Thursday Movie Picks - Television Edition: Comedies

Written as part of the weekly blogathon hosted by Wandering Through the Shelves. Join the fun by picking three movies (or, once a month, TV shows) that fit the week's theme and writing a bit about them!

I think we could all use a few good laughs after the dumpster fire that was 2018. So here are a few good comedies for you all to catch up on over the winter break:

Mom (2013-present) Single mom Christy is a recovering alcoholic whose mother, also a recovering alcoholic, moves in to help her take care of her two children. Yes, it's a comedy, and a pretty great one with geniuses Anna Faris and Allison Janney making gourmet meals out of very basic ingredients. The first season takes a while to find its footing, but once it does, this is a wonderful, heartfelt sitcom about the never-ending process of starting over.

Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (2015-Present) Abducted in middle school by a wannabe cult leader and held with three other women in an underground bunker, Kimmy Schmidt has finally been rescued, and decides to make a life for herself in New York City! She manages to find a room for rent with legend-in-his-own-mind Titus Andromedon and together, they go after their dreams: her to be an independent career woman (starting off as a nanny to the ultra-wealthy Jacqueline Voorhees, and him to be a singing star! The premise is certainly dark, but Kimmy's joie de vivre is still that of her fifteen year-old self, and shows no signs of abating. This wild and wacky show is so dense with jokes that it's sometimes difficult to keep up, but the performances of Ellie Kemper, Tituss Burgess (the show's breakout STAR), Jane Krakowski, and Carol Kane keep everything grounded in reality even when it gets a little out of hand.

The Good Place (2016-Present) Eleanor Schellstrop has died, and has ended up in "the good place." The only problem is, it becomes immediately clear that there was some kind of mix-up, and she has taken the place of an Eleanor Schellstrop that was a MUCH better person than she was. Afraid that she will get found out and sent to "the bad place," she gets her soul mate - a professor of moral philosophy named Chidi Anagonye - to teach her how to be a good person. The Good Place is consistently hilarious and surprising, and has some of the most inspired storytelling of any show currently on TV. It's a must-watch.

Thursday Movie Picks - High School Reunion

Written as part of the weekly blogathon hosted by Wandering Through the Shelves. You can take part, too! Just pick three movies that fit the week's theme and say a little bit about them. It couldn't be easier!

If there is anything worse than high school, it's high school reunions. My ten-year one was four years ago now, and I didn't go. Everyone who I wanted to see, I was either still in contact with through Facebook (thank God for Facebook!) or saw semi-regularly anyway. So I didn't feel the need to spend money to eat catered food in the place we had our Senior Prom and stand around looking at other people I barely remembered making small talk about our lives.

Not that all high school reunions are bad! My mother still fondly remembers the first reunion she went to where she realized all the cheerleaders who made her life hell in high school, and had married their jock boyfriends, had not only peaked in high school, but were basically still living it. And had gotten fat.

Perhaps it's due to my ambivalence towards these types of events that I haven't seen enough movies about them to fill out the full three picks this week. I mean, I know of plenty of others - Peggy Sue Got Married, 10 Years, Romy & Michele's High School Reunion - but I haven't actually seen them. And that's kind of a rule I set for myself with these things: I have to have seen the movie in order to pick it. So I only have two this week. Here goes nothing.

Veronica Mars (Rob Thomas, 2014) Yes, this is the movie that kickstarted (SEE WHAT I DID THERE?!?) the craze of using Kickstarter to fund movie projects. No, it's not great. And no, I don't particularly care. As a huge fan of the canceled-too-soon TV show about a whip-smart teenage outcast/private eye (Kristen Bell) and her former Sheriff/current private investigator father (Enrico Colantoni) living in a deeply divided California town, this movie was like catnip to me, and delivered just about everything I wanted from a Veronica Mars movie. Snappy dialogue, noir-ish murder mystery plot, and smart commentary about the intersection of race/class and privilege. After moving as far away as possible from the town that caused her so much heartbreak, soon-to-be lawyer Veronica comes back to her hometown of Neptune, CA after a call from her ex-boyfriend asking for her help exonerating him from a murder charge. And it just so happens that her high school reunion is taking place at the same time. What's a girl trying to get on the straight and narrow to do? Yes, there's a bit of a bar to clear if you didn't watch the show, but I have to think that most of it would still be enjoyable anyway.

Grosse Pointe Blank (George Armitage, 1997) One of the best films of the '90s, Grosse Pointe Blank tells the story of one Martin Blank, a professional assassin whose most recent job is to kill someone in his hometown. And it just so happens that his ten year high school reunion is taking place at the same time! And it ALSO just so happens that the man he's been hired to kill is the father of the girl he still has a crush on from high school. Ironic detachment has rarely been done better than this movie, and while it's definitely a product of its time, the great performances from John Cusack, Minnie Driver, Dan Aykroyd, and Joan Cusack (among others) keep it feeling fresh, and the zippy pace makes the film just fly by. This is a really fun one if you haven't seen it.

...and that's it for me this week, folks! I got nothin' else!