Comedy

Powerless – Sinking Day

  • Title: Powerless – Sinking Day
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Powerless - Sinking Day television review

“Sinking Day” plays on the incompetence of Van Wayne (Alan Tudyk). After her boss costs Wayne Securities their oldest client, raising the ire of Van’s father (Corbin Bernsen), Emily (Vanessa Hudgens) rallies the team to land an even bigger client in Atlantis. Despite his obvious ineptitude, Van shows surprising skill in helping to schmooze the Atlantians and help close the biggest deal the company has ever seen. Directed by Broken Lizard‘s Jay Chandrasekhar, the latest episode has a goofy energy that is highlighted by Tudyk’s comic timing while showing us that Van Wayne does have some game, even if I’m not sure anyone knows what that game might be. Bernsen is unexpectedly terrific as Van’s far more successful father; here’s hoping we see more of him this season.

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Powerless – Wayne Dream Team

  • Title: Powerless – Wayne Dream Team
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Powerless - Wayne Dream Team TV review

After successfully stopping Wayne Security from being shutdown, Emily‘s (Vanessa Hudgens) latest struggle is to try and be both a boss and friend to her team while getting them to take the deadline of their next product release more seriously. To do this she plays a little fast-and-loose with the truth, using the head of HR (Michael D. Cohen) to fight her battles for her, which of course eventually blows up in her face. While Emily’s choices initially backfire, standing up to take one for the team does buy her some credibility going forward as well build some trust between the team and their new leader.

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Powerless – Wayne or Lose

  • Title: Powerless – Wayne or Lose
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Powerless - Wayne or Lose television review

I know what you’re going go say. Another super-hero show? Yes, but this one is more super-hero adjacent. With iZombie still on hiatus, our current run of super-hero TV has had a decidedly lacking in fun and whimsy in favor of darker storylines (with the exception of the almost always optimistic Supergirl). More office comedy than true super-hero fare, NBC taps into an unexplored part of the super-hero universe – the regular people. In a world beset with super-villains and their constant destruction, somebody has to look out for the average Joe. For the citizens of Charm City that company is Wayne Security (the less-known subsidiary of Wayne Enterprises).

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Hero at Large

  • Title: Hero at Large
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Hero at Large DVD reviewThis Throwback Thursday we take a look back at a mostly forgotten 1980 film Hero at Large starring John Ritter as a struggling actor who becomes the talk of the town when he stops a crime while dressed in the costume of the super-hero Captain Avenger on his way home from the movie’s premiere. Decades before the boom of super-hero movies, director Martin Davidson‘s (Eddie & The Cruisers) movie plays with the concept of what it means to be a hero as our protagonist struggles with the ramifications and consequences of trying to cash-in on his new celebrity.

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Hidden Gem – State and Main

  • Title: State and Main
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State and Main DVD review

It’s about purity. We’ll double-down on Throwback Thursday this week to take a quick look at David Mamet‘s underrated 2000 comedy State and Main in which a movie set is forced to relocate to the sleepy town of Waterford, Vermont when their star’s (Alec Baldwin) love of underage girls gets them thrown out of New Hampshire. Immensely entertaining and highly quotable, this one never fails to make me laugh.

Go you Huskies. Featuring an amazing cast, Mamet gives us Philip Seymour Hoffman as the playwright turned screenwriter, William H. Macy as the film’s director, Baldwin and Sarah Jessica Parker as the film’s stars, and Rebecca Pidgeon, Clark Gregg, and Julia Stiles as townies. All turn out to be perfect fits for Mamet’s quick dialogue that takes equal swipes at Hollywood and small town life but still finds ways to celebrate each.

Everybody needs a hobby. The conflict in the film comes from the dysfunction of the set, the uproar the movie folks have on the town (in both positive and negative ways), and their star’s latest dalliance which puts the entire project in jeopardy.

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