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The Rundown is a weekly column that highlights some of the biggest, weirdest, and most notable events of the week in entertainment. The number of items could vary, as could the subject matter. It will not always make a ton of sense. Some items might not even be about entertainment, to be honest, or from this week. The important thing is that it’s Friday, and we are here to have some fun.
ITEM NUMBER ONE — This is the time for shows with small worlds
I have a theory. I have a lot of theories, actually. Most of them are bad. I have one theory that we don’t need wind and would be better off without it. (CON: no more cool breezes in the summer; PRO: no more hurricane or tornados.) I haven’t looked up any of the consequences or consulted a single scientist. I just believe it to be true. That’s enough for that theory. Some of them are better and more grounded in logic, like my belief that all spoons should be soup spoons (wider, deeper, fewer spills) and the one that I’m going to discuss below: that this is the perfect time to enjoy a television show with lower stakes, one that deals with small world problems instead of catastrophes.
I love a good small world show even in good times. There’s something exhausting about shows and movies constantly dealing with scenarios where the entire world is at risk. These kinds of stories have always existed but they seem to be more prevalent now, possibly as a result of the trend towards superheroes and comics. The other problem is that, like, you can’t go backwards very easily. The stakes generally only go up as a series or franchise continues. You can’t have Superman stop the apocalypse in one movie and then have him save a bakery in the next. And with the stakes always going up and up and up, you can lose some of the humanity of it all. The relatable issues. The stuff that’s real to regular people who never have to prevent Charlize Theron from stealing a nuclear submarine from an ice-covered military base. Or at least, to people who haven’t yet. It’s crazy out there. You never know.
I bring this up now for the obvious reasons but also because Schitt’s Creek ended its run this week. What a fun and nice show that was, just warm and charming and very, very funny. The thing I liked most about it was how human it was, how even though I am not now nor have I ever been a former billionaire who was forced to move into a small motel in a town with a goofy name that I owned a joke, it was relatable in a million ways. It was about family and friendships and relationships and the biggest tangible issues they faced were, to choose one example, how to put on a musical. It was more than that, obviously, as the heart of the show ran deep, but it was nice to not be worried about a meteor hitting the town and killing everyone from week to week.
There are a lot of shows like this, of course. Sitcoms have a long history of finding entertainment in little things. Parks and Recreation was about civil servants putting on festivals, Friends was about friends, The Office was about people working in an office. A good recent example: High Fidelity, the Hulu version starring Zoe Kravitz, which had no right to be as good as it was. I watched it all in about two sittings. I might watch it again while I’m stuck at home. Maybe I’ll rewatch New Girl, or Happy Endings, or any other very chill hangout show where stressed-out high-achievers and slacker lunkheads sit on a sofa together and let the day take them wherever it goes. Maybe I’ll watch Joe Pera grow that bean arch again. There are plenty of options.
The point here is not to slander those shows where catastrophe looms. I loved Watchmen and all of its squid-raining calamity. I’m enjoying Westworld as it wages a Humans v. Robots war for civilization. I am on record as hoping the next Fast & Furious movie features a villain who wants to blow up the moon. That’s all great. But it’s really stressful out there in the real world right now. Too stressful. Cut yourself some slack once in a while. Watch a nice show about cool people trying to figure out normal stuff. You deserve it.
ITEM NUMBER TWO — This was a good idea
It’s never a dull moment when @TracyMorgan is on! Watch the full interview with the comedy star who talks about coronavirus and dealing with the unknown, “We all got to pull together as people,” he says. pic.twitter.com/nVG8DjAxg2
— TODAY (@TODAYshow) April 7, 2020
I don’t know whose idea it was to call-up Tracy Morgan in the middle of a pandemic and put him on live network television before lunch on a weekday but, once we’re through this and allowed to touch each other again, I am going to find that person and kiss them on the mouth. A big sloppy kiss, like the ones Bugs Bunny gave to the people he was in the middle of frustrating. A real smackeroo. Right on the lips.
