Tag: TV (Page 9 of 17)

Obviously a busier month than normal. Let’s get to it.

Narcos, season three
Maybe not quite as excellent as the first two seasons, largely due to the end of Wagner Moura’s epic run as Pablo Escobar which carried the first two seasons. The move from Medellín to Calí still made for compelling TV. Despite that move, there was still a revelatory performance, this one by Matias Varela as cartel head of security Jorge Salcedo.

The season hit a peak at about its midway point and carried that all the way to its finale. An outstanding end to the first chapter of a great series. I’m excited to see what the move to Mexico for seasons four and five brings.

A-

Jack Ryan, season two
Ugh, so disappointing. The writing felt lazy and manipulative. Some of the major plot developments made no sense. And the last episode was damn near unwatchable. Seriously, a State Department liaison can just order a US helicopter to fly into another country’s presidential palace on its Election Day and start shooting the place up? Bullshit. Sad that John Krasinski and Wendall Pierce are attached to this crap.

C- most of the season but episode 8 was an F

Curb Your Enthusiasm, season three
I watched this series in about two days. It was really solid. I don’t know that it had an episode that matched season two’s The Doll, but it was still highly entertaining.

B+

El Camino
I finally got around to watching this last Saturday. I did not do what some had suggested and go back and read Jessie Pinkman’s Wikipedia entry to remind myself of everything he went through in Breaking Bad. The recap at the beginning helped, but I was still four or five years from watching BB and certainly forgot a lot.

I thought this was really well done. It was ironic that Pinkman was the original BB character that people were rooting for by the end. So it was fitting we got to see how his story played out. Seriously, poor fucking Jessie! The balance of both moving his life forward and filling in some holes of his relationship with Todd in the final year of BB was excellent. It had just the right tone to match that of the original series, and was filled with Vince Gilligan’s amazing eye for how to shoot a show. And Aaron Paul remains amazing.

A

No Laying Up’s Tourist Sauce, season five
My prime golf media connection is with these guys, via Twitter, their podcasts, and their web series. Tourist Sauce is their big travel series that drops twice a year and is centered on an extended golf trip somewhere. The first four seasons hit Australia, Scotland, the California coast, and Ireland.

Season five focused on the Carolinas. Because of that I think it lacked some of the emotional impact the other seasons had, especially the Scotland and Ireland seasons. Seriously, if you are even vaguely into golf, if you watch those seasons you will be ready to book a trip to go play your way around one of those islands.

The Carolinas just don’t have that feel. Well, until the final episode, which took place at the Tobacco Road course. That is a course that has the feels and I would love to go play.

B+

Trinity and Beyond
I came across a recommendation for this documentary about the US’ nuclear weapons testing program randomly and found the flick on YouTube. It is basically 90 minutes or so of video of the weapons testing the US did between 1945 and the late 1960s over dramatic, martial music and some narration by William Shatner. The footage is incredible to watch, but it does get a bit monotonous after an hour or so.

B-

Captain Marvel
Avengers Endgame
Spider-Man – Homecoming
C and L are into the MCU movies so we watched these three. L loved Captain Marvel. She even watched it again last night. I thought it was pretty cool, but I don’t get into these as much as they do. I was thoroughly confused by Endgame, but I know it got great reviews and reaction from fans, so I’ll accept that it was a good movie even if I didn’t get it. And this was our second viewing of Spider-Man – Homecoming since L is into Spidey. Can’t go wrong with your friendly, neighborhood Spider-Man.

Captain Marvel B+, Brie Larson A+
Endgame B?
Homecoming A-

Raiders of the Lost Ark
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
I talked L into watching some old movies with me. We started with these three. She seemed to like the Indiana Jones movies ok, but I forgot how silly and campy they were. I don’t think she got that at all. [1] They certainly felt dated.

Watching the Marvel movies got me wondering if she would enjoy The Lord of the Rings movies. I explained they were basically the Avengers with wizards, elves, dwarfs, hobbits, and orcs. She was game and we watched The Fellowship of the Rings over two days. She was thoroughly confused. It is amazing that for a nearly three hour movie how much they had to leave out from the books. I was constantly explaining things to her. I guess we could have watched the extended version which is an hour longer. I told her the next two movies are better. We’ll see if I can get her to watch them.

Raiders B+
Last Crusade B+
Fellowship B-

Back of the Net
L found this movie about a high school soccer player on Netflix and watched it over the weekend. It’s not very good. L thought it was pretty dumb, too. But when you’re looking for a way to waste a couple hours during the lockdown, you’re going to have to watch some crap to find the gems.

