It really felt like James Corden didn’t know what was going to happen.
Jeff "Jmunney" Malone's Self-Styled "Expert" Thoughts on Movies, TV, Music, and the Rest of Pop Culture
August 2, 2016
Television, Watch And/Or Listen to This Reggie Watts, Reggie's Hobbies, The Late Late Show with James Corden Leave a comment
It really felt like James Corden didn’t know what was going to happen.
August 2, 2016
Billboard Charts, Billboard Hot Rock Songs, Music Billboard, Billboard Hot Rock Songs, Phantogram, You Don't Get Me High Anymore Leave a comment
Each week, I check out the Billboard Hot Rock Songs chart, and then I rearrange that top 25 based on my estimation of their quality.
Original Version
1. twenty one pilots – “Ride”
2. twenty one pilots – “Heathens”
3. twenty one pilots – “Stressed Out”
4. James Bay – “Let It Go”
5. Coldplay – “Hymn for the Weekend”
6. X Ambassadors – “Unsteady”
7. Lil Wayne, Wiz Khalifa, & Imagine Dragons with Logic, Ty Dolla $ign, & X Ambassadors – “Sucker for Pain”
8. Disturbed – “The Sound of Silence”
9. Ben Rector – “Brand New”
10. The Lumineers – “Ophelia”
11. Red Hot Chili Peppers – “Dark Necessities”
12. blink-182 – “Bored to Death”
13. Fitz and the Tantrums – “HandClap”
14. Kaleo – “Way Down We Go”
15. Bastille – “Good Grief”
16. Bishop Briggs – “River”
17. AURORA – “I Went Too Far”
18. The 1975 – “The Sound”
19. Cage the Elephant – “Trouble”
20. Korn – “Rotting in Vain”
21. Skillet – “Feel Invincible”
22. Beck – “Wow”
23. Panic! at the Disco – “Don’t Threaten Me with a Good Time”
24. Phantogram – “You Don’t Get Me High Anymore”
25. NEEDTOBREATHE – “Happiness”
Jmunney’s Revision
1. You Don’t Get Me High Anymore
2. River
3. Wow
4. Way Down We Go
5. The Sound
6. Unsteady
7. Dark Necessities
8. Ride
8. Trouble
9. Don’t Threaten Me With a Good Time
11. Good Grief
12. Ophelia
13. Stressed Out
14. Hymn for the Weekend
15. Heathens
16. I Went Too Far
17. Feel Invincible
18. Sucker for Pain
19. The Sound of Silence
20. Happiness
21. HandClap
22. Rotting in Vain
23. Let It Go
24. Brand New
25. Bored to Death
August 2, 2016
Billboard Charts, Billboard Hot 100, Music Billboard, Billboard Hot 100, Cheap Thrills, Sia 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.
Original Version
1. Sia ft. Sean Paul – “Cheap Thrills”
2. Major Lazer ft. Justin Bieber and MØ – “Cold Water”
3. Drake ft. WizKid and Kyla – “One Dance”
4. Calvin Harris ft. Rihanna – “This Is What You Came For”
5. Justin Timberlake – “Can’t Stop the Feeling!”
6. The Chainsmokers ft. Daya – “Don’t Let Me Down”
7. twenty one pilots – “Ride”
8. Rihanna – “Needed Me”
9. Adele – “Send My Love (to Your New Lover)”
10. Desiigner – “Panda”
11. Kent Jones – “Don’t Mind”
12. P!nk – “Just Like Fire”
13. Meghan Trainor – “Me Too”
14. DJ Khaled ft. Drake – “For Free”
15. twenty one pilots – “Heathens”
16. Shawn Mendes – “Treat You Better”
17. Fifth Harmony ft. Ty Dolla $ign – “Work From Home”
18. Drake – “Controlla”
19. Florida Georgia Line – “H.O.L.Y.”
20. Drake ft. Rihanna – “Too Good”
Jmunney’s Revision
1. Cheap Thrills
2. Work From Home
3. Needed Me
4. Ride
5. Cold Water
6. Send My Love (to Your New Lover)
7. Don’t Let Me Down
8. Can’t Stop the Feeling!
9. Too Good
10. One Dance
11. This Is What You Came For
12. Me Too
13. Heathens
14. Panda
15. For Free
16. Controlla
17. Treat You Better
18. Just Like Fire
19. H.O.L.Y.
20. Don’t Mind
July 31, 2016
Television, What Won TV? Bojack Horseman, Check It Out! with Dr. Steve Brule, Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, Hollywood Game Night, Last Week Tonight, Mr. Robot, Not Safe with Nikki Glaser Leave a comment
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 – Last Week Tonight with John Oliver
Monday – Full Frontal with Samantha Bee
Tuesday – Not Safe with Nikki Glaser (or REALLY Not Safe with Eric André, as it were)
Wednesday – Mr. Robot
Thursday – The season finale of Hollywood Game Night airing months after the rest of the season
Friday – Check It Out! with Dr. Steve Brule (Is this really the end of Dr. Steve’s cherry-red humdinger of a run?)
