This Is a Movie Review: Affairs Are Revealed and Philosophical Rejoinders Are Dispatched at ‘The Party’

February 12, 2018

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CREDIT: Roadside Attractions

This review was originally posted on News Cult in February 2018.

Starring: Patricia Clarkson, Bruno Ganz, Cherry Jones, Emily Mortimer, Cillian Murphy, Timothy Spall, Kristin Scott Thomas

Director: Sally Potter

Running Time: 71 Minutes

Rating: R for Pretentious Strong Language and Furtive Cocaine Bumps

Release Date: February 16, 2018

If you want to make the case that The Party is a worthwhile viewing experience, you must remember that Patricia Clarkson is playing a cynical realist and that Bruno Ganz, as her estranged significant other, is playing a spiritualist. (There is another couple made up of an idealist and a materialist, but their philosophies don’t make as much of an impression.) Now you may be thinking, what is a fight between academic theories doing in a movie that is ostensibly about people? And initially, as I realized that wow, this is really going directly after that lecture hall crowd, I was just as disturbed as you may be. But it soon becomes clear enough that I do not especially care what is going on with these people and therefore pompous piffle like commenting about behaving in a “20th-century postmodern post-post-feminist sort of way” actually serves to lend this whole affair some personality.

The occasion for the titular get-together is Janet’s (Kristin Scott Thomas) appointment to shadow minister of health as a member of the British opposition party. As she is getting ready in the kitchen and chatting with April (Clarkson), her husband Bill (Timothy Spall) is in the living room, staring vacantly into the distance of the backyard, while Gottfried (Ganz) observes him with curiosity. Some more guests arrive: Martha (Cherry Jones) and Jinny (Emily Mortimer), who announce that their in vitro fertilization efforts have finally taken; and topping it all off is Tom (Cillian Murphy), with promises that arriving later for dessert will be his s.o. Marianne, who remains a topic of tension-spiked discussion throughout.

Then, as cinematic soirees tend to go, secrets are revealed and grievances are aired, much of it having to do with affairs. Ultimately, it appears that everyone has slept with the same person or slept with someone who has slept with that someone. Confined to the location of Janet and Bill’s home, The Party often feels like a play, and a one-act one at that, clocking in at just over 70 minutes. There are not many stylistic touches that require this drama to be on film instead of on a stage, save for the black-and-white photography (which does not serve much thematic purpose anyway). At least the short runtime is appreciated. The tone is too caustic for my tastes to be bearable for too long, and since there are no genuine characters, just a bunch of types, it helps that it makes its point quickly and then makes a hard exit.

The Party seems to be commenting on its own shallowness in the banter between April and Gottfried, as she constantly upbraids him for his frequent use of aphorisms, while she continues to make smug, pretentious remarks that are not helpful in any practical way. But Gottfried wins me over right away, because he is just happy-go-lucky while spouting clichés even as his partner constantly insults him. April, however, is too cold to embrace at first. But once it is clear that the film does not exactly agree with what she is saying, you can enjoy her for her ridiculousness and for the relish with which Clarkson spits such venom.

The Party is Recommended If You Like: Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Attending university philosophy lectures

Grade: 2.5 out of 5 Burnt Pastries

This Is a Movie Review: ‘Fifty Shades Freed’ is Just as Boring as Its Predecessors, But More Histrionic and Pointless

February 8, 2018

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CREDIT: Universal Pictures

This review was originally posted on News Cult in February 2018.

Starring: Dakota Johnson, Jamie Dornan, Eric Johnson, Max Martini, Brant Daugherty, Arielle Kebbel, Fay Masterson, Luke Grimes, Eloise Mumford, Rita Ora, Marcia Gay Harden, Tyler Hoechlin, Hiro Kanagawa

Director: James Foley

Running Time: 105 Minutes

Rating: R for The Usual T&A, Sometimes Involving Ice Cream, Plus a Climactic Gunshot

Release Date: February 9, 2018

Fifty Shades Freed is just as boring as the rest of the Grey/Steele saga, and the whole S&M hook has ceased to be a big deal ever since the first entry was released. It’s not like it was ever that big a deal in the first place, though enough people were titillated by the promise of transgression to result in a phenomenon. But now that the aftershocks are nowhere near as explosive, what is the point? With Christian (Jamie Dornan) and Ana (Dakota Johnson) comfortably married, the whole frisson of inappropriateness is eliminated, and all Fifty Shades Freed has to fall back on is a fairly boilerplate tale of revenge and kidnapping.

