Some quick thoughts on Star Wars: The Force Awakens

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS:

As soon as the credits rolled, I couldn’t help but think, “Huh. So that...was it?” I’ll watch it again next week, but there was a lot going through my head during and after seeing it so here are some quick thoughts. 

First, what I liked. Finn and Rey are great characters, played by fine actors. I loved their introduction, their dynamic and how they were generally used. I realize now we got a lot more out of them than we ever did out of Luke, Leia or Han but obviously these characters mirror qualities in those three. I didn’t like how fan service-y the first trailer was, but I ended up totally liking how involved Han and Chewie were (but that’s probably because of what happens to Han). The visuals were fine. I like that there were jokes, but it was maybe a bit too much for my liking. I could change my mind about that later. Miles from Lost! Lupita Nyong’o as Maz Kanata was great. I loved that character and her line about people’s eyes. Han dying was an interesting twist. I kind of figured Ren was his son (Kylo/Solo).

I enjoyed most of the movie, but I didn’t really like how the whole last third of the movie was handled. Yes, the movie was an exact rehash of Episode IV. Yes, it was the easiest of the three to do. And there’s story left to conquer with the next two and the one-offs also. But I wanted a real movie not just a jumpoff point.

That final lightsaber fight didn’t seem like a final battle to me. I checked the time around that point thinking there’s got to be another 45 minutes left, right? Even if Ren is mid-training, shouldn’t he whoop both of their asses? If you handed me a sword right now and asked me to fight, I would be killed immediately. And for the Death Star/battle station/whatever to just blow up that easily felt really cheap. They probably cut a lot at the end, but it still felt rushed.

Ren taking his mask off twice was weird because Driver has such a baby face and to hear his voice without the mask and voice effect reminded me of Rick Moranis as Darth Helmet. I almost laughed at that scene where Ren and Rey are trying to out-force each other. People would have clowned Lucas for doing the same thing. 

It was weird seeing a talented actor as Oscar Isaac work in such a limited role. 

Another Death Star? It’s bigger and destroys more planets at a time but planets that we as viewers have no connection to whatsoever?

If it takes my iPhone at least an hour to charge, it should have taken like six weeks for that battle station to charge regardless of how powerful the sun was. 

Don’t like Snoke portrayed as this large figure. I get that it’s a hologram, but that’ll ruin things when we see him in person and he’ll obviously be smaller.

Do no intergalactic contractors build handrails onto their elevated walkways???

When they showed the AT-ATs on the desert planet, I couldn't help but think, "Man, climate change has really done a number on Hoth."

If you’re going to redo the desert planet, forest planet, ice planet trope, how you gonna end on the ice planet?

R2D2 jumps alive then and there...because?

Captain Phasma gotta be fired.

That final scene. I feel like it would be more of a twist if Rey wasn’t Luke’s daughter but that scene was strange. To literally end the movie with a helicopter shot of Rey holding out the lightsaber like five feet away from Luke. And he doesn’t grab it or move closer or anything? Just continues to stand there. Why was he standing there? He doesn’t have a house or a cave or a Playstation or anything. There was literally nothing else on that island. We’re supposed to believe he’s been standing there for some number of years? Though, this does raise interesting questions about the interactions of this whole family and when and where Ben turning, Rey’s abandonment, Han and Leia’s split all fit in.

It’s easy to clown Lucas’s prequels but it’s way easier to write a sequel to 4,5 and 6 than it would have been to write prequels. At least the prequels had some new elements to them.

Theories: 

Like I said before, you can do a lot with Han/Leia/Ren/Luke/Rey as one big family how the disconnect occurs. The arc of the three movies seems like it will be Ren going from bad guy to good guy, but can you really just redo Vader’s storyline? Obviously lots of story to cover, but it’ll interesting to see how Rey’s flashbacks(/future visions???) turn out. There’s lots of history to cover too. I’m sure Luke trained other Jedi. Where did the First Order originate? Why does the Rebellion have so few ships? What hair product does Poe Dameron use? I didn’t really like 

TV Recap: Master of None

The reaction to Aziz Ansari's new show Master of None has been so overwhelmingly positive, it's easy to forget that no one expected the show to be what it is. Aziz and his co-creator Alan Yang came from Parks and Rec, a lovable, single cam mockumentary. Mike Schur, one of Master's producers, worked on Parks and also Brooklyn Nine Nine, which has the same format. Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, Netflix's only other half-hour comedy isn't quite that but has a similar aesthetic feel to both of those. It was safe to assume that Aziz would follow suit with his show.

The other aspect was how ubiquitous he had become as a comic. His last special, while taped at Madison Square Garden, wasn't his best to put it politely. Would the show be more of that mediocrity? But the show is a significant marker in his career. Aziz has had four hour-long specials in six years, all before he turned 32. He starred on an NBC sitcom for seven years. He wrote and starred in his own major movie. He is literally one of the most successful comics out, but he's never been considered the guy. This was a chance for him to quiet naysaysers.

The show is good. It is shot beautifully. It makes New York look so warm and welcoming in a way that no big city could ever be. I love that episodes revolve around these candid conversations, with shots of people just walking and talking. The music fits in really well. Then, of course, there are the special episodes: "Parents," "Old People," "Indians on TV." My parents are immigrants from India. I understand the emotional distance that exists within an Indian family. I'm sure that episode — and the fact that it was so early in the series — hit home for many. What separates this show from a Louie or Girls is that it views these topics in an optimistic manner. And there is a conscious decision to focus on that topic and not just Dev's relation to that topic. It's fun for me to see people of color on screen. It's fun for me to see Indian people on screen. It's cool to see an interracial romantic relationship played out on screen where one of people isn't white or black.

But this show isn't the end all be all of the minorities on TV problem. It definitely isn't the blueprint to fixing the problem. Dev has an Asian friend Brian, but Brian is really only used in the episode "Parents". Eric, the white friend, is in almost every other episode. All of Dev's romantic interests are white. The one that's not is an Asian girl that was only on the date for the free food. Outside of Aziz's mom, there are no Indian women in the show at all. It's difficult to see how this kind of thing was overlooked in the writer's room. I get that it's his show and it's semi-autobiographical, but these things do matter. There's little things too. His name is Dev Shah, which is a name that's easy for white people to say, but it would also make him Gujarati which means his family wouldn't speak Tamil. Maybe this isn't the show to establish the nuances of Indian culture to an American audience, but you don't have to brush those things to the side either, even if the show is less about the Indian American experience and more about a single dude that hangs out with friends and likes tacos.

I do appreciate the depths of the show. I've been so jaded by 30 Rock style pacing, it almost made me uncomfortable to hear the (noticeably long) pauses in conversations. Normal people don't talk like that, right? But it is funny. And it is enjoyable. Also, I need to get into acting if commercial actors really get paid enough to live in an apartment that nice.

