GREENBERG Review:
- Roger Greenberg is not a likable man. He's overpriveleged, needy, whiny, self-absorbed, and not exactly aging gracefully. He's He's bumming around LA, living at his brother's huge house, consciously trying to do nothing. He's still fixated on his life of fifteen years ago, when he and some friends were in a band and had a shot at a record deal, before Roger turned it down due to some sort of idealistic anti-corporate fit of youth-in-revolt. Since then, Roger moved to New York and became a carpenter, did time in a mental hospital, and basically lived in a state of prolonged arrested development. Now, he's back in LA, trying to reconnect with old friends, old girlfriends, and improbably falling into an awkward romance with his brother's 25 year old personal assistant, Florence (yes, his brother is basically the personification of LA douchebag). In any case, Roger Greenberg is a man who says he wants to do nothing, who acts like he yearns to be 25 again, and yet who is at a point in his life where he can't just ignore that he's a 40-year old man-child anymore. Greenberg, like it's title character, can be a hard movie to like. But its self-absorbed characters are the catalysts for some wry observational humor and some interesting insights into life and love. If anything, this feels in some ways like the spiritual successor to so many Woody Allen movies of old.
One of the key strengths of the film is how writer-director Noah Baumbach elicits some pretty stellar performances from his extremely solid cast. This is one of Ben Stiller's best-ever roles, no question. Especially given how stale his goofy, big-budget comic persona has gotten over the years, this back-to-basics part is a welcome return for Stiller to lower-key comedy - something which many people tend to forget he excels at. Here, Stiller is basically a walking personification of Gen-X slackerism at age 40. And some of his rants and raves and random observations are truly funny. For me, it was the little moments that were the best- Stiller's overly-analytical assesment of Florence's attractiveness, his repeated desire to know what others think of him, his little asides about life in Los Angeles. Sometimes though, I did feel like Greenberg just works as a sounding board for Baumbach, and some of the rants about things like today's twenty-somethings just felt pretty misguided and condescending. Baumback writes his forty-year old characters like teenagers, so his twenty-five-year-old characters come off as complete children. It's a little obnoxious at times. Overall though, the rant-y nature of the movie mostly works to its benefit, eliciting a lot of laughs and entertaining moments.
Greenberg also features a breakthrough performance of sorts for indie-darling actress Greta Gerwig. As Florence, Gerwig is fascinating to watch, definitely one of those actresses who's so distinctive that you have to sit up and take notice of her work. Childlike yet in some ways oddly wise, Florence seems like a strange match for Roger, except when you realize that in a weird way, they both compliment each other. Even the fact that Florence can stand Roger is a testament to their unlikely connection. Roger almost sabotages things at every chance - he assaults her with multiple verbal outbursts, and just seems like he'd be impossible to get along with. But even though you wonder about the somewhat sadsack Florence setting herself up for abuse, you still can't help but like her thanks to Gerwig. I don't know how many other actresses could have pulled that off.
The other standout here is probably Rhys Ifans as Roger's friend and former bandmate, Ivan. The only one of Roger's old crew who still tolerates him, Ivan serves as a nice counterpoint to Roger, because Ivan was once the troubled one in the group, but is now trying to embrace adulthood, trying to make his marriage work and to spend time with his son. Jennifer Jason-Leigh (Baumbach's wife, who also has a story credit on the film), is also good, as Roger's ex-girlfriend.
Greenberg is a well-done, slice-of-life comedy. It didn't blow me away or anything, but I did think there were some interesting observations in the script, and some really funny moments and scenes. Roger Greenberg isn't the most likable character, but I think most of us can relate to his various neuroses in some small way. Does the movie sometimes walk the line between quirkiness and self-indulgence? Yes - sometimes its point of view is just plain off-putting. But Greenberg doesn't need us to love or even like its characters (unlike, say, Funny People). The movie is, at its heart, a meditation on the importance of human connection, and it tells its story well, via some excellent performances, and with plenty of awkwardly hilarious humor. It's a small movie, but there are some big questions at the heart of its narrative.
My Grade: B+
Friday, March 26, 2010
Thursday, March 25, 2010
"El Diablo!" - LOST's Epic Richard Origin, 24's New Mole, and Chuck's No-Kill Policy!
Some of TV's biggest, baddest shows have been fairly controversial of late, so ... let's get to it and talk about 24, Chuck, and LOST!
24!
- I don't know, I was starting to really get into this season of 24, but then this episode came along and killed my buzz a bit. It wasn't a bad episode by any means - there was lots of action, some rare moments of humor (courtesy of Chloe), and yes, a big twist. And yet, there was a feeling that - if this was supposed to be 24's big, game-changing episode, then well, you couldn't help but feel underwhelmed at the overall state of the season.
So (SPOILER ALERT!) ...
... Dana Walsh is a mole. Ugh. Okay, let's put this in perspective. Katee Sackhoff as a badass villain is already a HUGE improvement from what she was before - an annoying distraction. At the same time, I am so sick of the character that it's just hard to care, at least right now, all that much about her turning to the dark side. It was a twist that probably had to happen for the good of the show, and yet, it also speaks to the size of the hole that 24 dug itself into with weeks of making Dana into one of TV's most reviled characters. 24 shouldn't have to play the "mole card" anymore - it's one of the show's biggest cliches, and is basically a running joke with fans. If it's going to be done, it should be ultra-dramatic, jaw-dropping. This was a mole-reveal that was less about dramatic effect and more about righting narrative wrongs. A good thing, most likely ... but, not something to get overly excited about.
Plus, that end reveal came only after we had to sit through yet more stupidity between Sackhoff and Stephen Root - aka the most persistent parole office in the history of humankind - a guy so annoying that he doesn't stop nagging about some missing street thug even in the midst of a national security crisis. Man, as much as I usually like Root, it was nice to see his character get offed. Good riddance.
Meanwhile, Jack and Cole were involved in a seemingly never-ending shoot-out with the terrorists. 24 usually does great action scenes, but this one felt a bit flat to me, like I was watching someone play a videogame shooter. The whole thing where the young redshirt dies trying to save one of his CTU colleagues was just cheesy enough to be entertaining, with Jack's assurances to the dying kid that his partner pulled through (he didn't) serving as the icing on the cake of GRAVITAS. This action sequence also led to a whole thing where Chloe was squabbling with NSA security guys at CTU about how best to get CTU's systems online. Chloe, concerned about reestablishing communication with Jack, wanted to try a faster but riskier method. All the infighting was frankly getting pretty annoying, but it led to a funny, over-the-top moment where Chloe actually pulls a gun on the NSA guy. Not quite at the level of Chloe having to go out in the field a few seasons back, but, yeah, sort of amusing.
We also saw the return of Renee after a brief absence. Her return felt a bit forced (would Chloe really call her, of all people, after all that she'd just been through?), but we'll see where it goes from here.
Overall, I am really waiting for 24 to up the ante a bit here. Last year at this time, we had rebel forces INVADING THE WHITEHOUSE, and the combined gravitas of Jack, Bill Buchanan, Tony Almeda, Kurtwood Smith, and Aaron by-god Pierce. And some great villains to boot (Tony Todd, anyone?). Flash to a year later, and the big twist involves the show's worst new character, who we all hated anyway, turning mole (a turn which barely makes sense upon thoughtful analysis to boot). A couple people told me that they thought this was an episode in which business really picked up. And hey, going into this ep, I was optimistic that things were about to get really good. Sorry though, still not sold.
My Grade: B-
- I thought CHUCK had a somewhat weak episode this week as compared to other, stronger eps of late. While there were some fun moments with Casey adjusting to his new life as a full-time civilian and Buy More employee, everything with Chuck and his first solo mission just felt pretty contrived. I mean, we know that Beckman calls the shots and that her agents are obligated to follow her orders, but the idea that Chuck might have to suddenly up and relocate to Rome was fairly out-of-nowhere. It just seems like, even at a place as crazy as the CIA, they'd at least give you a little warning when you're going to have to uproot your entire life. Plus, the whole thing where Chuck won't / can't kill anyone played out in just about the most predictable way possible. Did we really need the whole "looks like Chuck pulled the trigger, but then we pan out and see it was really Sarah" scene? Why not just have Chuck kill someone? It would make for good drama. I mean, Chuck is a CIA agent, not a superhero - it's amazing that he hasn't killed dozens of dudes by this point. Not only did we have lots of emphasis on Chuck's no-kill policy, but we also had a ton of oh-so-emo moments between Chuck and Sarah. Adding to this episode's streak of lame cliche moments, we got the "Chuck and Sarah almost kiss, but are interrupted by danger" moment. Gag me. Again, lots of fun moments with Casey and Big Mike, and Morgan got in some funny bits as well. But ... Chuck is at its best when it covers NEW ground - ie the awesome episode from a few weeks' back in which Morgan learns Chuck's secret. But this was an all-too Smallville-like episode, with an overreliance on tired cliches and well-worn, dragged-out plot points. Next.
My Grade: B-
LOST Thoughts:
- Well, I watched this episode of Lost twice. The first time, I was exhausted and struggling to stay awake, so I decided to rewatch the episode in order to make sure I took everything in, and that I really had a good feel for what the episode did or didn't accomplish. I know that many are absolutely raving about this one. Many, including myself, have been waiting for this episode for years. Ever since the introduction of Richard Alpert, Lost fans have wondered about his origins, and what if any secrets his backstory may reveal about the nature of the island. And as I spoke about last week, this was in many ways a true litmus test for Lost. Because the show has always sent mixed messages about the way it unravels its narrative. Is it a show that poses specific questions with the expectation that all will eventually be revealed? Or is it a show that revels in ambiguity and mystery, letting the audience interpret things as they so choose? I've talked about it a lot, but Lost oftentimes tries to have its cake and eat it too - specifically addressing certain mysteries while ignoring others, trying to downplay the importance of certain "answers," even as the show's marketing - and its own characters - consistently talk about when and how certain things will be revealed. So here we have an episode that promise to unravel the big mystery of Richard -- or does it? That was the question - would this episode set the expectation for the final remaining episodes that all would and should be revealed? Or does it make a statement about the very nature of Lost by affirming that the show, despite what the marketing would have you believe, has no intention of being a traditional "mystery" serial, but that its very vagueness is an integral part of its identity?
Well, as longtime viewers have come to expect, this episode was a little bit of column A, and a little bit of column B. The episode revealed the "origin" of Richard, but did so in a way that left dozens of questions still lingering. We found out that Richard was originally Ricardo, living on the Canary Islands with his wife, Isabella. When Isabella takes sick, Ricardo goes to find a doctor, but ends up meeting one who stubbornly refuses to help treat his wife. In a fit of rage, Ricardo accidentally kills the doctor, landing him in prison, facing a possible death sentance. However, a slave trader recruits Ricardo, forcing him into captivity. Ricardo and other slaves are taken on a ship - The Black Rock (long a staple of Lost lore) - and are on their way to parts unknown, when a storm steers the ship off-course. The Black Rock crash-lands on The Island. In a fit of fear and rage, one of the traders kills off all of the slaves except Ricardo - before he gets the chance, the Smoke Monster arrives and offs all of the traders. Smokey spares Ricardo, and frees him from his shackles. In return, Ricardo agrees to serve him. Of course, Smokeys first request is that Ricardo kills "the devil," aka Jacob. But Jacob subdues Ricardo, and convinces the freed slave - who thought that he was actually in hell - to serve him and not the Man In Black. Ricardo agrees, and thus begins his tenure as Jacob's emissary on the island and elsewhere.
It's funny how Lost works sometimes. This episode took the time to specifically show us how The Black Rock crashed into The Statue and shattered it - explicitly answering the semi-intriguing but only semi-important question of "what happened to The Statue." And yet, it didn't tell us a thing about Richard's time on the island once he agreed to serve Jacob. How did he come to be an "Other?" Why was he sent to test Locke again and again? Who did he think Jacob was, and why did he only know question him, 130 years or so later?
Again, the fact that the episode took the time to show exactly how The Black Rock crashed into the Statue sort of amazes me. It answered that mystery in almost obsessive detail. And yet, a question like "how and why can Hurley talk to dead people?" is left wide open.
And here's where I wonder about Lost's storytelling methods. I mean, was it really better to wait *this* long to give us Richard's origin? Now you only have a handful of episodes to expand on it. I don't know, I just question the merits of building up a mystery for years and years, and then addressing it - after crazy amounts of buildup and expectation - just as the story is about to wrap up. The mystery of Jacob and the Man in Black is a similar example. If we just knew who they were and what their motivations were from the outset of the season, then we'd have so much more invested in them and their battle by this point. Now, Lost just creates this crazy level of expectation that the final reveal of their identities will be something positively mind-blowing. Maybe it will be. But most likely not. And even if it is an awesome reveal, then there'll be no time to explore its ramifications - the show will be over.
