Betting Player One

Link to the audio version of this post is HERE

If you’ve been listening to my blog posts over the past couple of weeks, you know that in my sign-off, I reference the old saying about the difficulty of comedy.  And I’ve never quite kept it a secret that I’m something of a comedy snob.  Most sitcoms especially that get very popular are, at best, fast food comedy.  They quell the hunger in the moment, but the lasting feeling is one of dissatisfaction and usually a bit of bloat as well.  But there are good comedies out there.  In the past, I’ve sung the praises of shows like Going Dutch for being unexpectedly funny and well written (and the second season is even better than the first) and while shows like Abbott Elementary and St. Denis Medical aren’t having their best seasons at the moment, they’re both still really good sitcoms.  Even the reality/prank/improv/sitcom hybrid Company Retreat delivers great laughs along the way.  There are others that get regular chuckles but are literally nothing worth writing about (I’m looking at you, Animal Control; you’re not bad, but we both know you can be better).  But when I took a look at Peacock’s preview episode of The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins, I found myself uncomfortably hopeful that there’d be a great new sitcom on TV.

After all, Peacock has burned me before like this.  Killing It had me laughing all through the pilot and then not again for the entire two season run.  So I waited, patiently and cautiously, and after four episodes or so, I tentatively said to someone “I think Reggie Dinkins might be really good”.  And this is where I am now after having watched the first season twice.  Let’s get into it.

The titular Reggie Dinkins is played by comedy legend Tracy Morgan (SNL, 30 Rock).  He’s been a little hit and miss as a headliner, but there’s a reason he’s still a household name.  Over many years of doing comedy, he’s really mastered his comedic timing.  If you ask me, he’s one of the funniest and most endearingly off the wall former SNL cast members.  Reggie is a former New York Jets player who has earned all the plaudits through his career, including several MVP awards.  He accomplished just about everything you can accomplish in the NFL, but he has never received even one vote for the Hall of Fame, which is his life’s greatest ambition.  Why?  Like Pete Rose, he was caught up in a sports betting scandal (from a time when you couldn’t do sports betting on your phone from your bathroom), but I won’t spoil just exactly it was that he was betting on.  So he’s been banned for life.  But he wants in.  He hires Arthur Tobin, a documentary filmmaker, to make a movie about him that Reggie hopes will change the public’s opinion.  Tobin, played by Daniel Radcliffe (Miracle Workers, Now You See Me 2), quietly failed his biggest break.  After winning an Oscar for one of his documentaries, he was hired on to the biggest project of his life and washed out.  So a disgraced footballer and an embarrassed filmmaker team up to redeem each other, in a way.

Morgan and Radcliffe may be the backbone and heart of this show, but there isn’t a single person in the supporting cast that doesn’t shine.  Reggie’s ex-wife and current manager Monica Reese-Dinkins, played by Erika Alexander (Living Single, Get Out), is the one with her head on her shoulders.  Reggie played ball, Monica made it a career and keeps him in a mansion years after he was banned.  Bobby Moynihan (SNL, Hoppers) plays Rusty Boyd, former Jets kicker and Reggie’s best friend who lives in his basement and manages his socials, among other things.  Rusty is the kind of character who could easily be overused, but he’s so lovably goofy and good-natured that the amount that we get him leaves us wanting more rather than growing weary.  Reggie and Monica’s son Carmello is played by relative newcomer Jalyn Hall (Space Jam: A New Legacy, All American) and he injects just the right amount of youthful cynicism and self-awareness to the family unit.  The final member of the family is Brina, played by Precious Way (Days of Our Lives, Heist 88), Reggie’s young fiancée, who is an aspiring singer, rapper, and content creator.  Even recurrings like Ronny Chieng, Craig Robinson, Heidi Gardner, and Megan Thee Stallion are perfectly cast.    

Brina is one of the most refreshing surprises in a show that’s full of them.  She easily could have been stereotyped as a ditzy gold-digger whose function in the show is to stoke conflict between her and Monica or Reggie and Monica, but how her character is handled is one of the most adept parts of this show’s writing.  Instead of pitting Monica and Brina against each other, they’re incredibly supportive of each other (with some bumps in the road, of course) and instead of being after Reggie’s money, she has genuine affection for him and is fully capable of standing on her own two feet.  She’s smart and savvy and really quite funny.  Rusty cracks me up in every frame; there are sometimes characters that just get peppered into a show or movie that hit every time. Tariq in Abbott Elementary, Barry Zuckerkorn in Arrested Development, and now Rusty in Reggie Dinkins.  And Tracy Morgan, just wow.  I don’t know how much of it is the sharpness of the writing or his delivery, but the marriage of the two is excellent.  The writing is deceptively intelligent, weaving great setups and punchlines that all make sense.  The show knows the subtle difference between an unexpected punchline to a joke and a nonsensical non-sequitur that masquerades as a punchline.  Look, I warned you that I was a comedy snob at the top, I’m not apologizing now.