Top 25: Hi-Tek

There are soul beats, generally attributed to Just Blaze, Kanye West and the like in which songs from the 70s are chopped, looped and at times sped up, and then there are beats that touch your soul. That trigger a frequency in your brain and the rest of your body to feel a sensation so pure you wonder why anyone would spend the rest of his life listening to anything different. For most of my formative years, Hi-Tek helped me experience the latter feeling. Tek was a magician with a drum machine, melding vocal samples, bass lines and drums in a way that few in rap had done before. And while a Just Blaze or a Bink could make something hard and turn around and make something smooth, few producers could generate a beat with a palpable sense of melancholy like Hi-Tek. Take Snoop Dogg's "I Believe In You." It's a sad beat, but it's a happy beat. You have the hi-hat and rimshot combo for most of the drum loop paired with a guitar part that implies sorrow or mourning, but then those shakers and that oh-so-beautiful clap come in at the third bar to make everything feel better again.

Not a lot of producers experienced celebratory underground status and major commercial success like Hi-Tek. He grew up in Cincinnati — and you can probably make a Midwest Dilla connection in terms of the soul stuff but they do have pretty established differences* — but he's mostly known for his work with Rawkus Records in New York. He produced five songs on Mos Def and Talib Kweli's Blackstar album and he has assorted credits throughout the Soundbombing series, but he's easily most famous for his and Kweli's Reflection Eternal album (the first one, anyway) and its lead single "The Blast."

*If anything, you can probably make the Pete Rock comparison but they all obviously come from the same lineage.

In 2002, he received a call from Dr. Dre asking permission to use the beat for what would become "Hollywood" for Truth Hurts' debut. That sparked his relationship with Aftermath where he would contribute to albums by 50 Cent, G-Unit, Lloyd Banks, Young Buck, The Game (twice), Snoop Dogg (twice) and D12, albums that would go on to sell 11 million, 5.5 million, 4 million, 5 hundred thousand, 5 million, 2.3 million, 1 million, 1 million and 2 million copies, respectively, though none of his songs were ever singles. In 2009 when three or four T.I. references for what was then Detox leaked, one of them, "Coming Back", was done by Hi-Tek and I stand by the fact that that song and the rest of that batch were better than anything on Compton.

He also released three solo albums that featured him rapping* even though he was never really known for that and a bunch of his friends that were much more famous than him. They were kind of like DJ Khaled albums but not as good and he actually contributed something to them. Hi-Teknology 2 is one of those middle of the road albums that doesn't really exist anymore but for nostalgic reasons means a lot to a certain type of person on the Internet. I'm one of those people, but to be fair 2006 was a hell of a year for that kind of fan. While I still wait for that unreleased Dion album, here are Hi-Tek's 25 best beats.

*Apparently all written by Smoke DZA.

Listen on Spotify.

Hi-Tek Top 25:

1. Reflection Eternal - The Blast
2. Bishop Lamont - Friends*^
3. Snoop Dogg – I Believe In You (feat. Latoiya Williams)
4. The Game – Runnin' (feat. Tony Yayo)
5. Dr. Dre – Coming Back (feat. T.I.) [T.I. reference]*^
6. 50 Cent – Ryder Music
7. Hi-Tek - Come Get It (Tekstrumentals)
8. The Game - Ol' English (feat. Dion)
9. Hi-Tek - Music for Life (feat. J. Dilla, Nas, Common, Busta Rhymes & Marsha Ambrosius)
10. Reflection Eternal – Love Language
11. Reflection Eternal – Good Mourning
12. Styles P – Testify (feat. Talib Kweli)^
13. Hi-Tek – Step Ya Game Up (Remix) [feat. Little Brother & Dion]
14. Cormega – Take These Jewels
15. Hi-Tek – The Sun God (feat. Common & Vinia Mojica)
16. Styles P – Let's Go (feat. Ray J)
17. The Game - Letter To The King (feat. Nas)
18. Reflection Eternal – Back Again (feat. RES)
19. Hi-Tek – Josephine (feat. Ghostface Killah, The Willie Cottrell Band & Pretty Ugly)
20. Hi-Tek – Know Me (feat. Jonell)
21. Hi-Tek – Baby We Can Do It (feat. Czar-Nok)
22. Black Star – Respiration
23. Common – 1-9-9-9 (feat. Sadat X & Talib Kweli)
24. G-Unit – G-Unit
25. Tha Eastsidaz – Eastside Ridaz (feat. Snoop Dogg, LaToiya Williams, Nate Dogg & Soopafly)

* Not released officially
^ Not on Spotify


Previous Top 25 Lists:
Cool & Dre

TV Recap: Red Oaks

Amazon has an interesting collection of original video programming. They have all the money in the world but continue to fund shows that USA or TNT would air. Which in itself is not fair because most of the TV watching public loves absolute garbage TV. But as a brand name, even as a second tier, they have never come even close to the level of excitement Netflix's shows can provide. I'm not even sure how many people realize Prime shipping also happens to come with all these streamable options. There is hope for Amazon though. The Man in the High Castle pilot was really great and the full show debuts next month. And they did pay Woody Allen a lot of money, so I'm not sure he can weasel out of that agreement.

Red Oaks, like Betas, is an enjoyable show, a notch or two above that USA level. That almost sounds like a harsh critique, but, again, I liked it. In fact I watched every episode in an afternoon. The shows follows David, a rising college junior home for the summer working as a tennis instructor at a country club set in the 80s. Richard Kind plays his father. Paul Reiser plays the owner of the country club. Like Betas, it's maybe technically a comedy, but it's not a show that's focused on a jokes. It simply follows this small group of people for different days throughout the summer.

What drives the show forward are the different scenarios of boy has girlfriend A but realizes he's interested in girl B. But the show seems to be more ambitious than that. It just never actually does. In the first episode, David's dad has a heart attack and admits to David that he should have married someone else and that his wife might be a lesbian. There are some marriage counseling scenes, but it's not fully explored. So why mention it at all? Then there's the career dilemma. David's dad wants him to be an accountant but that's something he'd rather not do. Again, touched on but not much else beyond that.

At its heart, it's a bunch of kids shirking responsibilities figuring themselves out. But also, it's a bunch of white kids working at a country club. Shout out to the Indian comic from Guy Code that got a two second cameo delivering flowers.

Top 25: Cool & Dre

Cool & Dre are an interesting case study. The duo were never superstar producers. They had two major hits in 2004 and 2005 with "New York" and "Hate It or Love It" and a small handful of top 40 hits after that with Juvenile, Christina Milian and The Game and Lil Wayne. But they've managed to not only stay working but to do so in a way that still actually matters. They never ended up doing beats for random dudes on Koch.

Way more often than not, the music – or at the very least, their contribution – is so great. I can count on one hand songs they did that I'm not necessarily celebrating ("Lights Get Low", anything that has involved Nas...). They use samples freely. They do entirely original music. Rap. R&B. They can write hooks. Dre can sing hooks. They've done soul beats. They even had their 80s glam rock period with synths and brite pianos ("100 Million", "The Crack House", "Make The World Go Round", "World Tour"). There is a richness and texture to their music, a completeness that never feels like too much. It can be radio ready but remains true to an aesthetic.

I'd say that the only left for them to accomplish would be to bring in a new artist or produce an entire album, but they've tried to do both of those things. They produced that entire Christina Milian album when she was dating Dre, and you can totally forget about that one. The first single was a fake "Hate It or Love It" and the second single was a fake "Stay Fly." And randomly enough, they produced the entire Queen Latifah comeback album in 2009 and I don't know what the fuck that one was. It would have been cool if things worked out with Don Trip, but let's blame that one on Interscope.