It's this kind of disjointed storytelling that has soured me overall on this season of Lost. As much as I loved certain things about this episode, I still wished that Richard's storyline was playing out in a different context, and not wrapped up in this whole Jacob battle of the gods. I just don't think that the concept of two omnipotent beings waging a cosmic chess game is all that intriguing - certainly not as an uber-premise of Lost. Now that every storyline, even a potentially standalone one like Richard's, is tied in so tightly to Jacob's, it just, to me, makes those storylines inherently less compelling.
And man, Richard's storyline did have a number of very compelling moments. First of all, this episode looked amazing. It felt huge, it felt grand, it felt epic. You just don't get this kind of sweeping, cinematic storytelling on any other TV show. Secondly, Nestor Carbonell kicked serious ass in this episode. Who knew he had it in him to play a ragged, wide-eyed Spaniard channelling the ghost of Inigo Montoya? His acting was melodramatic, but it worked. It was something completely different, stylistically, for Lost, and yet the episode had the same sort of epic-romance feel as classic episodes like The Constant? I didn't think this episode was half as clever or tightly-scripted as The Constant, but still, it was undeniably memorable, entertaining, and just plain fun to watch. Just to rant about the aesthetics a bit more - the music here was awesome - loved the new theme, one of Lost's best. And the editing was great - there was a real momentum to each scene that just made the story that much more captivating.
The episode looked amazing, Carbonell was great - just awesome stuff. But the script still felt pretty weak to me. We couldn't care about Isabella all that much - after all, we met her while she was on her deathbed. And then we had to see she and Richard's big reunion play out through a crazy combination of weird plot devices - Hurley can talk to dead people, sort of, and Isabella has chosen this moment to make her voice heard after all this time. Seeing this big romantic scene essentially boil down to Richard gazing lovingly at, well, Hurley, was odd to say the least. And then, as I said, Richard's story had to get the shoehorned into the Jacob stuff. More vague talk, more questions answered with vague non-answers. A metaphor about the island being the cork that keeps evil bottled up, preventing it from spreading out into the world. So after all this, the island is a cork. Cool beans. Yes, The Man In Black (and for the love of god, can they just give him a name already?) smashing the wine bottle as we cut to black and the Lost logo was a sweet visual. But it wasn't much more than that.
I don't know, it just seems that the more we learn about Jacob, the less interesting he is, and the less his involvement as the great puppet-master makes sense given what's come before. So he's just trying to prove that people are inherently good, but he's trying to do so by interfering in their affairs as little as possible? Wait, didn't he play a role in all of the "candidate's" lives? And didn't he deliberately crash-land them on an island and expose them to all sorts of danger - a situation that tends to bring out the worst in people? And isn't he sort of a smug asshole for someone who we're supposed to believe is a force for good?
Look, maybe there is some drop-dead amazing explanation for everything, some giant reveal on the horizon that retroactively makes all of this awesome. But if Lost is all about the journey and not the destination, then shouldn't the journey be a great story in and of itself? There were elements of that greatness in this episode - Richard's story had hints of the epic, sweeping storytelling that's characterized some of Lost's best standalone installments. And on it's own, this was an amazingly-produced, very well-acted, extremely entertaining episode. But, it came in the context of an overarching narrative that is losing steam when it should be going full steam ahead. Let's hope things pick up for the final leg of the race.
My Grade: B+
Okay, that's it for now. Leave your comments below!
24!
- I don't know, I was starting to really get into this season of 24, but then this episode came along and killed my buzz a bit. It wasn't a bad episode by any means - there was lots of action, some rare moments of humor (courtesy of Chloe), and yes, a big twist. And yet, there was a feeling that - if this was supposed to be 24's big, game-changing episode, then well, you couldn't help but feel underwhelmed at the overall state of the season.
So (SPOILER ALERT!) ...
... Dana Walsh is a mole. Ugh. Okay, let's put this in perspective. Katee Sackhoff as a badass villain is already a HUGE improvement from what she was before - an annoying distraction. At the same time, I am so sick of the character that it's just hard to care, at least right now, all that much about her turning to the dark side. It was a twist that probably had to happen for the good of the show, and yet, it also speaks to the size of the hole that 24 dug itself into with weeks of making Dana into one of TV's most reviled characters. 24 shouldn't have to play the "mole card" anymore - it's one of the show's biggest cliches, and is basically a running joke with fans. If it's going to be done, it should be ultra-dramatic, jaw-dropping. This was a mole-reveal that was less about dramatic effect and more about righting narrative wrongs. A good thing, most likely ... but, not something to get overly excited about.
Plus, that end reveal came only after we had to sit through yet more stupidity between Sackhoff and Stephen Root - aka the most persistent parole office in the history of humankind - a guy so annoying that he doesn't stop nagging about some missing street thug even in the midst of a national security crisis. Man, as much as I usually like Root, it was nice to see his character get offed. Good riddance.
Meanwhile, Jack and Cole were involved in a seemingly never-ending shoot-out with the terrorists. 24 usually does great action scenes, but this one felt a bit flat to me, like I was watching someone play a videogame shooter. The whole thing where the young redshirt dies trying to save one of his CTU colleagues was just cheesy enough to be entertaining, with Jack's assurances to the dying kid that his partner pulled through (he didn't) serving as the icing on the cake of GRAVITAS. This action sequence also led to a whole thing where Chloe was squabbling with NSA security guys at CTU about how best to get CTU's systems online. Chloe, concerned about reestablishing communication with Jack, wanted to try a faster but riskier method. All the infighting was frankly getting pretty annoying, but it led to a funny, over-the-top moment where Chloe actually pulls a gun on the NSA guy. Not quite at the level of Chloe having to go out in the field a few seasons back, but, yeah, sort of amusing.
We also saw the return of Renee after a brief absence. Her return felt a bit forced (would Chloe really call her, of all people, after all that she'd just been through?), but we'll see where it goes from here.
Overall, I am really waiting for 24 to up the ante a bit here. Last year at this time, we had rebel forces INVADING THE WHITEHOUSE, and the combined gravitas of Jack, Bill Buchanan, Tony Almeda, Kurtwood Smith, and Aaron by-god Pierce. And some great villains to boot (Tony Todd, anyone?). Flash to a year later, and the big twist involves the show's worst new character, who we all hated anyway, turning mole (a turn which barely makes sense upon thoughtful analysis to boot). A couple people told me that they thought this was an episode in which business really picked up. And hey, going into this ep, I was optimistic that things were about to get really good. Sorry though, still not sold.
My Grade: B-
- I thought CHUCK had a somewhat weak episode this week as compared to other, stronger eps of late. While there were some fun moments with Casey adjusting to his new life as a full-time civilian and Buy More employee, everything with Chuck and his first solo mission just felt pretty contrived. I mean, we know that Beckman calls the shots and that her agents are obligated to follow her orders, but the idea that Chuck might have to suddenly up and relocate to Rome was fairly out-of-nowhere. It just seems like, even at a place as crazy as the CIA, they'd at least give you a little warning when you're going to have to uproot your entire life. Plus, the whole thing where Chuck won't / can't kill anyone played out in just about the most predictable way possible. Did we really need the whole "looks like Chuck pulled the trigger, but then we pan out and see it was really Sarah" scene? Why not just have Chuck kill someone? It would make for good drama. I mean, Chuck is a CIA agent, not a superhero - it's amazing that he hasn't killed dozens of dudes by this point. Not only did we have lots of emphasis on Chuck's no-kill policy, but we also had a ton of oh-so-emo moments between Chuck and Sarah. Adding to this episode's streak of lame cliche moments, we got the "Chuck and Sarah almost kiss, but are interrupted by danger" moment. Gag me. Again, lots of fun moments with Casey and Big Mike, and Morgan got in some funny bits as well. But ... Chuck is at its best when it covers NEW ground - ie the awesome episode from a few weeks' back in which Morgan learns Chuck's secret. But this was an all-too Smallville-like episode, with an overreliance on tired cliches and well-worn, dragged-out plot points. Next.
My Grade: B-
LOST Thoughts:
- Well, I watched this episode of Lost twice. The first time, I was exhausted and struggling to stay awake, so I decided to rewatch the episode in order to make sure I took everything in, and that I really had a good feel for what the episode did or didn't accomplish. I know that many are absolutely raving about this one. Many, including myself, have been waiting for this episode for years. Ever since the introduction of Richard Alpert, Lost fans have wondered about his origins, and what if any secrets his backstory may reveal about the nature of the island. And as I spoke about last week, this was in many ways a true litmus test for Lost. Because the show has always sent mixed messages about the way it unravels its narrative. Is it a show that poses specific questions with the expectation that all will eventually be revealed? Or is it a show that revels in ambiguity and mystery, letting the audience interpret things as they so choose? I've talked about it a lot, but Lost oftentimes tries to have its cake and eat it too - specifically addressing certain mysteries while ignoring others, trying to downplay the importance of certain "answers," even as the show's marketing - and its own characters - consistently talk about when and how certain things will be revealed. So here we have an episode that promise to unravel the big mystery of Richard -- or does it? That was the question - would this episode set the expectation for the final remaining episodes that all would and should be revealed? Or does it make a statement about the very nature of Lost by affirming that the show, despite what the marketing would have you believe, has no intention of being a traditional "mystery" serial, but that its very vagueness is an integral part of its identity?
Well, as longtime viewers have come to expect, this episode was a little bit of column A, and a little bit of column B. The episode revealed the "origin" of Richard, but did so in a way that left dozens of questions still lingering. We found out that Richard was originally Ricardo, living on the Canary Islands with his wife, Isabella. When Isabella takes sick, Ricardo goes to find a doctor, but ends up meeting one who stubbornly refuses to help treat his wife. In a fit of rage, Ricardo accidentally kills the doctor, landing him in prison, facing a possible death sentance. However, a slave trader recruits Ricardo, forcing him into captivity. Ricardo and other slaves are taken on a ship - The Black Rock (long a staple of Lost lore) - and are on their way to parts unknown, when a storm steers the ship off-course. The Black Rock crash-lands on The Island. In a fit of fear and rage, one of the traders kills off all of the slaves except Ricardo - before he gets the chance, the Smoke Monster arrives and offs all of the traders. Smokey spares Ricardo, and frees him from his shackles. In return, Ricardo agrees to serve him. Of course, Smokeys first request is that Ricardo kills "the devil," aka Jacob. But Jacob subdues Ricardo, and convinces the freed slave - who thought that he was actually in hell - to serve him and not the Man In Black. Ricardo agrees, and thus begins his tenure as Jacob's emissary on the island and elsewhere.
It's funny how Lost works sometimes. This episode took the time to specifically show us how The Black Rock crashed into The Statue and shattered it - explicitly answering the semi-intriguing but only semi-important question of "what happened to The Statue." And yet, it didn't tell us a thing about Richard's time on the island once he agreed to serve Jacob. How did he come to be an "Other?" Why was he sent to test Locke again and again? Who did he think Jacob was, and why did he only know question him, 130 years or so later?
Again, the fact that the episode took the time to show exactly how The Black Rock crashed into the Statue sort of amazes me. It answered that mystery in almost obsessive detail. And yet, a question like "how and why can Hurley talk to dead people?" is left wide open.
And here's where I wonder about Lost's storytelling methods. I mean, was it really better to wait *this* long to give us Richard's origin? Now you only have a handful of episodes to expand on it. I don't know, I just question the merits of building up a mystery for years and years, and then addressing it - after crazy amounts of buildup and expectation - just as the story is about to wrap up. The mystery of Jacob and the Man in Black is a similar example. If we just knew who they were and what their motivations were from the outset of the season, then we'd have so much more invested in them and their battle by this point. Now, Lost just creates this crazy level of expectation that the final reveal of their identities will be something positively mind-blowing. Maybe it will be. But most likely not. And even if it is an awesome reveal, then there'll be no time to explore its ramifications - the show will be over.
It's this kind of disjointed storytelling that has soured me overall on this season of Lost. As much as I loved certain things about this episode, I still wished that Richard's storyline was playing out in a different context, and not wrapped up in this whole Jacob battle of the gods. I just don't think that the concept of two omnipotent beings waging a cosmic chess game is all that intriguing - certainly not as an uber-premise of Lost. Now that every storyline, even a potentially standalone one like Richard's, is tied in so tightly to Jacob's, it just, to me, makes those storylines inherently less compelling.
And man, Richard's storyline did have a number of very compelling moments. First of all, this episode looked amazing. It felt huge, it felt grand, it felt epic. You just don't get this kind of sweeping, cinematic storytelling on any other TV show. Secondly, Nestor Carbonell kicked serious ass in this episode. Who knew he had it in him to play a ragged, wide-eyed Spaniard channelling the ghost of Inigo Montoya? His acting was melodramatic, but it worked. It was something completely different, stylistically, for Lost, and yet the episode had the same sort of epic-romance feel as classic episodes like The Constant? I didn't think this episode was half as clever or tightly-scripted as The Constant, but still, it was undeniably memorable, entertaining, and just plain fun to watch. Just to rant about the aesthetics a bit more - the music here was awesome - loved the new theme, one of Lost's best. And the editing was great - there was a real momentum to each scene that just made the story that much more captivating.
