I watched A LOT this week, so there’s no time to waste!
My youngest turned 7 last week, and she wanted a Movie Night. What was originally supposed to be Minions turned into Inside Out 2. Now, I think I’ve mentioned this, but I never completely saw all of Inside Out. We had rented it from RedBox (so, clearly this was long ago!), and the disc started skipping during all the Bing Bong stuff. By the time it figured itself out, it had sort of skipped over all that. So, I hope none of those scenes were important. Still, I had gotten the gist of the movie, so I felt more than prepared for this sequel.
In this installment, we’re introduced to Anxiety, Ennui, Embarrassment, and Envy – the new emotions that surface during adolescence, and contribute to the creation of one’s sense of self. Everyone always raves over how well this franchise gets the interpretations of emotions, and I guess I’d agree. I will say, however, that I have a real problem with the fact that today’s voice talent isn’t voice actors, but rather actors using their regular voices. Frank Welker is a man of many talents, but Amy Poehler just sounds like varying degrees of Leslie Knope. So, anytime there’s a scene between Joy and Sadness, if you close your eyes it just becomes that Parks & Recreation/The Office crossover that we never got. Now, that might not matter to some, but the more time that passes, the more I find Leslie Knope annoying as fuck. Her toxic positivity is just a few notches down from Lin-Manuel Miranda.
Still, I enjoyed the film, even though it might have been a tad short. I mean, there’s story there, yet there’s still not a ton of story there. My kids get restless, so it was probably the right length, but it felt too short. Upon further research, I found out that the Disney+ miniseries Dream Productions was being made concurrently with Inside Out 2, and the miniseries – set between the two Inside Out films – was meant to be an “interquel”. With that in mind, I wonder if some of the “filler” for this film just ended up over there. I’ve heard NO ONE mention that series, but that’s the nature of streaming shows. A star from an old teen drama on The CW can have a streaming show that runs 4 seasons before its cancelation announcement serves as the first time many are alerted to its existence.
Meanwhile, Lindsay and I watched the Netflix documentary Jerry Springer: Fights, Camera, Action. I know I’ve commented on it, but I loathe what podcasts and streamers have done to the “documentary”. They’re supposed to be interesting and informative, but not necessarily salacious. It’s funny that the same problems with that medium are the ones that doomed the subject of this particular series: The Jerry Springer Show. The 2-episode series sets out to give a “true” behind-the-scenes look at the most controversial talk show in daytime history. It fails to achieve this, though, for several reasons.
First off, it immediately becomes hard to trust the documentary, given it gets so many details wrong – things that could have been verified pretty easily. For example, they say that Springer’s show started in 1992, when it actually began in 1991. I know this because I was watching it on Day One. Also, it completely skips over the impactful shows that were made before it flipped into the shitstorm it would become. The narrative was basically that Jerry Springer was this unknown, who was given a talk show that brought nothing new to the table. While Springer himself was seen as a “nice enough guy”, with some local news success, he wasn’t dynamic, and his shows were boring. They say that his true aspirations were political, and a talk show was just a way in which he felt he could make a name for himself. OK, so, the shows were boring. He was basically the second coming of Phil Donahue. While Donahue pretty much invented that format, we didn’t need another one. After all, the original recipe hadn’t even retired yet at this point.
However, Springer did have guests you didn’t see elsewhere. For example, I remember he had these kids – a little black girl and a little white boy – who both had HIV. They were, like, 7 years old. And their outlook wasn’t great. And he had them on a few times, as he’d occasionally check in on them. I even remember he had something like a little “wedding” for them, as they’d grown close due to their shared diagnosis. To me, this was the high point of Springer’s time on TV, as he showed a different side to a timely illness, that wasn’t being shown elsewhere. Still, the documentary makes no mention of anything like this.
The biggest sin, however, is their attempt to say Springer was an “unknown”. Sure, he might not have been well-known on a national level, but he was a former City Council member of Cincinnati, Ohio – a Council member who resigned in 1974, after he had been caught with a prostitute. If I’m not mistaken, he was caught because he paid her with a check (!). Still, he ran for that seat again in 1975, winning in a landslide. He became known for his publicity stunts while in office, and the documentary insists he would have eventually run for Congress had the talk show not sidelined those plans.
