Jeff "Jmunney" Malone's Self-Styled "Expert" Thoughts on Movies, TV, Music, and the Rest of Pop Culture
June 12, 2020
Cinema, Entertainment To-Do List Artemis Fowl, Da 5 Bloods, Judd Apatow, Pete Davidson, Spike Lee, The King of Staten Island Leave a comment
CREDIT: Mary Cybulski/Universal Pictures
Every week, I list all the upcoming (or recently released) movies, TV shows, albums, podcasts, etc. that I believe are worth checking out.
Movies
–Artemis Fowl (Streaming on Disney+)
–Da 5 Bloods (Streaming on Netflix) – Da latest Spike Lee joint.
–The King of Staten Island (On Demand) – Pete Davidson teams up with Judd Apatow!
June 10, 2020
Cinema, Movie Reviews Aviva, Boaz Yakin, Bobbi Jene Smith, Or Schraiber, Tyler Phillips, Zina Zinchenko Leave a comment
CREDIT: Strand Releasing/Outsider Pictures
Starring: Zina Zinchenko, Bobbi Jene Smith, Tyler Phillips, Or Schraiber
Director: Boaz Yakin
Running Time: 115 Minutes
Rating: Unrated, But There is Enough Nudity Here to Flirt with an NC-17
Release Date: June 12, 2020 (Virtual Theatrical Release)
If you’re in the mood for a cinematic love story that can be described as “fluid” in every sense of the term, then Aviva sjpi;d be a treat for you. It’s written and directed by Boaz Yakin, who’s probably best known for Remember the Titans, but this is about as far from that family-friendly football flick as possible. The Parisian Aviva (Zina Zinchenko and Or Schraiber) and the New Yorker Eden (Bobbie Jene Smith and Tyler Phillips) find themselves in an intoxicating, tempestuous love affair that spans continents, genders, and various states of dress and undress (emphasis on the undress). To watch this movie, you need to be mature enough to handle how emotions can change a dime, and how the entire nature of reality can be just as capricious.
You might have noticed that I listed a pair of actors for each of the two main characters, and perhaps you’ve caught on that that means there is a male and a female version of both Aviva and Eden. If you only pay half of your attention while watching Aviva, you might not pick up on the consistency of these individuals as they switch genders. If you however remain totally focused, it might still take you a little while to register that fact, but once it clicks, it makes perfect sense. Call it the “Cloud Atlas Effect,” wherein the self doesn’t have to be bound by the laws of physics if you don’t want it to.
Besides the gender fluidity, the other major takeaway of Aviva is its delight in featuring plentiful nudity. I would call it shameless, but that sounds too vulgar for how artful the human body is presented here. Spending naked time in bed, doing naked ballet, or otherwise just hanging out naked is how Aviva spends a good chunk of its time. The whole movie is one long dance, both literally and figuratively. Aviva and Eden put clothes on when they head out to public spaces, but it’s pretty clear even then that they’re letting us see everything about them. If you’re prepared to allow all the body parts to fly right in your face (both the visible and invisible ones), then you may very well be ready to handle Aviva. There’s no other way to approach something so bold.
Aviva is Recommended If You Like: Cloud Atlas, Tasteful and passionate cinematic nudity, Did I mention the nudity?
Grade: 3.5 out of 5 Countdowns
June 8, 2020
Cinema, Movie Reviews 13th, 13th Amendment, Ava DuVernay, documentary, Grover Norquist, Van Jones 1 Comment
Every good civil rights movement needs its cool cucumbers that get you jazzed up and grinning from ear to ear. So when I finally sat down to watch 13th, I was on the lookout for folks delivering total zingers while refusing to let The Man get them down. That prayer is answered about a half hour in when Van Jones responds to an asinine comment from Grover Norquist about the infamous 1988 Willie Horton attack ad with a terse “Thanks, Grover.” Going forward, I would recommend that as a meme-ish stock response to anyone who refuses to acknowledge the part that race plays in the institutional failings of American criminal justice.