I mean, it’s beautiful. And completely nuts. I admittedly have a higher tolerance for pure and unfiltered chaos than some, but I don’t see how anyone could not love this. Tracy Morgan in a damn surgical mask shouting at Honda Kotb about getting people pregnant is like something you would have seen on 30 Rock, and yet, there he was, in real life, introducing a delicious amount of anarchy into the traditionally anarchy-free genre of morning television. He also showed up on some late-night shows later in the week to do more of the same, which was fine and perfectly welcome, but it’s the morning show part of it that really delighted me. Tracy Morgan should be on morning television way more. Like, every day. In fact…
Wait a second.
We have an idea brewing.
Yes, here it is: Let’s just give Tracy Morgan a morning show. Or plug him into an existing morning show. Let’s lose Seacrest and pair Tracy Morgan with Kelly Ripa. Tell me that’s not immediately a must-watch hour of television. Or plug him in for Drew Carey on The Price Is Right. Let Tracy Morgan explain Plinko to a nation of bored quarantined couch potatoes. He can do it from his house via Skype. Or something. I need to stress how unimportant to me the logistics of all of this are. I’m doing big picture stuff here. I’m putting together the grand scheme. Leave the details to the details people.
Everyone could use a little chaos with their coffee. This is how we do it.
ITEM NUMBER THREE — Guy Fieri, good dude
I owe Guy Fieri an apology. I spent the first few years of his career poking fun at his spiky hair and shirt collection and general vibe. A lot of us did. Most of us, I think. I’ve used that picture up there a thousand times for a laugh and I guess I’m using it here, too, so let’s go ahead and say I owe Guy Fieri a second apology for using it when I was supposed to be apologizing the first time. I’m sorry twice. Not sorry enough to find a different picture (it’s really very funny), but sorry enough to own up to, at least. Has to count for something. Right?
Anyway, the apologies are owed because Guy Fieri seems like an incredibly good dude. There’s a long history of him donating his time and resources to good causes and, hell, even his television show works like a charity in the way it highlights small businesses around the country. Again, good dude. It’s one of the many reasons I almost cracked my mouse by clicking too fast on this article, titled “Guy Fieri is in quarantine with 400 goats, a peacock problem and a plan to help restaurant employees.”
Yes. Yes, I will read that. Hit me, WaPo.
Unable to resume production on “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives,” Fieri has channeled his energy into partnering with the association on its restaurant employee relief fund, which will be distributed to eligible applicants in $500 grants.
As of Friday, the fund had reached $10 million. Fieri has a goal of 10 times that — because “you can’t go on a road trip and not have a destination” — that he aims to achieve with corporate sponsors.
“I’ve been in the restaurant business my whole life. This is all I know,” Fieri says. “The TV thing is kind of like ‘Happy Gilmore.’ ‘I’m a hockey player,’ and then he gets into golfing. This is what I do. I love the restaurant business, and I know it inside and out. As soon as this happened and the restaurants started closing, I looked at my wife and said, ‘What are all these people going to do?’
”
Guy Fieri rules. The haters can find me in the Flavortown octagon if they have a problem.
ITEM NUMBER FOUR — It is time, once again, to discuss the b-holes
Cats has fascinated me since its first trailer and it continues to fascinate me to this day even though I have yet to see it. I will see it. I will see it very much and very hard. Soon, I imagine. But not yet. And until I do see, well, I will continue to be fascinated by every part of it. Like, for example, the infamous “butthole cut” that either exists or doesn’t exist and features the anuses of the CGI cats for reasons that can be explained as… as… actually, no. It can’t be explained. But thank god for it and for its continued shelf-life as a matter of public discourse, because without articles like this one, from an alleged source who allegedly worked on erasing the buttholes after someone became very angry about then, I honestly don’t know what I would do. All of my movies are delayed until next year. Daddy needs something to occupy his time. This will do.
Go.
“We paused it,” the source said. “We went to call our supervisor, and we’re like, ‘There’s a fucking asshole in there! There’s buttholes!’ It wasn’t prominent but you saw it… And you [were] just like, ‘What the hell is that?… There’s a fucking butthole in there.’ It wasn’t in your face—but at the same time, too, if you’re looking, you’ll see it.”
I am not joking even a little when I tell you that I would have given $400 to be the person who received this phone call. Or the one who made it. Or just a secretary who was on the call to take notes. Anything. The joy it would have given me… it’s incalculable.
Some aspects of the production, the source alleges, became simply absurd—like when Hooper would demand to see videos of actual cats performing the same actions the cats would do in the film. “And as you know,” the source said, “cats don‘t dance.”
