40 Hours of Television

Sorry for the lack of posts

2006-05-02T20:24:00.000-07:00

Sorry gang, school has been keeping me busy and there hasn't been much time to keep up with two blogs. Posting here will probably be sporatic. For (hopefully) more up-to-date postings, you can visit my main site, What's In Scott's Head.

Thanks for stopping by!

Movie Review: Thank You for Smoking

2006-04-10T16:41:00.000-07:00

Thank You for Smoking is a surprisingly hilarous, biting satire of lobbying — in the form of Nick Naylor (Aaron Eckhart), spokesman for the Academy of Tobacco Studies. Played with perfection by Eckhart, Naylor becomes a character we, the audience, want to see more of — he turns someone who should be unlikeable into a sympathetic character.

Our first introduction to Naylor is on a talk show about smoking and cancer. Naylor shares the stage with a 15-year-old boy who is dying from cancer (and had recently stopped smoking), and Naylor turns the audience's hostility towards him around by saying Big Tobacco wants the boy to live — so he can continue to be a smoker — and it's the anti-smoking bunch that wants him to die. It's a hilarious opening to a great film, directed with unexpected maturity by 29-year-old Jason Reitman (son of director Ivan Reitman). Reitman, who also wrote the screenplay (based on the book by Christopher Buckley), deftly conducts the actions on-screen, maintaining a certain tone and not veering the film off the path of satire.

Naylor meets frequently with his friends, fellow lobbyists, known as the "MOD" squad (Merchants of Death): alcohol lobbyist Polly Bailey (Maria Bello) and firearms lobbyist Bobby Jay Bliss (David Koechner). In their funny scenes, the trio argues over which of their products causes the most deaths.

After his talk show appearance, Naylor becomes something of a celebrity, and a Washington, D.C. journalist, Heather Holloway (Katie Holmes) wants an interview. Naylor not only grants the interview, but the two begin an affair, with Naylor, well, making a lot of what he thinks are off-the-record comments to Holloway. The comments not only turn out to be on-the-record, but they end up in the article Holloway writes about Naylor. Needless to say, his world is turned upside down.

With everything going on in his world, Nick Naylor is trying to be a good father to his son, Joey. There's a great scene when Nick comes to Joey's school for one of those "what do your parents do for a living" talks. "Please don't ruin my childhood," Joey pleads as his father talks to the kids, eventually cross-examining a little girl who says her mother said smoking is bad for you. "Oh, is your mother a doctor?" Naylor asks the bewildered little girl. "She's hardly a credible expert."

There is a sub-plot involving Naylor's firm trying to get smoking put back into the movies. Naylor meets with movie producer Jeff Megall and the two figure out how to get smoking back into movies: set the film in the future, after cigarettes have been declared safe.

Meanwhile, a powerful senator, Ortolan K. Finistirre (William H. Macy), is holding hearings on having a poison label placed on packs of cigarettes. The plot winds its way down to Naylor testifying before the Senator's committee, pointing out that Finistirre's home state, Vermont, produces cheese that clogs arteries...should cheese have warning labels, too? "The great state of Vermont will not apologize for its cheese!" Finistirre fumes.

There are many great moments in Thank You for Smoking, and the film as a whole is just teriffic. The satire is biting and skewers all targets equally. Jason Reitman will be a name to look for in the future. He has a great future ahead of him, if Thank You for Smoking is any indication. Highly recommended.

TV Review: Nanny 9/11(3-24-06)

2006-03-26T00:12:00.000-08:00

I've previously written about Nanny 9/11 in a general way, focusing on the series as a whole. Today I'm writing about a specific episode (aired on March 24, 2006), which was completely fascinating and a little different than other episodes in the series. This episode provides enough material to continually raise the question, "Why does this family want America to know how horrible the parents are?" Or, when you get right down to it, why would the parents want to know how horrible they are? Is a brief moment of fame worth the public humiliation? I don't understand it at all.

We meet the Longairc family: husband and step-father Adam; wife and mother Michelle; and her three children: son Sean, eight; five-year-old son Adam, a charming child who bites, screams, and likes to drop the F-bomb. It's so cute when children swear, isn't it? And six-year-old daughter Erica, the only child of the three we don't see acting like they had been raised in the wild by a pack of wolves.

Adam is in the unfortunate position of being a step-father. Now, before I get complaints that I'm calling step-parents "unfortunate," I'm only referring to this situation. I know there are plenty of families with step-parents that do not have the issues the Longairc family have, and are thriving. I can relate to Adam as I'm a step-parent. I came into my step-child's life when he was nine, and immediately wanted to jump in with my own style of discipline. Big mistake, since his mother had her own style, and our styles were not the same.

For several years it created strife until I finally decided that I would not continue in a disciplining role, but rather try to be a positive influence and a mentor. And things got better fast. I know, all experiences vary, but I know there are some of you out there who know what I'm talking about. But I digress.

Back to the Longairic family. We watch step-father Adam attempt (unsuccessfully) to bring so discipline into the family. The kids are defiant and mom Michelle is not what you'd call a disciplinarian. So Adam has his hands full as he fruitlessly attempts to bring some order out of chaos. Time to bring in Nanny Stella!

If you've never seen the show, the format is pretty simple. On the first day, the nanny will observe the family and take notes. At the end of the day, she'll discuss her observations with the parents. The next day, the nanny brings in a set of family rules, and the rest of the episode (normally) shows us how, by the end of the week, life is ice cream and puppies for the family as the children magically transform into little angels. Not this time! Nope. That's what made this particular episode so unusual.

Sure, Nanny Stella came up with family rules, but throughout the episode, mother Michelle refuses to follow the rules or enforce them. In fact, she even refuses to acknowledge that her children are...difficult, despite saying so at the beginning of the episode.

Poor Stella gives it her best shot, but nothing. Michelle basically wants Stella to leave due to the fact that Stella has questioned Michelle's parenting skills (or, in her case, lack of parenting skills).

And so it goes in this train wreck of an episode, culminating with five-year-old Adam punching, kicking and spitting in Stella's face, all while his mother sits back and enjoys the show. You know she wants the tyke to assault the woman who dared to question her skills as a mother. It's all very sad, really.

By the end of the week, Nanny Stella hasn't really accomplished anything, which is unusual for this show, and off she goes, with no emotional departure that is the norm of Nanny 9/11. We get a sort-of follow up to find out that step-father Adam is attempting to follow the rules set up by Nanny Stella, and even Michelle acknowledges she's going to try and follow them. Which seems unlikely. I wonder if we'll see this couple on Divorce Court?

All said, the Longairc family episode made for interesting television. Recommended.

Help Scott Get Something for Nothing

2006-03-19T22:15:00.000-08:00

I'm trying to get one of those free Xbox 360s. It's actually a legitimate offer. You may have heard about people getting free Ipods. Same company. Basically you sign up for one offer (like a trial subscription to Rhapsody) and get eight referrals, and you get a free Xbox 360. So, I'm asking you, dear reader, to help me in getting my own Xbox 360 (and you can get one, too). Just click this link to get started.

Note: it looks like the easiest offer to get the free Xbox 360 is the Real Arcade trial. It's a 30-day free membership. Sign up, and cancel before the 30 days are up. That's it. Once you've done that, you just need to get eight people to sign up and do the same. Pretty easy. Thanks bunches. Now, on to a television review.

The Sierra Club's documentary series, The Sierra Club Chronicles, continues with the third episode in the series, Dioxin, Duplicity and DuPont (airing March 23 on Link TV, channel 375 on DIRECTV, and channel 9410 on the Dish Network). Did the DuPont plant in DeLisle, Mississippi contribute to people working at and living near the plant developing diseases like cancer and kidney failure, and other illnesses?

