Billboard Hot Rock Songs – Week of June 24, 2017

June 13, 2017

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 – “Believer”
2. Linkin Park ft. Kiiara – “Heavy”
3. twenty one pilots – “Heathens”
4. Imagine Dragons – “Thunder”
5. Rag’n’Bone Man – “Human”
6. Portugal. The Man – “Feel It Still”
7. Foo Fighters – “Run”
8. Lord Huron – “The Night We Met”
9. The Revivalists – “Wish I Knew You”
10. Imagine Dragons – “Whatever It Takes”
11. Arcade Fire – “Everything Now”
12. Paramore – “Hard Times”
13. Bleachers – “Don’t Take the Money”
14. Ocean Park Standoff – “Good News”
15. Electric Light Orchestra – “Mr. Blue Sky”
16. Soundgarden – “Black Hole Sun”
17. The Allman Brothers Band – “Midnight Rider”
18. Audioslave – “Like a Stone”
19. Fleetwood Mac – “The Chain”
20. Lana del Rey ft. The Weeknd – “Lust for Life”
21. Sir Sly – “High”
22. alt-J – “In Cold Blood”
23. Cold War Kids – “Love is Mystical”
24. Papa Roach – “Help”
25. Muse – “Dig Down”

Jmunney’s Revision
1. The Chain
2. Like a Stone
3. Human
4. Mr. Blue Sky
5. In Cold Blood
6. High
7. Black Hole Sun
8. Run
9. Feel It Still
10. Everything Now
11. Midnight Rider
12. Love is Mystical
13. Hard Times
14. Dig Down
15. Lust for Life

Billboard Hot 20 – Week of June 24, 2017

June 13, 2017

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. Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee ft. Justin Bieber – “Despacito”
2. Bruno Mars – “That’s What I Like”
3. DJ Khaled ft. Justin Bieber, Quavo, Chance the Rapper, and Lil Wayne – “I’m the One”
4. Ed Sheeran – “Shape of You”
5. Kendrick Lamar – “Humble.”
6. Future – “Mask Off”
7. Lil Uzi Vert – “XO Tour Llif3”
8. The Chainsmokers and Coldplay – “Something Just Like This”
9. Zedd and Alessia Cara – “Stay”
10. Post Malone ft. Quavo – “Congratulations”
11. James Arthur – “Say You Won’t Let Go”
12. Julia Michaels – “Issues”
13. Imagine Dragons – “Believer”
14. Sam Hunt – “Body Like a Back Road”
15. Kygo x Selena Gomez – “It Ain’t Me”
16. Childish Gambino – “Redbone”
17. French Montana ft. Swae Lee – “Unforgettable”
18. Shawn Mendes – “There’s Nothing Holdin’ Me Back”
19. KYLE ft. Lil Yachty – “iSpy”
20. Brett Young – “In Case You Didn’t Know”

Jmunney’s Revision
1. Redbone
2. Stay
3. Humble.
4. Unforgettable

Bob’s Burgers 7.22 Review: “Into the Mild”

June 12, 2017

jmunney Bob's Burgers, Bob's Burgers Episode Reviews, Television , Leave a comment

“You didn’t think the menstruation scene was too much?” “I think it would work without the bubble machine, but who am I to judge?” http://www.bubbleblabber.com/review-bobs-burgers-into-the-mild/

What Won TV? – June 4-June 10, 2017

June 11, 2017

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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.

Sunday – Amidst all the prestige, I think I actually liked Mike Tyson Mysteries the most.
Monday – Better Call Saul
Tuesday – Downward Dog
Wednesday – Fargo
Thursday – The AV Club
Friday – RuPaul’s Drag Race
Sunday – French Open Ladies Final, especially the part when the winner asked if she could brush her hair before the trophy ceremony.

Watch And/Or Listen to This: Kungs vs. Cookin’ on 3 Burners’ “This Girl”

June 10, 2017

jmunney Music, Watch And/Or Listen to This , , , 1 Comment

I wish I had heard this song when it came out so that I could have put it on my Best of 2016 list.

This Is a Movie Review: ‘The Mummy’ Reboot is Lifeless Except for the Rare Moments When It Embraces Its Goofy Side

June 9, 2017

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This review was originally posted on News Cult in June 2017.

Starring: Tom Cruise, Sofia Boutella, Annabelle Wallis, Jake Johnson, Russell Crowe

Director: Alex Kurtzman

Running Time: 110 Minutes

Rating: PG-13 for Getting Ur Freak On with Death

Release Date: June 9, 2017

I laughed derisively when the Universal globe logo spun around and gave way to the “Dark Universe” logo, but the joke was on me, as the best parts of this new interlocking cinematic franchise are the ones setting up its upcoming entries. More fundamentally, the reason the joke was on me was because I held out hope throughout The Mummy that something unique or especially thrilling might happen.

As far as reboots go, once again resurrecting the Egyptian tomb-dwellers is far from an outrage. This undead crew is part of the cinematic and larger cultural collective unconscious, so there is plenty of room for new generations of storytellers to add their spin. But this particular version of The Mummy is maddening because it never establishes a convincing reason for why it should exist in the first place.

