Back when I watched Simpsons reruns on the CW-15, it was usually newer episodes from 2010 forward. So it's kinda weird I was able to watch what is now considered the best episode of the series. Now I haven't watched a lot of the Simpsons, I've probably seen a total of around 30 episodes; so my opinion isn't as certain as a lot of other people. But this is a pretty fun concept for an episode, having someone rant about unfair it is for someone lazier than him to succeed so much is a pretty timeless idea. Especially in the lens of a cartoon, where you can do ridiculous things; like how Grimes points out in Homer's adventures to space or meeting HW Bush. I don't have much more to say, its pretty solid.
Reviews
14 Reviews
Frozen II
(2019)
What? Huh?
30 July 2023
I liked the first Frozen movie; I don't have an extreme emotional attachment to it, but it was pretty good and still holds up. It was only a matter of time before a sequel was eventually made. But this, I don't know what this is. I don't know what they were going for, I don't know who it's for, I don't even know what it's trying to say. It just feels like a bunch of half baked ideas that were kinda tossed together then released into theaters before they even watched the finished project. I heard many of the animators/staff were rushed on this, which is sad to hear. I imagine if this movie was delayed for even a year, it would've turned out phenomenally better than whatever this is. This movie is the visual representation of a rushed product, a product that never even had an idea in the first place.
Ralph Breaks the Internet
(2018)
A fascinating mess
30 July 2023
I don't even know how this was even possible. Wreck It Ralph was an odd choice to create a sequel for, however since the movie was one of the first movies to kick off the "new Disney renaissance," it only seemed fair this along with Frozen would be chosen for a sequel. But like, this movie just didn't have an idea. The premise is that Ralph is way to clingy to Vanellope, and they go to Internet land. That's it. Besides the UPA designs that are used in the movie, there's really nothing enjoyable about this movie besides all the extremely odd decisions. I'm just dumbfounded they messed up a sequel this bad, I'm not even upset, I'm almost impressed with how bad this is. It's almost like they purposely went out of there way to make this unrecognizable from the first movie.
Funniest one so far
27 July 2023
After the dull nature of episode 2 and even episode 1, this episode has a series of jokes that are actually pretty funny. The plot is Jim and Margaret arguing over whether or not Bud should have a motorcycle, and it's a conflict that finally has comedy attached. In the first half, the youngest daughter keeps strongly hinting about the motorcycle to Bud (who has no idea its in the garage). Then halfway through the episode, Jim sells it back to Fred and accidentally loses a haggle war, then the episode ends with Bud himself buying the motorcycle back for a bargain, all without him ever knowing it was in the garage before he bought it from his friend. The movie has wonderfully dated humor, such as a "boing" sound effect when Jim sees his daughter in a revealing dress, which has aged very very poorly lmao. There was also the line "father, don't be so rectangular" which reminds me how much I love stilted 1950s dialogue. So far, easily the best episode of the season, hope to see more!
Dull follow up
27 July 2023
After the first episode, this is a real lack luster. It's about the kids learning about charity or whatever. After reading the title of this episode I was worried this would be a dated commentary on Immigration, so honestly I'm glad it wasn't that. But other than that this was pretty dull and boring. The big joke of the episode is the youngest daughter donated the father's suit, which is a funny concept they really drag out. But what do I expect, this was when sitcoms were evolving from radio programs, so it's just a rocky start. Decent concept for an episode, but I feel like it failed on it's delivery. Oh well, it's just one episode of a sitcom from the 50s, what am I gonna do?
