Steve Stebbing

New Releases:

Luca – Pixar is back with their second film released during the theater shut down and I’m reading reports about how disappointed the animators are that their work hasn’t been able to be displayed on the big screen and I definitely feel their frustration because I would have loved to experience Soul that way and now this beautiful film. Inspired by the works of Studio Ghibli and Hiyao Miyazaki, director Enrico Casarosa, this film is set in a beautiful seaside town on the Italian Riviera and is a coming-of-age story about one young boy experiencing an unforgettable summer filled with gelato, pasta and endless scooter rides. Luca, voiced by Langley’s own Jacob Tremblay, shares these adventures with his newfound best friend, Alberto, in the voice of Shazam and It star Jack Dylan Grazer, but all the fun is threatened by the deeply-held secret that they are sea monsters from another world just below the water’s surface. This film is an endearing story of friendship and the need for escapism as they chase their dreams and I feel like it’s another strong entry into the library of Pixar who seem to always bring the top caliber of stories and warm and comforting experiences.

The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard – It looks like I’m going to be a bit contrarian to the reviews that have already been given for this Ryan Reynolds and Samuel L. Jackson action comedy sequel but it’s a hill I’m willing to die on. It probably helps that I really liked the first movie and think that Reynolds and Jackson have great comedic chemistry and Salma Hayek is a pure joy but here we go. Following the events of the first film we pick up with Reynold’s Michael Bryce still unlicensed and under scrutiny from the bodyguard association who is forced into action by Darius’s even more volatile wife, the infamous international con artist Sonia Kincaid. As Bryce is driven over the edge by his two most dangerous protecters, the trio get in over their heads in a global plot and soon find that they are all that stand between Europe and a vengeful and powerful madman named Aristotle Papadoulpolis, played by Antonio Banderas. The story isn’t anything new when it comes to odd couple style action fun but it is riding on the shoulders of these three actors and I feel like it largely works for the duration of it. I’m not burnt out on the comedy stylings of Ryan Reynolds yet, he’s still a British Columbian treasure.

Fatherhood – It was with a chip on my shoulder I entered into this new Kevin Hart comedy as I usually really dislike the films he chooses to make unless he’s teamed with The Rock. This film had some great things going for it though, as it was made by Paul Weitz who directed great films like About Boy and Grandma, so I had glimmers of hope. The film follows Hart in a sweet story about a father who brings up his baby girl as a single dad after the unexpected death of his wife who died a day after their daughter’s birth. Hart plays this role in a beautifully subdued performance that has instant chemistry with his little co-star Melody Hurd who can be seen in the incredible Amazon Prime series Them. I also adored his friends in the film, played by Bill And Ted Face The Music’s Anthony Carrigan and Get Out’s Lil Rey Howery who have hilarious lines throughout. I was really surprised by how much I adored this movie and I hope it lands with people.

The Sparks Brothers – We get a new music documentary this week and that puts me over the moon with love but even better than that, I comes from director Edgar Wright who is one of my favorite filmmakers of all time and it satiates me until his new horror film Last Night In Soho comes out in October. This film is about a songwriting duo that I am really unfamiliar on but this is the best kind of documentary to watch because it is educational then. The film is about Los Angeles brothers Ron and Russell who grew up in the sixties and got by on a heavy diet of popcorn matinees and pop music until the spotlight of school talent shows illuminated their way on a musical journey as the Sparks and spawned 25 studio albums. Edgar Wright’s vision brings five decades of invention to life through animations and interviews with a huge number of people including Beck, Flea, Mike Myers, Fred Armisen and more, digging deeply into the band’s rich, career-spanning archival. This film is incredible and a must see for anyone who loves music in any form.

