Back from the weekend, and getting ready to power through what should be a long but interesting work week. In any case, I've got a truckload of TV reviews to kick off the week, so, here we go:
TV STUFF:
- I'll start by talking about last night's premiere of the AMC reimagining of THE PRISONER. Let me give some background, some of which I'm sure I've covered before here on the blog, but, oh well. So I'd heard of The Prisoner on and off growing up, though like many of my generation, I had heard bits and pieces about the cult British series, and later became somewhat familiar with the concept thanks to the hilarious Simpsons episode that spoofed the show, "The Computer Wore Menace Shoes." (it even featured original Prisoner star Patrick McGoohan in a cameo). Later on, once Lost became a big hit, you'd often hear the show's creators reference The Prisoner as an inspiration. Anyways, at some point a couple of years ago, I saw the DVD box set on sale on Amazon.com, and made the purchase. I quickly became a fan of the show's surreal 1960's vibe, and could easily recognize that The Prisoner was indeed the precursor to many a modern story about being trapped in a strange place that makes you question basic notions of freedom, individuality, and even reality itself. So I went into this new version of The Prisoner already a fan of the original series. At the same time, even though I often bemoan the glut of remakes and reimaginings in Hollywood, I was actually pretty excited about this new version of The Prisoner. For one thing, I feel like the original is, more than anything, a show about ideas - and I felt like those central themes, applied to modern issues and sensibilities, could make for a really compelling story. For another thing, I read a script for the Prisoner pilot (back when it was being planned as an ongoing series) a couple of years back. I went in skeptical, but was actually fairly blown away by what I had read. Even though the version of The Prisoner that ultimately got made was a bit different (it's now a miniseries, for one), a lot of that older version still made it intact. In any case, a new Prisoner with some smart writing, a modern take on a cult-classic, Ian McKellan and Jim Caviezel in the lead roles ... sounds to me like a recipe for a success.
So I was somewhat surprised and disappointed to see a slew of somewhat negative reviews of the new Prisoner. It made me wonder where, exactly, this new version had gone wrong. Luckily, as I watched the first two hours of the six-hour miniseries last night, I came away in large part reassured. In fact, while there were some rough patches, I thoroughly enjoyed AMC's latest.
I thought THE PRISONER did a pretty nice job of combining smart, thoughtful writing with some really weird, trippy scenes. There was a really nice atmosphere of "okay, what, exactly, is going on here?" that permeated through the first two hours, and I thought that Jim Caviezel, as the new #6, did a nice job in the lead. Sure, his character was a bit more measured and soft-spoken than the more over-the-top original played by McGoohan, but I thought that he did a nice job of anchoring the out-there premise. The real highlight was definitely McKellan though, who brought a huge, commanding presence to his role as #2. Whereas the original show was known for each episode mysteriously having a new person filling the role of #2, this new version has McKellan in the role for the duration - and when you have an actor with Sir Ian's talent, you want to give him room to breathe and really explore this strange and mysterious character. Some of McKellan's scenes thus far have been totally transfixing. Awesome stuff.
I realize at this point I should probably sum up the premise of the show. In the original version, the classic storyline goes that #6 was once some sort of James Bond-esque British secret agent, in possession of many a national secret. When he decides to resign from his job, he is kidnapped and whisked away to a mysterious island on which exists "The Village." The Village is a quaint yet ominous place in which people have no proper names, only numbers. The villagers have jobs, live semi-normal lives, and seem happily oblivious to the fact that they are prisoners. In the original series, it was implied that the other residents of The Village were other former intelligence agents, who over the years had been brainwashed and conditioned to spend their lives in blissful ignorance (or else fearful denial) of their plights. The Village is ruled by the devious #2, who is hellbent on extracting #6's secrets through all manner of mindgames, head-trips, and other, more sinister methods of persuasion. #6, meanwhile, is hellbent on escape, though he can never be sure quite who to trust, what's real, to how, exactly, to get away from The Village (wandering villagers who trespass past the city limits are often gobbled up by mysterious, giant white spheres that surround The Village). And who is #1? Well, that might be the biggest mystery of all.
Anyways, the new Prisoner tweaks the old formula a bit. The Village may still be an island, but it appears, at least, to be a remote outpost in the middle of some endless desert. Not only that, but in this version, the Villagers are completely *unaware* (or at least pretend to be) that any other place other than The Village even exists.
This is where thigns get tricky, as the new series walks a fine line between being completely abstract and surreal, and being more logical and down-to-earth. It's a problem that a show like Lost faced often, especially in its early years. If you have the characters ask too many questions and get too logical or analytical about their strange circumastances, you risk ruining the mysterious and surreal atmosphere of the show. But if no one questions anything or asks the kinds of questions that a normal person would, you end up with frustrating, manufactured drama that feels like a cop-out.
In The Prisoner, like I said, it's a fine line. They have #6 question the villagers on how they can possibly believe that no other place exists (ie "Well okay, then who invented the light bulb?), but stops short of taking this line of questioning to its logical extremes (for example, why wouldn't he say "Well okay then, why do people here have different accents? Why are there black people and white people?" etc.). It can get a little absurd if you think about it too much, but it's not so bad when you think about it as all being one giant mind-$&#$ at #6's expense. To me, the key turning point is when (SPOILERS), #6's "brother" (a guy from the Village who #6 is told is his brother, even though #6 knows he isn't), admits that he isn't *really* what he said he was. This was a great moment, because it hinted that indeed, all of the illogical behavior and randomness of the villagers is, moreso than anything else, just a way to reall mess with #6's head.
I think that there are some other places where The Prisoner has faltered so far. Scenes that show a TV soap opera that's broadcast in The Village (sample dialogue: "I love you #587, but I slept with your brother, #588!), are just too goofy given the tone of the rest of the show. I'm also unsure about the fact that #2 has a befuddled teenage son and a sickly wife (who is kept sickly due to #2's own scheming). It's one thing to give #2 personality and depth, but I could see how these slightly more soap opera-y plotlines could be a hindrance to the show. We shall see.
I did like flashback scenes that depicted the fateful night before #6 got brought to The Village. We learn that this #6 was no secret agent, but instead an information gatherer - a guy who monitors CTV footage and watches for shifting patterns in human behavior. This new backstory was actually kind of cool, and I'm curious to see how it comes into play later on. Anyways, these flashbacks show how Caviezel invited an enigmatic but alluring woman back to his apartment, only to find that she was more than she initially seemed. Kind of cool - again, curious to see how it all ties together.
Now, I think the other main issue here is the pacing. At times, the first two hours did kind of feel like plot threads from an ongoing series were mashed-up to fit into a six hour mini. The problem is that there's not really enough time for #6 to just be shocked and outraged at his plight as a prisoner of The Village. Fans of the original series recall that McGoohan's 6 was basically in a constant state of anger over his situation, and was basically a man of action. He never became complacent in The Village, and tried to escape at every chance he got. Caviezel's 6 is a bit more passive, and even though the two hours end with him frothing-at-the-mouth angry and confused, it feels like his temprament is all over the place prior to that point.
Still, I thought that this new version of the Prisoner had enough going for it to make it a really interesting ride that seems to be well worth taking. The acting was superb, and there is definitely an intelligence and philisophical bent to the writing that makes this stand out from most fare on TV. Plus, even though this one was more subdued and less over-the-top than its inspiration, there were still some really fun moments and callbacks. We got the giant white spheres, Caviezel doing a nice scream of the classic "I am not a number!" line, etc. And to top it off, the look of the show, with some really epic, feature-film like cinematography, was pretty spectacular at times. To me, this is one that's well worth checking out, and I'm very anxious to see where things go from here.
My Grade: B+
- Whew. So, let's talk SMALLVILLE. It was going to be hard for this week's ep to live up to the previous week's way-better-than usual installment, but surprisingly, Smallville churned out a pretty decent little episode. The storyline really pushed ahead on the whole Clark Kent as public superhero thing. And that's both good and bad. It's good because it makes for some new and exciting storylines, and it forces Clark to be more and more Superman-like, which is always fun to watch. The bad is that all of this stuff still feels like a giant tease. By any storytelling logic in the universe, Clark should be Superman by now. They've brought him to the brink many times now, and this episode brought him closer than ever. In fact, the setup was all right there for Superman's huge public debut. Lois in danger and dangling from the Daily Planet rooftop, a crowd of curious onlookers gathered below, and Clark on the roof, forced to either let Lois fall to an untimely and grisly death, or else show off his powers and make a stunning debut as Superman. Of course, this being Smallville, the resolution was ultra-contrived and further dealyed the (should-be) inevitable. In an homage to the old Superfriends cartoon, this ep introduced Zan and Jayna as two teenaged would-be heroes who are huge fans of Clark's alter-ego, the Blur. Carrying out a number of super-powered acts of heroism in the Blur's name, these reimagined Wonder Twins end up bungling a bunch of big saves, damaging Clark's rep in the process. Of course, they also serve as a deux ex machina in the end, creating a distraction so that Clark can save Lois from that building without revealing his powers to her or the world at large. All of this was pretty well done, and Clark did have some real "super" moments, even if he's still just plain old Clark Kent. But come on already, how long can they take two steps forward and three steps back with the show's lead character? Get him in the blue and red already!
My Grade: B
- Man, I was kind of dreading last night's episode of THE SIMPSONS. A long while back, I wrote a spec script for the show that I've retooled and refined over the years, and I've been proud and relived that the show has never really done a script with a similar premise to mine in all these years. But when I heard about the plot for this one, in which Marge poses for surprisingly suggestive photos for a charity calendar, well, I got kind of nervous, as the premise was uncomfortably close, in theory, to what I had written. But, once I saw the episode, I was a.) relieved that the plot so quickly veered away from the whole calendar thing, but b.) disappointed that the episode felt like the worst kind of Simpsons episodes from the last several years. It was disjointed, totally ADD, and, in the end, was yet another riff on the "Homer and Marge have marital problems that they ultimately resolve" trope that has popped up WAY too often in modern-era Simpsons. It sucks too, because there was the hint of a potentially very-funny plotline here, with Homer becoming Carl's assistant, after Carl gets a promotion at the nuclear power plant. Why oh why wasn't this the main plot of the episode, and just given more time to play out and be funny? Instead, the whole Marge-as-calendar-pinup thing transitioned into a lame story in which a newly-amorous Marge turns to Flanders for companionship, after Homer is tired / absent all the time thanks to his new job as Carl's bitch. Um, what? Why did this episode have like ten different plotlines? And how did the episode, with a couple of potential keepers, devolve into yet another Homer-Marge romance thing? It didn't help that the laughs were few and far between. This was a bottom-of-the-barrell Simpsons ep, made all the more annoying due to the fact that there was a lot of potential buried somewhere underneath.
My Grade: C-
- FAMILY GUY was also pretty mediocre last night. There were some funny one-off moments (Peter doing karaoke with the ghost of Ronald Reagan ...), and some of the stuff involving Stewie making a dumber, subserviant clone of himself (aka "Bitch Stewie") was also kind of chuckle-worthy. But the main plot here mostly fell flat, as Quagmire finds a baby on his doorstep that is his, and reluctantly ends up accepting the role of father to this little girl. I don't know - personally, I can't really buy into any "serious" storyline on FG. For most of its existence, the show has completely avoided having a serious or emotional side to its storytelling, so it's hard to treat these characters with the same kind of legitimacy as you would the characters on a King of the Hill or The Simpsons. Quagmire in particular is pretty much a gag character (giggity!), so how am I supposed to get involved in a storyline about his newfound baby daughter that is looking to tug at my heartstrings? Family Guy backed itself into that corner a long time ago, so come on FG, don't go getting all soft on me. And also, be funnier!
My Grade: C
- A solid episode of THE CLEVELAND SHOW was about all that kept FOX's Sunday night lineup from being completely absymal. Lately, I'm liking Cleveland because it's basically a funnier, slightly toned-down, and more consistent version of Family Guy. I mean, remember what I just said about FG's characters being incapable of being in more serious storylines at this point? Well, Cleveland definitely skews a little less wacky (despite its talking bears and such) and a little more, um, "mature" I guess would be the right word? That said, last night's ep was somewhat hit and miss - particularly the main storyline involving Cleveland's wife and her desire, post-marriage, to reconnect with her single friends. That one was alright, but nothing amazing. But there were a couple of funny running gags (loved Cleveland's reactions everytime his wife came home from a girls' night out), and lately, everything with Cleveland Jr. is pretty awesome. This show is still only "pretty good" at the end of the day, but it's been way more consistent than FG since it premiered.
My Grade: B
- Alright, that's it for now: in my next post: a review of 2012~!
Monday, November 16, 2009
Friday, November 13, 2009
"Frankly, I wasn't convinced. A lot of the evidence seemed to be based on puns." A Friday the 13th TV Wrap: THE OFFICE, 30 ROCK, FRINGE, GLEE, and V!
Well, it's almost the weekend, and even though it's been a short work-week for me due to having Monday of, I'm more than ready for a much-needed break. It's been a crazy week here at the office, and so I'm hoping that tonight's viewing of Roland Emmerich's 2012 will be a semi-catharctic moment of calming via multiple acts of mass destruction. Sure, the movie is likely to be absolutely ridiculous, but few filmmakers are as blatantly gleeful in their cheesiness as Emmerich. The fact that he has that whole European thing where he seems to take himself and his movies 100% seriously, despite their total absurdity, makes a movie like 2012 that much more potentially insane and entertaining. We shall see. Stay tuned for the full review, coming soon.
TV STUFF:
- Over on The AV Club, they've started running a massive Best-Of-the-Decade series of features, counting down the best in TV, movies, and music from throughout the 00's. The first batch of lists focuses on television, the highlight of which is a big list that counts down the best TV shows of the decade. Very interesting stuff, although to some extent I think there is something of a consensus when it comes to TV, at least on the best of the best TV series. Still, there is room for individual taste to come into play, and that's why I'm considering doing my own Best of the Decade list. The main problem? As I always say, I am but one man. For all my TV-watching, I still have many gaps in my viewing, from The Wire to Dexter to Breaking Bad ... so it would be hard to call a list that I come up with definitive. Still, it could be fun to look back at some of the series that have, for me at least, defined the 00's. Once again, stay tuned ...
