The Book of Rannells: Big Mouth: Season 2, Episode 2 – “What Is It about Boobs?” (2018)

And we’re back to our regularly-scheduled Big Mouth reviews on The Book of Rannells. This is another solid episode – it features the first big guest star of the season, Gina Rodriguez as Gina, a classmate of the kids, while looking at body insecurity and body positivity.

The whole school is buzzing about Gina’s developing body, with the guys regarding her as a pair of perfect breasts that just transferred to their school (despite Gina being in their class since 1^st grade) and the girls putting her down while feeling ashamed about their own bodies.  On his sister’s advice, Nick tries the radical idea of talking to Gina and – even more radically, on the advice of the ghost of Duke Ellington – listening to the words she says.  Meanwhile, Missy starts to beat herself up over her flat chest.

Like in the last episode with Nick and Andrew, we see again that there’s no “correct” body to have to counteract feelings of insecurity.  Missy goes wholeheartedly into criticizing her body here (at one point calling herself a “busted Sméagol,”) but the very-pretty Devin feels inadequate next to Gina, big boobs aren’t much of a help to the overweight Lola, and Gina herself is obviously deeply uncomfortable with all the attention (the boys are bad enough, but the girls aren’t any better – Devin refers to Gina’s “slutty boobs.”)

The episode also features a musical celebration of boobs, bushes, stretchmarks, and more, Nick and Gina both show off killer Coach Steve impressions (with the meta joke of Nick’s being “weirdly good,” since Nick Kroll voices both characters,) and the usual slew of great lines.  Here, I especially like Connie backing up Jessi’s icy greeting of, “Hi, Dina,” with “Yes!!  Use her name against her!!”

Side note:  while the first impression of Gina seems to veer a little into Cool Girl territory – she makes crass jokes and knows ‘90s basketball references (‘cause her brothers watch it, you know!) – I still like her and am prepared to get to know her better.  I really like how surprised Nick is to discover that he actually enjoys her as a person.

Our Matthew time is again limited, but Andrew Rannells makes the most of his lines.  He uses his morning-announcement show to broadcast “uninformed opinions” from the student body on Gina’s boobs (how is this show possibly still something school-sanctioned and not just a YouTube channel or something?), and I adore his annoyed delivery on clarifying that the the school is being swept by “boob fever, which is not breast cancer.”  He’s also still on top of his game when it comes to withering insults about Coach Steve, in which he always seems kind of gobsmacked that this teacher is actually this dumb.

The Half of It (2020, PG-13)

I really loved this Netflix original film, a sweet but wistful coming-of-age Cyrano story in which friendship is just as important as romance. Featuring cool representation and great performances, this moody little indie piece drew me in from moment one.

Ellie Chu is out of place in her small town. She’s a quiet intellectual, one of the only people of color she knows, and she’s trying to keep her family afloat as her widowed immigrant father struggles with depression. She earns extra cash by writing students’ papers for them, but when earnest meathead Paul offers her a more lucrative gig, she’s unsure of what to do. The job? Help him write a love letter to his crush Aster. Aside from the question of the dubious morals of the situation, there’s a bigger issue at play: Ellie has a crush on Aster too.

Modern twists on the tale of Cyrano are nothing new, but this one offers up a nice take. I like that, as the film goes on, Ellie actually has two separate relationships with Aster, the pseudo-romance she’s penning under the guise of being Paul as well as the very tentative friendship she eventually starts to develop with Aster. “Paul’s” methods of courting Aster are also really lovely and inventive, but at the same time, the film never really lets Ellie off the hook for the deception she’s pulling – on both Aster and Paul.

Because as the story progresses, Ellie’s relationship with Paul becomes crucial to the story too. Obviously, since Paul’s proposition gives Ellie a “safe” way to flirt with Aster, the arrangement quickly becomes about more than just the money, but Ellie and Paul’s relationship also becomes about more than just their scheme. Even though they’re wildly-different people who are into different things and have different concerns, they bond over small moments and start to find themselves caring about each other. I’m sure there’s a non-LGBTQ version of this tale that would pivot to the Ellie and Paul characters falling for each other instead of Aster, but I love how deep/special their platonic connection becomes. As they grow to understand one another, each helps the other in vital ways that are meaningful to them, and just as Ellie feels uneasy about her lies to Aster, she also starts to feel guilty about the fact that she’s essentially using Paul’s crush on Aster to explore her own feelings.

All of the characters are drawn so specifically within their broader types. On the face of it, you have Ellie the smart loner, Paul the dumb jock, and Aster the popular girl, but the details of the story and the acting are just exquisite. I love the way it teases out the self-sufficiency Ellie has carved out for herself amid her unkind classmates and maintaining the household for her struggling father. It’s cool to learn about Paul’s own ambitions, which, even though they’re nothing like Ellie’s, are every bit as important to him as Ellie’s are to her. And the films does a great job showing how Aster chafes within her role as someone who’s popular by default, trapped by people’s expectations of her even as she very slowly tries to step outside of that and own who she is.

Great acting all around. Leah Lewis, who plays George on the CW’s Nancy Drew, is fantastic as Ellie, prickly and guarded but also incredibly vulnerable. As Paul, Daniel Diemer is sweet and uncomplicated to a fault, and Alexxis Lemire navigates the balancing act of showing Aster as a complete person, not just the object of Paul and Ellie’s feelings. I also want to shout out Collin Chou, who’s really wonderful in his understated role as Ellie’s dad.

Warnings

Language, drinking, and thematic elements.

