Bob Odenkirk Leads Us Gently Through the Fireworks of ‘Normal’

April 15, 2026

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A normal view of a Normal movie (CREDIT: Magnolia Pictures)

Starring: Bob Odenkirk, Henry Winkler, Lena Headey, Reena Jolly, Ryan Allen, Billy MacLellan, Brendan Fletcher, Peter Shinkoda, Jess McLeod

Director: Ben Wheatley

Running Time: 90 Minutes

Rating: R for Stunningly Strong, Cartoony Violence

Release Date: April 17, 2026 (Theaters)

What’s It About?: After his last lawman job left him irrevocably haunted, Sheriff Ulysses (Bob Odenkirk) accepts what he expects to be a pretty uneventful gig as the interim sheriff in the small, seemingly unassuming town of Normal, Minnesota. He quickly develops a rapport with his deputies (Ryan Allen and Billy MacLellan) and has a few civil interactions with the mayor, who must be a decent guy since he’s played by Henry Winkler, after all. Plus, he also has some other encounters with the rest of the townsfolk that promise to serve as foreshadowing. During one of his first days on the job, there’s an attempted bank robbery, which quickly develops into a chaotic shootout where it’s not clear who’s on whose side. That’s because Normal isn’t so normal after all, and this threatens to be the moment when every dark secret is revealed.

What Made an Impression?: An Era Continues: Will Bob Odenkirk ever star in a straight-up comedy again, or is he now just a dramatic TV star with plenty of personality and an unlikely action movie hero who gets to occasionally be funny? That’s probably too far-reaching a question for one review to handle, so I’ll let the universe sort it out. In the meantime, though, I’ll note that Normal doesn’t require him to be quite as no-holds-barred as the Nobody films, and it’s all the better for it, with the emphasis on Ulysses’ resourcefulness instead of his knuckles. There’s still plenty of room for fireworks in the vein of one of director Ben Wheatley’s previous action efforts, but it’s all centered around a decent guy trying to compromise something livable out of an impossibly lethal situation.
Domo Arigato: Without giving away too much about Normal’s secrets, I think it’s okay to tease that the first scene takes place in Japan in a way that will make you question whether or not you walked into the right theater. I for one quite enjoy it when a movie begins by confusing me … in a fun way! Especially when it’s accompanied by a foreign language rendition of a classic Black Sabbath banger.
It’s Not These Guys, It’s Those Guys: If you’ve been a devoted viewer of acclaimed TV for the last 10-20 years, chances are high that Normal will have you going, “Hey! Isn’t that that guy… actually, I guess not.” That’s because there’s one actor in this movie who looks quite a bit like Deadwood and Raising Hope star Garret Dillahunt, and another who is almost-certainly-but-not-exactly Veep and Detroiters funnyman Sam Richardson. Doppelgangers deserve work too, after all.

Normal is Recommended If You Like: A maximum amount of discordance between the conversations and the explosions

Grade: 3 out of 5 Bank Vaults

‘Nobody 2’ Asks Us How Much We Would Like to See Bob Odenkirk Clean Up the Bad Guys

August 14, 2025

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A bunch of Nobodys (CREDIT: Allen Fraser/Universal Pictures)

Starring: Bob Odenkirk, Connie Nielsen, John Ortiz, Colin Hanks, RZA, Christopher Lloyd, Sharon Stone, Colin Salmon, Gage Munroe, Paisley Cadorath

Director: Timo Tjahjanto

Running Time: 89 Minutes

Rating: R for Strong Bloody Violence and Strong Bloody Language

Release Date: August 15, 2025 (Theaters)

What’s It About?: Hutch Mansell (Bob Odenkirk) used to be one of these seemingly normal suburban dads that everybody thought was basically a nobody. But word has spread that this nobody is not to be messed with. Unfortunately, his newfound predilection for cracking skulls has been putting a strain on his family. So he decides that he simply must take a break from paying off his debt and go on a vacation with his wife Becca (Connie Nielsen) and their kids Brady (Gage Munroe) and Sammy (Paisley Cadorath). They make their way to a water park in the tourist town of Plummerville, since that’s the only place that Hutch’s dad (Christopher Lloyd) ever took him on vacation. Unfortunately, it’s not as idyllic as he remembers it. Instead, the theme park operator (John Ortiz) and the town sheriff are in the pocket of a deranged criminal boss (Sharon Stone) who’s running the evilest bootlegging operation in any vacationland. So yeah, not exactly a formula for Hutch to keep his fists tucked away.

