French Montana wants to battle Kendrick Lamar hit-for-hit on Instagram and doesn’t know why fans don’t think it’s a good idea. After making the offhand declaration that he would “outshine” Kendrick at a festival due to an overwhelming preponderance of hits, Twitter lit up with its usual array of skepticism, opposition, and ridicule. French was apparently taken aback, but doubled down, pointing out that as a rapper, he’s supposed to believe in himself — even in the face of what seems like insurmountable odds.
During an video interview with Complex, French was asked about possible matchups for him in a hypothetical Verzuz battle after his back-and-forth with Tory Lanez and responded: “I mean, honestly, you could put somebody like Kendrick Lamar next to me on the same stage at a festival. I might outshine him — not because I’m a better rapper or whatever it is. It’s just that I got more hits. Kendrick Lamar got albums. He got masterpieces. But if you were to put us on the festival stage I would outshine him because I have more hits than Kendrick Lamar.” The moment sparked a backlash on Twitter, prompting French to defend his comments.
“If we just talking about anthems,” he wrote. “Believe i can go neck to neck. I believe i can go neck to neck!! I been making hits for a long time!” He also scoffed at the idea that he should be intimidated, saying, “It ain’t my fault I believe in myself.” He wondered, “How was I supposed to answer that question?” before questioning his followers, “How many times I gotta prove myself before I get mine?”
IF WE JUST TALKING ABOUT ANTHEMS, !! ME VS KENDRICK HIT FOR HIT ! I BELIEVE I CAN GO NECK TO NECK !! I BEEN MAKING HITS FOR A LONG TIME ! IT AINT MY FAULT I BELIEVE IN MYSELF. HOW WAS I SUPPOSED TO ANSWER THAT QUESTION ? HOW MANY TIMES I GOTTA PROVE MYSELF BEFORE I GET MINE
French was, however, quick to clarify that he wasn’t trying to diss the Pulitzer Prize winner. “I love Kendrick!” he wrote in a follow-up tweet. “That’s not just for kendrick that’s to anybody they put in front of me, and ask me that same question. What u want me to say? It should be your attitude too. If u think any less of yourself don’t blame it on the next person who don’t!”
I love kendrick! that’s not just for kendrick that’s to anybody they put in front of me, and ask me that same question what u want me to say lol ? It should be your attitude too. If u think any less of yourself don’t blame it on the next person who don’t ! set it up
While it’s true that French has plenty of years in the rap game, with hits like “Pop That,” “Don’t Panic,” “Unforgettable,” and “All The Way Up” under hit belt, he seems to be discounting the whole Pulitzer Prize thing — when it comes to mainstream exposure, Kendrick Lamar is one of the best-known rappers of all time, which isn’t something that happens without hits. From “Poetic Justice” to “Alright” to “Humble,” Kendrick’s had at least one culture-shifting single on each of his albums, not including the sheer number of features he can pull out, including the dreaded “Control” verse.
On second thought, this is a battle I personally want to see. Do what French says: Set it up.
The controlled chaos of an improv show gets expanded to a full hour in Middleditch and Schwartz, a Netflix special/collection of three distinct taped performances showcasing actors Thomas Middleditch and Ben Schwartz’s command of a form that they’ve been practicing for years. Silly and inventive, the task at hand is grand with both posting up as a reliable scene partner for the other while jumping between multiple characters, carrying the thread of a story, and occasionally breaking the fourth wall to comment on what’s happening. Middleditch and Schwartz is, quite frankly, like nothing else currently on Netflix (it’s available to stream now).
Uproxx spoke with both recently about leaning on each other in a scene, the allure of longform improv, hitting the stage post-fear, and why they’re never going to be on Cameo. So tell me a little bit about your background performing with each other.
Ben Schwartz: We were rivals for many years.
Thomas Middleditch: I poisoned many of his pets and he said, “What’s it going to take for you to stop poisoning my pets?” And I said, “Do two-person improv with me.”
Schwartz: And the crazy thing is I started doing two-person improv with him and then he kept killing my pets and I was like, “Why?” And he goes, “Just to show you, I still have the power.” It was so fucked up, I respected him so much that I was like, “Let’s go on tour together.”
Middleditch: You love a good power play. I think the true story goes…
We can do the whole interview like this.
Middleditch: Yeah, that’s what people need, right?
Schwartz: [Laughs] Oy Gevalt.
Middleditch: Now listen up to me! I moved to New York from Chicago, and I didn’t have very many friends and Ben was kind enough to go get pizza with me! So we got some pizza, and we talked about doing some improv and then we did two-person improv at a night called School Night at UCB where we’d do like five or eight minutes, a real short set, and then we just kind of hit it off and then it was just something that we did here and there until I demanded that we start taking it more seriously. And Ben, after years, finally relented.
Schwartz: When Thomas came from Chicago, I saw him on stage and he was clearly so fucking good and so funny. And he’s exactly right. Two-person, five-minute shows and then a little bit longer, then I moved to LA, and then he moved to LA, and we started doing it there and some people started coming, and then we started doing a 30-minute show.
How do you deal with the challenge of extending way out beyond a five-minute thing and keeping track of all these characters — I imagine fear plays into it at some point.
Middleditch: It’s just entirely exciting. Fear isn’t even a part of it. The closest thing is maybe a little bit of anxiety. Like, when we first played Carnegie Hall because it was like such a milestone for us, so we just wanted the show to go well. And the extreme is Netflix, there was so much pressure. Improv is like, you just want it to be free. But here’s this high thing… “this is what you’ve been waiting for, I hope it’s good.” But even when we’re trying to do a scene, and it happens from time to time, we’re in the scene, or if there’s just like 15 minutes in the show and we’re kind of like, “Huh, not sure where this is going to go here.” Our little writer brains are maybe struggling to latch on to something. It’s not fear. It’s kind of problem-solving as opposed to panic.
