What Won TV? – January 22-January 28, 2017

January 29, 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.

australian-open-2017-william-sisters

Sunday – The Young Pope
Monday – The Young Pope
Tuesday – Billy on the Street, Billy on the pulse of America
Wednesday – Man Seeking Woman
Thursday – Baskets (but honorable mention kudos to Riverdale for winning me over)
Friday – Crazy Ex-Girlfriend
Saturday – Williams sisters in the Australian Open final in 2017?!

Billboard Hot Rock Songs – Week of February 4, 2017

January 27, 2017

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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.

Original Version
1. twenty one pilots – “Heathens”
2. twenty one pilots – “Ride”
3. X Ambassadors – “Unsteady”
4. Fitz and the Tantrums – “HandClap”
5. Lil Wayne, Wiz Khalifa, & Imagine Dragons with Logic, Ty Dolla $ign ft. X Ambassadors – “Sucker for Pain”
6. Kaleo – “Way Down We Go”
7. The Lumineers – “Ophelia”
8. The xx – “On Hold”
9. Zach Williams – “Chain Breaker”
10. Alex da Kid ft. X Ambassadors, Elle King, & Wiz Khalifa – “Not Easy”
11. The 1975 – “Somebody Else”
12. Green Day – “Still Breathing”
13. twenty one pilots – “Heavydirtysoul”
14. John Mayer – “Love on the Weekend”
15. Kings of Leon – “Waste a Moment”
16. The Lumineers – “Cleopatra”
17. Judah & the Lion – “Take It All Back”
18. Highly Suspect – “My Name is Human”
19. The xx – “Say Something Loving”
20. Rag’n’Bone – “Human”
21. blink-182 – “She’s Out of Her Mind”
22. Shinedown – “How Did You Love”
23. The xx – “I Dare You”
24. The xx – “Dangerous”
25. The xx – “Lips”

Jmunney’s Revision
1. Human
2. My Name is Human
3. Way Down We Go
4. Unsteady
5. Heavydirtysoul
6. Somebody Else
7. Dangerous
8. Lips
9. On Hold
10. Ride
11. I Dare You
12. Say Something Loving
13. Ophelia
14. How Did You Love
15. Heathens
16. Waste a Moment
17. Cleopatra
18. Take It All Back
19. Still Breathing
20. HandClap
21. She’s Out of Her Mind
22. Love on the Weekend
23. Not Easy
24. Sucker for Pain
25. Chain Breaker

Billboard Hot 20 – Week of February 4, 2017

January 26, 2017

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Each week, I check out the Billboard Hot 100, and then I rearrange the top 20 based on my estimation of their quality.

Original Version
1. Migos ft. Lil Uzi Vert – “Bad and Boujee”
2. Ed Sheeran – “Shape of You”
3. Rae Sremmurd ft. Gucci Mane – “Black Beatles”
4. The Chainsmokers ft. Halsey – “Closer”
5. The Weeknd ft. Daft Punk – “Starboy”
6. Machine Gun Kelly x Camila Cabello – “Bad Things”
7. The Chainsmokers – “Paris”
8. Zayn and Taylor Swift – “I Don’t Wanna Live Forever (Fifty Shades Darker)”
9. Maroon 5 ft. Kendrick Lamar – “Don’t Wanna Know”
10. Bruno Mars – “24K Magic”
11. Drake – “Fake Love”
12. Ariana Grande ft. Nicki Minaj – “Side to Side”
13. Alessia Cara – “Scars to Your Beautiful”
14. Aminé – “Caroline”
15. Big Sean – “Bounce Back”
16. DJ Snake ft. Justin Bieber – “Let Me Love You”
17. Rihanna – “Love on the Brain”
18. Zay Hilfigerrr and Zayion McCall – “Juju on That Beat (TZ Anthem)”
19. The Weeknd ft. Daft Punk – “I Feel It Coming”
20. twenty one pilots – “Heathens”

Jmunney’s Revision
1. Scars to Your Beautiful
2. Black Beatles
3. Starboy
4. Side to Side
5. I Feel It Coming
6. Love on the Brain
7. Closer
8. Shape of You
9. 24K Magic
10. Paris
11. Heathens
12. Bad and Boujee
13. Bounce Back
14. I Don’t Wanna Live Forever (Fifty Shades Darker)
15. Bad Things
16. Let Me Love You
17. Caroline
18. Fake Love
19. Don’t Wanna Know
20. Juju on That Beat (TZ Anthem)

This Is a Movie Review: A Dog’s Purpose

January 26, 2017

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A DOG'S PURPOSE

This review was originally published on News Cult in January 2017.