Anyway, the story goes that Springer had this rinky dink talk show that no one watched, and most of the affiliates had moved the show to late night slots, after 1 AM. So, he’s introduced to Richard Dominick, who came from the tabloid newspaper world. A frequent guest on Letterman, Dominick’s reputation was that he swore by every headline he put in those tabloids, even when you knew they were lies. Dominick becomes the executive producer of The Jerry Springer Show, turning it into the iconic car crash that would be its legacy. Dominick’s formula was simple: “Produce a show that looks interesting when the sound is off”. He figured folks at this hour were just flipping through channels, so he wanted to make a show that would make them stop flipping and HAVE to see what this show was about. He figured “If they’re gonna put us on late night, then let’s give them a late night show.” The problem, though, is that Dominick had no scruples. There’s even a clip where he says “If I could kill someone on live TV, I would kill someone on live TV.” The studio, the affiliates, and the decency groups hated the show, but the audience loved it. So, Dominick and his producers kept fueling the fire, taking things to higher and higher (or lower and lower?) levels of filth. The problem with this, however, is you eventually hit the limit of what you can get away with on television. So, the show peaked around 1999, at which point the studio and affiliates insisted on certain changes, such as toning down the violence, and cutting away from same-sex kisses.
I think what really hurts the documentary is that Jerry isn’t around to tell his side of things. From the perspective of the documentary, he was in the dark on anything untoward going on, and approached all of the guests as if they were real. Honestly, that’s the biggest suspension of disbelief: Dominick, as well as the two other former producers involved, insist that none of the guests were fake. The producers claim that Dominick would have fired them for making up stories, so instead they basically slept in the office, manning a hotline 24 hours a day. Prospective guests would call the hotline, laying out their story. The angle the doc takes, however, is that these were earnest people, who were hoping for a solution to their particular problem. In fact, the producers claim there’s something of a “Springer Triangle”, as most of the guests hailed from this one geographic range in the middle of the country. So, the former producers felt bad because they were basically taking advantage of these “real people”, with serious problems, who were under the guise that Jerry would help them mediate, as opposed to serving as the ringmaster for their battle royale.
It also didn’t help that none of the folks interviewed were there til the end of the show. One producer was fired in the early ’00s because some “fake” guests got by her. She said she should have known something was up, as they were from Boston, and not the fabled Triangle. She said City People didn’t call the show, and they clearly just wanted to be on TV. The other producer claims he walked away in disgust after he booked an incestuous father-daughter pair, where he arrived at their hotel to find they had just finished having sex. Meanwhile, Dominick claims he got tired of his hands being tied by higher-ups, and he walked away in 2008. Still, the show would continue to run for ANOTHER DECADE. The Jerry Springer Show produced new episodes through 2018, seemingly on autopilot, so it would have been interesting to hear from the folks from that era. It ends on the note that while Jerry’s political aspirations were derailed by the notoriety of the show, he simply loved being famous. So, while he may not have been a Bad Guy, he did allow his show to become what it became, and he benefitted from it. The final word is that you can blame Richard Dominick for the legacy of The Jerry Springer Show, but you can’t necessarily blame Richard Dominick for the legacy of Jerry Springer himself.
Yesterday, I unknowingly had an Ayo Day. You see, I watched two movies starring Ayo Edebiri, and now I want her to be my best friend. First up, I opened up Hulu to watch one thing, and ended up discovering something entirely different: Omni Loop, starring Edebiri and Mary-Louise Parker. I had actually heard of this movie, but it was one of those things I threw on a list and promptly forgot about. Anyway, I’m so glad I found it today, as I was in just the right headspace to appreciate it.
To put it simply, Omni Loop is “Science Groundhog Day“. In the film, Parker is a quantum physicist who is dying because she has a black hole growing in her chest. When the movie starts, we’re given her diagnosis, as she’s released to her husband and daughter, to spend her final days with them. What none of them realize, however, is that Parker has these mysterious pills that take her back to a fixed point in time. So, she has actually already lived these days, and knows that she has five days until she’s dead. While I’m sure there were science consultants on this film, it plays sort of loosey-goosey with the rules, so as to make it palatable to a regular audience. Apparently, Parker found the pills on a golf course behind her house, as a young girl. So, she has used them at various times throughout her life. And, since they’re made of constantly shifting reactions, she never runs out of them, as they seem to replenish themselves. During one of her loops, she runs into Edebiri, and discovers that she’s a researcher at a local college. So, they team up to figure out how the pills work. The problem, though, is that Parker has to take a pill every 5 days, meaning the timeline resets to her waking up in the hospital. This also means she has to constantly reintroduce herself to Edebiri, and assure her that she’s not a crazy person. So, together, the work on the pill mystery through we’re not told how many loops. We go on to discover that Edebiri has reasons of her own as to why she hopes they can master time travel.