What Made an Impression?: That’s Too Much, Man: The trope of the Unlikely AARP-Eligible Action Hero is old hat by now. Honestly, it was already a bit of a cliché by the time that the first Nobody came out. Is the casting choice of Odenkirk as this particular sixtysomething with a particular set of skills enough to overcome that familiarity? Theoretically, it could be. But what he’s asked to do here is just so bloody and so vindictive and so relentless that it doesn’t really matter how likable he is. At one point, some thug callously smacks Hutch’s daughter on the back of her head, so I understand where he’s coming from when he goes ballistic. But at a certain point, I’m sure that his soul must be dying; alas, this movie isn’t terribly interested in having him reckon with that beyond the surface level.
Could It Be… Satan?: There’s good reason to believe that Sharon Stone’s crime boss character is a resident of the underworld in disguise as a human being. As far as I can tell, she’s motivated entirely by money, which is famously the root of all evil. So the fact that she’s behind everything kind of justifies Hutch’s actions, which makes Nobody 2 less off-putting than it could have been otherwise. But this isn’t exactly the most refreshing form of cinematic evil we’ve ever encountered. Stone’s certainly giving it her all, but in terms of showing off the personality of her baddest self, she’s not asked to do much more than drop a bunch of f-bombs.
More Than Nothing: Overall, I must admit that I wasn’t exactly thrilled by Nobody 2. But there was one part (or actually a couple) that had my toes happy-tapping. As the Mansell family is driving down to Plummerville, they sing along to “More Today Than Yesterday,” Spiral Starecase’s classic sunshine pop hit from 1969, which is reprised at the beginning of the end credits. Why do I mention this? Because it had me saying “I must now sing this song at karaoke.” Ergo, this was not an entirely fruitless experience.

Nobody 2 is Recommended If You Like: All of the action mayhem without any of the morality

Grade: 2.5 out of 5 Hawaiian Shirts

Jmunney’s 2023 Emmy Wish List

June 28, 2023

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CREDIT: Screenshots

I’ve been making an Emmy wishlist for most of my adult TV-viewing life. Every year, the task keeps getting more and more Herculean with the proliferation of an endless supply of new shows. I could easily name about a hundred people who deserve an Emmy in 2023, but instead, I’ve decided to do the opposite this year by just picking One Wish Per Category.

These aren’t necessarily my top choices in each category, but they are ones who could use the boost, as none of them appears to be the most likely to win, or even necessarily be nominated. (A few of them weren’t even included on the official Emmy ballot!) But they’re all worthy of viewers’ attention, so before the official nominations are announced on July 12, consider giving these a chance if you happen to ever enjoy that increasingly elusive phenomenon of “free time.”

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That’s Auntertainment! Episode 46: Bob Odenkirk and Better Call Saul

September 11, 2022

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CREDIT: Screenshot

God d*** it, folks, it’s showtime!

Supposed ‘Nobody’ Bob Odenkirk Seeks Revenge, and I’m Never Quite Sure Why

March 23, 2021

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Nobody (CREDIT: Allen Fraser/Universal Pictures)

Starring: Bob Odenkirk, Connie Nielsen, Christopher Lloyd, RZA, Aleksei Serebryakov, Gage Munroe, Paisley Cadorath

Director: Ilya Naishuller

Running Time: 92 Minutes

Rating: R for All The Expected Blood and Profanity

Release Date: March 26, 2021

When I saw the trailer for Nobody and was teased by its promise of Bob Odenkirk pushed to the edge to protect his family, I couldn’t resist. This is a guy who’s famous for his nonpareil knack for frustrated bursts of a certain profanity, after all. How has he not been getting cast in some of the secret-badass roles that Liam Neeson’s been hogging the past decade? But then when the movie actually gets going, it makes a very odd decision. During an opening home invasion scene, Odenkirk just … lets the burglars get away with it. It’s strongly implied that that’s actually the safest decision for everyone, but this doesn’t appear to be the mild-mannered-man-goes-rogue story we’ve been promised. Nor does it seem like we have the appropriate setup for a tale of vengeance. What’s the deal?!

