Yahoo News ‘The Other Black Girl’ Is the Perfect Show to Kick Off Horror Season
There are roughly 47,000—oh, wait, a new Netflix Original just dropped; make that 47,001—TV shows and movies coming out each week. At Obsessed, we consider it our social duty to help you see the best and skip the rest.
We’ve already got a variety of in-depth, exclusive coverage on all of your streaming favorites and new releases, but sometimes what you’re looking for is a simple Do or Don’t. That’s why we created See/Skip, to tell you exactly what our writers think you should See and what you can Skip from the past week’s crowded entertainment landscape.
See: The Other Black Girl
The Other Black Girl cleverly twists its bestselling source material into a briskly paced workplace horror story that’s perfect for kicking off your Halloween season watchlist. It’s not caught up in trying to be revelatory. Rather, it’s silly, spooky fun.
Here’s Coleman Spilde’s take:
“Just the other day, a friend was telling me how hard it is for young people to move up in the publishing world. ‘Basically, you’ve got to wait for someone above you to vacate their position, and enter a chain of movement once they do,’ they told me. Those spots rarely open up, they added, because they are often held for an executive’s entire career. Instead, other positions are created, ones that offer new titles but are really just lateral moves within a company. Congratulations: You just got “promoted” from editorial assistant to executive editorial assistant; your reward is no difference in pay and sitting in the same office chair with wonky hydraulics that keeps sinking closer to the ground a little more each day.
‘The Other Black Girl’ Review: Hulu’s Take on the Hit Novel Makes for Scary-Good TV
Now, try to imagine being a woman of color in this scenario. That’s the experience at the core of The Other Black Girl, a new Hulu series premiering Sept. 13, which is based on the 2021 bestselling novel by Zakiya Dalila Harris. Like the book, the show tracks the career aspirations of Nella (Sinclair Daniel), an assistant editor at the fictional publishing house Wagner Books who’s looking to get a leg up in the industry. Not unsurprisingly for book publishing, Nella is the only person of color in her entire office, trying to trump tokenism and create change from the inside while working toward her dream job.”
Skip: Dumb Money
Dumb Money may be a ripped-from-the-headlines tale of the 2021 GameStop short that cost hedge funds and stock market players millions, but the movie is far less immediate, failing to make its Redditor characters the working-class heroes it sees them as.
Here’s Nick Schager’s take:
“Be it his reputation-restoration projects I, Tonya and Pam & Tommy or his live-action Disney origin story Cruella, Craig Gillespie has a thing for making shallow, strident, in-your-face comedic dramas about brash outsiders. He’s at it again with Dumb Money, the true tale of the Redditors—led by investor Keith Gill—who briefly upended Wall Street and made themselves industry stars (and, in a few cases, wealthy) by short-squeezing GameStop’s stock.
‘Dumb Money’ Can’t Make GameStop Short Into Smart Comedy
Ripped from yesterday’s headlines, it’s as fast, flashy, and superficial as the director’s prior efforts, and also as exaggerated—a state of affairs due not only to its style but to its celebration of its characters as working-class revolutionaries rather than just temporarily clever merry pranksters.”
See: The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon
The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon is certainly ill-timed (those Last of Us similarities are undeniable), but it’s finally a decent showcase of the talents of Norman Reedus. For a franchise that just won’t—or maybe can’t—die, that will be more than enough.
Here’s Laura Bradley’s take:
“Since the dawn of The Walking Dead, Daryl Dixon has been more than a fan favorite. For some, to love him has long been a way of life, espoused through custom T-shirts, fan petitions, and battle cries like, ‘If Daryl dies, we riot.’ A compellingly reformed antihero and the ultimate zombie-fighting champion, our poncho-loving, bare-biceped king has always been a star—even if he was never the star. Now, 13 years after the flagship show’s debut, he’s gotten his own spinoff. But does The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon actually do Norman Reedus’s character justice?
‘The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon’ Can’t Shake ‘The Last of Us’ Comparisons
Well, yes and no. Daryl Dixon does offer its eponymous protagonist the showcase he’s long deserved, and it’s particularly refreshing to see his emotional development throughout his own series. (Also, we’ve replaced his usual crossbow with a mace—fun!) The Walking Dead often preferred to showcase Daryl in action, keeping his interior world mostly hidden behind the ‘strong-but-silent-type’ veneer. The new spin-off examines his trauma, albeit often implicitly, by placing him alongside a young child he must escort to safety. Then again… doesn’t this sound a little familiar?”
See: My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3
My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3 is filled to the brim with jokes in the same vein as the first two films, but it sits snugly in its own comforting nostalgia, offering a bit of rote respite for those of us weary of comedies that are neither funny nor warm.
Here’s Kevin Fallon’s take:
“If you’re like me, every single person you follow on social media, via baffling means of funding, went to Greece this year. Well, now you can include Joey Fatone from NSYNC on that list.
‘My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3’ Proves This Franchise Should Go on Forever
I was really excited to see My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3 because, as my unhinged devotion to And Just Like That illustrates, I will seize any chance to catch up with characters I love, no matter how ridiculous the project. But mostly I was excited because I think 2002’s My Big Fat Greek Wedding is one of our top-tier modern rom-coms, and the special place it holds in my heart means that I will follow Nia Vardalos and the Portokalos family wherever they may go—which in this sequel, finally, is Greece.”
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