“I miss this sort of comedy, the kind of comedy that doesn’t call attention to its jokes, the kind that’s sharply written and doesn’t meander or rely on extended improvised riffs. It’s tightly wound silliness with a ton of great talent”
“We’re all healing as we (hopefully) come to the end of this awful era, and seeing JOY RIDE under these circumstances was such an immensely enjoyable time, and I’m so happy I could see it with such giving artists.”
“I can’t recommend these two films enough, but I would suggest watching them relatively close together. I hadn’t seen PART I since it screened in theaters in 2019, and felt like I was missing out on a lot in PART II because, uh, my memory, and the past two years have been particularly harrowing.”
I’ve had the goddamn hardest time getting people to watch this film, solely because of Kristen Stewart, but hell, the way she casts her eyes … I wish folks would just watch the trailer and see her transformation.
“I can’t remember the last time I so extensively averted my eyes from watching a film. However, those moments are not exploitative — they are meant to be uncomfortable, they are there for a reason. I simply felt that I was able to glean that reason by listening, instead of watching.”
Not gonna lie; IT’S ALWAYS SUNNY IN PHILADELPHIA runs hot-or-cold for folks. It’s an extremely acerbic show that you either love or hate, and I happen to fucking love it. While it’s often extremely distasteful, it also has a surprisingly sweet side.
The latest season was a bit off-kilter, but the trip to Ireland was chef kiss and, while it was shorter than I would have liked, it did lean into a bit more emotion and sensitivity, which PHILLY has become surprisingly good at for a show that’s so unabashedly unapologetic for how awful their characters are.
“[One] of the few shows I had to relegate to only watching during the daytime and while I wasn’t working, because it was so fucking hilarious that it was distracting and my laughter was prone to waking folks up.”
THE GREAT
Hilariously filthy and horny on Tverskaya, while still being emotionally and historically insightful, while still being completely irreverent. Completely unlike anything else on the air right now.
HACKS
While the Jean Smart-renaissance contines, I’m far more interested in Hannah Einbinder and her journey. A fantastic scrutinization on women in comedy and their personal endeavors.
“[F]unny, warm, smart, and occasionally scary. The season one finale, which saw him documenting the spread of COVID-19 via his Greek landlord was so heartwarming, while also being heartbreaking.”
ONLY MURDERS IN THE BUILDING
“It’s a legitimately thrillingly suspenseful tale that, honestly? Didn’t need to be.“
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-V1rQdXXXyI
RESERVATION DOGS
An astounding work of the trials and tribulations indigenous folks have to live with in America, while still being amazingly funny.
STAR TREK: DISCOVERY S3 (one ep in 2021, so I’m counting it.)
““This is my kind of STAR TREK!” [I exclaimed,] as there were more than a few eps that focused on discovering new worlds with kind intent, recreating the wonder that drew me into the STAR TREK universe in the first place. While not all of the characters are terribly complex, their motives and Federation-centric willfulness to be as helpful as they can be was refreshing, comforting, and familiar. It felt like the show realized what it needed to do to recapture the original series’ magic, all while gamely moving matters forward.”
“A confused mix of hash anthems and sour girl power. […] It was kind of like therapy, but with a lot of screaming.”
—
“I’m the lamb, by the way.”
WHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS S3
While S3 didn’t hit the highs of Jackie Daytona, it was still far more hilarious and heartfelt and inventive than practically any other high-concept comedy out there.
THE WHITE LOTUS
Mike White is exceptional at not only writing the plights of privileged white folks, but also in managing your expectations when it comes to those set-pieces. This is his case of having his cake and eating it too.
WYNONNA EARP
WYONNA EARP was caught in Canadian finance limbo for far too long, but the final season delivered. It was always an underrated genre show, and sadly it appears that it’ll remain that way.
YELLOWJACKETS
YELLOWJACKETS’ pilot is perhaps the best genre pilot since LOST, and you can watch it for free!
YELLOWJACKETS is best described as teen girl LORD OF THE FLIES meets LOST, but frankly, it’s better, at least so far. The characters are more complex, the circumstances more interesting, and they (so far) aren’t drawing out paranatural circumstances.
