I've finally got the chance to view FOX's two new shows, dads and Brooklyn Nine-Nine, but unfortunately only one of these shows seems pretty decent. I had to watch dads a few times to try and understand the humor in the show. Seth Green isn't bad but the show as a whole seems to be lacking something. In my opinion, I think one item missing is a musical quip to transition between scenes. It feels too.. quiet. I understand that this is still a pilot, and limited money is involved, but to captivate an audience and reel them in, it just really didn't do it for me. With it being too quiet, it doesn't really grab your attention and keep you focused. If it sticks with this time slot, I don't believe it will do well against CBS's NCIS or ABC's Agents of Shield. I think it might do better on a Wednesday.
I really do hope that the writing and budget improves. I'm really curious to see how they can turn it around.
Brooklyn Nine-Nine with Andy Samberg is pretty good. The pilot introduces many characters and provides a solid foundation for character development as well as hint at some back story. Detective RightAllTheTime and Detective Terrible Detective deserve to be watched every week. They have great chemistry and a unique dynamic together that shouldn't be dismissed. Andy Samberg does a great job portraying a hot shot detective with swagger (Do people still say that?). This show adds something that FOX has been missing. It seems like with all of these reality shows, networks forget that we like to laugh and enjoy a good comedy.
You can watch dads and Brooklyn Nine-Nine online at FOX.com
And so comes the time for another comedy about kids getting extremely drunk and doing crazy things... Movies like this have a tendency to be either very good or very bad. Granted, none of the films in this genre are exactly Citizen Kane, but there are still still some that can be considered great because they do what they mean to: make us burst out laughing while still pulling a bit at our heartstrings (see: Superbad). And then there are others that neither make us laugh nor give us any real characters to care about (see: Project X). Thankfully 21 and Over lies more towards the Superbad end of that spectrum. When college student Jeff Chang (Justin Chon) is about to hit the milestone of twenty-one, his two best friends from high school, Casey and Miller (Skylar Astin and Miles Teller), come visit their friend (whom they always refer to by his full name) in order to make sure he celebrates the momentous occasion in the proper fashion: with a night of drunken debauchery. Jeff Chang is resistant to the idea because he has an interview for medical school in the morning that his father went through a lot of trouble to set up. Casey, who already has a sweet job at a financial firm lined up after graduation, understands his friend’s responsibilities and lets him off the hook. Miller, however, is not willing to concede so easily. After much convincing from Miller, Jeff Chang agrees to join his friends for a drink or two. But when one or two drinks turns into way too many, Casey and Miller find themselves in the position of needing to be the responsible ones in order to get Jeff Chang home for his interview the next morning. The only problem is neither of them can remember where Jeff Chang lives, and he’s too drunk to tell them. At this point we start seeing what the meat of the movie is comprised of: a hilarious series of events in which Casey and Miller are either avoiding Jeff Chang's father, seeking out information regarding where Jeff Chang lives, or seeking out the actual Jeff Chang, who winds up drunkenly wandering away from them several times. And when I say hilarious, I really do mean it. You can definitely tell that this movie was written and directed by the same men that penned The Hangover. Each situation the characters find themselves in is more outrageous than the last, culminating in a 99% nude walk across campus the next morning. (Thank God for tube socks.) But amid all of the absurdities of the friends’ adventures, a surprisingly relatable emotional core is slowly revealed. The old friends learn that they are not as close as they once were, realizing that they have withheld information about their lives from one another since going off to college. In some cases the information is relatively inconsequential, but other news is much more shocking and serious. This allows the characters a bit of introspection to judge whether or not they've been acting like the friends they thought they were. Anyone who’s ever gone away from their friends, for college or otherwise, will likely be able to connect to their situation on some level. The debate over whether or not some piece of news is worth calling an old friend and talking about, or if it it will just be seen as an interruption in their busy life. The surprise at how much you’ve missed out on in someone’s life when you’re catching up with them, and how you could have done more to better keep in touch. Ultimately, this movie is about friends learning to be there for one another and that distance doesn’t mean you can’t still be close with the people you care about. Combined with the fact that it’s genuinely funny and has likable, witty characters, 21 and Over gives us everything a movie like this should. Grade: B+
21 and Over Directed by: Jon Lucas, Scott Moore Written by: Jon Lucas, Scott Moore Starring: Skylar Astin, Miles Teller, Justin Chon, Sarah Wright, Francois Chau Release date: March 1, 2013 - Feel free to follow me on Twitter@JOKftw or post in the comments if you've got any questions or comments.
Warm Bodies offers a new twist on the rom-zom-com (you’ve gotta love that term). While the film that the term originated with, Edgar Wright’s Shaun of the Dead, featured a couple reconciling in the midst of a zombie apocalypse, Warm Bodies gives us the beginnings of an unlikely couple born out of an uprising of the undead. It’s the story of two star-crossed lovers whose relationship is seemingly doomed due to the fact that one of them happens to be dead.
This premise of a zombie falling in love with a girl who’s still alive is a pretty fresh concept that sets us up for some situations that are awkward, sweet, comical, and a bit gross all at once. But it also gives us a film that comments on identity and human interaction. When we first meet our lovelorn zombie, R (Nicholas Hoult), we find him wandering around an airport, narrating the details of his “life” to us. He refers to himself as R because he doesn’t even know who he is, or who he used to be; he thinks his name started with an R back when he was a human, but that’s about all he can remember. But despite the fact that he’s only a zombie, he’s not happy. Unlike the other zombies, he thinks that there’s more to life than just eating brains. R feels lonely, despondent, and desperate for some form of human contact. The only interaction he is able to able to experience nowadays is to repeatedly grunt and groan at his best “friend” at the airport. This setting of an airport is very telling. A place we normally associate with life passing us by as we wait for our flight serves as the same place where R’s death is passing him by as he waits for something more meaningful to come along. As he meanders through the terminals, he tells us how he longs for the days where people could actually connect with each other; talking, laughing, sharing in each others’ lives. Of course, as he says this, we’re treated to a visual of how things actually were before the zombie epidemic: an all-too-realistic scene of individuals sitting silently, staring intently at their smartphones, and doing anything they can to avoid any form of contact with another person. So is R really missing out on anything, or does he just not remember how much like zombies people already were before they truly started to become undead? Either way, he still feels like he’s missing out on something. But R finds that something when his he and his zombie hoard venture out of their stagnant airport and out into what used to be society. They come across a group of young survivors searching for supplies. During the ensuing mayhem R devours the brains of one of the living young men (Dave Franco). Upon doing so, he is flooded with a rush of memories and emotions from the boy’s life. We find that this is the only way R is able to feel anything anymore, by living vicariously through what he sees when he eats peoples’ brains, much like how many people today live only through what they see on television or movie screens. But R also starts undergoing a change when he lays eyes on a Julie (Teresa Palmer), a girl in the group of survivors who turns out to be the girlfriend of the unlucky fellow whose brains just became R’s lunch. When he sees her, his heart starts beating and he begins feeling things he hasn’t felt since he was alive. Not knowing why exactly he’s doing it, R rescues Julie from his fellow zombies and brings her safely back to his airport with him. At this point in the movie, it begins to function as a type of retelling of Romeo and Juliet. However, this is also where the movie begins to falter and drag a bit. Although the it’s clear that a relationship is developing between R and Julie, it never really becomes clear how or why Julie reciprocates R’s feelings. Sure, they have a bit of fun listening to music together and Julie can’t help but marvel at the fact that R is a zombie that can feel, but it still feels as if there is no real reason for the two to connect in the way they do. Later in the film Julie simply seems to realize how she truly feels about R. However, what is clear is that Julie is to humans what R is to zombies: a dissident who is willing to accept something outside the norm and connect with others. Julie lives in a part of the city in which survivors have walled themselves off in order to be protected from the horrors outside (yet another parallel to people shutting themselves out from society). However, we learn that Julie has grown tired of being stuck within the walls and has taken to slipping through those walls and exploring the world outside despite the danger and the warnings from her overbearing father (John Malkovich),who is also the leader of the survivors. Julie’s differences from her father and the other survivors are exemplified even further when even after R’s beating heart is discovered, and there’s hope for finding a way to return the zombies back to life, Julie’s father is still worried only about the protection of those within his walls, not willing to reach out and help others. While on a thematic level R and Julie are perfect for for one another we can’t help but feel that the two of them wind up together only because the plot dictates that they should, and not because of any genuine chemistry. Even though the relationship of its two main characters doesn’t feel completely genuine, Warm Bodies still treats us to an entertaining and endearing movie that gives us a fresh spin on a popular genre and still carries a deeper meaning: that simply waiting around for life to begin will leave us unfulfilled, so we need to take the initiative in living life and make an effort to become a part of the world around us.