Dioxin, Duplicity and DuPont alleges that the pollution emitted from DuPont did indeed contribute to those diseases. However, the show fails to provide any compelling evidence that DuPont was indeed responsible for those diseases. It's for that reason I cannot give Dioxin, Duplicity and DuPont a full recommendation. Without any strong evidence that DuPont's pollution contributed to those illnesses, we're left with anecdotal evidence. The main charge is that the dioxins emitted by the plant have caused the illnesses in the community, with more than 2,000 people filing lawsuits against DuPont for contracting various illnesses.

We meet Myra Marsh, a former DuPont worker, who developed a condition that weakened her legs to the point that she cannot walk; and Glen Strong, an oyster fisherman, who developed cancer in 1998, allegedly due to the pollution the DuPont plant fed into St. Louis Bay. Dr. Ed Clark, a marine biologist, claims DuPont released heavy metal containments and dioxins into St. Louis Bay. Again, we hit a wall in assigning blame to DuPont: no evidence.

Not that I'm condoning any environmental impact that may have been caused by DuPont, but the show failed to provide any evidence at all to support the claim that DuPont's pollution contributed to the various diseases contracted by workers at the plant and members of the community. Did the Sierra Club conduct its own independent research into how much pollution was being pumped into St. Louis Bay? We, the viewers, do not know.

Did the Sierra Club conduct research into the levels of air pollution? Again, we, the viewers, do not know, or at least are not told. As it turns out, the Sierra Club did, in fact, conduct research (from this item in the Mississippi Press). This data should have been included in this episode, but for reasons unknown, was not. The show jumps to Glen Strong in court, suing DuPont for the cancer he developed in 1998. The jury concluded that DuPont had polluted and caused Strong's cancer, awarding him $14 million dollars.

The Sierra Club Chronicles is produced in part by Brave New Films (Outfoxed; Uncovered: The War on Iraq), who usually do a good job in their documentaries, but at least in this one case, fail to provide any compelling evidence that DuPont was responsible for the illnesses contracted in DeLisle, Mississippi. Perhaps an hour-long format would have allowed for the introduction of evidence by the Sierra Club of the plant's pollution levels. With only a half-hour, there's a limited amount of information that can be presented.

Hooked on House

2006-03-13T11:17:00.000-08:00

My new favorite TV show is Fox's House. I'd been seeing commercials for it for weeks but had never watched an episode. I finally did, and must say I was impressed.

First, Hugh Laurie is great as Dr. Greg House, a doctor who is a great diagnostician but hates patients (he thinks they all lie). Each week he and his group of young doctors tackle a different medical mystery. The episodes follow a particular formula, which can seem repetitious at times, but then House will do something crazy in order to cure the disease/ailment/whatever the patient is suffering from.

Hugh Laurie is a British actor. If he looks a little familiar to you, well, if you're a fan of Rowan Atkinson's BBC series Blackadder, that's where you've seen Laurie before. Maybe this will jog your memory:

That's Laurie on the left.

I'm enjoying the season one episodes on DVD, courtesy of Netflix...what would I do without Netflix?

On the opposite end of good is the new film, The Hills Have Eyes. I endured it over the weekend, and here's the review:

At what point did all of the creative people in the world stop producing material? Did all of the screenwriters just run out of material? Who can explain Hollywood's obsession with pointlessly remaking old movies for a "new" generation?

Writer/Director Alexandre Aja's The Hills Have Eyes is a loose remake of Wes Craven's 1977 cult favorite of the same name. The plot is pretty simple and can be summed up thusly: crazed cannibal mutants terrorize the Brady family. Okay, it's not the Brady family, but do you remember the Grand Canyon episode of The Brady Bunch, in which they get trapped in a ghost town? The Hills Have Eyes has a similar setting, only instead of a crazed Jim Backus, you have assorted crazed mutant cannibals who are in the mood for some human flesh.

Why mutants? Well, it turns out that the mutants are kin to miners who wouldn't leave their New Mexico desert homes while nuclear testing was being conducted, and as a result you've got a bunch of blood-thirsty mutants just waiting to try out some human flesh tikka masala. (Mmmm...tikka masala....)

We open at a deserted gas station. It's one of those creepy gas stations in horror movies where no one seems to actually be there and you know that the proprietor will have a crazed look in his eyes but will seem nice and will give folks directions to their destination — or, rather, directions to a short-cut that will take folks to the blood-thirsty mutant cannibals. Why couldn't they call the movie that? Blood Thirsty Mutant Cannibals. I like it.

We meet the Carter family, making the trek across the New Mexico desert on their way to California. In need of gas and directions, the family stops at the aforementioned gas station. The crazy gas station owner fills up the family's SUV and tells them about a short-cut through the desert that will shave two hours off of their trip. Everyone thinks accepting directions for a crazy man is a good idea and they speed off.

Of course, it's a trap. A few of the crazed mutants lay out some spikes that blow up the tires of the SUV, causing it to crash into a huge boulder, where it is totaled. Patriarch Bob Carter (Ted Levine) decides to go get some help, enlisting the help of his son-in-law, Doug (Aaron Stanford). Just like Mike and Peter did in that episode of The Brady Bunch. Left behind is matriarch Ethel (Kathleen Quinlan) and daughters Lynne (Vinessa Shaw) and Brenda (Emilie de Ravin) and son Bobby (Dan Byrd).

What eventually follows is a lot of bloodshed, as the hungry mutants blow away various members of the Carter family. It's in these moments when you'll awaken from your stupor to enjoy a few seconds of gore. I'll admit, some of the gore effects are well done. There's a great shotgun blast to the head scene.

The film does have its gross-out moments. Gore hounds might be happy with the various shootings, bludgeonings, and, in one case, impalement by miniature U.S. flag. The Carter family is very patriotic, you see.

And so it goes, moments of complete boredom followed by a few seconds of bloodshed, and all the while you're cursing Wes Craven under your breath for actually taking part in this travesty (he's a producer), as you check the time every ten seconds to see if you're any closer to the film's end.

Come it does, and as I left the theater I realized I had lost 107 minutes of my life, and I was sad. Oh well, maybe that remake of The Omen will be good.

The verdict: zero stars.

We're Back!

2006-03-11T12:57:00.000-08:00

As I've been doing a lot of writing at Blogcritics, I thought the time was right to bring 40 Hours back to life. I'll be posting my movie/music/TV reviews here, as well as my thoughts of the media in general. To get us started, here's my latest review, for the Season One DVD set of the sitcom Grounded for Life. Enjoy!

From the production company that brought America The Cosby Show and Roseanne (Carsey-Werner productions), Grounded for Life debuted on the Fox network in 2001. Starring Donal Logue (Blade, The Tao of Steve) as Sean Finnerty and Megyn Price (Mystery, Alaska) as Claudia Finnerty, Grounded for Life was a very funny show with a unique sensibility. The Finnerty clan included daughter Lilly (Lynsey Bartilson), sons Jimmy (Griffin Frazen) and Henry (Jake Burbage), Sean's brother, Eddie (the hilarious Kevin Corrigan) and Sean's father, Walt (Richard Riehle).

Grounded for Life aired on Fox for two seasons before being cancelled. It was picked up by the WB where it aired for three more seasons.

If you've never seen the show, you're in for a treat. It's genuinely funny and each episode had a unique plot structure, mostly told in flashback form, usually with Sean and Eddie explaining some predicament they've gotten themselves into. The writing is sharp and the cast's timing is excellent.

Grounded for Life: Season One includes all 20 episodes from the show's first season, including the pilot, "Lilly B. Goode." It's a four-DVD set with some excellent extras, starting with the audio commentary from the cast and producers on ten episodes. Disc four contains the other extras, including interviews with cast members Donal Logue, Megyn Price, Lynsey Bartilson, and the show's creators, Mike Schiff and Bill Martin. There is also a blooper reel.

Grounded for Life was shot on film, and the DVD transfer looks pretty good. Like most sitcoms the show is presented in full frame. Colors are sharp, but the transfer suffers from some grain issues. Audio is in Dolby Digital 2.0 and sounds okay, basically what you'd hear coming out of your own home's stereo system.

