Big News: I Found Four Non-Superhero Films on the Big Screen (Cruella, Jungle Cruise, Free Guy, Space Jam 2)

It’s pretty apparent to most of us, that the pandemic changed the movie-going experience with tent poles (surefire blockbusters that carry a studio’s financial risks) having to navigate to premium streaming in an effort to recoup their costs.

As a result, there’s even less money to be made at the box office now unless the film appeals to a broad audience. In other words, a film has to either have action/explosions, appeal to kids, based on a familiar source (known as intellectual property), or some combination of the three. This has been going on for some time as even epics shot for the big screen by Martin Scorsese, Fernando Meirelles and Alfonso Cuaron were relegated to Netflix.

Mid-range films (comedies, courtroom dramas, espionage thrillers, romantic dramas, etc) have even less chance of playing at a movie theater and a larger share than ever before is being dominated by the superhero film which I’m extremely bored of. In light of this, I’m pleased to have made my way to four films so far in 2021 that are not superhero films: Cruella, Free Guy, Jungle Cruise, and Space Jam 2.

Yes, they were clinging to their IP sources as if they were broadcasting to audiences “don’t worry, we’re not going for too much independent thought here. This is still cozy familiarity.” At this point in the degradation of movie going, I’m prepared to accept that Faustian bargain that film makers must strike with their studios and broader audiences so that a decent movie going experience can exist at all.

Furthermore, I think that all these films offer more originals stories than anything that can exist within the confines of a superhero film. Since Robert Downey Jr. bought a snarky take to Iron Man and the more absurd heroes like Ant Man and Aqua Man got their own films, the genre has tried to give enough winks at the audience to create a sub-genre of “superhero film that doesn’t take itself too seriously.”

However, the straight-up parody already exists (Sky High, Mystery Men, the Incredibles) that when I recently saw the superhero parody “Thunder Force” earlier this year, I felt I had seen these comic angles so often—whether in explicit parodies or goofier superhero films –that there was just nothing new to say.

Cruella takes a Disney villain and attempts a sympathetic backstory. In the canonical timeline, she’s crossed what’s known as a moral event horizon by slaughtering dogs and making a coat out of them. The film’s attitude about this seems to be, “um, let’s push that to the back of your mind” focusing more on the mannerisms of Cruella as played by Emma Stone who relishes being handed the villain card. It also helps that Cruella is society’s punching bag before ascending to the top.

The film essentially reveals itself to be a heist film in a game of one-upmanship between two strong-willed players (Stone and Emma Thompson) with Joel Frye and Paul Cole Hauser as stereotypically cockney henchmen. It’s sleek and stylish with some pathos, and for a popcorn film, that’s not bad.

The film’s big problem is not knowing when to end. There were at least 3 or 4 times when I got up as if to leave the theater only to realize the end credits weren’t rolling.

Some might call Space Jam 2 an obligatory sequel, but I like to think that the film’s strength isn’t that it wasn’t so inevitable. The film needed the right star and modern take on the material to justify its existence and those ingredients are essentially met here. Additionally, I’m a sucker for the Looney Tunes and it’s been 18 years since their last film. If Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings characters had to wait that long, there’d be riots.

Rather than a random hole in the ground that leads to a basketball in the center of the Earth, the film (in a not-so-subtle meta-commentary on IPs) takes place across the confines of a server-verse. A handful of scenes intermingles the Looney Tunes characters with Superman and Harry Potter among others, and while they are inevitable, they’re pretty fun.

While some might disagree, Don Cheadle makes a good kid’s villain: The personification of a psychotic algorithm. His motive is simple to understand but encoded (forgive the pun) with an extra layer of depth (he wants attention, isn’t that how algorithms work?).

Granted, LeBron James was a little weaker of an actor than expected, but it is a relatively smart script that gives its actors some latitude.

Jungle Cruise has been criticized as extremely derivative of the Pirates franchise and that’s true, but again, we have to come from the angle of “hey, at least it’s not a superhero film and it’s wide release in a movie theater.”

The film has a lot going for it: Luscious scenery porn from the Amazon basin that doesn’t overuse CGI, the rarely disappointing Emily Blunt, well-choreographed set pieces, a brisk pace, and a fairly deep love story that works. To the latter point, others have commented on the lack of chemistry between Dwayne Johnson and his leading ladies. On paper, however, the character movements between the two protagonists are set up well enough to where their choices eventually reach into “aww, I need a kleenex” territory.

Free Guy is set in the universe of gaming which some might consider low-brow. If the frames weren’t so cluttered with graphics, I surmise it might favorably compared with good sci-fi or even fiction deconstruction classics like The Truman Show and Pleasantville.

