Well, yeah ... I wrote my last post with the intention of it being some kind of super mega-post, but instead got sidetracked with a political RANT OF DOOM, which I felt was better off as a standalone entry.
But I had a lot more to talk about other than politics, so, here we go.
First of all, I need to talk about this past Friday's annual Halloween party hosted by fellow former NBC Page Carlos M., at el Casa de Carlos in Pasadena. Unbelievably, this has now been my FOURTH Halloween here in LA, and every year since I moved out here, the whole month of October has been a highlight. It's so much fun to be around tons of people who love Halloween as much as I do. This year, the event formerly known as Page-O-Ween was another huge success. I personally had a lot of fun dressing up as SLASH of Guns N' Roses fame - definitely one of the best Halloween costumes I've ever come up with. I thought it might be cool once I picked up the obligatory long-hair wig, top-hat, and GnR t-shirt. But the capper was found at a costume shop in Burbnk at the last minute - a pair of studded, fingerless gloves that gave the pefect accentuation to my rock-star look. Who can blame me for brandishing said gloves proudly with a raised rock star-style fist in the majority of my Page-O-Ween pics? Suffice it to say, it was fun to be Slash, if only gor one night. After all, if one nice Jewish boy can grow his hair long and change his name from Saul Hudson to Slash, then why can't another?
Credit also needs to go to a number of friends who came up with some great costume ideas. Seth and Sarah as Speed Racer and his gal-pal Trixie. Lauren and Jenny as Jane the Plumber and Alaskan Beauty Queen Sarah Palin respectively, and Kyle O. for his admirable portrayal of AC/DC's schoolboy-outfitted madman Angus Young. I saw lots of other great costumes on Friday - from He-Man to the Ninja Turtles to Elvira: Mistress of the Dark, and yes, more Sarah Palin's than I could count - scary! Strangely, didn't see a single Joker at the party ... why so serious, people?
But yeah, overall, Friday was a great time and in some way the icing on the cake for what was an October jam-packed with ghoulish coolness. I won't run through it all again for the umpteenth time, except to say here's to another spectacularly spooky Halloween (and of course, see my Facebook or MySpace pages for the photos).
TV STUFF:
- Okay, I will start with a quick mention of last Monday's episode of NBC's underrated but always-entertaining CHUCK. So far this season, I've kind of glossed over Chuck here on the blog, mostly just because it comes on during a jam-packed Monday timeslot during which 3 cool shows all air at the same time (Chuck, Terminator, and Gossip Girl). At some point, I fell very behind on my Chuck viewing, and it took me until this weekend to finally get caught up and up to speed. Well, I'm glad I did, because (and why did nobody tell me of this?) - Monday's CHUCK was perhaps the best-ever episode of the series, a solid hour of comedy, action, adventure, and one of the greatest montages set to a RUSH song ever aired. Readers of the blog know that I was a huge fan of last year's cult-fave documentary, The King of Kong ... and this ep of Chuck was a brilliant riff on that film, with the added twist that by reaching a fabled kill-screen in retro-game Missile Command, one would see a code that actually controlled a missile-defense system. This ep not only told a great King of Kong-like underdog story of a past-his-prime nerd, but it was chock full of geeky grooviness. How could you not love the fact that the key to reaching the Missile Command kill screen was by blasting Rush's Tom Sawyer and timing one's missile-blasting moves to the beats of the classic prog-rock epic? One word: badass. Every actor was pitch-perfect in this ep, and it was both funny (a Zune joke!) and made me want to stand up and cheer. I know that it's hard for an inherently goofy show like Chuck to get it's proper critical due, but the fact is that this was one of the most fun and memorable episodes of TV so far this year. All hail CHUCK - and go blast some Rush!
My Grade: A
- Alright, moving on ... we all know that you can't fully close the book on Halloween until FOX has aired the storied SIMPSONS TREEHOUSE OF HORROR special. As we all know, Simpsons-style humor and horror are as potent a combo as peanut butter and chocolate. And after years and years of classic Halloween-themed episodes, the annual Treehouse episodes still hold a special place in many a Simpsons fan's heart. I know that for me, I have and will always look forward to a new Simpsons Halloween special - the potential for awesomeness is always there, and like Fox Mulder I so badly want to believe that this will be the year that we finally see a return to greatness for the Simpsons staple. And if any year was that year, it seemed like this year could be it. So far this season, we've seen a steady stream of good to very good Simpsons episodes, eps that in some ways harkened back to an earlier and better period in the show's long and illustrious history.
