News Satire Roundup: February 23rd-27th

Sunday, February 23 – After touching briefly on Trump longing for the days of Gone with the Wind, John looked at Michael Bloomberg’s candidacy and his past with Stop and Frisk. I loved the line, “As soon as he had something to gain from it, he apologized, and he did it like a man! Begrudgingly, and once.” The main story on Narendra Modi was good, beginning with Trump ridiculously characterizing him as “the Father of India” (a title that already belonged to Gandhi) and a great unifier (this for a man whose government wants to strip Muslims of citizenship and then put the resulting “undocumented immigrants” in detention camps – I get why Trump likes him.) John did a nice job outlining how Modi surrounds himself with scumbags, downplays his role in violent unrest, and belongs to a party founded by people who admired Hitler; I loved John pointing out that the only praiseworthy thing Hitler did was killing Hitler.

Monday, February 24 – First up was the Queen’s petty move to turn Harry and Meghan into “store brand” royals, followed by Harvey Weinstein’s guilty verdict in his first trial and the continuing spread of the coronavirus (get to your bucket list now! Trevor’s wisely includes “don’t get the coronavirus.”) Good story on Trump’s visit to India. I liked the joke that 7 million people in India is an average day, not a crowd, and I loved the stuff on Trump being in a place where he can’t eat beef, especially the quote from a staffer saying, “I’ve never seen him eat a vegetable.” The Nevada primary results focused on Bernie Sanders’s growing lead. I liked the remark about all the candidates vying for Obama-friendship points. The guest, Anthony Mackie, discussed the acting challenges of Altered Carbon and his pastime of building houses in New Orleans to renew neighborhoods washed away by Hurricane Katrina.

Tuesday, February 25 – Yet another post-debate show. Highlights included everyone body-slamming Michael Bloomberg, the candidates talking about race to win points with South Carolina Black voters (loved Trevor’s response to Bloomberg’s “if I were Black” hypothetical, with him getting Stop-and-Frisked and the cops asking “whose $60 billion” are in his pockets,) and Pete Buttigieg taking a break from policy to “ask for a raise in his allowance.” Speaking of Buttigieg, Jaboukie gathered a group of LGBTQ voters to get their take on the candidate. They discussed the critique that Buttigieg “isn’t gay enough” and recognized the pattern of white cis gay men often being presented as the face of the community. Rahm Emanuel was the guest. After talking about how Buttigieg and Bloomberg, as fellow mayors, did at the debate, Emanuel discussed his new book on how being a mayor is a microcosm of the executive office.

Wednesday, February 27 – Opening blurbs on applications for a new NASA class, the “Hot Pockets heiress” getting jail time in the college admissions scandal (I liked Trevor’s riff on her trashy/classy title,) and Scotland providing free feminine hygiene available in public places. Trevor launched a new segment, “Is This How We Die?”, looking at the coronavirus. Along with looks at outbreaks in several different countries – wow, that Iranian health minister who was revealed to have the virus the day after he assured everyone that all was well – we examined Trump’s take on U.S. preparedness. I agreed with Trevor on how unreassuring Trump is in any kind of crisis. Roy had a new CP Time on Black fashion designers, from the woman who pioneered curve-accentuating clothing to the first Black artistic director at Louis Vuitton. The guest was author Kiley Reid, who definitely sold me on her new book Such a Fun Age.

Thursday, February 28 – Like many, I shook my head at the idea of a doctor trying to hide vegetables in the president of the United States’ mashed potatoes. We also got quick bits on Apple’s edict that movie villains can’t use iPhones (“Group text! Let’s see whose is green. Christoph Waltz, it’s you again!”) and religious violence in India. More on the coronavirus, with school closures in Japan – “Quick, America! Now’s your chance to get caught up in math!” – and the stock market going down (except for “staying-in” products like Netflix or Pelaton.) Jordan met with Black voters in South Carolina, though he took Roy with him. Jordan wanted to know which candidate had the best OPV, “Obama Proximity Value,” but the voters were more interested in actual policies. Musician Jessie Reyez was the guest. She discussed going from busking to a Grammy nomination, and her performance at the end of the show was great.

A Little TLC(w): Seoul Raiders (2005)

While I haven’t quite decided how I think it compares to Tokyo Raiders, I really enjoyed this movie.  It’s a lot of fun to see Tony Leung Chiu-wai as Lam again, and sure, the plot is pretty popcorn-flick, but I could watch those action scenes all day.

When Lam comes across a multi-million-dollar McGuffin – the “Avenger” Plate, for anyone who cares to know – he steals it from the crooks who stole it in the first place and attempts to return it for the reward money, only to be double-crossed by the intelligence agents he was liaising with.  He’s then recruited to tail the crooked agent to South Korea and recover the plate before it can be sold to a notorious gangster.  Along the way, he acquires a partner/rival in the form of J.J., a hungry young thief who’s eager to improve her circumstances.

At first, I found myself missing Macy and Yung from the first movie, as I hadn’t realized that only Lam was carrying over.  Although I’d easily call Lam the franchise’s best asset, I did enjoy the makeshift team-up vibe of the first film and had been expecting to see those relationships continue.  As the film went on, however, I got invested enough in Lam’s dynamic with J.J. and Owen, the agent who stole the plate, that I didn’t miss the old crew as much.  And while the characters are different, I enjoy the fact that Lam apparently has “an entourage of cute girls” he can enlist to help him in any country, who are all devoted, resourceful, and scrappy.

