katharineshowalter

The SAY YES TO THE DRESS series has always been about shallow consumerism and enforcing traditional gender roles. The brides might as well wear the red and white habits of THE HANDMAID'S TALE. Now solid-haired Tan France joins the fray, superficially appearing to be positive and supportive but actually adding a disturbing layer of exploitation to the show.

Under the guise of celebrating individuality and glamour, SYTTDWTF parades a distorted version of reality no one should see.

In the episode "In Love With My Ghost Groom," a deluded young woman speaks of her intimate relationship with a Victorian-era ghost named Eduardo. Of course, he wouldn't be named Brian. I think we saw this episode of STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION. The Goth (duh) bride describes her paranormal connection as a deep emotional bond, yet the portrayal borders on the absurd and trivializes serious mental health issues. Tan France's response, while performatively nonjudgmental, fails to address the underlying implications of such beliefs, instead focusing on the superficial aspects of wedding attire and feeding the viewers' schadenfreude.

In "A Black Wedding Dress," the bride's desire for a hideous black dress clashes with her family's traditional views, highlighting the show's tendency to sensationalize cultural differences for entertainment value.

The episode "Dressing a Drag Queen," a drag queen seeks a wedding dress that aligns with her identity. While the intention may be to promote inclusivity, the portrayal feels more like a spectacle, reducing a complex personal journey to a mere fashion statement.

Overall, the show is a troubling reflection of reality television's exploitation of personal stories for profit. Worse, it focuses wrong-headedly on extravagant wedding couture in a time of deep economic disparity. This is toxic, just serious poison for the mind.

The new content DEEP COVER is a misfire that squanders a talented ensemble and an interesting premise. Directed passionlessly by Tom Kingsley, the film attempts to blend action and comedy but ends up delivering a superbly lackluster experience.

The plot centers on Kat (a miscast Bryce Dallas Howard), an improv teacher, and her students Marlon (Orlando Bloom, just no) and Hugh (Nick Mohammed, okay, I guess), who are recruited by a detective (Sean Bean, check) to infiltrate a counterfeit cigarette operation. However, their mission absurdly but not comically spirals as they become entangled in some very low stakes drug smuggling scheme. While the premise of improvs as undercover cops could be fun, the execution is pancake flat here, with a script that fails to deliver any humor or thrilling moments.

The performances are perfunctory. Orlando Bloom's portrayal of Marlon, a method actor with delusions of grandeur, lacks comedic timing or any magic needed to make the character compelling. Bryce Dallas Howard's Kat is underdeveloped, just a cardboard figure, and Nick Mohammed's Hugh, while earnest, is dull and predictable. The supporting cast, including Ian McShane's Veneers and Slumming Paddy Considine, are wasted in roles that offer no substance. Only Sonoya Mizuno shows a glimmer of anything beneath a fright wig, but her character has nothing to do.

The direction by Kingsley is lifeless, with a visual style that feels more suited for '80s TV than modern cinema. Instead of the sharp, satirical crime-comedy it could have been, DEEP COVER meanders through clichéd setups and predictable outcomes.

In an era where streaming platforms offer so so so much content, this is forgettable nothing.

HOW TO ROB A BANK presents the story of Scott Scurlock (aka "Hollywood") with the sleek polish of a Hollywood production, and with it, all the ideological sleight of hand and worship of the status quo that such egregeious gloss often entails. What could have been a radical examination of an individual who chose creativity over conformity, rebellion over resignation, and of a system that has and continues to feed economic disparity instead becomes another tool of state narrative management: criminal genius reduced to cautionary tale, and the asinine police and fumbling FBI cast (predictably) as heroic.

Scurlock was no ordinary thief. With a keen intellect and flair for prosthetics, he transformed himself into a modern trickster, robbing banks with planning, style, and without resorting to violence. And yet, the documentary, like the institutions it seems loath to question, goes out of its way to paint him as dangerous, invoking TV news propaganda, inflated threat assessments, and vague trauma testimonies, just in case the audience forgets who they're supposed to root for.

The police, despite their historical penchant for surveillance over substance, are made to look competent through the sheer luck of circumstance. Scurlock wasn't caught by any masterful sleuthing; the house of cards simply collapsed. HOW TO ROB A BANK frames this as inevitability, as if daring to challenge capitalism was always doomed to fail.

This doc wants the thrill of outlaw glamour without the political discomfort of its implications. Scurlock's story, had it been told honestly, could have stood as a critique of a society that leaves no space for brilliance outside sanctioned pathways. Instead, the system wins again, on screen and off.