Despite what the title and the thoroughly suburban setting assures us, Hutch Mansell (Odenkirk) is far from a nobody. He doesn’t have to summon his penchant for violence out of nothing; in fact, he has a history of violence just bubbling under the surface. The film is vague about that backstory, but it’s clear that regardless of how he learned, he knows how to bash heads. But what really flipped my head is the explanation of Hutch’s entire motivation for his spree of mayhem. As it turns out, the thieves took his young daughter’s kitty-cat bracelet Sammy (Paisley Cadorath), and that’s apparently enough to convince him to take on an entire crime organization., even though Sammy doesn’t seem especially bothered by the loss! In fact, none of the shenanigans that Hutch gets up seem to be on behalf of his family. It’s more like it’s just done out of his desire to star in his own outrageous action movie.

And that really sums up the entire m.o. of Nobody. If I were a betting man, I would bet that screenwriter Derek Kolstad and director Ilya Naishuller noticed that Bob Odenkirk had never been showcased in this genre and they decided that they needed to rectify that immediately. Then they mixed in a Russian drug lord, plenty of guns, and a car chase set to Pat Benatar’s “Heartbreaker,” and they decided that they were good to go. What’s missing from all this? Any sense of logic at all! Now, you may ask, do you need to have logic when Odenkirk’s brother is played by RZA and his dad is a shotgun-toting Christopher Lloyd? Honestly, I think it would’ve helped. But, eh, nobody needs logic, and certainly neither does Nobody.

Nobody is Recommended If You Like: Senseless violence delivered with conviction

Grade: 2.5 out of 5 Kitty Cat Bracelets

Best TV Performances of the 2010s

June 23, 2020

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CREDIT: YouTube Screenshots

The extra-special-bonus Best of the 2010s lists keep arriving all this week! Yesterday, it was the Best Film Performances, now we’re moving to the small screen with the top TV Performances. And while the screens were smaller, the roles were arguably bigger, at least in terms of running time.

Regarding eligibility: all Lead and Supporting (but not Guest) performances from any show that aired at least one full season between 2010 and 2019 was eligible. Actors who played multiple characters in the same show were considered one performance. Actors who played the same character across multiple shows were also considered one performance.

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Greta Gerwig’s ‘Little Women’ Demonstrates the Power of Renewed Resonance Through Reorganizing

December 17, 2019

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CREDIT: Wilson Webb/Columbia/Sony Pictures

Starring: Saoirse Ronan, Emma Watson, Florence Pugh, Eliza Scanlen, Laura Dern, Timothée Chalamet, Meryl Streep, Tracy Letts, Bob Odenkirk, James Norton, Louis Garrel, Chris Cooper

Director: Greta Gerwig

Running Time: 135 Minutes

Rating: PG for A Few Bloody Knuckles and General Adolescence

Release Date: December 25, 2019

I’m a big advocate for the value of consuming a story in whatever order you damn well please. If you get engrossed in a movie halfway through and then watch the beginning at some future point, then bully on you. If you watch the last season of a popular TV show first and then catch up on previous seasons in a random zigzagging order, that sounds fascinating. If you always skip ahead to the last paragraph of a novel and also reread your favorite chapters before you’re done the whole thing, then it sounds like you’re someone who enjoys experimenting. To all of you who fit in any of those categories, you’ve got a kindred spirit in Greta Gerwig, who plays mix-and-match with her rendition of Louisa May Alcott’s 1868 semi-autobiographical novel Little Women, one of the most beloved and oft-adapted works of American fiction.

If I were to extend my advocacy for watching something in whatever order you like to its logical end, then I could say that you could watch this Little Women in an even more chronologically mixed-up fashion than it already is. (Or you could go in the opposite direction, and I bet there is someone out there who will one day re-edit this film into a more temporally linear fashion.) But Gerwig’s chosen order of events is far from arbitrary. The opening scene and one of the final moments especially underscore the themes that she wants to bring to the surface.

There is a general air of light postmodernism to this movie, in the sense that there is a tacit understanding that the majority of the audience is already familiar with the story. Thus, Gerwig begins with scenes in which the little women are closer to, if not already, grown adults. The most iconic episodes from earlier in the March sisters’ lives do not need to be rehashed, at least not right away. Instead, Jo March (Saoirse Ronan) kicks things off by bounding into a publishing office to sell a story she’s written. It’s bought by a Mr. Dashwood (Tracy Letts), but he also tells her that if her main character is a girl, she must be married (or dead) by the end. Chances are that most viewers know that these are indeed the fates that await the March sisters, but a collective smirk is likely to form across the crowd at this moment, because we also know that the entire purpose of Little Women is that these significant lives are not just reduced to their expected conclusions.

