I took some time off from writing “for fun” because my schedule and focus were dedicated elsewhere, my supervisor would attest to that.
I’d like to think not many of us had time to watch TV as we had been binge-watching athletes compete in Paris this summer, making mental notes to start working out “from Monday”. However, since summer has surpassed its peak and school is about to start for my little one, I’ll have more time and patience to not only watch more TV but also write about them, even if that means I take a couple of hours off here and there from my academic writing.

I’ll spare you the obvious binges – the Bridgertons and the Emilys in and around Paris – and stick to those we might not get much ado about.

It’s been a good few months in terms of entertainment and I’ll start with a strong one.

The Gentlemen

I’ve been going about this show to anyone who’d listen since the moment it emerged on the Tudum platform. I binge-watched it in 48 hours and couldn’t wait for the second season, or some sort of confirmation of its return, which we were granted a few days ago. Even if you’re one of the few living beings not crushing on White Lotus’ bad boy Theo James and Skins’ naughty girl Kaya Scodelario, you should give this show a go.

Guy Ritchie’s spin-off series of a namesake film (his own) doesn’t disappoint those who have come to see what Ritchie does best. It does what it says on the tin and it does it well. It’s dark, it’s violent, it’s unexpected and it’s hilarious. There’s drugs, there’s murder, there’s goofy millionaires and there’s gallons of splattered blood, with the promise of clean-up men (women) swiftly eradicating any sign of violent mess in a fashion that’ll make Marie Kondo proud.
Streaming on Netflix.

Death and Other Details

I finished the third season of Only Murders in the Building and I was left wanting more murder mysteries and all of Kenneth Branagh’s works had been devoured. And so Disney Plus came to the rescue. It is certainly the weakest of the three but it does make you start a new episode even after swearing the one you just finished would be the last for the day. The storyline is simple; a bunch of wealthy people and their delegates get on a cruise ship to celebrate another rich person’s retirement and someone gets killed, in the middle of the sea. A classic tale of whodunnit drenched in hatred, lust, envy and dysfunctional family history. Mandy Patinkin plays the genius detective whose deep and calm voice eerily narrates the possible motives and plotlines of the murder, reviving his persona in a not dissimilar show I stopped watching a few years back; Criminal Minds. A show he stopped starring in for the same reason; the realisation of how dark and inhumane some human beings’ minds could be.

It’s a good show to finish on a weekend and with the way it ended, I’m sure we’re going to hear about a season reprise soon.
Available on Disney Plus.

Mrs Harris Goes to Paris

The sweetest little film you could watch this summer. Mrs Harris, a housekeeper from London, is down on her luck and all she wants is a little break from everything. So when her late husband’s veteran retirement money comes in she decides to take a solo trip to Paris and splurge on an Haute Couture dress (from no other than the stuck up House of Dior) and be back before her next shift starts. And of course everything goes wrong…

This is one of those films where, from the get go you know with just some stroke of luck everything works out for the protagonist with a heart-of-gold. Usually, it is expected and foreshadowed. And this film is no exception. But it is done with such sweet delicacy that you can’t help but smile right before the credits roll.
Emily could NEVER! Also Lucas Bravo (Emily’s chef and chief love interest) stars as the heartthrob Dior accountant, as much of a heartthrob an accountant in the fifties could be, I guess. You can find Mrs Harris’s adventures in Paris on Netflix.

She Said

Let’s get a bit more serious. Now this one’s a good’un. Based on the real events surrounding the writing of the New York Times article by investigative journalists Jodi Kantor and Meghan Twohey, this film portrays how the story came to life, depicting the challneges of convincing women to come forward and speak on the record after years of mistreatment, abuse, threats and plain disbelief by the public.
The Me Too movement began with courageous women coming forward with their truth in an enviroment where victim blaming and victim shaming was dominating and manipulating the narrative. Articulate, dedicated and precise journalists like Kantor, Twohey from the New York Times And Ronan Farrow of the New Yorker putting their stories in the spotlight. It was Kantor and Twohey’s sensitivity towards these women and their lived experiences that struck me, and how no matter how badly they wanted the story to take shape in the most solid way, the journalists remained respectful of the women and what they had gone through, their concerns and apprehension.
Frankly, Carrie Mulligan’s performance should be anyone’s incentive to watch anything, but if you need further convincing, watching the beginning of the end of a monster like Weinstein should be categorized as one of the top five forms of Schadenfreude.
She Said is available on Netflix.

Scoop

A film not too different from the previous one I recommended, Scoop reveals the goings-on in and around the royal catastrophe of an interview formally known as the Prince Andrew Newsnight interview. The story follows Newsnight producer Sam McAlistar (played by every British Millennial girl’s dance idol Billie Piper) and journalist Emily Maitlis (portrayed by none other than the queen of morphing into important cultural characters Gillian Anderson) as they secure and carry out that interview with The Duke of York (surprisingly played by the charming Rufus Sewell. How they managed to get such a good-looking guy to echo the features of a blob of a human being is beyond me. props to the hair and make up team).
If you liked Bombshell (Nicole Kidman, Margot Robbie and Charlize Theron portraying the women at Fox News who exposed and brought down  CEO Roger Ailes) you’ll love these last two films.
Speaking of Maitlis; her memoir, Airhead, is an absolute must read for anyone who loves to know what it takes to make the interviews we watch on a daily basis happen.
Scoop is available on Netflix.

That’s it for today folks. I’ll squeeze in one last post before summer is over, to make up for the past few months that I’ve been MIA.

Until then, happy bingeing.