_Thony Awards 2016: An Obligatory List

Okay, 2016 was rough.  I can hardly believe that 2017 will be much better, but I am certain that it won't be all bad.  There will still be good people doing good things.  There will still be a chance for organized resistance to overcome societal ambivalence like it did at Standing Rock.   Believe it or not, there will still be high quality print journalism.  It will exist more often in 1s and 0s than ink but it will retain the capacity to speak plain, unbiased, stalwart truth to power.  (I highly recommend getting your news from the Washington Post.)  There will also be kick-ass movies, TV shows, and music to make us feel warm and bubbly inside.  I feel obligated to mention that I'm resolved to be less reliant on escapism as a crutch in the future.  I've leaned on entertainment far too often in the past and I want to focus instead on reality.  However, I still feel there is great value in good art, so today is about celebrating the best of the best.  (My favorites of the favorites.)

Best TV Shows

BoJack Horseman

Talking horses have come a long way since Mister Ed.  They now come fully formed with complex emotions, clinical depression, and nihilism.  The third season sees Hollywoo's (not a typo) favorite anthropomorphic horse BoJack coming into more career success than ever before, but he didn't quite earn it.  In the end BoJack tries to reconnect with his best self only to realize that comes with the risk of repeating past mistakes.  The series has had its fair share of acclaim but it definitively entered the ranks of TV legend with this season's fourth episode, "Fish Out of Water."  BoJack visits an underwater city to promote his new film, forcing him to wear an oxygen helmet that limits his ability to communicate with those around him.  That concept, combined with the show's trademark animation and deep understanding of emotion, make for a beautiful story with hints of homage to the modern film classic Lost in Translation and maybe a little bit to SpongeBob SquarePants.  This is one for the history books, as much as any single episode of a TV show can be one for the history books.

Supergirl

In it's second season Supergirl has definitively staked its claim: it is by far the best superhero show based on DC comics and a strong contender for the best superhero show period.  The series markets in inspiration, all the main characters have the noblest intentions and perform admirable deeds, from the mega-powered title hero to her spy/scientist sister to the dork with the keyboard, to say nothing of the constant rays of sunlight beaming down on star Melissa Benoist, casting her in an eternally ethereal glow.  And yet, they stumble and fall, not just in battle against mighty villains but also in their personal actions and beliefs.  The current season sees Supergirl herself struggling with her own prejudice towards a survivor of Daxam, a rival planet to her native Krypton.  The storyline of her adopted sister, Alex, coming out as a lesbian has received well-deserved praise thanks to an impressive performance by Chyler Leigh.  The writing has handled it delicately, including a realistically disappointing reaction from Supergirl.  Rather than knowing just the right words to say she responded with surprise and confusion.  The right words came eventually, of course, but the struggle was there.  Supergirl has found a well-proportioned blend of social metaphor, blunt commentary, and examinations of morality and the fabric of heroism.  Put simply, the recipe of Supergirl's heroism is compassion and empathy paired with affirmative deeds and a dedication to those ideals even in contrast to our own worst tendencies.

American Crime Story

Who knew a twenty-year-old murder trial could be a mirror for a dozen different modern social issues?  I mean, murder never goes out of style but the level of current relevance in the O.J. Simpson case seems uncanny.  David Schwimmer's portrayal of Robert Kardashian (Simpson's friend/lawyer and father of Kim, Khloe,  and the other K's) drew a direct parallel to the case and our current celebrity culture while also earning empathy from those who know what it's like to lose faith in a hero, whether it's a friend who commits murder or a beloved comedian who is secretly a serial rapist.  Sarah Paulson as prosecutor Marcia Clark faced sexism not unlike any woman in a high profile position still would today.  The controversy surrounding Simpson's race was addressed and embodied by Sterling K. Brown and Courtney B. Vance's portrayals of Chris Darden and Johnnie Cochran.  There's a reason The People v. O.J. Simpson received five Golden Globe nominations; because it's easily the best written, directed, and acted show of the year by a mile.

Honorary Mention: Black Mirror

I saw the highly acclaimed "San Junipero" episode on New Year's Eve and it absolutely lives up to the hype.  It's a beautiful story about life, love, and death.

Best Movies

Arrival

Are you paying attention, CBS?  Actually, you may want to go ahead and hire Arrival scribe Eric Heisserer for the Star Trek: Discovery writer's room if you can swing it.  Arrival is science fiction at its very best; smart, imaginative, and inspiring.  The concept is well-tread; aliens land on Earth for the first time, causing military brass to freak out, but a noble intellectual saves the day.  However, Arrival is exceptionally well written, acted and directed.  Amy Adams is captivating from beginning to end as the clever linguist Louise Banks, who leads the charge in establishing communication with the strange creatures.  Louise proves to the world the vitality of information and understanding so that we can learn to see through another's eyes.  With a moral like that Arrival could have easily come off as cheesy but director Denis Villeneuve handles the themes with poise, despite, or perhaps because of, his previous work having a tendency towards cynicism like last year's Sicario.  One or two storytelling devices cause Arrival to be a bit confusing at times but when you put the pieces together the message is clear: the future won't be perfect, but it will be worth it and the only way to get there is together.

The Nice Guys

There may be no greater master of the action-comedy in Hollywood than Shane Black.  To follow up his Iron Man 3, featuring Marvel's literally highest flying hero, he brought things a little closer to the ground.  A noir based in 1977, three years after the release of the iconic Chinatown, Ryan Gosling and Russell Crowe play a pair of private detectives with wildly different methods forced to work together on the biggest case of their careers.  Together they unwind a complicated web of conspiracy full of currently relevant social allegory.  Did I mention it's a noir?  A really well executed, funny, smart noir?  It is.  Crowe and Gosling are joined by an extraordinary supporting cast including Kim Basinger, Matt Bomer, The Leftovers' Margaret Qualley, and character actor Keith David.

Ghostbusters

Steve Martin is known to advise young people to "be so good they can't ignore you."  When a reboot of the beloved Ghostbusters film franchise was announced many fans were livid, mostly for ridiculous reasons that don't bear mentioning.  The answer to their anger was to make a movie so good it couldn't be ignored.  It starts with a cast of some of the finest performers in comedy; megastar Melissa McCarthy along with three Saturday Night Live cast members/alumni Kristen Wiig, Kate McKinnon, and Leslie Jones, and a supporting cast including hunky superhero Chris Hemsworth, the legendary Andy Garcia, another SNL star (the woefully underappreciated) Cecily Strong, and a thoroughly creepy and squirrelly villain in Neil Casey.  Then there's an incredible script by Katie Dippold and director Paul Feig.  On top of being the funniest movie of the year, it was also one of the most exciting and visually spectacular.  Ghostbusters, much like its namesake, is one of the finest action-comedies of our time.

Best Albums

A Sailor's Guide to Earth

In 2014 Sturgill Simpson made a name for himself as one of the best/weirdest voices in country music with a philosophical outlaw concept album, placing him in a strange place between alternative country and the Nashville establishment.  This year he clarified that he is there to stay.  He followed up his breakthrough with another concept; a letter from a sailor to his son, drawing from Simpson's life on tour away from his own young son and his background in the Navy.  Sonically, the album is less traditional than Simpson's Waylon-esque breakthrough.  It mixes in more soul and rock influences but that Kentucky drawl isn't going away anytime soon.  Simpson is as good a songwriter as anyone in the country game but his talent for adaptation once again steals the show.  His cover of new wave classic "The Promise" was a highlight of Metamodern Sounds and likewise Nirvana's "In Bloom" is the star of Sailor's Guide.

Blackstar

Let's not mince words; David Bowie was a genius.  Period.  No "if'"s, "and'"s or "but'"s.  Ziggy Stardust is a work of genius.  Heroes is a work of genius.  His 2013 album The Next Day is a work of genius.  Blackstar is possibly a genius's magnum opus.  Bowie was never one to shy away from uncomfortable conversations.  He almost single-handedly changed the way society sees gender.  In 2014 he was diagnosed with liver cancer and he saw it as a challenge from the most uncomfortable conversation of all.  An artist to the very end, Bowie used his dying days to create Blackstar, a meditation on mortality.  With seven tracks, at times Blackstar is regretful, angry, accepting, ethereal, lustful, and hopeful; a space-god's seven staged-swan song.  It was released on his 69th birthday, January 8th.  He died two days later.  Birth.  Bowie.  Blackstar.