The Space Between – On the outside of this film, I was really looking forward to it as Kelsey Grammer takes the prominent role as a faded musician and, for those who don’t know, Grammer is a pretty damn good singer in real life as well. I really wish that my enthusiasm lasted into the movie because, for me, the deeper I went, the more I disliked it. Grammer plays Micky Adams, an eccentric has-been rock musician, who has lost his grip on reality all while his record label is looking to drop him. A young Charlie Porter is tasked with traveling to the musician’s bizarre home and forcing Micky Adams out of his contract but starts to form a friendship with him and instead moves to convince him to start creating new music. Honestly, this movie is an absolute mess and for whatever things work in it, there are three things to erase it from your mind and frustrate you. What a bummer this film turned out to be.

Censor – Horror is a varied genre and one that has a high level of over saturation to it, much like action films, but when you strike with a fresh new idea and spin the ideas to an unpredictable level, this is where new experiences and new voices shine the brightest. This is definitely the case with this new brilliant piece of cinema that comes from Wales and showcases not just the brilliant filmmaker Prano Bailey-Bond in her debut but lead actress Niamh Algar whose performance has you glued to your seat. The story follows film censor Enid, a professional who takes pride in her meticulous work, guarding unsuspecting audiences from the deleterious effects of watching the gore-filled decapitations and eye gouging she pores over in films listed as “video nasties” in the eighties. Her sense of duty to protect is amplified by guilt over her inability to recall details of the long-ago disappearance of her sister, recently declared dead in absentia. When Enid is assigned to review a disturbing film from the archive that echoes her hazy childhood memories, she begins to unravel how this eerie work might be tied to her past as her reality starts to crumble around her. This film is a mind-bending experience with an ending that left me reeling and thinking deeply about it ever since. This is one of my favourite films this year.

Akilla’s Escape – The critical acclaim from film festivals last year, all largely done by streaming and less the full theatrical experience, have all praised this new crime-noir movie that is a Canadian and American co-production. The thing that nabs me is that it’s the first narrative feature from director Charles Officer since Nurse.Fighter.Boy which was released almost fourteen years ago. The film follows a drug dealer who finds his moral code challenged when he interrupts an armed robbery and captures one of the gang members who is a 15-year-old boy. The movie is a phenomenally written film that allows lead actor Saul Williams to weave acting magic on the screen, the best reason to watch this and hopefully in a performance that gets some love in the award scene that is shortly incoming.

Every Breath You Take – Just looking at the cast list on this new mystery thriller draws me into wanting to watch it right away as it features Casey Affleck, Michelle Monaghan and Sam Claflin in the lead roles, all proven character actors plus it’s a Gone Baby Gone reunion between the first two. The fact that this film is being dogged by bad reviews and comes from director Vaughn Stein, who’s last film Terminal was a heinous waste of time, gives me an appropriate pause. The story is about a psychiatrist, played by Affleck, whose career is thrown into jeopardy when his patient takes her own life. When he invites his patient’s surviving brother into his home to meet his wife and daughter, his family life is suddenly torn apart from the inside. This film looks like it would be intriguing but manages to keep making the easy and predictable choices throughout. Very frustrating.

Revolution Rent – I have said many times before on this blog that musicals are generally not my thing and it takes a really special one to break through and catch my attention. That being said, Rent was a Broadway musical that blew me away when I saw it live and in person, giving an fascinating human story with songs that I thought were incredibly catchy and meaningful, so when this new documentary came up on HBO, I was interested for sure. The film follows a Cuban-American director who travels to his exiled parents’ homeland to mount a stage production of the legendary musical where he discovers an inspiring artistic family and embarks on a personal journey to reclaim his complicated heritage. This was such an fascinating way to renew my love for the original source material and also see it inspire new viewers who hadn’t been exposed to the inspirational and vibrant musical that really transcends the art form to become a commentary on the human condition.

