#hank and phoebe: commentary

[biofunmy]

The best TV of the decade? It’s a lot to sort out.

Impossible, really — and, at first pass, my picks for best shows of the 2010s wouldn’t look much different from most other critics’ lists: “Breaking Bad,” “The Americans,” “Game of Thrones,” “Twin Peaks: The Return,” “Veep,” “The Good Wife,” “Transparent,” “Atlanta,” “Fargo,” “The Crown” — that’s 10, right? Hit “send” and let’s get on with life.

But perhaps there’s another way to approach this stretch of much-too-much TV, and instead categorize the shared qualities that separated the decade’s very best shows from the heap of mediocre ones. That way, we can talk about this extraordinary period of scripted dramas and comedies without starting one last argument about where they rank.

I know readers only have time anymore to read lists, but bear with me. Here are the best kinds of shows we watched over the last 10 years. Many of them belong to more than one category — a sign of their greatness.

Anxiety-makers

These would be your nail-biters, seen mainly on prestige cable, often on Sunday nights.

Why we gorge on these cliffhanging, often upsetting dramas on the night we most need to rest up for the week ahead, I’ll never know, but we went to bed desperate over characters and story lines we couldn’t control: In AMC’s “Breaking Bad,” probably the decade’s finest work of story engineering and execution (and yes, I’m aware it premiered in 2008), when will Hank Schrader (or Skyler White) finally catch on that Walter White is the meth kingpin of New Mexico? Some of those close calls (the train episode!) and slow-building conflicts were almost too hard to take.

The decade’s other great adrenaline-producer, FX’s “The Americans,” aired on Wednesday nights, where the panic attacks seemed more manageable. How long would it take FBI agent Stan Beeman to figure out that his friendly neighbors, Philip and Elizabeth Jennings, were deeply embedded KGB spies? How much does Paige know? Will they outlast the Cold War? Showtime’s “Homeland,” meanwhile, neatly bundled our post-9/11 anxieties with the mental problems of a CIA agent who thought she could save the world.

These are but three shows that gave America’s TV addicts a strong case of the jitters. Others tried and sometimes came close. I started out the decade worrying way too much about Rick and the other doomed survivors of AMC’s “The Walking Dead” (until I gave up on them entirely a few years ago), but the show’s success is notable for its stress-inducement, which was so strong that the network started an aftershow, “Talking Dead,” to help audiences cope with the latest gory developments.

Immersive portraits

These were some of my favorite shows, broadly defined by the word “dramedy” (because they were sometimes intensely funny), but better described as character studies, portraiture — of characters I’ll never forget: Amy Jellicoe in HBO’s “Enlightened,” followed by Hannah Horvath in “Girls.”

Many shows in this category can in some ways be regarded as selfies. Louis C.K., who quickly became persona-non-grata, nevertheless triumphed with “Louie,” which made it possible for similar shows to act as a mirror that not only reveals a personal nature, but a universal quality that potentially can be shared by the audience. I’m thinking here of Donald Glover’s “Atlanta” (FX), Aziz Ansari’s “Master of None” (Netflix), Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s “Fleabag” (along with “Catastrophe”) and Pamela Adlon’s “Better Things” (FX).

This genre also, at long last, helped television achieve the diversity it had for too long failed to produce. Issa Rae’s “Insecure” (HBO) is a triumph in the way it both inhabits its creator’s viewpoint as millennial black woman, yet welcomes viewers of any sort.

To that list add Hulu’s “Ramy” and “Pen15,” HBO’s “Looking” and Comedy Central’s “Broad City” — any show where a viewer potentially discovers someone unlike themselves: different age, different background, different race. Or, more importantly, a viewer at long last sees themselves in the main character.

Washington certainly saw its uglier self in Armando Iannucci’s gloriously foul-mouthed “Veep” (HBO), the true definition of comic relief and on-point satire at a time when politics grew unfathomably absurd.

