Into the Deep is a completely forgettable shark-thriller on Prime … except for Richard Dreyfuss.
The only (and most interesting) thing about it is the inexplicable appearance of Richard Dreyfuss – in a shark movie, ffs. Yes, that Richard Dreyfuss.
Gogglebox: UK TV at its … finest?
Here’s an idea that should never have worked. Yet it’s one of the most popular shows in the UK …
Kennie JD: One of the Best Things About YouTube
YouTube has become too huge to truly comprehend, and most of the ‘tubers that built their base from YT have either moved on, retreated, or sunk into scandal. But once in a while you stumble overcome with long-form content that is charming and insightful about its unabashed affection for crap — bad movies, reality TV, straight-to-streaming disasters. So what’s not to love about Kennie J.D.
Kennie’s in her late twenties – just had a birthday, in fact — Happy Birthday, Kennie JD! — and she’s wry and funny and extremely smart. She started by doing, of all things, make-up tutorials with commentary – an interesting choice for a good-sized color from Detroit. But they caught on. And she was just getting started. Kennie’s a songwriter and musician as well – you can hear her work on YouTube, and on Spotify – but I caught up after all that was well underway — more than a year ago through just one of her channels, her Saturday show, Bad Movies and a Beat, where she watches a really awful movie – the kinds I love the most, of course – and then makes a ten or twenty or even thirty-minute video about it, laughin’ and swearin’ and carryin’ on through a blow-by-blow recap and analysis – and surprising, sophisticated and thoughtful analyses. It’s enough to make you want to come back every week. Hey, her take on Saltburn alone was worth looking at, and she’s in there pitching almost every Saturday.
These days she has a lot of channels and she’d doing a lot of stuff In fact she’s co-hosting a new entertainment interview podcast as well, Connect the Dots, with music executive Shawn Pecas Costner. Anyway: the easiest way to learn about her is just to search out her channel on YouTube – that’s Kennie with an IE, and J.D. as in Jane Darcy – no, that’s not her name, I have no idea what her name is. If you like bold, brassy, big laughers with something to say and almost no filter at all, you’ll enjoy her, in at least one – or more! — of her many incarnations.. Kennie J.D. In fact, it bein’ Friday and all, she’ll probably have something new up on her feed tomorrow, so .. .check it out.
Slightly older but no less fascinating posts
Nat Cassidy’s Mary is a dark, wild wonderful ride
Nat Cassidy’s Mary is basically the story of Carrie suffering through a very bloody version of menopause – among so many other things. In the beginning, Mary herself looks like a singularly uninteresting woman: quiet, middle-aged unassuming, working in the basement of...
Musical zombies!
Musical zombies? Really. No kidding: it’s not quite as rare as you’d think. Strangely enough, zombie music spans the decades, including two features, at least one theme song and an Off-Broadway show. One thing that’s been pointed out a million times is the reallly...
School Spirits is a spooky high school drama that’s surprisingly effective and ultimately frustrating
School Spirits, a supernatural teen-drama mini-series in nine parts on Netflix by way of Paramount Plus, tells an engaging story about a plucky, troubled high school senior who suddenly has to deal with the fact that she’s … well, dead. And worse than just dead:...
Joe Abercrombie: The best damn fantasy novelist working today
Yeah, it's that simple: Joe Abercrombie is one of the best writers of gritty, realistic fantasy working today. His only flaw is that there isn't enough of him. Abercrombie has created a number of interlocking series set in a world of barbarian nations, very difficult...
Rehabilitated Sleaze: Half satire, half nostalgia, all inappropriate
I'm not a huge Facebook fan (who is anymore?), though I still use Messenger with clients and the occasional friend. Still, there is one group -- a strange little corner of the Intertubes called Rehabilitated Sleaze" where a number of talented artistic assassins create...
Revisiting Mike Flanagan’s Absentia
Sometimes it's worth looking back. I've been so impressed by Midnight Mass, and basically be everything Mike Flanagan has done so far, that I took a couple of hours on a quiet Friday afternoon and re-watched Absentia, his first (available) feature film made more than...
The Plague is a long-forgotten zombie (ish) post-apoc (sort of) movie from Clive Barker … and actually pretty good
I have no idea how I stumbled on this, but I recently found myself slightly stunned at just how interesting – far from perfect, but damned interesting – I found a forgotten TV movie from 2006 – yeah, fifteen years ago – unfortunately called The Plague, or...
Winchester is just … a waste
I just waded through Winchester on Netflix and … I am at a loss. At a loss to explain how so much money and talent could be wasted on such an utterly uninvolving, derivative, boring ‘haunted house’ movie. This shambling, unfeeling, tedious thing has beautiful...
The Stranger is pretty good, but Harlan Coben? Meh.
Harlan Coben's The Stranger is the firt indication than heis adaptations don't have to be kind of limp and half-baked.. Maybe there's hope. Coben makes a few jillion dollars a year on his suspense novels (though 'suspense' seems like a pretty strong word for his...
Why doesI Am Not Okay With This feel so incestuous?
Seriously, who are they kidding? This moderately engaging I Am Not Okay With This is a Netflix mini-series that smells so strongly of Carrie and IT that it makes your nose twitch. So why are the producers claiming complete astonishment at the parallels? Don't get me...