ANTI

For almost a decade Rihanna has been the unquestioned queen of the radio.  Perhaps there was a time that you could argue that Gaga or Beyonce had more quality but none of her peers have more hits than Rihanna.  Period.  Now she's put a new twist in the qualitative argument.  As hip-hop and R&B are moving away from singles and towards sonically ambitious concept albums Ri-Ri is getting on board and taking over.  ANTI is a completely immersive listening experience and emotional journey.  (I suppose you could say the same thing about Beyonce's Lemonade but the difference is I don't have Tidal and I never will.  There comes a time when a man has to take a stand.)  Of course, Rihanna hasn't entirely abandoned the hit machine.  The hooks are just more subtle; they grow on you then they stick with you, and you never want them to leave.  "Kiss it Better," "Love on the Brain," and the chief earworm "Work" are a few standouts.

Best Comics

Archie

Archie Comics holds an odd status in the comic book community.  It's possibly the only non-superhero comic book franchise to make a lasting impact on pop culture at large, but the consensus in the comic community has largely been that it's an outdated concept that doesn't know when to quit.  Changing Archie's image posed a massive undertaking, but by-gum they are pulling it off.  Last summer the franchise was subject to a massive reboot, with hall-of-fame writer of acclaimed DC and Marvel runs Mark Waid taking the reigns of the main Archie title, and other top creators taking on accompanying series like Jughead, Josie and the Pussycats and Betty and Veronica.  Waid and Fiona Staples, the artist of the first several issues of the reboot, immediately made a splash, turning the sleepy town of Riverdale into a sleek, modern, stylish comedy-drama.  Waid, along with Staples' replacement Veronica Fish, has maintained the momentum beautifully.  Every month the series reveals new depth and freshness to the characters and relationships once thought tepid and bland.  The upcoming Riverdale TV series could stand to take a few notes from Waid's humor and insight.

Ms. Marvel

For three years Ms. Marvel has seen near-unanimous praise.  It has been consistently well-crafted, funny, and the epitome of the word "enjoyable."  This year writer G. Willow Wilson has pushed her hero, New Jersey's pubescent Pakistani paladin Kamala Khan, to new lengths.  The Marvel comic book universe, like the cinematic universe, was plagued by conflict that pitted hero against hero.  Kamala found her moral confidence shaken along with her faith in her own heroes, including her idol and inspiration, Carol Danvers, also known as Captain Marvel.  Kamala had her worldview challenged in ways that all people must, young and old alike, but are still uncomfortable to watch.  Wilson continues to chart her growth with nuance, empathy, and just the right amount of humor while Kamala continues to be the hero we need as our need for heroes embiggens and embiggens.

All-Star Batman

With Scott Snyder being one of the biggest stars of the comic industry there was a lot of curiosity and excitement surrounding whatever he chose to do after finishing his impeccable run on Batman.  It turns out, he chose to do more Batman, but with a very different version of Batman than the last one.  Snyder's All-Star Batman immediately set a tone most wouldn't expect from the Dark Knight, but it all just works.  The new Batman is strange, quirky, and surreal.  Snyder's previous series about the "World's Greatest Detective" carried plenty of noir influence, meaning that the city of Gotham was a major part of the fabric, but All-Star sees Batman on wacky road-trip outside of the city limits.  With a new title comes a new artist, following Greg Capullo's horror style is the legendary John Romita Jr, whose work is more cartoonish but strangely primal.

Most Horrifying Pattern that I Hope Isn't an Omen of What's to Come

Game of Thrones

The second-to-last episode of the sixth season of Game of Thrones was one of the most impressively cinematic feats to ever appear on television.  That is keeping in line with every other season of the fantasy epic; the penultimate episode has the most exciting action while the finale is more about wrapping up old stories and setting up new ones.  This year, the finale took the wrapping and setting to new extremes.  Finally the Starks (Sophie Turner, Kit Harrington) have been partially reunited and returned to their family home, Daenarys (Emilia Clarke) is headed for Westeros, and Cersei (Lena Headey) obliterated all of her enemies and destroyed the Great Sept in a single massive explosion, killing off a significant fraction of the main cast.

Preacher

One of the most surprising successes of the year was AMC's Preacher.  Like the acclaimed comic series it's based on, Preacher is a darkly comedic supernatural philosophical Western.  What's even stranger than that description is the unlikely creators, the lords of stoner comedy Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg who executive produced along with writing and directing the first two episodes.  The show follows a rural preacher who has recently returned to his hometown after turning his back on a life of crime.  The preacher (Dominic Cooper) finds himself at the center of the war between Heaven and Hell and tries to take advantage of the situation, putting himself at odds with angelic visitors and the motley crue of townspeople including a corrupt meat maker and an S&M good ol' boy.  Fortunately, he can rely on his friends, a murderously repressed single mom (Lucy Griffiths), an affable Irish vampire (Joseph Gilgun), his violent ex (Ruth Negga), and a disfigured teenager nicknamed "Arseface," (Ian Colletti).  Unfortunately, most of those peculiar personalities perished along with the town in a single sewage based explosion

Rogue One

The first movie set in the Star Wars universe without a Roman numeral since the franchise was bought by Disney set out to answer questions no one was really asking.  Specifically, "how exactly did Princess Leia get her hands on the Death Star plans she gives to R2-D2 to give to Obi-Wan at the beginning of A New Hope?"  Director Gareth Edwards, along with writers Tony Gilroy and Chris Weitz, admirably pull off the feat of exposing the darker, more war-like parts of the Star Wars while keeping things relatively Disney friendly.  However, the film raises a new question; "what happens to Jyn Erso, Cassian Andor, Chirrut Îmwe, (Felicity Jones, Diego Luna, Donnie Yen) and the rest of the Rogue One crew considering they aren't seen in any of the other movies?"  The answer is, they all died in a single massive explosion caused by the very weapon of mass destruction they were attempting to destroy.  On the bright side, Rogue One ends with a message of hope, as a soldier places the plans into Leia's hands shortly before she is captured by Darth Vader and taken to Grand Moff Tarkin who forces her to watch as the same Death Star destroys her entire home planet in A New Hope.

In Rogue One Princess Leia represents a narrow ray of hope in a film full of destruction.  Now Carrie Fisher, the actress best known for portraying Leia, has passed away, putting a truly sorrowing cap on a year full of loss.  It's hard to not see that as a finishing blow but I'm certain that in the face of such despair neither Carrie nor Leia would give up hope.  Neither will we.

My Thanks to Poets and Fighters

Donald Trump won the election.  How and why doesn't really matter now.  The fact is that an awful, immoral megalomaniac will be President of the United States for at least several years unless a miracle takes place.  But I don't really want to talk about Donald Trump right now.  I've done enough of that and will continue to do so, as will many people much better than I.  Dark times lie ahead and I want to celebrate the lights that have shone so bright in the recent past, who I hope will continue to do so as best they can.  I would like to highlight scholars and intellectuals but that's not really my area of expertise.  Instead I will speak of writers, directors, and performers.

It may seem silly to praise superheroes and joke makers when the President-elect poses a threat to our very way of life, and that's something that has bothered me for the past few weeks.  For the first time in my life I have had little interest in escapism and have almost been repulsed at the idea.  That's why I want to start with a somewhat obscure TV show called Dead Like Me.  The time and place in which I grew up actively encouraged a hatred for gay people.  Despite that, I have become a passionate supporter of LGBTQ rights.  It wasn't because of a gay friend or mentor or college roommate.  It was because of the the TV and movies I watched and the music I listened to.  The biggest turning point was an episode of Dead Like Me called "The Bicycle Thief."  Dead Like Me is about death and that episode saw a reaper come for a gay couple, one man before the other, in the same day.  Seeing a gay man grieve for his partner opened my eyes to the humanity of LGBTQ people.  Looking back, I see it as irrefutable proof of the impact art can have.  One hour on Netflix spent streaming a years old episode of a canceled TV show changed my life.  Thank you to Bryan Fuller for creating Dead Like Me and thank you to Paul Lieberstein for writing the episode.