C

Media
In the bleak mid-winter, I watched quite a bit of televised entertainment products. Here are a lot of words about those movies and shows.

The Two Popes
This movie made me understand why some people get so frustrated with Hollywood. While it is a charming and hopeful look at the relationship between the current pope and his predecessor, as I was watching it I knew it was playing fast and loose with some of the history between those men.

Which is fine. I don’t think movies need to be completely true. Just about every movie that is “based on real events” has had elements spruced up, merged, or flat out created in order to make for more drama. And every piece of art comes from some point of view, be in anti-this or pro-that.

Because of this I think viewers should always go into historical movies with the understanding that what they are about to view is offered from a certain perspective. I think too many people watch these movies, however, expecting to get a neutral, accurate accounting of events. Then they get upset when they learn what they just watched was not, in fact, how things really went down.
A for entertainment, C for accuracy

Cool Runnings
Speaking of historically inaccurate movies, we randomly picked this one night as a movie the entire family could watch. The girls found it hilarious and interesting. Having lived through the Jamaican bobsled fever of 1988, it sent me to my iPad to see how accurate it was. Turns out, not very!

Ahhh, but it’s a heartwarming tale that anyone, from anywhere, can accomplish anything if they just believe it themselves and each other. And if they fall short, Hollywood producers might spruce it up and turn it into a movie that makes them seem way more successful than they actually were.
B for entertainment, C for accuracy

Curb Your Enthusiasm, seasons one and two
I swore I had watched both of these before, but a good chunk of these episodes rang zero bells for me, so I was glad I started over from the beginning. I was watching just as the new season premiered, so I was able to bookmark a bunch of Best Episode and Best Moments articles, which made for good reading after I knocked out episodes that made those lists. One of the episodes I had not seen was “The Doll.” HOLY SHIT!!!!
A+

The Great Hack
The initial trailer made this seem like a broader look at the privacy concerns of living in the modern, connected world. Instead it focused on a couple players in the Cambridge Analytica scandal. While it is chilling, it did not have the immediate, personal impact I expected
B

The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters
I heard about this on, believe it or not, a golf podcast. One of the hosts threw out a very brief reference to this, got big laughs, and I immediately looked it up. I found it on YouTube, and moments later was watching.

It is an utterly ridiculous documentary about the wild world of dudes (mostly) who attempt to get the world high score on classic video games. This show is focused on the two men who challenged for the world record on Donkey Kong. Along with their story we get a view of the community that surrounds their efforts. You may be shocked to learn that most of these people are gigantic dorks!

When I say ridiculous I mean in the best possible way. All the dorks – who are totally, completely, lovably dorky – make it great. One of the main characters has a really compelling story. And his rival is, well, he might be the greatest villain in the history of cinema. Just a truly loathsome individual that you want to see more and more of. (For bonus loathing, read up on him after you watch this. You’ll hate him even more!)
A+

The Good Place
It was not my plan but I saved the entire final season of The Good Place to watch in one extended binge over a long weekend. I started Friday afternoon, watching a couple episodes before dinner. I watched four more that night. I watched a few Saturday afternoon between basketball games. And then I wrapped it up Sunday night.

Time well spent. A really, really good closing season for one of the smartest, warmest TV comedies of our age. It was a fitting and emotional goodbye to Eleanor, Chidi, Tahani, Jason, Janet, and Michael.

What I noticed as I watched was how it fit into my historical comedy preferences. If I had to divide up my favorite shows, I would pick Cheers over Seinfeld. Parks & Rec over The Office. Why? Heart. Cheers and Parks & Rec were shows filled with heart. Seinfeld and The Office made me a laugh so much over their runs, but they had very little heart. Seinfeld was cynical, The Office often cruel. Community and Scrubs are two other shows I loved that put heart before cynicism.

As I watched this final season I also wondered if it would be the final, major role in Ted Danson’s amazing career. He will always be Sam Malone. I never watched Becker but it was popular and lasted for 129 episodes. I never watched the CSIs he was a part of, but that gave him another 102 episodes in prime time. All his appearances on Curb Your Enthusiasm over the years. There were his utterly amazing 10 episodes as Hank Larsson in season two of Fargo, one of the greatest performances in recent years. And then Michael the architect on TGP. I’m sure he will remain active as long as he can. But is this the last time we see him taking a character and filling it with his Danson-ness for four or more years?
A

Tron
L and I were scrolling through Disney+ one night, I saw this, and insisted we watch it. She was intrigued when I explained what it was about, but it took us three nights to get through what is a pretty quick movie.

My bad, I had forgotten how strange and kind of bad it is. I guess I was just remembering how pumped I was when it first came out in 1982. I remember playing the game and even reading the novelization of the movie. I dug me some Tron in 1982.

But for a modern kid, the crude graphics are kind of tough to take in. I explained how groundbreaking they were when I was 11. L the 11 year old tried to get into it, but just couldn’t. It didn’t help that the story only barely makes sense and even then you probably need to read a plot summary while you are watching to make any sense of what is going on.

I had forgotten that Cindy Morgan was in it. I think I preferred her work in Caddyshack, but her presence here was appreciated.
1982 me: all the A+’s. 2020 me: C-

Dunkirk
Two years ago, right about now, I made a list of movies I had missed in recent years that I needed to get caught up on. Dunkirk was the first entry on that list. I finally got around to watching it a couple weeks ago!

Stunning. That’s the best way to sum up my view of the film. It is (mostly) historically accurate. Wonderful to look at. Cranks down a large, complex story to a handful of characters in a compelling way. Is entertaining, exciting, suspenseful, and up-lifting. And the music. My goodness the music was just insanely good, adding so much tension to every scene.
A

The Mandalorian
Our first Disney+ original, L and I sat down and watched episode one two weeks ago. When I was ready for episode two, she was more interested in Fortnite or watching YouTube, so I blew threw the rest of the series without her.

Overall I liked it. I’ve made several attempts to get into the expanded Star Wars universe stuff over the years, usually with the novels. They’ve always been aimed more at true sci-fi fans than me. But this, while making those Star Wars fans happy, was open enough to non-sci fi fans like me that I was able to get into it.

I don’t know that there was a great, overarching storyline that tied it all together. I enjoyed how the season ended, but it felt like they started the season without knowing where they were going, or at least how to bridge the middle. Which is fine. I kind of dug the series just being Din Djarin going out on adventures around the galaxy. Honestly, that limited scope may work better for me, the casual fan, than building some new world.

I can’t believe I didn’t know until one of the final episodes that Pedro Pascal played Din. His mechanized voice kept tickling something in my head, but I didn’t look him up until he finally revealed his face in the last (or next to last) episode. Hey, that’s Agent Peña from Narcos!
B+

Good Luck Charlie
L has been watching some of the shows she and her sisters used to watch on The Disney Channel on Disney+. (This is turning into a commercial for the package, isn’t it?) I got sick of hearing Austin and Alley so reminded her that Good Luck Charlie was way better. She listened and has been watching the Duncans to my joy. I’ve said this before and I will say it again: this was the best show of its kind Disney ever did. Solid writing. Great acting. One of the rare shows that made me laugh as much as my girls. Even now, while L is watching an episode and I’m reading next to her and S is charting on the other couch, we will all three bust out laughing multiple times each episode. Good stuff.
A from 2010–2012, still A now.

Pandemic
I knocked this timely series out over the weekend. It is a quick look at how people around the world charged with stopping the flu, ebola, and other viruses are trying their hardest to prevent a repeat of the 1918 Spanish Flu outbreak. It is a pretty sobering look how the greatest health care system in the world was struggling to prepare for an inevitable attack. And now that COVID–19 is in the US, it is more worrisome.

I thought it was interesting that the series had no narrator. I don’t know that it made a difference in how I took in the information it offered. But I did like that we only heard from the people whose stories the program was sharing.

I also found it interesting that the chose an extremely attractive woman to represent the hippy, anti-vaxer point of view.
B+

Time to share what I watched over the stretch from mid-November through New Year’s Eve. Although some holiday programming is included here, I’ve only included things that were new or unique to this year.

Pursuit of Happyness
The first movie that S watched that I got pulled into during this stretch. I enjoyed this but, good God, it was sooooo freaking depressing. I like sad songs but movies that last two hours and are just constant downers are too much. B

Knight Before Christmas
Ugh. S started watching this one morning when it was snowing and I was feeling too lazy to move off the couch. It’s was pretty much a Netflix-ified version of a Hallmark Channel Christmas movie. Goofy and safely romantic. Not all that good, at parts straight-up dumb, but not terrible, either. C

Cheers, seasons 3–5
Every October or November I think to myself, “I should really watch all of season five of Cheers rather than just watching the “Thanksgiving Orphans” episode. And every year I don’t do it. This year, though, was different!

In mid-October I picked up where I had left off in watching every Cheers episode a few months back, early in season three. Doing some quick math, I found if I watched two episodes each day, I would land on “Thanksgiving Orphans” the night before Thanksgiving. Challenge accepted!