As galvanizing as that moment is, it is not where Ava DuVernay ultimately leads us with her documentary survey of the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which abolished slavery only to create a new form of slavery. It is a thorough diagnosis of the problem of how American prisons have perpetuated a de facto form of subjugation for people of color. Knowledge is the first step towards fixing a problem, but 13th ends on a bleak note that suggests that this particular social ill might just be too intractable to ever fully remove. Simply put, it’s in the most profitable interests of certain powers to permanently designate as criminal a significant segment of the population. But maybe there is room for some small hope that there could be a chance for a sliver of change. I watched 13th in 2020, amidst the rage of the most intense civil unrest of my lifetime, and it actually seems like some people in power are now actually considering taking revolutionary measures to address the problem. That undoubtedly has to happen if this country wants to work its way out of all the devil’s bargains it’s made.
June 5, 2020
Cinema, Entertainment To-Do List, Music, Television Adam Scott, Don't, Elisabeth Moss, Hollywood Game Night, RTJ4, Run the Jewels, RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars, Shirley Leave a comment
CREDIT: Guy D’Alema/ABC
Every week, I list all the upcoming (or recently released) movies, TV shows, albums, podcasts, etc. that I believe are worth checking out.
Movies
–Shirley (Hulu, On Demand, and Drive-In Theaters) – Another excellent performance from Elisabeth Moss!
TV
–RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars Season 5 Premiere (June 5 on VH1)
–Hollywood Game Night (New Episodes Return Starting June 7 on NBC)
–Don’t Series Premiere (June 11 on ABC) – New wacky game show hosted by Adam Scott
Music
-Run the Jewels, RTJ4
June 3, 2020
Cinema, Movie Reviews Elisabeth Moss, Josephine Decker, Logan Lerman, Michael Stuhlbarg, Odessa Young, Shirley, Shirley Jackson 2 Comments
CREDIT: NEON
Starring: Elisabeth Moss, Michael Stuhlbarg, Odessa Young, Logan Lerman
Director: Josephine Decker
Running Time: 107 Minutes
Rating: R for Acid Tongues and Sexual Encounters in Multiple Directions
Release Date: June 5, 2020 (Hulu, On Demand, and Drive-Ins)
When writing a movie review (or a review about anything, really), it is wise to focus on the details that you care about most. So with that in mind, after watching Elisabeth Moss play Shirley Jackson in the Josephine Decker-directed biopic Shirley, I must say: I love the shirts! Shirley favors short-sleeve button-downs, including an absolutely tremendous one with a mallard pattern. The film takes place in Vermont, but you wouldn’t know it from all the exposed forearms. In another context, her sartorial choices could easily fit on a painfully ironic hipster or a dad joke-spewing goofball, but when Shirley wears them, they say, “This is who I am: deal with it. Or don’t. Either way, I’ma do me.”
That vibe of defiance is thick in the air of Shirley, in which the writer and her Bennington College professor husband Stanley (Michael Stuhlbarg) “welcome” newlyweds Fred (Logan Lerman) and Rose (Odessa Young) as guests into their home. If that setup has you thinking Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, you’re in the right area. If you’re also thinking there might be a heavy influence of Jackson’s most famous works, that, however, is not precisely accurate. There’s no stoning of anyone like in the short story “The Lottery,” nor are there any hints of the supernatural akin to her oft-adapted novel The Haunting of Hill House (save for the ghosts of marital discord). Despite the lack of one-to-one connections, the Jackson home is plenty scary, which Rose and Fred soon discover as they get caught up in a swirling psychosexual adventure.
When it comes to successful visionary movies, they let audiences in on a way of feeling that they fundamentally just get in their psyches (or souls, or hearts, or whatever) without necessarily having to understand the logic of it all. And that’s Shirley for me (and perhaps for some of you as well). I didn’t quite feel that way with Decker’s last film, Madeline’s Madeline, which struck me as a bit too foreign (at least on first viewing) to truly attach to it. But with Shirley, I have the key to open its lock for the cinematic language to feel just right. The psychology of why Stanley feels compelled to torture Fred over his dissertation or why Shirley and a very pregnant Rose find themselves frolicking by the bathtub is not spelled out in concrete terms. Travelling into this abode is like a trip through Hades. It’s pretty exhilarating, at least if you know you’re going to come out eventually. But for those stuck there, it’s a little more exhausting, and my mind will be stuck on them for a while.