Cats is the only good movie, a position I plan to confirm once I sit down and actually watch it at some point in the next two to two hundred weeks.
ITEM NUMBER FIVE — Matthew McConaughey, play virtual Battleship with me
Well, Matthew McConaughey hosted a virtual bingo game for seniors in Texas. It happened. There are news articles about it and everything. Like this one.
A video posted to the living facility’s Facebook page showed McConaughey cheering on bingo winners. “During a time when we are all working to make lemonade out of lemons, we are so humbled that Matthew took the time to play our favorite game with us,” employees at the living facility wrote. “As Matthew would say, let’s turn this red light into a green light!”
This is very nice and very sweet and very cool and it makes me so angry I might heave my computer on the floor. Play games with ME, Matthew! I’m bored, too. You pick the game. I offered Battleship but we can play whatever you want. Trivial Pursuit? I am very good at Trivial Pursuit. Scrabble? Come get your whooping, buddy. I am very competitive and have a lot of free time on the weekends now. The challenge has been leveled. Ball’s in your court.
READER MAIL
If you have questions about television, movies, food, local news, weather, or whatever you want, shoot them to me on Twitter or at [email protected] (put “RUNDOWN” in the subject line). I am the first writer to ever answer reader mail in a column. Do not look up this last part.
From Rich:
With Bosch coming back next week, I have to ask you about Bosch’s house. It’s so cool, right? Of all the houses I see on television with regularity, that’s the one I’m most jealous of. Maybe it’s just the view out his glass wall. I want to sit there with a book and a glass of scotch and stare out at the city all night. What do you think? How much do you want to live in that Bosch house?
Rich brings up an excellent point. Bosch does have a cool house, one he purchased with the proceeds of a movie deal based on a case of his. It’s way up in the Los Angeles hills and it does have that killer view of the city below and I wanted to live in it very much UNTIL I saw this shot of it from another angle.
No. No thank you. No thank you at all. I do not want to live in a stilt house built into a mountain in an earthquake-prone region of the world. I would be stressed out all the time. I’m stressed out now just thinking about it. I want to live in a house that has all of its floor firmly attached to the ground, not by stilts. This is my request. I consider it very reasonable.
AND NOW, THE NEWS
To New York City!
“The risk is serious,” said Steve Keller, a museum security consultant who has worked with the National Gallery of Art, the Smithsonian Institution and others. “Thieves might think the museums are in a weakened condition and that increases the threat.”
Is it weird that a combination of museum closings and the rise in people wearing bandanas over the face made me immediately jump to “this is the perfect time for a heist”? It’s weird, right? You can tell me. I know my brain is hopelessly ruined. It is true, though. As this article elaborates.
Last week burglars broke into a small museum in the Netherlands that had closed because of the coronavirus and absconded with an early van Gogh painting, “The Parsonage Garden at Nuenen in Spring.” Police responding to the museum’s alarm found a shattered glass door and a bare spot on the wall where the painting had been.
Look, I’m not saying any of you should steal a valuable painting or handful of jewels from an empty understaffed museum right now. That would be wrong. You should not steal, in general, and you should especially not take advantage of a pandemic to steal. But if you were already planning on stealing a valuable painting or a handful of jewels, if I can’t dissuade you at all, there’s certainly a worse time to do it. That’s all I’m saying. But don’t do it. And don’t tell anyone I told you this. And don’t ask where I was this weekend if a valuable painting or handful of jewels go missing. Am I making this clear enough? I think I am.
For the duration of the pandemic, Mr. Keller said, museums should assume that they would be in permanent “night mode,” relying on security measures that are generally in place when institutions close for the evening.
Limber up, folks. We have lasers to dance through.
If we do this.
Which we shouldn’t.
WINK.
The RX is Uproxx Music’s stamp of approval for the best albums, songs, and music stories throughout the year. Inclusion in this category is the highest distinction we can bestow, and signals the most important music being released throughout the year. The RX is the music you need, right now.
