There’s a presidential election, as well as many other elections, happening in these here United States in the year 2020 AD. And there is also very real concern that not everyone who wants to cast a legitimate vote will be able to or that their voice will be counted the way that it is supposed to be in a democracy. A worldwide pandemic is certainly no help here, but there are other problems that have been around for much longer. One of the biggest issues, which the documentary Slay the Dragon would very much like us to be aware of, is gerrymandering. I’ve already seen this topic explained elsewhere plenty of times, but it’s useful to have it all detailed again in one feature-length package. Especially because 2020 is a census year and the next round of redistricting is scheduled to happen in the near future.
In case you haven’t been following this subject closely, gerrymandering is the practice of manipulating the boundaries of political borders for the purpose of gaining a political advantage that might not be what we citizens like to refer to as “fair.” In recent years, a bunch of oddly shaped districts have popped up with nicknames like “Goofy Kicking Donald Duck” that attempt to make some sense out of their geographic improbability. Gerrymandering has also resulted lately in Republicans gaining a majority of seats in certain state legislatures despite Democrats winning more votes in total statewide.
Slay the Dragon presents a number of folks in this fray who are very invested in changing the current system or keeping it just as it is, thank you very much. The most prominent change agent is 29-year-old activist Katie Fahey, who’s been pushing to ban gerrymandering in her native Michigan along with an initiative to institute a bipartisan redistricting commission tasked to work independently of the elected legislators. She’s a dogged, inspiring young person, and if you stick with her story, you might be able to stay sane as you attempt to hold onto the supposed fundamental principles of a representative democracy. She’s got a lot of doubters trying to shoo her away with bad faith arguments and weaponized cognitive dissonance. If she can remain resilient through it all, then the rest of us who also care about a genuine political system ought to be able to check out the diagnosis of this ongoing illness.
Slay the Dragon is Recommended If You Like: The promise of a system that works for everybody
Won’t you please my friend? After watching your first movie and now your new movie, Farmageddon (cool title, BTDubz), I feel like a lot of cool stuff happens when you’re around. But also, you keep everyone out of danger, even when danger appears to be imminent. It’s an ideal combination!
For now, I’ll satiate myself with watching your adventures and live vicariously through your already-friends. Like Lu-La! Please tell me this isn’t the last time you’ll ever hang out together. Maybe you can visit her on her home planet. I’m sure you can figure out a way to get there! I wasn’t even bothered by the fact that her presence inspired super-obvious homages to other famous space creature movies. They actually felt clever and not at all cliché! Also, I think I might start calling my own parents Ub-Do and Me-Ma.
Aunt Beth and Jeff recently watched Gary Gulman’s stand-up comedy special The Great Depresh, so they decided to talk about their favorite bits from that show, as well as their first encounters with Gary and other examples of funny people tackling mental illness.
Every week, I list all the upcoming (or recently released) movies, TV shows, albums, podcasts, etc. that I believe are worth checking out.
TV
–Three Busy Debras Series Premiere (March 29 on Adult Swim)
–Beef House Series Premiere (March 29 on Adult Swim) – Tim & Eric’s latest venture.
–Whose Line is it Anyway? Season 16 Premiere – Improv institution returning a little earlier than expected.
Music
-Dua Lipa, Future Nostalgia
-Pearl Jam, Gigaton
As a voracious consumer of Peak TV, I could have easily filled my list of the Best TV Shows of the 2010s with hundreds of entries. But instead, I chose to zero in on a golden set of 25 that I am absolutely sure I love and will continue to love for years to come. These are the shows that affected me profoundly when I first watched them and that continued to linger in my brain and my soul as the decade marched on.
With so many movie theaters closed for the foreseeable future, I decided to finally watch and review some straight-to-streaming flicks I haven’t had a chance to get around to yet. And in the spirit of things being not-so-normal, these reviews will maybe be a little more, uh, shall we say, offbeat, than usual.
First up on the docket is Horse Girl, a seemingly quirky indie comedy, but actually no, it’s a psychological study of emergent mental illness, but with some trappings of low-budg sci-fi. We can use the catchall term “drama.” It stars and is co-written by Alison Brie. The other person handling scripting duties is Jeff Baena, who also sat in the directing chair. I know and love Jeff from The Little Hours, in which he previously directed Alison. It played at Sundance in January 2020 and landed on Netflix on February 7, 2020. Thanks to Alison’s presence, I knew I was going to definitely watch it eventually, as I’ve been a superfan of hers since her days on Community (which I’m legally obligated to acknowledge is my favorite show of all time whenever I mention it).
Alison plays Sarah, an introverted lass who works at an arts and crafts store and enjoys horses. Also, her stepdad is played by Paul Reiser! (That’s got to be a good sign, right?) Things seem to be going okay for her, especially when she strikes up a potential new romantic relationship on her birthday. But then, as she begins to experience lost time and unexplained visions, it appears that the mental struggles that run in her family are finally making themselves at home in her brain. Or is she actually a clone who is also dealing with flippin’ alien abductions, jeez?
If you’re forcing me to say one or the other, Sarah probably actually is indeed experiencing mental illness. But Horse Girl makes me think: isn’t the idea of alien abduction intoxicating? What if it could be the basis of a religion? You could believe in them, though not literally, just have faith in them in some sort of way. That’s just a kernel of an idea, we’ll see if it becomes anything more. Anyway, Alison is terrific, but y’all knew that already! (Dint ya?)
I started hosting a podcast with my aunt several months ago, and I’ve come to think that I should post my new episodes here so that all my readers can conveniently access them. So below are the first eight episodes of That’s Auntertainment! (as well as five mini-episodes, and one “update” episode).
Every week, I list all the upcoming (or recently released) movies, TV shows, albums, podcasts, etc. that I believe are worth checking out.
Movies Not too many movies are going to be released theatrically anytime soon. I’ll let you know if any good streaming options pop up!
TV There’s no new premieres I’m looking forward to this week. Weird.
Music
-The Weeknd, After Hours
Podcasts
–Dead Eyes – This debuted a couple months ago. It’s about Connor Ratliff exploring why he was fired by Tom Hanks from the miniseries Band of Brothers.
Any ranking of the best of the best must come with the caveat that the ranker hasn’t seen/heard everything, and that’s especially true in the case of podcasting, despite it being one of the youngest entertainment mediums around. Obviously I didn’t listen to every podcast released in the 2010s, but I did listen to my fair share. My feed mainly consisted of comedy, pop culture, and comedic pop culture shows. But even if I confine myself to those categories, I cannot claim that I was anywhere near comprehensive. So then, what you are about to read is the revelation of my podcast journey I went on in the past decade.
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