Jmunney's Blog

VH1 Top 20 Countdown – 5/25/13

May 25, 2013

jmunney Music, Television, VH1 Top 20 Countdown Leave a comment

You gotta love Demi.

Original Version
1. Demi Lovato – “Heart Attack”
2. Ed Sheeran – “Lego House”
3. Emeli Sandé – “Next to Me”
4. P!nk ft. Nate Ruess – “Just Give Me a Reason”
5. Justin Timberlake – “Mirrors”
6. Macklemore and Ryan Lewis ft. Ray Dalton – “Can’t Hold Us”
7. Phillip Phillips – “Gone Gone Gone”
8. Olly Murs ft. Flo Rida – “Troublemaker”
9. Rihanna ft. Mikky Ekko – “Stay”
10. Fall Out Boy – “My Songs Know What You Did in the Dark (Light Em Up)”
11. Icona Pop ft. Charli XCX – “I Love It”
12. Pitbull ft. Christina Aguilera – “Feel This Moment”
13. Jason Derulo – “The Other Side”
14. Goo Goo Dolls – “Rebel Beat”
15. Imagine Dragons – “Radioactive”
16. Mariah Carey ft. Miguel – “#Beautiful”
17. Taylor Swift – “22”
18. Bruno Mars – “When I Was Your Man”
19. New Kids on the Block – “Remix (I Like The)”
20. Jessie Ware – “Wildest Moments”

Jmunney’s Revision
1. Radioactive
2. I Love It
3. Mirrors
4. Stay
5. Wildest Moments
6. Troublemaker
7. Heart Attack
8. #Beautiful
9. Can’t Hold Us
10. My Songs Know What You Did in the Dark (Light Em Up)
11. Next to Me
12. Just Give Me a Reason
13. When I Was Your Man
14. Feel This Moment
15. Gone Gone Gone
16. Remix (I Like The)
17. Lego House
18. Rebel Beat
19. The Other Side
20. 22

Best Episode of the Season: The League Season 4

May 25, 2013

jmunney Best Episodes of the 2012-2013 Season, Best Episodes of the Season, Television, The League Leave a comment

Season Analysis: Having never watched The League before this season, but having been familiar with Nick Kroll, Paul Scheer, and Mark Duplass, it was surprising to discover that Jon Lajoie is the best member of this cast. The other revelation of this season was that Brooklyn Decker is a talented – and scary – comedic actress.

“The Anchor Baby”
To further my argument that Jon Lajoie is the best member of the cast of The League despite being the smallest name, I present as evidence “The Anchor Baby,” in which Taco moves into a dead psychologist’s apartment and keeps his practice running. Taco is such a brilliant character because he fits the archetype of the wise fool. Nobody else would think to take over a dead doctor’s practice, because its sounds like a horrible idea, but when Taco does it … it still proves to be a horrible idea, but at least he got everyone involved and a good time was had by all. Besides, the pinnacle of success comes after many failures, and if one wants to succeed, one cannot be afraid of that failure, and Taco represents that perspective perfectly.

Best Episode of the Season: It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia Season 8

May 25, 2013

jmunney Best Episodes of the 2012-2013 Season, Best Episodes of the Season, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Television Leave a comment

Season Analysis: I had heard that Season 8 of Sunny was heavy on callbacks to previous seasons, which I wouldn’t really know, because I didn’t watch the show back then. And I’m not sure what the point of all that would have been anyway. Anyway, I don’t know if I’d go out of my way to recommend this show at this point, but it’s definitely still enjoyable and may have even hit a series high point this year.

“The Gang Gets Analyzed”
The Always Sunny gang is obviously the gift the keeps on giving for armchair psychologists, and “The Gang Gets Analyzed” is a pinnacle of the series for acknowledging as much. Like my pick for the best of the previous season (“Chardee MacDennis”), Season 8’s tops is also a bottle episode. It is fun to watch people from the outside world deal with the insanity from Paddy’s Pub, but when you stick them in a room just the five of them – or in this case, one other person – that is when the crazy sparks really start to fly. Of course the reason for a grand psychoanalysis of the gang actually happening would not be because these people actually realize they need help and the real reason would be something trivial like forcing Dee’s therapist to decide whose job it is to do the dishes. Each session serves as a showcase for each of the principal actors (helped along by the vastly underrated Kerri Kenney Silver as the therapist) – Rob McElhenney strikes at the bizarre with Mac’s truly unique body issues, Charlie Day displays legitimate psychological growth in a perfectly Charlie fashion, Glenn Howerton shows that he is the master at playing your friendly everyday psychopath, and Kaitlin Olson proudly presents her acting (that is, lying) skills. But it is Danny DeVito who gives the most masterful performance, as Frank goes from spitting pistachios to show his disdain for therapy to then, essentially unprompted, spilling his guts about his first love – a girl “who thought she was a spaceman with a plastic bag for a helmet.” This episode serves as the ultimate statement on the truly wild psyches of these individuals, not because it does anything to fix their issues, but because it clarifies how doing so would be essentially impossible given the fact that how they live their lives is so far beyond any normal human interaction.