Schwartz: I think a lot of that fear occurs at the beginning while you’re failing and failing and nobody’s seen you perform and you can’t get laughs. You’re making too many jokes. You’re not connecting with the team. I think, for me at least, a lot of that happened. We’ve been very fortunate in that we’ve been playing together pretty well for a while now, so there won’t be a show that totally bombs. But if there’s a moment that feels like, “We’ve got to get some laughs.” It feels like that moment exactly that Thomas mentioned. “Okay, we’ve got to figure this out. Let’s get into this, let’s push a little harder.” Because the best improv is always when you don’t see us working hard at all. Yes, there are some shows where we literally play ten characters each and you never know what’s going to happen. That’s hard work. That’s mental sweat. If we get into a corner or we can’t figure out a way out. But I think it’s just that we’ve been doing it for so long that we’re able to navigate, and also with each other, I’m able to trust Thomas that if we’re in this situation and I don’t have anything that he probably has something or vice versa.
Are there non-verbal cues or signs? How do you let him know, “Okay, this isn’t going well”?
Schwartz: There are no baseball signs that we’re throwing each other to do things. It’s literally just a matter of once you’ve been working with someone for quite some time — and the same with writing or acting or other jobs, — where you get a feel while they’re doing something, where you know where it’s going to go, where you can kind of join in, and where you can create it together. But very rarely will someone be like, “What the fuck is going on?” You know what I mean?
Middleditch: This is a show that’s a little different, where Ben and I break the fourth wall all the time. So if we’re in a scene and just don’t know what’s going on, it’s happened before where one of us was like, “I don’t really know what’s going on with this, but we can figure this out.” And we keep it loose because I think we slide in and out of, “okay, in this particular moment we’re really 100% from the point of view of the characters” and it’s like a very sincere thing. And then we’ll flip off the switch, we’ll sidebar and make fun of each other on a personal level or comment about “What the hell are you doing?” We dart in and out, which I think is super freeing.
Netflix
Is that the difference between good improv and bad improv: not taking it too seriously?
Schwartz: That’s not the case. There are very strong, very serious and great improv groups. But also, the inverse of that, if nothing has any meaning, there’s no space to anything, then you get bored watching what’s going on on the stage. I think that you have to have a looseness with your partner, or whatever that means. And I think that Thomas and I, we kind of developed this version of a form that we have where we do a show for an hour and, you kind of pace yourself. You know exactly how long you have and stuff like that. Right Thomas? I wouldn’t say there’s…
Middleditch: You wouldn’t say there’s a what?
Schwartz: I don’t know. What was the question? What is this interview?
We’re talking about House Of Lies season 2…
Schwartz: I didn’t understand why Cheadle had to that…
Exactly, yeah. No, I’m trying to figure out what the difference is between good improv and bad improv and Ben was basically telling me that I’m a moron. And then Thomas, you were going to redeem my thought.
Middleditch: [Laughs] I’m actually going to piggyback on Ben. I think it’s a mix because, just as Ben was saying, TJ and Dave out of Chicago are legendary. They do a show that is honestly a big inspiration for us, but they don’t really break the fourth wall. They’re in it and they act the hell out of that and it’s really great. But it’s a different pace, it’s a different style. But you can’t say, “Oh, they’re not having enough fun. They’re not good.” They’re legendary, they’re masters of that. And I would actually argue, and I’ve seen very silly, like “I don’t give a fuck” improv where it’s like nonsense after nonsense, but it’s a good time. It feels a bit like you’ve had popcorn for dinner, but it’s a good time. And I would actually say that, because that feels so alluring as a new, young improviser, where you see a group that’s just shooting from the hip and they bail on scenes and characters, that there’s often a wave of almost unaffected improv that I see a lot. And I think that’s kind of boring. I think if you just have a couple of people quote, unquote “playing” characters in a scene and they’re not really in it, it’s just sort of two people standing and delivering dumb stuff to say. I need a little bit more investment. Even if I’m going to totally negate that, and two seconds later break the fourth wall and talk to Ben as Ben, I still want to snap back in and play that part. I think it makes for a more engaging show, at least how we’re doing it. Again, we’re doing a show where there’s a narrative, characters, and story unfolding. Right? There’s plenty of shows that are just, the scene resets, and it’s new people, new premise, do whatever, and that’s going to be its own little thing. And those can be fun too.
Yeah, of course.
Middleditch: But the key to it is definitely not like whatever the fuck you said.
Schwartz: I can’t even remember what stupid, fucking, idiotic thing you said.
Middleditch: Oh my God!
[Laughs] This is amazing. You guys could put this on Cameo, and people who want self-abuse could just pay you guys 200 or 300 bucks.
Middleditch: Do people want to get put down on Cameo? Is that a thing?
I don’t know. I’ve only done Cameo one time. I did it for a friend of mine and I asked them to leave a specific inside joke about Hitchhiker’s Guide and they ignored the ask and I left them a good review anyway because I’m not going to give someone notes in the end times.
Schwartz: No! But they gave a message to your friend, how fun is that? I’m sure he flipped out.
Yeah, he lost his mind. But it seems to be a growing thing. I imagine if this thing continues a few more months, more people will be on there.
Middleditch: Not me.
Stay strong. I’m sure it’s not exactly a joyful task.
Middleditch: You can put that in the article, I’m not doing Cameo, so will the representatives from Cameo please stop DMing me on Instagram? Every other week, there’s some guy like, “Hi, we’re from Cameo, we would love to have you on our platform.” Not happening, quit bugging me!
[Laughs] I can’t tell if you’re being truthful or not. I hope you are. So I’m going to keep it in.
Middleditch: I’m being 100% truthful.
That’s awesome. Ben, you gonna do Cameo?
Schwartz: No, I’m okay for now.
How much would it cost for you to do Jean Ralphio for people, for birthday party greetings? How much money? What’s your price?
Middleditch: It’s $50k.
Schwartz: The only thing I would do is like a charity thing, but even then, I’d be like, “Hey, if you want something for charity, I’ll just make you a video or something else.” My friend bought the exact same thing you did to try to get an NBA player for her friend’s birthday and they flipped out. So I understand why it exists. But Thomas is not going to play Richard Hendricks to tell your daughter to have a happy quinceañera. He refuses to.
Middleditch: I don’t care about your daughter. I don’t even know her!
Again, I think that’s the right attitude to have.
Middleditch: Thank you.