Take Back – I feel like I would have been into a movie like this in the nineties and pretty easily too. Mickey Rourke, a known bad ass who retired from acting for a stint in boxing for a while and Michael Jai White, the only man up to this point to play the comic book demigod Spawn in live action form. Older me has seen way too many of these though and it takes a lot to rock my world and this film really doesn’t look like it has that gusto. The story follows couple Zara and Brian who are living the perfect small-town life when Zara heroically foils a robbery and becomes headline news. This unwanted notoriety draws elements of Zara’s mysterious past back into her life, putting the lives of her family in danger. When Zara and Brian’s daughter is kidnapped by a sadistic gang of people traffickers led by the vicious Patrick, the pair face a race against time to save her life. The film has a great set up and keeps you strung along for the duration but that third act came in like a bull in a china shop to destroy all the momentum with a corny desert shoot out that reeks of them writing themselves into a corner.

Blu-Ray & DVD:

Godzilla vs. Kong – The behemoths are finally going to battle it out for the first time in the modern age after a build that started with 2014’s Godzilla. I have my qualms about the human element of both Godzilla movies to this point but the epic that was Kong: Skull Island, one of my favourite IMAX experiences ever, is too awesome to take a step down from. This film brings King Kong from the 70s into the present-day and “legends collide” as these mythic adversaries meet in a spectacular battle for the ages, with the fate of the world hanging in the balance. Kong and his protectors undertake a perilous journey to find his true home, and with them is Jia, a young orphaned girl with whom he has formed a unique and powerful bond. They quickly and unexpectedly find themselves in the path of an enraged Godzilla, cutting a swath of destruction across the globe for an unknown reason as he’s turned from the planet’s protector that took down King Ghidorah and now becomes their terrorizer. Look, they didn’t improve the human element of this franchise, which still feels like cardboard cutouts of real people with the wooden dialogue to match but that’s not what this is all about, is it? We just want to see these two monsters throw down and they most definitely do. Enjoy it in your own home theatre and crank that sound!

French Exit – Writer and director Azazel Jacobs has been on a roll with me lately and only because I just discovered his work through the Kino Lorber releases of Momma’s Man and The Good Times Kid which then led me to Terri and The Lovers, quickly cementing him as an indie favourite, in the same vein of a Noah Baumbach style filmmaker. With this new movie, I got even more excited as it features the lovely Michelle Pfieffer and one of the best young actors today, Lucas Hedges. Pfeiffer plays an ageing Manhattan socialite living on what’s barely left of her inheritance, moving to a small apartment in Paris with her son and a cat that may be the conduit to contacting her dead husband. Yes, it’s a bit weird but if it leaned harder into that weirdness the final product wouldn’t feel this uneven. Is this an absurd comedy or a down drama? I never could glean exactly what it was going for but it has great emotional beats but also many hilarious moments. I’m really on the fence with this one.

Vanquish – Uh oh. I was excited when I saw Morgan Freeman’s name attached to this new action thriller but then I saw it was from filmmaker George Gallo whose last outing, The Poison Rose which also starred Freeman, was a total cringe filled dog of a film with John Travolta doing a cajun accent straight out of What The Hellsville. Seriously, it’s the worst. This film has Ruby Rose as a mother named Victoria who is trying to put her dark past as a Russian drug courier behind her but retired cop Damon, played by Freeman, forces her to do his bidding by holding her daughter hostage. Now, Victoria must use guns, guts, and a motorcycle to take out a series of violent gangsters or face the consequences of never seeing her child again. It seems Gallo hasn’t learned from his last pile of crap and Morgan is doomed to repeat his mistakes as this is an absolute flop of a film that has zero excitement to it and tries to go excessive to the ceiling in its style but has no substance behind it to substantiate why we should care. This movie is a total waste of time.

Voyagers – With a hot aesthetic, the sleek blackness of space and a neon glow, Limitless and The Illusionist filmmaker Neil Burger returns with a great cast and a creepy sci-fi mystery to baffle everyone with again. Starring Colin Farrell, Tye Sheridan, Lily-Rose Depp, Dunkirk’s Fionn Whitehead and Game Of Thrones alum Isaac Hempstead Wright, the film is set in the near future and chronicles the odyssey of thirty young men and women who are sent deep into space on a multi-generational mission in search of a new home. The mission descends into madness, as the crew reverts to its most primal state, not knowing if the real threat they face is what’s outside the ship or who they’re becoming inside it and it hits all the right buttons for me. The creeping paranoia of this film is so deliciously infective but I feel like it failed to capitalize on that or steer from the narrative of being a sort of Lord Of The Flies in space and continues to follow all the same beats as the originality of this story is slowly leached from it scene by scene. That said, the film is gorgeous to look at and that futuristic space travel neon glow is pretty pleasing to the eye.

