SNL Love It/Keep It/Leave It: Emma Thompson/Jonas Brothers

May 12, 2019

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CREDIT: Will Heath/NBC

Jeffrey Malone watches every new episode of Saturday Night Live and then organizes the sketches into the following categories: “Love It” (potentially Best of the Season-worthy), “Keep It” (perfectly adequate), or “Leave It” (in need of a rewrite, to say the least). Then he concludes with assessments of the host and musical guest.

Love It

Meet the Press – Oh wow, a political cold open that’s not only funny, but quite possibly the best sketch of the episode! This is basically the inverse of the How’s He Doing? sketches from the Obama era, but here it’s even more extreme and patently nonsensical. Certain Republicans have knotted themselves into a Trump-supporting bind that is dangerous for everybody and just plain stunning in its blind loyalty. Honestly, Kate McKinnon’s version of Lindsey Graham saying, “Harder, Daddy” isn’t that far off from the real thing.

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Avengers: Endgame First Thoughts

May 11, 2019

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CREDIT: Disney/Marvel Studios

Maybe some movies should be reviewed in parts over the course of months, or maybe even years. That’s how I’m feeling about Avengers: Endgame. So I’m going to go ahead and talk about what’s striking my fancy about it now and maybe talk about it some more later.

The closest comparison I can think of for the premise of Endgame is The Leftovers. The opening scenes for the two are eerily similar in terms of both tone and function. But of course they then head in very different directions. I didn’t stick with The Leftovers because I just wasn’t hooked by how its particular characters responded in their particular ways to the disappearances. But with Endgame, I already know the context, so I’m already in, baby. And no doubt about it, I am happy that the ultimate focus is on Tony Stark’s beating heart, and everyone keeping things right with their families. That emotional resonance is enough to buoy the whole affair along for three hours. And it’s also enough to prevent me from getting too angry about the characters who don’t have much meaningful to do or the moments that make me go, “But why?”

Also important: how about those end credits? It’s not very often 50-plus above-the-line cast members have to be assembled in some sort of appropriate order, so we must cherish it whenever it happens. And I’ve got to say, it appears that for the most part, there was no rhyme or reason to the assembly. But we shall, and must, investigate whether or not that is true for as long as we can. The cursive credits for the core Avengers are great, though.

I give Avengers: Endgame A Handful of Snaps to the Beat.

This Is a Movie Review: Under the Silver Lake

May 11, 2019

jmunney Cinema, Movie Reviews , , , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

CREDIT: A24

Under the Silver Lake is Inherent Vice crossed with The Shining.

Shaggy dog mysteries (which seem to exclusively be set in L.A.) have their charms, but they also have an underlying sense of frustration because the mystery is most definitely never solved satisfyingly, or at least not transparently. But they act like they want to solve the mystery. In the case of Under the Silver Lake, though, it’s clearly more satisfying to leave everything confusing. With his tendency to beat people up for minor offenses, Sam (Andrew Garfield) is certainly not a nice person, so it’s fitting that he doesn’t find all the answers. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t some sort of “conspiracy,” or at least conspiracy-ish happening or series of happenings, going on. Disappearing Neighbor Riley Keough may be part of only a small portion of the whole tapestry. Sam enters Shining territory as his experience of supernatural occurrences feel inextricable from the real thing. He seems to have crossed through a looking glass wherein he might as well have been a part of all this for all eternity, especially considering his aimlessness. It’s an unmoored journey that I enjoyed.

I give Under the Silver Lake 400 Numbers out of 500 Questions.

Entertainment To-Do List: Week of 5/10/19

May 10, 2019

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CREDIT: Warner Bros.

Every week, I list all the upcoming (or recently released) movies, TV shows, albums, podcasts, etc. that I believe are worth checking out.

Movies
–Detective Pikachu (Theatrically Nationwide) – He’s gonna find the clues!

TV
–Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Season 6 Premiere (May 10 on ABC)
–Paid Off Season 2 Premiere (May 13 on truTV)

Mini-Movie Review: ‘Poms’ is Stranger Than It Probably Means to Be, and That’s a Good Thing

May 9, 2019

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CREDIT: STX Films

Starring: Diane Keaton, Jacki Weaver, Rhea Perlman, Pam Grier, Celia Weston, Alisha Boe, Charlie Tahan, Phyllis Sommerville, Bruce McGill

Director: Zara Hayes

Running Time: 90 Minutes

Rating: PG-13 for Mild Senior Sauciness and a Surprising Amount of Casual Misogyny