Metaphorical profundity

The best dramas in the 2010s reflected a larger message about the society that watched them — sometimes obliquely, sometimes bluntly. Despite its notably weakened final season, HBO’s “Game of Thrones” has proper claim, I think, to be deemed the show of the decade, but not just because it grew so popular. It’s because how much of it seemed to eerily echo our surroundings: Climate change (and denial of it); shocking acts of violence; widespread social collapse; galling politics; extreme disparities in class and wealth; weapons of mass destruction . . . I could go on.

Timing is everything. Hulu took a 1985 dystopian novel — Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale” — revved it up and released it just as the Trump administration began detaining, locking up and banning immigrants, appointed conservative judges and looked the other way at nationalist fervor. The metaphor there was almost too applicable; fortunately, the show was strong enough to withstand the hype.

Viewers learned how to find meaning in just about any show — the betters ones made it more compelling: AMC’s “Mad Men” was a beguiling search for the soul of the 20th century; CBS’s “The Good Wife” was a wicked running commentary on politics, technology and modern relationships; NBC’s “This Is Us” was (and still is) a fascinating rumination on the essence of what makes a family. (Note to all you Ancestry genealogy nuts: It’s not just DNA.)

Happy-snarky-sweet

Certain comedies just make us feel better (and also sharper, wittier — empowered, even) no matter how many times we re-watch old episodes. It’s in the camaraderie aspect, the life lessons, the archetypal arrangements, the snarkiness glossed over by group cohesion. It’s a continuation of what began in the best multicamera, studio-audience, ersatz-family sitcoms (“Cheers,” “Seinfeld”), rejiggered for a wired generation. Most of them aired on NBC: “Parks and Recreation,” “30 Rock,” “Community,” “The Office,” “The Good Place,” “Superstore” — now joined by “Brooklyn Nine-Nine.” A few others aired on other networks, giving viewers a similar satisfaction: “The Big Bang Theory” on CBS; “Modern Family,”“Happy Endings,” “Cougar Town” and “Black-ish” on ABC.

Transformative tellings

In addition to finding new narrative styles and (quite belatedly) focusing on overlooked demographics, TV turned out to be an excellent venue for recasting an old story from a fresh perspective or enlightened distance.

I’m thinking here of FX’s “American Crime Story: The People v. O.J. Simpson,” a compelling departure from the way we popularly regarded that murder trial. It inspired others to dramatize previous events with a corrective, even courageous new viewpoint — such as Netflix’s “When They See Us,” about the unjustly imprisoned teens who were wrongly coerced into confessing to a 1989 Central Park attack on a female jogger.

Crime wasn’t the only subject in need of a remix. Both “Downton Abbey” (PBS) and “The Crown” (Netflix) succeeded because of the way they re-examine extreme privilege, without preventing us from enjoying the luxurious roll in it.

Some shows were revelatory in more subtle ways: Jill Soloway’s “Transparent” (Amazon Prime) masterfully wove a woman’s journey with the entirety of modern American Judaism, enlightening its audience to more than just the trans experience. And Showtime’s “The Affair” played with the very nature of truth, telling the story of marital infidelity from competing — and crucially different — perspectives.

Impossible puzzles and true art

If the decade in TV will be remembered for anything, it will likely be the complexity of some shows. The weirdness. The unexpected swerves. It turned its viewers into perpetual puzzle-solvers and conspiracy theorists. After beginning the decade with an unsatisfying wrap-up of ABC’s “Lost,” co-creator Damon Lindelof returned on HBO with a confounding take on “The Leftovers,” finally mastering the balance between befuddlement and momentum with “Watchmen.”

There are, finally, two standouts — and they challenged my ceaseless harangue about reboots. One was Noah Hawley’s expanded and wholly reimagined take for FX on “Fargo,” a Midwestern crime saga first seen in Joel and Ethan Coen’s 1996 film classic.

