What Won TV? – November 20-November 26, 2016

November 27, 2016

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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.

search_party_alia_shawkat_closeup

Sunday – Bob’s Burgers
Monday – People of Earth
Tuesday – Billy on the Street has contributed so much comedy to this world, and if nothing else, it’s made people laugh, and that’s obviously a beautiful thing because if we didn’t have laughter, the world would suck a whole lot.
Wednesday – Search Party
Thursday – Search Party
Friday – Search Party … finds what it’s looking for?
Saturday – Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency comes into its own.

Billboard Hot Rock Songs – Week of December 3, 2016

November 27, 2016

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Each week, I check out the Billboard Hot Rock Songs chart, and then I rearrange that top 25 based on my estimation of their quality.

Original Version
1. twenty one pilots – “Heathens”
2. X Ambassadors – “Unsteady”
3. twenty one pilots – “Ride”
4. Lil Wayne, Wiz Khalifa, & Imagine Dragons with Logic, Ty Dolla $ign ft. X Ambassadors – “Sucker for Pain”
5. Leonard Cohen – “Hallelujah”
6. Coldplay – “Hymn for the Weekend”
7. Fitz and the Tantrums – “HandClap”
8. Disturbed – “The Sound of Silence”
9. The Lumineers – “Ophelia”
10. Jeff Buckley – “Hallelujah”
11. The xx – “On Hold”
12. John Mayer – “Love on the Weekend”
13. Zach Williams – “Chain Breaker”
14. Bastille – “Good Grief”
15. Kings of Leon – “Waste a Moment”
16. Rufus Wainwright – “Hallelujah”
17. Skillet – “Feel Invincible”
18. Judah & the Lion – “Take It All Back”
19. The Head and the Heart – “All We Ever Knew”
20. Highly Suspect – “My Name is Human”
21. The Lumineers – “Cleopatra”
22. Leonard Cohen – “You Want It Darker”
23. twenty one pilots – “Cancer”
24. blink-182 – “She’s Out of Her Mind”
25. Leonard Cohen – “Suzanne”

Jmunney’s Revision
1. Hallelujah (Leonard Cohen)
2. You Want It Darker
3. My Name is Human
4. Unsteady
5. On Hold
6. Ride
7. Good Grief
8. Suzanne
9. Hallelujah (Jeff Buckley)
10. Hallelujah (Rufus Wainwright)
11. Ophelia
12. Heathens
13. Waste a Moment
14. Cleopatra
15. Take It All Back
16. Cancer
17. Hymn for the Weekend
18. All We Ever Knew
19. The Sound of Silence
20. She’s Out of Her Mind
21. HandClap
22. Love on the Weekend
23. Feel Invincible
24. Sucker for Pain
25. Chain Breaker

Billboard Hot 20 – Week of December 3, 2016

November 27, 2016

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Each week, I check out the Billboard Hot 100, and then I rearrange the top 20 based on my estimation of their quality.

Original Version
1. Rae Sremmurd ft. Gucci Mane – “Black Beatles”
2. The Chainsmokers ft. Halsey – “Closer”
3. The Weeknd ft. Daft Punk – “Starboy”
4. Ariana Grande ft. Nicki Minaj – “Side to Side”
5. twenty one pilots – “Heathens”
6. Bruno Mars – “24K Magic”
7. DJ Snake ft. Justin Bieber – “Let Me Love You”
8. Zay Hilfigerrr and Zayion McCall – “Juju on That Beat (TZ Anthem)”
9. D.R.A.M. ft. Lil Yachty – “Broccoli”
10. Maroon 5 ft. Kendrick Lamar – “Don’t Wanna Know”
11. gnash ft. Olivia O’Brien – “i hate u, i love u”
12. Aminé – “Caroline”
13. Major Lazer ft. Justin Bieber and MØ – “Cold Water”
14. Drake – “Fake Love”
15. Hailee Steinfeld & Grey ft. Zedd – “Starving”
16. Shawn Mendes – “Treat You Better”
17. Alessia Cara – “Scars to Your Beautiful”
18. Justin Timberlake – “Can’t Stop the Feeling!”
19. Sia ft. Sean Paul – “Cheap Thrills”
20. Sia ft. Kendrick Lamar – “The Greatest”

