Change Your Image
jlakely
Reviews
Frank of Ireland (2021)
Think Dumb and Dumber
At first, it can be hard for an American viewer to get their head around what the Gleeson brothers are trying to do with this show. Then you get a couple of episodes in and it hits you: Think Lloyd and Harry with Frank and Doofus. There are also a lot of movie references that seem random at first, but are actually quite clever. I binged the whole six 30-minute episodes at once, and I think it's actually brilliant the more I think about it. This show had me laughing out loud A LOT. Embrace the dumb.
Too Young to Die: Philip Seymour Hoffman - Ganz und gar Schauspieler (2015)
Boring. Pointless. Zero insight.
It was shocking how little information and insight this documentary series has. The perfect example is the Philip Seymour Hoffman episode. The most-interviewed person in this doc is his high school drama coach. By far. One or two obscure contemporary actors of PSH are freshly interviewed, and only a few are even shown in archive footage talking about him.
They spend an inordinate time talking about high school drama days and putting two teachers on camera . Seriously. They are presented as the chief authorities on what made PSH tick. No real close friends from New York are interviewed. Not a single family member. No friends from high school, either. Besides the high school drama teacher, the most-seen and heard experts on PSH are a movie critic from his hometown of Rochester and another critic from NYC. This is all the more puzzling because this documentary whispers not a single disparaging word about PSH.
He's a brilliant actor who is always being a good friend and mentor to fellow actors, he loves his mother and high school drama teacher, he's a devoted father ... and then, suddenly, he's dead from a drug overdose. Seriously. That's how they portray a shocking descent into massive abuse of heroin, booze, and other opioids after being clean for 20 years. He got back on drugs and was dead in less than two years.
There is ZERO insight or even discussion about how that happened - which would be an interesting thing to explore. Pretty much the only really interesting thing to explore. And despite the very gentle handling of his drug-induced death, and overall haigiographic tone, the producers couldn't get anyone close to PSH to speak on camera? Not even his old drama camp buddies or Labyrinth Theater friends who could obviously use the exposure?
Maybe all the people who could provide real insight into PSH stayed away because they knew what a hack documentary filmmaker looks like and didn't want to be a part of something so boring and pointless.