Electronic Cerebrectomy

The Lego Lord of the Rings Video Game Looks... Precious!

2012-06-01T17:42:00.004-05:00

I am so damn thrilled this is happening!

Chloe

2012-06-01T08:06:00.002-05:00

Poor Little Fool

2012-06-01T07:47:00.002-05:00

Me: “Oh my god, Mr. T cereal was so good! ‘I pity the fool who doesn’t eat my cereal!’ I ate so much of it as a kid. Did you like it?”

Becca: “I never had it when I was a kid.”

Me: “Oh my god… really? Never once? Oh, Becca… YOU’RE the fool Mr. T pities!”

My Favorite Fanart for May 2012

2012-05-31T00:07:00.002-05:00

Kill Frank by Becca Whitaker

Skeletor Variant by Dave Wilkins

Scarlett Johansson Black Widow by Scott Blair

The Avengers Movie: The Hulk by Dean

The Avengers: Black Widow by Olly Moss

The Avengers: Captain America by Phantom City Creative

Gilded by Sam Spratt

Arcee by Zaphyr Hime

Masters of the Universe by Patricio Oliver

Poison Ivy Nouveau by Becca Whitaker

Homer by Noah Whyler

Cantus the Minstrel by Darren Calvert

Drive by Jim Rugg

Earl of Mos Eisley by Terry Fan

Oola by Torque Art Studio

Admiral Ackbar Foomi by Jason Chalker

Baby Rancor by Chris Gugliotti

Backstage Birthday by Becca Whitaker

Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem by Nick Westcott

Harley & Ivy by Becca Whitaker

Film Week

2012-05-30T14:43:00.003-05:00

A review of the films I've seen this past week.

THE HOMELESS FLEA (1940)
Another Rudolf Ising cartoon from MGM. Some decent gags, but I think I saw a lot of these on TV as a kid and they weren't particularly memorable. Even now, I don't remember most of this. I feel bad bagging on Rudy Ising, but his earlier work for Warner Bros was so much better. **1/2

LES PASSAGERS DE LA GRANDE OURSE (1941)
I've gone this far and I've never actually seen a film by French animator Paul Grimault. This is a marvelous short about a stowaway on an airship (La Grande Ourse) who runs afoul of a robot waiter and is menaced by a gigantic vulture. The animation is beautiful, very full, in a way that only few have achieved since (such as Richard Williams). The short is dreamlike and just pure cartoon. ****

A RAINY DAY (1940)
Hugh Harman directed this cartoon for MGM, about a bear trying to fix the roof of the house while a storm blows in. Interesting character animation, but it's concerns are technical proficiency rather than entertainment. **

TAKE THIS WALTZ (2012)
Sarah Polley's second directorial effort, this isn't as immediately accessible as Away from Her, but something more subtle and harder to define. Michelle Williams stars as a married woman who becomes taken with a man (Luke Kirby) who (it later turns out) lives across the street from her. She tries not to give in to the temptation of cheating on her husband (Seth Rogen), but becomes consumed with the idea that her life just isn't... right somehow. It's an interesting character study, made even more obtuse by my feeling that Williams' character has a real lack of self-awareness. It's unfortunate that she can't appreciate her marriage to a nice, warm, caring man; for as much as she wants to throw herself at her neighbor, she feels like she has to build up her courage just to seduce her own husband, but only seems to be able to do it at inopportune moments when she'll be rejected--meanwhile, in one scene, he attempts to kiss her on the mouth when they're both being playful, and she just stops him and then doesn't seem to understand why he feels rejected. It's like she needs the excitement of these new feelings for someone else in order to feel fulfilled. It's tragic. To throw it in relief, Sarah Silverman plays Rogen's sister, a recovering alcoholic who compares her own problems--needing to fill the gap inherent in life, even at the cost of personal destruction--to Williams'. It's not an easy movie; it's at times very frustrating, but it's also very honest without spelling out what you're supposed to take from it, and I feel more rewarded because the movie tries harder and is more genuine than something like Eat Pray Love. I hope Sarah Polley never stops writing and directing movies. ***1/2

THE GIRL (2009)
It's a pretty movie (the cinematographer, Hoyte Van Hoytema, also shot Let the Right One In), but one with few surprises. It's about a girl in 1980 whose family goes to Africa for a summer on some kind of humanitarian mission, leaving her in the care of an alcoholic aunt who is more interested in reliving her past. The girl (unnamed in the film) has her aunt whisked away by an old boyfriend and spends the summer fending for herself. It plays like a study in levels of wisdom--she's smart enough to fend for herself, but only for so long, as she doesn't really have the experience to take care of herself--but is fairly predictable and, maybe, a little too indulgent. **1/2

SPECIAL WHEN LIT (2010)
An easygoing documentary about pinball, its history, its ongoing cult popularity, and the people who are passionate about it. It's a charming film, and never looks down on pinball's devotees, but instead takes us into a world of people who are obsessed with a moment in pop culture history. ***

X-MEN: FIRST CLASS (2011)
As much as I didn't like X-Men Origins: Wolverine, I liked this movie even less. The movie versions of the X-Men have just never really made that much of an impression on me, and this was just treading familiar ground, though this was the most overwrought one yet. The film's attempts to make me care about anything that's happening were constantly setback by turgid direction, the director's inability to use subtlety where a stampede of obviousness will do, a total lack of wit, terrible makeup, shitty special effects, and a script that tries to examine the past friendship of Erik Lensherr (later Magneto) and Charles Xavier (later Professor X) but just makes Xavier look like an arrogant, highhanded jerk. Between the knee-bruising fan service and the director practically shouting "THIS IS BASED ON A COMIC BOOK! SEE? ANGLES!" in your ear, Michael Fassbender turns in a surprisingly great performance as Lensherr that made me wish they'd just jettisoned all the other characters (especially Raven Darkholme, whose complex personal transformation should be the heart of the film, but who is played with a near-total lack of emotion by Jennifer Lawrence, who might as well start every one of her lines with "Then the script says that I'm supposed to tell you..."). Also, the CGI/makeup of Nicholas Hoult's Beast is unintentionally hilarious; he looks like he's doing Teen Wolf cosplay. Also, January Jones is just awful. Also, two black characters and you make one of them turn evil and the other explode? Seriously? In 1962? In a movie based on a comic book whose characters were meant to be an allegory for racism? Also, also, also. I could go on all day. Anyway, Kevin Bacon's not bad in it, either, but this is just not good and doesn't make the serious emotional impact it clearly thinks it does. **

RED TAILS (2012)
After nearly a quarter-century, George Lucas finally made his movie about the Tuskegee Airmen. I know a lot of people criticized this movie for not being a serious historical drama, but I see the tone they were going for. George Lucas wanted to make the kind of movie they would have made in 1943, if black people were allowed to exist in movies in 1943 outside of the service industry. It's one of those wartime adventure flicks from the time period, Flying Leathernecks with African-Americans. And they get that tone, too, focusing on brave pilots whose abilities are in doubt and who seek the chance to prove themselves as fighter pilots--and there's also romance, daring, action, and Cuba Gooding Jr. channeling Robert Montgomery. But on the negative side, the attempt to replicate that comic strip tone of two-fisted heroism and doomed wartime love results in a movie that is so lacking in edges that it becomes inconsequential. It's fluff, and not the fun fluff I was hoping for. Which is a shame, because it wastes some pretty nice performances (I particularly liked David Oyelowo and Elijah Kelly, and was hoping to see more from Friday Night Lights star Michael B. Jordan) and has tremendously good special effects. I wish it had all been in the service of a movie that gave you a reason to care about them. You've got the style down, just give me some substance so I can enjoy this adventure. **1/2

