Rogen’s The Studio brings it

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Yeah, I’m a little late to the party on this one, but let the official record show (finally) that Seth Rogen’s new series on Apple TV+, The Studio, is up there with the best of what Rogen (and Apple TV+) has to offer. I’m a completist when it comes to Rogen projects (and a bit of an Apple TV+ completist as well), and this one isn’t just to fill in a gap.

The Studio places Rogen somewhat against type, playing the successful head of a movie studio and among Hollywood’s elite. In most of his screen appearances Rogen plays the everyman, but here he’s at the top of a corporate ladder, owner of a classic car collection, and doted on by his flunkies.

But he’s not without his flaws and insecurities. And that’s the genius of The Studio.

Any comparison to Woody Allen in 2025 invariably will elicit negative opinions (nothing to do with art), but The Studio definitely has a classic Allen vibe minus all politics and, well, other things. The jazz, the neuroses, the respect for old Hollywood and cinema writ large–it’s all there, and all good to watch.

Is Rogen the heir apparent to Woody Allen? Talented? Prolific? A certain Jewish touch of self-doubt?

The world needs a clean version of Woody Allen and this may be it.

Awesome.

Hockeywise, I’m blessed

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I’m hardly the first person ever to note this, but Game Four in a seven-game series is by far the most decisive. Sure, each game counts the same, but the difference between a 2-2 series and a 3-1 series is the difference between apples and baby wolverines.

With their Game Four come-from-behind victory last night in Montreal, my hometown NHL team (that would be the Washington Capitals) has taken a commanding 3-1 lead in its first round playoff series. Red sweaters are coming out of the closets all over the DMV, and the sound you hear is wingtips, sneakers, and sandals of all varieties stepping onto the bandwagon.

A few miles up the road (or down the road if you’re coming from Montreal), my actual hometown hockey team (that would be the Binghamton Black Bears of the Federal Prospects Hockey League), is also engaged in a postseason tournament. After a dominating regular season, the defending champion BBB have sailed through their first two rounds of playoffs, poised to take on the Carolina Thunderbirds in the league finals starting this Friday.

It wasn’t the only reason I was in Binghamton this weekend, but yeah, I was at the game two nights ago.

Yup, I’m on this bandwagon too. (I’m the one wearing Skechers.)

Mid-Century Modern is surprisingly hilarious

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One of the more ridiculous shows on “TV” these days is Hulu’s Mid-Century Modern. Sort of a gay version of The Golden Girls, MCM follows the lives of three fabulous gentlemen, friends for years but never paired in any ways, living together and leaning on one another after the unexpected death of a fourth. Starring Nathan Lane, Nathan Lee Graham, Matt Bomer and a host of high-profile guests, this is where you find hilarity in the streaming universe: gays making easy gay jokes about each other. Perhaps with lesser actors it would just be silly or mean, but damn it’s hilarious with these three. They make in-group humor like the best of old-school Jewish comedians, again sort of channeling The Golden Girls, getting in gratuitous digs against those outside the group as well. All low-lying fruit and all hilarious. Today’s the day I come out… as a Mid-Century Modern fan.

I’ll admit that one episode wasn’t enough to get beyond the silliness. Watch the first one and it just seems childish. But give it a chance, be part of the fabulousness for 24 minutes a shot, and keep in mind you’re not watching Citizen Kane. The jazzy score is an added bonus, as are the stylish sets, way more conservative than one would expect. Of course the men have money, and of course they spend it, and it’s fun to live vicariously for a bit, even as, well, someone outside the group. I’m exactly the person that should be made fun of in these scenarios, and yeah, they get us normies good… but the real laughs are when they do it to themselves. There was a time in which this was standard in comedy: Jews making fun of each other, Blacks making fun of each other, and then we all got too sensitive for any of it.

Mid-Century Modern has no such issues.

Do yourself a favor and invest a few nights in watching Season One of Mid-Century Modern. It’s beyond “guilty pleasure”; it’s just plain good.

Title defense seven years in the making

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With all the hoopla surrounding Alex Ovechkin’s breaking the all-time NHL goal-scoring record (deserved hoopla, by the way), one might forget that hockey is a team game, and the Great Eight happens to play for one of the best teams in the league. The Caps finished with the most points in the Eastern Conference, worthy of a #1 seed and home ice through said conference playoffs.

Game One against the Montreal Canadiens (they used to dominate the sport) is tonight, and I couldn’t be more excited to see this “title defense,” seven years in the making. Yeah, let’s just forget the past few seasons of exactly zero playoff series wins and wipe that slate clean. I’m rockin’ the red today, and it’s hockey time around the DMV again.

Game on.

A couple of near Masterspieces

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Today is my third and, alas, final day in eastern Maryland, celebrating Spring Break in not exactly the most traditional way.

Right on brand for me though.

Last night my son and I took in an Aberdeen Ironbirds game at Ripken Stadium, getting the full “Ripken Experience” as they call it ’round these parts. (The complex really is like Disney World–if Disney were Cal Ripken Jr.)

It was actually the second game of the day we saw. The first was a collegiate contest between Notre Dame of Maryland University (yup, that’s a thing) and Hood College. (Hood I’d heard of–it’s just up Route 15 from me.) Hood was up 10-2 when we picked it up (at the field 100 yards from our hotel room), blew its entire lead, then won 11-10 in 10 innings.

Amazingly, four hours later we witnessed a nearly identical crushing defeat for the home team at another field 100 yards in the opposite direction from our hotel room. The aforementioned Aberdeen Ironbirds (single-A affiliates of the Baltimore Orioles) came nearly all the way back from an 8-1 deficit to lose 8-7 to the Brooklyn Cyclones. The ‘birds scored three runs in the bottom of the ninth inning but left the tying run on third base.

But damn that crab dip pretzel was great. #maryland

Masterspiece

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Anyone who ever suggests that golf is boring: watch a tape of the 2025 Masters. Sunday afternoon. What I thought would be one eye on the TV, watching Rory McIlory cruise to a green jacket… it soon became me glued to my screen for two hours like some kind of 1950s family mesmerized by television for the first time.

Golf. Not boring. A dramatic Masterspiece.

Final was legit

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Okay, it was the college basketball final none of us wanted to see, and honestly the result wasn’t the one I wanted either, but damn that was a great game Monday night. Don’t let the sloppy last 10 seconds fool you; this one was legit.

Remember all that talk at the beginning of the tournament, how Florida had a player who was seven foot nine and he wasn’t even playing?

Yeah, they did okay without him.