Daniel Radcliffe is a revelation as documentarian Arthur Tobin.  I did not know that Radcliffe was this funny.  I watched the first season of Miracle Workers and while it was pleasant enough (and featured the best explanation of what cows are in all of recorded history), I bounced out at the second season.  But Tobin delivers just as many laughs Reggie does; talk about miracle work, standing on the same ground as Tracy Morgan and holding your own.  I really need to see his performance in Weird: The Al Yankovic Story now.

Talking about comedy is always difficult because me trying to explain to you why I think this show is so funny would be boring for me and for you, and it would ruin any gag that I’m trying to explain when you go to watch this show after reading this.  But I laugh more at this show than any other right now, including Going Dutch, which I would have called the funniest sitcom on TV this season before I saw Reggie Dinkins.  I laugh more at just about any cold open of Reggie Dinkins than I have at full seasons of Animal Control and I like Animal Control.  It’s pleasant enough.  But this show is just really, really funny.  It’s smartly written too, which is why despite being parodic in some ways (Reggie’s biggest rival on and off the field is Craig Robinson’s Jerry Basmati), it never feels locked down into predictable patterns.  This may not have the layered narrative jokes that something like Arrested Development had in its heyday, but it’s so sharp.  There are cutaway jokes, but they never last longer than a few seconds and never overstay their welcome.  And there are so many little moments that cut deep if you notice them, but you can easily miss them if you’re not paying attention.  When Reggie finds out that a local business has taken his portrait off the wall, the remaining pictures include the likes of Diddy, Kevin Spacey, Matt Lauer, and Harvey Weinstein; a cutting commentary on what American society considers a dealbreaker, but it’s a blink-and-you-miss-it kind of moment.

Like many other ensemble comedies that I’ve loved over the years, like Parks & Rec, Community, The Good Place, and Brooklyn 99, it’s an incredibly positive and welcoming show that proves over and over again that comedy is alive and well and can be absolutely riotous without resorting to easy jokes and punching down.  I cannot wait for more of this.  Normally, even when I really love a piece of media, I will be honest about its flaws.  I will find something to criticize because nothing is perfect and I don’t want to be blinded by enthusiasm to the point of becoming a fanboy who irrationally defends (or these days, irrationally criticizes) something just because I love it.  Right?  It’s the 2 Fast 2 Furious thing that I keep bringing up.  I really enjoy that movie and I have such a soft spot for it.  But I’m not going to pretend it’s Sinners.  But trying to find something I don’t like about Reggie Dinkins has been an exercise in futility because I just can’t.  I can’t promise that you’ll like this show as much as I do, but it absolutely has its hooks in me.  It has that particular resonance, similar to One Piece or Truth Seekers, that just finds a little place in my brain and sets up shop.  From the good-natured and supportive characters to the quick, pithy, agile writing, it feels like this show has been made for me.  But maybe it’s been made for you too.

Reggie Dinkins hasn’t been renewed for a second season yet, so in a way, this post is kind of a plea from me.  As any fan of Firefly or Terriers or Lodge 49 or The Sarah Connor Chronicles or No Tomorrow or A.P. Bio (yes, I was a fan of all of them) knows, falling for a show and then having it cancelled too soon is not fun.  But maybe after this, you’ll hop on Peacock and watch it.  And then tell your friends about it (and my blog, feel free to share this with anyone) and then they go watch it and tell their coworkers and then before we know it, The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins gets six seasons and a movie.  And if it stays this good, then it will deserve it.  It’s the kind of show that’s for anyone who is looking for a wholesome, heartfelt redemption tale that’s filled with laughs.  It feels like the kind of thing we need right about now.  I’m going to try and give it a week before I watch it a third time.

The Prank Job

Link to the audio version of this post is HERE

The Jury Duty crew is back at it again with Company Retreat

Meet Anthony Norman.  He’s just started a new job at a small hot sauce company as a temp.  Hired on to assist the HR director in his duties during the company’s annual retreat.  The company, Rockin’ Grandma’s Hot Sauce, is a small family-owned business on the verge of a generational transition as the founder and CEO is preparing to retire and hand the company off to his son, Dougie Jr.  You probably haven’t heard of Rockin’ Grandma’s Hot Sauce and if you look up Anthony Norman on IMDB, you won’t find a very long filmography.  Because Rockin’ Grandma’s doesn’t exist.  And Anthony Norman doesn’t exist either.  He’s a ghost.  Kidding, of course; he’s a regular guy, not an actor; unlike everyone he will interact with over the course of this company retreat.   