When the British singer-songwriter Laura Marling first emerged in the mid-aughts as a 16-year-old prodigy, she seemed like an old soul. A leading light of the so-called “nu-folk” scene — a somewhat backhanded term invented by the English press to describe acts like Mumford & Sons and Noah And The Whale, which she briefly joined — Marling looked and sounded like she stepped off the cover of an old Fairport Convention LP. With her striking, wise-sounding vocals, penetrating confessional lyrics, and lilting traditional melodies, she made records that already sounded like they had existed for 40 years before she even exited her teens.
But even as Marling continued to grow her audience on 2013’s epochal Once I Was An Eagle, 2015’s underrated Short Movie, and 2017’s Grammy-nominated Semper Femina, she began to experience the side effects of launching a music career at such as young age. The wise-beyond-her-years quality of her voice, as well as the incisiveness of her songwriting, belied a tendency to youthfully quest in her personal life. At age 21, she relocated to Los Angeles, a decision that she later confided was an attempt to find herself as she entered young adulthood. She was also less famous in the US than at home in the UK. She seized this relative anonymity, cutting her hair and taking a job as a yoga instructor. Reflecting on this period years later, Marling admitted that she “had no identity. It was really, really, really difficult,” she says. “I was socially bankrupt.”
Another period of significant self-reflection preceded the making of Marling’s latest album out today, Song For Our Daughter. She moved back home to London, living not far from her oldest sister and niece; another sister moved into Marling’s home. She also decided to pursue a master’s degree in psychoanalysis, both because she was interested in that field of study and also as a way to make up for the time she lost by not going to college. (In an interesting parallel, Marling’s fellow singer-songwriter Sharon Van Etten has also taken to pursing a psychology degree in her spare time away from music.) Even when Marling has worked in music in the years since Semper Femina, it was outside of her earnest folkie lane — she collaborated with Tunng’s Mike Lindsay in the experimental outfit LUMP, and composed scores for acclaimed British theater director and playwright Robert Icke.
The relatively settled nature of Marling’s life at the moment — as well as her interest in psychoanalysis — seems to have inspired her work on Daughter, which joins the ranks of Once I Was An Eagle and Short Movie as one of her very best albums. Marling has described Daughter as a song cycle addressed to the child that she might have one day, in which the prospective mother unloads wisdom and warnings about “all of the bullshit that she might be told,” as she sings on the title track. But at the risk of psychoanalyzing the psychoanalysis student, Song For Our Daughter also evokes what Carl Jung once described as the divine or inner child — these songs seem to be Marling’s way of dialoguing with previous versions of herself, and charting the progress she’s made as an artist and human being.
In that way Song For Our Daughter feels both like a culmination of Marling’s catalogue up to this point, and also like something of a fresh start. On the former point, Marling has returned to long-time musical partners Ethan Johns and Dom Monks, who assist in giving Marling’s songs that old-time early ’70s British folk feel, with lustrous acoustic strums playing off sumptuously recorded string sections in the manner of her best-regarded work.
But at the same time, this feels like the least fussed-over of her albums. Marling apparently valued immediacy above all else, often sticking to first takes and vigorous, straight-forward arrangements. While the album wasn’t recorded under quarantine — though our current crisis did bump up the album’s release by several months, coming just under a week after Marling announced the LP via her Instagram — it does feel more or less like someone singing to you from the other side of the kitchen table.
This casualness suits the songs, which are among the most conversational and direct that she’s written. The album’s catchiest number, “Strange Girl,” has the off-hand pop durability of a deathless Sheryl Crow radio hit. (The song’s standout warning — “Stay low, keep brave” — also functions as the album’s nutgraf.) “For You” is dreamier, but it has a similar resolve that speaks to a more grown-up perspective. “Love is not the answer,” she sings, “but the line that marks the start.”
Marling also plays off the work of others in fascinating ways. On the stunning “Alexandra,” Marling playfully engages with Leonard Cohen’s “Alexandra Leaving,” writing about the titular protagonist from a feminine perspective, while the tough but tender takes a line lifted from one of Ickes’ plays — “love is a sickness cured by time” — and spins it into a bittersweet lesson about navigating life’s peaks and valleys.
