Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (2020)

We enjoyed this powerful story about the acclaimed blues singer and a 1927 Chicago recording session. Viola Davis is terrific as the mercurial Rainey and Chadwick Boseman electrifying in his final performance as manic horn player Levee. The adaptation of August Wilson's 1984 play has some great music but there's plenty of meat, literally and figuratively, as Davis put on weight for the role and shows us a Black woman taking no guff from anyone. The rest of the band is Glynn Turman as Toledo, Colman Domingo as Cutler, and Michael Potts as Slow Drag; and Jeremy Shamos plays the nervous agent Mr. Irvin.

Boseman died in August 2020 at 43. He was in treatment for colorectal cancer during production the summer of 2019, which could explain how skinny he was.

George C. Wolfe directs from Ruben Santiago-Hudson's adaptation of Wilson's play. Denzel Washington, one of the producers, plans to produce all ten of Wilson's (1945-2005) "Century Cycle" plays. This is the second, after Fences, in which Washington starred with Davis. The original Ma Rainey's Black Bottom ran on Broadway for 276 performances and earned several Tony nominations. Whoopi Goldberg starred in 68 performances of a 2003 revival. 

Branford Marsalis provides the score and Maxayn Lewis supplies the vocals for Davis. The soundtrack is available with a subscription to Apple Music and for free on Spotify.

The exterior scenes, set in Chicago, were shot in Wilson's hometown of Pittsburgh by cinematographer Tobias Schliessler, who also has the creamy indoor lighting done to perfection. Ann Roth's costumes are worth a mention, too.

Davis was last blogged for Troop Zero (she won an Oscar for Fences), Boseman for Avengers: Infinity War, and Domingo for If Beale Street Could Talk. After I mentioned him in Race (which starred Boseman as Jesse Owens), Turman was in many things, including The Way Back and six episodes of season 4 of Fargo. His agent says he's having a Glynn-aissance. 

Shamos is an Obie-winning and Tony-nominated stage actor whose face is familiar for many TV roles. Wolfe is a Tony-winning director who also directed the TV-movie The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (2017), back when there was a difference between a TV-movie and a feature film. This is the second script for Santiago-Hudson. Marsalis, who scored The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks and has worked with Spike Lee on various projects, is a noted jazz saxophonist from an esteemed musical family and Lewis is a talented lead and backup singer with many credits. Schliessler's credits include Dreamgirls (2006), Hancock (2008), and Beauty and the Beast.

Rotten Tomatoes' critics' average is a swinging 99%, while its audiences merely tap toes at 81. It's good and worth a watch on Netflix.

Let Them All Talk (2020)

Jack and I loved this story of a Pulitzer-winning author who brings her nephew and two of her college friends to cross the Atlantic on the Queen Mary 2. Meryl Streep plays the author, Lucas Hedges the nephew, Candice Bergen an angry Texan saleswoman, and Dianne Wiest an activist from Seattle (she has the best lines). Gemma Chan plays Streep's 30-something agent.

Steven Soderbergh directs from a sparkling script by Deborah Eisenberg, and he is the cinematographer and editor as well, using the pseudonyms Peter Andrews and Mary Ann Bernard, respectively. 

The movie was primarily shot during an actual two-week QM2 voyage in August 2019 and the sets, i.e. the decor of the ship, are magnificent. Apparently Soderbergh used a wheelchair for the tracking shots. And the production did not have full control of the ship, but the other passengers apparently weren't very interested. I would've been!

As a fan of composer Thomas Newman, I'm streaming his jaunty score with a subscription to Apple Music. It can be had for free on Spotify

Streep was last blogged (today!) for The Prom, Hedges for Honey Boy, Bergen for Book Club, Wiest for Sisters, Soderbergh for The Laundromat, and Newman for 1917. Eisenberg is an award-winning short story writer and writing professor and Chan is set to reprise her role as Astrid in the upcoming sequel to Crazy Rich Asians.

