Michelle Wolf shows her teeth
Donal Lynch The Break with Michelle Wolf
Available Saturday Bravery, it seems, is all relative. While Michelle Wolf’s turn as the White House Correspondents’ Dinner host was lauded for its take-no-prisoners approach to the current occupant of the Oval Office, in other senses the comedian may be hedging her bets; she recently deleted thousands of tweets in which she had been pointlessly offensive, writing things like ‘LeBron James was named Sports Illustrated Man of the Year. Sorry Serena (Williams), so close’ and calling Eric Trump “an abortion”.
Besides knowing the same person who wrote those tweets performed this TV special, there would also be Wolf ’s distinctively grating voice to deal with. But once you have gotten past all of that (big asks, we know) Wolf actually can be kind of funny.
This is not a stand up special but a variety show which will be released in weekly half hours and which will feature the kind of material she wasn’t allowed to perform on The Daily Show, where she is a regular contributor. From the little we’ve seen, this may actually win her some new fans, though not in the White House.
Roberto Saviano: Writing Under Police Protection Available now
Italy has become stiff competition for Mexico these days in matters of film and TV series about organised crime.
Books, of course, have been the catalyst for nearly all of these recent adaptations. First, in 2005 the powerful and award-winning film Romanzo Criminale, adapted from Giancarlo De Cataldo’s same-titled book, put the spotlight on a real-life criminal organisation located in Rome. (There was also a TV series).
Three years later, the grim and chilling film, Gomorrah, based on Roberto Saviano’s book about the Neapolitan Camorra was released. The book sent him into hiding. Italian documentarians visit the journalist at his hiding place and follow his life as a kind of Italian Salman Rushdie — a literary celebrity in fear of his life. It’s an interesting study in how interwoven the Mafia is with the Italian mentality and of a man who pays a heavy price for taking them on.
Bridesmaids (2011) Available now
This was the movie that launched Chris O’Dowd into the Hollywood stratosphere and marked another huge hit for producer Judd Apatow.
Loser singleton Kristen Wiig is asked by lifelong pal Maya Rudolph to be maid of honour at her upcoming wedding. But their friendship is torn asunder by Rudolph’s new friend, icky perfectionist Rose Byrne. So Wiig musters a motley crew of bridesmaids and attempts to get her best friend back.
The script, co-written by Wiig, and direction, from Paul Feig (TV’s Freaks and Geeks), are brilliant. Not only that, but the filmmakers have assembled a gem-like cluster of comedic actresses and spiked the whole thing with outrageous humour.
Chris O’Dowd as Wiig’s love interest is obviously amazing, but Melissa McCarthy as the awkward but lovable friend in the bridal party is also excellent.
This might be the strongest of all Apatow’s movies of the era, which is saying something with efforts like Superbad and The 40-YearOld Virgin in that pack.
Bates Motel Five seasons available now
This series could not exist without Psycho, but part of the brilliance within Kerry Ehrin’s bone-deep examination of Alfred Hitchcock’s characters is how, even in the modern day — and even while always promising an ending independent of the film’s narrative — it feels as though we’re being given crucial backstory to a character we only came to know as a murderer.
The final season is steeped in more Hitchcockian lore than ever. There’s a subtle nod to the iconic shower scene in the first episode, when Norman mentions how he just finished installing new curtains. We get our first glimpse of Norma’s permanent residence, or at least what we suspect is her final resting place, given how we’re first introduced in the film.
When it’s all been said and done, this series should stand as a worthy addendum to Hitchcock’s masterpiece and an enthralling story all its own. It doesn’t matter who came first, Bates Motel has taken the genius of its source material and spun it into something altogether different but brilliant in its own right.