Jmunney’s Revision
1. The Greatest
2. Starboy
3. Scars to Your Beautiful
4. Cheap Thrills
5. Black Beatles
6. Side to Side
7. Cold Water
8. Broccoli
9. Closer
10. 24K Magic
11. i hate u, i love u
12. Starving
13. Heathens
14. Let Me Love You
15. Can’t Stop the Feeling!
16. Caroline
17. Fake Love
18. Don’t Wanna Know
19. Treat You Better
20. Juju on That Beat (TZ Anthem)

This Is a Movie Review: Always Shine

November 26, 2016

jmunney Cinema, Movie Reviews , , , 1 Comment

always-shine-mackenize-davis-caitlin-fitzgerald

This review was originally published on News Cult in November 2016.

Starring: Mackenzie Davis, Caitlin FitzGerald

Director: Sophia Takal

Running Time: 85 Minutes

Rating: Unrated, But Keep an Eye Out for the Psychosexual Drama

Release Date: November 25, 2016 (Limited)

In the psychological thriller Always Shine, two actor friends (MacKenzie Davis, Caitlin FitzGerald) take a coastal weekend trip to Big Sur, but the real journey is in their heads. For hardcore cinephiles, this simple premise is worth getting excited about due to its similarity to Swedish director Ingmar Bergman’s 1966 classic Persona. In both films, two women vacationing essentially fuse into one identity, both through psychological attachment and the suggestion of cinematic visual language. In Persona, the two are an actress fallen ill and her attending nurse; Always Shine is like a postmodern update (of what was already a postmodern concept), since its vacation buddies are both actors. The multiple layers of performativity pile up and swallow each other.

A pair of introduction scenes set the tone for Always Shine. Both consist of intimate, practically invasive close-ups of the two leads as they converse with a man off-screen. Beth (FitzGerald) nervously survives an audition for a role that requires nudity. She kind of knew that might be a possibility, and the director gives her a perfunctory assurance that she will be treated appropriately, but her face betrays every disappearance of dignity. Anna’s (Davis) scene is both more intense and more mundane. She fights an unfair bill from a mechanic, insisting that she will not pay for it. She gives the performance every ounce of energy, but in fact this is not an audition. She really is having car troubles, and her commanding energy is being wasted on the indignities of daily life.

Davis gives the better performance of the two, but to be fair, much of that has to do with her playing the better actor. It is worth considering the possibility that FitzGerald is worse on purpose. If so, she is admirable for sacrificing herself for the greater good of the film as a whole.

Always Shine is a tiny release, but it feels like it could be hugely influential because of how directly it tackles the state of women in film. Thus, I recommend that everyone with the means to do so seek it out, if only to just provide support and thereby prevent folks like Mackenzie Davis and Caitlin FitzGerald from devouring each other in real life.

Always Shine is Recommended If You Like: Persona, Single White Female, Mulholland Drive

Grade: 3.5 out of 5 Jealous Scowls

The Simpsons 28.8 Review: “Dad Behavior”

November 21, 2016

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THE SIMPSONS: Homer finds a new app that makes his life much easier and outsources his father-son bonding in the all-new “Dad Behavior” episode of THE SIMPSONS airing Sunday, Nov. 20 (8:00-8:30 PM ET/PT). THE SIMPSONS ™ and © 2016 TCFFC ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. CR:FOX

This episode looks back to a time “before throwing your baby into the sun was considered child abuse.” http://www.bubbleblabber.com/review-the-simpsons-dad-behavior/

This Is a Movie Review: Warren Beatty’s Howard Hughes Passion Project ‘Rules Don’t Apply’ is a Strange Hot Mess

November 21, 2016

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rules_dont_apply_alden_ehrenreich_warren_beatty

This review was originally published on News Cult in November 2016.

