Gilbert (2017)

I'm not a fan of Gilbert Gottfried's comedy. Sometimes he makes me laugh. In all fairness I am not a fan of most stand-up comedy. I listen to Gilbert's podcast: Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast, on a weekly basis. He and his co-host talk about movies more than they do comedy. They talked about this movie, which is about Gilbert's life, on the podcast.

The movie feels very disjointed. Some of it was interesting but for the most part I didn't feel as if I got very much from it. It covers a number of topics in Gilbert's life, including his marriage and his career in comedy. It was a bit of a chore to get through it. It felt more like a homework assignment than fun and entertainment. I think I might have laughed a few times but not consistently.

The Whole Nine Yards (2000)

Starring Matthew Perry, Bruce Willis, Amanda Peet, Michael Clarke Duncan, Natasha Henstridge, Kevin Pollak, Rosanna Arquette

Oz Ozeransky (Matthew Perry), a dentist, wakes up one morning to discover that Jimmy Tudeski, a professional hit man, is moving into the house next door. Sophie (Rosanna Arquette), his wife, pushes him to go to Chicago to tell Janni Gogolak (Kevin Pollak), Tudeski's former boss, where he is in the hopes of getting a finder's fee. So he goes but things don't exactly turn out the way he hoped they would. He meets Gogolak and delivers the news but then has to fly back home to lead Gogolak and his men into a shootout with Tudeski.

A couple more twists are introduced when first Oz sleeps with Cynthia Tudeski (Natasha Henstridge), Jimmy's wife, who has been living in Chicago. Later Oz learns that Jill (Amanda Peet), his dental assistant, was hired by Sophie to kill him.

I first saw this movie on DVD back in 2001. I don't have a clear recollection about it one way or the other. It isn't a bad movie. It has a few good laughs. The plot is a bit convoluted. I could see myself enjoying this movie a little more if I found the characters to be a little more interesting. I watched it this time around for a couple reasons. I was looking for something simple to watch and because I had just heard Kevin Pollak tell a story on a recent episode of his podcast about a run in he had with Michael Clarke Duncan while they were filming the movie. Not awful but far from great.

Master of None 2.06

New York, I Love You

Dev, Denise, and Arnold are excited to see Death Castle the new movie starring Nicholas Cage, Emma Watson, and Tyrese Gibson. This episode isn't about them or the movie. As they walk past a building the story suddenly shifts and follows Eddie, a doorman. For the next 10 minutes the episode is all about Eddie as he deals with tenants and tries to juggle a thousand different tasks and keep everyone happy. Eddie's story ends as the camera follows someone else out the building and into a bodega.

At this point the focus shifts to Maya, who works in the Bodega. She is deaf and this entire portion of the episode is done silently. When she is trying to communicate with someone who doesn't know American Sign Language (ASL), there are no subtitles. Later when she is talking to others who do know ASL there are subtitles. She argues with a friend who bought the same jacket as her. She argues with Barry, her boyfriend, who isn't giving her what she needs. This segment ends when Maya and Barry get into a cab. At that point the focus shifts to Samuel, the driver of the next cab to come along.

Samuel lives with 3 or 4 other guys. They are all from an African nation. They speak French when they are talking among themselves. They go out for a night on the town. They can't get into the club they want to go to because they don't have the right look or have women with them. They get lured to another club which is dead and where a bottle of vodka will cost them $800. They hang with some women at Lucky's, a fast food joint, before heading to the movies with the women to see Death Castle. The camera pans around the theater and everyone is there: Dev, Denise, Arnold, Eddie, Maya, Barry, and Samuel.

I remember hearing about this episode before. I didn't remember too much about it other than (a) that it was one of the better episodes and (b) that it highlighted the lives of a few ordinary New Yorkers. I think this one lived up to the hype. There was only one moment that made laugh out loud but I was more than ready for a Dev-light episode.