Release Date: May 10, 2019

Even though I’ve known that Poms is about senior citizen cheerleaders ever since I first heard about it, its title has mostly made me think about POM Wonderful, which of course had me wondering: would this movie be as wonderful as its juicy almost-namesake? (I also thought about French actress Pom Klementieff, but I knew that punniness wouldn’t lead me quite as far.) While I would hardly go so far as to praise Poms as “wonderful,” the POM connection still feels appropriate, as it is the sort of drink I would have on a relaxing Friday evening at my parents’ house, the perfect setting for watching something like Poms that we didn’t feel the need to rush out to the theater for. The journey of Diane Keaton, Jacki Weaver, and the rest of their retirement community squad never makes much of a lick of sense, which is not necessarily a problem because this isn’t the sort of premise I demand too much logic out of. But even beyond the fact of women in their sixties, seventies, and eighties pulling off whatever acrobatics they can, Poms strains credulity with its sneakily bizarre dialogue. Thus, there is a whiff of (probably accidental) surrealism that pairs well with girl-power-at-any-age gumption and helps to patch over the straight-down-the-middle production values.

Poms is Recommended If You Like: Legendary actresses getting work into their seventies

Grade: 3 out of 5 Shimmies

Mini-Movie Review: ‘The Hustle’ is Too Loud and Outrageous to Pull Off a Satisfying Con

May 9, 2019

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CREDIT: Christian Black/Metro Goldwyn Mayer Pictures

Starring: Anne Hathaway, Rebel Wilson, Alex Sharp, Ingrid Oliver

Director: Chris Addison

Running Time: 94 Minutes

Rating: PG-13 for Crude Makeup Jobs and Exaggerated Appetites

Release Date: May 10, 2019

Successful movies about con artists pull cons on their audiences, and we thank them for it, because that is how they derive their entertainment value. So as someone on the hunt for entertainment value, it is my solemn duty to sadly report that The Hustle (a gender-flipped remake of 1988’s Dirty Rotten Scoundrels) struggles mightily to keep its viewers guessing. There are very few surprises along the way until the very end, and you’ll probably be able to surmise the big reveal if you’ve seen the original, or if you’re just savvy enough with the genre. So that leaves Anne Hathaway and Rebel Wilson to do what they can by bouncing off against each other, which they do by leaning way too hard into their typical character types. Let’s put it this way: this is a movie in which someone eats a French fry that’s been dipped in toilet water, and there’s no good narrative reason for it. If that tickles your funny bone, then good on you, but it’s not especially relevant to any con job.

The Hustle is Recommended If You Like: Sticking raunchy humor into a genre where it might not fit

Grade: 2 out of 5 Sob Stories

Movie Review: ‘Detective Pikachu’ the Movie Demonstrates Its Potential Worth as a TV Show

May 8, 2019

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CREDIT: Warner Bros./Legendary

Starring: Ryan Reynolds, Justice Smith, Kathryn Newton, Ken Watanabe, Bill Nighy, Chris Geere, Suki Waterhouse, Omar Chaparro, Rita Ora

Director: Rob Letterman

Running Time: 104 Minutes

Rating: PG for Explosions, Lightning Bolts, and Suspicious Gas

Release Date: May 10, 2019

The promise of a significant chunk of ’90s has been crystallized in the form of Detective Pikachu. Pokémon is a franchise that has endured for decades, but unlike say, Star Wars or the Muppets, it is not the sort of property that its fans continue to love, or love in the same way, as they grow older. Instead, it is tinged with nostalgia at the same time that it enthralls subsequent generations with new chapters. With its mix of live-action humans and CGI monsters and its expansive approach to Pokémon mythology, Detective Pikachu takes a rather meta stance towards a significant piece of culture. I enjoyed watching it, but I also had the sense that it was not as perfectly constructed as it could have been. It soon dawned on me that there was so much potential Pokémon goodness missing from this world that could be fleshed out in a TV version.

What I’m saying here is that I would love it if it turns out that Detective Pikachu is just the first chapter and that we get a new mystery for the adorable electric mouse to solve every week, with a few more big-screen adventures as well if anything gargantuan turns up. Surely Pika’s deerstalker hat of choice points to his sartorial inspiration as a possible model to follow for ongoing detective work. There is just so much untapped potential here in Ryme City, a land in which humans and Pokémon live alongside each other on equal terms. It’s not unlike Who Framed Roger Rabbit, but a lot more adorable. With hundreds of Pokémon available to play around with, necessarily only a small percentage are spotlighted. But more could have had their moment to shine, and hopefully more will.

