Berri's Couch

Well the 80's called they want their romance series back and they are NOT GETTING IT!! This is ours now (screeches like a startled marsupial), we have the glorious urban fantasy rewrite of Beauty and the Beast starring Ron Perlman and Linda Hamilton.

Well it's their story but how do the French films hold up in comparison to both each other and the more popularised American attempts? Is there even a difference in stories or presentation? And most importantly what is truly scary the beast or those that serve him?

Well may as well get the most recognisable adaptations out of the way. Disney and their grand machine had two hits at this tale, how do they both stand as art and more importantly how do they stand against each other?

Finally Bee fulfilled the self imposed requirements to get to ramble on about Beauty and the Beast. We start with it's origin point, whether it holds up and why it perhaps stands out amongst the list of other fairy tales that made it into the pop culture.

Well we danced around the issue enough, time to break the glass and discuss the conventions on a narrative and what happens when you break them? If they should be broken? And can they even be broken and still be good narratives in their own right?

So we finally reach the episode about wrestling, Bee tries to verbalise why that form of entertainment is important and a legitimate form of storytelling. Jerri is along for the ride and even comes to a new appreciation for the live stunt shows and the way they uniquely tell stories.

What is this? A short prompt and no clear line where a story is going can tell a narrative? Well thank god we're here to make some noise as we question who's line is it anyway and if these small moments that break walls count as narratives or are they just ways to entertain the smallest of us?

Stories told over a table with others while battling not only interpersonal dramas but also the whims of statistical chance, completely ridiculous right? Right. But the math rock stories are so much fun and unique so let's see why that is.

It's the showcase of the immortals, if said immortals were giant kaiju with generational beef. Kong and Godzilla are now separated but there is a challenger for top ape and he has a tag partner, can Kong find him an unlikely tag partner or will he lose everything? Does this film mark a pinfall for this series or will Bee run out wrestling references before she can finish this blurb? It's at least...

After so many years finally we see the big ape fight the radioactive lizard. Does the story telling around the grudge match hold up to our fervor however? And with a new director at the helm can the change in finalised visions lead these films astray from where we started in favour of a Fast and Radioactive franchise?

The King, a usurper, and a flip flopping Dr who needed to figure out what she is actually doing in the plot. All present and mostly visible in this film exploration of the consequences from the last film, building on the foundations the past film set but can it stand up to it's predecessor or is it just lost in the shadows?

After an........... attempt in the 90's we finally got a Godzilla film from a studio outside of Japan and it's good. So good it started a universe of films and juggled themes of fatherhood and trauma. But how does it hold up now or were we just happy it wasn't a lot of fish?

We made it. The ring has been cast into the fire and into the West we travel but before the ship finishes it's journey we look back onto the journey and ponder upon why this journey has stayed with everyone in a way the other's contemparies didn't. Why has Tolkien defined the genre and what are the ramifications of that? Legacy is complicated so let's attempt to talk through some of it.

Smaug Bezo's massively funded project to explore the Second Age in the history of Middle Earth that was destined for responses. Does it deserve the responses it got or was there a darker force in the army of outrage baiters aiming to destroy a light before it could truly shine? Kinda, yeah but also no.

The world's longest movie derived from a much less long children's book. Well known amongst fans and non fans alike for being the weirdest decision made in a long while adaptationally. Is there anything worth saving? Are the takes correct? Or is this an Arkenstone of a trilogy and if we dig deep enough we will be rewarded with greatness (and a bit of madness but hey nothing's truly free)?

Now we travel back to some of the earliest film adaptations of Lord of the Rings that we have access to. Both animated in the 70's and one is a musical. Can either hold up without nostalgia? Or are these relegated to the bin of outdated references that only serve as important because they lead to better films? 

What better way to honour one of the most iconic and influential pieces of (relatively) modern writing then by looking at the movies that captured generations of imagination and heavily lined the pockets of movie executives and the tourism board Aotearoa (New Zealand).

The iconic babies switch out the urban jungles for a jungle island and yet, somehow, BRUCE WILLIS is still here and the weirdest thing to happen. For at least one of us that is. Yet despite Jerri getting the name of one of the films he was in wrong (it is Tears of the Sun not Pursuit of the Sun) we still get more out of the surprise Willis and the crossover film he happens to be in.

Look they said it best when they said there would only ever be one Blade and after watching two movies you can understand why. Memorable raves, action that borders on goofy at points and a line that STILL befuddles Bee to this day.

Vents, biceps, aliens, action and an absolutely HEINOUS wig. Jerri delivers flowers to the sci-fi classic The Fifth Element, a noticeable history point in the genre that has had many highs and intense lows.

An iconic 90's classic that got a sequel that expanded upon the characters and their relationships while also being just as memorable, yet so rarely are they held in high regard. One sitting in the shadow of the glorious light from the first but these films should no longer be kept separate but rather enjoyed in their truest form....As a longform story of family and it's ever shifting dynamics.

The finale of the Netflix Flanagan productions, is it a bang or whimper? With a massive cast and drawing from one of the most prolific gothic poets of the pop culture can Flanagan and his team nail the haunting fantasy of the downfall of a family who started a health crisis all for profit while dealing with their own internal drama?

What? The queers found it somewhat triggering to watch a show about religious fanaticism and the fall into violence okayed by those who seek to benefit selfishly from said twisting of scripture to suit themselves? Never!!In seriousness we reflect on why this series run feels so different from the others and if it worked or should have been different.

And now we sit and discuss the second ghost story in this anthology of hauntings. What made this one so different from the other that it alienated some but truly terrified others? Does the change of location do more than supply different accents and architecture? Is that ending happy? Sit and listen, this story is not short but we shall try to make it so for you.

Well we're here in a house with some haunted siblings talking about what has been talked to death, life and unlife about. Why do we like this tale of trauma and how it haunts the now adult children? Do we like any of the siblings and why?