Ty Watches "Curb Your Enthusiasm" Series Finale

"Curb Your Enthusiasm" ended the series last night in what I consider to be perfect and glorious fashion. I don't truly know what I was expecting, but this seemed fitting and almost the only way Larry David could close out this classic television comedy. David is a genius. I have sung his praises for so, so many years. The guy gets it when it comes to comedy. He makes fun of others, but more importantly, he makes fun of himself time and time again. That much was on display during the hour long series finale. I think that is what made this such a successful and hilarious show over its long run.

"Curb" started in 2000. The show went for 12 seasons, and it felt like HBO let him put out a new season whenever he was ready. That was the best way to do this show. They had to be hands off for this to work. I have to assume David made it that way as well so he could put out exactly what he wanted in each season. We got 120 episodes of his genius. We had through lines in every season. They brought back classic bits in last nights finale from the earliest seasons. David got incredibly famous people to be on, either as themselves or as totally new characters. He let his stars shine. JB Smoove became a household name. Jeff Garlin and Susie Essman will be remembered forever as their characters. Ted Danson's heightened version of himself was perfect. Cheryl Hines starred as his wife and then ex wife. He got everyone from "Seinfeld" to be on his show. He got Bruce Springsteen to appear. He gave young up and coming improv actors their first chance to be on tv. He made offensive jokes and dealt with the blow back. He made his portrayal of himself as one of the greatest comedic characters to ever be on screen. This was, and always will be for me, a perfect show. This is the greatest comedy to ever be on tv. No one will come close to touching its genius. "30 Rock" is the closest now, and I love that show, but it is not even close to the hilariousness that "Curb" gave us.

And the way they closed it all out last night was a true joy to watch. To take on David's finale of "Seinfeld", the one everyone besides my wife and I seem to despise, and just go with it and do an almost updated version, it was the absolute best move to make. My wife and I kept saying to one another while watching, "this is perfect". To see him in a courtroom, to see the witnesses from seasons past show up, to see him and Jeff get into another messed up situation caused by their own stupidity, it was so perfect. Seeing Jerry Seinfeld show up for him and David to do bits was like watching a reunion I didn't know I needed. And for the the two of them to kind of hash out the "Seinfeld" finale in the most meta way possible, I couldn't be happier with what I saw. I'm glad they didn't do some kind of character change for anyone on the show. They all ended up the same as when they first appeared on the show. They were still griping about menial things. They were still trying to figure out where to eat. Richard Lewis, RIP, was still cracking jokes to David, and he was doing the same to Lewis. It was just a great sendoff to a great, all timer of a show. I loved the series finale. So did my wife. As for what I've seen on the internet today, it got a pretty good ovation from everyone who has watched it.

I want to end this today by thanking everyone involved with the creation and the constant improvement on "Curb Your Enthusiasm". You will all have a special place in my heart. And the biggest thanks goes to Larry David. Your genius knows no bounds. You are the greatest comedy television writer this world has ever been able to witness. Thank you from the bottom of my heart, and enjoy your retirement. Now, it is time for me to rewatch this series for the millionth time. 

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast.

Come and support Ty and the podcast on Patreon.

Follow Ty on instagram.

SeedSing is funded by a group of awesome people. Join them by donating to SeedSing.

Leon Black, The MVP of "Curb Your Enthusiasm"

The final season of "Curb Your Enthusiasm" premieres this Sunday. Everyone involved has said that this is it, and I fully believe them. I don't think this is one of those situations where people say this is the end but then decide to come back for a movie or reunion. This has a real finale feel. I also tend to believe that Larry David is done with this show too, and he doesn't seem like the type to go back on this. So, with that being said, I want to shout out an actor that turned this show from great to classic.

The first couple seasons of this show were great. They laid the groundwork. We got to know who the main characters are, how they act and live day to day. The show was also hilarious. I loved everything with Larry and Cheryl. The stuff with his dad was phenomenal. The stuff with Cheryl's family was great. Getting to know Susie and Jeff really let us into those characters' lives. Seeing how Larry David interacted with the people he used to work with was pretty excellent. The show worked. But, when they decided to do their thing with Hurricane Katrina, and write it into the show in their own way, this is where the show skyrocketed to being one of the best things in television history.

