Weekly Odds and Ends - November 21-27

WWE Survivor Series 2020 (WWE Network) - So this aired on Sunday, November 22 and should have been a special night.  30 years ago tonight, The Undertaker made his debut.  Also 30 years ago, I sat down and watched professional wrestling for the first time.  I'll never forgot the strange and intimidating debut of this dead dude coming out with this red faced guy named Brother Love on Team DiBiase. Unfortunately, Survivor Series went from being one of the most important shows of the year to a pointless event and tonight was no exception.  The highlight of the show was advertised as being a retirement ceremony for The Undertaker, so they brought out 15 or so of The Undertaker's closest friends and greatest opponents (including his kayfabe brother Kane in full wrestling gear for some reason when everyone else was wearing suits or street clothes) to say goodbye to him.  After a final video package, all of them disappeared and Vince McMahon was in the ring and he gave a small introduction which led to a traditional 10 minute walk to the ring by The Undertaker.  He spoke about 4 sentences, kneeled down to a shody looking hologram Paul Bearer, and began his everlong walk out of the arena for the final time.  Maybe this whole thing would have played better in front of an audience, but even then it just seemed so pointless. Definitely a very anti-climatic end to a legendary career.

Rating: 2.50 out of 5 for the show itself.  .50 out of 5 for the Undertaker retirement ceremony.

Dolly Parton's Christmas on the Square (Netflix) - This Christmas musical event walks the fine line between being ridiculously cheesy and being the best feel-good watch so far this holiday season.  On paper, we've seen this movie a lot especially in regards to Christmas as it's basically a simple Scrooge story with Christine Baranski coming to the small town she grew up in after the death of her father to basically evict everyone and destroy the town to mall developers.  From a storyline standpoint, this doesn't make a whole lot of sense and her ability to make all the town residents (who are all surprisingly good at singing and dancing) up and leave with little notice is headscratching. However, the toe tapping relentless musical numbers, fun choreography (this was directed by chereographer Debbie Allen), and a supernatural Dolly Parton do a terrific job of making this a pretty solid and joyful movie. 

Rating: 3 out of 5.

The Christmas Chronicles 2 (Netflix) - Kurt Russell returns as Santa Claus and this time Christopher Colombus (the first two Home Alone's and Harry Potter's) takes over as director in what should be a great Christmas movie, however to me it just fell a little short of expectations especially with the pedigree that it has.  Clocking in at just under 2 hours, the movie feels a little long and starts to lose a little bit of steam around halfway through.  The story is the young girl from the first movie ends up back in the North Pole and has to help Santa Claus save Christmas from an evil ex-elf played by Julian Dennison, whom you may recongize from the terrific Hunt for the Wilderpeople or Deadpool 2.  This is where rating movies gets difficult as I've rated this and the Dolly Parton movie the same, but was pleased with the Dolly Parton movie and underwhelmed with this, but just because I was underwhelmed with this doesn't mean it was bad, just felt like it had potential for more. 

Rating: 3 out of 5.


Run (Hulu) - I didn't even realize until after watching it that Run was made by filmmaker Aneesh Chaganty who made one of the surprise movies of 2018, the John Chu computer desktop thriller Searching, which was far better than it had any right in being.  Chaganty brings this same sort of edge of your seat entertainment off of the computer screen but into a home where Sarah Pauslon's wheelchair-bound homeschool child Chloe lives and is basically seperated from society.  However, after getting a new prescription and getting close to graduating school and going to college, Chloe begins questioning her mom's motives.  While you can largely predict where this is going, it's still a fun journey take and provides enough thrills to keep interesting.  Sarah Paulson and newcomer Kiera Allen both give great performances and do a great job of fueling the tension throughout.

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Superintelligence (HBO Max) - Melissa McCarthy stars in this movie where she plays a surprisingly normal character in Carol Peters, who's a little down on her luck when randomly an AI program who knows everything about her (and largely everyone else on the planet) begins talking to her using James Cordon's voice.  Carol has to work with the superintelligent software as it decides whether or not to destroy humanity.  While part An Absolutely Remarkable Thing (which is a terrific book by Hank Green for those that haven't read it) and part WarGames, this movie is slightly uneven as a romance plotline where Carol tries to get back together with her ex-boyfriend George (Bobby Cannavale) seems forced but also leads to one of the best scenes where George freaks out over meeting an idol of his.  While, not the most sensical movie I've watched in a while, it was entertaining enough that it was worth a watch.

