recognize that I’m playing with the song “My Favorite Things” from the 1959 musical and 1965 movie “The Sound of Music,” you’re likely already predisposed to enjoy this comedy, an affectionately mocking love letter to the musical.
It stars Cecily Strong of “Saturday Night Live” and fellow comedian Keegan-Michael Key (“MADtv,” “Key and Peele”) as Melissa and Josh, a pair of Manhattan doctors who meet cute by the hospital vending machine, start a romance and, several years later, are trying to reconnect on a couples’ retreat when they wander off a hiking trail and end up in the old-fashioned town of Schmigadoon.
Yes, that’s a play on “Brigadoon,” the 1947 Lerner and Loewe musical (and later movie) about two tourists who stumble into a magical Scottish village that appears for only one day every 100 years.
If you’re a fan of musicals, you’ll enjoy spotting all the references to the canon packed into “Schmigadoon!” They start from the moment Melissa and Josh follow a “Wizard of Oz”-like path into town where the citizens greet them with an exuberant song and dance that will put you in mind of “Oklahoma!”
Musical hater Josh can’t wait to blow the old-timey (and very fake looking) town while musical lover Melissa treats the townsfolks’ penchant for breaking into song like an entertaining diversion, but when they try to leave the next day the portal back to the real world has closed. A leprechaun (Martin Short) informs them that they can’t go until they find true love. Not only are they trapped; the love they thought they shared has been exposed as a lie.
Josh and Melissa quickly break up, which leaves them free to explore other romantic entanglements. For Josh that includes farmer’s daughter Betsy (Disney star Dove Cameron), channelling both “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers” and “Oklahoma!”; and schoolmarm Emma Tate (Ariana DeBose of “Hamilton”), a ringer for Marian the Librarian from “The Music Man.” Melissa’s admirers include Danny Bailey, a Billy Bigelow stand-in (“Carousel”) played with appropriate bad boy swagger by Broadway vet Aaron Tveit; and Doc Lopez (Mexican heartthrob Jaime Camil), a Captain von Trapp-like disciplinarian (“The Sound of Music”).
The show also stars former “Cabaret” MC Alan Cumming as Mayor Menlove (get it?); Ann Harada of “Avenue Q” as his wife, Florence; Kristin Chenoweth as town scold Mildred Layton, who puts her “Wicked” pipes on display in a fun number that borrows from “The Music Man”; Fred Armisen as her husband, Reverend Layton; and Jane Krakowski in a small but impactful role as the Doc’s fiancee, the Countess (yep, “The Sound of Music” again).
Showrunner and musical theatre lover Cinco Paul created the series with his “Despicable Me” co-writer Ken Daurio, with “SNL’s” Lorne Michaels executive producing. Paul wrote the songs, which are pitch perfect imitations of what you’d hear in a real golden age musical but also wink at the inherent silliness of the form, not to mention the sexism (the racism isn’t explicitly confronted aside from the fact the cast includes non-white faces).
Kudos are due to the ensemble of singers and dancers who bring the musical numbers to life (Mississauga’s Amanda Cleghorn of “So You Think You Can Dance Canada” among them). Strong, a musical fan in real life (as is Key), gets to join in on the singing and hoofing.
I have no idea how “Schmigadoon!” will play with the musical-adverse, but if you love them, as corny as it sounds, it might just put a song in your heart.
Short Takes
The first major group portrait of the Beatles taken by Terry O’Neill during the recording of “Please Please Me” at Abbey Road Studios in 1961. PHOTO CREDIT: Courtesy of Terry O’Neill
Icon: Music Through the Lens(July 16, 9 p.m., PBS)
Watching this series will remind you just how much music appreciation is a visual as well as an aural experience. Over six episodes featuring dozens of interviews and many, many pictures, the docuseries takes us into the world of music photography from the point of view of the takers and the taken. The first episode, which I screened, is a treasure trove of stories about capturing everyone on camera from Robert Johnson to the Beatles and Rolling Stones; Jimi Hendrix to Joy Division; B.B. King to Bob Marley; Beyonce to Billie Eilish; and Sinead O’Connor to Snoop Dogg. Future episodes, on subsequent Fridays, explore concert images, record covers, magazine images, music photography as art and the future of the medium in the digital era.
Transgender teen Levi, left, and his twin sister Kailyn. PHOTO CREDIT: Mina Lumena
Levi: Becoming Himself (July 16, CBC Gem)
This touching and thought-provoking documentary may open your eyes and your heart to what it’s like to be a transgender teen. For Vancouver’s Levi Nahirney, transitioning from female to male is just one part of an identity that also includes being Vietnamese-Canadian, a twin and an adoptee. Obviously there have been challenges — including homophobia and transphobia — but the film isn’t a downer. Levi, now 19, has lots of support from twin Kailyn, adoptive parents Tom and Lois — who recounts that Levi was 3 when he first began asking why he wasn’t a boy — his birth family, his friends and the online LGBTQ community. Levi is sharing his story in the hope of inspiring other trans people. “I want to be someone who could potentially save someone’s life,” he says.