WINTER'S BONE (2010)
What is the point of this goddamn thing? I mean, what is the takeaway here? Jennifer Lawrence stars (in an inexplicably Oscar-nominated performance in an inexplicably Oscar-nominated film) as a hillbilly in the Ozarks who has to prove her father's death in order to keep the house she, her younger siblings, and her catatonic mother live in. That's ostensibly the plot, and it tries to be this sort of noir detective flick in an unusual setting that's supposed to be gritty, but really it just operates like a comic book on cartoon logic. I keep hearing what a good actress Jennifer Lawrence is, but this really isn't the movie to prove it with, since her character is so incredibly one-dimensional and not really very bright. It's just all about taking this girl who is the one virtuous, flawless, overly-idealized angel in the Ozarks and shitting all over her. She's supposed to be trying to find her father, but she only goes through the motions--all the real detective work is done for her, often by people who are beating the shit out of her one minute and then randomly helping her for no real reason the next. But hey, she survives getting choked and beaten and spat on and having a tooth knocked out and having to cut the hands off of her daddy's corpse, so that apparently makes her some kind of hero. Or something. It's just a terrible, badly-written, badly-acted, pointless exploitation movie that doesn't even have the courage to be one, and instead pretends it has something important to say. The copious amount of praise heaped on this is just embarrassing. *

ALBATROSS (2011)
The film's grave miscalculation it's that its main character (a young English girl who wants to be a writer, played by Jessica Brown Findlay) is an asshole. She treats people like shit and thinks it's clever, and sadly the movie agrees with her, so when it comes time for us to have to view her sympathetically in the third act, it's just no longer possible. So, you know, stuff happens, but who cares? *

HARRY AND TONTO (1974)
Finally, a film about humanity. Not enough of that this week... Art Carney stars in a deservedly Oscar-winning performance as an old, retired widower whose apartment building in New York is torn down. His adult son takes him in, but he feels like a burden and sets out to visit his daughter in Chicago and his other son in Los Angeles, sort of discovering America and himself along the way. It's a beautiful character study. The aspect of the film that really touched me was Harry's loyalty to his cat, Tonto. Everything that happens to Harry happens because of his cat; he won't let Tonto be taken away at the airport, he won't get on the bus without Tonto. Tonto is his friend, and also the only part of his daily life that he still is able to hold on to: his wife has passed away, his apartment is torn down, his friends have died, and the neighborhood is in decline. With Tonto at his side, Harry decides to discover who he is now, making his way slowly westward and open to new experiences and new friendships, always able to make human connections with an open friendliness. Early in the film, Harry insists that his neighborhood is still home, telling his cat "I still know a lot of people around here. You know people... that's home." What I love about this film is that Harry is able to carry that attitude of neighborliness with him as he forges ahead to find a new place for himself in this world. Beautiful film. **** (There's a great scene with Chief Dan George. Even if a movie's bad, a Chief Dan George scene is worth the price of admission.)

Playmate of the Year 2011

2012-05-29T09:28:00.000-05:00

Yeah, that time of year again: the time for my annual post of total objectification, which used to piss off a lot of people before they started wisely ignoring it. Hopefully that means fewer racist rants about naked black women this time around...

So, my personal ranking of this year's Playmates.

12. Ashley Mattingly, Miss March. I just don't find her body type attractive. I like hips and curves. (Don't worry, I've already been assured yet again how shallow I am.)

11. Iryna Ivanova, Miss August. It really puts me off how she looks so glassy-eyed in every shot. She's one of two Playmates this year from the Ukraine. To look at their website, Hugh Hefner owns some kind of Playmate/Cyber Girl Factory in the Ukraine. It makes me uncomfortable for reasons I can't quite grasp.

10. Sasha Bonilova, Miss May. I don't know, there's just no connection for me. It's objectification, there's no logical reasoning for any of this. She just strikes me as a little too made up somehow. Self-conscious in front of a camera.

9. Jaclyn Swedberg, Miss April. This year's Playmate of the Year according to readers. I can't think of a reason why. Usually I don't agree but can understand why, but this year I have no idea. I don't find her attractive at all.

8. Jessa Hinton, Miss July. It's July, got to pull out that boat again, that never gets old. I've been saying it for years: new blood in the photography department, Playboy, not the same three people just going through the motions. If I like Jessa at all it's because she reminds me of the 80s. But I'll just say I also picked a photo that really flattered her body.

7. Anna Sophia Berglund, Miss January. Cute smile. This behind-the-scenes old-timey dressing room set is another one I'm sick of seeing crop up in Playmate photo shoots.

6. Rainy Day Jordan, Miss December. They put her in the barn because, apparently, where else do you put a girl from Texas? Nice body--she doesn't have that caved-in stomach look that seems so prized nowadays.

5. Amanda Cerny, Miss October. And there's that nighttime studio apartment again, right on schedule. Amanda Cerny has a look I sort of naturally like, plus I dig that she has hips and an ass. Her pictures aren't that great, but the photographers just don't seem to be inspired anymore.

4. Mei-Ling Lam, Miss June. This year Playboy included an Asian woman in those two slots they always have every year for non-white women. I just realized Mei-Ling is Playboy's first Asian centerfold since Grace Kim in 2008. God forbid they don't get that 80% white woman coverage. (Or uncoverage, if you want to make a really dumbass pun.) Anyway, I think Mei-Ling is very cute, and she's wonderfully at ease in front of the camera. That counts for a lot, especially since she gets the requisite "It's June, put the girl out in a field" layout that happens every year.

3. Tiffany Toth, Miss September. I don't find her body terribly sexy, but I just keep going back to her smile and the fact that she's so damn comfortable in front of the camera. It's all I really ask.

2. Kylie Johnson, Miss February. Okay, I'm cheating a little bit here, because I don't really like most of the pictures in her centerfold layout (ugh, again with the ski cabin and the hot tub) and I think she's airbrushed to hell (like a lot of black women that appear as Playmates, which I remember even though there hasn't been a black Playmate since 2008). But I have seen her in other magazines, and I think she's sexy as hell.

1. Ciara Price, Miss November. Well, as usual with me, it all comes down to the smile. I've been told that makes me shallow and a whole bunch of other things, but I don't really give a fuck. She radiates personality, she has a beautiful smile, and she has confidence to spare. I find a confident smile a hell of a lot more attractive than anything else in one of these shoots. Hell, I've told you that eight times now, every May, so I'm sure you all remember and stopped listening at least five Mays ago. Ciara doesn't have my favorite kind of body in the world, either, but her pictures are just so fun and full of life, and frankly, that's what I want most out of my nudity.

Kristen Bell Mondays

2012-05-28T19:21:00.002-05:00

Happy Birthday, Harlan Ellison

2012-05-27T12:33:00.001-05:00

Song of the Week: "I Started a Joke"

2012-05-27T11:45:00.004-05:00

And just after Donna Summer, dear Robin Gibb passed away. Now, where Donna Summer never made a huge impression on me when I was young, the Bee Gees certainly did. My Dad may have despised disco, but my Mom had the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack on 8-track. I liked the bouncy music--"More Than a Woman" has always been one of my favorite songs--but I was also surprised as a child to realize that this was the same group who had also recorded "To Love Somebody." So at various times I made it a point to listen to the Bee Gees and discovered a wealth of material between those two songs that I really and truly loved. This song--all the sadder now, but featuring a great vocal by Robin--is one of my favorites. I've actually been listening to the entire Bee Gees catalog lately (I've just recently finished the 1974 album Mr. Natural).

