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‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’ Season 11 Episode 2 Review: Larry David Is Back in His Discomfort Comfort Zone

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‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’ Season 11 Episode 2 Review: Larry David Is Back in His Discomfort Comfort Zone

In an interview with Entertainment Weekly about Curb Your Enthusiasm‘s 11th season, showrunner Jeff Schaffer said of the beginning of the season, “There are lots of disparate threads that don’t seem to have anything in common at the start of the season, but they’re all going to knit together in the end to make an exquisite petty shame blanket.” Yet between the first episode of the season, “The Five Foot Fence,” and this second episode, “Angel Muffin,” we’re starting to see a pattern of what the through lines of this season will be, and especially with this second episode, we continue to see just how brilliant Schaffer and Larry David are at interweaving stories that seemingly have nothing to do with each other.

Between these first two episodes of the season, we can start to get an idea of what to expect this season. For example, like the Seinfeld reunion of Season 7, the Fatwa! musical of Season 9, or the spite store of Season 10, this season’s big arc certainly seems it will come in the form of the Young Larry series that already seems doomed. By the end of only the second episode, Young Larry has cast a terrible actress in a primary role, lost the potential star power of Dylan O’Brien, and after an argument with Netflix executive Don Winston Jr. (Reid Scott), Young Larry is without a home.

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Which leads to another clear interest of Schaffer and David, which is to handle some political commentary, without going overboard. Last season saw Larry wearing a “Make America Great Again” hat to ward off people, but this year seems to be going just slightly more subtle. In “The Five Foot Fence,” we saw how quickly the cast of Curb turned on Albert Brooks when they found out he was a COVID hoarder, and in this episode, Larry can’t trust Netflix’s Don Jr., because who could trust a Don Jr.? As if to really punctuate exactly who they’re talking about, Don Jr.’s office even has a framed photo of him big game hunting prominently featured in the background. Considering how so many expected Season 11 to be directly focused on Larry’s experience during the pandemic, the show has already smartly shifted away from the obvious joke, and is instead throwing in its political jabs in a more clever way.


RELATED: ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’ Season 11 Review: After 21 Years, Larry David’s Show Remains as Great as Ever

Finally, Season 11 is also giving Leon what seems to be one of his most significant arcs, as he attempts to find a new girlfriend that he can take with him on his trip to Asia. In two episodes, Larry’s actions have already led Leon to lose Mary Ferguson, and Mary Ferguson #2 (Charlotte Newhouse).

But the beauty of “Angel Muffin” – and Curb Your Enthusiasm at its best – is the show’s ability to knit that aforementioned “petty shame blanket” with seemingly disparate storylines. Even after twenty years of Curb, it’s still a wonderful joy to see this series throw so much out in a single episode, and tie everything together with an exquisite bow. “Angel Muffin” isn’t just about Larry trying to win over O’Brien for his show, or Larry’s ability to lose Leon yet another girlfriend. This episode also throws into the mix Larry’s problems with his new Greek dentist Dr. Thanapapalous (Mitch Poulos); Dr. T’s assistant Angie (Katy Fullan) who Jeff (Jeff Garlin) had a fling with and then paid for her to get an abortion; an entire issue with a toilet seat at the Netflix offices that won’t go down; an untrustworthy maintenance guy; and on top of that, there’s still plenty of time for Larry to defend his ratty towels multiple times in the episode.


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Yet what makes this all work is the absolutely remarkable weaving of these stories together. Like Schaffer hinted, what could Dylan O’Brien have to do with Mary Ferguson #2’s dog Angel Muffin? How could Larry and Jeff going to see O’Brien’s terrible band – Dylan O’Brien and the Entrails – cover The Presidents of the United States of America’s “Peaches,” possibly affect Angie’s abortion? By the end of “Angel Muffin,” Curb Your Enthusiasm manages to put everything in its right place, structuring the episode impeccably, and ending on a perfect culmination of all these disparate stories.

Even more impressive is how recent seasons have taken all of these ingeniously crafted episodes, and had them factor into the framework of an even more ingeniously crafted season as a whole. As each episode concludes with a perfect crescendo, there are still enough dangling threads here that seem likely we’ll see in the future. By the end of the episode, Larry has put tissue in his ears, which allows him to miss the truth about several of the assumptions he’s made throughout the episodes about various characters, and while he’s blissfully unaware of the truth, it’s this type of avoidance that seems extremely likely to come back and bite Larry in the ass by season’s end.