Odds and Ends
Ronan Farrow in the docuseries “Catch and Kill: The Podcast Tapes.” PHOTO CREDIT: Courtesy of HBO
“Catch and Kill: The Podcast Tapes” (July 12, 9 p.m., HBO/Crave) revisits Ronan Farrow’s investigation into the Harvey Weinstein sexual abuse allegations, work that earned him a Pulitzer Prize and was turned into a podcast and bestselling book. The news release for this docuseries promises “new insights into this culture-shaking story.”
Crave also has “100 Foot Wave” (July 18, 10 p.m., HBO/Crave), about the 10-year journey of surfer Garrett McNamara to conquer a 100-foot wave in Nazare, Portugal.
On the Netflix slate this week are Season 2 of popular coming of age drama “Never Have I Ever” (July 15), starring Mississauga’s Maitreyi Ramakrishnan; the new reality show “My Unorthodox Life” (July 14) about shoe designer Julia Haart and her escape from the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community she grew up in; and crime series “Heist” (July 14), which substitutes major thefts for the usual murders.
Amazon has the second season of the fashion competition series “Making the Cut” (July 16), starring “Project Runway” escapees Heidi Klum and Tim Gunn, and the sure to be popular horror movie sequel “A Quiet Place II” (July 13), written and directed by John Krasinski, and starring him and real-life wife Emily Blunt.
NOTE: The dates and times listed here are in Eastern Standard Time, and reflect information provided to me and cross-checked where possible, but it’s always best to check listings for your own area. The selection of programs reviewed reflects what I’m given access to by networks and streamers, whether reviews are embargoed, how many shows I have time to watch and my own personal taste.
Josh, James, Hunter, Brendan, Michael and Quartney take the field for a Bash Ball Battle on “The Bachelorette.” PHOTO CREDIT: All photos, Craig Sjodin/ABC
Monday’s episode was a perfect representation of the dual personality of the “Bachelor/Bachelorette” franchise, a show that claims to be all about love but so often revels in the baser aspects of human nature.
On the one hand, we had men on the group date playing in a ridiculous made-up sporting event designed to stoke their aggression to the point of physical injury. On the other, we had the antithesis of toxic masculinity when, at the after-party, Michael told the other men about his late wife and his story moved Greg to tears.
That the two frontrunners shared such a lovely human moment made the ongoing aggressiveness of Hunter — who seemed to transfer his win-at-all-costs attitude from the bash ball field to the pursuit of Katie Thurston — all the more annoying. But I’m also aware that I’m supposed to feel this way, thanks to the master manipulators behind the producing curtain.
After all, “The Bachelorette” abhors a vacuum and somebody had to take the place of villain Thomas, sent packing last week, and of Karl before him. Hunter, come on down.
Hunter’s elevation to new public enemy No. 1 by the “Bachelorette” house un-fraternal activities committee was good news for one Canadian: it distracted the guys from hating on Blake Moynes, who made his official debut as a contestant and promptly got the week’s first one-on-one date.
And he made such a good impression on the date that he went from guy who came in late just to piss everyone else off to serious contender. It’s not like there isn’t a precedent for that. I’m sure you’ll recall that Nick Viall went from hated latecomer to runner-up on Kaitlyn Bristowe’s season.
Katie lays one on Blake Moynes as Laine Hardy provides background noise.
Of course it’s possible that Katie just wants to practise some sex positivity on Blake since they were practically rolling in literal hay while doing some horizontal smooching on the day part of the date, indicating some hot and heavy chemistry. But she did say at the end of the night — after yet another country singer got his however many minutes of fame while being completely ignored by the Bachelorette and her paramour — that she could picture herself “walking away with Blake at the end of this.”
The obligatory deep thoughts part of the date had Blake asking Katie why she was so open about being sex positive — a question that I’m sure he thought of all by himself and not because some producer wrote it on a cue card for him.
Katie told him about being date-raped 10 years ago, although she didn’t use that term, and how she developed an unhealthy relationship with sex; one she only began to turn around with the onset of the #MeToo movement.
Blake made the right expressions of sympathy and understanding. There was more conversation, but we didn’t get to hear it. Had to fit in the rose hand-over and the slow dancing and smooching.
On to the group date.
Katie, being a good sport, pretended that 12 dudes were going to play a game called “bash ball” in tribute to her volleyball-playing days and not because the producers wanted them to actually bash each other. More bizarrely, the training and game were overseen by two “athletic legends,” “Bachelorette”/”Bachelor in Paradise” alum Wells Adams and resident franchise photographer Franco Lacosta.
