The Beanie Bubble

The Beanie Bubble

By the time you read this review of The Beanie Bubble, the internet will already have produced at least a dozen think pieces discussing 2023 as “The Year Brands Came to the Movies”.  I would assume that they all touch on what is the most logical reason why movies are suddenly suffering from brand-itis: marketing these movies is so much simpler than selling a biography.  What would you be more inclined to watch, a movie about Ty Warner and the people behind the company that produced beanie babies, or a movie about the untold story of beanie babies?  Marketing a movie about a product is so much easier because generations of people are familiar with Beanie Babies.  It stands to reason that they’d be interested in a movie about a product they bought at some point in time.

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Ted Lasso Season 3

Ted Lasso – Season 3

At the end of last season, Ted Lasso (Jason Sudeikis) and AFC Richmond found themselves in an unexpected position as victors.  With a critical assist from assistant coach Nate Shelley (Nick Mohammed), they were promoted back into the Premier League, an achievement no one besieged Ted believed would happen.  When season three begins, the glow from that success has already worn off.  Nate quit the team in a huff and accepted Rupert’s offer to be the coach of West Ham.  Sports prognosticators have AFC Richmond finishing in last place.  Ted, as always, is comfortable with people underestimating him and his team.  He knows that predictions don’t win games, players do.  However, there’s the feeling that the club over-performed.  After doing the impossible, everyone is thinking, “Now what?”

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Severance – Season One (Apple TV)

In a future that’s closer than you think, a company called Lumon Industries has invented a technology known as “severance”.  Enabled by a chip that is inserted into the brain, it effectively severs your mind into two selves, referred to whimsically as “innie” and “outie”.  Your “innie” is who you become when you’re working on Lumon’s “severed floor”.  That self has no awareness of who you are outside of work, but it does remember everything else you’ve learned (how to walk, talk, eat, etc.)  When you leave work, you transition back into your “outie”, who has no knowledge of what transpired during the day.  Think of it as compartmentalization on steroids.  If this technology had been invented by Apple, I’m confident they would have called something catchy like “iDissociate”.

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On the Rocks (Apple TV+)

On the Rocks is one of Sophia Coppola’s best films.  Released in a “normal” year, it certainly would have gotten positive notices from critics and several award nominations.  In 2020, however, the various critics circles may consider the movie as too lightweight to be taken seriously in these troubled times.  That would be a shame, because for me, the movie was perfect in almost every way.  I’m pretty sure I was smiling from beginning to end, and laughed many times at the hi-jinks of Bill Murray’s Felix and his exasperated daughter Laura, played by Rashida Jones.  I know that I’m giving this movie high praise, but honestly I don’t think I can praise it enough.

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