Grab your best friend and your pjs for a snuggly night in!
It’s been a minute since we’ve checked in on the blog.
I’ve been in the process of rebuilding my life, and Lena has been preparing for her boards. Even though we’ve been away from the blog, we’ve still been making sure to prioritize and maintain our mental health.
One of my favorite ways to relax is to veg out to some documentaries, movies, or shows. So, I asked Lena to think of some of her favorites while I thought of some of mine. Together we’ve complied a list of the flicks that stood out from the past couple of years.
Check out our top-10 favorite documentaries, movies, and shows from 2021 and 2022!
Listed in no particular order, of course.
Love,
Carlie
1. Fair Play on Hulu
Fair Play tackles the pressing issue of gender inequality at home, which saw 2 million women leave the workforce during the pandemic. Women have historically shouldered domestic and care work in the home, even though children, families, and society benefits from equality at home. Fair Play follows four different families on their journey to balance care work at home, revealing how the struggle over dishes in the sink is actually about a much deeper struggle for gender justice. It features interviews with Melinda Gates, U.S. Representative Katie Porter, and other experts who bring this topic to life in a profound and compelling way.
2. Blue Bayou on Netflix
Antonio LeBlanc is a Korean adoptee raised in a small town in the Louisiana bayou. He’s married to the love of his life, Kathy, and raising his beloved stepdaughter, Jessie. Struggling to make a better life for his family, he must soon confront the ghosts of his past after learning that he could be deported from the only country he’s ever called home.
*Trigger Warning: immigration*
Also, grab your tissues!!
3. Kindred on Hulu
Plagued by mysterious hallucinations, a pregnant woman suspects that the family of her deceased boyfriend has intentions for her unborn child.
*Trigger Warning: slavery and police discrimination*
4. Tina on HBOmax
A revealing and intimate look at the life and career of musical icon Tina Turner, charting her improbable rise to early fame, her personal and professional struggles throughout her life and her resurgence as a global phenomenon in the 1980s.
*Trigger Warning: domestic violence*
5. Civil: Ben Crump on Netflix
Crump’s mission to raise the value of Black life as the civil lawyer for the families of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Black farmers and banking while Black victims, Crump challenges America to come to terms with what it owes his clients.
*Trigger Warning: police and gun violence*
6. Last Week Tonight with John Oliver on HBOmax
The late-night series sees the British comic review what happened the past seven days in news, politics and current events, all with a heavy dose of satire, of course.
7. Scenes From A Marriage on HBOmax
Television drama miniseries which re-examines the original’s iconic depiction of love, hatred, desire, monogamy, marriage and divorce through the lens of a contemporary American couple, played by Oscar Isaac and Jessica Chastain.
Also, grab your tissues!!
8. Queer Eye on Netflix
More than a decade after the original series went off the air, Netflix reboots the “Queer Eye” franchise with a new Fab Five and a new setting, trading in the concrete jungle of New York City for communities in and around Atlanta. The style experts forge relationships with men and women who often have different beliefs from them, leading to moments of social commentary interspersed with style advice.
A feel good, turn it on anytime, type of show!
9. Framing Britney Spears on Hulu
Her rise was a global phenomenon. Her downfall was a cruel national sport. People close to Britney Spears and lawyers tied to her conservatorship reassess her phenomenal career as she battles her father in court.
*Trigger Warning: domestic violence and violence against women*
10. Malcom and Marie on Netflix
A 2021 American black-and-white romantic drama film written, co-produced and directed by Sam Levinson. The film stars Zendaya and John David Washington (who both also served as producers, alongside American musician Kid Cudi) and follows a writer-director and his girlfriend whose relationship is tested on the night of his latest film’s premiere when revelations about themselves surface. The project was the first Hollywood feature to be entirely written, financed, and produced during the COVID-19 pandemic, with filming taking place in secret in June and July 2020.
*Trigger Warning: domestic violence*