I don’t feel so bad now about not being able to identify the sport in last week’s promo since it was a combination of rugby and basketball — played in wrestling singlets?
Here’s Hunter during bash ball, not hitting anyone, though Quartney and Connor are down.
The segment was edited to make it look like it was all Hunter’s fault that the guys were thumping the crap out of each other, but it was Justin who hit Michael from behind, knocking the wind out of him, leading to the medics being called and prompting Katie to end the game. Mind you, Justin did feel “terrible” about it and apologized.
Hunter, on the other hand, said on camera, “Personally I love the aggression level, I’m not gonna lie. I was laying hits left and right, but I’m here for it. Yeah. I love that.”
During the after-party, Hunter was more focused on laying cards on the table, or more precisely photos of his children. He told Katie he’d never introduced his son and daughter to a woman but wanted her to be the first.
“That is like the sweetest picture I’ve ever seen,” Katie cooed about a photo of Hunter lifting his daughter into the air, and then she kissed him.
Cute as the photo might have been, it’s hard to believe there wasn’t some producer intervention involved in Hunter beating Michael and Greg to the date rose, particularly since there were already rumblings from Aaron and others about disliking him.
Poor Michael, besides being physically injured, had just endured marking his late wife’s birthday without his family for support, although he assured Katie he was comforted by the fact he and Katie had something special. Seems more rose-worthy to me.
And when Michael told the other men his story, Greg hugged Michael with tears streaming down his cheeks. “I had no idea and he walks around with a smile every single day,” Greg said later, still in tears. “And knowing how I’ve just worried about the smallest things, he just puts life into perspective.”
Michael’s exhortation not to waste the finite time available encouraged Greg to tell Katie he was “completely crazy” about her. “As hard as it is, you are so worth it. I just know in my heart that you are.”
But sure, give Hunter the date rose.
“I don’t know what she sees in him,” said a disappointed Greg. Honestly, that makes two of us.
Yes, I wish I had a photo of Katie and Andrew on their date too, but you’ll have to make do with a picture from last week.
Next up, Andrew S, the faux Duke of Hastings, got a one-on-one date but left his fake British accent behind. For one thing, he was rattled by the fact Katie was leading him into the woods in the dark. When Katie put a plug into a socket I thought there was going to be a mini carnival like in Matt James’ season but no, the “Bachelorette” budget was only good enough from some icicle lights and pink envelopes containing silly suggestions like “Show me your signature dance moves” and “Imitate the sound of an animal in the wild.”
Amid the silliness there was time for smooching, which checked the chemistry box, and Katie and Andrew delved further into their shared backgrounds as children of divorce and, in Andrew’s case, an absentee father who did some jail time.
So they were agreed they wanted the opposite of a broken family, a “forever kind of love,” but there was a potential deal-breaker for Andrew as a Black man dating a white woman: would Katie feel the same way as his ex, who worried about having strangers ask questions about her biracial children?
“I think our love could be so beautiful and our children would be just as beautiful as that love,” Katie said. “All I want is to have a beautiful family regardless of how they look.”
That answer made Andrew happy. The next stop was the hot tub and a rose and “seeing” themselves falling in love with each other as opposed to actually doing it.
And then something really unexpected happened: the episode ended with a rose ceremony rather than a “To be continued” bumping it to the following week. Not that there wasn’t some drama.
Hunter once again wore the blame. With his rose on his lapel, he had visions of hometowns dancing in his head, not to mention the one-on-one he had yet to receive. He spirited Katie away for some stargazing, champagne and strawberries, and you know what happens when men with roses take time with the Bachelorette before the rose ceremony: the men without roses get pissed.
James interrupted Hunter’s monologue so he could tell Katie he had feelings for her (like, duh?) and she rewarded his boldness with a kiss. Then James, Aaron and Tre teamed up to berate Hunter for being greedy.
Hunter’s response? “Guess what? I’m focused on Katie, I don’t give a shit what they think.” Thanks Captain Obvious.
Katie gave roses to Greg, Aaron, Michael, Connor, James, Justin, Mike , Brendan and Tre, cutting Andrew M, Josh and Quartney loose. The other guys showed their appreciation for Quartney by applauding him as he left.
It seems a safe bet there will be more Hunter drama next week, although the end-of-episode promo was of the “coming this season” variety with clips of various people crying and being confused and Katie threatening to go home, so yes, “the drama continues.”
You can tune in Mondays at 8 p.m. on Citytv. And you can comment here, visit my Facebook page or follow me on Twitter @realityeo
SHOW OF THE WEEK: The White Lotus (July 11, 9 p.m., HBO/Crave)
Jolene Purdy, Murray Bartlett, Alexandra Daddario and Jake Lacy in “The White Lotus.” PHOTO CREDIT: Mario Perez/HBO
The opening credits of “The White Lotus” — glimpses of expensive wallpaper festooned with nature scenes that go from idyllic to alarming — perfectly encapsulate the show: stylish and sophisticated with an undercurrent of menace.