While “The Five Foot Fence” did seem like Curb Your Enthusiasm setting up the stories for Season 11, “Angel Muffin” loosens up a bit more and gets the show back into its sweet spot: having Larry get pissed off about the most minor things. Sending Larry to a dentist’s office is just asking for neurotic instincts to come out, as he’s already annoyed the staff and the waiting patients before ever getting his teeth looked at. But Larry’s infuriated rants about his towels, his confusion over how to use a toilet with a seat that won’t stay down, and his absolute hatred over Angel Muffin gets Larry right back into his discomfort comfort zone.

“Angel Muffin” is a fantastic showcase of Curb You Enthusiasm‘s strengths, be it Larry’s tiny frustrations that balloon to absurd levels, or the unbelievably constructed narratives on an episodic level that eventually blend into an even more spectacular overall season. Already, Season 11 has excelled at both of these aspects that have made this series so great. In its eleventh season, “Angel Muffin” proves that Curb Your Enthusiasm isn’t a ratty towel that’s starting to show its age, but instead, a soft towel so perfect that it’s easy to take for granted just how skillfully woven together it truly is.


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Rating: A-

KEEP READING: 15 Essential ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’ Episodes to Watch Before Season 11


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Bullet Train Review: A Wickedly Funny, High-Octane Thrill Ride

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Bullet Train Review: A Wickedly Funny, High-Octane Thrill Ride

Brad Pitt leads a wickedly funny ensemble in a high-octane actioner loaded with twists. Adapted from the 2010 Japanese novel by Kōtarō Isaka, Bullet Train has a bevy of disparate assassins manipulated by a mysterious criminal mastermind. Stuntman turned action director, David Leitch (John Wick, Atomic Blonde), stays true to form with unrelenting bloody and flamboyant violence. The codenamed characters get downright verbose before beating, stabbing, and shooting each other to bits. The loquacious banter tends to run long, but the narrative always bounces back with sharp reveals. Strap in for a helluva ride.

Ladybug (Pitt) boards the overnight bullet train to Tokyo with a newfound sense of self. He’s chock-full of philosophy after recovering from a near fatal ambush. Ladybug ignores his unseen handler’s advice to take a gun. Surely any issues can be resolved peacefully. The job seems straightforward enough. Steal a briefcase with a sticker and exit at the next stop.

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Also on board are Lemon (Brian Tyree Henry) and Tangerine (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), ruthless “twins” known for their brutal methods. Lemon is obsessed with the British children’s show “Thomas & Friends”. He reads people by comparing them to the anthropomorphized trains. The twins are escorting the previously kidnapped son (Logan Lerman) of a powerful gangster, the White Death (Michael Shannon).

None of the hired guns are aware of the Father, aka Yuichi Kimura’s (Andrew Koji), mission. He’s out for vengeance but foolishly runs into a deceptive figure. The Prince (Joey King) has a score to settle with the White Death. Meanwhile, the Wolf (Bad Bunny) joins the fray after his truly horrific Mexican wedding. He’s also ready for serious comeuppance. Ladybug quickly realizes they’re all unwitting pawns in a dangerous game. Someone has packed the train with killers for an unknown purpose. He desperately wants to get off but can’t seem to escape the carnage.


Related: I Love My Dad Review: Patton Oswalt’s Delightfully Cringeworthy Catfishing Comedy

Cast of Bullet Train

Bullet Train introduces the cast with splashy entrances that flashes back to their dark pasts. The murderous montages are informative but don’t fill in every gap. The script doles out more critical information as the bodies pile up. Alliances bounce back and forth as everyone wonders who’s actually pulling the strings. The whodunit element works well as the audience becomes embroiled in a series of betrayals. You don’t have a sense of the plot’s true trajectory until the third act. The film builds to a showdown that delivers a huge action payoff.

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Bullet Train has complex characters that each contribute slices of devilish humor. Brad Pitt preaching self-help and understanding is an effective gag throughout. Brian Tyree Henry’s constant comparisons to Thomas & Friends aren’t as comical but play an important role in the story. There are a lot of moving parts. Leitch, who worked as Pitt’s stunt double for years, is clearly fond of his players. He gives everyone a chance to babble incessantly. I would have trimmed the dialogue to be more incisive.


The action scenes are worth the price of admission. Leitch has a great eye for mixing stylized set pieces with intimate fights. He knows when to go big and small. You never feel let down by his pacing. There’s always the right amount of adrenaline to keep your pulse pumping. Bullet Train is another feather in a skilled filmmaker’s cap. Watch out for A-list cameos and a mid-credits scene.