Marling’s adherence to tradition and her recent artistic and personal growth achieve a kind of perfect harmony on the album’s best song, “Fortune.” Set to an elegantly finger-picked guitar line that evokes the loveliest ancient British folk melodies, “Fortune” is inspired by Marling’s own mother keeping a “running away fund” when she was younger, which she spins into a breathtakingly pretty story song that lands on a tragic denouement I wouldn’t dream of spoiling. In “Fortune,” you can hear the budding folkie Marling once was and the supremely skilled master she has become, playing a song that is simple yet profound, like a personal journey through life.
Song For Our Daughter is out now on Partisan Records. Get it here.
There is no telling what content stockpiles exist in the Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon bunkers, sparking a sure sense of wonder: what’s gonna be announced today? Is a formerly theater-bound film taking the expressway into people’s living rooms? Is it a series that somehow managed to get all of its episodes produced under the quarantine wire? It’s fun! And today brings news that Jerry Seinfeld is set to release 23 Hours To Kill, a new Netflix comedy special on May 5. This is also fun! And a little rare.
Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee, occasional late-night appearances, and an active stand-up career (most regularly at the Beacon Theater in New York) have kept Seinfeld present in comedy culture, but he hasn’t gone all in with the explosion of comedy specials like most other comedy stars. 2017’s Jerry Before Seinfeld Netflix special was the one exception, reflecting on his early days in comedy. Prior to that, Seinfeld released HBO’s I’m Telling You For The Last Time, which dropped just three months after the final episode of Seinfeld and felt like a goodbye with him retiring a lot of his classic material. Released in 1987, Seinfeld Confidential marked his first stand-up special, introducing a lot of that same classic material.
Whether Seinfeld mixes in any nostalgia with this new special is, at this point, unknown. The press release doesn’t make mention of it and it seems like a pretty straight forward effort recorded at The Beacon Theater during one of his many concerts months before the present situation fully unfolded. Meaning even if it’s all-new material or that which hasn’t been on a special before, it won’t feel completely reflective of this exact moment. Which is a good thing. What Seinfeld does is connect us to realizations about the absurdity of normal life, offering a chance for us to laugh about it and ourselves. To say it’s a proven formula is an epic understatement. It’s also something I’m not quite ready to let go of. So, perhaps this special serves as a reminder and a connection to that thing that we can and should get back to in the hopefully near future. If nothing else, it’ll be good for a laugh and a reminder of Seinfeld’s legendary chops.
Once again, 23 Hours To Kill debuts on May 5 on Netflix.
Self-isolation has been the norm for weeks now as the coronavirus pandemic continues, and through it all, musicians are remaining active. Leon Bridges is the latest to share some new quarantine material, as he just released the appropriately titled “Inside Friend,” which features John Mayer.
The song is about dating as an introvert, and Bridges sings on the first verse of the smooth track, “Slide through when you want / You know I want to put you on / It’s evil out there / Let’s keep it at home.”
Bridges says the song actually first came about before the pandemic, but he decided to dust the track off now that it is thematically relevant:
“The concept for ‘Inside Friend’ came about from Mayer and I joking around in the studio about what an ideal date for an introvert or homebody like myself would be. I tour most of the year, so I’d rather invite a gal over to lounge comfortably in the crib as opposed to go out somewhere crowded. ‘Inside Friend’ stayed on the back burner for a while because it didn’t fit within the context of my third project, but the current state we’re in globally compelled us to dig this back up and finish it. I hope people find it soothing and uplifting while we hole up indoors and get through this.”
Listen to “Inside Friend” above.
Do not ask for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for The Revival. The cult-favorite tag team of Scott Dawson and Dash Wilder have been released by WWE. The news broke on WWE.com, with the company’s typically terse form statement for talent releases:
“Effective today, Friday April 10, 2020, WWE and The Revival have agreed on their immediate release from WWE. We wish them all the best in their future endeavors.”
Last month, it was reported that the Revival was unofficially done with WWE, so this announcement just makes it official. Dash and Dawson have been unhappy with their place in WWE for more than a year, with rumors of the pair being unhappy dating as far back as January 2019. Since then, the pair has been used less and less, most notably being left out of the Smackdown Tag Team Championship Elimination Chamber match last month. The duo was left out of WrestleMania 36 entirely, despite the card ballooning to two full days of wrestling.
