One day we’re all going to look back at 2020 as that curious year where a lot of television took place via the video-conference platform, Zoom, and it’s all going to feel very strange and out of place to our future selves. In the present, however, we are all beginning to adjust to watching celebrities talk to other celebrities from their living rooms for the entertainment of non-celebrities, who are also stuck in their own living rooms.
From this very bizarre time comes Friday Night In with the Morgans, a charming little AMC show that seeks to provide some comfort and familiarity to viewers, at least among those of us who are fans of two of the longest running shows on television, The Walking Dead and Supernatural. Jeffrey Dean Morgan is obviously a star of both shows, and on the first episode of Friday Night in with the Morgans, Morgan and his wife, Hilarie Burton, shared screens with Supernatural‘s Jensen Ackles and his wife, Danneel Ackles, as well as Christian Serratos, who plays Rosita on The Walking Dead (and was halfway through production on the first season of her Netflix series about Selena when the pandemic led to a pause). The Morgans also brought in their own personal physician, Dr. Sheragim Kemp.
It’s a comforting half-hour of television, if only because it allows us all to see some beloved celebrities from a different perspective: In their living rooms, as bored as many of the rest of us. They have more money, nicer houses, and a lot more land and little fear about their future financial security, but day-to-day, they battle the same issues trying to keep their kids preoccupied and keep themselves from going crazy. Morgan can at least tend to their farm, while Hilarie Burton is making masks for healthcare workers to keep busy. Serratos seems to be enjoying some great alcoholic beverages, but that’s probably true of most of us.
It’s a cozy series, highlighted by Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Hilarie Burton’s meet-cute story. In fact, it was JDM’s Supernatural co-star, Jensen Ackles, who introduced the two. Burton was staying with Ackles and his wife, and they all decided to go out to an Irish Pub for the night. “There we were, sitting, the three of us,” Ackles says. “And then I convinced [JDM] to come down the street and meet us for a drink.”
“[He] did, and [he] pulled up in his Harley, and we were sitting there in this front window,” Ackles continues. “And Hilarie sees this guy get off the bike in slow motion, take his helmet off and throw his hair. It was all very surreal, and [he] walked in, and [Hilarie and JDM] locked eyes, and that was pretty much the rest of the evening. And then Jeff, very smoothly says, ‘Why don’t you guys come over and check out my brand new pad.”
Ackles and his wife, Daneel, in fact, made a diorama of their first night together, which features JDM and Burton making out on top of a car. The art project, however, had to be blurred out for television.
AMC
Meanwhile, Christian Serratos and her husband, David Boyd, singer for the alt-rock band New Politics, are using their quarantine time to do couples therapy, and the two have gotten a lot out of it, according to Serratos.
Friday Night In with the Morgans airs Friday nights on AMC, at least for the time being. Returns dates for The Walking Dead and the final two episodes of Supernatural have not yet been announced.
As the One World: Together At Home festival created by Lady Gaga with the help of the World Health Organization and Global Citizen took place on almost all platforms Saturday, Babyface and Teddy Riley took to Instagram Live for a battle of their respective catalogs. As part of the Versuz series hosted by Timbaland and Swizz Beatz, battles from some of the music industry’s best have taken place over the past month, with the most recent one happening between RZA and DJ Premier.
Going up to bat against each other Saturday night, Babyface and Riley’s battle was originally supposed to take place on April 12 but was delayed as a result of Babyface’s coronavirus diagnosis. With both parties showing up to the battle as planned Saturday, viewers quickly realized that the only thing that went as planned was the battle itself happening.
Behind the scenes at Teddy Riley’s place…yooooooooo, he had a whole camera crew!!! pic.twitter.com/O8IC0nbc2v
With more than 400,000 viewers watching, Babyface and Teddy’s battle was soon riddled by audio issues.
“Doing too much,” as Swizz Beatz later said, compared to other Versuz battles. Teddy opted for an elaborate concert-like set up in his home. Unfortunately, the set up brought nothing but bothersome echoing among other issues. Through failed attempts at troubleshooting, the battle was eventually called off after an hour, hopefully to be rescheduled a second time.