While that might be high praise, the story--an NPC in a Grand Theft Auto style video game who gets triggered by the programmer’s love interest into sentience and is called upon to save his fellow secretly sentient NPCs from extinction—is ambitious and, more importantly, air tight in its world-building. If people get into the experience, this could be one of the most discussion-worthy films of the year.

Jodie Comer does impressive double-duty as a frumpy computer developer and a stealthy action heroine and it’s all the more impressive that the film juggles two love stories with her character that both work.

On the commercialization side, I was pleased that the film worked as an air-tight story that doesn’t necessitate a sequel. Whether they milk one out of it is a different story.

What I'm watching: February Update

Current Shows:

Wanda Vision (Disney Plus)-With such mind-boggling layers of symbolism, this is as if the world's best escape room writers were tasked with writing a sitcom that entrusts viewers to be active rather than passive participants in decryption. The series takes the viewer on a journey through various sitcom tropes on a decade-by-decade journey with underlying storylines dealing with grief, manipulation, and escapism as a form of evil. With all the painstaking detail that the prodution team implants its easter eggs, this is a sure contender for the most intricate show on television if not its most ambitious. I have little familiarity with the MCU but was able to peace most details together.

 

Great North (Fox)-It’s hard to tell much through two episodes, but the show isn’t off to a great start. It seems like it has the same boundless potential that any animated show begins with in the post-MacFarland/Groening era with the added pedigree of the cast (Will Forte, Nick Offerman, Jenny Slate) and the allure of a cool setting. But part of the problem is I’m not a Nick Offerman fan. Different stars have different comedic personas and the effectiveness of those personas is somewhat subjective. To me, he’s generally a manly man with no comment on any modern image of masculinity. When he sings the theme song dedicated to hard work, or espouses the value of waking up ridiculously early, and having birthdays devoid of emotion, there are characters who serve as reluctant foils to those plans but Offerman’s character (much like his trademark P & R character) doesn’t have that much commentary. One nice detail is the interracial marriage between Offerman's adult son (Forte) and an import from California (Dulce Sloane).

Call Your Mother (ABC)-Starring Kyra Sedgwick as Jean, it’s an old-school multi-cam sitcom that strives so hard to squeeze a peg into an outdated sitcom format of a round hole that it‘s almost adorable. The show is about an empty nest mother who moves to LA to be closer to her kids and simultaneously rediscover her identity aside from her kids. If you paid close attention, the two parts of that last sentence were complete opposites and that sort of clash of premises is rearing its ugly head quite haphazardly so far. In one episode daughter Jackie tells her mom Jean she feels neglected, and in every other episode Jackie is trying to get space from Jean like a cloying mother. Anywho, this is like Mary Tyler Moore if Moore found her Mr. Right, had kids, spent 18+ years tending to that whole thing, and came out on the other end looking for her new purpose in a spunky way. Based mostly on Sedgwick's charm, the show is mildly passable on the whole and has the occasional moment for an emotional payoff.

Call Me Kat (Fox)-A successor to "New Girl" in that it's a celebration of a woman owning up to her quirkiness and (by extension) her singleness. The problem is this character (Mayim Bialik) is written as over-the-top quirky for the sake of being quirky and the inauthenticity makes her, for lack of a better word, uncool. The show's breaking of the fourth wall

Mr. Mayor (NBC)-Another entry in the canon of Tina Fey and Robert Carlock that's a little more "30 Rock" than "Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt." The humor is clever but skin-deep. Don't expect pathos-driven growth with the narrative highs of Kimmy, Titus and Jaqueline. At the same time, the show, set in the Mayor's office of L.A., has much less of an insider vibe. Show biz types celebrating the ordeals of being millionaires and running into network standards has gotten tired. As it's mostly episodic, the show lives or dies by the episode but it's hard to deny that the show hit a lot of home runs in the back half of the season.

Young Rock (NBC)-Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson has cemented his status over the past couple decades as a lovable guy. He's a self-aware hunk of beefcake and he's been relegated to action roles but his public persona has been that of an ideal celebrity. He's often talked about running for president and, while I'm sure his reasons are more noble than Trump, the last thing I want to meditate on is another celebrity president. Unfortunately, the show unironically posits that Johnson (as himself) is the 2032 candidate for president and it reeks of of self-congratulations. There's a difference between most of us liking The Rock and The Rock making a show about how he got to be so likeable. The show is also only slightly self-aware to be effective enough commentary on the relationship between celebrity and cultural/political clout.

Fortunately, that's just the framing device. Through two episodes, it's basically just a typical adolescent comedy that could easily be called "It's not easy being a jock" as the 15-year-old Dwayne Johnson is twice the side of his peers. It's moderately charming.

