The BDSM Movie That Puts ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ to Shame
There are roughly 47,000—oh, wait, a new Netflix Original just dropped; make that 47,001—TV shows and movies coming out each week. At Obsessed, we consider it our social duty to help you see the best and skip the rest.
We’ve already got a variety of in-depth, exclusive coverage on all of your streaming favorites and new releases, but sometimes what you’re looking for is a simple Do or Don’t. That’s why we created See/Skip, to tell you exactly what our writers think you should See and what you can Skip from the past week’s crowded entertainment landscape.
See: The Feeling That the Time for Doing Something Has Passed
The Feeling That the Time for Doing Something Has Passed may have an exhausting title, but that’s sort of the point: The hilarious comedy is a record of modern sexuality and romance, and how mundanity can be something we choose, rather than endure—even in something as taboo as BDSM.
Here’s Nick Schager’s take:
“An adult sex comedy that’s also the most amusingly unerotic film of the year, The Feeling That the Time for Doing Something Has Passed, which hits theaters April 26, treads into explicit terrain in order to chart the disaffection and confusion of a thirtysomething Brooklynite in search of direction, fulfillment, and companionship. Written and directed by star Joanna Arnow, this bracingly awkward indie—which played at last year’s Cannes, Toronto, and New York film festivals—is a portrait of millennial estrangement and discontent that, despite suffering from sporadic redundancy, strikes a raw cringe-comedy nerve.
‘The Feeling That the Time for Doing Something Has Passed’ Is the Sex Comedy You Need to See
In New York City’s trendiest borough, Ann (Arnow) lies nude in bed beside Allen (Scott Cohen), an older lover whose eyes stay closed as she begins humping his leg. ‘I love how you never care if I cum. And you don’t do anything for me,’ she announces in a monotone come-hither manner. ‘It’s so disrespectful and misogynist.’ When she gets no response, she drops her head to his chest and asks, “Do you think people can change?” Roused to actively engage with this, Allen merely sighs and states, ‘I don’t know.’ This prompts Ann to resume her dry-humping routine and attendant dirty talk, declaring, ‘I like how you don’t care if I get off because it’s like I don’t even exist.’ This may be true about Allen, but he mostly just comes across as exasperated by his partner’s shtick, staring at her and saying, ‘Can you not?’”
See: Velma Season 2
Velma Season 2 arrives with something to prove. Even after everyone and their mother despised Season 1, the animated, adult-oriented Scooby spinoff isn’t pulling any punches, with a hysterical, fast-paced season that forces its detractors to reconsider.
Velma
Here’s Coleman Spilde’s take:
“Alright, ready those tomatoes and warm up your pitching arm because I’ve got something to say: Max’s Velma series is fantastic. In a world where people have some grace and proper consideration for new things, loving the adult-oriented spinoff about the Scooby-Doo franchise’s devoted brainiac wouldn’t be such an outrageous take. But, much to my chagrin, we don’t live in that universe.
‘Velma’ Season 2 Proved Haters Wrong With the Perfect Scooby-Doo Joke
Most people actively despised the first season of Velma, and largely for the wrong reasons. Some critics deemed it uneven, having too many flat, throwaway punchlines. (Not an unfair opinion, I echoed something similar in my own review.) Others didn’t see the point at all, willfully misunderstanding the series’ clever subversion of audience expectations. The clickbaity headline of Velma’s existence is, essentially, ‘Woke Hollywood Made Velma Non-White and Gay,’ which almost everyone with an X account and your emphysema-ridden grandpappy bought into.”
See: Thank You, Goodnight
Thank You, Goodnight is not just a really great name for a rock ’n’ roll documentary, it’s a superb doc all on its own, chronicling the compelling and often surprising road to stardom traveled by Jon Bon Jovi and his hit-making band.
Jon Bon Jovi
Here’s Jordan Hoffman’s take:
“‘We’re halfway there,’ I said to myself at the two-and-a-half-hour mark of Thank You, Goodnight: The Bon Jovi Story, a four-part early Christmas gift to hard-core Bon Jovi fans and a ludicrously detailed look at the pop-rock luminary’s career for everyone else. Like the anthemic songs the platinum-selling New Jersey-born singer is known for, it would take an extra step to actively dislike this very by-the-numbers Hulu documentary, but the excessive length and the overblown manner in which it tries to manufacture drama does get a bit irritating. Put bluntly, there just isn’t much going on in this sanctioned and manicured portrait, yet it still goes on forever.
‘Thank You, Goodnight’: A (Very Long) Reminder That Even Jon Bon Jovi Is Mortal
Jon Bon Jovi is, was, and always shall be an extremely handsome and charismatic fella. That smile! Those eyes! Even in the deepest archive footage, striking a pose in preposterous ’80s hair-band outfits, the guy still looked good. What’s more, you can tell, you can just tell, that he’s a nice guy. Have you ever heard anyone say anything nasty about Jon Bon Jovi? Think a minute. No. The answer is no.”
See: Dead Boy Detectives
Dead Boy Detectives is a delightfully cheesy series about two dead teens who refuse to enjoy the afterlife, and instead stay in our world to solve supernatural crimes. Naturally, it’s absurd and unserious, which is exactly why it’s such a charming binge.
Dead Boy Detectives
Here’s Emma Stefansky’s take:
“Depending on your personal interpretation, you may subscribe to the notion of ghosts as unquiet spirits, haunting the realm of the living until some injustice they suffered in life or at the moment of their death is corrected, amended, forgiven. Ghosts, then, are the perfect clients for a certain type of private investigator motivated to simply provide closure to lost souls. It’s a heady intellectual conceit, and it’s also the hook that provides the backbone to Dead Boy Detectives, Netflix’s mystery series based on Neil Gaiman’s comic-book characters. And make no mistake: While there’s plenty of talk about life, death, and the afterlife, the show is light on its feet, a teen adventure series whose unquiet spirits are nothing compared to the trials of growing up—even if you’re already dead.
A Horny Cat King Helps Bring ‘Dead Boy Detective’ to Life
Prim and proper former English schoolboy Edwin Payne (George Rexstrew) and erstwhile streetwise punk Charles Rowland (Jayden Revri) are ghosts who have chosen to remain in the world of the living, solving ghost mysteries in order to send other spirits in need to whatever afterlife awaits them. The eight episodes of the first season take a throwback case-of-the-week approach, subtly building a season-long arc while its main characters are busy finding out how and why people died, whether that means breaking a curse, revealing some hidden treachery, or fighting a giant ectoplasmic toadstool. They’re joined in their quest by Crystal Palace (Kassius Nelson), a medium with a literally demonic ex-boyfriend, and Niko (Yuyu Kitamura), Crystal’s doe-eyed best friend with a sizable collection of anime boy posters on her walls.”
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