Man were these good. All three seasons are super strong, even allowing for the changes in cast. Nicholas Colasanto was in poor health for much of season three. He missed several episodes and eventually died before filming ended. As the season was shot out of order, Coach would disappear then reappear, which was a little strange. His death was awkwardly addressed in the open of season four, when Woody Boyd, a friend of coach’s, shows up looking for him. Sam tells Woody that Coach had passed and that’s that.

Season three is filled with the Diane-Frasier romance, ending with her leaving him at the altar. Season four is a little unsteady as they attempted to work Woody into the cast, but ends on a strong note with Sam in a relationship with a local politician. The finale ends with him calling someone on the phone and proposing. Ah, the good old days of the summer-long cliff hanger! Of course, as the opening scene of season five reveals, it was Diane rather than the politician and we’re off on the most intense of Sam’s on-again, off-again romance. The couple set off on a season-long battle about whether they would actually get married or not. Woody comes into his own in season five, getting some of the biggest laughs.

Really everything came into its own in season five. The writers were locked in. The cast was confident and settled. After saturating the screen with bitterness in season four, Fraser becomes a reliably hilarious character in season five. And the show was an official hit, meaning the studio audience laughed a little louder and longer at jokes, which makes them work better.

Season five is my favorite of the Diane era. It is filled with wonderful episodes. Obviously, “Thanksgiving Orphans,” is one of my favorite pieces of TV ever. Even after 30 years, “Dinner at Eight-ish” made me laugh until I cried. And there is a long list of others that I would put on a Must Watch list.

I’m taking a break from the show for awhile but eventually will pick back up with season six.
Season three, A-; season four, B+; season five, A+.

Jack Ryan, season one.
I forget how many of Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan books I read, but I was really into the series in the late 80s and early 90s. The Hunt for Red October was one of the great action movies of its era, between a smart script, Sean Connery, and a young Alec Baldwin as the perfect Ryan. Harrison Ford seemed too old to be Ryan when he took over the franchise, but Patriot Games and Clear and Present Danger were both solid. When Ben Affleck and Chris Pine took over the role, I didn’t bother watching. I had a hard time getting my head around John Krasinski as Ryan for the Amazon series a couple years back – he will forever be Jim Halpert to me – and put off watching it until now.

I thought he tackled the role nicely. He’s probably a touch too old for where they have Ryan in his life, but he pulls it off well. I don’t know that I totally buy him as a former Marine, but he also didn’t look completely out of place in the action sequences. He shined in those moments when a little Halpert came through, especially in the scenes with his romantic partner, Dr. Cathy Mueller.

As for the story, like so many streaming series, it seemed overly compressed to get it into an eight episode window. I guess some folks like being able to binge it quickly, but I would prefer 2–4 more episodes to tease things out, add more depth, etc. The supporting cast was very good. You can’t go wrong with Wendell Pierce. Ali Suliman and and Dina Shihabi were excellent. And I’m a big fan of Abbie Cornish (Dr. Mueller). I think it’s hilarious that she’s a rapper back home in Australia. I also laughed at how she couldn’t pronounce the word “helicopter” in an American accent

Overall a solid first season. I’ve heard season two is better. B+

Dolemite is My Name
The first project of Eddie Murphy’s new relationship with Netflix was quite good. It was funny, although not filled with non-stop laughs. It was surprisingly sweet. And knowing it was based on true events – surely brushed up and sanitized for the times – added some heft to the story. Right in Eddie’s wheelhouse. Oh, and Wesley Snipes is RIDICULOUS! B+

Office Christmas Party
This was part of AMC’s Best Christmas Ever movie series. I caught a few minutes one night after Elf or Christmas Vacation, laughed, checked the cable guide and set the DVR to record its next airing. That was a solid choice. This is a truly dumb and kind of awful movie. But it also had enough big laughs to keep me watching. C- on quality but B+ on enjoyment.

I Think You Should Leave
I had read about this Netflix sketch series a couple times over the last month and watched it in the week between holidays. Some sketches are crazy funny. Some are filled with so much awkward humor that didn’t connect with me that I was looking forward to them being done. Tim Robinson is a different dude. B-

Die Hard
For years I’ve been saying, “I should really watch Die Hard over Christmas. Then I never did it.[1] I finally got to it this year, albeit the weekend after Christmas. I don’t think I had watched Die Hard in 20–25 years? Which is crazy as it was the single best “watching a movie in a theater” experience of my life, and I rewatched it routinely through the 90s. It holds up pretty damn well. I bought it, so it will go into the December movie rotation. Not sure if the girls will get to watch it anytime soon, though. A+

Spies in Disguise
Two Will Smith vehicles in six weeks! L and I went to the theater to see this over her break. We both really enjoyed it. Funny, clever, smart but accessible for kids. Just about everything you can ask from an animated movie aimed at tweens. A-

Stepbrothers
Believe it or not I had never seen this all the way through. Last summer I read an oral history of its making and have been meaning to sit down and watch it ever since.[2] On New Year’s Eve, with M in the basement with her friends, C at a friend’s house, S watching a movie on her laptop, and L playing Xbox, I decided that was the time to do it. It worked out perfect as I started it at about 10:20 so I finished it about ten minutes to midnight.