There is a fairly clean setup in which the Ancient Egyptian Princess Ahmanet (Sofia Boutella) makes a deal with Set, the god of Death, but then is defeated and laid to rest thousands of years to become the title villain. Then Tom Cruise swoops in as low-rent Indiana Jones Nick Morton and slips open her tomb, thus unleashing the Pandora’s box of the Dark Universe. So far, so reasonable. But then the story gets bogged down in mythical mumbo-jumbo about daggers and prophecies and whatever. Universal so obviously wants to copy the success of Marvel, but it is not going to do that by following its worst habit of focusing way too much on the MacGuffins. Are there mythological nerds out there who actually care about this minutiae?

All this plot-centric gobbledygook can be forgiven if The Mummy can provide the genre thrills, but the results in that department are mostly meh. Cruise is as game as always, but the action, while competently shot and coherently edited, is not especially memorable. The one mildly saving grace comes from the stabs at horror. Boutuella’s snake-like body and shadowy face provide a canvas for some decently scary images, as her pupils split into two pairs and her corpse decomposes into a dusty pile of bones (reminiscent of the effects of drinking from the wrong grail in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade).

Alas, that is all inconsequential, because the real purpose of The Mummy is prologue to a series of tales in which Dr. Jekyll is the de facto Nick Fury. Russell Crowe plays the good doctor with a motivation apparently split between defeating monsters or assembling them. That dichotomy is potentially interesting and fits the character, but it is a distraction from the actual movie it is in.

At the beginning of this review, I said that I was somehow excited for the rest of the Dark Universe, but mulling everything over, I should probably temper my anticipation, though I still hold out a smidgen hope. The Mummy’s conclusion indicates that the next entries might actually kick back and have more fun by giving extra screen time to characters like Morton’s partner Chris Vail, brought to screeching, howling life by Jake Johnson (New Girl fans will be confused every time he calls Cruise “Nick”). For its lead character, The Mummy could have really used with more off-kilter energy. Cruise can be edgy, but he is too straightforward to match the hysterical, almost Abbott and Costello-esque vibe that Johnson employs to intermittently resuscitate this DOA franchise to life.

The Mummy is Recommended If You Like: Tom Cruise-related schadenfreude, Jake Johnson (though you must be able to endure long stretches without him)

Grade: 2 out of 5 Decompositions

This Is a Movie Review: The Partnership Between ‘Megan Leavey’ and Bomb-Sniffing Rex is One for the Ages, Elevating an Otherwise Ho-Hum Biopic

June 7, 2017

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This review was originally posted on News Cult in June 2017.

Starring: Kate Mara, Edie Falco, Ramón Rodríguez, Common, Tom Felton, Bradley Whitford

Director: Gabriela Cowperthwaite

Running Time: 116 Minutes

Rating: PG-13 for Medium-Grade Explosives Injuries

Release Date: June 9, 2017

There is plenty of research and apocryphal evidence suggesting that dogs experience genuine emotions and form interspecies bonds much the same way that humans do. This always comes with the caveat that we can never exactly know the accuracy of those conclusions, as none of us has ever literally been inside a dog’s head. Most of the research I have encountered has included little, if any, reference to military bomb-sniffing dogs, which is a bit of a lost opportunity as that high pressure occupation surely has a noteworthy effect on the canine psyche. But at least now we can examine the compelling evidence of Marine Corporal Megan Leavey and her dog Rex.

Megan Leavey is a fairly straightforward military story, but it distinguishes itself with its high-class casting and its crew of sniffers. Kate Mara is sufficiently lived-in as the title character, imbuing actual personality into voiceover about how she needs to escape her boring New York town. As her parents, Edie Falco and Bradley Whitford do as much as they can with underwritten, limited screen time. And a fellow soldier (Ramón Rodríguez) strikes up decently sizzling chemistry with Leavey, despite the extent of their attraction consisting of an opposites attract thing where she’s a Yankees fan, and he’s a Mets fan.

But forget about the humans, we’re here to talk about Rex! We can also discuss Megan a little, so long as she bonds sufficiently with Rex. Obviously, she does, given the film’s whole premise. The two save a lot of lives in their bomb detection efforts and in the process grow as close as any human and dog experiencing intense stress together could.

After retiring from the service, Leavey fights through bureaucracy all the way to the U.S. Senate to change Rex’s “unadoptable” classification. It is not hard to get the audience on your side in such a mission, but it can be challenging to avoid schmaltz. This film makes you tear up, but it also earns your respect. Megan enters therapy to deal with her PTSD and her grief over missing Rex, and both ailments are treated with the dignity that they deserve. Their ultimate reunion is affecting not just because it is always adorable to cuddle a dog, but because Mara thoroughly convinces us that Leavey really did learn how to love from Rex.