Thank you to Supergirl.  Star Melissa Benoist and the crew led by showrunner Ali Adler recovered from a bumpy start to become a truly magnificent show.  The characters, Martians, Earthlings, and Kryptonians alike, are dumb, flawed humans but still manage to inspire, to awaken that part of us all that yearns for heroism.  Perhaps best of all, Supergirl has given the girls and boys of America a female President with the help of a former Wonder Woman, Lynda Carter.  Maybe, if they can believe that a woman can fly, they can believe that she can become President, despite all evidence to the contrary.

Thank you to Pussy Riot.  You were imprisoned by Vladimir Putin in your native Russia for a peaceful punk rock protest then when you were finally released you came to America only to watch another dictator rise to power and you decided to piss him off too.  I don't know for sure if the women of Pussy Riot currently call the United States home or not, but it is still incredibly brave and the best kind of dumb for them to challenge the next President the way they have.  We should all aspire to be even half as courageous.



Thank you to Kendrick Lamar, who has almost single-handedly raised the bar for ambition and social conscience in music.

Thank you to Daisy Ridley and Star Wars: The Force Awakens.  My little cousin didn't think a girl should be the one to save the day and I think you helped change her mind.

Thank you to Ms. Marvel's G. Willow Wilson and Sana Amanat for reminding America monthly that Muslim people are as passionate, loving, determined and heroic as anyone else.  I'm ashamed to admit that any of us need reminding.

Thank you to Laverne Cox for your grace, courage, and poise.  Thank you to the Wachowskis for breaking barriers of what female and LGBTQ directors can accomplish.  It's been almost two decades since you made your universally adored breakthrough but your more recent work is loved with a depth of passion that critics can't even begin to comprehend.  I'm disgusted that my state would police your identity and invade your privacy because of baseless fears and prejudice.

Thank you George Takei and the rest of the cast and crew of the musical Allegiance for reminding us of a dark time in our nation's history, one far too often overlooked and which must not be repeated.  Thank you to Lin-Manuel Miranda and everyone else responsible for giving us Hamilton.  Many of you represent the groups with the most to lose under the upcoming administration and you expressed your fears to a man who threatens you with perhaps more respect than he deserves, even after being unjustly criticized for your honesty and compassion.  In the past year Hamilton has served as a stark reminder of what our country once was and what it can be with the help of passionate, principled leaders and citizens.

Thank you to David Bowie, Prince, Alan Rickman, Harper Lee, Glenn Frey, George Martin, Gary Shandling, Gene Wilder, Merle Haggard, and all the other artists who died in the past year.  It seems that 2016 has taken artists at an accelerated rate.  Just days after the election Leon Russell, Sharon Jones and Leonard Cohen passed.  Cohen wrote poetry before he realized that it would be more profitable to add music call them lyrics.  However, he wasn't the only poet of the group.  None of these people were mere singers and actors; they were all poets.  Even the legendary boxer Muhammad Ali, who passed in June, had a poetic streak a mile wide.  But these were the poets of another age.  A new, darker time is upon us and the old poets had to move on to make way for the next generation.  The poets are dead, long live the poets!

Imagine Lin-Manuel Miranda as a Marvel Character

Last week I proposed a few DC Comics superhero characters that could potentially be played by Lin-Manuel Miranda, creator of the brilliant musical Hamilton, in live action.  This week I am continuing that premise for the Marvel Cinematic Universe.  I browsed through the official Marvel Encyclopedia I had lying around for inspiration and came up with a few ideas for characters ready to make the leap to the big screen if they haven't already.

Fandral

The character of Fandral already exists in the Marvel Cinematic Universe but he has been played by two different actors in as many movies.  One third of Asgard's "Warriors Three" was played by Josh Dallas in Thor and Zachary Levi in Thor: The Dark World.  If another recasting should be needed perhaps Miranda would be up for the part of the swashbuckling warrior.  He would surely bring an appropriate amount of energy and humor to the role.

Voice of Warlock

The Technarchy is a species of space travelers who are innately very aggressive.  Warlock is an outcast of his race because he is naturally kind.  He escapes the wrath of his menacing father and goes to Earth, where he happens to be found by the New Mutants, a team of X-Men in training.  He is quickly embraced even though he is by far the most alien in every way in the group of misfits.  Lin-Manuel Miranda is too old and too human to play a teenage alien living computer outright but a Warlock would have to be CGI anyway and he would need a voice actor.   Miranda, as someone who tends to wear his feelings on his sleeves, could surely relate to the raw emotion of the naive fish out of water.

Beyonder

The Beyonder is similar to Warlock in that they are both new to Earth and the ways of humanity but they are very different in a couple of important ways.  The first is that the Beyonder is much more powerful.  The second is that he is an adult, or he was born yesterday depending on how you look at it.  The Beyonder is an entire multiverse made sentient.  When he first gained consciousness he formed a new planet and forced the Marvel heroes to fight each other.  Later on he tried to live among humans by taking the form of one.  It didn't go well.  That was more or less the end of the Beyonder.  He was an omnipotent celestial being who sought to understand human life but he really screwed things up in the process.  For Lin-Manuel Miranda, a widely beloved and famously warmhearted performer, to play the Beyonder, an almighty sociopath who seeks to understand humans but lacks the capacity for human morality, would be quite striking.

Jim Power

Jim Power is not a superhero but a humble scientist and father.  However, his young children aged 5, 8, 10, and 12, form the super team known as Power Pack.  They gained their abilities after Jim created a device that drew attention from an alien race of reverse-centaurs.  Power Pack went on to face some of the most deadly villains in the marvel universe and wrestle with serious issues like addiction, homelessness, and the moral implications of a 5 year old who can fire deadly laser bolts out of her hands at will.  Fortunately, the team had two loving parents they could count on even if they weren't included in the secret of their children's dual identities.  Jim and Margaret Power are a perfect model of two-income, prime-of-their-life, figuring-it-out-as-they-go parents of young children.  What I'm saying is, Jim Power is a cool dad not unlike Lin-Manuel Miranda.  Followers of Miranda's social media are familiar with his son Sebastian and how important he is to Miranda.  Also, fatherhood plays an important part in Hamilton, from the lead's wartime cry of "gotta start a new nation, gotta meet my son" to that son's premature death.  So, even though it's only a supporting role it's easy to see Miranda in the part of an early 30's parent whose life becomes very strange very quickly but he takes it all in stride and with a healthy dose of love and understanding.

What if Lin-Manuel Miranda were a DC superhero?

The CW has achieved a feat of superhero television that was once unimaginable.  Four days in a row of shows based on DC comics, three of which take place in the same universe with the fourth just a hop, skip, and a breach away.  Somehow, the collective cast of this group of shows became full of actors with backgrounds in musical theater, especially Supergirl and The Flash.  The titular Supergirl and Flash are played by Melissa Benoist and Grant Gustin who both broke into television by way of Glee, and they are joined by esteemed Broadway legends like Laura Benanti and Jesse L. Martin as well as a younger cast with credits including Bonnie and Clyde and musical Internet sensation StarKid Productions (it's hard to explain if you don't already know).  That's why the two shows are planning a musical crossover for the current seasons.  And yet, they're not alone.  Arrow features John Barrowman, who has a background in the theater scenes of both New York and London, while Legends of Tomorrow has Godspell star Victor Garber and Once's Arthur Darvill.  With all these musical theater actors playing superheroes I wonder if there's a role for the musical-dork-in-chief, Hamilton creator and star Lin-Manuel Miranda, in a DC movie or series.

Blue Lantern

The 2011 film Green Lantern is widely considered a critical and commercial flop, so widely that even the film's star Ryan Reynolds seems to despise it.  I imagine it also raises complicated emotions in writer and producer Greg Berlanti, the ringleader of the CW shows.  However, the Green Lantern Corps of intergalactic police is still a great concept full of great characters.  That's probably why a movie is planned for 2020 and with a little luck a Lantern will show up on TV before much longer.  As for Lin-Manuel Miranda, I don't really see him as a Green Lantern.  GL's are defined by their determination, a trait Miranda surely has in spades, but I believe he would make an even better Blue Lantern.  Blue Lanterns have the same powers as Green Lanterns, (rings that create whatever the wearer imagines from thin air) but Blue Lanterns are defined by hope rather will.  If I know one thing about Lin-Manuel Miranda it's that he is bursting with optimism.  There isn't anyone alive who is more excited to be alive.  He doesn't seem to have a bad word to say about anything but an endless supply of good words about everything.  On the other hand, there could be place for him in the Indigo Tribe, a group of Lantern types who are powered by compassion.