Rating: 3.25 out of 5.

Happiest Season (Hulu) - In a way this movie is the story of the Aunt that never brings a boyfriend but always brings a friend/roommate to Christmas with them.  Happiest Season is a holiday romantic comedy about Harper (Mackenze Davis) going to her family Christmas with her girlfriend Abby (Kristen Stewart) despite her family not knowing about their relationship.  This movie is fueled with a very strong supporting cast making up their family and friends including Aubrey Plaza, Alison Brie, and Schitt's Creek's Dan Levy, amongst many other familiar faces.  This movie walks the thin line of being in the closet in a very light-hearted manor but at the same time does deal with the struggle of family acceptance and trying to not ruin Christmas, but also being your own person and trying to gain acceptance.  I definitely got similar vibes to other family holiday stories like The Famiily Stone, this movie is heartfelt and entertaining.

Rating: 3.75 out of 5. 

Weekly Odds and Ends - November 14-20

 

Kevin Hart: Zero Fucks Given (Netflix) - Kevin Hart's latest stand-up comedy special recorded live literally in his very own living room with a socially distanced crowd.  Hart always delivers and even with being able to literally perform to football fields full of people, he adapts to a much smaller audience without losing a beat.  Hart touches on The Vid (Covid), Hanging out at Seinfeld's house, and his brief boxing career.  Very solid special especially since these have been very infrequent because of The Vid.  Hart proves why he's legit one of the best in the business.

The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air Reunion (HBO Max) - While I always enjoyed The Fresh Prince, I wouldn't say I'm the biggest fan but I definitely spent a fair amount of time watching reruns of it back in the day. This was actually a really nice and heartwarming reunion.  Without spoiling things too much, we get a better understanding of probably the most controversial part of the show, when they fired and replaced the original Aunt Viv, which was very nice that it was addressed and made more transparent after basically 30 years of misunderstanding.  Normally, I think reunion specials are kind of tacky and unnecessary but I think they actually pulled out a good one here.

A West Wing Special to Benefit When We All Vote (HBO Max) - About a month late on watching this but only because we literally started The West Wing in September and wanted to at least get to "Hartsfield's Landing" which is the iconic episode of the The West Wing  that they recreate on stage in this episode.  This episode takes place the night before the election when President Bartlet is running for his second term.  Between acts the cast and other political and celebrities discuss the importance of voting.  I'm sure this will play better with viewers who have watched The West Wing, this might provide to be an unexpectedly fun experience for those who haven't and might encourage you to watch the show, which you really should. 

Lego Star Wars Holiday Special (Disney+) - It's Life Day in the Star Wars kingdom and Rey is helping Finn with his jedi training.  On her quest to being a better jedi trainer, she takes a trip all throughout the Star Wars series linking characters all throughout the 9 movies.  This is a lot of fun as you get to see interactions with a lot of Star Wars characters that haven't met including a great interaction with Kylo Ren and his grandpa Darth Vader.  If you're a Star Wars fan and love things like The Lego Movie, this is definitely worth checking out.

Death of Me (Blu-Ray and Digital including BRENTFLIX+) - Maggie Q stars in this psychological thriller where she goes on a vacation with her husband, played by the forgotten Hemsworth, Luke and the trip goes terribly wrong after they watch a video where he kills her.  While this movie very much delves into that terrain of vacation gone wrong and the locals go from being very kind to very crazy, it definitely had a lot of wtf? is going on moments and kept me entertained.

The Princess Switch: Switched Again (Netflix) - What can I say about a movie that stars 3 Vanessa Hudgens including an evil one who tries to take the spot of the soon to be Queen of Montenero so she can steal money so she doesn't go broke?  This movie is all of the cheesy and campy goodness you would expect.

Spontaneous - Review

This is the latest straight to video feature from Paramount and arguably possibly one of the best ones they've released in recent history.  I'll have a blog at some point in the future talking about the straight to video market as it's been kind of fascinating, especially this year where straight to video stuff is making up a large part of the marketplace.  Anyway, this movie is the directorial debut of writer Brian Duffield, who has written some movies like The Babysitter and the recent theatrical/theater at home rental Love and Monsters.  Spontaneous stars Katherine Langford (from the Netflix series 13 Reasons Why and Love, Simon) and Charlie Plummer (from Lean on Pete and Words on Bathroom Walls) as well as Piper Perabo and Rob Huebel playing Mara's (Langford) parents.