It’s a beautiful film that’s not really about what it’s “supposed” to be about. I’m not in the best place lately, so I’ve been very existential about stuff. And these stories usually rub me the wrong way, because they tend to boil down to “Life has meaning, even if you never discover it.” Parker has spent her entire life thinking of herself as “not good enough”. She got good grades because she’d used the pills over her life. Everyone thought she had squandered her potential, while she feared she didn’t actually have potential, which had caused her to choose the “safe path” through life. So, it’s an exploration of “the path not taken”, as well as what a “life well lived” truly looks like. Everyone here does an amazing job, but I’ve always loved Parker, and I’ve come to love Edebiri. I love the bond they build over time and space, without it being treacly like a Nicholas Sparks novel. It also doesn’t necessarily wrap everything up neatly with a bow. In fact, looking back, some of the “loosey-goosey” might have been intentional, making some scenes more important than they initially seemed. I definitely recommend you check this one out.
To keep Ayo Day rolling, I finally watched Bottoms. It’s crazy that I initially wanted to watch this for Rachel Sennott – a woman who somehow looks hotter the less she cares to look hot – but finally watched it because of Ayo. Basically, a raunchy teen comedy, Sennott and Edebiri are the School Lesbians in something of a satirical American high school. They both have crushes on the hottest girls in school, but they don’t have a shot because everyone thinks they’re ugly losers. They’re the “bottoms” on the social ladder. After a chance encounter where they injure the head quarterback of the football team, along with a misunderstood sarcastic joke, a rumor spreads that they spent the summer in juvie. Since the school only cares about football, they’re about to be expelled when they use their juvie clout to say they’re starting an afterschool “self defense club”. Given neither girl has formal self defense training, they end up creating an all-out fight club. What began as a way to get close to hot cheerleaders turns into a student club that actually gives the girls purpose and confidence. Meanwhile, the football team is plotting to take down the club, as they feel it’s taking the school’s attention away from the upcoming big game with their rival.
A weird phenomenon for me these days is watching teen sex comedies as a 43-year old man. I mean, sure, these characters were all played by 25-28 year olds, posing as high school students, but this first struck me when I was watching Blockers, which starred actual teenagers. In fact, it probably goes as far back as watching Superbad. I mean, it was one thing watching Fast Times at Ridgemont High as a 10-year old, but now I’m on the other side of this thing, and I wonder if I’m supposed to feel like a creepy old man or not.
As I said before, I would have come for Sennott (she’s got that old “American Apparel model” vibe to her), but I’d have stayed for Edebiri, as she’s the member of the pair with actual personality. I mean, Sennott’s fine, but she spends most of the movie as a sarcastic bitch, and even when she “softens”, it’s not by much. The big thing, though, is I can’t remember the last time a movie pivoted thematically like this one did. Sure, it was satire, from making fun of the possible school shooter kid, to the girls throwing a “car wash” fundraiser where they actually sell used underwear to old men. However, the final act is downright farcical. It’s reminiscent of Anchorman, where you’re like “These guys are a trip”, but then the news team street fight happens, and you’re like “What the fuck am I watching?!” In the “final battle” here, people DIE! And it’s played the same way Anchorman did it, a la “I killed a guy with a trident!” Sure, it’s hilarious, but a bit uneven compared to how the movie started. It’s like watching Mean Girls, but it turns into The Faculty, but with laughs. Still highly recommended, though!