The episode looked amazing, Carbonell was great - just awesome stuff. But the script still felt pretty weak to me. We couldn't care about Isabella all that much - after all, we met her while she was on her deathbed. And then we had to see she and Richard's big reunion play out through a crazy combination of weird plot devices - Hurley can talk to dead people, sort of, and Isabella has chosen this moment to make her voice heard after all this time. Seeing this big romantic scene essentially boil down to Richard gazing lovingly at, well, Hurley, was odd to say the least. And then, as I said, Richard's story had to get the shoehorned into the Jacob stuff. More vague talk, more questions answered with vague non-answers. A metaphor about the island being the cork that keeps evil bottled up, preventing it from spreading out into the world. So after all this, the island is a cork. Cool beans. Yes, The Man In Black (and for the love of god, can they just give him a name already?) smashing the wine bottle as we cut to black and the Lost logo was a sweet visual. But it wasn't much more than that.
I don't know, it just seems that the more we learn about Jacob, the less interesting he is, and the less his involvement as the great puppet-master makes sense given what's come before. So he's just trying to prove that people are inherently good, but he's trying to do so by interfering in their affairs as little as possible? Wait, didn't he play a role in all of the "candidate's" lives? And didn't he deliberately crash-land them on an island and expose them to all sorts of danger - a situation that tends to bring out the worst in people? And isn't he sort of a smug asshole for someone who we're supposed to believe is a force for good?
Look, maybe there is some drop-dead amazing explanation for everything, some giant reveal on the horizon that retroactively makes all of this awesome. But if Lost is all about the journey and not the destination, then shouldn't the journey be a great story in and of itself? There were elements of that greatness in this episode - Richard's story had hints of the epic, sweeping storytelling that's characterized some of Lost's best standalone installments. And on it's own, this was an amazingly-produced, very well-acted, extremely entertaining episode. But, it came in the context of an overarching narrative that is losing steam when it should be going full steam ahead. Let's hope things pick up for the final leg of the race.
My Grade: B+
Okay, that's it for now. Leave your comments below!
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Cherry Bomb! THE RUNAWAYS - Reviewed!
THE RUNAWAYS Review:
"Can't stay at home, can't stay at school
Old folks say, ya poor little fool
Down the street I'm the girl next door
I'm the fox you've been waiting for
Hello Daddy, hello Mom
I'm your ch ch ch ch ch cherry bomb
Hello world I'm your wild girl
I'm your ch ch ch ch ch cherry bomb!"
- If you love rock n' roll, then you just might love The Runaways - a movie that bleeds, sweats, and vomits rock n' roll grit, style, and attitude. The Runaways as a movie completely succeeds at evoking a specific time and place, at capturing an era - and it tells a story that's both inspiring and at times tragic. But there is rock n' roll magic here. There are some absolutely amazing performances from the young cast. There's some awesomely stylized and artistic avant-garde direction. And there are moments that make you just want to pump your fist, bang your head, and rock the %$#& out.
The movie tells the true-life story of The Runaways, the trailblazing all-girl rock band that emerged onto the Hollywood music scene in the mid-seventies. Consisting of teenaged girls, none older than 16 at the time of the band's founding, The Runaways mixed sleaze and sex appeal with legit musical chops and proto-punk attitude to make waves here and abroad - launching the careers of grrrl power icons like Joan Jett and Lita Ford. The movie is in some ways a standard rock biopic, but to me it's about more than just pop-culture history. In some ways, this is a film about daring to be different - about breaking glass ceilings and having the strength of will to go against the grain.
Sure, The Runaways began as a manufactured concept-band, but the film shows us that its members had a special x-factor that couldn't simply be engineered. They were outcasts, rebels, girls who wouldn't conform and couldn't ignore that inner demon calling them to the dark side, the side of rock. We see Joan Jett in a hip Hollywood clothing store circa 1975. "I want what he's wearing" she says to the bemused clerk, pointing at a too-cool-for-school male patron. She dumps a pile of saved-up change on the counter, and walks away with a studded leather jacket. We see Cherie Curry leaving her high school classmates speechless as she gets on stage for a school talent show, and, with streaks of red and blue makeup on her face, covers David Bowie in a full-on glam-rock spectacle. We see Joan Jett taking a guitar lesson - her instructor tells her that girls don't really play guitar, let alone electric. But Joan doesn't care. She plugs into her amp and wails, channelling the rock n' roll gods with each thrash of the strings. There's one scene late in the movie that kind of bookends that initial setup. Joan is at the end of her rope. The Runaways, after having blown up , after becoming icons and sex symbols, have broken up - their lead singer out of the music biz. Joan has fallen in with a bad crowd. She's messed up and strung out. But she puts her head down, grits her teeth, and remembers that it was supposed to be about the music and not everything else. She writes lyrics. She sings. She plays. And she jumps up on her bed, screaming out lyrics as a lightning bolt of divine (or satanic?) inspiration hits her in the form of "I Love Rock n' Roll." It's an amazing sequence - it gave me chills. And it convinced me that The Runaways, as a movie, was the real deal.
Part of what makes things work so well are the kickass performances in the movie. I know some people tend to dismiss Kristen Stewart, but they shouldn't. She may not be someone who can play any role, and she may have little tics and quirks that find their way into a lot of her movies. But ... the girl can act, and she does an awesome job here as Joan Jett. This was a part that Stewart may well have been born to play, and she knocks it out of the park. The toughness, the pent-up anger, the sadness, the willpower of Joan Jett - it's all here, and Stewart is completely compelling in the role. Meanwhile, I think this is the movie that propels Dakota Fanning into the next stage of her career. Sure, she was already a remarkable child actress, but now it's safe to say that she's a remarkable adult actress. Well, almost. Sixteen-year-old Fanning is a powerhouse as troubled singer Cherie Currie, but her playing Currie is also a clever bit of stunt casting. The fact that we've seen Fanning grow up on screen makes the sexuality and exploitative nature of Currie's jailbait persona that much more real and unsettling. And it makes her descent into drug use and other vices that much more disturbing. But Stewart and Fanning are both stellar - definitely two of the best performances so far this year, from two actresses who I think will soon be in the conversation as two of the best of their generation.
The other real standout here is Michael Shannon, as the group's hotshot Hollywood-scenester manager, Kim Fowley. Shannon is a total scene stealer, both funny and menacing as the man with the vision of an in-your-face girl group that could rock harder and louder than any of their male counterparts. Fowley's rock bootcamp sessions with the girls are a lot of fun - he transforms Cherrie Currie into a snarling frontwoman, and insists that the girls rock with reckless abandon.
I also really enjoyed the overall look and feel of the film, courtesy of director Floria Sigismondi. At times it's more straightforward, but as the girls descend into the abyss, the movie takes on a hellish, dizzying, almost surreal vibe, full of sex (much of it between the various girls in the band), drugs, and rock n' roll. It's like a great powerballad that starts out slowly but eventually erupts in a sea of noise. Sigismondi also does a great job of highlighting the music - tracks from The Runaways, Joan Jett, and other acts that evoke the time and the rock n' roll spirit of the movie. And Stewart, Fanning, and the rest of the cast does a surprisingly great job of covering some of the classic tunes as well. They really rock, and both actresses seem to channel the spirits of the women they're portraying. I can say that after seeing the movie, songs like "Cherry Bomb" and "Crimson & Clover" have been on constant replay in my head. If you already love the music, I think you'll be appreciative of how it's used in the film. If you don't, I think you'll be heading home and burning a mix CD pronto. And by the way - give credit to the movie's costume designers and others who establish the grimy 70's Los Angeles setting. The movie really does transport you to that era, feathered hair and all.
I think the main thing that bugged me about the movie is going to be the most common complaint from audiences - it just seems a little lopsided in terms of how it tells its story and who it chooses to focus on. Obviously, the spotlight is shone on Jett and Currie, but other Runaways members like Lita Ford and Sandy West seem somewhat unfairly ignored. I know there were a lot of issues around approvals and such, but still. Lita Ford went on to become something of a rock icon in her own right, so it would have been interesting to see more of her story. And just this week, LA Weekly ran a great article on the tumultuous life and tragic death of drummer Sandy West. Oddly, Ford and West don't even get post-scripts in the film (Jett, Currie, and Fowley do), so I didn't even realize she had passed away until I read the LA Weekly article. It also seems a shame to have some talented actresses in the cast (like Arrested Development's Alia Shawkat) who barely get a word of dialogue in. Again, I understand that the focus was kept on Stewart and Fanning, but it would have added to the film, I think, to flesh out some of the other characters a bit more.
Still, The Runaways left its mark on me. It really impressed me, pumped me up, and had me ready to rock. I love the music, I love this period of rock history, and hey, who doesn't love all-girl rock bands? The movie is dirty, grimy, and revels, to an extent, in self-conscious exploitation. But that is sort of the point. It's edgy and uncomfortable, a teenage wasteland of raging hormones and a burning desire to rock. The movie captures that sense of rebellion and attitude, that sense of danger. But I loved its overall message - that someone like Joan Jett rose above all that noise, and by sheer force of will, carved out her own niche and did things her way, paving the way for countless others to follow. There's a message of girl-power there, sure, although it's more than that. It's a lesson in perseverance, a tale of tragedy and triumph, and a modern day-fable for anyone who's ever wanted to be (even a little bit) rock n' roll.
My Grade: A-
"Can't stay at home, can't stay at school
Old folks say, ya poor little fool
Down the street I'm the girl next door
I'm the fox you've been waiting for
Hello Daddy, hello Mom
I'm your ch ch ch ch ch cherry bomb
Hello world I'm your wild girl
I'm your ch ch ch ch ch cherry bomb!"
- If you love rock n' roll, then you just might love The Runaways - a movie that bleeds, sweats, and vomits rock n' roll grit, style, and attitude. The Runaways as a movie completely succeeds at evoking a specific time and place, at capturing an era - and it tells a story that's both inspiring and at times tragic. But there is rock n' roll magic here. There are some absolutely amazing performances from the young cast. There's some awesomely stylized and artistic avant-garde direction. And there are moments that make you just want to pump your fist, bang your head, and rock the %$#& out.
The movie tells the true-life story of The Runaways, the trailblazing all-girl rock band that emerged onto the Hollywood music scene in the mid-seventies. Consisting of teenaged girls, none older than 16 at the time of the band's founding, The Runaways mixed sleaze and sex appeal with legit musical chops and proto-punk attitude to make waves here and abroad - launching the careers of grrrl power icons like Joan Jett and Lita Ford. The movie is in some ways a standard rock biopic, but to me it's about more than just pop-culture history. In some ways, this is a film about daring to be different - about breaking glass ceilings and having the strength of will to go against the grain.
Sure, The Runaways began as a manufactured concept-band, but the film shows us that its members had a special x-factor that couldn't simply be engineered. They were outcasts, rebels, girls who wouldn't conform and couldn't ignore that inner demon calling them to the dark side, the side of rock. We see Joan Jett in a hip Hollywood clothing store circa 1975. "I want what he's wearing" she says to the bemused clerk, pointing at a too-cool-for-school male patron. She dumps a pile of saved-up change on the counter, and walks away with a studded leather jacket. We see Cherie Curry leaving her high school classmates speechless as she gets on stage for a school talent show, and, with streaks of red and blue makeup on her face, covers David Bowie in a full-on glam-rock spectacle. We see Joan Jett taking a guitar lesson - her instructor tells her that girls don't really play guitar, let alone electric. But Joan doesn't care. She plugs into her amp and wails, channelling the rock n' roll gods with each thrash of the strings. There's one scene late in the movie that kind of bookends that initial setup. Joan is at the end of her rope. The Runaways, after having blown up , after becoming icons and sex symbols, have broken up - their lead singer out of the music biz. Joan has fallen in with a bad crowd. She's messed up and strung out. But she puts her head down, grits her teeth, and remembers that it was supposed to be about the music and not everything else. She writes lyrics. She sings. She plays. And she jumps up on her bed, screaming out lyrics as a lightning bolt of divine (or satanic?) inspiration hits her in the form of "I Love Rock n' Roll." It's an amazing sequence - it gave me chills. And it convinced me that The Runaways, as a movie, was the real deal.