Starring: Warren Beatty, Lily Collins, Alden Ehrenreich, Matthew Broderick, Annette Bening

Director: Warren Beatty

Running Time: 126 Minutes

Rating: PG-13 for a Few Snafus Involving Alcohol and Bodily Fluids

Release Date: November 23, 2016

Rules Don’t Apply has four credited editors and 16 credited producers, and the entire of all of their handiwork can be felt onscreen. Warren Beatty’s passion project about the ’50s Hollywood goings-on in billionaire producer/aviator Howard Hughes’ empire has about as many approaches as it does characters, and it has A LOT of characters. The two main ones are virginal aspiring actress Marla Mabrey (Lily Collins) and her driver, aspiring businessman Frank Forbes (Alden Ehrenreich). The pair’s flirtatiousness is doomed by Hughes’ rule prohibiting romance between any of his employees and also by the film losing track of their story. Joining them is a who’s who of the friends that Beatty has made over the years, most of them flitting in and out for a hot second.

While the wild shifts in pacing and tone prevent Rules Don’t Apply from amounting to much, there are plenty of details scattered around that are worth some pleasures (and if corralled more efficiently, could have made for a much more accomplished end product). Much of this is to do with some oft-repeated, almost mantra-like bits of dialogue. After Howard tells Marla where their H2O is from, she wonders aloud, sounding as if she is learning for the first time either the entire concept of liquids or how to speak English, “Hmm. Water. From Maine.” Also contributing to the lack of experience of living as a human is Howard’s bizarre insistence on a very particular ice cream flavor. Perhaps that same whimsy explains all the alliteration in the character names.

Hidden beneath this weird mess of nominal satire is a fascinating performance from Beatty. “Hidden” is the optimum word here, both because this film is hard to make sense of and because Beatty often shoots himself in the shadows, with Howard an enigmatic presence taking care of most of his business behind closed doors and via middlemen. But his inscrutable ways are commanding. The chaos surrounding him serves this svengali’s arc well. It is almost as if Beatty figured out exactly the movie he wanted to make but forgot to tell everyone else. To be fair, that is understandable when you have four editors and 16 producers.

Rules Don’t Apply is Recommended If You Like: Being Confused

Grade: 2.5 out of 5 Bowls of Banana Nut Ice Cream

This Is a Movie Review: Brad Pitt Takes Matter Into His Own Hands in the WWII Thriller ‘Allied’

November 21, 2016

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Brad Pitt plays Max Vatan and Marion Cotillard plays Marianne Beausejour in Allied from Paramount Pictures.

This review was originally published on News Cult in November 2016.

Starring: Brad Pitt, Marion Cotillard, Jared Harris

Director: Robert Zemeckis

Running Time: 124 Minutes

Rating: R for the Horrors of War

Release Date: November 23, 2016

The World War II thriller Allied has a hell of a premise: intelligence officer Max Vatan (Brad Pitt) is informed that his French wife Marianne Beausejour (Marion Cotillard) may actually be a sleeper spy for the Germans. If she is, he must execute her himself or face hanging for high treason. This is the sort of flashy, adult-oriented actioner that can only get studio backing if the biggest star in the world is in it, and that few directors besides Robert Zemeckis (Back to the Future, Beowulf, Flight) are interested in making anymore. That’s a shame. Allied does not set any gold standards, but it is the sort of perfectly enjoyable effort that Hollywood should be cranking out with ease.

Do not let my pleasant but uninspiring description fool you into thinking that Allied lacks personality. Indeed, its best scene is both Max and Marianne’s sexual linchpin and the prime CGI showcase. Their relationship is confirmed as more than just the bonding of fellow warriors as they find themselves stuck in their car in the middle of a sandstorm. The camera rotates with the force of the environment, as the editing pace intensifies, placing them in a transformational vortex, which serves as the point of no return.

As Max disobeys orders and takes the investigation into his own hands, the twists pile up and complicate the initial assessment of Marianne. Yet the plotting remains straightforward. This is the Occam’s razor of spy thrillers: British intelligence may have a reputation for playing head games with its officers, but sometimes the most simple subterfuge is the correct explanation. Furthermore, while Allied’s official reports may be fudged a few times, its emotions never are. Subtlety may suffer, but integrity (and honor in a very classic sense) survives.