We watched it on HBO December 18, three days after we saw The Prom, making a Streep mini-festival. 

Rotten Tomatoes' critics are in our lifeboat, averaging 89%, while its audiences are a sinking 49. We recommend it.

The Prom (2020)

Unlike the critics, Jack and I loved this glitzy musical comedy about narcissistic Broadway actors helping a midwestern girl take her girlfriend to her prom. Meryl Streep, James Corden, Nicole Kidman, and Andrew Rannells ham it up and sing beautifully, along with, among others, Keegan-Michael Key, Kerry Washington, and Jo Ellen Pellman as the girl.

This was originally a Broadway musical that ran, including previews, from October 23, 2018 to August 11, 2019. We actually had tickets to see it the following week, but it closed early as they got ready to make the adaptation for Netflix and our New York trip couldn't be moved up. I miss Broadway so much!

Ryan Murphy directs from a screenplay by the Tony winning team of Bob Martin and Chad Beguelin, with the musical book by them and Matthew Sklar, a multi-nominated Broadway veteran. The original score is credited to Sklar and David Klotz. 

One big change from the original production is that the roles were played by actors who were not big stars but, obviously, the decision was made to chuck that for the silver screen.

Here are links to the movie soundtrack on Apple Music and Spotify with the above stars, and to the Broadway original cast recording on Apple Music and Spotify.

It seemed to my ears that the songs were recorded in a controlled studio and I appreciated that––although some of the teenagers (not Pellman) sounded to me as if they were auto-tuned.

We in the heartland sometimes take issue with being satirized as hicks. Well, this show is rife with Indiana bashing. Here's an article about it from an Indianapolis newspaper. Indianapolis happens to be Murphy's birthplace.

The fun choreography is credited to Casey Nicholaw, and here's an article from Variety about it. Production designer Jamie Walker McCall does great work, too, including having built a replica of Manhattan's 44th Street (the middle of the theatre district).

There's plenty of fun trivia to be learned but my favorite is one that Jack looked up. Kidman's character is supposedly vying with Tina Louise for a part. Louise, who was part of the Gilligan's Island ensemble, is 86.

Streep was last blogged for Little Women, Corden for Into The Woods, Kidman for Bombshell, and Key for Dolemite Is My Name. Rannells was covered in A Simple Favor. After Washington was blogged for Django Unchained she starred in all 124 episodes of Scandal and all eight of the miniseries Little Fires Everywhere. After I wrote about Murphy for Eat Pray Love he produced most and directed some of the serieses The New Normal, Feud: Bette and Joan, Pose, The Politician, and Hollywood, to name a few. This column in Glamour has a nice profile of Pellman.

As noted, Rotten Tomatoes' critics, averaging 58%, and its audiences at 68 aren't pinning corsages on this movie. But we had a great time two weeks ago streaming it on Netflix. And, in a normal year, it would have been a lovely choice for our annual Christmas afternoon movie.

Between the World and Me (2020)

This powerful piece combines readings from Ta-Nehisi Coates' 2015 non-fiction book of the same name, written as a letter to his teenage son, with documentary footage from the actors' pasts, archival film, and animation. Its account of deadly racism is sad but true.

Many notable actors and activists participate in the one hour 20 minute HBO special, which is based on a 2018 staging of the book at Harlem's Apollo Theater, directed by Kamilah Forbes, who helmed this production as well. In addition to her and Coates, the short list of producers includes Susan Kelechi Watson, best known for playing Beth Pearson on 78 episodes of This Is Us.

No composer is credited and no soundtrack seems to be available, but I found this playlist on Spotify. Fight the Power is definitely in the movie but I don't think the playlist, though a good one, is accurate.

Rotten Tomatoes' critics rise up to this, averaging 94%, but its audiences are less active at 67.

