Change Your Image
biloscage
Reviews
The Cabin with Bert Kreischer (2020)
As good and as bad as everyone says, and yet neither.
I read every review. I feel like they are all correct in what they pick out about what works and what utterly fails in this series. Where I digress is in the scoring. The show is cringey, hack, contrived, it lacks the refined delivery of a standup special, or the spontaneity of a podcast and there is no narrative through line. There are silly, sometimes revealing bits, that occasionally give the viewer pause. Overall, it feels thrown together, a tad exploitative (as most reality tv tends to). Potential was there, and sometimes you see glimpses of what it could have been, but altogether it's a not-so-near miss. I suppose how much you hate it depends on how much you like the podcast circuit regulars. If I could give half stars, it would be a 6.5/10.
The Iliza Shlesinger Sketch Show (2020)
Reifying social plaque and banal neuroticism
Are you the kind of woman who thinks they're funny because all of your girlfriends laugh at your humour yet all of them are substantially less attractive than you (by design)?
This may be the show for you.
Iliza is very intelligent. No question about it, she's sharp. But she has zero talent for the sketch format. Not any. I can't even call what she does here "hack." That term typically refers to tired old bits or weak material - stuff that was once perhaps funny, or "so bad it's enjoyable." It isn't. It's flat, stolid death.
The show is too self-aware and yet too self-glorifying. There is far too much winking to the audience, and what feels like endless numbers of dragging, on-the-nose meta-ironic fap-fests.
To summarize the entire subtext of the show:
"We know you know, because you should know, but you know we know you know...which we also know... #justgirlythings... Amiright?
Whackawhackawhacka!!"
I just saved you 20 minutes of joyless ego-stroke.
On the one hand I feel bad for criticizing anyone for ostensibly trying to bring some joy into this very difficult time in the world. But I can't shake the feeling that she's not doing this for you or me. It's for her. It's for people that are just as self-centred; who justify their condescension and admire their own empty values. I respect what she thinks she's trying to do: represent her perspective as a modern woman defining herself through a post-patriarchal identity. But in so attempting she just comes across as entitled, pretty, petty - essentially postmodern feminine. To the extent that she is accurately representing her views, she's successful...But she forgot to be funny.
Avoid unless you just want to agree or disagree with her. Watch if you think agreeing with someone is the same as finding them humorous.