The other was David Lynch’s long-delayed but staggeringly beautiful sequel to his 1990 TV sensation “Twin Peaks.” Critics argued, somewhat pointlessly, whether “Twin Peaks: The Return” (Showtime) was a very long film or a strangely protracted TV series.

I can settle that: It was nothing short of pure art — unexpected, absolutely original and layered with deep, trippy meaning. Of all the TV I slogged through in the 2010s, it’s the show I most look forward to someday watching again.

Sahred From Source link Entertainment

from WordPress http://bit.ly/2td087u via IFTTT

[shipcestuous]

My Thunderman ship is more like a fleet battling on the sea. The twins are at the top obviously!! I never ship f/d but for some odd reason I ship the heck out of Hank & Phoebe. Don't know why. I also ship Max & Barbara. I thought a lot of interesting fanfictions can be written about them. I ship Billy & Nora. Phoebe & Billy. Max & Nora. And I also ship the 4 siblings as swingers. I have a problem. Need to re-valuate my life but I mean a whole incestuous family with a secret?

Anon, you are precious to me. I really like a person who can take a look at a family and say “Everybody with everybody!”

Each of those ships really does make sense in their own way, particularly Max/Barb and Max/Nora, I think. And the sibs swinging - I mean, why not? 

Every once in a while this happens to me when there are four siblings or maybe a cousin or two in the mix. I am very happy with the way I end up pairing them off (and it’s usually whatever makes the most sense, and it’s not like I choose, it chooses me), but there’s a tiny bit of regret about having closed the door on the other possibilities so you just gotta add at the end “…but they swing sometimes”. 

Same person. Loved your whole wedding Thundermans thing btw. I guess you are really creative when you are bored. :) I can totally see Hank telling Phoebe she could do better and Barb going crazy with “My babies”. All the characters are so in character. Job well done. Happy shipping!!!

[x]

Thank you! When I first saw that picture, for some reason that was the first thought that popped into my head. I thought it looks exactly like an engagement announcement. The rest just fell into place. 

[funface2]

The Genius of That SNL Sketch on Race – The Atlantic

Newscasters should never riff on race while reading the day’s headlines, let alone play games on the subject. But during Saturday Night Live’s latest episode, a group of anchors did exactly that in a memorable sketch from an otherwise uneven night.

“Mid-Day News” began with a classic SNL setup: the local news program, set somewhere in Florida, with four anchors (played by the host Phoebe Waller-Bridge and the cast members Kenan Thompson, Ego Nwodim, and Alex Moffat) reading the top stories. When the perpetrator of a gas station robbery turned out to be white, the black anchors cheered. “We’re just glad we know what the criminal looks like, and he ain’t one of us,” Thompson’s character explained to his baffled colleague. The newscast then swiftly turned into a ferocious competition: With every crime, the foursome anticipated the race of the culprit. And with every reveal, the group found their expectations subverted.

Much like 2016’s “Black Jeopardy” sketch, in which Tom Hanks played a Trump supporter who surprisingly had a lot in common with his fellow contestants, “Mid-Day News” thrived by toying with stereotypes. Some were rooted in economics: Waller-Bridge’s Pam assumed the woman at a nail salon who attacked the cashier for refusing a welfare card must be black. And Nwodim’s newscaster believed the mastermind behind a Ponzi scheme must have been white. Others were rooted in lifestyle assumptions: Nwodim’s character also figured that the man who was mauled by a bison during a rock climbing trip was white—until the victim’s name was revealed to be Laquan.

The sketch didn’t touch on politics via the goings-on in D.C., but its commentary was political, nonetheless. In avoiding the daily minutiae of Capitol Hill, “Mid-Day News” stood out—eschewing the gimmicks and guest stars that have come to dominate SNL’s takes on the topic.