So color me disappointed that last night's Halloween ep may have actually been the worst episode of the season thus far.
Oddly, I'm seeing some surprisingly positive reviews for this one online, and I'm not quite sure where that's coming from. Let me say this: last night's ep did have a number of visually-dazzling moments - from a beautifully-rendered take on the Mad Men intro to a spot-on tribute to the animation style of the old Charlie Brown cartoons. But here's the thing: who among us really cares how visually-dazzling The Simpsons is? Sure, it's cool and adds flair to already-great episodes, but The Simpsons is first and foremost a writer's show. If the writing isn't working, then I could care less if a sequence is well-animated. I mean, case in point is the classic 3D Homer segment - for it's time, the computer animation was brilliant, sure - but the ep is still best-remembered for its abundance of classic lines. without the sharp writing, it would have simply been a cheap gimmick.
And man, the writing in last night's ep was almost universally LAME. First off, the whole spirit of the older Treehouse eps seems to have been lost. These used to be stories that were hilarious but actually kind of spooky. It was bad enough that last year there was a Mr. and Mrs. Smith parody, now we get Transformers?! How is that in the spirit of Treehouse of Horror? Ugh. The Transformers bit was easily the weakest part of the show - just pretty useless, boring, unfunny, and not even really appropriate for Halloween. At least the segment in which Homer goes on a celebrity killing spree so that an ad agency can use the dead celeb's likenesses without paying royalties .. at least that one had a couple of chuckle-worthy moments. But still, not exactly what you'd call a Treehouse classic. Finally, I was almost won over by the artfully-done animation of the Great Pumpkin parody, but was turned off after a couple of minutes when I realized there had yet to be a single funny joke in the segment.
The whole thing annoys me, because ironically, in a season of The Simpsons that has actually gone back to the show's roots a bit in terms of style an pacing, here was a Treehouse episode that felt like a really bad installment of Family Guy rather than a great Halloween episode of The Simpsons. All of those classic Treehouse eps had stories that were great and spooky in their own right, with tons of great humor and satire mixed in. Those eps are among the all-time great pieces of Halloween-themed animation ever done. It saddens me to see a Treehouse ep that is so far away from those classics in terms of the quality of humor and storytelling.
My Grade: C
- As for FOX's other two animated entries last night, well, first I'll talk for a second about KING OF THE HILL. As many know, KOTH is one of my all-time favorites, a show that has really grown on me over the years. Unlike The Simpsons, which really hit its quality peak relatively early on in its fourth or fifth season, KOTH to me was a show that just kept getting better and better well past middle age, perhaps not even hitting its real stride until Season 8 or 9. When all was said and done, last season, when the show returned from the brink of cancellation, may have been one of the series' best to date. So far, however, this season has seen a bit of a lull in quality. It's not that the show's been bad, just that it has lacked some of the spark that has made the last couple of seasons of KOTH amongst the best comedy on TV, period. So when word came that the show was set to end its run, I actually wasn't too upset, provided that at the least the show get a proper send-off, with marketing from FOX and a finale that brings some real closure to the series. Because let's face it - of late KOTH has at LEAST been respected enough to stay planted in its original 8:30 pm timeslot, but - the fact is that FOX hasn't given the show a marketing push in about 10 years, and over the years has used and abused the show to no end. It still annoys me that for a couple of years KOTH suffered the indignity of being aired at the ridiculous 7 pm timeslot, meaning it didn't even air in most markets during football season. My point is, FOX still has a lot to atone for in terms of treating one of its venerable series with its due respect.
Now, Sunday's ep was kind of typical of many of this season's episodes - solid, but nothing we haven't seen before. If The Simpsons and Family Guy had been on their game, the ep wouldn't have disappointed as much as it did, but with those two being off I was really counting on KOTH to come through. Personally, I'd go so far as to say that last night's ep was below average - the plot required Hank to be uncharacteristically naive (in this case about the internet), and the subplot with Dale and Bobby and a pig was just plain boring. Sure, the episode did have its moments, but the good bits were weighed down by the constant mentioning of MySpace, which was made all the more odd since ultimately the episode was kind of bashing the (FOX-owned) site. Anyways, not one of King of the Hill's best.