Vibe

A few years ago the character "Vibe" was a fun obscure comic book reference.  He was the ridiculous joke of a "Justice League Detroit" gimmick to pander to hip-hop fans.  (The very first image of Vibe showed him break-dancing.)  The character is now building a different reputation thanks to his main role in The Flash.  The live-action Vibe is very different from the original.  He's a brilliant scientist who lives and breathes nerdy pop culture references and provides just the right amount of comic relief.  The only remnants of the old Vibe seems to be the name "Cisco Ramon," his Hispanic ethnicity, and his vibration based powers, along with a connection to the multi-verse that first appeared when the character was rebooted in 2011.  That's where Lin-Manuel Miranda comes in.  I believe he could perfectly fuse the two versions of the character, perhaps for the cinematic DC universe.  He's a lovable dork who loves hip-hop; the biggest nerd in the game and the coolest dweeb in the world.  I don't know if he can break-dance but I bet he could learn.

Plastic Man

As superhero movies grow in quantity the need for interesting, less known source material also grows.  That's how 2015 produced the excellent Deadpool and the sloppy but enjoyable Suicide Squad.  Maybe if that trend continues the long rumored Plastic Man movie could see the light of day.  Crafting a good Plastic Man movie would certainly be an impressive feat.  The character is as rooted in comedy as Deadpool but much more kid-friendly and cartoonish.  He has the power to stretch and mold his body into any shape he desires and change his appearance at will.  Casting a character like this would be a challenge unless Jim Carrey is still up for getting in superhero shape in his 50's.  For a more youthful alternative, I suggest Miranda.  He's an incredibly physical performer and as a host on SNL he proved his excellent comedic timing.  Although, it may not be a role befitting of a certifiable genius like Mr. Miranda.

Uncle Sam

On SNL Miranda compared Hamilton to the disastrous 2016 election but one notable difference is the time.  Hamilton takes place during and after the American Revolution, when the United States was a fledgling nation full of promise.  When Alexander Hamilton declares himself "just like my country, young, scrappy and hungry," it fills an American heart with pride.  It makes one believe that America's potential has not yet been tapped and depleted.  Also, it's nice to know that one of the greatest artistic minds of our time comes from the U.S. of A.  As far as superheroes go, one might think that Marvel has the market on patriotic do-gooders cornered with Captain America but DC is home to the one and only embodiment of the American Spirit known as Uncle Sam.  The man under the star-spangled top hat has existed in DC Comics in one way or another since 1940.  There's no reason Miranda couldn't regrow Alexander Hamilton's goatee to portray a Puerto Rican-American version of Uncle Sam, perhaps in Legends of Tomorrow.  Sure, it would be a little cheesy, but no one does cheese better than LMM.  The man's a human nacho cheese fountain.

Mad Men Report: Star Trek: Seeking Out 'Luke Cage' and 'Westworld'

Captains Log:  My mission to rank new TV shows based on how much they could distract me from watching other shows has been slowed by Hurricane Matthew but I am nearly back on track.  On a related note, the fall's slate of new premieres seems to be slowing down.  We only have two new series on the docket, although both are quite exciting.  They should prove to be quite a pair of diversions from my viewing of Star Trek.

Luke Cage

In a time when every week brings a different video of another black man being unjustly shot Marvel and Netflix offer a champion who swats away bullets like flies.  The latest in the Defenders series of grim, hard PG-13 superheroes that includes Daredevil and Jessica Jones sees Luke Cage building a humble life in Harlem after a hazardous fling with Jessica Jones herself.  Of course, he can't stay hidden for long and he quickly begins a one-man war on Harlem's criminal underworld.  Mike Colter returns to the role he originated in Jessica Jones.  He is joined by Alfre Woodard, Simone Missick, Theo Rossi, and 2016's favorite character actor Ron Cephas Jones.  Luke Cage is exciting and absorbing, but I can't shake the feeling that the Defenders are just as susceptible to formula as the Avengers, they just have a different formula.  Fortunately, that formula includes nurse Claire Temple, played by Rosario Dawson who is possibly the strongest actor in Marvel's stable.

Star Trek threat level: 7/10

Westworld

The late, great Yul Brynner is having a good year.  He was replaced by Denzel Washington in the remake of The Magnificent Seven and Ed Harris in the TV adaptation of Westworld.  The former is a fun movie that's worth watching but the latter has immediately established itself as a must-see.  Together they amount to a Western and a half.  Westworld has a Western outer shell and a gooey sci-fi center.  It's about a theme park that allows visitors to live out their fantasies of the Wild West with the help of life-like robotic hosts.  Obviously, that fantasy includes filling strangers with hot lead but none of the guns in the park work on humans, only on soulless machines.  The problem is that they may not remain soulless for long.  Evan Rachel Wood plays a sweet farm girl who begins to realize that her existence is a creation made with zeroes and ones.  The mastermind behind the park, played by Anthony Hopkins, sorrowfully passes the torch to the new wave of innovators, Jeffrey Wright, Simon Quarterman, and Shannon Woodward but not before making a few last innovations of his own.  Showrunner Jonathan Nolan, best known for writing films directed by his brother Christopher, has crafted an Ex-Machina style mindfuck wrapped in the breathtaking scenery of a John Ford cowboy picture.  The HBO series has been compared to Game of Thrones but if the first episode is any indication there's no need to worry about filling those shoes.  Yul Brynner would be proud.

Star Trek threat level: 9.5/10

Mad Men Report: Star Trek: Strange New TV with 'The Good Place,' 'This is Us,' 'Easy,' 'Pitch,' and 'Speechless.'

Captain's Log: We are one week into our mission of indefinite length.  There is a wealth of new Television shows arriving, many of which are quite promising as distractions from my renewed interest in Star Trek.  I look forward to reviewing the new prospects but dread the loss of time that I could spend watching the Shat enunciate.

The Good Place

Heaven is real and it's very exclusive.  That's the concept behind the new NBC comedy The Good Place.  Paradise meets trouble when Eleanor Shellstrop arrives by some divine bureaucratic mistake.  Eleanor, played by Kristen Bell of Veronica Mars and appliance advertisements fame, is a garbage person.  She is entirely selfish and narcissistic but lucky enough to have slipped through the cracks in the pearly gates.  In The Good Place's non-denominational Valhalla everyone is matched up with their "soul mate."  Eleanor enlists the help of her one and only, an ethics professor played by very promising unknown William Jackson Harper, to keep her secret while My Fair Lady-ing her into the kind of person who deserves to be there.  Meanwhile, the flaw in the system is creating headaches for Michael, an angelic branch manager of sorts played by the legendary Ted Danson.  The Good Place starts off slow, as is to be expected with the exposition required by the setting, but with Parks and Rec's Michael Schur behind the scenes and a strong cast things are looking up.

Star Trek threat level: 8/10

This Is Us

It's hard to know how to feel about NBC's new drama This Is Us.  On one hand, it is incredibly well written and beautifully acted.  On the other hand, an actor distressed with his crappy sitcom job seeks comfort from his sister who is 97% just Molly from Mike and Molly.  The show follows four people who share a birthday and much more.  Smallville's Justin Hartley plays the aforementioned actor and Chrissy Metz of American Horror Story plays his sister, who I honestly can't describe in any better way than to compare her to Molly from Mike and Molly.  Her story line is to the Mike and Molly pilot what the Anne Heche/Vince Vaughn Psycho is to the original Psycho.  Sterling K. Brown, who just received an Emmy for his work on American Crime Story, plays a well-to-do family man seeking out his biological father.  Finally, Milo Ventimiglia and Mandy Moore play a couple starting a family.  This Is Us is full of wonderful dramatic moments, several surprisingly smart and subtle funny moments, and one or two bizarre, possibly problematic moments; in other words, it has the makings of a very fine drama.  It also has Milo Ventimiglia's butt, if you're into that kind of thing.

Star Trek threat level: 7.5/10

There's no party in the pilot.  When is the party?