I'm glad I chose to write about this now instead of putting it off, because you can watch it for free from this link until December 27. I imagine that, after that date, you'll need a subscription to HBO Max. Be sure to see it. Every American should.

Mank (2020)

This story of Herman Mankiewicz' writing the Citizen Kane (1941) screenplay is great fun, especially for movie buffs. The enormous cast is headed by Gary Oldman in the title role, Charles Dance as William Randolph Hearst, Amanda Seyfried as Hearst's girlfriend Marion Davies, and Tom Pelphrey as Herman's brother Joe.

Directed by David Fincher, from a screenplay by his father Jack Fincher, the movie jumps back and forth in time from the writing of the screenplay to the events that supposedly inspired it. There were times I got confused as to what was when, but Jack did not.

The wonderful music by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross is available by subscription on Apple Music and free on Spotify.

The sets and costumes are magnificent and I kept thinking I wanted to see it in color, but research proved that it was not converted from color, but originally shot in black and white in a special dynamic range. Here's an article if you, too, would like to know more about the cinematography by Erik Messerschmidt. I also found this article about Donald Graham Burt's production design which includes the massive fireplace in the final Citizen Kane movie. And, oh, the wardrobe by Trish Summerville! 

One fun bit of trivia for us movie buffs is that every now and then there was a cue mark–a dot in the upper right corner–on the screen. Back in the day, those marks were burned onto film so the projectionists would know when to change reels. It was a fun conceit added to this made-for-Netflix project.

Oldman was last blogged for The Laundromat, Seyfried for First Reformed, David Fincher for Gone Girl, and Reznor and Ross for Mid90s. Dance was profiled in The Imitation Game. Pelphrey looked familiar because he played brother Ben in the series Ozark. This was the only movie written by Jack Fincher (1930-2003) that made it to the screen. Messerschmidt, in his feature debut, has already won one festival award (so far) for this. Burt won an Oscar for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and won an Art Directors Guild Award for that and Gone Girl and nominated for The Social Network and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (all David Fincher projects). Summerville was nominated by her peers for Costume Designers Guild Awards for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and Gone Girl.

Rotten Tomatoes' critics are rosy, averaging 84%, while its audiences are chillier at 61. We thoroughly enjoyed it on December 12. And we followed it with the Netflix mini-series Hollywood, which takes place just a few years later, mixing true historical filmmakers with fiction, wishful thinking, and full color sets and wardrobe.

Hillbilly Elegy (2020)

Though many have issues with the "poverty porn," Jack and I appreciated the high production values in this story of a lawyer's early life with his addict mother and forceful grandmother. Glenn Close is terrific as Mamaw, with a frizzy perm, jutting jaw, and oversized T-shirts. It's hard to like Gabriel Basso as the lawyer J.D. or Amy Adams as his mother Bev, because their characters are so unlikeable––brooding and shouting, respectively. Freida Pinto plays J.D.'s patient girlfriend in the city. The cast is huge.

Ron Howard directs from Vanessa Taylor's adaptation of J.D. Vance's 2016 best-selling memoir. The book and the movie infuriated many people, not just poor and/or Appalachian folk. And the critics have savaged the movie. See below.

The lovely folk music is by Hans Zimmer and David Fleming, which I'm streaming with my subscription to Apple Music. You can listen free on Spotify.

The makeup department took great pains to get Close and Adams to look like Vance's actual grandmother and mother, as shown at the end. 

Basso was last blogged for Super 8, Adams for Vice (Oscar-nomninated), Close for The Wife (Oscar-nominated), Pinto for Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Howard for Solo: A Star Wars Story, Taylor for The Shape of Water (Oscar-nominated), and Zimmer for Widows.

Rotten Tomatoes' critics hated it, averaging 26%, but its audiences liked it just fine, at 86. We got what we expected from a Ron Hoard joint and didn't hate streaming it on Netflix December 5.

