Shmee.Me

April 18, 2016April 18, 2016

Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt Is Back! The World Is Safe … For Now …

With Iran and North Korea testing out nukes, and Donald Trump running for President of the United States of America it is great to have a new season of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt on Netflix. Her unswerving optimism despite all the terrible things that happen to her just makes me feel good. Who knows maybe we could survive a Trump Presidency, and if not Kimmy would remind us there are always the recall or impeachment processes, or if our enemies do launch nukes we have all been playing a lot of Fallout 4 to prepare ourselves for the nuclear apocalypse.

I am not sure that Kimmy Schmidt season two has been as good as season one, but I just feel better watching it, and that has got to count for something! If you haven’t watched Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, you really should.

April 15, 2016April 15, 2016

Batman V Superman Didn’t Live Up To Expectations. Now What?

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice was a total miss with the critics, and movie goers are fleeing auditoriums at record rates. There aren’t many movies that make $800 Million worldwide and are considered failures, but BvS is considered exactly that. The question now becomes, “What does Warner Brothers do now?” Apparently the answer is double down.

Even with Batman v Superman ‘only’ earning $800 Million it has given Warner Brothers executives a taste of what superhero movies can do for their studio, but they also know that the clock is ticking as far as how long the spandex cash cow will last, so to retool their movie slate would cost them too much time and money. All they can do now is try and make sure the next few movies in the DC Cinematic Universe are good so that Batman v Superman is quickly forgotten. Judging by the amount of money they are now throwing at Suicide Squad and Wonder Woman they aren’t taking any chances.

The budgets for both of those movies have been given a significant boost after the historically bad second weekend for Batman v Superman. People have been claiming it is has been to add more ‘funny’ scenes in to both of those films, but according to the directors the money has been pretty much for whatever they think will make the movies better. In other words people loved Wonder Woman from BvS, and the Suicide Squad trailer got people excited, so Warner Brothers is trying to make sure they capitalize on the opportunity.

As for the Justice League movie that starts filming in a couple of weeks, it sounds like Zack Snyder is going to have to deal with a lot more suits around his shoots. Pretty much every executive Warner Brothers has said they are going to be more involved with Justice League than they were with Batman v Superman. I can only hope that means Justice League will be batter than Batman v Superman and not even more of a convoluted mess.

We will see if the extra money that has been pumped in to the Suicide Squad has paid off soon since the movie comes out in four short months. The trailers have been fun, so hopefully the movie is as well. Wonder Woman comes out early next year.

April 14, 2016April 14, 2016

The Finale For The Magicians Was … Wow!

It has been a long time since a TV show has given me nightmares, but the season finale of The Magicians did just that. There has not been a show like The Magicians that has managed to go between being so light and airy and so grim and dark so effortlessly. It keeps you laughing until it horrifies you. Had you told me that The Magicians was a horror series after the fist couple of episodes I wouldn’t have believed you, but that is exactly what it is: Horror pretending to be Harry Potter, and just so we are clear, I like it.

Unlike The Walking Dead, who’s cliffhanger felt like a dirty trick, The Magicians’ cliffhanger felt earned. They promised a showdown with The Beast, and they delivered one. The fact it did not go how just about anyone planed or surmised is credit to the writers. I can’t wait for next year to find out how they get themselves out of the mess they are in.

The SyFy Channel has really managed to turn their programming around. Between The Magicians and The Expanse, they are delivering real quality original programming. Not to mention thanks to shows like Killjoys and Dark Matter SyFy is finally living up to its name. I went from watching nothing on the SyFy Channel a year ago to having three must watch shows on that station. That is quite the feat. I hope they can keep it up!

April 13, 2016

We Finally Get A Look At Doctor Strange!

I have had a hard time psyching myself up for Captain America: Civil War, but man does Doctor Strange look good. You know what I love most? So far there are no connections to the other Marvel movies. I would watch this movie with or with out the ‘Marvel’ brand. It looks like I will have one more thing to be thankful for this November!

April 12, 2016

These Sisters Should Have Been More Fun To Hang Out With!

Tina Fey and Amy Poehler are comedy super-friends, and they are two of the funniest women working today, so a movie featuring them as dysfunctional sisters should have been hysterical. Instead the result is sadly uneven. When Sisters commits to being silly it works well, but when it tries to slow down and get serious it doesn’t just slow down it grinds to a halt. Like many comedies Sisters falls in to the trap of thinking it needs personal drama to go with its over the top zaniness.

Sisters is about two sisters (go figure) who have to rush to their childhood home to pack up all their stuff because their parents are selling it. When they get there however they decide that since their parents didn’t make this decision with their approval that they are going to throw the biggest party in their old neighborhood’s history. Oh and one sister is by-the-book (Amy Poehler) and the other is a free spirit (Tina Fey) (conflict), and the free spirit is having troubles with her daughter (drama).

The two sisters throwing a crazy party is a lot of fun. The two sisters settling their old differences and dealing with an upset daughter is kind of a drag. If Sisters would have focused on what Fey and Poehler do best, be funny, Sisters would have been great, but instead they insist on shoehorning in all sorts of extra drama, and the film suffers for it. Comedies need to remember that people come for the laughter, so it is okay to cut out everything else.

Fey and Poehler are great when cracking jokes, but much like the movie, less great when it is time to get serious. I don’t doubt that they can be serious actors, but the script doesn’t really help them out. They did the best with what they got, but that wasn’t much.

If you like Tina Fey and Amy Poehler Sisters is probably still worth watching, but if you were hoping to laugh non-stop you will be disappointed. It seems like I am always deriding comedies for trying to get serious, but the sad fact is that the inserted drama is always worse than comedy, so they should have just stuck with the jokes. Sisters is unfortunately no different.