Easy

Netflix's new anthology series (eight episodes with eight different stories, not segmented by seasons like American Horror Story) set in Chicago is a comedy about love and sex and dating.  The creative force behind Easy is acclaimed indie film director Joe Swanberg, who specializes in such topics.  The first episode follows a married couple struggling with the diminishing certainty of gender roles.  Andi is a career woman and Kyle is a homemaker/actor.  There aren't a lot of surprises and personally, as a hip, young, single, wild and crazy guy I have no investment in a marriage, but the rest of the series seems worth watching.  The cast alone is certainly promising, with appearances from Malin Akerman, Orlando Bloom, Dave Franco, and even Marc Maron playing a character who isn't Marc Maron.

Star Trek threat level: 6/10

Marc Maron seen here playing Marc Maron on Maron.

Pitch

Like many others, I tend to believe that baseball is among the most boring of the major sports, but it makes for damn good film.  Bottom of the ninth, bases loaded, tied game, two outs, two strikes.  Alfred Hitchcock would call that "laying the suspense on a little too thick."  It's surprising there have been so few TV shows about the game, the NSFW Eastbound and Down being the best the subgenre has to offer.  Until Pitch.  The FOX drama imagines the experiences of the first woman to play in the major leagues.  Kylie Bunbury plays the fictional trailblazing pitcher for the San Diego Padres Ginny Baker, who her agent (played by the consistently ferocious Ali Larter) describes as "Hillary Clinton with sex appeal" and "a Kardashian with a skill set."  She is joined by Mark-Paul Gosselaar as the prerequisite wisecracking veteran star catcher who is begrudgingly won over.  The rest of the cast is solid but I'd be remiss if I didn't mention Bob Balaban as the calculating owner of the Padres.  It's a show with a lot of heart and drama that's impeccably well made.

Star Trek threat level: 8/10

Speechless

Comedies about disabled people are tricky.  If Michael J. Fox can't make it work, who can?  The answer appears to be Minnie Driver.  Driver is magnificent as a hyperactive mama bear who goes to the mat and lives there for her son with cerebral palsy, Micah Fowler as J.J.  The pilot reveals and corrects the oversight Driver's Maya has shown her daughter and other son, The Walking Dead's Kyla Kenedy and Spy Kids' Mason Cook.  Maya's much more chill husband is played by John Ross Bowie, a great character actor stepping out of his recurring role on The Big Bang Theory.  The cast is rounded out by the velvet voiced Cedric Yarbrough as J.J.'s new vocal aide.  The show is funny and has heart without coming anywhere near sap territory.  It pains me to say this, as it's currently in The Middle's timeslot, but Speechless will make an excellent addition to ABC's Wednesday night lineup of family sitcoms.

Star Trek threat level:8/10

Mad Men Report: TOS: 'Atlanta,' 'Better Things,' 'One Mississippi' and 'Queen Sugar' are All New TV Shows

♫I'd like to buy the world a coke♫

Guess who just finished Mad Men?  I'll give you a hint.  He's got a dumb blog and now he has to explain the concept of a dumb feature on it for the eighth time, a duty that has just become even more complicated than it was before.

I think the only way to tell this story is with a sparse use of flashback.  The time is spring, 1992.  The world is enthralled by the latest moving picture, White Men Can't Jump.  Now we skip forward, but still not to the present.  The time is late summer, 2015.  Cinema is dying and in its place Television is growing in both popularity and artistic merit.  Our hero has just begun to enjoy one of the most acclaimed Television series of the era, Mad Men.  He partakes in this endeavor even though he is just weeks from a brand new batch of series arriving, many of which will call for the time he has just devoted to Mad Men.  He decides to rate these series based on their capacity to distract him from the beloved period piece.  Now we arrive in the present, roughly a year later.  Our hero finishes watching Mad Men just as a new fall TV season is about to begin, but has committed to this feature on his blog so he must find a new measuring stick.

That stick shall be the legendary science fiction franchise known as Star Trek.  Our handsome and debonair protagonist has seen about five sixths of the late 60's original series that started it all and one season of the reboot Next Generation that premiered in the 1980's.  In honor of the recently celebrated fiftieth anniversary of The Original Series he has decided to finally commit and make Star Trek his number one Netflix priority.  First, he will finish the last half of the last season of Kirk and Bones and Spock's 3/5 year mission, then watch The Animated Series in its short entirety, then the remaining six seasons of The Next Generation, and so on, as well as any motion pictures in between.  This seems like a good time to remind the audience that our hero has been calling himself a hero this whole time.  And now, he begins this many, many, many years mission to watch strange new TV shows and offer brief opinions on them and rate them based on whether or not he'd rather watch them over Star Trek.

Better Things

Since 2011 Pamela Adlon has helped Louis C.K. make his show one of the best things on TV and now he is returning the favor as producer and co-writer for Adlon's starring vehicle.  Adlon's character is named Sam instead of Pam, but aside from that the show is mostly based on her own life.  Sam is an actress of both face and voice (you probably know Adlon's voice as Bobby from King of the Hill or any number of other cartoons), and she is raising three daughters alone.  Better Things is funny and sweet and full of fun cameos from people like Julie Bowen and Constance Zimmer.  Better Things is more accessible than Louie and every bit as funny.

Star Trek threat level: 7/10

Atlanta

I can't tell you how relieved I am to discover that Donald Glover is still funny.  Once one of our generation's most promising comics and star of the hilarious cult classic NBC sitcom Community, Glover has spent the last few years focusing on his career as sensitive guy hip-hop guru Childish Gambino.  As the creator and star of Atlanta, Glover brings humor and heart to an exploration of his hometown, the epicenter of Southern hip-hop.  Glover plays Earnest "Earn" Marks, a smart, enterprising guy with a crappy job and a baby daughter, who involves himself in his cousin's rising rap career.  Alfred "Paper Boi" Miles, Earnest's cousin played by Brian Tyree Henry, has more street cred than Earn but isn't sure he wants it.  Keith Stanfield, Straight Outta Compton's Snoop Dogg, plays the goofy stoner philosopher Darius at the head of Paper Boi's entourage, of which he might be the only member.  Also, the city of Atlanta is another character but let's just pretend I didn't say that weird pretentious thing even though it's kind of true, I hate myself.

Star Trek threat level: 9/10

One Mississippi

Tig Notaro has become one of the greatest comedians of our time by telling deeply personal stories.  She's the living embodiment of "tragedy + time = comedy."  In her new Amazon series One Mississippi she's using that equation to create a hilarious and beautifully heart-wrenching narrative.  The show follows Notaro as herself, recovering from cancer and a mastectomy, returning to her hometown so she, her brother and her step-father can take her mother off of life support.  That's one hell of a first episode.  Few stand-up comics take to acting with any grace but Notaro is like a fish in the water.  Tig's characteristic deadpan is complimented by John Rothman as her cartoonishly stoic step-father and balanced by Casey Wilson as her very L.A. girlfriend Brooke.  All of this is based on Notaro's actual experiences, allowing her to create the latest in her long line of profoundly honest comedy.

Star Trek threat level: 6.5/10

Queen Sugar

For a while it seemed like OWN would be the closest Oprah would ever come to failure but Big O's TV network seems to be turning around thanks to director Ava DuVernay.  Oprah appeared in DuVernay's incredible film debut Selma, which likely led the way to Harpo Productions' Queen Sugar.  The series follows a family based in Louisiana that is brought together in the wake of tragedy.  The premise seems familiar and the first episode is a little rocky but it also contains several moments of absolute brilliance.  The whole cast is great but True Blood's Rutina Wesley especially shines with a grace and subtlety unimaginable on the campy vampire funstercluck.  All in all, Queen Sugar has the makings to be the greatest Southern drama of our time.

Star Trek threat level: 7/10

How to Tell if You're From a Small Town

J. Cole is a fairly famous rapper from Fayetteville, North Carolina.  I'm from a small town about 25 miles from Fayetteville.  It has recently come to my attention that J. Cole also thinks he is from a small town and it's kind of breaking my brain.  Earlier this week I listened to the live album Forest Hills Drive, recorded in Fayetteville.  After performing the song "St. Tropez" Mr. Cole explains that it's about coming from a small town and dreaming of more.  This is perplexing me because Fayetteville already has so much more than my town does, like twenty times the population for starters.  I love movies and comic books but there are no movie theaters or comic book stores in my town.  Fayetteville has more than one of both, which is why I drive for 45 minutes every other weekend or so to watch movies and buy comics.  Actually, my town does have two closed down movie theaters, neither of which has shown a movie to the public in over a decade or ever had more than two screens.  Fayetteville has a half dozen fully operational multiplexes, and a mall, and a good sized airport, and the single largest military base on the planet.  This is not a small town, it is a medium sized city.  In his defense, J. Cole is not alone in this delusion.  Taylor Swift also seems to think that she came from a small town, as evidenced by her 2010 song "Mean," in which she declares her intentions to move to a big city.  It could be from the point of view of a much younger Swift who lived in a small town in Pennsylvania, but it is more likely from the perspective of 2010 Swift who had lived in Nashville, one of America's most famous cities and headquarters to the massive country music industry, for the better part of a decade.  I worry that an epidemic is on its way that causes celebrities to be confused about the size of their hometowns so I've come up with a few guidelines to help keep things straight.

