Reviews

I am a woman. I am a liberal feminist. I am against fascism. I am against racism. I am against homophobia. I have watched in horror as a loud cohort of primarily heterosexual fetishists have taken over the gay community and begun to bully women and try and define them. The trans movement is at its core, highly misogynistic.

This film is simple, clear and reasonable. It lays out its case with evidence and clarity. It's not a great work of art but it is a great work of rhetoric.

We need to protect women's spaces. We need to protect women and children's bodies and minds. Non right wing people need to speak out because this issue could bring down the only political party that is standing between the United States and fascism. Speak up. Speak out.

Every human that cares about women's rights, children's safeguarding and LGB rights should watch and share.

YSL was an artsy mess, so I suppose it's fitting that this film is as well. It looks gorgeous and has a great time rubbernecking Yves's hedonistic ways, but it's also pretty mean-spirited. It doesn't attempt to understand Yves or what drove him or his creative process. He's just a rich, spoiled jerk in this film.

Also, I enjoy a good nonlinear art film, but they are hard to pull off. This film is very hard to follow if you don't already know YSL's biography and work, and there are many long, pointless scenes that are supposed to be symbolic but don't really add up to much. It does have some fantastic performances and great set pieces, and if you like reveling in 1970s hedonism, you'll enjoy it on that level.

Sometimes formulas and conventions are a good thing. The rival film to this one Yves St. Laurent may be far more conventional, but it is at least coherent and has genuine empathy for Yves and Pierre. Plus, it features the actual clothes Yves's designed.

If you're a student of fashion, it's fun to compare the two films, but I think the more conventional one wins the day simply for being a more pleasant experience to watch.

I went in with low expectations and really enjoyed this film for its two central performances and as a love story. It does, in fact, follow a pretty standard biopic formula, but there's a reason formulas are popular. It makes the tumultuous events of St. Laurent's life into a story that is watchable.

I think if you are expecting some kind of singular insight into St. Laurent, you're not going to find it. He was brilliant, sensitive and mentally ill, and he needed his lover/business partner Pierre Berge to anchor him. He partied way too much in the 1960s and 1970s.

Certainly, there was more complexity to the story. The film glosses over the menage a trois between Berge, Victoire Doutreleau and St. Laurent lasted a lot longer and was far more fraught than in this film. Berge and St. Laurent later separating romantically but still being together is also glossed over, as is the fact that they married right before his death. Now all of that would make a really interesting and messy film, but it probably wouldn't be nearly as digestible.

So, watch this for the love story, the authentic fashions, the fantastic sets (especially the Moroccan villa) and two very empathetic performances. Then, go read about the actual history.

The show only ever touches on the dramatic, but this episode was really special. Dan Levy and Noah Reid did an outstanding job telling a really nuanced story. Loved it.

Historical fiction is just that - fiction. This is pretty fanfiction about Elizabeth and Mary with pretty costumes and strong performances by the two lead women, but it doesn't compare to the 1971 version, thanks to the ferocious performance by Glenda Jackson in that one. My main issue with this film is that it's really tough to make Mary a heroine given she made a series of totally bone-headed decisions and was pretty much outplayed by Elizabeth on every front, despite this film trying to make the major plot points more balanced. So even the bare bones facts on which the fiction is affixed don't make for that compelling a lead character. Everyone tries their best, and the first time director does a great job with a fairly weak script but there you go.

Here in the states, POP TV did not market this show well and that's a shame because it's so much better than what it was marketed as, which was a mean-spirited Arrested Development knockoff. It's so much richer, well-written and funnier than the ads or the name implies. The first two seasons are good and by season three and four it's really brilliant. The show develops its characters and manages to get you to care about them but never gets too sentimental. By season four, a few episodes made me cry but they are never sappy.

I hate the humor of humilation, but this show pokes fun at its characters without sacrificing their dignity.

The show also takes a lot of tired tropes and reinvents them. The character of David, with his flamboyance, could have come off as a one-note joke. Instead, he's a three-dimensional, pansexual protaganist who grows as a person and is allowed to be talented and successful. Moira could have been the target of a slew of sexist jokes about her aging desperation, but the show goes in the opposite direction. Alexis could have just been a pretty face and the target of airhead/sl*t jokes, but she too is a rich character and allowed to develop. Yet, they all stay funny.

I love the fact that there is zero sl*t shaming on this show. The characters, be they straight, gay, bi or pansexual (and there are all of those represented) are never shamed for enjoying sex.

Eugene Levy is also darn near perfect as the family patriarch who has lost everything.

Edited to add: The show remains hilarious in Season 5. After the heavy-ish emotion of Season 4, they first half of Season 5 is just wallowing in silliness and letting the characters be their crazy selves. Moira in the bird's nest is a comedy classic.

This is a pretty good spy thriller and Anna Torv is excellent in it. I do wish they had cast a transgendered woman as the transgendered character and not made her story quite so cliched. I know this is a few years old so the memo about Trans casting hadn't arrived down under, but someone like Jamie Clayton would have nailed the character of Kim.

Still, I will probably watch the second season on the strength of Anna Torv's work here. It's also fun as an American to watch a spy thriller that centers around Austrailia and China rather than the UK or Russia and the US.