During the season 6 premiere the audience is introduced to the Black's. They are the family whose house was destroyed from the flood and the David's took them into their home. We get to meet the mom, the aunt and the kids right away. But it wasn't until the next day that we were introduced to Leon Black. Leon might be the greatest side character of all time. JB Smoove absolutely knocks this role out of the goddamn park. It feels like Smoove was destined to play this role. He is too perfect here. The whole idea of the show is, with each storyline, they improvise. There are never any true scripts. They get an idea of what each episode will be about, but there are never any written lines. Or at least that is what I have read. This fits right into Smoove's wheelhouse. He is a true comedian and an excellent comedic actor. He improvises so well with David, Susie Essman and Jeff Garlin. It feels like he makes them go up a level. Everytime he and David get into a shouting match I know it is going to be hilarious. When he starts to talk about Leon's past life experiences, it is so, so funny. When he reminisces I cannot control my laughter. I watched an older episode the other night where Leon and David come up with an idea for Leon to be a "house husband". This means he goes and helps his friends get better deals on home improvement projects. It all blows up in their faces, and Smoove is there to play this all for big time laughs. I also love the episode where we see the Black's leave Larry's house, after he and Cheryl split, and Leon walks up, seeing his family leaving. When Larry asks what he is going to do, Leon tells him he is going to go inside and eat his Chinese food, securing his place in Larry's house. Since that moment they have been roommates and friends. They've gone to Paris together. They have their businesses. Leon played a fake doctor for him. He has been his assistant. He talks to him about his lovelife and Larry's could be better. He despises Irma more than Larry I think. They are inseparable, and we are all reaping the rewards of getting to watch them go on this journey as a team.

I cannot wait to see what they do in this final season, but more so for me, I want to see how they wrap Leon's story. That is what I'm here for. I cannot wait. 

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast.

Come and support Ty and the podcast on Patreon.

Follow Ty on instagram.

SeedSing is funded by a group of awesome people. Join them by donating to SeedSing.

Ty Watches "On the Count of Three"

Yesterday I rented the movie "On the Count of Three". I saw a trailer for the movie a few weeks back and was enamored by it. I am a Jerrod Camrichael fan, I liked what I saw in the trailer, there were some other actors in it that I recognized and the story seemed like something I could get down with.

The movie, for those that may not know, is about two friends who decide they are going to kill themselves. They have reached a point in their lives where they simply do not want to go on. And for those of you thinking this has to be a depressing movie, it is a comedy. It is a very dark comedy, and there is a good amount of comedy, and you need to know going into this movie that it is very, very dark, but nonetheless, it is a comedy. There are hard jokes. There were parts that made me laugh out loud on my couch. But it is about suicide. The preview I saw even put the Suicide Prevention Hotline at the beginning. The premise is sad, but it was written by a few funny guys, and Carmichael directed it and he is a comedian by trade. So it had funny stuff in it.

First off, Carmichael was magnetic as the lead. He directed and starred and he nailed both jobs. He plays Val. Val has a ton going on, but he is done. His girlfriend is pregnant, he wants out of the relationship, Tiffany Haddish plays that role, he hates his job and he is over it all. Carmichael does a great job showing a guy that is at the end of his rope. He handles all the elements really well. He isn't spoiled, he is just bored. Christopher Abbot plays his best friend Kevin. Kevin has got some issues. When we first meet him he is in a mental institution because he had tried to kill himself three days earlier. Kevin is depressed, he was sexually harassed by his therapist as a child, the therapist was played by Henry Winkler, he is not in a good mental state, he is filled with problems. He has a great monologue about how maybe he isn't as important as the doctor's at the institution are trying to make him feel. Abbot handles the mental health issues with a deft hand. He does a great job.

This movie works because Carmichael and Abbot have such great chemistry. They also handle their characters with grace. They play them both so very well. The scene where we meet Val's dad, played by JB Smoove, was powerful. He deserved to get hit with that tire iron. The stuff with Kevin and his childhood bully was excellent. It was also oddly relatable. The importance of dirt bikes in this movie struck me. Lavell Crawford was awesome as the dirt bike shop owner. I saw other people say this, and I will repeat it today, this movie uses Papa Roach better than Papa Roach uses themselves. The music in this movie is the perfect tone.

Again, do not get it twisted, this is a depressing movie. Depressing stuff happens throughout. There were times where it felt relentless. But there were tons of jokes. There were some great deadpan line deliveries from Carmichael. The movie, at its heart, is a comedy, just an extremely dark comedy.