No Hard Feelings
(2023)
Reminded me of Shallow Hal
27 July 2023
I know my title is pretty strange, but let me explain. The concept of this movie is pretty simple; overprotective parents hire lady to get their son laid without him knowing she was hired to do so. Just the concept alone gives you the idea this is gonna be a dumb, raunchy sex comedy; but then the movie begins to really take its concept seriously. Like it's not just a series of gags that plays with the concept, it's a story of a woman struggling to remain in her town after an influx of older retirees price gouging the local community, and she has to practically resort to prostitution to live there by being offered a car to continue her Uber service. It's a pretty serious concept that has jokes sprinkled in every now and then, which I can't decide is for better or for worse. It kinda reminded me of Shallow Hal, because you hear the plot of it and go "Oh, I know exactly what this is gonna be" before watching it and being hit with depressingly real scenes of characters dealing with conflicts, it's a strange sub genre that I enjoy. I think the performances in this movie is good and it's nice to see a movie like this played in a theater and not dumped to a streaming service, just like every other comedy movie right now. Hopefully this movie can usher in more comedies in theaters, but I don't remembered if this performed well.
Decent start
27 July 2023
I discovered the entirety of Father Knows best was freely available on youtube, so I decided to give the series a watch and the first episode is pretty standard for 1950s television. Its a cute plot about the son being shy about learning how to dance, and the father finding a solution to the problem, which involves him teaching both his son and his date how to dance. It was cute and even ended on a nice joke on how the mom pointed out how "dated their dancing looked" and I thought that was fun. I thought it was cute both Bud and his date locked themselves in the basement out of pressure, and overall pretty standard from a sitcom perspective. Overall I think it was a great first episode to a show and introduced each of the characters pretty well, and even had an unironic "Leaping Lizards" line; which I appreciated.
The Office guy is in it
17 July 2023
When my grandpa was still alive, all that would ever be on the tv is the news, game shows, and cop dramas. Criminal Minds was honestly my least favorite, at least Law and Order had a 90s NYC aesthetic that always stayed consistent with the show. Criminal Minds felt weirdly bland, just filler content that was meant to exist in reruns. To my surprise, this was a pretty big show that was known for it's "grittier" aesthetic, yet this show felt really silly to me; maybe that's what people liked? Whenever I think of this show, I think of this episode exactly. I watched this episode like, 5 times; yet I was almost convinced I hallucinated this whole thing because there Is literally no clips of it on youtube. The only result you find on youtube if you search "Fatal Criminal Minds" is previews for the episode, you literally have to scroll down the page to find the actual episode that you can purchase. The plot of this episode is too ridiculous to be taken seriously. Basically the bad guy (Brian Baumgartner) is an adamant believer of Greek mythology, and poisons anyone who stands in his way, its stupid. I find it insane this aired on prime time television to millions of viewers, this feels like a lifetime original. But I respect how stupid this is, pretty brave to expect people to take this seriously, but apparently a lot of people did.
Shut up about Canada
17 July 2023
I feel like every American goes through a short phase where they go "sigh, if only I was born in Canada." Maybe they wish this to seem more unique, or maybe they feel as thought they'd be more accepted up north. As someone who genuinely grew up considering moving to Canada as an identity thing, I eventually grew out of this phase after realizing that Canada isn't some magic wonderland. It's basically just America except its government doesn't make sense and it has better healthcare. Thats it. Nothing more. Doing any amount of research on the country (that isn't clickbait articles praising them for existing) can tell you the country has several flaws, just like any other country. However some people don't grow out of this phase, and write something like this. Its just... nothing. It's not funny, it's not entertaining, it's just embarrassing. They throw in the occasional knock at Canada, like bringing up Trudeaus scandal or something about baby seals at the end; but that doesn't make up for how stupid this episode is. I imagine most Canadians would roll their eyes at this, imagining all the one note, NPR liberals frothing at the mouth seeing themselves becoming Canadian because they claim they don't feel safe in America. I guess they'll feel more safe in Canada since they're not an indigenous woman in British Columbia, or a Muslim woman in Quebec.
Not bad, but not great
17 July 2023
I wasn't aware this episode was a celebrity cameo piece, and considering a lot of the recent cameo episodes this is definitely one of the better ones. Still has a lot of that modern, lame Simpsons humor; but having the conflict be that middle aged men getting into Supreme fashion is kinda funny; too bad that was less than half the episode. Also the plot was driven by Homers "friend" selling him scam sneakers, but like... who was that guy? I don't watch the Simpsons so I'm not an expert, but they just randomly gave Homer a friend that just scams people. Don't know if that's supposed to be a new character or another celebrity cameo, but it just comes off as weird. Honestly not that bad, but still meh overall, which is sadly the high bar in modern Simpsons.
