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    Full out

    New Netflix hit show puts Texas' Navarro College cheerleaders on the mat

    Stephanie Allmon Merry
    Jan 15, 2020 | 2:45 pm
    Cheer Netflix
    Cheer is now streaming on Netflix.
    Photo courtesy of Netflix

    A Netflix crew found its way to tiny Corsicana, Texas for a reality show about cheerleading, and a week in, America is flipping out.

    Cheer, a six-episode series about Navarro College Cheer Team’s 2019 quest to win its 14th national championship, started streaming January 8. Seven days later, it's earned a 100 percent rating from critics and 94 percent from audience members on Rotten Tomatoes.

    Twitter users have tumbled into their feelings about #CheerNetflix, and Buzzfeed has already published a "Which Navarro Cheerleader Are You Most Like?" quiz.

    Even the vaunted Washington Post has called it “The documentary that hard-working cheerleaders have long deserved,” with acclaimed TV writer Hank Steuver admitting that it "quickly and effortlessly becomes all-consuming for the viewer."

    Viewers are getting hooked one episode in.

    Dallas, as the show reminds, was the birthplace of modern cheerleading. Southern Methodist University cheerleader Lawrence Herkimer famously invented the “Herkie” jump in the 1940s, then went on to found the National Cheerleaders Association, or NCA. Dallas-Fort Worth is home to many competitive cheer gyms, and the owner of one is interviewed throughout the show.

    But somehow, just an hour from Dallas, Navarro College’s cheerleading legacy is a bigger secret than the Collin Street Bakery fruitcake recipe (which also calls Corsicana home). Not even residents of the town, population 24,000, know about it, the first episode reveals.

    The two-year college of 9,000 is attracting some of the most elite cheerleaders from around the country to cheer in one of the best programs in the world under one of the best coaches in the world, Monica Aldama.

    “The kids,” as she calls them, are fearless flyers, powerful tumblers, and superb stunters. She pushes them to the highest levels using her motto, “You keep going until you get it right, and then you keep going until you can't get it wrong."

    Most of Cheer (directed by Greg Whiteley of Last Chance U) is spent in the gym with the team and the coaches, choreographers, and athletic trainers — someone’s always there to render aid when a stunt falls (50 push-ups for everyone if a girl hits the ground!).

    Like every great sports documentary, Cheer details the highs and lows along the team’s journey: who gets “on mat” (makes the competition team)?; who’ll replace injured stunters in the routine?; can they finally achieve pyramid perfection before the championships in Daytona?

    But the heart and soul of each episode are the backstories of the kids; the life experiences that have shaped them and brought them to Navarro — and the personal drama that they must check at the gym door to succeed on the mat.

    We follow Lexi, the troubled high school dropout from Houston; Morgan, the flyer from a broken home in Wyoming; Gabi, a “cheer-lebrity” balancing college demands with the challenges of being her own brand; La’Darius, the over-the-top former football player who’s been called “fruity” his whole life; and Jerry, the big-hearted stunter who lifts his teammates up as high emotionally as he does physically.

    Their relationships with each other, and with their beloved coach Monica, are the emotional sunshine that the world needs right now. There’s no Real Housewives-style cat-fighting; no season-jeopardizing drunken college parties; no surprise mid-semester pregnancies. Positive “mat talk,” not negative “trash talk.”

    When a stunter drops his partner and blames her behind her back, Monica swoops in to suggest he call her and talk through what went wrong. They do, and they nail it the next day. When a female tumbler’s social media account gets hacked and compromising pictures get posted, Monica takes her to file a police report. A conservative Christian, Monica passionately defends her team members who are gay or nonconforming, saying, “These are my kids and I’ll fight tooth-and-nail for them.”

    It’s no wonder they revere her.

    By the final episode, we’re practically toe-touching for the team and “mat talking” each person through their 2 minute and 15 second-routine that we've come to know so well. The performance is utterly heart-pounding, augmented by the fact that Netflix wasn’t allowed to film it and relies on shaky cellphone coverage shot by attendees. And yes, their chief rival is also a Texas school — Trinity Valley Community College in Athens — but if Navarro wins, we get to see them run into the ocean with the trophy, and we really, really want to see this happen.

    By the end, we’re also cheering for the kids to make good life choices. As Navarro is a two-year school, many won’t be back. And as the series points out, there’s no professional career for competitive cheerleaders. This is it — a college national championship is their biggest, best, and last moment as a cheerleader.

    One thing we know: Coach Monica is back at Navarro, and tryouts for next year’s squad are already under way. According to the school's website, a Recruit Clinic and Tryout will take place there January 20.

    No pressure, Netflix, but this might just make compelling footage for a Season 2.

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    Movie Review

    Rachel McAdams goes feral in Sam Raimi's gory new comedy Send Help

    Alex Bentley
    Jan 29, 2026 | 2:30 pm
    Rachel McAdams in Send Help
    Photo by Brook Rushton
    Rachel McAdams in Send Help.

    Director Sam Raimi has gone through different phases as a filmmaker, including leading the first Spider-Man trilogy and joining the MCU with Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. But he first gained notice with the gory and funny Evil Dead movies, a sensibility he’s returning to with his latest film, Send Help.

    Linda Liddle (Rachel McAdams) is a meek and eccentric middle manager at a financial firm that’s just named Bradley Preston (Dylan O’Brien) as its new nepo CEO. Bradley’s dad had promised Linda a promotion to vice president, but she gets passed over in favor of one of Bradley’s frat buddies, sending her into a mild rage. Still, she gets invited along on a planned business trip to Thailand, during which she hopes to prove her worth.

    Unfortunately for most of the passengers on the private plane, it crashes into the ocean, leaving only Linda and Bradley alive on a deserted island. Linda, who has privately developed survival skills, adapts quickly to the forbidding environment, while Bradley tries to revert to bossing her around. But Linda quickly understands the power dynamic has shifted, and she uses this knowledge to try to keep Bradley in line, turning their stranding into a battle of wills.

    Directed by Raimi and written by Damian Shannon and Mark Swift, the film is the classic “so bad it’s good” kind of experience. McAdams, inarguably an attractive and charming person, is given stringy hair, an antisocial personality, and quirks like eating tuna fish at her desk to make her as off-putting as possible. Bradley, along with almost everyone else at her office, is stereotyped just as hard in order to set up the twist of fate.

    When the action shifts to the island, things get even more over the top. The audience has already been primed for Linda to demonstrate her survival expertise, but the film does way more than just show her making fire. Whether it’s flawlessly building a shelter or hunting a wild boar, everything Linda does is portrayed in a slightly off-kilter manner. Then they turn everything up to 11, indulging in gore that is so unnecessary that you can’t help but laugh.

    The filmmakers prove they’re in on the joke the rest of the way, including a variety of preposterous but hilarious scenarios that would cause massive eyerolls if they were actually trying to take the film seriously. While they do a great job of showing Linda’s ability to handle herself in the wild, they also show that she is somehow the only person in the world who could get a glow up after a plane crash and weeks living in nature.

    McAdams, an Oscar-nominated actor for Spotlight, is way too high class for a movie like this, which makes her presence here all the more interesting. She is all-in on whatever Raimi wants her to do, and she’s at her most fun when she goes the animalistic route. O’Brien, who was great in the recent Twinless, doesn’t get as much of an opportunity to show his range, but he still proves to be an interesting foil for her.

    Were it released in any other month, Send Help might be looked at as bottom of the barrel material. But with the movie year just getting started, it’s easier to forgive its outrageous plot twists and just have fun, especially since Raimi and his team put the rest of the film together so well.

    ---

    Send Help opens in theaters on January 30.

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