Thank goodness it's Friday. TGIF. Great programming lineup. This past Monday during my day off I threatened to waste away the entire day watching reruns of Family Matters on ABC Family. I caught the one where Laura Winslow runs for class president, but her bitchy opponent tries to sabotage her by snapping a photo of Laura and Steve Urkel in a scandalous pose. Oh man, great stuff.
I never really talked about last weekend here in the blog, as I was too wrapped up in my post-24 adrenaline rush to focus much. Anyways, I therefore neglected to mention that I had a very nice Friday night Shabbat dinner last week, something I haven't really participated in much here in CA. It was a very random group of people, but the nice thing was that I was far from the only one kind of there without really knowing anyone, so I met a number of interesting people. Doing a few more Jewish things is definitely on my list for '07, so glad I got the year off to a good start in that regard. Also last weekend I went to an NBC page party, something I wouldn't have really been looped into if not for the new page in my department here in New Media. It's funny since I'm basically the same age if not younger than many of these new crop of pages, but being out in the real world does tend to give one a little bit of a different perspective on things compared to those still enjoying the college-like atmosphere of pagedom. But I'm happy to be a little bit back in the loop, as one of the downsides of my current office is definitely the lack of people my own age to interact with on a daily basis. So yeah, good party on Saturday, and then Sunday was all about getting together with a few friends, sitting back, and watching 24. Also, on a whim, we decided to watch the new direct-to-video American Pie movie, The Naked Mile, which I am the semi-proud owner of due to getting a free copy of the DVD from work. My brief review: I feel somewhat ashamed to even be a part of the company that produced this steaming pile of sucktitude, which documents yet another member of the Stifler clan (a distant cousin to the original?) and his weekend of craziness away from his straight-laced girlfriend. To its sole credit, it did pretty much go farther on the gross factor than any America Pie to date, and featured by far the most gratuitous sampling of nubile nudity. And yes, Eugene Levy is in it, and from the look of it he basically put in his 15 minutes of work, collected the paycheck, and ran. So it goes.
No idea what's on tap for this weekend, though Universal does have a free screening of Alpha Dogs, the new movie that apparently establishes Justin Timberlake as a legit actor, even if supposedly it's merely decent. But, moving on ...
- I just read in Newsweek the most disturbing story about Iraqi kids who are basically growing up as jihadists. I think they said something like 45% of Iraqi kids suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, and some other huge percentage have learning disabilities. To me, the reality that so much of the Arab world is populated by children being raised as extremists, jihadists, gang members, terrorists-in-training, or just plain anti-American and anti-Semetic - it may be the biggest single political problem of the next 50 years. Just scary to think about, and i hope Bush and his admnistration put very careful thought into what their "surge" in the war will help to cultivate in the minds of Iraqi youth.
- Personally, I feel like the Bush admin is in a real Catch 22. I think it's obvious that in theory we need more troops in Iraq in order to accomplish any kind of real military victory. However, by all accounts this surge is too little too late - the region is already so destabilized that more troops at this point is really just a band-aid solution. I mean, what is the endgame here? The US has no real support from neighboring countries in terms of helping to stabilize Iraq, and countries like Iran and Syria are probably more dangerous now than Iraq ever was under Saddam. I just think there needs to be a clearly-stated long-term plan that doesn't necessarily even focus on Iraq, but on establishing some diplomacy with the larger Arab world and bringing some stabilty to the Middle East, since right now it is a total mess. But man, Bush's pathetic change-of-course speech, in which he went so far as to ask the public what THEIR ideas were for Iraq, was just another sign of the total impotence of this president to think in real strategic and global terms. Iraq as a country basically needs to be rebuilt from the ground up - how are we supposed to commit to that?
TV STUFF:
- So SMALLVILLE last night had it's big "Justice League" episode. Like any good DC Comics fanboy, I was kind of hyped up. But knowing Smallville's tendency towards lame soap-operatics, teen-beat casting, and an amazing level of hoakiness even for a show about superheroes, I also had a hefty degree of skepticism. So, how was it?
Well, let's put it this way - overall, last night's ep was probably one of the top two or three installments so far this season. But to put that in perspective, this season of Smallville has been as a whole pretty mediocre, so that isn't necessarily saying much. Look, to be fair ... there were a number of pretty good moments here - from Clark accepting a role as a proactive hero, to Chloe's fun role as the team's Oracle of sorts, to some nifty interaction between the heroes, especially the consistently fun duo of Clark Kent and Ollie Queen. More than any of that though, this ep was made by the two characters who have consistently elevated Smallville above its typical cheesiness - Lex and Lionel Luthor. Michael Rosenbaum was great as always, and his little speech about freedom and democracy was pretty classic. Thank Jor-El that this ep featured the always entertaining Lionel, conspicuously absent in recent weeks, and did NOT feature Lana Lang, who over the last few eps has somehow done the impossible - gotten even more whiny and annoying than usual. I give it credit though - this episode was a lot of fun.
