A List Of Things Thrown Five Minutes Ago |
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Tuesday, May 20, 2008
THRUPPENCE AND SIXPENCE EVERY DAY JUST TO DRIVE TO MY BABY: The problem with the Very Special Episodes of House is that they neutralize the show's greatest asset, Hugh Laurie's comic gift. They don't have to -- House was pretty funny in "Three Stories," for example -- but they often do, whether because they're keeping House busy overdosing or thinking his way out of bullet holes and bus crashes or displaying human-like emotions toward Wilson. Combine that with some clunky dialogue (and I don't blame the actors involved, who I like), and I say that as much as I want to vary the formula, in this case the formula would have been better. Which is not to say there was nothing to like. House's new team hasn't had much to do since they were hired, but we learned something that felt important about each of them. We also saw Cuddy's protectiveness of House in its natural, unguarded state, and Chase finally got a chance to drill a hole into House's head and administer shock torture. That felt earned. SITTING ON A CORNFLAKE, WAITING FOR THE VAN TO COME: The NYT Science section highlights something I think we all know deep down to be true -- the walrus is a pretty awesome, odd animal. BOOMTOWN: We started with thousands, then 164 to Hollywood, then 24 in the semis, 12, 11 ... and down to David and David for the title of Your American Idol (VII). If the format holds from years past, tonight's three songs each -- one repeat from earlier in the competition, one new number and one crappy inspirational song that only Fantasia Barrino and Jordin Sparks have ever pulled off credibly. If I'm advising the competitors, I tell Cook that even though "Music of the Night" has been his best number, as long as he has to do the inspirational song already he needs something more rockin' as balance. Bring back "Baba O'Riley" if they'll let the song go for longer they did the last time; otherwise, his semis version of Lionel Ritchie's "Hello" makes most sense. For YDA (w/HD,DE), his version of Robbie Williams' "Angels" can really work well expanded in the big room with an accompanying choir. But, as it turns out, we've got spoilers, and I'm wrong on both counts. The format is Inspirational Song, You Pick A Song, and Clive Davis Picks A Song, and I think YDA chose wisely from his catalog, and I'm intrigued by Cook's new selection. In terms of other songs to suggest to them, I think either could have an interesting time with The Fray's "How To Save A Life," and I'd love to see YDA stretched with "Louisiana 1927". Sepinwall's preview: "Archuleta didn't flub the lyrics every time out. Instead, clearly spooked by what happened on an uptempo number, he went back in his ballad box, giving the same sedate, technically-impressive, lifeless performance week after week. Even when he was good, he was dull. ... Not since season two's Ruben Studdard had an 'Idol' favorite been such a blatant one-trick pony, and had such a substantial charisma deficit to go along with it. The difference is, the 'Idol' producers and judges were in Ruben's corner from day one and never left, while the show in general and Simon Cowell in particular seemed to lose interest in young David weeks ago.... Really, neither result would surprise me at this point, and I'm almost rooting for Archuleta -- not to validate my premature prediction, but because I'd hate to imagine what the drive home with his dad would be like if he loses." I'm rooting for Cook. We're all rooting for David Cook, right? Monday, May 19, 2008
DID YOU BELIEVE IN "MIRACLES"? Only, perhaps, if you find Ted Moseby to still be charming and if you're really eager to find out whether he has met Your Mother. I still don't think so (unless Finch's Wendy the Waitress theory is true), and while I loved the pencil gag, the rest just had a very odd pacing and disjointed tone all around. Overall, and even accounting for the strike's disrupting things, I have to mark HIMYM Season 3 as not-awesome compared to its predecessors. I wonder if the producers need a confirmed end-date, just as Lindelof and Cuse received, in order to move things forwards appropriately. Really: was there an A+/A episode this season? 25 * 4 = 0: With the defeat of the Orange and Black yesterday in the NHL playoffs, Philadelphia's four major sports teams have now logged one hundred seasons since the 1982-83 Sixers championship without winning a league title. SI's Bryan Armen Graham does a solid job listing the hundred most painful Philadelphia sports moments and decisions during that span, from the Doug Moe Era to the Tommy Hutton Game to the Danny Tartabull signing to last season's Winston Justice Invitational, and I attended or watched live a disturbing number of the non-hockey games listed. That said, I'm not sure how you can compile such a list without spending time on the Jerome Brown and Pelle Lindbergh tragedies. I have to assume that this game was #101, because it still hurts. They all do ... e.t.a. The Inq's Don McKee insists we're only up to 98: MLB 1994 and NHL 2004 awarded no titles. DEAD BRANDS STATUTE: Given where I am this week, it's particularly appropriate that I provide linkage to this fascinating article in yesterday's Times Magazine about River West, a company that's functioning entirely on the business model of bringing once dead brands, like Underalls, Eagle Snacks, Brim, and Nuprin, back to life. Suggest other brands that are gone which you'd buy again in the comments. Sunday, May 18, 2008
