
What’s going to Fall? (CREDIT: Lionsgate)
Fall:
Starring: Grace Caroline Currey, Virginia Gardner, Mason Gooding, Jeffrey Dean Morgan
Director: Thomas Mann
Running Time: 107 Minutes
Rating: PG-13
Release Date: August 12, 2022 (Theaters)
Jeff "Jmunney" Malone's Self-Styled "Expert" Thoughts on Movies, TV, Music, and the Rest of Pop Culture
August 31, 2022
Cinema, Movie Reviews Alessandro Nivola, Alison Brie, Aubrey Plaza, Ayden Mayeri, Ben Sinclair, Debby Ryan, Ego Nwodim, Fall, Fred Armisen, Grace Caroline Currey, Hiro Kanagawa, Isabelle Fuhrman, Jeff Baena, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Julia Stiles, Lil Rel Howery, Mason Gooding, Matthew Finlan, Molly Shannon, Orphan, Orphan: First Kill, Rossif Sutherland, Spin Me Round, Thomas Mann, Tim Heidecker, Tricia Helfer, Virginia Gardner, William Brent Bell, Zach Woods 1 Comment
What’s going to Fall? (CREDIT: Lionsgate)
Starring: Grace Caroline Currey, Virginia Gardner, Mason Gooding, Jeffrey Dean Morgan
Director: Thomas Mann
Running Time: 107 Minutes
Rating: PG-13
Release Date: August 12, 2022 (Theaters)
November 6, 2020
Entertainment To-Do List, Literature, Music, Television Answers in the Form of Questions, Claire McNear, disco, Fred Armisen, Jeopardy!, John C. Reilly, Kylie Minogue, Moonbase 8, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, The Unicorn, Tim Heidecker Leave a comment
Moonbase 8 (CREDIT: Showtime/YouTube Screenshot)
Every week, I list all the upcoming (or recently released) movies, TV shows, albums, podcasts, etc. that I believe are worth checking out.
TV
–Moonbase 8 Series Premiere (November 8 on Showtime) – Fred Armisen, Tim Heidecker, and John C. Reilly go to the moon!
–The Unicorn Season 2 Premiere (November 12 on CBS)
Music
-Kylie Minogue, Disco
Music on TV
-2020 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony (November 7 on HBO)
Books
–Answers in the Form of Questions: A Definitive History and Insider’s Guide to Jeopardy! (November 10) – Written by The Ringer‘s Claire McNear!
September 22, 2017
Cinema, Movie Reviews Abbi Jacobson, Bob Logan, Charlie Bean, Dave Franco, Fred Armisen, Jackie Chan, Justin Theroux, Kumail Nanjiani, Lego, Lego Ninjago, Michael Peña, Ninjago, Olivia Munn, Paul Fisher, The Lego Ninjago Movie, Zach Woods Leave a comment
CREDIT: Warner Bros.
This post was originally published on News Cult in September 2017.
Starring: Dave Franco, Justin Theroux, Olivia Munn, Jackie Chan, Fred Armisen, Abbi Jacobson, Kumail Nanjiani, Michael Peña, Zach Woods
Directors: Charlie Bean, Paul Fisher, and Bob Logan
Running Time: 101 Minutes
Rating: PG for Ripped-Off Lego Limbs and Feline-on-Toy Destruction
Release Date: September 22, 2017
If you want to learn how to nail down comic timing, you could do much worse than studying the repartee in The Lego Ninjago Movie. This second spin-off of the toy block film franchise and the first based on the speciality Ninjago line (which also already has its own long-running Cartoon Network TV show) should ostensibly be the most action-oriented of the series, but its cast ensures that it is instead defined by the cheeky humor that has buoyed each of the Lego films thus far. The voices of the high school-age core ninja group include improv and sketch veterans like Fred Armisen, Abbi Jacobson, Kumail Nanjiani, and Zach Woods. And their leader, Master Wu, is brought to life by the always comedically inclined martial arts legend Jackie Chan. As they protect their home city of Ninjago and seek to become one with the elements, they pop off quips like “Can I be the element of surprise?” and display their meta bona fides by complaining about Wu’s “needlessly cryptic metaphors.”
