FRIENDS: THE REUNION
Binge
SITCOMS simply don't get any bigger than Friends. From 1994 to 2004 the show's cast members Jennifer Aniston (Rachel), Courteney Cox (Monica), Lisa Kudrow (Phoebe), Matt LeBlanc (Joey), Matthew Perry (Chandler) and David Schwimmer (Ross) transcended TV to become part of the cultural zeitgeist of the pre-social media age.
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Much like The Beatles or The Spice Girls, people loved them because they were a gang. By watching Friends each week you felt a kinship with their exciting and funny New York lives.
Friends: The Reunion plays on that kinship by getting the six stars back together to reminisce about their ground-breaking run as the most iconic TV show of the '90s and early 2000s. There's no earth-shattering revelations here. Most of stories detailed have been heard before.
What's of most interest, of course, is seeing how each of the six have aged since 2004 and their interactions with each other.
The chemistry between the six, and their deep off-screen bond, was always the secret of Friends' success and that shines through again during the reunion interviews with James Corden and the tour of their old set.
It's also apparent how easily they fall back into their old characters, especially Schwimmer and Cox, who almost appear to be playing Ross and Monica during the reunion.
An actual Friends reunion movie might have delivered a more interesting result, but nostalgia is a powerful emotion. No doubt this reunion will drive people back to re-watching old episodes, which is exactly its purpose.
YOU CANNOT KILL DAVID ARQUETTE
Stan
HOLLYWOOD goofball David Arquette is known for many things - playing Dewey Riley in the Scream franchise, marrying Courteney Cox and being the younger brother of Rosanna and Patricia Arquette.
But to pro wrestling fans, he's infamous for besmirching the once-proud WCW title, which Arquette held for 12 days in 2000 during a cross-promotion for his film Ready To Rumble. Some argue the stunt was the final nail in WCW's coffin, (the one-time industry leader was purchased by rival WWE a year later).
For the past 18 years Arquette, a life-long wrestling devotee, has been trolled by fans for embarrassing their "sport" and in 2018 the then 46-year-old actor decided it was time to earn their respect. He would become a legitimate wrestler.
It's difficult to think of a more insane celebrity documentary than You Cannot Kill David Arquette. Arquette is shown having his body brutalised by thumb tacks in a backyard wrestling match, doing stunts with masked Mexican wrestlers in front of cars at traffic lights in Tijuana and being hospitalised after suffering a gash in his neck during an indie "death match".
The documentary works hard to present Arquette in the underdog role as a Hollywood has-been, who has suffered from alcoholism, depression, a heart attack and hasn't "worked in 10 years." The latter is categorically untrue.
However, the appeal of wrestling has always lay in that blurred territory between fake and reality. You Cannot Kill David Arquette is either Arquette's finest character performance or a brutal story about a man's fight for respect. Whatever it is, it's crazy and entertaining stuff.