The segment also succeeded in its pacing, as the absurd competition steadily descended into chaos. The foursome grew more and more enthusiastic with each story: Nwodim and Thompson’s high-fives became full-on celebrations, while Waller-Bridge and Moffat’s initial reluctance gave way to obsessive excitement. (In one of the funniest punchlines, both Nwodim and Moffat’s characters united in passing over a headline about a Latino man. “Skip that one, we don’t need that,” Nwodim said, dismissively waving the story away.) By the end of the sketch, Chris Redd’s meteorologist, who’d been keeping score, had loosened his tie and looked frazzled, as if he’d been reacting to the match off-screen the entire time.

While watching “Mid-Day News,” I was reminded of Key & Peele’s “Black Ice,” a similarly sharp and chaotic sketch in which a newscast’s black meteorologists (played by the stars Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele) squared off against the white anchors’ not-so-subtly racist descriptions of “black ice,” a homophone for “black guys.” The comedy there came from Key and Peele’s obvious consternation at being unable to call their white colleagues out.

“Mid-Day News,” on the other hand, mined its humor from having the ensemble collectively engage in—and subsequently lose their minds over—the racial stereotypes that influence their perceptions of each other. After “winning,” Thompson’s character turned to shake the hand of Waller-Bridge’s. “Good game,” he said. “Good game.” Such a wholesome final shot illustrating sportsmanship makes for a sweet, if idealistic, capper. Outside of Studio 8H, it seems implausible for a “game” like this to end with a handshake.

Still, “Mid-Day News” successfully explored an uncomfortable truth: Everyone harbors assumptions about race—and when it comes to the news, it’s important to read past the headline. Perhaps that’s an obvious reminder, but in real life, it’s an embarrassing one to admit. On SNL, however, it’s the perfect fodder for a standout sketch.

We want to hear what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editor or write to letters@theatlantic.com.

Shirley Li is a staff writer at The Atlantic​, where she covers culture.

Twitter Email

Let’s block ads! (Why?)

Source link

Bài viết The Genius of That SNL Sketch on Race – The Atlantic đã xuất hiện đầu tiên vào ngày Funface.

from Funface https://funface.net/funny-news/the-genius-of-that-snl-sketch-on-race-the-atlantic/

[authorstalker]

My July & August Reads

Cream of the Crop, Alice Clayton - I didn’t love this one quite as much as Nuts (the first book in the Hudson Valley series), but it was a very fun weekend read. Alice Clayton brings the jokes and the steam! I’ll definitely check out the third installment.

The Last Cruise, Kate Christensen - Oooookay, so! The Last Cruise should have been way more popular, but like every business, publishing is about being in with the right people at the right time and consistently kissing ass. An unfortunate reality. Anyway: I loved the characters, loved the social commentary, loved all the stress and drama. No cruise ships for me.

John, Annie Baker -  My first Annie Baker play! (Remember when everyone was really into Annie Baker? If you’re too young to know what I’m talking about, it was similar to Phoebe Waller-Bridge.) After reading a bunch of Goodreads reviews, I realized that I didn't fully understand all the symbolism because I haven't read a ton of ancient literature and let's be honest, I probably never will. Regardless, I loved reading it! I didn't expect that American Girl's Samantha Parkington would play such an important role—or any role at all—and that made me love it even more. Failing romantic relationships and ‘90s-early ‘00s references are my jam.

Bury Your Dead, Louise Penny - Louise Penny, how dare you! This book was devastating and wonderful. The Armand Gamache series gets better with every book and I’m so far behind; my extreme nerd fantasy is to go on a month-long reading retreat and catch up. 

Family of Origin, CJ Hauser -  "I love him," he told Elsa. "I love this fucking duck." I love it. I love this fucking book. That's the whole review! Okay, wait. First read "The Crane Wife,” Hauser’s breakup essay that went viral online. You will then be obsessed and ready to read everything else she's written, such as this novel, which I fucking loved.

Fleishman Is in Trouble, Taffy Brodesser-Akner - This one wasn’t for me, but I always enjoy the writer’s celebrity profiles so good for her. 