Now, rumor is that ABC may try to purchase the rights to the show from FOX, so it can serve as a companion to Mike Judge's new ABC animated series. It'd be hard to imagine the show on another network, and it seems like after years and years of quality, the show might finally be running out of steam. That being said, I love these characters, and when KOTH is on its game, it really is one of the all-time great sitcoms, animated or otherwise. I can only wonder what Hank Hill would think about his oft-overlooked show's seeming inability to go out quietly.
My Grade: B-
- Next up: FAMILY GUY. I won't spend too much time talking about this one because I thought it was a pretty weak effort overall. Like The Simpsons this week, the drop in quality was extra disappointing, because to me FG has had a bit of a creative resurgance over the last couple of weeks. But man, this one was mostly a clunker, with an almost non-existant plot that seemed to be a half-hearted riff on Home Alone, and one gag after another that fell flat. I mean, some of the stuff here was just half-assed, like a Back to the Future cutaway that was emblematic of Family Guy at its worst. It was a random call-out to the movie that had no actual joke - just a random bit from the movie and THAT'S IT. Yes, I remember Back to the Future. Reminding me of its existence is NOT FUNNY and is just plain lazy. Better luck next week, FG.
My Grade: C -
- Okay, getting back to tonight's TV, a quick word about tonight's GOSSIP GIRL: good stuff. The show continues to entertain, and is easily one of the best shows going today. The show is moving full steam ahead, similar to The OC in its heyday, except that GG has the better cast and maybe the sharper writing to boot. Anyways, another good episode.
- Finally, though - the main event. (SPOILERS ahead!) Yes, ladies and gents, PRISON BREAK was back tonight and whoah boy, it kicked ass! Yes, even as those ads for the 24 special continue to tantalize, there be no need to wait until the 24th to get a weekly infusion of 100% pure gravitas. Because gravitas has a name, and it is FICHTNER. I mean, hot damn, does it get any more intense than Fichtner as Mahone coming face to face with the man who killed his son?! Tonight, PB delivered enough hardcore action, blood, sweat, and torture to make Jack Bauer jealous. Gretchen playing both sides of the coin and getting back in with The Company? Scofield getting ever closer to a breakdown? T-Bag using all kinds of crazy phrases that only he could get away with? All the ingredients for awesome. And ... Bellick? DEAD?!? Say it ain't so, Joe! Can our favorite momma-lovin', prison-guard-turned-con, corn-fed troglodyte actually be a goner? Well, in fiction you can't say for sure until you see a body, so I wouldn't count ol' Bellick out just yet. And I definitely would not count out Prison Break. For one hour tonight I forgot all about presidential politics - and the only issue that mattered was whether Mahone's revenge on The Company Assassin would come in the badass or super-badass variety.
My Grade: A
- Okay, I do have a movie review for ya', of Kevin Smith's latest, so here. we. go:
ZACK AND MIRI MAKE A PORNO Review:
- Back in college, seeing Clerks and Mallrats for the first time was one of my big moments as a budding film fan. The simplicity of those movies, the way they wore their snappy screenplays on their sleeve, made a generation of aspiring filmmakers ready to pick up a camera and get cracking on their own low-budget indies. But more than that, the cultural effect of Kevin Smith's first wave of movies was the precursor to the modern age of Geek=Chic. Because the likes of Dante, Randall, and Brody, and even Jay and Silent Bob - they were some of the first examples of the new breed of nerd. Foul-mouthed, obnoxious, and able to talk comics and Star Wars with the same degree of sophistication as they dissected the ins and outs of everything else - from women to politics to philosophy.
