As I’m typing this week’s menu, I’m sitting in a cafe across from two young people clearly on a first date. Man, I’m so glad I’m not single anymore. The mid-day coffee date is the worst date ever. Even if things totally work out, both people have horrible coffee breath and it’s the middle of the afternoon (on a Sunday, in this case). Luckily for these two, it is clearly not working out, though they’re both trying to pretend it is. I feel like I should pull a gun and rob the cafe, if only to give them an excuse to cut the date short.
This cafe also appears to be a prime spot for divorced couples to swap out their shared children. So, this whole place is incredibly depressing.
Anyway, here’s what’s coming to screens this week!
Movies
Arthur:Â Russel Brand is so astoundingly ugly it’s sort of fascinating, but not enough to get me to a theater for this remake of the 1981 Dudley Moore/Liza Minelli romantic comedy. I hope they at least blast some Christopher Cross. (April 8)
Hanna: A little girl is raised in Finland to be a super-assassin by her ex-CIA dad. Then she kicks everyone’s ass, Bourne-style. Think I’ll wait for the rental. (April 8)
Your Highness: I guess this is Robin Hood for stoners or something? Count me among the seemingly few who don’t think Danny McBride is all that hilarious. Yes, he says inappropriate things in a loud voice, but so does this guy I work with and I wouldn’t pay ten bucks to watch him for ninety straight minutes. Expect lots of pot jokes and sack-taps. (April 8)
DVD/Blu-ray
Tron Legacy: I missed this in theaters because I never really was that into Tron but I will definitely rent it because I was sort of into Tron. (April 5)
I Love You Phillip Morris: This will be added to the bottom of my Netflix DVD queue and will remain there for ages as I constantly add new items in front of it. Then, some day, perhaps years from now, it will actually be mailed to me and it will sit on my counter for a few weeks until I send it back unwatched. Some films are just like that. (April 5)
Television
Lights Out: Season and series finale (it’s been cancelled). Like Terriers, this wasn’t a fantastic show but probably deserved a second season, based on quality if not viewership. The problem I was having with it was that the show was only fun if Leary was fighting, but he would only fight if he needed money, so to keep him fighting he’d always need to be broke, which resulted in the show having to constantly think up reasons for him to keep losing the money he’d make from fighting. Anyway, in the final episode he climbs into the ring with Death Row Reynolds, the fight we’ve been waiting for the entire season. With no season two, it doesn’t really matter if he wins or loses, but I’ll still check it out. (Tuesday, 10pm, FX)
Justified: The thing I’m finding most interesting about Justified this season is that Raylan isn’t an anti-hero: he’s not really fighting personal demons or being haunted by anything in his past. Pretty rare for good TV, and especially for FX, to just let their hero be a hero. In this week’s episode, the big dumb violent guy gets violent again. (Wednesday, 10pm, FX)
Community, Parks & Rec, 30-Rock: All reruns this week (boooo). Perfect Couples is new, though, because it got cancelled due to it sucking, and they need to run all the remaining episodes to make room for — choke — Paul Reiser’s new show. (Thursday, NBC)
The Killing: Sunday’s two-hour premiere of the season-long murder mystery was a little heavy-handed but otherwise excellent, and will be re-aired a number of times this week if you missed it (it’s also streaming commercial free on AMC’s site). AMC’s choices of what makes an American Movie Classic are dubious at best (The Chronicles of Riddick?) but they really know how to make good TV. (Sunday, 10pm, AMC)
Video Games
Dino D-Day: Imagine it’s World War II, and the Nazis have dinosaurs and you get to fight them. Do I even need to continue? Nazis dinosaurs = sale. (April 8, PC, Steam)
Shadow Harvest: Phantom Ops: I have no idea what this game is, but it seems to have been titled by some sort of random cool word generator. Other possibilities: Phoenix Operation: Dark Assassins, Legion Delta: Shadow Slayer, and Rising Phantom: Operation Shadow. See, it’s easy. (April 5, PC)
e-Books
Bossypants by Tina Fey: I’ll probably wait for the price to drop in the Kindle Store before picking this up, but her writing in The New Yorker has been great, so it’s definitely a sale.
Netflix Instant Pick of the Week
Cheers: I don’t know how long Cheers has been on Netflix Instant, but I swear I searched for it recently and it wasn’t there. It is now, though, all 270 episodes. I watched a few this weekend and it’s still as funny as I remember, though the pacing is glacially slow compared to current sitcoms.
I dislike Brand so much that I’m already ashamed and enraged I’ve even mentioned or thought about him today. Oh, also Katy Perry. Shit.
Hanna was directed by the same dude who did Atonement, which every lady I know adores and this is why my girlfriend wants to see it too.
I was never really sure what Your Highness was about, but I couldn’t figure out how knights got their hands on cannabis, not that the plausibility of a concept is important to those people. The only important thing to producers I guess is the thong shots of Natalie Portman in that movie that I saw on egotastic.
I recently rewatched Demolition Man and felt embarrassed when Leary rants about how much his future sucks, because that bit was just the movie makers saying, hey look, it’s funny man Dennis Leary.
Harvest Moon: In the Shadow of Phantom Ops