Initial excitement for the battle from fans turned into sheer frustration at the absolute mess. Those who watched the battle fall apart right before their eyes shared their comical reactions on Twitter. Check out some reaction to the battle below.
I LOVE now Babyface subtlety told Teddy “I’m here by myself. You know, social distancing.” Meanwhile, Teddy and friends were acting like we not in the middle of a pandemic #BabyfacevsTeddyRileypic.twitter.com/j56Po3nOKL
During the current worldwide pandemic, movie studios are no longer providing box-office figures because theaters have been shut down around the nation and the world. Because we are less interested in the actual figures themselves and more interested in what people are watching over the weekends, each week we will dive into Most Streamed and Bestseller Lists on Fandango, iTunes, Netflix, and Hulu to pinpoint the weekend’s most watched films.
The number of new releases on the home digital market is beginning to slow now. As theatrical releases have dried up, there are far fewer of them to release to home viewers. The next few months, however, may be interesting, as most summer blockbusters have been delayed until later this year or next year, which could give a lot of smaller films a chance to find bigger VOD viewers among audiences who are starved for new content.
It’s clear that VOD movies can be hugely successful, too. We have not been given exact figures, but Universal said last weekend that Trolls World Tour posted the highest opening day and opening weekend totals ever for a film released digitally. Again, those figures were not provided, but some estimate that it earned $50 million on its opening weekend, which is slightly better than the $46 million opening of the original Trolls in theaters. I don’t anticipate a lot of hits of that size on VOD, but I suspect a film like The King of Staten Island — the Judd Apatow film starring Pete Davidson based on Davidson’s life — could do very well this summer on VOD. If theaters remain closed, what else are we going to watch?
Indeed, at this point, Trolls World Tour, Bad Boys for Life and Sonic the Hedgehog have combined with Invisible Man to dominate the charts for the last few weeks, while other films are sampled heavily on their digital opening weekends but soon thereafter drop. Tiffany Haddish’s Like a Boss for instance, jumped into the top five last week but it’s already fallen to 15th this week, while two more films that will probably only be sampled — Kristen Stewart’s sci-fi clunker, Underwater and Jason Blum’s woefully reviewed Fantasy Island reboot — have debuted at four and five, respectively, on the VOD charts.
On the other hand, there are a lot of films that haven’t reached the top five, but are sticking around longer than they might otherwise due to an overall lack of options, like Ben Affleck’s The Way Back, Harrison Ford’s The Call of the Wild, and even Robert Downey Jr.’s Doctor Dolittle, because after watching everything else on Disney+, some parents are clearly breaking down and renting it, because it’s still at number eight on the VOD charts, right behind Birds of Prey, another film that hasn’t done flashy numbers but is clearly accumulating a lot of rentals over the long term.
Meanwhile, over on Hulu, it’s almost like the streaming service listened last week and updated their Most Popular section to actually reflect the movies that are most popular, like Best Picture winner Parasite, which has been a monster hit for the streaming service. It is apparently the second-most watched title ever on Hulu among its current library of films, as well as the most-watched foreign-indie film ever on the service. It’s unfortunate that it took a pandemic for it to happen, but it’s great that Parasite is getting a lot of exposure, even if some are complaining about the subtitles.
Otherwise, family fare is doing very well on Hulu right now with The LEGO Movie 2, Storks, Small Foot, and Dreamworks Abominable, the latter of which I highly recommend. My family loved it.
The number two film on Netflix is the Canadian sci-fi flick Code 8 starring Robbie and Stephen Amell. It “is set in a world where 4% of the population is born with varying supernatural abilities, but instead of being billionaires or superheroes, they face discrimination and live in poverty, often resorting to crime.” It looks intriguing, and 75 percent of its small sampling of reviews on RT view it positively. Meanwhile, a French film called Earth and Blood is number three on the streaming network, and while there are no reviews for it yet available on Rotten Tomatoes, it sounds like a French, arthouse Rambo, which is not necessarily a bad thing. Last week’s top film, Angel Has Fallen has dropped to number four, while Seth Rogen’s The Green Lantern has inexplicably jumped into the top five this weekend. Maybe it’s because a new Green Hornet movie is on the way.