Part of what makes things work so well are the kickass performances in the movie. I know some people tend to dismiss Kristen Stewart, but they shouldn't. She may not be someone who can play any role, and she may have little tics and quirks that find their way into a lot of her movies. But ... the girl can act, and she does an awesome job here as Joan Jett. This was a part that Stewart may well have been born to play, and she knocks it out of the park. The toughness, the pent-up anger, the sadness, the willpower of Joan Jett - it's all here, and Stewart is completely compelling in the role. Meanwhile, I think this is the movie that propels Dakota Fanning into the next stage of her career. Sure, she was already a remarkable child actress, but now it's safe to say that she's a remarkable adult actress. Well, almost. Sixteen-year-old Fanning is a powerhouse as troubled singer Cherie Currie, but her playing Currie is also a clever bit of stunt casting. The fact that we've seen Fanning grow up on screen makes the sexuality and exploitative nature of Currie's jailbait persona that much more real and unsettling. And it makes her descent into drug use and other vices that much more disturbing. But Stewart and Fanning are both stellar - definitely two of the best performances so far this year, from two actresses who I think will soon be in the conversation as two of the best of their generation.
The other real standout here is Michael Shannon, as the group's hotshot Hollywood-scenester manager, Kim Fowley. Shannon is a total scene stealer, both funny and menacing as the man with the vision of an in-your-face girl group that could rock harder and louder than any of their male counterparts. Fowley's rock bootcamp sessions with the girls are a lot of fun - he transforms Cherrie Currie into a snarling frontwoman, and insists that the girls rock with reckless abandon.
I also really enjoyed the overall look and feel of the film, courtesy of director Floria Sigismondi. At times it's more straightforward, but as the girls descend into the abyss, the movie takes on a hellish, dizzying, almost surreal vibe, full of sex (much of it between the various girls in the band), drugs, and rock n' roll. It's like a great powerballad that starts out slowly but eventually erupts in a sea of noise. Sigismondi also does a great job of highlighting the music - tracks from The Runaways, Joan Jett, and other acts that evoke the time and the rock n' roll spirit of the movie. And Stewart, Fanning, and the rest of the cast does a surprisingly great job of covering some of the classic tunes as well. They really rock, and both actresses seem to channel the spirits of the women they're portraying. I can say that after seeing the movie, songs like "Cherry Bomb" and "Crimson & Clover" have been on constant replay in my head. If you already love the music, I think you'll be appreciative of how it's used in the film. If you don't, I think you'll be heading home and burning a mix CD pronto. And by the way - give credit to the movie's costume designers and others who establish the grimy 70's Los Angeles setting. The movie really does transport you to that era, feathered hair and all.
I think the main thing that bugged me about the movie is going to be the most common complaint from audiences - it just seems a little lopsided in terms of how it tells its story and who it chooses to focus on. Obviously, the spotlight is shone on Jett and Currie, but other Runaways members like Lita Ford and Sandy West seem somewhat unfairly ignored. I know there were a lot of issues around approvals and such, but still. Lita Ford went on to become something of a rock icon in her own right, so it would have been interesting to see more of her story. And just this week, LA Weekly ran a great article on the tumultuous life and tragic death of drummer Sandy West. Oddly, Ford and West don't even get post-scripts in the film (Jett, Currie, and Fowley do), so I didn't even realize she had passed away until I read the LA Weekly article. It also seems a shame to have some talented actresses in the cast (like Arrested Development's Alia Shawkat) who barely get a word of dialogue in. Again, I understand that the focus was kept on Stewart and Fanning, but it would have added to the film, I think, to flesh out some of the other characters a bit more.
Still, The Runaways left its mark on me. It really impressed me, pumped me up, and had me ready to rock. I love the music, I love this period of rock history, and hey, who doesn't love all-girl rock bands? The movie is dirty, grimy, and revels, to an extent, in self-conscious exploitation. But that is sort of the point. It's edgy and uncomfortable, a teenage wasteland of raging hormones and a burning desire to rock. The movie captures that sense of rebellion and attitude, that sense of danger. But I loved its overall message - that someone like Joan Jett rose above all that noise, and by sheer force of will, carved out her own niche and did things her way, paving the way for countless others to follow. There's a message of girl-power there, sure, although it's more than that. It's a lesson in perseverance, a tale of tragedy and triumph, and a modern day-fable for anyone who's ever wanted to be (even a little bit) rock n' roll.
My Grade: A-
Monday, March 22, 2010
Anatomy of a Box-Office Bomb: a REPO MEN Review
Okay, I'm on a blog-writing hot-streak, despite it being one of those Mondays where I feel like I'm struggling. Overall though, it was a fun weekend, and there was some much, much-needed rest and relaxation following an insane week. I think I slept about 14 hours or something between Friday and Saturday. Yep, I was beat. And yes, if I don't set an alarm, I can easily sleep 10+ hours after a long week. But yeah, activities this past weekend included hitting up a Shabbat dinner, seeing The Runaways (which rocked!), and having dinner with my visiting-from-the-east-coast cousin. Now it's back to the grind, but I've got one more movie review for ya' before I call it a day. So here we go - buckle up, because this one ain't gonna be pretty.
REPO MEN Review:
- Repo Men is a pretty bad B-movie. It somewhat skirts the line between being one of those *entertainingly-bad* B-movies, and one of those flicks that's just so bad as to actively piss you off. Honestly, I think that while Repo Men has a couple of cool moments and ideas, the fact that it just seems to blatantly rip off other, better movies pushes it over the edge. I know some people tend to glorify bad movies. But this is not something to be celebrated. Instead, Repo Men falls into the realm of flicks that just plain aren't worth your time. At the end of the day, Repo Men is a mess. It doesn't know if it's trying to be campy or serious, and neither do the actors. It's ultra-violent and gory, but the carnage is handled in such as way so as to completely undermine the basic point of the story. It's futuristic, sci-fi world is never explained, never given a set of rules or logic or any sense of context, not even in shorthand. We never buy into it as being in any way plausible, and in sci-fi, that's just lazy, and basically unforgivable. Worst of all, as I mentioned above, Repo Men pays "homage" to the likes of Blade Runner, Oldboy, Brazil, Logan's Run, and several other genre classics. Hell, even Crank. And oh yeah, by paying homage, I mean blatantly rips off in a way that just plain made me cringe. At the end of the day, Repo Men is nonsensical yet predictable, cheesy yet self-serious, and not half as clever as it thinks it is. So yeah, commence your "Repo"-related joke of choice ... now.
Repo Men takes place in a gritty future where, for some reason, everyone is buying up artificial organs and other body parts to replace faulty or undesirable ones. All of these mechanical hearts and livers and such come from The Union - a, you guessed it, sinister conglomerate. A sinister conglomerate that apparently has free reign to BRUTALLY MURDER YOU should you be unable or unwilling to pay up for your artificial parts. How this is condoned and seemingly accepted by society I don't know - it's never explained. But I do know that this is a dystopian future a la Blade Runner, because - hey! - there's big video billboards in a dark cityscape and Chinese characters on street signs! Just like, yep, Blade Runner.
From minute one on, you can basically predict every story beat of the film. Ever seen a movie where the hunter becomes the hunted? Where the good employee is betrayed by the very company / organization he works for? Where his very own (gasp!) partner is sent to track him down and bring him in? Then yep, you basically know where and how this movie is headed at all times. At some point in the movie, you begin to think that we are being set up for a big twist of some sort, an M. Night-style reveal. And without spoiling the movie, I will just say that the end reveal is cool for about .5 seconds for shock value alone ... until you realize that it is absolutely pointless to the overall story, and basically just negates a good 50% of the film in one fell swoop.
Repo Men can't even keep it's characters and their motivations straight - because god forbid characterization gets in the way of hardcore action! The whole thing with Jude Law's character is that he's supposed to be a vicious thug who has a change of heart - who doesn't want to be a murderer anymore, and so forsakes his ways for nonviolence, etc. Hmm, funny that about five minutes after Law's game-changing epiphony, he proceeds to brutally slaughter dozens of people as he goes on the run from The Union. Jude Law is okay here, but again, he seems confused about what the hell the tone of the movie is - and rightfully so. Sometimes it tries to be tongue-in-cheek, Guy Ritchie-esque action. They even rip Ritchie's trademark camera tricks and narrative style in certain scenes. Other times, the movie wants to be a grand epic - a meditative Blade Runner-style piece of sci-fi. Other times, the movie is just cartoonishly over-the-top, and might as well be The Transporter or Crank. Like one of the characters in the film, it really does feel like a cobbled-together monstrosity that freely borrows from other movies, other directors, other stories. And while I'm on this topic, let me just say: if you've seen Oldboy (and you should, if you haven't), there is a climactic action scene in the movie that just straight-up rips off Oldboy's trademark action scene. Yep, it involves a narrow corridor and a hammer. And look, it's a fun, well-directed action scene. But for me, it was the final straw, during which I realized that Repo Men had barely an ounce of real creativity in its DNA.
Law tries, he really does. And geez, the supporting cast here is ridiculously high-caliber. Forest Whitaker, Liev Schreiber, Carice Van Houten. Forest is entertaining - he's in full-on CRAZY mode. Problem is, he's supposed to be a character who we like, who we wonder about. Will he turn on his friend in the name of the job? Um, the guy, as played by Whitaker, is bat$%&$ insane - of course he'll turn on Jude Law! Schreiber also gives it his all as a smarmy executive at the The Union. He has some fun moments, but never transcends the role of "stock corporate sleazebag." And oh man, Carice Van Houten was so, so good in Black Book. Here? She does nothing but scowl at Jude Law. Definitely a waste.
Speaking of Black Book, apparently Repo Men was going for a Paul Verhoeven vibe. Well, it doesn't succeed. When there's no internal logic to a movie, no context to help set up the world, it's tough to be satirical, you know? Repo Men is no Robocop. Not even close. A couple of the action scenes are entertaining enough, but as far as satire? social commentary? - the movie feels mostly brainless. And aesthetically, it's bland as hell. Blade Runner is in large part a classic because of its immersive, cyberpunk aesthetic. Brazil had Terry Gilliam's surreal sense of unbridled imagination. Even recent B-movie action/sci-fi flicks like Doomsday (awesome!) and Daybreakers (surprisingly solid) had a highly-developed sense of time and place - a visual and stylistic vision. Not so here. Repo Men is generic and lifeless all the way, taking place in nondescript parking lots, darkly-lit slums, and stock corporate offices.
Very few things in this movie make any sense, starting with the premise, continuing to the character dynamics, and ending with the lamely-executed twist of a finale. There's one climactic, oddly sadomasochistic scene that is visually striking, and the one that people will probably be talking about after seeing the movie, but that makes no sense given what's come before. Just a random, quasi-artsy scene inserted more for shock value than anything else. The movie is lucky to have Law, Whitaker, and Shreiber. Otherwise, it would be a total trainwreck. But those guys make it watchable when they can. Whitaker's craziness keeps things interesting.
And yeah, Repo Men is periodically interesting. Interesting enough that I laughed a bunch of times when I probably wasn't supposed to. Interesting enough that it inspired heated debates over its merits among friends and I. Some thought it was entertaining enough to recommend. I didn't. When a movie's most entertaining moments are entertaining because: a.) they add shock value but contribute nothing to the story, or b.) they shamelessly and only semi-skillfully rip from other movies, then sorry, but that's epic fail in my book. Okay, maybe not fail, but ... you get the picture. My main point is this: there are great genre movies out there. There are great, pulpy, B-movies out there. Movies with style, movies with imagination, movies with a vision. This, my friends, is NOT one of those movies.
My Grade: C-
- Coming Soon: 24 thoughts, and a review of THE RUNAWAYS!
REPO MEN Review:
- Repo Men is a pretty bad B-movie. It somewhat skirts the line between being one of those *entertainingly-bad* B-movies, and one of those flicks that's just so bad as to actively piss you off. Honestly, I think that while Repo Men has a couple of cool moments and ideas, the fact that it just seems to blatantly rip off other, better movies pushes it over the edge. I know some people tend to glorify bad movies. But this is not something to be celebrated. Instead, Repo Men falls into the realm of flicks that just plain aren't worth your time. At the end of the day, Repo Men is a mess. It doesn't know if it's trying to be campy or serious, and neither do the actors. It's ultra-violent and gory, but the carnage is handled in such as way so as to completely undermine the basic point of the story. It's futuristic, sci-fi world is never explained, never given a set of rules or logic or any sense of context, not even in shorthand. We never buy into it as being in any way plausible, and in sci-fi, that's just lazy, and basically unforgivable. Worst of all, as I mentioned above, Repo Men pays "homage" to the likes of Blade Runner, Oldboy, Brazil, Logan's Run, and several other genre classics. Hell, even Crank. And oh yeah, by paying homage, I mean blatantly rips off in a way that just plain made me cringe. At the end of the day, Repo Men is nonsensical yet predictable, cheesy yet self-serious, and not half as clever as it thinks it is. So yeah, commence your "Repo"-related joke of choice ... now.