Starring: Josh Gad, K.J. Apa, Britt Robertson, John Ortiz, Dennis Quaid, Peggy Lipton

Director: Lasse Hallström

Running Time: 100 Minutes

Rating: PG for a Few Moments That Make a Dog Whimper

Release Date: January 27, 2017

A Dog’s Purpose asks, “What is a dog’s purpose?” Before answering this question, it is important to note that A Dog’s Purpose presupposes that reincarnation (or at least canine reincarnation) is a fact of existence. If you have been a dog parent multiple times and ever believed that one of your more recent pups was somehow the same as one of your older ones, then this film has your back. This is the third in director Lasse Hallström’s dog trilogy (following 1985’s My Life as a Dog and 2009’s Hachi: A Dog’s Tale), so I feel confident in determining that he imbued that belief into every single frame.

The film seeks its meaning by tracking the lives of the dog (voiced by Josh Gad in each iteration) over approximately 50 years. The lifetimes that are traversed include an all-American football-slinging, farming sixties family; a seventies detective buddy story; a Jheri curled-style romance in the eighties and nineties; and a reunion narrative in the 2000’s, along with a few danger-filled detours along the way. The canine perspective remains endearing, with much humor mined from the dog growing into its new bodies, often switching genders (the breeds range from Red Retriever to German Shepherd, down to Corgi, concluding as a St. Bernard-Australian Shepherd mix).

But the quality of the film is only as strong as the quality of each of the human stories. The most prominent is also the most cliché-ridden. Ethan (K.J. Apa) is a wholesome high school quarterback with everything going his way until an accident derails his guarantee of an athletic scholarship. Rectify’s Luke Kirby does what he can in the mandatory drunk dad role, and Britt Robertson is a minor delight as Ethan’s best gal, but this whole segment is a slog due to painfully unimaginative writing.

Much more fun, and offbeat, are the two middle segments. John Ortiz is a natural as a ’70s detective in the K-9 unit. His pursuit of a divorced dad who has kidnapped his daughter is a weirdly engrossing mix of family friendly and urban grit. That is followed by a portion that is a bit like The Cosby Show, except with a lot more perms and a-ha.

A Dog’s Purpose is never so cloying that it ought to be resented. Yet its storytelling is all too often so surface-level that it does not matter how lovable dogs are. But it concludes nicely when it returns back to the farm, redeeming a story that had little going for it in the first place. Let’s put it this way: Dennis Quaid has a face and physique that were made for carrying bales of hay, and Peggy Lipton makes the case that all cinematic love stories should henceforth star 70-year-olds.

A Dog’s Purpose is Recommended If You Like: Dogs More Than You Like Good Storytelling, Pretending That Your Dog’s Internal Voice is That of Olaf from Frozen

Grade: 2.5 out of 5 Games of Fetch

This Is a Movie Review: The Salesman

January 25, 2017

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the_salesman_2017_movie

This review was originally published on News Cult in January 2017.

Starring: Shahab Hosseini, Taraneh Alidoosti

Director: Asghar Farhadi

Running Time: 125 Minutes

Rating: PG-13 for Scars Both Physical and Emotional

Release Date: January 27, 2017 (Limited)

The Iranian film The Salesman (an Oscar nominee this year for Foreign Language Film) starts off as a sort of slice-of-life tale that is a bit of a bummer. Then its climax turns it into a major bummer – a life-altering journey through hell. Emad (Shahab Hosseini) and Rana (Taraneh Alidoosti) are a young couple whose move to a new house coincides with their work on a production of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman. It turns out that the former occupant of their new place may have been a prostitute, which they discover when a former client shows up and leaves Rana bruised and bloodied.