Grounded for Life never found the audience it deserved. It's a funny family show with likeable characters, great writing, and a quirky sense of humor. It's certainly better than some of the current sitcoms airing on The WB (Twins, I'm looking at you), or other networks, for that matter. With the Season One DVD set, you'll have the chance to experience a great show, perhaps for the first time. Highly recommended. If you have cable, Grounded for Life is in syndication on the ABC Family Network. Check it out, you'll be glad you did, if you enjoy a light-hearted family comedy.

Thanks For Watching

2006-01-10T15:26:00.000-08:00

Dear reader,

I have decided to close down 40 Hours of Television. As you've noticed, I haven't been posting here much. Instead I'd like to direct you to Blogcritics, a great web magazine covering a broad range of topics. You can find my Blogcritics archive here. If you're a blogger, and want more exposure for your work, I'd encourage you to sign up at Blogcritics. The site gets anywhere between 25,000 and 50,000 visitors a day.

For those of you who have been checking in here regularly, thank you for your support. See you at Blogcritics, or my other web home, What's In Scott's Head.

Sorry For the Lack of Posts

2005-12-22T16:51:00.000-08:00

If you're still with me, thank you. Life's been kind of hectic and my attention has been focused elsewhere. I just finished fall term at school, and I am also spending a lot of time at Blogcritics, where I am the assistant editor of the politics section. Which doesn't leave a lot of time for writing, I'm afraid.

But I have some time now, and wanted to talk about this new game show on NBC called Deal, or No Deal. Wow. I think I'm hooked. It's a very simple concept. There are 26 cases. Inside each case is a dollar amount ranging from .01 to $1,000,000. No one knows what is in each case. The contestant picks a case at random, and begins the process of elimination to see what his case contains. During various stages of the game, the "banker" will make an offer to the player to buy back their case, based on the odds that the player's case contains the highest amount of money. The banker's offer gets higher as the game progresses. Eventually the player will either take the banker's offer or keep going to see what is in their case. It could be a million dollars. Or only five dollars.

It's been playing all week, it's probably on tonight. Watch and be mesmerized by Howie Mandel's bald head.

Review: "Million Dollar Baby"

2005-12-12T16:07:00.000-08:00

Clint Eastwood has proven himself not only as a great actor, but a great director, one of the best directors working today. Some may see the name Clint Eastwood and the image that might come to mind is Dirty Harry Callahan, but there's so much more to Eastwood, and in his films he has displayed an expertise in taking the elements of a familiar genre and turning that genre upside down, turning it into something different, as he did in his Oscar winning 1992 film Unforgiven.

Unforgiven had the elements of a traditional Western, but in Eastwood's hands it became something different than what you would see in a traditional gunslinger drama.

Million Dollar Baby is the story of Frankie Dunn (Clint Eastwood), an aging boxing trainer and manager who runs a small gym with his friend Eddie Dupris (Morgan Freeman, who also starred with Eastwood in Unforgiven), a former boxer with a blind eye due to a boxing injury. Dunn, as portrayed by Eastwood, is a man with a lot going on below the surface of his gruff exterior. We learn in the film that Dunn has been estranged from his daughter for many years. He writes her every week, but each letter is returned to sender, and Dunn keeps the rejected correspondence in a box. We also learn that Dunn goes to Mass every day, and has been doing so for 23 years. We do not ever learn what Dunn thinks he is atoning for, which adds to the complexity of the character.

Morgan Freeman narrates the story, telling us about the day when Maggie Fitzgerald (Hilary Swank) arrived at Dunn's gym. She's a waitress from Missouri, and determined to have a better life for herself through boxing. She's inexperienced but determined, spending hours at the gym training by herself. Dupris is impressed by her will and determination. Maggie wants Dunn to train her; he refuses, saying he doesn't "train girls." Freeman gives a fine performance, as usual, and has great chemistry with both Eastwood and Swank (his great performance earned him an Oscar for best supporting actor).

This may sound like any other boxing movie you've seen, but it's not. This isn't a film about boxing, it's a film about a boxer. In the hands of a lesser director, and lesser actors, the story could have dived down into cliche territory, possibly changed to become a sort of female version of Rocky. It's to Eastwood's credit, and screenplay writer Paul Haggis (who based the screenplay on the book Rope Burns: Stories From the Corner by F.X. Toole), that the story stays on a very human level.

Eddie Dupris, who lives in a small room at the gym, knows that Maggie is a talented fighter in need of a good trainer, and tries to get Dunn to train her. He is determined not to get involved, but in the end reluctantly agrees to train her. She's a fast learner, and before long is knocking out opponents in the first round of a fight. The boxing scenes aren't your typical Hollywood boxing fare: the boxing is real, exhausting for the boxers, and injuries can come at any time.
Hilary Swank is simply amazing as Maggie, creating a character who, like Eastwood, has more going on below the surface than we first know. She's barely scraping by as a waitress, sometimes forced to take food from the restaurant that had been tossed into the trash.

Things change for Maggie as she starts winning fights, and after saving up enough of her earning, she buys a home for her family in Missouri. Maggie's mother, Earline (Margo Martindale), isn't very happy with the gift: she's more concerned that her welfare payments will be cut off, and she doesn't approve of her daughter's decision to become a boxer.

Maggie finally gets a shot at a title fight in Las Vegas, against a fighter named Billie "The Blue Bear" (Lucia Rijker, who also served as Swank's boxing trainer). Billie is a figher known to fight dirty, and does so in her bout against Maggie. When it looks like Maggie is going to win, Billie sucker-punches her and she falls, hitting her head against the stool Dunn had placed in her corner at the end of the round. The injury leaves her paralyzed from the neck down.

It's at ths point the story takes a major turn, and although the ending might already be known by now, I will not spoil it here. The aftermath of the accident is especially emotional for Frankie Dunn, who takes on the role as a surrogate father to Maggie, spending all of his free time with her in the hospital. Maggie's family comes in from Missouri (but not before they'd had the chance to play tourist) and they want to make sure Maggie's money goes to them should anything happen to her. Her family isn't particularly concerned over her injury, and Maggie furiously sends them out of the room.

Eastwood handles the film's emotional conclusion in a way that does not pull it down into a fake sentimentality, which again would have been the case with a lesser director. It's a powerfully emotional conclusion, and in Eastwood's hands, a genuinely emotionally conclusion.
Million Dollar Baby is certainly one of Eastwood's best films, up there with Unforgiven and the powerful Mystic River. He's a director and actor of great talent. Highly recommended.
**** out of ****

Review: "Dead Man"

2005-12-01T16:57:00.000-08:00

Jim Jarmusch, the director of the 1996 film Dead Man is an indie director who definitely marches to the beat of his own drummer, creating films that can be both entertaining and infuriatingly inaccessible, as well as outright dull and plodding. Dead Man falls into all of those categories.

Shot in striking black and white by Jarmusch's longtime cinematographer Robby Muller, Dead Man is a sort of neo-Western, set sometime in the late 19th century. Johnny Depp is William Blake (not that William Blake...or is he?), an accountant on a train ride to the town of Machine, where he has a job waiting for him at the Dickinson steel mill. And it's a long train ride. Really, really long. Jarmusch spends at least the first ten minutes of the film showing us Blake's long, long, journey to Machine.

I suppose it's meant to convey Blake's inner emotion, but in reality it just went on way too long. We get shots of the train speeding through different landscapes, starting with forests and ending in a bleak desert. We get shots of Blake in the train. Cut back to shot of train speeding to its destination. Back to Blake inside train. With different people in the car each time, getting progressively scruffier. And so on, until we finally reach the end of the line and the town of Machine. Before reaching the town, the train's fireman (Crispin Glover) warns Blake that Machine is actually Hell.

As Blake walks through the town on his way to Dickinson Metal Works, it does appear hellish, a bleak town with bleak residents and various bits of bones in piles.