In 2015, no artist is coming to them for a single, but it's amazing the relationships they've maintained over the years. They've worked steadily with Rick Ross, Lil Wayne,  The Game, DJ Khaled and Fat Joe. The Runners, Danja, shit even J.U.S.T.I.C.E. League aren't doing anything like that. The amazing thing about this list and their discography in general is how much those five artists overlap among it. It was really a great time to record in Miami from 2005 to 2009. I'd love to see Young Thug or Vince Staples over a Cool & Dre beat. Meek, Kendrick, Drake, maybe even Jay-Z. For now, let's celebrate their legacy as it stands. This is, this is, this is...

Listen on Spotify (except "Holla At Me" because Koch is garbage and the Jay Rock song which for whatever reason is no longer streamable)

Cool & Dre Top 25:

1. Brown Paper Bag (DJ Khaled)
2. Hate It Or Love It (The Game)
3. New York (Ja Rule)
4. Rodeo (Juvenile)
5. 100 Million (Birdman)
6. Holla At Me (DJ Khaled)
7. Take Me Home (Terror Squad)
8. Let's Just Do It (Joe)
9. All My Life (Jay Rock)
10. Blow (Rick Ross)
11. Prove Something (Fat Joe)
12. Da Da Da (Lil Wayne)
13. Confessions (8Ball & MJG)
14. Loyalty (Fat Joe)
15. Forgot About Me (Scarface)
16. Valley of Death (Fat Joe)
17. On Fire (Lil Wayne)
18. Born In The Ghetto (Fat Joe)
19. Big Dreams (The Game)
20. Ashamed (Rick Ross)
21. The Crack House (Fat Joe)
22. Good Girls Go Bad (The Game)
23. So Special (Lil Wayne)
24. Let It Show (Tyga)
25. All That (The Game)

Why did Drake and Future come together for WATTBA?

Now that Drake and Future's collaborative album What A Time To Be Alive is out, the first question worth asking is why did these two come together at all? Drake and Future are easily rap's biggest names at the moment and while they technically have a history together, the music they've made hasn't necessarily left more collabs to be desired. When Drake jumped on "Tony Montana," that was one of the first times Drake chose to hop on a song by a lesser known artist nationally whose song was very successful regionally as a way to boost his own image. That song was even that big of a hit, and it's still the most successful song they've had together. Part of that is the technicality that "Bitches Love Me" was a Lil Wayne song, but the other tries – "Never Satisfied", "Shit (Remix)", "We In This Bitch 1.5" – all came and went.
Drake was the only feature on Future's DS2 and that's likely how the idea for this album came about. Future had been on a unbelievable run in 2015, so of course Drake, who continues to delay his own album Views From The 6, decides to hop on that wave. And for Future, the quick success at radio for "Where Ya At" because of the sheer presence of Drake and the potential to expand his fanbase are the likely catalysts for a project like this. So in that sense, WATTBA had a purpose – to keep both their name's hot – even if only Drake needed that to happen. And as a result the album feels like a very clock-in-clock-out job.
It's evident that Future and Metro had most of these songs in the stash before Drake came into town. Four of the nine joint songs showcase Future on both the first verse and the entire hook while Drake only contributes one verse at the end of each. The songs that sound more like equal parts Drake and Future almost feel out of place on the album. "Change Locations," produced by Drake co-hort Noel, is downtempo and elicits 40's old low pass filter. They trade places on the hook, but it becomes a Drake song on an album that doesn't need one.
Were this a solo Future project, it would continue his solid streak of solo tapes but would probably fit in somewhere between Monster and Beast Mode on the tail end of the rankings. "Diamonds Dancing" is the obvious highlight. I don't know how many other songs could make you want to cry and throw money in a strip club at the same time. If anything, Drake's involvement was a detriment to both the album and his own star power. Drake can have a positive impact on other artists' songs, clearly, but he can also really drop the ball and it's fair to say he does not fit on songs like these and we probably shouldn't let him get away with him singing hooks like "Live from the Gutter" and "I'm the Plug."

Tinashe – Party Favors (feat. Young Thug)

I really like how Tinashe has handled her short career. She's picked the right singles. She does the public thing as well as she can. Her album was great. Once you know the album though, it's hard to get as much out her bedroom songs. They're a little too unstructured, not as polished. That's what "Party Favors" feels like to me. It is, by all means, the right decision for her. She's probably got a Max Martin song ready to go. This is a re-introduction that doesn't alienate the fanbase. It also re-establishes her strong hip-hop connection, something that Rihanna – her only real competition in terms of the superstardom she strives for – no longer identifies with. I appreciate what the song's trying to do. Putting Young Thug on there is a nice, smart touch. The song just doesn't do it for me.

TV Recap: Narcos

Netflix has more than 20 original series and at this point it's probably fair to say only one or two have really been worth watching. Even House of Cards and Orange is the New Black, their two flagship shows, fizzled out with their most recent seasons and aren't talking points at all anymore. Two years into their binge watching experiment, it's hard to come up with any positive arguments for that manner of delivering shows. Very few people are actually watching an entire season all the way through. It makes shows hard to discuss. It amplifies the feeling of emptiness and loss and confusion as to what to watch next when the season is done.

At most Narcos is a good show. Really it's an okay show. You've got to appreciate that it's filmed entirely in Columbia and that most of the dialogue is in Spanish. While it means I have to actually watch the screen to know what's happening, it does provide a layer of authenticity to the show that it probably deserves. It's also narrated. One, by a white man who can't even pronounce Bogota properly. And two, in a way that provides no deeper look into what the characters are thinking. The narration is essentially a Wikipedia entry that bridges the real life events the show portrays. That's the other thing. This could have been a fully, fleshed out show. Instead it's a glorified documentary re-enactment. Sure it's an interesting story and concept. The success of Breaking Bad showed we're all in on giant drug operations. But Narcos isn't that. Part of me wants to see how the government deals with the narcos and how Escobar deals with the enemy cartel but I also don't really care.

I'm not familiar with Escobar's actual story. Though I think I'd rather scan Wikipedia than sit through multiple seasons of the show.

Film School: Crash Test, Dear White People, Best In Show

Crash Test
Crash Test is a live show at UCB hosted by Paul Scheer and Rob Huebel that usually features your typical UCB names and a bunch of people that also appear in Children's Hospital and the like. Huebel and Scheer took that show, put it on a bus that drove around Los Angeles and taped it for this special that's available for $3.99 on Vimeo On Demand. If you get a chance to check it out, it's pretty funny. If you watch the trailer and read the names on the poster, that's exactly what you're getting. There isn't some game changing twist or special appearance aside from maybe how some of these actors make their entrances. Scheer and Huebel host the show with the audience all on the bus, playing off each other and things they see on the street. They parody Star Maps tours. They give an earpiece to one of the audience members and make him do weird things on Hollywood Boulevard. Tom Lennon and Ben Garant show up as security guards at the Paramount lot. Natasha Legerro does five minutes of stand up. There's nothing cynical to note about any of this. It's fun and enjoyable. Toward the end, Earl Sweatshirt performs a song from the first album, so chances are this was recorded a while ago. The credits show there's another one coming in the near future.

