From World UFO Day to the 4th of July this week’s #SetTheVCR is timely appointment television. Because in this hectic life timing is everything for comedy, arriving at parties and of course TV recommendations. #LifeLessons
Monday, June 28
Time Lapse (Anytime / Prime Video (Canada))
Three friends discover a mysterious machine that takes pictures twenty-four hours into the future, and conspire to use it for personal gain, until disturbing and dangerous images begin to develop.
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Sammy Suggestion: Could You Survive the Movies? Season 1 (Anytime / YouTube Originals)
COULD YOU SURVIVE THE MOVIES is a Daytime Emmy winning series dedicated to exploring the magic and science of cinema. In each episode, Vsauce3’s Jake Roper takes the audience on an immersive journey into the world of a different movie; blending unscripted scientific exploration with narrative storytelling. From the jungles of Jumanji, to the vastness of space in Alien, the audience is transported to an exciting educational cinematic experience filled with mind-blowing experiments!
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The YouTube Originals hit Could You Survive The Movies? returns for a second season on July 1st. If you’ve ah…”survived” this long without checking out this show now is a good time to get into it. Its premise is simple: a science series that explores the science behind what you see in movies. Or in some cases “science” since ah Hollywood Science is totally different than like…science science. Season one explored classics like Back to the Future, Men in Black, Ghostbusters, Alien, Jumanji and Die Hard. Highly informative and wildly useful for the next time you find yourself in 1955 having to Tinder your parents at the Enchantment Under the Sea dance. (Oh Season 2 covers Top Gun, Jurassic Park, Harry Potter, Titanic, A Quiet Place and the endlessly fascinating nerd debate: Can You Survive A Zombie Movie? Here’s the trailer for Season 2.)
Tuesday, June 29
Vicious Fun (Anytime / Shudder)
Joel, a caustic 1980s film critic for a national horror magazine, finds himself unwittingly trapped in a self-help group for serial killers. With no other choice, Joel attempts to blend in or risk becoming the next victim.
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Sammy Suggestion: The Queen of Basketball (Anytime / NYTimes.com)
She is arguably the greatest living women’s basketball player. She’s won three national trophies; she played in the ‘76 Olympics; she was drafted to the NBA. But have you ever heard of Lucy Harris?
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Lucy Harris became the first and only woman officially drafted by the NBA, when the New Orleans Jazz selected her in 1977. Really? I’ve never heard this story and I’m curious how this happened. This documentary short was well received at 2021 Tribeca Film Festival so this is a rare and classy #SetTheVCR recommendation. Today the doc debuts as part of The NY Times’ Op-Docs series. (To reduce the classy a bit I recommend a fantastic graphic novel: The Comic Book Story of Basketball: A Fast-Break History of Hops, Hoops, and Alley-OOPS by Fred Van Lente and Joseph Cooper. Whew. I feel better and less classy already. It’s an excellent historical resource that covers the game’s beginnings right up to Steph Curry.)
Wednesday, June 30
Sammy Suggestion: America: The Motion Picture (Anytime / Netflix)
A chainsaw-wielding George Washington teams with beer-loving bro Sam Adams to take down the Brits in a tongue-in-cheek riff on the American Revolution.
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Look, in 2004 I happily paid cash money to see Team America: World Police at the local cinema. So I haven’t got a lot of moral high ground here. Archer director Matt Thompson brings a similar animated sensibility to am R-rated retelling of the American Revolution with Channing Tatum voicing George Washington, Judy Greer as Mrs. Washington, Simon Pegg as Sam Adams and Bobby Moynihan as Paul Revere. It’s out today but you may wanna save it for the 4th of July after you…I dunno buy a mattress or grill hamburgers while you fret about the Red Menace. USA! USA! USA!
Thursday, July 01
Could You Survive the Movies? Season 2 (Anytime / YouTube Originals)
COULD YOU SURVIVE THE MOVIES is a Daytime Emmy winning series dedicated to exploring the magic and science of cinema. In each episode, Vsauce3’s Jake Roper takes the audience on an immersive journey into the world of a different movie; blending unscripted scientific exploration with narrative storytelling. From the jungles of Jumanji, to the vastness of space in Alien, the audience is transported to an exciting educational cinematic experience filled with mind-blowing experiments!
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Sammy Suggestion: No Sudden Move (Anytime / HBO Max & Crave)
A new crime thriller from Academy Award®-winning director Steven Soderbergh. Set in 1954 Detroit, NO SUDDEN MOVE features an ensemble cast, including Don Cheadle, Benicio del Toro, David Harbour, Jon Hamm, Kieran Culkin, and Brendan Fraser; with Ray Liotta.
