Archive | April, 2015

Shameless “Love Songs (In the Key of Gallagher)” Review (5×12)

5 Apr

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“That’s the most important thing to find: someone to love, right?”

The Gallaghers constantly get themselves into trouble. That’s one thing that they can’t deny, and we know that for a fact because we’ve watched their antics for the last five seasons, laughing and cringing and crying along with them. At the same time, there’s a uniting force that grounds all these characters: their need to find happiness, to find people who love them for who they are. The word “happy” pops up quite a bit throughout the season five finale, and the episode raises the question of whether these characters can ever be truly happy. “Happiness is overrated,” Sean says at the end of the hour.

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Furious 7 Review

5 Apr

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There’s a well-tested formula that seems to drive these Fast and the Furious movies: throw in way too many one-liners, have Vin Diesel drone his way through a bunch of lines about family, and be as ridiculously over-the-top as possible. It somehow works. Nevertheless, there are diminishing returns to be seen in the series now, and even though Furious 7 constantly attempts to one-up its predecessors–and has quite a bit of fun doing so–it never quite reaches the heights of Fast Five. 

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Saturday Night Live “Michael Keaton/Carly Rae Jepsen” Live Blog and Review (40×17)

4 Apr

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ROAD TO THE FINAL FOUR: Any sketch that makes fun of the NCAA’s ridiculous student-athlete policies is great in my book (everyone, go watch John Oliver’s takedown of the NCAA from Last Week Tonight). This one’s pretty entertaining, especially coming right after Wisconsin’s win over Kentucky (yes!!), and Bobby Moynihan showing up as Jahlil Okafor’s replacement is a pretty fun image. “I majored in volcanoes!” GRADE: B+

MONOLOGUE: I normally dislike musical monologues, but this one is so damn fun to watch. The bit with the cheap Keaton footage is priceless, and Moynihan’s “I have six weeks to live” joke is sublime; also, Keaton actually gives in at the end, and it’s as awesome as we could’ve expected. GRADE: A-

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The Americans “Stingers” Review (3×10)

1 Apr

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“We love you very much.”

In the world of The Americans, trust can keep you tethered to your humanity, but it can also lead to your demise if you aren’t careful. The characters in this show are constantly walking on a thin sheet of ice, off balance and unsure about whether their next step will send them plunging into freezing water. It’s a precarious situation to be in when you’re in the spy world, but it’s also what makes these characters so compelling to watch; when personal and professional tangle and become inseparable, there comes a time when you simply have to make both work. One little push, though, and it can all come crashing down.

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My Son Became an Alien and Decided to Eat Me Review

1 Apr

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When David Simon announced his movie follow-up to The Wire and Treme, I was a bit skeptical about it until he also brought on David Fincher. It has been scientifically proven, after all, that multiple Davids working on a project together guarantees that more than one David will be working on the project. And so, this film came together quicker than you can say “Why is Meryl Streep nominated again?”, and it was released to quite a bit of buzz at the Sundance Film Festival.

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Justified “Fugitive Number One” Review (6×11)

1 Apr

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“All this is on you.”

Justified has been exploring the idea of loyalty recently by delving into various relationships between characters, relationships that may not be quite as stable or strong as they seem on the surface. After all, last week’s episode ended with Ava–someone Boyd thought he could trust–shooting her former lover and escaping with $10 million, and it was an act that immediately brought the idea of betrayal into the mix (if it wasn’t there already). In “Fugitive Number One”, we see these thematic ideas at the forefront, and they serve to ramp up the tension as we move into the final two episodes of the series.

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