I hope more people search this movie out. Carmichael is finally getting a much deserved chance to make the type of movies he wants to make. This might be one of the better buddy movies to come out in quite some time. And even though it is about suicide, it is oddly uplifting at the end. Check out "On the Count of Three". It is a really good movie and it is one of the first true indie darlings, as much as I dislike that wording, of the year. A good movie indeed.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast.

Come and support Ty and the podcast on Patreon.

Follow Ty on instagram and twitter.

SeedSing is funded by a group of awesome people. Join them by donating to SeedSing.  

Ty Watches "The Polka King"

On our recent mini vacation, every night after the kids went to bed, we would pick a movie to watch at the Airbnb we stayed in. Each person chose a different night. On the last night we were there it was my father's choice, and he picked a movie called "The Polka King". I remembered seeing stuff on Netflix for this movie. I believe I had it on my list to watch, it has Jack Black in it, so that makes me instantly in, and it was, deemed by critics, similar to another Jack Black movie I love called "Bernie", I guess it has the same feel to it. So I was down when my dad asked to watch this movie. My wife and mom didn't seem too crazy about it, but it was dad's choice, and we watched it.

“The Polka King” is a solid movie. In fact, I enjoyed it quite a bit. And while, for me, it isn't on the same level as "Bernie", that movie is criminally underrated, it was still a well told story with a great Jack Black performance. The movie is about a polish gentleman named Jan Lewan, who is a polka musician, moves to Pennsylvania and gets sent to jail for running a ponzi scheme that preyed on the elderly. It seems like a very by the book crime movie, but it took a different approach than others. The fact that Lewan was this polka musician, and spoke with a thick accent, it made him seem aloof to what he was doing. You almost felt like he was doing now wrong. He seemed to be a nice guy, that just dug himself into a hole that he couldn't get out of until too many things went wrong and he landed in jail. Black embodied the character. Seeing him go about his everyday life as Lewan was great. He crushed that. But the polka stuff, my goodness did he crush that. He was electric. I am not a polka fan, in fact the only person I know who truly liked polka music is my now passed away Grandpa. I have met no other people who list polka as a favorite genre of music. But dammit if I wasn't bouncing my leg and humming along to the music when Black performed it in the movie. It was fun. Black was through and through perfection in this movie. I totally bought him as Lewan, I loved his musical performances, I bought his earnestness and his downfall, I was all in. He was tremendous. So was every other big time actor cast in this movie. Jenny Slate played his wife, and she was great. She talked about how she fell for him because he seemed so sad. She then really loved him, but struggled with his fame over hers. I loved the stuff with the Miss Pennsylvania pageant involving Slate. She was awesome. Jacki Weaver was wonderful as Slate's mom, and Black's mother in law. She didn't like Lewan, always thought he was up to something, and let him know every chance she could. And when she stood up for him, that was a dynamite scene. Jason Schwartzmann as his band mate and friend, he is becoming one of these actors that you can always count on for a solid performance, no matter if the movie is good or bad. It definitely helps when it's a good movie like this. Even JB Smoove, in a very small role, with a full head of hair, he was excellent and stole his scenes.

I didn't know if I would like this movie when we started it, but I can say very loudly now that I truly enjoyed this story and this movie's way of telling it. It was also a quick 90 minutes, which I very much appreciate. So, if you are looking for a quirky, funny, real life crime story, I highly recommend "The Polka King". It is a very, very solid movie. 

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast.

Come and support Ty and the podcast on Patreon.

Follow Ty on instagram and twitter.

SeedSing is funded by a group of awesome people. Join them by donating to SeedSing.  

When bad movies are really good.

With the release of "Joe Dirt 2: Beautiful Loser" coming tomorrow, I'd like to take time today to talk about movies like these. 

By this I mean, movies that critics don't like all that much, but a lot of people really like. They may not be good, but these movies have a ton of fans and are a lot of fun. Let's call them "beautiful disasters". These are the movies I will be speaking of today.