This clip is from sometime in 1968, and the sound sync is off, but I like this. Thanks for everything, Robin.

New Arbitrary Banner Change for Summer

2012-05-27T11:32:00.000-05:00

Sunday Hottie 382

2012-05-27T11:27:00.002-05:00

MICHAEL FASSBENDER

Crayon Dragon

2012-05-26T07:31:00.002-05:00

TV Report: Luther

2012-05-25T12:10:00.001-05:00

After admonishing myself in a post last week for not just sitting down and watching the 10 episodes of Luther already (top spot in my queue for a couple of months now), Becca prodded me to turn them on and we became immediately wrapped up in it and had to watch straight through to the end.

I wasn't sure what to expect from the show; the first episode starts off with a bang, showing us a London cop who's not above letting the killer he's after fall from a great height to put him out of action. John Luther is troubled, not squeaky clean, but dedicated and a genius. When he returns to work (he's been on forced leave between the opening and start of the episode proper), he investigates the murder of a family that left only the daughter, Alice Morgan, alive. I'm not spoiling anything when I say that Alice is the killer--it's the only thing that makes sense, and what's really great here is that it's not treated as a revelation. Luther figures it out after one interview with her, noting her lack of empathy and marking her as a sociopath, but the kind of genius who needs to be recognized for her genius, even if she's done an incredible job cleaning up after herself. There's no way to pin the murders on her, but it's important to her that Luther knows she did it and that he's duly impressed by how clever she is.

So what's interesting about this show is that so much of it is about these two geniuses on opposite sides of the legal spectrum. Alice thinks they should be friends, because only Luther can appreciate her genius and she respects his. He's the only person she's designated as her equal, and seeks his approval. She starts to meddle in his life--he's got a wife (Indira Varma) about to leave him for a man she fell in love with (Paul McGann) while they were separated--because she feels protective of him, but also because she wants to constantly remind him how close and like-minded they are. It sounds like a cliche, but it's surprising how complex and fascinating it really is.

The first series is one of the best I've ever seen. Idris Elba is riveting as John Luther. Though there's plenty of police procedural here, there are so many emotions at play. The morals are always in question; there are lines Luther is quite willing to cross, but only because his ultimate goal is to catch the criminal and get him off the streets. He becomes so consumed by the dark side of the crimes he investigates that you start to wonder how he'll ever crawl back out of it, and what kind of prices he'll have to pay. It's a truly excellent performance, and deeply involving television.

I was cooler on the second series, however. It has a shorter amount of time (4 episodes vs. 6 in the first series), but after the grand emotional play of the first series, the stakes just can't get personal enough in the second series to really ramp up the tension and suspense the way the first series does. Especially since Alice has at first a much smaller role, and then disappears halfway through, cutting off one of the most important nerve centers from John Luther's character. They try to make it personal, giving Luther something of a daughter surrogate, and while it's still clever, I never really felt as invested as I did in the first series. I felt like before we were seeing a dark, driven man who was compelled to help people even at the risk of his own personal happiness and mental well-being, and did so as a cop... and in the second season we're just watching him be a cop. I kind of hate myself a bit for making this comparison, but if the first series is Batman, the second series is Batman if he took off the suit and got a day job solving crimes. It's still an interesting series, but not in the special, intense way the first one is.

That said, it's still better than a lot of the cop shows I've ever seen--I don't tend to like cop shows, with some big exceptions like Wire in the Blood--and at this point I think Idris Elba could just angrily bark the phone book at the camera and I'd find it compelling television. (And side note: what a sexy motherfucker he is.)

I just read today that Luther will get a third series in 2013, and I'll watch that as soon as it comes somewhere I can see it.

It's Time to Play the Music: My 50 Favorite Muppet Songs

2012-05-24T00:44:00.002-05:00

Trust me, this list could have easily been my 100 favorite Muppet songs, or even more, but I decided to just go with 50 as a nice, round, not-too-taxing number. These are my 50 favorite songs by the Muppets, whether they be original or just performed really well by them. I've included songs from the various Muppet projects, from Fraggle Rock, and of course from Sesame Street, but decided to leave out some of the other various Jim Henson productions, so no David Bowie on this one, I'm afraid (my wife will be annoyed to hear it, but there it is).

I'll be linking these on YouTube, so without further ado, here are my 50 favorite Muppet musical moments.

(Honorable mentions: the medley from Jim Henson's funeral service and, of course, the greatest moment in television history.)

50. "Feelings" (The Muppet Show, Episode 424)
This almost feels like an obligatory add, but it's just so damn much fun. This is the kind of joke they excelled at on The Muppet Show without running it too far into the ground. And it's nice how Beaker gets to keep his dignity and sing his heart out.

49. "Somebody Come and Play" (Sesame Street, Episode 0047)
This was originally used in one of those great film clips they used to play on Sesame Street for a long time; I remember seeing this one--with a baby orangutan in his zoo enclosure--when I was a kid, and its original appearance on the show was six years before I was even born. One of Joe Raposo's typically lovely songs. I also have Big Bird singing this on a record somewhere...

48. "A Professional Pirate" (Muppet Treasure Island)
I've tried not to focus too much on the guest stars, but Tim Curry has an incredibly fun solo number here, camping it up in one of the Muppets' most underrated films. Great wordplay in here, and I love the visuals of the pirate Muppets during lyrics such as "we'll never stab you in the back" (cue backstabbing) and Polly Lobster's slow burn during Black-Eyed Pea's Brando impersonation. Fantastic moments.

47. "Baby, It's Cold Outside" (The Muppet Show, Episode 213)
One of the most surreally bizarre sketches on The Muppet Show with Miss Piggy trying her damnedest to seduce a towel-clad Rudolf Nureyev. The comedy more than makes up for Nureyev's voice. I love that this sketch reverses the male and female roles in the song, with Piggy as the aggressor. (This is, for my money, one of the absolute best episodes of The Muppet Show, not least because of "Swine Lake," in which Nureyev ballet dances with a pig. I would've included it here, but I decided to stick to songs.)

46. "Rubber Duckie" (Sesame Street, Episode 0078)
One of the classics; I even remember hearing this on the radio, and it was on a 45 I had (one of a couple of Sesame Street 45s). As I'm fond of repeating, "Ernie" was my first word and, as a little one, my favorite Muppet.

45. "Lydia, the Tattooed Lady" (The Muppet Show, Episode 102)
One of the great things I think The Muppet Show did was to acknowledge and pay tribute to the comedy and show business classics; not in a way that was co-opting them, but as both a love letter to tradition and a way to reintroduce those to an audience perhaps unfamiliar with them. So here we have Groucho Marx's signature song, but I heard Kermit sing it first. It was even on a cassette I used to have; sadly, I didn't see a single Marx Brothers movie until I was in junior high (and loved them instantly).

