Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga (2020 Netflix)

[Greg]

Something light for the weekend. I'm usually hit or miss with Will Farrell, even though we name a cat after him.

If you've been to Europe for any length of time, you know the Eurovision song contest is a big deal. If you haven't, the Eurovision song contest is a big deal. Every country sends an artist to represent their country. It's how ABBA got their start, for instance.

Wil Farrell and Rachel MacAddams play two Icelanders who's lifelong dream is to be in the contest. Sadly, they have very little talent. Or it's quirky. Or it's not quite there yet. For most of the time you think they are overreaching their grasp. But through a series of mishaps they end up at the contest in Edinburgh. There's a lot of comedy based on rubes in the big city. And rubes in the big city music contest.

There are twist and turns in their journey to glory, but most of them you see coming. It's kind of funny. It's kind of endearing. There were some bits that made me laugh.

All in all, there are worse ways to spend two hours.

[King Bob]

I'd say more charming than funny, but some funny bits. The first song they sang was I thought the best one. I think the other contestants in the movie were contestants in real life.

[Drunk Monk]

Agreed with both previous reviews. It's endearing. There are times Ferrell bugs the crap out of me and other times when he nails it. This was a nail. Downton factor 1 = Matthew Crawley who just won my respect because I totally didn't recognize him until Stacy figured it out. Stacy claims acting is his side hustle and he's actually a Cambridge scholar and multi-lingual. That's just not fair. My fav part was Demi. I'm a huge fan of hers and hope to see her live someday. She's oddly high on my list of divas to see live - probably the topmost followed closely by Katy Perry. Tara and I watched Demi on the Disney channel, then I blew off her pop music career, then she went into MMA so I tuned back in again and she  started dating UFC middleweight champ Luke Rockhold, who I always hoped to meet because he's from Santa Cruz and his brother coached Tara's volleyball team in High School (she quit after her first year though) and although I get to know Nate (the brother) that never happened. Eh, y'all know me. I just wanted to meet Demi. Then she had major drug problems and survived like a champ, so she still has my respect too, even more so than multilingual Crawley.

But back to the Eurovision - I wish I knew the bands better for the cameos. The musical numbers were awesome because it was hard to tell what was farce and what was real. Also the dig at Americans was hilarious. The group sing along at the party was awesome fun. Wiki tells me this was supposed to be released in conjunction with Eurovision, but that was cancelled due to the pandemic, so it went to Netflix.

No sword fights (unless you count elf swords). Only DOOM recommended for those that have already seen it, not for the rest of you. Also for DOOM Demi fans but I suspect I'm again, alone, the only one. 

It was nice to park our brains outside and just enjoy some light viewing for a change.

[Greg]

I tried to watch this again with my sister. She loathed it. We got as far as Ya-Ya Dingdong (Play it!) and shut it off. She appreciated Hanna Gadsby much more.

[Greg]

The actual Eurovision song contest starts today. I've fallen into the rabbit hole of watching videos from the countries involved. Basically I wanted to see the Irish entry and then I needed to see what they are up against. Italy and Malta are the favorites. Ireland is ranked at 28th in the odds to win category.

I also learned today that 5 countries automatically go into the final round because they underwrite the show: France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom. The host country also gets an automatic final entry.