Once at Dickinson Metal Works, Blake learns that his job has been filled by another man. Blake demands to see the owner, John Dickinson (Robert Mitchum). Blake is granted a meeting, which turns out to be brief with a raving Dickinson inexplicably demanding that Blake leave his office (at gunpoint). He does, and with his last few dollars (he had spent all of his savings to get to Machine) buys a bottle of booze at the town's saloon. While at the saloon a woman selling paper flowers (Mili Avital) is tossed out of the saloon into the muddy street. Blake helps her out of the mud and she asks him to walk her to her home. Blake ends up spending the night with her, but in the morning her fiance, Charles Ludlow Dickinson (Gabriel Byrne) discovers her in bed with Blake. He shoots her; Blake shoots Dickinson and kills him, while taking a shot himself. The fiance is John Dickinson's son. Blake escapes the room and steals a horse.

Wounded, he passes out, and when he awakens, he's been tended to by an Indian named Nobody (Gary Farmer) who is convinced that Blake is actually the spirit of the poet William Blake -- in other words, Blake has died. Nobody is determined to get Blake back to the spirit world where he belongs.

Neil Young provides the music for the film, and his guitar playing suits the mood of the film.

The rest of the film takes us on the long journey to Blake's ultimate destination. Jarmusch is a director not very concerned with pacing. It's all so dull, yet it's meant to be meaningful or somehow insightful, a metaphor for...whatever. What is it about indie filmmakers and how the boring, overlong moments in their films are supposed to actually be something more than what they are? When we watch a "mainstream" movie that plods along, we'd call it what it is: horribly boring. The fans of Jarmusch will possibly content that I do not "get" it, but I do. Blake is on a metaphysical journey. It's all meant to be taken as allegory. Sure. But it's still dull.

On his tail are a trio of bounty hunters, including one who talks way too much (Michael Wincott) and sleeps with a teddy bear (not yet invented in the time the film takes place, but hey, we'll let it slip, since this is an indie film) and one who doesn't speak much at all (Lance Henricksen) but turns out to be a cannibal. That's a nice indie film touch. There are other strange characters in the film, including Iggy Pop in drag as someone who can cook up a mean pan of beans.

Eventually Nobody and Blake reach the village of Mikah, and Nobody puts Blake in a canoe and sets him off on his journey to the spirit world.

Dead Man comes in at 121 minutes, which is at least 30 minutes too long. (I'd say 120 minutes too long, but that would be mean-spirited). Having seen other Jarmusch films, I knew what I was in for when I watched Dead Man. And like the other Jarmusch films I've seen, I really didn't like Dead Man. I just couldn't connect with any of the characters on screen. Johnny Depp gives a great performance as Blake, of course, and the supporting actors are also very good, especially Gary Farmer as Nobody. The film suffers from slow pacing and a boring story. If you're a Jarmusch fan, I'm sure you'll love Dead Man.
** out of ****

Review: "The Graduate"

2005-11-25T14:36:00.000-08:00

Recent college graduate Benjamin Braddock (Dustin Hoffman) is home from school and unsure of his future. His parents want him to start his graduate studies; he wants to do nothing.

Mike Nichols' 1967 film The Graduate is a fine piece of filmmaking, with a smart script that seems to occupy a space slightly out of normal time. The war in Vietnam was raging, anti-war protesters were out in force, free love was being explored in San Francisco, and the civil rights movement was about to lose Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert Kennedy to the bullets of assassins. In Benjamin Braddock's world, his only concern is getting quality time in his family's pool.

Ben's aimless idling is about to change: following a party at his parent's house, the wife of the business partner of Benjamin's dad, Mrs. Robinson (Anne Bancroft) asks Ben to drive her home. He's reluctant to, but finally agrees. When they pull up to the Robinson home, Mrs. Robinson asks Ben to come in with her, to keep her company until her husband (Murray Hamilton, who earlier offers Ben a great piece of advice: "Plastics!") gets home. Benjamin is all nervous tics and jitters around Mrs. Robinson. She offers him a drink, puts on some music, and opens up about her unhappy marriage. Benjamin wants to know if she's trying to seduce him. "Would you like me to seduce you?" Yes, he would, thank you, and the two begin an affair.

The screenplay, by Calder Willingham and Buck Henry, is peppered with witty dialog. It's actually a very funny film. The film has aged a bit, at least in concept, and the idea of a younger man having an affair with an older woman (although Dustin Hoffman and Anne Bancroft were only six years apart in age) isn't as scandalous as it once was.

The film has some great music from Simon and Garfunkel, songs that haven't aged, and are just as good today as they were in 1967.

Benjamin and Mrs. Robinson end their affair, right about the time that the Robinson's daughter, Elaine Robinson (Katharine Ross), comes home to visit from college. Benjamin is asked by Mr. Robinson to take Elaine out. Mrs. Robinson is not very keen at the idea and warns Benjamin not to do it. Benjamin ignores her advice, and before long, he's in love (or so he thinks) with Elaine.

Elaine finds out about Benjamin's affair with her mother, and isn't very happy about it: her mother had told her Benjamin had raped her. Benjamin is determined to win her back. After some time he discovers Elaine is going to get married, and with that marriage ceremony, with have one of the most famous endings in the movies: Benjamin, at the church, pounding on a large glass wall, with Elaine abruptly running away from her groom to join Benjamin, as the two get away in a bus.

While The Graduate has dated a bit, it's still an entertaining film with a great cast, creative direction from Mike Nichols, and a great screenplay and soundtrack. Recommended.

They Really Love Me (again!)

2005-11-17T18:06:00.000-08:00

The fine folks at Blogcritics.org have picked my review of the ABC reality show Supernanny as an editor's choice pick of the week. You can read the review here, and if you do, let me know what you think.

Also, you can hear part two of my Podcast essay, "Reality Show Humiliation," just click here.

I Love to Watch: Reality Show Obsessions

2005-11-13T16:29:00.000-08:00

I'm kicking myself for missing the episode of Trading Spouses that featured the crazy lady. I saw the commercials and part of the first episode but missed the crazy parts in the second episode. I like crazy. It adds a certain...something to the whole reality show experience. People just going nuts in front of the camera. It should be a staple of all reality shows.

One show I'm starting to enjoy is ABC's Supernanny. It goes against the grain of what I normally enjoy as it lacks the elements of humiliation that I enjoy so much in other reality shows. But darn it all if I'm not enjoying it. "Supernanny" Jo Frost visits a family in need of some guidance on how to deal with their children, and Jo comes in and whips everyone into shape and before you know it, BAM! Every single problem is solved. Well, not every problem. But some of them. I suppose if I want humiliation I can tune in to Fox's Nanny 9/11. It's Fox, there has to be some humiliation involved.

Been keeping up with both versions of The Apprentice? It's been drowsy good fun, hasn't it? On Donald's show this week the teams had to come up with a display promoting Star Wars products, and on Martha's show the teams had to sell something on QVC. Haven't we been in this neighborhood before? How many weeks are left before it's all over? Not soon enough. And more bad news: the next series of The Apprentice is currently being filmed. Let's hope series 5 is more interesting than the current series has been.

Next week I'll try to force myself to watch reality shows on CBS. Ugh

The Great Movies: "Shane"

2005-11-02T23:45:00.000-08:00

The Western as metaphor has been a staple of American -- and, indeed, international -- filmmaking, from the very beginnings of the cinema to the great "spaghetti" westerns of Italian director Sergio Leone (and, recently, directors like Kevin Costner and the great Clint Eastwood). We know all of the staples, from the villain with the black hat and dual pistols to the heroic cowboy figure and the rugged families who tended the land.

In George Stevens' 1953 film Shane, the Western genre is used to introduce an almost Christ-like mythos in the title character. It's a captivating film that still holds emotional power more than fifty years after its release.