The Revival depart WWE having been their first-ever Triple Crown tag team champions, having won the NXT belts and the Raw belts twice, and the Smackdown belts once. As is standard with most talent releases, Dash (real name: Dan Wheeler) and Dawson (real name: David Harwood) likely have a 90-day non-compete clause attached to this release, meaning the earliest they could show up in a different televised wrestling company (one that is All Elite, perhaps) wouldn’t be until July at the earliest. The duo recently trademarked the phrase “Shatter Machine,” so perhaps they already have a new tag team name ready to go.
At this point, we’re measuring time solely by weekly Netflix releases. According to this roundup, we’re in the second week of April and we have a new bro-tastic comedy series, a weird rom-com, and a surprisingly moving immigration drama to keep our minds off this impending apocalypse.
Here’s everything coming to (and leaving) Netflix this week of April 10.
Brews Brothers (Netflix series streaming 4/10)
Greg Schaffer (That 70s Show) and brother Jeff Schaffer (The League) are the masterminds behind this raunchy, boozy dramedy based loosely on their own life. The film follows two estranged brothers, both beer snobs, who team up to resurrect a struggling LA brewery. It goes about as well as you’d expect, but along with the ridiculousness, there’s some real heart here.
Love Wedding Repeat (Netflix film streaming 4/10)
Netflix is giving us another romcom right when we need it most, though this British flick feels a bit more quirky and over-the-top than the regular fare. Sam Claflin plays Jack, a man intent on helping his sister enjoy the perfect wedding but a couple of exes and a crush (Olivia Munn) quickly cause things to descend into chaos.
Tigertail (Netflix film streaming 4/10)
Alan Yang worked on Parks and Rec and co-created Master of None, so expect this immigration drama — intimately connected to his father’s experience working in a Taiwanese sugar factory for most of his life before moving to the Bronx — to be nuanced and funny and incredibly moving. The film follows a man named Pin-Jui, exploring his past and his present, how the culture shift has changed him and affected his relationships with his children.
Here’s a full list of what’s been added in the last week:
Avail. 4/4
Angel Has Fallen
Avail. 4/5
The Killing of a Sacred Deer
Avail. 4/6
The Big Show
Avail. 4/7
TERRACE HOUSE: TOKYO 2019-2020: Part 3
Avail. 4/9
Hi Score Girl: Season 2
Avail. 4/10
Brews Brothers
LA Originals
La vie scolaire
Love Wedding Repeat
The Main Event
Tigertail
And here’s what’s leaving next week, so it’s your last chance:
Leaving 4/15
21 & Over
Leaving 4/16
Lost Girl: Season 1-5
Leaving 4/17
Big Fat Liar
A good dark comedy can make anything funny which is why you’ll find serial killers, zombie hordes, and social justice issues littered throughout this streaming guide.
A post-apocalyptic world overrun with the undead? Yeah, we can laugh at that. A couple of high school girls killing their friends for more likes on Twitter? Sure, sounds humorous. A karate-filled flick about toxic masculinity? Hey, we don’t make the rules on what constitutes a joke.
These movies may be bleak, murder-ridden melodramas, but they also serve up some masterclasses in comedic filmmaking.
Sorry to Bother You (2018)
Run Time: 111 min | IMDb: 7/10
Boots Riley recruited an incredibly talented cast to bring his dark, absurdist comedy vision to life, but even without names like Tessa Thompson and Lakeith Stanfield, this first-time directorial effort is a masterclass in how to weave social justice issues like the wealth gap and the pitfalls of capitalism with surreal humor. Stanfield plays Cassius Green, a telemarketer living in Oakland who figures out a way to use his “white voice” to make sales. As he moves up the ladder, selling while hiding his identity, he’s pulled into a conspiracy that forces him to choose between cashing in at humanity’s expense or joining his friends in a rebellion against the system
The Art of Self Defense (2019)
Run Time: 104 min | IMDb: 6.7/10
Jesse Eisenberg makes more than one appearance on this list but it’s this lesser-known offbeat comedy that really lets him shine. Eisenberg plays Casey, a timid accountant who begins taking karate classes after being assaulted by a motorcycle gang. With the help of his mysterious Sensei, Casey starts to become more masculine, more confident, and more aggressive, which leads to all kinds of issues in his personal and professional life. The film takes some twists and turns we won’t spoil here, but it’s a wonderfully dark, comedic take on the perils of toxic masculinity, and Eisenberg feels like the perfect guide into such a bizarre world.