44. "New York State of Mind" (The Muppet Show, Episode 209)
As a kid, I never really appreciated how integral Floyd Pepper was to the Muppet Show dynamic. Every Muppeteer has his representative character--Jim Henson and Kermit, Frank Oz and Fozzie, Richard Hunt and Scooter, Dave Goelz and Gonzo--and for a long time I figured Jerry Nelson's was Robin. But as touching as Robin can be, it's really Floyd that best represents the jazzy personality of Jerry Nelson, and seeing The Muppet Show again as an adult, I really appreciate how Nelson was able to take these moments with Floyd and deliver these lovely performances of beautiful pop songs. This short version of one of Billy Joel's most gorgeous songs is my personal favorite, though there are a lot of great ones.

43. "Cabin Fever" (Muppet Treasure Island)
Muppet Treasure Island's most wonderfully madcap moment, complete with calypso gear and Fozzie in a Carmen Miranda outfit. Bonus: the embarrassed muttering at the end of the song. "I hope no one saw that..."

42. "Life's a Happy Song" (The Muppets)
The opening number from last year's wonderful The Muppets, a great introduction to Gary, Mary and Walter, tiptoeing the line between too hipster and just genuinely cheery, setting the tone for a movie that remembers what the Muppets used to mean to people like me, and what they might mean again. (Love the subversion of the happiness in the flick, when the song ends and everyone just makes an annoyed, exhausted noise.) (Note: I'm linking to the mp3 because the hipster videos on YouTube suck.) (Second note: Mickey Rooney? MICKEY ROONEY? Totally random cameo and one I found surprisingly thrilling. You can't hate that guy.)

41. "123 Sesame Street" (Sesame Street, Episode 0514)
Stevie Wonder's appearance on Sesame Street was so great that I remember seeing it rerun a number of times. He wrote this song celebrating children's television's most famous address for the show, and I for one am glad he did. Just a nice bit of funk.

40. "Ode to Joy" (viral video)
Not just a tremendously fun performance by Beaker, but the video that put the Muppets back on the map as genuine comedy and not just nostalgia or kiddie entertainment.

39. "Never Before, Never Again" (The Muppet Movie)
When I was a little kid, I always wanted to skip past this scene; this was the mushy romantic stuff, and I wanted to get back to the comedy. Now, I think this is a comic triumph: take this beautiful song that Paul Williams has written and have Frank Oz perform it in a Miss Piggy falsetto that he can barely maintain but fearlessly commits to. Furthermore, he sings it with the utter seriousness of his porcine character, which just makes it that much funnier. Pure Muppet perfection.

38. "Wemblin' Fool" (Fraggle Rock, "The Beast of Blue Rock")
One of my favorite Fraggle songs, with Wembley and Gobo, well, wemblin' (where to wemble is to be unable to make up your mind). Sorry, nothing to link to here, as Lionsgate have been dicks and removed the clip from YouTube. But it's a fun ditty.

37. "Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard" (Sesame Street, Episode 1187)
One of my favorite moments from Sesame Street--hell, from all of television history--is Paul Simon appearing to perform his hit on the steps of 123 Sesame Street. It's magic, watching children relate to music with pure joy and an utter lack of pretension, with one enthusiastic girl improvising her own lyrics (Simon seems so delighted that, if I'm counting my beats correctly, I think he delays singing just to let her go for a while) and a couple of kids dancing. Even when one kid starts wandering around and messing around with the door behind Simon, the director doesn't stop it because they're capturing something truly special.

36. "Simon Smith and the Amazing Dancing Bear" (The Muppet Show, Episode 101)
My personal favorite rendition of this Randy Newman song, with Richard Hunt in particularly fine form as Scooter. Wonderfully bouncy and carefree.

35. "It Was a Very Good Year" (The Muppet Show, Episode 406)
Frank Sinatra, William Shatner, Homer Simpson, and Statler and Waldorf. Some great pop culture renditions of this song, and Jim Henson and Richard Hunt are in great form here, alternately wistful and hilarious, taking the piss out of the song while not robbing it of its poignancy. Genius.

34. "Barbeque" (Emmet Otter's Jug-Band Christmas)
I remember seeing this special on HBO so often as a kid, and the Paul Williams songs have been stuck in my head forever. This is an infectious number, boys, but you're just no Yancey Woodchuck. Also: I love Wendell Porcupine.

33. "Saying Goodbye" (The Muppets Take Manhattan)
One of the most genuinely saddening scenes in any Muppet production, as the characters all go their separate ways to make things easier on Kermit, who has become desperate to make their dreams of getting on Broadway come true. This is quintessential Muppets: the gang is breaking up out of their deep loyalty to Kermit, not willing to keep letting him bear the responsibility of their expectations... and not telling him why because they don't want him to feel like he's failed. This song always makes me tear up, I admit.

32. "One More Sleep 'Til Christmas" (The Muppet Christmas Carol)
Paul Williams' songs for The Muppet Christmas Carol are wonderful, and nearly all of them make my annual Christmas mixes. This has one of my favorite Muppet lyrics ever: "There's no such thing as strangers when a stranger says hello." I think this is the moment, too, when I first really accepted Steve Whitmire as Kermit the Frog. As I've said elsewhere, Whitmire's Kermit may not be Jim, but he's really made the character his own, and I think this was the first real moment when I felt that he could make Kermit not necessarily the same (impossible, of course), but still essentially Kermit.

31. "The Inch Worm" (The Muppet Show, Episode 109)
A lovely song from the Danny Kaye movie Hans Christian Anderson, here sung beautifully by Charles Aznavour and one of my absolute favorite Muppet moments. (And the Muppets even performed it again with Danny Kaye on episode 316!) Such a dreamlike song in the best possible way.

30. "The Boy from Ipanema" (The Muppet Show, Episode 220)
I admit, I'm picking this largely for the visual impression it makes. When I first saw this is a little kid, I was so surprised and amazed by the sight of Petula Clark (though I didn't really know who she was then) dancing with one of the Bossmen, a very, very large marionette Muppet. It was just there, suspended in the darkness (it's actually operated with huge rods), hovering over her, and I was completely transfixed. I've never forgotten it.

29. "Can You Picture That?" (The Muppet Movie)
Always a favorite bit from possibly the most-watched movie of my young kidhood. I just dig the Electric Mayhem. They don't look like Presbyterians to me.

28. "Everybody Sleeps" (Sesame Street, Episode 0406)
Another lovely Joe Raposo song accompanied by a film clip. Watching the film now makes me feel sort of warm and nostalgic. And I like the point being made without beating you over the head: we all do the same basic things.

27. "Sing After Me" (Sesame Street, Episode 1112)
One of Grover's finest moments is this duet with the wonderful Madeline Kahn, where he struggles to keep up with her operatic flourishes.

26. "Bein' Green" (Sesame Street, Episode 0087)
One of Joe Raposo's supreme achievements (with uncredited assist from Jon Stone), this poignant song about realizing the dignity of our identity and our worth (even if we're frogs) has moved a lot of us over the decades, and been sung by artists like Lena Horne, Ray Charles and Frank Sinatra. It's simple, but very powerful.

25. "Brothers" (Emmet Otter's Jug-Band Christmas)
Another song from the boys, this one with some wonderful lyrics about the possibilities of life and friendship and urging us to "live a lifetime of surprise." Just great fun.

24. "When the River Meets the Sea" (A Christmas Together)
Paul Williams wrote this for Emmet Otter's Jug-Band Christmas, but I've always especially loved this version from a perennial Christmas album since I was... damn, before I can even remember. Jerry Nelson is, as ever, quite moving as Robin here, and the production is lovely. I've had John Denver in the home all my life--my mother was a big fan, and so am I.