We meet Shane (Alan Ladd) in the opening titles: a lone figure on horseback, up on top of a hill, carefully making his way down into the valley. He is dressed in a simple buckskin outfit. Loyal Griggs' wonderful cinematography gives us a real feeling of time and place, an unspoiled wilderness of nature. Does Shane seem to have a bit of a glow about him, almost like a halo? I think he does.

Shane's journey through the valley brings him to a simple homesteading family, the Starretts: Joe Starrett (Van Helfin); his wife, Marian (Jean Arthur); and young son, Joey (Brandon De Wilde). At this point in the film we do not know anything about Shane; nor does the Starrett family. The family and Shane connect and Shane decides to stay and help Joe with tending to the land.

Young Joey is immediately fascinated by Shane, and as Shane's relationship with the family grows, we also realize that Shane and Marian are attracted to each other. Shane, the loner, does not act on his feelings, but it's obvious to Joe that his wife has her own fascination with the handsome stranger.

In town, a man named Rufus Ryker (Emile Meyer) is not so fond of the homesteaders, driving his cattle through their fences and gardens. There is a small, close group of families that Brutus bullies to get them to leave.

The good vs. evil scenario is beginning to take shape, as are the parallels to the Christ mythos. After deciding to stay with the Starrett family, Shane travels into town to purchase working clothing -- an act of humbling himself, as Christ would have in ministering to the poor. Shane has promised Joey that he'd pick him up a bottle of soda pop, which Shane has to order in the saloon. The local toughs hang out there, and one of them, Calloway (Ben Johnson), immediately challenges Shane; the toughs snicker when Shane orders the bottle of soda pop and Calloway wants Shane to have a real drink; Shane refuses, and Calloway tosses the drink on Shane's new shirt. Like Christ, Shane turns the other cheek (this time), takes the soda, and leaves.

We know that a confrontation is brewing, an inevitable show-down between the homesteaders and the toughs in town. Western justice is the rule of the day, since there is no law enforcement in the community.

Meanwhile, Ryker has brought in a hired gun, the mysterious Jack Wilson (Jack Palance), a Western villain with a black hat and few words. Shane seems to know who he is.

At the Starrett home, young Joey is wanting Shane to show him how to shoot a gun, which he does, to Marian's objection; she doesn't like guns. "A gun is a tool, Marian, no better or no worse than any other tool, an axe, a shovel or anything. A gun is as good or as bad as the man using it. Remember that," Shane tells her.

Shane is becomming a surrogate father figure to Joey, who follows Shane around like a puppy, and his hero worship is upped tremendously after watching Shane beat up the toughs at the local saloon (no turning the other cheek, this time).

As the film nears its inevitable climax, one of the homesteaders, Torrey (Elisha Cook, Jr.) has had enough of Ryker's bullying, and heads into town to confront Ryker. Torrey is viciously shot dead by Wilson, and Torrey's death is the catalyst for the other homesteading families to leave. Joe Starrett does not want to leave, and he too prepares himself for a confrontation in town. Shane stops him -- Shane knows his destiny and the battle is not Joe's to fight. Shane must battle evil, a destiny we know he cannot escape or shape. Shane may have pretended to be a normal man during his stay with the Starretts, but we know that he knows he cannot escape his destiny, and must fulfill it -- again, as Christ must fulfill his destiny. "There's no living with a killing. There's no going back from it. Right or wrong, it's a brand, a brand that sticks," Shane explains to Marian. Meaning, after dealing with the evil in town, he'll have to leave (if he's still alive); he cannot return to the simple family life of the Starretts, especially in the case of Marian.

There is a lot going on below the surface of Shane. It would be easy to dismiss it as a product of the 1950s, an "oat drama," but there's many layers to this film. Shane is an enigma from beginning to end, a man with a past we do not know, facing an unknown future. Even the cries of Joey, begging Shane to stay, cannot sway Shane from changing his mind (because he cannot), as Shane rides off into the distance.

Shane is a wonderful experience, thankfully preserved through the format of DVD. A must-have for any film collection.
**** out of ****

Catch my Podcast

2005-10-31T09:59:00.000-08:00

I've recorded a segment for Blogcritic's weekly Podcast, and it's available now for download. I read my essay, "Reality Show Humiliation." If you give it a listen, let me know what you think.

Blogcritics -- Podcast #4

Confessions Of a TV Junkie

2005-10-30T18:40:00.000-08:00

I was trying to come up with an idea of a new column to write for 40 Hours, and I was inspired by Larry King. He wrote a column for USA Today a few years back.

Now, I've never read any of Larry King's columns, I just know about them from when Saturday Night Live used to spoof them. I liked the idea of just rambling on from one thought to the next, sort of like James Joyce. Not that I'm saying I'm like James Joyce, or that I think I'm James Joyce. Well, maybe a little. A little bit. I'll try to avoid stream of consciousness rants, but I cannot guarantee that it will not happen. Just keeping you on your toes.

So, last year I decided it was time to go to college. Instead of college, I enlisted in the Navy after high school, and spent 1986-1992 as a military journalist. And as I discovered, getting a job in journalism was a little hard. I'm not going to drag this all out as I want to get to the funny, but fast-forward to 2004 and I'm enrolled in college. Which means having to trim the family budget, and of course the first thing to go is my favorite thing, cable television. Well, not entirely. We now have basic cable, which is essentially the local channels and, teasingly, a few of the standard cable stations, such as The Discovery Channel and E!

I have to say, I really miss Hannity and Colmes. I hated that show, sure, but it was great entertainment, and isn't television really about entertainment? Oh, we like to believe that it's educational, but come on, it's just entertainment. Reading books can be educational, but you don't hear people saying that reading will rot your brain, like television does. So let's be honest about the role of television in our lives: to numb us completely so that we can ignore the horrible world we live in. Add alcohol and you don't even need to leave your couch, or Prozac.

Now, I don't know if the winning Hannity and Colmes format has changed over the past year, but this is how I remember it:

Hannity: I'm Sean Hannity. Thanks for joining us. It's a packed show tonight. Do liberals really want to destroy America? Our panel is here to discuss what motivates liberals, and why they hate America so much. Joining me in the studio are Ann Coulter, Michelle Malkin, David Limbaugh, our good friend Ollie North, by telephone our good friend Rush Limbaugh, by satellite from Las Vegas Bill Bennet, and in a new feature, via e-mail, a bunch of posters from the Free Republic message board, and also joining us is Outmatched Generic Liberal. Thank you all.
(Confusion as everyone speaks over each other).

Hannity: Generic, let me ask you a question. In 1837, William Howard Taft said "George W. Bush is the greatest threat to the Republic in 200 years, even greater a threat than scurvy." Do you stand by that statement?

Generic: What? First of all, William Howard Taft...

Hannity: Just answer the question, Generic, it's pretty simple. Do you stand by Taft's statement?

Generic: If you'd let me finish, Taft died in 1930, how could he have made a statement about George W. Bush?

Hannity: Are you calling me a liar?

Generic: Well, obviously you made up that quote, and you didn't even get the years right that Taft was president...

Coulter: Sean, that's a typical liberal response: blame the conservative when they cannot win the debate.

Generic: What debate? Taft died in...

Hannity: You're right, Ann. It's a simple question, Generic, and since you refuse to answer it, we'll just assume you agree with it. So, you think George W. Bush is as great a threat to this country as scurvy?

Limbaugh: Sean, that's the problem with liberals today: they refuse to repudiate statements made by leaders of their party.

Generic: Taft was a Republican! What are you talking about?

Malkin: Sean, the liberal media has for far to long let statements like Taft's to be reported unchallenged.

Hannity: What do you think, Ollie?

North: Shameful. George W. Bush is a fine president, and to have your liberal guest suggest that Bush is causing scurvy in New Orleans is just another tinfoil-hat wearing conspiracy theorist, spouting anti-Bush hatred.

Generic: Wait a minute, I never said Bush caused scurvy....

Hannity: We have you on tape, Generic. I just got an e-mail from our friends at The Free Republic: "Sean, typical liberal debate tactic from a traitor, to say something and then deny they said it -- moments after saying it!"

