TV Review: The Shrink Next Door (Apple TV+)

By: Christopher James

Paul Rudd gets inside Will Ferrell's head and life in Apple TV+'s "The Shrink Next Door."

It’s impossible to resist Paul Rudd, People’s 2021 Sexiest Man Alive. Rudd’s charm has aged as gracefully as his skin, which makes him great casting for the titular role in Apple TV+’s The Shrink Next Door. Co-starring comedy giant Will Ferrell, at first glance it would appear Apple has the makings of an enjoyable watercooler miniseries. Unfortunately, the strong relationship between the actors never pays off with a satisfying or cohesive final product. Don’t come in expecting an Anchorman reunion. This shrink has much more sinister tricks in store.

There have been many stories of therapists overstepping their boundaries with patients. Based on a true story (and the Wondery & Bloomberg podcast of the same name), The Shrink Next Door explores a particularly toxic doctor-patient relationship....

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Happy 25th, Tye Sheridan!

by Nathaniel R

Happy 25th birthday to Tye Sheridan today. He first won critics, audience, and Hollywood's attention as a child star in The Tree of Life (2011) and Mud (2012). Ten years on now he's shown staying power but has Hollywood noticed that he's grown up? Though the media had a brief flirtation with presenting him as a 'sexy' leading man a few years back when Ready Player One (2018) hit the screens, Hollywood is mercilessly competitive; the late 20something through 30something years are often when movie stars are made and Sheridan's particular vintage (1996) is unusually robust with actors like Paul Mescal, Tom Holland, Lucas Hedges, Harris Dickinson, Mason Gooding, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Tony Revolori, Jacob Latimore (and more) already in play. And that's not even counting the actors just a year or two younger or older OR those actors who have yet to emerge since a lot of the biggest stars in history aren't famous at the young age of 25: Brad Pitt broke out at 28. George Clooney didn't start headlining movies until he was 35. Viggo Mortensen was low profile until 39.

Still 2021 has been busy for Sheridan even if his profile is lower than some of his already-established peers...

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What's the average length of a Best Picture?

by Nathaniel R

This is Lawrence of Arabia... not Dune

It's 136 days until the Oscars and 136 is a golden number. It's the average length, in minutes, of a Best Picture Oscar winner. When we first calculated this number over a decade ago 138 was the average but in the past 10 years or so, running times of actual winners have been shaved a bit. Here are the running times of all winnners from longest to shortest. You'll see that the majority of winners are over 2 hours long which has caused no end of padding in "serious" movies but alas, not enough padding for tender buttocks watching interminable movies.

Here are the running times of all winnners from longest to shortest as well as this year's contenders from longest to shortest...

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Doc Corner: 'Listening to Kenny G' and 'Jagged' at DOC NYC

By Glenn Dunks

DOC NYC starts today. The festival runs for in-person screenings from November 10–18 and then continues online until November 28. I have a Twitter thread covering what I am watching, but here we are looking at two music docs about artists from very different ends of the spectrum: Kenny G and Alanis Morissette.

Trust director Penny Lane to make a biographic documentary about a musician and have it not be the same old same old. The American filmmaker has been on a tear lately with Nuts! (about goat testicle charlatans), The Pain of Others (about Morgellons disease), and Hail Satan! (about the Satanic Temple). This run continues with the wittily assembled Listening to Kenny G, which plays today as the opening night film of DOC NYC.

Lane’s film isn’t the standard musician bio-doc, although it does chart his career from the early days discovering music in school and does make a spotlight out of his career highs and lows. What makes Listening to Kenny G so invigorating of a watch is because of the greater story within which this narrative is placed. One that interrogates the controversial anti-populous appeal of the multi-instrumentalist’s smooth jazz stylings from all angles.

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International Oscar Race Pt 1 - 93 Films This Year. It's List Time!

by Nathaniel R

It's that lovely too brief moment in the year when we have the pretty-much official list for Best International Film before they are savagely narrowed to 15 films on December 21st and then further reduced for the actual nominations in . It is possible that a couple will be disqualified of course (as that happens from time to time and there are two titles that might be if IMDb is correct that they're fully in English. This year there are 93 submissions (full charts / letterboxd list / predictions) so let's break it down for some stats and trivia for fun, shall we?

The Dozen Highest Profile Submissions

Please do not mistake this list for Finalist predictions! Armchair pundits often make the mistake of assuming that high-profile means you'll be nominated but you never know what the individual voters and the Executive Committee might like. History is full of high profile titles that Oscar rejected in this category...

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