The other essential moment comes when the far-flung temporal settings have caught up with each other, and Jo is fretting to her sisters that her completed novel, based on her own family life, is about a trivial topic and nothing important. Even though she is mightily invested in her own work, she is still subscribing to the idea that only “important” subjects are really worthy of being written about in novels. But then her youngest, always fiercely opinionated sister Amy (Florence Pugh) insists that the mere act of writing about a subject confers importance upon it. And so, because Gerwig is telling this story once again, and because it is clearly a labor of love for her, and because Emma Watson and Eliza Scanlen are there alongside her and Ronan and Pugh to round out and bring to life the March sisterhood, all of that is the reason why Little Women is important in 2019.

Little Women is Recommended If You Like: Revisiting the classics

Grade: 4 out of 5 Adaptations

And Now For Something Completely Funky: ‘Long Shot’ Movie Review

June 7, 2019

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CREDIT: Philippe Bossé

I’m not sure what Long Shot‘s sense of the political landscape is. It seems to believe that the difference between Democrats and Republicans can actually be quite nebulous, which is interesting to think about, and maybe true in some cases, but certainly not in the majority of my experience. It also has some valuable things to say about the importance of compromise, although it’s kind of shouty and generic about it. But anyway, this is mostly a love story.

At first blush, it might look like the same old tale between a beautiful blonde (Charlize Theron as a presidential candidate) and a lovable schlub (Seth Rogen as a journalist-cum-speechwriter), but it downplays any eyeroll-worthy aspect of that setup by clearly illustrating the mutual attraction here. So Long Shot works best when it investigates what ambitious people are willing to sacrifice or not sacrifice, and why, in the name of the people they care about, though it would have benefited from more specific political window-dressing.

I give Long Shot My Satisfied Endorsement.

This Is a Movie Review: ‘Incredibles 2’ Uses Its Period Setting and the Responsibility of Superpowers to Show How to Be an Adult

June 13, 2018

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©2017 Disney•Pixar. All Rights Reserved.

This review was originally published on News Cult in June 2018.

Starring: Craig T. Nelson, Holly Hunter, Sarah Vowell, Huck Milner, Samuel L. Jackson, Bob Odenkirk, Catherine Keener, Brad Bird, Jonathan Banks, Sophia Bush, Phil LaMarr, Isabella Rossellini, John Ratzenberger, Bill Wise

Director: Brad Bird

Running Time: 118 Minutes

Rating: PG for Action Sequences Involving Dangerously Heavy Structures

Release Date: June 15, 2018

The Incredibles films stick out among Pixar’s oeuvre for how much more adult they are than the rest of the animation brand’s features. That is not to say that everything else is merely kids’ stuff. Indeed, there is plenty for audiences of all ages to appreciate in the likes of Toy Story, Finding Nemo, Wall-E, etc. The difference is that the typical Pixar offering features childlike wonder presented with unusually mature storytelling sophistication, whereas The Incredibles and Incredibles 2 are primarily concerned with the struggles of being a grown person: how to raise a family, how to earn a living, how to reconcile the way you live with the self-identity you perceive on the inside. With this focus along with its period trappings, Incredibles 2 continues asking its franchise’s fundamental question of whether or not we have shaped society as it ought to be.

Incredibles 2, like the original, is vague about its time period, but based on the outfits, manner of speaking, and predominant technology, it is easy to peg it as 1960s America. With that in mind, if The Incredibles were to exist as a TV series, it is not too hard to imagine it as the first animated example of AMC’s stable of period dramas. (The presence of two of the stars of Better Call Saul among the voice cast certainly bolsters this perception.) Incredibles 2 features more stable (though no less harried) domesticity than Mad Men, but the concerns of Bob Parr (Craig T. Nelson) are not terribly different from those of Don Draper, while Helen Parr’s (Holly Hunter) career-minded focus in the face of skepticism is absolutely of a piece with that of Peggy Olson. Writer/director Brad Bird’s grounded approach to the existence of supers allows all viewers to consider that no matter what their own unique abilities are, they ought to make the best of them, for the world’s sake.

The reflectiveness and contextualization inherent to a period setting are key to getting the point across. This outing, in which Helen/Elastigirl is recruited for a PR campaign to make superpowers legal again while fighting a mysterious villain who uses screens to carry out mind control schemes, touches upon issues of media manipulation, trust (or lack thereof) in institutions, and the power and limits of basing a campaign around a single figurehead. Anyone paying attention to the political scene in 2018 will recognize similar disturbances in Incredibles 2. It is important to be reminded that these crises are not new and to know a big part of being an adult is responding to these challenges.