When Prime Video’s Jury Duty rolled around in 2023, I was skeptical.  It seemed like a setup for the kind of cruel joke at someone’s expense who, when put into a situation where they’re at a complete disadvantage, is made to look silly.  But that ended up not at all what happened in that show.  And now, in Jury Duty Presents: Company Retreat, the team has managed to take what I thought was a singularly magical season of television, change it completely, and yet deliver that magic once again.  Let’s get into it.

Trustfalls with coworkers, I can’t imagine anything I’d be worse at doing

Jury Duty and subsequently Company Retreat are basically a marriage of a prank show, an improv show, and one of those shows they used to do where they put people in extreme public situations then stop them and shame them for not intervening.  Which I get why they did that, but at the same time, you’re going up to a random person and asking them why they didn’t step into a situation with no regard for where they are in that particular moment.  Seemed like an odd lack of empathy in the shaming of people for lacking empathy.  For the most part, walking people into orchestrated scenarios in which everyone has more knowledge of what that person is getting into than they do leads to someone being made into a fool, especially when TV cameras are involved.  So I was a little worried that this show would be serving up laughs at the expense of its patsy who has no clue that they’re in The Truman Show.

Like father, like son. Same height, same hair, same everything really. Hard to believe they’re just actors

But I am very glad to report that is not the case.  Pretty much everything I’m going to say in this paragraph applies to both seasons.  The goal here isn’t to humiliate anyone, least of all Anthony.  I’ve seen some articles online describe him as a “prank victim” and I think that’s profoundly missing the point.  In the show’s scripts, he’s named simply as “Hero”.  He’s put in ridiculous situations, one after another but he’s never made to be the butt of the joke.  And when all is said and done, if everything goes to plan and Anthony is the kind of person the showrunners think he is, then he really will have been heroic.  Does that sound like a victim to you?  Because it doesn’t to me.  The show is about his reactions and his approach to people.  The patience and genuineness of Anthony (and Ronald Gladden in Jury Duty) is what makes Company Retreat such a delight.

Poirot gathers the suspects in the parlor to reveal who farted and why

The cast here is excellent.  Compared to this season, Jury Duty was a star-studded affair, with Sonic’s Dad Cyclops and Sewage Joe being regulars (and Mekki Leeper, who went on to star in St. Denis Medical) There isn’t a name among them that you’d know (although I did recognize a face or two among the guest actors), but they were tasked with convincingly playing a group of coworkers from a small family business who have known each other for up to 20 years.  And they didn’t put a foot wrong; if it weren’t at the top of every episode that they were all actors, I could see someone forgetting the premise of the show because they were so real.  Of course the situations they get into are quite fantastical, but if one or two of those things happened on a real company retreat, you wouldn’t be surprised.  Not after the company picnics I’ve been to.  They play roles, and they play them very well.  The retiring CEO and founder, ready to pass the torch.  The prodigal son and heir apparent.  The hard-working and overlooked woman who probably should be the one who takes over when Doug Sr. retires.  The veteran who has been there from the start and is near the end of her own career.  The receptionist who has one very specific obsession.  The overeager reformed walking HR violation determined to prove he’s not that guy anymore.  And so on.  Yes, in a way they’re stock characters, but they’re those stock characters for a reason.  I saw several of my old coworkers in these actors.  They’re more than realistic enough.  But as fantastic as they were, the show isn’t about them.  It’s about Anthony.  All the great acting, the hidden crew, the visible crew (some cameras are known to Anthony as part of a fake documentary being made about Rockin’ Grandma’s), the weaving of storylines where you only hope your protagonist does what you want all amount to nothing if Anthony isn’t the kind of person that he is.

I don’t think this is the kind of human furniture they were talking about in Succession

Anthony Norman is a 25 year old Nashville native who dreams about one day building something that he can hand down to his son, the way Doug Sr. is handing the reins over to Dougie Jr.  That’s kind of all you know about him going in.  He’s just a guy who needs a job and this temp listing came up.  On his first day, Anthony is there for a coworker’s 40th birthday party and he sang full throated for her.  I don’t even sing happy birthday like that for people I know and care about.  The strength of this show is Anthony; he’s such a good guy.  He makes friends with everyone instantly; yes, of course the point of this show is to stress test him socially, but the actors, while having a script, are meant to improv and play off Anthony.  He could have been anything.  He could have been cold, reserved, standoffish, mean (though unlikely they’d bring him on to the show in the first place if he were mean), but he never is.  I spent last week praising the kindness of Monkey D. Luffy and the Straw Hats, but that’s fiction.  Obviously, of course, it’s important to see things that like in fiction.  That kind of openness and empathy.  In an increasingly dark world where division is the default and hate is so readily encouraged, seeing this kindness in a real person in the real world, albeit someone chosen out of a huge pool of possibilities and surrounded by actors creating what is really only a simulacrum of the real world is moving.  His actions are being guided or at the very least, gently nudged by an invisible hand, but every step of the way, Anthony had choice.  And every time, and I say this with no exaggeration, he makes the choice to accept people, to help people, to be positive, and to encourage those around him.