Repo Men takes place in a gritty future where, for some reason, everyone is buying up artificial organs and other body parts to replace faulty or undesirable ones. All of these mechanical hearts and livers and such come from The Union - a, you guessed it, sinister conglomerate. A sinister conglomerate that apparently has free reign to BRUTALLY MURDER YOU should you be unable or unwilling to pay up for your artificial parts. How this is condoned and seemingly accepted by society I don't know - it's never explained. But I do know that this is a dystopian future a la Blade Runner, because - hey! - there's big video billboards in a dark cityscape and Chinese characters on street signs! Just like, yep, Blade Runner.
From minute one on, you can basically predict every story beat of the film. Ever seen a movie where the hunter becomes the hunted? Where the good employee is betrayed by the very company / organization he works for? Where his very own (gasp!) partner is sent to track him down and bring him in? Then yep, you basically know where and how this movie is headed at all times. At some point in the movie, you begin to think that we are being set up for a big twist of some sort, an M. Night-style reveal. And without spoiling the movie, I will just say that the end reveal is cool for about .5 seconds for shock value alone ... until you realize that it is absolutely pointless to the overall story, and basically just negates a good 50% of the film in one fell swoop.
Repo Men can't even keep it's characters and their motivations straight - because god forbid characterization gets in the way of hardcore action! The whole thing with Jude Law's character is that he's supposed to be a vicious thug who has a change of heart - who doesn't want to be a murderer anymore, and so forsakes his ways for nonviolence, etc. Hmm, funny that about five minutes after Law's game-changing epiphony, he proceeds to brutally slaughter dozens of people as he goes on the run from The Union. Jude Law is okay here, but again, he seems confused about what the hell the tone of the movie is - and rightfully so. Sometimes it tries to be tongue-in-cheek, Guy Ritchie-esque action. They even rip Ritchie's trademark camera tricks and narrative style in certain scenes. Other times, the movie wants to be a grand epic - a meditative Blade Runner-style piece of sci-fi. Other times, the movie is just cartoonishly over-the-top, and might as well be The Transporter or Crank. Like one of the characters in the film, it really does feel like a cobbled-together monstrosity that freely borrows from other movies, other directors, other stories. And while I'm on this topic, let me just say: if you've seen Oldboy (and you should, if you haven't), there is a climactic action scene in the movie that just straight-up rips off Oldboy's trademark action scene. Yep, it involves a narrow corridor and a hammer. And look, it's a fun, well-directed action scene. But for me, it was the final straw, during which I realized that Repo Men had barely an ounce of real creativity in its DNA.
Law tries, he really does. And geez, the supporting cast here is ridiculously high-caliber. Forest Whitaker, Liev Schreiber, Carice Van Houten. Forest is entertaining - he's in full-on CRAZY mode. Problem is, he's supposed to be a character who we like, who we wonder about. Will he turn on his friend in the name of the job? Um, the guy, as played by Whitaker, is bat$%&$ insane - of course he'll turn on Jude Law! Schreiber also gives it his all as a smarmy executive at the The Union. He has some fun moments, but never transcends the role of "stock corporate sleazebag." And oh man, Carice Van Houten was so, so good in Black Book. Here? She does nothing but scowl at Jude Law. Definitely a waste.
Speaking of Black Book, apparently Repo Men was going for a Paul Verhoeven vibe. Well, it doesn't succeed. When there's no internal logic to a movie, no context to help set up the world, it's tough to be satirical, you know? Repo Men is no Robocop. Not even close. A couple of the action scenes are entertaining enough, but as far as satire? social commentary? - the movie feels mostly brainless. And aesthetically, it's bland as hell. Blade Runner is in large part a classic because of its immersive, cyberpunk aesthetic. Brazil had Terry Gilliam's surreal sense of unbridled imagination. Even recent B-movie action/sci-fi flicks like Doomsday (awesome!) and Daybreakers (surprisingly solid) had a highly-developed sense of time and place - a visual and stylistic vision. Not so here. Repo Men is generic and lifeless all the way, taking place in nondescript parking lots, darkly-lit slums, and stock corporate offices.
Very few things in this movie make any sense, starting with the premise, continuing to the character dynamics, and ending with the lamely-executed twist of a finale. There's one climactic, oddly sadomasochistic scene that is visually striking, and the one that people will probably be talking about after seeing the movie, but that makes no sense given what's come before. Just a random, quasi-artsy scene inserted more for shock value than anything else. The movie is lucky to have Law, Whitaker, and Shreiber. Otherwise, it would be a total trainwreck. But those guys make it watchable when they can. Whitaker's craziness keeps things interesting.
And yeah, Repo Men is periodically interesting. Interesting enough that I laughed a bunch of times when I probably wasn't supposed to. Interesting enough that it inspired heated debates over its merits among friends and I. Some thought it was entertaining enough to recommend. I didn't. When a movie's most entertaining moments are entertaining because: a.) they add shock value but contribute nothing to the story, or b.) they shamelessly and only semi-skillfully rip from other movies, then sorry, but that's epic fail in my book. Okay, maybe not fail, but ... you get the picture. My main point is this: there are great genre movies out there. There are great, pulpy, B-movies out there. Movies with style, movies with imagination, movies with a vision. This, my friends, is NOT one of those movies.
My Grade: C-
- Coming Soon: 24 thoughts, and a review of THE RUNAWAYS!
Through The Looking Glass: ALICE IN WONDERLAND - Reviewed!
Back from the weekend, and yeah, still way behind on my blogging. So let me get right to it and talk about a film that I saw LAST weekend, one that I've been meaning to write about ever since. So without further ado ...
ALICE IN WONDERLAND Review:
- I love most Tim Burton films, but I have to admit: Alice In Wonderland is not the director's finest moment. In some ways, it does feel like a parody of a Tim Burton film - overly-stylized to the point of excess, weird for the sake of being weird, Johnny Depp along for the ride as a pale-faced eccentric, Helena Bonham Carter as a pale-faced eccentric, and a goth-yet-bouncy Danny Elfman soundtrack. The thing is, typically these elements work. For those who say they don't, I point you to Sweeney Todd, which was absolutely terrific. So what makes Alice feel less like a great movie and more like a marketing tie-in with Hot Topic? Well, aside from the marketing tie-in with Hot Topic? It's tough - I don't want to flat-out bash the movie because I actually did really enjoy parts of it. There ARE sparks of greatness. But, the movie is also sort of a mess. The art-direction is often ugly and just plain odd. There's a strange mix of abstract weirdness and traditional, hero's-journey, action-adventure narrative. And some of the actors just don't seem lost trying to play to the movie's surreal aesthetic. I think Alice is interesting, and worth checking out - but it's also probably my least favorite Burton movie other than Planet of the Apes (which flat-out sucked).
Like I said, I do think there's a lot to like about the film. I actually found the premise pretty intriguing - the idea of Alice, now 20, summoned back to Wonderland (er .. Underland), to help save the magical kingdom from the Red Queen's reign of terror. Basically, it takes the traditional Alice storyline and gives it an epic spin similar to Oz or Narnia. Very cool concept, and much more interesting than one more retelling of the same old story. It's funny that the premise wasn't really advertised as such in the movie's marketing, for whatever reason. But I loved the opening scenes that help reestablish Alice as a precocious young woman in early 20th Century England - an outcast and outsider who'd rather keep herself occupied with daydreams and stories than with the trivialities of the British aristocracy. The scenes in which Alice, at a garden party in her honor, publicly turns down a marraige proposal from a snooty young chap were a lot of fun - my favorite parts of the movie, in fact. It's too bad that the rest of the film didn't live up to the great setup - which was, I think, classic Tim Burton in the best way possible. And by the way, I think that says something about Burton - that he's often at his best when he's artfully mixing the outlandish with the mundane, the fantastic with the ordinary. Once Alice goes to Wonderland, there's no tether, and it feels like Burton goes off the rails.
Luckily though, Mia Wasikowska is pretty great as Alice. Girlish yet smarter than you'd think, Mia makes Alice a classic, archetypal character who's fun to follow and easy to root for. And it's funny, because on paper the casting of the film is pretty great, and yeah, sometimes in practice. I think Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter give it their best shot, for example. Few other actors could have done as much with the material as those two. But Depp's Mad Hatter is never all that memorable or even fun. It just feels like a character that was conceived by saying "let Johnny Depp act crazy", and, well, that's about it. Given that this is something of a reimagining of the Alice mythos, you wish that there was perhaps some added twist to the character - and I think I kept waiting for that twist to come. Instead, like I said, it was a character that was basically just a vessel for Depp to get experimental - and I don't know, did he really need to change accents every couple of minutes? Again, this felt a bit like Burton and Depp going off the grid without much rhyme or reason. Just looking at Bonham-Carter's Red Queen, there's a similar feeling of annoyingly purposeless randomoddity. I mean, her character just looks lame. Not creepy or cool or anything. Just weird. The randomness by which some characters in the film are human, some inhuman, and some odd mixes of real and CGI, again, just makes for a movie that oftentimes looks ugly. This is unusual for Burton - his movies, from Edward Scissorhands to Nightmare Before Christmas to Batman to Sweeney Todd - they all, always, look amazing. But here, the Red Queen with her giant, CGI head just looks off. Same with Crispin Glover's character, Stayne, who's body is CGI-enhanced and elongated for no good reason. Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dumb are cartoonish CGI characters. Anne Hathaway as The White Queen just looks ugly and strange. Not "ugly" ugly. Just aesthetically, a bad-looking character design. Hathaway just seems lost as well - she tries to be whimsical and otherworldly but just comes off as unintentionally comical. There's an overabundance of other great actors who lend a hand via voicework. Alan Rickman as the Blue Caterpillar, Michael Sheen as the White Rabbit, Stephen Fry as the Cheshire Cat, etc. All do a fine job, but I also don't think that they did anything particularly memorable with the iconic storybook characters that they play.
I think you get the picture. There's a ton of mismatched aesthetic and narrative elements at play here. On one hand, the movie wants to recapture the trippy, hallucinagenic, meandering vibe of the book and of the original Disney toon. On the other hand, it's trying to be a more conventional fantasy-adventure film. But the two styles don't quite gel. We're never that invested in the action or the conflict between the two Queens, because there's not much depth to their rivalry. We know that alice is the chosen one who must topple the Red Queen and slay the mythical beast known as the Jabberwocky, but beyond that there's not much meat to really give these events any weight. When Alice does her tearful goodbye to the Mad Hatter at movie's end, as she prepares to head back to the real world, I have to say that I barely cared. The characters were too thin to ever really grow very attached to. Tonally, the movie is also pretty all over the place. The darkly comic, mischevious opening really works well. But then the movie veers wildly from dark melancholy to trippy weirdness to cutesy comedy. When the Mad Hatter gets his groove thang on at one point, it was a moment akin to Peter Parker disco-dancing in Spiderman 3. All I could think was ... "whyyyyyy?!"
Still, there are those little moments that Burton really nails. Again, that great opening - Burton does young-adult alienation better than most. I liked the humorously grotesque visual of the moat full of decapitated heads, victim's of the Red Queen's rage and proclivity for beheadings. I liked certain moments of Depp's performance - when he has brief moments of sanity that shine through the madness. Again, Depp does something with the role that few others could. He really does give it a go. And there are certain moments of visual brilliance - even if the character designs are pretty wonky, there are still some really cool, eye-popping sequences.
I hope that Tim Burton can get his mojo back going forward. I don't get those who seem to flat-out bash him and his body of work. He's a brilliant director. But I think it's time for him to stop recycling old stories and give us another Big Fish - something that truly feels like his own, original vision. I think that there's a danger in studios going to Burton with properties just so he can "weird-them-up" for the Hot Topic crowd. And given Alice's huge box-office success, I'm sure that will happen. But Alice is an example of Burton's trademark aesthetic amped up to excessive levels, for no particularly good reasons, stylistic or narrative. There are definitely moments, sparks of genius, hints of great ideas. But the movie never quite 100% works the way it should.
My Grade: B-
- Okay, stay tuned for looks at REPO MEN, THE RUNAWAYS, and More!
ALICE IN WONDERLAND Review:
- I love most Tim Burton films, but I have to admit: Alice In Wonderland is not the director's finest moment. In some ways, it does feel like a parody of a Tim Burton film - overly-stylized to the point of excess, weird for the sake of being weird, Johnny Depp along for the ride as a pale-faced eccentric, Helena Bonham Carter as a pale-faced eccentric, and a goth-yet-bouncy Danny Elfman soundtrack. The thing is, typically these elements work. For those who say they don't, I point you to Sweeney Todd, which was absolutely terrific. So what makes Alice feel less like a great movie and more like a marketing tie-in with Hot Topic? Well, aside from the marketing tie-in with Hot Topic? It's tough - I don't want to flat-out bash the movie because I actually did really enjoy parts of it. There ARE sparks of greatness. But, the movie is also sort of a mess. The art-direction is often ugly and just plain odd. There's a strange mix of abstract weirdness and traditional, hero's-journey, action-adventure narrative. And some of the actors just don't seem lost trying to play to the movie's surreal aesthetic. I think Alice is interesting, and worth checking out - but it's also probably my least favorite Burton movie other than Planet of the Apes (which flat-out sucked).