Bottom line: if you loved the kinetic action and family dynamics of the first Incredibles, you will probably love them all over again in Incredibles 2. If the prospect of a baby growing into his impressively wide-ranging superpowers has you excited, just wait until you see what Jack-Jack is up to. And rest assured, Edna Mode’s (Bird) scenes do not disappoint. This entry is not as mold-breaking as the original, but it is reliably entertaining and has plenty to say.

Incredibles 2 is Recommended If You Like: The Incredibles, AMC period dramas

Grade: 4 out of 5 Eye Lasers

This Is a Movie Review: The Defense of Journalism Mounted by ‘The Post’ is Admirable and Often Rousing, But Almost Quaint

December 18, 2017

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CREDIT: Niko Tavernise/Twentieth Century Fox

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

Starring: Tom Hanks, Meryl Streep, Bob Odenkirk, Tracy Letts, Bruce Greenwood, Matthew Rhys, David Cross, Alison Brie, Sarah Paulson, Bradley Whitford, Jesse Plemons, Carrie Coon, Zach Woods

Director: Steven Spielberg

Running Time: 115 Minutes

Rating: PG-13 for Deadline-Related Light Profanity

Release Date: December 22, 2017 (Limited)/Expands Nationwide January 12, 2018

The First Amendment of the United States Constitution guarantees some fundamental freedoms, but certain limits on those freedoms are understood. Hate speech is not protected by free speech, for example, and human sacrifice is not protected by freedom of religion. But there is not quite the same shorthand for limits on a free press. Publishing anything demonstrably libelous is certainly unacceptable, but when is it inappropriate to print what is in fact true and has hitherto been hidden? This question is at the heart of so many present-day media matters, so in comes Steven Spielberg’s The Post, which examines a time when this conflict was a momentous occasion and not an everyday one.

In 1971, The Washington Post finds itself in possession of the Pentagon Papers, a trove of documents detailing the United States’ involvement in Vietnam over the past few decades. Executive editor Ben Bradlee (Tom Hanks) and his team of journalists think the public deserves to know this information. The federal government says it would be a felony to print it. There is no mistaking where The Post (both the paper and the film) comes down on this conflict. This is not new information and thus serves no imminent threat to American troops in Vietnam. The only harm it can cause is embarrassment for former presidents. The actual conflict that The Post grapples is the attempted reconciliation between ethical and business concerns.

The constant struggle of press outlets, even institutions as big as The Washington Post, is figuring out how to make money by delivering the truth. That struggle is writ large when making a public offering, which is what we’ve got here. Do you make a stronger case to your investors by laying low or by making a ruckus in the course of standing up for your principals? As publisher Katharine Graham, Meryl Streep is all contorted faces and knotted anxiety as she takes the lead to make the decision of printing the Papers or not. The drama is wrung in screwball fashion, with Bradlee appealing to her over the phone at the last a minute, as a gaggle of other interested parties hop on the line.

For as grand as The Post’s ambitions are, it is strange to consider that most of it takes place over the course of just one day. It all then feels almost inconsequential, but of course, certain individual moments can change the course of everything. When that is the case, there has probably been months, or even years, of work behind the scenes setting up those moments, as conveyed by an early scene of Daniel Ellsberg (Matthew Rhys) gathering and absconding with the Papers. Also delivering the dynamic agita is Bob Odenkirk as Ben Bagdikian, an old buddy of Ellsberg’s who tracks down the delivery. Odenkirk’s comedic background is an asset – he moves about with a paranoid shuffle that is somewhere between absolutely necessary and hilariously unnecessary. Also rousing is a typesetting montage following the decision to publish the Papers. This mechanical peek at how things are done is a valuable reminder of underlying structure in much the same way that Michael Mann’s Blackhat spent so much visual space on the wires that undergird the Internet.

Ultimately, while The Post’s advocacy for journalism is timeless, its story feels small-scale, a prelude to the much bigger fallout of Watergate and all the modern-day scandals that use -gate in their nomenclature. The Richard Nixon of The Post is only ever seen from behind and through a window. His fight against the press was fought in the shadows, but today his same tactics are being employed right out in the open. The Post’s lessons are ones I hope everyone takes to heart, but I wonder (despair?) how useful they are when the sorts of secrets exposed by the Pentagon Papers are now nonchalantly tweeted every day.

The Post is Recommended If You Like: All the President’s Men, Spotlight, a Free Press

Grade: 3.5 out of 5 Sealed Documents

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