Review: Bill & Ted Face the Music

by Lynn Lee

Until a couple of weeks ago I had never seen any of the Bill & Ted movies, despite being a late Gen-Xer and longstanding fan of Keanu Reeves.  Now, having watched all three in a row, I can confirm most triumphantly that if you enjoyed the first two, you will have a bodacious time watching the third.  If you’re a Bill & Ted-curious newcomer, I recommend giving Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure a whirl first and seeing if you dig its vibe.  If not, the latest installment, Bill & Ted Face the Music, probably won’t do anything for you.

For me, getting a crash course in Bill & Ted three decades after their debut was a pleasantly surreal experience.  Not that they were total strangers to me; any adolescent with any exposure to pop culture in the ’90s had at least some familiarity with the amiably vacuous duo, their iconic SoCal-inflected catchphrases, and their penchant for spontaneous air guitar in response to anything that pleased them.  But seeing them in their original context felt like jumping into their rickety phone booth and traveling back to a more innocent time – for both me and them...

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Emmy Review: Lead Actor in a Miniseries or Movie

By Juan Carlos Ojano

Herewith a strange category in that all of the nominees have considerable hurdles to overcome to win this Emmy. As it stands, this group is an eclectic mixture of the young (Mescal, Pope), the old (Irons), and the superheroes in between (Jackman, Ruffalo). Do note that this category as well as Best Actress in a Limited Series or TV Movie do not have episode submissions. Instead, the performance from the entire series will be considered...

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Emmys Review: Animated Program

by Christopher James

It’s the old guard versus the “new” wave of Netflix animation. I use “new” in quotes because there’s nothing “new” about Bojack Horseman or Big Mouth, except that the Emmys finally noticed them just last year. Can they win on their second try at the Emmys?

All three of their challengers have won before. Rick and Morty won its sole bid for Outstanding Animated Program in 2018. Meanwhile, Bob’s Burgers has consistently earned nominations for every year since its second season, winning in 2014 and 2017. And never count out the most senior show in a lineup. The Simpsons won this category last year, its first win since 2008. In total, the legendary comedy has been nominated twenty-seven times in this category, winning twelve of those competitions.

Since this is a tight race, it may come down to episode submission. Let’s take a look at the field:

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1938's Best Picture Nominees Ranked

by Nathaniel R

A behind-the-scenes factoid: We've been recording the Smackdowns much earlier than we've been publishing them this year. That's because we figured with everyone social distancing or locked down at home this past summer it would be easier to corral guests for the panels. That was true. They're all recorded now and though the pace has been brutal that also gave me a personal headstart on 1938 (your votes are due by this coming Sunday morning, September 13th!) and since it was a year I was weak on I thought: why not watch ALL the Oscar nominated movies from the year since there were fewer categories? It seemed doable with a three month headstart but I'd forgotten that Oscar hadn't yet come to the conclusion that five was the perfect number and there were up to 11 nominations in some categories! Alas, I didn't complete the assignment but I did manage to watch or rewatch 21 movies. My goal is to hit 30 key films from this year before a tentative "retro film bitch awards" which we've always wanted to do for the older years for fun. Should we? Does that sound fun to you?

BEST PICTURE NOMINEES OF 1938, RANKED
All but one are available to rent at various platforms. If currently streaming for free somewhere, though, we've mentioned that...

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Tenet finally opens. What did you see this week?

As expected Tenet was a major draw at the US box office for the holiday weekend, posting the best numbers of any film since the pandemic began. Still, it's obviously a far cry from what it would have made in a normal year when theaters didn't have to limit seating and there were far more of them open globally. 

US Estimates Holiday Weekend (Sept 4th-7th)
01 Tenet $20.2  (Global cumulative gross $146.2)
02 The New Mutants $3.6  (Global cum. $19.9)
03 Unhinged $2.2  (Global cum. $23.6)
04 Bill & Ted Face the Music $809k (Global cum. $2.4)
05 Spongebob: Sponge on the Move $470k  (US only cum. $3.4)
06 Personal History of David Copperfield $430k  (Global cum. $11.0)

NYC still isn't playing movies (the nearest theater playing Tenet, for example, is an hour and a half away by train) so the big new movie for us this week was I'm Thinking of Ending Things on Netflix (more on which later if we can figure out what to say about it!). What did you see this week?