Tag: Bob Odenkirk

Cinema Dispatch: Nobody

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

Nobody and all the images you see in this review are owned by Universal Pictures

Directed by Ilya Naishuller

I recently got around to catching up on Better Call Saul (at least the seasons on Netflix), so Bob Odenkirk has been on my mind lately and is definitely one of those underrated actors that should be getting more mainstream roles.  Of course there are plenty of mid-tier TV actors like that, most of which were also on Breaking Bad, but Odenkirk is one of those fun cases of a guy who started out in comedy and found a way to effectively bridge that into more dramatic roles; and the fact that he discovered Tim & Eric and even works on most of their shows landed him a soft spot with me!  Hearing that he was in a movie about getting the crap kicked out of him definitely perked my interest as it means he’ll be taking another step outside of his established comfort zone into the realm of Dad Action Heroes, but can he find success hoping genres once again, or is Bob more comfortable playing characters who talk the talk instead of walk the walk?  Let’s find out!!

Hutch Mansell (Bob Odenkirk) is your typical suburban dad.  He goes to work each day, forgets to take out the garbage before the truck arrives, and has kids who could take or leave his presence.  In and out, it’s always the same and while he’s not exactly HAPPY he seems at least content enough to let this routine keep going until it runs its course.  That is until his house is broken into one night and he just lets the thieves go instead of even TRYING to take them down.  His son (Gage Munroe) is pretty upset that he didn’t do anything during the robbery (especially since he himself took a punch to the face), but he heeds them no mind as he returns to his very normal life.  That is until it turns out they stole something that belonged to his daughter, and something finally clicks within him as he seems to have a lot more anger in his heart and skills in his head than he was leading on about, and he needs to find a way to get back at them for what they did.  In the course of doing this, he crosses someone who has some VERY high connections and so becomes a target of a city wide manhunt, and so can’t just put the genie back in the bottle after his little rage relapse.  He now has to contend with the Russian mafia who are not just after him but after his family as well, and so now has to dig up all the guns, pull all the skeletons out of his closet, and perhaps give up this comfortable life the he had set up for himself.  What exactly did Hutch do in his past that made him such a formidable butt kicker, and how did he wind up in the suburbs?  Will he still have a family to go back to once this is all over, or will this be the last hurrah for a man who just couldn’t make the simple life work for him?  Is it just me, or would he have made a MUCH better Joker than the one we got in Joker?  Or even Justice League for that matter…

“You wanna know how I got these scars?  Ask Mr. Whiskers over there, the testy bastard.”
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Cinema Dispatch: Long Shot

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

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Long Shot and all the images you see in this review are owned by Lionsgate

Directed by Jonathan Levine

I love Seth Rogen!  Have I mentioned that before?  Knocked Up, Neighbors 2, The Night Before, all are great movies that I’ve watched multiple times and showcase just how talented the guy is.  Now we’ve got a movie with him AND Charlize Theron, one of the hardest working actors working today with so many great movies under her belt!?  Well dang!  How had I not heard about this movie before!?  Seriously, considering how many times I go to the movies you’d think I’d have seen one trailer but no!  I hadn’t even heard of this until about a week ago and I had no idea what it was even about, but hey, when do you watch a comedy for the plot?  I’m here to see these two work off of each other and tell some funny jokes!  Does this team up manage to knock it out of the park like peanut butter and chocolate, or are we in for an experiment that’s gone more horribly awry than whatever the heck it is Oreo has been pumping out recently?  Let’s find out!!