My Annual Top 12 Shows of the Year:

1. Orange is the New Black (Netflix)-The seventh and final season of “Orange is the New Black” dealt with immigration courts and the continued indignities of the for-profit prison system with harrowing tragedy. At the same time, “Orange is the New Black” didn’t sacrifice realism to throw us a bone with a few well-earned happy endings, and half a dozen other resolutions that at least ended on a poetic note. Through thick and thin, the series has never failed to entertain or stay fresh which is an accomplishment few shows can claim over such a span.

Source: DenofGeek

 2. The Good Place (NBC)- By now, it seems pretty conclusive that we'll never actually see Eleanor and the gang suffering any actual torture (if for nothing else, because no comedy could possibly be mined out of it) but that doesn't mean that this isn't the most high stakes comedy on television. While it is also a TV show that thrives on burning through plot at nearly unsustainable speeds, "The Good Place" found a nice resting perch from which to ease off the gas pedal with a reboot that saw Team Cockroach running their own simulation. The show continued to build the outer fringes of its word giving more fodder for break out characters (Gen, Vicky, Sean, Derek) to fill out the landscape.

3. BoJack Horseman (Netflix)-The tonal marriage of heart-slowing depression and hilarity was on full display in a season opener that saw BoJack going through the motions of rehab over and over while his peers were able to make sudden improvements. BoJack’s universe is when where achievements aren’t easily earned but slowly accrue over time. Despite the show’s rigid progressivism (which the show runners have shouted out quite a bit off-camera), there’s never a lack of empathy for characters like BoJack who have hurt others in their wake. The half-season concluded with one of their great experimental riffs with a “His Girl Friday” send-up that completely omitted the series’ five main characters. The cliffhanger ending properly raised the stakes over how much of his dark past BoJack is going to relive.

Source: Slashfilm

4. Miracle Workers (TBS)-A whimsical take on the classic world-wide doomsday scenario based on the supremely clever book by ex-SNL scribe Simon Rich. Steve Buscemi plays a God who's an idiot among idiots and his angels live in a bureaucratic jungle reminiscent of Terry Gilliam's Brazil. That the stakes are high yet mundane-seeming from above is a great comedic template but the show builds on a winning premise with smart dialogue and a great confluence of idiosyncratic personalities. Additionally, this is one of the few times where I can say I’ve read the book and this is indeed a smart adaptation.

Source: Variety

5. Lodge 49 (AMC)- Although this show won't be winning praise from the Long Beach Chamber of Commerce, there's a great portrait of a city in economic depression and how it limits the imaginations of everyone it affects. Almost everyone, that is. Enter Sean Dudley (Wyatt Russell): An ex-surfer with an inspiringly open heart who recently lost his dad to a shark accident and has nothing to his name except a membership to a lodge whose members are just as aimless as he is. To say the show meanders would be an understatement: The narrative never really has a definite ending point. Characters simply just try to get through their lives without going under. Some chase lofty dreams (David Pasquesi), some are consigned to know their days are behind them (Linda Edmond) , and others (Wyatt's sister played by Sonya Cassidy) are still trying to figure out what the future holds while fending off a string of hellish bosses. The second season asserts itself a little more with converging thread lines and introductions of Paul Giamatti as a blowhard author and Olivia Sandoval as a cooky CEO who desperately needs to adult.

6. A.P. Bio (NBC)-“AP Bio” started out as a fun outliar of a show that pushed the scenario of a reluctant  teacher who inadvertently bonds with his students to extremes. Jack (Glenn Howerton channels about 80% of Dennis from “Always Sunny” here) actively avoids wanting to even teach his students anything and involves them in incriminating activity. But rather than double down on the “Bad Teacher” scenario, this show has created a genuine sense of pathos in the development of Jack and his relationship with his students while still maintaining the veneer his vindictive persona. This show also has a cast of supporting characters that gets better with every moment of the spotlight they’re given from the multi-racial Greek chorus of teachers (Mary Sohn, Lyric Lewis, Jean Villepique) to the class of misfit students. Thank god for Season 3.

Source: WhatCulture.com

7. Arrested Development (Netflix)-Although the show's final half-season slipped under the radar (except for bad press by Jeffrey Tambour), it doesn't diminish the accomplishment of a series finale that tied up so many disparate threads with the idiosyncratic brick jokes and panache that only "Arrested Development" can. The introduction of Kyle Mooney as a dim-witted bastard child of Tobias seemed like an addition that could shake up a very delicate comic infrastructure but towards the end of the season, the makeshift family of Tobias, DeBrie (whose return along with Isla Fisher’s Rebel Alley are often the seson’s two best things), and Murphy Brown felt like a perfect next step in the show’s evolution.