So, with the special, how different is the mindset going into something where you’re recording it versus having it live only that night? Are you setting any kind of limitations on yourselves?
Schwartz: We tried not to put restraints on ourselves, but there are obvious restraints. One is that we can’t sing copyrighted songs, stuff that you don’t even think about. But, you’re told beforehand, “If you sing this, it’s going to cost blank amount of money, and we don’t have any money for the special, so we can’t pay for that.” These rules for television that we never have to think about when we’re on stage. You can’t talk about a celebrity and stuff. Even if you’re playing them in a fictitious way, you can’t do it in a disparaging way, blah, blah, blah. So, that’s the first time, for me at least, performing where you have to stop your brain if it’s going to go in that direction, or if we did do something like that, we couldn’t use it. I think that was the biggest thing.
Middleditch: Yeah, we got used to it. I think the goal was to just, as accurately as we could, capture what we do on any given night that we’re out on the road or at some nice theater and we’re doing what we do. Just capture that, translate that, put it on a TV screen, or a laptop, computer, or whatever the hell.
Schwartz: The other thing to keep in mind, is that when a standup puts out a special, they’ve worked on that specific work for six months or a year, and then they make the special. For this, it’s whatever we film is what our specials are, and I think you can feel the excitement of that in the special. Hopefully, people feel that, that it’s like, “Oh, it’s all being made up on the spot.”
Is the goal to do this as a somewhat regular thing?
Schwartz: Yeah, I would love that.
Middleditch: That’s up to Netflix. And in return, it’s up to the people who watch it. Just hopefully, they watch it, and whatever crazy Netflix algorithm happens, they can go, “Oh wow, this is successful. Let’s see more,” because it’s possible. You just rent out a theater for a couple of nights and bada boom.
Schwartz: We love improv. We’ve been doing it for so long, and the fact that we get to do these shows and maybe people who’ve never seen improv before are going to see it for the first time, and they’ll buy “Truth in Comedy” or go take a class. That’s really exciting for us. In the end, that’s the reason why we do longform improv and it’s something we did for free for 18 or 20 years. It’s just that we love it. We love it so much. So, our hope is that people will get to see that we love it and stuff like that.
How do you take it to the next level?
Schwartz: You talking about taking it to the max!?
How do you take it to the max!?
Schwartz: Thomas and I want to go out of the country, and if these Netflix shows do well and all these people in different countries get to see us and enjoy the show, that would be a trip, man. To go to the UK, to go to Australia. That stuff would be pretty cool. And because I’m from New York, if there are bigger and bigger venues we play in New York, it’s just a trip for me because I grew up looking at those venues and watching shows. So, that’s always like … There are all these little things that we don’t even know are on our bucket list. Then, we do them. We’re like, “Oh my God.” Like Carnegie Hall was crazy. For a two-person improv troupe to play Carnegie Hall for an hour and 25 minutes, it was really, really special. So, I guess we just keep doing it until people don’t want us to.
‘Middleditch And Schwartz’ specials are available to stream on Netflix right now.
Despite Georgia Governor Brian Kemp making the decision to “re-open” the state’s economy this Friday (April 24), not every resident is amenable to the idea. Namely, Michael Render — aka Killer Mike — says that his own businesses will remain closed, as Mike maintains that he is unwilling to put his employees and customers’ health at risk. According to TMZ, Mike believes that it is still too early to lift coronavirus precautions, telling TMZ Live that his Swag Shop chain of barbershops won’t re-open with the rest of Georgia’s small businesses.
“Our first concern is the safety of our employees and the safety of our customers,” he said, despite admitting that he wanted to reopen the shops for obvious reasons. “We have an incentive to open, we could use that incentive, and we definitely wanna make money. [But] at this time, as a business, we aren’t comfortable opening. We’re gonna wait a while before we reopen.”
He also pointed out that Black communities — i.e., his main customer base — have been disproportionately affected by the impact of the COVID-19 coronavirus, while noting that the Governor should communicate more openly with Atlanta’s mayor Keisha Bottoms, who is also opposed to lifting restrictions. “As a citizen in the community where people look like me, I’m choosing to stay closed because I don’t want to endanger [anybody],” he said. “And a lot of times, politicians have different views of things. I think governors and mayors should all get on the phone together because as your constituents, we need you to do that.”
Watch Killer Mike’s interview with TMZ Live above.
Missy Elliott’s musical museum narrative is far from over. Today, Missy shared the rambunctious video for “Cool Off,” the latest single from her 2019 EP, Iconology. Unlike in the videos for “DripDemeanor,” “Throw It Back,” and “Why I Still Love You,” in the video for “Cool Off,” Missy and director Teyana “Spike Tee” Taylor do away with the intro, getting right into the riotous dance party as Missy transforms into a living work of art.
At the end of the video, the little girl representing young Missy chats it up with museum curator Teyana Taylor, who tells her to follow her dreams, prompting an extended dance sequence as the credits play alongside her, bringing the complete video EP to its final end — and begging the viewer to return to the beginning and watch all four videos straight through once again. Iconology was Missy’s first new project in 14 years, which explains why she put so much work into its visual components. Don’t be surprised if Missy releases an extended short film tying the narrative together.
For now, press play above to watch the “Cool It Off” video.
Iconology is out now on Atlantic Records. Get it here.
Missy Elliott is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
If you’re trying to figure out what to watch next, a great place to start are the 35 best shows on Amazon Prime Video right now, and none of these titles are currently available on Netflix.
The Americans follows Russian spies (Keri Russell and Mathew Rhys) posing as a married couple living in America, and while the missions are enjoyable, and the glimpse into the early 1980s is fascinating, the real pull in this show is the relationship drama, both between the married spies — who are often pulled between their love for one another and their love of country — an FBI agent (Noah Emmerich) who is pulled between his own relationship with his family and country, and the children of the Russian spies, pulled between their family and their love of America. Well-crafted, engrossing, and hypnotic, The Americans is one of best TV shows — if not the best TV show — right now, and its phenomenal recently completed fourth season finally gained the series the Emmy recognition it so richly deserves. The series has unfortunately finally reached its end, but that means there’s no better time to start binge-watching The Americans than now.
