Brooklyn Nine-Nine – Season One

Grade: B+

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The new workplace comedy on Fox is from creators Michael Shur (Parks and Recreation) and Daniel J. Goor (The Daily Show, Late Night with Conan O’Brien), and the two have created something so insane and whacky that I cannot believe that it works. But it does work very well. Leading the 99th precinct in Brooklyn is the new Captain Holt (Andre Braugher), a gay African American whom the rest of the crew can’t ever decipher if he’s in a good or bad mood.

The eccentric group of detectives is lead by Jake Peralta (Andy Samberg), who is a great detective but frustrates Captain Holt with his immaturity. Playing his love interest is Amy Santiago (Melissa Fumero), a stickler for the rules and a teacher’s pet to Captain Holt. The two occasionally get along but usually engage in constant teasing and bad-mouthing. Sergeant Terry (Terry Crews) leads the detectives unconventionally with his newly-discovered soft side due to the birth of his baby girls. Charles Boyle (Joe Lo Truglio) is Jake’s best friend who loves anything feminine, while Rose Diaz (Stephanie Beatriz) is as tough as they come. Rounding out the precinct are Detective Hitchcock and Detective Scully, the dumb and dumber combo of the crew, and Gina Linetti, the wildly bizarre assistant to Captain Holt.

Like every comedy, it takes a little while for Brooklyn Nine-Nine to start rolling, but once you familiarize yourself with the characters, every episode is better than the last. Some highlights of the first season includes:
– Jake’s bets with Captain Holt (stealing his Medal of Valor) and Santiago (who makes the most arrests).
– The detectives and their mutual hate towards the Vulture.
– Charles taking two bullets in the butt.
– The detectives attending Captain Holt’s birthday party.

Like all good comedies, the cast of characters have a great chemistry with one another towards the middle of the first season. Also, the romantic interest between Peralta and Santiago is an intriguing one, but certainly one that’s fun to follow and root for. Another thing that impressed me with the first season was the depth of the characters. No one is one-dimensional, even though they all have consistency in their motives. Terry can be the Ebony Falcon when he focuses, Peralta can be mature, Rosa can be apologetic, Gina can be ethical, Boyle can be masculine and Holt can be hilarious. That’s just how the show is able to keep you on your toes every episode.

Overall, this is a stand-out new comedy that everyone can enjoy, especially for the college and young adult demographic. It’s on the same line with The Office and Parks and Recreation, without the interviews. If you don’t mind Andy Samberg too much, then you’ll enjoy Brooklyn Nine-Nine. As for the future of the show, it’ll be interesting to see if they give us a season-long case that the crew tries to solve on top of the small cases they solve every episode. That and I can’t wait to see how the writers explore the Peralta/Santiago love interest. They’re the least likely couple to work out, but in this show anything is possible.

2009 MTV Movie Awards Predictions

So tonight is the 2009 MTV Movie Awards.  I already did a post a while ago talking about how these awards suit the demographic of its viewers and nothing else.  It’s not like these awards are fooling anyone (unless Nicole Kidman actually has her golden popcorn trophy next to her Oscar award).  But hey, MTV is keeping the balance of pure fun and some prestige by nominated Slumdog Millionaire.  Honestly, if these awards were truly a blend of entertainment and excellence, then The Dark Knight should easily walk away with the Best Movie award… but this is MTV.  I think it’s pretty easy to guess what’s going to win tonight.  Here are my predictions.

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Best Movie

Like I just said above, The Dark Knight would make perfect sense to win this award.  Not only was it the second highest-grossing film of all-time, it was critically acclaimed.  Heck, it was a fantastic film and everyone loved it.  The past two winners of this award went to Transformers and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, both made a huge amount of dough.

But even though all of this seems to add up to The Dark Knight taking the award, my prediction is the most talked about movie of the year by MTV and its tween and teen viewers: Twilight.  By no means should Twilight be in consideration for Best Movie in any circumstance, but with MTV it’s a given.  The most blogged about topic on the MTV Movie Blog is Twilight.  Do I need another reason?

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Best Male Performance

I’m curious as to why Robert Pattinson (Twilight mega-star) wasn’t nominated in this category.  With him out of the way, that leaves the door wide open for Christian Bale and Shia LaBeouf to snag this award.  Just last year, Will Smith won this award for his performance in I Am Legend.  So while it would make sense for LaBeouf or Bale to win, I’m going with Zac Efron (High School Musical 3).  It’s his finale from the HSM franchise and I think MTV will award him this final token of gratitude for the millions of screaming girls he has attracted.

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Best Female Performance

This is an interesting category.  We have four nominees who can actually act, and then one lone actress who either is either terrible or she just hasn’t reached her potential yet.  That being said, it will be the actress without the talent who will win this award… Kristen Stewart (Twilight).

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Breakthrough Performance – Male

Robert Pattinson.  Winner.  End of story.

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Breakthrough Performance – Female

It’s hard to pick anyone else than Miley Cyrus.  I would’ve picked Vanessa Hudgens or Ashely Tisdale of High School Musical, but they’ll cancel each other out, leaving Hannah Montana to accept her Golden Popcorn trophy.

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Best Comedic Performance

So this category will determine who’s the funniest?  Steve Carell is easily the funniest actor of the nominees, but Get Smart wasn’t much of a comedy.  I’m saying it’ll go down between Anna Faris (The House Bunny) and James Franco (Pineapple Express).  And the winner will be… James Franco.

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Best Villain

Heath Ledger.  Next category…

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Best Fight

This is a stupid category.  I guess I’ll have to stick with the phenomenon that is Twilight.

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Best Kiss

This is an even dumber category.  The two homosexual kisses don’t have a chance.  Again, Twilight will win this category.  K-Stew and Rob-Pat locking lips?  I think a dozen 12-year-old girls just fainted.

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Best WTF Moment

Okay… this is the absolute dumbest category I’ve ever heard.  That being said, if Slumdog Millionaire doesn’t win this award for when little Jamal dives into a pile of crap, then I don’t know what a WTF Moment is.

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Best Song From a Movie

Umm… here’s a no-brainer.  Hmm… Twilight + Paramore = Best Song Golden Popcorn.  Fact.

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Well there you have it.  I haven’t watched one minute of MTV in the past year but it’s hard to ignore the impact MTV has in the entertainment world with its teen audience.  If none of my predictions are correct, I could care less.  But hey, I’m confident that I’ll get at least seven of the eleven categories right.  Because c’mon… this is MTV we’re talking about.  I heard just recently they’ve started to play music on the channel again.  That would be like ESPN never broadcasting sports.  As you can guess, I’m not very fond of MTV.