Comedy

Shifting Gears – Jimmy

/ / Television Reviews
  • Title: Shifting Gears – Jimmy
  • IMDb: link

“Jimmy” is something of a misfire for Shifting Gears which introduces Lucas Neff as Riley’s (Kat Dennings) husband Jimmy. It’s always tricky when introducing an ex after never showing us an example of the couple together. The show never really sells Riley and Jimmy as a couple who would have stayed together for years other than that Riley appears weak in the knees for the man’s musical talent (which we don’t see a single example of on-screen). Nothing here does anything positive for the Riley character. Arriving in time for Carter’s (Maxwell Simkins) birthday, the premise of the episode moves from Jimmy attempting to win back Riley to instead win back his son’s love. Once transitioning to that aspect, which is something even Matt (Tim Allen) can get behind, the episode works better. However, overall it’s quite hit-and-miss.

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You’re Cordially Invited

/ / Home Video
  • Title: You’re Cordially Invited
  • IMDb: link

There’s a concept at the heart of You’re Cordially Invited which could have produced an okay film. This is not that film. Through the first, of many, contrivances, two families book the same small wedding venue on the same weekend. Oddly, it’s neither the bride nor groom of either side as the main characters but the father (Will Ferrell) of one of the brides (Geraldine Viswanathan) and the sister (Reese Witherspoon) of the other bride (Meredith Hagner).

While at first agreeing to work together to make the best of a bad situation and share the venue, conflicts arise (mostly through more contrivances rather than reasonable actions by any character) leading to each actively trying to destroy the other wedding (but in mostly lame ways as anything truly bad that happens is always accidental).

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Shifting Gears – Grief

/ / Television Reviews
  • Title: Shifting Gears – Grief
  • IMDb: link

I’ve watched a couple episodes of the new Hulu sitcom Shifting Gears starring Tim Allen and Kat Dennings as bickering father and daughter who are forced to reconnect after she moves back home with her son following the disillusion of her marriage. The set up allows both to quip, and, at times, do a small bit of introspection. “Grief,” which focuses on Riley’s (Dennings) attempts to get her father to deal with the grief of her mother’s death, is the best of the episodes I watched ,while still firmly nested in the sitcom trappings of the show, which allows the walls between the two characters to come down long enough for some honest discussion of loss.

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Dog Man

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Dog Man
  • IMDb: link

Based on the children’s books of the same name (spun off from Captain Underpants), Dog Man is exactly what you would expect from the premise of a police officer and his dog merged together after an explosion when the dog’s head is sewn on the cop’s body (but keeps his paws for some reason?) leading to the mediocre cop becoming a “supa cop” beloved by the entire city, except apparently the Mayor (Cheri Oteri).

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Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl

/ / Home Video
  • Title: Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl
  • IMDb: link

The latest from the Wallace & Gromit franchise involves Wallace‘s (Ben Whitehead) inventions of garden gnome robots, which Gromit is suspicious of immediately, being turned against him by Feathers McGraw who eventually uses the group to break out of the Zoo where he’s been kept a prisoner since the events of The Wrong Trousers. After the gnomes are turned evil (because for some reason Wallace created them to able to be evil?) the group also ruin the inventor’s name turning both the locals and police against him.

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