You have to leave the town on a regular basis to get the things you want

As previously mentioned, I drive 25 miles to Fayetteville a couple of times a month to enjoy the big city amenities denied to me in my actual small town.  I also work in another city smaller than Fayetteville.  Actually, most people I know have jobs outside of the town they live in.  Small town life is defined by a relative scarcity of resources.  On TV every hamlet has one of everything, but in my experience everything is a little more spread out.  You can get what you want but it's going to eat up some your precious time and gas money.  You can go to a city like Fayetteville that is lacking very little, or you can go to the movie theater in one town or the bowling alley in another or the shopping center in another.  In modern day America living in a small town means leaving it.

You can say "It's a small town you've probably never heard of" and be right

Small towns typically don't have much name recognition.  If a stranger from a distant part of the country is aware of your city and knows what state it's in you are not from a small town.  Nashville is a world famous city and bears a name synonymous with an entire genre of music.  Fayetteville is part of a triangle with North Carolina's capital Raleigh and another major city, Durham.  If someone knows Raleigh and Durham, there's a decent chance they know Fayetteville.  When TV personalities do local promos they say "What's up Raleigh-Durham-Fayetteville."  If Seth Meyers has frequently said the name of your city it is definitely a city.

It takes less than a minute to read the Wikipedia page

An extensive Wikipedia page means two things: there's a lot to know about the topic and someone(s) cared enough about it to put all that information in one place.  The bigger the city the bigger the Wikipedia page.  The page for Fayetteville is about five times the size of some nearby actual small towns.  Small towns are boring.  They don't have identities and there's nothing interesting about them.  Their only claim to fame is the two or three people who made it out and made it big, but usually not big enough for anyone to care about them, including the people in the town.  Fayetteville's "Notable People" section alone takes up almost as much space as my town's entire Wikipedia page.  That is not a small town.

Three Movies with 'Stranger Things'-like Movie Buff Cred

As you may have heard, Stranger Things is Netflix's latest mega-hit series and it is pulsing with 80's nostalgia.  Stranger Things is what would happen if 80's Steven Spielberg invented a teleportation machine and tested it on himself but 80's Stephen King got mixed up in it at the last second and their atoms got scrambled together.  The cast features 80's movie stars Winona Ryder (Heathers, Beatlejuice) and Matthew Modine (Vision Quest, Full Metal Jacket), as well as some kids living the E.T. life and a few teenagers surviving a horror movie.

Mostly.

Stranger Things comes from a long line of homage art.  A good film buff can pinpoint all the ways Star Wars owes a debt to the likes of Flash Gordon and The Searchers.  Stranger Things certainly isn't the first show or movie to build itself around an established genre from an earlier time.  Here are a few films to check out if you like the way Stranger Things likes cool things.

Super 8

The second Super 8 shows up on Netflix again expect to see it in the category "Because you liked Stranger Things."  The 2011 film has all the same influences as Stranger Things but one of them had a hand in creating it.  Steven Spielberg served as producer alongside writer and director J.J. Abrams.  Super 8 is full of nostalgia although it takes place a few years earlier than Stranger Things, in the late 70's rather than the early 80's.  The Goonies/E.T. kids of this movie include excellent performances by Elle Fanning and Joel Courtney along with the prerequisite cool adult Kyle Chandler.  Together they hunt down a mysterious creature, the reveal of which is really quite impressive.  Super 8 takes the film love to a meta degree because the kids' favorite hobby isn't Dungeons and Dragons but amateur movie making, hence the title, a kind of film commonly used for home movies of the time.

Pacific Rim

If there's one thing director Guillermo del Toro is good at it's making monsters.  In 2013 he made his monsters huge.  Pacific Rim tells the story of a battle between giant monsters (Kaiju) who want to invade Earth from an alternate dimension and the humans in giant robots (Jaegers) tasked with defending the world.  Obviously it's an homage to the giant monster movies of old like Godzilla and Gamera, yet still feels like one of the freshest and most original sci-fi blockbusters of the decade.  For the most part, the robots and monsters are the real stars of Pacific Rim but it also features some thoroughly captivating performances from Charlie Day as a frantic, tattooed mad scientist, Ron Perlman as a black marketeer and Idris Elba as an Idris Elba character.  An Idris Elba character named Stacker Pentecost.

Captain America: The First Avenger

I've made no secret about my love for Captain America: Winter Soldier but I'm also a staunch defender of its criminally underappreciated predecessor The First Avenger.  Winter Soldier is strongly influenced by 70's political thrillers but as a World War II period piece First Avenger draws from a very different pool of inspiration.  It has elements of 40's sci-fi but mostly First Avenger is the best Indiana Jones movie since 1989's The Last Crusade; the Indiana Jones series itself being an homage to the action serials of the 1940's.  Director Joe Johnston excels at period pieces and is perfect for an Indy inspired film.  The First Avenger  also introduced the world to Hayley Atwell's Peggy Carter, who more than earned an excellent spin-off TV series with a similar tone but more espionage.





Side note: Three guys looking for their friend who mysteriously disappeared?  I liked it better when it was called The Hangover.

"Sausage Party" is great but is Seth Rogen ok?

For a long time my feelings about the new film Sausage Party were a lot like everyone else's.  I thought "it seems pretty dumb, even for Seth Rogen, but I'm intrigued."  That must be a fairly common reaction to the Pixar-style comedy about talking foodstuffs that is absolutely not intended for Pixar's usual audience.  My interest was increased tenfold when an ad for Sausage Party was shown during a commercial break for Preacher, the TV series also created by Seth Rogen and his production partner Evan Goldberg.  Preacher is part intense drama, part black comedy, and part religious satire.  When I first saw Sausage Party being advertised during Preacher I laughed at the idea of one being promoted on the back of the other as if to say "if you like 'Breaking Bad with more sacrilege' you'll love 'Toy Story with 1000% more dick jokes.'"  I quickly realized that Preacher and Sausage Party are more alike than it seems at first glance, and now that I've seen Sausage Party I can confirm that the two are scarily similar in a way that makes me enjoy both even more, but also makes me a little worried about Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg.

Preacher's recently concluded first season follows a clergyman named Jesse Custer with a dark past who struggles with doubt while trying to lead a Texas church filled with S&M hillbillies, deformed arsefaced teenagers, and star-crossed lovers in mascot costumes.  By the season finale Jesse gets the answers he wants but even more questions and a lot more rage, most of it directed at God.  Sausage Party is about a god-fearing sausage named Frank, with the "gods" being the patrons of a grocery store.  Frank discovers that the shoppers aren't ferrying the food to paradise but to their doom.  They're both comedies with as much existential horror as humor.  They're both about the faithful discovering that the object of their worship is far from perfect.

Rogen and Goldberg (Rogberg) have been working on Sausage Party for nearly a decade but the fact that it was released so close to Preacher is interesting and a little worrying.  I can't help but think that one or both of these gentlemen is experiencing a major mid-life existential crisis and their recent releases are just a part of a pattern.  In the last three years every movie Rogberg has made has either been about growing up, a religious crisis, or the ongoing threat of violent dictator.  In 2013 there was This is The End, in which Rogen and several of his actor friends played themselves as apocalypse survivors who wind up in heaven after a couple of close encounters with demonic forces.  Next was Neighbors, about Rogen and Rose Byrne's married couple who go to war with a fraternity; a literal conflict between domesticity and untethered youth.  That same year saw the digital release of The Interview, easily the most controversial film in recent memory, maybe ever.  The Interview is about entertainment journalists assassinating the very real, very alive, and very dangerous tyrant Kim Jong-un, but the human center is about Rogen's character trying to grow up and take on more serious subject matter against the resistance of James Franco's man-child Ryan Seacrest-type character.  2015 saw The Night Before, a Christmas movie about childhood friends growing up and growing apart.  Finally, that brings us to 2016's Neighbors sequel, Preacher, and Sausage Party.