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My cinematic love language: we got “a group of criminals” (mmm) brought together under mysterious circumstances (oh yes!) and have to work together to uncover what’s really going on when their simple job goes completely sideways. (That’s the spot!). And yes you got Brendan Fraser, Don Cheadle, Ray Liotta etc. what’d you expect from a cast like this and yes it’s directed by Steven Soderbergh. Fine. The legit hook is it’s written by Ed Solomon who penned Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, Men in Black and Now You See Me. Oh it’s all happening. (This debuts on July 1 for Americans on HBO Max and for Canadians on Crave.)
Friday, July 02
Fear Street Part 1: 1994 (Anytime / Netflix)
After a series of brutal slayings, a teen and her friends take on an evil force that’s plagued their notorious town for centuries. Welcome to Shadyside.
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Sammy Suggestion: The Tomorrow War (Anytime / Prime Video)
Time travelers arrive from 2051 to deliver an urgent message: 30 years in the future mankind is losing a war against a deadly alien species. The only hope for survival is for soldiers and civilians to be transported to the future and join the fight. Determined to save the world for his daughter, Dan Forester teams up with a brilliant scientist and his estranged father to rewrite the planet’s fate.
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On World UFO Day 2021 you can watch The Tomorrow War where humans wage war against aliens (that’s the message we want to send out to aliens?!) Director Chris McKay best known for directing and editing three seasons of Robot Chicken makes his live film debut with The Tomorrow War. Which focuses on future humanity’s war against an alien invasion: as humans now use a new ability to draft soldiers from 30 years in the past to help combat an alien invasion in 2051. That totally makes sense. I’m hoping the movie explains why they can only go into the past and ah…not to the future to see how they actually defeated the aliens. And want to know why none of us know that? Because The Tomorrow War is an original movie. What?! It’s not based on comic books or a novel or a video game. When’s the last time that has happened almost everything is Borg-adapted. We’re all going into this one cold. What a wonderful and rare treat.
Saturday, July 03
Sammy Suggestion: Summer of Soul (Anytime / Hulu & Disney+ (Canada))
In his acclaimed debut as a filmmaker, Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson presents a powerful and transporting documentary—part music film, part historical record created around an epic event that celebrated Black history, culture and fashion.
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Smart marketing: Questlove’s documentary Summer of Soul about the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival will debut in the…you know: Summer. If you dig Dave Chappelle’s Block Party then you’ll dig Summer of Soul. We got never-before-seen concert performances from: Stevie Wonder, Nina Simone (YES!), Sly & the Family Stone, Gladys Knight & the Pips, B.B. King, The 5th Dimension and so much more. Over the course of six weeks in the summer of 1969, just one hundred miles south of Woodstock, The Harlem Cultural Festival was filmed in Mount Morris Park (now Marcus Garvey Park). And then the other classic: the footage sat in a basement for 50 years. Similar to Sydney Pollack’s sublime Amazing Grace documentary on Aretha Franklin: shot in 1972 until it was recused from a Warner Bros. vault in 2007 to become a 2018 documentary. Pics or It Didn’t Happen right? (Please Note: for Americans this debuted on July 2nd on Hulu while for Canadians they can check it out on Disney+.)
Sunday, July 04
Sammy Suggestion: The One and Only Dick Gregory (9/8c PM / Showtime & Crave)
Feature-length documentary examining activist, pop-culture icon and thought leader Dick Gregory, whose work as a self-described ‘agitator’ shaped a generation demanding justice. As a renowned Black comedian, Gregory had a platform to take on the most incendiary battles of hunger, gender equity, and civil rights – stirring trouble and making headlines in the service of social justice. Featuring Gregory’s personal reflections, archival footage and interviews with the artists he influenced – including Dave Chappelle, Chris Rock and Wanda Sykes.
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You know what’s funny? Racism. The best comedy is rooted in experience where the comic can articulate the absurd nature of words and actions we mostly do not question. We’ve seen that with Dave Chappelle and Chris Rock but before those gifted jokers we enjoyed that with Dick Gregory. As lyrical as George Carlin and as culturally savvy as Dick Cavett, Gregory was a savage comedic force. Ready for a Costco sized sample? “Segregation is not all bad. Have you ever heard of a collision where the people in the back of the bus got hurt?” See? Racism lol. Gregory primarily worked during the turbulent 60s and the upheavals in the 70s. Though black and he deftly addressed racial injustice in his act he was outspoken about the Vietnam War, went on a hunger strike to call attention to Native American rights, conducted landmark research into the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and wrote several books. (The best is Nigger: An Autobiography. Highly recommended and I believe it’s never been out of print since being published in 1965). So this Showtime documentary is his Last Dance: it will introduce his work and comedy to a new generation. Because chances are you don’t know Dick. (I had to drop that one…I ain’t a comic I hadda go with the easy ones.)
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Sammy Younan is the affable host of My Summer Lair: think NPR’s Fresh Air meets Kevin Smith: interviews & impressions on Pop Culture.
