What’s Up With Joey? Aug 10 – 16

I know Zendaya plays Chani in the upcoming Dune movie but I’m more than halfway through the book and she hasn’t even been introduced yet. Is the movie really gonna try to do the entire book? If so, my expectations are slightly lowered but I will always trust Denis.

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Movies: Inception, An American Pickle

There were four people in the theatre when I went to see Inception this week. Inception, Christopher Nolan’s magnum opus. Why people weren’t scrambling for tickets to once again see such an amazing movie in theatres is beyond me, but the theatre being nearly empty made for a wonderfully pure viewing experience. 

I’m not usually one for high-concept sci-fi fare but Inception is so meticulous and carefully mapped out, I can’t help but adore the ideas Nolan cooked up and then perfectly migrated to a screen. Even the exposition scenes are done gracefully and with enough going on visually that you won’t even realize you were being fed a bunch of dream mumbo jumbo for the last five minutes. 

The thing I love most about Inception is the stakes. Instead of being a too-grand-for-its-own-good save the world story like Interstellar, Inception has the appearance of scale while maintaining its more intimate focus. While the film functions perfectly as a complex heist movie, the real focus is on Leonardo Dicaprio’s Cobb and how he is forced to struggle with his past and his inner demons – literally manifested as a dream version of his late wife. In less talented hands that would’ve been on the nose, but Nolan weaves her into the heist seamlessly to avoid the sense that this is just another shoehorned in romance subplot. Nolan makes the rules and the rules are flawlessly tuned to allow for the brilliant blending of macro and micro scales. 

TENET better be good.

 

Seth Rogen’s Jack and Jill, also known as An American Pickle, is not as bad as I thought it would be. It’s bad, though. Definitely don’t watch it. It’s a hopelessly messy satire of way too much stuff. American corporatism, American apathy, cancel culture, you name it, An American Pickle tries and fails to satirize it…but sometimes An American Pickle throws a curveball and becomes a sincere film about a man finding his Judaism. It’s strange and definitely not good, but it is interesting. If someone forced a class full of students to study this movie, I can guarantee there’d be one kid who would genuinely get something of meaning out of it and I wouldn’t blame them. I can see how parts of this movie could be affecting to someone struggling with their religiosity or something along those lines. I’m not even saying there’s a good movie buried under the surface here, it’s just that An American Pickle sometimes touches on an interesting topic. Remember, I’m talking about a movie where a Polish man with a thick accent played by Seth Rogen falls into a vat of pickles and is preserved for a century only to be unearthed in the modern day. Obviously there’s no good movie here, but I guess I’m feeling generous enough to call it scarcely interesting. 

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Games: Fall Guys

Fall Guys is a depraved game that should only be played by people who wish to hate the people who live on this planet alongside them. It’s effectively the video game version of Wipeout (not to be confused with Wipeout for Wii, the actual video game version of Wipeout), the game show with silly obstacles and sillier contestants, but instead of about 10 contestants, it’s 60. It’s what I know hell to be. Hell is other people, they say, and they’re right. Every single one of your opponents is necessarily the most incompetent piece of garbage to ever exist, and all of them want nothing more than to watch you burn. Your teammates will betray you for no reason. People will push you off a ledge to get third place instead of fourth in a game where it does not matter in the slightest what place you come in as long as you finish. Men have become monsters, and you can either adapt or you can get eaten alive. I am no monster. I have yet to win a game of Fall Guys. When I do, don’t try to save me. It’ll be far too late.

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YouTube: 90 Day Fiancé

The time has come to out myself as a fan of 90 Day Fiancé, the worst show I’ve ever enjoyed every second of. I’ll spare you an explanation of the premise; either you know already or you don’t want to know. All you gotta know is that it’s a reality show where horrible people are horrible to each other in hilarious ways. 

My girlfriend introduced me to the show in the form of short clips from a YouTube channel called Master of Blackjack, which is way better than watching a legit episode of 90 Day Fiancé. The clips are all a maximum of three minutes and show you everything you need to know to stay updated on the awful lives of these degenerates. Master of Blackjack also puts their own mark on each clip with some hilarious, frequently sarcastic titles poking fun at whatever’s going on in the clip; they know as well as anyone that this show is the best dumpster fire ever. 

There’s a lying, cheating, sack of shit mama’s boy named Colt. There’s a sociopathic douchebag named Andrei. There’s an unemployed, unmotivated loser named Jihoon. These people are being followed by cameras constantly, and yet they can’t seem to help but be at their worst at all times. I know what you’re thinking – a lot of this must be staged. You’re probably not wrong. But check out some clips and tell me that this wouldn’t be too insane to conjure up in anyone’s imagination. These people are so outlandishly stupid and terrible that I find it impossible that anyone could come up with it in order to fabricate it for reality TV, and that’s what makes 90 Day Fiancé a true achievement in entertainment. 

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This week’s shoutout goes to Lincoln Logs.