Marilou Is Everywhere, Sarah Elaine Smith - The writing is so good I reread the ending multiple times just to luxuriate in the words, mmmmmm. Also, there’s a gruesome, upsetting scene that I’ll probably think about forever, oh my god!

My Dark Vanessa, Kate Elizabeth Russell - Like the above, this is an excellent debut novel by a writer with three names. This one has a crazy amount of hype around it (seven figure deal, I think there are already plans for a movie adaptation, etc.) annnnnd I’m please to report that the book actually lives up to the hype. I can’t stand book pitches but the pitch is basically: Lolita in the #MeToo era. My Dark Vanessa doesn’t come out until the end of January, but I snagged a SIGNED galley from a Brooklyn stoop, wonder of wonders.

Waiting for Tom Hanks, Kerry Winfrey - Uhhh my bad, I just realized I never wrote a review for this absolutely perfect book. I am more than a bit biased for a number of reasons, but hand to god, if you stuck me in a time machine and I went to a different college and never met Kerry, I’d still adore Waiting for Tom Hanks. Here is the greatest compliment I can bestow on a book: the experience of reading it is like watching your most beloved sitcom. The jokes are laugh-out-loud funny, the town is somewhere you’d love to live, the people are zany and ambitious and lovable, and there’s at least one couple who had BETTER make out soon or you’ll lose your mind. I’m talking Gilmore Girls, New Girl, Parenthood, The Mindy Project, Scrubs.....those are my personal faves, insert your own as you please. Trust me and treat yourself to this book, then share it with your sister/best friend/mom/cool aunt/whoever, it’s a crowd-pleaser!

[pointofgeeks]

New Post has been published on https://www.pointofgeeks.com/thats-life-roasts-the-gremlins-in-halloween-special/

THAT'S LIFE Roasts the GREMLINS in Halloween Special

Are you coming down from your Halloween sugar buzz and don’t quite want to put away your mask and costume? Then why not spend your post-Halloween with THAT’S LIFE PODCAST and Gremlins!

Yes, it’s that time of year. Children are secretly eating their Trick or Treat candy for breakfast. Teenagers are explaining the party that they had at your home. Heck, you’ve probably already finished Stranger Things and feel like every Freddy movie is worse than the next. (Except Wes Craven’s A New Nightmare, of course.) Are you back at work and still don’t want to quite come back to reality? Well you’re in luck! We might have just the solution for you…THAT’S LIFE PODCAST!

The podcast started off on Podbean, but now are held at RATTHAUS. THAT’S LIFE PODCAST consists of MTR, Patrick Bonfrisco, and Jose Anaya Jr. and covers all aspects of pop culture. They talk about everything ranging from Star Wars, The Big Lebowski, and Jurassic Park, to cover music and even movie quotes. Basically, it’s one of the greatest radio shows for podcasting out there. This time last year, THAT’S LIFE CREW brought on Patrick for his first episode by reviewing the Tom Hanks classic The Burbs. (Which is now considered a Ratthaus classic.) In doing so, they created a new tradition of finding Halloween movies on Netflix and ripping the movie a new one!

In the newest episode, the Crew sets it’s sights on Gremlins, providing a full-length commentary track to the classic 80’s film. This Halloween Special might as well be a roast due to making fun of Corey Feldman (who seems to being playing the exact same punk kid character from The Burbs), Phoebe Cates for covering up so much even though she did the opposite in Fast Times At Ridgemont High, and a debate that never truly gets resolved about the Gremlins being in snow…which could be considered as them being “wet.”

This is a Halloween tradition you should be look forward to hearing every year now. The great thing about this special is you never know what next year might bring us due to Netflix uploading and removing movies on a seasonal basis!

You can find this podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, or head directly to RATTHAUS.NET/TLPODCAST.

HAVE A HAPPY HALLOWEEN SEASON!