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Amy Schumer

True Detective Season 2: Another Descent into the Darkness

January 12, 2016 by Jacob Sahms Leave a Comment


tdmainO, what a tangled web we weave when first we practise to deceive!–Sir Walter Scott

In the second season of HBO’s hit television series, True Detective, the all-new cast tackles a case full of nooks and crannies wrapped around the morale that “we get the world that we deserve.” An Army veteran and current California patrolman, Paul Woodrugh (Taylor Kitsch), finds the deceased city manager of Vinci, CA, on the highway. Soon, Vinci P.D. detective Ray Velcoro (Colin Farrell) and Ventura County Sheriff Sergeant Ani Bezzerides (McAdams) are called in to investigate. But there are some dangerous ties to crime kingpin Frank Semyon (Vince Vaughn), who wants to recover the financial investment he had made in the city manager. We know Nic Pizzolatto will explore the darkness, but where is he going to take us this time?

I’ll admit that I had a much harder time getting into this season than I did the first one. Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson were supremely nuanced, bending the lines between good and evil, while chasing a serial killer over decades. It was intensely dark, and wildly entertaining, creating water cooler talk. The second season? Not so much. Maybe it was Vaughn’s misplacement as a less-than-funny baddie. It wasn’t Farrell — we know he has made a career of playing twisted antiheroes (Bullseye, anyone?) and it wasn’t McAdams, who delivers as she always does. [I’m no Kitsch fan, but even he played the wounded soldier part well.]

tdfarrellFor those who did dig it the first time through, there’s plenty of commentary in the Blu-ray release that provides the Digital HD as well. I think that the comparison from one to another (the way that FX has provided with a new-cast-each-season set up for American Horror Story and Fargo) allows for bolder storytelling. Pizzolatto is signed for several more years by HBO but we don’t know if we’re getting a third season yet. I’m pulling for Tom Hardy and Ryan Gosling, personally. But I’d be worried if they went with Amy Schumer and Whitney Cummings…

Back in the series, I’m troubled because the first season made both the detectives’ private lives and their investigation matter. I’m not sure that the second season is quite as effective in that. [For the record, it’s also a problem in Liev Schreiber’s Ray Donovan, which is also darkly entertaining.] But we are faced with several men who are put in positions where they doubt their own power, person, or masculinity, all tied up in one. Some of it has to do with secrets; some of it has to do with pain they have not dealt with. But it often points back to the violence they live by, which they are tied to, but which often works against them like a double-edged sword.

tdadams

Still, True Detective has me hooked because it wrestles with the nuances. We are made up of our past decisions, our hopes and dreams both realized and deferred. None of these characters is who they hoped they would be, but they are all forced to wrestle with their realities. In Pizzolatto’s world, some will rise and some will fall, but all will bear the scars for the rest of their lives.

 

Filed Under: DVD, Reviews, Television Tagged With: Amy Schumer, Colin Farrell, HBO, Liev Schreiber, Nic Pizzolatto, Rachel McAdams, Taylor Kitsch, True Detective, Vince Vaughn, Whitney Cummings

Trainwreck: The Past Won’t Let You Go Without A Fight

November 11, 2015 by Jacob Sahms Leave a Comment

trainwreck

Amy Schumer’s team-up with Judd Apatow, Trainwreck, arrived on Blu-ray, DVD, and Digital HD without the fanfare that it might have a few months ago. A casualty in another theater shooting, the film deserves more attention, even if it is a jumbled cocktail that fails to completely blend. Schumer’s insights are powerful and funny, even if we don’t always know what to do with what she’s telling us.

As a little girl, Amy (Schumer) is told by her father (Colin Quinn) that “monogamy isn’t realistic.” It becomes her motto in work, in relationships, and, most definitely, in the bedroom. She so fears the same fate that befell her mother (to be cuckolded and abandoned) that she refuses to let anyone get close – until she meets sports doctor, Aaron Conners (Bill Hader). Suddenly, she’s drawn into something more than sex, more than physical pleasure, and she has no compass by which to determine her direction.

Handed the keys to the kingdom (a full-length feature film), Schumer tried to do too much. She sets out for a Bridesmaids-level comedy on her own (without a wing-woman like Melissa McCarthy or anyone else to prop her up) that is ambitious in its own right. But she’s aiming high enough for guys, too, with her fitting more-than-a-cameo performances by John Cena and LeBron James from the worlds of WWE and the NBA. And she wants to draw out a powerful exploration of what it means to learn and grow when your past is stacked against you emotionally and socially.

The Blu-ray combo pack features deleted scenes, the unrated version, a look at Daniel Radcliffe’s funny ‘cameo’ in “The Dogwalker” movie-within-a-movie, the prerequisite gag reel, and commentary from Apatow and Schumer.

For my money, the funniest moments are left to Hader and James. The ‘bromance’ of these two as an odd couple, with the switch of expectations between the male and female relationships, provides insight as well. Out of all of the film’s gags, it’s these moments that brought the most laughs – even though Schumer is the mind behind all of them.

Schumer has something to say about the way that the social constructs, the family impact, of our past control our future. They form us and direct us from an early age, before we know better. They’re not just about sex and relationships, but about race, religion, gender, and much more. What defines us as human beings is what we determine for ourselves when the time comes. Will we be who we are called to be, meant to be? Will we be ourselves, choosing to live and believe in what we know to be true, even when it conflicts with what we’ve been taught?

This is ultimately a “coming of age” movie – it’s just that it takes some of us longer to grow up than others.

Filed Under: DVD, Film, Reviews Tagged With: Amy Schumer, Bill Hader, John Cena, Judd Apatow, Lebron James

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