SAS: Red Notice – Ruby Rose is a busy woman as she pulls double duty this week in the blu-ray section with another action driven thriller but with a pretty stellar cast around her. Featuring Outlander’s Sam Heughan, Lord Of The Rings heavyweight Andy Serkis, Ant-Man and The Wasp’s Hannah John-Kamen, The Umbrella Academy’s Tom Hooper ad so many more, despite looking like a direct to video actioner, this movie has a bit of promise to it. The film follows Tom Buckingham, who is taking Dr. Sophie Hart from London to Paris to propose. When their train is deep inside the Channel Tunnel, heavily armed mercenaries, led by Grace Lewis, seize control of it and hold everyone hostage. Grace threatens to blow up the Channel Tunnel and declare economic war on a government that has its fair share of secrets to keep. Unarmed and cut off from his counter terror team, Tom is the only hope that Sophie and the other passengers have to make it out alive. The plot seems simple and contrived but the action and intrigue are where the film consistently delivers to give us the thrill of just being a plain old popcorn flick and who can’t get behind that?

Anything For Jackson – You bump up your horror credibility seriously when you have Canadian actor Julien Richings anywhere involved in your film so this film is bursting with it considering it features him in the lead role and one that was written for him. The movie has him as one half of a bereaved Satanist couple who kidnap a pregnant woman so they can use an ancient spell book to put their dead grandson’s spirit into her unborn child but end up summoning more than they bargained for. This film baffles me in the fact that it was made by director Justin G. Dyck, a guy known for making a lot of Hallmark movies and I mean a lot. The genre shift isn’t the weird part, it’s the fact that this movie is so fantastic. Is it the writing? The acting? The directing? It’s honestly everything, the perfect storm of horror awesome and a must see.

The Great War Of Archimedes – Well Go USA has my eyes for not one but two titles this week but before we get to the stuff they’re really known for, this killer action flicks, we’re going to get a little historical first. The film is set in the early 1930s as the command of the Japanese Imperial Navy determines to construct the world’s biggest and most formidable battleship, Yamato. One of the admirals, Yamamoto Isoroku, disagrees and recruits the upstart and mathematics’ expert Tadashi Kai who discovers there are discrepancies between the official cost estimates and the actual figures which exposes a conspiracy being hatched within the military power. The film comes from Japanese director Takashi Yamazaki who’s last outing was the animated action mystery Lupin III: The First which was alright but this was a step down as the character development was anemic and the pacing made the two and a half run time just crawl by.

Streetwise/Tiny: The Life Of Erin Blackwell – The theme to my Criterion releases that I received this month seems to be little movie collections and it kicks off with this new double feature from American writer and director Martin Bell. Streetwise follows photojournalist Mary Ellen Mark and Bell as they travel the streets of Seattle, taking a harrowing look at the lives of young members of the city’s homeless population. The teenagers they follow come from broken families and have resorted to drug use, crime and prostitution and the two document the teens as they attempt to survive on the streets and also deal with their complex, dysfunctional home lives and cling to one another to achieve a sense of family. In the follow up made more than thirty years later, Tiny picks up with Bell chronicling the life of Erin Blackwell, mother of ten children, from the time she was a 14-year-old prostitute through her battle with drug addiction, poverty and parenting in the original film. A brilliant portrait of the disenfranchised, forgotten and left behind youth, Bell’s ability to show the urgency of his subject’s existence is always felt on the surface of his work. Fascinating stuff.