Allied is Recommended If You Like: Casablanca, Valkyrie, Thrillers About the Wrongly Accused Directed by Alfred Hitchcock or Those Influenced by Hitchcock

Grade: 3.5 out of 5 Looks of Anguish from Brad Pitt

SNL Review November 19, 2016: Kristen Wiig/The xx

November 20, 2016

jmunney Saturday Night Live, SNL Weekly Recaps, Television , , , , , , , 1 Comment

SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE -- "Kristen Wiig" Episode 1711 -- Pictured: (l-r) Kate McKinnon as Napoleon, Pete Davidson, Kristen Wiig, Cecily Strong, Sasheer Zamata, and Leslie Jones during "Kristen Wiig's Thanksgiving Monologue" on November 19, 2016 -- (Photo by: Will Heath/NBC)

SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE — “Kristen Wiig” Episode 1711 — Pictured: (l-r) Kate McKinnon as Napoleon, Pete Davidson, Kristen Wiig, Cecily Strong, Sasheer Zamata, and Leslie Jones during “Kristen Wiig’s Thanksgiving Monologue” on November 19, 2016 — (Photo by: Will Heath/NBC)

This review was originally posted on News Cult in November 2016.

Love It

Kristen Wiig’s Monologue – The world is perpetually in need of good Thanksgiving songs, so “Thanksgiving freak” Kristen Wiig gives us a ditto supposedly about the origins of Turkey Day. But first, she fidgets with her instruments and the placement of props, in a deconstruction of form worthy of Will Ferrell. Dropping by are Steve Martin and Will Forte – big-name cameos that could distract, but since Santa Claus is already there, and Sacajawea is paying for dinner with her own coins, they just add to the wittily written, delightfully rhyming cacophony.

The Bubble is the deceptive utopia we’ve all been waiting for…Anderson Cooper 360° is a whole series of brick jokes mashed together, with a timely twist for the ages.

More

What Won TV? – November 13-November 19, 2016

November 20, 2016

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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.

billy-on-the-street-name-a-skin-color

Sunday – Last Week Tonight with John Oliver
Monday – People of Earth
Tuesday – Name a TV show you should be watching: Billy on the Street
Wednesday – You’re the Worst
Thursday – Jeopardy!
Friday – Crazy Ex-Girlfriend and its “feminist bikini area”
Saturday – SNL Thanksgiving by way of Westworld

Billboard Hot Rock Songs – Week of November 26, 2016

November 20, 2016

jmunney Billboard Charts, Billboard Hot Rock Songs, Music , , , Leave a comment

Each week, I check out the Billboard Hot Rock Songs chart, and then I rearrange that top 25 based on my estimation of their quality.

Original Version
1. twenty one pilots – “Heathens”
2. X Ambassadors – “Unsteady”
3. twenty one pilots – “Ride”
4. Lil Wayne, Wiz Khalifa, & Imagine Dragons with Logic, Ty Dolla $ign ft. X Ambassadors – “Sucker for Pain”
5. Coldplay – “Hymn for the Weekend”
6. Fitz and the Tantrums – “HandClap”
7. Disturbed – “The Sound of Silence”
8. The Lumineers – “Ophelia”
9. Bastille – “Good Grief”
10. Zach Williams – “Chain Breaker”
11. Kings of Leon – “Waste a Moment”
12. Skillet – “Feel Invincible”
13. The Head and the Heart – “All We Ever Knew”
14. Judah & the Lion – “Take It All Back”
15. Highly Suspect – “My Name is Human”
16. Metallica – “Atlas, Rise!”
17. The Lumineers – “Cleopatra”
18. Green Day – “Bang Bang”
19. twenty one pilots – “Cancer”
20. Leonard Cohen – “Hallelujah”
21. Five Finger Death Punch – “I Apologize”
22. blink-182 – “She’s Out of Her Mind”
23. Avenged Sevenfold – “The Stage”
24. Grouplove – “Welcome to Your Life”
25. Alex da Kid ft. X Ambassadors, Elle King, & Wiz Khalifa – “Not Easy”

Jmunney’s Revision
1.Hallelujah
2. Welcome to Your Life
3. My Name is Human
4. Unsteady
5. Ride
6. Good Grief
7. The Stage
8. Ophelia
9. Heathens
10. Waste a Moment
11. Cleopatra
12. I Apologize
13. Take It All Back
14. Cancer
15. Hymn for the Weekend
16. All We Ever Knew
17. Bang Bang
18. The Sound of Silence
19. Atlas, Rise!
20. She’s Out of Her Mind
21. HandClap
22. Feel Invincible
23. Sucker for Pain
24. Not Easy
25. Chain Breaker

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