Cortland Jacoby

Orlando Bloom and Cara Delevingne Star in the Visually Beautiful but Narratively Mediocre Amazon Prime Series

Carnival Row Beautifully Stumbles into Its First Season

August 30, 2019 Cortland Jacoby Television, Television Reviews

Ever since the ending of the tumultuous final season of Game of Thrones, networks and streaming sites have been scrambling to find a replacement for it in the culture. HBO is trying to keep its hat in the ring with the Game of Thrones prequel, a Watchman series based on the comic, and the fantasy adaption of the His Dark Materials series. Netflix has the upcoming The Witcher, and Amazon Prime now has Carnival Row, premiering on the streaming platform this Labor Day weekend. If you are like me, you have a white walker sized hole in your television loving heart and while Carnival Row doesn’t fit the frame perfectly, it does its best to satisfy the craving, while making something new.

Movie Revue: Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

DiCaprio Shines as a Hollywood Has-Been in Tarantino’s Endearing “Once Upon A Time… In Hollywood”

July 26, 2019 Cortland Jacoby Movie Reviews, Movies

Hollywood loves movies about itself. Singing in the Rain, Sunset Boulevard, La La Land all follow in that tradition. While auteur director Quintin Tarantino has been using his films to comment on show business throughout his last eight pictures, his ninth deals with it directly. Combining the acting expertise of Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, and a talented cast, Tarantino takes the audience on a long but rewarding ride through Hollywood’s underbelly and what it means to make it in the industry in Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood.

Movie Review: The Farewell

Awkwafina Finds Her Breakout in the Magnificent “The Farewell”

July 19, 2019 Cortland Jacoby Movie Reviews, Movies

There seems to be one independent film a year that captivates critical attention, creating Oscar buzz a full nine months before the Oscar nominations even come out. This year that film seems to be The Farewell. It has everything critics and the Academy loves; representation, brilliant directing, sophisticated but not pretentious feel, based on a true story. However, it’s the film’s bittersweet nature and human story that could propel this film far.

Cortland sits down with Lulu Wang, the Director of The Farewell

Director Lulu Wang on Inspirations and Thought Process Behind ‘The Farewell,’

July 16, 2019 Cortland Jacoby Interviews, Movies

In The Farewell, director Lulu Wang puts her real-life experiences on the big screen. When her family decided to not tell her grandmother that she had stage 4 lung cancer and instead plan a wedding to bring the family together, Wang struggled with that decision and the cultural differences between the American life she had been living and the Chinese way of life that connected her to her grandmother.

Wang first documented this tale on NPR’s This American Life in 2016. Now, Wang has recounted the story in a more emotional way on the big screen, in theaters this Friday. I sat down with the director to talk about her directorial influences for the film, the brillance of actor Tzi Ma, the difficulty of finding an actor to play “you”, and the lessons she’s learned along the way.

Movie Review: The Hustle

The Hustle Lacks Comedic Precision

May 10, 2019 Cortland Jacoby Movie Reviews, Movies

Should remakes exist? Should gender-swapped remakes exist? Obviously, the answer should be yes, if the story is endearing enough and the new adaption would bring a new or unseen perspective to the source material. Most of the time, gender-swapped remakes are flipped from male to female, setting itself up for failure especially if the original is beloved (see 2016’s Ghostbusters). So if you are making a gender-swapped remake focusing on female characters, hopefully, that new adaption would be written and directed by women. Unfortunately, The Hustle is not any of those things and its lack of female perspective shows.

Cortland explores the world of Long Shot with actress June Diane Raphael and director Jonathan Levine

June Diane Raphael and Director Jonathan Levine Talk the Collaborative Effort of Making Long Shot

May 3, 2019 Cortland Jacoby Interviews, Movies

Very rarely does a comedy shine as bright as Long Shot. With its charismatic cast led by Charlize Theron and Seth Rogan, its biting hilarity and natural sweetness, the film is set up to be the surprise comedic hit of the summer. Theron plays Secretary of State Charlotte Field, caught at a career crossroads when she plans on running for President. Before announcing her candidacy, she reconnects with Rogan’s Fred Flarsky, a passionate but reckless reporter – turned speechwriter, she used to babysit in high school. As they reconnect on a press tour, sparks fly and cause a media storm in Washington. I sat down with Long Shot’s director Jonathan Levine and actress June Diane Raphael in D.C. to talk about the benefit of an improvised take, subverting rom-com troupes and having a family on set.

Movie Revue: Long Shot

Long Shot, the Rogan and Theron Starring Rom-Com, Hits the Bullseye

May 3, 2019 Cortland Jacoby Movie Reviews, Movies

Very rarely does romance finds its way into politics. There’s MSNBC’s Morning Joe co-hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski (Comedian Michelle Wolf once called their relationship “a me-too that worked out.”) There’s the Conways, whose marriage has been fodder for the current president. There’s every dysfunctional relationship on Veep and every melodramatic one on The West Wing. Okay, maybe there are a few examples, but very rarely does it go well. Narratively, the last time we’ve seen romance and politics take center stage was in an American President. In comes Long Shot, a political romantic comedy that challenges the legitimacy of its predecessors in the genre.

Movie Revue: Avengers: Endgame

Avengers Endgame Finishes Saga in Sincere Nostalgic Triumph

April 28, 2019 Cortland Jacoby Movie Reviews, Movies, Uncategorized

For eleven years Marvel and Disney have not only created an empire with the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but they have also tried to create a spoiler-free culture around their releases. Earlier this week, Marvel released a public letter to their fans asking them to not spoil anything from Avengers: Endgame. The film is, not ending the MCU, but ending an era of our main heroes. My point in saying this is that I am going to try to be as spoiler free as possible with this review. One, I don’t want Hawkeye to shoot me down over a movie review and two, the film benefits the viewer going in cold.

Hulu's Shrill starring SNL's Aidy Bryant is a win for representation

Hulu’s Shrill should be Shouted from the Rooftops

March 17, 2019 Cortland Jacoby Television, Television Reviews

Fifteen seconds into Hulu’s new series Shrill and we are already seeing skin. The woman is not sexualized, but instead she is shown in her bra, trying to figure out what to wear to work. This mundane event might not even be shown in most shows, however, the moment stands out for one reason– this woman is fat.

"It's really about modeling what I needed to see when I was younger, which was someone whose body looks like mine."

A Conversation with Shrill’s Lindy West

March 15, 2019 Cortland Jacoby Interviews, Television

As a fat woman, you could say that I have been hungry for positive fat portrayals of women in media. Since movies and TV rarely showed any normal depictions of fat women, I often went to books to read what I couldn’t see. That’s where I first came across writer and activist Lindy West.

In 2016 Shrill, West’s comedic memoir on fat shaming and coming of age as a woman in a world that wasn’t made for you, was published to critical acclaim. Now, a TV show based on her life and the fat and female experiences, also called Shrill, is coming to Hulu Friday, starring SNL’s Aidy Bryant and produced by Elizabeth Banks and Lorne Michaels. A couple of weeks ago I had the opportunity to chat with Lindy by phone and talk about adapting her memoir, representation, fat people on TV and how comedy has grown in the last five years to include more diverse voices. Here’s our conversation: