Let’s face it, Peak TV peaked a long time ago. With the advent and explosion of streaming services and channels, television reached a new golden age of content. It was great at first, especially when filmmakers like David Lynch were coming back to TV and the stigma of slumming-it TV was over, with top-shelf directors and actors all being lured to the prospect of an Emmy-winning, actually well-respected TV series (or often mini-series).

Continue reading The Best TV Shows Of 2019… So Far at The Playlist.

Every month starting from here on out there’s always something — a festival or tentpole film/pop-culture event (see: “Game of Thrones” or “Avengers: Endgame“) that dominates the cultural conversation. May is no different featuring the upcoming Cannes Film Festival which is always ready to stir up headlines and controversy (as well as adding a few must-see’s to our year list), but that doesn’t mean there isn’t plenty to watch when you’re not making it out to the theater.

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It might be coming to an end, but indie filmmaker Joe Swanberg‘s had a good run with his Netflix show “Easy.” It didn’t even appear to have a ton of viewers, but by Swanberg’s admission, it’s the most fun he’s ever had in filmmaking. Because Netflix gave him the most amount of sustainable dough he’s ever had, complete creative freedom and a nice comfortable budget so he could do all the things he wanted to do and cast all the actors he liked.

Continue reading ‘Easy’ Season 3 Trailer: Joe Swanberg Takes His Eclectic Cast Through One Last Season Of Navigating Love & Life In Chicago at The Playlist.

As another year winds down and we all take comfort in the fact that the world hasn’t fallen into chaos (as of yet), the television offerings are slim. Many of the month’s premieres aren’t exactly……filled with festive cheer, but as the saying goes – quality over quantity. Below are our top eight picks of December to binge in intervals in the broom closet to escape from one’s family and friends.

“Dark”
Synopsis: A family saga with a supernatural twist, this series is set in a German town, where the disappearance of two young children exposes the underlying relationships between four families.

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One of today’s foremost purveyors of “mumblecore” cinema – a derisive pigeonholing label for low budget indies which often involve the Duplass Brothers and sonorous dialogue – Joe Swanberg has managed to carve out a special niche for himself with his low-key hangout films, usually made in collaboration with “New Girl” actor Jake Johnson, such as the charming “Drinking Buddies” and “Digging for Fire.” Swanberg and Johnson scored their biggest mainstream success to date with this year’s Netflix original feature “Win It All” starring Johnson as a raffish gambling addict, and Swanberg is carrying on the momentum of his newfound recognition with a second season of his Netflix anthology series “Easy.”

Set in Swanberg’s beloved native Chicago, the first season of “Easy” adhered to a loose template following the sex lives of a disparate collection of couples and singles, with the episodes usually depicting a self-contained misadventure, such as Orlando Bloom and Malin Akerman’s frisky couple trying and failing to organise a threesome with their babysitter Kate Micucci, but some characters also recurred across episodes including Dave Franco and Evan Jonigkeit’s garage brewers.

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Joe Swanberg is an indie filmmaker in a renaissance period. Yes, he helped create mumblecore with filmmakers like Mark Duplass, Andrew Bujalski, Lynn Shelton and Aaron Katz, but Swanberg has arguably veered the least away from his improvised roots. In fact, unlike say, The Duplass Brothers, who (largely) tightly scripted their excellent HBO show, “Togetherness,” Swanberg has mostly kept his loose methodology.

Continue reading Joe Swanberg Talks ‘Win It All,’ ‘Easy’ & His Fruitful Creative Collaboration With Jake Johnson at The Playlist.

In the on-going blitz of Netflix Originals we’ve been experiencing so far in 2016, Joe Swanberg’s “Easy” feels like a homing missile that has all the explosive resonance of a beach ball. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Filled with familiar faces, compartmentalized into bite-sized 30-minute shorts, and produced, directed, and written by the master and commander of mumblecore, “Easy” takes a light-hearted and accessible approach (no, really) to portray mid-life modern romance in Chicago, with the hopes of digging up some pretty heavy-duty stuff underneath terrifyingly ordinary lives.

Continue reading Joe Swanberg’s ‘Easy’ Is Two or Three Joe Swanberg Movies Cut Into Eight Semi-Appetizing Pieces [Review] at The Playlist.

There was a time when Joe Swanberg was the most indie of indie directors, making no-budget movies with his friends, and mostly existing in a very specific niche of the film world. And while he’s not quite Steven Spielberg, Swanberg’s career has certainly ascended, and sees him able to gather an increasingly impressive array of well known stars for his projects. And for his upcoming anthology series “Easy,” set to be unveiled on Netflix, he’s gathered his most extensive ensemble yet.

Continue reading Relationships Aren’t ‘Easy’ In Trailer For Joe Swanberg’s Netflix Series With Orlando Bloom, Marc Maron, Dave Franco, More at The Playlist.

As you’ll know from our list of the best TV shows of the first half of 2016, and from our summer preview, it’s been a stacked year on the small-screen so far. There have been disappointments —chiefly, a show that starts with V and ends with -inyl— but also some surprises and triumphs, with “The Girlfriend Experience,” “Billions,” “Stranger Things,” “Lady Dynamite,” “The People Vs.

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Dave Franco, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Orlando Bloom, Malin Akerman & More Take It 'Easy' For Joe Swanberg's Netflix Series

Continue reading Dave Franco, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Orlando Bloom, Malin Akerman & More Take It ‘Easy’ For Joe Swanberg’s Netflix Series at The Playlist.