TV
–Big Mouth Season 8 (May 23 on Netflix) – Final Season Alert! (I’m still I-don’t-know-how-many seasons behind.)
–Pee-Wee as Himself (Premieres May 23 on HBO) – Two-part docuseries about a funny guy.
–Rick and Morty Season 8 Premiere (May 25 on Adult Swim)
Music
-Snoop Dogg, Iz It a Crime? – This came out last week.
-Sparks, MAD!
-Taj Mahal and Keb’ Mo’, Room on the Porch
Sports -French Open (May 25-June 8 on TNT, truTV, and Max)
-U.S. Women’s Open (May 29-June 1 on USA, NBC, and Peacock)
Every week, I check the schedule of new albums coming out and listen to the ones that catch my ear. Then I make a note throughout the year of the ones that made a strong impression. And then to finalize my Best Albums of 2024 list, I re-listened to everything on that shortlist to confirm whether or not I did in fact like them enough to enshrine them among the crème de la crème.
As for my favorite new songs of the year, they can be hard to find, since I live in a city with reliable public transportation, and thus rarely drive, and thus rarely listen to the radio. So I hope that I’ll encounter some good ones on the albums that I seek out, or that they otherwise reach me via pop cultural osmosis. Also, I try to stick with songs that were released as singles, but it’s okay if they weren’t.
Anyway, here’s the music that happily stuck with me in 2024:
That’s that me peppermint espresso (CREDIT: Alfredo Flores/Netflix)
Every week, I list all the upcoming (or recently released) movies, TV shows, albums, podcasts, etc. that I believe are worth checking out.
Movies
–Kraven the Hunter (Theaters)
–The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim (Theaters)
–Nickel Boys (Theaters)
TV
–A Nonsense Christmas with Sabrina Carpenter (Streaming on Netflix) – This came out last week; I want to make sure I watch it before the end of 2024, partly because Kyle Mooney stops by at some point.
–The Simpsons: O C’mon All Ye Faithful (December 17 on Disney+) – Streaming-exclusive Christmas special.
-A Saturday Night Live Christmas (December 18 on NBC)
–Nate Bargatze’s Nashville Christmas (December 19 on CBS) – Nate’s a funny guy, so this might be funny too.
Music
-The National, Rome – First live album
-Saint Etienne, The Night
-Snoop Dogg, Missionary
Sports
-College Football Bowl Season (December 14-January 4 on Various Networks) – I’m most concerned about the Rate Bowl on December 26 between Rutgers and Kansas State.
-College Football Playoff (December 20-January 20 on ESPN, ABC, TNT, and Max) – I’m rooting for Indiana or Oregon.
This review was written on a Monday. (CREDIT: DNEG Animation)
Starring: Chris Pratt, Samuel L. Jackson, Hannah Waddingham, Ving Rhames, Nicholas Hoult, Cecily Strong, Harvey Guillén, Brett Goldstein, Bowen Yang, Janelle James, Snoop Dogg
Director: Mark Dindal
Running Time: 101 Minutes
Rating: PG for Kitty Calamities
Release Date: May 24, 2024 (Theaters)
What’s It About?: Everyone’s favorite lasagna-loving feline is back on the big screen, and this time, it’s called… The Garfield Movie! (I guess all those other cinematic outings were merely “A” Garfield Movie?) Anyway, now he’s voiced by Chris Pratt, and his gluttony is fueled by his owner Jon Arbuckle’s (Nicholas Hoult) seemingly limitless credit card and all the food delivery apps he can get his paws. He’s pretty happy just lounging around devouring his daily feasts with his beagle buddy Odie (Harvey Guillén). But then his absentee dad Vic (Samuel L. Jackson) shows up out of the blue to wrangle him into a hero’s journey, as they attempt to heist some milk from a farm to square away Vic’s debt with Jinx (Hannah Waddingham), the devilish crime boss Persian cat.
What Made an Impression?: Slingshot All Day: I’m not going to call out a cartoon for its unrealistic portrayal of physics. After all, part of the advantages of this medium is that it doesn’t have to be bound by the laws of science in the same way that live action movies are. That comes into play with a series of train-based set pieces, as Garfield fails to board one of the cars cleanly and ends up getting bounced around by a ridiculous series of objects providing an inordinate amount of thrust. I wasn’t scandalized by the lack of respect for the natural world, but I was befuddled. Perhaps if I had been in a sillier mood, I would have been more ready to throw out a laugh or several. Wait, What World is This?: The plot of The Garfield Movie isn’t much to write about (or at least it’s not much that I’m interested in writing about), so instead I’m focusing on the weird details that made me go, what the heck is the context here? To wit: at one point during Garfield’s adventures getting tossed hither and thither, he flies by a giant balloon float version of… himself. So does that mean that this movie is taking place on Thanksgiving? And that Garfield is famous in this world as an actual real-world somewhat-anthropomorphic kitty?
Also, what’s the deal with all the blatant product placement? I guess Garfield is just a classic capitalist consumer with a bad case of brand loyalty. Perhaps you won’t notice these details as much as I did. Or perhaps you will notice them but will find them amusing. The people in my screening who were cracking up the most appeared to be in their twenties or thirties, so you apparently don’t need to be a kid for these shenanigans to work. But you probably do need to hate Mondays and LOVE telling people that you hate Mondays.
The Garfield Movie is Recommended If You: Believe That Mass Quantities of Food Are the Most Hilarious Thing Ever
It’s tricky to fall in love with new songs when I don’t drive as much as I used to and therefore don’t listen to the radio as much as I used to either. But somehow, a dozen or so songs still manage to annually bubble their way up to a very special place in my heart.
Albums, meanwhile, typically have a better chance of making an impression on me nowadays, as I tend to sit and listen to them straight through on a popular music streaming service while taking care of business.
With all that mind, here’s the new music that made the biggest impression on me in 2023:
Aunt Beth and Jeff welcome back noted dog-lover Marissa Sblendorio (@marissasblen on all the socials) to discuss the furriest game on Earth. Somehow, Marissa was able to watch this year’s Puppy Bowl despite the constant availability of Cutthroat Kitchen reruns.
There are a lot of bare breasts in The Beach Bum. In the interest of naked parity, I must report that there is sadly not a whole lot of corresponding male nudity, although we do get a peek at Matthew’s McConaughey while he’s taking a drunken leak. This movie is basically the diary of a hedonist in Florida, and frankly, it could have been even more hedonistic, though it is having plenty of fun with itself in its shaggy structure. There actually does seem to be a bit of a message here, something about whether or not great men should be given the rope they’re often given to make great art, as Moondog’s shenanigans are sort of excused while he’s encouraged to write his next brilliant poetry collection. But this is also the movie in which Snoop Dogg plays a character named “Lingerie” and Martin Lawrence gets his foot bitten off by a shark, and those things seem just as important as any high-minded social consciousness.
I give The Beach BumAn Agreement to Drink a Few Sips of PBR.
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 – The Night Of (but Honorable Mention to some crazy game show answers from Snoop Dogg)
Monday – UnREAL
Tuesday – Difficult People [7/26/16 EDIT: I initially picked Not Safe with Nikki Glaser because streaming schedules make me a little crazy.]
Wednesday – Mr. Robot [7/18/16 EDIT: I initially picked Another Period because I forgot that Mr. Robot had aired.]
Thursday – Jeopardy!
Friday – Check It Out! with Dr. Steve Brule, in which we learned an important lesson about trumpets
Saturday – I caught a bit of Round 3 of The Open Championship
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