The Wire gave us Omar Little. It gave us Stringer Bell. And Bunk, McNulty, Kima, Bubbles, and so many other characters. The Wire examines the Baltimore drug scene from the perspective of the police and the drug dealers, and it humanizes both sides of the war on drugs. It confronts deep-seated problems in the inner city in accessible ways, and it unpacks the bureaucracy surrounding those issues in a way that makes us understand the struggles of law enforcement in their efforts to tackle the drug problem and the plight of the dealers. Spanning five seasons, The Wire is like a series of interconnected novels featuring deeply flawed, but deeply human characters. It’s a one-of-a-kind series, a show that is not only entertaining, thoughtful, and insightful, but also necessary.
The godfather of prestige dramas, David Chase’s series follows the life of Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini), as he struggles like so many of us with the work-life balance, only his work is running a criminal organization and his life involves a complicated, suburban Italian family. Spanning six seasons, The Sopranos may be the best-written series of all time and often places first or second on lists of the greatest television series of all time. (This author would place it third, behind The Wire and Breaking Bad, though both of those shows owe a great debt to The Sopranos, which created the template for the modern anti-hero and kicked off the Golden Age of television.) Regardless of where it is placed among the greatest of all time, it is essential television viewing, a masterpiece rich with nuance, comedy, brutality, and emotion, as well as some of the best-drawn characters in any medium.
There simply isn’t a better show to binge watch when you need a pick me up than this one. Hilarious, smart, and relentlessly sunny, Parks and Recreation is a balm to weary viewers. Amy Poehler’s Leslie Knope has joined the ranks of television icons, but the supporting cast is no less wonderful. If you’re looking for a show about good people trying to do good things while making good jokes, this will be your new-old favorite show. While the first season feels a bit too much like a riff on The Office, it finds its feet in season two and never relents. While so much of today’s comedy is mired in cynicism, Parks and Recreation will make you want to do better. It also gets better with each rewatch, so pour yourself some Snake Juice and enjoy.
Few shows have as many jokes per minute as 30 Rock. The brainchild of Tina Fey, 30 Rock shows the daily madness of an SNL-like variety show, which Fey’s Liz Lemon at the helm. As she tries (sometimes failing) to wrangle her writers and her actors (Tracy Morgan and Jane Krakowski), Lemon also attempts the ever-elusive dream of “having it all.” Her quest will feel very, very familiar to viewers, particularly women, as they try and balance, work, life, love, and even a small bit of success. With Alec Baldwin turning in his best performance to date (come at me, Glengarry Glen Ross fans) as Jack Donaghy, Lemon’s boss, mentor, and eventual friend, 30 Rock has the perfect blend of weirdness, sharp writing, and genuine laughs that will make it a favorite for years to come.
By now, we should just know to expect great things from showrunner Amy-Sherman Palladino. The woman who gave us Gilmore Girls and Bunheads also brought a fast-paced, wit-infused drama about a 1950s housewife with a hidden talent for stand-up to Amazon, and the awards season voters ate it up. The show follows Rachel Brosnahan as she plays Midge Maisel, a Jewish housewife disillusioned with her marriage to a cheating, joke-stealing scumbag and ready to break out on her own in the comedy world.
USA Network’s Mr. Robot follows Elliot, a hacker with an acute social anxiety disorder who suffers from delusions and paranoia. During the day, he works as a computer programmer for a company that protects other companies from cyber threats. Elliot has other designs in mind, too, namely taking down one of the biggest corporations in America, E Corp, unsettling America’s financial system, and taking power away from the rich and giving it back to the people. Heavily influenced by American Psycho, Fight Club, the films of Stanley Kubrick, and Taxi Driver, among others, Sam Esmail’s Mr. Robot is an unnerving mindf*ck full of conspiracy theories and misdirections. Nothing is ever as it seems in Mr. Robot, and much of the fun is in trying — and mostly failing — to stay ahead of the twists.
Arguably the best comedy on television, and easily the smartest, Veep is the rare political satire that still works in the post-Trump political environment because it’s not about electoral politics, it’s about the futility of politics. It’s about how people stumble into positions of leadership, not because they are good people, or smart people, or even politically savvy people, but because the system rewards mediocrity and dysfunction. It is a sharp, profane, and intensely funny series, and Julia Louis-Dreyfus — winner of six consecutive Emmy awards for her role in Veep — turns in the best comedic performance of the decade, and she is surrounded by television’s best ensemble.
In television’s greatest all-time Western series, David Milch creates a brilliantly distinctive universe peopled with characters who speak their own language, a pungent one that is Shakespeare, profanity, and gunslinger all rolled into one. Set in 1870’s South Dakota, Deadwood charts the growth of Deadwood from a small camp into town, basing many of the characters on real-life historical figures like Al Swearengen, Wild Bill Hickok, Calamity Jane, Wyatt Earp, and George Hearst. It also stars an incredible collection of talent — Timothy Olyphant, Anna Gunn, Ian McShane, Molly Parker, John Hawkins, Kim Dickens, and John Hawkes, among many others — who bring the town alive with all its danger, corruption, and family struggles. Those sensitive to profanity, however, should steer clear — in three seasons, nearly 3,000 utterances of the word “f*ck” are employed, and not one is ever wasted.
The long-running HBO series about a fictionalized version of Larry David is as uncomfortable as it is funny, as misanthropic as it is clever. David, of course, was the inspiration for George Constanza on Seinfeld, and Curb Your Enthusiasm often feels like a Constanza spin-off (which makes the Seinfeld reunion season within the show complicated). Like Seinfeld, Curb is about nothing — or more specifically, the minutia of daily life — with a particular attention paid to daily annoyances. It’s a brilliant show for the way it unpacks trivialities — as its dozens of Emmy nominations attest — but it should be binged in short bursts because the show’s cynicism and general disdain for humanity are often hilarious, but it may also weigh heavily after several hours.
Titus Welliver stars in this police procedural from Amazon about a renegade detective charged with solving some hauntingly grisly murders. Harry Bosch is a former military man with a healthy respect for the rules and an unquenchable thirst for the truth. Each season, he’s presented with a case that threatens his carefully molded view of the world, often leading him to uncover conspiracies, corrupt cops, and even his own mother’s murderer. The subject matter might be dark, but Welliver is clearly having fun playing the brash, give-no-f*cks badass, which is why you should give this crime series a watch.