This movie truly runs the gamut of genres as it ranges from fun rom-com to horrific science fiction/fantasy.  It was a normal day at the high school until a classmate spontaneous combusts and covers their classmates in blood.  In what seems to be a crazy one time occurence begins happening to more and more of their classmates and leaves everyone confused especially Mara and Dylan who's love begins to bloom while the world and their classmates are exploding around them.

Spontaneous is one of the most creative endeavours I've watched this year.  This movie was touching, chaotic, and left you on the edge of your seat the entire time. While it has elements of your high school romance dying teenager movie like The Fault in Our Stars it has a much more chaotic and unpredictable twist on that formula.  This movie is definitely worth checking out.

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars.

Fuck Cancer - RIP Chuck

While I didn't really want to type this or at least wanted their to be a longer time period to have prepared this, things progressed faster than any of us would liked and one of my best friends, Chuck Schilling, passed away Sunday evening.  I just wanted to start out sending my best to his wife Andrea and their families.  Chuck was genuinely one of the best guys and a tremendous friend. Seeing the outpouring of love for him from friends he made through all reaches of his life whether through sports, video games, work, or politics shows the kind of character he had and how great of a person he was.  

He was diagnosed with stomach cancer in January this year.  You can read the journey here much better than I could ever type it out and even now all donations would be greatly appreciated to help with medical expenses.  It's been a very rough year for this to happen, made even more tumultous with Covid taking over the medical industry and delaying any possible trials and treatments that could have be greatly beneficial and at the very least helped delay things.  Chuck was an early wake-up call for me when it came to Covid and his inability to do much besides occassionally go to a store because of the rampant spread of this deadly virus really showed the importance of wearing a mask, social distancing, and doing our best to keep people that could be compromised by this illness as safe as possible.

We met in the fall of 2010. I'm not going to lie in a way I kind of stalked Chuck before we met.  He was in the Milwaukee Bucks Squad 6 fan group for it's initial season and I thought that group was the coolest thing ever.  After the Fear the Deer season ended, there became talks about doing a sneaky Squad 6 invasion road trip to Indiana for a Bucks game against the Pacers to show-up their Squad 6 knock-off that he was organizing.  I believe I had talked to Chuck online at that point and then awkwardly went up to him after a pre-season game to get more details on how to go on this trip. I legit thought he was so cool, it turns out I was right.  We sat near him in the front of the bus on the trip and quickly became very good friends.  With Chuck's help, Julie and I were able to join the Squad officially a few weeks later and I stood next to Chuck for nearly the entire season, well at least until an ankle he twisted playing basketball of all things sidelined him to the end of the row so he could sit down.  

During the next few years, our friendship really grew.  Despite living an hour away Chuck and Andrea came to our house nearly every week for Friday Night Game Nights.  He would usually come straight from a closing and even scan closing papers on the kitchen table.  After a while of doing that we started to go down to their apartment and then house to have more game nights, to watch Packers or Bucks games, and sometimes just hang out and eat some delicous food.  It was because of Chuck that we were able to make some magnificient friends along the way as well.

While selfishly I wish I could have spent more time with Chuck over recent years, I was always happy that Andrea and him were able to do what they loved to do, see the world and live closer to their family.  I wish I could have seen him one more time and we would talk about getting together post-Covid.  Sadly, he's gone far too early and will look back fondly on how great of a man Chuck was.  You'll always be one of my best friends.

All the Foam Snow You Can Handle

It's November and you know what that means?  No, not Thanksgiving.  No, not Black Friday.  Ughhh no, not winter is coming, besides Game of Thrones is done anyway.  Well, I guess it's not really done as they are working on the spin-off but regardless, no. November means Netflix starts cranking out the Christmas movies.  While many will gravitate towards Hallmark or Lifetime for their plethora of Christmas movies they offer, I just like to stick with Netflix as quite frankly that's all the holiday cheer I can handle.