23. "Movin' Right Along" (The Muppet Movie)
Paul Williams is the king of this list. Another fun song from The Muppet Movie with wonderfully loopy lyrics ("Though sadly we just left Rhode Island." "We did what?" "Just forget it."), and this clip features a cameo from Big Bird, one of my favorite sight gags in the movie (fork in the road), and one of my all time favorite lines: "A bear in his natural habitat: a Studebaker."

22. "Sing" (Sesame Street, many appearances)
I'm not exactly sure from which episode this particular video I'm linking to comes, but this is definitely my favorite version of the song, sung by Bob in English and Luis in Spanish. I do not have enough words to describe how much I loved Luis as a kid. I just love that man. I always wished he could be my cool uncle or something when I was a little boy. Another beautiful Joe Raposo song.

21. "Hey a Movie!" (The Great Muppet Caper)
A case could be made that Joe Raposo is, in fact, the king of this list... he and Paul Williams seem fairly evenly matched, but I'm not really paying enough attention. I love this wonderfully chaotic opening sequence to the Muppets' second film outing, which is just a celebration of the whole idea of cinema itself, and features some great business from Sweetums throughout. ("Is there any way to stop it?!") (The song starts about three minutes into the linked clip.)

20. "Marley and Marley" (The Muppet Christmas Carol)
Leave it to the Muppets to take a great ghost story--perhaps the greatest ghost story, or at least my favorite--and make one of its most blood-chilling scenes scary and funny. This was also, if you can't tell, the first of many recasts of Statler and Waldorf (with both Jim Henson and Richard Hunt passed). Here they're Dave Goelz and Jerry Nelson, not doing too bad.

19. "Halfway Down the Stairs" (The Muppet Show, Episode 110)
An AA Milne poem set to music, with one of Jerry Nelson's best performances as Robin. (He apparently performed it as Robin on Top of the Pops, as well.)

18. "Born to Add" (Sesame Street, Episode 2477)
I love this song. Just love it, so much. True, I'm a sucker for any rock song with bells in the production, but I just dig the hell out of this. It's a style parody of Bruce Springsteen, obviously, but it reminds me of a lot of the rock music from this time period that I just adore more than any other music. And I dig this performance from Bruce Stringbean and the S Street Band better than, honestly, 85% of Bruce Springsteen's output (and anything after "Streets of Philadelphia").

17. "Happiness Hotel" (The Great Muppet Caper)
Clever lyrics and just one hell of a fun song. Not much more to it than that, but it's wonderful. RENOIR!

16. "I Hope That Somethin' Better Comes Along" (The Muppet Movie)
A rare pairing of two characters played by Jim Henson, with Kermit meeting Rowlf and sharing their takes on the single life and women. I love the interplay between the characters in the dialogue and the lyrics (the version on the soundtrack is even better, with an extra verse and more dialogue). One of my favorite moments in any movie, and surprisingly sophisticated lyrics about the 1970s dating scene. "It's not often you see a guy that green have the blues that bad."

15. "Follow Me" (Fraggle Rock, "Beginnings")
One of several beautiful songs from Fraggle Rock, this one sung by Uncle Traveling Matt and Gobo, and describing the wanderlust in Matt's soul. This is one of many Muppet songs with a lyric I've always tried to hold onto as an aphorism for life: "Every day the world begins again, sunny skies or rain."

14. "Monster in the Mirror" (Sesame Street, Episode 2681)
From 1990, I never actually heard this song until I was an adult (on Radio Disney of all places), but I've loved it ever since. Especially being such a nervous, anxious person, I've really taken this song to heart and tried to remember which situations do not, in fact, call for freaking out.

13. "Just a Dream Away" (Fraggle Rock, "Gone, But Not Forgotten")
One of Richard Hunt's finest moments as Mudwell the Mudbunny, teaching Wembley about the cycle of life and the impermanence of its stages. I like how he compares the motion of life and its changes to water: "One day it's an ocean. One day, ice in motion. One day it's a teardrop in your eye." Such a poignant song, somehow added even more weight by Richard Hunt's death from AIDS-related complications just five years later (making this one of Richard's last major Muppet performances). (Note: the link is to an mp3 which, despite how it sounds, is probably the best quality I'm ever going to find it at.)

12. "Man or Muppet" (The Muppets)
One of the best moments from the latest film (here in a music video that played on Disney Channel) as Gary and Walter question their choices and decide whether they are very manly Muppets, or Muppety men. Wonderfully straight-faced humor.

11. "Turn the World Around" (The Muppet Show, Episode 314)
This is another one I'm choosing in large part because of the visual aspect, though this is one of my favorite Harry Belafonte songs. I first encountered it on The Muppet Show, arrested and fascinated by the strange and beautiful appearance of the African masks performing this amazing song with Belafonte. It left its mark on me forever and is still very, very powerful to me with the questions it asks about our relationship with each other, our world, and ourselves.

10. "Somebody's Getting Married"/"He'll Make Me Happy" (The Muppets Take Manhattan)
A little beat of a cheat at two songs, but it's a wonderful musical piece featuring the Muppets--nearly all of them. To me, this is all really lead-in to my favorite moment of the film, which is all of the Muppets in the church together, the camera pulling back to show the greatest tribute to the Muppeteers, showing us all of the Muppets and the Sesame Street Muppets and even Uncle Traveling Matt gathered together to celebrate the fictional wedding of Kermit and Piggy. The songs are by veteran Sesame Street composer Jeff Moss, and he gives us a pair of especially poignant lyrics that have always moved me: "Days go passing into years. Years go passing day by day."

9. "The Peace Carol" (A Christmas Together)
Another great Richard Hunt performance, this time as Scooter, singing very sincerely with John Denver and what was, at the time I think, a fairly new Christmas song. One of my absolute favorite Christmas tunes.

8. "Bohemian Rhapsody" (viral video)
Like I wasn't going to put this on here. My absolute favorite 21st century Muppet moment so far, and I really hope this isn't the final appearance of the underrated Johnny Fiama. And maybe more Pepe the King Prawn in the next movie, okay?

7. "Let Me Be Your Song" (Fraggle Rock, "The Minstrels")
I absolutely love Cantus the Minstrel. He's one of my favorite Jim Henson characters: his voice, his vocal cadence, the things he says. He's all of Jim Henson's hippie characters as quasi-mystic. I remember hearing this song for the first time when I was 7, and I just sort of floated away on that pipe. This is some kind of magic.

6. "It Feels Like Christmas" (The Muppet Christmas Carol)
One of my favorite Jerry Nelson performances is this moving, happy song from this wonderful movie. I honestly can't ever listen to it without getting a little choked up; not only is it beautiful, but I associate this film with one of the happiest Christmases of my life.

5. "Just One Person" (The Muppets Celebrate Jim Henson)
Definitely a case where the Muppets have made a song their own in a way that totally appropriates it from its largely-forgotten source material (the stage production Snoopy!! The Musical). The Muppets performed this a few times (including with Bernadette Peters on The Muppet Show), but it was never more poignant than in this tear-jerking tribute to Jim Henson. I remember watching this when it aired, 14 years old and totally rocked by the untimely death of (to me) the most important creator of entertainment in my lifetime. It never fails to pull a tear from me. (And of course, this was Steve Whitmire's first appearance as Kermit.) (Also, I really want to see the giant 1040-form.)