The stakes just keep getting higher and higher for Rogberg and they're trying harder and harder to grow up while holding on to the goofy blue humor that made them famous.  I'm just not sure they're handling the pressure very well.  They seem to have developed a dim, almost nihilistic worldview.  Maybe they're still a little shaken up after poking the bear by jokingly murdering the bear in The Interview but that doesn't explain the fucked up stuff in This is The End.  Maybe they're just experiencing normal growing pains, or whatever normal is for thirty-somethings who have been among the most influential people in Hollywood since their late twenties.  Maybe they're crying out for help or maybe their films are a perfectly healthy output for a couple of artists struggling with complex thoughts and emotions.  Maybe I end too many blog posts by saying "maybe" a lot but fuck it.  If Seth Rogen can make a movie about a talking weiner why does anything matter?  Maybe life is fucking meaningless.



Side note: Sausage Party is just Preacher with a happy ending, to put it mildly.

Why the Beatles Should let Donald Trump Use One of Their Songs

Every time an election rolls around in the old U.S. of A. the candidates, specifically Republicans, get tied up in a game of reverse whack-a-mole with the music industry.  They play a song at a rally then the musician who recorded it publically denounces the candidates use of the track.  Recently, Donald Trump was denied use of the Rolling Stones' "You Can't Always Get What You Want" and Queen's "We are The Champions," both choices that were hilariously terrible even before the artist's refusal made the titles even more appropriate/ironic.  As much as I love seeing a monstrous excuse for a human being not getting what he wants and failing to be a champion there is one song that is just too applicable for it to not be Trump's official campaign song.

"You say you want a revolution 

Well, you know"

 In the middle of the tsunami of cultural upheaval in the 1960's John Lennon wrote "Revolution," a way of questioning the validity of the common desire to overthrow the establishment.  Lennon went on to develop fairly radical views of his own and over time the counterculture of the 60's has been accepted as a much needed push in the right direction.  Thus, the message of "Revolution" is far more pertinent to the Trump campaign than to anything Lennon had in mind.

Everything that would make Donald Trump a terrible candidate under normal circumstances are exactly why his supporters love him.  He's brash, unpolished, impulsive, crude, and he thinks John McCain is a dumb sissy for being captured during his time as a Navy pilot in the Vietnam War.  Trump supporters think an anti-politician is exactly what Washington needs.  Even Republicans who aren't so excited about him see him as a symbol of their frustration with the status quo.  One way or another they hope that Trump will bring a change.  If he wins the election, there will certainly be change but it can't possibly be the kind that any sane person wants.

"You tell me that it's evolution

Well, you know

We all want to change the world"

That's what makes "Revolution" the perfect campaign song for the Donald.  It's about the need to be careful what you wish for.  Donald Trump is a man of bold actions.  He doesn't take half measures.  His supporters want to ban Muslims from entering the country but will that be enough?  Will internment camps like the ones Japanese-Americans were put in during World War II be enough?  They want political incorrectness from America's top diplomat.  What's to stop Donald from calling world leaders "pigs" and "losers" at the smallest slight, irreparably damaging our relationships with allies and potential allies for decades?  What happens when Trump's friendship with Vladimir Putin goes sour and the U.S. has no allies left?  They want impulsiveness from the one person with absolute control over the largest nuclear arsenal in the world.

"But when you talk about destruction 

Don't you know that you can count me out"

On a certain level I can understand the emotion behind a Republican vote for Trump, if not the logic.  They've lost.  A biracial man with a foreign sounding name was elected President eight years ago.  Once in office he gave healthcare to the masses.  Then he helped turn the tide on one of the defining social issues of our time and now two people of the same gender can have their love officialized by the law of any state in the union.  Now Republicans just want a win, so they've nominated a rich white man whose sole campaign promise is victory.

"You say you got a real solution 

Well, you know 

We'd all love to see the plan"

I hope that Republicans never learn how little they truly want what they've asked for.  I hope I never get the chance to say "I told you so."  This election is a lot like another piece of 1960's pop culture, The Twilight Zone.  If you know anything about that show you know that there's always a twist at the end.  The main character gets their heart's desire only to realize that it isn't worth the cost and the cost is usually nuclear holocaust.  This isn't The Twilight Zone.  There's no Rod Serling.  This is real.  You may think you want to burn it all to the ground but you'll have to start by pouring gasoline on your neighbor and lighting the match yourself.

"You say you want a revolution 

Well, you know"

Is This a Good Time For Taylor Swift to Return to Country Music?

For the past two years I've been on a righteous quest to remind the world that Taylor Swift was a country singer three years ago.  Everyone wants to believe that she emerged fully formed as a glamorous pop star like Athena (and Kanye thinks it was from his enormous head) but I remember the other Taylor.  The girl with the bedazzled cheek and a six-string.  Recently Swift got caught in a white lie and found herself in some mildly hot water.  It's entirely possible for her to bounce back from this and continue her life as one of several queens of pop, but I think she would be better off moving forward by turning around, going back to the small pond in which she was once the biggest fish.  I've argued before that Taylor Swift should eventually return to country music but there may never be a better time than now.

First, let's recap Swift's career up to this point.  Her very first single was 2006's "Tim McGraw."  That's the title.  Her very first song was named after Nashville superstar Tim McGraw and was about McGraw's music reminding Swift and her ex of each other whenever they hear it.  "Tim McGraw" performed pretty well on the charts but her next single "Teardrops on My Guitar" was her true breakthrough.  It peaked at number two on Billboard Country and seven on Billboard Pop.  (I remember it being much bigger than that due to the passion it inspired in the female population of my rural high school.)  Those early songs from Swift's self-titled debut set the precedent for the six years that followed.  She made songs that were perhaps more pop than country but still more country than anything by the parade of tight-jeaned douche boys pandering their keyword crammed escapism that was going on at the same time and continues to this day.

Then, in 2012 Swift released her fourth album Red, the ultimate experiment in country-pop with dense production and touches of dubstep (it was 2012).  Of course, that was followed by 1989, Swift's first 100% pop album that is frankly a masterpiece.  I don't have a single bad word to say about the album itself but I also can't help but feel betrayed on behalf of her former genre, a community which inherently prizes conservative values including loyalty (and prizes Conservative values because it's Convenient).  I'm not one to stand in the way of someone's artistic growth but I have to wonder if that growth had to be in an obviously more profitable direction.  There was a time when that would have been called "selling out."

Now, less than two years after Swift gained all those new fans with a more polished style and persona her adoring public has turned on her and the discrepancy between the two Taylor's is to blame.  In April of this year Kanye West released a song with the line "I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex/Why? I made that bitch famous," referencing the infamous incident when West interrupted Swift's acceptance speech on the national stage of the VMA's.  West claimed that Swift personally approved the line before its release, a claim that Swift's camp resolutely denied.  Last Sunday West's wife Kim Kardashian posted a Snapchat video of West on the phone with Swift in which she can be heard giving her unequivocal permission.  In the beginning Swift sounds enthusiastic but as it goes on it sounds like she doesn't approve at all of the implication that she owes her career to hip-hop's douchiest genius or that she owes him sex for it.  It sounds like she's just too afraid of conflict so she tries harder and harder to justify her initial consent.  Despite all the megastar bravado the sweet, sensitive country girl was too nice to start a fight.  Then, after the song came out the pop star returned and fought against the attack on her image through lies and deception.  For a few days before the Republican National Convention really heated up, the once universally beloved Taylor Swift became social media's villain of the week.

Interestingly, Kim's video begins with a stark reminder of Swift's past.  Apparently, her phone number still has a Nashville area code.  Maybe it's a sign that she should go back.  Instead of riding it out and continuing as a popstar I would like to see Taylor Swift return to her roots and then go deeper.  This is the perfect time for it because country music itself is going backwards in the best possible way.  Artists like Chris Stapleton, Kacey Musgraves, and Sturgill Simpson are leading the genre in the direction of a renaissance by making more traditional, stripped down country music instead of the flashy arena pop-rock that has dominated Nashville for years.  I'm talking about a Taylor Swift alt-country album.  The genre is fit to burst with creativity in the coming years.  When Swift was working on 1989 no one would have guessed that Simpson was about to become a superstar on the back of a cosmic spiritual concept album.