The troubles that apparently drive the action involve Ana’s former boss Jack (Eric Johnson), who blames her for his firing, so he resorts to stalking to exact his revenge. There is never any tension that suggests that Jack will not be dispatched by the end or that it makes it thrilling at all in the moment. From a narrative standpoint, it exists, I guess, so that Christian can save Ana, thus solving any and all current and future marital troubles. Because the thing is, the struggles between the two of them have little to do with the parameters of their kinkiness and everything to do with emotional maturity or lack thereof. Christian is overly controlling and protective, and hilariously unprepared for the prospect of being a father. I worry about the long-term viability of this union, not because a possibility for abuse, but rather because any fundamental compatibility is just not there, and the shallow picture-perfect ending cannot convince me otherwise.

While the sex scenes are essentially window-dressing at this point, they are still the main attraction (along with the luxury travel porn). There is certainly some excitement to being in a crowded theater as the camera almost zooms in on a hardcore reveal. But if you are going to venture out to see this sort of action instead of pulling it up on your computer, there ought to be some romance leading up to it. But the two leads have just never managed to summon any significant chemistry.  Johnson is perpetually unsure what kind of movie she is in, alternating playing it straight with occasionally venturing a mildly subversive line reading that would fit a version of this movie that makes fun of itself. Dornan, meanwhile, sleepwalks through the whole thing. Arielle Kebbel, as an architect who gets a little too flirty with Christian, is the only one to zero in on a satisfyingly campy tone, but she is barely utilized. All this confusion is inherent to a traditional center attempting to be transgressive.

Fifty Shades Freed is Recommended If You Like: Porn Minus the Romance, Melodramatic Revenge Plots

Grade: 1.5 out of 5 Boobs in Boobland

Billboard Hot Rock Songs – Week of February 10, 2018

February 6, 2018

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 the top 25 based on my estimation of their quality. I used to rank all 25, now I just rank the cream of the crop.

Original Version
1. Imagine Dragons – “Thunder”
2. Portugal. The Man – “Feel It Still”
3. Imagine Dragons – “Believer”
4. Walk the Moon – “One Foot”
5. Imagine Dragons – “Whatever It Takes”
6. Alice Merton – “No Roots”
7. Thirty Seconds to Mars – “Walk on Water”
8. Thirty Seconds to Mars – “Dangerous Night”
9. Theory of a Deadman – “(Rx) Medicate”
10. Foster the People – “Sit Next to Me”
11. Fall Out Boy – “Hold Me Tight or Don’t”
12. Breaking Benjamin – “Feed the Wolf”
13. The Cranberries – “Zombie”
14. Beck – “Up All Night”
15. Def Leppard – “Pour Some Sugar on Me”
16. Portugal. The Man – “Live in the Moment”
17. Five Finger Death Punch – “Gone Away”
18. Breaking Benjamin – “Red Cold River”
19. Bastille – “World Gone Mad”
20. The Cranberries – “Dreams”
21. lovelytheband – “Broken”
22. Bad Wolves – “Zombie”
23. Imagine Dragons – “Thunder”/”Young Dumb & Broke” (Medley)
24. The Cranberries – “Linger”
25. Fall Out Boy – “The Last of the Real Ones”

Jmunney’s Revision
1. Zombie (The Cranberries)
2. Dreams
3. No Roots
4. Up All Night
5. Feel It Still
6. Linger
7. Pour Some Sugar on Me
8. Live in the Moment
9. World Gone Mad

Billboard Hot 20 – Week of February 10, 2018

February 6, 2018

jmunney Billboard Charts, Billboard Hot 100, Music , , , Leave a comment

Each week, I check out the Billboard Hot 100, and then I rearrange the top 20 based on my estimation of their quality. I used to rank all 20, now I just rank the cream of the crop.