Following the attack, The Salesman is a study in the day-to-day of young artistic professionals in Iran (it does not feel too different than it often does in America or Europe), but with the dark cloud of post-traumatic stress hanging over. Rana is hardly able to bear any time alone, and the dramatic weight of the play is too much for her to get through. (I am uncertain why Death of a Salesman was chosen as the production. Any thematic connection to Emad and Rana’s story is rather oblique – not a criticism, just an observation.) The acting is pleasantly naturalistic, and there is a cute child performance, but it is an unpleasant watch that just glides along uneasily thanks to an otherwise peaceful existence being rocked by violence.

For the last act, The Salesman really leans into that unease, making the experience even more painful but also more rewarding. Emad has declined to go to the police, instead taking the investigation into his own hands. When the culprit turns out to be someone completely unexpected, a whole Pandora’s Box of moral conundrums spills open. There is no happy way for this to end, and writer/director Asghar Farhadi (A Separation, The Past) does not shy away from any of the devastating implications. The feeling you get after watching The Salesman is the definition of “shook.”

The Salesman is Recommended If You Like: Prisoners

Grade: 4 out of 5 Pleas for Forgiveness

Son of Zorn 1.11 Review: “The Battle of Self-Acceptance”

January 23, 2017

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SON OF ZORN: Zorn (voiced by Jason Sudeikis) and Tim Meadows in the "The Battle of Self-Acceptance" episode of SON OF ZORN airing Sunday, Jan. 22 (8:30-9:00 PM ET/PT) on FOX. ©2016 Fox Broadcasting Co. Cr: FOX

“By the power of Fullerton University, Online Continuing Adult Education Division, Department of Psychology and Music, you shall not pass!” http://www.bubbleblabber.com/review-son-of-zorn-the-battle-of-self-acceptance/

What Won TV? – January 15-January 21, 2017

January 23, 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.

jude-law-the-young-pope-hbo

Sunday – The Young Pope, Pope-in’ it up
Monday – The Young Pope, still young and still a pope
Tuesday – Billy on the Street
Wednesday – It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia (Honorable Mention: The Methelda Show)
Thursday – The Fiendishly Good Place
Friday – Crazy Ex-Girlfriend
Saturday – SNL, mainly for Aziz’s monologue

SNL Review January 21, 2017: Aziz Ansari/Big Sean

January 22, 2017

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SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE -- "Aziz Ansari" Episode 1716 -- Pictured: Aziz Ansari as Dave during the "Five Stars" sketch on January 21st, 2017 -- (Photo by: Caroline De Quesada/NBC)

SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE — “Aziz Ansari” Episode 1716 — Pictured: Aziz Ansari as Dave during the “Five Stars” sketch on January 21st, 2017 — (Photo by: Caroline De Quesada/NBC)

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

Love It

Peppy Ronnie’s Pizza Party – This scene about a late-night arrest at a Chuck E. Cheese-style pizzeria is similar to last season’s “Space Pants,” insofar as a kitschy performance threatens to derail a criminal situation. This does not quite reach the stellar heights of Jonathan Comets, as the Peppy Ronnie’s crew is a lower-stakes distraction. But animatronic bands are hilarious enough on their own, and reactions from Kenan Thompson provide just the right sort of flavoring.

Aziz Ansari is a seasoned stand-up, which pretty much always guarantees a solid Monologue; I appreciate his advocacy for news reports of brown people eating nachos and changing scary-sounding Islam music to something Benny Hill-style… Bobby Moynihan’s Ganz, of Broderick & Ganz, is a kidney-less personal injury lawyer whose incompetence knows no bounds or predictability…The police Interrogation of a man who only kind of liked La La Land wins special recognition for clever comic exaggeration…Michael and Colin are on fire, post-Inauguration…Leslie Jones is more on topic than usual (despite Che’s hilarious “that was about Hidden Figures?” comment) as she examines where else African-American accomplishments are hidden and points out that the Predator is from space…Five Stars is an understated take on five-star culture, perhaps a response to a hysterical (though pointed) Black Mirror episode.