Guns For San Sebastian – I really love the exposure that Warner Archive gives to their vault of classic films when they get the blu-ray treatment but I get even more excited when it’s a genre film, in this case being an action western with some iconic stars leading it. Starring Anthony Quinn and Charles Bronson, the film follows fugitive Leon Alastray who meets Father Joseph, a Franciscan priest, while on the run. The two form a friendship as Joseph helps Alastray avoid the law with Alastray disguising himself to travel with him. As they reach a ghost town, Joseph is shot dead from afar. Alastray then meets half-Indian Telco, played by Bronson, who explains that the inhabitants are in hiding from a band of violent Yaqui Indians and, mistaken for the priest, Alastray helps the villagers fight back. This movie is super entertaining and is a great showcase of Quinn’s power as a lead actor. It also features a great score from Ennio Morricone which is always welcome in a solid western.

Ziegfeld Follies – Warner Bros. is bringing one of the big guns out of their extensive vault for a big Warner Archives blu-ray edition with one of the biggest musicals of all time. The cast is thorough and extensive, with William Powell, Judy Garland, Lucille Ball, Fred Astaire, Lena Horne, Gene Kelly, Red Skelton and so many more and under the direction of six different filmmakers including the minds behind Show Boat and The Unsinkable Molly Brown and master director Vincente Minnelli. The film is almost like a big compilation as it is presented as a production for showman Florenz Ziegfeld Jr. in Heaven as he fondly recalls his first Broadway revue, the Ziegfeld Follies of 1907. Even in the great beyond, he is hoping that he can, for one last time, create that same magic by mounting one last follies. As he thinks about who he would like to appear in these follies, he is assisted in realizing his fantasy, at least in his own mind, by some of the biggest stars of the modern time, with the film being made in 1945. Not being a big musical guy, a lot of the music didn’t do a lot for me but the art direction is incredible and lavish looking, enough to impress even a cold genre cynic like myself.

Punk The Capital: Building a Sound Movement – The voice of a cultural and social revolution, punk in a driving force of those who consider themselves voiceless and became a real lightening rod for those who felt push back, kept down and totally marginalized. The forefront of this genre voice was groups like Black Flag, The Dead Kennedys and more, all driven from the American capitol, Washington, D.C. This documentary explores why the sounds and ideas from this influential music continue to inspire around the world and beyond the legends I just mentioned it features bands like the sadly forgotten Bad Brains who helped create a movement that redefined a genre and became a model for social and political engagement with interviews with Henry Rollins and Jello Biafra just to make it that much more awesome.

Lust For Gold: A Race Against Time – The gold rush is something that seems so far back, like in the settler days or the discovering of our great frontier in the backyards of our wilderness but the rush is still happening for a group of explorers and this documentary takes aim at that in this new documentary. The film follows a team of modern adventurers on a quest for gold in the mountains of eastern Arizona, a true story is about obsession, greed, and the hunt for gold. Although it is nothing that I feel I would have gone out of my way for, I still felt myself being drawn into this retiree’s need to search for what to others looks like an extreme pipe dream and it slowly moves you to the edge of you seat in wonder at if he will achieve that dream. Very cool real life drama that loses that scripted feel immediately.

Steve’s Blu-Ray & DVD Geekouts:

Fast Times At Ridgemont High – Written by Cameron Crowe in his first film and directed by the teen voice conduit that always delivers, Amy Heckerling, I still think it’s a pretty easy call to say that this is one of the greatest high school films ever made. I think we all probably know this film deeply and intimately from Sean Penn’s stoner character Jeff Spicoli to Brad masturbating in the bathroom to a day dream of Phoebe Cates in the pool, we all know it. For those who don’t, the film is a reality infused look at the lives and loves of a group of high school students. It’s the final year of high school for Brad Hamilton who decides he should break up with his longtime girlfriend to play the field and gets completely floored when she breaks up with him first. Spicoli continues to take delight in getting under the skin of his teacher, Mr. Hand in one of the best onscreen rivalries in history and others are looking for love, sex and just plain having a good time which, for the most part, they all seem to find though sometimes in unexpected places. This movie had laughs, tackled issues, got into the inner workings of high school cliques and had such an honest heart to it which I believe will always keep it relevant. This is a must see forever.