Video Store
Sabrina Carpenter – “Manchild”
I don’t know if I’ve ever talked about it on here, but I LOVE lil shorts. If I had a boat, I’d name it the “SS Lil Shorts”. And this video’s got that in spades! She has clearly NEVER skipped Leg Day, but we’re not here to talk about the video. No, Sabrina Carpenter released this song, “Manchild”, as the first single from her upcoming album Man’s Best Friend, due out August 29th. Now, when it comes to an artist’s new album, I like to see some sort of progression, or evolution, in their style. This, however, just sounds like a leftover track from the Short n’ Sweet sessions. That’s not a bad thing, but it might indicate she’s rushing out this new album, given that Man will be released a mere 372 days after the release of Short n’ Sweet. I figure she probably needs new material to tour on, but that doesn’t mean she’s got to rush out an entire album. The album cover is already sparking controversy, but she’s solidified her persona as someone who loves to both fuck AND be fucked, so it tracks.
Spaceballs…2? -1? The Next Generation?
I love how, in order to make its snarky point, this trailer ignores the fact that Spaceballs itself had an unwatched animated series that aired during the death throes of the G4 network. Yeah, the scroll makes a lot of astute observations, but folks are way more excited about this than they should be. This is why the bad guys keep winning! First off, the driving force behind this is Josh Gad, and YOU ALL HATE HIM! It’s probably because he comes off as such a Try Hard. Also, Brooks is doing the same thing Norman Lear did near the end, where he was just putting his name on a ton of stuff for a last swipe at modern-day relevance. And, the kicker: Brooks turns 99 this year. This movie is slated to come out in 2027. Now, I guess it means something that he wants this to be his last onscreen role, but I pretty much assure you it will be his last onscreen role.
Deadpool VR
This…was a choice. I mean, it’s clever, but I’m not sure it landed for its intended audience. On the surface, it was made just for me. Reynolds feels Neil Patrick Harris is stealing his signature role, so he decides to steal NPH’s signature role: Douglas “Doogie” Howser, M.D. Which works for anyone over the age of, say, 40. Otherwise, I’d argue folks don’t really think of NPH as “Doogie” anymore. I mean, I think of him as “That Gay Guy Who Loves Magic”, but that’s just me. And that doesn’t even bring How I Met Your Mother into the conversation. Also, I sorta feel like the addition of Robyn Lively ruins it, as I totally didn’t remember her as Doogie’s girlfriend, nor had I ever made the connection that she was Blake’s sister. Anyway, there’s a precedent for NPH replacing marquee Marvel characters in voiceover roles, as he also took over for Tobey Maguire in MTV’s CGI Spider-Man: The New Animated Series, that was supposed to be set after the first Raimi movie.
Scott Pilgrim EX
It would appear I wasn’t the only one with Scott Pilgrim on the brain last week! The franchise always had video game roots, and Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: The Game was pretty popular when it was originally released. When the license expired, it was delisted on all game sites until a remastered version was released in 2021. This particular take, however, is kinda interesting. At first, I’m like “Who is this for?”, given that the only villain that makes sense would be the Vegan Gang. Otherwise, there are no Demons, and few Robots in the universe. You’d almost think it was an entirely different game, with a Pilgrim skin applied to take advantage of the fanbase. Then, however, I read that it’s actually set after the events of the Scott Pilgrim Takes Off Netflix series, so I guess that interpretation would allow for some craziness like this. I’m definitely curious about the story beats, as I really enjoyed that series, but I’m not much of a gamer, so I’ll prolly just read a Wiki summary once someone beats it.
Will Around The Web
I took a look at some of the pop culture TV relics that were on the auction block for Channel Surfing: A Broadcast to Binge Auction.
Run The Numbers
I watched more than I read this week, so this segment is taking the week off!
Things You Might Have Missed This Week
- Mia Goth has been cast in the Ryan Gosling-starring Star Wars: Starfighter. Did y’all know that Goth is legally – and willingly – married to Shia LeBeouf? Crazy Shia?! It really does take all kinds…
- A few shows got some bad news this week, as Fox canceled Alert: Missing Persons Unit and The Cleaning Lady. Meanwhile, Étoile got “unrenewed” at Amazon – canceled after one season, despite its two-season order.
- Warner Bros Discovery is moving ahead with spinning off a portion of the company, and DC Comics is slated to reside under the new Streaming and Studios banner.
- Given we’re still awaiting the debut of Season 3, it seems somewhat premature that Paramount+ announced Star Trek: Strange New Worlds will end after an abbreviated 6-episode 5th season.