Like I said, I do think there's a lot to like about the film. I actually found the premise pretty intriguing - the idea of Alice, now 20, summoned back to Wonderland (er .. Underland), to help save the magical kingdom from the Red Queen's reign of terror. Basically, it takes the traditional Alice storyline and gives it an epic spin similar to Oz or Narnia. Very cool concept, and much more interesting than one more retelling of the same old story. It's funny that the premise wasn't really advertised as such in the movie's marketing, for whatever reason. But I loved the opening scenes that help reestablish Alice as a precocious young woman in early 20th Century England - an outcast and outsider who'd rather keep herself occupied with daydreams and stories than with the trivialities of the British aristocracy. The scenes in which Alice, at a garden party in her honor, publicly turns down a marraige proposal from a snooty young chap were a lot of fun - my favorite parts of the movie, in fact. It's too bad that the rest of the film didn't live up to the great setup - which was, I think, classic Tim Burton in the best way possible. And by the way, I think that says something about Burton - that he's often at his best when he's artfully mixing the outlandish with the mundane, the fantastic with the ordinary. Once Alice goes to Wonderland, there's no tether, and it feels like Burton goes off the rails.
Luckily though, Mia Wasikowska is pretty great as Alice. Girlish yet smarter than you'd think, Mia makes Alice a classic, archetypal character who's fun to follow and easy to root for. And it's funny, because on paper the casting of the film is pretty great, and yeah, sometimes in practice. I think Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter give it their best shot, for example. Few other actors could have done as much with the material as those two. But Depp's Mad Hatter is never all that memorable or even fun. It just feels like a character that was conceived by saying "let Johnny Depp act crazy", and, well, that's about it. Given that this is something of a reimagining of the Alice mythos, you wish that there was perhaps some added twist to the character - and I think I kept waiting for that twist to come. Instead, like I said, it was a character that was basically just a vessel for Depp to get experimental - and I don't know, did he really need to change accents every couple of minutes? Again, this felt a bit like Burton and Depp going off the grid without much rhyme or reason. Just looking at Bonham-Carter's Red Queen, there's a similar feeling of annoyingly purposeless randomoddity. I mean, her character just looks lame. Not creepy or cool or anything. Just weird. The randomness by which some characters in the film are human, some inhuman, and some odd mixes of real and CGI, again, just makes for a movie that oftentimes looks ugly. This is unusual for Burton - his movies, from Edward Scissorhands to Nightmare Before Christmas to Batman to Sweeney Todd - they all, always, look amazing. But here, the Red Queen with her giant, CGI head just looks off. Same with Crispin Glover's character, Stayne, who's body is CGI-enhanced and elongated for no good reason. Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dumb are cartoonish CGI characters. Anne Hathaway as The White Queen just looks ugly and strange. Not "ugly" ugly. Just aesthetically, a bad-looking character design. Hathaway just seems lost as well - she tries to be whimsical and otherworldly but just comes off as unintentionally comical. There's an overabundance of other great actors who lend a hand via voicework. Alan Rickman as the Blue Caterpillar, Michael Sheen as the White Rabbit, Stephen Fry as the Cheshire Cat, etc. All do a fine job, but I also don't think that they did anything particularly memorable with the iconic storybook characters that they play.
I think you get the picture. There's a ton of mismatched aesthetic and narrative elements at play here. On one hand, the movie wants to recapture the trippy, hallucinagenic, meandering vibe of the book and of the original Disney toon. On the other hand, it's trying to be a more conventional fantasy-adventure film. But the two styles don't quite gel. We're never that invested in the action or the conflict between the two Queens, because there's not much depth to their rivalry. We know that alice is the chosen one who must topple the Red Queen and slay the mythical beast known as the Jabberwocky, but beyond that there's not much meat to really give these events any weight. When Alice does her tearful goodbye to the Mad Hatter at movie's end, as she prepares to head back to the real world, I have to say that I barely cared. The characters were too thin to ever really grow very attached to. Tonally, the movie is also pretty all over the place. The darkly comic, mischevious opening really works well. But then the movie veers wildly from dark melancholy to trippy weirdness to cutesy comedy. When the Mad Hatter gets his groove thang on at one point, it was a moment akin to Peter Parker disco-dancing in Spiderman 3. All I could think was ... "whyyyyyy?!"
Still, there are those little moments that Burton really nails. Again, that great opening - Burton does young-adult alienation better than most. I liked the humorously grotesque visual of the moat full of decapitated heads, victim's of the Red Queen's rage and proclivity for beheadings. I liked certain moments of Depp's performance - when he has brief moments of sanity that shine through the madness. Again, Depp does something with the role that few others could. He really does give it a go. And there are certain moments of visual brilliance - even if the character designs are pretty wonky, there are still some really cool, eye-popping sequences.
I hope that Tim Burton can get his mojo back going forward. I don't get those who seem to flat-out bash him and his body of work. He's a brilliant director. But I think it's time for him to stop recycling old stories and give us another Big Fish - something that truly feels like his own, original vision. I think that there's a danger in studios going to Burton with properties just so he can "weird-them-up" for the Hot Topic crowd. And given Alice's huge box-office success, I'm sure that will happen. But Alice is an example of Burton's trademark aesthetic amped up to excessive levels, for no particularly good reasons, stylistic or narrative. There are definitely moments, sparks of genius, hints of great ideas. But the movie never quite 100% works the way it should.
My Grade: B-
- Okay, stay tuned for looks at REPO MEN, THE RUNAWAYS, and More!
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
A Pretty ... Pretty Good Post. CURB! LOST! 24! Chuck! and MORE!
Oh man, it's been an absolutely crazy couple of weeks. Long hours at work, a bunch of random events and birthdays, etc. Plus, every spare moment I've had has been spent working on the screenplay that will ROCK THE WORLD of comedy once it's unleashed on the public. And I am happy to say that my brother and I have completed said screenplay, and that it's awesomeness can no longer be contained. I will say writing it was a lot of fun, but also a pretty grueling process. I will be happy to have at least a short break before I get to work on an encore. Unfortunately, all of this has somewhat derailed my blog-writing attempts over the last week or so, but, hey, I'm back, and I've got a lot to talk about.
- There have been a lot of random adventures that I've wanted to write about, though. One in particular I do want to mention is that last Sunday, I was fortunate to attend the CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM event at The Paley Center, as part of the annual PaleyFest. The event was pretty ... pretty ... pretty good. Okay, it was pretty freaking awesome. Live and part of the panel discussion were Larry David, Jeff Garlin, Cheryl Hines, Susie Essman, Richard Lewis, and Bob Einstein. Honestly, it was such an amazing assemblage of comedy genius that I could have probably listened to these guys banter for hours and hours. Richard Lewis and Bob Einstein (Super Dave!) were show-stealers. Lewis' neurotic ramblings and Einstein's deader-than-deadpan jokes made for an absolutely hilarious evening - especially when coupled with Larry David's bemused reactions and Jeff Garlin's uncontrollable, high-pitched laughter. I've been a fan of Curb for a while now, and I rated it very highly in my list of BEST TV SERIES OF THE DECADE. But I have to admit - seeing so many amazingly hilarious, brilliantly funny clips play in rapid succession during the highlight reel that kicked off the panel - well, I came away floored at just how incredible the show was, and is. Definitely an amazing event.
- I also have a couple movies to review, including ALICE IN WONDERLAND and REPO MEN. It's funny, I saw Alice in the midst of such a busy week/weekend that I've barely had time to fully process it in the days since. My quick reaction is that it was an interesting movie with some memorable scenes and characters, but that it was definitely not Tim Burton's best effort. As for Repo Men, well, it was just a mess of a movie - in more ways than one. I'll get into more specifics when I review it in an upcoming post, but yeah, not one of the better sci-fi flicks I've seen.
- Meanwhile, I have a ton of TV thoughts. I've been jotting down some reviews throught the week, so here they are - finally! Scroll through for reviews of 24, Lost, Chuck, and more!
TWENTY FOUR!
- Okay, so business definitely picked up on Monday's episode of 24. EMP bombs, CTU infiltrated, and a general sense of craziness made last night's ep one of the best and most enjoyable of the season to date.
AND YET ... the episode was seriously almost ruined by the Dana Walsh stuff. Like, really. Ruined. It's not funny, anymore, people. When I want to punch one of my favorite actors, Stephen Root, for his character being so ridiculous and annoying, you know something is very, very wrong. There is NO WAY Root would have been let into CTU at 3 am during an emergency situaiton. There is NO WAY Dana would actually humor him in the middle of a national security crisis. And there is NO WAY that Root's character would be this persistent at this ungodly hour. And it just kept getting more absurd from there. He wants Dana to pull surveillace file for him? Now? Really? And she's actually going to do it? And she has to stop and call Cole while he's in hot pursit of nuclear materials to tell him about this?
W.T.F.
This storyline needs to die, and it needs to die now. But what kills me is that the storyline doesn't HAVE to be this bad. It could be handled in a way that makes more sense. But at every turn, the writing just insults our intelligence and has the characters act in the dumbest and most illogical way possible. 24 works when its unique format is acknowledged and implemented well. Things are supposed to be ultra-intense at the 3 am and 4 am hours because we know that by all rights everyone should be at home and asleep. The fact that Jack and co. are still pressing forward is a great way to up the ante, to make it clear that this is no ordinary day, these are no ordinary circumstance. But this Dana Walsh stuff basically spits in the face of 24's established logic. It's 3 am? Who cares? There's a security crisis? Who cares? Not only is it a lame storyline, but it completely takes you out of the show's reality.
Otherwise, this was a damn good episode. I know, hard to believe after all that, but really, it was. Just lots of great action, intensity, and unpredictability. The pursuit of the terrorists was pretty badass, as was Jack's interaction with the NYPD. The scenes in which Hassan's daughter was held captive were suitably nail-biting. And the cliffhanger ending, in which CTU gets completely owned thanks to an EMP bomb, was one of the better and cooler endings we've seen from 24 in a while. And man, the preview for next week got me pumped: CTU is down, and only one man stands between us and total annihiliation: Jack Bauer, beyotch. As it should be.
The fact is, this was a darn good episode. But PLEASE LORD, end the awful subplots.
My Grade: B+
- CHUCK had a nother very good episode this past week. No, it didn't quite reach the heights of awesomeness of last week's landmark ep, but this one was a very well done, Casey-focused episode that shone the spotlight on Chuck's eternally gruff mentor. We've gotten the occasional hints about Casey's life pre-Chuck, but this one went furthest in terms of revealing hidden truths about Casey's heretofore unrevealed origins. Turns out, like Sarah, his name was never really John Casey afterall. After faking his own death for a military operation, the soldier who would become Casey was born. Of course, this transformation meant that Casey had to bid adieu to the love of his life, who, like everyone else, assumed he had in fact been killed. In this episode, Casey goes rogue in order to help his old army leader, played by Robert Patrick - when Patrick threatens to kill his wife if his old charge doesn't help him in his new role as member of The Ring.
It was sweet seeing Robert Patrick on Chuck. From T2 to The X-Files, Patrick is one of those great, badass, no-nonsense guys who always adds something a given production. And he was cool here as a rival for the always-great Adam Baldwin.
My one complaint about this episode is that it got ultra-angsty at the end. Last week was nice in that it finally took a break from all the Chuck-Sarah stuff. I'm honestly pretty sick of all the melodrama involving their relationship, so it was annoying to see it back in full force as this episode wrapped up. Same goes for everything involving Chuck's sister, Devon, etc. I can already see it coming a mile away - they go to Africa to escape the danger of being wrapped up in Chuck's spy adventures, only to get kidnapped as Chuck has to go save them. Just have them go or don't go - don't make it into such a sob-fest. Again, Chuck's emo-ness is fine in small doses, but this episode started out with lots of cool CIA intrigue, but then devolved into an OC-style pity party.
Overall though, another fun episode of Chuck.
My Grade: B+
FOX SUNDAY NIGHT TV:
- Man, this past week's episode of THE SIMPSONS just depressed me. It just felt so ... blah. There was nothing horribly, offensively bad about it, but it just, well, wasn't funny. The plot was a retread of some of the most overused Simpsons tropes - Bart as attention-seeker, and Homer and Marge developing a rift in their relationship. The latter in particular is just ridiculously played out at this point, and I just cringe whenever it's recycled (which is basically every other week, apparently). Anyways, a fairly uninspired episode. Bart plays Homer and Marge against each other, thus convincing them to put less effort into parenting him for the sake of their marriage? That's the big Simpsons plot? It's a far cry from the days of monorails and burlesque houses.