Original Version
1. Drake – “God’s Plan”
2. Ed Sheeran – “Perfect”
3. Bruno Mars and Cardi B – “Finesse”
4. Camila Cabello ft. Young Thug – “Havana”
5. Post Malone ft. 21 Savage – “Rockstar”
6. Halsey – “Bad at Love”
7. Dua Lipa – “New Rules”
8. Migos, Nicki Minaj, and Cardi B – “MotorSport”
9. Justin Timberlake ft. Chris Stapleton – “Say Something”
10. Imagine Dragons – “Thunder”
11. Bebe Rexha and Florida Georgia Line – “Meant to Be”
12. Migos – “Stir Fry”
13. G-Eazy ft. A$AP Rocky and Cardi B – “No Limit”
14. NF – “Let You Down”
15. Kendrick Lamar ft. Zacari – “Love.”
16. G-Eazy and Halsey – “Him & I”
17. Post Malone – “I Fall Apart”
18. Migos ft. Drake – “Walk It Talk It”
19. Cardi B ft. 21 Savage – “Bartier Cardi”
20. Sam Smith – “Too Good at Goodbyes”

Jmunney’s Revision
1. New Rules
2. Havana
3. Love.
4. Say Something

This Is a Movie Review: ‘Peter Rabbit’ is Fun Enough for the Kiddos, But It’s Also Kind of Insane

February 6, 2018

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CREDIT: Sony Pictures

This review was originally posted on News Cult in February 2018.

Starring: James Corden, Domhnall Gleeson, Rose Byrne, Daisy Ridley, Margot Robbie, Elizabeth Debicki, Matt Lucas, Sia, Sam Neill

Director: Will Gluck

Running Time: 93 Minutes

Rating: PG for Cartoonish, But Quite Dangerous, Violence

Release Date: February 9, 2018

For the most part, Peter Rabbit is just another trifling kids movie with CG-animated animals. It is not the worst of the menagerie, though it is far from the best. But like many movies of this ilk, it also raises some weird metaphysical conundrums that I do not think it ever planned on grappling with but that it cannot avoid entirely. When you have anthropomorphic animals interacting with humans, especially when those humans are played by live-action actors, you have to decide how much the humans can recognize the critters’ extraordinary abilities. When the beasts talk to each other, does it just sound like animal noises to people? Or can they hear it perfectly, thus forcing the animals to be discreet? Or maybe there is only Dr. Dolittle-type, going mad over the loneliness of his interspecies communication powers.

In this case, Peter (James Corden), his triplet sisters Mopsy (Elizabeth Debicki), Flopsy (Margot Robbie), and Cottontail (Daisy Ridley), and their cousin Benjamin Bunny (Matt Lucas) are quite sneaky, and as their schemes become more and more elaborate, there is no reason to pretend that they are not fully intelligent creatures. The confirmation that they can in fact talk to humans is a rather sloppy reveal, as it begs the question: how have they hidden this secret for so long? Regardless of what mysterious machinations they have pulled off, the narrative requires that they spill the truth, considering that Peter is responsible for extensive property damage, and furthermore, he wants to apologize to Bea (Rose Byrne), the human that he loves, and make peace with Thomas McGregor (Domhnall Gleeson), the human that he has been torturing. This all makes for a resolution that is sweet but with disturbing subtext.

But beyond that, this is a fairly typical entry for this genre, as typified by its soundtrack of the pop hits of the past twenty years. Len’s “Steal My Sunshine,” Basement Jaxx’s “Do Your Thing,” and Portugal. The Man’s “Feel It Still” will keep the kids bouncing in their chairs without challenging their soundscapes. Lady Bird can take note that Peter’s use of Dave Matthews Band’s “Crash Into Me” is not similarly profound. Elsewhere, the film’s raison d’être is excessively painful physical gags, including a truly worrying number of electrocutions (this is nowhere near as gentle as Beatrix Potter’s source material). There is a rake gag that I must admit I chuckled at, though I am concerned that the target audience will not realize how heavily indebted it is to The Simpsons. And that is indicative of the whole: a satisfying diversion, but with some worrisome implications.

