The Clueless of the 2000's, the highest praise one can bestow on a teen comedy.
Favorite (Not Necessarily Best) Four From Every Year Since Birth
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4,613 reviews
Solid cast and great premise, but a terribly slow delivery.
In October 2003, I was 18 and working at Media Play. I bought a PS2 to double as a dvd player because Lion King and Wrong Turn were released (and so I could play Tony Hawk 4).
A few months later, Media Play was advertising Netflix, and I signed up to have three discs at a time, conveniently mailed to my home. I filled my queue with everything I wanted to watch and made the agonizing decision of which three films would kick off my Netflix subscription? The winners were...
1) Pulp Fiction - I wasn't allowed to see it when it came out. That's fair, I was 10. I thought the trailer looked cool, but it's probably for the best that I had to wait.
2) Capturing the Friedmans - It had just come out, and Netflix was opening the door to titles beyond my local rental store.
3) Empire Records - Obviously, that's why we're here. In Empire Records, the staff has to save their local record shop from being taken over by Music Town. I worked at Media Play, which was owned by Musicland. Wild, huh?
After three years at Media Play, I knocked out another seven years at Fye, and sometimes musicians would come to play a small set and sign CDs for fans. Hollywood Undead Day? Not as action packed as Rex Manning Day. Neither was Fifth Harmony Day, but Camilla Cabello did hug me.
Beyond my anecdotal appreciation for Empire Records, it is just so perfectly 90's. This was the start of my love of Ethan Embry, Liv Tyler (that outfit, come on), and the Gin Blossoms. The whole cast and soundtrack are killer, but those three are it for me. Mental note to buy the blu-ray before April 8th so I can rewatch on Rex Manning Day this year.
Echo isn't like the other Disney+ MCU shows. It's not quippy. It's rarely funny. The vibe is different, and not only because it boasts the MCU's first TV-MA rating. It doesn't leave you wondering how Echo will tie into the Avengers, because she probably won't. Echo is a spinoff of Hawkeye, starring one of its pseudovillains, as she pursues Daredevil's villain, which you don't really know unless you've watched the Netflix Marvel shows. Instead of taking a step closer to the Multiverse Saga together, it's a character-driven detour away, and it works.
Alaqua Cox performed all her own stunts. With her prosthetic leg. And she's deaf. That's wild.
Vincent D'Onofrio as Kingpin is honestly hard to root against, because he's so good at being bad. I do root against him, but he's such a great villain. His voice. His stature. His presence. I can't wait for what's next for the street level MCU.
Can you imagine how huge this movie would have been if MTV and TRL were still relevant? Connor4Real would have been on TRL with Carson Daly promoting it . There would have been a Making the Video episode for "Finest Girl (Bin Laden Song)." The extreme level of cameos would have really thrived in an MTV/TRL world.
It's pretty funny if you're a fan of The Lonely Island. I never thought I'd say this, but it actually has too many cameos for me. Sometimes they're so fast and brief that they have no impact other than taking me out of the moment for my brain to register the cameo. Will Arnett leading the TMZ parody is the standout side bit.
I took <a href="https://x.com/zobowithshotgun/status/1746216056052408827?s=46" title="Zöe’s advice">Zöe’s advice</a> and watched this film. It had absolutely no plot, lame dialog, and terrible acting… but the kills? Damn. There’s tons of blood. For that, it gets three stars.
This version of Thor is really the perfect character to plop into these five-minute shorts as a fun little extra.
Major Nandor and Guillermo vibes
Tommy and Walter are the new Nick Miller and Tran
Spider-Man Far From Home is the perfect follow-up to End Game and final installment of the Infinity Saga. It showcases Peter’s grief without being a downer, while introducing the post-blip-reversal world. We see Aunt Mary raising money for the homeless, those displaced by the reversal of the blip, which becomes a major plot point in The Falcon & the Winter Soldier. It answers a few logistical questions by having a classmate who used to be five years younger in Peter’s grade now, and Betty talks about having to restart the school year. It also transitions us into the Multiverse Saga with Mysterio's claim of being from Earth-833 and calling “our” world Earth-616. The heart of the story though is Peter's conflict between being a normal teenager and a superhero, a classic Spider-Man storyline. The coming-of-age aspect sets it apart from the rest of the MCU, and I love a teen movie.
As someone who wasn’t familiar with Mysterio beyond being able to identify him if I saw a picture, the twist at the midpoint really surprised me the first time, but that was nothing compared to the shock of the mid-credits scene.
Other thoughts:
- Homecoming left me wanting more Betty Brant, and we get it. From the opening memorial newscast through the field trip romance, every “Babe” and “You’re new look, I love it.” Betty is one of my favorite supporting characters in the MCU.
- Does anyone else pretend Martin Starr is Mr. Haverchuck, not Mr. Harrington? I know the timelines don’t match, but what if Freaks and Geeks is in the same universe, and this is Bill Haverchuck’s future?
- I love when Aunt May throws the banana.
- J. Jonah Jameson!!!Favorite (Not Necessarily Best) Four From Every Year Since Birth
Very funny and similar in tone to the comedy of Ragnarok. Even if it wasn't, it's three minutes, so you don't lose much by giving it a shot.
I wish the original toys were in this more, especially if it's Woody's last hurrah with Andy's toys. Woody can carry a movie, sure, and I love what they've done with Bo, but the Toy Story franchise to me is very the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
Too much Forky. Not enough Rex.