My Grade: C+
- FAMILY GUY, meanwhile, was yet another episode that seemed to be all about pushing the limits of the show and the characters. Okay, fine - but sometimes the show is simply semi-shocking without actually being funny. Because you have to have the characters have some semblance of normalcy, otherwise they can't surprise or shock you. Case in point: Lois. Recently, we've seen her almost cheat on Peter with Quagmire. And now, she does cheat on him with Meg's teenaged boyfriend. I guess, maybe, if done right this could be funny. But it just felt cheap. Meg is such a non-character now, and Lois is quickly becoming that way. This was one of those episodes where the writers never seemed to worry about characterization and just said "ohhh, wouldn't it be crazy / sexy / weird if Lois tried to sleep with Meg's new boyfriend?" Umm ... not exactly. Same goes with Stewie doing the whole Tootsie thing and dressing up like a girl in order to get a part on a kids' TV show, where of course he falls in love with one of the actual girl babies also on the show. Isn't Stewie supposed to be gay? Oh, right, FG just does whatever it wants for the sake of being random.
My Grade: C+
LOST Thoughts:
- Lost was a lot of fun this week, and I think a lot of that was due to it being a Sawyer episode. Sawyer is always one of the show's most interesting characters, and, at this point, he's one of the few real wildcards still left. Because, he's one of the few characters who has really grown and changed over the course of the series. He's gone from roguish antagonist to rougish hero, and yet, there is that sense that he could still be nudged back towards the dark side if the story dictated. His status as a conman also makes him a good foil for Not-Locke. We've all seen the story before about the roguish trickster type who manages to pull one over on the devil himself. And it looks like that's where Lost is going with Sawyer.
And that's cool, because so much of this season of Lost, at least so far, has just been "Lost's Greatest Hits," methodically shining the spotlight on each character, one at a time, and sort of reminding us what they're all about, even if it means recycling tropes that were played-out two seasons ago. At least in Sawyer's case, there is some genuine intrigue as to where his character will end up when all is said and done. If he ends up the hero, it's a natural progression of the character over time. If he ends up the villain, it's a cool / dark twist. So Sawyer is one of the few characters who's arc is currently a win/win. And seeing Josh Halloway and Terry O'Quinn face off is always cool - definitely two of the best and most charismatic actors on primetime TV today.
That said, this episode contained some of the same issues as others this season - namely, when all signs point to some sort of big reveal, instead we just get more ambiguity - and for no great reason other than to deliberately keep things murky. I mean, Not-Locke's story about his mother - that's an intriguing tease, but it's something we should have heard a long time ago, to build up mystery before we eventually learn the full story. Again, Lost tries to have its cake and eat it too. Richard Alpert is a great example. Next week, we will get a WHOLE EPISODE detailing Richard's origin and history. That's great. But it also draws attention to the fact that yes, there are SOME mysteries that Lost will give a lengthy, satisfying explanation to, but others that it won't. And yet - if we never found out anything more about Richard, ever, it wouldn't really affect the story. In fact, he's kind of interesting as a mystery character. But, Dogen and Lennon's motivations were absolutely crucial to the first several episodes of this season, but we never learned one relevant thing about them. Ugh.
One other observation, this time about all the Widmore stuff. I was really looking forward to Widmore's return, but he felt a bit off in this episode. I loved the callback's to his earlier appearances, and to the pulpy sci-fi feel of those episodes (the sub, the ominous henchment, etc.). But, there's also this sense that an entirely different group of writers and creatives (Brian K. Vaughan) fleshed out Widmore in the past, and now the current team doesn't quite know what to do with him. Which is too bad, because personally I like the idea of a rich but sinister industrialist, with a squad of B-movie science villains and James Bond-style gadgets out to take over the island. I like it a lot more than the concept of two ill-defined, near-omnipotent deities fighting over the fates of the castaways. So I want the Widmore stuff to be great - I just think it's now kind of lost its way though.
But again, this was a very solid episode of Lost, with an entertaining if not mind-blowing flash-sideways, and some very intriguing on-island action. Good stuff from Sawyer, some intense Kate-Claire scenes, Widmore and the sub, etc. Really looking forward the next ep, as I think it will be a defining one for Lost. If it reveals a lot, it sets a precendent for the final remaining episodes. If it doesn't, it basically signals that Lost will keep its biggest secrets carefully guarded until the bitter end.
My Grade: B+
- THE OFFICE was an odd one this week. The episode just felt really random - sometimes that meant it felt disjointed, other times the loose feel of the story allowed for some great bits of comedy. The overarching plot here was that Michael is feeling like he's losing whatever authority he had over the office. The sales team in particular is out of hand - since Sabre pays on commision, the sales men and women have become hyper-competitive and increasingly driven by the bottom line. Of course, since Michael has never really viewed Dunder-Mifflin as a business so much as his surrogate family, he isn't crazy about the whole thing. And so when new, valuable leads come in, Michael pulls a Kevin Spacey-in-Glenngary Glen Ross and refuses to hand 'em out. I thought the highlight of the episode was the oddball relationship between Michael and Dwight, and their fight in the middle of a garbage dump was so absurd that I couldn't help but laugh. However, the good bits in this one were scattered, and the overall pacing just felt off. Kind of a filler episode, but still decently funny.
My Grade: B
- 30 ROCK though ... whoa baby. The show is positively on a hot streak right now, and last night's ep was mostly brilliant. I'm sure I'm getting an added kick out of the whole "Kabletown" storyline since I'm sort of in the thick of that in real life, but - wow! So hilarious. 30 Rock was just on the money this week, with every subplot really clicking, and the number of great jokes and the amount of quotable dialogue being through the roof. Tracy being exposed as a good husband, Liz debating whether she should "settle" for Michael Sheen, and Jack's depression over the Kabletown takeover followed by his determination to be a mover and shaker within the new regime.
But yeah, the episode had a real depth to it in a weird way. People keep saying to me that the Kabletown storyline is too "insider-y" for most people to get. Personally, I don't think so. I mean, how many people are in jobs or work for companies that make them wonder: "um, do I/we actually DO anything of any real, tangible importance?" Jack's longing to be an innovator to me rang true - that's the American way, afterall, not to simply sit back and let the money roll in.
Kudos to 30 Rock though. This episode reminded me of Season 2 eps where the jokes just kept coming a mile a minute, to the point where watching via DVR was a necessity in order to stop, rewind, and catch all the great quotes in full.
My Grade: A-
- Okay, that's all for now. Coming up soon: lots of movie reviews!
- There have been a lot of random adventures that I've wanted to write about, though. One in particular I do want to mention is that last Sunday, I was fortunate to attend the CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM event at The Paley Center, as part of the annual PaleyFest. The event was pretty ... pretty ... pretty good. Okay, it was pretty freaking awesome. Live and part of the panel discussion were Larry David, Jeff Garlin, Cheryl Hines, Susie Essman, Richard Lewis, and Bob Einstein. Honestly, it was such an amazing assemblage of comedy genius that I could have probably listened to these guys banter for hours and hours. Richard Lewis and Bob Einstein (Super Dave!) were show-stealers. Lewis' neurotic ramblings and Einstein's deader-than-deadpan jokes made for an absolutely hilarious evening - especially when coupled with Larry David's bemused reactions and Jeff Garlin's uncontrollable, high-pitched laughter. I've been a fan of Curb for a while now, and I rated it very highly in my list of BEST TV SERIES OF THE DECADE. But I have to admit - seeing so many amazingly hilarious, brilliantly funny clips play in rapid succession during the highlight reel that kicked off the panel - well, I came away floored at just how incredible the show was, and is. Definitely an amazing event.
- I also have a couple movies to review, including ALICE IN WONDERLAND and REPO MEN. It's funny, I saw Alice in the midst of such a busy week/weekend that I've barely had time to fully process it in the days since. My quick reaction is that it was an interesting movie with some memorable scenes and characters, but that it was definitely not Tim Burton's best effort. As for Repo Men, well, it was just a mess of a movie - in more ways than one. I'll get into more specifics when I review it in an upcoming post, but yeah, not one of the better sci-fi flicks I've seen.
- Meanwhile, I have a ton of TV thoughts. I've been jotting down some reviews throught the week, so here they are - finally! Scroll through for reviews of 24, Lost, Chuck, and more!
TWENTY FOUR!
- Okay, so business definitely picked up on Monday's episode of 24. EMP bombs, CTU infiltrated, and a general sense of craziness made last night's ep one of the best and most enjoyable of the season to date.
AND YET ... the episode was seriously almost ruined by the Dana Walsh stuff. Like, really. Ruined. It's not funny, anymore, people. When I want to punch one of my favorite actors, Stephen Root, for his character being so ridiculous and annoying, you know something is very, very wrong. There is NO WAY Root would have been let into CTU at 3 am during an emergency situaiton. There is NO WAY Dana would actually humor him in the middle of a national security crisis. And there is NO WAY that Root's character would be this persistent at this ungodly hour. And it just kept getting more absurd from there. He wants Dana to pull surveillace file for him? Now? Really? And she's actually going to do it? And she has to stop and call Cole while he's in hot pursit of nuclear materials to tell him about this?
W.T.F.
This storyline needs to die, and it needs to die now. But what kills me is that the storyline doesn't HAVE to be this bad. It could be handled in a way that makes more sense. But at every turn, the writing just insults our intelligence and has the characters act in the dumbest and most illogical way possible. 24 works when its unique format is acknowledged and implemented well. Things are supposed to be ultra-intense at the 3 am and 4 am hours because we know that by all rights everyone should be at home and asleep. The fact that Jack and co. are still pressing forward is a great way to up the ante, to make it clear that this is no ordinary day, these are no ordinary circumstance. But this Dana Walsh stuff basically spits in the face of 24's established logic. It's 3 am? Who cares? There's a security crisis? Who cares? Not only is it a lame storyline, but it completely takes you out of the show's reality.
Otherwise, this was a damn good episode. I know, hard to believe after all that, but really, it was. Just lots of great action, intensity, and unpredictability. The pursuit of the terrorists was pretty badass, as was Jack's interaction with the NYPD. The scenes in which Hassan's daughter was held captive were suitably nail-biting. And the cliffhanger ending, in which CTU gets completely owned thanks to an EMP bomb, was one of the better and cooler endings we've seen from 24 in a while. And man, the preview for next week got me pumped: CTU is down, and only one man stands between us and total annihiliation: Jack Bauer, beyotch. As it should be.
The fact is, this was a darn good episode. But PLEASE LORD, end the awful subplots.
My Grade: B+
- CHUCK had a nother very good episode this past week. No, it didn't quite reach the heights of awesomeness of last week's landmark ep, but this one was a very well done, Casey-focused episode that shone the spotlight on Chuck's eternally gruff mentor. We've gotten the occasional hints about Casey's life pre-Chuck, but this one went furthest in terms of revealing hidden truths about Casey's heretofore unrevealed origins. Turns out, like Sarah, his name was never really John Casey afterall. After faking his own death for a military operation, the soldier who would become Casey was born. Of course, this transformation meant that Casey had to bid adieu to the love of his life, who, like everyone else, assumed he had in fact been killed. In this episode, Casey goes rogue in order to help his old army leader, played by Robert Patrick - when Patrick threatens to kill his wife if his old charge doesn't help him in his new role as member of The Ring.
It was sweet seeing Robert Patrick on Chuck. From T2 to The X-Files, Patrick is one of those great, badass, no-nonsense guys who always adds something a given production. And he was cool here as a rival for the always-great Adam Baldwin.
My one complaint about this episode is that it got ultra-angsty at the end. Last week was nice in that it finally took a break from all the Chuck-Sarah stuff. I'm honestly pretty sick of all the melodrama involving their relationship, so it was annoying to see it back in full force as this episode wrapped up. Same goes for everything involving Chuck's sister, Devon, etc. I can already see it coming a mile away - they go to Africa to escape the danger of being wrapped up in Chuck's spy adventures, only to get kidnapped as Chuck has to go save them. Just have them go or don't go - don't make it into such a sob-fest. Again, Chuck's emo-ness is fine in small doses, but this episode started out with lots of cool CIA intrigue, but then devolved into an OC-style pity party.
Overall though, another fun episode of Chuck.
My Grade: B+
FOX SUNDAY NIGHT TV:
- Man, this past week's episode of THE SIMPSONS just depressed me. It just felt so ... blah. There was nothing horribly, offensively bad about it, but it just, well, wasn't funny. The plot was a retread of some of the most overused Simpsons tropes - Bart as attention-seeker, and Homer and Marge developing a rift in their relationship. The latter in particular is just ridiculously played out at this point, and I just cringe whenever it's recycled (which is basically every other week, apparently). Anyways, a fairly uninspired episode. Bart plays Homer and Marge against each other, thus convincing them to put less effort into parenting him for the sake of their marriage? That's the big Simpsons plot? It's a far cry from the days of monorails and burlesque houses.
