{"id":4731,"date":"2019-06-17T10:01:43","date_gmt":"2019-06-17T08:01:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/?p=4731"},"modified":"2022-10-24T18:35:37","modified_gmt":"2022-10-24T16:35:37","slug":"continued-watching-for-dr-doolittle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/?p=4731","title":{"rendered":"Continued Watching for Dr. Doolittle"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s no doubt that I am a Netflix clich\u00e9 in that with the thousands (OK, I\u2019m in the Czech Republic) the hundreds of options I\u2019m given, I choose to watch things I\u2019ve seen two hundred times. These appear in my Watch it Again <\/em>section. Jaws. Lord of the Rings. Ghostbusters.<\/em> Every Indiana Jones installment. Friends <\/em>(I know, shut up). Brooklyn 99. Buster Scruggs. The War<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tonight we go for a light-hearted comedy mystery, one of my favorite genres, and we watch Murder Mystery<\/em>. This is the one starring Adam Sandler and Jennifer Aniston as a married couple on a European tour who end up in the middle of a real life murder mystery. Since his big hit films in the 90s, Sandler has been hit or miss. Aniston is usually just fecken funny and she\u2019s usually in fecken funny flicks. The movie totals in at 1:39 minutes. We\u2019ll give it a chance.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We last 31 minutes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Oh it\u2019s not terrible. Sandler does the Sandler voice. Aniston is as good as she usually is, and the storyline is set up quicker than in one of Dennis Miller\u2019s sentences. They\u2019re a dissatisfied married couple, bored in a routine, she’s neglected, he’s an underachiever, they meet a stranger on the plane, etc. Cool. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The thing is, like lots of other comedies on Netflix, it has a very unpolished, rushed, unfinished quality to it. As if it was on the way to being a great comedy, but before it could get there someone pushed it out the door. My feelings towards this are evident in my Continued Watching section. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Continued Watching for Dr. Doolittle:<\/em> Historical\nRoasts. Like Father. Wine Country. Sandler\u2019s special. Martin Short and Steve\nMartin. Dave Attell and Jeff ross. The Last Laugh<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have found Netflix to be a wonderful addition to my viewing. As a person who desperately (see above) sticks to his tried and true favorite shows and watches them until he can do every character’s lines and offer ESPN-like analysis on scenes, it\u2019s been great to broaden my old man horizons. That said, it seems that while the bill of fare is broad, it\u2019s also sort of half-assed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I haven\u2019t looked around dem internets, but I\u2019m sure this has\nbeen mentioned by critics and viewers alike. It seems that some very brilliant\ncomedy names are trying to cash in on Netflix\u2019s policy of \u201csay yes and turn it\nout quick,\u201d but by doing so they are lowering the quality of (at least) the\ncomedy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Adam Sandler\u2019s Fresh<\/em> was so dull as to make its title seem almost ironic. No laughs. Not one. Martin Short and Steve Martin traded 30 witty barbs a minute, each of which fell short into the land of the groaning eyeroll. Attell and Ross were the same. Historical Roasts will one day get its own roast. And then there\u2019s the \u201clet\u2019s throw these old comics together before they die\u201d section, which is getting big. Chevy Chase and Richard Dreyfus, Michael Douglas and Alan Arkin, to name two. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I suppose we are getting a glimpse into what happens if comedy isn\u2019t worked on obsessively until it\u2019s (forgive the term) perfect. Any fan of standup knows that a comedian develops a routine, tests it out in small clubs and venues, rewrites obsessively, and repeat that for a year or so before they are ready to bring a show to the public. And it shows. There\u2019s a reason Louis CK, Eddie Murphy, Bill Burr, and Christ Rock sell zillions of tickets and albums and why their bits are repeated by fans as if Led Zeppelin lyrics. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This also goes for your favorite comedy movie. Even if an actor is said to adlib his or her lines, the script is obsessively rewritten until it\u2019s almost as tight as geometry. Don\u2019t be fooled by the ease with which the actors or comedians seem to deliver, this is only a testament to their talent and the writing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Comedy is hard, if it works it\u2019s because it\u2019s been obsessed over for a million hours. If it doesn\u2019t, then what you get is a lot of the comedy on Netflix. I think it\u2019s good that we are seeing this so that we can compare amateur to professional. However, I think Netflix and the comedians who want to put out shows should show a little more patience and turn out less material of better quality after an appropriate period of time. I don\u2019t mind waiting. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Until then, Dr. Doolittle will be watching Jaws <\/em>and Ghostbusters<\/em>. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s no doubt that I am a Netflix clich\u00e9 in that with the thousands (OK, I\u2019m in the Czech Republic) the hundreds of options I\u2019m given, I choose to watch things I\u2019ve seen two hundred times. These appear in my Watch it Again section. Jaws. Lord of the Rings. Ghostbusters. Every Indiana Jones installment. Friends […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4732,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4731","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/damiengaleone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/the-critic.jpg?fit=600%2C300&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1EvEu-1ej","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4731","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4731"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4731\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5645,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4731\/revisions\/5645"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4732"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4731"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4731"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4731"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}