Gone Girl Gone Wild: A Simple Favour Upends the ‘Missing Woman’ Thriller to Hilarious Effect
A Simple Favour is a self-aware, genuinely funny spin on the overheated airport novel genre.
Unpacking the Rules of Reality Television in RuPaul’s Drag Race
I could not believe it. Trixie Mattel in the Hall of Fame and fans are calling it rigga morris?
Sleeping with Other People (2015)
Sleeping with Other People is pretty much a hangout sitcom stretched out to 100 minutes. There’s nothing wrong with that! It’s populated with a winning cast of actors/comedians who’ve found success on the small screen – Alison Brie (Community) and Jason Sudeikis (Saturday Night Live) as the central sorta-not-really couple, surrounded by the likes of…
Rick and Morty Season 1
The Simpsons recently turned to Rejected’s Don Hertzfeldt to provide the couch gag for their twenty-sixth season premiere (yep, they’ve really been going that long). Hertzfeldt provided a compellingly weird piece of sci-fi satire, biting the hand that feeds and retching up a twisted nightmare (go watch it). While I didn’t watch the episode itself…
Commentary: Television Gone Mad – How Television is Maturing in its Approach to Mental Illness
In any given year, one in four Americans will experience a mental disorder1. Yet, turning on their televisions, searching for relatable protagonists, what do they find? Insanity as a precursor to violence, an excuse for murderers and rapists. Depression and anxiety as signifiers of weakness rather than symptoms of a disorder. Unless, perhaps, they turn…
Save the Date (2012)
Save the Date might look like another forgettable romantic comedy. With Alison Brie (Community), Lizzy Caplan (Party Down) and Martin Starr (Knocked Up) involved – all talented actors who excel at taking comedic roles and extending them beyond the stereotypes – I had higher hopes. For the most part, my expectations were met – the…
Community – “Paranormal Parentage” (Season 4, Episode 2)
For a while there, it seemed like Community was going to revolutionise television sitcoms. “Modern Warfare” seemed to promise a new age of sitcoms that never quite happened. Those ambitious episodes gobbled up time and money, leaving weaker, less innovative episodes to bracket them. Character growth stagnated, as it tends to in sitcoms. And often,…
Community – “History 101” (Season 4, Episode 1)
Community’s season four premiere carries the weight of expectation, given it is the show’s first episode without Dan Harmon as showrunner. The new showrunners address this head-on with a broad parody of Community as a laugh-track-heavy, multi-cam sitcom. It’s supposed to be clever, but is instead remarkably clumsy, and it’s telling that it doesn’t seem…
ccpopculture 