Emmy Category Review: Guest Actor in a Comedy

By Juan Carlos Ojano

Three men from Saturday Night Live, a “regular” guest actor in a Comedy Series frontrunner, a lead in an anthology series episode, and a comedy veteran receiving a posthumous nomination. These are the men nominated in this category. SNL has had at least two nominees in this category since 2013, peaking last year with four of the seven slots. Their last winner was in 2017. Meanwhile, performances from Comedy Series have bagged the last two wins. 

Let’s consider each nominee...

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10th Anniversary: Scott Pilgrim vs The World

by Nick Taylor

I first saw Scott Pilgrim vs The World with my mom at an advanced screening, the benefit of a summer-long stint in 2010 where my parent’s work received passes for secret audience test runs of upcoming blockbusters. The theater was decently sized and completely packed, mainly crowded with teenage boys escorted by parents, grandparents, and other miscellaneous chaperones, plus a good number of twenty- and thirtysomethings who likely read Bryan Lee O’Malley’s recently concluded graphic novel series. You can imagine any number of reasons why this movie would’ve played well to the teen boys in the audience, though it still amazes me how much everyone in the theater seemed to be having a good time with it. Ten years later and it’s still a reliable hit with my immediate family, and someone referring to it as Edgar Wright’s best film can get me on their side real quick...

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"French Exit" News and Enthusiasm

by Nathaniel R

In case you haven't yet heard the New York Film Festival has selected French Exit, starring Michelle Pfeiffer, as its closing night film this October. Key positioning at film festivals is generally a sign of confidence by movie studios though it naturally doesn't always mean anything. But we're very excited nonetheless.

Since four and half months of quarantine or social distancing has us exhausted of streaming movies and television we've thankfully branched out for entertainment. We've read a few books during this COVID summer, too. One was French Exit which we read in anticipation of the film.

La Pfeiffer has appeared in a number of adaptations but only two novels before French Exit had us screaming 'MICHELLE PFEIFFER WAS BORN TO PLAY THIS ROLE. MICHELLE PFEIFFER WILL SLAY THIS!'...

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Review: An American Pickle

by Juan Carlos Ojano

Seth Rogen has built a career mostly composed of comedies of all kinds, from stoner films to dysfunctional family dramedies. In his past decade of work only Take This Waltz and Steve Jobs  can be considered dramatic. In An American Pickle, directed by Brandon Trost and written by Simon Rich, Rogen does not leave his comedy roots but instead, digs deeper with the humor and comic storytelling.

An American Pickle is about Herschel Greenbaum (Rogen), a Jewish man from 1919 Russia  who moves to New York with his wife Sarah (Succession’s Sarah Snook) in search of a better life after an anti-Semitic attack on their hometown. However, an accident in a pickle factory causes him to be brined for 100 years. After waking up in 2019, he connects with his only living relative Ben (also Rogen)...

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What did you see this week?

Time has lost all meaning. What is a weekend? How long will the vestiges of taking stock of the last "work week" or weekend of new movies on a Sunday last only because that's when we used to take stock of things in the pre-pandemic world? At any rate... how is your movie or TV watching these days? Tell us in the comments, won'cha? I'll share two of my own screening adventures after the jump...

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