We know from the get-go that something has gone wrong at the Hawaiian resort where this “social satire” is set: there’s a body being loaded on the plane heading home and newlywed Shane Patton (Jake Lacy, “The Office”) is without his wife.
Over six episodes, Mike White (“School of Rock”), who wrote, directed and executive produced, skilfully lays out the stories of three sets of tourists during a weeklong stay at the resort, events that weave together to bring about a violent denouement. He’s aided by excellent acting, charged cinematography by Ben Kutchins (“Ozark”) and an evocative score by Chilean-Canadian Cristobal Tapia de Veer.
The tone of luxury underlain with ugliness is set before the rich guests of the White Lotus have even set foot on the island, as spoiled college student Olivia (Sydney Sweeney, “Euphoria”) and her friend Paula (Brittany O’Grady, “Little Voice”) spend the ferry ride secretly observing and denigrating the other passengers.
Unctuous manager Armond (Murray Bartlett, “Looking”) and his staff greet the “VIPs,” whom Armond privately describes as “sensitive children.”
Shane turns out to be a particular problem child. He discovers that he and new wife Rachel (Alexandra Daddario, “Why Women Kill”) didn’t get the “Pineapple Suite” Shane’s mother (Molly Shannon) booked for them. He and Armond get into a war of attrition over the mistake, which horrifies Rachel, who’s only beginning to grasp the level of Shane’s materialism and entitlement.
All of the guests we’re following experience crises during their weeklong stay.
A skeleton in the closet of tech entrepreneur Nicole Mossbacher (Connie Britton) and emasculated husband Mark (Steve Zahn) resurfaces after Mark learns an unsettling secret about his dead father; Olivia and Paula lose a bag full of recreational drugs and have a falling out over handsome staff member Kai (Kekoa Kekumano); tech-obsessed Quinn (Fred Hechinger) loses all his toys when he’s forced by sister Olivia to sleep on the beach; Tanya McQuoid (Jennifer Coolidge in a brava performance) is trying to make peace with the death of her cruel mother, whose ashes she brought to spread in the ocean.
At least Tanya is up front about her failings: “At the core of the onion I’m just a straight up alcoholic lunatic,” she tells Belinda (Natasha Rothwell, “Insecure”), the resort spa manager whom Tanya befriends and promises to help start her own business.
The guests all display varying degrees of unlikeability but, when push comes to shove, relative outsiders like Paula and Rachel aren’t willing to give up their proximity to privilege, even if the attitudes of the moneyed disgust them.
The people who suffer are those whose livelihoods depend on the resort, people like Armond and Kai and Belinda. The wealthy visitors upend their lives but neatly sidestep the consequences. And the next boat of rich people is coming into view.
Short Takes
Cutter (Alanna Ubach), Val (Mindy Kaling), Fritz (Henry Winkler) and Tylor (Ben Feldman) in “Monsters at Work.” PHOTO CREDIT: Courtesy of Disney
Monsters at Work (July 7, Disney Plus)
This is one case in which a TV series version of a beloved movie gets things right, at least based on the two episodes made available to critics. “Monsters at Work” is set in the factory that gave the 2001 animated blockbuster “Monsters, Inc.” its name, but big changes are afoot, which throw new recruit Tylor Tuskmon (Ben Feldman) for a loop. The top scarer in his class at Monsters University will now have to learn how to make children laugh instead of frightening them to keep the lights on. In the meantime he’s stuck working with a crew of misfits known as the Monsters Inc. Facilities Team or MIFT. Some old favourites are back from the film, including John Goodman and Billy Crystal as Sully and Mike, who are now in charge of the joint. The new characters include over-eager MIFT boss Fritz (Henry Winkler), gregarious co-worker Val (Mindy Kaling) and winged saboteur Duncan (Lucas Neff), who think’s Tylor is after his deputy supervisor job. The animation is top notch, the jokes are clever and snappy, and the little details stand out, like a hard hat with a hole cut out for Fritz’s single eye. So pop a can of Drooler Cooler and enjoy.