Shirley is Recommended If You Like: Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Making sarcastic comments at a party, Patterned Short-Sleeve Button-Downs
Grade: 4 out of 5 Typewriters
May 29, 2020
Cinema, Entertainment To-Do List, Music, Television Celebrity Family Feud, Central Park, Chromatica, Fred Willard, Fuller House, Lady GaGa, Loren Bouchard, Match Game, Press Your Luck, Quiz, Space Force, Steve Carell, The Vast of Night Leave a comment
CREDIT: Aaron Epstein/Netflix
Every week, I list all the upcoming (or recently released) movies, TV shows, albums, podcasts, etc. that I believe are worth checking out.
Movies
–The Vast of Night (May 29 on Amazon)
TV
–Central Park Season 1 (May 29 on Apple TV+) – From Bob’s Burgers creator Loren Bouchard, but is it enough to convince me to sign up for Apple TV?
–Space Force Season 1 (May 29 on Netflix) – Steve Carell and friends (including a posthumous Fred Willard) go to space!
–Celebrity Family Feud Season Premiere (May 31 on ABC)
–Press Your Luck Season Premiere (May 31 on ABC)
–Match Game Season Premiere (May 31 on ABC)
–Quiz Miniseries Premiere (May 31 on AMC) – A cheating scandal on Who Wants to be a Millionaire!
–Fuller House Season 5 Part 2 (June 2 on Netflix)
Music
-Lady Gaga, Chromatica
May 27, 2020
Cinema, Movie Reviews Andrew Patterson, Bruce Davis, Gail Cronauer, Jake Horowitz, Sierra McCormick, The Vast of Night 1 Comment
CREDIT: Amazon Studios
Starring: Sierra McCormick, Jake Horowitz, Gail Cronauer, Bruce Davis
Director: Andrew Patterson
Running Time: 89 Minutes
Rating: PG-13 for The Looming Threat of Something Alien
Release Date: May 29, 2020 (Amazon Prime Video)
Imagine, if you will, a movie coming out in 2020 that presents itself as an episode of a fictional anthology TV series called Paradox Theatre, which is clearly inspired by the most famous actual anthology series of all time. Twilight Zone fever is alive and well, baby! The truth is, Rod Serling’s iconic creation, and all the brethren it’s inspired, has never really gone away. (That would still very much be the case even if the CBS All Access revival didn’t exist.) It’s pretty damn hard, nearly impossible even, to recapture the spirit of O.G. Twilight Zone, but I nonetheless love that The Vast of Night wears its influence so openly on its sleeve. The Paradox Theatre framing device could have been deployed even more thoroughly than it is, but it nevertheless sets a vibe that assures you that debut director Andrew Patterson is worth paying attention to.
Patterson and screenwriters James Montague and Craig W. Sanger whisk us back to one night in 1950s New Mexico, where there’s a big basketball game at the local high school that everyone in town is headed to. But we’re not here to follow anyone on the team. Instead, we’re going along with two other students as they head off to their jobs sending audio content through the ether. Fay (Sierra McCormick) is a switchboard operator, and Everett (Jake Horowitz) hosts a radio show. He’s constantly razzing her, but he also takes her seriously enough to know it’s worth doing some digging when she alerts him to some weird noises coming through the boards.
If you’re into the genre, you know where this is headed, i.e., EXTRATERRESTRIAL VISITORS HAVE A MESSAGE FOR US! The fun and the thrill of it is getting to study Fay and Everett’s faces as it dawns on them that major secrets are about to reveal themselves. Something bigger than their regular old small-town life might just actually exist.
The Vast of Night is in its sweet spot when it keeps things claustrophobic. Eventually Fay and Everett venture back out into the night to track down the source of the noises, and there is a nice frantic energy, as they (and seemingly the entire town) become swallowed by panic and paranoia. But when Everett is flipping tapes and Fay is turning knobs and switching wires, there is a pleasantly intense procedural quality to the awe they experience while just sitting around and going through their routine. When you realize that you’re at the mercy of something as vast as the universe just outside your window, it’s enough to make you lean in and become a budding little investigator. Throw in some era-appropriate fixings like thick-framed eyeglasses, full-length skirts, and jokes about the future of cell phones, and you’ve got yourself a slick little satisfying genre picture.