Now that Happy Birthday is in the public domain, I think we should sing it more often. Why can’t you sing it on Thanksgiving? Paint “no rules” on the water tower!

Whenever someone embarrasses themselves in front of Anthony, he is the first to cheer them up or play it down.  Thrust into a leadership role almost immediately, Anthony pivots and adapts and makes it his goal to ensure that everyone has a good time, feels comfortable, and bonds with him and each other.  He doesn’t throw his hands up and say anything’s not his problem.  He forms real connections with his new coworkers right away and maintains them in such a positive manner.  In eight episodes, I cannot recall a single moment where he was even passive aggressive.  Where he even rolled his eyes.  I understand there’s editing, but this man doesn’t even have a dismissive or mean reaction to anything.  I’m not that good of a person.  On my best day, I couldn’t imagine being that good of a person.  I don’t say mean things to people, at least I try not to, I’m human and fallible as anyone else.  But they still pop into my head sometimes and my poker face is a little out of practice since the pandemic, so yeah, I roll my eyes or make a face sometimes.  Anthony doesn’t.  And he’s a real person.  I can’t stress this enough because I can scarcely believe it myself.  This is a person, a man who walks around everyday being that genuine and kind to people.  He’s not a superhero.  I’m almost certain he’s not Spider-Man, I didn’t see him stick to a single wall or ceiling.  He’s not one out of a fantastic foursome.  He’s never given me so much as an inkling that he does any avenging in his free time.  He’s just some guy who was looking for a job.  I didn’t know that people could be this kind.  It’s one thing to write a character who is good, who is the embodiment of good ideals and an inclusive morality and can pull down a helicopter that’s taking off, but it’s a completely different thing to live it.  To be fair, though, I didn’t see him interact with any helicopters, so I don’t know for sure that he can’t stop one from taking off.

After the first season left me both laughing so hard that my face hurt and moved to tears by the end of it, I thought it was lightning in a bottle.  A feat that could never be replicated.  Because there couldn’t be another person like Ronald.  Statistically, what are the chances that there are two good people left in the world?  This world?  The one I’ve been living in?  Pretty damn low when I look around and every time I aimlessly open Twitter to doomscroll, those chances feel slimmer and slimmer.  But Company Retreat proves that Jury Duty wasn’t lighting in a bottle.  It proves that Ronald Gladden isn’t the only good person in the world.  And if Anthony Norman is that good, maybe there are others, as unlikely as that seems.  This is a show that is joyful, kind, empathetic, and genuinely gave me hope for the world.  I’m not dancing in the streets quite yet, but it raised the needle.  So no, it’s not lightning in a bottle.  This show is hope in a can.  Well, not a can.  A streaming platform owned by a billionaire who parties with Sydney Sweeney and has permeated every part of our lives with a company he once wanted to call Relentless before settling on Amazon.  Look, I didn’t make the world.  You get what you can get.  But if we all acted a bit more like Anthony, maybe the thing we get could be a better world.  Company Retreat is 8 half hour episodes with two bonus episodes and if you haven’t seen Jury Duty yet, that’s another 8 half hour episodes for you to enjoy as well.  Both seasons stream on Prime Video.

An altogether joyous and life-affirming experience, Company Retreat is not to be missed

Das Fruit

Link to the audio version is HERE

It’s hard caring about things these days because, well, when you look around, to say that we’re surrounded by disappointment would be in contention for understatement of the year.  So let’s narrow focus to TV shows.  It’s hard caring about TV shows.  It probably comes as no surprise that I don’t really rate 22-episode network dramas pretty much across the board.  I can’t remember the last time a network drama really grabbed me, maybe not since Lost had me rushing home from class or the office to catch the latest episode in the era of appointment television.  Now when I see a drama with more than a 10 episode season, I’m immensely skeptical of pacing and filler.  Of course, these short season prestige/streamer dramas come with their own problems, namely often years in between seasons. To the point now that when a show has seasons in consecutive years, it feels like a welcomed surprise.  I feel for Wednesday fans who watched the show when it first aired and had to wait three years for half a season worth of story.  So when I fell in love with the first season of One Piece, it came with a measure of hesitation.  Yes, I could watch the anime, which I think has something around 17 trillion episodes, or read the manga, but that’s not the same.  The live action was my first experience of One Piece and it’s the one I want to continue with until I can take it no further, and once that’s run its course, I will hop on the anime and ride that particular wave.  But I fell in love back in 2023.  What started as unbridled excitement at seeing something that was unlike anything I’d ever seen before turned tentative and then turned into trepidation as years passed.  And when season two finally dropped on Netflix, I both really wanted to watch it and was really anticipating disappointment.  Let’s get into season two of One Piece.