“Corner Gas Animated” is back for one final season. PHOTO CREDIT: Bell Media
Corner Gas Animated, Season 4 (July 5, 8 p.m., CTV Comedy Channel/Crave)
“You can stay so long, When there’s not a lot goin’ on,” says the theme song, but there’s an expiry date on this spinoff of the beloved “Corner Gas” sitcom. It wraps with this fourth season after CTV declined to pick it up for another. Based on the episode I previewed I wouldn’t expect the series to diverge from its proven formula for its swan song. The cartoon residents of Dog River — including Brent (series creator Brent Butt), Lacey (Gabrielle Miller), Hank (Fred Ewanuick), Wanda (Nancy Robertson), Oscar (Eric Peterson), Emma (Corinne Koslo), Davis (Lorne Cardinal) and Karen (Tara Spencer-Nairn) — are as they ever were. In the first episode, with guest voice Mark McKinney, Lacey decides to fulfil her childhood dream of jumping out of a plane and Wanda to fulfill hers of pushing someone out of a plane. Future guest stars include Kim Coates (“Sons of Anarchy”), Simu Liu (“Kim’s Convenience”) and a “Hollywood A-lister” yet to be named.
Sanjeev Bhaskar and Nicola Walker as Sunny and Cassie in Season 2 of “Unforgotten.” PHOTO CREDIT: Mainstreet Pictures Ltd.
Unforgotten, Season 4 (July 11, 9 p.m., PBS)
Among the glut of British detective shows, “Unforgotten” has always stood out for me, mainly for its sensitive and intelligent handling of the cold cases that fuel its plots but also for the depth that Nicola Walker brings to her portrayal of Detective Chief Inspector Cassie Stuart: a middle-aged divorcee juggling a job she’s devoted to with being a mother to two young adult sons and a daughter to her aging father. She and police partner Sunny Khan (Sanjeev Bhaskar), himself a single father, have a close, respectful relationship that makes it a joy to watch them solve cases together, so I’m delighted they’re back. I had almost given up hope of seeing a fourth season. This season’s case involves the discovery of a headless, handless body of a man inside a freezer at a scrapyard.
Odds and Ends
Cindy Sampson and Jason Priestley in Season 5 of “Private Eyes.” PHOTO CREDIT: Corus Entertainment
Five seasons in, “Private Eyes” (July 7, 9:30 p.m., Global/StackTV) has one burning question to answer: do will-they-or-won’t-they private detective partners Angie Everett (Cindy Sampson) and Matt Shade (Jason Priestley) finally get together? My guess is yes since this is the final season, but expect the tease to last a while since Matt acquires a new love interest (Kandyse McClure) in the second episode.
Global also has a new season of the American version of “Big Brother” beginning July 7 at 8 p.m.
Crave has the new iteration of “Gossip Girl” (July 8), which like the original is about nasty rich kids at a Manhattan private school except now the kids aren’t all white and they’re getting called out on Instagram. Guess you can tell it’s not one of my faves.
There’s a flurry of stuff on Netflix this week, including Season 2 of sketch comedy series “I Think You Should Leave” (July 6); Season 2 of the docuseries “Dogs” and Season 1 of the companion series “Cat People” (both July 7); Season 3 of the popular romantic drama “Virgin River” (July 9); and Season 4 of dramedy “Atypical” (July 9).
“Bridgerton” fans, take note: Ben Miller (Lord Featherington in that series) gets to lead his own show as “Professor T” (July 11, PBS Masterpiece Prime Video Channel), a Cambridge professor with OCD who helps a former student catch a serial rapist.
BritBox has a twist on the true crime docuseries, “In the Footsteps of Killers” (July 6), in which the star of a crime drama, Emilia Fox of “Silent Witness,” is the one trying to solve the murders alongside criminologist David Wilson. The series plays like a crime drama but, alas, in the episode I previewed, didn’t do much more than rehash the case. BritBox also has TV movie comedy dramas “Murder on the Blackpool Express,”“Death on the Tyne” and “Dial M for Middlesbrough” (July 9).
NOTE: The dates and times listed here reflect information provided to me and cross-checked where possible against broadcast and streaming schedules, but it’s always best to check listings for your own area. The selection of programs reviewed reflects what I’m given access to by networks and streamers, whether reviews are embargoed, how many shows I have time to watch and my own personal taste.
Katie Thurston lays some truth on Thomas Jacobs at the rose ceremony. PHOTO CREDIT: All photos, Craig Sjodin/ABC
Remember this night, Bachelorette fans.
There will undoubtedly be frustrating moments in the weeks ahead. Next week alone, everybody will get mad at Blake Moynes and it seems like Hunter is going to try to kill somebody. But we will always be able to look back on the night that Katie Thurston told Thomas to take his fake ass home and it will be like balm to our troubled souls.
“Your Bachelor audition ends tonight, so get out.”
I want those words on a T-shirt.
The Bachelorette producers, cruel puppet masters that they are, had just pulled off a great fakeout.
We’d spent huge chunks of the episode listening to people talk about Thomas not being there for the right reasons. Even at the cocktail party, even though it was after freakin’ midnight, people wouldn’t stop talking about Thomas. I’m with Katie: it was exhausting.