Since there were youths around, I watched on my iPad with headphones on. Most of the time I was sitting next to L while she played Madden. She got a little frustrated with me for laughing so much, so hard.

I liked it, but my reaction was similar to how I feel about The Big Lebowski: it was funny and I enjoyed it, but I don’t necessarily see it as an all-time classic. Not even sure it’s among my top 4–5 Will Farrell movies. But perhaps, as with Lebowski, it takes repeated viewings to really fall in love with it. A-

My busy-ness, sickness, and laziness over break kept me from posting my thoughts about The Rise of Skywalker and Eddie Murphy hosting Saturday Night Live. Allow me to rectify…

Skywalker

I saw The Rise of Skywalker the Sunday before Christmas with two of my brothers-in-law. I also saw The Force Awakens with them, and the local b-i-l of that duo saw The Last Jedi with me. So it was good company.

I entered the theater with fairly low expectations. I had read zero reviews, but I had seen several headlines that were, at best, lukewarm. A couple were rather scathing. I remember one, from a prominent national newspaper, called it the worst Star Wars movie ever. Yikes. Fortunately I had seen enough positive Twitter buzz from sources I trust that I took my seat hoping for the best.

Also, I watched both The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi the previous week to get my mind right for where the story was and where most thought it was headed going into episode nine.

Finally, it’s worth mentioning that I’m far from a Star Wars expert. I was excited about the new trilogy but I haven’t dug into them the way I did with episodes four through six when I was a kid.

So…

I thought most of the action scenes were terrific. They were exciting, quickened the pulse, and had lots of explosions, which is an underrated aspect of the Star Wars saga.

The story? Well, I had a lot of issues with the story.

My biggest issue is how much of this movie, and in fact the entire final trilogy, was just a rehashing of the same broad storylines that the original trilogy used. Seriously, one more final battle where a ragtag collection of rebel forces are facing off against an evil empire that has planet-killing weapons? Haven’t we done this four times already, if not more?

I did not like how Rey was identified as a Palpatine. Say what you will about Rian Johnson’s episode eight, but offering the idea that bloodlines didn’t matter and anyone could be an important cog in the Force was one of the most exciting ideas ever introduced into the saga. But she ends up being just another part of a royal family. Some were excited about this, especially after all the teasing about who her parents were. I found it disappointing.

This showed a trend in the final trilogy: there were a lot of moments when it felt like Johnson and JJ Abrams were fighting with each other. The series certainly would have benefitted from having someone above the directors laying down a consistent viewpoint for them to follow, rather than allowing them to jerk the storyline back-and-forth.

Most of that doesn’t bother me too much. What I did have a problem with, though, was the line in The Rise of Skywalker when Abrams had characters diss perhaps the most stunning scene in the entire saga: when Laura Dern’s Vice Admiral Amilyn Holdo turns her ship toward the First Order’s command ship and jumps to hyperspace, destroying both ships in the process in The Last Jedi. The moment of silence in the movie’s soundtrack that allowed you to hear the gasps in the audience was a truly amazing cinematic moment. Seriously, that scene was up there in my favorite experiences in a movie theater. And Abrams decided to shit all over it because it was Johnson’s. Lame.

There were not great moments of surprise, either. Perhaps I was just too cynical coming in, but each time there was a twist, I knew it would twist back quickly. I knew there was no way Abrams was going to kill Chewbacca midway through the film, so those seconds of emotion when Rey thought she had caused his death didn’t register with me: I knew the Wookie would be back. And he was. Almost embarrassingly soon.

While I was watching, I was surprised at how much screen time Leia got. I was also impressed with the CGI work as she looked pretty lifelike. Only after did I learn that those were scenes that Carry Fisher had shot before her death that they used. I guess I’m cool with that. Interesting how they shoehorned that dialog in.