Dear White People
It's hard to watch a trailer for a movie called "Dear White People" done in the way it was for this movie and not think the entire movie isn't literally just a laundry list of dos and don'ts for white people. I've been on a pretty anti-white people stance for some time now, but making that a movie didn't interest me as a moviegoer. It turns out that idea is buried here in what is still a movie with a story and characters (...obviously). The movie part is okay. It probably focuses on too many characters. On one hand doing that establishes how there's no single black identity, but the stories get convoluted and uninteresting, the dialogue at times a little too self-congratulatory. The culmination of the movie, and likely the entire purpose of this movie's existence, shows a fraternity throwing a blackface party with all its white members. During the credits, actual photos of real life events that resemble this one, are shown. The movie, itself, probably isn't that great but the realization that this still is a huge problem even for people aware of the racial climate we're in is a worthwhile one.

Best In Show
I literally knew nothing about this movie and watched it randomly on Labor Day. Best In Show was directed by Christopher Guest and written by Guest and Eugene Levy. It's a mockumentary style movie about a Westminster-style dog show. The movie starts off pretty slow and considering it came out in 2000, it felt very dated, especially 20 or so years after one of Guest's best Spinal Tap. I almost stopped paying attention to it. Once we get to the actual show, I was cracking up. Literally everything the announcer, played by Fred Willard, says is hysterical. There are all sorts of one liners that I could not stop laughing at. When I went to Chicago earlier this year, I went to the Second City theater and they have pictures of all the alumni that went on to do bigger things. Most of the cast of this movie is part of the Second City family. It's just really hard for me to not be bothered by the fact that literally the entire cast is white. And the movie came out in 2000?

The Carmichael Show

It's not ambitious for a trendy, young stand up comedian to get a show deal with a network and develop it into a multi-camera sitcom. It's downright cocky. Even if the reasoning is that it's nostalgic or it's what we grew up on, not only has it not worked if you pretend CBS doesn't exist for a second, it's not how we've experienced comedy on television during the last ten years. Especially not on NBC, home of The Office, 30 Rock, Community and Parks & Recreation. Jerrod Carmichael is an incredibly likable comic. There's not too much of his material out there. He's never done a late night spot or anything on Comedy Central. His debut hour that premiered on HBO last year was shot at the Comedy Store, directed by Spike Lee and was this tremendous combination of standard joke telling and awkward spontaneity. It seemed promising that he was doing a show, but you also understand how these things end up.

The Carmichael Show's first season was six episodes aired two at a time over three weeks. It initially seemed like a lot all at once, but it didn't end up being a bad thing. The show is about Jerrod, who lives with his girlfriend Maxine, his parents (David Alan Grier and Loretta Devine), his brother (Lil Rel) and his brother's ex-wife. Each episode revolves around a discussion between Jerrod and Maxine and his traditional, Southern parents. What separates this show from shows that tried to be multi-cam sitcoms (Mulaney) and multi-cam shows that don't even try (Les Moonves' filmography) is how real and heartwarming it feels. Not in an every-episode-gets-resolved-with-a-lesson way but in a manner in which the dialogue and reactions seem in the moment and uncontrived. His parents can be foolish and ridiculous but they're also parents. Their reactions to healthy diets and transgender people feel genuine and honestly funny. Grier and Devine do such a great job. Jerrod probably has some room to grow as an actor, but that works because his character is the one that's figuring things out.

You have your moments that seem a bit easy and multi-cam-y but I actually laugh at the show. It feels good to watch. It might be too much to say they tackle serious issues within it, but that's very much part of the show. How we talk about certain issues – Obama, protest, gay marriage – how a black family discusses these issues, how this family in particular resolves these issues.
Who knows where network TV goes in the next five years. Four episodes into a six-episode first season, it's hard to not root for Jerrod and company.

Travis Scott – Rodeo

Let's, for a second, set aside all the rumors and accusations surrounding Travis Scott. About him stealing music from studios in Houston or his a little too quick rise to prominence. After two mixtapes, packed with literally the biggest names in music, and now this debut album, it's fair to say Travis Scott has literally zero value as a rapper. He can just barely put words together and there's a slight chance they technically rhyme. Nine out of ten times his rhymes make no sense. Take the hook on "Skyfall." It's like madlibs with material from (Atlanta) rappers that actually matter. The track lists on his projects read like vision boards for 15-year-old hypebeasts – "Drugs, You Should Try It," "Pornography". His entire shtick is nearly impossible to grasp.
But there is an evident aspect to his music both from a distance and even to Scott's detractors that is audibly appealing. His music has some of the biggest, cleanest, crispest basslines and 808s in rap history. It's hard to not enjoy. He works with the biggest producers in Atlanta, but they're stuff doesn't sound like this on their own. He also has quite the ear for melody. Again, the words don't make any sense but it's hard to get a tune like "Mamacita" out of your head. This is also where his music differs from all the artists critics complain that he rips off. Scott's style is entirely mechanical. When you lay his vocals over bass that's already destroying subwoofers, it's just going to work. But that's not what makes Future Future. That's not what makes Young Thug Young Thug. When Future's voice curls into a whimper on "Now," you can feel the pain in his voice. It literally takes a couple bars for you to connect with him on an emotional level. That doesn't even come close to happening with Scott. Scott's music barely scrapes the top level of the hip-hop fan's pyramid of intrinsic values.
The weird thing about Rodeo that even if those are the only type of songs you expect, it's a very underwhelming listen. The songs, again, make no sense together, alone, in whatever combination. His rolodex is impressive especially considering he has copied every guest on this album's steez to a tee. The beats are lackluster. The guest verses are equally unimpressive. If anything, maybe not so much given this album but his entire career, he has quite the ability to A&R. From placing WondaGurl beats on a Jay-Z album to bringing together Quan, Migos, Longway and Thug to literally having Justin Bieber and Young Thug on a song together. He'll probably never grasp what he's doing wrong musically, but his ideas look good on paper. It doesn't help that he doesn't seem to be a good person, but it might be the best idea for him to quit trying to be an artist at all. He doesn't make beats. He's not a strong writer. He's kind of funny looking. He may, however, be the right last minute ingredient for many a rapper's albums today.

