Brooklyn Nine-Nine (2013-21)

Brooklyn Nine-Nine almost ended three years ago before it was revived by NBC. At the time, there was a grassroots campaign to bring it back on the air; and with good reason, it was a funny show with a high laughs per minute ratio. It's a lot of Andy Samberg though and he's not everybody's cup of tea. At the same time, shows like Brooklyn Nine-Nine presented cops (the NYPD specifically) in a benign, playful light. It's a cast of goofy, rather memorable, characters. They're going to catch the baddie and just have fun doing it. The show recognized that this is problematic in our culture, quite troubling really that these are the quirky buffoons that are supposed to be protecting us. In its final season, the only one following the killing of George Floyd, it directly addressed police reform, the police union and police brutality, rather deftly for a network sitcom.  Anyways, while I enjoyed the show, it's probably for the best.

Sorry to Bother You (2018)

Sorry to Bother You is a wickedly funny dark comedy. The social commentary in the film is bold and brilliant. The premise of the movie as seen in the trailer is absurd in itself. LaKeith Stanfield plays a telemarketer who has to put on his white voice in order to be taken seriously over the phone. His white voice is non other than David Cross, Tobias Funke himself who sounds supremely white. From there, the movie takes several unforeseen left turns through organized labor, modern slavery, human experimentation, and communism. The movie is genuinely scary at times because we see this absurd alternate world that is not-all-that-far from our own reality. We are slaves to a system of exploitation for profit without regard to human rights or dignity--not to mention the millions of people that live in actual slavery.  This vision of the world we live in is so dark that you can't help but laugh out of pure discomfort. 

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 (2013)

I'm a sucker for puns and this movie is just chock full of them, one after another.  The food that once rained down from the skies comes to life, each as a different appropriately named animal.  It's kind of like the animated food/animal version of Jurassic Park.  They create their own ecosystem and of course we can leave it to the evil corporations to destroy it.  There are some funny jokes but as far as animated flicks go, it does not have the emotion that you'd find in a Pixar movie or even in its predecessor.  The original was...well, original (though based on a book).  The sequel was less so, and not really necessary.