Tag: not a book

not a book, streaming

Not a Book: America’s Sweethearts

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Back to the streaming services this Sunday and a documentary that I actually watched basically as soon as it came out – but which has taken a few weeks to actually get posted because of things that were slightly more pressing on a time front. But actually it’s been really interesting to watch the conversations about this series over the last few weeks as well.

America’s Sweethearts is a seven part documentary series about the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders. It follows them across the course of one season – with auditions to join the team, the training camp that follows and then the actual football season. It picks out a couple of the women in particular to highlight – Victoria and to a lesser degree Madeleine, veterans whose mothers were also on the squad; Caroline, newly retired and trying to adjust to the post-DCC world and her sister Anna-Kate who is auditioning for the team herself this year; Kelcey, a senior veteran on the team in her final season and Reese, a rookie candidate looking to make the team for the first time. Using those women it explores the impact of being on the team – physically and mentally, the sisterhood of the women who have been a part of it, and the squad’s place in the multi-billion dollar brand that is the Dallas Cowboys.

This is not the first series about the team – there were previously 14 seasons of Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders: Making the Team produced by the CMT channel. Both series were authorised by the organisation itself, the people running the team are the same – DCC director Kelli Finglass, chief choreographer Judy Trammell – both former DCC themselves – and their boss Charlotte Jones Anderson, daughter of Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones. Even some of the cheerleaders on the squad are the same – the CMT show finished with the 2021 season and some of those women were still cheering last seaons – but the actual shows are very different.

Making the Team was very much a reality tv series in many ways – each season followed a similar structure: you started with the preliminary auditions and semi finals, it moved on to finals weekend where the re-auditioning veterans join the new hopefuls, then you move to training camp where across the next episodes the girls will learn the “signature dance” complete with kickline ending in the infamous jump splits, get make overs, be fitted for their uniforms, have their publicity photos taken and watch the rookie hopefuls get cut one by one to make a team of around 36. Some years you’ll also get to see auditions for the team’s show group – who get to do extra dance performances beyond the football games – or watch the veterans trip to a holiday resort to shoot the squad’s swimsuit calendar. The main focus of the show is on the fresh rookies – some will be completely new, others might be returners who were cut in previous years – and get a few glimpses of the cheerleaders you’ve followed in recent seasons.

And as you’ve probably guessed by comparing my descriptions of the two shows, they are quite different beasts. And not just because Netflix has paid for the music rights so you can finally be told that the “Signature dance” is actually known as Thunderstruck – because that’s the song that it is danced to*. The team behind America’s Sweethearts are using the structure of the season as a way of examining the idea of the squad as a whole.

And the appeal of the series goes way beyond the viewers of the old CMT series (something which the series’s subreddit is yet to come to terms with). What do I mean by that? well Him Indoors hated MTT with a burning passion – my sister and I watched it when he was out of the room – but he said he wanted to take a look at this series and see what it was like – and ended up watching the whole thing. A colleague at work who is a sports and documentary fan but not someone I would have expected to have watched it, had already watched it when I went to recommend it to him and described it as the best documentary series he’s watched this year.

And there are a lot of different things it is possible to take from watching it – hence why it’s spawed a thousand think pieces for you to read on the subject. There’s Vanity Fair’s The Agony and Ecstasy of the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders Show, Vox’s The ugly process of turning beautiful women into Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders, The Guardian’s Do you struggle to accept rejection? We could all learn a lot from American Cheerleaders, USA Today’s Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders Netflix show is addictive. Here’s why, The Globe and Mail’s The secret feminism of the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders and BBC News’s more simple America’s Sweethearts: Life after Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders. And that’s just a small selection.

I could write paragraphs more about the show – but this post is already massively long, so I’m going to wrap it up here and hope that this is enough to get you to take a look at the series, no matter what your views on cheerleaders or American sport!

Have a great Sunday everyone.

*and for long-time viewers of MTT who (like me) have never made it to a Cowboys game, this does have a pretty much complete performance of Thunderstruck for you to enjoy and see how it all the various parts fit together. And yes, Kelli does also explain her Yes, No, Maybe scoring system for auditions. You’re welcome.

streaming

Not a Book: 99

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As if there wasn’t already enough sport on TV at the moment, what with the Euros reaching the start of the last round of group games tonight, the grass court tennis season being well underway and the build up to the Olympics, I’ve got a football documentary for you today.

99 is Amazon Prime’s documentary about the 10 days that saw Manchester United win the treble in the summer of 1999, which I refuse to believe can be 25 years ago, because I remember it, and how did I get this old?! Anyway this takes you through the process that got them to that remarkable treble as well as those key days, with interviews with all the key figures involved as well as loads of archive from the time.

Looking back at this distance, it’s clear that no matter whether you support Man U or not (and I’m definitely in the not camp) this was a remarkable achievement – and they did it with a large number of players that had come through the club’s academy set-up. Clubs have done the same thing since – but they’ve done it after large injections of money from various sources and without the home-grown talent.