Kylo Ren was the most fascinating character in the new trilogy. I don’t know that I was pleased with his story arc. Again, it was pretty predictable where he would end up. I did enjoy the path to get him there. Any scene with Kylo and Rey was about as good as the trilogy got.[1] I’m glad they had several scenes together. I don’t know that they needed to kiss. Bringing Harrison Ford in for the scene when Kylo/Ren is debating what to do seemed like an apology from Abrams for killing him off in The Force Awakens. It also felt a little cheap.

But, man, Kylo’s ending. I just don’t know if I can get on board with it. It seemed a little flat for the character that will be most remembered from this set of movies. Worse, it again aped Return of the Jedi. When Darth Vader turned and helped Luke defeat the Emperor, his reward was death. Same for Kylo. So I guess the point is redemption does not equal salvation? That’s going to really help the next time an evil emperor pops up!

You’d think Disney would have pushed Kylo surviving so they could continue his story somewhere else. Although, if Adam Driver isn’t interested in carrying the role further, I’m not interested.

Star Wars analysis has always been over-thought. In reality the movies are pretty simple stories about good vs evil. That presents both problems and freedoms to filmmakers. For all the flack Johnson took for The Last Jedi, at least he took risks and challenged his viewers. If you strip Finn and Rose’s weird “find the codebreaker” arc away, episode eight was pretty good.

The Rise of Skywalker, on the other hand, felt cautious and unambitious. No way would Disney have allowed for anything that wasn’t a satisfying, bow-tying end to the Skywalker saga. But it was absolutely possible to challenge the audience in the process of reaching that final point. Instead we got constant callbacks to the five movies that came before.

That’s not to say it was a bad movie. I will call it an entertaining if deeply flawed film. Instead of leaving the theater either exhilarated or satisfied at the end of the Skywalker storyline, I left with a bland feeling of, “Well, that’s over.” There was no deep emotion, only slight disappointment. Then again, the expectations that were first set in 1977 were likely impossible to reach. Especially now that I’m middle aged and cynical, rather than barely into grade school, wide-eyed, and impressionable.

The first time I saw Star Wars I refused to talk afterward, shaking my head when my mom asked about it. The following day I sat on my front porch in a daze, my world rocked by what I had seen the night before. Two weeks ago I left the theater, talked it over for a few minutes with my brothers-in-law, then went home, got into bed, and fell asleep. I wish something about this movie had moved me enough that I had tossed and turned for a few hours, reliving my favorite scenes.

I listened to part of a pretty nerdy podcast in which a panel discussed the movie. Most of them, while they had problems with the movie, liked it a lot more than I did. Worth noting that most of them have seen the movie multiple times.

I have a couple friends who are really into Star Wars and they liked it more than I did as well.

Based on that feedback, I think it’s safe to say that if you are a true believer, there are enough strong elements that reveal themselves upon repeated viewings that can help you get by the troublesome parts.

If you are a casual viewer, like me, however, I think it’s much harder to get beyond those many issues.

Eddie

Eddie Murphy’s turn as host of Saturday Night Live, on the other hand, was a thoroughly enjoyable 90 minutes. With one notable exception, the show was pretty perfect.

Leading in, I kept reading discussions of what classic characters Eddie needed to bring back. At first I was bothered by that. Eddie is returning to stand up and making comedies, why shouldn’t he have the freedom to bring new characters to the show? But then I realized that all those classic characters were the result of him spending hours at 30 Rock creating them with his fellow writers and performers. It was too much to ask for him to carry a 90-minute program with a bevy of new bits.

I guess I was worried that modern takes on Mr. Robinson, Gumby, etc would come off as poor facsimiles of his 1980s performances. That’s happened with some other hosts who came back after years away. I figured it would be impossible to match peak Velvet Jones, and bringing them back would just disappoint a 48-year-old who was very excited to see arguably the biggest star of his childhood return to his old stomping grounds.

Thankfully those were needless fears. Yes, Mr. Robinson, Velvet Jones, and Buckwheat were all probably B+ renditions. But that was still pretty damn good. Gumby, on the other hand, was out-freaking-standing. That was the one moment in the show when Eddie brought back the “anything can happen” vibe from his 1980s work.

There was more to Eddie’s performance than his old characters. His monologue was solid. I get what he was doing by bringing Dave Chapelle, Chris Rock, Tracy Morgan, and Keenan Thompson on stage. And there were some good lines in that part. But I was hungering for some straight Eddie standup. He did give us the one line about Bill Cosby which was both devastating and hilarious. I wanted five minutes of that!