If Luffy wants to go to a place, you can bet there’s food there

Very briefly, One Piece is a live action Netflix adaptation of one of, if not the longest running and most popular anime and manga series of the same name, that tells the story of Monkey D. Luffy (rhymes with goofy) and his Straw Hat Pirates as they navigate the seas in search of the One Piece, the legendary stash of legendary pirate Gold Roger, who legendarily was publicly executed as he announced the existence of this cache.  Luffy wants to find the One Piece and become king of the pirates (I’m still fuzzy on what it means to be the sovereign of a notoriously ungovernable group of people, but he’s so enthusiastic that I just roll with it).  There are more episodes of One Piece the anime than there are of all the NCISs combined, which is a significant number, ask any empty nester dad who hasn’t locked on to Yellowstone.  Which does make waiting three years for 8 episodes feel particularly slap-in-the-facey, but all is forgiven if those episodes are worth the wait.

And, dear readers, it was absolutely worth the wait.  After the epic battle at the end of the first season, the Straw Hats are off to the Grand Line, a strange and marvelous place even by One Piece standards, which includes a man who ate a fruit once and it turned him into a stretchy rubber boy and a clown that can be infinitely dismembered because he too ate a similar Devil Fruit.  Things get even weirder in the Grand Line, and I am here for it.  I compared the vibe of the first season to Ted Lasso when it came out and while that wholesomeness is still there with Luffy and his crew, something even more wonderful has evolved in the show.  It’s Ted Lasso meets Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency, a short lived, but brilliant series based on the Douglas Adams novels.  Everything this season is stranger, more vibrant, and bigger.  And I don’t just mean the giants.  And I don’t mean in a lazy way either, because a lot of sequels or continuations can make the mistake of doing the same thing as their predecessors, but just more of it.  That’s not the case here.  The stakes are bigger, the stories are bigger, and they’re also much more personal, deeper, and richer than the first season.

To this day, I’ve wondered why they don’t put seatbelts on pirate ships

The whole crew returns, of course; Iñaki Godoy as Luffy, Emily Rudd as Nami, Mackenyu as Roronoa Zoro, Taz Skylar as Sanji, and Jacob Romero as Usopp.  We even get to see Jeff Ward as Buggy the Clown again, which, unless you hate clowns, is always a fun time.  But now we also get to know Julia Rehwald (Fear Street trilogy) as Tashigi, a sword-obsessed Marine who wants to find all the 21 Great Grade Blades and take them out of unworthy hands.  Unfortunately for Zoro, she recognizes the Wado Ichimonji right away and since Zoro is a bounty-hunter-turned-pirate, she doesn’t see him fit to carry it, as it’s one of those blades.  We also meet Callum Kerr (Hollyoaks, The Wheel of Time) as Captain Smoker, her Marine commander who smokes two cigars at a time, carries a sword capable of killing someone who’s eaten a Devil Fruit (like Luffy), and owns an amphibious motorcycle.  And our Marines Garp (Vincent Regan), Koby (Morgan Davies), Helmeppo (Aidan Scott) and Helmeppo’s haircut are back too.  But as much as Marines and other pirates played the main antagonists in the previous season, the Straw Hats will face all new challenges once they depart the East Blue and hit the Grand Line.

Koby and Helmeppo (haircut, right) meet Tashigi. Marine dress code is pretty loose around here

Those challenges often come in the form of Baroque Works, which we were introduced to early on in season one, when Mr. 7 tried to recruit Zoro for their organization.  7 ended up divided in two and I’m not so sure they appreciated that.  While the mysterious Mr. Zero is their leader, the one you’re most likely to see is Miss All Sunday, played by Lera Abova (Honey Don’t, Anna), a particularly dangerous killer with powers of her own.  We also get to know two Baroque Works agents pretty well; Jazzara Jaslyn as Miss Valentine, with her Emma Peel aesthetic, and Camrus Johnson as Mr. 5, her partner.  And then there’s the enigmatic Miss Wednesday, played by Charithra Chandran (Bridgerton, Dune: Prophecy).  I’m not entirely sure what to call Baroque Works; they’re more than just a band of assassins and they’re certainly not pirates, but they are extremely dangerous nonetheless.  They’re more of a mercenary intelligence agency which uses its agents to kidnap, attack, destabilize, and yes, murder for whomever is paying them to do it.  They are deadly, merciless, mysterious, and highly effective.  I can’t say I’d want to go against them, but then again, I’ve been in a silent feud with the elevators in my building, so I might not be cut out for the pirate life, to be honest.