I like musicals, but not this
17 July 2023
The musical episode is a classic trope in tv shows, where the plot is typically revolves around a play that one of the characters is working on; and this gives the show an excuse for the characters to sing and dance. I'm not an avid Simpsons viewer, nor a fan; so I'm sure they've probably done this episode before. I can promise you, watch those other ones, this one is just simply not worth it. I guess my biggest complaint is (and I understand why they did this) whenever Marge sings, they just get someone else to sing for her. Maybe it's like, their other celebrity cameo of the episode or something idk, but it really really bothers me, its a pet peeve I didn't know I had until now. I believe most people can "sing" even if they cant actually sing, usually this involves the instrumental doing more legwork for the actors, but its very easy to speak-sing while hitting notes to the music. Literally every other character in the show does this while Marge just has a random lady sing for her. I don't know if they did it as a joke, or if the voice actor just declined to sing, I really don't know but its distracting. It disrupts all the other songs in the episode and the one song that works is the one Marge doesn't sing in (Remember the Times). Just awful.
One of the best in years
17 July 2023
After Disney purchased half of 20th Century Fox, there was a big question of what would happen to shows like The Simpsons and Family Guy, shows that have literal decades worth of material mocking the company that now owns them. In the long run, nothing really changed besides the occasional embarrassing Simpsons short on Disney+; But at the time it was really was uncharted waters as to what would happen to these shows. But little did I know that the merger would spawn possibly the best recent Family Guy episode in years. Family Guy has done many, many self referential/self deprecating episodes, yet this one is so snappy and passive aggressive that almost every single joke just works. Its such an angry episode that really gives the characters life, It also helps that this episode specifically spawned a wave of angry people because there was a Bojack Horseman cutaway gag that lasted literally less than 10 seconds. Seeing Family Guy reference Bojack was funny enough, but the wave of anger it caused almost makes this episode even funnier. I'd almost go as far to say this episode is a modern classic, which is a high bar for this series.
Solid
17 July 2023
Family guy tends to be very hit and miss with it's newer episodes, however this one is definitely one of the better new ones. Casting Sam Elliot as the new mayor of Quahog stays in line with the tradition of Family Guy being able to cast big name actors for part time roles (Adam West, Carrie Fischer, Drew Barrymore) so I think Sam was a great choice. The episode is pretty standard, with hit or miss jokes, but with more hits than misses. Most of the jokes with Sam were fun, and it was nice they used one of their minor characters for the plot. I think the ultimate highlight of the episode is the song at the end. Family Guy's quality may be hotly contested with some people, but the show has always been great with songs; even in their worst seasons the highlight is whenever they add in a fun little showtune. Out of all the adult cartoons, Family Guy has always been consistently great at songs, so it was a treat to see one in this episode. Overall, easily one of the better episodes of the recent seasons.
Cocktail
(1988)
Entertaining Nonsense
17 July 2023
Me and a friend watched this movie on Tubi after getting home from Mission Impossible 7, I was told this was considered Tom Cruise's worst acting role. I kinda doubted this, especially since this was dubbed a "cult classic" so I figured there had to be something more to it. I was both right and wrong; there's a lot to this movie; but none of it makes any sense at all. It was almost as if they improvised an entire movie as they filmed it. The one saving grace this movie has is that it's a Tom Cruise movie, had this film casted literally anyone else, this would be one of those famous bad movies that every movie youtuber reviews at least once. Its something you have to watch to truly believe, the funniest part was this movie was a commercial success, so we could've got a sequel to this nightmare. Thankfully, wiser heads prevailed and we can sleep well knowing Tom Cruise won't be serving our drinks.
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