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.