Bullet Train is a production of Columbia Pictures, Fuqua Films, and 87North Productions. It will be released theatrically on August 5th from Sony Pictures.

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Bullet Train Review: Brad Pitt Has A Blast In The Silly And Badass Action Comedy

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Bullet Train Review: Brad Pitt Has A Blast In The Silly And Badass Action Comedy

If orchestrated properly, with adjusted stakes, tone, and atmosphere, there can be a beautiful, symbiotic relationship between intense action and comedy. A hero pulling off a rapid and vicious series of blows against an opponent can be savage and dramatic in one context, but it can also be so deliriously awesome that an audience’s first reaction is to laugh. Fast paced martial arts can be used for wonderful physical humor (see: the legendary career of Jackie Chan), and the best examples provide dual layers of entertainment: you marvel at the skill in all the ass-kicking, and cackle at the creativity in the choreography.

This is a sweet spot that filmmaker David Leitch knows well. After peppering funny moments in John Wick and Atomic Blonde at the start of his directorial career, he brilliantly utilized the action/comedy weapon that is Ryan Reynolds in Deadpool 2, and crafted some excellent physicality with the unique styles of Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham in Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw. His latest, Bullet Train, is another effort that takes aim at that particular tonal target, this time with his most expansive ensemble yet, and it’s another success. With a sensibility that could be described as early Guy Ritchie with more specific action focus, it’s a movie that is both silly and skilled and inspires its primary star in particular to do energetic and engaging work.

Based on the novel Maria Beetle by Kōtarō Isaka, the film weaves multiple narrative threads through the cars of the titular bullet train as it speeds through the country of Japan – all of the protagonists being killers with their own particular reason and motivation for being aboard. Ladybug (Brad Pitt), for example, is a hired gun who has been tasked by his handler (Sandra Bullock) to perform what sounds like a simple job: find a briefcase marked with a train sticker and steal it. What he doesn’t know, though, is that said briefcase belongs to a pair of British hit men named Lemon (Brian Tyree Henry) and Tangerine (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), and that the contents include the recovered ransom for the kidnapped son (Logan Lerman) of a powerful crime lord known as The White Death.

Meanwhile, Kimura a.k.a. The Father (Andrew Koji) is on the bullet train because he is on a mission of vengeance – hunting down the person responsible for nearly killing his son by pushing the boy off of a building. What he doesn’t expect is that the individual he is looking for is a young woman identified as The Prince (Joey King), and that she has purposefully gotten him on the high speed rail with the intention of forcing him to execute an assassination attempt.

And while five killers sharing the space would be enough for most movies, Bullet Train actually has even more that pop in and surprise throughout the film’s runtime – and their roles are worth keeping as a secret pre-release.

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Bullet Train has a chaotic storyline, but the pieces properly connect as a fun puzzle.

Narratively speaking, Bullet Train is a messy movie to put together, as focus briskly ping-pongs between the different players, but everything stays in harmony as the film persistently finds ways to build on each protagonist’s arc. This is particularly cool later in the movie as different characters are drawn together from individual angles and instant conflict is generated from their simple interaction.

The film is at its best when it keeps things simple, but it does let things go off the rails at times (if you’ll pardon the pun). This is especially true as it gets into the third act and it tries to pull off stunts like one of the leads leaping from a platform on to the back of the train as it leaves a station; it’s both a problem for the “rules” of the universe and in its strained use of visual effects. The movie also frequently tries to get a bit too cute and Tarantino-esque with what are admittedly familiar-but-not-quite-stock characters – the most prominent example being an ongoing and quickly tiresome gag with Lemon explaining that he understands people through the lens of Thomas The Tank Engine.

Primarily, though, it’s a movie that is able to generate its entertainment with engaging and quippy dynamics between the members of the ensemble, both when they are talking out their issues and trying to kill one another.

David Leitch puts a lot of exciting and weird fights in a confined space, and is at its best when working with a “less is more” philosophy.

Coming from a stunt background, both as a performer and a coordinator, David Leitch’s bread and butter remains deftly and specifically choreographed action sequences, and Bullet Train proves to be a terrific challenge and opportunity for his skills. Regardless of where you are in the titular transport, space is not a luxury, and the best fights in the movie are those that are being fought only between the characters, but against the limitations provided by the location.

There are guns, knives and explosives in the mix, but Bullet Train also has some terrific “found item” moments that add spice and humor to the various showdowns, whether it’s a pocketed cell phone saving a character’s life from a blade, a laptop making for a solid cudgel, a water bottle making for a useful projectile, or a venomous snake showing up at a perfect moment.