Fred Flarsky (Seth Rogen) is a journalist with a serious chip on his shoulder who’s had a rough time of it recently and Charlotte Field (Charlize Theron) is the Secretary of State who’s had a rough time of it always.  Two people from two vastly different worlds who you wouldn’t think would ever meet, but in movie land these two have something of a history as Charlotte used to babysit Fred when they were younger and there was an embarrassing incident between the two of them.  Still, fate seems to conspire to bring them back together as Fred loses his job and is brought to an upper class party by his friend Lance (O’Shea Jackson Jr) where Charlotte just so happens to also be.  They talk for a bit, Fred makes a fool of himself when trying to confront an evil media conglomerate (Andy Serkis) and you’d figure that life would just keep on going from there.  However, Charlotte starts to read some of Fred’s earlier work and comes up with a brilliant idea!  See, she plans on running for president as the current guy (Bob Odenkirk) won’t be running for a second term to instead make movies and so she needs a speech writer who can write funny and incisive commentary that she can pepper into her usual rhetoric, so going on quite a limb here she hires Fred for the job despite him being… well a boorish man child who can barely even dress himself.  Naturally her staff isn’t too thrilled included her top aids Maggie and Tom (June Diane Raphael and Ravi Patel), but everyone goes along with it and Fred, if nothing else, seems to write decent speeches and the two begin to reconnect once more; possibly with more going on between them than either initially realized.  Can Fred be the necessary piece that Charlotte has been missing in her life, and is Fred even capable of being what she needs him to be?  What sinister actors out there will try to undermine Charlotte’s campaign, and how will Fred react to the realities of being part of the political machine on such a large stage?  Seriously, how did this jacket alone not destroy her political career?

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“I didn’t realize the Blue Meanie was getting into politics!”     “Say what you will about the Blue World Order, they at least have a sound economic platform!”

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Super Recaps: Tom Goes to the Mayor (Joy’s Ex)

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

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Tom Goes to the Mayor and all the images you see in this recap are owned Warner Bros and Adult Swim

Created by Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim

We’re back with another episode of The Jefferton Folk Blues, and if that pun there was a bit too obscure, this is the final episode of the series!  I know!  I too wish this series had gone on forever and ever, but all good things must come to an end at some point, so let’s see how Tim & Eric’s flagship series made its final bow!  The episode begins with Tom in a quite cheerful mood as he visits the Mayor on Saint Patriot’s Day; presumably a Jefferton specific take on The Fourth of July that I’m guessing The mayor concocted for whatever reason.  Probably so he had an excuse to buy an ADORABLE talking bear that sadly seems to drain its batteries very quickly.  If it wasn’t clear enough by Tom’s cheerful mood that this episode did NOT directly follow Puddins, it turns out that Tom has brought over a cake for The Mayor that his three VERY MUCH ALIVE step sons had made for him.  For what reason, I’m not sure, but I’m guessing it has to do with Tom trying to brown nose The Mayor again and has roped his sons into this latest foolhardy attempt to get The Senpai to notice him.  Actually it looks like this attempt might just pay off as The Mayor seems to feel genuinely sorry for the guy after hearing his pathetic spiel about how bad things are at home (Joy’s ex-husband and father of Tom’s stepsons is staying at their house while she and the kids are going out of town) and invites him to a soiree at his private residence.  No not the fancy house we saw in Puddins!  He’s got a condo at Jefferton Castle which I assume is the most exclusive bit of real estate in the entire city and lucky Tom here just got a one way ticket to enjoy the festivities!

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“All I ask is that you bring six bottles of Tequila, a goat you have a slight amount of animosity towards, and a covered dish.”     “Okay… what about potato salad?”     “Come on, Tom.  I don’t have to hold your hand now, do I?”

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Super Recaps: Tom Goes to the Mayor (Puddins)

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

TGTTM

Tom Goes to the Mayor and all the images you see in this recap are owned Warner Bros and Adult Swim

Created by Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim

Welcome back to A Single Tom where things take a decidedly dark and melancholic turn right as we’re about to end the series.  In fact, many members of the show’s staff consider this to be the true finale for the series despite Tim & Eric choosing the next episode being the last one to air as they felt it would have been too depressing to end the season on such a dire note.  Just how bad does it get?  Let’s find out!!  It starts off as you’d expect it to with Good ol’ Tom Peters visiting The Mayor, but this time he has some sad news to deliver.  It turns out his eldest stepson, Brindon, has just died.  No seriously, the more or less FINAL episode of this series has one of Tom’s stepson’s dying a gruesome and violent death.  Now I’m not a fan of HOW he died as it’s a rather mean spirited fat joke as he ate enough food during his birthday party to eventually explode, but the point is still made.  Tom Peters, the man who can never face anything in his life, has to face one of the hardest things anyone would ever have to go through.