4. "The Rainbow Connection" (The Muppet Movie)
Kermit's other signature song, the song that establishes his soul and opens The Muppet Movie with its own "When You Wish Upon a Star" moment with a song that is equally as powerful and poignant.

3. "I Don't Want to Live on the Moon" (Sesame Street, Episode 2396)
A beautiful Jeff Moss composition where Ernie opines that the moon is a nice place to visit, but in the end he'll always come home to the people he loves.

2. "I'm Going to Go Back There Someday" (The Muppet Movie)
Just a perfect, beautiful, beautifully perfect song about longing, friendship, and dreams, with some of my favorite lyrics I've ever heard. I've been singing this song since I was 5 or 6 years old, and I still feel it deep in my soul. "I've never been there, but I know the way..." And: "There's not a word yet for old friends who've just met."

1. "Cottleston Pie" (The Muppet Show, Episode 107)
In the end, it's this song, a nonsense AA Milne poem set to music, that tops everything else for me. It's just the way Jim sings it as Rowlf, my favorite Muppet, as this fluffy, lovable lullaby, with its silly wording and its childlike curiosity about words, and Jim's easygoing, genuine charm. This is, indeed, my favorite Muppet song.

(Note: in the end, Paul Williams is indeed the king of this list, with 12 songs out of 50--including almost every song from The Muppet Movie! Joe Raposo ended up coming in with 6, with Jeff Moss following closely at--arguably--5.)

The Great American Cereal Book

2012-05-22T23:01:00.001-05:00

I just finished reading through this book tonight. It's sort of a catalog of American breakfast cereals throughout their history; it serves as a historical overview and a collection of trivia about both individual cereals and the fads and market trends that influenced the creation of what I've been eating for breakfast throughout my life. The book also inspired a lot of those nostalgia-based discussions about what Becca and I remembered eating when we were kids. I realized tonight that I ate so much Smurfberry Crunch between 1983 and 1987 that I can still recall the taste a quarter-century later. Also, I really miss that cereal that was promoting the 1989 Batman movie. That was some good stuff... like Cap'n Crunch dipped in honey.

Just for the hell of it, my 20 favorite breakfast cereals of all time (most of which are sugary and I can't eat anymore because sugary cereals make me feel sick):

1. Rice Chex
2. Frosted Mini-Wheats
3. Cap’n Crunch with Crunchberries
4. Kellogg’s Cornflakes
5. Batman
6. Franken Berry
7. Corn Pops
8. Froot Loops
9. Rice Krispies
10. Mr. T
11. C-3PO’s
12. Quisp
13. Cheerios
14. Smurfberry Crunch
15. Ghostbusters
16. Fruity Pebbles
17. Trix
18. Golden Crisp
19. Strawberry Shortcake
20. Kix

Kristen Bell Mondays

2012-05-21T18:12:00.002-05:00

Song of the Week: "Last Dance"

2012-05-20T12:18:00.000-05:00

Donna Summer died this week, and when everyone one Tumblr was suddenly posting videos and mp3s, I realized that Donna Summer never really made a big impression on me in music. That's not to denigrate her considerable talents, that's just to say that I was born in 1976 and didn't hear a lot of disco growing up because, with a couple of exceptions, my Dad more or less absolutely despised disco music. I didn't really discover a lot of hit until I was in high school, in the early 90s, and though there are some disco songs I just love, it comes across at worst like too many other novelties and just sort of floats past me. Donna Summer had a lot of really well-constructed pop hits, and I've always liked a few of them, but I've never really sought her out.

I know, this isn't really much of a tribute, and it doesn't have to be. I've seen a lot of other really nice ones this week, some (like Kelly's) specifically about this song. I do happen to love this one. This one is, I think, much more than a well-constructed pop hit. It's a thing of beauty, well-produced, perfectly performed.

My Exact Approach to Life

2012-05-20T12:08:00.002-05:00

Sunday Hottie 381

2012-05-20T10:53:00.002-05:00

NIKOLAJ COSTER-WALDAU

This Is a Fifth Jane Birkin Appreciation Post, As I Have Not Yet Tired of Them

2012-05-19T09:06:00.000-05:00

Ernie Chan 1940-2012

2012-05-18T13:08:00.000-05:00

Comics stalwart Ernie Chan has passed away at the age of 71. He belongs to my favorite era of comics, the 1970s; I've been reading a lot of old Conan comics lately, and his work as inker on Conan the Barbarian and artist on The Savage Sword of Conan have been bringing me a lot of joy lately, as well as his classic Batman art. Sorry to hear this news.

TV Report: Looking Ahead to Next Season

2012-05-17T12:53:00.001-05:00

All the fall schedules are out now, and I can see some big changes that, nevertheless, somehow look like more of the same... So here's where I navel gaze and think about what I'll be watching come October on CBS, ABC, NBC, possibly Fox, and... who are we kidding, I'm not watching anything on the CW.

Mondays
I'll still be watching How I Met Your Mother, which didn't have the best season finale this week, ending as it did on the same cliffhanger it began with nine months ago, but adding a twist everyone had guessed roughly nine months ago, aided by the announcement last week that Becki Newton was in a pilot that got picked up, so it's not like Quinn and Barney were ever going to get married. I loved the first half, though, and I still love these characters enough that I teared up a tiny bit when Marshall announced that he named his son after his late father (last year's episode "Last Words," featuring Marvin's funeral, was a real tearjerker for me). Also loved Ted's "That guy's a dad" reaction.

I'll also still be watching The Amazing Adventures of Kat Dennings' Sublime Breasts, but I see now I'll be waiting a half hour between shows as CBS tries out another new TV comedy that tries to convince us that knowing a gay person is JUST WACKY!! as if we're just finding out about them for the first time. Except, of course, I won't be waiting because I just DVR this shit. Moving the show to 8 (9 for all you Eastern types) makes me realize how much of a breakout 2 Broke Girls is... I can't decide if moving Two and a Half Men to Thursdays makes me excited that someone is going after NBC's perceived Thursday night crown or if I'm just happy that it signals the impending end of Two and a Half Men. What do you think, two more seasons, tops? Eh, whatever, I don't really care except in an academic sense because I don't actually watch it.

I am particularly not watching NBC's Revolution, though I see the internet is already in love with it. Admit it, internet, the mere futility of hoping a science fiction series on a network could be both good and successful just gets you off in some sick way, doesn't it?

And Castle is coming back, a prospect which I find I'm almost totally unenthusiastic about. After I've been away for a couple of months, maybe I'll be excited again. I'm invested in the characters now, but I sure wish I was getting the same kind of return on my investment that I used to get. The finale was just the kind of murky, convoluted, joyless, humorless hour I expected it would be. And, of course, the Conspiracy Theory Plot Contrivance Generator was turned up to 11. Kind of hard to hear the episode over the sound of that un-oiled machinery grinding its gears. (And apropos of nothing, Stana really looked better with short hair.)

Oh, and in midseason Fox has something coming on called The Following which sounds bizarrely compelling to me. James Purefoy (whom I love, even though he was the most bizarre, random, and sudden pointless development on Revenge this season) plays a serial killer on a spree being tracked down by the FBI genius who originally put him away (Kevin Bacon). I don't know why it just sounds like something I want to watch. It's like NBC's Hannibal, but like the version of it that sounds more watchable even though it doesn't have the licensed pedigree (although most of you are pretty aware that I'm not a fan of the film series' Universal Monster Movie version of Hannibal Lecter, anyway).