The Personal History of David Copperfield (2019)

We liked a lot this retelling of the classic story from riches to rags to riches to rags etc. I call it Charles Dickens as interpreted by Lewis Carroll, with madness and humor scattered throughout the opulence and squalor. In "colourblind" casting, Ranveer Jaiswal and Dev Patel, who are of East Indian descent, play David as a boy and an adult, Benedict Wong (Chinese-English) plays Mr. Wickfield, and Rosalind Eleazar (English) and Nikki Amuka-Bird (Nigerian), who are Black, play daughter Agnes Wickfield and Mrs. Steerforth, the mother of one of David's white schoolmates, respectively. And the madcap performances of white people Tilda Swinton, Hugh Laurie, and Peter Capaldi add much, as well as Ben Whishaw's  creepy Uriah Heep, just to name a few.

As big fans of the work of director/co-writer Armando Iannucci (I usually describe him as a Scotsman with an Italian name), we were looking forward to this movie since we started seeing trailers earlier this year. But it was released only in theatres in August and we did not risk attending. It can now be rented on iTunes and Prime, to name a few. Simon Blackwell co-wrote the script. Not having read the original 1850 novel, neither Jack nor I can comment on its accuracy, but, according to Wikipedia, it's pretty much there.

The colorful cinematography is credited to Zac Nicholson, the lavish production design to Cristina Casali, and the luxurious costumes to Suzie Harman and Robert Worley.

I'm streaming Christopher Willis' stirring music via my subscription to Apple Music and it can be heard for free on Spotify.

Patel was last blogged for Lion, Swinton for The Dead Don't Die, Laurie for Tomorrowland, Capaldi and Blackwell for In the Loop (my second favorite Iannucci project after the series Veep), Whishaw for Mary Poppins Returns, and Iannucci and Willis for The Death of Stalin, on which Nicholson, Casali, and Harman had the same jobs as they did here.

We're with Rotten Tomatoes' critics, averaging 92%, on this one, and not its rotten audiences at 53, and watched it December 1, 2020.

The Last Black Man in San Francisco (2019)

Jack and I loved this story of a young man trying to reclaim the house his grandfather built in a now gentrified San Francisco neighborhood. Based on the life of Jimmie Fails, who stars and co-wrote the story, in his screen debut, it's directed by Fails' childhood friend Joe Talbot, who co-wrote the story and the script in his feature film debut. In another debut, Rob Richert co-wrote the screenplay and the movie was developed at the Independent Feature Project, earning a bunch of festival wins and nominations.

We watched it on Amazon Prime in mid-January, picking it from Barack Obama's list of best movies of 2019. After all this time I don't remember everything, but I did like Jonathan Majors as Fails' best friend Montgomery, the SF location shots, and the music, both original score and songs. Danny Glover, a proud resident of the city by the bay, has a cameo, and you'll recognize several other faces.

As for the location shots, one error in geography is that the house is supposed to be located at Golden Gate and Fillmore, but street signs prove otherwise. The house shown in the movie is on South Van Ness between 20th and 21st Streets. Adam Newport-Berra is the cinematographer.

Emile Mosseri composed the score and I'm streaming it now on Apple Music. You can also find it on Spotify. Here's a list of songs, including some covers of San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair).

A little fun trivia is that the filmmakers are fans of the cult black comedy Ghost World (2001), based on the comic by Daniel Clowes, starring Thora Birch, Scarlett Johansson, and Steve Buscemi (I liked it, too!). Birch has a cameo in this one as a bus passenger complaining about the city, and she has glasses in her pocket that look just like her character's in Ghost World.

34 producers are listed on imdb. Not enough to win, but it gets a place on the list for my Producers Plethora Prize.

Mosseri was last blogged for Kajillionaire, which actually came out later, but I'm just getting around to writing about this one now since I forgot to make a draft at the time.

Rotten Tomatoes' critics agree with the President, averaging 92% fresh, and its audiences aren't far behind at 84.