The Final Countdown 4K – Time travel sci-fi with Kirk Douglas, Martin Sheen and an aircraft carrier all to the sounds of eighties rock band Europe? Okay, that last part was a lie but you can’t honestly tell me that you don’t read that title and have the song stuck in your mind. For real, the film is set in 1980 and follows aircraft carrier USS Nimitz as it is on a routine voyage off the coast of Hawaii when she travels through a strange storm. Upon clearing the storm she encounters some strange occurrences, all of which suggest she has travelled back in time in 1941. Moreover, it is December 6th, 1941 and the Nimitz is in a position to prevent the disastrous outcome of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. This was a big movie at it’s time, expensive but also made with full cooperation by the United States Navy and sort of paved the way for films like Top Gun later and, let’s face it, most of Michael Bay’s filmography. I love that a film with a high budget but dated to campiness in the effects now is getting its rebirth in a 4K presentation.

King Kong – It’s interesting to bring this new collector’s edition from Shout Factory this week in the same posting as the latest King Kong flick and just a couple weeks after the sad passing of the incredible Charles Grodin who featured in this movie alongside Academy Award winners Jeff Bridges and Jessica Lange. Made in 1976, this is a remake of the 1933 classic about the giant ape, following an oil company expedition that disturbs the peace of Kong and decides to bring him back to New York to exploit him in obvious fashion. Even though a woman somewhat tames Kong, he finally breaks loose and terrorizes the city, and as the military attempts to stop him he falls to his death from the top of the World Trade Center. Ah crap, I just gave the full story but I’d like to think that we all kind of know this one now. It’s also pretty cool that a forty foot animatronic was created of Kong that was transported to Universal Studios where it traumatized kids in ride form for decades. This is such a special movie.

Lara Croft: Tomb Raider/Lara Croft: Tomb Raider – The Cradle Of Life 4K – A bunch of high definition video game film updates landed on my doorstep this week in two separate forms but both featuring the beautiful and well cast Angelina Jolie as explorer and general bad ass Lara Croft. Presented as a standalone copy of the first movie or in a two pack, the film chronicles this British treasure hunters exploits, starting with the first film where she has to thwart a secret society doomsday cult seeking two pieces of a mysterious device hidden in two different places of the world in order to use it during a rare planetary alignment to bring them unlimited power to control or destroy the world. The Cradle Of Life, the sequel, brings Gerad Butler into it and has Lara on a quest to save the mythical Pandora’s Box, before an evil scientist finds it, and recruits a former Marine turned mercenary to assist her. These films, upon a rewatch, are still really entertaining and have some great sequences in it that make you look a bit beyond how terrible the script is.

Undercover Punch & Gun – The title of this movie is ridiculous. I know it, you know it, I’m sure everyone at Well Go USA knows it but, that aside, this Chinese action film has, as you can probably guess, incredible action sequences. The story is almost comically formulaic, following an elite cop working undercover to infiltrate a notorious drug ring that is exposed when a rival agency with a grudge attacks during a trade, killing the gang’s leader. Their cover compromised, both teams are forced to unite in order to take to the high seas and attempt to overthrow the ruthless smuggler behind it all and I must stress again how great each fight is, totally worth the pretty short hour and a half run time. I’m really happy that I enjoyed this film because one half of the director duo made the deplorably bad Donnie Yen movie Enter The Fat Dragon and I was not prepared at all to forgive him just yet.