- I was optimistic about V after seeing the pilot episode this past summer. Sure, it was somewhat cheesy and felt a little rushed, but still ... it just had an overall sense of fun to it that made it seem like a must-watch come Fall. Even with its problems, the groundwork seemed to be put in place for a series that could, eventually, become pretty epic. So I can see how many felt somewhat let down by Episode 2. I mean, rather that really escalating the brewing conflict between the humans and the visitors, this one sort of took a step back and felt very much like a typical second episode of any given serialized drama. We got a little plot-progression, a little who-can-you-trust paranoia, and a bit more insight into some of the characters for good measure. But this ep did feel a little like treading water. We still haven't gotten too far inside the head of Elizabeth Mitchell or Scott Wolf's characters, for example. Wolf's storyline in particular really seemed to drag a bit - it suffered from Smallville-itus. You know, like how on Smallville, mild-mannered country boy Clark Kent would always get wrapped up in the schemes of globetrotting billionaire Lex Luthor? It would often seem like it was too much of a stretch for their worlds to so often collide. Same with Wolf and the leader of the visitors, Anna. For an alien leader hellbent on conquering earth, she seems to be spending waaay too much time pondering her relationship with a single TV reporter. Similarly, there's the already somewhat annoying relationship between Elizabeth Mitchell and her teenaged son. Why doesn't she just tell him more concretely that the V's are dangerous lizard-people?! I mean, sure, there's the danger that her son would spill the beans to his friends, but this is her son we're talking about! Maybe be a bit more concerned that he's spending his afternoons spreading propaganda for reptillian extraterrestrial conquerers?! Anyways, this was an only-okay episode, but for some reason, I still feel somewhat into the show. Despite everything, there is still that feeling that this could get pretty awesome when the $&#% really starts to hit the fan.
My Grade: B-
- After a couple of really fun, well-done episodes, I'm not quite sure why, but I wasn't 100% feeling this week's GLEE. I think it just felt way too ... traditional ... for a show that, at it's best, is really subversive and darkly funny. It once again speaks to the fact that Glee is, still, completely all over the place in terms of tone. I mean, compare this week's after-school-special-ish vibe to the awesome Slushie episode from the other week. Whereas that one felt fresh and funny, this week's ep was oddly sentimental and preachy. I mean, they gave Sue Slyvester a huge, emotional beat, for crying out loud! What! I'm not saying that Glee shouldn't have emotion or heart, but I feel like it's way too early to humanize the show's greatest comic villain at this point. Otherwise, it was an enjoyable episode, for the most part, and I liked the central plot of of raising money to buy a wheelchair-accessible bus for the glee club's trip to sectionals. It just felt like this one had lost some of the show's edge from previous weeks.
My Grade: B
- Argh - no MODERN FAMILY this week. Damn you, CMA's. It speaks to how much I am liking MF that my week felt somewhat emptier without it!
- I thought that, overall, both THE OFFICE and 30 Rock were pretty strong last night. (Go NBC!). Seriously though, I was kind of iffy on The Office at first, but it slowly but surely won me over through sheer persistence. There were just too many moments of hilarity. So let's see ... things I loved:
The random flash to Ryan in yet another hipster d-bag outfit. The little snippets we've gotten of the painfully self-aware and tragically cool Ryan this season have all been gold.
Creed fleeing what he thought was a real murder scene.
The Mexican standoff to end the episode ... freaking hilarious.
Dwight's level of commitment to solving the murder-mystery.
Andy's dead-on Savannah accent. And his cluelessness about the Swedish Chef from the Muppets.
Andy's awkward attempts at asking Erin out on a date, and her possibly in-character-only response.
Michael's near-insane refusal to break character.
Oscar's awful attempts at a Southern accent.
Tube City.
So yeah, even if the whole murder mystery dragged a bit at first, it ultimately won me over. And the end-tag standoff scene just cemented the whole thing as awesome. Beyond all the zaniness though, this episode actually set the stage for a much bigger overarching plotline - the bankruptcy of Dunder-Mifflin. There are a lot of interesting pieces to pick up from this one.
My Grade: A-
- 30 ROCK last night followed a similar trajectory to The Office -- I was kind of dubious at first, but in the end, the episode really won me over. I think the episode's biggest flaw was the been-ther, done-that nature of the Tracy and Jenna subplot. We've seen similar shenanigans from these two many times over at this point, and while Tracy Morgan is basically always funny, you wish that he could get better and less repetitive storylines. Same goes for Jenna. But ... what made this episode was the central Liz-Jack plot. Their symbiotic business relationship, played out like a romantic comedy, was the source of a ton of humor last night - not to mention some awesome satire of the media business. When Jack offers to help Liz develop her Dealbreakers book into a series, Liz plays hardball and "explores her options," shopping the concept around to other agents. The results of Liz's break from Jack turn out pretty hilarious - a meeting with a way-too-young agent who's just graduated from repping animals to "humans and primates." A power-lunch with Scotty Shofar, a cell-phone-obssessed d-bag who was very reminiscient of a certain former NBC network head. Suffice it to say, when Mr. Shofar had to bail on Lemon because he had Brooke Hogan on the line, I nearly lost it. So yeah, a couple of semi-weak subplots eventually got overshadowed by a memorable and dead-on A-plot. This ep of 30 Rock definitely had it's fightin' gloves on.
My Grade: B+
- Didn't watch PARKS & REC yet. Sorry!
- Oh man, what to say about last night's FRINGE? This was yet another solid but unspectacular episode. But I have to admit, with each successive solid-but-unspectacular episode this season, I lose a little bit more overall enthusiasm for the show. What can I say, I'm nostalgic for the FRINGE of old - the late-season-one era Fringe. The Fringe that kept blowing me away week after week with huge reveals, amazing character moments, and an overarching plotline that was exciting and unpredictable. All of these standalone episodes are okay, but most of them feel like X-Files lite. At least last week we got a focus on Broyles, and therefore many moments of Lance Reddick-infused gravitas. This week, no such luck (though Broyles did have one particularly badass, if not slightly-cliched, moment towards the episode's end ...). Instead, we got a decent plot about a rebellious teen imbued with mind-control powers, who lashes out at his father - a Massive Dynamics scientist - by embarking on a wild crime spree using his psychic powers. The ability to psychically "push" someone is something we've seen before on shows like The X-Files, and the angry-kid -manipulating-others theme reminded me a bit of the classic Twilight Zone episode - you know, the one with the omnipotent kid who wishes people away when they piss him off. Anyways, the plot here was okay, but the real meat of it was how the father-son relationship at the heart of the case reflected back on the fractured relationship between Walter and Peter Bishop. To that end, we got some very nice, dramatic moments from John Noble, in an episode in which Walter seemed to do a lot of reflecting on mistakes of the past. I did really enjoy seeing him step foot inside Massive Dynamics HQ, seeing his mix of wonderment and regret as he saw what might have been had he pooled his genius towards building a company, like his old colleague William Bell. Walter's character moments (not to mention his always-awesome, always-random quips, like "you were abducted, of course you need crepes!") were far and away the highlight of the episode. Especially true given that we got no real new insight into Olivia's condition, the otherdimensional visitors, etc. The big reveal here was that ... (SPOILERS) ... the psychic kid was actually one of many clones bred by Massive Dynamics as part of a larger experiment, confirming that Massive D is up to some pretty shady stuff (although we pretty much knew that already). More shades of X-Files, Eve 6, etc. Yep, let the jokes commence about whether a one-hit-wonder rock band will arise out of this episode of Fringe. Meanwhile, the action leading up to the capture of the kid was not that riveting. As has been the norm of late, the resolution felt pretty rushed, and you never developed enough of an attachment to the kid or his father to care all that much about their fates. Fringe really needs to work on creating episode-specific characters that are memorable, even if they only appear once. Again, not to keep bringing it up, but think of all the classic one-shot villains from throughout the history of The X-Files. Fringe really needs an infusion of that kind of character. So yeah, this episode continued a streak of Fringe installments that had some cool moments, some interesting character stuff for our main players, but that didn't truly wow me as the show has done, on occasion, in the past. For that reason, I'm especially excited for next week's Observer-centric ep, which promises to dive back into the show's unique and rich mythology. For now, I think Fringe still needs to figure out how best to do these standalone, freak-of-the-weak style episode. I don't think they've quite nailed it yet.
My Grade: B-
Alright ... weekend time. And oh yeah, Happy Friday the 13th!
TV STUFF:
- Over on The AV Club, they've started running a massive Best-Of-the-Decade series of features, counting down the best in TV, movies, and music from throughout the 00's. The first batch of lists focuses on television, the highlight of which is a big list that counts down the best TV shows of the decade. Very interesting stuff, although to some extent I think there is something of a consensus when it comes to TV, at least on the best of the best TV series. Still, there is room for individual taste to come into play, and that's why I'm considering doing my own Best of the Decade list. The main problem? As I always say, I am but one man. For all my TV-watching, I still have many gaps in my viewing, from The Wire to Dexter to Breaking Bad ... so it would be hard to call a list that I come up with definitive. Still, it could be fun to look back at some of the series that have, for me at least, defined the 00's. Once again, stay tuned ...
- I was optimistic about V after seeing the pilot episode this past summer. Sure, it was somewhat cheesy and felt a little rushed, but still ... it just had an overall sense of fun to it that made it seem like a must-watch come Fall. Even with its problems, the groundwork seemed to be put in place for a series that could, eventually, become pretty epic. So I can see how many felt somewhat let down by Episode 2. I mean, rather that really escalating the brewing conflict between the humans and the visitors, this one sort of took a step back and felt very much like a typical second episode of any given serialized drama. We got a little plot-progression, a little who-can-you-trust paranoia, and a bit more insight into some of the characters for good measure. But this ep did feel a little like treading water. We still haven't gotten too far inside the head of Elizabeth Mitchell or Scott Wolf's characters, for example. Wolf's storyline in particular really seemed to drag a bit - it suffered from Smallville-itus. You know, like how on Smallville, mild-mannered country boy Clark Kent would always get wrapped up in the schemes of globetrotting billionaire Lex Luthor? It would often seem like it was too much of a stretch for their worlds to so often collide. Same with Wolf and the leader of the visitors, Anna. For an alien leader hellbent on conquering earth, she seems to be spending waaay too much time pondering her relationship with a single TV reporter. Similarly, there's the already somewhat annoying relationship between Elizabeth Mitchell and her teenaged son. Why doesn't she just tell him more concretely that the V's are dangerous lizard-people?! I mean, sure, there's the danger that her son would spill the beans to his friends, but this is her son we're talking about! Maybe be a bit more concerned that he's spending his afternoons spreading propaganda for reptillian extraterrestrial conquerers?! Anyways, this was an only-okay episode, but for some reason, I still feel somewhat into the show. Despite everything, there is still that feeling that this could get pretty awesome when the $&#% really starts to hit the fan.
My Grade: B-
- After a couple of really fun, well-done episodes, I'm not quite sure why, but I wasn't 100% feeling this week's GLEE. I think it just felt way too ... traditional ... for a show that, at it's best, is really subversive and darkly funny. It once again speaks to the fact that Glee is, still, completely all over the place in terms of tone. I mean, compare this week's after-school-special-ish vibe to the awesome Slushie episode from the other week. Whereas that one felt fresh and funny, this week's ep was oddly sentimental and preachy. I mean, they gave Sue Slyvester a huge, emotional beat, for crying out loud! What! I'm not saying that Glee shouldn't have emotion or heart, but I feel like it's way too early to humanize the show's greatest comic villain at this point. Otherwise, it was an enjoyable episode, for the most part, and I liked the central plot of of raising money to buy a wheelchair-accessible bus for the glee club's trip to sectionals. It just felt like this one had lost some of the show's edge from previous weeks.
My Grade: B
- Argh - no MODERN FAMILY this week. Damn you, CMA's. It speaks to how much I am liking MF that my week felt somewhat emptier without it!
- I thought that, overall, both THE OFFICE and 30 Rock were pretty strong last night. (Go NBC!). Seriously though, I was kind of iffy on The Office at first, but it slowly but surely won me over through sheer persistence. There were just too many moments of hilarity. So let's see ... things I loved:
The random flash to Ryan in yet another hipster d-bag outfit. The little snippets we've gotten of the painfully self-aware and tragically cool Ryan this season have all been gold.
Creed fleeing what he thought was a real murder scene.
The Mexican standoff to end the episode ... freaking hilarious.
Dwight's level of commitment to solving the murder-mystery.
Andy's dead-on Savannah accent. And his cluelessness about the Swedish Chef from the Muppets.
Andy's awkward attempts at asking Erin out on a date, and her possibly in-character-only response.
Michael's near-insane refusal to break character.
Oscar's awful attempts at a Southern accent.
Tube City.
So yeah, even if the whole murder mystery dragged a bit at first, it ultimately won me over. And the end-tag standoff scene just cemented the whole thing as awesome. Beyond all the zaniness though, this episode actually set the stage for a much bigger overarching plotline - the bankruptcy of Dunder-Mifflin. There are a lot of interesting pieces to pick up from this one.
My Grade: A-
- 30 ROCK last night followed a similar trajectory to The Office -- I was kind of dubious at first, but in the end, the episode really won me over. I think the episode's biggest flaw was the been-ther, done-that nature of the Tracy and Jenna subplot. We've seen similar shenanigans from these two many times over at this point, and while Tracy Morgan is basically always funny, you wish that he could get better and less repetitive storylines. Same goes for Jenna. But ... what made this episode was the central Liz-Jack plot. Their symbiotic business relationship, played out like a romantic comedy, was the source of a ton of humor last night - not to mention some awesome satire of the media business. When Jack offers to help Liz develop her Dealbreakers book into a series, Liz plays hardball and "explores her options," shopping the concept around to other agents. The results of Liz's break from Jack turn out pretty hilarious - a meeting with a way-too-young agent who's just graduated from repping animals to "humans and primates." A power-lunch with Scotty Shofar, a cell-phone-obssessed d-bag who was very reminiscient of a certain former NBC network head. Suffice it to say, when Mr. Shofar had to bail on Lemon because he had Brooke Hogan on the line, I nearly lost it. So yeah, a couple of semi-weak subplots eventually got overshadowed by a memorable and dead-on A-plot. This ep of 30 Rock definitely had it's fightin' gloves on.
My Grade: B+
- Didn't watch PARKS & REC yet. Sorry!