But it’s more than just villains they meet along the way.  When you travel down unknown paths, you encounter things you’ve never experience before.  And in One Piece, you never really know what to expect next.  One minute you could be shopping on a lovely day, then you could be ambushed by pirates, and then you might end the day by doing your best reenactment of "The Mariner’s Revenge Song" by The Decemberists.  And that’s just the start of it.  Sure, if you’ve seen the anime, none of this will be new to you, but it was new to me, and I loved every moment of it.  It was so lovely to be surprised at every turn.  Not just by where the story takes you, but by the world itself.  The strange delights never cease in the Grand Line and if you were worried about One Piece becoming too mainstream when translated to live action, while I can’t promise it’s as wild as the anime, it’s plenty out there.  Using giant snails as telephones was just the beginning.  Things will only get weirder from here.  And more delightful.

And now I can stop wondering if I can pull off a red leather jacket, dark sunglasses, and shorts. Even if I could, I couldn’t do it as well as Mr. 5.

And that’s one of this show’s biggest strengths.  It’s wonderful.  And I mean that in the most literal sense.  This is a show that wears its whole heart on its sleeve and has no shame about it.  They are not jaded, they do not look at the fantastic and unbelievable and shrug; rather, it’s as wondrous to them as it is to the viewer.  It’s a world full of incredible phenomena that these characters get to experience and take us with them.  I’m impressed from scene to scene at how this show is able to convey wonder without it feeling like it’s being sold to us.  Yes, Luffy is the same childlike, boisterous, naive pirate-who-doesn’t-seem-quite-sure-what-pirates-do as he always was.  But at every turn, the show rewards us with joyful experiences that we and they get to have together.  There’s a lot to admire about each of the Straw Hats; Luffy’s dedication to his crew and his goal, as well as the openness with which he approaches the world, Zoro’s quest to become the world’s greatest swordsman despite the setbacks faced in the first season, Usopp’s journey to find the courage to turn his fabricated stories into real ones, Nami’s freedom to pursue her dreams, and you don’t watch as much Top Chef as I have without recognizing how much Sanji pours himself into each and every dish, cooking being his one thing.  And we get to find out why, which, well, let’s just say Sanji went from probably my least favorite Straw Hat to vying for top spot after this season.

Sanji is out of the kitchen and very alarmed about it

Sanji wasn’t even the only one who pierced me right in the heart, like one of Zoro’s three swords.  Don’t get me wrong, I liked Sanji in the first season, his lecherous advances aside, but I never thought I’d connect with him in a way that would make me cry, but there it happened.  He wasn’t the only one, either.  Whether you’re familiar or not, I will just say this: Laboon and Tony Tony Chopper.  If those two didn’t remind me that there’s still something beating in this seemingly hollow cavern between my ribs, nothing will.   The depth of this series is astounding, really.  The ability for it to evoke such strong emotions in a world that is so objectively silly I couldn’t explain it to someone with a straight face.  This is a world where a man blows explosive snot rockets, a woman is perpetually slippery, and a woodland creature can become a scientist.  Where the ocean flows up a mountain, your compass is useless, and your teeth is as good a place as any to hold a sword.  But it’s all so beautiful.  I don’t know about the One Piece, I don’t know if it exists, I don’t know if Luffy will ever find it, but I do know that One Piece is about the journey and the bonds formed as you wander.  And goodness that is beautiful.

BOOP

I mean, don’t you want to?

The Straw Hats will make new friends and new enemies, they will face their greatest fears, they will have to stand together and find courage in places where none ever seems to be found.  And they do.  Because no matter how much they may snipe at each other and get on each other’s nerves at times, they are more than just a crew.  I won’t say it, because I’m not Dominic Toretto, but you know what I mean.  And perhaps at the end of the day, that’s what’s most wondrous and inspirational about this show.  I’ve said before that in times like these, times when things are complicated, scary, and merely existing is dangerous, I love to see media about good people doing good things.  Don’t let the pirate moniker fool you; the Straw Hats are pirates the way the A-Team are criminals.  They may exist out of societal rules, but they go around helping people.  They can’t walk away from people in need.  And I think that’s a pretty rad thing to be putting out there right now.