8. The Boys (Amazon Prime)-With the saturation of the superhero genre there’s already an abundance of TV shows, movies and comic strips that claim enough self-awareness of the genre coupled with the ability to skewer its main traits (see “Guardians of the Galaxy”) but a lot of those efforts try to have their cake and eat it too with humorous tones. “The Boys” manages to divorce itself from what it’s parodying will still maintaining the fun and energy of a proper action film. More than that, “The Boys” has a lot more to say about our society than the genre itself: Whether hero (and, by proxy, celebrity) worship has a function in our society (and its need for role models) or if it makes it easier for our values to be subject to abuse.

9. It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia (FX)-The show’s seasons range in quality from only a standard level of awesome to off the charts awe-inspiring. The last couple seasons were a little bit of a dip. The characters grew up in terms of facing their demons (for Charlie, the waitress; for Mac, his sexual confusion, for Dennis, giving fatherhood a brief try) so yay! But the new versions of the gang members didn’t necessarily translate into laughs. Season 14 ranged from experimental (the sublime noir send-up “The Janitor Mops Twice”), casually meta (“The Gang Gets Romantic”), skewed takes on social issues (“Thunder Gun 4” and “A Woman’s Right to Chop”), and gleeful callbacks (“Dee Day”) while continuing to rarely drag and have its leads stay hilariously in character.

Source: Cinemablend

10. Dead To Me (Netflix)-A serialized mystery focusing on the connection between a widow (Christina Applegate) trying to make sense of her late husband's death and a awkwardly cheery stranger (Linda Cardellini) who enters her orbit under pretty shady circumstances. Cardinelli's character is so desperate to connect, she's possibly the clingiest character on TV and it's hard to take your eyes off her. But there’s a secret. And another one and a couple more after that. To call this a sunny noir is to short change a story told with a style that defies convention. A second season is on the way and there are few shows where I’m excited to see just how far bad the characters will break.

Source: Reality Blurted

11. Holey Moley (ABC)- 99 times out of 100 I consider the artistry superior in scripted programming than any sort of staged reality, but "Holey Moley" proves the exception to the rule. The mini-golf game show (yes you read that correctly) applies just the right tweaks to every one's favorite backyard game and turns it into an extravaganza akin to ABC's Wild World of Sports. With its three-point twelve-player format, talking head intros, and solid editing, the show introduces us to rootable characters and ups the stakes nicely over the course of an hour. The star of the show though is comedy vet Rob Riggle as a host who adds a surreal level of meta-humor as a play-by-play commentator taking in and spitting out all the absurdity with a straight face.

12. Ramy (Hulu)-Whereas most shows about introspective single men in comedy are about getting laid and occasionally more, Ramy is about an devout Muslim in New Jersey trying to veer away from the secular temptations of sex for a greater religious high. That’s definitely in the category of “something different” worth seeking out when we talk about diversity. Although comedian Ramy Yousef shouldn’t be expected to shoulder the entirety of modern Islam on his shoulders, his show gives us an interesting glimpse.

My list of Honorable Mentions was covered last week: American Horror Story 1984 (FX), Bless the Harts (Fox), Black Mirror (Netflix), Derry Girls (BBC Channel 4/Netflix), Disenchantment (Netflix), Good Omens (Amazon Prime), The Orville (Fox), The Other Two (Comedy Central), Russian Doll (Netflix), What We Do in the Shadows (FX)


Everything I watched last year:
Abby’s (NBC), Adam Ruins Everything (TruTV), Almost Family (ABC), Archer (FX), Baroness von Sketch Show (IFC), Big Mouth (Netflix), Card Sharks (ABC), Castle Rock (Hulu), Carmen Sandiego (Netflix), Carnival Row (Amazon)* Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (CBSAA), Corporate (Comedy Central), Crashing (HBO)*, Chernobyl (AMC)*, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (CW), Dollface (Hulu), Documentary Now (IFC), Final Space (TBS/Netflix)*, Fresh off the Boat (ABC), Futureman (Hulu), God Friended Me (CBS), Good Girls (NBC), Grand Hotel (ABC), Hot Date (Pop TV), I-Land (Netflix), I Think You Should Leave (Netflix), 9-1-1 (NBC), Perfect Harmony (NBC), Politician (Netflix), Sex Education (Netflix), Schitt’s Creek (PopTV), Shrill (Hulu), Society (Netflix), Superstore (NBC), Sunnyside (NBC), Those Who Can’t (TruTV), Thirteen Reasons Why (Netflix), Undone (Amazon Prime), Umbrella Academy (Netflix), Will and Grace (NBC), Yellowstone (Paramount Network)

* = one episode

My week in TV VI: Umbrella Academy Pilot: Wes Anderson Meets Quentin Tarantino

Credit: Comingsoon.net

Umbrella Academy (Netflix)-“Pilot”- Encapsulating the feel of this show is so easy, I can do it in five words: Wes Anderson meets Quentin Tarantino.

