MVP Fred Willard, whose dog show color commentator gets too little screen time.
Runners-up Jane Lynch, John Michael Higgins, and the bloodhound.
Tag: Fred Willard
Television watched mid-2015
“TV is a nickname, nicknames are for friends, and television is no friend of mine.”
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Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt season 1 (2015)
Started out very funny and got into a nice groove, without ever becoming less weird. Looking forward to more seasons.
I know Kimmy from the restaurant framing story of They Came Together. Roommate Tituss Burgess is from Queen of Jordan, landlady Carol Kane from Scrooged and Annie Hall, employer Jane Krakowski from 30 Rock and boyfriend Ki Hong Lee of The Maze Runner.
Appearances by Jerry Minor and series creator Tina Fey as shitty lawyers, Tim Blake Nelson as Kimmy’s stepdad and Jon Hamm as Reverend Richard Wayne Gary Wayne. Surprisingly few 30 Rock writers on staff (I count three), plus Allison Silverman (Portlandia, Daily Show), Meredith Scardino (SNL, Colbert) and Emily Altman (Inside Amy Schumer).
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Inside Amy Schumer season 1 (2013)
Watched episodes right before and after seeing Trainwreck (making the film seem kinda tame in comparison). Outstandingly funny sketch show. Appearances by Michael Showalter, Michael Ian Black, Jon Glaser, show writer Tig Notaro, Amber Tamblyn, Rob Schneider, Dave Attell.
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NTSF:SD:SUV:: season 2 (2012)
Loud and ridiculous. Guests: Alan Tudyk, Kimmy Schmidt, Bob Odenkirk, Bill Hader, Ray Liotta, Aubrey Plaza, Rob and Aziz.
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Review season 1 (2014)
In which Forrest MacNeil (Andrew Daly of Delocated and The Informant!) gives star-ratings to life experiences as suggested by his viewing audience. The reviews destroy his life (sample questions: “what’s it like to get divorced?” and “what’s it like to run from the law?”) and tax his modest abilities (“what’s it like to be the life of the party?”). The show starts to get sour and depressing as Forrest sacrifices his well-being for the show, but you can’t take it too seriously, since he also sort of kills Fred Willard in space. With Megan Stevenson as his co-host, Jessica St. Clair as his (ex-)wife, James Urbaniak (American Splendor’s Crumb) as his producer, and appearances by Rich Fulcher and Lance Bass. Review highlights: road rage, orgy, pancakes, aching. Remake of an Australian show. Daly’s now in something called The Spoils Before Dying, which has an impressive cast.
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also rewatched The Mighty Boosh season 1 and season 2, which seems to get better with repeat viewing.
WALL*E (2008, Andrew Stanton)
Just spectacular… I loved every moment of it. The politics/message are a little heavy, but it was nervy to put such anti-consumerist, green, call-to-action messages into a non-talking robot-love movie in the first place (and to declare in interviews, as Stanton has, there there are no political messages in the film!), so I’m going to forgive. Twenty years ago, Pixar would’ve been shot down as commies for making this movie (and Mike Judge would’ve been quietly executed for Idiocracy). Hopefully I’m going to see this again soon, so no need to go into plot summary.
I caught the bunch of 2001: A Space Odyssey references (evil autopilot is very HAL, some of the same music is used) but I also found myself thinking of Children of Men. Future Earth is void of new life, new life is then discovered in the belly of a female-ish character, everyone freaks out and gets excited but a bunch of sinister characters want to manipulate the situation. It all checks out. Movie is also getting compared to Alien (sigourney weaver’s voice is the “mother” ship) and Silent Running (another post-earth outer-space plant-tending movie), but not Sunshine.
Peter Gabriel, who has a history of song contributions to films about sentient critters (Gremlins, Babe 2) scores the closing credits with an obvious-sounding number about being down in the ground.
Fred “Wha’happen” Willard plays a president stand-in, the CEO of Buy ‘n’ Large. He’s not even animated – just videos of Fred Willard. If he’s the first live actor in a Pixar animation, they picked the right actor.
The opening short was Presto by first-time writer/director but long-time Pixar animator/artist Doug Sweetland. Very good, funny, fast-paced comic short about a magician and his magic hats and rebellious hungry rabbit. More of that Looney Tunes gag-based anything-goes character humor than the usual style of Pixar short (think Geri’s Game, Boundin’).
The Aristocrats (2005, Paul Provenza & Penn Jillette)
Nonstop talking for ninety minutes! Nonstop talking for ninety minutes! Nonstop talking for ninety minutes! If someone pauses to take a breath, they quickly cut to someone else so the talking won’t stop!
For some reason I listened to the commentary for a while. Paul and Penn are very proud of their interviewee picks and of their independent filmmaker status. Big Hollywood never would’ve dreamed of filming The Aristocrats!
I guess it was good to see some of my favorite people hang out and talk about The Joke and each other and performing and everything. Jon Stewart, Drew Carey, Richard Lewis, Sarah Silverman, Bill Maher and Rip Taylor were all in there. I didn’t realize how much of a big deal they were gonna make about Gilbert Gottfried doing The Joke a couple weeks after 9/11/01. It’s the dramatic climax of a movie that had no drama or story up to that point, and while it’s true that humor was in a sorry state for those few weeks and it’s true that Gilbert is hilarious, they overblow the whole thing.
Anyway I didn’t mean to write so much because this was hardly even a movie, but here are some fun screenshots I took where you can see the cameraman in something reflective:
