Jeff "Jmunney" Malone's Self-Styled "Expert" Thoughts on Movies, TV, Music, and the Rest of Pop Culture
February 4, 2015
Best of 2014, Best of Music 2014, Music Leave a comment
Ham, HAIM, blood, and dancing…
1. Big Data ft. Joywave – “Dangerous” [Directors: Brandon LaGanke and John Carlucci] – A satire about the hyper-sexualization of the media needs to go full-bore in flipping the script. This clip from Big Data did just that, turning big-breasted women for athletic gear into full-on insatiable predators.
February 4, 2015
Fuse Top 20 Countdown, Music, Television Leave a comment
Each week, I check out FUSE’s Top 20 countdown, and then I rearrange the songs based on my estimation of their quality.
Original Version
1. Mark Ronson ft. Bruno Mars – “Uptown Funk”
2. Nick Jonas – “Jealous”
3. Taylor Swift – “Blank Space”
4. Hozier – “Take Me to Church”
5. Ed Sheeran – “Thinking Out Loud”
6. Sam Smith – “I’m Not the Only One”
7. Ariana Grande ft. The Weeknd – “Love Me Harder”
8. Meghan Trainor – “Lips Are Movin”
9. Selena Gomez – “The Heart Wants What It Wants”
10. Big Sean ft. E40 – “IDFWU”
11. Beyoncé – “7/11”
12. Fall Out Boy – “Centuries”
13. Alesso ft. Tove Lo – “Heroes (We Could Be)”
14. I LOVE MAKONNEN ft. Drake – “Tuesday (Remix)”
15. Rae Sremmurd – “No Type”
16. Ella Henderson – “Ghost”
17. Fifth Harmony – “Sledgehammer”
18. Pitbull & Ne-Yo – “Time of Our Lives”
19. One Direction – “Night Changes”
20. OneRepublic – “I Lived”
Jmunney’s Revision
1. Love Me Harder
2. Take Me to Church
3. Blank Space
4. Jealous
5. Ghost
6. Uptown Funk
7. Centuries
8. IDFWU
9. Time of Our Lives
10. No Type
11. 7/11
12. I’m Not the Only One
13. Heroes (We Could Be)
14. The Heart Wants What It Wants
15. Tuesday (Remix)
16. Sledgehammer
17. I Lived
18. Night Changes
19. Lips Are Movin
20. Thinking Out Loud
February 2, 2015
Commercials, Sports, Super Bowl Commercials, Television Leave a comment
Weirder is better, and so are surprises.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKIlfLReHyo
1. Squarespace – “Om” – My takeaway from Super Bowl XLIX: We’ll all be better off if we just let Jeff Bridges lead us in meditation.
February 2, 2015
Saturday Night Live, SNL Weekly Recaps, Television D'Angelo, J.K. Simmons, Saturday Night Live, Saturday Night Live Season 40, SNL, SNL Season 40 Leave a comment
SNL: J.K. Simmons Monologue (CREDIT: YouTube Screenshot)
This review was originally posted on Starpulse in December 2015.
J.K. Simmons is the presumptive Oscar favorite this year for Best Supporting Actor. It is appropriate that he is in the Supporting field, considering that he has spent a few decades as a character actor, elevating the quality of his projects, no matter what the size of his role. Interestingly, though, his role in “Whiplash” is prominent enough that it could be considered a Lead. He certainly has the talent and charisma to be a star, but this episode mostly kept him confined to the supporting roles that he is used to. He was perfectly fine in them, but he could have done more. And in the few moments when he was given the chance to do more, he really shone. Meanwhile, this show continued Season 40’s heavy focus on original material, with the only recurring characters appearing on Weekend Update. That originality was a little inconsistent, but very welcome when the proceedings got weird late in the night.
Super Bowl Shutdown – “SNL” once again proved that it has been paying attention to the major stories of the week. Richard Sherman and Marshawn Lynch have been flipping the script on Super Bowl coverage, and this cold opening … acknowledged that. Lynch’s propensity to repeat the same stock answer is amusing, but it proved difficult to build a sketch around. The talk show format, while a tired one, was helpful here, as it masked some of the holes in the premise. B-
February 1, 2015
Television, What Won TV? Leave a comment
In this feature, I look back at each day of the past week and determine what shows “won TV” for the night. That is, I consider every episode of television I watched that aired on a particular day and declare which was the best.
Sunday – Bob’s Burgers
Monday – Jeopardy!
Tuesday – Parks and Recreation
Wednesday – Broad City
Thursday – A solid series finale from Parenthood
Friday – TIE: Key & Peele‘s Super Bowl Special/Comedy Bang! Bang!/Newsreaders
Saturday – Goof Troops, Japanese Messy Boys, D’Angelo, and Kanye West saying “Holy guacamole” on SNL
Jmunney's Blog 