- Oh man, what to say about last night's FRINGE? This was yet another solid but unspectacular episode. But I have to admit, with each successive solid-but-unspectacular episode this season, I lose a little bit more overall enthusiasm for the show. What can I say, I'm nostalgic for the FRINGE of old - the late-season-one era Fringe. The Fringe that kept blowing me away week after week with huge reveals, amazing character moments, and an overarching plotline that was exciting and unpredictable. All of these standalone episodes are okay, but most of them feel like X-Files lite. At least last week we got a focus on Broyles, and therefore many moments of Lance Reddick-infused gravitas. This week, no such luck (though Broyles did have one particularly badass, if not slightly-cliched, moment towards the episode's end ...). Instead, we got a decent plot about a rebellious teen imbued with mind-control powers, who lashes out at his father - a Massive Dynamics scientist - by embarking on a wild crime spree using his psychic powers. The ability to psychically "push" someone is something we've seen before on shows like The X-Files, and the angry-kid -manipulating-others theme reminded me a bit of the classic Twilight Zone episode - you know, the one with the omnipotent kid who wishes people away when they piss him off. Anyways, the plot here was okay, but the real meat of it was how the father-son relationship at the heart of the case reflected back on the fractured relationship between Walter and Peter Bishop. To that end, we got some very nice, dramatic moments from John Noble, in an episode in which Walter seemed to do a lot of reflecting on mistakes of the past. I did really enjoy seeing him step foot inside Massive Dynamics HQ, seeing his mix of wonderment and regret as he saw what might have been had he pooled his genius towards building a company, like his old colleague William Bell. Walter's character moments (not to mention his always-awesome, always-random quips, like "you were abducted, of course you need crepes!") were far and away the highlight of the episode. Especially true given that we got no real new insight into Olivia's condition, the otherdimensional visitors, etc. The big reveal here was that ... (SPOILERS) ... the psychic kid was actually one of many clones bred by Massive Dynamics as part of a larger experiment, confirming that Massive D is up to some pretty shady stuff (although we pretty much knew that already). More shades of X-Files, Eve 6, etc. Yep, let the jokes commence about whether a one-hit-wonder rock band will arise out of this episode of Fringe. Meanwhile, the action leading up to the capture of the kid was not that riveting. As has been the norm of late, the resolution felt pretty rushed, and you never developed enough of an attachment to the kid or his father to care all that much about their fates. Fringe really needs to work on creating episode-specific characters that are memorable, even if they only appear once. Again, not to keep bringing it up, but think of all the classic one-shot villains from throughout the history of The X-Files. Fringe really needs an infusion of that kind of character. So yeah, this episode continued a streak of Fringe installments that had some cool moments, some interesting character stuff for our main players, but that didn't truly wow me as the show has done, on occasion, in the past. For that reason, I'm especially excited for next week's Observer-centric ep, which promises to dive back into the show's unique and rich mythology. For now, I think Fringe still needs to figure out how best to do these standalone, freak-of-the-weak style episode. I don't think they've quite nailed it yet.
My Grade: B-
Alright ... weekend time. And oh yeah, Happy Friday the 13th!
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
A Review of the Dark, Disturbing, and Unforgettable PRECIOUS.
PRECIOUS Review:
- The bottom line on Precious is that it ranks up there as one of the most powerful and affecting movies so far this year. At the same time though, it's dark, bleak, and sometimes simply hard to watch. You've got to admire it for not pulling punches. Precious left me feeling like I'd just been punched in the gut, but I'm also glad I had the opportunity to spend some time in its world. This is a movie that's about people and places that you rarely see in the glamorized world of the movies. This is a movie about ugly people (on the outside and in) and ugly places. Like last year's Slumdog Millionaire, it's a movie that wholly transports you into a world of poverty, abuse, sickness, and brutality. But while Slumdog was a modern-day fairytale of sorts, Precious is definitely not. There are no happy endings, and this is no fable. In Precious, the fantasy elements are strictly confined to the imagination of the title character. She imagines herself as a movie star and pop diva, transports herself into these personas in her darkest, scariest moments. But the character's reality remains grim and hard. The bittersweet triumph of the movie is that somehow, Precious trudges on and doesn't give up. Given her circumstances, the very fact that she pushes forward at all is her own brand of victory.
The movie tells the story of a teenage girl living in Harlem in the 1980's. Precious lives in a dilapidated apartment with her abusive mom-from-hell, who lives off welfare with no intent of ever finding a job. She's content to sit around all day watching TV, verbally abusing Precious and essentially treating her as a slave. Precious' absentee father was also abusive. He raped his own daughter on multiple occasions, leaving her with one incestuously-conceived, Down Syndrome-afflicted baby, and another on the way. Precious nightmare of a home life is more than enough to make school a burden. Even when Precious tries to focus on her studies, her mother barks at her to forget about schoolwork and concentrate on keeping their welfare going. Even though Precious has a talent for math, her mother repeatedly tells her that she'll never amount to anything.
The turning point for Precious comes when a school counsellor recommends her for an alternative learning program for teens from troubled backgrounds. Precious practically wills herself to attend the program, grasping for anything that could be means of escaping from her personal hell. Once there, she finds an encouraging teacher and classmates who become some of her first real friends. Now, this is where many movies would fall into cliche and just become feel-good fables about coming up out of the ghetto and making something of yourself, etc. But Precious doesn't just magically become a success story. Even after she joins her new program, the hardships continue to pile up, and her situation at home becomes even more tumultuous. There are moments of happiness and humor, but there's never that sunshine-and-lollypops moment of glee. The movie is unabashadly dark and gritty and grotesque, and even the funny moments have a kind of gallows-humor quality to them.
Something that's going to get a lot of attention come Oscar time is that Precious features many outstanding performances, all of which are from either complete unknowns, or else from actors who you'd never expect had such dramatic talent in them. First off, newcomer Gabourey Sidibe is pretty remarkable as the title character. As Precious, Sidibe is stoic, almost emotionless - a hardened, damaged young woman who has endured the absolute worst that life has to offer. And yet, bottled up somewhere deep is real emotion, real intelligence, real warmth. Sidibe makes it all feel so natural, so organic. This really is a breakthrough performance - no question. Sidibe is very good and very powerful as Precious, but perhaps even more memorable is comedienne Mo'Nique as her mother, Mary. Mo'Nique is just plain scary in this role. She plays a severely screwed-up, evil, abusive woman who is sometimes funny, but, more often than not, a true monster. Mo'Nique has moments in this movie that are just plain disturbing, and some of her diatribes will stick with you for a long time to come. The more we understand the psychology of Mary, the more ugly she becomes. This is a brave, soul-baring role for Mo'Nique, and I think that Oscar talk is definitely warranted.
The rest of the cast is also very strong. Before this movie, Mariah Carey was not someone who you thought of as a good or even competent actress, but the fact is that she does well in this one. Her role as a concerned welfare counsellor is fairly minimal, but she fits right in with the rest of the cast, and has some pivotal scenes with Precious and her mother. Rock mainstay Lenny Kravitz also appears in the movie as a male nurse who becomes friendly with Precious. Again, his role is pretty small, but he does a surprisingly good job with it. I'd also emphasize just how de-glamorized nearly everyone in the movie is. Carey especially is almost unrecognizable. I don't know what that says about her usual look, but here, her character is suitably tired and worn looking. She'd have to be, with the kinds of hopeless, hard-luck characters she has to deal with on a regular basis.
The one character who is a bit more glamorous is Paula Patton as Precious' cool, alternative-school teacher, with the appropriately hipster-ish name of Blue Rain. Patton treads the line of being the cliched "cool inner-city teacher" character, but I think she does a nice job with the role and helps elevate it beyond what it might have been in less capable hands. I like that her character serves as an example of a successful and urbane African American woman, who has carved out a niche for herself, yet is still marginalized to a large degree, for various reasons that I won't spoil. Suffice it to say, there's an interesting dynamic that develops, as her relationship with Precious evolves over the course of the movie.
Precious is a powerful, impactful movie, and it's a really strong effort from director Lee Daniels. Daniels immerses you in the movie's claustrophobic and grimy inner-city setting, and he has no qualms about painting his actors in a stark, unflattering light. I do think though that the movie just misses the mark of being a flat-out "A." There are just a number of moments where you expect the script to deliver a knockout punch, and yet the impact isn't quite as huge as it might have been. It's a tricky balance, because the tone of the movie can be a bit all over the place. There are moments of real levity and humor mixed in with the melodrama, and then there are the fantasy sequences that, while interesting reflections on Precious' psyche, can sometimes feel a bit too typical for such a complex and unique character. And again, there is the fact that the movie ultimately proves so bleak of a narrative that it's almost hard to know what, exactly, to take away from it. There are rays of hope, sure, but in the end, the fact remains that this movie is abuses its lead character almost to a fault. The old adage of "it can always be worse" seems to be playing out before our eyes, and that can be hard to take as a viewer.
Still, Precious is a must-watch in that it goes to the places that most other movies won't. Like I said, nothing about this movie is glamorized. Precious is a sullen, overweight, odd-looking, inner-city teen girl who is about as far removed from a typical Hollywood protagonist as you can possibly get. Her life is one big struggle just to survive and endure, and with this movie we go along with her for part of that ride. It's a tribute to the narrative that you have to wonder aloud that this movie isn't based on a true story. It feels so real and authentic that it feels like more than just fiction. It feels like Precious is a real person who we've spent time with and empathized with and lived with. This is a movie that feels real, and yet takes us to a place that for most will be strange and terrifying and disturbing, and you feel slightly traumatized by it, and yet richer for having gone there. That's the mark of a powerful film.
My Grade: A-
- The bottom line on Precious is that it ranks up there as one of the most powerful and affecting movies so far this year. At the same time though, it's dark, bleak, and sometimes simply hard to watch. You've got to admire it for not pulling punches. Precious left me feeling like I'd just been punched in the gut, but I'm also glad I had the opportunity to spend some time in its world. This is a movie that's about people and places that you rarely see in the glamorized world of the movies. This is a movie about ugly people (on the outside and in) and ugly places. Like last year's Slumdog Millionaire, it's a movie that wholly transports you into a world of poverty, abuse, sickness, and brutality. But while Slumdog was a modern-day fairytale of sorts, Precious is definitely not. There are no happy endings, and this is no fable. In Precious, the fantasy elements are strictly confined to the imagination of the title character. She imagines herself as a movie star and pop diva, transports herself into these personas in her darkest, scariest moments. But the character's reality remains grim and hard. The bittersweet triumph of the movie is that somehow, Precious trudges on and doesn't give up. Given her circumstances, the very fact that she pushes forward at all is her own brand of victory.
The movie tells the story of a teenage girl living in Harlem in the 1980's. Precious lives in a dilapidated apartment with her abusive mom-from-hell, who lives off welfare with no intent of ever finding a job. She's content to sit around all day watching TV, verbally abusing Precious and essentially treating her as a slave. Precious' absentee father was also abusive. He raped his own daughter on multiple occasions, leaving her with one incestuously-conceived, Down Syndrome-afflicted baby, and another on the way. Precious nightmare of a home life is more than enough to make school a burden. Even when Precious tries to focus on her studies, her mother barks at her to forget about schoolwork and concentrate on keeping their welfare going. Even though Precious has a talent for math, her mother repeatedly tells her that she'll never amount to anything.
The turning point for Precious comes when a school counsellor recommends her for an alternative learning program for teens from troubled backgrounds. Precious practically wills herself to attend the program, grasping for anything that could be means of escaping from her personal hell. Once there, she finds an encouraging teacher and classmates who become some of her first real friends. Now, this is where many movies would fall into cliche and just become feel-good fables about coming up out of the ghetto and making something of yourself, etc. But Precious doesn't just magically become a success story. Even after she joins her new program, the hardships continue to pile up, and her situation at home becomes even more tumultuous. There are moments of happiness and humor, but there's never that sunshine-and-lollypops moment of glee. The movie is unabashadly dark and gritty and grotesque, and even the funny moments have a kind of gallows-humor quality to them.
Something that's going to get a lot of attention come Oscar time is that Precious features many outstanding performances, all of which are from either complete unknowns, or else from actors who you'd never expect had such dramatic talent in them. First off, newcomer Gabourey Sidibe is pretty remarkable as the title character. As Precious, Sidibe is stoic, almost emotionless - a hardened, damaged young woman who has endured the absolute worst that life has to offer. And yet, bottled up somewhere deep is real emotion, real intelligence, real warmth. Sidibe makes it all feel so natural, so organic. This really is a breakthrough performance - no question. Sidibe is very good and very powerful as Precious, but perhaps even more memorable is comedienne Mo'Nique as her mother, Mary. Mo'Nique is just plain scary in this role. She plays a severely screwed-up, evil, abusive woman who is sometimes funny, but, more often than not, a true monster. Mo'Nique has moments in this movie that are just plain disturbing, and some of her diatribes will stick with you for a long time to come. The more we understand the psychology of Mary, the more ugly she becomes. This is a brave, soul-baring role for Mo'Nique, and I think that Oscar talk is definitely warranted.
The rest of the cast is also very strong. Before this movie, Mariah Carey was not someone who you thought of as a good or even competent actress, but the fact is that she does well in this one. Her role as a concerned welfare counsellor is fairly minimal, but she fits right in with the rest of the cast, and has some pivotal scenes with Precious and her mother. Rock mainstay Lenny Kravitz also appears in the movie as a male nurse who becomes friendly with Precious. Again, his role is pretty small, but he does a surprisingly good job with it. I'd also emphasize just how de-glamorized nearly everyone in the movie is. Carey especially is almost unrecognizable. I don't know what that says about her usual look, but here, her character is suitably tired and worn looking. She'd have to be, with the kinds of hopeless, hard-luck characters she has to deal with on a regular basis.
The one character who is a bit more glamorous is Paula Patton as Precious' cool, alternative-school teacher, with the appropriately hipster-ish name of Blue Rain. Patton treads the line of being the cliched "cool inner-city teacher" character, but I think she does a nice job with the role and helps elevate it beyond what it might have been in less capable hands. I like that her character serves as an example of a successful and urbane African American woman, who has carved out a niche for herself, yet is still marginalized to a large degree, for various reasons that I won't spoil. Suffice it to say, there's an interesting dynamic that develops, as her relationship with Precious evolves over the course of the movie.