GAIUS BALTAR: THE EDGE OF REASON: Sorry I've not had a BSG thread up the last couple of weeks. But this week's was the best episode so far this season and, for my cubits, that was the best episode ending since Grace Park put a bullet into the old man's chest. Also, Mrs. Earthling was flipping past Bridget Jones on cable last night. I knew I'd seen Gaius Baltar before. Saturday, May 17, 2008
IT MIGHT BE THE OLDEST RIDE IN THE PARK, BUT IT STILL HAS THE LONGEST LINES. WOO! What to do with only three hours to spend at the Magic Kingdom during our retreat outings today? Four of us vowed to cover Mts. Splash and Space, plus either Pirates or the Haunted Mansion, plus shopping for the kids. And here's what happened: Entering the park at 2pm with instructions to board the monorail back to the bus at 5pm, we proceeded as follows: Go directly to FastPass pickup for Splash Mountain. (Entrance allotted for 4:15p-5:15pm.) Walk quickly across back the back end of Fantasyland to Space Mountain. Can't pick up a second FastPass, but we decided to accept a 50m quoted wait time given hot it is here. Wait ended up being only about a half-hour, and, damn, that ride just rocks. I am not a coaster fan by any means, but that was just a sweet set of banks, drops and darkness-assisted single file disorientation. Ran into the tail end of the Dreams Come True parade on the way back towards Adventure/Frontierland (hi Flora, Fauna and Merryweather!), then caught short line for Pirates of the Caribbean -- and holy crap are the Capt. Jack Sparrow animatronic robots kickass. At this point it's 4pm, so with 15m to kill before Splash Mountain we caught the Toy Story cowpokes staring a parade and did light shopping. Then, Splash Mountain ... and we got to the front pretty quickly ... and the ride shut down. Technical difficulties. Damn. They think it's 10-15m from reopening, but we don't have the time for that and shopping. Chose the kids, headed back to Main Street, grabbed appropriate paraphernalia, caught the Flag Retreat, and back on the monorail we went. What struck me during this brief revisit -- other than the fact that the plan was perfect but Disney failed us, and that OMG am I glad that when we first took Lucy here it was on a Thursday morning, not Saturday afternoon -- was how many nice little unnecessary things there are around the Magic Kingdom, the little musical acts and greeters that fill all the nooks and crannies beyond the featured characters, parades and attractions. These interstitial retro remnants of Walt Disney's vision for the park help fill the narrative universe in creating a space that's more than just a collection of rides and characters, but a reincarnation of a pristine American past that may never have really existed, but is awfully nice to visit for a while. GREETINGS FROM SUNNY ORLANDO: I'm here for the weekend for a firm retreat, and our dinner/festivities on the New York lot of Universal Studios left me with three questions regarding the Universal characters who greeted us and circulated throughout the evening:
"NATURAL SOURNESS": The House Next Door's Sheila O'Malley pens an appreciation of actor Jeff Bridges and five notable roles of his: Jeff Bridges is untouchable. Has he ever repeated himself? It seems that his curiosity about his fellow man and his openness to stepping into another person's shoes keeps him from repetition. He also, unlike many big movie stars, does not have a set persona. There isn't such a thing as a "Jeff Bridges role." He is too versatile for that. Perhaps his ego is uninvolved. Perhaps he has nothing to prove. What constitutes genius in an actor? Friday, May 16, 2008
FULL FIGURES AND HALF-TRUTHS: So another season of ANTM came and went, and I awoke from a nap late yesterday afternoon to find ALOTT5MA management poking me with instructions to open up a thread. By now, you know that Whitney won, and when you think about it, the only thing surprising about it was that Tyra decided to postpone her orgy of self-congratulation about picking a full-figured model, presumably until she had a chance to put Whitney on her talk show. Whitney looked stunning in the walk-off (especially in that pink dress), took some great pictures and consistently good ones, fits the Covergirl/Seventeen Magazine Top Model précis, and to my thoroughly untrained eye has no less a likelihood of success in the niche field of full-figured modeling than any of the other winners has in the business of general modeling. More importantly, she satisfies the real qualifications for topmodelhood: spokespersonality with a garnish of empowerment and an inability to draw attention away from Tyra’s fierceness (not to be confused with ferocity). Once you acknowledge that winning Top Model opens the door to no more non-tie-in modeling jobs than winning, say, Flavor of Love, and you accordingly narrow the selection criteria, the choice this season (at least among the final three) was easy. Don’t embarrass Covergirl, don’t require subtitling on your “My