A Simple Favor (2018)
Run Time: 117 min | IMDb: 6.8/10
Paul Feig’s darkly comedic murder mystery is a lesson in style, in more ways than one. The film, which stars Anna Kendrick and Blake Lively, follows the unlikely friendship between a mommy vlogger struggling to live life as a single parent after the death of her husband, and a fashionista with a son of her own and a dangerous secret she’d kill to keep. Literally. Besides Lively’s envious wardrobe and the pair’s undeniable chemistry, this film is filled with dry wit, dry martinis, and, what else, murder.
The Sisters Brothers (2018)
Run Time: 122 min | IMDb: 7/10
You probably haven’t heard of this dark comedy starring John C. Reilly, Joaquin Phoenix, and Jake Gyllenhaal … and that’s a damn shame. The film follows the story of two notorious assassins, the Sisters Brothers, who are tasked with hunting down a threat to their wealthy employer during the time of the California Gold Rush. Bizarre happenings and hilarious hijinks ensue, but there’s real heart to the story, particularly when it comes to the bond of these two men. Reilly is incredibly adept at straddling the line between humor and drama, and his chemistry with Phoenix’s badly-behaved brother makes every joke, no matter how bleak, land.
Tragedy Girls (2017)
Run Time: 98 min | IMDb: 6/10
How far would you go for more social media followers? Would you start brutally murdering your friends and neighbors to convince your small town that a serial killer was on the loose, so they’d listen to your podcast? No? Good, because that’s what the teenage girls in this film do and they’re certified psychopaths, but like, the fun, watchable kind. It’s Heathers for the digital age. Try not to love it too much.
I, Tonya (2017)
Run Time: 120 min | IMDb: 7.5/10
Margot Robbie found an ingenious way to retell an infamous story we’re all familiar with in I Tonya. Part biopic, part gloriously off-the-rails mockumentary drama, this account of Tanya Harding’s rise in the world of figure-skating is filled with violence and raucous comedy – and that’s before we ever get to the whole Nancy Kerrigan bit. Robbie’s Harding is a foul-mouthed, chain-smoking rebel who upended the privileged, impossible-to-break-into sports world in the 80s and though she’s not the hero of this story, she’s too fun to watch to be classified as its main villain.
Heathers (1981)
Run Time: 103 min | IMDb: 7.3/10
One for the outsiders, Heathers is the darkest of the ’80s teen comedies. While your “teen-angst bulls*t” may not have had a body count, everyone can relate to the constant pressure to be popular that plagues high school hallways. Winona Ryder proves herself to be the ultimate cool-girl as Veronica, who takes matters into her own hands in order to destroy a toxic clique. Cynical and more than a little cruel, Heathers changed the game for teen films forever and it even spawned some other dark comedy pics on this list.
Cabin in the Woods (2011)
Run Time: 95 min | IMDb: 7/10
Joss Whedon is a master at blending horror tropes with sharply comedic dialogue and he doesn’t disappoint with this Drew Goddard-helmed flick that’ll put you off “relaxing mountain retreats” for life. The movie stars Chris Hemsworth as one of a group of five friends who head to the woods for some R&R. The remote cabin they stay at quickly becomes a hellish prison they struggle to escape from and though there are plenty of jumps and thrills, nothing ever feels so serious you can’t laugh at it.
Zombieland (2009)
Run Time: 88 min | IMDb: 7.6/10
Woody Harrelson, Emma Stone, and Jesse Eisenberg star in this zom-com about a group of survivors traveling the country together during the zombie apocalypse. Eisenberg plays Columbus, a nerdy kid who believes if he sticks to his rules he’ll make it out of this thing alive. Harrelson plays Tallahassee, a man on an odd mission, and Stone plays Wichita, a grifter, and con-artist with her own reasons for joining the pair. It’s a gore-filled riot that knows how to make fun of itself.