Precious is a powerful, impactful movie, and it's a really strong effort from director Lee Daniels. Daniels immerses you in the movie's claustrophobic and grimy inner-city setting, and he has no qualms about painting his actors in a stark, unflattering light. I do think though that the movie just misses the mark of being a flat-out "A." There are just a number of moments where you expect the script to deliver a knockout punch, and yet the impact isn't quite as huge as it might have been. It's a tricky balance, because the tone of the movie can be a bit all over the place. There are moments of real levity and humor mixed in with the melodrama, and then there are the fantasy sequences that, while interesting reflections on Precious' psyche, can sometimes feel a bit too typical for such a complex and unique character. And again, there is the fact that the movie ultimately proves so bleak of a narrative that it's almost hard to know what, exactly, to take away from it. There are rays of hope, sure, but in the end, the fact remains that this movie is abuses its lead character almost to a fault. The old adage of "it can always be worse" seems to be playing out before our eyes, and that can be hard to take as a viewer.
Still, Precious is a must-watch in that it goes to the places that most other movies won't. Like I said, nothing about this movie is glamorized. Precious is a sullen, overweight, odd-looking, inner-city teen girl who is about as far removed from a typical Hollywood protagonist as you can possibly get. Her life is one big struggle just to survive and endure, and with this movie we go along with her for part of that ride. It's a tribute to the narrative that you have to wonder aloud that this movie isn't based on a true story. It feels so real and authentic that it feels like more than just fiction. It feels like Precious is a real person who we've spent time with and empathized with and lived with. This is a movie that feels real, and yet takes us to a place that for most will be strange and terrifying and disturbing, and you feel slightly traumatized by it, and yet richer for having gone there. That's the mark of a powerful film.
My Grade: A-
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
The Man Who Stares at a Computer Screen: THE MEN WHO STARE AT GOATS Review, Plus: Smallville, Family Guy, and MORE!
Well, I'm back from a three-day weekend with a lot to talk about. It's funny, apparently NBCU was the only company on the planet to actually have Monday off. Not that I'm complaining, mind you ... it just made me feel slightly awkward to have no work when everyone else seemed to. The upside of that was that I was able to do a bunch of errands in the afternoon without the hassle of big crowds. I even went to the Glendale Galleria and found a parking space within like 5 seconds of arrival -- amazing.
Now, there's something about a three-day weekend - the lack of time pressure, the feeling of it being a special occasion, whatever - that makes it perfect for a double feature at the movies. I already wrote of said double feature over the weekend, so check out my review of THE BOX if you haven't already. But stay tuned in this very column for a review of another interesting weekend movie - THE MEN WHO STARE AT GOATS.
First though, some TV STUFF:
- I've been excited to talk about Friday's episode of SMALLVILLE. As I was watching it off the DVR on Saturday, I kept doing double-takes -- was this episode of Smallville actually sort of ... awesome?! The fact is, this was a freaking epic episode of TV. It had almost none of the usual Smallville relationship melodrama, instead focusing on an intense, action-packed storyline involving the younger version of Zod ,who's been lurking in the background throughout the season. For a while now, I've expressed annoyance with this new Zod and how he and his Kryptonian army have just been wandering around with no explanation, seemingly contradicting the character's previous appearances on the show. Well, I was very pleasantly surprised to find out that the story of this younger Zod and how he happened to end up on earth was actually very well done. In fact, it was downright kickass in parts. I mean, the episode opened with a scene straight out of a big-budget Superman movie - a bloody battle on Krypton that turned very ugly, prompting friends Zod and Jor-El to work together to create a contingency plan should such wholesale destruction ever happen again. Joe-El creates a sphere containing the DNA of many of Krypton's elite soldiers as well as his own, and sends it to earth as a sort of worst-case-scenario contingency plan. Years later, the sphere is triggered on earth (where Clark Kent is already a twenty-something), and Zod and Jor-El, once friends, are now at odds, as Zod looks to assemble a superpowered, conquering army. Pretty cool stuff - it felt a lot like some of the themes currently being explored in the Superman comics' "New Krypton" storyline, and it was way more serious and intense than your average ep of Smallville. A lot of the credit has to go to the top-notch actors who brought Zod and Jor-El to life. Not since John Glover was a regular as Lionel Luthor has the show seen such dramatic heavywights - Callium Blue as Zod finally got a meaty script to chew on in this ep, and Julian Sands, as Jor-El, brought a badass Bri'ish accent and some real *gravitas* to the episode. And it was nice to see an episode where Tom Welling got to do more than brood or pine for Lois. This one had real stakes, real emotion. And there were a lot of cool little touches to boot, that really helped to give the episode a "big" feel. I loved, for example, a scene where Jor-El is brought before the Kryptonian high council, in a scene that looked straight out of the old-school Superman movies, complete with floating disembodied heads ominously giving Jor-El their orders. Meanwhile, the ending of the episode actually packed a punch - rare for Smallville. The episode still suffered from some of the same clunkiness of other recent eps, and there also still seemed to be some sizable holes in the whole Zod storyline. But man, this was, at the end of the day, a pretty damn good episode of Smallville.
My Grade: A-
- Sunday saw not one but two episode of FAMILY GUY, in what FOX was marketing as basically an all Seth McFarlane, all-the-time night of television. I didn't even bother to watch the Seth McFarlane-hosted variety special thing, but I heard it was pretty awful so, no, I don't feel too bad about missing it. As for the Family Guy, well, it was definitely the tale of two episodes. The first was actually pretty decent - it involved Brian the dog striking up a relationship with an older (human) woman. At first, he defends the relationship even as the rest of the family makes fun of him, but ultimately, he realizes that it wasn't meant to be. It reminded me a bit of the recent Michael Scott-dates-Pam's mom plotline on The Office, and the episode had a bit more of a sustained story than most FG eps of late. There were a couple of pretty funny old-people-are-weird jokes, and overall, it was an alright ep of FG. The second episode though, featuring an android Miley Cyrus and a spotlight on the evil monkey that haunts Chris' bedroom, was pretty awful. The humor fell flat, and the whole ep just felt like it was really reaching for material. I mean, did we really need an episode centered around the long-running Evil Monkey gag? No, we did not.
My Grades:
Ep #1: B
Ep #2: D
- Meanwhile, even if it's not spectacular or anything, I have to say I've been solidly enjoying THE CLEVELAND SHOW. Despite the usual Seth McFarlane touches - talking animals, random cutaways, etc. - the show feels way more grounded than Family Guy, where entire characters have been reduced to one-note jokes (Meg, anyone?). But The Cleveland Show has actually developed some fun characters (I love Cleveland Jr.), and also settled on a nice balance of traditional sitcom storytelling with Family Guy-style craziness. To that end, I got a kick out of Sunday's ep, in which Cleveland Jr. takes a virginity pledge, much to his father's dismay. Like I said, Cleveland Jr. is prob the best character on the show, so I've been enjoying the focus on him in the last couple of episodes. This isn't yet on the level of old-school Family Guy, but it's becoming a solid Sunday night performer.
My Grade: B+
- So last night was GOSSIP GIRL's big "three-way" episode, as has been hyped by the CW for weeks. It's funny, because the three-way-dance (if you weeel), was far and away the most interesting part of the episode, particularly in terms of how it will affect future storylines. Vanessa has always been a character who is supposed to be "good", at least in the morally relativistic world of Gossip Girl, and yet, she's done a lot of pretty semi-evil crap over the years. That has ultimately made her one of the most annoying characters on the show, because she seems to always get a pass - and still acts the show's voice of concious - no matter how low she sinks. So I guess it's kind of intriguing that Vanessa's participation in the "Dan Humphrey Dream Scenario" might have some serious fallout in the episodes to come. A war between Vanessa and Hillary Duff could be pretty juicy stuff. But otherwise, this episode was sort of bland. They need storylines for Blair and Nate that don't involve high school (seeing as how they're in college). And the larger problem is that Blair and Chuck are becoming too quasi-sympathetic and rational. Please make them *evil* again. And the Jenny vs. Eric drama seems pretty contrived - I mean, what does he really have to gain by "taking her down for good"? But yeah, the Dan-centric love triangle stuff could get interesting. Jeez, how did that guy go from underdog loser to movie-star-dating, grade-A college pimp?
My Grade: B
And now, the aforementioned movie review ...
THE MEN WHO STARE AT GOATS Review:
- The Men Who Stare at Goats is a pretty good movie, but it feels like a movie that could and probably should have been great. All of the ingredients are there - an all-star cast, and a fascinating, true-life premise. But some fundamental problems keep this from being all that it could be, so to speak. The structure of the movie is odd, the humor is hit-or-miss, and the narrative, rather than providing real insight into the characters or plot, is ultimately just kind of there. Still, this is a fun and entertaining movie, and the cast is so talented that they can basically carry the movie on charisma alone. It's worth checking out, but it's definitely not in the Coen Bros. class of seriously funny screwball satire which it clearly aspires to be in.
The movie tells the somewhat-true story of a fringe division of the US military that was active in the late stages of the Cold War, circa the early 80's. This group of hippies, new-agers, and peaceniks seemed like an odd fit for the armed forces, but at the time, the government was looking for new-wave alternatives to traditional combat, given the non-traditional nature of the Cold War. When word gets out that the Russians were experimenting with psychic soldiers and other such out-there craziness, the US wanted to stay competitive. And that's where The Men Who Stare At Goats come in. The movie checks in with these former psychic warriors during the early days of the Iraq War - during which a frustrated reporter, Bob Wilton (Ewan McGregor) stumbles into one of them, and smells the story of a lifetime. Wilton meets Lynn Cassady (a 'stache-sporting George Clooney, in his default "cocky goofball" mode), and tags along with him as the former psychic agent sets out on a secret mission to reunite with his former brothers-in-arms. The movie then alternates between the 00's, with McGregor and Clooney getting into trouble in Iraq, and the 80's, where we see, in flashback, the early days of Clooney and co.'s new-age army corps.
Personally, I wasn't crazy about the constant flashes back and forth. It seemed that all the best material was in the flashbacks, and I didn't really get why the movie wasn't just a straight narrative that took us from the group's post-Vietnam beginnings to the present day. Part of the problem is that McGregor's character is basically a black hole of personality. I don't think this is Ewan's fault, per se, but the fact is that Bob Wilton is a pretty poorly-drawn character who you never really get behind. There are also a lot of references made by McGregor to the Jedi and using the power of the Jedi, etc. - I'm not sure if this is meant to be an ironic joke or not, but it just comes off as kind of awkward watching Obi-Wan sound all gee-whiz about Jedi stuff. Meanwhile, the best character in the movie might just be Jeff Bridges as Bill Django, the pony-tailed hippie who was the main man behind the whole psychic soldier initiative. Jeff Bridges just rocks, plain and simple. And the fact is, in a movie full of big-name actors sort of reprising the past roles that made them famous, none is as iconic or just plain awesome as seeing Bridges in full-on Lebowski mode. The initial coolness of seeing Bridges looking like The Dude is one thing, but the fact is that while some of the other guys seem to be phoning it in, Bridges is, as usual, on top of his game, giving Django a real iconic, larger-than-life feel. Basically, nearly every scene in the movie with Bridges is a winner.
Like I said, this movie does play like a greatest-hits record of sort, as far as the actors go. There's Clooney doing a riff on the same kind of character we've seen from him in movies like "Oh Brother Where Art Thou?" and "Leatherheads." There's Ewan McGregor once again playing the affable everyman. There's Bridges doing a version of Lebowski, and Kevin Spacey playing the smarmy asshole ("Glengary Glenross," "LA Confidential."). Bridges makes it work, and the others are fine, but there's still that weird feeling that, rather than seeing these great actors really work, you're just seeing them reprise old favorites.
Even so, the sheer number of great actors in the movie is staggering. McGregor. Clooney. Bridges. Spacey. In addition, there's Stephen Lang as a gruff general, ROBERT PATRICK and the guy who plays AARON PIERCE on 24 as other army officials, and even the great Stephen Root as another former colleague of Clooney's. These are really solid guys. I mean, if you need some badass guys to play army officials, you don't get much better than John Doggett and Aarron freakin' Pierce, you know?
And the movie does have very funny moments. Clooney and Bridges do a nice job of selling a lot of the humor, and there is a nice, bouncy feel to the movie.
But the move reminds me a bit of something like Leatherheads - in that there is that inevitable feeling that you're watching Coen Bros.-lite. Not only are the Coens' comedies always hilarious, but they have a knack for giving even their goofiest comedies a sense of importance and profundity. The Men Who Stares at Goats is a movie that seems to want to be a political satire of sorts, and I watched the movie trying to figure out what the ultimate takeaway was about this clearly absurd bit of American military history. But the movie is almost too light and fluffy for it's own good. Few things in the movie really stick, and it never really succeeds at Dr. Strangelove-esque satire. Considering the talent involved, that is something of a disappointment. Basically, the movie as it stands is an interesting collection of scenes, but it never really comes together to make a lasting impact, never really gives you insight into its characters or the strange circustances they find themselves in. It's a fun movie - again, I'd say it's worth seeing - but not the must-see it could have been.
My Grade: B
Now, there's something about a three-day weekend - the lack of time pressure, the feeling of it being a special occasion, whatever - that makes it perfect for a double feature at the movies. I already wrote of said double feature over the weekend, so check out my review of THE BOX if you haven't already. But stay tuned in this very column for a review of another interesting weekend movie - THE MEN WHO STARE AT GOATS.
