THIS POST CONTAINS spoilers from the seventh season of Big Mouth. Season Seven of Netflix’s Big Mouth begins where the penultimate season ends: the cast of pubescent middle schoolers arrive at high school exploring the PDA-filled halls, meeting the gospel-singing B-High Quee-Choi, and participating in a classic food fight. Although …
Read More »'Big Mouth' Is Still the Most Hilariously Gross Show on TV
Midway through the new season of Netflix‘s animated comedy Big Mouth, middle schooler Matthew (Andrew Rannells) frets, “I don’t want to overstay my welcome like The Office after Steve Carell left.” It’s the sort of meta humor which Big Mouth loves(*) only slightly less than it loves jokes about erections, …
Read More »'Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget' Is a Long-Awaited Mess for Netflix
Whenever a studio releases a sequel 23 years after the original movie, it’s fair to go in with some skepticism about the project, its intentions, and its quality. When Chicken Run was released in the year 2000, there was a farm fresh feel to it that resonated both with its …
Read More »'Rick and Morty' Is Back and Doesn't Miss Justin Roiland One Bit
In March of 2014, I met Dan Harmon at Burbank’s venerable Smoke House for a long interview. We were there to talk about his unexpected return to Community, the NBC comedy he created and ran for three seasons, before being forced out for a year. But this was only a …
Read More »Elon Musk Will Find 'Krapopolis' Funny. Everybody Else? Not So Much.
Fox executives have been waiting a long time to invite their audience to step in Krapopolis, and are betting they’ll want to keep doing it for a long time. I’m just not sure they’re right. In mid-2020, Fox signed a deal with Community boss Dan Harmon to develop a new …
Read More »'The Boy and the Heron' Proves That Hayao Miyazaki Is the Greatest Animator Alive
There are those who were confused upon reading the announcement that the Toronto International Film Festival would kick off its 48th edition with The Boy and the Heron, from the Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki. And then there are those who heard that this latest — and possibly the last — …
Read More »'Star Trek: Lower Decks' Has Become a Weird Gem in the 'Trek' Universe
When Star Trek: Lower Decks premiered in the summer of 2020 — so long ago that its streaming home at the time was called CBS All Access, rather than Paramount+ — it seemed caught between two potentially incompatible goals. On the one hand, the animated series, run by Mike McMahan, …
Read More »'Strange Planet' Is an Amusing New Show From the Creator of 'Rick and Morty'
It’s not hard to understand why Dan Harmon would have been drawn to Nathan W. Pyle’s Strange Planet comics for his latest TV project. Harmon’s Community and Rick and Morty are beloved for the ways they experiment with genre, tone, and sheer self-awareness. But once you strip away the formal …
Read More »'Nimona': Netflix's Remarkable Trans-Rights Animated Movie Is Here
The seven-year production of the latest Netflix animation feature, Nimona, was a rocky one. The film, based on ND Stevenson’s webcomic about a sadistic little shapeshifter sidekick with a heart of gold, survived biblical hurdles in its leap from ND’s panels to TV and big screens, including a studio acquisition, …
Read More »See Miley Cyrus Like You've Never Seen Her Before
In Hannah Montana, the Disney Channel TV series that put Miley Cyrus on the map, the actress portrays a trio of characters: Miley Stewart, a “normal” Tennessee schoolgirl; Hannah Montana, Miley’s globe-trolling pop-star alter ego; and Luann Stewart, Miley’s mischievous, pigtailed cousin. Like any savvy pop star with staying power, …
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