Television:

Blindspotting: Season 1 (Crave) – With Blindspotting being one of my favorite films in the last twenty years, I almost lost my mind when I heard that writers, producers and stars Rafael Casal and Daveed Diggs were taking it to series form, although Diggs’ character Collin won’t be appearing. If you haven’t seen the movie yet, you need to drop everything to watch it as soon as possible because it is the most special, hard hitting, angry and biting social commentary, something I will never forget. The new series is a continuation and centers on Ashley, who is nipping at the heels of a middle class life in Oakland until Miles, her partner of 12 years and father of their son, is suddenly incarcerated, leaving her to navigate a chaotic and humorous existential crisis when she is forced to move in with Miles’ mother and half-sister. I’m chomping at the bit to take in this already critically acclaimed new show and I’ll silence my sadness that we only get an episode a week until it’s finale. Remember those times of patience with television?

Penguin Town (Netflix) – If you’ve already exhausted all of your nature documentaries and have absorbed all the David Attenborough lilted learning that you can glean from Netflix then it’s time for Patton Oswalt to help you out with a great helping of cute. So with that, let’s get all penguiny with the most in depth thing I’ve seen of the little tuxedoed birdies since National Geographic gave us the March Of The Penguins. The series is shot in a picturesque South African town and gives us an intimate look at an eclectic group of endangered penguins flock together to find mates, raise a family and mix with the locals. Oswalt’s narration gives the series a feel that isn’t heady or jargon filled and instead makes you laugh, mixes in the real sorrow of the situations they face and definitely makes you say “awwwww” a lot. What a delight for the whole family this one is.

Tuca & Bertie: Season 2 (Adult Swim) – There’s not much I can preface this little blurb with except the disclaimer being that this show is incredibly weird and comes from the mind of the creator of Bojack Horseman but definitely isn’t the same. Featuring the voices of Tiffany Haddish and Ali Wong, the show is simply about a free-spirited toucan Tuca and a self-doubting song thrush Bertie who are best friends and birds who guide each other through life’s ups and downs, with Bertie being a little more pragmatic but a push over and Tuca being problematically self centered. With the first season streaming on Netflix to give you a taste of what it’s all about, this show may be a hard sell as it really likes to go off on tangents quite a lot but I am enamoured with the bold chances it seems to love taking. If you’re a fan of either of these ladies, who both have so many great comedy specials, I recommend this to you and you only.

Dave: Season 2 (FX) – Comedic rapper Lil Dicky got his own series last year with a show that is produced by Scooter Braun. who is probably not high up on the likability chain with how he tried to screw Taylor Swift over, but also Kevin Hart and Greg Mottola who also directed a few of the first season’s episode and welcomes Honey Boy’s Alma Har’el and Bad Trip filmmaker Kitao Sakurai. Co-created by Curb Your Enthusiasm writer Jeff Schaffer, the show follows a mid-twenties suburbanite whose neurosis has convinced him that he is going to become one of the greatest rappers of all time, a totally misguided journey. Those who know Lil Dicky’s work, like his song he did with Chris Brown called Freaky Friday, will be into this and as much as I hate Brown that song is damn catchy. This show has certainly caught on and became a big success for FX so it’s probably a great time to jump on the show now and get with the trend.

Physical: Season 1 (AppleTV+) – All you have to tell me to sell me on this new series is that Rose Byrne is in it and it takes place in the eighties. Hell, if I didn’t have an AppleTV+ account already, I ‘d get it for sure. Look at this streaming service go! The ten episode series follows Byrne as Sheila Rubin, a quietly tortured, seemingly dutiful housewife supporting her smart but controversial husband’s bid for state assembly but behind closed doors, she has her own darkly funny take on life she rarely lets the world see. She’s also battling a complex set of personal demons relating to her self-image which come to a head when she finds release through the unlikeliest source in the world of aerobics. At first hooked on the exercise itself, Sheila’s real road to empowerment comes when she discovers a way to merge this newfound passion with the burgeoning technology of videotape to start a revolutionary business. Directed by the trio of Cruella’s Craig Gillespie, Dollface’s Stephanie Laing and newcomer Liza Johnson, this show had me hooked in from episode one and I didn’t even include that the great Rory Scovel is in this.