The Weeknd – Beauty Behind The Madness

There aren't too many big pop albums anymore but when there are they tend to make sense. Taylor Swift, Katy Perry. Even with the more confusing versions of this – Ed Sheeren, Lana Del Rey – you can still wrap your head around why they work. The Weeknd reaching this stratosphere does not make sense. The Weeknd crawled out of a hole in Toronto in 2011 singing about drugs and sex and sex and loneliness and more drugs. It wasn't so much the subject matter as it was the sound, the music, the voice that was so appealing. When I would get high and listen to sad R&B in my college apartment, House of Balloons was in that regular rotation.
Even if there was an aspect of those Trilogy tapes that could appeal to (at least a portion of) the masses, it wasn't music that screamed pop star. It definitely screamed Internet idol and teen girl worshipee but definitely not pop star. Which is why the transition is a little puzzling.
"Earned It" was a cool change of pace for an artist like the Weeknd who not only sticks to the same family of sonic production elements but also tends to recycle the same melodies and vocal stylings. It showed his abilities carrying a lower register, singing over live strings and a down tempo. It was so out of his typical comfort zone that he was forced to not do your typical Weeknd song. The song put him on the radar but he followed it with two Trilogy-esque singles – low synths, pitched up Thursday effects, lyrics about (what else?) sex. "Can't Feel My Face" brought Weeknd out into the open again where fans of "Earned It" stayed waiting. It's an obvious summer hit – Michael Jackson riffs, the perfect bassline.
It's fair to say, in the aftermath of the four singles that prefaced Beauty Behind the Madness, that pop stardom is a technicality. Not anyone can become one, but doing the big song(s) automatically puts you in that conversation, regardless of the type of artist you are. Beauty opens up the sonic color palette Weeknd typically uses, but it's the essentially the same songs he's always written. It doesn't seem totally fair to say with the two Max Martin songs and the 80s power ballad outro, but you generally know what you're getting with The Weeknd.
The hook to "Shameless" asks "Who is going to fuck you like me?" "Often" brags about how regularly that's done. "The Hills" specifies what time of day it's going to happen. If there's anything that seem out of place even in an album that attempts to be the year's biggest, it's the appearances by Ed Sheeran and Lana Del Rey. Just stop. In this case, the beauty behind the madness is not so different from what we've been used to.

Dr. Dre – Compton

I know more about what happened with Aftermath between 2006-2009 than probably any other human that wasn't employed by them. It makes no sense, in retrospect, why that was. My formative years as a hip-hop listener 2002-2005 were dominated by the G-Unit/Shady/Aftermath conglomerate. As a fan and at that point admitted producer groupie, I paid attention to a lot of different producer-led movements. By 2005/2006 though, Star Trak didn't really amount to anything, and Tim's group didn't pop off until Nelly and Justin's albums. So yeah, I paid attention to what was going with Aftermath.
There was the Aftermathmusic.net fansite/also sort of official site?, DubCNN, HipHopDX, Wikipedia, whatever. There was a point in the summer of 2007 where the Detox Wikipedia page was updated almost everyday. I know this because at the time I had no friends. I remember when Eminem said "We gon' make him do it" on the Encore title track. I remember when Dre said "Look out for Detox" on The Documentary. I remember all the changes that the artist roster went through. Game went to Geffen. Eve never dropped, even after "Tambourine." Stat Quo's single never popped and he got shelved. Busta's album was what it was. Bishop Lamont leaked "Grow Up" and was never heard of after that. Raekwon was rumored to have signed.  Marsha Ambrosius did some hooks but left without anyone realizing it. There was a dude named G.A.G.E., who had a cool song I heard on YouTube song. Joell Ortiz was there for like five minutes. Slim the Mobster was always this mysterious figure. They didn't really push him until 2010 but things got weird and he disappeared.
I remember the producers. Mike Elizondo, who did 50, Em and Game's biggest hits, left to do Maroon 5's second album. But there were still Mark Batson, Dawaun Parker, Focus..., sort of Mr. Porter and technically DJ Khalil even though things didn't really work out like that for him until 2009 when he did singles for Clipse, Slaughterhouse and Eminem. I even remember when Focus... said he wanted his album to be as big as The Chronic even though it was a free download on some random website.
I wrote a cover story on the myth and status of Detox for the A&E section of The Monarch, my high school paper Spring 2009. At the time, it was supposed to happen after Relapse and Before I Self Destruct. 50 used to throw around the phrase "three-headed monster" then. But those albums were what they were and that plan fizzled. But there was a plan in motion. Dre had presented Video of the Year at the VMAs. He signed a deal with a liquor company. He hopped on Kardinal Offishall and the Clipse's "Set It Off." And then his son died of an overdose. I think he has lots of kids, and this wasn't one with his wife. Not that one kid is more important than the other, but you get it.
Then Beats launched. Dre, Jimmy Iovine and Lebron all appeared at a Red Sox game to promote a new color way. Just the week before, there were rumors of a Dr. Dre and Jay-Z song called "Under Pressure." Splash leaked it three months later, and well, that shit was terrible.
But there were the good leaks! The T.I. references - "Coming Back" (Hi-Tek's best beat?), "Topless" and "Shit Popped Off." And they were really great. Literally, nothing to complain about. From what I understand, even as some of those songs went to commercials or a T.I. mixtape, different version were worked on well over time. A year or two later, there were other leaks. A song called "Syllables" with 50, Em and Jay and some more songs, but no one really remembers those.
Then there was a moment in 2012 when it was really supposed to happen. Nottz, Jake One and Bink were involved. This is before the official singles were released. But it seemed like someone pushed the button on "Kush" too early. And then there was "I Need A Doctor"...
Kendrick came along. He did Coachella. Slim the Mobster vanished. At that point I stopped caring. Even if it dropped, it would not have mattered. But it's actually here now.
And it's weird. It's good, probably not that great. But it's weird. In many senses. From what I understand, at least half of this album existed previously. Maybe the verses were re-written but the music was there. "Talking To My Diary" was in a Beats commercial four years ago. After all that I just covered, the names involved with Compton make no sense. Focus... left Aftermath in 2009. I understand everyone came back to work on different iterations of this project, but his name is on more than half of these songs, with mixing credits. Stat Quo and Slim The Mobster only have writing credits on one song each. Marsha's back on a bunch of songs. There's lots of King Mez, Justus and Anderson .Paak. It's not really a reunion album. It's just sort of an album that the people who were around in the past year made.
I strongly feel that the album came out when it did because Straight Outta Compton the movie's release date was the only realistic deadline Dre could have ever given himself for this project. Calling it a soundtrack is a bit of a cop out. The way music works today it would have never been as significant culturally than it would have been if it dropped ten years ago.
The songs for the most part are very busy. So much is going on. Too much. It's unnecessary. Why is there a "For the Love of Money" sample? And what's with all the Eazy references? And the line in that Em verse? There's a weird murder skit that doesn't make any sense in the context of the rest of the album. And the drowning skit?
The credits make no sense. Too much is made of what Dre actually does in studio, but even with his name as lead writing credit on every song, he has production credits on less than half of the album. The Game joint goes though, and "Animals" is very dope.
It's out, so he's off the hook now. That's the point of this album. It will never do what the other two albums did. He doesn't need them too. He just needed this album not to be terrible. Even if it was, it wouldn't have mattered. It's hard to say this album could have been better because this album is probably the best it could have been. I probably wanted something different, but there's no point trying to speculate anymore.

Film School: Straight Outta Compton

Straight Outta Compton was way better than it had any business being, but it's hard to leave this movie not having wanted a more focused, darker political film. When I say that the movie is good, I mean that it's well directed with a real budget and talented actors, even Cube's son. Ultimately though the movie was made by, or perhaps even strong armed into the final version by, the people it was based on. Cube, Dre and Eazy's widow Tomica are the movie's executive producers. While those main three are the most significant characters in the story, there's a lot more that went on than what was going to be depicted by these three.

It's the N.W.A. movie, but the group is only the focus of the first third of it. I get that there's more to the story when you get into the solo careers, but it's still the N.W.A. movie. We go pretty quickly from the five loosely knowing each other to "Boyz N Da Hood" to national tour. Compton touches on the members dealings with police (and the subsequent but wholly inaccurate inspiration for "Fuck The Police"), groupies and the FBI letter, but it doesn't focus on what made the group so significant both within hip-hop and in music generally, even without the context of violence in LA. There's a reason that 15 years after the fact twelve-year-old me could bump "Straight Outta Compton" and enjoy it like just came out and feel the aggression within it. That didn't happen when I tried to listen to Public Enemy or KRS or Rakim. The group was bigger than the controversy and the label drama. A great script would have tried to portray this.