First though, some TV STUFF:
- I've been excited to talk about Friday's episode of SMALLVILLE. As I was watching it off the DVR on Saturday, I kept doing double-takes -- was this episode of Smallville actually sort of ... awesome?! The fact is, this was a freaking epic episode of TV. It had almost none of the usual Smallville relationship melodrama, instead focusing on an intense, action-packed storyline involving the younger version of Zod ,who's been lurking in the background throughout the season. For a while now, I've expressed annoyance with this new Zod and how he and his Kryptonian army have just been wandering around with no explanation, seemingly contradicting the character's previous appearances on the show. Well, I was very pleasantly surprised to find out that the story of this younger Zod and how he happened to end up on earth was actually very well done. In fact, it was downright kickass in parts. I mean, the episode opened with a scene straight out of a big-budget Superman movie - a bloody battle on Krypton that turned very ugly, prompting friends Zod and Jor-El to work together to create a contingency plan should such wholesale destruction ever happen again. Joe-El creates a sphere containing the DNA of many of Krypton's elite soldiers as well as his own, and sends it to earth as a sort of worst-case-scenario contingency plan. Years later, the sphere is triggered on earth (where Clark Kent is already a twenty-something), and Zod and Jor-El, once friends, are now at odds, as Zod looks to assemble a superpowered, conquering army. Pretty cool stuff - it felt a lot like some of the themes currently being explored in the Superman comics' "New Krypton" storyline, and it was way more serious and intense than your average ep of Smallville. A lot of the credit has to go to the top-notch actors who brought Zod and Jor-El to life. Not since John Glover was a regular as Lionel Luthor has the show seen such dramatic heavywights - Callium Blue as Zod finally got a meaty script to chew on in this ep, and Julian Sands, as Jor-El, brought a badass Bri'ish accent and some real *gravitas* to the episode. And it was nice to see an episode where Tom Welling got to do more than brood or pine for Lois. This one had real stakes, real emotion. And there were a lot of cool little touches to boot, that really helped to give the episode a "big" feel. I loved, for example, a scene where Jor-El is brought before the Kryptonian high council, in a scene that looked straight out of the old-school Superman movies, complete with floating disembodied heads ominously giving Jor-El their orders. Meanwhile, the ending of the episode actually packed a punch - rare for Smallville. The episode still suffered from some of the same clunkiness of other recent eps, and there also still seemed to be some sizable holes in the whole Zod storyline. But man, this was, at the end of the day, a pretty damn good episode of Smallville.
My Grade: A-
- Sunday saw not one but two episode of FAMILY GUY, in what FOX was marketing as basically an all Seth McFarlane, all-the-time night of television. I didn't even bother to watch the Seth McFarlane-hosted variety special thing, but I heard it was pretty awful so, no, I don't feel too bad about missing it. As for the Family Guy, well, it was definitely the tale of two episodes. The first was actually pretty decent - it involved Brian the dog striking up a relationship with an older (human) woman. At first, he defends the relationship even as the rest of the family makes fun of him, but ultimately, he realizes that it wasn't meant to be. It reminded me a bit of the recent Michael Scott-dates-Pam's mom plotline on The Office, and the episode had a bit more of a sustained story than most FG eps of late. There were a couple of pretty funny old-people-are-weird jokes, and overall, it was an alright ep of FG. The second episode though, featuring an android Miley Cyrus and a spotlight on the evil monkey that haunts Chris' bedroom, was pretty awful. The humor fell flat, and the whole ep just felt like it was really reaching for material. I mean, did we really need an episode centered around the long-running Evil Monkey gag? No, we did not.
My Grades:
Ep #1: B
Ep #2: D
- Meanwhile, even if it's not spectacular or anything, I have to say I've been solidly enjoying THE CLEVELAND SHOW. Despite the usual Seth McFarlane touches - talking animals, random cutaways, etc. - the show feels way more grounded than Family Guy, where entire characters have been reduced to one-note jokes (Meg, anyone?). But The Cleveland Show has actually developed some fun characters (I love Cleveland Jr.), and also settled on a nice balance of traditional sitcom storytelling with Family Guy-style craziness. To that end, I got a kick out of Sunday's ep, in which Cleveland Jr. takes a virginity pledge, much to his father's dismay. Like I said, Cleveland Jr. is prob the best character on the show, so I've been enjoying the focus on him in the last couple of episodes. This isn't yet on the level of old-school Family Guy, but it's becoming a solid Sunday night performer.
My Grade: B+
- So last night was GOSSIP GIRL's big "three-way" episode, as has been hyped by the CW for weeks. It's funny, because the three-way-dance (if you weeel), was far and away the most interesting part of the episode, particularly in terms of how it will affect future storylines. Vanessa has always been a character who is supposed to be "good", at least in the morally relativistic world of Gossip Girl, and yet, she's done a lot of pretty semi-evil crap over the years. That has ultimately made her one of the most annoying characters on the show, because she seems to always get a pass - and still acts the show's voice of concious - no matter how low she sinks. So I guess it's kind of intriguing that Vanessa's participation in the "Dan Humphrey Dream Scenario" might have some serious fallout in the episodes to come. A war between Vanessa and Hillary Duff could be pretty juicy stuff. But otherwise, this episode was sort of bland. They need storylines for Blair and Nate that don't involve high school (seeing as how they're in college). And the larger problem is that Blair and Chuck are becoming too quasi-sympathetic and rational. Please make them *evil* again. And the Jenny vs. Eric drama seems pretty contrived - I mean, what does he really have to gain by "taking her down for good"? But yeah, the Dan-centric love triangle stuff could get interesting. Jeez, how did that guy go from underdog loser to movie-star-dating, grade-A college pimp?
My Grade: B
And now, the aforementioned movie review ...
THE MEN WHO STARE AT GOATS Review:
- The Men Who Stare at Goats is a pretty good movie, but it feels like a movie that could and probably should have been great. All of the ingredients are there - an all-star cast, and a fascinating, true-life premise. But some fundamental problems keep this from being all that it could be, so to speak. The structure of the movie is odd, the humor is hit-or-miss, and the narrative, rather than providing real insight into the characters or plot, is ultimately just kind of there. Still, this is a fun and entertaining movie, and the cast is so talented that they can basically carry the movie on charisma alone. It's worth checking out, but it's definitely not in the Coen Bros. class of seriously funny screwball satire which it clearly aspires to be in.
The movie tells the somewhat-true story of a fringe division of the US military that was active in the late stages of the Cold War, circa the early 80's. This group of hippies, new-agers, and peaceniks seemed like an odd fit for the armed forces, but at the time, the government was looking for new-wave alternatives to traditional combat, given the non-traditional nature of the Cold War. When word gets out that the Russians were experimenting with psychic soldiers and other such out-there craziness, the US wanted to stay competitive. And that's where The Men Who Stare At Goats come in. The movie checks in with these former psychic warriors during the early days of the Iraq War - during which a frustrated reporter, Bob Wilton (Ewan McGregor) stumbles into one of them, and smells the story of a lifetime. Wilton meets Lynn Cassady (a 'stache-sporting George Clooney, in his default "cocky goofball" mode), and tags along with him as the former psychic agent sets out on a secret mission to reunite with his former brothers-in-arms. The movie then alternates between the 00's, with McGregor and Clooney getting into trouble in Iraq, and the 80's, where we see, in flashback, the early days of Clooney and co.'s new-age army corps.
Personally, I wasn't crazy about the constant flashes back and forth. It seemed that all the best material was in the flashbacks, and I didn't really get why the movie wasn't just a straight narrative that took us from the group's post-Vietnam beginnings to the present day. Part of the problem is that McGregor's character is basically a black hole of personality. I don't think this is Ewan's fault, per se, but the fact is that Bob Wilton is a pretty poorly-drawn character who you never really get behind. There are also a lot of references made by McGregor to the Jedi and using the power of the Jedi, etc. - I'm not sure if this is meant to be an ironic joke or not, but it just comes off as kind of awkward watching Obi-Wan sound all gee-whiz about Jedi stuff. Meanwhile, the best character in the movie might just be Jeff Bridges as Bill Django, the pony-tailed hippie who was the main man behind the whole psychic soldier initiative. Jeff Bridges just rocks, plain and simple. And the fact is, in a movie full of big-name actors sort of reprising the past roles that made them famous, none is as iconic or just plain awesome as seeing Bridges in full-on Lebowski mode. The initial coolness of seeing Bridges looking like The Dude is one thing, but the fact is that while some of the other guys seem to be phoning it in, Bridges is, as usual, on top of his game, giving Django a real iconic, larger-than-life feel. Basically, nearly every scene in the movie with Bridges is a winner.
Like I said, this movie does play like a greatest-hits record of sort, as far as the actors go. There's Clooney doing a riff on the same kind of character we've seen from him in movies like "Oh Brother Where Art Thou?" and "Leatherheads." There's Ewan McGregor once again playing the affable everyman. There's Bridges doing a version of Lebowski, and Kevin Spacey playing the smarmy asshole ("Glengary Glenross," "LA Confidential."). Bridges makes it work, and the others are fine, but there's still that weird feeling that, rather than seeing these great actors really work, you're just seeing them reprise old favorites.
Even so, the sheer number of great actors in the movie is staggering. McGregor. Clooney. Bridges. Spacey. In addition, there's Stephen Lang as a gruff general, ROBERT PATRICK and the guy who plays AARON PIERCE on 24 as other army officials, and even the great Stephen Root as another former colleague of Clooney's. These are really solid guys. I mean, if you need some badass guys to play army officials, you don't get much better than John Doggett and Aarron freakin' Pierce, you know?
And the movie does have very funny moments. Clooney and Bridges do a nice job of selling a lot of the humor, and there is a nice, bouncy feel to the movie.
But the move reminds me a bit of something like Leatherheads - in that there is that inevitable feeling that you're watching Coen Bros.-lite. Not only are the Coens' comedies always hilarious, but they have a knack for giving even their goofiest comedies a sense of importance and profundity. The Men Who Stares at Goats is a movie that seems to want to be a political satire of sorts, and I watched the movie trying to figure out what the ultimate takeaway was about this clearly absurd bit of American military history. But the movie is almost too light and fluffy for it's own good. Few things in the movie really stick, and it never really succeeds at Dr. Strangelove-esque satire. Considering the talent involved, that is something of a disappointment. Basically, the movie as it stands is an interesting collection of scenes, but it never really comes together to make a lasting impact, never really gives you insight into its characters or the strange circustances they find themselves in. It's a fun movie - again, I'd say it's worth seeing - but not the must-see it could have been.
My Grade: B
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Danny Opens Up THE BOX ...!
THE BOX Review:
- Donnie Darko, despite the constant arguments about whether it's overrated, underrated, etc., was a formative movie for me during my college years. It's one of the movie that really made me love movies the way I do now, and it's a movie that, at the time, pretty much blew my mind. After seeing DD, I knew that the guy behind it, Richard Kelly, was someone whose work I'd follow intently from that point forward. And it's been both fascinating and somewhat frustrating to watch the films that Kelly has done since. While he was responsible for a couple of things immediately following Donnie Darko (the script for the underrated Domino, for one), it was the epic, years-in-the-making sci-fi satire, Southland Tales, that was to be Kelly's true second act. I was chomping at the bit to see Southland Tales, and I made it a point to see it in the theater upon its release. It turned out to be one of the strangest, most insane movies I've ever seen. There were things about it that were incredibly fascinating, and some things that in their own, weird way were actually really cool. But at the end of the day, Southland Tales was a trainwreck of epic proportions. It was like a movie version of a middle-school boy's fever-dream notebook doodles, laced with LSD. It seemed to be, unfortunately, a sign that Richard Kelly was a guy who had a certain spark of creative genius, but also a guy who was simply unable to focus that creativity into anything resembling a coherant vision. Southland Tales was, in some ways, so disasterous of a movie that it's sort of amazing to see Kelly back and doing a big studio movie - a high profile adaptation in the form of THE BOX. And yet here he is, and I was ultra-curious to see how it turned out. Like I said, to me Richard Kelly is someone whose movies are always worth checking out.
The weird thing is that The Box is like a case study in Richard Kelly's creative process. Because it starts out as a fairly straightforward, Twilight Zone-esque morality play. And then it keeps going past the point that a TZ episode would have ended, and it starts getting into bonafide sci-fi acid-trip territory - aka, Donnie Darko-style stuff. And then it keeps going past that, and soon enough we're going to some very weird, very dark places that we probably never should have gone to. At some point, Kelly loses his focus, and stops he altogether trying to contain his impulse towards having his stories take a turn for the bat$%&# insane.
The Box is, of course, based on a short story written by sci-fi icon Richard Matheson. Matheson wrote many memorable episodes of The Twilight Zone, as well as many famous short stories, etc. The Box is based on one of his stories that was later adapted for the 1980's revival of The Twilight Zone. The movie sticks to the same basic premise as the short story - a mysterious stranger knocks on the door of a young couple (here, it is circa 1976), and presents them with a simple box that is topped by a shiny red button. The stranger presents the couple with an offer - press the button, and he will give them a large sum of money (in this case, $1 million). The catch is that if they press the button, someone, somewhere, whom they don't know, will die. It's an intriguing concept, and perfect fodder for a half-hour Twilight Zone episode. And the opening of The Box plays out similarly to how a modern-day TV adaptation might have. That means that it's a little slow and drawn-out, but also intriguing. And Kelly sets a great, creepy tone for the movie, with a similar slow-burn, detached kind of storytelling to that of Donnie Darko.
It also helps that the main cast is very good. James Marsden and Cameron Diaz both do an excellent job, and both conform well to the specific tone that Kelly is going for. Marsden in particular does some of the best work here that I've ever seen from him. I definitely think he seems at home playing the kind of slightly quirky and offbeat type of character that he does in this movie. In the box, he is a protective husband and father of a young son, but he's also a NASA scientist and a bit of an obsessive type. And as the movie progresses and the madness piles up, Marsden does a great job of playing unhinged and desperate. Diaz is also pretty good, much more grounded and less glammed up than what we're used to from her. She also does a nice job of playing to the creepy, understated tone of the film. Meanwhile, Frank Langella is pretty much always great, and he is suitably creepy and commanding as the stranger who delivers the box. Personally, I thought that the CGI effect that made it look like half of his face had been burned off was a bit too much - it seemed a bit too cartoony to me. But, Langella somewhat carries the movie in that every scene he's in, no matter how out-there, is compelling thanks to his dramatic presence.
It's really interesting, however, to see how the movie progresses once it gets past the half-hour point. You can almost see Richard Kelly's internal battle with his own creative impulses playing out on screen. At some points, it almost feels like the movie is playing out less like a Donnie Dark-style arty mind-bender, and more like a conventional Hollywood sci-fi flick. What I mean is, there is A LOT of weirdness in this movie, and many a WTF moment. But there are also times where Kelly seems tempted to just spell everything out for us, and have the characters more plainly spell out just what's going on. The end result is a weird hybrid of the two styles, and that makes for a feeling of incompleteness. We get a million hints at the big picture, a lot of teases ... so that we're left waiting for that one, final, Twilight Zone-esque money shot - that one big twist or reveal to end the movie on an true exclamation point. But Kelly never siezes the opportunity to end the movie with a bang, Rod Serling-style. Instead, the movie just keeps going, becoming increasingly esoteric, grotesque, and self-indulgent as it goes. When you think of The Twilight Zone, you think of simple stories with a great premise that pack a punch. The Box, on the contrary, just keeps getting more complicated and more indecipherable as it goes.