I never thought I’d like or, ultimately, need One Piece the way I’ve come to, but Luffy and his Straw Hats bring a level of kindness to their world that I’d love to see in ours.  I just hope we don’t have to wait three more years for the next installment, because the way things are going, we’re going to need a whole hell of a lot more of stuff like this as the clock continues to tick.  Streaming exclusively on Netflix, One Piece is 8 episodes averaging about an hour each and I doubt you will be surprised to hear that I recommend it wholeheartedly for anyone.  If you haven’t seen any of it, of course start with the first season, my post about it is linked above and here.  For fans of the anime, I hope this does the show that you love justice, because I love this and when the live action is done, I’ll take on the thousand episode beast.  But I couldn’t spoil any of this for myself; what I’ve been able to see here is too special.  I’ve been light on details and if you read this and then watch the show as I hope you do, you might notice that I’ve even been deceptive in how I frame certain things.  Because I want you to experience One Piece as I have, the way the Straw Hats experience the Grand Line; with eyes open and full of wonder, not knowing what’s coming next.

We ain’t got friends, we got a crew

Fumble in the Jungle

Bad movies can find a special place in your heart.  I know this is a weird thing to hear from someone who is so objectively snobby about films and TV, but it’s true.  And I’ve never hidden when I enjoy or even come to love bad movies.  2 Fast 2 Furious, Point Break, Congo, Lake Placid, Gone in 60 Seconds, etc,; these are the kinds of movies that become cult classics because of how they make you feel rather than how well they’re made.  Whether a movie is good or not doesn't always have that much of a bearing on whether you like it or not.  Sometimes it’s the subject matter, sometimes it’s someone in the cast, sometimes it’s just the vibe; how or why you like something doesn’t really matter.  As long as you like it, that’s enough.  Most of the time, anyway.  So when some friends are in a rut and they want to reboot their favorite movie from when they were kids, it’s not that strange that the movie is Anaconda, the 1997 campy creature feature starring Jennifer Lopez, Ice Cube, Jon Voight, and Jon Voight’s accent.  In this case, it takes the form of 2025’s reimagining/soft reboot/spiritual sequel Anaconda, a meta-horror-action-comedy.  There’s no way they’re trying to do too much in one 99 minute PG-13 movie, let’s get into it.

Welcome to the jungle. It just looks like a bank in Buffalo.

We start with Ana, played by Daniela Melchior (The Suicide Squad), in the jungle being pursued by armed gunmen.  When the action is over, a giant snake eats someone.  Yup, we’re in an Anaconda movie now.  So let’s head over to the exotic location of Buffalo, NY, where Doug McCallister, played by Jack Black (A Minecraft Movie, Be Kind Rewind), lives life as a wedding videographer with delusions of grandeur but who is otherwise very stuck.  Don’t worry, we’re getting back to the jungle.  So over in LA, Ronald “Griff” Griffin Jr., played by Paul Rudd (Role Models, Ant-Man) is getting fired from a gig as an extra after a rough career as an actor.  Time for the jungle.  So he, along with childhood friends Claire Simons (Thandiwe Newton) and Kenny Trent (Steve Zahn) manage to come together and surprise Doug for his birthday back in Buffalo.  While out, Griff drops that he now owns the rights to their favorite movie, Anaconda, and he wants to film it guerrilla-style in the jungle with all of them, just like they did when they were kids.  Obvious deception complete, they head down to the Amazon.

Our characters making a bad Anaconda remake while making a bad Anaconda remake. So meta.

And from there, the movie happens.  And I mean that; the movie just seems to happen.  There’s very little story from scene to scene, with random moments of attempted comedy or an attempted serpentine jump scare.  There’s no one to root for, there’s no one to like, there’s no real conflict until far too late into the movie, and when it comes down to it, the movie doesn’t have any idea what it’s about or who the antagonist is.  I heard that on the set of Jurassic Park, Stephen Spielberg banned the word “monster” from being used to describe the dinosaurs.  They were not the villains, they were not evil, they were not monsters.  They were nature.  Animals doing animal things.  It was a rule from which franchise has strayed and suffered for it (though not financially, I should note). 

