Hello, everyone. Happy Friday! I’m back to give you some Pop Culture recommendations for your weekend. In this week’s newsletter, I rave about one of the best shows I have watched this year, THE BEAR. I can't recommend it enough. It’s just a couple of hours to get through the entire season, perfect for a binge. I also talk about the documentary ACCEPTED that I had a chance to watch at Tribeca last year and the very long, boring, and extremely violent, THE TERMINAL LIST. And as always there is a playlist with five songs I enjoyed last week.
QUICK THOUGHTS
THE TERMINAL LIST is an eight-episode series, created by David DiGilio. It follows Commander James Reece, played by Chris Pratt. He is one of the two survivors of a mission gone bad in the Middle East. I had a chance to watch all 8 episodes and I have to be honest with you guys, this is not good. The entire series consists of one disturbing, overly violent action scene after another. When things finally calm down, the writes use the much-needed break from the carnage as an excuse for James Reece to use his unique hunting and execution skills. Yay more gratuities, mindless violence! The storyline has all the cliches of any other movie/show about soldiers returning home with PTSD. The acting is also nothing special and between this show and the JURASSIC WORLD franchise, Chris Pratt really proved himself as the worst Hollywood Chris. So yeah, congrats bro! I highly recommend you to NOT watch this.
ACCEPTED is an excellent documentary that I had a chance to watch at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2021. It follows four high school students at T.M. Landry College Preparatory, an unconventional K–12-day school in rural Louisiana that became notorious for two very different reasons - sending its graduates to the Unites States’ most prestigious universities and the scandal that exposed its practices to achieve that. Since it was forced to suddenly change direction and handle the controversy while still in the middle of filming, ACCEPTED employs some dramatic tone changes. The doc, on the surface, is an investigation of a college admissions scam. But it also serves as a striking indictment of the racist and elitist policies enforced by the majority of universities, which unfairly disfavor students of color. ACCEPTED urges Americans to think critically about their schooling institutions and the tremendous hardship students face in today's culture.
THE BEAR
This FX’s half-hour dramedy Created by Christopher Storer revolves around Carmy (Jeremy Allen White), a young chef from the fine dining industry. After a devastating family death, he gives up his career in NYC and returns to Chicago to operate his family’s sandwich shop.
I didn’t know what I would get from this show. I’m not a foodie and I don’t care about reality shows with famous chefs. So I was skeptical at best when I heard about it. But I was wrong. THE BEAR is probably one of the best series I have watched this year. I got drawn in after one episode and watched the whole season in one sitting.
The frantic pace of the two first episodes reminded me a lot of UNCUT JAMS. I even paused the show in the middle of the pilot to see if the Safdie brothers were involved in it. They are not. But that doesn’t make this series less interesting. THE BEAR has A lot of heart, intensity, and some amazing performances. Jeremy Allen White and Ayo Edebiri Are both outstanding in their roles. But Ebon Moss-Bachrach steals every scene he is in. While watching the show I was constantly changing my mind between “ I want to punch this dude in the face” and “ this dude is the funniest dude of all the dudes on TV”. He is that good!
THE BEAR surpassed all my expectations and never let me down. The writing is brilliant and the storyline is fresh and realistic. And I loved how the show has the ideal balance of raw emotions and unique humor. Also whoever is responsible for the music in the show and its end credits has great taste. Needless to say that I want more. I want to see where this story goes next after the amazing season finale episode. Unfortunately, there is no word on a season 2 yet. But my hopes are high because reviews of the show are mostly positive so far. FX has found a hit and I’m pretty sure they know that. This is a must-watch for everyone who loves good storytelling and great acting.
All eight episodes of THE BEAR are available for streaming on Hulu and Star.
TOP 5 SONGS
These were the 5 songs on heavy rotation in my house last week. You can listen to them on Spotify and YouTube.