The Afterparty – The Rescue – The Con
...and other recs this week
Kia ora, welcome to this week’s newsletter.
Two new TV series I was looking forward to came out at the end of last week. One of them I found to be untenably bad (Netflix’s psychological thriller parody The Woman in the House (etc)), but the other is thankfully good enough to fill the void in my telly rotation when And Just Like That ends this week. (🥲)
In The Afterparty (Apple TV+), Tiffany Haddish is a detective investigating the mysterious death of irritating pop star (Dave Franco) after his high school reunion. Everybody’s a suspect, and they each recount the events of the evening in a different genre, from romantic comedy to action to musical. It’s silly and fun and has a lot of actors you know and love from other things, and if you enjoyed last year’s big comedy-murder-mystery Only Murders in the Building, you’ll probably like this one too.
🎧 New this week on The Spinoff Podcast Network
The Fold [Apple | Spotify] returned for 2022 and got straight back to business with guest Dallas Gurney, who joined Duncan Greive to talk about launching MediaWorks’ new talk radio brand Today FM.
On When the Facts Change [Apple | Spotify], Bernard Hickey continued to wrap up the big issues of the year, previewing the upcoming local body elections with Wellington mayoral candidate Tory Whanau.
The Nē? [Apple Podcasts, Spotify] team were joined by filmmakers Julie Zhu and Lillian Hanly for a kōrero about upholding the other, non-Māori side of the Treaty.
And The Real Pod [Apple | Spotify] chronicled another week of big news stories and even bigger real life bungles.
📺 The Rescue
Emily says: “I really loved the doco The Rescue on Disney+. It's about the thousands of people who came together to rescue 12 boys trapped in a cave in Thailand in 2018. We watched it as a whānau and it was incredibly life affirming and uplifting, just the thing we needed during these stressful times.”
🎥 Encanto
Eli says: “Can we talk about Bruno? I’m reccing the movie AND soundtrack of Disney’s latest animation, Encanto. In Spanish, encanto means charm or enchantment, and there is so much of both in this story. For me, it’s about the representation, the sights and sounds I grew up with being Latina and how special it is to see this portrayed on screen. It stars Stephanie Beatriz (the cantankerous cop from Brooklyn 99) as Maribel, a teen striving to find her place in the magical Familia Madrigal. With music by Hamilton’s own Lin Manuel Miranda, it’s no wonder the movie’s top banger “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” has tied with Aladdin's ‘A Whole New World’ as the all-time highest-charting song from a Disney animated movie. The song is always in my head and I’m not mad about it. My goal is to learn all the rapping bits so maybe my kids will think I’m cool.”
🎧 Queen of the Con
Jane says: “A while back I swapped out murders and missing persons for catfishers and con artists. The stories are still unbelievably wild but without all the haunting music and gruesome crime scene bits. Queen of the Con: The Irish Heiress details the seriously long-game cons of Mair Smith, a wealthy heiress cum luxury travel broker with a knack for sucking in (and ripping off) literally everyone she meets.”
🕹️ New Pokémon
Sam says: “The new Pokémon game on Nintendo Switch – Pokémon Legends: Arceus – is essentially the Pokémon game we’ve always wanted: you wander around a lush world, throwing Pokéballs at as many ‘mon as possible, with very little of that pesky battling stuff. Best Pokémon game in years, hands down.”
🎧 60 Songs that Explain the ‘90s
Catherine says: “It’s a sign of how good 60 Songs That Explain the ‘90s is that I’m listening to episodes about songs I absolutely loathe – I never would have imagined spending an hour of precious life considering the intricacies of ‘Nookie’ by Limp Bizkit, but that’s exactly what I did yesterday. I can’t get enough of Ringer music writer Rob Harvilla’s marvellously discursive, often painfully nostalgic monologues – doubly so when they’re about songs that mean a lot to me too, like the Gin Blossoms’ ‘Hey Jealousy’, Bjork’s ‘Hyperballad’ or Pulp’s ‘Common People’. Bonus: because it’s a Spotify exclusive (yeah, I know), every episode ends with the song in full.”
💿 Old playlists
Chris says: “Over the weekend I discovered an old playlist I'd made called '#Summer2020'. Because that was like a full decade ago my memory fails me, but I believe it was made to soundtrack some kind of outdoor party type event. On Saturday I put it on, and it was a delight to momentarily step back into blissful pre-pandemic times with a mix of mellow jams and backpack rap, pop songs next to spacey electronic, cruisy tunes crammed together with the simple job of making a beer in the sun sound better. That playlist soundtracked my weekend, and it may very well soundtrack the rest of my year. So that's my recommendation: rediscover your old playlists and transport yourself back to simpler times.”
📺 Line Goes Up
Dylan says: “Video essayist Dan Olson has made an amazing and very sceptical video about NFTs and cryptocurrency, which is probably a must for anyone vaguely interested in – but also very confused by – NFTs. It's very long at over two hours, but has been nicely segmented into chapters so isn't too hard to take in over a few sittings.”
OK, that’s all we’ve got time for this week. Please reply to get in touch and of course feel free to share with anyone else who might like to subscribe too. See you next Wednesday 👋
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