But it seemed like she had finally decided Thomas wasn’t worth keeping around, or so she told co-hosts Tayshia Adams and Kaitlyn Bristowe. There was one rose left. Katie picked it up, sighed . . . and called Thomas’s name. And the show cut to a commercial with everyone at home feeling like Justin’s face looked.
Justin Glaze’s face, not exactly as shown the moment Thomas’s name was called but close enough.
Yeah, I was pissed. I thought Katie had caved to production demands just to buy another week of the “everybody in the house hates Thomas” drama.
But when Thomas walked up to Katie to get his rose, she took a step backward. “You told me things I wanted to hear, but what I learned about you tonight is you’re selfish, unkind and a liar,” she said before circumventing his “Bachelor audition.”
So Katie is back in my Bachelorette Hall of Fame.
Going into Monday’s episode I was on the fence about whether Thomas was as manipulative as the other guys said. Sure, he admitted that when he came on the show he was interested in becoming the next Bachelor, but I find it hard to believe that thought didn’t cross other men’s minds.
What convinced me he was faking his feelings for Katie was when he interrupted her just as she was about to start handing out roses to apologize to her for “any moment I wasn’t here for the right reasons” and to the other men “for any moments of disrespect.” It reeked of desperation and self-interest. If the guy really believed he and Katie had a solid relationship he would have kept his mouth shut and let the chips fall.
So yes, Katie seems to have a knack for quickly jettisoning the jerks, like she did with Karl. Now what?
Well, Blake Moynes is what. As promised last week, he’s back. (Didn’t you love all the nonsense about keeping his identity hidden until the moment Katie walked up to him? Um, hello, he was in the promo last week?)
Sorry folks, ABC didn’t have current photos of Blake available so here he is with Clare Crawley.
Given my soft spot for Canadian contestants, I’d like to give Blake the benefit of the doubt and think he’s not just a reality TV fame whore or someone who has a Bachelorette fetish, but it’s hard — especially considering the bullshit explanation for why he didn’t join at the very beginning of the season.
Tayshia, whose season Blake was on as well as Clare Crawley’s truncated season, visited Katie to tell her an unnamed “someone” from her past wanted to meet Katie because he thought they would be “an amazing match.” He didn’t show up at the start of the season because he wasn’t sure he wanted “to throw himself back into the wild, crazy roller-coaster this is.”
Sure. Because showing up four weeks into the season and aggravating the men who’ve been there since the start, that’s so much easier.
Even though Katie thought Blake was handsome and they had exchanged DMs after her “Bachelor” appearance, she rightfully expressed some skepticism: “It is concerning that you dated, at this point, two Bachelorettes. If you stay I will now be your third Bachelorette.”
But with a rose going begging after Thomas’s ouster — no, she didn’t give it to Christian, Conor C or David — Katie decided her gut (maybe with the help of a producer?) was telling her to explore things with Blake, so she woke him up in the middle of the night, half-naked in his room, to tell him he could stay. And he locked himself out in the hallway in his boxer shorts and hoodie.
What else happened?
Things got hot on the group date, as in habanero pepper hot. Sure Tayshia, Kaitlyn and Katie laughed at Greg, then they tried the hot peppers themselves.
There was a group date on which for a whole 19 minutes or so nobody talked about Thomas. Instead they did ostensibly fun “dares” like eat platters full of Twinkies and chocolate cake and mashed potatoes; eat habanero peppers and “propose”; get their butts waxed (that was Tre); and “whisper sweet nothings” into a giant ear, not realizing that Katie and Tayshia and Kaitlyn were listening in.
On that front, Andrew S took his Duke of Hastings impression to a whole other level with his sexy talk. Front-runner Greg, on the other hand, talked about, er, the 50 states? “Everything’s bigger in Texas,” he said — which might have made sense if he wasn’t from New Jersey.
Greg had better luck later at the after-party when Katie told him she was starting to fall for him, although Andrew S upped the competition by serving Katie a plate full of Taco Bell and Lunchables.
But Tre scooped the rose away from both of them by sharing his suspicions with Katie that Thomas was being manipulative, a move that Andrew S vehemently disagreed with because he said it would cause needless drama. But then Josh and Conor and Christian and Andrew M all piled on, telling Katie they agreed with Tre.
It was inevitable that Thomas would make a play to save his ass, which he did by showing up at Katie’s suite before the rose ceremony. He complained that his integrity and character had been “demonsterized,” whatever the hell that means, and the only thing getting him through the unpleasantness was “an opportunity to be with you.”
Katie said he was “perfect” and “Prince Charming,” which kind of made me gag a little, although it turned out all right in the end.
You want to know who the real Prince Charming is? Michael.
Katie said Michael helped her figure out “what I want, what I deserve.”
When everybody else was getting their tighty whities in a knot at the cocktail party over whether Thomas would stay or go, he avoided the topic so as not to add to Katie’s stress, instead telling her how much he liked and missed her and that he was starting to imagine a life with her outside “The Bachelorette.”