Atypical 1.01

Antarctica

Sam considers dating after his therapist puts the idea in his head. Sam has a little bit of trouble relating to other people. Sam's mother doesn't like the idea.

The brother of one of Casey's classmates starts hitting on her. She tries to shake him but he is persistent, but in what seems to be a non-threatening way. Casey is Sam's sister.

Elsa, Sam's mother, goes out drinking after a dance class. She winds up spending a good chunk of the night talking to the bartender. Is this going somewhere? Probably, but not in this episode.

Sam goes on two dates. Neither date ends well. Sam is too inexperienced to know how to handle himself on a date. The advice he gets from classmates and coworkers doesn't help.

Sam is played by Keir Gilchrist who I thought was quite good on United States of Tara. His parents are played by Jennifer Jason Leigh and Michael Rapaport.

Pretty good, but this episode didn't do it for me the way I hoped it would. I like the premise but I thought it all moved a little too fast. There were some moments that felt very cliched, another knock against the show. I will probably watch more.

Fargo 2.04

Fear and Trembling

Flashback to 1951 when young Dodd helped his father murder Kellerman, his rival. It looks as though Kellerman has the upper hand when the scene begins. Dodd is his father's secret weapon. He stabs Kellerman in the back of the neck while everyone's attention is focused on Otto.

Dodd, in the present, antagonizes some of Joe Bulo's boys when he runs into them in a doughnut shop. It isn't clear if he went there just to do that but I prefer to think that he did what he did because the opportunity presented itself. He went into the doughnut shop with an electric cattle prod. When they tried to stand up to him he hit them with it.

Hanzee goes looking for Rye and finally finds evidence that points to his murder. He starts by visiting the scene of the crime, the Waffle Hut. He finds some evidence that the police missed: a piece of glass from Peggy's car. That leads him to check out the local repair shop where he finds the car. He spooks the mechanic who disapproves of him looking through the car. Hanzee is chased off my Karl Weathers (Nick Offerman) who shows up with a gun.

The check Ed gave his boss for the down payment on the butcher shop bounced. Peggy took the money intended for the down payment and spent it on the course she wants to take. Ed confronts Peggy about the money. While they are talking, around the corner from the beauty shop, Hanzee drives by and makes eye contact with Ed.

Lou and Betsy visit her doctor and sign her up for a drug trial. The doctor explains that Betsy might get the drug or she might get a placebo. Betsy and Lou don't rightly understand the purpose of giving her a placebo, a sugar pill, but they sign up for the trial anyhow.

Lou is tipped off by Karl Weathers to Hanzee's visit to the repair shop. He meets Hank and they look over the car. Lou starts to have flashbacks to the night he visited the butcher shop. I could see the wheels turning in his head. He knows that something is off and begins to suspect that Ed is the one who hit and killed Rye.

Mike Milligan gets some inside information from Simone Gerhardt, Dodd's daughter, about what to expect from her grandmother and her father. They have sex while the Kitchens play cards in the room next door. She also tells him about her grandfather's doctor's appointment. She seems okay with the notion of Mike killing her father. She is more interested in doing drugs and having sex.

Floyd has a sit down meeting with Joe Bulo (Brad Garrett) from Kansas City. She makes a counteroffer. Joe questions Floyd's ability to control her sons and cites the incident from earlier that morning in the doughnut shop. While they talk Mike and the Kitchen brothers visit the doctor's office where Otto is taken. They leave Otto alive but kill his bodyguards and the nurse who was helping to care for him. Joe gets word of Mike's work. He rejects Floyd's counteroffer and lowers the offering price.

Hanzee's investigation eventually leads him to Ed and Peggy's home. They are not home at the time. In the living room he finds Rye's belt buckle in the fireplace. He is examining it when Lou comes looking for Ed and Peggy. Lou is there to talk to Ed and Peggy. He doesn't see Hanzee who slips away unnoticed. Lou asks them to come clean. He seems sure that they are lying but they refuse to change their story. Their car, according to them, was damaged when it skidded on some ice and crashed into a tree.