- Prime Video is developing Steven Universe: Lars of the Stars, which is a spinoff focused on the Steven Universe character Lars as he becomes a Star-Lordesque space outlaw.
- Elsewhere in animation, Adult Swim has renewed Smiling Friends for a 4th and 5th season.
- It was revealed that season 3 of The Last of Us will switch the focus to Kaitlyn Dever’s Abby character.
- Amazon is rebooting American Gladiators, which will be hosted by WWE’s Mike “The Miz” Mizanin and 106 & Park‘s Rocsi Diaz. The new crop of Gladiators will include professional wrestlers Rick Boogs, Wardlow, Mr. PEC-Tacular, The Ultimate Athlete: J-Rod, and Kamille. Is The Miz about to get released? ‘Cause there ain’t no WWE folks in that mix…
- Speaking of wrestling, former AEW star Mariah May made her WWE NXT debut, where she will go by “The Glamour” Blake Monroe. It also bears pointing out that this gimmick is just a pale imitation of AEW’s “Timeless” Toni Storm.
- It’s a bad week to be a Tron sequel-anticipating DC Talk fan, as 9 women have alleged sexual misconduct against Jared Leto, while Contemporary Christian Music star Michael Tait was accused of 3 instances of some unsanctioned…guy love.
- The BBC is reportedly looking for a production company to develop an animated non-canon Doctor Who cartoon aimed, at preschoolers (!), for the CBeebies kids channel.
- UK Famous Guy Robbie Williams reunited the boyband 5ive during one of his shows last week, marking the first time all 5 members have performed together in 25 years.
Ya know, I kinda wanted to acknowledge ABC journalist Terry Moran, who lost his job for “speaking Truth to Power” on social media. That said, I’m not the freedom fighter everyone claims they are online, and I really try to avoid the insanity of American politics when I can. So, Mr. Moran won’t be getting the West Week Ever, but I hope he lawyers up and lands somewhere even better.
No, I’m here to talk about cookies. I’m the furthest thing from a Foodie, and I make it quite known that I eat junk. I have the palette of a well educated raccoon. So, take my food recommendations with a grain of salt. That said, I was pleasantly surprised when I tried the limited edition Selena Gomez Oreos. I tend to ignore the “flash in the pan” Oreo gimmicks, as they never stick around, and they tend to end up as a source of quick money for resellers. Brock found these Oreos at Target one evening, only to return the next day and the shelves were cleaned out. Sadly, this is a thing that happens. I once saw a guy returning all of the Star Wars Oreos that he couldn’t sell to Walmart. Stacks piled high on the customer service desk. And the sad part is that Walmart’s policy didn’t allow them to put them back on the shelves, so all those packs had to be destroyed.
Anyway, I was in Target yesterday, and they had shelves full of the Gomez Oreos. Now, I don’t really have much of an affinity for her one way or another, but I have a 10 year old, and she likes to eat junk like Daddy, so I figured I’d grab them so we could try them. She was a bit hesitant, but I’ll admit I was pleasantly surprised by what I tasted. The Oreo website describes the collaboration as “flavorful, horchata-inspired sweet snacks featuring a layer of Chocolate and Cinnamon Flavor Creme atop another layer of Sweetened Condensed Milk Flavor Creme with Cinnamon Sugar Inclusions, sandwiched between two OREO Chocolate Cinnamon flavored wafer cookies and embossed with one of six unique designs”. Yeah, I don’t know about all that. I know nothing of horchata, and I didn’t look at the cookies long enough to notice any “unique designs”.
I’ll say that the standout of the cookies is the creme itself, where the cinnamon really pops. My favorite part of the cookie, though, is that it’s almost like a delicacy. By that, I mean that I can tear through some basic Oreos, but I only wanted to eat about 2 of these in a sitting. The creme seems more rich than standard Oreo filling, and a little went a long way. The same way you wouldn’t eat a filet mignon burger from Sonic, I wouldn’t chow down on these. You remember how we grew up thinking Viennetta was “Rich People Ice Cream”? Well, these are Rich People Oreos. You take your time, and savor each bite. So, I’m gonna have to say that Selena Gomez Oreos had the West Week Ever. You should definitely give them a try, if you can find them in your local store. If not, and you’re desperate to get some, then you might wanna check Facebook Marketplace.