When some freak accident in mother nature impregnates and induces labor in countless women across the globe on the same day, a shady rich man travels the world to adopt as many of the kids as he can. He ends up with seven (six of whom are still alive) then trains them in an ornate mansion to use their superpowers, but what else is new? There’s a parody on the internet by the wonderfully film literate You Tuber Patrick Williams:  “What if Wes Anderson directed the X-Men” which hits this show right on the nose.

The found family here feels like a near facsimile of the co-dependently depressed “Royal Tenenbaums”; the adult sibling who’s trapped in a kid’s body (character’s name on IMDB is listed as “Number Five”) is dressed exactly like Max from “Rushmore”; and the lavishly delicate interiors recall any number of Anderson’s films.

But as you’re thinking the show is just ripping off one of the most idiosyncratic auteurs of the 90s (although technically “Tenenbaums” was 2001), the penultimate act of the pilot, Number Five goes into a diner and casually murders (and rewatch this clip, it’s not self-defense but rather gleeful brutally) five SWAT  team members while lights flicker, fast edits ensue, the victims’ last gasps fill the soundscape and the song ”Istanbul Was Once Constantinople” plays in the background. The sensory overload and the glorified violence recall Tarantino and it’s even more jarring here.

From the pilot, the show has a lot of questions left unanswered and Mary J Blige, supposedly the season’s villain, hasn’t yet made an appearance. The other recognizable name in the credits, Ellen Page, works well as a cog in the ensemble.

Despite the stylistic “been there done that” feeling, there are moments of inspiration that come from sheer stylistic  boldness. The montage of Ellen Page’s character playing the violin, for example, while the other protagonists are introduced is endlessly rewatchable.

Capsule Reviews of first 15 Films I saw in 2018

1. The Death of Stalin-This comic retelling of the aftermath of Stalin's death is at least five times better than anything else Armando Iannucci has ever done. To do crack-pace dialogue with Julia Louis Dreyfus in the present day sort of writes itself: Just take two parts Aaron Sorkin and add one part dysfunctional workplace comedy. To take your style of screenwriting and work it into one of the most historically villainous regimes in history while staying true to the real-life tics of historic characters and maintaining overall lightness required for a comedy is downright operatic.

2. Disobedience-Rachel Weisz stars as a Rabbi’s daughter returning to an Orthodox Jewish community that has shunned her because she has chosen not to adopt their austere lifestyle. The film has a brilliant pseudo-horror vibe with the voyeuristic looks that others gaze upon her with, as she sits with them at dinner or walks through the streets alongside them. The film is advertised as a film about a lesbian relationship, but it's really a film about free will because being in a pre-marital sexual relationship, dating a secular jew, even having secular Jews in your friend circle or getting an education all lead to the same end result of shunning anyways. Perhaps it’s my experience in this type of community, but the film is beautiful, spot-on, tense, sexy (spoiler: the two Rachels get it on) , and treats each of the three leads (Rachel McAdams and Allesandro Nivola) with the respect to round out their character arcs..

3. Tag-Nope, it’s not a drama on any level, but it’s ok to have popcorn comedies high on your lists. This is funny on every level. The timing of the jokes, the rounding out of character tics, the multiple layers of the jokes and the call backs all work. Like “It’s Always Sunny”, there’s a lot of humor where we get joy in watching adults act childish in front of baffled adults who just don’t know how to react to what they’re seeing. Only complaint in the humor department: The attempt to Sherlockize Jeremy Renner’s character wore out its welcome as a repeating joke. The film is also sentimental at just the right level and speaks to how growing old doesn’t mean you need to stop having fun. A good lesson to any critics who didn’t appreciate this film. 

4. Ocean’s 8-To the people who think it’s too much of a feminist statement or not enough of a feminist statement: Shut up, both of you! It’s just a good movie with a legitimate sense of tension and flow, and a good cast that it utilizes well (also, there isn’t really a wrong way to utilize Rihanna or Helena Bohnam Carter for that matter). Sandra Bullock isn’t someone I would think of as a self-assured cat burglar type but I liked the sentimentality she bought to the role. When she toasted to her brother’s grave, it was a more meaningful moment than anything in the original Ocean’s series which was really just an overt self-congratulations of smug rich actors and Soderbergh’s “look at how good of a director I am” flashy stuff. James Corden is perfect as a bumbling foil. I had a couple minor problems with how things unraveled, even after suspending my disbelief and going with the absurdity of it all.