But man, it could have been SO much better if done right. Arthur Curry and Vic Stone had all the personality of a brick wall. Bart Allen was pretty one-note. And even Oliver Queen, one of comics' most distinct and interesting personalities (the original left-wing liberal lady-killer), was pretty much relegated to being Batman-lite, which is really a shame. Also, while the show typically does an amazing job with f/x (and last night was no exception), the superhero costumes were pretty godawful, looking like wardrobe rejects from the never-aired Justice League pilot (youtube it if you must). And couldn't we at least get one supervillain for these guys to tangle with? Basically, I realize this is a fairly light-hearted show, but it would have been nice to have seen such a theoritcally "big" episode have a little more dramatic weight behind it. The JLA on TV should be a big deal. This was a little less JLU and a little too much Superfriends for my tastes.
My Grade: B
- Continuing my night of teen drama, I half-heartedly watched THE OC while liberally flipping to the NBA on TNT (nice to see the Mavs DESTROY the Lakers) and NWA on Spike (Angle, baby). Anyways, that episode of the OC was just, well, bad. It says something when by far my favorite storyline was the Caitlin high school stuff, especially considering that up until now it's been my LEAST favorite aspect of the show. I got a kick out of watching strung-out fifteen year old Caitlin Cooper going at it with crushing band geeks, and it kind of almost makes me wish that the show had just spun out into a high school spin off rather than laborously follow Ryan and Seth and Summer, who are just totally lifeless at this point. I know some like the Ryan-Taylor romance, but to me it is just ridiculous at this point. Seth, Summer, and Ryan basically have nowhere left to go as characters, and all the little dramas that come up just seem like mild distractions rather than real plot twists. I mean - Seth going on a camping trip with Che? He was funny at first, but why is he still on the show? As a whole, the show seems to just be devoid of any real drama and is basically a mildly amusing comedy, and if I want comedy I may as well just watch 30 Rock on NBC. I can only hope that things are ratcheted up as the series winds down.
My Grade: C -
- Meanwhile, THE OFFICE, I thought, had easily its best episode thus far of '07 last night. Dwight as a Staples employee was comedic gold, as was his eagerness to get back to Dunder Miflin. And man, this ep had some hilarious lines ... My pick for line of the night was unassuming Phyliss talking baout her and Dwight ... "when two strong personalities like us get together, the results can be ... explosive." Hahahaha ... also Andy singing Zombie by the Cranberries cracked me up. Whereas last week Ed Helms kind of got on my nerves, this week he was annoying as hell but in a hilarious way. The cell phone gag was classic. Also, I loved how the Pam-Jim triangle was handled here. Everything was SHOWN organically and subtley, nothing was too overt or sitcom-ish. This is the kind of fly-on-the-wall character stuff I like to see from this show. Nice return to form for The Office after a few slightly below-par eps.
My Grade: A -
- Have not yet watched 30 Rock but I noticed it features Alec Baldwin in an NBC Page uniform, which can pretty only mean hilarity. Even without having seen the ep yet, I want to say that (as I predicted), 30 Rock is really beginning to hit a stride and has been friggin' hilarious the last few weeks. If you asked me a few months ago I'd have been ambivalent about whether this got renewed but now I feel it really, really needs to get a 2nd season.
- Still catching up on the great CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM on DVD. I just watched the Season 3 ep with the corpse-sniffing dog ... hilarious!
- Also, finally getting into EXTRAS now that it's out on DVD. The thing I really admire about Extras is that similar to The UK Office, it manages to be funny but also legitimately poignant and thoughtful with how it handles its characters, more so than any American comedy I've seen. The Ben Stiller ep of Extras in particular is very funny, very clever, but also so sad and bleak in the same way that Ricky Gervais' Office was at times. I feel like Extras can almost be serious to a fault sometime from what I've seen so far, but I'm still really enjoying it. I just love the fact that as opposed to American shows, the character here feel totally real because they LOOK like normal people, not like movie stars. They wear mismatched clothes. Their hair is unkempt. They're pudgy and ugly and real. Even though it's not filmed in The Office's mockumentary style, Extras still has that same fly-on-the-wall feel to it because Gervais and Merchant so deftly capture realistic snapshots of ordinary people doing ordinary things.
OTHER STUFF:
- I recognize that in my Best of '06 I never really mentioned HOLLYWOODLAND, despite having given it a pretty good review after having seen it in the fall. Looking back, I feel like it's a well-made movie worth seeing but ultimately just not that memorable of a film. If anything, Diane Lane's great performance really sticks out to me and I'd love if she got some awards show recognition.
- Gwyneth Paltrow in IRON MAN? Hmmm ... all I know is, how awesome would a trailer for this film be if it began with Ozzy Osbourne and Black Sabbath wailing "I. AM. IRON. MAN." as some kickass full-armor shots of Iron Man played? Use the song, dammit ...
- Some other comics stuff: Geoff Johns and Dale Eaglesham on JSA has been AWESOME thus far. Two issues in and JSA is once again possibly my fav monthly comic. 52 continues to impress with ish #37. Booster Gold lives! Also, Brian Bolland's glorious cover art for The Helmet of Fate: Detective Chimp is possibly one of my favorite covers in a while. Bolland is a god among artists - I feel like the only reason he's not mentioned in the same breath as the all-time greats is his lack of full interior artwork, but man, his covers are always, always amazing. Check it out - is Bolland ridiculous or what:
And on that note, I'm out. What better way to end a blog entry than with a kickass drawing of a brother shamus simian examining a shiny golden helmet of magical origin? Yeah, that's what I thought.
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