Life as a Covergirl” segments (Jaslene and Anya eye each other uneasily), do give Tyra a reason to tout herself as the Branch Rickey of the fashion-adjacent industry for breaking the size-8 barrier. For me, though, the real story this season was how irritating I found it. It was an ugly season from the beginning, which always annoys me because “most attractive non-beautiful model” is a bit like “tallest average-height person.” And it only got more ridiculous when they kept eliminating the most model-like women in favor of contestants who looked old and ugly (Dominique) or plain and harsh (Marvita, who, to my surprise, I liked). Query: if “edgy” is so much more important than “pretty,” what explains the success of luminous but edgeless judges Tyra and Paulina (not to mention the victories of Whitney – whose name I tellingly keep typing as “Whitey” – Saleisha, Caridee, Nicole, Eva, Yoanna, and whatshername Brady, who have nary a sharp edge to share, lookswise)? And every time Tyra trots out old chestnuts like “we can’t see your personality” (translation: “you’re too well-adjusted for us to write you a redemption arc”) or “you don’t want to be here” (translation: “you are insufficiently enthusiastic about Tyra”) it makes me forget why I ever watched this show in the first place. I feel like I’m probably through with this show. I’ve felt that before, only to be brought back in by a pretty cycle, but after the way that the show ruined the last pretty cycle – giving the title to the Saleishuleta, who knew Tyra, went to Tyra Camp, and modeled for two Tyra shows before going on the show – I can’t imagine the prospect of seeing my favorite contestant eliminated in Week 6 in favor of an old-looking drag queen with a goiter and Tourette’s is going to bring me back. AND SPEAKING OF PRETTY WOMEN: SI swimsuit cover model Marisa Miller tops this year's Maxim 100 list. MERCY: Roy Orbison's "Oh, Pretty Woman" is one of the 25 recordings added this year to the prestigious National Recording Registry. Among the others honored this year: Michael Jackson's Thriller album, Smokey Robinson's "Tracks of My Tears," and New York City mayor Fiorello LaGuardia reading the newspaper comics to kids during a newspaper strike in 1945. Tragically excluded from the list, this NSFW dance remix of Bill O'Reilly's Inside Edition rant. HE'S THE ONE THAT THEY WANT: Woo! Taylor Hicks will join the critically lambasted, but highly commercially successful production of Grease currently playing Broadway as Teen Angel. Members of the Soul Patrol are cordially invited to visit and mourn his career as a legitimate recording artist. Thursday, May 15, 2008
I ALWAYS HAVE A PLAN: There are a whole lot of people in a whole lot of places, and presumably we'll get from there to here sometime during the final two hours of the Lost season. But there's really nothing to talk about out here, so pick up your Jesus Christ statuette and come look for prowlers in the comments. IT WAS EASY TO GET IN, BUT IMPOSSIBLE TO RISE UP: Season finales of The Office tend to lean more towards unearthing emotional truths about the characters than they focus on being laugh-out-loud funny -- I think about the Pam/Jim revelations of "Casino Night" and "The Job," and how they each moved the characters forward to the point they reached tonight. That said, and I hope I'm not alone on this, but the stuff between Kevin and new HR director Holly was, seriously, among the most brilliantly cruel/funny stuff that the show has ever done. And unlike some of Michael's more outrageous stuff, it didn't require any character to behave any differently than how they always do. But, yes, there were the affairs of the heart and of Chekhov's gun tonight, and to discuss any of them in this post would be to spoil the fun. Let me just make one thing clear: you must stay until the post-credits sequence. Oh. My. GOD. We have much to discuss. PLANNING YOUR DVR USAGE: With all the network schedules (save MyNetworkTV, which doesn't really count) conveniently available here, plot out your conflicts. My big one--Monday at 8: Chuck v. HIMYM v. Gossip Girl v. Sarah Connor (Fall)/Dollhouse (Spring)---ARRRGH!!! I'm sure Gossip Girl will continue to rerun, so it loses out of that viewing opportunity, but this is one hell of a pileup. Tuesday at 10, with Eli Stone, L&O:SVU, and Without a Trace, is also a mess. Sadly, I think Pushing Daisies may be doomed, now that it's against Knight Rider, Old Christine, and Bones. WELL, CATFANCY IS STILL KICKING AROUND: Sometimes I wonder whether magazine and media narrowcasting has become too severe. The revelation today that Know: A Magazine For Paralegals will soon launch was one of those moments. ARE YOU FAMILIAR WITH THE TRI-VECTION OVEN? As GE is apparently planning to sell its appliance division, one must assume that Jack Donaghy will have a hard time returning to his previous position as Vice President of East Coast Television and Microwave Oven Programming. Wednesday, May 14, 2008