5. Leave No Trace-Best described as a less pretentious “Captain Fantastic”. Ben Foster, an underrated actor, plays a guy ill-at-ease with mainstream life so he lives off the grid with his daughter. The movie twists and turns in a few unexpected places and each of those defines the enigmatic protagonist better without revealing too much about him.

6. Ant Man and the Wasp-For someone who never cared about "The Avengers" or "Captain America", there was a distasteful amount of catch-up involved but nothing detrimental for me enjoying this film that largely knows it's about summer fun and not extended mythology. Paul Rudd is so solid at playing a "cool dad" type that I wouldn't be surprised if a whole generation of young viewers view him as the new archetype. The film works in humor at an extremely organic level and for that alone, I'd be extremely comfortable recommending this film to anyone who has been searching in vain for that comic action film that captures the feeling of the original "Indiana Jones" or "Star Wars" franchise. This is especially true for the micro-microscopic universe which had the feeling of a 1950's B-movie. Credit has to also go for TI, David Dastmalchian (ironically, TI is named David while Dastmalchian is named Kurt, how confusing), and Michael Pena which have graduated from background noise in this movie to a genuinely entertaining band of side kicks. 

7. Tomb Raider-Alicia Vikander and Anjelina Jolie both have the same number of Oscars, but as far as I can tell, Anjelina Jolie was mostly sold to audiences in the 2000s like waitresses at Hooters are sold to potential diners. I’m a sucker for archeological jungle adventures and while the McGuffin was ridiculously weak, the Alicia Vikander character was progressive without being obnoxious, compelling, and was a unique style of action star (mainly crashing into objects with minimal impact). The races and set pieces were pretty solid.

8. Black Panther-The hype and much of the cheering from the left was pretty annoying considering it was a pretty nuanced film about the dangers of not being militaristic in your civil rights movement. In other words, the film was more nuanced than what people were taking from the films. There were good and bad white and black guys, after all. I thought the plot stretched a bit thin, but the narrative flowed smoothly from point to point so not a lot of wasted space while still doing a lot of world-building. The Afro-futurism angle is just a cool hook simply from the perspective of reimagining a world that’s so different but kind of plausible. Congo, for example, has natural resources found nowhere else in the world; the natural healing powers of African shaman medicine has been better than Western medicine in some points in history.

9. Set It Up-Up until the last 20 minutes, this much-praised romantic comedy is formulaic but watchable. In the last 20 minutes it finds a way to upend itself without being cheap or forced and that’s when it sticks with you much longer. Zooey Deutsch is a bit cutesy but she checks the boxes of a progressive feminist cheerleader so the critics are on board. Lucy Liu and Taye Diggs play strong villains and Pete Davidson (currently getting a lot of attention for being in the most high-profile relationship in SNL history) is surprisingly decent.

10. Ibiza-Every plot point here abides by the formula of “group of guys/women go wild and lose themselves for a night” and it’s getting slightly old. Despite a complete lack of anything original, it’s a good showcase for the three actresses.

11. Ready Player One-Like the “Transformers” franchise, it’s about shiny manly toys for the most part and doesn’t really sketch out this vision of the future as much as I would have liked but it’s a fairly compelling story. It’s definitely of a go-big-or-go-home style of Spielbergian artistry without being awful. I have a feeling I’ll look back on this a while and find it even less memorable.


12. Red Sparrow-A bit gruesome and repetitive but a largely coherent plot and less nihilistic than the female spy thriller I saw last year “Atomic Blonde.” Spy thrillers like these often have too many twists and turns and that can lose viewers at light speed, so that this is a coherent story is a major accomplishment. I also imagine a master’s level sociology thesis can be written about everything this movie has to say about sexuality and society. 


13. Racer and the Jailbird-I thought this was a sexy action film. Instead it’s a dark film about a couple who both go through extended periods of chronic illness and incarceration. Just a sad, sad story. This might be unfair to judge the film based on the package of information available to the me before the film, but if I was prepared for a sad story, my assessment might be different. At the same time, I do believe the film was legitimately depressing without having more of profound approach.


14. Game Night-I hardly see a reason to justify this film’s existence. A couple (Rachel McAdams and Jason Bateman) like playing games? That’s the hook? The violent take on comedy has been done a million times and it just feels tacked on here. The “when is this real, when isn’t this real” tension is stripped of its meeting when we know the plot is “thing that they think isn’t real becomes real.”