Generic: But that's....

Colmes: Generic, Alan Colmes. Look, I know for a fact that scurvy is caused by a lack of Vitamin C, and I know FEMA was slow in responding to the disaster in New Orleans, but to say that President Bush caused scurvy makes our side look bad.

Generic: But I never said...

Colmes: We have to take a break. When we return, Geraldo Rivera will join us with a report on how New Orleans has become a breeding ground for scurvy.

Is it still like that? Cause I really miss it.

Speaking of scurvy, it looks like the ratings for Martha Stewart's version of The Apprentice are in the toilet, and The Donald is blaming her for his show's low ratings. Which is a little dishonest, because he's the executive producer on both shows. I don't even know how much creative control Martha has over her show. Maybe none. Let's be honest, both shows kind of suck, and I don't think it has anything to do with Martha Stewart. It's the annoying contestants, like Crazy Jim on Martha's show. Crazy Jim is just friggin' out of his mind. (In case you don't know Crazy Jim, here's his photo from the show). And I hate Crazy Jim. Hate, hate, hate, HATE him. When he's not mugging for the camera, he's uttering things like he'll drink the tears of the losing team because they'll be the nectar of the gods, or something. I've only seen a couple of The Donald's show this season, so I don't have anyone to hate, yet.

And finally, if you haven't already tuned in, make sure to check out UPN's Everybody Hates Chris. It's one of the best new shows of the season. Go! Watch it! Before it get cancelled. Because a good show like this can't last. But a show like Twins, on The WB, will probably last several seasons, and it's horrible, just horrible.

Next week: more random blatherings about television.

Review: "Good Night, and Good Luck"

2005-10-24T15:22:00.000-07:00

Throughout his broadcasting career, the legendary journalist and newsman Edward R. Murrow was was known for his integrity, courage and social responsibility. In his latest film, director George Clooney gives us a small slice of life at CBS news, circa 1954, as Murrow and the CBS news team prepared to take on Sen. Joseph McCarthy. Clooney's film isn't so much about the man (and we're not provided much in the way of autobiographical detail) but rather about the idea of responsibility and credibility, and how television has the power to not only entertain, but inform.

Good Night, and Good Luck is a labor of love from Clooney, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Grant Heslov. Clooney has made the wise choice of shooting in gorgeous black and white (and beautifully filmed by cinematographer Robert Elswit), which is fitting for the period the film takes place (most television programs were broadcast in black and white).

David Strathairn is Murrow, in a performance of quiet dignity and intelligence. The film opens with Murrow delivering a speech to a group of radio and television broadcasters, and the story is told in a flashback to 1954. Murrow, and his team at CBS News, have decided to run a controversial story, about how an Air Force officer was drummed out of the service due to Sen. Joseph McCarthy's Senate hearings on communism. Murrow is outraged (although, as Strathairn portrays him, quietly outraged) that the Air Force officer, nor anyone else in his court martial, was allowed to see any evidence that would indicate a tie to communism. So, on his program See It Now, Murrow covers the story.

The CBS newsroom is the main point of action for the film, and it is a cramped, tight place with a lot of activity (and a lot of smoking). Murrow doesn't even have a proper set; he basically sits in a chair at a counter, with his producer, Fred Friendly (George Clooney), literally at his side, tapping him on the leg to let him know he's on the air.

Of course, taking on McCarthy is a bold move, and doing so can result in the loss of advertisers to Murrow's show. Murrow's objectivity is questioned, but Murrow insists that the presentation of facts has nothing to do with objectivity, and he's right.

Eventually, Murrow decides to take on McCarthy directly, offering a blistering 30-minute broadcast laying out McCarthy's bullying ways, using his own words. Clooney wisely uses actual footage of McCarthy, rather than have an actor portray him, and it works wonderfully, as we get a real sense of time and place.

There is an unnecessary sub-plot involving Murrow's colleagues, Joe Wershba (Robert Downey, Jr.) and Shirley Wershba (Patricia Clarkson), who are secretly married -- CBS news doesn't allow its employees to marry one another. Why Clooney included this subplot is a mystery.

Briding segments together are performances of a jazz singer (Dianne Reeves), as we watch her perform from one of the CBS studios. The songs don't really have anything to do with the action on-screen, but serve again to give us a feeling of time and place.

It's no secret that George Clooney is a liberal, and Good Night, and Good Luck is not a film that purports to be "fair and balanced." The film has a lot to say about 21st century politics and 21st century television -- how politics has become the politics of personal destruction, and how individuals use the airways (I'm sure Clooney had the right-wing pundits in mind in making this film) to attack anyone who disagrees with them. Clooney has had some well-publicized clashes with Fox News personality Bill O'Reilly, and it's hard to not see that part of Clooney's life reflected in what we see in the movie.

In the end, the film demands that news outlets, and politicians, take more responsibility for what they say and what they do, challenging notions that questioning a presidential administration is not treason, nor is it dissent. It's opinion, and people are allowed to have opinions without fear of retribution.

Review: "Sunset Boulevard"

2005-10-17T17:25:00.000-07:00

First off, it has to be said: the restoration of this film to DVD is nothing short of a miracle. It's a gorgeous transfer and looks like it was shot in present-day Hollywood. It's a black and white film, and on DVD the contrasts of black/white/grey are apparent and there is no bleeding. Simply astounding. If you care to see how the film looked before the transfer, fire up the DVD, go into special features, and view the theatrical trailer.

On to the movie (and spoilers).

Sunset Boulevard was released in 1950 and directed by the acclaimed director Billy Wilder (Double Indemnity, Sabrina, Some Like It Hot).

Sunset Boulevard is a classic film noir and a stinging indictment against Hollywood, and certainly a daring film for its time. The movie-making industry usually aren't fans of films that paint that industry in a negative light (and those films are few and far between, with the most recent example being Robert Altman's The Player).

The film opens to a scene of police cars, sirens wailing, heading to a Hollywood mansion. A corpse has been discovered in the pool. A narrator, in voice over, tells us we'll learn what really happened before the gossip columnists get a hold of the story.

The narrator is Joe Gillis (William Holden), a B-movie writer down on his luck, running out of money to pay for the rent of his apartment and the payments for his car. With repo men on his tail, Gillis pulls off into the driveway of what he thinks is an abandoned mansion. It certainly looks that way from the outside, with a mess of foliage and a deserted look. Gillis' car has blown a tire and he discovers a garage at the mansion to hide his car in.

As it turns out, the mansion isn't deserted. Gillis meets Max (Erich von Stroheim), who bids him to come inside the mansion to meet its occupant, who turns out to be the famed silent film star Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson, in an amazing performance). Gillis knows who she is: "You're Norma Desmond. You used to be in silent pictures. You used to be big." Desmond delivers a classic retort: "I AM big. It's the PICTURES that got small."

Coincidentally, Desmond has been working on a screenplay that would, in her mind, get her back into movies and famous once again. Hesitantly (at first), Gillis agrees to help write the screenplay -- after all, he can't go back to his apartment and doesn't want the repo men to take his car.

It's from this initial meeting that the film takes off. Gillis, who only wanted to say a couple of weeks, is moved into the mansion where he becomes a permanent resident. He also becomes, the film hints at, Desmond's lover, even though (gasp!) she's twice his age. But she needs a handsome young man around to feel like the star she once was.

Gillis gradually warms to the idea of being a "kept man" and allow Desmond to buy him expensive suits and jewelry. As the film progresses, we learn, with Gillis, that something isn't right with Desmond. She's prone to suicidal fits and exaggerated mannerisms, and in one scene, calmly explains to Gillis that she has a gun (to use on herself...or Gillis?)

She throws a lavish New Years Eve party -- for just two guests, her and Gillis. She lives in a sort of dream world where she's the biggest movie star in the world.