But the Pokémon who do get their chance to shine give us some delightful, occasionally anarchic deployments of their unique powers, especially a frustrating charades-based interrogation with a Mr. Mime. What makes Detective Pikachu work as well as it does is its total lack of winking within its meta framework. As the voice of the title crimesolver, Ryan Reynolds is basically doing a PG version of Deadpool, which turns out to be just subdued enough to be plenty palatable. Among the rest of the cast, Kathryn Newton stands out as an underpaid digital news intern who is basically a doing an impression of a mix between a noir femme fatale and a His Girl Friday-type. Occasionally the film gets bogged down in heavy mythology that may be too much for even some Pokémon devotees, but when it maintains its full sense of playfulness, it is a commendably unique cinematic achievement.

Detective Pikachu is Recommended If You Like: Pokémon with a spritz of Minions and a soupçon of Deadpool

Grade: 3.5 out of 5 Deerstalker Caps

Mini-Movie Review: ‘The Biggest Little Farm’ is an Almost Too Perfectly Inspiring Documentary Tale of Triumph

May 7, 2019

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CREDIT: NEON

Starring: John Chester, Molly Chester, Todd the Dog, Emma the Pig, Greasy the Chicken

Director: John Chester

Running Time: 91 Minutes

Rating: PG for Coyotes Attacking Livestock and Mud- and Manure-Based Messes

Release Date: May 10, 2019 (Limited)

In 2011, John and Molly Chester moved out of their cramped Los Angeles apartment to make a go of it on two hundred unkempt acres in Ventura County. They had a dream of doing things a little differently, an alternative, if you will, to the factory farms typical of modern American agriculture. Luckily for us, John is a documentary filmmaker, and he had the cameras rolling for much of the journey.

The Biggest Little Farm is the document of their ultimate triumph over great odds. Whenever a new problem arises and seems intractable (not enough rain, too much rain, relentless predators, thoughtless pests), the Chesters somehow manage to consistently turn crises into opportunities. It almost feels a little too perfect. To be fair, we do see the struggle, but I would have liked to have seen even more of it. We could have gotten really deep in the process of the problem-solving. Oh well, maybe that’s what the special features are for. It would have been tough to fit all that in a ninety-minute package. As it is, though, what we have is a valuable record of the passage of time and its truly transformative possibilities. John has a preternaturally keen eye for capturing the wondrous chronological workings of nature, and the result is inspiring cinema that shows that maybe, just maybe, uprooting everything can work out just like we need it to.

The Biggest Little Farm is Recommended If You Like: Lifestyle transformations, Videos of animals giving birth

Grade: 3.5 out of 5 Promises

Mini-Movie Review: ‘Tolkien’ is Fairly Inessential Bio-Cinema

May 7, 2019

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CREDIT: Fox Searchlight Pictures

Starring: Nicholas Hoult, Lily Collins, Colm Meaney, Derek Jacobi, Anthony Boyle, Patrick Gibson, Tom Glynne-Carney, Craig Roberts

Director: Dome Karukoski

Running Time: 111 Minutes

Rating: PG-13 for Flashes of World War I

Release Date: May 10, 2019

Would you be intrigued to know that some of the elements of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings were inspired by J.R.R. Tolkien’s actual life? The biopic Tolkien is counting on it, although it is not especially committed to that idea. The legendary English fantasy writer (as played dutifully by Nicholas Hoult) is haunted by memories of World War I with rather dragon-esque fire in the sky, and he has a tight group of schoolmates that one might call a fellowship. But beyond those (easily identifiable, not particularly cinematic) connections, this is a fairly straightforward story about a boy of modest, tragic (Dickensian, even) origins who made good. It is a life well-lived, but not necessarily captivating at every little moment. But at least his romance with his future wife Edith (Lily Collins) is compelling, built as it is on mutual respect and fascination. The emotions in their declarations of love are not atypical for the genre, but the language is unique and heartfelt. Focusing the whole movie on this intimate love story might have been a more inspired choice.

Tolkien is Recommended If You Like: Tolkien completism, The less interesting story behind the story

Grade: 2.5 out of 5 Cellar Doors

My 2019 Tribeca Film Festival Adventure

May 6, 2019

jmunney Cinema, Movie Reviews , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 3 Comments

Photo Courtesy of Tribeca Film Festival

Another spring, another Tribeca Film Festival. As is my custom, I took in a few films at the Lower Manhattan fest, and now I am here to report back to you what I thought of the offerings. Read on to discover what was in store in my 2019 Tribeca Film Festival Adventure!

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