From 2010-2015, you couldn’t have a conversation about favorite TV shows without someone in your friend group mentioning Downton Abbey. The British series about the inner workings of an aristocratic English family and their manner full of servants became the biggest thing to invade America from across the pond since The Beatles. Watching the crusty Crawley family navigate historic events like the sinking of the Titanic and the First World War while their servants dealt in gossip, intrigue, and scandal below stairs was as entertaining and juicy as any good British drama should be.
Maybe the bleakest, grittiest cop show you’ll ever see, Luther is so intense that it may at times rattle your brain stem. It’s got the best elements of other of its ilk as it follows a genius detective who struggles to separate his personal and professional lives. But it is also pummeling great drama, and Idris Elba is a tour de force (Ruth Wilson is fantastic, too).
Fleabag was co-produced by Amazon and England’s BBC Three. Set in London, it stars the magnificent Phoebe Waller-Bridge (who also created the show) as “a young woman attempting to navigate modern life in London.” That description hardly does the series justice. It’s a hysterical, dirty, sexually devious and surprisingly thoughtful meditation on grief and loneliness that goes by so quickly (there are only six half-hour episodes in each season) that viewers will wish they savored it more before it ends. It’s truly one of the most distinctive, original comedies of the last several years — think Tig Notaro crossed with Broad City — and if we’re lucky, Waller-Bridge will become one of the leading creative voices of her generation.
Nominated for 57 Emmys (winning 20), Boardwalk Empire takes a simmering, novelistic approach to its storytelling. Brilliantly acted and meticulously plotted, Boardwalk Empire can be a slow burn while the audience waits for the pieces to come together, but they always do with near-perfect execution. With a sprawling cast spread out geographically and numerous plotlines flowing away from the series’ main character, Nucky Thompson (Steve Buscemi), the Terence Winter-created series is historical fiction at its best. Loosely based on the life of Nucky Johnson, Boardwalk Empire examines the bootlegging industry in Atlantic City during Prohibition, and it brings in a host of familiar names including Al Capone, Lucky Luciano, and Arnold Rothstein. However, it’s often the series-created characters played by Michael Pitt, Jack Huston, Charlie Cox, Michael Shannon, Michael K. Williams, and Kelly Macdonald that prove most riveting. It’s a fascinating series from a historical standpoint (it tracks the rise of the modern mafia), absorbing as a work of storytelling, and a remarkable acting showcase. There are no weak seasons here; it’s an incredible series from start to finish and, if anything, it’s only gotten better as it’s aged.
Fans of Suits will love The Good Wife, as it’s essentially the rich man’s version of that show, dealing with the same brand of interoffice politics while mixing in some legal procedural elements to its ongoing serialized storylines. The Good Wife also covers the conflicts that arise between work and relationships, as well as the marriage between a law firm associate and her husband, a state district attorney — and later governor — caught early on in a prostitution scandal. Having just completed its seven-season run on CBS, The Good Wife was one of few Emmy-worthy dramas remaining on the broadcast networks, and no show on television filled its guest roles better — it had 13 Emmy nominations and two wins in the guest acting categories alone. The show began to run out of steam near the end of its run, but it remained mostly entertaining throughout.
J.K. Simmons stars in this sci-fi thriller which blends a whole bunch of genres as it tells the story of a clueless U.N. employee, who discovers his agency is hiding a world-altering secret. Simmons plays said employee, Howard Silk, who uncovers a parallel universe that’s engaged in a covert war with our own, and he meets his A.U. self, a top spy intent on destroying him. It’s trippy stuff.
For the eight seasons that Psych was on the air, it entertained a kind of cult following. Fans tuned in religiously to watch this buddy-cop drama about an eccentric police detective who claimed “psychic” abilities and his reluctant, by-the-book partner. Stars James Roday and Dule Hill have incredible chemistry on the show which pushes the worn-out, fun-cop-boring-cop trope past its usual limits.
BoJack Horseman creator Raphael Bob-Waksberg and writer Kate Purdy reunite for this adult-animated series starring Rosa Salazar and Bob Odenkirk. The show follows the journey of Alma, a young woman involved in a car accident who slowly begins to lose her mind. She’s forced to question her perception of reality when her father (Odenkirk) reappears years after his death, pushing her to discover how he died and why she seems to have a newfound ability to travel through time. It’s a bit of a mindf*ck, in the best possible way, with Purdy and Waksberg employing rotoscoping, a realistic animation technique never before used on TV, to take viewers on a surreal trek through space and time, along with dark humor and musings on grief, trauma, and mental health.
Doctor Who companion Jenna Coleman trades in time-travel for managing a monarchy in this BBC drama that recounts the reign of Queen Victoria. Victoria’s early years were plagued with problems — she was only 18 when she took the throne and had many challengers — but the show pairs the more political machinations with the swoon-worthy tale of Victoria’s courtship with Prince Albert, who would later become her husband. If you like The Crown, you’ll like this.
The British sitcom is essentially You’re the Worst if the couple at the center of it were 10 years older. Like the FX series, it’s another anti-romcom romcom, although this one involves pregnancy, children, and culture clash (he’s an American wanker, she’s an acerbic, potty-mouthed Irish school teacher). However, the constant bickering and sexual disagreements between Rob (Rob Delaney) and Sharon (Sharon Horgan) are what makes Catastrophe so exhilarating. A more apt name for the series would be Amazon’s other series, Transparent, because the relationship between Sharon and Rob — warts and all — is the most open and honest in television, and maybe the funniest. The only downside to Catastrophe is that its three seasons are each only six half-hour episodes long, and nine hours is not enough time to spend with these characters.
This sci-fi space epic based off a series of beloved books found new life on Amazon for its fourth season after being canceled by Syfy in 2018, good news for fans who wanted more adventures for the show’s rag-tag band of anti-heroes. Set in the future when humanity has colonized the Solar System, The Expanse follows a trio of leads: United Nations Security Council member Chrisjen Avasarala, police detective Josephus Miller, and ship’s officer James Holden as they unravel a conspiracy that could break the uneasy peace. It’s full of action and thriller-like twists, but it’s the memorable, well-rounded character work that makes this a must-see.