My biggest outright issue with the movie is how all the dialogue involved saying the name of the person being addressed. "Come over here, Eazy." "Did you hear this, Dre?" I talk to people all the time. I hardly say their names unless I'm trying to get their attention. My second biggest complain is the amount of daps given in this movie. Write a dope line - daps. Threaten boyfriends of groupies with heavy artillery - daps. Reunite with a former enemy - daps. You'd think the screenwriters ran out of ideas and thought, "Let's have them give daps so we don't have to come up with more words for them to say."

The weirdest twist in this movie is how much it focused on Dre. I've seen pretty much all the interviews done by members of N.W.A., Death Row, Aftermath, what have you. Dre did press but was never really that vocal. As pivotal as he was to the group, he definitely wasn't a frontman. It seemed like more time was spent on his character than Eazy or Cube's. The movie literally ends with him saying he's leaving Suge and then announcing that his label will be called Aftermath. Like, the credits roll right after this. Wtf? This is like when the Lifetime Saved by the Bell movie was actually about Screech. How did we get here? He clearly had his own people punch up the script, but I didn't realize they had to power to do all this.

The movie is probably only 70% accurate -- why is 2Pac recording "Hail Mary" when Dre brings him "California Love"? The way "G Thang" and "Deep Cover" were recorded? Suge wasn't even that scary! A teenager could still walk away from it knowing most of the basic facts. There's just too much to cover even in a 2.5 hour movie. Had it been tighter and darker it would have been a different movie entirely. I guess I'll just hold out for the remake.

Film School: Trainwreck, Ant-Man

Ant-Man
This movie is cool. That's really the highest praise I can give it. Much was made about not necessarily being a superhero movie but rather a heist movie. I mean, it's a heist movie in the sense that at different times in the movie they break into somewhere to steal something. But this isn't Heat or Point Break or *googles heist movies to not just mention Ocean's Eleven*. It definitely has more of the feel of a Marvel movie than a heist movie. I would like to have seen how drastically different Edgar Wright's vision of this movie was. It could have been a cool diversion from all the Avengers tie-ins. But Rudd does a good job. Corey Stoll too. Michael Pena is really great, but something didn't sit right with me that he and T.I. played the dumb criminals.

Trainwreck
I like Amy Schumer. I've enjoyed her standup. I watch her show. I've seen her star rise since that Comedy Central hour, so it didn't really surprise me that Judd Apatow handpicked her as the next project. And, I guess, as a fan it was hard for me to find anything negative in this movie jump out at me because, well, I root for comics to make it to that next level. But when you actually think about it, there are some "huh?" moments in this movie. There's no way Lebron's character was her idea. She clearly knows nothing about sports and that's why Lebron's character hangs out with his doctor. Also, why is Lebron in New York so often during the season? Does he even have time to hang out? He has a family and kids and a ton of obligations. Also if Lebron is already in Cleveland, why is Amar'e still with the Knicks. Basketball logistics aside...
There's an emotional core to this movie that's at the very least enviable. A woman who doesn't want to settle down realizes she's found the right person amidst different tragedies in her life. I'm just not sure that idea was fully developed. What we saw on screen was very much the surface of that idea. This is a weird thing to nitpick about but is she even that much of a trainwreck? She cheats on her boyfriend with a couple different guys, but that's kinda it. Her job seems pretty normal (also, she works at a magazine? a fucking physical magazine in 2015?). Her dad is sick but again, that happens. You could tell Liz Lemon was a mess ten minutes into 30 Rock's pilot. I don't think we ever really get why Bill Hader's character is that special. They like each other, but it's not evident why they need each other. And like all Apatow movies, it was maybe 30 minutes too long and the beginning of the third act completely threw me off. I'd love to see her next movie just to see where she goes with it.

Book Club: The Martian, No Country for Black Men

The Martian by Andy Weir
The teaser or not-quite-theatrical trailer or whatever two minute clip Fox released for the upcoming movie The Martian some months back did absolutely nothing for me. Even with Ridley Scott's name attached — you saw Prometheus — I found it strange that a huge budget studio film set in space was coming out so close to the release of Interstellar, another big space movie, let alone one that also starred Matt Damon (spoiler..). Now that I think about it, if you include Gravity, space movies have had quite the run these last few years. Anyway this trailer did nothing for me. He gets stuck. They save him. So what? Also, Donald Glover? I like Matt Damon, but he's had some misses recently. I disregarded it until someone at work mentioned reading the book and I read about the unbelievable response to the book online. This book is absolutely thrilling. While I do read a lot, I admittedly don't read much modern fiction. Astronaut Watney is accidentally left behind on Mars when his crew thinks he's dead. He has to survive. It's hard to survive in space. Things go wrong. When things start to go right, they go wrong again. And then they go wrong again. Even when you know things are going to go wrong, they go right and then go wrong in a way you could not have imagined. The science of it was fun for me (and apparently accurate at least to an extent). I do recommend this very much.
I just re-watched the trailer and am a lot more excited at least until I realized Venkat Kapoor, the head of NASA in the book, turned into fucking Jeff Daniels on the screen. Jeff fucking Daniels are you kidding me? An Indian dude was finally going to major part in a movie and it went to this clown.

No Country for Black Men by Byron Crawford
I've read all Byron Crawford's books. His blog is in my RSS reader. I subscribe to his weekly newsletter. If you're familiar with his writing, you can guess how this book reads. The books' titles would suggest that they have themes, but they're all anthologies of sorts, with chapters that document different current (and not so current) events that may or may not have to do with their titles, not unlike some of his long form blog posts. There were maybe three chapters about how Nas had in fact lost in Nas Lost if I remember correctly, but that could be total BS. No Country for Black Men follows suit of the other four (wow), but I really enjoyed certain parts of this book. It would be weird to say he has improved while writing these books because he's been writing for so long, but he definitely hit a stride writing certain chapters of this one.

Film School: Spy

The stigma around Melissa McCarthy for people who have only seen Bridesmaids and are maybe slightly aware of Mike & Molly seems to be that she only plays women versions of Paul Blart. That she knows she's big and sort of plays dumb and is only capable of being funny physically. It's amazing how unfair that is. McCarthy is so funny and such a gifted actress. Emotions, facial expressions, sarcasm, physical movements, comedy, drama, she's really good at all of it. Even that last sentence is patronizing. When people were excited at the possibility of women-driven comedies after the success of Bridesmaids and nothing like that really happened, McCarthy happened. This is her second big comedy in two years, and while she's joined by some big names, Spy is essentially her movie. That's the star she has become.

I'll be honest, when I saw the trailer for this movie, with all the big names in it — Jude Law, Statham, Rose Byrne and even McCarthy — and with it being a secret agent parody, I thought it was a kids movie. I had no idea until literally the other day that it was an R-rated comedy. I don't know if that says more about me or how they marketed the movie.