THE BEEKERCIST: Almost all Fark photoshop contests are entertaining as timesucks, but few have been better of late than the Muppet/movie poster challenge. WELCOME TO THE BOOMTOWN: What was more surprising -- tonight's Idol result, Fantasia's hairstyle or Fantasia's newly invigorated dancing style? Lord knows, Simon looked honestly taken aback for the first time in a long time. Want to reconcile yourself to how much Idol has passed this season? Here's your Wacky Dancing Parade of the Final 24, from less than three months ago. e.t.a. Thursday morning: Obvs, there was nothing surprising about the result -- not now and not for a while. I still think that Michael Johns was the only other performer with a legitimate shot at the final two, though I grievously misjudged David Cook early on and reduced him to "Constantine's slot as the I'm too hip to be here, but I'm here grownup" because it wasn't really until "Music of the Night" that we knew he could sing. (Then again, I did think Constantine was pretty awesome back in the day.) Still, Young David Archuleta entered the round of twelve as the biggest favorite since Chris Daughtry, and the crown is presumably still his to wear, dead eyes and all. Actually, you can go back even further -- Fienberg, Hollywood Week: "Another ringer, Star Search winner David Archuleta, may be my current prediction to win. He isn't a bad singer and he reminds me of Ryan Pinkston from Quintuplets. You likee? He's not my cup-o-tea, but I think his delayed pubescent charm will play great with the teenage girls, as well as with their mothers, who will think he's like Danny Noriega, only he doesn't prompt the same awkward questions." THE WORLD IS WAITING FOR YOU. GOOD LUCK. TRAVEL SAFE. GO! Left out of Matt's review of the new CBS lineup? That our Race will return for a thirteenth season this fall, albeit in that ever-shifting Sunday night post-football, post-60 Minutes timeslot. UNHAPPY TRAILS: A melancholy farewell as Tony Kornheiser, first and foremost a "newspaper guy," has accepted a buyout from the Washington Post after 29 years of journalism there. Quoth the Bald Brother: There was not enough wine in the world, there wasn't, not last night. I'm watching 'Idol,' and I'm thinking about all these things, and I don't know who I'm supposed to talk to about this....It just feels odd. It feels odd and it feels bad. It doesn't feel sad, there's no sadness to it, it just feels wrong.Thank goodness Kornheiser has other platforms and paychecks to follow, but too many good, experienced journalists are being pushed towards the door in D.C., Philadelphia and elsewhere by publishers who have not figured out how to adapt their business structures to the online, Craigslist-is-killing-your-classifieds era. I am no blog-triumphalist; there are many bloggers who are great analysts and media critics, but it still takes on-the-ground fact-gathering journalists to provide the raw material which powers these sites, and the blogosphere hasn't generated too many of those yet. Speaking of which: Bill Simmons may soon replace Theo Ratliff as having the most intriguing expiring contract in sports, as he's currently pissed at ESPN and severely curtailing his written output for reasons listed as "certain promises were not kept". This may relate to ESPN's canceling of a scheduled podcast interview by Simmons of Sen. Obama, but who knows? I would bet that at this point, a standalone advertiser-supported Simmons site with community discussion boards would be extremely lucrative for him. WHITE PANTS SEASON BEGINS 12 DAYS: Back during the Carter Administration when I first started blogging about lists (actually my five-year blogiversary is coming up next month, I'll let you know where I am registered), I never could have imagined that one day I would be able to bring you the list of Five Foods That Cause Anal Leakage. WE KNOW A CERTAIN FJORD IN NORWAY: In an effort to continue to bring you the best in rant-based entertainment, here's a roll from Gawker of the Top 10 Angry On-Camera Meltdowns (wonderfully NSFW) and Stephen Colbert's own on-air outburst back from his days as the midday anchor at WPTS in Patterson Springs, N.C. HEY YOU GUYS!!! The Electric Company is coming back. I am intrigued by the notion that the show is aimed at "reducing the literacy gap between low- and middle-income families" -- was the audience of the original Electric Company really low-income families? In any event, I look forward to seeing what Sesame Workshop (which I assume used to be Children's Television Workshop) comes up with this time around. Coming to a television near you in January 2009. I'M STILL UPSET ABOUT INSIDE SCHWARTZ: Every year at upfronts there is one show about which there is wailing and gnashing of teeth when its cancellation is announced, either from critics or its small (but highly devoted!) fanbase. In recent years, these have included Everwood, Jericho, and basically every Whedon show ever. This year, it's apparently CBS's vampire private eye show Moonlight. The comments over at Nikki Finke's place illustrate the spectacular level of denial--in particular the "not on fall schedule, maybe at midseason" post (full of pleading for a pickup), the announcement of cancellation by CBS (filled with condemnations of CBS), and, now, the distant hope of a pickup by the CW (filled with discussion of how this single pickup will save the CW 4-Evah!). I eagerly await the non-pickup notice from the CW, which will complete the circle of denial. Edit: And the last shoe drops. |
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