With Zack and Miri, however, we're seeing the first real post-Apatow Kevin Smith movie, and suddenly Smith finds himself competing with a guy who made the niche of Smith mainstream, in a fashion. And it's funny, because you can see something similar happening in both the works of Kevin Smith and Judd Apatow. Smith started out making movies about losers who reminded him of dudes he knew when he was just a nobody hanging out in Jersey. Apatow made his mark with Freaks & Geeks - a painfully accurate depiction of the plight of high school outcasts. But later works of both Smith and Apatow began to reflect changes in the director's own lives. Smith is no longer a loser from Jersey - he's a fan-favorite director with a disproportionately attractive wife who's living the fanboy dream. Same goes for Apatow. Both guys have cast their wives as leads in their movies, and both have made movies where, increasingly, they are about sad sack loser types almost effortlessly ending up with beautiful starlets. It happened in Knocked Up, it happened in Clerks II, it happened in Forgetting Sarah Marshall, and it happens again in Zack and Miri.
Now, the first three movies I mentioned are all great comedies, so I'm not complaining. All I'm saying is that when you start telling Hollywood fairytales that reflect Hollywood fairytale lives, you lose some of the authenticity and geek-cred that put you on the map in the first place. Because, look, Zack and Miri is a pretty hilarious movie - it has some of Kevin Smith's funniest-ever dialogue, keeps you laughing from start to finish, and has a stellar cast. All I'm saying is that I don't know if it has that same geek-does-good magic that made Clerks and Mallrats something special to a generation of college kids.
So I'm not here trying to rag on the movie - in fact, I thought it was overall extremely entertaining and up there with the funniest movies of the year. I'm really just trying to verbalize why I can't say I loved it and why I wouldn't quite put it on the same level with Smith's best work. The little details here are all classic K. Smith - the random geek references (Highlander gets a particularly nice shout-out), the sudden outburts of vulgarity (poor Jeff Anderson redefines the term $%#%-faced), and the back-and-forth dialogue that elevates the art of guy-talk to high art. It's just the overall plot and structure that feel a bit too manufactured. It almost reminded me of something like Girl Next Door - funny, but founded on an absurd premise that never quite feels plausible. Here, it never quite feel right that Zack and Miri would actually go through with starring in a porno together. Sure, I could see them directing and producing one - but the conceit that they themselves would go at it in the featured sex scene never stops feeling a bit contrived. And yes, most comedies are by nature contrived, but not Smith's, not really. I mean, this is the guy who made a whole movie about two guys hanging behind the counter of a Quick Stop. Kevin Smith doesn't usually do contrived.
And that's why this movie isn't quite among the top two or three best of Kevin Smith's. But it is one of his overall flat-out funniest films to date. Like I said, the dialogue, the jokes, the raunchy humor are all spot-on. And the cast might be my overall favorite in a Smith film to date. As much as Rogen is now becoming a walking cliche of scruffy n' chubby guy who overachieves with the ladies, you can't deny that his deadpan delivery is perfect for this kind of movie. The guy is just plain likable, and always surprises me with just how much he can make you care about his typically slacker characters. Meanwhile, Elizabeth Banks has got to be one of the most versatile young actresses out there. Only weeks ago, I was watching here playing Laura freakin' Bush (and doing a nice job of it), and now she's similarly great as a free-spirited, hard-drinkin' girl next door who's just crazy enough to make a porno for money.
Another standout is The Office's Craig Robinson, who steals almost every scene he's in with his spot-on delivery of every line he's given. The guy is simply really, really funny, and it's great to see him get such a substantial part here. There are some great smaller roles from the likes of Brandon Routh (yes, Superman himself) and Justin Long, playing against-type (?) as a gay couple who befriends Zack. I loved seeing Tischa Campell, who used to be hilarious on MARTIN, as Craig Robinson's firecracker of a wife. I wish Jeff Anderson would show up in more movies, as he really is funny. But he has a unique ability to recite Kevin Smith's dialogue with the perfect blend of "I'm an obnoxious wiseass" flair. Similarly at one with the ways of Smith is Jason Mewes, who steals scenes here with ease despite not being abel to fall back on the usual Jay (of Jay and Silent Bob fame) mannerisms.
In the end, I'd call Zack and Miri a must-see for fans of Kevin Smith, as well as for fans of good comedy with a high tolerance for swear words and gross-outs. Like I said, the inherent absurdity of the main plot device keeps this one from feeling as authentic as a typical Smith film - the central romance never quite feels as real as Smith wants it to. But, as a pure comedy, Zack and Miri will keep you laughing. That Kevin Smith is still one funny $%&$.
My Grade: B+
No comments:
Post a Comment