According to ReelGood, you can still stream it on Prime or rent it from iTunes. Do it!

House of D (2004)

Ignoring scathing reviews, we enjoyed much of this quirky dramedy about a man looking back on his high school days, his friendship with his school's mentally disabled janitor, his crush, his mother, and a compassionate stranger. David Duchovny and Anton Yelchin play Tom at different ages, Robin Williams is the janitor, his daughter Zelda is Tom's crush, Duchovny's then-wife Téa Leoni plays Tom's mother, and musician Erykah Badu is the stranger, a prisoner in the House of D, which is short for Women's House of Detention.

It's not only Duchovny's feature directing and writing debut, it's his only feature in those jobs, though he directed three and wrote eight of his 191 episodes of X-Files between 1993 and 2018 (I haven't seen a single one). I have, however, seen all 84 of his episodes of Californication from 2007-2014, of which he directed six.

The acting is flawless so I can only guess the critics took issue with some uneven timing.

Throughout November 2020 our internet kept going out, due to one broken receiver and an escalating series of errors by phone and chat technicians. So the day before Thanksgiving we were jonesing for a movie and dug up this DVD––remember those? We even watched the extras and learned that Leoni begged Duchovny to let her play the mother and that the vintage picture cars, i.e. the ones in the shots, were reused from scene to scene. And we learned that there was a women's prison in Manhattan back in the day, with windows high above the street, and family and friends and pimps of the prisoners used to congregate on the sidewalk.

The score by Geoff Zanelli isn't available online. Here's a list of the songs, including one that Badu sings in her cell.

Duchovny was last blogged for The Joneses, Yelchin for Thoroughbreds (he died in 2016), Williams for The Butler (gone in 2014), Leoni for Tower Heist (before her 120 episodes of Madam Secretary, all of which I watched), and Badu for What Men Want.

So how bad were the reviews? 10% critics' average on Rotten Tomatoes. Wow. But its audiences came in at 73. We liked it even better than that.

If you want to see for yourself, it can be found on Hulu, Amazon Prime, Starz, YouTube, and more.

The High Note (2020)

This lightweight story of a pop superstar and her assistant is a nice way to spend a couple of hours. Tracee Ellis Ross, daughter of Diana and co-star of Black-ish, and Dakota Johnson, daughter of Melanie Griffith, bring much to the screen as the singer and the assistant who aspires to producing records. Griffith makes a cameo as Johnson's mother Tess, the same name as Griffith's famous role in Working Girl (1988). Dozens of others round out the cast.

Nisha Ganatra directs from a script by Flora Greeson in the latter's debut. The subjects of sexism and racism in the music industry are part of the story.

The original music by Amie Doherty isn't available online but I suspect you'll notice only the many songs, listed here, which you can play on youtube or Apple Music. Ross is no slouch behind the microphone.

There's a little bonus at the end––some dialogue, so wait for the the credits to finish before turning it off.

Johnson was last blogged for The Peanut Butter Falcon and Ganatra for Late Night.

Rotten Tomatoes' critic and audiences averages are 70 and 72, which is respectable. It's a fun musical interlude.

We rented it in mid-July. According to ReelGood, you have several options to do so now.

Kajillionaire (2020)

We were drawn to this story of L.A. grifters by the formidable cast of Evan Rachel Wood, Richard Jenkins, Debra Winger, and Gina Rodriguez. Their performances are unimpeachable. Director/writer Miranda July is no stranger to peculiarity and her touch is evident here. The laughs are uneven but they're there, along with loads of cringing. If you don't use closed captions, let me help: Wood's character is named Old Dolio (DOE-lee-o), which is explained late in the movie.

The soundtrack by Emile Mosseri is available YouTube and I'm streaming it right now on Apple Music. I like it! Here's a list of the songs.