(HBO/HBO MAX) HOW TO WITH JOHN WILSON just wrapped its second season, but for the purposes of this recommendation, I will stick to the first season, solely because I’m a bit behind on the second season. (That said, the second season enlisted the skills of one of the best writerly documentarian of the current generation, Susan Orlean, so take that as a full-throated recommendation for skipping ahead if you’re impatient.)
John Wilson is an obsessive documentarian. He always has a camera in his hand and he’s always looking out for some oddity, searching for thirty-seconds of visual intrigue in New York City. However, he’s also capable of a meandering weaver of cultural insight.
Each episode of HOW TO WITH JOHN WILSON starts off with an innocuous ideal: “How to Make Small Talk”; “How to Improve Your Memory”; “How to Cover Your Furniture” but each episode is like a strange stream-of-consciousness/exquisite corpse-like tale where he wanders to a larger humanist insight. It’s funny, warm, smart, and occasionally scary. The season one finale, which saw him documenting the spread of COVID-19 via his Greek landlord was so heartwarming, while also being heartbreaking.
My wife asked me: “Is there a name for this sort of genre? Overly-sincere dudes examine the lives they witness around them?” I wish I could lay a name to the genre, but shows like these — NATHAN FOR YOU, JOE PERA TALKS WITH YOU, and HOW TO WITH JOHN WILSON, escape classification. We’re simply used to dude-based TV works as being meditations about cruelty, and I’m happy to see that we’re finally rounding the curve, that we’re seeing works about men questioning their world, reaching out, being empathic. It gives me hope and warms my cynical heart.
“You don’t always realize you’re in the middle of history until it’s over.”
(peacock/VOD) A.P. BIO is, well, was since it’s been canceled for a second time, ostensibly about a narcissistic asshole named Jack Griffin (IT’S ALWAYS SUNNY IN PHILADELPHIA’s Glenn Howerton) who is thrust into teaching a high-school A.P. Biology course that he has absolutely no interest in. While the first season tried to adhere to a saccharin-sweet balance, the subsequent seasons firmly posited the show as a gag machine firing on all cylinders.
Consequently, the rest of this write-up will consist solely of recounting some of the most ridiculous jokes:
—
“I have my father’s eye.”
“You mean eyes.”
“Oh no, his actual eye. I had a bum cornea so, when he died, they just swapped his right into my eye, and that’s why I don’t look at myself naked because it wouldn’t be appropriate.”
Oh Paula Pell, you do know how to comedically sell a melancholy tale.
—
“Yes, we did it! It was us! We were the ones who brought the ice down from the misty mountains! Take this back to the princess and she can have her Snowcone! Curtain; intermission.”
“Wow! That all happens in Act I? That’s -amazing-!”
“I have a few notes. I feel like it owes a big debt to THE EMPEROR’S NEW GROOVE.”
—
“He skipped lunch with a student! Look at him: he dressed like Betelgeuse for this!”
“Uh, I’m ska.”
“He’s ska-red! I’m ska too. I’m very ska. But Durbin come back safe safe.”
—
“Mary, I renew my objection to this whole cabin in the woods business. I mean, I don’t know many times I have to tell you that I don’t do full nature.”
“We are going to have so much fun! Three foxy mammas in the great outdoors? We’re either going to meet a bigfoot, a Brawny paper towel man, or a Leatherface. And, as you know, two of three three are my type.”
“I mean, it’s sure to beat Michelle’s pick of San Antonio from last year.”
“I promised my dad I would tour the Pace Picante factory before he died, so I did it, and then he died right away, and now my mom sort of blames me for it, so yeah, Stef, really dull trip.”
—
“Metal compasses? Hand over the math knives, Wolverine.”
“I have a parasitic twin! It’s just a mass of hair and teeth, really. It’s in a jar at home! …that felt pretty vulnerable, and I’d love it if someone looked at me.”
Jack spots a poster of a wrestling match: “Neanderthal gymnastics.” (No offense to fans of wrestling, but it’s a great Jack quip.)
Not a line, but a great bit of costume design: Anthony, one of the students, is wearing a DINOSAURS ‘NOT THE MAMMA!’ shirt.
—
“Whoa, PIECES OF APRIL. Nice. Very on-brand for our Katie Holmes Day rummage sale.” I genuinely, unironically love that movie, and apparently the A.P. BIO folks do too as they even dress student Heather (the always entertaining Allisyn Snyder) up as the titular April, and drop in a few other fun riffs that I don’t want to spoil.