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“WHY DID YOU EAT THAT WAFER THIN MINT!?”

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Super Recaps: Tom Goes to the Mayor (Undercover)

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

TGTTM

Tom Goes to the Mayor and all the images you see in this recap are owned Warner Bros and Adult Swim

Created by Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim

We’re back another episode of 21 Jefferton Street where it seems that Tim & Eric beat Phil Lord and Chris Miller to the punch by a good six years, albeit with a much smaller budget and a tenth of the run time.  The episode begins with yet another public service announcement for the citizens of Jefferton, though this time they couldn’t afford Janeane Garofalo and had to settle for Jan and Wayne Skyler; Jefferton’s own married news team.  The lack of A-List celebrities on hand however should NOT lessen their grave message as it seems that the greatest menace currently facing the town is the abundance of starch in people’s diet.  Now to their credit, starch IS something you should watch out for in your diet as it’s a common staple in some really bad foods and can even cause blood sugar issues if you’re already susceptible to those kind of issues (starch is a form of glucose), but like with basically ANYTHING you eat it’s all about moderation and finding out what works best for your system.  Now obviously this PSA isn’t about that as it’s paid for by the Jefferton Starch League, and the goal was clearly to scare people into looking at ridiculous (and pricey) alternatives to simply cutting back on the mashed potatoes.  Case in point, Jan and Wayne’s guest on the program is a wacky inventor named Sandy Winfield (Bob Odenkirk) who has devised a Starch Testing Machine that looks like a ColecoVision with a desktop calculator from the same era glued on top. Now sure, it CAN be a pain in the ass to measure starch content in all the food you eat (subtract the total grams of carbohydrates from the grams of sugar and fiber), but since Mr. Winfield’s method LITERALLY involves your ass as you have to have to test your own stool with it, I think doing a little bit of math is the much more convenient option.

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“Sandy Winfield is not a real doctor, but those elitist jerks will just tell you to change your diet!  Pay me money to tell you why you should be panicking about Starch!”

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Super Recaps: Tom Goes to the Mayor (Glass Eyes)

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

TGTTM

Tom Goes to the Mayor and all the images you see in this recap are owned Warner Bros and Adult Swim

Created by Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim

We’re back with Toodle Day Part 2 as Tim & Eric have come up with ANOTHER wacky local holiday for the denizens of Jefferton to distract themselves with between the constant onslaught of disasters that Tom and The Mayor cause on a near weekly basis!  The episode begins with Tom going to The Mayor with yet another as per usual, and yet something seems different this time.  The Mayor picks up on it on it to and starts jabbing Tom in the eye with a giant stick; presumably because he sees Tom as some sort of threat that must be stopped, but luckily for Tom the SOMETHING DIFFERENT turns out to be one of his eyes which has been replace with one made of glass.  Apparently he lost it while playing with his step-children which I can absolutely see happening considering this guy’s luck, but I am surprised that his terrible insurance policy seems to have scrounged up enough money to put something into the socket, especially considering prosthetic eyes nowadays cost about two grand.  Who knows, maybe he bought it used or found it lying in the parking lot.