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Billboard Hot Rock Songs – Week of January 28, 2017

January 21, 2017

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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.

Original Version
1. twenty one pilots – “Heathens”
2. twenty one pilots – “Ride”
3. X Ambassadors – “Unsteady”
4. Fitz and the Tantrums – “HandClap”
5. Lil Wayne, Wiz Khalifa, & Imagine Dragons with Logic, Ty Dolla $ign ft. X Ambassadors – “Sucker for Pain”
6. Kaleo – “Way Down We Go”
7. The Lumineers – “Ophelia”
8. The 1975 – “Somebody Else”
9. Zach Williams – “Chain Breaker”
10. John Mayer – “Love on the Weekend”
11. Kings of Leon – “Waste a Moment”
12. Green Day – “Still Breathing”
13. The Lumineers – “Cleopatra”
14. Judah & the Lion – “Take It All Back”
15. twenty one pilots – “Heavydirtysoul”
16. Highly Suspect – “My Name is Human”
17. Rag’n’Bone – “Human”
18. blink-182 – “She’s Out of Her Mind”
19. The xx – “Say Something Loving”
20. The xx – “On Hold”
21. Bishop Briggs – “Wild Horses”
22. Alex da Kid ft. X Ambassadors, Elle King, & Wiz Khalifa – “Not Easy”
23. NEEDTOBREATHE – “Testify”
24. The Lumineers – “Sleep on the Floor”
25. Five Finger Death Punch – “I Apologize”

Jmunney’s Revision
1. Human
2. My Name is Human
3. Way Down We Go
4. Unsteady
5. Heavydirtysoul
6. Wild Horses
7. Somebody Else
8. On Hold
9. Ride
10. Say Something Loving
11. Ophelia
12. Heathens
13. Waste a Moment
14. Cleopatra
15. Take It All Back
16. I Apologize
17. Still Breathing
18. HandClap
19. Sleep on the Floor
20. She’s Out of Her Mind
21. Love on the Weekend
22. Not Easy
23. Sucker for Pain
24. Testify
25. Chain Breaker

Billboard Hot 20 – Week of January 28, 2017

January 21, 2017

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Each week, I check out the Billboard Hot 100, and then I rearrange the top 20 based on my estimation of their quality.

Original Version
1. Ed Sheeran – “Shape of You”
2. Migos ft. Lil Uzi Vert – “Bad and Boujee”
3. Rae Sremmurd ft. Gucci Mane – “Black Beatles”
4. The Weeknd ft. Daft Punk – “Starboy”
5. The Chainsmokers ft. Halsey – “Closer”
6. Ed Sheeran – “Castle on the Hill”
7. Bruno Mars – “24K Magic”
8. Maroon 5 ft. Kendrick Lamar – “Don’t Wanna Know”
9. Ariana Grande ft. Nicki Minaj – “Side to Side”
10. Machine Gun Kelly x Camila Cabello – “Bad Things”
11. Drake – “Fake Love”
12. Zayn and Taylor Swift – “I Don’t Wanna Live Forever (Fifty Shades Darker)”
13. Alessia Cara – “Scars to Your Beautiful”
14. DJ Snake ft. Justin Bieber – “Let Me Love You”
15. Aminé – “Caroline”
16. Big Sean – “Bounce Back”
17. Zay Hilfigerrr and Zayion McCall – “Juju on That Beat (TZ Anthem)”
18. twenty one pilots – “Heathens”
19. Rihanna – “Love on the Brain”
20. D.R.A.M. ft. Lil Yachty – “Broccoli”

Jmunney’s Revision
1. Scars to Your Beautiful
2. Black Beatles
3. Starboy
4. Side to Side
5. Broccoli
6. Love on the Brain
7. Closer
8. Shape of You
9. 24K Magic
10. Heathens
11. Bad and Boujee
12. Bounce Back
13. I Don’t Wanna Live Forever (Fifty Shades Darker)
14. Bad Things
15. Let Me Love You
16. Caroline
17. Castle on the Hill
18. Fake Love
19. Don’t Wanna Know
20. Juju on That Beat (TZ Anthem)

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