Alison Brie’s boobs! Alison Brie’s boobs!
“Community” fans rejoice! “Annie’s boobs” are finally on screen!
BQB here with a review of the new Netflix comedy/drama “GLOW.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZqDO6cTYVY
There was a period of several years where I would watch Alison Brie play it straight as a young, suffering wife to a philandering scoundrel on “Mad Men” only to flip the channel and watch her play perky, nerdy overachiever Annie on “Community.”
Now, it’s like she’s all grown up…and showing her boobs.
“GLOW” is the tale of the “Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling,” the cheap and cheesy 1980s all female wrestling show, where scantily clad women would put on stupid costumes, speak in politically incorrect accents, make jokes that would totally not fly today, body slam the crap out of each other and do their best Hulk Hogan with boobs impression.
It’s the 1980s, so think big hair and yuppies galore as the flower children of the past are gone and money grubbing social climbers have taken their place.
Alison Brie stars as Ruth, a down and out actress who has moved from Omaha to LA. She’s classically trained and has appeared in a number of plays, but can’t get a paying acting job to save her life and is facing all kinds of financial woes.
Enter GLOW – a new wrestling show directed by B-movie, super crappy horror film director Sam Sylvia (Marc Maron) who revels in showing how little he cares about this project and how deeply below him he deems it. Maron puts his comic skills on display as he occasionally takes cocaine snorting breaks to ridicule the ladies, tell them how ugly, stupid and useless they are, etc.
When Ruth auditions, she too believes the show is beneath her but faced with either calling it quits on her dreams of fame or getting in the ring and rolling around with the gals, she chooses the latter and a star is born.
I have only watched the first episode thus far, but it caught my interest, so I will keep watching. While I am a fan of Jenji Kohan, this show seems to take a different turn from the snappy one liners of Weeds and Orange is the New Black. The show features a darker, subtle, understated form of comedy and it’s more of a dramatic period piece than anything else.
I know from Mickey Rourke’s The Wrestler, professional wrestling isn’t all it is cracked out to be. Sure, it may be “fake” but there’s a lot of physical activity going into those pratfalls and body slams. It takes a toll on the body and the slightest mistake can leave a person badly injured. I think that angle will be explored as we delve deeper into the show.
I never really watched “GLOW” as a kid. I was aware of it but for whatever reason, never checked it out. I was only a little kid during the 1980s and Hulk Hogan vs. the Iron Shiek captivated me. I stuck with men’s wrestling all through high school, even in the Hulkster’s evil NWO days. I was aware of women wrestlers and lady wrestlers would occasionally stop by to duke it out on men’s wrestling but overall, I guess GLOW was one of those things that escaped me.
But as long as it features Annie’s boobs I will keep watching.
What I liked about the first episode the most is it seems like it will be a show about losers who are tired of losing and fighting desperately to become winners. We see Ruth living a life of absurdity as a budding actress, waiting in audition rooms filled with candidates all vying to play a secretary on a TV show with a five second line. We see her paying the little money she has for acting lessons from a teacher who keeps falling asleep during her performance.
We see Sam on the tail end of his directing career, down and out, cast aside from making the movies he loved, directing a bunch of crazy women as they beat the crap out of each other.
Neither Sam or Ruth think GLOW is worthy of them…but they both see this as their last shot to do something worthwhile with their lives, so they are going to fight for it.
STATUS: Shelf-worthy.
Bookshelf Battle 