Dont Tell NetflixDont Tell Netflix

by Emily Nagle

Top 5 Highest Grossing Films for Weekend of June 3-5, 2022
5. Downton Abbey: A New Era ($3.2 million)
4. The Bad Guys ($3.3 million)
3. The Bob’s Burgers Movie ($4.6 million)
2. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness ($9.2 million)
1. Top Gun: Maverick ($90 million)

Thanks to “Top Gun: Maverick”, the first box office weekend of this month took off. This long-awaited sequel to the 1986 action film racked up $90 million in its second weekend of release, more than all of other films in the top 5 combined. In fact, “Maverick” has performed better financially than its predecessor, earning $557.2 million worldwide. It’s also been better received by audience, receiving a 97% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Critics have praised this sequel for its soundtrack, cast, action sequences, and story. This Memorial Day blockbuster follows Captain Pete “Maverick” Mitchell (Tom Cruise) 36 years after the events of the original film, as he returns to the prestigious United States Navy Strike Fighter Tactics Instructor program as an instructor, and trains a new generation of fighter pilots.

The same weekend that “Top Gun: Maverick” premiered, “The Bob’s Burgers Movie” rolled out to theaters. Based on the Fox animated series created by Loren Bouchard, this musical comedy follows the Belchers as they try to keep their burger restaurant afloat after a sinkhole opens up right outside their front door. I’m actually going to the theater tonight to see this movie, so stay tuned for a full review, along with other articles about this film!

In terms of new releases, this weekend did not see the premiere of any widely released films. However, next weekend will be more eventful at theaters across the country, as “Jurassic World: Dominion” premieres. Will this popular sci-fi franchise break box office records? Only time will tell.

by Emily Nagle

British teen drama Heartstopper debuted on Netflix at the end of April, and immediately blew up, becoming one of the top British series on Netflix in less than a week. Since its premiere, this charming LGBTQ+ series has been a social media sensation. The hashtag #heartstopper currently has 5.4 billion views on TikTok, filled with videos from the cast members and fans. LGBTQ+ couples have even used audio from the show to tell their own love stories (like this one).

Based on the eponymous webcomic and graphic novel by Alice Oseman, Heartstopper tells the story of English high school student Charlie Spring (Joe Locke), who falls for popular rugby player Nick Nelson (Kit Connor). Having been outed before the events of the series, Charlie has been bullied by his classmates to the point where he hides in the art room during lunch. As a result, when things heat up between the two boys, Nick struggles to come to terms with his own sexuality out of fear of getting ostracized by his teammates, who gang up on Charlie, much to Nick’s disapproval.

The story is sweet and heartwarming, and as the credits start rolling at the end of the episode and the “Next Episode” button starts filling up, you won’t want to pick up the remote! Each episode shows the progression of Charlie and Nick’s relationship, but it’s not just about them; viewers also get to know Charlie’s friends Tao (William Gao) and Elle (Yasmin Finney). Tao is overprotective of Charlie, and skeptical of Nick’s feelings for him due to much of the rugby team being homophobic. Meanwhile, Elle has recently transferred to an all-girls school after coming out as transgender, and makes new friends while realizing that her friendship with Tao might be something more.

Heartstopper is a visual treat, with stunning production design. In addition to the animated bits, the lighting is super colorful and great at showing emotion. The actual comic is in black and white, so the creative team had to figure out how they would use colors to convey emotions in a way that’s fun and youthful, but not overwhelming. In terms of lighting design, my favorite scenes in the show took place at a classmate’s birthday party and the bowling alley. The most notable example of symbolic lighting in Heartstopper is the bisexual lighting during much of the scenes with Nick and Charlie, foreshadowing Nick realizing his sexuality. Even though it’s set in the modern day, the colorful lighting in these scenes gives off retro vibes, and is really pretty to look at. At the same time, it does more than just look nice; it contributes to character development in a subtle way, going beyond dialogue and plot.

The way Heartstopper incorporates comic-esque cinematography and cartoonish effects reminds me of Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, except without the superhero energy. During particularly intimate moments between the teens, traditionally animated doodles show chemistry. The most recognized animated effect in the show is pastel leaves dancing across the screen (if you search up “Heartstopper” on Google, then they’ll twirl across the search results!). In an interview with IBC, cinematographer Diana Olifirova explained the challenge of conveying emotions like this onscreen using things like camera angles and lighting (which I couldn’t even tell was a challenge, because she absolutely nailed it). The quirky visuals are a unique, cute way to show the progression of Nick and Charlie’s relationship. If the creative decisions they made on set are an ice cream sundae, then the little animations added in after filming are the rainbow sprinkles. Not only do they set Heartstopper apart from other shows, but it reminds you that these are just kids who are figuring themselves out. It makes me think of a lovesick teen rushing home from school to gush about their love interest in their diary, or doodling their crush’s name absentmindedly in their notebook during class.