“Ralph, the football team wants real energy drinks. They figured out that Gatorade Clear is just water.”
—
“We need to bust outta here now.”
“Oh no, I’m not going outside. There’s probably cows flying around.”
“Yeah, I’m not trying to get hit upside the head by no barn or something, knocking my baby straight outta of me before I get to paint the nursery.”
“Listen to me: Keith is sound-mixing today. He works in a glass gazebo in our backyard with a blindfold and noise-cancelling headphones! And the song he’s working on is mostly wind and sirens! I need to sneak out of here and save my husband, and I need your help.”
“Oh, I’m sure he’s dead. And you need to let him go. But I’ll help you get out!”
“At least to identify the body.”
—
…and Bruce Campbell pops up on A.P. BIO:
“Dad?”
“Haha, Jack Sprat. My God. Look how big you are.”
“I’ve been this size for twenty years.”
Now that’s some fantastically succinct character background information, wrapped up in one great quip, and exactly why this show deserves more attention.
—
“Now, what’d everyone bring for their lunch roulette? And it’d better be good. Mary?”
“Huh? Oh, I would go first, but I want to see what Helen’s got.”
“Oh! Well, I had some time this morning so I just whipped up some seared duck breast in a balsamic reduction.”
“Oh!” “Wow.”
“And I would’ve made dessert, too, if the duck had gone down easier! Hehe!”
“Helen, did you kill this duck, like, this morning?”
“Well, yeah, I wasn’t gonna pan-fry it alive. I’m not a psychopath!”
– *
“Okay, for lunch roulette, I brought: one, normal, unadulterated ba-na-na!”
“…is this a rusty nail?” (There’s clearly a rusty nail embedded in said ba-na-na.)
“If it’s roulette, there’s gotta be one bullet to make it fun! Whatever, you guys suck. Let’s just play!”
—
“It’ll be nice for Rhonda to see how much we care. I tell you this: when Keith goes, I’m… [imitates self-inflicted gunshot to the head].”
“Hold up. Goes? Goes where?”
“Weren’t you listening? Rhonda’s husband died. What did you write on the card?”
“I wrote ‘Yippee! You’re back in the game! Get some, X-X-X’”
—
Context: A baby has just been born. Folks are speculating about the baby in the hospital.
“I just wish I could hold her! I’ll lactate, because I was a wet nurse during the Great Recession.”
Also: shout-out to THE GOBLINS/SUSPIRIA riff midway through the season finale. Again, is A.P. BIO necessary viewing? Probably not, but it’s hilariously and memorably inventive, and I’ll definitely miss it, as they really figured out how to make this world work over the past two seasons, even though S4 definitely leaned into the predictive sitcom tropes the show had been working so hard to avoid. However, it’s so sweet and funny that I don’t care.
(PC/macOS/PS4/Xboxes) A bit of backstory: the initial PSYCHONAUTS (2005) was the first game from the fledgling studio Double Fine, founded by ex-LucasArts adventure game designer Tim Schafer, and not only was it not an adventure game as one would expect, but a platformer, but it was a very troubled production. Microsoft started off as publisher for the game but, halfway through development, dropped out, leaving Double Fine in the lurch. They eventually found a publisher via now-storied Majesco, and the game was finally released after a — for the time — lengthy development time of four and a half years.
PSYCHONAUTS has a lot of the hallmarks of a great Schafer work: a terrifically realized world, a unique and striking look, laugh-out-loud dialogue, and empathy for its characters. Unfortunately, it was also often a frustrating platformer, with fussy controls and level design that felt obvious to them, but not to the players. In case you are not familiar: it’s about a kid named Raz (short for Rasputin) who has psychic abilities, but who comes from an extremely physical family circus troupe. He is fascinated with a group of other psychically-gifted folks who try to help people by sorting out their mental mysteries, whose tales are told through a series of comic books, but then gets his chance to enlist via a summer camp.
Twenty years later, PSYCHONAUTS 2 has been released through a similarly complex development period. Long story short, like with PSYCHONAUTS, it took far longer to fund and actually shape the game.