The Men Who Stare At Goats (2009)
Run Time: 94 min | IMDb: 6.2/10
The strange mundaneness of military life doesn’t get explored too often in comedic form, but this film did a decent job of focusing on the humorous realities of war if those realities included goats and LSD and a 24-hour Barney & Friends listening party. Ewan McGregor plays Bob Wilton, a reporter who travels overseas to investigate a U.S. Army unit training “psychic spies.” These deluded Jedi warriors are led by Django (Jeff Bridges), a Lt. Col who spent years studying ancient techniques to pass them onto his students, the peace-loving Lyn (George Clooney) and the weapons expert Hooper (Kevin Spacey). It’s basically Star Wars disguised in desert camo and it’s all kinds of weird.
The Day Shall Come (2019)
Run Time: 87 min | IMDb: 5.8/10
This dark, satire from director Chris Morris proves it’s hard to catch a real terrorist, but it’s surprisingly easy to manufacture your own. That’s what FBI agent Kendra Glack (Anna Kendrick) does when her boss pressures her to score a win for her department. Kendra finds the online sermons of Moses Al Shabazz (Marchant Davis), a poor preacher in charge of a small religious commune in Miami. She decides to set Moses up, having undercover agents try to sell him guns, weapons-grade uranium, and other terrorist goodies but her plans spin wildly out of control thanks to some unpredictable characters and Moses’ own bizarre revolutionary ideas.
Super (2010)
Run Time: 96 min | IMDb: 6.7/10
The Office favorite Rainn Wilson and Ellen Page star in this absurd comedy that offers a fresh spin on the masked vigilante genre. Wilson plays Frank, an everyday guy who dons some tights and an alter ego to fight crime when his wife falls prey to a drug dealer. The only problem with his crusade for justice is that he’s not particularly adept at taking down bad guys. Imagine if Dwight Schrute had put on a costume and tried to hunt down the Scranton Strangler, and you’re almost there with this film.
Most Likely To Murder (2018)
Run Time: 90 min | IMDb: 5.1/10
What do you get when you combine Hallmark-like holiday vibes with a murder-mystery plot? This dark comedy starring Adam Pally and Crazy Ex-Girlfriend’s Rachel Bloom. Pally plays Billy, a guy who peaked in high school and returns to his hometown to find life has moved on without him. To get back together with his ex Kara (Bloom), Billy concocts a plan to prove Kara’s new boyfriend – a former social outcast at their school – killed his mother. It only gets stranger from there.
Assassination Nation (2018)
Run Time: 108 min | IMDb: 5.9/10
Suki Waterhouse and Odessa Young star in this angst-filled tale of teenage revenge. The flick follows four high school girls who go on a rampage in their quiet, small-town after a data hack reveals damning information about the town’s residents. The girls take on ex-boyfriends, past abusers, would-be-rapists, and other misogynistic a-holes with nail guns and katanas and all kinds of armed weaponry. It’s a dark comedy paired with high-octane action.
Little Monsters (2019)
Run Time: 93 min | IMDb: 6.3/10
Oscar-winner Lupita Nyong’o stars in this darkly comedic zombie flick, playing a plucky schoolteacher charged with keeping her class safe amidst a surprise zombie outbreak. Josh Gad joins her as Teddy, an obnoxious television personality who hosts the class on the field trip gone wrong and, with the help of a washed-up musician, the three try to fight off the undead — and not kill each other in the process. It’s a nice change of pace to see Nyong’o flexing her comedy muscles, and there’s enough gore and thrills to keep horror fans on the edge of their seats.
Phoebe Bridgers announced yesterday that her second solo album, Punisher, will be arriving on June 19. That announcement was accompanied by a new single, “Kyoto,” which Bridgers has now performed on Jimmy Kimmel Live!.
Of course, late-night TV performances work a little differently these days, but even with that in mind, Bridgers went the unconventional route with her rendition of the song. Most artists have been performing from their homes lately, but Bridgers chose an even more intimate space: her bathtub. Although acoustic guitar would seem like the natural instrument for Bridgers to play for an at-home performance, she instead opted to perform the song on an Omnichord as she sang into a toy microphone.
Bridgers previously said of the single, “This song is about impostor syndrome. About being in Japan for the first time, somewhere I’ve always wanted to go, and playing my music to people who want to hear it, feeling like I’m living someone else’s life. I dissociate when bad things happen to me, but also when good things happen. It can feel like I’m performing what I think I’m supposed to be like. I wrote this one as a ballad first, but at that point I was so sick of recording slow songs, it turned into this.”
Watch Bridgers perform “Kyoto” above.