As in the first film, the action scenes are the biggest selling point for me.  You can certainly find greater skill/mastery in other films, but the fights here have so much style and personality, enough that you don’t really mind that the story is little more than an excuse to string one fight scene after another together.  We’ve got fights in bath houses and subway cars, fights on escalators, and fights involving dinner plates.  They’re endlessly fun and watchable and, for me, never feel repetitive.

With Leung back as Lam, the film is anchored by his entertaining, charismatic performance.  It’s essentially just more of the same from the first film, but I don’t mind that. They obviously aren’t the kind of movies, and this isn’t the kind of character, where you expect dramatic personal growth.  You’re in it to see Lam be smooth and cocky while simiultaneously a little ridiculous, and the movie delivers handily on that front.

In addition to the excellent fights, I like Leung’s breezy, mildly-adversarial chemistry with Qi Shu, who plays J.J., and I love the offbeat notes of humor.  In particular, I like Lam’s moment of pettiness with Owen on the subway, a ludricously-held pose in one of the fights, and Leung’s 100% dedication to delivering the line, “There’s nowhere to run with a naked butt.”  Ha!

Recommend?

In General – I would.  It’s not hight art, but it’s hugely entertaining.

Tony Leung Chiu-wai – Yeah.  While it’s nothing new from Tokyo Raiders, I love watching Leung in this role.

Warnings

Lots of violence, language, drinking, and thematic elements.

The Book of Rannells: Girls: Season 6, Episode 7 – “The Bounce” (2017)

If season 5 is the only one to feature an ongoing centric arc for Elijah, “The Bounce” is the only episode in which Elijah takes the A-plot.  This is an Elijah episode all the way, and it is glorious, absolutely hilarious with nice dramatic flourishes here and there.  It’s an episode that proves there’s no reason a character like Elijah couldn’t be a protagonist instead of a supporting character (a few Elijah-related spoilers, including one from last season.)

Elijah is getting more serious about acting, and his anxious preparations for an open call (for a workshop of White Men Can’t Jump:  The Musical, natch) are thrown for a loop when Dill shows up unexpectedly at Elijah and Hannah’s apartment.  Elijah hasn’t seen Dill since the tail-end of last season, and Dill now comes seeking a hideout in the middle of a PR scandal.  With Hannah back at the apartment “watching” Dill, Elijah heads to his audition with thoughts of his ex swirling in his head.  Meanwhile, Marnie gets a wakeup call as she tries to deal with some financial issues.

In the last episode, Marnie was still very much in “everything wrong with me is someone else’s fault” mode, and she starts out in a very similar place here, but this episode takes her through a pretty humbling experience, and refreshingly, she’s forced to reckon with the part she’s taken in her own problems.  (It also features an amusing couple of burst bubbles from Marnie’s personal mythology.)

I enjoy the scenes with Hannah and Dill at the apartment.  She at least partially does her due diligence as Elijah’s friend, showing loyalty to Elijah in her chilliness towards Dill and texting Elijah his requested updates on all Dill does there.  But this part of the plot also gets into what’s going on with both Hannah and Dill, and the two end up weirdly connecting over their respective woes.

But let’s be real:  this episode is all about Elijah.  It took over five-and-a-half seasons, but this is the big one.  Just the audition stuff alone is a goldmine.  As Andrew Rannells has explained, Lena Dunham and co. mined his own past auditioning experiences for the comic beats of this story, and it’s heavily based on his trials and tribulations auditioning for the basketball-themed Lysistrata Jones.  Elijah’s audition song is as phenomenal as it is ridiculously thirsty (does it make sense for Elijah to sing that well?  I don’t know, but I’m okay with it,) his fumbly dancing is awesome, and everything that follows the introduction of basketballs into the audition is full-on hilarious.  In the midst of all this top-shelf comedy, though, there are also a number of nice, subtle character beats, particularly in Rannells’s wordless reactions to the indifferently-distracted casting directors as Elijah sings, dances, and dribbles (well, tries to) for his life.  Even though Elijah has talked for years about wanting to “break into” Broadway, we see that this is why he hasn’t done much of anything about it until now:  because it matters so much to him, and it’s hard for him to watch it matter so little to the people who can decide his fate.

All that on its own would be an embarrassment of riches for an Elijah A-plot, but then you throw in Dill?  The undercurrent that’s been following Elijah through this season have been Dill’s words to him when they broke up, that he needed someone less “aimless,” and now, when Elijah is finally taking an active, tangible step to make something happen in his life, who shows up at his door?  It’s Elijah’s feelings about Dill’s words to him, it’s his thoughts about how they broke up, it’s his lingering feelings for Dill, and it’s his own fears of putting himself out there professionally and not being good enough – all that is what’s swirling in his head as he arrives at his audition, a personal/romantic/career crisis all rolled into one.

The stuff with Dill is the more dramatic part of Elijah’s plot here, but just as the audition story mixes in some good drama, the Dill story includes some great humor as well (I think this episode might have more genuine laugh-out-loud moments for me than any other in the series.)  I love their exchange about Elijah’s “basketball outfit” for his audition, and there’s this spectacular moment where Elijah drags Hannah out into the hallway to whisper about Dill and he’s so worked up that he just sort of flails himself against the closed door.  While I can’t say I’ve ever done that or have ever been in the particular situation that causes Elijah to do it, I can pinpoint exactly what that feeling is and what would make someone want to do that.  Rannells is unquestionably fantastic, and this is an episode that recognizes that wholeheartedly.