My initially impressions of PSYCHONAUTS 2 were, I will say, unpleasant, perhaps because they expected players to be more familiar with the game’s systems and blend of platforming. Also, perhaps my platforming skills are rusty. However, I haven’t played PSYCHONAUTS in many, many moons, and PSYCHONAUTS 2 throws -a lot- at you in the first few hours. I traditionally play games at normal difficulty, occasionally raising it to hard or extraordinarily difficult upon a very rare replay (e.g. games like VIEWTIFUL JOE or BAYONETTA), but this time I added all of the control assists because I’m too old for this shit.
After the first few hours, I started settling in and really started enjoying it, but kept the control assists (which were much appreciated) the same. While the game spent far more time in development than Schafer expected, the effort shows as it’s an extraordinarily detailed and epic game, while still first-and-foremost being about family and mindful about mental health. However, unlike the first game, PSYCHONAUTS 2 is more about be a mental examination of the prior Psychonauts and the trauma they’ve been living with. So, yeah, not exactly a soothing balm for these COVID times, but definitely in TED LASSO territory.
Sadly, the level design does not meet the heights of PSYCHONAUT’s Milkman level, but it also doesn’t hit the frustrating lows of the Meat Circus. (I vividly remember swearing so much during that level that my partner-now-wife asked me if I was okay.) That said, it doesn’t have to, at least in these times. The single-mindedness and pure-pleasure of 100%ing a game right now is so very appealing to me — I’ve done so for a few ASSASSINS CREED games, and will likely do so for PSYCHONAUTS 2 — as a way to simply numb myself from a lot of the bullshit of the current world. Also appealing: I can drop-in and drop-out of the game as necessary.
15+ years later, is PSYCHONAUTS 2 the sequel I wanted? (I can’t count the VR game because I don’t have any VR tech.) Yes and no. It leans far more on spectacle and less on cognitive/character visual motifs than I would have liked. It’s certainly not as idiosyncratic as the first game. However, it — again, like TED LASSO SEASON TWO — does such a great job at detailing how flawed we can be, but how we can learn to be better with some help, and how we need to accept each other on these journeys.
The show introduces itself as Joe Pera (Joe Pera) acting as sort of a meek male, acting as a life instructor, trying to bestow his overly-earnest life lessons via a pseudo-docu-drama format. If that sounds a little too arch, a little too meta, it’s played utterly sincerely and with a straight face. It’s not for laughs, although there are a number of them, usually at Joe’s innocent antics. (For example, when he discovers THE WHO’s -Baba O’Riley-.)
While the first and second seasons of the show normally focus on Joe’s observations — apart from a few asides, including an exceptional season two finale where Joe learns a lot about his fellow co-worker/girlfriend Sarah Conner (Jo Firestone, also one of the show’s writers and not Linda Hamilton) — the third season backgrounds him in lieu for the ensemble they’ve built over the past two seasons, such as his best friend Gene and Sarah Conner. It’s a perfect example of a show’s creators and writers realizing ‘oh, we have something special here’ and exploring further, rather than following a rigid formula.
Season three is still on-going, but there’s one episode where Sarah comes home drunk from a meet-up she was invited to, and the entire eleven minutes of the ep are dedicated to Joe just listening to her recount the tale of her night, while also trying to feed her to sober her up. It’s the closest I’ve seen TV approach to say, the realism and tone of a Jim Jarmusch film.
It also helps that Sarah is an extraordinarily complicated character, with far more depth and a far more scarred life than Joe, and to watch him accept her for her complexities is a beautiful thing.
It’s also goddamn hilarious when it’s not pulling at your heartstrings. For example, this singular exchange from a career woman magician Sarah meets at a wine party:
“We need more women in STEM. And by that, I mean skateboarding, television, e-sports, and magic!”
(Cinemas/VOD) Sorry, I’m yet again putting the pause on horror posts. I simply loved this film — as you can probably tell by the wall of text — and wanted to boost it.
I’m always reluctant to post about films that folks can’t see — after all, I started these missives to suggest interesting works one could safely watch at home during the pandemic (which, duh, still isn’t over). That’s growing increasingly hard as Chicago’s film programmers and filmmakers have been working overtime to (safely) bring people back to theaters, including folks like Joe Swanberg — I’ll be talking about his contributions next week — and, of course, the Music Box, and they’re often able to bring in directors for screenings of their latest films that the directors have never seen with an audience.