Wood was last blogged for The Ides of March, Jenkins for The Shape of Water which earned him an Oscar nomination, Winger for The Lovers, Rodriguez for Annihilation, and July for The Future, which we didn't like. Mosseri's last score was for The Last Black Man in San Francisco (2019), which we rented in January and I forgot to write about. I'll take care of that shortly.

This is July's first feature in which she didn't act. Maybe that has something to do with our liking it better than her other work?

Jack and I fit somewhere in between Rotten Tomatoes' critics, averaging 89%, and its audiences at 47.

We rented it in late October from Amazon Prime. ReelGood has other options, too.

Frances Ferguson (2019)

I enjoyed this cringey story of an unlikeable young woman dealing with the scandals she has willfully caused. Kaley Wheless stars in the title role and she co-wrote the story with director Bob Byington. Scott King gets screenplay credit.

The dulcet tones of Nick Offerman provide narration and the cast includes Martin Starr and David Krumholtz. The movie earned a few festival wins and nominations.

There's no online streaming for the soundtrack by Chris Baio from Vampire Weekend and a band called Burgess Meredith. When I watched this, the same day as Mary Goes Round, I wrote down "Jenny Parrott song at end." I can't find that online either, though I learned that Jenny Parrott is a singer-songwriter now recovering from a severe bout of COVID.

Offerman was last blogged for Hearts Beat Loud and Starr for Spider-Man: Far from Home. This is the second feature for Wheless who, by the way, wears her own high school cheerleading uniform in one awkward scene. Byington has a handful of other credits and King has one. Krumholtz first came to my attention in The Slums of Beverly Hills (1998) and Liberty Heights (1999). My favorite line from Liberty Heights was when his character Yussel, a poor Jewish teenager, looks around the home of a wealthy WASP family. He sees the Persian rugs and says something like, "What? Area rugs? They couldn't afford wall-to-wall?" Krumholtz' TV credits include 119 episodes of Numb3rs, 22 of The Deuce, seven of The Good Wife and five of Mom.

Rotten Tomatoes' critics liked it less than I did, averaging 78% and its audiences less than that at 63.

As of this writing you can rent it on Amazon Prime for 99¢.

Mary Goes Round (2017)

Aya Cash plays a substance abuse counselor with substance abuse problems who returns to her estranged family in this interesting little independent movie. The movie earned a handful of festival wins and nominations.

This is the feature debut for director/writer Molly McGlynn. Afterwards she worked on various TV shows including writing 8 and producing 17 out of 26 episodes of Bless This Mess, which we liked. 

There are no links online to the score, composed by Dillon Baldassero and Casey Manierka-Quaile.

Cash was last blogged for Social Animals. Baldassero and Manierka-Quaile have each scored a number of projects separately with more in the pipeline.

Rotten Tomatoes' critics and audiences are merry over this, averaging 89 and 95%, respectively.

I saw it, while my housemates were otherwise engaged, in May as part of benefits for members of Film Independent, which I joined in order to watch screeners of nominated movies not necessarily showing at a theatre near me.

As of this writing it's available on Amazon Prime and perhaps there are other platforms sown on ReelGood. 

An American Pickle (2020)

This lightweight comedy, with Seth Rogen playing both a man born in the 1880s and his great-great-grandson, has a fair number of jokes and isn't a total waste of time. Rogen's Herschel falls into a Brooklyn pickle vat in 1919 and is preserved for a hundred years, where he meets Ben and they try, with little success, to understand each other's ways of life. Sort of a buddy comedy with one actor playing both buddies. Among the dozens of credited and uncredited roles, Sarah Snook has a nice bit as Herschel's wife in Russia.

Directed by Brandon Trost from Simon Rich's screenplay, adapted from his own short story Sell Out.

Marc Maron interviewed Rogen on his WTF podcast last summer and that piqued our interest. Jack and I love Maron's work. Here's the link to the Rogen segment but be careful, the WTF free links expire and go behind a paywall after a while.

The klezmer-influenced soundtrack by Michael Giacchino and Nami Melumad is available on Apple Music and YouTube, among others.