Megan Leavey is Recommended If You Like: The Hurt Locker, American Sniper, Homeward Bound

Grade: 3 out of 5 Good Boys

 

Billboard Hot Rock Songs – Week of June 17, 2017

June 7, 2017

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 – “Believer”
2. Linkin Park ft. Kiiara – “Heavy”
3. twenty one pilots – “Heathens”
4. Imagine Dragons – “Thunder”
5. Rag’n’Bone Man – “Human”
6. Lord Huron – “The Night We Met”
7. Portugal. The Man – “Feel It Still”
8. The Revivalists – “Wish I Knew You”
9. The Allman Brothers Band – “Midnight Rider”
10. Imagine Dragons – “Whatever It Takes”
11. Paramore – “Hard Times”
12. Soundgarden – “Black Hole Sun”
13. Lana Del Rey ft. The Weeknd – “Lust for Life”
14. Ocean Park Standoff – “Good News”
15. Foo Fighters – “Run”
16. Audioslave – “Like a Stone”
17. Electric Light Orchestra – “Mr. Blue Sky”
18. Fleetwood Mac – “The Chain”
19. Bleachers – “Don’t Take the Money”
20. The Allman Brothers Band – “Ramblin’ Man”
21. The Allman Brothers Band – “Melissa”
22. Papa Roach – “Help”
23. Cold War Kids – “Love is Mystical
24. Sir Sly – “High”
25. The Gregg Allman Band – “I’m No Angel”

Jmunney’s Revision
1. The Chain
2. Like a Stone
3. Human
4. Mr. Blue Sky
5. Ramblin’ Man
6. High
7. Black Hole Sun
8. Run
9. Melissa
10. Feel It Still
11. Midnight Rider
12. Love is Mystical
13. Hard Times
14. I’m No Angel
15. Lust for Life

Billboard Hot 20 – Week of June 17, 2017

June 6, 2017

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. Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee ft. Justin Bieber – “Despacito”
2. Bruno Mars – “That’s What I Like”
3. DJ Khaled ft. Justin Bieber, Quavo, Chance the Rapper, and Lil Wayne – “I’m the One”
4. Kendrick Lamar – “Humble.”
5. Ed Sheeran – “Shape of You”
6. Future – “Mask Off”
7. Zedd and Alessia Cara – “Stay”
8. The Chainsmokers and Coldplay – “Something Just Like This”
9. Lil Uzi Vert – “XO Tour Llif3”
10. Post Malone ft. Quavo – “Congratulations”
11. Julia Michaels – “Issues”
12. James Arthur – “Say You Won’t Let Go”
13. Kygo x Selena Gomez – “It Ain’t Me”
14. Sam Hunt – “Body Like a Back Road”
15. Imagine Dragons – “Believer”
16. KYLE ft. Lil Yachty – “iSpy”
17. Childish Gambino – “Redbone”
18. French Montana ft. Swae Lee – “Unforgettable”
19. Brett Young – “In Case You Didn’t Know”
20. Ayo & Teo – “Rolex”

Jmunney’s Revision
1. Redbone
2. Stay
3. Humble.
4. Unforgettable

This is a Movie Review: Of Course Sam Elliott is ‘The Hero’ We Need Now and Forever

June 6, 2017

jmunney Cinema, Movie Reviews , , , , , , Leave a comment

This review was originally posted on News Cult in June 2017.

Starring: Sam Elliott, Laura Prepon, Nick Offerman, Krysten Ritter, Katharine Ross

Director: Brett Haley

Running Time: 93 Minutes

Rating: R for Never Being Too Old for Drugs and Sex

Release Date: June 9, 2017 (Limited)

If you hear the logline “legendary cowboy actor who gets confused when an awards show clip featuring him goes viral” and do not immediately cast Sam Elliott, well then, I am glad you are not one of the people who made The Hero. The role of Western icon Lee Hayden is as tailor made for the famously drawling, silver-mustachioed Elliott as any role as ever been for anyone. He might not be as confused by modern media or as melancholy as his character is, but I do not know all the details of his personal life, and we all have our moments.

In the midst of Lee’s renewed burst of notoriety, he spends his days smoking weed with his buddy/dealer (Nick Offerman), attempting to reconnect with his estranged daughter (Krysten Ritter), and striking up some sort of an affair with a stand-up comedian a few decades younger than him (Laura Prepon). It is the latter relationship that gets the most narrative weight. May-December romances with big shot men can be a formula for a ton of tired creepiness, but Prepon holds her own in terms of self-assuredness and Elliott plays Lee as ambivalent as any viewer might be. What we see of Prepon’s stand-up is much more questionable.

All that this type of singularly focused character study requires to work are a compelling central performance and at least one resonant idea. We have already established that the former is met (it would be a shock if it weren’t). As for the latter, Lee utters the line, “Movies are other people’s dreams,” and this acts as the driving principle for much of the film. A series of dream sequences feature him at the edge of the ocean, waves lightly breaking in. Nothing much happens, but the mundanity is transcended by the beauty of simply living.

The Hero is Recommended If You Like: Being a Sam Elliott Fanboy

Grade: 3.5 out of 5 Weed Strains

 

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