If you’ve seen the Beckham documentary series, this (unsurprisingly) has a lot of the same talking heads (and some of the same producers too) but obviously the focus is very different. But if you enjoy one, you’ll probably enjoy the other, from sporting point of view anyway.

Have a great Sunday!

audio, not a book

Not a Book: Deeper Well

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A rare music recommendation this week, but I’d missed this one until my little sister flagged it to me and now I’ve been listening to it over and over

Kacey Musgraves is one of those artists that I first saw on Jools Holland, bought the album and then have been streaming intermittently ever since. So I’ve been listening on and off since the Same Trailer, Different Park era – before she won the Grammy for Golden Hour and she is fairly regularly producing country music of the sort that I like. Little Sis described this as dreamy country and I think that’s pretty fair. The opening of the first track is strongly influenced Mamas and the Papas and that’s an area that I am always happy to be in. It makes me thinks of summer evening in the countryside, where the light is golden and you’ve got a glass of wine. Just right up my street.

not a book, theatre

Not a Book: Sister Act – the Musical

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I braved the theatre during half term week and lived to tell the tale! I wish I could say I was being strategic with my show pick and picked one where I thought there would be less children, but I would be lying – I went to Sister Act because it’s a short summer run and there’s a cast change coming at the end of this coming week, and the fact that there was a front row ticket in the lottery on the day was an added bonus!

This is the musical version of the 1992 Whoopi Goldberg movie about a lounge singer who sees her casino boss boyfriend have someone murdered and is hidden in a convent for her own safety until she can give evidence at his trial. The first thing to note is that there are a fair few changes between the movie and the musical – the most obvious being that it has an all new set of songs written by Alan Menken, the composer who wrote the music for a string of Disney movies in the early 1990s, like Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin. Do not go expecting to hear any of the Motown hits from the movie – or Hail Holy Queen etc. it’s also set in the late 1970s rather than the early 90s, Doloris’s boyfriend owns a club that he won’t let her sing at – rather than a casino where she does sing at – and it’s set in Philadelphia rather than Reno and Adam Francisco.

I thought the changes really worked – if you can’t have the music from the movie – which I assume would have been near impossible on a licensing front for the Motown front, especially given that there were a few jukebox musicals using some of the artists music at around the same time – then make some changes to make it its own thing. It was obviously going to need more music than the movie had – and more characters were going to need to sing, so it worked really well.

I didn’t see this when it was in the West End originally – I didn’t have the budget for theatre going at the time and I was also working a job where I started at 4 am so late nights were not my friend – but this has got a cracking cast at the moment, so I feel like I might have picked the right time. Beverley Knight is playing Doloris and Ruth Jones is playing Mother Superior – later on this summer Alexandra Burke takes over as Doloris and Lee Mead joins as Detective Eddie Souther. It’s also got Lemar – who I always thought deserved a bigger music career than he got – playing Doloris’ boyfriend.

Basically this is a big, fun, colourful night in the theatre – in fact in a theatre where I spent a lot of time as a teenager, but that’s a story for another day.

Have a great Sunday everyone.

streaming, tv

Not a Book: Abbott Elementary

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After being pleasantly surprised by the range of viewing options on the flights to and from Manila, I was hopeful about my options for the (much shorter) flights to and from Lagos. Sadly we were with a different airline and the options were… much less good. However there was a ray of sunlight – and that was that Abbott Elementary was on there so I was finally able to watch the first series of a show I’ve been hearing about for a while. And now you get to hear about it. Obviously this comes with the proviso that I’ve only seen the first season and it’s now made it to the end of season three (and is renewed for a fourth) but hey, I liked it and I’m writing about it.

This is a mockumentary about the teachers at an under-funded and predominantly black school in Philadelphia. It’s created and written by one of its stars – Quinta Brunson, who plays optimistic second grade teacher Janine Teagues. There are six other main characters in the show – including Eva, a new and unqualified school principal; Gregory, one of the candidates she beat to the job who is now working as a substitute teacher; Barbara, a no nonsense kindergarten teacher with decades of experience – played by the absolute legend that is Sheryl Lee Ralph aka the original Deena in Dreamgirls on Broadway and Lauryn Hill’s mum in Sister Act 2!

The first series has 13 episode and follows the trials and tribulations of one school year. It didn’t take me long to get really invested in all the characters and the school – but it’s really funny – although at times it’s a little bit too cringe for me, but that’s not too unusual with comedies. It’s also very easy to watch episode after episode back to back without getting fed up or finding a formula – I was actually annoyed when I ran out of time to watch more on the flight out, and made a point of finishing the series off on the way home before I went to sleep on the night flight home! The second series has 22 episodes (stupid American TV season lengths) which is a bit more of a commitment, but next time I get an offer for Disney+ I’ll be checking it out. I was going to say checking it out to see if they keep the quality going – but given that the second season won three Golden Globes, including Best Actress for Quinta Brunson, I think it did!