Fuse Top 20 Countdown – 5/21/13

May 22, 2013

jmunney Fuse Top 20 Countdown, Music, Television Leave a comment

Well, well, well, Miguel.

Original Version
1. P!nk ft. Nate Ruess – “Just Give Me a Reason”
2. Macklemore and Ryan Lewis ft. Ray Dalton – “Can’t Hold Us”
3. Justin Timberlake – “Mirrors”
4. Mariah Carey ft. Miguel – “#Beautiful”
5. Selena Gomez – “Come & Get It”
6. Rihanna ft. Mikky Ekko – “Stay”
7. Imagine Dragons – “Radioactive”
8. Bruno Mars – “When I Was Your Man”
9. Icona Pop ft. Charli XCX – “I Love It”
10. Fall Out Boy – “My Songs Know What You Did in the Dark (Light Em Up)”
11. Ariana Grande ft. Mac Miller – “The Way”
12. Emeli Sandé – “Next to Me”
13. Robin Thicke ft. T.I. and Pharrell – “Blurred Lines”
14. will.i.am ft. Justin Bieber – “#thatPOWER”
15. Demi Lovato – “Heart Attack”
16. Taylor Swift – “22”
17. Pitbull ft. Christina Aguilera – “Feel This Moment”
18. Drake – “Started From the Bottom”
19. J. Cole ft. Miguel – “Power Trip”
20. Jason Derulo – “The Other Side”

Jmunney’s Revision
1. Radioactive
2. I Love It
3. Come & Get It
4. Mirrors
5. Stay
6. Blurred Lines
7. Heart Attack
8. Can’t Hold Us
9. My Songs Know What You Did in the Dark (Light Em Up)
10. Next to Me
11. #Beautiful
12. Just Give Me a Reason
13. Started From the Bottom
14. When I Was Your Man
15. Power Trip
16. Feel This Moment
17. #thatPOWER
18. The Other Side
19. The Way
20. 22

Best Episode of the Season: Gossip Girl Season 6

May 21, 2013

jmunney Best Episodes of the 2012-2013 Season, Best Episodes of the Season, Gossip Girl, Television Leave a comment

Season Analysis: I have never watched any other show that declined in quality as dramatically as Gossip Girl did in its final season.

“New York, I Love You XOXO”
Much of the series finale of Gossip Girl chose to ignore what had happened in Seasons 3-6, and it was one of those rare cases in which that was actually the right decision. A lot of Seasons 3-5 was awful, as was all of Season 6 prior to the finale. To enjoy the finale required forgetting all those low points, which I was perfectly willing to do. The revelation of Dan as Gossip Girl made a good deal of sense, despite probably making hardly any sense if held up to scrutiny. But it was a much more intriguing, and entertaining, decision than something along the lines of “Gossip Girl was nobody” or “Gossip Girl was all of us.” At least Dan’s Great Gatsby-esque explanation of how Gossip Girl allowed him to insinuate himself into the Upper East Side was thematically consistent with the series as a whole. Much of the finale made little to no sense – the final romantic pairings, for one thing, felt far from earned – but it least it all had an air of ridiculousness to it. And the reactions of various New Yorkers to the Gossip Girl revelation were gold, particularly due to Michael Bloomberg’s mere presence and Kristen Bell’s mere on-camera presence.

Jmunney’s Saturday Night Live Season 38 Host and Musical Guest Predictions Scorecard

May 20, 2013

jmunney Saturday Night Live, Television Leave a comment

My predictive powers weren’t that strong this season, as I only hit the mark on 8 out 21 hosts and 8 out of 21 musical guests (and that’s including the 3 shows whose lineups were announced before I finalized my predictions). At least I had a strong performance in May (4 out 6), not bad considering the end of the season is typically much harder to figure.