It almost doesn't seem like an R-rated movie. Statham is the only one that uses any bad language and with the exception of a great dick pic joke, it's not until the second half of the movie that the jokes pick up their raunch factor. They clearly spent money on this movie. They film literally all over Europe. I love that a movie that isn't a Fast and Furious sequel or comic book movie got a huge budget like this. I like that an R-rated comedy that doesn't have Rogen or Apatow's name on it received such a push. And this isn't a lead up to some qualifying statement. This is a great movie that's very funny. I enjoyed it very much.

The cast meshes together very well. McCarthy and Miranda Hart, who plays her sidekick and fellow fish out of water, are especially great. The spy parody is almost a genre of its own at this point, but Spy establishes its tone uniquely. It successfully mixes a goofiness with comedy today's need for quick, savvy Veep-style insults. And that we owe to director Paul Fieg. I've enjoyed Feig's past work, but now I'm fully on the bandwagon. He brings the best out of his actors and lets all sorts of minor characters get in on the fun.

By the way, 50 Cent is in this movie. If you've listened to any interview he's done in the last two years, he has mentioned it. He literally only has a two minute concert cameo in which he doesn't even perform a real song. Well, it might have been off Animal Ambition, but those are the same thing to me.

A$AP Rocky - At.Long.Last.A$AP

It's not unfair to say that much of what makes A$AP Rocky's music enjoyable is the aesthetic. There are people that for whatever reason still link him to a Houston sound, and while that's not the case, there's definitely a palpable style to his music. The Houston, Memphis and whatever else influences are there, yes, but it is Rocky's charisma that made it worth feeling excited over. Anybody can pitch down vocals over fake Mike Jones leftovers, and that sounds cool until it doesn't. What was fun about Rocky shone through on bright like "Peso" and "Goldie". There wasn't really a formula to follow. The energy was just there.

At.Long.Last.A$AP noticeably lacks any of these moments. Rocky is not a bad rapper, but he hasn't shown much technical improvement at all. So it's really not a good thing that one of his two main qualities - charisma - is blatantly absent and the other - aesthetic - is muddled up garbage. The production on this album is the remnants of a half-eaten scoop of ice cream after being left in the sun. Shit is bland and wholly uninteresting. And when it does hit, Rocky coasts lazily. The LPFJ2 beat sounds like the soundtrack to hell raising. Rocky doesn't seem to get the memo. L$D is wtf?

Why is this album so long? And why is Mos Def on it? After four listens, you can trick yourself into thinking this album is kiiiiind of alright if it's on strictly in the background and you're not really paying attention to it. It's hard for me to believe Yams approved of this. Future's part is fire though.

Sci-Fi Today: Ex Machina & Other Space

In an interview with NPR Fresh Air, Paul Feig (Freaks and Geeks, Bridesmaids, the Ghostbusters reboot) claimed that comedy has never really done sci-fi right. The obvious examples, Space Balls and to an extent Tim Allen's Galaxy Quest, were less works of science fiction that were funny as much as they were blatant parodies of stuff that already existed. This inspired him to create the show Other Space out now on Yahoo Screen. To Feig the show could overturn typical sci-fi tropes and in some sense explore the limits of the genre, at least in the form of a single cam comedy. 

His goals seem lofty, but the man's track record sort of allows for this. And this statement probably makes more sense in the wake of the news that he will direct the new Ghostbusters reboot. It's a story about random people fighting ghosts. Let's be honest. There's a lot of creative shit you can do with that. But Feig wrote the initial script for Other Space over 10 years ago (I'm pretty sure he said this anyway), and the only example of doing something different that he brought up in the NPR interview was that aliens didn't have to look like green monsters but that they could resemble humans. 

The show is not some Star Trek parody, but it's basically The Office (Parks & Rec might be a more appropriate comparison) in space and I mean this as the highest compliment. Other Space is very enjoyable and funny, but it's essentially a workplace comedy on a spaceship. Yes, there's a robot and an A.I., but the robot looks like it came from an 80s movie with no CGI budget. There's nothing modern at all about the sci-fi element of the show. 

This brings us to Ex Machina. The wonder in most of our favorite Sci-Fi films stems from an element of impossibility. Star Wars is set in a faraway galaxy, with different species, crazy weapons and magical powers. Terminator, Blade Runner and Back to the Future take place on Earth but in some twisted version of society. They were written during a time when personal computers were barely plausible. Ex Machina is the first film of its kind in the iPhone age that could very well take place in the present day. 

In the movie, Oscar Isaac plays Nathan, a billionaire computer scientist who has developed the most advanced artificial intelligence system known to man. Domhnall Gleeson's Caleb is invited to the research facility to test the A.I. — a robot that looks like a human woman — and decide if its behavior is indistinguishable from that of a human. If the A.I. is as advanced as possible, this means it could feel and emulate human emotion. The movie brings up all sorts of issues regarding morality, trust, deceit, sexuality and manipulation. 

While technology today is still pretty far from what's shown in the movie, it's not hard to imagine a situation like this. Machine learning and artificial intelligence today is already so impressive. Once your imagination starts to run wild, literally anything in this realm is possible. This is what sci-fi today is capable of. You can take today's technology, today's societal worries and today's political problems and flesh all that into a very real story. Not that there isn't room for Star Wars and the like, but this allows for a whole batch of ideas rooted in something modern yet familiar. Other Space is a fine show, and I hope more and more people watch it. It probably works better as it is than it would have been as some as sitcom version of Her, but at the same time, hey maybe there should be a comedy version of Black Mirror. Feig had the right idea to do sci-fi differently because the possibilities now are truly endless.

Straight Outta Compton (Trailer)

No one has really cared for any (theatrical) music biopics released in the last few years. It's not so much that they've been garbage. It's moreso that they're been mediocre, boring even. This happens for two main reasons. One, the artist's estate won't clear the rights for any of the music until they approve of the final cut. That's how we ended up with a PG-13 James Brown movie. Two, these movies don't usually involve top notch talent be it actors, directors or screenwriters.

Which is why I'm still hesitant about Straight Outta Compton even after seeing this trailer. Cube and Dre are the movie's executive producers, and they both have public images they sort of need to uphold. The N.W.A story is obviously an incredible one and an important one, but it does not end well. The entire group splits up and Eazy-E dies of AIDS. And there's so much to cover - the censorship issues, their dominance without radio play, the branding of gangsta rap, invasion of hip-hop into white suburbia, police brutality, LA gang culture, the LA riots, Eazy-E the mastermind, Jerry Heller the thief and eventually the number of careers it spawned. I'd like for the movie to be gritty, to be dark. This trailer is a little too shiny for me. It almost seems like a rags to riches story that cuts off before anything bad happens. And while getting Paul Giamatti to play Heller was a huge win, he's depicted as this mentor and confidante when he's clearly the villain. The still for the YouTube video alone looks so corny. They look like the Backstreet Boys in Raiders gear.

The cast is pretty much all new faces, which could be a really great thing. Of course, Ice Cube casting his own son in the movie is some Jayden Smith shit. The movie is produced by Cube and I get that they're friends, but you really couldn't do better than F. Gary Gray? And the writers haven't been a part of anything noteworthy.

As far as I'm concerned, it's a total loss for this movie if it ends being on the level of Notorious. Hundred bucks says they throw in a beats/headphones joke in there somewhere.