15. A Whisper in Time-This children’s film doesn’t treat its mythology as something worth caring about yet asks us to endure excruciatingly boring technobabble about said non-interesting mythology. The film is too tonally bizarre and its character dynamics too uninteresting to care about anything at all that’s happening on screen. Maybe we should just admit that Ava DuVerney (despite being a woman of color, yay!) is just not that good of a film maker. Selma" was "important" but not particularly captivating.

Top Ten Shows of the Year

As if there aren't already 8 million of these floating around, here's my TOP 10 OF THE YEAR!!

1. Boardwalk Empire, HBO-The creation of the mob during prohibition is one of the most formative chapters of American history and if edgy film and television is going to practically be synonymous with gangster stories, someone might as well get to the heart of the matter. With Martin Scorsese and Mark Wahlberg among the producers, the show is in good hands. In addition, Steve Buscemi steps into a rare leading man role and deserves an Emmy for it.

2. The Choir, BBC, Office/Jamie Oliver's Food Food Revolution, ABC-Both those shows were insightful, educational, relevant and, ultimately, inspirational. One show involved a British chef's quest to fight America's obesity epidemic with Huntington, West Virginia as a starting point. Oliver, best-known as the Naked Chef (famous enough to be a punchline on Saturday Night Live), was supplied with his own ready-made villain in the form a radio DJ who believed Oliver was just out for fame and the town didn't care about lettuce. In winning the evil DJ and the town over, Jamie Oliver gave us some great tear-inducing drama and got us on board his cause and character. Consider me Team Jamie Oliver.

On the other side of the pond in England, choir master Garreth Malone attempted to tackle arts education in a coed school, a boy's academy and a community choir. Like Food, Food Revolution, it seems like an easy formula to mine some drama but then the tears start flowing and you're genuinely moved. Both shows were a reminder that reality TV doesn't have to be about artificial competitions when real life can be quite compelling.

3. Breaking Bad AMC-This is Breaking Bad's third year on my top 10 list but the first year in which it is considered the preeminent show on television which merits a bit more exploration:

Crime dramas are only effective to the extent that they can relate their universe to an audience comprised largely of people uninvolved in the criminal underworld who see meth rings, Mexican drug cartels and the like as largely abstract occurrences. Hence, films that deconstruct the gangster genre like Goodfellas, American Gangster and Scarface largely win the audience over if they can create enough of an arc where that violent gangster was once an ordinary Joe Schmoe.

Breaking Bad used two entire seasons to carefully lay the groundwork out for that ordinary Joe Schmoe to become a truly unsympathetic character (or would you argue he still retains his sympathy?? it's certainly a balancing act) which makes his moral demise all the more richer. What's more, he's paired with somewhat of a lowlife in Jesse Pinkman and as Aaron Paul's win at the Emmys demonstrated that character has morphed quite unexpectedly into a moral barometer of sorts.

The show's momentum can't be denied because it's the most ambitious on television. It sets characters on a collision course with each other and its as if the writers are on a dare to see how long they can keep the characters from colliding.

What I wrote about Breaking Bad 2 years ago on my 2008 list: http://bit.ly/eXUdIF

4. Futurama, Comedy Central-Whether I was Futurama's biggest fan or just a casual one before the show came back (I'd put myself somewhere in the middle), I fell in love with the show all over again during its run this summer. To be resurrected from the dead like Futurama is somewhat of a miracle in the world of TV, but the downside can be greater expectations. For me, the show met and exceeded the bar. The writing was sharp, the visuals were imaginative and the plots were consistently ambitious. If the episodes failed, you can at least say that they fell hard because they aimed high. The show also earns points for experimenting with new dynamics (i.e. Bender and Amy, Hermes and Bender, Amy and Nibbler, Fry and the Professor) between characters.

5. Modern Family, ABC-I enjoyed Arrested Development immensely but I also interpreted its success at the time to conclude that the traditional family sitcom couldn't exist unless it was being mocked and/or subverted. That changed when I saw Modern Family.

Modern Family went into new territory by bringing humor without a hint of irony. The show mines comedy out of the quirks of Dumphy, Prichett and Prichett-Delgado clans and mines drama of the forces that threaten to tear those family bonds apart. Is is significant that the comedy doesn't suggest that the family is worthless and the negative vibes in the family are always overcome (or at least ameliorated) by episode's end.

6. Party Down, Starz-I honestly have never heard of the Starz Network which is why it took me so long to discover this gem. Starring Adam Scott, Megan Mullally, and Lizzy Caplan (best known for this Jason Mraz video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oieBnV_HFB0), this show centers around a ragtag band of dreamers in Los Angeles working on a catering team together to pay the bills but hoping for bigger things. Their characters' varying degrees of disconnect from reality is contrasted with the very close proximity these people are to the people who nonchalantly live their lives. The show also manages to be edgy in bringing characters to the screen who aren't in love with their lives without being unnecessarily crude or depressing (a sin I find Weeds and Entourage guilty of).