Other Doctor Lives: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (2016, PG-13)

This Regency romcom-horror-satire is, ultimately, what I expected it to be. It’s delightful in some places, bland in others, and corny in still others. I’m not sure if I’d it’s worth it on the whole, but on the Other Doctor Lives front, this movie features an absolutely wonderful performance from Matt Smith.

The world of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice is given a zombie twist. Set generations after the onset of a zombie plague, England has adapted, setting up assorted isolationist/quarantine protocols to keep the infection from taking root in a community, and zombie-slaying has joined the list of skills any accomplished young lady needs to learn, right along with needlepoint and music. When Captains Darcy and Bingley, fresh from fighting on the frontlines in London, arrive in town, Elizabeth Bennet is wary of Darcy’s seemingly-heartless attitude, but after initially rebuffing her, Darcy is taken with her fighting prowess and wit.

My overall impression is that this movie is just a little bit lacking. Off-the-wall as the premise is, it feels like it could’ve been something really fun but never quite gets there. It leans into neither the Jane Austen stuff nor the zombie stuff hard enough for either to really pop, and so, rather than successfully melding the the two aspects in a way that’s compelling, we’re left with a mishmash that reflects more what it could’ve been than what it is. (Note: I know this is based on a book, but I haven’t read it, so I can’t say how much of this is specifically the fault of the movie versus the source material.)

Also, the gender themes don’t entirely work for me. Lizzy is painted as an Independent Young Badass who doesn’t think she’ll ever get married, in part because she’s so above such things and in part because marriage is synonymous with hanging up one’s sword/flintlock, and she doesn’t want to stop fighting zombies. First of all, why reimagine this parlor-room society as one in which any lady worth her salt knows how to fight and then still say that a married woman doesn’t do such things? Second, this feels like too much of a Not Like the Other Girls portrayal for Lizzy, which, for me, doesn’t fit the character. Lizzy is clever and observant and hopes to marry for love rather than status or position, and her views toward courtship and marriage are different than some of her friends’ and sisters’, but that doesn’t mean she spurns marriage as a concept and has written off men to be a licensed badass, only to have her defenses worn down by her surprise relationship with Darcy. I don’t mind that she fights zombies – all the zombie incorporation into the story is ultimately fine. It’s the mindset that comes along with her zombie-fighting that feels #NotMyLizzy to me.

Whenever zombies come up on this blog, I’ve talked about how they freak me out, and it takes a certain type of zombie media to bypass my discomfort with them (stuff like In the Flesh and Warm Bodies, for example, are so good that they make it worth it.) I was able to get through Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, even though, unlike In the Flesh, these zombies very much do propogate and spread through the bites. However, I’m interested by the slant that “turning” is a long, gradual process, and most zombies maintain their human identities for quite a while and require multiple helpings of human brains before they fully turn. That adds a different kind of tension to the proceedings, as there may be a zombie sitting beside you at the whist table without you knowing it, and I think I’d have liked the movie to play with that notion even more. Also, I think the mere fact of setting the story within Pride and Prejudice helped me get a little distance from it, keep it at arms’ length. Or quite possibly, the pandemic has anchored my germaphobia so much in the real world that this fictionalized angle doesn’t bother me as much as it used to. Whatever the reason, I didn’t have trouble watching the movie and then turning off my lights that night.

The cast is mostly good, getting the job done for their roles they’re given, which means they’re doing what’s needed for this film even if that doesn’t jive with the Austen characters I know. Lily James (Rose from Downton Abbey, though she’s gone onto other things) is engaging enough as this version of Lizzy, and she plays well off of Sam Riley’s Darcy. I know Riley best as Diaval from the Maleficent films, and I was surprised when I realized he was playing Darcy, but I think he pulls it off as this jaded, zombie-war-veteran incarnation. By contrast, when I saw Douglas Booth and Jack Huston’s names in the credits, I quickly pegged that they were playing Bingley and Wickham respectively. I remember Booth as Pip from Masterpiece’s Great Expectations a handful of years ago, and Huston is someone who always makes me think, “What do I know him from?” (most recently, it’s been season 4 of Fargo,) but who just leaves me with a sense of “That Guy.” Meanwhile, a couple former Lannisters get in on the action, with Charles Dance (Tywin) as an effective Mr. Bennet and Lena Headey (Cersei) as a very reimagined Lady Catherine de Burgh.

Which brings us to Matt Smith as Mr. Collins, hands down my favorite part of the movie. While I don’t know if anyone will ever fully supplant David Bamber’s performance from the 1995 miniseries in my mind, Smith is a riot as the obsequious parson. He just has everything down cold, from the “delicate compliments” he pays the Bennet sisters to his fawning over Lady Catherine’s patronage. I love that, when he dances with Lizzy at the Netherfield ball, the embarrassment is that he’s too into it with all kinds of unnecessary flourishes, not that he’s a hapless dancer. For the most part, he blends well into the zombie side of things. I love a throwaway bit where he and the sisters are walking into Meryton and, at a tense moment, he asks, “Oh, is there some sort of trouble?”, adding, “…Oh, it appears there is,” as all the Bennet girls draw their swords in unison.

For a movie that often only feels quasi-like Pride and Prejudice, Smith is everything a Mr. Collins ought to be. What a delight.

Accent Watch

So posh. It’s funny that Eleven is the only new Who Doctor who speaks with more of an RP accent, and yet a lot of characters I’ve seen Smith play since then are exponentially posher than his Doctor (Christopher Isherwood, Prince Philip, now Mr. Collins.)

Recommend?

In General – A cautious maybe. It’s interesting as a curiosity, even if I don’t think it lives up to what it could have been.

Matt Smith­ – For sure. Smith is a stitch in this role, just a blast.

Warnings

Zombie violence/gore, sensuality/suggestiveness, mild language, and drinking.