The Vast of Night is Recommended If You Like: The Twilight Zone, Amazing Stories, The X-Files
Grade: 3.5 out of 5 Switchboards
May 26, 2020
Cinema, Movie Reviews Andrene Ward-Hammond, Anna Camp, Issa Rae, Kumail Nanjiani, Kyle Bornheimer, Michael Showalter, Paul Sparks, The Lovebirds Leave a comment
CREDIT: Skip Bolen/Netflix
While appraising the Michael Showalter-directed, Kumail Nanjiani-and-Issa Rae-starring The Lovebirds, I feel a lot like Graham Chapman’s Colonel character from Monty Python, but like, in reverse. I want to pop in there and go, “I noticed a tendency for this movie to not get silly enough. Now let’s move it along and be more silly.” For something as outrageous as this bad-night-gone-wrong-then-worse rom-com, “not silly enough” might sound like a patently ridiculous accusation. Which is fine by me, as I love being ridiculous and securing a patent for it. Furthermore, it’s possible to be over-the-top without being silly. The Lovebirds takes a grounded approach, wondering how a couple on the verge of a breakup would realistically react if someone jacked their car to murder someone in cold blood and then they proceeded to uncover a conspiracy connected to that fresh killing. The result is kind of funny and fairly heartfelt, which is enough to make me put a checkmark to my to-watch list and maybe add a smiley face.
As a veteran of The State, Stella, and Wet Hot American Summer, Michel Sho clearly has a transcendent amount of silliness in his funny bone. And Kumail certainly does, too, as he was so, so stupendously silly on Portlandia as a series of weirdly officious service employees. From what I know of Issa, she’s more awkward and goofy than silly, but I’m sure she could get into the silly groove with the right team. Now generally, I don’t like to review movies by taking them to task for what they could’ve been. Instead, I like to approach them on their own terms and ask if they did a good job at pulling off what they were attempting. But if The Lovebirds was attempting to show how people would really react to a bunch of life-threatening shenanigans, well, I believe there are some folks who would bulge out their eyes and cock their heads and maybe stare at the camera. Or maybe not. Perhaps this isn’t a proper review. Could it be that this is actually the introduction of my journey to become the Reverse-Colonel? … Bird is the word!
I give The Lovebirds 2.5 Bacon Strips out of Hot Bacon Grease.
May 22, 2020
Cinema, Comedy, Entertainment To-Do List, Music, Television Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., AKA Jane Roe, Douglas, Hannah Gadsby, Homecoming, Issa Rae, Jeopardy!, Kumail Nanjiani, Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Notes on a Conditional Form, The 1975, The Lovebirds Leave a comment
CREDIT: Amazon Prime Video/YouTube Screenshot
Every week, I list all the upcoming (or recently released) movies, TV shows, albums, podcasts, etc. that I believe are worth checking out.
Movies
–The Lovebirds (Streaming on Netflix) – Kumail Nanjiani and Issa Rae finally team up!
–AKA Jane Roe (Premieres May 22 on FX) – A documentary portrait of the woman behind Roe v. Wade.
TV
–Homecoming Season 2 (May 22 on Amazon) – Now starring Janelle Monáe!
–Jeopardy! Teachers Tournament (May 25-June 5, check local listings)
–Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Season 7 Premiere (May 27 on ABC) – The final season!
Music
-The 1975, Notes on a Conditional Form
Comedy
-Hannah Gadsby: Douglas (May 26 on Netflix)
May 19, 2020
Cinema, Movie Reviews Chris O’Dowd, Christopher Guest, Christopher Moynihan, Don Lake, Ed Begley Jr., Fred Willard, Jane Lynch, Mascots, Parker Posey, Susan Yeagley, Tom Bennett, Zach Woods Leave a comment
CREDIT: Scott Garfield/Netflix
I’d been meaning to watch Mascots for a while ever since it arrived on Netflix in 2016. Christopher Guest’s mockumentaries represent one of the most significant trends in American comedy, after all, so I need to stay on the up-and-up. So on May 16, 2020, I decided that it would finally be the day. And then after that personal resolution, I heard the news of Fred Willard’s passing. And well, I had no choice at that point. It was almost as if Willard himself had left me a note saying, “If I die, please have fun by watching this.” He seemed like the sort of guy who would leave behind such a message. Thanks for the laughs, Fred!
CREDIT: Scott Garfield/Netflix
So now that I’ve watched, I’ve decided to rank several of the main actors by how much their acting embodies the spirit of mascots, which consists of a mischievous mix of adorable and devious, plus a dash of uncanny valley. My evaluations are based mostly on Mascots, with some consideration given towards their performances in other Guest films (where applicable):
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