The thrust of the plot mostly revolves around Green Ninja Lloyd (Dave Franco) and his struggle against his father Lord Garmadon (Justin Theroux), a four-armed warlord seeking to conquer Ninjago who keeps mispronouncing (or correctly pronouncing?) his son’s name as “L-loyd.” Lloyd’s attempts to reconcile with the father who abandoned and forgot about him make for the dopily cliché stuff of legend. This is the same evil-father/chosen-one-son knockoff typical of so many Star Wars copycats. But of course, that dopiness is the point. In a world where love stories begin by opponents in war detecting unbearable beauty on opposite sides of the battlefield and the biggest hit on the radio is the weirdly personal “Boo Lloyd!,” fully embracing clichés only makes sense.
For those of you wondering how the real world intervenes in the block world this time around, it should be noted that there is a cute kitty cat who stomps around the town. Dubbed “Meowthra,” this feline is the secondary villain, the monster that indiscriminately and unknowingly ruins intricately designed block structures.
Where Ninjago falters is in its actions sequences. To be fair, its earthbound fighting moments have plenty of visual wit, but when the ninjas take to the skies, the aerial sequences are as unintelligible as the Transformers series at its worst. But that will only be a minor bother when you make it through to the end credits and fall in love with the latest buoyantly terrific song from a Lego movie.
The Lego Ninjago Movie is Recommended If You Like: Lego’s entire filmography, Star Wars father-son relationship parodies, Silicon Valley, Finding the humor in “Cat’s in the Cradle”
Grade: 3.5 out of 5 Ninjanuities
June 28, 2017
Cinema, Movie Reviews Adam Pally, Alison Brie, Aubrey Plaza, Dave Franco, Fred Armisen, Jeff Baena, Jemima Kirke, John C. Reilly, Jon Gabrus, Kate Micucci, Lauren Weedman, Molly Shannon, Nick Offerman, Paul Reiser, Paul Weitz, The Little Hours 1 Comment
This review was originally posted on News Cult in June 2017.
Starring: Alison Brie, Dave Franco, Kate Micucci, Aubrey Plaza, John C. Reilly, Molly Shannon, Fred Armisen
Director: Jeff Baena
Running Time: 90 Minutes
Rating: R for Naked Witchcraft Acid Trips
Release Date: June 30, 2017 (Limited)
Fred Armisen shows up as a visiting bishop about halfway through The Little Hours. It is a hilarious scene, but it encapsulates the trepidation I had upon viewing this flick. In writer/director Jeff Baena’s riff on one of the tales from 14th-century story collection The Decameron, things are getting wild and crazy at a convent, with a trio of central nuns (Alison Brie, Aubrey Plaza, Kate Micucci) getting into sex, witchcraft, and other debauchery. While the premise alone is worth several chuckles, I had worried that it was better suited to a sketch rather than a full feature length, and Armisen’s routine demonstrates exactly what I was thinking of.
As Bishop Bartolomeo, Armisen takes stock of all the sinning that the residents have been getting up to, and it is a potent mix of petty, mundane, and outrageous. Running down kooky lists and taking a few breaks for exasperation is one of Armisen’s specialties. He revels in a litany that includes envy, “being a busy body,” “eating blood,” and “not being baptized.” This recaps everything important that has happened thus far and if this scene had been an SNL sketch (easily imaginable, considering the cast), our imaginations would just fill in the visuals for all that outrageousness. Instead, we get to see all the vulgarity play out, which could be a recipe for exhaustion after ninety minutes, but The Little Hours has some grounding elements to make the whole course palatable.
The focus is on three young brides of Christ – Alessandra (Brie), Fernanda (Plaza), and Genevra (Plaza) – who are either seeking to escape the convent or happy to stay there but not really interested in living the religious life properly. This would all be just a mélange of nuns behaving badly if not for the appearance of runaway servant Massetto (Dave Franco), who strikes up a romance with Alessandra and a deal with the head priest (John C. Reilly) to keep his true nature a secret. The love story is kinda sweet and Reilly is always so invested in the material no matter how ridiculous, elements that help offset all the debauchery, which is fitfully amusing but could have been exhausting if not for these counterpoints. Besides, this film cannot coast on shock value when its ladies do not bother one iota to resemble actual nuns.
The Little Hours is Recommended If You Like: History of the World: Part 1, The sexier scenes from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, The To Do List
Grade: 3.5 out of 5 Rolls in the Hay