As I mentioned above, if oyu’re not on an airplane, Abbott Elementary is on Disney+ in the UK and on ABC and whereever ABC content gets streamed in the US. If you liked Parks and Recreation and haven’t checked this out yet, you really should.

Have a great Sunday everyone.

streaming

Not a Book: Deadloch

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Back to a streaming show this week – but not a new one. In fact Deadloch came out on Amazon Prime last summer and I don’t quite know how I missed it until recently. But these things happen, and I have rectified that mistake now!

Deadloch is a black comedy crime series, centred on the fictional town of Deadloch on Tasmania. As the series starts, the body of a local man is found in the beach, shaking the idyllic town just as the town’s Winter Festival is due to begin. Local police officer Dulcie wants to lead the investigation, but she’s forced to work with Eddie, a detective from Darwin who is not happy that she’s been sent to Deadloch. Dulcie used to be a detective on the mainland before demoting herself and moving to Deadloch at her wife’s request and it is safe to say that her style and Eddie’s are radically different. They are helped in their work by Abby, who is enthusiastic but lacks confidence, and Sven who usually gets given the least important stuff to do. As the bodies start to mount up, can they work out who is killing the men of Deachloch?

The working title for this was apparently Funny Broadchurch if that helps you figure out what the vibe of this is. And there are plenty of jokes – although perhaps unexpectedly it gets really quite dark (and less funny) towards the end of the series. I don’t watch shows like Broadchurch because they’re too grim for me and the last part of this was in fact too grim for me! But I did really enjoy watching the rest of it, and I know my tolerance level is low for grim so others may be fine with it. I have no idea how you would do a second series of this, but I would definitely watch it.

Have a great Sunday!

not a book, theatre

Not a Book: Opening Night

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A somewhat perplexing theatre trip this week. Opening Night got 1* and 4* reviews when it opened, and it seems like the audiences have paid more attention to the ones than the fours, as its closing early at the end of this coming week, instead of running though til the end of July.

This is a musical adaptation of a John Casavetes film, with music by Rufus Wainwright, starring Sheridan Smith and directed by Ivo Van Hove. Now I love to go and see a flop – I saw the X factor musical twice, and the spice girls musical to name a few – and I do actually really like Rufus Wainwright’s music, so of course I rocked up to see this before it finished to see what I thought.

And the answer, five days on, is that I still don’t know! It’s not so bad it’s funny. It’s not a misunderstood masterpiece. But it is incredibly confused, and (sadly) the music is ultimately pretty forgettable. I’m not even sure what I can say about the performances – everyone is giving it their all, but I’m still not sure what they were meant to be working towards! But I got a good discount on my seat, and I’m glad that I can say I saw it. And sometimes that’s all you’re after!

Have a great Sunday!

film, not a book

Not a Book: On the Basis of Sex

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A slightly random film review today, because this is not new, and there was no particular reason why we watched it the other week, except that it was there.

This is a biopic about the early career of Ruth Bader Ginsberg, the US Supreme Court Justice who died in the latter stages of President Trump’s term. If all you know about her is that she was a judge, this will fill you in on how she got to that position, and how tough things were for women who wanted to be lawyers in the mid-twentieth century. In fact there are portions of this that will probably make you really angry – they definitely did me anyway.

It has its flaws – it’s quite old fashioned in style, I don’t think Armie Hammer is great, and it probably should have done more about her later achievements than a couple of credit cards at the end, but as a primer to go and watch a documentary or read a biography, it’s pretty good.

audio, not a book

Not a Book: You Must Remember This

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Here we are, another Sunday and I have a podcast recommendation for you this week.

I’ve mentioned Karina Longworth before – her book was a BotW pick back in 2019 and I mentioned this podcast in passing then as well as in my post about Glass Onion. But the podcast has just turned ten and so I thought it deserves a proper post. Over the course of the last ten years Longworth has worked her way through what she calls the “secret and/or forgotten histories of Hollywood’s first century”.

In practice what that means is seasons about the Blacklist, Joan Crawford, the rise and fall of Louis B Mayer and the portrayal of sex in movies in the 80s and 90s and many more. I think I have now listened to every episode except this remastered first episode. It’s one of the podcasts that I used to save for when I was out running, except that I played Him Indoors one of the Erotic 80s episodes on holidays and suddenly it was our holiday podcast. Karina has a very deliberate style of delivery, which is based on radio announcers and voice overs from that Hollywood golden era which can grate a bit for some people – and in the early episodes she’s editing her own voice which is hard and she does too much. So it’s not a podcast I would say to start from the beginning – but pick a series that interests you and go from there. That’s what I did – I actually left the series about Charles Manson til quite late on because I wasn’t sure I’d be able to cope with the murdery aspect of it – and when I did it certainly made me run faster!

If you’re interested in classic Hollywood (which you know I am) it’s a really good listen. You can find You Must Rmemver this wherever you get your podcasts. And if you have any other podcasts in a similar area of interest please do hit me up in the comments.

Happy Sunday everyone!