But I also want to emphasize that, for much of its running time, I was actually pretty engrossed in the movie. The cast, as I mentioned, does a stellar job. Aside from the main players, there's familiar character actors like James Rebhorn and Donnie Darko's Holmes Osbourne, who specializes in measured creepiness. And creepiness is something the movie has in abundance. That same sort of atmosphere-heavy, dreamlike vibe of Donnie Darko is present in this movie as well. It makes me wonder if it might ultimately play better as a midnight movie in a college dorm than in a big multiplex theater. But Darko was Richard Kelly at his best - it was a singular vision, and it was a movie where the details of the trippy time-travel plot ultimately mattered less than the absorbing characters and world that they lived in. The Box is much more dependent on its plot, and therefore suffers more when the tone abruptly shifts or when various threads fail to add up to a cohesive whole.
That said, I'm glad I saw The Box, and would urge curious fans to check it out. It's a weird, flawed movie, but it's another instance where you've got to admire it for being so out-there and different. I was expecting a much more conventional movie, so at the end of the day, I guess I'm kind of relieved to report that The Box is just as crazy, in its own way, as anything that Richard Kelly has done before. I don't know if he'll ever make another movie that works as well as Donnie Darko, but man, it's going to be interesting to watch him try.
My Grade: B
- Donnie Darko, despite the constant arguments about whether it's overrated, underrated, etc., was a formative movie for me during my college years. It's one of the movie that really made me love movies the way I do now, and it's a movie that, at the time, pretty much blew my mind. After seeing DD, I knew that the guy behind it, Richard Kelly, was someone whose work I'd follow intently from that point forward. And it's been both fascinating and somewhat frustrating to watch the films that Kelly has done since. While he was responsible for a couple of things immediately following Donnie Darko (the script for the underrated Domino, for one), it was the epic, years-in-the-making sci-fi satire, Southland Tales, that was to be Kelly's true second act. I was chomping at the bit to see Southland Tales, and I made it a point to see it in the theater upon its release. It turned out to be one of the strangest, most insane movies I've ever seen. There were things about it that were incredibly fascinating, and some things that in their own, weird way were actually really cool. But at the end of the day, Southland Tales was a trainwreck of epic proportions. It was like a movie version of a middle-school boy's fever-dream notebook doodles, laced with LSD. It seemed to be, unfortunately, a sign that Richard Kelly was a guy who had a certain spark of creative genius, but also a guy who was simply unable to focus that creativity into anything resembling a coherant vision. Southland Tales was, in some ways, so disasterous of a movie that it's sort of amazing to see Kelly back and doing a big studio movie - a high profile adaptation in the form of THE BOX. And yet here he is, and I was ultra-curious to see how it turned out. Like I said, to me Richard Kelly is someone whose movies are always worth checking out.
The weird thing is that The Box is like a case study in Richard Kelly's creative process. Because it starts out as a fairly straightforward, Twilight Zone-esque morality play. And then it keeps going past the point that a TZ episode would have ended, and it starts getting into bonafide sci-fi acid-trip territory - aka, Donnie Darko-style stuff. And then it keeps going past that, and soon enough we're going to some very weird, very dark places that we probably never should have gone to. At some point, Kelly loses his focus, and stops he altogether trying to contain his impulse towards having his stories take a turn for the bat$%&# insane.
The Box is, of course, based on a short story written by sci-fi icon Richard Matheson. Matheson wrote many memorable episodes of The Twilight Zone, as well as many famous short stories, etc. The Box is based on one of his stories that was later adapted for the 1980's revival of The Twilight Zone. The movie sticks to the same basic premise as the short story - a mysterious stranger knocks on the door of a young couple (here, it is circa 1976), and presents them with a simple box that is topped by a shiny red button. The stranger presents the couple with an offer - press the button, and he will give them a large sum of money (in this case, $1 million). The catch is that if they press the button, someone, somewhere, whom they don't know, will die. It's an intriguing concept, and perfect fodder for a half-hour Twilight Zone episode. And the opening of The Box plays out similarly to how a modern-day TV adaptation might have. That means that it's a little slow and drawn-out, but also intriguing. And Kelly sets a great, creepy tone for the movie, with a similar slow-burn, detached kind of storytelling to that of Donnie Darko.
It also helps that the main cast is very good. James Marsden and Cameron Diaz both do an excellent job, and both conform well to the specific tone that Kelly is going for. Marsden in particular does some of the best work here that I've ever seen from him. I definitely think he seems at home playing the kind of slightly quirky and offbeat type of character that he does in this movie. In the box, he is a protective husband and father of a young son, but he's also a NASA scientist and a bit of an obsessive type. And as the movie progresses and the madness piles up, Marsden does a great job of playing unhinged and desperate. Diaz is also pretty good, much more grounded and less glammed up than what we're used to from her. She also does a nice job of playing to the creepy, understated tone of the film. Meanwhile, Frank Langella is pretty much always great, and he is suitably creepy and commanding as the stranger who delivers the box. Personally, I thought that the CGI effect that made it look like half of his face had been burned off was a bit too much - it seemed a bit too cartoony to me. But, Langella somewhat carries the movie in that every scene he's in, no matter how out-there, is compelling thanks to his dramatic presence.
It's really interesting, however, to see how the movie progresses once it gets past the half-hour point. You can almost see Richard Kelly's internal battle with his own creative impulses playing out on screen. At some points, it almost feels like the movie is playing out less like a Donnie Dark-style arty mind-bender, and more like a conventional Hollywood sci-fi flick. What I mean is, there is A LOT of weirdness in this movie, and many a WTF moment. But there are also times where Kelly seems tempted to just spell everything out for us, and have the characters more plainly spell out just what's going on. The end result is a weird hybrid of the two styles, and that makes for a feeling of incompleteness. We get a million hints at the big picture, a lot of teases ... so that we're left waiting for that one, final, Twilight Zone-esque money shot - that one big twist or reveal to end the movie on an true exclamation point. But Kelly never siezes the opportunity to end the movie with a bang, Rod Serling-style. Instead, the movie just keeps going, becoming increasingly esoteric, grotesque, and self-indulgent as it goes. When you think of The Twilight Zone, you think of simple stories with a great premise that pack a punch. The Box, on the contrary, just keeps getting more complicated and more indecipherable as it goes.
But I also want to emphasize that, for much of its running time, I was actually pretty engrossed in the movie. The cast, as I mentioned, does a stellar job. Aside from the main players, there's familiar character actors like James Rebhorn and Donnie Darko's Holmes Osbourne, who specializes in measured creepiness. And creepiness is something the movie has in abundance. That same sort of atmosphere-heavy, dreamlike vibe of Donnie Darko is present in this movie as well. It makes me wonder if it might ultimately play better as a midnight movie in a college dorm than in a big multiplex theater. But Darko was Richard Kelly at his best - it was a singular vision, and it was a movie where the details of the trippy time-travel plot ultimately mattered less than the absorbing characters and world that they lived in. The Box is much more dependent on its plot, and therefore suffers more when the tone abruptly shifts or when various threads fail to add up to a cohesive whole.
That said, I'm glad I saw The Box, and would urge curious fans to check it out. It's a weird, flawed movie, but it's another instance where you've got to admire it for being so out-there and different. I was expecting a much more conventional movie, so at the end of the day, I guess I'm kind of relieved to report that The Box is just as crazy, in its own way, as anything that Richard Kelly has done before. I don't know if he'll ever make another movie that works as well as Donnie Darko, but man, it's going to be interesting to watch him try.
My Grade: B
Friday, November 6, 2009
I Drink Your Milkshake! 30 ROCK, THE OFFICE, FRINGE, and a Tale of Only-In-LA Milkshake Madness!
Alright, lots to talk about today so let's get to it. First of all, I'm on the verge of a 3-day weekend! Whoooo! Seeing as how I didn't realize that this Monday was Veteran's Day until just recently, I am very pleasantly surprised that I have not one, not two, but three days with which to relax and enjoy myself coming up.
Anyways, lots of TV STUFF to talk about ...
- First off, I have to talk about last night's episode of 30 ROCK. It's weird, because I've seen a couple of lukewarm reviews up online. But I don't know what those reviewers were smoking - to me, this may just have been an all-time classic. For one thing, it was immediately obvious that the pacing of this episode was a return to the frantic, laugh-a-minute style of Season 2, where episodes had an almost Simpsons-like craziness and anything-can-happen style of humor. But man, last night's ep was just filled with classic quotes and random bits of hilarity. The overarching storyline of Liz's search for a new TGS cast member came to a head, with a planned audition session steamrolling out of control and turning into a full-blown circus. Everyone from Twofer to Dot Com wanted their own shot at sketch-comedy stardom. Meanwhile, Jack initially lectures Liz about bottling up her emotions and approaching the auditions with a colder and more robotic attitude. But when Jack gets a case of the bed-bugs, he becomes a pariah and learns a valuable (and very funny) lesson in the value of treating others with respect and empathy. Also, Jenna and Tracy, concerned that Liz's top pick for the cast could be a potential show-stealer and attention-grabber, decide to recruit as many people (and ethnic stereotypes) as possible to crowd the playing field. Man, Tracy Morgan was just on fire in this one - he had several all-time classic quotes ("EVIL TRACY?! Ohhh ... you meant evil COMMA Tracy!"). And I loved how all of the plot threads came together in a very Seinfeld-ian manner at the end of the episode. Jack's climactic discovery of an empathetic Robot Man and his subsequent decision to hire said Robot Man as TGS' newest cast member ... well, it was a stroke of comedic genius. The number of great throwaway gags in this one was amazing - from a pointed jab at the Winter Olympics to an awesome cameo from NBC News' Brian Williams, this was 30 Rock at its off-the-wall finest.
My Grade: A
- Last night's episode of THE OFFICE was really well-done, especially in terms of being a pretty dark and pretty fascinating character study of the way Michael's oddball mind works. It wasn't the funniest episode ever, although it did have its moments (everything Creed said, Ryan's supposedly arty yet actually pervy photopgraphy hobby ...). The sort-of-wacky B story though, involving Dwight and Andy's office battle of one-upsmanship, mostly fell flat. It worked great as a cold-open, with Dwight enacting a sinister plan to bring in bagels for everyone in the office, therefore creating a situation where all of his co-workers "owe him one." But pretty quickly, the back-and-forth antics between Dwight and Andy "don't test my politeness" Bernard got a bit tiring. But back to the Michael Scott stuff - it was another "Dinner Party"-like situation, where a double date between Michael and Pam's mom and Jim and Pam quickly veered into darkly uncomfortable awkwardness. But I enjoyed it all the same, because it was pretty amazing character stuff, and Michael's progression from proud MILF-meat to reluctant ageist was both funny and very much in-character. Same goes for Pam's evolution from bitter hatred of Michael to slow acceptance and then back to hatred again. Amazing that in the course of a few minutes of air time, we see Pam going from wanting to kill Michael for dating her mom, to being sort of okay with it if it makes her mom happy, to wanting to kill Michael again for breaking up with her mom right there at her birthday lunch. Similarly, it was fascinating watching the gears turn in Michaels' head, as he realized how dating an older, more life-experienced woman was exactly what he *didn't* want. It makes sense - Michael has always been a man-child, so his ideal match would be someone more like Holly, who shared, at least kinda, his somewhat arrested-development worldview. This was all good stuff. I think the episode just suffered a bit for lack of really funny, laugh out loud moments. But like the Dinner Party ep, I admired that this one boldly went very dark and raw.
My Grade: B+
- I thought that PARKS & RECREATION had another very solid episode. The guest turn from Megan Mullaly as Ron Swanson's manipulative ex-wife was pretty classic, and their lusty yet hate-filled relationship was endlessly amusing. And man, everything Ron said and did after reuniting with his wife, from his description of her sexual prowess to his wearing of a Tiger Woods outfit, was pretty hilarious. I liked the rivalry between the Parks & Rec department and libraries, and Leslie's initial meeting with Tammy was also really well-done. I even liked the opening with the very-funny retirement speech of the old shoe-shine guy. Overall, a really good episode of this year's most improved show.
My Grade: A-
- While I'm talking comedies, I'll mention Wednesday's episode of MODERN FAMILY. This one was another episode that was merely pretty good and not great, and you have to wonder if it was another one that was sort of thrown out there oppositte the World Series (ie, they are saving the best episodes for the next couple weeks). The thing with Modern Family though is that the characters have, very quickly, become so inherently amusing that it's hard for the show to ever completely misfire. And indeed, there were elements here of a very good episode - Manny's fencing skills that forced him to face off with a disadvantaged girl in the finals of a tournament, for example. And Luke's inability to be good at anything leading his dad to think that Real Estate might just be his true life's calling. All good stuff. But ... this one just wasn't quite as funny as some other eps -- it seemed to be coasting a bit and the writing wasn't quite as sharp as we've come to expect. But, I still love this show, and am eagerly anticipating the next batch of great episodes.