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“It’s just me.  Tom Peters.”     “I know exactly who you are, Tom.”     *JAB*  *JAB*  *JAB*

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Super Recaps: Tom Goes to the Mayor (Couple’s Therapy)

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

TGTTM

Tom Goes to the Mayor and all the images you see in this recap are owned Warner Bros and Adult Swim

Created by Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim

We’re back with another episode of Mad About Tom, and while his wife Joy may be mad about him in one definition of the word, she’s certainly not mad about him in the more flattering version of that idiom.  What did he do this time?  Well let’s find out!!  The episode begins not with the familiar Tom Goes to the Mayor theme, but instead with a Public Service Announcement regarding an issue that is near and dear to all of our hearts.  Keeping Janeane Garofalo employed!  Okay, not that, but Janeane Garofalo IS in the PSA to deliver a message about endangered Oil Turtles.  As it turns out, Jefferton’s efforts to clean their man-made lake have in fact been a detriment to the wellbeing of Oil Turtles who need pollution to survive.  This is all sounding a bit fishy, but Janeane seems sure that the solution is to dump more oil into the lake, and The Mayor agrees as we pull the camera back and realize that we were in his office the whole time!  MAYOR SHOCK!!  Okay, that’s probably not worth a MAYOR SHOCK, but it does mean we can jump right into the Tom going to The Mayor part of Tom Goes to the Mayor as we see our hapless hero come by with some rather disturbing news.  Apparently Jefferton’s power company put a giant electrical tower right in the middle of Tom’s yard which has caused a few fires already as well as the fact that his step sons are developing giant tumors because of it.  It’s actually a bit of an urban legend that power lines can cause cancer, but really there hasn’t been any studies that confirm the kind of electromagnetic fields they produce (non-ionizing) that can link it to cancer, so I’m guessing it’s less a power line and more of a Hell Machine that The Mayor is DISGUISING as a power line, and I’m pretty sure its function is to do nothing BUT give people cancer.

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“You know, Brenden is hearing voices and Joy has been vomiting pea soup.  I just think that the TIMING is a bit curious.”     “Well Tom, I’m glad to have your input all I see is an un-American whiner who wants to halt the progress of this great town.”     “Oh.  Well… I guess I can’t argue with that reasoning.  My apologies.”     “It’s okay Tom.  I forgive you.  Just don’t let it happen again.”

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Super Recaps: Tom Goes to the Mayor (The Layover)

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

TGTTM

Tom Goes to the Mayor and all the images you see in this recap are owned Warner Bros and Adult Swim

Created by Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim

We’re back with another episode of Big Fish Freezers, and BOY are we in for a doozy toady!  This is the episode where everything about Tom starts to make sense as we finally get to meet his dad!  Sure it probably won’t be as emotionally draining as seeing what Clay Puppington had to deal with as a kid, but Tim & Eric are not ones to half-ass an opportunity like this (despite their intentionally tacky style) and I’m sure we’ll get lots of very revealing insights today!  The episode begins with Tom waiting at the Jefferton Airport (because Jefferton can afford one of those apparently) and holding up a sign for his father who is arriving any minute now!  Well speak of the Devil (no not The Mayor, although we’ll get to him soon enough) there he is!  Tom is so overwhelmed with happiness that he can’t help but embrace his father (Bob Balaban) in a beautiful display of affection!  One that his father rebuffs without hesitation.  Well then!  I think one giant piece in the Tom Peters puzzle just fell into place!  It’s clear that his father is emotionally distant to his son so he has to seek that affection in other male role models like The Mayor!  Do you SEE what you did, Mr. Tom’s Dad!?  All those deaths are because you couldn’t give him a few more hugs!!  Then again, I’m not about to let Tom off the hook just yet considering he’s a grown ass man and STILL manages to act like a fool.  Case in point, his father is a Fish Freezer Salesman who is here on a layover for a big Seafood Convention where he’ll make the majority of his sales for the fiscal year and his next flight leaves in eleven minutes (Oh hey!  That’s how long an episode of the show is!), but instead of simply greeting him there and maybe getting a cup of coffee, Tom has this ridiculous itinerary all planned out where his father will somehow visit several Jefferton locations in a brief window of time and even have a meal with Joy and the kids for exactly one minute.  Don’t worry though!  Tom will keep of all of this with his trusty stop watch and he even factored in explaining the itinerary into the itinerary!  Tom’s dad Mr. Walt Pickle (if you recall in Surprise Party, Joy’s last name is Peters which Tom took when he married her) may have a lot of explaining to do, but he surely can’t be held responsible for ALL of this!