Saturday – I didn’t really watch anything that actually aired on Saturday, but I did finish Season 3 of BoJack Horseman.
July 26, 2016
Billboard Charts, Billboard Hot Rock Songs, Music Billboard, Billboard Hot Rock Songs, Bishop Briggs, River Leave a comment
Each week, I check out the Billboard Hot Rock Songs chart, and then I rearrange that top 25 based on my estimation of their quality.
Original Version
1. twenty one pilots – “Ride”
2. twenty one pilots – “Heathens”
3. twenty one pilots – “Stressed Out”
4. James Bay – “Let It Go”
5. Coldplay – “Hymn for the Weekend”
6. X Ambassadors – “Unsteady”
7. Disturbed – “The Sound of Silence”
8. Lil Wayne, Wiz Khalifa, & Imagine Dragons with Logic, Ty Dolla $ign, & X Ambassadors – “Sucker for Pain”
9. Ben Rector – “Brand New”
10. The Lumineers – “Ophelia”
11. blink-182 – “Bored to Death”
12. Red Hot Chili Peppers – “Dark Necessities”
13. Fitz and the Tantrums – “HandClap”
14. The Strumbellas – “Spirits”
15. Kaleo – “Way Down We Go”
16. Bishop Briggs – “River”
17. Bastille – “Good Grief”
18. The 1975 – “The Sound”
19. Good Charlotte – “Life Can’t Get Much Better”
20. Cage the Elephant – “Trouble”
21. Beck – “Wow”
22. Panic! at the Disco – “Don’t Threaten Me with a Good Time”
23. NEEDTOBREATHE – “Happiness”
24. Skillet – “Feel Invincible”
25. Goo Goo Dolls – “So Alive”
Jmunney’s Revision
1. River
2. Way Down We Go
3. Wow
4. The Sound
5. Unsteady
6. Dark Necessities
7. Ride
8. Trouble
9. Don’t Threaten Me With a Good Time
10. Ophelia
11. Good Grief
12. Stressed Out
13. Heathens
14. Feel Invincible
15. Sucker for Pain
16. So Alive
17. Happiness
18. The Sound of Silence
19. Hymn for the Weekend
20. Spirits
21. HandClap
22. Let It Go
23. Life Can’t Get Much Better
24. Brand New
25. Bored to Death
July 26, 2016
Billboard Charts, Billboard Hot 100, Music Billboard, Billboard Hot 100, Cheap Thrills, Sia 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.
Original Version
1. Sia ft. Sean Paul – “Cheap Thrills”
2. Drake ft. WizKid and Kyla – “One Dance”
3. Calvin Harris ft. Rihanna – “This Is What You Came For”
4. Justin Timberlake – “Can’t Stop the Feeling!”
5. The Chainsmokers ft. Daya – “Don’t Let Me Down”
6. twenty one pilots – “Ride”