TV Recap: Betas

Not until Transparent won the Golden Globe for Best Television Comedy did Amazon ever warrant any attention for the original series it distributed through its Prime service. After a couple iterations of that pilot experiment they do, Betas was one of the first shows put to series along with Alpha House, which — and this may sound so stupid — was weird because Alpha and Beta.

Betas follows a five-person social networking startup in San Francisco. The app, itself, sets out to bring people that are glued to their phones and screens face to face, which okay, sure. The cofounders make a splash at a party at a VC's house and get a chance to work in his incubator. It's not as groundbreaking as Transparent, but it does what shows are supposed to do (and what few actually accomplish) — establish a world and offer characters viewers can feel invested in.

I can't remember the last time a show was set in San Francisco (never got into HBO's Looking), let alone filmed there. As much as there are easy stereotypes about how liberal the Bay Area is and that there are probably organic dog cafés or whatever (see recent episodes of The Mindy Project), the city is much more than that. San Francisco is incredibly diverse with different cultures, arts scenes, levels of income and sights to see. I can't say Betas focuses on the city but these elements are definitely present. It could have been interesting to see how the show dealt with the tech encroachment on those aspects of the city.

As far as the characters go, it's an accurate portrayal of the tech world, at least based on my experience. The employees of BRB are actual people and not just weirdos typing away on laptops. Hobbes (Jon Daly) is a slightly paranoid, divorceé in his late thirties in need for this latest startup to not end unfavorably. Mikki regularly pokes at her coworker's masculinities and deals with her irresponsible mother's antics. Mitchell takes Adderall and listens to rap music. Though they probably could have established that better because I'd rather never hear "cop the new Freddie Gibbs tape" again. They experience romance and anxiety and total confusion regarding the world they're in. Tech is what they do and while they are invested in this business, there's more to them than just that. As a software engineer at a startup, I must say I enjoyed that being depicted.

Ultimately there's only so many ways the main BRB storyline could have gone, and it might have been hard to stay invested in that plotline. The show's main character is also pretty annoying. A couple other issues: It seemed strange to establish a strong character like Lisa's (Tawny from Even Stevens) to have her then sleep with the main character by the second episode. I didn't really get all the stuff with the tech blogger — between this and Top Five, Hollywood clearly doesn't understand the journalism industry at all. Overall though, the show is funny. They jokes are dry and sarcastic, but there are plenty of them.

Oh, and Tyson Ritter, the lead singer of The All-American Rejects, is in the show. The fact that I recognized him is literally the most shameful moment I've had all year. But he does a nice job.

You can't discuss this show without bringing up HBO's Silicon Valley. Betas came first by about a year. Both shows showcase the different engineer stereotypes pretty well. Both include companies with absolutely awful names — BRB and Pied Piper. Silicon Valley is very much a comedy. The ridiculousness comes first in the same way it does for a show like Veep. What I appreciated about Betas was its more diverse and ethnically accurate cast. You don't see nearly any Indian and Asian representation on television. Sometimes you get one or the other but definitely not both at the same time. To have an openly gay character in Karan Soni's Nash was a very progressive moment for South Asians in TV and film.

Amazon didn't pick it up for a second season which is sort of unfortunate. I liked seeing these actors on screen together even if the show was ultimately a few notches above one you'd watch on USA. It probably wouldn't have lasted alongside Silicon Valley anyway.

Film School: The Interview, The Hobbit, Top Five

The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies
I really enjoyed Desolation of Smaug when I saw it in theaters. Then when I caught it randomly on cable earlier this year, it was hard for me to sit through. I wasn't exactly rushing to see this one. I get why they did three Hobbit movies, all at three hours long, to sort of parallel the LOTR trilogy, but this was just too much. It was clearly a stretch to make this movie as long as it was. The movie starts in the middle of the action, and the actual battle starts very quickly, but I just felt so detached from all the characters and I forgot who was who that it was hard to root for anyone. And considering it was a Hobbit movie, very little of it had to do with Bilbo. But you don't get a final Peter Jackson movie with an ending, another ending and then ten more minutes of nonsense.

The Interview
You know what? This wasn't that bad. I really didn't like Neighbors. I thought it was such a stupid movie and poorly directed and a waste of great talent. You'd think that would be the case for The Interview. The premise is something literally only Rogen and James Franco could get greenlit. But the first half of this movie is so great. The way Randall Park, who's awesome on Veep, portrays Kim Jong Un is kind of unbelievable. This is important for two reasons. One being Park is a tremendous actor, and I look forward to his new show Fresh Off The Boat. The other being that this is the highest profile casting of an Asian American actor in Hollywood this year, and there are people that probably assumed the part would be played as if it were a South Park character or Mickey Rooney in Breakfast At Tiffany's. There's something so human about the character, and I hope that doesn't go under appreciated. Of course, the second half of the movie rushes to finish, and even I can't believe I'm complaining about the logic of a James Franco movie, but there are some good laughs here.

Top Five
I wanted to really like this movie. If it wasn't for how the movie ended, I'm not sure I would admit to liking it at all. Chris Rock is a wonderful comic. He just isn't the greatest actor. While there are other things wrong with this movie, that stuck out the most to me. I like how the movie was directed. It was clearly influenced by Woody Allen with some Richard Linklater sprinkled in. The gag with Anders Holm was a little strange, and the middle third of the movie got a little too predictable. You've got to love all the cameos though. Seinfeld in the strip club was great.

Rounders
This has been sitting in my Netflix queue for some time now, solely for its cast. I had no idea what it was about, but when the idea of a sequel came up in some podcast I was listening to, I finally got around to watching it. I had some friends get really into poker my senior year of college. I thought they just liked the possibility of winning money, but they were scheduling weekly games, reading up on strategies, studying old world series of poker games — they were really into it. After watching this movie, I realize how stupid it was for me to ever play with people that take the game this seriously. This is a fantastic movie. I think being close to serious poker players (albeit total amateurs) made it that much more interesting. Great performances by not only Damon and Norton but John Malkovich and John Turturro. Not sure that Damon does a sequel at this point in his career, but I'm all for it.

Blue Ruin
Here's a movie I saw on a bunch of year end lists last year. It is a well done movie. I feel like I've seen different variations of the guy gets revenge story or at least the guy who shoots up a storm, but this had a pretty interesting take on the trope with a lead character that didn't know anything about guns or killing people. I'm honestly most proud of myself realizing that the old high school friend with the guns is played by the dude that played Buzz McCallister in the Home Alone movies.

A Trip To Italy
I watched The Trip completely on a whim. I had recently been put on to Steve Coogan's Alan Partridge projects and I didn't know anything about Rob Brydon. It was really great, like the Before Sunrise movies with two close friends that like to do Michael Caine impressions. A Trip To Italy is even better. They play fictional versions of themselves in a way that I wish could be done with American actors we love. More impressions, too.

In A World
I will always appreciate movies that depict odd little occupations and social scenes like this one did. There's a whole crowd of people that I'm sure totally relate to it, but for others it's fun just to discover what it's like. First time director Lake Bell does a fine job. I now officially don't connect her with that awful show How To Make It In America a.k.a Entourage for people that read rap blogs in 2009.