Once again we see David Leitch work a special magic turning dramatic and comedic actors into badasses with slick and stylish moves, and while everyone shows off some terrific skills, it’s very much the Brad Pitt show at the end of the day.

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Brad Pitt’s joy in the role of Ladybug is palpable.

At the nexus of everything good in Bullet Train is Brad Pitt, who very clearly had a blast reuniting with David Leitch (who performed the actor’s stunts in films including Fight Club, The Mexican, Mr. And Mrs. Smith and Troy). He’s a joy to watch in action not just because of the talented craft he demonstrates in his physicality, but how he channels the psychology of the character. As we meet him, Ladybug is reluctantly getting back into his business following a number of important breakthroughs with his therapist, and Pitt does a fantastic job conveying that he doesn’t ever want to choose violence as a first answer – both via verbal pleas and defense-heavy moves. Action/comedy is a genre he should revisit a lot more often.

Bullet Train doesn’t aim to revolutionize hitman movies, but instead plays with a tongue-in-cheek vibe that lets you recognize the tropes and appreciate how the film plays with them. It’s a slick/goofy action movie that is both contained and wild, and a satisfying late summer release.

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Luck Review: A Spectacular Debut Film from Skydance Animation

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Luck Review: A Spectacular Debut Film from Skydance Animation

The world’s unluckiest woman enters a magical land to change the fortunes of a fellow orphan. Luck will make you smile and possibly shed a few tears. The big-budget, CGI animated fantasy shines a spotlight on needy children while telling a truly original story. An assortment of lucky critters and creatures dazzle in a spectacular setting. The highly imaginative narrative gives age-old superstitions a dynamic new spin. Luck is a brilliant first film from Skydance Animation.

Sam Greenfield (Eva Noblezada) reaches her eighteenth birthday with trepidation. She’s finally aged out of the foster care system. Sam never found her “forever family”. She spent her entire life living in orphanages. It doesn’t help that Sam has the worst luck. Everything she does or touches ends in abject disaster. Her only thoughts are for young Hazel (Adelynn Spoon), Sam’s roommate at the girls home. Sam has been set up with a job and tiny apartment. She has to stay in school and employed to remain housed.

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Sam’s first day at Marv’s (Lil Rel Howery) floral shop goes exactly as expected. She sadly eats dinner sitting on a sidewalk. Sam learns that Hazel’s weekend trip with a foster family was canceled. She gives half of her sandwich to a curious black cat. It scampers away but leaves a strange penny behind.

The following day is a revelation. Sam’s lucky penny changes everything. Her ecstatic mood sours when she loses the penny in spectacular fashion. Stewing on the sidewalk, Sam’s surprised when the black cat returns. She’s astonished when Bob (Simon Pegg) asks for his penny. The “travel penny” is the only way a creature from the Land of the Luck stays safe in the human world. She follows an unnerved Bob back through the portal to the Land of Luck. Sam has to find another lucky penny to help Hazel. Bob reluctantly agrees, but they have to be careful. Misdeeds end up in banishment to Bad Luck.

Related: Bullet Train Review: A Wickedly Funny, High-Octaine Thrill Ride

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The Land of Luck

The Land of Luck is an absolute joy to behold. Leprechauns, cats, pigs, and rabbits, lucky creatures, are the bureaucrats tasked with spreading good fortune. Bringing Sam in such a place is a recipe for absolute chaos. Bob, and his leprechaun assistant Gerry’s (Colin O’Donoghue), efforts to contain Sam’s bad luck will have audiences in stitches. I’m still chuckling at Sam’s “Latvian leprechaun” disguise; their harebrained excuse for why she’s so much bigger than everyone else.

Luck’s serious themes are artfully addressed. Sam’s lonely childhood, and her desperate efforts to change Hazel’s, brings a melancholic touch to the narrative. The film reminds us to not take love and family for granted. Every kid deserves care, nurturing, and a safe place to grow. It shouldn’t take luck or chance for a child to find a “forever home”.

Insert sigh here. Recent headlines concerning John Lasseter (Toy Story, Cars) will undoubtedly cloud this film’s release. The genius storyteller and animator behind Pixar’s success left to head Skydance Animation after awful “Me Too” allegations. He’s brought his incredible talent to Luck, and it shows. This wonderful film deserves to be judged on its own merits. Sometimes we must divorce ourselves from art and the personality of the artist.

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Luck is a production of Skydance Animation and Apple Original Films. It will have an exclusive Apple TV+ premiere on August 5th.

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