(And about NBC's Hannibal, two observations. First, the promotional copy shouldn't describe Will Graham as "a gifted criminal profiler" with a "unique way of thinking" that "gives him the astonishing ability to empathize with anyone, even psychopaths" and then have the character not know that the psychiatrist he's allied himself with is a serial killer. I know you want to make it look like Hannibal is just that much of a genius, but it kind of makes Graham look stupid and is way overselling it. Second... Hugh Dancy as Will Graham? I imagine the conversation going like this: "We got Hugh Dancy!" "Why Hugh Dancy?" "Had to get someone.")

Also:

Tuesday
Tuesday is NBC's night for the "knowing a gay person is JUST WACKY!!" sitcom, and for some reason the title, The New Normal, just sounds condescending to me. This is apparently the year the networks decided we all need to be talked down to about these colorful homer-sexuals that have been in the news so much lately. However, it offends my sensibilities less than NBC giving Matthew Perry a new sitcom. What is it about Matthew Perry that networks just can't get enough of? It's obviously not ratings. Because, you know, if there's one thing that box office grosses and the ratings for Studio 60 and Mr. Sunshine failed to show, it's that Matthew Perry was the reason anyone liked Friends... Seriously, didn't that overrated piece of bile end a hundred years ago? When does Matthew Perry's goodwill run out and he stops getting more and more chances to fail? Yeah, good luck getting traction from the Friends audience, because the Friends audience is in love with New Girl.

(Aside: what is this shit with Zooey Deschanel on the Siri commercial? "Siri, is it raining?" Look out the window, bitch, it's only three feet over your shoulder! Guys, just because a girl wears nerd glasses and dances awkwardly to old rockabilly 45s doesn't mean it's not still pandering. Christ, I really can't stand her anymore.)

Anyway, Tuesdays are actually giving me something to watch for the first time in many year because ABC is moving Happy Endings and Don't Trust the B-- in Apartment 23 there, where they'll probably get crushed and canceled, but I'll enjoy them while they're on. (It seems weird of ABC to think that the younger-skewing sitcoms are going to be helped by the lead-in of the older-skewing, not-well-rated Dancing with the Stars results show.) I also want to check out this new sitcom Mindy Kaling has for Fox, even though I don't expect it to be very good, because it's on Fox. (Although I love Mindy Kaling, have been hoping for years for a vehicle for her, and the preview was hilarious.) Also might try Vegas because of Dennis Quaid.

Also:

Wednesday
I'll stick with Suburgatory and Modern Family, and I know I'll watch Nashville on ABC because it has Connie Britton and Hayden Panettiere, at least until it starts to get as annoying as every other music show in history (looks like Country Strong: The Series, so hopefully they avoid the same crap that movie did, but Connie Britton is about a thousand times more talented than Gwyneth Paltrow, so... and Hayden is going to be delicious as the bitch-villain every primetime soap needs; the preview looks awesomely trashy). That's pretty much it. I don't care about ABC's new sitcom about aliens.

Oh, but have you seen the promo art for NBC's terribly-titled Animal Practice?

I don't know who is looking at this picture and thinking that they have to see this (ethnic stereotype! comedy animal! Tyler Labine! character shorthands like poker and bow ties!), but I am not among you. Maybe I just don't get it. I don't get a lot of things. Like why Law and Order: SVU has been on for 13 years.

Also, what's up, Dick Wolf? Call a show Chicago Fire and it's not even about the soccer team?

You know what else?

Thursday
NBC's got the same stuff on, and as with this past season, I'm only watching Parks and Recreation. The Office became obnoxious and unbearable even before Steve Carell left, and I just gave up on 30 Rock, which was surprisingly easy. I never missed that show for years, and the second I stopped watching it, it was like it never existed. Allen Lulu predicted that one day we'd look back and wonder why we ever found it funny, and I have to say, even thinking about it now, it doesn't really even hold up in my mind. I think the real problem was that Liz Lemon stopped being the quirky center who used to have to hold everything in place. When they started taking her quirks and making them the same broad-stroked crazy as everyone else, it just became too much of a cartoon. Where's the grounding anymore?

Also The Big Bang Theory on CBS, which I love. Great season finale, really defining the relationships among the characters without forcing them to have any big revelations or dramatic speeches (except for Howard and Bernadette getting married, of course, which was still pretty understated, even for this show). I'm glad Howard's growing up. I can't wait to see the other characters take strides of their own. Even the quiet moment of an overwhelmed Sheldon--even his being overwhelmed is huge--just taking Amy's hand is a step on the journey, and a welcome one.

Elementary looks horrible. Guys, just come out and say you're doing modern day Sherlock Holmes because Sherlock is so popular. American TV always thinks it's innovative to arbitrarily make a male character a woman; lots of people are upset, and I think rightly so, by Watson's gender switch, because it's such an obvious and uncreative attempt to remove any possible suggestion of homoeroticism--which says to me that no one involved in the show looks at Tumblr, because most days it seems Tumblr is about nothing more than shipping male couples in popular entertainment. (The most popular right now are Sherlock and Watson, Sherlock and the Doctor, Thor and Loki, and Tony Stark and Bruce Banner.) I would also add that another reason people should be upset is that they cast Jonny Lee Miller and Lucy Liu as characters who are supposed to be smart. Also, it feels like what they really want to do is Sherlock Holmes-if-it-were-Castle.

A better idea?

Friday and Saturday
Nothing, don't care. I guess except for Saturday Night Live. Boy, what a disappointment last week. Lots of energy, great sketches, Will Ferrell hosting, Will Forte making some guest appearances, even the Digital Short skated by on goodwill despite being a self-congratulatory send-off. And then it just suddenly died and laid there dead for the last half-hour. Never recovered. Ugh. (And you can spare me the comments about how you're too refined to like Will Ferrell, because I don't care and it's a snore to read.) I wonder if this week is going to be just a lot of farewell sketches from departing cast members Amdy Samberg, Jason Sudeikis and Kristen Wiig. I still really wish Fred Armisen would just walk out the door, too. And take that new girl, Kate McKinnon, with you. As much as I thought Kristen Wiig was overindulgent and repetitive, I never thought she didn't have an intrinsic understanding of how comedy worked. Kristen Wiig just annoyed me and I hated a lot of the one-note socially awkward characters she played endlessly. Kate McKinnon I can't even look at. She's got the crazy eyes. And she's not funny, but seriously: crazy eyes.

Oh, Reba McEntire has a new sitcom on Fridays. Might watch that. I just like her. And it's got Lily Tomlin, so who knows? (Loved Lily this season on Eastbound & Down.) Looks like pretty trad ABC fare (almost like TGIF is coming back), but there's room for all kinds of things on my schedule. Except sports. And medical dramas. Weird that ABC has two country singer series coming on this year, one a sitcom and one a primetime soap. Reba's show is called Malibu Country but it looks like Hannah Montana: The Later Years.

Sunday

The big change on Sunday is that ABC decided to move Revenge. I was surprised by the move. I mean, it shows a lot of confidence in Revenge to move it to the center of a competitive night. On the other hand, I love Revenge and don't want to see it get crushed by whatever's on HBO or something. I guess this means ABC is looking at Revenge as their heir to Desperate Housewives. (And that reminds me, I need to catch up on, like, the last two seasons of Desperate Housewives.)

