Chris Packham

Netflix's BoJack Horseman presents the titular character (voiced by Will Arnett) as a washed-up sitcom star.; Credit: Courtesy Netflix

BoJack Horseman Is the Smartest TV Show About Major Depression

BoJack Horseman streams on Netflix It’s not a huge surprise that my sensitive and kind-hearted spouse could be left sobbing by an episode of a popular TV show. She’d say herself that she’s an easy mark, TV showrunners. But it’s definitely a surprise when any show even tries. TV writers......
Life's a bitch

Whatever a Dog's Purpose Is, It Isn't to Be in Movies Like A Dog's Purpose

A Dog’s Purpose, based on the novel by W. Bruce Cameron, combines the philosophical belief that living beings are reborn into a different physical body after biological death with the voic-eover narrative technique of Look Who’s Talking. The main character, Dog, dies in multiple wrenching scenes and is subsequently reborn;......
Credit: Courtesy of 20th Century Fox

With Miss Peregrine, Tim Burton Shows He's Still Got Wonder in Him

The conventional wisdom about early-career Tim Burton is that he was an imaginative visual stylist but not a great storyteller. That sounds smart, right? It’s still something that a certain kind of ratty-beard-stroking film critic keeps tucked in his sweater vest in case he needs to say something that sounds......
Yeah

Jonah Hill Is Loosed in War Dogs, but the Comedy Has Too Much Hangover

Once, American comedies concerned underdog heroes who challenged the status quo and seized the territory of the upper-class characters who thought they were in control. Slobs vs. snobs. During the wartime administration of the lesser President Bush, the wealthy thoroughly dominated the culture, occupying America the way the army patrolled......
Adam Carolla

Old, Irrelevant Comedians Whine About Censorship in Can We Take a Joke?

Can We Take a Joke? is a surprisingly self-righteous and unfunny documentary in which shelf-dated comedians spend 74 minutes misinterpreting the First Amendment to mean that behaving like an asshole should have no social consequences. The film and all of its subjects — including Penn Jillette, Lisa Lampanelli, Jim Norton......
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I Just Watched Friends for the First Time on Netflix

In 2004, I worked at a bar in Kansas City’s River Market district. One night, a woman handed me her credit card to pay her tab; I looked at it and said, “HAHA. Your name is Monica Ross!” She made a big, exasperated noise and dropped her forehead to the......