What I'm Watching

My thoughts on a few of the things I watched the past two weeks

Ryan Alexander Smith

Mar 21

Cross-post

With March Madness kicking off last week, my film/TV viewing took a bit of a backseat to the madness. I did still get a chance to see a few movies and catch up on some shows, though. Here’s some of what I watched and what I thought.

Champions

Based on the 2018 Spanish film titled Campeones, Champions follows Marcus (Woody Harrelson), an arrogant, self-centered minor-league basketball coach who finds himself in court after being caught driving drunk. He’s sentenced to 90 days of community service and assigned to coach a team of intellectually disabled athletes called the Friends. The Friends teach Marcus there is more to being a champion than winning games.

There are plenty of touching aspects of the film. The core message of acceptance and the idea of overcoming personal obstacles to become a champion is received well enough. It does a pretty good job of displaying depth and unique personalities among disabled individuals, however, The Friends’ disabilities are still presented as their main character traits and the overarching focus of the film. I realize there are still a lot of ignorant people who should be exposed to more authentic depictions of people like the Friends in order to create a more understanding and accepting world, but those people are probably not going to see this film. Hopefully, as actors like Madison Tevlin (Cosentino) and Kevin Iannucci (Johnny) continue to prove their acting skills, we’ll begin to see characters with roles defined by much more than a disability.

65

65 takes place 65 million years ago. Mills (Adam Driver) is an astronaut piloting a ship on a 2-year exploratory mission. The ship is hit with debris from an asteroid belt and crashes on an unknown planet. That planet happens to be Earth, inhabited by dinosaurs. Mills believes he’s the only survivor and gives up on trying to be rescued until he discovers another survivor, Koa. Koa is a young girl and the two don’t speak the same language, but they have one shot at reaching their last escape pod which has crashed miles away atop a mountain.

When I saw a trailer for a movie where Adam Driver is pitted against dinosaurs, I thought it would at least be entertaining. Instead, I was bored for 90 minutes. The dinosaurs are not in the movie nearly as much as you would hope. Driver is fine, but he’s working with a script that gives him almost nothing. I expected a lot more out of a movie starring Adam Driver and written by A Quiet Place writers Scott Beck and Bryan Woods.

I’m going to get into SPOILERS, so if you really want to see it, skip ahead.

The whole reason Mills went on the expedition in the first place was to be able to pay for his sick daughter’s treatment. Turns out, she dies anyway while Driver is away. It also turns out that they crash landed on Earth just days before the asteroid that wipes out the dinosaurs hit. They get to the escape pod and make it off the planet just in time, but for what? On top of the weak character motivations that become nonexistent, the action just isn’t very good. There are one or two scenes where we get a somewhat cool look at a CGI T-Rex, but other than that the action takes place in the dark and it’s very hard to see what’s going on.

History of the World Part I

There were plenty of hilarious jokes, along with some that haven’t aged all too well, as expected. However, I wasn’t as impressed with this as I expected to be. I loved the King Louis bits, by far the best parts in my opinion. “It’s good to be the king!”

History of the World Part II

In the first four episodes, nothing grabbed me like the King Louis bits in the original. However, Nick Kroll’s Schmuck Mudman was the highlight of the first half.

Episodes V-VIII are much stronger than the first half in my opinion. The culmination of the Civil War storyline is excellent. The Kublai Khan ancestry jokes are great and Jesus and the Fab 13 recording the last sermon is an awesome parody of Peter Jackson’s documentary The Beatles: Get Back.

Shrinking

The show is very good, but what makes it great is Harrison Ford’s portrayal of Paul. Although it’s still early in the year, he should most definitely be in the conversation for an Emmy. Ford’s ability to balance comedy and drama with his character’s “fortress of solitude” persona and increasing vulnerability and tenderness is incredible. His delivery on every line is perfect and the advice he gives is applicable to anyone. Credit to Bill Lawrence, Brett Goldstein, and the rest of the writing team for that.

Ted Lasso

The season premiere of Ted Lasso was good, even if a bit slow. It’s great to see these characters back on screen. They’ve created so many great characters and with this being the last season I worry they aren’t going to have enough time to provide closure on every storyline and relationship. Closure might not be needed for everyone, but I’m hoping for at least a satisfying send-off. Seasons one and two are fantastic, so I have faith in the creators to land it. I’m looking forward to seeing how they wrap up the show.