“The person you are is exactly the person I have been seeking,” he told her and, you know, when he says stuff like that I believe him.
Katie moves into Week 5 with 14 guys left, including Blake. And yes, some of the other 13 will be hostile toward Blake, which is to be expected. And Hunter will apparently get aggressive in some kind of ball game (sorry folks, I’m not sporty) and somebody will get hurt, but whether those two things have anything to do with each other remains to be seen.
You can tune in Mondays at 8 p.m. on Citytv. And you can comment here, visit my Facebook page or follow me on Twitter @realityeo
SHOW OF THE WEEK: The Legend of the Underground (June 29, 9 p.m., HBO/Crave)
“The Legend of the Underground” profiles men in Nigeria who don’t conform to the country’s rigid ideals of masculinity. PHOTO CREDIT: Courtesy of HBO
As Pride Month events wind down in Toronto and other places around the world, it’s worth noting the ongoing persecution of anyone who doesn’t conform to a heterosexual ideal of masculinity in Nigeria — so much so that media reviewing this documentary were asked not to refer to interview subjects still living in that country as gay, homosexual or anything else that would imply they weren’t straight.
And frankly, I have no issue with that because I watched “The Legend of the Underground” with an underlying sense of dread of what could happen to the “non-conformists” who appeared on camera saying or doing things that might single them out for punishment by a homophobic regime and a citizenry that largely approves of its anti-gay laws.
And yet, the human spirit is resilient. These men persist — despite a law passed in 2014 that bans not only same-sex marriage and relationships but participation in “gay clubs, societies and organizations”; and the risk of torture, even death, at the hands of police and vigilantes.
The doc, directed by Jamaican-American Giselle Bailey and Nigerian-American Nneka Onuorah, focuses on men who live in ways that defy the prevailing norms, whether that’s dressing in women’s clothes, wearing makeup or dancing in high heels.
There are scenes of joy throughout the film — dancing and partying and sharing meals and hugs — but also sobering reminders of the price of not conforming.
James, a young man with a flare for feminine fashion and a large social media following, shows the scar where his aunt bit him on the eye, and screens full of death threats.
There are also emotional scars, no less real for the men rejected by their families.
One of the film’s key subjects, Micheal, says he was asked to leave home at 12 or 13 and lived on the streets for years, becoming infected with HIV.
He fled Nigeria in 2012 after a photo taken of him at an AIDS conference in Washington was seen online back home. When he returned, his apartment was ransacked and he was beaten until he passed out.
He settled in New York but still feels the pull of the country of his birth, returning in the doc to visit friends and meet with fellow activists.
There are signs of hope referenced — the striking out of charges last October against 47 men charged with public displays of same-sex affection at a party; country-wide protests that same month against police brutality — but there is clearly a long way to go.
Micheal continues his advocacy from the relative safety of New York, having founded the non-profit group GBGMC, but others try to effect change from inside Nigeria, including James, who expresses his wish to inspire billions of people with his videos and posts.
“You have rights. Do you know why?” he asks. “Because you’re human.”
No Sudden Move (July 1, Crave)
Don Cheadle and Benicio Del Toro in “No Sudden Move.” PHOTO CREDIT: Courtesy of HBO Max
The main reason to watch this film from the prolific Steven Soderbergh is to see skilled actors practising their craft.
Don Cheadle leads the cast as Curtis Goynes, a hood just out of jail in 1954 Detroit who takes on what’s supposed to be an easy job for an unknown boss. He and Ronald Russo (Benicio Del Toro) are told to “babysit” a wife and two kids in a suburban home while Charley (Kieran Culkin, “Succession”) drives the husband, Matt (David Harbour of “Stranger Things”), to his office to steal documents from his boss’s safe.
Obviously things don’t go as planned — there wouldn’t be a film if they did — and a double cross sets the criminals for hire on the trail of whoever’s behind the job with the goal of enlarging their payout. And then the double crosses just keep on coming as Curt and Ronald put the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle together.
Other notables in the cast include Brendan Fraser, Jon Hamm, Matt Damon; Ray Liotta and Bill Duke as a pair of mob bosses, and the late Craig muMs Grant (“Oz”), who died in March of complications from diabetes.
There aren’t a lot of women in the flick, including Amy Seimetz as Matt’s wife; Julia Fox as a mob wife and Frankie Shaw as the secretary with whom Matt is having an affair, but at least they get some agency in relation to the men.
As for the documents at the centre of the action? They’re nowhere near as sexy as the targets in other Soderbergh heist movies like “Out of Sight” and “Ocean’s Eleven.” They’re plans for a piece of automotive technology, the significance of which is explained in a postscript about a real life anti-trust case against GM, Ford, Chrysler and American Motors in 1969.