7. Terriers, FX-There are so many procedural shows out there that it's hard for any one show to distinguish itself. So how does Terriers make the list? Likable protagonists that you can latch onto are a start. The pair of amateur detectives are mellow and easy-going (kind of functional versions of the Dude in Big Lebowski. The Dude did solve a crime over the course of the film but that was by pure coincidence. I do want to be specific in my comparison here, because Terriers isn't a stoner comedy) which is refreshing considering so many characters in cop procedurals take themselves so seriously. Like the characters, the plots also meander but in a good way: plots don't necessarily resolve themselves from episode to episode and the viewer can't really be sure where the show is going next.

The show also has noirish overtones and reminds me very much of Chinatown in the sense that a land deal becomes so much more than it seems on the surface.

8. Glee, FOX-Some critics felt that the show had a sophomore slump but I don't think that's the case with this show at all. Hot hits with the teenage demographic usually are the big fad one season and disappear pretty fast (i.e. The O.C., Gossip Girl, Everwood). At least for now, however, the show is strong enough to overcome the fact that it no longer has novelty working in its favor.

The episodes occasionally miss but I admire the show for trying to approach serious topics like anti-bullying, the limits of teenage aspirations, and prejudice, with a sense of gravity.

The additions in the second season have only made the show better. Dr. Carl (John Stamos) has been a much better rival for Emma Pillsbury's affections than Coach Tanaka and the additions of Sam combined with the expansion of Brittany, Mike Chang and Santana have been very effective at balancing out the melodrama stemming from the Finn-Puck-Rachel and Rachel-Quinn-Finn love triangles.

Further Reading on the Backlash and Continued Popularity of Glee

9. Parks and Recreation, NBC-This show has better characters and a better ensemble than most shows on TV. Amy Poehler, an SNL alum who gradually transformed into the show's MVP by her 8th season, is more than talented enough to lead a sitcom as bureaucrat. The supporting cast of players in the Pawnee parks department isn't just notable for being good: The writers and actors deserve credit for having the characters evolve as the show hit its stride. Despite being a polar opposite to Leslie Knope, Anne (Rashida Jones) has become the yin to Leslie's yang. Similarly, Andy (Chris Pratt) has gone from "the other guy" to a lovable hanger-on and Aubrey Plaza's unrivalled ability to deadpan has stopped overshadowing April's development.

The show is a welcome compliment to The Office and a great example of how to follow up something great without changing directions entirely.

10. No Ordinary Family, ABC-Think Heroes if the show were to compress all of the disparate storylines from Heroes into one family. There are also two sidekicks who make the show better with every minute of screen time they get. Romany Malco plays an impassioned district attorney and good friend of the dad (Michael Chilkis) and the other (Autumn Reeser) is an adorably nervous (and easy on the eyes) lab assistant of the mom (Julie Benz) and brings with her an overeagerness to live out her comic book fantasies through her. The show can get a little corny, but it has impressive special effects and an arc that's just now starting to considerably deepen.

Article of Best new fall shows of 2010 including Modern Family

Best show I discovered a year too late to put on my Top 10 List for last year and which I haven't seen this year because I couldn't find any bit torrent for it and HBO won't even allow itunes downloads for:
In Treatment, HBO-The raw drama, the power of the performances, the insight into the human psyche is, to quote Shawn Stockman on NBC' The Sing-Off (and if you saw his critique of Committed on that show you'd know what I was talking about), "What it's all about, man." The root of what makes drama good is right here. There's nothing but a room, a couch and a chair with a patient who we slowly learn about as the weeks go on and a psychiatrist who's pretty damn good at his job. More specifically, we're watching that guy pretty damn good at his job in four out of every five episodes. On that 5th episode, we learn how much of a basket case he is when he visits a psychiatrist of his own (Editorial note: I have restrained myself from watching the "Paul goes to therapy" episodes because I find it ruins the illusion).

[Ed. note: I since put it into my top 10 for 2009]

Runners-Up:
Sing-Off, NBC, Burn Notice, USA, The Office, NBC, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, FX (my #1 last year), Archer, FX, Outsourced, NBC (Still a fan and avid defender!)


Other articles of mine:
The Evils of Craigslist:
http://bit.ly/etV1vJ
The Morality of the Characters on it's Always Sunny in Philly
http://bit.ly/g70Aka
Which Filmic Version of Washington Suits you Best:
http://bit.ly/h4i5n1
A Day on the Set with the Extras on How Do You Know?:
http://bit.ly/gUWO0r