This was the case for Bobcat Goldthwait’s JOY RIDE which, unfortunately, really isn’t available to publicly view yet. (I just slotted in VOD because it’ll be available that way eventually.) I attended the Chicago premiere tonight at the Music Box and director Goldthwait was there, as well as his dear friend and co-star Dana Gould.
I know most people only know Bobcat Goldthwait from the POLICE ACADEMY series, which is a shame because he took a quality left turn with his career and decided to start writing and directing weird little works, including GOD BLESS AMERICA, SLEEPING DOGS LIE, WORLD’S GREATEST DAD (starring his old friend Robin Williams). They’re all darkly comic and satirical pieces, but imbued with a sensitivity and humanity that’s often lacking in satire. Plus, he’s become a veteren director of comedy specials, and directed his own genre TV show MISFITS & MONSTERS. To top it off: he’s friends with Dana Gould.
I realize Dana Gould isn’t a household name, but he’s been involved with so many legendary comedic works over the years. He wrote more than a few THE SIMPSONS episodes; he’s penned for SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE; he was a performer on THE BEN STILLER SHOW; he did voice acting for Nicktoons’ DOUG — the list goes on-and-on. I caught the ensemble reading of PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE that he wrangled via this year’s streaming-and-cable-only TCM FEST 2021. While I was reading GLAMOUR GHOUL – THE PASSIONS AND PAIN OF THE REAL VAMPIRA, MAILA NURMI, I discovered that he was a good friend to Maila, and helped keep her alive and healthy many times.
With that out of the way, I can finally summarize the film: it’s two extraordinarily funny men taking a road trip, taking their show on the road, mostly reflecting and riffing on their lives and their friendship, both in the car to each other, and to an audience. It’s a fantastic take on a comedy special, and one that is both darkly hilarious, heart-warming, and emotional. It showcases these two men, one of which — Bobcat — has been an absolute asshole to many people and audiences in the past, and even to Dana — and Dana who has been a prickly, difficult person, but has also changed a great deal. They ruminate on their lives and you can hear and see in the way they act towards each other that they’ve learned and healed so much over time. That kind of raw male unburdening is rare to see on-screen.
Also: JOY RIDE is absolutely hilarious. The two of them are consummate storytellers, but they also love to work off of each other and egg each other on, and the editing is pitch-perfect. The film killed at the Music Box, absolutely killed. I’m an easy laugher, but the best works bring me to a rolling boil, and JOY RIDE managed to pace itself so exceptionally — even with the emotional moments — that by the end I was a giggly mess.
As mentioned in the preamble, this was Bobcat’s first time watching the film with an audience. Not to brag — well, maybe just a little — but Goldthwait (a new Chicago denizen) was sitting directly across the aisle from me in the theater, close enough to tap on the shoulder. I’d sneak a few looks at him from time-to-time, just to see how he was reacting because I was curious, and he was laughing a lot — well, as much as you could tell when everyone’s masked.
When Bobcat and Dana stepped onto the stage to discuss the film, Bobcat talked about how emotional it was sitting there watching the film, hearing everyone’s laughter, and how he loved laughing at his friend’s jokes. It was a sincere, pure moment. We’re all healing as we (hopefully) come to the end of this awful era, and seeing JOY RIDE under these circumstances was such an immensely enjoyable time, and I’m so happy I could see it with such giving artists.
(Hoopla/VOD) WICKED STEPMOTHER (1989) WICKED STEPMOTHER has horror elements, but is really a dark comedy. It is also best known as being Bette Davis’ last film — sadly, while she brings a ton of energy to the role that’s left to the film, she’s clearly ailing — but it’s also penned and directed by the legendary Larry Cohen (RIP). The on-screen direction is clearly tumultuous (you can read more about the troubled production here and especially here, from Cohen himself) but, in short, it boils down to Bette Davis quitting the production midway through because she said she was frustrated with how she was portrayed, but she eventually admitted it was because of health issues — which resulted in rewrites in order to get -something- usable to the screen that still included Davis, as well as a lawsuit against Davis
I’m not going to say that WICKED STEPMOTHER is a great film, but it is a lot of fun. Sure, there’s a lot of extremely schtick-y vaudeville camp involved, but it made me laugh, and it definitely aligns with the slapstick horror vein of the late 80s/early 90s.