My Grade: C+
- FAMILY GUY, meanwhile, was yet another episode that seemed to be all about pushing the limits of the show and the characters. Okay, fine - but sometimes the show is simply semi-shocking without actually being funny. Because you have to have the characters have some semblance of normalcy, otherwise they can't surprise or shock you. Case in point: Lois. Recently, we've seen her almost cheat on Peter with Quagmire. And now, she does cheat on him with Meg's teenaged boyfriend. I guess, maybe, if done right this could be funny. But it just felt cheap. Meg is such a non-character now, and Lois is quickly becoming that way. This was one of those episodes where the writers never seemed to worry about characterization and just said "ohhh, wouldn't it be crazy / sexy / weird if Lois tried to sleep with Meg's new boyfriend?" Umm ... not exactly. Same goes with Stewie doing the whole Tootsie thing and dressing up like a girl in order to get a part on a kids' TV show, where of course he falls in love with one of the actual girl babies also on the show. Isn't Stewie supposed to be gay? Oh, right, FG just does whatever it wants for the sake of being random.
My Grade: C+
LOST Thoughts:
- Lost was a lot of fun this week, and I think a lot of that was due to it being a Sawyer episode. Sawyer is always one of the show's most interesting characters, and, at this point, he's one of the few real wildcards still left. Because, he's one of the few characters who has really grown and changed over the course of the series. He's gone from roguish antagonist to rougish hero, and yet, there is that sense that he could still be nudged back towards the dark side if the story dictated. His status as a conman also makes him a good foil for Not-Locke. We've all seen the story before about the roguish trickster type who manages to pull one over on the devil himself. And it looks like that's where Lost is going with Sawyer.
And that's cool, because so much of this season of Lost, at least so far, has just been "Lost's Greatest Hits," methodically shining the spotlight on each character, one at a time, and sort of reminding us what they're all about, even if it means recycling tropes that were played-out two seasons ago. At least in Sawyer's case, there is some genuine intrigue as to where his character will end up when all is said and done. If he ends up the hero, it's a natural progression of the character over time. If he ends up the villain, it's a cool / dark twist. So Sawyer is one of the few characters who's arc is currently a win/win. And seeing Josh Halloway and Terry O'Quinn face off is always cool - definitely two of the best and most charismatic actors on primetime TV today.
That said, this episode contained some of the same issues as others this season - namely, when all signs point to some sort of big reveal, instead we just get more ambiguity - and for no great reason other than to deliberately keep things murky. I mean, Not-Locke's story about his mother - that's an intriguing tease, but it's something we should have heard a long time ago, to build up mystery before we eventually learn the full story. Again, Lost tries to have its cake and eat it too. Richard Alpert is a great example. Next week, we will get a WHOLE EPISODE detailing Richard's origin and history. That's great. But it also draws attention to the fact that yes, there are SOME mysteries that Lost will give a lengthy, satisfying explanation to, but others that it won't. And yet - if we never found out anything more about Richard, ever, it wouldn't really affect the story. In fact, he's kind of interesting as a mystery character. But, Dogen and Lennon's motivations were absolutely crucial to the first several episodes of this season, but we never learned one relevant thing about them. Ugh.
One other observation, this time about all the Widmore stuff. I was really looking forward to Widmore's return, but he felt a bit off in this episode. I loved the callback's to his earlier appearances, and to the pulpy sci-fi feel of those episodes (the sub, the ominous henchment, etc.). But, there's also this sense that an entirely different group of writers and creatives (Brian K. Vaughan) fleshed out Widmore in the past, and now the current team doesn't quite know what to do with him. Which is too bad, because personally I like the idea of a rich but sinister industrialist, with a squad of B-movie science villains and James Bond-style gadgets out to take over the island. I like it a lot more than the concept of two ill-defined, near-omnipotent deities fighting over the fates of the castaways. So I want the Widmore stuff to be great - I just think it's now kind of lost its way though.
But again, this was a very solid episode of Lost, with an entertaining if not mind-blowing flash-sideways, and some very intriguing on-island action. Good stuff from Sawyer, some intense Kate-Claire scenes, Widmore and the sub, etc. Really looking forward the next ep, as I think it will be a defining one for Lost. If it reveals a lot, it sets a precendent for the final remaining episodes. If it doesn't, it basically signals that Lost will keep its biggest secrets carefully guarded until the bitter end.
My Grade: B+
- THE OFFICE was an odd one this week. The episode just felt really random - sometimes that meant it felt disjointed, other times the loose feel of the story allowed for some great bits of comedy. The overarching plot here was that Michael is feeling like he's losing whatever authority he had over the office. The sales team in particular is out of hand - since Sabre pays on commision, the sales men and women have become hyper-competitive and increasingly driven by the bottom line. Of course, since Michael has never really viewed Dunder-Mifflin as a business so much as his surrogate family, he isn't crazy about the whole thing. And so when new, valuable leads come in, Michael pulls a Kevin Spacey-in-Glenngary Glen Ross and refuses to hand 'em out. I thought the highlight of the episode was the oddball relationship between Michael and Dwight, and their fight in the middle of a garbage dump was so absurd that I couldn't help but laugh. However, the good bits in this one were scattered, and the overall pacing just felt off. Kind of a filler episode, but still decently funny.
My Grade: B
- 30 ROCK though ... whoa baby. The show is positively on a hot streak right now, and last night's ep was mostly brilliant. I'm sure I'm getting an added kick out of the whole "Kabletown" storyline since I'm sort of in the thick of that in real life, but - wow! So hilarious. 30 Rock was just on the money this week, with every subplot really clicking, and the number of great jokes and the amount of quotable dialogue being through the roof. Tracy being exposed as a good husband, Liz debating whether she should "settle" for Michael Sheen, and Jack's depression over the Kabletown takeover followed by his determination to be a mover and shaker within the new regime.
But yeah, the episode had a real depth to it in a weird way. People keep saying to me that the Kabletown storyline is too "insider-y" for most people to get. Personally, I don't think so. I mean, how many people are in jobs or work for companies that make them wonder: "um, do I/we actually DO anything of any real, tangible importance?" Jack's longing to be an innovator to me rang true - that's the American way, afterall, not to simply sit back and let the money roll in.
Kudos to 30 Rock though. This episode reminded me of Season 2 eps where the jokes just kept coming a mile a minute, to the point where watching via DVR was a necessity in order to stop, rewind, and catch all the great quotes in full.
My Grade: A-
- Okay, that's all for now. Coming up soon: lots of movie reviews!
Friday, March 12, 2010
"Hi Pacman, I'm Jewish!" - 30 ROCK, OFFICE, and PARKS thoughts!
I just posted my review of Green Zone (check it out!), but wanted to get down some thoughts on Thursday night comedy before heading out for the weekend ...
- It's amazing how these various pop-cultural mass-consensus ideas spread in the internet age. A couple months ago, everyone was saying that 30 ROCK had gone down the tubes. It was hurting beyond repair. It was a shell of its former self. Was there some truth to the idea that 30 Rock was not living up to the quality of earlier seasons? Sure. But ... was the show still funny and one of the better comedies on TV? Yes. Look, as a longtime 30 Rock fan, I too was feeling a little disappointed with the show lately. At the same time, I knew that all it would take was one great episode to help turn things around. And guess what? Last night, we got that great episode. This was a stellar ep of 30 Rock, with every storyline generating several genuine, laugh-out-loud moments. From Jack grappling with the death of Don Geiss and the takeover of NBC Universal by a cable company from Philadelphia (hmm, not based on reality, right?), to Kenneth's donkey spasms, this was a great half-hour of comedy. Liz's dating situation, Jenna training Tracy to become a genuine actor, Elizabeth Banks as a cable news maven who's dating Jack. Everything in this episode clicked, and there were probably a dozen if not more classic quotes to be found. Kenneth's Fatal Attraction reference, Tracy's flashbacks to his diverse acting career, Jack's lament about a New York company being bought out by one from Philadelphia - all gold. Great episode of 30 Rock - probably the best of the season to date.
My Grade: A-
My Grade: B
- Now, here's a pop-cult meme we can all agree on: PARKS AND RECREATION is pretty awesome now. This entire season of the show has been knocking it out of the park, and the show just feels more confident, more sure of itself, with each passing week. This week's ep didn't crack me up quite as much as other recent installments, but it did serve as further evidence that the show is just in a really good groove. In fact, this ep showed that even with an only so-so main plot (Leslie assembling a task force to catch a pesky opossum that's been plaguing Pawnee's golf courses), Parks has now built up its supporting cast so well that there are any number of places where the comedy and ongoing plotlines can come from. I mean, April and Andy is now being compared to the early days of Jim-Pam, and while totally different, there's a similar sweetness and "will-they-or-won't-they?" vibe. Chris Pratt is funnier every week, too. And Ron Swanson - the "Swanson Code" was just hilarious and awesome. Man, Nick Offerman and Alec Baldwin need to work together. Crossover, anyone? Yep, there was so much going on in the periphery of this episode - it really did have the feel of a great Simpsons episode or something. Hmm, mere coincidence that this episode was written by former Simpsons showrunner Mike Scully? Probably not.
My Grade: A-
- I haven't seen this week's COMMUNITY yet, but it's another show that's been on a hot streak of late.
Alright - I am officially ready for the weekend. Should have an ALICE IN WONDERLAND review ready soon, and a lot more. Stay tuned!
- It's amazing how these various pop-cultural mass-consensus ideas spread in the internet age. A couple months ago, everyone was saying that 30 ROCK had gone down the tubes. It was hurting beyond repair. It was a shell of its former self. Was there some truth to the idea that 30 Rock was not living up to the quality of earlier seasons? Sure. But ... was the show still funny and one of the better comedies on TV? Yes. Look, as a longtime 30 Rock fan, I too was feeling a little disappointed with the show lately. At the same time, I knew that all it would take was one great episode to help turn things around. And guess what? Last night, we got that great episode. This was a stellar ep of 30 Rock, with every storyline generating several genuine, laugh-out-loud moments. From Jack grappling with the death of Don Geiss and the takeover of NBC Universal by a cable company from Philadelphia (hmm, not based on reality, right?), to Kenneth's donkey spasms, this was a great half-hour of comedy. Liz's dating situation, Jenna training Tracy to become a genuine actor, Elizabeth Banks as a cable news maven who's dating Jack. Everything in this episode clicked, and there were probably a dozen if not more classic quotes to be found. Kenneth's Fatal Attraction reference, Tracy's flashbacks to his diverse acting career, Jack's lament about a New York company being bought out by one from Philadelphia - all gold. Great episode of 30 Rock - probably the best of the season to date.
My Grade: A-
- Meanwhile, one week after everyone was praising THE OFFICE for it's funny and emotional baby episode, everyone is now back to trashing the show as being unfunny, a shell of its former self, etc. Sound familiar? The fact is, last night's episode was definitely not the show's best effort. And the heavy emphasis on the Sabre storyline did kind of draw attention to the fact that that particular plotline has been something of a bust. Kathy Bates' character is cartoonish and a little bland / generic, and hasn't really brought much to the table. And the whole thing feels like a less-exciting retread of the much better, much funnier Michael Scott Paper Company storyline from last year. Meanwhile, I really liked the Andy-Erin romance at first, but in this episode it took an odd turn, as Erin now seems to be morphing from quirky-yet-likable girl next door into a genuinely weird character. The whole thing with her live-in foster brother was just out of left field. I'd much prefer just watching an Andy-Erin relationship go through the natural awkwardness of those two getting together and not have some other "wacky" plot elements thrown in. Similarly, I definitely think the show would benefit from more Daryll, but having him randomly promoted from the warehouse was a bit much, and very sudden.
My Grade: B
- Now, here's a pop-cult meme we can all agree on: PARKS AND RECREATION is pretty awesome now. This entire season of the show has been knocking it out of the park, and the show just feels more confident, more sure of itself, with each passing week. This week's ep didn't crack me up quite as much as other recent installments, but it did serve as further evidence that the show is just in a really good groove. In fact, this ep showed that even with an only so-so main plot (Leslie assembling a task force to catch a pesky opossum that's been plaguing Pawnee's golf courses), Parks has now built up its supporting cast so well that there are any number of places where the comedy and ongoing plotlines can come from. I mean, April and Andy is now being compared to the early days of Jim-Pam, and while totally different, there's a similar sweetness and "will-they-or-won't-they?" vibe. Chris Pratt is funnier every week, too. And Ron Swanson - the "Swanson Code" was just hilarious and awesome. Man, Nick Offerman and Alec Baldwin need to work together. Crossover, anyone? Yep, there was so much going on in the periphery of this episode - it really did have the feel of a great Simpsons episode or something. Hmm, mere coincidence that this episode was written by former Simpsons showrunner Mike Scully? Probably not.
My Grade: A-
- I haven't seen this week's COMMUNITY yet, but it's another show that's been on a hot streak of late.
Alright - I am officially ready for the weekend. Should have an ALICE IN WONDERLAND review ready soon, and a lot more. Stay tuned!
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