My Grade: B
- So, FRINGE returned last night after a hiatus due to the World Series. And man, it was nice to have it back. Even if the show has slipped a bit as of late, it's still the only drama on right now that is a total "must-see" for me. And the key to that is the great characters. I mean, look at last night's episode -- the plot was really only okay, it was yet another one-and-done monster-of-the-week that felt kind of like The X-Files lite. But even if I wasn't totally caught up in the plot, I still got a kick out of this episode because the characters are so darn entertaining. I mean, Lance Reddick as Broyles was just ridiculously kickass here. Dare I say it? I do. He singlehandedly brought a heaping helping of GRAVITAS to Fringe last night. Hid delivery is just so melodramatically awesome that you can't help but clench your fist, call your neighbor, and yell out "daaaaaaaamn" after he's delivered yet another crazy-awesome speech. Last night's ep confirmed it - Lance Reddick is on the shortlist of actors who you might want to narrate your life. And then there's John Noble, who as I've said many times, rules it as Walter Bishop. When he said: "Titanium Tetrachloride, you sly temptress ...!” in last night's ep, my brother and I had to rewind and rewatch about three times before the awesomeness was fully able to sink in. Still, it's not all sunshine and roses for our old pal Fringe. The fact is, the show's last few episodes have not been up to par, in that the storylines and the weekly cases just have not been as compelling as they should be. When the show isn't tying it's storylines back into The Pattern and all that, the cases just have a feeling of being inconsequential and also somewhat rushed. As I've said in previous weeks, Fringe of late often leaves me feeling like I got a quick snack but not a full meal. Like in last night's ep, we never *really* got into the head of the villain of the week. We didn't really delve into the alien shadow-creature's origins or motivations. A good X-Files ep would have done a better job of introducing us to our freak-of-the-week and really getting into the psychology and motivations of the villain. It's why the preview for next week's evil-psychic ep made me slightly cringe. The X-Files had a classic recurring villain of exactly that ilk in "The Pusher" - Robert Patrick Modell. One of Modell's battles with Mulder and Scully famously ended on a cliffhanger where a psychically-pushed Mulder has Scully at gunpoint. Seeing the preview for next week's Fringe, I have to wonder if it's wise for the show to keep doing these sorta-like-X-Files eps. But yeah, the plot of last night's installment felt a bit thin and a bit confusing. Fringe always seems to start with a bang (last night's awesomely-cool, man-turns-to-dust opening set the stage nicely), but then has trouble keeping its cases compelling for he duration of an episode. What saved it was the great character work from the likes of Reddick and Noble. As long as they're around, Fringe remains a must-watch.
My Grade: B
- To wrap things up, I thought I'd share an only-in-LA experience that happened to me today. Basically, a co-worker and I were driving back to our office after a meeting in Beverly Hills, when we both stopped to gawk at a brightly colored shop that seemed to beckon at us from the side of Santa Monica Blvd. The shop was called Millions of Milkshakes, and I think we both agreed that at that particular point in time, a milkshake was just what the doctor ordered (or *not* what the doctor ordered, and that, I guess, was the point). Anyways, we park, walk over to the place, and walk in, only to find that this is no ordinary milkshake shop. No, this is an only-in-Hollywood, celebrity-themed milkshake destination. As we walked in, we were greeted by about 20 photographers, who were eagerly snapping away at some guest-celebrity milkshake-maker. Turned out the celeb in question was some girl by the name of Adrienne Bailon, of Cheetah Girls fame (who I later Googled and realized was not as wholesome as she might appear - inevitably, she was in some nude photo scandal!). But anyways, the place was a mob scene, I've never seen anything like it. Just so, so weird. The weirdest thing was that Adrienne wasn't even really making milkshakes - just kind of posing for photos and sipping on a shake that she had made for herself. So the few poor souls among us who had wandered in just looking for some shakey goodness seemed to be out of luck. Finally, a flustered regular-Joe employee came up and began serving the couple of actual customers inside. He seemed semi-annoyed, in that clearly he hadn't fully thought through the effect that a celeb milkshake-maker accompanied by a horde of paprazzi and publicity people would have on actual business. Of course, at Millions of Milkshakes, it is a celeb-themed milkshake bar, so every shake on the menu is named after a different "celebrity" (mostly of the kind who are cheesy and tabloid friendly - i.e. Lindsay Lohan, John Gossellin, etc.). So anyways, in the midst of this crazy scene, I ordered up the "Miley" - a tasty concoction of Reeses and cookie dough, and after a long wait and a surreal scene, we were on our way. But man, this one trip to Millions of Milkshakes was A LOT to process. For one, the very existence of a milkshakes-only shop is in and of itself enough to change my entire food-services worldview. First it was the resurgance of fro-yo, then cupcakes - now, apparently, milkshakes are the new hot thing. As a longtime milkshake fan, this is interesting. But secondly, this was not *just* a milkshake place, this was a milkshake place where at any given moment some Disney channel star might be making you your milkshake, where you might have to navigate throngs of photographers and rabid fans just to get your milkshake. Craziness! They even had, on the wall, this video monitor with some Hollywood celeb-tracker thing that listed out all the various places you could spot your favorite celebs at any given moment! Whaaat?! But the craziest thing of all had nothing to do with Miley Cyrus-themed shakes, but instead with the simple STRAW innovations that this place had goin' on. Each shake came equipped with an ultra-thick straw with far more diameter than your typical straw. Amazing - a custom straw made especially for drinking milkshakes with! How has no one thought of this sooner?! You can imagine how all of these random elements of milkshake-related insanity ultimately converged to rick my world and leave me questioning everything I thought I knew about milkshakes, straws, and C-list Disney Channel celebrities. Only in LA, people. Only in LA.
- And with that, have an amazing three day weekend!
Anyways, lots of TV STUFF to talk about ...
- First off, I have to talk about last night's episode of 30 ROCK. It's weird, because I've seen a couple of lukewarm reviews up online. But I don't know what those reviewers were smoking - to me, this may just have been an all-time classic. For one thing, it was immediately obvious that the pacing of this episode was a return to the frantic, laugh-a-minute style of Season 2, where episodes had an almost Simpsons-like craziness and anything-can-happen style of humor. But man, last night's ep was just filled with classic quotes and random bits of hilarity. The overarching storyline of Liz's search for a new TGS cast member came to a head, with a planned audition session steamrolling out of control and turning into a full-blown circus. Everyone from Twofer to Dot Com wanted their own shot at sketch-comedy stardom. Meanwhile, Jack initially lectures Liz about bottling up her emotions and approaching the auditions with a colder and more robotic attitude. But when Jack gets a case of the bed-bugs, he becomes a pariah and learns a valuable (and very funny) lesson in the value of treating others with respect and empathy. Also, Jenna and Tracy, concerned that Liz's top pick for the cast could be a potential show-stealer and attention-grabber, decide to recruit as many people (and ethnic stereotypes) as possible to crowd the playing field. Man, Tracy Morgan was just on fire in this one - he had several all-time classic quotes ("EVIL TRACY?! Ohhh ... you meant evil COMMA Tracy!"). And I loved how all of the plot threads came together in a very Seinfeld-ian manner at the end of the episode. Jack's climactic discovery of an empathetic Robot Man and his subsequent decision to hire said Robot Man as TGS' newest cast member ... well, it was a stroke of comedic genius. The number of great throwaway gags in this one was amazing - from a pointed jab at the Winter Olympics to an awesome cameo from NBC News' Brian Williams, this was 30 Rock at its off-the-wall finest.
My Grade: A
- Last night's episode of THE OFFICE was really well-done, especially in terms of being a pretty dark and pretty fascinating character study of the way Michael's oddball mind works. It wasn't the funniest episode ever, although it did have its moments (everything Creed said, Ryan's supposedly arty yet actually pervy photopgraphy hobby ...). The sort-of-wacky B story though, involving Dwight and Andy's office battle of one-upsmanship, mostly fell flat. It worked great as a cold-open, with Dwight enacting a sinister plan to bring in bagels for everyone in the office, therefore creating a situation where all of his co-workers "owe him one." But pretty quickly, the back-and-forth antics between Dwight and Andy "don't test my politeness" Bernard got a bit tiring. But back to the Michael Scott stuff - it was another "Dinner Party"-like situation, where a double date between Michael and Pam's mom and Jim and Pam quickly veered into darkly uncomfortable awkwardness. But I enjoyed it all the same, because it was pretty amazing character stuff, and Michael's progression from proud MILF-meat to reluctant ageist was both funny and very much in-character. Same goes for Pam's evolution from bitter hatred of Michael to slow acceptance and then back to hatred again. Amazing that in the course of a few minutes of air time, we see Pam going from wanting to kill Michael for dating her mom, to being sort of okay with it if it makes her mom happy, to wanting to kill Michael again for breaking up with her mom right there at her birthday lunch. Similarly, it was fascinating watching the gears turn in Michaels' head, as he realized how dating an older, more life-experienced woman was exactly what he *didn't* want. It makes sense - Michael has always been a man-child, so his ideal match would be someone more like Holly, who shared, at least kinda, his somewhat arrested-development worldview. This was all good stuff. I think the episode just suffered a bit for lack of really funny, laugh out loud moments. But like the Dinner Party ep, I admired that this one boldly went very dark and raw.
My Grade: B+
- I thought that PARKS & RECREATION had another very solid episode. The guest turn from Megan Mullaly as Ron Swanson's manipulative ex-wife was pretty classic, and their lusty yet hate-filled relationship was endlessly amusing. And man, everything Ron said and did after reuniting with his wife, from his description of her sexual prowess to his wearing of a Tiger Woods outfit, was pretty hilarious. I liked the rivalry between the Parks & Rec department and libraries, and Leslie's initial meeting with Tammy was also really well-done. I even liked the opening with the very-funny retirement speech of the old shoe-shine guy. Overall, a really good episode of this year's most improved show.
My Grade: A-
- While I'm talking comedies, I'll mention Wednesday's episode of MODERN FAMILY. This one was another episode that was merely pretty good and not great, and you have to wonder if it was another one that was sort of thrown out there oppositte the World Series (ie, they are saving the best episodes for the next couple weeks). The thing with Modern Family though is that the characters have, very quickly, become so inherently amusing that it's hard for the show to ever completely misfire. And indeed, there were elements here of a very good episode - Manny's fencing skills that forced him to face off with a disadvantaged girl in the finals of a tournament, for example. And Luke's inability to be good at anything leading his dad to think that Real Estate might just be his true life's calling. All good stuff. But ... this one just wasn't quite as funny as some other eps -- it seemed to be coasting a bit and the writing wasn't quite as sharp as we've come to expect. But, I still love this show, and am eagerly anticipating the next batch of great episodes.
My Grade: B
- So, FRINGE returned last night after a hiatus due to the World Series. And man, it was nice to have it back. Even if the show has slipped a bit as of late, it's still the only drama on right now that is a total "must-see" for me. And the key to that is the great characters. I mean, look at last night's episode -- the plot was really only okay, it was yet another one-and-done monster-of-the-week that felt kind of like The X-Files lite. But even if I wasn't totally caught up in the plot, I still got a kick out of this episode because the characters are so darn entertaining. I mean, Lance Reddick as Broyles was just ridiculously kickass here. Dare I say it? I do. He singlehandedly brought a heaping helping of GRAVITAS to Fringe last night. Hid delivery is just so melodramatically awesome that you can't help but clench your fist, call your neighbor, and yell out "daaaaaaaamn" after he's delivered yet another crazy-awesome speech. Last night's ep confirmed it - Lance Reddick is on the shortlist of actors who you might want to narrate your life. And then there's John Noble, who as I've said many times, rules it as Walter Bishop. When he said: "Titanium Tetrachloride, you sly temptress ...!” in last night's ep, my brother and I had to rewind and rewatch about three times before the awesomeness was fully able to sink in. Still, it's not all sunshine and roses for our old pal Fringe. The fact is, the show's last few episodes have not been up to par, in that the storylines and the weekly cases just have not been as compelling as they should be. When the show isn't tying it's storylines back into The Pattern and all that, the cases just have a feeling of being inconsequential and also somewhat rushed. As I've said in previous weeks, Fringe of late often leaves me feeling like I got a quick snack but not a full meal. Like in last night's ep, we never *really* got into the head of the villain of the week. We didn't really delve into the alien shadow-creature's origins or motivations. A good X-Files ep would have done a better job of introducing us to our freak-of-the-week and really getting into the psychology and motivations of the villain. It's why the preview for next week's evil-psychic ep made me slightly cringe. The X-Files had a classic recurring villain of exactly that ilk in "The Pusher" - Robert Patrick Modell. One of Modell's battles with Mulder and Scully famously ended on a cliffhanger where a psychically-pushed Mulder has Scully at gunpoint. Seeing the preview for next week's Fringe, I have to wonder if it's wise for the show to keep doing these sorta-like-X-Files eps. But yeah, the plot of last night's installment felt a bit thin and a bit confusing. Fringe always seems to start with a bang (last night's awesomely-cool, man-turns-to-dust opening set the stage nicely), but then has trouble keeping its cases compelling for he duration of an episode. What saved it was the great character work from the likes of Reddick and Noble. As long as they're around, Fringe remains a must-watch.
My Grade: B
- To wrap things up, I thought I'd share an only-in-LA experience that happened to me today. Basically, a co-worker and I were driving back to our office after a meeting in Beverly Hills, when we both stopped to gawk at a brightly colored shop that seemed to beckon at us from the side of Santa Monica Blvd. The shop was called Millions of Milkshakes, and I think we both agreed that at that particular point in time, a milkshake was just what the doctor ordered (or *not* what the doctor ordered, and that, I guess, was the point). Anyways, we park, walk over to the place, and walk in, only to find that this is no ordinary milkshake shop. No, this is an only-in-Hollywood, celebrity-themed milkshake destination. As we walked in, we were greeted by about 20 photographers, who were eagerly snapping away at some guest-celebrity milkshake-maker. Turned out the celeb in question was some girl by the name of Adrienne Bailon, of Cheetah Girls fame (who I later Googled and realized was not as wholesome as she might appear - inevitably, she was in some nude photo scandal!). But anyways, the place was a mob scene, I've never seen anything like it. Just so, so weird. The weirdest thing was that Adrienne wasn't even really making milkshakes - just kind of posing for photos and sipping on a shake that she had made for herself. So the few poor souls among us who had wandered in just looking for some shakey goodness seemed to be out of luck. Finally, a flustered regular-Joe employee came up and began serving the couple of actual customers inside. He seemed semi-annoyed, in that clearly he hadn't fully thought through the effect that a celeb milkshake-maker accompanied by a horde of paprazzi and publicity people would have on actual business. Of course, at Millions of Milkshakes, it is a celeb-themed milkshake bar, so every shake on the menu is named after a different "celebrity" (mostly of the kind who are cheesy and tabloid friendly - i.e. Lindsay Lohan, John Gossellin, etc.). So anyways, in the midst of this crazy scene, I ordered up the "Miley" - a tasty concoction of Reeses and cookie dough, and after a long wait and a surreal scene, we were on our way. But man, this one trip to Millions of Milkshakes was A LOT to process. For one, the very existence of a milkshakes-only shop is in and of itself enough to change my entire food-services worldview. First it was the resurgance of fro-yo, then cupcakes - now, apparently, milkshakes are the new hot thing. As a longtime milkshake fan, this is interesting. But secondly, this was not *just* a milkshake place, this was a milkshake place where at any given moment some Disney channel star might be making you your milkshake, where you might have to navigate throngs of photographers and rabid fans just to get your milkshake. Craziness! They even had, on the wall, this video monitor with some Hollywood celeb-tracker thing that listed out all the various places you could spot your favorite celebs at any given moment! Whaaat?! But the craziest thing of all had nothing to do with Miley Cyrus-themed shakes, but instead with the simple STRAW innovations that this place had goin' on. Each shake came equipped with an ultra-thick straw with far more diameter than your typical straw. Amazing - a custom straw made especially for drinking milkshakes with! How has no one thought of this sooner?! You can imagine how all of these random elements of milkshake-related insanity ultimately converged to rick my world and leave me questioning everything I thought I knew about milkshakes, straws, and C-list Disney Channel celebrities. Only in LA, people. Only in LA.
