Marval Movie

I never watched wrestling.  I had no interest. However , the buzz on GLOW on Netflix captured my attention and I gave it a whirl. Well, hello……..I am hooked.

GLOW. What a great series, and the wrestling is the least of it.  First there’s Ruth (Alison Brie). She’s a very intense young actress, eager to make it. Otherwise she has to keep calling her folks for some money. How embarrassing.  She auditions and makes the rounds for this new series on television. She’s a “professional” and needs information – what’s her character and motivation? She drives the director (played perfectly by the jaded Marc Maron) crazy with her questions. “Hey Strindberg”, he calls her, but she grows on him. He knows how much she cares. Meanwhile, Debbie (Betty Gilpin) is the gorgeous former soap opera star who just had a kid and is feeling fat and unattractive. Plus, complication – Ruth, her best friend, had an affair with her husband.  Awkward!!!

Now, that’s cause for the perfect wrestling match.  Anyway, the show strings together an oddball assortment of women to aim for a Saturday morning slot on very cheap cable TV. We are talking very old school TV here. The key to the show is the variety of women, the characters themselves, and the depth of their stories. It’s awesome.  You really come to care for how they interact and what’s going to happen. They slowly learn how to wrestle, and they care.  And YOU care. Plus Marc Maron’s Sam is so pathetic, you actually care about how shallow he is, but how much he actually cares about these ladies and their potential story lines.

GLOW on Netflix is a little gem and worthy of your attention.  The key is the word CARE and you will. Let’s keep this series going. I am hooked.

Rebel Wilson is a comedic force. She just cracks me up. Thus, on Sunday,  I went to see Isn’t It Romantic? hoping for silly laughs, a no-brainer flick. Mission accomplished.  My five dollars admission gave me frothy, frivolous time well spent.  It beat sitting home with Ray and his Daytona 500  - I mean the cars just go around and around.

We see young Natalie watching Pretty Woman and her mother tells her that’s a waste of time. Love isn’t remotely like that for girls like her – chubby, normal, etc.  We meet grown-up Natalie (Rebel Wilson) and she’s an architect in New York, lives in a crappy walk-up, has a good guy friend (cute, charming, funny Adam Devine) at work, and an assistant (Betty Gilpin) who watches rom-coms all the time. Natalie has no use for romance or love. She’s cynical – just wants to succeed at work. Her current project is for an arrogant billionaire (handsome Liam Hemsworth - who shows his comedic chops).

Getting off a subway, Natalie’s mugged, hits her head, and wakes up in an alternate universe – NYC is clean, her apartment is huge, guys are ogling her, and Liam finds her “beguiling”. Every single rom-com cliché is played out, and Natalie knows this is crazy, but slowly works with it. It’s laugh out loud funny, and Rebel carries the flick. Oh, and of course, you root for her to find the true love she’s meant to find.  Almost like when Dorothy in Oz realizes there’s no place like home, Natalie learns to live and love and see what’s within reach.

Corny, cheesy, and hilarious.  Isn’t It Romantic? Is perfect for a cold, dreary February afternoon. Heck, I believe in rom-com fun.