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    ‘The Studio’ Ties Emmys Record for Most Comedy Nominations in a Season

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    Past winners like “Hacks” and “The Bear” lost some ground this year, making Apple TV+’s Hollywood satire starring Seth Rogen the one to beat.Season 1 of Apple TV+’s star-studded Hollywood satire “The Studio,” starring Seth Rogen as the beleaguered head of a fictional movie studio, became the comedy to beat on Tuesday for the 77th Emmy Awards, receiving 23 nominations.The nominations tie it with Season 2 of “The Bear” for the most-nominated season of a comedy series ever heading into the final voting round, which begins on Aug. 18. The award ceremony is scheduled for Sept. 14.Created by Rogen with his longtime creative partner, Evan Goldberg (along with Peter Huyck, Alex Gregory and Frida Perez), “The Studio” seemed, in many ways, perfectly engineered to succeed. For a comedy, it is exceptionally ambitious and well made — beautifully shot and elaborately choreographed, with most scenes filmed as extended single takes, or “oners” in the insider parlance of the show.The show is also, as befits a series from the comedians behind “Superbad,” “Pineapple Express” and “Sausage Party,” very funny, taking aim at the pettiness of executive strivers, the boundless self-regard of celebrities and the industry threats posed by Big Tech and Wall Street. Rogen’s character must fight to preserve his artistic integrity amid the often humiliating demands of his corporate overlords.“It knows its business well enough to be blisteringly entertaining,” The New York Times’s chief TV critic, James Poniewozik, wrote in his review of the series in March, adding: “When ‘The Studio’ is funny, it is funnier than most anything on TV now.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘Somebody I Used to Know’ Review: Reigniting Old Flames

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      In Dave Franco’s new comedy, Alison Brie plays a reality television showrunner attempting to break up her ex-boyfriend’s engagement.In the catalog of comedies about city strivers who decamp to their suburban hometowns to hassle former lovers, Dave Franco’s “Somebody I Used to Know” is an upbeat but minor entry, destined to recede behind the worthier stories from which it borrows. The unfortunate irony of the movie’s title — one word off from the Gotye earworm, presumably to preserve search engine optimization, if not originality — is that the film lacks the indelible details and authentic feeling necessary to encode it in long-term memory. Indeed, soon after finishing the movie, it already feels far away.The story begins as Ally (Alison Brie), a reality television showrunner, craftily wrests a tearful disclosure from an interview subject on camera. It should be a triumphant moment, but the implication is that in her pursuit of Hollywood success, Ally has sold her soul and sacrificed her dignity. Not to worry: The chance for a reset arrives after the network declines to renew the show, and Ally, whose workaholism has left her friendless, makes the impromptu decision to visit her mother (a criminally underused Julie Hagerty) in Leavenworth, a small town situated in the mountains of Washington.This cinematic overture is among the most successful sequences in the movie, and sets us up for a conventional but comforting journey back to more wholesome roots. It also teases a gleefully unlikable protagonist who’s more schemer than achiever and more sourpuss than socialite; Brie (who co-wrote the script with Franco) has a knack for tapping into her nasty side, and as we zigzag through a handful of set pieces that don’t quite register comedically — one hinges on cat diarrhea — we yearn for our city mouse to go fully feral.Regrettably, the moment never arrives. While in Leavenworth, Ally bumps into her ex-boyfriend, Sean (Jay Ellis), and is aggrieved to learn of his recent engagement to Cassidy (Kiersey Clemons), a self-possessed local punk singer. Ally spends the remainder of the film’s running time batting eyelashes and crashing wedding events as she conspires to reignite their old flame. It’s remarkable that nobody tells her to get lost and get a life; despite some side-eyeing, even Cassidy and her protective pals seem glad to have the grating Ally around.As the movie’s co-writer and director, Franco brings a sunny disposition and a touch of idiosyncratic farce. There are the usual jaunty montage sequences and forlorn shots of characters gazing out windows, but there is also vomit, obscene texts and an overwhelming dose of public nudity. Franco and Brie are clearly riffing on a suite of movies about career women rediscovering roots and wreaking havoc on old relationships — “My Best Friend’s Wedding,” “Sweet Home Alabama” and “Young Adult” come to mind — and seek to inject the familiar premise with millennial novelty.But there’s something missing from the equation. Each of those predecessors appreciate that their heroines, in acting harshly toward their peers, also become their villains. By reeling in Ally’s ruthlessness, expunging her comeuppance and mollifying those she wrongs, “Somebody I Used to Know” actually distances us from Ally and her issues. The truth is that jealousy and cruelty are human; anything less is just a portrait with the blemishes erased.Somebody I Used to KnowRated R for full-frontal nudity. Running time: 1 hour 46 minutes. Watch on Amazon. More

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      ‘Day Shift’ Review: Stakes Out

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      Jamie Foxx is a blue-collar vampire hunter and a steadying hand on the tiller of this frenzied action comedy.A series of baroque action sequences strung on twin wires of corn and cliché, the vampire comedy “Day Shift” starts out at a gallop and keeps right on moving. And motion is everything in this Netflix caper — J.J. Perry’s first feature as a director after more than three decades in stunt work — those action scenes hogging most of the filmmakers’ attention and much of their imagination. Jamie Foxx might have top billing, but right there beside him are the professional contortionists whose eye-popping moves are more commonly seen in Las Vegas showrooms than on movie screens.Even so, Foxx, as you might expect, has got this. As Bud Jablonski, a cash-strapped pool cleaner-cum-vampire hunter, the actor radiates blue-collar competence in the midst of escalating buffoonery. Bud has an estranged, exasperated wife and a darling young daughter in need of expensive dental work and school tuition. To pay for both, he must rejoin the union that expelled him for his unorthodox hunting practices. Vouched for by his friend Big John (Snoop Dogg), a cool, cowboy-hatted lady-killer, Bud promises the aggrieved union boss that he will behave. Uh-huh.Set in a sunny San Fernando Valley literally crawling with the undead, “Day Shift” has some sly touches (the übervamp, played by Karla Souza, sells real estate) and an uptight sidekick in Seth (Dave Franco), Bud’s union representative. A dorky desk jockey, Seth is the familiar foil for the hero’s one-liners, but Franco plays him with a sweetness that keeps his fussiness from grating. Frenzied and goofily good-natured, “Day Shift” is all sensation and not much sense — except, of course, in its belief in the absolute utility of a union card.Day ShiftRated R for bloody massacres galore. Running time: 1 hour 53 minutes. Watch on Netflix. More