Tag: parody

Fackham Hall (2025) Review

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Quick Synopsis: Downtown Abbey meets Airplane, but not in a plane crash way.

We’re beginning to reach the end of 2025, which means it’s soon time for me to write the annual awards. So I’m starting to think of the best movies of the year. Among the obvious candidates are a film about the power of music mixed in with a gothic tale of racism and American history, a personal drama about trauma and family via a visit to a concentration camp, and a tale about the existence of the afterlife and all the implications of eternity. All very serious topics, all very “big”. Despite how that might make me look; I adore silliness. I like silly, fun little films, of which Fackham Hall is one of the best of the year. Really, the only comparison lately is The Naked Gun, which had the advantage of having an established style.

So, how does this compare? It’s not quite as joke heavy as TNG, with a distinct lack of sign-based jokes which aren’t signposted. There are also fewer background jokes. Basically, I don’t think there are any jokes that I missed that I’ll catch on a second viewing. So I didn’t laugh as often as I did during TNG, but I did laugh louder. I can remember more jokes from this than I can TNG, although that might be down to me having seen it more recently.

But does it stand out on its own? I’d say it does. There was a surprisingly full screening when I went, and everybody seemed entertained. Nobody walked out, which for a film barely advertised and which from the poster you could mistake for a period drama, was a pleasant surprise.

The performances are exactly what’s needed. I’m not familiar with Ben Radcliffe, but he does seem like he’d be perfect in an actual period drama. Thomasin McKenzie is building a weird filmography, which makes it hard to pin down her niche: JoJo Rabbit, Last Night In Soho, The Justice Of Bunny King, and now this. All of those are completely different films, and her roles are very different, yet they’re all somehow still “her”; she’s one of the most chameleonic (is that a word? Is now) performers around. Katherine Waterston is quickly becoming one of my favourite performers, which is odd as I’ve never intentionally seen a film because she’s in it; she just happens to be in films I watch, and happens to always be REALLY good. She has a face that feels like its come straight out of the 1940’s, so she’s perfect for films like this. She also has surprisingly perfect comic timing.

On the downside, the plot is muddled. The murder of the lord feels weird in terms of pacing. The arrival of the detective investigating it turns it more into a Hercule Poirot pastiche than a period parody. That feels like a genre rife for parody, but we’re not given enough time to fully explore that. I would be fully up for a sequel with that concept, by the way. If the murder was cut out, then it would leave a hole that needs fixing (and you’d lose one of the funniest sequences), but I’m sure it could be replaced with something more suitable. It feels like Jimmy Carr wanted to put those jokes in, not realising it might have been smarter to save them for a different film; now he can’t use those jokes and scenes in a more suitable film.

The reveal at the end is a bit too obvious, but not obvious enough that it seems deliberate and is, as such, a joke. Similar to the reveal of the murderer. But I think that if you go into a film like this expecting to be wowed by the plot, you’re in the wrong movie.

Really, the biggest negative of watching this is how it affected my viewing experience of another film. You know how, when you play Tetris or Guitar Hero, it changes the way you see things briefly? All you can see is falling circles and bricks for a while? I went through a comedic version of that. My brain watched the next fil,m and it took about 20 minutes for it to adjust and try not to see a joke in every single action or moment. That’s the biggest compliment I can give this film; It broke my brain with comedy.

Cassandro (2023) Review

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Quick Synopsis: Saul Armendariz is a gay luchador wrestler under the name El Topo. His career and life changes when he starts to compete as Cassandro, a flamboyant exotico wrestler.

I’m a big fan of films like this. Professional wrestling is f*cking weird, there’s no other way to say it. The people who fund it are weird, the people who perform it are weird, and the people who watch it are weird. So it usually makes for fantastic watch. But this? It fails to do one basic thing: explaining the lingo, it assumes you know what an exotico is. I mean, I do, because I’m a fucking mark for this business. Unless you know the business, the story won’t mean as much. Not just the aforementioned exotico, but it also doesn’t really do a decent enough job of explaining why certain people are big deals. His match with El Hijo Del Santo was a HUGE deal, Santo is a legend in lucha libre and his importance cannot be overstated. In Cassandro, his importance and relevance aren’t even stated. It’s this kind of attitude which makes it difficult to figure out whether this will appeal to people who aren’t fans of wrestling in the first place. It’s important for a film to know that audiences don’t know everything. Even I know that, and I’m basically an idiot. In my Napoleon review, I originally had a joke about how “This film is long, 157 minutes. Although that’s English minutes, in French minutes it’s much shorter”. That’s an obscure (even by my standards) reference to how the French and English had different calculations for what counted as a foot, which is partly what led to the fallacy that Napoleon was short, listed as being 5 foot 2 when in English measurements he was 5 foot 6. I loved that joke, but I knew if I did, I’d have to explain it, and as has just been proven, that would be dull and shit.

So yeah, this could prove impenetrable for casual moviegoers. For those who know? It’s delightful. It’s not great for providing you a life story, but it does provide a useful foundation for you to want to find out more. It’s helped by the performance of Gael Garcia Bernal, showcasing Cassandro as someone deeply insecure and broken but whose entire wrestling persona is based on overconfidence. His story is deeply emotional to watch unfold, especially the frayed relationship with his homophobic father. Yes, this is a story about professional wrestling, but it’s also a story about finding yourself (always make sure to check down the back of the sofa), about masculinity, and about being true to yourself.

Originally that ended with me saying it’s about bigotry, but it’s really not. The story itself is, but the way it’s told means it doesn’t really come through. The very nature of exotico’s traditionally existed to reinforce negative gay stereotypes. They were/sometimes still are grotesque caricatures of male feminity, whose entire purpose was to repulse and annoy the audience, who would then cheer when the traditionally heterosexual male hero would come along and beat the shit out of them whilst the crowd shouted homophobic slurs. That’s still the world we see in this film, but then he wins them over almost instantly. That kind of undercuts the homophobia he endured, like as soon as they saw him they all changed their minds. It kind of feels like a wasted opportunity. His rise to fame also seems to skip over a few things, so his match with Del Santo doesn’t really feel earned.

I have been a bit harsh to this but it is still a fun watch. His first entrance to a flamenco Spanish-language cover of I Will Survive is fun as hell, and there’s a scene near the end which is an absolutely fantastic piece of performance storytelling. Cassandro is on a talk show and a fan stands up and thanks him for giving him the courage to come out to his father. You can tell this means a lot to Cassandro, but he’s also slightly bitter and jealous that he’s talking to someone who was accepted by their own father when he still isn’t accepted by his. It’s a subtle facial performance and is so damn perfect.

In summary; it’s on Prime so if you have an account you might as well watch it, but you might be best off watching a documentary instead.