Next weekend will see the kind of new release that can do well in this environment. True History of the Kelly Gang is an IFC films release with a hell of a cast — Nicholas Hoult, Charlie Hunnam, and Russell Crowe, among others — that will debut digitally. It premiered to positive reviews at last year’s Toronto International Film Festival.
What pairs heart-stopping action with laugh-out-loud humor? These action comedies do.
Every film on this list — be it a comic-book-inspired rom-com or a buddy cop adventure, monks moonlighting as Luchadors or Marvel superheroes being taken down a size or two — deftly combines thrilling fight scenes, car chases, and shootouts with gut-busting humor. Look, the stakes can never be too high that we can’t have a laugh now and then.
Here are the best action comedies streaming on Netflix right now.
Edgar Wright’s proven he knows how to deftly combine action and comedy to make an iconic piece of work – just look at Baby Driver – but he’s been killing it in this genre since the beginning, and this movie is proof. Michael Cera plays the hapless hero in this rom-com adventure. He’s a young man hopelessly in love with a girl named Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead). In order to be with his lady love, Scott must fight her evil exes, six guys, one girl, who challenge him to truly strange contests. The film is a cinematic mash-up of Japanese anime and gamer culture, intended for the crowd who grew up on Nintendo and comic books, but it brings plenty of laughs all the same.
The early aughts action-comedy borrows elements from famous Kung Fu films of the ’70s and pairs them with a completely silly plot and some impressive cartoon-style fight sequences. The film follows the exploits of two friends, Sing and Bone, who impersonate gang members in the hopes of joining a gang themselves and inadvertently strike up a gang war that nearly destroys the slums of the city. Of course, the real draw here is the absurdist, over-the-top comedy that takes place during some of the film’s biggest action sequences. It’s laugh-out-loud funny, but only if you check your brain at the door.
Lethal Weapon practically invented the buddy cop comedy movie and though it’s spawned plenty of copy cats – a few worthy ones land on this list – it’s still one of the best action comedies around. The humor comes thanks to the chemistry between Mel Gibson and Danny Glover who play mismatched partners (one’s crazy, the other’s aging out). They must learn to work together to stop a ring of drug smugglers but the endgame isn’t as important as their budding friendship – ridiculous hijinks and all.
Look, it’s hard to keep track of the Marvel Universe timeline so we’re not going to explain where Ant-Man and the Wasp fits into the grander scheme of this blockbuster monopoly. The only thing you really need to know about this action flick, which sees Paul Rudd returning to play the shrinking superhero and Evangeline Lily playing his partner in fighting crime, is that it’s a hell of a good watch. Rudd returns to the character more seasoned in the superhero verse and thus, more comfortable with his leading man status, but he benefits greatly from a team-up with Lily and a well-written script. Just don’t expect him to have this superhero thing down quite yet. Where would be the fun in that?
Will Smith and Martin Lawrence star in this foul-mouthed buddy comedy film as two detectives tasked with protecting a witness while investigating a case of stolen heroin from their own precinct’s evidence storage facility. Marcus (Lawrence) and Mike (Smith) have been friends since childhood and are now working the beat together in Miami. When $100 million of heroin goes missing from their unit’s storage facility, they’re sent to track down who might have taken it before Internal Affairs intercedes. Smith and Lawrence have an easy, lived-in chemistry that really sells this thing, and the action’s not too bad either.
We wouldn’t go so far as to say that this sequel outperforms the original Smith-Lawrence team-up, but everyone seems to forget about Bad Boys II when discussing this franchise and that’s just not cool. There’s plenty to love about this follow-up that sees Marcus and Mike investigating a Cuban drug-lord with an ecstasy empire (and a rat infestation). Gabrielle Union pops up as Marcus’ little sister who’s knee-deep in an undercover sting and hooking up with Mike on the side. It’s a situation rife with drama, which leads to some Grade-A bickering between the two bros – usually during freeway chases and gang shoot-outs.
Congratulations to Todd Phillips for all the Joker success but it’s this action-packed bro-comedy that really deserves our praise. The concept is simple: a group of guys heads to Vegas for a bachelor party that quickly goes off the rails. When the groom disappears, the three remaining friends must figure out what happened to him before the wedding. Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, and Zach Galifianakis play the groomsman battling hangovers to find their boy and watching them retrace their steps — which include hasty marriages to strippers, stealing a police car, being roofied, and getting on the bad side of a local Chinese gangster – is all the fun here.
Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg make a surprisingly perfect comedic duo and the two draw on their Grumpy Old Men-like chemistry for this buddy cop action flick about two mismatched NYPD officers who uncover a plot by a multinational corporation to steal millions from the city’s police retirement fund. Wahlberg plays the brawns, a quick-tempered detective forced to babysit Ferrell’s mild-mannered accountant after he accidentally shot Derek Jeter during the World Series. That right there should tell you all you need to know about this film.
Man, Will Smith seems to pop up on this list a lot, doesn’t he? This is probably his weakest entry – a fantasy-tinged rom-com about a supernatural anti-hero content to drink himself into oblivion – but it still works. Smith plays the titular asshole, a failed superhero looking to rebrand himself as a good guy. That’s where Jason Bateman’s image consultant steps in but it’s his wife (played by Charlize Theron) who really holds the key to figuring out who this guy is and where he came from. Mostly though this movie is an excuse to let Smith play out his Marvel dreams, just with more drinking and cursing and sticking bad guys’ heads up other bad guys’ asses.
This indie comedy has quickly become a cult classic, turning familiar scary movie tropes on their heads in bloody and hilarious ways. Alan Tudyk and Tyler Labine star as two bumbling-yet-well-meaning hillbillies who get pulled into a nightmare scenario when a group of horny coeds thinks they’re trying to kill them. In a series of events that escalate in violence, Tucker and Dale try to do the right thing while managing to stay alive in the process. As one of the best horror comedies, it’s a hidden gem waiting to be discovered by those looking for off-the-beaten-path hilarity.
Another iconic, totally 90s action-comedy, this one stars Mike Meyers as the international man of mystery who’s had his mojo stolen by Dr. Evil. Heather Graham’s Agent Felicity Shagwell helps him recover it, with the two-time traveling back to the 60s to stop Dr. Evil from destroying the world. It’s everything you’d expect from this psychedelic franchise but Meyers is able to keep things fresh by playing his lothario super spy as, well, less sexy.
You’ve probably never heard of this rom-com starring Anna Kendrick and Sam Rockwell, which is a damn shame because the two have great chemistry on screen and the plot’s just quirky enough to feel refreshingly different from anything else on this list. Kendrick plays Martha, a woman reeling from a bad break-up and searching for direction in her life who meets Rockwell’s Francis, a hitman who targets his own employers and is on the run from a nasty government agent (and excellent Tim Roth). It’s weird, but in a fun way, ya know?
Truth? The plot of this star-studded action-comedy flick is ridiculously convoluted. But it’s easy to overlook the weird twists and turns when you’ve got Michael Pena and Alexander Skarsgard riffing off each other for 90+ minutes. The two play corrupt detectives Terry Monroe and Bob Bolano who begin investigating a planned heist hoping to nab the payday for themselves. Tessa Thompson pops up as a former exotic dancer who helps in their scheme while Theo James plays a British businessman who may be too bad for even these terrible human beings to handle. It’s a fun caper that’s content to rest on the chemistry of its leads.
Jack Black carries this action-comedy based on a true story about a monk who moonlights as a Luchador. Black plays Ignacio, a cook for the orphanage he was raised in Mexico. Ignacio dreams of becoming a professional wrestler but is forbidden by his religious superiors. Instead, he adopts an alter-ego to compete in local tag-team matches to raise money for food for the orphanage. It’s a surprisingly heartwarming story, but you’re not here for that. You’re here to watch Black get pile-drived in the ring and stuff himself into some brightly-colored spandex. We get it.
Ben Wheatley’s action-comedy about a gang deal gone wrong in ’70s-era Boston is full of the usual: betrayal, clueless thugs, warehouse shootouts, and all-around bloodbaths. What makes this flick redeemable is its stellar cast — think Brie Larson, Armie Hammer, and Cillian Murphy — and its refreshing ending. In between, there are plenty of bumbling gunfights and ridiculous gang wars to keep you busy.
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Kelly Golden