Back to "Joe Dirt 2:Beautiful Loser", I'm sure that critics will pan this movie and it will rate very low on the rotten tomato meter. That doesn't matter to me, I will see this movie because I LOVED "Joe Dirt". I was hesitant to see the first "Joe Dirt" because of what the critics were saying, but a friend of mine convinced me to watch it and boy am I glad that he did. "Joe Dirt" is hilarious. David Spade is at his best in this role. I'd say it's his best role since any movie he did with Chris Farley. With the mullet wig and his never die spirit, he's funny throughout the entire movie. The movie is a simple story, kid becomes orphaned, looks for his family, finds them and they're terrible. He meets some friends and his eventual wife on the way. Very simple story, but the actors are so good and funny, I don't care what the critics had to say. This movie is great. This is my favorite Christopher Walken role by far.

  I want to single out three more movies that may be deemed "beautiful disasters".

 First, we have "Southland Tales". This epic disaster of a movie is so insane. I don't really know what it's about, even though I've seen it at least a half a dozen times, but the fact that I watched it that many times proves that I enjoy it on some level. It's a totally incoherent plot, I don't even think director Richard Kelly knows what it's about, but it's a beautiful movie. There are some exceptional shots with beautiful colors and images. The acting in this movie is pretty good too. Dwayne Johnson is the lead actor and, as always, he oozes charisma and you can't take your eyes off him on screen. Justin Timberlake plays a crazed ex soldier. He's not a typical pretty boy in this movie, he is messed up. Great acting is done by Timberlake in this movie. Seann William Scott is no Stifler in this movie. He's a cop that finds himself in a lot of jacked up situations. This is easily one of his best acting performances. Comic actors like Jon Lovitz and Amy Poehler are unrecognizable in their roles. Lovitz is a crooked cop and Poehler is a crazy political activist. There is so much going on in this movie, almost too much, but you have to see this movie for it's sheer craziness.

 Next, we have "Hot Rod". This is one of favorite comedies of all time. Andy Samberg plays the lead character Rod, who thinks he's a stunt man, but he can't even do simple stuff like, a wheelie on his scooter. He finds out his step dad is dying, so he and his "crew" go out to make money for the surgery so Rod can kick his step dad's ass, so he will finally respect him. Another simple plot. This movie was canned by critics again, saying it was unfunny and seemed like an SNL sketch stretched out too long. I couldn't disagree more. The supporting actors in this movie are excellent. Rod's "crew" is made up of his step brother(Jorma Taccone), and two friends of his friends(Bill Hader and the always funny Danny McBride). There are many shenanigans along the way and it's all very funny. Hilarious lines are written for this movie too. One that always sticks out to me, Rod is watching the news and you can hear the broadcaster in the background saying, "the dog walked itself home, ate a pizza and took a nap". I crack up every time I hear it. I love this movie and will defend it to my grave. It's a comedy classic in my eyes. 

 The last "beautiful disaster" I will mention is, "Pootie Tang". I adore this movie. It's about, for all intents and purposes, a super hero that speaks his own language and can beat people up by simply using his belt. The movie is just a hair over an hour long. After the end credits, Bob Costas shows up and says to Pootie Tang, "that was the longest trailer" I've ever seen. You have people like Chris Rock, playing multiple roles in this movie, Wanda Sykes as a hooker with a heart of gold, JB Smoove as Pootie Tang's right hand man and Dave Attell as the bad guy. This movie is bizarre on so many levels, but in a very good way. You get scenes of Pootie Tang as a child having a grown women crying hysterically as he leaves her home, Pootie's dad being mauled by a bear, but it's literally just a guy in a bear costume, Pootie rubbing hot cherry pie on his body to seduce a farmer's daughter and many, many more. It's so ridiculous, but so awesome. Critics once again destroyed this movie, calling it dumb and saying it was impossible to understand. I wonder how they would feel about it now if they went back and watched it knowing that Louis CK wrote and directed it. Everyone loves "Louie"(you can count me as one of these people, it's the best show on TV) and lauds how Louis CK has such a fresh, yet bizarre take on the world. Much like the movie "Pootie Tang". Watch it again, with the knowledge of who Louis CK is now, and I bet you that you'll love it. "Pootie Tang" is great.

 There are many more movies I've left off my list, but I know that everyone has a "beautiful disaster" movie that they watch and love. Let me know in the comment section what some of these movies are, so I can watch and find some new movies that I haven't heard of, or never gave a chance. I'd greatly appreciate it.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for Seed Sing. It took him longer to write this article than it took to watch Pootie Tang. Sa da tay. Follow him on twitter @tykulik.