What I'm Watching May Update: Being Erica, Flight Attendant, Winning Time, Pentaverate, Adventure Beast

 

 

Adventure Beast (Netflix)-Bradley Trevor Greive (AKA BTG) is a field zoologist who is so enthusiastic about animals, that he regularly gets mauled and nearly eaten by them on an episodic basis and does so with effective zeal. In other words, he's a pretty zany character and the actor has an easy time selling the part. After all, the character is heavily based on the actor who is an ex-Australian military paratrooper and naturalist who has appeared on Animal Planet series such as Fear Island: Fortress of the Bears and Nature's Strangest Mysteries: Solved.

BTG is joined by two extremes as his side kicks: Overly timid field assistant Dietrich and exuberant niece Bonnie. Both push the extremes of their characters for great comedic effect.

Each episode is set in a different ecosystem with solid plotting and has a semi-educational nature, as BTG spews animal trivia like he has tourette's syndrome. On the whole, it's mostly a lot of fun. HIGHLY RECOMMEND

 

Pentaverate (Hulu)-Mike Myers plays separate members of a secret cabal of five highly influential people who secretly control the world or some junk. Myers also plays a washed-up reporter investigating this titular cabal as his last big scoop. Pretty much the only non-Myers characters are Keegan Michael Key (and later Ken Jeong) as the audience surrogate who is inducted into the Pentaverate mid-series and they’re both pretty refreshing additions because we can only watch Myers ham it up so much.

Through four episodes, I’m thankful there aren’t as many characters as gross as Austin Powers’ Fat Bastard or midget humor (AKA Mini-Me) as Mike Myers has been known to go overly blue before.

The thing is I want to like Myers: His versatility on Saturday Night Live and his commitment to a comic concept is pretty admirable, and in some ways he’s pioneered comedy. However, even if he’s safely veering away from gross, the series still runs out of steam. For the deep dives that Myers does into certain topics like Eastern mysticism (The Love Guru) or, in this case, conspiracy theories, there’s a tremendous laziness in the world-building aspects of the show. Instead, it feels like an excuse to do impressions. 

Winning Time (HBO)-Possibly my favorite show of the year. This docudrama about the beginning of the Magic Johnson era is apparently completely detached from the historic story. At the same time, maybe it's better in this age of hyper scrutiny to just throw an honest attempt at documented history out the window and rely more on the "based on a true story" moniker at the start of each episode? The advantage is that it allows producer Adam McKay to tell the most exciting story his imagination can muster and it's pretty damn exciting.

HIGHLY RECOMMEND

 

Being Erica (Soapnet, available on Hulu)-A woman goes back in time on an episodic basis to readjust her life so that she can’t be a failure. Let’s first clear this up: Is she really a failure? She’s 32 and unmarried and didn’t use her high-powered degree but is pretty independent anyways. Can we stop with the single-shaming?

The show is a mix of Hallmark Channel female-centered wholesomeness (with Erin Kapluk ably filling in the plucky female protagonist) and the kind of thinky what-if scenarios that populate good low-stakes science fiction.

One last thing to note:  Plot congruity might not be this show’s strong suit as the butterfly effect is treated extremely casually here. The kind of scrutiny that fans have deployed on Marty McFly’s time-travelling would just not work here. 

Flight Attendant, S1 (HBO)-Loved this black comedy about an impulsive flight attendant who's one-night stand leads to Breaking-Bad-levels of terror as the FBI, crime lords, and an enigmatic assassin are after her. The show’s efforts to evoke horror through quick-take psychological flashbacks (a bit like Homeland’s opening credits) fall a little short, but most of the show manages a lot of moving parts well. Shows where characters are trapped in humongous illicit messes of their own making are plentiful on TV and this is narrowly unique, well-paced, and enjoyable enough to stick out of that pack.

The Love Guru (2008) Review: Ensemble Problems

Mike Meyers was once unstoppable at the movie theaters whether it was Austin Powers, Wayne's World, or Shrek. When you look at how quickly both audiences and critics passed over The Love Guru so quickly, however, it's pretty clear that the Mike Meyers brand of comedy isn't what it once was. I'm not sure whether the cause is one too many Shreks, the stinging failure of the Cat in the Hat, or maybe his being eclipsed by Will Ferrell and the brat pack, but that's just the way popularity works in Hollywood.

Having had the benefit (or the misfortune, if you look at it that way) of watching it after every other critic has already slammed it, I will go on record as saying that the movie isn't that bad. The basic premise, revolving around the quest of an overly commercialized self-help guru to become famous enough to be a guest on the Oprah Winfrey show through curing a star hockey player of his lovesickness, is one with potential. It's hard to say whether Mike Meyers' comic creation of Guru Pitka even has enough steam to have lasted multiple sketches as a popular character of SNL. His giggly demeanor can be kind of amusing, and his system of acronyms for everything and series of book titles that fit conviniently into conversation are funny in the same way that Austin Powers' non-stop barrage of double entendres are: They wear you down until you're consumed with silliness.

One thing that that is certain is that on Saturday Night Live, Meyers' old breeding ground, he would have had enough help to lift his character off the ground. Meyers doesn't really have any all-stars in his ensemble who can do that. Romany Malco (Weeds, Baby Mama) as the star hockey player of the Toronto Maple Leafs seems largely unaware that he's in a comedy and does little to play off Meyers' persona. Aside from being a black eubonic-speaking hockey player, a sight gag only good the first time you see him, there's nothing he really adds to the humor of the script nor does he do much as a straight man (which dimply requires him to react to Meyers). Justin Timberlake has had his moments on SNL but that was mostly as a result of good writers and the fact that as a pop star he had low expectations. It was a little much to expect him to bring a lot to the table as the second or third-billed star of the film (Did anyone think that him singing Celine Dion or talking about a Quebec Pizza were really that funny?). Verne Troyer is probably in the cast because inserting midget jokes seems to be Mike Meyers' go-to solution for not being able to think of anything funny to write. Jessica Alba is obviously ok as eye candy but someone who can play the leading lady with a little bit more of a tounge-in-cheek angle could have helped. Ben Kingsley was funnier than I expected but what was I expecting of Ben Kingsley to begin with? So in the end, Meyers surrounded himself with friends and novelty items (he became friends with Timberlake from the Shrek movies, for example) and that reeks of just a hint of vanity in thinking he could carry the movie by himself. The only solid role player in the film was John Oliver who's dry wit actually made him quite good as a straight man.