GIRLS5EVA, from the gut-busting mind of Meredith Scardino, is one of the few shows I had to relegate to only watching during the daytime, and while I wasn’t working, because it’s so fucking hilarious that it was distracting and my laughter was prone to waking folks up. This tale, of a girl pop group making a resurgence 20 years later, is a gag-a-minute, and every performance is pitch-perfect. It’s well-worth the peacock subscription solely for it. Don’t believe me? Here, enjoy this array of jokes:
“So, I dug up our old agreement with Larry and I think he used an old Ringling Bros. contract. Not even for humans; for bears!”
“Well, I’ve always admired that work ethic in the bedroom — it’s bananas — but otherwise it’s too much!”
“Assembly requires four men or nine daughters.”
“Wait, did you make the MAXIM HOT list?”
“Oh, yeah. Oh my god, we got this swag bag from the women’s empowerment luncheon at the Victoria’s Secret Trampoline Park.
“Oh, a temporary tramp stamp. ‘October Sky’, now on VHS.”
“YOU HUMAN B-SIDE!”
“Why am I never the one profiting off of me?”
“You’re all in my will. I have a parrot I haven’t told you about that won’t die.”
(I admit that that bit? Hits a little too close to home for me as I literally have a parrot willed to me because I have lived a strange life.)
“Guess it’s just you and me, Ash.”
“Honestly, too many people left for this to be fun. Now that it’s just the two of us, it’s feeling kind of weird.”
(DVD/YouTube) GET A LIFE was a transcendently stupid TV show starring Chris Elliott as Chris Peterson, a naive 30-year-old man-child living with his parents, who happens to fall into a number of absurd comic situations that grow more and more surreal as the show progresses. It was the brainchild of Chris Elliott (who, at that time, was mostly known for small bits on LATE NIGHT WITH DAVID LETTERMAN), David Mirkin (best known for his work on some of the best seasons of THE SIMPSONS), and Adam Resnick. (Resnick was a big 90s SNL writer, but also co-wrote and directed the cult-favorite but critically-reviled CABIN BOY which also starred Chris Elliott and has a brief appearance by David “Wouldja like to buy a monkey?!” Letterman. Having attended a CABIN BOY screening with a post-film Q&A with Resnick, I can tell you that he -hates- talking about that film and I do not know why he agreed to do a Q&A.) Notable writers include Charlie Kaufman (BEING JOHN MALKOVICH) and Bob Odenkirk (MR. SHOW, BETTER CALL SAUL), so you know it’s going to be absurd.
It was definitely absurd. The first season was slightly more off-kilter than full-blown bonkers — it focused more on the sitcom family elements (which included Chris Elliott’s real-life father and classic comedian Bob Elliott as Peterson’s father). The second season was completely unhinged, mostly because they knew they would never get renewed for a third.
It was a severe primetime network oddity in the early nineties and, as a young teen watching my friend’s weekly VHS recordings of the show, it was a mind-blowing experience: Chris Peterson would frequently be killed off in episodes. There’s a Jack and the Giant Beanstalk ep. There’s an E.T.-ish episode that featured a disgusting alien named SPEWEY that, as you might guess, repeatedly vomits. It’s proto-alternative TV comedy.
One of the most influential episodes may be “The Prettiest Week of My Life” (S01E02, surprisingly early in the show) where Chris decides to become a male model via the ‘Handsome Boy School of Modeling’. If you’re familiar with music producer Dan the Automator, you’re familiar with this episode, as he created an entire project named HANDSOME BOY MODELING SCHOOL, then went on to heavily sample “The Prettiest Week of My Life” in songs like ‘Look at This Face (Oh My God They’re Gorgeous)’ and ‘Modeling Sucks’:
(When I used to DJ, I’d try to work in ‘Modeling Sucks’ whenever I could.)
What’s even more amazing is: they managed to get R.E.M.’s STAND for the theme song. Sadly, that’s probably why you can’t legally stream it anywhere now. (If you want to check out the series, there are a number of bootleg eps on YouTube, but please: if you enjoy it, throw some money towards SHOUT! Factory’s DVD set. It’s a great set, and they do fantastic work.)
The show isn’t for everyone, but it was a foundational show for me.