If that seems a bit prosaic for a gangster film, well, my take on “No Sudden Move” is that it keeps the brain engaged but doesn’t really make the pulse quicken.
Crave also has “Intergalactic” (July 2), a series about a female cop in outer space (Savannah Steyn) wrongly convicted of a crime whose fellow prisoners stage a mutiny aboard a prison transport ship.
Staged (July 1, Hollywood Suite)
Michael Sheen and Anna Lundberg as themselves in Season 2 of “Staged.” PHOTO CREDIT: Courtesy of Hollywood Suite
It’s no secret that success in showbiz can lead to excess, a truth proven by any number of wretched movie sequels and seasons of shows that have gone on too long.
Alas, “Staged” — a gem of a series that I loved first time around — has fallen into the trap of thinking more is more.
In its first iteration, Michael Sheen and David Tennant played pandemic versions of themselves, bored actors attempting to rehearse a play by Zoom but spending most of their time sniping at or commiserating with each other as their hair, and the lockdown, grew longer.
Clearly, this wasn’t a reality show, but its fly-on-the-wall vibe made it feel fresh and funny.
Alas, Season 2 feels too, well, staged. It’s gone meta with the premise that Season 1 of the show was enough of a hit in the U.K. for the greenlighting of an American remake, one that Sheen and Tennant aren’t welcome in because they’re not considered famous enough in the States. The pair spend most of the new episodes plotting to sabotage the recasting of their roles, but the series’ charm has decreased in inverse proportion to the growth of its guest stars (15 to the first season’s five) and episodes (eight instead of six).
It still has its moments — mostly when Sheen and Tennant are onscreen alone together, although Phoebe Waller-Bridge and Cate Blanchett are also entertaining in Episode 7 — but the instalments feel long and overstuffed.
And although the timing of its Hollywood Suite debut isn’t the show’s fault, it’s less appealing now to watch people boxed in by computer screens just when life in Canada is getting back to some semblance of normal.
Hotel Paranormal, Season 2 (July 2, 9 p.m., T+E)
A scene from Season 2 of “Hotel Paranormal.” PHOTO CREDIT: Courtesy of Blue Ant Media
The closest I’ve come to staying in a haunted hotel was having dinner at the Angel Inn in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ont. I felt a sense of unease when I went downstairs to use the washroom and later learned guests had been seen ghosts there. If I’d encountered anything like the spirits in “Hotel Paranormal” I might have ditched my date and run screaming into the night.
The spectres in the show’s second season — at least the first episode, which is the only one I screened — bring more than unease; they seem downright terrifying, whether it’s a spirit trying to drive away the new owners of the Jefferson Hotel in Texas; the ghost of a sadistic prison warden in a Scottish hostelry; or the apparition of a very unhappy woman in an English hotel.
But if you love a ghost story you’ll enjoy these vignettes, which feature interviews with the hauntees and spooky re-enactments of the hauntings, whether or not you’re a true believer. Speaking of believers, “Ghostbuster” Dan Aykroyd, who comes from a long line of paranormal explorers, is back to narrate the show. I had a chance to chat with him for the Toronto Star and you can read the interview here.
Odds and Ends
Director Questlove at a “Summer Of Soul” screening in Harlem in June. PHOTO CREDIT: Roy Rochlin/Getty Images
Disney Plus has something that I believe, sight unseen, is definitely worth watching, “Summer of Soul (. . . Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised) (July 2), a documentary by Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson featuring previously unseen footage from the so-called “Black Woodstock,” the Harlem Cultural Festival of 1969. It includes performances by Stevie Wonder, Nina Simone, Sly & the Family Stone, Gladys Knight & the Pips and more. The film won the Grand Jury Prize and Audience Award at Sundance.
I didn’t get an advance look at film “The Tomorrow War” (July 2, Amazon Prime Video), but it stars Chris Pratt (“Guardians of the Galaxy”) as a hot dad who has to travel to the future to fight a battle to save humankind.
Netflix has a bunch of new things out July 1 that I also didn’t get to screen. They include the Swedish drama “Young Royals,” a gay coming-of-age story about a prince; the Italian romantic drama “Generation 56K,” which shifts timelines between the present and 1998, when its protagonists were first introduced to the internet; and “Audible,” a documentary about a deaf high school football player. On July 2, the streamer has “Fear Street Part 1: 1994,” the first in a series of adaptations of the popular teenage horror novels of the ’90s and beyond.
Christine Baranski and Audra McDonald are back for Season 5 of “The Good Fight” (June 1, 9 p.m., W Network) and the partners are under pressure over Diane’s status as a white principal in a Black law firm.
If you’re a fan of gritty crime drama, morally ambiguous detectives and/or Idris Elba, then note that all four seasons of “Luther” are on BritBox July 1 (and are also viewable free on CBC Gem if you don’t mind the ads).
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