Hosts I Correctly Predicted
Seth MacFarlane
Joseph Gordon-Levitt
Daniel Craig
Anne Hathaway
Jennifer Lawrence
Justin Bieber
Zach Galifianakis
Ben Affleck
MG’s I Correctly Predicted
Frank Ocean
Mumford & Sons
Muse
fun.
Rihanna
Justin Bieber
Of Monsters and Men
Kanye West

Hosts I Missed
Christina Applegate
Bruno Mars
Louis C.K.
Jeremy Renner
Jamie Foxx
Martin Short
Adam Levine
Christoph Waltz
Kevin Hart
Justin Timberlake
Melissa McCarthy
Vince Vaughn
Kristen Wiig
MG’s I Missed
Passion Pit
Bruno Mars
Maroon 5
Ne-Yo
Paul McCarthy
The Lumineers
Kendrick Lamar
Alabama Shakes
Macklemore and Ryan Lewis
Justin Timberlake
Phoenix
Miguel
Vampire Weekend

Best Episode of the Season: Up All Night Season 2

May 20, 2013

jmunney Best Episodes of the 2012-2013 Season, Best Episodes of the Season, Television, Up All Night Leave a comment

Season Analysis: Before the behind-the-scenes mess that was Up All Night’s hiatus that never ended, the show itself was already a mess during Season 2. Doing away with “The Ava Show” removed all reasons for the existence of Maya Rudolph’s character and led to the departure of a perfectly decent supporting cast member in Jennifer Hall. And it’s not like Will Arnett and Christina Applegate’s storylines were anything special, either.

“Jerry Duty”
This episode was the rare (perhaps only) Season 2 episode of Up All Night that wasn’t about nothing. Not about nothing in the good, Seinfeld sense, but in the worst possible sense of that description. As in, nothing ever happened on this show in its ultimate season. “Jerry Duty” was about Reagan never being able to see her brother as anything besides her screw-up baby brother and Chris and his old college roommate Jerry similarly not being able to see beyond their set images of each other. That is an issue of human nature worth exploring (a comment I would not be able to make in regards to much else of Season 2). It also helped that Jerry was played by guest star Rob Huebel, whose skill at playing actual human beings is underestimated, probably due to his being mostly associated with caricature roles such as in Childrens Hospital and Burning Love.

SNL Season Finale Video Recap May 18, 2013: Ben Affleck/Kanye West

May 20, 2013

jmunney Saturday Night Live, SNL Weekly Recaps, Television Leave a comment

SNL Season Finale Recap May 18, 2013: Ben Affleck/Kanye West

May 19, 2013

jmunney Saturday Night Live, SNL Weekly Recaps, Television Ben Affleck, Kanye West, Saturday Night Live, Saturday Night Live Season 38, SNL, SNL Season 38, Stefon Leave a comment

Cold Opening – Politics Nation
As far as I know, Al Sharpton has had only one recent major verbal gaffe, but that one gaffe has been enough to inspire a steady stream of malapropisms from Kenan Thompson’s Al Sharpton. That graph (or “grapha”) was ridiculous, but it was also kind of meaningful. Also, that Tea Party fellow deserved to be called out that way – the Founding Fathers don’t need people to dress up like them to honor them. B

Ben Affleck’s Monologue
The five-timers bit was essentially clever, but rather disappointing (for Ben’s sake). Ben and Jen really seem to love each other. B-

HBO First Look: Bengo F#*@ Yourself
“Pahk the cah in Hahvahd Yahd” – this is all so silly. B

VH1 Top 20 Countdown – 5/18/13

May 19, 2013

jmunney Music, Television, VH1 Top 20 Countdown Leave a comment

New Kids on the Block had a bunch of hits.

Original Version
1. Emeli Sandé – “Next to Me”
2. P!nk ft. Nate Ruess – “Just Give Me a Reason”
3. Ed Sheeran – “Lego House”
4. Demi Lovato – “Heart Attack”
5. Olly Murs ft. Flo Rida – “Troublemaker”
6. Rihanna ft. Mikky Ekko – “Stay”
7. Pitbull ft. Christina Aguilera – “Feel This Moment”
8. Justin Timberlake – “Mirrors”
9. Phillip Phillips – “Gone Gone Gone”
10. Macklemore and Ryan Lewis ft. Ray Dalton – “Can’t Hold Us”
11. Fall Out Boy – “My Songs Know What You Did in the Dark (Light Em Up)”
12. Vicci Martinez ft. Cee-Lo Green – “Come Along”
13. Bruno Mars – “When I Was Your Man”
14. Icona Pop – “I Love It”
15. Goo Goo Dolls – “Rebel Beat”
16. The Lumineers – “Stubborn Love”
17. Jason Derulo – “The Other Side”
18. Imagine Dragons – “Radioactive”
19. Taylor Swift – “22”
20. New Kids on the Block – “Remix (I Like The)”

Jmunney’s Revision
1. Radioactive
2. I Love It
3. Mirrors
4. Stay
5. Come Along
6. Stubborn Love
7. Troublemaker
8. Heart Attack
9. Can’t Hold Us
10. My Songs Know What You Did in the Dark (Light Em Up)
11. Next to Me
12. Just Give Me a Reason
13. When I Was Your Man
14. Feel This Moment
15. Gone Gone Gone
16. Remix (I Like The)
17. Lego House
18. Rebel Beat
19. The Other Side
20. 22

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