7. Rihanna – “Needed Me”
8. Kent Jones – “Don’t Mind”
9. Desiigner – “Panda”
10. Adele – “Send My Love (to Your New Lover)”
11. Katy Perry – “Rise”
12. P!nk – “Just Like Fire”
13. Fifth Harmony ft. Ty Dolla $ign – “Work From Home”
14. Meghan Trainor – “Me Too”
15. Florida Georgia Line – “H.O.L.Y.”
16. Mike Posner – “I Took a Pill in Ibiza”
17. Britney Spears ft. G-Eazy – “Make Me”
18. Drake – “Controlla”
19. DJ Khaled ft. Drake – “For Free”
20. Drake ft. Rihanna – “Too Good”
Jmunney’s Revision
1. Cheap Thrills
2. Work From Home
3. I Took a Pill in Ibiza
4. Needed Me
5. Ride
6. Send My Love (to Your New Lover)
7. Don’t Let Me Down
8. Rise
9. One Dance
10. Too Good
11. Me Too
12. Can’t Stop the Feeling!
13. Panda
14. This Is What You Came For
15. Make Me
16. For Free
17. Controlla
18. Just Like Fire
19. Don’t Mind
20. H.O.L.Y.
July 24, 2016
Television, What Won TV? Bojack Horseman, Conan, Difficult People, Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, Jeopardy!, Leslie Jones, Match Game, Mr. Robot Leave a comment
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 – Match Game, with Leslie Jones and Leah Remini getting righteously angry and Josh Charles ruining a sweet Irish Catholic girl’s perfect round
Monday – Full Frontal with Samantha Bee
Tuesday – Difficult People [7/26/16 EDIT: I initially picked Jeopardy! because I forgot to account for Hulu.]
Wednesday – Mr. Robot
Thursday – Jeopardy!
Friday – BoJack Horseman Season 3, especially the silent swimming
Saturday – CONAN on a Saturday?! Suicide Squad in tow, badass Viola Davis
July 24, 2016
Cinema, Movie Reviews Star Trek, Star Trek: Beyond Leave a comment

Star Trek: Beyond finds the Enterprise attacked by a relentless alien swarm, led by the hellbent commander Krall (played by an actor who has been in everything lately). It is not initially clear what Krall’s purpose is, which makes Beyond a little hard to get into. But that mystery is purposeful, and once all is revealed, the whole film retroactively clicks into gear. Before it ends up at that point, this entry establishes itself as the nerdiest of the rebooted cinematic Star Trek series yet. Main characters new to the series are caked under mounds of makeup and saddled with semi-permeable alien accents. First time Trek director Justin Lin’s approach is a departure from the accessible ethos established by J.J. Abrams, but not a complete one. Beyond is more episodic as opposed to being a grand singular statement, which makes sense for a series this old. There is a hard sci-fi style here that qualifies as throwback because most major geeky film franchises nowadays eschew it completely. The Enterprise’s mission is “to boldly go where no man has gone before” – in 2016, going back to where Star Trek has already been is also pretty bold.
I give Star Trek: Beyond 17 Alien Hairstyles out of 21 Beamed-Up Action Sequences.
July 24, 2016
Movie Reviews, Television Lights Out 1 Comment

If you see Lights Out, do not be surprised if it is the most energetic movie crowd you have ever been a part of. The screams will be relentless, and the whoops will be boisterous. Generally, I do not let the crowd reaction influence my review too significantly, but the Lights Out crew is particularly instructive. This film is so in tune with the rhythm of horror reactions, and it manipulates them so thoroughly right down to the micro level. Jeers over characters making stupid decisions are immediately followed by cheers for their ingenious resourcefulness. Hardened horror vets often ask, “Why don’t characters just do [supposedly easy solution]?” Lights Out answers, “Let’s see what happens when they do. But for the record, it’s not easy, and there’s plenty more movie left to go.”
The premise – a villain that can only attack in the darkness – is a gracefully simple setup, though it does not necessarily portend innovative execution. At first glance, Lights Out looks like it is going to be a fairly straightforward genre exercise, just with above average spookiness and performances. But it ends up being filled with so many unusual, nearly confounding, decisions. It is like this from the get-go. Cinematic supernatural entities tend to reveal themselves gradually, but the presence of Diana – the darkness dweller – is immediately apparent. Arcs of characters coming to accept the presence of evil are compressed to one scene, if they are there at all.
Ultimately, Lights Out succeeds by combining the satisfaction of an understandable plot with the disturbing nature of a world in which everything feels just a little bit incomprehensible. There are several awkward line readings, and it is hard to tell how intentional they are, but regardless, the overall effect is unsettling. Furthermore, the twists are intensely surprising, but what truly sets this movie apart is what follows those twists: sudden, frankly manic shifts in emotion. In a way, this is a story of mental illness caused by ghosts instead of chemical imbalances. It only makes sense, then, that the ultimate explanation of Diana is prosaic but also supernatural, or corporeal but somehow also spectral. And so, Lights Out is a simple fright flick, but also a secret game-changer.
I give Lights Out 99 Surprises Out of 10 Smart Decisions That Seem Like Dumb Decisions.
July 24, 2016
Television, The Eric André Show, Watch And/Or Listen to This Eric Andre, Republican National Convention, RNC, The Eric Andre Show 1 Comment
“Black lives bladder.”
The Eric Andre Show returns August 5!