- And with that, have an amazing three day weekend!
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
We Bring You Love: V - Reviewed! Plus: Smallville, Heroes, and MORE!
- After a weekend of Halloween fun, it's back to reality. And it's November. Wow, how time flies. And yet, it's currently about 80 degrees here in Burbank, so it may as well be August. Anyways, I had a lot of fun getting dressed up in my Tallahassee-esque zombie-hunter gear for the annual Halloween bash in Pasadena. A good time as always, although I think it's definitely time to retire the name "Page-O-Ween," at least when it comes to this particular party. Gone are the days when the crowd was largely comprised of NBC Pages old and new. Still, a ton of people getting together in crazy costumes to party Halloween-style? A good time is pretty much guaranteed, regardless of who shows up. The weirdest thing that happened to me on Halloween though? So I got home from the party, park my car outside my apartment ... and as soon as I begin walking to the back door, a POLICE CAR pulls up beside me! The policeman rolls down his window and begins questioning me - "did I live here?", "where was I going?", "was that my parking space?". Are you kidding me? This is one of those things that would ONLY happen to me. Granted, I was carrying a toy sword and toy rifle with me. But both were obviously fakes (the rifle was powder-blue!). And I was wearing a T-shirt that said "Zombie Emergency Response Team" and a goofy-looking tarp hat. There is no way this cop could actually take me seriously as a possible menace, right? Well, I suppose I am so naturally badass that he assumed I was lookin' for trouble. But still. It's funny though because the first thing I said was "don't worry, it's a toy gun." It actually would have been funny if he further questioned me. Lucky for him, I did not stay in character, or I might have channeled Woody Harrelson and told him to "nut up or shut up." Anyways, who knows why these things happen to me, but they do. Dammit all.
- Also, I haven't really mentioned that this past Friday marked the likely end of my twice-weekly physical therapy sessions for my ankle. I've been going for PT every Tuesday and Friday for the last couple of months, as I've talked about every so often here on the blog. Of course, many of you will remember the "incident" from several weeks back, in which I strained my leg at PT and could barely walk for a couple of days, including my birthday! Mostly though, the PT has actually been kind of nice. It got me thinking about my leg and my ankle and about how to walk and sit in ways that don't strain them as much. And it got me doing stretches and actively working to make my ankle feel better. Most of all, it was pretty relaxing. The staff at the PT place was ultra-friendly, and it was funny because for a while I was having this twice-a-week break from work where I could be active, relax, chat with some cool people, etc. And the thing is, I would come back to work feeling refreshed and loosened-up. It just goes to show - sitting complacently at a desk all day is NOT good. Whoever came up with the idea of recess for elementary school kids had the right idea - that mid-day break is really a pretty amazing thing. It's why I think the people who don't leave their desk all day will eventually just snap and go insane. But anyways, now that my physical therapy is complete (I think), I am feeling a lot better than when I started and my ankle feels a bit stronger. I'd still say it feels only about 85% "normal," but that last 15% is something that will be a much longer-term process. But yeah, it's been a good run with PT -- it's definitely helped me to re-focus a bit and think more about how I do things (walking, sitting, stretching, eating, etc.) on a daily basis. That said, I am ready to stop thinking about my ankle for a bit and eager to play some basketball, tennis, and just kick some ass in general. Yep, you heard me, prospective opponents - I'm callin' you out.
TV STUFF:
- Okay, so let's talk about V. I saw this pilot over the summer, and while it didn't blow me away, it was one of the few "big" shows amongst all the new medical dramas and teen soaps and family sitcoms, so it still managed to stand out. I mean, look, V has it's flaws, but I still really want to support it. And honestly, I'm happy that it did well in the ratings last night as well. I want to see TV continue to support big-budget, movie-like programs. And I want some new series to prove that the success of shows like 24 and Lost was not a fluke. V's pilot is not in the same league as Lost's, but it has a lot of upside, to borrow a term from the sports world. The pilot packed in A LOT of story, and my hope is that now that the initial setup is out of the way, the show can breathe a bit and really find some solid creative momentum. Of course, that might be somewhat harder to do with only four episodes before a long hiatus ... but still, I feel like there is a lot of potential here.
The other thing with V is that the show is pretty campy. And I don't think that that's necessarilly a bad thing. Flash Forward feels like a show that takes itself too seriously despite a pretty out-there premise. The tone for V feels more appropriate given its subject matter. It's more over-the-top, more melodramatic, more comic book-ish than Flash Forward. It's more Smallville than X-Files. My concern is whether the cast is up to the task of pulling this kind of thing off. To me, the current king of sci-fi awesomeness is clearly FRINGE. And V doesn't quite seem to have the characters to match up to the likes of Olivia Dunham or Walter Bishop. But there are some talented cast members (Scott Wolf, Elizabeth Mitchell, Morena Baccarin, Morris Chestnut), so again, there is potential.
The biggest problem with the V pilot might be the pacing. It felt too rushed overall, and the quick pace meant that the epic premise didn't quite get the sense of "bigness" that it probably deserved. But again, the upside to this is that we've gotten all of the stuff about the V's arrival over and done with very quickly. Now the show can quickly move on.
- Also, I haven't really mentioned that this past Friday marked the likely end of my twice-weekly physical therapy sessions for my ankle. I've been going for PT every Tuesday and Friday for the last couple of months, as I've talked about every so often here on the blog. Of course, many of you will remember the "incident" from several weeks back, in which I strained my leg at PT and could barely walk for a couple of days, including my birthday! Mostly though, the PT has actually been kind of nice. It got me thinking about my leg and my ankle and about how to walk and sit in ways that don't strain them as much. And it got me doing stretches and actively working to make my ankle feel better. Most of all, it was pretty relaxing. The staff at the PT place was ultra-friendly, and it was funny because for a while I was having this twice-a-week break from work where I could be active, relax, chat with some cool people, etc. And the thing is, I would come back to work feeling refreshed and loosened-up. It just goes to show - sitting complacently at a desk all day is NOT good. Whoever came up with the idea of recess for elementary school kids had the right idea - that mid-day break is really a pretty amazing thing. It's why I think the people who don't leave their desk all day will eventually just snap and go insane. But anyways, now that my physical therapy is complete (I think), I am feeling a lot better than when I started and my ankle feels a bit stronger. I'd still say it feels only about 85% "normal," but that last 15% is something that will be a much longer-term process. But yeah, it's been a good run with PT -- it's definitely helped me to re-focus a bit and think more about how I do things (walking, sitting, stretching, eating, etc.) on a daily basis. That said, I am ready to stop thinking about my ankle for a bit and eager to play some basketball, tennis, and just kick some ass in general. Yep, you heard me, prospective opponents - I'm callin' you out.
TV STUFF:
- Okay, so let's talk about V. I saw this pilot over the summer, and while it didn't blow me away, it was one of the few "big" shows amongst all the new medical dramas and teen soaps and family sitcoms, so it still managed to stand out. I mean, look, V has it's flaws, but I still really want to support it. And honestly, I'm happy that it did well in the ratings last night as well. I want to see TV continue to support big-budget, movie-like programs. And I want some new series to prove that the success of shows like 24 and Lost was not a fluke. V's pilot is not in the same league as Lost's, but it has a lot of upside, to borrow a term from the sports world. The pilot packed in A LOT of story, and my hope is that now that the initial setup is out of the way, the show can breathe a bit and really find some solid creative momentum. Of course, that might be somewhat harder to do with only four episodes before a long hiatus ... but still, I feel like there is a lot of potential here.
The other thing with V is that the show is pretty campy. And I don't think that that's necessarilly a bad thing. Flash Forward feels like a show that takes itself too seriously despite a pretty out-there premise. The tone for V feels more appropriate given its subject matter. It's more over-the-top, more melodramatic, more comic book-ish than Flash Forward. It's more Smallville than X-Files. My concern is whether the cast is up to the task of pulling this kind of thing off. To me, the current king of sci-fi awesomeness is clearly FRINGE. And V doesn't quite seem to have the characters to match up to the likes of Olivia Dunham or Walter Bishop. But there are some talented cast members (Scott Wolf, Elizabeth Mitchell, Morena Baccarin, Morris Chestnut), so again, there is potential.
The biggest problem with the V pilot might be the pacing. It felt too rushed overall, and the quick pace meant that the epic premise didn't quite get the sense of "bigness" that it probably deserved. But again, the upside to this is that we've gotten all of the stuff about the V's arrival over and done with very quickly. Now the show can quickly move on.
And I do think that there was some really fun payoff in the last ten or fifteen minutes of the pilot. I remember watching this over the summer not really knowing what to expect. For the first two-thirds of the pilot, it felt like pretty standard sci-fi fare - yet another riff on the classic Twilight Zone episode "To Serve Man." The aliens have landed, and they say they want to help us, but they might just want to destroy us. But the last ten minutes of V were so fun, and reassuring, because they show that this will be a series that isn't afraid to go balls-to-the-wall. This isn't just a show about political allegory or the same-old character stuff we've seen on Lost, Heroes, Flash Forward, and a million other "big-cast-of-characters-deals-with-world-changing-event" type of shows. Because unlike other sci-fi series, V features evil lizard-aliens who want to kill humans. That's why to me the money-shot of the whole pilot is when Elizabeth Mitchell hits her FBI partner over the head with a crowbar, opening up his fake-human shell and exposing his ultra-creepy reptillian mug. That's the moment where you know that V isn't messing around. So yeah, there's still all the allusions to real-life politics and whatnot, but at the end of the day, it's comforting that V is at its heart "fun" sci-fi, with good guys, bad guys, and lizard aliens. Despite some of the pilot's pacing and character issues, I'm happy to stick with the show. At the least, you have to give it credit for being fun and ambitious. Let's just say I won't be spray-painting V symbols in an alleyway just yet, but I will gladly sign up for the V recruitment drive. Especially if Laura "Supergirl" Vandervoort is there to greet me every week.
My Grade: B+
- Speaking of SMALLVILLE, Friday's episode was a definite improvement over the last couple of weeks, although it was still somewhat iffy overall. I mean, first off, the DC fanboy in me enjoyed seeing not one but two comic book staples debut - one being intrepid Daily Planet gossip columnist Cat Grant, the other being Green Arrow sidekick Mia Deardon, aka Speedy. Mia's introduction in particular was pretty well-handled, and I like that they didn't shy away from her origin as an underaged prostitute-turned-vigilante-protege. Of course, notably absent was any mention of the HIV virus, which the character lives with in the comics (also in the comics: Mia is seventeen whereas Oliver Queen is forty-something - oh well!). But yeah, the Mia stuff was pretty good, but, the biggest improvement to me in this episode was the Lois-Clark relationship stuff. Even though the episode ended with a long-awaited kiss between Lois and Clark, the majority episode had them acting out the kind of friendly-rivalry relationship that has made Clark Kent and Lois Lane an all-time classic fictional couple. No more of this gazing into each other's eyes and pining for one another crap, in this one, there was a lot more nuance and intelligence (well, as much as Smallville can have those things). Meanwhile, the stuff with Tess Mercer and Zod was semi-interesting - at the least, it seems like they are actually going somewhere now with the whole Zod storyline. Hopefully, next week's ep makes some much-needed sense of all this Zod stuff, and explains how this version reconciles with the previous, more experienced version of Zod we've seen on the show. For now though, this one was, if nothing else, pretty solid.
My Grade: B
- While I'm on a superhero kick, here's a stunner for ya' -- I watched HEROES on Monday, for the first time in years. What can I say - I was intrigued by the idea of a time-travel episode that revisted some of the big plot threads from Season 1, and also, I guess, just nostalgic for a time when Heroes seemed like it could really be the next big thing. This was one of those things though where seeing an episode so tied to the show's past made you realize the current shortcomings. For one thing, I was immediately struck by the episode's central character, Hiro. I mean, it was actually a running joke in this episode how everyone expected this version of "Future-Hiro" to be the badass from Season 1 with the sword and deep voice. And you know what? So did we, the audience. The fact that Season 4 Hiro is even goofier and dorkier than his Season 1 self is testament to how little momentum Heroes has really had. I mean look at Lost. Look at Season 4 Locke or Sawyer or Jack compared to their Season 1 selves. And yeah, Heroes is a different kind of a show, and yet, Heroes was supposed to be ALL ABOUT these ordinary characters growing to accept their new abilities and coming to terms with their unique destinies. Has that happened yet? By this point they should have formed a Justice League-esque super-team and been out there actively trying to change the world, or something. So yes, in some respects this felt like a Season 1 episode, but the fact that a Season 4 episode felt so Season 1-ish was, in this case, exactly NOT what we should be seeing out of Heroes at this juncture. The one thing that made me really happy in this episode? Seeing the awesome Robert Knepper of Prison Break fame again. On the other hand, seeing him also made me sad that he was in this role and not playing T-Bag, very similar to how I felt sad seeing Kristen Bell on Heroes rather than as Veronica Mars. Man, it's just insane how much potential the concept of Heroes STILL has. It's amazing to me that after four seasons it has yet to take things to that next level and just employ real, balls-to-the-wall storytelling - storytelling that feels like it's getting you from Point A to Point B, with a definitive endgame in sight. In the end, this felt like a sort-of-decent episode of Heroes, but it wasn't the game-changer that I personally needed to convince me that I should once again invest my time into the show.
My Grade: C+
Alright - I'm out for now. Stay tuned for a lot more throughout the week.
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