Amazon may not stack up favorably against Netflix in the original series department, but Transparent is as good or better than most of Netflix’s original series. It sees Jeffrey Tambor decide, late in life, to transition into a woman, and we see how that decision affects her family in the most hilarious and poignant ways imaginable. It’s a light series with heavy themes, and it has racked up 28 Emmy nominations and eight wins, so far.
The U.K. version was the original cringe comedy, starring Ricky Gervais as clueless boss David Brent, whose desperate attempts at connecting with his underlings are a painful exercise in futility. Martin Freeman is also a stand-out, playing a role that John Krasinski inhabited in the American remake, but it’s the British sarcasm that really elevates this series and makes it worthy of a watch.
Tatiana Maslany plays several clones variations of the same woman in the sweeping conspiracy thriller Orphan Black, and she breathes so much life and so many distinct personalities into each clone that viewers often forget that one woman is playing all the characters (and it’s impossible not to pick a favorite). The supporting cast is mostly great, as well, and for a Canadian series, the production values are excellent. Unfortunately, Orphan Black suffers from a great first season that the rest of the series can’t quite live up to. It gets so bogged down in its own confusing mythology that it begins to run out of steam, although it picks up its momentum again in the fourth season before reaching its fifth season finish line.
Bryan Fuller’s Hannibal is a perfect series to binge-watch, as the ability to watch the episodes back-to-back evens out some of the slow pacing. Hannibal is dark, macabre, and brilliantly creative, and while it has many of the same characters viewers know and appreciate from the movie/book series, it also has an entirely different and unique tone (some would even say better). The murder scenes are equally gruesome and gorgeous, the series’ long arc is as disturbing as it is engrossing, and the acting from Hugh Dancy, Mads Mikkelson, and Laurence Fishburne is superb. It’s a slow, morbidly addictive burn, and viewers must stick around for Michael Pitt’s Mason Verger in season two, if only for one of the most beautifully unsettling sequences ever seen on network television.
Goliath is an old-school legal thriller from an old-school television writer, David E. Kelley (The Practice, Boston Legal), who is still the reigning king of legal dramas. It’s a meat-and-potatoes show driven by an entertaining storyline and compelling, flawed characters led by Billy McBride, a character played Billy Bob Thornton, who won a Golden Globe for the role. McBride is an alcoholic has-been lawyer who, in typical Grisham fashion, has a case against a big tech firm fall into his lap. On the other side of the case is McBride’s former firm, his ex-wife (Maria Bello) and his old legal partner turned nemesis (William Hurt). There’s nothing new or novel about Goliath except for the fact that it doesn’t try to be new and novel: It’s an old-fashioned, well-made, well-acted and gripping television show with bad guys, morally questionable good guys and a strong supporting cast that also includes Olivia Thirlby, Kevin Weisman (Alias), Dwight Yoakum, and Harold Perrineau.
Loosely based on the exploits of the 9th century Viking ruler and king, Ragnar Lodbrok, Vikings doesn’t match the level of complexity in Game of Thrones — the universe is smaller, there are fewer characters, and the plotting isn’t as dense — but it’s a solid, if not sometimes spectacular drama that gets progressively better over the course of the series. There’s crunching violence, lots of axe play, and frequent battles as Ragnar extends his rule over parts of Europe. Compared to Game of Thrones, it’s less about mind games and schemes, and more about brute force — and Ragnor’s victories are seldom in doubt. Nevertheless, It’s entertaining to watch the unrelenting violence unfold and revel in the demise of Ragnor’s rivals. While Travis Fimmel is excellent in the lead role and Gustaf Skarsgård’s Floki provides the often necessary comic relief, it’s Katheryn Winnick — as Lagertha — who is the show’s biggest draw.
John Krasinski’s return to television marks a dramatic departure from his The Office days. He plays famed CIA analyst Jack Ryan in this series that explores the character’s beginnings as an up-and-coming agent whose confidence in his abilities often lead to him clashing with higher-ups like his boss, James Greer (a fantastic Wendell Pierce). Ryan infiltrates a terrorist cell with nefarious plans after uncovering how the criminal communicate with each other, but when he’s thrust into the field, things get dangerous.
A legal drama that almost never steps inside a courtroom, Suits stars Gabriel Macht and Patrick Adams as a brash, big-league attorney and his whiz-kid protégé, who is practicing illegally without a law degree. Suits, which has a tenuous understanding of the law, deals week-to-week mostly with settling disputes with cocky threats and yellow manilla folders. It’s rounded out by a fun, USA Network-perfect cast (Sarah Rafferty, Gina Torres, Meghan Markle, and Rick Hoffman) and later seasons of the series are more serialized in nature, dealing primarily with interoffice politics and relationship drama. Nothing about Suits is altering the television landscape (in fact, every episode is the same), and the show is certainly not any threat to television’s heavier dramas. However, over the course of the series, it’s become a rock-solid show, one that was willing to break out of the typical USA Network procedural format years before Mr. Robot came along.
This latest mind-bending sci-fi offering from Amazon Prime Video was created by Nathaniel Halpert — one of the minds behind FX’s Legion and Netflix’s The Killing. So yeah, it’s weird. It’s also dramatically rich in ways few sci-fi series are these days. The basic premise revolves around a group of people who live in a small town built on top of “The Loop,” a machine built to unlock the mysteries of the universe. When they start experiencing strange phenomena, they’re forced to dig into the real reason the machine was created and what their role in the grander scheme of things might really be.
Hugh Laurie and Tom Hiddleston star in this limited series from AMC. Laurie is the big bad, a criminal and arms dealer with a ruthless way of doing business. Hiddleston is the night manager of a Cairo hotel, recruited to spy on the guy and infiltrate his inner circle. He’s clearly way out of his depth and most of the edge-of-your-seat action comes from watching Hiddleston lie, cheat, and steal his way through a bogus cover and a convoluted plan hatched by higher-ups happy to sacrifice him for the greater good.