A complication arises -- and isn't this true for a noir picture -- when Gillis meets a woman named Betty Schaefer (Nancy Olson). The two had met previously at Paramount Pictures, when Gillis was pitching a script idea, only to have it shot down by Schaefer, who was a Paramount script reader. But now she has an idea of her own for a script and needs Gillis' help to complete it, so the two begin working on the script, at night, like lovers engaged in a secret tryst.

Meanwhile, Gillis has finished Desmond's script and had it delivered to famed director Cecil B. DeMille (playing himself), who isn't interested in doing the picture -- something only Gillis knows. After receiving phone calls from the movie studio (they actually only want to use Desmond's old car in a movie), Desmond decides it's time to pay a visit to DeMille, and she and Gillis head for the Paramount lot. DeMille grants the former movie queen an audience, and basically gives her the run-around on her script.

Eventually Desmond discovers that Gillis has been "cheating" on her with Schaefer, and a lover's spat follows, which ends deadly. In the end, a clearly deranged Desmond is being led off to jail for her crime, but believes she is actually on a movie set, and that the cameras filming her are real movie cameras, and not cameras for newsreels; Desmond thinks she's filming her Cecil B. DeMille picture, which brings us that famous line, "Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my closeup."

Billy Wilder was a great craftsman of film, and his artistry is evident throughout Sunset Boulevard, from one great shot to another, whether it's the withered exterior of Desmond's mansion to the gothic interior, all done up on a stage set, with Wilder's camera work suggesting a huge sense of space and place inside that set. You'd never know it was a set.

As I've said, this is a daring movie, and Wilder takes some interesting chances. First of all, his use of real people and institutions within Hollywood, using the real names of people, so the lines between illusion and reality become blurred. It was a stroke of genius to get DeMille to play himself, and in one earlier scene, several greats from the silent era have paid Desmond a visit for a game of cards (Buster Keaton, Anna Q. Nilsson and H.B. Warner).

The casting is also spot-on: Gloria Swanson is perfect in the role of Norma Desmond. She might as well have been Desmond (aside from the craziness), as her own life mirrored her character's life (Swanson had been a big name in silent movies but hadn't kept her fame in the era of the talkie, and hadn't worked in many years before being cast as Desmond). Sure, her performance is exaggerated at times, but that's bound to be intentional: after all, she still envisions herself in silent films, and her physical movements would be the same sort of exaggerations needed to convey emotion in a silent film.

Erich von Stroheim, who plays Max, Desmond's butler, in reality was an acclaimed silent film director in the 1920s and 30s -- and had, in fact, directed Swanson in Queen Kelly in 1929 (that's the film Desmond screens for Gillis). And Swanson had also worked with Cecil B. DeMille in the past.

William Holden brings some complexity to the character of Gillis, and certainly plays him with some moral ambiguity, because we're not really sure if he actually loves Desmond or is just using her.

Nancy Olson is the one bright light in this story, although it would have been nice to see her role expanded a bit.

A great film from a great era of movie making. **** out of ****

Team Ryno Needs Your Help

2005-10-13T09:28:00.000-07:00

You may recall when I wrote about Jim and Tanya Ryno, the couple that are using the power of the Internet to get selected as contestants for Fear Factor. Well, they need your help in voting for them to appear on the show. More details at their blog. You can also vote here. Let's help get them on Fear Factor!

A Little Self Promotion and Martha/The Donald

2005-10-12T17:38:00.000-07:00

First up, a shameless plug for the other media site I write for, Blogcritics. A review I wrote for Depeche Mode's album Black Celebration is an editor's choice selection. Thank you, Matt Freelove. They even gave me this nifty award button thingy:

So, that's cool.

Have you been keeping up with The Apprentice: Martha Stewart and The Donald? Are you disappointed? I am. I think they're phoning it in. There's just something missing...could be it's too soon to judge. If you've been watching either show, what do you think?

Recap: "The Apprentice: Martha Stewart" week three

2005-10-10T10:53:00.000-07:00

When we last left off...

Team Matchstick, headed by PM Weepy Chuck, failed at the task of setting up a floral shop and selling lots of flowers. Tulips didn't sell as well as Team Primarius With Extra Added Celebrity Florist Bouquets. Another defeat for the "creative" types at Matchstick. Weepy Chuck brought Crazy Jim and Sensible Dawn to the boardroom...er...conference room where Chuck took responsibility for his team's failures while Crazy Jim made Crazy Faces. Martha sent Chuck packing. Who will be sent home tonight? Jim! I wish.

Tonight's episode...let them eat cake. Can the teams create and sell their own designed wedding cakes? Team Matchstick has two chefs...surely they'll win! For a change. Right?

We open with Crazy Jim on the phone with Mrs. Crazy Jim. She's about to give birth! Crazy Jim wants to be there, but it's too important to be a contestant on a reality show to witness the birth of his child. Crazy Jim, who is now Grinning Jim, explains that he and Mrs. Crazy Jim had decided Grinning Jim would remain on the show in order to make a better life for him and his family. Yeah, I'm sure the old advertising game just isn't paying the bills like a temporary position with Martha Stewart's company would. So, shut up, Crazy Jim. You're on the show for you. If you mugged for the camera any more often you'd be locked up in jail. Grinning Jim tells his wife good luck on her "task" which I presume is giving birth to his baby without him.

Phone call. It's Martha! She's calling from her stable with a horse. Daughter Alexis must not have been available. She wants everyone ready post-haste! Martha is informed most everyone is sawing logs. Martha says she's been up for hours. With the horse? We hear fake horse sounds. I think there's the growl of a mountain lion in there somewhere.

Let's take a moment for a new segment, "What I learned from Martha." This week, Martha tells us the secret to a successful business is to target a broad market. Brilliant! That means you get more people buying your stuff than if you had set your sights smaller. By the way, this can also be called "Foreshadowing with Martha." You'll see why later in this recap.

Team Primarius and Team Matchstick are assembled and told what the task for the week would be: to design and sell a wedding cake. We learn how the wedding business takes in something like $70 billion a year. The winning team would be the team that sold the most cake. Selling no cake would be bad, right, Matchstick?

Matchstick's PM is Young David, who has divided the teams into two groups: one would design the cake (that's where Matchstick's ace in the hole comes into play: two chefs!), the other to market and sell it. Dawn interviews that she's going to stay out of the spotlight on this one, and only speak when spoken to. I like Dawn. Which means she'll be let go soon.

Over at Primarius, the corporate types have picked Howie to be PM. Howie will soon by Angry Howie. As the team formulates their strategy, a decision is made to do some research at a NYC wedding center. That way they'll know what kind of cake is popular with brides. Problem is the wedding center specializes in Asian weddings, so it's no-go there. Angry Howie emerges after being blamed for sending researchers off to an Asian wedding center. Eventually it's all hugs and puppy dogs and the team gets to work on designing their cake, with a nice five-tier design.

Meanwhile, Matchstick has decided to phone wedding cake expert Sylvia Weinstock for some advice on what kind of cake to make. Pink! That's the ticket. And no small individual cup-cake cakes like the kids are doing. I don't get the kids anymore. Too old. Sigh. So, Matchstick designs a cake that looks like a large spice rack with concentric circle cakes. And puts lots of pink on it. It's Pink Cake! Yum.

Viceroy Charles checks in on Matchstick, where Big Mouth Shawn tells him that the team is going to win. Really! And if they lose, he can fire HER. Shut up, Shawn. Should I just end the recap now?

Over at Primarius, Martha Jr. arrives to see how things are going. Alexis demonstrates that, while women don't cry in business, they do show off lots of clevage when they can. Yikes.

Next day, the teams are hard at work selling their cakes. After a slow start Ryan sells a cake to a young couple who had met online. I wonder if they used Eharmony? I keep seeing commercials for them. You can go online and take a free personality test! Now that's a bargin, gang.

Team Matchstick isn't faring very well with its strange pink cake. Not well at all.