Peter Rabbit is Recommended If You Like: MouseHunt, Dr. Dolittle, the Pop Dance Hits of Today!

Grade: 3 out of 5 Winking Rabbits

SNL Review February 3, 2018: Natalie Portman/Dua Lipa

February 5, 2018

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

CREDIT: Will Heath/NBC

This review was originally posted on News Cult in February 2018.

NewsCult Entertainment Editor 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

No “Love It” sketches this week, although there are a few with elements that I love. Most everything is decent and/or perfectly fine, with a few flashes of brilliance. More

This Is a Movie Review: ‘Winchester’ Fails to Explore Its Premise by Visiting Very Few Rooms in Its Vast Haunted Mansion

February 3, 2018

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CREDIT: Ben King/CBS Films

This review was originally posted on News Cult in February 2018.

Starring: Helen Mirren, Jason Clarke, Sarah Snook, Finn Scicluna O’Prey, Angus Sampson, Eamon Farren

Directors: Peter and Michael Spierig

Running Time: 99 Minutes

Rating: PG-13 for Gunfire, Creepy Contact Lenses, and a Very PG-13 Moment of Nighttime Companionship

Release Date: February 2, 2018

When a truly original idea arrives in horror, you’ve got to hold on to it tight. Winchester has quite a unique and intriguing premise, but you would not be able to tell from the execution. Inspired by true events, it is a haunted house tale that takes place in, as one character adroitly puts it, “a house under neverending construction built on the orders of a grieving widow.” But the film never takes full advantage of all that lurks within the title abode.

Sarah Winchester (Helen Mirren, fully embodying gothic haute couture) is the heiress to her late husband’s eponymous arms company, and Winchester’s plot is set in motion when Dr. Eric Price (Jason Clarke) is asked to evaluate her mental fitness and therefore capability to continue overseeing the company. Her fellow executives and shareholders have their doubts because of her obsession with endlessly adding more rooms to her mansion, which she is doing to contain the spirits of the many haunted souls who have been killed by Winchester firearms.

There is a perfect opportunity with this setup for a face-off between skepticism and belief in the supernatural. But instead, the existence of the ghosts is pretty much never in question, and no character expresses significant skepticism (nor indeed do they have any reason to). That is not necessarily a big loss, though, as the house itself allows plenty of opportunities no matter what the status of the ghosts. With construction having no master plan or endpoint, the mansion could be the most disorienting maze ever. But the film barely takes advantage of that spatial horror.

I do not mean to tell Winchester what sort of film it must be, but I do mean to express disappointment when what it chooses to be is so indistinct. Forgoing the more challenging haunts that it hints at, it instead is a run-of-the-mill possession and revenge story, with Sarah’s great nephew (Finn Scicluna O’Prey) doing his best creepy kid performance, rendering “Beautiful Dreamer” the stuff of nightmares. He is being influenced by the ghost of a Civil War veteran (Eamon Farren) who is predictably defeated in a final standoff, and then everyone moves on with their lives, the evil contained, for now at least.

Directors Michael and Peter Spierig (who previously worked with Winchester’s Sarah Snook on the twisty, heady Robert Heinlein adaptation Predestination) have a few tricks up their sleeve, holding on a shot just long enough for it to be unnerving when an arm suddenly bursts through a previously hidden opening. But overall they never develop a firm grasp on the jump scares or the slow burns, and they do not seem to be particularly committed to either. Plus, the underlying message of what constitutes terror in this story – something about fear being only in the mind – does not jibe with what is actually happening.

Winchester is Recommended If You Like: The Woman in Black, Helen Mirren in Period Clothing

Grade: 2 out of 5 Rifles

The Good Place Season 2 Review

February 2, 2018

jmunney Television, The Good Place , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

CREDIT: Colleen Hayes/NBC

This post was originally published on News Cult in February 2018.

