The acting... oh the acting! Your Sister's Sister is a fantastic comedy which makes great use of the amazing talents and suitability of its cast, including the criminally underused Emily Blunt. Far smarter, quicker and grown-up than most other Rom-Coms, it's a film built on secrets, lies and, yes, love, sex and family.
Genre: Comedy, Romance
Actor: Emily Blunt, Jeanette Maus, John Lavin, Kate Bayley, Mark Duplass, Mel Eslyn, Mike Birbiglia, Rosemarie DeWitt
Director: Lynn Shelton
Many comedians use humor as a way to ease into more serious subject matter, though there always exists a risk that a comedy special can skew too far down the silly or the self-reflective route. Mike Birbiglia has come about as close to the perfect balance as possible, in this recording of his one-man Broadway show at the Vivian Beaumont Theater. Key to this is the fact that Birbiglia tells one very cohesive story throughout these 77 minutes, frequently branching off to other humorous anecdotes but always returning with a pensive self-consciousness to the real possibility of him dying sooner than he'd want.
This filmed version of Birbiglia's show doesn't give a full idea of its multimedia qualities (Birbiglia occasionally has words and images projected onto the curved screen behind him, which he also physically interacts with), but the comedian's sincere style of storytelling more than makes up for the lack of audiovisual tricks we're permitted to see. And don't get it confused: this is a very funny stand-up special, whose jokes always come from the most unexpected places—it also just happens to contain some truly moving moments that come out of nowhere, but make total sense alongside all the laughter.
Genre: Comedy
Actor: Mike Birbiglia
Director: Seth Barrish
Steven Soderbergh’s second TV show of 2023 — which was only announced a few days before its release — is a hopeful dystopian one. Command Z, which comprises eight short episodes totaling 90 minutes, is so named for Apple’s “undo” shortcut because that’s exactly the purpose of the show’s time-travel mission. In 2053, a tech billionaire (Michael Cera) who uploaded his consciousness to the cloud before dying on his way to Mars recruits three employees to make a few tweaks in the past to divert Earth off the course that led it to its nightmarish current state. The idea is that, by implanting themselves in the minds of those nearest to potential change-makers — like the daughter of a Big Oil CEO or a politician’s aide — they can convince their targets to take action and prevent the city-high sea levels and Hazmat-requiring pollution of 2053.
Though frequently humorous in its satirical vision of the future, Command Z doesn’t mess around, virtually breaking the fourth wall at every opportunity to prod us to do something. If the tone isn’t quite as polished as it could be — or if the production value sometimes feels slapdash — it’s all befitting of the urgency of the message it’s begging us to heed before it’s too late.
Command Z is available to stream here for a one-time fee of $7.99 that is donated in full to Children's Aid and the Boston University Center for Antiracist Research.
Genre: Comedy, Sci-Fi & Fantasy
Actor: Alexandra Socha, Ben Livingston, Catherine Curtin, Elisa de La Roche, James Naughton, Jared Reinfeldt, Jiehae Park, JJ Maley, John Ellison Conlee, Karen Huie, Kevin Pollak, Laura Seay, Liev Schreiber, Michael Cera, Mike Birbiglia, Mike Houston, Monique Moses, Nhumi Threadgill, Roy Wood Jr., Stavros Halkias, Will Brill, Zoe Winters