Despite the visuals being colorful and reminiscent of a graphic novel, it’s such a human story. Olifirova also revealed to IBC that much of the shots were filmed handheld, like a documentary, to feel more authentic and show more of the story than just the actors. This technique is used particularly in the more tender moments between the characters. A scene that comes to mind is in the third episode, titled “Kiss”: while at their classmate’s birthday party, Nick and Charlie run off from the rest of their peers and kiss for the first time. The whole exchange leading up to the kiss is slow and natural, with Charlie asking Nick if he’d ever date or kiss someone who wasn’t a girl, and then if he would ever kiss him. You can feel the emotions radiating off of the boys; after so long, Charlie finally has the guts to pop the question to Nick, who has finally come to terms with his feelings for him.

Each episode of Heartstopper is around 30 minutes long, and there’s only 8 episodes, making this show the perfect binge-watch. That’s what I did recently, when I was sick with an ear infection for a few days and just wanted to nap on the couch and watch TV. In fact, it’s probably a good idea to start it now, while there’s not that many episodes out, because only a month after its release, Heartstopper got renewed for a second and third season!

I recommend Heartstopper to anyone looking for a short, sweet love story, or if you want to watch something with realistic representation of LGBTQ+ youths. Unlike other trending teen shows like “Euphoria”, this show doesn’t rely on shock value. Heartstopper isn’t about kids experimenting with drugs or partying. Instead, it’s a wholesome story of boy meets boy, and a tale about friendship and growing up. A show about teens just having fun and acting their age is hard to come by these days, and it’s this quality that makes Heartstopper hit home for so many people. This heartwarming series is the perfect binge for Pride Month!

by Emily Nagle

Happy Pride Month! With a new month comes a whole new slew of content, and to ring in the celebration of all things LGBTQ+, here’s some shows and movies you can watch now on some of the most popular streaming platforms!

Netflix subscribers can take a bite out of lesbian vampire drama “First Kill” on June 10. Juliette Fairmont (Sarah Catherine Hook) is a teenage vampire on the hunt for her first blood, and settles on Calliope Burns (Imani Lewis), the new girl in town. She discovers Calliope descends from a long line of successful vampire slayers. The girls soon fall head over heels for each other…even though they each want the other one dead.

Gleeks, grab your slushies – Fox’s critically acclaimed series is finally back on streaming! After leaving Netflix last fall, all six seasons of “Glee” are now available to watch on Disney+ and Hulu. Having aired from 2009 to 2015, the show prominently featured LGBTQ+ characters, having broken major ground by being one of the first shows to do this. Most notably, one of season one’s story arcs explores Kurt Hummel (Chris Colfer) as he struggles with coming out as gay to his father and peers.

Disney+ and Hulu subscribers can also anticipate a vacation to “Fire Island”; premiering on June 3, this rom-com puts a queer spin on “Pride and Prejudice”, following a group of gay friends Noah and Howie (Joel Kim Booster and Bowen Yang) as they spend a sunshine-filled, rosé-fueled week on the south shore of Long Island.

Canadian drama series “Two Brothers” will be premiering on Amazon Prime Video and Canadian LGBTQ+ channel OUTtv on June 10. The show will follow The show follows Aaron and Aiden as they struggle to fit in their small Canadian town, due to being minorities, and also due to Aaron being gay. Arriving on Prime Video a week later is “My Fake Boyfriend”: this movie follows Andrew (Keiynan Lonsdale), who gets dumped by his on-again, off-again boyfriend. To help him move on, his two best friends (Dylan Sprouse and Sarah Hyland) create a fake boyfriend on social media, dubbing him “Cristiano”. But when Cristiano becomes an Internet icon and Andrew meets the real guy of his dreams, the trio must figure out how to make things right.

by Emily Nagle

Yesterday, the California-based digital advertising platform GumGum announced a partnership with Invincible Entertainment. This development is sure to revolutionize the streaming ad experience, creating in-video product advertisements that will be used in Invincible’s massive CTV (connected TV) catalog.

This new ad experience will be used particularly for Invincible’s flagship streamer Galxy TV. Unlike traditional advertisements, GumGum’s SSAI (server-side ad insertion) software allows viewers to watch their shows and movies uninterrupted, as the ad appears in a corner of the screen.

“GumGum is thrilled to work alongside Invincible to improve their users’ viewing experience without sacrificing monetization by reducing the amount of traditional ad breaks—rather we replace them with overlay ads,” Ken Weiner, Chief Technology Officer at GumGum, announced in a press statement. “Our tech contextually analyzes scheduled ad avails and our ad server then chooses suitable advertisements for the user at that moment in time to be placed across Invincible’s genre-spanning CTV content.”

When one considers the risks of interruptive ads during live-streamed broadcasts, it only makes sense that overlay advertisements are set to make strides in streaming customers’ viewing experience. Mid-video ads run the risk of interrupting crucial moments during a program, whether it’s a sentence or a goal in a sports match. Ads that don’t interrupt a broadcast, however, avoid this while also maximizing brand compatibility in real-time.