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“And as you can see, we’ll be back here with seven seconds to spare!”     “How did you even come up with this?  Did I forget to teach you how to tell TIME!?”

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Super Recaps: Tom Goes to the Mayor (Zoo Trouble)

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

TGTTM

Tom Goes to the Mayor and all the images you see in this recap are owned Warner Bros and Adult Swim

Created by Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim

Welcome back to another episode of Tom Goes to the Mayor Nights!  While we may not have THE HOFF to lead us on this adventure, there’s still a wacky and frankly unbelievable mystery to be solved by our two hapless heroes!  The episode begins with Good ol’ Tom Peters actually doing something constructive for the city of Jefferton as he’s volunteering at the city zoo; doing tour guides for the undiscerning masses about the fabulous creatures on display!  There’s a squirrel… and that’s about it.  Oh, and for some reason they have a gorilla named Michael Davidson with a really fancy state of the art cage, but he doesn’t come out much so the tour guide moves to the visitors center which is basically a tube TV in a shack that everyone needs to crowd around.  You know, Zoos are already an ethical minefield (helping endangered species while also providing educational experiences is all well and good, but exploitation and mistreatment of animals is always at risk of happening) and Jefferton isn’t’ really making a good case for them when the darn thing is so underfunded that they can’t afford more than a few animals and have to rely on guys like Tom Peters to keep it running.  Fortunately or unfortunately (depending on where this will go), The Mayor was part of that recent tour and even HE has noticed just how awful this place is.  Seriously, as much of a monster as he can be, he’s usually VERY good at being diplomatic and propping up his city even when he’s corroding it from within, and het even HE can’t hold his tongue on this crap hole; and hey, if THAT’S not enough to convince you… TOM AGREES WITH HIM!  If the incarnation of Pure Evil as well as the most mealy-mouthed loser in the world can’t muster any enthusiasm, you KNOW this place is in trouble!

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“This place is a total dump.”     “Well you’re The Mayor.  Shouldn’t YOU do something about it?”     “Don’t you sass me, young man!”

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Super Recaps: Tom Goes to the Mayor (Friendship Alliance)

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

TGTTM

Tom Goes to the Mayor and all the images you see in this recap are owned Warner Bros and Adult Swim

Created by Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim

We’re back with another episode of Mayor Hard! The Tom Peters Story! It’s a very special episode this time around because not only does it guest star John C Reilly, it’s ALSO my favorite episode of the entire series! How did it manage to pull THAT off!? Let’s find out!! The episode begins with some happy news for once as Tom is going to The Mayor not to ingratiate himself into The mayor’s latest scheme (or to propose one of his own), rather to give The Mayor a bubble gum cigar and inform him that he is now a Step-Grandpop! It seems that one of Joy’s eldest daughters (who we have never seen before) has just given birth to a beautiful baby wolf person that they named Joy after her beloved grandmother! Whether this means the father is a wolf or Tom is being INCREDIBLY insensitive towards someone with extra body hair (as if women don’t have enough problems conforming to societal beauty standards when they’re grown, let alone as a baby) is something that we’ll sadly never know, but he is left to look after her while Joy and the kids are visiting one of her exes. What we DO know is that The Mayor is so overjoyed for Tom that he reminds him how important it is to update his Friendship Alliance profile to reflect the good news! Truly the most important ritual of the modern era, but sadly Tom has never heard of such a thing which begs the question, what exactly is Friendship Alliance? It’s Facebook. That’s it. Well, okay. It’s PROBABLY based more on Myspace as this episode came out in August of 2006 and Facebook wouldn’t be available to the public for another month while Myspace had a two year head start being released in 2004 (which ended up amounting to nothing once the competition took hold), so chances are that was what they were referencing when they initially wrote this episode.

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Oh, THAT’S where Myspace Tom came from!

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