In Anaconda, the snake does seem to be pretty evil for no reason, but true villain is the writing.  One second there’s a big twist and then in that very scene, the twist is rendered meaningless.  Calling it a B-plot is elevating it way above it status.  It was just stuff that happened.  The attempt to go meta and call out the lack of creativity in Hollywood right now is endearing, I suppose, but it points out how devoid of any originality Anaconda is.  I mean, a meta action-comedy about a film crew in the jungle where things go horribly wrong due to unforeseen circumstances that cause them to band together for survival has been done before.  And better.  And by Jack Black already.  They called it Tropic Thunder back then and it was an actually brilliant comedy that told a meta story and was interesting and funny from moment to moment.  There was also a movie about a group of people who go into the jungle on a boat and run into an unexpected creature that they have to capture on film as humanity and nature clash in a place where nature has the upper hand.  It was called King Kong and Jack Black was in that too!  There was nothing wrong with any of the acting here.  Paul Rudd is his usual charming self; much like my affinity for Keanu Reeves, I’m a big Paul Rudd fan and I want to go give all his movies a chance.  Jack Black is at his most palatable for me; not the over the top hallucination he was in Minecraft, but not quite as tamped down as he was in The Big Year.  Pretty good sweet spot for him.  Steve Zahn is always reliable.  And Thandiwe Newton is incredibly talented, so this was not a stretch for her.  You can tell when they’re acting as their characters in the movie and you can tell when they’re intentionally acting poorly when they’re doing their film.  As many problems as this movie has, acting is not one of them.

A will they/won’t they for the ages. Eat it, Ross and Rachel.

The biggest issue that Anaconda has is that it attempted to be so many things.  It wanted to be meta, but it came off as lazy.  In a moment that had me rewinding and putting the subtitles on, I saw that Steve Zahn’s character was called Kenny Trent and then Thandiwe Newton’s character said she divorced her husband who is also called Trent.  Now, first name versus last name and it has zero bearing on anything story-related other than to open the default romance option of Paul Rudd, but there are about a dozen named characters in this movie and the name Trent comes up twice?  They couldn’t think of any other names?  It wanted to tap into horror, but there was never any suspense or dread.  Even horror-comedies have to deliver on the horror, and this didn’t.  It wanted to have big action sequences, but they look terrible due in large part to the big CGI snake they’re running from.  It looked and felt like a movie that was being described to the actors as they had to film the scene on the spot.  It wanted to be a comedy, but it failed to deliver consistently on the laughs.  There are a few chuckles here and there, but it couldn’t ever make me feel like I was having a good time.  And worst of all, it wanted to say something and it missed the mark completely by not committing.  Every small moment of humanity falls flat because the story doesn’t emphasize any aspect of itself.  It gives you tonal whiplash as a result.  This should have been a film about a group of friends rediscovering the joy of life after getting back to the things they loved.  And the adversities they faced along the way, including giant snake shaped ones.  But they wanted to play inside baseball and poke fun at the creative process without the chops to back it up.

Hammond and Grant look over at the destruction at Jurassic Park and wonder if life truly will find a way

Look, I know this process well enough and it matters to me enough to know that caring this much is at least a little silly.  And I don’t mind having that poked fun at.  At the end of the day, most hobbies and interests are at least a little silly.  But a lot of life is lived those silly moments; I wouldn’t trade it.  That’s why we roast our friends or play the dozens; we keep each other in check.  But a joke is only funny if the joke is actually funny.  There’s more to a joke than a setup and punchline, there’s an internal logic to the joke that leads to an unexpected, but earned subversion of expectation that results in a physical response.  In this case, a laugh.  I’m guilty of holding comedy to an incredibly high standard because in many ways I think it can be the truest form of audiovisual literature.  I also think there’s something noble about setting out to make people laugh and bring joy to them by giving of yourself.  Anaconda didn’t do that.  I wanted it to.  I didn’t take notes the first time I watched this movie because I hoped that it would either be so unexpectedly funny that I wanted to be immersed in the moment or that it would be so mediocre that I wouldn’t have anything to say about it.  But it ended up that special kind of mediocre that still somehow got my attention.  Because I wanted to like this.  I wanted the critics to be wrong (47% RT at time of publication) and they just weren’t.  Not this time.  Watch it win Best Picture.

Traffic jams, am I right?

Anaconda is streaming on Netflix, but there are better movies to watch with your time.  Even if you want to stay in the family friendly realm, the Jumanji movies are funnier, more smartly written, and have better action sequences.  And Jack Black is in those too!  He ends up in the jungle almost as often as Dwayne Johnson.  Or go watch the original Anaconda, it’s also bad, but in a better way.  There are remakes of bad movies that make them better or make them different.  Ocean’s 11 immediately springs to mind.  So does The Thing, which was so much better than the 1951 movie on which it was based that most people are surprised to find out it’s a remake.  2012’s Dredd with Karl Urban leaves Judge Dredd in the dust.  You don’t have to do a bad remake just because you started with a bad film.  But this time they did.  I mean, Jungle Cruise was better.  Look at the words this movie is making me say.  I just had to say that Jungle Cruise was better than something.  What a day.

Paul Rudd searches for a cohesive narrative and some decent jokes. They’re in a jungle, but it’s a comedy desert.