It only took a day to raise the $2M required, which is incredible/insane, but the Veronica Mars movie kickstarter has been fully funded. I loved this show. Gonna be so great!

PS: The embedded pitch video is pretty funny, you guys.

I already love everything about at least half this cast. Don Cheedle from everything, Kristen Bell from Veronica Mars, and Ben Schwartz from Parks and Recreation. Can’t wait for January.

Been a while since I’ve talked about the tv I’m watching. Here’s a breakdown:

Justified

Based on novels and a short story by Elmore Leonard, Justified is about to enter its second season. I’m catching up on S1 and I gotta say I’m a huge fan of US Marshal Raylan Givens (played by Timothy Olyphant) and the crime landscape of Eastern Kentucky. It’s definitely worth tuning into.

Party Down

I’m tuning into this one a bit too late, but this canceled Rob Thomas show about failed actors working in a catering business is reliably funny enough for me to keep watching on Netflix instant. Rob Thomas’ other critically acclaimed canceled show, Veronica Mars, lends many guest stars to Party Down and it’s both hilarious and bizarre to see them in such different roles.

Episodes

It’s been a long while since Matt LeBlanc was on TV. Joey was a pretty short lived failure, which I’m sure contributed to Matt LeBlanc’s lack of work, but he’s back and doing remarkably excellent work on Episodes. If you watched the second season of Extras, you should be somewhat familiar with the whole “network ruining our smart show” concept, but the real beauty of this show is the way Matt LeBlanc plays, well, Matt LeBlanc. The other characters in the show initially give him very little credit, but his sneaky, behind-the-scenes machinations are actually quite intelligent and I’m eager to see how this show ends now that we’ve caught up with the media res introduction of the first episode.

Shameless

Did you know this was based on an English show? I guess it makes sense. First episode was pretty good. I don’t have much more to say on the topic, but I plan to keep watching.

Portlandia

Carrie Brownstein and Fred Armison are the brains (and primary actors) behind this sketch comedy analysis of Portland, the city where the dream of the 90s lives on. Some of the sketches are miss, but most are decent hits. I’m actually chuckling a little about the cacao sketch right now. I admit that I also take a little more out of it thanks to living two years of my life in a Portland suburb. Not gonna bust your sides, but worth a watch.

Archer

H. Jon Benjamin is the super secret agent Sterling Archer. It’s about as madcap and raunchy as you’d expect cable tv animated shows to be, but it’s also just funny enough to keep me tuning in each week. I think my enjoyment stems entirely from H. Jon Benjamin’s vocal work. He just knows how to voice a character.

Bob’s Burgers

Speaking of H. Jon Benjamin vocal roles, Bob’s Burgers couldn’t be more different from Archer, but is also as good or better thanks to Eugene Mirman and Kristen Schaal. All three combine to make a FOX animated show that is (thankfully) not a Family Guy knockoff. Last week’s capoeira episode was hilarious.

and the usual stuff:

Community

I don’t quite know where they’re going with this mini-Chevy Chase arc, but I’m not too fond of it. I think Pierce is the weakest character in the show and they’re going out of their way to make us hate him. Character death? God, I wish it were so. The ensemble doesn’t need him.

Glee

Season 2 just hasn’t lived up to Season 1. I blame the music. Too much pop culture, perhaps, and not enough classic rock and Broadway. Every time I think I might quit watching the show they go and wow me with something fantastic. Before the break it was the “Singin In The Rain/Umbrella” mash-up. Last week, amid the awful Justin Bieberfest, we got “Take Me Or Leave Me” from Rent. Just like that I’m back in.

Parks and Recreation

If you still think this show is The Office 2.0, you’re still wrong. Parks & Recs has matured into its own fantastic show and it’s firing on all cylinders. This past week I found myself literally guffawing at the episode. I think it might be my favorite comedy on television at the moment.

I’m a naturally skeptical guy when it comes to my entertainment. There is only so much time in a day and I don’t want to devote my time to watching crummy movies, playing bad games, or reading stupid books. So it takes someone whose tastes I trust to recommend a movie to me or a rock-solid trailer coupled with good scores on IMDB or Rotten Tomatoes to really get me to see a movie. I initially resisted The 40-Year-Old Virgin based on trailers, but when I finally saw the movie based on The Office-related Steve Carell love, I found a rather funny and enjoyable movie.

Then Knocked Up began to be advertised as “From the people who brought you…” which is a giant red flag to me. I mean, how often have we all been burned by that ad trick? Producers are not directors, so who knows how this could turn out? I was dragged out to see it, kicking and screaming, but I found myself, again, pleasantly surprised. Perhaps these Judd Apatow-produced movies could continually be good. Maybe the same producer does have an influence on a film.

It all came to a head with Superbad. Fueled mostly by my desire to see Michael Cera in any project he’s ever a part of, and saw one of the best comedies I have ever seen. So nowadays I don’t ever doubt the Judd Apatow brand and I will blindly go and see any Apatow-produced movie, no matter whether or not the trailer is any good (strangely enough, maybe brilliantly? Judd Apatow movies never have good trailers and they are generally not that funny to me).

His most recently produced movie, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, was also written and directed by one of my favorite tv actors, Jason Segel, and also starred another of my favorites, Kristen Bell, so I wanted to go before I even saw the movie trailers. If you haven’t seen any trailers, here’s the general plot: Peter Bretter (Segel) is a moderately successful composer for the TV show his girlfriend, Sarah Marshall (Bell) stars in and they have a loving relationship. Except she breaks up with him to be with British rock star Aldous Snow (Russel Brand). To escape the pain, he heads out to Hawaii only to find that Sarah is also vacationing there…with Aldous. Hilarity ensues.

So let’s talk about the movie a bit: This is Segel’s debut as a writer and a director and he definitely does a great job on all counts with this movie. The scenes don’t go on for too long, the writing is on its game about 99% of the time, and the acting is all really well done. I’m not typically a fan of toilet humor or any sort of crude, idiotic humor, yet this movie still tickles the funny bone, even with its crude humor just because it has that balance that all Apatow movies seem to have with making me laugh at things that are truly not funny in any other movie. You couldn’t say that the humor was intellectual, but it’s still on a level beyond what you expect it to be. You will laugh hard if you see this movie. Forgetting Sarah Marshall also has some funny self-referential moments with Kristen Bell’s show being canceled after its third season (I think) and it being a detective show as well, mirroring the great Veronica Mars that was criminally (see what I did there?) canceled too soon.

Go and see this movie, seriously. It’s funny. I emphatically recommend it.