Tag: Tituss Burgess

Central Park: A Musical Masterpiece – Apple+ Review

Another hit from the Bob’s Burgers team.

SUMMARY

Owen Tillerman (Leslie Odom, Jr.) is the manager of Central Park in New York City. He’s married to reporter Paige Hunter (Kathryn “Agatha All Along” Hahn) and the father of young kids Molly and Cole (Kristen Bell and Tituss Burgess). The family lives inside of the Edendale Castle in the park and are watched over by the narrating busker Birdie (Josh Gad). Unfortunately, it turns out that local businesswoman Bitsy Brandenham (Stanley Tucci), along with her henchwoman/assistant Helen (Daveed Diggs), has decided to start scheming in order to purchase Central Park and turn it into a series of apartment buildings. The Tillermans not only have to deal with their own problems, but now they have to overcome Bitsy’s plans to destroy their lives. Fortunately, they have the power of song… and also a ton of cameos by famous singers.

I would watch this cast in literally anything. Give them a WandaVision spin-off.

END SUMMARY

I was told this show was mediocre and thus didn’t watch it (also, didn’t have Apple+ until recently). The person who told me that clearly had no joy in their soul. This show is everything I wanted and more. Aside from having an absolutely dynamite cast that has multiple Tony and Emmy award winners, the show’s music is absolutely amazing. It includes a wide variety of musical styles, ranging from the big band numbers of old Broadway to the hip-hop influenced music of Hamilton, and it does all of them well. It’s amazing to realize that there are 46 songs in a 10 episode half-hour show, but somehow they managed to pull it off. It helps that people like Cyndi Lauper, Alan Menken, Darren Criss, Aimee Mann, and even Fiona Apple contributed songs to the show.

Stanley Tucci and Daveed Diggs as two old ladies with schemes. Amazing.

The characters are pretty varied, although all of them are quirky, much like on Bob’s Burgers. While the Tillermans don’t quite stand out as much as the Belchers, they definitely have a lot of the same weirdness mixed with genuineness to make them eventually become just as lovable. The number of songs does sometimes hinder both the character development and the plot development, but the odds are good you’ll be too hooked on them to care. The guest characters are usually amazing, ranging from people like a tour guide of the deleted scenes of Home Alone 2 to a busker who competes with Birdie for narrating duties. It’s actually a great element that the narrator (who has omniscience over everything that’s happening) also interacts with the characters. It’s like something out of a Greek comedy.

Josh Gad probably sings about people’s lives all the time.

Overall, just a great show. Highly recommend. 

If you want to check out some more by the Joker on the Sofa, check out the 100 Greatest TV Episodes of All Time, Collection of TV Episodes, Collection of Movie Reviews, or the Joker on the Sofa Reviews.

If you enjoy these, please, like, share, tell your friends, like the Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/JokerOnTheSofa/), follow on Twitter @JokerOnTheSofa, and just generally give me a little bump. I’m not getting paid, but I like to get feedback.

Netflix Review – The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt: Kimmy vs. The Reverend (Interactive Special)

THEY ALIVE, DAMMIT!!! IT’S A MIRACLE!!!

SUMMARY (Spoiler-Free)

It’s been a few years since the end of the show and Kimmy Schmidt (Ellie Kemper) is a successful author and getting married to her English fiance Frederick (D–Censored for Surprise–e). Her former roommate Titus Andromedon (Tituss Burgess) is trying to get his film career started with the help of his manager, Jacqueline White (Jane Krakowski), and his former landlady Lillian Kaushtupper (Carol Kane). However, Kimmy finds a book in her backpack that forces her to once again deal with her nemesis and former captor the Reverend Richard Wayne Gary Wayne (Jon “Sexual Dynamite” Hamm). 

I’m not saying you should pick Make Out, but… It’s Ellie Kemper.

END SUMMARY

I’ve enjoyed most of the Netflix Interactive specials so far, from Black Mirror’s film Bandersnatch to the Carmen Sandiego episode, although, honestly, the best thing they’ve put out in the format is probably Minecraft: Story Mode. However, in a lot of ways, this one is the most fun because it’s really just like an extra-long and meta-textual episode of Kimmy Schmidt. 

Lots of fourth wall breaks. Including one where they try to repair it.

Unlike Bandersnatch, which was largely based around playing through it a number of times to get all of the various endings (including some that were only accessible on a second or third playthrough), Kimmy Schmidt decided to make it fairly easy to get through on the first viewing. Since the episode’s framing device is a choose-your-own-adventure book, whenever you have a choice, you typically either get it right or you get to a dead end and the show resets back to the divergent point so you can go forward. If anything, it’s actually more fun to make the wrong decisions throughout the episode so that you can see all of the hilarious alternate endings. Theoretically, you can get to the end and get one of what I think are 3 wrong endings, but it’s actually harder to NOT get the happy ending in this particular instance. 

The dress is the most crucial decision ever. EVER.

As to the episode itself, I’m impressed with how well they managed to keep the timing of the humor despite how often the episode has to stop for 10 seconds to give the viewer a chance to select the next scene. A lot of that is just that all of the actors in the show are amazingly talented comedians who have a natural sense of timing and tone, but also the writing is appropriately snappy.

So much talent in one room.

