TV Reviews
Loren Bouchard’s Central Park Struggles to Hit the Right Notes for Apple TV: Review
The Pitch: Apple TV+ has been searching for a big show to serve as its first hit, since unveiling the streaming service last November. Could it be Central Park, a half-hour animated musical comedy from the creator of Bob’s Burgers and featuring a massive voice cast including Kristen Bell, Josh Gad, Stanley Tucci, Daveed Diggs, and Leslie Odom, Jr.? The streaming service’s metaphorical fingers are tightly crossed. Breaking Into Song: Any fan of the Fox animated sitcom Bob’s Burgers knows that the show isn’t shy about having its characters break into song, or about having music be an overall major part of its wacky hijinks in a seaside town where the eponymous restaurant resides. The Belcher family is very, very weird: there’s burger chef Bob, his gleeful wife Linda, his boy-obsessed teenage...
Netflix’s Space Force Is A Waste of Space, Talent, Resources, Time: Review
The Pitch: In the Summer of 2018, the U.S. government announced a sixth branch of the armed forces, to be called the “Space Force.” A nation scratched their heads, but President Donald J. Trump tweeted out “Space Force all the way!” to the delight of his neo-conservative base and those who still think the current administration taps into a rich vein of comedy. It played to the tune of 128,000 likes. In January 2019, Netflix announced a new series based on the venture, to be developed by The Office’s Greg Daniels and Steve Carrell, with the latter starring. And now, for May 2020, Netflix’s Space Force arrives with a veritable Right Stuff-grade line-up of sitcom stars – Carrell, Lisa Kudrow, Jimmy O. Yang, Ben Schwartz, Jane Lynch, Patrick Warburton, the late Fred Willard, and on and on – wi...
Homecoming Season 2 Adds More Stars, Builds a Bigger World, But Loses the Mystery: Review
The Pitch: As opposed to the first season of Eli Horowitz and Micah Bloomberg’s Homecoming—which saw Colin Belfast (Bobby Cannavale) covertly feeding returning soldiers a memory loss drug designed to speed their return to active duty—the Geist Emergent Group thrives. The conglomerate has now re-tooled the substance into a stress-reducing product called The Roller. Belfast’s former assistant Audrey Temple (Hong Chau) continues to climb at Geist, even while several fires erupt around her. Walter Cruz (Stephan James) is one such blaze. Now living in a secluded forest, he looks for answers after his repressed memories begin to surface. Meanwhile, an amnesiac woman (Janelle Monáe) wakes up with questions and Leonard Geist (Chris Cooper) plans to take back his company. Forget Me Not: To begin, M...
HBO Max’s Love Life Feels Late to a Party That’s Already Ending: Review
The Pitch: HBO Max is arriving at the end of May with a slew of beloved classic films and TV shows, but like all streaming services, they have original content of their own. One of their first titles is the romantic dramedy Love Life, following a young woman in New York City trying to find The One, through plenty of unexpected twists, turns, and pitfalls. The Power of Kendrick: If the last six months have taught us anything about the world of streaming services, it should be this: Anna Kendrick’s presence is apparently a legal requirement. When Disney+ went live in November, one of its premiere original films was Noelle, a Christmas movie in which Kendrick played the daughter of Santa Claus. When Quibi went live in April (Remember Quibi? Trick question, no one does), one of its first strea...
TNT’s Snowpiercer Lays Just Enough Track for a Second Revolution: Review
All Aboard: Nearly seven years after scientists accidentally froze the Earth to its core and the last of humanity boarded Mr. Wilford’s 1,001-car ark of a train, the unticketed stowaway class in the vessel’s tail plan insurrection against the higher classes. Their meager rebellion, doomed from the start, mercifully gets cut short when one of its leaders, Andre Layton (Daveed Diggs), a homicide detective in his previous life, gets summoned by Head of Hospitality Melanie Cavill (Jennifer Connelly) to solve a murder towards the front of the train. Not only does working this freezing “cold case” allow Layton the opportunity to gather intelligence and form alliances up-train necessary to the rebellion, but he also stumbles upon a complicated web of secrets and lies woven to keep Wilford’s etern...
Hulu’s The Great Never Lives Up to Its Name: Review
The Pitch: In 18th century Russia, a penniless Prussian noble named Catherine (executive producer Elle Fanning) is betrothed to Emperor Peter (Nicholas Hoult). Catherine, who makes up for what her family lacks in finance with the kind of sick optimism preserved for golden-haired, porcelain-perfect teenage girls in these types of fairy tales, travels across Europe and Asia with wide-eyed hopes of marital bliss, a progressive Russia, and maybe even some pull in court. Of course, as these things go, Catherine’s husband is loutish, childish, and more concerned with drinking himself into a stupor than just about anything else. Catherine is forced to grow up, fast. Their marriage quickly devolves into a battleground. A mere six months in and with all of her dreams shattered in pieces at her feet...
Mark Ruffallo Pulls Heartbreaking Double Duty in HBO’s I Know This Much Is True: Review
The Pitch: Based on the Wally Lamb novel of the same name, I Know This Much is True charts the string of tragedies that surround the Birdsey brothers, Dominick and Thomas (both played by Mark Ruffalo) – identical twins born on New Year’s Eve, 1949, and who seem to have been born to suffer. And they do, through abusive childhoods in the 1950s to the early signs of Thomas’ paranoid schizophrenia in their college years. Cut to 1990, when Thomas, amidst a mental breakdown, lops off his own hand in a public library, a move that gets him institutionalized in a high-security mental facility. Terrified at his brother’s living condition, Dominick works tirelessly to get him out. But in doing so, he’ll have to work through some deep-seated issues of his own. Misery Loves Company: Dere...
Damien Chazelle’s Netflix Series The Eddy Is A Mess Without the Music: Review
The Pitch: The Academy Award-winning wunderkind director Damien Chazelle has made his name largely on films all about jazz, from his 2009 indie debut Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench to 2014’s searing music-school drama Whiplash and to 2016’s widescreen musical throwback La La Land. But with The Eddy, he’s one of the lead behind-the-scenes voices on an eight-episode limited streaming series set largely in a smoky Parisian nightclub whose creative leader is a mercurial ex-jazz pianist (André Holland) with a dark past, a troubled daughter, and thugs threatening him. So, to paraphrase Barton Fink, it’s an Oscar-winning director, one of the best actors of his generation, and Netflix. Whaddya need, a road map? The Language of Music: The first thing to know about The Eddy is that, apparentl...