Netflix had so much holiday goodness for us this year they started in late October with the movie romantic comedy Holidate. While not dealing with Christmas exclusively, instead focusing on a relationship of Emma Roberts and Luke Bracey's characters who to avoid being awkwardly single around the Holidays agreed to platonically be each other's plus ones for a year.

Then last weekend kicked into Christmas overdrive with the painfully dull quasi-romantic comedy that was neither very romantic or funny, Operation Christmas Drop.  This film was about a military humanitarian mission to deploy Christmas around Guam while the commanding officer has to defend the mission to someone from DC who is looking for a cost cutting reason to shut this down while falling in love. 

This weekend sees Jingle Jangle: A Christmas Journey, a bizarre but toe tapping movie about a toymaker (Forrest Whitaker) and his granddaughter making a new invention after being stabbed in the back by his apprentice (Keegen-Michael Key) who stole his most prized creation.  It's a dash of Mr. Magorium's Wonder Imporium mixed in a Christmas musical blender that never really makes sense but manages to be somewhat endearing.

On Thursday, November 19, we finally get the long awaited sequel to the Vanessa Hudgens and Netflix take on The Prince and the Pauper, The Princess Switch.  Hudgens plays a normal girl from Chicago who also happens to have an exact look-a-like who is the Duchess of Montenero who switch roles upon stumbling into each other so the Duchess can have a few days so she can be out of the spotlight.  This time they get switched... again as a third Vanessa Hudgens enters the fray in The Princess Switch: Switched Again and I could not be more excited.  

We get treated to a double dose of holiday magic with a rare Sunday release as Dolly Parton's Christmas on the Square also hits the streaming service on November 22.  This movie is about an evil rich person who comes back to their hometown after the passing of her father to evict it's residents and sell the land to a mall developer and likely will be stopped by the town's residents, Holiday spirit, and an inspirational speech from a supernatural Dolly Parton.

We end November's Christmas barage on Thanksgiving eve with The Christmas Chronicles 2 which combines director Christopher Columbus, most popular for making the first two Harry Potter and Home Alone movies) and Kurt Russell playing Santa Claus.  Columbus served as producer for the first The Christmas Chronicles but decided to step into the Director's chair for this one for first time in 5-years since the kind of underrated movie Pixels. The first movie dealt with some children who noticed Santa was at their house and jumped into Santa's slay and ended up crashing the sleigh needing to help Santa finish delivering all of Santa's presents.  This time the kids need to help Santa save Christmas from a mysterious troublemaker who threatens to cancel Christmas.  

Now, if you're a hardcore Netflix Christmas movie watcher you will sadly notice one massive franchise missing as there is no A Christmas Prince 4 happening this year.  While as far as I can see there is no word one way or another if they are wrapping it up as a trilogy or if there is potential for a fourth movie in the series, but I definitely hope we see Rose McIver, Ben Lamb, and tons of foam snow back in our lives next November.

Hopefully that gives you a decent idea of how you can start filling your season with Holiday cheer and stuff.

Welcome to Brentopia! We're gonna bluck a blicken!

Sup fools?  I know what you're thinking, blogs are super cool!  In this day and age when reading more than a Tweet or a headline becomes too much work and most people prefer things like TikToks, YouTube videos or Twitch streams, this is the perfect time to start a blog. Truth be told, I've always loved having a blog and often thought about going back to writing one. As weird as this is to say, I saw a cheesy motivational video on TikTok about waking up in the morning and thinking about what your mission is in your life and making sure that when things are all said and done that you used your life in your best way possible. So here we are?

Honestly, I've always felt a massive connection with pop culture, especially movies and television shows. I've always felt a strange draw and love conversations revolving around them. For 6 years, my friend Anthony and I had a podcast, AB Conversation, where we discussed these things on a weekly basis, and we recently did a Halloween epiosde and that kind of lit a fire under me to get going on more projects in this nature.  And I always wanted to expand that to doing more of a blog format as well, but then had kids and life got busy and it, like a lot of other things got pushed to the side.

So what is the point of all of this? At this point, I plan on writing some movie/tv reviews and recommendations, some random musings, and undoubtedbly some other stuff along the way.  I'd like to keep these to a few paragraphs for everyone's attention span so I'm going to go back to watching the excellent The Queen's Gambit on Netflix and figure out the next step of this process.  Have a great weekend!