It also helps that this serves as the epilogue to the show that manages to, seemingly canonically, add an extra happy ending onto the tale of a woman who deserves it. Even though we have never met Kimmy’s fiance before now, D—– ——–e manages to be charming, hilarious, and just as weird as Kimmy, making it a match made in heaven. Titus and Jacqueline similarly get a nice final chapter to their story that feels earned. Lillian… well, she’s hilarious and doesn’t need another chapter. 

The reverend gets another chapter of being amazingly funny and horrible.

Overall, I really recommend it to anyone who watched the show. I will give you two tips: 1) Try to skip the intro song. You will be pleasantly surprised. 2) When you get the option to spare or kill someone… kill them all the ways you can. You will be VERY pleasantly surprised. 

If you want to check out some more by the Joker on the Sofa, check out the 100 Greatest TV Episodes of All Time, Collection of TV Episodes, Collection of Movie Reviews, or the Joker on the Sofa Reviews.

If you enjoy these, please, like, share, tell your friends, like the Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/JokerOnTheSofa/), follow on Twitter @JokerOnTheSofa, and just generally give me a little bump. I’m not getting paid, but I like to get feedback.

Netflix Review – Dolemite is My Name: The Making of a Masterpiece

Eddie Murphy, Da’Vine Joy Randolph, Wesley Snipes, Keegan-Michael Key, and a host of others star in a story about the making of an amazing film.

SUMMARY (Spoiler-Free)

It’s the 1970s and singer/comedian Rudy Ray Moore (Eddie Murphy) is not having the career renaissance he’d been hoping for. However, after a homeless man named Ricco (Ron Cephas Jones) comes into the record store at which he works, Moore is inspired by the man’s ridiculous stories about a man named Dolemite. Moore adopts the name and turns it into a character with which he delivers a vulgar profanity-laden comedy routine. He manages to make a series of albums out of the character and goes on tour, achieving cult status. However, he eventually decides to make a film out of the character and, together with his partner Lady Reed (Da’Vine Joy Randolph), writer Jerry Jones (Keegan-Michael Key), and Actor/Director D’Urville Martin (Wesley Snipes), he makes the amazing movie Dolemite.

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Dolemite is his name, and f*cking motherf*ckers up is his game.

END SUMMARY

So, if you haven’t seen Dolemite, you should. I don’t care who you are. I don’t care what kind of movies your into. If you haven’t seen Dolemite, you need to go ahead and enrich your life. It’s on Amazon Prime right now. Then, you need to go ahead and watch the sequel, The Human Tornado, in order to see the infamous sex scene in which Dolemite’s manhood literally destroys a house. But first thing’s first: You need to watch this movie. 

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Yes, it takes place in the 70s, why do you ask?

Dolemite is a rare kind of a so-bad-its-good movie, but it’s not in the class of a film like The Room or Troll 2. You can watch Dolemite and get a perfect mix of legitimate and ironic enjoyment, because the movie is supposed to be a comedy that is shot like an action film. If you’re laughing, whether you’re laughing at it or with it, it’s working. It’s hard to tell where the film was failing at being legitimate or was succeeding in being a parody. This film seems to suggest it was a blend of lack of ability and a huge amount of talent.

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This is the original, and he calls someone a “Rat-soup eating motherf*cker.” It’s awesome.

Much like The Disaster Artist, this movie contains a lot of scenes that explain how certain things came into the film. While I don’t think that Eddie Murphy’s portrayal of Rudy Ray Moore is as spot-on as James Franco’s portrayal of Tommy Wiseau, Murphy manages to absolutely nail the timing of the comedy routines. Given that Murphy apparently did this because he and his late brother Charlie Murphy used to love listening to Moore’s albums, I’m guessing it’s because he had heard them all during his formative years. As a world-class comedian himself, it’s natural that he’d be able to figure out how all of the ridiculous inflections enhance the Dolemite character and make it his own. His version of Dolemite isn’t exactly Moore’s, but it’s damned good.

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Yeah, it’s pretty damned good. 

This movie is a true story of someone managing to get their big break at the risk of losing everything, and that’s really something that audiences love. What’s interesting is that this isn’t portrayed as being an endeavour by a comedian who is looking for the pure art of it. No, from the first part of the movie this is just the story of Moore’s attempt to become rich and famous. The honesty is somewhat refreshing, because a lot of movies try to portray famous people solely as passionate virtuosos sustained by their creative juices. In reality, even great artists usually sell out at some point, because… well, people gotta eat, man. Plus, if you believe in your art, you want fame, because that means people are actually seeing it. Does it sometimes ruin the “purity” of the art? Maybe if it causes the artist to compromise their vision, but most of the time even great art is done for the money. 

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How much art is in a movie with an all-girl army of Kung Fu Killers?… ALL OF THE ART!!

I really did enjoy the hell out of this movie. I’m not sure how accurate it is, and since they include a scene from the sequel in the film I am guessing “not very,” but I know that it tells a heck of a story. 

If you want to check out some more by the Joker on the Sofa, check out the 100 Greatest TV Episodes of All Time, Collection of TV Episodes, Collection of Movie Reviews, or the Joker on the Sofa Reviews.

If you enjoy these, please, like, share, tell your friends, like the Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/JokerOnTheSofa/), follow on Twitter @JokerOnTheSofa, and just generally give me a little bump. I’m not getting paid, but I like to get feedback.