Spring is in the air and we are springing forward this weekend (well, most of us). For those of you looking to make the most of your hour-shortened weekend, let our contributors recommend a trio of great movies to watch and have a happy movie watching weekend!
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via The Film Avenger
Grumpy Old Men (HBO Now) – Legendary comedy team Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau play old widowed frenemies who spend their days hilariously ripping on each other in their Minnesota small town. When an interesting woman moves into the neighborhood, the rivalry intensifies. Both Lemmon and Matthau are spectacular in this film, as well as Ann-Margret as the object of their affections, and a wonderful zinger-filled performance from Burgess Meredith as Lemmon’s father. This film is a perennial favorite of mine and always makes me laugh out loud.
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via Blaine Grimes
The Great British Baking Show (Netflix) – Competitive cooking shows are a dime a dozen, but The Great British Baking Show is worth your time. For starters, it relies much less heavily on artificially produced drama than its American counterparts, which makes for a more relaxing and enjoyable viewing experience. It’s not so much that one type of show is bad and the other is good as it is that The Great British Baking Show forwards and privileges an entirely different set of values than a show like Chopped, for example. In the latter, speed and hectic editing patterns result in a dog eat dog, pedal to the metal atmosphere, while the comparatively measured pacing of the former, coupled with the cheery classical music score, presents baking as a generative act worthy of tasting, seeing, and savoring.
For a show that is—at the end of the day—a competition, I’ve seen contestants on The Great British Baking Show help one another out multiple times; and at the end of a long day, when I’m jaded and weary, there’s nothing I need more than a reminder that I too am called to help others in any way I can (although cakes are a close second).
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via Josh Crabb
Mike Birbiglia: Thank God for Jokes (Netflix) – One of my favorite comedians in the whole world, this new comedy special from Mike Birgbiglia continues something really special about the comic. While I find lots of other comics funny, Birbigs is different in the way we puts a whole routine together. Instead of a series of interrelated or thematic sequences of jokes, he tends to tell a great, funny story with jokes as asides within the story. His stories also tend to be vulnerable, self-depreciating, and surprisingly humble, but it shouldn’t be surprising based on the crazy and awkward stuff that happens to him.
Stand-up comedy has always been compared to preaching a sermon on a Sunday morning. There are few other professions that require a person to consistently get up in front of a group of people and speak publicly. What I love about Birbilia’s sand-up routines is the similarities between his storytelling approach and giving a sermon. Typically, they have one big idea, have a lot of sub-points relating to the big idea, and in the end tell a bigger story than the jokes he is telling. Having been a pastor and now a church planter, I have a great appreciation for his method of telling stories and meaningful jokes and I hope to grow to have some of his skill at capturing an audiences attention and striving to tell a great story in the most effective way possible. Also, this comedy special is absolutely hilarious. His opening about on-time versus late people is hysterical and painfully true for a late person like me.
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