Hello, everyone! It’s Friday and here I am once again to give you some Pop Culture recommendations for your weekend. First off, I have some good news and some bad news to share with you today. I will start with the good one. I've been approved and granted accreditation for Press Coverage of this year's Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) and I’m super excited about it and also very proud of myself. This will be the third year in a row that I will cover TIFF, which is by far my favorite Film Festival, but the first time I will have the chance to do it in person. Because you know, the last two years were a mess for everyone. The bad news is, as I write this I have no means to actually go there. I simply can’t afford to travel to Toronto right now. I’m still financially recovering from losing all my business during the pandemic. So I will have to get creative to raise this kind of money. I’m open to ideas and suggestions and if you have one just leave me a comment here or message me on Instagram. Also, if any of you know any editors and outlets looking for freelance coverage of the Festival, please let me know. I would really appreciate that.
Anyway, enough of me and my problems. In this week’s newsletter, I share my thoughts on three new series all premiering today. PAPER GIRLS on Amazon Prime, UNCOUMPLED on Netflix, and SURFACE on Apple TV+. And as always there is a playlist with five songs I enjoyed during the week.
QUICK THOUGHTS
UNCOUPLED centers on a gay man who is struggling to get back on his feet after his long-term partner breaks up with him in a very sneak way. One day, as Michael (Neil Patrick Harris) gets home, he finds that his partner Colin (Tuc Watkins) has packed up his things and left their apartment, ending their 17-year partnership. While Michael is heartbroken, his single friends push him into the modern gay dating scene influenced by Grindr and post-exposure prophylaxis. It was fun but also a bit sad to see the difficulties of middle-aged guys looking for hookups in Manhattan. NPH is great as usual and his character’s anxieties and frustrations with the dating scene are very well documented. The show is faster pacing and handles Michael's sexuality with unapologetic authenticity, which is refreshing. However, it is unquestionable that the Manhattan they live in, where everyone is wealthy, feels very dated and tone deaf. Uncoupled is occasionally great entertainment but undeveloped characters and some bad dialogues give the series a “Network show” vibe and I’m not crazy about that but overall, the show is ok. Not great but very watchable.
SURFACE has Gugu Mbatha-Raw portraying Sophie in this Apple TV+ thriller with a high-end San Francisco setting. Sophie has a serious head injury, caused by a failed suicide attempt, that has left her with severe memory loss. But she isn’t buying this story and starts to wonder if the truth she is given is really what happened. She then sets out on a mission to put the pieces of her life back together with the support of her husband and friends but unfortunately for her, they have their own agendas. The twists and turns and the love triangle in the series are very interesting. But also nothing really new. I saw these same setups in a million other series and movies. So, if you are into the exploration of the dramatic potential of amnesia, this show is for you. But if you don’t care about that, skip it.
PAPER GIRLS
PAPER GIRLS follows a group of four 12-year-old girls that were out on their delivery paper route the morning after Halloween in 1988. They get caught in the crossfire of rival time-travelers, altering the path of their lives forever. The series, which is based on the six-volume highly praised comic book series of the same name by Brian K. Vaughan and Cliff Chiang, is expected to be a hit with fans of sci-fi as well as those who enjoy the original comics. Riley Lai Nelet plays Erin, Sofia Rosinsky plays Mac, Camryn Jones plays Tiffany, and Fina Strazza rounds off the quartet as KJ Brandman. They are joined in the cast by Ali Wong, who plays adult Erin, Sekaj Abeni plays adult Tiffany, and Delia Cunningham portrays adult KJ. Nate Corddry as time-traveling rebel Larry, and Adina Porter as Prioress, a commander of the Old-Timers whose mission is to preserve the original timeline.
This is a fun series. I enjoyed my time with it and I was impressed with the quality of the writing. I never read the source material but talking with some people that are avid comic readers, I generally only heard good things about it. I really surprised with the kids’ performances as well, they are mostly good and Ali Wong as grownup Erin was also great. She portrays the character with amazing complexity and some sadness. Which is completely different from the persona Wong has established in her stand-up comedy. My only major gripe with PAPER GIRLS is the low quality of some of the CGI. It is good enough most of the time but there are some scenes with some bad, almost laughable visual effects.
The coming-of-age story, sci-fi concepts, and nostalgia for the 1980s make this the ideal show for Stranger Things aficionados. But before you accuse the series of being just a copy of the Netflix mega-hit, keep in mind the first issue of the PAPER GIRLS comic book came out in 2015. I enjoyed PAPER GIRLS and I really hope Amazon gives the show a second season with a bigger budget. The series totally deserve a chance to finish its story.
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.