Blake Anderson, Adam Devine, and Anders Holm star in this office comedy about three buddies who work 9 to 5’s at a telemarketing agency and live together on their downtime. The bros clash with their boss and coworkers while getting into all kinds of shenanigans at home, mostly because they try to extend their hard-partying days into adulthood.
Created by Roman Coppola, Jason Schwartzman, and Paul Weitz, Mozart in the Jungle stars Gael García Bernal as an orchestra conductor and Lola Kirke as an oboist/protégé. The cast is rounded out with beloved actors like Malcolm McDowell and Bernadette Peters, and familiar faces like Safron Burrows. Mozart is sweet and low-key. Viewers who like Canada’s exceptional Slings and Arrows will like Mozart in the Jungle because it’s essentially Slings and Arrows with classical music instead of Shakespeare. It is frothy and fun, and an absolute pleasure to watch, even if it is not exactly essential television.
Loosely based on Phillip K. Dick’s 1962 novel of the same name (it also bears some resemblance to Philip Roth’s The Plot Against America), The Man in the High Castle is set in an alternative, dystopian world where Germany won World War II. Basically, the East Coast is occupied by the Germans, and the West Coast is occupied by the Japanese, and there’s a no-man’s land in between. Exec-produced by Ridley Scott and Frank Spotnitz (The X-Files), the series sees various characters working to form a resistance against their occupation by collecting “forbidden newsreels” that show the alternate history in which the Allies won the war in an effort to reveal a larger truth about how the world should be. A dark exploration of what it means to be American, TheMan in the High Castle is a well-acted, tense, and often violent dystopian thriller with plenty of twists and turns to keep viewers guessing.
Along with its slate of Emmy-nominated TV series, Netflix is churning out some high-quality feature-length content as of late. The streaming platform has been building a deep well when it comes to film, filling it with everything from period dramas and millennial romcoms to quirky biopics, sci-fi love stories, and enthralling deep-dive documentaries. In other words, if you thought TV was the only thing the binge-heavy subscription service had to offer, think again.
We’ve sifted through a slew of titles to pick the cream of the crop when it comes to Netflix’s original lineup so make sure you have some space in your queue. These films deserve to be there.
If you want to get a sense of the sheer volume of quality movies Netflix has been delivering recently, this sports drama is the perfect case study. It’s a film directed by an Oscar-winning filmmaker (Steven Soderbergh), written by another Oscar-winner (Moonlight’s Tarell Alvin McCraney), and starring a cast that includes Andre Holland, Zazie Beetz, and Zachary Quinto, and it’s one of the more underrated flicks on the streaming site. Well, no more. This movie — which follows a sports agent (Holland) as he tries to pull off a daring plan during an NBA lockout — is finally jumping on everyone’s radar. At least, everyone who checks out this list.
Timothee Chalamet is everywhere right now so really, are you that surprised he’s playing a boyish, rebellious King Henry V in this big-budget Shakespeare adaptation from Joel Edgerton? Chalamet and his bowl-cut bring Hal to life, the wayward prince forced to assume the throne after his father’s death. Hal has to grow up quickly to lead his men into battle against a bloodthirsty French foe (Robert Pattinson having too much fun with his overdramatic accent) and preserve England’s reign. It’s all medieval warfare and political intrigue and it’s held up by Chalamet who stands out — even amongst a stellar supporting cast.
Martin Scorsese delivers another cinematic triumph, this time for Netflix and with the help of some familiar faces. Robert De Niro and Al Pacino team up (again) for this crime drama based on actual events. De Niro plays Frank Sheeran a World War II vet who finds work as a hitman for the mob. Pacino plays notorious Teamster Jimmy Hoffa, a man who frequently found himself on the wrong side of the law and the criminals he worked with. The film charts the pair’s partnership over the years while injecting some historical milestones for context. It’s heavy and impressively cast and everything you’d expect a Scorsese passion-project to be.
Oscar-winning writer/director Alfonso Cuaron delivers what may be his most personal film to date. The stunningly-shot black-and-white film is an ode to Cuaron’s childhood and a love letter to the women who raised him. Following the journey of a domestic worker in Mexico City named Cleo, the movie interweaves tales of personal tragedy and triumph amidst a backdrop of political upheaval and unrest.
Netflix spent much of 2017 trying to establish itself as an alternative to movie theaters as a place to find quality new films. The results were mostly strong, and none stronger than Mudbound, Dee Rees’ story of two families — one white and one black — sharing the same Mississippi land in the years before and after World War II. Rees combines stunning images, compelling storytelling, and the work of a fine cast (that includes Jason Mitchell, Carey Mulligan, Garett Hedlund, Jason Clarke, and Mary J. Blige) to unspool a complex tale about the forces the connect black and white Americans and the slow-to-die injustices that keep them apart.
It’s hard not to like a guy as talented and charismatic as Idris Elba but the actor plays a morally-corrupt psychopath to perfection in Beasts of No Nation. As the Commandant, Elba recruits young boys to his rebel army fighting the government of Ghana by forcing them to undergo a brutal initiation process. Agu, a young boy who saw his father and older brother murdered at the hands of the government, is captured and indoctrinated into the Commandant’s army, suffering through terrible torture, both physical and psychological, before he eventually escapes.
Bong Joon-Ho’s send-up of corporate farming and environmental abuses isn’t subtle. Tilda Swinton goes all-out as the CEO of an evil corporation, only to be outdone by Jake Gyllenhaal’s broad turn as an unstable TV host. But its tale of an endearing, genetically modified “super pig” and the girl who loves him is effective and contains both some terrific action set pieces and the most affecting child/strange beast relationship this side of E.T.
The basic gist of this follow-up to Vince Gilligan’s beloved TV show is that it picks up right after the events of the series finale, with Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul) on the run and looking a bit worse for wear. He seeks shelter with Skinny Pete and Badger, long enough for a shower and a shave, before heading off to confront the people who destroyed his life. To give anything more away would be to spoil the excellent work that Gilligan and Paul put into this thing.