The Holiday Baking Championship skit was solid, especially since we watch that show. Eddie as the Elf in the 11:55 skit was ok. While neither skit was especially memorable, they still had that classic Eddie energy, if slightly toned down to reflect his age. I don’t know that anyone in the show’s history, not Will Ferrell or John Belushi, had that energy that Eddie brought back in the day. You could see the glimmer in his eye that that energy was still there, and he was thrilled to be letting it out again.

I had two problems with the show. The first had to do with the modern structure of SNL. What was once a tight cast of repertory and featured players is now a bloated cast that takes several minutes to introduce in the show’s open. Skits seemed overly big in order to squeeze in as many faces as possible. In Eddie’s prime the show was really about him first and foremost. I guarantee pretty much everyone who watched this episode tuned in to see Eddie. This was a week when they should have dialed everyone else back a little more.

Secondly, and this is not a unique opinion, but I have no idea why Lorne Michaels and the writers feel obligated to do a Democratic debate sketch every episode. They epitomize the bloated nature of the show and lose their effectiveness when they run them out week after week. Eddie Fucking Murphy is hosting for the first time in over 30 years and you’re going to open the show with five minutes that don’t include him? A total waste.

Oh, I have another problem: HOW DOES BUCKWHEAT JUST SHOW UP AND PERFORM WHEN HE’S BEEN DEAD FOR 36 YEARS?!?!!? Have you seen the footage? Let’s take a look…[2]

Those quibbles aside, a very pleasing return to SNL by Eddie. 1983 me would have approved.

It’s been nearly three months since my last (and first) What I’m Watching post. I haven’t watched much in terms of variety since then, but I have packed in some quantity. So here’s a quick run down.

Brooklyn Nine-Nine I was doing some DVR cleanup, mostly deleting crap the girls recorded and never watched over the summer, and realized I had almost half of last season’s Brooklyn Nine-Nine to still get through. I worked through them over a couple weeks in September. It will never be the best show in Michael Schur’s collection, but it never disappoints. B+

Saturday Night Live I’m trying to remember the last time I watched new episodes of SNL regularly. I think I may have tried to watch it my first year living in Indy. Although Indiana did not observe Daylight Saving Time back then, local TV was always on the eastern time zone schedule, with SNL starting at 11:30. That was tough for someone raised on 10:30 SNL’s. I know I tried to get back into it a few times over the years but, for whatever reason, couldn’t do it.

Last spring I watched a skit that got some buzz – I can’t recall what it was – and ended up watching almost the entire episode. I made a mental note to give the show another try this fall. Which I have done. And I’ve enjoyed it more than I expected. The show has definitely changed over the years. The production values are much higher than even in the Will Ferrell years. I wish the cold opening didn’t have to be about politics every week, although Kate McKinnon as Elizabeth Warren is gold. I wish it wasn’t so obvious how even the cast members are reading many of their lines straight off the cue cards. But I’ve laughed more than I’ve been troubled by these minor complaints.

The bonus will be I actually know who most of the cast members are when Eddie Murphy hosts in December, an episode I would be watching whether I enjoyed the first five episodes of the year or not. B+

Halloween Wars We recorded three of the Food Network’s Halloween shows this month, but this is the only one L and I watched. I, personally, prefer the Halloween Baking Championship but L picked this as her focus. She enjoyed it, picking a favorite team and rooting for them the entire time. I wasn’t as into it as her, and spent more time getting excited about the various holiday baking shows that kick off this week. B

Murder Mystery There is always an entry here for a movie that S starts watching and I sit through, half-watching. I thought this was pretty dumb. She’s done it many times, but I just never buy Jennifer Anniston as this hot chick who has stuck with some semi-deadbeat husband for years. Come on… C

Springsteen on Broadway I watched this in small segments over several weeks. I really liked it, although I think I watched it in those chopped up bits because the beginning seemed to drag. Perhaps it is because that part of the show most mirrored what Springsteen wrote in his book Born to Run. The back half was filled with better stories and better songs.

I appreciated the stagecraft that went into the performance. If you don’t like Springsteen he will come off as arrogant and insufferable. But if you like him, you will enjoy him skewering his own image, pointing out how everything he has ever done is an act, and jokingly saying, “That’s how fucking good I am,” when he points out that he built a career on writing songs about working people when he’s never held a normal job in his life. B+

Stranger Things Finally, I watched all three Stranger Things seasons over about five weeks. I had watched season one before, but still started there to remind myself of who was who and what was what. I again found that season utterly magical, full of delightful moments that got deep into my Child of the ‘80s soul, well written and acted and paced, and ending with an absolutely perfect finale.

Season two was a little more uneven. It felt like they crammed 10 episodes of material into eight, and adding another couple of hours would have made the flow better. Its finale couldn’t match season one’s, but it was still quite good.

