TV Review: Only Murders In the Building (2021- )

Original Run: August 31st, 2021 – current
Created by: Steve Martin, John Hoffman
Directed by: various
Written by: various
Music by: Siddhartha Khosla
Cast: Steve Martin, Martin Short, Selena Gomez, Aaron Dominguez, Amy Ryan, Tina Fey, Nathan Lane, Sting, Jane Lynch

Rhode Island Ave. Productions, Another Hoffman Story Productions, 40 Share Productions, 20th Television, Disney Platform Distribution, Hulu, 10 Episodes (so far), 26-35 Minutes (per episode)

Review:

When I first saw the trailer for this, I was pretty excited about checking it out. I love Steve Martin and Martin Short, especially together, and from what I’ve seen of Selena Gomez, I’ve been impressed simply because I only really know of her as an ex-Disney child star and a pop artist.

These three come together wonderfully well, though. Martin and Short being paired up was a no-brainer but adding Gomez to the mix was an x-factor. She did a superb job and I really like this trio and hope to see more from them in season two and hopefully beyond. Hell, round up Chevy Chase and go make a Four Amigos movie.

I thought that the murder mystery plot here was well-crafted and had a good amount of layers and twists like a classic film-noir. I can’t quite consider this noir, tonally, but it is very much inspired by some of the great noir works of yesteryear.

The show is well paced, well acted, has characters you’ll love and gets right down to business from the get go. There aren’t any filler episodes and things move briskly, not wasting time on anything unimportant. Even when a character pops up and it feels like some sort of distraction or the show is getting lost on itself, there is always a reason behind it that helps with the overall payoff.

I like the simple visual style of the show but it could’ve probably used a bit more panache. However, things are overproduced these days, to the point of everything being generic and milquetoast. Luckily, there was enough passion behind this project and within its stars, that it stands out.

My only negative was that I knew who the real killer was almost immediately. Granted, that’s not a bad thing, as the story still surprised me.

All in all, not a bad effort and I hope the second season just adds more to this pretty solid foundation. I feel like it’s a show that can actually improve. It was searching for its footing in the early episodes but found it rather quickly.

Rating: 7.5/10

Film Review: Mascots (2016)

Release Date: September 10th, 2016 (Toronto International Film Festival)
Directed by: Christopher Guest
Written by: Christopher Guest, Jim Piddock
Music by: Jeffrey C.J. Vanston
Cast: Jane Lynch, Parker Posey, Christopher Guest, Fred Willard, Ed Begley Jr., Christopher Moynihan, Don Lake, Zach Woods, Chris O’Dowd, Bob Balaban, Jennifer Coolidge, Michael Hitchcock, John Michael Higgins, Jim Piddock, Maria Blasucci, Oscar Nunez, Harry Shearer

Netflix, 89 Minutes

Review:

“Well, my name is A.J. Blumquist, and I’m a former mascot, Danny the Donkey, and uh, I’m a judge this year for the Fluffies. For the two people that don’t know, uh, Danny the Donkey, my mascot alter ego, was the first one to have an anatomically correct costume.” – A.J. Blumquist

When you have something really good, you can ruin it by having too much. This can be said about cheesecake, high end whiskey, cocaine, sex with street walkers and well, sadly… Christopher Guest mockumentaries.

One could say that this isn’t Christopher Guest’s fault, he’s just making what he knows and he is a master of the genre. He can’t help that there has been a huge over-saturation of films like this and really, a lot of that could be due to how good his movies have been. But on the flip side of that, this falls flat in just about every way and there are recent mockumentaries that are much funnier than this: What We Do In the Shadows, for instance.

Guest rounds up his typical group of stars minus a few key people, most notably Eugene Levy and Catherine O’Hara. He spends more time using newer actors in main roles and most of his great collaborators take more of a backseat here. John Michael Higgins, Fred Willard, Jennifer Coolidge and Michael Hitchcock were severely underutilized and even Jane Lynch, who got a good amount of screen time, deserved more.

Out of the newcomers, I didn’t really connect to any of them except for Zach Woods. I liked Woods in this. But even Chris O’Dowd, who I usually find funny, didn’t hit the mark here.

It’s not that this picture is unfunny, it has some funny bits, but it doesn’t keep you as amused as Best In Show, Waiting for Guffman or A Mighty Wind. It’s nowhere near as incredibly as This Is Spinal Tap and it falls short of living up to Guest’s previous weakest film, For Your Consideration.

I’m not sure what this means for Guest’s future, as other reviews I’ve seen aren’t too fond of this film and feel the same way that I do. But if he sticks with Netflix he’s probably fine, as they’ll pump out anything with a famous name on it.

Rating: 5/10
Pairs well with: Christopher Guest’s other mockumentaries but this is the worst one so all the others are better.