The Coen brothers are back with a slick new Western romp, one that serves as an ode to all of the tropes present in Hollywood’s best Wild West adaptations. Split into six parts, each story is loosely connected although thematically and tonally different. Tim Blake Nelson stars as the titular hero, a sharpshooting songster who takes part in the film’s opening musical portion. From there, we get stories of outlaws getting their due, prospectors mining for gold, ghostly hauntings, and wagon trails. Forget trying to follow the thread and simply enjoy the ride with this one.
Paul Rudd is at his most charming and charismatic here. He plays a newly trained caregiver to a distant teenager with muscular dystrophy named Trevor. After some ice breaking, the two set out on a trip to see some of the most boring roadside attractions middle America has to offer. If you’re feeling down, this one will pick you up.
Plus… it’s Paul Rudd. That dude is always a ray of sunshine.
Noah Baumbach’s star-studded divorce drama takes a look at messy breakups with Scarlett Johansson playing an actress and mother named Nicole, who is intent on separating from her stage director husband Charlie (Adam Driver). Laura Dern and Ray Liotta play their hard-hitting lawyers, who don’t help in diffusing the tension and resentment building between the pair when Nicole moves herself and their son across the country. It’s an intimate look at the emotional wreckage of a divorce and the struggle to put a family back together again, and it’s carried by some brilliant performances by Driver and Johansson.
Netflix’s original flick is being hailed as the best teen rom-com of the decade and for good reason. The story stars Lana Condor as Lara Jean Covey, a junior in high school who tends to write her crushes love letters but never actually send them. After those same letters are anonymously sent, she’s forced to do damage control by carrying on a fake relationship with one of her former love interests. It’s a sweet, oddly empowering twist on the classic rom-com trope, and you won’t be able to scroll through Twitter without coming across a Peter Kavinsky stan account, thanks to this one.
Ali Wong and Randall Park star in the latest rom-com from Netflix. This time around, the plot follows two childhood sweethearts who’ve spent the last 15 years apart and try to reconnect when one moves back home. Wong plays a successful chef opening a new restaurant in San Francisco while Park plays her former best friend still living at home and working for his dad. Both have some growing up to do, but the film eschews classic romcom tropes for bits that are funnier and more poignant than your average lighthearted fare.
Sandra Bullock’s apocalyptic sci-fi saga has spawned more than just a ridiculous internet challenge, it’s also renewed our love for monster-driven thrillers. Sure, we never actually see the otherworldly beings that cause people to commit suicide if they open their eyes, but the danger they pose and the fear they instill is still viscerally real. Bullock plays a mother trying to protect her two young children and survive amidst a group of strangers with their own agendas and issues. The supporting cast in this one — Trevante Rhodes, John Malkovich, Sarah Paulson, and Tom Hollander — are fantastic, which distracts from some of the more questionable story choices.
Anyone who caught Jessica Williams during her tenure on The Daily Show knows that she’s destined for greatness. Despite being so young, she had a confidence, a voice, and a commanding presence that you just can’t fake. The Incredible Jessica James is her first starring vehicle since her time as a correspondent, and it is a true testament to where she’s headed. In a clever look at the life of a struggling playwright who is getting over a breakup, The Incredible Jessica James allows Williams to unleash her fire in the most charming way possible, and she and Chris O’Dowd have an easy chemistry that makes you root for them to make it despite not having a thing in common. Having just come out last year, The Incredible Jessica James is still one of the best comedy movies Netflix has delivered.
Kathryn Hahn and Paul Giamatti star in this dramedy about a middle-aged couple trying desperately to have a baby. Hahn plays Rachel, Giamatti her husband, Richard. The two undergo all kind of in vitro treatments in order to get pregnant but quickly realize the process is draining on their marriage and their intimacy as a couple. When their 25-year-old niece comes to stay with them, they’re forced to re-think the idea of having children of their own and dig into what’s really fueling their desire for offspring. Hahn is brilliant as usual, but she finally gets the starring vehicle she deserves, and Giamatti is her capable screen partner. What’s really refreshing about this film, though, is its refusal to treat a subject that’s been overdramatized so much on screen with kid gloves, instead giving us a funny, heartbreaking look at infertility that feels much more real than any sappy tearjerker.
Eddie Murphy stages a bit of a comeback in this biopic about famed comedian, actor, showman Rudy Ray Moore, better known as Dolemite to fans of his raunchy comedy albums, stand-up tours, and blaxploitation films. Murphy plays Moore at the beginning of his career when he was just a record store clerk looking to break out in the business. He’s joined by a cast that includes Keegan-Michael Key, Ron Cephas Jones, Tituss Burgess, and others, but it’s Murphy who shines here, giving possibly the best performance of his career as a man who will stop at nothing to pursue his dream.
We already know the second season of the much-hyped Disney+ Star Wars original is expected for the fall, and filming has been wrapped on it long before the COVID-19 shutdown. But now we know that not only is Season 2 largely in the can, Season 3 is already well-underway according to a Variety report. Sources said the show has been “lucky” to escape major delays due to the pandemic, with various teams hard at work on whatever comes next after this fall’s second season.
Sources close to the production have confirmed that creator Jon Favreau has been “writing season 3 for a while,” and that the art department, led by Lucasfilm vice president and executive creative director Doug Chiang, has been creating concepts for Season 3 “for the past few weeks.”
“We’ve just started pre-production and are looking into further adventures for the Mandalorian in Season 3,” revealed one source.
As the report indicated, Season 2 wrapped in March before most shelter in place orders started slowing life down across the United States. And the sheer scale (and cost) of the show’s production meant it had to start work on Season 3 early, which is why the gears are already in motion for more episodes so soon.
In addition, another source with knowledge of the situation confirmed that the production design department began working on season 3 on April 20, pointing to the fact the department requires “such a huge lead time” to explain why “the gears have started grinding really early on.”
That a third season of the show is on the way is to be expected given how successful the show was and its place as the anchor IP of Disney’s streaming service. But it is somewhat remarkable that, so far, its creation has escaped what’s been the most disruptive incident in modern history. Whether that continues will be determined by a variety of different factors, but so far the show’s production schedule seems to be as durable as Mando himself.
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what u want me to say lol ? It should be your attitude too.
set it up
