Welcome back to our series Rembert Explains the '80s. Every so often, we'll e-mail 25-year-old Rembert Browne a video from the 1980s that he hasn't seen. Rembert will write down his thoughts as he's watching the video, then we'll post those thoughts here. This week's installment was picked by Rembert (as spotted by this tweet from rapper/producer El-P): the "City of Crime" music video from Dragnet. If you have an idea for a future episode of Rembert Explains the '80s, e-mail us at hollywood@grantland.com.
This is both a headliner and an early VOD premiere: Bachelorette will be in theaters next month, but you can watch it at home right now. But should you? Sure! It's pretty good! Kirsten Dunst fearlessly commits to playing the alpha bitch maid of honor to Rebel Wilson's bride. Lizzy Caplan is as endearingly prickly as ever, and the movie reunites her with her Party Down co-star Adam Scott. Isla Fisher plays an edgier version of the chirpy flibbertigibbet she embodied in Confessions of a Shopaholic (and by "edgier," I mean "fueled by cocaine"). And James Marsden finally gets to play something other than a cuckold: an unapologetic dick!
Since I like you, I'm going to give you an important piece of information you won't get from the trailer. You might assume that, since it comes from Will Ferrell and Adam McKay's production company, Gary Sanchez, it's a girly take on The Hangover that goes even further than Bridesmaids did last year. And there's definitely a lot more drug use and violence than in Bridesmaids. But although it's a very funny movie featuring lots of inappropriate behavior, it's not a raucous comedy in the Hangover mold: It's more character-driven, and more ... melancholy. How much it makes you gasp depends on how emotional you get about the fate of a fictional character's wedding gown. (In my case, it turned out to be very.)
Silver: I make no secret of my steadfast and wholehearted love for Sam Raimi. I’ll get his back when needed ("Spider-Man 3 was not his fault. It’s one of the clearest examples of studio meddling"), apologize for him (“But you have to admit the baseball scenes in For the Love of the Game were pretty great. You could totally tell he was a real baseball fan”), justify his shortcomings (“The Quick and the Dead is underrated. And just look at that cast — Stone, DiCaprio, Crowe, Sinise, and Hackman — the guy’s got an eye for casting”), and fully embrace his flaws (“Yeah, I just bought a bootleg copy of Crimewave on eBay. That movie rocks!”). So I’ll be the first to admit that I’m probably not going to be able to provide the most unbiased critique of his latest film, Oz: The Great and Powerful.
Bill Simmons: I'm ashamed to admit that I watched some of VH1 Classic's 30th anniversary celebration of MTV two weekends ago. OK, I watched most of it. Fine, fine, I DVR'ed all 12 hours and ripped through those 12 shows like a fat kid plowing through Halloween candy. MTV Classic not existing might be our single biggest television failure — you can't even believe how many iconic musical and pop culture moments that channel produced until they're randomly flying at you in a totally haphazard manner.
Jay Caspian Kang: Agreed. There needs to be a station where I can watch Soul Asylum's "Runaway Train,"GNR's "Patience," the "Ladies Night" collaboration between Missy, Li'l Kim, Da Brat, Left Eye and Angie Martinez, and "Mr. Wendal" all in a row. Also, I need to be able to judge my adolescent crush on Kennedy in hindsight.