Other Stuff
:: NBC picked up a show called Crossbones from the creator of Luther (still in my queue and I need to just watch it already) about Blackbeard and the golden age of piracy. The show intends to be a project of dark moral complexity that will make the audience question who the real villains are: pirates or the British crown. It sounds like the kind of show I would absolutely love... if it were on HBO. NBC doing a show about pirates with the constraints of a network budget and network standards? Still, I have to check this out, assuming it actually gets made and actually airs. So in that regard, I realize I'm making the same mistake with Crossbones that the internet is making with Revolution...

:: In midseason, NBC's got something coming on called Next Caller that visits two of the most tiresome things 21st century pop culture has given us: the idea of the modern, Maxim-reading, overgrown frat boy as some kind of reaction to feminism and not just an emotionally immature boor who defines himself by outdated "traditions," and Dane Cook. And even more egregiously, the promo copy for the show calls Dane Cook--not the character he's playing, a stereotypical talk radio DJ who gets partnered with a plucky, homegrown feminist (another stereotype that was never interesting), but Cook himself--"outrageously charming." If you find Dane Cook "outrageously charming," I can't help you. Just, you know, buy a Louis CK record so you can understand how Cook's bits were all done well before he stole them and made them "outrageously charming."

"Outrageously charming." God help you. And God help you, too, Jeffrey Tambor. Stop wasting your time. No, no, Welcome to the Captain was a really good idea... I hope he's getting paid a lot.

:: I'm kind of weirded out that NBC also picked up some show with Anne Heche about a woman who has a near death experience and becomes a prophet. Interesting idea for a show... if it were on HBO. HBO could do this. NBC... don't see it happening. I just don't see them pulling it off in a way that's going to be very considered or insightful. Love the copy, though: "Let’s just say, if God had a desperate housewife as His mouthpiece, Beth would be it! She is the absolute last person on Earth who would be chosen. Then again, they say He works in mysterious ways. And this one is a real mystery!" I really need to get a job writing these things; I can desperately try to oversell something, I'm sure! How hard can it be? Let's just say this isn't the scariest curve on the highway!

Whoa, I think my brain literally stopped working for a second.

Anyway, this show is called Save Me, and it has early cancellation written all over it. It's going to be another Book of Daniel where the right people get pissy about religious icons being used on a network show in a disrespectful way, and then after two or three episodes it disappears.

:: Sarah Chalke has a midseason sitcom coming on, too. You know who else has the crazy eyes? Sarah Chalke.

:: And that just... peters out. Nothing else to say here. So, in conclusion:

Rowlf!

2012-05-17T10:01:00.002-05:00

Still Do

2012-05-16T18:36:00.000-05:00

Jim Henson left this world 22 years ago today.

I've been working on a list of favorite Muppet music for the blog... damn, wish I'd had it done for today.

Film Week

2012-05-16T15:48:00.000-05:00

A review of the films I've seen this past week.

LES ASTRONAUTES (1959)
Fascinating and whimsical cut-out animation made the great filmmaker Walerian Borowczyk. Not a story so much as a crazy impression of space flight, featuring planets that are people and capturing the breathless dream of flight. ***1/2

COUNTRY STRONG (2010)
There's nothing wrong with this movie that a page 1 rewrite and recasting the lead actress couldn't fix... The problem is, there's no real focus. The film can't decide what it's about. Is it about its ostensible main character, a popular country singer recovering from tragedy and addiction and terrified that the audience has abandoned her? If so, Gwyneth Paltrow's just not up to the task. Look, I've seen her in a lot of films in the past 20 years, and I've even liked her in some of them, but she's just not ever going to be naturally likable or appealing. She's not. Sorry. She can't fake human warmth and she's never been the kind of actress that just inspires sympathy. And here, we're supposed to regard her, on some levels, as a person that we want to see succeed. She's a wounded bird we're supposed to want to care for, that we're supposed to really feel for and hope she finds her humanity and rises above what's holding her back. But I didn't. Not once. I understood her, to some extent, because I know what it's like to throw up emotional obstacles in my own way, and I know what it's like to weather a tragedy. But she just didn't make me care. Country may be strong, but Gwyneth Paltrow's acting isn't. It's a fatal miscast that sinks the entire movie; it's like a black hole at the center that just pulls everything into it. Is the film instead about her husband and manager, Tim McGraw, who is meant to be the villain of the piece? As much time as the movie spends with him, he's too one-dimensional (though the screenplay clearly thinks he's complex, and it is very wrong). Is it about Garrett Hedlund, a man who gets out-acted by a one-dimensional Tim McGraw? Hedlund's character, who is not only attempting to sleep with both Paltrow and her competition/admirer, Leighton Meester, is basically a hole in the screen; boring character played boringly by a boring actor. What the film should have been about is Leighton Meester's character, a former beauty pageant winner who wants to be a country star and desperately admires Gwyneth Paltrow. She's thrilled to be opening for her, even as Paltrow fears that this girl is going to end up replacing her and is threatened by her youth and freshness. Meester is the only one in the film who plays more than one emotion. Unlike Paltrow, Meester is appealing, sympathetic, and instantly likable. She's emotionally genuine, and her story is, by far, the only interesting one in the film. (And she can sing, which... come on, it's a movie about singers.) I know this thing got critically ignored, but I honestly didn't expect it to be this much of a waste (and an overlong one at that). Poorly executed, poorly acted, with one exception. ** I hope that with Gossip Girl ending, Leighton Meester gets the opportunity to do some good films and not Country Strong or The Roommate.

GONE (2012)
Proof that I'll still watch Amanda Seyfried in anything. Actually, it's not a terrible picture; it's almost pretty solid, with some decent characterization, but it also raises potential misdirections that it doesn't really know how to do anything with (or isn't interested in, maybe). This is about a girl who was kidnapped and escaped, and one year later, the killer comes back for her. There's a lot of question about whether it was a hoax or whether she's crazy, but the film is so determined that neither of those things is true that characters insisting on them become either annoying or manipulative attempts at making the lead character sympathetic; the cops don't believe her, so they must be bad people! There's no one on her side! There's so much more that could have been done playing with the psychology of it--especially since it seems to raise the possibility of the killer's identity in a way that goes nowhere and is frustrating--but instead it's a straightforward thriller. Not necessarily a bad one, but not a really enjoyable one, either. It's a better Amanda Seyfried vehicle than Red Riding Hood, which was unwatchable, but it's not what it could be. And how shitty is that it's 20-fucking-12 and I have to be impressed that a young woman in a movie is very smart and capable? **1/2

HICK (2011)
Here's where all of these movies about young girls on road trips make their big mistake: they want to be cautionary tales about how dangerous this world can be for young girls, but they do it by spending an hour and a half sexualizing them for us, only to decide in the last 10 minutes that we should be sympathetic and see them as children. It's an uncomfortable movie about a girl getting herself further and further into danger because of things she doesn't understand, and if it weren't for Chloe Moretz being as talented as she is, it would just be a nightmare to get through. It's well-written--Chloe Moretz's Luli is an interesting, three-dimensional character, but she's playing with fire and she knows she's doing it. And then when the movie gets where it's inevitably going and then turns left, it's truly frightening to watch. The movie creates real characters and genuine suspense. But at the same time... maybe it's the age I'm at and remembering when my sisters were 13 and just wanting to be able to shake them out of making stupid decisions. But it's a mark of the talent involved both behind the camera and in front of it that the film hit me on that level. Blake Lively, by the way, is much better in this than in The Town or the idiotic Green Lantern, but I still don't think I'm ever going to warm to the creepy intensity of Eddie Redmayne. ***1/2