This is a strange collection of memoir, fun activities, silly stories and just general craziness. It’s easy to read it with Ellen’s voice in your mind, joke after joke after joke. However, there are numerous jokes that have a real tone-deaf element – and by that, they feel dated since the days of #metoo and the concepts of toxic gender roles. Then I checked when it was written – 2011. It’s still mostly funny, just some parts are a bit… not-quite-right.
Remember Dory, the dippy fish who helped Marlin find his son in Finding Nemo? Ever wonder where she came from? Well, wonder no more. Here’s her origin story, and it’s so much fun. As a small fish, Dory (Ellen DeGeneres) who has a memory condition, got lost. Now that Nemo (Hayden Rolence)has been found and returned home, oops! Dory’s gotten lost again. This time, it’s not her parents but Nemo and Marlin(Albert Brooks) who are looking for her, and helping her to find her way home. And gradually, she starts to remember things.
Slight issue, and this is an odd one. But if she has had a mental condition which means that she cannot form new memories and she’s had it since birth, then why can it suddenly start coming back? I suppose at least they didn’t give her a real human condition, but it does annoy me that sometimes it seems like films are sending the message that hey, while it’s fine for you to have a particular disability, if you try real hard, you can overcome it. Apart from the fact that for so many conditions, no, you can’t just try hard to change, it suggests that all those people who suffer the condition just aren’t trying hard enough, and that’s bullshit. Oops, didn’t think this movie review would get me into sweary land. Maybe I need to not expect films to be better than they are.
Finding Dory was nominated for a BAFTA for Best Animated Film.
Ed (Matthew McConaughey) is a normal guy; in his thirties, working in a video shop, hanging out with his family, especially his brother, Ray (Woody Harrelson) and his girlfriend, Shari (Jenna Elfman). Then a television station has a competition to find a face for their new reality television show, and suddenly, they are all on tv, 24-hours-per-day. It’s exciting until it starts to cause some real problems for them all.
Sometimes in culture, zeitgeist throws up things that are similar yet still different. In the late nineties, it was reality TV, with this coming up only a year after The Truman Show. Yes, there are similarities, and in their own way, both of these films work. EDtv is fun. Fun characters, tough decisions, great gags. I felt the need to watch this after recently watching the disturbing and difficult True Detective series, and really wanted to see Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson having fun. It’s not rocket science, but it is ace fun. And Jenna Elfman? Come back. I miss you.
ireckonthat 