A League of Their Own

• Creator: Abbi Jacobson, Will Graham
• Starring: Abbi Jacobson, Chanté Adams, D’Arcy Carden, Nick Offerman, Roberta Colindrez, Gbemisola Ikumelo, Kelly McCormack, Priscilla Delgado
• Three episodes watched for review

Grade: B-

Listen: I’ve never believed that art is sacred, that a film or TV show or comic or book shouldn’t be re-made once it’s put out into the world. For a large swath of people, the prospect of transposing Penny Marshall’s 1992 classic film of the same name for a streaming service sounds borderline sacrilegious. For every Cape Fear or Solaris, there’s a thousand forgotten remakes of movies like Total Recall or Point Break or Bad News Bears. So what could be gained from remaking A League of Their Own?

Irma Vep

• Creator: Olivier Assayas
• Starring: Alicia Vikander, Vincent Macaigne, Adria Arjona, Devon Ross, Lars Eidinger, Vincent Lacoste, Jeanne Balibar
• Four of eight episodes watched for review.

Grade: A

Before diving into Olivier Assayas’s newest project, I had multiple questions about what an Irma Vep television show would be (I had avoided watching any trailers). Would it be a simple retread of Assayas’s acclaimed 1996 film? Would it be a follow-up to the events of the film? How many of the film’s themes would make their way over to the small screen? Would Assayas even acknowledge its existence in the text? How much more does Assayas have to say about movie making that couldn’t have been done in, say, another film? Will the show be accessible for audiences that aren’t familiar with the film? Naturally, some questions are answered simply, and some are more complex.