“Our new integration with GumGum has the potential to transform how advertisers reach audiences in streaming environments. GumGum’s lower third ads have been so successful that we have been using them exclusively on our ad supported VOD titles resulting in a marked decrease in drop offs during ad breaks and a vastly improved viewing experience for our users,” Thomas Ashley, CEO at Invincible Entertainment, explains. “Streamers now have the opportunity to build revenue around valuable inventory in AVOD CTV in a robust and meaningful way, and this partnership makes it possible to deliver free ad supported programming to our users uninterrupted. CTV monetization can be rapidly, contextually, and creatively scaled and the user experience is second to none. It’s a win-win.”

by Emily Nagle

The first weekend of May was the most profitable box office one of the whole year so far, thanks to the release of Marvel’s “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness”. Altogether, the top 10 highest grossing films for this weekend added up to $220.3 million. For perspective, that’s almost twice the amount earned during the long Easter weekend.

Top 5 Highest Grossing Films for Weekend of May 6-8, 2022
5. Everything Everywhere All at Once ($3.5 million)
4. Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore ($4.3 million)
3. Sonic the Hedgehog 2 ($6 million)
2. The Bad Guys ($9.6 million)
1. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness ($187.4 million)

The long-awaited “Multiverse of Madness” carried movie theaters this weekend, grossing nearly $190 million. Most of this was earned during its opening day on Friday, when it grossed $90.7 million. This interdimensional superhero blockbuster has had the biggest opening weekend all year, as well as the second biggest pandemic-era opening weekend (with first place going to “Spider-Man: No Way Home“). A sequel to “Doctor Strange” (2016), the film follows the eponymous neurosurgeon-turned-sorcerer (Benedict Cumberbatch) as he casts a forbidden spell that unleashes the Multiverse, creating immense danger. Now, it’s up to him, Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen), and Wong (Benedict Wong) to contain the threat, which has introduced the team to alternate versions of themselves. It’s been praised by critics for its direction and performances.

With “Multiverse of Madness” soaring to number-one at theaters, “The Bad Guys” was demoted to second place for the first time in its 2-week release. Family films like “Sonic the Hedgehog 2” and “Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore” have continued to thrive at the box office several weeks after premiering, creating a diverse list of titles: from speedy blue hedgehogs and animal criminals to wizards and interdimensional thrillers, there’s something for everyone!

by Emily Nagle

Recently, HBO Max debuted the third season of their original series “Close Enough”, which first premiered in summer 2020. I reviewed its second season when it first debuted last spring, and wrote about how much I loved its creative, quirky stories, and compared it to “Regular Show”, one of creator J.G. Quintel’s older projects from Cartoon Network.

As a refresher: “Close Enough” is an adult animated series follows Josh (J.G. Quintel) and Emily (Gabrielle Walsh), a couple in their early thirties who live in a Los Angeles duplex with their 6-year-old daughter Candice (Jessica DiCicco). It’s no ordinary living arrangement, as they are joined by their divorced friends Alex (Jason Mantzoukas) and Bridgette (Kimiko Glenn), in addition to their landlord Pearle (Danielle Brooks) and her son Randy (James Adomian). Each episode features one of the residents experiencing a small problem that escalates into large-scale, often supernatural situations. I’m talking things like Josh and Emily hosting an adult party in the garage during Candice’s birthday party, but then a magician whisks them away to an alternate dimension to teach them about being there for their daughter.

Over-the-top, surreal plotlines continue in “Close Enough’s” new season. My favorite episode from season 3 was “Candice Candice Revolution”. In this episode, Candice decides rules are meant to be broken after being served pancakes for dinner, and then proceeds to turn her whole elementary school upside down. With her classmates causing complete chaos, it’s reminiscent of “Lord of the Flies”: they’ve constructed a giant baking soda/vinegar volcano, lit things on fire, and tied up their teacher so he can’t stop them. It’s absolutely wild, and it all started when Candice experienced the magic of breakfast for dinner.

I know the show is about the adults, but I love Candice. Her excitable, impressionable nature makes for some pretty wacky stories; she’s only six, so she’s still at that age where nothing is impossible. Even if the episode doesn’t focus on her, she’s still an important character, and not some little kid who’s just kinda there. Candice adds a lot of heart to the show; take, for example, the second segment of episode 5, called “The Weird Kid”. In this episode, Emily feels like Candice is drifting away from her, and the next morning she wakes up as a 6-year-old, and befriends Candice as she pretends to be a new student at her school. Even though it’s a sci-fi-esque story, it’s wholesome and has a lot of humanity behind it; it’s a dilemma that’s sure to hit home for thirtysomethings, who, like Emily, might have kids of their own who they’re having trouble relating to.

Just like in the previous seasons, each episode is about 23 minutes long, and there’s only 8 of them. It’s an easy binge, clocking in at about 3 hours. And if you haven’t watched the first two seasons, you can spread it out over a few days. Or if you’re feeling particularly bold, you can get comfy on the couch and watch the entire series in 9 hours!

I loved the new season of “Close Enough”! It was worth the wait, and didn’t disappoint with even more crazy stories. However, as surreal as it is, the show is authentic. All the absurd misadventures the duplex residents get roped into stem from relatable young adult dilemmas, like family and work problems. It’s been renewed for season 4, which doesn’t have a release date yet.