Floyd gives up on peace and tells Dodd and Bear that they are going to war with the Kansas City mob.

The gloves are finally about to be removed. War is on the horizon. Ed and Peggy's future doesn't look good. Will the Gerhardts be too busy with war to deal with Ed and Peggy? Will Peggy play dumb and frame Ed for the murder of Rye in the same way that Lester framed his brother for his wife's murder in Seasons One?

This episode  is a bit of an in between-er. There's a lot of build up to things to come in the future episodes. If this episode belongs to anyone is is Hanzee. He kind of gets the spotlight as he searches for and finds Rye's killers.

This was an excellent episode.

The Americans 1.06

Trust Me

Philip is abducted by men who seem to be FBI agents. They torture him. They claim to know who he is. Elizabeth is also abducted and brought to the same location as Philip. In the last episode it was revealed that the KGB knew that there was a mole in their Washington operation. Philip and Elizabeth are being tested to see how loyal they truly are. It goes on for a little while but eventually Claudia shows up and calls an end to the test. Philip and Elizabeth are enraged to learn why they were tested. Elizabeth beats up Claudia until her face is all bloody before they leave.

Nina is having trouble going along with Stan's instructions. She knows that there is a hunt for a mole within the embassy. She is convinced that she will be caught. She wants Beeman to follow through on his promise and help her defect. Stan goes to his boss who isn't interested in Nina's problems. Stan comes up with an alternate plan and frames Vasili Nikolaevich, Nina's boss. Vasili takes the fall and Nina seems safe for now. She clearly planted some of the evidence that gets Vasili shipped back to Russia but does he suspect her?

Paige and Henry get stranded after school when Elizabeth doesn't show up to drive them home. They wind up hitchhiking, Paige's idea, and get a ride from a stranger, Nick. He offers to drive them home but along the way he stops at a pond and hands Paige a beer. His intentions go from benevolent to malevolent fairly quickly. Henry saves his sister by smashing a beer bottle over the Nick's head. The siblings run off and make their way home on foot. They vow never to tell their parents about what happened that day.

Elizabeth and Philip get into a fight after their escape. Philip suspects that something is up when he learns that Elizabeth was not tortured. She grudgingly admits that she told their bosses that he felt like he fit in as an American. Philip feels betrayed by Elizabeth. He lets it show throughout the rest of the episode.

I love the emotional tension between Philip and Elizabeth in this episode. Just as it seemed like they were finally starting to feel like a couple something happens to push them apart. I wasn't too taken by the Paige and Henry part of the episode until the end of it. Them keeping secrets from their parents got me excited for what else might happen with these two. The Stan and Nina story was the weakest of the three stories.

This was an excellent episode, possibly my favorite since the pilot. The pacing was good. The story didn't bog down at all. Their were some very nice character moments.

Master of None 2.05

The Dinner Party

Dev goes out to dinner with Jeff (Bobby Cannavale), a famous chef who is also one of the producers of the show he hosts. He also goes out with Priya, one of the women he went on a date with in 2.04 (First Date). Everything goes great with Jeff, not so much with Priya. Chef Jeff invites Dev to a dinner party. He doesn't want to take Priya so he ends up taking Francesca who is in town with her boyfriend. She was last seen in 2.02 (Le Nozze) when Dev was living in Italy.

John Legend makes a brief appearance. He is one of the guests at the dinner party. He plays himself and sings a song.

Arnold and Brian come to visit Dev on the set of Clash of the Cupcakes. They want to meet the Jabbawockeez who are there to make a guest appearance on CotC.

The episode ends on a down note. He has fun at the dinner party with Francesca but she already has a boyfriend. Dev is smart enough not to try anything stupid but I definitely got the sense that he didn't want the night to end when it did or the way it did.

Not too bad but not my favorite episode. There was a definite lack of humor. I laughed a couple times but for the most part this one went for the heart rather than the funny bone.