And then there was season three. I kind of hated it. The over-the-top, constant 80s references were annoying. The story was flat out dumb at times. I didn’t understand how Hawkins morphed from this tiny, rural town into something more along the lines of Bloomington or Columbus, complete with a big ass mall that was crammed with people. I thought a lot of the acting was really bad, both from the secondary characters and from a few of the main ones. Some of that bad acting came from poor writing. They kind of ruined Hopper, turning him into a parody of what he was in the first two seasons.

And then there’s the whole secret Russian sire under Hawkins. HOW THE HELL DID THIS HAPPEN? They can just build this massive instillation below an American city and we have no idea? Come the fuck on. I know, I know, to watch this series you have to buy into parallel worlds, demonic creatures, and humans with super powers. But the logistics of the Russians somehow building this base in the middle of America and trying to tunnel into the Upside Down in secrecy made me flat out angry.
Season One: A; Season Two, B; Season Three, C.

As usual, I’m late in starting what I want to be a new, regular feature of the blog. I already let you know what I’m reading and listening to. Stealing from Jason Kottke, I want to start sharing the other media that I consume each month.

This was meant to be shared at the beginning of August, but I wanted to finish one thing on the list before I posted.

American Experience: Chasing the Moon, The Farthest Home, Death Dive to Saturn. L and I have been on a space exploration kick all summer and these shows were the latest in our research on the topic. The Chasing the Moon shows were really good and they reinforced the sheer incredibility of the effort to reach the moon. Even 50 years later it is absolutely stunning that it worked. For all the amazing things that we have done with technology since then, we would have trouble putting a man on the moon tomorrow if we had to. I was more into the other two docs, the first about the Voyager missions and the second about the Cassini mission, than L was. In fact she generally either fell asleep or left the room during them. But I enjoyed them, especially the Voyager show, as I remember learning a lot about those missions in school in the late ‘70s. Again, it’s amazing what we were able to do with relatively primitive technology. More amazing that the two Voyager craft are still operational. A, A-, B-.

Narcos, Season 2. This is a show that has been on my list for awhile. I watched season one in May and then put off getting into season two for awhile, finally finishing it over the weekend. Overall, I thought it was really good. It had some flaws, and it also had some elements that are beginning to feel required in shows like this, i.e. high-brow cable/streaming dramas. But what pulled the show through were a series of fine acting jobs, none better than Wagner Moura as Pablo Escobar. Moura was mesmerizing and turned a man who was a brutal killer into a sympathetic character. The final episode recalled the last episode of season one of Stranger Things in how it wonderfully tied up all the loose ends of the first two seasons while taking just a moment at the end to throw out some leads into the next season. A-.

Megamind. Out of nowhere L decided to watch this like three days in a row, saying it was her favorite movie ever. Which surprised me as she had never expressed that opinion before. It’s good, I laughed quite a bit the one time I sat down and watched with her. But I don’t know that it’s the best of the animated movies we’ve watched over the years. Will Ferrell, Tina Fey, and David Cross do great vocal work. B+.

Holey Moly. Another show L and I watched together.¹ It hit two sweet spots: Steph Curry for L and golf, well miniature golf, for me. It’s dumb, heavily edited to squeeze into 44 minutes, and filled with “contestants” who seem too wacky to not be actors. Plus hosts Joe Tessitore and Rob Riggle generally annoy me on their own. Together they are barely tolerable. But L likes it. C- for me, A- for L.

The Ugly Truth. L did not watch this with me. I think she passed through the room while it was on and we had to chase her out as it hit on some adult content. Rather, this was a movie S picked randomly one evening and I half-watched while reading. I found it lazily written, cruel at times, far too crass at others. But, come on, watching Katherine Heigl made it worth keeping an eye on. Apparently the ladies like Gerard Butler in the same way. D+ on content, A+ on eye candy.

Spider-Man: Far From Home and Spider-Man: Homecoming. I’ve mostly avoided the Marvel superhero movies over the years. C is really into them, though, and L likes Spider-Man, so the three of us went to see the latest, Spider-Man: Far From Home last week. It was really good! Then L and I grabbed Homecoming at the library and watched it over the weekend. Again, pretty good! Now is this because all the movies are good, or just because Spider-Man is the one superhero I ever liked as a kid? All I’ll say is that if L wants to watch some of the other Marvel universe films, I may be ready to join her. Also, I laughed at Michael Keaton playing Vulture. L asked why I was laughing and I explained that he was Bat-Man when I was in college and it amused me that he turned into a Marvel villain. A/A.