Reviews
Smiling Friends (2020): ****-
I thought I was getting to old for what one might call "Adult" animation. I remember fondly as a late high schooler and college kids hanging out either by myself or with my buds and watching The Boondocks, Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Superjail!, Major Lazer, Rick and Morty, Moral Orel, King Star King, Mike Tyson Mysteries, and many more. But, time passes as it does and the only show that was still releasing new episodes after I left college was Rick and Morty. I kept up with it for a few seasons after season 2. It took me a while, but I became disinterested with the show right around season 4. When I watched the last episode of that season, that was the last straw, and I said to myself that I'm not even going to bother watching season 5. Over time I realized that I didn't really enjoy it past season 2, but I told myself otherwise. I was being square, old, out of touch, all these things to explain why season 3 was acually okay and you just aren't with it anymore. From then on, I firmly accepted that part of my life was over. It was time to move on to other things. The other adult animated shows that came out around that time only reinforced this view. Disenchanted from Matt Groening was so disappointing, I thought if anyone could make me love adult animation again, it was Mr. Futurama and Mr. Simpson himself. Big Mouth, I was told, was the hot new thing. Nope, just crass puberty humor that leans into abrading on American sensibilities of "prudishness" so hard it becomes in and of itself...cringe. More cringe than the prudes, in my opinion.
Then I watched Smiling Friends. I was seeing people online saying "oh yeah it's like a real adult animation show!" and the like. I rolled my eyes and went about my business. "Kids these days, I just don't like what they like anymore", I sighed. Eventually though, I got bored and gave it a watch. What a wild kaleidoscope ride, I was enthralled! These guys have "it" whatever that is. The dialogue is funny, the banter most of the time is smart and well-written, but I do think that the fast, irreverent dialogue trope can be overused and become unfunny real quick. I think they do a good job of dialing it down and using it sparingly for effect. It does not shy away from gore, and it has a bit of an edge on it, I will say. A bit of cryptic social commentary in there that dare I say...is based?...but they mostly manage to pull out of overt declarations at the last second, except for a few cases. The guest appearances and YouTube star cameos are also fun and add a lot to the episodes, especially whenever Joel Haver is involved.
Not enough good things I can say about this show. It's new, it's fresh, but hits that mark without feeling like a retread of all the great animated shows that have come before. That is a real challenge and the creators should be proud of carving out a unique show that I think will become one of the most fondly remembered parts of the Adult Swim library.
Saltburn (2023): **---
Saltburn is a technicolored "comedy" of deception that follows one Oliver Quick through his brief time in the high life at the massive Saltburn estate in the English countryside.
This movie was very messy. The themes were various, muddled, and sometimes contradictory. Apparently some online were saying there were themes of classism in the film, but all I saw was a mentally disturbed college student con his way to the top by exploiting some generally nice and accommodating, albeit weird, rich people. I guess to some armchair movie critics, classism is when rich people do thing? I digress. There were opinions I agreed with though, such that the ending is quite convoluted and rushed, and in my personal taste these characters are not very likeable at all. I mean what's more relatable than rich 21st century Oxford University students?
SPOILERS:
I understand that many moments in this movie were meant to be comedic. The only moments I could tell were explicitly comedic were moments that were so overtly gross and disgusting that I never really wanted to laugh at them. Oh look, our main character is having sex with the grave of his dead friend, oh look, he's giving a hummer to that girl on her period, do you see the blood on his mouth in the next scene? It's juvenile humor. And I can only assume that less obvious jokes flew past me because I mistook them for bad screenwriting. I'm usually attuned to the British wit and dry humor, but I just didn't detect much of that in this film. Speaking of bad screenwriting, why are these college students acting like the cool kids at a high school lunch table? Oliver acts like such a little pussy It really infuriated me at some points, and his playing puppy dog eyes is supposed to be part of a master plan to take over his estate? What the actual fuck?
I feel kind of bad only giving this movie two stars though, because there are things I like: The actors really carried the film and their performances, especially Jacob Elordi, can light up the screen and bring much-needed energy to the moment. It is well shot, and it is fun to kind of vicariously live the life these kids are living. Additionally, this director has a lot of promise. Given the state of American cinema, I'm always happy to see something unique on screen. I will be following her career with great interest, and I hope she progresses in her craft. This was a hard story to tell, and it could have been told better, but she didn't do a great job, which unfortunately leads me to give this movie 2 out of 5 stars
Blue Velvet (1986): ***--
David Lynch has always been a hard director for me to critique. His style is, to repeat the obvious, dreamlike and confusing. But with Blue Velvet there is a compelling air of mystery the whole way through. I was not confused as much as I was in, say, Mulholland Drive. The acting performances are stilted and out of place, but that brings a sort of hypnotic feeling to scenes where you just get sucked in, like you're watching aliens solve a mystery. To be honest I enjoyed it the most out of every David Lynch film I've seen so far. The performance of Frank Boone was the dramatic element this film needed to sell itself near the end of the film, and it felt almost Hitchcockian in the way that we're watching a well-paced, well shot mystery with not a lot of bells and whistles hanging from it.
Shrinking (2023): *----
Shrinking is an obnoxious display of the vapid minds of the gleefully out-of-touch valley writers that Apple TV somehow employs. It seriously hurts my brain watching this show as the plot becomes distracted by the absolutely cringe-inducing social commentary and twee banter between our wonderfully diverse and inoffensive cast. Harrison Ford is woefully miscast, and Jason Segel is still irrelevant after all these years coasting off of Freaks and Geeks / How I Met Your Mother fame. Someone get me a trash can to puke in.