YOUR WEEKLY BINGE: Sunny

Rashida Jones has long ago shed her nepo baby label and deserves credit for crafting her own fascinating, well-rounded career that I bet nobody saw coming. As the daughter of music legend Quincy Jones and actress/model Peggy Lipton, she probably could have done anything she wanted (especially after graduating from Harvard in 1997), but she decided to follow her mother’s footsteps into acting and soared to fame as the loveable best friend Ann Perkins on the long-running NBC sitcom Parks and Recreation (2009-2015). Since then, she’s made indie films (On the Rocks), adult animation (Duncanville), apocalyptic sci-fi (Silo), another mainstream sitcom (Angie Tribeca) and an offbeat, off-the-radar comedy series (Toast of Tinseltown). In other words, there’s no anticipating her next move and there’s nothing she won’t—or can’t—do.

And Rashida Jones’s latest project, a weirdly original Japanese-flavored drama/comedy/thriller is not only the best thing she’s ever done, it’s another reminder that Apple is continuing to serve up some of the most innovative television in the medium.

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YOUR WEEKLY BINGE: After Life

After Life on Netflix
I would consider it a personal failure if I didn’t, at least once a year, remind everyone about a show that is so good, I believe it my personal responsibility, not only as a professional film/TV writer (I have, on occasion, been paid to do this, amazing enough) but as a human, to make sure everybody watches it. The show is After Life, and can be found on Netflix.

There are three seasons of After Life (18 30-minute episodes), and it was created, produced, directed, written by and stars Ricky Gervais. Now WAIT…..if you don’t like Gervais, and I totally understand it if you don’t, give me a chance to still convince you to watch the show.

After Life is the most emotionally affecting and humanistic show I’ve ever seen. It is laugh out loud hilarious, featuring oddball characters that are insanely weird and typical Gervais humor that is cringe-perfect, insulting and self-effacing. Yes, that’s all true. But what Gervais manages to do, in his genius way, is to blend all that humor, all that cringe, all that weirdness with a deep, abiding and soulful compassion and humanity, creating an experience that will both fill your heart and break it, in all the right ways.

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