All due respect to Max Martin but if Swift dropped him in favor of Dave Cobb, the producer of Stapleton's Traveler and  Simpson's Metamodern Sounds in Country Music, the results could be really fascinating.  Swift moved to Nashville to become a country star when she was 14 then devoted ten of her 26 years to the genre.  If Taylor Swift thinks that's more than enough time to give to the style and audience that actually did make her famous then I certainly can't argue, but if she wants to have a Pure Country moment and sing about the "heartland," if she wants to be part of what could be a historic artistic movement, well, I would wager that Kanye West and Kim Kardashian won't be at the CMA's any time soon.

4 Cartoons from the 2000s that Paved the Way for Nerd Domination

We're over halfway through 2016 and it's shaping up to be a hit-or-miss year for superhero movies.  Deadpool and Captain America: Civil War were both rampaging successes while Batman v Superman and X-Men: Apocalypse both fell flat on their faces.  For years critics have been predicting the genre's descent and this could be the turning point.  It seems like a good time to look at how we got here, not by examining Sam Raimi's Spider-Man or Chris Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy, but at the aughts' cartoons that introduced so many viewers to a treasure trove of comic book tropes.  The cartoons that better captured the spirit of comic books better than any live-action adaptation ever could.

Codename: Kids Next Door

Childrens' television, especially for the past fifteen years or so, presents a magical wonderland for kids where adults barely exist.  In 2002 Cartoon Network took it a step farther by turning the adult population of the world into supervillains.  The vicious adults are the HYDRA to the benevolent S.H.I.E.L.D.-like secret organization KND.  The focus of the show is on the local branch of multicultural, though vaguely racist, children in Sector V.  KND frequently battled such foes as malevolent dentists and stingy ice cream men.  The main villain was a pipe smoking square who was constantly hidden in shadow and/or covered in fire and known only as Father.  Kids Next Door started out intense and nerdy but by the end things got really nuts with stuff like mind wipes and moon bases and a Planet of the Rainbow Monkeys.

Kim Possible

Kim Possible is another spy show that premiered the same year as KND but aimed for a slightly older demographic and swam in the deeper end of the sci-fi pool.  Kim Possible was incredibly cool, with her tech-savvy-for-2002 theme song and her surprisingly stylish cargo pants, but the show was as nerdy as any in recent memory.  Early in the first season the titular Kim faced off against a Doctor Moreau-with-Beanie-Babies type (voiced by Melissa McCarthy) and got mind swapped with her lovably goofy sidekick Ron Stoppable.  Several episodes featured a superhero family called "Team Go" that was clearly inspired by "Power Pack," a comic book reference that cuts about as deep as "Guardians of the Galaxy" did five years ago.  "Call me, beep me" sounded hilariously outdated before the show even ended in 2007 but otherwise it still holds up.  The snappy dialogue and colorful action makes it worth watching if you can catch an episode on Freeform late at night.

Jackie Chan Adventures

Whenever I get in a conversation with someone about the the cartoons we used to watch I like to bring up the 2000 to 2005 Kids' WB's Jackie Chan Adventures just to make sure it wasn't a wicked cool fever dream I had.  So far I haven't gotten a lot of clear answers but it has Wikipedia and IMDB pages.  The character based on the martial arts superstar was a straight laced archaeologist who couldn't stop stumbling into mystical misadventures that required his famous slapstick combat skills.  He was joined by his brash preteen niece Jade and a wise, grumpy sorcerer uncle.  Jackie became a member of another S.H.I.E.L.D. stand-in led by a cross between white Nick Fury and Sam Jackson Nick Fury.  Jackie also had a flirtatious relationship with a cat burglar in the vein of Catwoman or Black Cat.  Most episodes ended with real-life Jackie Chan answering questions from young fans, often mid-workout, in the most surreal part of a very bizarre show.

Danny Phantom

Fairly OddParents has its share of memorable superhero moments thanks to Adam West's recurring role as himself and the in-universe fictional character Crimson Chin, but with Danny Phantom, starting in 2004, creator Butch Hartman really let his love for comic books run wild.  The main character, Danny Fenton, is a dorky teenager with well meaning mad scientist parents who specialize in ectoplasmic research and development.  They're basically Ghostbusters.  They created a machine that allows travel to the Ghost Zone (Nickelodeon speak for the afterlife).  The Ghost Portal malfunctioned and turned Danny into a half-ghost superhero.  He's basically Spider-Man if all his villains were the lost souls of the damned.  Danny Phantom is what would happen if Stan Lee created something too dark and weird for '60s Marvel and someone dug it up and turned it into a NickToon.

Three TV Shows For Those of Us Who Can't Get Enough of Roadies

Roadies is my new favorite show.  Not just my favorite show airing now.  In just a couple of episodes it became my favorite TV show ever.  The Showtime series about life behind the scenes of a roots-rock tour was created by Cameron Crowe and perfectly captures the same spiritual fervor for music that made his magnum opus Almost Famous my favorite movie.  Unfortunately, the critics have not been impressed by the show at all.  That's okay because Roadies isn't for critics.  It's for and about fans; people who love music or anything else more than they can stand, who keep coming back to that thing that stokes their fire no matter how many times they get burned.  The enemy be damned, Roadies struck a chord with me and I would wager it did the same for a lot of other people.  If you love the show and want more, if you'll need something to fill the void after the season ends or even to get you to the next episode, I have a few suggestions for your melodic fix.

Sex&Drugs&Rock&Roll

It's not as bad as it sounds.  The title of the FX series comes with a hint of irony.  Most of the characters are past-their-prime rock stars.  Their lives and careers get a boost when Heathens front man (series creator Denis Leary) Johnny Rock's daughter shows ups and takes over.  Gigi, played by Nickelodeon alumnus Elizabeth Gillies, turns the Heathens into the Assassins and inherits the lead singer position while Johnny Rock becomes the offstage songwriter.  Gigi quickly enters a relationship with Johnny's best friend and guitarist Flash (John Corbett).  Together with back up singer and Johnny's long-term girlfriend Ava (Elaine Hendrix) they make up a strange family unit that is creepily comfortable talking about sex with each other.  Meanwhile, the rhythm section, Bobby Kelly and John Ales, has quirky side adventures.  The biggest problem is that it's mostly written by old dudes like Leary who think Lady Gaga is just another pop star and don't realize she released the best rock album of 2011.  There's a fair amount of rock star debauchery but Sex&Drugs&Rock&Roll is mostly about people who love music and who love each other.

Mozart in the Jungle

Mozart in the Jungle could almost have the title Sex&Drugs&Baroque.  Amazon's Coppola Family Production centers on New York's cutthroat, hard partying classical music scene.  Remember the lunch room scene in Mean Girls when the defining trait of the band geeks is that they're oversexed?  Mozart in the Jungle is about those grown up horny nerds.  The first episode features a montage of Saffron Burrows' cellist sleeping her way through the different sections of the orchestra.  The main character is Hailey Rutledge, an oboist played by Lola Kirke who joins the ensemble after a last-minute hungover audition.  She only gets the chance after a new wunderkind conductor, Golden Globe winner Gael Garcia Bernal, starts shaking things up after taking over from his jealous older predecessor played by the iconic Malcolm McDowell.  I'm still not convinced Mozart deserved the Best Comedy Golden Globe over Transparent but it's a really good show about people who care about making music.

Sonic Highways

Dave Grohl is just annoyingly talented and he's too likable to blame him for it.  The drummer for the iconic, world changing band Nirvana turned front man for America's best and most consistent rock band of the past two decades, the Foo Fighters, proved himself to be a good director with his 2013 rockumentary Sound City.  The film about a legendary music studio in Los Angeles was followed up by an HBO series.  Sonic Highways follows the Foo Fighters on the great American road trip as they record eight different songs in eight different studios, each track an attempt to capture the soul of the city it was recorded in.  The result is a concept album that might be the Foo Fighters' best work ever.  The accompanying series is a marvelous journey through the history of music in the United States.  In spirit Sonic Highways is the closest thing to Roadies next to Almost Famous.  It's for fans, by fans.  It's rock and roll and it's divine.