Network: NBC

Showrunner: Mike Schur

Main Cast: Kristen Bell, Ted Danson, William Jackson Harper, Jameela Jamil, Manny Jacinto, D’Arcy Carden

Notable Guest Stars: Marc Evan Jackson, Tiya Sircar, Maribeth Monroe, Jason Mantzoukas, Dax Shepard, Maya Rudolph, Seth Morris, Angela Trimbur

Episode Running Time: 22 Minutes

It is difficult to talk about The Good Place in detail without spoiling anything, so SPOILER ALERT. But also go watch the entire series if you haven’t already. It’s really good.

Stylistically and tonally, The Good Place follows in the footsteps of the NBC Must See TV sitcoms that have preceded it, but since it is at its heart a mystery box puzzle show, its closest forerunner is Lost. Based on what I have gathered from interviews, creator Mike Schur conceptualized it as the NBC sitcom version of that stranded-on-a-desert-island juggernaut. Accordingly, it has been applying the lessons of what worked and what didn’t work on the island. So what we have in The Good Place Season 2 is a show that is constantly reinventing itself that amazingly is yet to show any wear and tear.

Lost dithered around occasionally in its first three seasons, but momentum locked into place for its final three years once an end date was set and the season episode orders were shortened. Thus, I have been heartened, and not worried at all, that NBC has given The Good Place 13-episode seasons right from the get-go instead of forcing it to stretch out to a more typical 20-plus run. It really feels like a series-long vision is in place. The first season finale, which revealed that Eleanor (Kristen Bell) and company were really in the Bad Place and were just being mentally tortured to think otherwise, seemed like a logical endpoint for the whole story, but in fact it has proven to be the perfect button on the first chapter that has been matched with just-as-satisfying shocks in Season 2.

After a two-part season opener in which our demon architect Michael (Ted Danson) tries and fails to reset everything with a bit of memory erasure, “Dance Dance Resolution” comes along to offer an entire series’ worth of plot twists in one episode. Not a season’s worth, a whole series’ worth. The Good Place has solved the problem that plagues shows that burns through plots too quickly by … burning through plots faster than anyone has ever seen. A glorious montage resets the status quo thousands of times. Subsequent episodes slow down that pace, but there is still about one reboot per half hour.

One of the reasons that The Good Place is one of the best shows currently airing is because it works for the smartest people in the room and the dumbest people in the room. If you want to figure out the twists ahead of time, the clues are there for you to puzzle them out, but if you prefer to be passive, the twists will eventually be explained, in a manner that avoids patronizing or reiterating the obvious. This is a show that rewards freeze-framing and re-watching (and there is still not enough room to contain all the flourishes from the writing staff). But it is also bright and boisterous enough for one helping to be filling. You don’t need to brush up on your Kant and Hume to understand the philosophical and ethical debates, but the supplementary reading is out there should you wish to seek it out.

While The Good Place has clearly done its homework regarding history’s most influential thinkers, I do wonder what the show’s own philosophy on existence and morality is. In aggregate, it is hard to pin down, which can be freeing, but also frustrating. Part of that is just the nature of fiction that tackles the afterlife. What happens after death is too ineffable to really be captured in any fully comprehensible fashion. The Good Place does not have to come up with some grand unified theory to be successful, but it is trying to say something weighty. Under close examination it can appear contradictory, though its message has thus far worked and can fairly be called “complicated.”

Should we really believe that a callous demon like Michael (the sublimely natural Ted Danson) can so quickly be humanized? Your mileage may vary on that conundrum, but Danson’s performance buys into the transformation, and perhaps these demons are fallen angels, or some similar beings that really do have capacity for goodness. It is easier to buy into the nature of A.I. program Janet (Arden), whose existence has been more or less created out of whole cloth. But the bugs she demonstrates suggest a haphazardness unexpected for infinity.