Rogen was last blogged for Long Shot. I've enjoyed much of Snook's work, including The Dressmaker and The Glass Castle, but she may be best known to you for her Emmy-nominated 21 episodes of Succession. Trost has a long list of credits as cinematographer, including The Diary of a Teenage Girl, and he co-directed one feature. This is his solo feature debut as director. Rich, the son of New York Times editor Frank Rich, is a Saturday Night Live writer making his feature screenplay debut here.

Rotten Tomatoes' audiences, averaging 48%, are saltier than its critics at 73. We're more in line with the critics.

We saw it on HBO in mid-August. Check ReelGood for other streaming possibilities.

The King of Staten Island (2020)

Comedian Pete Davidson co-wrote and stars in a story of a slacker named Scott mourning the loss of his firefighter father on 9/11. I don't remember much so can't give a firm opinion. Plenty of star power joins Davidson: Marisa Tomei as his mother Margie, Steve Buscemi as his father, Bel Powley as Scott's girlfriend, and Bill Burr as Margie's boyfriend.

And, speaking of star power, comedy king Judd Apatow directs and co-produces from a script by him, Davidson, and Dave Sirius. Maude Apatow, daughter of Judd and Leslie Mann, plays Scott's sister.

Davidson was seven years old when his father Scott died rescuing people at the World Trade Center. And Buscemi was a firefighter until, at age 27, he quit to take up acting, although he briefly rejoined his Engine 55 station in Little Italy in 2001 to help search for survivors in the rubble. Davidson's grandfather Stephen Davidson plays Grandpa.

Twelve minutes of soundtrack by Michael Andrews can be streamed on Apple Music and Spotify, and there's a long list of songs, listed here, which you can play on Spotify if you like. I'm sure they'll be good but I don't listen to songs with lyrics while I write.

Powley was last blogged for The Diary of Teenage Girl (after which we liked her in all ten episodes of The Morning Show), Tomei for Spider-Man: Far from Home, Buscemi for The Dead Don't Die, Apatow for Trainwreck, and Andrews for The Big Sick. Davidson is a six year veteran of Saturday Night Live (132 episodes), and Sirius is an SNL writer with 23 episodes to his credit.

Rotten Tomatoes's audience give a slightly better royal reception, averaging 84%, than its critics at 74. As I said, I don't remember much because we streamed this in mid-June. According to ReelGood, you can rent it from several outlets.

Palm Springs (2020)

I may be the millionth person to cite Groundhog Day (1993) in writing about this stuck-in-time story of a jerk who is, well, stuck in time at a destination wedding. We enjoyed it and critics adored it. Andy Samberg, whom we love in Brooklyn Nine-Nine, makes the jerk appealing. Co-stars include Cristin Milioti as the prickly maid of honor and J.K. Simmons as a wedding guest.

Max Barbakow directs from a script by Andy Siara.

The original music by Matthew "Cornbread" Compton can be found on Apple Music and Spotify. Lots of songs, listed here, have their own playlist on Spotify.

Santa Clarita locations filled in as Palm Springs, and the more rugged locale was in Palmdale, California.

This movie broke a couple of records: biggest sale of a Sundance Film Festival movie ($17,500,000.69, beating the previous record holder by 69¢) and most viewed Hulu release in its first weekend.

Samberg was last blogged for Brigsby Bear and Simmons for The Front Runner. Milioti starred in the TV adaptation of the New York Times Modern Love column "When the Doorman Is Your Main Man," nine episodes of the 2015 season of Fargo, and much more. This is the feature directing debut for Barbakow and Siara was a writer and showrunner's assistant on ten episodes of Lodge 49, which also had some supernatural elements.

Yes, Rotten Tomatoes' critics are springing for it, averaging 94%, while its audiences aren't far behind at 88.

It's a Hulu original and we streamed it from there in mid-July.