Back in the boardroom...er, conference room....and the winner is...Primarius! What a shocker. How'd Team Matchstick do? Didn't sell a single cake. Nada. Nothing. Whoops. See, they didn't follow Martha's advice on targeting a broad market. Instead, they designed a $10,000 cake that no one could afford to buy. Plus, it looked weird.

For their prize, Primarius has desert with The Donald and The Donald's model wife, Melania. It's Spot The Donald Guest Appearance! Kind of like when you'd see Alfred Hitchcock in one of his films.

PM No Sell Dave has decided to bring Dawn (?!) and Marcela into the boardroom...er, conference room with him. And what's on that conference room table? It looks like plants of moss or something.

Martha isn't buying Dave's choices for elimination, and calls back the rest of the Matchstick Losers into the boardroom...er, conference room. Gee, I wonder who's going to get the boot? We focus on Shawn, who stammers that in the TV biz you "fake it until you make it" which is why she told Charles he could fire her if the team lost. Martha is not happy, and Shawn is sent off to read the weather elsewhere.

Who'll get the big goodbye next week? Tune in next week!

I Heart Court Shows

2005-10-07T13:10:00.000-07:00

Some people are embarrassed to admit to watching lots of television. I'm not one of those people. I like television. And I watch it all the time. Enjoying the great outdoors? Not going to happen. Communing with nature? Only if nature is displayed on a large-screen plasma HDTV. Water sports? Nope. Replace my pasty complextion with the bronzing rays of the sun? Not going to happen.

Now, I'm a big fan of reality shows, and I've posted on that topic before. What I really love the most are the court shows. There are so many of them! Good grief, sometimes I wonder how I can muster the energy to leave my home in order to attend classes at college.

Back in the day you could turn on the TV at 7:00 a.m. and watch court shows until late in the afternoon. That's not the case so much anymore, and in reality I only watch one court show, Judge Judy, with any regularity. But I've seen a few minutes of some of the other shows out there, and I thought I'd share my observations with you, dear reader.

Judge Alex
Zzzz....huh? Whazzat? Oh, yeah, Judge Alex. New court show. BORING. Judge Alex Ferrer lacks in that most important of television traits, charisma. Presence. Maybe he'll get better with time. Probably not.

Eye for an Eye with Judge "Extreme" Akim
Hosted by OJ's former houseguest - Kato Kaelin, Eye for an Eye is a bizarre entry into the court TV genre. Judge Akim "Extreme" Anastopoulo wields the mighty baseball bat of justice as he tries cases to what appears to be Jerry Springer's studio audience. Litigants and defendants appear in...cages, and after hearing the case, Judge Extreme Akim yields judgments in an "eye for an eye" manner. What does that mean, exactly? Well, in the episode I saw today, some little people had a lawsuit related to dwarf tossing, so Judge Extreme Akim made the normal-sized litigants experience dwarf tossing first-hand by being, get this, tossed by really large people. I'm not sure what kind of lesson is being communicated. Also, the audience likes to chant "Extreme Akim" over and over and over. I already have a headache that I think will last all season for this show.

Judge Joe Brown
When did Judge Joe turn his program into a game show? His show's been on the air a long time, but now it's been jazzed up with...Joe's Jury. I guess with some cases (all cases?) Joe polls the courtroom audience to whether they think the plaintiff or defendant should win, and Judge Joe will go with his "jury" in awarding damages.

Texas Justice
This show has failed to catch my attention, despite years of attempting to enjoy it. I guess I don't understand Texas humor. Or Texas justice.

Judge Judy
Ten years on the air. Everyone knows I love Judge Judy. 'Nuff said.

Judge Mathis
Another show I've watched on and off for years that has failed to catch on with me.

Divorce Court
Yawn.

Judge Hatchett
I used to really like Judge Hatchett. She had a unique show and now it seems more like your basic court show, which is kind of boring.

The People's Court
I'm on the edge with this one. I kinda like Judge Marilyn Milian, but hate the format of the show, especially the post-verdict "interviews" with Curt Chaplin. I hate you, Curt. Oh, and the outdoor interviews with attorney Harvey Levin...more hate.

Stay tuned as I watch more television so you won't have to.

A Rant Against Bad TV

2005-10-03T11:41:00.000-07:00

I've been watching a few shows from the new fall TV season, and most of them are horrible. HORRIBLE. I know, some may wonder, why do you keep watching the shows? Well, dear reader, it's to provide you with an entertaining look into the world of pop culture and the media. Even if it does cost me my soul.

First up on my list of shows I hope to god will be cancelled is the WB's "sitcom" Twins. Three weeks in and the show still hasn't gone beyond the sort of humor that your average eight-year-old finds amusing. Two weeks worth of poop jokes, and in the most recent episode, we were treated to incest jokes. Oooh, daring! And stupid. I'm not going to get into the show's details here as I've already reviewed the show, but take my word for it, you're not missing out on anything if you don't tune in.

Second on the list is Fox's horribly unfunny The War At Home. It's bad. Really bad. Incredibly bad. Watching it, I could feel a small part of my soul die, that's how bad it is. I've also reviewed this show, so I'll skip out on the details as I'm too lazy to repeat them. I guess the show's creators were looking for a show to bring back memories of Married With Children and maybe All In The Family. Instead of funny, the show is just mean-spirited and, yes, racist. I guess "racist" means "edgy" today. I don't know. Avoid this show at all costs.

One good show is UPN's Everybody Hates Chris. Watch this show! It's one of the best sitcoms so far this season. It's actually funny, and doesn't even need a fake laugh track like The War At Home to make you laugh.

Stay tuned as I suffer through more horrible shows.

Review: "Dirty Jobs"

2005-09-26T20:26:00.000-07:00

The Discovery Channel has an excellent series of programs that can be enjoyed by the entire family, including the superb Myth Busters. A new program to the network is Dirty Jobs. A bit edgier than other Discovery Channel shows, but more so for the content. More on that in a bit.

Dirty Jobs is hosted by Mike Rowe, an engaging personality with a dry wit who sounds a bit like David Letterman. Rowe is a well-known Bay Area personality and a former staff writer for The Jamie Kennedy Experience.

Each week, Rowe tackles a different "dirty" job, such as road kill collector, sanitation worker, sewer inspector and so on. Some of the dirty jobs are indeed cringe-worthy (cleaning a basement flooded with raw sewage, assisting in the insemination of a horse) which puts the show to a TV-14 rating. It's fascinating stuff, since many of the jobs Rowe explores are the kinds of jobs that most people really don't know much about.

Rowe is a true sport who tries hard in each job, injecting a sense of humor to the oft-times disgusting tasks at hand. Not all "dirty jobs" are disgusting, but most of them are. If you have a strong stomach, Dirty Jobs is a great show. Just don't watch while eating dinner.

Review: "Criminal Minds" Series Premier

2005-09-23T11:14:00.000-07:00

This show was absolutely incredible. I am a huge fan of drama television and I haven’t watched a show that made my heart jump like this one in a long time. I came in with the impressions that this would be another CSI knock-off, but was pleasantly surprised by the fresh angle the writers took in developing the first episode.

The cast of the show is what really makes it happen for me. The mix and the interaction came across flawless. Mandy Patinkin plays the role of Gideon who is an old pro recovering from a bout of depression caused by a previous case. Matthew Gubler plays Dr. Spencer Reid who is a young genius who is full of random facts that come in quite hand when profiling criminals. Thomas Gibson, Shemar Moore, Lola Glaudini, and A.J. Cook round out the cast. The cast seems to have a natural interaction and it really works in the show.

Add in the fact that the plot of the show was absolutely intense, and you have yourself a real winner. Just when you thought it would go one way it went the other. The progression in the first episode was remarkable and the writers are to be commended for coming up with such a brilliant plot.

Criminal Minds is a must see. If you missed it this week, you should defiantly check it out next week. Let’s hope that they can keep it up and continue to bring fresh perspectives to criminal drama. It will air on Wednesdays at 9PM eastern.