Along those same lines, the fate of our four principal lost souls can often seem petty, even without considering the self-improvement they began in Season 1 and have more or less been wholly committed to in Season 2. Sure, Eleanor is chronically thoughtless, Chidi (Harper) is dangerously indecisive, Tahana (Jamil) is profoundly self-absorbed, and Jason (Jacinto) is unselfconsciously vulgar. But they all have charms that elevate them beyond their worst selves. That is surely partly to due with the charming nature of each actor’s performance and how we as viewers tend to identify with lead characters, but at a certain part it feels like they are just being toyed with beyond what is fair or makes sense.

However, I suspect that that pettiness might be a feature of the show, and not a bug. The last couple episodes certainly seem to suggest that. The finale makes a case for making it up as you go along, with a gambit allowing the dead folks to (unwittingly) prove themselves in a simulation of how their lives could have played out if they were still alive. The haphazardness is unavoidable, but playing fast and loose with the rules (which might not be as intractable as we’ve been led to believe) could be the right thing to do if it makes the right connections. The parameters have been set up by a writers’ room, but they are justifying themselves thus far.

And finally, here’s to BORTLES! and accidental timeliness.

Best Episodes: “Dance Dance Resolution,” “The Trolley Problem,” “Rhonda, Diana, Jake, and Trent”

How Does It Compare to Season One? With its first and therefore biggest twist out of the way, The Good Place has necessarily become less surprising but the tradeoff is that it has become more daunting. It is a tricky high-wire act, but it has been sustained for at least one full season so far.

The Good Place Season 2 is Recommended If You Like: Lost, Pushing Daisies, Community

Where to Watch: Season 1 is available on Netflix, while Season 2 is currently available on NBC.com.

Grade: 4.5 out of 5 Shirt Balls

 

Watch And/Or Listen to This: The President Of Boliviguay Invites Conan To His Country

February 1, 2018

jmunney Conan, Television, Watch And/Or Listen to This , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

CREDIT: TBS via YouTube

You can’t visit Boliviguay until you get your shots for:

-Too Many Hands Disease
-The Disappointing Tingles
-Jeff Breath
-Total Scrotal Confusion
-Resting Bitch Ankle
-Banana Syndrome
-Penile Senility
-Some-heimer’s Disease
-Face-Pocalypse
-Listing Fake Diseases Disease

Billboard Hot Rock Songs – Week of February 3, 2018

January 30, 2018

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 the top 25 based on my estimation of their quality. I used to rank all 25, now I just rank the cream of the crop.

Original Version
1. Imagine Dragons – “Thunder”
2. Portugal. The Man – “Feel It Still”
3. Imagine Dragons – “Believer”
4. Walk the Moon – “One Foot”
5. Imagine Dragons – “Whatever It Takes”
6. Alice Merton – “No Roots”
7. Fall Out Boy – “Hold Me Tight or Don’t”
8. The Cranberries – “Zombie”
9. Theory of a Deadman – “(Rx) Medicate”
10. 30 Seconds to Mars – “Walk on Water”
11. Foster the People – “Sit Next to Me”
12. Def Leppard – “Pour Some Sugar on Me”
13. The Cranberries – “Linger”
14. The Cranberries – “Dreams”
15. Fall Out Boy – “Church”
16. Fall Out Boy – “The Last of the Real Ones”
17. Beck – “Up All Night”
18. Fall Out Boy – “Wilson (Expensive Mistakes)”
19. Fall Out Boy – “Stay Frosty Royal Milk Tea”
20. Portugal. The Man – “Live in the Moment”
21. Five Finger Death Punch – “Gone Away”
22. Fall Out Boy – “Young and Menace”
23. Bastille – “World Gone Mad”
24. Def Leppard – “Photograph”
25. Bad Wolves – “Zombie”

Jmunney’s Revision
1. Zombie (The Cranberries)
2. Dreams
3. No Roots
4. Up All Night
5. Feel It Still
6. Photograph
7. Linger
8. Church
9. Pour Some Sugar on Me
10. Live in the Moment
11. World Gone Mad

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