TV Show Review - Daisy Jones & the Six

Season: Mini Series
Genre: Drama/ Music/ Romance
Number of episodes: 10
Year: 2023
Starring: Riley Keogh, Sam Claflin, Camila Morrone, Suki Waterhouse, Will Harrison, Josh Whitehouse, Sebastian Chacon, Nabiyah Be, Tom Wright, Timothy Olyphant

Description: Following the rise of rock band Daisy Jones and the Six through the 1970s Los Angeles music on their quest for worldwide icon status.

Review: Based on the book of the same name by Taylor Jenkins Reid, “Daisy Jones & the Six” focuses on the rise and fall of a rock band in 1970s Los Angeles. The book is an absolute favorite of mine and I was so happy to see it come to life. The book is still better, but I highly enjoyed the TV series.  

The book is in interview form, the series is set up as a retrospective documentary. While being interviewed, the band looks back at how they started. The setting is amazing, the sound, the wardrobe, the hair, the vibes, it’s aals present. The band is somewhat modeled after Fleetwood Mac, around the time they made their album “Rumours”. The serie’s “Rumours” is called “Aurora”.

Riley Keough and Sam Claflin play the two lead singers of the band, Daisy Jones and Billy Dunne. They both portray their respective roles wonderfully. Claflin is charismatic, the cool rock star with a sensitive edge. But Daisy Jones is really the magnetic centerpiece here. Keigh, who is Elvis Presley’s eldest granddaughter and daughter of Lisa Marie Presley. She is a joy the watch. Daisy Jones is confident, independent, strong, but also fragile and a little broken. And both of them have a great voice.
As many book to movie/ TV series adaptations, there are a lot of differences. I really liked how Camila, Billy’s wife, got a more prominent role and she was actually one of my favorite characters. In the book she wasn’t. I also enjoyed Simone’s story, how they added that in the show. She played an important role in Daisy’s life in the book as well, but they give her more to do in the TV series.

What I didn’t like was the role of Karen. Pianist Karen was my favorite character in the book. A woman who knows what she wants, trying to keep her head above water in a man’s world, constantly having to prove her worth and fighting for her place in the music world. I love how confident she was I the book, how Karen said it like she saw it and she was never inferior to the men. Karen disappeared a bit into the background, her as a band member and woman. The show does focus on her relationship with fellow band member Graham, Billy’s brother. And that’s fine. But I wanted more of the person Karen. We hardly get to know her here.

The thing that bothered me the most was the “The Six” didn’t have six band members. Pete, a character in the book, is not in the series. They simply count Camila as their sixth band member. But I really hated that. Pete didn’t have a huge role in the book, he was barely in it. But calling a band with five band members “The Six” is pretty lame.

Because it’s a story about a band, there needs to be music. And Taylor Jenkins Reid did a great job describing all the songs on the album “Aurora”, what their vibe is, their meaning, what you’re supposed to feel, what they represent. We were finally going to hear the songs. And “Aurora” is an actual album which you can listen to on Spotify. “Look at Us Now (Honeycomb)” is definitely the song with the biggest impact.

Despite the series having two changes I hated, I did really love this show. And listening to the album, makes the book even better.

10s Movie Review - Love, Rosie

Director: Christian Ditter
Genre: Romance/ Comedy/ Dram
Runtime: 103 minutes
Year: 2014
Starring: Lily Collins, Sam Claflin, Christian Cooke, Jaime Winstne, Suki Waterhouse, Tamsin Egerton, Jamie Beamish, Lorcan Cranitch, Ger Ryan, Lily Laight, Matthew Dillon, Rosa Molloy, Sadbh Malin, Nick Lee, Damien Devaney

I WATCHED THIS MOVIE FOR MY 2021 MOVIE CHALLENGE.
WEEK 23: A ROMCOM
 
Description: Rosie (Lily Collins) and Alex (Sam Claflin) have been best friends since they were 5, so they couldn’t possibly be right for another… or could they? When it comes to love, life and making the right choices, these two are their own worst enemies.

Review: It’s a truism: romantic comedies don’t have the most unexpected endings or particularly original entanglements. The genre almost always has the charismatic setback so that it all seems to go wrong and the lovebirds will be sitting there all alone. Or with someone they aren’t meant to be with. Everything depends on the interpretation of the romcom. In that respect, “Love, Rosie” is just right. Because if they didn’t get it right, it would be yet another cliché romcom. Because it’s not easy to watch two people who are made for each other endlessly revolve around each other for over hundred minutes, without admitting they love each other.
The fact that Rosie and her best friend Alex, whom she has known since she was five, will eventually get together is almost a certainty. You can’t imagine fate and a lot of misunderstandings and wrongly chosen moments ensure that the two friends take a different path in their lives and then end up back together. It’s what happens to both of them over a course of 12 years.
The moments in the lives of Rosie and Alex are entertaining, at times frustrating to the bone, and above all, a succession of fatal misfortune. However, it is brought with great nuance and embedded in realistic situations. When Alex is about to travel to the States to study there, it’s unthinkable that his heartfelt friend won’t allow him. But Rosie stays home and Alex hooks up with  a graceful American with whom things get very serious. Rosie only has to take one look at the couple during a visit to see that Alex’ relationship is doomed to fail. She doesn’t look for the cause in herself, but is simply sure that her best friend deserves better.
“Love, Rosie” benefits from the appealing interaction between lead actors Sam Claflin and Lily Collins. The number of side characters is kept to a minimum and the film focuses on Alex and Rosie.
I’m not the biggest fan of romcoms, but I really loved this film. “Love Rosie” is not about whether Rosie and Alex will fall into each other’s arms, but about how.

Rating: 3,5/ 5

100 Movie Challenge 2017 - # 108: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

Director: Burr Steers
Genre: Action/ Horror/ Romance
Runtime: 108 minutes
Year: 2016
Starring: Lily James, Sam Riley, Lena Heady, Charles Dance, Matt Smith, Bella Heathcote, Suki Waterhouse

Description: Five sisters in 19th century England must cope with the pressures to marry while protecting themselves from a growing population of zombies.

Review: “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies” is exactly what the title wants you to believe it is. Jane Austen’s good old tale “Pride and Prejudice”, but then with added zombies. 19th century women fighting off zombies.
A mash-up film like this can be extraordinary fun because of the contrasts between the two genres. And those moments, where the film mixes the genres and becomes half a parody and half something completely new, is where “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies” is the strongest. Where the film tries to stick with the original romance novel, the film loses its power. Because we already know it and seen it.
For a film of this genre, it focuses too much on the original story, instead of the elements that make this story so special. We simply needed to have more of the zombies. Off course it’s also fun to see the moments from the original Austen novel, but we have other movies for that. It gets fun when the Bennet sister pull out weapons from their dresses and fight the undead.
Overall it’s a strange mix, although very entertaining. When the zombie element of the story had an overhand, “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies” would have been much better. Still not a bad movie, but there was such potential.

Rating: 3/ 5